the descriptiveness that are in Chaucer.The same. THOMAS SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET. Mr. Sackville (afterwards the first Earl of Dorset of that name) was the best English poet between Chaucer and Spenser's, time. His tragedy of Gorboduc is written in a much purer style than Shakspeare's was in several of his first plays. Sackville imitates the manner of Seneca's tragedies very closely, and writes without affectation or bombast: the two great sins of our oldest tragic writers. The induction in the Mirrour of Magistrates was written by him too, and is very good and very poetical.—The same. SPENSER. 1744. After my reading a canto of Spenser two or three days ago to an old lady between 70 and 80, she said that I had been showing her a collection of pictures. She said very right; and I know not how it is, but there is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one's old age as it did in one's youth. I read the Faery Queen when I was about 12, with a vast deal of delight; and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago.-The same. SKELTON. Skelton's poems are all low and bad; there is nothing in them that is worth reading. The same. [Mr. Cleland, who was by, added that the Tunning of Elinour Rumming, in that author's works, was taken from a poem of Lorenzo de Medicis.] REVIEW OF THE OLD POETS AFTER Golding's Translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses is a pretty good one, considering the time when it was written*; it is all in Alexandrine verse, as well as Phaer's Virgil.-The same. Michael Drayton was one of the imitators of Spenser; and Fairfax another. Milton, in his first pieces, is an evident follower of Spenser too; in his famous Allegro and Penseroso, and some others.-The same. * It was published in 1567. Webster, Marston, Goff, Kidd, and Massinger, were the persons he instanced as tolerable writers of tragedy in Ben Jonson's time.-The same. Carew (a bad Waller), Waller himself, and Lord Lansdown, are all of one school; as Sir John Suckling, Sir John Mennis, and Prior, are of another.-The same. Crashaw is a worse sort of Cowley; he was a follower too of Petrarch and Marino; but most of Marino. He and Cowley were good friends, and the latter has a good copy of verses on his death. About his pitch were Stanley*, the author of the Opinions of Philosophers; Randolph, though rather superior; and Silvester, though rather of a lower form.-The same. Cartwright and Bishop Corbet are of this class of poets; and Rughel, the author of the Counter-Scuffle, might be admitted among them.-The same. Sam Daniel, the historian, is unpoetical, but had good sense often.-The same. Herbert is lower than Crashaw; Sir John * See Stanley again in p. 99, and Randolph in p. 83. Beaumont higher; and Donne a good deal so.-The same. * Donne had no imagination, but as much wit, I think, as any writer can possibly have. Oldham† is too rough and coarse. Roches ter is the medium between him and the Earl of Dorset. Lord Dorset is the best of all these writers. "What, better than Lord Rochester?" Yes: Rochester has neither so much delicacy nor exactness as Dorset. Sedley is a very insipid writer, except in a few of his little love verses.-The same. SUCKLING. Sir John Suckling was an immoral man, as well as debauched. The story of the French Cards (his getting certain marks affixed to all that came from the great makers in France) was told me by the late Duke of Buckingham §, and he had it from old Lady Dorset herself.-The same. * See Donne, p. 83. + See Oldham again, p. 104. Rochester, ibid. § Sheffield Duke of Bucks is here meant. This anecdote was communicated to Mr. Spence in 1728.-M. I suppose the Lady Dorset here meant was Lady Frances, daughter to Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Mid That lady took a very odd pride in boasting of her familiarities with Sir John. She is the mistress and goddess in all his poems; and several of those pieces were given by herself to the printer. This the Duke of Buckingham used to give as one instance of the fondness she had to let the world know how well they were acquainted. -The same. Sir John was a man of great vivacity and spirit. He died about the beginning of the civil war, and his death was occasioned by a very uncommon accident. He entered warmly into the King's interests, and was sent over by him into France with some letters of great consequence to the Queen*. dlesex, by his second wife, Anne, daughter of James Brott, esq. Lady Frances Cranfield was born about the year 1620, and was married in or before the year 1637, to Richard, the fifth Earl of Dorset, who died 1677. After his death, when she must have been fiftyseven years old, she married Henry Powle, esq. Master of the Rolls; and died on November the 20th, 1792. Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, was her nephew, his mother being half-sister to the Countess of Dorset.-M. *This is one of a thousand proofs how difficult it is to ascertain facts at any distance of time; and how much |