the fashionable literature of that day, in which every individual of most ordinary talent was at least a versifier, our author is not to be confounded with such as only wrote thus because it was the mode. We have it on the authority of Anthony Wood that he was "had in great renown for his excellent vein in poesy," and the same writer reports a eulogy, bestowed by the learned Alberic Gentilis, expressive of warm admiration: nor are testimonies such as these, pronounced in the age of Spenser, of Raleigh, and Sackville, to be regarded as trivial praise. There are indeed to be found in the present work all the chief peculiarities, both bad and good, which characterize the productions of the time. It exhibits a great love of circumstance, and is frequent in classical allusions, which to us appear sometimes irrelevant and out of keeping. There is also a degree of obscurity, arising from the inveterate love of conceits, and at the same time a vividness of imàgery which is highly poetical; to which we may add, in the present case, (what cannot be said of all,) a great ease and smoothness of versification.

After these remarks, we might safely leave

our author's merits to the judgment of candid readers, without calling in the aid of those friendly encomiasts whose recommendations are affixed to the work. But, as it was the fashion of the day in which this was written for an author to be handed into the presence of the publick by his courteous friends, and as we are desirous that the work should be as little as possible varied from its original form, these appendages have been retained in the present republication. The authors were all men possessed of acknowledged poetical talent, which, however, they appear chiefly to have displayed in this complimentary form; and the first, in particular, is represented by Wood to have gained a great reputation in the university for his Latin compositions.

OXFORD, OCT. 1825.

TO THE WORSHIPFULL

M. JOHN HOWSON,

CHAPLAINE TO HER MAJESTIE.

BASE Vulcan's crowne with laurell to adorne, That still stands plodding by his anvill's side, Would make the seely smith be laught to scorn,

And wiser heads the foolish gift deride:

Even so, some Thrasoe's fancy to have fed
With Muses' flowres, that know not what they be,

Had bin to bring Silenus' asse a bed,

That understands a rime as well as he.

Which made me consecrate this verse of mine

To him, that can with judgement reade the same;
Yet stand not too præcize on every line;
But rather such a web as I could frame
In slender lines; yet slender as they be,
My Muse, Arachne-like, presents to thee.