To quip fair Venus' overweening pride,
Love's happy thoughts to jealousy were tied.

Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow,
The amber sweet of love is turned to gall;
Gloomy was Heaven; bright Phoebus did avow
He would be coy, and would not love at all;
Swearing no greater mischief could be wrought,
Than love united to a jealous thought.

DORASTUS ON FAWNIA.

Aн, were she pitiful as she is fair,
Or but as mild as she is seeming so,
Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
Then all the world were Heaven, nothing woe.
Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand,
That seems to melt e'en with the mildest touch,
Then knew I where to seat me in a land,
Under the wide Heavens, but yet not such.
Just as she shews so seems the budding rose,
Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower;
Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows;
Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd flowers;
Yet, were she willing to be pluck'd and worn,
She would be gather'd, though she grew on thorn.

Ah, when she sings, all music else be still,
For none must be compared to her note;

Ne'er breath'd such glee from Philomela's bill,
Nor from the morning singer's swelling throat.
And when she riseth from her blissful bed,
She comforts all the world, as doth the sun.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

WAS born in 1562, took a bachelor's degree at Cambridge, and came to London, where he was a contemporary player and dramatic writer with Shakespeare. Had he lived longer to profit by the example of Shakespeare, it is not straining conjecture to suppose, that the strong misguided energy of Marlowe would have been kindled and refined to excellence by the rivalship; but his death, at the age of thirty, is alike to be lamented for its disgracefulness and prematurity, his own sword being forced upon him, in a quarrel, at a brothel. Six tragedies, however, and his numerous translations from the classics, evince, that if his life was profligate, it was not idle. The bishops ordered his translations of Ovid's Love Elegies to be burnt in public for their licentiousness. If all the licentious poems of that period had been included in the martyrdom, Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis would have hardly escaped the flames.

In Marlowe's tragedy of Lust's Dominion there is a scene of singular coincidence with an event

that was, 200 years after, exhibited in the same country, namely Spain. A Spanish queen, instigated by an usurper, falsely proclaims her own son to be a bastard.

Prince Philip is a bastard born;

O give me leave to blush at mine own shame : But I for love to you-love to fair Spain, Chuse rather to rip up a queen's disgrace, Than, by concealing it, to set the crown Upon a bastard's head.

LUST'S DOM. Sc. iv. Act 3.

Compare this avowal with the confession which Bonaparte either obtained, or pretended to have obtained, from the mother of Ferdinand VII. in 1808, and one might almost imagine that he had consulted Marlowe's tragedy.

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

COME live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That vallies, groves, and hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

VOL. I.

M

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.,

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight, each May morning.
If these delights thy mind may move,
Come live with me and be my love.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL,

BORN 1560,

Is said to have been descended from an ancient and respectable family in Norfolk, and being sent abroad for his education, became a jesuit at Rome. He was appointed prefect of studies there in 1585, and, not long after, was sent as a missionary into England.

His chief residence was with Anne, Countess of Arundel, who died in the Tower of London. Southwell was apprehended in July 1592, and carried before Queen Elizabeth's agents, who endeavoured to extort from him some disclosure of secret conspiracies against the government; but he was cautious at his examination, and declined answering a number of ensnaring questions. Upon which, being sent to prison, he remained near three years in strict confinement, was repeatedly put upon the rack, and, as he himself affirmed, underwent very severe tortures no less than ten times. He owned that he was a priest and a jesuit, that he came into England to preach the Catholic religion, and was prepared to lay down his life in the cause. On the 20th of February, 1595, he was brought to his trial at the King's Bench, was condemned to die, and was executed the next day, at Tyburn. His writings, of which a numerous list is given in the 67th volume of the Gentleman's Magazine, together with the preceding sketch of his life, were probably at one time popular among the Catholics. In a small collection of his pieces there are two specimens of his prose compositions, entitled "Mary Magdalene's Tears," and the "Triumph over Death," which contain some eloquent sentences. Nor is it possible to read the volume without lamenting that its author should have been either the instrument of bigotry, or the object of persecution.

M 2