Muse invested with the exquisite trophies of applause, and my selfe smooth'd up in the terrestrial Eden of fortunate delectation.

Your obedient Son, and devoted servant,

JOHN REYNOLDS."

This dedication is followed by "a Sonnet sent by the author to all beauteous and vertuous Gentlewomen;" consisting of twelve lines. A preface succeeds, in which it is well expressed, "that there is no Love comparable to that, which is built upon the rock of Virtue;" but he afterwards tells us-"the events of contentation coronizeth that Love, whose effects tend to unfained fidelity;" and thence becomes obscure. A very short extract may sufficiently declare the bloated phraseology of his descriptive pen. He wishes to inform us, that the youthful heir of an insular monarchy in the Mediterranean was desirous to see a little more of the world than his own island exhibited.

"Which heroical young Prince, being the very map of modesty, the patron of piety, and the flower of audacious magnanimitie, had no sooner made the horologe of time sound the year fifteenth of his age, but having from his cradle his tosticated conceits fixt upon renowned Travel, did upon the rock of his valorous resolutions so constantly determine to try what the event of his princely fortunes might be, that youthful yet majestical desires, still kindling within the embers of his heroicall affection, did at last so flame to the absolute fire of a desperate determination, that, hap life or death, Thalmeno resolved, and in resolving, vowed to pass the blasts of Boreas and streams of Neptune."

And this he most filially determined to do, whether his royal and aged father were volens aut nolens, and

"most secretly departed" accordingly; embarking in a vessel bound for the coast of Arabia, and in despight of having left "sorrowful mournings and distempered dolefulnesse" in the palace of his parents, he "enjoyed the prerogative of delectable exhilaration in beholding the zephyr-gale fairly blow the swanlike sails from the superbious mast!"

But the most commendable parts of the volume are those assigned to poetical intermixtures, which partake much less of this tinsel taste than the prose divisions of the work. The following passages have something in them of sober and sage reflection.

Fortune is frail, and changeth with the wind;
Riches do fade, and Beauty soon doth flie;
Honour is drosse, and Glorie now I find

With Time's instinct doth in oblivion lie.
What then is Riches, but a summer's shower?
What then is Beauty, but a winter's blaze?
What then is Honour, but a withering flower?
Or what is Glory, but the world's amaze?
Riches and Beauty, Honour, Glory, all,

Are they not subject to Time's deity?
Yes, Time doth cause their splendor for to fall,
At the assignment of his soveraignty.

Court harboureth pride, whilst Country doth retain,
Instead thereof, most rich humilitie;

In Country's soyle love always doth remain,

Whilst Court doth nourish vitious enmity.

Ambition still in Court doth pitch his tent,

And vows, e'en there, to make his sole demeure;
Whilst in the Country, friendly sweet content

Delightfully in peace doth rest secure.

In the succeeding love-verses there is a turn that is not unnatural.

If, walking by some stately silver stream,

When as there chance a bloomy winde to be;
Methinks amidst that cockling vaporous gleam
I presently my fair Athelia see:

And if I trace upon their borders sweet,
Instead of trees, I still Athelia meet.

If that I chance into the fields to hie
To pluck a nosegay for Athelia fair,
Methinks amidst each flower I do espie
The sweet resemblance of hir beauty raref:
And if, by chance, to sing I do pretend;
For answer, she her ecchoing voice doth lend.

If on high mountains sometimes I ascend

To see the harmless flocks their pasture take;
Methinks from hill to dale mine eyes I lend,
If of my dear I may espial make:

And if some nymph or shepherdess I see,
Methinks, farre off, it should Athelia be.

To a well known part of Virgil's Eclogues, the following may owe its origin.

First, fish shall flie within the element,

And aiery birds live in the ocean-sea,

Fair Phoebus shall forsake the firmament,
And scorn to grace the cincture of the day.
Thetis shall wander o're proud Atlas' top,

And Nilus cease to water Egypt's land;
The earth into the skies shall fountains drop,
And Neptune's face refuse to kisse the strand.

All ships shall sail upon the massie main,
And Ætna freeze at splendor of the sun;
Dame Cytherea quite shall lose her train,
And elephants, like clouds, in air shall run.
Lebanus-cedars shall like thistles spring,

And hysop-tops aspire unto the skie:

From Thule to Gange the dormouse voice shall ring,
And gnats shall drink all brooks and rivers dry;
Before th' idea of Florina's sight

Shall once have power from me to take his flight.

T

Trinarchodia: The severall raignes of Richard the second, Henrie the fourth, and Henrie the fifth.

A dedication to Liberty. An advertisement (prose). Metrical address to the readers (9 pages). General argument,, (in verse) preceding the poem. And Parcebasis (2 pages at the close).

Then follow-Idyllia: The Distemper: a poeme revised and enlarged, by the author. (43 pages in heroic verse.) 5 Idyllia and L'Envoy.

To which is subjoined-Synopsodie. The Design, the Colouring, the Shadow, the Proportion, the Landskip, the Ceremonie. (3 pages in lyric verse.)

THIS is a manuscript volume, formerly in the possession of James Petit Andrews, Esq. At the end of

it is the following note by Oldys the antiquary, who appears to have been its former possessor.

"By what I can find, in perusing this book, so full of uncouth and obscure phrases, metaphorical allusions, distant, abstracted conceits, and mistical learning, the author was a Clergyman, and calls K. Ch. II. his master. He begun this book on ye 7 Nov. 1649, and ended it on All Souls Day, 1650. It further seems, these three Reigns and the Idyllia were written for the press; but not to be published till after his death, and then without his name; yet the Idyllia, by being said to be revised and enlarged, looks as if it had been publish'd before. W. OLDYS."

The author, in his reign of Henry the fifth, thus alludes to the common notion that Shakspeare had dramatised Sir John Oldcastle under the character of Falstaff.

The worthy Sir whom Falstaff's ill-us'd name
Personates on the stage; lest scandall might
Creepe backward, and blott Martir, were a shame;
Though Shakespeare, storie; and For, legend write;
That manuall, where dearth of storie brought
Such saints, worthy this age to make it out.

An "Address to the Reader" thus pointedly refers to several of our popular chroniclers.

Twer a smart piece of worke, and worth the care,
Should wee prevent you by our proeme here,

And with a chronologicke Preface, save

Your patience, for what y' have not, or have

• See an elaborate disquisition on this point of critical controversy in the Biographia Britannica, vol. v. article Fastolf.