occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them both at one instant clene backward, in somuch that euen at the momēt where they kneeled they strägely dyed." MORTON. How could Fleming become the dupe of such an absurd story? ELLIOT. Wiser men have been quite as foolish; witness Sir Thomas Brown, one of the latest well educated believers in the existence and power of witches. BOURNE. It would be easy to collect thousands of instances of the same weakness, down even to the days of Roger North. We are also told by Fleming, that another man received from this horrible monster "such a gripe on the back, that therwithal he was presently drawen together and shrunk vp, as it were a piece of leather scorched in a hot fire," and that the wires and wheels of the clock were melted and torn to pieces, thunder and lightning continuing all the time which, in fact, is the simple explanation of the whole of this "straunge and terrible wunder.” MORTON. The imagination of the beholders supplying all the rest. It does not appear that Fleming was personally present, and saw with his own eyes the black dog or devil, or whatever it was: he only drew up the account from some "written copy." BOURNE. If he had been in the church it would have made no difference, for he was a very credulous, and, at the same time, a very pious personage. Here is a piece by him upon the celebrated earthquake of 1580, called "a bright burning Beacon, forwarning all wise Virgins to trim their lampes against the comming of the Bridegroome," in which I find the subsequent stanzas in rhyme, which I think the best I have seen from his pen. "But first, all other things aboue And shew to me the waies of Heauen, "The lacke of light which dims the Sunne, To make the Sea with calmnesse still, MORTON. Those lines certainly do him credit. ELLIOT. From what I have seen of Fleming, I should say that performances may do him credit, that would disgrace many other writers. BOURNE. He was, in truth, a bad poet, or more properly, no poet at all; but both the tracts I have mentioned, especially that of the Black Dog, are of the greatest rarity. ELLIOT. When a book has no other attraction, you immediately discover that it is a great rarity. BOURNE. You will find them nowhere noticed by bibliographers, nor another tract containing "a general doctrine touching blazing stars," which Fleming states he published and dedicated to Sir W. Cordell, Master of the Rolls to Queen Elizabeth. ELLIOT. I do not think it is much to be regretted that bibliographers have omitted them. BOURNE. We will not argue that point; I will only add that to his "Bright burning Beacon" Fleming affixes a curious list of the writers' names, "whose reportes of our late Easter Earthquake, &c. are printed and published." It includes not less than six noted poets, and is this,-Francis Shackleton, Arthur Golding, Thomas Twine, Thomas Churchyard, Richard Tarleton, John Philippes, Robert Gittins, John Grafton, and Abraham Fleming. MORTON. That is curious: I dare say many of them are not extant. BOURNE. I have seen all but four, viz. those by Twine, Philipps, Tarlton, and Gittins. Fleming's tract on the earthquake, as well as his account of the Black Dog, is concluded with " a prayer for repentance." Having now finished our wanderings, we will go back to the writers of blank verse. of Ovid's Epistles are said to have been translated by George Turberville into blank verse, but I never saw them, nor do I recollect to have met with any Six thing of the same kind by N. Breton. We will therefore come down to the celebrated era of Robert Greene and George Peele: which of them is entitled to precedence I cannot determine, but as I before quoted to you some part of Peele's "Farewell to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake" (1589), I will first speak of Greene, observing that in the British Bibliographer some English Hexameters by Greene are given by mistake as a specimen of his blank verse. I shall present you with two short pieces by him, both in what Thomas Campion (in his "Observations on the Art of English Poesie "), calls the "licentiate Iambic," which, in truth, is our own native English measure of blank verse. MORTON. From which of Greene's productions are they extracted? BOURNE. From one of his rarest, called "Perimedes, The Blacke-Smith, A golden Methode how to vse the minde in pleasant and profitable exercise," &c. London, printed by John Wolfe, 1588, 4to. In all probability he translated the greater portion of it from the Italian: it consists of stories, reflections, and poetry, and is a production of considerable interest. He seems to have been a greater traveller than is generally imagined, and I will only detain you by reading two or three lines from his address before "A notable discovery of Coosnage," 1591, where he speaks of himself and his peregrinations; "Fraunce, Germanie, Poland, Denmarke, I know them all, yet not affectioned to any in the forme of my life; onelie I am Englishe borne, and I haue English thoughts; not a deuill incarnate because I am Italianate, but hating the pride of Italie because I know their peevishnes: yet in all these countreeyes where I haue trauelled, I haue not seene more excesse of vanitie, then we Englishmen practise through vaine glory." ELLIOT. NOW for the specimens of his talent for blank verse. BOURNE. I would not have required even that exercise of your patience, if I had ever seen the passage I have just concluded quoted. The first of the specimens I am about to read is put into the mouth of a desponding lover of the name of Bradamant, for though Greene wrote a play called Orlando Furioso, he does not seem to have known that in Ariosto Bradamant is a female. ELLIOT. Yes; but a female of a tolerably masculine character, in whose favour that singular stanza seems written in the fourth Canto. Se un medesimo ardor, se un desir pare BOURNE. But if I recollect, it is not immediately applied to her: however, do not let us wander after that, but read the following lines from Greene's Perimedes.-Bradamant sings them to a lute. "The Swans whose pens as white as Iuory, Eclipsing fayre Endymions siluer loue, |