have occasion to mention him again hereafter, but we will read his Epilogue now.

"That this Play's old 'tis true, but now if any
Should for that cause despise it, we have many
Reasons both iust and pregnant to maintaine
Antiquity, and those too not all vaine.

We know, and not long since, there was a time
Strong lines were lookt after; but if rime,

O then 'twas excellent: who but believes

But Doublets with stuft bellies and bigge sleeves, And those Trunke-hose, which now the age doth

scorn,

Were all in fashion, and with frequence worne;
And what's now out of date, who is't can tell,
But it may come in fashion, and sute well?
With rigour therefore iudge not, but with reason,
Since what you read was fitted for that season."

ELLIOT. When was that play written?

BOURNE. It is merely conjecture, but most likely before 1600. If we were to look only cursorily into the works of all who have produced undramatic blank-verse, it would occupy a great deal too much time, and perhaps would not be attended with proportionate advantage. I took the trouble to collect the names of most of them, and they exceed twenty: you will find it amply sufficient to examine pieces written by half that number.

MORTON. Do you include Sir P. Sidney, Gabriel

Harvey, Abrabam France, and others who accommodated, or endeavoured to accommodate, the English language to Latin measures, among writers of blank verse?

BOURNE. Certainly not. It is said that Bishop Percy, not many years before his death, projected a critical work, which contained specimens of all the known writers of English blank verse before Milton. MORTON. He did not live to complete it probably. BOURNE. That is disputed; but I have been positively assured that it was actually printed, though I know not for what reason suppressed, and that a single copy once came to the hammer. The list it would contain would embrace some of the greatest and most notorious names of our literary history; Lord Surrey, Gascoyne, Spenser, Peele, Greene, Marlow, and many others.

ELLIOT. I never saw any blank verse by Spenser, nor did I ever hear that he had written any.

BOURNE. The fact has not, I believe, been before noticed, but it is so, as I shall establish by and by. We will endeavour to proceed with regularity.

ELLIOT. And with all convenient despatch, until we arrive at Spenser, for I am, of course, curious regarding him and his blank verse.

MORTON. We shall come to him all in good time; do not let your impatience derange our plan.

BOURNE. Perhaps he will be brought under our view sooner than you expect; for as Lord Surrey's

translation in blank verse of "Certaine bokes of Virgiles Aenæis," as well as Gascoyne's "Steele Glasse," are printed in Chalmers's edition of the Poets of Great Britain, we need say the less about them.

MORTON. Lord Surrey, I suppose, derived his partiality for blank verse from the Italians: he is admitted to be the very first who attempted anything of the kind in English.

BOURNE. He is, and his example had great influence both with poets and prose writers. Ascham, in his Schoolmaster, a work you quoted a short time ago, was among the first of the latter class, to denounce the "rude beggarly rhyming," in English, "first brought into Italy by Goths and Huns."

ELLIOT. The merits and demerits of rhyme, is a question that has been bandied about between disputants in all countries, and with a versatility truly commendable, Boileau, one of the most celebrated in France, has given his verdict both ways.

MORTON. Warton, in his remarks upon Spenser, I remember, insists that the reduplication of the same rhyme in the Faery Queen, often occasioned a considerable addition of force and fulness in the stanza.

BOURNE. We will not enter into that subject now. My object, in referring to Ascham, was principally to mention the praise he gives to Lord Surrey's daring attempt, and the blame he also applies to it,

because the noble author had not rendered it in the

original measure of Virgil.

MORTON. When I read Hall's Satires the other day, I was struck by a passage in what he calls his "Postscript," in which he abuses "the fettering together the series of the verses with the bonds of like cadence or desinence of rhyme."

Scourge of Vil

BOURNE. And Marston, in his " lanie," also makes the same complaint.

"Alas poore idle sound

Since I first Phoebus knew, I neuer found

Thy interest in sacred poesie!

Thou to inuention addst but surquedry,
A gaudy ornature; but hast no part
In that soule-pleasing high-infused art."

Indeed many other authorities might be accumulated, but I will omit them, with the exception of Abraham Fleming, who, before his uncouth translation of Virgil's Bucolics (a work we shall say more about presently), calls it "foolish rime”- "the nice observation whereof many times darkeneth corrupteth peruerteth and falsifieth both the sense and the signification."

ELLIOT. NOW then let us examine the mode in which this opinion was practically carried into effect. BOURNE. We will; but for the reasons I have mentioned, I shall omit here Lord Surrey (whose translation of Virgil is now easily accessible), and

Gascoyne. Nicholas Grimoald, who followed Lord Surrey, and preceded Gascoyne, may also be passed over by us, because you will find ample specimens in Mr. Ellis's judicious selection, where it is asserted that to the style of his prototype, Lord Surrey," he added new strength, energy, and modulation." This, however, I think, is a very disputable point.

MORTON. Who followed Gascoyne ?

BOURNE. Not so fast. There was another writer of blank verse, who ought to be mentioned before Gascoyne-a poet with a most unpoetical name, John Vandernoodt, who, in 1569, printed "A theatre wherein be represented as wel the miseries and calamities that follow the voluptuous worldings, as also the greate ioyes and pleasures which the faithfull do enioy." Nothing is known of the biography of this author, whose production is of very rare occurrence. The following sonnet was copied from it for me by a friend, who could not prevail upon the owner to part with the possession of such a treasure, even for a day. It is, however, a sufficient specimen.

"It was the time when rest the gift of Gods Sweetely sliding into the eyes of men, Doth drowne in the forgetfulnesse of sleepe The carefull trauailes of the painfull day: Then did a ghost appeare before mine eyes On that great riuers banke that runnes by Rome, And calling me then by my proper name,