to have been overlooked by the critics with a common consent. The work is now very rare, and commands a high price among bibliophiles.

Several of the critics have been very severe upon Stanihurst's poetical attempts. Warton, speaking of his hexameters, says that "in the choice of his measure he is more unfortunate than his predecessors, and in other respects succeeded worse." He also quotes Thomas Nash where he says, "Stanyhurst, though otherwise learned, trod a foul, lumbring, boistrous, wallowing measure in his translation of Virgil. He had never been praised by Gabriel Harvey for his labour, if therein he had not been so famously absurd." Wills says that "he seems to have been utterly devoid of all perception of the essential distinction between burlesque and serious poetry;" while Southey, more contemptuous than any, says that "as Chaucer has been called the well of English undefiled, so might Stanihurst be called the common sewer of the language. His version is exceedingly rare, and deserves to be reprinted for its incomparable oddity."

Apart from his works Stanihurst has another claim to be remembered. He was uncle to the celebrated Usher (whom he would gladly have converted, and who would gladly have converted him), his sister being the mother of that prelate.]

FIRST PREFACE

TO TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL.1

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MY VERY LOVING BROTHER THE LORD BARON OF DUNSANYE.

What deepe and rare pointes of hidden secrets Virgil hath sealed up in hys twelve bookes of Aneis maye easily appeare to such reaching wits, as bend their endevours to the unfolding thereof; not only by gnibling upon the outward rine of a supposed historie, but also by grouping the pyth that is shrind up within the barke and bodie of so exquisit and singular a discourse. For whereas the chief praise of a wryter consisteth in the enterlacing of pleasure with profit; our author hath so wisely alayde the one with the other, as the shallow reader may be delighted with a smooth

1 The second preface, that "To the Learned Reader," is, as we have said, very curious and pedantic, but to the "general" reader almost unreadable.

tale, and the diving searcher may be advantaged by sowning a pretious treatise. Having therefore (my good lord) taken upon mee to execute some parte of Master Askams will, who in his golden pamphlet, intitled the Schoolemaister, doth wish the Universitie students to applie their wittes in beautifying our Englishe language with heroicall verses: I held no Latinist so fit to give the onset on as Virgil, who for his perelesse stile and machlesse stuffe doth bear the pricke and price among all the Romane poëts. Howbeit, I have here halfe a gesse, that two sorts of carpers will seeme to spurne at this mine enterprise. The one utterly ignorant, the other meanely lettered. The ignorant will imagine that the passage was nothing craggy, in as much as M. Phaer hath broken the ice before mee: the meaner clearkes will suppose my travaile in these heroicall verses to carrie no greate difficultie, in that it laye in my choice, to make what word I woulde short or long, having no English writer before me in this kinde of poetrie, wyth whose squire I shoulde leavel my syllables. To shape therefore an aunsweare to the first, I say, they are altogether in a wrong boxe: considering that suche wordes as fit M. Phaer may be very unapt for me, whiche they woulde confesse if their skil were so much as spare in these verses. . . . To come to them that gesse my travaile to be easie, by reason of the libertie I had in English words . . . this much they are to consider, that as the first applying of a word may ease me in the first place, so perhaps, when I am occasioned to use the selfe same worde elsewhere, I may bee as much hindered as at the beginning I was furthered. . . . Touching mine owne triall, this muche I will discover. The three firste bookes I trans

lated by starts, as my leasure and pleasure would serve me. In the fourth booke I did taske my selfe, and pursued the matter somewhat hotely. M. Phaer tooke to the making of that booke fifteene dayes: I hudled up mine in ten. Wherein I covet no praise, but rather doe crave pardon. . . . To the stirring therefore of the ryper, and the incouraging of the younger gentlemenne of our Universities I have taken some paines that waye, which I thought good to beetake to youre Lordships patronage, beeing of itselfe otherwise so tender, as happly it might scant endure the tippe of a frumping fillip. And thus omitting all other ceremoniall complementoes betweene your Lordeshippe and me, I committe you and youre proceedings to the garding and guyding

Which most do hurt when least suspected,
By this play are not affected.

But if conceit, with quick-turn'd scenes,
Observing all those ancient streams
Which from the Horse-foot Fount do flow—
As time, place, person-and to show
Things never done, with that true life,

That thoughts and wits shall stand at strife,
Whether the things now shown be true,
Or whether we ourselves now do
The things we but present: if these,
Free from the loathsome stage-disease
(So overworn, so tired and stale,
Not satirising but to rail),
May win your favours, and inherit
But calm acceptance of his merit,—
He vows by paper, pen, and ink,
And by the learned Sister's drink,
To spend his time, his lamps, his oil,
And never cease his brain to toil,
Till from the silent hours of night
He doth produce for your delight
Conceits so new, so harmless free,
That Puritans themselves may see
A play; yet not in public preach,
That players such lewd doctrine teach,

That their pure joints do quake and tremble,
When they do see a man resemble
The picture of a villain.-This,

As he a friend to Muses is,
To you by me he gives his word
Is all his play doth now afford.

EXTRACTS FROM "RAM ALLEY."

A SPEECH ON NOSES.

Taffata speaks:-I'll tell thee what,
A witty woman may with ease distinguish
All men by their noses, as thus: your nose
Tuscan is lovely, large, and broad,

Much like a goose; your valiant, generous nose,
A crooked, smooth, and a great puffing nose;
Your scholar's nose is very fresh and raw
For want of fire in winter, and quickly smells
His chops of mutton in his dish of porrage;
Your Puritan nose is very sharp and long,
And much like your widow's, and with ease can
smell

An edifying capon some five streets off.

Nor is't of flesh, but merely made of wax,
And 'tis within the power of us lawyers
To wrest this nose of wax which way we please:
Or it may be, as thou say'st, an eye indeed;
But if it be, 'tis sure a woman's eye,
That's ever rolling.

Dash.

Throat.

One knocks.

Go see who 'tis:

Stay, my chair and gown, and then go see who

knocks,

Thus must I seem a lawyer, which am, indeed, But merely dregs and offscum of the law.