astonished, were you present, to observe that I had not spoken five words, but, by degrees, I lead him on to talk, and he goes home, much better pleased with himself than with me."

GARCILASO DE LA VEGA.

GARCILASO is one of the sweetest, and, perhaps, one of the most admired poets Spain has produced, not so much for the brilliancy of his thoughts, as the delicacy of his expressions.

While he adorned the age in which he lived, by the elegance and chastity of his productions, he added to the martial glories of his country, and, at once, was a poet and a hero.

"He grasp'd the lyre and the brand by turns."

He fought valiantly under the victorious banners of the Emperor Charles VIth., and became his favourite. Before, however, he was advanced far in life, he had the misfortune to fall under the displeasure of the Emperor, and was banshed to an island on the Danube. Here, he poured forth his thoughts, and composed some of his most popular canzonets and sonThe following is, perhaps, one of the

nets.

most beautiful of the latter, and has been noticed not only by Luzan, in his "Poetico," but by many other Spanish writers.

The poet is here supposed to represent the anguish of his mind, while enduring this cruel banishment:

SONNET XIV.

"As the kind mother, whom her sickly son
Beseeches earnestly, with flowing tears,

For some forbidden fruit she more than fears
Will break the mortal web so weakly spun ;
And whose maternal fondness still denies
Reflection on the inconsiderate deed,

Grants the request, and gives with hasty speed.
The weeping ceases, but the infant dies:

So my infirm, confus'd, and madden'd thought
To its own hurt is still petitioning;

Fain I'd refuse the food with death so fraught;
Daily it weeps, beseeching for the sting;
At length, I yield, so piteously besought,
Forgetting-with its death my own I bring."

JOHN OF MEUN'S LEGACY.

THIS poet, the continuator of William of Lorris's 'Romaunt of the Rose,' the most finished specimen of French poetry previous to the age

of Francis the First, and of which Chaucer's excellent Paraphrase is much less known than it deserves to be, was one of the wits of the Court of Charles le Bel. The following anecdote of his death, which happened between 1320 and 1322, is related by his Biographers.

He left by will to the Dominican Monks of the Rue St. Jacques, a chest which, to judge by its weight, was full of the most precious effects, but which was not to be opened till after his decease. The funeral ceremony over, the monks proceeded with all speed to inspect the contents of the coffer; but, alas! the hopes which they had cherished of a rich prize terminated in the unexpected discovery that they had been cheated and deceived. The chest was found to contain nothing but square pieces of slate, covered with mathematical figures.

The indignant Dominicans, who had expected that the deceased had repented, on his death-bed, the insults that he had heaped on them in his lifetime, both in his sayings and writings, and that this legacy was the token of his conversion, were so enraged at their disappointment, that they determined to disinter his body; but the Parliament took cognizance of the affair, and

compelled them to grant him an honourable sepulture in the very cloister of their convent.

The readers of Chaucer will remember the Legacy which the Friar receives in the Sompnour's Tale, and the humorous manner in which he performs his oath to distribute it equally among the members of his fraternity.

In proof of the hatred with which he was regarded by the clergy of his time, in consequence of the sharpness of his satire upon the corruptions which had crept into their order, and the licentiousness with which it was sullied, we need only cite an extract from Gerson, Chancellor of Paris. "There was," said he, 66 one called John of Meun, who wrote a book called the "Romaunt of the Rose," which book, if I only had, and that there were no more in the world, if I might have five hundred pounds for the same, I would rather burn it than take the money." And he further goes on to declare, "that if he thought the author thereof did not repent him for that book before he died, he would vouchsafe to pray for him no more than he would for Judas, that betrayed Christ."

THOMAS LODGE.

In the Library of the British Museum, there is a tract of great rarity, from which Shakspeare is said to have borrowed the play of "As You Like It." It is entitled, "Euphue's Golden Legacy," by Thomas Lodge, a poet of the Elizabethan age, who was also the author of a great variety of works, in prose and verse.

Ellis, in his "Specimens of the Early English Poets," has given three of Lodge's poems, from "The Pleasant Historie of Glaucus and Scilla;" but has omitted to mention the following Madrigal, perhaps the most beautiful of all his compositions. The edition from which it is transcribed, is believed to be unique.

"Love in my bosom, like a bee,

Doth suck his sweete;

Now with his wings he plays with me,

Now with his feete.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,

His bed amid my tender breast;

My kisses are his daily feast,

And yet he robs me of my rest.

Strike I my lute-he tunes the string;
He music plays if I do sing;