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at Large, and he hoped he should find a snug niche in them, to introduce him.

EDWARD HOWARD, EARL OF SUFFOLK.

WALPOLE says, "I was told the following story of this nobleman, by a gentleman well known in the literary world, who, when he first appeared as an author, was sent for by this noble Lord to his house. His Lordship told him, that he employed many of his idle hours in poetry; but that, having the misfortune to be of the same name with the Hon. Edward Howard, so much ridiculed in the last age, no printer would meddle with his works; which, therefore, he desired the gentleman to recommend to some of the profession of his acquaintThe gentleman excused himself as well as he could. The Earl then began to read some of his verses; but coming to the description of a beautiful woman, he suddenly stopped, and said, 'Sir, I am not like most poets: I do not draw from ideal mistresses; I always have my subject before me;' and, ringing the bell, he said to the footman, 'Call up Fine Eyes.' A woman of the town appeared; Fine Eyes,' said the Earl, look full on this gentleman :'

ance.

she did, and retired. Two or three others of the seraglio were summoned in their turns, and displayed the respective charms, for which they had been distinguished by his lordship's pencil."

SIR DAVID LINDSAY.

Or this early poet, and zealous reprobator of the abuses of the Romish Church, Pinkerton has remarked, that "he was, in fact, more the Reformer of Scotland than John Knox; for he had prepared the ground, and Knox only sowed the seed."-"Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount," says Archbishop Spotswood, "shall be first named; a man honourably descended, and greatly favoured by King James the Fifth. Besides his knowledge and judgment of heraldry, whereof he was the chief, [being Lord Lyon, King of Arms] and in other public matters, he was most religiously inclined; but much hated by the clergy, for the liberty he used in condemning the superstition of the time, and rebuking their loose and dissolute lives." The following instance of the boldness with which he satirized their ignorance and

rapacity is related by Charters, in his Preface to Lindsay's "Warkis."

The King, James the Fifth, being one day surrounded by a numerous train of nobility and prelates, Lindsay approached him with due reverence, and began to prefer a humble petition that he would instal him in an office which was then vacant. "I have," said he, "servit your Grace lang, and luik to be rewardit as others are: and now your maister taylor, at the pleasure of God, is departit, wherefore I wold desire of your Grace to bestow this little benefite upon me." The King answered, that he was amazed at such a request from a man who could neither shape nor sew. "Sir," replied the poet, "that makes nae matter; for you have given bishoprics and benefices to mony standing here about you, and yet they can nouther teach nor preach; and why may not I as weill be your taylor, thoch I can nouther shape nor sew; seeing teaching and preaching are nae less requisite to their vocation, than shaping and sewing to ane taylor." The King, who now perceived the object of his petition, did not scruple to divert himself at the expense

of the ecclesiastics, who were galled beyond measure, as well by the justice as by the severity of the rebuke.

His poem, called the "Monarchie," which is one of the most poetical of his numerous compositions, is an account of the most famous monarchies that have flourished in the world; and, like all the Gothic prose-histories, or chronicles, on the same favourite subject, it begins with the creation of the world, and ends with the day of judgment. An extract from his account of the first of these events, in which we have modernised the spelling, but without changing a word of the original, will give the reader no unpleasing idea of his skill in descriptive versification.

"When God had made the heavens bright,

The sun and moon for to give light,

The starry heav'n and chrystalline,
And, by his sapience divine,

The planets, in their circles round,
Whirling about with merry sound ;—
He clad the earth with herbs and trees,

All kind of fishes in the seas,
All kind of beasts he did prepare,

With fowlis flying in the air.

When heaven, earth, and their contents,
Were ended, with their ornaments,
Then, last of all, the Lord began

Of most vile earth to make the man ;

Not of the lily, or the rose,

Nor cyper-tree, as I suppose,

Neither of gold, nor precious stones,—
Of earth he made flesh, blood, and bones.
To that intent God made him thus,-
That man should not be glorious,
Nor in himself nothing should see,
But matter of humility."'

Considering that these "nervous, terse, and polished lines," as Warton justly styles them, were written in the year 1553, one is surprised to meet with such an harmonious flow of verse, clothed in language so little obscure, at so early a period of Scottish literature.

TASSO, AND THE ROBBER'S CAPTAIN.

THE Confines of the ecclesiastical states were formerly so infested by banditti, that travellers went in parties for each other's protection. Tasso, having occasion to proceed from Naples to Rome, joined himself to one of these companies; and when they came within sight of Mola, a little town near Gaieta, they received intelligence that Sciarra, a famous captain of robbers,

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