And set down in the rubric, at what time
It should be counted legal, when a crime,
Declare when 'twas, and when 'twas not a sin,
And on what days it went out, or came in.*

An English poet should be tried b' his peers,† And not by pedants and philosophers,

* In Spelman's Concilia, b. i., there is mention made of one Hovel, King of Glevissicg, in Wales, who lived in the ninth century; and to his name Butler probably alludes; but as to his general council, and the regulation which, it must be owned, he rather waggishly describes, they are mere inventions of his own, to give an archer and more ludicrous turn to his banter. What he founds this joking fiction upon, was an old superstitious custom of marriages being looked upon as allowable at certain times, and not allowable at others, or coming in, or going out, as it is usually expressed; and though it was founded upon the authority of no canon, yet it is mentioned by ecclesiastical writers as a thing practised.'-T.

The whole of this, and the general defence of the English drama, in comparison with the ancients, on the ground of its closer fidelity to nature, will recall to the reader Ben Jonson's lines to the memory of Shakspeare, especially the following passage:

For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,

Or sporting Kid, or Marlowe's mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee I will not seek

For names; but call forth thundering Eschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not for an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven to fit,
As since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family.

Incompetent to judge poetic fury,
As butchers are forbid to b' of a jury;
Besides the most intolerable wrong
To try their matters in a foreign tongue,
By foreign jurymen, like Sophocles,
Or Tales falser than Euripides;
When not an English native dares appear,
To be a witness for the prisoner;

When all the laws they use t' arraign and try
The innocent and wronged delinquent by,
Were made b' a foreign lawyer, and his pupils,
To put an end to all poetic scruples,

And, by th' advice of virtuosi Tuscans,

Determined all the doubts of socks and buskins;
Gave judgment on all past and future plays,
As is apparent by Speroni's case, t
Which Lope Vega first began to steal,‡
And after him the French filou§ Corneille; ||

*See vol. ii. p. 214, note t.

† Sperone Sperani, an Italian writer of the sixteenth century, who composed a tragedy called Canace, on the model of Seneca, a work possessing little dramatic interest, the action being dissolved into narrative. He also published a collection of dialogues on moral and speculative subjects.

The meaning is obscure. In all the literary controversies in which Lope de Vega was engaged, it does not appear that he was ever accused of plagiarism, although his wonderful facility might have given a colour of probability to such an imputation. He is most known,' says Lord Holland, as indeed he is most wonderful, for the prodigious number of his writings. Twenty-one million, three hundred thousand of his lines are said to be actually printed; and no less than eighteen hundred plays of his composition to have been acted on the stage. He, nevertheless, asserts in one of his last poems:Que no es minima parte, aunque es exceso, De lo que está por imprimir, lo impreso.

The printed part, though far too large, is less
Than that which yet unprinted waits the press.'

LOPE DE VEGA and GUILLEM DE CASTRO. Lord Holland adds, "If we are to give credit to these accounts, allowing him to begin his compositions at the age of thirteen, we must believe that upon an average he wrote more than nine hundred lines a day.' Yet, in the midst of these marvellous labours, his originality was never impeached. The implied theft from Speroni must refer to

And since our English plagiaries nim,
And steal their far-fet criticisms from him;
And, by an action falsely laid of trover,
The lumber for their proper goods recover;
Enough to furnish all the lewd impeachers
Of witty Beaumont's poetry, and Fletcher's,
Who, for a few misprisions of wit,

Are charged by those, who ten times worse commit;
And, for misjudging some unhappy scenes,
Are censured for't with more unlucky sense;
When all their worst miscarriages delight,

And please more, than the best that pedants write.

Lope's Arte de hacer Comedias, in which he condemned the extravagant style introduced upon the stage by some of his contemporaries. Speroni, in the preceding century, had defended his Canace on strictly classical principles; but there was little in common between them, even in this region of criticism. Lope, however willing to correct the taste of others, acknowledges that, except in six instances out of nearly five hundred, he wrote against all rules himself. The passage in which he makes this confession is thus rendered by Lord Holland:

None than myself more barbarous or more wrong,
Who, hurried by the vulgar taste along,
Dare give my precepts in despite of rule,
Whence France and Italy pronounce me fool.
But what am I to do? who now of plays,
With one complete within these seven days,
Four hundred eighty-three in all have writ,
And all, save six, against the rules of wit.

§ Sharper, cheat, Fr.

Not Corneille alone, but the whole French drama, is under large obligations to the invention of Lope, which the great writers repaid by transcending their original. 'Had Lope never written,' observes Lord Holland, ' the master-pieces of Corneille and Molière might never have been produced; and were not those celebrated compositions known, he might still be regarded as one of the best dramatic authors in Europe.'

Odes.

UPON AN HYPOCRITICAL NONCONFORMIST.

A PINDARIC ODE.

I

THERE'S nothing so absurd, or vain,

TH

Or barbarous, or inhumane,

But if it lay the least pretence
To piety and godliness,

Or tender-hearted conscience;
And zeal for gospel-truths profess,
Does sacred instantly commence;

And all that dare but question it, are straight
Pronounced th' uncircumcised, and reprobate:
As malefactors, that escape and fly

Into a sanctuary for defence,

Must not be brought to justice thence, Although their crimes be ne'er so great and high; And he, that dares presume to do't,

Is sentenced and delivered up
To Satan, that engaged him to't,
For venturing wickedly to put a stop
To his immunities, and free affairs,
Or meddle saucily with theirs,

That are employed by him; while he and they
Proceed in a religious and a holy way.

2

And as the Pagans heretofore

Did their own handyworks adore,
And made their stone and timber deities,
Their temples, and their altars of one piece,
The same outgoings seem t' inspire
Our modern self-willed edifier,

That out of things as far from sense, and more,
Contrives new light and revelation,
The creatures of th' imagination,
To worship and fall down before;
Of which his cracked delusions draw
As monstrous images and rude,
As ever Pagan, to believe in, hewed;
Or madman in a vision saw;
Mistakes the feeble impotence,
And vain delusions of his mind,
For spiritual gifts and offerings,
Which Heaven, to present him, brings;
And still, the further 'tis from sense,
Believes it is the more refined,

And ought to be received with greater reverence.

3

But as all tricks, whose principles

Are false, prove false in all things else,

The dull and heavy hypocrite

Is but in pension with his conscience,
That pays him for maintaining it,

With zealous rage and impudence,
And as the one grows obstinate,
So does the other rich and fat;
Disposes of his gifts and dispensations,
Like spiritual foundations,

Endowed to pious uses, and designed
To entertain the weak, the lame, and blind,
But still diverts them to as bad, or worse,
Than others are by unjust governors:
For, like our modern publicans,
He still puts out all dues,

He owes to Heaven, to the devil to use,
And makes his godly interest great gains;
Takes all the brethren, to recruit
The spirit in him, contribute,