occasional rays of imagination. For those who, whether lovers or writers of poetry, view the world with a poetical eye, our extracts will not be without their interest. We should premise, that Storer appears to have taken all his facts from Cavendish, and this serves as a proof, if proof were wanting, of the authenticity of that work. The whole poem is divided into three parts; the first describes the rise of Wolsey, the second his prosperity, the third his fall;- Wolsey himself is supposed to be speaking from first to last.
"To thee, first sister of the learned nine,
Historian's goddesse, patronesse of fame,
Entombing worthies in a living shrine,
Celestiall Clio! Clio, peerelesse dame,
My storie's truth and triumph I will frame;
My storie's simple truth, if ought remaine,
Enrich my legend with thy sacred veine.
The sad discourse of my untimely fall,
O tragique Muse, shall pierce thy sullen eares,
Melpomene! though nothing can apall
Thy heart, obdurate in contempt of feares;
My, my laments shall make thee write in teares,
If, 'mong thy scrolles of antique majestie
Thou deigne to place a Prelate's tragedie.
Perchance, the tenor of thy mourning verse
May leade some pilgrim to my toomblesse grave,
Where neither marble monument nor hearse
The passenger's attentive view may crave;
Which honors now the meanest persons have:
But well is me, where e're my ashes lie,
If one teare drop from some religious eie."
He then commences his narrative, and thus commemorates the founder of his college, Wainfleet.
"Thrice sweete remembrance of that holy man,
Reverend erector of those stately tow'res,
That worthy college where my youth beganne
In humane artes to spend the watchfull houres,
That fruitfull noursery, where heav'nly show'res
To me, poore country-plant, such grace did yeelde,
As soon I prooved the fairest of the field."
He gives an account of the motives which led him to
aspire to greatness, among which occurs that of the power of eloquence with which he found himself endowed.
"This silver tongue, me thought, was never made
With rhetoricke skill to teach each common swaine,
These deep conceits were never taught to wade
In shallow brookes, nor this aspiring vaine,
Fit to converse among the shepheard's traine:
I could not girt me, like a worthlesse groome,
In courser garment woven of country loome.
Just cause I saw my titles to advance-
Vertue my gentry, priesthood my discent,
Saints my allies, the Crosse my cognisance,
Angells my guard, that watcht about my tent,
Wisedome that usher'd me where ere I went;
These are our honors, though the world withstand;
Our lands and wealth are in another land.
Yet, as through Tagus' faire transparent streames
The wandring marchant sees the sandy gold;
Or, like as Cynthia's halfe obscured beames
In silent night the pilot doth behold,
Through misty clowdes and vapors manifold;
So, through a mirror of my hop'te-for gaine
I saw the treasure which I should obtaine."
When he has determined upon plunging into the world, he still finds his spirit fluctuate between his hopes and fears.
"Wolsey, are these the hopes of thy desarts?
Are these the fruites of wits? is this to know?
O vaine philosophie, and bootless artes,
Such seedes of learned ignorance to sow,
Where skilles disgrace, and wisedomes folly grow!
Grow where you list, in me your roots unknit,
A setled braine is worth a world of wit."
He contrasts the blessings of the humble life of a country clergyman, with the hollow and precarious greatness of a
"O, rather yet embrace thy private lot
With honest fame, and riches purely got.
Each perfect sense must things repugnant do:
Thy eyes must watch, but never seeme to see;
Thy tongue must brave, but learn to flatter too;
Thy eares must heare, yet deaf and carelesse be:
Affection fast and loose, thoughts bond and free;
Vaine, yet precise; chaste, but to maidens kinde;
A saint in sight, a Machivel in minde.
Thy present calmes these stormy waves surpasse
As pearles indeede the things which precious seeme;
Thy glebe brings corn, thy pasture plenteous grasse ;
For thee thy toiling oxen joine in teeme,
And after, with their death, thy life redeeme:
Thy sheepe (a pleasant flocke) their fleeces vaile,
And from their dugges yeeld nectar to thy paile.
At home, what duty neighbors yeeld to thee,
Creeping to others, now thou must resigne;
Attend their diet, ever waiting be,
When with lesse plentie in a shadie vine,
But greater pleasure, thou wer't wont to dine:
Nature hath powr'd enough in each man's lappe,
Could each man learne to use his private happe."
He arrives at the court of Henry VII., and gives this fine character of the favourite old minister of the king,* Fox, bishop of Winchester:
"A man made old to teach the worth of age,
Patriarke-like, and grave in all designes;
One that had finish'd a long pilgrimage;
Sparing in diet, abstinent from wines,
His sinews small as threeds or slender lines;
Lord of the citty, where, with solemne rites,
The old Prince Arthur feasted with his knights."
Mr. Park, in his notes to the reprint of this poem, assigns this character to Sir John Nafont; and says, of the citty, "probably Calais," where Sir John held the treasurership. The "citty" is clearly Winchester, and he, whom Wolsey has just mentioned as
"The pillar of his state,
That next in council to his sovereign sate,"
was undoubtedly Fox, who, at that time, held the privy seal, and who first raised Wolsey at Court.
"He saw my gifts were such as might deserve,
He knew his life were drawing to an end,
He thought no means so likely to preserve
His fame, with time and envy to contend,
As to advance some faithful-serving friend,
That, living, might in time to come record
Th' immortall praise of his deceased lord."
At court he soon learns the art of rising; and the poet gives an ingenious description of that peculiar kind of conduct which there pleases most and longest, where it is dangerous to please too much; where, to raise a passing shade of disgust is to be ruined;-where tediousness is a crime, and the successful candidate for favour must preserve himself in a state of perpetual equilibrium between pleasing his master and offending his rivals.
"Tis not huge heapes of figurative devises,
Nor luxury of metaphors or phrases,
Nor fineness of connexion that intices
Court-learned eares, and all the world amazes;
But depth with pleasure craving all the graces
Of art and nature curiously precize,
Serenely modest, excellently wise.
"It is not learning, for the courtiers know it;
Nor folly, but for councellors most fit;
Nor grave demeanor, for we must bestow it
On ladies toyes; nor quintessence of wit,
For that is most unstaide; nor doth it sit
With courtiers majestie to be reputed
Too learn'd, too grave, too fine, or too conceited.
"A skill transcendent over every art,
Yet subject or essentiall unto none,
Unperfect too, yet having every part,
And thus, though strange, unperfect and but one;
Yet all admire and reverence it alone,
Unknowne and undefin'de, save in discerning;
By practise to be got, but not by learning."
The poet, tired of drily recording the successive steps of Wolsey's promotion, indulges himself and his hero in a dream. Theology, personified, passed as a vision before him:
"Pearles may be foild, and gold be turn'd to drosse,
The sun obscur'd, the moon be turn'd to bloud,
The world may sorrow for Astrea's losse,
The heav'ns be darkned like a dusky wood,
Waste deserts lie where watry fountaines stood;
But faire Theologie (for so she hight)
Shall never lose one sparkle of her light.
"Such one she was, as in his Hebrew song
The wisest King for fairest creature prooves;
Embracing her the cedar-trees among,
Comparing her to roses and to doves,
Preferring her before all other loves;
Such one she was, and every whit as faire;
Beside these two was never such a paire.
"Her handmaids, in Amazon-like attire,
Went chaste and modest, like Dianae's traine;
One, by her gazing lookes, seem'd to aspire
Beyond the moone, and in a high disdaine
To deeme the world and worldly treasures vaine:
She hight Astrology, on whose bright lawne
Spheres, astrolabes, and skillful globes are drawne."
Again:
“The third, a quicke-ey'd dame of piercing sight,
That reason's worth in equall ballance way'd;
The truth she lov'd above all earthly wight,
Yet could not tell her love; but what she saide
Was certain true, and she a perfect maide:
Her garment short tuckt up, to worke prepar'd,
And she cal'd Logicke, without welt or gard.
"Next these, whose outward lookes I knew aright,
And had some portion of their endlesse treasure,
Faire Algebra, with figures richly dight,
Sweete Musicke! foundresse of delightsome pleasure,
Earth-scanning nimph, directresse of all measure:
These humbly did her soveraigne highnesse greete,
And meekely laid their garlands at her feete.
"From every one she pluckt a speciall flower,
And laid each flower upon a severall part;
Then from her owne, a stemme of wondrous power,
Whose leaves were beames, whose stalke a fi'ry dart,
And that she laid upon my trembling heart:
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