FRAGMENTS QUOTED IN ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS.

HE

E that will stop the brook, must then begin When summer's heat hath dried up the spring, And when his pittering streams are low and thin; For let the winter aid unto them bring,

He grows to be of watery floods the king;
And though you dam him up with lofty ranks,
Yet will he quickly overflow his banks.

IT

VERSES.

T was the month, in which the righteous maid,
That for disdain of sinful world's upbraid,

Fled back to heaven, where she was first conceived,
Into her silver bower the sun received;

And the hot Sirian dog, on him awaiting,

After the chafèd Lion's cruel baiting,

Corrupted had the air with noisome breath,
And poured on earth, plague, pestilence, and death.

A MAIDEN'S DREAM.

UPON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON, KNIGHT, LATE LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND.

[THIS piece is now published for the first time in a collected Edition of Greene's Poems. It was discovered by Mr. James P. Reardon in the course of some researches he was making for a life of Nash, and was printed by that gentleman with a short introduction amongst the Shakspeare Society's Papers, II. 127. Until it came into the possession of Mr. Reardon its existence was unknown. No such poem is mentioned by Hazlewood or Beloe. The copy from which the

text is taken Mr. Reardon describes as a quarto of ten leaves in Roman letter. It was printed by Thomas Scarlet for Thomas Nelson, in 1591, apparently soon after the death of Sir Christopher Hatton, which took place on the 20th September in that year.

Sir Christopher Hatton was raised by Queen Elizabeth to the office of Lord Chancellor in 1587, an appointment which occasioned much jealousy, being purely an exercise of favouritism on the part of the sovereign, as Sir Christopher was not qualified for the position by previous study or experience. It is said, however, that owing to his prudence in taking counsel of others, Sir Christopher's decisions were seldom reversed. He enjoyed his high station only four years, and, according to his biographers, died of a broken heart, in consequence of the rigour with which the queen insisted upon the repayment of an old debt. Mr. Reardon observes that Greene, in the dedication of the poem to the wife of the chancellor's nephew, ' refers covertly, but interestingly, to the painful circumstances under which Sir Christopher Hatton died, and to the silence of distinguished poets on the occasion, although some 'mechanical wits,' whose effusions have not survived, had, according to Greene, adopted the event as a theme.]

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, BOUNTIFUL, AND VIRTUOUS LADY, THE LADY ELIZABETH HATTON, WIFE TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL SIR WILLIAM HATTON, KNIGHT, INCREASE OF ALL HONOURABLE VIRTUES.

MOURNING as well as many (right worshipful lady) for the loss of the right honourable your deceased uncle, whose death being the common prejudice of a present age, was lamented of most (if not all), and I among the rest sorrowing that my country was deprived of him that lived not for himself, but for his country, I began to call to mind what a subject was ministered to the excellent wits of both Universities to work upon, when so worthy a knight, and so virtuous a justiciary, had by his death left many memorable actions performed in his life, deserving highly by some rare men to be registered. Passing over many days in this musc, at last I perceived men's humours slept, that love of many friends

followed no farther than their graves, that art was grown idle, and either choice scholars feared to write of so high a subject as his virtues, or else they dated their devotions no further than his life. While thus I debated with myself, I might see (to the great disgrace of the poets of our time) some mechanical wits blow up mountains and bring forth mice, who with their follies did rather disparage his honours than decypher his virtues; beside, as virtutis comes est invidia, so base report, who hath her tongue blistered by slanderous envy, began, as far as she durst, now after his death, to murmur, who in his lifetime durst not once mutter: whereupon, touched with a zealous jealousy over his wonderful virtues, I could not, whatsoever discredit I reaped by my presumption, although I did tenui avena meditari, but discover the honourable qualities of so worthy a councillor, not for any private benefit I ever had of him which should induce me favourably to flatter his worthy parts, but only that I shame to let slip with silence the virtues and honours of so worthy a knight, whose deserts had been so many and so great towards all. Therefore (right worshipful lady) I drew a fiction called A Maiden's Dream, which, as it was enigmatical, so it is not without some special and considerate reasons. Whose slender muse I present unto your ladyship, induced thereunto, first, that I know you are a partaker of your husband's sorrows for the death of his honourable uncle, and desire to hear his honours put in memory after his death, as you wished his advancement in virtues to be great in his life; as also that I am your ladyship's poor countryman, and have long time desired to gratify your right worshipful father with something worthy of himself. Which because I could not to my content perform, I have now taken opportunity to show my duty to him in his daughter, although the gift be far too mean for so worshipful and virtuous a lady. Yet hoping your ladyship will with courtesy favour my presuming follies, and in gracious acceptance vouch of my well-meant labours,

ΜΕ

I humbly take my leave,

Your Ladyship's humbly at command,

R. GREENE, Nordivicensis.

ETHOUGHT in slumber as I lay and dreamt, I saw a silent spring railed in with jeat, From sunny shade or murmur quite exempt, The glide whereof 'gainst weeping flints did beat; And round about were leafless beeches set;

So dark it seemed night's mantle for to borrow,
And well to be the gloomy den of sorrow.

About this spring, in mourning robes of black,
Were sundry nymphs or goddesses, methought,
That seemly sat in ranks, just back to back,
On mossy benches nature there had wrought:
And 'cause the wind and spring no murmur brought,
They filled the air with such laments and groans,
That Echo sighed out their heart-breaking moans.
Elbow on knee, and head upon their hand,
As mourners sit, so sat these ladies all.
Garlands of ebon boughs, whereon did stand
A golden crown, their mantles were of pall,
And from their watery eyes warm tears did fall;
With wringing hands they sat and sighed, like those
That had more grief than well they could disclose.

I looked about, and by the fount I spied
A knight lie dead, yet all in armour clad,
Booted and spurred, a faulchion by his side;
A crown of olives on his helm he had,
As if in peace and war he were adrad:
A golden hind was placed at his feet,
Whose veiled ears bewrayed her inward greet.
She seemed wounded by her panting breath,
Her beating breast with sighs did fall and rise:
Wounds there were none; it was her master's death
That drew electrum from her weeping eyes.
Like scalding smoke her braying throbs outflies:
As deer do mourn when arrow hath them galled,
So was this hind with heart-sick pains enthralled.

Just at his head there sat a sumptuous queen :
I guessed her so, for why, she wore a crown;
Yet were her garments parted white and green,
"Tired like unto the picture of renown.
Upon her lap she laid his head adown;

Unlike to all she smiled on his face,

Which made me long to know this dead man's

case.

As thus I looked, 'gan Justice to arise:
I knew the goddess by her equal beam;
And dewing on his face balm from her eyes,
She wet his visage with a yearnful stream.
Sad, mournful looks did from her arches gleam,
And like to one whom sorrow deep attaints,
With heaved hands she poureth forth these plaints.

THE COMPLAINT OF JUSTICE.

'Untoward Twins that temper human fate,
Who from your distaff draw the life of man,
Parca, impartial to the highest state,

Too soon you cut what Clotho erst began:
Your fatal dooms this present age may ban;
For you
have robbed the world of such a knight
As best could skill to balance justice right.

'His eyes were seats for mercy and for law,
Favour in one, and Justice in the other;

The poor he smoothed, the proud he kept in awe; And just to strangers as unto his brother.

Bribes could not make him any wrong to smother, For to a lord, or to the lowest groom,

Still conscience and the law set down the doom.

'Delaying law, that picks the client's purse,
Ne could this knight abide to hear debated
From day to day (that claims the poor man's
curse)

Nor might the pleas be over-long dilated:
Much shifts of law there was by him abated.
With conscience carefully he heard the cause,

Then gave his doom with short despatch of laws.