This while our noble king, Down the French host did ding, And many a deep wound lent, His arms with blood besprent, Gloucester, that duke so good, Warwick in blood did wade, Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made, Still as they ran up; Suffolk his axe did ply, Upon Saint Crispin's day THE ARMING OF PIGWIGGEN. [From Nymphidia.] (He) quickly arms him for the field, A little cockle-shell his shield, Which he could very bravely wield, Yet could it not be pierced : His spear a bent both stiff and strong, And put him on a coat of mail, That when his foe should him assail, His rapier was a hornet's sting, His helmet was a beetle's head, Himself he on an earwig set, Ere he himself could settle: He made him turn, and stop, and bound, To gallop, and to trot the round, He scarce could stand on any ground, He was so full of mettle. FROM 'POLYOLBION.' [Song xv. 1. 147-] The Naiads and the nymphs extremely overjoy'd, The azur'd hare-bell next with them they neatly mix'd, To sort these flowers of show, with th' other that were sweet, The yellow kingcup wrought in many a curious fret, By which again a course of lady-smocks they lay: The crow-flower, and thereby the clover flower they stick, Thus having told you now the bridegroom Thame was drest, I'll show you how the bride fair Isis was invest; Sitting to be attired under her bower of state, Which scorns a meaner sort than fits a princely rate, In anadems, for whom they curiously dispose The red, the dainty white, the goodly damask rose ; Sweet marjoram, with her like, sweet basil rare for smell, JOSEPH HALL. [JOSEPH HALL, successively Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, was born July 1st, 1574, at Bristow Park, near Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire. His prose writings, which are very voluminous, have gained him the title of the Christian Seneca. His polemical works brought him into collision with Milton; his sermons rank among the most eloquent in our language; his characters of Virtues and Vices were the delight of Lamb; and his Occasional Meditations still maintain their popularity. He terminated a life of much usefulness and many troubles at Higham, near Norwich, September 8th, 1656, in the eighty-second year of his age. As a poet Hall is known only by his Satires, which were written when he was a very young man. They came out in two instalments, the first of which was entitled Virgidemiarum, First three Bookes of Toothlesse Satyrs-Poetical, Academical, Moral, and appeared in 1597; the second, entitled Virgidemiarum, The three Last Bookes of Byting Satyrs, were published in the following year. Both parts were reprinted in 1599, and again in 1602.] Hall boasts that he was the first English satirist. This is not true. To say nothing of the fathers of our tongue, and of the satires of Barklay, Skelton, Roye, and Gascoigne, he had been anticipated in his own walk by Thomas Lodge, whose Fig for Momus appeared in 1593. Hall has however a higher claim to praise. He was the founder of a great dynasty of satirists. He made satire popular, and he determined its form. Marston immediately succeeded him as his disciple; the author of Skialetheia, the author of Microcynicon, and innumerable other anonymous satirists followed in rapid succession, till we reach Donne and Jonson, Wither and Marvel, Dryden and Oldham. In all these poets the influence of Hall is either directly or indirectly perceptible. Dryden had in all probability perused him with care, and Pope was so sensible of his merits that he not only carefully interlined his copy of Hall, but expressed much regret that he had not been acquainted with his Satires sooner. Hall's abilities, not only as a satirist, but as a descriptive writer and as a master of style, are of a high order. His models were, he |