"Those faculties thou hast bestowed on me
To understand thy government and will,
I have, in all fit actions, offered still
To thy divine acceptance; and, as far
As I had influence from thy bounty's star,
I have made good thy form infused in me;
The anticipations given me naturally
I have, with all my study, art, and prayer,
Fitted to every object and affair

My life presented and my knowledge taught.
My poor sail, as it hath been ever fraught
With thy free goodness, hath been ballast too
With all my gratitude. What is to do,
Supply it, sacred Saviour; thy high grace
In my poor gifts, receive again, and place
Where it shall please thee; thy gifts never die,
But, having brought one to felicity,
Descend again, and help another up.”

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

(1560-1595.)

It was the misfortune of this poet to be a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit. He was of a well-to-do Norfolk family, was educated abroad, and, in 1585, was despatched from Rome by the Society of Jesus in the capacity of a Jesuit missionary to his native country. This proceeding was in defiance of an English law which forbade the residence of Jesuits in England; and accordingly, in 1592, Southwell was apprehended and committed to the Tower. After nearly three years of imprisonment he was tried, condemned, and executed. While in prison he published some prose works, and these were followed in 1595, the year of his death, by S. Peter's Complaint, with other Poems. This volume of verses was printed fourteen times between 1595 and 1634—namely, ten times in London, twice in Edinburgh, and twice at Douay; and again at Nassau in 1636. Among his contemporaries, both Protestant and Catholic, Southwell's poems were highly esteemed for their graceful diction and for the amiable and religious spirit

These ushered her far off, as figures given

To show these crosses borne make peace with heaven.
But now, made free from them, next her before,
Peaceful and young, Herculean Silence bore
His craggy club; which up aloft he held;

With which, and his fore-finger's charm, he stilled
All sounds in air; and left so free mine ears
That I might hear the music of the spheres,
And all the angels singing out of heaven;
Whose tunes were solemn, as to passion given;
For now, that Justice was the happiness there
For all the wrongs to Right inflicted here,
Such was the passion that Peace now put on.
And on all went; when suddenly was gone
All light of heaven before us; from a wood,
Whose light foreseen, now lost, amazed we stood,
The sun still gracing us; when now, the air
Inflamed with meteors, we discovered fair
The skipping goat; the horse's flaming mane;
Bearded and trainèd comets; stars in wane;
The burning sword; the firebrand-flying snake;
The lance; the torch; the licking fire; the drake ;
And all else meteors that did ill abode ;
The thunder chid, the lightning leaped abroad;
And yet when Peace came in all heaven was clear,
And then did all the horrid wood appear,
Where mortal dangers more than leaves did grow;
In which we could not one free step bestow,
For treading on some murthered passenger
Who thither was, by witchcraft, forced to err;
Whose face the bird hid that loves humans best;
That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast,
And is the yellow Autumn's nightingale.

OF SUDDEN DEATH.

What action wouldst thou wish to have in hand
If sudden death should come for his command?
I would be doing good to most good men
That most did need, or to their childeren,
And in advice (to make them their true heirs)
I would be giving up my soul to theirs.
To which effect if Death should find me given,
I would, with both my hands held up to heaven,

"Those faculties thou hast bestowed on me
To understand thy government and will,
I have, in all fit actions, offered still
To thy divine acceptance; and, as far
As I had influence from thy bounty's star,
I have made good thy form infused in me;
The anticipations given me naturally
I have, with all my study, art, and prayer,
Fitted to every object and affair

My life presented and my knowledge taught.
My poor sail, as it hath been ever fraught
With thy free goodness, hath been ballast too
With all my gratitude. What is to do,
Supply it, sacred Saviour; thy high grace
In my poor gifts, receive again, and place
Where it shall please thee; thy gifts never die,
But, having brought one to felicity,
Descend again, and help another up."

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

(1560-1595.)

IT was the misfortune of this poet to be a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit. He was of a well-to-do Norfolk family, was educated abroad, and, in 1585, was despatched from Rome by the Society of Jesus in the capacity of a Jesuit missionary to his native country. This proceeding was in defiance of an English law which forbade the residence of Jesuits in England; and accordingly, in 1592, Southwell was apprehended and committed to the Tower. After nearly three years of, imprisonment he was tried, condemned, and executed. While in prison he published some prose works, and these were followed in 1595, the year of his death, by S. Peter's Complaint, with other Poems. This volume of verses was printed fourteen times between 1595 and 1634—namely, ten times in London, twice in Edinburgh, and twice at Douay; and again at Nassau in 1636. Among his contemporaries, both Protestant and Catholic, Southwell's poems were highly esteemed for their graceful diction and for the amiable and religious spirit

century, they appear to have fallen out of fashion. Among the tit-bits of literary chat recorded of Ben Jonson by his Scottish host, Drummond of Hawthornden, is one which refers to Southwell. "Southwell was hanged," Jonson said; "yet so he (Ben Jonson) had written that piece of his, The Burning Babe, he would have been content to destroy many of his." Southwell had been dead for twenty-three years when Ben Jonson said this about him.1

THE BURNING BABE,

As I in hoary winter's night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat,
Which made my heart to glow.
And lifting up a fearful eye

To view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe, all burning bright,
Did in the air appear;

Who, scorched with excessive heat,
Such floods of tears did shed,

As though his floods should quench his flames
Which with his tears were bred.

"Alas!" quoth he, "but newly born,

In fiery heats I fry;

Yet none approach to warm their hearts,
Or feel my fire, but I.

"My faultless breast the furnace is,

The fuel, wounding thorns,

Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke,

The ashes, shames and scorns.

The fuel Justice layeth on,

And Mercy blows the coals,

The metal in this furnace wrought
Are men's defilèd souls:

For which, as now on fire I am
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath

To wash them in my blood."

1 A complete collection of Southwell's Poetical Works was edited by W. B. Turnbull and published by Whittingham, Lond. 1856. Mr. Grosart has included

With this he vanished out of sight,
And swiftly shrunk away;
And straight I callèd unto mind

That it was Christmas Day.

SCORN NOT THE LEAST.

Where words are weak and foes encountering strong,
Where mightier do assault than do defend,
The feebler part puts up1 enforced wrong,

And silent sees that2 speech could not amend.
Yet, higher powers must think, though they repine,
When sun is set the little stars will shine.

The merlin cannot ever soar on high,

Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase;
The tender lark will find a time to fly,
And fearful hare to run a quiet race:
He that high growth on cedars did bestow
Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow.

In Haman's pomp the poor Mardochius wept,
Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe;
The Lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept,
Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go.
We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May,
Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.

ROBERT GREENE.

(1560-1592.)

CONTEMPORARY with the gentle and unhappy "Father Southwell" was the play-wright, love-poet, and roué, Robert Greene; also a native of Norfolk. He obtained his degree of B.A. at Cambridge in 1578; travelled in Italy and Spain, where he is said to have recklessly wasted his father's means and his own; returned home and graduated as Master of Arts at Cambridge in 1583. He then betook himself to literature as a means of livelihood, and, during the nine years which remained for him to live, wrote on all kinds of