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opinion that bishops were not a distinct order in the Church, but only superior in degree to presbyters, he exposed himself to the charge of being a favourer of Puritanism. Having been accused as such to the king, he went over to England in 1619, and, in a conference with His Majesty, so fully cleared himself that he was erelong appointed to the see of Meath, and in 1625 to the archbishopric of Armagh. He aimed at a much-needed reform in the Irish Church, and proposed in vain a modification of Episcopacy to meet the objections of Presbyterians. His well-known visit to Samuel Rutherford at Anwoth, in Kirkcudbrightshire, may be assigned perhaps to 1638. During the political agitation of Charles's reign Ussher maintained the absolute unlawfulness of taking up arms against the king. The Irish rebellion in 1641 drove him to England, where he settled at Oxford, then the residence of Charles. Subsequently the civil war caused him repeatedly to change his abode, which was finally the Countess of Peterborough's seat at Reigate, where he died on 21st March 1656, at the age of seventy-five. buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. He refused to sit in the Westminster Assembly, and was for eight years preacher at Lincoln's Inn. He was a man of boundless humility, charity, and tolerance; was always loyal to the crown, but was treated with indulgence by Cromwell. He attended Strafford to the scaffold, and fainted when from Lady Peterborough's London house he saw the ‘villains in vizards' put up Charles I.'s hair. Most of his writings relate to ecclesiastical history and antiquities, and were mainly intended to furnish arguments against the Catholics ; but the book for which he is chiefly celebrated is a great chronological work in Latin, the Annales, the first part of which was published in 1650, and the second in 1654. In this chronological digest of universal history from the creation of the world to the dispersion of the Jews in Vespasian's reign, received with great applause by the learned throughout Europe, and several times reprinted on the Continent, the author, by fixing the three epochs of the deluge, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and their return from Babylon, was held to have reconciled the chronologies of sacred and profane history. His chronological system, putting the creation of the world in 4004 B.C., was long that generally received. Ussher conformed strictly to the Hebrew chronology in Scriptural dates; the Septuagint version and the Samaritan Pentateuch differ greatly from it. Modern Egyptologists of course wholly disregard his limitations; recent Babylonian research has uncovered tablets held to date from six thousand to seven thousand years before Christ; geologists calmly assume that the Tertiary epoch began ninety-three million years ago. But Ussher still has the glory of having done the best he could, and of having provided what was for centuries a practicable scheme for

working purposes. Fuller was said to have supervised the translation of the Annales in 1658. Ussher wrote also on the ancient religion of the Irish and British, on the ecclesiastical antiquities of Britain, and on the Septuagint; the Calvinistic Body of Divinity (1645) is only partly his. The unfinished and posthumously published Chronologia Sacra (1660) was meant as a guide to the study of sacred history, and as showing the grounds and calculations of the principal epochs of the Annales. The opening of the opus magnum (as in the translation of 1658) shows the precision with which Ussher saw his way to fix the date of the Creation :

Julian Before Period Christ 710 4004

In the beginning God created heaven and earth, Gen. I. v. I. Which beginning of time, according to our chronologie, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of Octob. in the year of the Julian Calendar, 710.

Upon the first day therefore of the world, or Octob. 23. being our sunday, God, together with the highest heaven, created the angels. Then having finished, as it were, the roofe of this building, he fell in hand with the foundation of this wonderfull fabrick of the world, he fashioned this lowermost globe, consisting of the deep, and of the earth; all the quire of angels singing together, and magnifying his name therefore. [Job 38. v. 7.] And when the earth was void and without forme, and darknesse covered the face of the deepe, on the very middle of the first day, the light was created; which God severing from the darknesse, called the one day, and the other night.

On the second day [October 24. being Monday] the firmament being finished, which was called heaven, a separation was made of the waters above and the waters here beneath enclosing the earth.

Upon the third day [Octob. 25. Tuesday] these waters beneath running together into one place, the dry land appeared. This confluence of the waters God made a sea, sending out from thence the rivers, which were thither to return again [Eccles. I. vers. 7.], and he caused the earth to bud, and bring forth all kinds of herbs and plants, with seeds and fruits: But above all, he enriched the garden of Eden with plants; for among them grew the tree of Life and the tree of Knowledge of good and evil. [Gen. 2. vers. 8, 9.]

On the fourth day [Octob. 26. which is our Wednesday] the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars were created.

The work of the other days is recorded with the same particularity. The method on which the archbishop proceeded in his calculation of the dates is explained in the 'Epistle to the Reader' thus:

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out of three cycles multiplied in themselves; for the Solar Cicle being multiplied by the Lunar, or the number of 28 by 19, produces the great Paschal Cycle of 532 years, and that again multiplied by fifteen, the number of the indiction, there arises the period of 7980 years, which was first (if I mistake not) observed by Robert Lotharing, Bishop of Hereford, in our island of Brittain, and 500 years after by Joseph Scaliger fitted for chronological uses, and called by the name of the Julian Period, because it conteined a cycle of so many Julian years. Now if the series of the three minor cicles be from this present year extended backward unto precedent times, the 4713 years before the beginning of our Christian account will be found to be that year into which the first year of the indiction, the first of the Lunar Cicle, and the first of the Solar will fall. Having placed therefore the heads of this period in the kalends of January in that proleptick year, the first of our Christian vulgar account must be reckoned the 4714 of the Julian Period, which, being divided by 15. 19. 28. will present us with the 4 Roman indiction, the 2 Lunar Cycle, and the 10 Solar, which are the principal characters of that year.

We find moreover that the year of our fore-fathers, and the years of the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews were of the same quantity with the Julian, consisting of twelve equal moneths, every of them conteining 30 dayes, (for it cannot be proved that the Hebrews did use lunary moneths before the Babylonian Captivity) adjoyning to the end of the twelfth moneth, the addition of five dayes, and every fourth year six. And I have observed by the continued succession of these years, as they are delivered in holy writ, that the end of the great Nebuchadnezars and the beginning of Evilmerodachs (his sons) reign, fell out in the 3442 year of the world, but by collation of Chaldean history and the astronomical cannon, it fell out in the 186 year of Nabonasar, and, as by certain connexion, it must follow in the 562 year before the Christian account, and of the Julian Period, the 4152. and from thence I gathered the creation of the world did fall out upon the 710 year of the Julian Period, by placing its beginning in autumn: but for as much as the first day of the world began with the evening of the first day of the week, I have observed that the Sunday, which in the year 710 aforesaid came nearest the Autumnal Equinox, by astronomical tables (notwithstanding the stay of the sun in the dayes of Joshua, and the going back of it in the dayes of Ezekiah) happened upon the 23 day of the Julian October; from thence concluded that from the evening preceding that first day of the Julian year, both the first day of the creation and the first motion of time are to be deduced.

His complete writings were edited by Elrington and Todd (17 vols. 1847-64). See Life by Dr J. A. Carr (1895), and the Ussher Memoirs by W. Ball Wright (1889).

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Sir Thomas Overbury was famous as witty and ingenious describer of 'characters.' He was for years an intimate of Robert Carr, the minion of James I.; but having opposed the favourite's marriage with the infamous Countess of Essex, he incurred the hatred of the pair, and through their influence was confined in the Tower, and poisoned there on the 15th of September 1613-being then in the thirty-second year of his age. Three months later Carr, now Earl of Somer

set, was married to Lady Essex. The way in

which, though humbler instruments were executed, the principals in this murder were screened from justice leaves a foul blot on the memory of the king. Overbury wrote one very popular didactic poem, The Wife (published in 1614), on choosing a partner for life, which was imitated in The Husband, A Wife Bespoken, &c. The prose Characters (1614), among the first of that kind of witty descriptions of types (Hall having been in the field in 1608), were often reprinted and frequently imitated. They abound in strained conceits, but are full of epigrammatic point. It is, however, doubtful how many of them are by Overbury himself. The number of characters was increased in successive editions; the fourth contained thirty. The Tinker (here quoted) and two others first appeared in the sixth (1616), and are by 'J. Cocke' -possibly 'Jo. Cooke, Gent.,' whose clever drama, Greene's Tu Quoque, appeared in 1614. Still more doubtful is it whether the Crumms fal'n from King James's Table, professedly that king's table-talk, was to any extent Overbury's work. The first verse of The Wife is as follows (the spelling in this and all the extracts being that of the edition of 1638):

Each woman is a briefe of Womankind,

And doth in little even as much containe
As in one Day and Night all life we find.
Of either more is but the same againe :

God fram'd Her so that to her Husband She
As Eve should all the World of Woman be.

A faire and happy Milk-maid

Is a Countrey Wench that is so farre from making her selfe beautifull by Art, that one looke of hers is able to put all face-physicke out of countenance. She knows a faire looke is but a Dumbe Orator to commend vertue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand in her so silently, as if they had stolne upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparell, which is her selfe, is farre better than outsides of Tissew; for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the Silke-worme shee is deckt in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long abed, spoile both her complexion and conditions: nature hath taught her, too, immoderate sleepe is rust to the Soule: she rises, therefore, with Chaunticleare, her dame's Cock, and at night makes the lamb her Corfew. In milking a Cow, and straining the teats through her fingers, it seemes that so sweet a Milk-presse makes the Milk the whiter or sweeter; for never came AlmondGlove or Aromatique oyntment of her palme to taint it. The golded eares of corne fall and kisse her feet when shee reapes them, as if they wisht to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that fell'd them. Her breath is her own, which sents all the yeare long of June, like a new-made Haycock. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pitty; and when winters evenings fall early (sitting at her mery wheele) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheele of Fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to doe ill, being her mind is to doe well. Shee bestowes her yeares wages at next faire, and in chusing her garments counts no bravery i' th' world like decency. The garden and bee-hive are all her Physick

and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for't. She dares goe alone and unfold sheepe i' th' night, and feares no manner of ill, because she meanes none; yet to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not pauled [palled, weakened] with insuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreames are so chaste, that shee dare tell them; only a Fridaies dream is all her superstition; that she conceales for feare of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is, she may die in the Spring-time, to have store of flowers stucke upon her winding-sheet.

A Franklin.

His outside is an ancient Yeoman of England, though his inside may give armes with the best Gentlemen, and ne're see the Herauld. There is no truer servant in the House than himselfe. Though he be Master, he sayes not to his servants, ‘Goe to field,' but, ‘Let us goe,' and with his owne eye doth both fatten his flock and set forward all manner of husbandrie. Hee is taught by nature to bee contented with a little; his owne fold yeelds him both food and rayment; he is pleas'd with any nourishment God sends, whilst curious gluttony ransackes, as it were, Noahs Arke for food, onely to feed the riot of one meale. He is ne'r knowne to goe to Law; understanding to bee Law-bound among men, is like to bee hide-bound among his beasts; they thrive not under it; and that such men sleepe as unquietly as if their pillowes were stufft with lawyers penknives. When he builds, no poore tenant's cottage hinders his prospect; they are, indeed, his Almes-houses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He never sits up late but when he hunts the Badger, the vow'd foe of his Lambs; nor uses hee any cruelty but when hee hunts the Hare; nor subtilty but when he setteth snares for the Snipe, or pitfalls for the Black bird; nor oppression but when, in the moneth of July, he goes to the next River and sheares his sheepe. He allowes of honest pastime, and thinkes not the bones of the dead anything bruised, or the worse for it, though the country Lasses dance in the Church-yard after Evensong. RockMunday [or St Distaff's Day, the Monday after Twelfth Day, when, after the Christmas celebrations, spinning was resumed by the women], and the Wake in Summer, shrovings, the wakeful ketches [catches or carols sung in the night] on Christmas Eve, the Hoky [Hocktide, a fortnight after Easter] or Seed Cake-these he yeerly keepes yet holds them no reliques of popery. He is not so inquisitive after newes derived from the privy-clozet, when the finding an eiery of Hawkes in his owne ground, or the foaling of a colt come of a good straine are tydings more pleasant and more profitable. Hee is Lord paramount within himselfe, though hee hold by never so mean a Tenure; and dyes the more contentedly (though he leave his heire young) in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous Guardian. Lastly, to end him, hee cares not when his end comes; hee needs not feare his audit, for his Quietus is in heaven.

The Tinker. BY J. COCKE.

A tinker is a moveable, for hee hath no abiding place; by his motion hee gathers heat, thence his cholericke nature. He seemes to be very devout, for his life is a continual pilgrimage; and sometimes in humility

His

goes barefoot, therein making necessity a vertue. house is as ancient as Tubal Cain's, and so is a runnagate by antiquity; yet he proves himselfe a Gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a Philosopher, for he bears all his substance about him. From his Art was Musick first invented, and therefore is he alwaies furnisht with a song, to which his hammer, keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder for the kettle-drum. Note that where the best Ale is, there stands his music most upon crotchets. The companion of his travels is some foule, sunne-burnt Queane that since the terrible Statute recanted Gipsisme, and is turned Pedleresse. So marches he all over England with his bag and baggage; his conversation is unreproveable, for hee is ever mending. Hee observes truly the Statutes, and therefore he can rather steale than begge, in which hee is unremoveably constant, in spight of whip or imprisonment; and so a strong enemy to idleness that, in mending one hole, he had rather make three than want worke; and when hee hath done, hee throwes the wallet of his faults behind him. He embraceth naturally ancient custome, conversing in open fields and lowly Cottages if he visit Cities or Townes, tis but to deale upon the imperfections of our weaker vessels. His tongue is very voluble, which, with Canting, proves him a Linguist. He is entertain'd in every place, but enters no further than the doore, to avoid suspition. Some would take him to be a Coward, but, beleeve it, he is a Lad of mettle; his valour is commonly three or foure yards long, fastned to a pike in the end, for flying off. He is provident, for he will fight with but one at once, and then also hee had rather submit than be counted obstinate. To conclude, if he scape Tyburn and Banbury, he dies a begger.

Overbury's works were collected by Rimbault and published, with a Life, in 1856.

John Chalkhill.-A poem described as 'a pastoral history,' Thealma and Clearchus, was published by Izaak Walton in 1683, with a titlepage stating it to have been written long since by JOHN CHALKHILL, Esq., an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spencer.' Walton, who had known the author, says 'he was in his time a man generally known, and as well beloved; for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent; and, indeed, his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.' Thealma and Clearchus was reprinted by the Rev. Samuel Weller Singer (Chiswick, 1820), who expressed an opinion that, as Walton had been silent upon the life of Chalkhill, he might be altogether a fictitious personage, and the poem be actually the composition of Walton himself; and a writer, probably Sir Egerton Brydges, in vol. iv. of the Retrospective Review, after investigating the circumstances, came to the same conclusion. But Mr F. S. Merryweather, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1860, showed that towards the close of Elizabeth's reign an Ivon or Ion Chalkhill, Gent., was one of the coroners for the county of Middlesex, and suggested that this may have been the poet. The poetry soars above the level of Izaak's muse, who dwelt by the side of trout streams and among quiet meadows.

The

nom de guerre of Chalkhill must also have been an old one with Walton, if he wrote Thealma; for thirty years before its publication he had inserted in his Compleat Angler two songs, signed 'Io. Chalkhill.' Thealma, though it has something Spenserian in its subject, is very unlike the work of a contemporary of Spenser: probably it may date from the days of James I. The scene of this highly artificial 'pastoral' is laid in Arcadia, and the author describes the Golden Age and all its charms, succeeded by an Age of Iron, with its ambition, avarice, and tyranny. The plot is complicated and obscure, and the characters lack individuality; the interest depends on the romantic descriptions and occasional felicity of language. The versification is that of the heroic couplet, varied, like Milton's Lycidas, by breaks and pauses in the middle of the.line:

The Priestess of Diana.
Within a little silent grove hard by,
Upon a small ascent he might espy
A stately chapel, richly gilt without,
Beset with shady sycamores about :
And ever and anon he might well hear
A sound of music steal in at his ear

As the wind gave it being: so sweet an air

Would strike a syren mute.

A hundred virgins there he might espy
Prostrate before a marble deity,

Which, by its portraiture, appeared to be
The image of Diana: on their knee

They tendered their devotions; with sweet airs,
Offering the incense of their praise and prayers.
Their garments all alike; beneath their paps,
Buckled together with a silver claps,

And cross their snowy silken robes, they wore
An azure scarf, with stars embroidered o'er.
Their hair in curious tresses was knit up,
Crowned with a silver crescent on the top.
A silver bow their left hand held; their right,
For their defence held a sharp-headed flight,
Drawn from their' broidered quiver, neatly tied
In silken cords, and fastened to their side.
Under their vestments, something short before,
White buskins, laced with ribanding, they wore.
It was a catching sight for a young eye,
That love had fired before: he might espy
One whom the rest had sphere-like circled round,
Whose head was with a golden chaplet crowned.
He could not see her face, only his ear

clasp

Was blest with the sweet words that came from her.

The Witch's Cave.

Her cell was hewn out of the marble rock,
By more than human art; she need not knock;
The door stood always open, large and wide,
Grown o'er with woolly moss on either side,
And interwove with ivy's flattering twines,
Through which the carbuncle and diamond shines,
Not set by Art, but there by Nature sown
At the world's birth, so star-like bright they shone.
They served instead of tapers, to give light
To the dark entry, where perpetual Night,
Friend to black deeds, and sire of Ignorance,
Shuts out all knowledge, lest her eye by chance

Might bring to light her follies: in they went.
The ground was strewed with flowers, whose sweet scent,
Mixed with the choice perfumes from India brought,
Intoxicates his brain, and quickly caught

His credulous sense; the walls were gilt, and set
With precious stones, and all the roof was fret
With a gold vine, whose straggling branches spread
All o'er the arch; the swelling grapes were red;
This Art had made of rubies clustered so,

To the quick'st eye they more than seemed to grow;
About the walls lascivious pictures hung,
Such as were of loose Ovid sometimes sung.
On either side a crew of dwarfish elves
Held waxen tapers, taller than themselves:
Yet so well shaped unto their little stature,
So angel-like in face, so sweet in feature ;
Their rich attire so differing; yet so well
Becoming her that wore it, none could tell
Which was the fairest, which the handsomest decked,
Or which of them Desire would soon'st affect.
After a low salute, they all 'gan sing,

And circle in the stranger in a ring.

Orandra to her charms was stepped aside,
Leaving her guest half won and wanton-eyed.
He had forgot his herb: cunning delight

Had so bewitched his ears, and bleared his sight,
And captivated all his senses so,

That he was not himself: nor did he know
What place he was in, or how he came there,
But greedily he feeds his eye and ear
With what would ruin him. . . .
Next unto his view

She represents a banquet, ushered in
By such a shape as she was sure would win
His appetite to taste; so like he was
To his Clarinda, both in shape and face;
So voiced, so habited, of the same gait
And comely gesture; on her brow in state
Sat such a princely majesty as he
Had noted in Clarinda; save that she
Had a more wanton eye, that here and there
Rolled up and down, not settling anywhere.
Down on the ground she falls his hand to kiss,
And with her tears bedews it; cold as ice
He felt her lips, that yet inflamed him so,
That he was all on fire the truth to know,
Whether she was the same she did appear,
Or whether some fantastic form it were,
Fashioned in his imagination

By his still working thoughts; so fixed upon
His loved Clarinda, that his fancy strove,
Even with her shadow, to express his love.

Edward Fairfax (c.1580-1635), translator of Tasso's Jerusalem, a son-probably illegitimateof Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton, in Yorkshire, was born near Leeds, and spent his life mainly in literary work at Newhall, in Fewston parish, near Otley, Yorkshire. He dedicated his Godfrey of Bulloigne: or the Recoverie of Jerusalem, to Queen Elizabeth (1st ed. 1600; 2nd ed. 1624). The poetical beauty and freedom of this version of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata have been the theme of almost universal praise. Dryden ranked Fairfax with Spenser as a master of our language, and Waller said he derived from him the harmony of

his numbers, though Ben Jonson said 'it was not well done.' It charmed James I. and solaced the imprisonment of Charles I. Hallam, admitting that it shows spirit and freedom, decides not unreasonably that it lacks the grace of the original. It was not the first translation (Richard Carew translated the first five cantos; see above at page 353), and there have been over half-a-dozen since; but it may still claim to be the English rendering, and an essential part of English literature. In 1621 Fairfax wrote a Discourse of Witchcraft (first printed in the Philobiblon Miscellanies, 1859), and in the preface to it he states that in religion he was neither a fantastic Puritan nor a superstitious Papist,' but describes in full the bewitching of two of his own daughters. He also wrote a series of Eclogues, one of whicha poor thing—was published in 1741.

If the opening of the first book of the Godfrey (or Jerusalem) recalls Homer and Virgil on the one hand, the English version suggests Spenser and Milton on the other:

The sacred Armies and the godly Knight
That the great Sepulcher of Christ did free
I sing; much wrought his valour and foresight
And in that glorious warre much suffred he:
In vaine gainst him did hell oppose her might,
In vaine the Turkes and Morians armed be:

His soldiers wilde, to braules and mutines prest,
Reduced he to peace, so heaven him blest.

O heavenly Muse that not with fading baies
Deckest thy brow by th' Heliconian spring,
But sittest crowned with starres immortall raies,
In heaven where legions of bright Angels sing;
Inspire life in my wit, my thoughts upraise,
My verse ennoble and forgive the thing,

If fictions light I mix with truth divine,

And fill these lines with other praise than thine.

In Tasso's great epic Armida is a beautiful sorceress, employed to seduce Rinaldo and other Crusaders as they approach the Holy City. Rinaldo after a struggle triumphs over her witcheries, confesses his love to her, and persuades her to become a Christian.

Armida and her Enchanted Girdle. And with that word she smiled, and nerethelesse Her love-toyes still she used, and pleasures bold : Her haire, that done, she twisted up in tresse, And looser locks in silken laces rolled; Her curles garland-wise she did up-dresse, Wherein, like rich ennamell laid on gold,

The twisted flowrets smiled, and her white brest
The Lillies there that spring with Roses drest.

The jolly Peacocke spreads not halfe so faire
The eyed feathers of his pompous traine;
Nor golden Iris so bends in the aire

Her twentie-coloured bow, through clouds of raine :
Yet all her ornaments, strange, rich, and rare,
Her girdle did in price and beauty staine;

Not that, with scorn, which Tuscan Guilla lost,
Nor Venus Ceston could match this for cost.

cestus

Of milde denaies, of tender scornes, of sweet
Repulses, war, peace, hope, despaire, joy, feare;
Of smiles, jests, mirth, woe, grief, and sad regreet;
Sighs, sorrowes, teares, embracements, kisses deare,
That mixed first by weight and measure meet,
Then at an easy fire attempred were ;

This wondrous girdle did Armida frame,
And when she would be loved, wore the same.

Rinaldo at the Enchanted Wood.
It was the time when gainst the breaking day
Rebellious night yet strove, and still repined,
For in the east appeared the morning gray,
And yet some lampes in Joves high palace shined,
When to Mount Olivet he took his way,

And saw, as round about his eies he twined,

Nights shadows hence, from thence the mornings shine, This bright, that darke; that earthly, this divine.

Phineas and Giles Fletcher were sons of Giles Fletcher, LL.D. (c.1549–1611), himself something of a poet, who was sent in 1588 as ambassador to Russia, and wrote Of the Russe Common Wealth (1591) and Licia or Poemes of Love. Both were clergymen ; Phineas educated, like his father, at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, and Giles at Westminster and Trinity. Phineas (1582-1650) in 1621 became rector of Hilgay, in Norfolk; Giles (c.1588–1623) from about 1618 was rector of Alderton, Suffolk. The elder Giles was the brother of the Bishop of London, father of John Fletcher the dramatist-who was accordingly cousin of the two poet-brothers.

The works of Phineas consist of the Purple Island or the Isle of Man, Piscatory Eclogues, and miscellaneous poems. The Purple Island was published in 1633, but written much earlier, as appears from allusions in it to the Earl of Essex. The name of the poem conjures up images of poetical and romantic beauty such as we may suppose a youthful admirer and follower of Spenser to have drawn-unless, indeed, it suggests the misapprehension that led to its being entered in a bookseller's topographical catalogue under 'Man, Isle of. A perusal of the work dispels illusions. The Purple Island of Fletcher is no sunny spot 'amid the melancholy main;' it is an elaborate and anatomical description of the body and mind of man, involving a portentous allegory which inevitably repels the average reader. Beginning with the veins, arteries, bones, and muscles of the human frame, the poet pictures them as hills, dales, streams, and rivers, and describes with great minuteness their different meanderings, elevations, and appearances; one is reminded of Harvey's recent great discovery of the circulation of the blood. But that Fletcher's physiology differed pretty widely from our current doctrines will be plain from the kindly view he takes of the liver and its normal functions:

So 'tween the Splenion's frost and th' angry Gall
The joviall Hepar sits; with great expence
Cheering the Isle by his great influence (!);

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