was Marot's "Eclogue to the King," under the name of " Pan and Robin." The paraphrase in the November eclogue had improved on the original. In that of the December eclogue, Marot's is the better poem of the two. It was a pastoral of the course of his own life, figured by the changing seasons. In each of the two eclogues Spenser has lost something by erasure of the local colouring, which by its truth gives so great a charm to Marot's verse. In the lament for Louise, stern realities in the condition of France, longing for peace in an afflicted nation, genuine sympathy with mourners, blend with the fresh strain of religion. These disappear, or become simply poetical ornament, in Spenser's lament for Dido. But death is common, and the added music with which Spenser enriched the form of the lament—even the vague use of Dido as a type for any dead queen-supplied more than was lost. But in the other eclogue one feels that Marot is painting with a vigorous simplicity-and in verse hardly less musical than Spenser's--from true recollections and a lively present sense of his own life in the France of the sixteenth century, and that the homely incidents which Spenser passes over, as well as the wilder features that he tames- -as when Marot's wolf becomes Spenser's hare-show in Marot the strength as well as grace of a true artist* Marot painted from individual life, where Spenser sought only to close his round of the months with a poetical suggestion of their changes serving as an image of the life of man.

* A full comparison between original and paraphrase in these two eclogues will be found in my "Life of Clement Marot," London, 1871, vol. i., pp. 266–272; vol. ii., pp. 21--32.

CHAPTER II.

TOUCHING THE EARTHQUAKE AND OUR ENGLISH REFORMED VERSIFYING.-QUEEN ELIZABETH AMONG THE POETS.

The Earthquake of 1580:

Arthur

ARTHUR GOLDING was among those who took very seriously a shock of earthquake that was felt throughout England on the sixth of April, 1580. We have seen evidence of his religious temper in the introduction to his translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses." He published without loss Golding. of time "A discourse vpon the Earthquake that hapned throughe this Realme of Englande, and other places of Christendom, the sixt of Aprill, 1580, betwene the houres of fiue and six in the Euening. Written by Arthur Golding, Gentleman." (Henry Bynneman, 1580.) Twenty-two pages of very small quarto treat of the earthquake as God's threatening against "our contempt of his holy Religion, and our securitie and sound sleeping in sinne, shewing us euident tokens of his iust displeasure neere at hande, both abroade and at home." Arthur Golding quotes, among signs of Divine displeasure, the famine under Mary, when men were fain to make bread of acorns; the monstrous births both of children and cattle; the unseasonableness of the seasons of some years; the wonderful new star so long time fixed in the heavens; the strange appearings of comets; frequent eclipses of sun and moon; the great and strange-fashioned

lights seen in the firmament in the night-times; the sudden falling and unwonted abiding of unmeasurable abundance of snow; the excessive and untimely rains and overflowing of waters; the greatness and sharp continuance of sore frosts; and many other such wonderful things, one following on another's neck.

He proceeds to argue against those who, "to keep themselves and others from the due looking back into the time earst mysspent, and to foade them still in the vanities of this worlde, least they should see their own wretchednesse, and seeke to shunne God's vengeance at hand, will not sticke to deface the apparant working of God, by ascribing this miracle to some ordinarie causes in nature."

Two pages and a half at the end give "The Reporte of the said Earthquake, and howe it beganne."

On Easter Wednesday, April 6, 1580, a little before 6 p.m.,

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happened thys greate Earthquake whereof this discourse treateth : I meane not greate in respecte of long continuance of time, for (God be thanked) it continued little above a minute of an houre, rather shaking God's rod at us than smiting us according to oure desertes: nor yet in respecte of any greate hurte done by it within thys Realme: for, although it shooke all houses, castles, churches and buildings, euery where as it wente, and put them in danger of ruine: yet within this Realme (praysed be our Sauiour Jesus Christe for it) it overthrewe few or none that I haue yet hearde of, sauing certain stones, chimneys, walles, and pinnacles of high buildings, bothe in this Cittie and in diuers other places: Neyther do I heare of anye Christen people that receiued bodily hurte by it, sauing two children in London, a boye and a girle, being at Sermon among a great number of people in Christs churche by Newgate market, of whome the boy named Thomas Gray was slaine out of hand, with the fall of a stone shaken downe from the roofe of the Church and the girle (whose name was Mabell Euerite) being sore hurt there at ye same present by like casualtie, dyed wythin fewe dayes after: But I terme it great in respect of the uniuersalnesse thereof almost at one instant, not onelye within this Realm, but also without, where it was muche more violent, and did far more harme: and in respecte of the great terror which it then strake into al mens heartes where it came."

Gabriel

Harvey.

Gabriel Harvey, at the time of the earthquake, was playing at cards in a country house in Essex, with some ladies, who were "making a loud noise with much ado" over the game; and although he thought that the shaking of the room was caused by moving something heavy in another part of the house, he playfully assumed it to be strange that the delicate voices of two fair ladies should make such a sudden, terrible earthquake. But the master of the house entered in alarm; inquiry was made out of doors, where also the shock had been felt; and one of the ladies then desired to turn suddenly from cards to prayers. Upon this, Gabriel Harvey reasoned that such shocks were not necessarily supernatural, and that, although doubtless it is in the power of God miraculously to produce them, it is not the business of man to treat them superstitiously. His argument was included among some letters that passed between Spenser and Harvey, and were published in 1580.

Spenser and Harvey were of like age, but Spenser went to Cambridge two years later. Harvey must have gone to Cambridge from Saffron Walden at the not un

Spenser and

usual age of fifteen, for he took his M.A. at Harvey. twenty-two. This we learn from himself. There was published by the Camden Society in 1884, from a Sloane MS. in the British Museum, the more valuable part of a private book into which Gabriel Harvey, between 1573 and 1580, copied letters of personal record, with early verses of his own. He also entered student notes in rhetoric and theology, which have been left unprinted. In this "LetterBook," * which was distinctly private, there are copies of letters written in March and April, 1573, when Harvey was

"Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey, A. D. 1573-1580. Edited from the Original MS. Sloane 93, in the British Museum, by Edward John Long Scott, M. A. Oxon., Assistant Keeper of MSS., British Museum." Printed for the Camden Society, 1884.

endeavouring to overcome the obstinate resistance of three or four Fellows of Pembroke Hall to his obtaining the usual grace on reaching the year in which he should commence Master of Arts. Others obtained their grace, and his was stayed by an opposition of which Harvey sets forth the facts. and the assigned causes in letters to Dr. John Young, Master of Pembroke Hall, who was at the time absent in London. Dr. Young-Spenser's "Roffy "--afterwards obtained, as Bishop of Rochester, much credit for administrative vigour, and the incident to which Spenser alludes in "The Shepheardes Calender," whatever it may have been, was taken as evidence of "Roffy's' firmness in action. Dr. Young overcame at last, by use of his authority, the opposition of those Fellows who were refusing Harvey's grace for his degree. But in the following October feud broke out again, during the Master's absence, and endeavour was made to stop Harvey's delivery of the Greek lecture, which Dr. Young had entrusted to him without asking for the assent of the Fellows. The Master of the College was held by some to have disregarded the rights of the Fellows. Such feuds and jealousies had been a part of college life, and would remain so yet for many generations. Ascham's letters show that he was wearied by them at St. John's. Harvey at Pembroke Hall had Dr. Young's favour, partly on his own account as an assiduous scholar, partly because he had been recommended to the Master's good offices by a man of high influence in the State, who in his younger days had made a great name in the university *-Sir Thomas Smith, to whom Harvey was in some degree a kinsman. Incidentally, in a letter, he spoke afterwards of Sir Thomas Smith's son as his cousin. Confidence in Dr. Young's goodwill is implied in the detailed reports that Harvey sent to him of the proceedings of the Fellows who were leaders of the opposition. In one of these letters, written *"E. W., viii. 160, 161.