Of this author no particulars are known. He lived in the reign of Q. Elizabeth. The compiler of the Biographia Dramatica mentions none of his plays but the laft.*

WILLIAM

WARNER.

"William Warner, a good honeft plain writer of moral rules and precepts, in that "old-fashioned kind of seven-footed verse, which દ yet fometimes is in ufe, though in different manner, that is to fay, divided into two. may be reckoned with feveral other writers "of the fame rime: i. e. Queen Elizabeth's reign, who, though inferiour to Sidny, Spen

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He

cer, Drayton and Daniel, yet have been "thought by fome not unworthy to be remem"ber'd and quoted; namely George Gascoigne, "Th. Hudfon, John Markham, Thomas "Achely, John Weever, Ch. Middleton, George "Turberville, Henry Conftable, Sir Edw. Dyer, Thomas Churchyard, Charles Fitz"geoffry."

* Wood's Ath. I. p. 461. I. p. 262,263. Tann, Bibl. p. 756.

WILLIAM WARNER was a native of Warwickshire, and educated at Oxford, where he fpent his time in the flowery paths of poetry, history and romance, in preference to the dry purfuits of logic and philofophy, and departed without a degree to the metropolis, where he foon became diftinguifhed among the minor poets. It is faid that in the latter part of his life, he was retained in the fervice of Henry Carey, Lord Hunfdon, to whom he dedicates his poem. But Mr. Hoole, the translator of Taffo, has communicated to the late editor of Percy's Ballads, the following extract from the parish Register of Amwell, in Hertfordshire.

1608-1609-" Mafter William Warner, a man of good yeares and of honest reputation; by his profeffion an atturnye of the Common Pleas; author of Albion's England, diynge fuddenly in the night in his bedde, without any former complaynt or fickneffe, on Thursday night beeinge the 9th daye of March; was buried the Saturday following, and lyeth in the church at the corner under the ftone of Walter Ffader." Signed Tho. Haffall, Vicarius*.

This poet's great work was his "Albion's England," in 13 books, commonly fuppofed to be first printed in 1592, at Lond. by T. Orwin,

* Percy's Ballads, 4th edit. vol, ii. p. 239.

4to, in the Black Letter.* It is an epitome of the British History, and (according to the edi tor of "the Mufes Library"+) written with great learning, fenfe, and spirit; in fome places fine to an extraordinary degree, of which an inftance is given in the ftory of Argentile and Curan; a tale, which the critic calls, full of beautiful incidents in the romantic tafte, extremely affecting, rich in ornament, wonderfully various in style; and in fhort one of the moft beautiful paftorals to be met with. To which opinion, Dr. Percy adds, nothing can be objected, unless perhaps an affected quaintness in fome of his expreffions, and an indelicacy in fome of his paftoral images.

Warner's cotemporaries ranked him on a level with Spenfer, and called him the Homer and Virgil of their age. But Percy remarks, that he rather refembled Ovid, whose Metamorphofis he feems to have taken for a model, having deduced a perpetual Poem from the Deluge down to the æra of Elizabeth, full of lively digreffions and entertaining epifodes. And though he is fometimes harsh, affected and obfcene, he often difplays a moft charming and pathetic fimplicity.

*Wart. Hift. Poet. III. p. 474. But it is entered in the Stationer's books, 7th Nov. 1586.-Ibid. † 1738, 8vo, by Mrs. Cooper. ‡ Percy's Ball, ut fupr.

Warner

Warner was numbered in his own time among the refiners of the English Tongue, which " by his pen" (fays Fr. Meres, in the fecond part of Wit's Academy,*) “ was much enriched and gorgeoufly invested in rare ornaments and refplendent habiliments."

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Warner was alfo a tranflator of Plautus, and wrote a novel or rather a fuite of ftories, much in the ftyle of the adventures of Heliodorus's Ethiopic Romance, dedicated to Lord Hunsdon, entitled "Syrinx, or a Seavenfold Historie, handled with varietie of pleafant and profitable, both comicall, and tragicall, argument, newly perufed and amended by the first author W. Warner. At London, printed by Thomas Purfoote, &c. 1597."+

ROBERT SOUTHWELL, a cotemporary of Warner, was defcended from the antient and honourable family of Southwell of Norfolk, and travelling abroad entered into the fociety of Jefuits. Some years afterwards, returning to his native country as an agent of Popery, he was taken and executed at London, 3d March, 1595.‡ He wrote, I. Epiftle of Comfort to thofe Catholics, who lye under restraint, Lond. 1595, 8vo. II. A Supplication to Q. Eliz. Book. I.-III. Epiftle

Fol. 280. edit. 1598. + Wart. Hift. Poet. III. p. 473. Warner's character in Headley's Select Beauties, vol. I. p. lxiv. Bibl. p. 683.

See alfo

Tann.

to

to his father to forfake the World,-8vo. and Lond. 1620, 8vo. IV. St. Peter's Compliment, with other poems, Lond. 1595, 4to. and 1620, 8vo. V. Mæoniæ: or certain excellent Poems and Spiritual Hymns: omitted in the last impres fion of Peter's Complaint, Lond. 1595, 4to. and 1620, 8vo. VI. Mary Magdalene's Tears, Ibid. Triumphs over Death: or a Confolatory Epiftle for Aflicted Minds in the affects of dying friends, Lond. 1595, 1596, 4to. published by John Truffell. This epiftle, in prose and verse, was written for the ufe of Thomas Howard, afterwards Earl of Suffolk, on the death of his fifter Marguret, Lond. 1620, 8vo. VII. Poemata Spiritualia, in English-De Myfteriis incarnationis Domini, &c.*

There is a moral charm, fays Headley,† in the little pieces of Southwell, that will prejudice most readers of feeling in their favour. Bolton, in his Hypercritica makes mention of him. "Never must be forgotten St. Peter's Complaint, and thofe other ferious Poems faid to be father Southwell's: the English whereof as it is most proper, so the sharpness and light of wit is very rare in them."

Tann. ut fupr. Wood's Ath. I. P, 334. † Select Beauties, II. p. 151.

George Whetstone, another cotemporary, already mentioned, p. 129, was author of "Seven Days Exercife, containing fo many Dif

courfes