AN ENGLISH GARNER.*

MANY who were at school or at college when Mr. Arber was bringing out his series of cheap reprints still remember the anxiety with which they anticipated the appearance of some new master-piece, before unknown to most, except professed. students of English literature, but now brought within the reach of the most modest purse and the scantiest leisure. Many who were not altogether satisfied with the subjects in which alone they were instructed—those which " paid "—and could not conjure up all the interest in Greek and Latin or mathematics which it was, no doubt, their duty to feel, recognised that here was an intellectual field such as they had desired, where was the record of great things done, and great words spoken, and great thoughts imbedded like flies in amber, for the enjoyment and profit of posterity. Mr. Arbor has long changed his plan. Instead of publishing single works pamphlet-wise, he now garners into a volume a large store of pieces of, historical or literary interest, which forms a miscellany as delightful as one of the old museums that charmed us with their unexpected combinations and their quaint disorderliness, in the days before science seized the field of curiosity' as its own, and when, as yet, South Kensington was not.

In the two volumes before us, Mr. Arbor has scattered his gems with as liberal a hand as ever. Perhaps some pageant sweeps across the page. Now, it is Queen Mary?riding through her capital to her coronation and her joyless reign ; now, Queen Elizabeth, passing, under better auspices, on the same high errand, with a branch of rosemary in her coach, that a poor woman had handed to her with a petition ; now, James, with Queen Anne, "never leaving to bend her body this way and that," and Prince Henry, women and men weeping for joy,— why, it is difficult to say. Hero is a tale of national dishonour, -how Calais was lost under Queen Mary, because military administration was improvident and unready then, as it was, say, not more than a generation ago ; a tale which is here told circumstantially, as the news must have come day by day to the ears of our ancestors, of the possible risk, of the imminent danger, of the fallen blow. Then comes a very different picture,— of how Drake and Hawkins, and others who deserve a niche in the Temple of Fame beside them, faced the perils of the deep, and the yet more fearful Perils of unknown lands, to wrest from the Spaniards the command of the sea, and the wealth by means of which the judicial murderer of Egmont and Horn sought to impose his most cruel yoke and that of the Inquisition on the whole of Western Europe. Or we are introduced to a Puritan writer, who anticipates Bun- yan, by setting forth the state of a Christian by an allegory (somewhat far-fetched and hard-driven) of a ship under sail. Here we have a series of songs set to music for " the most musical instrument, the lute," which, doubtless, echoed through many a lady's chamber, in the days when England was musical, and the life of the great was spent in a courtly splendour which survives only on the canvas of a Vandyke. Perhaps some may think that a good many Elizabethan sonnets and mad- * An English Garner : In gatherings from our History and Literature. By Edward Arbor, F.S•A., &o. Vols, IV. and V. Birmingham : Published by tho Author,

rigals and canzonets, and so forth, might as well be left to the dust and the worms ; but verse like the following, with its ear-taking rhythm, must have been worth the while to listen to, when snug by some noble lover, " with ravishing division, to his lute " or rebeck

" Shall I sue ? Shall I seek for grace ? Shall I pray ? Shall I prove ? Shall I strive to a heaveisly joy, With an earthly love ?

4 Shall I think that a bleeding heart,

Or a wounded eye, Or a sigh, can ascend the clouds, To attain so high ?

Billy wretch ! Forsake these dreams Of a vain Desire !

0 bethink what high regard Holy hopes do require ! Favour is as fair as things are!

Treasure is not bought! Favour is not won with words, Nor the wish of a thought."

Other poems which Mr. Arber reprints for us are of stronger stuff. For instance, the fine didactic poem, entitled " Nosce teipsum," reminds us now of Marvel, and now of Dryden, in its

grave and stately sententiousness :-

"Skill comes so slow ! and life so fast doth fly ! We learn so little, and forget so much.

We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pass both tropics, and behold both poles, When wo come home are to ourselves unknown, And unacquainted still with our own souls.

And yet good scents do purify the brain, Awake the fancy, and the wits reline. Hence, Old Devotion incense did ordain,

To make men's spirits more apt for dralughts divine."

The work of Wither's, reprinted in Vol. IV., gives, with its anti- cipation of many later poets, a vivid idea, of the fertility of the writer's fancy, and of the width of his range. This little inscription is surely a masterpiece of a lost art :—

" Beneath this marble stone doth lie The subject of Death's tyranny ; A Mother, who, in this close tomb, Sleeps with the issue of her womb. Though cruelly inclined was he, And with the Fruit, shook down the Tree,

Yet was his cruelty in vain, For Tree and Fruit shall spring again !"

A selection like the present conveys a strong impression of the wonderful outburst of literary power in many kinds which accompan ied and followed on the Reformation movement. Earlier prose writers have some great qualities, but they are stiff and hampered, like a knight in an untried coat of mail. Here, on the contrary, we find writers on many subjects able to wield their pens with force and ease, so that, for instance, the sailor just returned from a piratical trip to the Spanish Main tells the tale of his trials and his triumphs with a vigour, a racy humour, and a narrative power which no later discoverers have surpassed. There is a marked advance, both in style and • in a scientific way of looking at things, between Sir Thomas Elyot and Sir Thomas Overbury, the latter of whom is better known as the hero of a dark and still mysterious tragedy, than as a statesman and thoughtful student of contemporary polities. Some of Overloury's remarks are singularly interest- ing, and his predictions—a rare fortune—were justified by the event. For instance, he writes in 1609 :— " ' If the Spaniards were entirely beaten out of those parts [the Netherlands], the Kings of France and England would take as much pains to suppress as ever they did to raise them.' He has noticed the French capacity of assimilating neighbouring peoples ;—' That which hath made them, at this time, so largely great at home, is their adopting into themselves the lesser adjoining nations, without destruction or leaving any mark of strangeness upon them,---as the Bretons, Glascons, Proveneals, and others which are not French. Towards which unions, their nature, which is easy and harborons to strangers, !lath done more than any laws could have effected, but with long time." Germany,' he holds, if it were entirely subject

• to one monarchy, would be terrible to all the rest ;' "

—a prediction the truth of which has been verified only in our own time. This remark, too, time has partly refuted and

partly justified England, being an island, is hard to be in- vaded, abounds with men, but wants money to employ them. For their particular weakness, Spain is to be kept busy in the Low Countries, France to be afflicted with the Protestants, and England, in, Ireland." It is curious to note how coolly Overbury enumerates "dead pays " among the advantages of French provincial governors, and how well he hits off the national character. But a few years ago, his words were absolutely true

• • of the French nation; nay, it may be that even now they are, as in 1609, "impatient of peace any longer than while they are in recovering the ruins of war." Another example of the per- sisteuce of national characteristics.is to be found in the account of the taking of Dunkirk by the English in 1658. Marshal Turenne, hearing a great shout, and asking the cause, is told that "it was a usual custom of the redcoats, when they saw the enemy, to rejoice." At the assault on Ypres, the redcoats

cried " Shall we fall on in order, or happy-golucky 14" A cynic might suggest that this " happy-go-lucky " principle has, in. more recent years, round favour in the higher • ranks of the

English Army.

We have dipped into these volumes almost at random, and they contain Much that will interest everybody. We cannot help thinking it a pity that Mr. Arber has inserted his notes

in the text, instead of at the foot of the page ; and we notice a few trifling inaccuracies, For instance, "Redriffe" is not Ratcliffe, as it is repeatedly explained here, but Rotherliithe. In conclusion,, let us hear an amusing tale by Fox, the martyr- ologist, (0 stplum?, I) of an incident of Princess (afterwards Queen) Elizabeth's imprisonment at Woodstock :— "Occasion here moveth or rather enforceth me to touch briefly what happened in the same place and time by a certain merry, conceited man, being then about her Grace. Who (noting the strait and strange keeping of his lady and mistress by the said Sir Henry Bedingflold, with so many locks and doors, with such watch and ward about her, as was strange and wonderful), spied a goat in the ward where her Grace was ; and (whether to refresh her oppressed mind, or to notify her strait handling by Sir Henry, or else both), ho took it up on his neck, and followed her Grace therewith, as she was going to her lodging. Who, when she saw it, asked him ' What he would do with him ? ' willing him to let it alone. Unto whom the said party answered, 'No, by Saint Mary 1 if it like your Grace 1 will I not ! Fur I cannot tall whether he be one of the Queen's friends or Lot. I will, God willing! carry him to Sir Henry Bedingfrald, to kilo* what ho is.' So, leaving her Grace, went, with the goat on his neck, and carried it to Sir II. Bedingfiekl, who, when he saw him coming with it, asked him, half-angrily, What ho had there Unto whom the party answered, saying, Sir, I cannot tell' what he is. I pray you, examine him, for I found him in the place where my Lady's Grace was walking, and what talk they had . I cannot tell. For I understand him not, but ho should seem to me to be some stranger ; and I think verily a Welshman,.for ho bath a white frieze coat on his back. And forasmuch as I, being the Queen's subject, and perceiving the strait charge committed to, you of her keeping, that no stranger should have access to her without sufficient licence, I have here found a stranger (what he is, I cannot toll) in the place where her Grace was walking, and therefore, for the necessary discharge of my duty, I thought it good to bring the said stranger to you, to examine, as you see cause.' And so he set him down. At which his words, Sir II. %dine/aid seemed much displeased, and said, Well, well ! you will never leave this gea.r, I see!' And so they departed."

We will end. with one more poetical quotation, the envoi of a speech with which "an old man with a white beard, at the age of seventy-nine," was to salute King James, at his passage through "Gratious Street " :— " 'And so pass in ! God guide thee on thy way !' Old Hind concludes, having no more to say."

If only Hind's maxim could be imprinted. on the doors of the House of Commons, and on the hearts of its Members