of
the Fox and the Kid, a curious illustration of the popular discontent at
the negligence of the clergy, and the popular suspicions about the arts
of Roman intriguers, is told with great spirit, and with mingled humour
and pathos. There is of course a poem in honour of the great queen, who
was the goddess of their idolatry to all the wits and all the learned of
England, the "faire Eliza," and a compliment is paid to Leicester,

The worthy whom she loveth best,--
That first the White Bear to the stake did bring.

Two of them are avowedly burlesque imitations of rustic dialect and
banter, carried on with much spirit. One composition is a funeral
tribute to some unknown lady; another is a complaint of the neglect of
poets by the great. In three of the AEglogues he comes on a more serious
theme; they are vigorous satires on the loose living and greediness of
clergy forgetful of their charge, with strong invectives against foreign
corruption and against the wiles of the wolves and foxes of Rome, with
frequent allusions to passing incidents in the guerilla war with the
seminary priests, and with a warm eulogy on the faithfulness and wisdom
of Archbishop Grindal; whose name is disguised as old Algrind, and with
whom in his disgrace the poet is not afraid to confess deep sympathy.
They are, in a poetical form, part of that manifold and varied system of
Puritan aggression on the established ecclesiastical order of England,
which went through the whole scale from the "Admonition to Parliament,"
and the lectures of Cartwright and Travers, to the libels of Martin
Mar-prelate: a system of attack which with all its injustice and
violence, and with all its mischievous purposes, found but too much
justification in the inefficiency and corruption of many both of the
bishops and clergy, and in the rapacious and selfish policy of the
government, forced to starve and cripple the public service, while great
men and favourites built up their fortunes out of the prodigal
indulgence of the Queen.

The collection of poems is thus a very miscellaneous one, and cannot be
said to be in its subjects inviting. The poet's system of composition,
also, has the disadvantage of being to a great degree unreal, forced and
unnatural. Departing from the precedent of Virgil and the Italians, but
perhaps copying the artificial Doric of the Alexandrians, he professes
to make his language and style suitable to the "ragged and rustical"