L3 13 6

A MENDICANT AUTHOR,

AND THE PATRONS OF FORMER TIMES.

It must be confessed, that before "Authors by Profession" had
fallen into the hands of the booksellers, they endured peculiar
grievances. They were pitiable retainers of some great family.
The miseries of such an author, and the insolence and penuriousness of
his patrons, who would not return the poetry they liked and would not
pay for, may be traced in the eventful life of THOMAS CHURCHYARD, a
poet of the age of Elizabeth, one of those unfortunate men who have
written poetry all their days, and lived a long life to complete
the misfortune. His muse was so fertile, that his works pass all
enumeration. He courted numerous patrons, who valued the poetry,
while they left the poet to his own miserable contemplations. In a
long catalogue of his works, which this poet has himself given, he
adds a few memoranda, as he proceeds, a little ludicrous, but very
melancholy. He wrote a book which he could never afterwards
recover from one of his patrons, and adds, "all which book was in as
good verse as ever I made; an honourable knight dwelling in the
Black Friers can witness the same, because I read it unto him."
Another accorded him the same remuneration--on which he adds, "An
infinite number of other songs and sonnets given where they cannot
be recovered, nor purchase any favour when they are craved." Still,
however, he announces "Twelve long Tales for Christmas, dedicated to
twelve honourable lords." Well might Churchyard write his own sad
life, under the title of "The Tragicall Discourse of the Haplesse
Man's Life."[20]

It will not be easy to parallel this pathetic description of the
wretched age of a poor neglected poet mourning over a youth vainly
spent.

High time it is to haste my carcase hence:
Youth stole away and felt no kind of joy,
And age he left in travail ever since;
The wanton days that made me nice and coy
Were but a dream, a shadow, and a toy--

I look in glass, and find my cheeks so lean
That every hour I do but wish me dead;
Now back bends down, and forwards falls the head,
And hollow eyes in wrinkled brow doth shroud
As though two stars were creeping under cloud.

The lips wax cold, and look both pale and thin,
The teeth fall out as nutts forsook the shell,
The bare bald head but shows where hair hath been,
The lively joints wax weary, stiff, and still,
The ready tongue now falters in his