Was reckoning with his friends about the cost
And charge of every rail and every post:

But he that wished his greedy humour crost

Said, Sir, provide you posts, and, without failing,
Your neighbours round about will find you railing.'

There is sly pungency in this, 'On a Drunken Smith:'

I heard that Smug the smith for ale and spice
Sold all his tools, and yet he kept his vice.

Included among his works is this somewhat diverting anecdote of A Precise Tailor :'

A tailor, a man of an upright dealing,
True but for lying, honest but for stealing,
Did fall one day extremely sick by chance,
And on a sudden was in wondrous trance.
The fiends of hell, mustering in fearful manner,
Of sundry-coloured silks displayed a banner,
Which he had stol'n, and wished, as they did tell,
That one day he might find it all in hell.
The man, affrighted at this apparition,
Upon discovery grew a great precisian.
He bought a Bible of the new translation,
And in his life he showed great reformation.
He walked mannerly and talked meekly;

He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly.
He vowed to shun all companies unruly,
And in his speech he used no oath but truly,'
And, zealously to keep the Sabbath's rest,
His meat for that day on the even was dressed.
And lest the custom that he had to steal
Might cause him sometime to forget his zeal,
He gives his journeyman a special charge
That, if the stuff allowed fell out too large,
And that to filch his fingers were inclined,
He then should put the banner in his mind.
This done, I scant the rest can tell for laughter.
A captain of a ship came three days after,

And brought three yards of velvet and three-quarters,
To make Venetians down below the garters.

He, that precisely knew what was enough,
Soon slipped away three-quarters of the stuff.
His man, espying it, said in derision,

'Remember, master, how you saw the vision !'
'Peace, knave,' quoth he; 'I did not see one rag
Of such-a-coloured silk in all the flag.'

Sir Walter Raleigh's claim to mention here is founded on his verses called The Lie,' which have considerable pithiness and force.* The writer therein bids his soul go forth and give the world the lie in this way:

Say to the court, it glows

And shines like rotten wood;

Say to the church, it shows

What's good, and doth no good;
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie. . . .

Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate;

And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust;

And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles

To tickle points of niceness;

* This composition is sometimes attributed to Sylvester, but is ascribed to Raleigh by Dr. Hannah, in his careful edition of that writer's poems (1875). The balance of evidence is certainly in Raleigh's favour. The poet was born in 1552, and died in 1618. His works were published in 1751 and 1829.

Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness;
And when they do reply,

Straight give them both the lie.

The fault of the piece is its monotony of style and motive, which makes it pall upon the reader. There is some vigour in this trifling epitaph on the Earl of Leicester:

Here lies the noble warrior that never blunted sword;
Here lies the noble courtier that never kept his word;
Here lies his excellency that governed all the state;
Here lies the Lord of Leicester that all the world did hate.

Nicholas Breton, who died six years after Raleigh, was a prolific writer; but few of his works-the works of a young wit,' as he described them-have come down to posterity. A few of them figure in collections, but they are always the same pieces, and they are rarely of first-ratequality. He is best known by his Farewell to Town,^ each stanza of which concludes with a fairly happy strokeof humour. For example:

Thou gallant court, to thee farewell!

For froward fortune me denies

Now longer near to thee to dwell.

I must go live, I wot not where,
Nor how to live when I come there.

And next, adieu, you gallant dames,

The chief of noble youth's delight;
Untoward fortune now so frames

That I am banished from your sight;
And in your stead, against my will,

I must go live with country Gill.

And now, farewell, thou gallant lute,

With instruments of music's sounds!

Recorder, cittern, harp, and flute,

And heavenly descants on sweet grounds;

I now must leave you all, indeed,
And make some music on a reed! . .

And now, farewell, both spear and shield,
Caliver, pistol, arquebuss;

See, see, what sighs my heart doth yield,
To think that I must leave you thus;
And lay aside my rapier blade,
And take in hand a ditching spade!

And now, farewell, each dainty dish,
With sundry sorts of sugared wine;
Farewell, I say, fine flesh and fish,

To please this dainty mouth of mine;

I now, alas, must leave all these,

And make good cheer with bread and cheese! ...

And, farewell, all gay garments now,

With jewels rich, of rare device;

Like Robin Hood, I wot not how,

I must go range in woodman's wise;
Clad in a coat of green or gray,
And glad to get it if I may.

Drayton's best work, of course, is to be found in his Polyolbion and England's Heroical Epistles*-poems which are full of a sonorous eloquence. Some of his lesser poems are, however, marked by an agreeable fancy, which now and then takes quite a witty tinge, as in Nymphidia, where the chariot of Queen Mab is described in terms that remind one irresistibly of Mercutio's famous lines on the same subject:

Her chariot ready straight is made,
Each thing therein is fitting laid,

That she by nothing might be stayed,

For nought must be her letting;

Four nimble gnats the horses were,
Their harnesses of gossamer,

Fly Crainon her charioteer,

Upon the coach-box getting.

* Published respectively in or about 1612-22 and 1595. Nymphidia was printed in 1627. Drayton was born in 1563, and died in 1631. His works were collected in 1752.

Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
Which for the colours did excel,
The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning;
The seat the soft wool of the bee,
The cover (gallantly to see)
The wing of a pied butterflee;

I trow 'twas simple trimming.

The wheels composed of crickets' bones,
And daintily made for the nonce;
For fear of rattling on the stones
With thistle-down they shod it;

For all her maidens much did fear,

If Oberon had chanced to hear

That Mab his queen should have been there,
He would not have abode it.

She mounts her chariot with a trice,
Nor would she stay for no advice,

Until her maids, that were so nice,

To wait on her were fitted;

But ran away herself alone,

Which, when they heard, there was not one
But hasted after to be gone,

As she had been diswitted.

Hop and Mop, and Drab so clear,
Pip and Trip, and Skip, that were
To Mab, their sovereign, so dear,

Her special maids of honour;
Fib and Tib, and Pink and Pin,
Tick and Quick, and Jill and Jin,
Tit and Nit, and Wap and Win,
The train that wait upon her.

Though William Drummond did not die till thirty-three years after Shakespeare, he was thirty years old when Shakespeare died, and may therefore be described with justice as contemporary with him. Some of his sonnets will always be remembered; nor should it be forgotten that he