that is great and ennobling in public spirit. Among her number less foibles, the most remarkable was that of being known to her contemporaries, and to posterity, by the title of "the VirginQueen.' It was to flatter this weakness of his mistress, that Sir Walter Raleigh named the newly-discovered country VIRGINIA. Spenser's Dedication to her of the first edition of the Fairy Queen is too curious to be withheld from the reader, especially as, for reasons which now can be only conjectured, this dedication was altered in the subsequent edition. It runs as follows:

"TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY

ELIZABETH,

BY THE GRACE OF GOD, QUEEN OF ENGLAND,
FRANCE AND IRELAND,
And of Virginia,

HER MOST HUMBLE SERVANT,
EDMUND SPENSER,

DOTH IN ALL HUMILITY,

DEDICATE THESE HIS LABOURS,

To live with the eternity of her fame."

This may be thought to form a curious anticlimax, but surely not more remarkable than the present regal title-King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and also of—Berwick upon Tweed. In canto the tenth of the Fairy Queen, mention is thus made of America:

"Who, then, can thee, Mercilla, thoroughly praise,

That herein dost all earthly princes pass?
What heavenly muse shall thy great honor raise
Up to the skies, whence first deriv'd it was,
And now on earth itself enlarged has,
From th' utmost brink of the Americ shore

Unto the margent of the Moluccas?

Those nations far thy justice do adere,

But thine own people do thy mercy praise much more."

We have here a just and well-turned compliment both to Elizabeth and to Spenser's friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, to whose kind offices the poet had, during the season of his distress, been deeply indebted.

1599. From Spenser we turn to another poet of the same period, whose name is not so familiar in the mouths of men as it deserves to be. Michael Drayton is a genius, if not of the loftiest, at least of the most pleasing order; there is scarcely any kind of composition, from the sonnet to the domestic epic, which he has not attempted, and with success. His "Polyolbion" stands an indestructible monument of his learning, taste and invention. His sonnets are some of the sweetest and most characteristic compositions of the Elizabethan era, and his "Muses' Elysium," or pastoral pieces, exhibits a play of fancy, and a command of language and

of rhythm, unsurpassed in our mother tongue. Joined to these qualities is another, very rarely to be found in the poetry of this period we mean humor, a native vein of which runs through all his compositions. It even stole into his more serious pieces; for instance, in one of his elegies he has the following lines:

"A tender-hearted man, like me, may spend

Some pious drops for a deceased friend;

Some men, perhaps, their wives' late death may rue,

Or wives their husbands'-but the number 's few."

We are led to hope that some lover of the good old school of our poetry will revive a portion, at least, of the works of this delightful writer; we know not of any one of our elder poets over whose palingenesis we should more sincerely rejoice.

There are two of this writer's poems that have a reference to our country, and which we have selected for the present occasion. With respect to the subject of the second, we would state, for the information of those not acquainted with the fact, that Sandys completed his translation of Ovid in Virginia, whence he dates his dedication to Charles the First. In a second article, which we contemplate, on America and the early English prose-writers, we purpose to give this, with other curious articles.

66 THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE.

You brave heroic minds,

Worthy your country's name,

That honour still pursue;

While loitering hinds

Lurk here at home with shame

Go, and subdue.

Britons, you stay too long;

Quickly abroad bestow you,

And with a merry gale

Swell your stretch'd sail,

With vows as strong

As the winds that blow you.

And cheerfully to see,

Success should still entice

To get the pearl and gold,
And ours to hold,

Virginia,

Earth's only paradise.

Where nature hath in store

Fowl, venison, and fish;

And the fruitfullest soil
Without your toil-

Three harvests more,

And greater than your wish.

My worthy George, by industry and use,
Let's see what lines Virginia will produce:
Go on with Ovid, as you have begun
With the first five books; let your numbers run
Glib as the former-so shall it live long,
And do much honor to the English tongue.
Entice the muses thither to repair;

Entreat them gently, train them to that air;

For they from hence may thither hap to fly,
Towards the sad time which but too fast doth hie;
For poesy is follow'd with such spite

By grovelling drones that never reach'd her height,
That she must hence; she may no longer stay:
The dreary Fates prefixed have the day
Of her departure, which is now come on,
And they command her straightways to be gone.
That bestial herd so hotly her pursue,

And to her succour come so very few-
Nay, none at all, her wrongs that will redress-
That she must wander in the wilderness,

Like to the woman, whom the holy John
Beheld in Patmos in his vision.

As th' English now, so did the stiff-neck'd Jews,
Their noble prophets utterly refuse;

And of those men such poor opinion had,

They thought Isaiah and Ezekiel mad;
When Jeremy his lamentations writ,

They thought the wizard quite out of his wit:
Such sots they were, as worthily to lie
Lock'd in the chains of their captivity;
Knowledge had still an eddy in her flow-

So it hath been, and will be ever so.

That famous Greece, where learning flourish'd most,
Hath of her Muses long since ceas'd to boast;
Th' unletter'd Turk and rude Barbarian trades

Where Homer sung his lofty Iliads;

And this vast volume of the world hath taught,
Much may in little time to pass be brought.

And, if to symptoms we may credit give,
This very time, wherein we now two live,
Shall, in the compass, wound the Muses more
Than all th' old English ignorance before.
Base balladry is so belov'd and sought,
That those brave numbers are put by for nought,
Which, rarely read, were able to awake

Forms from the grave, and to the ground to shake
The wandering clouds; and to our men-at-arms,
'Gainst pikes and muskets were most pow'rful charms.

But well I know ensuing ages shall
Raise her again, who now is in her fall;
And out of dust reclaim our scatter'd rhymes-
Jewels rejected by these slothful times.

If you vouchsafe rescription, blend your quill
With nature's bounties, and impart your skill
In the description of the place, that
May become learned in the soil thereby;
Of noble Wyat's health, pray let me hear,
The governor; and how the people there
Increase and labour; what supplies are sent-
All which I own will give me much content.
But you may save your labour, if you please
To write me aught of those your savages;
For savage slaves be in Great Britain here,
As any one that you can show me there.
But though for this I say I do not thirst,
Yet should I like it well to be the first
Whose numbers have into Virginia flew:
So, noble Sandys, for this time, adieu!"

Daniel, in that charming and highly philosophic poem, Musophilus, has the following prophetic lines:

"And who knows whither may, in time, be sent

The treasures of our tongue? To what strange shores

This gain of our best glory may be lent

T'enrich unknowing nations with our stores?

What worlds in the yet unform'd occident,

May 'come refin'd with accents that are ours."

This burst of patriotic pride, in which the poet indulged, in anticipation of the future spread of a language, which his even too much neglected works contributed greatly to improve and adorn, was no vision of the fancy, but destined to be realized to the very letter. "The treasures of our tongue," have been spread, not only to the "strange shores" of "unknowing nations" of the East, but have penetrated to the farthest limits of the now not "unformed occident." The language of Daniel is heard and spoken from one extremity to the other of our Western Hemisphere; indeed, it may triumphantly be said, that the sun now sets upon the wide-spread. regions in which that language prevails, and this is one of those triumphs unalloyed by any admixture of party-feeling; it awakens a responsive feeling in every American as in every British bosom.

1620. We now touch at that epoch so interesting to every American heart-the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers; we hail the arrival, on the shores of the New World, of the little band of fugitives from the religious persecutions of the Old. It is highly inte