294 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



ions of Piers Ploughman ; " the works in prose and 

 verse of Sir Thomas Overbury ; the " Hymns and Songs" 

 and the " Hallehijah " of George Wither ; the j)oems of 

 Southwell ; Selden's " Table-Talk" ; the " Enchiridion" 

 of Quarles ; the dramatic works of Marston, Webster, and 

 Lilly ; Chapman's translation of Homer ; Lovelace, and 

 four volumes of ''Early English Poetry"! The vol- 

 ume of Mather is curious and entertaining, and fit to 

 stand on the same shelf with the " Magnalia " of his book- 

 suffocated son. Cunningham's comparatively recent 

 edition, we should think, might satisfy for a long time 

 to come the demand for Drummond, whose chief value 

 to posterity is as the Boswell of Ben Jonson. Sir 

 Thomas Overbury's " Characters " are interesting illus- 

 trations of contemporary manners, and a mine of foot- 

 notes to the works of better men, — but, with the ex- 

 ception of " The Fair and Happy ]\Iilkmaid," they are 

 dull enough to have pleased James the First ; his 

 " AVife " is a cento of far-fetched conceits, — here a tom- 

 tit, and there a hen mistaken for a pheasant, like the 

 contents of a cockney's game-bag, and his chief interest 

 for us lies in his having been mixed up with an inexpli- 

 cable tragedy and poisoned in the Tower, not without 

 suspicion of royal complicity. The "Piers Ploughman " 

 is a reprint, with very little improvement that we can 

 discover, of Mr. Wright's former edition. It would have 

 been very well to have republished the " Fair Virtue," 

 and " Shepherd's Hunting " of George Wither, which 

 contain all the true poetry he ever wrote ; but we can 

 imagine nothing more dreary than the seven hundred 

 pages of his " Hymns and Songs," whose only use, that 

 we can conceive of, would be as penal reading for incor- 

 rigible poetasters. If a steady course of these did not 

 bring them out of their nonsenses, nothing short of 

 hanging would. Take this as a sample, hit on by open- 

 ing at random : — 



