1s08.] Extracts from the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
Then dazzled eyes with pride which great 
ambition blinds, 
Shall be unseeled by worthy wights, whose 
falsehood Foresight finds. 
The daughter of Debate, that else discord 
doth sow, 
Shall reep no gain where former rule hath 
taught peace still to grow, 
No foreign banished wight shall anchor in 
this port 5 
Our tealm it brooks no strangers force, let 
them elsewhere resort. 
Our rusty sword with rest shall first his 
edge employ, 
To poll their tops that seck such “change, 
and Yape for lawless joy. 
ESSEX, 
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, is re~ 
corded among the noble authors of Eng- 
land, tor no * ather reason than Coxeter 
having seen one of Ovid’s Epistles trans- 
Jated by him. This has been lost, and 
if it could be recévered, would only be 
valued as a curiosity. _ A few of his son- 
nets are in. the Ashmolean Museum, 
which have no marks of poetic genius. 
He is a vigorous and elegant writer of 
prose. But if Essex was no poet, few 
uoblemen of his age were more courted, 
by poets. From Spenser to the lowest 
rhymer, he was the subject of numerous 
sonnets, or popular ballads. Even Syd- 
ney cannot be excepted. Evidence might 
be produced to prove, that he scarcely 
ever went out of England, or even left 
London, on the SOE frivaloirs enter- 
prize, without a pastoral in his praise, 
or a panegyric in metre, which were 
sold and sung in the streets. Having in- 
terested himself in the fashionable poetry : 
of the times, he was placed high in the 
ideal Arcadia then just established. And 
among other instances which might be 
adduced—on his return from Portugal, 
in 1589, he was complimented with a 
poem, called “ An Egloge gratulatorie, 
intituled to the Right Honorable and 
renowned Shepherd of Albion’s Arcadia, 
Robert Earl of Essex, and for his returne 
lately into England.” This is a hght in 
which Lord Essex is seldom viewed.— 
It may be auestioned, if the Queen’s 
fatal partiality, or his own inherent at- 
traction, his love of literature, his he- 
roism, integrity, and generosity—quali- 
ties which abunrlantly overbalance his 
pressmption, his ranity, and impetuo- 
sity—had the greatest share in dictating 
these praises. If adulation were any 
where justifiable, it must be when paid 
to the man who endeavoured to save 
Spenser from starving in the streets of 
Dublin, and who buried him in West- 
Montaty Mac. No. 171. 
343 
minster Abbey, with becoming solemnity. 
Spenser was persecuted by Burleigh, hes 
cause le was patronized by Essex, 
BRITISH MERCHANTS. 
At the time when Louis XIV. made alk 
Italy tremble, and his armies, which had 
already possessed themselves of Savoy 
and Piedmont, were upon the point of 
taking Turia, Prince Eugene was com- 
pelled to march from the centre of Ger- 
many, in order to succour Savoy.— 
Having no money, without which cities | 
cannot be either taken or defended, he 
addressed himself to some English mer- 
chants, who; aé. an hour and a half’s 
warning, lent him 160,000]. By this, he 
was enabled.to deliver Turin, and to de- 
feat the French=-after which, he wrote 
the following short letter to the persons 
who had disbursed him the above-men- 
tioned sum:—“* Gentlemen, I have re- 
received your money, and es myself, 
that I have laid it out to your sutiface 
tion.”—4Such a circumstance as inte may 
raise a just pride in every British mer- 
chant-——and permit him to compare him- 
self to a citizen of Rome in its best days, 
This also reminds us of an anecdote, 
which is told of some merchants at 
Augsburg, in Germany, named Fuggers, 
who were very illustrious by their libe- 
rality to men of letters, and who could 
raise more money, it is said, than any 
Prince in Europe. To testify ‘their gra- 
titude to the Emperor Charles V. who 
had done them the bonour to lodge in 
their house, when he passed through 
Augsburg; they one day, among other 
acts of magnificence, laid upon the 
hearth a large’ bundle of cinnamon, a 
merchandize then (about the fear 1528) 
of great price; and lighted it with a note 
of hand of the Emperor for a very con- 
siderable sum, which they had lent him. 
This, it must be acknowledged, was a 
liberal way of discharging their imperial 
debtor.—See Bayle, art. Fugger. 
FREEMASONS. 
The society known by the name of 
‘Freemasons, is so called because they 
who first established it understood build- 
ing and masonry; or perhaps the first 
principles of it were laid down by masons. 
But, whatever may have been their ori- 
gin, they are now very numerous, and 
there is scarcely any country where there 
are not Freemasons. They trace their 
origin from the building of Solomon’s 
Temple; and this, of ‘all the circum 
stances which relate to their society, 15 
the only thing they are permitted to com- 
municate. 
at Notwithstanding 
‘ 
