This title is inclosed by a deep mosaic border, and the work is dedicated to " her high Maiestie" in the following lines:

"Wits rich triumph, Wisdomes glorie,

Arts Chronicle, Learnings storie,

Towre of goodnes, vertue, bewtie :
Forgive me, that presume to lay
My labours in cleere eies ray:

your

This boldnes springs fro' faith, zeal, dewtie.

Her hand, her lap, her vestures hem,
Muse touch not for polluting them,
All that is hers is pure, cleere, holie,
Before her footstoole humble lie,

So may she blesse thee with her eie,
.The Sunne shines not on good things solie.

Oliue of peace, Angell of pleasure,

What line of praise can your worth measure? Calme sea of blisse which no shore boundeth,

Fame fils the world no more with lies,

But busied in your

histories

Her trumpet those true wonders soundeth:

O Fame, say all the good thou maist,

Too little is that all thou saist,

What

What if her selfe he selfe commended?
Should we then know nere known before,
Whether her wit, or worth were more?

Ah no! that booke would nere be ended:

"Your Maiesties humble subiect

"EDWARD FAIREFAX."

A specimen of his prose :-"Heroicall Poetrie (as a liuing Creature, wherein two natures are conioined) is compounded of Imitation and Allegorie: with the one she allureth vnto to her the mindes and eares of men, and maruellously delighteth them; with the other, either in vertue or knowledge, she instructeth them. And as the Heroically written Imitation of an Other, is nothing else, but the patterne and image of humane action so the Allegorie of an Heroicall Poeme is none other than the glasse and figure of Humane life."

"To the most noble, Judicious, and my best beloved Lord, William Earl of Pembroke; the most honourable Sir Robert Sidney Knight, Lord Governor of Vlishing; and the right, right worshipful Edward Herbert of Mountgomery Esquire, my most honoured and respected friends.

"To sub-divide Souls indivisible,

(Being wholly in the whole, and in each part) For me were more than most impossible, Though I were Art itself, or more than Art;

Yet must I make my Soul a Trinity,

So to divide the same, between you

three;

For Understanding, Will, and Memory,
Makes but one Soul, yet they three Virtues be.
The Understanding being first, I give

Unto the first; (for Order so doth crave)
And Will (Good will) the second shall receive.
Then Memory the last shall ever have.
And as I part my Soul, my Book I part
Betwixt you three, that shares my broken
heart."

Such was the quaint, whimsical, silly, yet energetical, dedication, which John Davys prefixed to his "Mirum in modum: A glimpse of God's Glory and the Soul's shape, 1602." This gentleman was a native of Hereford.

"The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. Neuer before in any languag truely translated with a co'ment uppon some of his chiefe places; Donne according to the Greeke by George Chapman.”

This gentleman complimented Henry Prince of Wales in a poetical Epistle Dedicatorie, gives an Anagram on the name of his gracious and sacred Mæcenas, addressed, Anne Queen of England, then the Reader in verse, and in prose speaks of "Faults escaped," and begins,—

"Achilles

"Achilles banefull wrath resound, O Goddesse,

that impos'd,

Infinite sorrowes on the Greekes; and many braue soules losd

From breasts Heroique: sent them farre, to that inuisible caue

That no light comforts: & their lims, to dogs and vultures gaue.

To all which, Ioues will gaue effect; from whom, first strife begunne,

Betwixt Atrides, king of men; and Thetis godlike Sonne."

The frontispiece to the Odyssy translated by the same author is a spirited etching, which would be considered excellent if just executed; that to the Iliad, engraved by William Hole, is very much inferior.

"Troia Britanica: or Great Britaines Troy. A poem deuided into xvii. seurall Cantons, intermixed with many pleasant Poeticall Tales. Concluding with an Vniuersall Chronicle from the Creation, untill these present Times. Written by Tho. Heywood. 1609."

The emblems cut in wood and placed under the above title are extremely curious. The Epistle Dedicatory is in verse, and very flattering to Edward Earl of Worcester.

"Homer

"Homer (long since) a Chronicler Diuine,
And Virgill, haue redeemd olde Troy from fire,
Whose memory had with her buildings line
In desolate ruyne, had not theyr desire

Snacht her fayre Tytle from the burning flame,
Which with the Towne had else consumde her

name.

Had they surviude in these our flourishing daies, Your vertues from the auncient Heroes drawne, In spight of death or black obliuions rage, Should liue for euer in Fames glorious fawne, Rankt next to Troy, our Troy-nouant should be, And next the Troyan Peeres, your places free."

"The fauorable and gracious reader I salute, with a submisse Conge both of heart and knee:" says Mr. Heywood, "To the two-fold Readers: The Courteous and the Criticke."-"To the scornefull, I owe not so much as an hypocriticall intreat, or a dissembled curtesie. I am not so vnexperienced in the enuy of this Age, but that I knowe I shall encounter most sharpe, and seuere Censurers, such as continually carpe at other mens labours, and superficially pervsing them, with a kind of negligence and skorne, quote them by the way, Thus: This is an Error, that was too much streacht, this too slightly neglected, heere many

things