Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/198

162 sonnets, till matrimony disposng of his mistress to another perlcn, he alfo married, as a remedy for his paffion. The lady who proved fo cruel to him, was, it feems, married to an old man ; for Alexander tells us that (he had matched her morn- Ib. Son. c. j n g t o one j n the evening of his age: that he himfelf would now change the myrtle tree for the laurel, and the bird of Ib. Son. cvi. Venus for that of Juno: that the torch of Hymen had burnt out the darts of Cupid ; and that he had thus fpent the fprins: of his aae, which his fummer muft redeem. He now T! f* Ji>. bon.x. remove d to the court of king James VI. where he applied himfelf to the more fo!i<J and ufeful fpecies of poetry : he endeavoured to form himfelf upon the plan of the ancient Greek and Roman tragedies, and accordingly we find a tra- gedy of his publifhed upon the ftory of Darius, at Edinburgh, in 1603. The year following it was reprinted at London, with fome verfes prefixed in praife of the author, by T. Mur- ray and Walter Quin : at the end of this edition are alfo added two poems of his, one congratulating his majefty upon his entry into England, the other upon the inundation of Doven, where the king ufed to recreate himfelf with the di- verfion of hawkino:. The fame vear his " Aurora" was crimed O ' ' in London, dedicated to Agnes Douglas countefs of Argyle ; and his " Parasneiis," to prince Henry. In this laft piece he gives many excellent inftruclions, and {hews that the happi- nefs of a prince depends on chuflng truly wofrthy, difintereft- ed, and public- fpirited counfellors : he fets forth how the lives of eminent men are to be read to the greatefl advantage : he lays open the characters of vicious kings, difplays the glory of martial atchievements, and hopes, if the prince fhould ever make an expedition to Spain, that he might at- tend him, and be his Homer to fing his ats there. In 1607, his dramatic performances, intituled " The Mo- narchic Tragedies," were publifhed, containing befides Da- rius already mentioned, Croefus, the Alexandrsan, and Julius Crawford's Caefar : they are dedicated to king James, in a poem of thir- Peerage of teen jft 2rz as; and his majefty is faid to have been pleafed Scotland. ., , , n i. i -i r i p. 463. With them, and to have called him his philoiophical poet. John Davies of Hereford, in his book of Epigrams, publifh- ed in 16 1 1, has one to our author, in praife of his tragedies ; in this he fays, that Alexander the Great had not gained more glory with his fword, than this Alexander had acquired by his pen. Michael Drayton (peaks of him too with gret Ibid. affedion and efteem. Not long after Alexander is faid to have wrote a fupplement to complete the ihird part of fir Philip Sidney's Aicadia. In 1613, he >VJ^e a poem called
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