Page:Barnfield's Poems.djvu/169

Rh 10.

GEORGE VILLIERS,

Second Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

The Rehearsal.

1671.

The Rehearsal, as it was Acted at the Theatre Royal.

Many of the passages of anterior plays that were parodied in this famous Dramatic Satire on Dryden in the character of BAYES, are placed on opposite pages to the text. Brian Fairfax's remarkable life of this Duke of Buckingham is also prefixed to the play.

The Heroic Plays, first introduced by Sir W. D'Avenant, and afterwards greatly developed by Dryden, are the object of this laughable attack. Lacy, who acted the part of Bayes, imitated the dress and gesticulation of Dryden. The Poet repaid this compliment to the Duke of Buckingham, in 1681, by introducing him in the character of ZIMRI in his ABSOLOM and ACHITOPHEL.

11.

GEORGE GASCOIGNE,

Soldier and Poet.

The Steel Glass, &c.

1576.

(a) A Remembraunce of the wel imployed life, and godly end, of George Gaskoigne, Esquire, whodeceassed at Stalmford in Lincolnshire, the 7 of October, 1577. The reporte of Geor. Whetstons, Gent., [1577.]

There is only one copy of this metrical Life. It is in the Bodleian Library.

(b) Certayne notes of instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English. 1575.

This is our First printed piece of Poetical Criticism.

(c) The Steele Glas.

Written in Blank Verse. Probably the fourth printed English Satire: those by Barclay, Roy, and Sir T. Wyatt 1 being the three earlier ones.

(d) The Complaynt of Philomene. An Elegie. 1576.

12.

JOHN EARLE,

Afterwards Bishop of Salisbury

Microcosmographie.

1628.

Micro-cosmographie, or a Peece of the World discovered; in Essays and Characters.

This celebrated book of Characters is graphically descriptive of the English social life of the time, as it presented itself to a young Fellow of Merton College, Oxford; including A She precise Hypocrite, A Sceptic in Religion, A good old man, &c.

This Work is a notable specimen of a considerable class of books in our Literature, full of interest; and which help Posterity much better to understand the Times in which they were written.