and, among his "Songs," these with the initial lines
"Queene and huntresse, chaste and faire;"
"Still to be neat, still to be drest;"
are striking proofs of these excellencies.
We must also remark that, among his "Epistles" and "Miscellaneous Pieces," there are discoverable a few very conspicuous examples of the union of correct and nervous sentiment with singular force and dignity of elocution. Of this happy combination, the Lines to the Memory of Shakspeare, an eulogium which will claim our attention in a future page, may be quoted as a brilliant model.
23. Lodge, Thomas, M. D. This gentleman, though possessing celebrity, in his day, as a physician, is chiefly entitled to the attention of posterity as a poet. He was a native of Lincolnshire, and born about 1556; educated at Oxford, of which he became a member about 1573, and died of the plague at London, in September 1625. He has the double honour of being the first who published, in our language, a Collection of Satires, so named, and of having suggested to Shakspeare the plot of his As You Like It. Philips, in his Theatrum Poetarum, characterises him as "one of the writers of those pretty old pastoral songs, which were very much the strain of those times[632:A];" but has strangely overlooked his satirical powers; these, however, have been noticed by Meres, who remarks, that "as Horace, Lucilius, Juvenal, Persius and Lucullus are the best for Satyre among the Latins, so with us in the same faculty, these are chiefe: Piers Plowman, Lodge, Hall of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge, the author of Pigmalion's Image," &c.[632:B] The work which gives him precedence, as a writer of professed satires, is entitled "A Fig for Momus; containing pleasant Varietie, included in Satyrs, Eclogues, and Epistles, by T. L. of Lincolnes Inne, Gent." 1595.[632:C] It is dedicated to "William, Earle of Darbie," and though published two years before the appearance of Hall's Satires, possesses a spirit, ease and harmony, which that more celebrated poet has not surpassed. Than the following lines, selected from the first satire, we know few which, in the same department, can establish a better claim to vigour, truth, and melody:—
"All men are willing with the world to haulte,
But no man takes delight to knowe his faulte—
Tell bleer-eid Linus that his sight is cleere,
Heele pawne himselfe to buy thee bread and beere;—