The words in Italics which close this passage, were not at the time they were written correctly true, for Warner had then been a
subject of great and judicious praise, both to Mrs. Cooper and Dr. Percy; and, since the era of Scott, he has been imitated, re-edited, and liberally applauded. He is conjectured to have been a native of Warwickshire, to have been educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and to have left the University without a degree, for the purpose of cultivating his poetical genius in the metropolis. His Albion's England, on which his fame is founded, was first printed in 1586, when the poet was probably about eight and twenty. It underwent six subsequent editions during the author's life-time, namely, in 1589, 1592, 1596, 1597, 1602, and 1606.[659:A]
This extensive poetic history, which is deduced from the deluge to the reign of Elizabeth, is distributed into twelve books, and contains seventy-seven chapters; it is dedicated to Henry Cary, Lord Hunsdon, under whose patronage and protection Warner appears to have spent the latter portion of his life. Such was the popularity of "Albion's England," that it threw into the shade what had formerly been the favourite collection, the "Mirror for Magistrates;" Warner was ranked by his contemporaries, says Dr. Percy, on a level with Spenser; they were called the Homer and Virgil of their age[659:B]; and Meres, speaking of the English tongue, declares, that by his (Warner's) pen, it "was much enriched and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments and resplendent habiliments."[659:C] Less hyperbolical, and, therefore, more judicious praise, was allotted him by Drayton, who, after noticing his incorrectnesses, adds with a liberal spirit—
————————— "yet thus let me say
For my old friend, some passages there be
In him, which I protest have taken me
With almost wonder, so fine, so clear, and new,
As yet they have been equalled by few;"[659:D]
a decision which subsequent criticism has confirmed.
One of his most pleasing episodes, "Argentile and Curan," was inserted by Mrs. Cooper in her "Muses' Library," who justly terms it "a tale full of beautiful incidents, in the romantic taste, extremely affecting, rich in ornament, wonderfully various in stile, and, in short, one of the most beautiful pastorals I ever met with."[660:A] This was again republished by Percy in his "Reliques[660:B]," and finally honoured by Mason in the third volume of his Poems, 1796, where it forms a Legendary Drama in five acts, written on the old English model. Ritson, Headley, and Ellis, have furnished us with additional extracts, and at length Albion's England has found its place in the body of our English Poetry through the taste and exertions of Mr. Chalmers.[660:C]