Whose passing skill, lo, Hobbie’s pen displaies,
To Britaine folk, a work of worthy praise.
Sackville, the junior of nearly all his compeers and associates, during this short career of his Muse,[44] had also to sustain the labour and restlessness of politics. He was elected member for Westmorland, and sat in parliament the 4th and 5th of Philip and Mary. Upon the accession of Elizabeth, he represented Sussex at the time his father did Kent, and in 1562, upon the latter being chosen for Sussex, he was returned one of the members for Buckinghamshire. He early obtained the confidence of Elizabeth, (to whom he was related, as first cousin by his grand mother to Anne Boleyn), being, in his younger years, “by her particular choice and liking, selected to a continual private attendance upon her own person,” and is named in D’Ewes Journal, March 17, 1563, as conveying a message from her to the House of Commons, relative to making an “allowance for Justices Diets,” &c. About this period he visited France, Italy, and Rome, where, for some imprudency of a pecuniary nature, he was detained prisoner for fourteen days. On the death of his father he returned to England. His prodigal taste for splendour was first checked and finally stopped by the influence and admonitions of his royal relative, who, it is said, “would not know him, till he began to know himself.” On the 8th of June, 1567, he was knighted in her presence by the Duke of Norfolk, and created Baron of Buckhurst. In 1573 he was sent ambassador to France, and in the following year sat on the trial of the Earl of Arundel, being styled the Queen’s beloved and faithful counsellor. In 1586 he was nominated a commissioner on the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. In 1587 he went ambassador to the States General, but recalled by the influence of the Earl of Leicester and Lord Burleigh, and confined to his house, by the queen’s command, for nine months, when, upon the death of the Earl of Leicester, he was immediately restored to presence and favour, and on April 24, 1589, without previous intimation, made Knight of the Garter. In January 1591-2 he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. On the 15th March, 1599, after the death of Lord Burleigh, he was appointed Lord High Treasurer; the patent whereof was renewed for life on the accession of King James, by whom, in 1603, he was created Earl of Dorset, and appointed one of the commissioners for executing the office of Lord Marshal. He died suddenly at the council table at Whitehall on April 19th, 1608, and being taken to Dorset house, Whitefriars, was embowelled and so much of him buried on the 20th, at Saint Bride’s Fleetstreet. Much state ceremony and solemnity followed, and after a lapse of above a month there was A Sermon preached at Westminster May 26, 1608, at the Fvnerall Solemnities of the Right Honorable Thomas Earle of Dorset, late L. High Treasurer of England: By George Abbott Doctor of Diuinitie and Deane of Winchester one of his Lordships Chaplines.[45] 1608. qto. It does not appear that these funeral solemnities were followed with enterment at the Abbey. No tomb exists, and by his will one thousand pounds was given for the building of a chapel at Withiam, Sussex, where his ancestors lay, directing his remains to be there deposited; which is also alluded to in the sermon. Lloyd gives him the following character: “He was a very fine gentleman of person and endowments both of art and nature. His elocution is much commended, but the excellency of his pen more; for he was a scholar and a person of quick faculties, very facete and choice in his phrase and style. He was wise and stout, nor was he any ways insnared in the factions of the Court, which were all his time very strong. He stood still in grace and was wholly intentive to the Queen’s service; and such were his abilities, that she received assiduous proofs of his sufficiency.” As early as the first year of the reign of Philip and Mary his Lordship married his kinswoman, Cecile daughter of Sir John Baker, of Sisinghurst, co. Kent, knt. who survived him, and died Oct. 1st. 1615.
[44] It has been said he wrote the Epilogue to Ben Jonson’s comedy of Every Man in his Humour, acted 1598: but was there any epilogue to the play when first performed? Charles Lord Buckhurst, sixth Earl of Dorset, supplied an epilogue on the revival of that play, which may be found with other pieces by him, in the Miscellany Poems, by Dryden, vol. v.
[45] Dr. Abbott had but an imperfect knowledge of the productions of his patron. In one passage he says: “His yoonger daies, the time of his scholarship when first in that famous Vniuersitie of Oxford and afterward in the Temple (where he tooke the degree of Barister) he gave tokens of such pregnancie, such studiousnesse, and iudgment, that he was held no way inferiour to any of his time or standing. And of this there remaine good tokens both in English and in Latin published vnto the world.” A marginal note explains the “good tokens” by the legend undoubtedly written by Ferrers, called “The life of Tresilian. in the Mirrour of Magistr. [and] Epist. prefix. Aulic. Barth. Clerke.” 1571.
[46] Francis Segar. See Bibliographia Poetica, p. 326.
[47] Francis Dingley was probably author as well of the Legend of James IV. as that of Flodden Field, and both composed very recently after the events they record took place. Not any discovery has been made relative to the life of the author.
[48] Thomas Churchyard, born ...... died 1604.
[49] Michael Drayton, born about 1563, died Dec. 23, 1631.
[50] Richard Niccols was the offspring of respectable parents residing in London, and born about 1584. When about twelve years of age he embarked in a vessel called the Ark, which sailed with the expedition against Cadiz in June 1596, and was present at the great and complete victory obtained both by sea and land on that occasion. Whether this voyage was the result of boyish ardour, or that he was originally intended to be actively employed for his country in either marine or military service, is not known. He appears on his return to have resumed his studies, and in 1602 was entered a student in Magdalen College, Oxford. He took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1606, and was then esteemed among the “ingenious persons of the university.” In 1610, he impliedly says, he should have continued the Mirror for Magistrates further, if his own affairs would have suffered him to proceed, but being called away by other employments, he of force left the completion to others. What designation those employments gave him for the remainder of his life, beyond that of a poet, is not known. In that character his talents would appear over-rated by Headley, who considered him “a poet of great elegance and imagination,” had not Warton, unwittingly, gone further. Niccols, on reprinting the Induction, found the rhyme too perfect, and the language too polished, to allow the attempting any of his supposed emendations; but towards the conclusion of the poem, he was bold enough to reject one stanza, and foist in four of his own composing; and it is to his credit that Warton, in analysing the whole, reprinted two of those, as the genuine production of Sackville.[51] Such a compliment cannot be exceeded. He first published The Cuckow, 1607, quarto, and he says, “Cuckow-like of Castae’s wrongs, in rustick tunes did sing.” 2. He reprinted the Mirror for Magistrates, in 1610, edited in a manner that had left his volume without any value, but for the adding his own poems: viz. First the fall of Princes, and last A Winter Night’s Vision. This Vision was probably composed as long before as August 1603, as that was the last calamitous year when the plague ravaged extensively previous to its being published.[52] On that occasion our author retired for safety to Greenwich; where wandering through the walks, long-favoured by Elizabeth, the circumstance of it being her natal place, combined with her then recent death, appears to have awakened his youthful Muse to attempt this metrical history of her life. 3. His next effusion was The Three Sisters Teares, shed at the late Solemne Funerals of the Royall deceased Henry Prince of Wales, &c. 1613, qto. 4. The Fvries, with Vertves Encomium, or, the Image of Honour. In two bookes of Epigrammes. 1614. oct. 5. Monodia, or Waltham’s Complaint vpon the death of that most vertuous and noble Ladie lately deceased, the Lady Honor Hay, &c. 1615. oct. 6. London’s Artillery, briefly containing the noble practise of that worthie Societie, &c. 1616, qto. For an account of this Poem, see British Bibliographer, Vol. I. p. 363. 7. Sir Thomas Overbury’s Vision, &c. 1616. Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, 1811. Vol. VII. p. 178. The author makes the ghost of Overbury, in his address to him, say,