Pardon I craue of them, and of thee pitty.'
The 'Ode' that follows the sonnets runs trippingly away in easy trochaics; but Cassandra is laboured and languid.
The Encomion of Lady Pecunia has an 'Address to the Gentlemen Readers,' in which Barnfield states that he had been at much pains to find an unhackneyed subject for his pen. After long consideration he had determined to write the praises of money, a theme both new (for none had ventured upon it before) and pleasing (for money is always in esteem). It was in pursuit of money that Hawkins and Drake had lost their lives. Barnfield wrote a fine epitaph on Hawkins:—
'The[5] Waters were his Winding sheete, the Sea was made his Toome;
Yet for his fame the Ocean Sea was not sufficient roome.'
His lines on Drake are not quite so happy:—
'England[6] his hart; his Corps the Waters have;
And that which raysed his fame, became his grave.'
The Encomion is smoothly written, and is not without humour. A country gentleman in easy circumstances, Barnfield could dally playfully with a subject that had for him no terrors. His example probably led 'T. A.' (Thomas Acheley?) to write The Massacre of Money, 1602. The Complaint of Poetrie for the Death of Liberalitie seems to be an imitation of Spenser's Teares of the Muses. More interesting are the Poems: in divers humors at the end of the booklet, for among them are the sonnet 'If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree,' and the 'Ode' beginning 'As it fell upon a day,' which were long ascribed erroneously to Shakespeare. In the poem entitled 'A Remembrance of some English Poets' Barnfield praises Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, and Shakespeare. For Sir Philip Sidney he had a deep admiration, but his 'Epitaph' was a poor tribute. The verse with which the tract ends,'A Comparison of the Life of Man,' is distinctly impressive:—