inconceivable roar of his seven heads! Warton transcribed a few lines to show this poet's "harmonious versification and clear expression;" but this short specimen may convey an erroneous notion. Our verse was yet irregular, and its modulation was accidental rather than settled; the metrical lines of Hawes, for the greater part, must be read rhythmically, it was a barbarism that even later poets still retained. He also affected an ornate diction; and Latin and French terms cast an air of pedantry, more particularly when the euphony of his verse is marred by closing his lines with his elongated polysyllables; he probably imagined that the dimensions of his words necessarily lent a grandeur to his thoughts. With all these defects, Hawes often surpasses himself, and we may be surprised that, in a poem composed in the court of Henry the Seventh, about 1506, the poet should have left us such a minutely-finished picture of female beauty as he has given of La Pucelle; Hawes had been in Italy, and seems with an artist's eye to have dwelt on some picture of Raphael, in his early manner, or of his master Perugino, in his hard but elaborate style. Her shining hair, so properly she dresses, Aloft her forehead, with fayre golden tresses; Her forehead stepe, with fayre browés ybent; Her eyen gray; her nosé straight and fayre; In her white cheeks, the faire bloudé it went As among the white, the reddé to repayre; Her mouthe right small; her breathe sweet of ayre; Her lippes soft and ruddy as a rose; No hart alive but it would him appose. With a little pitte in her well-favoured chynne; Her necke long, as white as any lillye, With vaynés blewe, in which the bloude ranne in; Her pappés rounde, and thereto right pretýe; Her armés slender, and of goodly bodýe; Her fingers small, and thereto right longe, White as the milk, with blewé vaynes among; Her feet propér; she gartred well her hose; I never sawe so fayre a créatúre. The reign of Henry the Seventh was a misty morning of our vernacular literature, but it was the sunrise; and though the road be rough, we discover a few names by which we may begin to count--as we find on our way a mile-stone, which, however rudely cut and worn out, serves to measure our distances. FOOTNOTES: [1] Speed's "History," 995.