A volume might be written to prove this last answer Shakespear’s, in which the tongue says one thing in one line, and the heart contradicts it in the next; but there were other writers living in the time of Shakespear, who knew these subtle windings of the passions besides him,—though none so well as he! The Pinner of Wakefield, or George a Greene, is a pleasant interlude, of an early date, and the author unknown, in which kings and coblers, outlaws and maid Marians are ‘hail-fellow well met,’ and in which the features of the antique world are made smiling and amiable enough. Jenkin, George a Greene’s servant, is a notorious wag. Here is one of his pretended pranks. _Jenkin._ This fellow comes to me, And takes me by the bosom: you slave, Said he, hold my horse, and look He takes no cold in his feet. No, marry shall he, Sir, quoth I, I’ll lay my cloak underneath him. I took my cloak, spread it all along, And his horse on the midst of it. _George._ Thou clown, did’st thou set his horse upon thy cloak? _Jenk._ Aye, but mark how I served him. Madge and he was no sooner gone down into the ditch But I plucked out my knife, cut four holes in my cloak, and made his horse stand on the bare ground.’ The first part of Jeronymo is an indifferent piece of work, and the second, or the Spanish Tragedy by Kyd, is like unto it, except the interpolations idly said to have been added by Ben Jonson, relating to Jeronymo’s phrensy ‘which have all the melancholy madness of poetry, if not the inspiration.’ LECTURE VI ON MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, F. BEAUMONT, P. FLETCHER, DRAYTON, DANIEL, &C. SIR P. SIDNEY’S ARCADIA, AND OTHER WORKS. I shall, in the present Lecture, attempt to give some idea of the lighter productions of the Muse in the period before us, in order to shew that grace and elegance are not confined entirely to later times, and shall conclude with some remarks on Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. I have already made mention of the lyrical pieces of Beaumont and Fletcher. It appears from his poems, that many of these were composed by Francis Beaumont, particularly the very beautiful ones in the tragedy of the False One, the Praise of Love in that of Valentinian, and another in the Nice Valour or Passionate Madman, an Address to Melancholy, which is the perfection of this kind of writing.