Thus will I neither wail nor weep, My bones shall in this bed remain THOMAS SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST AND EARL OF DORSET. THIS was a man of remarkable powers. He was the son of Sir Richard Sackville, and born at Withyam, in Sussex, in 1527. He was educated and became distinguished at both the universities. While a student of the Inner Temple, he wrote, some say in conjunction with Thomas Norton, the tragedy of 'Gorboduc,' which is probably the earliest original tragedy in the English language. It was first played as part of a Christmas entertainment by the young students, and subsequently before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall in 1561. Sackville was elected to Parliament when thirty years of age. In the same year (1557) he formed the plan of a magnificent poem, which, had he fully accomplished it, would have ranked his name with Dante, Spenser, and Bunyan. This was his 'Mirrour for Magistrates,' a poem intended to celebrate the chief of the illustrious unfortunates in British history, such as King Richard II., Owen Glendower, James I. of Scotland, Henry VI., Jack Cade, the Duke of Buckingham, &c., in a series of legends, supposed to be spoken by the characters themselves, and with epilogues interspersed to connect the stories. The work aspired to be the English 'Decameron' of doom, and the part of it extant is truly called by Campbell a bold and gloomy landscape, on which the sun never shines.' Sackville had coadjutors in the work, all men of considerable mark, such as Skelton, Baldwyn, a learned ecclesiastic, and Ferrers, a man of rank. The first edition of the 'Mirrour for Magistrates' appeared in 1559, and was wholly composed by Baldwyn and Ferrers. In the second, which was issued in 1563, appeared the 'Induction and Legend of Henry Duke of Buckingham,' from Sackville's own pen. He lays the scene in hell, and descends there under the guidance of Sorrow. His pictures are more condensed than those of Spenser, although less so than those of Dante, and are often startling in their power, and deep, desolate grandeur. Take this, for instance, of 'Old Age:' 'Crook-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed, Politics diverted Sackville from poetry. This is deeply to be regretted, as his poetic gift was of a very rare order. In 1566, on the death of his father, he was promoted to the title of Lord Buckhurst. In the fourteenth year of Elizabeth's reign he was employed by her in an embassy to Charles IX. of France. In 1587 he went as an ambassador to the United Provinces. He was subsequently made Knight of the Garter and Chancellor of Oxford. On the death of Lord Burleigh he became Lord High Treasurer of England. In March 1604 he was created Earl of Dorset by James I., but died suddenly soon after, at the council table, of a disease of the brain. He was, as a statesman, almost immaculate in reputation. Like Burke and Canning, in later days, he carried taste and literary exactitude into his political functions, and, on account of his eloquence, was called 'the Bell of the Star-Chamber.' Even in that Augustan age of our history, and in that most brilliantly intellectual Court, it may be doubted if, with the sole exception of Lord Bacon, there was a man to be compared to Thomas Sackville for genius. ALLEGORICAL CHARACTERS FROM THE MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES. And first, within the porch and jaws of hell, With thoughtful care; as she that, all in vain, Her eyes unsteadfast, rolling here and there, Toss'd and tormented with the tedious thought Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook, And next, within the entry of this lake, When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretence, His face was lean, and some deal pined away For on his carcase raiment had he none, His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree, Whose wretched state when we had well beheld, The morrow gray no sooner hath begun By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death, A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath; The body's rest, the quiet of the heart, And next in order sad, Old Age we found: There heard we him with broke and hollow plaint. And to be young again of Jove beseek! But, an the cruel fates so fixed be |