[In the following essay, Swart argues that Sackville's small body of poetry and one play were not as important or original as literary historians have argued.]

We have examined Sackville's life and character, and found him a man whom it would have been a privilege to know. Determined, a bit of an autocrat perhaps, but a diplomat full of high purpose, with a wide range of interests and most capable withal. As a young man, quite incidentally, this great statesman produced two pieces of literature. … We have tried to show that between these two works there is a distance of perhaps six or seven years, and we know that the second of them must, in Sackville's eyes, have marked an advance. There seems to be every reason to write a few pages of glowing tribute and then sit back satisfied that Sackville has at last been done justice to.

Alas, to do justice is too often a synonym for a well-meant pat on the back that has little to do with a considered appreciation of real merit. We have found that Sackville was at his best when following Virgil, and but for some parts of Gorboduc there is in his work little original poetic detail. His style, however excellent, is developed in accordance with current fashion, though with a distinction that is really his own.

In literary history we sometimes hear of Sackville as a great pioneer. That, as has been indicated, is not our estimate. One critic remarked of Tottel's Miscellany that “the prestige which (it) has acquired by frequent repetition of its title is invariably damaged by the examination of its contents”¹. This is a bold statement, and subsequently qualified by its author, but it contains an element of truth that will be recognized to apply equally to Sackville's “Induction” and to Gorboduc.

When writing about Sackville's achievement, we must beware of confusing our historical and our critical appreciation. It would be a mistake for us with our knowledge of later English poetry to imagine that our enthusiasm is the same as that felt by Sackville's contemporaries, when they read his work. We are only beginning to realize what poetry was to them and how they judged it. We can say that, judged by their standards, Sackville's poetry is excellent, and that the application of such standards is reflected in the few contemporary references that we have. We are not sixteenth-century Englishmen, and our modern enthusiasm at finding in Sackville some qualities of later verse that his exact contemporaries lack, must not be the basis of our judgement of Sackville as a poet, and must certainly not be projected into the sixteenth century.

The reputation of the “Induction” and “Complaint” is great. Saintsbury, a critic whose opinion is always valuable, said, that “hardly a single stanza, certainly no single page can be read by a poetically-minded reader without his being well aware that an entirely new music is sounding in his ears”². It depends, of course, on how much there is on a page, but in most editions the “Complaint,” at least, does not answer to this description. Besides, the comparison is wrong. What we must try to determine is not Sackville's comparative merit to the critic who reads English poetry in historical sequence. We must dare to look at Sackville as one among the English poets, without a mental calculation of the handicap of his period, and then his reputation is bound to sink, if only because of the small volume of his work. We owe to him one long poem with a superb opening and a few more dispersed stanzas of great merit—one of which, however beautiful, is after all a translation. We owe to him part of a drama that few people have ever seen performed and that we cannot, therefore, judge as such, but which, judged as poetry, contains one very moving passage, some good choruses and a few resounding lines. Stated in plain terms, this is not much, but as a poet Sackville has a right to be judged by his best work. If it should be considered possible for a man to obtain a place amongst the English poets by virtue of mere quantity, let us be glad that Sackville can be spared that fate. His best work is undoubtedly genuine poetry of a high order. But, when all is said and done, poetry does not admit of qualitative measurement; a comparison of poets does not provide an easily applicable scale of poetic excellence. Failing that, we are bound to consider quantity. And then, though I think we shall allow Sackville a small niche, it will be amongst the minor poets.

As it is, Sackville's reputation owes too much to an interpretative treatment of literary history. Whether such a treatment regards his work as the last flower of medievalism or as a prelude to Spenser, is immaterial. It does injustice to Sackville's individual merits, and lends only a superficial semblance of unity to the interpretation of the period as a whole. A modern parallel is dangerous, but it will help us to clarify this view. There are in the world of today many outstanding artists. Can we point to, say, Picasso, and say that his is the art of the future and therefore deserves extra credit? Can any artist of today as an exponent of the typical features of any school of painting be sure of immortality? Surely not. But let us take a form of art where an even closer parallel can be drawn, music. There is, or was, in music a body of rules comparable to the rules of rhetoric. Can we point to any composer, like Sackville not indifferent to the older rules, and can we then say that his style or his particular preference of harmonies must be carefully watched, because it is a last instance, or because it will be the style of greater ones to come? We cannot even be sure that we shall recognize the very great ones when they come; we may even fail to recognize them as such some time after their life's work has been completed. Nor can we make any prediction whatsoever about the future course of any form of art.

This general insecurity about the value of any work of art to future generations, and about the relative importance of the artists, surely prevailed also during Sackville's lifetime. And to say that Spenser, or anyone, could have found in Sackville's work some of the melody that was to mark his own, is an entirely unjustified, possibly even an entirely erroneous, simplification. Either we find out true historical relations or we do not, but we should refrain from falsifying both history and criticism.

There are, then, two things that must be kept apart: Sackville's merit as a poet judged by our present-day standards, and Sackville's position in the art of his own day in so far as we are able to form an opinion about it. On the first of these we have already stated an opinion, and we may be able to add something while trying to gain a little more clarity about the historical component that is evident in most critical opinions on Sackville. As to the second we find, as is insufficiently recognized, evidence of various kinds to show that his historical position was not unlike that of many present-day poets, that he was one among the many.

If we look up the critical opinions of those days we find Sackville mentioned on a par with his contemporaries. It is only natural that Harvey, with his well-known preference, should name Surrey, Sackville and Norton, and Gascoigne, but there is at least one uncertain author included in the company³. Sidney in his well-known passage, after mentioning the Mirror as a fine work, excepts Gorboduc from the common plays of his day, an undoubted contrast, but proceeds to explain that his standards do not allow him to consider even this play as really good⁴. Meres does not express a considered opinion; his list of names for the tragic muse includes Sackville, Shakespeare and Doctor Leg⁵. Puttenham, however, is a more critical mind. His survey includes among the later poets Wyatt and Surrey, Nicholas (read Thomas) Vaux, Sternhold and John Heywood, Ferrers, Golding, Phaer and Twyne, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, whom he quotes later on, Thomas Sackville, Henry Lord Paget (to Gregory Smith an entirely unknown quantity, and, I fear, still not to be found), together with Sidney, Raleigh, Dyer, Fulke Greville, Gascoigne (we presume), Breton and Turberville⁶. We miss one or two names, notably that of Churchyard, but otherwise the whole company of poets is there. Puttenham does more than mention mere names; his is a carefully composed enumeration, and later on he details the particular merit of each writer, including Chaloner, but missing out the four last mentioned. “But the principall man in this profession at the same time was Maister Edward (read George) Ferrys” is his verdict, and later on he mentions Sackville and Ferrers together. To complete our picture, however, Webbe gives a similar enumeration, and he does not appear to have read the Mirror. His catalogue includes many more minor writers, Tusser and Hunnis, Munday and Grange, but we miss Ferrers and Sackville⁷. This is not strange, for even today no anthologist can be quite sure that he will not miss some of the major poetry of his age. It is merely an indication that Sackville's poetry was not so widely known as a reputation comparable to his present-day standing would lead one to expect.

Nor is there, positively, any indication that Sackville's best work had a direct influence on his period—Dolman is the only possible exception and even that is the merest surmise. On the contrary, Sackville himself returned from the more extravagant style of his “Induction” when he wrote Gorboduc. There is far less archaism in the play than in the poem, even in the passages that are generally supposed to betray Sackville's poetic vein. This may be a matter of decorum in the orations themselves, but is certainly not so in the case of the choruses, which more than anything else represent the high style of tragedy. It is there that we find words such as rede and doom, which are archaic, but the grammatical archaisms are almost entirely absent, and the general impression is that of normal sixteenth-century verse.

If we regard the “Induction,” the “Complaint” and Gorboduc in succession, we see each time what we consider a drop in style. Few critics have been so enthusiastic about Gorboduc as about the “Induction” and “Complaint,” or as enthusiastic about the “Complaint” as about the “Induction.” In the “Complaint” this may be explained by the change of subject-matter, and the dropping away of Virgil as the mainstay of Sackville's inspiration. But to Gorboduc this consideration does not apply. When, in addition, we take into account the general tendency of the corrections in the Mirror poem, which reduce the number of curious forms, then it is not too much to suppose that Sackville became more conventional in his writing—as is, in his case, only to be expected. This tallies with our deduction that the poetic language of the period was a definite artificiality. The poet's friends, when they first read his “Induction,” probably thought that young Sackville was overdoing things, and told him so. However that may be, the general inference is that Sackville was influenced by his contemporaries rather than the other way round, which does not fit in with a view that considers him a great and original poet.

When we disregard the purple patches, Sackville's remaining verse is not striking in quality. Reflecting on Lamb's exclamation that Marlowe was “the true (though imperfect) Father of our tragedy”, Boas considers Sackville, with Gorboduc, for this position. Enumerating the various features of the play he points out that blank verse was used, and adds the following remark: “though it was end-stopped and stereotyped in form it showed at its best (as has been insufficiently recognized) the quality of melodious rhythm which distinguishes Sackville's ‘Induction’ to A Mirror for Magistrates”⁸. As one may expect from Dr Boas, this criticism is both just and carefully worded. If we adduce in contrast George Saintsbury, it is not because we like to find fault with him, but in order to illustrate in a great critic and literary historian the mistakes and misleading statements to which the critico-historical manner of treating literature necessarily leads. This is how Saintsbury introduces Gorboduc:

The authorship has generally been attributed to Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, and though some champions of Sackville have tried to claim the whole for him, this is rather a mistaken partisanship. The rich and stately melody of the “Induction” and the “Complaint of Buckingham” certainly neither suggests nor requires to be eked out by the wooden dulness of this dreary play, which is simply of interest and importance (and it has a great deal of both) historically and not intrinsically⁹.

Excepting the choruses from his general condemnation Saintsbury goes on to speak about “correct but ineffably dreary decasyllables”, the whole stumping on “with a maddening, or rather stupefying, monotony”. All this is presumably intended to convey that Gorboduc is not pleasant reading, but neither is the whole of the “Induction” and “,” and one fails to see why there should be such a difference made. The truth is that Gorboduc refuses to be brought into line with any of the greater plays, and is therefore utterly condemned—it is important historically, and not for the sake of some better play.

Ah noble prince, how oft haue I behelde
Thee mounted on thy fierce and traumpling stede,
Shining in armour bright before the tilt,
And with thy staffe to please thy ladies eye
That bowed the head peece of thy frendly foe?

Dr Boas has not failed to see that such verse has some merit. Even at its worst Gorboduc is good rhetoric, and if the lines are well said they should be able to move. And when a rhetorical passage culminates in a description of a man “his limmes in such proportion cast As would have wrapt a sillie woman's thought”, then it is no mere sentimentality that wants to read into these lines the secret of a woman's heart. At its best, Gorboduc is poetry. Here is another passage taken from a less emotional context:

Tyndar, O king, came lately from the court
Of Ferrex, to my lord your yonger sonne,
And made report of great prepared store
For warre, and sayth that it is wholly ment
Agaynst Porrex, for high disdayne that he
Lyues now a king and egall in degree
With him that claimeth to succede the whole,
As by due title of discending right(10).

Such passages are by no means rare; they show an easy-moving flow of verse, not capable of keeping the reader spellbound, but sufficiently well-written to give a pleasant variation to the lines, if intelligently read. The “melodious rhythm” is there, no doubt, and this in spite of a general lack of experience in blank verse. Sackville was moving towards the classical ideal¹¹, and if we failed to recognize his development towards Gorboduc we should misunderstand his character and the main factors that led to his success in the “Induction.”

Gorboduc is more conventional than the “Induction.” It is not easy to see Sackville's hand in the play—for here he wrote more like his contemporaries. “The individual authors of the period other than Sackville”, Saintsbury assured us, “partake of that character of curiosity which distinguishes the whole of it, and which repels some tastes as much as it conciliates others”¹². We are not conciliated, on the contrary, we have given instances of a forced rhetoric in the “Induction” and “Complaint” and refused to recognise them as poetry. Such instances could be quoted from other parts of the Mirror, for it is not in that respect that Sackville differs from his contemporaries. But let us go to the Mirror and see for ourselves what these poets do. There is no need to consider the whole of the work, a few representative writers will suffice—Baldwin, its central figure, Ferrers and Phaer, Churchyard and Chaloner. It would be unfair to pick out their best work and put it beside Sackville's worst; the selections made will, we trust, be equally representative as the authors.

The opening tragedy is by Ferrers and treats the fall of Robert Tresilian, one-time chief justice of England. It begins as follows:

In the rufull Register of mischief and mishap,
Baldwin we beseche thee with our names to begin,
Whom vnfrendly Fortune did trayne vnto a trap,
When we thought our state most stable to haue bin,
So lightly leese they all which all do ween to wyn:
Learne by vs ye Lawyers and Iudges of the lande
Vncorrupt and vpryght in doome alway to stande.

(p. 73)¹³

This is Ferrer's peculiar metre and not to our ears very satisfactory, although no doubt full of—unexpected—variety. But the wording is not in any way peculiar to the author; it is the poetical diction of the age. When Ferrers writes regular rime royal he is still troubled with an occasional relapse, but it will be seen that his verse at once looks more like Sackville's.

O hedeles trust, vnware of harme to cum,
O malice headlong swyft to serve fond wyll,
Did ever madnes man so much benomme
Of prudent forecast, reason wit, and skyll,
As me blinde Bayard consenting to spyll,
The bloud of my cosyn my refuge and staye,
To my destruction making open waye?

(p. 390)

In all probability Baldwin wrote some of the intervening tragedies, but they are not consistently attributed to him. The next certain author that we find is Chaloner. His contribution in ten-line stanzas of rime royal origin bewails the fate of Richard II, outlined in the second stanza.

Beholde my hap, see how the sely route
Do gase vpon me, and eche to other saye:
Se where he lieth for whome none late might route,
Loe howe the power, the pride, and riche aray
Of myghty rulers lightly fade away.
The King whych erst kept all the realme in doute,
The veryest rascall now dare checke and lowte:
What moulde be Kynges made of, but carayn clay?
Beholde his woundes, howe blew they be about,
Whych whyle he lived, thought neuer to decay.

(p. 112)

Chaloner would probably have done better in rime royal, but we are concerned here with his work as it is, which provides a regular, though rather pedestrian verse, and again a poetic diction. He has words like agrise and the plural foen, but is careful to keep measure.

Phaer must for ever be denied a modern sense of humour, or he would not have ended his very first stanza,

Oh Fortune, Fortune, out on her I crye
My body and fame she hath made lean and slender
For I poore wretch am sterued Owen Glendour.

(p. 121)

Nor is this the only humorous episode in Phaer's tragedy, for we learn that Sir Thomas Percie (forst to yeeld) did cast his head (a wunder seen but seeld) from Shrewbury town to the top of London Bridge. But to be fair to Phaer we must quote him also in a more dignified account.

Then al the marches longyng vnto Wales
By Syverne west I did inuade and burne:
Destroyed the townes in mountaynes and in vales,
And riche in spoyles did homward safe retourne:
Was none so bold durst once agaynst me spurne.
Thus prosperously doth Fortune forward call
Those whom she mindes to geue the sorest fall.

(p. 124)

Baldwin appears next in order set, but his moral fame is better represented by two stanzas from another tragedy.

The wounded man which must abide the smart,
Of stitching vp, or searing of his sore,
As thing to bad, reproves the Surgeons art,
Which notwithstanding doth his helth restore.
The childe likewise to science plied sore,
Countes knowledge yll, his teacher to be wood,
Yet Surgery and sciences be good.
But as the pacientes griefe and Scholers payne,
Cause them deme bad such thinges as sure be best,
So want of wisedome causeth vs complayne
Of every hap, wherby we seme opprest:
The poore do pine for pelfe, the rich for rest,
And whan as losse or sicknes vs assayle:
We curse our fate, our Fortune we bewayle.

(p. 225)

They are perhaps a little better metrically than is usual with him, but we owe so much to Baldwin that he deserves some consideration. The main point is that he writes a similar style again and is a moderately good versifier.

Churchyard, who closes our selection, penned Shores wife at that season, as he tells us in his Challenge, and very proud he was of her in later days, when it seemed to him one of the few occasions on which he had received recognition.

Oh darke deceyt with paynted face for showe,
Oh poysoned baite that makes vs egre styll,
Oh fayned frende deceyuing people so,
Oh world of thée we can not speake to yll,
Yet fooles we are that bende so to thy skyll,
The plage and skourge that thousandes dayly feele,
Should warne the wise to shonne thy whyrling whele.

(p. 374)

Only too often did Churchyard in later life write in like manner, as when some thirty years thence he spoke,

Youth first beguilde, in Court with hope forlorne,
Than middle age, all wearied with sharp war:
And nowe olde eld, to liue in lack and scorne,
Whose wounded limbs, showes many a wofull skar;
And sundry waies, consum'd with trauaile far.
These open plagues, and inward griefes of mind:
Cryes out and saith, my Country is vnkinde.

(p. 43-4)

This too would have been worthy of the Mirror, but is less worthily employed in Churchyard's own behalf. However, he received his pension, which was perhaps more to him than the immortality of Shores wife promised by Nash. It must be admitted that Churchyard did some very good work in it, and that some of the best verse in the Mirror is to be found in his contribution.

On the general poetical worth of the Mirror any reader can form an opinion for himself by perusing it. But having seen these stanzas we cannot help being very strongly reminded of Gorboduc and of some passages in the “Induction” and “Complaint.” Had we inserted one or two stanzas thereof without mentioning the author, it is doubtful if the reader would have been struck by any entirely new music. There are pages in the “Complaint” that run on in exactly this way.

Thus hauing wonne our long desired pray,
To make him king that he might make me chiefe,
Downthrow we strayt his sellie nephewes twaye,
From princes pompe, to woful prisoners lyfe:
In hope that nowe stynt was all furder stryfe.
Sith he was king, and I chiefe stroke did beare
Who ioyed but we, yet who more cause to feare?

(p. 324)

and so on and so forth—the monotony being slightly broken only by the comparison of the deer on page 326—to the beginning of the prophetic episode on page 337. It is all very conventional and the passage contains a few stanzas considerably worse than the one quoted above. Sackville is a true son of his age, and there is no sign of any intrinsic superiority of his verse to that of the others. His verse is seldom really halting, as that of some other contributors, but there are several more tragedies that present no real metrical difficulties. We may wonder, if Sackville's “Complaint” is so highly praised, why should this praise not be extended to his contemporaries?

We have now come to a point where it will be quite clear why the historical situation had to be emphasized at the cost of Sackville's position as given in most histories of literature. We have seen how rhetoric influenced sixteenth-century writing. We have proved that Sackville used the rhetorical manner of composition, both in “invention”, that is the choice of his subject matter, and in “disposition”, that is the construction of his story and speeches. Virgil was chosen as the main guide for the “Induction”; for the tragedy proper there existed a multitude of general examples. Into this frame were woven the various bits of knowledge that could be connected with the subject. These arguments were arranged in the manner of exercises in rhetoric. Nor did Sackville stop there. He built also his style on the “rhetorical” method of studying and part-reproducing other works. We have seen what this method implied, and we have seen the conscious effort that Sackville's style implies, in complete accordance with this method.

These factors, which can be reduced to one general influence, were common to all the writers of the period. The poets were variously moved by other considerations; the principles were not applied by all of them in exactly the same way. There was sufficient room for a shift of emphasis and for the creation of individual styles. The main principles of custom, clarity of diction and decorum were not observed equally by all writers. There were also, of course, differences in natural poetic ability. Some may have been more clearly conscious of the theoretical principles they were applying than others. But the same general force worked on all of them, and it is that force that is ultimately responsible for the growth of Elizabethan literature, its poetic diction and its intrinsic character.

Against this background the individual efforts of the various poets must be seen and interpreted. There are many other background factors, and they are not negligible. The culture of an age cannot be disregarded. In all literary work there are of necessity many factors involved that can only be explained from facts outside literature proper. There are a great many facts and beliefs without which no picture of the Elizabethan age can be complete. But among these a place of the utmost importance is surely due to the science most inextricably interwoven with literature, to the science of writing itself.

If there shall ever be a world in which music is still practised and the old tradition of teaching harmony is dead, then that world will find it most difficult to account for the development of music in the nineteenth century. We are in a similar position with regard to the Elizabethan age. We now consider writing, and especially the writing of poetry, as an art to which in principle no rules apply but those of the creative mind—although we reserve the right to criticize it. The sixteenth century, at least initially, looked on writing as an occupation that moved within limits narrowly laid down by rhetoric. Within the field of literature itself all subjects had been discussed, and all the possible ways of writing were known. Only by expansion and contraction and by differences in combination could any original writing obtain the required variety. Sackville's contemporaries knew this, and it is the explanation of their monotony. They also knew that the number of figures of style itself was limited, and that diction was limited by the requirements of decorum, clarity and custom. In this way there came into existence very gradually the poetic diction of which all the Mirror poets make use. It constitutes the basic material of all the writings of the period, but it is not the spoken language.

The main difference between Sackville and his contemporaries is that he took the rhetorical theories more seriously than the others. He took a good model to expand, and he put a great deal of original work into his poem. Not content, as were the others, with the knowledge that he already possessed, he tried to find a great many exempla, and introduced them into his poem. But this was not enough.

Tullye and Quintilian thoughte that inuencion and disposicion were the partes of a wytty and prudent man, but eloquence of an oratour. For howe to finde out matter, and set it in order, may be comen to all men, whyche eyther make abridgementes of the excellent workes of aunciente wryters, and put histories in remembraunce, or that speake of anye matter themselues: but to vtter the mynde aptely, distincty, and ornately, is a gyft giuen to very fewe¹⁴

Sackville knew this as well as Sherry, and it inspired him to a great effort. He could excel by making his own diction, as he was probably aware that Wyatt and Surrey had done. He proceeded to do this by collecting from older poets a number of words and forms which he used in his poem along with the established poetic diction of his age. The one injunction that he did not sufficiently obey to be quite like his contemporaries was that of keeping measure. In brief Sackville did what any other poet of his age could have done who was determined to deliver good poetry and did not shrink from a little work. Historically Sackville is a good exponent of a class of poets who were, between them, keeping alive a medium fit to be used by a great artist who had the imagination to see its possibilities and a sufficient insight into the music of words to bring out its inherent qualities. It should be remembered, however, that the rhetorical theories were not only an aid to writing. They left small scope for imagination and imposed limits on the form and style of writing in any particular sphere. In how far these limits were overcome by the great poets of the end of the Elizabethan period is a matter not yet sufficiently investigated. There are certainly indications that their victory was not complete. It is not difficult, however, to imagine a development more strictly in accordance with rhetorical theory, and examples are provided by the literatures of other countries. So much is certain, however, that the great poets of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century in their comparative freedom enjoyed all the benefits bestowed by the rich store of devices held by rhetoric, which, derived as they were from the work of great poets of the past, enabled them to bend the language to their will.

Sackville is not one of those who transcended the limits set by the rhetorical science of his day. He is, rather, an instance of the development towards good poetry within the rhetorical frame. But he was lacking—the importance of this point can hardly be sufficiently emphasized—in originality of poetical imagination. He was not a born poet, he was not Rilke's young man who must either write or die. He was, however, a young man of great virtue, and he entered upon his self-imposed task with a will. He had all the advantages afforded by a good education, a keen intellect, an active mind and a respect for traditional values. They enabled him to do some original thinking in poetry. It is to this that we owe the smooth transitions in his poem. His logical mind enabled him to connect the traditional medieval opening and the classical fancy of a journey to hell, and to write about the latter as an adventure, not a dream. This side of his nature we see when he “besought retourne, and not to visite hell”. But that really reflects the full extent of his original imaginative work in the “Induction” and “Complaint.” In Gorboduc, as we have seen, Sackville came a great deal nearer to original poetry, but even there he would not, or could not, make his source subservient to a great poetical idea. The Chronicle story contains material for a much greater play than Gorboduc.

This essential shortcoming of Sackville as a poet should make us value his real gifts so much the more. He had a great respect for the past and was not afraid to echo it in his diction. His initial confidence in the precepts taught him must have been almost unbounded, for it is to this, presumably, that we owe the large proportion of poetic words and forms in his diction. His confidence has proved well-founded. The spirit of the language came to his aid, and together they made of the opening of the “Induction” a piece of poetry that has remained sound to this day. This was not a piece of mere luck on the part of Sackville; it took a good deal of poetical insight to do it. But it is the insight of a reader rather than a writer. It is essentially passive. Sackville could with his gift only recreate the old pictures, and he could not use the old words to do what they had never done before. Nevertheless the picture stands, and that is due to another of Sackville's virtues. He was not easily satisfied. Sackville's metre is a good deal better than that of the majority of his contemporaries. It is not, and could not be, the rhythm that is born of long experience in attempting always the highest in poetry, but it is certainly the best that a young man could do. Sackville was not content merely to jot down his words as they came to him, nor to consider his poetry finished if it came in lines of equal length. He had none of the sloppiness so normal in an age that considered content so much more important than form. He insisted that his poetry should be perfect both in form and content. He did not quite succeed, as no poet will ever quite do what he sets out to do, but he did, at times, surpass himself.

That, we think, must be the verdict of history, literary history, on Sackville's work. His silence, after one poem and one play, was not a tragic blow to literature. Sackville had given to poetry all that he had to give. The evolutionary view of literature considers his effort well spent and continues it in Spenser's greater verse. Though we can learn from the experience of others to shun the things that make for failure, we must learn to succeed by our own constant and untiring efforts. Spenser began afresh. But if Sackville's achievement is not that he made Spenser possible, the impetus given to English poetry by his work cannot have been completely lost. Besides, Sackville's poetry is representative of his own period. It can teach us in its elegiac way more about that age than a familiarity of long standing with the works of many others. In so far it will always be a discovery and always new. It will be known by many generations of students yet to come and give them food for thought, and pleasure, on their way.

Notes

1. H. S. V. Jones in J. E. G. Phil., April 1932, XXXI, p. 289.

2. George Saintsbury, A Short History of English Literature, London 1944, p. 257.

3. Smith, Eliz. Critical Essays I p. 126.

4. Ibid., I p. 196.

5. Ibid., II p. 319.

6. Ibid., II p. 63-5.

7. Smith, Eliz. Critical Essays I p. 242 ff.

8. F. S. Boas, Christopher Marlowe, O. U. P., 1940, p. 311.

9. Saintsbury, op. cit., p. 229.

10. The lines quoted are IV, ii, 248-253; IV, ii, 238-9; III, i, 67-74.

11. As was recognized by Courthope, History of English Poetry, II, p. 125.

12. Saintsbury, op cit., p. 251.

13. This and the following selections are all taken from Miss Campbell's edition, where the authorship of these tragedies is discussed and convincingly established.

14. Sherry, op. cit., B I, v.

Bibliography

The Mirror for Magistrates, ed. Lily B. Campbell, Cambridge 1938.

G. Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, Oxford 1937.