ars but blows, as he declares
himself a little after.

But God he knows, my gain was small I weene,
For though I did my credit still encrease,
I got no wealth by wars, ne yet by peace.

Yet it seems he was born of wealthy friends, and had an Estate left
unto him, as in the same Work he doth declare.

So born I was to House and Land by right,
But in a Bag to Court I brought the same,
From _Shrewsbury_-Town, a seat of ancient fame.

Some conceive him to be as much beneath a Poet as above a Rymer, yet
who so shall consider the time he wrote in, _viz._ the beginning of the
Reign of Queen _Elizabeth_, shall find his Verses to go abreast with
the best of that Age. His Works, such as I have seen and have now in
custody, are as followeth:

_The Siege of_ Leith.
_A Farewel to the World_.
_A feigned Fancy of the Spider and the Goat_.
_A doleful Discourse of a Lady and a Knight_.
_The Road into_ Scotland, _by Sir_ William Drury.
_Sir_ Simon Burley'_s Tragedy_.
_A Tragical Discourse of the Vnhappy Mans Life_.
_A Discourse of Vertue_.
Churchyard'_s Dream_.
_A Tale of a Fryar and a Shoomaker's wife_.
_The Siege of_ Edenborough-_Castle_.
_Queen_ Elizabeth'_s Reception into_ Bristol.

These Twelve several Treatises he bound together, calling them
_Church-yard's Chips_, and dedicated them to Sir _Christopher Hatton_.
He also wrote the Falls of _Shore_'s Wife and of Cardinal _Wolsey_;
which are inserted into the Book of _the Mirrour for Magistrates_.
Thus, like a stone, did he trundle about, but never gather'd any Moss,
dying but poor, as may be seen by his Epitaph in Mr. _Cambden's
Remains_, which runs thus;

Come _Alecto_, lend me thy Torch,
To find a _Church-yard_ in a Church-porch:
_Poverty_ and _Poetry_ his Tomb doth enclose,
Wherefore good Neighbours be merry in prose.

His death, according to the most probable conjecture, may be presumed
about the eleventh year of the Queen's Reign, _Anno Dom._ 1570.

* * * * *

_JOHN HIGGINS_.

_John Higgins_ was one of the chief of them who compiled the History of
_the Mirrour of Magistrates_, associated with Mr. _Baldwin_, Mr.
_Ferrers_, _Thomas Churchyard_, and several others, of which Book Sir
_Philip Sidney_ thus writes in his _Defence of Poesie_, _I account the_
Mirrour of Magistrates _meetly furnished of beautiful parts_. These
Commendations coming from so worthy a person, our _Higgins_