it from oblivion." Prior was a charming writer of
epigram, society verse, and the humorous _conte_ in the manner of La
Fontaine; but to see how incapable he was of the depth and sweetness of
romantic poetry, compare a few lines of the original with the "hubbub of
words" in his modernized version, in heroic couplets:

"O Lord, what is this worldes blisse
That changeth as the mone!
The somer's day in lusty May
Is derked before the none.
I hear you say farewel. Nay, nay,
We departe not so soon:
Why say ye so? Wheder wyle ye goo?
Alas! what have ye done?
Alle my welfare to sorrow and care
Shulde change if ye were gon;
For in my minde, of all mankynde,
I love but you alone."

Now hear Prior, with his Venus and flames and god of love:

"What is our bliss that changeth with the moon,
And day of life that darkens ere 'tis noon?
What is true passion, if unblest it dies?
And where is Emma's joy, if Henry flies?
If love, alas! be pain, the pain I bear
No thought can figure and no tongue declare.
Ne'er faithful woman felt, nor false one feigned
The flames which long have in my bosom reigned.
The god of love himself inhabits there
With all his rage and dread and grief and care,
His complement of stores and total war,
O cease then coldly to suspect my love
And let my deed at least my faith approve.
Alas! no youth shall my endearments share
Nor day nor night shall interrupt my care;
No future story shall with truth upbraid
The cold indifference of the nut-brown maid;
Nor to hard banishment shall Henry run
While careless Emma sleeps on beds of down.
View me resolved, where'er thou lead'st, to go:
Friend to thy pain and partner of thy woe;
For I attest fair Venus and her son
That I, of all mankind, will love but thee alone."

There could be no more striking object lesson than this of the plethora
from which English poetic diction was suffering, and of the sanative
value of a book like the "Reliques."

"To atone for the rudeness of the more obsolete poems," and "to take off
from the tediousness of the longer narratives," Percy interspersed a few
modern ballads and a large number of "little elegant pieces of the lyric
kind" by Skelton, Hawes, Gascoigne, Raleigh, Marlowe, Shakspere, Jonson,
Warner, Carew, Daniel, Lovelace, Suckling, Drayton, Beaumont and
Fletcher, Wotton, and other