of a courtier of
this "Queen of Faery." He was the cousin, school-fellow, and inseparable
companion of Sidney, and so devoted to him that, in the inscription
which he composed long after for his own tomb, he entitled himself
"servant to queen Elizabeth, councillor to king James, and friend to sir
Philip Sidney." Born to a fortune so ample as to render him entirely
independent of the emoluments of office or the favors of a sovereign,
and early smitten with a passion for the gentle muse which rendered him
nearly insensible to the enticements of ambition, Greville was yet
contented to devote himself, as a volunteer, to that court-life the
irksomeness of which has often been treated as insupportable by men who
have embraced it from interest or from necessity.

A devotedness so signal was not indeed suffered to go without its
reward. Besides that it obtained for him a lucrative place, Naunton says
of Greville, "He had no mean place in queen Elizabeth's favor, neither
did he hold it for any short time or term; for, if I be not deceived, he
had the longest lease, the smoothest time without rubs, of any of her
favorites." Lord Bacon also testifies that he "had much and private
access to her, which he used honorably and did many men good: yet he
would say merrily of himself, that he was like Robin Goodfellow; for
when the maids spilt the milk-pans or kept any racket, they would lay it
upon Robin: so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or other
bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him." The poems of
Fulke Greville, celebrated and fashionable in his own time, but now
known only to the more curious students of our early literature, consist
of two tragedies in interwoven rhyme, with choruses on the Greek model;
a hundred love sonnets, in one of which he styles his mistress "Fair
dog:" and "Treaties" "on Human learning," "on Fame and Honor," and "of
Wars." Of these pieces the last three, as well as the tragedies, contain
many noble, free, and virtuous sentiments; many fine and ingenious
thoughts, and some elegant lines; but the harshness and pedantry of the
style render their perusal on the whole more of a fatigue than a
pleasure, and they have gradually sunk into that neglect which
constantly awaits the verse of which it has been the aim to instruct
rather than to delight. Among the English patrons of letters however,
Fulke Greville, afterwards lord Brook, will ever deserve a conspicuous
station; and Speed