Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XXIV.THOMAS SACKVILLE,LORD BUCKHURST.\A.D. 1563.Thomas Sackville, the first Lord Buckhurst and Earl ofDorset, only son of Sir Richard Sackville, was born in 1536, atBuckhurst in Sussex. He is alike celebrated as a poet and astatesman. After the death of his political enemy, the Earl ofLeicester, he was taken into Elizabeth's confidence, and, on thedeath of Burghley in 1598, was made Lord Treasurer, whichoffice he held till his death in the reign of James, April 19, 1608.He is best known as the author of the tragedy of ' Gorboduc,'otherwise called ' Ferrex and Porrex.''The Mirrour for Magistrates,'a collection of narratives by several poets on the misfortunesof the great men in English history, was planned byhim ; and he contributed to it 'The Induction ' or poeticalpreface, and ' The Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham.''The Induction' is an extraordinary poem, and too little known.It describes how the poet, being ina melancholy frame of mind,beheld the personification of Sorrow, who undertook to guidehim to the infernal regions, as Virgil guided Dante, and shewedhim there the figures of Remorse, Dread, Revenge, Misery,Greed, Sleep, Old Age, Malady, Famine, Death, and War, andmany of the unfortunate heroes of history, as Darius, Hannibal,Pompey, Marius, Cyrus, Xerxes, and Priam. The reader shouldperuse this with patience. The beginning is purposely sombre,