ADVERTISEMENT.

THE three first books of Virgidemiarum were originally published anonymously in 1597, and the three last in 1598. The whole were reprinted in 1599. This edition is occasionally found with the false date of 1602, which, in that year, was affixed to the part of the work called Toothlesse Satyrs; while the original and correct date of 1599, is retained in the title to the other part, called Byting Satyrs. The present edition has been printed from one of these copies. Warton describes the im

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pression of 1599 as the " last and best" of the early editions of Virgidemiarum.

It is somewhat remarkable, that in the course of two centuries, this work should have been only once republished, although it was thought worthy of a fierce and relentless attack by Milton, and although the attention of the readers of English poetry was successively drawn to its preeminent merits by Pope, Whalley, Gray, and Warton. In the Catalogue of Mr West's Library, published in 1773, we find the following article:-"Hall's, (Bp.) Virgidemiarum, 6 Books, impr. by Harrison, 15991602; rare edit. Mr Pope's copy, who presented it to Mr West, telling him that he esteemed them the best poetry, and truest satire in the English language, and that he had an intention of modernizing them, as

he had done some of Donne's Satires." Mr Thomson of Queen's College, the ingenious editor of an edition printed at Oxford in

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1753, mentions, that " Mr Pope saw these Satires, but so late in life, that he could only bestow this commendation on them, which they truly deserve, to wish he had seen them sooner." This anecdote is improbable, for there is much reason to suppose that his own Satires were modelled upon those of Hall; and indeed it would be doing him an injury to believe that, during the greater part of his life, he was unacquainted with the writings of one of the earliest, and beyond all dispute, the best English satirist.

1 No. 1047.

2 Strictly speaking, Sir Thomas Wyatt was the first English satirist, although Hall claims this honour.

The popularity of personal satires is apt to decline, and their merits to be forgotten, when the age in which they are written, with its feelings, its fashions, and its characters, has passed away. From this fate, however, Lord Hailes thought that Virgidemiarum deserved to be saved. "Hall's Satires," says his Lordship, in a manuscript note upon his copy of the work," have merit, and will be remembered." This commendation may be considered cold; but Lord Hailes was a sagacious, rather than an enthusiastic critic, and in remarking, that the satires of Hall were worthy of being remembered, he sufficiently intimated his sense of their merits. They are," says Mr Campbell," neither cramped by personal hostility, nor spun out to vague declamation on vice, but give us the form and pressure of the

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times, exhibited in the faults of coeval literature, and in the foppery or sordid traits of prevailing manners." Human nature, in all its varieties, is their subject; and, although not free from the obscurity of occasional allusions, they betray great knowledge of mankind, and contain much that will be found interesting and intelligible in every age."

In attempting any examination of Virgidemiarum, it would be difficult to avoid repeating the elaborate, but ingenious criticisms of Warton, in his History of English Poetry. To these, therefore, the reader is referred for a detailed review of the Satires, and an elucidation of many of their obscurities. Warton's general Notice of the author and his work, is prefixed to this edition. The short Glossary with