English Writers - 1892 Author:Henry Morley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. TOUCHING THE EARTHQUAKE AND OUR ENGLISH REFORMED VERSIFYING. QUEEN ELIZABETH AMONG THE POETS. Arthur Golding was among those who took very seri... more »ously a shock of earthquake that was felt throughout England on the sixth of April, 1580. We have seen evidence of his religious temper in Tl)e Eanh- . . . . quake of the introduction to his translation of Ovid s 1580: " Metamorphoses." He published without loss Goiding. of lime " A discourse vpon the Earthquake that hapned throughe this Realme of Englande, and other places of Christendom, the sixt of Aprill, 1580, betwene the houres of flue and six in the Euening. Written by Arthur Goiding, Gentleman." (Henry Bynneman, 1580.) Twenty-two pages of very small quarto treat of the earthquake as God's threatening against " our contempt of his holy Religion, and our securitie and sound sleeping in sinne, shewing us euident tokens of his iust displeasure neere at hande, both abroade and at home." Arthur Goiding quotes, among signs of Divine displeasure, the famine under Mary, when men were fain to make bread of acorns; the monstrous births both of children and cattle; the unseasonableness of the seasons of some years; the wonderful new star so long time fixed in the heavens ; the strange appearings of comets ; frequent eclipses of sun and moon; the great and strange-fashionedlights seen in the firmament in the night-times; the sudden falling and unwonted abiding of immeasurable abundance of snow; the excessive and untimely rains and overflowing of waters; the greatness and sharp continuance of sore frosts; and many other such wonderful things, one following on another's neck. "E, W." viii. 223. He proceeds to argue against those who, "to keep themselves and others from the due looking back into the time earst mysspe...« less