תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

And eke your realme shall florish styll,
No good thynge shall decaye,

Your fubjectes fhall with right good will,
These wordes recorde and faye :

Thy lyf, O kyng, to us doth fhyne,
"As God's boke doth thee teache;
"Thou doft us feede with fuch doctrine
"As God's elect dyd preache."

From this fample of his original vein, my reader will not perhaps haftily predetermine, that our author has communicated any confiderable decorations to his ACTS OF THE APOSTLES in English verse. There is as much elegance and animation in the two following initial ftanzas of the fourteenth chapter, as in any of the whole performance, which I fhall therefore exhibit.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Doctor Tye's ACTS OF THE APOSTLES were fung for a time in the royal chapel of Edward the fixth. But they never became popular. The impropriety of the defign, and the impotency of the execution, seem to have been perceived even by his own prejudiced and undiscerning age. This circumstance, however, had probably the fortunate and feasonable effect, of

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

turning Tye's musical studies to another and a more rational fyftem to the compofition of words judiciously felected from the profe pfalms in four or five parts. Before the middle of the reign of Elifabeth, at a time when the more ornamental and intricate mufic was wanted in our fervice, he concurred with the celebrated Tallis and a few others in fetting feveral anthems, which are not only justly supposed to retain much of the original ftrain of our antient choral melody before the reformation, but in refpect of harmony, expreffion, contrivance, and general effect, are allowed to be perfect models of the genuine ecclefiaftic style. Fuller informs us, that Tye was the chief restorer of the lofs which the mufic of the church had fuftained by the destruction of the monafteries . Tye alfo appears to have been a translator of Italian. The Hiftory of Naftagio and Traversari tranflated out of Italian into English by C. T. perhaps Christopher Tye, was printed at London in 1569.

It is not my intention to pursue any farther the mob of religious rhymers, who, from principles of the most unfeigned piety, devoutly laboured to darken the luftre, and enervate the force, of the divine pages. And perhaps I have been already too prolix in examining a fpecies of poetry, if it may be fo called, which even impoverishes profe; or rather, by mixing the ftile of profe with verfe, and of verfe with profe, destroys

WORTHIES, ii. 244 Tallis here mentioned, at the beginning of the reign of Elifabeth, and by proper authority, enriched the mufic of Marbeck's liturgy. He fet to mufic the TE DEUM, BENEDICTUS, MAGNIFICAT, NUNC DIMITTIS, and other offices, to which Marbeck had given only the canto firmo, or plain chant. He composed a new Litany ftill in ufe; and improved the fimpler modulation of Marbeck's Suffrages, Kyries after the Commandments, and other verficles, as they are fung at prefent. There are two chants of Tallis, one to the VENITE EXULTEMUS, and another to the Athanafian Creed.

• In duodecimo.-I had almoft forgot to obferve, that John Mardiley, cerk of the king's Mint, called Suffolk-boufe in Southwark, tranflated twenty-four of David's Pfalms into English verfe, about 1550. He wrote alfo Religious Hymns. Bale, par. poft. p. 106. There is extant his Complaint against the stiffnecked papift. in verfe, Lond. by T. Raynold, 1548. 8vo. And, a Short Refytal of certyne holie doctors, against the real prefence, collected in myter [metre] by John Mardiley. Lond. 12mo. See another of his pieces on the fame fubject, and in rhyme, prefented and dedicated to queen Elifabeth, MSS. REG. 17 B. xxxvii. The Protector Somerset was his patron.

the

the character and effect of both. But in furveying the general course of à fpecies of literature, abfurdities as well as excellencies, the weakness and the vigour of the human mind, must have their historian. Nor is it unpleafing to trace and to contemplate those strange incongruities, and false ideas of perfection, which at various times, either affectation, or caprice, or fashion, or opinion, or prejudice, or ignorance, or enthusiasm, prefent to the conceptions of men, in the shape of truth.

I must not, however, forget, that king Edward the fixth is to be ranked among the religious poets of his own reign. Fox has published his metrical instructions concerning the eucharift, addreffed to fir Antony Saint Leger. Bale alfo mentions his comedy called the WHORE OF BABYLON, which Holland the heroologift, who perhaps had never feen it, and knew not whether it was a play or a ballad, in verfe or profe, pronounces to be a most elegant performance. Its elegance, with fome, will not perhaps apologise or atone for its fubject: and it may seem strange, that controversial ribaldry should have been suffered to enter into the education of a great monarch. But the genius, habits, and fituation, of his age fhould be confidered. The reformation was the great political topic of Edward's court. Intricate difcuffions in divinity were no longer confined to the schools or the clergy. The new religion, from its novelty, as well as importance, interested every mind, and was almost the fole object of the general attention. Men emancipated from the severities of a spiritual tyranny, reflected with horror on the flavery they had fo long fuffered, and with exultation on the triumph they had obtained. These feelings were often expreffed in a strain of enthusiasm. The fspirit of innovation, which had seized the times, often tranfgreffed the bounds of truth. Every change of religion is attended with those ebullitions, which growing more moderate by degrees, afterwards appear eccentric and ridiculous.

f HEROOLOG. p. 27..

We

We who live at a distance from this great and national struggle between popery and protestantism, when our church has been long and peaceably established, and in an age of good sense, of politeness and philofophy, are apt to view these effufions of royal piety as weak and unworthy the character of a king. But an oftentation of zeal and example in the young Edward, as it was natural fo it was neceffary, while the reformation was yet immature. It was the duty of his preceptors, to impress on his tender years, an abhorrence of the principles of Rome, and a predilection to that happy fyftem which now feemed likely to prevail. His early diligence, his inclination to letters, and his seriousness of difpofition, feconded their active endeavours to cultivate and to bias his mind in favour of the new theology, which was now become the fashionable knowledge. These and other amiable virtues his cotemporaries have given young Edward in an eminent degree. But it may be presumed, that the partiality which youth always commands, the fpecious prospects excited by expectation, and the flattering promises of religious liberty fecured to a distant posterity, have had some small share in dictating his panegyric.

The new fettlement of religion, by counteracting inveterate prejudices of the most interesting nature, by throwing the clergy into a state of contention, and by diffeminating theological opinions among the people, excited fo general a ferment, that even the popular ballads and the stage, were made the vehicles of the controverfy between the papal and protestant communions *.

The Ballad of LUTHER, the POPE, a CARDINAL, and a HUSBANDMAN, written in 1550, in defence of the reformation, has fome spirit, and supports a degree of character in the fpeakers. There is another written about the fame time, which is a lively fatire on the English Bible, the vernacular liturgy, and the book of homilies". The measure of the laft is that of

See inftances already given, before the Reformation had actually taken place,

fupr. p. 144.

See Persy BALL. ii. 102.

PIERCE PLOWMAN, with the addition of rhyme: a fort of verfification which now was not uncommon.

Strype has printed a poem called the PORE HELP, of the year 1550, which is a lampoon against the new preachers or gofpellers, not very elegant in its allufions, and in Skelton's style. The anonymous fatirift mentions with applause Mayfter Huggarde, or Miles Hoggard, a fhoemaker of London, and who wrote feveral virulent pamphlets against the reformation, which were made important by extorting laboured answers from feveral eminent divines 1. He also mentions a nobler clarke, whose learned Balad in defence of the holy Kyrke had triumphed over all the raillery of its numerous opponents. The fame induftrious annalist has also preferved A Song on bishop Latimer, in the octave rhyme, by a poet of the fame perfuafion'. And in the catalogue of modern English prohibited books delivered in 1542 to the parish priests, to the intent that their authors might be discovered and punished, there is the Burying of the Mafs in Eaglifh rithmeTM. But it is not my intention to make a full and formal collection of these fugitive religious pafquinades, which died with their respective controverfies.

In the year 1547, a proclamation was published to prohibit preaching. This was a temporary expedient to fupprefs the turbulent harangues of the catholic minifters, who still compofed no small part of the parochial clergy: for the court of augmentations took care perpetually to fupply the vacant benefices with the difincorporated monks, in order to exonerate the exchequer from the payment of their annuities. These men, both from inclination and intereft, and hoping to restore the church to its antient orthodoxy and opulence, exerted all their powers of declamation in combating the doctrines of proteftan

i One of these pieces is, "A Confuta❝tion to the answer of a wicked ballad," printed in 1550. Crowley abovementioned wrote, "A Confutation of Miles "Hoggard's wicked ballad made in de

fence of the tranfubftantiation of the

"Sacrament." Lond. 1548. octavo.

* Strype, EccL. MEM. ii. APPEND. i. P. 34.

Ibid. vol. i. APPEND. xliv. p. 121. Burnet, HIST. REF. vol.i. REC. Num. xxvi. p. 257.

« הקודםהמשך »