bate many of the impoftures of popery, it became an object of the legislature to curb the bold and feditious fpirit of popular poetry. No fooner were the Scriptures tranflated and permitted in English, than they were brought upon the stage: they were not only misinterpreted and misunderstood by the multitude, but profaned or burlefqued in comedies and mummeries. Effectually to restrain these abuses, Henry, who loved to create a subject for persecution, who commonly proceeded to disannul what he had just confirmed, and who found that a freedom of enquiry tended to shake his ecclefiaftical fupremacy, framed a law, that not only Tyndale's English Bible, and all the printed English commentaries, expofitions, annotations, defences, replies, and fermons, whether orthodox or heretical, which it had occafioned, fhould be utterly abolished; but that the kingdom should also be purged and cleanfed of all religious plays, interludes, rhymes, ballads, and fongs, which are equally peftiferous and noyfome to the peace of the church ". Henry appears to have been piqued as an author and a theologist in adding the clause concerning his own INSTITUTION OF A CHRISTIAN MAN, which had been treated with the fame fort of ridicule. Yet under the general injunction of fuppreffing all English books on religious subjects, he formally excepts, among others, fome not properly belonging to that clafs, fuch as the CANTERBURY TALES, the works of Chaucer and Gower, CRONICLES, and STORIES OF MENS LIVES. There is also an exception added about plays, and those only are allowed which were called MORALITIES, or perhaps interludes of real character and action, "for the rebuking and reproaching of "vices and the setting forth of virtue." MYSTERIES are totally rejected. The refervations which follow, concerning the ufe of a corrected English Bible, which was permitted, are curious for their quaint partiality, and they fhew the embarrassment STAT. Ann. 34, 35. Henr. viii. Cap. i. Tyndale's Bible was printed at Paris 1536. Ibid. Artic. vii. • Ibid. Artic. ix.. of of administration, in the difficult business of confining that benefit to a few, from which all might reap advantage, but which threatened to become a general evil, without fome degrees of reftriction. It is abfolutely forbidden to be read or expounded in the church. The lord chancellor, the speaker of the house of commons, captaines of the wars, juftices of the peace, and recorders of cities, may quote paffages to enforce their public harangues, as has been accustomed. A nobleman or gentleman may read it, in his house, orchards, or garden, yet quietly, and without disturbance" of good order." A merchant also A merchant also may read it to himself privately. But the common people, who had already abused this liberty to the purpose of divifion and diffenfions, and under the denomination of women, artificers, apprentices, journeymen, and servingmen, are to be punished with one month's imprisonment, as often as they are detected in reading the Bible either privately or openly. It should be obferved, that few of these had now learned to read. But fuch was the privilege of peerage, that ladies of quality might read "to themselves and alone, and not to others,” any chapter either in the Old or New Testament. This has the air of a fumptuary law, which indulges the nobility with many superb articles of finery, that are interdicted to those of inferior degree. Undoubtedly the ducheffes and counteffes of this age, if not from principles of piety, at least from motives of curiofity, became eager to read a book which was made Ibid. Artic. x. feq. And of an old DIETARIE FOR THE CLERGY, I think by archbishop Cranmer, in which an archbishop is allowed to have two swans or two capons in a dish, a bishop two. An archbishop fix black birds at once, a bishop five, a dean four, an archdeacon two. If a dean has four Idishes in his firft courfe, he is not afterwards to have cuftards or fritters. An archbishop may have fix fnipes, an archdeacon only two. Rabbits, larks, pheafants, and partridges, are allowed in these proportions. A canon refidentiary is to have a fwan only on a Sunday. A rector of fixteen marks, only three blackbirds in a week. See a fimilar inftrument, Strype's PARKER, APPEND. p. 65. In the British Museum, there is a beautiful manuscript on vellum of a French translation of the Bible, which was found in the tent of king John, king of France, after the battle of Poitiers. Perhaps his majefty poffeffed this book on the plan of an exclufive royal right. inacceffible inacceffible to three parts of the nation. But the partial distribution of a treasure to which all had a right could not long remain. This was a MANNA to be gathered by every man. The claim of the people was too powerful to be overruled by the bigottry, the prejudice, or the caprice of Henry. I must add here, in reference to my general fubject, that the translation of the Bible, which in the reign of Edward the fixth was admitted into the churches, is supposed to have fixed our language. It certainly has transmitted and perpetuated many antient words which would otherwise have been obfolete or unintelligible. I have never feen it remarked, that at the fame time this translation contributed to enrich our native English at an early period, by importing and familiarifing many Latin words h These were suggested by the Latin vulgate, which was used as a medium by the tranflators. Some of these, however, now interwoven into our common fpeech, could not have been understood by many readers even above the rank of the vulgar, when the Bible first appeared in English. Bishop Gardiner had therefore much less reason than we now imagine, for complaining of the too great clearness of the tranflation, when with an infidious view of keeping the people in their antient ignorance, he proposed, that instead of always using English phrases, many Latin words should still be preserved, because they contained an inherent fignificance and a genuine dignity, to which the common tongue afforded no correfpondent expreffions of sufficient energy i. To the reign of Edward the fixth belongs Arthur Kelton, a native of Shropshire or Wales. He wrote the CRONICLE OF More particularly in the Latin derivative fubftantives, fuch as, divination, perdition, adoption, manifeftation, confolation, contribution, administration, confummation, reconciliation, operation, communication, retribution, preparation, immortality, principality, &c. &c. And in other words, fruftrate, inexcufable, transfigure, concupifcence, &c. &c. Such as, Idololatria,. contritus, bolocaufta, facramentum, elementa, bumilitas, fatisfactio, ceremonia, abfolutio, myfterium, penitentia, &c. See Gardiner's proposals in Burnet, HIST. REF. vol. i. B. iii. p. 315. And Fuller, CH. HIST. B. v. Cent. xvi. P. 238. THE THE BRUTES in English verse. It is dedicated to the young king, who seems to have been the general patron; and was printed in 1547*. Wood allows that he was an able antiquary; but laments, that he "being withall poetically given, must for"footh write and publish his lucubrations in verse; whereby, " for rhime's fake, many material matters, and the due timing "of them, are omitted, and fo confequently rejected by histo"rians and antiquarians '." Yet he has not fupplied his want of genealogical and hiftorical precision with those strokes of poetry which his subject suggested; nor has his imagination been any impediment to his accuracy. At the end of his CRONICLE is the GENEALOGY OF THE BRUTES, in which the pedigree of king Edward the fixth is lineally drawn through thirty-two generations, from Ofiris the first king of Egypt. Here too Wood reproaches our author for his ignorance in genealogy. But in an heraldic enquiry, fo difficult and so new, many mistakes are pardonable. It is extraordinary that a Welshman should have carried his genealogical researches into Egypt, or rather should have wished to prove that Edward was defcended from Ofiris: but this was with a defign to fhew, that the Egyptian monarch was the original progenitor of Brutus, the undoubted founder of Edward's family. Bale fays that he wrote, and dedicated to fir William Herbert, afterwards earl of Pembroke, a moft elegant poetical panegyric on the Cambro-Britons". But Bale's praises and cenfures are always regulated according to the religion of his authors. The first CHANSON à BOIRE, or DRINKING-BALLAD, of any merit, in our language, appeared in the year 1551. It has a vein of eafe and humour, which we should not expect to have been infpired by the fimple beverage of those times. I believe I fhall not tire my reader by giving it at length; and am only afraid that in this fpecimen the tranfition will be thought * Lond. Octavo. Pr. "In the golden time when all things." ATH. OXON. i. 73. m Bale, xi. 97, too too violent, from the poetry of the puritans to a convivial and ungodlie ballad. I love no roft, but a nut-browne tofte, A little bread shall do me ftead, Moche bread I noght defire. No frost no fnow, no winde, I trowe, I am fo wrapt, and throwly lapt Backe and fide, &c. And TIB my wife, that as her life Loveth well good ale to feeke, Full oft drinkes fhee, till ye may fee And, faith, fweet heart, I tooke my part "Of this joly good ale and olde." Backe and fide, &c. ■ A monk. • Having drank the fays. VOL. II. Dd Now |