VEST-HOME, when the harvest-home goofe is to be killed. SEED-CAKE, a festival so called at the end of wheat-sowing in Effex and Suffolk, when the village is to be treated with feedcakes, pasties, and the frumentie-pot. But twice a week, according to antient right and cuftom, the farmer is to give roaftmeat, that is, on Sundays and on Thursday-nights'. We have then a set of pofies or proverbial rhymes, to be written in various rooms of the house, fuch as "Hufbandlie pofies for the Hall, "Pofies for the Parlour, Pofies for the Ghefts chamber, and "Pofies for thine own bedchamber." Botany appears to have been eminently cultivated, and illustrated with numerous treatises in English, throughout the latter part of the fixteenth century. In this work are large enumerations of plants, as well for the medical as the culinary garden. Our author's general precepts have often an expreffive brevity, and are fometimes pointed with an epigrammatic turn and a smartness of allufion. As thus, Saue wing for a thresher, when gander doth die; Much spice is a theefe, fo is candle and fire ; Sweet faufe is as craftie as euer was frier . Again, under the leffons of the housewife. Though cat, a good moufer, doth dwell in a house, "end with the twelve moneths of the yere: aforn hym went yche [each] Mo"neth dyfgufyfyd after the fefon requiryd, "&c." Blomf. NORF. ii. p. 111. This very poetical pageantry reminds me of a fimilar and a beautiful proceffion at Rome, defcribed by Lucretius, where the SEASONS, with their accompaniments, walk perfonified. Lib. v. 736. It VER et VENUS, et Veneris prænuntius ante Pinnatus ZEPHYRUS graditur veftigia propter; FLORA quibus mater præfpergens ante viai Cuneta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. Inde AUTUMNUS adit, &c. k Take heed how thou laieft the bane for the rats, Saue droppings and skimmings, however ye doo, In these stanzas on haymaking, he rifes above his common manner. Go mufter thy feruants, be captain thyfelfe, With toffing, and raking, and setting on cox, A great variety of verfe is used in this poem, which is thrown into numerous detached chapters °. The HUSBANDRIE is divided into the feveral months. Tuffer, in refpect of his antiquated diction, and his argument, may not improperly be styled the English Varro. k Poifon. 1 Fol. 131. m Fol. 134. Fol. 95. CH. 44. In this book I firft find the metre of Prior's fong, "Defpairing befide a clear ftream." For inftance. What looke ye, I praie you fhew what? Good husbandrie feeketh not that, See PREFACE TO THE BUIER OF THIS Such Such were the rude beginnings in the English language of didactic poetry, which, on a kindred fubject, the prefent age has feen brought to perfection, by the happy combination of judicious precepts with the most elegant ornaments of language and imagery, in Mr. Mafon's ENGLISH GARDEN. SECT. S E C T. XXXVI. A MONG Antony Wood's manufcripts in the Bodleian library at Oxford, I find a poem of confiderable length written by William Forreft, chaplain to queen Mary. It is entitled, "A true and most notable History of a right noble " and famous Lady produced in Spayne entitled the second "GRESIELD, practifed not long out of this time in much part "tragedous as delectable both to hearers and readers." This is a panegyrical history in octave rhyme, of the life of queen Catharine, the first queen of king Henry the eighth. The poet compares Catharine to patient Grifild, celebrated by Petrarch and Chaucer, and Henry to earl Walter her husband'. Catharine had certainly the patience and conjugal compliance of Grifild: but Henry's cruelty was not, like Walter's, only artificial and affumed. It is dedicated to queen Mary: and Wood's manufcript, which was once very fuperbly bound and emboffed, and is elegantly written on vellum, evidently appears to have been the book presented by the author to her majesty. Much of its antient finery is tarnished: but on the brass boffes at each corner is ftill difcernible AVE, MARIA GRATIA PLENA. At the end 66 is this colophon. "Here endeth the Hiftorye of Gryfilde the fecond, dulie meanyng Queene Catharine mother to our most "dread foveraigne Lady queene Mary, fynyfched the xxv day "of June, the yeare of owre Lorde 1558. By the symple and "unlearned Syr Wylliam Forrest preeifte, propria manu." The poem, which confifts of twenty chapters, contains a zealous condemnation of Henry's divorce: and, I believe, preserves some anecdotes, yet apparently misreprefented by the writer's religious and political bigotry, not extant in any of our printed histories. Forrest was a student at Oxford, at the time when this notable and knotty point of cafuiftry proftituted the learning of all the univerfities of Europe, to the gratification of the capricious amours of a libidinous and implacable tyrant. He has recorded many particulars and local incidents of what paffed in Oxford during that tranfaction ". At the end of the poem is a metrical ORATION CONSOLATORY, in fix leaves, to queen Mary. In the British Museum is another of Forreft's poems, written in two splendid folio volumes on vellum, called "The tragedious "troubles of the most chaft and innocent Jofeph, fon to the holy patriarch Jacob," and dedicated to Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk. In the fame repofitory is another of his pieces, never printed, dedicated to king Edward the fixth, “A "notable warke called The PLEASANT POESIE OF PRINCELIE "PRACTISE, Compofed of late by the fimple and unlearned "fir William Forrest prieft, much part collected out of a booke "entitled the GOVERNANCE OF NOBLEMEN, which booke "the wyfe philofopher Ariftotle wrote to his disciple Alexander In the first chapter, he thus fpeaks of the towardlinefs of the princess Catharine's younger years. With ftoole and needyl she was not to And other practifeingis for ladyes meete; He adds, that he was a pure virgin first husband prince Henry, on account of his tender years, never flept with her. MSS. REG. 18 C. xiii. It appears to have once belonged to the library of John Theyer of Cooperfhill near Gloucefter. There is another copy in University-college Library, MSS. G. 7. with gilded leaves. This, I believe, once belonged to Robert earl of Aylesbury. Pr. "In Ca"naan that country opulent." "the |