printed in 1597, meaning to ridicule and expofe the spiritual poetry with which his age was overwhelmed, has an allufion to a metrical English verfion of Solomon's Song". Having mentioned SAINT PETER'S COMPLAINT, written by Robert Southwell, and printed in 1595, with fome other religious effufions of that author, he adds,

Yea, and the prophet of the heavenly lyre,
Great Solomon, finges in the English quire;
And is become a new-found Sonnetift,
Singing his love, the holie spouse of Christ,
Like as she were fome light-skirts of the rest*,
In mightiest inkhornismes he can thither wrest.
Ye Sion Mufes fhall by my dear will,
For this your zeal and far-admired skill,
Be ftraight transported from Jerufalem,
Unto the holy house of Bethlehem.

It is not to any of the verfions of the CANTICLES which I have hitherto mentioned, that Hall here alludes. His cenfure is levelled at "The Poem of Poems, or SION'S MUSE. Contaynyng the diuine Song of King Salomon deuided into eight

ner, a puritan, who retired to Middleburgh to enjoy the privilege and felicity of preaching endless fermons without moleftation. Middleb. 15S7. 8vo.

w B. i. SAT. viii. But for this abuse of the divine fonnetters, Marfton not inelegantly retorts against Hall. CERTAYNE SATYRES, Lond. for E. Matts, 1598. 12mo. SAT. iv.

Come daunce, ye ftumbling Satyres, by his fide,

If he lift once the SYON MUSE deride.
Ye Granta's white Nymphs come, and
with you bring

Some fillabub, whilst he does fweetly fing
Gainft Peters Teares, and Maries mouing
Moane;

And like a fierce-enraged boare doth foame

At Sacred Sonnets, O daring hardiment!
At Bartas fweet Semaines raile impudent.
At Hopkins, Sternhold, and the Scottish
king,

At all Tranflators that do ftriue to bring
That ftranger language to our vulgar
tongue, &c.

* Origen and Jerom say, that the youth of the Jews were not permitted to read SOLOMON'S SONG till they were thirty years of age, for fear they fhould inflame their paffions by drawing the fpiritual allegory into a carnal fenfe. Orig. Homil. in CANTIC. CANT. apud Hieronymi Opp. Tom. viii. p. 122. And Opp. Origen. ii. fol. 68. Hieron. Proem. in Ezech. iv. p. 330. D.

a Du Bartas's Divine Weeks.

"be

Eclogues. Bramo affai, poco fpero, nulla chieggio. At London, printed by James Roberts for Mathew Lownes, and are to "be folde at his shop in faint Dunftones church-yarde, 1596"." The author figns his dedication, which is addreffed to the facred virgin, diuine mistress Elizabeth Sydney, fole daughter of the euer admired fir Philip Sydney, with the initials J. M. Thefe initials, which are fubfcribed to many pieces in ENGLAND'S HELICON, fignify Jarvis, or Iarvis, Markham".

Although the tranflation of the fcriptures into English rhyme was for the most part an exercife of the enlightened puritans, the recent publication of Sternhold's pfalms taught that mode of writing to many of the papifts, after the fudden revival of the mafs under queen Mary. One Richard Beearde, parfon of faint Mary-hill in London, celebrated the acceffion of that queen in a godly pfalm printed in 1553. Much about the fame time, George Marshall wrote A compendious treatife in metre, declaring the firft original of facrifice and of building churches and aultars, and of the first receiving the criften faith here in England, dedicated to George Wharton efquire, and printed at London in 1554*.

In 1556, Miles Hoggard, a famous butt of the protestants, published " a shorte treatise in meter vpon the cxxIx pfaline of "David called De profundis. Compiled and fet forth by Miles Huggarde fervante to the quenes maieftie." Of the oppofite or heretical perfuafion was Peter Moone, who wrote a metrical tract on the abuses of the mafs, printed by John Olwen at

Ipswich, about the first year of queen Mary. Nearly the fame period, a tranflation of ECCLESIATES into rhyme by Oliver Starkey occurs in bishop Tanner's library, if I recollect right, together with his Translation of Salluft's two histories. By the way, there was another vernacular verfification of ECCLESIASTES by Henry Lok, or Lock, of whom more will be faid hereafter, printed in 1597. This book was alfo tranflated into Latin hexameters by Drant, who will occur again in 1572. The ECCLESIASTES was verfified in English by Spenfer..

I have before mentioned the SCHOOL-HOUSE OF WOMEN, a fatire against the fair fex. This was anfwered by Edward More of Hambledon in Buckinghamshire, about the year 1557, before he was twenty years of age. It required no very powerful abilities either of genius or judgment to confute such a groundless and malignant invective. More's book is entitled, The DEFENCE OF WOMEN, especially English women, against a book intituled the SCHOOL-HOUSE OF WOMEN. It it dedicated to Master William Page, fecretary to his neighbour and patron fir Edward Hoby of Bisham-abbey, and was printed at London in 1560 f.

A fhort treatife of certayne thinges
abused,

In the popish church long used;
But now abolyfhed to our confolation,
And God's word advanced, the light of
our falvation.

In eight leaves, quarto, Bl. Lett. Fox
mentions one William Punt, author of a
ballade made against the Pope and Popery un-
der Edward the fixth, and of other tracts
of the fame tendency under queen Mary.
MARTYR. p. 1605. edit. vet. Punt's
printer was William Hyll at the fign of
the hill near the weft door of faint Pauls.
See in Strype, an account of Underhill's
Sufferings in 1553, for writing a bailad
against the Queen, he "being a witty.
"and facetious gentleman." ECCL. MEM.
iii. 60, 61. ch. vi. Many rhimes and Bal-
lads were written against the Spanish match,
in 1554. Strype, ibid. p. 127. ch. xiv.

h

With the catholic liturgy, all the pageantries of popery were reftored to their antient fplendour by queen Mary. Among others, the proceffion of the boy-bishop was too popular a mummery to be forgotten. In the preceding reign of king Edward the fixth, Hugh Rhodes, a gentleman or musician of the royal chapel, published an English poem with the title, THE BOKE OF NURTUR for men feruants and children, or of the gouernaunce of youth, with STANS PUER AD MENSAM3. In the following reign of Mary, the fame poet printed a poem confifting of thirty-fix octave ftanzas, entitled, "The SONG of the CHYLD"BYSSHOP, as it was fonge before the queenes maiestie in her priuie chamber at her manour of faynt James in the feeldes "on faynt Nicholas day and Innocents day this yeare nowe prefent, by the chylde bysfhope of Poules churche' with his company. LONDINI, in ædibus Johannis Cawood typographi reginæ, 1555. Cum privilegio, &c." By admitting this spectacle into her prefence, it appears that her majesty's bigotry condefcended to give countenance to the most ridiculous and unmeaning ceremony of the Roman ritual. As to the fong itself, it is a fulfome panegyric on the queen's devotion: in which she is compared to Judith, Efther, the queen of Sheba, and the

In quarto. Bl. Lett. Pa. Prol. "There "is few things to be understood." The poem begins, "Alle ye that wolde learn and wolde be called wyfe."

h In the church of York, no chorifter was to be elected boy-bishop, “ nifi ha"buerit claram vocem puerilem." Registr. Capitul. Ecclef. Ebor. fub ann. 1390. MS. ut fupr.

In the old ftatutes of faint Pauls, are many orders about this mock-folemnity. One is, that the canon, called STAGIARIUS, fhall find the boy-bishop his robes, and "equitatum honeftum." MS. fol. 86. Diceto dean. In the ftatutes of Salisbury cathedral, it is orderd, that the boy-bishop fhall not make a feaft, "fed in domo com"muni cum fociis converfetur, nifi eum "ut Choriftam, ad domum Canonici, caufa

66

ignorant but well-difpofed people into "their houses; and had as much good "cheer as ever was wont to be had before." ECCL. MEM. iii, 310. ch. xxxix. See also p. 387. ch. 1. In 1554, Nov. 13. an edict was iffued by the bishop of London, to all the clergy of his diocefe, to have a boy-bishop in proceffion, &c. Strype, ibid. p. 202. ch. xxv. See alfo p. 205, 206.

ch. xxvi.

virgin Mary'. This fhow of the boy-bishop, not fo much for its fuperftition as its levity and abfurdity, had been formally abrogated by king Henry the eighth, fourteen years before, in the year 1542, as appears by a "Proclamation devised by the Kings Majefty by the advys of his Highnefs Counsel the xxii "day of Julie, 33 Hen. viij, commanding the ffeafts of faint Luke, faint Mark, faint Marie Magdalene, Inuention of the Croffe, and faint Laurence, which had been abrogated, should "be nowe againe celebrated and kept holie days," of which the following is the concluding clause. "And where as here"tofore dyuers and many superstitious and chyldysh obferuances ❝ have be vsed, and yet to this day are obferued and kept, in 66 many and fundry partes of this realm, as vpon faint Nicholas ",

66

In a poem by Llodowyke Lloyd, in the Paradife of daintie Denises, (edit. i 585.) on the death of fir Edward Saunders, queen Elifabeth is complimented much in the fame manner. NUM. 32. SIGNAT. E. 2.

O facred feate, where Saba fage doth fit,

Like Sufan found, like Sara fad, with Hefter's mace in hand,

With Iudithes fword, Bellona-like, to rule this noble land.

"In Barnabie Googe's POPISH KINGDOM, a tranflation from Naogeorgius's REGNUM ANTICHRISTI, fol. 55. Lond. 1570. 4to.

Saint Nicholas monie víde to give to maydens fecretlie,

Who that be still may vse his wonted liberalitie:

The mother all their children on the Eeve do cause to fast,

And when they euerie one at night in

fenfeleffe fleepe are caft, Both apples, nuts and payres they bring, and other thinges befide, As cappes, and fhoes, and petticoates, with kertles they hide, And in the morning found, they fay, "Saint Nicholas this brought, &c."

See a curious paffage in bifhop Fisher's

Sermon of the MONTHS MINDE of Margaret countess of Richmond. Where it is faid, that she praied to S. Nicholas the patron and helper of all true maydens, when nine years old, about the choice of a huf band: and that the faint appeared in a vi fion, and announced the earl of Richmond. Edit Baker, pag. 8. There is a precept iffued to the sheriff of Oxford from Edward the firft, in 1305, to prohibit tournaments being intermixed with the sports of the scholars on faint Nicholas's day. Rot. Clauf. 33 Edw. i. memb. 2.

I have already given traces of this practice in the colleges of Winchester and Eton. [fee fupr. vol. ii. p. 389.] To which I here add another. Regiftr. Coll. Wint. fub ann. 1427. "Crux deaurata de cupro [copper] cum Baculo, pro EPISCOPO PUERORUM." But it appears that the practice fubfifted in common grammar. fchools. "Hoc anno, 1464, in fefto fancti "Nicolai non erat EPISCOPUS PUERORUM "in fchola grammaticali in civitate Can"tuariæ ex defectu Magiftrorum, viz. J. "Sidney et T. Hikfon, &c." Lib. Johannis Stone, Monachi Ecclef. Cant. fc. De Obitibus et aliis Memorabilibus fui cœnobii ab anno 1415 ad annum 1467. MS. C. C. C. C. Q8. The abufes of this cuftom in Wells cathedral are mentioned fo early as Decemb. 1. 1298. Regiftr. Eccl. Wellenf. [See fapr. vol. i. 248. ii. 375. 389.]