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bed. As he had been raised by the exaltation, he was involved in the misfortunes of that injured princess, who had no other fault but an unguarded and indifcrete frankness of nature; and whose character has been blackened by the bigotted historians of the catholic caufe, merely because she was the mother of queen Elifabeth. To gratify the oftenfible jealousy of the king, who had conceived a violent paffion for a new object, this amiable nobleman was beheaded on the first of May, in 1536 b. His elegance of perfon, and spritely converfation, captivated all the ladies of Henry's court. Wood fays, that at the "royal "court he was much adored, especially by the female sex, for his "admirable difcourfe, and fymmetry of body." From these irresistible allurements his enemies endeavoured to give a plaufibility to their infamous charge of an incestuous connection. After his commitment to the Tower, his fifter the queen, on being sent to the fame place, asked the lieutenant, with a degree of eagerness, "Oh! where is my sweet brother?" Here was a fpecious confirmation of his imagined guilt: this stroke of natural tenderness was too readily interpreted into a licentious attachment. Bale mentions his RHYTHMI ELEGANTISSIMI, which Wood calls, " Songs and Sonnets, with other things of "the like nature "." These are now loft, unless fome, as I have infinuated, are contained in the prefent collection; a garland, in which it appears to have been the fashion for every FLOWERY COURTIER to leave fome of his bloffoms. But Boleyn's poems cannot now be distinguished.

The lord Vaulx, whom I have fuppofed, and on furer proof, to be another contributor to this mifcellany, could not be the Nicholas lord Vaux, whofe gown of purple velvet, plated with gold, eclipsed all the company present at the marriage of prince Arthur; who fhines as a statesman and a foldier with uncommon luftre in the history of Henry the seventh, and continued

See Dugd. BARON. iii. p. 306. a.
Ath. Oxon. i. 44.

* Strype, MEM. i. p. 280.

1 ii. 103.
- Ubi fupr.

to

to adorn the earlier annals of his fucceffor, and who died in the year 1523. Lord Vaux the poet, was probably Thomas lord Vaux, the fon of Nicholas, and who was fummoned to parliament in 1531, and feems to have lived till the latter end of the reign of queen Mary". All our old writers mention the poetical lord Vaux, as rather pofterior to Wyat and Surrey; neither of whom was known as a writer till many years after the death of lord Nicholas. George Gafcoyne, who wrote in 1575, in his panegyric on the ENGLISH POETS, places Vaux after Surrey.

Piers Plowman was full playne,

And Chaucer's fpreet was greate;
Earle Surrey had a goodly vayne,

LORD VAUX the marke did beate.

Puttenham, author of the ARTE OF ENGLISH POESIE, having spoken of Surrey and Wyat, immediately adds, " In the SAME "TIME, or NOT LONG AFTER, was the lord Nicholas Vaux,

a man of much facilitie in vulgar making "." Webbe, in his DISCOURSE OF ENGLISH POETRIE, published in 1586, has a fimilar arrangement. Great numbers of Vaux's poems are extant in the PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVISES; and, instead of the rudeness of Skelton, they have a smoothness and facility of manner, which does not belong to poetry written before the year 1523, in which lord Nicholas Vaux died an old man o. The PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVISES was published in 1578, and he is there fimply styled Lord Vaulx the elder: this was to diftinguish him from his fon lord William, then living. If lord Nicholas was a writer of poetry, I will venture to affert, that none of his performances now remain; notwithstanding the

See what I have faid of his fon lord William, in the LIFE OF SIR THOMAS POPE, p. 221. In 1558, fir Tho. Pope leaves him a legacy of one hundred pounds, by the name of lord Vaulx.

• The christian name is a mistake, into which it was easy to fall.

P Fol. 48.

9 See Percy's BALL. ii. 49. edit. 1775.

teftimony

teftimony of Wood, who fays, that Nicholas, " in his juvenile

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years was fent to Oxon, where by reading humane and ro"mantic, rather than philofophical authors, he advanced his "genius very much in poetry and history '." This may be true of his fon Thomas, whom I fuppofe to be the poet. But fuch was the celebrity of lord Nicholas's public and political character, that he has been made to monopolife every merit which was the property of his fucceffors. All these difficulties, however, are at once adjusted by a manuscript in the British Museum : in which we have a copy of Vaux's poem, beginning I lothe that I did love, with this title: "A dyttye or fonet made by the lord "Vaus, in the time of the noble quene Marye, representing "the image of Death'." This fonnet, or rather ode, entitled, The aged lover renounceth love, which was more remembered for its morality than its poetry, and which is idly conjectured to have been written on his death-bed', makes a part of the collection which I am now examining ". From this ditty are taken three of the stanzas, yet greatly disguised and corrupted, of the Grave-digger's Song in Shakespeare's HAMLET ". Another of

lord Vaux's poems in the volume before us, is the ASSAULT OF CUPIDE UPON THE FORT IN WHICH THE LOVER'S HEART LAY WOUNDED *. These two are the only pieces in our collection, of which there is undoubted evidence, although no name is prefixed to either, that they were written by lord Vaux. From palpable coincidencies of style, subject, and other circumstances, a slender share of critical fagacity is fufficient to point out many others.

These three writers were cotemporaries with Surrey and Wyat: but the fubjects of fome of the pieces will go far in ascertaining the date of the collection in general. There is one on the death

ATH. OXON. i. 19.

• MSS. HARL. 1703. 25.

G. Gafcoyne fays, "The L. Vaux "his dittie, beginning thus I loath, was thought by fome to be made upon his "death-bed, &c." EPISTLE TO THE

YOUNG GENTLEMEN, prefixed to his
Poems.

u Fol. 72.

w A& V.

* Fol. 71.

of

of fir Thomas Wyat the elder, who died, as I have remarked, in 1541. Another on the death of lord chancellor Audley, who died in 1544". Another on the death of mafter Devereux, a fon of lord Ferrers, who is faid to have been a Cato for his counfel; and who is probably Richard Devereux, buried in Berkyng church, the son of Walter lord Ferrers, a distinguished statesman and general under Henry the eighth. Another on the death of a lady Wentworth . Another on the death of fir Antony Denny, the only perfon of the court who dared to inform king Henry the eighth of his approaching diffolution, and who died in 1551°. Another on the death of Phillips, an eminent musician, and without his rival on the lute. Another on the death of a countess of Pembroke, who is celebrated for her learning, and her perfect virtues linked in a chaine : probably Anne, who was buried magnificently at faint Pauls, in 1551, the first lady of fir William Herbert the firft earl of Pembroke, and fifter to Catharine Parr, the fixth queen of Henry the eighth ". Another on mafter Henry Williams, fon of fir John Williams, afterwards lord Thame, and a great favorite of Henry the eighth. On the death of fir James Wilford, an officer in

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ii. 177.

Fol. 73. Margaret. See Dugd. Bar. ii. 310.

Fol. 78. There is fir John Cheek's EPITAPHIUM in Anton. Denneium. Lond. 1551. 4to.

Fol.71. One Philips is mentioned among the famous English musicians,in Meres's Wits Trefurie, 1598. fol. 288. I cannot afcertain who this Phillips, a mufician, was. But one Robert Phillips, or Phelipp, occurs among the gentlemen of the royal chapel under Edward the fixth and queen Mary. He was alfo one of the fingingmen of faint George's chapel at Windfor:

and Fox fays, "he was fo notable a fing"ing-man, wherein he gloried, that where"foever he came, the longest fong with "moft counter verfes in it fhould be set up "against him." Fox adds, that while he was finging on one fide of the choir of Windfor chapel, O Redemptrix et Salvatrix, he was answered by one Testwood a finger on the other fide, Non Redemptrix nec Salvatrix. For this irreverence, and a few other flight herefies, Teftwood was burnt at Windfor. ACTS and MONUM. vol. ii. P: 543, 544. I must add, that fir Thomas Phelyppis, or Philips, is mentioned as a mufician before the reformation. Hawkins, HIST. MUS. ii. 533

• Fol. 85.

Strype, MEм. ii. p. 317.

i Fol. 99. See LIFE OF SIR THOMAS POPE, p. 232.

Henry's

Henry's wars, we have here an elegy, with fome verses on his picture. Here is alfo a poem on a treasonable confpiracy, which is compared to the ftratagem of Sinon, and which threatened immediate extermination to the British conftitution, but was speedily discovered". I have not the courage to explore the formidable columns of the circumftantial Hollingshed for this occult piece of history, which I leave to the curiofity and conjectures of fome more laborious investigator. It is certain that none of these pieces are later than the year 1557, as they were published in that year by Richard Tottell the printer. We may venture to say, that almost all of them were written between the years

1530 and 1550 n ". Most of them perhaps within the first part of that period.

The following nameless ftanzas have that elegance which refults from fimplicity. The compliments are fuch as would not difgrace the gallantry or the poetry of a polished age. The thoughts support themselves, without the aid of expreffion, and the affectations of language. This is a negligence, but it is a negligence produced by art. Here is an effect obtained, which

it would be vain to feek from the ftudied ornaments of ftyle.

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