Worship not Jove with curious fancies vain, The maxim is enforced with great quickness and variety of illustration: nor is the collifion of oppofite thoughts, which the fubject fo naturally affords, extravagantly pursued, or indulged beyond the bounds of good fenfe and propriety. The following ftanzas on the NINE MUSES are more poetical, and not lefs correct '. Imps' of king Jove and queen REMEMBRANCE, lo, And worthy praises paintes of princely peres. And, as with cheins, thallured eare fhe bindes. Her ftringes when Terpfechor doth touche, euen then • Poifed. P Thick. Maffy. 9 Fol. 113. r Fol. 113. • Daughters. ⚫ Companions. Fine Erato, whofe looke a liuely chere Whose wordes whole routes of rankes do rule in place. Uranie, her globes to view all bent, The ninefold heauen obferues with fixed face. The Graces in the Mufes weed, delite To lead them forth, that men in maze they fall. It would be unpardonable to dismiss this valuable miscellany, without acknowledging our obligations to its original editor Richard Tottell: who deferves highly of English literature, for having collected at a critical period, and preferved in a printed volume, fo many admirable specimens of antient genius, which would have mouldered in manufcript, or perhaps from their detached and fugitive ftate of existence, their want of length," the capriciousness of tafte, the general depredations of time, inattention, and other accidents, would never have reached the prefent age. It seems to have given birth to two favorite and celebrated collections of the fame kind, THE PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVISES, and ENGLAND'S HELICON, which appeared in the reign of queen Elifabeth'. SE C T. XXIII. I T will not be fuppofed, that all the poets of the reign of Henry the eighth were educated in the school of Petrarch. The graces of the Italian mufe, which had been taught by Surrey and Wyat, were confined to a few. Nor were the beauties of the claffics yet become general objects of imitation. There are many writers of this period who still rhymed on, in the old profaic track of their immediate predeceffors, and never ventured to deviate into the modern improvements. The strain of romantic fiction was loft; in the place of which, they did not substitute the elegancies newly introduced. I shall confider together, yet without an exact observation of chronological order, the poets of the reign of Henry the eighth who form this fubordinate class, and who do not bear any mark of the character of the poetry which distinguishes this period. Yet fome of thefe have their degree of merit; and, if they had not neceffarily claimed a place in our series, deserve examination. Andrew Borde, who writes himself ANDREAS PERFORATUS, with about as much propriety and as little pedantry as Buchaman calls one Wifehart SоPHOCARDIUS, was educated at Winchester and Oxford'; and is faid, I believe on very flender proof, to have been phyfician to king Henry the eighth. His BREVIARY OF HEALTH, first printed in 1547', is dedicated to the See his INTRODUCTION TO KNOWLEDGE, ut infr. cap. xxxv. b 46 Compyled by Andrewe Boorde of "Phyficke Doctoure an Englysfhe man.” It was reprinted by William Powell in 1552, and again in 1557. There was an impreffion by T. Eaft, 1587, 4to. Others alfo in 1548, and 1575, which I have never feen. The lateft is by Eaft in 1598, 4to. college 1 : college of phyficians, into which he had been incorporated. The first book of this treatife is faid to have been examined and approved by the Univerfity of Oxford in 1546. He chiefly practiced in Hampshire; and being popishly affected, was cenfured by Poynet, a Calvinistic bishop of Winchester, for keeping three prostitutes in his houfe, which he proved to be his patients. He appears to have been a man of great fuperstition, and of a weak and whimfical head and having been once a Carthufian, continued ever afterwards to profefs celibacy, to drink water, and to wear a fhirt of hair. His thirft of knowledge, diflike of the reformation, or rather his unfettled difpofition, led him abroad into various parts of Europe, which he visited in the medical character. Wood fays, that he was "esteemed a noted poet, a witty and ingenious person, and an "excellent phyfician." Hearne, who has plainly discovered the origin of Tom Thumb, is of opinion, that this facetious practitioner in phyfic gave rife to the name of MERRY ANDREW, the Fool on the mountebank's ftage. The reader will not perhaps be displeased to see that antiquary's reafons for this conjecture: which are at the fame time a vindication of Borde's character, afford fome new anecdotes of his life, and fhew that a Merry Andrew may be a scholar and an ingenious man. "It is "obfervable, that the author [Borde] was as fond of the word DOLENTYD, as of many other hard and uncooth words, as any Quack can be. He begins his BREVIARY OF HEALTH, Egregious doctours and Mayfters of the eximious and archane "fcience of Phyficke, of your urbanite exafperate not your felve, &c. But notwithstanding this, will any one from hence infer "or affert, that the author was either a pedant or a fuperficial "scholar? I think, upon due confideration, he will judge the "contrary. Dr. Borde was an ingenious man, and knew how to "humour and please his patients, readers, and auditors. In "his travells and vifits, he often appeared and spoke in ublic: "and would often frequent markets and fairs where a cor tux "of people used to get together, to whom he prescribed, and "to induce them to flock thither the more readily, he would "make humorous fpeeches, couched in such language as caufed "mirth, and wonderfully propagated his fame: and 'twas for the "fame end that he made ufe of fuch expreffions in his Books, as would otherwife (the circumftances not confidered) be very juftly pronounced bombaft. As he was verfed in antiquity, he "had words at command from old writers with which to amuse "his hearers, which could not fail of pleafing, provided he "added at the fame time fome remarkable explication. For inftance, if he told them that Aexádys was an old brafs medal among the Greeks, the oddness of the word, would, without " doubt, gain attention; tho nothing near so much, as if withall he fignified, that 'twas a brass medal a little bigger than an Obolus, "that used to be put in the mouths of persons that were dead. "And withall, 'twould affect them the more, if when he spoke of fuch a brass medal, he fignified to them, that brass "was in old time looked upon as more honourable than other "metals, which he might fafely enougb do, from Homer and his Scholiaft. Homer's words are &c. A paffage, which without doubt HIERONYMUS MAGIUS would have taken notice of in "the fourteenth chapter of his Book DE TINTINNABULIS, had "it occurred to his memory when in prifon he was writing, "without the help of books before him, that curious Difcourfe. ""Twas from the Doctor's method of using such speeches at "markets and fairs, that in aftertimes, thofe that imitated the like humorous, jocofe language, were ftyled MERRY ANDREWS, "a term much in vogue on our ftages ." e He is fuppofed to have compiled or compofed the MERRY TALES of the mad men of Gotham, which, as were told by Wood, “in the reign of Henry the eighth, and after, was accounted a book full e Hearne's BENEDICT. ABB. Tom. i. PRÆFAT. p. 50. edit. Oxon. 1735. "... of |