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By compofition 'twixt the fiend and him,
Comes now to claime the fcholler for his due.
Behold him here laid on his restleffe couch,
His fatall chime prepared at his head,
His chamber guarded with these fable flights,
And by him stands that necromanticke chaire,
In which he makes his direfull inuocations,
And binds the fiends that shall obey his will.
Sit with a pleased eye vntill you know

The commicke end of our fad tragique fhow.

The play is without abfurdities, and the author was evidently an attentive reader of Shakespeare. It has nothing, except the machine of the chime, in common with FABYLL'S GHOSTE. Fabell is mentioned in our chronicle-histories, and from his dealings with the devil, was commonly supposed to be a friar

In the year 1537, Wilfrid Holme, a gentleman of Huntington in Yorkshire, wrote a poem called The Fall and evil Success of Rebellion. It is a dialogue between England and the author, on the commotions raised in the northern counties on account of the reformation in 1537, under Cromwell's administration. It was printed at London in 1573. Alliteration is here carried to the most ridiculous excefs: and from the constraint of adhering inviolably to an identity of initials, from an affectation of coining prolix words from the Latin, and from a total ignorance of profodical harmony, the author has produced one of the most obscure, rough, and unpleafing pieces of verfification in our language. He feems to have been a disciple of Skelton. The poem, probably from its political reference, is mentioned by Hollinshed '. Bale, who overlooks the author's poetry in his piety, thinks that he has learnedly and perfpicuously difcuffed the abfurdities of popery.

See alfo Norden's SPECULUM BRITANNIÆ, written in 1596. MIDDLESEX, p. 18. And Fuller's WORTHIES, MIDDLESEX,

p. 186. edit. fol. 1662.
i Chron. iii. p. 978.

k ix. 22.

One

One Charles Bansley, about the year 1540, wrote a rhyming fatire on the pride and vices of women now a days. I know not if the first line will tempt the reader to fee more.

"Bo peep, what have we spied !"

It was printed in quarto by Thomas Rainolde; but I do not find it among Ames's books of that printer, whose last piece is dated 1555. Of equal reputation is Christopher Goodwin, who wrote the MAYDEN'S DREME, a vifion without imagination, printed in 1542', and THE CHANCE OF THE DOLORUS LOVER, a lamentable story without pathos, printed in 1520 With these two may be ranked, Richard Feylde, or Field, author of a poem printed in quarto by Wynkyn de Worde, called THE TREATISE OF THE LOVER AND JAYE. The prologue begins.

Though laureate poetes in old antiquite.

m

I must not forget to obferve here, that Edward Haliwell, admitted a fellow of King's college Cambridge in 1532, wrote the Tragedy of Dido, which was acted at faint Paul's school in London, under the conduct of the very learned master John Rightwife, before cardinal Wolfey". But it may be doubted, whether this drama was in English. Wood fays, that it was written by Rightwife. One John Hooker, fellow of Magdalene college Oxford in 1535, wrote a comedy called by Wood PISCATOR, or The Fisher caught. But as latinity seems to have been his object, I suspect this comedy to have been in Latin, and to have been acted by the youth of his college.

The fanaticisms of chemistry seem to have remained at least till the diffolution of the monafteries. William Blomefield, otherwise Rattelfden, born at Bury in Suffolk, bachelor in

1 In 4to. Pr. Behold you young ladies "of high parentage."

In 4to. Pr. "Upon a certain tyme as "it befell."

See fupr. Vol. ii. 434.

• Compare Tanner, BIBL. pag. 632. 372. ATH. OXON. i. 17.

PATH. OXON. i. 6o. [See fupr. Vol. ii.

P. 387.]

phyfic,

phyfic, and a monk of Bury-abbey, was an adventurer in queft of the philofopher's ftone. While a monk of Bury, as I prefume, he wrote a metrical chemical tract, entitled, BLOMEFIELD'S BLOSSOMS, or the CAMPE OF PHILOSOPHY. It is a vision, and in the octave stanza. It was originally written in the year 1530, according to a manufcript that I have feen: but in the copy printed by Ashmole, which has fome few improvements and additional ftanzas, our author fays he began to dream in 1557'. He is admitted into the camp of philosophy by TIME, through a fuperb gate which has twelve locks. Juft within the entrance were affembled all the true philofophers from Hermes and Ariftotle, down to Roger Bacon, and the canon of Bridlington. Detached at some distance, appear those unskilful but specious pretenders to the transmutation of metals, lame, blind, and emaciated, by their own pernicious drugs and injudicious experiments, who defrauded king Henry the fourth of immense treasures by a counterfeit elixir. Among other wonders of this mysterious region, he fees the tree of philofophy, which has fifteen different buds, bearing fifteen different fruits. Afterwards Blomfield turning proteftant, did not re.. nounce his chemistry with his religion, for he appears to have dedicated to queen Elifabeth another fyftem of occult fcience, entitled, THE RULE OF LIFE, OR THE FIFTH ESSENCE, with which her majesty must have been highly edified'.

Although lord Surrey and fome others fo far deviated from the dullness of the times, as to copy the Italian poets, the fame taste does not seem to have uniformly influenced all the nobility of the court of king Henry the eighth who were fond of writing verfes. Henry Parker, lord Morley, who died an old man in the latter end of that reign, was educated in the best literature which our univerfities afforded. Bale mentions his TRAGEDIES and COMEDIES, which I fufpect to be nothing more

• See Stanz. 5.

See Afhmole's THEATRUM CHEMICUM, P. 305. 478.

• MSS. MORE, autograph. 430. Pr. "Althoughe, moft redoubted, fuffran la"dy." See Fox, MARTYR., edit. i. p. 479.

than

than grave mysteries and moralities, and which probably would not now have been loft, had they deferved to live. He mentions alfo his RHYMES, which I will not fuppofe to have been imitations of Petrarch '. Wood fays, that "his younger years "were adorned with all kinds of fuperficial learning, especially "with dramatic poetry, and his elder with that which was "divine"." It is a stronger proof of his piety than his taste, that he sent, as a new year's gift to the princess Mary, HAM

POLE'S COMMENTARY UPON SEVEN OF THE FIRST PENITENTIAL PSALMS. The manufcript, with his epistle prefixed, is in the royal manuscripts of the British Museum". Many of Morley's tranflations, being dedicated either to king Henry the eighth, or to the princess Mary, are preferved in manuscript in the fame royal repofitory. They are chiefly from Solomon, Seneca, Erafmus, Athanafius, Anfelm, Thomas Aquinas, and Paulus Jovius. The authors he tranflated fhew his track of reading. But we should not forget his attention to the claffics, and that he tranflated alfo Tully's DREAM OF SCIPIO, and three or four lives of Plutarch, although not immediately from the Greek '. He seems to have been a rigid catholic, retired and studious. His declaration, or paraphrase, on the ninety-fourth Pfalm, was printed by Berthelette in 1539. A theological commentary by a lord, was too curious and important a production to be neglected by our first printers.

* SCRIPT. BRIT. par. p. ft. 103. ATH. OXON. i. 52.

w MSS. 18 B. xxi.

But fee MSS. GRESHAM, 8.

y See MSS. (Bibl. Bodl.) LAUD. H. 17. MSS. Bibl. REG. 17 D. 2.-17 D. xi. 18 A. Ix. And Walpole, Roy. and Noв. AUTH. i. p. 92. feq.

SECT.

SE C T. XXIV.

OHN HEYWOOD, commonly called the epigrammatist, was beloved and rewarded by Henry the eighth for his buffooneries. At leaving the univerfity, he commenced author, and was countenanced by fir Thomas More for his facetious difpofition. To his talents of jocularity in conversation, he joined a skill in mufic, both vocal and inftrumental. His merriments were fo irresistible, that they moved even the rigid mufcles of queen Mary; and her fullen folemnity was not proof against his songs, his rhymes, and his jefts. He is faid to have been often invited to exercise his arts of entertainment and pleasantry in her prefence, and to have had the honour to be conftantly admitted into her privy-chamber for this purpose *.

Notwithstanding his profeffional diffipation, Heywood appears to have lived comfortably under the fmiles of royal patronage. What the FAIRY QUEEN could not procure for Spenfer from the penurious Elifabeth and her precife minifters, Heywood gained by puns and conceits.

His comedies, most of which appeared before the year 1534, are deftitute of plot, humour, or character, and give us no very high opinion of the festivity of this agreeable companion. They confift of low incident, and the language of ribaldry. But perfection must not be expected before its time. He is called our first writer of comedies. But those who say this, fpeak without determinate ideas, and confound comedies with moralities and interludes. We will allow, that he is among the first of our

VOL. III.

* Wood, АTH. OXON. i. 150.

M

dramatists

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