refined, either to relish or to produce, burlefque poetry. Harrifon, the author of the DESCRIPTION OF BRITAINE, pre • But I must not forget Chaucer's SIR THOPAS and that among the Cotton manufcripts, there is an anonymous poem, perhaps coeval with Chaucer, in the style of allegorical burlesque, which defcribes the power of money, with great humour, and in no common vein of fatire. The hero of the piece is SIR PENNY, MSS. Cott. CAL. 7. A. 2. INCIPIT NARRACIO DE DNO DENARIO. In erth it es a littill thing, Dukes, erles, and ilk barowne, SIR PENI chaunges man's mode, gers them off do doun thaire hode f And to rife him agayne %. Men honors him with grete reuerence, Makes ful mekell obedience Vnto that litill fwaine. In kinges court es it no bote, With PENY may men wemen till * Lang with him will thai noght chide, m n He may by both heuyn and hell, The domes men he mafe fo blind For to gif dome tham es ful lath *, Of counfail thar tham neuer be rad, That may haue him to frende. That SIRE es fet on high defe", At the high burde. The more he es to men plente, The more zernid ƒ alway es he : r Borrowing or pledging. f Goes between. s Judges. t Monks. u Truth. w Judgement. z Peace. a Foes. b Void. c Se&t. d Mefs. • High-table, 1 Coveted. And fixed to Hollinfhed's Chronicle, has left a fenfible criticism on "One hath made a boke of the SPIDER AND this poem. And halden dere in horde. Other god will thai none haue, All that he will in erth haue done, He may both lene and gyf; Men welcums him in dede and faw 1. He es noght welkumd als a geft, Bot euermore ferued with the best, SIR PENY Over all gettes the grey, In caftell and in towre. Withowten owther spere or schelde', And all es als he will cumand: SIR PENY mai ful mekill availe He lenkethes & life and faues fro ded 1. If thou haue happ trefore to win, m But fpend it als wele als thou can, God grante vs grace with hert and will, And fo oure liues here for to lede, That we may haue his blis to mede ", Euer withowten end. Amen. "FLIE, wherin he dealeth fo profoundly, and beyond all mea"fure of skill, that neither he himself that made it, neither 66 any one that readeth it, can reach unto the meaning thereof"." It is a proof of the unpopularity of this poem, that it never was reprinted. Our author's EPIGRAMS, and the poem of PROVERBS, were in high vogue, and had numerous editions within the year 1598. The most lively part of the SPIDER and FLIE is perhaps the mock-fight between the spiders and flies, an awkward imitation of Homer's BATRACHOMUOMACHY. The preparations for this bloody and eventful engagement, on the part of the spiders, in their cobweb-castle, are thus defcribed. Behold! the battilments in every loope : How th' ordinance lieth, flies far and nere to fach: Se th' enprenabill' fort, in every border, The beginning of all this confufion is owing to a fly entering the poet's window, not through a broken pane, as might be presumed, but through the lattice, where it is fuddenly entangled in a cobweb *. The cobweb, however, will be allowed to be suf DESCRIPT. BRIT. p. 226. Hollinsh. CHRON. tom. i. • In rows. ↑ Impregnable. VOL. III. N Clad in armour. 1 Cap. 57. Signat. B b. ficiently ficiently defcriptive of the poet's apartment. But I mention this circumstance as a probable proof, that windows of lattice, and not of glass, were now the common fashion'. year John Heywood died at Mechlin in Brabant about the 1565. He was inflexibly attached to the catholic caufe, and on the death of queen Mary quitted the kingdom. Antony Wood remarks", with his ufual acrimony, that it was a matter of wonder with many, that, confidering the great and usual want of principle in the profeffion, a poet should become a voluntary exile for the fake of religion.. 1 See his EPIGRAMMES. Epig. 82. FIRST HUNDRED. And Puttenham's ARTE OF ENGLISH POESIE, Lib. i. c. 31. p. 49. One of Heywood's Epigrams is defcriptive of his life and character. FIFTE HUNDRED. Epigr. 100. OF HEYWOOD. Art thou Heywood with the mad mery wit ? Yea forfooth, mayfter, that fame is even hit. Art thou Heywood that applieth mirth more than thrift? Ye fir, I take mery mirth a golden gift. Art thou Heywood that hath made many mad Playes? Yea many playes, few good woorkes in all my dayes. Art thou Heywood that hath made men mery long? Yea and will, if I be made mery longe. Art thou Heywood that would be made mery nowe? Yea, fir, help me to it now I beseech yow. In the CONCLUSION to the SPIDER and FLIE, Heywood mentions queen Mary and king Philip. But as moft of his pieces feem to have been written fome time before, I have placed him under Henry the eighth. m АTH. OXON. i. 150. SECT. I SE C T. XXV. KNOW not if fir Thomas More may properly be confidered as an English poet. He has, however, left a few obfolete poems, which although without any striking merit, yet, as productions of the restorer of literature in England, seem to claim fome notice here. One of thefe is, A MERY JEST bow a SERGEANT would learne to play the FREERE. Written by Maister Thomas More in hys youth. The story is too dull and too long to be told here. But I will cite two or three of the prefatory ftanzas. He that hath lafte" the Hofier's crafte, And fallth to makyng shone'; A black draper with whyte paper, To An old butler becum a cutler, I wene shal prove a fole. With her phificke will kepe one ficke, A man of law that never fawe a WORKES, Lond. 1557. in folio. Sign. C. i. Left. C Shoes. N 2 A marchaunt |