Such were the rude beginnings in the English language of didactic poetry, which, on a kindred fubject, the present age has feen brought to perfection, by the happy combination of judicious precepts with the most elegant ornaments of language and imagery, in Mr. Mafon's ENGLISH GARDEN. SECT. SECT. XXXVI. A MONG Antony Wood's manufcripts in the Bodleian library at Oxford, I find a poem of confiderable length written by William Forreft, chaplain to queen Mary. It is entitled, "A true and most notable History of a right noble "and famous Lady produced in Spayne entitled the second "GRESIELD, practifed not long out of this time in much part "tragedous as delectable both to hearers and readers." This is a panegyrical history in octave rhyme, of the life of queen Catharine, the first queen of king Henry the eighth. The poet compares Catharine to patient Grifild, celebrated by Petrarch and Chaucer, and Henry to earl Walter her husband '. rine had certainly the patience and conjugal compliance of Grifild: but Henry's cruelty was not, like Walter's, only artificial and affumed. It is dedicated to queen Mary: and Wood's manufcript, which was once very fuperbly bound and emboffed, and is elegantly written on vellum, evidently appears to have been the book presented by the author to her majesty. Much of its antient finery is tarnished: but on the brass boffes at each corner is ftill difcernible AVE, MARIA GRATIA PLENA. At the end Catha fol. 132. b. Two ballads are entered in Rr is is this colophon. "Here endeth the Hiftorye of Gryfilde the "fecond, dulie meanyng Queene Catharine mother to our most "dread foveraigne Lady queene Mary, fynyfched the xxv day "of June, the yeare of owre Lorde 1558. of owre Lorde 1558. By the fymple and "unlearned Syr Wylliam Forrest preeifte, propria manu.” The poem, which confifts of twenty chapters, contains a zealous condemnation of Henry's divorce: and, I believe, preferves fome anecdotes, yet apparently mifreprefented by the writer's religious and political bigotry, not extant in any of our printed histories. Forrest was a student at Oxford, at the time when this notable and knotty point of cafuiftry proftituted the learning of all the univerfities of Europe, to the gratification of the capricious amours of a libidinous and implacable tyrant. He has recorded many particulars and local incidents of what paffed in Oxford during that tranfaction . At the end of the poem is a metrical ORATION CONSOLATORY, in fix leaves, to queen Mary. In the British Museum is another of Forreft's poems, written in two fplendid folio volumes on vellum, called "The tragedious "troubles of the most chaft and innocent Jofeph, fon to the holy patriarch Jacob," and dedicated to Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk'. In the fame repofitory is another of his pieces, never printed, dedicated to king Edward the fixth, "A "notable warke called The PLEASANT POESIE OF PRINCELIE “PRACTISE, Composed of late by the fimple and unlearned "fir William Forrest prieft, much part collected out of a booke "entitled the GOVERNANCE OF NOBLEMEN, which booke "the wyfe philofopher Ariftotle wrote to his difciple Alexander "the Great." The book here mentioned is Ægidius Romanus de REGIMINE PRINCIPIUM, which yet retained its reputation and popularity from the middle age. I ought to have observed before, that Forrest tranflated into English metre fifty of David's Pfalms, in 1551, which are dedicated to the duke of Somerset, the Protector. Hence we are led to suspect, that our author could accommodate his faith to the reigning powers. Many more of his manuscript pieces both in profe and verse, all profeffional and of the religious kind, were in the hands of Robert earl of Ailesbury. Forrest, who must have been living at Oxford, as appears from his poem on queen Catharine, fo early as the year 1530, was in reception of an annual penfion of fix pounds from Chrift-church in that univerfity, in the year 1555'. He was eminently skilled in mufic: and with much diligence and expence, he collected the works of the most excellent English compofers, that were his cotemporaries. These, being the choiceft compofitions, of John Taverner of Boston, organist of Cardinal-college now Chrift-church at Oxford, John Merbeck who first digested our prefent church-fervice from the notes of the Roman miffal, Fairfax, Tye, Sheppard, Norman, and others, falling after Forreft's death into the poffeffion of doctor William Hether, founder of the mufical praxis and profefforship at • MSS. REG. 17 D. iii. In the Preface twenty-feven chapters are enumerated: but the book contains only twenty-four. See fupr. vol. ii. p. 39. Not long before, Robert Copland, the printer, author of the TESTAMENT OF JULIAN OF BRENTFORD, tranflated from the French and printed, "The SECRETE of SECRE"TES of Ariftotle, with the governayle of "princes and euerie manner of eftate, "with rules of health for bodie and foule." Lond. 1528. 4to. To what I have before faid of Robert Copland as a poet (fupr. vol. ii. p. 300.) may be added, that he prefixed an English copy of verfes to the Mirrour of the Church of Saynt Auftine of Abyngdon, &c. Printed by himself, 1521. 4to. Another to Andrew Chertfey's PAS- h Wood, ATH. OXON. i. 124. Fox fays, that he paraphrafed the PATER NOSTER in English verfe, Pr. "Our Father "which in heaven doth fit." Alfo the TE DEUM, as a thanksgiving hymn for queen Mary, Pr. "O God thy name we magnifie." Fox, MART. p. 1139. edit. 66 vet. 1 MSS. Le Neve. From a long chapter in his KATHARINE, about the building of Chrift-church and the regimen of it, he appears to have been of that college. at Oxford in 1623, are now fortunately preferved at Oxford, in the archives of the mufic-school affigned to that institution. In the year 1554, a poem of two fheets, in the spirit and stanza of Sternhold, was printed under the title, "The VN"GODLINESSE OF THE HETHNICKE GODDES, or The Down fall of Diana of the Ephefians, by J. D. an exile for the "word, late a minifter in London, MDLIV *." I presume it was printed at Geneva, and imported into England with other books of the fame tendency, and which were afterwards fuppreffed by a proclamation. The writer, whofe arguments are as weak as his poetry, attempts to prove, that the customary mode of training youths in the Roman poets encouraged idolatry and pagan fuperftition. This was a topic much laboured by the puritans. Prynne, in that chapter of his HISTRIOMASTIX, where he exposes " the obscenity, ribaldry, amorousnesse, HEA"THENISHNESSE, and prophaneffe, of most play-bookes, Ar"cadias, and fained hiftories that are now fo much in admira"tion," acquaints us, that the infallible leaders of the puritan perfuafion in the reign of queen Elifabeth, among which are two bishops, have folemnly prohibited all chriftians, “to pen, "to print, to fell, to read, or school-mafters and others to "teach, any amorous wanton Play-bookes, Hiftories, or Heathen "authors, especially Ovid's wanton Epiftles and Bookes of love, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Martiall, the Comedies "of Plautus, Terence, and other fuch amorous bookes, favoring "either of Pagan Gods, of Ethnicke rites and ceremonies, of fcurrility, amorousneffe, and prophanesse '. But the claffics were at length condemned by a much higher authority. In the year 1582, one Chriftopher Ocland, a fchoolmaster of Cheltenham, published two poems in Latin hexameters, one entitled ANGLORUM PRÆLIA, the other ELIZABETHA". To these title is this, "ANGLORUM PRELIA ab A. "D. 1327, anno nimirum primo inclytif"fimi principis Edwardi eius nominis "tertii, ufque ad A. D. 1558, carmine "fummatim perftricta. ITEM De pacatif |