written for the stage. Long before Vallans's Two SWANNES, many theatrical pieces in blank-verse had appeared; the first of which is, The TRAGEDY OF GORBODUC, written in 1561. The second is George Gascoigne's JOCASTA, a tragedy, acted at Grays-inn, in 1566. George Peele had also published his tragedy in blank-verse of DAVID AND BETHSABE, about the year 1579. HIERONYMO, a tragedy also without rhyme, was acted before 1590. But this point, which is here only transiently mentioned, will be more fully considered hereafter, in its proper place. We will now return to our author Grimoald. Grimoald, as a writer of verses in rhyme, yields to none of his cotemporaries, for a masterly choice of chaste expression, and the concise elegancies of didactic versification. Some of

the couplets, in his poem IN PRAISE OF MODERATION, have all the smartness which marks the modern style of sententious poetry, and would have done honour to Pope's ethic epistles.

The auncient Time commended not for nought
The Mean. What better thyng can there be sought?
In meane is vertue placed: on either side,

Both right and left, amisse a man shall slide.

k

Icar, with sirei hadst thou the midway flown,
Icarian beck by name no man [had] known.
If middle path kept had proud Phaeton,

No burning brand this earth had fallne upon.
Ne cruel power, ne none so soft can raign:
That kepes' a mean, the same shal stil remain.
Thee, Juliem, once did too much mercy spill:
Thee, Nero stern, rigor extreem did kill.
How could August" so many yeres well passe?
Nor overmeek, nor overferse, he was.
Worship not Jove with curious fansies vain,

Nor him despise: hold right atween these twain.

h Shakespeare did not begin writing for the stage till 1591. Jonson, about 1598..

i Icarus, with thy father.

k strait, sea.

m Julius Cesar.

n

I that which.

Augustus Cesar.

No wastefull wight, no greedy goom is prayzd:
Stands Largesse just in egall ballance payzdo.
So Catoes meat surmountes Antonius chere,
And better fame his sober fare hath here.
Too slender building bad, as bad too grosse;
One an eye sore, the other falls to losse.
As medcines help in measure, so, god wot,
By overmuch the sick their bane have got.
Unmete, meesemes, to utter this mo wayes;
Measure forbids unmeasurable prayse.

The maxim is enforced with great quickness and variety of illustration: nor is the collision of opposite thoughts, which the subject so naturally affords, extravagantly pursued, or indulged beyond the bounds of good sense and propriety. The following stanzas on the NINE MUSES are more poetical, and not less correct.

r

S

Imps of king Jove and quene Remembrance, lo,
The sisters nyne, the poets pleasant feres',
Calliope doth stately stile bestow,

And worthy praises paintes of princely peres.
Clio in solem songes reneweth all day,
With present yeres conjoyning age bypast.
Delighteful talke loves comicall Thaley;
In fresh grene youth who doth like laurell last.
With voyces tragicall sowndes Melpomen,
And, as with cheins, thallured eare she bindes.
Her stringes when Terpsichor doth touche, even then
She toucheth hartes, and raigneth in mens mindes.
Fine Erato, whose looke a lively chere

Presents, in dancing keepes a comely grace.
With semely gesture doth Polymnie stere,

Whose wordes whole routes of rankes do rule in place.

Uranie, her globes to view all bent,

The ninefold heaven observes with fixed face.
The blastes Euterpe tunes of instrument,

With solace sweete, hence my heavie dumps to chase.
Lord Phebus in the mids (whose heauenly sprite
These ladies doth enspire) embraceth all.

The Graces in the Muses 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 deserves highly of English literature, for having collected at a critical period, and preserved in a printed volume, so many admirable specimens of antient genius, which would have mouldered in manuscript, or perhaps from their detached and fugitive state of existence, their want of length, the capriciousness of taste, the general depredations of time, inattention, and other accidents, would never have reached the present age. It seems to have given birth to two favorite and celebrated collections* of the same kind, THE PARADISE OF Dainty Devises, and ENGLAND'S HELICON, which appeared in the reign of queen Elisabeth".

* [Quere whether these collections were not more immediately derived from "A gorgeous gallery of gallant Inventions," &c. and the "Phoenix Nest," both reprinted in Heliconia, vol. 1. PARK.]

The reader will observe, that I have followed the paging and arrangement of Tottell's second edition in 1565. 12mo. In his edition of 1557, there is much confusion. A poem is there given to Grimoald, on the death of lady Margaret Lee, in 1555. Also among Grimoald's is a poem on Sir James Wilford, mentioned above, who appears to

have fought under Henry the Eighth in the wars of France and Scotland. This edition of 1557, is not in quarto, as I have called it by an oversight, but in small duodecimo, and only with signatures. It is not mentioned by Ames, and I have seen it only among Tanner's printed books at Oxford. It has this colophon. "Imprinted at London in Flete Strete within Temple barre, at the sygne of the hand and starre by Richard Tottel, the fifte day of June. An. 1557. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum.”

SECTION XLI.

It will not be supposed, that all the poets of the reign of Henry the Eighth were educated in the school of Petrarch. The graces of the Italian muse, which had been taught by Surrey and Wyat, were confined to a few. Nor were the beauties of the classics yet become general objects of imitation. There are many writers of this period who still rhymed on, in the old prosaic track of their immediate predecessors, and never ventured to deviate into the modern improvements. The strain of romantic fiction was lost; in the place of which, they did not substitute the elegancies newly introduced.

I shall consider together, yet without an exact observation of chronological order, the poets of the reign of Henry the Eighth who form this subordinate class, and who do not bear any mark of the character of the poetry which distinguishes this period. Yet some of these have their degree of merit; and, if they had not necessarily 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 Buchanan calls one Wisehart SOPHOCARDIUS, was educated at Winchester and Oxford; and is said, I believe on very slender proof, to have been physician to king Henry the Eighth. His BREVIARY OF HEALTH, first printed in 1547, is dedicated to

a See his INTRODUCTION TO KNOWLEDGE, ut infr. cap. xxxv.

b"Compyled by Andrewe Boorde of Physicke Doctoure an Englysshe man." It was reprinted by William Powell in 1552, and again in 1557. There was an impression by T. East, 1587, 4to. Others also in 1548, and 1575, which I have never seen. The latest is by East in 1598, 4to. [This seems to have been printed, says Herbert, before 1547, by

William Mydilton, in 12mo, because therein he mentions his "Introduction to Knowledge," as at that time printing at old Rob. Copland's. But the dedication of that to the Princess Mary is dated 3 May 1542, and may be supposed to have been printed soon after, though indeed it has no date of printing. It was printed by Wm. Copland. See Bibl. West. No. 1643.-PARK.]

the college of physicians, into which he had been incorporated. The first book of this treatise is said to have been examined and approved by the University of Oxford in 1546°. He chiefly practised in Hampshire; and being popishly affected, was censured by Poynet, a Calvinistic bishop of Winchester, for keeping three prostitutes in his house, which he proved to be his patients. He appears to have been a man of great superstition, and of a weak and whimsical head: and having been once a Carthusian, continued ever afterwards to profess celibacy, to drink water, and to wear a shirt of hair. His thirst of knowledge, dislike of the reformation, or rather his unsettled disposition, led him abroad into various parts of Europe, which he visited in the medical character*. Wood says, that he was "esteemed a noted poet, a witty and ingenious person, and an excellent physician." Hearne, who has plainly discovered the origin of Tom Thumb, is of opinion, that this facetious practitioner in physic gave rise to the name of MERRY ANDREW, the Fool on the mountebank's stage. The reader will not perhaps be displeased to see that antiquary's reasons for this conjecture: which are at the same time a vindication of Borde's character, afford some new anecdotes of his life, and show that a Merry Andrew may be a scholar and an ingenious man. "It is observable, 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 Maysters of the eximious and archane science of Physicke, of your urbanite exasperate not your selve, &c. But notwithstanding this, will any one from hence infer or assert, that the author was either a pedant or a superficial scholar? I think, upon due consideration, 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 visits, he often appeared and spoke in public: and would

At the end of which is this Note. "Here endeth the first boke Examined in Oxforde in the yere of our Lorde MCCCCCXLVI," &c.

d See Against Martin, &c. p. 48.

*["I have gone round Christendome and overthwart Christendome," says Borde inhis Dietarie of Health.-PARK.]