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All these hystoryes, noble and auncyent,
Rejoysynge the audyence, he sange with pleasuer;
And many other mo of the Newe Testament,
Pleasaunt and profytable for their soules cure,
Whiche be omytted, now not put in ure:
The mynysters were ready, theyr offyce to fullfyll,
To take up the tables at their lordes wyll.
Whan this noble feest and great solempnyte,
Dayly endurynge a longe tyme and space,
Was royally ended with honour and royalté,
Eche kynge at other lysence taken hace,
And so departed from thens to theyr place:

Kyng Wulfer retourned, with worshyp and renowne,
From the house of Ely to his owne mansyon.

a

If there be any merit of imagination or invention, to which the poet has a claim in this description, it altogether consists in the application. The circumstances themselves are faithfully copied by Bradshaw, from what his own age actually presented. In this respect, I mean as a picture of antient life, the passage is interesting; and for no other reason. The versification is infinitely inferior to Lydgate's worst manner.

Bradshaw was buried in the cathedral church, to which his convent was annexed, in the year 1513. Bale, a violent reformer, observes, that our poet was a person remarkably pious for the times in which he flourished. This is an indirect satire on the monks, and on the period which preceded the Reformation. I believe it will readily be granted, that our author had more piety than poetry. His Prologue contains the following humble professions of his inability to treat lofty subjects, and to please light readers.

To descrybe hye hystoryes I dare not be so bolde,
Syth it is a matter for clerkes convenyent;

As of the seven ages, and of our parentes olde,

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Or of the four empyres whilom most excellent;
Knowyng my lerning therto insuffycient:

As for baudy balades you shall have none of me,
To excyte lyght hertes to pleasure and vanity."

A great translator of the lives of the Saxon saints, from the Saxon, in which language only they were then extant, into Latin, was Goscelinus, a monk of Saint Austin's at Canterbury, who passed from France into England, with Herman, bishop of Salisbury, about the year 1058. As the Saxon language was at this time but little understood, these translations opened a new and ample treasure of religious history: nor were they acquisitions only to the religion, but to the literature, of that era. Among the rest, were the Lives of saint Werburgh', saint Etheldred, and saint Sexburgh", most probably the legends, which were Bradshaw's originals. Usher observes, that Goscelinus also translated into Latin the antient Catalogue of the Saxon saints buried in England. In the register of Ely it is recorded, that he was the most eloquent writer of his age; and that he circulated all over England, the lives, miracles, and GESTS, of the saints of both sexes, which he reduced into prose-histories. The words of the Latin deserve our attention. "In historiis in prosa dictando mutavit." Hence we may perhaps infer, that they were not before in prose, and that he took them from old metrical legends: this is a presumptive proof, that the lives of the saints were at first extant in verse*. In the same light we are to understand the

d Prol. lib. i. Signat. A.iii. [Ames or Herbert attribute to this author: "The Lyfe of Saynt Radegunde," printed by Pinson in 4to. without date: in stanzas of seven lines. He dyed, as it appears from the book, in 1513.-RITSON.]

• W. Malmesbur, lib. iv. ubi infr.Goscelin. in Præfatt. ad Vit. S. Augustini. See Mabillon, ACT. BEN. Sæc. i. p. 499.

f Printed, ACT. SANCTOR. Bolland. tom. i. februar. p. 386. A part in Leland, Coll. ii. 154. Compare MSS. C.C.C. Cant. J. xiii.

In Registr. Eliens. ut infr.

h See Leland. Coll. iii. p. 152. Compare the Lives of S. Etheldred, S. Werburgh, and S. Sexburgh, at the end of the HISTORIA AUREA of John of Tinmouth, MS. Lambeth. 12. I know not whether they make a part of his famous SANCTILOGIUM. He flourished about the year 1380.

i Antiquit. Brit. c. ii. p. 15. See Leland's Coll. iii. 86. seq. And Hickes. Thesaur. vol. ult. p. 86. 146. 208. Cap. x. Vit. Ethel

[The passion for versifying every

words which immediately follow. "Hic scripsit Prosam sanctæ Etheldreda." Where the Prose of saint Etheldred is opposed to her poetical legend". By mutavit dictando, we are to un

thing was carried to such a height in the middle ages, that before the year 1800, Justinian's Institutes, and the code of French jurisprudence, were translated into French rhymes. There is a very antient edition of this work, without date, place, or typographer, said to be corrected par plusieurs docteurs and souverains legistes, in which are these lines,

J'ay, par paresse, demourè Trop longuement a commencer Pour Institutes romancer. See Menage, OBS. sur LE LANG. FR. P. prem. ch. 3. Verdier and La Croix, iii. 428. iv. 160. 554. 560. BIBL. FR. edit. 1773.-ADDITIONS.]

1 Which is extant in this Ely register, and contains 54 heads.

m And these improved prose-narratives were often turned back again into verse, even so late as in the age before us: to which, among others I could mention, we may refer the legend of Saint Eustathius, MSS. Cotton. CaliG. A. 2.

Seynt Eustace, a nobull knyzte,
Of hethen law he was;
And ere than he crystened was

Mene callyd him Placidas.
He was with Trajan themperor, &c.
A Latin legend on this saint is in MSS.
Harl. 2316. 42.

Concerning legend-makers, there is a curious story in MSS. James, xxxi. p. 6. [ad ITER LANCASTR. num. 39. vol. 40.] Bibl. Bodl. Gilbert de Stone, a learned ecclesiastic, who flourished about the year 1380, was solicited by the monks of Holywell in Flintshire, to write the life of their patron saint. Stone applying to these monks for materials, was answered, that they had none in their monastery. Upon which he declared, that he could execute the work just as easily without any materials at all: and that he would write them a most excellent legend, after the manner of the legend of Thomas Becket. He has the character of an elegant Latin writer; and seems to have done the same piece of service, perhaps

a

in the same way, to other religious houses. From his EPISTLES, it appears that he wrote the life of saint Wolfade, patron of the priory of canons regular of his native town of Stone in Staffordshire, which he dedicated to the prior, William de Madely. Epist. iii. dat. 1399. [MSS. Bibl. Bodl. Sup. D i. Art. 123.] He was Latin secretary to several bishops, and could possibly write a legend or a letter with equal facility. His epistles are 123 in number. The first of them, in which he is stiled chancellour to the

bishop of Winchester, is to the archbishop of Canterbury. That is, secretary. [MSS. of Winchester must have been William Cotton. VITELL. E. x. 17.] This bishop of Wykeham.

The most extraordinary composition of this kind, if we consider, among other circumstances, that it was compiled at a time when knowledge and literature had made some progress, and when mankind were so much less disposed to believe or to invent miracles, more especially when the subject was quite recent, is the LEGEND OF KING HENRY the SIXTH. It is entitled, De MIRACULIS beatissimi illius Militis Christi, Henrici sexti, etc. That it might properly rank with other legends, it was translated from an English copy into Latin, by one Johannes, styled Pauperculus, a monk, about the year 1503, at the command of John Morgan, dean of Windsor, afterwards bishop of saint David's. It is divided into two books: to both of which, prefaces are prefixed, containing proofs of the miracles wrought by this pious monarch. At the beginning, there is a hymn, with a prayer, addressed to the royal saint. fol. 72.

Salve, miles preciose,

Rex Henrice generose, &c. Henry could not have been a complete saint without his legend. MSS. Harl. 423. 7. And MSS. Reg. 13 C. 8. What shall we think of the judgment and abilities of the dignified ecclesiastic, who could seriously patronise so ridiculous a narrative?

derstand, that he translated, or reformed, or, in the most general sense, wrote anew in Latin, these antiquated lives. His principal objects were the more recent saints, especially those of this island. Malmesbury says, "Innumeras SANCTORUM VITAS RECENTIUM stylo extulit, veterum vel amissas, vel infor miter editas, comptius renovavit "." In this respect, the labours of Goscelin partly resembled those of Symeon Metaphrastes, a celebrated Constantinopolitan writer of the tenth century: who obtained the distinguished appellation of the METAPhrast, because at the command, and under the auspices, of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, he modernised the more antient narratives of the miracles and martyrdoms of the most eminent eastern and western saints, for the use of the Greek church or rather digested, from detached, imperfect, or obsolete books on the subject, a new and more commodious body of the sacred biography.

Among the many striking contrasts between the manners and characters of antient and modern life, which these annals present, we must not be surprised to find a mercer, a sheriff, and an alderman of London, descending from his important occupations, to write verses. This is Robert Fabyan, who yet is generally better known as an historian, than as a poet. He was esteemed, not only the most facetious, but the most learned, of all the mercers, sheriffs, and aldermen, of his time: and no layman of that age is said to have been better skilled in the Latin language. He flourished about the year 1494. In his CHRONICLE, or Concordance of histories, from Brutus to the year 1485, it is his usual practice, at the division of the books, to insert metrical prologues, and other pieces in verse. The best of his metres is the COMPLAINT of king Edward the Second; who, like the personages in Boccacio's FALL OF PRINCES, is very dramatically introduced, reciting his own misfortunes.

"Hist. Angl. lib. iv. p. 130.

Fol. 171. tom. ii. edit. 1533. See Hearne's Lib. Nig. Scacc. p. 425. And Præfat. p. xxxviii. Fabyan says, "they are reported to be his own makynge, in

the tyme of his emprysonment." ibid. By the way, there is a passage in this chronicler which points out the true reading of a controverted passage in Shakespeare," Also children were chris

But this soliloquy is nothing more than a translation from a short and a very poor Latin poem attributed to that monarch, but probably written by William of Wyreester, which is preserved among the manuscripts of the college of arms, and entitled, Lamentatio gloriosi regis Edvardi de Karnarvon quam edidit tempore sua incarcerationis. Our author's transitions from prose to verse, in the course of a prolix narrative, seem to be made with much ease; and, when he begins to versify, the historian disappears only by the addition of rhyme and stanza. In the first edition of his CHRONICLE, by way of epilogues to his seven books, he has given us The seven joys of the Blessed Virgin in English Rime. And under the year 1325, there is a poem to the virgin; and another on one Badby, a Lollard, under the year 1409P. These are suppressed in the later editions. He has likewise left a panegyric on the city of London; but despairs of doing justice to so noble a subject for verse, even if he had the eloquence of Tully, the morality of Seneca, and the harmony of that faire Lady Calliope. The reader will thank me for citing only one stanza from king Edward's COMPLAINT.

When Saturne, with his cold and isye face,

The ground, with his frostes, turneth grene to white;
The time winter, which treès doth deface,

And causeth all verdure to avoyde quite :

Then fortune, which sharpe was, with stormes not lite
Hath me assaulted with her froward wyll,
And me beclipped with daungers ryght yll.'

tened thorough all the land, and menne
houseled and anealed, excepte suche," &c.
tom. ii. p. 30. col. 2. [Another proof
which ascertains this reading of the con-
troverted passage in HAMLET, Occurs in
the romance of MORTE ARTHUR. When
sir Lancelot was dying, "whan he was
howseled and eneled, and had all that a
crysten man ought to have, he praid the
bishop, that his felowes might beare his
bodie unto Joyous Garde," &c. B. xxi.
cap. xii.-ADDITIONS.]

P Edit. Lond. 1516. fol. 9 Fol. 2. tom. ii. ut supr.

In the British Museum there is a poem on this subject, and in the same stanza. MSS. Harl. 2393. 4to. 1. The ghost of Edward the Second, as here, is introduced speaking. It is addressed to queen Elizabeth, as appears, among other passages, from st. 92. 242. 243. 305. It begins thus,

Whie should a wasted spirit spent in woe
Disclose the wounds receyved within his

brest?

It is imperfect, having only 352 stanzas.
Then follows the same poem; with

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