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As an historian, our author is the dullest of compilers. He is equally attentive to the succession of the mayors of London, and of the monarchs of England: and seems to have thought the dinners at Guildhall, and the pageantries of the city-companies, more interesting transactions, than our victories in France, and our struggles for public liberty at home. One of Fabyan's historical anecdotes, under the important reign of Henry the Fifth, is, that a new weathercock was placed on the cross of Saint Paul's steeple. It is said that cardinal Wolsey commanded many copies of this chronicle to be committed to the flames, because it made too ample a discovery of the excessive revenues of the clergy. The earlier chapters of these childish annals faithfully record all those fabulous traditions, which generally supply the place of historic monuments in describing the origin of a great nation.

Another poet of this period is John Watson, a priest. He wrote a Latin theological tract entitled SPECULUM CHRISTIANI, which is a sort of paraphrase on the decalogue and the creed". But it is interspersed with a great number of wretched English rhymes: among which, is the following hymn to the virgin Mary'.

Mary Moder, wel thu be;
Mary Moder thenk on me:

many alterations, additions, and omis-
sions. This is addressed to James the
First, as appears from st. 6. 259. 260.
$26, &c. It contains 581 stanzas. There
is another copy in the same library,
Num. 558. At the end the poet calls
himself INFORTUNIO. This is an appel-
lation which, I think, Spenser sometimes
assumed. But Spenser was dead before
the reign of James: nor has this piece
any of Spenser's characteristic merit. It
begins thus

I sing thy sad disaster, fatal king, Carnarvon Edward, second of that name. The poem on this subject in the addition to the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES, by William Niccols, is a different composition. A WINTER NIGHT'S VISION. Lond. 1610. p. 702. These two manuscript

An

poems deserve no further mention: nor would they have been mentioned at all, but from their reference to the text, and on account of their subject. Compare MSS. Harl. 2251. 119. fol. 254. unfinished poem on Edward the Second, perhaps by Lydgate. Princ. "Beholde this greate prince Edward the Secunde." [The author of this poem, on the Miseries of Edward II. was Ralph Starkey, the antiquary.-RITSON.]

MSS. C. C. C. Oxon. 155. MSS. Laud. G. 12. MSS. Thoresb. 530. There is an abridgement of this work, [MSS. Harl. 2250. 20.] with the date 1477. This is rather beyond the period with which we are at present engaged.

3

Compare a hymn to the holy virgin, supra, vol. ii. p. 150. Mathew Paris relates, that Godrich, a hermit, about

Mayden and moder was never non
Togedir, lady, save thu allon'.
Swete lady, mayden clene,

Schilde me fro ille, schame, and tene,

And out of dette, for charitee, &c."

Caxton, the celebrated printer, was likewise a poet; and beside the rhyming introductions and epilogues with which he frequently decorates his books, has left a poem of considerable

the year 1150, who lived in a solitary wild on the banks of the river Ware near Durham, had a vision, in his oratory, of the virgin Mary, who taught him this song.

Sainte Marie [clane] virgine,

Moder Jhesu Cristes Nazarene,
Onfo, schild, help thir Godric

Mayden moder milde, oiez cel oreysoun, From shome pou me shilde, e di ly mal feloun,

For love of thine childe, me menez de tresoun,

Ich wes wod and wilde, ore su en pri

soun.

See also ibid. 49. fol. 75.-57. fol. 78.

Onfang, bring hegilich with the in godes And 372. 7. fol. 55.

riche.

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In the library of Mr. Farmer, of Tusmore in Oxfordshire, are, or were lately, a collection of hymns and antiphones, paraphrased into English by William Herbert, a Franciscan frier, and a famous preacher, about the year 1330. These, with some other of his pieces contained in the same library, are unmentioned by Bale, v. 31. And Pitts, p.428. [Autogr. in pergamen.] Pierre de Corbian, a troubadour, has left a hymn, or prayer, to the holy virgin: which, he says, he chose to compose in the romance-language, because he could write troubadour, a mendicant frier of the it more intelligibly than Latin. Another thirteenth century, had worked himself up into such a pitch of enthusiasm concerning the holy virgin, that he became deeply in love with her. It is partly owing, as I have already hinted, to the gallantry of the dark ages, in which the female sex was treated with so romantic a respect, that the virgin Mary received such exaggerated honours, and was so distinguished an object of adoration in the devotion of those times.

t These four lines are in the exordium 2382. (4to.) 3. fol. 86. b. [See supra, of a prayer to the virgin, MSS. Harl, vol. ii. p. 369.

" Printed by William Maclyn or Machlinia. Without date,

length, entitled the WORKE OF SAPIENCE". It comprehends, not only an allegorical fiction concerning the two courts of the castle of Sapience, in which there is no imagination, but a system of natural philosophy, grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy, theology, and other topics of the fashionable literature. Caxton appears to be the author, by the prologue: yet it is not improbable, that he might on this occasion employ some professed versifier, at least as an assistant, to prepare a new book of original poetry for his press. The writer's design, is to describe the effects of wisdom from the beginning of the world: and the work is a history of knowledge or learning. In a vision, he meets the goddess SAPIENCE in a delightful meadow; who conducts him to her castle, or mansion, and there displays all her miraculous operations. Caxton, in the poem, invokes the gylted goddess and moost facundyous lady Clio, apologises to those makers who delight in termes gay, for the mnelegancies of language which as a foreigner he could not avoid, and modestly declares, that he neither means to rival or envy Gower and Chaucer.

Among the anonymous pieces of poetry belonging to this period, which are very numerous, the most conspicuous is the KALENDAR OF SHEPHERDS. It seems to have been translated into English about the year 1480, from a French book entitled KALENDRIER DES BERGERS. It was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in the year 1497. This piece was calculated for the purposes of a perpetual almanac; and seems to have been the universal magazine of every article of salutary and useful knowledge. It is a medley of verse and prose; and contains, among

Printed by him without date. fol. in thirty-seven leaves. [But more justly attributed to Lydgate.-RITSON.]

* I have seen an edition of the French,

of 1500.

I have an edition printed by John Wally, at London, without date. 4to. In the prologue it is said, "This book was first corruptly printed in France, and after that at the cost and charges of Richard Pinson newly translated and

reprinted although not so faithfully as the original copy required," &c. It was certainly first printed by de Worde, 1497. Again, ch. ii. "From the yeare this kalender was made м.cccc.XCVII. unto the yeare M.CCCCC. XVI." From whence I conclude, that Worde's edition was in 1497, Wally's in 1516. Again, “This yeare of the present kalender whiche began to have course the first daye of January м.CCCC.XCVII."

many other curious particulars, the saints of the whole year, the moveable feasts, the signs of the zodiac, the properties of the twelve months, rules for blood-letting, a collection of proverbs, a system of ethics, politics, divinity, physiognomy, medicine, astrology, and geography. Among other authors, Cathon the great clarke3, Solomon, Ptolomeus the prince of astronomy, and Aristotle's Epistle to Alexander, are quoted". Every month is introduced respectively speaking, in a stanza of balad royal, its own panegyric. This is the speech of May ©.

Of all monthes in the yeare I am kinge,
Flourishing in beauty excellently;
For, in my time, in vertue is all thinge,
Fieldes and medes sprede most beautiously,
And birdes singe with sweete harmony;
Rejoysing lovers with hot love endewed,
With fragrant flowers all about renewed.

In the theological part, the terrors and certainty of death are described, by the introduction of Death, seated on the pale horse of the Apocalypse, and speaking thus".

Upon this horse, blacke and hideous
DEATH I am, that fiercely doth sitte:
There is no fairenesse, but sight tedious,
All gay colours I do hitte.

▾ Pieces of this sort were not uncommon. In the British Museum there is an ASTROLOGICAL poem, teaching when to buy and sell, to let blood, to build, to go to sea, the fortune of children, the interpretation of dreams, with other like important particulars, from the day of the moon's age. MSS. Harl. 2320. 3. fol. 31.

In the principal letter the author is represented in a studious posture. The manuscript, having many Saxon letters intermixed, begins thus.

He that wol herkyn of wit
That ys witnest in holy wryt,
Lystenyth to me a stonde,
Of a story y schal zow telle,

What tyme ys good to byen and to sylle,
In bok as hyt ye y fownde.

The reader who is curious to know the state of quackery, astrology, fortunetelling, midwifery, and other occult sciences, about the year 1420, may consult the works of one John Crophill, who practised in Suffolk. MSS. Harl 1735. 4to. 3. seq. [See fol. 29. 36.] This cunning-man was likewise a poet; and has left, in the same manuscript, some poetry spoken at an entertainment of Frere Thomas, and five ladies of qua lity, whose names are mentioned: at which, two great bowls, or goblets, called MERCY and CHARITY, were briskly cir culated. fol. 48.

a Epilogue.
↳ Cap. 42.

4 Cap. xix.

C

Cap. 2.

My horse runneth by dales and hilles,
And many he smiteth dead and killes.
In my trap I take some by every way,
By towns [and] castles I take my rent.
I will not respite one an houre of a daye,
Before me they must needes be present.
I slea all with my mortall knife,
And of duety I take the life.
HELL knoweth well my killing,

I sleepe never, but wake and warke;

Itd followeth me ever running,

With my

darte I slea weake and starke:

A great number it hath of me,

Paradyse hath not the fourth parte, &c.

In the eighth chapter of our KALENDER are described the seven visions, or the punishments in hell of the seven deadly sins, which Lazarus saw between his death and resurrection. These punishments are imagined with great strength of fancy, and accompanied with wooden cuts boldly touched, and which the printer Wynkyn de Worde probably procured from some German engraver at the infancy of the art. The PROUD are bound by hooks of iron to vast wheels, like mills, placed between craggy precipices, which are incessantly whirling with the most violent impetuosity, and sound like thunder. The ENVIOUS are plunged in a lake half frozen, from which as they attempt to emerge for ease, their naked limbs are instantly smote with a blast of such intolerable keenness, that they are compelled to dive again into the lake. To the WRATHFULL is assigned a gloomy cavern, in which their bodies are butchered, and their limbs mangled by demons with various weapons. The SLOTHFULL are tormented in a horrible hall dark and tenebrous, swarming with innumerable flying serpents of various shapes and sizes, which sting to the heart. This, I think, is the Hell of the Gothic EDDA. The COVETOUS are dipped in cauldrons

d That is, HELL. * Compare the torments of Dante's hell. INF. Cant. v. vi.seq.

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