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in the misfortunes of that injured princess, who had no other fault but an unguarded and indiscrete frankness of nature; and whose character has been blackened by the bigoted historians of the catholic cause, merely because she was the mother of queen Elizabeth. To gratify the ostensible jealousy of the king, who had conceived a violent passion for a new object, this amiable nobleman was beheaded on the first of May, in 1536 h. His elegance of person, and spritely conversation, captivated all the ladies of Henry's court. Wood says, that at the "royal court he was much adored, especially by the female sex, for his admirable discourse, and symmetry of body." From these irresistible allurements his enemies endeavoured to give a plausibility to their infamous charge of an incestuous connection. After his commitment to the Tower, his sister the queen, on being sent to the same place, asked the lieutenant, with a degree of eagerness, "Oh! where is my sweet brother?" Here was a specious confirmation of his imagined guilt: this stroke of natural tenderness was too readily interpreted into a licentious attachment. Bale mentions his RHYTHMI ELEGANTISSIMI', which Wood calls "Songs and Sonnets, with other things of the like nature." These are now lost, unless some, as I have insinuated, are contained in the present collection; a garland, in which it appears to have been the fashion for every FLOWERY COURTIER to leave some of his blossoms. But Boleyn's poems cannot now be distinguished*.

The lord Vaulx, whom I have supposed, and on surer proof, to be another contributor to this miscellany, could not be the Nicholas lord Vaux, whose gown of purple velvet, plated with gold, eclipsed all the company present at the marriage of prince

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Arthur; who shines as a statesman and a soldier with uncommon lustre in the history of Henry the Seventh, and continued to adorn the earlier annals of his successor, and who died in the year 1523. Lord Vaux the poet was probably Thomas lord Vaux, the son of Nicholas, and who was summoned to parliament in 1531, and seems to have lived till the latter end of the reign of queen Mary". All our old writers mention the poetical lord Vaux, as rather posterior to Wyat and Surrey; neither of whom was known as a writer till many years after the death of lord Nicholas. George Gascoyne [Thomas Churchyard], who wrote in 1575 [1568], in his panegyric on the ENGLISH POETS, places Vaux after Surrey.

Piers Plowman was full plaine,

And Chauser's spreet was great;
Earle Surrey had a goodly vayne,

LORD VAUX the marke did beat*.

Puttenham, author of the ARTE OF ENGLISH POESIE, having spoken of Surrey and Wyat, immediately adds, "In the SAME TIME, or NOT LONG AFTER, was the lord Nicholas Vaux, a man of much facilitie in vulgar makings P." Webbe, in his DISCOURSE OF ENGLISH POETRIE, published in 1586, has a similar arrangement. Great numbers of Vaux's poems are extant in the PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVISES; and, instead of the rudeness of Skelton, they have a smoothness and facility of manner, which does not belong to poetry written before the year 1523, in which lord Nicholas Vaux died an old man. The PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVISES was published in 1576, and he is there simply styled Lord Vaulx the elder: this was to distinguish him from his son lord William, then living. If lord Nicholas was a writer of poetry, I will venture to assert,

n See what I have said of his son lord William, in the LIFE OF SIR THOMAS POPE, p. 221. In. 1558, sir Thomas Pope leaves him a legacy of one hundred pounds, by the name of lord Vaulx. [Warton's conjecture is now generally admitted to be correct.-EDIT.]

* [Prefixed to Skelton's Poems, printed by Marsh, 1568.-PARK.]

The christian name is a mistake, into which it was easy to fall.

P Fol. 48. ["vulgar makings" seem to imply vernacular poems.-PARK.]

See Percy's BALL. ii. 49. edit. 1775.

that none of his performances now remain; notwithstanding the testimony of Wood, who says that Nicholas "in his juvenile years was sent to Oxon, where by reading humane and romantic, rather than philosophical authors, he advanced his genius very much in poetry and history." This may be true of his son Thomas, whom I suppose to be the poet. But such was the celebrity of lord Nicholas's public and political character, that he has been made to monopolise every merit which was the property of his successors. All these difficulties, however, are at once adjusted by a manuscript in the British Museum : in which we have a copy of Vaux's poem, beginning I lothe that I did love, with this title: "A dyttye or sonet made by the lord Vaus, in the time of the noble quene Marye, representing the image of death"." This sonnet, or rather ode, entitled, The aged lover renounceth love, which was more remembered for its morality than its poetry, and which is idly conjectured * to have been written on his death-bed', makes a part of the collection which I am now examining". From this ditty are taken three of the stanzas, yet greatly disguised and corrupted, of the Grave-digger's Song in Shakespeare's HAMLET". Another of lord Vaux's poems in the volume before us, is the ASSAULT OF CUPIDE UPON THE FORT IN WHICH THE LOVER'S HEART LAY WOUNDED*. These two are the only pieces in our collection, of which there is undoubted evidence, although no name is prefixed to either, that they were written by lord Vaux. From palpable coincidencies of style, subject, and other circumstances, a slender share of critical sagacity is sufficient to point out many others.

These three writers were cotemporaries with Surrey and Wyat: but the subjects of some of the pieces will go far in ascertaining the date of the collection in general. There is one on the death of sir Thomas Wyat the elder, who died, as I

ATH. OXON. i. 19.

* MSS. HARL. 1703. [fol. 100.] [Yet Mr. Warton does not regard a similar supposition as idle when applied to the Soul-knell of Edwards. Vid. postea, Sect. lii.-PARK.]

G. Gascoyne says, "The L. Vaux his dittie, beginning thus I loath, was thought by some to be made upon his death-bed," &c. EPISTLE TO THE YOUNG GENTLEMEN, prefixed to his Poems. " Fol. 72. w Act V. * Fol. 71.

have remarked, in 1541. Another on the death of lord chancellor Audley, who died in 15442. Another on the death of master Devereux, a son of lord Ferrers, who is said to have been a Cato for his counsel; and who is probably Richard Devereux, buried in Berkyng church, the son of Walter lord Ferrers, a distinguished statesman and general under Henry the Eighth. Another on the death of a lady Wentworth ". Another on the death of sir Antony Denny, the only person of the court who dared to inform king Henry the Eighth of his approaching dissolution, and who died in 1551. Another on the death of Phillips, an eminent musician, and without his rival on the lutef. Another on the death of a countess of Pembroke, who is celebrated for her learning, and her perfect virtues linked as in a chaines: probably Anne, who was buried magnificently at saint Paul's, in 1551, the first lady of sir William Herbert the first earl of Pembroke, and sister to Catharine Parr, the sixth queen of Henry the Eighth". Another on master Henry Williams, son of sir John Williams, afterwards lord Thame, and a great favorite of Henry the Eighth1. On the death of sir James Wilford, an officer in Henry's wars, we have here an elegy, with some verses on his picture'. Here is also a poem on a treasonable conspiracy, which is compared to the stratagem of Sinon, and which threatened im

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was so notable a singing-man, wherein
he gloried, that wheresoever he came, the
longest song with most counterverses in
it should be set up against him." Fox
adds, that while he was singing on one
side of the choir of Windsor chapel, O Re-
demptrix et Salvatrix, he was answered
by one Testwood a singer on the other
side, Non Redemptrir nec Salvatrix. For
this irreverence, and a few other slight
heresies, Testwood was burnt at Wind-
sor. Acrs and MONUM. vol. ii. p. 543,
544. I must add, that sir Thomas
Phelyppis, or Philips, is mentioned as a
musician before the reformation. Haw-
kins, HIST. MUS. ii. 533.
8 Fol. 85.

Strype, MEM. ii. p. 317.
i Fol. 99. See LIFE OF SIR THOMAS
Pore, p. 232.
1 Fol. 62.

Fol. 36.

mediate extermination to the British constitution, but was speedily discovered". I have not the courage to explore the formidable columns of the circumstantial Hollinshed for this occult piece of history, which I leave to the curiosity and conjectures of some more laborious investigator. It is certain that none of these pieces are later than the year 1557, as they were published in that year by Richard Tottell the printer. We may venture to say, that almost all of them were written between the years 1530 and 1550". Most of them perhaps within the first part of that period.

The following nameless stanzas * have that elegance which results from simplicity. The compliments are such as would not disgrace the gallantry or the poetry of a polished age. The . thoughts support themselves, without the aid of expression and the affectations of language. This is a negligence, but it is a negligence produced by art. Here is an effect obtained, which

it would be vain to seek from the studied ornaments of style.

Give place, ye ladies, and be gone,

Boast not yourselves at all:

For here at hand approcheth one
Whose face will staine you all.

The vertue of her lively lokes
Excels the precious stone:

I wish to have none other bokes
To reade or loke upon.

In eche of her two christall eyes
Smyleth a naked boye:

It would you all in hart suffise
To see that lampe of joye.

m Fol. 94, 95.

"There is an epitaph by W. G. made on himself, with an answer, fol. 98, 99. I cannot explain those initials. At fol. 111. a lady, called Arundel, is highly celebrated for her incomparable. beauty and accomplishments: perhaps of lord Arundel's family.

Thus ARUNDELL sits throned still with
Fame, &c.

[These stanzas may now be assigned to John Heywood, the epigrammatist, on the potent authority of Harl. MS. 1709. where the writer's own name is introduced with some additional stanzas. See Lord Orford's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 83. ed. 1806.— PARK.]

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