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with musical notes, in 1611 *. Poetry and music are congenial; and it is certain, that Henry was skilled in musical composition. Erasmus attests, that he composed some church services': and one of his anthems still continues to be performed in the choir of Christ-church at Oxford, of his foundation. It is in an admirable style, and is for four voices. Henry, although a scholar, had little taste for the classical elegancies which now began to be known in England. His education seems to have been altogether theological: and, whether it best suited his taste or his interest, polemical divinity seems to have been his favorite science. He was a patron of learned men, when they humoured his vanities; and were wise enough, not to interrupt his pleasures, his convenience, or his ambition.

See also NUGA ANTIQ. ii. 248. [And it makes part of a stanza in Church

yard's legend of Jane Shore.-PARK.] I See Hawkins, HIST. Mus. ii. 533.

SECTION XL.

To these SONGES and SONNETTES of UNCERTAIN AUCTOURs,

in Tottell's edition are annexed SONGES WRITTEN BY N. G. a By the initials N. G. we are to understand Nicholas Grimoald*, a name which never appeared yet in the poetical biography of England. But I have before mentioned him incidentally. He was a native of Huntingdonshire, and received the first part of his academical institution at Christ's college in Cambridge. Removing to Oxford in the year 1542, he was elected fellow of Merton College: but, about 1547, having opened a rhetorical lecture in the refectory of Christ-church, then newly founded, he was transplanted to that society,†+ which gave the greatest encouragement to such students as were distinguished for their proficiency in criticism and philology. The same year, he wrote a Latin tragedy, which probably was acted in the college, entitled, ARCHIPROPHETA, sive JOHANNES BAPTISTA, TRAGEDIA, that is, The Arch-prophet, or Saint John Baptist, a tragedy, and dedicated to the dean Richard Cox. In the year 1548, he explained all the four books of Virgil's Georgics‡ in a regular prose Latin paraphrase, in the public hall of his college. He wrote also explanatory commentaries or lectures on the Andria of Terence, the Epistles of Horace, and many pieces of Cicero,

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perhaps for the same auditory. He translated Tully's Offices into English. This translation, which is dedicated to the learned Thirlby bishop of Ely, was printed at London, 1553f. He also familiarised some of the purest Greek classics by English versions, which I believe were never printed. Among others was the CYROPEDIA. Bale the biographer, and bishop of Ossory, says, that he turned Chaucer's TROILUS into a play : but whether this piece was in Latin or English, we are still to seek and the word Comedia, which Bale uses on this occasion, is without precision or distinction. The same may be said of what Bale calls his FAME, a comedy. Bale also recites his System of Rhetoric for the use of Englishmen3, which seems to be the course of the rhetorical lectures I have mentioned. It is to be wished, that Bale, who appears to have been his friend, and therefore possessed the opportunities of information, had given us a more exact and full detail, at least of such of Grimoald's works as are now lost, or, if remaining, are unprinted'. Undoubtedly this is the same person, called by Strype one Grimbold, who was chaplain to bishop Ridley, and who was employed by that prelate, while in prison, to translate into English, Laurentio Valla's book against the fiction of Constantine's DONATION, with some other popular Latin pieces against the papists *. In the ecclesiastical history of Mary's reign, he appears to have been imprisoned for heresy, and to have saved his life, if not his credit, by a recantation. But theology does not seem to have been his talent, nor the glories of martyrdom to have made any part of his ambition. One of his plans, but which never took effect, was to print a new edition of Josephus Iscanus's poem on the TROJAN WAR, with emendations from the most correct manuscripts'.

*

In octavo. Again, 1556.-1558.1574.-1583.-1596.

Rhetorica in usum Britannorum. h Bale cites his comment, or paraphrase on the first Eclogue of Virgil, addressed ad Amicum Joannem Balcum, viii. 99.

iTitles of many others of his pieces may be seen in Bale, ubi supr.

See Strype's CRANMER, B. iii. c.11. p. 343. And GRINDAL, 8. Fox, edit. i. 1047. And Wood, Атн. Oxon. i. 178. 1 Bale, ubi supr.

* [An epitaph on the death of Nicolas Grimaold appeared in the very scarce poems of Barn. Googe, 1563, and has been reprinted by Mr. Stevens in his Account of Ancient Translations from

I have taken more pains to introduce this Nicholas Grimoald to the reader's acquaintance, because he is the second English poet after lord Surrey, who wrote in blank-verse. Nor is it his only praise, that he was the first who followed in this new path of versification. To the style of blank-verse exhibited by Surrey, he added new strength, elegance, and modulation. In the disposition and conduct of his cadencies, he often approaches to the legitimate structure of the improved blank-verse: but we cannot suppose, that he is entirely free from those dissonancies and asperities, which still adhered to the general character and state of our diction*.

In his poem on the DEATH OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO are these lines. The assassins of Cicero are said to relent,

When

They his bare neck beheld, and his hore heyres,
Scant could they hold the teares that forth gan burst,
And almost fell from bloody handes the swoords.
Only the stern Herennius, with grym looke,
Dastards, why stand you still? he sayth: and straight
Swaps off the head with his presumptuous yron.
Ne with that slaughter yet is he not filld:
Fowl shame on shame to hepe, is his delite.

Classic Authors. (Reed's Shaksp. ii.
114.) The following extract relates
more particularly to the person comme-
morated.

"Yf that wyt or worthy eloquens

Or learnyng deape could move him [Death] to forbeare;

O GRIMAOLD, then thou hadste not yet gon hence,

But here hadst sene full many an aged

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And taken them for whom no man had

carde,

And layde them lowe in deepe obli

vious grounde.

But Fortune favours fooles, as old men

saye,

And lets them lyve, and takes the wyse awayc."-PARK.

* [It would seem from the following lines in Barnabe Googe's poems, that Grimoald had, after Lord Surrey, translated a portion of Virgil; which the bishop of Dunkeld afterwards completed. "The noble H[enry] Hawarde once,

With mighty style did bryng a pece
That raught eternall fame,

Of Virgil's worke in frame.
And GRIMAOLD gave the lyke attempt,
And Douglas won the ball,
Whose famouse wyt in Scottysh ryme

Had made an ende of all."-PARK.]

Wherefore the handes also doth he off-smyte,
Which durst Antonius' life so lifely paint.
Him, yelding strayned ghost", from welkin hye
With lothly chere lord Phebus gan behold;
And in black clowde, they say, long hid his hed.
The Latine Muses, and the Grayes", they wept,
And for his fall eternally shall wepe.

And lo! hart-persing PITHO°, strange to tell,
Who had to him suffisde both sense and wordes,
When so he spake, and drest with nectar soote
That flowyng toung, when his windpipe disclosde,
Fled with her fleeyng friend; and, out, alas!

Hath left the earth, ne will no more returne. P

Nor is this passage unsupported by a warmth of imagination, and the spirit of pathetic poetry. The general cast of the whole poem shows, that our author was not ill qualified for dramatic composition.

Another of Grimoald's blank-verse poems is on the death of Zoroas an Egyptian astronomer, who was killed in Alexander's first battle with the Persians*. It is opened with this nervous and animated exordium.

Now clattering armes, now raging broyls of warre,
Gan passe the noyes of dredfull trompetts clang";
Shrowded with shafts the heaven, with cloud of darts
Covered the ayre. Against full-fatted bulles
As forceth kindled yre the lyons keen,

Whose greedy gutts the gnawing honger pricks,

So Macedons against the Persians fare."

In the midst of the tumult and hurry of the battle, appears

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