filled with boiling metals. The GLUTTONOUS are placed in a vale near a loathsome pool, abounding with venomous creatures, on whose banks tables are spread, from which they are perpetually crammed with toads by devils. CONCUPISCENCE is punished in a field full of immense pits or wells, overflowing with fire and sulphur. This visionary scene of the infernal punishments seems to be borrowed from a legend related by Matthew Paris, under the reign of king John: in which the soul of one Thurkhill, a native of Tidstude in Essex is conveyed by saint Julian from his body, when laid asleep, into hell and heaven. In hell he has a sight of the torments of the damned, which are presented under the form and name of the INFERNAL PAGEANTS, and greatly resemble the fictions I have just described. Among the tormented, is a knight, who had passed his life in shedding much innocent blood at tilts and tournaments. He is introduced, compleatly armed, on horseback; and couches his lance against the demon, who is commissioned to seize and to drag him to his eternal destiny. There is likewise a priest who never said mass, and a baron of the exchequer who took bribes. Turkill is then conducted into the mansions of the blessed, which are painted with strong oriental colouring: and in Paradise, a garden replenished with the most delicious fruits, and the most exquisite variety of trees, plants, and flowers, he sees Adam, a personage of gigantic proportion, but the most beautiful symmetry, reclined on the side of a fountain which sent forth four streams of different water and colour, and under the shade of a tree of immense size and height, laden with fruits of every kind, and breathing the richest odours. Afterwards saint Julian conveys the soul of Turkhill back to his body; and when awakened, he relates this vision to his parish-priest. There is a story of a similar cast in Bede, which I have mentioned before". f Matt. Paris. Hist. pag. 206. seq. Edit. Tig. Much the same sort of fable is related, ibid. p. 178. seq. There is an old poem on this subject, called OWAYNE MILES, MSS. COTT. CALIG. A. 12. f. 90. VOL. III. D & See DISSERTATION ii. Signat. E. The DEAD MAN'S SONG there mentioned, seems to be more immediately taken from this fiction as it stands in our SHEPHERD'S KALENDER. It is entitled, The DEAD MAN'S SONG, whose Dwelling was As the ideas of magnificence and elegance were enlarged, the public pageants of this period were much improved: and beginning now to be celebrated with new splendour, received, among other advantages, the addition of SPEAKING PERSONAGES. near Basinghall in London. Wood's BALLADS. Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. It is worthy of Doctor Percy's excellent collection, and begins thus. Sore sicke, dear frienns, long tyme I was, And weakly laid in bed, &c. See also the legend of saint Patrick's cave, Matt. Paris. p. 84. And MSS. Harl. 2385. 82. De quodam ducto videre penas Inferni. fol. 56. b. [These highly painted infernal punishments, and joys of Paradise, are not the invention of the author of the KALENDRIER. They are taken, both from M. Paris, and from Henry of Saltry's Description of saint Patrick's PURGATORY, written in 1140, and printed by Messingham in his FLORILEGIUM INSULE SANCTORUM," &c. Paris, 1624. fol. cap. vi. &c. p. 101. See Bibl. Bodl. MSS. BODL. 550. [See infra, p. 128.] Messingham has connected the two accounts of M. Paris and H. de Saltry, with some interpolations of his own. This adventure appears in various manuscripts. No subject could have better suited the devotion and the credulity of the dark ages.-ADDITIONS.] I chuse to throw together in the Notes many other anonymous pieces belonging to this period, most of which are too minute to be formally considered in the series of our poetry. The CASTELL OF HONOUR, printed in quarto by Wynkyn de Worde, 1506. The PARLYAMENT OF DEVYLLES. Princip. "As Mary was For the same, great with Gabriel," &c. in quarto, 1509. The HISTORIE OF JACOB AND HIS TWELVE SONS. In stanzas. For the same, without date. I believe about 1500. Frine. "Al yonge and old that lyst to here." A LYTEL TREATYSE called the Dysputacyon or Complaynt of the Heart thorughe perced with the lokynge of the eye. For the same, in quarto, perhaps before 1500. The first stanza is elegant, and deserves to be transcribed. In the fyrst weke of the season of Maye, Whan that the wodes be covered in grene, + To shewe his voys among the thornès kene, Them to rejoyce which lovès servaunts bene, Which fro all comforte thynke them fast behynd; My pleasyr was as it was after sene For my dysport to chase the harte and hynde. The LYFE OF SAINT JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. For Pinson, in quarto. 1520. The LYFE OF PETRONYLLA. In stanzas, for the same, without date, in quarto. THE CASTLE OF LABOURE. In stanzas. For the same, in quarto, without date, with neat wooden cuts. [Vid. infra, Sect. xxv. Note 4.] THE LYFE OF SAINT RADEGUNDA. In quarto, for the same. [Vid. supra, p. 24. Note 4.] THE A.B. C. E. OF ARISTOTILLE, MSS. Harl. 1304. 4. Proverbial verses in the alliterative manner, viz. Woso wil be wise and worship desireth, Lett him lerne one letter, and loke on another, &c. Again, ibid. 541. 19. fol. 213. [Compare, ibid. 913.10.fol. 15. b. 11. fol. 15.b.] See also some satyrical Ballads written by Frere Michael Kildare, chiefly on the Religious orders, Saints, the White Friars of Drogheda, the vanity of riches, &c. &c. A divine poem on death, &c. MSS. Harl. 913. 3. fol. 7. 4. fol. 9. 5. fol. 10. 13. fol. 16. [He has left a Latin poem in rhyme on the abbot and prior of Gloucester, ibid. 5. fol. 10. And burlesque pieces on some of the divine offices, ibid, 6. 1. 12. 7. fol. 13. b.] Hither we may also refer a few pieces written by one Whyting, not mentioned in Tanner, MSS. Harl. 541. 14. fol. 207. seq. Undoubtedly many other poems of this period, both printed and manuscript, have escaped my enquiries, but which, if discovered, would not have repaid the research. Among Rawlinson's manuscripts there In which the nyghtyngale lyst for to playe is a poem, of considerable length, on the These spectacles, thus furnished with speakers, characteristically habited, and accompanied with proper scenery, co-operated with the MYSTERIES, of whose nature they partook at first, in introducing the drama. It was customary to prepare these shews at the reception of a prince, or any other solemnity of a similar kind: and they were presented on moveable thea tres, or occasional stages, erected in the streets. The speeches were in verse; and as the procession moved forward, the speakers, who constantly bore some allusion to the ceremony, either antiquity of the Stanley family, begin lived about the year 1440. ning thus. I entende with true reporte to praise The valiaunte actes of the stoute Standelais, Ffrom whence they came, &c. It comes down no lower than Thomas earl of Derby, who was executed in the reign of Henry the Seventh. This induced me to think at first, that the piece was written about that time. But the writer mentions king Henry the Eighth, and the suppression of Monasteries. I will only add part of a Will in verse, dated 1477. MSS. Langb. Bibl. Bodl. vi. fol. 176. [M. 13. Th.] Fleshly lustes and festes, Loo this is but a symple tragedie, He was a gentleman of good family, and a great traveller. He collected, and transcribed in several volumes, which John Stowe had seen, many pieces of Chaucer, Lydgate, and other English poets. In the Ashmolean Museum, there is, A boke cleped the Abstracte Brevyare compyled of divers balades, rouradels, virilays, tragedyes, envoys, complaints, moralities, storyes, practysed and eke devysed and ymagined, as it sheweth here followyng, collected by John Shirley. MSS. 89. ii. In Thoresby's library was a manuscript, once belonging to the college of Selby, Amost pyteous cronycle of thorribil dethe of James Stewarde, late kynge of Scotys, nought long agone prisoner yn Englande yn the tymes of the kynges Henry the Fifle and Henry the Sixte, translated out of Latine into oure mothers Englishe tong bi your simple subject John Shirley. Also, The boke clepyd Les bones meures translated John Shirley of London, MCCCCXL, comout of French by your humble serviture prised in v partes. The firste partie spekith of remedie that is agaynst the sevyn deadly sins. 2. The estate of holy church. 3. Of Prynces and lordes temporall. 4. Of comone people. 5. Of deth and universal dome. Also, his Translation of the Sanctum Sanctorum, &c. DUCAT. LEOD. p. 530. A preserver of Chaucer's and Lydgate's works deserved these notices. The late Mr. Ames, the industrious au thor of the HISTORY OF PRINTING, had in his possession a folio volume of English Ballads in manuscript, composed or collected by one John Lucas about the year 1450.-ADDITIONS.] conversed together in the form of a dialogue, or addressed the noble person whose presence occasioned the celebrity. Speakers seem to have been admitted into our pageants about the reign of Henry the Sixth. In the year 1432, when Henry the Sixth, after his coronation at Paris, made a triumphal entry into London, many stanzas, very probably written by Lydgate, were addressed to his majesty, amidst a series of the most splendid allegorical spectacles, by a giant representing religious fortitude, Enoch and Eli, the holy Trinity, two Judges and eight Serjeants of the coife, dame Clennesse, Mercy, Truth, and other personages of a like nature'. In the year 1456, when Margaret wife of Henry the Sixth, with her little son Edward, came to Coventry, on the feast of the exaltation of the holy cross, she was received with the presentation of pageants, in one of which king Edward the confessor, saint John the Evangelist, and saint Margaret, each speak to the queen and the prince in verse. In the next reign in the year 1474, another prince Edward, son of Edward the Fourth, visited Coventry, and was honoured with the same species of shew: he was first welcomed, in an octave stanza, by Edward the confessor; and afterwards addressed by saint George, completely armed: a king's daughter holding a lamb, and supplicating his assistance to protect her from a terrible dragon, the lady's father and mother standing in a tower above, the conduit on which the champion was placed "renning wine in four places, and minstralcy of organ playing." Undoubt edly the Franciscan friers of Coventry, whose sacred interludes, i Fabyan, ubi supr. fol. 382. seq. LEET-BOOK of the city of Coventry. MS. fol. 168. Stowe says, that at the reception of this queen in London, in the year 1445, several pageaunts were exhibited at Paul's-gate, with verses written by Lydgate, on the following lemmata. Ingredimini et replete terram. Non amplius irascar super terram. Madam Grace chancellor de dieu. Five wise and five foolish virgins. Of saint Mar garet, &c. HIST. ENGL. pag. 385. edit, presented on Corpus Christi day, in that city, and at other places, make so conspicuous a figure in the history of the English drama", were employed in the management of these devises and that the Coventry men were famous for the arts of exhibition, appears from the share they took in the gallant entertainment of queen Elisabeth at Kenelworth-castle, before whom they played their old storial show". At length, personages of another cast were added; and this species of spectacle, about the period with which we are concerned, was enlivened by the admission of new characters, drawn either from profane history, or from profane allegory", in the application of which, some degree of learning and invention appeared. I have observed in a former work, and it is a topic which will again be considered in its proper place, that the frequent and familiar use of allegoric personifications in the public pageants, I mean the general use of them, greatly contributed to form the school of Spenser P. But moreover, from what is here said, it seems probable, that the PAGEAUNTS, which being shewn on civil occasions, derived great part of their decorations and actors from historical fact, and consequently made profane characters the subject of public exhibition, dictated ideas of a regular drama, much sooner than the MYSTERIES: which being confined to Scripture stories, or rather the legendary miracles of sainted martyrs, and the no less ideal personifica See supra, vol. ii. p. 129. The friers themselves were the actors. But this practice being productive of some enormities, and the laity growing as wise as the clergy, at least as well qualified to act plays; there was an injunction in the MEXICAN COUNCIL, ratified at Rome in the year 1589, to prohibit all clerks from playing in the Mysteries, even on CORPUS CHRIsti-Day. "Neque in Comoediis personam agat, etiam in FESTO CORPORIS CHRISTI." SACROSANCT. CONCIL. fol. per Labb. tom. xv. p. 1268. edit. Paris. 1672. applied in pageants, somewhat earlier. In the pageants, above mentioned, presented to Henry the Sixth, the seven liberal sciences personified are introduced, in a tabernacle of curious worke, from which their queen dame Sapience speaks verses. At entering the city he is met, and saluted in metre by three ladies, richly cladde in golde and silkes with coronets, who suddenly issue from a stately tower hung with the most splendid arras. These are the Dames, NATURE, GRACE, and FORTUNE. Fabyan, ut supr. fol. 382, seq. But this is a rare instance so early. See Obs. FAIRY QUEEN. ii. 90. |