it appears, on the fickle nature of an Englishman: the symbolical print prefixed to this chapter, exhibiting a naked man, with a pair of sheers in one hand and a roll of cloth in the other, not determined what sort of a coat he shall order to be made, has more humour, than any of the verses which follow h. Nor is the poetry destitute of humour only; but of every embellishment, both of metrical arrangement and of expression. Borde has all the baldness of allusion, and barbarity of versification, belonging to Skelton, without his strokes of satire and severity. The following lines, part of the Englishman's speech, will not prejudice the reader in his favour.

What do I care, if all the world me faile?

I will have a garment reach to my taile.

Then am I a minion*, for I weare the new guise,

The next yeare after I hope to be wise,

Not only in wearing my gorgeous aray,

For I will go to learning a whole summers day.

In the seventh chapter, he gives a fantastic account of his travels', and owns, that his metre deserves no higher appellation than ryme dogrell. But this delineation of the fickle Englishman is perhaps to be restricted to the circumstances of the author's age, without a respect to the national character: and, as Borde was a rigid catholic, there is a probability, notwithstanding in other places he treats of natural dispositions, that a satire is designed on the laxity of principle, and revolutions of opinion, which prevailed at the reformation, and the easy compliance of many of his changeable countrymen with a new religion for lucrative purposes.

h Harrison, in his DESCRIPTION OF ENGLAND, having mentioned this work by Borde, adds, "Suche is our mutabilitie, that to daie there is none [equal] to the Spanish guise, to morrow the French toies are most fine and delectable, yer [ere] long no such apparel as that which is after the Almaine fashion: by and by the Turkish maner otherwise the Morisco gowns, the Barbarian sleves, the mandilion worne to Collie Weston ward,

and the shorte French breeches," &c. B. ii. ch. 9. p. 172.

[A young fashionable courtier. See a print of French mignons in Montfaucon's Antiquities.-ASHBY.]

i Prefixed to which, is a wooden cut of the author Borde, standing in a sort of pew or stall, under a canopy, habited in an academical gown, a laurel-crown on his head, with a book before him on a desk.

I transcribe the character of the Welshman, chiefly because

he speaks of his harp.

I am a Welshman, and do dwel in Wales,

I have loved to serche budgets, and looke in males:
I love not to labour, to delve, nor to dyg,
My fyngers be lymed lyke a lyme-twyg.
And wherby ryches I do not greatly set,
Syth all hys [is] fysshe that cometh to the net.
I am a gentylman, and come of Brutes blood,
My name is ap Ryce, ap Davy, ap Flood:
I love our Lady, for I am of hyr kynne,
He that doth not love her, I beshrewe his chynne.
My kyndred is ap Hoby, ap Jenkin, ap Goffe.
Bycause I go barelegged, I do catch the coffe.
Bycause I do go barelegged it is not for pryde.
I have a gray cote, my body for to hyde.
I do love carse boby, good rosted cheese,
And swysshe metheglyn I loke for my fees.
And yf I have my HARPE, I care for no more,
It is my treasure, I kepe it in store.

For my harpe is made of a good mare's skyn,

The strynges be of horse heare, it maketh a good dyn.
My songe, and my voyce, and my harpe doth agree,
Much lyke the bussing of an homble bee :

Yet in my country I do make pastyme

In tellyng of prophyces which be not in ryme.1

I have before mentioned "A ryght pleasant and merry History of the MYLNER OF ABINGTON ", with his wife and his faire daughter, and of two poor scholars of Cambridge," a meagre

* That is, toasted cheese, next men- the cathedrall church of Saint Andrews, tioned.

is the fairest and the greatest payre of orgyns [organs] in al Chrystendome, in the which orgins be many instrumentes and vyces [devices] as gians [giants] heads and starres, the which doth move and wagge with their jawes and eis [eyes] as fast as the player playeth." ch. xxiii.

"A village near Cambridge.

epitome of Chaucer's MILLER'S TALE. In a blank leaf of the Bodleian copy, this tale is said by Thomas Newton of Cheshire, an elegant Latin epigrammatist of the reign of queen Elisabeth, to have been written by Borde". He is also supposed to have published a collection of silly stories called SCOGIN'S JESTS, sixty in number. Perhaps Shakespeare took his idea from this jest-book, that Scogan was a mere buffoon, where he says that Falstaffe, as a juvenile exploit, "broke Scogan's head at the court-gate." Nor have we any better authority, than this publication by Borde, that Scogan was a graduate in the university, and a jester to a king P. Hearne, at the end of Benedictus Abbas, has printed Borde's ITINERARY, as it may be called; which is little more than a string of names, but is quoted by Norden in his SPECULUM BRITANNIÆ . Borde's circulatory peregrinations, in the quality of a quack-doctor, might have furnished more ample materials for an English topography. Beside the BREVIARY OF HEALTH, mentioned above, and which was approved by the university of Oxford, Borde has left the DIETARIE OF HEALTH, reprinted in 1576, the PROMPTUARIE OF MEDICINE, the DOCTRINE OF URINES, and the PRINCIPLES OF ASTRONOMICAL PROGNOSTICATIONS: which are proofs of attention to his profession, and shew that he could sometimes be serious $. But Borde's name would not have been now re

membered, had he wrote only profound systems in medicine and astronomy. He is known to posterity as a buffoon, not as a philosopher. Yet, I think, some of his astronomical tracts have been epitomised and bound up with Erra Pater's Almanacs.

Of Borde's numerous books, the only one that can afford any degree of entertainment to the modern reader, is the DIETARIE OF HELTHE: where, giving directions as a physician, concerning the choice of houses, diet, and apparel, and not suspecting how little he should instruct, and how much he might amuse, a curious posterity, he has preserved many anecdotes of the private life, customs, and arts, of our ancestors. This work is dedicated to Thomas duke of Norfolk, lord treasurer under Henry the Eighth. In the dedication, he speaks of his being called in as a physician to sir John Drury, the year when cardinal Wolsey was promoted to York; but that he did not chuse to prescribe without consulting doctor Buttes, the king's physician. He apologises to the duke, for not writing in the ornate phraseology now generally affected. He also hopes to be excused, for using in his writings so many wordes of mirth: but this, he says, was only to make your grace merrie, and because mirth has ever been esteemed the best medicine. Borde must have had no small share of vanity, who could think thus highly of his own pleasantry. And to what a degree of taste and refinement must our antient dukes and lords treasurers have arrived, who could be exhilarated by the witticisms and the lively language of this facetious philosopher?

In his rules for building or planning a House, he supposes a quadrangle. The Gate-house, or Tower, to be exactly opposite to the Portico of the Hall. The Privy Chamber to be annexed to the Chamber of State. A Parlour joining to the Buttery and Pantry at the lower end of the Hall. The Pastry-house and Larder annexed to the Kitchen. Many of the chambers to have a view into the Chapel. In the outer quadrangle to be a stable, but only for horses of pleasure. The stables, dairy, and slaughter-house, to be a quarter of a mile from the house. The Moat to have a spring falling into

it, and to be often scowered. An Orchard of sundry fruits is convenient: but he rather recommends a Garden filled with aromatic herbs. In the Garden a Pool or two, for fish. A Park filled with deer and conies.

"A Dove-house also is a necessary thyng about a mansyon-place. And, among other thynges, a Payre of Buttes is a decent thynge about a mansyon. And otherwhyle, for a great man necessary it is for to passe his tyme with bowles in an aly, when al this is finished, and the mansyon replenished with implements. Ch. iv. Sign. C. ii. Dedication dated 1542[7].

John Bale, a tolerable Latin classic, and an eminent biographer, before his conversion from popery, and his advancement to the bishoprick of Ossory by king Edward the Sixth, composed many scriptural interludes, chiefly from incidents of the New Testament. They are, the Life of Saint John the Baptist, written in 1538*. Christ in his twelfth year. Baptism and Temptation. The Resurrection of Lazarus. The Council of the High-priests. Simon the Leper. Our Lord's Supper, and the Washing of the feet of his Disciples. Christ's Burial and Resurrection. The Passion of Christ. The Comedie of the three Laws of Nature, Moses, and Christ, corrupted by the Sodomites, Pharisees, and Papists, printed by Nicholas Bamburgh in 1538: and so popular, that it was reprinted by Colwell in 1562". God's Promises to Man". Our author, in his Vocacyon to the Bishoprick of Ossory, informs us, that his COMEDY of John the Baptist, and his TRAGEDY of God's Promises, were acted by the youths upon a Sunday, at the market cross of Kilkenny *. What shall we think of the state, I will not say of the stage, but of common sense, when these deplorable dramas could be endured? of an age, when the Bible was profaned and ridiculed from a principle of piety? But the fashion of acting mysteries appears to have expired with this writer. He is said, by himself, to have written a book of Hymns, and another of jests and tales: and to have translated the tragedy of PAMMACHIUS; the same perhaps which was acted at Christ's college in Cambridge in 1544, and afterwards laid before the privy council as a libel on the reformation". A low vein of abusive burlesque, which had more virulence than humour, seems to have been one of Bale's talents: two of his pamphlets against the papists, all whom he considered as monks, are entitled the MASS OF THE GLUTTONS,

[See Harleian Miscell. vol. i.PARK.]

"Both in quarto. At the end is A Song of Benedictus, compiled by Johan Bale. " This was written in 1538. And first printed under the name of a TRAGEDIE or INTERLUDE, by Charlewood, 1577. 4to.

X

* Fol. 24. [Still acted at the marketcross of Bury, but not on a Sunday.ASHBY.]

Y CENT. viii. 100. p. 702. And Verheiden, p. 149.

See supr. p. 205. Bale says, "Pammachii tragœdias transtuli.”