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In the mean time, not to insist any longer on the incompatibility of these metrical psalms with the spirit of our liturgy, and the barbarism of their style, it should be remembered, that they were never admitted into our church by lawful authority. They were first introduced by the puritans, and afterwards continued by connivance. But they never received any royal approbation or parliamentary sanction*, notwithstanding it is said in their title page, that they are "set forth and ALLOWED to be sung in all churches of all the people together before and after evening prayer, and also before and after sermons: and moreover in private houses for their godly solace and comfort, laying apart all ungodly songs and ballads, which tend only to the nourishing of vice and the corrupting of youth." At the beginning of the reign of queen Elisabeth, when our ecclesiastical reformation began to be placed on a solid and durable establishment, those English divines who had fled from the superstitions of queen Mary to Franckfort and Geneva, where they had learned to embrace the opposite extreme, and where, from an abhorrence of catholic ceremonies, they had contracted a dislike to the decent appendages of divine worship, endeavoured, in conjunction with some of the principal courtiers, to effect an abrogation of our solemn church service, which they pronounced to be antichristian and unevangelical. They contended that the metrical psalms of David, set to plain and po

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without authority (no statute, canon, or injunction at all)-only like himself, first crept into private houses, and then into churches. Wither gravely confirms the same in the following paragraph from his Scholler' Purgatory, before quoted: "By what publicke example did we sing David's Psalms in English meeter before the raigne of king Edward the Sixth? or by what command of the church do we sing them as they are now in use? Verily by none. But tyme and Christian devotion having first brought forth that practice, and custome ripening it, long toleration hath in a manner fully authorized the same."PARK.]

4.64 THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY.

pular music, were more suitable to the simplicity of the gospel, and abundantly adequate to all the purposes of edification: and this proposal they rested on the authority and practice of Calvin, between whom and the church of England the breach was not then so wide as at present. But the queen and those bishops to whom she had delegated the business of supervising the liturgy, among which was the learned and liberal archbishop Parker, objected, that too much attention had already been paid to the German theology. She declared, that the foreign reformers had before interposed, on similar deliberations, with unbecoming forwardness and that the Common Prayer of her brother Edward had been once altered, to quiet the scruples, and to gratify the cavils, of Calvin, Bucer, and Fagius. She was therefore invariably determined to make no more concessions to the importunate partisans of Geneva, and peremptorily decreed that the choral formalities should still be continued in the celebration of the sacred offices '.

* See CANONS and INJUNCTIONS, A.D. 1559. Num. xlix.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

TAKEN FROM

MR. PARK'S COPY

OF

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY.

P. 1. note a.-Bishop Grosthed, a worthy and exalted character, is the person here meant.-ASHBY.

P. 7. note y.-Of the CATO PARVUS, says Mr. Dibdin, there was but one edition printed in the fifteenth century. Lydgate was the translator both of Cato Magnus and Parvus. Typ. Antiq. vol. i. p. 201.-PARK.

P. 7. note a.-The sentences of the Wyz Cato may be in doggrel, but Esop's Fables are in prose; both, however, of affected orthography. Ritson MS. note. -PARK.

P. 8. l. 10.—I can, however, hardly understand how she could get the technical English terms: as I can hardly believe one in her situation followed the chase, and conversed with huntsmen enough for the purpose. I think that these Religious translated the French or Latin books on hunting, war, &c. to please their friends, who were professed sportsmen and warriors, and that they

furnished the terms of art.-ASHBY.

P. 8. note e-From Wynkyn de

Worde's curious edition of 1496, a

fac simile has recently been printed, which displays an admirable specimen of modern art in rivalling ancient typography; while under the editorial superintendance of Mr. Haslewood, it is illustrated and embellished with biographical notices, &c. that could scarcely perhaps have been supplied by any of his contemporaries. 150 copies only were taken off.-PARK.

P. 13. note w.-Bradshaw seems rather to say, that as his book was compiled for unlearned readers, it ought to VOL. III.

2

submit itself with deference to the judgement of learned poets. But as the passage is interesting, I will present it, with the context. It occurs in a brief conclusion to the work by the translator. Go forth, litell boke, Jesu be thy spede, And save the alway from mysreportyng,

Whiche art compiled for no clerke indede,

But for marchaunt men havyng litell lernyng,

And that rude people therby may have
Of this holy virgin and redolent rose,
knowyng,
Which hath ben kept full longe tyme

in close.

To all auncient poetes, litell boke, submytte thee,

Whilom flouryng in eloquence facundious,

And to all other whiche present now be, Fyrst to Maister Chaucer and Ludgate

sentencious,

Also to preignaunt Barkley nowe beyng religious,

To inventive Skelton and poet laureate,

Pray them all of pardon both erly and

late.-PARK.

P. 15. note c.-This salutation is still carefully preserved in the puppet show, where Punch says "Hazy weather, master Noah," &c.-ASHBY.

P. 16. note e.-Mr. Malone has added the following information: "Polydore Virgil mentions in his book De rerum inventoribus, lib. v. c. ii. that the MrsTERIES were in his time in English. 'Solemus vel more priscorum spectacula H

edere populo, ut ludos, venationes,— recitare comœdias, item in templis vitas divorum ac martyria repræsentare, in quibus, ut cunctis par sit voluptas, qui recitant vernaculam linguam tantum usurpant.' The first three books of Polydore's work were published in 1499 in 1517, at which time he was in England, he added five more." Hist. Ant. of the Eng. Stage. Mr. Ashby (MS. note) doubted whether the Latin mysteries were to be presented in public, as they had been confined to churches, which makes a difference.-PARK.

These interesting remains of early English literature appear at length to have excited some share of attention. Mr. Sharp of Coventry is said to have printed some specimens of the Coventry Mysteries, and Mr. Hone's amusing volume is likely to be generally known. Specimens of the Chester Mysteries have also been printed for the use of the Roxburgh Club. It may not be strictly decorous, perhaps, to notice works of this private nature, and which are obviously intended to be kept from the public eye; but the extensive acquaintance with the subject displayed in one of these pamphlets, demands a protest against reserving it for the exclusive information of a few black-letter dilettanti.

P. 23. note b.-This is ascertained by one of the laudatory balades affixed, which speaks of Bradshaw

-nowe departed from this temporall lyght

The present yere of this Translacion M.D.xu. of Christis incarnacion."

Sig. Sii. b.-PARK.

P. 27. l. 6.-Lord Orford, in his Catalogue of Royal Authors, indulged his talent for sarcasm about King Edward's imputed poem, and said; "I should believe that this melody of a dying monarch is about as authentic as that of the old poetic warbler, the swan, and no better founded than the title of Gloriosi." Now the title, as Mr. Gough observed, may probably have been added by the transcriber of the MS., and the production itself is sufficiently ascertained to have had the belief of being written by Edward the Second, in the "tyme of hys e.nprysonment," being cited as such by Fabian. See his Chron. edit. 1559. vol. ii. p. 185.-PARK.

66

P. 27. l. 15.-Mr. Dibdin states that this remark is not quite correct; these verses having been in part omitted and in part altered in Reyner's and Kingston's editions, but inserted entire in Rastall's. See specimen of an English De Bure, p. 28.-PARK.

P. 30. l. 17.-Caxton could only be deemed a foreigner, from having passed some time in foreign countries; since he was born a Man of Kent. See Dibdin's Ames.-PARK.

P. 31. l. 21.-Mr. Ashby asks, how can a black and a pale horse be one and the same? Groseley and Comines both make the same mistake, owing to the likeness of blanc and black. MS. note.-PARK.

P. 32. l. 21.-Herbert remarks here, that W. de Worde's edition being but a small quarto, could not admit of the more elegantdrawings to the folio edition in 1503, and which were exactly copied in 1656. MS. note.-PARK.

P. 41. note w.- -See some notices in the preliminary matter to a collection of poems by Mr. S. Whyte, printed in 1752, and many more in the Collectanea of my studious friend Mr. Douce.PARK.

P. 46. note h.-Or rather, says Herbert, as in the collection of poems by Chaucer and Lydgate in the public library, Cambridge.

P. 47. note h.-The following argument, says Mr. George Mason, since occurring, may strengthen the strong claim of Lydgate to be regarded as the author. In one of the Paston letters, published by Sir John Fenn, vol. 2. p. 90. and dated 1471, the Temple of Glass is mentioned as if it had then been written some years. This circumstance must ill accord with its being attributed to Hawes; besides that the language is older in many particulars than that which Hawes used. MS. note in W. de Worde's edit. of the book which does not give the poem to Hawes; as Mr. Warton had been led to believe, from the misrepresentation of Ames.— PARK.

P. 50. note u.-It is evident (says Mr. Waldron) from the conclusion of the passage above cited, that more of the Squier's Tale had been written than has been preserved. MS. note.-PARK.

P. 53. note i.-This curious allusion

Mr. Heber has enabled me to produce the chapel, not to its defacing, which from Feylde's scarce poem.

Yonge Steven Hawse, whose soule God
pardon,

Treated of love so clerkely and well,
To rede his workes is myne affeccyon
Which he compyled of La bell Pusell.—
PARK.

P. 72. note b.-It was printed in prose by R. Pinson, 4to. without date, says Herbert, MS. note.-PARK.

P. 73. note e.-Wood, who designates him Alexander de Barklay, surmises him to have been born at or near a town so called in Somersetshire: but Ritson owns that there is no such town in that county. Bale, the oldest authority, tells us that some contend he was a Scot, others an Englishman. Pitts admits, that with some he appeared to have been a Scot, but was verily an Englishman, and probably a Devonshire man. Dr. Bulleyn, his cotemporary, says he was born beyond the cold river of Tweed; and Holinshed positively calls him a Scot. He is likewise claimed as his countryman by Dempster, who informs us, he lived in England, being expelled (from his native country) for the sake of religion. This report, however, is considered as the invention of Dempster, since no religious dissentions had taken place in Scotland so early as 1506. After all this diversity of allegation, Ritson's conclusion is, that Barclay's name of baptism and the orthography of his surname seem to prove that he was of Scotish extraction. See Bibliogr. Poetica, p. 46.-PARK.

P. 81. note f.-Powell's early and rare edition contained the first three eclogues only, and had the following title: "Here begynneth the Egloges of Alexander Barclay, priest, whereof the first thre conteineth the miseries of courters and courtes, of all princes in generall. The mattier whereof was translated to Englysshe by the said Alexander in forme of dialoges, out of a boke named in Latin, Miserie Curialium, compiled by Eneas Silvius, poete and oratour, which after was pope of Rome, and named Pius. In the whiche the interloquutors be Cornix and Coridon."-PARK.

had not then taken place.-ASHBY.

P. 88. note i.-The old black letter

translation of Mantuan mentioned above, was by Turbervile, and appeared in 1567; a copy is in the King's library. See Cens. Literaria.-PARK.

P. 109. note z.-This task, though thus persuasively recommended, the late Lord Hailes of Session (Sir David Dalrymple) was not prevailed upon to undertake. Mr. Ashby conceived that the allusion above was not to the fowl Ptarmigan, of the grouse kind, which makes no noise or disturbance, but to termagants, scolds. See Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, i. 76–7. edit. 1794.-PAKK.

P. 124. note m.-This was reprinted at Edinbro' in 1571, 1707, and 1751. The two latter editions were superintended by Ruddiman and Wishart. The work was translated into English verse by Robert Blair, the classical author of that deservedly popular poem "The Grave."-PARK.

P. 124. note m.-That bishop Douglas wrote a small Latin history of Scotland seems to be a mistake. He wrote a letter on the subject to Polydore Virgil.-RITSON.

P. 152. l. 5.—Muffler appears to have been the term used in England, for the same half-masked article of dress, which was a thin piece of linen that covered the lips and chin. See a note by Mr. Stevens in the Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iv. Sc. 2.-PARK. [See also Mr. Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare.

P. 161. l. 3.-In the year 1798, an INTRODUCTION to the History of Poetry in Scotland was published by Mr. Alexander Campbell, which contains much interesting matter in a miscellaneous form. Mr. C. professed himself only to be a diligent pioneer, willingly relinquishing the field to any one who might be inclined to follow his track. Should Mr. George Chalmers be induced to take the field with his strong forces, no living writer could be named who possesses the means of executing such a work with equal comprehension. PARK.

P. 161. l. 20.-Dr. David Irving, in 1804, published the Lives of the Scotish Poets in two volumes, with great research and critical ingenuity. The

P. 83. 1. 1.-The chapel is defaced, but not miserably. The allusion is to

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