Eve, Habraham, David, Johan Baptist, and Moyses. It begins, Alle herkneb to me nou: A strif wolle y tellen ou Of Jhesu ant of Sathan Bo Jhesu wes to helle y-gan". The composers of the MYSTERIES did not think the plain and probable events of the New Testament sufficiently marvellous for an audience who wanted only to be surprised. They frequently selected their materials from books which had more of the air of romance. The subject of the MYSTERIES justmentioned was borrowed from the PSEUDO-EVANGELIUM, or the FABULOUS GOSPEL, ascribed to Nicodemus: a book, which, together with the numerous apocryphal narratives, containing infinite innovations of the evangelical history, and forged at Constantinople by the early writers of the Greek church, gave birth to an endless variety of legends concerning the life of MSS. Harl. 2253. 21. fol. 55. b. [See Mr. Strutt's Manners and Customs of the People of England,vol.ii.-EDIT.] There is a poem on this subject, MS. Bodl. 1687. How Jesu Crist harowed helle [See supr. vol. i. p. 15.] * In Latin. A Saxon translation, from a manuscript at Cambridge, coeval with the Conquest, was printed at Oxford, by Thwaites, 1699. In an English translation by Wynkyn de Worde, the prologue says, "Nichodemus, which was a worthy prynce, dydde wryte thys blessyd storye in Hebrewe. And Theodosius, the emperour, dyde it translate out of Hebrew into Latin, and bysshoppe Turpyn dyde translate it out of Latyn into Frensshe.' With wooden cuts, 1511. 4to. There was another edition by Wynkyn de Worde, 1518. 4to. and 1532. See a very old French version, MSS. Harl. 2253. 3. fol. 33. b. There is a translation into English verse, about the fourteenth century. MSS. Harl. 4196. 1. fol. 206. See also, 149. 5. fol. 254. b. And MSS. Coll. Sion. 17. The title of the original is, NicODEMI DISCIPULI de Jesu Christi passione et resurrectione EVANGElium. Sometimes it is entitled GESTA SALVATORIS nostri Jesu Christi. Our lord's Descent into hell is by far the best invented part of the work.' Edit. apud ORTHODOX. PATR. Jac. Greyn. [Basil. 1569. 4to.] pag. 653. seq. The old Latin title to the pageaunt of this story in the Chester plays is, "DE DESCENSU AD INFERNA, et de his que ibidem fiebant secundum EVANGELIUM NICODEMI, fol. 138. ut supr. Hence the first line in the old interlude, called HICKS-CORNER is illustrated. " Now Jesu the gentyll that brought Adam from hell. There is a Greek homily on Saint John's Descent into hell, by Eusebius Alexandrinus. They had a notion that Saint John was our Saviour's precursor, not only in this world, but mm hades. See Allat. de libr. eccles. Græcor. p. 303. seq. Compare the Legend of Nicodemus, Christ's descent into hell, Pilate's exile, &c. MSS. Bodl. B. 5. 2021. 4. seq. Christ and his apostles; and which, in the barbarous ages, was better esteemed than the genuine Gospel, on account of its improbabilities and absurdities. But whatever was the source of these exhibitions, they were thought to contribute so much to the information and instruction of the people on the most important subjects of religion, that one of the popes granted a pardon of one thousand days to every person who resorted peaceably to the plays performed in the Whitsun week at Chester, beginning with the creation, and ending with the general judgment; and this indulgence was seconded by the bishop of the diocese, who granted forty days of pardon: the pope at the same time denouncing the sentence of damnation on all those incorrigible sinners, who presumed to disturb or interrupt the due celebration of these pious sports. It is certain that they had their use, not only in teaching the great truths of Scripture to men who could not read the Bible, but in abolishing the barbarous attachment to military games, and the bloody contentions of the tournament, which had so long prevailed as the sole species of popular amusement. Rude and even ridiculous as they were, they softened the manners of the people, by diverting the public attention to spectacles in which the mind was concerned, and by creating a regard for other arts than those of bodily strength and savage valour. In the manuscript register of saint Swithin's priory at Winchester, it is recorded, that Leofric, bishop of Exeter, about the year 1150, gave to the convent, a bock called GESTA Beatissimi Apostoli Petri cum Glosa. This is probably one of these commentitious histories. By the way, the same Leofric was a great benefactor in books to his church at Exeter. Among others, he gave Boeti Liber ANGLICUS, and, Magnus liber AxGLICUS omnino METRICE descriptus. What was this translation of Boethius, I know not; unless it is Alfred's. It is still more difficult to determine, what was the other piece, the GREAT BOOK OF EN- MSS. Harl. 2124. 2013. SECTION XXVIII. THE only writer deserving the name of a poet in the reign of Henry the Seventh, is Stephen Hawes. He was patronised by that monarch, who possessed some tincture of literature, and is said by Bacon to have confuted a Lollard in a public disputation at Canterbury 2. Hawes flourished about the close of the fifteenth century; and was a native of Suffolk. After an academical education at Oxford, he travelled much in France; and became a complete master of the French and Italian poetry. His polite accomplishments quickly procured him an establishment in the household of the king; who struck with the liveliness of his conversation, and because he could repeat by memory most of the old English poets, especially Lydgate, made him groom of the privy chamber. His facility in the French tongue was a qualification which might strongly recommend him to the favour of Henry the Seventh, who was fond of studying the best French books then in vogued. Hawes has left many poems, which are now but imperfectly known, and scarcely remembered. These are, the TEMPLE OF GLASSE. The CONVERSION OF SWERERS, in octave stanzas, with Latin lemmata, printed by de Worde in 1509f. A JOYFULL MEDITATION OF ALL ENGLOND, OR THE CORONACYON TO OUR MOST NATURAL SOVEREIGN LORD KING HENRY THE EIGTH IN VERSE. By the same, and without date; but pro 2. LIFE OF HENRY VII. p. 628. edit. ut supr. One Hodgkins, a fellow of King's college in Cambridge, and vicar of Ringwood in Hants, was eminently skilled in the mathematics; and on that account, Henry the Seventh frequently condescended to visit him at his house at Ringwood. Hatcher, MS. Catal. Præpos. et Soc. Coll. Regal. Cant. Wood, Ath. Oxon. i. 5. с Bale says, that he was called by the king "ab interiori camera ad privatum cubiculum." Cent. viii. d Bacon, ut supr. p. 637. eThe CONVERSYON OF SWERERS, made and compyled by Stephen Hawes, groome of the chamber of our sovereigne lord kynge Henry VII." to. f It contains only one sheet in quar bably it was printed soon after the ceremony which it celebrates. These coronation carols were customary. There is one by Lydgates. THE CONSOLATION OF LOVERS. THE EXEMPLAR OF VIRTUE. THE DELIGHT OF THE SOUL. OF THE PRINCE'S MARRIAGE. THE ALPHABET OF BIRDS. latter pieces, none of which I have seen, and which perhaps were never printed, are said by Wood to be written in Latin, and seem to be in prose. Some of the five The best of Hawes's poems, hitherto enumerated, is the TEMPLE OF GLASS". On a comparison, it will be found to A BALLAD presented to Henry the Sixth the day of his coronation. Princ. Most noble prince of crysten princes all." MSS. Ashmol. 59. ii, By mistake, as it seems, I have hitherto quoted Hawes's TEMPLE of GLASS, under the name of Lydgate. See supr. vol. ii. p. 244. 251. It was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1500. “Here bygenneth the TEMPLE of GLASS. By Stephen Hawes, grome of the chamber to king Henry vii." [Ames, Hist. Print. pag. 86. 8vo. in twenty-seven leaves. Afterwards by Berthelette, without date, or name of the author, with this colophon. "Thus endeth the temple of glasse. Emprinted at London, in Fletestrete, in the house of Thomas Berthelette, near to the cundite, at the sygne of the Lucrece. Cum privilegio." I will give the beginning, with the title. This boke called the Temple of glasse, is in many places amended, and late diligently imprynted. Through constreynt and greuous heuy. This edition, unmentioned by Ames, is in Bibl. Bodl. Oxon. C. 39. Art. Seld. 4to. In the same library are two manuscript copies of this poem... MSS. Fairfax, xvi. membran. without a name. And MSS. Bodl. 638. In the first leaf of the Fairfax manuscript is this entry. "I bought this at Gloucester, 8 Sept. 1650, intending to exchange it for a better boke. Ffairfax." And at the end, in the same hand. "Here lacketh seven leaves that are in Joseph Holland's boke." This manuscript, however, contains as much as Berthelett's edition. Lewis mentions the Temple of Glass by John Lydgate in Caxton's second edition of CHAUCER. [LIFE CH. p. 104. See also Middleton's DISSERT. p. 263.] But no such poem appears in that edition in saint John's college library at Oxford. It is [In the Bodleian manuscript (BODL. 638.) this poem, with manifest impropriety, is entitled the TEMPLE OF Bras. It there appears in the midst of many of Chaucer's poems. But at the end are two poems by Lydgate, THE CHAUNSE OF THE DYSE, and RAGMANY'S ROLL. And, I believe, one or two more of Lydgate's poems are intermixed. a miscellany of old English poetry, chiefly by Chaucer: but none of the pieces are respectively distinguished with the author's name. This manuscript is partly on paper and partly on vellum, and seems to have been written not long after the year 1500.-ADDI→ TIONS.] The strongest argument which induces me to give this poem to Hawes, and not to Lydgate, is, that it was printed in Hawes's lifetime, with his name, by be a copy of the HOUSE OF FAME of Chaucer, in which that poet sees in a vision a temple of glass, on the walls of which were engraved stories from Virgil's Eneid and Ovid's Epistles. It also strongly resembles that part of Chaucer's ASSEMBLY OF FOULES, in which there is the fiction of a temple of brass, built on pillars of jasper, whose walls are painted with the stories of unfortunate lovers. And in his ASSEMBLY OF LADIES, in a chamber made of beryl and crystal, belonging to the sumptuous castle of Pleasaunt Regard, the walls are decorated with historical sculptures of the same kind. The situation of Hawes's TEMPLE on a craggy rock of ice, is evidently taken from that of Chaucer's HOUSE OF FAME. In Chaucer's DREAME, the poet is transported into an island, where wall and yate was all of glasse'. These structures of glass have their origin in the chemistry of the dark ages. This is Hawes's exordium. Me dyd oppresse a sodayne, dedely slepe: Wynkyn de Worde. Bale also mentions, And the tyme to passe Of love he made the bryght temple of glasse. And I must add, that this piece is expressly recited in the large catalogue of Lydgate's works, belonging to W. Thinne, in Speght's edition of Chaucer, i v. 290. |