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THE HISTORY

OF

ENGLISH POETRY.

SECTION XXVII.

THE subsequent reigns of Richard the Third, Edward the Fifth, and Henry the Seventh, abounded in obscure versifiers.

A mutilated poem which occurs among the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum, and principally contains a satire on the nuns, who, not less from the nature of their establishment than from the usual degeneracy which attends all institutions, had at length lost their original purity, seems to belong to this period. It is without wit, and almost without numbers. It was written by one Bertram Walton [Waton], whose name now first appears in the catalogue of English poets; and whose life I calmly resign to the researches of some more laborious and patient antiquary.

About the year 1480, or rather before, Benedict Burgh, a master of arts of Oxford, among other promotions in the church, archdeacon of Colchester, prebendary of saint Paul's, and canon of saint Stephen's chapel at Westminster, translated Cato's

* Disadvantageous suspicions against the chastity of the female religious were pretended in earlier times. About the year 1250, a bishop of Lincoln visited the nunneries of his diocese: on which occasion, says the continuator of Matthew Paris, "ad domos religiosarum veniens, fecit EXPRIMI MAMILLAS earunVOL. III.

B

dem, ut sic physice, si esset inter eas corruptela, experiretur." Matt. Paris. Hist. p. 789. HENRICUs iii. edit. Tig. 1589. fol. An anecdote, which the historian relates with indignation; not on account of the nuns, but of the bishop.

See Newcourt, Repertor. i. 90. ii. 517. The university sealed his letters

MORALS into the royal stanza, for the use of his pupil lord Bourchier son of the earl of Essex. Encouraged by the example and authority of so venerable an ecclesiastic, and tempted probably by the convenient opportunity of pilfering phraseology from a predecessor in the same arduous task, Caxton translated the same Latin work; but from the French version of a Latin paraphrase, and into English prose, which he printed in the year 1483. He calls, in his preface, the measure, used by Burgh, the BALAD ROYAL. Caxton's translation, which superseded Burgh's work, and with which it is confounded, is divided into four books, which comprehend seventy-two heads.

I do not mean to affront my readers, when I inform them, without any apology, that the Latin original of this piece was

testimonial, jul. 3. A. D. 1433. Registr. Univ. Oxon. supr. citat. T. f. 27. b. He died A. D. 1483.

[In the British Museum there is a poem entitled, "A CRISTEMASSE GAME made by maister BENET howe God Almyghty seyde to his apostelys and echeon of them were baptiste and none knew of othir." The piece consists of twelve stanzas, an apostle being assigned to each stanza. Probably maister Benet is Benedict Burgh. MSS. HARL. 7533. This is saint Paul's stanza,

Doctour of gentiles, a perfite Paule,
By grace convertid from thy grete er-

roure,

And cruelte, changed to Paule from
Saule,

Of fayth and trouth most perfyte prc-
choure,

Slayne at Rome undir thilke emperoure
Cursyd Nero, Paule syt down in thy
place

To the ordayned by purveaunce of grace.
ADDITIONS.

[The Harl. MS. 1706. contains
"Aristotles A, B, C, made by [this]
mayster Benet.".
"-RITSON.]

Gascoigne says that "rithme royal is a verse of ten syllables, and ten such verses make a staffe," &c. Instructions for verse, &c. Sign. D. i. ad calc. WORKES, 1587. [See supra, p. 300. Note.] Burgh's stanza is here called balade royall: by which, I believe, is

In

commonly signified the octave stanza. All those pieces in Chaucer, called Certaine Ballads, are in this measure. Chaucer's LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN, written in long verse, a song of three octave stanzas is introduced; beginning, Hide Absolon thy gilte tressis clerc. v. 249. p. 340. Urr. Afterwards, Cupid says, v. 537. p. 342.

a ful grete negligence Was it to thee, that ilke time thou made, Hide Absolon thy tressis, IN BALADE, In the British Museum there is a Kalandre in Englysshe, made in BALADE by Dann John Lydgate monke of Bury. That is, in this stanza. MSS. Harl. 1706. 2. fol. 10. b. The reader will observe, that whether there are eight or seven lines, I have called it the octave stanza. Lydgate has, most commonly, only seven lines. As in his poem on Guy earl of Warwick, MSS. Laud. D. 31. Warwyk. [Pr. From Criste's birth comHere ginneth the lyff of Guy of pleat nine 100 yere.] He is speaking of Guy's combat with the Danish giant Colbrand, at Winchester.

fol. 64.

Without the gate remembered as I rede,
The place callyd of antiquytye
In Inglysh tonge named hyde mede,
Or ellis denmarch nat far from the cytè:
Meeting to gedre, there men myght see
Terryble strokys, lyk the dent of thon-
der;

Sparklys owt of thar harnyss, &c.

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