A marchaunt eke, that wyll goo feke
By all the meanes he may,

To fall in fute tyll he dispute
His money cleane away;
Pletyng the lawe for every strawe,
Shall prove a thrifty man,
With bated and ftrife, but by my life,

I cannot tell you whan.
Whan an hatter will fmatter
In philofophy;

Or a pedlar waxe a medlar
In theology.

In these lines, which are intended to illuftrate by familiar examples, the abfurdity of a ferjeant at law affuming the business of a friar, perhaps the reader perceives but little of that feftivity, which is fuppofed to have marked the character and the converfation of fir Thomas More. The last two stanzas deserve to be transcribed, as they prove, that this tale was defigned to be fung to mufic by a minstrel, for the entertainment of company.

Now Maifters all, here now I fhall

End then as I began ;

In any wyfe, I would avyse,

And counfayle every man,

His own crafte ufe, all new refuse,

And lyghtly let them gone:

Play not the FREERE, Now make good cheere.

This piece is mentioned, among other popular story-books in 1575, by Laneham, in his ENTERTAINMENT AT KILLINGWORTH CASTLE in the reign of queen Elifabeth *.

In CERTAIN METERS, written alfo in his youth, as a prologue for his BOKE OF FORTUNE, and forming a poem of con

d Debate.

• Fol. 44. feq.

fiderable

fiderable length, are these ftanzas, which are an attempt at perfonification and imagery. FORTUNE is reprefented fitting on a lofty throne, fmiling on all mankind who are gathered around her, eagerly expecting a distribution of her favours.

Then, as a bayte, the bryngeth forth her ware,
Silver and gold, rich perle and precious ftone;
On whiche the mafed people gase and stare,
And gape therefore, as dogges doe for the bone.
FORTUNE at them laugheth: and in her trone
Amyd her treasure and waveryng rycheffe
Prowdly the hoveth as lady and empreffe.

Faft by her syde doth wery Labour stand,
Pale Fere also, and Sorow all bewept;
Disdayn, and Hatred, on that other hand,
Eke restles Watch from flepe with travayles kept:
Before her standeth Daunger and Envy,

Flattery, Dyfceyt, Mischiefe, and Tiranny‘.

Another of fir Thomas More's juvenile poems is, A RUFULL LAMENTATION on the death of queen Elifabeth, wife of Henry the seventh, and mother of Henry the eighth, who died in childbed, in 1503. It is evidently formed on the tragical foliloquies, which compofe Lydgate's paraphrafe of Boccace's book DE CASIBUS VIRORUM ILLUSTRIUM, and which gave birth to the MIRROR OF MAGISTRATES, the origin of our hiftoric dramas. These stanzas are part of the queen's complaint at the approach of death.

Where are our caftels now, where are our towers?
Goodly Rychemonde, fone art thou gone from me!
At Westmynster that costly worke of yours

Ibid. Sign. C. iiii.

The palace of Richmond.

Myne

558517 A

Myne owne dere lorde, now fhall I never fe1!
Almighty God vouchsafe to graunt that ye
children well may edify,

For and
you

your

My palace byldyd is, and lo now here I ly.

Farewell my doughter, lady Margaret i !

God wotte, full oft it greved hath my mynde
That ye fhould go where we should feldom mete,
Now I am gone and have left you behynde.
O mortall folke, that we be very blynde!
That we left feere, full oft it is moft nye:
From you depart I muft, and lo now here I lye.

Farewell, madame, my lordes worthy mother!
Comforte your fon, and be ye of good chere.
Take all a worth, for it will be no nother,
Farewell my doughter Katharine, late the fere
To prince Arthur myne owne chyld fo dere1.
It boteth not for me to wepe and cry,
Pray for my fowle, for lo now here I lye.

Adew lord Henry, my loving fonne adewTM;
Our lord encrease your honour and estate,
Adew my doughter Mary, bright of hew",
God make you vertuous, wyfe, and fortunate.
Adew fwete hart, my little doughter Kate,
Thou shalt, fwete babe, fuch is thy destiny,
Thy mother never know, for lo now here I ly".

King Henry the feventh's chapel, begun in the year 1502. The year before the queen died.

Married in 1503, to James the fourth, king of Scotland.

Margaret countess of Richmond. Catharine of Spain, wife of her fon prince Arthur, now dead.

Afterwards king Henry the eighth. "Afterwards queen of France. Remarried to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk.

The queen died within a few days after she was delivered of this infant, the princefs Catharine, who did not long furvive her mother's death.

P WORKES, ut fupr.

In the fourth stanza, fhe reproaches the aftrologers for their falfity in having predicted, that this fhould be the happiest and most fortunate year of her whole life. This, while it is a natural reflection in the fpeaker, is a proof of More's contempt of a futile and frivolous fcience, then fo much in efteem. I have been prolix in my citation from this forgotten poem: but I am of opinion, that fome of the ftanzas have strokes of nature and pathos, and deserved to be rescued from total oblivion.

More, when a young man, contrived in an apartment of his father's house a goodly hangyng of fyne painted clothe, exhibiting nine pageants, or allegoric representations, of the stages of man's life, together with the figures of Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity. Under each picture he wrote a ftanza. The first is under CHILDHOODE, expreffed by a boy whipping a top.

I am called CHILDHOD, in play is all my mynde,
To caft a coyte, a cokstele', or a ball ;

A toppe can I fet, and dryve in its kynde :
But would to God, these hatefull bookes all
Were in a fyre ybrent to pouder small !
Then myght I lede my lyfe alwayes in play,
Which lyfe God fende me to myne endyng day.

Next was pictured MANHOD, a comely young man mounted on a fleet horse, with a hawk on his fift, and followed by two greyhounds, with this ftanza affixed.

MANHOD I am, therefore I me delyght

To hunt and hawke, to nourishe up and fede
The grayhounde to the course, the hawke to th' flyght,
And to bestryde a good and lufty stede :

These thynges become a very man in dede.
Yet thinketh this boy his pevifhe game fweter,
But what, no force, his reafon is no better.

↑ A quoit.

A ftick for throwing at a cock. STELE is handle, Sax.

The

The perfonification of FAME, like RUMOUR in the Chorus to Shakespeare's HENRY THE FIFTH, is furrounded with tongues.

Tapestry, with metrical legends illuftrating the subject, was common in this age: and the public pageants in the streets were often exhibited with explanatory verses. I am of opinion, that the COMOEDIOLA, or little interludes, which More is faid to have written and acted in his father's house, were only these nine pageants'.

Another juvenile exercise of More in the English stanza, is annexed to his profe translation of the LYFE of John Picus Mirandula, and entitled, TWELVE RULES OF JOHN PICUS MIRANDULA, partely exciting partely directing a man in SPIRITUAL BATAILE". The old collector of his ENGLISH WORKES has also preserved two shorte ballettes", or ftanzas, which he wrote for his paftyme, while a prisoner in the tower *.

It is not my defign, by these specimens, to add to the fame of fir Thomas More; who is reverenced by pofterity, as the scholar who taught that erudition which civilised his country, and as the philofopher who met the horrours of the block with that fortitude which was equally free from oftentation and enthufiasm as the man, whofe genius overthrew the fabric of false learning, and whofe amiable tranquillity of temper triumphed over the malice and injuftice of tyranny.

To fome part of the reign of Henry the eighth I affign the TOURNAMENT OF TOTTENHAM, or The wooeing, winning, and wedding of TIBBE the Reeves Daughter there. I prefume it will not be supposed to be later than that reign: and the substance of its phraseology, which I divest of its obvious innovations, is not altogether obfolete enough for a higher period. I am aware, that in a manufcript of the British Museum it is referred to the time of Henry the fixth. But that manufcript

Ibid. Sign. C. iii.

See fupr. Vol. ii. p. 387.

Thefe pieces were written in the reign of Henry the feventh. But as More flou

rifhed in the fucceeding reign, I have placed them accordingly.

w Ibid. b. iii.

* Ut fupr. fol. 1432.

affords