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is here mentioned, were yet in dumb fhew', and without dialogue.

But towards the latter part of Henry's reign, much of the old cumbersome state began to be laid afide. This I collect from a fet of new regulations given to the royal houshold about the year 1526, by cardinal Wolfey. In the Chapter For keeping the Hall and ordering of the Chapel, it is recited, that by the frequent intermiffion and difufe of the folemnities of dining and supping in the great hall of the palace, the proper officers had almost forgot their duty, and the manner of conducting that very long and intricate ceremonial. It is therefore ordered, that when his majefty is not at Westminster, and with regard to his palaces in the country, the formalities of the Hall, which ought not entirely to fall into defuetude, shall be at least observed, when he is at Windfor, Beaulieu, or Newhall, in Effex, Richmond, Hampton-court, Greenwich, Eltham, and Woodstock. And that at these places only, the whole choir of the chapel shall attend. This attempt to revive that which had began to cease from the nature of things, and from the growth of new manners, perhaps had but little or no lasting effect. And with respect to the Chapel, my record adds, that when the king is on journies or progreffes, only fix finging boys and fix gentlemen of the choir shall make a part of the royal retinue; who " daylie in absence " of the refidue of the chapel shall have a Maffe of our Ladie "bifore noon, and on Sondaies and holidaies, maffe of the day "besides our Lady-masse, and an anthempne in the afternoone :

But at a most sumptuous Disguifing in 1519, in the hall at Greenwich, the figure of FAME is introduced, who, " in French, "declared the meaning of the trees, the "rocke, and turneie." But as this shew was a political compliment, and many foreigners prefent, an explanation was neceffary. See Hall, CHRON. fol. lxvi. This was in 1512. But in the year 1509, a more rational evening-amufement took place in the Hall of the old Westminster-palace, feveral foreign embassadors being present.

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"for which purpose, no great carriage of either vestiments or "bookes fhall require '." Henry never seems to have been fo truly happy, as when he was engaged in one of these progreffes: in other words, moving from one feat to another, and enjoying his ease and amusements in a state of royal relaxation. This we may collect from a curious paffage in Hollinfhead; who had pleased and perhaps informed us lefs, had he never deserted the dignity of the hiftorian. "From thence the whole court remooved to "Windsor, then beginning his progreffe, and exercising himselfe "dailie in shooting, finging, danfing, wrestling, casting of the barre, plaieing at the recorders, flute, virginals, in setting of fonges, and making of ballades. And when he came to Oking" there were kept both juftes turneies "." I make no apology for these seeming digreffions. The manners and the poetry of a country are so nearly connected, that they mutually throw light on each other.

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The fame connection fubfifts between the state of poetry and of the arts; to which we may now, recall the reader's attention with as little violation of our general fubject.

We are taught in the mythology of the antients, that the three Graces were produced at a birth. The meaning of the fable is, that the three most beautiful imitative arts were born and grew up together. Our poetry now beginning to be divested of its monaftic barbarism, and to advance towards elegance, was accompanied by proportionable improvements in Painting and Mufic. Henry employed many capital painters, and endeavoured to invite Raphael and Titian into England. Instead of allegorical tapestry, many of the royal apartments were adorned with historical picOur familiarity with the manners of Italy, and affectation of Italian accomplishments, influenced the tones and en

tures.

" ORDENAUNCES made for the kinges “household and chambres." Bibl. Bodl. MSS. LAUD. K. 48. fol. It is the original on vellum. In it, Sir Thomas More

VOL. III.

X

is mentioned as Chancellour of the Duchie of Lancaster.

Woking in Surrey, near Guildford, a royal feat. w Chron. iii. 806.

riched

riched the modulation of our mufical compofition. Those who could read the fonnets of Petrarch must have relished the airs of Palestrina. At the fame time, Architecture, like Milton's lion pawing to get free, made frequent efforts to disentangle itself from the maffy incumbrances of the Gothic manner; and began to catch the correct graces, and to copy the true magnificence, of the Grecian and Roman models. Henry was himself a great builder; and his numerous edifices, although conftructed altogether on the antient fyftem, are fometimes interfperfed with chafte ornaments and graceful mouldings, and often marked with a legitimacy of proportion, and a purity of defign, before unattempted. It was among the literary plans of Leland, one of the most claffical scholars of this age, to write an account of Henry's palaces, in imitation of Procopius, who is faid to have defcribed the palaces of the emperor Juftinian. Frequent symptoms appeared, that perfection in every work of taste was at no great distance. Those clouds of ignorance which yet remained, began now to be illuminated by the approach of the dawn of truth.

SECT.

SE C T. XXVII.

TH

HE reformation of our church produced an alteration for a time in the general system of study, and changed the character and fubjects of our poetry. Every mind, both learned and unlearned, was bufied in religious fpeculation; and every pen was employed in recommending, illustrating, and familiarifing the Bible, which was now laid open to the people.

The poetical annals of king Edward the fixth, who removed those chains of bigottry which his brother Henry had only loofened, are marked with metrical translations of various parts of the facred scripture. Of these the chief is the verfification of the Pfalter by Sternhold and Hopkins: a performance, which has acquired an importance, and confequently claims a place in our feries, not fo much from any merit of its own, as from the circumstances with which it is connected.

It is extraordinary, that the protestant churches should be indebted to a country in which the reformation had never begun to make any progrefs, and even to the indulgence of a fociety which remains to this day the grand bulwark of the catholic theology, for a very distinguishing and effential part of their ritual.

About the year 1540, Clement Marot, a valet of the bedchamber to king Francis the first, was the favorite poet of France. This writer, having attained an unusual elegance and facility of ftyle, added many new embellishments to the rude ftate of the French poetry. It is not the least of his praises, that La Fontaine used to call him his master. He was the inventor

of the rondeau, and the restorer of the madrigal: but he became chiefly eminent for his paftorals, ballads, fables, elegies, epigrams, and translations from Ovid and Petrarch. At length, being tired of the vanities of profane poetry, or rather privately tinctured with the principles of Lutheranifm, he attempted, with the affiftance of his friend Theodore Beza, and by the encouragement of the profeffor of Hebrew in the university of Paris, a version of David's Pfalms into French rhymes. This translation, which did not aim at any innovation in the public worship, and which received the fanction of the Sorbonne as containing nothing contrary to found doctrine, he dedicated to his master Francis the firft, and to the Ladies of France. In the dedication to the Ladies or les Dames de France, whom he had often before addreffed in the tenderest strains of paffion or compliment, he seems anxious to deprecate the raillery which the new tone of his verfification was likely to incur, and is embarraffed how to find an apology for turning faint. Conscious of his apoftacy from the levities of life, in a spirit of religious gallantry, he declares that his defign is to add to the happiness of his fair readers, by fubftituting divine hymns in the place of chansons d' amour, to inspire their susceptible hearts with a paffion in which there is no torment, to banish that fickle and fantastic deity CUPID from the world, and to fill their apartments with the praises, not of the little god, but of the true Jehovah.

E voz doigts fur les efpinettes

Pour dire SAINCTES CHANSONETTES.

He adds, that the golden age would now be restored, when we should fee, the peafant at his plough, the carman in the streets, and the mechanic in his shop, folacing their toils with pfalms and canticles: and the shepherd and sheperdess, repofing in the shade, and teaching the rocks to echo the name of the Creator.

Le

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