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of Chichester, now difperfed, was a Collection of short comic ftories in profe, printed in the black letter under the year 1570, "fett forth by maister Richard Edwardes mayster of her maief"ties reuels." Undoubtedly this is the fame Edwards: who from this title expressly appears to have been the general conductor of the court festivities: and who most probably fucceeded in this office George Ferrers, one of the original authors of the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES. Among thefe tales was that

Who had certainly quitted that office before the year 1575. For in George Gascoigne's Narrative of queen Elifabeth's fplendid vifit at Kenilworth-caftle in War. wickshire, entitled the PRINCELIE PLEASURES OF KENILWORTH-CASTLE, the OCtave ftanzas spoken by the Lady of the Lake, are faid to have been "devised and

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penned by M. [Mafter] Ferrers, fome"time Lord of Mifrule in the Court." Signat. A. iij. See alfo Signat. B. ij. This was GEORGE FERRERS mentioned in the text, a contributor to the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES. I take this opportunity of infinuating my fufpicions, that I have too closely followed the teftimony of Philips, Wood, and Tanner, in fuppofing that this GEORGE Ferrers, and EDWARD Ferrers a writer of plays, were two distinct perfons. See fupr. p. 213. I am now convinced that they have been confounded, and that they are one and the fame man. We have already feen, and from good authority, that GEORGE Ferrers was Lord of Mifrule to the court, that is, among other things of a like kind, a writer of court interludes or plays; and that king Edward the fixth had great delight in his paftimes. See fupr. vol. ii. 381. The confufion appears to have originated from Puttenham, the author of the ARTE OF ENGLISH POESIE, who has inadvertently given to GEORGE the chriftian name of EDWARD. But his account, or character, of this EDWARD Ferrers has ferved to lead us to the truth." But the principall man in "this profeffion [poetry] at the fame time "[of Edward the fixth] was maister ED

"WARD Ferrys, a man of no leffe mirth "and felicitie that way, but of much more "skil and magnificence in his meeter, and "therefore wrate for the most part to the "ftage in Tragedie and fometimes in Co"medie, or Enterlude, wherein he gave "the king fo much good recreation, as he "had thereby many good rewardes." Lib. i. ch. xxxi. pag. 49. edit. 1589. And again," For Tragedie the Lord Buck"hurft, and maifter Edward Ferrys, for "fuch doinges as I have fene of theirs, "deferve the higheft price." Ibid. p. 51. His Tragedies, with the magnificent meeter, are perhaps nothing more than the ftately monologues in the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES; and he might have written o thers either for the ftage in general, or the more private entertaiment of the court, now loft, and probably never printed. His Comedie and Enterlude are perhaps to be understood, to have been, not so much regular and profefied dramas for a theatre, as little dramatic mummeries for the courtholidays, or other occafional feftivities. The court-fhows, like this at Kenilworth, were accompanied with perfonated dialogues in verfe, and the whole pageantry was often ftyled an interlude. This reafoning alfo accounts for Puttenham's feeming omiffion, in not having enumerated the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES, by name, among the shining poems of his age. have before observed, what is much to our purpose, that no plays of an EDWARD Ferrers, (or Ferrys, which is the fame,) in print or manufcript, are now known to exift, nor are mentioned by any writer of

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of the INDUCTION OF THE TINKER in Shakespeare's TAMING OF THE SHREW: and perhaps Edwards's ftory-book was the immediate fource from which Shakespeare, or rather the author of the old TAMING OF A SHREW, drew that diverting apologue'. If I recollect right, the circumftances almost exactly tallied with an incident which Heuterus relates, from an Epistle of Ludovicus Vives, to have actually happened at the marriage of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, about the year 1440. I will give it in the words, either of Vives, or of that perspicuous annalist, who flourished about the year 1580. "Nocte quadam "a cæna cum aliquot præcipuis amicorum per urbem deambulans, jacentem confpicatus eft medio foro hominem de plebe ebrium, altum ftertentem. In eo vifum eft experiri quale effet vitæ noftræ ludicrum, de quo illi interdum effent "collocuti. Juffit hominem deferri ad Palatium, et lecto Ducali collocari, nocturnum Ducis pileum capiti ejus imponi, exu" taque fordida veste linea, aliam e tenuiffimo ei lino indui. De "mane ubi evigilavit, præfto fuere pueri nobiles et cubicularii "Ducis, qui non aliter quam ex Duce ipfo quærerent an luberet "furgere, et quemadmodum vellet eo die veftiri. Prolata "funt Ducis veftimenta. Mirari homo ubi fe eo loci vidit. In"dutus eft, prodiit e cubiculo, adfuere proceres qui illum ad "facellum deducerent. Interfuit facro, datus eft illi ofculan"dus liber, et reliqua penitus ut Duci. A facro ad prandium « instructiffimum. A prandio cubicularius attulit chartas lufo"rias, pecuniæ acervum. Lufit cum magnatibus, fub ferum

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the times with which we are now concerned. GEORGE Ferrers at least, from what actually remains of him, has fome title to the dramatic character. Our GEORGE Ferrers, from the part he bore in the exhibitions at Kenilworth, appears to have been employed as a writer of metrical Speeches or dialogues to be spoken in character, long after he had left the office of lord of mifrule. A proof of his reputed excellence in compofitions of this nature,

and of the celebrity with which he filled that department.

I alfo take this opportunity, the earliest which has occurred, of retracting another flight mistake. See fupr. p. 272. There was a fecond edition of Niccols's MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES, printed for W. Afpley, Lond. 1621. 4to.

See SIX OLD PLAYS, Lond. 1779.

12mo.

"deambulavit

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"deambulavit in hortulis, venatus eft in leporario, et cepit aves aliquot aucupio. Cæna peracta eft pari celebritate qua pran"dium. Accenfis luminibus inducta funt mufica inftrumenta, puellæ atque nobiles adolefcentes faltarunt, exhibitæ funt fa"bulæ, dehinc comeffatio quæ hilaritate atque invitationibus ad potandum producta eft in multam noctem. Ille vero largiter se " vino obruit præftantiffimo; et poftquam collapfus in fomnum altiffimum, juffit eum Dux veftimentis prioribus indui, atque "in eum locum reportari, quo prius fuerat repertus: ibi tranfegit "noctem totam dormiens. Poftridie experrectus cæpit fecum de "vita illa Ducali cogitare, incertum habens fuiffetne res vera, "an vifum quod animo effet per quietem obfervatum. Tandem "collatis conjecturis omnibus atque argumentis, ftatuit fomnium "fuiffe, et ut tale uxori liberis ac viris narravit. Quid interest inter diem illius et noftros aliquot annos? Nihil penitus, nifi quod hoc eft paulo diuturnius fomnium, ac fi quis unam "duntaxat horam, alter vero decem fomniaffet "."

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To an irresistible digreffion, into which the magic of Shakefpeare's name has infenfibly feduced us, I hope to be pardoned for adding another narrative of this frolic, from the ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY by Democritus junior, or John Burton, a very learned and ingenious writer of the reign of king James the first. "When as by reason of unfeasonable weather, " he could neither hawke nor hunt, and was now tired with "cards and dice, and fuch other domefticall fports, or to fee "ladies dance with fome of his courtiers, he would in the " evening walke disguised all about the towne. It fo fortuned,

"as he was walking late one night, he found a country fellow "dead drunke, fnorting on a bulke: hee caufed his followers "to bring him to his palace, and then stripping him of his old "clothes, and attyring him in the court-fashion, when he "wakened, he and they were all ready to attend upon his Ex

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"cellency, and perfuaded him he was fome great Duke. The "" poore fellow admiring how he came there, was served in state "all day long after fupper he saw them dance, heard musicke, "and all the rest of those court-like pleasures. But late at night, when he was well tipled, and againe faste asleepe, they "put on his old robes, and fo conveyed him to the place where they first found him. Now the fellowe had not made there "fo good fport the day before, as he did now when he returned "to himselfe; all the jeft was, to fee how he looked upon it. "In conclufion, after fome little admiration, the poore man "told his friends he had feene a vifion, constantly believed it, "would not otherwise be perfuaded, and fo the joke ended "." If this is a true story, it is a curious specimen of the winterdiversions of a very polite court of France in the middle of the fifteenth century. The merit of the contrivance, however, and comic effect of this practical joke, will atone in some measure for many indelicate circumstances with which it must have neceffarily been attended. I prefume it first appeared in Vives's Epiftle. I have seen the ftory of a tinker disguised like a lord in recent collections of humorous tales, probably transmitted from Edwards's story-book, which I wish I had examined more carefully.

I have affigned Edwards to queen Mary's reign, as his reputation in the character of general poetry feems to have been then at its height. I have mentioned his fonnets addreffed to the court-beauties of that reign, and of the beginning of the reign of queen Elifabeth'.

Burton's ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. Part ii. §. 2. pag. 232. fol. Oxon. 1624. There is an older edition in quarto.

i Viz. Tit. A. xxiv. MSS. Corт. (See fupr. p. 284.) I will here cite a few lines. HAWARDE is not haugte, but of fuch fmylynge cheare,

That wolde alure eche gentill harte, hir love to holde fulle deare:

DACARS is not dangerus, hir talke is nothinge coye,

Hir noble ftature may compare with Hector's wyfe of Troye, &c.

At the end," Finis R. E." I have a faint recollection, that fome of Edwards's fongs are in a poetical mifcellany, printed by T. Colwell in 1567, or 1568." Newe So"nettes and pretty pamphlettes, &c."

Entered

If I should be thought to have been difproportionately prolix in speaking of Edwards, I would be understood to have partly intended a tribute of refpect to the memory of a poet, who is one of the earliest of our dramatic writers after the reformation of the British stage.

Entered to Colwell in 1567-8. REGISTR. STATION. A. fol. 163. b. I cannot quit Edwards's fongs, without citing the firft ftanza of his beautiful one in the Paradife of Daintie Deuifes, on Terence's apothegm of Amantium iræ amoris integratio eft. Num. 50. SIGNAT. G. ii. edit. 1585.

In going to my naked bed, as one that would have flept,

I heard a wife fing to her child, that long
before had wept :

She fighed fore, and fang full fweete, to
bring the babe to rest,
That would not ceafe, but cried Atill, in
fucking at her breft.

She was full wearie of her watch, and greeved with her childe;

She rocked it, and rated it, till that on her
it fmilde.

Then did the fay, now haue I found this
Prouerbe true to proue,

The falling out of faithfull frendes renu-
yng is of loue.

The clofe of the fecond ftanza is prettily conducted.

Then kiffed fhe her little babe, and fware by God aboue,

The falling out of faithfull frendes, renuyng is of loue.

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