printed in 1597, meaning to ridicule and expofe the spiritual poetry with which his age was overwhelmed, has an allusion to a metrical English verfion of Solomon's Song". Having mentioned SAINT PETER'S COMPLAINT, written by Robert Southwell, and printed in 1595, with fome other religious effufions of that author, he adds,

Yea, and the prophet of the heavenly lyre,
Great Solomon, finges in the English quire;
And is become a new-found Sonnetift,
Singing his love, the holie spouse of Christ,
Like as the were fome light-fkirts of the rest*,
In mightiest inkhornismes he can thither wrest.
Ye Sion Muses shall by my dear will,
For this your zeal and far-admired skill,
Be ftraight transported from Jerufalem,
Unto the holy house of Bethlehem.

It is not to any of the verfions of the CANTICLES which I have hitherto mentioned, that Hall here alludes. His cenfure is levelled at "The Poem of Poems, or SION'S MUSE. Contaynyng the diuine Song of King Salomon deuided into eight

"Eclogues. Bramo assai, poco fpero, nulla chieggio. At London, printed by James Roberts for Mathew Lownes, and are to "be folde at his shop in faint Dunstones church-yarde, 1596"." The author figns his dedication, which is addreffed to the facred virgin, diuine mistress Elizabeth Sydney, fole daughter of the euer admired fir Philip Sydney, with the initials J. M. Thefe initials, which are fubfcribed to many pieces in ENGLAND'S HELICON, fignify Jarvis, or Iarvis, Markham 2.

Although the translation of the scriptures into English rhyme was for the most part an exercife of the enlightened puritans, the recent publication of Sternhold's pfalms taught that mode of writing to many of the papists, after the fudden revival of the mafs under queen Mary. One Richard Beearde, parson of faint Mary-hill in London, celebrated the acceffion of that queen in a godly pfalm printed in 1553. Much about the fame time, George Marshall wrote A compendious treatise in metre, declaring the first original of facrifice and of building churches and aultars, and of the first receiving the criften faith here in England, dedicated to George Wharton efquire, and printed at London in 1554*.

In 1556, Miles Hoggard, a famous butt of the protestants, published "a shorte treatise in meter vpon the cxxIx pfalme of "David called De profundis. Compiled and set forth by Miles "Huggarde fervante to the quenes maieftie ." Of the oppofite or heretical perfuafion was Peter Moone, who wrote a metrical tract on the abuses of the mafs, printed by John Ofwen at

Ipswich, about the first year of queen Mary. Nearly the fame period, a translation of ECCLESIATES into rhyme by Oliver Starkey occurs in bishop Tanner's library, if I recollect right, together with his Tranflation of Salluft's two hiftories. By the way, there was another vernacular verfification of ECCLESIASTES by Henry Lok, or Lock, of whom more will be faid hereafter, printed in 1597. This book was alfo tranflated into Latin hexameters by Drant, who will occur again in 1572. The ECCLESIASTES was verfified in English by Spenfer.

I have before mentioned the SCHOOL-HOUSE OF WOMEN, a fatire against the fair fex. This was anfwered by Edward More of Hambledon in Buckinghamshire, about the year 1557, before he was twenty years of age. It required no very powerful abilities either of genius or judgment to confute fuch a groundless and malignant invective. More's book is entitled, The DEFENCE OF WOMEN, especially English women, against a book intituled the SCHOOL-HOUSE OF WOMEN. It it dedicated to Mafter William Page, fecretary to his neighbour and patron fir Edward Hoby of Bisham-abbey, and was printed at London in 1560 £.

d A fhort treatife of certayne thinges
abufed,

In the popish church long ufed;
But now abolyfhed to our confolation,
And God's word advanced, the light of
our falvation.

In eight leaves, quarto, Bl. Lett. Fox
mentions one William Punt, author of a
ballade made against the Pope and Popery un-
der Edward the fixth, and of other tracts
of the fame tendency under queen Mary.
MARTYR. p. 1605. edit. vet. Punt's
printer was William Hyll at the fign of
the hill near the weft door of faint Pauls.
See in Strype, an account of Underhill's
Sufferings in 1553, for writing a ballad
against the Queen, he "being a witty
"and facetious gentleman." ECCL. MEM.
iii. 60, 61. ch. vi. Many rhimes and Bal-
lads were written against the Spanish match,
in 1554. Strype, ibid. p. 127. ch. xiv.

"Venus unto thee for help, good Lady do I call."

Our author, if I remember right, has furnifhed fome arguments to one William Heale of Exeter college; who wrote, in 1609, AN APOLOGY FOR WOMAN, in oppofition to Dr. Gager abovementioned, who had maintained at the Public A&t, that it was lawful for husbands to beat their wives. Wood fays, that Heale" was always efteemed an ingenious man, but "weak, as being too much devoted to the "female fex." ATн. OXON. i. 314.

66

With the catholic liturgy, all the pageantries of popery were reftored to their antient fplendour by queen Mary. Among others, the proceffion of the boy-bishop was too popular a mummery to be forgotten. In the preceding reign of king Edward the fixth, Hugh Rhodes, a gentleman or musician of the royal chapel, published an English poem with the title, THE BOKE OF NURTUR for men feruants and children, or of the gouernaunce of youth, with STANS PUER AD MENSAM ". In the following reign of Mary, the fame poet printed a poem confifting of thirty-fix octave stanzas, entitled, "The SONG of the CHYLD

66

BYSSHOP, as it was fonge before the queenes maiestie in her priuie chamber at her manour of faynt James in the feeldes on faynt Nicholas day and Innocents day this yeare nowe pre"fent, by the chylde bysfhope of Poules churche' with his "company. LONDINI, in ædibus Johannis Cawood typographi reginæ, 1555. Cum privilegio, &c." By admitting this fpectacle into her prefence, it appears that her majesty's bigotry condescended to give countenance to the most ridiculous and unmeaning ceremony of the Roman ritual. As to the fong itfelf, it is a fulfome panegyric on the queen's devotion: in which she is compared to Judith, Efther, the queen of Sheba, and the

In quarto. Bl. Lett. PR. Prol. "There "is few things to be understood." The poem begins, "Alle ye that wolde learn and wolde be called wyfe."

h In the church of York, no chorifter was to be elected boy-bishop, "nifi habuerit claram vocem puerilem." Regiftr. Capitul. Ecclef. Ebor. fub ann. 1390. MS. ut fupr.

In the old ftatutes of faint Pauls, are many orders about this mock-folemnity. One is, that the canon, called STAGIARIUS, fhall find the boy-bishop his robes, and " equitatum honeftum." MS. fol. 86. Diceto dean. In the ftatutes of Salisbury cathedral, it is orderd, that the boy-bishop fhall not make a feast, "sed in domo com"muni cum fociis converfetur, nifi eum "ut Choristam, ad domum Canonici, caufa

ignorant but well-difpofed people into "their houfes; and had as much good "cheer as ever was wont to be had before." ECCL. MEM. iii. 310. ch. xxxix. See alfo P. 387. ch. 1. In 1554, Nov. 13. an edict was iffued by the bithop of London, to all the clergy of his diocefe, to have a boy-bishop in proceffion, &c. Strype, ibid. p. 202. ch. xxv. See alfo p. 205, 206.

ch. xxvi.

66

virgin Mary'. This show of the boy-bishop, not fo much for its fuperftition as its levity and abfurdity, had been formally abrogated by king Henry the eighth, fourteen years before, in the year 1542, as appears by a "Proclamation devised by the Kings Majefty by the advys of his Highness Counsel the xxii day of Julie, 33 Hen. viij, commanding the ffeasts of faint "Luke, faint Mark, faint Marie Magdalene, Inuention of the "Croffe, and faint Laurence, which had been abrogated, should "be nowe againe celebrated and kept holie days," of which the following is the concluding claufe. "And where as here"tofore dyuers and many fuperftitious and chyldyfh obferuances "have be vfed, and yet to this day are obferued and kept, in 66 many and fundry partes of this realm, as vpon faint Nicholas",

In a poem by Llodowyke Lloyd, in the Paradife of daintie Deuiles, (edit. 1585.) on the death of fir Edward Saunders, queen Elifabeth is complimented much in the fame manner. NUM. 32. SIGNAT. E. 2.

O facred feate, where Saba fage doth fit,

Like Sufan found, like Sara fad, with Hefter's mace in hand,

With Iudithes fword, Bellona-like, to rule this noble land.

DOM,

In Barnabie Googe's POPISH KINGa tranflation from Naogeorgius's REGNUM ANTICHRISTI, fol. 55. Lond. 1570. 4to.

Saint Nicholas monie vfde to give to maydens fecretlie,

Who that be ftill may vfe his wonted liberalitie:

The mother all their children on the Eeve do caufe to fast,

And when they euerie one at night in
fenfeleffe fleepe are caft,

Both apples, nuts and payres they bring,
and other thinges befide,
As cappes, and fhoes, and petticoates, with
kertles they hide,
And in the morning found, they fay, "Saint
Nicholas this brought, &c."

See a curious paffage in bishop Fisher's

Sermon othe MONTHS MINDE of Margaret countefs of Richmond. Where it is faid, that the praied to S. Nicholas the patron and helper of all true maydens, when nine years old, about the choice of a huf band and that the faint appeared in a vifion, and announced the earl of Richmond. Edit. Baker, pag. 8. There is a precept iffued to the fheriff of Oxford from Edward the firft, in 1305, to prohibit tour. naments being intermixed with the fports of the fcholars on faint Nicholas's day. Rot. Clauf. 33 Edw. i. memb. 2.

I have already given traces of this practice in the colleges of Winchester and Eton. [fee fupr. vol. ii. p. 389.] To which I here add another. Regiftr. Coll. Wint. fub ann. 1427. "Crux deaurata de cupro

[copper] cum Baculo, pro EPISCOPO "PUERORUM." But it appears that the practice fubfifted in common grammarfchools. "Hoc anno, 1464, in fefto fancti "Nicolai non erat EPISCOPUS PUERORUM "in fchola grammaticali in civitate Can"tuariæ ex defe&u Magiftrorum, viz. J.