To feede my neede: he will me leade He forth brought me: in libertie, My soule and hart: he did convart, Of right wisness: in holiness, His name such vertue hath. Yea though I go: through Death his wo I feare no dart: with me thou art With rod and staffe to guide. Thou shalt provyde: a table wyde, With oyle my head: thou hast bespred, My cup is fully dight." m I add, in the more sublime character, a part of the eighteenth psalm, in which Sternhold is supposed to have exerted his powers most successfully, and without the interruptions of the pointing which perhaps was designed for some regulations of the music, now unknown. The earth did shake, for feare did quake, The hils theyr bases shooke; Darke smoke rose to hys face therefro, The heavens full lowe he made to bowe, And darkness great was undersete His feete in clowdy hue. He rode on hye, and dyd so flye, He came in sight, and made his flight The Lorde from heaven sent downe his leaven He thunder cast in wondrous blast With hayle and coales of fyre.° Here is some degree of spirit, and a choice of phraseology. But on the whole, and especially for this species of stanza, Parker will be found to want facility, and in general to have been unpractised in writing English verses. His abilities were destined to other studies, and adapted to employments of a more archiepiscopal nature. The industrious Strype, Parker's biographer, after a diligent search never could gain a sight of this translation*: nor is it even mentioned by Ames, the inquisitive collector of our typographical antiquities. In the late Mr. West's library there was a superb copy, once belonging to bishop Kennet, who has remarked in a blank page, that the archbishop permitted his wife dame Margaret to present the book to some of the nobility. It is certainly at this time extremely scarce, and would be deservedly deemed a fortunate acquisition to those capricious students who labour only to collect a library of rarities. Yet it is not generally known, that there are two copies in the Bodleian library of this anonymous version, which have hitherto been given to an obscure poet by the name of John Keeper. One of them, in 1643, appears to have been the property of bishop Barlow and on the opposite side of the title, in somewhat of an antient hand, is this manuscript insertion. auctor of this booke is one John Keeper†, who was brought • Fol. 35. : "The in the church library of Canterbury. See his Milton. vi. 116.-PARK.] [John Keeper, or Kepyer, occurs in the "Arbor of Amitie, wherein is comprised pleasant poems & pretie poesies, set forth by Thomas Howell, gentleman, anno 1568." Imprinted at London, upp in the close of Wells." Perhaps Antony Wood had no better authority than this slender unauthenticated note, for saying, that John Keeper, a native of Somersetshire, and a graduate at Oxford in the year 1564, and who afterwards studied music and poetry at Wells, translated The whole Psalter into English metre which containeth 150 psalms, etc. printed at London by John Day living over Aldersgate, about 1570 [1574], in quarto: and added thereunto The Gloria Patri, Te Deum, The Song of the three Children, Quicunque vult, Benedictus, &c. all in metre. At the end of which, are musical notes set in four parts to several psalms. What other things, he adds, of poetry, music, or other faculties, he has published, I know not; nor any thing more; yet I suppose he had some dignity in the church of Wells"." If this version should really be the work of Keeper, I fear we are still to seek for archbishop Parker's psalms*, with Strype and Ames". by H. Denham, 12mo, b. 1. Dedicated to Ladie Anne Talbot. Among the recommendatory copies of verses is one signed "John Keeper, student." See also "J. K. to his friend H." fol. 27. a. and "H. to K." ibid. Again fol. 33. b. 34. a. 38, 39. &c. Howell had another volume of verses in Pearson's collection, entitled "De- Such is th' uncertaine stay, When first I cast my carelesse eye Upon thy hue, that drew the dart, I little thought thou shouldest lye So deepe sunck downe in my poore I would full faine forgo my holde, As birde alurde in winters sore, On limed twigges that often bee, Thinkes he is free as late before Untill he 'sayes his flight to flee: Was wrapt unwares by featurde face, With most extreme captivitie: PATH. OXON. i. 181. * [This suggestion of Mr. Warton drew forth the following satisfactory investigation, it is conjectured, from the Rev. Dr. Lort, who was chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury. "In the Lambeth library is a beautiful copy of this edition of the Psalms, on the back of the title of which is written-'to the right vertuouse and honorable Ladye the Countesse of Shrewsburye, from your lovinge frende, Margaret Parker.' This is written in the hand of the time when she lived; and the binding of the book, which is richly gilded, seems also of the same date. But there is no date to the book, and where Antony Wood found that of 1570 for his copy, if it was of the same book with this, we are yet to A considerable contributor to the metrical theology was Robert Crowley, educated in Magdalene college at Oxford, where he obtained a fellowship in 1542. In the reign of Edward the Sixth, he commenced printer and preacher in London. He lived in Ely-rents in Holborn: "where," says Wood, "he sold books, and at leisure times exercised the gift of preaching in the great city and elsewhere." In 1550 he printed the first edition of PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISION, but with the ideas of a controversialist, and with the view of helping forward the reformation by the revival of a book which exposed the absurdities of popery in strong satire, and which at present is only valuable or useful, as it serves to gratify the harmless researches of those peaceable philosophers who study the progression of antient literature. His pulpit and his press, those two prolific sources of faction, happily co-operated in propagating his principles of predestination: and his shop and his sermons were alike frequented. Possessed of those talents which qualified him for captivating the attention and moving the passions of the multitude, under queen Elisabeth he held many dignities in a church, whose doctrines and polity his undiscerning zeal had a tendency to destroy. He translated into popular rhyme, not only the psalter, but the litany, with hymns, all which he printed together in 1549. In the same year, and in the same measure, he published The Voice of the last Trumpet blown by the seventh angel. This piece contains twelve several lessons, for the instruction or amendment of those who seemed at that time chiefly to need advice; and among whom he enumerates lewd priests, scholars, physicians, beggars, yeomen, gentlemen, magistrates, and women. He also attacked the abuses of his seek. If that date really belongs to it, it cannot probably be the same edition with that in the Lambeth library, which has Margaret Parker's name written in it, for she died (as Strype tells us) in 1570: and if the book was printed in this or the foregoing year, Keeper could not (according to Antony Wood's account of him) be above. 22 or 23 years of age. So that I think archbisliop PARKER may still keep his title to this version of the Psalms, till a stronger than Keeper shall be found to dispossess him." Gent. Mag. for 1781. p. 567.PARK.] 4 There is a metrical English version of the Psalms among the Cotton manuscripts about the year 1320, which has merit. See also supr. vol. i. 25. ATH. OXON. i. 235. age in thirty-one EPIGRAMS, first printed in 1551. The subjects are placed alphabetically. In his first alphabet are Abbayes, Alehouses, Alleys, and Almeshouses. The second, Bailiffs, Bawds, Beggars, Bear-bayting, and Brawlers. They display, but without spirit or humour, the reprehensible practices and licentious manners which then prevailed. He published in 1551, a kind of metrical sermon on Pleasure and Pain, Heaven and Hell. Many of these, to say nothing of his almost innumerable controversial tracts in prose, had repeated editions, and from his own press. But one of his treatises, to prove that Lent is a human invention and a superstitious institution, deserves notice for its plan: it is a Dialogue between Lent and Liberty. The personification of Lent is a bold and a perfectly new prosopopeia. In an old poem* of this age against the papists, written by one doctor William Turner a physician, but afterwards dean of Wells, the Mass, or mistress MISSA, is personified, who, arrayed in all her meretricious trappings, must at least have been a more theatrical figures. Crowley likewise wrote, and printed in 1588, a rhyming manual, The School of Vertue and Book of good Nurture. This is a translation into metre, of many of the less exceptionable Latin hymns. antiently used by the catholics, and still continuing to retain among the protestants a degree of popularity. One of these begins, Jam Lucis orto sydere. At the end are prayers and graces in rhyme. This book, which in Wood's time had been degraded to the stall of the ballad-singer, and is now only to be found on the shelf of the antiquary, was intended to supersede or abolish the original Latin hymns, which were only offensive because they were in Latin, and which were the recrea * [My late friend Mr. Fillingham, who underwent the task of framing an INDEX to Warton's History, pointed out that this was not a poem, but a Dialogue in prose, entitled "The Examination of the Masse." The speakers are, "Mastres Missa. Master Knowledge. Master Fremouth. Master Justice of the peace. Sir Philip Philargirye."-PARK.] See Strype, ECCL. MEM. ii. p. 138. See the speakers in Ochin's Dialogue against the Pope, Englished by Poynet, printed in 1549. Strype, ibid. 198. |