In these stanzas on haymaking, he rises above his common manner. Go muster thy seruants, be captain thyselfe, A great variety of verse is used in this poem, which is thrown into numerous detached chapters. The HUSBANDRIE is divided into the several months. Tusser, in respect of his antiquated diction, and his argument, may not improperly be styled the English Varro*. Such were the rude beginnings in the English language of didactic poetry, which, on a kindred subject, the present age has seen brought to perfection, by the happy combination of n Fol. 95. CH. 44. • In this book I first find the metre of Rowe's song, "Despairing beside a clear stream." For instance. What looke ye, I praie you shew what? See PREFACE TO THE BUIER OF THIS The Preface above cited, contained two Stanzas thus worded, in the edition of 1570, I believe, only What lookest thou here for to have? What other thing lookest thou then [Barnabe Googe, in his preface to the translation of Heresbach's four books of Husbandrie, 1578, sets Fitzherbert and Tusser on a level with Varro and Columella and Palladius: but the sedate Stillingfleet would rather compare Tusser to old Hesiod, from the following considerations. They both wrote in the infancy of husbandry, in their different countries. Both gave good general precepts, without entering into the detail, siod. though Tusser has more of it than He They both seem desirous to improve the morals of their readers as well and economy: and, that which perhaps as their farms, by recommending industry may be looked upon as the greatest resemblance, they both wrote in verse; probably for the same reason, namely, to propagate their doctrines more effectually. But here the resemblance ends : judicious precepts with the most elegant ornaments of language and imagery, in Mr. Mason's ENGLISH GARDEN. the Greek was a very fine poet, the Englishman an unskilful versifier, However, there is something very pleasing in our countryman's lines now and then, though of the rustic kind; and sometimes his thoughts are aptly and concisely expressed ::—e. g. Reape well, scatter not, gather cleane that is shorne, Binde fast, shock apace, have an eye to thy corne, Lode safe, carry home, follow time being faire, Gove just in the barne, it is out of despaire. Mem. for Hist. of Husbandry in the Works of Benj. Stillingfleet, ii. 572.PARK.] SECTION LIV. AMONG Antony Wood's manuscripts in the Bodleian library at Oxford, I find a poem of considerable length written by William Forrest, chaplain to queen Mary. It is entitled, "A true and most notable History of a right noble and famous Lady produced in Spayne entitled the second GRESIELD, practised not long cut of this time in much part tragedous as delectable both to hearers and readers." This is a panegyrical history in octave rhyme, of the life of queen Catharine, the first queen of king Henry the Eighth. The poet compares Catharine to patient Grisild, celebrated by Petrarch and Chaucer, and Henry to earl Walter her husband'. Catharine had certainly the patience and conjugal compliance of Grisild: but Henry's cruelty was not, like Walter's, only artificial and assumed. It is dedicated to queen Mary*: and Wood's manuscript, which was once very superbly bound and embossed, and is elegantly written on vellum, evidently appears to have been the book presented by the author to her majesty. Much of its antient finery is tarnished: but on the brass bosses at each corner is still discernible AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA. At the end is this colophon: "Here endeth the Historye of Grysilde the second, dulie meanyng Queene Catharine mother to our most dread soveraigne Lady queene Mary, fynysched the xxv In folio. MSS. Cod. A. Wood. Num. 2. They were purchased by the University after Wood's death. The affecting story of PATIENT GRISILD seems to have long kept up its celebrity. In the books of the Stationers, in 1565, Owen Rogers has a licence to print "a ballat intituled the songe of pacyent Gressell vnto hyr make REGISTR. A. fol. 132. b. Two ballads are entered in 1565, "to the tune of pacyente Gressell." Ibid. fol. 135. a. In the same year T. Colwell has licence to print "The History of meke and pacyent Gresell" Ibid. fol. 139. a. Colwell has a second edition of this history in 1568. Ibid. fol. 177. a. Instances occur much lower. [In poetic compliment to his royal patroness, Forrest wrote and printed "A new ballade of the Mari-golde." This is preserved in the archives of the Society of Antiquaries, and has been reprinted in the Harl. Miscell. Suppl. vol. ii.-PARK.] day of June, the yeare of owre Lorde 1558. By the symple and unlearned Syr Wylliam Forrest preeiste, propria manu." The poem, which consists of twenty chapters, contains a zealous condemnation of Henry's divorce: and, I believe, preserves some anecdotes, yet apparently misrepresented by the writer's religious and political bigotry, not extant in any of our printed histories. Forrest was a student at Oxford, at the time when this notable and knotty point of casuistry prostituted the learning of all the universities of Europe, to the gratification of the capricious amours of a libidinous and implacable tyrant. He has recorded many particulars and local incidents of what passed in Oxford during that transaction. At the end of the poem is a metrical ORATION CONSOLATORY, in six leaves, to queen Mary. In the British Museum is another of Forrest's poems, written in two splendid folio volumes on vellum, called "The tragedious troubles of the most chast and innocent Joseph, son to the holy patriarch Jacob," and dedicated to Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk. In the same repository is another of his pieces, never printed, dedicated to king Edward the Sixth, "A notable warke called The PLEASANT POESie of princelie Practise, composed of late by the simple and unlearned sir William Forrest priest, much part collected out of a booke entitled the GOVERNANCE OF NOBLEMEN, which booke the wyse philosopher Aristotle wrote to his disciple Alexander the Great"." The book here mentioned is Ægidius Romanus de REGIMINE PRINCIPIUM, which yet retained its reputation and popularity of his tender years, never slept with her. d MSS. REG. 18 C. xiii. It appears to have once belonged to the library of John Theyer of Coopershill near Gloucester. There is another copy in University-college Library, MSS. G. 7. with gilded leaves. This, I believe, once belonged to Robert earl of Aylesbury. Pr. In Canaan that country opulent.' e MSS. REG. 17 D. iii. In the Preface twenty-seven chapters are enumerated: but the book contains only twenty-four. from the middle age. I ought to have observed before, that Forrest translated into English metre fifty of David's Psalms, in 1551, which are dedicated to the duke of Somerset, the Protectors. Hence we are led to suspect, that our author could accommodate his faith to the reigning powers. Many more of his manuscript pieces both in prose and verse, all professional and of the religious kind, were in the hands of Robert earl of Ailesbury 1. Forrest, who must have been living at Oxford, as appears from his poem on queen Catharine, so early as the year 1530, was in reception of an annual pension of six pounds from Christ-church in that university, in the year 1555'. He was eminently skilled in music: and with much diligence and expence, he collected the works of the most excellent English composers, that were his cotemporaries. These, being the choicest compositions of John Taverner of Boston, organist of Cardinal-college now Christ-church at Oxford, John Merbeck who first digested our present church-service from the notes of the Roman missal, Fairfax, Tye, Sheppard, Norman, and others, falling after Forrest's death into the possession of doctor William Hether, founder of the musical praxis and professorship at Oxford in 1623, are now fortunately preserved at Oxford, in the archives of the music-school assigned to that institution. f See supr. vol. ii. p. 349. Not long before, Robert Copland, the printer, author of the TESTAMENT OF JULIEN [OR JYLLIAN] OF BRENTFORD, translated from the French and printed, "The SECRETE of SECRETES of Aristotle, with the governayle of princes and euerie manner of estate, with rules of health for bodie and soule." Lond. 1528. 4to. To what I have before said of Robert Copland as a poet (supr. vol. iii. p. 129.) may be added, that he prefixed an English copy of verses to the Mirrour of the Church of saynt Austine of Abyngdon, &c. Printed by himself, 1521. 4to. Another to Andrew Chertsey's PASSIO DOMINI, ibid. 1521. 4to. (See supr. iii. p.364.) He and his brother William printed several romances before 1530. MSS. REG. 17 A. xxi. [See also Conventual Library of Westminster in Gen. Catal. "Some Psalms in English verse, by W. Forest." Cod. MSS. Eccl. Cath. Westmonas.-PARK.] Wood, ATH. OXON. i. 124. Fox says, that he paraphrased the PATER NOSTER in English verse, Pr. "Our Father which in heaven doth sit." Also the TE DEUM, as a thanksgiving hymn for queen Mary, Pr. “O God thy name we magnifie." Fox, MART. p. 1139. edit. vet. MSS. Le Neve. From a long chapter in his KATHARINE, about the building of Christ-church and the regimen of it, he appears to have been of that college. |