THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY. SECTION XXVII. THE subsequent reigns of Richard the Third, Edward the Fifth, and Henry the Seventh, abounded in obscure versifiers. A mutilated poem which occurs among the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum, and principally contains a satire on the nuns, who, not less from the nature of their establishment than from the usual degeneracy which attends all institutions, had at length lost their original purity, seems to belong to this period. It is without wit, and almost without numbers. It was written by one Bertram Walton [Waton], whose name now first appears in the catalogue of English poets; and whose life I calmly resign to the researches of some more laborious and patient antiquary. About the year 1480, or rather before, Benedict Burgh, a master of arts of Oxford, among other promotions in the church, archdeacon of Colchester, prebendary of saint Paul's, and canon of saint Stephen's chapel at Westminster, translated Cato's a Disadvantageous suspicions against the chastity of the female religious were pretended in earlier times. About the year 1250, a bishop of Lincoln visited the nunneries of his diocese: on which occasion, says the continuator of Matthew Paris, "ad domos religiosarum veniens, fecit EXPRIMI MAMILLAS earunVOL. III. B dem, ut sic physice, si esset inter eas corruptela, experiretur." Matt. Paris. Hist. p. 789. HENRICUS iii. edit. Tig. 1589. fol. An anecdote, which the historian relates with indignation; not on account of the nuns, but of the bishop. b See Newcourt, Repertor. i. 90. ii. 517. The university sealed his letters 1 MORALS into the royal stanza, for the use of his pupil lord Bourchier son of the earl of Essex. Encouraged by the example and authority of so venerable an ecclesiastic, and tempted probably by the convenient opportunity of pilfering phraseology from a predecessor in the same arduous task, Caxton translated the same Latin work; but from the French version of a Latin paraphrase, and into English prose, which he printed in the year 1483. He calls, in his preface, the measure, used by Burgh, the BALAD ROYAL. Caxton's translation, which superseded Burgh's work, and with which it is confounded, is divided into four books, which comprehend seventy-two heads. I do not mean to affront my readers, when I inform them, without any apology, that the Latin original of this piece was commonly signified the octave stanza. Was it to thee, that ilke time thou made, Without the gate remembered as I rede, Sparklys owt of thar harnyss, &c. not written by Cato the censor, nor by Cato Uticensis: although it is perfectly in the character of the former, and Aulus Gellius has quoted Cato's poem DE MORIBUS. Nor have I the gravity of the learned Boxhornius, who in a prolix and elaborate dissertation has endeavoured to demonstrate, that these distichs are undoubtedly supposititious, and that they could not possibly be written by the very venerable Roman whose name they bear. The title is DISTICHA DE MORIBUS AD FILIUM, which are distributed into four books, under the name of Dionysius Cato. But he is frequently called MAGNUS CATO. This work has been absurdly attributed by some critics to Seneca, and by others to Ausonius f. It is, however, more antient than the time of the emperour Valentinian the Third, who died in 455%. On the other hand, it was written after the appearance of Lucan's PHARSALIA, as the author, at the beginning of the second book, commends Virgil, Macer1, Ovid, and Lucan. The name of Cato probably became prefixed to these distichs, in a lower age, by the officious ignorance of transcribers, and from the acquiescence of readers equally ignorant, as Marcus Cato had written a set of moral distichs. Whoever was the author, this metrical system of ethics had attained the highest degree of estimation in the barbarous ages. Among Langbain's manuscripts bequeathed to the university of Oxford by Antony Wood, it is accompanied with a Saxon paraphrase1. John of Salisbury, in his POLYCRATICON, mentions it as the favourite and established manual in the education of boys'. To enumerate no others, it is much applauded by Isidore the old etymologist, Alcuine", and Abelard°: and we must acknowledge, that the writer, exclusive of the utility of his precepts, possesses the merit of a nervous and elegant brevity. It is perpetually quoted by Chaucer. In the MILLER'S TALE, he reproaches the simple carpenter for having never read in Cato that a man should marry his own likeness P: and in the MARCHAUNT'S TALE, having quoted Seneca to prove that no blessing is equal to an humble wife, he adds Cato's precept of prudently 321. 512. In the ART OF VERSIFICATION, a Latin poem, written by Eberhardus Bethuniensis, about the year 1212, there is a curious passage, in which all the classics of that age are recited; or the best authors, then in vogue, and whom he recommends to be taught to youth. [Leyser. Poet. Med. æv. p. 825.] They are, CATO the moralist. THEODULUS, the author of a leonine Eclogue, a dialogue between Truth and Falshood, written in the tenth century, printed among the Ocro MORALES, and by Goldastus, Man. Bibl. 1620. 8vo. MSS. Harl. 3093. 4. Wynkyn de Worde printed this piece under the title of Theodoli liber, cum commento satis proliro autoris cujusdam Anglici qui multa Anglicana ubique miscuit. 1515. 4to. It was from one of Theodulus's ECLOGUES, beginning Ethiopum terras, that Field, master of Fotheringay college about the year 1480, sette the versis of the book caullid Ethiopum terras, in the glasse windowe, with figures very neatly. Leland. ITIN. i. fol. 5. [p. 7. edit. 1745.] This seems to have been in a window of the new and beautiful cloister, built about that time. FLAVIUS AVIANUS, a writer of Latin fables, or apologues, Lugd. Bat. 1731. 8vo. Esor, or the Latin fabulist, printed among the OCTO MORALES, Lugd. Bat. 1505. 4to. MAXIMIANUS, whose six elegies, written about the seventh century, pass under the name of Gallus. Chaucer cites this writer; and in a manner, which shews his elegies had not then acquired the name of Gallus. COURT OF L. v. 798. "MAXIMINIAN truely thus doeth he write." PAMPHILUS MAURILIANUS, author of the hexametrical poem de Vetula, and the elegies de Arte amandi, entitled PAMPHILUS, published by Goldastus, Catalect. Ovid. Francof. 1610. 8vo. [See supra, vol. ii. p. 442.] GETA, or Hosidius Geta, who has left a tragedy on Medea, printed in part by Pet. Scriverius, Fragm. Vett. Tragic. Lat. p. 187. [But see supr. vol. ii. p. 65.] DARES PHRYGIUS, on the destruction of Troy. MACER [See supra.] MARBODEUS, a Latin poet on Gems. [See supra, vol. ii. p. 214.] PETRUS DE RIGA, canon of Rheims, whose AURORA, or the History of the Bible allegorised, in Latin verses, some of which are in rhyme, was never printed entire. He has left also Speculum Ecclesia, with other pieces, in Latin poetry. He flourished about the year 1130. SEDULIUS. PROSPer. ARATOR. PRUDENTIUS. BOETHIUS. ALANUS, author of the Anticlaudian, a poem in nine books, occasioned by the scepticism of Claudian. [See supr. vol. ii. p. 227.] VIRGIL, HORACE, OVID, LUCAN, STATIUS, JUVENAL, and PERSIUS. JOHN HANVILLE, an Englishman who wrote the ARCHITRENIUS, in the twelfth century, a Latin hexameter poem in nine books. PHILIP GUALTIER, of Chatillon, who wrote, about the same period, the ALEXANDREID, an heroic poem on Alexander the great. SOLYMARIUS, or GUNTHER, a German Latin poet, author of the SOLYMARIUM, or Crusade. GalfriDUS, our countryman, whose NOVA POETRIA was in higher celebrity than Horace's Art of Poetry. [See vol. i. Dissertat. ii.] MATTHEUS, of Vendosme, who in the year 1170 paraphrased the Book of Tobit into Latin elegiacs, from the Latin bible of saint Jerom, under the title of the TOBIAD, Sometimes called the THEBAID, and first printed among bearing a scolding wife with patience. It was translated into Greek at Constantinople by Maximus Planudes, who has the merit of having familiarised to his countrymen many Latin classics of the lower empire, by metaphrastic versions': and at the restoration of learning in Europe, illustrated with a commentary by Erasmus, which is much extolled by Luther $. There are two or three French translations. That of Mathurine Corderoy is dedicated to Robert Stephens. In the British Museum, there is a French translation by Helis de Guincestre, or Winchester; made, perhaps, at the time when our countrymen affected to write more in French than English". Chaucer the OCTO MORALES. ALEXANDER DE VILLA DEI, whose DOCTRINALE, Or Grammar in Leonine verse, superseded Priscian about the year 1200. It was first printed at Venice, fol. 1473. And by Wynkyn de Worde, 1503. He was a French frier minor, and also wrote the ARGUMENTS of the chapters of all the books of either Testament, in two hundred and twelve hexameters. With some other forgotten pieces. MARCIANUS CAPELLA, whose poem on the MARRIAGE OF MERCURY WITH PHILOLOGY rivalled Boethius, [See supra, vol. ii. p. 384.] JOANNES DE GARLANDIA, an Englishman, a poet and grammarian, who studied at Paris about the year 1200. The most eminent of his numerous Latin poems, which croud our libraries, seem to be his EPITHALAMIUM on the Virgin Mary in ten books of elegiacs. MSS. Cotton, CLAUD. A. x. And DE TRIUMPHIS ECCLESIÆ, in eight books, which contains much English history. MS. ibid. Some of his pieces, both in prose and verse, have been printed. BERNARDUS CARNOTENSIS, or Sylvester, much applauded by John of Salisbury, who styles him the most perfect Platonic of that age. Metallog. iv. c. 35. His MEGACOSM and MICROCOSM, a work consisting both of verse and prose, is frequently cited by the barbarous writers. He is imitated by Chaucer, Man of L. Tale, v. 4617. "In sterres many a winter," &c. PHYSIOLOGUS, OF THEOBALDUS EPISCOPUS, who wrote in Latin verse De Naturis xii. animalium, MSS. Harl. 3093. 5. He is there called Italicus. There is also a Magister FLORINUS, styled also PHYSIOLOGUS, on the same subject. Chaucer quotes PHYSIOLOGUS, whom I by mistake have supposed to be Pliny, "For PHISIOLOGUS says sikerly." NONNES PR. TALE. v. 15277. [See supr. vol. ii. p. 255.] SIDONIUS, who wrote a metrical dialogue between a Jew and a Christian on both the Testaments. And a SIDONIUS, perhaps the same, regis qui fingit prælia. To these our author adds his own GRECISMUS, or a poem in hexameters on rhetoric and grammar; which, as Du Cange [Præf. Lat. Gloss. S XLV.] observes, was antiently a common manual in the seminaries of France, and, I suppose, of England. m Etymol. V. OFFICIPERDA. " Contra Elipand. lib. ii. p. 949. • Lib. i. Theol. Christ. p. 1188. P V. 3227. 4 V. 9261. г The It occurs often among the Baroccian manuscripts, Bibl. Bodl. viz. 64. 71. bis. 95. 111. 194. The first edition of Cato, soon followed by many others, I believe, is August. A.D. 1485. most complete edition is that of Christ. Daumius, Cygn. 1672. 8vo. Containing the Greek metaphrases of Maximus Planudes, Joseph Scaliger, Matthew Zuber, and John Mylius, a German verSion by Martinus Apicius, with annotations and other accessions. It was before translated into German rhymes by Abraham Morterius, of Weissenburgh. Francof. 1590. 8vo. Colloqu. Mensal. c. 37. One by Peter Grosnet, Les mots dorees du sage Caton. Paris. 1543. " MSS. Harl. 4388. This manuscript is older than 1400. Du Cange quotes a CATO in French rhymes. Gl. Lat. V, |