And that eche part ful gredily did plucke,
To save it selfe, all succour it might sucke,
He markt the chile that went unto the Lounges,

And throwly myxt his vertue ther amonges:
And cooling it, so stopt the pipes therwith,

As to dissolve pure nature wanted pith.

The king shortly fell sick, and the preachers seeing the prince thus plagued for the sins of the people, exhorted them to repent, and amend their lives, warning them, if they delayed, not only that the king should die, but that they should be afflicted with other plagues :

The Magistrate was playnly tolde his fault,
The man of lawe was warned not to halte:
Request was made the church goodes to restore,
Or put to the use that they wer taken for.
Leasmungring Landlords, such as raysed rent,
Wer moved to bate their Lands to auncient stent;
The waste, the fare, the vaynnes of attyre,

Extorcion, malice, covetous desyre,

All Papistry, with fruteles gospel boast,

Was cryed agaynst, and damnde as wicked most.

And to be briefe, fro the lowest to the hyest,
All wer desired to live the lawe of Christ.

The people however, unmoved, despised the warnings of the preachers, and turned them into "a common iesting stocke." The Almighty, therefore, seeing how all refused his grace, issued his final command to death to visit the suffering Edward at Greenwich, and to "cleave in twayne his vertuous godly hart." The struggles and tears of death on being commanded to cut off one so

beawtifull and young,

So learnd a prince, so manly, and so meeke
As seldome had, nor eft shall have his like:

the prayer of the youthful monarch for himself and for his realm, and how death

with his percing dart

He strake in twayne the kinges yet praying hart;

are all touchingly described, and the poem concludes as follows:

Thus dyed this King, this giltles blessed childe,

In body and soule, a virgin undefilde,

The sixtenth yere of his unperfect age.
Wo wurth us men, whose sins let run at rage
Have murdred him: wo wurth us wretches all,
On whom the wreke of righteous bloud must fall.
Wo wurth our sins, for they, alas, have slayne
The noblest prince that dyd, or eft shall rayne.

Sapien. iiii.

Thus the righteous which is dead, condemneth the ungodly which are liuing, and the youth that is soone brought to an ende, the long life of the unrighteous.

The second poem of two leaves is entitled "An exhortacion to the repcntaunce of sinnes, and amendment of life, which were the cause of the kinges death, and wil be the destruction of the Realme if God be not the more mercifull unto us." This consists of twelve eight-line stanzas, and contains exhortations to repentance to the princes, prelates, subjects, officers, lawyers, merchants, judges, &c.

The third poem is entitled "An Epitaph. The Death playnt or life prayse of the most noble and vertuous Prince, King Edward the syxt." It occupies one leaf, is in four seven-line stanzas, ending thus:

Wo wurth our sinnes, our sinnes, our sins I say,

The wreke wherof hath reft us such a loan

As never realme the like recover may,

In princely giftes, the Phenix byrd alone.

Oh happy he, but we full wo begoen

Whose haynous sins have slayne the giltles gide,

Whose soule the heaven, whose corse this herse doth hide.

Finis.

¶ King Edward sickened the first day of February, at Whitehall, and on the syxte day of Julye next folowing, died he at Greenwich, and was buryed in Westminster church. Anno. 1553.

On the recto of the last leaf is the portrait of Edward, and on the reverse, under a representation of a man in the centre of a labyrinth, is the colophon, both mentioned above.

Of Baldwin, the writer of this very rare poem, we learn from Ant. Wood that he was a west countryman, who after studying at the University of Oxford became a compositor or corrector of the press to Edward Whitchurch the printer, who printed for him in 1547 A Treatise of Moral Phylosophie contayning the Sayinges of the Wyse, 16mo, which he had compiled, and which afterwards went through several editions. The

only work yet known to be printed by Baldwin himself is a metrical version of Solomon's Song from his own pen, entitled The Canticles or Balades of Salomon, phraselyke declared in Englysh Metres, by William Baldwin, 4to, 1549; of which rare work a copy was in Herbert's collection, and a very fine one in the library of St. John's College, Oxford. An imperfect copy, wanting Sig. N 1, was described in the Bib. Ang. Poet. No. 29, priced 107. 108. and sold in Inglis's sale, No. 135, for 5l. There is a copy in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth Palace, another in the collection of the Hon. T. Grenville, and an imperfect one in the British Museum. The scarcity of works from his own press may be probably accounted for from the circumstance of his entering into holy orders, when he no longer exercised his trade as a printer, but continued only to write for others. Previous however to this event, Baldwin was much engaged in the reign of Edward VI. and his successor in preparing theatrical exhibitions for the court, probably of the nature of mysteries or moralities now lost. Wood also states that he wrote a treatise on the use of comedies as well as of adages and proverbs, now also unknown. But he is better known as one of the original projectors, with Thomas Sackville Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, of the Mirror for Magistrates, first published in 1559, 4to, to which he contributed several of the legends, and assisted with George Ferrers in the management and editing of that popular work. A second edition of it, also edited by Baldwin, containing twenty-seven legends, was published in 1563. It has been satisfactorily shown by Mr. Payne Collier in his Hist. Dram. Poet. vol. i. pp. 20 and 152, that Baldwin was the author of a tract entitled Beware the Cat. "It seems," says Mr. Collier, "that this tract had been imputed to 'Maister Stremer,' who is mentioned in it, but in a curious broad-side in verse, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, headed A short Answere to the Boke called Beware the Cat,' are these lines, which seem to establish the fact of Baldwin's authorship of this tract:

Whereas there is a boke called beware the cat,

The veri trueth is so, that Stremer made not that,
Nor no suche false fabels fell ever from his pen,

Nor from his hart or mouth, as knoe mani honest men.
But wil ye gladli knoe, who made that boke in dede,
One Wylliam Baldewine, God graunt him wel to speede."

Baldwin appears to have lived for some years after Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, but we hear no more of him as a writer after the pub

lication of the second edition of the Mirror for Magistrates in 1563, and the exact time of his death is not known.

For further particulars concerning him, consult Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. i. p. 341; Ritson's Bibliog. Poet. p. 121; Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet. vol. iv. p. 3; Dibdin's Typograph. Antiq. vol. iii. p. 503, and vol. iv. p. 498; Watts's Bibl. Brit. vol. i. p. 66; Brit. Bibliog. vol. ii. p. 97; Collier's Hist. Dram. Poet. vol. i. pp. 20 and 152; Bibl. Ang. Poet. No. 28; Rose's Gen. Biograph. Dictionary, vol. iii. p. 59.

The present work was reprinted by the Rev. J. W. Dodd, one of the masters of Westminster School, as his contribution to the members of the Roxburghe Club in 1817, 4to, the number of copies being limited to forty, which have occasionally been sold for nearly 47. each, and was also reprinted again in 4to. There is a copy of the original work in the collection of the Hon. Thomas Grenville; another in the library of King's College, Cambridge.

This volume has always sold in public sales for high prices, as will be seen from the following list: Dr. Farmer's, No. 6855, 1l. 178.; Nassau, pt. i. No. 371, 47. 68.; both these copies have the date 1553; Fillingham, 31. 68.; Perry, pt. i. No. 824, 14l. 14s.; Midgley, No, 75, 15l. 158.; Townley, pt. ii. No. 1556, 187. 188.; Bindley, pt. i. No. 752, containing on a single leaf, within an engraved border, a prayer for King Edward VI. "Imprynted by R. Copland," supposed to be unique, 187. 188.; Bibl. Ang. Poet. No. 28, in Russia, 25. probably the one from Midgley's sale. The present is the Duke of Roxburghe's copy, which sold at his sale, No. 3309, for 197. 198. It is the same copy which was in the Midgley collection, and in the Bibl. Ang. Poet. and belonged also to Mr. Hill, whose autograph is on the title. It was afterwards in the possession of Sir Mark M. Sykes, Bart., who gave 177. 178. for it, and at the sale of his library, No. 393, was bought by Thorpe for 117. 118. It has since been in the hands of Messrs. Harding and Lepard, and was purchased by the editor at the sale of their stock in 1836.

Bound in Russia, with Roxburghe crest, gilt leaves.

BALLADS (RELIGIOUS). 1. The Grace from God the Father hye. 2. A New Balade, or Songe of the Lambes Feast. Two early Religions Ballads. Mounted in 4to. blk. lett. Anno 1574.

S

Numerous were the religious ballads published in our popular rhyme during the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, caused no doubt in part by the change of religion which then took place, and increased by the theological contentions and controversies carried on between the two Churches. It was in these ballads and religious rhymes that the feelings of the people were often expressed; and prejudices, which might sometimes have resulted in greater severities, were counteracted and extinguished by these lighter ebullitions of piety and enthusiasm.

We have here two ancient ballads of this kind, printed in a singular blk. lett. type as broadsides. The first, which is headed "Another, out of Goodwill," contains thirteen octave stanzas, with numerous marginal references to passages in the Scriptures, and is subscribed "Per W. S. Veritatis Amorem. Anno 1574." The second, entitled "A New Balade, or, Songe of the Lambes Feast," is in fourteen octave stanzas, with a refrain of two lines at the end of every verse. As a specimen of these religious rhymes we quote the opening stanzas of the latter ballad.