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among Selden's manufcripts in the Bodleian library". author is concife and compendious in his narrative of events from Brutus to the reign of king Henry the fourth he is much more minute and diffufe in relating thofe affairs of which, for more than the space of fixty years, he was a living witness, and which occurred from that period to the reign of Edward the fourth. The poem feems to have been completed about the year 1470. In his final chapter he exhorts the king, to recall his rival king Henry the fixth, and to restore the partisans of that unhappy prince.

tion.

This work is almost beneath criticism, and fit only for the attention of an antiquary. Harding may be pronounced to be the most impotent of our metrical historians, especially when we recollect the great improvements which English poetry had now received. I will not even except Robert of Gloucefter, who lived in the infancy of tafte and verfificaThe chronicle of this authentic and laborious annalist has hardly thofe more modeft graces, which could properly recommend and adorn a detail of the British ftory in profe. He has left fome pieces in profe: and Winftanly fays, " as "his profe was very usefull, fo was his poetry as much delightfull." I am of opinion, that both his profe and poetry are equally useful and delightful. What can be more frigid and unanimated than these lines?

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Kyng Arthur then in Avalon fo dyed,
Where he was buryed in a chapel fayre,
Whiche nowe is made, and fully edifyed,
The mynfter church, this day of great repayre
Of Glastenbury, where nowe he hath his layre;
But then it was called the blacke chapell
Of our lady, as chronicles can tell.

MSS. Archiv. Seld. B. 26. It is richly bound and ftudded. At the end is a cu rious map of Scotland; together with many profe pieces by Harding of the hiftorical kind. The Afhmolean manufcript is en

titled, The CHRONICLE OF JOHN HARDING.in metre from the beginning of England · unto the reign of Edward the fourth. MSS. Afhmol. Oxon. 34. membran.

Where

Where Geryn earle of Chartres then abode
Befyde his tombe, for whole devocion,
Whither Lancelot de Lake came, as he rode
Upon the chafe, with trompet and claryon;
And Geryn told hym, ther all up and downe
How Arthur was there layd in fepulture

For which with hym to abyde he hyght ful fure.

Fuller affirms our author to have "drunk as deep a "draught of Helicon as any of his age." An affertion partly true: it is certain, however, that the diction and imagery of our poetic compofition would have remained in just the fame ftate had Harding never wrote.

In this reign, the first mention of the king's poet, under the appellation of LAUREATE, Occurs. John Kay was appointed poet laureate to Edward the fourth. It is extraordinary, that he should have left no pieces of poetry to prove his pretenfions in fome degree to this office, with which he is faid to have been invested by the king, at his return from Italy. The only compofition he has transmitted to posterity is a profe English translation of a Latin history of the Siege of Rhodes: in the dedication addreffed to king Edward, or rather in the title, he ftyles himfelf bys humble poete laureate. Although this our laureate furnishes us with no materials as a poet, yet his office, which here occurs for the first time under this denomination, must not pass unnoticed

z Ch. lxxxiv. fol. lxxvii. edit. Graft. 1543.

MSS. Cotton. Brit. Muf. VITELL. D. xii. 10. It was printed at London, 1506. This impreffion was in Henry Worfley's library, Cat. MSS. Angl. etc. tom. ii. p. 212. N. 6873. 25. I know nothing of the Latin; except that Gulielmus Caorfinus, vice-chancellor for forty years of the knights of Malta, wrote an OBSIDIO RHODIÆ URBIS, when it was in vain attempted to be taken by the Turks in 1480. Separately

printed without date or place in quarto. It was also printed in German, Argentorat. 1513. The works of this Gulielmus, which are numerous, were printed together, at Ulm, 1496. fol. with rude wooden prints. See an exact account of this writer, Diar. Eruditor. Ital. tom. xxi. p. 412.

One John Caius a poet of Cambridge is mentioned in fir T. More's WORKS, p. 204. And in Parker's Def. of Pr. Marr. against Martin, p. 99.

in the annals of English poetry, and will produce a short digreffion.

Great confufion has entered into this fubject, on account of the degrees in grammar, which included rhetoric and verfification, antiently taken in our univerfities, particularly at Oxford: on which occafion, a wreath of laurel was prefented to the new graduate, who was afterwards usually ftyled poeta laureatus. Thefe fcholaftic laureations, however, feem to have given rife to the appellation in question. I will give some instances at Oxford, which at the fame time will explain the nature of the studies for which our accademical philologists received their rewards. About the year 1470, one John Watson, a ftudent in grammar, obtained a conceffion to be graduated and laureated in that science; on condition that he compofed one hundred Latin verses in praise of the university, and a Latin comedy. Another grammarian was distinguished with the fame badge, after having ftipulated, that, at the next public Act, he would affix the fame number of hexameters on the great gates of faint Mary's church, that they might be feen by the whole univerfity. This was at that period the most convenient mode of publication. About the fame time, one Maurice Byr

In the antient ftatutes of the university of Oxford, every Regent Mafter in Grammar is prohibited from reading in his faculty, unless he firft pafs an examination DE MODO VERSIFICANDI et dicandi, &c. MSS. Bibl. Bodl. fol. membran. Arch. A. 91. [nunc 2874.] f. 55. b. This fcholaftic cultivation of the art of PROSODY gave rife to many Latin fyftems of METRE about this period. Among others, Thomas Langley, a monk of Hulm in Norfolk, in the year 1430, wrote, in two books, DE VARIETATE CARMINUM. Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Digb. 100. One John Seguard, a Latin poet and rhetorician of Norwich, about the year 1414, wrote a piece of this kind called METRISTENCHIRIDION, addressed to

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Courtney bishop of Norwich, treating of the nature of metre in general, and efpecially of the common metres of the Hymns of Boecius and Oracius [Horace.] Oxon. MSS. Coll. Merton. Q. iii. 1.

• When any of these graduated grammarians were licenced to teach boys, they were publicly prefented in the Convocationhoufe with a rod and ferrel. Regiftr. Univ. Oxon. G. fol. 72. a.

Regiftr. Univ. Oxon. G. fol. 143. I take this opportunity of acknowledging my obligations to the learned Mr. Swinton, keeper of the Archives at Oxford, for giving me frequent and free access to the Registers of that university.

e Ibid fol. 162.

chenfaw,

chenfaw, a scholar in rhetoric, fupplicated to be admitted to read lectures, that is, to take a degree, in that faculty; and his petition was granted, with a 'provifion, that he should write one hundred verses on the glory of the univerfity, and not fuffer Ovid's ART OF LOVE, and the Elegies of Pamphilus, to be studied in his auditory. Not long afterwards, one John Bulman, another rhetorician, having complied with the terms impofed, of explaining the first book of Tully's OFFICES, and likewife the firft of his EPISTLES, without any pecuniary emolument, was graduated in rhetoric; and a crown of laurel was publicly placed on his head by the hands of the chancellour of the university". About the year 1489', Skelton was laureated at Oxford, and in the year 1493, was permitted to wear his laurel at Cambridge *. Robert Whittington affords the last instance of a rhetorical degree at Oxford. He was a fecular priest, and eminent for his various treatises in grammar, and for his facility in Latin poetry having exercised his art many years, and submitting to the customary demand of an hundred verses, he was honoured with the laurel in the year 1512'. This title is

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prefixed to one of his grammatical systems. "". ROBERTI " WHITTINTONI, Lichfeldienfis, Grammatices Magiftri, PROTOVATIS Anglia, in florentiffima Oxonienfi Achademia LAUREATI, DE OCTO PARTIBUS ORATIONIS "." In his PANEGYRIC to cardinal Wolfey, he mentions his laurel,

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Sufcipe LAURICOмI munufcula parva Roberti ".

With regard to the Poet laureate of the kings of England, an officer of the court remaining under that title to this day, he is undoubtedly the fame that is styled the KING'S VERSIFIER, and to whom one hundred fhillings were paid as his annual stipend, in the year 1251°. But when or how that title commenced, and whether this officer was ever folemnly crowned with laurel at his firft inveftiture, I will not pretend to determine, after the fearches of the learned Selden on this question have proved unfuccessful. It seems most probable, that the barbarous and inglorious name of VERSIFIER gradually gave way to an appellation of more elegance and dignity: or rather, that at length, those only were in general invited to this appointment, who had received accademical fanction, and had merited a crown of laurel in the univerfities for their abilities in Latin compofition, particularly Latin verfification. Thus the king's

Laureate was nothing more than "a graduated rhetorician

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in Lond. 1513. See the next note. " In his "Opufculum Roberti Whittin"toni in florentiffima Oxonienfi achademia "laureati." Signat. A. iii. Bl. Let. 4to. Colophon, Expliciunt Roberti Whit"tintoni Oxonii protovatis epigrammata, "una cum quibufdam panegyricis, im"preffa Londini per me Wynandum de "Worde. Anno poft virgineum partum

м,ccccc. xix. decimo vero Kal. Maii." The Panegyrics are, on Henry the eighth, and cardinal Wolfey. The Epigrams, which are long copies of verfe, are ad

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Idreffed to Charles Brandon duke of Suf-
folk, fir Thomas More, and to Skelton,
under the title Ad lepidiffimum poetam
SCHELTONEM carmen, &c. Some of the
lines are in a very claffical ftyle, and much
in the manner of the earlier Latin Italian
poets. At the end of thefe Latin poems is
a defence of the author, called ANTILY-
CON, &c. This book is extremely scarce,
and not mentioned by Wood, Ames, and
fome other collectors. Thefe pieces are in
manufcript, Oxon. MSS. Bodl. D. 3. zz.
• See fupr. vol. i. p. 47.

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