called ANGLIA, on which stood a leopard. There is fome boldness and animation in the figure and attitude of this ferocious animal. The buyldyng thereof was paffing commendable; Skelton, in the course of his allegory, supposes that the poets laureate, or learned men, of all nations, were affembled before Pallas.. This groupe fhews the authors, both antient and modern, then in vogue. Some of them are quaintly characterifed. They are, firft,-Olde Quintilian, not with his Institutes of eloquence, but with his Declamations: Theocritus, with his bucolicall relacions: Hefiod, the Irononucar : Homer, the freshe hiftoriar: The prince of eloquence, Cicero: Salluft, who wrote both the history of Catiline and Jugurth: Ovid, enfhryned with the Mufys nyne: Lucan: Statius, writer P. 28. With as much life, f Glares. cannot decypher this appellation. I not acqueyntyd with Muses of Mars, And again, speaking of Julius Cæfar, Lydgate refers to Lucan's PHARSALIA, which he calls the Records of Lucan." ibid. fol. z. b. Peter de Blois, in writing to a profeffor at Paris, about the year 170, fays, “Prifcianus, et Tullius, Lucanus, et Per"fius, ifti fant dii veftri." EPISTOL. iv. fol. 3. edit. 1517. fol. Eberhardus Bethunienfis, called GRACISTA, a philologist who wrote about the year 1130, in a poem on VERSIFICATION, fays of Philip Gualtier, author of a popular epic poem called ALEXANDREIS, that he fhines with the light of LUCAN. "Lucet Alexander Lucani luce." And of Lucan he obferves, "Metro lucidiore canit." [See fupr. p. 167. 168.] It is eafy to conceive why Lucan fhould have been a favorite in the dark ages. of of Achilleidos: Perfius, with problems diffufe: Virgil, Júvėnal, Livy: Ennius, who wrote of marciall warre: Aulus Gellius, that noble hiftoriar: Horace, with his New Poetry': Maifter Terence, the famous comicar, with Plautus: Seneca, the tragedian: Boethius: Maximian, with his madde dities how dotyng age wolde jape with young foly: Boccacio, with his volumes grete: Quintus Curtius: Macrobius, who treated of Scipion's dreame: Poggius Florentinus, with many a mad tale': a friar of France fyr Gaguine, who frowned on me full angrily: Plutarch and Petrarch, two famous clarkės: Lucilius, Valerius Maximus, Propertius, Pifander", and Vincentius Bellovacenfis, who wrote the SPECULUM HISTORIALE. The catalogue is clofed by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate, who first adorned the English language: in allufion to which part of their characters, their apparel is faid to shine i That is, Horace's ART OF POETRY. Vinefauf wrote DE NOVA POETRIA. Horace's ART is frequently mentioned under this title. * His fix Elegies De incommodis fenectutis. See fupr. p. 168. Reinefius thinks that Maximinian was the bishop of Syracufe, in the feventh century: a moft intimate friend, and the fecretary, of pope Gregory the Great. EPIST. ad Daum. p. 207. Thefe Elegies contain many things fuperior to the taste of that period. 1 Poggius flourished about the year 1450. By his mad tales, Skelton means his FACETIE, a fet of comic ftories, very licentious and very popular. Sée Poggius's WORKS by Thomas Aucuparius, fol. Argentorat. 1513. f. 157.-184. The obfcenity contained in thefe compofitions gave great offence, and fell under the particular cenfure of the learned Laurentius Valla. The objections of Valla, Poggius attempts to obviate; by faying, that Valla was a clown, a cynic, and a pedant, without any ideas of wit or elegance and that the FACETI were univerfally esteemed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, England, and all countries that cultivated pure LaVol. II. tinity. Poggius's INVECTIVA. Invect. in Robert, or Rupert, Gaguin, a Ger- "Our author got the name of Pifander, In the boke of Philip Sparow, he says, Gower's Engly he is old, but that Chaucer's Englyfhe is wel allowed: he adds, that Lydgate writes after an hyer rate, and that he has been cenfured for his elevation of phrafe; but acknowledges, " No man can athend those matters that he hath pend." p. 237. In Raftall's TERENS, in ENGLISH, printed in the reign of Henry the eighth, thefe three are mentioned in the Prologue, which is in ftanzas, as the only English potts. Without date. 4:0. Z z beyond 1 beyond the power of defcription, and their tabards to be ftudded with diamonds and rubies". That only these three English poets are here mentioned, may be confidered as a proof, that only these three were yet thought to deserve the name. No writer is more unequal than Skelton. In the midst of a page of the most wretched ribaldry, we sometimes are furprized with three or four nervous and manly lines, like these. Ryot and Revell be in your court roules, Mayntenaunce and Mischefe these be men of myght, Skelton's modulation in the octave stanza is rough and inharmonious. The following are the smoothest lines in the poem before us; which yet do not equal the liquid melody of Lydgate, whom he here manifeftly attempts to imitate'. Lyke as the larke upon the fomers daye, When Titan radiant burnisheth his bemes bright, Of the son shyne engladed with the light. The following little ode deferves notice; at least as a specimen of the structure and phraseology of a love-fonnet about the clofe of the fifteenth century. TO MAISTRESS MARGARY WENTWORTH, For the fame reafon this ftanza in a fonnet to Maiftrefs Margaret Huffey deserves notice. Mirry Margaret As Midfomer flowre, Gentyll as faucon, Or hawke of the towre'. As do the following flowery lyrics, in a fonnet addressed to Maiftrefs Ifabell Pennel. Sterre of the morowe graye! The bloffome on the spraye, Of womanhede the lure! &c. But Skelton most commonly appears to have mistaken his genius, and to write in a forced character, except when he is indulging his native vein of fatire and jocularity, in the fhort minstrel-metre abovementioned: which he mars by a multiplied repetition of rhymes, arbitrary abbreviations of the verse, cant expreffions, hard and founding words newlycoined, and patches of Latin and French. This anomalous and motley mode of verfification is, I believe, supposed to be peculiar to our author. I am not, however, quite certain that it originated with Skelton. About the year 1512, Martin Coccaie of Mantua, whose true name was Theophilo Folengio, a Benedictine monk of Cafino in Italy, wrote a poem entitled PHANTASIÆ MACARONICÆ, divided into twenty-five parts. This is a bur lefque Latin poem, in heroic metre, checquered with Italian and Tuscan words, and those of the plebeian character, yet not deftitute of profodical harmony. It is totally satirical, and has fome degree of drollery; but the ridicule is too frequently founded on obscene or vulgar ideas. Prefixed is a fimilar burlefque poem called ZANITONELLA, or the Amours of Tonellus and Zanina; and a piece is fubjoined, with the title of MOSCHEA, or the War with the Flies and the Ants. The author died in 1544", but these poems, with o P. 41. Perhaps formed from Zanni, or Giovanni, a foolish character on the Italian ftage. See Riccoboni, THEATR. ITAL. ch. ii. p. 14. feq. See his Life, Jac. Phil. Thomafin's Elog. Patav. 1644. 4to. p. 71. I have given fpecimens. But the following paffage in the Boke of Colin Clous affords an appofite example at one view. p. 186. Of fuche vagabundus How fome fyng let abundus, &c. Cum |