with little hesitation and difficulty. He was followed by Hardyng, who wrote a Chronicle, in verfe, of all the English kings from Brutus, the favourite fubject of the British bards, or poetical genealogifts, down to the reign of Edward IV. in whofe reign he lived. This piece is often commended and quoted by our moft learned antiquaries. But the poet is loft in the hiftorian: care in collecting, and truth in relating events, are incompatible with the fallies of invention. So frigid and profaick a performance, after fuch promifing improvements, feemed to indicate, that poetry was relapfing into its primitive barbarism; and that the rudenefs of Robert of Glocefter, would be foon reinftated in the place of Chaucer's judgement and imagination. However, in the reign of Henry VII. this interval of darkness was happily removed by Stephen Hawes, a name generally unknown, and not mentioned by any compiler of the lives of English poets. This author was at this period the reftorer of invention, which feems to have fuffered a gradual degeneracy from the days of Chaucer. He not only revived, but improved, the ancient allegorick vein, which Hardyng had almoft entirely banifhed. Inftead of that drynefs of defcription, fo remarkably disgusting in many of his predeceffors, we are by this poet often entertained with the luxuriant effufions of Spenfer. Hawes refined Lydgate's verfification, and gave it fentiment and imagination; added new graces to the feven-lined stanza which Chaucer and Gower had adopted from the Italian; and, to fum up all, was the first of our poets who decorated invention with perfpicuous and harmonious numbers. The title of his principal performance is almoft as obfcure as his name, viz. "The hiftorie of GRAUNDE AMOURE and LA BEL PUCEL, called the PASTIME OF PLEASURE; contayning the knowledge of the feven fciences, and the courfe of man's life in this worlde. Invented by Stephen Hawes, groome of kyng Henry the feventh his chamber "." Henry VII. is faid to have preferred Hawes to this station, chiefly on account of his extraordinary memory, for he could repeat by heart most of the English poets, efpecially Lydgate. This reign produced another allegorical poem, entitled the Ship of Fooles. It was tranflated from the High Dutch, and profeffes to ridicule the vices and abfurdities of all ranks of men. The language is tolerably pure: but it has nothing of the invention and pleasantry which the plan feems to promife; neither of which, however, could be expected, if we confider its original. In the reign of Henry VIII. claffical literature began to be received and studied in England; and the writings of the ancients were cultivated, with true tafte and erudition, by Sir Thomas More, Colet, Afcham, Leland, Cheke, and other illuftrious rivals in polished compofition. Erafmus was entertained and patronifed by the king and nobility; and the Greek language, that ineftimable repofitory of genuine elegance and fublimity, was taught and admired. In this age flourished John Skelton; who, notwithstanding the great and new lights with which he was furrounded, contributed nothing to what his ancestors had left him: nor do I perceive, s In a note after the contents it is faid to be written, an. 21. Hen. vii. or 1505. "Such is the fate of poetry, fays Wood, that this book, which in the time of Henry VII. and VIII. was taken into the hands of all ingenious men, is now thought but worthy of a ballad-monger's ftall." Athen. Oxon. ed. 2. vol. 1. pag. 6. col. 2. It is in Muf. Afhmol. Oxon. Cod. impress. A. Wood. He alfo wrote the Temple of Glass, Wynk, de Worde, 1500. 4to. and other pieces. T. WARTON. * Wood ubi fupr. et Bale Script. Brit. cent. 8. num. 58. T. WARTON. that his verfification is, in any degree, more refined than that of one of his immediate predeceffors, Hawes. Indeed, one would hardly fufpect, that he wrote in the fame age with his elegant cotemporaries Surrey and Wyat. His beft pieces are written in the allegorical manner, and are his Crowne of Lawrell, and Bowge of Court. But the genius of Skelton feems little better qualified for picturefque than fatyrical poetry. In the one he wants invention, grace, and dignity; in the other, wit and good manners " I fhould be guilty of injuftice to a nation, which amid a variety of difadvantages, has kept a constant pace with England in the progrefs of literature, if I neglected to mention, in this general review, two Scottish poets who flourished about this period, Sir David Lyndefay, and Sir William Dunbar; the former of which in his Dream, and other pieces, and the latter in his Golden Terge, appear to have been animated with the nobleft fpirit of allegorick fiction. Soon afterwards appeared a series of poems, entitled, the Mirrour for Magiftrates, formed upon a dramatick * plan, and capable of admitting fome of "Wood informs us, that Skelton, for his fatirical abuses of the Dominican monks, incurred the fevere cenfure of Richard Nykke, bishop of Norwich; and that he was moreover, "guilty of certain crimes, as most poets are." Ubi fupr. vol. 1. pag. 23. › T. WARTON. Every Perfon is introduced speaking. Richard II. is thus introduced in a particular fituation: "Suppofe you fee the corpfe of this prince, all to be mangled with blewe wounds, lying pale and wan, all naked, upon the ftones, in St. Paules Church, the people standing round about him, and making his complaynt, in manner following, &c." Lydgate's Fall of Princes gave rife to the Mirrour for Magiftrates. In the year 1550, R. Baldwine was requested to continue Lydgate's feries of the great Unfortunate; but he chofe rather to confine himfelf entirely to our English ftory, and began with Robert Tre the most affecting pathetical ftrokes. But thefe pieces, however honoured with the commendation of Sidney, feem to be little better than a biographical detail. There is one poem indeed, among the reft, which exhibits a groupe of imaginary per filian, 1388, and ended with Lord Haftings, 1483. In this work he was affifted by others; and particularly by Thomas Sackville who wrote the life of the Duke of Buckingham, together with the Induction; intending, at the fame time, to write all thofe remarkable lives which occurred from the Conqueft to Trefilian, with whom Baldwine originally begun, and, to have printed his additional part, together with all that Baldwine, and his friends, had already performed, in one volume, and to have prefixed the Induction as a general preface to the whole. But this was never executed. Afterwards another] collection appeared under the fame title, by W. Higgins, 1587. The laft edition of the whole, with additions, was published by Richard Niccols, 1610. Drayton's Legends are written on this plan; and are therefore added in Niccols's edition. Mr. Walpole, in his entertaining account of Royal and Noble Authors, remarks, that this set of poems gave rife to the fashion of hiftorical plays, particularly to Shakfpeare's, vol. 1. pag. 166. ed. 2. But the custom of acting Histories seems to have been very old on our stage. Stowe feems to make them a diftinct fpecies of drama; but perhaps improperly." Of late days, instead of those stage-playes, [at Skinner's Well, 1391, "and 1409.] have been used comedies, tragedies, enterludes, "and HISTORIES, both true and fained." Survey of London, Edit. 1618. quarto, pag. 144. T. WARTON. The popularity of the Mirrour for Magiftrates appears to have given rise also to another work in the reign of Elizabeth, partly in verse and partly in profe, entitled SPECULUM TRAGICUM REGUM, PRINCIPUM, & MAGNATUM fuperioris fæculi · celebriorum ruinas exitufque calamitofos breviter complectens, &c. Auctore J. D. i. e. John Dickenfon, as the dedication shows. Among the characters, whofe unfortunate ends are exhibited, are many Englishmen. This work appears to have been likewife popular. The fourth edition is now before me, in 12mo. printed at Leyden in 1605. TODD. 2 Bishop Hall ridicules the Mirrour for Magiftrates, in the following paffage of his Satires, B. i. S. 5. "Another whofe more heavie-hearted faint "Delights in nought but notes of ruefull plaint, fonages, fo beautifully drawn, that, in all probability, they contributed to direct, at least to ftimulatè, Spenfer's imagination in the conftruction of the like reprefentations. Thus much may be truly faid, that Sackville's Induction approaches nearer to the Faerie Queene in the richnefs of allegorick defcription, than any previous or fucceeding poem. After the Faerie Queene, allegory began to decline, and by degrees gave place to a fpecies of poetry, whofe images were of the metaphyfical and abstracted kind. This fafhion evidently took its rife from the predominant studies of the times, in which the difquifitions of fchool divinity, and the perplexed fubtilities of philofophick difputation, became the principal pursuits of the learned. Then Una fair gan drop her princely mien ." James I. is contemptuously called a pedantick monarch. But, furely, nothing could be more ferviceable to the interefts of learning, at its infancy, than this fuppofed foible. "To stick the doctor's "Urgeth his melting mufe, with folemn tears, T. WARTON. a Mafon's Mufæus. But the Spirit of chivalry, of which prince Henry was remarkably fond, together with fhows and pageantries, ftill continued, yet in a lefs degree. Hence G. Wither introduces Britannia thus lamenting the death of prince Henry, Prince Henries Obfeq. El. 31. p. 368, Lond. 1617. 66 Alas, who now fhall grace my Turnaments, "Or honour me with deeds of Chivalrie? "What fhall become of all my Merriments, My Ceremonies, Showes of Heraldrie, "And other Rites ?" T. WARTON. See Davies on the Immortality of the Soul, Lord Brooke's Treatife of Human Learning, Donne's Works, &c. T. WARTON. |