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of perception not often employed in the criticism of our elder poets; but the Monk of Bury was excelled by the most gifted and affectionate of his followers-Hawes. He was an accomplished and learned person, familiar with the French and Italian poets, and endowed with a prodigious memory. Wood informs us that he could repeat the entire works of Lydgate. His Pastime of Pleasure was printed in 1515, having been probably composed in 1506. He was patronized by Henry the Seventh, and his reputation survived in the following reign. He has very beautifully compared the influence of poetry to the rays of a carbuncle in a dark night; and his own poem illuminates one of the dreariest seasons in the long winter of English literature. Warton, who has copiously analyzed the Pastime of Pleasure, commends its romantic fiction; and in the Observations upon the Fairy Queen* he awards to the author the high merit of having revived the light of allegory, embellished the stanza of Chaucer, and decorated invention with harmonious numbers. Southey, who has reprinted the poem, pronounces it the best of its century; and Mr. Hallam, in his latest contribution to the history of learning, not only recognises in Hawes the erudition and philosophy of the school of James the First, but even ventures to institute a parallel between the History of Graunde Amoure and the Pilgrim's Progress+. Hawes certainly hoped for his production a more lasting reputation than it has obtained.

* Observations on Spenser, vol. ii. p. 105.

Its perusal was recom

+ If we consider the Historie of Graunde Amoure less as a poem to be read than as a measure of the Author's power, we shall not look down upon so long and well-sustained an allegory. In this style of poetry much was required that no mind ill-stored with reflection, or incapable of novel combination, could supply; a clear conception of abstract modes, a familiarity with the human mind, and with the effects of its qualities on human life, a power of justly perceiving and vividly representing the analogies of sensible and rational objects. Few that preceded Hawes have possessed more of these gifts than himself.-Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. i. p. 431.

mended to the reader as an excursion into the pleasant island of wisdom and science; and he was assured of finding in the poem, not only the Pastime of Pleasure but of profit. The title embraced "the knowledge of the seven sciences and the course of man's life in this world.” The author seems to have designed the complete picture of a gentleman, educated in the chivalrous accomplishments of the age; and in this respect he may be thought to have anticipated the more finished and beautiful portraiture of Spenser. The moral purpose of both poets was openly avowed. Hawes, in the prefatory lines to Henry the Seventh, professed his intention of imitating the poets of antiquity, who were accustomed

To cloak the truth;

a tale to surmise

and he concluded the poem with a prayer that God would give him grace

Bokes to compyle of morall virtue.

But if the allegory of Hawes possessed any of the lineaments of Spenser's, it certainly had not any of its luxuriance of imagery, or floridness of colouring; we cannot read the Pastime of Pleasure without applying to it the observation of Sismondi upon the Troubadours*. His imaginary personages come forward to talk, not to act. Geometry instructs Graunde Amoure in Mathematics; Astronomy reads him a lecture upon the stars; and Music unfolds the mysteries of her art. A story performed by Abstractions soon grows wearisome; and an allegory, not diversified by the changeful hues of a very lively fancy, fades into vapour before the eyes of the reader.

The poem of Hawes cannot be judged by fragments, but the quotation of two stanzas will afford a specimen of *La Litterature du Midi de l'Europe, vol. i.

p. 202.

his style of versification and manner of expression. Graunde Amoure is conducted by Truth before king Melizyus :

And then the good Knyght Trouthe, incontinent
Into the chamber so pure, sone me ledde
Where sate the kyng, so much benivolent
In purple clothed, set full of rubyes redde
And all the floore, on whiche we did treade
Was cristall clere, and the roufe at nyght
With carbuncles did geve a marveylous light.
The walles were hanged with clothe of tissue
Brodied with pearles, and rubyes rubiconde
Mixte with emeraudes, so full of virtue
And brodred about with many a dyamonde,
An heavy hart, it will make joconde
For to beholde, the marveylous riches,
The lordship, wealth, and the great worthines-

There sat Melizyus, in his hye estate

And over his head was a payre of balaunce

With his crowne and sceptre, after the true rate

Of another worldly king.

The reign of Henry the Seventh presents few topics of interest to the historian of our literature; "all things," says Wood, "whether taught or written, seemed trite and inane." The accession of Henry the Eighth, in 1509, was full of golden promise. In the following year Erasmus began to teach Greek at Cambridge; and Colet laid the foundation of St. Paul's School. Italy also unfolded her treasures of poetry; and the music of Petrarch was breathed from the lips of Surrey. Henry ascended the throne at a most auspicious season; and even the evil attending his father's policy may be said to have ultimately promoted the good of the country. The rapid advances of fine literature, at a time when the kingdom rang with religious controversy, were indeed astonishing*. The chivalrous character of the youthful monarch, and the magnificence with which he invested the govern

*Southey's Specimens of the later English Poets, vol. i.

ment, were powerful instruments in awakening the imagination. He was, moreover, well versed in the scholastic learning of the age, with which his mind had been imbued in childhood; his praise was the theme of his noblest and most accomplished contemporaries. Erasmus beheld in him the parent of the golden age, and the amiable Melancthon delighted to compare him to the most illustrious of the Ptolemies, when the glory of Athens had passed into Alexandria, and kings rejoiced in the companionship of poets and philosophers. In the later years of his life, the mind of Henry underwent a melancholy change; but that the love of goodness and of learning never entirely forsook him, the professorships he founded at Oxford and Cambridge, in 1540, for Greek, Hebrew, civil law, divinity, and medicine, abundantly testify *.

The Reformation, while it introduced a fresh principle into the habits and feelings of the people, especially affected the structure of our poetry. The unsealed Book was studied with enthusiasm and religious delight. The brief and troubled reign of Edward the Sixth abounded with metrical translations of various parts of the Scriptures. Christopher Tye put the Acts of the Apostles into metre ; and so late as 1604 Dr. Bridges, Bishop of Oxford, produced a translation of the New Testament into Latin hexameters, impelled to the task, as he declared, by a hope of impressing the Sacred Book more easily upon the recollection. The well-known version of the Psalms, by Sternhold and Hopkins, is alone remembered; having maintained its place in our churches until it was superseded by the inferior paraphrase of Brady and Tate.

*It is scarcely necessary to refer the reader to Turner's History of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, and Dr. Noti's elaborate edition of the Earl of Surrey's Poems, for an ingenious and interesting account of the literature of this era,

Sternhold, who had received a collegiate education, was Groom of the Robes to Henry the Eighth; a situation which he obtained, as we learn from Braithwait, by his poetical talents. He retained his office in the court of Edward the Sixth.

Warton has pointed out a "coincidence of circumstances" between Sternhold and Marôt. They were, indeed, both laymen and court-poets; and Sternhold dedicated his translation to Henry the Eighth, and Marôt to Francis the First. I think the parallel extends no further. Sternhold, of a serious, ardent, and upright mind, seems to have been destitute of all the higher elements of his art; Marôt, on the contrary, the idol of a romantic court, negligent and luxurious in his life, was endowed with a grace of style, a sportiveness of fancy, and a pathos of sentiment, not often in later times so harmoniously blended. Spenser borrowed from him one of his sweetest pastorals; and French critics date from his appearance the history of their poetry. Sternhold concluded his life, as he had passed it, in prosperity and peace; Marôt, in poverty and affliction.

Of Sternhold's fellow-labourer Hopkins, the profession only has been ascertained; he was a clergyman and schoolmaster in Suffolk, and, in the opinion of Warton, a better poet than his companion. Among the other contributors to the collective version, we may notice William Whyttingham, the friend of Calvin and Knox; John Pullain, a student of Christchurch, and archdeacon of Colchester, in the reign of Elizabeth; Thomas Norton, more favourably known as the assistant of Lord Buckhurst, in the drama of Gorboduc; Robert Wisdome, whose apprehensions of the Pope and the Turk were ridiculed by the witty Bishop Corbet; and T. C., supposed to be Thomas Churchyard, a most indefatigable versifier, who, during more than half a century, continued, with unhappy facility, to pour out

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