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period, given by Mr. Ritson to the British Museum, where it is called The King's Balade,' is much more in character.

Pastime with good company

I love, and shall until I die;

Grudge whoso will, but none deny ;
So God be pleased, so live will I.
For my pastaunce

Hunt, song, and dance,

My heart is set,

All goodly sport,

To my comfort,

Who shall me let?

Youth will needs have dalliance,
Of good or ill some pastaunce,
Company methinketh them best
All thoughts and fancies to digest;

For idleness

Is chief mistress

Of vices all:

Then who can say,
But pass the day,

Is best of all.

Company with honesté

Is virtue, and vice to flee ;

Company is good or ill,

But every man hath his free will.

The best ensue,

The worst eschew,
My mind shall be:

Virtue to use,
Vice to refuse,

I shall use me.

H

So much for Henry the eighth, whose character was never better drawn than in the following stanza :

"Harry the eighth, as story saith,

Was a king so unjust,

He ne'er did spare man in his ire,
Nor woman in his lust."

except perhaps, the memorable words of Wolsey, on his death-bed.- -"He is a prince, who rather than he will miss or want any part of his will, he would endanger the one half of his kingdom."

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ALEXANDER NEVILLE,

BORN 1544.-DIED 1614.

Alexander Neville (or Nevil) was the eldest son of Richard Neville, of an ancient and honourable Nottinghamshire family, and born at Canterbury, according to Fuller, probably in 1544; his mother was Anne, daughter of Sir Walter Mantel, of Heyford, in Northamptonshire. He was brother to Thomas Neville, the fourth Dean of Canterbury, and after spending his youth at court, retired to that City, where he passed his age in honourable seclusion, and the pursuits of literature. As an author, perhaps the following account by Warton, in his History of English Poetry, is the best we can select.

"Alexander Neville translated, or rather paraphrased the Edipus of Seneca, in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the year 1560, but it was not printed till 1581. It is dedicated to Dr. Wootton, a privy-counsellor, and his god-father. Notwithstanding the translator's youth, it is by far the most spirited and elegant version in the whole collection, and it is to be regretted that he did not undertake all the rest. He seems to have been persuaded by his friends, who were of the graver sort, that poetry was only one of the lighter accomplishments of a young man, and that it should soon give way to the more weighty pursuits of literature.

"Neville occurs taking a Master's degree at Cambridge, with Robert, Earl of Essex, on the 6th day of

July, 1581. He was one of the learned men whom Archbishop Parker retained in his family; and at the time of that Prelate's death, in 1575, was his secre

tary. He wrote a latin narrative of the Norfolk insurrection under Kett, which is dedicated to Archbishop Parker, and was printed in 1575. To this he added a latin account of Norwich, printed the same year, called Norvicus, the plates of which were executed by Lyne and Hogenberg, the Archbishop's domestic engravers, in 1574. He published the Cambridge verses on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, which he dedicated to Lord Leicester in 1587. He was the author of another latin work, Apologia ad Walliæ proceres, London, 1576. He projected, but probably never completed, a translation of Livy, in 1577. He died October 4th, 1614."

An article in the Kentish Register, for January, 1795, signed Ant. A-r-, furnishes us with the following paragraph :—

66

His brother, the Dean, seems to have survived him only until the 14th of May following, and they were both buried in an ancient Chauntry in the Cathedral of Canterbury, which had been founded in 1447, by Lady Joan Brenchley, and having fallen into decay, was repaired and beautified by the Dean, as a burial place for his family. In it a marble monument was placed by him to the memory of his father, mother, and uncle; and another to himself and his brother. In 1787 when the cathedral was newly paved, it was thought proper to remove this small chapel, as a blemish to the outside appearance of the venerable structure to which it was attached. At the time it was said that the rich and beautiful monuments in it, would be moved

with care, and replaced with the utmost fidelity, in some more convenient spot. But they were, (as the lovers of the ancient arts saw with great concern,) little regarded when pulled down; but moved among other rubbish from place to place, untill they were nearly destroyed, when by the earnest exertions of a respectable character lately deceased, (Mr. John Hayward), then a resident of Canterbury, but formerly a Surgeon at Ash, and an ingenious Antiquarian,) the mutilated relics of the figures of the Dean and his brother, were placed in the chapel of the Virgin Mary." *

The translation by Neville occurs in a volume of which the following is the title :-"Seneca, his ten tragedies translated into English. Imprinted at London, in Fleet-street, near unto Saint Dunstan's Church, by Thomas Marsh, 1581, 4to." The translations were made by different hands, and at different times.

Neville seems to have been a learned man and an elegant writer of the latin language; many complimentary addresses from his pen, are to be found in the various publications of the day, and he bore his part in the volume published by the university to which he belonged, on the death of Sir Philip Sidney. As a writer of English poetry, little need be said, what he printed was the exercise of a boy, and as such, has

This elegant and beautiful chapel, is on the east side of the Martyrdom, and now commonly called the Dean's Chapel, several of them having been buried there. On the remains of the Neville monument, the effigy of the Dean is the most perfect; he is kneeling at a reading desk, in his habit; that of Alexander is in the same posture, in armour. The inscription which is placed between the two figures, remains entire, but, as the monument was probably erected in their lives's time, the blanks left for the dates, have not been filled up. Beneath is the family motto-" NE VILE VELIS.”

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