EDWARD THE SECOND. BISHOP TANNER says, that in the Heralds' Office is extant, in manuscript, a Latin poem, written by this unhappy prince, while a prisoner, the title of which is, "Lamentatio gloriosi Regis Edwardi de Carnarvon, quam edidit Tempore suæ Incar cerationis." As this king never showed any symptoms of affection to literature, as one never heard of his having the least turn to poetry, I should believe that this melody of a dying monarch is about as authentic as that of the old poetic warbler, the swan, and no better founded than the title of Gloriosi. His majesty scarcely bestowed this epithet on himself in his affliction; and whoever conferred it, probably made him a present of the verses too. If they are genuine, it is extraordinary that so great a curiosity should never have been published. However, while there was this authority, he was not to be omitted. [What lord Orford considered as very dubitable, Fabian seems to have ascertained, in the following extract from his Chronicle3: 2 P.253. 3 Edit. 1559. vol. ii. p. 185. "Then Edward remaining in prison, as first in the castel of Kenelworth, and after in the castel of Barkle, took greate repentaunce of hys former life, and made a lamentable complainte for that he had so grevously offended God; whereof a part I have set out, but not all, lest it shoulde bee tedious to the readers or hearers. "Damnum mihi contulit 4 tempore brumali Fortuna satis aspera vehementis mali. "These, wyth manye other after the same makynge,” adds the chronicler, "I have seene, whyche are reported to bee of hys owne makynge, in the tyme of hys emprysonment." Through the liberal kindness of Edmund Lodge, esq. Lancaster herald, I have had an opportunity of inspecting the Latin poem referred to by bishop Tanner, among the manuscripts in the college of arms, and I find it to be a copy of the same production which Fabian has cited; and which, as Mr. Barrington remarks, if it do not prove the monarch a poet, yet places his scholarship out of doubt. The specimen, however, selected by Fabian, promises to be more creditable to the writer, and satisfactory to the reader, than the entire monkish original would prove, + Contigit, MS. VOL. I. 5 Forma, ib. • Ceteris, ib. C which extends to 112 lines. Mr. Andrews, in his entertaining History, has offered the following imitation of the preceding extract: On my devoted head Her bitterest showers, Sage and discerning, Fam'd for his learning, Each grace she banishes, And beauty vanishes.7 Mr. Douce has pointed out the following article, apparently by this prince, in a manuscript that had belonged to sir Henry Spelman, and was sold with the rest of his collection in 1709. "De la Roi Edward le Fiz Roi Edward, le Chanil fist mesmes."] Son qe 7 Hist. of G. B. vol. i. p. 346. |