'and one of the Gentylmen of hys graces most honourable Chappell, 'with notes to eche chapter to synge and also to play upon the Lute, 'very necessarye for studentes after theyr studye to fyle their wittes, ' and alsoe for all christians that cannot synge, to reade the good and 'godlye storyes of the lives of Christ his apostles.' It is dedicated in Sternhold's stanza, 'To the vertuous and godlye learned prynce 'Edward VI.' As this singular dedication contains, not only anecdotes of the author and his work, but of his majesty's eminent attention to the study of the scripture, and of his skill in playing on the lute, I need not apologise for transcribing a few dull stanzas; especially as they will also serve as a specimen of the poet's native style and manner, unconfined by the fetters of translation.

Your Grace may note, from tyme to tyme,

That some doth undertake

Upon the Psalms to write in ryme,
The verse plesaunt to make :
And some doth take in hand to wryte
Out of the Booke of Kynges;
Because they se your Grace delyte
In suche like godlye thynges1.
And last of all, I youre poore man,
Whose doinges are full base,
Yet glad to do the best I can
To give unto your Grace,

Have thought it good now to recyte
The stories of the Actes

Even of the Twelve, as Luke doth wryte,

Of all their worthy factes.

Unto the text I do not ad,

For nothyng take awaye;

And though my style be gros and bad,

The truth perceyve ye may.

My callynge is another waye,

Your Grace shall herein fynde

My notes set forth to synge or playe,
To recreate the mynde.

And though they be not curious3,
But for the letter mete;

Ye shall them fynde harmonious,

And eke pleasaunt and swete.

A young monarch singing the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES in verse to

1 Strype says, that 'Sternhold composed several psalms at first for his own solace. For he set and sung them to his organ. Which music king Edward VI. sometime hearing, for he was a gentleman of the privy-chamber, was much delighted with them. Which occasioned his publication and dedication of them to the said king.' ECCLES. MEMOR. B. i. ch. 2. p. 86.

1 That is, they are plain and unisonous; the established character of this sort of music.

750

TYE'S ACTS OF THE APOSTLES IN ENGLISH VERSE.

his lute, is a royal character of which we have seldom heard. But he proceeds,

That such good thynges your Grace might move

Your Lute when he assaye,

In stede of songes of wanton love,

These stories then to play.

So shall your Grace plese God the lorde
In walkyng in his waye,

His lawes and statutes to recorde

In your heart night and day.

And eke your realme shall florish styll,
No good thynge shall decaye,
Your subjectes shall with right good will,
These wordes recorde and saye;

"Thy lyf, O kyng, to us doth shyne,

'As God's boke doth thee teache; 'Thou dost us feede with such doctrine 'As God's elect dyd preache.'

From this sample of his original vein, my reader will not perhaps hastily predetermine, that our author has communicated any considerable decorations to his ACTS OF THE APOSTLES in English verse. There is as much elegance and animation in the two following initial stanzas of the fourteenth chapter, as in any of the whole performance, which I shall therefore exhibit.

It chaunced in Iconium,

As they [apostles] oft tymes did use,
Together they into did come

The Sinagoge of Jues.

Where they did preache and only seke
God's grace them to atcheve;

That so they speke to Jue and Greke
That many did bileve.

Doctor Tye's ACTS OF THE APOSTLES were sung for a time in the royal chapel of Edward VI. But they never became popular. The impropriety of the design, and the impotency of the execution, seem to have been perceived even by his own prejudiced and undiscerning age. This circumstance, however, had probably the fortunate and seasonable effect, of turning Tye's musical studies to another and a more rational system to the composition of words judiciously selected from the prose psalms in four or five parts. Before the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, at a time when the more ornamental and intricate music was wanted in our service, he concurred with the celebrated Tallis and a few others in setting several anthems, which are not only justly supposed to retain much of the original strain of our ancient choral melody before the reformation, but in respect of har

mony, expression, contrivance, and general effect, are allowed to be perfect models of the genuine ecclesiastic style. Fuller informs us, that Tye was the chief restorer of the loss which the music of the church had sustained by the destruction of the monasteries1. Tye also appears to have been a translator of Italian. The History of Nastagio and Traversari translated out of Italian into English by C. T. perhaps Christopher Tye, was printed at London in 15692.

It is not my intention to pursue any farther the mob of religious rhymers, who, from principles of the most unfeigned piety, devoutly laboured to darken the lustre, and enervate the force, of the divine pages. And perhaps I have been already too prolix in examining a species of poetry, if it may be so called, which even impoverishes prose; or rather, by mixing the style of prose with verse, and of verse with prose, destroys the character and effect of both. But in surveying the general course of a species of literature, absurdities as well as excellencies, the weakness and the vigour of the human mind, must have their historian. Nor is it unpleasing to trace and to contemplate those strange incongruities, and false ideas of perfection, which at various times, either affectation, or caprice, or fashion, or opinion, or prejudice, or ignorance, or enthusiasm, present to the conceptions of men, in the shape of truth.

I must not, however, forget, that Edward VI. is to be ranked among the religious poets of his own reign. Fox has published his metrical instructions concerning the eucharist, addressed to sir Antony Saint Leger. Bale also mentions his comedy called the WHORE OF BABYLON, which Holland the heroologist, who perhaps had never seen it, and knew not whether it was a play or a ballad, in verse or prose, pronounces to be a most elegant performance. [HEROOLOG. p. 27.] Its elegance, with some, will not perhaps apologise or atone for its subject and it may seem strange, that contoversial ribaldry should have been suffered to enter into the education of a great monarch. But the genius, habits, and situation, of his age should be considered. The reformation was the great political topic of Edward's court. Intricate discussions in divinity were no longer confined to

1 WORTHIES, ii. 244. Tallis here mentioned, at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, and by proper authority, enriched the music of Marbeck's liturgy. He set to music the TE DEUM, BENEDICTUS, MAGNIFICAT, NUNC DIMITTIS, and other offices, to which Marbeck had given only the canto firmo, or plain chant. He composed a new Litany still in use; and improved the simpler modulation of Marbeck's Suffrages, Kyries after the Commandments, and other versicles, as they are sung at present. There are two chants of Tallis, one to the VENITE EXULTEMUS, and another to the Athanasian Creed.

2 In duodecimo. I had almost forgot to observe, that John Mardiley, clerk of the king's Mint, called Suffolk-house in Southwark, translated 24 of David's Psalms into English verse, about 1550. He wrote also Religious Hymns. Bale, par. post. p. 106. There is extant his Complaint against the stiffnecked papist in verse. Lond. by T. Raynold, 1548. 8vo. And, a Short Resytal of certyne holie doctors, against the real presence, collected in myter [metre] by John Mardiley. Lond. 12mo. See another of his pieces on the same subject, and in rhyme, presented and dedicated to queen Elizabeth, MSS. REG. 17 B. xxxvii. The Protector Somerset was his patron.

752 THE BALLAD OF LUTHER.—A POPE, A CARDINAL, &c.

the schools or the clergy. The new religion, from its novelty, as well as importance, interested every mind, and was almost the sole object of the general attention. Men emancipated from the severities of a spiritual tyranny, reflected with horror on the slavery they had so long suffered, and with exultation on the triumph they had obtained. These feelings were often expressed in a strain of enthusiam. The spirit of innovation, which had seized the times, often transgressed the bounds of truth. Every change of religion is attended with those ebullitions, which growing more moderate by degrees, afterwards appear eccentric and ridiculous.

We who live at a distance from this great and national struggle between popery and protestantism, when our church has been long and peaceably established, and in an age of good sense, of politeness and philosophy, are apt to view these effusions of royal piety as weak and unworthy the character of a king. But an ostentation of zeal and example in the young Edward, as it was natural so it was necessary, while the reformation was yet immature. It was the duty of his preceptors, to impress on his tender years, an abhorrence of the principles of Rome, and a predilection to that happy system which now seemed likely to prevail. His early diligence, his inclination to letters, and his seriousness of disposition, seconded their active endeavours to cultivate and to bias his mind in favour of the new theology, which was now become the fashionable knowledge. These and other amiable virtues his contemporaries have given young Edward in an eminent degree. But it may be presumed, that the partiality which youth always commands, the specious prospects excited by expectation, and the flattering promises of religious liberty secured to a distant posterity, have had some small share in dictating his panegyric.

The new settlement of religion, by counteracting inveterate prejudices of the most interesting nature, by throwing the clergy into a state of contention, and by disseminating theological opinions among the people, excited so general a ferment, that even the popular ballads and the stage, were made the vehicles of the controversy between the papal and protestant communions.

The Ballad of LUTHER, the POPE, a CARDINAL, and a HUSBANDMAN, written in 1550, in defence of the reformation, has some spirit, and supports a degree of character in the speakers, There is another written about the same time, which is a lively satire on the English Bible, the vernacular liturgy, and the book of homilies, [Percy BALL. ii. 102.] The measure of the last is that of PIERCE PLOWMAN, with the addition of rhyme: a sort of versification which now was not uncommon.

Strype has printed a poem called the PORE HELP, of the year

1550, which is a lampoon against the new preachers or gospellers, not very elegant in its allusions, and in Skelton's style. The anonymous satirist mentions with applause Mayster Huggarde, or Miles Hoggard, a shoemaker of London, and who wrote several virulent pamphlets against the reformation, which were made important by extorting laboured answers from several eminent divines1. He also mentions a nobler clarke, whose learned Balad in defence of the holy Kyrke had triumphed over all the raillery of its numerous opponents. The same industrious annalist has also preserved A song on bishop Latimer, in the octave rhyme, by a poet of the same persuation3. And in the catalogue of modern English prohibited books delivered in 1542 to the parish priests, to the intent that their authors might be discovered and punished, there is the Burying of the Mass in English rithme. But it is not my intention to make full and formal collection of these fugitive religious pasquinades, which died with their respective controversies.

In the year 1547, a proclamation was published to prohibit preaching. This was a temporary expedient to suppress the turbulent harangues of the catholic ministers, who still composed no small part of the parochial clergy: for the court of augumentations took care perpetually to supply the vacant benefices with the disincorporated monks, in order to exonerate the exchequer from the payment of their annuities. These men, both from inclination and interest, and hoping to restore the church to its ancient orthodoxy and opulence, exerted all their powers of declamation in combating the doctrines of protestantism, and in alienating the minds of the people from the new doctrines and reformed rites of worship. Being silenced by authority, they had recourse to the stage: and from the pulpit removed their polemics to the play-house. Their farces became more successful that their sermons. The people flocked eagerly to the play-house, when deprived not only of their ancient pageantries, but of their pastoral discourses, in the church. Archbishop Cranmer and the protector Somerset were the chief objects of these dramatic invectives. At length, the same authority which had checked the preachers, found it expedient to control the players: and a new proclamation, which I think has not yet appeared in the history of the British drama, was promulgated in the following terms. [Dat. 3. Edw. vi. Aug. 8.] The inquisitive reader will observe, that from this instrument plays appear to have been long before a general and familiar

One of these pieces is, 'A Confutation to the answer of a wicked ballad, printed in 1550. Crowley above-mentioned wrote, A Confutation of Miles Hoggard's wicked ballad made in "defence of the transubstantiation of the Sacrament.' Lond. 1548. oct.

Strype, ECCL. MEM. ii. APPEND. i. p. 34.

3 Ibid. vol. i. APPEND. xliv. p. 121.

4 Burnet, HIST. REF. vol. i. REC. Num. xxvi. p. 257.

5 Full, CHARDS HISTORY B. vii. Cent. xvi. p. 390.