merable controversial tracts in prose, had repeated editions, and from his own press. But one of his treatises, to prove that Lent is a human invention and a superstitious institution, deserves notice for its plan: it is a Dialogue between Lent and Liberty. The personification of Lent is a bold and a perfectly new prosopopeia. In an old poem* of this age against the papists, written by one doctor William Turner, a physician, but afterwards dean of Wells, the Mass, or mistress MISSA, is personified, who, arrayed in all her meretricious trappings, must at least have been a more theatrical figures. Crowley likewise wrote, and printed in 1588, a rhyming manual, The School of Vertue and Book of good Nurture. This is a translation into metre, of many of the less exceptionable Latin hymns anciently used by the catholics, and still continuing to retain among the protestants a degree of popularity. One of these begins, Jam Lucis orto sydere. At the end are prayers and graces in rhyme. This book, which in Wood's time had been degraded to the stall of the ballad-singer, and is now only to be found on the shelf of the antiquary, was intended to supersede or abolish the original Latin hymns, which were only offensive because they were in Latin, and which were the recreation of scholars in our universities after dinner on festival days. At an archiepiscopal visitation of Merton college in Oxford, in the year 1562, it was a matter of inquiry, whether the superstitious hymns appointed to be sung in the Hall on holidays, were changed for the psalms in metre; and one of the fellows is accused of having attempted to prevent the singing of the metrical Te Deum in the refectory on All-saints day t.

It will not be foreign to our purpose to remark here, that when doctor Cosins, prebendary of Durham, afterwards bishop, was cited before the parliament in 1640, for reviving or supporting papistic usages in his cathedral, it was alleged against him, that he had worn an embroidered cope, had repaired some ruinous cherubims, had used a consecrated knife for dividing the sacramental bread, had renovated the blue cap and golden beard of a little image of Christ on bishop Hatfield's tomb, had placed two lighted tapers on the altar which was decorated with emblematic sculpture, and had forbidden the psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins to be sung in the choir".

* [My late friend Mr. Fillingham, who
underwent the task of framing an Index
to Warton's History, pointed out that this
was not a poem, but a Dialogue in prose,
entitled "The Examination of the Masse."
The speakers are,
"Mastres Missa.
Master Knowledge.
Master Fremouth.

Master Justice of the peace.
Peter Preco, the Cryer.
Palemon, the Judge.

Doctor Porphyry.

Sir Philip Philargirye."-PARK.] See Strype, Eccl. Mem. ii. p. 138. See the speakers in Ochin's Dialogue against the Pope, Englished by Poynet, printed in 1549. Strype, ibid. 198.

Strype's Parker, B. 11. Ch. ii. pag. 116, 117. Compare Life of Sir Thomas Pope, 2nd edit. p. 354.

Neale's Hist. Purit. vol. ii. ch. vii. pag. 387. edit. 1733. Nalson's Collections, vol. i. pag. 789.

SECTION XLVII.

Tye's Acts of the Apostles in rhyme. His merit as a Musician. Early piety of king Edward the Sixth. Controversial Ballads and Plays. Translation of the Bible. Its effects on our Language. Arthur Kelton's Chronicle of the Brutes. First Drinking-song. Gammar Gurton's Needle.

It

BUT among the theological versifiers of these times, the most notable is Christopher Tye, a doctor of music at Cambridge in 1545, and musical preceptor to prince Edward, and probably to his sisters the princesses Mary and Elizabeth. In the reign of Elizabeth he was organist of the royal chapel, in which he had been educated. To his profession of music he joined some knowledge of English literature; and having been taught to believe that rhyme and edification were closely connected, and being persuaded that every part of the Scripture would be more instructive and better received if reduced into verse, he projected a translation of the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES into familiar metre. appears that the Book OF KINGS had before been versified, which for many reasons was more capable of shining under the hands of a translator. But the most splendid historical book, I mean the most susceptible of poetic ornament, in the Old or New Testament, would have become ridiculous when clothed in the fashionable ecclesiastical stanza. Perhaps the plan of setting a narrative of this kind to music was still more preposterous and exceptionable. However, he completed only the first fourteen chapters; and they were printed in 1553, by William Serres, with the following title, which, by the reader who is not acquainted with the peculiar complexion of this period, will hardly be suspected to be serious: "The ACTES OF THE APOSTLES translated into Englyshe metre, and dedicated to the kinges most excellent maiestye by Cristofer Tye, doctor in musyke, 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 the Sixth." 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 thynges".

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,

Nor 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
By notes set forth to synge or playe,
To recreate the mynde.

And though they be not curious,
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 his lute, is a royal character of which we have seldom heard. But he proceeds,

a

That such good thynges your Grace might move

Your Lute when ye assaye,

In stede of songes of wanton love,
These stories then to play.

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

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 Christes 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,

с

As they oft tymes did use,

Together they into did come

The Sinagoge of Jewes;

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

That they so spake to Jew and Greke
That many did bileve.

Doctor Tye's Acts of the APOSTLES were sung for a time in the royal chapel of Edward the Sixth; 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

Of

tion of the work "impotent." Dr. Tye,
in disclaiming for his performance the
epithet "curious," could only mean that
he had not made it merely a vehicle for
the display of the intricacies of harmony;
for, although much of it is written in sim-
ple counterpoint, it exhibits frequent in-
stances of fugue and even of canon.
the latter a very beautiful example will be
found in the ninth chapter. And, withal,
there is such a graceful flow of melody
pervading the composition, that the mu-
sician even of the nineteenth century
listens to it with unabated delight. Much
of it is worthy, as it is in the style, of its
author's illustrious Italian cotemporary,
Palestrina.-E. T.]

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 harmony, 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 monasteries. 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 1569e.

It is not my intention to pursue any further 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 king Edward the Sixth 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

d 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.

In duodecimo.-I had almost forgot

to observe, that John Mardiley, clerk of the king's Mint, called Suffolk-house in Southwark, translated twenty-four 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 stiff-necked papist in verse, Lond. by T. Reynold, 1548. 8vo. and a Short Resytal of certyne holie doctors, against the real presence, collected in myter [metre] by John Mardiley. Lond. 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.

12mo.