selves of, the opportunity of correcting the press of their effusions. Much was formerly left to ignorant and mechanical readers of proofs, and there is good reason to believe that many of the productions of our best versifiers came surreptitiously from the press.

Such was the case, not only with Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella," but with the whole of what follows in the impression to which Nash's epistle was prefixed. Samuel Daniel, who in 1591 had published nothing but a prose translation, had no fewer than 28 poems stolen from him, and printed without authority by Newman. Of these he inserted 23 in his "Delia," (twice printed in 1592) where he complains of the injury thus done to him: the remaining five pieces by Daniel are only to be found in the volume under consideration. Five other poems subscribed "Finis. Content," appear to be in the same predicament, and merit preservation in a more accurate state; as well as a production subscribed E. O. (Earl of Oxford), set to music in Dowland's " Second Booke of Songs or Ayres," fol. 1600. The two stanzas which wind up Nash's edition of "Astrophel and Stella," "If flouds of teares," &c., may be by Nash, but they are unquestionably found in a MS. in' the Bodleian Library, preserved at the end of one of Bishop Tanner's curious volumes. There they would seem to belong not to Nash, but to Nicholas Breton.

Avale, Lemeke.-A Commemoration or Dirige of Bastarde Edmonde Boner, alias Sauage, vsurped Bisshoppe of London. Compiled by Lemeke Auale. Episcopatum

eius accipiet alter. Anno Domini 1569. Imprinted by P. O. B. L. 8vo. 22 leaves.

Bishop Bonner died in the Marshalsea prison on the 5th of September, 1569, and this highly humorous and bitter attack upon him was doubtless published just afterwards. It is possible that the name of the author, Lemeke Avale, is only assumed. The tract is principally in verse, and in a biographical point of view extremely curious. It was obviously written and printed in haste, that the temporary interest occasioned by the death of Bonner might not subside before it was ready for publication.

"The Preface" of nine pages is chiefly directed to establish that Bonner, like Tunstal, by his bastardy was disqualified for being bishop. The Dirige then begins; and the rest of the tract, with the exception

of about six pages at the end, is in verse of various measures, with Latin lines and half lines intermixed: thus the following is part of an address to Bonner :

"Custodiens parvulos dominus, the Lorde hath helped Sion,
And taken awaie this mad dogge, this wolfe, and this Lion;
Qui erupit animam de morte, and my hart from sorowe,
Now, gentle maister Boner, God give you good morrowe.
Lorde, surely thou hast given them eternall rest
Whom Boner in prison moste sore opprest.

Placebo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo.

Heu me! beware of the bugge: out, quod Boner, alas!
De profundis clamavi, how is this matter come to passe?
Lavavi oculos meos from a darke deepe place.

Now, Lazarus helpe Dives with one droppe of grace.

Ne quando rapiat ut Leo animam meam, druggarde, druggarde,
To defende this matter came John Availe, and Miles Huggarde."

Miles Huggarde was a celebrated verse-maker in the reign of Mary, but of John Availe we recollect no record: he was perhaps some relation to Lemeke Avale, the supposed author of this tract. The whole is conducted in the form of Lessons and Responses, and "the fifth Lesson" commences in what has been called Skeltonic verse:

"Homo natus

Came to heaven gatus.

Sir, you doe come to latus,

With your shorne patus. ***

Thou art filius populi,

Go, go to Constantinopoli,

To your maister the Turke,

There shall you lurke,

Emong the heathen soules.

Sometime your shorne brethren of Poules

Were as blacke as Moules

With their cappes fower forked,

Their shoes warm corked;

Nosed like redde grapes,

Constant as she apes.

Lo, lo! now is he dedde
That was so well fedde,
And had a softe bedde.
Estote fortis in bello;

Good Hardyng and thy fellowe,
If you be Papistes right

Come steale hym awaie by night,
And put him in a shrine;

He was the Popes devine."

This measure is continued for several opens thus:

pages.

"The Eighth Lesson"

"My fleshe is consumed; there is but skinne and bone:
In sainct Georges Churche yarde my grave and I alone.
My tongue that used lewde woordes, and lippes awaie are rotten:
Take pitie upon me R. L., and H, let me not be forgotten."

Initials are here and elsewhere employed, when, perhaps, the writer could not venture to insert names at length. He is often coarse and abusive, and not a few of the allusions to persons and events are now unintelligible. Among other things it is said, that Crowley the printer, afterwards a preacher, delivered a sermon before the door of the Marshalsea where Bonner was confined, in hopes of converting him:

"One morne betime I loked forth, as ofte as I did before,

And did se a pulpit, in churches wise, made by my prison dore.

A preacher there was, that Crowly hight, whiche preached in that place,
A meane, if God had loved me, to call me then to grace.

Hodie si vocem was his theme, and harden not thyne harte,

As did the fathers the rebbelles old, that perished in desarte."

In the next year was printed by John Day another tract of the same kind, called " A Recantation of Famous Pasquin of Rome," by R. W., from which it appears that John Heywood, the poet and dramatic author, was alive in 1570. It seems certain, indeed, that he was not dead even as late as 1576-7, because in a list made on 29th of January in that year," of all such as are certified into the Exchequer to be fugitives over the seas, contrary to the stat. 13 Eliz." the name of John Heywood is included, and he is described as "of the county of Kent." He was then resident in Louvaine, his sons, Ellis and Jasper, being with him. By mistaking the authority of Anthony Wood, (Athenæ Oxonienses, i. 394, Edit. 1813), it has been supposed that Heywood died in 1565. Vide Biogr. Dram. i. 329, and Gen. Biogr. Dict. xvii. 445. Wood only says that, after the decease of Queen Mary, Heywood "left the nation for religion sake, and settled at Mechlin in Brabant," and that he died there "about 1565." The earliest notice we have of him is in 1514, when he probably was one of the children of the Chapel Royal, of whom he afterwards seems to have become master. (Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetr. and the Stage, i. 70). In the King's Household Books, later in the reign of Henry VIII., he is sometimes termed "Singer," and at others, Player on the Virginals."

66

BACON, FRANCIS. -The Translation of certaine Psalmes into English Verse: By the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount St. Alban.-London, Printed for Hanna Barret and Richard Whitaker &c. 1625. 4to. 11 leaves. The dedication is "to his very good friend Mr. George Herbert," author of "The Temple," printed in 1633, and hence it appears that

these translations had been "the exercise" of Lord Bacon's "sickness." He also thanks Herbert for "the pains it pleased you to take about some of my writings," referring to the translation by Herbert of part of the "Advancement of Learning" into Latin.

The Psalms versified are the 1st, the 12th, the 90th, the 104th, the 126th, the 137th, and the 149th, in various measures.

Among the MSS. at Bridgewater House are several letters from Lord Bacon to Lord Ellesmere, among them the celebrated epistle upon the want of a history of Great Britain, a work which Samuel Daniel afterwards undertook, but did not live to complete. [Vide DANIEL post.] This letter has been printed in both editions of the "Cabala," but most imperfectly in all respects, and with the total omission of two very important passages. It is, therefore, here subjoined from the original, which is carefully and clearly penned, and is entirely in the handwriting of Lord Bacon. It is addressed "To the R. Hon. his very good L. the L. Ellesmere, L. Chancellor of England," and it is indorsed by Lord Ellesmere as follows:-"Sir Francis Bacon touching the story of England."

"Yt may pleas yor. good L.

Some late Act of his M. referred to some former speach which I have heard from yor. L. bredd in me great desire, and by strength of desire a bouldnesse to make an humble proposition to yor L. such as in me can be no better than a wysh, but, if yor L. should apprehend it, may take some good and woorthy effect. The Act I speake of is the order giuen by his M. as I vnderstand, for the erection of a tomb or monument for or late Soueraine Lady Q. Elizabeth; whearin I may note much, but this at this tyme: That as her M. did alwaies right to his Highness hopes; so his M. doth in all things right to her memory —a very just and princely retribution. But from this occasion, by a very easy ascent, I passed furder; being put in mynd, by this Representative of her person, of the more true and more firm Representative which is of her life and gouvernmt. For as Statuaes and Pictures are dumbe histories, so histories are speaking Pictures. Whearin if my affection be not to great, or my reading to small, I am of this opynion, that if Plutarque were aliue to write lyues by Paralleles, it would trouble him, for vertue and fortune both, to find for her a Parallele amongst wemen. And though she was of the passive sex, yet her gouvernmt was so actiue, as in my simple opynion it made more impression vpon the seuerall states of Europe, then it received from thence. But I confess vnto yor L. I could not stay hear; but went a littell furder, into the consideration of the tymes which have passed since K. Henry the 8th,, whearin I find the strangest variety that in like number of Successions, of any hereditary Monarchy, hath euer been knowne: The Raign of a child, the offer of an vsurpation (though it were but as a Diary Ague) the Raign of a Lady maried to a forein Prince, and the Raign of a Lady solitary and vnmaried. So that as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that they have certen trepidations and wauerings before they fix and settle, so it seameth that by the prouidence of God, this Monarchy, before it was to settle in his M. and his generations (in wch I hope it is now established for euer) it had these prælusive chaunges in these barren Princes. Neyther could I contein myself hear (as it is easier to produce then to stay a wysh) but calling to remembrance the vnwoorthiness of the History of England (in the main continuance thearof) and the partiality and

obliquity of that of Scotland in the latest and largest Author that I have seen, I conceived it would be honor for his M. and a woorke very memorable, if this Iland of great Brittaine, as it is now joyned in Monarchy for the ages to come, so were joyned in History for the tymes passed, and that one just and complete History were compiled of both Nations. And if any man thinke it may refresh the memory of former discords, he may satisfie himself with the verse Olim meminisse juuabit; for the case being now altered, it is matter of comfort and gratulation to remember former troubles.

"Thus much, if it may pleas yor Lp, was in the optatiue moode. It is trew that I did looke a littell into the potentiall, whearin the hope wch I conceiued was grounded vpon three obseruations: The first of the tymes, which doe flourysh in learnyng both of art and language, wch giueth hope not onely that it may be doon, but that it may be well doon. For when good things are vndertaken in yll tymes it turneth but to losse; as in this very particular, we haue a fresh example of Polydore Virgile, who being designed to write the English History by K. Henry the 8th, (a straung choise to chuze a stranger) and for his better instruction hauing obteyned into his hands many registers and memorialls owt of the Monasteries, did indeed deface and suppresse better things then those he did collect and reduce. Secondly, I doe see that which all the world seeth in his M. both a wonderfull judgment in learnyng, and a singular affection towards learnyng and the workes of true honor, which are of the mynd and not of the hand. For thear cannot be the like honor sowght in the building of galleries, or the planting of elmes along high waies, and the like manufactures, things rather of magnificence then of magnanimity, as there is in the vniting of States, pacifying of controversies, nourishing and augmenting of learnyng and arts, and the particular actions apperteinyng vnto these; of which kynd Cicero judged trewly when he said to Cæsar, Quantum operibus tuis detrahet vetustas, tantum addet laudibus. And lastlie I called to mynd that yor L. at sometymes hath been pleased to express vnto me a great desire that some thing of this nature should be perfourmed, answerably indeed to yor other noble and woorthy courses and actions, whearin yor L. showeth yor self not onely an excellent Chauncellor and Counsellor, but also an exceeding fauorer and fosterer of all good learnyng and vertue, both in men and matters, persons and actions, joyning and adding vnto the great services towards his M. wch haue in small compass of tyme been accumulated vpon yor Lp. many other deseruings both of the Church and Commonwealth and particulars; so as the opynion of so great and wise a man doth seem vnto me a good warrant both of the possibility and woorth of this matter. But all this while I assure my self I cannot be mistaken by yor L. as if I sowght an office or imployment for myself; for no man knoweth better than your L. that (yf there were in me any faculty therevnto, as I am most vnable) yet neither my fortune nor profession would permytt it. But bycause thear be so many good paynters, both for hand and colors, it needeth but incouragement and instructions to giue life and light vnto it.

So in all humbleness I conclude my presenting to yor good L. of this wysh, wch if it perish, it is but a losse of that which is not And thus crauing pardon, that I haue taken so much tyme from yor L. I allwaies remayn,

Your Lps very humbly and
much bounden
FR. BACON.

Graies Inne this 2d of Aprile 1605." It is very possible that Daniel was encouraged to write his history by Lord Ellesmere, in consequence of the preceding letter. The same task was subsequently assigned to Sir Henry Wotton, and a Privy Seal is extant in the Chapter House, Westminster, raising his annuity from £200 to £400 for the express purpose. This fact is not mentioned by the biographers of Wotton.