copy of it is inserted on the title page of Southey's edition of the Mort Arthur, 4to. 1817. A few of the wood cuts of East's edition are considerably older than the date when he printed: the subsequent is a fac-simile of one of them, which was used by Wynkyn de Worde in 1520, before Christopher Goodwyn's poem, "The Chaunce of a Dolorous Lover." The block then came into the hands of W. Copland, and, having been used by him in his reprint of the Mort Arthur, it subsequently was in the possession of East, who applied it to the same purpose in the volume before us: it precedes the 15th book, "Of Syr Launcelot du lake," the chapter being thus headed: "Howe Sir Launcelot came into a Chappelle, where he founde dead in a why te sherte a man of religion of an hundred wynter olde." Thus Wynkyn de Worde's "dolorous lover" served the turn, in the hands of Copland and East, to represent a dead man in a white shirt, an hundred winters old. At the time the block was employed by East it had been considerably worn and battered. The "Prologus" is inserted on the next leaf after the title, and it is followed by "the Table" of the contents of each chapter of the twenty-one books into which the whole work is divided: it fills eleven leaves. These have distinct signatures, and the first chapter of the first book begins on A. j., with a wood cut half-length of Arthur in armour, holding his sword and shield. Somewhat less than a century after East's edition appeared, Martin Parker, the notorious ballad-poet, published an abridgment of the Mort Arthur, with the title of "The most admirable Historie of that most renowned Christian Worthy Arthur, King of Great Britaines." (London, Printed for Francis Coles, 1660), and on the fore-front of the life of this "Christian Worthy," he is represented as a Turkish hero, in a wood cut that had been intended and used for the Soldan of Babylon, mounted on a plumed charger. ARTHUR.-The most ancient and famous History of the renowned Prince Arthur, King of Britaine, wherein is declared his Life and Death &c. As also all the noble Acts &c. of his valiant Knights of the Round Table. Newly refined and published for the delight and profit of the Reader. London, Printed by William Stansby for Jacob Bloome, 1634. B. L. 4to. 467 leaves. as it This is a reprint of the Mort Arthur with certain modernizations, or, is worded in the title-page, "newly refined." In an address to the reader, he is informed that the original history was written in French and Italian, and that in the ninth year of Edward IV. Sir Thomas Maleore, [Malory] translated it into English. "In many places, (adds the writer), this volume is corrected, (not in language, but in phrase), for here and there King Arthur or some of his knights were declared in their communication to sweare prophane and use superstitious speeches, all (or the most part) of which is either amended or quite left out by the paines and industry of the compositor and corrector of the presse; so that as it is now, it may passe for a famous piece of antiquity, revived almost from the gulph of oblivion, and renued for the pleasure and profit of present and future times." To this succeed Caxton's "Prologue" and his "Preface," and "The contents of the first part," in one hundred and fiftythree chapters. Facing the title-page is a coarse wood cut of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the king making his appearance out of a hole in the centre of it. The second and third parts have each fresh title-pages, with a repetition of the wood cut to the first part. The second part consists of one hundred and seventy-four chapters, and the third part of one hundred and seventy-six chapters. A table of contents is prefixed to each. AVALE, LEMEKE.-A Commemoration or Dirige of Bastarde Edmonde Boner, alias Savage, usurped Bisshoppe of London. Compiled by Lemeke Avale. Episcopatum ejus accipiet alter. Anno Domini 1569. Imprinted by P. O. B. L. Svo. 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 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 Tunstall, 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, Lorde, surely thou hast given them eternall rest Placebo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Bo. Heu me! beware the bugge: out, quod Boner, alas! De profundis clamavi, how is this matter come to passe? Lævavi 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, Miles Huggarde was a celebrated verse-maker in the reign of Mary, but of John Availe we have 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 was called Skeltonic verse: "Homo natus Came to heaven gatus. Sir, you doe come to latus, Go, go to Constantinopoli, To your maister the Turke, There shall you lurke, Emong the heathen soules. Sometyme your shorne brethren of Poules Were as blacke as Moules With their cappes fower forked, Their shoes warme corked; Nosed like redde grapes, Constant as she apes. Lo, lo, now is he dedde 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 pages. "The Eighth Lesson opens thus: "My fleshe is consumed; there is but skinne and bone: My tongue that used lewde woordes, and lippes awaie are rotten : 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. By mistaking the authority of Anthony Wood, (Athene Oxonienses, i. 349, 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 66 Singer," and at others, "Player on the Virginals." |