"Let the houses and possessions of these two Catalines be considered, let their furniture, and building, let their daily purchases, and ready hability to purchase still, let their offices and functions wherein they sit, let their titles, and styles claimed and used, let their places in council, let their authority over the nobility, let their linking in alliance with the same, let their access to the prince, let their power and credit with her: let this their present state, I say, in all points (being open and unknown to no men) be compared with their base parentage and progeny, (the one raised out of the robes, and the other from a _Sheeprive's_ son) and let that give sentence as well of the great difference of the tastes, that the several fruits gathered of this tree by your Q., and by them do yield, as whether any man at this day approach near unto them in any condition wherein advancement consisteth. Yea, mark you the jollity and pride that in this prosperity they shew; the port and countenance that every way they carry; in comparison of them that be noble by birth. Behold at whose doors your nobility attendeth. Consider in whose chambers your council must sit, and to whom for resolutions they must resort; and let these things determine both what was the purpose indeed, and hidden intention of that change of religion, and who hath gathered the benefits of that mutation: that is to say, whether for your Q., for your realms, or for their own sakes, the same at first was taken in hand, and since pursued as you have seen. For according to the principal effects of every action must the intent of the act be deemed and presumed. For the objected excuses (that they did it for conscience, or for fear of the French) be too frivolous and vain to abuse any wise man. For they that under King Henry were as catholic, as the six articles required: that under King Edward were such Protestants as the Protector would have them; that under Q. Mary were Catholics again, even to creeping to the Cross: and that under Q. Elizabeth were first Lutheran, setting up Parker, Cheiny, Gest, Bill, &c., then Calvinists, advancing Grindall, Juell, Horne, &c.: then Puritans, maintaining Sampson, Deering, Humfrey, &c.; and now (if not Anabaptists and Arians) plain Machiavellians, yea, that they persuade in public speeches that man hath free liberty to dissemble his religion, and for authority do allege their own examples and practice of feigning one religion for another in Q. Mary's time (which containeth a manifest evacuation of Christ's own coming and doctrine, of the Apostles, preaching and practice, of the blood of the martyrs, of the constancy of all confessors; yea, and of the glorious vain deaths of all the stinking martyrs of their innumerable sects of hereticks, one and other having always taught the confession of mouth to be as necessary to salvation as the belief of heart): shall these men now be admitted to plead conscience in religion; and can any man now be couzined so much, as to think that these men by conscience were then moved to make that mutation?" Fol. 96, 97. "At home, likewise, apparent it is how they provided, every way to make themselves strong there also. For being by their own marriages allied already to the house of Suffolk of the blood royal, and by consequence thereof to the house of Hertford also, and their children thereby incorporated to both: mark you how now by marriage of their children with wily wit and wealth together, they wind in your other noblest houses unto them that are left, I mean in credit and countenance. Consider likewise how, at their own commendation and preferment, they have erected, as it were, almost a new half of your nobility (of whom also they have reason to think themselves assured) and the rest then (that were out of hope to be won to their faction) behold how, by sundry fine devices, they are either cut off, worn out, fled, banished or defaced at home," &c., fol. 105, rect. The good LORD BURGHLEY, says Strype, was so moved at this slander that he uttered these words: "God amend his spirit, and confound his malice." And by way of protestation of the integrity and faithfulness of both their services, "God send this estate no worse meaning servants, in all respects, than we two have been." _Annals of the Reformation_, vol. ii., 178. Camden's _Hist. of Q.

Elizabeth_, p. 192,--as quoted by Herbert.]

[Footnote 314: "All curates must continually call upon their parochians to provide a book of the _Holy Bible in English_, of THE LARGEST FORM, within 40 days next after the publication hereof, that may be chained in some open place in the church," &c. Injunctions by Lee, Archbishop of York: Burnet's _Hist. of the Reformation_, vol. iii., p. 136, Collections. This custom of fixing a great bible in the centre of a place of worship yet obtains in some of the chapels attached to the colleges at Oxford. That of Queen's, in particular, has a noble brazen eagle, with outstretched wings, upon which the foundation members read the lessons of the day in turn.]

LOREN. Had you not better confine yourself to personal anecdote, rather than enter into the boundless field of historical survey?

LYSAND. I thank you for the hint. Having sermonized upon the general features of the Reformation, we will resume the kind of discourse with which we at first set out.

PHIL. But you make no mention of the number of curious and fugitive pamphlets of the day, which were written in order to depreciate and exterminate the Roman Catholic religion? Some of these had at least the merit of tartness and humour.

LYSAND. Consult Fox's _Martyrology_,[315] if you wish to have some general knowledge of these publications; although I apprehend you will not find in that work any mention of the poetical pieces of Skelton and Roy; nor yet of Ramsay.

[Footnote 315: The curious reader who wishes to become master of all the valuable, though sometimes loose, information contained in this renowned work--upon which Dr.

Wordsworth has pronounced rather a warm eulogium (_Ecclesiastical Biography_, vol. i., p. xix.)--should secure the _first_ edition, as well as the latter one of 1641, or 1684; inasmuch as this first impression, of the date of 1563, is said by Hearne to be "omnium optima:" see his Adami de Domerham, _Hist. de reb. gest. Glaston._, vol.

i., p. xxii. I also learn, from an original letter of Anstis, in the possession of Mr. John Nichols, that "the late editions are not quite so full in some particulars, and that many things are left out about the Protector Seymour."]

LOREN. Skelton and Roy are in my library;[316] but who is RAMSAY?

[Footnote 316: Vide p. 226, ante.]

LYSAND. He wrote a comical poetical satire against the Romish priests, under the title of "_A Plaister for a galled Horse_,"[317] which Raynald printed in a little thin quarto volume of six or seven pages.

[Footnote 317: In Herbert's _Typographical Antiquities_, vol. i., p. 581, will be found rather a slight notice of this raw and vulgar satire. It has, however, stamina of its kind; as the reader may hence judge:

Mark the gesture, who that lyst; First a shorne shauelynge, clad in a clowt, Bearinge the name of an honest priest, And yet in no place a starker lowte.

A whore monger, a dronkard, ye makyn him be snowte-- At the alehouses he studieth, till hys witte he doth lacke.

Such are your minysters, to bringe thys matter about: But guppe ye god-makers, beware your galled backe.

Then wraped in a knaues skynne, as ioly as my horse, Before the aulter, in great contemplacion Confessinge the synnes of his lubbrysh corse To god and all saynctes, he counteth hys abhomination Then home to the aulter, with great saintification With crosses, and blesses, with his boy lytle Jacke: Thus forth goeth syr Jhon with all his preparation.

But guppe ye god-makers, beware your galled backe.

Then gloria in excelsis for ioye dothe he synge More for his fat liuinge, than for devocion: And many there be that remember another thinge Which syng not wyth mery hart for lacke of promocion Thus some be mery, some be sory according to their porcion Then forth cometh collects, bounde up in a packe, For this sainct and that sainct, for sickenes, and extorcion But guppe ye god-makers, beware your galled backe.

Stanzas, 17, 18, 19.

At the sale of Mr. Brand's books, in 1807, a copy of this rare tract, of six or seven pages, was sold for 3_l._ 17_s._ 6_d._ Vide _Bibl. Brand_, part i., no. 1300. This was surely more than both plaister and horse were worth! A poetical satire of a similar kind, entitled "_John Bon and Mast Person_," was printed by Daye and Seres; who struck off but a few copies, but who were brought into considerable trouble for the same. The virulence with which the author and printer of this lampoon were persecuted in Mary's reign is sufficiently attested by the care which was taken to suppress every copy that could be secured. The only perfect known copy of this rare tract was purchased at the sale of Mr. R. Forster's books, for the Marquis of Bute; and Mr.

Stace, the bookseller, had privilege to make a fac-simile reprint of it; of which there were six copies struck off UPON VELLUM. It being now rather common with book-collectors, there is no necessity to make a quotation from it here. Indeed there is very little in it deserving of republication.]

LOREN. I will make a memorandum to try to secure this "comical" piece, as you call it; but has it never been reprinted in our "_Corpora Poetarum Anglicorum_?"

LYSAND. Never to the best of my recollection. Mr. Alexander Chalmers probably shewed his judgment in the omission of it, in his lately published collection of our poets. A work, which I can safely recommend to you as being, upon the whole, one of the most faithful and useful, as well as elegant, compilations of its kind, that any country has to boast of. But I think I saw it in your library, Lorenzo?--

LOREN. It was certainly there, and bound in stout Russia, when we quitted it for this place.

LIS. Dispatch your "gall'd horse," and now--having placed a justly merited wreath round the brow of your poetical editor, proceed--as Lorenzo has well said--with personal anecdotes. What has become of Wyatt and Surrey--and when shall we reach Leland and Bale?

LYSAND. I crave your mercy, Master Lisardo! One at a time. Gently ride your bibliomaniacal hobby-horse!

WYATT and SURREY had, beyond all question, the most exquisitely polished minds of their day. They were far above the generality of their compeers. But although Hall chooses to notice _the whistle_[318]

of the latter, it does not follow that I should notice his _library_, if I am not able to discover any thing particularly interesting relating to the same. And so, wishing every lover of his country's literature to purchase a copy of the poems of both these heroes,[319]

I march onward to introduce a new friend to you, who preceded Leland in his career, and for an account of whom we are chiefly indebted to the excellent and best editor of the works of Spencer and Milton.

Did'st ever hear, Lisardo, of one WILLIAM THYNNE?

[Footnote 318: About the year 1519, Hall mentions the Earl of Surrey "on a great coursir richely trapped, and a greate whistle of gold set with stones and perle, hanging at a great and massy chayne baudrick-wise." Chronicles: p. 65, a.

See Warton's _Life of Sir Thomas Pope_: p. 166, note o., ed.

1780. This is a very amusing page about the custom of wearing whistles, among noblemen, at the commencement of the 16th century. If Franklin had been then alive, he would have had abundant reason for exclaiming that these men "paid too much for their _whistles_!"]

[Footnote 319: Till the long promised, elaborate, and beautiful edition of the works of SIR THOMAS WYATT and LORD SURREY, by the Rev. Dr. Nott,[E] shall make its appearance, the bibliomaniac must satisfy his book-appetite, about the editions of the same which have already appeared, by perusing the elegant volumes of Mr. George Ellis, and Mr.

Park; _Specimens of the Early English Poets_; vol. ii., pp.

43-67: _Royal and Noble Authors_, vol. i., pp. 255-276. As to early black letter editions, let him look at _Bibl.

Pearson_, no. 2544; where, however, he will find only the 7th edition of 1587: the first being of the date of 1557.

The eighth and last edition was published by Tonson, in 1717, 8vo. It will be unpardonable not to add that the Rev.

Mr. Conybeare is in possession of a perfect copy of Lord Surrey's Translation of a part of the aeneid, which is the third only known copy in existence. Turn to the animating pages of Warton, _Hist. Engl. Poetry_; vol. iii., pp. 2-21, about this translation and its author.]

[Footnote E: Conducting this celebrated book through the press occupied Dr. Nott several years; it was printed by the father of the printer of this work, in two large 4to.

volumes--and was just finished when, in the year 1819, the Bolt Court printing-office, and all it contained, was destroyed by fire. Only _two_ copies of the works of Wyatt and Surrey escaped, having been sent to Dr. Nott by the printer, as _clean sheets_.]

LIS. Pray make me acquainted with him.

LYSAND. You will love him exceedingly when you thoroughly know him; because he was the first man in this country who took pains to do justice to Chaucer, by collecting and collating the mutilated editions of his works. Moreover, he rummaged a great number of libraries, under the express order of Henry VIII.; and seems in every respect (if we may credit the apparently frank testimony of his son[320]), to have been a thoroughbred bibliomaniac. Secure Mr. Todd's _Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer_, and set your heart at ease upon the subject.

[Footnote 320: "--but (my father, WILLIAM THYNNE) further had commissione to serche all the libraries of England for Chaucer's works, so that oute of all the abbies of this realme (which reserved any monuments thereof), he was fully furnished with multitude of bookes," &c. On Thynne's discovering Chaucer's Pilgrim's Tale, when Henry VIII. had read it--"he called (continues the son) my father unto hym, sayinge, 'William Thynne, I doubt this will not be allowed, for I suspecte the byshoppes will call thee in question for yt.' To whome my father beinge in great fauore with his prince, sayed, 'yf your Grace be not offended, I hope to be protected by you.' Whereupon the kinge bydd hym goo his waye and feare not," &c. "But to leave this, I must saye that, in those many written bookes of Chaucer, which came to my father's hands, there were many false copyes, which Chaucer shewethe in writinge of Adam Scriuener, of which written copies there came to me, after my father's death, some fyve and twentye," &c. _Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer_; pp.

11, 13, 15. Let us not hesitate one moment about the appellation of _Helluo Librorum_,--justly due to MASTER WILLIAM THYNNE!]

But it is time to introduce your favourite LELAND: a bibliomaniac of unparalleled powers and unperishable fame. To entwine the wreath of praise round the brow of this great man seems to have been considered by Bale among the most exquisite gratifications of his existence. It is with no small delight, therefore, Lorenzo, that I view, at this distance, the marble bust of Leland in yonder niche of your library, with a laureate crown upon its pedestal. And with almost equal satisfaction did I observe, yesterday, during the absence of Philemon and Lisardo at the book-sale, the handsome manner in which Harrison,[321] in his _Description of England_, prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicles, has spoken of this illustrious antiquary. No delays, no difficulties, no perils, ever daunted his personal courage, or depressed his mental energies. Enamoured of study, to the last rational moment of his existence, Leland seems to have been born for the "Laborious Journey" which he undertook in search of truth, as she was to be discovered among mouldering records, and worm-eaten volumes. Uniting the active talents of a statist with the painful research of an antiquary, he thought nothing too insignificant for observation. The confined streamlet or the capacious river--the obscure village or the populous town--were, with parchment rolls and oaken-covered books, alike objects of curiosity in his philosophic eye! Peace to his once vexed spirit!--and never-fading honours attend the academical society in which his youthful mind was disciplined to such laudable pursuits!

[Footnote 321: "One helpe, and none of the smallest, that I obtained herein, was by such commentaries as LELAND had sometime collected of the state of Britaine; books vtterlie mangled, defaced with wet and weather, and finallie vnperfect through want of sundrie volumes." _Epistle Dedicatorie_; vol. i., p. vi., edit. 1807. The history of this great man, and of his literary labours, is most interesting. He was a pupil of William Lilly, the first head-master of St. Paul's school; and, by the kindness and liberality of a Mr. Myles, he afterwards received the advantage of a college education, and was supplied with money in order to travel abroad, and make such collections as he should deem necessary for the great work which even then seemed to dawn upon his young and ardent mind. Leland endeavoured to requite the kindness of his benefactor by an elegant copy of Latin verses, in which he warmly expatiates on the generosity of his patron, and acknowledges that his acquaintance with the _Almae Matres_ (for he was of both Universities) was entirely the result of such beneficence.

While he resided on the continent, he was admitted into the society of the most eminent Greek and Latin scholars, and could probably number among his correspondents the illustrious names of Budaeus, Erasmus, the Stephenses, Faber and Turnebus. Here, too, he cultivated his natural taste for poetry; and, from inspecting the FINE BOOKS which the Italian and French presses had produced, as well as fired by the love of Grecian learning, which had fled, on the sacking of Constantinople, to take shelter in the academic bowers of the Medici--he seems to have matured his plans for carrying into effect the great work which had now taken full possession of his mind. He returned to England, resolved to institute an inquiry into the state of the LIBRARIES, ANTIQUITIES, RECORDS, and WRITINGS then in existence. Having entered into holy orders, and obtained preferment at the express interposition of the king (Henry VIII.), he was appointed his antiquary and library-keeper; and a royal commission was issued, in which Leland was directed to search after "ENGLAND'S ANTIQUITIES, and peruse the libraries of all cathedrals, abbies, priories, colleges, &c., as also all the places wherein records, writings, and secrets of antiquity were reposited." "Before Leland's time," says Hearne--in a strain which makes one shudder--"all the literary monuments of antiquity were totally disregarded; and students of Germany, apprized of this culpable indifference, were suffered to enter our libraries unmolested, and to cut out of the books, deposited there, whatever passages they thought proper--which they afterwards published as relics of the ancient literature of their own country." _Pref. to the Itinerary._ Leland was occupied, without intermission, in his laborious undertaking, for the space of six years; and, on its completion, he hastened to the metropolis to lay at the feet of his sovereign the result of his researches. As John Kay had presented his translation of the _Siege of Rhodes_ to Edward IV., as "A GIFT of his labour," so Leland presented his Itinerary to Henry VIII., under the title of _A New Year's Gift_; and it was first published as such by Bale in 1549, 8vo. "Being inflamed," says the author, "with a love to see thoroughly all those parts of your opulent and ample realm, in so much that all my other occupations intermitted, I have so travelled in your dominions both by the sea coasts and the middle parts, sparing neither labour nor costs, by the space of six years past, that there is neither cape nor bay, haven, creek, or pier, river, or confluence of rivers, breaches, wastes, lakes, moors, fenny waters, mountains, valleys, heaths, forests, chases, woods, cities, burghes, castles, principal manor places, monasteries, and colleges, but I have seen them; and noted, in so doing, a whole world of things very memorable." Leland moreover tells his majesty--that "By his laborious journey and costly enterprise, he had conserved many good authors, the which otherwise had been like to have perished; of the which part remained in the royal palaces, part also in his own custody," &c. As Leland was engaged six years in this literary tour, so he was occupied for a no less period of time in digesting and arranging the prodigious number of MSS. which he had collected. But he sunk beneath the immensity of the task. The want of amanuenses, and of other attentions and comforts, seems to have deeply affected him.

In this melancholy state, he wrote to Archbishop Cranmer a Latin epistle, in verse, of which the following is the commencement--very forcibly describing his situation and anguish of mind:

Est congesta mihi domi supellex Ingens, aurea, nobilis, venusta, Qua totus studeo Britanniarum Vero reddere gloriam nitori; Sed fortuna meis noverca coeptis Jam felicibus invidet maligna.

Quare, ne pereant brevi vel hora Multarum mihi noctium labores Omnes---- CRANMERE, eximium decus priorum!

Implorare tuam benignitatem Cogor.

The result was that Leland lost his senses; and, after lingering two years in a state of total derangement, he died on the 18th of April, 1552. "Proh tristes rerum humanarum vices! proh viri optimi deplorandam infelicissimamque sortem!" exclaims Dr. Smith, in his preface to Camden's Life, 1691, 4to. The precious and voluminous MSS. of Leland were doomed to suffer a fate scarcely less pitiable that [Transcriber's Note: than] that of their owner. After being pilfered by some, and garbled by others, they served to replenish the pages of Stow, Lambard, Camden, Burton, Dugdale, and many other antiquaries and historians.

"Leland's Remains," says Bagford, "have been ever since a standard to all that have any way treated of the Antiquities of England. Reginald Wolfe intended to have made use of them, although this was not done 'till after his death by Harrison, Holinshed, and others concerned in that work.

Harrison transcribed his Itinerary, giving a Description of England by the rivers, but he did not understand it. They have likewise been made use of by several in part, but how much more complete had this been, had it been finished by himself?" _Collectanea_: Hearne's edit., 1774; vol. i., p.

LXXVII. Polydore Virgil, who had stolen from these Remains pretty freely, had the insolence to abuse Leland's memory--calling him "a vain-glorious man;" but what shall we say to this flippant egotist? who according to Caius's testimony (_De Antiq. Cantab. Acad._, lib. 1.) "to prevent a discovery of the many errors of his own History of England, collected and burnt a greater number of ancient histories and manuscripts than would have loaded a waggon." There are some (among whom I could number a most respectable friend and well qualified judge) who have doubted of the propriety of thus severely censuring Polydore Virgil; and who are even sceptical about his malpractices. But Sir Henry Savile, who was sufficiently contemporaneous to collect the best evidence upon the subject, thus boldly observes: "Nam Polydorus, ut homo Italus, et in rebus nostris hospes, et (quod caput est) neque in republica versatus, nec magni alioqui vel judicii vel ingenii, pauca ex multis delibans, et falsa plerumque pro veris amplexus, historiam nobis reliquit cum caetera mendosam tum exiliter sane et jejune conscriptam." _Script. post. Bedam._, edit. 1596; pref. "As for Polydore Virgil, he hath written either nothing or very little concerning them; and that so little, so false and misbeseeming the ingenuitie of an historian, that he seemeth to have aimed at no other end than, by bitter invectives against Henry VIII., and Cardinal Wolsey, to demerit the favour of Queen Mary," &c., Godwyn's translation of the _Annales of England_; edit. 1630, author's Preface. "It is also remarkable that Polydore Virgil's and Bishop Joscelin's edition of Gildas's epistle differ so materially that the author of it hardly seems to be one and the same person."

This is Gale's opinion: _Rer. Anglican. Script. Vet._; vol.

i., pref., p. 4. Upon the whole--to return to Leland--it must be acknowledged that he is a melancholy, as well as illustrious, example of the influence of the BIBLIOMANIA!

But do not let us take leave of him without a due contemplation of his expressive features, as they are given in the frontispiece of the first volume of the Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood. 1772, 8vo.

[Illustration: IN REFECTORIO COLL. OMN. ANIM. OXON.]]

BALE follows closely after Leland. This once celebrated, and yet respectable, writer had probably more zeal than discretion; but his exertions in the cause of our own church can never be mentioned without admiration. I would not, assuredly, quote Bale as a decisive authority in doubtful or difficult cases;[322] but, as he lived in the times of which he in a great measure wrote, and as his society was courted by the wealthy and powerful, I am not sure whether he merits to be treated with the roughness with which some authors mention his labours. He had, certainly, a tolerable degree of strength in his English style; but he painted with a pencil which reminded us more frequently of the horrific pictures of Spagnoletti than of the tender compositions of Albano. That he idolized his master, Leland, so enthusiastically, will always cover, in my estimation, a multitude of his errors: and that he should leave a scholar's inventory (as Fuller saps [Transcriber's Note: says]), "more books than money behind him,"

will at least cause him to be numbered among the most renowned bibliomaniacs.