On the second page of the last leaf of this part is

The sixt hundred of Epigrammes, invented and made by lohn Heyvvood. Anno 1587.

One seven-line stanza, addressed to the reader, precedes the usual table.

Of writing a gentleman.

"Thou writ'st thy selfe gentleman in one woord, brother, But gentle is one woord, and man is another."

"A taunt of a wife to her husband. "Wife, I weene thou art dronke or lunaticke; Nay husband, weomen are neuer moone sicke; Come what conjunction in time, late, or soone, Wee say (not the woman) the man in the moone."

not always customary at that period, (if we may rely on a contemporary writer) to stop their speech, however it became unmannerly and severe. Contempt and amusement running parallel, the virulence occasionally displayed was considered of no importance. This licentious custom being authorized or allowed at a public feast, or banquet, in the time of the author, (which appears a remnant of the manners and liberty enjoyed by minstrels in reciting their Jays); the following extract from the Apothegms, already noticed, bears coincident proof. "When in the comedie of Aristophanes, entitled the Cloudes, he was with many and bitter wordes of railling and defamacion, as he would saie, torn and mangled in peces: and one of the companie standing by, said, doth not this go to your heart, Socrates? By Jupiter, saie he again, it greueth my stomacke nothing at all if I bee snapped at, and bitten with merie tautes at the staige where enterludes are plaied, no more then if it wer at a great diner or baquet where wer many geastes. This custome and vsage euen still endureth emong certain of the Germaines; (yea, [adds the translator] and in England also), that in feastes of greate resort there is brought in for the nones some ieasting feloe, that maie scoff and iest vpo the geastes, as thei sitte at the table; with the which iesting to be stiered to angre is accoˇpted a thyng moche contrarie to all courtesie or good maner."

"Of sauing of shoes.

"Thou wearst (to weare thy wit and thrift together) Moyles of veluet to saue thy shoes of lether;

Oft haue wee seene moyle men ride vpon assys,
But see assys goe on moyles, that passys." *

" Of vse.

"Vse maketh maistry, this hath bene said alway:
But all is not alway as all men do say;

In Aprill the koocoo can sing her song by rote,
In June of tune shee can not sing a note;

At first, koocoo, koocoo, sing still can she doo,
At last kooke, kooke, kooke, six kookes to one koo."

"An Epilogve+ or conclusion of this worke by Tho. Newton.

"Loe, here is seene the fruite that growes by painfull quill and braine; How after dayes of mortall date a man reuiues againe;

This author Heywood dead and gone, and shrin'de in tombe of clay, Before his death by penned workes did carefully assay

To build himself a lasting tombe, not made of stone and lyme,

But better farre, and richer too, triumphing ouer tyme.

Whereby hee dead, yet liueth still, enregistred in minde

Of thankefull crewe, who through his paines no small aduantage finde.
And so farre forth as mortall wightes may possibly procure

A lasting life here on this earth, procedes from learning sure;
Whereby a man doth in some sort himself immortall make,
Keeping his name, his fame and state, from death of Lethe lake.
Yea, written workes (which rightly may bee tearm'de the birth of wit)
To eternize their father's fame, are knowne to bee more fit,
Then carnall children can or may promote the fame or kinde
Of fleshly parents: leauing naught but pelfe and trash'behinde.

* Moiles a kind of high-soaled-shoes, worn in ancient times by kings and great persons. Philips's World of Works

First printed with this edition.

Nowe, as wee may a lyon soone discerne euen by his pawe,
So by this worke we quickely may a iudgement certaine drawe,
What kinde of man this author was, and what a pleasaunt vaine
Of fancie's forge and modest mirth lay lodged in his braine.
And if that any wrawling wretch, or churlishe chattering clowne,
(For none els will) dare peeuishely hereat to winche or frowne,
Or thinke it stuff of small auaile; or theme of ease to write;
Such curres must suffred be to barke: alas, they cannot bite.
But those that wise and learned be, and knowe white chalke from cheese
Can tell full well what toile belonges vnto such bookes as theese.
Let him therefore that gathred first these prouerbes fine and braue,
With roundly couched epigrammes, a friendly censure haue;
That others may of ashes his, be raisde, like paines to take,
In hope to worke their countries weale, and so an end I make."
Thomas Newtonvs Cestrèshyrius-1587.

(Col.) Imprinted at London, in Fleetestreete, neare
to Saint Dunston's Churche, by Thomas Marshe,
Anno Domini 1587."
Conduit street.

J. H.

ART. XXXV. The Arbor of Amitie; wherein is composed plesaunt poems and pretie poesies: set. forth by Thomas Howell. 1568. Svo.

ART. XXXVI. Thomas Howell's Devises for his owne exercise and his friends pleasure. Imprinted by H. Jackson. 1581. 4to.

THE former of these two titles occurs in the Bodleian Catalogue, and the latter in Major Pearson's; but the purchaser of the volume is unknown, and the author seems to be unnoticed in poetical biography. Ritson positively ascribes to him a translation from one of the Metamorphoses, entitled as in the following article.

ART. XXXVII. The fable of Ouid treting of Narcissus; translated out of Latin into Englysh mytre, with a moral ther vnto, very pleasante to rede. MDLX...

"God resysteth the proud in euery place,
But unto the humble he geveth his grace:
Therfore, trust not to riches, beuti, nor strength,
All these be vayne, & shal consume at length."

Imprynted at London, by Thomas Hackette, and are to be sold at hys shop in Cannynge strete, over agaynste the Thre Cranes. 4to. 18 leaves.

SEE Hist. of Eng. Poetry, iii. 417, where Mr. Warton remarks, that the moralization added in the octave stanza, is twice the length of the fable.

Mr. Steevens, in his list of ancient English translations from classic authors, has dated this early version 1590;* or the printer may have done so, by reversing the figure of 6; since the true date must have been observed by him either in Pearson's catalogue, in Herbert's Ames, or in Warton's History. Excepting the translation of Caxton, this seems the oldest specimen of an attempt to transmute any of the fables of Ovid into English metre: though such a circumstance might not be adverted to by Mr. Warton, when he slurred the unknown writer by saying his name was "luckily suppressed."+ Ritson, however,

*Reed's Shakspeare, Vol. II. p. 106.

Hist. of Eng. Poetry, III. 417.

VOL. I.

G

does not concur in thinking it altogether suppressed; since he assigns the production, unhesitatingly, to Thomas Howell, in consequence of these initials at its close, "Finis. Quod T. H."* As I never have had an opportunity of glancing at Howell's original poesies, (of which two collections are presumed to exist) I am neither prepared to confute nor to corroborate the assumption of Ritson, by any correlative proof. If the love song" of disdainful Daphne," in England's Helicon, can be traced among the poetical devises of T. Howell, in 1568 or 1581, the present versifier must be regarded as a different personage; his style being more antiquated by nearly half a century. Near the commencement and close of his moralization he speaks of his "youthful yeares," and of his intention to persevere in labours like the present, when more wit and more knowledge should awaken him to riper undertakings.

It is now time to produce a brief sample of this metrical version from the third book of the Ovidian Metamorphoses, and it will be found nearly on a par with Turbervile's translation of the Epistles, which appeared about seven years afterward. The following passage is rendered from Fons erat illimis, nitidis argenteus undis: 1. 407, et seq.

A sprynge there was so fayre,
that stremes like sylver had,
Whiche nether shepardes happe to fynde,

nor gotes that upwarde gad

Upon the rocky hyls;

nor other kynde of beste;

Bibliographia Poetica, p. 250.