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about the same time, George Marshall wrote A compendious treatise in metre, declaring the first original of sacrifice and of building churches and aultars, and of the first receiving the cristen faith here in England, dedicated to George Wharton, esquire, and printed at London in 1554b.

In 1556, Miles Hoggard, a famous butt of the protestants, published "A shorte treatise in meter vpon the cxxix psalme of David called De profundis. Compiled and set forth by Miles Huggarde servante to the quenes maiestie." Of the opposite or heretical persuasion was Peter Moone, who wrote a metrical tract on the abuses of the mass, printed by John Oswen at Ipswich, about the first year of queen Maryd. Near the same period, a translation of ECCLESIASTES into rhyme by Oliver Starkey occurs in bishop Tanner's library*, if I recollect right, together with his Translation of Sallust's two histories. By the way, there was another vernacular versification of ECCLESIASTES by Henry Lok, or Lock, of whom more will be said hereafter, printed in 1597. This book was also translated into Latin hexameters by Drant, who will occur again in 1572. The ECCLESIASTES was versified in English by Spensert.

I have before mentioned the SCHOOL-HOUSE OF WOMEN, a satire against the fair sex. This was answered by Edward More of Hambledon in Buckinghamshire, about the year 1557, before he was twenty years of age. It required no very powerful abilities either of genius or judgment to confute such a groundless and malignant invective. More's book is entitled, The DEFENCE OF WOMEN, especially English women, against a book intituled the SCHOOL-HOUSE OF WOMEN. It is dedicated to Master William Page, secretary to his neighbour and patron sir Edward Hoby of Bisham-abbey, and was printed at London in 1560.

b In quarto, bl. lett.

с

In quarto, bl. lett. for R. Caley. Jan. 4. with Grafton's copartment.

A short treatise of certayne thinges
abused,

In the popish church long used;
But now abolyshed to our consolation,
And God's word advanced, the light
of our salvation.

In eight leaves, quarto, bl. lett. Fox
mentions one William Punt, author of a
ballade made against the Pope and Popery
under Edward the Sixth, and of other
tracts of the same tendency under queen
Mary. Martyr. p. 1605. edit. vet. Punt's
printer was William Hyll at the sign of
the hill near the west door of saint Paul's.
See in Strype, an account of Underhill's
Sufferings in 1553, for writing a ballad
against the queen, he "being a witty and
facetious gentleman." Eccl. Mem. iii. 60,
61, ch. vi. Many rhymes and ballads were
written against the Spanish match, in
1554. Strype, ibid. p. 127. ch. xiv. Fox

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With the catholic liturgy, all the pageantries of popery were restored to their ancient splendour by queen Mary. Among others, the procession of the boy-bishop was too popular a mummery to be forgotten. In the preceding reign of king Edward the Sixth, Hugh Rhodes, a gentleman or musician of the royal chapel, published an English poem with the title, THE BOKE OF NURTUR for men seruants and children, or of the gouernaunce of youth, with STANS PUER AD MENSAME. In the following reign of Mary, the same poet printed a poem consisting of thirtysix octave stanzas, entitled, "The SONG of the CHYLD-BYSSHOP, as it was songe before the queenes maiestie in her priuie chamber at her manour of saynt James in the ffeeldes on saynt Nicholas day and Innocents day this yeare nowe present, by the chylde bysshope of Poules churche' with his company. LONDINI, in ædibus Johannis Cawood typographi reginæ, 1555. Cum privilegio," &c. By admitting this spectacle into her presence, it appears that her majesty's bigotry condescended to give countenance to the most ridiculous and unmeaning ceremony of the Roman ritual. As to the song itself, it is a fulsome panegyric on the queen's devotion, in which she is compared to Judith, Esther, the queen of Sheba, and the virgin Mary'. This show of the boy-bishop, not so much for its superstition as its levity and absurdity, had been formally abrogated by king Henry the Eighth, fourteen years before, in the year 1542, as appears by a "Proclamation devised by the King's Majesty by the advys of his Highness Counsel the xxii day

weak, as being too much devoted to the female sex." Ath. Oxon. i. 314.

In quarto. [small 8vo.] Bl. lett. Pr. Prol. "There is few things to be understood." The poem begins, “Alle ye that wolde learn and wolde be called wyse." [As this book is said to be newly corrected, Mr. Ritson infers "there must have been an earlier edition."-PRICE.]

In the church of York, no chorister was to be elected boy-bishop, "nisi habuerit claram vocem puerilem." Registr. Capitul. Eccles. Ebor. sub ann. 1390. MS. ut supr.

i In the old statutes of saint Pauls, are many crders about this mock-solemnity. One is, that the canon, called STAGIARIUS, shall find the boy-bishop his robes, and "equitatum honestum." MS. fol. 86. Diceto dean. In the statutes of Salisbury cathedral, it is ordered, that the boy-bishop shall not make a feast, "sed in domo communi cum sociis conversetur, nisi eum ut Choristam, ad domum Canonici, causa solatii, ad mensam contigerit evocari." Sub anno 1319. Tit. xlv. De Statu Choristarum. MS.

In quarto, bl. lett. Strype says, that in 1556, "On S. Nicolas even, Saint Nicolas, that is a boy habited like a bishop

in pontificalibus, went abroad in most parts of London, singing after the old fashion, and was received with many ignorant but well-disposed people into their houses; and had as much good cheer as ever was wont to be had before." Eccl. Mem. iii. 310. ch. xxxix. See also p. 387. ch. 1. In 1554, Nov. 13, an edict was issued by the bishop of London to all the clergy of his diocese, to have a boy-bishop in procession, &c. Strype, ibid. p. 202. ch. xxv. See also p. 205, 206. ch. xxvi.

In a poem by Llodowyke Lloyd, in the Paradise of Daintie Deuises, (edit. 1585.) on the death of sir Edward Saunders, queen Elizabeth is complimented much in the same manner. Num. 38. Signat. E. 2.

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of Julie, 33 Hen. viij, commanding the ffeasts of saint Luke, saint Mark, saint Marie Magdalene, Inuention of the Crosse, and saint Laurence, which had been abrogated, should be nowe againe celebrated and kept holie days," of which the following is the concluding clause:-" And where as heretofore dyuers and many superstitious and chyldysh obseruances have be vsed, and yet to this day are obserued and kept, in many and sundry partes of this realm, as vpon saint Nicholas", saint Catharine", saint Clement, the holie Innocents, and such like3, Children [boys] be strangelie decked and apparayled, to counterfeit Priestes, Bisshoppes, and Women, and so be ledde with Songes and Dances from

m In Barnabie Googe's Popish Kingdom, a translation from Naogeorgius's Regnum Antichristi, fol. 55. Lond. 1570. 4to.

Saint Nicholas monie vsde to give to maydens secretlie,

Who that be still may vse his wonted liberalitie:

The mother all their children on the Eeve do cause to fast,

And when they euerie one at night in senselesse sleepe are cast,

Both apples, nuts and payres they bring,

and other thinges beside,

As cappes, and shoes, and petticoates, which secretly they hide, And in the morning found, they say, that

"this Saint Nicholas brought," &c. See a curious passage in bishop Fisher's Sermon of the Months Minde of Margaret countess of Richmond; where it is said, that she praied to S. Nicholas the patron and helper of all true maydens, when nine years old, about the choice of a husband; and that the saint appeared in a vision, and announced the earl of Richmond. Edit. Baker, p. 8. There is a precept issued to the sheriff of Oxford from Edward the First, in 1305, to prohibit tournaments being intermixed with the sports of the scholars on saint Nicholas's day. Rot. Claus. 33 Edw. I. memb. 2.

I have already given traces of this practice in the colleges of Winchester and Eton. [see supr. vol. ii. p. 532.] To which I here add another. Registr. Coll. Wint. sub ann. 1427. "Crux deaurata de cupro [copper] cum Baculo, pro EPISCOPO PUERORUM." But it appears that the practice subsisted in common grammar-schools. "Hoc anno, 1464, in festo sancti Nicolai non erat EPISCOPUS PUERORUM in schola grammaticali in civitate Cantuariæ ex defectu Magistrorum, viz. J. Sidney et T. Hikson," &c. Lib. Johannis Stone, Monachi Eccles. Cant. sc. De Obitibus et aliis Memorabilibus sui cœnobii ab anno 1415 ad annum 1467. MS. C. C. C. C. Q. S. The abuses of this

custom in Wells cathedral are mentioned so early as Decemb. 1, 1298. Registr. Eccl. Wellens. [See supr. vol. ii. pp. 30. 521. 531.]

"The reader will recollect the old play of saint Catharine, Ludus Catharina, exhibited at saint Albans abbey in 1160. Strype says, in 1556, "On Saint Catharines day, at six of the clock at night, S. Katharine went about the battlements of S. Paul's church accompanied with fine singing and great lights. This was saint Katharine's Procession." Eccl. Mem. iii. 309. ch. xxxix. Again, her procession, in 1553, is celebrated with five hundred great lights, round saint Paul's steeple, &c. Ibid. p. 51. ch. v. and p. 57. ch. v.

O Among the church-processions revived by Queen Mary, that of S. Clement's church, in honour of this saint, was by far the most splendid of any in London. Their procession to Saint Paul's in 1557, "was made very pompous with fourscore banners and streamers, and the waits of the city playing, and threescore priests and clarkes in copes. And divers of the Inns of Court were there, who went next the priests," &c. Strype, ubi supr. iii. 337. ch. xlix.

P In the Synodus Carnotensis, under the year 1526, It is ordered, "In festo sancti Nicholai, Catharinæ, Innocentium, aut alio quovis die, prætextu recreationis, ne Scholastici, Clerici, Sacerdotesve, stultum aliquod aut ridiculum faciant in ecclesia. Denique ab ecclesia ejiciantur VESTES FATUORUM personas SCENICAS agentium." See Bochellus, Decret. Eccles. Gall. lib. iv. Tit. vii. C. 43. 44. 46. p. 586. Yet these sports seem to have remained in France so late as 1585; for in the Synod of Aix, 1585, it is enjoined, "Cessent in die Sanctorum Innocentium ludibria omnia et pueriles ac theatrales lusus." Bochell. ibid. C. 45. p. 586. A Synod of Tholouse, an. 1590, removes plays, spectacles, and histrionum circulationes, from churches and their cemeteries. Bochell. ibid. lib. iv. Tit. 1. C. 98. p. 560.

house to house, blessing the people, and gathering of money; and Boyes do singe masse, and preache in the pulpitt, with such other vnfittinge and inconuenient vsages, rather to the derysyon than anie true glorie of God, or honor of his sayntes: The Kynges maiestie therefore, myndinge nothinge so moche as to aduance the true glory of God without vain superstition, wylleth and commandeth, that from henceforth all such svperstitious obseruations be left and clerely extinguished throwout all this his realme and dominions, for-as-moche as the same doth resemble rather the vnlawfull superstition of gentilitie, than the pvre and sincere religion of Christe." With respect to the disguisings of these young fraternities, and their processions from house to house with singing and dancing, specified in this edict, in a very mutilated fragment of a COMPUtus, or annual Accompt-roll, of saint Swithin's cathedral Priory at Winchester, under the year 1441, a disbursement is made to the singing-boys of the monastery, who, together with the choristers of saint Elizabeth's collegiate chapel near that city, were dressed up like girls, and exhi bited their sports before the abbess and nuns of saint Mary's abbey at Winchester, in the public refectory of that convent, on Innocent's day. "Pro Pueris Eleemosynaria una cum Pueris Capellæ sanctæ Elizabethæ, ornatis more puellarum, et saltantibus, cantantibus, et ludentibus, coram domina Abbatissa et monialibus Abbathiæ beatæ Mariæ virginis, in aula ibidem in die sanctorum Innocentium"." And again, in a fragment of an Accompt of the Celerar of Hyde Abbey at Winchester, under the year 1490. "In larvis et aliis indumentis Puerorum visentium Dominum apud Wulsey, et Constabularium Castri Winton, in apparatu suo, necnon subintrantium omnia monasteria civitatis Winton, in ffesto sancti Nicholais." That is, "In furnishing masks and dresses for the boys of the convent, when they visited the bishop at Wulvesey-palace, the constable of Winchester-castle, and all the monasteries of the city of Winchester, on the festival of saint Nicholas." As to the divine service being performed by children on

In the Register of Wodeloke bishop of Winchester, the following is an article among the Injunctions given to the nuns of the convent of Rumsey in Hampshire, in consequence of an episcopal visitation, under the year 1310. "Item prohibemus, ne cubent in dormitorio pueri masculi cum monialibus, vel foemellæ, nec per moniales ducantur in Chorum, dum ibidem divinum officium celebratur." fol. 134. In the same Register these Injunctions follow in a literal French translation, made for the convenience of the

nuns.

MS. in Archiv. Wulves. apud Winton. It appears to have been a practice for itinerant players to gain admittance into the nunneries, and to play Latin Mysteries before the nuns. There is a curious Canon of the Council of Cologne, in 1549,

which is to this effect:-" We have been informed that certain Actors of Comedies, not contented with the stage and theatres, have even entered the nunneries, in order to recreate the nuns, ubi virginibus commoveant voluptatem, with their profane, amorous, and secular gesticulations. Which spectacles, or plays, although they consisted of sacred and pious subjects, can yet notwithstanding leave little good, but on the contrary much harm, in the minds of the nuns, who behold and admire the outward gestures of the performers, and understand not the words. Therefore we decree, that henceforward no Plays, Comedias, shall be admitted into the convents of nuns," &c. Sur. Concil. tom. iv. p. 852. Binius, tom. iv. p. 765.

MS. Ibid. See supr. p. 251.

these feasts, it was not only celebrated by boys, but there is an injunction given to the Benedictine nunnery of Godstowe in Oxfordshire, by archbishop Peckham, in the year 1278, that on Innocent's day, the public prayers should not any more be said in the church of that monastery PER PARVULAS, that is, by little girls.

The ground-work of this religious mockery of the boy-bishop, which is evidently founded on modes of barbarous life, may perhaps be traced backward at least as far as the year 867". At the Constantinopolitan synod under that year, at which were present three hundred and seventy-three bishops, it was found to be a solemn custom in the courts of princes, on certain stated days, to dress some layman in the episcopal apparel, who should exactly personate a bishop both in his tonsure and ornaments; as also to create a burlesque patriarch, who might make sport for the company". This scandal to the clergy was anathematised. But ecclesiastical synods and censures have often proved too weak to suppress popular spectacles, which take deep root in the public manners, and are only concealed for awhile, to spring up afresh with new vigour.

After the form of a legitimate stage had appeared in England, MySTERIES and MIRACLES were also revived by queen Mary, as an appendage of the papistic worship.

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In the year 1556, a goodly stage-play of the PASSION OF CHRIST was presented at the Grey-friers in London, on Corpus-Christi day, before the lord mayor, the privy-council, and many great estates of the realm. Strype also mentions, under the year 1557, a stage-play at the Grey-friers, of the Passion of Christ, on the day that war was proclaimed in London against France, and in honour of that occasion". On saint Olave's day in the same year, the holiday of the church in Silver-street which is dedicated to that saint, was kept with much solemnity. At eight of the clock at night, began a stage-play, of goodly

t Harpsfield, Hist. Eccl. Angl. p. 441. edit. 1622. [See vol. ii. p. 508. et seqq.]

Or 870. [See Mr. Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. -PRICE.]

[A tract explaining the origin and ceremonial of the Boy-bishop was printed in 1649 with the following title: "Episcopus puerorum in die Innocentium; or a Discoverie of an ancient Custom in the church of Sarum, making an anniversarie Bishop among the Choristers." This tract was written in explanation of a stone monument still remaining in Salisbury-cathedral, representing a little boy habited in episcopal robes, with a mitre upon his head, a crosier in his

hand, &c. and the explanation was derived from a chapter in the ancient statutes of that church entitled De Episcopo Choristarum. See a long account of the Boy Bishop, in Hawkins's History of Music, vol. ii.-PARK.]

Surius, Concil. iii. 529. 539. Baron. Annal. Ann. 869. § 11. See Concil. Basil. num. xxxii. The French have a miracle-play, Beau Miracle de S. Nicolas, to be acted by twenty-four personages, printed at Paris, for Pierre Sergeant, in quarto, without date, bl. lett.

Virgil, Georg. iv. 495.

Y MSS. Cott. Vitell. E. 5. Strype. See
Life of Sir Thomas Pope, Pref. p. xii.
Eccl. Mem. vol. iii. ch. xlix.

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