first edition I have seen, is dated 1547*. All the proverbs of the English language are here interwoven into a very silly comic tale.

The lady of the story, an old widow now going to be married again, is thus described, with some degree of drollery, on the bridal day.

In this late olde widow, and then olde newe wife,
Age and Appetite fell at a strong strife.

Her lust was as yong, as her lims were olde.
The day of her wedding, like one to be solde,
She set out herself in fyne apparell;

She was made like a beere-pot, or a barrell.
A crooked hooked nose, beetle browde, blere eyde,
Many men wisht for beautifying that bryde.
Her waste to be gyrde in, and for a boone grace,
Some well favoured visor on her ill favourd face;
But with visorlike visage, such as it was,

She smirkt and she smilde, but so lisped this las,
That folke might have thought it done onely alone
Of wantonnesse, had not her teeth been gone.
Upright as a candel standeth in a socket,
Stoode she that day, so simpre de cocket.
Of auncient fathers she tooke no cure nor care,
She was to them as koy as a Crokers mare.
She tooke the'ntertainment of the yong men,
All in daliaunce, as nice as a nuns hen2.
I suppose, That day her eares might well glow,
For all the town talkt of her hie and low.
One sayd a wel favourd olde woman shee is:
The devill shee is, saide another: and to this

plication of this professed court-wit seems
to be recorded in Camden's Remaines,
1605, p. 234. Heywood being asked by
Queen Mary "What wind blew him to the
court?" He answered, "Two specially:
the one to see your Majestie."
"We
thank you for that," said the Queen; "but,
I pray you, what is the other?”
"That
your Grace," said he, "might see me.'
Sir John Harrington has an Epigram on a
witty speech of Heywood to the Queene,
another on young Heywood's answer to
Lord Warwick, and a third on old Hey-
wood's sons.-PARK.]

In quarto. Others followed, 1549.— 1562.1566.1576.-1587.-1598.

4to.

[Davies, of Hereford, in his "Scourge of Folly," about 1611, printed a Descant upon Englishe proverbes, and exhibited with a retrograde taste, not only the manner, but the dull rhymth (?) of his precursor, in the following metrical address

In came the third with his five egges, and sayd,
Fifty yere agoe I knew her a trim mayde.
Whatever she were then, sayde one, she is nowe,
To become a bryde, as meete as a sowe

To beare a saddle. She is in this mariage,
As comely as a cowe in a cage.

Gup with a gald back, Gill, come up to supper,
What mine old mare would have a newe crupper,
And now mine olde hat must have a new band, &c.

The work has its value and curiosity as a repertory of proverbs made at so early a period. Nor was the plan totally void of ingenuity, to exhibit these maxims in the course of a narrative, enlivened by facts and circumstances. It certainly was susceptible of humour and invention.

Heywood's largest and most laboured performance is the SPIDER AND THE FLIE, with wooden cuts, printed at London by Thomas Powell, in 1556. It is a very long poem in the octave stanza, containing ninety-eight chapters. Perhaps there never was so dull, so tedious, and trifling an apologue: without fancy, meaning, or moral. A long tale of fictitious manners will always be tiresome, unless the design be burlesque; and then the ridiculous, arising from the contrast between the solemn and the light, must be ingeniously supported. Our author seems to have intended a fable on the burlesque constructiont; but we know not when he would be serious and when witty, whether he We must inmeans to make the reader laugh, or to give him advice. deed acknowledge, that the age was not yet sufficiently refined, either to relish or to produce burlesque poetry. Harrison, the author of the

knewe a priest that was as nice as a Nunnes
Hen, when he would say masse he would
never saie DOMINUS VOBISCUM, but Do-
minus Vobicum." fol. 112 a. edit. 1567. 4to.
a Second Part. ch. i.
b In quarto.
*[Mr. Ellis, in his Historical Sketch
of English Poetry, &c., ch. xvi., has pro-
nounced this parabolic tale "utterly con-
temptible:" but he has extracted two spe-
cimens from the First Century of Hey-
wood's Epigrams, which certainly possess
more true epigrammatic point than those
selected by Mr. Warton. The following
lines afford the most favourable instance
of his versification.

ON MEASURE.

Measure is a merry meane,

Which filde with noppy drinke
When merry drinkers drinke off cleane,
Then merrily they winke.

Measure is a merry meane,
But I meane measures gret,
Where lippes to litele pitchers leane,
Those lippes they scantly wet.

Measure is a merry meane,

And measure is this mate;
To be a Deacon or a Dean

Thou wouldst not change the state.
Measure is a merry meane

In volewmes full or flat,
There is no chapter nor no sceane

That thou appliest like that.
Epig. upon Proverbes, Cent. iii. Ep. 28.-
PARK.]

+ [Herbert says "We are to consider the author here, as he really was, a catholic; partial in vindicating the catholic cause and the administration by queen Mary, whom he characterises by the maid, with her broom (the civil sword), executing the commands of her master (Christ) and her mistress (holy church). By the flies are to be understood the catholics; and by the spiders, the protestants. How justly the characters are supported I have neither leisure nor inclination to examine." MS. note.-PARK.]

C

But I must not forget Chaucer's Sir Thopas, and that among the Cotton ma

DESCRIPTION OF BRITAINE, prefixed to Hollinshed's Chronicle, has left a sensible criticism on this poem. "One hath made a booke of the SPIDER AND THE FLIE, wherein he dealeth so profoundlie, and be

5 ready. 6 makes, causes, compels. 7 against, before. 10 approach, gain. 11 make them walk. [He may enable them to wear long sweeping dresses. A "trayl-syde gown," says Dr. Jamieson, "is so long as to trail upon the ground."] 12 buy. 13 loose. 15 weak. 16 all you want is soon done. 17 borrowing or pledging. [surety and pledge.] between. goes

21 truth. judgement. 23 loath. 24 where. 25 28 seat. [the dais.] 29 mess. 30 high-table.

eyes. [miseries.] 34 blind. [stop.] 35 wholly. 36 love. 37 never cease. 40 sea and land. [wood and hill.]

yond all measure of skill, that neither he himselfe that made it, neither anie one that readeth it, can reach unto the meaning thereof." It is a proof of the unpopularity* of this poem, that it never was reprinted. Our author's EPIGRAMS, and the poem of PROVERBS, were in high vogue, and had numerous editions before the year 1598 †. The most lively part of the SPIDER AND FLIE is perhaps the mock-fight between the spiders and flies, an awkward imitation of Homer's BATRACHOMUOMACHY. The preparations for this bloody and eventful engagement, on the part of the spiders, in their cobweb-castle, are thus described.

Who so es sted in any nede 43,
With SIR PENI may thai spede,
How so euer they betyde 44.
He that SIR PENI es with all,
Sal haue his will in stede and stall,
When other er set byside 45.

SIR PENY gers, in riche wede,
Ful mani go and ride on stede 46,
In this werldes wide.

In ilka 47 gamin and ilka play,
The maystri es gifen ay

To PENY, for his pride.

SIR PENY over all gettes the gre 48,
Both in burgh and in cete 19,

In castell and in towre.
Withowten owther 50
spere or schelde,
Es he the best in frith or felde,
And stalworthest in stowre 51.

In ilka place, the suth es sene 52,
SIR PENI es ouer-al bidene,

Maister most in mode.
And all es als he will cumand:
Ogains his stevyn 53 dar no man stand,
Nowther by land ne flode.

SIR PENY mai ful mekill availe 54
To tham that has nede of cownsail,
Als sene es in assize 55:

He lenkithes 56 life and saues fro ded 57.
Bot luf it noght ouer wele I rede 58,
For sin of couaityse 59.

If thou haue happ tresore to win,
Delite the noght to mekill tharin 60.
Ne nything 6 thareof be,
But spend it als wele als thou can,
So that thou luf both god and man
In perfite charite.

God grant vs grace with hert and will,
The gudes that he has gifen vs till 62,
Wele and wisely to spend.

And so oure liues here for to lede,
That we may haue his blis to mede 63,
Euer withowten end. Amen.

An old Scotch poem called SIR PENNY
has been formed from this, printed in
Antient Scottish Poems, p. 153. Edinb.
1770.

4 Descript. Brit. p. 226. Hollinsh. Chron. tom. i.

* [Or rather, says Herbert, because popery has not since been re-established. MS. note.-PARK.]

[In that year, or perhaps in 1596, the Epigrams of sir John Davis were printed, and the following lines therein addressed In Haywodum.

Haywood that did in Epigrams excell
In non put downe since my light Muse

54 be of much power.

judicature, or, in passing sentence. money not too much, I advise.

59

56 lengthens.

covetousness.

61 nyding. Be not too careless [niggardly] of it.

55

45 despised.

48 degree, pre-eminence.
52 truth is seen.

as appears in the place of
57 death.
58 love

62 to us.

Behold! the battilments in every loope:

How th' ordinance lieth, flies far and nere to fach:
Behold how everie peace, that lieth there in groope,
Hath a spider gonner, with redy-fired match.
Behold on the wals, spiders making ware wach:
The wach-spider in the towre a larum to strike,
At aproch of any nomber shewing warlike.
Se the enprenabill fort, in every border,
How everie spider with his wepon doth stand,
So thorowlie harnest, in so good order:
The capital spider, with wepon in hand,
For that sort of sowdiers so manfully mand,
With copwebs like casting nets all flies to quell :
My hart shaketh at the sight: behold it is hell!1

The beginning of all this confusion is owing to a fly entering the poet's window, not through a broken pane, as might be presumed, but through the lattice, where it is suddenly entangled in a cobweb. The cobweb, however, will be allowed to be sufficiently descriptive of the poet's apartment. But I mention this circumstance as a probable proof, that windows of lattice, and not of glass, were now the common fashion.

Art thou Heywood with the mad mery wit?

Yea forsooth, mayster, that same is even hit.

Art thou Heywood that applyeth mirth more than thrift?

Yes, sir, I take mery mirth a golden gift. Art thou Heywood that hath made many mad Playes?

Yea, many playes, few good woorkes in all my dayes.

Art thou Heywood that hath made men mery long?

Yea, and will, if I be made mery among. Art thou Heywood that would be made mery now?

Yea, sir, helpe me to it now I beseech

yow.

In the Conclusion to the Spider and Flie, Heywood mentions queen Mary and king Philip'. But as most of his pieces seem to have been written some time before, I have placed him under Henry the Eighth.

[The following doubtless was composed on the spousals of Philip and Mary: “A balade specifienge partly the maner, partly the matter, in the most excellent meetyng and lyke mariage betwene our soveraigne Lord and our soveraigne Lady, the kynges and queenes highnes. Pende by John Heywood." Herb. p. 800. Oldys says he had seen "A briefe balet touching the trayterous takynge of Scarborow castle," subscribed J. Heywood, and printed in b. 1. Mention is made of these at p. 85. note. The first of them is allegorically figurative, and begins:

The Egles byrde hath spred his wings

And from far of hathe taken flyght,
In whiche meane way by no lourings
On bough or braunch this birde wold
light;

Till on the Rose, both red and whight,
He lighteth now most lovinglie

And therto moste behovinglie.

1 [Mr. Warton must have read the Conclusion of Heywood very cursorily, says Herbert, or he would not have been at such a loss for the intention of his poem of the Spider and the Flie.-PARK.]