View of Niccols's edition of the Mirrour for Magistrates. High estimation of this Collection. Historical plays, whence .... Richard Edwards. Principal poet, player, musician, and buffoon, to the courts of Mary and Elisabeth. Anecdotes of his life. Cotemporary testimonies of his merit. A contributor to the Paradise of daintie Devises. His book of comic histories, supposed to have suggested Shakespeare's Induction of the William Forrest's poems. His Queen Catharine, an elegant manuscript, contains anecdotes of Henry's divorce. He collects and preserves antient music. Puritans oppose the study of the classics. Lucas Shepherd. John Pullayne. Numerous metrical versions of Solomon's Song. Censured by Hall the satirist. Religious rhymers. Edward More. Boy-bishop, and miracle- English Language begins to be cultivated. Earliest book of Criticism in English. Examined. Soon followed by others. Early critical systems of the French and Italians. New and superb editions of Gower and Lydgate. Chaucer's monument Classical drama revived and studied. The Phoenissæ of Euripides translated by Gascoigne. Seneca's Tragedies translated. Account of the translators, and of their respective versions. Queen Elisabeth translates a part of the Hercules Oetæus .. 196 Most of the classic poets translated before the end of the sixteenth century. Phaier's Eneid. Completed by Twyne. Their other works. Phaier's Ballad of Gad's-hill. Stanihurst's Eneid in English hexameters. His other works. Fleming's Virgil's Bucolics and Georgics. His other works. Webbe and Fraunce translate some of the Bucolics. Fraunce's other works. Spen- ser's Culex. The original not genuine. The Ceiris proved to be genuine. Nicholas Whyte's story of Jason, supposed to be a version of Valerius Flaccus. Golding's Ovid's Metamor- phoses. His other works. Ascham's censure of rhyme. A translation of the Fasti revives and circulates the story of Lucrece. Euryalus and Lucretia. Detached fables of the Metamorphoses translated. Moralisations in fashion. Under- downe's Ovid's Ibis. Ovid's Elegies translated by Marlowe. Remedy of Love, by F. L. Epistles by Turberville. Lord Essex a translator of Ovid. His literary character. Church- yard's Ovid's Tristia. Other detached versions from Ovid. Kendal's Martial. Marlowe's versions of Coluthus and Museus. General character of his Tragedies. Testimonies of his cotem- poraries. Specimens and estimate of his poetry. His death. First Translation of the Iliad by Arthur Hall. Chapman's Homer. His other works. Version of Clitophon and Leucippe. Origin of the Greek erotic romance. Palingenius translated by Googe. Criticism on the original. Specimen and merits of the translation. Googe's other works. Incidental stricture Translation of Italian novels. Of Boccace. Paynter's Palace of Pleasure. Other versions of the same sort. Early metrical versions of Boccace's Theodore and Honoria, and Cymon and Iphigenia. Romeus and Juliet. Bandello translated. Ro- mances from Bretagne. Plot of Shakespeare's Tempest. Miscellaneous Collections of translated novels before the year Epigrams and Satires. Skialetheia. A Scourge of Truth. Scourge of Truth by John Davies of Hereford. Chrestoloros by Thomas Bastard. Microcynicon by T. M. Gent. William Goddard's Mastiff Whelp. Pasquill's Mad-Cap, Message, Foole-Cap. Various collections of Epigrams. Rowland's Letting of Humours blood in the head vaine. Lodge, Greene THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY. SECTION XLVI. THE spirit of versifying the psalms, and other parts of the Bible, at the beginning of the reformation, was almost as epidemic as psalm-singing. William Hunnis, a gentleman of the chapel under Edward the Sixth, and afterwards chapel-master to queen Elisabeth, rendered into rhyme many select psalms *, which had not the good fortune to be rescued from oblivion by being incorporated into Hopkins's collection, nor to be sung in the royal chapel. They were printed in 1550, with this title, "Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of David, and drawen furth into Englysh meter by William Hunnis servant to the ryght honourable syr William Harberd knight. Newly collected and imprinted 2." I know not if among these are his SEVEN SOBS of a sorrowful * [On the back of the title to a copy of Sir Thomas More's works, 1557, (presented to the library of Trin. Coll. Oxon. by John Gibbon, 1630,) the following lines occur, which bear the signature of our poet in a coëval hand. "MY LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. To God my soule I do bequeathe, because it is his owen, My body to be layd in grave, where to my frends best known: Executors I wyll none make, thereby great stryffe may grow; Because the goods that I shall leave, wyll not pay all I owe. W: Hvnnys."-PARK.] a I have also seen Hunnis's "Abridgement or brief meditation on certaine of the Psalmes in English metre," printed by R. Wier, 4to. [8vo. says Bishop Tanner.-PARK.] soul for sin, comprehending the SEVEN PENITENTIAL PSALMS in metre*. They are dedicated to Frances countess of Sussex, whose attachment to the gospel he much extols†, and who was afterwards the foundress of Sydney college in Cambridge. Hun nis also, under the happy title of a HANDFUL OF HONEY SUCKLES, published Blessings out of Deuteronomie, Prayers to Christ, Athanasius's Creed, and Meditations‡, in metre with musical notes. But his spiritual nosegays are numerous. To say nothing of his RECREATIONS on Adam's banishment, Christ his Cribb, and the Lost Sheep, he translated into English rhyme the whole book of GENESIS, which he calls a HIVE FULL OF HONEY. But his honey-suckles and his honey are now no longer delicious. He was a large contributor to the PARADISF OF DAINTY DEVISES, of which more will be said in its place In the year 1550, were also published by John Hall, or Hawle, [The "Certayne Psalmes" did not appear among the "Seven Sobs," which were licensed to H. Denham Nov. 1581, and printed in 15-, 1585, 1589, 1597, 1629 and 1636. Hunnis's "Seven Steps to Heaven were also licensed in 1581. The love of alliteration had before pro duced "a Surge of Sorrowing Sobs," in the " gorgeous gallery of gallant inventions," 1578.-PARK.] + [Her ladyship's virtue and courtesie are extolled; but godlie fear, firm faith, &c. are only enumerated among the dedicator's wishes.-PARK.] [To these were added the poore Widowes mite, Comfortable Dialogs betweene Christ and a Sinner, A Lamentation of youth's follies, a psalme of rejoising, and a praier for the good estate of Queen Eliza beth. The last being the shortest is here given for Hunnis was rather a prosaic : penman. So shall all we that faithfull be b Printed by T. Marshe, 1578. 4to. Thou God that guidst both heaven and deletts and songs, his Nosegay and his Wydowes Myte, with other fancies of his forge. And he tells us, that in the prime of youth his pen "had depaincted Sonets Sweete.' This probably is allusive to his contributions in the "Paradise of Daintie Devises." Wood calls Hunnis a crony of Thomas Newton, the Latin poet. Ath. Oxon, i. 152.-PARK.] |