OF

ENGLISH POETRY,

FROM THE

CLOSE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY

TO THE

COMMENCEMENT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED,

THREE DISSERTATIONS:

1. OF THE ORIGIN OF ROMANTIC FICTION IN EUROPE.

2. ON THE INTRODUCTION OF LEARNING INTO ENGLAND.
3. ON THE GESTA ROMANORUM.

BY

THOMAS WARTON, B.D.

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, Oxford, AND OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, AND
PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFord.

FROM THE EDITION OF 1824

SUPERINTENDED BY THE LATE

RICHARD PRICE, Esq.

INCLUDING THE NOTES OF MR. RITSON, DR. ASHBY, MR. DOUCE, AND
MR. PARK.

NOW FURTHER IMPROVED BY THE CORRECTIONS AND A

OF SEVERAL EMINENT ANTIQUARIES.

270.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:.

PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73 CHEAPSIDE.

PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR,

RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

CONTENTS.

VOL. III.

SECTION XXXVI.

Page

View of the Revival of Learning in England, continued. Reformation of

Religion. Its effects on Literature in England. Application of this di-

gression to the main subject

SECTION XXXVII.

Petrarch's sonnets. Lord Surrey. His education, travels, mistress, life,

and poetry. He is the first writer of blank-verse. Italian blank-verse.

Surrey the first English classic poet

SECTION XXXVIII.

Sir Thomas Wyat. Inferior to Surrey as a writer of Sonnets. His Life.

His Genius characterised. Excels in Moral Poetry.......

SECTION XXXIX.

The first printed Miscellany of English Poetry. Its Contributors. Sir

Francis Bryan, Lord Rochford, and Lord Vaulx. The First True Pas-

toral in English. Sonnet-writing cultivated by the Nobility. Sonnets

by King Henry the Eighth. Literary character of that king

Andrew Borde. Bale. Ansley.

The Merry Devil of Edmonton.

Henry the Eighth

........

SECTION XL.

The Second Writer of Blank-verse in English. Specimens of early Blank-

verse...............

............

....

SECTION XLI.

Chertsey. Fabyll's Ghost, a poem..

Other minor Poets of the Reign of

.........

SECTION XLII.

John Heywood the Epigrammatist. His Works examined. Ancient un-

published burlesque Poem of Sir Penny

1

21

41

51

65

72

84

Page

SECTION XLIII.

Sir Thomas More's English Poetry. Tournament of Tottenham. Its age

and scope. Laurence Minot. Alliteration. Digression illustrating

comparatively the language of the fifteenth century, by a specimen of

the Metrical Armoric Romance of Ywayn and Gawayn

.......

SECTION XLIV.

The Notbrowne Mayde. Not older than the sixteenth century. Artful

contrivance of the story. Misrepresented by Prior. Metrical Romances,

Guy, syr Bevys, and Kynge Apolyn, printed in the reign of Henry.

The Scole howse, a Satire. Christmas Carols. Religious Libels in

rhyme. Merlin's Prophecies. Laurence Minot. Occasional disqui-

sition on the late continuance of the use of waxen tablets. Pageantries

of Henry's Court. Dawn of Taste......................

.... 123

SECTION XLV.

Effects of the Reformation on our poetry. Clement Marot's Psalms. Why

adopted by Calvin. Version of the Psalms by Sternhold and Hopkins.

Defects of this version, which is patronised by the Puritans in opposition

to the Choral Service

SECTION XLVII.

Tye's Acts of the Apostles in rhyme. His merit as a Musician. Early

piety of king Edward the Sixth. Controversial Ballads and Plays.

Translation of the Bible. Its effects on our Language. Arthur Kel-

ton's Chronicle of the Brutes. First Drinking-song. Gammer Gurton's

Needle

SECTION XLVI.

Metrical versions of Scripture. Archbishop Parker's Psalms in metre.
Robert Crowley's puritanical poetry
...... 157

SECTION XLVIII.

Reign of queen Mary. Mirrour for Magistrates. Its inventor, Sackville

lord Buckhurst. His life. Mirrour for Magistrates continued by Bald-

wyn and Ferrers. Its plan and stories ......................

SECTION XLIX.

Sackville's Induction to the Mirrour for Magistrates. Examined. A pre-

lude to the Fairy Queen. Comparative View of Dante's Inferno

94

SECTION LI.

View of Niccols's edition of the Mirrour for Magistrates. High estima-
tion of this Collection. Historical Plays, whence...........

142

167

181

SECTION L.

Sackville's Legend of Buckingham in the Mirrour for Magistrates. Ad-

ditions by Higgins. Account of him. View of the early editions of

this Collection. Specimen of Higgins's Legend of Cordelia, which is

copied by Spenser...................

215

190

224

Page

SECTION LII.

Richard Edwards. Principal poet, player, musician, and buffoon, to the

courts of Mary and Elizabeth. Anecdotes of his life. Cotemporary

testimonies of his merit. A contributor to the Paradise of Daintie De-

vises. His book of comic histories, supposed to have suggested Shak-

speare's Induction of the Tinker. Occasional anecdotes of Antony

Munday and Henry Chettle. Edwards's songs....

SECTION LIII.

Tusser. Remarkable circumstances of his life. His Husbandrie, one of

our earliest didactic poems, examined

248

SECTION LIV.

William Forrest's poems.

His Queen Catharine, an elegant manuscript,

contains anecdotes of Henry's divorce. He collects and preserves an-

cient music. Puritans oppose the study of the classics. Lucas Shep-

herd. John Pullayne. Numerous metrical versions of Solomon's Song.

Censured by Hall the satirist. Religious rhymers. Edward More.

Boy-bishop, and miracle-plays, revived by queen Mary. Minute par-

ticulars of an ancient miracle-play

.........

..........

SECTION LV.

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 erected in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer

esteemed by the Reformers.....

SECTION LVI.

Sackville's Gorboduc. Our first regular tragedy. Its fable, conduct, cha-

racters, and style. Its defects. Dumb-show. Sackville not assisted

by Norton......

237

SECTION LVIII.

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. Spenser's Culex. The original not genuine. The Ceiris

proved to be genuine. Nicholas Whyte's story of Jason, supposed to be

257

271

SECTION LVII.

Classical drama revived and studied. The Phoenissæ of Euripides trans-

lated by Gascoigne. Seneca's Tragedies translated. Account of the

translators, and of their respective versions. Queen Elizabeth translates

a part of the Hercules Oetæus

............. 302

289