And nowe the belle began to tolle, And claryonnes to sound; Syr Charles hee herde the horses feete A prauncyng onne the grounde : And just before the officers His lovynge wyfe came ynne, Weepynge unfeigned teers of woe, Wythe loude and dysmalle dynne. "Sweet Florence! nowe I praie forbere, Praie Godde that every Christian soule "Sweet Florence! why these brinie teers? ""Tys butt a journie I shalle goe Untoe the lande of blysse; Thenne Florence, fault'ring ynne her saie, Ah, sweete Syr Charles! why wylt thou goe The cruelle axe thatt cuttes thye necke, And nowe the officers came ynne To brynge Syr Charles awaie, Who turnedd to hys lovynge wyfe, And thus to her dydd saie: "I goe to lyfe, and nott to dethe; Truste thou ynne Godde above, Thatt I theyre fader runne; Florence! should dethe thee take-adieu ! Thenne Florence raved as anie madde, "Oh, staie mye husbande, lorde, and lyfe !"Syr Charles thenne dropt a teare. "Tyll tyredd oute wythe ravynge loude, Before hym went the council-menne, The Freers of Seincte Augustyne next Alle cladd ynne homelie russett weedes, Ynne diffraunt partes a godlie psaume Moste sweetlie theye dydd chaunt; Behynde theyre backes syx mynstrelles came, Who tuned the strunge bataunt. Thenne fyve-and-twenty archers came; Bolde as a lyon came Syr Charles, Drawne onne a cloth-ladye sledde, Seincte Jameses Freers marched next, Thenne came the maior and eldermenne, And after them a multitude Of citizenns dydd thronge; The wyndowes were alle fulle of heddes And whenne hee came to the hyghe crosse, "O Thou thatt savest manne fromme synne, To see Charles Bawdin goe alonge To hys most welcom fate Soone as the sledde drewe nyghe enowe, The brave Syr Charles hee dydd stande uppe, "Thou seest me, Edwarde! traytour vile! Butt bee assured, disloyall manne! "Bye foule proceedyngs, murdre, bloude, "Thou thynkest I shall dye to-daie; And soone shall lyve to weare a crowne "Whylst thou, perhapps, for some few yeares, To lett them knowe howe wyde the rule "Twixt kynge and tyrante hande : Kynge Edwarde's soule rush'd to hys face, Hee thus dydd speke and saie: "To hym that soe-much-dreaded dethe Ne ghastlie terrors brynge, Beholde the manne! hee spake the truthe, Hee's greater thanne a kynge!" "Soe lett hym die !" Duke Richarde sayde; "And maye echone oure foes Bende downe theyre neckes to bloudie axe, Syr Charles uppe the hyghe hylle; Syr Charles dydd uppe the scaffold goe, Of victorye, bye val'rous chiefs And to the people hee dyd saie, For servynge loyally mye kynge, "As longe as Edwarde rules thys lande, Your sonnes and husbandes shalle bee slayne. And brookes wythe bloude shalle flowe. "You leave your goode and lawfulle kynge, Lyke mee, untoe the true cause stycke, Thenne hee, wyth preestes, uponne hys knees, Thenne kneelynge downe, hee layde hys hedde, And oute the bloude beganne to flowe, The bloudie axe hys bodie fayre Ynnto foure partes cutte; One parte dyd rotte onne Kynwulph-hylle, The crowen dydd devoure: The other onne Seyncte Powle's goode gate, A dreery spectacle ; Hys hedde was placed onne the hyghe crosse, Thus was the ende of Bawdin's fate : And grante hee maye, wyth Bawdin's soule, MYNSTRELLES SONGE. O! synge untoe mie roundelaie, Al under the wyllowe tree. Blacke hys cryne as the wyntere nyghte, Gon to hys death-bedde, Al under the wyllowe tree. Swote hys tongue as the throstles note, O! hee lyes bie the wyllowe tree: Gonne to hys death-bedde, Al under the wyllowe tree. Harke, the ravenne flappes hys wynge, Ynne the briered delle belowe ; Gonne to hys death-bedde, See the whyte moone sheenes onne hie; Gon to hys death-bedde, Al under the wyllowe tree. Heere uponne mie true love's grave, Mie love ys dedde, Al under the wyllowe tree. Wythe mie hondes I'll dente the brieres Gon to hys death-bedde, Al under the wyllowe tree. Comme, wythe acorne-coppe and thorne, Mie love ys dedde, Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes, I die I comme; mie true love waytes.Thos the damselle spake, and dyed. WILLIAM GIFFORD. farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one; pen, ink, and paper, therefore, (in despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford,) were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was, indeed, a resource; but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent." WILLIAM GIFFORD, the son of a plumber and glazier, who dissipated his property by intemperance and extravagance, was born at Ashburton, in Devonshire, in April, 1755. He lost his father when only twelve years of age, and in about a year afterward his mother died, leaving himself and an infant brother, " without a relation or friend in the world." The latter was sent to the workhouse, and the subject of our memoir was received into the house of his godfather, who put him to school for about three months, but at the end of that period took him home, with the view of employing him as a ploughboy. Being unfitted, however, for this occupation, by an injury on his breast, he was sent to sea in a coasting vessel, in which he remained for nearly a year. "It will be easily conceived," he says in his autobiography, "that my life was a life of hardship. I was not only a ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,' but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot; yet, if I was restless and discontented, I can safely say it was not so much on account of this, as of my being precluded from all possi-tomers, seized upon his books and papers, and probility of reading; as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing, during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description, except the Coasting Pilot." 4 He was at length recalled by his godfather, and again put to school, where he made such rapid progress, that in a few months he was qualified to assist his master in any extraordinary emergency; and, although only in his fifteenth year, began to think of turning instructer himself. His plans were, however, treated with contempt by his guardian, who apprenticed him to a shoemaker, at Ashburton, to whom our author went "in sullenness and in silence," and with a perfect hatred of his new occupation. His favourite pursuit at this time was arithmetic, and the manner in which he continued to extend his knowledge of that science is thus related by himself: "I possessed," he observes," but one book in the world; it was a treatise on algebra, given to me by a young woman, who had found it in a lodging-house. I considered it as a treasure, but it was a treasure locked up; for it supposed the reader to be well acquainted with simple equations, and I knew nothing of the matter. My master's son had purchased Fenning's Introduction: this was precisely what I wanted; but he carefully concealed it from me, and I was indebted to chance alone for stumbling on his hiding-place. I sat up for the greatest part of several nights successively; and, before he suspected his treatise was discovered, had completely mastered it. I could now enter upon my own: and that carried me pretty far into the science. This was not done without difficulty. I had not a Under the same unfavourable circumstances, he composed and recited to his associates small pieces of poetry, and, being at last invited to repeat them to other circles, little collections were made for him, which, he says, sometimes produced him “as much as sixpence in an evening." The sums which he thus obtained, he devoted to the purchase of pens, paper, &c.; books of geometry, and of the higher branches of algebra; but his master, finding that he had, in some of the verses before mentioned, satirized both himself and his cus hibited him from again repeating a line of his compositions. At length, in the sixth year of his apprenticeship, his lamentable doggerel, as he terms it, having reached the ears of Mr. Cookesley, a surgeon, that gentleman set on foot " a subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in writing and English grammar." He now quitted shoemaking, and entered the school of the Rev. Thomas Smerdon; and in two years and two months from what he calls the day of his emancipation, he had made such progress, that his master declared him to be fit for the university. He was accordingly sent by Mr. Cookesley to Oxford, where he obtained, by the exertions of the same gentleman, the office of Bible reader at Exeter College, of which he was entered a member. Here he pursued his studies with unremitting diligence, and had already commenced his poetical translation of the Satires of Juvenal, when the death of Mr. Cookesley interrupted the progress of the work. A fortunate accident procured him a new patron in Earl Grosvenor, in whose family he for some time resided, and afterward accompanied to the continent his son, Lord Belgrave. On his return to England, he settled in London, and, devoting himself to literary pursuits, published, in 1791, and 1794, successively, his poetical satires, the Baviad, and the Mæviad; the one containing an attack on the drama, and the other an invective against the favourite poets of the day. In 1800, he published his Epistle to Peter Pindar, in which he charged the satirist with blasphemy; and Wolcot accused him of obscenity. This led to 162 an assault, and Wolcot would have inflicted severe chastisement on Gifford, but for the interference of a powerful Frenchman, who happened to be present, and who turned Wolcot out of the readingroom, where the scene occurred, into the street, throwing his wig and cane after him. In 1802, appeared his long-promised version of Juvenal, which was attacked by the Critical Review, in an erudite but somewhat personal article, that called forth a reply from our author, entitled, Examination of the Strictures of the Critical Review upon Juvenal. In 1805, and 1816, he published, successively, his editions of Massinger, and Ben Jonson; and in 1821, appeared his translation of Persius. He next edited the works of Ford, in two volumes; and he had proceeded with five volumes of those of Shirley, when his labours were terminated by his death. He died at Pimlico, on the 31st of December, 1826, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. Being a single man, he died in opulent circumstances; having enjoyed, for some years, an annuity from Lord Grosvenor, besides holding the office of pay. master of the band of gentleman pensioners, with a salary of 3001. a year; and, for a time, that of comptroller of the lottery, with a salary of 600l. a year. The fame of Gifford rests principally upon his Juvenal, which occupied the greater part of his life, and was sent into the world with every advantage that could be derived from the most careful attention on the part of the author, and the correction of his most able friends. It still falls short, however, of Mr. Gifford's attempt to give Juvenal entire, except in his grossness, and to make him speak as he would have spoken among us. In this he has so far failed, that whilst he omits to furnish the glowing imagery, luxuriant diction, and impetuous fluency of the Roman satirist, he has retained many of his worst and most objectionable passages. It has been well observed, by a writer in the New Monthly Magazine, that his translation presents us rather with the flail of an infatuated rustic, than with the exterminating falchion of Juvenal. His Baviad and Mæviad evince first-rate satirical powers; but in these, as in most of his writings, a degree of coarse virulence displays itself, which shows that literary associations had not refined his mind. These satires would not have found a place in this collection, but for their intimate connexion with English literary history, and the influence they undoubtedly exerted in reforming public taste, and preparing the way for that galaxy of illustrious poets who succeeded him. Of late years Gifford was principally known as the editor of the Quarterly Review, a work established by himself in 1809, and of which he continued to be the conductor till 1824. He also for some time edited the Anti-jacobin newspaper, in which he displayed his usual acuteness, asperity, and subservience to the party by which he thrived; his politics being invariably those of his interest. Gifford is chiefly known in America by his base and venomous attacks upon us in the Quarterly Review. These, however, were probably neces sary in order for him to retain the direction of that periodical. He slandered for his bread. THE BAVIAD. INTRODUCTION. Tota cohors tamen est inimica, omnesque manipli IN 1785, a few English of both sexes,* whom o ince had jumbled together at Florence, took a fcy to while away their time in scribbling highfle vn panegyrics on themselves, and complimentary "canzonettas" on two or three Italians,† who under Among whom I find the names of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Greathead, Mr. Merry, Mr. Parsons, &c. + Mrs. Piozzi has since published a work on what she is pleased to call British Synonymes: the better, I stood too little of the language in which they were written to be disgusted with them. In this there was not much harm; nor, indeed, much good: but, as folly is progressive, they soon wrought themselves into an opinion that the fine things were really deserved, which they mutually said and sung of each other. Thus persuaded, they were unwilling that their inimitable productions should be confined to the little circle which produced them; they therefore transmitted them hither; and, as their friends were strictly enjoined not to show them, they were first handed about the town with great assiduity, and then sent to the press. A short time before the period of which we speak, a knot of fantastic coxcombs, headed by one Este, suppose, to enable these foreign gentlemen to compre-as much Latin from a child's Syntax, as sufficed to expose hend her multifarious erudition. Though "no one better knows his own house" than 1 the vanity of this woman, yet the idea of her undertaking such a work had never entered my head; and I was thunderstruck when I first saw it announced. To execute it with any tolerable degree of success, required a rare combination of talents, among the least of which may be numbered, neatness of style, acuteness of percep tion, and a more than common accuracy of discrimination; and Mrs. Piozzi brought to the task a jargon long since become proverbial for its vulgarity, an utter inca-, pability of defining a single term in the language,and just the ignorance which she so anxiously labours to conceal. "If such a one be fit to write on Synonymes, speak." Pignotti himself laughs in his sleeve; and his countrymen, long since undeceived, prize the lady's talents at their true worth, Et centum Tales curto centusse licentur.2 1 Quare Thrales!-Printer's Devil, 2 Thus translated by Mr. Bulmer's devil, (the young gentleman who fur nished the conjectural emendation above, which is highly spoken of by the And, for a clip! half-crown, expose to sale A hundred Synomists like Madam Thrale German critics :) not a day passed without an amatory epistle fraught with thunder and lightning, et quicquid habent telorum armamentaria cœli.-The fever turned to a frenzy; Laura Maria, Carlos, Orlando, Adelaide, and a thousand nameless names caught the infection: and from one end of the kingdom* to the other, all was nonsense and Della Crusca. Even THEN, I waited, with a patience which I can better account for than excuse, for some one (abler than myself) to step forth to correct the growing depravity of the public taste, and check the inundation of absurdity now bursting upon us from a thousand springs. As no one appeared, and as the evil grew every day more alarming, (for bedridden old women, and girls at their samplers began to rave,) I determined, without much confidence of success, to try what could be effected by my feeble powers; and accordingly wrote the follow It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Yendas, and Laura Marias, and Tony Pasquins, have long claimed a prescriptive right to infest our periodical publications: but as the editors of them never pretended to criticise their harmless productions, they were merely perused, laughed at, and forgotten. A paper, therefore, which introduced their trash with hyperbolical encomiums, and called upon the town to admire it, was an acquisition of the utmost importance to these poor people, and naturally being poem. came the grand depository of their lucubrations. At this auspicious period the first cargo of poetry arrived from Florence, and was given to the public through the medium of this favoured paper. There was a specious brilliancy in these exotics which dazzled the native grubs who had never ventured beyond a sheep, and a crook, and a rose tree grove, with an ostentatious display of "blue hills," and "crashing torrents," and "petrifying suns!"'+ From I admiration to imitation is but a step. Honest Yenda tried his hand at a descriptive ode, and succeeded beyond his hopes; Anna Matilda followed; in a word, 1800. Whoever has read the first editions of the BAVIAD must have perceived, that its satire was directed against the wretched taste of the followers of the Cruscan school, without the slightest reference to their other qualities, moral or political. In this I should have persevered to the end, had not been provoked to transgress the bounds prescribed to myself, by the diabolical conduct of one of my heroes, the notorious Anthony Pasquin. This man, who earned a miserable subsistence by working on the fear or vanity of artists, actors, &c., hardened by impunity, flew at length at higher some time, Della Crusca became impatient for a sight Tacta places, audita places, si non videare Mr. Bell, however, tells the story another way. Accord ing to him, "Chance alone procured the interview." Whatever procured it, all the lovers of "true poetry," with Mrs. Piozzi at their head, expected wonders from it. The flame that burned with such ardour while the lady was yet unseen, they hoped would blaze with unexainpled brightness at the sight of the bewitching object. Such were their hopes. But what, as Dr. Johnson *In this paper were given the earliest specimens of those unqualified and audacious attacks on all private character; which the town first smiled at for their quaintness, then tolerated for their absurdity, and now-gravely asks, are the hopes of man! or indeed of woman! that other papers, equally wicked, and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it,-will have to lament to the last hour of British liberty. for this fatal meeting put an end to the whole. With the exception of a marvellous dithyrambic, which Della Crusca wrote while the impression was yet warm upon him, and which consequently gave a most accurate account of it, nothing has since appeared to the honour of Anna Matilda: and the "tenth muse," the "angel," the "goddess," has sunk into an old woman; with the comforting reflection of having mumbled love to an ungrate ful swain. -Non hic est sermo pudicus In vetula, quoties lascivum intervenit illud Here Mr. Parsons is pleased to advance his farthing rushlight. "Crashing torrents and petrifying suns are extremely ridiculous,”—habes confitentem! "but they are not to be found in the Florence Miscellany." Who said they were? But apropos of the Florence Miscellany. Mr. Parsons says that I obtained a copy of it by a breach of confidence; and seems to fancy, "good easy man!" that I derived some prodigious advantage from it: yet I had written both the poems, and all the notes save one, before I knew that there was such a treasure in existence. He might have seen, if passion had not rendered him as blind as a mill horse, that I constantly allude to poems published separately in the periodical sheets of the day, and afterward collected with great parade by Bell and others. I never looked into the Florence Miscellany but once; and the only use then made of it was to extract a sounding passage from the odes of that deep-mouthed Theban, I almost shudder while I quote: but so it ever is, Bertie Greathead, Esq. The termination of this "everlasting" attachment was curious. When the genuine enthusiasm of the correspondence (Preface to the Alburn) had continued for *Kingdom. This is a trifle. Heaven itself, if we may believe Mrs. Robinson, took part in the general infatuation: "When midst ethereal fire Thou strikest thy DELLA CRUSCAN lyre, Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And Merry had given an example of impious temerity, which this wretched woman was but too eager to imitate. |