8. A penitent sonnet written by the Lord Girald, a little before his death. (Eng.) This article will add another name to the supplementary volume of Noble Authors, intended to comprise such as are not contained in the edition jnst published.

9. An epitaph entitled Commune defunctorum; such as our unlearned rithmours accustomably make, upon the death of everie Tom Tyler, as if it were a last for every one his foote, in which the quantities of sillables are not to be heeded. (Eng.) This is no bad hoax of those common place panegyrics which were penned by either mercenary or parasitical scribblers, who heaped Pelion upon Ossa in their lapidary lays. It begins with the usual invocation:

"Coom to me, you Muses, and thow, most chiefly, Minerva,

Help my pen in writing, a death most soarie reciting, Of the good old Topas, soon to the mightie Syr Atlas; For gravitie the Cato, for wit Mars, Bacchus, Apollo. Scipio for warfare, for gentil curtesie Cæsar,

A great Alexander, with a longe white neck, like a gaunder.

In yeers a Nestor, for wars a martial Hector,

Hannibal, and Pompey, with Tristram, Gallahad,
Orckney.

For justice Radamanthus, in equity woorthy Lycurgus:
In learning Socrates, in faithful friendship Achates:
In travaile Æneas, for secrets trustful Iolas:

And in philosophy a Raymond, a Bacon, a Ripley.”

Mr. Warton has cited the conclusion of this mock-eulogy, as it mentions Julietta, among the celebrated heroines; but he appears to have overlooked part of its purport and design, when he conceives it was written solely to expose poetical squabbles about metre.*

10. An epitaph, written by Sir Thomas More, upon the death of Henrie Abyngdon, one of the gentlemen of the chappel. Wich devise the authour was fayne to put in meeter, by reason the partie that requested his travel did not like of a verye proper epitaph that was first framed, because it ran not in rythme, as may appeare at ful in his Latin epigrammes. Whereupon Syr Thomas More shapt these verses ensuing, with which the suppliant was exceedingly satisfyed, as if the author had hit the nayle on head. (Lat. and Engl.)

* It may also be questioned whether Julietta (as Mr. Warton thought) could have an allusion to Shakespeare's Juliet; since Stanyhurst's verses were printed in 1585, and the earliest computation that has been made to fix the true date of the first sketch of Romeo and Juliet, does not carry the conjecture higher than 1591. It was not printed till 1597. The story of Romeo and Julietta, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, or the tragical history of Romeus and Juliet by Brooke, might have formed the sources of allusion. Let me in this note correct the misinformation conveyed in a former one, at p. 401. Mr. Warton was right in his History, and Mr. Steevens has proved wrong, in his list of translations, by dating the appearance of Twyne's Continuation of Phaer's Virgil, 1584: the last book having been finished July 6, 1573, and printed in the same

year.

This epitaph, for the humour of the thing, appears to invite transcription.*

Hic jacet Henricus, semper pietatis amicus;
Nomen Abingdon erat, si quis sua nomina quærat :
Wellis hic ecclesia, fuerat succentor in alma,
Regis et in bella cantor fuit ipse capella.
Millibus in mille cantor fuit optimus ille:
Præter et hæc ista fuit optimus organista :
Nunc igitur Christie, quoniam tibi serviit, iste,
. Semper in orbe soli da sibi regna poli."

"The same, though not verbatim construed, yet in effect thus may be translated; wherein the learned are not to looke for the exact observation of quantities of syllables, which the authour in the Latin did not very precisely keepe.

"Here lyeth old Henry, no freend to mischievus envy, Surnam'd Abyngdon, to all men most hartily welcoom: Clerck he was in Wellis, where tingle a great many bellis ; Also in thee chappel hee was not counted a moungrel ; And such a lowd singer, in a thousand not such a ringer: And with a concordance, a most most skilful in organce. Now God I crave duly, sence this man serv'd the so truly Henry place in kingdoom, that is also named Abingdon."

The volume is closed by an address from Bynneman, which (as it offers an apology for the singularity of orthography observable through most of the book, and is not long) may serve to close this copious article.

"The printer to the curteous reader.

"I am to crave thy pacience, good reader, and thy

* Mr. Sharon Turner has exhibited a series of middle rhymes somewhat similar, in the Latin poetry of Bede. See Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, III. 361.

friendly acceptaunce of my paines* in printing this booke. The novelty of the verse, and the absence of the author, put me halfe in a feare either to displease the gentleman that penned it, or not to please the gentleman that reade it. If I should observe the newe ortographie used in the booke (whether with the writer's minde, or the printer'st fault I know not) it might have bred error in the understanding of many, and misliking in the judgment of most. And very lothe I am to seeme injurious to the author, in straying any whit from his prescribed rules in writing, exactly observing the quantity of every syllable. If I have, here and there, changed some one or other letter, my purpose was to give more light to the matter by that maner of speech wherto our country men are most acquainted. The absence of any letter, which for the necessitie of the verse often falleth out, I have noted with an apostrophe thus ('). For the placing of two oo and ee for one, and contrary one for two, which thou mayst often meete with in reading, I am to refer thee to the author's epistle at the beginning,§ and generally to commend to thy curtesie my travaile in so straunge and unaccustomed a worke."

From Wood, Ware, and Warton, added to casual hints in his own volume, it may be gathered that Stanyhurst was born about 1547, in Dublin (of which

* The book is very neatly and carefully printed: the prose in Roman, the verse in Old English characters.

+ Forsan Compositor.

This is done in the last metrical extract, but directly contrary to modern usage.

§ Stanyhurst says, in that epistle, "If E be short, I write it usually with a single E, as the, me; if long, with two, as thee, mee: although I would not wishe the quantitie of syllables to depend so much upon the gaze of the eye, as the censure of the eare."

city his father had been recorder), that he was educated in grammatical learning under Peter Whyte, sometime dean of Waterford; and admitted of University College, Oxon, in 1563, where he wrote a dialectical commentary on Porphyry in his eighteenth year. Having taken one degree he became successively a student at Furnival and Lincoln's Inn, where he applied to the study of the common law; but this pursuit might possibly have been relinquished on the death of his father in 1573. From his poems it appears that he married Janetta, the daughter of Sir Chr. Barnwell, Knt. and that she died in child-birth at Knightsbridge, near London, anno 1579. His poetical Conceits in 1582 contain a description of his mistress at the Hague, whom he calls Marie, and depicts as a brunette, youthful but sage. Wood says he went abroad (being a married man) and became famous for his learning in France and the Low Countries, &c.* and (his wife being dead) he was made Chaplain to the Archduke of Austria, who allowed him a plentiful salary. In the title to his Hebdomada Mariana, 1609, he writes himself "Sacellanus serenissimorum principum." He died at Brussels in 1618. Wood specifies several of his productions, but his description of Ireland, as printed in Holinshed's Chronicles, is the only work that is likely to give him credit with posterity.+

T. P.

*Ware intimates that he went into the Low Countries, from being desirous of greater liberty in the enjoyment of his religion, which was Popish.

+ His book "De rebus in Hibernia gestis," was severely censured by the Irish historian Keating, and as Harris thought justly, on account of its numerous errors and malicious representations. See Harris's edit. of Ware's Ireland, IV. 98.