Though winds do rage, as winds were wood,[1]
And cause spring-tides to raise great flood;
And lofty ships leave anchor in mud,
Bereaving many of life and of blood:
Yet, true it is, as cow chews cud,
And trees, at spring, doth yield forth bud,
Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good.
[1] 'Wood:' mad.
VAUX, EDWARDS, &c.
In Tottell's 'Miscellany,' the first of the sort in the English language,
published in 1557, although the names of many of the authors are not
given, the following writers are understood to have contributed:--Sir
Francis Bryan, a friend of Wyatt's, one of the principal ornaments of the
Court of Henry VIII., and who died, in 1548, Chief Justiciary of Ireland;
George Boleyn, Earl of Rochford, the amiable brother of the famous Anne
Boleyn, and who fell a victim to the insane jealousy of Henry, being
beheaded in 1536; and Lord Thomas Vaux, son of Nicholas Vaux, who died
in the latter end of Queen Mary's reign. In the same Miscellany is found
'Phillide and Harpalus,' the 'first true pastoral,' says Warton, 'in the
English language,' (see 'Specimens.') To it are annexed, too, a
collection of 'Songes, written by N. G.,' which means Nicholas Grimoald,
an Oxford man, renowned for his rhetorical lectures in Christ Church,
and for being, after Surrey, our first writer of blank verse, in the
modulation of which he excelled even Surrey. Henry himself, who was an
expert musician, is said also to have composed a book of sonnets and one
madrigal in praise of Anne Boleyn. In the same reign occur the names of
Borde, Bale, Bryan, Annesley, John Rastell, Wilfred Holme, and Charles
Bansley, all writers of minor and forgotten poems. John Heywood, called
the Epigrammatist, was of a somewhat higher order. He was the favourite
of Sir Thomas More and the pensioner of Henry VIII. He gained favour
partly through his conversational humour, and partly through his writings.
He is the author of various comedies; of six hundred epigrams, most of
them very poor; of a dialogue, in verse, containing all the proverbs then
afloat in the language; of an apologue, entitled 'The Spider and the Fly,'
&c. Heywood, who was a rigid Papist, left the kingdom after the decease
of Queen Mary, and died at Mechlin, in Brabant, in 1565. Warton has
preserved some specimens of Sir Thomas More's poetry, which do not add
much to our conception of his genius. In 1542, one Robert Vaughan wrote
an alliterative poem, entitled 'The Falcon and the Pie.' In 1521, 'The
Not-browne Maid,' (given by us in 'Percy's Reliques,') appeared in a
curious collection, called 'Arnolde's Chronicle, or Customs of London.'
In the same year Wynkyn de Worde printed a set of 'Christmas Carols,' and
in 1529 'A Treatise of Merlin, or his Prophecies in Verse.' In Henry's
days, too, there commences the long line of translators of the Psalms
into English metre, commencing with Thomas Sternhold, groom of the robes
to the King, who versified fifty-one psalms, which were published in 1549,
and with John Hopkins, a clergyman and schoolmaster in Suffolk, who added
fifty-eight more, and progressing with Whyttingham, Thomas Norton, (the
joint author, along with Lord Buckhurst, of the curious old tragedy of
'Gorboduc,') Robert Wisdome, William Hunnis, William Baldwyn, Parker, the
scholarly and celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. &c. Parker trans-
lated all the Psalms himself; and John Day published in 1562, and attached
to the Book of Common Prayer, the whole of Sternhold and Hopkins' 'Psalms,
with apt notes to sing them withall.' In Edward's reign appeared a very
different strain--the first drinking-song of merit in the language, 'Back
and sides go bare'--(see 'Specimens,' vol. 2.) This song occurs at the
opening of the second act of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' a comedy written
(by a 'Mr S.') and printed in 1551, and afterwards acted at Christ's
College in Cambridge.
In the reign of Mary, flourished Richard Edwards, a man of no small
versatility of genius. He was a native of Somersetshire, was born about
1523, and died in 1566. He wrote two comedies, one entitled 'Damon and
Pythias,' and the other 'Palamon and Arcité,' both of which were acted
before Queen Elizabeth. He also contrived masques and wrote verses for
pageants, and is said to have been the first fiddler, the most elegant
sonnetteer, and the most amusing mimic of the Court. He is the author of
a pleasing poem, entitled 'Amantium irae,' and of some lines under the
title, 'He requesteth some friendly comfort, affirming his constancy.'
We quote a few of them:--
'The mountains nigh, whose lofty tops do meet the haughty sky,
The craggy rock, that to the sea free passage doth deny,
The aged oak, that doth resist the force of blust'ring blast,
The pleasant herb, that everywhere a pleasant smell doth cast,
The lion's force, whose courage stout declares a prince-like might,
The eagle, that for worthiness is borne of kings in fight--
Then these, I say, and thousands more, by tract of time decay,
And, like to time, do quite consume and fade from form to clay;
But my true heart and service vow'd shall last time out of mind,
And still remain, as thine by doom, as Cupid hath assign'd.'
Edwards also contributed some beautiful things to the well-known old
collection, 'The Paradise of Dainty Devices.'