438 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



Anne Boleyn, her coquetry, and the coarse yet vehement love of the 

 monarch, spurred on by the gratified vanity of woman, are finely touched. 

 Had Wyatt had a less distinguished competitor, his fair mistress could 

 not have failed to have succumbed to his estimable and rare qualifications 

 as his writings and his conversation were alike beautiful ; witness the 

 following few lines from his " Praise of his mistress :" 

 " Give place, you ladies, and begone ! 



Boast not yourselves at all, 



For here at hand approacheth one 



Whose face will stayne you all. 

 In eche of her two christal eyes 



Sitteth a naked boy : 



It would you all in heart suffise 



To see that lamp of joy. 

 O Lord ! it is a world to see 



How virtue can repayre ; 



And deck her in such rnodestie, 



Whom nature made so fair." 



The noble pilgrims accordingly wend their way, and, on the very first 

 night of their journey, the monarch is very unceremoniously dubbed the 

 cardinal's fool by a thick-headed prior. On the second they are nearly 

 benighted, and bebogged on Newport Moor; and in the hostelry in which 

 they at length repose themselves, amidst a crowd of inferior personages, 

 the stories commence, for the purpose of wiling away a long night, inas- 

 much as the inn afforded no sleeping accommodations for the disguised 

 party. Various unseemly disputes chiefly arising from the irascible and 

 fierce nature of the Eighth Henry, who is now considered a far inferior 

 personage to a huge Cambridgeshire farmer occur, which are well sup- 

 ported and described by the talented authoress. 



Wolsey begins with the ** Saxon Widow's Vow," and is followed by 

 the king, who tells the story of "William Rufus and the Salmon pasty." 

 The style and subjects are characteristic of the man bold, impetuous, 

 fierce, and headlong. Rufus had, it appears, a horror of physic, and, from 

 the following account, we cannot wonder at it. 



" William Rufus entertained a furious antipathy against all learned 

 mediciners, ever since the hour when, through the instigation of one of 

 the tribe, the deceased queen, his royal mother, had, in his childhood, so 

 far exerted her maternal authority, as to compel him to swallow a 

 draught, composed of a decoction of rue, tansy, horehound, coltsfoot, 

 hyssop, and camomile-flowers, further enriched with a handful of earth- 

 worms, half-a-dozen wood-lice, and four centipedes ; which delectable 

 beverage, under the superintendence of the queen and her physician ex- 

 traordinary, had been, by the assistance of four yeomen of the guard, 

 actually forced down prince William's throat, with a silver drenching- 

 horn, despite of his most active exertions in the way of kicking, cuffing, 

 biting, and screaming ; and such was his remembrance of the flavour of 

 this detestable compound, that he was wont ever after to say publicly, 

 that the sight of Beelzebub himself would be more agreeable to him 

 than that of a physician." 



Sickness, however, conquered his prejudice, and also overcame his 

 hardened and impious heart ; the effects of which are thus described : 



" ' My soul ! my precious soul ! For the love of the saints, send for a 

 dozen monks ! Hand me a crucifix ! Have none of ye a rosary, ye pro- 

 fane and godless crew? Oh! Bloet, if thou lovest me, help me out with 

 an ave, lest, peradventure, I should depart before a priest cometh.' 



** Robert Bloet was perfectly competent to the service required, for he 

 had been bred a churchman, but had forsaken cowl and cloister, and 



