540. 
Abusyon is causer of all varyaunce, 
Perseveyraunce causeth great honour, 
Mischaunce alway is roote of dolour. 
Dede done cannot be called agayne, 
Mcede well rewarded both with joye and 
payne.” 
Of all our old poets, Stephen Hawes 
is the very worst. 
This poet brings us to the close of 
Henry VIL.’s reign. 
« The accession of Henry VIII. could not 
fail to promote the progress of elegant lite- 
rature in Eneland. His title to the crown 
was sO undoubted that it left him no appre- 
hension of a rival, and fully secured his sub~ 
jects against the recurrence of those sangui- 
nary civil wars which had so long desolated 
the country. He was young, handsome, 
accomplished, wealthy, and prodigal; and 
the nobility, scevusly humbled by the po- 
licy of his father, crowded round his person, 
with no higher ambition than that of gain- 
ing his favour and sharing his profusion, 
which was exhibited in frequent tourna- 
ments, in masques, or entertainments con- 
sisting of music, dancing, gaming, banquet- 
ings, and the display of dresses at once gro- 
tesque and magnificent. All the pleasures 
and all the gallantry of the age were assem- 
bled at his court. The press, which had 
already produced complete and sumptuous 
editions of our best early poets, furnished 
an abundant supply of metrical romances, 
Christmas carols, and other popular compo- 
sitions. Henry himsclf is known to haye 
been a proficient in music, and was perhaps 
an occasional writer of poetry ;* and though 
his skill in the art be rather problematical, 
his taste for it ts fully evinced ty the almost 
universal practice of his courtiers. Accord- 
ingly, this reign forms a marked epocha in 
our poetical history. 
*« Chaucer, as we have seen, had formed 
his taste upon the model of the Italian no 
less than of the French poets; but the mas- 
culine beauties of Boceaccio in the Teseide 
and Filostrato had excited his admiration 
much more than the geniler graces of Pe- 
trarch, who now became the universal favou- 
‘rite. It may, perhaps be matter of surprize, 
that the style of this poet was mot sooner 
adopted as a model by our writers of Jove- 
songs, because the manners of chivalry had, 
in the very infancy of our literature, blended 
the tender passion with a very competent 
share of ceremonious enthusiasm. It is pro- 
bable, however, that the Italian language 
POETRY. 
alone possessed, at that time, sufficient plia- 
bility to form a compound of metaphor and 
metaphysics in the contracted shape of a 
sonnet. 
«© This difficult novelty seems to have 
been first dag a by the court poets of the 
reign of Henry VIII. It must be confessed, 
that a string of forced coneeits, in which the 
imagination of the reader is quite bewildered, 
—of harsh and discordant rhymes,—and of 
phrases tortured into the most unnatural in- 
versions,—is, not unfrequently, the only re- 
sult of their perverse ingenuity. But even 
these abortive struggles were not quite use- 
Jess. In their repeated endeavours to exhibit 
with distinctness the most minute and fanci- 
ful shades of sentiment, they were sometimes 
led to those new and happy combinations of 
words, to those picturesque compound epi- 
thets, and glowing metaphors, of which sucs 
ceeding writers, particularly Shakspeare and 
Spenser, so ably availed themselves. The 
necessity of comprising their subject within 
definite and very contracted limits taught 
them conciseness and accuracy ; and the dif-. 
ficult construction of their stanza forced 
them to atone for the frequent imperfection, 
of their rhymes, by strict attention to the 
eneral harmony of their metre. Although, 
from their contempt of what they thought 
the rustic and sordid poverty of our early lan-. 
guage, they often pian a cumbrous and, 
gaudy magnificence of diction; they accu- 
mulated the ore which has been refined by 
their successors, and provided the materials, 
of future selection.” 
At this era the regular series of spe- 
cimens commences. We must content 
ourselves with exhibiting a few from the. 
many delightful poems here brought to- 
gether: to cémment upon them would 
be to enter into a critical history of 
English poetry. 
Richard Edwards, who died in 1566, 
is the author of the following ballad. 
«© Amantium ire amoris redintegratio est. 
{In the Paradise of Dainty Devices.] 
“© In going to my naked bed, as one that 
. would have slept, 
I heard a wife sing to her child, that long: 
before had wept. 2 
She sighed sore, and sang full sweet, to bring 
the babe to rest, 
That would not cease, but cried still, in suck-~ 
ing at her breast. 
She was. full weary of her watch, and grieved 
with her child, 
«<* The following lings*are, in the Nuge Ansigue, ascriked to this monarch : 
The eacle’s force subdues each bird that flies. 
What metal ean resist the faming fire? 
~ Doth not the sun dazzle the clearest eyes, ‘ h - 
And melt the ice, and make the frost retire ? 
The hardest stones are pierecd through with tools? * 
Lhe wisest ave, with princes, 1 
nade but fook. 
