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CHAPTER XXVE 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY. : 
Agr. J. Bibliographia Poetica. A Catalogue of English Pcets of the 12th, 13th; Vth, 
bth, and 1Gth Centuries, with a short Account of their Works. 8v0. 
'THIS article is the production of © 
the late Mr. Joseph Ritson. The poets 
of England, from the earliest ages, are 
alphabetically arranged under the seve- 
ral centuries in which they flourished. 
To each name is subjoined, the year of 
the poet’s birth, and of his death, where 
thesé could be ascertained, and an ac- 
count of his works with the date of pub- 
licatton. Where the poems mentioned 
exist only in MS, 6r are very scarce, the 
reader is usually informed in whose pos- 
session they are to be found. © 'Fhis book, 
therefore; forms a manual which every 
antiquary and celléctor ought to possess, 
and which is indeed, indispensable to all 
who would study our ancient literature. 
The well known industry of the editor, 
imsures the accuracy of information, 
which perhaps few, save himself, would 
have had patience to collet. It must 
mortify, or appal the poetical adventurer, 
‘to see how many hundreds of his prede- 
cessors survive only in such brief memo- 
rials as this. 
Nixon, Anthony, wrote “ The Christian 
Navy, wherein is playnely described the 
perfect course to sayle to the haven of 
happinesse,”’ 1602, 4to. p. 287.—Even 
we ourselves, reviewers though we be, 
and little used tothe melting mood, could 
searce refrain from sighing, when we 
considered how few names of Mr. Rit- 
son’s long catalogue, have been rescued 
from the gulf of oblivion, 
Son; come i Cigni, anco i Poeti rari 
Poeti che non sian del nome endegni 
Sijperche,il ciel de gli uomini preclari 
Non, pate mai, che troppa copia regni 
SL per gran colpa de i Signori avar} 
_ Che lascian” mendicare i sacri ingegni. 
: 
ARIOSTO. 
The information ¢ontained in ‘Mr. 
fio ae , . a . 
Ritson’s ‘catdlogue, is uncommonly mi- 
nute and extensive. Some inaccuracies 
must necessarily be found in solaborious 
an investigation. Thus, Mr. Ellis is 
charged with having adopted, without 
authority, the anecdote of Chaucer’s bes, 
ing fired two shillings for beating a 
Franciscan Friar in Fleet-street, which is 
termed a sum of Thomas. Chatterton. 
In a subsequent) note, Mr. Ritson ac- 
knowledges that this bum is’as old/as 
Fuller’s Church History, and he: might ° 
have added, that Speght quotes it on the 
authority of Mr. Buckely, whom he 
avers to have seen the record of the In- 
ner ‘Temple, where’ the fine is entered, 
Mr. Ritson seems also to have fallen into ~ 
a mistake concerning the person alluded 
to, in the following beautiful verses on the 
death of Spenser, which we willingly 
embrace this opportunity of inserting. 
«*—-Witness our Colin ; whom though all the 
- Graces : 
Andall the Muses nurst ; whose well-taught - 
song i wee 
Parnassus’ self, and Glorian embraces, 
And all tlre learned, and all the shepherd 
throng. 
Yet all his hopes were cross‘d, all suits de- 
nied, : 
Discouraged, scorn’d, his. writings vilifyed ; 
Poorly (poor man) he lived, poorly(poor man) 
he died. 
«¢ And had not that great Hart (whose hon- 
oured head 
‘Ah lies full low), piti'd thy woful plight, 
There thou hadst been unwept, unburied, 
Unblest, ‘nor graced with any common rite. 
Yet shalt thou live, when thy great foe shalt 
sink 
Beneath his mountain tomb, whose fume 
shall stink, yoo 
And Time his blacker name shall blurre with 
blackest ink.” FAN oe 
J Laie 
Mr. Ritson conceives that Daniel, the 
author of thesewerses, has found another 
a | 
