JAN. 26. 1850.] 
Basse his Careere, or the new Hunting of the 
Hare. To a new Court tune;” and beginning — 
“ Long ere the morne expects the returne.” 
It was “ Printed at London by E. A.,” 7. e. Edward 
Allde, without date; and it may have been duly 
noticed by the last editor of The Complete Angler. 
However, neither this nor Heber’s MS. throw 
any new light upon the small tract (in 8vo., and 
of perhaps not more than two sheets) with the 
title of which I commenced, and regarding which 
I request information. It is a poem in eight-line 
stanzas, and it is dedicated, at the back of the 
title-page, “ To his honourable Master, Sir Richard 
Wenman, Knight,” without another word ad- 
dressed to his patron. 
My fragment of four leaves, or half an 8vo. 
sheet, contains stanzas (one on each page), num- 
bered 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14.; and the earliest of them 
is this : — 
“ To you I therefore weepe: To you alone 
I shew the image of your teares, in mine ; 
That mine (by shewing your teares) may be show’n 
To be like yours, so faithfull so divine: 
Such, as more make the publique woe their owne, 
Then their woe publique, such as not confine 
Themselves to times, nor yet forms from examples 
borrow : 
Where losse is infinit, there boundlesse is the sorrow.” 
I have preserved even the printer’s punctua- 
tion, for the sake of more perfect identification, 
if any of your readers are acquainted with the 
existence of a copy of the production, or of any 
portion of it. The above stanza, being numbered 
“5,” of course it was preceded by four others, of 
which I can give no account. Another stanza, 
from this literary and bibliographical rarity, may 
not be unacceptable ; it is the eighth: — 
“ Here then run forth thou River of my woes 
In cease lesse currents of complaining verse : 
Here weepe (young Muse) while elder pens compose 
More solemne Rites unto his sacred Hearse. 
And, as when happy earth did, here, enclose 
His heay’nly minde, his Fame then Heav’n did 
pierce: 
Now He in Heay’n doth rest, now let his Fame earth 
fill; 
So, both him then posses’d: so both possesse him still.” 
Therefore, although Basse had written his Sword 
and Buckler in 1602 (if it were the same man), he 
still called his Muse “ young” in 1613. I cannot 
eall to mind any precedent for the form of stanza 
adopted by him, consisting, as it does, of six ten- 
syllable lines, rhyming alternately, followed by a 
twelve-syllable couplet. None of the other stanzas 
contain persenal matter; the grief of the author 
of Great Britain's Sun’s-set seems as artificial as 
might be expected; and his tears were probably 
brought to the surface by the usual pecuniary 
force-pump. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
201 
I have some notion that William Basse was a 
musical composer, as well as a writer of verses; 
but here, again, I am at fault, and particularly 
request the aid of Dr. Rimbault, who has paid 
special attention to such matters, and who has just 
published a learned and valuable work on the 
music of the ballads in Percy’s Reliques. If the 
volume were not so indisputably excellent in its 
kind, there are reasons, connected with its dedi- 
cation, which might make me hesitate in giving it 
eyen a just tribute of praise. 
Kensington, Jan. 21. 1850. J. Payne Cottier. 
MINOR QUERIES. 
Christmas Hymn. — Can any of your readers in- 
form me who was the author of the well-known 
Christmas Hymn, “ Hark the Herald Angels sing,” 
which is so often found (of course without the 
slightest shadow of authority), at the end of our 
Prayer-Books ? In the collection of poems entitled 
Christmas Tyde, published by Pickering, the initials 
“J. C. W.” are appended to it; the same in 
Bickersteth’s Hymn Book. In the last number of 
the Christian Remembrancer, it is incorrectly attri- 
buted to Doddridge, who was the author of the 
other Christmas Hymn, “ High let us swell our 
tuneful notes,” frequently appended to Tate and 
Brady ; as well as of the Sacramental Hymn, “ My 
God, and is Thy table spread ?” If the author of 
this hymn cannot be determined, it would be in- 
teresting to know its probable date, and the time 
when this and the other unauthorised additions 
were made to our Prayer-Book. The case of 
Doddridge’s hymn is more remarkable, as being 
the composition of a dissenter. BE. Y. 
On a Passage in Pope.—“P.C.S.8.,” who is 
old-fashioned enough to admire and to study 
Pope, would feel greatly obliged if any of your 
correspondents could help him to the interpreta- 
tion of the following lines, in the “Imitation” of 
Horace’s Epistle to Augustus : — 
“ The Hero William, and the Martyr Charles, 
One knighted Blackmore, and one pensioned 
Quarles, 
Which made Old Ben, and sturdy Dennis swear, 
No Lord’s Anointed, but a Russian bear !” 
The passage in Horace, of which this purports to 
be an “ Imitation,” is the well-known 
“ Boeotum in crasso jurares dere natum,” 
and it is clear enough that Pope meant to represent 
kings Charles and William as so devoid of the 
taste which should guide royal patronage, that, in 
selecting such objects of their favour as Black- 
more and Quarles, they showed themselves to be 
as uncouth and unpolished as the animal to which 
he likens them. But the principal motive of this 
inquiry is to ascertain whether there exist in 
