became a Protestant, and at the death of Lord Cromwell, who had been a protector to him, was obliged to take refuge for six years in Holland. He was recalled by Edward VI., was first presented to the living of Bishopstoke, and afterwards made Bishop of Ossory, when he proved himself a zealous and strenuous administrator. Under Queen Mary, he narrowly escaped death by flight to the Continent. At Queen Elizabeth's accession he returned, and died at Canterbury, where he was a prebend. His principal work, a Latin account, in two folio volumes, of illustrious British writers, was published at Basle in 1549. The scriptural play on The Temptation was written in 1538. As a poem it is of no particular value, but it is very interesting in its quaint simplicity. The author himself, as 'Baleus Prolocutor,' is introduced as reciting the Prologue, which concludes with these lines:

For assaults of Satan, learn here the remedy;

Take the word of God, let that be your defence;
So will Christ teach you, in our next comedy:
Earnestly print it in your quick intelligence:
Resist not the world, but with meek patience,
If ye be of Christ. Of this hereafter ye shall
Perceive more at large by the story as it fall.1

The personages in the play are our Lord, Satan, and two angels. I quote the passage where Satan enters :— Satan (tentator)—

Nowhere I further, but everywhere I noye [hurt];

For I am Satan, the common adversary,

An enemy to man, him seeking to destroy

And to bring to nought, by my assaults most crafty.
I watch everywhere, wanting no policy,

To trap him in snare, and make him the child of hell.
What number I win, it were very long to tell.

I heard a great noise, in Jordan now of late,

Upon one Jesus, sounding from heaven above:

'This is mine own Son, which hath withdrawn all hate, And He that doth stand most highly in my love.'

My wits this same sound doth not a little move:

1A Brefe Comedy or Interlude concernynge the Temptacyon of our Lord and Saver by Sathan in the Desert.

lanies, ed. by Grosart, i.)

Compiled by Johan Bale (Miscel

He cometh to redeem the kin of man I fear :
High time is it then for me the coals to stir.
I will not leave Him till I know what He is,
And what He intendeth in this same border here
Subtilty must help, else all will be amiss.

A godly pretence outwardly must I bear,
Seeming religious, devout and sad in my gear.
If He be come now for the redemption of man,
As I fear He is, I will stop Him if I can.

(Hic, simulata religione, Christum aggreditor.)
It is a great joy, by my holydom, to see

So virtuous a life in a young man as you be,
As here thus to wander in godly contemplation,
And to live alone in the desert solitary.

Christus. Your pleasure is it to utter your phantasy.
Satan.-A brother am I, of the desert wilderness,

And full glad would be to talk with you of goodness,
If ye would accept my simple company.1

The Miracle Plays shaded into the later Moralities by very imperceptible gradations. Thus in Godlie Queene Hester 2 published in 1561, there are brought upon the stage not only the historical personages connected with Esther's history, but also such allegorical characters as Pride, Adulation, and Ambition. In one of the more unblended moralities, Anima (the Soul of Man) enters as a maid, in white cloth of gold purfled with miniver, a mantle of black thereupon, and a rich chaplet with knots of gold. Divine Wisdom, arrayed in royal apparel, had been instructing her. When she enters, she speaks the praises of the Saviour who, when she was nought, had made her glorious, when she was in peril had guarded her, when she was ignorant had taught her, when she had sinned had corrected her, when she was

1A Brefe Comedy or Interlude concernynge the Temptacyon of our Lord and Saver by Sathan in the Desert:

No where I fourther, but euery where I noye,
For I am Sathan, the commen aduersarye.'

The drama is given by Mr. Marriott as an example of one of the later miracle-plays, in his Collection of English Miracle Plays and Mysteries, 1838, p. 220.

2 Fuller's Worthies (Miscellanies), ed. by Grosart, vol. iv.

126 Religious Thought in Old English Verse

heavy had comforted her, when she had fallen had raised her :

When I come, thou receivest me most lovingly,

Thou hast anointed me with the oil of mercy.
Thy benefits, Lord, be innumerable.1

1 Ancient Mysteries, from the Digby Manuscript (Abbotsford Club); A Morality, 11. 311-325.

CHAPTER V

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

STEPHEN HAWES was a disciple of Lydgate, whom he speaks of as his master with much respect and admiration. He was a native of Suffolk, spent some time in France, and was made a Groom of the Chamber to Henry VII. His Pastime of Pleasure, 1506, is an allegorical poem of some length. Towards the end it takes a more distinctly religious colour than in its previous course. The following is from the chapter entitled How Remembraunce made his epitaph on the Grave of the Knight (of La Grande Amour).'

O earth on earth! It is a wonder's case
That thou art blind, and wilt not thyself know;
Though upon earth thou hast thy dwelling place,
Yet earth at last must needs thee overthrow.
Thou thinkest earth do be no earth I trow,
For if thou didst thou wouldest then apply
To forsake pleasure and to learn to die.

Pride, Wrath, Envy, and other allegorical personages, continue in much the same strain, and then comes a verse concluded by two very familiar lines. I do not know whether Hawes was the originator of them, or whether he simply made use of a sort of proverbial saying. But it is rather a disappointment to find that he is speaking not so much of peace and rest following after care, as of darkness following upon light.

:

O mortal folk, ye may behold and see

How I lie here, sometime a mortal knight.
The end of joy and all prosperity

Is death at last, in his sure course and might:
After the day cometh the darksome night;

For though the day be never so long,

At last the bells ring unto evensong.

Then in your spirit inwardly despise
The brittle world so full of doubleness,
With the dull flesh, and O, right soon arise

Out of your sleep of mortal heaviness.1

I am glad to introduce even a passing mention of Sir Thomas More (1480-1535). He may, in some sort, be entitled a writer of sacred poetry by virtue of his translation in English verse of the Rules of John Pieus, Earl of Mirandula. I quote four of the stanzas :

Serve God for love then, not for hope of meed.
What service may so désirable be

As where all turneth to thine owné speed?
Who is so good, so lovely eke as He?

Who hath already done so much for thee:
As He that first thee made, and on the rood
Eft [after] thee redeeméd with His precious blood?

Wherefore, good Lord, that full of mercy art,
Unto Thy grace and sovran dignity

We sely [poor] wretches cry with humble heart,
Our sins forget, and our malignity!
With piteous eye of Thy benignity
Friendly look on us once.

Thine own we be;

Servants or sinners, whether it liketh thee :—
Sinners,—if Thou our crime behold certain,
Our crime, the work of our uncourteous mind :
But if Thy giftés Thou behold again—
Thy giftés, noble, wonderful, and kind—
Thou shalt us then the same personés find,
Which are to Thee and have been long space
Servants by nature, children by Thy grace.

Grant, I Thee pray, such heat into mine heart,

That to this love of Thine may be egál [correspondent];

Grant me henceforth from Satan's bonds to start,
With whom me rueth long to have been thrall.
Grant me, good Lord, and Créatóur of all,
The flame to quench of all shameful desire,
And in Thy love set all mine heart afire ! 2

1 Stephen Hawes, The Pastime of Pleasure (Percy Society).

2 The Workes of Sir Thomas More, Knyght, sometyme Lord Chauncellour of England, wrytten by him in the Englysh tonge, ed. by W. Rastell, 1557, pp. 32-3:

Serue God for loue, then, not for hope of meede,

What seruice maie so desirable bee.