collision with the Archbishop, and he was deprived and suspended. He was, at a later date, Vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry, but soon resigned. He was an unwearied preacher of sermons and writer of pamphlets, and ever ready for public disputation with his opponents. But he was also full of sympathy for the troubles of the poor-keen also and bold in rebuking the abuses and the vices of his age. In 1550 he wrote a series of one and thirty vigorous remonstrances in rhyme against the varied evils he saw around him-the State plundering the Church, the rich plundering the poor, the Puritan taxing the Papist with idleness, ignorance, and immorality, and anon letting in seven other spirits worse than those which had been driven out, brawlers and drunkards, usurers and forestallers, flatterers and backbiters, and swearers and dicers, and idle vagabonds, pluralities in the Church, discommoning of open lands, bribery in public offices, and so forth. In the same year he issued another book, also in verse, in which he sounded his trumpet of warning in lessons addressed severally to magistrates, gentlemen, women, merchants, lawyers, physicians, learned men, scholars, lewd priests, yeomen, servants, and beggars. His appeals are vigorous and very earnest, but by no means wanting in kindliness. I give an extract from The Gentleman's Lesson. As regards form, it has no pretence to being more than the merest rhyme : Get thee knowledge, I say, and then Thou hast most need learned to be. Thou shalt perceive thou hast no time Thou shalt not find any leisure Thy mind shall be still ravished So much as shall lie in thy might. Thou shalt delight for to defend The poor man that is innocent, Thou shalt have delight in nothing Which is, under God and the king, To rule them that thou dost dwell by. Thou shalt not think that thou mayest take Thy rent to spend it at thy will, As one that should no reckoning make For ought that he doth well or ill.1 And so he continues through 160 lines, concluding with the admonition to live night and day in God's fear. Crowley also wrote a poem on The Last Judgment, and a version of the Psalms of David. I must just mention Thomas Tusser's Hundred Good Points of Husbandry, published in 1557. It was well that a little handbook in verse, so popular that it was once probably, in the hands or committed to the memories of almost all the country gentlemen, and others con 1 Select Works of Robert Crowley, ed. by J. M. Cowper for E.E. T.S. p. 90: Thou that arte borne to lande and rent.' nected with husbandry, in the kingdom,'1 should, even in the most simple and unassuming way, recognise, amid all the routine of the farmer's life, the ruling hand of God, and the duty of thankfulness to Him. Now think upon God; let thy tongue never cease The following lines are from his poetical autobiography, first added to the edition of 1573 of his Points of Husbandry: When all is done, learn this, my son, Man taketh the pain, God giveth gain; He was also the author of a Christmas carol which appears in collections. The two next extracts are from six poems, in which each verse ends with a refrain, given to J. Jegon, Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, who was born in 1499, and died in 1581. It is not known who they were written by. SAY-WELL AND DO-WELL. Say-well, and do-well, they are things twain; Say-well is truly a worthy thing; Of say-well great goodness doth not forth spring : Say-well, etc. Say-well is ruled by man some deal; Do-well doth wholly to God appeal. 1 Sir E. Brydges' advertisement to his edition of A Hundreth Good Poyntes of Husbandry. 2 Id. Nowe thinke upon God, let thy tonge neuer cease. 3 Thomas Tusser's Will and Poetical Autobiography, 1846. Say-well saith goodly, and doth many please; Say-well makes many to God's word cleave; Say-well in danger of death is cold; Do-well is earnest and wondrous bold, When say-well for fear doth tremble and quake, Say-well is slipp'ry, and winketh whiles; Where say-well for shame shall hide his face, Say-well to silence is oftentimes bound; Say-well in hand doth many things take Where say-well with many is quite down-cast, Say-well himself will oft advance; Do-well doth neither jet [strut] nor prance, Yet do-well the world doth profit more Than say-well and his hundred store. Say-well, etc. Say-well in wordes is proper and trick [set-off], Lord, trick and quick together knit, So shall they pipe a merry fit. Richard Edwards (1523-66), Editor of the Paradise of Dainty Devices, and the chief contributor to it, wrote 1 Six Ballads with Burdens, from MS. in C. C. Coll., Cambridge, ed. by Jas. Goodwin, Percy Society, 1844, vol. xiii. : 'Say-well ys truly a worthy thyng, Off say-well greate goodnes noth furth spryng.' some sacred poetry of a didactic strain, not very noteworthy, but with some dignity of tone, as in the verses which begin Whoso will be accounted wise, and truly claim the name, By joining virtue to his deeds he must achieve the same.1 Edwards was a senior student of Christ Church, and in 1561 was appointed by Elizabeth a gentleman of the Royal Chapel and a Master of the Children of the Chapel. Archbishop Parker (1504-75) may just be mentioned as one of that great company of unsuccessful translators of the Psalms (1560). His version of the hundredth is a singular one, for which cause alone I quote it : O joy, all men terrestriall! I byd not Jewes especiall, But Jewes and Greekes in generall ;- With hymnes of myrth most musicall. For why? this Lord so principall With hundreth thankes: thus ende we all.2 Francis Thynne's Debate between Pride and Lowliness -a humorous tale with a religious moral to it—was printed about 1568. It concludes with the epithymeWho purposeth to liven virtuose In favour of our God, let him take keep 1 Paradyse of Daynty Devises, p. 27: Whoso will be accompted wise.' 2 Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, vol. ix. p. 109. Francis Thynne's Debate, etc., reprinted for the Shakespeare Society, 1841, p. 81. |