struction of the old serpent mentioned in the Aro

CALYPSE.

The extravagancies of Pagan mythology are not improperly introduced into a poem of this sort, as they are acknowledged falsities: or at best, if expressive of any moral truth, no more than the inventions of men. But the poet that applies the VISIONS OF GOD in such a manner is guilty of an impropriety, which, I fear, amounts to an impiety.

If we take a retrospect of English poetry from the age of Spenser, we shall find, that it principally consisted in visions and allegories. Fancy was a greater friend to the dark ages, as they are called, than is commonly supposed. Our writers caught this vein from the Provencial poets. There are indeed the writings of some English poets now remaining, who wrote before Gower or Chaucer. But these are merely chroniclers in rhyme, and seem to have left us the last dregs of that sort of composition, which was practiced by the British Bards: for instance The Chronicle of Robert of Glocester, who wrote, according to his account, about the year 1280. The most ancient allegorical poem, which I have seen in our language, is a manuscript Vision, in the Bodleian library, written in the reign of Edward II. by Adam Davie. It is in the short verse of the old metrical romance. However, Gower and Chaucer were justly reputed the first English

VOL. IX.

poets, because they were the first, of any note at least, who introduced invention into our poetry; the first who moralised their song, and strove to render virtue more amiable by clothing her in the veil of fiction. Chaucer, it must be acknowledged, deserves to be placed the first in time of our English poets, on another account; his admirable artifice in painting the familiar manners, which none before him had ever attempted in the most imperfect degree: and it should be remembered, to his immortal honour, that he was the first writer who gave the English nation, in their own language, an idea of humour. About the same time flourished an allegorical satirist, the author of Piers Plowmans Visions. To these succeeded Lydgate; who from his principal performances, the Fall of Princes*, and Story of Thebes, more properly may be classed among the legendary poets, although the first of these is in great measure a series of visions. But we have of this author two poems, viz. The Temple of Glass, and The Dance of Death, besides several other picces, chiefly in manuscript, professedly written in this species. Lydgate has received numberless cucomiums from our old English poets, which he merited more from his language than his imagination. Lydgate

*The book on which it is founded, viz, Boccace De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, is a plain historical narrative,

T. WARTON.

is an unanimated writer, yet he made considerable improvements in the rude state of English versification; and is perhaps the first of our poets whom common readers can peruse with little hesitation and difficulty. He was followed by Hardyng, who wrote a Chronicle, in verse, of all the English kings from Brutus, the favourite subject of the British bards, or poetical genealogists, down to the reign of Edward IV. in whose reign he lived. This piece is often commended and quoted by our most learned antiquaries. But the poet is lost in the historian: care in collecting, and truth in relating events, are incompatible with the sallies of invention. So frigid and prosaick) a performance, after such promising improvements, seemed to indicate, that poetry was relapsing into its primitive barbarism; and that the rudeness of Robert of Glocester, would be soon reinstated in the place of Chaucer's judgment and imagination.

However, in the reign of Henry VII. this interval of darkness was happily removed by Stephen Hawes, a name generally unknown, and not mentioned by any compiler of the lives of English poets. This author was at this period the restorer of invention, which seems to have suffered a gradual degeneracy from the days of Chaucer. He not only revived, but improved, the ancient allegorick vein, which Hardyng had almost entirely banished. Instead of that dryness

of description, so remarkably disgusting in many of his predecessors, we are by this poet often entertained with the luxuriant effusions of Spenser. Hawes refined Lydgate's versification, and gave it sentiment and imagination; added new graces to the seven-lined stanza which Chaucer and Gower had adopted from the Italian; and, to sum up all, was the first of our poets who decorated invention with perspicuous and barmonious numbers. The title of his principal performance is almost as obscure as his name, viz. The historie of GRAUNDE AMOURE and LA BEL PUCEL, called the PASTtime of PleasuRE; contayning the knowledge of the seven sciences, and the course of man's life in this worlde. Invented by Stephen Hawes, groome of kyng Henry the seventh his chamber *.' Henry VII.

is said to have preferred Hawes to this station, chiefly on account of his extraordinary memory, for he could repeat by heart most of the English poets, especially Lydgate +. This reign produced another allegorical poem, entitled the

In a note after the contents it is said to be written, an, 21. Hen. vii, or 1505. Such is the fate of poetry, says Wood, that this book, which in the time of Henry VII. and VIII. was taken into the hands of all ingenious men, is now thought but ⚫ worthy of a ballad-monger's stall. Athen. Oron. ed. 2. vol. 1. pag. 6. col. 2. It is in Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. Cod. impress. A. Wood. He also wrote the Temple of Glass, Wynk, dẹ Worde, 1500. 4to. and other pieces. T. WAKTON,

Wood ubi supr. et Bale Script. Brit. cent. 8, num. 58.

T. WARTON.

Ship of Fooles. It was translated from the High Dutch, and professes to ridicule the vices and absurdities of all ranks of men.

The language

is tolerably pure: but it has nothing of the invention and pleasantry which the plan seems to promise; neither of which, however, could be expected, if we consider its original.

In the reign of Henry VIII. classical literature began to be received and studied in England; and the writings of the ancients were cultivated, with true taste and erudition, by Sir Thomas More, Colet, Ascham, Leland, Cheke, and other illustrious rivals in polished composition. Erasmus was entertained and patronised by the king and nobility; and the Greek language, that inestimable repository of genuine elegance and sublimity, was taught and admired. In this age flourished John Skelton; who, notwithstanding the great and new lights with which he was surrounded, contributed nothing to what his ancestors had left him: nor do I perceive, that his versification is, in any degree, more refined than that of one of his immediate predecessor, Hawes. Indeed, one would hardly suspect, that he wrote in the same age with his elegant contemporaries Surrey and Wyat. His best pieces are written in the allegorical manner, and are his Crowne of Lawrell and Bowge of Court. But the genius of Skelton seems little better qualified for picturesque than satirical poetry. In the one he