That towarde evyn, at midnyght, and at morowe,
Down from hevyn adawithal our forowe.-
And dryeth up the bytter terys wete
Of Aurora, after the morowe graye,
That the in wepying dothe on floures filete",

In lufty Aprill, and in freshè Maye:

And caufeth Phebus, the bryght fomers daye,

Wyth his wayne gold yborned, bryght and fayre,
To' enchafe the myflès of our cloudy ayre.

Now fayre sterre, O fterre of fterrys all!
Whofe lyght to fe the angels do delyte,
So let the gold-dewe of thy grace y fall
Into my brette, lyke fcalys fayre and whyte,
Me to enfpire !'

Lydgate's STORIE OF THEBES was first printed by William Thinne, at the end of his edition of Chaucer's works, in 1561. The author introduces it as an additional Canterbury tale. After a fevere ficknefs, having a defign to vifit the fhrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, he arrives in that city while Chaucer's pilgrims were affembled there for the fame purpose and by mere accident, not fufpecting to find fo numerous and refpectable a company, goes to their inn. There is fome humour in our monk's travelling figure: In a cope of black, and not of grene, On a palfray, flender, long, and lene,

With rufty bridle, made not for the fale,
My man toforne with a void male '.

He fees, ftanding in the hall of the inn, the convivial hoft of the Tabard, full of his own importance; who without the least introduction or hesitation thus addreffes our author, quite unprepared for fuch an abrupt falutation:

Dan Pers,

Dan Dominike, Dan Godfray, or Clement,

Ye be welcome newly into Kent;

Though your bridle have neither boss, ne bell,

Befeching you that you will tell,

First of your name, &c.

That looke fo pale, all devoid of blood,

Upon your head a wonder thredbare hood.

Our hoft then invites him to fupper, and promifes that he shall have, made according to his own directions, a large pudding, a round bagis, a French moile, or a phrase of eggs: adding, that he looked extremely lean for a monk, and must certainly have been fick, or elfe belong to a poor monaftery: that fome nut brown ale after fupper will be of fervice, and that a quantity of the feed of an

" Float. Drop.

Affright. Remove. w Burnished with gold. So in Lydgate's Legend on Dan Joos a monk, taken from Vicentius Bellovacenfis's Speculum HISTORIALE, the name Maria is ful fayre igraven on a red rose, in lettris of BOURNID gold. MSS. Harl. 2251. 39. fol. 71. b.

X

* Prologue.

y Portmanteau.

nis, cummin, or coriander, taken before going to bed, will remove flatulencies. But above all, fays the hoft, chearful company will be your best phyfician. You fhall not only fup with me and my companions this evening, but return with us to-morrow to London; yet on condition, that you will fubmit to one of the indifpenfable rules of our fociety, which is to tell an entertaining story while we are travelling.

What, looke up, Monke! For by a cockes blood,
Thou shall be mery, whofo that say nay;
Fer to morrowe, anone as it is day,

And that it ginne in the east to dawe,

Thou shall be bound to a newe lawe, '.
At going out of Canterbury toun,
And lien afide thy profeffioun;

Thou shall not chefe, nor thyfelf withdrawe,
If any mirth be found in thy mawe,

Like the custom of this company;
For none fo proude that dare me deny,
Knight, nor knave, chanon, priest, ne nonne,
To telle a tale plainely as they conne",
When I affigne, and fee time oportune;
And, for that we our purpose woll contune";
We will homeward the fame custome ufe.

Our monk, unable to withstand this profufion of kindness and feftivity, accepts the hoft's invitation, and fups with the pilgrims. The next morning, as they are all riding from Canterbury to Of pringe, the hoft reminds his friend DAN JOHN of what he had mentioned in the evening, and without farther ceremony calls for a story. Lydgate obeys his commands, and recites the tragical destruction of the city of Thebes.'

• Nicholas Trevet, an Englishman, a Domican friar of London, who flourished about the year 1330, has left a commentary on Seneca's tragedies, and he was fo favourite a poet as to bave been illuftrated by Thomas Aquinas. He was printed at Venice fo early as the year 1482.' Mr. Warton feems here to have been a little flovenly in his language, and to require the aliquando bonus nutat in his favour.

We cannot but be pleafed with Lydgate's defcription of a perfon benighted in a folitary wilderness:

Holding his way, of heartè nothing light,
Matef and weary, till it draweth to night:
And al the day beholding envirown,
He neither fawe ne cattle, towre, ne town;
The which thing greveth him full fore,
And fedenly the fee began to rore,
Winde and tempèft hidiously to arise,
The rain down beten in ful grifly wife;
That many à beast thereof was adrad,
And nigh for ferè gan to waxè mad,

b Dawn.
Afraid. Fatigued.

• Can, or Know.

1

As it seemed by the full wofull fownes
Of tigres, beres, of bores, and of liounes;
Which to refute, and himself for to fave,
Evrich in hafte draweth to his cave.

But Polymitè in this tempeft huge
Alas the while findeth no refuge.

Ne, him to fhrowde, faw no where no fuccour
Till it was paffed almost midnight hour.

His defcriptions of the morning too, taken from his Troye Boke, which was printed by Command of Henry the Eighth, are finely coloured, and uncommonly harmonious:

When that the rowes and the rayes redde
Eaftward to us full early ginnen (predde,
Even at the twylyght in the dawneynge,
Whan that the larke of cuftom ginneth fynge,"
For to falüè in her heavenly laye,
The lufty goddeffe of the morowe graye,
I meane Aurora, which afore the funne
Is won't t'enchase the blackè skyès dunne,
And al the darkneffe of the dimmy night:
And freshe Phebùs, with comforte of his light,
And with the brightnes of his bemès shene,
Hath overgylt the hugè hyllès grene;
And flourès eke, agayn the morowe tide,
Upon their ftalkes gan playn their leavès wide.
Again, among more pictures of the fame fubject:
When Aurora the fylver droppès thene,

k

Her teares, had fhed upon the freshè grene;
Complaynyng aye, in weping and in forowe,
Her chyldren's death on every fommer-morowe :
That is to fayè, when the dewe so foote,
Embawmed hath the floure and eke roote
With luftie lycoùr in Aprill and in Maye:
When that the larke, the meffenger of daye,
Of custom aye Aurora doth falúe,

With fundry notes her forowe to 'tranfmuè.

The fpring is thus defcribed, renewing the buds or bloffoms of the groves, and the flowers of the meadows:

And them whom winter's blastes have shaken bare

With fotè blofomes freshly to repare ;

And the meadows of many a fundry hewe,

Tapitid ben with divers flourès newe

Of fundry motless m, lufty for to fene;

And holfome balme is shed among the grene.

& Streaks of light. A very common word in Lydgate. Chaucer, Kn. T. v. 579. col. 2. Urr. p. 455.

And while the twilight and the rowis red
Of Phebus light.

b Salute.

m Colours.

Chafe.

1 Change.

* Open.

• Frequently

Frequently in these florid landscapes we find the fame idea differently expreffed. Yet this circumstance, while it weakened the defcription, taught a copioufness of diction, and a variety of poetical phrafeology. There is great softness and facility in the following delineation of a delicious retreat :

Tyll at the laft, among the bowès glade,

Of adventure, I caught a plefaunt fhade;
Ful fmothe, and playn, and lufty for to fene,
And fofte as velvette was the yongè grene:
Where from my hors I did alight as fast,
And on a bowe aloft his reyné caft.
So faynte and mate of weryneffe I was,
That I me layd adowne upon the gras,
Upon a brinckè, fhortly for to telle,
Befyde the river of a criftall welle;
And the water, as I reherfè can,
Like quickè-fylver in his ftreames yran,

Of which the gravell and the bryghtè ftone,

As any golde, agaynft the fun yfhone.

Thefe fpecimens will give our Readers no unfavourable opinion of Lydgate the poet of Henry the Sixth. Had that prince been a monk of Bury likewife, he would have been thrown into his proper line of life.

(To be continued.)

L.

ART. X. The Wreath of Fashion, or the Art of Sentimental Poetry. 2d Edition, 4to. I S. Becket. 1778.

W

one of

E confider this as the best poem that hath been publifhed for fome time past.-It has been faid that its Author is an immediate defcendant from a great literary character, and a good poet.-Whether that be true or not, we will venture to recommend to our Readers this poetical performance as the offspring of genius, which fhines forth among the late nameless and numberlefs productions of the prefs

Velut inter ignes

Luna minores.

At a time when Gray, Akenfide, and Shenstone are no more, when Mafon, Warton, and Johnson are paft the heyday of Fancy, and when fome late publications have difcredited our tafte by their fuccefs, it is a moft pleafing confideration to the lovers of poetry, that a fairer profpect now opens to them

POPE.

To leaflefs fhrubs the flow'ring palms fucceed, And od rous myrtle to the noifome weed. The Wreath of Fashion is a elegant fatire, chiefly levelled at I the false tafte of fentimental poetry in all its branches,-let us hear our Author fpeak for himself, in his advertisement:

In attempting to ridicule this modifh folly, it is fcarcely neceffary to apologize to the feveral perfonages of the fentimental train, for introducing their names. When a poet announces himself, and

publicly

publicly wears his laurels, he is lawful game for the critics: And it makes no difference, whether his works come from the prefs, or, according to Sir Benjamin Backbite's fyftem, " circulate in Manufcript." Befides, to canvass the flighter imperfections, either of file or of conduct, feems to be the limit of poetical cenfure. It is only the desperate fatyrift, whofe invenomed pen ftrikes at the character and honour of individuals, that perverts and difgraces poetry :Such afperfions, if well founded, are too grofs for the tribunal of the Mufes; and if (as is generally the cafe) they are utterly falfe, they recoil not only on the Author, but on the very art itself, which can fo eafily be preverted to fo bad purpose.. -But who can be hurt by a critique on his Charades and Rebuffes?-An imputation of false tafte may not be very pleasant, but it never can seriously offend men of fenfe and good breeding: both which qualities, as the Author agrees with all the world in acknowledging his perfonages to poffels in the highest degree, fo he requests that not only they, but the few others who may happen to read his Poem, will acquit him of any intention to give the flightest offence.'

We fincerely agree with his opinion of the desperate, malignant fatirift, but we are not equally convinced that an imputation of falfe tafte cannot feriously offend men of fenfe, and good breeding they are furely the moft likely to feel on this occafion. The fenfibility that conftitutes good breeding will more cafily be offended at the imputation of falle tafte, than men of no breeding, and confequently lefs feeling. Whoever writes for his pleasure, thinks of giving pleafure; and whenever the pen of the fatirift deftroys that idea, it will certainly produce fome degree of pain. intended to

The first twelve lines of this poem are excellent, and fhew the fuperiority of natural when compared to fentimental poetryWhen firit the Mufe recorded Beauty's praise

In glowing numbers, and enraptur'd lays,
Sweet was the poet's fong; undeck'd by art;
For love was Nature, and his theme the heart.
At Beauty's fhrine how brightly Genius glow'd!
There, her wild wreaths luxuriant fancy itrew'd;
Whofe flowrets, wak'd by love's enliv ning ray,
Scatter'd with native fweets the artless lay.
Such were the rains th' enamour'd Ovid fang;
Such the fond lays that flow'd from Prior's tongue:
Nor of its best reward was verfe beguil'd,

When Julia own'd its pow`r, and Chloe smil'd.'

How characteristically elegant are the following lines on the

fentimental dramas !-

Firit, for true grounds of fentimental lore,

The fcenes of modern comedy explore;

Dramatic homilies! devout and fage,

Stor'd with wife maxims, "both for youth and age."

Maxims, that fcorning their old homely dress,

Shift from plain proverbs to fpruce fentences.

But