VII.

A BALET BY THE EARL RIVERS.

The amiable light in which the character of Anthony Widville, the gallant Earl Rivers, has been placed by the elegant author of the Catal. of Noble Writers," interests us in whatever fell from his pen. It is presumed therefore that the insertion of this little sonnet will be pardoned, though it should not be found to have much poetical merit. It is the only original poem known of that nobleman's; his more voluminous works being only translations. And if we consider that it was written during his cruel confinement in Pomfret castle a short time before his execution in 1483, it gives us a fine picture of the composure and steadiness with which this stout earl beheld his approaching fate.

This ballad we owe to Rouse, a contemporary historian, who seems to have copied it from the Earl's own hand writing. In tempore,' says this writer, 'incarcerationis apud Pontem-fractum edidit unum Balet in anglicis, ut mihi monstratum est, quod subsequitur sub his verbis: Sum what musyng,' &c. Rossi Hist. 8vo. 2 Edit. p. 213. In Rouse the 2d stanza, &c. is imperfect, but the defects are here supplied from a more perfect copy printed in 'Ancient Songs, from the time of K. Hen. III. to the Revolution,' page 87.

This little piece, which perhaps ought rather to have been printed in stanzas of eight short lines, is written in imitation of a poem of Chaucer's, that will be found in Urry's Edit. 1721, p. 555, beginning thus⚫

'Alone walkyng, In thought plainyng,

And sore sighying, All desolate.

My remembrying Of my livyng

My death wishying Bothe erly and late.

Infortunate Is so my fate

That wote ye what, Out of mesure

My life I hate; Thus desperate

In such pore estate, Doe I endure, &c.'

SUMWHAT musyng, And more mornyng,
In remembring The unstydfastnes;
This world being Of such whelyng,
Me contrarieng, What may I gesse?

I fere dowtles, Remediles,

Is now to sese My wofull chaunce.
[For unkyndness, Withouten less,

And no redress, Me doth avaunce,
'Horace Walpole.-ED.

5

With displesaunce, To my grevaunce,
And no suraunce Of remedy.]
Lo in this traunce, Now in substaunce,.
Such is my dawnce, Wyllyng to dye.
Me thynkys truly, Bowndyn am I,
And that gretly, To be content:
Seyng playnly, Fortune doth wry

All contrary From myn entent.

10

15

My lyff was lent Me to on intent,
Hytt is ny spent. Welcome fortune!

But I ne went Thus to be shent,

But sho hit ment; Such is hur won.

VIII.

CUPID'S ASSAULT: BY LORD VAUX.

20

The reader will think that infant Poetry grew apace between the times of Rivers and Vaux, though nearly contemporaries; if the following song is the composition of that Sir Nicholas (afterwards Lord) Vaux, who was the shining ornament of the court of Henry VII. and died in the year 1523.

And yet to this Lord it is attributed by Puttenham in his 'Art of Eng. Poesie, 1589, 4to.' a writer commonly well informed: take the passage at large. 'In this figure [Counterfait Action] the Lord Nicholas Vaux, a noble gentleman and much delighted in vulgar making, and a man otherwise of no great learning, but having herein a marvelous facilitie, made a dittie representing the Battayle and Assault of Cupide, so excellently well, as for the gallant and propre application of his fiction in every part, I cannot choose but set downe the greatest part of his ditty, for in truth it cannot be amended. "When Cupid scaled," &c.' p. 200.- -For a farther account of Nicholas Lord Vaux, see Mr. Walpole's Noble Authors, Vol. I.

The following copy is printed from the first Edit. of Surrey's Poems, 1557, 4to.See another song of Lord Vaux's in the preceding Vol. Book II. No. II.

WHEN Cupide scaled first the fort,
Wherein my hart lay wounded sore;

The batry was of such a sort,

That I must yelde or die therfore.

Ver. 15, That fortune. Rossi Hist.-Ver. 19, went, i.e. weened.

There sawe I Love upon the wall,
How he his banner did display:
Alarme! alarme! he gan to call:
And bad his souldiours kepe aray.

The armes, the which that Cupide bare,
Were pearced hartes with teares besprent, 10
In silver and sable to declare

The stedfast love, he alwayes ment.

There might you se his band all drest
In colours like to white and blacke,
With powder and with pelletes prest

To bring the fort to spoile and sacke.

Good-wyll, the maister of the shot,

Stode in the rampire brave and proude, For spence of pouder he spared not

Assault! assault! to crye aloude.

There might you heare the cannons rore;
Eche pece discharged a lovers loke;
Which had the power to rent, and tore
In any place whereas they toke.

And even with the trumpettes sowne
The scaling ladders were up set,
And Beautie walked up and downe,
With bow in hand, and arrowes whet.

Then first Desire began to scale,

And shrouded him under [his] targe;
As one the worthiest of them all,
And aptest for to give the charge.

Ver. 30, her. Ed. 1557. so. Ed. 1585.

5

15

Then pushed souldiers with their pikes,
And halberdes with handy strokes;
The argabushe in fleshe it lightes,

And duns the ayre with misty smokes.

And, as it is the souldiers use

When shot and powder gins to want,
I hanged up my flagge of truce,

And pleaded up for my livès grant.

When Fansy thus had made her breche,
And Beauty entred with her band,
With bagge and baggage, sely wretch,
I yelded into Beauties hand.

Then Beautie bad to blow retrete,
And every souldier to retire,
And mercy wyll'd with spede to fet
Me captive bound as prisoner.

'Madame,' quoth I, 'sith that this day
Hath served you at all assayes,

I yeld to you without delay

Here of the fortresse all the kayes.

And sith that I have ben the marke,
At whom you shot at with your eye;
Nedes must you with your handy warke,
Or salve my sore, or let me die.'

Since the foregoing song was first printed off, reasons have occurred, which incline me to believe that Lord Vaux the poet was not the Lord Nicholas Vaux, who died in 1523, but rather a successor of his in the title. For in the first place it is remarkable that all the old writers mention Lord Vaux, the poet, as contemporary or rather posterior to Sir Thomas Wyat, and the E. of Surrey, neither of which made any figure till long after the death of the first Lord Nicholas Vaux. Thus Puttenham in his 'Art of English Poesie,

1589.' in p. 48, having named Skelton, adds, 'In the latter end of the same kings raigne [Henry VIII] sprong up a new company of courtly Makers, [poets] of whom Sir Thomas Wyat th' elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey were the two chieftaines, who having travailed into Italie, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and stile of the Italian poesie... greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie . . . . In the same time, or not long after was the Lord Nicholas Vaux, a man of much facilitie in vulgar makings.'-Webbe in his 'Discourse of English Poetrie,' 1586, ranges them in the following order, 'The E. of Surrey, the Lord Vaux, Norton, Bristow.' And Gascoigne, in the place quoted in the 1st vol. of this work [B. II. No. II.] mentions Lord Vaux after Surrey.-Again, the stile and measure of Lord Vaux's pieces seem too refined and polished for the age of Henry VII. and rather resemble the smoothness and harmony of Surrey and Wyat, than the rude metre of Skelton and Hawes. But what puts the matter out of all doubt, in the British Museum is a copy of his poem, 'I lothe that I did love,' [vid. vol. I. ubi supra] with this title, ‘A dyttye or sonet made by the Lord Vaus, in the time of the noble Quene Marye, representing the image of Death.' Harl. MSS No. 1703, §. 25.

It is evident then that Lord Vaux the poet was not he that flourished in the reign of Henry vij. but either his son, or grandson: and yet according to Dugdale's Baronage, the former was named Thomas, and the latter William: but this difficulty is not great, for none of the old writers mention the christian name of the poetic Lord Vaux2, except Puttenham; and it is more likely that he might be mistaken in that Lord's name, than in the time in which he lived, who was so nearly his contemporary.

Thomas Lord Vaux, of Harrowden in Northamptonshire, was summoned to Parliament in 1531. When he died does not appear; but he probably lived till the latter end of Queen Mary's reign, since his son, William, was not summoned to parl. till the last year of that reign, in 1558. This Lord died in 1595. See Dugdale, V. II. p. 304.- -Upon the whole I am inclined to believe that Lord Thomas was the Poet.

IX.

SIR ALDINGAR.

This old fabulous legend is given from the Editor's folio MS. with conjectural emendations, and the insertion of some additional stanzas to supply and complete the story.

It has been suggested to the Editor, that the author of this poem seems to have had in his eye the story of Gunhilda, who is sometimes called Eleanor, and was married to the Emperor (here called King) Henry.

i.e. Compositions in English. In the Paradise of Dainty Devises, 1596, he is called simply Lord Vaux the elder.'