having children by a miftrefs he kept, he protefted that in his confcience he kept her in the notion of a wife: And fuch was his cowardice, that he chofe rather to confefs adultery than own marriage, a crime at that time more fubjected to punishment than the other.

The PROLOGUE to the BoUGE COURT.

In autumpne, whan the funne in vyrgyne,
By radyante hete, enryped hath our corne,
When Luna, full of mutabylyte,

As Emperes the dyademe hath worne
Of our Pole artyke, fmylynge half in fcorne,
At our foly, and our vnftedfaftne.le,

The tyme when Mars to warre hym did dres,

I, callynge to mynde the great auctoryte
Of poetes olde, whiche full craftely,
Vnder as couerte termes as coulde be,
Can touche a trouthe, and cloke fubtylly
With fresh Vtterance; full fentcyoufly,

Dyverse in ftyle: fome spared not vyce to wryte,
Some of mortalitie nobly dyd endyte.

His other works, as many as could be collected are chiefly thefe :

Meditations on St. Ann.

on the Virgin of Ken.

Sonnets on Dame Anne,

Elyner Rummin, the famous alewife of Eng'ard, often printed, the laft edition 1624.

The Peregrinations of human Life.

Solitary Sonnets.

The Art of dying well.

Speaking eloquently.

Manners of the Court.

Invective against William Lyle the Grammarian.

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Epitaphs

Epitaphs on Kings, Princes, and Nobles.
Collin Clout.

Poetical Fancies and Satires.

Verfes on the Death of Arthur Prince of Wales.

H

ALEXANDER BARCLAY.

E was an author of fome eminence and merit, tho' there are few things preferved concerning him, and he has been neglected by almost all the biographers of the poets. That excellent writer - Mrs. Cooper feems to have a pretty high opinion of his abilities; it is certain that he very confiderably refined the language, and his verses are much fmoother than thofe of Harding, who wrote but a few years before him. He stiles himself Priest, and Chaplain in the College of St. Mary, Otory, in the county of Devon, and afterwards Monk of Ely. His principal work is a tranflation of a fatirical piece, written originally in high Dutch, and entitled the Ship of Fools: It expofes the characters, vices, and follies of all degrees of men, and tho' much inferior in its execution to the Canterbury Tales, has yet confiderable merit, especially when it is confidered how barren and unpolite the age was in which he flourished. In the prologue to this he makes an apology for his youth, and it appears that the whole was finished Anno Dom. 1508, which was about the close of the reign of Henry VII. In elegancy of manners he has the advantage of all his predeceffors, as is particularly remarkable in his addrefs to Sir Giles Alington, his patron. The poet was now grown old, and the knight defiring him to abridge and improve Gower's Confeffio Amantis, he declines it in the politeft

manner,

manner, on account of his age, profeffion, and infirmities; but tho' love is an improper fubject, fays he, I am ftill an admirer of the fex, and fhall introduce to the honour of your acquaintancé, four of the fineft ladies that nature ever framed, Prudence, Temperance, Juftice, and Magnanimity;' the whole of the addrefs is exceeding courtly, and from this I fhall quote a few lines, which will both illuftrate his politenefs and verfification.

To you these accorde; these unto you are due, Of you late proceeding as of their head fountayne;

Your life as example in writing I enfue,

For, more then my writing within it can contayne; Your manners pefrormeth and doth there at

tayne:

So touching these vertues, ye have in
your living
More than this my meter conteyneth in writing.
My dities indited may counfell many one,

But not you, your maners furmounteth my doctrine

Wherefore, I regard you, and your maners all

one,

After whofe living my proceffes I combine:
So other men inftructing, I must to you encline
Conforming my process, as much as I am able,
To your fad behaviour and maners commendable.

He was author of the following pieces.

Lives of feveral of the Saints.

Saluft's History of the Jugurthian war tranflated into English.

The Castle of Labour, tranflated from the French into English.

Bale gives this author but an indifferent character as to his morals; he is faid to have intrigued with women notwithstanding his clerical profeflion: It is certain.

C 4.

certain he was a gay courtly man, and perhaps, tho' he efpoufed the Church in his profeffion, he held their calebacy and pretended chaftity in contempt, and being a man of wit, indulged himself in thofe pleafures, which feem to be hereditary to the poets.

HO' poetry is none of the excellencies in which this great man was diftinguished, yet as he wrote fome verfes with tolerable spirit, and was in almost every other refpect one of the foremost geniuffes our nation ever produced, I imagine a fhort account of his life here will not be difagreable to the readers, especially as all Biographers of the Poets before me have taken notice of him, and ranked him amongst the number of Bards. Sir Thomas More was born in Milk-ftreet, London, A. D. 1480. He was fon to Sir John More, Knight, and one of the Juftices of the King's-Bench, a man held in the highest esteem at that time for his knowledge in the law and his integrity in the adminiftration of juftice. It was objected by the enemies of Sir Thomas, that his birth was obfcure, and his family mean; but far otherwife was the real cafe. Judge More bore arms from his birth, having his coat of arms quartered, which proves his having come to his inheritance by defcent. His mother was likewise a woman of family, and of an extraordinary virtue.

Doctor Clement relates from the authority of our author himself, a vision which his mother had, the next night after her marriage. She thought fhe faw in her fleep, as it were engraven in her wedding ring, the number and countenances of all the children fhe was to have, of whom the face of one

was

:

was fo dark and obfcure, that she could not well difcern it, and indeed the afterwards fuffered an untimely delivery of one of them the face of the other the beheld fhining moft gloriously, by which the future fame of Sir Thomas was pre-fignified. She alfo bore two daughters. But tho' this story is told with warmth by his great grandson, who writes his life, yet, as he was a Roman Catholic, and and difpofed to a fuperftitious belief in miracles and vifions, there is no great ftrefs to be laid upon it. Lady More might perhaps communicate this vifion to her fon, and he have embraced the belief of it; but it seems to have too little authority, to deferve credit from pofterity.

Another miracle is related by Stapleton, which is faid to have happened in the infancy of More. His nurfe one day croffing a river, and her horfe ftepping into a deep place, expofed both her and the child to great danger. She being more anxious for the fafety of the child than her own, threw him over a hedge into a field adjoining, and escaping likewife from the imminent danger, when the came to take him up, the found him quite unhurt and fmiling fweetly upon her.

He was put to the free-school in London called St. Anthony's,under the care of the famous Nicholas Holt, and when he had with great rapidity acquired a knowledge of his grammar rules, he was placed by his father's intereft under the great Cardinal Merton, archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord High Chancellor, whofe gravity and learning, generofity and tenderness, allured all men to love and honour him. To him More dedicated his Utopia, which of all his works is unexceptionably the moft mafterly and finished. The Cardinal finding himself too much incumbered with bufinefs, and hurried with state affairs to fuperintend his education, placed him in Canterbury College in Oxford, where by his affiduous application to books, his extraordinary temperance and vivacity of wit,