we must not be surprised to find a mercer, a sheriff, and an alderman of London, descending from his important occupations to write verses. Robert Fabyan, who is better known as an historian than as a poet, was esteemed, not only the most facetious, but the most learned of all the mercers, sheriffs, and aldermen of his time; and no layman of that age is said to have been better skilled in the Latin language. He flourished about the year 1494.

In his Chronicle, or Concordance of Histories, from Brutus to the year 1485, it is his usual practice, at the division of the books, to insert metrical prologues, and other pieces in verse. His transitions from prose to verse, in the course of a prolix narrative, seem to be made with much sense; and, when he begins to versify, the historian disappears only by the addition of rhyme and stanza. In the first edition of his Chronicle, printed in 1516, by way of prologues to his seven books, he has given us The seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin, in English Rime; and, under the year 1325, there is a poem to the Virgin; and another on one Badby, a Lollard, under the year 1409. These are suppressed in the later editions. He has, like

wise, left a panegyric on the City of London; but " despairs of doing justice to so noble a subject for verse, even if he had the eloquence of Tully, the morality of Seneca, and the harmony of that faire lady Calliope."

As an historian, our author is the dullest of compilers; he is equally attentive to the succession of the mayors of London, and of the monarchs of England; and seems to have thought the dinners at Guildhall, and the pageantries of the City companies, more interesting transactions than our victories in France, and our struggles for public liberty at home. One of Fabyan's historical anecdotes, under the important reign of Henry the Fifth, is, that a new weather-cock was placed on the cross of St. Paul's steeple. It is said, that Cardinal Wolsey commanded many copies of this Chronicle to be committed to the flames, because it made too ample a discovery of the excessive revenues of the clergy. The earlier chapters of these childish annals faithfully record all those fabulous traditions, which generally supply the place of historic monuments, in describing the origin of a nation.-WARTON.

66

THE ORIGINALS OF EDWIN AND EMMA."

AT Bowes, in Yorkshire, a dreary village on the edge of Stanmore, lived these two young cottagers, secluded from the gay scenes of life.

Emma's sister was alive some few ten years back, and used frequently to relate to her young inquiring neighbours, with a kind of gloomy pleasure, every circumstance relating to the death of Edwin and Emma. These two early victims of love were both interred in one grave in Bowes churchyard, over which no stone is laid to commemorate their remarkable affection for each other.

Their names are recorded in the parish register with particulars. Although they moved in a humble sphere, a bard arose and handed down to posterity their history, when their real names and resting place shall probably have been forgotten. It was once in agitation to have erected a monument to their memory, by private subscription; but why not carried into effect we know not; possibly prevented by some character, who, similar to

"The father, too, a sordid man,

Who love nor pity knew,

Was all unfeeling as the clod,

From whence his riches grew."

SOUTHERN AND THE DUKE OF ARGYLE.

SOUTHERN once wrote a dedication to John

Duke of Argyle. It was shown to his grace, in manuscript, and he objected to one part, as too complimentary; to another, as inelegant in the construction; and to another, as inapplicable to the subject. On this occasion, the poet wrote the following stanzas:

"Argyle, his praise, when Southern wrote,
First struck out this, and then, that thought;
Said, this was flattery, that a fault :

How shall the bard contrive?

My lord, consider what you do ;
He'll lose his pains, and verses too;
For if the lines will not fit you,
They'll serve no man alive."

PUTTENHAM.

PUTTENHAM, with his versifying pen, has drawn a portrait of Queen Elizabeth; and as she was, in her estimation, as beautiful as her ill-fated rival, Mary Queen of Scots, and as the poet was upon Elizabeth's pension list, he, doubtless, held up a deceitful mirror, and forbore to give the least inuendo whether her

charms were natural or artificial. This spe

cimen will suffice.

66 'Two lips wrought out of rubie rocke,
Like leaves to shut and to unlock,
As portall door in prince's chamber,
A golden tongue in mouth of amber.
Her bosom, sleek as Paris plaster,
Held up two balls of alabaster."

CREBILLON, AND THE RAT.

CREBILLON, the celebrated French poet, wrote a novel entitled " Tanzai," and was sent for confinement to the castle of Vincennes. The first night of his imprisonment, he had scarcely fallen asleep, when he suddenly felt something warm and hairy in his bed. Supposing it to be a cat, he drove the animal away and went to sleep again. Being fond of cats, he was sorry, the next morning, that he had driven the animal away; and hoped that it might yet afford him some amusement in his solitude. In vain did he hunt in every corner for the supposed cat. "If she return," thought he, “I will give her a better reception." At noon, when he was eating his frugal repast, he perceived, at some distance, a creature sitting, like a monkey, on its hind legs, and looking steadfastly

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