CENSURA LITERARIA. NUMBER XXVIII. [Being Number XVI. of the New Series.] ART. I. A pore helpe. The bukler and defence Of mother holy Kyrke, And weapen to drive hence Al that against her wircke. [Surrounded by a rude wood cut representing the fall of Adam, &c.] b. l. one sheet, small 8vo. without name of place or printer. HERBERT registered this little tract in his general history of printing, from Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, but seems to have confounded the opening of the book with its title, which runs as above, in the only ancient copy now supposed to exist. Mr. Warton has added the date of 1550, but his authority for so doing is not apparent. The style is highly Skeltonical, if not the pettish production of that coarse satirist himself. I cite two extracts, as specimens, from the commencement and the close. 'Wyll none in all this lande These felowes, to withstande, And taketh theyr authoritie Out of the holy evangelie," &c. Is it possible that "Sir Harry," in the following lines, should have reference to Henry the Eighth, who received the title of Defender of the Faith in 1521? "Because I maye not tary, I praye to swete Syr Harry, That he maye stande fast And be not over cast, Or els to be the last Of all them that do yelde For yf he styke therin, Tyll he come to eternytie With all his whole fraternyte. Amen, therefore saye ye That his partakers be. Ye get no more of me. Finis." T. P. ART. ART. II. Fragmenta Aulica: or Court and State Jests in noble drollery: true and real: ascertained to their times, places, and persons. By T. S. Gent. London: Printed by H. Marsh and Jos. Conyers. 1662. 12mo. pp. 144. [With neatly engraved frontispiece of a male and female figure, superscribed Curia quasi Incuria," and beneath their feet an owl and a magpie ] This amusing collection of court-witticisms professes to be rectified from false citations, and to have the several pieces reduced to their undoubted originals by the careful examination of historical and other tracts. Many of them will be found in later volumes of jests and anecdotes; the reader is here presented with a few that are of less common occurrence. "In the King's wardrobe is a rich piece of arras presenting the sea fight in 1588, which at severall audiences of ambassadors hath been used for magnificence in the banquetting-house, (as in Cromwell's usurpation,) and wherein were wrought the living portraitures of the chiefest commanders in that service. On a time a captain who highly prized himselfe and his valour, in that naval fight, coming to court and missing his picture therein, complained of the injury to his friend, professing of himselfe that he merited a place there as well as some therein remembred, for that he was engaged in the middle of the fight. Be content, (said his friend) thou hast been an old pyrate, and art reserved for another hanging.' "Dr. Preston was the greatest pupil-monger in The same probably which afterwards ornamented the House of Lords, England in man's memory, having sixteen fellow-commoners, most heires to faire estates, admitted in one yeare in Queen's Colledge, and provided convenient accommodations for them. As William the popular Earl of Nassau, Prince of Orange, was said to have won a subject from the King of Spain to his own party, every time he put off his hat, so it was commonly said in the colledge that every time Mr. Preston plucked off his hat to Dr. Davenant, the master, he gained a chamber or study for one of his pupils; among whom one Chambers, a Londoner, was eminent for his learning. Being afterwards chosen himself master of Emanuel Colledge, he removed thither with most of his pupils; and when it was much admired where all these should find lodging in that colledge which was so full already-one replyed, Mr. Preston will carry Chambers along with him.' "It is the rule general in arms that the playner the ancienter, and so consequently the more honourable. To this purpose a memorable gentleman, the beginning of whose gentry might easily be remembred for its late rise, was mocking at the plain coat of an ancient Esquire: to whom the Esquire returned—‹ I must be fain to wear the coat which my great, great, great, great grandfather left me; but had I had the happiness to have bought one, as you did, it should have been guarded after the newest fashion.' crown. "King James first coined his 22 shillings piece of gold, called Jacobusses; where on his head he wore 3 After that he coined his 20 shillings, and wore the laurel instead of the crown. Upon which mutation Ben Johnson said pleasantly, that poets being always 'poor, bayes were rather the emblem of wit wit than of wealth, since King James no sooner began to wear them, but he fell two shillings in the pound ia publique valuation.' "One was friendly telling Benjamin Johnson of his great and excessive drinking continually. Here's a grievous clutter and talk (quoth Benjamin) concerning my drinking, but here's not a word of that thirst which so miserably torments me day and night." T. P. ART. III. The Character of an Antiquarian. [From "Naps upon Parnassus," 1658. See CENSURA, N°. XXIII.] "He is a Cornish pedling historian: for as that country's dwarf merchants grow great monumental tradesmen by degrees, with picking their scattered livings from quarries; so our theme blisters to a considerable historian, by rifling the stones for history. Nay, such is his fleteh't impiety, that the pure ashes of the dead do not scape his inquisition: hence 'tis he vexes the tombs for almost mortified inscriptions, and sacriligiously steals that away from them, which did both cover and comprehend them. That unletter'd + vermine which daily diets and waxes fat on letters, devours more learning in his progress through a book, than he by all his jumbling productions begets of his own in his whole life-time. That ceremonious soul which idolatrously worshipt the gentlewoman's thred bare garment, might have quietly kist her rear, which questionJess was the senior of the two, wip'd his mouth with Store-cutters. A certain kind of vermine that hath ne'er a letter in his name. |