PREFACE. THE religious poetry of the Middle Ages consists, for the most part, of dull versification, ennobled with few of the lofty sentiments that pure Christianity inspires, and enlivened with few flights of imagination, except those derived from a wild and dreary superstition. That of our own language is therefore chiefly valuable for its philological data, and as constituting a part of our national literature. But it is hoped that the poem, which these pages first bring to light, will be found to contain both some sentiments of piety, and some touches of poetry, that may render it more acceptable than its contemporaries. The text is taken from one of Sir Hans Sloane's MSS. in the British Museum, No. 1853, written on vellum, early in the fifteenth century, in a fair church-text, with illuminated capitals; intitled (in Latin) "Here begin the Seven Penitential Psalms, translated out of Latin into English ;" but not naming the author, either at the head or at the foot of the poem. A later hand however, of about the middle of the sixteenth century, has preserved a memorial, which seems to indicate his name, in the following note inscribed along the top of the first page: "Frater Thomas Brampton, sacræ Theologiæ Doctor, fr. minorum pauperculus confessor, de... ... Anglicum. Anno Dom. 1414. ad Dei honorem et incrementum devocionis." Unfortunately this inscription was almost obliterated by some liquid, which slightly damaged the MS.; and has been retouched by another old hand but an important blank remains, which perhaps the words Latino transtulit in formerly occupied for the conclusion seems applicable not to a mere transcriber, but to an author alone, or (as the title expresses it) a translator. The term transtulit, in the title, evidently means the act of making a paraphrase in English, upon the Latin text of the Seven Psalms; which is given verse by verse, before each stanza. : The Editor is strongly inclined to believe that the words proposed to be inserted between "de" and "Anglicum" are more than a probable conjecture, and that little doubt can remain that Doctor THOMAS BRAMPTON, a Confessor of the Freres Minors, was the author of the paraphrase: but his researches, for many years past, have not been successful enough to obtain any information about him, beyond what this notice affords; and thus he must be introduced, for the first time, into the list of our English poets and authors. There is great probability that the date, mentioned in the old note, is correct: for the author's application of that passage in the 101st (or in the English version, the 102nd) Psalm, "Thou arising, O Lord, shalt have mercy on Sion for the time of pitying her, yea the time, hath come;" to holy church, and chivalry, precisely agrees with the disposition of both clergy and laity, and the king too, at the beginning of the Fifth Henry's reign. See stanza lxxxvii., where the following" lines seem directly levelled against that brave man and truly Christian martyr, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, who was at that time committed to the flames as a heretic : "Late nevere knyghthod, aghen the ryght, Henry's persecuting resolution, to which he was urged on by the furious clergy, is also painted to the life, when he represents him as presiding in Sion, (the very name by which the monastery, that he founded at Isleworth, was called ;) thus: 66 'Syon 'a merour' is, to say, That God hath bygged,* and sett ful hye: There sytt our kyng, be trewě fay,t That shal herétykes alle distrye."‡ * Built. By the true faith. Destroy. (Stanza xc.) He adds, that whosoever full heartily prays for the king, thereby Máyntenyth oure cherchě graciously, But for these blemishes, one would think from the general piety that pervades the poem, from the hint given to oppressive tyrants in the 93rd stanza, and from the description of imprisoned sufferers, in the 94th, that the author was a Lollard. But, on the contrary, the editor cannot help conjecturing that he was the author of the poem against Lollardie, which is preserved in the Cottonian MS. Vespasianus, B. XVI, and printed in Ritson's Ancient Songs; the style and metre being very much like those of this paraphrase. Nor can he but observe, for the same reason, a probability that he was the author also of The Ploughman's Tale, which is inserted among the Canterbury Tales, in some old copies, as a supplement to Chaucer's work. The author's religious notions were what might be expected of that dark age. He represents himself, in an elegant introduction, as restless, rising at midnight from his bed, repeating an antiphona from his breviary, going to his Confessor, and receiving instructions for the relief of his conscience, one of which was, to say over these seven Psalms; which he proceeds to do, verse by 6 verse, making the first words of his favourite antiphona the burden of his meditation upon every one. Thus confession, absolution, and discipline, are the foundation; and purgatory, the doctrines of hereditary depravity, and of the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary alone, and the notion of a guardian angel constantly attending him, make their appearance, though scantily. (Stanzas XLVIII. LIX, CVIII.) It is remarkable that there is not one invocation of a saint or angel, or any mention of the Virgin Mary, but what has now been noticed. Probably the author designed his book for the instruction of his 'ghostly children,' being a confessor himself; and therefore rather intended to represent one of them, and himself, in those respective characters, in the introductory passages. The only other copy of this poem, known to the editor, is a fragment in the Harleian collection, No. 1704, of which volume the second MS. (ff. 13 -75) is written on paper, in a hand of the end of the fifteenth century, imperfect at both ends. The first five leaves (ff. 13-17 b) contain 55 stanzas out of the 124; viz. from the 62nd to the beginning of the 116th, inclusively. All the variations are given in the notes, whereby it appears to be in many places inaccurate and corrupt; and it is modernized throughout, after the common fashion of such copies. This fragment |