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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, interefts us in whatever fell from his pen. It is prefumed therefore that the infertion of this little Sonnet will be pardoned, tho' 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 tranflations. And if we confider that it was written during his cruel confinement in Pomfret caftle afhort time before his execution in 1483, it gives us a fine picture of the composure and steadiness with which this ftout earl beheld his approaching fate.

The verfes are preferved by ROUSE a contemporary hiftorian, who feems to have copied them from the Earl's own hand writing. In tempore, says this writer, incarcerationis apud Pontem-fractum edidit unum BALET in anglicis, ut mihi monftratum eft, quod fubfequitur fub his verbis : Sum what mulyng, &c. "Roffi Hift. 8vo. 2 Edit. p. 213.' The 2d Stanza is, notwithstanding, imperfect, and we have inferted afterifks, to denote the defect.

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

"Alone walkyng, in thought plainyng,
"And fore fighying, All defolate.
My remembrying Of my livyng

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My death wifhyng Bothe erly and late.

Infortunate Is fo my fate

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That wote ye what, Out of mesure "My life I hate; Thus defperate

"In fuch pore eftate, Doe I endure, &c."

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Bowndyn am I, and that gretly, to be content: 10 Seyng playnly, that fortune doth wry All contrary from myn entent.

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VIII.

CUPID's ASSAULT: BY LORD VAUX.

The Reader will think that infant Poetry grew apace between the times of RIVERS and VAUX, tho' nearly contemporaries; if the following Song is the compofition of that Sir NICHOLAS (afterwards Lord) VAUX, who was the shining ornament of the court of Henry VII. and died in the year 1523.

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And yet to this Lord it is attributed by Puttenham in his "Art of Eng. Poefie, 1589. 4to." a writer commonly well informed: take the paffage at large. "In this figure [Counterfait Action] the Lord NICHOLAS VAUX, a "noble gentleman and much delighted in vulgar making, "and a man otherwife of no great learning, but having herein a marvelous facilitie, made a dittie reprefenting the Battayle and Affault of Cupide, fo excellently well, as for "the gallant and propre application of his fiction in every "part, I cannot choose but fet downe the greatest part of his ditty, for in truth it cannot be amended. WHEN CUPID 66 SCALED, &c." p. 200.-—————— For a farther account of Nicholas Lord Vaux, fee Mr. Walpole's Noble Authors, Vol. 1.

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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,

W Wherin my hart lay wounded fore;

The batry was of such a sort,

That I muft yelde or die therfore.

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

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