A Metrical History of England :: :: University of Virginia Library

A Metrical History of England

Or, Recollections, in Rhyme, Of some of the most prominent Features in our National Chronology, from the Landing of Julius Caesar to the Commencement of the Regency, in 1812. In Two Volumes ... By Thomas Dibdin

Dibdin, Thomas (1771-1841)

II.

SPECIMENS of POETRY, WRITTEN BY QUEEN ELIZABETH.

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“Men perish in advance, as if the sun
“Should set 'ere noon!
“To man, why, Stepdame Nature, so severe,
“Why thrown aside thy master-piece half wrought?”
Young.

“The King discovered great towardness and all honest qualities; he should be taken as a singular gift of God; he read Cato, Vives and Æsop, and conned very pleasantly.” Doctor Cox, (Tutor to Edward VI.)

“Senex, juvenis convictu, factus sum melior; ac, sobrietatem, temperantiam, verecundiam, linguæ moderationem, modestiam, pudicitiam, integritatem, quam, juvenis a sene discere debuerat, a juvene Senex didici.” Erasmus.

EDWARD THE SIXTH.

Protector Somerset the power maintained
Of Sov'reign, when at first young Edward reigned;
The Scots, defeated on their native plains,
Of Pinkey House in sweetly plaintive strains,
Still sing and celbrate with patriot pride,
Their valiant chiefs who fought, and, fighting, died.

Warwick's black envy Somerset enthrals,
And, mourned by many, the Protector falls;
Now, with Northumbria's coronet elate,
Warwick, unconscious of approaching fate,
Rules the young monarch.—Edward's early doom,
Changes his crown already for a tomb.
Christchurch, Bartholomew, and Bridewell bear
A liberal witness of his fostering care;
Religion too began to own reform,
When the bright prospect, black'ning to a storm,
With Edward vanish'd quite; —and Mary came,
Mary, a blemish to the regal name,
Heir to her father's vice, without one jot
Of good, she came to cast a dark red blot
On British story ne'er to be forgot.

The war with the Scotch was intended to enforce a match between Edward and the young Queen Mary. On this occasion the Earl of Huntley said to Somerset, that “he disliked not the match, but hated the manner of wooing.”

The King compleated the endowments of these Hospitals a few days before his death, with £600 per Annum from the Savoy. Holingshed.

Edward was an Author; Holingshed says he wrote a most elegant Comedy, called the Whore of Babylon; of which, as of several other of his productions, Horace Walpole avers, “All the subjects were religious, all the conduct farcical.” Catalogue of Royal Authors.

The cost of his Household was, the first year, £49,187; the second, £46,902; the third, £46,100; the fourth, £100,578; the fifth, £62,863; the sixth, £65,923. Strype.