208
HISTORY OF PRINTING.
moted the cause of learning in England. A few items from the wardrobe accounts of Edward IV. as regards the binding of books, will illustrate this subject : " To Piers Bauddurn stacioner for bynding, gilding, and dressing of a booke called Titui Liviut xxt ; for bynding, gilding, and dieasing of a booke of the Ho^ Trmite xvjt ; for binding, gilding, and dressing of a booke railed thtBihU xm$; to Alice Clarersylkwoman for an unce of sowug silk xiT(£. Velvet cremysyn figured with white, viij*. per yard. The coper- smythe for iij paire of claspes of coper and gilt with roses uppon them price of every paire iijt."
In the pnvy-purse account of Elizabeth of York, for the year 1505, the following items occur, " paid twenty-pence for a Pfimer and Pjo/ter." At tlus time, twenty-pence would have bought half a load of barley, and was equal to six days work of a labourer. Wheat was seven shillings and sixpence a quarter ; malt three shillings and fourpence ; oats, one shilling and tenpence ; eight or nine pounds of beef, pork, or veal, one day's labour ; seven pounds of cheese, or four pounds of butter, the same. The wages of a labourer was threepence half- penny a day ; various workmen from fourpence to sixpence a day.
Inscriptions first collected for publication.
1506. With regard to the poet laureate of the kings of England, an officer of the court remain- ing under that title to this day, he is undoubt- e&y the same that is styled the king's versifier, and to whom one hundred shillings were paid as his annual stipend, in the year 1251. But when or how that title commenced, and whether this officer was ever solemnly crowned with laurel at his first investiture, cannot now be de- termined, after the searches of the learned Sel- den on this question have proved unsuccessful. It seems most probable, that the barbarous and inglorious name of vernfier gradually gave way to an appellation of more elegance and dignity : or rather, that at length, those only were in general invited to this appointment, who had received academical sanction, and had merited a crown of laurel in the universities for their abili- ties in Latin composition, particularly Latin ver- sification. Great confusion has entered into this subject, on account of the degrees in granl- mar, which included rhetoric and versification, anciently taken in our universities, particularly at Oxford : on which occasion, a wreath of lau- rel was presented to the new graduate, who was afterwards usually styled foeta laureaUu. These scholastic laureations, however, seem to have given rise to the appellation in question. Thus the king's laureate was nothing more than " a graduated rhetorician employed in the service of Uie king." That he originally wrote in Latin, appears from the ancient title vtrtificator : and may be moreover collected from the two Latin poems, which Baston and Gulielmus, who ap- pear to have respectively acted in the capacity of royal poets to Richara I. and Edward II., officiaily composed on Richard's crusade, and Edward's siege of Striveling castie.
One John Watson, a student in grammar, obtained a concession to be graduated and lau- reated in that science; on condition that be composed one hundred Latin verses in praise of the university, and a Latin comedy. Another grammarian was distinguished with the same badge, after having stipulated, that, at the next public act, he would affix the same number of hexameters on the great gates of Saint Mary's church, that they inight be seen by the whole university. This was at that period the most convenient mode of publication. About the same time, one Maurice Byrchensaw, a scholar in rhetoric, supplicated to be admitted to read lectures, that is, to take a degree in that faculty; and his petition was g^ranted, with a provision, that he should write one hundred verses on the glory of the university, and not sufier Ovid's Art of Love, and the Elegies of Pamphilus, to be studied in his auditory. Not long afterwards, one John Bulman, another rhetorician, having complied with the terms imposed, of explaining the first book of Tully's Officet, and likewise the first of his EpittUi, without any pecuniary emo- lument, was g^raduated in rhetoric ; and a crown of laurel was publicly placed on his head by the hands of the cnancellor of the university. About the year 1489, Skelton was laureated at Oxford, and in the year 1493, was permitted to wear his lauiel at Cambridge. Rooert Whittington af- fords the last instance of a rhetorical degree at Oxford. He was a secular priest, and eminent for his various treatises in grammar, and for his facility in Latin poetry: having exercised his art many yesirs, and submitting to the customary demand of an hundred verses, he was honoured with the laurel in the year 1512. This titie is Mefixed to one of his grammatical systems: jRoberti Whittmtoni, LichfeltUetuit, Gntnama- iicei Magistri, Protovatit Anglia, inflorentitiima Oxonimri Achademia Laureati, de Oeto PartHmt Oratimii- In his Panegyric to cardinal Wol- sey, he mentions his laurel,
Studpe LAnaicoMi mnnoMnilm puva Robati.
The first mention of the kin^s poet, under the appellation of laureate, was John Kay, who was appointed poet laureate to Edward the Fourth It is extraordinary, that he should have left no pieces of poetry to prove his preten- sions in some degree to this office, with which he is said to have been invested by the king, at his return from Italy. The only composition he has transmitted to posterity is a prose English trans- lation of a Latin history of the siege of Rhodes: in the dedication addressed to king Edward, or rather in the tide, he styles himself hyt haanbU poete laureate. Although this our laureate fur- nishes us with no materials as a poet, yet his office, which here occurs for the first time under this denomination, must not pass unnoticed in the annals of literature.
Andrew Bernard, successively poet laureate of King Henry VII. and his successor, who received a salary of ten marks (£6 J3t. M.) affords a still stronger proof that this officer was
VjOOQIC
