the Moral Proverbes of Christyne of Pyse, translated in metre by earl Rivers, and printed by Caxton in the seventeenth year of Edward IV. (1478), not having a copy of that scarce book. However, as this is the era of the pretended Rowley, I cannot forbear to transcribe the last stanza of that poem, as I find it cited in an account of this accomplished nobleman's works:
“Of these sayynges Christyne was the aucturesse,
“Which in makyn had such intelligence,
“That thereof she was mireur and maistresse;
“Her werkes testifie thexperience;
“In Frensh languaige was written this sentence;
“And thus englished doth hit reherse
“Antoin Widevylle therle Ryvers.”
The first stanza of the Holy Lyfe of Saynt Werburge, written by Henry Bradshaw, about the year 1500, and printed in 1521, is this:
“Whan Phebus had ronne his cours in sagittari,
“And Capricorne entred a sygne retrograt,
“Amyddes Decembre, the ayre colde and frosty,
“And pale Lucyna the erthe dyd illuminat,
“I rose up shortly fro my cubycle preparat,
“Aboute mydnyght, and cast in myne intent,
“How I myght spende the tyme convenyent.”
Stephen Hawes's celebrated poem, entitled the Passetyme of pleasure, or the Historie of Graunde Amour and La bell Pucell, &c. (written about the year 1506, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1517,) being now before me, I am enabled to transcribe the first lines:
