These fragments were pasted within fly leaves of an old folio volume, and are now in the possession of the Reverend JAMES ASHLEY, of Binfield, Buckinghamshire, from whose obliging communication the transcript has been made. Conduit Street. J. H. OS PIE UNIVERSITY ART. XV. John Bon and Mast Person. [Woodcut of four priests bearing the host, with five attendants carrying torches.] "ALASSE, poore fooles, so sore ye be lade, No maruel it is, thoughe youre shoulders ake; For ye beare a great god, which ye yourselfes made: Make of it what ye wyl, it is a wafar cake; And between two irons printed it is and bake; And loke where Idolatrye is, Christe wyl not be there, Wherfore ley down your burden; an idole ye do beare. Alasse, poore fools." Colophon.-Imprinted at London by John Daye, and Willya Seres, dwelling in Sepulchres Parishe, at the signe of the Resurrection, a little aboue Holbourne Conduite. Cum gratia & priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. 4to. (4 leaves.) This tract was printed according to Herbert. p. 619. in 1548: "said to be written by one Luke a * Qu. if Forster's copy is not MAT? Three accounts taken of it, at the time it was exhibited for sale, coincide in this particular. It should be as above, but where is the fac-simile? [Mast, seems a con. traction for Master.] physician; and for the printing of it, Day had like to have been sent to prison." A copy having been purchased by Mr. Stace the bookseller, at the sale of the late Mr. R. Forster's library, he was induced from its extreme scarcity to have it reprinted as a fac simile, to the number of fifty copies, to accommodate the collectors of old poetry; and it forms a fair typographical specimen of modern black-letter. It is written after the manner of a dialogue, consisting of 164 lines, of which the first thirty will be sufficient specimen. "THE PARson. "What John Bon, good morowe to the. JOHN BON. Nowe good morrowe, Mast Parson, so mut I thee. PARSON. What meanest y" John, to be at worke so sone? JOHN. The zoner I begyne the zoner shall I have done, PARSON. Mary, John, for that Gods blessinge on thy herte: And set not by thys holy corpus christi even; JOHN. They aer the more to blame, I swere by saynt Steven! Bu[t] tell me, Mast Parson, one thinge and you can: What saynt is copsi cursty, a man or a woman? PARSON. Why, John, knoweste not that? I tell the it was a man ; It is Christe his own selfe: and to morowe is hys daye We beare hym in prosession, and thereby knowe it ye maye. JOHN. I knowe, Mast Parson? and na, by my faye, Because ye maye hym beare with in so smal a glasse ? Why neybor John, and art thou now there? JOHN. Gods forbod, Master, I should bee of that facion, And yet in all my lyfe I knewe not this before. PARSON. No dyd, why sayest thou so? upon thy selfe thou lyest, Thou haste ever knowen the sacramente to be the body of Christ. JOHN. Ye syr, ye say true, all that I know in dede; To the reprint is affixed a short note written by Mr. Forster, which he introduces by saying-" This is the only copy of the Enterlude of John Bon and Mast Person that I have ever met with." The late Mr. Reed, in the last edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, inserted a poem of Lydgate's entitled "Chichevache and Bycorne;" and, as Ritson justly observes, thereby absurdly supposed to be of a dramatic cast," this, it seems, is the only authority for naming the present poem an "Enterlude." If the unsatiated appetite of a hunter of blackletter books appears preposterous and inconsistent, how much more ridiculous and farcical is the pursuit of an old play collector; who, not contented with having 700 plays to obtain, printed before 1661,* at an enormous price swells his collection with polemic controversies, political sarcasms, Virgilian eclogues, Tyburn ballads, and Grub-street dialogues. Authors whose ambition never aspired to dramatic fame, if their title-pages inadvertently express "the strange but true-shire tragedy, a comedy lately performed, or farce newly printed," are now registered among the writers for the stage; though.the first shall be the account of a murder, the second a recent change in the ministry, and the last a conversation between parish officers and paupers, on a subject as illegitimate as either of the pieces alluded to, which ground this absurdity. ART. XVI. Here begynneth a treatise of a gallant. "RYGHT as small flodes encrease to waters fell, So that narowe furrous may not sustayne, Ryght so pryde unclosed may not counsell, This new wretchednes yt causeth us co playn; How wo hath wrapped us in a cruell chayne: Our pryde sheweth it well, bothe ferre and nere ; Englonde may wayle that ever it came here. * See Kirkman's Preface to "A Cure for a Cuckold," 1661, 4to. The synne that now reygneth to beholde is ruthe, Of fraude and dysceyte grete abhomynacyon, But nede constrayneth us now to saye the truthe Of pryde and dysceyte this newe dyscymulacyon, That blyndeth and consumeth our Englysshe nacyon. Lucyfer's progenye amonge us dooth appere, Englonde may wayle that ever it came here. Ryght late stode our londe in suche prosperyte, Of chyvalry, manhode, and ryche marchaundyse, Pryde hath founde waye to exclude man fro blys, In dysfygurynge nature by this newe araye, Bothe men and women can saye what it is, For bothe nede and poverte gooth now ryght gaye: And yf ye lyve long ye shall bothe se and here, For pryde hathe our plente torned to evyll fare, And fedeth us as beestes that draweth in the ploughe, Many a worthy man bryngeth he to sorowe and care, Where fortune somtyme fresshely on hym loughe, Examyne the lyvinge that this worlde useth ynoughe, How nede with synne groweth every where ; Englonde may wayle that ever it came here. For many a vengeaunce, as scripture maketh mencyon, And fynally put the people in dystruccyon, |