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O how I (least in knowledge and in art)

Admire and love an understanding spirit!
And share with him my poor divided heart;
Wishing his fortunes equal to his merit.
But since in service few of these I find;
Service dislikes my male-contented mind."

Cum omnis est misera servitus, tum vero intolerabile est servire impuro, impudico, effeminato, insulso.

T.P.

ART. XIV. The Rewarde of Wickednesse, discoursing the sundrye monstrous abuses of wicked and ungodly Worldelings: in such sort set downe and written, as the same have been dyversely practised in the persones of Popes, Harlots, proude Princes, Tyrauntes, Romish Byshoppes, and others. With a lively description of their severall falles destruction. Verye profitable for all sorte of estates to reade and looke upon. Newly compiled by Richard Robinson, servaunt in householde to the right honorable Earle of Shrewsbury. A dreame most pitiful, and to be dreaded.

"Of thinges that be straunge

Who loveth to reede,

In this booke let him raunge,
His fancie to feede."

Impr. in Paules Churchyard by Will. Williamson. 410. no date.

Bibl. Pearsoniana gives the name of the printer as above: but the copy I have seen, has it not. The

author's

author's address to the reader is dated from "Sheffield Castle, 19 Maie 1574;" and he appears from his own report to have been one of the domestic centinels employed by Lord Shrewsbury to watch over Mary Queen of Scots. His performance is written in very humble imitation of the metrical legends which compose the Mirror for Magistrates: and he has subjoined a tributary farrago to several poets, entitled his "Return from Pluto's Kingdome to noble Helicon; the place of infinite joye."

The following lines, in hyperbolic praise of the author, were prefixed by Richard Smith, clerk.

"A diamond for daintie dames;

for peeres a precious pearle;

This Robinson the rubi red,

a jewell for an earle :

Such pearle cannot be bought, I knowe,
for all the golde in Cheape:

The Graces heare have pow'rd their giftes

togeather on an heape,

Such giftes can not bee graft, no doubt,

without some power divine,

Suche cunning hyd in one man's head,

as Robinson in thine.

If I might vewe thy pleasaunt poemes
and sonettes that excell,

Then shoulde I not thirst for the floodes

of Aganippe's well.

Thou profered praise at Olimpias,

and gotte the chiefest game,

And through the schoole of cunning skill

hast scalde the house of Fame.

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[But]

[But] what needes water to bee brought

to powre into the seas,

Or why do I with penne contend

about this Robin's praise."

The contents are as follow:

1. Helen tormented for her treason to her husband, &c.

2. Pope Alexander the Sixt rewarded for his odious life, &c.

3. Young Tarquin rewarded for his wickednesse. 4. The rewards of Medea for her wicked actes, &c, 5. The wordes of tormented Tantalus.

6. The rewarde of Vitronius Turinus.

7. The woful complaint of Heliogabalus. 8. The two judges for slandering Susanna, &c. 9. Pope Jhoan rewarded for his wickednesse. 10. Newes between the Pope and Pluto. 11. The torment of tyranny in King Midas. 12. The reward of Rosamond for murdering her husband Albonius."

Then follows the Author's Return from Pluto's Kingdom to Helicon, "a dream.”

The following short specimen from Pope Alexander's life, &c. will doubtless be deemed quan. suff.

"Many we behelde with offeringes and oblations,
That approched nighe, for haste they headlong came:
Frier Rushe bare the cresse, clarke of the sessions;

A member of their churche, the pope's owne man.

The history of Friar Rush is spoken of in Laneham's letter from Kenilworth, 1575, reprinted in Q. Izb.th's Progesses; and occurs in the Bridgewater library, though 'ti never cen met with by Mr. Ritson, who regarded it as a desideratum in antiquarian uitliography.

Thousands

Thousands came knip knap, pattering on beades, Friars, munks, and nunnes, came after with haste, As vowed pilgrimes came wives, widowes, and maides, Of the holye pope's workes, the fruites for to taste."

Robinson seems to have been the speculative or actual publisher of other performances. See Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica, p. 313.

T. P.

ART. XV.

Miscellanea. Meditations. Memoratives. By Elizabeth Grymeston. Non est rectum, quod a Deo non est directum. London. Printed by Melch. Bradwood for Felix Norton. 1604. 4to.

From Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, III. 266, it appears that this female writer was the daughter of Martin Barney, or Bernye, of Gunston in Norfolk, and married Christopher, the youngest son of Thomas Grimston, of Grimston, Esq. in the county of York, by whom she had issue nine children; to the youngest and only survivor of whom she thus inscribed this rare little work.

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"To her loving sonne Bernye Grymeston.

My dearest Sonne, there is nothing so strong as the force of love; there is no love so forcible as the love of an affectionate mother to her naturall childe: there is no mother can either more affectionately shew her nature, or more naturally manifest her affection, than in advising her children out of her owne experience, to eschue evil, aud incline them to do that which

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which is good. Out of these resolutions, finding the libertie of this age to be such, as that quicquid liket licet, so men keepe themselves from criminal offences; and thy mother's undeserved wrath so virulent, as that I have neither power to resist it, nor patience to endure it, but must yeeld to this languishing consumption to which it hath brought me: I resolved to breake the barren soile of my fruitlesse braine, to dictate something for thy direction: the rather, for that as I am now a dead woman among the living, so stand I doubtfull of thy father's life: which, albeit, God hath preserved from eight several sinister assaults, by which it hath beene sought, yet for that I see that quem sape transit casus, aliquando invenit, I leave thee this portable veni mecum for thy counseller, in which thou maiest see the true portraiture of thy mother's minde, and finde something either to resolve thee in thy doubts, or comfort thee in thy distresse; hoping, that being my last speeches, they will be better kept in the conservance of thy menorie, which, I desire thou wilt make a register of heavenly meditations. For albeit, if thou provest learned, as my trust is thou wilt, (for that without learning man is but an immortall beast) thou maiest happily thinke that if every philosopher fetched his sentence, these leaves would be left without lines; yet remember withall, that as it is the best coine that is of greatest value in fewest pieces, so is it not the worst booke that hath most matter in least words:

"The gravest wits that most grave works expect,
The qualitie, not quantitie, respect."

"And the spider's webbe is neither the better because woven out of his owne breast, nor the bees hony the

worse,

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