propose to introduce them in a separate form to the notice of the reader. Nothing has presented itself to show the precise date of the death of Sir William Saint Loe. His name occurs in the churchwarden's accompts of St. Margaret, Westminster, in 1564, when he paid for the hire of the hearse-cloth. After this date his name has not been found, and he probably died not long after, when he was about forty-five or forty-six years of age. In 1567 his widow was sought in marriage by George, the sixth Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. So illustrious a suitor soon won his way with a lady who seems to have been possessed with a spirit of unbounded ambition, and to have had also the talents and abilities which ought to accompany such a spirit. When she became Countess of Shrewsbury, she stipulated that two of the Earl's children, by a former wife, who was of the house of Manners, should marry two of her children by Sir William Cavendish. Her marriage with the Earl was less happy than her former marriages with Cavendish and Saint Loe seem on the whole to have been, though the marriage with Saint Loe was, as is here seen, attended with one circumstance which must have been of a very painful nature. The care of the Queen of Scots, who was committed to her lord not long after her marriage, and remained with him through a period of seventeen years, must have interfered greatly with the domestic comfort of both; and the dissensions in the house of Talbot were at the same time great. But it is not our intention to write a memoir on the life of this remarkable woman; and it may be sufficient here to say, that she became again a widow in 1590, and that she died in extreme old age, at her house at Hardwick, in February, 1608. Sir William Saint Loe had no issue; but there were descendants from both his brothers Edward and Clement. The descendants of Edward appeared at the visitation of Somerset, in 1623. Several of his grandsons were then living, and had male issue. John, one of them, was settled in London, and he appears again in the visitation of London, 1634', when he was married to a niece of Lancelot Andrews, Bishop of Winchester. At the same visitation of 1634, appeared John Saint Loe, descendant and representative of Clement. He was a vintner in London, and had then living three children, John, Joseph, and Anne”. We may add, that Saint Loe Kniveton, one of the antiquaries of the reign of Elizabeth, was son of Thomas Kniveton, by Jane Leech, sister erx parte materna, to the wife of Sir William Saint Loe. 1 See Harl. MS. 1476. f. 171. 2 Ib. f. 151. EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. It is extraordinary that a curious piece of English poetry of about the latter part of the thirteenth century should have escaped Dr. Warton, Ritson, and, we believe, all the other poetical antiquaries of the last if not of the present generation, notwithstanding that it was accessible to each of them. Nor is the article in question less remarkable for the very opposite manner in which it has been described by the writers of the catalogues of the MSS. in the Cottonian library. Dr. Smith thus speaks of it in his catalogue: "Versus veteri sermone Anglicano de quodam Nobili errante, ejusque gestis amatoriis, in quibus elegantiæ non paucæ reperiuntur;" but in the last catalogue it is more correctly described as "Verses in old English, seemingly a prophecy of some battle between the English and Scots.' The hand in which it exists is of the time to which we have assigned the composition; and as one of the few pieces of that period in our language which is extant, we have been induced to rescue it from the oblivion in which it has been so long suffered to remain. [From the Cottonian MS. Julius A. V. f. 175, 176.] ALS y yod on ay Mounday By twene Wyltinden and Walle. Ay litel man y mette with alle. Ic haued wel mykel ferly wat he was I saide wel mote ye be tyde. Yat litel man with large face. I bi held yat litel man. Bi ye stret' als we gon gae. Merke it to fize inches and mae. Armes scort for soye .i. saye. Ay span semed yaem to bee. Handes brade vyt outen nay. And fingeres lange he scheued me. ye stane. To loke him on youth me nouth' lange.' His Robe was alle golde bigane. Wel craftlik' maked .i. vnder' stande. Botones asurd euerlke ane. Fra his elbouthe on til his hande. Yat in myn hert' ick' onder' stande. And .i. wist wat me mouth' gaine. And so mikel of mith' and mayne. Amy noth wyt outen wane. Lat me forth myn erand gane. Bi miles twa noyther' bi three. Ferlick' me thouth hu so mouth bee. He vent forth als .ij. you say. In at ay yate ij vnder' stande. And fair lordes sett' ij fonde. Of ay worde ij wil you saye. Erli on ay Wedenesdaye. And yatid me als we went bi waye. Of ay thing' gif me answere. Other wether hande sal haue prou. And stablestat for euermare. And sethen you fraines ij wille ye say. For ay skill ij tellit ye. Yare sal deye on ay day. A folke on feld ful fa sal flee. Bathe yair' names you me saye. An he sayde outen nay. Hate ye tane trou you my lare. Ar you may yat other say. Yat sal be falden wyt yat fare. Ye wiser' es ij noth of yat. Miri man wat may ys bee. Nou haue ij sayde ye wat yai hat. Forther wites you noth' for me. So lange ye Lebard loues ye layke. Wit his onsped your sped ye spille And lates ye Lion haue his raike. Wit werke in werdl als he wille. Ye bare es bonden hard in baite, Wit foles yat wil folies fille. i Ye toupe in toune your werkes wayte. Ye land sal leue wit ye bare. Or you sal telle me any mare. Yat deye sal many a dougty knyth. But bald sal be of bataille swa. Wa bides him on hard and herch. Yat day sat deye and duelle in wa. Wyt foles sal ye feld be leest. A poeple liest fol negh' bi side. Sal come out of ye souther west Wyt reken routes ful on ride. Yar' sal ye foles dreeg' is paine. And folie for his false fare. Lie opon ye feld slayne. And lose his liue for euermare. And toures stande als yai did are. For faute sal noth' stande bi hinde Yat be ful fele has wroth alle wräge. Wrangwis werkes sul men se. |