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A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England
A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England Author:Horace Walpole Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " fedele, fecondo il parere anco del Canonico " Bandini bibliotecario." EDWARD II. Bishop Tanner fays , that in the Herald's office is extant, in manufcrip... more »t, a Latin poem, written by this unhappy prince, while a prifoner, the title of which is,—" Lamentatio gloriofi Regis " Edwardi de Karnarvan, quam ededit tempore " .fuae incarcerationis." As this King never fhowed any fymptoms of affection to literature, as one never heard of his having the leaft turn to poetry, I fhould believe that this melody of a dying Monarch is about as authentic as that of the old poetic warbler, the fwan, and no better founded than the title of Gloriosi. His majefty fcarcely beftowed this epithet on himfelf in his affliction; and whoever conferred it, probably made him a prefent of the verfes too. If they are genuine, it is extraordinary that fo great a curiofity fhould never have been publifhed. However, while there was this authority, he was not to be omitted. P. 253- A iiij HENRY VIII. As all the fucceffors of this Prince owe their unchangeable title of Defender Of The Faith to. his piety and learning, we do not prefume to. queftion his pretenfions to a place in this catalogue. Otherwife, a little fcepticifm on his Ma- jefty's talents for fuch a performance, mean as it is, might make us queftion whether he did not write the defence of the facraments againft Luther, as one of his fucceffors is fuppofed to have written the £ Bam/xH; that is, with the pen of fome f court prelate. It happened unfortunately, that the champion of the church neither convinced his antagonift nor himfelf. Luther died a heretic; his Majefty would have been one, if he had not erected himfelf into the head of that very church, which he had received fo glorious a, compliment for oppofing. But by a fingular f...« less