Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/31

Rh boorish manners of the denizens of Cornwall. The insult was taken up by one Michael Blancpaine, i.e. Whitebread, or Whitbread, a Cornish man, with great spirit. It is amusing to witness the atrabilious rancour of the literary character manifesting itself in those far-off ages. Michael, in a Latin poem recited before the Abbot of Westminster and other high ecclesiastical dignitaries, tells Master Henry how he had once termed him the arch poet, but that henceforth he will only call him a poet; nay—and he waxes wroth as he approaches his climax—he shall be dubbed a petty poetaster! He then launches out in a virulent attack on his person, much in the style of Churchill's "Epistle to Hogarth."

We first read of the King's poet-laureate in the reign of Edward IV.

was honoured with the appointment, and by a singular fatality, none of his poetical efforts have been transmitted to our times. The reputation of some of his successors might probably not have suffered had they been equally negligent or careful of their fame. The only specimen of his literary talents that has survived to prop his reputation, is an English prose translation of the Siege of Rhodes, a work originally written in Latin. This was printed in London, in 1506. We have no record of the date of his birth or death.

was poet-laureate to Henry VII. and Henry VIII. He was born at Toulouse, and became an Augustine monk. Rymer preserves an instrument by which the King grants to Bernard, poet-laureate, a stipend of ten marks, until he can obtain some equivalent appointment. He received several ecclesiastical preferments in this country, one of which was the mastership of St. Leonard's Hospital at Bedford, which