bout the middle of the Reign of King _John_, about the year
1208.

* * * * *

_JOSEPH_ of _Exeter_.

_Joseph of Exeter_ was born at the City of _Exeter_ in _Devonshire_, he
was also sirnamed _Iscanus_, from the River _Isk_, now called _Esk_,
which running by that City, gave it formerly the denomination of
_Isca_. This _Joseph_ (faith my Author) was _a Golden Poet in a Leaden
Age_, so terse and elegant were his Conceits and Expressions. In his
younger years he accompanied King _Richard_ the First, in his
Expedition into the _Holy Land_, by which means he had the better
advantage to celebrate, as he did, the Acts of that warlike Prince, in
a Poem, entituled _Antiochea_. He also wrote six Books _De Bello
Trojano_, in Heroick Verse, which, as the learned _Cambden_ well
observes, was no other then that Version of _Dares Phyrgius_ into
_Latine_ Verse. Yet so well was it excepted, that the _Dutchmen_ not
long since Printed it under the name of _Cornelius Nepos_, an Author
who lived in the time of _Tully_, and wrote many excellent pieces in
Poetry, but upon a strict view of all his Works, not any such doth
appear amongst them; they therefore do this _Joseph_ great wrong in
depriving him the honour of his own Works. He was afterwards, for his
deserts, preferred to be Arch-bishop of _Burdeaux_, in the time of King
_John_, about the year 1210.

* * * * *

_MICHAEL BLAUNPAYN_.

This _Michael Blaunpayn_, otherwise sirnamed the _Cornish_ Poet, or the
Rymer, was born in _Cornwall_, and bred in _Oxford_ and _Paris_, where
he attained to a good proficiency in Learning, being of great fame and
estimation in his time, out of whose Rymes for merry _England_ as
_Cambden_ calls them, he quotes several passages in that most excellent
Book of his _Remains_. It hapned one _Henry_ of _Normandy_, chief Poet
to our _Henry_ the Third, had traduced _Cornwall_, as an inconsiderable
Country, cast out by Nature in contempt into a corner of the land. Our
_Michael_ could not endure this Affront, but, full of Poetical fury,
falls upon the Libeller; take a tast (little thereof will go far) of
his strains.

_Non opus est ut opus numere quibus est opulenta,
Et per quas inopes sustentat non ope lenta,
Piscibus & stanno nusquam tam fertilis ora_.

We need not number up her wealthy store,
Wherewith this helpful Lands relieves her poor,
No Sea so full of Filh, o