took place in 1509, and the event was commemorated by Hawes in ‘A Joyfull Medytacycon.’
Henry VIII's household accounts show, under date of 6 Jan. 1521, a payment to ‘Mr. Hawse for his play’ of 6l. 13s. 4d. He died before 1530, when Thomas Feylde, in his ‘Conversation between a Lover and a Jay,’ refers to him as ‘Yonge Steven Hawse, whose soule God pardon,’ and as one who ‘treated of love so clerkly and so well.’ In the archdeaconry court of Suffolk, under date 16 Jan. 1523, is proved the will (made two years before) of one Stephen Hawes, whose property, all in Aldborough, is left to his wife Katharine. It is possible that the testator was the poet. Bale says that his whole life was ‘virtutis exemplum.’
Hawes's earliest and most important work, ‘The Passetyme of Pleasure, or the History of Graunde Amoure and la Bel Pucel, conteining the Knowledge of the Seven Sciences and the Course of Man's Life in this Worlde,’ was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1509. A copy of this edition is at Ham House, Surrey, in the library of the Earl of Dysart. Another edition by the same printer, with woodcuts (a copy is at Britwell), is dated 3 Dec. 1517; J. Wayland printed a third in 1554 (without woodcuts), with the title altered to ‘The Historie of graunde Amoure and la bell Pucel, called the Pastime of pleasure, conteining the knowledge of the seven sciences and the course of man's life in this worlde.’ This is the earliest edition in the British Museum. Subsequent editions, with woodcuts, followed by Richard Tottel in 1555, and by John Waley in the same year (cf. Censura Lit. i. 35). The first modern reprint (from Wayland's edition) appeared in Southey's ‘English Poets,’ 1831. A reprint of Tottel's edition was published by the Percy Society in 1845. Another reprint was promised by Professor Arber. The poem is an elaborate allegory in forty-six chapters, each consisting of a varying number of seven-line stanzas rhyming thus a b a b b c c. In caps. xxix. and xxxii. the speeches of a dwarf, Godfrey Gobilyue, are in couplets. The whole consists of about six thousand lines. The hero, Grande Amoure, first visits the Tower of Doctrine, whose seven daughters, personifying the seven sciences of the Quadrivium and Trivium, give him instruction. After sojourns at the Castle of Chivalry, Tower of Chastity, and the like, and encounters with a giant with three heads, named respectively Falsehood, Imagination, and Perjury, Grande Amoure reaches the palace of ‘la Bel Pucell,’ marries her, is threatened by Old Age, Policy, and Avarice, and dies attended by Contrition and Conscience. Towards the end of the poem are the well-known lines (cap. xlii. st. 10, lines 6, 7):
For though the day be never so long,
At last the belles ringeth to evensong.
The words, although Hawes gave them general currency, may possibly embody an older proverbial expression. A similar adage appears in John Heywood's ‘Proverbes,’ 1546 (ed. J. Sharman, p. 141).
In the dedication, and in cap. xiv., Hawes acknowledges much indebtedness to his master, Lydgate, ‘the chefe orygynal of my learning,’ and with Gower and Chaucer he was also obviously well acquainted (cap. xiv.). He imitates two French fabliaux in cap. xxix., and displays elsewhere knowledge and appreciation of Provençal poetry. The passages relating to the Quadrivium and Trivium prove that he was widely read in the philosophy and science of his time. The prolixity of the poem makes it, as a whole, unreadable. The allegorical detail is excessive and often obscure; the rhythm is nearly always irregular, and often very harsh. Nevertheless there are many descriptive stanzas which charm by their simplicity and cheerful view of life. From an historical point of view, Hawes marks a distinct advance on Lydgate. The ‘Passetyme’ is indeed a link between ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and ‘The Faery Queen.’ Mrs. Browning justly regarded Hawes as one of the inspirers of Spenser, and claims for him true ‘poetic faculty’ (Greek Christian Poets and English Poets, 1863, pp. 122–5). Hallam found a parallel to Hawes's general management of his allegory in Bunyan's ‘Pilgrim's Progress,’ but Hawes's diffuseness hardly admits the parallel to be pressed. The resemblance between him and Spenser is, however, at times undoubted.
Hawes's other works are chiefly remarkable as bibliographical rarities. They are: 1. ‘The Conversyon of Swerers,’ Wynkyn de Worde, 1509 (Cambridge Univ. Library and imperfect copy at Britwell). Another edition of this was printed in London by ‘Willyam Copland for Robert Toye’ in 1551; a copy of a third edition, without date (perhaps 1550), printed in London by John Butler, is in the Huth Library. 2. ‘A Joyfull Medytacyon to All Englande’ (1509), Wynkyn de Worde, 4to, n.d. (Cambridge Univer. Library), a single sheet with woodcut of the coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. These two last-named works were reprinted by the Abbotsford Club under the editorship of Mr. David Laing in 1865. 3. ‘A compendyous story … called the Exemple of Vertu in the whiche ye shall finde many goodly Storys and naturall Dysputacyons
