_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, of Tin, no shore. Then, in a triumphant manner, he concludeth all with this Exhortation to his Countrymen: _Quid nos deterret? si firmiter in pede stemus, Fraus ni nos superat, nihil est quod non superemus._ What should us fright, if firmly we do stand? Bar fraud, and then no force can us command. Yet his Pen was not so lushious in praising, but, when he listed, it was as bitter in railing, witness this his Satyrical Character of his aforesaid Antagonist.