My yearly guerdon, mrr annuity, O liberal prince, ensample of honour,
That was me granted for my long labour, Unto your grace like it to promote
Is all behind ; I may nol purod be; My poor estate, and to my woe beth
Which causeth me to live in languor.

boot. (1) Contemporary with Occ!epe was John LYDGATE (circa 1373–1460), à monk of Bury, born at Lydgate, near Newmarket. His poetical compositions range over a great variety of styles. “His muse,' says Warton, ‘was of universal access; and he was not only the poet of the monastery, but of the world in general. If a disguising was intended by the company of goldsmiths, a mask before his majesty at Eltham, a May-game for the sheriffs and aldermen of London, a mumming before the lord mayor, a procession of pageants from the creation for the festival of Corpus Christi, ar a carol for the coronation, Lyugate was consulted, and gave the poetry. The principal works of this versatile writer are entitled, "The Story of Thebes,' The Falls of Princes,' and 'The Destruction of Troy. He had travelled in France and Italy, and studied the poetry of those countries.

In the words of Warton, there is great softness and facility' in the following passage (spelling modernised) of Lydgate’s ‘Destruction of Troy':

Description of a Sylvan Retreat. Till at the last, among the bowes glade, That I me laid adorn upon the grass, Of adventure, I caught a pleasant shade; Upon a brinke, shortiy for to tell, Full smooth, and plain, and lusty for tó Beside the river of a crystal well;

And the water, as I reherse can, And soft as velvet was the yonge green: Like quicke silver in his streams y-ran, Where from my horse I did alight as fast, of which the gravel and the brighte And on the bow aloft his reine cast.

stone, So faint and mate of weariness I was, As any gold, against the sun y-shone.

We add a few lines in the original orthography of the inet-a passage in the ‘Story of Thebes,' shewing that truth hath ever in the end victory over falsehood : Ageyn trouth falshed hath no myght; Scleight or engyne, fors or felonye, Fy on querilis nat grounded upon right! Arn to feble to holden chanpartye (2), With-oute which may be no victorye, Ageyns trouth, who that list iake hede Therefor ech man ha this in memoyre, For at the end falzhede may not spede That gret pouer, shortly to conclude, Tendure long; ye shul fynde it thus. Plenty of good, nor moch multitude,

A fugitive poem of Lydgate, called “The London Lyckpenny,' is curious for the particulars it gives respecting the city of London in the early part of the fifteenth century. The poet has come to town in search of legal redress for some wrong, and visits, in sucuss on, the King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of A!!2421cery, and Westminster Hall.

seen,

;

1 Give remedy.
2 Too feeble to hold equal power in the field. Champartye, Fr. champ park:

The London Lyckpenny.
Within this hall, neither rich nor yet yoor

Would do for me ouyht, although I should die:
Which seeing, I gat ne out of the door,
Where Flemings began on me for to cry:

Master, what will you copen (1) or buy?
Fine felt hats? or spectacles to read ?
Lay down your silver, and here you may speed.'
Then to Westminster gate I presently went,

When the sun was at high prime;
Cooks to ine they took good intent, (2)

And proffered me bread, with ale and wine,

Ribs of beef, both fat and full fine;
A fair cloth they gan for to spread,
But, wanting money, I might not then speed.
Then unto London I did me hie,

Of all the land it beareth the prize;
Hot peascods !' one began to cry;

Strawberry ripe, and cherries in the rise !' (3)

One bade me come near and buy some spice :
Pepper and saffron they gan me beed; (4)
But, for lack of money, I might not speed.
Then to the Cheap I gan me drawn,

Where much people I saw for to stand;
One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn;

Another he taketh me by the hand,

• Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land !
I never was used to such things, indeed;
And, wanting money, I might not speed.
Then went I forth by London Stone, (5)

Throughout all Canwick Street:
Drapers much cloth me offered anon;

Then comes me one cried Hot sheep's feet;

One cried mackerel, rushes green, another gan greet;(6)
One bade me buy a hood to cover my head;
But, for want of money, I might not be sped.
Then I hied me unto East-Cheap,

One cries ribs of beef, and many a pie;
Pewter pois they clattered on a heap;

There was harp, pipe, and minstrelsy ;
Yea by cock! nay by cock! some began to cry;
Some sung of Jenkins and Julian for their meed;
But, for lack of money, I might not speed.
Then into Cornhill anon I yode,

Where was much stolen gear among;
I saw where hung mine owne hood,

That I had lost among the throng;
To buy my own hood I thought it wrong;
I knew it well, as I did my creed;
But, for lack of money, I could not speed.
The taverner took me by the sleeve,

"Sir,' sith he, “ will you our wine assay ?' 1 Kompen (Flem.) is to buy. 2 Took notice; paid attention. 3 On the twig. 4 Offer,

I answered: “That can not much me grieve;
A peuny can do no more than it may;'

I drank a pint, and for it did pay ;
Yet, sore a-hungered from hence I yede,
And, wanting money, I could not speed'; &c.

ALEXANDER BARCLAY AND STEPHEN IIAWES.

The Ship of Fools' and the 'Pastime of Pleasure' are the only poetical works of any importance in the Reign of Henry VII. ALEXANDER BARCLAY (who was in orders, and survived till 1552) wrote several allegorical pieces and some eclogues—the latter supiposed to be the first compositions of the kind aitempted in the English language. But his greatest work is his ‘Ship of Fools, printed in 1509. It is a translation from the German of Brandt, with additions from various quarters, including satirical portraits and sketches by Barclay of his own countrymen. His ship is freighted with fools of all kinds, but their folly is somewhat dull and tedious. Barclay, however, was an improver of the English language. The Book-collector, or Bibliomaniac.- From Barclay's 'Ship of Fools.'

That in this sh'p the chief place I govern,
By this wide sea with fools wandering,
The cause is plain and easy to discern-
Still am I busy book assembling;
For to have plenty is a pleasant thing,
In my couceit, and to have them aye in hand,
But what they mean, do I not understand.
But yet I have them in great reverence
And honour, saving them from filth and ordure,
By often brushing and much diligence;
Full goodly bound in pleasant coverture
Of damask, satin, or else of velvet pure;
I keep them sure, fearing lest they should be lost,

For in them is the cunning whereiu I me boast. STEPHEN HAWES was an allegorical poet of much more power. His ' Pastime of Pleasure, or the Historie of Grande Amour and La Bel Pucel,' was written in 1506, dedicated to King Henry-in whose court the poet held the office of groom of the privy-chamber--and printed in 1517 by Wynkyn de Worde. Two more editions were called for during the same century, in 1554 and 1555, and from this time it was known only to black-letter readers until, in 1846, it was reprinted by Mr. Wright for the Percy Society; but even the convenience of easy access and modern type has not made Hawes much better known. His poem is long, and little interest is felt in his personified virtues. The "Pastime of Pleasure,' however, is a work of no ordinary poetical talent. It is full of thought, of ingenious analogy, and occasionally of striking allegory. A few stanzas, stripped of the disused spelling, will shew the state of the language after Lydgate, of whom Hawes was a great admirer.

The Temple of Mars.
Beside this tower of old foundation,
There was a temple strongly edified,
To the high honour and reputation
Of the mighty Mars it was so fortified ;
And for to know what it signified
I entered in, and saw of gold so pure
Of worthy Mars, the marvellous picture,
There was depainted all about the wall
The great destruction of the siege of Troy,
And the noble acts to reign memorial
Of the worthy Hector that was all their joy,
His dolorous death was hard to occoye;
And so when Hector was cast all down,
The hardy Troilus was most high of renown
And as I cast my sight so aside,
Beholding Mars how wonderfully he stood
On a wheel top, with a lady of pride,
Haunced about, I thought nothing but good
But that she had two faces in one hood;
Yet I knelt down and made my orison
To doughty Murs with great devotion,
Saying: 'O Mars ! O god of the war!
The gentle load-star of au hardy heart,
Distil adown thy grace from so far,
To cause all fear from me to start,
That in the field I may right well subvert
The hideous monsters, and win the victory
Of the sturdy giants with famous chivalry.
O prince of honour and of worthy fame!
O noble kuights of old antiquity!
O redonbted courage, the causer of their name,
Whose worthy acts Fame caused to be
In books written, as ye well may see
So give me grace right well to recure
The power of fame that shall so long eudure.'

JOIIN SKELTON. Barclay, in his 'Ship of Fools,' alludes to Joun SKELTON, who was decked as poet-laureate at Oxford :

If they have smelled the arts trivial,

They count them poets high and heroical. Skelton is certainly more of a trivial than a heroical poet. satirist of great volubility, fearlessness, and scurrility. In attacking Cardinal Wolsey, for example, he alludes to his greasy genealogy The clergy were the special objects of his abuse, as with most of the old satirists. So early as 1483, Skelton appeared as a satirist; he was laureated in Oxford in 1489; and to escape from the vengeance of Wolsey, he took shelter in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, where he resided till his death in 1329. Skelton is a sort of rhyming Rabelais--as indelicate and gross, which with both was to some extent necessary as a cover to their satire. The copiousuess of Skel

He was a

ton's language, and his command of rhyme in short rattling verses, prove the advance of the language. The works of Skelton were edited by the Rev. A. Dyce, and printed in 1843. The most poetical of his productions is entitled 'Philip Sparrow,' an elegy on the death of a pet bird. A few lines from his Colin Clout' wili shew the torrent-like flow of his doggerel rhymes :

A Satire on the Clergy. Thus I, Colin Clont,

With gold all be-trapped, As I go about,

In purple and pail be-lapped, And wandering as I walk,

Some hatted and some capped, I hear the people talk:

Richly be-wrapped Men say for silver aud gold

(God wot to their great pains) Mitres are bought and sold.

In rochets of fine reins, There shall no clergy oppose

White as morrow's milk A mitre por a croze,

Their taberts of fine silk, But a full purse

Their stirrups of mixed gold begared, A straw for God's curse!

There may no cost be spared. What are they the worse ?

Their moils gold doth eat, For a simoniac

Their neighbours die for meatIs but a hermoniac,

What care they though Gill sweat, And no more ye may make

Or Jack of the Noke? Of simony, men say,

The poor people they yoke But a child's play ;

With summons and citations Over this the foresaid lay

And excommunications, Report how the pope may

About churches and market: A holy anchorite call

The bishop on his carpet Out of the stony wall,

Full soft doth sitAnd him a bishop make,

This is a fearful fit If he on him dare take

To hear the people jangle To keep so hard a rule

How warily they wrangle! To ride upon a male,

Cardinal TVolsey. Our barons are so bold,

And shakes them by the ear, Into a mouse-hole they would

And brings them in sach fear, Run away and creep,

le baiteth them like a bear. Like as many sheep,

And beneath him they're so stout Dare not look out a door,

That no man of them dare rout, For dread of the mastiff cur,

Duke, earl, baron, nor loni, For dread of the butcher's dog

But to his sentence must accord; Would worry them like a hog..

Whether he be knight or squire, For all their noble blood,

All must follow his desire. He plucks them by the hood, Skelton's serious poetry is greatly inferior to his ludicrous and satirical; but the following effusion of gallantry is not unworthy the pen of a laureate :

To Mrs. Margaret Ilussey. Merry Margaret,

So maidenly, As midsuminer flower,

So womanly, Gentle as falcon,

Her demeaving, Or hawk of the tower;

In everything, With solace and gladness,

Far, far passing Much mirth and no maduess

That I can inditc. All good and no badness;

Or sutice to write, So joyously,

Of Merry Margaret,