tutor of Prince Edward, afterwards Edward the Fourth,

*"

"He speaks unsyttingly,*
"Or not by just peys † my sentence weigh,
And not to the order of enditing obey,

And my colours set ofté sythe awry.”

We might be curious to learn, with all these notions of the suitable, the weighty, the order of enditing, and the colours often awry, whether these versifiers had really any settled principles of criticism. Occleve is a vernacular writer, bare of ornament. He has told us that he knew little of "Latin nor French," though

often counselled by his immortal master.

siastic love thus exults:

His enthu

"Thou wer't acquainted with Chaucer?-Pardie!
God save his soul!

The first finder of our faire langage!"

There is one little circumstance more which connects the humble name of this versifier with that of Chaucer. His affectionate devotion to the great poet has been recorded by Speght in his edition of Chaucer. "Thomas Occleve, for the love he bare to his master, caused his picture to be truly drawn in his book De Regimine Principis, dedicated to Henry the Fifth."

* Unfittingly. + Weight; probably from the French poids.

In this manuscript, with "fond idolatry," he placed the portraiture of his master facing an invocation. From this portrait the head on the poet's monument was taken, as well as all our prints. It bears a faithful resemblance to the picture of Chaucer painted on board in the Bodleian Library. Had Occleve, with his feelings, sent us down some memorials of the poet and the man, we should have conned his verse in better humour; but the history of genius had not yet entered even into the minds of its most zealous votaries.*

* A single trait, however, has come down to us from that other scholar of Chaucer, whom we are next to follow. Lydgate assures us, from what he heard, that the great poet would not suffer petty criticisms "to perturb his reste." He did not like to groan over, and "pinch at every blot," but always "did his best."—

"My master Chaucer that founde ful many spot,
Hym lyste not gruche, nor pynch at every blot;
Nor move himself to perturb his reste;

I have perde tolde, but seyd alway his beste."

Lydgate's Troy.

312

LYDGATE; THE MONK OF BURY.

LYDGATE, the monk of Bury, was also the scholar of Chaucer: our monk had not passed a whole sequestered life in his Benedictine monastery; he had journeyed through France and Italy, and was familiar with the writings of Dante and Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and of Alain Chartier. The delectable catalogue of his writings, great and small, exceeds two hundred and fifty, and may not yet be complete, for they lie scattered in their manuscript state. A great multitude of writings, the incessant movements of a single mind, will at first convey to us a sense of magnitude; and in this magnitude if we observe the greatest possible diversity of parts, and, if we may use the term, the flashings of the most changeable contrasts, we must place such a universal talent among the phenomena of literature.

LYDGATE composed epics, which were the lasting favourites of two whole centuries-so long were classical repetitions of "Troy" and of "Thebes" not found irksome*. In his graver hours, he instructed the

* "The Troy Tale" was composed at the command of the King, Henry the Fifth; as "the Fall of Princes," from Boccace, was at the desire of Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester. He wrote regal poems for kings, while he dispersed wisdom and merriment for their subjects.

world by ethical descants, Æsopian fables, and quaint proverbs; fixed their wonder by saintly legends and veracious chronicles; and disported in amorous ditties, and many a merrie tale: translating or inventing, labour or levity, rounded the unconscious day of the versifying monk. We descend from the "Siege of Troy," a romance of nearly thirty thousand lines, which long graced the oriel window, to the freer vein of humour of "London Lick-penny," which opens the street-scenery of London in the fourteenth century, and "the Prioresse and her three Wooers," that exquisitely ludicrous narrative ballad for the people*.

Ritson, whose rabid hostility to the clerical character was part of his constitutional malady, whether it related to "a mendacious prelate," or "a stinking monk," after

* While this volume is passing through the press, "A Selection from the Minor Poems of Lydgate" has been edited by Mr. Halliwell. The versatility of Lydgate's poetical skill is advantageously shown in his comic satire, and his ethics drawn from a deep insight into human nature. The Editor suggests a new reading for the title of the ballad of "London Lick-penny," more suitable to the misadventures of its hero,-" London Lack-penny;" for London could not lick a penny from the forlorn hero who had not one to offer to it. GROSE, probably taken by the humorous designation, has placed it among his local proverbs.

The tale of the Prioress and her three Wooers is one of the happiest fabliaux. Mr. Campbell transcribed "the merrie tale" for his Specimens, when he discovered that a preceding forager had anticipated him in Mr. Jamieson, who has preserved it in his "Popular Ballads," i. 253.

having expended twenty pages in the mere enumeration of the titles of Lydgate's writings, heartlessly hints at the "cart-loads of rubbish of a voluminous poetaster; a prosaic and drivelling monk." And this is greedily seized on by the hand of the bibliographer. Percy, and Ellis too, mention Dan Lydgate with contempt. Critics often find it convenient to resemble dogs by barking one after the other, without any other cause than the first bark of a brother, who had only bayed the moon. It now seemed concluded that the rhyming monk was to be dismissed for ever. A very credible witness, however, at last deposed that "Lydgate has been oftener abused than read*." And now, Mr. Hallam tells us that "GRAY, no light authority, speaks more favourably of Lydgate than either Warton or Ellis," and this nervous writer, with his accustomed correct discernment, has alleged a valid reason why Gray excelled them in this criticism; for "great poets have often the taste to discern, and the candour to acknowledge, those beauties which are latent amidst the tedious dulness of their humbler brethren."

Warton has, however, afforded three copious chapters on Lydgate, which are half as much as his enthusiasm bestowed on Chaucer. A Gothic monk, composing ancient romances, was a subject too congenial to have * Turner's Hist. of England, v.