John Lydgate was a monk of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, and an uncommon ornament of his profession. The few dates that have been recovered of his history are, that he was ordained a sub-deacon in 1389; a deacon in 1393; and a priest in 1397; from these it has been surmised that he was born about 1375 at Lydgate, in this county.

Few writers have been more admired by their contemporaries, yet none have been treated with more severity by modern critics. The learned Editor of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry mentions him with compassionate contempt: Mr. Ritson ridicules his "cart"loads" of poetical rubbish: Mr. Pinkerton considers him as positively stupid and Mr. Ellis with the caution of a man of correct taste and judgment. But Warton alone has thought it worth while to study with

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attention, or to attempt a general discussion of his literary character; and his opinion is well worth transcribing. "After a short education at Oxford," says he, "Lydgate travelled into France and Italy, and "returned a complete master of the language and "literature of both countries. So distinguished a "proficient was he in polite learning, that he opened 66 a school in his monastery for teaching the sons of the nobility the arts of versification, and the elegancies "of composition. Yet although philology was the "object, he was not unfamiliar with the fashionable philosophy: he was not only a poet and a rhetorician, "but a geometrician, an astronomer, a theologist, and a disputant. He is the first of our writers, whose style is clothed with that perspicuity, in which the "English phraseology appears at this day to an Eng"lish reader. To enumerate Lydgate's pieces would "be to write a catalogue of a little library. No poet "seems to have possessed a greater versatility of talents. "He moves with equal ease in every mode of composi"tion. His hymns and his ballads have the same "degree of merit and whether his subject be the life of a hermit or a hero, of St. Austin or Guy Earl "of Warwick, ludicrous or legendary, religious or romantic, a history or an allegory, he writes with "facility. His transitions were rapid from works of "the most serious and laborious kind to sallies of levity, "and pieces of popular entertainment. His muse was

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of universal access; and he was not only the poet of "his 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, or a "carol for the coronation, Lydgate was consulted, and

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gave the poetry. His manner is naturally verbose "and diffuse. This circumstance contributed, in no "small degree, to give a clearness and a fluency to "his phraseology. For the same reason he is often tedious and languid. His chief excellence is in

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"description, especially where the subject admits a flowery diction. He is seldom pathetic or animated.” The following description of his writings is extracted from his "History of the Life and Death of Hector."

I am a monk by my profession,

In Berry, call'd John Lydgate by my name,
And wear a habit of perfection;

(Although my life agrees not with the same)
That meddle should with things spiritual,
As I must needs confess unto you all.
But seeing that I did herein proceed,
At his command,* whom I could not refuse,
I humbly do beseech all those that read,
Or leasure have this story to peruse,

If any fault therein they find to be
Or error, that committed is by me;
That they will of their gentleness take pain,
The rather to correct and mend the same
Then rashly to condemn it with disdain ;
For well I wot it is not without blame,

Because I know the verse therein is wrong,
As being some too short and some too long.
For Chaucer that my master was, and knew
What did belong to writing verse and prose,
Ne're stumbled at small faults, nor yet did view
With scornful eye the works and books of those
That in his time did write, nor yet would taunt
At any man, to fear him or to daunt.

He died about the year 1641, and was buried in the Abbey Church at Bury. His tomb, which was destroyed at the dissolution, is said to have had this inscription:

King Henry IV.

Mortuus sæclo, superis superstes,
Hic jacet LYDGATE tumulatus in urnâ,
Qui fuit quondam celebris Britannæ
Fama Poesis.

which has been thus quaintly rendered:

Dead in the world, yet living in the sky,
Intombed in this urn doth Lydgate lie,
In former times fam'd for his poetry
All over England.

In his Prologue to "The Story of Thebes," he gives the following description of himself, his horse, and his servant, at the command of mine host of the Tabard in Southwark, whom he found in Canterbury, with the rest of the Pilgrims, who went to visit the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket.

while that the pilgrimes ley

At Canterbury, well lodged one and all,
+ I not in sooth what I may it call,
Hap or fortune, in conclusioun,

That me befell to enter into the toun,
The holy sainct plainely to visite,
After my sicknesse, vowes to acquite.
In a cope
of blacke, and not of greene,
On a palfrey slender, long, and lene,
With rusty bridle, made not for the sale,
My man to forne with a voyd male,
That by fortune tooke mine inne anone
Where the pilgrimes were lodged euerichone.
The same time her gouernour the host
Stonding in hall, full of wind and bost,
Liche to a man wonder sterne and fers,
Which spake to me, and saied anon dan Pers,

t I know not.

Dan Dominicke, dan Godfray, or Clement,
Ye be welcome newly into Kent:

Thogh your bridle haue nother boos ne bell;
Beseeching you that ye will tell

First of your name, and what cuntre
Without more shortly that ye be,

That looke so pale, all deuoid of bloud,
Vpon your head a wonder thredbare hood,
Well arrayed for to ride late:

I answered my name was Lidgate,
Monk of Bury, me fifty yeare of age,
Come to this toune to do my pilgrimage
As I have *hight, I have thereof no shame:
Dan John (qd he) well brouke ye your name,
Though ye be sole, beeth right glad and light,
Praying you to soupe with vs this night;

And ye
shall haue made at your deuis,
A great pudding, or a round hagis,

A franche + moile, a tanse, or a froise,
To been a monke slender in your §coise,

Ye haue been sicke I dare mine head assure,
Or let feed in a faint pasture.

Lift vp your head, be glad, take no sorrow,
· And should home ride with vs to morrow,
ye
I say, when ye rested haue your fill.

After supper, sleep will doen none ill,
Wrap well your head clothes round about,
Strong || nottie ale will make a man to rout,
Take a pillow that ye lie not low,

If need be, spare not to blow,
To hold wind by mine opinion,
Will engender colles passion,

Promised. A dish made of marrow and grated bread.

A pancake. § Countenance.

Nappy ale.