Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

III.JOHN LYDGATE,ABOUT A.D. 1420.John Lydgate, a monk of Bury, was born at the village ofLydgate, near Newmarket, about a.d. 1373, and died about a.d.1460 ; but these dates are uncertain. He was ordained subdeaconin the Benedictine Monastery of Bury St. Edmunds in 1389,deacon in 1393, and priest in 1397. He is remarkable for thegreat ease, fluency, and extent of his writings, a catalogue ofwhich would take up a considerable space. He composedverses with such facility that we cannot expect to find hispoetryof a very lofty character; still, he is generally pleasing, thoughtoo much addicted to prolixity. Some of his best poems are hisminor ones, of which the best known is ' The London Lickpeny,'-here printed. Unfortunately there is no good copy of it ; thebest, occurring in the Harleian MS. 367 in the British Museum,is here accurately reproduced. Amongst his more ambitiousworks may be mentioned ' The Storie of Thebes,' ' The Falls ofPrinces' (from Boccaccio), and ' The Troy Booke.' The Storieof Thebes is intended as an additional ' Canterbury Tale,' to beadded to Chaucer's Tales.It was printed, from a good MS., byStow, in his edition of Chaucer, in 156 1. An extract from it,written in the very spirit of chivalry, and detailing the adventuresof Tydeus, ishere printed from the Arundel MS. No. 119, in theBritish Museum, with a/^w corrections from MSS. R. 4.20 andO. 5. 2, in Trinity College, Cambridge. The poet tells us that,at the time of writing it, he was nearly fifty years of age.