the minor qualities of a poet: his lines have sometimes more spirit, more humor, and he describes with more graphic minuteness. But his diffuseness becomes generally feeble and tedious; the attention fails in the schoolboy stories of Thebes and Troy; and he had not the judgment to select and compress the prose narratives from which he commonly derived his subject. It subject. It seems highly probable that Lydgate would have been a better poet in satire upon his own times, or delineation of their manners; themes which would have gratified us much more than the fate of princes. HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. i, ch. ii, par. 48.

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.

Alas! apologies only leave irremediable faults as they were. The tediousness of Dan Lydgate remains as languid, his verse as halting, and "Thebes" and "Troy" as desolate, as we found them!-DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1841, Lydgate, Amenities of Literature.

a

An elegant poet-"poeta elegans"was he called by the courteous Pits, questionable compliment in most cases, while the application in the particular one agrees not with that same. An improver of the language he is granted to be by all; and a voluminous writer of respectable faculties, in his position, could scarcely help being so: he has flashes of genius, but they are not prolonged to the point of warming the soul, can strike a bold note, but fails to hold it on,,-attains to moments of power and pathos, but wears, for working days, no habit of perfection. These are our thoughts of Lydgate; and yet when he ceased his singing, none sang better; there was silence in the land. BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, 1842-63, The Book of the Poets, p. 120.

He accumulates, to wearisomeness, both thoughts and words. But he has an earnestness which often rises into enthusiasm, and which gives a very impressive. air to the religious pieces that make up a majority of his minor poems. Although his originality of invention is small, he sometimes works up borrowed ideas into exceedingly striking combinations. His descriptions of scenery are often excellent. SPALDING, WILLIAM, 1852-82, A History of English Literature, p. 87.

Lydgate is, so far as we know, the first British bard who wrote for hire. At the request of Whethamstede, the Abbot of St. Alban's, he translated a "Life of St. Alban" from Latin into English rhymes, and received for the whole work one hundred shillings. GILFILLAN, GEORGE, 1860, Specimens of the Less-Known British Poets, vol. 1, p. 47.

Indeed he seems to have followed the manufacture of rhymes as a sort of trade, furnishing any quantity to order whenever he was called upon. Though

excessively diffuse, and possessed of very little strength or originality of imagination, is a considerably livelier and more expert writer than Occleve. His memory was also abundantly stored with the learning of his age; he had travelled in France and Italy, and was intimately acquainted with the literature of both these countries; and his English makes perhaps a nearer approach to the modern form of the language than that of any preceding writer. CRAIK, GEORGE L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. I, p. 403.

He had some talent, some imagination, especially in high-toned descriptions: it was the last flicker of a dying literature; gold received a golden coating, precious stones were placed upon diamonds, ornaments multiplied and made fantastic; as in their dress and buildings, so in their style. When we can no more speak to the soul, we try to speak to the eyes. This is what Lydgate does, nothing more.-TAINE, H. A., 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. 1, bk. i, ch. iii, p. 137.

He could write morality in the old court allegorical style; he could kneel at the foot of the Cross and offer to his God the sacrifice of a true outburst of such song as there was in him.

John Lydgate

was not a poet of great genius, but he was a man with music in his life. He was full of a harmony of something more than words, not more diffuse than his age liked him to be, and, therefore, with good reason, popular and honoured among English readers in the fifteenth century. -MORLEY, HENRY, 1873, First Sketch of English Literature, p. 179.

He was long accepted, and is even now occasionally accepted, at a valuation which was put upon him at a period when there was not a sufficient quantity of literature in the language to make men very discriminating about its quality. I am aware that he was spoken of respectfully by a man of genius such as was Gray, and was not disrespectfully spoken of by a woman of genius such as was Mrs. Browning. It only proves that, in spite of the dictum of Horace, there are middling verses which the immortals do not despise.

There was apparently no topic upon which he was not ready to express himself at a moment's notice. He produced, in consequence, a good deal of matter which it presumably gratified him to write; though it seems inconceivable that there was ever a state of the human intellect in which gratification could have come to any one from its perusal. In his versification there is no harmony, no regular movement. In his expression, he had gained facility at the expense of felicity. He is one of those noted, or rather notorious, authors whose fame, such as it is, rests not upon their own achievements, but upon the kindness with which others have been induced to look upon their achievements. There is, accordingly, no necessity of reading his works resting upon any one save him who has to make a professional study of English literature. For this unfortunate being the dead past, so far from being able to bury its dead, is not even able to bury its bores. LOUNSBURY, THOMAS R., 1892, Studies in Chaucer, vol. III, pp. 25, 27.

The more arid Occleve goes securely on his way, and we read his verses with a quiet pleasure; Lydgate, endowed by nature with a much more musical soul, appears to stumble every moment, so that in reading him we feel again and again as if thrown out of the saddle.

In his poems there is much that is good, and even excellent of its kind.

He is,

however, so very variable that he has scarcely produced any work of greater length, and only a few short ones, which leave a pure, uniform impression. He never acquired any original style, but rather a sort of mannerism, in which he at length appears to have taken a sort of pleasure, and in which at least he could express his thoughts as rapidly as water from a sponge.-TEN BRINK, BERNHARD, 1892, History of English Literature, (Wyclif, Chaucer, Earliest Drama, Renaissance), tr. Robinson, pp. 223, 224.

A worthy man, it seems, if ever there was one, and industrious, and prolific, above all prolific, writes according to established standards, tales, lays, fabliaux satires, romances of chivalry, poetical debates, ballads of former times, allegories, lives of the saints, love poems, fables; five thousand verses a year on an average, and being precocious as well as prolific, leaves behind him at his death a hundred and thirty thousand verses, merely counting his longer works. Virgil had only written fourteen thousand. JUSSERAND, J. J., 1895, A Literary History of the English People, p. 498.

It is not probable that the entire works of Lydgate will ever be made accessible to readers, nor is it to be conceived that they would reward the labours of an editor. But although it must be repeated that Lydgate is an author of inferior value, excessively prosy and long-winded, and strangely neglectful both of structure and of melody, a selection could probably be made from his writings which would do him greater justice than he does to himself in his intolerable prolixity. He has a pleasant vein of human pity, a sympathy with suffering that leads him to say, in a sort of deprecating undertone, very gentle and gracious things. He is a storehouse of odd and valuable antiquarian notes. GOSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 36.

Lydgate's most agreeable poems are certainly those in which he speaks about himself. In his "Testament" and his "London Lackpenny" he has given us some suggestive glimpses of his life and character; and he will sometimes rest in the midst of his translations, to relieve his weariness by a moment's gossip with the reader. These green oases are so

On the whole, Occleve's verse must be judged rather by its quantity than its quality. His admission into the ranks of our English writers of note is owing to the circumstance of his writing in a barren age, when every versifier was a man of mark. COLLIER, WILLIAM FRANCIS, 1861, A History of English Literature, p. 69. The first important poetical writer of the fifteenth century, whose works have come down to us. Most of his works exist only in manuscript, and those that have been printed are not of a character to inspire a very lively desire for the publication of the remainder.-MARSH, GEORGE P., 1862, The Origin and History of the English Language, etc., p. 455.

As to deficiency in fire and spirit, he is on a level with Gower; but he is rather more interesting.-CREASY, SIR EDWARD S., 1870, History of England, vol. II, p. 543.

He is supposed to have been born in 1370, and he emerges at the Court of Richard II. in 1387. The luxurious extravagance of that Court found in him a congenial spirit. He could never pass the sign of Bacchus, with its invitation to thirsty passengers to moisten their clay, so long, at least, as he had anything in his purse; and he spent much money in the temples of a goddess of still more questionable character. He was a favourite among cooks and taverners, from the circumstance that he always paid them. what they asked. Only two men of his acquaintance could equal him in drinking at night and lying in bed in the morning. The only thing that preserved his life from the brawls incident to such habits was an invincible cowardice: he never traduced men except in a whisper. All this we know from his own humorous confessions. He tells us also that his excesses exhausted his money, although he held a valuable office-and impaired his health, though nature had given him a

strong constitution. MINTO, WILLIAM, 1874-85, Characteristics of English Poets, p. 71.

When a man's only merit is a fond idolatry of his master, let him be forgotten.-WELSH, ALFRED H., 1882, Development of English Literature and Language, vol. I, p. 245.

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A Chaucer sans eyes, sans ears, sans teeth, sans everything. teeth, sans everything." WASHBURN, EMELYN W., 1884, Studies in Early English Literature, p. 91.

Occleve is a good, harmless fellow, who has read with advantage many books, has observed correctly all sorts of things within the circle of his experience, and has thought much. To this must be added the gift of easy poetic composition, and a decided talent for form, which he happily modeled on Chaucer's style. In the clearness of his diction, and occasionally in the excellent choice of his expressions in the construction of his verses and stanzas, he comes nearer to the great model than almost any of the poets of the fifteenth century. Everywhere we can trace the influence of the master, without being able to call it mere imitation. Direct reminiscences are very seldom used in a wrong place. Occleve has his own style; he does not attempt a rivalry with the style of his model, which is pithy, forcible, vivid, and significant in every line, but he knows how to ingratiate himself easily with his readers, both to their pleasure and profit. In the long run, indeed, the want of any strong colors in his broad descriptions becomes insipid.TEN BRINK, BERNHARD, 1892, History of English Literature (Wyclif, Chaucer, Earliest Drama, Renaissance), tr. Robinson, p. 215.

Occleve was a frivolous, tame-spirited creature, tainted with insanity.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 35.

Faith" (c. 1456), are still extant.

He shall have a secret closed chamber having a chimney, and convenience within the abbey, where he may have sight to some altar to hear mass; and that he pass not the said chamber. To have but one person that is sad (grave) and welldisposed to make his bed, and to make him fire, as it shall need. That he have no books to look on, but only a portuous (breviary), a mass-book, a psalter, a legend, and a Bible. That he have nothing to write with; no stuff to write upon. That he have competent fuel according to his age, and as his necessity shall require. That he be served daily of meat and drink as a brother of the abbey is served when he is excused from the freytour (i. e., from dining in hall), and somewhat better after the first quarter, as his disposition and reasonable appetite shall desire, conveniently after the good discretion of the said abbot.-BOURCHIER, THOMAS, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 1459, To William Ryall, Abbot of Thorney.

For twenty years together he favoured the opinions of Wicliffe, and wrot many Books in defence thereof, untill, in a Synod held at Lambeth by Thomas Bourchier Arch-bishop of Canterbury 1457, he was made to recant at Paul's Cross (his Books being burnt before his eyes), confuted with seven solid arguments, thus reckoned up, Authoritate, Vi, Arte, Fraude, Metu, Terrore & Tyrannide. Charitable men behold this his Recantation as his suffering, and the act of his enemies: some account it rather a slip then a fall, others a fall, whence afterwards he did arise. It seems, his recanting was little satisfactory to his Adversaries, being never restored to his Bishoprick, but confined to a poor pension in a mean Monastery, where he died obscurely, though others say, he was privily made away in prison. He is omitted by Pitseus in his Catalogue of Writers; a presumption that he apprehended him finally

dissenting from the Popish perswasion. FULLER, THOMAS, 1662, Worthies of England, ed. Nichols, vol. II, p. 558.

It is a very memorable circumstance in the story of this extraordinary man, that his life was passed in a conflict with the errors of Wiclif, and yet that, after his death, his name was solemnly coupled with the name of the Reformer, and, in that company was, in due form, consigned to immortality. The foundation of King's College, Cambridge, took place about fourteen years before Pecock's conviction and imprisonment: and such was the zeal and orthodoxy of his Majesty, or his advisers, that a clause was added to the statues of the society, providing, that every scholar, on the expiration of his probationary years, should take an oath, that he would not favour the condemned opinions or heresies of John Wiclif, Reginald Pecock, or any other heretic, so long as he should live, on pain of perjury and expulsion, ipso facto.-LE BAS, CHARLES WEBB, 1832, The Life of Wiclif, p. 377.

Bishop Pecock's answer to the Lollards of his time contains passages well worthy of Hooker, both for weight of matter and dignity of style.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1848, View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages, vol. II, ch. ix, pt. ii, note.

The earliest piece of good philosophical disquisition of which our English prose literature can boast.-BABINGTON, CHURCHILL, 1860, ed. The Repressor.

The works of Pecock afford a gratifying proof that the mantle of the reformer had fallen on worthy shoulders, though he who bore it was so little able to comprehend the scope and logical consequences of the principles on which he acted, that he knew not even in what direction he was marching. While Pecock was grammatically behind his age, he was rhetorically far in advance of it.-MARSH, GEORGE P., 1862, The Origin and History of the English Language, etc., pp. 473, 487.