Scleight or engyne, fors or felonye, 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 succession, the King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Chancery, and Westminster Hall. The London Lyckpenny. Within this hall, neither rich nor yet poor Would do for me ought, although I should die : Which seeing, I gat me out of the door, Where Flemings began on me for to cry: 'Master, what will you copen 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, And proffered me bread, with ale and wine, 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 !'4 Then to the Cheap I gan me drawn, 'Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land!' Then went I forth by London Stone, Drapers much cloth me offered anon; Then comes me one cried 'Hot sheep's feet;' One bade me buy a hood to cover my head; 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?' I answered: "That can not much me grieve, A penny can do no more than it may ;' I drank a pint, and for it did pay; Yet, sore a-hungered from thence I yede, And, wanting money, I could not speed; &c. ALEXANDER BARCLAY AND STEPHEN HAWES. 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 supposed to be the first compositions of the kind attempted 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 ship the chief place I govern, By this wide sea with fools wandering, The cause is plain and easy to discernStill am I busy book assembling; For to have plenty it is a pleasant thing In my conceit, 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, I keep them sure, fearing lest they should be lost, 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 Henryin 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. 31 The Temple of Mars. Beside this tower of old foundation, There was depainted all about the wall Of the worthy Hector that was all their joy, And as I cast my sight so aside, Saying: 'O Mars! O god of the war! 'O prince of honour and of worthy fame! O redoubted courage, the causer of their name, The power of fame that shall so long endure.' JOHN SKELTON. Barclay, in his Ship of Fools, alludes to JOHN 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. He was a 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 1529. 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 copiousness of Skelton'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 will shew the torrent-like flow of his doggerel rhymes: A Satire on the Clergy. A straw for God's curse! Is but a hermoniac, (God wot to their great pains) Their stirrups of mixed gold begared, There may no cost be spared. Their moils gold doth eat, Their neighbours die for meat What care they though Gill sweat, Or Jack of the Noke? The poor people they yoke About churches and market: The bishop on his carpet To hear the people jangle Cardinal Wolsey. Our barons are so bold, 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: |