Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/321

 Lane, it was licensed for the press in 1617 (cf. Harl. MS. 5243).

VII. . 32. ‘London Lackpenny’ (112 lines of rhyme royal) (cf. Harl. MSS. 367 and 542); printed by Strutt, Pugh, Nicolas (Chronicle, 2 versions, pp. 260 sq.), and partly by Stowe, and from the first manuscript by Halliwell, pp. 103 sq. 33. ‘A Treatyse called Galand’ (i.e. gallant), 234 lines rhyme royal, written on the occasion of the final expulsion of the English from France in 1451; assigned by Alcock in ‘Sermon on Luke, viii.’ (Wynkyn de Worde, n.d. 1496?) to Lydgate. It is an attack on the French customs and modes of dress adopted by the English upper classes, and is marked by the refrain: ‘England may wayle, yt euer Galand came here’ (cf., Brit. Bibliographer, ii. 532). It was printed by De Worde anonymously thrice (1520? and 1525) and was reprinted in Ashbee's facsimile reprints, and in Hazlitt's ‘English Popular Literature,’ ii. 151 sq. 34. ‘Of a mariage betwixt an olde Man and a yonge wife’ (546 lines of rhyme royal), printed from Harl. MS. 372 ff. 45–51, by Halliwell, p. 27.

VIII. . The following printed in the 1561 edition of Chaucer may be safely assigned to Lydgate: ‘A Saying of Dan Ihon’ (f. cccxxxii); ‘A Ballade of Good Counseile translated out of Latin’ (f. cccxxxvii; cf. Cambr. Univ. Libr. MS. Ff. i. 6); ‘A Ballade in Commendacion of our Ladie’ (f. cccxxix); two stanzas, ‘Go foorthe Kyng rule thou by Sapience’ (f. cccxxxvi); ‘A Ballade which Chaucer made in the Praise, or rather Dispraise, of Women for their Doublenes’ (f. cccxl; cf. Fairfax MS. 16, and Ashmol. MS. 59); ‘A Ballade warning Men to Beware of deceiptfull Women’ (f. cccxliiii; cf. Harl. MS. 2251). Lydgate is also credited, apparently on good grounds, with ‘Chaucer's Proverbs,’ printed in Dr. R. Morris's edition of Chaucer's ‘Works,’ vi. 303; manuscripts of these are in Addit. MS. 16165, Fairfax MS. 16, and Harl. MS. 7578.

Halliwell printed forty-four works as ‘A Selection from the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate’ (Percy Society, 1840). Of these pieces many have been already specified. Among the others, ‘Dan Joos,’ p. 62, from Vincent de Beauvais's ‘Speculum Historiale’ (cf. Harl. MS. 2251, f. 70 b), imitating at some points Chaucer's ‘Prioress's Tale,’ was re-edited in ‘Originals and Analogues’ (Chaucer Soc. 286 sq. 1888) as ‘The Monk who honoured the Virgin.’ Similarly Lydgate's ‘Order of Fools’ (Halliwell, 164–71, from Harl. MS. 2251) was edited from Cotton MS. Nero, A. vi. 11, 36, in ‘Queen Elizabeth's Achademy’ (Early English Text Society), 79–84 (cf. Bodl. MS. 798). At least two, ‘Moral of the Legend of Dido,’ p. 69, and ‘A Poem against Idlenes,’ p. 84, are extracts from the ‘Falls of Princes’ (bk. ii. pp. 13, 14, 15).

IX. . Although manuscripts (cf. Cambr. Univ. Libr. MS. Hh., iv. 12) frequently credit Lydgate with the well-known poem ‘Stans Puer ad Mensam’ (printed by Caxton, 1479? and frequently later), his authorship has been questioned. Similar doubts exist respecting ‘The Childe of Bristowe, a tale of Bristol,’ a moral tale in ninety-three six-line stanzas, often printed as his from Harl. MS. 2382, f. 118, in ‘Retrospective Review,’ new ser. pt. vi., in Halliwell's Nugæ Poeticæ, 1844; in Hazlitt's Early Popular Poetry, i. 111 sq.; in Horstmann's ‘Sammlung Altenglischen Legenden,’ ii. 315; and in the ‘Camden Miscellany,’ vol. iv. 1859. Some poems are doubtfully included by Halliwell, e.g. ‘Thank God for all Things,’ p. 225 (cf. Anglia, vii. 306 sq.); ‘Make Amendes,’ p. 228 (cf. ib. p. 281); ‘On the Instability of Human Affairs,’ p. 74; ‘Measure is Treasure,’ p. 213 (last two verses); ‘Devotion of the Fowls,’ p. 78; ‘A Ditty upon Improvement,’ p. 222 (, Laurents de Premierfait, p. 76 n.)

The only work certainly assigned to Lydgate is ‘The Damage and Destruccyon in Realmes,’ written by Lydgate in December 1400; (manuscript in Lord Calthorpe's library—Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. p. 402). It is an account of Julius Cæsar's wars and death, and was printed with an ‘envoye’ in verse by Peter Treveris, 1520?, 12mo; again as ‘The Serpent of Division,’ London, by Owen Rogers, 1559, 8vo, and under the same title together with ‘The Tragedye of Gorboduc,’ by E. Allde, for Iohn Perrin, 1590, 4to (cf. Gorboduc, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. xxi). The ‘Pilgrimage of the Soul,’ printed by Caxton, 6 June 1483, a rendering into English prose of Jehan de Gallopes's French prose version of Guillaume de Deguilleville's ‘Pèlerinage de l'Ame,’ may be Lydgate's; a few poems, which also appear in Lydgate's ‘Life of our Lady,’ are added by Caxton (cf., Caxton, p. 262; , Deguileville, Roxb. Club, vol. ix.) Lydgate has been wrongly credited with Burgh's ‘Cato Major’ and ‘Cato Minor’ (Harl. MS. 2251); and with a translation of Vegetius made for Sir Thomas Berkeley in 1408 (Lansd. MS. 285).

Seven miniature portraits, appearing in illuminated manuscripts of Lydgate's works, have been identified with the poet: (1) in Harl. MS. 4826, ‘Secreta Secretorum,’ an old