En toy quies fitz de Dieu le pere,
  Sauve soit, qui gist fours cest pierre.

The second writing mercy, with this device;

  O bene Jesu fait ta mercy,
  A’lame, dont la corps gisticy.

The third writing pity, with this decree;

  Pour ta pitie Jesu regarde,
  Et met cest a me, en sauve garde.

His arms were in a Field Argent, on a Chevron Azure, three Leopards heads or, their tongues Gules, two Angels supporters, and the crest a Talbot.

His epitaph.

  Armigeri soltum nihil a modo fert sibi tutum,
  Reddidit immolutum morti generale tributum,
  Spiritus exutum se gaudeat esse solutum
  Est ubi virtutum regnum sine labe est statum.

I shall take a quotation from a small piece of his called the Envious Man and the Miser; by which it will appear, that he was not, as Winstanley says, a refiner of our language, but on the other hand, that poetry owes him few or no obligations.

Of the Envious man and the miser.

  Of Jupiter thus I find ywrite,
  How, whilom, that he woulde wite,
  Upon the plaintes, which he herde
  Among the men, how that it farde,
  As of her wronge condition
  To do justificacion. 
  And, for that cause, downe he sent
  An angel, which aboute went,
  That he the sooth knowe maie.

Besides the works already mentioned our poet wrote the following: 

De Compunctione Cordi, in one book.

Chronicon Ricardi secundi.

Ad Henricum Quartum, in one book.

Ad eundem de Laude Pacis, in one book.

De Rege Henrico, quarto, in one book.

De Peste Vitiorum, in one book.

Scrutinium Lucis, in one book.

De Regimine Principum.

De Conjugii Dignitate.

De Amoris Varietate.

* * * * *

JOHN LYDGATE,

Commonly called the monk of Bury, because a native of that place.  He was another disciple and admirer of Chaucer, and it must be owned far excelled his master, in the article of versification.  After sometime spent in our English universities, he travelled thro’ France and Italy, improving his time to the accomplishment of learning the languages and arts.  Pitseus says, he was not only an elegant poet, and an eloquent rhetorician, but also an expert mathematician, an acute philosopher, and no mean divine.  His verses were so very smooth, and indeed to a modern ear they appear so, that it was said of him by his contemporaries, that his wit was framed and fashioned by the Muses themselves.  After his return from France and Italy, he became tutor to many noblemen’s sons, and for his excellent endowments was much esteemed and reverenced by them.  He writ a poem called the Life and Death of Hector, from which I shall give a specimen of his versification.