I am a monk by my profession
  In Bury, called John Lydgate by my name,
  And wear a habit of perfection;
  (Although my life agree not with the same)
  That meddle should with things spiritual,
  As I must needs confess unto you all.

  But seeing that I did herein proceed
  At[1] his commands whom I could not refuse,
  I humbly do beseech all those that read,
  Or leisure have this story to peruse,
  If any fault therein they find to be,
  Or error that committed is by me,

  That they will of their gentleness take pain,
  The rather to correct and mend the same,
  Than rashly to condemn it with disdain,
  For well I wot it is not without blame,
  Because I know the verse therein is wrong
  As being some too short, and some too long.

His prologue to the story of Thebes, a tale (as he says) he was constrained to tell, at the command of his host of the Tabard in Southwark, whom he found in Canterbury with the rest of the pilgrims who went to visit St. Thomas’s shrine, is remarkably smooth for the age in which he writ.  This story was first written in Latin by Chaucer, and translated by Lydgate into English verse, Pitseus says he writ, partly in prose and partly in verse, many exquisite learned books, amongst which are eclogues, odes, and satires.  He flourished in the reign of Henry VI. and died in the sixtieth year of his age, ann. 1440. and was buried in his own convent at Bury, with this epitaph,

  Mortuus saeclo, superis superstes,
  Hic jacet Lydgate tumulatus urna: 
  Qui suit quondam celebris Britannae,
  Fama poesis.

Which is thus rendered into English by Winstanly;

  Dead in this world, living above the sky,
  Intomb’d within this urn doth Lydgate lie;
  In former times fam’d for his poetry,
  All over England.

[Footnote 1:  K. Henry V.]

* * * * *

JOHN HARDING.

John Harding, the famous English Chronologer, was born (says Bale) in the Northern parts, and probably Yorkshire, being an Esquire of an eminent parentage.  He was a man addicted both to arms and arts, in the former of which he seems to have been the greatest proficient:  His first military exploit was under Robert Umsreuil, governor of Roxborough Castle, where he distinguished himself against the Scots, before which the King of Scotland was then encamped, and unfortunately lost his life.  He afterwards followed the standard of Edward iv. to whose interest both in prosperity and distress he honourably adhered.  But what endeared him most to the favour of that Prince, and was indeed the masterpiece of his service, was his adventuring into Scotland, and by his courteous insinuating behaviour, so far ingratiating himself into the favour of their leading men, that he procured the privilege of looking into their records and original letters,