[842] "Troy Book"; in Schick, "Lydgate's Temple of Glas," p. lvi. In his learned essay Mr. Schick pleads extenuating circumstances in favour of Lydgate.
[843] This appeal to Chaucer is in itself quite touching; here it is:
For he that was grounde of well sayinge,
In all his lyfe hyndred no makyng,
My maister Chaucer y^t founde ful many spot
Hym list not pynche nor grutche at every blot....
Sufferynge goodly of his gentilnesse,
Full many thynge embraced with rudenesse,
And if I shall shortly hym discrive,
Was never none to thys daye alive,
To reken all bothe of yonge and olde,
That worthy was his ynkehorne for to holde.
"The Auncient Historie," London, 1554, 4to, Book v. chap, xxxviii.
[844] Thomas Hoccleve was born about 1368-9 and entered the "Privy Seal" in 1387-8; he died about 1450. His works are being published by the Early English Text Society: "Hoccleve's Works," 1892, 8vo; I., "The Minor Poems." His great poem, "De Regimine principum," has been edited by Th. Wright, Roxburghe Club, 1860, 4to. Two or three of his tales in verse are imitated from the "Gesta Romanorum"; another, the "Letter of Cupid," from the "Epistre an Dieu d'Amours," of Christine de Pisan. "Hoccleve's metre is poor, so long as he can count ten syllables by his fingers he is content." Furnivall, "Minor Poems," p. xli.
[845] It seems like nothing, he says, but just try and see:
Many men, fadir, wennen that writynge
No travaile is; thei hold it but a game ...
But who-so list disport hym in that same,
Let hym continue and he shall fynd it grame;
It is wel gretter labour than it seemeth.
("Minor Poems," p. xvii.)
[846] "La Male Règle de Thomas Hoccleve," in the "Minor Poems," pp. 25 ff.