No. 51. A Ballade. Begins:—'In the season of Feuerere when it was full colde.' In 7 seven-line stanzas. In praise of the daisy. Very poor. From the Trin. MS., fol. 160.
No. 52. A Ballade. Begins—'O Mercifull and o merciable.' In 12 seven-line stanzas. The Trin. MS. has 13 stanzas; but Stowe omitted the tenth, because it coincides with st. 19 of the Craft of Lovers. It is made up of scraps from other poems. Stanzas 1-4 form part of a poem on the fall of man, from Lydgate's Court of Sapience (see vol. i. p. 57). In st. 8 occurs the assonance of hote (hot) and stroke; and in st. 9, that of cureth and renueth. From the Trin. MS., fol. 161.
No. 53. The Judgement of Paris. In 4 seven-line stanzas; the first is allotted to Pallas, who tells Paris to take the apple, and give it to the fairest of the three goddesses. After this, he is addressed in succession by Juno, Venus, and Minerva (as she is now called). Then the poem ends. Trin. MS., fol. 161, back.
No. 54. A Balade pleasaunte. Begins—'I haue a Ladie where so she bee.' In 7 seven-line stanzas. Meant to be facetious; e.g. 'Her skin is smothe as any oxes tong.' The author says that when he was fifteen years old, he saw the wedding of queen Jane; and that was so long ago that there cannot be many such alive. As Joan of Navarre was married to Henry IV in 1403, he was born in 1388, and would have been sixty-two in 1450. It is an imitation of Lydgate's poem entitled A Satirical
Description of his Lady; see Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 199. Trin. MS., fol. 205.
No. 55. Another Balade. Begins—'O mossie Quince, hangyng by your stalke.' In 4 seven-line stanzas, of which Stowe omits the second. A scurrilous performance. Trin. MS., fol. 205, back.
[No. 56. A Ballad by Lydgate; printed below, at p. 295.]
No. 58 is a Balade in 9 seven-line stanzas, of no merit, on the theme of the impossibility of restoring a woman's chastity.
No. 59. The Court of Love. Printed below, at p. 409.
No. 60 is a genuine poem; and no. 61 is Lydgate's Story of Thebes. And here Stowe's performance ceases.