POETARUM ANGLICANORUM.

VOLUME I.

1. ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.

ROBERT, surnamed of Gloucester, a not altogether obscure writer in the reign of King Henry the 3., and seeming to pass for a poet in the esteem of Camden, who quotes diverse of his old English Rhythms in praise of his native Country England.

II. GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

Sir Geoffrey Chaucer, the prince and Coryphæus, generally so reputed, till this age, of our English poets; and as much as we triumph over his old-fashioned phrase and obsolete words, one of the first refiners of the English language. Of how great esteem he was in the age wherein he flourished, namely the reigns

of Henry the 4.th Henry the 5.th and part of Henry the 6.th appears, besides his being knight and poet laureate, by the honour he had to be allied by marriage to the great Earl of Lancaster, John of Gaunt. How great a part we have lost of his works, above what we have extant of him, is manifest from an author of good credit, who reckons up many considerable poems, which are not in his published works : besides the Squire's Tale, which is said to be complete in Arundel-house Library.

III. JOHN GOWER.

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Sir John Gower, a very famous poet in his time, and counted little inferior, if not equal, to Chaucer himself, who was his contemporary, and some say his scholar and successor in the laurel for Gower was also both poet laureate and knight. His chief works may gathered from his tomb in St. Mary Overy's church; where lying buried, he is represented with his head upon three large volumes thus inscribed; the first Votum Meditantis; the next Confessio Amantis; the third Vox Clamantis of which the last being printed in the reign of king Henry the 8.", the impres

sion is not yet totally extinguished. The other two, doubtless, if not printed, are preserved in Public Libraries. For his Confessio Amantis I have seen in a private library, in a large folio manuscript of vellum fair written, containing the whole circuit of Natural philosophy, and the Allegories of all the poetical fictions. But that there were other things of his writing, appears by what is extant of him in Chaucer's published works.

IV. THOMAS OCCLEVE.

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Thomas Occleve, a very famous English poet in his time, which was the reign of king Henry the 4. and king Henry the 5.th to which last he dedicated his Government of a Prince, the chiefly remembered of what he writ in poetry and so much the more famous he is by being remembered to have been the disciple of the most famed Chaucer.

V. JOHN LYDGATE.

John Lydgate, an Augustin monk of St. Edmunds-Bury, who had the reputation of a person much accomplished by his travels into

Italy and France and besides several things of his, of polite argument, in prose, was much esteemed for what he wrote also in verse; as his Eclogues, Odes, Satires, and other poems.

VI. JOHN HARDING.

JOHN HARDING, a writer recorded in history for one of the chief of his time; viz. the reign of K. Edward the 4.; and claiming his seat among the poetical writers by his Chronicle in English verse.

VII. GEORGE RIPLAY.

George Riplay, a Canon of Bridlington in the time of Henry the 7.th; who in old English verse wrote several Chymical mysteries, pretending to lead to the attaining the Philosopher's Stone.

VIII. JOHN SKELTON.

John Skelton, a jolly English rhymer, and I warrant ye, accounted a notable poet, as poetry went in those days; namely, King Ed