y one in these days was searching anxiously for the
right word, which is indeed the most proper object of every versifier's
search. Unluckily, they only looked for it among polysyllables.

It will be gathered by this time that I hold no brief for what we must
call the court poetry of the fifteenth century, that is to say, the
compositions by which poets from Lydgate to Skelton sought to ingratiate
themselves with noble patrons and to prove their title to immortality.
When they were off their guard they wrote much better. The reminiscences
of the gay days of his youth stirred Hoccleve's muse to unwonted
vivacity. In the _London Lick-penny_ Lydgate, if Lydgate's it be, wrote
humorous satire with success. Skelton himself, though in his (much too
respectfully spoken of) play _Magnificence_ he could flounder with the
worst of his predecessors, in his light and railing rhymes was nimble
enough, and ranged easily from vigorous invective of Wolsey to pretty
panegyrics of fair ladies. Now and again also these good souls ceased
their search for polysyllables, looked at some fair face or pleasant
landscape, and came near to a natural description. Now and again, too,
when they were on their knees (it is only in prayers intended for other
people that long words seem appropriate), they got down to a phrase of
simple beauty. And meanwhile in the country in general, we may be sure,
many simple rhymesters were keeping up old traditions; and if some
diligent student would begin gleaning from the earlier miscellanies with
the industry and insight by which Mr. A.H. Bullen extracted so rich a
harvest from the Elizabethan song-books, surely he also would not go
unrewarded. That the touch which we find in the religious poems of an
earlier date in the Vernon MS. had not been wholly lost is witnessed by
some favourite lines of mine from a book called _Speculum Christiani_,
printed by Machlinia about 1485, and sometimes attributed to John
Wotton--

'Mary mother, well thou be!
Mary mother, think on me;
Maiden and mother was never none
Together, Lady, save thee alone.
Sweet Lady, maiden clean,
Shield me from ill, shame and teen;
Out of sin, Lady, shield thou me.
And out of debt for charity.
Lady, for thy joyes five,
Get me grace in this live,
To know and keep over all thing,
Christian faith and God's bidding.
And truely win all that I need
To me and mine clothe and feed.
Help me, Lady, and all mine;
Shield