68

THE DANCE OF MACABER.

of our language, in which Chaucer, Gower, andOccleve led the way, and is the first of ourwriters whose style is clothed with that perspi-cuity in which the English phraseology appearsat this day to an English reader. His muse wasof universal access, and he was not only the poetof his monastery, but of the world in general. Ifa disguising was intended by the Company ofGoldsmiths, a mask before his Majesty at Eltham,a Maygame for the Sheriffs and Aldermen of Lon-don, a mumming before the Lord Mayor, a pro-cession of pageants from the creation, for the fes-tival of Corpus Christi, or a carrol for the coro-nation, Lydgate was consulted, and gave thepoetry.

Mr. Warton, from whose elegant History ofEnglish Poetry the above account of Lydgate isextracted, further informs us, that he translatedMacaber's Dance of Death from the French, atthe request of the Chapter of St. Paul's, to beinscribed under the painting of that subject intheir cloister; but it appears from the versesthemselves, that he undertook the translation atthe instance of a French clerk. Lydgate's poemis neither a literal or complete translation ofthe French version from Macaber*: and this hehimself confesses,

" Out of the French I drough it of intent

" Not word by word, but following in substance."

* This French translation has been erroneously given to Mi-chael Marot, who was not born at the time when it was first