To Janneus a clerke of grete estate
Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke
Of this mater there groundely may he loke.

In Tullius also moost eloquent
The chosen spouse unto this lady free
His gylted craft and gloyre in content
Gay thynges I made eke, yf than lust to see
Go loke the Code also the dygestes thre
The bookes of lawe and of physyke good
Of ornate speche there spryngeth up the flood.

In prose and metre of all kynde ywys
This lady blyssed had lust for to playe
With her was blesens Richarde pophys
Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay
With maters vere poetes in good array
Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace
Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace.

Throughout this passage rhetoric is never mentioned in any other context
than one of pleasure to the ear of the auditor. Of the three aims of
rhetoric which Cicero had phrased as _docere, delectare, et movere_, only
the _delectare_ remains in the rhetoric of Lydgate. From his initial
invocation to Clio, in which he prays that his style be illuminated with
the aromatic sweetness of her rhetoric, to the passage in which he refers
to his own writings for examples of ornate speech Lydgate never refers to
the logic or the structure of persuasive public speech. Rhetoric, in
Lydgate, is not used in its classical sense, but as being synonymous with
ornate language--style. Here and here only does Lydgate discuss any part