[Footnote 96: half cloak.]




JOHN LYDGATE.

(1373?-1460.)


IV. THE LONDON LACKPENNY.


This is an admirable picture of London life early in the fifteenth
century. The poem first appeared among Lydgate's fugitive pieces,
and has been preserved in the Harleian MSS.


To London once my steps I bent,
Where truth in no wise should be faint;
To Westminster-ward I forthwith went,
To a man of Law to make complaint.
I said, "For Mary's love, that holy saint,
Pity the poor that would proceed!"[97]
But for lack of money, I could not speed.

And, as I thrust the press among,
By froward chance my hood was gone;
Yet for all that I stayed not long
Till to the King's Bench I was come.