pedition into France in the year 1415, and of the battle
of Agincourt. In the Harleian MS. N^{o} 565, from which the preceding
Chronicle was transcribed, the following Poem occurs on the same
subject, a correct copy of which has never been published, though at
the end of Hearne's edition of Elmham's Life of Henry the Fifth, a
poem is inserted so very similar to the annexed that it may be
presumed to have been taken from another copy of the same. It is said
to have been transcribed from the Cottonian MS. Vitellius D. XII.,
which is not now extant: but upon collating this piece with the one
printed by Hearne, it appears, after allowing for the various readings
which frequently occur in different copies of an early poem, that many
words were erroneously given by that zealous antiquary.
Notwithstanding that it possesses but little claim to poetical merit,
it is highly curious, from its being nearly if not quite contemporary
with the events which it relates; for there can be no doubt of its
having been a production of the prolific pen of that "drivelling
monk," as he has been severely termed, the monk of Bury, John Lydgate,
several of whose other pieces, from their presenting a faithful but
rude picture of the manners and transactions of the times, are also
inserted in this volume. The garrulous monk, in the article which is
the subject of these remarks, particularly notices every circumstance
in which the Mayor and Citizens of the Metropolis were concerned, and
hence it is an appropriate illustration of a "CHRONICLE OF LONDON." It
is worthy of observation, that the story of the tennis-balls having
been sent as a satirical present from the Dauphin to Henry the Fifth,
and to which Shakspeare alludes, is frequently mentioned in the poem,
and furnishes the writer with several metaphors.

"_Ambass._ He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Desires you, let the dukedoms that you claim,
Hear no more of you--This the Dauphin speaks.

_K. Hen._ What treasure, uncle?

_Exeter._ Tennis-balls, my liege.

_K. Hen._ We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present, and your pains, we thank you for:
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set,
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard: