d reed:
O Master dere, and Fadre reuerent:
My Master _Chaucer_ Floure of Eloquence,
Mirror of fructuous entendement:
O vniuersal fadre of Science:
Alas that thou thine excellent Prudence
In thy Bed mortal mightest not bequeath.
What eyl'd Death, alas why would she the fle?
O Death, thou didst not harm singler in slaughter of him,
But all the Land it smerteth;
But natheless yet hast thou no power his name flee,
But his vertue afterteth
Unslain fro thee; which ay us lifely herteth,
With Books of his ornat enditing,
That is to all this Land enlumining.

In another place of his said Book, he writes thus;

Alas my worthy Maister honourable,
This Land's very Treasure and Richess!
Death by thy Death hath harm irreparable
Unto us done: her vengeable duress
Dispoiled hath this Land of the sweetness
Of Rhetorige; for unto _Tullius_
Was never man so like among us:
Also who was here in Philosophy
To _Aristotle_, in our Tongue, but thee?
The Steps of _Virgil_ in Poesie,
Thou suedst eken men know well enough,
What combre world that thee my Master slough
Would I slaine were.

_John Lidgate_ likewise in his Prologue of _Bocchas_, of the _Fall of
Princes_, by him translated, saith thus in his Commendation:

My Master _Chaucer_, with his fresh Comedies,
Is dead alas, chief Poet of _Brittaine_,
That whilom made full pitous Tradgedies,
The faule of Princes he did complaine,
As he that was of making Soveraine;
Whom all this Land should of right preferre
Sith of our Language he was the load-sterre.

Also in his Book which he writeth of the Birth of the Virgin _Mary_, he
hath these Verses.

And eke my Master _Chaucer_ now is in grave,
The noble Rhetore, Poet of _Britaine_,
That worthy was the Laurel to have
Of Poetry, and the Palm attaine,
That made first to distill and raine
The Gold dew drops of Speech and Eloquence,
Into our Tongue through his Eloquence.

That excellent and learned _Scottish_ Poet _Gawyne Dowglas_ Bishop of
_Dunkeld_, in the Preface of _Virgil's Eneados_ turned into
_Scottish_ Verse, doth thus speak of _Chaucer_;

Venerable _Chaucer_, principal Poet without pere,
Heavenly Trumpet, orloge, and regulere,
In Eloquence, Baulme, Conduct, and Dyal,
Milkie Fountaine, Cleare Strand, and Rose Ryal,
Of fresh endite through _Albion_ Island brayed
In his Legend of Noble Ladies fayed.

And as for men of latter time,