The Pastime of Pleasure

Hawes was the author of several other works besides the one here printed, for an account of which we refer the reader to “Warton’s History of English Poetry.” “The Pastime of Pleasure,” which Warton characterises as his “capital work,” is one of those allegorical writings which were popular with our forefathers. It is however a monument; and being one of the most remarkable productions between the age of Lydgate and that of Wyatt and Surrey, it deserves to be reprinted as one of the links in the history of English poetry, without which that history would be incomplete. The old editions of this poem are very rare.