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alliteration consists in such an arrangement and selection of the words, that at least two of the most important words in the first at least one word in the second line, begin

line of a couplet, and with the same letter. in illustration:

The opening verses of the Vision are given

"In a somer seson

Whan softe was the sonne,

I shoop* me into shroudes,t

As I a sheep weere.

"In habite as an heremite,

Unholy of workes,

Wente wide in this world
Wondres to here."

The quaintness of this metrical device and the character of the allegory indicate that the author was attempting to gain whatever advantage there might be in a return to the ancient English style of poetry. These poems attained great popularity when they were first printed-in 1550-and they were effective in advancing the principles of the Reformation.

B. 1325 ?]
D. 1408?]

But the name most closely linked with Chaucer's is that of John Gower. During the greater part of their lives there was an intimate friendship between these two men. In their writings they gave each other fond praises. Chaucer dedicated Troilus and Creseide to "Moral Gower;" and the first edition of the Confessio Amantis (12) compliments Chaucer highly.

Gower's life was not so public, nor so full of vicissitudes, as his friend's. He was a man of wealth, and passed his years quietly in literary work. He seems to have enjoyed a dignified self-satisfaction in his compositions. His learning was extensive, and he was somewhat pedantic in its display. As the French was still the language of educated people in England, he used the alien tongue in the Speculum Meditantis, the first of his three principal poems. In the second of the three, when he undertook to describe the diseased condition of English society, he did not adopt his native speech, but, in the Vox Clamantis, gave utterance to his feelings in Latin verse. When Chaucer had shown the capabilities of English, Gower, in his blind old age, wrote the Confessio Amantis + Shepherd.

* Shaped.

+ Clothes.

in that tongue. This work, though not his ablest, is by far the most interesting to us. It was undertaken at the request of Richard II., to whom, the poet says,

"Belongeth my legeaunce,

With all mine heartes obeisaunce."

This first edition contains the celebrated passage in which Venus represents Chaucer as her disciple and poet, and expresses a wish that in his "later age" he shall "sette an end to all his werke by writing the Testament of Love." A second edition differs from the first merely in the omission of this compliment, and in the introduction of a new prologue, which ignores the memory of Richard, and dedicates the work with "entire affection" to Henry IV.

The Confessio Amantis is a poem consisting of eight books, in addition to the Prologue; one on each of the seven deadly sins, and another on the subject of philosophy generally. It is a collection of stories, strung together on a plan much inferior to Chaucer's. Instead of a number of characters, we have but two, Lover and Genius. The former, by direction of Venus, confesses his sins to the latter. Genius, the goddess's own clerk, listens to the penitent, and then, before shriving him, illustrates the enormity of his offences by an immense number of apposite stories. These are taken from the Bible, Ovid, the Gesta Romanorum (the oldest collection of tales extant), Godfrey of Viterbo, French fabliaux, and other sources, and illustrate the varied and extensive reading of the author. This poem has a certain charm for congenial minds; but its excellencies, such as they are, are balanced by many defects. It is tedious, overlaid with pedantry to a wearisome extent, and utterly without Chaucer's humor, passion, and love of nature. The author, while deploring the state of society in his time, and the offences of men in high place, is yet a stout supporter of the old order of things. His popularity with the cultivated classes continued for many generations. James of Scotland, in the fifteenth century, describes him and Chaucer as

"Superlative as poetis laureate,

In moralitee and eloquence ornate;"

and Shakespeare, in the sixteenth century, not only borrows from him the materials of "Pericles," but also brings him upon the stage as chorus to that play.

PROSE IN THE TIME OF CHAUCER.

47

PROSE LITERATURE IN THE TIME OF CHAUCER.

The most meritorious writer of English prose in Chaucer's time was Chaucer himself; but his rare power in this department has been eclipsed by his transcendent genius as a poet. Of those writers whose fame depends on prose works alone, the chief are Mandeville and Wycliffe. Sir John Mandeville (1300-1372), who is sometimes erroneously called the father of English prose, published his well-known volume of travels in 1356. Mr. Hallam calls this our earliest English book. It professes to be an authentic account of what the author saw on his travels through the most distant countries of the East, but is, in reality, a collection of marvelous tales worthy only of being classed with the adventures of Baron Munchausen. Whatever truth it may contain is mingled with so much falsehood, that the whole narrative is worthless. The style, however, is straightforward and unadorned, and the composition may still be read with but little difficulty. The work was exceedingly popular in its time, for it gave accounts of strange peoples and countries about which Englishmen had never heard.

In his Prologue, Mandeville recognizes the confusion of the language of literature, and says that he has "put this boke out of Latyn into Frensche, and translated it again into Englyssche, that every man of my nation may understand it."

.

No name of the time will be longer remembered than that of JOHN WYCLIFFE, who first gave a complete copy of the Scriptures to the English people in the English tongue. This remarkable man, of almost as great importance in the literary as in B. 1324.] the political history of his nation, studied at Oxford, D. 1384.] and rose to considerable academical and ecclesiastical preferments. His life was marked by many vicissitudes. After having been alternately supported and abandoned by men of great influence, he closed his life peacefully at his Lutterworth parsonage. It was here, after his enemies had driven him from his Chair at Oxford, that he commenced his great translation, which is said to have been finished about the year 1380.* The influence

* A priest named Hereford assisted Wycliffe, and is believed to have been the translator of the work as far as Baruch, in the Apocrypha. The remainder of the work is attributed to Wycliffe.

exerted by this work upon our language cannot be overrated. Translated, as it was, from the Latin Vulgate, it makes the Latin the principal source of our theological vocabulary.

Wycliffe was the first eminent scholar who used the English tongue in attacking the ecclesiastical system. He was the forerunner of the Reformation. His sermons and polemical writings must be studied by those who would form a just notion of the highest intellectual power exerted at that time. He struck the first mighty blow against Roman Catholic supremacy in England.

THE

CHAPTER VI.

FROM CHAUCER TO SPENSER.

HE first great manifestation of English intellectual power terminated with the death of Chaucer. A period of decay followed, in which there was no display of literary genius. For more than a hundred and fifty years not a man of eminent intellect appeared. But the invention of printing and the revival of learning remind us that, though singularly deficient in great men, the time was by no means barren in results. The spiritual activities of the nation were gathering themselves for another marvelous outburst.

Three disciples of Chaucer, Occleve, Lydgate, and James I. OF SCOTLAND, have made their names worthy of mention as writers of verse in the first half of the fifteenth century.

In the finest passage of his best attempt at poetical composition, Occleve bewails the death of his master, Chaucer,* and, but for the simple earnestness of that lament, there would be nothing in his literary work to command our esteem.

John Lydgate's writings were in high repute in his own century. He furnished poetical compositions for entertainments given by companies of merchants for May-day and Christmas festivals, for the pageants provided by the corporation of the City of London, and for the masks

B. 1374.]
D. 1460?]

* But wel away! so is mine hertè wo

That the honor of English tongue is dede,
Of which I wont was have counsel and réde!

O mayster dere and fadir reverent,

My mayster Chaucer, floure of eloquence,
Mirrour of fructuous endendement,

O universal fadir in sciènce,

Alas that thou thine excellent prudence

In thy bed mortel mighteste not bequethe!

What eyled Death? Alas! why would he sle the?

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