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ENGLISH LITERATURE.

ROMANCE, PERIOD.

THE AGE OF CHAUCER, 1350-1400.

IN the fourteenth century the Anglo-Saxon intellect begins to rise to the higher traits of literary excellence; to reflect in poetry the delicate shades of natural feeling; to repeat in prose the speculations of philosophy and the rapid flow of history. Of this swift progress, Chaucer is the original source; and the love and admiration with which he inspired his contemporaries and all his English successors were never undeserved. He is the parent and the anthor of many a grace in modern prose and poetry; he was the first in England to paint the soft and misty landscape, the green dress of spring, the forest-glades opening amidst their ancient oaks, and the pale beauties of his native land. He was never weary of

the nightingale's song, the bursting leaves of April, the gay beams of the summer sun, the daisy, or the rose. His poetry is overladen with descriptions of the sweetest vicissitudes of Nature. Now it is "a laund

of white and green ypowdered with daisies," that enchants him; now a field "that was on every side covered with corn and grass,"

or

Emily that fairer was to seen

Than the lily upon his stalk green,

And fresher than the May with flowers new.

Chaucer caught up all the delicate traits of his native scenery, refined his native language, and prepared it for that universal sway which it seems destined to hold over mankind. English literature springs from this delicate, sensitive original like a banyan-tree, and its branches spread over America and Australia.

A Forgotten Fable.-The England of the time of Chaucer is of singular interest to Americans. It was the time when the Saxon mind began first to throw off the dull restrictions of feudal barbarism; when the ideas of progress and reform became once more familiar to men; when kings, chiefs, nobles, ceased to be looked upon as God's vicegerents; when men began to think

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

13

for themselves on all important questions, and the light of common-sense dissipated a thousand delusions. It was the dawn of modern freedom, the opening of the struggle of the people against their fendal rulers, that was to awaken revolution in England, America, France, Italy, and conduct men to a better life. In ancient Rome the power of the people had been acknowledged by the lowered fasces of the magistrates and the cautious respect which the earlier emperors had paid to the Roman traditions; but when Chaucer sung and Longland murmured, the legend of popular sovereignty must have seemed only an absurd and idle fable.

The Fourteenth Century. It is five hundred years since Chaucer sung and English literature arose.* The poet springs out of an age of general gloom and darkness. His merry England, which he has covered

* The collections of the Chaucer Society and Mr. Furnival's zeal have given new interest to the poet's period. M. Taine's History of English Literature gives a vivid sketch of the times. Bernhard ten Brink, Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur, 1877. Bis zu Wiclifs Auftreten promises well. But was the English language certain of its supremacy before Chaucer? i., 410. England, he says, was kein zweisprächiges Land mehr.

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