Chaucerian and Other Pieces. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ when it should be accented on the former; (6) Henry Scogan, whose lines are lacking in interest and originality; (7) John Lydgate^[46], who allows his verse too many licences, so that it cannot always be scanned at the first trial; (8) Sir Richard Ros, who writes in English of a quite modern cast, using their and them as in modern English, and wholly discarding the use of final -e as an inflexion; (9) Robert Henryson, who writes smoothly enough and with a fine vein of invention, but employs the Northern dialect; (10) Sir Thomas Clanvowe, who employs the final -e much more frequently than Chaucer or even Gower; (11) the authoress of The Flower and the Leaf and The Assembly of Ladies, to whom the final -e was an archaism, very convenient for metrical embellishment; and (12) the author of The Court of Love, who, while discarding the use of the final -e, was glad to use the final -en to save a hiatus or to gain a syllable, and did not hesitate to employ it where it was grammatically wrong to do so.

      § 78. If the reader were to suppose that this exhausts the list, he would be mistaken; for it is quite easy to add at least one known name, and to suggest three others. For the piece numbered XXVI, on p. 449, has been identified as the work of John Walton, who wrote a verse translation of Boethius in the year 1410; whilst it is extremely unlikely that no. XXVII, written in Lowland Scottish, was due to Henryson, the only writer in that dialect who has been mentioned above. This gives a total of fourteen authors already; and I believe that we require yet two more before the Virelai and the Sayings printed by Caxton (nos. XXV and XXVIII) can be satisfactorily accounted for. As for no. XIX—the Envoy to Alison—it may be Lydgate's, but, on the other hand, it may not. And as for no. XXIX, it is of no consequence.

      Moreover, it must be remembered that I here only refer to the selected pieces printed in the present volume. If we go further afield, we soon find several more authors, all distinct from those above-mentioned, from each other, and from Chaucer. I will just instance the author of the Isle of Ladies, the authoress (presumably) of The Lamentation of Mary Magdalen, the author of The Craft of Lovers, the 'man unknown' who wrote The Ten Commandments of Love, and the author of the clumsy lines dignified by the title of The Nine Ladies Worthy. It is quite certain that not less than twenty authors are represented in the mass of heterogeneous material which appears under Chaucer's name in a compilation such as that which is printed in the first volume of Chalmers' British Poets; which, precisely on that very account, is useful enough in its own peculiar way.

      § 79. I believe it may be said of nearly every piece in the volume, that it now appears in an improved form. In several cases, I have collated MSS. that have not previously been examined, and have found them to be the best. The Notes are nearly all new; very few have been taken from Bell's Chaucer. Several are due to Schick's useful notes to The Temple of Glas; and some to Krausser's edition of The Black Knight, and to Gröhler's edition of La Belle Dame, both of which reached me after my own notes were all in type. I have added a Glossary of the harder words; for others, see the Glossary already printed in vol. vi.

      In extenuation of faults, I may plead that I have found it much more difficult to deal with such heterogenous material as is comprised in the present volume than with pieces all written by the same author. The style, the grammar, the mode of scansion, the dialect, and even the pronunciation are constantly shifting, instead of being reasonably consistent, as in the genuine works of Chaucer. Any one who will take the pains to observe these points, to compile a sufficient number of notes upon difficult passages, and to prepare a somewhat full glossary, may thus practically convince himself, as I have done, that not a single piece in the present volume ought ever to have been 'attributed' to Chaucer. That any of them should have been so attributed—and some of them never were—has been the result of negligence, superficiality, and incapacity, such as (it may be hoped) we have seen the last of.

      I wish once more to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. E. B. Nicholson, for the loan of his transcript of The Praise of Peace; to Mr. Bradley, for his discovery of the authorship of The Testament of Love and for other assistance as regards the same; to Dr. E. Krausser, for his edition of The Complaint of the Black Knight; to Dr. Gröhler, for his dissertation on La Belle Dame sans Mercy; and to Professor Hales for his kind help as to some difficult points, and particularly with regard to The Court of Love.

      THE TESTAMENT OF LOVE.

      PROLOGUE.

      Many men there ben that, with eeres openly sprad, so

      moche swalowen the deliciousnesse of jestes and of ryme,

      by queynt knitting coloures, that of the goodnesse or of the

      badnesse of the sentence take they litel hede or els non.

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      Soothly, dul wit and a thoughtful soule so sore have myned

      and graffed in my spirites, that suche craft of endyting wol not

      ben of myn acqueyntaunce. And, for rude wordes and boystous

      percen the herte of the herer to the in[ne]rest point, and planten

      there the sentence of thinges, so that with litel helpe it is able

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      to springe; this book, that nothing hath of the greet flode of

      wit ne of semelich colours, is dolven with rude wordes and

      boystous, and so drawe togider, to maken the cacchers therof

      ben the more redy to hente sentence.

      Some men there ben that peynten with colours riche, and

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      some with vers, as with red inke, and some with coles and

      chalke; and yet is there good matere to the leude people of

      thilke chalky purtreyture, as hem thinketh for the tyme; and

      afterward the sight of the better colours yeven to hem more

      joye for the first leudnesse. So, sothly, this leude clowdy occupacion

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      is not to prayse but by the leude; for comunly leude

      leudnesse commendeth. Eke it shal yeve sight, that other

      precious thinges shal be the more in reverence. In Latin

      and French hath many soverayne wittes had greet delyt to

      endyte, and have many noble thinges fulfild; but certes, there

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      ben some that speken their poysye-mater in Frenche, of whiche

      speche the Frenche men have as good a fantasye as we have

      in hering of Frenche mennes English. And many termes there

      ben in English, [of] whiche unneth we Englishmen connen declare

      the knowleginge. How shulde than a Frenche man born suche

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      termes conne jumpere in his mater, but as the jay chatereth

      English? Right so, trewly, the understanding of Englishmen

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