CHAPTER V. Fisher, TYNDALE, MORE, LATIMER, AND OTHERS. A.D. 1500 to A.D. 1558. The stream of allegorical literature flows, broadening upon its way to Spenser, and in the reign of Henry VIII. we have a religious allegory of life from Stephen Hawes, “groom of King Henry the Seventh his chamber.” Stephen Hawes was a Suffolk man who studied at the University of Oxford, travelled in France, and became skilled in French and Italian poetry before he was established in favour at the court of Henry VII. A payment to “ Mr. Hawse" for a play in the twelfth year of Henry VIII. may indicate that Stephen Hawes was then still living. The most important of his books was an allegorical poem in Troilus verse or Chaucer's measure, entitled “ The History of Graund Amoure and La Bel Pucell, called The Pastime of Pleasure, containing the Knowledge of the Seven Sciences, and the Course of Man's Life in this World.” To Henry VII. he writes in the opening DEDICATION OF THE PASTIME OF PLEASURE. The Lady was wowd, but scho said Nay, With men that wald hir wed; Sa suld we wryth all syn away, That in our breist is bred. Right mighty Prince and redoubtéd sov'rayne, Sailingé forth well in the ship of grace, Right towards heaven to have dwelling place, Grace stecreth well, the grace of God is grete Which you hath broughté to your royal see, 13 Above us all to have the sov'rayntie; i God send my life had been taken from me ere I had seen yon sight. 2 Nov mono I de, now must I die; trestly ye me trow, surely believe me. 3 Hing it forrow you, hang it before you, within sight. • Quhen men cumis, when men come you to woo. The Northern plural in s. See note in this Library on page 166 of " Shorter English Poems." * By Mary free. 6 And prayed with all her heart for him who released her of bandoun, from thraldom. ; Merk, dark. First-English “mirc,” dark, murky, troubled. “Mirc," darkness, meant also a prison. Compare Lady Macbeth's Hell is murky," when, in tormented sleep, her mind is carried back into the darkness of the night when Glamis murdered sleep. 8 In quert, in gay spirits. Heir, here. 10 Verrey (" vrai"), true. borl," a surety. Beseeching your grace to pardon mine ign'ránce Which this feigned fable t' eschew idleness Have so compiléd now without doubtance For to present to your high worthiness : For under a coloúr a truth may rise, As was the guise in old antiquitie To cloke the truth of their infirmitie As he rested by this image, Sloth caught his head in a net, and while he yet slept there came a roral blast of a great horn that awoke him. There were the red clouds of daybreak in the sky, and he saw riding from a far valley a goodly lady-Fameenvironed with tongues of fire as bright as any star, on a palfrey swift as the wind, with two white grey: hounds before her. Espying Graundamoure, the grevhounds ran to him, and leapt and fawned upon him; their names, written in diamond on their gold collars, were Governance and Grace. The lady who followed marvelled that her greyhounds were so friendly with him, and asked his name. He was Graundamoure, who sought her direction to the Tower of Doctrine, and she ! She was Fame, whose horn biad blown after the death of many a champion : The poem then begins by telling how Graundamoure, who speaks in his own person, walked in spring-time into a flowery meadow. He went forth in a fair path that he found, not knowing whither it would As Henry VIII. * In seems to be lost as a syllable in the preceding sound of "shine," as ed was commonly left unpronounced when added to verbs ending in d or t. 3 The Monk of Bury, John Lydgate. • The short e in the second syllable of "predecessor" is not Bounded. • Fatal, dealing with the destinies of men ; "The Falls of Princes," " And after this, Famé gan to express Of jeopardous way to the Tower Perilous, And of the beauty and the seemliness Of La Bell Pucell, so gay and glorious $ In the other, pronounced "j" th' o'r" (see Note 1. page 2 “Shorter Engiish Poems"). 6 My is slurred in pronunciation before master, as in the preceding lide the before trace. 7 These two lines are evidently corrupt in the 1555 edition, from which "The Pastime of Pleasure” was reprinted, in 1815, for the Percy Society. As negligence and lack of knowledge are separate canses of offence, possibly " that" has slipped out of its place after "if" in the first line, and "or" is omitted before " for " in tbe second. 9 The y in “lady” bleuds as one syllablo with the ein "excelet" and the verse runs :1 'nto L' Bell | Pucell the fair lady.ex celle This running of a final y into an initial vowel is natural and in the poets. So in “ Paradise Lost," I. 141, “Though all our part extinct and happy state." 10 Intelligible, sensible, intellectual. Fame told the perils of the way, but promised the youth to begin, and undergo his years of educaGraundamoure the victory if he followed her direction in the Tower of Doctrine, whose seven stages tion. rise from Grammar with her A B C to heavenly “To the Tower of Doctrine ye shall take your way. contemplations of Theology. Countenance was the You are now within a day's journay; portress who admitted Graundamoure, and showed Both these greyhounds shall keep you company; him on the arras of the entrance-hall an image of Look that you cherish them full gentely. the career before him, setting forth how in the labour towards La Bel Pucell “ a noble knight should win And Countenancé, the goodlý portress, the victory.” Then the portress introduced the Shall let you in full well and nobly, adventurer to the lady Grammar, into whose chamAnd also shew you of the perfectness ber “the right noble Dame Congruity” admitted Of all the seven sciences right notably. him. Dame Grammar told him how to the wise of These in your mind you may ententively old it was their whole delight, for common profit of petias a lombero 9.7 Theologio reu Methaphia THE Tower of Doctrine. (From Reisch's "Margarita Philosophica," 1512.) Unto Dame Doctrine give perfect audience, : humanity, to study the seven sciences many a long winter's night. After this she taught Graundamoure Fame left Graundamoure with the greyhounds. He right well, first his Donet,” and then his accidence. When he had been taught by Grammar, he went up travelled on, again rested till morning, and then saw to the bright chamber of Logic; and when that fair set on a rock “the royal tower of moral document,” lady had instructed him, “then above Logic up we made of fine copper, with turrets that shone against went a stair,” and there was the star of famous the sun. It is the pilgrimage of man, whose way eloquence, the Lady Phetoric to kneel to. Rhetoric was first over the flowery fields of childhood till a explained to him at length the five parts of her path in life had to be chosen ; the path of Active Life science, which was founded by Reasonbeing chosen, fame of the prize to be won nerved “Man for to govern well and prudently; His words to order, his speech to purify." 1 Nobly. Pronounced nob-l-y, as three syllables. See Dr. Abbot's “Shakespearian Grammar," section 477, “ Liquids in dissyllables are ? His Donet. Ælius Donatus, born about A.D. 333, was the teacher frequently pronounced as though an extra vowel were introduced of St. Jerome. He wrote an elementary book on the eight parts of between them and the preceding consonant." So in “Comedy of speech applied to Latin, and the long-continued use of this in elemen. Errors," act v., scene 1, “And these two Dromios, one in semb-l-ance;" tary teaching caused a Dopatus, or a Donet, to become the common “ Coriolanus," act iji., scene 2, “Be thus to them. You do the pame for a grammar, or a first book of instruction upon any subject. nobel-er." Two lines farther on “sciences" is pronounced "sciénce," We have seen (page 121 Reginald Pecock giving the name of "Donet” the being merged in the similar final sound of the word. to a book on the First Principles of Faith. aside to conceal, in a temple, hope, doubt, and despair ; the coming again of Graundamoure, led by Good Counsel, to declare his love to the lady in a long This section of the poem closes with loving lines to the memory of Chaucer and of Lydgate, whom Stephen Hawes honoured more especially as the master upon whose trace he would seek to follow. Graundamoure next passed to the chamber of Arithmetic, “With gold depainted, every perfect number, To add, detray,' and to divide asunder.” The next stage led Graundamoure to the tower of Music, and in her chamber, advanced by knowledge to a sense of the harmonies of life, he first saw La Bell Pucell. “There sat Dame Music with all her minstrelsy, As tabors, trumpets with pipes melodious, Harps, lutes, and crowdés right delicïous, · The Tabor was a small drum usually played with accompaniment of fife. The Sackbut was a bass-trumpet with stops, and as its name “sambuca ” was derived from the elder-tree, it was probably formed of wood, a sort of bassoon. The Recorder was a flageolet or bird. pipe, so named from the word “record" once commonly applied to the singing of birds, as in an eclogue by Drayton : “Fair Philomel, night music of the spring, Sweetly records her tuneful harmony." The Crowd, “crwth" of the Cymry, was the old British fiddle; "chrotta Britanna canat," wrote Venantius Fortunatus at the end of the sixth century. Invented in Britain, and returned to us with improvements by the Arabs, the fiddle in a simple form, still calleds “ crowd," and the fiddler a “crowder," remained familiar am the people. Cymphans were “symphonies," or "chyfonies; " named in the “Roman de Brut" “Symphonies, salterions, Monocordes, tymbres, corrons." | They were large stringed instruments, a sort of harp. Dousses i Detray (" detrahere"), to draw away, subtract. dialogue of alternate stanzas which ended in her of Lady Fortune, who had two faces under one hood. acceptance of his suit. But he must seek her by a Of Mars Graundamoure prayed for grace to secure long and dangerous way, for now she is withdrawn / enduring fame. To Mars he said that in the thirtyfrom him to a far country : first year of his young flowering age he thought him self escaped from childish ignorance, and that his “ To me to come is hard and dangerous wit could withstand and rule Venus and Cupid, but When I am there, for giantés ugly, she had wounded him with fervent love, and set Two' monsters also, black and tedious, before him perilous adventure in which he needed That by the way await full cruelly help from Mars. Mars answered that Graundamoure For to destroy you all and utterly, was born under the rule of Venus, and therefore, When you that way do také the passage To attainé my love by high advantage." when he had learned perfectly to govern himself by prudent chivalry, he must go humbly to the So Graundamoure was parted from the fair ideal of temple of Venus and make his oblation, suing to life which he had touched, and with which he had | her by the disposition which constrained him to love kept step when his heart was young and he had | ladies with a true affection. But here Fortune with been trained up to a perception of true harmony. the two faces, from behind Sir Mars, laughed at the His friend Good Counsel bade him never flinch, but notion that Mars could have aid to give in the search, complete his training by the Seven Sciences, and then where all depended upon Fortune's ordering. Then go forward to the tower of Chivalry, and be armed Fortune declared at large the power of the turning for the battles of the life before him. Forth he of her wheel; Mars had less might; to her, therefore, went, therefore, to the tower of Geometry, and from Graundamoure must sue. Mars answered that she her to the green meadow whence Astronomy looks | was nothing substantial, neither spiritual nor terresheavenward, and where he learnt from her that trial, and nothing can do nothing. He said to her, “God himself is chief astronomer “ The Man is Fortune, in the proper deed, And is not thou that causeth him to speed." While yet marvelling at the argument between Mars and Fortune, Graundamoure was approached by As Astronomy doth make apparaunce, Minerva, who led him into her own hall. Knights By reason he weighed all things in balaunce." were there playing at chess, who left their play gently to welcome him ; especially was he welcomed More is taught by Astronomy of the works of by Sir Nurture and his brother Courtesy. They Nature and the wits of man, of the high influence took him up a stair into a chamber gaily glorified. of stars and planets as the instruments to Nature's At its door stood a knight named Truth, who told working in every degree. Graundamoure that before entry he should promise Instructed in the seven sciences, the Quadrivium to love him. The chamber door was held in custody of Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, and the for King Melezius, that no man might enter wrongTrivium of Music, Geometry, Astronomy, Graund fully, and seek without Truth to be chivalrous. amoure with a varlet called Attendance and his grey King Melezius admitted Graundamoure :hounds Grace and Governance, proceeded over a hill and down a dale to the Tower of Chivalry, where a 66. With all my heart I will,' quoth he, 'accept horn hung by a shield and helmet at the entry. The Him to my service, for he is right worthý ; loud blast of the horn brought to the tower door its For unto Doctrine the highway he kept And so from thence to the Tower of Chivalry.'” gentle porter, Steadfastness, who admitted him into the base-court. There he saw four images of armed Presented to Melezius, armed and taught by knights on horseback, contrived to meet in shock of arms by craft of Geometry, with wheels, and cogs, and Minerva, he was prepared for knighthood, and when knighted was thus taught his duty by the King :cords. Beside this tower was a temple which Graundamoure entered. It was the temple of Mars, whose “ • Knighthood,' he said, 'was first established image he saw therein on a wheel-top in the embrace The Commonwealth in right (for) to defend, That by the wrong it be not minished; (dulcimer) was a stringed instrument, usually triangular, with about So every knight did truly condescend fifty wires, cast over a bridge at each end, struck with little iron rods. For the Commonwealth his power to extend The dulcimer was laid on a table and played with a small rod in each hand. The Clavi-cimbal was a kind of spinet, which the French Against all such rebellés contrarious called clavecin, and the Italian cembalo. Some of Bach's concertos Them to subdue with power victorious. were written "a due cembali." Like the clavichord, it was played with keys, and ranks with the ancestors of the pianoforte. The «• For knighthood is not in the feats of war, Rebeck is another form of rustic fiddle, taking a corruption of the naine rebab, or rebebbe, by which the British crwth or crowd, played As for to fight, in quarrel right or wrong, with a bow, was returned to Europe from the East by the Crusaders. But in a cause which Truth can not defar; Use of the fiddle-bow is said to have had its origin in ancient Britain. He ought himself for to make sure and strong i Tro. In the original“ With two," the first syllable being dropped Justice to keep mixt with merrý among ; in the scanning. 2 Trivium and Quadrivium. (See “Shorter English Poems," Note 2, paze 12.) • Defar, defer, leave Time to right. Or solve, as in Robert of 3 Base-court, outer or lower court. Brunne's version of Langtoft's Chronicle,"defare," undo. |