334 1 Ariadne. SPECIMENS OF THE FRENCH BALADES OF GOWER. De mon amour si tresentierement, Ou li coers est le corps falt obeir. Qe sans envie et danger de la gent, Plustricherous qe Jason a Medee Unques Ector qama Pantasilee2, En tiele haste a Troie ne sarmoit, Ne poet chaloir mais qune femme y soit, Cest ma dolour qe fuist amicois ma joie. De Lancelot si fuissetz remembre, Et de Tristans, com il se countenoit, Generides, Fflorent5, par Tonope®, 2 Penthesilea. 3 Sir Lancelot's intrigue with Geneura, king Arthur's queen, and Sir Tristram with Bel Isoulde, incidents in Arthur's romance, are made the subject of one of the stories of the French poem just cited, viz. Commes sont la cronique et listoire De Lancelot et Tristrans ensement, &c. 4 This name, of which I know nothing, must be corruptly written. 5 Chaucer's WIFE OF BATHES TALE is founded on the story of Florent, a knight of Rome who delivers the king of Sicily's daughter from the enchantments of her stepmother. His story is also in our author's CONFESSIO AMANTIS, Lib. iii. fol. 48. a. col. 1. seq. Lib. viii. fol. 175. a. eol 2. seq. And in the GESTE ROMANORUM. Percy [NUM. 2.] recites a Romance called LE BONE FLORENCE DE ROME, which begins, As ferre as men ride or gon: I know not if this be Shakespeare's Florentius, or Florentio, TAMING SHREW i. v. Be she as foul as was FLORENTIUS' love. 6 That is Partenope, or Parthenopeus, one of Statius's heroes, on whom there is an old French romance. Chascun des ceaux sa loialte gardoit; Cest ma dolour qe fuist amicois ma joie. Cest ma dolour qe fuist amicois ma joie. Si com la nief, quant le fort vent tempeste, Ma dame, ensi mon coer manit en tempeste, Me fait sigler sur le peril de vie, Qest en danger falt quil mera supplie. Rois Ulyxes, sicom nos dist la Geste, Qest en danger falt quil mera supplie. Qest en danger falt quil mera suppiie. Qest en danger falt quil mera supplie. For the use, and indeed the knowledge, of this MSS., I am obliged to the unsolicited kindness of Lord Trentham; a favour which his lordship was pleased to confer with the most polite condescension. ONE of the reasons which rendered the classic authors of the lower empire more popular than those of a purer age, was because they were christians. Among these no Roman writer appears to have been more studied and esteemed, from the beginning to the close of the barbarous centuries, than Boethius. Yet it is certain, that his allegorical personi 336 BOETHIUS-ALFRED-GROSTHEAD-LELAND-CHAUCER. fications and his visionary philosophy, founded on the abstractions of the Platonic school, greatly concurred to make him a favourite'. His CONSOLATION of PHILOSOPHY was translated into the Saxon tongue by king Alfred, the father of learning and civility in the midst of a rude and intractable people; and illustrated with a commentary by Asser bishop of Saint David's, a prelate patronised by Alfred for his singular accomplishments in literature, about the year 890. Bishop Grosthead is said to have left annotations on this admired system of morality. There is a very ancient manuscript of it in the Laurentian library, with an inscription prefixed in Saxon characters. There are few of those distinguished ecclesiastics, whose erudition illuminated the thickest gloom of ignorance and superstition with uncommon lustre, but who either have cited this performance, or honoured it with a panegyrics. It has had many imitators. Eccard, a learned French Benedictine, wrote in imitation of this CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, a work in verse and prose containing five books, entitled the CONSOLATION OF THE MONKS, about the year 11204. John Gerson also, a doctor and chancellor of the university of Paris, wrote the CONSOLATION OF THEOLOGY in four books, about the year 1420". It was the model of Chaucer's TESTAMENT OF LOVE. It was translated into French and English before the year 13507. Dante was an attentive reader of Boethius. In the PURGATORIO, Dante gives THEOLOGY the name of Beatrix his mistress, the daughter of Fulco Portinari, who very gravely moralises in that character. Being ambitious of following Virgil's steps in the descent of Eneas into hell, he introduces her, as a daughter of the empyreal heavens, bringing Virgil to guide him through that dark and dangerous regions. Leland, who lived when true literature began to be restored, says that the writings of Boethius still con 1 It is observable, that this SPIRIT OF PERSONIFICATION tinctures the writings of some of the christian fathers, about, or rather before, this period. Most of the agents in the SHEPHERD of HERMAS are ideal beings. An ancient lady converses with Hermas, and tells him that she is the CHURCH OF GOD. Afterwards several virgins appear and discourse with him; and when he desires to be informed who they are, he is told by the SHEPHERD-ANGEL, that that they are FAITH, ABSTINENCE, PATIENCE, CHASTITY, CONCORD, &c. Saint Cyprian relates, that the church appeared in a vison, in visione per noctem, to Colerinus; and commanded him to assume the office of Reader, which he in humility had declined. Cyprian. Epist. xxxix. edit. Oxon. The church appearing as a woman they perhaps had from the Scripture, Rev. xii. 1. ESDRAS, &c. 2 Mabillon. Itin. Ital. P. 221. 3 He is much commended as a catholic and philosopher by Hincmarus archbishop of Rheims about the year 880. De Prædestinat. contr. Godeschalch. tom. i. 211, ii. 62, edit. Sirmond. And by John of Salisbury, for his eloquence and argument. Policrat. vii. 15. And by many other writers of the same class. 4 Trithem. cap. 387, de S. E. And Illustr. Benedictin. ii. 107. 5 Opp. tom. i. p. 130, edit. Dupin. I think there is a French CONSOLATIO THEOLOGIA by one Cerisier. 6 Haym, p. 199. 7 Beside John of Meun's French version of Boethius, printed at Lyons 1483, with a translation of Virgil by Guillaume le Roy, there is one by De Cis, or Thri, an old French poet. Matt. Annal. Typogr. i. p. 171. Francisc. a Cruce, Bibl. Gallic. p. 216, 247- It was printed in Dutch at Ghent, apud Arend de Keyser, 1485, fol. In Spanish at Valladolid, 1598. fol. Polycarpus Leyserus, in that very scarce book DE POESI MEDII ÆVI, [printed HALE, 1721, 8vo.] enumerates many curious old editions of Boethius, p. 95, 105. 8 PURGAT. Cant. xxx. tinued to retain that high estimation, which they had acquired in the most early periods. I had almost forgot to observe, that the ConsolaTION was translated into Greek by Maximus Planudes, the most learned and ingenious of the Constantinopolitan monks1. I can assign only one poet to the reign of king Henry IV., and this a translater of Boethius2. He is called Johannes Capellanus, or John the Chaplain, and he translated into English verse the treatise DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIÆ in the year 1410. His name is John Walton. He was canon of Oseney, and died subdean of York. It appears probable, that he was patronised by Thomas Chaundler, among other preferments, dean of the king's chapel and of Hereford cathedral, chancellor of Wells, and successively warden of Wykeham's two colleges at Winchester and Oxford; characterised by Antony Wood as an able critic in polite literature, and by Leland as a rare example of a doctor in theology who graced scholastic disputation with the flowers of a pure latinity3. In the British Museum there is a correct manuscript on parchment of Walton's translation of Boethius: and the margin is filled throughout with the Latin text, written by Chaundler above-mentioned. There is another less elegant MSS. in the same collection. But at the end is this note; Explicit liber Boecij de Consolatione Philosophie de Latino in Anglicum translatus A.D. 1410. per Capellanum Joannem3. This is the beginning of the prologue, In suffisaunce of cunnyng and witte.' And of the translation, 'Alas I wretch that whilom was in welth.' I have seen a third copy in the library of Lincoln cathedral, and a fourth in Baliol college'. This is the translation of Boethius printed in the monastery of Tavistoke, in the year 1525. 'The BOKE of COMFORT, called in Latin Boecius de Consolatione Philosophie. 'Emprented in the exempt mo'nastery of Tavestock in Denshyre, by me Dan Thomas Rychard monke 'of the sayd monastery. To the instant desyre of the right worshipfull 'esquyre magister Robert Langdon, A.D. MDXXV. Deo gracias.' Inoctave rhyme. This translation was made at the request of Elizabeth Berkeley. I forbear to load these pages with specimens not original, and which appear to have contributed no degree of improvement to our poetry or our phraseology. Henry IV. died in the year 1399. 1 Montfaucon Bibl. Coislin. p. 140. Of a Hebrew version, see Wolf. Bibl. Hebr. tom. i p. 229, 1092, 243, 354, 369. I am aware that Occleve's poem, called the Letter of Cupid, was written in this king's reign in the year 1402. In the year of grace joyfull and joconde, a thousand fower hundred and seconde.' Urry's Chaucer, p. 537, V. 475. But there are reasons for making Occleve, as I have done, something later. Nor is Gower's Balade to Henry IV. a sufficient reason for placing him in that reign. The same may be said of Chaucer. 3 Wood, Hist. Antiq. Univ. Oxon. ii. p. 134. Leland, Script. Brit. CHAUNDLERUS. And MSS. Coll. Trin. Oxon. 75, 4 MSS. Harl. 43. 1. 5 MSS. Harl. 44, chart. et pergam. 6 MSS. i. 53. 7 MSS. B. 5. He bequeathed his Biblia, and other books, to this library. This is among Rawlinson's Codd. impress. Bibl. Bodl. There is an English translation of Boethius by one George Colvil, or Coldewell, bred at Oxford, with the Latin, according to the toke of the translatour, which was a very old printe, Dedicated to queen Mary, and printed by John Cawood, 1556. 4to. Reprinted 1566. 4to. 340 THOMAS OCCLEVE.-HIS PIECES ANALYSED. Thomas Occleve is the first poet that occurs in the reign of Henry V. I place him about the year 1420. Occleve is a feeble writer, considered as a poet and his chief merit seems to be, that his writings contributed to propagate and establish those improvements in our language which were now beginning to take place. He was educated in the municipal law1, as were both Chaucer and Gower; and it reflects no small degree of honour on that very liberal profession, that its students were some of the first who attempted to polish and to adorn the English tongue. The titles of Occleve's pieces, very few of which have been ever printed, indicate a coldness of genius; and on the whole promise no gratification to those who seek for invention and fancy. Such as, The tale of Jonathas and of a wicked woman2. Fable of a certain emperess. A prologue of the nine lessons that is read over Allhalowday. The most profitable and holsomest craft that is to cunne3, to lerne to dye. Consolation offered by an old man'. Pentasthicon to the king. Mercy as defined by Saint Austin. Dialogue to a friend. Dialogue between Occleef and a beggars. The letter of Cupid. Verses to an empty purse10. But Occleve's most considerable poem is a piece called a translation of Egidius DE REGIMINE PRINCIPUM. This is a sort of paraphrase of the first part of Aristotle's epistle to Alexander abovementioned, entitled SECRETUM SECRETORUM, of Egidius, and of Jacobus de Casulis, whom he calls Jacob de Cassolis. Egidius, a native of Rome, a pupil of Thomas Aquinas, eminent among the schoolmen by the name of Doctor Fundatissimus, and an archbishop, flourished about the year 1280. He wrote a Latin tract in three books DE Regimie PRINCIPUM, or the ART OF GOVERNMENT, for the use of Philip le Hardi, son of Louis king of France, a work highly esteemed in the middle ages, and translated carly into Hebrew, French11, and Italian. In those days ecclesiastics and schoolmen presumed to dictate to kings, and to give rules for 1 He studied in Chestres-inn where Somerset-house now stands, Buck, De tertia Anglia Accademia, cap. xxv. 2 Ubi. infr. Bibl. Bodl. MSS. From the GESTA ROMANORUM 3 Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Seld. supr. 53, Digb. 185. Laud. K. 78. MSS. Reg. Brit. Mus. 17 D. vi. This story seems to be also taken from the GESTA ROMANORUM Pr. In the ROMAN ACTYS Writyn.' 2. Ubi. supr. Bibl. Bodl. MSS. 5 Know. 6 MSS. Bodl. ut supr. And MSS. Reg. Brit. Mus. 17 D. vi. 3, 4. Occleve. 7 MSS. Digb. 185. 9 MSS. Digb. 151. P. 534. Bale [MSS. More [Cant.] 427. The best MSS. of 8 MSS. Harl. 4826, 6. MSS. Arch. Bodl. Seld. B. 24. It is printed in Chaucer's Works, Urr. Glynne] mentions one or two more pieces, particularly De Theseo Atheniensi, lib. 1. Pr. Tum esset, ut veteres historiæ tradunt. This is the beginning of Chaucer's KNIGHT'S TALE. And there are other pieces in the libraries. 10 This, and the Pentastichon ad Regem, are in MSS. Fairf. xvi. Bibl. Bodl. And in the editions of Chaucer. But the former appears to be Chaucer's, from the twenty additional stanzas not printed in Urry's Chaucer, pag. 549. MSS. Harl. 2251 133, fol. 293. 11 Wolf. Biblioth. Hebr. tom. iii. p. 1206. It was translated into French by Henry de Gand, at the command of Philip king of France. Mem. de Lit. tom. xvii. p. 733, 4to. |