publicity cannot be given), have thrown much additional light upon the life and works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400), and many hitherto unsuspected biographical particulars respecting him have not survived the test of rigid' cross-questioning. Relying on the poet's own deposition made at Westminster in October 1386, to the effect that he was at that date forty years of age and upwards (del age de xl. ans et plus), it is now held that he must have been born about 1340, instead of in 1328, as has been usually supposed. A few authorities, however, still incline to the old date, and the question cannot be regarded as finally settled. Neither is there any satisfactory evidence that he studied at either university, as some of his earlier biographers, basing their belief upon a passage in The Court of Love (of which the authenticity is now questioned), have inferred. It is, however, tolerably clear that, in 1357, he was employed in the household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III., 'probably as a page;'* that he served in France with Edward III. in 1359, was made prisoner, and released (it is likely) after the treaty of Bretigni (1360); that he received a pension of 20 marks from the King, in 1367, as Valettus noster; that he was married about the same time to a maid of honour to Edward's Queen; that he was frequently employed from 1370 to 1380, in diplomatic missions to Italy, France, and the Netherlands; that he was successively Comptroller of the Customs and Subsidy of Wools, Skins and tanned Hides for the Port of London (1374-86), Knight of the Shire for Kent (1386), and Clerk of the King's Works (1389–91); that he received small pensions from Richard II. and Henry IV.; that he finally died, probably at his house in the garden of the Chapel of St. Mary, Westminster, on the 25th October, 1400, and was buried in the Abbey. Brief as they are, these particulars suffice to show that the life of the great poet of the fourteenth century was to use the words of M. Taine, 'from end to end that of a man of the world, and a man of action.' + Add to these that he was 'learned and versed in all branches of scholastic knowledge,' familiar with Norman and Provençal literature, a diligent student of Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio especially, and some of the Latin poets, and it will be seen with what qualifications and advantages he was endowed. For his personal appearance, we have the well-known coloured half-length portrait, painted from memory after his death by his Their issues also include Essays and Treatises illustrative of the poet's works, -analogues and originals of the tales, etc. The publishers are Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill. *First ascertained by Mr. E. A. Bond, Keeper of the MSS. British Museum, v. Fortnightly Review, August 15, 1866. † Hist. of English Literature, Van Laun's translation, 1872, i. 106. D has a popular purpose ;-it is 'not for the lered (learned) but for the lewed (unlearned), and made 'for the luf [lore] of symple menne That strange Inglis canne not kenne [know].' Under the title of Handlyng Synne, he also produced, in 1303, a free paraphrase of the Manuel des Péchiez of a certain William of Wadington, enlivening it with numerous anecdotes frequently illustrative of monkish morality. An extract from Brunne's Chronicle will be found in Appendix A.* Other writers in English are Dan Michel of Northgate, author of a prose translation from the French, entitled the Ayenbite of Inwyt (Remorse of Conscience), 1340; Richard Rolle, styled the Hermit of Hampole (d. 1349), author of a dull Pricke of Conscience, 1340, in the Northumbrian dialect, which drags its slow length to nearly ten thousand lines; and Laurence Minot (1308–1352), to whom belongs the credit of having quitted the beaten track of translation and adaptation to follow the bent of his invention. From Minot we have eleven military ballads celebrating the victories of Edward III., from Halidon Hill (1333) to the Battle of Guisnes (1352).† To this division must also be added several miscellaneous works which deserve the notice of the student; but the authorship of which cannot now be traced with certainty. The Ancren Riwle, or rule of Female Anchorites, a prose treatise in Semi-Saxon or 'BrokenEnglish,' compiled for the conduct of a nunnery, and perhaps drawn up circa 1230 by Richard Poor (d. 1237), is one of these. There is also a very ancient metrical Dialogue between the Owl and the Nightingale, upon the merits of their respective voices, probably written between 1205 and 1215; a famous political Song against the King of Almaigne, which treats of the victory of Lewes (1264) and satirises the part. taken therein by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans; a ballad entitled the Land of Cockayne, and ascribed to Michael of Kildare, being an allegorical satire on the luxury of the church, couched under the description of an imaginary paradise, in which the nuns are represented as houris and the black and grey monks as their paramours; ' and a Dialogue between the Body and the Soul. 6 Many English versions of the French Metrical Romances also *See Extract VIII. † See Appendix A, Extract IX. Campbell, Essay on English Poetry, 1848, 15. Layamon; but authorities are divided as to the actual date of its production. This is a metrical composition; but it is neither alliterative nor, except in rare instances, rhymed, and contains scarcely any French and few Latin words. A short extract from it is given in Appendix A.* Two rhyming chroniclers, Robert of Gloucester (temp. Henry III., Edward L), and Robert of Brunne or Robert Mannyng (1260-1340), are the principal writers of this class after Layamon and Orm. The former, who has been styled by his editor, Hearne, the English Ennius,' wrote, about 1280, a Chronicle of England from Brutus to Henry III. (1272), the earlier portions of which are derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is in rhymed lines of fourteen syllables; and for its topographical accuracy was consulted by Selden when annotating Drayton's Polyolbion. Several lives of saints, a Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket and a Life of St. Brandan also came from his pen. As a relater of events,' says Mr. Campbell, 'he is tolerably succinct and perspicuous, and wherever the fact is of any importance he shows a watchful attention to keep the reader's memory distinct with regard to chronology, by making the date of the year rhyme to something prominent in the relation of the fact.'† The following lines, bearing upon the introduction of the French language into England, are taken from this chronicler's account of the reign of William I. :— "Thus com, lo! Engelond in-to Normandie's hond. And the Normans ne conthe speke tho [them] bote hor owe speche, And speke French as hii dude atom [at home), and hor children dude also teche. So that heiemen [high-men] of this lond that of hor blod come, Holdeth alle thulke speche that hii of hom nome [took]. Vor bote a man conne Frenss me telth of him lute [light]; Ac lowe men holdeth to Englise and to hor owe speche yute [yet] That ne holdeth to hor owe speche, bote Engelond one [alone].”‡ The chronicle of the second writer named above, Robert of Brunne (Bourn in Lincolnshire), is said to have been finished in 1338. It is in two parts, the first of which, in octo-syllabic rhyme, is translated from Wace (see p. 24, s. 13); the second, in Alexandrine verse, from Peter de Langtoft (see p. 24, s. 13). Brunne is a smoother versifier than Robert of Gloucester. It is notable too, that his work Extract VII. + Eway on English Poetry, 1848, 18-9. Specimens of Early English, by Rev. B. Morris, LL.D., and Rev. W. W. Skeat, M.A. (Clarendon Preis Series), 1872. has a popular purpose ;-it is 'not for the lered (learned) but for the lewed (unlearned), and made 'for the luf [lore] of symple menne That strange Inglis canne not kenne [know].' Under the title of Handlyng Synne, he also produced, in 1303, a free paraphrase of the Manuel des Péchiez of a certain William of Wadington, enlivening it with numerous anecdotes frequently illustrative of monkish morality. An extract from Brunne's Chronicle will be found in Appendix A.* Other writers in English are Dan Michel of Northgate, author of a prose translation from the French, entitled the Ayenbite of Inwyt (Remorse of Conscience), 1340; Richard Rolle, styled the Hermit of Hampole (d. 1349), author of a dull Pricke of Conscience, 1340, in the Northumbrian dialect, which drags its slow length to nearly ten thousand lines; and Laurence Minot (1308-1352), to whom belongs the credit of having quitted the beaten track of translation and adaptation to follow the bent of his invention. From Minot we have eleven military ballads celebrating the victories of Edward III., from Halidon Hill (1333) to the Battle of Guisnes (1352).† To this division must also be added several miscellaneous works which deserve the notice of the student; but the authorship of which cannot now be traced with certainty. The Ancren Riwle, or rule of Female Anchorites, a prose treatise in Semi-Saxon or 'BrokenEnglish,' compiled for the conduct of a nunnery, and perhaps drawn up circa 1230 by Richard Poor (d. 1237), is one of these. There is also a very ancient metrical Dialogue between the Owl and the Nightingale, upon the merits of their respective voices, probably written between 1205 and 1215; a famous political Song against the King of Almaigne, which treats of the victory of Lewes (1264) and satirises the part, taken therein by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans; a ballad entitled the Land of Cockayne, and ascribed to Michael of Kildare, being ‘an allegorical satire on the luxury of the church, couched under the description of an imaginary paradise, in which the nuns are represented as houris and the black and grey monks as their paramours; ' and a Dialogue between the Body and the Soul. Many English versions of the French Metrical Romances also *See Extract VIII. See Appendix A, Extract IX. Campbell, Essay on English Poetry, 1848, 15. |