And yet, God wot, Sampsoun dronk never no wine.

Thou fallest, as it were a sticked swine:

Thy tonge is lost, and all thine honest cure,1
For dronkennesse is veray sepulture

Of mannes wit, and his discretion.

In whom that drinke hath domination,

He can no counsel kepe, it is no drede.2
Now kepe you fro the white and fro the rede,
And namely fro the wine white of Lepe
That is to sell in Fishstrete and in Chepe.*
This wine of Spaine crepeth subtilly

In other wines growing faste by,

Of which there riseth swiche fumositee,
That when a man hath dronken draughtes three,
And weneth that he is at home in Chepe,
He is in Spaigne, right at the toun of Lepe,
Not at the Rochell, ne at Burdeux toun;
And thanne wol he say Sampsoun, Sampsoun.
But hearkeneth, lordings, one word, I you pray,
That all the soveraine actes, dare I say,
Of victories in the Olde Testament,
Through veray God that is omnipotent,
Were don in abstinence and in prayer:
Loketh the Bible, and there ye may it lere.

Loke Attila, the grete conqueror

Died in his slepe, with shame and dishonor,
Bleding ay at his nose in dronkennesse :
A capitaine shulde live in sobrenesse.

The Pardoneres Tale.

1 Care.

2 Doubt.

3 A Spanish town.

4 Cheapside.

XVII.

GAMBLING.

HASARD' is veray mother of lesinges,
And of deceite, and cursed foresweringes:
Blaspheming of Christ, manslaughter, and wast' also
Of catel, and of time; and furthermo
It is repreve, and contrary of honour
For to ben hold a common hasardour.
And ever the higher he is of estate
The more he is holden desolate.
If that a Prince useth hasardie

He is, as by common opinion,
Yhold the lesse in reputation.

Stilbon, that was a wise embassadour,
Was sent to Corinth with full gret honour,
For Callidone, to maken hem alliance.

And when he came it happed him par chance,
That all the gretest that were of that lond
Yplaying atte hazard he hem found.

For which, as sone as that it mighte be,
He stole him home again to his countree,
And sayde there, I wol not lese my name,
Ne wol not take on me so great diffame
You for to allie unto non hasardours.
Sendeth some other wise embassadours,
For by my trouthe, me lever were to die
Than I you shuld to hasardours allie.
For ye that ben so glorious in honours
Shal not allie you to none hasardours,
As by my wille, ne as by my tretee.
This wise philosopher thus sayd he.

1 Gambling.

The Pardoneres Tale.

2 Waste.

XVIII.

SWEARING.

Now wol I speke of othes false and grete
A word or two, as olde bookes trete,
Gret swering is a thing abhominable,
And false swering is yet more reprevable.
The highe God forbad swering at all,
Witnesse on Matthew: but in special
Of swering saith the holy Jeremie,

1 Plainly,

Thou shalt swere soth thine othes, and not lie:
And swere in dome, and eke in rightwisnesse,
But idle swering is a cursednesse.

Behold and see, that in the firste table

Of highe Goddes hestes honorable,
How that the second hest of him is this,
Take not my name in idel or amis.
Lo, rather he forbiddeth swiche swering,
Than homicide, or many another thing.
I say that as by order thus it stondeth ;
This knoweth he that his hestes understondeth,
How that the second hest of God is that.
And furthermore, I wol thee tell all plat,'
That vengeance shall not parten from his house
That of his othes is outrageous.

By Goddes precious herte, and by his nailes,

And by the blood of Crist, that is in Hailes,'

Seven is my chance, and thine is cink and traye:
By Goddes armes, if thou falsely playe,
This dagger shul throughout thine herte go.

The Abbey of Hailes in Gloucestershire.

This fruit cometh of the bicchel bones' two,
Forswering, ire, falsenesse, and homicide.

Now for the love of Christ that for us dide,
Leteth' your othes, bothe great and small.

1 Dice made of bones.

2 Leave.

APPENDIX.

BELIEVING that some quotations from a few of the rare old authors alluded to in the text, will not be incompatible with my subject, and will at the same time prove interesting, both as affording an opportunity to measure the stature of Chaucer's genius by his contemporaries, and as illustrating the power of his example; I have ventured to bring together some selections from Gower, Douglas and Lydgate. These are selected from the host that proclaimed Chaucer to be the model which they had studied, because like Saul they were a head and shoulders taller than their fellows, and by their labors made an impression upon our literature, which is (not faintly) discernible at this remote time. Their genius may not command our veneration, but we cannot deny that they did good service in clearing away the obstacles, and in levelling the rocks and chasms which beset the path so soon to be honored by the august presence of Spenser.

[A.]

Gower.-John Gower did not write anything in English before Chaucer had first led the way. Nor is it probable that he would have done so then, were it not that the king (Richard II.), "hav. ing met him rowing on the Thames, invited him into the royal