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GOWER IN HIS OLD AGE BIDS FAREWELL TO LOVE.

1 Pleasure.

...

I made a likeness of myselve
Unto the sundry monthès twelve.
For who the timès well recordeth,—
And then at March if he begin,
When that the lusty year comth in,
Till Augst be passed and September,—
The mighty youth he may remember
In which the year hath his deduit1
Of grass, of leaf, of flower, of fruit,
Of corn and of the winey grape :
And afterward the time is shape
To frost, to snow, to wind, to rain,
Til eft2 that March be come again.
The winter woll no summer know;
The greenè leaf is overthrow ;3
The clothed earth is thennè bare ;
Despoiled is the summer fair.

Venus beheld me then and lough,*
And axeth; as it were in game,
"What love was?" And I for shame
Ne wistè what I should answer.

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...

'Madame," I saidè, “by your leave,
Ye weten well, and so wot I,
That I am unbehovèly

Your court fro this day for to serve.
And, for I may no thank deserve,
And also for I am refused,

I praiè you to been excused.
And netheless, as for to last,8
While that my wittès with me last,
Touchend my Confession,9

I ax10 an absolution

Of Genius11 ere that I go.

The priest anon was ready tho,12
And said, "Son, as of thy shrift,13
Thou hast full pardon and forgift :14
Forget it thou, and so will I."

66

Mine holy father, grant mercy," 16
Quoth I to him; and to the Queen16
I fell on knees upon the green,

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6 Unprofitably. 7 Because. 8 To continue. Il Genius is the "Father."

10 Ask.
14 Forgiveness.

15 For grand-merci.

12

...

4 Laughed. 5 Know. 9 The Confessio Amantis. 13 Confession.

Then.

16 Venus.

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Thus have I for thine easè cast3
That thou no more of lovè seech.1 . . .
But my will is that thou beseech
And pray hereafter for the peace,
And that thou make a plein release
To Love, which taketh little heed
Of oldè men. .

And tarry thou in my court no more;
But go where virtue moral dwelleth,
Where been thy bookès, as men telleth,
Which of long time thou hast y-writ.

And greet well Chaucer, when ye meet,
As my disciple and my poete.
For, in the flowers of his youth,
In sundry-wise as he well couth,6
Of ditties and of songès glad,
The which he for my sakè made,
The land fulfilled is over all;
Wherof to him in special

Above all other I am most hold."7

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JOHN BARBOUR.
(1316?-1395.)

THE period (1306-14) comprising the close of Edward I.'s reign and the first seven years of that of Edward II. must always be accounted one of the most eventful and romantic in Scottish history. Those were the years of the "War of Independence," during which Robert Bruce, grandson of one of the original claimants of the Scottish crown in 1290, carried on with wonderful ability and heroism the struggle with the English, which resulted, in 1314, in the Battle of Bannockburn, and in 1328, in the final recognition by England of the independence of the Scottish nation and of Robert Bruce as the Scottish king. The poet Barbour-born, it is believed, in the year 1316-grew up in the midst of these events. He was Archdeacon of Aberdeen during the reigns of David II., Robert II., and Robert III.; and in the year 1375, when the last of these Roberts had been king for five years, he was occupied in writing a metrical history of Robert I. This poem, called The Bruce, embodies in a continuous narrative the popular legends and traditions which had accumulated during half a century round the memories of Bruce and his heroic companions. It is written in the Northern English of the period, and in the octosyllabic rhymed couplet of the old romances. The characters and scenery of his story are necessarily Scottish and local, and its incidents consist almost entirely of rough battle and adventure. But in the poem itself, apart from what we know otherwise, there is ample evidence that the Scottish Barbour was a man of culture. No man living in this island, except Chaucer, knew so well as this venerable Archdeacon how to describe a true "gentleman"; and perhaps even Chaucer himself has not excelled the portrait which Barbour has handed down to us of the young James of Douglas. Barbour is notable also among his contemporaries for a certain pure and ingenuous habit of mind. He had an almost boyish reverence for the physical qualities of courage and strength, and he delighted in the picturesque narration

of manly and warlike feats. But it is when he is moved by the presence in his heroes of the higher moral qualities, such as loyalty, forbearance, and the love of freedom, that Barbour attains to his highest standard, and deserves unmistakably the name of " poet."

The Bruce exists in a valuable MS. of the date 1489.1 An earlier poem of Barbour, called The Brute, a history of the Scottish kings from Brutus downwards, is lost; but some Lives of Northern Saints in verse, known to be his, have been lately discovered in MS.2

FROM THE BRUCE.

SCOTLAND IN THRALDOM.

When Sir Edward the michty king
Had on this wise done his liking
Of John the Balliol, that sae soon
Was all defautit3 and undone,
To Scotland went he then in hie,
And all the land gan occupy

Sae haill that baith castell and toun
Were intill his possessioun,
Frae Wick anent Orkenay
To Muller Snook' in Galloway,
And stuffit all with English men.

Sheriffs and bailies made he then,
And alkinR other officers,
That for to govern land affairs
He made of English natioun ;
That worthit9 then sae richt feloun10
And sae wicked and covetous,
And sae hautane11 and dispitous,

That Scottish men micht do naething
That e'er micht please to their liking. .
Ah! what they dempt12 them felonly!
For good knichtis that were worthy,

1 Dr. Jamieson's edition, reprinted in 1869, is published from this MS., which is in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh. It is by the hand of a monk of Perth named Ramsay, who also, in 1488, transcribed the Wallace of Blind Henry.

2 By Mr. Bradshaw of Cambridge. They are to be published by the E. E. 3 Ruined. 4 Haste. 5 So wholly. 6 In. 9 Grew.

Text Society.

8 All kinds of.

7 Mull of Galloway.
10 Treacherous. 11 Haughty and pitiless.

12 Judged, doomed.

For little enchésoun1 or than nane,
They hangit by the neck-bane.
Also that folk, that ever was free,
And in freedom wont for to be,
Through their great mischance and folly,
Were treated then sae wickedly,
That their faes their judges were :
What wretchedness may man have mair?
Ah, Freedom is a noble thing!
Freedom makes man to have liking;2
Freedom all solace to man gives;
He lives at ease that freely lives!
A noble heart may have nane ease,
Ne ellis nocht3 that may him please,
Gif freedom faileth: for free liking
Is yearned1 o'er all other thing;
Nor he that aye has lived free
May nocht know weell the property,5
The anger, ne the wretched doom,
That is couplit to foul thirldom.
But, gif he had assayèd it,

Then all perquere he should it wit,

And should think freedom mair to prize
Than all the gold in the warld that is.

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3 Nor anything else.

6 Exactly.

7 William of Douglas was ejected from his lands in Cheviotdale by Edward I., and died a prisoner in England. The Douglas estates were given to the Cliffords of Cumberland. 8 At a loss for counsel.

9 Would go home again.

10 Bondage.

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