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themselves; being prompted both by the pure zeal which animated some, and also by the rivalry which always prevailed between the secular priests and the monastic orders, especially the Mendicant Friars.

Foremost among those who called for reforms in the church, b. ab. 1324. stood the celebrated John Wycliffe, a native of York} d. 1884. shire. Becoming a priest, and attaining high fame for his knowledge and logical dexterity in dealing with philosophical and theological questions, he was placed at the head, first of one and then of another, of the colleges of Oxford. There, and afterwards from the country parsonages to which he was compelled to retreat, he thundered forth a series of denunciations, which gradually increased in boldness. At length, from exposing the ignorance and profligacy of the begging friars, and advocating the independence of the nation against the financial usurpations of the Roman See, he went so far as to attack the papal supremacy in all its relations, to deny several doctrines distinctively Romish, and to set forth in fragments doctrinal views of his own, which diligent students of his works have interpreted as making a near approach to Calvinism.

Although Wycliffe was repeatedly called to account for his opinions, he was never so much as imprisoned; and he retained his church-livings to the last. The papal hierarchy was then weakened by the Great Schism; and he was protected by the king's son, John of Gaunt, as well as by other powerful nobles. But, not long after his death, there burst on his disciples a storm of persecution, which crushed dissent till the sixteenth century; and his writings, both Latin and English, preserved by stealth only, had by that time become difficult of identification.

We are sure, at least, of owing to him, either wholly or in great part, the Version of the Holy Scriptures which bears his name, and which is still extant, and may now be read in print. There seems to be no reason for doubting, that this was the first time the Bible was completely rendered into the English tongue. The date of the composition appears to have been soon after the year 1380. The translation is from the Latin Vulgate, the received text of the Romish church. It has been remarked, with justice, that the language of Wycliffe's original compositions in English shows little advance, if any, beyond the point which had been reached in the early part of the century; but that his Bible, on which probably greater pains were bestowed, is very far superior, though still ruder than several other compositions of the same date. Indeed, besides the reverence due to it as a monument in the religious history of our nation, it possesses high phi

lological value, as standing all but first among the prose writings in our old tongue.

Our very oldest book in English prose, however, is the account given by Sir John Mandeville of his travels in the East, from which he had returned about the year 1355. It is an odd and amusing compound of facts correctly observed and minutely described, with marvellous stories gathered during the writer's thirty-three years of wandering. Soon afterwards, John De Trevisa, a canon residing in Gloucestershire, began a series of translations from the Latin, of which the most remarkable were the ancient law-treatise bearing the name of Glanvile, and the Polychronicon recently written by Ralph Higden, which is a history of the world from the creation. But the prose writings of the time, which exhibit the language in the most favourable light, are decidedly those of the poet Chaucer. Besides translating Boethius, he has bequeathed to us in prose an imitation of that work, called "The Testament of Love," with two of his Canterbury Tales, and an astrological treatise.

POETICAL LITERATURE FROM 1350 TO 1399.

4. The principal writings of Chaucer belong to the last few years of the century; and, in examining hastily a few of the minor poems of his time, several of which appeared considerably earlier, we are preparing ourselves for understanding the better what our obligations to him have been.

Highest by far in point of genius, as well as most curious for its illustrations of manners and opinions, was the long and singular poem usually called "The Visions of Piers Plowman," written or completed in 1362, by a priest or monk named Robert Langland. The poet supposes himself, falling asleep on the Malvern Hills, to see a series of visions, which are descriptive, chiefly in an allegorical shape, of the vices of the times, especially those which prevailed among the ecclesiastics. The plan is confused; so much so, indeed, that it is not easy to discover, how the common title of the poem should be justified by the part assigned in it to the character of the Ploughman. But the poetical vigour of many of the passages is extraordinary, not only in the satirical vein which colours most of them, but in bursts of serious feeling and sketches of external nature. It has been compared with the Pilgrim's Progress; and the likeness lies much deeper than in the naming of such personages as Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best, by which the parallel is most obviously suggested. Some of the allegories are whimsically ingenious, and are worth notice as specimens of a kind of inventions appearing everywhere in the poetry

of the Middle Ages. The Lady Anima, who represents the Soul of Man, is placed by Kind, that is Nature, in a castle called Caro or the Flesh; and the charge of it is committed to the constable Sir In-wit, a wise knight, whose chief officers are his five sons, See-well, Say-well, Hear-well, Work-well, and Go-well. One of the other figures is Reason, who preaches in the church to the king and his knights, teaching that all the evils of the realm are because of sin; and among the Vices, who are converted by the sermon, we see Proud-heart, who vows to wear hair-cloth; Envy, lean, cowering, biting his lips, and wearing the sleeves of a friar's frock; and Covetousness, a bony, beetle-browed, blear-eyed, illclothed caitiff. Mercy and Truth are two fair maidens; and the Diseases, the foragers of Nature, are sent out from the planets by the command of Conscience, before whom Old Age bears a banner, while Death in his chariot rides after him. Conscience is besieged by Antichrist, who, with his standard-bearer Pride, is more kindly received by a fraternity of monks, ringing their conventbells, and marching out in procession to greet their master. It may be noticed that, in the beginning of the poem, an ingenious use is made of the fable of the cat and the bell, which we discovered lately among the Latin stories of the monastic library.

The language of this curious old monument wears an air of antiquity beyond its age; which, however, may be attributable. to the difficulties caused by the affectation of antiquity in the versification. It is in effect a revival of the alliterative system of metre, which still survived in some romances of the day, and was afterwards used in many imitations prompted by the popularity of Langland. The best of these, "Piers Plowmans Creed," a piece in every way inferior to the original, was written towards the close of the century, and is avowedly the effusion of a Wycliffite.

The very many Chivalrous Romances which were now added to the English tongue, deserve a passing notice, not only for the merit really possessed by not a few of them, but also on account of the good-humoured jests levelled at them by Chaucer, himself in no small degree affected both by their spirit and their diction. There is less reason for dwelling on the poems, not devoid of spirit, in which Laurence Minot celebrated the French wars of Edward the Third, and found means, in treating of his patron's successes in Scotland, to suggest consolations for the bloody field lost there by his father.

5. One of the best of our minor poets, and very interesting for many relations to our more recent literature, was John Gower, the "ancient Gower" of Shakspeare, with whom Chaucer, his

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contemporary and friend, did not disdain to exchange borrowings d. ab. It is worth noting that Gower, a man of much knowledge, 1408. wrote in three languages; though he is remembered, not for his French or Latin verses, but for his "Confessio Amantis," or Lover's Confession," a huge English poem in the octosyllabic romance-metre. It is a miscellaneous collection of physical, metaphysical, and ethical reflections, and of stories culled from the common repertories of the middle ages. All these are bound together by a fantastic thread, in which a lover makes his shrift to a priest of Venus, named Genius, and receives advice and consolation from his anomalous confessor. The faults are general tediousness, and a strong tendency to feebleness; but the language is smooth and easy; and there is not a little that is exceedingly agreeable in description.

Of Gower's manner in his didactic strain, a specimen is furnished in the First Book, in a passage where the theme of the dialogue is, the moral danger arising from the two principal senses, seeing and hearing. The duty which is thus imposed on us, is illustrated by a piece of fabulous science, evidently derived from a misunderstood scriptural saying. There is (so Genius instructs his pupil) a serpent named Aspidis, who bears in his head the precious stone called the carbuncle, which enchanters strive to win from him by lulling him asleep through magic songs. The wise reptile, as soon as the charmer approaches, lays himself down with one ear pressed flat on the ground; while he covers the other with his tail. So ought we obstinately to refuse admission to all evil impressions presented through the bodily organs. Perhaps there is not here any such depth of thinking, as should entitle us to expect much edification from the Seventh Book, which is wholly a treatise on Philosophy, as it was learned by Alexander the Great from the philosophers and astrologers who were his tutors. Yet a good principle is involved in that mediaval classification which the poem lays down, dividing philosophy into three branches, the theoretical, the practical, and the rhetorical.

Of the narratives of the "Confessio" we may gain a fair notion, by glancing at some of those which it takes from the "Gesta Romanorum." The longest and best-told of them is the "Appolonius of Tyre," which has already been noticed, and may be understood from Shakspeare. The dramatist's tale of the Caskets is here, though in a less poetical dress. We have also an account of the female disguise put on by Achilles to evade the Trojan war. The tale of Florent is very like that which Chaucer assigns to the Wife of Bath. The "Trumpet of Death” deserves

notice for its striking tone of reflection. The outline is this. It was a law in Hungary, that when a man was adjudged to die, the sentence should be announced to him by the blast of a brazen trumpet before his house. At a magnificent court-festival, the king was plunged in deep melancholy; and his brother asked the reason. No answer was returned; but, at daybreak next morning, the fatal trumpet sounded at the brother's gate. The condemned man came to the palace weeping and despairing. Then the king said solemnly; that, if such grief was caused by the expectation of the death of the body, much more profound sorrow could not but be awakened by the thought which had afflicted him as he sat among his guests; the thought of that eternal death of the soul, which Heaven has ordained as the just punishment of sin.

6. The few facts which we know positively in regard to Geofb. ab. 1828. frey Chaucer, throw very little light on his early hisd. 1400. tory; and, in regard to his writings, they enable us to see only, that these were but part of the occupation of a long life fruitful in activity and vicissitude. He was born in London, and probably educated for the law: and, being thrown at an early age into public employment, he attained to confidential intimacy with men of high rank, in whose good and bad fortune he was equally a sharer. His chief patron was John of Gaunt; who, in his declining years, contracted a marriage, no way creditable, with the sister of the poet's wife. In his thirty-first year, Chaucer served in the French war, and was taken prisoner; and afterwards he received and lost several public offices and pensions, and was repeatedly employed in embassies both to France and Italy. There are symptoms of his having, in his old age, suffered poverty and neglect; and he scarcely survived to profit by the accession of Henry the Fourth, the son of his old patron.

The indignant freedom with which Chaucer exposes ecclesiastical abuses, was, as we have seen, common and long-rooted among literary men. Accordingly it does not require to be accounted for, by his dependence on the aristocratic party who advocated reforms in the church; nor is there, in the whole series of his works, anything entitling us to rank him among those who decidedly abandoned the distinctive doctrines of Romanism. John of Gaunt himself shrunk back from Wycliffe, when he ventured on his boldest steps; and Chaucer did not show, more than Langland, any leaning to the theological opinions of the reformer. His busy and adventurous life, however, prepares us for that practical shrewdness, which is one of the most marked features in his writings: and his foreign travels, while they were

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