NRLF THE CHAUCER CANON SKEAT HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK TITLE-PAGE TO JACK UPLAND ABOUT A.D. 1536 THE CHAUCER CANON* WITH A DISCUSSION OF THE WORKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE NAME OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER i BY THE REV. WALTER W. SKEAT V- Litt.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D. Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, and Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge 'Dare not to match thy pype with Tityrus his style' Spenser, Shep. Kal. Epilogu: cx TrarT 7 V OF THE O! AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M DCCCC PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY GENERAL ftfWJ Mfi'N PREFACE The subject of the present volume is an examination of the Chaucer Canon. All the pieces that have been at any time associated with his name are here considered ; and various tests are given whereby his genuine works can be distinguished from the rest. Much that is here said is necessarily repeated from what I have already advanced in my six-volume edition of Chaucer and in the supplementary volume entitled Chaucerian Pieces ; but I have also taken the opportunity, whilst collecting many scattered observations that have been previously made, of introducing a few new suggestions and arguments. In particular, the account here given of the striking parallel between Chaucer's grammatical usages and the regular employment of various grammatical suf- fixes in the unassailable text of the Ormulum is, to the best of my belief, wholly new, and adds much firmness and certainty to the whole argument. It is true that Tyrwhitt (in note 69 to his Essay on Chaucer's Language) long ago pointed out the value of 'the practice of Orm, the most authentic metrical composer that we have in our antient language,' but he did not give any detailed account of the conclusions to be drawn from it. The argument which I adduce is briefly this. The extreme regularity of the metre of the Ormulum enables us to deduce with certainty the circumstances under which *3 VI PREFACE grammatical inflexions are employed in it. Precisely similar inflexions occur in the genuine works of Chaucer, but not (speaking generally) in works which have erroneously been connected with his name. Further, the genuine works, and these only, satisfy various rime-tests which are duly explained, and are all deducible from the Canterbury Tales; and in this way the true Chaucer Canon can be established. A recent article by Dr. Koch, which appeared in the Englische Studien after the main part of the present work had been printed, has suggested the addition of the ' Note on Chapter VI,' printed at p. 149. The results here arrived at have been compared with those given in Prof. Lounsbury's - Chaucer Studies,' from which they do not materially differ. Writing in 1892, Prof. Lounsbury was disposed to claim for Chaucer the whole of the existing English translation of the Romaunt of the Rose ; but later investigations have shown that this view is no longer tenable. An Appendix is subjoined, containing a complete List of Chaucer's Works, a List of Authorities for the same, and a Chronological List of all works associated with Chaucer, in the exact order of their publication. I am indebted to Professor Hales for kindly perusing the proof sheets, though he is in no way responsible for their contents. W. W. S. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Preface v CHAPTER I. Introduction. — § i. Object of the work. § 2. Former mis- takes. § 3. Chaucer the author of the Canterbury Tales. § 4. Value of the Canterbury Tales. § 5. The Tales written at various dates. § 6. Necessity of examining their grammar. Inaccuracy of the black-letter editions. § 7. Chaucer's usages archaic. § 8. Value of the Ellesmere MS. § 9. Metre-of the Ormulnm. § 10. Introduction to the Orm ulum. §11. Value of a knowledge of Middle-English grammar. §12. Final -en in the Ormulum marks (a) the infin. mood ; (6) the gerund ; (c) the strong pp. ; (d) the pres. t. pi. or the pt. t. pi. § 13. Final -es marks (a) the gen. sing. ; (£) the pi. of sbs. ; (c) the adverb. § 14. Final -e marks (a) the nom. or ace. ; (£) the dat. ; (c) the gen. ; (d) the def. adj. ; (e) the pi. adj. ; (/) part of a verb ; (^) the weak pt. t. ; (A) the adverb ; (i) an A.S. vowel. Note also (k) the -e- in blith-c-ly. § 15. Recapitulation CHAPTER II. The Text.— § 16. Two texts of Chaucer. § 17. Comparison of the Student's Chaucer with the Globe edition. § 18. Similarity of the texts. § if. Child's Essay. § 20. Child's Essay and "NY right's text. § 31. The Harl. MS. 7334- § 22. Passage from Wright's preface. § 23. Uncertain Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE value of the Harl. MS. § 24. Wright's treatment of the MS. § 25. Texts by Bell and Morris. § 26. Value of Child's Essay 19 CHAPTER III. Analysis of the Squieres Tale. — § 27. Middle-English pro- nunciation. § 28. Values of final -es. § 29. Values of final -en. § 30. Values of final -e. § 31. Forms of sub- / stantives. § 32. Forms of adjectives. § 33. Verbs. § 34. Adverbs and prepositions. § 35. Suppression of final -e. § 36. Emphatic and unemphatic forms 30 CHAPTER IV. Various Rime-tests.— § 37. Chaucer's peculiarities. § 38. Rimes in -y and -ye. § 39. Rimes in -ight, -yt. § 49. Open and close 0. § 41. Sources of open o. Examples. § 42. Sources of close o. Examples. § 43. Exceptions. § 44. Occasional riming of close with open o. § 45. Open and close e. Third variety ; the neutral e. Examples in the Squieres Tale. § 46. Lists of riming words . . .45 CHAPTER V. List of Chaucer's Works: External Testimony tested: — § 47. External evidence. § 48. Works claimed by Chaucer himself. § 49. Legend of Good Women examined. § 50. Final -es ; final -en\ final -e. § 51. Rime-tests applied to the Legend. § 52. Troilus and Cressida. § 53. Testimony of Shirley. § 54. Merciless Beauty. § 55. Balade against Women Unconstant. § 56. Compleynt Damours. § 57. A Balade of Compleynt. § 58. Womanly Noblesse. § 59. Two Complaints 56 CHAPTER VI. The Romaunt of the Rose: Fragment A.— § 60. The Three Fragments. § 61. Fragment A. Final -es ; final -en ; final -e. § 62. Value of riming words. § 63. Correctness of the rimes in Fragment A. § 64. Proportion of feminine rimes. Examples of close and open o and e. § 65. Ex- amples of neutral e. § 66. Lydgate's allusions to Fragment A. § 67. Probable genuineness of Fragment A. § 68. Probable date of the same 65 TABLE OF CONTENTS IX CHAPTER VII. PAGE The Romaunt of the Rose : Fragment B. — § 69. Mis- leading statements. § 70. Discovery of the separateness of Fragments A and B. § 71. Northern dialect of Fragment B. § 72. Examples of the same. Neglect of final -e. Asso- nances. Confusion of -y with -ye. Needless tags introduced. § 73. Possible connexion of Fragment B with the Kingis Quair. § 74. The Romaunt and the Kingis Quair compared. § 75. The same continued. § 76. Recapitulation . . 75 CHAPTER VIII. The Romaunt of the Rose: Fragment C— § 77. Frag- ments B and C distinguished. § 78. Unsatisfactory rimes. § 79. Rime of is with the sb. pi. sufhx -es. § 80. Frag- ment C a distinct poem 90 CHAPTER IX. Thynne's Editions of Chaucer. Poems by known Authors. — § 81. The four chief black-letter editions. § 82. Misconceptions regarding them. § 83. Thynne's collection gives extracts from a dozen authors. § 84. The Testament of Love: by T. Usk. § 85. The Plowman's Tale. § 86. The Praise of Peace; byTJower. § 87. The Letter of Cupid, and two Balades ; by Hoccleve. § 88. Poems by Lydgate : The Flour of Curtesye ; Complaint of the Black Knight; Ballad in Commendation of our Lady; To my Sovereign Lady; Go forth, King; Ballad of Good Counsel. § 89. A Moral Balade; by Scogan. § 90. La Belle Dame sans Mercy ; by Ros. § 91. The Testament of Cresseid; by Henryson. § 92. The Cuckoo and the Night- ingale; by Clanvowe 94 CHAPTER X. Thynne's Editions. Poems by unknown Authors. — § 93. Thynne attributes only four pieces to Chaucer. § 94. The Assembly of Ladies. § 95. A Praise of Women. § 96. The Lamentation of Mary Magdaleyne. § 97. The Remedye of Love. § 98. Envoy to Alison. § 99. L^tin epitaph by Surigon. § 100. Eight Goodly Questions. Three Sayings. § 1 01. The Undated Edition 109 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XI. Stowe's Edition. — § 102. Three stanzas inserted in a vacant space. § 103. Genuine works : Gentleness ; Proverbs ; Compleint to his Lady; Wordes unto Adam. § 104. Be- ware of Doubleness. Chastity. § 105. Pieces from the Trinity MS. The Craft of Lovers. A Balade. Ten Com- mandments of Love. Nine Ladies worthie. Virelai. Ballades. Judgement of Paris. Balade plesaunte. Another Balade. Warning against deceitful Women. Court of Love. § 106. Praise of Chaucer. § 107. Strange foliation of Stowe's volume. Chance of the Dice 117 CHAPTER XII. The Court of Love.— § 108. Want of real association of this poem with Chaucer. § 109. Professor Lounsbury on this poem. § no. It fails to conform to the Rime-tests. § in. Its use of final -es. § 112. Its use of final -en. § 113. Its use of final -e. § 114. The author's want of acquaintance with Middle-English grammar. §115. Rime- tests. Rimes in -ight, -yt. Open and close and e. § 116. Imperfect rimes. § 117. Lateness of its vocabulary. § 118. Pronunciation 12; CHAPTER XIII. Additions by Speght. — § 119. Speght's two Editions. § 120. Chaucer's Dream. A Ballad. § 121. The Flower and the Leaf. Obviously not by Chaucer. § 122. Jack Upland . 136 CHAPTER XIV. Additions by Urry and others. — § 123. Worthlessness of Urry's edition. The Tale of Gamelyn. The Pardoner and Tapstere, and the Tale of Beryn. § 124. Merciless Beautee. Proverbs. Orison to the Virgin ; by Hoccleve. Aetas Prima. Prosperity. Leaulte. § 125. Balade to Rosemounde. Compleint Damours. Balade of Compleynt. Womanly Noblesse. Complaint to my Mortal Foe. Complaint to my Lode-stcrre 14.", TABLE OF CONTENTS XI PAGK Note to Chapter VI — § 126. Objections raised by Dr. Koch to the rimes in Fragment A of the Romaunt of the Rose. § 127. Vocabulary of the same J 49 APPENDIX. I. List of Chaucer's Works .154 II. List of Authorities for Chaucer's Works . .1.55 List of Abbreviations of MSS. . . . -158 III. General Chronological List 159 IV. List of Authors connected with Chaucer's Works 164 Index . . . . v 165 of „*^ THE CHAUCER CANON CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1. The object of this treatise is to explain clearly the chief peculiarities of Chaucer's grammar and versification. If these are once exactly and accurately comprehended, it becomes easy, even for a reader who has had no previous training, to distinguish his genuine poems from those that have been attributed to him, at various times, by the care- lessness or wantonness of editors and critics. In this way the true Canon of Chaucer's Works can be compiled with ease and certainty, and can no longer be controverted, in the future, except by such as deny the existence of arguments which it is inconvenient to understand. 2. Owing to the prevalence of much ignorance on this subject, which at one time was inevitable, but is now (thanks to the Chaucer Society and its founder) no longer necessary and will one day be discreditable, a large number of misrepresentations, misconceptions, and — to be plain — downright falsehoods have been printed and circulated in former years l . Some of these will be noticed as occasion arises ; others will be corrected in the process of investiga- tion. For this reason, I shall begin at the beginning, with but 1 See, for example, Stovve's treatment of the date of The Craft of Lovers, discussed in § 105 below. B 2 INTRODUCTION [§ 3 one postulate ; and this is one that will readily be granted, if it be only for the convenience of argument. 3. Chaucer the author of the Canterbury Tales. Let it be granted that the name of the author of the Canterbury Tales was Geoffrey Chaucer. It is worth saying that this fact, universally admitted and accepted, is expressly asserted in the MSS. Thus in the colophon of the cele- brated Ellesmere MS. we have : — ' Here is ended the book of the Tales of Caunterbury, compiled by Geffrey Chaucer, of whos soule Iesu Crist have mercy.' Many of the MSS. are imperfect at the end; but a similar ascription is found in the Petworth MS. and in Harl. 1758. The cele- brated MS. Harl. 7334 has no colophon, but the last paragraph is headed ' Preces de Chauceres,' where the Ellesmere MS. has : — ' Here taketh the makere of this book his leve.' In the prologue to Sir Thopas MS. E. has the rubric: — 'Bihoold the murye wordes of the Hoost to Chaucer'; and the Tale itself is headed \ Heere bigyn- neth Chaucers Tale of Thopas.' When the host interrupts it, we find : — ' Heere the Hoost stynteth Chaucer of his Tale of Thopas.' The tale of Melibeus is headed: — 'Heere bigynneth Chaucers Tale of Melibee'; and there is a similar note at the end of the same. But the most important reference is in The Man of Lawes Prologue, B 47, where Chaucer first of all mentions himself by name in the third person, and immediately afterwards pro- ceeds to allude to two more of his own works, viz. the poem of 'Ceys and Alcion,' preserved in The Book of the Duchess, and the very important poem usually known as The Legend of Good Women. - 4. The Canterbury Tales constitute a poem of such extent that it amply suffices as a store-house whence all the more important peculiarities of the poet's grammar and versification can be safely deduced ; and when we are once in possession of these, it becomes an easy matter to see § 5] THE CANTERBURY TALES 3 whether such peculiarities are equally well represented in such poems as are known to be his from external evidence. It is not prejudging the enquiry to say that such will be found to be the case ; whereas it will further be found that — except in. a very few instances, which must be especially con- sidered — the works which have only been casually associated with his name exhibit such wide differences from the methods which he can be proved to have used as to pre- clude all possibility of his having had any share in them. 5. The mere fact that Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales enables us at once to clear out of the way two of the notions that have, at various times, been put forward by way of argument. The first of these is that Chaucer was not very particular as to his grammar or his rimes in his earlier years, but afterwards became more accurate ; a theory in itself just the reverse of what would be prob- able, when we remember that the movement in linguistic usage was, at this period, in the direction of simplification and of decrease in the use of inflexions. The second is^ that Chaucer employed provincialisms in his earlier days which he afterwards lost; a supposition purely gratuitous. However, we know that The Canterbury Tales consist of a collection of things new and old, and we have it on the authority of the author himself that the ' Lyf of seint Cecyle,' which afterwards became 'The Seconde Nunnes Tale,' was written before the Legend of Good Women, and it has even been conjectured to have been amongst the earliest of his works. Yet all the Tales agree as to grammatical usage, dialect *, and peculiarities of rime ; and we need not make any allowances on the score of chrono- logy. The general results are, linguistically, much the same as if all the Tales had been written in the same year. 1 Excepting, of course, the famous passage in the Reves Tale, where the Northern dialect is purposely introduced, with a fair degree of accuracy. B 2 4 INTRODUCTION [§ 6 In the later tales, the style is easier, and the vocabulary richer ; but the grammar remains unaltered. 6. Some of those who persist in attributing to Chaucer certain works with which he had nothing to do are naturally interested in minimising the number and force of the arguments that militate against their genuineness. It is pretended that it is merely a question of a few abnormal rimes, and other similar indications which are, quite wrongly, assumed to be of small moment K But the fact is that, even if all the rimes in the spurious poems were strictly correct, which is very far from being the case, we should still have to consider the much more momentous questions of linguistic and grammatical usage. Our first enquiries should, accordingly, be turned in this direction ; for if we can once assure ourselves as to what were the precise peculiarities of grammar which Chaucer employed, we can soon detect, with ease and certainty, the grievous sins against his standards which are so conspicuous in pieces that really belong to a later century. These are points which a literary critic is very glad to try to set aside; but they happen to be very numerous and un- mistakeably clear, when once collected and explained; and most uncompromisingly fatal, in many instances, to ingenious but impossible theories as to the authorship of such pieces. It would have been somewhat easy for a writer in the fifteenth century to observe Chaucer's rimes, if he wished his piece to be mistaken for one written by the master, and it would have been still more easy to copy his language and turns of phrase ; but there was one thing which the fifteenth-century writer never achieved, and that was a precise knowledge of the grammar of the preceding 1 Even a single false rime may be fatal, such as storm and corn in Rom. Rose, 4343. We are asked if we should apply a like rule to Tennyson, to which I answer — yes ! Was Tennyson capable of riming storm with corn ? 1 6] THE CANTERBURY TALES 5 century. Indeed, it may be doubted whether, towards the middle of the century, there were any readers left who knew how to scan Chaucer's lines properly; and, in the sixteenth century, all such knowledge had so utterly died out that the editors of the black-letter editions made no attempt to reduce the lines to order, but left them in a state of utter ruggedness whenever they happened not to see their way to the true lilt of the line. Thus, in Stowe's edition of 1561, we find, near the beginning of the Pro- logue, such lines as these : — ' The drought of Marche had perced ' the rote ' ; 2 * ' Espired 2 hath 3 euery holte and heth ' ; 6 ' The tendre croppes, and the yong 4 sonne ' ; 7 'And palmers 5 to seken straunge strondes'; 13 ' Redie to go 6 in my pilgrimage ' ; 21 By observing a few such lines, we at once see that Dryden, who only knew Chaucer from editions of this character, was perfectly justified in his apparently severe remarks: — 'The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not har- monious to us. . . It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one,' incautiously adding — 1 and which no pronunciation can make otherwise.' The last remark is not of general application ; for though it is applicable to four of the five verses quoted above, it is untrue with regard to line 7. For though it is the case that, in modern English, we should justly brand as detestable such a line as — ' The tender crops, and the young sun ' — it becomes beautifully melodious when we learn that the plural of crop, in Chaucerian English, assumed the dis- syllabic form cropp-h, while the definite form of the adjec- tive young, necessitated by the use of the definite article 1 Here to is omitted. 2 Error for Enspired. 3 Here in is omitted. * Read yong-e (dissyllabic). 5 Here for is omitted. 6 For^o read wenden. 6 INTRODUCTION [§ 7 preceding it, likewise assumed the dissyllabic form yong-e. The true form is, accordingly, the following :— ' The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne.' And this is a perfect line, even when some of the words are mispronounced by giving the vowels their present modern values. 7. This simple example shews the vital importance of understanding Chaucer's grammar, if we are to make any- thing at all of scanning his lines. It is worth saying here that, as a matter of fact, Chaucer's pronunciation can be shown, by comparison with that of other authors, to be of an archaic rather than of a progressive character. It is that of the London English of the fourteenth Century, and tends much more to conformity with that of the pre- I ceding thirteenth century than with that of the succeeding fifteenth. This is a point which has by no means been clearly brought out by critics, but it will be found to be true ; and the remembrance of the fact will be found to be helpful. The extent to which this is really the case will appear ere long. 8. It is well to consider for a moment whether we can depend on the integrity of the text. Fortunately, we have, in the Ellesmere MS. of the Canterbury Tales, an excellent authority that seldom fails, and one that from a phonetic point of view may be characterised as being very well spelt. The text of the Tales is admirably safe, when compared, for example, with the text of Shakespeare. It is very rarely that any restoration or emendation becomes neces- sary ; and even then, we have such fair authorities as the Hengwrt, the Cambridge, the Corpus, and (in some cases) the Harleian manuscripts. It is hardly too much to say that we sometimes meet with many hundred consecutive lines in which there can be no hesitation whatever as to what the real reading must be. § 9] THE ORMULUM 7 For all this, it might be urged by such as desire to raise objections, that it is somewhat illogical to deduce the rules for scansion from the very text which it may be occasionally desirable to amend. The answer is ready, viz. that it is perfectly logical to deduce rules from the thousands of lines which are beyond suspicion, and to apply them to the cases where difficulties seem to arise. Nevertheless, in order to cut away even this pretence of complaint, I shall show how all the chief rules of Chaucer's grammar can be deduced from the text of the older and metrically perfect poem entitled the Ormulum, the scansion of which admits of no two opinions. When rules have been obtained from this irrefragable authority, it will be easy to show how they can be applied to the scansion of Chaucer j and this will place the argument beyond the possibility of error. 9. In that remarkable poem, belonging to the first quarter of the thirteenth century, we possess a document above suspicion, which for all purposes of metre is of the highest value. Its authority cannot be contested, because it is an autograph copy written in a purely phonetic nota- tion by an author who paid a most remarkable attention to pronunciation and to points of grammar. Besides this, it so happens that his metre is of a most uncompromising regularity, admitting of no variation. So much is this the case that the reader is apt to grow weary at last of its merciless monotony, and is in a humour to pardon the author at once, if he would only consent to break out into some wild exhibition of irregularity ; but of this he feels that there is no hope. Every line, without exception ', con- tains fifteen syllables, neither more nor less, and is capable of being divided into two nearly equal parts. The former of these contains eight syllables exactly, and the latter contains seven ; and this is continued for thousands and 1 Of course we must not count in such syllables as are obviously V; elided. 8 INTRODUCTION [§ 9 thousands of consecutive lines, leaving no doubt at all as to the author's usage. The general effect of Ormin's line is easily exemplified by comparison with the first two lines of Campbell's poem entitled 'Lord Ullin's daughter' : — 1 A chieftain, to the Highlands bound, Cries, " Boatman, do not tarry ! " ' The dialect of the Ormulum is more purely East Midland than that of Chaucer, being free from admixture of Southern forms ; it is also, of course, more archaic. Still there is sufficient similarity for our present investigation. The peculiar spelling is excellent for phonetic purposes, but somewhat bizarre and puzzling to the general reader. I shall therefore transliterate it into Chaucerian spelling, which can be done with perfect ease and certainty by any one who understands the pronunciation of the two poems. The convenience of the transliteration is obvious ; and the original is perfectly accessible to the scholar \ I select the first 156 lines of the Prologue, as being sufficient. In making the transliteration, I may observe that I use y to represent J, the sound of ee in ween, in order to distinguish it from /, the sound of i in win. I use ee and 00 to denote long vowels in words like yeer (year), book (book) that terminate with a consonant ; also ou or ow (if final), as in the Chaucer MSS., to denote the long u in hus, a house, riming with mod. E. goose. In the original such words as that and theer (there) are invariably altered to tat and teer when the preceding word ends in d or /; a peculiarity which, for our purpose, it is needless to preserve. The only point, in fact, that requires careful observation is the varying value of the final -e, which always forms a syllable of the verse unless it be elided before a vowel, and at the same time does duty as an important grammatical in- 1 A sufficient specimen is given in Morris, Specimens of Early English, Part I. pp. 40-63. § io] THE ORMULUM g flexion in many ways. In order to present the results more clearly, the inflexions -en, -es, -e, are marked off* by the use of a hyphen, and every elided final -e is printed in italics. 10. Introduction to the Ormulum. Now, brother Walter, brother myn After the flesh-es kynd-e; And brother myn in Cristendoom Through fullought and through trouth-e ; And brother myn in Godd-es hous 5 Yet on the thridd-e wys-e, Through that wit hav-en tak-en bo Oon reghel-book to folw-en, .Under canunk-es hood and lyf So som Saint Austin sett-e; 10 I hav-e doon so som thou bad And forth-ed thee thyn will-e, I hav-e wend intil English Gospell-es holy lor-e, After that litel wit that me 15 Myn Drighten hav-eth len-ed. Thou thoughtest that it might-e wel To mikel fram-e turn-en, If English folk, for low of Crist, It wold-e yern-e lern-en, 20 And folw-en it, and fill-en it With thought, with word, with ded-e. And forthy yerndest thou that I This werk thee shold-e werk-en, 2. kynde, nature. 4. fullought, baptism. 6. Yet in the third way. 7. wit, we two (dual) ; bo, both. 8. One rule- book to follow. 9. canunkes hood, canon's hood. 10, 11. So som, so as. just as. 12. And furthered for thee thy will. 13. wend, turned. 16. My Lord hath lent (me\ 18. frame, profit. 20. yerne, eagerly. 21. fillen, fulfil, practise. 23. And therefore thou desiredst. IO INTRODUCTION [J ro And I it hav-e forth-ed thee, 25 But al through Crist-es help-e ; And unc birth both-e thank-en Crist That it is broght to end-e. I hav-e samn-ed on this book The gospell-es neigh all-e, 30 That sind-en in the mess-e-book In al the yeer at mess-e. And ay after the gospel stant That that the gospel meneth, That man birth spell-en to the folk 35 Of their-e sowl-e ned-e; And yet ther-tek-en more inogh Thou shalt ther-onn-e find-en Of that that Crist-es holy theed Birth trow-en wel and folw-en. 40 I hav-e set heer, in this book, Among gospell-es word-es, Al through my-selv-en, many word The rym-e so to fill-en ; But thou shalt find-en that my word, 45 Aywher ther it is ek-ed, May help-en tho that red-en it To seen and t'understand-en Al this the better how theym birth The gospel understand-en ; 50 And forthy trow*? I that thee birth Wel thol-en myn-e word-es 25. And I have advanced it for thee. 27. And it behoves us-two {dual) both. 29. samned, collected. 31. sindert. are ; messebook, mass-book. 33. ay, always ; stant, stands. 35. That one ought to explain. 37. ther-teken, moreover. 39. theed, people. 40. Ought to believe well. 46. Every- where where it is added. 47. tho, those. 49. how it behoves them. 51. forthy, therefore ; thee birth, it behoves thee. 5a. tholen, suffer. § io] THE ORMULUM II Aywher ther thou shalt fynd-en hem Among gospell-es word-es. For who-so moot to le\v-ed folk 55 Loor-spell of gospel tell-en, He moot wel ek-en many word Among gospell-es word-es. And I ne might-e not my vers Ay with gospell-es word-es 60 Wel fill-en al j and al forthy Shokfc I wel oft-e ned-e Among gospell-es word-es doon My word, my vers to fill-en. And thee bitech? I of this book, 65 Heigh wik-en as it semeth, Al to through-sek-en ech a vers And to through-lok-en oft-e, That upon al this book ne be No word geyn Cristes lor-e, 70 No word that swyth-e wel ne be To trow-en and to folw-en. Wit shull-en tred-en under foot And al thwert-out forwerp-en The doom of al that loth-e flok 75 That is through nith forblend-ed. That tel-eth that to lov-en is Through nithful modiness-e. They shull-en let-en heth-e-ly Of unker swink, leef brother; 80 55. lewedfolk, the laity. 56. Loor-spell, teaching. 57. eken, add. 62. nede, of necessity. 65. And I charge thee, as to this book. 66. Great duty as it seems (to be). 70. geyn, contrary to. 71. swythe, very, quite. 73. We-two ought. 74. And all wholly cast out. 75. lothe, hostile. 76. That is blinded by envy. 77. teleth, vilifies ; that to loven is, that which is praiseworthy. 78. envious pride. 79. They will be sure to think scornfully. 80. Of the work of us-two [dual). 12 INTRODUCTION [§ 10 And al they shull-en tak-en it On unnit and on idel ; But not through skil, but al through nith, And al through theyr-e sinn-e. And unk birth bidd-en God that he 85 Forgive hem hir-e sinn-e; And unk birth both-e lov-en God Of that it was begunn-en, And thank-en God that it is broght To end-e, through his help-e; 90 For it may help-en all-e tho That blith-e-ly it her-en, And lov-en it, and folw-en it With thoght, with word, with ded-e. And who-so wil-en shal this book 95 Eft other syth-e wryt-en, Him biddd? I that he't wryt-e right So som this book him tech-eth Al thwert-out after that it is Upon this first-e bisn-e, 100 With all such rym£ as heer is set, With al so fel-e word-es; And that he lok-e wel that he Oon book-staf wryt-e twy-es Aywher ther it upon this book 105 Is writ-en on that wys-e. Lota he wel that he't wryt-e so, For he ne may not ell-es 82. As being useless and vain. 83 skil, reason ; nith, envy. 85. And it behoves us-two to pray. 86. hire, their. 87. loven, praise. 95. wilen shal, shall desire. 96. To write again, on another occasion. 97. I pray him ; he't, he it. 98. So som, even as. 99. All throughout according as. 100. bisne, copy. 102. With just so many words. 103. loke wel, pay great heed. 104. Write one letter twice. 105. Wherever it. 107. he't, he it. 108. ellcs, otherwise. § io] THE ORMULUM 1 3 In English wryt-en right the word, That wite he wel to soth-e. no And if man wil-e wit-en why I hav-e doon this ded-e, Why I to English hav-e wend Gospell-es holy lor-e; I havd? it doon forthy that al 115 Cristen-e folk-es berghles Is long upon that oon, that they Gosp611-es holy lor-e With full-e might-e folw-e right Through thoght, through word, through ded-e. 120 For al that evre on erth is need Cristen-e folk to folw-en In trouth^, in ded^, al tech-eth hem Gospell-es holy lor-e. And forthy whoso lern-eth it 125 And folw-eth it with ded-e, He shal on end-e worthy been Through God to worth-en borw-en. And therfore have I turned it Intil Engh'sh-e spech-e, 130 For that I wold-e blyth-e-ly That al English-e led-e With er-e shold-e list-en it, With hert-e sholdtf it trow-en, With tung-e shold-e spell-en it, 135 no. Let him know that well, for a truth. in. And if one desires to know why. 113. wend, turned. 115. for thy, because. 116. (all) the salvation of Christian people. 117. Depends on that one (thing). 119. With all their power may follow (what is) right. . . 121. For everything that it is ever necessary in this world. 122. (For) Christian people to perform. 125. And therefore. 127. on ende, at last. 128. To be saved by God. 132. lede, folks. 133. ere, ear. 134. trowen, believe. 14 INTRODUCTION [§ ic With ded-e sholdefore it. fcxx. to folw- en, 8, 72, 122; to lov-e'n, 77; To winn-en, 137. In Chaucer, this final -en is sometimes reduced to -e (a separate syllable), but is seldom elided. As the gerund was ex- pressive of purpose, it seems to have been more emphatic, and the termination was even more important than in the preceding case. (c) Final -en marks the past participle of a strong verb ; i. e. of verbs like our sing (pt. t. sang, pp. sung), in the conjugation of which a change of the vowel is a marked feature, whilst, at the same time, the said pp. does not end in -ed, -d, or -t (as in sough- 1 from seek . "Exx. tak-en, 7 ; begu?i?i-en, 88 ; writ-en (mod. E. written), 106; borw-en, 128; holp-en, 141. This termination can 1 6 INTRODUCTION [§ 13 still be traced in modern English, as in taken, ivritten. In Chaucer, this -en is often reduced to -e. (d) Final -en marks the use of the plura l of a verbal tense, whether in the present indicative or subjunctive, or (chiefly in the case of strong verbs) in the past tense. In the above extracts, the examples happen to refer to the present tense. Exx. sind-en, 31; her-en, 92; lov-en, folw-en, 93; wil-en, 139 ; forwerp-en, 149, 155. In Chaucer, this -en often becomes -e. This suffix is, of course, most common in the third person ; but it may occur in the first or second person ; exx. wit hav-en, we-two have, 7 ; wit shull-en, 73. 13. Final -es in the Ormulum. Final -es always forms a distinct syllable. It has three distinct values. (a) It marks the genitive case singular of substantives. Exx. flesh-es, 2 ; Godd-es, 5 ; gospell-es, 54, 58, 60, 114, 118, 124; folk-es, 116; Crist-es, 152. (b) It marks the plural of substantives. Exx. word-es, 42, 5 2 > 54, 5 8 > 6 3, I02 - (c) It is an adverbial ending (originally a gen. sing.). Exx. twy-es, 104; ell-es, 108. The j-sound is still pre- served in our modern twi-ce, else. 14. Final -e in the Ormulum. I only include here such as happen to occur in our extract. In substantives, it marks (a) the nom. or ace. of certain nouns, as will be more clearly shown hereafter ; (b) the dative case ; (c) the genitive case, in rare instances. (a) The following may be considered as examples of the nominative or accusative ; trouth-e, 4 ; will-e, 1 2 ; lor-e, 14, 70; help-e, 26, 90; modiness-e, 78, 156; sinn-e, 84; ore, 152. (b) The following are datives ; kynd-e, 2 ; wys-e, 6 ; fram-e, 18; mess-e, 32; ?ied-e, 36; end-e, 90, 127, 144; might-e, 119; spech-e, 130; er-e, 133; hert-e, 134; tung-e, 135J ded-e, 136. § i 4 ] THE ORMULUM 1 7 (c) The following is an example of the genitive case; soivl-e, 138. The explanation of this form depends upon the fact that the A.S. sdwel is a feminine sb., of which the genitive case is satul-e, with a final -e. In 11. 36, 148, sowl-e may represent the genitive plural; from A.S. sawla. The curious word rym-e in 1. 44 should not be over- looked ; here the final -e depends upon etymology. The word is not English, but borrowed from the O.F. [Old French] rime, a dissyllabic word ; the Ital. form is rima. (d) Final -e marks the definite adjective, as distinct from the indefinite. An adjective is said to be definite, when preceded by the definite article or by a demonstrative or possessive pronoun. Exx. the thridd-e, 6 ; that loth-e, 75 ; this first-e, 100. Or it marks the dative case ; as in full-e, «9« — -— 1 (e) It is the sign of the, plural of an adjective. Exx. tnyn-e, 52; all-e, 30, 91 ; fel-e, 102; Cristen-e, 122. (/) Final -e is the mark of various parts of the verb ; thus it occurs in the present tense singular of the indic ative and subjunctive moods. Exx. 1 p. s. indie, hav-e, 13, 25, 29, ii2. 3 p. s. subj. wryt-e, 97, 104, 107; lok-e, 103; wil-e, in. (g) A most important use of the final -e is when it marks the past tense of a iveak verb, i. e. of a verb of which the -pasT~pafficiple ended in -ed, -d, or -/. Exx. sett-e, 10 ; might-e, 17; wold-e, 20, 131 f s'hold-e, 24, 133, 135. We should notice that, on the contrary, there is (usually) no final -e at the end of the past participle 1 ; as in forth-ed, 12 ; wend, 13; len-ed, 16; oroght, 28; samn-ed, 29; set, 41; ek-ed, 46 ; &c. The contrast between Saint Austin sett-e (10) and / hav-e set (41) is very clearly marked. Cf. G. ich dachte with the pp. gedacht. 1 Exceptions are when the pp. is used as an adjective, in con- junction with plural substantives; or is used as an adjective in the definite form. 1 8 INTRODUCTION [§ 15 (h) Final -e frequently marks an adverb. Exx. yern-e, 20; ther-onn-e, 38; oft-e, 62, 68; swyth-e, 71. (/') A final -£ frequently represents an A.S. vowel-ending, in various parts of speech. Thus the form hir-e (86) repre- sents A.S. hir-a, of them, their; and theyr-e (142, 148) represents A.S. p&r-a, or (more strictly) the equivalent Icel. peirr-a, of them, their. (/£) Besides the above instances of the final -e, used as a distinct syllable for some grammatical reason, we must not omit to notice that a syllabic -e- may occur in the middle of a word in such instances as blith-e-ly, 92, 131. The same peculiarity is found in Chaucer's English. 15. The above examples are quite sufficient to establish the principle, that it is impossible to scan the Ormulum until one has learnt the grammar; and the same is true with regard to Chaucer. We have also learnt, even from the examination of only a short passage, what are the chief cases in which a final -en, -es, or -e increases by one the number of syllables in a word. To recapitulate, we observe that a final -en marks, in the Ormulum, an infinitive, a gerund, or a> strong past participle ; whilst, in Chaucer, the same parts of the verb are marked, indifferently, by -en or -e. Next, that a final -es marks the genitive case or the plural of substantives, or constitutes an adverbial ending. And lastly, that a final -e marks sometimes a nominative or accusative, sometimes a dative, and occasionally a geni- tive case of a substantive ; and sometimes, as in rym-e, its value is etymological. In adjectives, it marks the definite form or the plural. In verbs, it occurs in the present, in the past tense plural, and in the (weak) past tense singular. It is common in adverbs ; and (it may be added) appears in such a preposition as without-e (mod. E. without), which is also spelt without-en ; as well as in such words as hir-e, their, theyr-e, their, answering to A.S. hir-a, Icel. peirr-a. We also meet with a syllabic -e- before the suffix -ly. CHAPTER II THE TEXT 16. Before we can make a similar investigation with regard to the Canterbury Tales, we must first of all con- sider what text we may accept as being sufficiently correct. The two latest and most accessible texts are those edited by myself and by Mr. Pollard, known as The Student's Chaucer and as the Globe edition respectively. In a recent review of the latter it was asserted, with that perfect recklessness which is born of irresponsibility, that there is a wide differ- ence between the two. The text in the Student's Chaucer was distinguished as being 'eclectic,' whilst that in the Globe edition was called ' scientific' What these words were intended to imply, I have no idea ; but it is obviously necessary to find out, if possible, in what this notable difference consists. As I propose to examine the metre of Part I of the Squieres Tale in particular, it is obviously necessary to collate the texts beforehand. This I have accordingly done, and present the reader with the results, denoting the Student's edition by S., and the Globe edition by G. 17. (a) S. usually makes a phonetic distinction between the short i in him and the long i in lyth (he lies), denoting the latter by y. This distinction is not observed in G., which has hym and lyth, both with y. It makes no differ- ence in the reading or the scansion, but it affects the pro- nunciation. c 2 20 THE TEXT [§ 17 (^) Several slight differences of spelling occur, such as S. can, G. ka?i ; S. fresh, G. fressh. We may especially note S. e, 0, G. ee, 00, as in the following cases, S. feste, G.feeste; S. hote, G. /fow/tf. In such cases, I see no gain in the retention of such spellings as kan, fressh, feeste, hoote; but these are only very small matters of opinion, which in no way affect the reading or scansion, or even the pro- nunciation. (c) G. has numerous examples of what may be called the ' idle ' or archaic final -e. Examples occur in such mono- syllabic words as youre ; sire ; hire (also frequently hir) ; also in longynge (39) ; presentes for presents (174), dissyllabic because the accent is thrown back ; ascendynge (264) ; hevene (272). As there is a special mark employed in G. for denoting when the final -e constitutes a syllable, and the mark in all such cases is absent, the text in G. absolutely coincides in reality (in this respect) with the text in S. It seemed to me to be a far simpler plan to write your, sir, longing, hir, &c, in accordance with the true pronuncia- tion, rather than to retain such letters merely for the sake of saying that they do not count. Thus, in 1. 1, G. has 1 Squier, come neer,' as in MS. E. ; but, considering that 'come' here answers to A.S. cum, and was monosyllabic from the very first in every Teutonic language (for it is the imperative singular), it is far less confusing to the reader to correct the scribe's false spelling, and to print ' com neer,' as in S. As this is the point wherein which G. and S. differ most, we gather that by a ' scientific ' text is meant one in which the final -e is retained in places where the scribe inserted it wrongly as well as in places where he inserted it rightly l . 1 A particularly clear case is in 1. 64, where G. has : — ' Thanne wolde it occupie a someres day ' ; where Thanne is an error for Than (as in MSS. Cp. Pt. Ln. HI.). § 19] RECENT EDITIONS 21 (d) There are a few real differences of reading ; the chief are in 1. 20 (where G. substitutes the reading of MS. Hn., as in my Six-text edition) ; 1. 86, G. spoken, S. spoke ; 1. 96, G. comen, S. come; 165, G. Strike, S. Stroke; 173, G. unto, S. to; 184, G. ne, S. or; 201, G. al the, S. the; 226, G. hye, S. maister; 260, G. on alle, S. #//-e, 95 ; Lom- bardy-e, y-e (eye), 193 ; hy-e, minstralcy-e, 267 ; hy-e, y-e, 273; hy-e (infin.), melody-e, 291. Cf. Ital. cortesia, Lom- bardia, melodia. So also the pi. forms fantesy-es, poetry-es, 205. 39. Rimes in -ight, -yt. I have observed that, though the sound of gh was very faint in Chaucer (for it was fast disappearing), he nevertheless always regards it. He never rimes a word that etymologically ends in -ight or -ighte with one in -yt, or -yte. This is worth notice, for Lydgate does so freely ; in the very first stanza of The Complaint of the Black Knight we find whyte (white) riming with brighte (bright). As this rule is general, it is exemplified in Part I of the Squiers Tale. Examples are : (a) bright, wight, 137 ; /ighte, brighte, 169; knight, might, 309; wight, night, 329; knight, aright, 335 j (b) smyte, byte, 157. Take notice that the mod. E. delight is misspelt, for it is of French origin; Chaucer's form is delyt, riming with appetyt, E 1249. Moreover, mod. E. has two words both spelt plight, one of which is misspelt. When plight means 'to pledge,' it is of E. origin, and is spelt correctly; but when it means ' condition,' it is of F. origin, and has no gh. Thus Chaucer rimes the sb. plyt with appetyt, E 2335 ; and plyte, dat, with wyte (blame), G 952. § 4 i] CLOSE AND OPEN O 47 40. Contrast between open and close o. In M.E., there were two distinct kinds of 0, the one open, like the mod. E. au in Paul or oa in broad (an exceptional word which happens to preserve the old sound of M.E. brood), and the other close, like the mod. E. o in note, or the G. o in so. These sounds have usually passed into mod. E. oa in road and mod. E. 00 in cool respectively, so that they are quite distinct even at this day. They are also easily distinguished by help of the A.S. sounds which originated them, and they may be denoted by writing bo for the open sound, and 00 for the close one. In brOad romic, the open may be written (ao), and the close as (00). For example, M.E. rood (raod), riming with mod. E. laud, and now written road (roud), is quite distinct from M.E. rood (rood), riming with mod. E. load, and still written rood, but pronounced as (ruud), and riming with food (fuud) \ The M.E. open will be discussed first. 41. The M.E. open (ao) had two sources; it arose (1) from A.S. a ; or (2) from the lengthening of A.S. short o at the end of an open syllable. I have observed that Chaucer frequently makes a distinction between the open that arises from these two sources. The lengthened A.S. o produced a sound that was either a little shorter or a little closer than the other. We can distinguish them by writing (66) for no. 1, and (6) for no. 2 (above). Examples of (1) are A.S. fare, dat. of lar, lore, whence M.E. lore (Ioots) 2 ; A.S. mara, more, whence M.E. more (m66'r9). Examples 1 The forms printed between marks of parenthesis, such as (fuud), denote the pronunciation, according to the ' broad romic ' notation, which is founded on the pronunciation of the Italian vowels. The preceding forms, printed in italics, such as food, denote the M.E. or modern E. spellings. 2 The turned e (a) represents the sound of the unaccented a in China. The raised stop (/, signifies that the accent falls on the preceding vowel. 48 VARIOUS RIME-TESTS [§ 42 of (2) are A.S. forloren, M.E. fot 'lore (forlb'ra) ; A.S. tdforan, M.E. tofore (toofb'ra). I now cite the instances in Part I of the Squieres Tale, as exemplified in rimes. (1) Sore (sbb'ra), a word of F. origin (from Late L. ex-aurare), more (mbb'ra), from A.S. mdra) 123. Also (alsbb"), from A.S. ealswd, foo (fob), from A.S. fdh; 135. Fro, A.S. frd, so, A.S. swd ; 189. Knowe, A.S. ■ cnawan, lowe, from Icel. Idgr, adj.; 215. Y-goon, from A.S. £»«, anoon, from A.S. on an ; 293, 327. y^/sv?, from A.S. ealsivd, tho, A.S. Az; 307. Z'ow, A.S. /w#, tf/jtf, A.S. ealswd ; 317. (2) Therfore, A.S. parfore (dheerfb'ra), fore, A.S. £0/1;* ; 177. Y-swore, A.S. ge-S7voren, y-bore, A.S. ge-boren, 325. 42. The chief source of the M.E. close 2> ( x 75 *&, 19, 20, 21), and§ 34(22). Observe, lastly, adverbs such as queynt-e-ly, 783. Cf. § 34 (23)- 62. The above examples are mere specimens ; of course the true force of their significance lies in the fact that the grammatical rules are observed not merely here and there, but (for the most part) throughout. The examples given above are all taken from words that occur elsewhere than at the end of the line, because such examples are more obvious to the ordinary reader; nevertheless, it is most important (indeed, vital to the argument) to observe that the rules are most strictly observed in riming words, with- out any material exception. It is possible to find examples in which the final -e (or -es, or -en) may be neglected in the middle of a verse ; but never at the end, where there is plenty of time for utterance. Thus the pi. form of glad is g/ad-e, but the final -e is of small value at the caesura in 1. 75 :— 1 So glad-e || that they shew*? in singing.' And, in the same line, the final -e of shew-e is, of course, elided. But the riming words can always be depended on, not only throughout the Canterbury Tales, but everywhere else in the genuine works of Chaucer, for yielding trustworthy grammatical results. It is for this reason that those who are interested in claiming pieces as genuine which Chaucer never wrote are especially impatient of rime-tests ; for the f 2 68 ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE [§ 62 unerring certainty with which they can be applied is obviously and distressingly inconvenient. The best-sus- tained attack upon the accuracy of Chaucer's rimes is that by Professor Lounsbury, in his (otherwise) admirable book entitled Studies of Chaucer, a work which no Chaucerian student can afford to neglect. Nearly all his objections have been met in my General Introduction to Chaucer's Works, vol. vi. pp. 1-lvi; and have been shown to arise from a misunderstanding of the grammatical usages of the time. After all the objections have been fairly considered, it turns out that, in the whole of the Canterbury Tales, there is only one instance x in which strict grammar appears to be violated, viz. in Group F 1273 : — 1 His tables Tolletanes forth he brought, Ful wel corrected, ne there lakked nought Neither his cdllect ne his expans yeres.' Here it is quite clear that brought should have been brought-e (dissyllabic), as in A.S. brohte, past tense singular j and the mistake might easily have been avoided by writing were for he. We^may therefore suspect that the mistake lies in the other line) and indeed, there is reason for supposing that the right reading is nought-e, dat, meaning 'in no respect'; used in the same way as A.S. nahte' 1 . Still, even if it could be proved that, in the course of 17,385 lines, Chaucer once sinned against the exact usages of a grammar which was fast becoming obsolete, it is surely absurd to conclude, from a single example, that he therefore wrote The Flower and the Leaf, in which 1 That is to say, only one probable instance is alleged. "But there is really another instance of the same kind in C. T., A 4117, where nought (or noughte), meaning ' in no way,' rimes with bisought-e, pt. t. pi., they besought. 2 Cf. ' ne blS nahte wurS/ shall be nothing worth ; ^Elfric, Lives of the Saints, xxi. 55 ; ' nOhte Son ma,' not any the more, Gregory's Pastoral Care, p. 163, 1. 19. § 64] FRAGMENT A 69 (in addition to a large number of other anomalies) we find the pt. t. might-e riming with wight (18, 69, 312), the pt. t. wrought-e with the pp. y-wrought (49), the pt. t. might-e with right (299), and with night (588) \ i. e. six anomalies in the course of 595 lines. There is such a thing as a sense of proportion. 63. But Fragment A of The Romaunt is, in this respect, immaculate. To save space, I only give the references. Here follow references (1) for the weak pt. t, always with final -e (or -en) ; and (2) for the weak pp., in which the final -e is absent. (1) 246 1 , 250, 367 s , 452, 499, 587 s , 673, 701, 745 4 , 851, 875, 1007, 1021, 1071, 1149, 1158, 1218, 1247 5 , 1285, 1291, 1331, 1477, 1489 6 , 1515, 1669, 1671 7 . (2) 61 •, 86, 329, 427, 471 9 , 483, 603 10 , 836, 846, 907 » 941, 1 163, 1193, 1227 12 , 1397 12 , 1419* !43 6 , *533i l6 57- In no case does the weak pt. t. rime with the weak pp., as in The Flower and the Leaf, 49. In the same way, any other form in -e can be tested. I here give some references for the infinitive mood, as exemplified in the rimes. They are : 14, 38, 87, 95, no, 147, 176, 194, 252, 255, 279, 346, &c; all of which are correctly written, even in the MS. And here are some gerunds: 24, 41, 58, 101, 158, 190, 280, 344, 345, &c. 64. Not to labour this point over much, let us apply 1 G. has went, error for wente; we must pay no attention to the printed form, as G. follows the careless MS. ; we have only to deal with the spoken form, which in Chaucer's English was went-e, as in A.S. * See note 1 ; for potent-e, see Troil. v. 1222. 3 G. myght, /n'ght; read mighte, highte. 4 Read highte, lighte; the light-e is the definite form. 5 Read highte, highte (dative). 6 Or read deyde, preyde. 7 Read forthoughte, wroughte. 8 Read forget (contracted 3 p. s. present), set. 9 Read fed, cled. 10 Either read/*/, set, sing. ; or fette, y-sette, plural. n Read set, as in 846. M Read 13 Read knet, set. 70 ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE [§ 64 a test of somewhat different character. The use of the final -e enables the writer to employ a large number of feminine rimes; and it will be interesting to see in what proportion they occur. This can only be ascertained by help of a grammatically printed text, such as we find in the version of The Hous of Fame, as given both in S. and G., which differ very little. In the First book of The Hous of Fame (the fittest to choose, on account of its metre), there are about 125 feminine or double rimes out of 254 (508 lines) ; or roughly speaking, a little less than half of them. In the course of the first 508 lines of The Romaunt, there are about 117 * double rimes, or within 8 of the same proportion ; a result which is suf- ficiently satisfactory. If, to take another point, we examine the treatment in rime of the open and close 0, and of the open and close e, in Fragment A, we find that it is fairly consistent with Chaucer's usage. Thus the long open appears in such rimes as a/so, so, 33 ; tho, ago, 49 ; c/othe, bothe, 95 ; anon, gon (= anbbn, goon), 99, 135; forgo, two, 201; /oth, c/oth, 233; a/so, wo, 311; wo, two, 337; noon, gon, 357; ever- ichoon, a/oon, 449; oon, noon, 491; noon, goon, 513; &c. The only example which I have observed as being abnormal is the riming of upbn (with short open o) with bbn, 563, and with stbbn, 1086. But this has its parallel in the riming of upbn with goon ; C. T., Group G, 562. Examples of long close appear in sone, done, 23 ; domes, gromes, 199; wood, good, 203, 263; good, Mood, 267; good, 7t>ood, 275; to, do, 757; d.ome, brome, 911; swote, rote, 1025; do, to, 1221 ; took, forsook, 1537; undo, to, 1633; swote, rote, 1661. All with or 00 from an older 0. Examples of long open e (from A.S. & or ea) appear 1 For this purpose, it is safer to consult S., as the copy in G. follows the MS., and is so ungrammatical as to require much correction. • § 65] FRAGMENT A 7 1 in }ek, leek, 211; deed (dead), breed, 215; sprede, rede, 1679. Examples of the same (lengthened from A.S. e) appear in file, stele, 189; cf. brede (A.S. doun, tourn, 5469. And here are rimes which it were a gross libel to attribute to Chaucer; aboute, swote, 1705-6; desyre, nere, 1785, 2441; abrede, forwerede, 2563; anney (Ch. has annoy), awey, 2675; desyre, manere, 2779; I°y e * convoye, (Ch. has conveye), 2915 ; lere, desyre, 4685. (e) Of course the author pays no attention at all to 1 At the end of a line, where the reader can pause, the additional syllable is always fully uttered. Dante does not use cammin at the end of a line, but only cammino. § 72] FRAGMENT B 83 Chaucer's distinction between words ending in -y and those ending in -ye. So he ignorantly mixes them after this sort : I, malady-e, 1849; hastily, company-e, 1861 ; generally, vilany-e, 2179; worthy, curtesy -e, 2209; foly-e, by, 2493, 2521; curtesy-e, gladly, 2985; foly-e, utterly, 31 7 1 ; foly-e, hastily, 3241, 3289 ; redily, maistry-e, 3293 j flatery-e, uttirly, 3387 ; angerly, vilany-e, 351 1 ; espy-e, sikirly, 3815 ; folily, Jelosy-e, 3819; lelosy-e, I, 3909, 4145; certeynly, lelosy-e, 4047; sikirly, foly-e, 4469 ; bittirly, foly-e, 4533 ; /, curtesy-e, 4565 j &c, &c. If Chaucer wrote Fragment B, why do no such rimes appear in Fragment A ? It is not as if the rule were at all intricate ; a large number of such examples are covered by remarking that Chaucer does not rime adverbs in -ly with French feminine substantives in -ye, such as foly-e. Quite a small effort of attention will enable the mind to grasp the principle of it. (/) By way of change, let us note a pure question of literary style. In 1. 1275, Chaucer translates the French sans faille by withouten fayle ; but he twice introduces the phrase withouten wene, 574, 732, and once the phrase withouten drede, 1442, as mere tags, to complete lines. In the course of 1705 lines, this is not very noticeable and may be pardoned. But I think it shows bad taste on the part of the author of Fragment B to introduce similar tags with such persistent frequency. Thus he gives us withoute?i drede thrice, 2199, 2251, 4503; withoute doute twice, 2967, 3615; withouten fable, 4687; withoute gesse, 2819; withouten lees twice, 3904, 5728; without lesing, 4508; withouten lette, 3756; withoute more thrice, 1895, 3195, 3763 ; withoute wene at least nine times, 2046, 24i5> 2595, 2668, 2683, 3231, 3641, 3748, 4596; and withouten were at least seven times, 1776, 2568, 2740, 3351, 3452, 5485, 5657. I found no argument upon this, but I do not find these thirty tags attractive. G 2 84 ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE [§ 73 73. It is hardly worth while to pursue the subject in this direction. Other numerous objections to the genuine- ness of Fragment B can easily be adduced when those already given have been satisfactorily met. It remains to consider the probable date of this poem. The chief fact is that the Glasgow MS., very neatly written, cannot well be later than 1440. The only other consideration that helps us is to remember that, whilst an imitator would hardly copy Chaucer's grammatical forms until after that poet's death, when his reputation was at its height, we should nevertheless expect the imitation to be not very late 1 . A very likely date would be about 1420; though this, it will be understood, is only a guess. I remember once discussing the question with Professor Seeley, who, half in jest and half in earnest, suggested that, if Fragment B was not written by Chaucer, he would be glad to attribute it to king James I. It is singular that there is no vital objection to this rather bold suggestion ; indeed, there are many points in its favour. For the king being born in 1394, and captured by the English in 1406 2 , remained in captivity till 1424, and had ample opportunity of studying Chaucer's writings. This is too large a question to be considered here ; and unfortunately, the King's Quair is too short a poem to furnish us with much linguistic information. I will merely say that it affords several rimes involving Northern forms, such as begouth, st. 16 ; /and, st. 79; king (they hang), st. 89 ; Iunyt (joined), st. 133 ; and rimes such as ageyn riming with to pleyn, st. 40, which in 1 The partial use of the final -e, which was fast disappearing soon after 1400, shows that neither the King's Quair nor our Fragment B are likely to be late. 3 I take these dates from J. T. T. Brown, The Authorship of the Kingis Quair, Glasgow, 1896; p. 21. I do not accept his conclusion, that the Kingis Quair was imitated from the Court of Love. For the Court of Love was the later poem of the two ; and both poems contain imitations of Lydgate's Temple of Glass ; as proved by Schick. § 74] FRAGMENT B 85 Chaucer would become to pleyn-e (compare § 72 (c)) ; that it has the false rime of corage with charge and large, st. 38 (compare § 72 (d)) ; that it twice has the very rime loye, convoy e, stt. 19, 71, to which I have drawn attention above (§ 72 (d)); and that it makes no distinction between the suffixes -y and -ye (see § 72 (e) ). 74. It is clear that the author of the King's Quair was acquainted with Le Roman de la Rose, as he expressly alludes to it in the line — ' And has no curage at the rose to pull' — in st. 186; and he adopts from it the word amorettes ; (st. 47, and note), which occurs in Fragment A, 1. 892. And perhaps it is worth noticing a line in the very next stanza, viz. st. 48 — 'Aboute hir nek, quhite as the fyre amaille ' [enamel]. ' For, although there is nothing remarkable about the phrase ' Aboute hir nekke ' in Frag- ment A, 1. 1 08 1, it is a singular coincidence that the last word in the preceding line is the scarce word ameled [enamelled]. And next, if we look a little more closely at the same stanza, we shall find that there is a description of a chain hung about the same neck, to which was attached a ruby that shone like a spark of fire. This I take to be Chaucer's carbuncle, mentioned only forty lines farther on, which enabled people to travel a mile or two by night-time, because 'such light sprang out of the stone.' If, again, we look at st. 46, preceding that which contains amorettis, we shall find mention of rich attire, emeralds and sapphires, which may very well have been suggested by the same passage, descriptive of the fine clothing worn by Richesse : — ' Rubyes there were, saphyres, jagounces, And emeraudes, more than two ounces ' ; R. R. 1117. The ruby, as already noted, occurs in K. Q. st. 48. A comparison of K. Q. stt. 46-48 with Fragment A shows 86 ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE [§ 75 a sufficient general resemblance to be worth considering. With goldin hair, cf. R. 1021, 'Hir tresses yelowe'; with rich atyre, cf. R. 107 1 ; for emeralds and sapphires, see R. 1 1 17 ; for chaplets, see R. 563, 845, 908 ; for amorettis, see R. 892 ; for ' Beautee eneuch to make a world to dote,' see the description of Beauty in R. 1009-1032 ; the phrase 'aboute hir nekke' occurs fifty lines further on, R. 1081, preceded by the word ameled; for the ruby, cf. R. 11 17 (just quoted), and for its resplendent light, see R. 1121. With tissew in st. 49, cf. R. 1104. It does not amount to much, but it seems enough. 75. A second passage, stt. 152-7, does not contain much from The Romaunt, but there is something \ The poet travels ' endlang a river,' which puts us on the scent ; cf. 'The river-syde costeying,' R. R. 134. We can now compare the following passages : — ' Endlang a river, pleasant to behold . . . Quhar, through the gravel, bricht as ony gold, The cristal water ran so clere and cold.' K. Q. 152. 1 Toward a river I gan me dresse, That I herde renne faste by; For fairer playing non saugh I Then playen me by that riveer . . . Cleer was the water, and as cold,' &c. R. R. no. The bright gravel is not far off, viz. in 1. 127 : — ' With gravel, ful of stones shene.' In stt. 154-7 we have a mention of fruit-trees, followed by the remarkable account of all sorts of animals. The Romaunt contains plenty of fruit-trees in 11. 1359-1400 (we shall have them again below); and though the list 1 This section is reprinted from my letter to The Athenaeum (no. 3741) upon this subject, which appeared on July 8, 1899. § 75] FRAGMENT B 87 of fruit-trees is not followed by an account of a menagerie, we find the hint of one in the succeeding lines, 11. 1401- 1408; and we actually there encounter 'the litil squerel, ful of businesse,' and ' the rial hart, the coning, and the ro.' For what says The Romaunt ? — 1 Ther mighte men does and roes y-see, And of squirels ful greet plentee, From bough to bough alwey leping; Conies ther were also pleying.' The consideration of a third passage, K. Q. stt. 31-3, will confirm the preceding conclusions, and will bring us at last face to face with Chaucer's own words : — 1 Now was ther maid fast by the touris wal A gardin fair, and in the corneris set An herber grene, with wandis long and smal Railit about; and so with treis set Was al the place, and hawthorn-hegis knet, That lyf was non, walking ther forby, That might within scars ony wight aspy. So thik the bewis and the levis grene Beshadit al the aleyes that ther wer . . . And on the smale grene twistis sat The litil swete nightingale, and song . . ,* This takes us back, as I said it would, to the list of fruit-trees, especially 11. 138 7- 1400. And it is worth while to notice that Chaucer himself was the first person to reproduce the original passage, in his Book of the Duchesse. 416-442, where he tells us that he saw green groves, so thick with trees and leaves that there was shadow every- where below ; and then he immediately introduces (in the proper place) the hart and hind, does, roes, and squirrels, and more beasts than Argus could count. For the ' gardin fair ' and ' the wal ' and ' the nightingale,' 88 ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE [§ 76 see R. R. 136 and 644, 138 and 78. The rest of the passage is more significant. The original passage in R. R. 1 391-1400 is as follows : — 'These trees were set, that I devyse, Oon from another, in assyse, Five fadome or sixe, I trowe so, But they were hye and grete also : And for to kepe out wel the sonne, The croppes were so thikke y-ronne, And every braunch in other knet, And ful of grene leves set, That sonne mighte noon descende, Lest [it] the tendre grasses shende.' And here it is at last that we come upon the very Chaucer. For I have shown (Works, vol. vi. p. xxiii) that our great poet, with all his nicety and care in the selection of rhymes, frequently adopts Kentish forms, using ken for kin (Bk. Duch., 438), fulfelle for fulfille (Troil. iii. 510), kesse for kisse (C. T., E 1057), knette for knitte (Mars, 183, Pari. Foules, 438), and knet for knit, as in the present passage. But what business, we may well ask in amazement, had a Scotchman with a Kentish form ? He knew perfectly well that the form natural to him was knit, for he uses it in K. Q. st. 194, where he rimes it with wit and it. The conclusion is obvious : he saw that Chaucer used knet as a convenient rhyme with set, so he knew that he had authority for doing the same. In other words, he was not only familiar with Le Roman de la Rose, but he was acquainted with, and practically quotes, the very words of Chaucer's own translation. 76. From all this we see that the author of the Kingis Quair (whether he was James I or not) was acquainted with Chaucer's version of Le Roman, and was capable § 76] FRAGMENT B 89 (whether he did so or not) of translating it into a mixed jargon of Northern and Chaucerian English. Perhaps the reader will now not be surprised to hear that the author of Fragment B was likewise rather proud of knowing the form knet, as he uses it three times; 11. 2092, 4700, 481 1. He even rimes it with the Kentish form shet (2092) j a result which ceases to astonish us when we observe that shet occurs twice in Fragment A, 11. 529, 1082, and at least twenty-five times in Chaucer. It is odd that 1. 1082 is the one that follows 'Aboute hir nekke.' We may safely conclude that Fragment B was not written by Chaucer, but by a Northern imitator; whilst there is, at the same time, no reason whatever against ascribing it to King James I. Indeed, there is much to be said in favour of that supposition '. 1 A further argument is that the fine line in Rom. Rose, 5004 — ' That Deth stant armed at hir gate ' — is not in the original, but was almost certainly borrowed from Gower's story of 'The Trump of Death,' C. A., i. 116, 18 ; and Gower's poem was well known to the author of the King's Quair (st. 197). We may further compare K. Q. st. 53 with ' I pleye with her litel hound ' in Gower, C. A. ii. 41 ; st. 55 with C.A. ii. 318 ; st. 97, 1. 3 with C. A. i. 307; st. 134, 11. 6, 7 with C.A. i. 76 ; and st. 140 with C. A. i. 177. CHAPTER VIII THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE : FRAGMENT C 77. That Fragment C has nothing to do with B is easily seen ; for the traces^of Northumbrian dialect at once disappear, and we return to a dialect which does not materially differ from that of Fragment A. Moreover, the diffuse treatment seen in B disappears at the same time, and the translation is given, as in A, almost line for line. To be exact, the 1888 lines in C correspond to 1849 lines of the original Roman-, i.e. in the proportion of 102-1 to 100. The proportion in A is as ioi-6 to 100; so that C is a little more diffuse than A, but only to the extent of one half per cent. Lastly, the character called Bialacoil throughout Fragment B is called Fair-welcoming in C. On many accounts, C is far nearer than B to Chaucer, and has a better chance of being genuine. Nevertheless, I am reluctantly compelled to say that I fear it is not his, for I have found yet more to add to such arguments as I have given already and now repeat here, nearly as in Chaucer's Works, vol. i. p. 6. 78. In the first place, C does not, like A, satisfy the test which separates words ending in -y from those ending in -y-'e. In the course of its 1888 lines, there are six failures of this sort. The examples are : covertly, Ipocrisyie), 61 1 1 ; company (e), § 79' ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE 9 1 outerly, 6301 ; loteby, company' e), 6339 ; why, tregetry(e), 6373; company(e), I, 6875; mekely, trecheryie), 7319. Other unsatisfactory rimes are these : hors (horse), wors (worse), 5919, whereas Chaucer rimes wors with curs (Cant. Tales, A 4349) and with pervers (Bk. Duch. 813); fare, are, 6045, though are never ends a line in Chaucer, as he there uses been in place of it; atte last, agast, 6105, whereas Chaucer only has atte last-e, where last-e is dis- syllabic j pati-ence, venge-aunce, 6429, a very bad rime, resembling nothing in Chaucer; and force, croce, 6469, which is hardly a rime at all. Further, we find preched riming with teched, 6679, whereas Chaucer uses the form taughte, as in C. T., prol. 497. Another unsatisfactory feature is the use of the form Ab- stinauncem 1. 7483 (7481 in G.), to rime with penaunce, whilst only twenty-two lines further on it becomes Abstinence, to rime with sentence ; however, the original French text has a similar variation. See further in § 79. 79. I will here also mention one more peculiarity to be found in Fragment C. In the Cant. Tales, B 480 (and elsewhere), Chaucer employs such rimes as clerkes, derk is, and the like; but not very often. But the author of Fragment C was fond of this peculiarity, and has eight instances in the course of his 1888 lines. Such are: requestis, honest is, 6039; places, place is, 61 19; nede is, dedis, 6659; apert is, certis, 6799; chaieris, dere is, 6915; enquestes, honest is, 6977; prophetis, prop he te is, 7093: ypocritis, spite is, 7253 (7251 in G.). The proportion of such rimes in Chaucer is much smaller, viz. five in the 2158 lines of The Hous of Fame, which is in the same metre as the Romaunt, and nineteen in the Canterbury Tales. The per- centages are : — in Fragment B, -423 ; in the Hous of Fame, •231 ; and in the Cant. Tales, -109. The above difficulties, as I have just said, have already been pointed out by me in a former work. But I now 92 ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE [§ 80 find that several serious false rimes remain to be noticed. I take them in the order of their occurrence. At 1. 6665, we find honden, hands, to rime with undir- stonden ; but Chaucer has hondes or handes. At 1. 6717, we have the rime science, ignorence\ but ignorence, in Chaucer, appears as ignoraunce. At 1. 7091, we have the rime of Chris tendome with somme, some. Chaucer never rimes long close with the short which does duty for A.S. u. It would be a gross libel to charge him with it. At 1. 7137, we find the rime del (deal) riming with wil (they will); French text, 'garderont.' There is no way, that I know, of justifying such an atrocity. At 1. 7198 (7196 in G.), the gerund fighte is cut down to fight, to rime with the sb. might. Here are five insuperable difficulties, to add to those that have been mentioned already. In Englische Studien, xi. 163, Dr. Lindner wrote an article in which he came to the conclusion that Chaucer certainly never wrote Fragment C. 80. It seems to me possible to account for Fragment C very easily, without any reference to Chaucer. There is a very good reason why it should be separated from Fragment B by more than 5000 lines of the French Roman. It is quite complete in itself, having no relation to the preceding Fragments. It is clear, upon consideration, that its author never dreamt of translating the whole poem, but wished to give what may fairly be called the episode or story of False Semblant or Hypocrisy. It was easy to see where this story ended, for there is a clear break at the very point where he stops. But it was difficult to know where to begin ; and I am prepared to maintain that he began at the only possible place. The beginning is somewhat abrupt ; but this was the fault of Jean de Meun, who introduces, just at this point, some wholly irrelevant § 8o] FRAGMENT C 93 personal details about himself and Guillaume de Lorris, concluding with the lines : — 1 Ainsinc Amors a eus parole, Qui bien recurent sa parole'; — i.e. 'Thus Love harangues them, and they received his story graciously ' ; which was very generous of them. Then he goes on by saying : — ' Quant il ot sa reison fenie, Conseilla soi la baronnie ' : — that is to say (as our author puts it) : — 1 Whan Love had told hem his entente The baronage to councel wente.' All that is wanted to introduce the story are a few words such as these : ' At last Love pities the lover, and descends to help him ; and with the assistance of Bounty, Honour, and other barons of Love's court, proceeds to lay siege to the castle in which Jealousy has imprisoned Fair- Reception.' Even without this preliminary introduction, the reader soon finds his way. In a word, the translator of Fragment C selected a fair specimen of Jean de Meun at his best, and has given us his account of Hypocrisy with some spirit, in as complete a form as was practicable. And this is the best reason for supposing that this translator had nothing to do either with Chaucer or his Northern continuator. All that we can say is that he was one who was attracted rather by religious satire than by romance, one who sym- pathised, probably, with the author of The Plowman's Tale. The grammatical forms are fairly correct and not late ; and this Fragment may have been written as early as 1390. The author was not in the position of a continuator, but assumed an independent attitude of his own. CHAPTER IX THYNNE'S EDITIONS OF CHAUCER. POEMS BY KNOWN AUTHORS 81. The most important book, with regard to the Chau- cerian canon, is of course Thynne's first edition of Chaucer in 1532, as this was the first volume in which his Works were presented in a collected form. Thynne's second edition, in 1542, was a mere reprint, introducing more misprints ; the only additional piece being The Plowman's Tale, which was inserted at the end of the Canterbury Tales as a sort of supplement ; for the three minor pieces, introduced at the end of the Table of Contents, viz. Eight goodly questions, To the Knights of the Garter, and Sayings, appear in the first edition also, in the same strange position. About 1550 appeared an undated edition, a mere reprint of the second edition and with further misprints, in which The Plowman's Tale was inserted before The Parson's Tale, as if it were really one of the set. Taking advantage of the fact that this edition is undated, it is frequently pre- tended that the real date is about 1537, as an excuse for raising the price; and this is the origin of the fabulous edition of 'about 1537,' which will long continue to appear in sale-catalogues. This edition likewise has the three minor pieces above mentioned, in the same strange position. In 1 56 1 appeared Stowe's edition, part of which is a mere reprint of the third undated edition, with yet more § 82] THYNNE'S EDITIONS 95 misprints ; but it added a considerable number of new pieces, of which the longest are The Court of Love and Lydgate's Siege of Thebes. In 1598 appeared Speght's first edition, which added Chaucer's Dream and The Flower and the Leaf. In 1602 appeared Speght's second edition, which added Jack Upland and Chaucer's ABC. For full details, see Chaucer's Works, vol. i. pp. 31-48; and consult the List at the end of the present volume. The first four editions are most easily distinguished by observing the spelling of the eighth line of The Plowman's Tale ; as thus : — Ed. 1532. No Plowman's Tale. Ed. 1542. And honge his harneys on a pynne; fol. cxix. Ed. [1550]. And honged his harnys on a pynne ; fol. xciii. Ed. 1 56 1. And honged his harnis on a pinne ; fol. xc. Observe the progress of error. In ed. 1542, the verb honge is strong, but later it is weak. In ed. 1542, harneys means ■ harness ' or ' gear.' But the e drops out of harneys in the next edition, after which Stowe turns it into harnis, the usual word for 'brains.' How the Plowman hanged his brains on a pin, it is difficult to tell. 82. Much that has been written on the canon of Chaucer's Works is practically worthless and misleading, owing to the extraordinary way in which Thynne's collection of Middle-English poems has been misunderstood. Just because a considerable number of the poems included in it happened to be by Chaucer, the bookbinders naturally put ' Chaucer's Works ' on the back of the volume, and the booksellers called it ' Chaucer's Works ' for short. The appearance in it of any given piece affords no presumption that such a piece is Chaucer's, unless there is some external evidence in its favour. Yet some critics are pleased to say that the inclusion of a piece in that particular volume is equivalent to ' attributing' it to Chaucer ! 96 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 83 At this rate, the following pieces are certainly his, in spite of Thynne's own titles : — Iohn Gower vnto the worthy and noble kynge Henry the fourthe. Scogan jmto the lordes and gentylmen of the kynges house. The truth isy simply, that not a single piece in the whole collection can be taken on trust as being Chaucer's. We must really condescend to examine the evidence from other quarters. We find, for example, that The Testament of Creseide is printed by Thynne in a travesty of a Scottish dialect ; and we all know why. It was notoriously written by Robert Henryson. We find, in The Letter of Cupide, an assertion by the author that he wrote the poem in 1402, when Chaucer had been dead two years. And we know what this means; for the piece is by Hoccleve. The climax is reached when we learn that Thynne was actually dissuaded by the king from inserting The Pilgrim's Tale, which he knew to have been written less than six years previously, viz. in 1536, as it contained an allusion to Perkin Warbeck l . If The Pilgrim's Tale had been inserted, it would have been * attributed to Chaucer ' ; at least, so some critics tell us. But it is best to look at things for ourselves. 83. The result is rather extraordinary. I have shown, in the Introduction to Chaucerian Pieces, that the number of authors represented in Thynne's Collection is more than a dozen, of whom not less than eight are known by name, viz. Usk, Gower, Hoccleve, Scogan, Lydgate, Ros, Henryson, and Clanvowe. And amongst these, Hoc- cleve is responsible for two pieces, and Lydgate for at 1 F. Thynne, Animadversions on Speght's Chaucer, ed. Furnivall, p. 10. • Perkyn werbek ' is mentioned in The Pilgrim's Tale at 1. 447. § 84] THE TESTAMENT OF LOVE 97 least six. And as we thus know, at the very outset, that at least fourteen of the pieces are positively not Chaucer's, it at once becomes obvious that every piece must be con- sidered on its own merits and without prejudgement. I shall now give the names of the principal pieces which must certainly be excluded from the canon, though they appear in Thynne's two editions. Pieces which were added to the Collection by later editors will be considered afterwards. 84. Only three of these pieces were written. in Chaucer's lifetime, viz. The Testament of Love, The Plowman's Tale, and The Praise of Peace. The Testament of Love; by Thomas Usk; ab. 1387. (Ch. Pieces, no. I. p. 1.) No MS. is known. This is a tedious prose treatise in three Books. Thynne was quite justified, from his own point of view, in including this piece, for he happened to have access to it, and it would otherwise have perished. Moreover it clearly be- longed to the fourteenth century, and was connected with Chaucer by the fact that it refers to him in Bk. iii. ch. 4. 'Quod Love, "I shal telle thee, this lesson to lerne. Myne owne trewe servaunt, the noble philosophical poete in Englissh, whiche evermore him besieth and travayleth right sore my name to encrese (wherfore al that willen me good owe to do him worship and reverence bothe ; trewly, his better ne his pere in scole of my rules coude I never fynde) — he (quod she) in a tretis that he made of my servant Troilus, hath this mater touched, and at the ful this question assoyled. Certaynly, his noble sayinges can T not amende : in goodnes of gentil manliche speche, without any maner of nycete of storiers imaginacion, in tvitte and in good reson of sentence he passeth al other makers." ' Of course, no man could write such words of himself. But as most readers never succeeded in wading so far through the treatise as to reach the third book, the fancy H 98 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 84 arose that it was written by Chaucer; and Godwin, in what can only be described as his comic Life of Chaucer, looked upon the whole as a piece of autobiography. How- ever, the true meaning of this passage was dwelt upon by Hertzberg in 1866 \ and it has never since been included in the canon. Several years ago, I observed that the first letters of the chapters formed an acrostic, and produced the follow- ing sentence : — margarete of virtw, have mercy on thsknvi ; and the treatise itself explains that margarete of virtw means Margaret endued with divine virtue, and refers either to the grace of God, or to the church. The last word I took to be the author's name, apparently trans- posed, but I could not explain it any further. Meanwhile Mr. Bradley had satisfied himself that the author was probably Thomas Usk, who was politically somewhat conspicuous in the years 1384-8. He was further of opinion that the nonsensical name was due to some transposition in the text. Carefully perusing it with this idea, he noticed several distinct breaks in the sense, due to a dislocation of the text produced by a shifting about of the leaves of the MS. Having noticed these breaks, he proceeded to rearrange the text so as to better the sense ; and he had the great satisfaction of finding that the re- arranged text gave the last word as thinvsk, easily resolved into the two words thin vsk (thine Usk) 2 . This at once settled the question, and at the same time explained why I failed to obtain the name by transposing the letters. It never occurred to me that the seven letters formed two words, and not one only. For some account of Thomas Usk, see Walsingham's History, The Rolls of Parliament, and (in particular) the continuation by John Malverne of Higden's Polychronicon, 1 Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, i. 201. s See Mr. Bradley's letter in The Athenaeum, Feb. 6, 1897. §85] THE PLOWMANS TALE 99 ed. Lumby, vol. ix. pp. 45-6, 134, 150, 169; cf. Lingard, 1874, iii. 163-7. We can now determine, approximately, the date of the piece. Usk was executed on March 4, 1388; and we find him referring to past events that hap- pened towards the end of 1384 or later. The most likely date is about 1387. For further particulars, see Ch. Pieces, pref. pp. xxi-xxxi. It follows that both Troilus and The Hous of Fame were written before 1387, as we know to have been the case. For Usk coolly appropriates more than forty lines of The House of Fame, which he reproduces in prose without a word of acknowledgment; Bk. ii. ch. 2. 45-81. 85. The Plowmans Tale; ab. 1395. (Ch. Pieces, no. II. p. 147.) This piece first appeared as a supplementary Tale in Thynne's second edition, in 1542. No MS. is known ; and Thynne did well to preserve it, though it is highly probable that he was chiefly moved to print it because its religious views were likely to be extremely popular \ It must have been obvious to purchasers of Thynne's volume that this Tale was not seriously "considered as belonging to the Canterbury Tales or to Chaucer ; for it was added at the end, supplementally. But when, in the later editions of (about) 1550 and 1561, it was made to precede The Parson's Tale, and so thrust in amongst the rest, the idea that it was Chaucer's was easily suggested, and no less a person than Dryden accepted it as such 2 . 1 It had previously been printed separately by T. Godfray in folio, without date, but about 1532-5, probably under Thynne's care. From this separate edition (of which the only remaining copy, formerly Askew's, Farmer's, and Heber's, is now at Britwell) it was reprinted in W. Thynne's second edition of Chaucer's Works in 1542, and separately in octavo by W. Powell, about 1547-8. — H. Bradshaw in Thynne's Animadversions, p. 101.) 2 Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, iii. 108; cf. i. 188, 460. In the edition of (about) 1550, the first line of the Persones Prologue was H 2 IOO THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 86 However, it was decisively rejected by Tyrwhitt (Intro- ductory Discourse, § xl), who says, in plain words — ' as I cannot understand that there is the least ground of evidence, either external or internal, for believing it to be a work of Chaucer's, I have not admitted it into this edition,' i.e. his edition of 1775. Every subsequent writer has acquiesced in this decision. For indeed, it is well known that the author of The Plowman's Tale was the very man who, but a short time previously, had written the celebrated alliterative poem entitled Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, quite a distinct work from that by William Langland. The author tells us the fact himself, in The Plowman's Tale, 1. 1065 : — ' Of freres I have told before In a making of a Crede—' and the statement is strongly supported by internal evi- dence, since many striking words and phrases are common to the two poems. Indeed, the Plowman's Tale itself is strongly marked with alliteration. Further, the following approximate dates cannot be far wrong. The .Crede, which (as the author remarks) is all about the orders of friars, alludes, in 1. 657, to certain recent proceedings against one Walter Brute, which lasted from Oct. 15, 139 1, to Oct. 6, 1393, when he submitted himself to the bishop of Hereford. We may well date the Crede about 1394, and the Tale (which probably soon followed it, as the author repeats many of its expressions) about 1395. 86. The Praise of Peace; by John Gower; 1399. (Ch. Pieces, p. 205.) Found also in the 'Trentham ' MS. As this piece is headed — ' Iohn Gower vnto the worthy and noble kynge Henry the fourthe ' — there is no more to altered from ' By that the Manciple had his tale ended ' to ' By that the Ploweman had his tale ended'; a deliberate and intentional falsification of the text, contradicted by all the MSS. § 87] THOMAS HOCCLEVE be said. Not only Thynne, but every one who opened his volume, must have known positively that it was not written by Chaucer. The date is 1399, a little before Chaucer's death. Gower survived till 1408. It is to be particularly noted that, if the inclusion of a poem in Thynne's Collection means that it is thereby 'attributed to Chaucer,' it must logically follow that such is the case with The Praise of Peace. 87. Thomas Hoccleve. Two poems by Hoccleve must here be considered. (a) The Letter of Cupid ; 1402. (Ch. Pieces, no. V. p. 217.) There are at least nine MSS. This poem is now well known to be Hoccleve's, on MS. authority. That it is not Chaucer's, appears from the fact that it was not written till 1402, or after his death. The date is given in the two concluding lines of the poem : — 1 The yere of grace joyful and jocounde A thousand and foure hundred and secounde.' (b) To the kinges most noble grace ; and. to the Lordes and Knightes of the Garter; ab. 1415. (Ch. Pieces, no. VI. p. 233.) Found in MS. Phillipps 81 51. This piece was appended to the Table of Contents pre- fixed to Thynne's first and second editions and to the edition without date. It really consists of two Balades, but they were written at the same time. The former is addressed to King Henry V, and the latter to the Knights of the Garter. The probable date is 141 5. That it was written by Hoccleve appears from its being placed among his poems in the Phillipps MS. no. 815 1; and the same MS. has the heading — ■ Cestes Balades ensuyantes feurent faites au tres noble Roy Henry le quint (qui dieu pardoint !) et au tres honourable conpaignie du Iarter.' It is obvious that a piece addressed to Henry V cannot be Chaucer's. See Hoccleve's Works, ed. Furnivall, p. 41. 102 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 8S 88. John Lydgate. Several poems by Lydgate ap- peared in Thynne's Collection. I take them in the order in which they there stand. (*) The Flour of Curtesye ; ab. 1401. (Ch. Pieces, no. IX; p. 266.) No MS. is known. A poem of 2 70 lines, in thirty-eight 7-line stanzas, followed by an Envoy of four lines, which presents the earliest known example of the stanza employed by Gray in his Elegy. Not attributed to Lydgate in edd. 1532, 1542, or 1550. But in 1 56 1 Stowe reprinted it, and added to the title — 1 made by Ihon lidgate.' What authority he had for this we do not know, but the suggestion is obviously correct. That it is not Chaucer's, appears from 11. 236-8 : — 1 Chaucer is deed, that hadde suche a name Of fair making, that [was], withoute wene, Fairest in our tonge, as the laurer grene.' It follows that Thynne was perfectly well aware that it was not Chaucer's ; yet we are asked to believe that every- thing which he included was thereby ' attributed ' to that great poet. That it was written very soon after Chaucer's death is highly probable, i. e. about 1401. See Schick, Introd. to Lydgate's Temple of Glass, p. c. (d) The Complaint of the Black Knight; or, The Complaint of a Loveres Life ; ab. 1402. (Ch. Pieces, no. VIII; p. 245.) There are at least seven MS. copies. In one of these (Arch. Seld. B. 24) there is a colophon which assigns to it an entirely erroneous title : — ' Here endith the Maying and disporte of Chaucere.' But fortunately, there is a copy in MS. Addit. 16165 (B. M.), in the handwriting of John Shirley, who took so much pains to find and copy- out poems by Chaucer and others, in which he has this note: — 'And here filowing begynnethe a Right lusty § 88] JOHN LYDGATE 103 amorous balade, made in wyse of a complaynt of a Right worshipful^ Knyght that truly euer serued his lady, en- duryng grete disese by fals envye and malebouche : made by Lydegate.' On some of the pages is the heading : — 'The Compleynte of a Knight made by Lidegate.' The five other MSS. are F., B., T., D., P. (See Appendix.) As this ascription is commonly accepted, further dis- cussion is hardly necessary ; yet it is interesting to note how easily the rime-tests dispose of it. I mention a few. (1) In the very first stanza it rimes whyt-e with bright-e and with night. (2) It presents mere assonances; as forjuged, excused, 274; wreke, clepe, 284. (3) The author confuses words in -y with words in -ye. Exx. pitously, malady(e), 137 ; felyngly, malady(e), 188. (4) He drops the essential final -e at the end of a weak pt. t. Ex. I ment for I ment-e, riming with diligent, 246. (5) He drops the final -e in peyn-e, which in Chaucer is dissyllabic. Exx. agayn, payn, 233, 650 ; seyn, payn, 568. Also in quen-e. Ex. queen, seen, 674. (6) He drops the final -e of the present tense, and of the infinitive mood. Exx. why, cryie), 450 ; diurnal, fal(le), 590. (7) He rimes the short open with the long one ; sore, tore, 2i 8. (8) He rimes the long open e with the close e. Exx. grene, dene, 125; rede, spede, 596. And confuses both of these with a short e\ wreche, leche, seche, 471. Is it not enough ? Schick dates this piece about 1402, after The Flour of Curtesy e, and before The Temple of Glass ; Introd. to Temple of Glass, p. c. [c) A Ballad in Commendation of our Lady. (Ch. Pieces, nos. X and XI; pp. 275, 281.) This article, as printed by Thynne, consists of two distinct and independent poems, as I was the first to 104 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 88 discover, by help of the MSS., viz. MS. Ashmole 59 and Sloane 12 12. Yet the distinction is very marked. The former poem is addressed to the Virgin Mary, is of a religious tone, and is strongly marked by the use of alliteration; the latter is addressed to an earthly lady, is complimentary in its address, shows no marks of alliteration, and only appears in Thynne's edition, not in the MSS. above mentioned. As to the former, it is thus headed in MS. Ashmole 59 : — ' A devoute balade by Lidegate of Bury, made at the reverence of oure lady, Qwene of mercy.' MS. Sloane 12 12 contains an additional stanza, which I was the first to print ; it also supplied several corrections. It is obviously Lydgate's, though I can assign no date to it. It presents a mere assonance in piscyne, alyme, 1 34. We also find the infinitive telle cut down to tel, in order to rime with Gabriel, 10 1 ; and the short e rimed with a long one, wreche, Peche, 41. All three of these peculiarities occur in' The Complaint of the Black Knight ; cf. p. 103, (6) and (8). {d) To my Soverain Lady. To the second poem, as it had no title, I assigned, as a heading — 'To my Soverain Lady.' As it was printed in connexion with the poem just discussed, we should expect it to be Lydgate's ; a notion which the internal evidence confirms. It is remark- able for containing eight entire lines in French ; and my impression is that it was a complimentary Valentine ad- dressed to Queen Katherine, wife of Henry V, who would, at any rate, have understood the French part of it, such as — J' ay en vous tout'e ma fiaunce. It is especially interesting from the fact that, in 1. 21, it quotes the first line of ' Merciless Beaute.' • Short as it is, it contains one form for which the reader may search all Chaucer's works in vain, viz. slo, to slay, riming with a-two; for Chaucer's form is slee. We do § 88] JOHN LYDGATE 105 indeed find the rime two, s/00, C. T., A 3245 ; but s/00 in that passage happens to mean 'a sloe,' as again in R. Rose, 928. Cf. p. 81 (1. 15). Lydgate, in 1. 17, adopts Chaucer's Kentish form knette, for the sake of a rime to besette. No MS. copy is known, as has already been stated. (e) Go forth, King. (Ch. Pieces, no. XXIII ; p. 408.) I know of no MS. copy of this poem. This is a short poem of two stanzas only, or fourteen lines. It was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde about 1498, at the end of Lydgate's Temple of Glass. It is not thereby 'attributed' to Lydgate, but the internal evidence points strongly that way. At any rate, there is no pretence for ascribing it to Chaucer. Do Chaucer's lines usually run like these ? Womanheed, to chastite ever enclyne. Be rightwis, juge, in saving thy name. Rich, do almesse, lest thou lese blis with shame. People, obey your king and the lawe. Trew servant, be dredful, and keep thee under awe. Inobedience to youth is utter distruccioun. For Rich, Chaucer's form is Rich-e; for lese, his form is les-'e ; for Trew, he has Trew-e. So far from improving the lines, such changes make them much worse, as any one can judge for himself. Surely it is not merely lawful, but advisable and meritorious, to apply such simple tests. (f) A Ballad of Good Counsel. (Ch. Pieces, no. XII ; p. 285.) There are at least two MSS. ; Ff. and H. In edd. 1532, 1542, and 1550, this piece has no title. But in Stowe's edition of 1561 the title is : — 'A balade of good counseile, translated out of Latin verses in-to Englishe, by dan Ihon lidgat cleped the monke of Buri.' It is eminently characteristic of Lydgate's style; and I suppose that no one disputes it. 106 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 89 At 1. 79, hardy is made to rime with foly(e) and flatery[e). These are the chief poems by Lydgate that appear in Thynne ; but two more are discussed in §§ 93 and 95. Others were inserted at a later date; see §§ 100, 102, 104, 105. 89. Henry Scogan. A Moral Balade ; ab. 1406. (Ch. Pieces, no. VII; p. 237.) There are at least two MSS. ; A. and H. This piece is expressly assigned to Scogan by Thynne, and had previously been printed as Scogan's by Caxton. Thynne did quite right to insert it, because Scogan quotes the whole of Chaucer's 'Gentilesse' in 11. 105-25. In 1. 65 it is implied that Chaucer was dead. 90. Sir Richard Ros. La Belle Dame sans Mercy ; ab. 1450. (Ch. Pieces, no. XVI ; p. 299.) There are at least three MSS. ; F., Ff., and Harl. 372. Tyrwhitt pointed out that the author's name is given in the Harl. MS. 372; where it is said to be 'translatid out of Frenche by Sir R. Ros.' And further, that it could not be Chaucer's, because the French original was written by Alan Chartier, who was only fourteen years old at the time of Chaucer's death. It was first printed by Pynson, in 1526, in company with The Hous of Fame, &c; hence its appearance in Thynne's edition. See Chaucer's Works, vol. i. p. 28. 91. Robert Henryson. The Testament of Cresseid ; ab. 1460. (Ch. Pieces, no. XVII; p. 327.) Even Thynne and Stowe must have known this poem to be other than Chaucer's, as they printed it in a spelling abounding with Scottish forms. An edition was printed at Edinburgh in 1593. L. 64 runs thus: — 'Quha wait gif all that Chauceir wrait was trew ? ' It is clear that no such line could have emanated from Chaucer himself. I know of no MS. copy ; but it is not unlikely that one (or more) may be found. 92. Clanvowe. The Cuckoo and the Nightingale; § 92] POEM BY CLANVOWE 107 ab. 1403. (Ch. Pieces, no. XVIII; p. 347.) There are at least five MSS. ; F., B., T., Ar., and Ff. The question as to the authorship of this pleasing poem is now definitely settled, on the authority of the best MS. copy; and would have been settled long ago had that MS. been consulted. For at the end of the poem is written, in firm clear characters and by the same scribe — Explicit Clanvowe. See MS. Camb. Ff. 1. 6. The title ■ Of the Cuckoo and the Nightingale ' is that given in Thynne's edition, and is suitable enough ; but it is not the title given in the MSS. MS. Fairfax 16 and Bodley 638 give the title as 'The Boke of Cupide, god of Love.' As this title is evidently imitated from Hoccleve's * Letter of Cupid, god of Love,' called in the Fairfax MS. 1 Litera Cupidinis, dei Amoris,' we see that the author was acquainted with Hoccleve's poem, and probably wrote about 1403, or at any rate soon after 1402, which is the known date of The Letter of Cupid. Again, the metre of the poem, which is very unusual, is obviously imitated from Chaucer, who, however, only once employed it, in the very last lines which he is known to have written. It is the metre of the Envoy to the Compleint of Chaucer to his Empty Purse ; and we know- that this Envoy was written in the autumn of 1399. We should expect to find that Clanvowe was acquainted with Hoccleve ; and it is on record that Sir John Clanvowe and Thomas Hoccleve are mentioned together in a document dated 1385; but this Sir John died in 1391. But the writer may very well have been Sir Thomas Clanvowe, who was a well-known character at the court of Henry IV, and a friend of 'prince Hal,' whom he had accompanied in the mountains of Wales. His name occurs in 1401 (Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Nicolas, temp. Hen. IV, p. 162), in 1404 (Testamenta Vetusta), and in 1406 (Wylie, hi. 207), and his will was proved in 1410 (ibid.). io8 THYNNE'S EDITIONS L§ 92 This enables us to explain the reference to the queen at Woodstock, in 1. 285. She was Joan of Navarre, prince Henry's stepmother, married to King Henry IV on Feb. 7, 1403; and it was she who received the manor and park of Woodstock as part of her dower. On March 15, 1411? she granted them to Thomas Chaucer (the poet's son) to farm ; see Wylie's History of Henry IV for further details. The above circumstances show that' the poem was not Chaucer's, but it was not unnatural that it should have been printed in company with his works, as it is one of the best of the once ' doubtful ' poems, and was written soon after his death. The internal evidence against it does not amount to much ; still it exists. In 1. 52, the e of assay-e is wrongly suppressed, to gain a rime with day and May. The dissyllabic gren-e is cut down to green in 1. 61, in order to rime with been. And the form mon replaces Chaucer's man in 1. 85, in order to rime with upon. The word grede, to cry out (135), does not occur in^ Chaucer. The Clanvowes came from Wigmore, in Here- fordshire. But the poem is quite unique in its use of the final -e. The author rather avoids elisions than otherwise, and hence the final -e occurs with far greater frequency than in any other poem of the same period. That the author had read Chaucer, and aspired to imitate him, appears from his choice of metre, and from the fact that the first two lines of his poem form a quotation from the Knightes Tale (A 1785-6). The date of the poem was certainly later than Feb. 7, 1403, but probably not much later. And it must be earlier than 1410. The poet professes to relate a dream which he dreamt on the third night of May (1. 55). At the time of writing, he was 'old and unlusty' (1. 37). CHAPTER X THYNNES EDITIONS OF CHAUCER. POEMS CHIEFLY BY UNKNOWN AUTHORS 93. So far is Thynne from 'attributing' poems to Chaucer, that he expressly does so in four instances only ; in three of which he is right. The instances are : — i . A goodlie balade of Chaucer. 2. The Dreame of Chaucer. [Book of the Duchesse.] 3. Good Counsayle of Chaucer. [Truth.] 4. Chaucer vnto his empty purse. In the first case, however, he is mistaken. See Ch. Pieces, no. XXII, p. 405. The piece really consists of three Balades all addressed to the same lady, named Margaret ; and each Balade must have originally consisted of the usual three stanzas of seven lines each. But a stanza of the second Balade has been lost, so that there are eight stanzas in all instead of nine. An Envoy of eight lines is appended. No MS. copy is known, so that Thynne's print is the only authority. The internal evidence shows that it is almost certainly Lydgate's ; no one now claims it for Chaucer. It does not satisfy all the rime-tests. In the first Balade, the dissyllabic words a//e, ca/fe, afialle, befalle, are shortened to a/, cat, apal, befal, to rime with shal and smal. The fifth stanza is too clumsy, both in metre and expression, to be considered as being in Chaucer's manner. IIO THYNNE'S EDITIONS 94 94. The Assembly of Ladies. (Ch. Pieces, no. XXI ; p. 380.) There are at least two MSS. ; Trin. and Addit. 343 6 °- I have shown strong reasons for believing that this poem was written by the authoress of The Flower and the Leaf. Yet it is remarkable that those who wish to claim the latter for Chaucer show no disposition to claim the former, no doubt because it is more prolix and in a less happy vein. But the critic must do one of two things j he must either prove them to be unconnected, or he must treat both alike. If he accepts one, he must accept the other. Both are quite distinct, in style and treatment, from all other poems of the fifteenth century. These two poems are remarkable as being the two earliest poems in English which are claimed by a woman. A little later, we come to another, the famous Nut-brown Maid, which was almost certainly written by a woman, as is implied in 11. 22 and 177. It would be simply absurd to suppose that a fifteenth-century male poet would give himself out to be a woman ; for he would only have been laughed at. The Tale of the Wife of Bath is not a case in point ; every one understood what was meant. The close connexion between the two poems will be considered when we come to examine The Flower and the Leaf. The authoress declares herself in the first stanza; she says that she met four ladies, and was herself the fifth. In 1. 370, a lady named Countenance appears, who calls them also ' sisters ' ; so again in 1. 450. As no one now claims this poem for Chaucer, I omit further discussion of it here. It fails to satisfy the rime-tests over and over again. In fact some of the rimes can only be described as bad. Such are : doon (done), wone (wont, custom), 2 ; gyse y fantasy-es, 9, which only rime by dropping the final e in § 95] PRAISE OF WOMEN III gyse, and the e in fantasyes ; &c. At 1. 48, grene, with close e, rimes with dene, with open e; and so on. The reader who knows anything of Chaucer's habits will easily detect more examples. Still more serious is the loss of syllabic -e in the middle of a line, because this appeals even to the beginner. It is not uncommon. Thus, 1. 2 is as follows : — 'The fresh sesoun was altogider doon.' It scans well enough, but the grammar is at fault. Chaucer would have written The fressh-e, as a dissyllable. Com- pare — 1 Right as the fressh-e, red-e, ros-e new-e ' ; Pari. Foules, 442. ' The fressh-e knight, the worthy man of armes ' ; C. T., F 1092. Indeed, Chaucer uses fressh-e (without the) with a fern. sb. : 1 And fressh-e Beautee, Lust, and Iolitee ' ; Pity, 39. 95. A Praise of Women. Probably by Lydgate. It begins — ' Al tho that liste of women evil to speke ' — and consists of twenty-five stanzas of seven lines each. It is not reprinted in my Chaucerian Pieces, as it is of small interest. The only MS. copy is a very poor one, in the Bannatyne MS., fol. 275, written in 1568; which was printed for the Hunterian Club in 1873-9; see p. 799 of that edition. Thynne's text is reprinted in Morris's Chaucer, vi. 278 ; and in Bell's Chaucer, 1878, iv. 416, where it is placed among the ' Poems formerly attributed to Chaucer.' It fails to satisfy the rime-tests in the following instances. The infin. ly-e is cut down to ly, to rime with sy (saw), 134; and quen-e becomes queen, to rime with been, 160. We find the rimes y-bore (born), sore (sore), 16 ; forlore, yore, 158. The word sere, various, 72, does not occur in Chaucer. I]2 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 96 It was decisively rejected from the canon by Tyrvvhitt, and it is hard to tell why Bell and Morris revived it. In all the black-letter editions, the title is ' The Praise of Women.' The poem is eminently characteristic of Lydgate, and we may particularly observe the announcement of his intention to write a poem upon this subject, as stated in The Temple of Glas, 1378 :— ' I purpose here to maken and to write A litel tretise, and a processe make In pris of women, oonli for hir sake, Hem to comende, as it is skil and right, For here goodnesse, with al my ful[le] myght.' I know of no reason why the poem here discussed may not be the Mitel tretise' here alluded to. No other such poem is known. 96. The lamentatyon of Mary Magdaleyne. This piece, containing 102 7-line stanzas, had been previously printed by Pynson in 1526, in company with the Hous of Fame and some other poems, including La Belle Dame. It was decisively rejected from the canon by Tyrwhitt. It is thoroughly discussed in a dissertation by Bertha M. Skeat, Ph.D. (Zurich), printed at Cambridge in 1897; who gives many examples of instances which fail to satisfy the grammatical and metrical tests. There is even one example of assonance; disguysed, to-ryved, 171 ; other notable rimes are those of hue (Ch. has hew-e) with Jesu, 674; kene with eyen, 127; dy(e) with why, 86; hens (Ch. has henn-es, hence) with the Latin pres. part, liquescens, 146; &c. She concludes : — ' there seems every reason to suppose that this poem was written by a woman, who was also a nun'; and observes that the style of The Flower and the Leaf 'has nothing whatever in common with that of the pale dreamer of the Magdalene's sorrows.' A close examination of the language suggests 'the period § 98] ENVOY TO ALISON 113 1460-1480 as the approximate date of the poem.' No MS. copy is known. 97. The Remedy of Love. Printed in Chalmers' British Poets, i. 539. In eighty-one 7-line stanzas, nineteen of which form a Prologue. The language is very late, that of the sixteenth century; the probable date is about 1530. It contains such words as incongruitie, deduction, allective, can't (for cannot), scribable (fit for writing on), olibane, pant, babe (baby), cokold (which in Chaucer is cok-e-wold, tri- syllabic), ortographie, ethimologie, ethimologise (verb) ; also the Northern word /ait, to seek. Twelve stanzas are occupied with a metrical translation of Prov. vii. 6-27. How can we pretend that Thynne confined himself to printing genuine poems by Chaucer, when we find him thus inserting a poem which he must have known to have been written in his own lifetime? No MS. copy is known, or is likely to be found. 98. Envoy to Alison. (Ch. Pieces, no. XIX. p. 359.) The title is mine. It has hitherto been usual to print this piece without any title, as if it belonged to The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, which it happens to follow in Thynne's edition, and with which it has no connexion whatever. It also happens to follow The Cuckoo in MS. Tanner 346, but in MS. Fairfax 16 the two poems are a long way apart. It is really a Balade in the usual form, consisting of three 7-line stanzas, with a 6-line Envoy. It forms the dedication of a book, which the author (who ought to know best) addresses as — 'O lewde book, with thy foole rudenesse.' If the book was no better than the dedication, we may congratulate ourselves on its loss. The initial letters of the lines in the Envoy form an acrostic, and give alison as the name of the lady to whom the book was addressed. The Envoy affects grandiloquence, containing as it does the words Aurore, Lucerne, Illumined, and the line — ' Sus- piries which I effunde in silence.' 1 114 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 99 The earliest known example of effund is dated 1420. The New English Dictionary quotes the above example as — ' about 1500. Cuckow and Night. Lenvoye.' Of course ' Cuckow and Night ' is incorrect, but it is indeed difficult to tell what else was to be said ; for, before the appearance of my edition, it was the only way of indicating where the word occurs. The assigned date, about 1500, is somewhat too late, as it occurs in the Fairfax MS. (ab. 1450). I think the first four lines of the Balade are certainly imitated from the Envoy to Hoccleve's De Regimine Prin- cipum. 99. A Ballad of good Counsel. By Lydgate. In the earlier editions it has no title; but in Stowe's edition the title is — ' A balade of good counseile trans- lated out of Latin verses in-to Englishe, by dan Ihon lidgat cleped the monke of Buri.' It begins — ' Consyder wel [with] 1 euery cyrcumstaunce ' j and consists of seventeen 7 -line stanzas. This piece has already been noticed in Chapter IX (p. io5\ among the poems by known authors. It is obviously Lydgate's ; and therefore not Chaucer's. It is printed in Chalmers' Poets, i. 555. Thynne's book concludes with a Latin epitaph upon Chaucer, in thirty-four elegiac lines, by Stephen Surigon of Milan. It had previously been printed by Caxton at the end of his (separate) edition of Chaucer's Boethius 2 . 100. Besides the pieces already discussed, Thynne also added three more pieces at the end of the Table of Con- 1 I supply with from MSS. Ff. (Camb. FX 1. 6) and H. (Harl. 2251). a Caxton concludes his edition of Boethius with a reference to Chaucer, ' of whom the body and corps lieth buried in thabbay of westmestre beside london to-fore the chapele of seynt benet, by whos sepulture is wreton on a table honging on a pylere his Epy- taphye, maad by a poete laureat, whereof the copye folio weth/ &c. § ioo] THREE SAYINGS 115 tents, viz. (1) Eight goodly questyons, with their answers; (2) Hoccleve's two Balades, discussed in § 87 (b)-, (3) Sayings (14 lines). It remains to discuss the first and third of these articles. Eight Goodly Questions; printed in Bell's Chaucer, 1878, iv. 421. In nine 7-line stanzas. There are two MS. copies ; one in the Trinity MS., marked R. 3. 15; and another in the Bannatyne MS., printed by the Hunterian Club in 1873, p. 123. The latter helps us to correct tree (19) to cofre, which gives the right rime. This piece is merely expanded from the first seven lines of a poem by Ausonius, printed in Walker's Corpus Poetarmn Latinorum, with the title Eorundem Septem Sapientum Sententiae. It is quite in Lydgate's style, and may possibly be his. I suppose no one would take it to be Chaucer's. However, in st. 5, the words chastitee and hones tee are made to rime with the infinitive mood of the verb ' to lie,' as if it were lee x ! But Chaucer's form is ly-e, dissyllabic, and with a different long vowel. Rime-tests are sometimes extremely useful and decisive. Three Sayings. These lines had been previously printed by Caxton ; and I have reprinted them twice ; see Chaucer's Works, i. 46 j vii. 450. And in the same, vii. pref. p. lxxxi, I have printed a similar Saying to the first one from MS. Ashmole 59, fol. 78. I now add, as a matter of curiosity, another variation found on an old detached fly-leaf of a MS., which was kindly lent me by Mr. F. W. Burgess, of Ringmer, Sussex, in 1898. 1 Qwen pr^stis faylin in her sawes, And lofdis turnin godes lawes Ageynis ry^t 2 , 1 It is correctly spelt lee in the Bannatyne MS. 2 Obviously an error for skille, i. e. reason. I 2 Il6 THYNNE'S EDITIONS [§ 101 And leccherie is holden as priuy solas, And robberie as fre purchas, Be war panne of ille. Than shal pe lond of albion Turnin to confusion As su/?ztyme it befelle 1 . Orapro ang/ia, sancta maria ; quod Thomas cantuarie V This turns out to be the identical version printed (from the same fly-leaf) in Sir H. Nicolas's edition of Chaucer, and reprinted by Bell and Morris. There is yet another version of these Sayings, with a note that they would come true in 146 1, in MS. Dublin (Trin. Coll.) E. 5. 10. See Thynne's Animadversions, ed. Furnivall, p. xlvi. They are therefore older than that year. These popular sayings were associated with Chaucer merely by the accidental circumstance that they were printed by Caxton at the end of his edition of Chaucer's Anelida and Complaint to his Purse in order to fill up a blank space. Discussion is needless. 101. The Undated Edition. There is but one un- dated black-letter edition of Chaucer, and the date of it is about 1550. Book-catalogues frequently call it the ' second ' edition, in order to enhance the price; but it certainly appeared after 1542, as the spelling is throughout dis- tinguished by the introduction of numerous additional misprints, as already exemplified at p. 95. It agrees with the edition of 1542 in all other respects, except that it places the Plowman's Tale before the Parson's, an arrangement which is preserved in the later editions of 1561, 1598, 1602, and 1687. 1 Read befil. 2 Referring to Thomas a Becket. CHAPTER XI stowe's edition 102. In i 56 i appeared a reprint of the third or undated edition (of about 1550) \ to which numerous additions were made by John Stowe. Most of these, but not all, were spurious. The volume deserves particular considera- tion. In the first place, happening to have room for just three stanzas in the second column of fol. cccxxxii, back, at the end of Gower's Praise of Peace, Stowe inserted three separate poems, each containing a single stanza of seven lines. To these he gives the following titles : — 1. A saiyng of dan Ihon. 2. Yet of the same. 3. Balade de bon consail. I have reprinted them in Chaucerian Pieces, no. XV. p. 297. I know of no MS. copy. Observe that Stowe expressly attributes the first two to Dan John, i. e. to Lydgate ; and we may fairly do the same with 1 Certainly from that particular edition. The Prologue to the Plowman's Tale is exactly reprinted from the edition of 1542 in Thynne's Animadversions, ed. Furnivall, p. 101. The same is re- printed from Stowe's edition [wrongly called by me, alas ! • an early undated edition ^ in my notes to Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, E.E.T. S., p. 45. I compare these with the third or undated edition, and find that the readings in Stowe certainly follow that edition, not that of 1542. Cf. Chaucerian Pieces, p. xv (footnote), where ' fol. xc' and 'fol. xciii' should be transposed. See § 81, p. 95. Il8 STOWE'S EDITION [§ 103 regard to the third, in which losse (loss) rimes with crosse (cross). In Chaucer, the MSS. sometimes have cros, but commonly crois or croys j and the latter represents Chaucer's pronunciation, as he twice rimes it with voys (voice\ C. T., B 451, C 532. Hence none of these three is Chaucer's. I take occasion to note that the first two stanzas are on the same theme, and translate a medieval proverb, which is given in MS. Fairfax 16, fol. 195, in the form — 'Quatuor infatuant, honor, etas, femina, uinuw.' A third version of the same proverb occurs in the second stanza (omitted by Stowe) of 'O Mossie Quince.' See § 105, p. 124. 103. However, Stowe was successful in finding a few genuine poems, and this encouraged him to subjoin about a score of pieces, with the following preliminary adver- tisement : — ' Here foloweth certaine viooxkes of Geffray Chauser, whiche hath not here tofore been printed, and are gathered and added to this booke by Ihon Stowe ' ; and again, on fol. ccclv, back, is the colophon : — ' Thus endeth the workes of Geffray Chaucer? To which he appended Surigon's Latin epitaph on Chaucer, and Lydgate's Siege of Thebes ; and of course he knew this to be Lydgate's, as the author announces his name in 1. 92 of the prologue. The genuine pieces, which need no discussion, are these : — A balade made by Chaucer, teching what is gen- tilnes. This was not really new, as it had previously been quoted in extenso in the poem by Henry Scogan (§ Sg). A Prouerbe [read Prouerbs] against couitise and negligence. Commonly called 'Proverbs'; see Ch. Works, no. XX ; vol. i. p. 407. As these consist of only eight short lines, and are commonly accepted, they need not be discussed. Cf. § 53, p. 61, note 1. A balade whiche Chaucer made agaynst women vnconstaunt. See § 55, p. 62. § 104] AGAINST DOUBLENESSE 119 These verses next folowing were compiled by Geffray Chauser, and in the writen copies foloweth at the ende of the complainte of petee. This testi- mony is of some importance. The poem in question is 'A Compleint to his Lady.' See above, § $3, p. 60, note 1. Chaucer's Woordes vnto his owne Scriuener; also called Chaucer's Wordes unto Adam. See above, § 53. It is worth observing that Stowe expressly attributes all these poems, except the eight lines of Proverbs, to Chaucer. In the poems which we have still to consider, he does this only twice. See §§ 104, 105 below. 104. Beware of Doubleness. The first spurious piece is entitled : — ' A balade whiche Chaucer made in the praise or rather dispraise of women for ther doublenes.' See Ch. Pieces, no. XIII. p. 291. Stowe is here certainly mistaken ; for there are four fair MSS. of it, in three of which, viz. Fairfax 16 (fol. 199), Ashmole 59, and Addit. 16 165, it is expressly attributed to Lydgate ; and the two last of these MSS. belonged to Shirley, who is much to be depended on. It is in Lyd- gate's best manner, much smoother than his wont, and I have nothing to say against it as a composition. Still, it is not Chaucer's. In the second stanza, it fails to satisfy the rime-tests. The dissyllabic words grene, wene, mene, are docked of the final -e in order to rime with seen. N.B. The fourth MS. is Harl. 7578. Chastity. It is convenient to consider next the poem numbered 58 in Ch. Works, i. 34, printed in Stowe at fol. cccxlv, back (misnumbered cccxxxix). It is headed : — 'A balade declaring that wemens chastite Doeth moche excel all treasure worldly.' It begins — ' In womanhede as auctours al write ' ; and extends to nine 7-line stanzas (sixty-three lines). The final -es only occurs once, in nobl-es\ the final -ed 120 STOWE'S EDITION [§ 105 would appear to be thrice fully sounded, but five times reduced to 'd ; the final -en occurs but thrice, and the final -e not at all, unless it be in poor-e. In other words, it is much later than the time of Lydgate, and helplessly remote from the time of Chaucer. And it is but a poor per- formance. It is printed in Chalmers' English Poets, vol. i. p. 565. I am not acquainted with any MS. copy. 105. The remaining pieces, all spurious, were simply pitchforked into the volume because Stowe had access to the MS. which contained them. Fortunately, the MS. is still accessible, being now in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, where its class-mark is R. 3. 19; and the in- spection of it throws much light upon Stowe's methods. It is remarkable that he only claims one of these poems for Chaucer ; even his hardihood could go no further. The poem in question is the following : — Tho Craft of Lovers; Trin. MS., fol. 156. Stowe's heading is : — ' This werke folowinge was compiled by Chaucer, and is caled the craft of louers.' It consists of twenty- three 7-line stanzas (161 lines;, and is printed in Chalmers' English Poets, vol. i. p. 558, with a footnote to the effect that ' Ritson attributes this to Lydgate.' But it seems too bad even for Lydgate, and the ascription of it to Chaucer is so preposterous as much to discredit Stowe's judgement. In the 23rd stanza the date of the poem is thus exhibited in the Trinity MS. :— ' In the yere of our lorde a .m. by rekeninge ccccxl .&. viii. yere folowing.' So that, according to the MS., the date is 1448. But as this was inconsistent with the editor's assertion in the title, he judiciously omitted a c, and so reduced the date to 1348, when it is doubtful whether Chaucer was more than eight years old. There are at least two other MS. copies, very closely § io 5 ] THE CRAFT OF LOVERS 121 resembling one another, viz. MS. Addit. 34360 and Harl. 2251 ; but they exhibit the date somewhat differently. The former has : — ' In the yeere of god . a mt by Rekenyng Foure hundred fifty and .ix. yere folwyng.' With this the Harl. MS. agrees, giving the date as 1459 ; which is more probable. In any case, we are clear as to the century. The first line of the poem appears in a startling form, as to which the copies substantially agree. MS. Addit. 34360 has it thus : — ' To moralise a similitude who list these balettw sewe.' It is clear that 'a similitude' was once a marginal note, which has crept into the text. The first two stanzas are introductory. The next twenty stanzas are spoken alternately by a man and a woman, named respectively Cupido and Diana in the Addit. MS. The 23rd stanza is there headed 'Conclusio'; but this MS. and the Harl. MS. alike add a 24th stanza, headed 'Verba auctoris.' As this has not been printed, I give it here, to show the kind of stuff that 1 was compiled by Chaucer ' : — ' Go, litel balett/j, submyttyng eu^where To due correccion of benyuolence ; But where that envye is, com 1 nat there For anythyng; kepe your balett/j thens. For envy is ful of froward reprehens, And how to hurt lyth euer in a-wayte; Kepe ye thens, that ye be nat ther bayteV The remaining poems are mostly beneath discussion ; 1 Harl. loke ye come. But this is little better. 1 There are two more stanzas, but I think they belong to another poem. The former of them (as Tyrwhitt remarks) is printed by Stowe elsewhere, viz. at the top of col. 1 of fol. cccxliv. T22 STOWE'S EDITION [§ 105 they nearly all belong to the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury. I give their names. ABalade; Trin. MS., fol. 156, back. Begins— ' Of their nature they greatly the m delite.' In four 7 -line stanzas (twenty- eight lines). The second stanza quotes the line — ' Be ware alwaye, the blind eateth many [a] flye ' ; which forms the refrain of the Balade warning men against deceitful women ; for which see p. 124 below. The ,x Commaimdements of Loue ; Trin. MS., fol. 109. Begins — ' Certes, ferre extendeth yet my reason. In fourteen 7-line stanzas (ninety-eight lines). In the last stanza, the author describes himself, with perfect truth, as being ' a man unknown.' However, there is a copy of the poem in MS. Fairfax 16, so that it is as early as 1450. The .ix. Ladies worthie ; Trin. MS., fol. no, back. Begins — ' Profulgent in preciousnes, O Sinope the quene.' In nine 7-line stanzas (sixty-three lines) ; one stanza for each lady. For the list, see Ch. Pieces, p. xiii. [Virelai.] From the Trin. MS., fol. 160; see Ch. Pieces, no. XXV. p. 448. This piece has no title either in Stowe or in the MS. ; the name ' Virelay ' in Moxon's edition was due to a remark by Tyrwhitt, who cautiously, or perhaps incautiously, spoke of it as being 'perhaps by Chaucer,' and said that ' it comes nearer to the description of a Virelay than anything else of his that has been pre- served.' But this is incorrect ; see note to Anelida, 1. 256 ; in Ch. Works, vol. i. p. 536. To attribute it to Chaucer is impossible, from the nature of the case. For each line consists of four syllables only, the forty lines having the rimes thus arranged : aaabaaab: b bbcbbbc\cccdcccd\dddeddde\eeefeeef. But in Chaucer's language many of these lines would have five syllables, as — 'And sor-e sighing' — ' Out of mesur-e ' — and so on ; and some of the rimes would become no rimes, viz. such as lal-e, adv. (dissyllabic), hat-e (dissyllabic), wh^t § 105] VARIOUS BALLADS 123 (a monosyllable) ; certain, peyn-e. Finally, the rime find-e, end-e, is indefensible, unless the author pronounced them 2& find, ind, riming with wind. Probably the poem is in the East-Anglian dialect. It contains the interesting word ure, destiny, which is common in Barbour, but occurs also in Lydgate and Skelton (both East-Anglians) and in The Court of Love, written by a clerk of Cambridge. A Ballade; Trin. MS., fol. 160. It begins— ' In the season of Feuerere, when it was full colde.' In seven 7-line stanzas (forty-nine lines). In praise of the daisy, and very poor. Some of the lines seem to have six accents. Chaucer would not have rimed red-e (red) with Margarete ! A Ballade; Trin. MS., fol. 161. In twelve 7-line stanzas. The Trin. MS. has thirteen stanzas, but Stowe omitted the tenth, because it coincides with st. 19 of the Craft of Lovers. It is made up of scraps from other poems. Stanzas 1-4 form part of a poem on the fall of man, from Lydgate's Court of Sapience. It begins — ■ O mercifull and o merciable.' In st. 8 occurs the assonance of hote (hot) with stroke ; and in st. 9, that of cureth with renueth. The Judgement of Paris; Trin. MS., fol. 161, back. Stowe's heading is — ■ Here foloweth how Mercurie with Pallas, Venus, and Minarua (sic) appered to Paris of Troie, he slepyng by a fountain.' In four 7-line stanzas (twenty- eight lines) ; apparently incomplete. It is but a poor per- formance. A Balade plesaunte ; Trin. MS., fol. 205. Begins — 1 1 haue a Ladie where so she bee.' In seven 7-line stanzas. Meant to be facetious ; e. g. ' Her skin is smothe as any oxes tong.' Imitated from Lydgate's poem entitled A Satirical Description of his Lady, in Lydgate's Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 199. The author says that when he was fifteen years old, he saw the wedding of queen Jane ; and that was so long ago that there cannot be many- such as himself still alive. As Joan of Navarre was married 124 STOWE'S EDITION [§ 105 to Henry IV in 1403, he was born in 1388, and would have been sixty-two in 1450. This gives us a likely date for these precious productions. An-other Balade ; Trin. MS., fol. 205, back. Begins — 1 mossie Quince, hangyng by your stalke.' In four 7-line stanzas, of which Stowe omits the second, though it is less scurrilous than the other stanzas. It runs thus : — 'Wyne, women, worshyp, vnweldy age Make men to fonne, for lak in theyr^ resons; Elde causeth dulnesse and dotage, And worship chaunge of condicions ; Excesse of wyne blyndeth theyr^ dyscrecions ; And alk bodkes that poetef made and radde Seyen women most make men madde.' Two of Lydgate's stanzas are on the same theme. See § 102, p. 118. A balade, warnyng men to be ware of deceitptfull (sic) women ; Trin. MS., fol. 207. See Ch. Pieces, no. XIV. p. 295. In seven 7-line stanzas; with the refrain — ' Bewar therfore ; the blind et [eats] many a fly.' This is much the best of these poems, and is probably Lydgate's, being, indeed, in his most characteristic style. There is a better copy in the Trinity MS. marked O. 9. 38, with a unique additional stanza, so that the poem really consists of seven stanzas, as said above, though Stowe prints but six, as in his MS. There is yet another copy in MS. Harl. 2251, which contains a large number of Lyd- gate's poems. It was attributed to Lydgate by Tyrwhitt, who refers us to this MS. ; but I do not find Lydgate's name against this poem in particular, though the poem which follows it is so marked. Note that in the Trinity MS. it is preceded by a well-known poem of Lydgate's, written as a satire upon the extravagant ' horns ' then worn by ladies. Why Stowe omitted that poem it is difficult to § io;] PRAISE OF CHAUCER 1 25 understand, as he prints some that precede it, and one that follows it. The Court of Love. This poem occurs quite at the end of the Trinity MS., in a later hand of the sixteenth century. So much has been made of this pleasing but much over-rated poem that it will be discussed separately, in the next chapter. 106. Praise of Chaucer. There is yet one more poem printed by Stowe and due to this seductive MS., viz. the single stanza which he inserted at the end of Thynne's portion of the volume, by way of a finale, with the title — ' A balade in the Praise and commendacion of master GerTray Chauser for his golden eloquence ' ; from the Trin. MS., fol. 25. See Ch. Pieces, no. XXIX. p. 450. It begins — l Maister GerTray chauser, that now lithe in graue. It occurs, in the MS., at the end of a copy of The Parle- ment of Foules. In Stowe's edition, it is printed on fol. cxxxvii, back. 107. One rather wonders what happened to this book of Stowe's, as the foliation, near the end, is so eccentric. After fol. cccxxxvii (ending Thynne's portion) comes fol. cccxl. After fol. cccxliv, which ends the extracts from the Trinity MS. (with the sole exception of the Court of Love), comes fol. cccxxxix, containing a genuine poem by Chaucer (A Complaint to his Lady) and one other piece of which the last two lines run over on to the next folio, where (together with the word Explicit) they are crowded up so as to occupy only half an inch. And this next folio, on which the Court of Love begins, is called fol. cccxlviii. That is to say, fol. cccxxxviii is replaced by five leaves, the first of which is misnumbered cccxl in unusually small type, whilst the other four leaves contain pieces all of which are from the Trinity MS. Then comes fol. cccxxxix, as if only one leaf had originally intervened after fol. cccxxxvii. And lastly, when we come to The Court of 126 STOWE'S EDITION \o\ Love, it is at fol. cccxlviii, as if several leaves had been taken out. It looks as if some special manoeuvring took place at the last moment, in order to include the poems from the Trinity MS. ; and some further contrivance was again necessary, in order to include The Court of Love. Chance of the Dice. I take the opportunity of men- tioning here a poem which Stowe attributed to Chaucer, though it is included neither in his edition of 1561, nor in Speght's edition of 1598. Professor Hales kindly refers me to the passage in Stowe's Survey of London descriptive of St. Andrew's Undershaft, the church in which, by the way, Stowe was himself buried; see the reprint of the Survey by Thorns, P- 54. ' Geoffrey Chaucer, writing of a vain boaster, hath these words, meaning of the said shaft: — Right well aloft and high ye beare your heade, The weather-cocke with flying as ye would kill; When ye be stuffed, bet of wine then brede, Then looke ye, when [that] your wombe doth fill, As ye would beare the great shaft of Cornehill. Lord ! so merily crowdeth then your crok[k]e That all the streete may heare your body clok[k]e.' A marginal note by Stowe says — ■ Chaucer, Chance of Dice.' I have succeeded in identifying the above passage. It is the sixth stanza of an anonymous poem entitled Chance of the Dice, extant in MS. Fairfax 16, fol. 194. The MS. supplies the word that in 1. 4, and gives the reading floon, i. e. ' arrows,' in place of the nonsensical flying in 1. 2. It also corrects croke and cloke to crokke and clokke. Crowdeth means ' presses forward ' ; crokke, ' crock,' i. e. round paunch ; c/okke } ' cluck,' make an inarticulate noise (N. E. D., s. v. Cluck, verb (2), § 3). The poem is certainly not Chaucer's, but it may be Lydgate's. CHAPTER XII THE COURT OF LOVE 108. It is only by an abuse of language that The Court of Love can be said to be 'attributed to Chaucer.' We have seen that even Stowe hesitated as to whether he ought to insert pieces from what is now the Trinity MS., and when he came to The Court of Love, written in the handwriting of his own age, he seems to have hesitated again. He was doubtless strongly influenced by the fact that he had really discovered the unique copy of an un- printed and meritorious poem ; and considering the very large number of non-Chaucerian pieces which he had already admitted into his volume, we can hardly wonder that he finally decided upon giving the world the benefit of his discovery. And in fact, he did quite as well in printing this poem, as in adding Lydgate's Siege of Thebes. Rightly understood, the association of this poem with Chaucer amounts to no more than this ; that, when Stowe was reprinting for the fourth time a collection of Middle- English poems, containing most of Chaucer's genuine works together with a still larger number composed by numerous other poets, he thought well to take the opportunity of publishing an unknown poem of which he had fortunately secured the sole copy. And that is all that can be said. 128 THE COURT OF LOVE [§ 109 109. It is singular that the possibility of the genuineness of this poem is still somewhat despairingly clung to ; for the case against it is of exceptional clearness. It has been well stated by Prof. Lounsbury in his Studies in Chaucer, i. 497 ; from whom I quote a few sentences : — 'The evidence against its being a work of Chaucer's is overwhelming. It fails, in the first place, to conform to every test that has been laid down. It rymes together constantly words belonging to the groups designated by their endings in -ye and -y and -e. It surpasses "The Flower and the Leaf" in the extent to which it rymes words that grammatically have different terminations. Of the two hundred and six stanzas of which it consists, there are more than thirty cases in which the sense is carried on from one to another. . . The very names of two of the characters, Philogenet and Philobone, point to the com- position of the poem as belonging to a period when the study of Greek was reviving in the west, and that did not even begin till after the capture of Constantinople in 1453. . . . The grammar of the poem proves beyond question that it does not belong to the fourteenth century. On this point there can be no difference of opinion among students of English. . . . The peculiarity about this poem is that it has a modern grammar with an archaic vocabulary, and the vocabulary has at times been borrowed without its being thoroughly comprehended.' Professor Lounsbury proceeds to insist on the extreme rareness of the use of the words do, doth, did, as mere auxiliaries in writings of the fourteenth century j and adds — 'Such forms as do hight (145), doth stik (675), doth shine (787), doth wryte (798), doth hew (980), doth plese (1008), doth stere (stir, 1068), doth bete (beat, 1090^ doth unshit (unshut, 1245), and doth purvey (1396) occurring in a poem of fourteen hundred lines, would be hard to explain, even were there evidence of no other kind to meet. . . . But one § in] THE COURT OF LOVE 129 instance — the preterite did honge — is to be found in " The Flower and the Leaf" (245).' 1 He also notices the failure of the author in his attempts to imitate archaic diction ; remarking — ' He was trying to do earlier what Spenser tried to do later. This much can be said for him, that the latter failed more signally than he.' 110. As my object is less to furnish the full proof of this matter than to enable the reader to prove it for him- self, I shall indicate the methods to be used without pressing home every point. Unless the student does some of the work for himself, he will never comprehend the full force of the arguments, but will probably underrate them unduly. The point is, that The Court of Love hopelessly fails to meet most (though not all) of the various tests. We will try some of them in order, beginning with § 28 in Chapter III. 111. Final -es. 1. Final -es marks the gen. case sing, of substantives. Examples in The Court of Love : quen-ss, 104, 292 ; king-es, 126, 272; /ov-es, 91, 179, 191; wight-es, 312; &c. This suffix lasted long as an archaism, and was well understood ; cf. night-es starves, in Sackville's Induction, st. 9. 2. The plurals of substantives. Ex. flour-es, 5 ; term-es, 15; drop-es, 22; &c. Examples are numerous; but the suffix lasted long, and is common in Hawes. The plurals stones, 77, sterres, 82, seem to be monosyllabic. The pi. estat-es, 84, is suspicious ; for Chaucer has estats 2 . 3. The adverbial suffix. Ex. none. On the other hand, The Court of Love has hens, 739, 1326; hensforth, 289; 1 I observe five instances in The Assembly of Ladies, 6, 41, 195, 466, 590 {not 569) ; but it is both longer and later than The Flower and the Leaf. The Court of Love (with ten examples) is less than twice as long. 2 I do not give references to Chaucer, as they can be found in my Glossarial Index. 130 THE COURT OF LOVE [§ 112 ons, once, 994; thens, 1269 • whens, 905 ; and in 931, ellis is really els. This direct contradiction to Chaucer's grammar is extremely serious. 112. Final -en. The author of The Court of Love practically makes this suffix take the place of Chaucer's final -e. Unluckily, he introduces it not only where it is correct, but where it is not. 4. The infinitive mood. Ex. writen, 35, maken, 81, by den, 189, stiren, 324, beten, 324, quyten, 327, sweren, 509; &c. In at least some of these cases Chaucer would have used -e. 5. The gerund. Ex. to dressen, 179; by den, 321, semen, 607, ho/den, 683, shewen, 784, seken, 838, laughen, ion ; cf. 1165, 1 1 86, 1335. 6. The pp. of a strong verb. Ex. holden, 62 ; shapen, 136, 816, 1354; growen, 182; yeven, 547, 742; dronken, 998 • blotven, 1240. But all these forms lasted till late, and some are still in use. 7. Plural of the present tense. Ex. taken, 10, wailen, 256, foten, 586, speden, 945, approchin, 121 2, singen, 1384, rejoisen, 1435. With «*: 1153, 1155, 1405; wither 958, 999. Plural of the past tense. Ex. spakin, 624; cf. 822, 1208, 1375. In at least .razw* of these cases, Chaucer would have used -* ; but our author does not seem to have known this. 8. Prepositions. Ex. withouten, 125, 187, 249, 317, 486, 959. Adverbs-, none. The above references record only the author's successes ; his failures are far more numerous, as he frequently forgets to add either -en or -e j these failures will be noted below in § 103. I will only observe here that he did not k?iow that the final -en had any etymological value in the prep. withouten) hence he actually has without \ See 11. 320, 740, 979. He even has without, accented on the former syllable ! ! See 1. 69. On the other hand, the fictitious character of the final ■en appears from the fact that it is exhibited in wholly § ii3] THE COURT OF LOVE 131 impossible forms. It would be difficult to match, from any author, the following utterly disgraceful specimens : — that thou serven, 290 5 that she me helden, 347 ; to tyme [i. e. until] thou seen, 499 ; thay kepten been, 526 ; I kepen, 684; if this mater springen out, 725 ; if that I . . greven, 928; that god hath . . leften, 1166. 113. Final -e ; cf. §§ 30-34. 9. Substantives of A. S. origin. Ex. none. Why is this? Why are tong(e), 807, sterire), 580, hart (for hert-e\ 635, 717, 1090, mere monosyllables? 10. Substantives of F. origin. Ex. none. But why not? Why are best(e), 594, fest(e) t 1425, monosyllabic? 11. 12. Datives and genitives. Ex. none. On the other hand, where Chaucer has herte rote, our author has hartes rote, 1263. For how could he have known that herte might represent a genitive ? 13. Adjectives of A.S. origin. Ex. none. 14. Adjectives of F. origin. Ex. none. 15. Adjectives ; plural. Ex. none. 16. Adjectives; definite. Ex. in thilk'e place, 642; his len'e bodie, 1257; cf. prymerose, 1437. Not enough for so long a poem j the number of failures is large ; ex. her hygh, 1\ the fresh, 231; the first, 304; the thrid, 316; the fourth, 323; the fifth, 330 ; &c. 17. Verbs ; the infinitive. Ex. none. We actually find passe, 329, reyve, 331, tell(e) f 343, &c, treated as mono- syllables. 18. The gerund. Ex. to dred-e, 603; to serv-e, 909. Not enough. Cf. dy\ 317, pies', 471, &c, &c. 19. Pp. of a strong verb. Ex. none. Cf. withhold', 991, begon', 1064, &c. 20. Ft. t.ofa weak verb. Ex. none. But we find led fox lad-de, 219, caught', 218, dred for drad-de, 771, £??/ for grette, 772, &c. ax. Other verbal inflexions. Ex. none. K 2 132 THE COURT OF LOVE [§ 114 22. Adverbs and prepositions. Ex. amidd-e, 188. Not enough ; cf. § 112 (8). Surely the failures are most conspicuous; it needs no specialism to see them. And they abound. 114. But the fact is simply, that the author knew no more about Chaucerian grammar than if he had been born in the sixteenth century, so that when we come to investigate his rimes from this point of view, his blunders are dis- tressing. He did not know that the final -e had a gram- matical value, so that, in 1. 13, when he rimed write with aright, he not only ignored the guttural gh, but he rimed aright (without a final -e) with the infin. writ-e or zuryt-e, in which a final -e is grammatically essential. The blunders of this sort are numerous ; but I purposely give only the references ; for the student may learn more by finding out what is wrong for himself than he can learn by having all the details explained. If, for example, he examines 1. 65, he will see that wend and frend are, in Chaucer (see Glos. Index \ respectively wend-e and freend, which give no rime. The references are : 65, 86, 121, 128, 149, 188, 216, 225, 251, 359, 400, 407, 408, 440, 456, 457, 468, 491, 517, 5 2 2, 5 2 7, 534, 5 66 > 58o, 587, 643, 652, 727, 736, 751, 762, 797, 800, 809, 842, 863, 895, 951, 1038, 1049, 1063, 1077, 1 1 08, &c. 115. Rime-tests. See Ch. IV. §§ 38-46. It is absurd to suppose that a late poem of this description can conform to rime-tests. But it is best to be remorseless j so I proceed. Rimes in -y and -ye. These endings are, of course, jumbled together. Ex. descry(e), hy, 97 ; verily, signify(e), 102 ; I, dy(e), 212 ; I, espy(e), 282 j and see 298, 405, 419, 695, 704, 1014, 1138, 1147, 1152, 1348, 1420 1 . 1 I give only the references ; partly to save space, and partly because the student should really do just a little of the work for himself. He has only to refer to my Glossarial Index. I give the number of the former of the lines to be compared. § ii7] THE COURT OF LOVE 133 Rimes in -ight, -yt. These are likewise mixed up. Ex. write, aright, 13; delyt, hight, 144; delyt, sight, 452; bright, whyte, 790 ; delyt, knight, 870. Open and close o. See § 40. Our author seems to keep these apart ; but, though he succeeds in this respect, he rimes doon with son-e thrice, 155, 272, 944. And the rime of pore, to pore upon, with colour, 1273, is ab- normal. And I take occasion here to notice his rime of environ (Chaucer, enviroim, riming with adoun, Leg. 300) with bbn, one, 1 03 1. Much worse is that of opinion with the pp. begon in 1. 1063, because Chaucer's forms are opinioun and begon-ne. Equally extraordinary is that of nonne (a nun), 1 149, with boun, a Northern abbreviation of bound or bounden ; because Chaucer's forms are nonne (nuivna) and bound-en or bound-e. Open and close e. See § 45. These are usually distinguished ; yet we find the rime of grene (A.S. grene), green, with dhie (A.S. cl&ne), clean, 816. 116. Even the above difficulties are not all. There still remain to be explained away such rimes as kepe, flete, 309, which is a mere assonance; eke, lyke, 561 ; lyke, stik, 673 ; plaint, talent, 716 ; offencion, begon (Ch. has offencioun, began), 921 • eloquence, hens (Ch. has eloquenc-'e, hemies), 933 J opinion, begon (already noted), 1063 ; frend, mind, 1056; company ^ destine, n 70; here, desire, 1301. Worst of all is here, grene, 253; yet the text looks correct. A very moderate acquaintance with Chaucer will soon demon- strate that he perpetrates no such offences as these l . 117. If we try to obtain positive evidence as to what the poem really is, it is not too much to say that the 1 One ought almost to draw a veil over such examples of ' grammar ' as thou wot, 1045 ; thou can, 462 ; and the grotesque change of counterpleted be to counterpleted indede in 1. 429, which is stolen from Ch. Leg. 476. 134 THE COURT OF LOVE [§ 117 evidence strictly limits it to the very end of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth. The New English Dictionary will one day enable us to test its vocabulary. We can already do so to some extent ; for it is surprising how many words appear in this poem for the first time. I note, for example, the earliest dates which the Dictionary gives as other examples of a word's appearance : — demene, demeanour, 734, and in More (a.d. 1534); dulled, 478, known in a.d. 1514; bedreint, 577, known in 1563; flawe = flave, yellow, 782, known in 1657 ; directed, 785 (instead of Chaucer's direct), known in 1598; assomoned, 170, known in 1594; bass, 797, known in 1529; aureat, 817, known in 1599. The following examples are the earliest known (i. e. if the Court of Love be set aside): — aged, in, known in 1440; as blife, 161, found in Lydgate, ab. 1413; absent {oneself ), 190, found in Hoccleve, ab. 1420 ; baleis, 80, known in 1414 ; acroke ,378, used by Caxton j cocold (for Ch. cok-e-7vold\ 410, ab. 1530 (see p. 113); to/on, 458, known in 1440; courtly, in the sense of 'polite,' 474, known in 1460 ; clenliness, 475, found in Lydgate, ab. 1430; celsitude, 611, found in Dunbar, ab. 1500; bay-iuindow, 1058, known in 1428; patens, 1087, known in 1440; deformity, 1169, used by Caxton, &c. No example is known, in the fourteenth century, of demure, 653; devoid of, 667 (Rom. Rose, but in Fragment B, viz. in 1. 3723); a fig for, 685 ; or of the phrase to give a horn, 1390. All these things require explanation. And what is meant by dye and sterve, 301 ? Quite a beginner can see the difference between the accentuation of words here and in Chaucer. Cf. Ch. desirous, C. L. desirous, 44 ; Ch. withbut-en, C. L. without, 69; Ch. bbeisdunc-e, C. L. obeisance, 213; Ch. visdg-e, C. L. visage, 224, 275 j; Ch. condici-oun, four syllables, C. L. condition, three syllables, 259; so also exception, 261, sup- § u8] THE COURT OF LOVE 135 plicacion, 977. Such changes are, at least some of them, of late date. 118. The pronunciation shows that the poem was written after the change of long e to its modern sound, which began in the North, but took time to reach the South. Hence ee, eye, rimes with degree, 132, and with see, 768 ; company with destine, n 70; yen-=.een, eyes, with lyne (liin), 135 ; here with desire, 1301 ; and eke with fyke, 561, just as fyne rimes with seen in Sackville's Induction, sL 68. At 1. 543, reyve, for reve, seems to be an alteration made for the sake of getting a rime to deceive and gleyve. The smoothness of the metre, as compared with that of Hawes \ is easily explained from the fact that the author was probably familiar with Scottish poetry, such as that of King James (whom he sometimes imitates), Dunbar 2 , and others. A trace of this appears in the Northern form me thinkes, 874. But he was probably an East- Anglian ; for we have traces of -in for -en, as in spakin, 624, and approchin and bringin in the same stanza, 121 2, 1217; and we may note his use of the word ure, 634, 862, which occurs in Lydgate and Skelton and in Northern writers, and of the Northern boun for bounden, 1151 ; see N. E. D. His statement that he was 'of Cambridge, clerk,' 913, may perhaps be taken in the most literal sense. The proof of the lateness of the date of The Court of Love is so complete that, owing to purely lexicographical facts, the editors of the New English Dictionary have found themselves compelled to adopt so late a date as c. 1530; as under Horn, 6. b. If it was inspired by the appearance of Thynne's Chaucer, the date is about 1533. 1 Hawes seems to have copied Lydgate. But the poems of Surrey, Wiat, Higgins. and Sackville are reasonably smooth. * Whence, probably, his cclsihtde and ptticritude, 611, 613. CHAPTER XIII ADDITIONS BY SPEGHT 119. Two reprints of ' Chaucer ' were issued by Speght in 1598 and 1602. He professed to 'edit' the book; but he does not appear to have much improved the text by his alterations, which are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong. I give a specimen of each sort. In the Prologue, 1. 123, Thynne (1532) has : — Entewned in her voyce ful semely — which was reproduced in the later editions, until Speght altered voyce to nose ; correctly. In the same, 1. 212, Thynne (1532) has : — He had made ful many a maryage. And here Speght altered made to rid; wrongly. See further in Lounsbury's Studies, i. 276. Speght also pro- vided a Life of Chaucer, a list of his works, arguments to the poems, and a glossary. The glossary is a fine store-house of 'ghost-words,' and was largely drawn upon by Skinner, Kersey, and Bailey. Thus, where Chaucer has farsed, stuffed, in 1. 233 of the Prologue, Speght gives it as fassed) this Skinner misread as sassed and then turned into sased, which he imagined to mean 'seised.' Sased is a ghost-word, having no real existence ; and this is how such words are made. Coles, in 1684, gave : ' Sased, stuffed ' ; showing that he knew the right sense required. 120. In the edition of 1598, Speght added but three § i2o] CHAUCER'S DREAM 137 more pieces, all spurious ; viz. Chaucer's Dream, A Ballad, and The Flower and the Leaf. He inserted them just after The Court of Love and before Chaucer's Words to Adam, in order that the latter poem might conclude the volume, i. e. not counting Lydgate's Siege of Thebes. For some mysterious reason, the Ballad is generally looked upon as being part of the Dream, though it is quite a distinct piece, and is separated from it by six lines, of no value, which have nothing to do with either the Dream or the Ballad ! Chaucer's Dream. This title was assigned to the poem by way of begging the question j for it is of later date than Chaucer's time. The proper title seems to have been The Isle of Ladies, which rightly describes it. There is (or was) a MS. of it at Longleat, written in the sixteenth century, about 1550, and another in the British Museum of about the same date, viz. MS. Addit. 10303. See Thynne's Animadversions, ed. Furnivall, p. 30, and Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, i. 482. It consists of 2206 lines 1 , in the same metre as The Hous of Fame, and is printed in the editions by Chalmers, Moxon, Bell, and Morris. Tyrwhitt unluckily opined that.it might be genuine, but no one now adopts this view. It is a case in which rime-tests are very useful, as the rimes are often truly astonishing and significant. Thus the rime of be with companie, 107, 121, at once shows that the date is after the change of M.E. long e to the sound which it has at present ; and this is clinched by the rimes of grene (better green) with yene (better een, i.e. eyes) at 11. 351, 17 19; and of nine with green, 1861. We are far away from Chaucer when we find queen riming with kneen, pi. of knee, 293, 1779; for the Chaucerian 1 In Morris's edition the lines are misnumbered. The reprints seem to be very incorrect. 138 SPEGHT'S EDITIONS [§ 120 forms are quen-e and know-es. And this is quite enough. To find more such curiosities is an easy task. Indeed, the very next rime to that of green, een, is formed with the words pleasaunce and fesannce, where fesaunce is a playful way of spelling ' pheasants.' But we can go further; for the Northern character of this piece is somewhat strongly marked. Thus at 1. 331, the rime stonds (i. e. stands) and londs (lands) really indicates that the forms are siond-es, lond-es ; for the Southern and Midland stondeth will not rime at all. At 1. 323, we find the rime of know with low, where lowe is a licentious spelling of mod.E. law ; hence the original rime was that of knaiu (or knawes) with law (or lawes) ; and knaw is Northern. The Northern pres. part, in -and occurs in servand, livand, 1629; and in avisand, riming with hand, 1883. Hence it is neither Chaucer's nor Lydgate's. However, it is not Scottish, but only a northern form of Midland j indeed, the author is not consistent throughout, for at one time he has goth (goeth) riming with wroth, 785, and at another has goes, riming with rose, 1287, 1523. Mere assonances sometimes occur, as in undertakes, scapes, 337; remeniber, tender, 141 5. It bears no resemblance whatever to Chaucer's poetry, and is really one of the fifteenth-century romances. It should be compared with Chestre's Sir Launfal. A Ballad. Strictly speaking, there are two pieces here, which are unconnected. The first is a very short and worthless poem of six lines, consisting of three heroic couplets (the third line having lost a word or two) ; whilst the second is in the regular ballad form, consisting of three 7-line stanzas, with a retrain. But instead of an envoy, there are merely these two lines, probably added by a later hand : — 1 Ye that this ballad rede shall, I pray you, keep you from the fall.' § 121] FLOWER AND LEAF 139 The Ballad begins — 'Go forth, myn owne trewe herte innocent ' ; and the refrain is — ' Give thee the blis that thou desirest ofte.' I think this Ballad is of the early part of the fifteenth century, and is almost certainly Lydgate's. These pieces are only connected with Chaucer's Dream by the accident that they occur in the same MSS. 121. The Flower and the Leaf. In eighty-five 7-line stanzas (595 lines). See Ch. Pieces, no. XX. p. 361. No MS. copy is known. This poem has so frequently been praised, that I feel some diffidence in saying that perhaps too much has been made of it. Still, this does not dispose of the fact that, like the Assembly of Ladies, it claims to be the production of a woman ; nor of yet another fact that, whilst it is much superior to the Assembly of Ladies, it has so much in common with it that we cannot shut our eyes to the natural conclusion that the same authoress wrote both these poems. Both consist almost wholly of descriptions, and are wholly lacking in interesting touches of personal character. Whatever opinions they express are of a highly genteel and ladylike order. It was doubtless attributed to Chaucer because he refers to the flower and the leaf (which seems to have been a common theme, touched upon also by Gower and by Eustace Deschamps) in his Legend, 11. 188-194. But it is remarkable that, while the authoress most distinctly pro- nounces in favour of the lasting leaf and against the fading flower, Chaucer is careful to say that he expressly declines to express a preference for one above the other. Cf. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, i. 493. The arguments against the genuineness of both these poems (for they stand or fall together) have been given at some length in my Chaucerian Pieces, pp. lxii-lxx. I merely give here a summary of them. 1. Nearly all the descriptions are characteristic of a 140 SPEGHT'S EDITIONS [§121 woman ; there are minute references to colours, dresses, ornaments, and decorations. In both poems, the ladies vie with each other as to who looks the best (F. 188, A. 384; where F. = Flower, and A. = Assembly). 2. The two poems have many phrases, and even whole lines in common. I here merely point out one example. 1 And forth they yede togider, twain and twain ' ; F. 295. • See how they come togider, twain and twain ' ; A. 350. 3. Both use very with an adj., as in very rede, very good, F. 10, ^3^ 3 I 5'> A. 479. This construction is found in Lydgate, but not in Chaucer. 4. There are abundant examples in which F. trans- gresses Chaucer's grammatical usages as explained in Chap. III. The use of the final -e is artificial, fitful, and capri- cious. It is regarded as ornamental, not as necessary to the grammar. This the reader can discover for himself, if he knows how to analyse the lines. For the information of beginners, I give the numbers of the lines where words that require no final -e are made to rime with those that do so. See the words that rime with those that terminate the following lines, viz. 16, 27, 30, 48, 62, 69, 74, 85, 90, 99, 106, 114, 130, 148, 162, 167, 174, 181, 188, 202, 207, 209, 212, 219, 230, 249, 260, 282, 298, 312, 324, 337, 347, 389, 398, 414, 417, &c. It is a pretty exercise for a novice to find out what is wrong ; when in doubt, he can look out the words in the Glossarial Index to Chaucer. Thus, at 1. 16, the rimes are night, might, wight; but, unluckily, might should be mighte. 5. But these errors are merely in final words. In the middle of a line, they are not infrequent. Thus 1. 53 seems to run rightly : — ' That most lyk to green wol [woo/], wot I, it was.' The accent on to is unpleasant ; but the fatal error lies in green • for Chaucer's form is always the dissyllabic gren-e. The heroic remedy is to omit to ; but this cannot be done in all such cases. Are we to omit § 122] JACK UPLAND 141 fresh in 1. 109 — 'Wher she sat in a fresh green laurer- tree ' ? Not so ; for, at 1. 249, green has to rime with the monosyllabic pp. seen. 6. The ignorance of Chaucer's grammar is very marked in such cases as forshronk as a pp., which ought to be for- shronke, 358; in the use of rood as a plural, instead of riden, 449, 454. Read riden, and then observe the re- sulting discord. In 1. 282, began rimes with man j un- luckily, began is a grammatical blunder for begonne (with = short u). The form ware, meaning 'wore,' takes the strong form, 259, 261, 267, as in modern English; whereas Chaucer has the weak form wered. 7. Of course the endings -y and -ye are mixed up; see 11. 85, 106, 130, 162, 174, &c. 8. The rime of be with pretily, 89, points clearly to the fifteenth century. 9. The open o seems to be distinguished from the close o (as in modern English). But the open and close e are jumbled together twice. At 1. 43, we find brede, breadth (A.S. brczdo), wede, a weed (A.S. weod); and at 1. 289, we find grene (A.S. grene), dene (A.S. cl&ne). 10. These rimes are imperfect: — note, sot, 99; orietit, wante, 148 ; cf. be, pretily, 89. 11. When all these things (and many more) have been explained away, what is to be done with 11. 519, 520? 1 Eek ther be knightes olde of the Garter, That in hir tyme did right worthily.' It is not a historical fact that Chaucer wrote many years after the order of the Garter was founded. 122. Speght brought out another edition in 1602, in which he added two more pieces, viz. Jack Upla?id and Chaucer's ABC. As the latter is genuine, it need not be discussed. Jack Upland. This is an outspoken and rather fierce 142 SPEGHT'S EDITIONS [§122 attack upon the friars, written in prose in the form of ques- tions, and is obviously not Chaucer's. It was at once replied to by one John Walsingham, who called himself Friar Daw Topias ; whereupon Jack immediately issued a rejoinder, in which he refers to the recent seasonable hanging of some friars, which took place in June, 1402. Probably all three pieces belong to that year. The Reply of Friar Daw, and Jack's rejoinder, are printed in Political Poems and Songs, ed. Wright, ii. 16. Speght was perhaps aware that Jack Upland had been previously printed. A copy exists in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, which seems to have been printed about 1536 1 ; and though Speght's text occasionally diners from it, there may have been some intermediate edition. He may have introduced corrections in the few places where his text offers an improvement. On the whole, the earlier text is a better one. It is printed in Ch. Pieces, no. III. p. 191 • and a facsimile of the title-page forms the frontispiece to the present volume. I have not succeeded in finding any MS. copy. 1 It is bound up with another tract dated 1536, and printed in the same type and style. The title-page quotes a verse from Ezekiel xiii, as it stands in Coverdale's Bible (1535). CHAPTER XIV ADDITIONS BY URRY AND OTHERS 123. A reprint of Speght's edition appeared in 1687 ; but it need not detain us. The next edition, by John Urry, in 1721, is the worst of the set. Urry had singular notions as to how Chaucer should be spelt, and it is both difficult and useless to discern his methods. But it is necessary to say that he added two new pieces to the pile ; both of them un- doubtedly spurious, though the first is of some importance, and both have a certain interest of their own. It is sufficient to give their names. They are : — The Tale of Gamelyn, and The Mery Adventure of the Pardonere and Tapstere, forming a prologue to The Merchant's Second Tale, or The Tale of Beryn, which is duly subjoined to it. The Tale of Gamelyn. Though this tale is not by Chaucer, it belongs to his age. It is probable that he contemplated recasting it, and it would have made an admirable Yeoman's Tale. It is frequently found in a certain class of MSS. of the Canterbury Tales, where it occurs after The Cokes Tale; in consequence of which it has often been misnamed The Cokes Tale of Gamelyn. It is reprinted in my edition of Chaucer, in the Appendix to vol. iv. p. 645. I also edited it in a separate form, for the Clarendon Press, in 1884 (2nd ed. 1893). The Pardonere and Tapstere. This is a somewhat jocose account of the doings of the pilgrims when they 144 THE TALE OF BERYN [§ 123 arrived at Canterbury, and it forms a Prologue to the Tale of Beryn. It consists of 732 long lines, and is obviously a supplement to the Canterbury Tales by a later hand. The Tale of Beryn. This is a rather prolix tale, in 3292 long lines, imitated from an old French romance entitled L'Histoire du Chevalier Berinus. These two con- nected pieces are found in one MS. only of the Canterbury Tales, viz. the Duke of Northumberland's MS., no. 55, in which they are inserted after The Canon's Yeoman's Tale. It was printed from this MS. by Urry, and has since been re-edited, for the Chaucer Society, by Dr. Furnivall and Mr. W. G. Stone (1876-1887). Vol. i of Chalmers' British Poets, printed in 18 10, con- 1 / tains a very complete collection of all the works in any way associated with Chaucer, from the Canterbury Tales to the Tale of Beryn. , Tyrwhitt's edition of the Canterbury Tales, which ap- peared in five vols. 8vo. in 1775-8, and was reprinted at Oxford in two vols. 4to. in 1798, is a most valuable work, which will always retain a high place on account of the excellence of its Notes, Prefaces, and Glossary. His text is far better than that of any preceding edition ; and he did all that was at that date possible for the elucidation of his author. It is a matter for regret that his edition was limited to the Canterbury Tales alone, though his Glossary includes words from most of Chaucer's works. There is a convenient reprint by Moxon, entitled 'The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, with an Essay on his Language and Versification and an Introductory Discourse; together with Notes and a Glossary by Thomas Tyrwhitt.' Many have supposed this to mean that Tyrwhitt edited all the poems contained in the volume, which, from the nature of the case, is impossible. The Canterbury Tales alone are from Tyrwhitt's edition; the other poems are mere reprints from editions in black letter. § 124] CHAUCER'S/ PROVERBS 145 124. In later editions still further additions were made. Thus in Bell's edition of about 1856 appeared the following : — ^ Merciless Beautee ; see above (§ 54). It had pre- viously appeared, for the first time, in 1765, in Percy's Reliques of English Poetry. It is almost certainly genuine. From MS. Pepys 2006. Proverbs of Chaucer. The first eight lines are •genuine, and had been printed before; see above, § 103. But two 7-line stanzas were appended by Bell, which are wholly unconnected irith the 'Proverbs' and with each other, and are not Cnaucer's. The former stanza, begin- ning — 'The world so wyd, the eyre so remuable'— is the first stanza of a poem by Lydgate ; and the second stanza, beginning— 'The more I go, the ferther I am behinde' — is likewise the first stanza of another poem by Lydgate. See MS. Harl. 2251, fol. 22, back, and fol. 37, back; and Lydgate's Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, pp. 193, 74. Of the former poem there are other MS. copies, viz. in MS. Harl. 2255, fol. 14; MS. Rawlinson C. 86 (Bodleian); and MS. Q. r. 8, fol. 33, in the library of Jesus College, Cambridge. The mistake of putting these two detached stanzas together occurs in MS. Harl. 7333, where Shirley- attributes them to one 'Halsam squiere'; he had perhaps seen a copy made by Halsham of these two stanzas, with his name appended to them, and erroneously supposed that it was the name of the author ; and the mistake is repeated in MS. Addit. 16 165, as is more fully explained below. The reason given by Bell for subjoining these stanzas is extraordinary. ' Only the first two stanzas are given in the printed editions ; but in the MSS. which have been con- sulted for the present text, the rest follow without any dis- tinction/ As it is perfectly common for poems to follow one another in MSS. ' without any distinction,' the reason is in itself a weak one. But it loses all its force when we 146 ORISON TO THE VIRGIN [§ 124 find it to be only true in the case of one MS. out of three ! There are, in fact, but three MSS. which give the 'Pro- verbs' and the two stanzas, viz. Harl. 7578, Fairfax 16, and Addit. 16155. In Harl. 7578 the stanzas follow on, as stated, but in Fairfax 16 they immediately p7-ecede the Proverbs; whilst in Addit. 16165 they not only precede the Proverbs, but there are two other pieces in between. And besides this, the last-named copy has, above the two stanzas, this heading — ' Two verses [i. e. stanzas] made in wyse of balade by Halsham esquyer? This is an excellent example of the casual way in which ' Chaucer's poems ' have been dealt with. Orison to the Holy Virgin. Begins — ' Moder of god, and virgin undefouled.' In twenty 7-line stanzas (140 lines). This piece also appeared in Bell's Chaucer, and the reason for inserting it is easily discovered. It abounds with Northern peculiarities, because it was taken from MS. Arch. Selden B. 24, which contains a number of poems by Chaucer and others in Scottish spelling. This is the very MS. which also furnished the two pieces mentioned below, named ' Prosperity ' and ' Leaulte vault Richesse.' It so happens that, at the end of the poem which we are now considering, the Scottish scribe, who was not well informed as to the authorship of poems by English authors, added the note — ' Explicit oracio galfridi chaucere.' However, it is needless to discuss the question any further, for it is well known that he must have made a mistake. The poem was undoubtedly written by Hoccleve, and has been edited by Dr. Furnivall from the Phillipps MS., which contains a collection of Hoccleve's poems. See Hoccleve's Works, ed. Furnivall, p. 52. This piece had previously appeared in Leyden's edition of The Complaint of Scotland, published in 1801. In Morris's Chaucer, in six volumes, 1866, which was to some extent a reprint of Bell's, the additional stanzas to § 125] THE FORMER AGE I47 the Proverbs and Hoccleve's Orison to the Virgin were retained ; and the following pieces were added : — Aetas Prima ; or, The Former Age. A genuine poem, found in two MSS. of Chaucer's translation of Boethius ; viz. MSS. Camb. Univ. Library, Hh. 4. 12 and Ii. 3. 21. Prosperity. A single stanza of eight lines. It is now known to have been written by John Walton, as it is really a stanza taken from his verse translation of Boethius, written in 14 10; see Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, § 20. It is therefore not Chaucer's. It occurs in MS. Arch. Selden B. 24, fol. 119, where it is wrongly attributed to Chaucer. Leaulte vault Richesse. Another stanza of eight lines, from the same MS., fol. 138. There is no reason for supposing it to be genuine; and two for supposing it to be otherwise. It contains no example of a final -e as constituting a syllable, and it rimes the pp. lent with the infin. repent-e. This and the preceding piece were here printed for the first time. 125. In my six- volume edition, Oxford, 1894, I added the following, some of them genuine, but the rest doubtful, though illustrative of Chaucer's ' Complaints.' Balade to Rosemounde ; Minor Poems, no. XII. Genuine; attributed to Chaucer in the unique MS. copy, in MS. Rawlinson Poet. 163, which also contains Troilus. An Amorous Compleint; or Compleint D am ours ; Minor Poems, no. XXII. In thirteen 7-line stanzas, written at Windsor. External testimony is lacking; the internal testimony is somewhat in its favour. Cf. § 56. There are at least three MSS. A Balade of Compleynt; Minor Poems, no. XXIII. In Chaucer's manner; but certainly an imitation. Cf. § 57. From MS. Addit. 16 165, fol. 256, back. Womanly Noblesse. Attributed to Chaucer by Shirley, in the MS. copy. In three 9-line stanzas, with a 6-line envoy; thirty-three lines on only three rimes. It is printed L 2 148 TWO COMPLAINTS [§ 126 as Minor Poem, no. XXI V, in vol. iv. p. xxv. Cf. §58. From MS. Addit. 34360. Complaint to my Mortal Foe. Printed as Minor Poem, no. XXV, in vol. iv. p. xxvii. In four 8-line stanzas ; reasonably correct as to grammar and rimes. Cf. § 59. Complaint to my Lode-sterre. Printed as Minor Poem, no. XXVI, in vol. iv. p. xxix. In seven 7-line stanzas. Correct as to grammar and rimes, except that alas rimes with space, usually spac-e. The rime seems per- missible, as in Sir Thopas the word plac-e rimes with grac-e, but also appears asp/as, to rime with gras ; B 191 o, 1971. And, in the ' Proverbs,' we find the rime of embrac[e) with compas. Cf. § 59. The last two poems are certainly by the same author. They occur in MS. Harl. 7578, where they immediately follow Chaucer's Complaint to Pity. NOTE TO CHAPTER VI (See p. 74.) 126. The latest criticism on Fragment A of the Romaunt of the Rose occurs in an article by Dr. J. Koch, in Englische Studien, vol. xxvii. pp. 61-73. It is much to be regretted that Dr. Kaluza, to whom we owe so much for his separa- tion of Fragment A from the rest, has taken up the un- tenable position of claiming Fragment C for Chaucer, as well as Fragment A. Koch takes advantage of this at once, arguing that if Fragments A and C are by the same author, it is obvious that Chaucer wrote neither of them, because it is impossible that Fragment C can be genuine. Koch further raises difficulties by attacking the rimes in Fragment A. To my mind, not one of these difficulties is fatal, so that the attack rather strengthens the case in its favour than otherwise. It is a tedious task to show this, as the charges are, many of them, frivolous. But it is necessary, I suppose, to perform this weary task. His objections are twenty in number, but are all inconclusive. The rimes objected to are as follows. 1. Macrobes^ lees-, 1. 7. The form Macrobes is objected to, because we find Macrobeus in Book Duch. 284. But Macrobes is in the French text ; and though it be true, as Koch points out, that the passage in the Book of the Duchesse refers to the very same original, Chaucer varies his proper names so much that nothing can be concluded 150 NOTE TO CHAPTER VI from his use of Macrobeus. Unless, indeed, we are to say that the Parliament of Foules is not his, because the form there used is Macrobie (1. in). 2. gay, hay; 1. 53. The pi. hayes is in Troilus, iii. 151 ; but the singular should be dissyllabic {hay-e) ; Fr. text hate. The form is uncertain j the A.F. form occurs as le hay as early as 1302-3, in the Year-books of Edward I, years xxx and xxxi, p. 173. 3-8. gardyn, theryn, 481 ; engyn, gardyn, 601 ; cf. 11. 699, 1279, 1380. The objection is that Chaucer accents gardyn on the former syllable elsewhere. But we know how he vacillates between sdnguin and sanguyn, Aiistin and Austyn (B 163 1 ), Simkin and Simkyn (A 3941), Latin and Latyn (A 638). Yet this counts 2&five difficulties ! 9. journee, she; 1. 579. Elsewhere Chaucer has journey, riming with wey, E 783 (once only). But it is journey that is exceptional; journee is in the Fr. text, and is etymo- logically correct. In A 2738, the five best out of the seven chief MSS. have Journee, iurne, lourne. 10. pryse, deuyse ; 1. 887. We should expect preyse (as in the Glasgow MS.), not J>ryse, as in Thynne. I do not know why ; both prize and praise are in common use at this day j and the sb. prys, in the sense of ' price,' rimes with the sb. devys in A 815. The verbs pry sen and prey sen were somewhat differentiated in sense (see Prompt. Parv.) ; and pryse seems to suit the present passage. It is very common in Barbour. n. care, were; 1. 505. But here the reading must be wrong, whoever wrote the poem ; for there is no rime at all. It is clear that emendation is required, and I still believe that the former line originally ended with were, i. e. defend (it), to translate the French garisse, to which it exactly corresponds. It is highly probable that a supposed ' correc- tion ' may have been made here by the Northern continuator, or author of Fragment B, in whose eyes the repetition of ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE 151 .were seemed meaningless, and for whom such a rime as care, war, would be good enough. That Fragment A, with its perfect Midland grammar, is not in the Northern dialect, must be obvious to all. 12. shet, mette; 134 1. It is admitted that the text is here faulty, whoever wrote the poem ; for it contradicts the very careful grammar found in the rest of the piece. Koch declares that the grammar is correct ; i. e. that shet is the pp. of sheten, to shoot ! But the pp. of sheten is shoten, and shet is the pp. of shetten, to enclose. 13. been, wreen; 1. 55. Elsewhere, Chaucer has wryen. But wreen is a correct form ; and two good MSS. have wre for wrye in Troil. ii. 380. We can conclude nothing certain from such things as these. 14. ageyn, leyn (gerund); 1. 183. Elsewhere, Chaucer has leye, not leyn. But leye and leyn are equivalent ; cf. leyn, pr. pi., H 222. Chaucer rimes leyn, pp. with seyn, E 2393 ; and seyn with ageyn only nine lines further on. 15. pope-holy, prively ; 1. 415. Here Koch coolly pro- poses to alter the 'unmeaning' word pope-holy to papelardie, merely because papelardie occurs in Fragment C, 6796 (by another author). The object, of course, is to try to establish a case in which a word in -ye rimes with a word in -y ; precisely the very thing that does not occur in Fragment A at all. The unfortunate word pope-holy is called an obvious scribal error ! But it was once rather a favourite word with our ancestors, as show^n in my note to Piers Plowman, C. vii. 37. Strictly speaking, it is an adjective ; but it could be used as a sb. also, as by Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 46 — \ And {ox pop holy and vyce loke wel aboute ■ — where it means ' hypocrisy.' That it was a popular corruption of papelardie is quite possible ; if so, it is, all the more, the right word to employ here. 16. sak, stak\ 1. 457. Here stak is used intransitively; whereas Chaucer elsewhere uses it as transitive (see Troil. 152 NOTE TO CHAPTER VI iii. 1372). But why not? The author of Pearl has stek,. pt. t. s. intransitive, Gawain, 152; and steken, pt. t. pi. transitive, Cleanness, 884. Chaucer himself uses stikked as equivalent to stak (transitive) in Legend, 2202 ; and makes the pp. y-stiked, A 1565. There is much confusion, in M.E., in such verbs as this, both as to form and usage ; and it is remarkable that such a fact should evoke any surprise. ty. flokkes, laverokkes ; 1. 661. Elsewhere, we are told, Chaucer uses only the form larke, not laverokke. But why not both forms, seeing that lark{e) also occurs in Fragment A, 1. 915 ? Of course, Chaucer must have been quite familiar with the form laverok ; for it occurs in Gower, C. A. ii. 264. 18. love, behove ; 1. 1091. This, we are told, is a Northern rime, and therefore inadmissible. That it is not also a Southern rime has yet to be proved ; at any rate, Gowei rimes behove with glove, C. A. i. 15, glove being a perfect rime to love in modern English. And, in C. A. i. 215, he rimes it with prove. The fact is, that behove is quite an exceptional word, and frequently mispronounced; see the New Eng. Dictionary. 19. 7t>one, Rone (or woon, rooti); 1. 1673. As we do not exactly know what roon means, we cannot conclude any- thing definite as to its pronunciation. The difficulty is discussed in my Glossarial Index, which was not consulted. 20. aboute, swote \ 1. 1705. Discussed above ; seep. 79. It will be seen by any one who cares to examine the above examples, that only in case no. 20 is any of the alleged objections final or decisive. They are quite of a different character from those which occur in the case of Fragment B or Fragment C. Indeed, those numbered 3-8, 12, and 15 are mere mistakes, and tell the other way. The impres- sion which the above examination leaves upon my mind is that the objections practically fail. 127. Koch also raises the question of the vocabulary employed, but this is a very fallacious test, and quite ROMA UN T OF THE ROSE 153 indecisive. The famous Prologue is not to be rejected as spurious because it contains more than eighty words which occur nowhere else in Chaucer 1 . And it is not irrelevant to remark that the adj. deliver occurs only in Prol. 84, and in Rom. Rose 831 ; pers only in Prol. 439, 617, and in R. R. 67 ; and the adj. tretys only in Prol. 152, and in R. R. 932, 1016, 12 16. The sb. courtepy occurs only in Prol. 290, D 1382, and R. R. 230; the ad), fetis or fetys only in Prol. 157, C 478, and in R. R. 532, 776, 821, 829, 1017, 1133, 1241 ; and the pp. forpyned only in Prol. 205, A 1453, L. 2428, and R. R. 365. And when we observe that the translator of Fragment A (1. 199), in speaking of false pleaders, expresses par lor faveles by 'with hir termes and hir domes,' we can hardly help being reminded of Prol. 323 : — 'In termes had he caas and domes alle.' If we are to reject Fragment A as spurious, we can only conclude that, although fragments of three independent English versions of Le Roman de la Rose have come down to us, not any one of these constitutes any part of the version which Chaucer is known to have made. This is surely somewhat improbable ; if true, it is a case of most excep- tional ill luck. If, on the other hand, one of them can be accepted, it must obviously be that which occupies the foremost and the likeliest place, viz. Fragment A. 1 To the best of my belief this list is correct : achatour, alderman, amblere, anlas, apyked, arrerage, astored, bismotered, blankmanger, bracer, breem, ceruce, chaunterie, cherubin, drogges, dyke, vb., en- vy ned, fithel, flex, floytynge, foot-mantel, forster, fraternitee, fyr-reed, galingale, gauded, ginglen, gipser, goliardeis, grys, sb., haberdasher, harneised, hindreste, knarre, lazar, licentiat, lipsed, lode-menage, love-knotte, luce, medlee, mercenarie, mormal, mortreux, mottelee, nighter-tale, not-heed, outrydere, palmers, parisshens, parvys, pil- webeer, poraille, poudre-marchant, pricasour, pultrye, rote, sb. (viol), rouncy, sawce-fleem, scoleye, semicope, sendal, shirreve,snewed, sop- in- wyn, stemed, stepe, tabard, taffata, tapicer, trussed, tuft, tukked, undergrowe, vavassour, vernicle, wastel-breed, webbe (weaver), werte, whelkes, y-chaped, yeddinges, yeld-halle, yelding, sb. APPENDIX I. List of Chaucer's Works. The following list is arranged, conjecturally, in chronological order. On most points, scholars are agreed. Of the poems marked (a) there seem to have been two editions, (a) being the earlier. M. P. = Minor Poems (as in the Student's Chaucer). Origines upon the Magdaleyne ; lost. (See L. G.W., A 418.) Book of the Leoun ; lost. (See C. T., I 1087.) (a) Ceys and Alcioun. (Cf. C. T., B 57 ; Bk. Du. 62.) . Romaunt of the Rose, 11. 1-1705 ; rest lost. Chaucer's A. B. C. ; M.P. I. X 1369. Book of the Duchesse ; M.P. III. (a) Lyf of St. Cecile. (L. G. W., B 426 ; C. T., G 1.) A (a) Monkes Tale (parts of) ; except B 3565-3652. ab. 1372-3. (a) Clerkes Tale ; except E 995-1008, and the Envoy. Complaint unto Pity ; M. P. II. Complaint to his Lady ; M. P. VI. \ (a) Translation of the Teseide ; scraps preserved. Anelida and Arcite (10 sit, from the Teseide) ; M. P. VII. (a) The Tale of Melibeus. -(a) The Persones Tale. (a) Of the Wrecched Engendring of Mankinde. (L. G. W., A414; cf. C.T., B 99-121, 421-7, 771-7, 925-3*1 1132-8.) •J (a) Man of Lawes Tale ; afterwards amplified. 1377-81. Translation of Boethius. The Former Age (from Boethius) ; M. P. IX. Fortune (hints from Boethius) ; M. P. X. LIST OF CHAUCER'S WORKS 155 1379 ?. Complaint of Mars ; M. P. IV. 1379-83. Troilus and Criseyde (3 stt. from the Teseide). Words to Adam (concerning Boethius and Troilus) ; M. P. VIII. 1380-96?. Merciless Beaute ; M. P. XL Balade to Rosemounde ; M. P. XII. Against Women Unconstaunt ; M. P. XXI. Lak of Stedfastnesse ; M. P. XV. Gentilesse ; M. P. XIV. Truth; M. P. XIII. (a) Complaint to his Purse ; M. P. XIX. Proverbs; M. P. XX. Womanly Noblesse ; M. P. XXIV. 1382. Parlement of Foules (16 stt. from the Teseide) ; M. P. V. 1383-4. Hous of Fame. 1385-6. Legend of Good Women. 1386. Canterbury Tales begun. * 1387-8. Central period of the Canterbury Tales. , v 1389, &c. The Tales continued. w 1 39 1. Treatise on the Astrolabe. 1393 ?. Complaint of Venus ; M. P. XVIII. 1393. Lenvoy to Scogan ; M. P. XVI. 1396. Lenvoy to Bukton ; M. P. XVII. 1399. Envoy to Complaint to his Purse ; M. P. XIX. Doubtful Poems. Complaint d' Amours ; M. P. XXII. Complaint to my mortal Foe ; M. P. XXV. Complaint to my Lode-Sterre ; M. P. XXVI. The last two are by the same author, and all three are good examples of Complaints, of which Chaucer wrote many. The last two are printed in the six- volume edition, Oxford, 1894. I have also printed (as M. P. XXIII) a short Balade of Com- plaint ; but it is probably a mere imitation. II. List of Authorities for Chaucer's Works. The meanings of the abbreviations for the various editions and MSS. are given in a separate table below. The works are arranged in the order in which they appear in my larger 156 APPENDIX edition. In grouping the MSS., I have often borrowed from the remarks of the editors of the ' Globe ' edition. The number annexed to each poem gives the number of the lines in it ; thus the ABC has 184 lines. Romaunt of the Rose (1705).— G. Th. Minor Poems: I. ABC (184).— Group la: F. B. Ha.— Group 1 b : P {two copies). — Group 1 c : Gg. Sp. — Group 2 a: Sion. Bedford. — Group ib\ C. Gl. — Group 2 c: L. Jo. AlsoU. II. Complaint unto Pile (119). — Group 1 : Sh. Ha. — Group 2 a : F. B.— Group 2 b : Tn. Ff.— Group 2 c : Lt. Trin. Also Ph. III. Book of the Duchesse (1334). — Group 1 a : F. B. — Group 1 b : Tn.— Group 2 : Th. IV. Complai?ii of Mars (298). —Group 1 a : F. — Group 1 b : Lt. Tn. Th. — Group 2 a : P (two copies). Ju. T. — Group 2 b : Harl. Ar. V. Parlement of Foules (699). — Group la: F. B. — Group lb: Lt. Tn. D. — Group 2 a : Gg. Ff.— Group 2 b : Harl. Trin. O. L. Also Ar. Hh. P. Cx. VI. Complaint to his Lady (133).— Sh. Ph. St. VII. Anelida (357).— Group I a: Harl. T. Ad.— Group lb: P. Cx.— Group 2 a: H 372, F. B.— Group 2b : Tn. Ff.— Group 2c: Lt. D. Also Ph. VIII. Lines to Adam (7).— T. St. IX. The Former Age (64).— Ii. Hh. X. Fortune (79). — Group 1 : Ii. — Group 2 a : A. H. — Group 2 b : T.— Group 3 a : F. B. — Group 3 b : P. Cx. Lan. ^4/.sy? Arch. XI. Merciless Beaute (39).— P. XII. 7tf Rosemounde ( 24 ). — R . XIII. 7r«M (28).— Group i«: Gg. Ct. E.— Group i£: At. Add. — Group 2a: Lan. Cx. F (two copies). — Group 2b: T (copy i). Harl.— Group 2c: T (^/j 2). — Group 2d: Ar. Kk. Also P. Arch. Hat. Phil. Corpus. XIV. Gentilesse (21).— Group 1 : T. Harl. A.— Group 2a: Trinity.— Group 2b : Cx. — Group 2 c: Add. — Group 2d: Ct. — Group 2 ^ : Ha. XV. Lak of Stedfastnesse (28).— Group 1 : T. Harl.— Group LIST OF AUTHORITIES 157 2a: F. Ha. Ct. Add.— Group ib\ Th. Trinity. Ban. Also Hat. XVI. Envoy to Scogan (49).— Gg. F. P. Th. XVII. Envoy to Bukion (32).— F. Th. Ju. XVIII. Complaint of Venus (82).— Group 1 : T. A.— Group 2 : F. Tn. — Group 3 : Ju. P (two copies). — Group 4 : Ff. Ar. XIX. Complaint to his Purse (26). — Group 1 : F. — Group 2 : Harl. Ff. Add. P. H. Also Cx. Ph. XX. Proverbs (8).— F. Ha. Ad. St. XXI. Against Wo?nen Unconstant (21). — Group 1 : F. — Group 2 : Ct. Ha. St. XXII. Complaint Damours (91). — Group 1 : Harl. — Group 2 : F. B. [XXIII. Balade of Complaint (21).— Ad.] XXIV. Womanly Noblesse (33).— Addit. 34360. In the six-volume edition are also given (in vol. iv) : XXV. Complaint to my Mortal Foe (32), and XXVI. Complaint to my Lodesterre (49) : both from Ha. Translation of Boethius (prose). — Group I : Camb. Ii. 1. 38; Addit. 1 61 65 ; Harl. 2421 ; Cx. ; Bodley 797. — Group 2 : Hengwrt 393 ; Camb. Ii. 3. 21 ; Addit. 10340; Salisbury 13 ; Bodley Auct. 3. 5. Troilus and Criseyde (8239). — Phillipps 8252 ; Harl. 3943 ; Harl. 2392 ; Camb. Gg. 4. 27 ; Harl. 4912 ; St. John's (Camb.); Rawlinson Poet. 163; Harl. 1239; Arch. Selden B 24 ; Addit. 12044; Durham V. 2. 13; Arch. Seld. supra 56; Digby 181; Corp. Chr. Camb. 61; Harl. 2280 ; Campsall. Also Cx. Th. Hous of Fame (21 58). — Group 1 : F. B. — Group 2 : P. Cx. Th. Legend of Good Women (2723).— Group 1 : Gg. P. — Group 2 : F. B. Tn.— Group 3 : Trin. A. Addit. 9832 ; Addit. 12524. Also Th. Astrolabe (prose). — Group 1 : Bodley 619.— Group 2 : Camb. Dd - 3- 53 ; Bodl. E Museo 54.— Group 3 : Rawl. D. 913 ; Camb. Dd. 12. 51. Also Ashmole 360 and 391 ; Rawl. Misc. 3 ; Addit. 23002 ; Digby 72 ; Corp. Chr. Camb. 424 ; St. John's (Camb.) E. 2; Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 15. 18 ; Sloane 261 and 314 ; &c. 158 APPENDIX Canterbury Tales (17385 and prose). — E. (Ellesmere) ; Hn. (Hengwrt) ; Cm. (Camb. Gg. 4. 27) ; Cp. (Corp. Chr. Coll., Oxford, 198); Pt. (Petworth) ; Ln. (Lansdowne 851); HI. (Harl. 7334). In some passages, Dd. (Camb. Dd. 4. 24) ; Reg. (Reg. 17 D. xv.) ; Add. (Addit. 5140) ; Li. (Lichfield) ; SI. (Sloane 1685) ; Camb. Ii. 3. 26 and Mm. 2. 5. There are inany more. N.B. The Tale of Gamelyn (902) occurs in HI. (Harl. 7334) ; Harl. (Harl. 1758); Cp. (Corp. Chr. Coll., Oxford); Ln. (Lansdowne 851) ; Pt. (Petworth) ; Rl. (Royal 18 C. ii.) ; SI. (Sloane 1685) ; Camb. Ii. 3. 26 and Mm. 2. 5. Also Royal 17 D. xv. List of Abbreviations of MSS. of Minor Poems. A. (Ashmole 59, Bodley).— Ad. (Addit. 16165, B. M.).— Add. (Addit. 22139). — Ar. (Arch. Selden B. 24, Bodley). — Arch. (Arch. Selden B. 10, Bodley).— At. (Addit. 10340, B. M.).— B. (Bodley 638).— Ban. (Bannatyne 1568, Glasgow).— Bedford MS. — C. (Cambridge, Ff. 5. 30). — Corpus (Corp. Chr. Coll., Oxford, 203).— Ct. (Cotton, Cleopatra D. 7, B. M.).— Cx. (Caxton's editions).— D. (Digby 181, Bodley).— E. (Ellesmere).— F. (Fair- fax 16, Bodley). — Ff. (Cambridge, Ff. I. 6). — Gg. (Cambridge, Gg. 4. 27).— Gl. (Glasgow, O. 2. 25).— H. (Harleian 2251, B. M.).— Ha. (Harl. 7578).— Harl. (Harl. 7333).— H 78; see Sh.— H 372 (Harl. 372).— Hat. (Hatton 73, Bodley).— Hh. (Cambridge, Hh. 4. 12). — Ii. (Cambridge, Ii. 3. 21). — Jo. (St. John's Coll., Cambridge, G. 21). — Ju. (Julian Notary's edition).— Kk. (Cambridge, Kk. 1. 5). — L. (Laud 740, Bodley). — Lan. (Lansdowne 699, B. M.).— Laud (Laud 416, Bodley). — Lt. (Longleat 258, Marquis of Bath).— O. (St. John's Coll., Oxford, 57).— P. (Pepys 2006, Magd. Coll., Cambridge).— Ph. (Phillipps 905 3= Addit. 34360, B. M.).— Phil. (Phillipps 8299).— R. (Rawlinson Poet. 163, Bodley).— Sh. (Shirley's MS. Harl. 78, B. M.) 1 .— Sion (Sion College).— Sp. (Speght's edition).— St. (Stowe's edition).— T. (Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 20).— Th. (Thynnes 1 The symbol Sh. was chosen only for convenience. Shirley's MSS. are Harl. 78, 2251, and 7333, Ashmole 59, Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 20, Addit. 16165, and the MS. in Sion College. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST 159 edition, 1532).— Tn. (Tanner 346, Bodley).— Trin. (Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 19).— Trinity (Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 14. 51). III. Chronological List of all works associated with Chaucer, in the order of their publication. %* This list is arranged solely according to the order in which the Works first appeared. The Genuine Works have their titles printed in italics. By Canterbury Tales (1) is meant first appearance of the Tales ; by Canterbury Tales (2) their second appearance ; and so on. Each piece is only counted once; thus the piece succeeding : no. 11 is really no. 1, appearing for the second time. Editions before 1532. Ab. 1477-8. Canterbury Tales (1). By Caxton. „ Parlement of Foules (1). By Caxton. „ Scogan's * Poem, containing Gentilesse (1). Same vol. „ Truth (1). Same vol. „ Fortune (1). Same vol. „ Envoy to Scogan (1). Same vol. „ Anelida (1). By Caxton. „ To his empty Purse (1). Same vol. „ Sayings ( 1 ). Same vol. 10. Before 1479. Boethius (1). By Caxton. 11. 1483. Troilus (1). By Caxton. „ Canterbury Tales (2). By Caxton. See 1. 12. „ Hous of Fa?he (1). Ab. 1493. Canterbury Tales (3). By Pynson. See 1. 1498. Canterbury Tales (4). By Wynkyn de Worde. See 1. 13. 1499-1502. Compla'nt of Mars (1). By Julian Notary. 14. „ Complaint of Venus (1). Same vol. 15. „ Envoy to Bukton (1). Same vol. 1 5 17. Troilus {2). By Wynkyn de Worde. See 11. 1526. Canterbury Tales (5). By Pynson. See 1. „ Hous of Fame (2). See 12. „ Parlement of Foules (2). See 2. 160 APPENDIX 16. 1526. La Belle Dame sans Merci (1). (By Sir R. Ros.) 1 .17. ,, Lamentation of Mary Magdaleyne ( 1 ). „ [Moral Proverbs, &c. ; not in later prints.] * 2 „ Troilus (3). See 11. 1530. Parlement of Foules (3). By Wynkyn de Worde. See 2. Edition by W. Thynne : 1532. *„* The three first articles were inserted at the end of the Table of Contents. 18. Eight goodly Questions. To the Kynges most Noble Grace ; 1 and To the Knights of the Garter. (By Hoccleve.) Sayings (2). See 9. _^ Canterbury Tales (6). See 1. &J Romaunt of the Rose : A. (genuine) ; B. C. (not by Ch.). Troilus (4). See 11. 21. Testament of Cresseid. (By Henryson.) f Legend of Good Women. A Goodly Balade (' Moder of norture '). Boethius (2). See 10. '[24;. Book of the Duchesse. Envoy to Bukton (2). See 15. Parlement of Foules (4). See 2. 25. The Flour of Curtesye. (By Lydgate.) V^y Complaint unto Pite. La Belle Dame (2). (By Sir R. Ros.) See 16. • Anelida (2). See 7. 27. The Assembly of Ladies. 1 Attributed by Pynson to ' Geffray Chaucer,' who (he says) trans- lated it from the French. See Ames. 2 Ames gives the contents of the volume, mentioning the Parlement of Foules, La Belle Dame sauns mercy, Complaint against Fortune, Certayne Morall Prouerbes of Chaucer, Complaint of Mary Magda- leyne, Letter of Dido, Prouerbes of Lydgate. But the ' Morall Prouerbes ' had previously been printed by Caxtori in 1478, who expressly says that they were translated from the French by Earl Rivers. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST l6l Conclusions of the Astrolabe. 29. Complaint of the Black Knight. (By Lydgate.) 30. A Praise of Women. Nous of Fame (3). See 12. 31. The Testament of Love. (By T. Usk.) The Lamentation of Mary Magdaleyne (2). See 17. 32. The Remedy of Love. Cojnp taint of Mars (2). See 13. Complaint of Venus (2). See 14. 33. Letter of Cupid. (By Hoccleve.) 34. 35. Balade in Commendation of our Lady. (By Lyd- gate.) 1 36. Praise of Peace. (By Gower.) 37. The Cuckoo and the Nightingale. (By Clanvowe.) 38. Balade : Envoy to Alison. Poem quoting Gentilesse (2). (By H. Scogan.) See 3. 39. Lak of Stedfastnesse. Truth (2). See 4. Fortu?ie (2). See 5. Envoy to Scogan (2). See 6. 40. Two Stanzas: 'Go forth, King.' (By Lydgate.) To his empty Purse (2). See 8. 41. Balade of good Counsel. (By Lydgate.) [Epitaphium Galfridi Chaucer.] W. Thynne's Second Edition: 1542. Contents the same as in ed. 1532; but at the end of the Canterbury Tales was added — 42. The Plowman's Tale. Undated Edition: about 1550. Contents the same as in ed. 1542 ; but the Plowman's Tale is made to precede the Parson's Tale. Edition by John Stowe: 1561. Part I. Contents as in ed. 1550 ; but after Gower's ' Praise of Peace' were inserted — 43. A Saying of Dan John. (By Lydgate.) 1 Two perfectly distinct pieces ; but both are by Lydgate (p. 103). M 162 APPENDIX 44. Yet of the same. (By Lydgate.) 45. Balade de bon conseil. (By Lydgate.) Also after No. 41 was inserted — 46. A Balade in Praise of Chaucer. Edition by John Stowe in 1561. Part II. At the top of fol. cccxl is the following remark : — IF Here foloweth certaine woorkes of Geffray Chauser, whiche hath not heretofore been printed, and are gathered and added to this booke by Ihon Stowe. ^^^ Geritilesse (3). See 3 and the line below 38. ^7.' Proverbs. 48. A balade whiche Chaucer made against Women Un- constaunt. 49. Beware of Doubleness. (By Lydgate.) 50. The Craft of Lovers. 51. A Balade. Begins — ' Of their nature they greatly them delite.' (Quotes No. 60.) 52. The ,x. Commaundementes of Loue. 53. The .ix. Ladies worthie. 54. [Virelai ; no title.] Begins— 'Alone walkyng.' 55. A Ballade. Begins — ' In the season of Feuerere when it was full colde.' 56. A Ballade. Begins—' O Mercifull and o merciable.' 57. The Judgement of Paris. 58. A balade pleasaunte. 59. An other Balade. Begins — \ O Mossie Quince.' 60. A Balade, warnyng men to beware of deceitfull women. (By Lydgate). \1) Complaint to his Lady. 62. A balade (on the value of chastity.) 63. The Court of Love. 64. Lines to Adam Scrivener. [Epitaphium Galfridi Chaucer. In Latin.] [The Siege of Thebes. (By Lydgate.)] Additions by Speght in 1598. 65. The Isle of Ladies : or, Chaucer's Dream. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST 1 63 66. A Ballad. (Perhaps by Lydgate.) 67. The Flower and the Leaf. Additions by Speght in 1602. 68. Chaucer's ABC. 69. Jack Upland. Additions by Urry in 1721. 70. The Tale of Gamelyn. 71. The Mery Adventure of the Pardonere and Tapstere ; and the Tale of Beryn \ Appeared in Percy's 'Reliques' in 1765. 2. Merciless Beaute. Appeared in Leyden's Edition of the Complaint of Scotland, 1801. 73. Orison to the Virgin. (By Hoccleve.) (1). Additions by Bell in 1857. 74. Two stanzas by Lydgate ; subjoined to Chaucer's Proverbs. Orison to the Virgin. (By Hoccleve.) (2). Additions by Morris in 1866. 75. Prosperity. (By John Walton.) 76. The Former Age. 77. Leaulte vault Richesse. Additions in Skeat's Edition (1894). Balade to Rose?nounde. An Amorous Complaint ; or Complaint Damours. (Pos- sibly genuine.) Ballade of Complaint. (An imitation.) Womanly Noblesse. 82. Complaint to my Mortal Foe. 83. Complaint to my Lode-sterre. [Nos. 82 and 83 are by the same author, and may be genuine. ) 1 Really only one piece. 'The Mery Adventure' forms the Pro- logue to the Tale of Beryn. M 2 164 APPENDIX IV. List of Authors connected with ' Chaucer's Works.' 1. Geoffrey Chaucer. Nos. 1, 2, 3 (part), 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20 (part), 22, 24, 26, 28, 39, 47, 48(?), 61, 64, 69, 72, 75, 78, 79 (?), &, a2 (?), 83 (?). 2. John Gower. No. 36. 3. Thomas Usk. No. 31. 4. Thomas Hoccleve. Nos. 19, 33, 73. 5. (Sir Thomas ?) Clanvowe. No. 37. 6. Henry Scogan. No. 3 (quoting 3 stt. by Chaucer). 7. John Lydgate. Nos. 23 (?), 25, 29, 30 (?), 34, 35, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 49, 56 (part), 60, 66 (?), 74. And The Siege of Thebes, 8. John Walton. No. 76. 9. Sir Richard Ros. No. 16. 10. Robert Henrysoun. No. 21. The following are anonymous, yet quite distinct from Chaucer and from each other. 11. Author of ' Gamelyn.' No. 70. 12. Author of 'The Ploughman's Crede.' No. 42. 13. The author of lack Upland. No. 68. 14. A Lady. Nos. 27, 67. 15. A Nun(?). No. 17. 16. Translator of Rom. Rose (B). No. 20. 17. Translator of Rom. Rose (C). No. 20. 18. The author of The Isle of Ladies. No. 65. 19. The author of The Tale of Beryn. No. 71. 20. The author of The Court of Love. No. 63. The following pieces are by unknown authors, apparently distinct from any of the above. Many of them are clearly distinct from others in the set; but it is not worth while to particularise them. Nos. 9, 18, 32, 38, 46, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56 (part), 57, 58, 59, 62, 77, 80. It thus appears that, of the above 83 pieces, at least fifty are not by Chaucer; whilst the number of authors which they represent is more than twenty. INDEX ABC, Chaucer's, 60, 141. Adam, Words to, 60, 119. Anelida, 56-7, 60. Assembly of Ladies, 110-1. Astrolabe, the, 61. Authorities for Chaucer's works, I5.v Ballads (so-called), 61-3, 103, 105-6, 109, 118-20, 122-4, ] 3 y > 147. — attributed to Chaucer, 60-2. 109, 118-9, 147. — attributed to Lydgate, 103-6, 114. — probably by Lydgate, 109, 117-8, 124, 138. — by H. Scogan, 106. And see First Lines. Bell's Chaucer, 26-8. Beryn, Tale of, 143-4. Black Knight, Complaint of the, 72-4, 102. Boethius, translation of, 56-7. Book of the Duchesse, 56-7, 60, 109. Canterbury Tales, 2, 3, 5, 56. — editions of, 19-29. — Ellesmere MS. , 6. — text of, 19-21. And see Squieres Tale. Chance of the Dice, 126. Chastity, ballad on, 119, 120. Chaucer, author of the Canterbury Tales, 2. — editions of, 19-29. — pronunciation, 6. — imperfect rimes in, 68. Chaucer, his Knightes Tale quoted, 26-7, 108. Chaucer, Praise of, 125. Chaucer's Dream, 95, 137-8. Chaucer's Works, List of, 154. Child, Professor, 22-3, 29. Chronological List, 159. Clan vo we, 106-8. Complaint Damours, 61, 63. 147. — of the Black Knight, 72-4, 102. — of Mars, 56-7, 60. — of Venus, 60. — to his Lady, 60, 119. — to his Empty Purse, 60, 107, 109. — to my Lodestar, 64, T48. — to my Mortal Foe, 64, 148. — to Pity, 60. Court of Love, 95, 125, 127-35. Craft of Lovers, 120-1. Cuckoo and Nightingale, 106-8. Doubleness, Beware of, 119. ^/ e, open^and close ; see Rime- tests. Edition byThynne (1532), 94-116. — by Thynne (1542), 94, IJ 7- — undated (ab. 1550), 94-5, 116, 117 (note). — by Stowe (1561), 94-5, 1 17-35- — by Speght, 95, 136-42. Eight goodly Questions, 94, 115. Envoy to Alison, 11 3-4. First lines of (so-called) ballads : — A thousand stories coude I mo reherse (in Commendation of our Lady), 103. Compleyne ne coude ne might i66 INDEX myn herte never {Balade of Compleynt), 61, 63, 147. Consider wel, with every circum- stance {B. of good Counsel), 105. Hee from the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnes {Truth), 60, 109. Go forth, myn owne trewe herte innocent, 138-9. In the season of Feuerere, when it was full colde, 123. In womanhede, as auctours al[le] write, 119-20. Loke wel aboute, ye that lovers be {Against deceitful women), 124. Madame, ye ben of al beaute shryne {To Rosemounde), 60, 147. Madame, for your newe fangel- nesse {Against Women [Incon- stant), 61-2, 118. Moder of norture, best beloved of al {A goodlie balade), 109. My noble sones, and eke my lordes dere {by Scogan), 106. O mercifull and o merciable, 123. O Mossie Quince, hangyng by your stalke, 118, 124. Of their nature they greatly them delite, 122. Som tyme this world was so stedfast and stable {Lak ofSted- fastnesse), 60. The firste stole, fader of gentilesse {Gentilesse) , 60, 118. This world is ful of variaunce {Against Doubleness), 119. Former Age, the, 60. Fortune, 60. Gamelyn, Tale of, 143. Gentilesse, 60, 118. Gower, John, 96, 97, 100-1. Harleian MS., 22-9. Henryspn; R., 96, 106. Hoccleve, T., 94, 96, 101, 107, 114, 146. JIous of Fame, 56-7, 60, 99, 106, 112. Jack Upland, 141-2. James I (of Scotland), 84-9. Judgement of Paris, 123. Kaluza, Dr., 76-7. Kentish e in Chaucer, 72, 88-9, 105. Kingis Quair, 85-9. Koch, Dr., 149-52. La Belle Dame, 106, 112. Lak of Stedfastnesse, 60. Lamentation of Mary Magdaleyne, 112. Leaulte, 147. Legend of Good Women, 56-7. Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton, 60. — a Scogan, 60. — to Alison ; see Envoy. List of Chaucer's Works, 154. — of all works associated with Chaucer, 159. Lounsbury, Prof., 128-9. Lydgate, John, A Praise of Women. 111-2. — A Saying of Dan John, 117. — Another Saying, 117. — Ballad in Commendation of our Lady, 103. — Ballad of Good Counsel, 105-6, 114. — Complaint of the Black Knight, 72-4, 102-3. — Court of Sapience, 123. — Flour of Curtesye, 102. — Go forth, King, 105. — Siege of Thebes, 95, 118. — Temple of Glass, 102-3, 112. — To my Sovereign Lady, 104-5. — (also, perhaps by J. L.), Balade de Bon Conseil, 11 7-8. — Ballad against deceitful Women, 124. — Ballad printed by Speght, 138-9. — Eight goodly questions, 115. — Goodly Ballad of Chaucer, a, 109. A nd see Proverbs. Manuscripts, 156. Merciless Beaute, 61, 145. Minor Poems, 60, &c. Morris, Dr., 28. Nine Ladies worthie, 122. INDEX 167 o, open and close ; see Rime-tests. O Mossie Quince, 118, 124. Orison to the Virgin, 146. Ormulum, grammar of, 7, 15-8. — metre of, 7, 8. — extract from, 9-14. Pardoner and Tapster, 143. Perkin Warbeck, 96. Pilgrim's Tale, 96. Plowman's Crede, 100. — Tale, 94, 99, 100. Praise of Peace, 97, 100. Praise of Women, ill. Prologue to Cant Tales, unusual words in, 153, note. Prosperity, 147. Proverbs, 60, 61 (note), 118 ; stanzas by Lydgate, 145-6. Purse ; see Complaint. Remedy of Love, 113. Rime-tests : rimes in -y, ye, 45-6, 59, 83, 103 ; rimes in -ight, -yt, 46, 59 ; open and close e, 49-54, 59, 70-1 ; neutral e, 50-4, 71 ; open and close o, 47-9, 54-5, 59, 70. Romaunt of the Rose, in three Frag- ments, 65 ; Fragment A, 66-74, 76-8, 85-8, 149-53; date of, 74; Fragment B, 75-89 ; Fragment C, 9°-3- Ros, Sir Richard, 106. Rosemounde, Balacle to, 60, 147. Roundel, 61. Sayings, Three, 94, 115. Scogan, Henry, 96, 106, 118. Shirley, John, 60. Skeat, Miss, 112. Speght, Thomas, 95, 136-42. Squieres Tale, 30-44. Stowe, John, 94, 102, 117-26. Surigon, 118. ten Brink, Prof., 29. Ten Commandments of Love, 122. Testament of Cresseid, 96, 106. — of Love, 97-9. Thynne, William, 94-116. Trinity MS., 120. Troilus, 56-7, 60, 99. Truth, 60, 109. Tyrwhitt, Thomas, 122, 144. Urry, John, 143-4. Usk, Thomas, 98-9. Virelai, 122-3. Womanly Noblesse, 61, 64, 147. W T omen Unconstant, Against, 61-2, Wright, Thomas, 23-8. r^ OXFORD PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY ^^HH 4 Fv RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO— + 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 ; 3 4 5 ( ^ ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW .141989 , * AUIUUJSUrfcB02 '89 NOV 03 1989 fflKSC NOV 2 1989 JUL 1 2007 FORM NO. DD6, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY ■111! BDDD33QEbb *%> 10* LLiri, * UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY