A Literary History of the English People Part 42

[612] "Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur partes et tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi gradibus viam, qua peccator transgressus, ad sui Creatoris agnicionem redire debet, recto tramite docere conatur. t.i.tulusque libelli istius Speculum Meditantis nuncupatus est." This a.n.a.lysis is to be found in several MSS.; also in the edition of the "Confessio," printed by Caxton; Pauli gives it too: "Confessio," i. p. xxiii. The "Speculum Meditantis" was sure to resemble much those works of moralisation (hence Chaucer's "moral Gower"), numerous in French mediaeval literature, which were called "bibles." See for example "La Bible Guiot de Provins":

Dou siecle puant et orrible M'estuet commencier une bible.

"On this stinking and horrid world, I want to begin a bible;" and Guiot reviews all cla.s.ses of society, all trades and professions, and blames everything and everybody; Gower did the same; everything for them is "puant." Rome is not spared: "Rome nos suce et nos englot," says Guiot.

See text of Guiot's "Bible" in Barbazan and Meon, "Fabliaux," 1808, vol.

ii. p. 307.

[613] "Balades and other Poems," Roxburghe Club, 1818, 4to.

[614]

Jeo ris en plour et en sante languis, Ars en gelee et en chalour fremis.

Ballad ix. No pa.s.sage in Petrarch has been oftener imitated. Villon wrote:

Je meurs de soif aupres de la fontaine ...

Je ris en pleurs et attens sans espoir, &c.

[615] "Les balades d'amour jesqes enci sont fait especialement pour ceaux q'attendont lours amours par droite mariage. Les balades d'ici jesqes au fin du livere sont universeles a tout le monde selonc les propertes et les condicions des amants qui sont divers.e.m.e.nt travailez en la fortune d'amour."

[616]

Camelion c'est une beste fiere Qui vit tansoulement de l'air sanz plus; Ensi pour dire en mesme la maniere, De soule espoir qe j'ai d'amour concuz Sont mes pensers en vie sustenuz.

Ballad xvi; what a chameleon is, was thus explained in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere vivit--_a b.u.t.tyrfle_" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," 1857, 4to, p, 220).

[617] "Poema quod dicitur Vox Clamantis," ed. c.o.xe, Roxburghe Club, 1850, 4to. He also wrote in Latin verse "Chronica Tripart.i.ta" (wherein he relates, and judges with great severity, the reign of Richard II., from 1387 to the accession of Henry IV.), and several other poems on the vices of the time, the whole printed by Th. Wright, in his "Political Poems," vol. i. Rolls. The "Chronica" are also printed with the "Vox Clamantis."

[618] P. 31. He jeers at the vulgarity of their names:

Hudde ferit, quos Judde terit, dum Cobbe minatur ...

Hogge suam pompam vibrat, dum se putat omni Majorem Rege n.o.bilitate fore.

Balle propheta docet, quem spiritus ante malignus Edocuit ...

(p. 50.)

The famous John Ball is here referred to, the apostle of the revolt, who died quartered. See below, p. 413.

[619]

Est sibi cra.s.sus equus, restatque scientia macra ...

Ad latus et cornu sufflans gerit, unde redundant Mons, nemus, unde lepus visa pericla fugit....

Clamor in ore canum, dum vociferantur in unum, Est sibi campana psallitur unde Deo.

Stat sibi missa brevis devotio longaque campis, Quo sibi cantores deputat esse canes.

(p. 176.)

[620]

Conficit ex vitris gemma oculo pretiosas.

(p. 275.)

[621]

Rex es, regina satis est, tibi sufficit una.

(p. 316.)

[622] "Confessio Amantis." There exists of it no satisfactory edition, and it is to be hoped the Early English Text Society, that has already rendered so many services, will soon render this greatly needed one, Pauli's edition, London, 1857, 3 vols. 8vo, is very faulty; H. Morley's edition (Carisbrooke Library, London, 1889, 8vo) is expurgated. Gower wrote in English some minor poems, in especial "The Praise of Peace" (in the "Political Poems," of Wright, Rolls). The "Confessio" is written in octo-syllabic couplets, with four accents. This poem should be compared with French compilations of the same sort, and especially with the "Castoiement d'un pere a son fils," thirteenth century, a series of tales in verse, told by the father to castigate and edify the son, text in Barbazan and Meon, "Fabliaux," Paris, 1808, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. ii.

[623] "Confessio," Pauli's ed., p. 2.

[624] Gower wrote two successive versions of his poem: the first about 1384, the second about 1393. In this last one, having openly taken the side of the future Henry IV. (which was very bold of him), he suppressed all allusions to Richard. In the first version, instead of,

A boke for Englondes sake,

he had written:

A boke for King Richardes sake.

[625] Vol. i. pp. 89 ff. In Chaucer, the story is told by the Wife of Bath.

[626] Beginning of Book i.

[627] Already had been seen in the "Roman":

Comment Nature la deesse A son pretre se confesse ...

"Genius, dit-elle, beau pretre, D'une folie que j'ai faite, A vous m'en vuel faire confesse;"

and under pretence of confessing herself, she explains the various systems of the universe at great length.

[628] In Mrs. Egerton, 1991, fol. 7, in the British Museum, reproduced in my "Piers Plowman," p. 11.

CHAPTER IV.

_WILLIAM LANGLAND AND HIS VISIONS._

Gower's books were made out of books. Chaucer's friend carries us in imagination to the paradise of Eros, or to a Patmos of his own invention, from whence he foretells the end of the world; but whatever he does or says we are always perfectly aware of where we are: we are in his library.

It is quite different with another poet of this period, a mysterious and intangible personage, whose very name is doubtful, whose writings had great influence, and that no one appears to have seen, concerning whom we possess no contemporaneous information. Like Gower, strong ties bind him to the past; but Gower is linked to Angevin England, and William Langland, if such be really his name, to the remote England of the Saxons and Scandinavians. His books are not made out of books; they are made of real life, of things seen, of dreams dreamt, of feelings actually experienced. He is the exact opposite of Gower, he completes Chaucer himself. When the "Canterbury Tales" are read, it seems as though all England were described in them; when the Visions of Langland are opened, it is seen that Chaucer had not said everything. Langland is without comparison the greatest poet after Chaucer in the mediaeval literature of England.[629]