Therefore whoso doth them accuse

Of any double intentión,

To speaké rown, other to muse,
To pinch at their conditión,
All is but false collusión,

I dare right well the soth express,
They have no better protection,
But shroud them under doubleness.

So well fortunéd is their chance,
The dice to-turnen up so down,

With sice and cinque they can advance, And then by revolution

They set a fell conclusión

Of lombés,3 as in sothfastness,
Though clerkés maken mentión
Their kind is fret with doubleness.

Sampson yhad experience

That women were full true yfound;
When Dalila of innocence

With shearés 'gan his hair to round ;4
To speak also of Rosamond,
And Cleopatra's faithfulness,
The stories plainly will confound
Men that apeach their doubleness.

Single thing is not ypraised,
Nor of old is of no renown,
In balance when they be ypesed,6
For lack of weight they be borne down,
And for this cause of just reason
These women all of rightwisness?
Of choice and free election
Most love exchange and doubleness.

L'Envoye.

O ye women! which be inclinéd
By influence of your natúre
To be as pure as gold yfinéd,
And in your truth for to endure,
Armeth yourself in strong armúre,
(Lest men assail your sikerness),
Set on your breast, yourself t' assure,
A mighty shield of doubleness.

[Last Verses of Chaucer, written on his Deathbed.]
Fly from the press, and dwell with sothfastness ;10
Suffice unto thy good though it be small;
For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness,
Press12 hath envy, and weal is blent13 o'er all;
Savour14 no more than thee behoven shall;
Redel5 well thyself, that otherfolk can'st rede,
And truth thee shall deliver 't is no drede.16

Pain thee not each crooked to redress
In trust of her that turneth as a ball;
Great rest standeth in little business;
Beware also to spurn against a nalle ;17
Strive not as doth a crocké18 with a wall;
Deemeth 19 thyself that deemest other's deed,
And truth thee shall deliver 't is no drede.

That 20 thee is sent receive in buxomness ;21
The wrestling of this world asketh a fall;
Here is no home, here is but wilderness;
Forth, pilgrim, forth, O beast out of thy stall;
Look up on high, and thank thy God of all;

Waiveth thy lust and let thy ghost thee lead, And truth thee shall deliver 't is no drede.

However far the genius of Chaucer transcended that of all preceding writers, he was not the solitary light of his age. The national mind and the national language appear, indeed, to have now arrived at a certain degree of ripeness, favourable for the production of able writers in both prose and verse.* Heretofore, Norman French had been the language of education, of the court, and of legal documents; and when the Normanised Anglo-Saxon was employed by literary men, it was for the special purpose, as they were usually very careful to mention, of conveying instruction to the common people. But now the distinction between the conquering Normans and subjected Anglo-Saxons was nearly lost in a new and fraternal national feeling, which recognised the country under the sole name of England, and the people and language under the single appellation of English. Edward III. substituted the use of English for that of French in the public acts and judicial proceedings; and the schoolmasters, for the first time, in the same reign, caused their pupils to construe the classical tongues into the vernacular. The consequence of this ripening of the national mind and language was, that, while English heroism was gaining the victories of Cressy and Poitiers, English genius was achieving milder and more beneficial triumphs, in the productions of Chaucer, of Gower, and of Wickliffe.

JOHN GOWER.

JOHN GOWER is supposed to have been born some time about the year 1325, and to have consequently been a few years older than Chaucer. He was a gentleman, possessing a considerable amount of property in land, in the counties of Nottingham and Suffolk. In his latter years, he appears, like Chaucer, to have been a retainer of the Lancaster branch of the royal family, which subsequently ascended the throne; and his death took place in 1408, before which period he had become blind. Gower wrote a poetical work in three parts, which were respectively entitled Speculum Meditantis, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis; the last, which is a grave discussion of the morals and metaphysics of love, being the only part written in English. The solemn sententiousness of this work caused Chaucer, and sub

1 Spirit.

*It is always to be kept in mind that the language employed in literary composition is apt to be different from that used by the bulk of the people in ordinary discourse. The literary language of these early times was probably much more refined than the colloquial. During the fourteenth century, various dialects of English were spoken in different parts of the country, and the mode of pronunciation also was very far from being uniform. Trevisa, a historian who wrote about 1380, remarks that, Hit semeth a grete wonder that Englyssmen have so grete dyversyte in their owin langage in sowne and in spekyin of it, which is all in one ilonde.' The prevalent harshness of pronunciation is thus described by the same writer: Some use straunge wlaffing, chytryng, harring, garrying, and grysbyting. The langage of the Northumbres, and specyally at Yorke, is so sharpe, slytting, frotyng, and unshape, that we sothern men maye unneth understande that langage.' Even in the reign of Elizabeth, as we learn from Holinshed's Chronicle, the dialects spoken in different parts of the country were exceedingly various.

Mr Hallam mentions, on the authority of Mr Stevenson, sub-commissioner of public records, that in England, all letters, even of a private nature, were written in Latin till the beginning of the reign of Edward I., soon after 1270, when a sudden change brought in the use of French.-Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth cen

Gower.

Mr Warton has happily selected a few passages from Gower, which convey a lively expression of natural feeling, and give a favourable impression of the author. Speaking of the gratification which his passion receives from the sense of hearing, he says, that to hear his lady speak is more delicious than to feast on all the dainties that could be compounded by a cook of Lombardy. These are not so restorative

As bin the wordes of hir mouth;
For as the wyndes of the south
Ben most of all debonnaire,
So when her list1 to speak faire
The vertue of her goodly speche
Is verily myne hartes leche.

He adds (reduced spelling)—
Full oft time it falleth so
My ear with a good pittance3
Is fed, with reading of romance
Of Isodyne and Amadas,
That whilom were in my case;
And eke of other many a score,
That loved long ere I was bore:
For when I of their loves read,
Mine ear with the tale I feed;
And with the lust of their histoire
Sometime I draw into memoire,
How sorrow may not ever last,
And so hope cometh in at last.

*

That when her list on nights wake,4
In chamber, as to carol and dance,
Methink I may me more avance,
If I may gone upon her hond,
Than if I win a king's lond.
For when I may her hand beclip,
With such gladness I dance and skip,
Methinketh I touch not the floor;
The roe which runneth on the moor,
Is then nought so light as I.

When she chooses. 2 Physician. 3 A dainty dish.

When she chooses to have a merry-making at night.

[Episode of Raniphele.]

[Rosiphele, princess of Armenia, a lady of surpassing beauty, but insensible to the power of love, is represented by the poet as reduced to an obedience to Cupid, by a vision which befell her on a May-day ramble. The opening of this episode is as follows:-]

When come was the month of May,
She would walk upon a day,

And that was ere the sun arist,
Of women but a few it wist ;1
And forth she went privily,
Unto a park was fast by,
All soft walkand on the grass,
Till she came there the land was,
Through which ran a great river,
It thought her fair; and said, here
I will abide under the shaw ;2
And bade her women to withdraw:
And there she stood alone still,
To think what was in her will,

She saw the sweet flowers spring,
She heard glad fowls sing,

She saw beasts in their kind,

The buck, the doe, the hart, the hind,
The males go with the female;
And so began there a quarrel
Between love and her own heart,
Fro which she could not astart.
And as she cast her eye about,
She saw clad in one suit, a rout
Of ladies, where they comen ride
Along under the woode side;
On fair ambuland horse they set,
That were all white, fair, and great;
And everich one ride on side.
The saddles were of such a pride,
So rich saw she never none;
With pearls and gold so well begone,
In kirtles and in copes rich
They were clothed all alich,
Departed even of white and blue,
With all lusts that she knew,
They were embroidered over all:
Their bodies weren long and small,
The beauty of their fair face
There may none earthly thing deface:
Crowns on their heads they bare,
As each of them a queen were;
That all the gold of Croesus' hall
The least coronal of all

Might not have bought, after the worth:
Thus comen they ridand forth.

[In the rear of this splendid troop of ladies, the princess beheld one, mounted on a miserable steed, wretchedly adorned in everything excepting the bridle. On questioning this straggler why she was so unlike her companions, the visionary lady replied that the latter were receiving the bright reward of having loved faithfully, and that she herself was suffering punishment for cruelty to her admirers. The reason that the bridle alone resembled those of her companions was, that for the last fortnight she had been sincerely in love, and a change for the better was in consequence beginning to show itself in her accoutrements. The parting words of the dame are-]

Now have ye heard mine answer;
To God, madam, I you betake,
And warneth all for my sake,

Of love that they be not idle.

And bid them think of my bridle.

[It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the hard heart of the princess of Armenia is duly impressed by this lesson.]

1 Then. 2 Say. What thing he was most disposed to crave.

The language at this time used in the lowland districts of Scotland was based, like that of England, in the Teutonic, and it had, like the contemporary English, a Norman admixture. To account for these circumstances, some have supposed that the language of England, in its various shades of improvement, reached the north through the settlers who are known to have flocked thither from England during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Others suggest that the great body of the Scottish people, apart from the Highlanders, must have been of Teutonic origin, and they point to the very probable theory as to the Picts having been a German race. They further suggest, that a Norman admixture might readily come to the national tongue, through the large intercourse between the two countries during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Thus, it is presumed, our common language was separately formed in the two countries, and owed its identity to its being constructed of similar materials, by similar gradations, and by nations in the same state of society." Whatever might be the cause, there can be no doubt that the language used by the first Scottish vernacular writers in the fourteenth century, greatly resembles that used contemporaneously in England.

that office in 1357. Little is known of his personal history: we may presume that he was a man of political talent, from his being chosen by the bishop of Aberdeen to act as his commissioner at Edinburgh when the ransom of David II. was debated; and of learning, from his having several times accompanied men of rank to study at Oxford. Barbour probably formed his taste upon the romance writers who flourished before him in England. A lost work of his, entitled The Brute, probably another in addition to the many versions of the story of Brutus of Troy, first made popular by Geoffrey of Monmouth, suggests the idea of an imitation of the romances; and

his sole remaining work, The Bruce, is altogether of that character. It is not unlikely that, in The Brute, Barbour adopted all the fables he could find: in writing The Bruce, he would, in like manner, adopt every tradition respecting his hero, besides searching for more authoritative materials. We must not be surprised that, while the first would be valueless as a history, the second is a most important document. There would be the same wish for truth, and the same inability to distinguish it, in both cases; but, in the latter, it chanced that the events were of recent occurrence, and therefore came to our metrical historian comparatively undistorted. The Bruce, in reality, is a complete history of the memorable transactions by which King Robert I. asserted the independency of Scotland, and obtained its crown for his family. At the same time, it is far from being destitute of poetical spirit or rhythmical sweetness and harmony. It contains many vividly descriptive passages, and abounds in dignified and even in pathetic sentiment. This poem, which was completed in 1375, is in octo-syllabic lines, forming rhymed couplets, of which there are seven thousand. Barbour died at an advanced age in 1396.

[Apostrophe to Freedom.]

[Barbour, contemplating the enslaved condition of his country, breaks out into the following animated lines on the blessings of liberty.-Ellis.]

A fredome is a nobill thing!
Fredome mayse man to haiff liking!
Fredome all solace to man giffis :
He levys at ese that frely levys!
A noble hart may haiff nane ese,
Na ellys nocht that may him plese,
Gyff fredome failythe: for fre liking
Is yearnyt our all othir thing
Na he, that ay hase levyt fre,
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte,
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome,
That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome.
Bot gyff he had assayit it,
Than all perquer he suld it wyt ;
And suld think fredome mar to pryse
Than all the gold in warld that is.

[Death of Sir Henry De Bohun.]

[This incident took place on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn.]

And when the king wist that they were

In hale battle, comand sae near,

His battle gart' he weel array.

He rade upon a little palfrey,

Lawcht and joly arrayand

His battle, with an ax in hand.
And on his bassinet he bare
An hat of tyre aboon ay where ;
And, thereupon, into takin,
Ane high crown, that he was king.
And when Gloster and Hereford were
With their battle approachand near,
Before them all there came ridand,
With helm on heid and spear in hand,
Sir Henry the Boon, the worthy,
That was a wicht knicht, and a hardy,
And to the Earl of Hereford cousin ;
Armed in arms gude and fine;
Came on a steed a bowshot near,
Before all other that there were:

And knew the king, for that he saw

Him sae range his men on raw,

1 Caused, ordered

In this and the subsequent extract, the language is as far

as possible reduced to modern spelling.

And by the crown that was set
Also upon his bassinet.
And toward him he went in hy.1
And the king sae apertly 2

Saw him come, forouth all his fears,
In hy till him the horse he steers.
And when Sir Henry saw the king
Come on, foroutin abasing,
Till him he rode in great hy.

He thought that he should weel lichtly
Win him, and have him at his will,
Sin' he him horsit saw sae ill.
Sprent they samen intill a lyng;3
Sir Henry missed the noble king;
And he that in his stirrups stude,
With the ax, that was hard and gude,
With sae great main, raucht him a dint,
That nouther hat nor helm micht stint
The heavy dush, that he him gave,
That near the head till the harns clave.
The hand-ax shaft frushit in tway;
And he down to the yird5 gan gae
All flatlings, for him failit micht.
This was the first straik of the ficht,
That was performit douchtily.
And when the king's men sae stoutly
Saw him, richt at the first meeting,
Forouten doubt or abasing,
Have slain a knicht sae at a straik,
Sic hard❜ment thereat gan they tak,
That they come on richt hardily.
When Englishmen saw them sae stoutly
Come on, they had great abasing;
And specially for that the king

Sae smartly that gude knicht has slain,
That they withdrew them everilk ane,
And durst not ane abide to ficht:
Sae dreid they for the king's micht.
When that the king repairit was,
That gart his men all leave the chase,
The lordis of his company

Blamed him, as they durst, greatumly,
That he him put in aventure,
To meet sae stith a knicht, and stour,
In sic point as he then was seen.
For they said weel, it micht have been
Cause of their tynsal6 everilk ane.
The king answer has made them nane,
But mainit 7 his hand-ax shaft sae
Was with the straik broken in tway.

[The Battle of Bannockburn.] When this was said

The Scottismen commonally
Kneelit all doun, to God to pray.
And a short prayer there made they
To God, to help them in that ficht.
And when the English king had sicht
Of them kneeland, he said, in hy,
'Yon folk kneel to ask mercy.'

Sir Ingram said, ' Ye say sooth now-
They ask mercy, but not of you;
For their trespass to God they cry:
I tell you a thing sickerly,
That yon men will all win or die;
For doubt of deid9 they sall not flee.'
'Now be it sae then !' said the king.
And then, but langer delaying,
They gart trump till the assembly.
On either side men micht then see

Mony a wicht man and worthy, Ready to do chivalry.

Thus were they bound on either side;
And Englishmen, with mickle pride,
That were intill their avaward,1
To the battle that Sir Edward2

Governt and led, held straight their way.
The horse with spurs hastened they,
And prickit upon them sturdily;
And they met them richt hardily.
See that, at their assembly there,
Sic a frushing of spears were,
That far away men micht it hear,
That at that meeting forouten3 were.
Were steeds stickit mony ane;

And mony gude man borne doun and slain;
They dang on other with wappins sair,
Some of the horse, that stickit were,
Rushit and reelit richt rudely.

The gude earl4 thither took the way,
With his battle, in gude array,
And assemblit sae hardily,

That men micht hear had they been by,

A great frush of the spears that brast.
There micht men see a hard battle,
And some defend and some assail;

*

*

*

While through the harness burst the bleed,
That till earth down steaming gaed.
The Earl of Murray and his men,
Sae stoutly them conteinit then,

That they wan place ay mair and mair
On their faes; where they were,
Ay ten for ane, or mair, perfay;
Sae that it seemit weel that they
Were tint, amang sae great menyie,5
As they were plungit in the sea.
And when the Englishmen has seen
The earl and all his men, bedeen,
Faucht sae stoutly, but effraying,
Richt as they had nae abasing;
Them pressit they with all their micht.
And they, with spears and swerds bricht,
And axes, that richt sharply share
I'mids the visage, met them there.
There men micht see a stalwart stour,
And mony men of great valour,
With spears, maces, and knives,
And other wappins, wisslit6 their lives:
Sae that mony fell doun all deid.

The grass waxed with the blude all red.
The Stewart, Walter that then was,
And the gude lord, als, of Douglas,
In a battle when that they saw
The earl, forouten dreid or awe,
Assemble with his company,
On all that folk, sae sturdily,

For till help them they held their way.
And their battle in gude array,
They assembled sae hardily,
Beside the earl, a little by,

That their faes felt their coming weel.
For, with wappins stalwart of steel,
They dang upon, with all their micht.
Their faes receivit weel, Ik hicht,7
With swerds, spears, and with mace.
The battle there sae fellon8 was,
And sae richt great spilling of blude,
That on the earth the sluices stude.
That time thir three battles were
All side by side, fechting weel near,

There micht men hear mony a dint,
And wappins upon armours stint.
And see tumble knichts and steeds,
And mony rich and royal weeds
Defoullit foully under feet.
Some held on loft; some tint the seat.
A lang time thus fechting they were;
That men nae noise micht hear there;
Men heard noucht but granes and dints,
That flew fire, as men flays on flints.
They foucht ilk ane sac eagerly,
That they made nae noise nor cry,
But dang on other at their micht,
With wappins that were burnist bricht.
All four their battles with that were
Fechting in a front halily.
Almighty God! how douchtily
Sir Edward the Bruce and his men
Amang their faes conteinit them than!
Fechting in sae gude covine,1
Sae hardy, worthy, and sae fine,
That their raward frushit was.

Almighty God! wha then micht see
That Stewart Walter, and his rout,

And the gude Douglas, that was sae stout,
Fechting into that stalwart stour;

He sould say that till all honour
They were worthy. *

There micht men see mony a steed
Flying astray, that lord had nane.
There micht men hear ensenzies cry:

And Scottismen cry hardily,

On them! On them! On them! They fail!' With that sae hard they gan assail,

And slew all that they micht o'erta'.

And the Scots archers alsua2

Shot amang them sae deliverly,
Engrieving them sae greatumly,

That what for them, that with them faucht,
That sae great routs to them raucht,

And pressit them full eagerly;

And what for arrows, that fellonly
Mony great wounds gan them ma',
And slew fast off their horse alsua,
That they vandist3 a little wee.

*

[The appearance of a mock host, composed of the servants of the Scottish camp, completes the panic of the English army; the king flies, and Sir Giles D'Argentine is slain. The narrative then proceeds.]

They were, to say sooth, sae aghast,
And fled sae fast, richt effrayitly,
That of them a full great party
Fled to the water of Forth, and there
The maist part of them drownit were.
And Bannockburn, betwixt the braes,
Of men, of horse, sae steekit4 was,
That, upon drownit horse and men,
Men micht pass dry out-ower it then.
And lads, swains, and rangle,5
When they saw vanquished the battle,
Ran amang them; and sae gan slay,
As folk that nae defence micht ma'.

4 Shut up.

2 Also. 5 Rabble.

• Slime, mud.

Lost amidst so great a multitude. • Exchanged.