3 Their living (and lower down, their lives), in their lifetime. Champarty, fair division. French " 'champ(p)arter," to divide a field or its crop into due portions. Then "champar" or "champart meant the field-rent or share of a crop due by bargain or custom to the landlord, and taken off the ground by him before the farmer gathered any. Chaucer says, in "The Knight's Tale"

"Beauty ne sleight, strength ne hardinesse,

Ne may with Venus holdé champartye."

Of the Rhine and of the Rochel, the roast to defy."

Mr. Albert Way suggests, in a note to this word in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," that its root is Icelandic "fægja," to cleanse. But there is also an Icelandic word "fúi," meaning decay or putrefaction, and a participial adjective "fúinn," from a lost strong verb that means decomposition without sense of an ill smell attached to it. In the Wicliffite version of Deut. xxiii. 13, English for the "egesta" is "things defied out." A less probable etymology is from Latin "de" and "fio." The word is from another root than that of the "defy" now alone in use (from Latin "fides "), to renounce faith or allegiance.

Then shall there be pourtrayed a long-horned beast, slender and lean, with sharp teeth, and on her body nothing but skin and bone.

"Chichevache, this is my name,
Hungry, meagre, slender, and lean,
To show my body I have great shame,
For hunger I feel so great teen;
On me no fatness will be seen,
Because that pasture I find none,
Therefore I am but skin and bone.

"For my feeding in existence

Is of women that be meck,
And like Grisield in patience

Or more their bounty for to eke;7
But I full long may go and seek
Ere I can find a good repast,

A morrow to break with my fast.

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90

6 Teen, hurt, vexation. First English "teona," from "tyran," to incense or vex.

7 Eke (from First English "écan"), to increase.

8 A morrow, in the morning.

HOCCLEVE PRESENTING HIS BOOK TO KING HENRY V.
From the King's MS.-17, D. VI., page 37.

That office was on the site of the present Somerset House, a site haunted in our own day also by Government clerks, but by clerks whose salaries are paid. We might have known little of Hoccleve as a poet, if he had not found in song a courteous way of dunning his employers. His longest work was a metrical version of a book ascribed to Aristotle on the Duty of Princes, with an ingenious introduction, written avowedly for presentation to Henry V., as a way of commending to royal attention his own hard case, as a married man in the Government service with arrears of unpaid salary. Here again is a short poem of his, written in the name of himself and his fellow-clerks, Bailly, Offord, and Heath, who had a cold Christmas in view for want of their money. It was addressed, with graceful play upon his name, to Henry Somer, when he was UnderTreasurer; that is to say, before November, 1408, when Somer became a Baron of the Exchequer.

POEM AND ROUNDEL.

"TO MY MAISTER, H. SOMER."

The sonné with his beamés of brightness
To man so kindly is and nourishing,
That lacking it day neré but darkness;
To-day he giveth his enlumining,

And causeth all fruit for to wax and spring, Now syn that sonné may so much avail,

And most with Somer is his sojourning, That season bounteous we will assail.

"

6 Nere, were not. The negative was contracted with the verb in First English; "eom," I am; neom (also "ne eom"), I am not; in the past, 46 "I was; was," næs," "I was not. In like manner. habban," to have; "nabban," not to have; "willan," to will; and "nyllan," to will not; whence the phrase, "will he nill be," or "willy nilly." In Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," Petrucio telis Katherine," Will you, nill you, I will marry you."

7 Wax (First English "weaxan"), to grow.

Glad cheeréd Somer, to your governail
And gracé we submit all our willing;
To whom ye friendly ben he may not fail,
But he shall have his reasonable axíng:1
After your good lust2 be the seasoning
Of our fruits: the lasté Michaelmess

The time of year was of our seed inníng; The lack of which is our great heaviness.

We trust upon your friendly gentilless

Ye will us help and ben our suppoaill,3 Now give us cause again this Christemess

For to be glad, O lord, whether our taill1 Shall sooné make us with our shippés sail To Port Salut." If you list, we may sing; And elles mote us bothé mourn and wail Till your favour us sendé relieving.

We, your servantés Hoccleve and Baillay,

Heath and Offordé, you7 beseech and pray, Hasteth our harvest as soon as ye may;

For fear of stormés our wit is away. Were our seed innéd then we mighten play, And us disport and sing, and maké game,

And yet this roundel shall we sing and say In trust of you, and honour of your name.

93 66

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1 Axing (First English "ascian,” ahsian," "acsian," or "axian"), to ask. "Axe" for "ask," like many another form now reckoned vulgar, is only a piece of oldest English common still to some among the people.

2 Lust (First English "desire"), will, pleasure. Pay when it so pleases you. We have sown the seed-that is, we have done the work for which money is due-and sorely need the harvest.

3 Suppoaill, support.

scoren

"

♦ Whether our taill, if our tally, or the clearing of our score. Even Government accounts were formerly kept by tallies, pieces of notched wood, so named from the French "tailler," to cut. A running account of small debts might be kept with chalk marks, and when there were twenty of them they would be represented by a cut or score across two sticks fitting together. First English "scéran "-past participle - means to shear or cut. Hence the use of the word "score" for a reckoning, and also for the number twenty. Family milk scores and accounts between brewers and publicans were long ! kept in the same way. Account was kept with Hoccleve and his friends by hazel or ash rods, split into two parts, one held by the Exchequer, the other by its creditor. Since the two sticks fitted together exactly, the score was across them both when joined together, and each half was kept by an opposite party to the contract. A false score was, therefore, detected instantly, by want of the corresponding cut on the other half of the tally. Hence, in our own day, when two statements agree exactly, they are said to "tally.”

7 You is the accusative, governed by "beseech" and "pray;" ye is nominative. In Early English the distinction is preserved in use of "ye" and "you." It is so throughout our version of the Bible: "O ye remnant of Judah, Go ye not into Egypt, know certainly that I have admonished you this day. For ye dissembled in your hearts when ye sent me unto the Lord your God, saying, Pray for us. And now I have this day declared it unto you, but ye have not obeyed," &c. (Jeremiah xlii. 19-21). Both forms were plural only, plural of respect to a superior, and eth in hasteth, was the Southern plural ending.

8 Inned, gathered in.

Roundel. The French rondeau was a small poem of thirteen tensyllabled lines and two half lines. The half lines were repetitions of the four or five first words of the first line, which served as a refrain. They were repeated after the eighth line and at the close. There were only two rhymes in a rondeau. Hoccleve's roundel is a variation of this; being like it in length, in confinement to two rhymes, and in the use of the refrain three times. It is a rondeau with the refrain developed from a phrase of four words to a sentence of three lines.

The same evidence that Hoccleve was singing for his supper appears at the close of the most important of his shorter poems. This also was written in the reign of Henry V. He lost health when suffering from poverty caused by the Government's want of means to pay its clerks. In the day of sickness he invoked the health that he had lost, and by condemning himself as one who paid the penalty of past neglects, taught others, while seeming to be not their censor but his own. In this way he caused his poem to fulfil the more effectually its appointed purpose as a warning of youth against folly. It is entitled "La Male Regle de T. Hoccleve."

HOCCLEVE'S MISRULE.

O precious tresór incomparable,
O ground and root of all prosperity,
O excellent richessé commendable
Aboven allé that in earthé be,

Who may sustainé thine adversity?

What wight may him avaunt 12 of worldly wealth
But if 13 he fully stand in grace of thee,
Earthély god, pillar of life, thou Health!

While thy powér and excellent vigour,
As was pleasant unto thy worthiness,
Reignéd in me and was my governóur,

Then was I well, then felt I no duresse,14
Then farcéd 15 was I with heart's gladness; 13
And now my body empty is and bare

Of joy, and full of sickly heaviness, All poor of ease, and rich of evil fare.

10

If that thy favour twynné1 from a wight,

Small is his ease, and great is his grievance; Thy love is life, thine haté slay'th downright; Who may complainé thy disseverance Better than I, that of mine ignorance Unto sickness am knit, thy mortal foc? Now can I knowé feasté from penance, And while I was with thee could I not so.

My grief and busy smart quotidian2

So me labouren and tormenten sore

That what thou art, now well remember I can, And what fruit is in keeping of thy lore. Had I thy power knowen or this yore,3

As now thy foe compelleth me to know,

Not should his lime have cleavéd to my gore For all his art, ne have me brought thus low.

But I have heard men sayé long ago

Prosperity is blind, and see ne may; And verify I can well it is so,

For I myself have put it in assay. 5

When I was well, could I consider it? Nay.

But what? Me longéd after novelrie,

As yearés youngé yearnen day by day: And now my smart accuseth my folie.

Mine unware youthé knew not what it wrought, This wot I well, when from thee twynned she: But of her ignorance herself she sought

And knew not that she dwelling was with thee. For to a wight were it great nicétee® His lord or friend wittingly for t' offend, Lest that the weight of his adversitee The fool oppress and make of him an end.

From hénnesforth will I do reverence

Unto thy name and hold of thee in chief; And warré make and sharpé resistence Against thy foe and mine, that cruel thief That under footé me holds in mischief,7 So thou me to thy gracé reconcile.

O now thine help, thy succour and relief, And I, for aye, Misrulé will exile!

1 Twynne, separate, part from, divide (come in two).

2 Quotidian, daily.

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50

8 Or this yore, before this year. Or is the word now written ere. The forms in First English were ár and a'r; "ár" became, by the common change of a to o, "or;" "æ'r" became "ere." Or for before was common in old English. So in our version of the Bible, "Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Psalm xc. 2); and of Paul (Acts xxiii. 15), "We, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him." "Or" is the form used by Hoccleve in other lines of this poem.

Lime. First English "lím," what causes adhesion; glue, mud, lime, as in the limed twigs for catching birds. Of the same origin is lám, "loam," or clay, so called for its stickiness.

5 Assay, trial, exact weighing and measuring.

6 Nicetee, extreme regard for trifles. The pleasures for the sake of which we offend health are trifling in comparison with the great blessing we thereby may lose. Hence there is a nicety, an excessive regard for trifles in such offence.

7 Mischief, Old French "mes chef," Provencal "mescap," Spanish "menoscapo," equivalent to minus and caput, "without head" in the sense of extremity or end. The first sense of mischief is, that which leads to no good end. In the graver sense, all evil is mischief; in a lighter sense, as of monkey tricks, actions without rational cause or purpose, without head or tail to them, are mischievous.

Curse and wary. To curse is to execrate in the name of the cross, from the use of which in cursing the name is derived. To wary, from First English "wergian," or "werigan," is to curse in the sense of declaring any one wearg" (old Icelandic "vergr," foul, wicked, infamous.

10 Reigninge which, &c. The sense is, that when Reason reigns, as far as the knowledge goes of "childly sapience," Youth is supposed to lose its pleasures.

11 Syn, since.

12 Verray (French "vrai"), true.

13 Have he take a purpose, if he has made up his mind to anything. 14 Rakil, ranging, roaming. Cattle and sheep that wandered from their pasture were said to "raik" or "rake." Old Swedish “reka.” to roam. When its origin was forgotten, the word "rakil" remained in common use as the name of a wild fellow who got out of bounds, and was written "rakehell," upon the principle of the sailor wh made sense of his ship, the "Bellerophon," by calling her the "BLJ Ruffian;" so, too, an inn, "the Bacchanals," became "the Bug o' Nails."

Or but I weré nakedly bestad

By force of the pennýless maladie; 130 For then in herté could I not be glad,

Ne lust had none to Bacchus house to hie.

SIGN AND LURE.

Inn Sign and Garland of the "Old Nag's Head," Cheapside. (From Le Serre's

Print of the Procession of Mary de Medicis.)

1 Me chevice, sustain myself. "Chevyn or thryvin' -vigeo" ("Promptorium Parvulorum "). French "chevir," accomplish, bring to a head, or good end, from "chef," caput, the head.

2 Not obeyé lest, did not please to obey.

s Sette thereby. To "set by" is to value.

Take have, have taken of both (eating and drinking).

Twenty winter. In First English, winters were named for reckoning of years, and nights for days, as in se'nnight and fortnight. e Wot, knows.

7 Werreieth, wars against.

8 Withouten danger. Equivalent to our phrase "no fear."

9 But if, unless. The full sounding of r in "charge" gives the word force of a dissyllable in the metre. The same development is to be noticed in other cases, as in line 166, the ghb in "neighbour."

Quencheth the thirsty heat of hertés drie, Where chinchy 11 herté hath thereof but smal.

[Three stanzas omitted.]

Of him that haunteth tavern of custume,
In shorté wordés the profit is this,
In double wise: His bag it shall consume,
And make his tongé speak of folk amis:
For in the cuppé seldom founden is

That any wight his neighbour commendeth.
Behold and see what avantage is his

That God, his friend, and eke himself offendeth!

But one advantage in this case I have:

I was so feared with any man to fight

Close kept I me; no man durst I deprave

But rowningly; 12 I spake no thing on hight; 13 And yet my will was good, if that I might For letting 14 of my manly cowardise

That aye of strokés impresséd the wight,15 So that I dursté medlen in no wise.

Where was a greater master eke than I,
Or bet acquainted at Westminster gate
Among the tavernerés namély, 16

And cookés? When I came, early or late,
I pinchéd not at them in mine acate,17
But payéd them as that they axé wolde,
Wherefore I was the welcomer algate,18
And for a verray gentil man y-holde.

And if it happéd on the summer's day
That I thus at the tavern haddé be,
When I departé should and go my way
Home to the Privy Seal, so wooéd me
Heat and Unlust, and Superfluitee,
To walk unto the bridge and take a boat,

That not durst I contráry them all three, But did all that they stirred me, Got wot.

And in the Winter, for the way was deep,
Unto the bridge I dressed me alsó;
And there the boatmen took upon me keep,19
For they my riot knewen fern

10 Departeth, parts.

11 Chinchy (French "chiche,"), niggardly.

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ago:

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12 Rowningly, by secret whisper. Rún (rune), a letter; a mystery; as it was when speech by written signs-the art of inaudible speech "Runa" was, in First English, a -was known only to a few. whisperer, a sorcerer; "runian," to whisper or speak mysteriously. This word "rown" was afterwards written "round." So Faulconbridge, in Shakespeare's "King John," speaks of the King of France as "rounded in the ear with that same purpose changer tickling Commodity."

13 On hight, on high, aloud; did not speak up.