ological writers. The historian of the martyrs, whose tribute of commendation to the labours of Gower and Chaucer I have already cited, thus expatiates on the religious utility of Chaucer's Works. "But much more I mervaile to consider this, how that the bishops condemning and abolishing all maner of English bookes and treatises, which might bring the people to any light of knowledge, did yet authorise the Workes of Chaucer to remaine still and to be occupyed; who (no doubt) saw in religion as much almost as Anglia Chaucerum veneratur nostra Poetam, Neque solùm principem apud conterraneos Poetas loci gloriam tulit: verùm etiam totum scientiarum, quâ latè patet, circulum haud infeliciter confecerat. Dialecticæ ac Philosophiae haud vulgariter peritus, Historia callentissimus, Rhetor satis venustus, Matheseos non ignarus; in rebus denique Theologicis apprimè versatus, de quibus acutè atque eruditè sæpius disputat. Subtiliorem etenim Scholarum disciplinam probè noverat; castioris autem Theologiæ studio nullos ferè non sui temporis Theologos antecelluit, WICLEFI dogmata ut plurimùm secutus, et infucatam ac genuinam pietatem sectatus. graviores Ecclesiæ Romanæ superstitiones et errores acerbè sæpiùs vellicat; corruptam ineptissimis commentis disciplinam ecclesiasticam luget; Cleri luxuriam et ignaviam castigat; in Ordines autem Mendicantes projectissimo ubique odio invehitur, quorum hypocrisin, ambitionem, aliaque vitia turpissimu, aliquoties datâ operâ, nullibi verò non oblatâ quâvis occasione, acerrimè insectatur.” Hinc even we doe now, and uttereth in his workes no lesse, and seemeth to be a right Wiclevian, or els was never any; and that all his Workes almost, if they be throughly advised will testify, (albeit it be done in mirth and covertly,) and especially the latter ende of his third booke of the Testament of Love: for there purely he toucheth the highest matter, that is the Communion: Wherin except a man be altogether blind, he may espy him at the ful. Although in the same booke (as in al other he useth to doe) under shadows covertly, as under a visour, he suborneth Truth in such sort, as both privily she may profit the godly-minded, and yet not be espyed of the crafty adversary: And therefore the bishops belike, taking his works but for jestes, and toies, in condemning other bookes, yet permitted his bookes to be read. So it pleased God to blind then the eies of them, for the more commodity of his people, to the intent that, through the reading of his treatises, some fruit might redound thereof to his church, as no doubt it did to many; as also I am partly enformed of certaine which knew the parties, which to them reported, that, by reading of Chaucers Works, they were brought to the true knowledge of religion." Fox proceeds to lay great stress upon The Plowman's Tale, as if it were the undoubted production of Chaucer. That it was not written by Chaucer, the minuter researches of modern criticism have satisfactorily shewn. Enough, however, of that disposition, for which Fox commends him, eminently displays itself in his genuine works. The text, which I have used in the Extracts from Chaucer's poetry, is that of Mr. Tyrwhitt in the Canterbury Tales; * See Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry, and Tyrwhitt's Introduct. Canterb. Tales. I take this opportunity of mentioning a very curious edition, hitherto unnoticed, of the poem falsely attributed to Chaucer. It is of the duodecimo size, in the black letter, without date, and imprinted at London in Paules churche yarde at the sygne of the Hyll by Wyllyam Hyll. It is entitled, The Plouumans tale compylled by syr Geffray Chaucer knyght. I have compared with the poem as printed by Urry forty or fifty lines, and I found almost as many variations between them. The colophon of this book is, Thus endeth the boke of Chaunterburye Tules. This rarity belongs to the Rev. Mr. Conybeare, the present Professor of the Saxon language in the University of Oxford. + See the grammatical and metrical analysis of the first eighteen lines of the Canterbury Tales by Mr. Tyrwhitt, which deserves, as Mr. Malone has judiciously remarked, to be studied by every reader of Chaucer. and, in the Floure and Leafe, a text derived from collation of the first and second editions of Speght, and the edition of Urry. The text of Urry, as Mr. Ellis has * observed, exhibits the measure of the verse more uniformly smooth and harmonious than it is found in the early printed copies. But this agreeable effect being produced by unwarrantable interpolations, changes, and omissions, (of which numerous instances might be given in this little poem,) I have followed the example and advice of Mr. Ellis in reverting to the black letter editions. For these, he rightly adds, till some able English critick, following the example of the admirable Tyrwhitt in the Canterbury Tales, shall have accurately reformed from a collation of manuscripts the text of Chaucer's remaining works, can * Specimens of the Early Eng. Poets, vol. i. 227. + What Mr. Godwin has offered on this subject, deserves particular attention. "There is nothing more ardently to be wished by the admirers of Chaucer, than that a correct and elaborate edition should be made of his works; and that some of the same exertions should be spent upon illustrating them, which have of late years been so liberally employed upon the productions of Shakspeare and Milton. Mr. Tyrwhitt indeed has taken much pains, and in many instances to excellent purposes, with the Canterbury Tales; but nothing can be alone be safely trusted, rude and faulty as they may appear. VI. I trust that I am correct, in considering what composes this division of the Illustrations, and to which I have given the title of Poems supposed to be written by Chaucer during his imprisonment, as a discovery of some importance. The Poems are extracted from two leaves preceding the beautiful Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, written in the fifteenth century, belonging to the Marquis of Stafford. To our most curious antiquaries they are unknown. The imprisonment of Chaucer is indeed proved on his own authority, though it is not accompanied with a date. In his prosecomposition, the *Testament of Love, he " more miserable than the condition of the printed copies of the rest of our author's works.-A vulgar judgement has been propagated by slothful and indolent persons, that the Canterbury Tales are the only part of the Works of Chaucer worthy the attention of a modern reader; and this has contributed to the wretched state, in which his works are still permitted to exist." Life of Chaucer, ch. xii. *The Testament of Love, evidently an imitation of Boethius de consolatione Philosophia, is supposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt to have been begun by Chaucer after his troubles, in the middle part of the reign of Richard II, and to have been finished about the time that Gower published his Confessio Amantis, in the 16th year of that reign; or at least to have been then far f |