This hook is DUE on the last date sta- )elow 
 
 I 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH, 
 
 IJNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 LIBRARY, 
 
 ltS0B ANGELES. GAtliTa
 
 FOLIA LITTERARIA
 
 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 ESS ATS AND NOTES 
 ON ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN W. HALES, M.A. 
 
 rROKES^OE OF ENGLISH LITEKATUKE IN KING's COLLEGE, LONDON ; 
 
 EXAMINER IN ENGLISH AT LONDON UNIVERSITY ; 
 
 CLARK LECTURER AT TRINITY COLLEGE, 
 
 AND LATE FELLOW OF CHRISt's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' ESSAYS AND NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE.' 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED 
 
 Essex Street, Strand 
 
 1893 
 
   5751^
 
 . • . •• • 
 
 '• . • 
 
 • • '•" 
 
 ^ • • • • • « 
 
 • • •
 
 
 King's College, London, 
 Whitsuntide t 1893. 
 
 My dear Peile, 
 
 Your high distinction as the Master 
 of a Cambridge College, as the Vice-Chancellor of the 
 University, and as a Scholar, might well make me shrink 
 from dedicating to you, even with your so cheerfully 
 given consent, the present volume with all its faults and 
 shortcomings. But after all it is as a friend that I for 
 my part do and must always first think of you. We 
 were Undergraduates and Fellows and Assistant Tutors 
 of the same College at the same time ; we have often 
 travelled together both at home and abroad ; few men, 
 indeed, have known or know each other more intimately. 
 And, not to speak of your intellectual gifts, my remem- 
 brance of you during all these years presents an unbroken 
 record of wonderful kindliness, and of perpetual thought 
 for everybody but yourself. Of our long and close friend- 
 ship, please accept the association of your name with 
 this book as a most sincere, however inadequate, memorial. 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 John W. Hales. 
 To 
 JOHN PEILE, M.A., 
 
 LITT. D., CAMBRIDGE AND DUBLIN, 
 
 Master of Chrisfs College, Cambridge ; 
 
 Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
 
 NOTE 
 
 I HAVE to thank the Editors of The Nineteenth Century, 
 The Contemporary Review, Fraser's Magazine, The 
 AthencBuin, The Academy, Macmillans Magazine, The 
 St fames' Gazette, The Gentleman's Magazine, and other 
 Publications, for permission kindly given to reprint certain 
 contributions of mine. 
 
   The Article on Victorian Literature contains the sub- 
 stance of four lectures I had the honour of giving, 
 at the Royal Institution, just six years ago. That entitled 
 ' Milton's Macbeth ' is an expansion of part of one of 
 my Clark Lectures at Cambridge. 
 
 T. W. H.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Old English Metrical Romances. (From Eraser's 
 
 Magazine for Sept. 1875) ' 
 
 II. The Lay of Ilavelok the Dane. (From The Athenceti»i 
 
 for Feb. 23, 1889) 30 
 
 III. Eger and Grime. (From the printed Edition of Bishop 
 
 Percy s Folio MS., 1687) . . . . 40 
 
 IV. The Here Prophecy. (From The Academy for Dec. 4, 
 
 1886) 55 
 
 V. Robert of Brunne. (From The Academy, Jan. 8, 1887) 62 
 
 VI. Dante in England. (From The Bibliographer for '\M^. 
 
 1882) " . 65 
 
 VII. Chaucer at Woodstock. (From The Gentleman s 
 
 Magazine for April 1882) 70 
 
 VIII. Chaucer Notes — 
 
 (i) Romaunt of The Rose. (From The Athenteum 
 
 for Nov. 12, 1881) 80 
 
 (2) ' Eclympasteyre.' (From The Athenaiim for 
 
 April 8, 1882) 83 
 
 (3) 'The Dry Sea.' (From The Academy for Jan. 
 
 2S, 1882) 86 
 
 (4) At Aklgate. ( From Tlie Academy for Dec. 6, 
 
 1879) 87 
 
 (5) The Clerk's Tale. (From a publication of the 
 
 Chaucer Society, 1875) .... 89 
 
 (6) ' Lymote.' (From The Athenicttm for Ajiril 9, 
 
 1887) 94
 
 K CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 (7) ' The Parliament of Fowls.' (From T/te 
 
 Academy, Nov. 19, 1881) . . . . 95 
 
 (8) The Date of ' The Canterbury Tales.' (From 
 
 The Athemeunt for April 8, 1893) . . 99 
 
 (9) The Prioress's ' Greatest Oath.' (From The 
 
 A(he/icsttm for Jan. 10, iSgi) . . . 102 
 (10) ' The Preestes Three.' (From The Academy {ox 
 
 Jan. 31, 1875) J06 
 
 ^11) The Name Palamon in the 'Knight's Tale.' 
 
 (From The Academy {ox ]^n. 17, 1874) . 107 
 
 (12) Geoffrey and Thomas Chaucer. (From The 
 
 Atheiuciim for March 31, 1888) . . . 109 
 
 IX. The 'Confessio Amantis.' (From The Athenaum for 
 
 Dec. 24, 1881) 114 
 
 X. Chevy Chase. (From The Gentleman's Magazine for 
 
 April 1889) 128 
 
 XI. Wyatt and Surrey. (From The Accuienty for Dec. I, 
 
 1883) 152 
 
 XII. Spenseriana. (From The Academy, Nov. 28, 1874) . 155 
 
 XIII. Sir John Davies' Poems. (From The AtheiiiFiim for 
 
 Sept.. 2, 1876) 162 
 
 XIV. The Pilgrimage to Parnassus, with the Two Parts of the 
 
 Return from Parnassus. (I, From The Academy 
 for March 19, 1887, and 2, Macmillan^ s Magazine 
 
 for May 1887) 165, 174 
 
 X\'. Richard Brathwailc. (From The Academy {ox Now. 2, 
 
 1878) 192 
 
 XVI. Milton's ' Macbeth.' (From The Nineteenth Century 
 
 for Dec. 1891) 198 
 
 XVII. Milton and Gray's Inn Walks. (From the St James's 
 
 Gar^//«; for July 29 and 30, 1891) .... 220 
 XVIII. Milton Notes— 
 
 (1) An Unexplained Passage in ' Comus.' (From 
 
 TV/f' .■////£'//«:«/// for April 20, 1889) . .231 
 
 (2) ' Lycidas.' (From The Athcnteiim for Aug. i, 
 
 1891) 239 
 
 (3) Did Milton serve in the Parliamentary Army ? 
 
 ^From The Academy {ox OcU 2,^. 1876) . 243
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XIX. liunyan. (From The Academy for Feb. 20, 1S75 and 
 
 April 17, 1880) 246 
 
 XX. The Revival of Ballad Poetry in the Eighteenth Century. 
 (From the printed edition of the Percy Folio MS., 
 1687) 258 
 
 XXI. The Last Decade of the Last Century. (From The Con- 
 temporary Review iox St'pi. 1892) .... 286 
 
 XXIL Victorian Literature. (From The Gentleman's Magazine 
 
 for April and May 1888) . . . .317 
 
 Index 359
 
 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 I 
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 
 
 (From Fraser's Magazine for September, 1875) 
 
 THE word Romance denoted originally any one of the 
 various forms assumed by the Latin language towards 
 the close of the Dark Ages, so called, in those provinces of 
 Western Europe upon which the influence of Rome had 
 been most deeply impressed. The ancient Hispania and 
 Gallia had resigned themselves altogether to Roman culture ; 
 their barbarian eyes had been dazzled by the splendour of 
 their imperial conquerors ; they eagerly forsook the language 
 of their race, and endeavoured to adopt that of Italy. The 
 word Romance, slightly modified, is still used in a certain 
 district of Switzerland to denote a Latin-descended speech. 
 In process of time this word came to be applied especially 
 to the Roman dialect spoken in France, perhaps because 
 the earliest cultivation of a modern language for literary 
 purposes would seem to have been attempted there, and 
 must have rendered the tongue of that land famous through- 
 out the contiguous countries ; also because the central 
 position of France, with regard to England, Italy and Spain, 
 must have made its speech more generally known than that 
 
 A
 
 2 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 of any one of the other Romance-speaking provinces. Thus 
 French became pre-eminently the Romance. When Northern 
 France, some two centuries after the settlement of the 
 Normans upon its coast, began to show signs of a higher 
 life than that of mere predation and turbulence, then the 
 term Romance acquired a new meaning. It was applied to 
 the poetical offspring of that higher life — to a sort of rude 
 narrative poem picturing the life and the spirit that were dear 
 to the Northern-French people at that time. Such a poem 
 was called a Romance. Presently such stories as were told 
 by such poems were narrated in prose. Then prose works 
 too were styled Romances. Such are the derivation and 
 the earliest literary significance of the word Romance. 
 
 Various theories have been entertained as to the origin 
 of this literary form. Scholars have referred it to the 
 Arabians in Spain, to the Scandinavians, to the Classical 
 writers, to the Britons of Brittany. We do not care now 
 to weigh the comparative merits of these several views, or to 
 point out their superfluousness. We are content with the 
 significant fact, that the oldest Romances of which we know 
 or can hear anything were written in Norman-French. 
 Whatever earliest Romances are found elsewhere ar^ but 
 translations of Norman-French ones. The first themes that 
 were sung of by the Romancers of Spain and of Ger- 
 many were themes that had been previously handled by 
 the Trouveres. The epical life of modern Europe first 
 quickened amongst a Norman-French speaking people — 
 that is to say, in Northern France and in England. Each 
 member of that great Teutonic family which reformed and 
 revivified Western Europe between th fiftli and the twelfth 
 centuries was possessed of its own rich store of traditions — 
 of the seeds, and much more than the seeds, of a national 
 Epopeia ; each member of it had its share of the rich imagi-
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 3 
 
 nation that constituted the most magniiicent heritage of the 
 race ; each member did, in course of time, produce great 
 works not unworthy of its spiritual Hneage ; but the one 
 member which gave the first signs that epic poetry was not 
 dead and buried for ever, which produced the earhest Iliads 
 and Odysseys of the Middle Ages, was that North-born 
 people which had established itself in Neustria early in the 
 tenth century, and called the province they had seized after 
 their own name. 
 
 These Northmen were characterised by a spirit of high 
 daring and adventure. They had made themselves the 
 terror of all the coasts of Western Europe. Charlemagne, 
 in his old age — when, as he fondly thought, he had accom- 
 plished the great work of his heart, and suppressed the 
 marauders who, ever since the fall of Rome, had incessantly 
 plagued and confounded the western provinces of the broken 
 empire — saw strange sails hovering about the shores of 
 Southern France, and wept, they say, to think that the labour 
 of his life threatened to prove a mere vanity. Many a 
 church had added to its litany the agonised appeal, ' From 
 the fury of the Normans, good Lord, deliver us.' For some 
 three centuries these Northmen were the imperial spirits of 
 Europe. They made themselves admired and feared from 
 Antioch to Sicily, from Sicily to London. They were the 
 life and soul of the earlier Crusades. They were ever in the 
 front of their times, both as fighters and as scholars. Those 
 who fixed their seat in the fairest district of Northern France 
 were brought there into contact with a Keltic people, amongst 
 whom the traces of Roman civilisation had never been 
 obliterated. This Keltic people had indeed been subdued 
 by a barbarian inroad some four centuries before the Normans 
 overran Neustria ; but these barbarians had not settled 
 amongst them in over\vhelming numbers, nor had they been
 
 4 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 able to resist the contagion of a superior civilisation. The 
 native Kelts, themselves thoroughly Romanised, in the end 
 Romanised their Prankish masters. With this amalgamated 
 nation the Normans were brought into contact. With a 
 facility characteristic of their race, they submitted themselves 
 to its influence. They, too, as the Franks before them, 
 adopted the Roman tongue ; and in no long time these 
 splendid pupils surpassed their teachers in the ease and 
 power with which they wielded the language thus taught 
 them. They adopted also the legends of the two races who 
 formed the population of Northern France ; and in no long 
 time sung or told those alien tales with a force and a beauty 
 never dreamt of by their original possessors. 
 
 In the latter half of the eleventh century the heart of 
 Christendom was filled with that wonderful enthusiasm, 
 whose fruit was the Crusades. We need not speak now of 
 the follies and the crimes which sooner or later marked these 
 wars, or of the deadly spirit of intolerance which grew out 
 of them and smote the countries that waged them like 
 some revengeful pestilence. These were the hideous 
 children born of them ; but far other was the spirit in which 
 they were conceived. They were the first wars waged by 
 Europe in any higher spirit than that of mere piracy and 
 plunder — the first with any nobler motive than mere acquisi- 
 tion and conquest. Moreover, they were the first wars in 
 which the idea of a grand Christian confederacy was in any 
 sort embodied. It could not be but that the intellectual 
 spirit of Europe was stirred and ennobled by these more 
 generous impulses. It was kindled into a higher excitement 
 and energy than it had before known ; it felt pulsations that 
 were new and strange : and then, at last, it spake with its 
 tongue. 
 
 We have said that the Normans were ever foremost in
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 5 
 
 these wars, and that their life previous to them had abounded 
 with adventurous enterprises. It had been of a kind to 
 warm and inflame the imagination with its retrospect. Then, 
 shortly before the Crusades, a famous Duke had won him- 
 self a crown — the crown of England. What wonder if at 
 this time poetry sprang up amongst them? They had 
 gathered together a vast store of legends, both national and 
 originally belonging to others with whom they had been 
 brought into association ; they had gained experience far 
 and wide ; they, if any people, could look back upon their 
 career with eyes of elation and triumph ; they, in a special 
 degree, were inspired and excited by the powerful sentiment 
 which sent forth the bravest sons of the West to fight and 
 fall in the mysterious far-away East. 
 
 What are called Romatices began, probably, to be pro- 
 duced after some fashion even in the eleventh century. Even 
 then, probably enough, there was current some kind of rude 
 metrical legends — of Rollo and other old Norman heroes, 
 many a one far older than Rollo. Certainly, Charlemagne 
 and his Paladins were already in that century the themes 
 of song ; for we are told that at the battle of Senlac, com- 
 monly called Hastings, Taillefer, said to have been a minstrel 
 knight — a warrior poet such as was Richard Coeur de Lion 
 in after days — advanced to the charge singing a song of 
 Roland. In the course of the following century — in the 
 twelfth century — when all those motive powers we have 
 mentioned above acted upon the Norman mind with their 
 full force, then the Age of Romances fully dawned. In or 
 about the year 1138 appeared that great original storehouse 
 of Arthurian legend — a storehouse supplied in part at least 
 from genuine British fable — Geoffrey of Monmouth's History 
 of the Britons. The corresponding source of information re- 
 garding Charlemagne — Turpin's life of that famous monarch
 
 6 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 — was no long time after circulating in France. Additional 
 legendary treasures were being brought back from foreign 
 countries by the crusaders. By the close of the twelfth 
 century, Norman-French romance was in full flower. Dur- 
 ing the thirteenth it continued to bloom and blossom. It 
 was in this latter century, we may remember, that Ciothic 
 architecture attained its most exquisite development. The 
 ostentatious strength and solidity of the Norman style were 
 then completely superseded by the grace and refinement of 
 the Early-Pointed. The cathedrals of Notre Dame, of 
 Amiens, of Salisbury, of Westminster, rose into being in all 
 their ineffable loveliness just at the time when the Norman- 
 French romances, whose origin we have briefly sketched, 
 were enjoying their widest popularity. 
 
 In other way.s, besides, that was a century of vast move- 
 ment, both here in England and abroad. It was a century 
 of great intellectual and religious agitations. It witnessed 
 the rise of two great orders in the Church, who devoted 
 themselves to the revival both of piety and of erudition. 
 It witnessed a general ardour in quest of learning, royal 
 recognition of the great seats of education by charters granted, 
 the establishment of colleges in connection with these seats 
 by the zeal and munificence of private persons, and an 
 immense thronging from all parts of Europe of students, 
 eager to partake of the benefits of the universities so 
 chartered, so endowed. It was then, in stirring times for 
 Europe, that the old Romances reached their maturity. In 
 our own country the thirteenth century was made memor- 
 able by political events of extraordinary importance : by the 
 passing of the Great Charter, by the meeting of the first 
 House of Commons, by vigorous, and for a while seemingly 
 successful efforts after an insular unity, and, to mention last 
 because of its present interest to us, what comes first in
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES ^ 
 
 chronological order, by the loss of Normandy. The loss of 
 that province — the splendid heir-loom of our Norman kings 
 — did, in fact, sever the intimate connection between this 
 country and France ; for the possessions we retained for more 
 than two centuries afterwards in Guienne were too distant 
 to affect our national life as Normandy had affected it. The 
 complete amalgamation of the jarring elements which made 
 up our nation, was greatly accelerated and perfected by 
 what our ancestors of the time regarded as a most bitter 
 misfortune, and one to be repaired at the earliest oppor- 
 tunity. But we have not now to speak of the general 
 results of that great forfeiture. The one result which con- 
 cerns our present purpose, is the gradual restoration to its 
 proper honour and currency of the English language ; the 
 reinstatement in its due position of the English mind. Of 
 all the barbarian peoples which demolished the Roman 
 Empire, the one that settled in this country was the first 
 to bring its native language into a state of literary culture ; 
 the earliest vernacular Teutonic Christian poet was Caedmon, 
 an Englishman ; the first prince who cultivated a so-called 
 barbarian language, and fostered a vernacular literature, was 
 our Alfred. But those bright promises of the seventh and 
 following centuries were not doomed to be fulfilled. A 
 certain blight, partly, it would seem, engendered at home, 
 partly brought on by external causes, fell upon the land. 
 At the time of the Norman Conquest the intellectual life of 
 the English was deplorably feeble, but it was not extinct. 
 During the two centuries which ensued, it did not go out ; 
 but in process of time it gathered new strength. It still 
 beat in many a monastery, in many a retired country district 
 — on the banks of the Severn, in the Cloisters of Peter- 
 borough. Norman-French was the language of the Court 
 and all who held on to the skirts of the Court ; in all high
 
 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 and mighty circles Norman-French hterature was all popu- 
 lar ; there the songs of Provence and the infant epics of the 
 Langiie cToiii, were ever on the lip or in the ear ; but beyond 
 the courtly precincts the people clung to the language of 
 their forefathers; they sang their old songs as in the old 
 days ere William landed— songs of Alfred, of Athelstane, 
 of Guy, of Havelok, and many another old English hero : 
 songs not preserved to us in their native form, but whose 
 faint echoes whoso will may hear, as he pores over the 
 pages of William of Malmesbury and other Latin Chronicle 
 writers ; in a word, they adhered steadfastly, with a tenacity 
 said to be characteristic, to the tongue and the traditions of 
 their race. In the course of years these persistent natives 
 grew bolder ; they even ventured to apply their language to 
 satirical uses ; one of the earliest Enghsh lyrics written after 
 the Norman Conquest now extant, is a song written evi- 
 dently by a partisan of Simon De Montfort in derision of 
 the king and his brother and his son, whom that great earl 
 had recently defeated at Lewes. But we cannot now relate 
 in detail how the English language, so long dethroned, so 
 to say, and driven into banishment, at last returned from 
 exile and regained its old dominion. That long period of 
 its suppression had produced many changes in it; it had 
 altered its accent in many respects; it had profoundly 
 modified its word-forms ; it had widely extended its vocabu- 
 lary. In fact, that period of suppression ended not so 
 much in the total overthrow and ejection of the suppressor, 
 as in a certain reconciliation with him — in a certain acknow- 
 ledgment and confession of his claims and prerogatives : it 
 ended as the struggle of the races who spoke the two con- 
 tending languages ended— in a sort of fusion, the English 
 tongue i)redominant and supreme. 
 
 Towards the close, probably, of that memorable thirteenth
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 9 
 
 century, the Norman-French Romances began to be trans- 
 lated into Enghsh. A large society, to which the Norman- 
 French was but dimly intelligible, had by that time grown 
 into sufficient importance to call for attention from the 
 intellectual-food purveyors of the age. It, too, had its thirsts 
 that from the soul did rise. For it the one favourite literary 
 form of the Early Middle Ages was now adapted ; the 
 already current Norman French romances were Englished. 
 And now at last came the day of what are called Early 
 English Metrical Romances. 
 
 The greatest prosperity of these English Romances — their 
 most sovereign popularity and acceptance — belongs to the 
 reigns of Edward the Second and his famous son. It syn- 
 chronises therefore with the brightest age of Chivalry in 
 England. It synchronises also with the later years of Dante 
 and the lives of Petrarch and Boccaccio ; in Italy a fuller, 
 maturer literature was arising (in light, presently to shine 
 stronger, reflected from the old classical world) when the 
 Romance was reaching its greatest glory in England. 
 
 In the fourteenth century, then, these Romances were the 
 great reading, or rather hearing, of English men. They re- 
 flected in some sort the life of the time, and the life of the 
 time delighted to observe its image mirrored in them. They 
 formed a great part of such libraries as there then were, they 
 were recited or sung at all great festivals — as, for example, 
 at the banquets that concluded jousts and tournaments; 
 they inflamed the courage of campaigning knights ; they 
 occupied the minds and the fingers of the fair ladies who sat at 
 home, and worked in tapestry the stories narrated by them. 
 
 They were for the most part translations from the Norman 
 French. Kifig Horn is not so, for a comparison of it with 
 the French poem celebrating that hero seems to show that 
 the French poem was translated from it, and not it from the
 
 lo FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 French poem. King Havelok is certainly, Sir Fred. Madden 
 tliinks, an original English work. With regard to those — 
 the great majority, as we have said — which were undoubtedly 
 rendered into English from the French, let it be noted that 
 the legends on which they were founded were by no means 
 always of Norman-French origin. Sir Guy and Sir Bevis 
 were certainly not so. These were indigenous English 
 heroes, whom the Norman-French Trouvere adopted for his 
 themes. Very possibly many of the Trouvcres were of 
 English blood, and so had treasured in their memories many 
 an old English tale. It is certain that very many of them 
 belonged to the Anglo-Norman Court, and produced their 
 works on English soil. Very many of the Norman-French 
 Romances therefore were anything but foreign productions. 
 They were bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, albeit 
 they were costumed in no native fashion. The English 
 people would recognise in them, so soon as the dress of 
 them was altered and they could be perused, the children of 
 their own national or ancestral imagination. 
 
 England, then, in the fourteenth century, abounded in 
 Romances in the English tongue. No doubt Romances in 
 Norman-French would still find an audience in a certain 
 rank ; but with the country at large the vernacular versions 
 found general and increasing favour. Arthur and all his 
 knights were sung of from one end of the land to the other 
 in the native English tongue, and so were the other multi- 
 farious Romance heroes — heroes drawn from all the four 
 winds — Alexander, Robert of Sicily, Perceval of Galles, The 
 Soudan of Babylon, Eglamour of Artois, Richard Coeur de 
 Lion, Roland, and many another. We have not time now 
 to explain how such various personages came to be enlisted 
 in one and the same service. It must suffice to say that the 
 medieval minstrels were eminently catholic in their selection
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES ii 
 
 of heroes ; they were quite devoid of all historical sense of 
 the difference between one age and another ; they could not 
 conceive of an age without the crown of knighthood : therefore 
 all famous men that were or ever had been were regarded as 
 knights. One old poet, without any profanity in his soul, 
 we may be sure, describes Pilate as a knight, and speaks of 
 his jousting with Jesus. 
 
 Having thus briefly shown under what circumstances, at 
 what time, and with what origin our old Romances first 
 made their appearance, we propose now attempting a slight 
 sketch of what popularity they enjoyed subsequently to the 
 middle of the fourteenth century, when their popularity was 
 supreme. What we wish especially, however shortly, to 
 observe, is the influence they have had upon our literature, 
 from Chaucer's time downwards to Tennyson. 
 
 Chaucer, born probably about 1340, grew up at a time) 
 when, as we have seen, the English Romances of chivalry 
 were in their prime — when they formed the main part of the 
 repertoire of every minstrel — when they constituted the chief 
 intellectual diet of Squire, and Knight, and Lady. His 
 youthful ears must have been extremely familiar with them in 
 all their tenderness, their prolixity, their extravagance, their 
 simpUcity and their ignorance. He has left us amongst his 
 Canterbury Tales, as we shall see, an unmistakable evidence 
 of this familiarity. Chaucer's contemporary, Gower, tells us 
 
 how — 
 
 Mine ear with a good pitance 
 Is fed of reading of romance 
 Of Idoyne and of Amadas, 
 That whilome were in case ; 
 And eke of others many a score 
 That loved long ere I was bore. 
 
 But it is unnecessary to collect instances of this sort. We 
 will now turn to that evidence of his close acquaintance with
 
 12 FOLIA LITTER ART A 
 
 the chivalrous Romances which Chaucer exhibits, because 
 that evidence, while it shows how widely well known the 
 Romances were, shows also that a term was threatened to 
 their popularity. 
 
 We all remember how, as the pilgrims are riding towards 
 Canterbury and telling their tales under the direction of 
 mine host of the Tabard, the poet himself is called to the 
 front and ordered to take his turn. 
 
 Then he begins with a piece which is in fact a most 
 cunning and accurate parody of a Romance of Chivalry. 
 As has been remarked by an editor of Chaucer, ' Sir Thopas 
 appears to be the bemi ideal of an knight ; he does every- 
 thing which a knight should do according to the most 
 approved plan. Even the forest through which he rides 
 is a " model " forest, in which the most incongruous species 
 of birds sport and sing ; and nutmegs, cloves, and cinnamon 
 grow spontaneously. The knight himself, as in duty bound, 
 falls on " love-longing," but no earthly beauty being worthy 
 of him, he must love an "elf-queen." Then comes the 
 meeting with the giant, the challenge, the arming of the 
 knight, which is described, even to his putting on of his 
 shirt and breeches, all conducted, according to rule, to the 
 sound of music and the recitation of " Romances that ben 
 reales." His disdain, after the example of Sir Percival, of 
 the luxury of bed and his repose under the canopy of 
 Heaven, with his helmet for a pillow, and water from the 
 well for his drink, while his horse feeds beside him " on 
 herbes fine," are all indispensable to his character.' The 
 piece is written in a favourite Romance metre — in the metre 
 which, with certain modifications, Sir Walter Scott employed 
 in his A'Tarwion. Not only are its metre and its incidents 
 pure mimicry, but also its style and language. It opens in 
 the most orthodox manner :
 
 s 
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 13 
 
 Listen, lordings, in good intent 
 And I will telle verament 
 
 Of mirthe and solace ; 
 All of a knight was fair and gent 
 In battle and in tournament; 
 
 I lis name was Sir Thopas. 
 
 The following passage is important to us as mentioning 
 some at least of the most popular poems of the day : 
 
 Men speaken of Romauns of price 
 Of Horn Child and of Ypotis, 
 
 Of Bevis and Sir Guy, 
 Of Sir Libeaux and Pleindamour ? 
 But Sir Thopas beareth the flour 
 
 Of real chivalry. 
 
 Then the story of Sir Thopas is resumed until mine host's 
 patience is completely exhausted : 
 
 No more of this, for Goddes dignity ! 
 
 And the poet, thus peremptorily rebuked, proceeds to 
 narrate in prose The Tale of Melibeiis. 
 
 Chaucer thus laughed at the old Romances in which, as 
 we have seen, his century abounded, and laughed at them 
 on the strength of no imperfect knowledge. Already the 
 idea of something weightier and more dignified in form, 
 more finished and artistic in spirit, had presented itself to 
 his mind, and found a welcome there. The two great 
 foreign literatures of his time were those of France and of 
 Italy. In the France of his day, the age of chivalrous 
 Romances was going or gone by. Norman France had 
 wearied of its old loves. Their great era in that country 
 was as has been stated, the thirteenth century. A new 
 style of literature had in part at least superseded them in 
 the fourteenth. By far the most famous poem produced in
 
 14 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 France in the fourteenth century was tlie Roman de la 
 Rose — an allegorical, satirical, didactic work. This poem' 
 Chaucer translated into English. He was therefore inti- 
 mately acquainted with the French taste of his time, and 
 there can be little doubt was greatly influenced by it, especi- 
 ally in his earlier manhood. In his later years, he was still 
 more profoundly influenced by the literature of Italy — the 
 first great literature of modern Europe. Dante's supreme 
 work was written, or begun to be written, probably some 
 two score years before Chaucer was born ; Petrarch and 
 Boccaccio were respectively some thirty-five years and 
 twenty-five years Chaucer's seniors. It is most probable 
 that our poet was personally acquainted with the former at 
 least. He was dispatched to Italy on a diplomatic mission, 
 and, even if there were no evidence on the matter, we might 
 be fairly sure he would seek to see his great fellow-genius. 
 But whether there was any personal friendship or not be- 
 tween him and Petrarch, it is certain, from testimony fur- 
 nished by his works, that he had acquired an intimate 
 knowledge of the great new-born Italian literature. He 
 refers several times to Dante, and imitates him ; he refers to, 
 and quotes from, Petrarch ; he translates, after his own 
 fashion, whole works of Boccaccio. In Italy the traditions 
 of the old classical period had never wholly expired ; the 
 light of the Augustan age had never utterly died out ; the 
 memory of Vergil had never been totally obliterated. Dur- 
 ing the centuries when chivalrous Romances flourished, as 
 we have seen, in France and in England, when they flourished 
 vigorously in Suabia, even so late as their flourishing in Spain, 
 they found little encouragement in Italy. The long-lived 
 pervading influence of Rome had checked the growth and 
 
 ' It is doubted, with good reason, whether the extant version is all of it 
 Chaucer's work.
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 15 
 
 blossoming of the legends which the barbarians who crossed 
 the Alps carried with them, no less than those who had 
 passed over the Pyrenees, the Rhine, the Northern Sea. 
 Moreover, Italy for certain reasons was less affected by the 
 Crusades than any other country of Western Europe, except 
 perhaps Spain, which had a crusade to carry on at home. 
 The influence of the Troubadours upon Northern Italy was 
 no doubt considerable ; by them, beyond controversy, all its 
 three great writers of the fourteenth century were deeply 
 impressed ; but, at least in the times of which we now speak, 
 the works of the Trouveres had gained but feeble hold upon 
 Italy. The land of Vergil cared very little for what Chaucer 
 makes the host call their ' doggerel rimes.' It aspired after 
 poetical forms less slight and flimsy. Eventually it adopted 
 for its material legends of the Carlovingian Cycle ; but to 
 the end it rejected the form in which they circulated in 
 their native country. With Italy's fine scorn for the light 
 measures of the Romancers, Chaucer was penetrated. The 
 striking contrast between his earlier and later works may be 
 accounted for by considering the impressions of this Italian 
 influence upon him. In fact, he heard in Italy the first 
 sounds of that Revival of Ancient Learning and Literature, 
 which no long time after his death changed the face of 
 Europe. And we have dwelt so long on this Italian influ- 
 ence, and its power over Chaucer, because it was in reality 
 but the prelude of an influence which eventually proved 
 fatal to the popularity of the Romances of Chivalry. Al- 
 ready then, towards the close of the fourteenth century, the 
 breath of ridicule had been breathed on the simple nursery 
 epics, which the Early Middle Ages had produced. And 
 yet they were not to be utterly laughed down for many a 
 long day. They were to undergo many metamorphoses, 
 but in some sort they were to live on for many a century.
 
 1 6 FOLIA LITTERAKIA 
 
 The spirit of chivalry died hard ; not less easily passed away 
 the works embodying that spirit. 
 
 We ought, perhaps, just to mention here two species of 
 the Chivalrous Romance which appeared in the fourteenth 
 century. These are what are called by Warton, in his 
 History of English Poetry, the Historical and the Heraldic 
 Romance. In the one, historical events of the day, or of a 
 day only just set, are treated in the Romance style. Per- 
 haps the poem wTitten by the North British Poet Barbour, 
 in honour of Bruce, is the greatest work of this kind. How 
 easy the transition from History to Romance, anyone may 
 see who reads Froissarfs Chronicles. At an earlier period 
 such a work would have provided material for a host of 
 Romance-writers. The Black Prince is just such an one as 
 the soul of the old Romancer would have loved. The other 
 species of Romance named above, the Heraldic, pays special 
 attention to the description of coats of armour, costume, 
 precedence, and other such matters as the fashion of its day 
 conceived to be of interest. 
 
 One more remark must be made before we quit the four- 
 teenth century — the culminating century of the Middle Ages. 
 ^V■e must point out how, side by side \vith the Chivalrous 
 Romances, there was growing up a sort of rude Popular 
 Romance. Knighthood wdi?, the grand subject of the former, 
 Yeomanry of the latter. The yeomen, too, would have their 
 ideal hero, and their cycle of songs about him. Their hero 
 — the common people's Arthur — was Robin Hood, the 
 famous archer. The poetic form in which his cycle is com- 
 posed, is yet slighter and more careless than that in which 
 his courtly prototype is celebrated. There is another 
 people's hero whom it is right to mention here. This is 
 Piers the Ploughman, the hero of the more serious and 
 earnest among the common peoi^le. One of the most
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 17 
 
 powerful poems the Middle Ages have bequeathed to us is 
 devoted to his celebration. His name was well known 
 amongst the leaders of the great popular movement which 
 broke out in the reign of Richard the Second. When the 
 lower classes of this country were learning to work out for 
 themselves their political salvation, when they were awaking 
 to the necessity of self-reliance, and daring to make condi- 
 tions with their masters, the picture of Piers the Ploughman 
 presented to them in Langland's poem of the Ploughman 
 able to guide into the way of truth, when all the professional 
 guides proved miserably at fault, must have been eminently 
 suggestive. The number of early MS. copies of that poem 
 is very great ; and it is noticed of them for the most part 
 that they are executed on inferior material, as if for the 
 use of no wealthy readers. Other poems appeared subse- 
 quently, with this same Ploughman as their centre and 
 hero. 
 
 And now we come to that century in whose process the 
 Middle Ages ended and modern times began. It was a 
 century, not of great literary production, but rather of pre- 
 paration, both here and in the kingdoms of the Continent. 
 For the Chivalrous Romances, they were still generally 
 popular throughout it, though less so at the end than at the 
 beginning. The popular rival of the Romance — the ballad 
 — was gradually encroaching on their monopoly. However, 
 Romances were still written, still adapted from the French. 
 But the times were rapidly changing ; earthquake was follow- 
 ing earthquake ; pictures of life which had once some truth 
 in them were now becoming false — false in fact, false in 
 sentiment. The society of which the romances of chivalry 
 were once to some extent the reflections, was breaking up. 
 The old order was giving place to a new; the literature 
 peculiar to it was losing all its force and meaning. Chivalry
 
 1 8 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 was decaying, with all its glories, with all its vanities, with 
 all its fantasies. 
 
 Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
 Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
 For now I see the true old times are dead, 
 When every morning brought a noble chance, 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 Such times have been not since the light that led 
 The holy elders with the gift of myrrh. 
 But now the whole Round Table is dissolved, 
 Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
 And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
 And the days darken round me, and the years 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds. 
 
 Caxton exclaimed, when he saw the customs of chivalry 
 falling into desuetude and oblivion : 
 
 Oh, ye knights of England, where is the custom and usage of noble 
 chivalry that was used in those days ? What do ye now but go to the 
 baynes and play at dice ? And some, not well advised, use not honest 
 and good rule, against all order of knighthood. Leave this, leave it ! 
 and read the noble volumes of St Graal, of Lancelot, of Galaad, of 
 Trystram, of Perse Forest, of Percyval, of Gawayn, and many more ; 
 there shall ye see manhood, courtesy and gentleness. And look in 
 latter days of the noble asts sith the Conquest, as in King Richard days 
 Coeur de Lion, Edward L and IIL, and his noble sons. Sir Robert 
 KnoUes, Sir John Ilawkwode, Sir John Chandos, and Sir Gueltiare 
 Marny. Read Froissart ; and also behold that victorious and noble 
 King Harry V. and the captains under him, his noble brethren the Earls 
 of Salisbury, Montagu, and many other whose names shine gloriously 
 by their virtuous noblesse and acts that they did in the order of chivalry. 
 Alas, what do ye but sleep and take ease, and are all disordered from 
 chivalry ? 
 
 But these, and such clamours to recall a departing era, 
 profited nothing. There is no staying the wheels of time. 
 And he who uttered these laments and adjurations was 
 himscK, however unconsciously, more than any other
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 19 
 
 Englishman of his time, expediting the change he so zeal- 
 ously deplored. The old Romances of Chivalry received a 
 fatal blow from the printing-press — a blow which could not 
 be healed by any appeals to men's better feelings, or any 
 printed editions of the old works. Then that revival of 
 learning, whose early prognostics we observed in Italy in 
 Petrarch's time, which duly reached its full development 
 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was by no means 
 favourable to this artless literature. There were other 
 events equally hostile to it. Probably no fresh Romances 
 were written after the reign of Henry VI. 
 
 But the old Romances were re-written. No other general 
 literature had yet arisen to take their place. The day, whose 
 breaking Chaucer had seemed to herald, had not yet fully 
 dawned. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, and in 
 the earlier course of the sixteenth, the Romances of Chivalry 
 were reproduced in prose. Numerous prose versions issued 
 from the printing-presses of France in the reign of Charles 
 VIII. and his immediate successors. In England, in the 
 year 1485, there came from Caxton's press that most memor- 
 able work, the Histories of King Arthur, commonly known 
 as the Morte d' Arthur — a comprehensive digest of the 
 Arthurian Cycle — a work which, from the year of its appear- 
 ance, has never, except, perhaps, for some years of the last 
 century, wholly lost its popularity : a work most famihar to 
 Spenser, to Milton, and to certain great poetical spirits 
 of our fathers' and our own times. Caxton's successor, 
 Wynkyn de Worde, twice reprinted this famous compila- 
 tion, in 1498 and in 1529. Three other editions appeared 
 in the sixteenth century, one from the press of Copeland in 
 1557, two from that of East. A seventh edition appeared 
 in 1634. Some six or seven editions have come out in this 
 centurv. 'After that I had accomplished and finished
 
 20 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 divers histories,' says Caxton in his Prologue to his edition, 
 which, as we have said, was published in 1485, the year of 
 the Battle of Bosworth, 
 
 as well of contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great 
 conquerors and princes, and also certain books of ensamples and doc- 
 trine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England came 
 and demanded me many and ofttimes, wherefore that I have not had 
 made and emprinted the noble history of the Saint Graal, and of the 
 most renowned Christian Iving, first and chief of the three best Chris- 
 tian and worthy, King Arthur, which ought most to be remembered 
 among us Englishmen before all other Christian kings. 
 
 (The other two chief and worthy kings are Charlemagne and 
 Godfrey of Boulogne.) The printer did not consent to the 
 urging of these divers and noble gentlemen, till they had 
 given him what he thought convincing proofs that Arthur 
 was no fable, but a real, historical personage. Then ' after 
 the simple cunning that God had sent to him, under the 
 favour of all noble lords and gentlemen,' he ' emprised to 
 imprint a book of the noble histories of the said King 
 Arthur and of certain of his knights, after a copy unto me 
 delivered, which copy Sir Thomas Malory did take out of 
 certain books of French and reduced it into English.' 
 Malory's version, as we learn from the conclusion of it, was 
 finished in 1469 or early in the following year. But the 
 French works which mainly formed its basis were composed 
 in the reigns of Henry the Second and Henry the Third ; 
 so that in fact it carries us back in some sense to tlio twelfth 
 century, and as the French works were themselves but the 
 transcripts of yet older legends, to yet earlier centuries. \\q 
 say in ' some sense,' because much of the spirit which 
 actuates Malory's work certainly belongs to the close and 
 not to the opening years of the Middle Ages. The spirit 
 is of the sunset, not of the sunrise : it is that of a requiem.
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 21 
 
 not of a nativity hymn. It looks back with tender, wistful, 
 regretting eyes on days bygone for ever —not forward with 
 any gaiety of hope to what may be coming, or around it 
 with any exultant pride at what is present. The times 
 portrayed in this work were dead, the picture given of 
 them is, as might be expected, softened and idealised. 
 Those times were now to be used to point a moral. 
 Caxton, in another passage of that Prologue from which 
 we have given an extract above, speaks of Malory's account 
 of them in very much the same tone as that in which 
 Spenser thought of it, and reproduced it. Roger Ascham, 
 who died some fifteen years after Spenser was born, perused 
 the work with cold, unfascinated eyes, in a very different 
 fashion from Spenser. Being a man deeply versed in the 
 new learning, he had but little sympathy with such un- 
 lettered productions, — 'which, as some say,' to quote his 
 own words, ' were made in monasteries by idle monks or 
 wanton Chanons ; ' he recognised nothing in the Morte 
 cT Arthur but licentiousness and slaughter. 
 
 This is good stuff (he exclaims with bitter irony) for wise men to 
 laugh at or honest men to take pleasure at. Yet I know when God's 
 Bible was banished the Court, and Morte Arthure received into the 
 Prince's chamber. What toys the daily reading of such a book may 
 work in the will of a young gentleman or a young maid that liveth 
 wealthily and idly, wise men can judge, and honest men do pity. 
 
 Not less bitterly does he inveigh against them in the preface 
 of his Toxophilus, addressed to all the gentlemen and yeo- 
 men of England. But it may be Ascham is blinded by his 
 own conceit, when he talks after this manner. No pure soul 
 was ever tainted by the reading of the Morte d' Arthur. 
 Whatever the incidents of the book, the moral tone is high 
 and reproachless ; in this respect the unreality of the book 
 gives security. But it is saying enough, and infinitely
 
 22 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 more than enough, for the defence of the Morte (t Arthur, 
 that it was a favourite work with Spenser and with Milton. 
 
 Spenser derived his materials for his great poem mainly 
 from this great quarry, though he was acquainted also with 
 what other Romances of Chivalry were current in his days — 
 with Bevis of Hampton and others. The Arthurian Cycle, 
 as preserved there, was to him what the Carlovingian Cycle 
 was to Ariosto, what that of Amadis to Cervantes. It might 
 be interesting to consider and contrast the different treat- 
 ments of the Chivalrous Romances by these three great 
 masters. The Italian adopts them for their story's sake, and 
 deals with them accordingly ; whatever moral professions he 
 may make, he has no ulterior purpose at heart. The 
 realistic Cervantes is struck by their want of truthfulness to 
 nature — by the great gulf that divides them from actual life ; 
 he laughs them to scorn, not without occasional twinges of 
 remorse, and almost involuntary admissions of certain charms 
 still clinging to their faded forms. Lastly our Spenser, a 
 poet of no dramatic nature, and not alienated from them, 
 but perhaps rather drawn towards them, by that very unreality 
 which provoked the genial laughter of the Spaniard — our 
 Spenser recognised in them a most apt vehicle for those 
 lofty ethical lessons which he made it his high business to 
 diffuse. That taste for allegory which was dominant in the 
 crowning century of the Middle Ages, had not died out in 
 Spenser's time. It had been cultivated continuously ; it had 
 imbued the productions of our rising drama ; it powerfully 
 affected Spenser. In his hands the Arthurian court became 
 but a grand allegory. The stout old knights-errant were re- 
 fined into mere qualities ; they became mere moral spectres, 
 virtuous shadows, exemplary ideas. 
 
 Before we leave the sixteenth century, we must mention 
 that though all through it the prose translations of the old
 
 OLD EUGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 23 
 
 Romances were gradually surpassing the poetic versions in 
 popularity, yet the poetic versions were not yet forgotten. 
 Many of them were printed by the successors of Caxton. 
 Very many of them were abridged, to suit the taste of the day. 
 The Romances of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were 
 contracted into ballads in the latter half of the sixteenth, and 
 in this shape enjoyed a most extensive circulation. How 
 well they were known is very clearly shown by the dramatists ; 
 allusions and quotations abound in their plays. We can all 
 recall to mind the 'When Arthur first in Court began,' 
 ' Child Roland to the dark tower came,' and other scraps of 
 the balladry of the time in Shakespeare. These popular 
 abridgments were sung up and down the country by the 
 minstrel, and by his successor the ballad-singer. One 
 Richard Sheal is sometimes called the last of the minstrels ; 
 and certainly, if an extant original piece of his may be taken 
 as a specimen of the style and talents of the fraternity, he 
 altogether deserved to be the last. Gentlemen of his pro- 
 fession became more and more superfluous as ability to read 
 became a more common virtue. 
 
 We come now to the seventeenth century. Milton, in his 
 earlier years, when looking round for a worthy subject for 
 the great poem which it was the darling purpose of his life 
 to compose, for whose composition he unweariedly prepared 
 and matured himself through many years, turned his regard 
 first to that same great Arthurian legend that had so deeply 
 charmed the soul of his great master, ' our sage and serious 
 Poet Spenser,' as he calls him, whom he dared be known to 
 think a ' better teacher than Scotus and Aquinas.' In two 
 of his Latin poems, written in or about 1639, he announces 
 fully the theme that then attracted him. Elsewhere, sketch- 
 ing his early life, in answer to the audacious slanders of an 
 unscrupulous enemy, he tells whither ' his young feet wan-
 
 24 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 dered. I betook me,' he writes, 'among those lofty fables 
 and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of 
 knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from hence 
 had in renown all over Christendom.' In // Fcnseroso he 
 refers to Chaucer's Squire's tale with evident admiration — a 
 tale left half-told by Chaucer, but completed, it is to be 
 noted, by Spenser — and would have called up for himself 
 and resung other poetry also of that strain, 
 
 If aught else great bards beside 
 
 In sage and solemn tunes have sung, 
 
 Of turneys and of trophies hung ; 
 
 Of forests and enchantments drear, 
 
 When more is meant than meets the ear. 
 
 The great epic poem was at last composed with a far dif- 
 ferent subject than that originally proposed by its author ; 
 the fascination of the old Romances was in part dispelled ; 
 Milton made his final election truthfully to his own nature 
 and his own moral and spiritual environment. Yet we can 
 see what knowledge he had gathered, what pictures his 
 imagination had conceived of the old days of chivalry, 
 when he speaks of 
 
 WTiat resounds 
 In fable or romance of Uther's son, 
 Begirt with British and Armoric knights ; 
 
 or when he compares the hall of Pandemonium to 
 
 A covered field where champions bold 
 Wont ride in arm'd and at the Soldan's chair 
 Defied the best of Panim chivalry 
 To mortal combat or career with lance. 
 
 Dryden's earlier plays are, in a word, as Scott describes 
 them, dramatised metrical Romances. The Romances 
 most popular in his day, and, indeed, for some time before
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 25 
 
 were of Spanish origin, belonging to the cycle of Amadis de 
 Gaul, which, though primarily in allprobabihty of Portuguese 
 extraction, had been abundantly cultivated and expanded in 
 Spain. There is a highly amusing evidence of the favour 
 enjoyed by the knightly fictions of the Peninsula in a play 
 by Beaumont and Fletcher, called The Knight of the Burning 
 Pestle. There a young grocer called Ralph appears perusing 
 Palmerin of England (it should have been Palmerin (fOliva, 
 for from it, not Palmerin of England, the passages quoted 
 come), and presently, to the intense delight of an old grocer 
 and his wife, determines to turn grocer-errant. 'What 
 brave spirit,' exclaims the high-minded youth, ' could be 
 content to sit in his shop with a flappet of wood and a blue 
 apron before him, selling mithridatum, that might pursue 
 feats of arms, and through his noble achievements procure 
 such a famous history to be written of his heroic prowess ? ' 
 So he furnishes himself with a pair of squires in the shape 
 of two apprentices, and sets forth. He gets into some diffi- 
 culty about his hotel bills ; for the times were unenthusiastic, 
 and innkeepers objected to knights-errant that did- not pay 
 their way ; but he manages to perform some great exploits. 
 
 George (says the old grocer's wife), let Ralph travel over great 
 hills, and let him be very weary, and come to the King of Cracovia's house 
 covered with velvet, and there let the king's daughter stand in her 
 window all in beaten gold, combing her golden locks with a bomb of 
 ivory ; and let her spy Ralph and fall in love with him, and come down 
 to him and carry him into her father's house, and then let Ralph talk 
 with her ! 
 
 This play may suggest, perhaps, a suspicion of what, in 
 fact, befell the Romances of Chivalry both in their metrical 
 and their prose shapes. They were abandoned by the 
 better educated classes to the admiration of the common 
 people. They fell from the high estate they had held in the
 
 26 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 world of letters ; they were banished from the fine societ}' 
 which had once so eagerly countenanced and caressed 
 them ; they found a welcome with less well-lettered, simpler 
 folk. It is certain that the air in which the author of the 
 Pilgrim's Progress grew up was resonant with the songs 
 and stories of Romance. Ballad singers were going to and 
 fro about the country, furnished no doubt with songs of an 
 immediate political import — for ballads in those days did in 
 some sort the work which newspaper articles do now — but 
 furnished also with many a rhymed legend of the olden 
 time, to which unlearned crowds listened with rapt ears. 
 Bunyan may have made one of many such a crowd in 
 various parts of the country visited by him with the itinerant 
 tinker his father, and with half unconscious delight "heard 
 old ditties which were to bear fruit in him passing wonderful. 
 Moreover, these same old pieces — these fragments of a 
 decaying literature — were circulating in Bunyan's time in 
 the form of cheap books. His immortal allegory is, like the 
 Faerie Qiieene, but a spiritual romance ; it overflows in the 
 same incidents, adventures, enterprises that compose the 
 medieval tales, curiously interwoven with the life-scenery of 
 the Commonwealth and the Restoration. 
 
 Not again did the seeds of Romance, sown by the way- 
 side, fall into such soil as the mind of Bunyan. 
 
 We can now, when our space is so nearly exhausted, only 
 just remind our readers of the once famous popular Heroic 
 Romances, and of the famous Comic Romances which 
 were born of the old Romances of Chivalry, whose 
 history we have been cursorily reviewing. The old 
 prose Romance, interwedded with what was called the 
 Pastoral Romance — a form of literature in part origin- 
 ated in the Middle Ages, in the main imitated from certain 
 late Greek productions — reappeared in the form of such
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES 27 
 
 works as Montemayor's Diana, and Sydney's Arcadia. 
 From these works the heroic romance was directly descended. 
 We suppose no living person has indulged himself in the 
 complete perusal of the twelve volumes of Cleopatre or of 
 Pharamond ; the ten of Clelie ; the 'twelve huge' ones of 
 the Grand Cyrus. Yet these were the favourite reading of 
 ladies and gentleman for near a hundred years — from about 
 the middle of the seventeenth to that of the eighteenth 
 century. Their leading characteristics are defined, by one 
 who in her day, as she says, ' drudged through them,' and 
 was 'still alive,' to be unnatural representations of the 
 passions, false sentiments, false precepts, false honour, and 
 false modesty, with a strange heap of improbable, unnatural 
 incidents, mixed up with true history, and fastened upon 
 some of the great names of antiquity. In a word, there was 
 but slight connection between them and life ; they were rife 
 with affectations ; they were dyed deep with a sort of mental 
 euphuism. Moliere laughed at them ; Boileau exposed and 
 derided them. Not being founded on the rock of truth to 
 nature, they soon showed signs of decay, soon tottered and 
 fell. Their downfall was completed in the year 1740 by 
 the outcoming of a book called Pamela — a book written 
 with no lofty design of overthrowing the literary dynasty 
 then in power and founding a new one ; and yet these were 
 the remarkable feats it achieved. From that day the novel 
 dethroned the Heroic Romance. 
 
 As for the Comic Romance, that naturally enough sprung 
 up by the side of the Serious one. The preposterous un- 
 reality of the Chivalrous Romances, especially when the lives 
 of the old poems were prolonged into an age for which they 
 were not born — into an age that had little and decreasing 
 sympathy with the sentiments out of which they had arisen 
 — soon awakened laughter. We have seen how Chaucer,
 
 28 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 who lived near the time of their greatest prosperity, himself 
 parodied them, though his contemporaries, perhaps, sym- 
 pathised little with his ridicule. No wonder if in later ages, 
 Rabelais, Cervantes, Scarron, all laughed them to scorn. 
 Still less wonder if other writers thought it no profanity to 
 use the form and machinery of them for their own purposes, 
 as eminently Butler used them — with much derision, by the 
 way — when he sketched the famous knight Sir Hudibras, in 
 that memorable mock-romance called, with all propriety, 
 after its hero. The arguments of that work are merely per- 
 verted inventories, so to say, of the contents of many an old 
 Romance of Chivalry. 
 
 To return, for one last moment, to the Chivalrous Ro- 
 mances themselves. We have now traced their career from 
 the time of their rise and their glory to the age of their de- 
 cay and obscurity ; from the time when kings' palaces and 
 baronial halls resounded with them, to that when they found 
 favour only with the simplest and rudest classes of society ; 
 from the time when they were sung by the medieval minstrel, 
 in all his pride and splendour, to the gayest audiences, to 
 when, in marred, mutilated form, they were trolled forth by 
 the vagrant balladmonger to the humblest crowds in the 
 bye-lanes and among the hedges of the country. In the last 
 century there arose generations that knew not King Arthur 
 and his Knights. The Romances of Chivalry sank into 
 deep neglect. To be brief, out of this obscurity they were 
 brought once more into the light by the vital change of 
 literary taste and feeling which inevitably accompanied the 
 tremendous political revolutions in the midst of which the 
 eighteenth century closed. About the beginning of this 
 present century Europe began to recall the ' Old Romances 
 sung beside her in her youth.' The long forgotten old poems 
 were in some sort brought back into the knowledge of men
 
 OLD ENGLISH METRLCAL ROMANCES 29 
 
 by one who, in a word, as a poet, aspired to be a ninteenth- 
 century Troiivere. Scott was the first minstrel, to use the 
 word as he uses it, of a modern school of Romance. He 
 not only wrote himself pieces in imitation of the old style, 
 but he put within reach genuine pieces of the old literature. 
 Since his time both the form and the subjects of the ancient 
 Romances have been repeatedly set before us by Coleridge, 
 Leigh Hunt, Byron, Tennyson, Morris, and many others, — 
 sometimes with the spirit also, but often in a purely modern 
 fashion. 
 
 And now this rapid historical survey must be concluded ; 
 nor is there time now to speak of the character of this old 
 literature. We think it could easily have been shown that 
 it possesses certain intrinsic merits besides those extrinsic 
 ones which it has been my present object to consider ; that 
 amidst many weaknesses, such as must be looked for in a 
 poetry that was mainly oral, many exuberances, many rusti- 
 cities, it could yet show for itself many graces such as can 
 never cease to be winning ; that there is a certain tenderness 
 and pathos in the voice of it such as cannot but still move 
 the heart of him who hears it crying in the far-away wilder- 
 nesses of past time. Ancient years live again for us, as we 
 listen to this voice ; the faces of old centuries look up 
 blooming and bright. But of such power in the old Chival- 
 rous Romances we may not now speak. It is perhaps a 
 sufficing testimony for them that they thus have won the ear 
 of successive generations of great men. Thus in a high 
 sense has been fulfilled the prophecy contained in the line 
 on the famous tombstone said to have been exhumed at 
 Glastonbury : — 
 
 Hie jacet Arturus, rex olim, rexque futurus. 
 Here Arthur lies, Kins; once, and King to be
 
 II 
 
 THE LAY OF HAVELOK THE DANE 
 
 (From The Athenceum for February 23, 1889) 
 
 A S it is impossible that the histories of our language and 
 I~\ literature, or of any language and literature, can be 
 accurately written until the dates of the extant specimens are 
 satisfactorily settled, I trust I may without apology proceed 
 to make some suggestions as to the date of Havelok the 
 Dane. Sir Fred. Madden assigns it to the year 1280 or 
 thereabouts ; and Prof. Skeat in his valuable reissue of Sir 
 Frederick's excellent edition is content to follow so good an 
 authority. But I venture to think that there are several 
 things in this romance that point to a later year — to a year 
 certainly not earlier than 1296, and possibly as late as 1300. 
 Perhaps the most decisive of these arguments is the 
 curious mentions of Roxburgh that occur. When Athehvold 
 feels that his death is at hand, and is eager to make some 
 arrangement for the safety of his young daughter, we are 
 told that he 
 
 Sende writes sone onon 
 After his erles euere-ich on, 
 And after hise baruns riche and poure 
 Fro Rokesburw al into Douere. 
 
 And further on, when Athehvold is dead and Godrich is
 
 THE LA Y OF HA VELOK THE DANE 31 
 
 beginning his regency with vigour and credit, it is said tliat 
 
 Justises dede he maken newe 
 Al Engelond to faren ])orw 
 Fro Douere into Rokesborw. 
 
 Strangely enough, Sir F. Madden overlooks the import- 
 ance of these mentions. But surely it is a highly pertinent 
 question why Roxburgh should be thus named as the 
 northern limit of Godrich's dominion. It has been sug- 
 gested, as Prof. Skeat states in his Index of Names, that 
 Rokesborw means Rokeby ; but how could Rokeby come 
 to be written Rokesborw, and why should Rokeby, of all 
 places, be selected as a boundary town ? There can be no 
 doubt that Roxburgh is the place meant, and a glance at the 
 history of the period at once makes clear why Roxburgh is 
 mentioned in this way. From the year 1296 the name of 
 Roxburgh became thoroughly familiar to the Southern ear, 
 as in fact the name of King Edward's northern border for- 
 tress — the name of the limit of English rule in that part of 
 the island. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine that any one 
 before that year could have mentioned it along with Dover, 
 as it is mentioned in the romance of Havelok. One could 
 imagine such a phrase as from Dover to Norham, or as from 
 Dover to Wark ; in the French romance {Le Lai d'Avelok) 
 Havelok's English kingdom is said to extend ' de Holande 
 desq'en Gloucestre.' But that a place well on the further 
 side of the EngUsh march, and one of the chief Scottish 
 border fortresses, should be linked with Dover to denote an 
 extremity of an English kingdom would surely be quite in- 
 comprehensible. When the Scottish troubles were beginning, 
 and the arbitration of King Edward was invoked, one of his 
 first requests was that certain national fortresses should be 
 given up to him, and one of these was Roxburgh. Dr 
 Robert Chambers in his History of Scotland brings out the
 
 32 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 fact that while the king held these fortresses in 1292, the 
 Court of King's Bench sat for some time at Roxburgh. 
 After this temporary occupation the castles were, when King 
 Edward gave his award, restored to the Scots. When at last 
 war broke out between the two nations, one of Edward's first 
 acts in his first invasion of Scotland in 1296 was to seize 
 Roxburgh : ' accessit rex castrum Rokesburgise quod statim 
 redditum est ei a Senescallo Scotiae,' says Walsingham, 
 'Hist. Ang.,' s.a. 1296. See also Harding's Chronicle: — 
 
 To Ronkesburgh the kyng Edward so held 
 That sone was yelde to hym without stryfe, 
 Their good saufe also and theyr lyfe. 
 
 And for many years it remained in the hands of the English : 
 indeed, with intervals, it remained in our hands till the year 
 1460, when, the Scotch again regaining it, it was levelled to 
 the ground. 
 
 It was besieged vainly by Wallace in 1298; it was the 
 
 English mustering place in 1303 (apud Rokesburgiam 
 
 exercitum adunavit). So it was from the year 1296 that 
 Roxburgh became, for a time at least, the boundary fortress 
 of England. And assuredly not till then might such a phrase 
 as ' from Dover to Roxburgh ' be expected to suggest itself. 
 But clearly before 1291 it can scarcely be conceived as 
 occurring. 
 
 And several other details seem to agree with a date later 
 than 1280. 
 
 Thus the several passages in which the suppression of 
 robbers and the vigorous establishment of order throughout 
 the country are so specially described must surely contain 
 reference to the vigorous administration of him who has been 
 called ' the greatest of the Plantagenets.' See 11. 39-43 : — 
 
 Wreicrs and wmbbcres made he falle, 
 And haled hem so man dotli galle ;
 
 THE LA Y OF HA VELOK THE DANE 33 
 
 Vtlawes and theues made he bynde, 
 Alle that he micthe fynde, 
 And heye hangen on galwetre. 
 
 And 11. 266-9 '■ — 
 
 Schireues he sette, bedels and greyues, 
 Grith sergeans, wit longe gleyues 
 To yemen wilde wodes and pa))es 
 Fro wicke men that wolde don sca])es. 
 
 It seems impossible not to connect these passages with the 
 Statute of Winchester passed in 1285, and the Commissions 
 of Trailbaston first issued in 1 292. The object of the Statute 
 of Winchester was ' to put down the lawless bands of club- 
 men, old soldiers, outlaws, and sturdy beggars who had 
 taken to robbing in gangs and living upon the country.' 
 But it was ill observed till, says Lingard, ' the king issued a 
 commission to certain knights in every shire, authorising 
 them to enforce the provisions of the Act, and to call to 
 their aid the posse of the sheriff as often as it might be 
 requisite. The utility of these commissioners was soon 
 ascertained ; they were gradually armed with more exten- 
 sive powers ; and instead of conservators were at last styled 
 justices of the peace.' See the second of the two passages 
 quoted above for the mention of Roxburgh. The illustra- 
 tions Sir F. Madden and Dr Skeat refer to apiid Otterbourne, 
 Guillaume de Jumieges, Dudon de Saint Quentin, and Beda 
 are faint and feeble by the side of the exact parallel the 
 history of Edward I.'s domestic policy provides. 
 
 Scarcely less significant is the stress which the romance- 
 writer lays on the incorruptibility with which the law was 
 administered. ' For hem,' i.e., for trangressors, ' ne yede 
 gold ne fe,' i.e.., bribes in their behalf went for nothing (for 
 this way of speaking compare 1. 1430 : 'hauede go for him 
 gold ne fe '). Now in 1289 the king took the most energetic 
 
 c
 
 34 FOLIA UTTER ARIA 
 
 measures to purify the law courts. When he returned to 
 England from the Continent in that year, 'all the judges 
 were apprehended, and indicted for bribery. Two only 
 were acquitted ' — John of Methingham and Elias de Bock- 
 ingham. Weyland, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 
 Stratton, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Ralph de 
 Hengham, the Grand Justiciary and regent during the king's 
 absence, and their fellow culprits were all severely punished. 
 What point this contemporary fact would give, and gives, to 
 the romancer's verse ! 
 
 Again, observe line 2808 : — 
 
 Quot Hauelok : ' Ilwan jat ye it wite, 
 Nu wile ich ))at ye doun site ; 
 And after Godrich haues wrouht , 
 ))at haues in sorwe himself brouht, 
 Lokes \zX ye demen him rith, 
 For dom ne spared clerk ne kinth.' 
 
 Surely this last line cannot but be associated not only with 
 the First Statute of Westminster, 1275, but with the decree 
 and the writ of Circujiispecte agatis, 1285. The First Statute 
 of Westminster declares, amongst other things, that common 
 justice shall be done without respect of persons. As to the 
 writ of CircujHSpecte agatis, it defines the sphere of the 
 spiritual courts. To quote Dr Stubbs, it 'recognises their 
 right to hold pleas on matters merely spiritual, such as 
 offences for which penance was due, tithes, mortuaries, 
 churches and churchyards, injuries done to clerks, perjury, 
 and defamation.' The clerk as well as the knight, says 
 Havelok, is amenable to the common law ; there is no such 
 immunity as the Church is perpetually striving after. And 
 this is just what Edward I. had been insisting upon. 
 
 To take another point : when Godrich hears that Havelok 
 is landed in England : —
 
 THE LA V OF HA VELOK THE DANE 35 
 
 He dide sone ferd ut bidde 
 J)at al ])at euere mouhte o stede 
 Ride, or helm on heued bere, 
 Brini on bac and sheld and spare 
 Or ani o]>er wepne bere, 
 Hand-ax, syjie, gisarm or spere 
 Or aunlaz and god long knif 
 )jat als he louede leme or lif, 
 l>at J)ey sholden comen him to, &c. 
 
 LI. 2548-56. 
 
 Surely another note of the time is audible here in this de- 
 scription of the fyrd ; for the fyrd was revived by the Statute 
 of Winchester in 1285. 'The Statute of Winchester,' says 
 Dr Stubbs, 'carries us back to the earliest institutions of the 
 race ; it revives and refines \sic ; defines ?] the action of the 
 hundred, hue and cry, watch and ward, the fyrd and the 
 assize of arms.' In 1297 this statute was put in force in 
 respect of the fyrd. In that year there was made a military 
 levy of the whole kingdom — exactly such a levy as Godrich 
 appoints. 
 
 Is it likely that the following account could have been 
 given of a Parliament before the year 1295, the year of the 
 first complete and model Parliament of the Three Estates ? 
 
 In )jat time al Hengelond 
 
 \qx\ Godrich hauede in his bond, 
 
 And he gart komen into ])e tun 
 
 Mani erl and mani barun, 
 
 And alle [men] jjat Hues were 
 
 In Eng [ejlond ))anne wer ))ere, 
 
 |jat ))ey haueden after sent 
 
 To ben ]>er at ))e parlement. — LI. 999-1006. 
 
 That is, this Parliament was composed of earls and barons, 
 and men sent by the people at large ; for this is what the 
 somewhat obscure latter lines seem to mean. And this 
 Parliament was held at Lincoln. Now Edward I. held a
 
 36 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Parliament at Lincoln in 1301. This curious coincidence, 
 as it is to say the least, is of course noted, as we shall see, 
 by Sir F. Madden ; but, inclining as he does to the year 
 1280 for the date of the romance, he attaches less import- 
 ance to it than it may deserve. 
 
 I cannot but suspect that in the charming picture of 
 matrimonial bliss the old poet draws when he describes the 
 married life of Havelok and Goldborough, he has in his 
 mind the famous contemporary example of a happy marriage. 
 He is reflecting the devoted mutual attachment of his king 
 and queen — a love whose touching memorials yet present 
 themselves in the three Eleanor Crosses that still in some 
 sort survive. And this description is more likely to have 
 been written late in the eighties than early — perhaps most 
 likely to have been written after 1290, in which year the 
 queen died, when the king's great grief for his irreparable 
 loss made especially evident to his people the depth of his 
 devotion. The date of the Eleanor Crosses is 1291-4. 
 
 So mikel loue was hem bitwene 
 
 ))at al ])e werd spak of hem two. 
 
 He louede hire, and she him so, 
 
 l)at ney))er o])c[r] mithe be 
 
 For [fro ?] o])er, ne no ioie se 
 
 But yf he were togidere boI)e. 
 
 Neuere yete ne weren he wro])e, 
 
 For here loue was ay newe ; 
 
 Neuere yete wordes ne grewe 
 
 Bitwene hem, hwarof ne lathe 
 
 Milhe rise, ne no wrathe. — LI. 2967-77. 
 
 A nation is fortunate that can find its domestic ideal 
 realised on the throne ; and that good fortune was England's 
 in the times of King Edward and Queen Eleanor, as re- 
 cently in our own. 
 
 I think it will be allowed that if wc jnit all these things
 
 THE LAY OF HAVELOK THE DANE 37 
 
 together — they might be further enforced and reinforced if 
 space permitted — we have good reason for placing the com- 
 position of ' Havelok ' nearer to the year 1300 than the year 
 1280. On some of them, if they stood quite alone, I would 
 not insist ; but, taken altogether, they form a powerful argu- 
 ment in favour of the later date. The Roxburgh inference 
 is strong enough to stand alone. It appears almost certain 
 that those mentions could not have been made before 1296. 
 
 It is important to observe that the passages to which 
 attention has been called belong specially to the English 
 version of the Romance. There is no trace of them in Le 
 Lai cTAvelok, nor in Gaimar's abridgment of the ' Lay.' Of 
 course, as both these French versions belong to the first 
 half of the twelfth century, any trace of the suggested allu- 
 sions there would at once disprove their Edwardian con- 
 nexion. In fact, the passages to which attention is here called 
 are the significant additions or variations of the English 
 paraphrast, or, as the English version is so largely inde- 
 pendent of the previous ones, we may rather say the English 
 composer. 
 
 Sir Frederick Madden — in one, at least, of his notes — is 
 not unwilling to entertain the idea of a later date than that 
 he adopts. 'If,' he writes, commenting on 1. 2521, 'the 
 connexion between this foundation [which he describes 
 as "the Augustine Friary of Black Monks," founded at 
 Whitby in 1280] and the one recorded in the poem ["of 
 monckes blake a priorie "J be considered valid, the date of 
 the composition must be referred to rather a later period 
 than we wish to admit.' But elsewhere he remarks : ' If we 
 could suppose that the author of the romance alluded to 
 this very Parliament [that of Lincoln, "1303"; he should 
 say 1 301], it would reduce the period of the poem's com- 
 position to a later date than either the style or the writing 
 
 57 51^
 
 38 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 of the MS. will possibly admit of. It is, therefore, far 
 more probable the writer here makes use of a poetical and 
 very pardonable licence in transferring the Parliament to the 
 chief city of the county in which he was evidently born or 
 brought up, without any reference whatever to historical 
 data.' So Sir Frederick relies upon the style and the writing. 
 Now, is our knowledge of palaeography so precise and exact 
 that any one could positively assert of any special document 
 that it belongs certainly to 1280 rather than 1300? And if 
 palasographic science has attained such excellence — perhaps 
 it has ; I speak with the utmost humility on the matter — 
 then do our present authorities in this line ratify Sir 
 Frederick's statement? Are they prepared to maintain that 
 the Bodleian MS. that concerns us cannot have been 
 written later than 1280? If they are, then there remains 
 an argument for 1280 that cannot be ignored. But as to 
 Sir Frederick's argument from ' style,' I must venture to 
 think that our knowledge of Middle English even now — it 
 has made great advances since 1828, when Sir Frederick's 
 edition of ' Havelok ' appeared — is not such as to justify any 
 such confident insistence on any special year, or the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood of any special year — on the year 1280 
 or thereabouts rather than the year 1300 or thereabouts. I 
 doubt whether any of our chief living scholars would be so 
 daring. The fact is that the difificulties of the subject are 
 more fully realised than they were sixty years ago ; the com- 
 plexity and perplexity of such questions are better under- 
 stood. An increase of knowledge often, at first at least, 
 makes positiveness impossible. And the time has not yet 
 come when English scholarship can say the last word as to 
 the date of any medieval composition, when there is nothing 
 but ' style ' on which to base a conclusion. 
 
 I will just add that the EngUsh romance is quoted in
 
 THE LA V OF HA VELOK THE DANE 39 
 
 1303 by Robert of Brunne (see Skeat's Spec, of Eng., part 
 ii. p. 301, ed. 1884). The first certain reference to it noted 
 by Sir F. Madden belongs to the year 13 10. It is made by 
 Meistre Rauf do Bonn in his chronicle called Le Bruit 
 Vetigkterre, or otherwise Le Petit Bruit.
 
   III 
 
 EGER AND GRIME ^ 
 
 (From the printed Edition oi Bishop Percy's Folio MS.) 
 
 OF this once popular, and deservedly popular romance, 
 there are two copies known — the following one of the 
 Folio, now printed from the Folio for the first time ; and a 
 copy printed at Aberdeen in 1711,^ of which an abstract is 
 given by Mr Ellis in his Specimens of Early English Metrical 
 Romances, and a reprint, by Mr Laing, in his Early Metrical 
 Tales, in 1826. The latter copy is evidently a much diluted 
 version of the old romance. ' The printer,' says Mr Ellis, 
 'has evidently followed a very imperfect MS., with which 
 also he seems to have taken great liberties ; and the story, 
 as it now stands, is so obscurely told, that the catastrophe 
 is quite unintelligible, and has been in the present abstract 
 supplied by conjecture.' 
 
 The diffuseness of the said copy may be appreciated when 
 we state that it consists of 2860 lines, of which 2782 contain 
 the story given in the Folio in 1473 liiieS; i'^ little more 
 
 ' This Old Piece is not much Inferior to one of Ariosto's Gates. — P. 
 
 2 Mr Laing kindly informs us that he possesses an edition twenty-four 
 years earlier than this one. 'It was a bequest,' he writes, 'by my old 
 friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., and has this title: " The History 
 of Sir Eger, Sir Grahatne, and Sir Gray-Stccl. Printed in the year 1687.' 
 It is a little i8mo, pp. 72, black letter, without cither the place of printing 
 or printer's name. 
 
 40
 
 EGER AND GRIME 41 
 
 than half the space. The last 60 furnish a feeble continua- 
 tion of the original story. Sir Graham (so Sir Grime is 
 called there) dies ; Sir Eger's bride discovers the trick that 
 has been played upon her, and betakes herself to a religious 
 life. Sir Eger fights in Holy Land. Returning, and find- 
 ing his affronted wife dead, he marries Sir Graham's widow. 
 'This romance,' says Mr Ellis, 'is by no means deficient in 
 merit; but I do not know of its existence in a perfect state, 
 either in MS. or in print, unless it be preserved entire in 
 Bishop Percy's folio.' 
 
 Everyone who cares for old romances will, we think, find 
 pleasure in the Folio version now at last brought to the 
 light. We see no reason for suspecting that it deviates 
 from the original romance in respect of its story. The 
 spelling and the language are considerably corrupted or 
 modernised ; but the incidents and circumstances remain 
 as they were. The frame of the picture is damaged ; but 
 the picture lives. In the later editions of his Reliques, in 
 his list of Ancient Metrical Romances, Bishop Percy just 
 mentions his copy. In 1800 he communicated an account 
 of it to Dr Robert Anderson, for the information of Sir 
 Walter (then plain Walter) Scott, the substance of which is 
 reproduced by Dr Leyden in his remarks on the romances 
 mentioned in the Complaint of Scotland (edited by him 
 in 1 801). It is printed verbatim in Mr Laing's Preface to 
 his reprint of the romance. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, after speaking of ' Gawen aiid Galogras,' 
 ' Galoran of Galloway,' and ' Sir Tristrem,' as romances in 
 which ' there does not appear the least trace of a French 
 original,' and probably ' compiled by Scottish authors from 
 the Celtic traditions which still floated amongst their 
 countrymen,' subjoins the hypothesis, that, ' to this list we 
 might perhaps be authorised in adding the History of Sir
 
 42 
 
 FOLIA LITTER ART A 
 
 Edgar and Sir Grime ; for although only a modernised 
 copy is now known to exist, the language is unquestionably 
 Scottish, and the scene is laid in Carrick in Ayrshire.' We 
 see no reason for referring it to Celtic traditions. But it 
 may, perhaps, be of domestic growth. Certainly this 
 romance enjoyed an early and extensive popularity in 
 Scotland. Perhaps the earUest mention ^ of it belongs to 
 the year 1497 ; when the Treasurer's accounts inform us : 
 * ixs ' was paid to ' twa fithelaris ^ that Sang Gray Steil to 
 the king,' James IV., then holding his court at Stirling, 
 James V., as we learn from Hume of Godscroft's history 
 of the family of Douglas, ' when he was young, loved ' 
 Archibald Douglas of Kilspendie 'singularly well, for his 
 ability of body, and was wont to call him Gray Steill.' Then, 
 as we have already intimated, the romance is referred to in 
 the Complaynt of Scotland, iS49) as one well and widely 
 known. Sir David Lyndsay, about the same time — who 
 indeed has been put forward by some critics as the author 
 of the Complaynt — mentions it more than once : as in his 
 'Squire Meldrum' — 
 
 I wate he faucht that day als weill 
 
 As did Schir Gryme againes Gray Steill — 
 
 in his Interlude of 'The Auld Man and his Wife' — 
 
 This is the sword that slew Gray Steill 
 Necht half a myle beyond Kinneill. 
 
 A poem, written in 1574, by John Davidson, then one of 
 the ministers of Edinburgh, published twenty-one years 
 afterwards at Edinburgh, says that poets have in all time 
 delighted to celebrate worthy persons : 
 
 ' See Leyden's Comp. o/Sc. and Mr Laing's Preface to his reprint. 
 2 Not ' Sachelaris.' That reading is, as Mr Laing informs us, a tran- 
 scriber's blunder.
 
 EGER AND GRIME 43 
 
 Even of Gray Steill, who list to luke, 
 Their is set foorth a meikle buke, 
 
 ' William, first Earl of Gowrie,' says Mr Laing, ' is denomi- 
 nated Gray Steill in one of Logan's letters, produced as a 
 proof of that alleged and mysterious conspiracy, which in all 
 probability shall \_Anglice will] remain a question of doubtful 
 interpretation.' Subsequently, allusions to our romance 
 abound. ' In a curious MS. volume,' to quote again from 
 Mr Laing's valuable Preface, ' formerly in the possession of 
 Dr Burney, entitled An Playing Booke for the Lute, 
 " Noted and collected " at Aberdeen by Robert Gordon, in 
 the year 1627, is the air of "Gray Steel," and there is a 
 satirical poem on the Marquis of Argyle, printed in 1686, 
 which is said " to be composed in Scottish rhyme," and is "ap- 
 pointed to be sung according to the tune of Old Gray Steel." ' 
 ' Besides these allusions,' adds Mr Laing, ' other evidence 
 of the popularity of this Romance might have been adduced 
 from common sayings and proverbial expressions which are 
 current to this day in various parts of the country, although 
 all knowledge of the hero and his exploits have long since 
 ceased to be remembered. Indeed, this romance would 
 seem, along with the poems of Sir David Lyndsay, and the 
 histories of Robert the Bruce, and of Sir William Wallace, 
 to have formed the standard productions of the vernacular 
 literature of the country. The author of the " Scots Hudi- 
 bras," originally printed at London, 1681, under the title 
 of "A Mock Poem, or the Whigg's Supplication," in describ- 
 ing Ralph's Library says : 
 
 And here lyes books, and there lyes ballads, 
 As Davie Lindsay, and Gray-Steel, 
 Squire Meldrum, Bevis, and Adam Bell, 
 There Bruce and Wallace. 
 
 'To this effect, John Taylor, "the water poet," a noted
 
 44 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 character in the reign of Charles I., speaks of Sir Degre, Sir 
 Grime, and Sir Gray-Steele, as having the same popularity 
 in Scotland that the heroes of other romances enjoyed in 
 their respective countries " filling (as he quaintly says) whole 
 volumes with the ayrie imaginations of their unknowne and 
 unmatchable worths." ' ' 
 
 The reader will not, we think, be surprised at the wide 
 popularity these many allusions imply. The poem is not 
 only valuable for its faithful picture of medieval life, with its 
 adventures and gallantry, and that mysterious atmosphere we 
 called ' romantic,' but for the force and beauty of its story. It 
 has charms beyond those which attract the antiquarian, or the 
 historical eye. The subject of the piece is the true and 
 tried friendship of Sir Eger and Sir Grime. Such a friend- 
 ship was a favourite subject with the old romance-writers. 
 See ' Amys and Amylion,' and ' Athelstan ' (printed from a 
 Caius College MS. in ReliquicE. Antiqiia). What Damon and 
 Pythias were to each other, and Pylades and Orestes, and 
 Theseus and Peirithous, thlt were Eger and Grime. 
 
 They were fellows good & fine ; 
 They were nothing sib of blood. 
 But they were Sworn Brethren good ; 
 They kept a chamber together at home ; 
 Better love loved there never none. 
 
 Of such a kind was the fast friendship of Wallace and 
 Graham, the recollection of which, perhaps, may have induced 
 later Scotch reciters or editors of the story to change Grime's 
 name into Graham. Graham had become to them the 
 ideal representative of the friend that sticks closer than a 
 brother. 
 
 This romance then, like the Fourth Book of the ' Fairy 
 
 ' Argument to the verses in praise of the Great O'Toole, originally 
 printed 1623, 8vo, and included in Taylor's works, 1634, folio, sign. Bb 2.
 
 EGER AND GRIME 45 
 
 Queen,' sings of friendship. It sings liow a true knight 
 stood faithfully by his friend when misfortune overtook him, 
 and fought his battle, and won it, and was rewarded with 
 the same happiness which he had so nobly striven to secure 
 for his friend — success in love. The causes of his friend's 
 misfortune are highly characteristic of the age in which the 
 romance was probably composed — the end of the fourteenth 
 or beginning of the fifteenth century. They are: (i) Sir 
 Eger's own adventurous spirit. He is a younger brother, 
 who, 'large of blood and bone,' but possessing no broad 
 lands, has to fight his way in the world. ' Ever he justs and 
 he fights.' Ever unvanquished, he wins the love of Wing 
 laine. Earl Bragas' daughter, who has set her heart on 
 marrying such an one. But with her love pledged to him, 
 and with all his honours, he cannot rest from seeking ad- 
 venture. He hears of a fresh enemy ; he sets off in quest 
 of him. 
 
 Upon a time Eger he would forth fare 
 To win him worship, as he did see ; 
 Whereby that he might praised be 
 Above all knights of high degree. 
 
 (2) Winglaine's inflexible resolve to give her hand to one 
 who had never been overthrown. The new enemy, against 
 whom her lover is gone, is the formidable Sir Gray-Steel. 
 The lover comes back from his encounter with him stained 
 with defeat. 
 
 So he came home upon a night 
 Sore wounded, & ill was he dight ; 
 His knife was forth, his sheath was gone ; 
 His scabbard by his thigh was done ; 
 A truncheon of a spear he bore, 
 And other weapons he bare no more. 
 On his bedside he set him down ; 
 He siked sore, & feel in swoon.
 
 46 h'OLTA LITTER ARIA 
 
 Winglaine overhears the miserable story he gives his much 
 sorrowing friend of his expedition ; and her heart is hardened 
 against him. He has committed what is in her eyes an un- 
 pardonable offence — he has been beaten. She laughs to 
 scorn the version of the affair, which the fidus Achates cir- 
 culates, to protect his friend's fair fame. She listens to Sir 
 Grime's intercession with supreme obduracy. She will no 
 longer lay any commands of hers upon him, she says. 
 
 All that while Eger was the knight 
 
 That wan the degree in every fight, 
 
 For his sake verily 
 
 Many a better I have put by. 
 
 Therefore I will not bid him ride, 
 
 Nor at home I will not bid him abide ; 
 
 Nor of his marriage I have nothing ado : 
 
 I wot not, Grime, what thou sayest thereto. 
 
 But poor, wounded Eger loves her as intensely as ever. 
 
 Such is the terrible distress from which friendship delivers 
 him. If Eger can yet subdue Gray-Steel, or be believed by 
 Winglaine to have subdued him, all may yet be well. The 
 friend determines himself to go forth against the enemy, 
 but to persuade the lady that her lover has gone. His 
 generous scheme succeeds. He returns triumphant; and 
 makes everybody believe that it is Eger returning so. 
 Winglaine now relents, as she thinks Sir Eger has redeemed 
 his honour ; and, after some show on his part of feigned in- 
 difference to her overtures, prisca redit venus, and the happy 
 day is fixed. 
 
 The Earl & Countess accorded soon ; 
 The Earl sent forth his messenger 
 To great lords far and near, 
 That they should come by the 15th day 
 To the marriage of his daughter gay. 
 And then Sir Eger, that noble knight, 
 Married Winglaine, that lady bright.
 
 EGER AND GRIME 47 
 
 The feast it lasted forty days 
 
 With lords & ladies in royal arrays ; 
 
 And at the forty days' end 
 
 Every man to his own home wend. 
 
 And in due time 
 
 Winglaine bare to Sir Eger 
 Fifteen children that were fair; 
 Ten of them were sonnes wight, 
 And five, daughters fair in sight. 
 
 Such is the outline of this charming old tale. The central 
 scene is the land of Beam. But the expeditions against 
 Sir Gray-Steel into the Forbidden Country are described at 
 great length and with excellent effect. The introduction of 
 the maiden who entertains and nurses, or advises the 
 knights when engaged in them, and who eventually marries 
 Sir Grime, is accompanied with most pleasant and graphic 
 pictures of the lady's bower of chivalric times. As Wing- 
 laine represents the sterner side of the female character, 
 Loosepain represents the gentler. Says Sir Eger : — 
 
 The Moon shone fair, the stars cast light ; 
 
 Then of a Castle I got a sight; 
 
 Of a Castle & a Town ; 
 
 And by an arbour side I light down ; 
 
 And there I saw fast me by 
 
 The fairest bower that ever saw I. 
 
 A little while I tarried there, 
 
 And a lady came forth of a fresh Arljour ; 
 
 She came forth of that garden green, 
 
 And in that bower fain would have been. 
 
 She was clad in scarlet red 
 
 And all of fresh gold shone her head ; 
 
 Her rud was red as rose in rain, 
 
 A fairer creature never seen. 
 
 Methought her coming did me good. 
 
 She is full of gentle consideration for the wounded and
 
 48 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 vanquished knight — for his wounded spirit as well as for his 
 pierced and bruised body. 
 
 The Lady lovesome under line 
 
 With her white hands she did wash mine ; 
 
 And when she saw my right hand bare, 
 
 Alas ! my shame is much the mair ! 
 
 The glove was whole, the hand was nomcn ; 
 
 Thereby she might well see I was overcomen ; 
 
 And she perceived that I thought shame ; 
 
 Therefore she would not ask me my name. 
 
 Nor at that word she said 710 mair, 
 
 But all good easements I had there. 
 
 This gentle-souled lady proves an excellent doctor — 
 
 Why was she called Loosepain ? 
 A better leech was none certain. — 
 
 (see vv. 243-328), and a most kindly nurse. Hand ignara 
 mail — her betrothed had been slain by Sir Gray-Steel, and 
 her brother also, in striving to avenge him — she endeavours 
 to forget her own griefs while she " succours " the miserable 
 Sir Eger ; but ever and anon, in the midst of her tender, 
 gracious nursing of him, they recur to her, and she must 
 needs weep. The old romances paint few more beautiful 
 touching pictures than this one : — 
 
 She sat down by the bedside, 
 
 She laid a psalter on her knee ; 
 
 Thereon she played full lovesomely ; 
 
 And yet for all her siveet playing, 
 
 Ofttimes she had full still mourning ; 
 
 And her two maidens sweetly sang, 
 
 And oft they wept, and their hands wrang ; 
 
 But I heard never so sweet playing, 
 
 And ever amongst so sore siking. 
 
 In the night she came to me oft, 
 
 And asked me whether I would ought ; 
 
 But always I said her nay, 
 
 Till it drew near the break of day.
 
 EGER AND GRIME 49 
 
 No wonder Sir Eger describes her afterwards as 
 
 . . . the gentlest of heart & will 
 That ever man came until. 
 
 She receives Sir Grime with the same sweet hospitahty — 
 happily he did not need experience her leechcraft, either 
 before or after his combat with Gray-Steel — disturbed by the 
 same irrepressible sorrow. 
 
 Meat nor drink none would he, 
 
 He was so enamoured of that fair lady. 
 
 He discovers the secret of her tears. 
 
 ' Sir,' she said, ' I must never be weel 
 Till I be avenged of Graysteel, 
 For he slew my brother, my father's heir, 
 And also my own lord both fresh & fair ; 
 For Sir Attelstan shold me have wedd, 
 But I came never in his bed.' 
 
 So Sir Grime rides forth against Sir Gray-Steel, not only 
 as Eger's friend, but as Loosepain's lover. He rides with a 
 lighter heart, therefore ; around him the small birds singing, 
 the flowers springing. The lady Loosepain, sitting at home 
 in her chamber, thinks of him gone to the Forbidden 
 Country 
 
 At supper where she was set ; 
 
 But never a morsel might she eat. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' she said, ' now I think on that knight, 
 
 That went from me when the day was light ! 
 
 Yesternight to the chamber I him led ; 
 
 This night Graysteel has made his bed. 
 
 Alas ! he is foul lost on him ! 
 
 That is much pity for his kin ! 
 
 For he is large of blood and bone ; 
 
 And goodly nurture lacketh he none. 
 
 And he is fair in arms to fold ; 
 
 He is worth to her his weight in gold ;
 
 so FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Woe is vie for his love in his country ! 
 She may think long or she him see ! ' 
 With that she thought on her Lord Attelstan 
 That the water out of her eyen ran. 
 
 Who is SO hard-hearted as not to rejoice when at this 
 juncture — 
 
 Grime knocked at the chamber door, 
 And a maiden stood there on the floor. 
 ' O madam ! ' she said, ' Now is come that knight 
 That went hence when the day was light ! ' 
 And hastily from the board she rise, 
 And kissed him twenty sithe. 
 ' How have you faren on your journey ? ' 
 ' Full well, my love,' Sir Grime did say. 
 
 Of course the old, old, never wearisome finale follows. 
 The brave, true, virgin knight 
 
 (' I had never wife,' he says, ' nor yet lady. 
 I tell you truly by Saint John, 
 I had never wife nor yet leman.') 
 
 marries the sweet tender-hearted lady. The betrothal — the 
 hand-fasting — takes place at once ; the marriage, after Sir 
 Grime has revisited the land of Beam, and ensured the 
 happiness of his friend, returning to Earl Gare's land — 
 
 There Sir Grime, that noble knight, 
 Married Loosepain, that lady bright, 
 
 A royal wedding was made there. 
 
 The third knight of the poem is Sir Gray-Steel. He is 
 described as 
 
 'A venturous knight. 
 
 That kept a forbidden country both day & night, 
 And a fresh island by the sea, 
 Where castles were with towers hie.
 
 EGER AND GRIME 51 
 
 The Forbidden Country was made an island by a river 
 and the sea together. It was well furnished with parks, and 
 palaces, and castles, and towers, and with watchmen. For 
 the lord of it, his shield and spear were red ; his steed so 
 big as to make Sir Eger's by the side of it look but a foal ; 
 his spear was great and long. In the four quarters of his 
 shield were a dragon, an unicorn, a bear, and a wild boar ; 
 in the midst "a ramping lion that would bite sore." His 
 armour is of wonderful and lavish magnificence, made of 
 silver and gold, and precious stones. He carries a golden 
 mace with a topaz at the end of it. His horse's furniture is 
 of the same splendid sort — reins of silk hung with bells of 
 gold, saddle of ' selcamar,' fretted with golden bars, breast- 
 plate of Indian silk. Moreover, his strength ebbed and 
 flowed, being greatest at noon, least at midnight. He 
 fought better on horseback than on foot. He was believed 
 to be invincible. With his hands too he had 
 
 . . . A hundred knights & mo, 
 Shamefully driven them to dead 
 Without succour or any remed, 
 
 and made their ladies captive. He was wont to cut off the 
 little finger of the right hand of those he slew or overthrew, 
 probably for some purpose of sorcery.^ The brilliant opul- 
 ence of Gray-Steel's appearance and his practice of witch- 
 craft both point to an Oriental origin. He is a terrible 
 infidel. At a later time, when an allegorical application of 
 the old romances was the fashion ; when they were being 
 turned to uses never dreamt of by their prime authors, and 
 it was insisted that "more was meant than met the ear"; 
 when those tendencies were working that produced their 
 
 ' Compare the Hand of Glory in The Antiquaiy ; in Thalaba, book 
 V. Fingers seem to have been used in a similar way.
 
 52 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 most glorious result in the ' Fairy Queen ' ; when men were 
 attempting to use for new thoughts the old forms of ex- 
 pression, just as they were retaining for Protestantism the 
 cathedrals that had so long re-echoed the liturgy of Rome — 
 at this time the ' Forbidden Country ' and Sir Gray-Steel 
 may have had assigned them a fresh significance. The 
 religious interpretation of them is obvious. The edition of 
 171 1 reads for the Forbidden Country 'The Land of Doubt.' 
 This latter title cannot fail to remind us, if the former did, 
 of certain adventures that befall the hero of the PilgrivCs 
 Progress. Bunyan must have been well familiar with the 
 common versions circulating in his time of the old romances. 
 Perhaps he may have heard a version of this very one from 
 one of the many Scotchmen who for various reasons overran 
 this country in the seventeenth century. 
 
 A supposed difficulty remains. We have seen that James, 
 in his youthful days, nick-named a Douglas, whom he then 
 loved, his ' Gray Steill.' ' There might be some reason as to 
 Lord Cowrie's nick-name,' writes Mr C. K. Sharpe, apud 
 Mr Laing's Preface, ' for it is plain that Gray Steill was a 
 sort of magician ; and Spottiswood says that Gowrie " was 
 too curious, and said to have consulted with wizards," etc. ; 
 but for Lord Eglintoun, it is only known that he fought 
 stoutly for the Solemn League and Covenant, was never 
 vanquished by Sir Grime, and had no deeper dealings with 
 the devil than the rest of his fellow Puritans.' With regard 
 to Douglas, we should conjecture that the name was given 
 him in banter. Affection often uses the seemingly most inapt 
 terms. ^ It expresses itself contrariously. It is much given to 
 irony. It can convert the hardest names into terms of en- 
 dearment. It can make the rudest speeches civil, the harshest 
 titles complimentary. So, perhaps, there is no such great 
 ' See Coleridge's Christabel, the conclusion to Part II.
 
 EGER AND GRIME 53 
 
 difficulty in James giving his favourite such a hard name. 
 As to Lord EgHntone, if it is only ' known that he fought 
 stoutly for the Solemn League and Covenant,' quite enough 
 is known to prepare us for the apphcation of the most 
 abusive terms to him. What with the great differences, and 
 the endless bitter little differences that distracted his age, he 
 must have been a very unique person indeed if he did not 
 get called by every possible bad name at one time or 
 another. 
 
 Naturally enough the popular taste, requiring brevity in a 
 title, and fascinated by the mystery and weird air that sur- 
 round Sir Gray-Steel, attached his name to the romance, 
 though it celebrates him and two others ; and so, as we 
 have seen, it is often referred to as ' Graysteel' 
 
 We think our readers will agree with Percy's verdict that 
 ' it is one of the best of the ancient epic tales ' preserved in 
 the Folio — will perhaps extend their praise. It is, indeed, 
 a poem of very high excellence, vivid, picturesque, terse, 
 delicate, tender, vigorous. It breathes the very spirit of 
 romance, and re-creates for us the old sights and scenes of 
 romantic life in all their strange grotesque beauty. The 
 knight-errant in his pride, and in his fall; the Forbidden 
 Land with its weird lord; the casde standing out in the 
 moonshine, as the broken knight rides away from the field 
 of his shame ; the scarlet-clad, gold-tiara'd lady who meets, 
 and greets, and doctors, and nurses him ; the wilderness 
 and the forest; the wonderful sword Egeking, of whose 
 ' guider ' ' no man ever of woman born durst abide the face 
 beforn ' ; Sir Eger in ' a window,' reading books of romance ; 
 Winglaine on the walls seeing the waygate of her lover ; Sir 
 Grime taking his inn at a burgess's house; Loosepain play- 
 ing her guest to sleep; the avenger riding about the plain 
 in quest of the oppressor; the oppressor rushing on the
 
 54 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 avenger like a lion 'in his woodest time'; the fighting 
 ' together fell and sore, the space of a mile and something 
 more ' ; the hacking, and swooning, and dying ; the steeds 
 left to themselves when their masters are dismounted, fight- 
 ing furiously together after the example of their furiously 
 fighting masters ; the castle of stone hard by the terrible 
 field, where the victor sees and hears ' ladies, many a one, 
 wringing, and wailing, and riving their hair, striking, and cry- 
 ing with voices full clear ' ; the lady doing off his armour and 
 searching his wounds, and ' never so sound as when she saw 
 he had no death wound' — these are some of the pictures 
 that our romance gives us ; that teach us how unlike, and 
 how like we are the men who played their parts some five 
 centuries ago on the stage we now are occupying.
 
 IV 
 
 THE HERE PROPHECY 
 
 (From the Acadetny for Dec. 4, 1886) 
 
 '"r^HERE is extant so little English of the latter half of 
 JL the twelfth century that the Here Prophecy, as it 
 undoubtedly belongs to that period, deserves, as a specimen 
 of our language, special attention, more attention certainly 
 than it could claim as a piece of literature. It is, indeed, 
 quoted by the writer known as 'Benedictus Abbas' (Bene- 
 dictus was the transcriber or director of the transcription, the 
 real author being perhaps Richard Fitzneal as Dr Stubbs 
 suggests), and after him by Hoveden, as something ancient 
 — 'antiquitus scriptum.' But what I wish now particularly 
 to point out is, that it, in fact, must belong, as its predictions 
 show, to the very time at which it was said to be discovered 
 ('inveniebatur ') ; that is to the end of the year 11 90, or 
 rather to the beginning of 1191. Thus, as 'Benedictus 
 Abbas 'was certainly contemporary with King Richard I., 
 we have, in the Here Prophecy, a genuine specimen of 
 Enghsh just at that time — unless, indeed, the 'inventor' 
 archaised his style, which I do not think very likely, 
 several things considered. And so, as it is so very seldom 
 possible to date precisely, to assign to any exact year, any 
 piece of medieval English, this 'vaticinium' has, for us, 
 a singular value. 
 
 55
 
 56 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 To refresh the reader's memory, I will first quote it as 
 appears in Dr Slubbs's edition of Benedictus Abbas : 
 
 Zan zu seches in here hert yreret, 
 
 Zan sulen Hengles in ))re be ydeled : 
 
 Zat han sale into Hyrlande alto lade waya ; 
 
 Zat hozer in to Poile mid pride bileve ; 
 
 Ze thirde in hayre haughen hert all . . . ydreghe. 
 
 In the last line Hoveden, who, in his history, follows Bene- 
 dictus very closely, gives ' wreken ' before 'ydreghe.' The 
 meaning seems to be : 
 
 When thou seest in Here a hart set up, 
 
 Then shall the English be divided into three : 
 
 The one shall go entirely into Ireland ; 
 
 The second in Apulia shall proudly stay ; 
 
 The third shall suffer all manner of misery in their own land. 
 
 Here is here a place-name, as we shall see ; but it is also an 
 Anglo-Saxon common noun, meaning 'a host, a multitude.' 
 And there seems to be in these lines a play — a pun — on the 
 two meanings of the word, the secondary sense being, 
 ' When thou seest a hart in the midst of men^ which would 
 be a startling phenomenon, suggestive to a person of a pro- 
 phetic or an omen-mongering turn ; as if one should say, 
 ' When you see a hind at J/6>^-berley ' (there is such a place 
 in Cheshire), or a Latin writer should speak of seeing one 
 at Popu/o-m:{. 
 
 It has been doubted whether there was a place called 
 Here, and here has been taken to be a pronoun (Anglo- 
 Saxon heora, answering to our modern ' their '). The parti- 
 ciple at the end of the first line has been altered mio y-ueret, 
 and the line translated, ' When thou seest the English terri- 
 fied in their heart,' etc. 
 
 Now, does not this translation destroy altogether the point 
 of the so-called prophecy, and entirely ignore the Latin
 
 THE HERE PROPHECY 57 
 
 chronicler's words. Benedictus speaks of a ' villa regis 
 Angliae quae dicitur Here,' which King Henry (no doubt 
 Henry H.) had given to Ranulf (Hoveden says William), the 
 son of Stephen^ — that is, to Ralph Fitzstephen — and informs 
 us that this Ralph built there a great house, 'in cujus pin- 
 naculo effigiem cervi statuit.' 
 
 There is really no reason why this story should not be 
 accepted. I say the first line loses its point without it. It 
 becomes wholly irrelevant and common-place. Then to 
 substitute the form y-ueret for the quite satisfactory word 
 that occurs in the original is surely an unnecessary interfer- 
 ence with the text. Moreover, I cannot but doubt whether 
 such a Southern form as y-ueret would be hkely to be found 
 in what is surely not Southern English — in a version current 
 at Peterborough, and, I suppose, in South Yorkshire. The 
 forms sal, sees, su/en, point northwards ; and as the prefixes 
 in yneret, ydelet, and ydrighe are consistent with a twelfth- 
 century Midland origin, the dialect is North-East Midland. 
 So would not the Southern y-ueret be out of place here ? 
 It would be a difficulty if we found it in such a context. 
 And certainly difficulties do not need ' bespeaking.' There 
 are enough ready-made. 
 
 As to identifying the town — the ' villa ' — of Here, we need 
 not yet despair, if, indeed, the matter is worth much trouble. 
 Dr Stubbs points out that some Fitzstephens were connected 
 with Harford, in Devonshire, a town some ten miles west of 
 Totnes, on the southern edge of Dartmoor. And, in this 
 case, the original form of this prophecy would be Southern, 
 which might make for the conjectured reading yneret. The 
 particular family may, I think, be identified by the fact that 
 Benedictus names a Ralph, and Hoveden a William. Now 
 Ralph Fitzstephen, a person of some distinction, in Henry 
 II.'s reign — he acted as a justice itinerant in 11 74 — had a
 
 58 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 brother William, also a person of some distinction, a justice 
 itinerant in 1190. These Fitzstephens, according to Foss's 
 Judges of England, were specially connected with Gloucester- 
 shire, one or the other being sheriff of that county for many 
 years (from 18 Henry II. to i Richard I.). Ralph possessed 
 property also in the counties of Warwick, Leicester, and 
 Northampton. If a medieval Here could be discovered in 
 Northamptonshire or thereabouts this would exactly meet 
 the case. It would neatly agree with the prophecy being 
 preserved in a Peterborough document. Had any Fitz- 
 stephen ever any property at Market ^arborough or at 
 Jfargx2L\Q ? Foss does not connect either of these brothers 
 with Devonshire. 
 
 In 1. 4 the rendering of Benedictus's version seems to be 
 ' al to lead way,' ' al to ' being used as an adverb in the 
 sense of ' altogether, entirely ' just as in the Oivl and 
 Nightingale, 11. 837-8 : 
 
 Abid, abid, Jje ule seide ; 
 
 J)u gest al to mid Swikelhede, 
 
 and elsewhere. Hoveden gives ' al to late waie,' i.e., 'all 
 too late turn,' if, as Prof. Skeat plausibly suggests, ivaie is 
 bad spelling for waiue or weue. 
 
 In the last line Hoveden's version has herd, which Prof. 
 Skeat happily identifies with erd, Anglo-Saxon eard, ' native 
 land.' And probably hert is a variant of the same word — 
 does not equal ' heart.' 
 
 As I have said, the predictions uttered in these curious 
 lines connect them straightaway with the years 1190-1. The 
 allusion to Apulia is too precise to permit us assigning them 
 to an earlier year, in spite of Benedictus's ' antiquitus scrip- 
 turn.' Prophecy seems to have been much in vogue in the 
 latter half of the twelfth century — TroXKa }.6yia iXlyiro, as
 
 THE HERE PROPHECY 59 
 
 Thucydides says of the beginning of the Peloponnesian War 
 — as it is still with some newspapers of our own day, which 
 predict the result of a policy as positively as if they were 
 edited by the Pythian priestess herself. The utterer of 
 certain views gave them a special emphasis and solemnity 
 by passing them off for prophecies. Certainly prophecies 
 abounded. Giraldus Cambrensis wrote a Vaticinal History 
 of the conquest of Ireland. Merlin's prophecies were then 
 in full currency, and in Ireland those of Columbcille ; and 
 so some Northamptonshire wiseacre, as we may plausibly 
 suppose, wishing to express his ideas of Enghsh prospects 
 at that time, produced them in the shape of an oracle in- 
 scribed ' in tabulis lapideis ' — an inscription just as genuine, 
 no doubt, as that on the tombstone of King Arthur, then 
 recently 'discovered' at Glastonbury — as genuine as the 
 famous prophecy that was ' found in a bog/ ' Ireland shall 
 be rul'd by an ass and a dog.' 
 
 He might well think England was in a poor way at that 
 time. But this prophet's prophecies are grotesque enough. 
 Two-thirds of the English, it seems, were to find homes 
 elsewhere, and those that remained were to be utterly miser- 
 able. This was typified by the exaltation of the hart in a 
 town's midst. The nation was to lose its spirit ; the xpahirt 
 IXapoio was to possess its bosom. One part might prosper, 
 but it would be far away. Another would pass into Ireland ; 
 of their fate our seer judiciously hints nothing. The other 
 would ' dree their weird,' and a most wretched weird, in 
 their own land. 
 
 What suggested the Apulian reference was undoubtedly 
 Richard's successes just at this time in South Italy and 
 Sicily. On his way to Palestine he wintered in those parts. 
 He was there from September 23, 1190, to April 10, iigr. 
 No doubt the prophet had heard of his seizing La Bagnara,
 
 6o FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 a castle in Calabria ; of his occupying a monastery on the 
 straits of Messina ; of his building close by Messina ( ' extra 
 muros Messinae ' ) his stout fortress of Mategriffon ; of the 
 splendid style in ^Yhich he kept Christmas in that castle, 
 and how generally, the Griffons well suppressed, 'gens 
 Angliae in maxima habebatur reverentia in regno Siciliae ' ; 
 and, hearing of these things, he rashly concluded — such is 
 the manner of prophets — that the king would never come 
 back, but would establish himself permanently in his new- 
 quarters, and leave his England to look after itself. The 
 date of this allusion must certainly be some early month in 
 1191. 
 
 The reference to Ireland is curious. Just twenty years 
 before our veracious oracle spoke, a full beginning had been 
 made of our unfortunate relations with that country. In 
 November 11 71 — some seven centuries ago! — Henry II. 
 had been acknowledged King at Cashel. But the conquest 
 was far from complete. In 11 77 Prince John was declared 
 lord of Ireland, and the whole country was allotted to vari- 
 ous nobles and knights, who undertook to complete it. In 
 1 185, that worthless person — he, says an old poet, 
 
 Quo pejor in orbe 
 Non fuit, omnimoda vacuus virtute, Johannes — 
 
 himself visited the country, only to irritate the native chiefs 
 by his insolence, plucking their beards — a deadly insult — 
 when they offered him the kiss of peace. He was soon re- 
 called. The thorough conquest of Ireland was never to be 
 accomplished, but it was still talked of and planned. Per- 
 haps our prophet thought that he who retained the title of 
 Lord of Ireland would justify his title by a second visit that 
 should be really effective. At all events the general feeling 
 of the age, which the Here prophecy represents, is well
 
 THE HERE PROPHECY 6i 
 
 brought before us by what Giraldus says in his ' last preface ' 
 to his Conquest of Ireland — the preface in which he dedi- 
 cates the new edition of his work to his old pupil, who was 
 by that time king : 
 
 It has pleased God and your good fortune [thus he addresses King 
 John] to send you several sons, both natural and legitimate, and you 
 may have more hereafter. Two of these you may raise to the thrones 
 of two kingdoms, and under them you amply provide for numbers of 
 your followers by new grants of lands, especially in Ireland, a country 
 which is still in a wild and unsettled state, a very small part of it being 
 yet occupied and inhabited by our people. 
 
 As in the Elizabethan age, so then, the English looked upon 
 Ireland as a country not only to be annexed, but to be 
 taken possession of— as a land whose native inhabitants were 
 not more to be considered than the natives of Australia or 
 Tasmania have been considered in later times. So a third 
 part of the English people was to occupy and inhabit 
 Ireland. 
 
 As to the last part of the prophecy — a prophet was scarcely 
 needed to tell England its outlook was not good in the year 
 1 191. Its knight-errant of a king, after raising money by 
 all and every means, had gone a crusading, not to return, as 
 the event proved, for nearly four years. His intriguing 
 brother John had been forbidden the country ; but it was 
 not to be hoped he would heed the prohibition longer than 
 he could help ; nor did he. And men's hearts might well 
 sink within them. And those who looked facts in the face 
 might confidently promise the land ' all manner of misery.' 
 
 The date of the Here prophecy then is the year 1191, 
 near the beginning of it.
 
 V 
 
 ROBERT OF BRUNNE 
 
 (From the Academy, Jan. 8, 1887) 
 
 SIR FREDERICK MADDEN writes that 'it appears to 
 us, from a long and attentive consideration ' of the 
 autobiographical passages in the Handlyfig Synfie and the 
 Chronicle, 'that Robert Mannyng was born at Brunne, . . . 
 was a Canon of the Gilbertine Order, and for fifteen years — 
 that is, from 1288 to 1303 — professed in the Priory of Sem- 
 pringham, . . . and that he afterwards removed to Brymwake 
 in Kestevene, six miles from Sempringham, where he wrote 
 the prologue to his first work.' And subsequent historians 
 of literature have faithfully followed so distinguished an 
 authority. Yet Sir Frederic's statement needs revision. 
 
 It does not seem to have occurred to him to verify the 
 existence of Brymwake. Was there ever such a place ? 
 And, if so, where ? 
 
 Now that the Brym is identical with Brunne, and the 
 Wake some defining addition is an obvious suggestion ; 
 what is more, it is the fact. So I am assured by one who 
 was mentioned to me as the best antiquarian authority 
 on the part of Lincolnshire concerned — by the Bishop of 
 Nottingham, whom I have the pleasure of now heartily 
 thanking for the courtesy and kindness with which he has 
 
 62
 
 ROBERT OF BRUNNE 63 
 
 answered my inquiries. ' Your " Brimwake," ' says Dr 
 TroUope, ' is undoubtedly " Bourn-wake," so called from its 
 lord Hugh Wac and his successors in days of old, as the 
 Wake Deeping Estate is still called Deeping- Wake or Wakes, 
 although this has passed into other hands. . . . There 
 may have been this distinction between the terms Brymwake 
 and Brun — viz., that the first represented the Wak lordship 
 of Brun, and the second the remainder of the land in the 
 parish — as you no doubt know that through the wisdom of 
 the Conqueror he seldom included the whole of a parish in 
 his grants of lordships to his adherents, although he often 
 granted several lordships in different localities to one person.' 
 Thus the name Brimwake may be compared with such 
 place-names as Stoke-Mandeville, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Min- 
 shull-Vernon, Hurst-Monceaux, Witton-Gilbert, etc. And 
 so Brimwake and Brunne in fact denote the same locality. 
 
 Now in this locality there was only one monastery — viz., 
 that — I, again quote Bishop Trollope — 'founded by Bald- 
 win Fitz-Gislebert or Gilbert (father of Emma, married to 
 Hugo Wak or Wake) for Canons Regular, of St Austin, in 
 1 138.' So that if Robert Manning was ever a member of 
 Brunne or Brimwake Monastery, Madden errs when he 
 asserts that he never changed his Order — that he was al- 
 ways a Gilbertine. 
 
 But does Robert Manning inform us that he ever belonged 
 to Brunne or Bourn Monastery? I think not, if we read 
 his words carefully, and do not punctuate them as is com- 
 monly done. The words from the prologue to his Hdfidlyng 
 Synne are these : 
 
 To alle Crystyn men vndir Sunne 
 And to gode men of Brunne 
 And speciali alle be name 
 Pe felaushepe of Symprynghame
 
 64 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 (5) Roberd of Brunne grete]) 30W 
 In al godenesse ])at may to prow 
 Of Brymwake yn Kesteuene 
 Syxe myle be syde Sympryngham euene 
 Y dwelled yn Jie pryorye 
 (10) Fyftene 3ere yn cumpanye 
 
 In ];e tyme of gode dane Jone 
 
 Of Camelton })at now ys gone, etc. 
 
 Now, Madden and others connect lines seven and eight 
 with Une nine. I propose to connect them with the hnes 
 that precede — to take them as in apposition to Brunne, as 
 ' epexegetic ' of Brunne in Hne five. Then all is well. He, 
 a Brunne man, more precisely a Brimwake man, greets his 
 fellow canons of Sempringham, and goes on to describe his 
 association with them. In other words, I would put a full 
 stop after 'euene,' instead of after 'prow.' We should call 
 Bourn some eight miles from Sempringham, not six; but I 
 do not think that difference need trouble us, or set anyone 
 against my present suggestion. Possibly the Brimwake 
 Estate was to the north of Bourn, and so a mile or two 
 nearer Sempringham. At all events, let any objector pro- 
 duce a Brimwake of his own at the specified distance. 
 
 Robert of Brunne is in his age a writer of so much im- 
 portance and merit that no Old English scholar will, I think, 
 grudge thus much time and space to clearing up a detail of 
 his life.
 
 VI 
 
 DANTE IN ENGLAND 
 
 (From the Bibliographer for Jan. 1882) 
 
 I DO not think the question when Dante's and the older 
 ItaUan poetry first became known in England has ever 
 yet been thoroughly discussed ; nor do I propose now to fully 
 discuss it ; but I wish to make one or two remarks on the 
 subject. 
 
 "It is, it need scarcely be said, a matter of considerable 
 interest to ascertain when the works of the supreme poet of 
 medieval Europe first influenced us and our literature. A 
 new era of the poetic art begins with the Divina Commedia. 
 The Troubadours and the Trouveres had sung in the infancy 
 of modern Europe, with a grace and sweetness that still claim 
 and deserve a hearing ; but their song seemed and seems a 
 child's note when the noble melody of Dante was and is 
 heard. It was Dante who first showed that the modern 
 literature was at least to equal ancient, and from him must 
 be dated the resurrection of poetry. 
 
 It seems to be commonly supposed that this great master 
 was not at all known in England till Chaucer's return from 
 his sojourn in Italy, in the years 1372 and '73. I wish to 
 suggest for consideration that he was probably known here 
 before that date.
 
 66 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 It is a question of general interest, and also of particular 
 — viz., in respect of Chaucer ; for in Chaucerian criticism it 
 is almost invariably presumed that he knew nothing of the 
 Italian masterpieces before his famous visit in 1372 ; and 
 decisions as to the dates of some of his works are made to 
 rest upon this presumption. 
 
 The hiferno was certainly completed, as we are told, by 
 the close of 1308; the Piirgatorio by the close of 13 14, or 
 early in the following year ; the Paradiso in 1321. How far 
 each part was put in circulation — was published, as we 
 should say — as soon as it was finished, is a matter of con- 
 troversy. Certainly some cantos of the Inferno were seen 
 and known before the whole part was finished. Without 
 dispute, not to speak of the Vita Niwva and the Cotivito, 
 the Divina Commedia was known as a whole in Italy some 
 half-century before Chaucer's visit. And however widely or 
 narrowly the separate parts, as they issued, may have been 
 known, the popularity of the work as a completed work was 
 immense. 'Never,' says Cary, 'did any poem rise so sud- 
 denly into notice after the death of the author [Dante died 
 in 132 1], or engage the public attention more powerfully, 
 than the -Divina Co7nmedia' 
 
 Now, the intercourse between Italy and England in the 
 Middle Ages was extensive and continuous. Of course the 
 close ecclesiastical connection involved a constant inter- 
 change of communications and of visits. Many of our 
 ' livings ' were held by Italians. No doubt these worthies 
 were mostly absentees ; but their receiving English tithes 
 must have brought them, directly or indirectly, into contact 
 with this country. Then the custom of pilgrimage took an 
 annual train of visitors to Italian shrines, and brought 
 visitors to England. The 'Wife of Bath' had been at 
 Rome ; and we may be sure that very social person did not
 
 DANTE IN ENGLAND 67 
 
 go alone — we may be sure she represents the habit of the 
 century. Then our commercial relation with Italy was at 
 that time intimate, and of great importance. Venice and 
 Genoa were then amongst the chief commercial cities of 
 Europe. It was to arrange and improve our relations with 
 Genoa that Chaucer was sent out, in 1372, as one of a com- 
 mission. Then — and this especially concerns our inquiry — 
 there was much passing to and fro between the universities 
 of the Middle Ages. Students wandered from Oxford to 
 Paris, and into southern France, and to the colleges of Italy, 
 to Bologna, Mater Stiidiorum, and elsewhere. Dante, for 
 instance, after studying at several places in his own country 
 — at Florence, at Bologna, at Padua — studied also at Paris. 
 He was there just after he had finished the Inferno; and 
 there is some ground for believing that he passed on into 
 England. Boccaccio, no mean authority on the matter, 
 says, as is well known, that he visited Parisios dudiun 
 extremosqiie Britannos. Certainly, whether or not the great 
 poet ever himself visited England, compatriots of his studied 
 at Oxford; and without doubt Englishmen studied at Bologna 
 and elsewhere in Italy. Lastly, let us remember the friars 
 and such gentry, who were perpetually traversing medieval 
 Europe, and carrying news and many another thing from 
 one land to another. They mixed with all degrees and 
 sorts of society, and no doubt considered how to make 
 themselves generally agreeable — agreeable to clerks and 
 scholars, as well as to ' fair wives.' The pardoner, who came 
 with a stock of pardons from Rome 'all hot,' might occa- 
 sionally have in his wallet, side by side with such miserable 
 trumpery, something of real value — haply one of Petrarch's 
 sonnets, or a canto of the Divine Comedy. 
 
 Surely, with so many various and constant contacts be- 
 tween Italy and England, it is unlikely that Dante's poetry
 
 68 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 was unknown here till Chaucer brought it home — brought 
 it probably in manuscript, certainly in his head and heart. 
 
 Possibly a minute search in our public libraries might 
 discover some early copy of part, or the whole, of the great 
 Italian poem. Says the Count Cesare Balbo : ' The manu- 
 script copies of the Comniedia belonging to the fourteenth 
 century, which are numerous in all the libraries of Italy, 
 France, Germany and England, give us a tangible proof how 
 this work had been diffused.' In a note he refers to Pelli 
 for an account of these MSS. ; and adds, ' A catalogue of 
 these manuscripts is desirable, and if possible a description 
 of them, distinguishing those which have been investigated. 
 It is well known that Karl Witte, the deserving editor of 
 Dante's letters, has been for many years occupied on this 
 labour in Gerjnany ! ' 
 
 Dante himself, in the Cojivito, speaks as if his Cafizotii 
 were known, or were sure to be known, in England. Ex- 
 plaining why he has used Italian for his Commentary rather 
 than Latin, he says : ' The Latin would have explained the 
 Canzoni better to foreigners, as to the Germans, the English, 
 and others ; but then it must have expounded their sense with- 
 out the power of at the same time transferring their beauty.' 
 
 I have said this question has a particular interest with 
 regard to Chaucer; for his introduction to the Italian 
 poetry was the artistic turning-point of his life. It is 
 usually supposed that he learnt the Italian language when he 
 visited Italy as a commissioner ; but it may be very reason- 
 ably conjectured, as before now it has been, that he was 
 appointed one of that commission because he knew Italian. 
 
 Possibly his acquaintance with Dante and the great 
 Italian party may date from 1368 — the year in which 
 Prince Lionel married the Lady Violante, daughter of the 
 l^uke of Milan. We need not insist that he formed one of
 
 DANTE IN ENGLAND 69 
 
 the marriage train, though he may have done so. We know- 
 that he was acquainted with Prince Lionel, for he was once a 
 page in the household of the prince's first wife ; and it is very 
 difficult to believe that the prince and his friends had, when 
 they returned, nothing to report of Dante ; for Italy was 
 then ringing with his fame. 
 
 'In the year 1350,' says Sismondi, 'Giovanni Visconti, 
 Archbishop and Prince of Milan, engaged a number of 
 learned men in the laborious task of illustrating and explain- 
 ing the obscure passages of the Divina Commedla. Six dis- 
 tinguished scholars, two theologians, two men of science, 
 and two Florentine antiquaries united their talents in this 
 undertaking.' And it was only a few years after Prince 
 Lionel's marriage that public lectures on his great poem 
 were founded at Florence, Bologna, Pisa, Piacenza, and 
 Venice. Surely in 1368, if not before, a copy of the Divine 
 Cc^wci/y. reached England. 
 
 Valuable light would be cast on this question, if it could 
 be settled (i) whether the extant translation of the Roman 
 de la Rose is by Chaucer, and (2) what is the date of this 
 translation ; for it is generally supposed that the famous in- 
 terpolation in the extant version, as to what is true gentle- 
 ness—to the effect that a churl is to be judged by his deed, 
 and that he only is a gentleman who ' doth as longeth to a 
 gentleman ' — was inspired by Dante, — I suppose by the 
 famous passage in the Convito. The same thought, from the 
 same source in all probability, occurs in the Wife of Bath's 
 Prologue, and, if the extant translation of the Roman could 
 be shown to be as late as 1390, one might suspect it bor- 
 rowed this conception from that Prologue. If, however, the 
 translation belongs to the decade 1360-70, as some scholars 
 hold, then we have in it the earliest ascertained reference to 
 Dante in English Literature.
 
 VII 
 CHAUCER AT WOODSTOCK 
 
 (From The Gentleman s Magazine for April 1S82) 
 
 THE distance of time that lies between us and the past 
 seems itself to be lessened, if we lessen the distance of 
 space — if we stand on the very site of the actions that interest 
 us, on the very ground that our heroes have trodden. As we 
 stand so, the imagination is quickened, and the knowledge 
 of old days that we have gathered receives a new life. And 
 so, local associations have for us all a very special value. 
 Intelligently appreciated, they may do for us no slight service 
 in helping us to realise what has come and gone long before 
 our time. Therefore it is worth while to ascertain and 
 establish such an association ; and we propose now trying 
 to prove the connection of the poet Chaucer with the Park 
 at Woodstock. 
 
 We know so little about Chaucer, that nothing that casts 
 light on him and his life is to be disregarded. It is with 
 London that he was more closely connected. He was pro- 
 bably born in the heart of the City ; his official work drew 
 him for many years to the wharves just below London Bridge. 
 He lived for some time in one of the old City-gates ; he died 
 in Westminster. But all those scenes have changed so 
 utterly that it is difficult indeed to picture the London of 
 
 70
 
 CHAUCER AT WOODSTOCK 71 
 
 Chaucer's age and Chaucer in the midst of it ; most difificult 
 to obey the mandate of a sweet singer of our own time, 
 when he bids us — 
 
 Forget six counties overhung with smoke, 
 
 Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, 
 
 Forget the spreading of the hideous town ; 
 
 Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, 
 
 And dream of London small, and white, and clean, 
 
 The clear Thames boixlered by its gardens green ; 
 
 Think that below bridge the green lapping waves 
 
 Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves 
 
 Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up hill, 
 
 And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill, 
 
 And treasured scanty spice from some far sea, 
 
 Florence gold cloth and Ypres napery, 
 
 And cloth of Bruges and hogsheads of Guienne, 
 
 While nigh the thronged wharf Geoffrey Chaucer's pen 
 
 Moves over bills of lading. 
 
 There are places in the country, far away from London, 
 that have been associated with Chaucer, as Donnington, in 
 Berkshire. But their claims do not bear investigation. The 
 Chaucer really connected with them is not Geoffrey, but 
 Thomas, a son of Geoffrey. 
 
 And Chaucer's connection with Woodstock has been 
 doubted or denied for the same reason ; that is, it has been 
 urged that it was Thomas, and not Geoffrey, that had a 
 house at Woodstock. Now, it is quite true that Thomas 
 had a house there ; and the first formal connection of the 
 name Chaucer with Woodstock is of the date 141 1, eleven 
 years after the poet's death, and appears in a grant made by 
 the Queen to Thomas Chaucer of the farm of the manors of 
 Woodstock, Hanbrugh, Wotton, and Stanfield, with the 
 hundred of Wotton. But of course it cannot be argued that 
 because Thomas was there, therefore Geoffrey cannot have 
 been. The presence of the one is not incompatible with the
 
 72 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 presence of the other ; it may even make the presence of the 
 other probable, when the date permits. In the present case 
 there is good evidence for connecting Geoffrey also with 
 Woodstock. 
 
 The evidence is to be found in one of Chaucer's un- 
 doubted works — in the Parliament of Fowls. The scene 
 of that poem is undoubtedly Woodstock Park. 
 
 This 'Parliament of Fowls,' or 'Assembly of Birds,' 
 professes to recount a certain memorable dream that had 
 visited the poet. He had spent the day amongst the books 
 he loved — amongst the books that ' of usage ' he read, 
 ' what for lust and what for lore,' that is, partly for delight 
 and partly for instruction, and in the especial perusal of the 
 Somnium Scipionis ; and. 
 
 Fulfilled of thought and busy heaviness, 
 
 had retired to rest. In his sleep, as it seemed, the great 
 
 Roman, whose apparition his book had narrated, stood by 
 
 his bed's side, and promised to requite him for all his study 
 
 of the old tattered volume that spoke of him (' our old book 
 
 all to torn'). 
 
 This foresaid African me hent anon, 
 
 And forthwith him unto a gate me brought, 
 
 Right of a park walled with greenc stone. 
 
 This description at once distinguishes the locality Chaucer 
 has in his mind. From the time of Henry I. to the Eliza- 
 bethan age, and later still, this stone wall is specially men- 
 tioned in connection with Woodstock, and as one of its 
 striking features. Let us first quote Fuller, as he refers to 
 older authorities. 'Why,' he asks in his Worthies of 
 England, 'should he speak of fallow deer in Oxfordshire? 
 Why not rather in Northamptonshire, where there be the 
 most, or in Yorkshire, where there be the greatest parkes in 
 England ? It is because John Rous, of Warwick, telleth me
 
 CHAUCER AT WOODSTOCK 73 
 
 that at Woodstock, in this county, was the most ancient park 
 in the whole land, encompassed with a stone wall by King 
 Henry the First. Let us premise a line or two concerning 
 Parks — the case before we come to what is contained there- 
 in : I. The v^oxdJ>arci(s appears in Varro (derived no doubt 
 [?] a parcendo, to spare or save) for a place wherein such 
 cattle are preserved. 2. There is mention once or twice in 
 Domesday-book oi parens sylvestris bestiarum, which proveth 
 parks in England before the Conquest. 3. Probably such 
 ancient parks (to keep J. Rous in credit and countenance) 
 were only paled, and Woodstock the first that was walled 
 about. 4. Parks are since so multiplied that there be more 
 in England than in all Europe besides.' 
 
 Rous does not actually mention the building of the wall, 
 though he gives some account of the making of the park — 
 unless, as Fuller suggests, he means to refer to this form of 
 cincture when he says the park formed at Woodstock ' erat 
 primus parens Anglm.' Nor does Knighton mention the 
 wall, briefly stating 'hoc anno [irio?] rex Henricus apud 
 Villam de Wodestoke fecit magnum parcum.' But it is 
 fairly certain that the wall was built by Henry I. ; for this 
 king collected a menagerie at Woodstock — the first men- 
 agerie in England, we presume — and probably built the wall 
 for additional security, in case any of his wild beasts should 
 escape from the enclosure devoted to them. ('The mena- 
 gerie ' is marked in an early eighteenth century plan of 
 Blenheim Park, given in Mr Marshall's supplement History 
 to his Early History of Woodstock Manor; it stood a 
 little south-east of the old manor-house, Henry I.'s palace). 
 'Our king,' writes William of Malmesbury, 'was extremely 
 fond of the wonders of distant countries, begging with great 
 delight, as I have observed, from foreign kings, lions, 
 leopards, lynxes, or camels ; animals which England does
 
 74 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 not produce ; and he had a park at Woodstock, in which he 
 used to foster his favourites of this kind. He had placed 
 there also a creature called a porcupine, sent him by William 
 of MontpelHer, of which animal, Pliny the elder, in the 
 eighth book of his Natural History, and Isidorus on Ety- 
 mologies, relate that there is a creature in Africa which the 
 inhabitants call of the urchin kind, covered with prickly 
 bristles, which it darts at will against the dogs when pursuing 
 it. The bristles which I have seen are more than a span 
 long, sharp at each extremity, like the quills of a goose 
 where the feather ceases, but rather thicker, and speckled, 
 as it were, with black and white.' 
 
 Plot speaks of Henry I. as "tis like the first that en- 
 closed the park with a wall, though not for deer, but all 
 foreign wild beasts, such as lions, leopards, camels, linxes, 
 which he procured abroad of other princes.' He speaks as 
 if these beasts were allowed to run loose within the park, 
 which is absurd enough. Probably there were already deer 
 on the spot : a deer-fold is mentioned at an early date, cer- 
 tainly as early as 1 1 23; and certainly there was constantly 
 there the court and its retinue, who would have found such 
 freedom somewhat overpowering. The menagerie with its 
 cages no doubt occupied a certain limited space in the park, 
 perhaps with a wall of its own (if so, the foundations must 
 be traceable) ; but the stone wall that bounded the whole 
 park was probably raised, as we have said, for additional 
 security, in case of any animal escaping, not only for the 
 sake of the dwellers in the neighbouring country, but for the 
 better detention of favourites so rare and so precious. 
 
 To pass on to a later time : Hentzner, who travelled in 
 England in 1598, visited Woodstock, among other places. 
 'This palace,' he says, 'abounding in magnificence, was 
 built by Henry I., to which he joined a very large park,
 
 CHAUCER AT WOODSTOCK 75 
 
 enclosed with a stone wall ; according to John Rosse, the 
 first park in England.' 
 
 In the account of 'a Topographical Excursion' made in 
 the year 1634, a special notice is given of Woodstock and 
 the walled park with its handsome lodges. 
 
 We may conclude, then, with some confidence, even if 
 there were nothing else to guide us, that by ' the park walled 
 with green stone ' Chaucer denotes Woodstock. 
 
 We may add that in a poem that used to be attributed to 
 Chaucer, but which is certainly by Lydgate — The Cojh- 
 plaint of the Black Knight — there is mention of this same 
 park with its green stone wall. The Complaint of the 
 Black Knight contains several imitations and reminiscences 
 of Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, and of his Book of 
 the Duchess — and this reference to Woodstock is one of 
 these, as its form seems to show ; though, indeed, Lydgate, 
 who was acquainted with Thomas Chaucer (see his lines on 
 Sir Thomas' going on an embassy to France), probably had 
 seen the place with his own eyes. This is the passage : 
 
 And by a river forth I gan costay [walk at the side] 
 
 Of water clear as beryl or cristal, 
 
 Till, at the last, I found a little way 
 
 Toward a park enclosed with a wall 
 
 In compass round, and by a gate small 
 
 Who so that would might freely gone 
 
 Into this park walled with grene stone. 
 
 The Parliament of Fowls has other points that associate 
 it with Woodstock Park — that justify us in saying that in 
 describing the park of his vision, Chaucer is in fact describ- 
 ing the park of Woodstock. It makes mention of a river, 
 of a wear or fishpond, and of a well. Add these three 
 features to the one already discussed, and the identification 
 may, we think, be said to be fully demonstrated.
 
 76 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 First for the river and the hsh-ponds. Describing the 
 interior of the park, into which the Africanus of his dream 
 has conducted him, the poet writes thus : 
 
 A garden saw I full of blossomed bowes 
 Upon a river in a grene mead, 
 There as sweetness evermore enough is 
 With flowers white, blue, yellow, and red, 
 And colde welle stremes nothing dead, 
 And swimming full of smale fishes light, 
 With finnes red, and scales silver bright. 
 
 Now, this description applies well enough to Woodstock 
 Park, with the river Glyme flowing through it. But what 
 gives special value to this passage for the purpose of identi- 
 fication is, that in the original which Chaucer here, as is well 
 known, translates, nothing whatever is said of any river. We 
 quote from one of the Chaucer Society volumes Mr W. 
 M. Rossetti's literal version of the stanza of Boccaccio's 
 ' Teseide ' which Chaucer has reproduced : 
 
 With whom going forward she saw that [Mount Cithneron] 
 
 In every view suave and charming ; 
 
 In guise of a garden bosky and beautiful, 
 
 And greenest full of plants. 
 
 Of fresh grass and every new flower ; 
 
 And therein rose fountains living and clear ; 
 
 And among the other plants it abounded in 
 
 Myrtle seemed to her more than other. 
 
 Clearly, the English poet was adapting the Italian picture 
 to suit his own remembrance. 
 
 Of course, the river in the old days before the achieve- 
 ments of ' Capability ' Brown presented a very different 
 aspect from that it now presents ; but even then it was not 
 left altogether to nature. The fish that swam in it were too 
 well appreciated to be given up to their own devices. So 
 here and there ' wears,' or fish-ponds, were formed. Two
 
 CHAUCER AT WOODSTOCK 77 
 
 are marked in the early eighteenth-century map already 
 mentioned. And hence we have a capital illustration of the 
 following lines in the Farliaftiefit of Fowls, or, to speak from 
 our present point of view, we have in the Parliament of 
 Fowls a detail evidently suggested by the dams in the river 
 Glyme : 
 
 This stream you leadeth unto the sorrowful wear 
 
 There as the fish in prison is all day. 
 
 Chaucer sees also ' a well,' and of the well in Woodstock 
 Park there are many mentions. It was associated with the 
 story of Fair Rosamond, and known as Rosamond's Well. 
 ' Rosamond's Labyrinth,' says Drayton, ' whose ruins, 
 together with her well, being paved with square stones in 
 the bottom, and also the bower from which the labyrinth 
 did run, are yet remaining, being vaults arched and walled 
 with stone and brick, almost inextricably wound within one 
 another, by which, if at any time her lodging were laid 
 about by the Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, 
 and, if need be, by secret issues, take the air abroad many 
 furlongs about Woodstock, in Oxfordshire.' The Topo- 
 graphical Excursionist of 1634 mentions the ruins of her 
 bower, and 'many strong and strange winding walks and 
 turnings, and a dainty, clear, paved well, knee deep, wherein 
 this beautiful creature did sometimes wash and bathe her- 
 self.' In this matter, however, Boccaccio's picture may 
 have been suggestive, for the corresponding lines are to this 
 effect : 
 
 Among the bushes beside a fountain 
 
 She saw Cupid forging arrows. 
 
 If, in addition to these various coincidences, we remember 
 that the manor-house at Woodstock was a favourite residence 
 of Edward III. and his Court — two of his sons (the Black
 
 78 FOLIA LITTER ART A 
 
 Prince and Thomas) were born there — and that Chaucer 
 was a member of that Court — ^at one time dilectiis noster 
 valettus, at a later scutiger regis — we think that anyone who, 
 in visiting Woodstock Park, likes to imagine Chaucer there, 
 may certainly do so without misgiving. 
 
 There is another poem by Chaucer that may very reason- 
 ably be associated with Woodstock ; but the proof is less 
 commanding than that we have considered. This is the 
 Book of the Duchess. We may be sure that the scene of 
 that poem is either Woodstock or Windsor ; and, on the 
 whole, the probability is in favour of Woodstock — a pro- 
 bability which is increased by the established connection 
 of the Parliaineiit of Foivls. Certainly, Chaucer's words — 
 
 A long castle with walles white 
 By Sainct Johan on a rich hill, 
 
 seem to corre:^pond admirably with those of the Excursionist 
 of 1634, who speaks of Woodstock as 'that famous court 
 and princely castle and palace, which as I found it ancient, 
 strong, large, and magnificent, so it was sweet, delightful, 
 and sumptuous, and situated on a fair hill.' 
 
 Murray s Guide to Oxfordshire informs us that ' the poet 
 Chaucer resided at Woodstock, and is supposed to have 
 taken much of the scenery of " The Dream " from the 
 neighbouring park.' But the poem called 'Chaucer's 
 Dream ' is undoubtedly not by Chaucer ; and, in the second 
 place, whoever wrote it, the scenery there described is not 
 that of Woodstock. Possibly the Guide meant the Book of 
 the Duchess ; for that was once known, mistakenly, by the 
 title of 'Chaucer's Dream.' 
 
 We will just add that \\'oodstock is mentioned by name 
 in ' The Cuckoo and Nightingale.' This poem is certainly 
 not by Chaucer ; but it is one of those attributed to him —
 
 CHAUCER AT WOODSTOCK 79 
 
 one of those belonging to the Chaucerian circle, and evi- 
 dently to some extent inspired by the fond perusal of his 
 writings ; so the naming of Woodstock there encourages the 
 view here maintained. The author, whoever it was, follows 
 his master in the localisation of his story.
 
 VIII 
 CHAUCER NOTES 
 
 (i.) ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE 
 
 (From the At/u-nu-iiiii for Nov. 12, 1S81) 
 
 WITHOUT now going into the question whether the 
 extant EngUsh version of the famous Roman de la 
 Rose is by Chaucer or not, there are one or two prevalent 
 misstatements that it may be useful to correct for the benefit 
 of the ordinary reader, if for no one else. These now to be 
 mentioned occur one, or other, in some ot the best current 
 books about Chaucer. 
 
 (i.) It is commonly said that what is translated from 
 Jean de Meung's part of the romance is abridged. It is 
 sometimes inferred that Chaucer's genius was much less in 
 sympathy with Jean de Meung the keen and critical, than 
 with his more romantic predecessor Guillaume de Loris. 
 We are told, for instance, that ' Chaucer reproduces only 
 one-half of the part contributed by Jean de Meung, and 
 again condenses this half to one-third of its length.' Now, 
 in fact, the English version renders only some 3000 lines, 
 (exactly 3060 in M. Francisque Michel's edition of the 
 Roman) of Jean de Meung's 18,000 (exactly 18,148) — that 
 is, only one-sixth ; and secondly, what is rendered is not 
 
 80
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 8i 
 
 condensed. The passages, in the original, consist together 
 of 3000 lines ; in the translation, of 3266. 
 
 (2.) The translation mentions 'the lordes son of Wynde- 
 sore,' the Lord of Windsor's son, as we should say in Modern 
 English. By the side of Dame Franchise : 
 
 daunced a bachelere ; 
 I cannot tell you what he highte ; 
 But faire he was of good highte, 
 Alle hadde he be, I sey no more, 
 The lordis sonne of Wyndesore. 
 
 And this has been taken to be a compliment to Chaucer's 
 friend and patron John of Gaunt, and of course to confirm 
 the notion that the translation is by Chaucer. But, alas ! 
 the line is but a faithful rendering of De Lorris's original, 
 which runs thus : — 
 
 Uns bachelers jones s'estoit 
 Pris a Franchise lez a lez. 
 Ne soi comment ert apele, 
 Mes biaus estoit, se il fust ores 
 Fiez au Seignor de Gundesores. 
 
 And it seems fairly certain that this Lord of Windsor's 
 son is not John of Gaunt, who was born some eighty years 
 after De Lorris's death, but, as my friend and colleague 
 Professor Gardiner has suggested to me, Richard, Earl of 
 Cornwall, King of the Romans. A quotation from the 
 Annals of England ^\\\ sufiice my present purpose: 'He 
 served with reputation and success both in France and the 
 Holy Land : and he was in many respects a perfect contrast 
 to his brother the king, being wise, valiant and rich . . , 
 Richard was induced to aspire to the imperial dignity, and 
 bore the title of the King of the Romans, but derived little 
 else from his profuse expenditure of money abroad.' I have 
 read somewhere — I hope presently to verify the recollection 
 
 F
 
 82 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 — that special mention is made of him and his magnificence 
 in some French chronicler or chroniclers of the thirteenth 
 century — that is, by some contemporary of De Lorris. The 
 lord of Windsor, then, is King John. He ' frequently re- 
 sided ' at Windsor ; ' and hence his grant of Magna Charta 
 at Runymede — ' 
 
 3. Cf. Wicked Tongue (Malebouche) when he sees the 
 lover and Bialacoil together, the translation says : — 
 
 He niyghte not his tunge withstonde 
 Worse to reporte than he fonde, 
 He was so fulle of cursed rage ; 
 It satte hym welle of his lynage, 
 For hym an Irish womman bare ; 
 His tunge was fyled sharpe and square, 
 Poygnaunt and right kervyng. 
 And wonder bitter in spekyng : 
 
 — a passage that cannot but be read with a special painful 
 interest just now. ' Writing not far from the time ' remarks 
 one of Chaucer's biographers, ' when the Statute of Kilkenny 
 was passed, he (Chaucer) cannot lose the opportunity of 
 inventing an Irish parentage for Wicked-tongue.' But 
 alas ! here, too, the translator, whoever he was, followed 
 conscientiously the words of the original, where occurs 
 the line, 
 
 Qu'il fu filz d'une vieille Irese. 
 
 Mr Robert Bell thinks that ' irese ' here does not denote 
 the lady's nation, but her disposition, as being given to lie. 
 But I presume M. Francisque Michel is right in glossing the 
 word by Irlandaise and in his annotation : ' Les Irlandais 
 ont toujours eu chez nous la plus detestable reputation, 
 meme avant les evenements qui en jeterent sur notre sol un 
 si grand nombre.'
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 83 
 
 He goes on to give an illustration of this statement, dated 
 1606. Something earher would have been more to the 
 purpose. 
 
 (2) ECLYMPASTEYRE 
 (From TIic Athciuciiin fur April 8, 18S2) 
 
 There these goddys lay and slepe, 
 Morpheus and Edympasleyre, 
 That was the god of slepes eyre, 
 That slepe and dide noon other werke. 
 
 Boke of the Diichcsse, 166-9. 
 
 Mais la deesse noble et chiere 
 Tramist puis sa messagiere 
 Pour moi au noble dieu dormant. 
 Et le doulc dieu fit son commant ; 
 Car il envoya parmi I'air 
 L'un de ses fils Enclinipostair. 
 
 Froissart's Paradis d' Amour. 
 
 TYRWHITT, as is well known, gives up this strange 
 word, which is known to occur only in these two pas- 
 sages. The annotator in the edition connected with the 
 name of Robert Bell ' ventures to consider it a Greek word 
 (sxXi/M'^rdffrcap), which cannot, however, be traced to classical 
 authors, formed from ixXi/jbTavu, a rare form of JxXs/Vw, one 
 of the meanings of which is to cease, to die,' etc. This, is 
 indeed, being venturesome — it is reckless audacity. To make 
 no other objection, how could such a form as ixXiiJ^vasrup 
 be drawn from £xXi/j,'?rdvw? Not of more value — of less, if 
 possible — is M. Sandras's suggestion that the word in ques- 
 tion is compounded of eng/e ( = ange) imposteur. Nor yet 
 satisfactory are the derivations from sTtXnTriTyip or syxaXvrrrif). 
 Nor does Dr. ten Brink seem as happy as his excellent scholar-
 
 84 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 ship might lead us to hope when he solves the difficulty Wy 
 supposing that ' pasteyre ' is a corruption of ' Phobetora,' 
 undoubtedly right as I believe him to be in his interpretation 
 of ' Eclym,' which he takes to be ' Ikelon.' 
 
 The passage in Ovid, which Chaucer is more or less fol- 
 lowing, runs as follows, 'Met.' xi. 633-48: — 
 
 At pater [Somnus] e populo natorum mille suorum 
 
 Excitat artificem simulatoremf|uc figura: 
 
 Morphea. Non illo jussos sollertius alter 
 
 Exprimit incessus, vultiimque sonumque loquendi ; 
 
 Adjicit et vestes at consuetissima cuique 
 
 Verba. Sed hie solos homines imitalur ; at alter 
 
 Fit fera, fit volucris, fit longo corpore serpens. 
 
 Ilunc Ikelon siiperi, mortale Phobetora vulgus 
 
 Nominat. Est etiani diversre tertius artis, 
 
 I'hantasos. Ille in humum saxumque undamque trabemque 
 
 Qureque vacant anima fallaciter omnia transit. 
 
 Regibus hi ducibusque suos ostendere vultus 
 
 Nocte Solent ; populos alii plebemque percrrant. 
 
 Pr?eterit hos senior ; cunctisque e fratribus unum 
 
 Morphea qui peragat Thaumantidos edita, Somnus 
 
 Eligit. 
 
 Dr. ten Brink, it will be seen, links together the celestial 
 and the mortal names of the second of these thousand sons 
 of Sleep ; and so ' Eclympasteyre ' would mean Like-Scarer. 
 This is a somewhat awkward combination, as if one were to 
 speak of Reuchlin-Capnio, Gerrit-Erasmus, etc. Still it is 
 not impossible, especially as Chaucer's scholarship was not 
 of tlie most accurate kind. But a graver, if not a fatal, 
 objection to this explanation is the difficulty of that corrup- 
 tion of Phobetora into Pasteyre. 
 
 I now beg to propose a new solution of this perplexing 
 term. I hold that it is a compound of Ikelon Tiwd p/astor 
 ox plaster, and so means simply likeness-maker, semblance- 
 moulder. Thus it exactly contains the idea of Ovid's phrase,
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 85 
 
 ' Artificem simulatoremque figurae,' and of a line immedi- 
 ately preceding those quoted, viz. ; — 
 
 Somnia quce veras aequent imitamine formas. 
 
 This is, indeed, the dominant idea of the passage, and is 
 well expressed by such a compound as Ikelo-plastor. 
 
 Every one, I think, will agree that this formation would 
 readily, would quite naturally, yield Edympasteyre. Ikelon 
 would so easily become Iklon, and this Eklon, EkHn, and 
 through the influence of the/, Eklim, or Eklym, or Eclym. 
 And plastor would so easily drop its /, for phonetic reasons, 
 through the influence of the / in Eclym ; and would inevit- 
 ably corrupt its termination. 
 
 If it is objected that Chaucer could not know Greek 
 enough to make such a compound, I answer, without going 
 into the question how much Greek was known in England 
 in the fourteenth century — a question on which something 
 might well be said, if there were any need, or if the occasion 
 served — that both Ikelon and /Ar^/^^r were accessible enough, 
 if no Greek whatever was known to Chaucer and his con- 
 temporaries. Ikelo7i, as we have seen, he would find in Ovid ; 
 and derivatives of 'xXdaau were sufficiently common in Latin. 
 Thus Pliny hdiS plastes ; cind p/asso itself , p/asficalor, p/aslt'a/s, 
 as well as p/asma and p/asmo, occur in Latin writers of one 
 age or another in post-classical literature. Ducange registers 
 plastaria, plasteria, plastrarius, plastrierius, etc. Perhaps 
 the identical form in Chaucer's mind was one of these 
 latter. The stem must also have been familiar to Chaucer 
 in various French derivatives. As to the meaning, Pliny 
 MSQiplastes in the sense of a modeller, a statuary, and quotes 
 a saying that p las ike was ' mater statuarise scalpturaeque et 
 cajlaturae.' Chaucer's acquaintance with the Historia 
 Naturalis is well known.
 
 86 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 (3) ' THE DR Y SEA ' 
 (From T/ie A cadem}/ {01 ] an. 28, 1882) 
 
 THERE has been, and is, much doubt as to what is meant 
 by ' the dry sea ' in Chaucer's Book of the Dtichess . 
 A writer in The Saturday Review plausibly suggested the 
 desert of the Great Sahara ; and there are current several other 
 suggestions of more or less value. But I am much inclined 
 to think that the phrase may be best explained by a refer- 
 ence to Alandeville's Travels — a book that must have been 
 thoroughly familiar to Chaucer — and to the account given by 
 that veracious writer of a Sea of Sand. See Mr Halliwell- 
 Phillipps' edition of Voiage a?td Travaile of Sir Johti 
 Maundeville, Knt., pp. 27-28 : — 
 
 And he (Prester John) hathe in his Lordscipes many grete marveyles. 
 For in his Contre is the See that men clepen the Gravely See that is all 
 Gravelle and Sand with outen ony drope of Watre ; and it ebbethe and 
 flowethe in grete waives as other Sees don ; and it is never stille ne in 
 pes in no maner cesoun. And no man may passe that See be navye ne 
 be no maner of craft ; and therefore may no man knowe what Land 
 is beyond that See. And alle be it that it have no Watre, yit men 
 fynden there in and on the Bankes fulle gode Fissche of other maner of 
 kynde and schappe thanne men fynden in ony other See ; and thei ben 
 of righle goode tast, and delycious to mannes mete. 
 
 Here is 'a dry sea' with a vengeance. Surely this is 
 what Chaucer means. The author who called himself 
 Mandeville, seems to have derived his account of this 
 remarkable phenomenon from Cedric of Portenau. See, 
 however, Prof. Skeat's note in his valuable edition of 
 Chaucer's Minor Poems ( 1 89 1 ).
 
 I 
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 87 
 
 (4) CHAUCER AT ALDGATE 
 
 (From The Academy for Dec. 6, 1879) 
 
 N our dearth of information about Chaucer's Hfe the 
 sUghtest new fact or observation is welcome, and so 
 what is now pointed out for the first time, I believe, may 
 be worth notice. It relates to the length of his residence 
 in Aldgate — that is, in the gate of Aldgate. 
 
 It is well known that that dwelling-place was leased to 
 the poet in May 1374. I find that the same premises were 
 granted to one Richard Foster in October 1386. Thus the 
 poet lived in the old Gate-house certainly not much more 
 than twelve years. That he lived there nearly, if not 
 quite, all these twelve years is fairly certain, if we consider 
 that a chief reason for the selection of such a locality must 
 have been its neighbourhood to the scene of his daily busi- 
 ness as Controller of the Customs, and that it was not till 
 February 1385 that he was allowed to nominate a permanent 
 deputy. When first appointed he was ordered to write the 
 rolls with his own hand, to be always on the spot, and per- 
 form his duties personally. This was in June 1374. We 
 may safely conclude that his taking the Gate-house in that 
 same year and his leaving it some eleven or twelve years 
 afterwards were both connected with that appointment of 
 his. For eleven years the rigorous terms of it necessitated 
 his living near his office \ and then he was free to move, and 
 move he soon did. 
 
 Probably enough, his going into Parliament was already 
 mooted in 1385. Certainly he was one of the knights of 
 the shire for Kent in the Parliament that sat through 
 October 1386. And if he had not left Aldgate in 1385, we
 
 88 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 might expect to find him leaving it when his parhamentary 
 duties called for his frequent presence in Westminster. 
 
 However this may be, in October 1 386 ' the dwelling- 
 house above the gate of Aldgate' was granted by the Cor- 
 poration to one Richard Forster, possibly identical with 
 the ' Richard Forrester ' who was one of Chaucer's proxies 
 when he went abroad for a time in May 1378. 
 
 In that old tower of Aldgate, then, where the poet lived 
 for some dozen years, with temporary absences, as when he 
 was employed abroad on the royal service, most of the 
 works of what may be called his Middle Period were in all 
 probability written. It was there he studied and wrote with 
 the zeal he describes in Tlie House of Fame. There he 
 composed his Life of St Cecilia (afterwards used for the 
 Second Nun's Tale), his stories of Griselda, of Constance, 
 of the Christian boy the Jews murdered (afterwards used, 
 the first with additions, for the Clerk's Tale, the Man of 
 Law's, and the Prioress'), FaIa?fion and Arcite (the first 
 draught of what we know as the Knight's Tale), his Troilus 
 and Cressida, and his House of Fame, besides his translation 
 of Boethius' Consolation of Fhilosophy. 
 
 The Book of the Duchess was written five years before he 
 went there, when it appears from the poem that he was liv- 
 ing, or staying, at Windsor or at Woodstock. 
 
 The Legend of Good JVomen was written after he had 
 moved away, probably very shortly afterwards, likely enough 
 in the spring or summer of 1386 ; for, probably enough, he 
 ceased to reside in the Cate-house a little time before he 
 ceased to be the lessee. Probably his moving brought him 
 into a closer connexion with the Court, and the dedication 
 of The Legend may be regarded as a sign of this increased 
 intimacy. Anyhow- — and the remark may be of use towards 
 settling the date of it — the house he mentions in The Legend
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 89 
 
 can scarcely have been his tower in Aldgate (Aldine 
 edition, v. 282) : — 
 
 When that the sun out of the south gon weste, 
 
 And that this flower gon close and go to reste 
 
 For darkness of the night, for which she dredde, 
 
 Home to mine house full swiftly I me spedde, 
 
 To go to rest and early for to rise, 
 
 To see this flower spread, as I devise ; 
 
 And in a little arbour that I have 
 
 That benched was on turves fresh ygrave, 
 
 I bad men shoulde me my couche make, 
 
 For dainty of the newe summer's sake, 
 
 I bad them strawen flowers on my bed. 
 
 I must express my gratitude to Dr Sharp, the Records 
 Clerk, for his valuable assistance in searching certain letter- 
 books now in his keeping at the Guildhall. For permission 
 to inspect them I have to thank the Town Clerk. 
 
 (5) THE CLERK'S TALE 
 (From a pubhcation of the Chaucer Society, 187.5) 
 
 CHAUCER has followed Petrarch's version very closely 
 throughout his poem, noticeably in his treatment of 
 Lord Walter, and in the comment towards the end : 
 This story is sayd, not for that wyves scholde, etc. 
 
 Petrarch's version, though mainly founded on that of Boc- 
 caccio, as he expressly states, differs from that ' Novel ' in 
 several important ways. 
 
 For the mere form the ' novel ' is certainly to be preferred. 
 Petrarch's Latinity is by no means faultless. Sometimes it 
 is marred by grave solecisms ; seldom, or never, does it
 
 90 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 attain any complete fluency and grace. He is not, nor was 
 it in the nature of things that he should be, absolute master 
 of an instrument that was, in fact, foreign to his hands. 
 His own conceptions of his Latin skill were a delusion. 
 Would that he had had the wisdom of David, who declined 
 moving to battle in arms he had not proved ! A translation 
 of the old story that stirred him so deeply — 'qu« ita mihi 
 placuit meque detinuit ut inter tot curas quas pene mei 
 ipsius immemorem facem illam memorise mandare voiuerim 
 ut et ipse eam animo quotiens vellem, non sine voluntate 
 repeterem et amicis ut sit confabulantibus renarrem, si 
 quando tale accidisset' — if given metrically in his mother 
 tongue, could scarcely have failed to have added glory to 
 his own renown, and to that of the literature of which he 
 was, and is, so brilliant an ornament. But even through 
 the not immaculate medium of Early Renaissance Latin the 
 exquisite beauty of the old story shines out with a piercing 
 effulgence, just, indeed, as the fairness of the heroine her- 
 self, when we first see her, could not be hid for all the mean 
 cottage in which she lived obscurely with her father, and 
 the sordid dress that marked and befitted her humble rank. 
 And certainly it was from that version that Chaucer formed 
 his rendering, whether or not he had previously been at- 
 tracted to the tale by any viva voce recital of it heard in 
 some personal interview with Petrarch. 
 
 For the spirit, Petrarch seems to have entered more pro- 
 foundly into the proper motive of the tale than did Boc- 
 caccio. Boccaccio grows somewhat impatient and angry 
 with (lualtieri, even as Ellis in a misapprehending contrast 
 he draws between Griselda and the Nut Brow?i Maid. 
 Probably Chaucer, too, when maturer, would not have toler- 
 ated him ; but Chaucer, when he wrote the Clerkes Tale, 
 had not yet acc^uired that breadth and comprehension of
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 91 
 
 view — that wide and catholic survey — that habit of inde- 
 pendent reahsation, which characterise his more perfect 
 works ; he still wrote with the subservience of the disciple 
 rather than with the authority of the master ; he took what 
 good the gods provided, or seemed to provide, and aimed 
 at an obeisant and faithful reproduction. Petrarch retold 
 the story in the medieval spirit in which he had originally 
 found it ; for the Decamerone revived it in his mind, not 
 first made it known ; when the Decamerone reached him, he 
 bethought him how ' mihi semper ante multos. annos audita 
 placuisse't.' And in that same spirit Chaucer accepted, and 
 echoed it. Now it is the characteristic of the unsophisti- 
 cated medieval litterateur that he deals with one idea at a 
 time. It would often lead to a highly injurious conclusion 
 to attach at all equal moral importance, or jather any moral 
 importance, to the subordinate parts of what he sets forth. 
 The central lesson is kept well in view ; the others must 
 look to themselves. The principal figure is brought into 
 rehef with enthusiasm ; on the mere surroundings and back- 
 ground little or no care is spent. Thus many of the stories 
 the Knight of the Tour Landry tells his daughters are sound 
 enough at the core ; but as wholes they are anything but 
 edifying — are not only non-moral, but immoral and contra- 
 moral. The mind of the hearer, as of the reciter, is sup- 
 posed to be fixed on the main notion, and so incapable of 
 seduction by any lateral matters of a less exemplary sort. 
 So, when the Trouvere sang of Friendship in Eger and 
 Grime, he did not, when concentrated on that noble theme, 
 deem it his concern to see that other virtues were not 
 violated, provided that one was honoured and glorified. 
 And so in the story of Griselda, if we would read it in the 
 spirit of the day when it became current, we should not 
 vex ourselves into any righteous indignation against the im-
 
 92 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 mediate author of her most touching distresses. The old 
 story does not make the Marquis a monster in human 
 shape ; indeed, it represents him as a man of a noble and 
 loveable nature; if he is not so, then even in the end 
 Clriselda reaps no earthly reward in permanently securing 
 his admiration and love. And yet this Marquis perpetrates 
 inexpressible cruelties ; he is a very wolf, ruthlessly teasing 
 and tearing the gentlest of lambs. The explanation is in 
 accordance with what has just been said ; the patience of 
 (iriselda is the one theme of the tale, and nothing else is to 
 be regarded. In relation to her the Marquis has no moral 
 being ; he is a mere means of showing forth her supreme 
 excellence, a mere mechanical expedient. He is no more 
 morally than a thorn in the saint's footpath, or a wheel, or a 
 cross. Surely it is vain to be wroth with him ; who rages 
 against the mere fire that enfolds the Martyr, or the nails 
 that pierce the hands of a crucified Believer ? Indeed, no- 
 thing in the tale is of any ethical moment but the carriage 
 of the heroine herself. The eyes and the heart of the old 
 century when she first appeared were fastened devoutly on 
 that single form, and let all else go by. She is wifely 
 obedience itself, nothing .else. Before that virtue all other 
 virtues bow. It enjoys a complete monopoly, an absolute 
 sway. Other moral life is suspended in this representation 
 of it. She has but one function — to obey ; for her there is 
 but one sin possible, and that is to murmur. She is all 
 meekness, all yielding, all resignation. 
 
 Such a figure has comparatively few charms for us of 
 these latter days. But it pleased the world once — even 
 down to Shakespeare's time, who himself portrayed it in one 
 of his earliest plays : Catherine at the end of the Tamiiii^ 
 of the Shrew, is a phase of Griselda. Perhaps in ages when 
 much most ignorant abuse of women prevailed in literature —
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 93 
 
 abuse springing mainly out of the vile prejudices and super- 
 stitions of the medieval Church — some such figure might 
 have been expected to arise. It is the figure of a reaction. 
 The hearts of men refused to accept the dishonouring pic- 
 tures so often drawn of their fellow mortals. They rose in 
 a loyal insurrection against lying fables of essential wanton- 
 ness and of shameful obstinacy. To such chivalrous rebels 
 the pale, sad, constant face of Griselda showed itself as the 
 image of far other experiences and histories ; and they gazed 
 on it as on the face of their saint. \Vith an infinite rever- 
 ence they saw her still calm and quiet in the midst of 
 anguishes, with heart breaking, but lips uttering no ill word, 
 with eyes that through the tears with which kindly nature of 
 herself would relieve the terrible drought of sorrow still 
 looked nothing but inalienable tenderness and love. 
 
 In Prof. Child's English and Scottish Ba/iads, vol. iv., 
 may be found the ballad of Patient Grissel. (Prof. Child 
 is certainly wrong in saying that Boccaccio derived the in- 
 cidents from Petrarch.) This ballad is the work of Thomas 
 Deloney, a mere day-labourer in verse-making of Queen 
 Elizabeth's time, and is worthy of its author. A play on 
 this subject, written by Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton, has 
 been printed by the Shakespeare Society. Another play of 
 earUer date is lost ; as also probably an older ballad than 
 that by Deloney. 
 
 With the incidents in the third temptation of Griselda, 
 when she ' waits ' at the new wedding of her husband, and at 
 last finds that the supposed bride is her own daughter, 
 should be compared the old ballad of Fair Annie. There, 
 too, the heroine performs a like service, not without much 
 weeping, for a fair lady who has come from over the sea to 
 wed the Fair Annie's lover. At last it is found that this
 
 94 FOLIA LITTER ART A 
 
 new comer is the Fair Annie's sister, who nobly refuses to 
 marry at her expense ; and so all is made well. See Lord 
 Thomas and Fair Annie in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border ; see also Herd's, Motherwell's, and Chambers' 
 Collections. Scott points out that 'the tale is much the 
 same with the Breton romance called Lai k Frain, or the 
 Song of the Ash.' He also states that 'a ballad agreeing in 
 every respect with that which follows exists in the Danish 
 Collection of ancient songs entitled K(znipe Viser. It is 
 called Skicen Anna, i.e., Fair Annie, and has been trans- 
 lated literally by my learned friend, Mr Robert Jamieson. 
 See his Popular Ballads, Edin., 1806, vol. ii. p. 100.' See' 
 Lay le Freine, 305, in "Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. i. 
 See a translation of the Danish ballad in Prior's Ancient 
 Banish Ballads, iii. 298-306, and Appendix H. in that 
 volume. 
 
 (6) 'LYMOTE' 
 
 (From The Athoucuni for April 9, 1887) 
 
 THE name ' Lymote ' in Chaucer's Llouse of Fame (iii. 
 184), to adopt for the nonce the spelling of Caxton 
 and Thynne (the Fairfax MS. spells it ' Limete,' the Bodleian 
 ' Lumete,' according to Dr Furnivall's parallel-text edition), 
 has never yet, I believe, been identified. I venture to 
 suggest that it is a corruption of ' Elymas.' 
 
 This suggestion rests on the facts (i) that Lymote is men- 
 tioned by Chaucer in connexion with Simon INIagus, and 
 (2) that Simon Magus and Elymas are frequently associated. 
 The stories of both men are to be found not far from each 
 other in the Acts of the Apostles (see chaps, viii. and xiii.), 
 and so, naturally enough, they are often linked together
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 95 
 
 elsewhere ; for instance, in Tertullian's De Anima (chap. 
 Ivii.) : ' Multa utique et adversus apostolos Simon dedit et 
 Elymas magi ; sed plaga ccecitatis de prsestigiis non fuit.' 
 
 ' Nor, perhaps, are the words ' Lymote ' and ' Elymas ' so 
 difificult to identify as at first it might seem. The Greek 
 form is 'EXu/a.ag {av&its-aTo hi ahroTi 'EXu^ag), i.e., the accented 
 syllable is not the first, as in our pronunciation, but the 
 penultimate. Therefore the unaccented E would easily drop 
 off, just as ' Apulia ' becomes ' Poyle ' (from Tulia) ; incefi- 
 soir, censer ; episcopus, bishop ; hydropsis, dropsy, etc. Thus 
 ' Elymas ' would become ' Lymas.' 
 
 To explain the termination of Chaucer's form one can 
 only conjecture that the 'EXufiag was declined like sXi(pag 
 and such words. This would give a crude form 'EX-j/u,a\iT, 
 which by absorption of the v and modification of the vowel 
 might produce 'Lumot,' or, with transliteration, 'Lymot.' 
 Or, with less precise scholarship, it might be declined like 
 xipag ; and so there would be a stem 'EXvf/^ar, \Yhence might 
 come 'Lumat.' Compare Chaucer's and Spenser's 'Mart' 
 for Mars. But I must confess that in the only passage in 
 which I have found the word inflected — not that I have 
 searched far and wide for its inflected occurrences — it is de- 
 clined as of ' the first declension.' At least, ' Elyma ' is the 
 ablative in the index to chap. xiii. of the Acts in the Vulgate, 
 'Elyma mago excscato.' 
 
 (7) T/l£ PARLIAMENT OF FOWLS 
 
 (From The Academy, Nov. 19, 1881) 
 
 THE obligations of Chaucer in his Parliament of Fowls 
 to Cicero, Ovid, and Boccacciohave been sufficiently 
 noticed. But scarcely so his obligations to Alanus de
 
 96 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Insulis, though he mentions him by name, and, instead of 
 describing ' the noble goddess Nature ' himself, refers the 
 reader to Alanus' description of her : 
 
 ' And right as Aleyn in the Pleynt of Kynde 
 Deuyseth Nature in suche array & face : 
 In swich aray men myghtc hire there yfynde. ' 
 
 Yet it is well worth noticing that it is from the work here 
 named — the De Conquestu vel Flanchi Naturae (a work 
 modelled in some respects on that favourite medieval 
 writing, Boethius' De Consolatume Fhilosophiae)^-(Zh2iVice.x 
 derived the somewhat fantastic title given to his poem, as 
 well as some ideas. 
 
 Alanus describes at great length the form and costume of 
 Nature as she appears approaching him. On her robe, he 
 says — a robe of tissue so 'subtilized' and fine 'ut ejus 
 aerisque eandem crederes esse naturam' — 'prout oculis 
 pictura imaginabatur, animaliiim celebratur concilium,^ i.e., 
 'There is held a Parliament of Animals.' Here, clearly, 
 is the suggestion of the name of Chaucer's poem, and 
 of something more. ' Concilium,' says Maigne d'Arnis' 
 Ducaiige, is used for ' Parliamentum apud Anglicos Scrip- 
 Lores.' 
 
 This poem is variously styled the Parliament of Fowls, 
 The Parliament of Birds, The Assembly of Fowls, and The 
 Assembly of Birds. In the Prologue to the Legend of 
 (lood Women it is styled the "Parliament of Foules ; ' in 
 the Preces de Chauceres, at the end of the Parson's Tale, it 
 is spoken of as ' the book of Seint Valentines day and of the 
 Parliment of briddes.' Lydgate writes : — 
 
 Of fowles also he wrote the Parlymcnt, 
 Therein remembrynge of ryall Egles three 
 Howe in their choyse they felt adversile ;
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 97 
 
 Tofore Nature profered the batayle 
 Eche for his partye, if he wolde avayle. 
 
 Spenser, in a stanza we will venture to quote, for every- 
 body will like to be reminded of it, speaks of the Foules 
 Parley : — 
 
 So hard it is for any Hving wight 
 
 All her array & vestiments to tell 
 That old Dan Geffrey (in whose gentle spright 
 
 The pure well head of Poesie did dwell) 
 In his Fottles parley durst not with it mell, 
 
 But it transferd to Alane who he thought 
 Had in his Plaint of kinde describ'd it well ; 
 
 Which who will read set forth so as it ought, 
 Go seek he out that Alane where he may be sought. 
 
 In the MSS. it is commonly called either the Parliament of 
 Fowls, or the Parliament of Birds. 
 
 Of course the term Parliament may be used here in its 
 old general sense of a conference — a ' colloquium,' expressed 
 in medieval Latin by Parliajnentum as well as by concilium 
 and consilium. But likely enough Chaucer may have had 
 in his mind, as he went on with his story, the then compara- 
 tively new idea of Parliament as a representative assembly. 
 This thought may have suggested to him the appointment 
 of delegates to offer their opinion and advice on the delicate 
 question to whom the formel's hand is to be given ; and so we 
 have four M.P.'s or spokes-birds to represent respectively 
 the fowl of raven or birds of prey, the water-fowl, the worm- 
 fowl, and the seed-fowl. 
 
 Though Alan speaks of a ' Concilium Animalium,' what 
 he goes on to describe is a Concilium Avium, a Bird Parlia- 
 ment. It is interesting to compare his list with Chaucer's. 
 On the whole, there is more difference than likeness ; but 
 Chaucer has probably taken one or two hints from the 
 
 G
 
 98 FOLIA LITTEKARIA 
 
 earlier writer. At all events, Chaucer may be illustrated 
 from him. 
 
 Chaucer speaks of ' the Coward Kite.' Alan's words are 
 curious, ' Illic milvus, venatoris induens personam, venatione 
 furtiva larvam gerebat ancipitris.' 
 
 And compare the following pairs of quotations : — 
 
 ' There was the tiraunt with his fethres donne 
 And greye, I mene the goshauk that doth pyne 
 To bryddis for his outrageous ravyne.' 
 ' Illic ancipiter, civitatis praefectus aeriae, violenta tyrannide a 
 subditis redditus exposcebat.' 
 
 ' The jalous swan ayens his deth that singeth.' 
 ' Illic olor, sui funeris praeco, citherizationis organo vitae prophetabat 
 apocopam.' 
 
 ' The oule eek that of dethe the bode bringeth.' 
 ' Illic bubo, propheta miseriae, psalniodias funereae lamentationis 
 praecinebat.' 
 
 ' The crane, the geaunt, with his trompes soun.' 
 ' Grus . . . giganteae quantitatis evadebat excessum.' 
 
 ' The thef the chogh.' 
 ' Illic monedula, latrocinio laudabili reculas thesaurizans, innatae 
 avaritiae argumenta monstrabat.' 
 
 ' The jangling pye.' 
 ' Illic pica, dubio picturata colore, curam logices perennabat 
 insomnem.' 
 
 ' The cok that orloge is of thorpes lyte. ' 
 ' Illic gallus, tanquam vulgaris astrologus, suce vocis horologio 
 horarum loquebatur discrimina.' 
 
 ' The wedded turlel with her herte trewe. ' 
 ' Illic turtur, suo viduata consorte, amorem epilogare dedignans, in 
 altero bigamiae refutabat solatia.' 
 
 ' The pecok with his aungels fethers bright.' 
 ' Illic in pavone tantum pulcritudinis compluit Nalura thesauruni ut 
 earn postea crederes mendicasse.' 
 
 'The raven wys.' 
 'Illic corvus, zelotypiae abhorrens dedecus, suos foetus non sua esse 
 pignora fatebatur, usque dum comperto nigri argumento coloris, hoc
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 99 
 
 quasi secum disputans comprobat. ' [This is an excellent illustration of 
 Chaucer's epithet, though the proof that contents the observant and 
 reflecting bird would scarcely satisfy a judicial mind, unless ravens are 
 communistic in respect of their mates.] 
 
 ' The crow with voice of care.' 
 ' Illic comix ventura prognosticans, nugatorio concitabatur garritu. ' 
 
 A careful comparison of these two catalogues raisonnes — 
 the lists are by no means identical any more than the descrip- 
 tions — certainly casts light on Chaucer's genius. One can 
 scarcely doubt that his taste appreciated duly the affected 
 and far-fetched style of the older writer. And certainly one 
 may see how he was not content to behold Nature merely 
 through the spectacles of books, but loved to gaze on her 
 face to face. Dear as his old books were to him — ' totorn ' 
 with faithful use (see 1. no of the P. of F.) — dearer yet 
 was Nature. Sweet were the old songs on the daisy ; but 
 the daisy itself was still sweeter. Entertaining and learned 
 were the accounts to be found in literature of his fellow- 
 creatures the birds ; but better than hearing of them he 
 enjoyed hearing them and watching their humours — for 
 they, too, have their humours — with an eye at once merry 
 and kindly. Birds, no less than men, he observed keenly, 
 portrayed wittily, and with all the gentleness of a most gentle 
 heart. 
 
 (8.) THE DATE OF TEIE CANTERBURY TALES 
 
 (From The Atheiiattm for April 8th, 1893) 
 
 AS a really satisfactory study of Chaucer's art and mind 
 cannot be made till the chronological order of his 
 works is to some considerable extent discovered and estab-
 
 TOO FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 lished, it is a matter of congratulation that in the last few 
 years so much has been done in this latter direction, and that 
 as to the date of many poems, though by no means of all, 
 there is now a fairly general agreement amongst really 
 competent scholars. Of course the most interesting and 
 important of all such questions is the date of the Pro- 
 logue to The Canterbury Tales. It has been, and is by 
 some still placed as late as 1393. But the evidence for 
 placing it so late is extremely slight, if, indeed, there is 
 any at all that bears investigation ; whereas assuredly many 
 things point to the year 1387 or thereabouts, as the year 
 of the pilgrimage and of Chaucer's immortal description 
 of it. I do not now propose to discuss this matter at large, 
 but only to call attention to an argument in favour of the 
 earlier date which has, I think, not yet been noticed, and 
 which, if it has not a decisive, has certainly a corroborative 
 value. 
 
 We are told of the merchant that 
 
 He wolde the sea were kept for anything 
 Bitwixe Middelburgh and Orewelle, 
 
 that he thought it of prime moment that the passage from 
 Harwich to Middelburgh should be swept clear of pirates. 
 Why Middelburgh? The answer to this query gives a 
 curious confirmation of the date 1387 or thereabouts; it 
 proves that the Prologue must have been written not before 
 1384 and not later than 1388. In the year 1384 the wool- 
 staple was removed from Calais and established at Middel- 
 burgh ; in 1388 it was fixed once more at Calais (see Craik's 
 History of British Co??wierce, i. 123.) The said woolstaple 
 led a somewhat nomad life in the fourteenth century ; it was 
 at different times established at Bruges, and Antwerp, not 
 to mention various towns in England. But its only sojourn 
 at Middelburgh was that in the years 1384-8; and so only
 
 CHAUCER NOTES loi 
 
 just at that time could the merchant's words have their full 
 significance — have a special pointedness. 
 
 A careful examination of the case makes it highly improb- 
 able that the Prologue was written early in those four or five 
 years. We know it was not till February 1385 that Chaucer 
 was released from the drudgery of daily personal attendance 
 at the Custom House, where he held two appointments, 
 being (since 1374) the Comptroller of the Wool Customs, 
 and also (since 1382) the Comptroller of the Petty Customs 
 — appointments, by the way, that must have made him very 
 familiar with the merchants of the day. There is good 
 reason for believing that the first literary product of his days 
 of comparative leisure was the ' Legend of Good Women.' 
 That work, doomed never to be finished, was still in hand 
 (and probably becoming somewhat burdensome to him 
 through the monotony of the subject matter) when the larger 
 and happier and more congenial idea of the Canterbury 
 pilgrimage occurred to him. Thus it was probably after 
 1386 — probably immediately after — that he composed the 
 Prologue. 
 
 One convenience of his new and admirable design, was 
 that it permitted him to use up much old material — to 
 slightly revise and to bring into a series, sundry tales he 
 had composed many years before — as those of Griselda, of 
 Constance, of St Cecily, and of the Christian Boy, whom the 
 Jews were said to have murdered, and possibly other pieces. 
 But except, perhaps, 'The Tale of Melibeus,' and the 
 ' Parson's Tale,' all the new tales — the tales that were written 
 in the first instance for a place in the Canterbury sequence 
 — were probably produced very shortly after the Prologue, 
 i.e.^ in the latter part of 1387, and in the four or five 
 following years. Certainly in 1393, if that date is accepted 
 for the Compleytit of Venus, and it is probable enough
 
 I02 FOLIA LITTERARrA 
 
 (see Prof. Skeat's excellent edition of the Minor Poems) 
 
 Chaucer felt or seemed to feel, his right hand losing its 
 
 cunning. Possibly later on he recovered health and spirits, 
 
 for 1393 he was only some fifty-three years old, and he was 
 
 to live to near the end of the century. But it is scarcely 
 
 likely his admirable comic vein ever again flowed so freely 
 
 as in 1387, and the three or four following years. That is 
 
 the supreme period of his humorous and his dramatic 
 
 power. At all events in 1393 — ^just five hundred years ago 
 
 — in presenting his Compleynt of Venus to a princess, 
 
 probably the Duchess of York, he speaks of his ' litel suffi- 
 
 same.' 
 
 For eld that in my spirit dulleth me, 
 Hath of endyting al the sotellie 
 
 Wei ny bereft out of my remembraunce. 
 
 (9.) THE PRIORESS'S 'GREATEST OATH' 
 
 (From The AthencEitiii for Jan. 10, 1891) 
 
 IN his description of the Prioress in the Prologue to 
 the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer informs us ihat ' Her 
 greatest oath was but by St Loy ' (' Hir gretteste 00th was but 
 by Seynt Loy.') And there has been much discussion as to 
 why this good lady should swear by St Loy of all the saints 
 in the calendar, inasmuch as St Loy or Eloy — for Loy 
 appears to be a clipped and more familiar form of the name 
 Eloy, which is the French form of Eligius — is commonly 
 known as the patron of 'goldsmiths, blacksmiths, and 
 all workers in metals, also of farriers and horses' (Mrs 
 Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, vol. ii. 728-32, ed. 
 1863.) It is natural enough, then, that the carter in 'The
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 103 
 
 Friar's Tale ' should invoke God and St Loy when his 
 horse is struggling to pull his cart out of the slough. But 
 what is his saintship to the Prioress, or she to his saintship ? 
 An attempt has been made to get out of the difificulty by 
 suggesting that by St Loy is meant St Louis ; but such a 
 solution creates other difficulties not less formidable than 
 the one it aims at solving, as, e.g., why should the carter 
 swear by St Louis of France ? ' Warton's notion that Loy 
 was a form of Louis,' observes Dr Skeat, 'only shows how 
 utterly unknown in his time were the phonetic laws of Old 
 French.' Again, it has been suggested that Loy is simply 
 the French /t'/ = law, and that what Chaucer means is that 
 the Prioress never used a stronger expletive than 'par sa 
 loi,' which Roquefort, we are reminded, interprets as equiva- 
 lent to ' par sa foi, en bonne foi, en honnete homme.' And 
 this would give good sense enough — gives, I think, the real 
 sense ; but such a phrase as ' Seynt loi ' or ' Seynte loi ' (for 
 which there is the authority of one MS.) seems scarcely 
 plausible ; at all events, it cannot be accepted without 
 further support than has yet been furnished for it. More- 
 over, the form Loy undoubtedly occurs elsewhere as a vari- 
 ant of Eloy. Thus there is a half-ruined chapel near Exeter 
 dedicated to St Eligius or St Eloy, which is commonly 
 known as St Loy's. Again, Barnaby Googe writes, ' And 
 Loye the Smith doth look to horse, and smithes of all degree,' 
 etc. ; and many other proofs of this identity could be quoted 
 if necessary. In this connection it should be remembered 
 that, however strange his name to us, St Eloy was extremely 
 well known in the Middle Ages. According to Sir Thomas 
 More, his day (December ist) came to be more thought of 
 than Easter Day itself A correspondent in the pages of 
 a contemporary journal remarks that St Loy or Eloy was 
 almost as popular in France in the Middle Ages as either
 
 104 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 St Denis or St Remi, and also exceedingly popular in 
 England.' 
 
 Various are the conjectures of those that insist, as I think 
 rightly, on the identity of St Loi and St Eloi. E.g., says 
 one distinguished scholar: 'The phrase seems to be an 
 ejaculation, or rather invocation, of St Eloi by a nervous 
 rider in the sense of " marry come up." ' Says another of 
 yet greater note: 'Perhaps she invoked St Loy as being 
 the patron saint of goldsmiths ; for she seems to have been 
 a Httle given to a love of gold and corals; see 11. 158-162.' 
 May I venture to suggest a quite different explanation } 
 I believe the reference is to the fact that on a certain famous 
 occasion, St Eloy refused to take an oath— firmly declined 
 to swear. And thus we arrive at what I have already said 
 appears to be the real sense of the words, viz., the Prioress 
 never swore at all. 
 
 The story is given at full length by St Ouen, the contem- 
 porary and friend of St Eligius, in his Vita Sti E/igit, 
 though, oddly enough, Alban Butler in his rendering of 
 that biography omits it. It will be found, how^ever, in 
 Maitland's Bark Ages, pp. 83-4, ed. 1853. King Dagobert, 
 on appointing Eligius to some confidential situation, or 
 being about to employ him in some business of state, 
 desired him to take an oath on the relics of the saints. 
 Eligius 'respectfully but firmly' refused, ' divinum intuitum 
 verens,' i.e., fearing the judgment of Heaven {intuitus in 
 medieval Latin is used in the sense of arbitrium, sententia, 
 judicium), or perhaps having respect for the promptings of 
 Heaven, i.e., for the voice of conscience. The king insisted ; 
 Eligius, in a dire extremity, ' hurst into tears. The king had 
 the good sense to give way, to speak to him in a kind 
 and soothing manner, and to dismiss him with a cheer- 
 ful countenance and an assurance that he should feel
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 105 
 
 more confidence in him than if he had sworn all sorts of 
 oaths — " poUicens se plus eum ex hoc jam crediturum quam 
 si multimoda tunc dedisset juramenta ! "' 
 
 The habit of garnishing talk with 'good mouth-filling 
 oaths ' was certainly very prevalent in the Middle Ages. 
 The ordinary person probably felt as great a contempt for 
 such weakly phrases as ' in good sooth ' as Hotspur himself. 
 Mine host Harry Bailey at once ' smells a loller in the 
 wind ' when the Parson, outraged by his ' Goddes bones ' 
 and ' Goddes dignitee,' 
 
 him answered : ' Benedicite ! 
 What eileth the man so sinfully to swere ? 
 
 But even then some natures, e.g., the Parson just quoted, 
 resented this current violence of language, this wild excess 
 of affirmation and denial, and contented themselves with a 
 milder vocabulary. St Eloy was haply one of these. At 
 all events, he forswore swearing, so to speak ; and so an 
 oath by Eloy would mean an oath according to his usage, 
 i.e., an oath such as he might have uttered or approved, i.e., 
 no oath at all. 
 
 It is consistent with this interpretation, though it may 
 not confirm it, that the Prioress in her Prologue uses no 
 adjurations such as prevail more or less in other parts of 
 the Canterbury Tales. 
 
 Lastly, such a way of speaking is just after Chaucer's 
 manner. It is inspired by just the same dry humour that 
 dictates the well-known lines in the description of the 
 Shipman : — 
 
 If that he faughl and hadde the heier hond, 
 By water he sente hem hooui to every loud.
 
 io6 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 (lo.) ' THE PREESTES THREE' 
 
 (From The Academy {ox ]:^v\. 31, 1875) 
 
 MR FURNIVALL has certainly increased the already 
 great obligations of all Chaucer students to him, 
 by the Illustrations of the Prologue he has lately drawn from 
 the paper survey of the Abbey of St Mary's, Winchester, and 
 from Ducange, of which an account is given in the last number 
 of The Academy. Certain features in the portrait of the 
 Prioress are for the first time explained : the term Chaplain, 
 as applied to a Nun, is satisfactorily defended, and it is 
 shown that there might be several attendant priests, yet it 
 may remain, and in my opinion it does remain, a question 
 whether we have the original text in 1. 164. 
 
 Was not Tyrwhitt right after all as to that question, how- 
 ever he may have erred in condemning Chaplain 1 See his 
 valuable note in his Introductory Discourse. The facts to 
 be considered are these : — 
 
 (i.) Chaucer in the proem of the Prologue^ undertakes to 
 describe for us the condition, the quality and degree, and 
 the array of each one of his pilgrims. And this programme 
 it may be said, he carries out in every instance, except in 
 those of the Nun, and of the ' Preestes three.' Surely this 
 imperfection excites and justifies a suspicion that the text 
 has been disturbed? Let any one who knows the Prologue 
 decide for himself, whether there is not a perceptible and 
 unusual abruptness in this couplet : — 
 
 Another Nonne also with hire hackle she 
 That was her chapelleine, and Preestes three. 
 
 Does not everybody feel that the sketch of the Nun is 
 maimed and mutilated ? Chaucer is just beginning a por- 
 trait that might have held artistic rank with his other
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 107 
 
 masterpieces, when something or other knocks the brush 
 out of his hand ; or more probably, he had finished the 
 portrait, when somebody's sponge, possibly his own, for a 
 reason that may be conjectured, descends ruthlessly on the 
 canvas, and leaves nothing but the first strokes. 
 
 (2.) There is not elsewhere, a trace of more than one 
 priest. See the Nonnes Preestes Prologue : — 
 
 Then speke our hoste with rude speeche and bold 
 
 And sayd unto the Nonnes Freest anon : 
 
 Come here thou Freest, come hither thou Sire John. 
 
 Is it satisfactory to say that the host picks out Sir John, 
 as being the chief of the priests ? 
 
 (3.) We are expressly told that there were twenty-nine 
 pilgrims assembled at the Tabard. Now, if we admit the 
 Preestes three, there were thirty-one. And it seems absurd 
 to say, as has been said, that twenty-nine must be taken as 
 a round number. What, then, is an unround number? 
 Chaucer is always singularly exact in details ; and when he 
 says twenty-nine it must be taken to mean twenty-nine. 
 
 (11.) THE NAME PALAMON IN THE 
 KNIGHT'S TAIE 
 
 (From The Academy for Jan. 17, 1874) 
 
 '"I ^HAT the ultimate original of the Kjiiglifs Tale is a 
 X Greek story, there can be little question. The whole 
 poem is marked by Greek features, though seen for the most 
 part through an atmosphere of romance. One may easily 
 believe that Boccaccio's authority was one of those scholars 
 who, already in the fourteenth century, began to leave the
 
 loS FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 sinking Constantinople, and find a welcome in the country 
 destined to be the nurse of the Renaissance. 
 
 Evidently the names Palaraon and Arcite are corruptions of 
 
 old Greek names. The Middle Ages gave strange shapes 
 
 to many a well-known classical form. See, for instance, the 
 
 catalogue of worthies in Chaucer's House of Fame. It was 
 
 no violent exercise of this science that converted Archytes 
 
 {Apy^iirag) into Arcite. The name Palamon is the more 
 
 interesting because it may be shown to be significant of the 
 
 person who bears it. It is a modification in form and 
 
 accent of the Greek Palcemon {HaKalixm) a name borne by 
 
 several celebrated ancients. Spenser, it may be noted in 
 
 passing, living at a time when scholarship was beginning to 
 
 pay more attention to accuracy, more correctly writes 
 
 Palemon (See Co/ifi Cloufs Come Hovie Again, line 396). 
 
 If we look at the radical force of this name, we shall see its 
 
 appropriateness in the Teseide, and the Canterbury Tale 
 
 founded on the Teseide. It means properly ' the wrestler,' 
 
 and in this sense is applied to Hercules by Sycophron of 
 
 Alexandria. It is in fact equivalent to '7ra7MiaTr]g. But 
 
 naXaiari]; is used metaphorically to denote a 'suitor,' and 
 
 what I suggest is, that this is less the meaning of TaXa/,awv 
 
 as borne by the ' servant' of the Lady Ewing. 
 
 Palamon is emphatically the lover — the lover pure and 
 simple. He is 'all for love!' Arcite is ihe protege of 
 Mars; but Palamon of Venus. See his prayer to his 
 goddess : 
 
 Fairest of faire, O lady myn Venus, 
 
 Alias ! I'nc liavc no langage for to telle 
 Theffectes ne the tormentz of myn hellc. 
 
 Considere al this, and rewc upon my sore 
 As wisly as I shal for evermore
 
 CHAUCER NOTES 109 
 
 Emforth my might thi trewe servant be. 
 
 I kepe noght of armes for to yelpe 
 
 Ne I ne axe to morwe to haue victorie, 
 
 Ne renown in this caas, ne veyne glorie, 
 
 Of pris of armes, blowen up and doun 
 
 But I wolde have fully possessioun 
 
 Of Emelye, and dye in thi servise ; 
 
 Fynd thou the manere how, and in what wyse 
 
 I recche not but it may bettre be, 
 
 To have victorie of hem, or they of me, 
 
 So that I have my lady in myn armes. 
 
 For him, as for King Pharamond, 'love is enough.' 
 
 For 'KaXaicrrig itself, see ^sch. Agam. 1206, where Kas- 
 sandra says of Apollo : 
 
 dX\' 'qv TraKaiffTrj^ Kapr^ e'^ot trviijjv X'^P"'- 
 
 Compare As You Like It, I. iii. 
 
 Celia. Come, come, zurestle with thy affections. 
 
 Roselind. O ! they take the part of a better ivrestler than myself. 
 
 Celia. O ! a good wish upon you, you will try in time in spite of a fall. 
 
 Where the double intention of ' wrestler ' is to be noted. 
 If one may speak of ' Adam Cupid,' Cupid the archer, 
 
 ' That shot so trim 
 When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid,' 
 
 why not of Cupid the wrestler ? 
 
 (12.) GEOFFREY AND THOMAS CHAUCER 
 
 (From The Atheihviiiii for March 31, 1888) 
 
 THERE has always been fair reason for believing that 
 Thomas Chaucer was a son of the poet, and the belief 
 has been rendered yet more probable by the fact to which
 
 no FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Mr Selby called attention in these columns some eighteen 
 months ago, that Thomas succeeded Geoffrey as forester of 
 North Petherton Park, Somersetshire. I wish now further 
 to corroborate, if not finally to establish it, by quoting the 
 statement of a contemporary authority. It has been quoted 
 before, once at least — by Chalmers in his British Poets — 
 but not in this connection, and seems of late years to have 
 been entirely overlooked. 
 
 It is to be found in Gascoigne's Theological Dictionary. 
 This work, existing in MS. in the library of Lincoln College, 
 Oxford, has not yet been printed as a whole. The volume 
 of extracts from it, edited a few years ago by Prof. Thorold 
 Rogers, does not contain the passage that concerns us, which 
 occurs on p. 377 of Pars Secunda ; nor, so far as I know, 
 has all this passage been exactly printed before, though it 
 was certainly known to Anthony Wood. My friend the 
 Rector of Lincoln has been so very good as to verify the 
 sentence given by Chalmers, and to copy out the words that 
 immediately precede it. 
 
 Gascoigne is speaking of too late repentances. Our Lord, 
 he says, tells us to pray that our flight may not be in the 
 winter or on the Sabbath day, and then ingeniously inter- 
 prets such flight in this way : ' Fugit in hyeme qui optat 
 fugere a malo consequente peccatum, quum non potest illud 
 fugere nee illud cavere.' He then illustrates his meaning 
 by the instances of Judas and (may Heaven forgive him for 
 such an unkindly conjunction !) of the poet Chaucer. ' Sic 
 plures,' he goes on after recounting Judas's fate, ' penitere se 
 postea dicunt, quando mala sua et mala per eos [ = se ?] in- 
 ducta destruere non possunt ; sicut Chawserus ante mortem 
 suam sepe clamavit.' ' Ve michi ! ve michi ! quia revocare 
 nee destruere jam potero ilia qua; male scripsi de malo et 
 turpi-ssimo amore hominum ad mulieres, et jam de homine
 
 CHAUCER NOTES iii 
 
 in hominem continuabuntur. Velim ! Nolim ! ' [/>., I wish 
 I could destroy them ! I wish I had never written them !] 
 Et sic plangens mortuus.' And then come the words of 
 biographical importance: 'Fuit idem Chawserus pater Thome 
 Chawserus \sic\ armigeri, qui Thomas sepelitur in Nuhelm 
 [Ewelme] juxta Oxoniam.' 
 
 Now Gascoigne was a junior contemporary of Thomas 
 Chaucer, their lives overlapping for some thirty years. Gas- 
 coigne died in 1458; Thomas Chaucer in 1434. 'It 
 appears,' says Mr Rogers in his excellent introduction to the 
 Locie Libra Veritatum, 'that from his matriculation to 
 his death, Gascoigne resided almost constantly in Oxford.' 
 And he was a distinguished figure there, reaching, in 1434, 
 (Thomas Chaucer's death-year) the distinction of the Chan- 
 cellorship — a distinction again enjoyed in 1442, 1443 and 
 1445. Thomas Chaucer, too, must have been well known, 
 not only by report, but personally, at Oxford ; for he had 
 residences both at Woodstock, some seven miles north, and 
 at Ewelme, some fifteen miles south-west, the direct road 
 between Woodstock and Ewelme passing through Oxford. 
 Surely, then, we have in Gascoigne's statement fairly decisive 
 authority for declaring Thomas to be the son of the poet. 
 
 Perhaps some persons may think that Gascoigne's credit 
 is somewhat impaired by the story of the poet's remorse 
 with which his statement is associated. But that story is 
 fully supported by the well-known passage in the paragraph 
 at the end of the Canterbury Tales headed ' Preces de 
 Chauceres,' which it seems difficult to explain altogether 
 away, as Tyrwhitt and others have attempted to do. There 
 is no denying that Chaucer has written some lines which 
 dying he might well ' wish to blot ' ; and even if the ipsls- 
 sima verba at the close of the ' Parson's Tale ' are those of 
 a scribe or some father confessor, and are far too com-
 
 112 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 prehensive, yet it is credible enough they represent some 
 actual expressions of regret. Possibly the poet's fixing his 
 last abode where he did, so close to the Abbey of West- 
 minster — I do not forget it was also near one of the royal 
 palaces — may suggest that some ascetic tendency or turn 
 marked his declining years. Such things have happened 
 both before and since. Men's judgments have decayed, 
 and they have formed a morbid estimate of their life and 
 works. Certainly Chaucer on his deathbed might, if his 
 mind were healthy, look back to much good service done 
 for ' truth and honour, freedom and curtesy.' The world 
 was the better for him while he lived, and has been the 
 better for him ever since he w^as laid in 'the corner' that 
 was to be called ' the Poets'.' But probably enough in those 
 last hours he remembered only, and even exaggerated, his 
 errors, and in his humility could not then perceive that his 
 not professedly religious writings did yet in their way, with 
 whatever defects, make for virtue and goodness even more 
 effectively than those written in the name of religion. What- 
 ever view is taken of this psychological problem, I do not 
 think Gascoigne's evidence on the filial question is to be 
 rejected because of his attitude towards it. 
 
 Thus, if there was always fair reason for believing Thomas 
 was Geoffrey's son, surely this relationship may now be taken 
 as proved. But the exact details of it are not absolutely 
 ascertained. Assuredly difficulties yet remain. Speght tells 
 us that in his day, te/)ip. Elizabeth, ' some held opinion that 
 Thomas Chaucer was not the son of Geoffrey ; ' and, says 
 Tyrwhitt, ' there are certainly many circumstances that 
 might incline us to that opinion.' Mr Edward Walford, 
 in an interesting pai)er on ' Ewelme and the Chaucer 
 Tombs, lately contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine, 
 assures us ' that it is now the general opinion of historians
 
 CM A UCER NO TES 1 1 3 
 
 and genealogists that this Thomas Chaucer was in reahty 
 a son of John of Gaunt by a sister of Catherine Swinford, 
 the same who afterwards married Geoffrey Chaucer; and 
 if this supposition is true, then Thomas Chaucer was the 
 illegitimate son of Geoffrey Chaucer's wife, and therefore 
 not the poet's son, but his stepson, after a fashion.' Now, 
 on what facts is this opinion founded ? Is it founded on 
 any ? Or is it merely an hypothesis ? As an hypothesis it 
 would undoubtedly solve many difficulties ; but it would in 
 their place create a difficulty yet more perplexing with 
 regard to Chaucer's character. To suppose that the poet 
 married a cast-off mistress of his patron's, or, still worse, 
 that after his marriage Philippa continued to be, or became 
 his patron's mistress, are obviously not suppositions easy to 
 reconcile with personal respect and admiration. 
 
 For the present at least Chaucer's married life is involved 
 in obscurity. That it was not a success there are many 
 indications ; but the causes of its unhappiness have not 
 hitherto been discovered — are, perhaps, undiscoverable. 
 
 I will just add that it seems extremely probable that the 
 Elizabeth Chaucer, for whose novitiate in the Abbey of 
 Barking John of Gaunt paid 51/. 8.?. 2d. in 1381, was a 
 daughter of Geoffrey. 
 
 H
 
 IX 
 
 THE 'CONFESSIO AMANTIS 
 
 (From The Athenceuin for Dec. 24, 1881) 
 
 TO say nothing of the interest of the question as it relates 
 to Gower himself, the date of the Confessio Amantis 
 has a special importance for Chaucerian students. As there 
 are several stories that are told by both poets, the settlement 
 of this date may decide, if there seem to be obligations, 
 which is the obliged person. And as the following lines 
 in Gower are often quoted in connexion with the contro- 
 versy as to the time of Chaucer's birth, it is obviously of 
 some moment to ascertain the date of the work containing 
 them : 
 
 Gower represents Venus speaking to him in this wise : 
 
 And grete wel Chaucer, when j'e mete, 
 As my disciple and my poete ; 
 For in the floures of his youthe 
 In sondry wise, as he wel couthe, 
 Of dylees and of songes glade 
 The whiche he for my sake made, 
 The land fulfilled is over al. 
 Whereof to him in special 
 Above alle other I am most holde. 
 Forlhy now in his dayes olde 
 Thou shall him telle this message : 
 That he upon his latter age, 
 114
 
 THE ' CONFESSIO AMANTIS' 115 
 
 To sette an end of al his werke, 
 As he whiche is myn owne clerke 
 Do make his Testament of Love, 
 As thou hast doon thy shrift above, 
 So that my court it may recorde. 
 
 And yet the statements current in most books dealing 
 with the subject are for the most part careless and inaccur- 
 ate. Often it is said that the second version or edition of 
 the Confessio — it is well known there were two editions 
 — was not presented to Henry of Lancaster till he became 
 king — that is, was not presented before 1399. It is gener- 
 ally taken for granted in discussing Chaucer's birth-year 
 that the above-quoted lines of Gower belong to the year 1393, 
 whereas, as I hope to show, they were probably written nine 
 or ten years earlier. The omission of those lines in the 
 second edition is sometimes explained, by those who are 
 unwilling to allow that the friendship of the two poets was 
 ever disturbed, as due to the fact that Chaucer was in 
 extreme old age, beyond the power of dictating any 
 ' Testament ' for Venus, or any testament but his own, if, 
 indeed, he was equal to that, when the revised version 
 appeared. But the revised version was certainly finished, 
 in 1393. 
 
 These and other like errors are still widely prevalent, 
 although years ago — nearly a quarter of a century ago — 
 Dr. Pauli pointed out that 1392-3 is the date of the second 
 version, and that the first must have been written some 
 years earlier. This view of Dr. Pauli's, to be found in 
 the introduction to his edition of the Confessio Amafttis, 
 published in 1857, I propose now not only to call attention 
 to, but to enforce and support with fresh illustrations. 
 
 Let it, then, be carefully observed that Gower himself 
 tells us that the version dedicated to Henry of Lancaster
 
 Ii6 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 was completed in the sixteenth year of Richard II., and that 
 the hnes containing Venus's message to Chaucer, as well as 
 the passages that express loyalty to the reigning sovereign, 
 are not found in it. These lines are found only in the other 
 version, which the very slightest consideration of the facts 
 of the case will show to be the earlier — the earlier by several 
 years : six or seven as Dr. Pauli thinks, but perhaps, as I 
 incline to think, by nine or ten. 
 
 (i.) Let us, then, first consider the date of the first ver- 
 sion of the Co?ifessio Amantis. This is Gower's account of 
 its suggestion and origin : — 
 
 In our Englishe I thenke make 
 A boke for King Richardes sake, 
 To whom belongeth my legeaunce 
 With all min hertes obeisaunce 
 In all that ever a lege man 
 Unto his king may done or can ; 
 So ferforth and me recommaunde 
 To him which all me may commaunde 
 Preiend unto the highe regne, 
 Which causeth every king to regne, 
 That his corone longe stonde. 
 
 And he goes on to describe how one day, as he was rowing, 
 or being rowed, along the Thames, ' under the town of New 
 Troy' — that is, by London — his liege lord met him and 
 called him into his barge, and, amongst other things then 
 said, bade him ' book some new thing to his high worthi- 
 ness' — i.e., compose some new writing and dedicate it to 
 his Majesty. Gower was eager to act on the royal bidding. 
 He had ' sickness on hand,' and long had had, he tells us • 
 but, fervent royalist as he was, he determined to ' travail ' in 
 the king's service, and so he set to work 
 
 To make a boke after his heste 
 And write in such a maner wise,
 
 THE 'CONFESSIO AM ANT IS' 117 
 
 Which may be wisdom to the wise 
 And play to hem that list to play. 
 
 The result was the Confessio Amantis. 
 
 This interview with the king is often enough referred to, 
 but quite wrongly it is ordinarily assigned to the regnal year 
 1392-3. In 1392-3, as we shall see, Gower had utterly 
 ceased to believe in Richard II. or expect anything good 
 from him, and had turned to one who seemed better to 
 justify his hope and trust. 
 
 If the prologue of the Confessio gives us nothing more 
 definite in the way of date than that it was written when its 
 author was a devoted adherent of King Richard, we may, 
 I think, gather more precise information from the epilogue ; 
 and this is a point not yet noticed, so far as I know. 
 
 The poem concludes by telling us how Venus, after 
 sending her famous message to Chaucer, all suddenly passed 
 up into heaven, and the poet betook himself home, resolved, 
 his beads in hand, ever to pray for all true lovers. And so 
 his work is done ; the poem his Majesty ordered is written. 
 And he epilogizes in these Latin lines, followed by some 
 English octo syllables : — 
 
 Ad laudem Christi, quern tu virgo peperisti, 
 Sit laus Ricardi, quem sceptra colunt leopardi. 
 Ad sua precepta coinplevi car)iiine cepta, 
 Que Brati nata legat Anglia perpetuata. 
 
 The English lines that follow are filled with the same spirit 
 that inspired the prologue. Gower is not yet disillusioned. 
 Upon his bare knees he prays God to 'convey' — ever to 
 escort, so to speak — ' my worthy king ' 
 
 Richard by name the Secounde 
 In whom hath ever yet be founde 
 Justice medled with pite, 
 Largesse forth with charite.
 
 Ii8 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 In his persone it may be shewed 
 What is a king to be well thewed, 
 Touching of pite namely, 
 For he yet never unpetously 
 Ayein the leges of his londe, 
 For no defaute which he fonde 
 Through cruelte vengeance sought. 
 
 And he continues to chant at length his praises. 
 
 Now, Dr. Pauli has remarked that this enthusiastic language 
 towards King Richard must precede 1386. 'The date,' he 
 says, 'when Gower began to write the Confessio Ama?ifis, 
 would fall before the year 1386, and before the young king, 
 who had just become of age, developed those dangerous 
 qualities which estranged from him amongst others the poet, 
 who, as he states himself, composed his work in English 
 [better " his English work "] in consequence of an invitation 
 from his sovereign.' The soundness of this view will be 
 doubted by no one who studies Gower's political writings or 
 understands his political temper. He was of a thoroughly 
 loyal nature and habit, but he had a keen sense of a king's 
 duties as well as of his prerogatives. He expected a king 
 to act like a king. For a mere reckless pleasure-lover — for 
 a royal profligate who wasted his substance in riotous living 
 — he felt no respect or reverence. What he wanted in the 
 State was government and order, and of these things there 
 presently seemed a plentiful lack. Possibly enough he may 
 have been even harsh in his judgment of the king. 
 Certainly what was generous and lovable in the king's 
 personal character — such elements were undoubtedly there — 
 seemed to him of trifling value as compared with a firm, 
 strong will and a firm, strong hand to execute it, such as 
 the convulsed and quaking condition of English society at 
 that time made peculiarly needful. Probably what in the 
 first instance fanned, I do not say kindled, the flame of his
 
 THE ' CONFESSIO AMANTIS' 119 
 
 loyalty towards King Richard, was the vigour and spirit 
 the young prince displayed in dealing with the insur- 
 gent peasants in an early year of his reign. The time was 
 out of joint ; and here seemed one who was able ' to set 
 it right,' a youth brave and prompt and resolute. 
 
 It was when this welcome belief was in all its strength in 
 Gower's heart, ere yet had dawned on him any suspicion 
 how inconstant, headstrong, violent, was in fact the prince's 
 nature, that both the prologue and the epilogue were written; 
 and in the epilogue we have definite allusions to matters of 
 the time. 
 
 In the lines just now quoted, Gower is assuredly referring 
 to the king's conduct in the peasants' insurrection. When 
 he speaks of 'justice meddled with pity,' and says he never 
 yet pitilessly exacted vengeance from his lieges for their 
 default, he cannot but be referring to the suppression of 
 that tumult. We of to-day may perhaps think there were 
 excessive severity and flagrant injustice shown then ; but 
 Gower did not look at the action of his Government with 
 our eyes ; he did not sympathise with ' the villains ' so far 
 as we do; and certainly, if in the autumn of 1381 there 
 were many executions, in 1382 there were many pardons 
 issued ; indeed, the insurgents — such as survived — were 
 pardoned, with certain exceptions. 
 
 There is another reference in the epilogue, which enables 
 us to date the conclusion of the first version of the Confessio, 
 yet more exactly .■ — 
 
 My worthy prince, of whom I write, 
 
 Thus [i.e., like the sun] stant he with him selve clere, 
 
 And doth what lith in liis powere, 
 
 Nought only here at home to seke 
 
 Love and accorde, but outward eke, 
 
 As he that save his people wolde. 
 
 So ben we alle well beholde
 
 I20 FOLIA LITTERARTA 
 
 To do service and obeisaunce 
 
 To him, which of his high suffraunce 
 
 Hath many a great debate appesed 
 
 To make his lege men ben esed ; 
 
 Wherefore that his cronique shall 
 
 For ever be memoriall 
 
 To the loenge of that he doth. 
 
 For this wote every man in soth 
 
 What king that so desireth pees, 
 
 He taketh the way which Criste ches ; 
 
 And who that Cristes weies sueth 
 
 It proveth well that he escheueth 
 
 The vices and is vertuous ; 
 
 Whereof he mot be gracious 
 
 Toward his god and acceptable. 
 
 I venture to hold that Gower here refers to the negotia- 
 tions for peace with France in the year 1383. They did 
 not succeed; but in the beginning of 1384 a truce was 
 made to last till Michaelmas ; it was then prolonged to the 
 following spring. To show how much needed and welcome 
 a boon it was to both countries we have the testimony of 
 Walsingham : — 
 
 ' Quae treugge quantum contulerunt utrique regno, regna 
 manifesta suis commodis persenserunt. Nam Anglia per 
 Galileos et maxime per Normannos, sequente Quadrigesima 
 referta est cunctis necessariis mercibus, puta vino, fructibus 
 diversi generis, speciebus, atque piscibus ; adeo affluenter, 
 ut admiration! foret incolis vilitas rerum venalium, pracipue 
 in illis partibus ad quas accessus esse poterat Norman- 
 norum. Francia et Normannia Isetatae sunt, quia argentum 
 et aurum prompte perceperunt ex Anglicis pro suis merci- 
 moniis, et abundantius multo quam in suis partibus pro 
 tantillo commercio percepissent. Unde ab iitrhisque reg?n 
 incolis et maxi7ne communibiis pax est a7-de?itissi7ne cofiaipita.'' 
 
 The epilogue, then, could not have been written later
 
 THE ' CONFESSIO A MANTIS' 121 
 
 than the beginning of 1385. But the praise of the truce 
 with the French is scarcely likely to have been sung towards 
 the close of it, when already new irritations were being felt, 
 and it was understood that our enemy, Scotland, was expect- 
 ing French aid. So we can go so far as to say the epilogue 
 was not written later than 1384. We may go yet further, 
 and say it may have been written as early as the close of 
 1383, when negotiations for something more permanent 
 than a truce were being carried on, and when, no doubt, as 
 a little later in 1389, the proposal of peace required the 
 support of sensible men against anti-French ' patriotism.' 
 
 Of these negotiations there, is some account given by 
 Froissart. They would seem to have lasted some time. 
 The Duke of Brittany conceived the idea. He suggested it 
 it to certain English knights, who were to suggest it 
 to the English King. But, not content with this arrange- 
 ment, he sent over to England two of his own knights, the 
 Lord de la Houssaye and the Lord de Mailly; who 
 ' managed matters so well that the Duke of Lancaster, the 
 Earl of Buckingham, the Bishop of Hereford, the Lord 
 John Holland, brother to the king, the Lord Thomas 
 Percy, and others of the king's council, were ordered to 
 Calais, having full powers from the King of England to 
 conclude a peace or truce, according to their pleasure. On 
 the other hand, there came to Boulogne the Duke of 
 Berry, the Duke of Burgundy, the Bishop of Laon, and the 
 Chancellor of France, having also full powers from the 
 King of France and his council to conclude either a peace 
 or a truce.' These plenipotentiaries were presently joined 
 by a bishop, a dean, and two knights on the part of the 
 King of Spain. The conference was transferred to a village 
 that had a church half way between Calais and Boulogne, 
 called ' Bolinges.' Thither all the parties went, and the
 
 122 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 lords with their council were together many days. The 
 Duke of Brittany and the Earl of Flanders were present ; 
 and the great tent of Bruges was pitched, wherein the earl 
 entertained at dinner the Duke of Lancaster, the Earl of 
 Buckingham, and other English lords. Each negotiator 
 kept up a great state, but, notwithstanding, there were 
 many conferences holden, yet could they not agree upon a 
 peace, for the French wanted the English to give up Calais, 
 Guines, and all the fortresses which they possessed in 
 Normandy, Brittany, Poitou, Saintonge, and La Rochelle, as 
 far as the river Garonne. But the English would not any 
 way listen to such a proposal ; nor would they ever consent 
 to give back such places as Calais, Guines, Cherbourg, or 
 Brest. These conferences lasted three weeks, in which they 
 or their councils discussed these matters daily. With 
 some difficulty the lords who held so many conferences at 
 Bolinges concluded a truce between the King of France and 
 England and their allies. 
 
 Gower's lines may well have been wTitten at the very time 
 of these conferences. It may be noticed that he speaks of 
 the king 'seeking' for 'love and accord' at home and 
 abroad, as if things were yet unsettled ; and below he speaks 
 of the king as ' desiring ' peace, as if it were not secured. 
 To lay any great stress on these words would perhaps be 
 special pleading; but certainly, to say nothing more, they 
 are happily consistent with the view here suggested, that the 
 lines in which they occur were penned in 1383, while a 
 peace was in discussion. 
 
 At all events, these lines were not written after 1384, and, 
 as we have seen, they form part of the epilogue of the first 
 version of the poem, whose date we are endeavouring to 
 discover. 
 
 There is a passage in the main part of book viii. which must
 
 THE ' CONFESSIO A MANTIS' 123 
 
 have been written at no great distance of time from January 
 
 1382, when the advent of a Bohemian princess, to be 
 
 married to King Richard, brought in certain Bohemian 
 
 fashions : — 
 
 Min eye and ' as I caste aboutes 
 To know among them who was who 
 I sigh when lusty youthe tho 
 As he, which was a capitein, 
 To-fore all other upon the plein, 
 Stood with his route well begon, 
 Her hedes kempt, and thereupon 
 (larlondes, nought of o colour, 
 Some of the lefe, some of the floure, 
 And some of grete perles were. 
 The newe guise of Beawme there 
 With sondry thinges well devised 
 I sigh, whereof they be queintised. 
 
 Such a settlement as is here advocated will, of course, 
 create a new aspect of several Chaucerian questions. I will 
 now refer to one only, the date of Chaucer's birth. The 
 well-known lines which speak of Chaucer's 'dayes olde ' 
 and ' his latter age ' are generally quoted, as I have said, as 
 written in the year 1393 ; now in fact they occur in the first 
 version of the poem, and so must have been written some 
 ten years before the date usually assigned. Could he, then, 
 have been born so late as 1340, as is now commonly held? 
 Or are those who adhere to the date 1328, after all, in the 
 right? Or was he born in some year between 1328 and 
 1340? I do not now propose to discuss these questions. 
 I only point out that they must arise if the view here main- 
 tained is accepted. 
 
 (2.) We will proceed now to consider the date of the 
 
 1 Gower often places and in the second or third place in the sentence, in 
 the Latin manner, where in our usage it ought to stand first ; see, e.g. , his 
 account of Medea's incantations, also the first extract given above.
 
 124 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 second version of the Confessio Amantis, or, rather, to 
 quote the definite statement on the subject made by Gower 
 himself, and to illustrate it from other passages in his 
 poem. 
 
 In the Prologue of this version he says he thinks to make 
 
 A boke for Englondes sake 
 
 The yere sixtenthe of King Richard, 
 
 i.e., between June 1392 and June 1393. The marginal note 
 runs in this wise : ' Hie in principio libri declarat qualiter 
 in anno Regis Ricardi secundi sextodecimo Johannes Gower 
 presentem libellum composuit et finaliter complevit, quem 
 strenuissimo domino suo Domino Henrico de Lancastria 
 tunc^ Derbiae comiti cum omni reverencia specialiter des- 
 tinavit.' We may well compare the 'finaliter complevit' 
 here with the ' complevi ' of the lines that precede the 
 epilogue of the other version. The 'finaliter' clearly de- 
 notes that the edition of 1392-3 is the revised edition. 
 
 After some general remarks on the ' reversed ' state of the 
 world and its constant changing, so that it is difficult to 
 imagine the past, and on the services of books in preserving 
 the memory of it, he thus continues : — 
 
 But for my wittes ben to smale 
 To tellen every man his tale, 
 This boke upon amendement 
 To stonde at his commaundemenl. 
 With whom my heart is of accorde, 
 I send unto min owne lorde, 
 Which of Lancastre is Henry named. 
 The highe god him hath proclamed 
 P\ill of knighthod and allc grace ; 
 So wol I now this wcrke embrace 
 With hoi truste and with hoi beleve. 
 God graunte I mote it well acheve. 
 
 1 ' The Earl of Derby ' was a ' courtesy ' title, dcri\cd from his grand- 
 father, Henry Grismond. In 1397 he was created Duke of Hereford.
 
 THE 'CONFESSIO AMANTIS' 125 
 
 Let us note here first what is surely a very interesting 
 allusion to the Canterbury Tales. Gower, knowing his own 
 lack of the dramatic power in which the genius of his great 
 contemporary so richly abounded, cannot attempt to paint 
 a group of persons such as Chaucer painted, and let each 
 person speak for himself in his own natural or habitual tone 
 and manner. The allusion, be it observed, is compliment- 
 ary. And perhaps, after all, the reason why Venus's 
 message is omitted in this second version is because Chaucer 
 had then taken up with such splendid success a line so 
 different from that enjoined by Venus, as Gower interprets 
 her wishes — was busy with his Catiterbury Tales and so 
 not in the way of writing any 'Testament of Love' such as 
 Gower suggested. But to return to the passage now before 
 us : let us note secondly the words ' upon amendement, 
 which must mean 'corrected,' 'revised.' This revised 
 version he formally dedicates to Henry of Lancaster, and 
 to him he professes his sincere attachment and fidelity. 
 
 From the king in whom he trusted when he wrote the 
 earlier prologue he had now long been alienated. We are 
 able to trace the history of this alienation in Gower's 
 Tripartite Chronicle, written about the close of the century, 
 when the career of him that was once his hope and trust 
 had closed in misery and shame. There is no reason to 
 suspect Gower's integrity. He behaved as a high-minded 
 gentleman well might — as, it may be, a true patriot was 
 bound to behave. He had endeavoured to excite in the 
 king a sense of his great office and how it should he filled, 
 but the king had no ears for such sober addresses. 
 
 In gallanl trim the gilded vessel goes, 
 
 Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm, 
 Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, 
 That, hush'd In grim repose expects his evening prey.
 
 126 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 The whirlwind arose duly, and the king and his court were 
 laid low. Gower viewed the miserable ruin with stern eyes, 
 and, like some prophet who sees in degradation and death 
 but the proper fruits of heedlessness and riot, he thus 
 summed up the tragic story : — 
 
 Chronica Ricardi, qui sceptra tulit leopardi, 
 Ut patet, est dicta populo sed non benedicta. 
 Ut speculum mundi quo lux nequil ulla lefundi, 
 Sic vacuus transit ; sibi nil nisi culpa remansit. 
 Unde superbus erat, modo si prxconia qunerat, 
 Ejus honor sordet, laus culpat, gloria mordet. 
 Hoc concernentes caveant qui sunt sapientes ; 
 Nam male viventes Deus odit in orbe regentes. 
 Est qui peccator non esse potest dominator ; 
 Ricardo teste, finis probat hoc manifeste. 
 Post sua demerita periit sua pompa sopita. 
 Qualis erat vita, chronica stabit ita. 
 
 To return to the prologue : the poet proceeds next to 
 
 describe the troubled condition of the age. ' De statu 
 
 regnorum,' runs the gloss, ' ut dicunt secundum temporalia, 
 
 videlicet tempore regis Ricardi secundi, anno regni sui 
 
 sextodecimo.' He praises the old days, and deplores the 
 
 present : — 
 
 Now stant the crope under the rote ; 
 The worlde is chaunged overall, 
 And thereof most in speciall 
 That love is falle into discorde. 
 
 It is so, he says, all over the world, and he goes on to 
 lament the corruptions of the Church, the restlessness of 
 the common people, the instability of all worldly things. 
 
 Turning to the epilogue of the second version, we find 
 the same change of tone. Here, too, we have the poet 
 distressed by the condition of his country : — 
 
 Upon my bare knees I praie 
 That he this londe in siker waic 
 Woll set upon good govcrnaunce.
 
 THE ' CONFESSIO AMANTIS' 127 
 
 He urges the king frankly enough to alter his course. After 
 mentioning his claim to the allegiance 
 
 and how 
 he adds :- 
 
 Of clerke, of knight, of man of lawe, 
 
 Under his honde all is forthdravvn, 
 The merchaunt and the laborer, 
 
 But though that he such power have. 
 And that his mightes ben so large, 
 He hath hem nought withouten charge 
 To which that every king is swore. 
 So were it good that he therefore 
 First unto rightwisnesse entende ; 
 Whereof that he himself amende 
 Toward his god, and leva vice, 
 Whiche is the chefe of his office — 
 And after all the remenaunt 
 He shall upon his covenaunl 
 Governe and lede in such a wise, 
 So that there be no tirannise, 
 Whereof that he his people greve ; 
 Or elles may he nought acheve 
 That longeth to his regalie. 
 
 The work is concluded with these Latin lines : — 
 
 Explicit iste liber, qui transeat obsecro liber, 
 Ut sine livore vigeat lectoris in ore. 
 Qui sedet in scamnis celi det, ut ista Johannis 
 Perpetuis omnis stet pagina grata Britannis, 
 Deibeie comiti, recoluni qiie/ii laudc periti, 
 Vade liber punts, sub eo rcquiesce fiiturtis.
 
 X 
 
 CHEVY CHASE 
 
 (From The GeiitlemarC s Magazine for April 1S89) 
 
 IT is common to say that the ballads known as the ' Battle 
 of Otterbourne ' and the ' Hunting of the Cheviot ' com- 
 memorate one and the same event. But it is quite certain 
 that they commemorate two quite different events. The 
 confusion of them is of early date ; it is found in the earliest 
 extant version of the latter ballad, which belongs to the 
 time of Queen Elizabeth ; but a confusion it is so to correlate 
 them. And if one would properly understand their histori- 
 cal value, and in other respects fully enjoy them, one should 
 keep them separate and distinct. I propose in this paper 
 to point out more completely than I think has yet been 
 done, how separate and distinct they in fact are. They are 
 connected with different localities, are based upon different 
 incidents, and represent different features in the old Border 
 life. 
 
 Of course this diversity is not now suggested for the first 
 time. It was recognised long ago in the early seventeenth 
 century by Hume of Godscroft, when he wrote : ' That 
 which is commonly sung of the " Hunting of the Cheviot " 
 seemeth indeed poetical and a mere fiction, perhaps to stir 
 
 1 28
 
 CHEVY CHASE 129 
 
 up virtue ; yet a fiction, whereof there is no mention either 
 in Scottish or English chronicle,' That it has no immediate 
 and particular historical basis is not so indubitable as this 
 writer supposes ; but he is right enough in not identifying 
 the occasion of it with the famous battle of Otterbourne. 
 And Bishop Percy saw that it was of different origin, and 
 others have seen it. But commonly, as I said to begin 
 with, in spite of these noticeable authorities, the two ballads 
 are regarded as merely various accounts of one and the same 
 action. Even so excellent a ballad-scholar as Professor 
 Child remarks in his introduction to the ' Hunting,' in his" 
 English atid Scottish Ballads, 1861, that the 'Hunting' 
 ' is founded on the same event ' as the ' Battle of Otterbourne.' 
 
 I trust that no apology is needed for an attempt to clear 
 up this matter. We profess to be proud of our ballad poetry, 
 and the ballads now to be briefly discussed are amongst its 
 masterpieces. Let us try to make our pride really intelli- 
 gent by a careful study of its object. There is certainly 
 much effusive praise of our poetry that is based on the 
 slightest possible knowledge. If we wnsh to indulge in the 
 boast Gives Romani su?nus, let us understand what is denoted 
 by the ' civitas ' we claim and proclaim. If we would entitle 
 ourselves to the right of lauding our literature, let us obtain t 
 some accurate familiarity with it. If we dislike the noisy J 
 raptures of the ignorant chauvinist, let us make sure that 
 our appreciation of what we say we admire is really founded 
 on fact — make sure that our zeal is without indiscretion, is 
 well-informed and sensible, is the offspring of a cultivated 
 intelligence. Thus, even a brief scrutiny of a few old ballads 
 may be of service ; it may improve our habits of accuracy, 
 increase our powers of enjoyment, help us to be more truth- 
 ful and sincere in our enthusiasms. 
 
 Let us turn first to the ballads that undoubtedly have for 
 
 I
 
 130 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 their theme the ' Battle of Otterbourne.' Of these there 
 are three — the one given in Percy's Reliques of A?tcient 
 English Poetry, the one in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border, the one in Herd's Scottish Songs. 
 
 Of the battle itself we have many accounts. It was one 
 of the most famous in the history of the Borders, and the 
 chroniclers glory in its narration. Froissart describes it 
 minutely, and, as he tells us, on good authority. 
 
 I was made acquainted [he says, in Johnes' translation] with all the 
 particulars of this battle by knights and squires, who had been actors 
 in it on each side. There were also with the English two valiant 
 knights from the country of Foix, whom I had the good fortune to meet 
 at Orthes, the year after this battle had been fought {i.e. 1389]. Their 
 names were Sir John de Chateauneuf and John de Cautiron. On my 
 return from Foix, I met likewise at Avignon a knight and two squires 
 of Scotland of the party of Earl Douglas. They knew me again from 
 the recollections I brought to their minds of their own country ; for in 
 my youth I, the author of this history, travelled all through Scotland, 
 and was full fifteen days resident with William, Earl of Douglas, father 
 of Earl James of whom we are now speaking, at his castle of Dalkeith, 
 five miles distant from Edinburgh. Earl James was then very young, 
 but a promising youth, and he had a sister called Blanche [Isabel ?] I 
 had my information, therefore, from both parties, who agree that it was 
 the hardest and most obstinate battle that ever was fought. This I 
 readily believe, for the English and Scots are excellent men-at-arms, 
 and whenever they meet in battle, they do not spare each other ; nor is 
 there any check in their courage so long as their weapons endure. 
 
 And the next paragraph must be quoted, because it gives 
 the very spirit of these old Border wars, and enables us to 
 understand how it was that poetry could flourish in the 
 percincts of such incessant anarchy and bloodshed. One 
 might have reasonably expected that the Muses would have 
 been scared far away from a region that appears at the first 
 glance merely turbulent and savage — to which Buchanan's 
 words concerning the very expedition that was distinguished 
 by the battle of Otterbourne so frequently apply ; ' Quicquid
 
 CHEVY CHASE 131 
 
 ferro flammaque foedari potuit, corrumpunt ac diruunt ' — 
 where more than once the invader boasted, as in 1532, there 
 was not ' one peel, gentleman's house, nor grange unburnt 
 and destroyed,' i.e., undestroyed — where at times, as in 1570, 
 the ' riders were wont to harry, burn, and slay, and take 
 prisoners, and use all misorder, and cruelty, not only used 
 in war, but detestable to all barbar and wild Tartars.' The 
 following are the words of the old French chronicler that go 
 so far to solve this strange enigma : — 
 
 When they [the English and the Scots] have well beaten each other 
 and one party is victorious, they are so proud of their conquest that they 
 ransom their prisoners instantly and in such courteous manner to those 
 who have been taken that on their departure they return them their 
 thanks. However, when in battle, there is no boy's play between them, 
 nor do they shrink from the combat ; and you will see in the further 
 detail of this battle as excellent deeds as were ever performed. 
 
 And with a quite Homeric delight he proceeds to describe 
 so glorious an encounter of foemen so keen and fierce and 
 yet so chivalrous ! But, indeed, even the dullest chronicler 
 is thrilled with some emotion as he tells the story of this 
 famous conflict. Border warfare never before or afterwards 
 showed so glorious as on the field of Otterbourne. 
 
 The ' Raid,' of which it formed so splendid an incident, 
 was undertaken in revenge of the invasion of Scotland by 
 King Richard the Second in 1387. It was made in two 
 directions. The main body, under the command of the 
 Earl of Fife, one of the King's — King Robert the Second 
 — sons, advanced south-westward, and ravaged the western 
 borders of England. The other division, under the command 
 of the Earl of Douglas, marched swiftly over the Cheviots, 
 through the south of Northumberland into Durham, where 
 their presence was soon proclaimed by fire and flame.
 
 132 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 The Scottish ballad tells us how the ' doughty Douglas ' 
 
 has burn'd the dales of Tyne 
 And part of Bambroughshire ; 
 And three good towns on Reidswire fells, 
 He left them all on fire. 
 
 The English ballad informs us of the earlier stages of 
 
 their route. 
 
 Over Ottercap hill they came in, 
 
 And so down by Rodclyffe crag ; 
 Upon Green Leyton they lighted down 
 
 Stirand many a stag ; 
 And boldly brent Northumberland, 
 
 And harried many a town. 
 They did our Englishmen great wrang. 
 
 To battle that were not bown. 
 
 So they entered England by the Redswire pass, and ad- 
 vanced down Reedsdale, passing the spot that was to be 
 made so famous as they returned, on to Kirkwhelpington, 
 into Hartburn parish. There is in the neighbourhood of 
 Kirkwhelpington a place that still bears the name of Scot's 
 Gap ; it is some eight or nine miles south of Rothley Crags. 
 No doubt this was one of the expeditions that gave that 
 place its name. The invaders were now on the high road 
 to Newcastle, but they presently turned aside due south, 
 and crossing the Tyne some miles — about three leagues, 
 says Froissart — above Newcastle, probably at Newburn, 
 flung themselves with fury upon the county of Durham, ' de- 
 stroying and burning all before them.' ' There was not a 
 town in all this district, unless well enclosed, that was not 
 burnt.' Then, having triumphantly accomplished all the 
 mischief that was possible, they recrossed the Tyne, and 
 halted before Newcastle. And then it was, after some skir- 
 mishing, that, according to the ballad, Douglas made a 
 tryst to meet Percy at Otterbourne.
 
 CHEVY CHASE 133 
 
 ' Where shall I bide thee ? ' said the Douglas, 
 
 ' Or where wilt thou come to me 
 At Otterbourne in the highway, 
 
 There mayst thou well lodged be. 
 
 ' There shall I bide thee,' said the Douglas, 
 
 ' By the faith of my body ; ' 
 ' Thither shall I come,' said Sir Henry Percy, 
 
 ' My truth I plight to thee.' 
 
 Such is the minstrel's translation of the facts recorded by 
 the chroniclers, which are that in one of the encounters ' at 
 the barriers ' before Newcastle, Douglas had gained posses- 
 sion of Percy's (Shakespeare's' Hotspur) lance with his 
 pennon attached to it, and that Percy had vowed to recover 
 it before Douglas quitted England, and that, Percy having 
 failed to achieve his vow before Douglas marched away 
 from before Newcastle, Douglas resolved to linger at Otter- 
 bourne, and so give him another chance of doing so. ' Sir 
 Henry Percy on hearing this was greatly rejoiced, and cried 
 out : " To horse ! to horse ! For by the faith I owe to God, 
 and to my lord and father, I will seek to recover my pennon 
 and beat up their quarters this night." Such knights and 
 squires in Newcastle as learnt this were willing to be of the 
 party and make themselves ready.' Some thirty miles — not 
 eight, as Buchanan says, inaccurately following Froissart, 
 who is himself inaccurate in putting the distance at ' eight 
 short leagues' — had to be traversed. And there, at last, 
 under the moon {luna prope pernox lucis diurnce. usum 
 prcebebat), towards the dawning of the day, Douglas and 
 Percy met to fight it out, met to drink ' delight of battle ' 
 with 'their peers.' 
 
 Xdpfirj-yrjddcrvvoL ttjv ff(piv 6eb^ ^/x/3aXe dvfiip. 
 
 The battle now raged ; great was the pushing of lances, and very 
 many of each party were struck down at the first onset. The Earl of
 
 134 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Douglas, being young and impatient to gain renown in arms, ordered 
 his banner to advance, shouting ' Douglas ! Douglas ! ' Sir Henry and 
 Sir Ralph Percy [Shakespeare's Hotspur and his brother], indignant 
 for the affront the Earl of Douglas had put on them by conquering their 
 pennon and desirous of meeting him, hastened to the place from which 
 the sounds came, calling out ' Percy ! Percy ! ' The two banners met, 
 and many gallant deeds of arms ensued. 
 
 'Dux Scotorum prsecipuus, Willelmus Duglas,' writes 
 Walsingham, excited beyond his wont — even far away, in 
 the cloisters of St Alban's, the monk's pulse quickened as he 
 told the tale — 
 
 qui et ipse fuit juvenis ambitiosus, videns rem mille votis petitam, 
 Henricum Percy videlicet, intra castra, alacriter equitat contra eum. 
 Erat ibidem cernere pulchrum spectaculum duos tarn prseclaros juvenes 
 manus conserere et pro gloria decertare. 
 
 A fair spectacle, indeed, O monk ! and no wonder the 
 
 ballad writer should be stirred by it, if your monkship is 
 
 thus moved. ' Pugnatum igitur acerrime,' so run the words 
 
 of Buchanan, ' ut inter homines utrinque nobiles et de gloria 
 
 magis quam de vita sollicitos. Percius ignominiam delere, 
 
 Duglassus partum decus novo facinore illustrate contende- 
 
 bat.' 
 
 There was no freke that there wold fly. 
 
 But stiffly in stour can slond, 
 Each one hewyng on other while they might drie 
 
 With many a baleful brond. 
 
 The death of Douglas is more fully and finely given in 
 
 the ' Minstrelsy ' ballad, which is indeed as a whole more 
 
 highly poetical. The ballad of the ' Reliques,' that is the 
 
 English ballad, is matter of fact enough at this point as at 
 
 others. 
 
 The Percy was a man of strength, 
 
 I tell you in this stound ; 
 He smote the Douglas at the swordes length. 
 
 That he fell to the ground.
 
 CHEVY CHASE ^35 
 
 The sword was sharp and sore can bite, 
 
 I tell you in certain ; 
 To the heart he coud him smite ; 
 
 Thus was the Douglas slain. 
 
 The standards stood still on each side 
 
 With many a grievous groan ; 
 There they fought the day and all the night, 
 
 And many a doughty man was slain. 
 
 Contrast the Scottish version of this catastrophe : 
 
 But Percy with his good broad sword. 
 
 That could so sharply wound, 
 Has wounded Douglas on the brow 
 
 Till he fell to the ground. 
 
 Then he call'd on his little footpage, 
 
 And said : ' Run speedily, 
 And fetch my ain dear sister's son, 
 
 Sir Hugh Montgomery.' 
 
 ' My nephew good,' the Douglas said, 
 
 ' What recks the death of ane ? 
 Last night I dream'd a dreary dream, 
 
 And I ken the day's thy ain.' 
 
 (In his ' dreary dream ' he saw a dead man win a fight, and 
 thought the man was himself.) 
 
 ' My wound is deep, I fain would sleep. 
 
 Take thou the vanguard of the three ; 
 And hide me by the braken bush. 
 
 That grows on yonder lilye lea.' 
 
 (A favourite stanza that of Sir Walter Scott's, as it well 
 
 might be.) 
 
 ' O bury me by the braken bush, 
 
 Beneath the blooming brier ; 
 Let never living mortal ken 
 
 That e'er a kindly Scot lies here.'
 
 136 FOLIA XITTERARIA 
 
 He lifted up that noble lord 
 
 Wi' the saut tear in his e'e ; 
 He hid him in the braken bush, 
 
 That his merrie men might not see. 
 
 He was buried in fact at Melrose ; but the true ballad 
 
 does not care for historical detail — ' spernit humum fugiente 
 
 penna.' 
 
 The moon was clear, the day drew near, 
 
 The spears in flinders flew. 
 
 But mony a gallant Englishman 
 
 Ere day the Scotsman slew. 
 
 In the other Scottish ballad, that given by Herd, Douglas's 
 death is assigned to treachery — a Scottish page assassinates 
 him ; but in other respects we find but an abridgment of 
 the passage just quoted : 
 
 The boy's ta'en out his little penknife, 
 
 That hanget low down by his gare. 
 And he gae Earl Douglas a deadly wound, 
 
 Alas ! a deep wound and sare ! 
 
 Earl Douglas said to Sir Hugh Montgomery, 
 ' Tak' thou the vanguard o' the three ; 
 
 And bury me at yon braken bush, 
 That stands upon yon lily lea.' 
 
 But yet to us more interesting and more striking is a say- 
 ing which the ballads omit from their last speech of the 
 hero, but which is reported by the chroniclers. According 
 to them, Douglas is not struck to death by Percy in the 
 Homeric manner, but, having thrown himself into the midst 
 of the enemy, is borne down by three English spears, thrust 
 by unknown and unknowing hands — thrust, that is, by men 
 whose names are not known, and who had no idea who it 
 was they were bearing down. And then his head was cleft 
 with a battle-axe.
 
 CHEVY CHASE 137 
 
 There was a great crowd round him ; and he could not raise himself, 
 for the blow on his head was mortal. His men had followed him as 
 closely as they were able ; and there came to him his cousins, Sir James 
 Lindsay, Sir John and Sir Walter Sinclair, with other knights and 
 squires. They found by his side a gallant knight that had constantly 
 attended him, who was his chaplain, and had at this time exchanged his 
 profession for that of a valiant man-at-arms. 
 
 And we are told how the reverend gentleman had been 
 wielding a battle-axe all night with tremendous effect. And 
 then Froissart resumes his story of Douglas's last moments : 
 
 When these knights came to the Earl of Douglas, they found him in 
 a melancholy state, as well as one of his knights, Sir Robert Hart, who 
 had fought by his side the whole of the night and now lay beside him 
 covered with fifteen wounds from lances and other weapons. Sir John 
 Sinclair asked the Earl : ' Cousin, how fares it with you ? ' ' But so so,' 
 replied he. [Only so so in one sense, but in another it seems excellent 
 well.] ' Thanks to God there are but few ofmyattcestors who have died 
 in chambers or in their beds. I bid you therefore revenge my death, for 
 I have but little hope of living, as my heart becomes more faint every 
 minute. Do you, Walter and Sir John Sinclair, raise up my banner, 
 for certainly it is on the ground from the death of David Campbell, that 
 valiant squire, who bore it, and who refused knighthood from my hands 
 this day, though equal to the most eminent knights for courage and 
 loyalty ; and continue to shout " Douglas ! " but do not tell friend or foe 
 whether I am in your company or not, for should the enemy know the 
 truth they will be greatly rejoiced.' The two brothers Sinclair and Sir 
 John Lindsay obeyed his orders. . . . The Scots, by their valiantly 
 driving the enemy beyond the spot where the Earl of Douglas lay 
 dead, for he had expired on giving his last orders, arrived at his banner, 
 which was Ijorne by Sir John Sinclair. 
 
 Buchanan's version is worth quoting as of the same tone : 
 
 In hoc statu [when the Douglas lay 'tribus lethalibus plagis saucius 
 atque humi dejectus '] propinqui ejus Joannes Lindesius, Joannes et 
 Valterus Sinclari de eo cum rogassent ecquid valeret, ' Ego,^ inquit, 
 ^ rede valeo ; niorior enitn non in lecto segni fato sed qiiemadtnodtim 
 omnes prope inei majores. Ilia vero a vobis postrema peto : primum 
 ut mortem meam et nostros et hostes celetis ; deinde ne vexillum meum 
 dejectum sinatis ; demum, ut meam coedem ulciscamini. Hasc si sperem 
 ita fore, cetera aequo animo feram.'
 
 138 FOLIA LITTER ART A 
 
 So he died happy in the old Northern belief that no 
 deathbed is so to be desired as the field of battle— that 
 no heroes are so welcome to the gods as those whose 
 spirits come straight from the midst of fighting and 
 slaughter. 
 
 How thoroughly the genuine passion of these old stories 
 may be weakened away may be well seen in the accounts 
 Boece and his metrical translator furnish of the same scenes- 
 Boece 'flourished' about the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century. By that time the atmosphere had changed. We 
 may be sure, from the spirit of them, if from nothing else, 
 that the ballads we are considering are of an earlier age — 
 are not, in point of date, far from the time of the events 
 themselves. 
 
 There now stands, near Otterbourne, a cross called Percy's 
 Cross, and tradition blunderingly asserts that it marks the 
 spot where Percy fell, who did not fall, but, after a splendid 
 resistance, was taken prisoner. Possibly it, or whatever 
 monument preceded it, may mark the spot where Douglas 
 fell. How pleasant it would be to believe that it was called 
 Percy's Cross because it was erected by Percy in honour of 
 his gallant enemy ! There is no external authority for the 
 suggestion, but such a sense would satisfactorily explain a 
 title which otherwise is perverse and false. ^ 
 
 To sum up these remarks on the Otterbourne pieces : 
 they deal with a famous 'Warden's Raid,' the details of 
 which arc precisely known, and are recorded in these ballads 
 with as much exactness as can reasonably be expected. In 
 this case Douglas is the aggressor. The locality of the 
 final struggle is in Rcedsdale ; the time, a Wednesday night 
 and Thursday morning, as we are specially informed. 
 
 1 The other Percy's Cross— that near Hedgeley Moor— does mark the 
 spot where a Percy fell, having ' saved the bird in his bosom.'
 
 CHEVY CHASE 139 
 
 The result is the captivity of Percy and the death of 
 Douglas. 
 
 Now let us turn to the Chevy Chase ballads, or, to speak 
 more exactly, to the Chevy Chase ballad in its older form 
 and in its newer. In its older, which must have been 
 written in the fifteenth century, it is entitled 'The Hunting 
 of the Cheviot ' ; in its later, which must have been produced 
 in the seventeenth century, it bears the familiar name of 
 ' Chevy Chase.' 
 
 Now, in 'The Hunting of the Cheviot,' it is not a raid 
 but a great hunting expedition, that is the theme, Percy is 
 the aggressor, and not Douglas ; the struggle does not take 
 place in Reedsdale, nor anywhere in England, but in Scot- 
 land, across, though close by, the frontier. The day was a 
 Monday, and before the moon rose, as we are specially in- 
 formed, and the result is the deaths of both Percy and 
 Douglas. Finally, this ballad, if based at all upon any 
 special historical occurrence, allows itself the utmost freedom 
 of treatment ; whereas the Otterbourne ballads, as we have 
 seen, adhere to the facts with fair precision. It seems cer- 
 tain there was no border battle in which both a Percy and a 
 Douglas were slain as here described. The ballad is his- 
 torical in a very important sense ; that is, it reflects with 
 admirable truthfulness the habits and feelings and ideas of a 
 certain age and a certain district. But it is not strictly and 
 literally historical in the narrower sense — in the sense in 
 which the Otterbourne ballads are so. 
 
 And yet these two sets of ballads are, as I remarked at 
 the beginning of this paper, perpetually confused and con- 
 ounded. Let us now consider a little more particularly 
 the above-mentioned dissimilarities and distinctions. 
 
 In the first place, then, the occasions differ. In the
 
 I40 FOLIAR-LITTER ARIA 
 
 Otterbourne ballads the feature of Border life that is cele- 
 brated is the Raid, and a raid of a most important kind — 
 what was commonly called a Warden's Raid ' : 
 
 The doughty Douglas bound him to ride 
 In England to lake a prey ; 
 
 or, ' to drive a prey,' as the ' Minstrelsy ' version has it ; 'to 
 fetch a prey,' as that in Herd's Scottish Songs. In the 
 Cheviot ballad, the occasion of the encounter is Percy's 
 deliberate defiance of a well-known March law, viz., that the 
 Scottish and English borderers were not to hunt in one 
 another's territory without express permission from the 
 warden whose province was concerned or his representative. 
 It is exactly not what some ingenious person would fain 
 make the name Chevy Chase mean — it is not a chivachie. 
 
 For some ingenious person or other has, with brilliant but 
 wholly wasted acuteness, maintained that the name Chevy 
 Chase is a corruption of chivachie ! 
 
 rioXXa ra hnva. KovSev aydpioirov Seivorepov iriXei. 
 
 And it may be confidently averred that man's duvorrig is 
 nowhere more gloriously exhibited than in the domains of 
 etymology. Whatever comes into his head is accepted for 
 an inspiration. History may be offended, phonetic laws 
 violated, probability defied, but the etymological amateur 
 idolises his ' happy thought ' ; he follows his own royal road ; 
 he can only pity those who will investigate and verify. In 
 the present case his notable cleverness is sadly thrown 
 away; for there can be no reasonable doubt that Chevy 
 Chase is simply a corruption — a corruption, probably, of 
 the late sixteenth or of the seventeenth century — of Cheviot 
 Chase, a phrase which occurs in the older ballad, 'chase ' 
 
 1 See Laj of the Last Minstrel, iv. 4.
 
 CHEVY CHASE 141 
 
 here meaning a hunting ground, or ' forest,' as often in old 
 English, and still in many place-names, as, for instance, in 
 Cannock Chase. The original title is, as we know, 'The 
 Hunting of the Cheviot ' ; and the original ballad again and 
 again reminds us that the scene is 'in the mountains of 
 Cheviot,' 'in Cheviot, the hills so high,' 'in Cheviot, the 
 hills above,' ' in this Cheviot Chase,' ' in Cheviot, the hills 
 aboon,' 'Cheviot within.' Douglas's expedition, which re- 
 sulted in the battle of Otterbourne, might properly be called 
 a chivachie ; but not so this of Percy's, that is balladised in 
 ' The Hunting of the Cheviot.' 
 
 The Percy out of Northomberland 
 
 And a vow to God made he, 
 That he wold hunt in the mountains 
 
 Of Cheviot within days three, 
 In the mauger of doughty Douglas 
 
 And all that ever with him be. 
 
 A vigorous beginning, which Macaulay has closely followed 
 in his Lay of Horatius. 
 
 The fattest harts in all Cheviot 
 
 He said he wold kill and carry them away. 
 
 ' By my faith,' said the doughty Douglas again, 
 ' I will let that hunting if that I may ! ' 
 
 Thus Percy defies Douglas, and, in fact, challenges him to 
 a combat by hunting without leave on Douglas's side of the 
 Border. 'Concordatum est,' runs an old March law, 'quod 
 . . . nuUus unius partis vel alterius ingrediatur terras, boschas, 
 forrestas, warrenas, loca, dominia qujecunque alicujus partis 
 alterius subditi [a curious use of subditi\ causa venandi, pis- 
 candi, aucupandi, disportum aut solatium in eisdem [exer- 
 cendi] aliave quacunque de causa absque licentia ejus . . . 
 ad quern . . . loca . . . pertinent aut de deputatis suis prius 
 capta et obtenta.' An excellent illustration of this point is
 
 142 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 to be found in the Memoirs of Carey, Earl of Monmouth, 
 who was one of the March Wardens in the reign of Queen 
 Mary. The passage is referred to by Percy ; and I had the 
 satisfaction of quoting it at length in the introduction to 
 Chevy Chase in the edition of Bishop Percy's Folio MS. 
 published some years ago. But as it is not well known, and 
 is extremely pertinent, I venture to reproduce it once more : 
 
 There had been an ancient custom of the Borders, when they were 
 quiet, for the opposite Border to send to the warden of the middle 
 march to desire leave that they might come into the Borders of England 
 and hunt with their greyhounds for deer towards the end of summer, 
 which was denied them. Towards the end of Sir John Foster's govern- 
 ment, they would, without asking leave, come into England and hunt 
 at their pleasure and stay their own time. I wrote to Farnehurst, the 
 warden over against me, that I was no way willing to hinder them of 
 their accustomed sports, and that if according to the ancient custom 
 they would send to me for leave they should have all the contentment 
 I could give them ; if otherwise they would continue their wonted 
 course, I would do my best to hinder them [to ' let that hunting ']. 
 Within a month after, they came and hunted, as they used to do, 
 without leave, and cut down wood and carried it away. Towards 
 the end of summer they came again to their wonted sports. I sent my 
 two deputies with all the speed they could make, and they took along 
 with them such gentlemen as were in their way with my forty horse, 
 and about one o'clock they came up to them and set upon them. [This 
 situation is precisely like that presented in our ballad.] Some hurt was 
 done, but I gave especial order they should do as little hurt and shed 
 as little blood as possible they could. They took a dozen of the 
 principal gentlemen that were there, and brought them to me at 
 Witherington where I then lay. I made them welcome, and gave 
 them the best entertainment I could. They lay in the castle two or 
 three days, and so I sent them home, they assuring me that they would 
 never hunt again without leave. The Scots King complained to 
 Queen Elizabeth very grievously of this fact {i.e., deed, as often in 
 Shakespeare]. 
 
 The occasion, then, of the 'Chevy Chase' battle was a 
 deliberate act of bravado on Percy's part. ' That tear began 
 this spurn,' as the old ballad curiously puts it. War was the
 
 CHEVY CHASE i43 
 
 great Border game in the Middle Ages ; and there was never 
 a lack of pretext for it or of opportunity. Deadly encounters 
 were as common and as welcome as football matches of 
 wrestling bouts now-a-days. The mutual irritability of the 
 borderers, and especially of the retainers of the houses of 
 Percy and Douglas, was not less keen than that of the Mon- 
 tagues and the Capulets, and of many another pair of families 
 in Italy ; and often the streets of Edinburgh and the high- 
 ways of the Marches recall the fierce discords of Verona. 
 
 There was never a time on the March-partes 
 
 Sen the Douglas and the Persy met; 
 But it was marvel an the red blood ran not 
 
 As the rain does in the street. 
 
 Mercutio was not more inflammable and more delighted to 
 be inflamed than those passionate Border gentry. Shake- 
 speare's picture of Hotspur is excellently true in this respect; 
 he has portrayed perfectly the fiery Border temperament. 
 Hotspur, as we all know, is intolerant of the slightest rebuke 
 or check. The least opposition drives him into a furious 
 rage. He is a Borderer of the Borderers. 
 
 In 'The Hunting of the Cheviot,' Percy, as already noticed, 
 is the aggressor, the provoker, the challenger. Perhaps we 
 may regard this ballad as a sort of pendant to ' The Battle of 
 Otterbourne.' Here Percy repays the compUment presented 
 him by Douglas's visit and its conflagration. In the ballad 
 of ' Kinmont Willie,' when the bold keeper Buccleugh has 
 rescued his retainer and got him safely across the Eden 
 
 He turn'd him on the other side \i.e. towards Carlisle] 
 
 And at Lord Scroop his glove flung he ; 
 ' If he like na my visit in merry England, 
 
 In fair Scotland come visit me.' 
 
 Such invitations were only too readily and heartily accepted: 
 such ' calls ' only too greedily and fiercely ' returned.' And
 
 144 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 as a ballad had sung of the Douglas' inroad, a ballad must 
 needs set forth a no less daring and insolent trespass of the 
 Percy, 
 
 The locality of the ' Hunting ' battle is less certainly as- 
 certainable than that of the other ballads. But there are 
 indications that may be of use. Clearly, as is said above, it 
 is on the Scottish side of the Border; otherwise, there is no 
 point in Percy's sport, no insult is offered to a Scottish 
 warden ; and, therefore, it cannot but be a long way from 
 Otterbourne, which is some fifteen miles and more from the 
 Border line. No weight can be attached to the stanza which 
 identifies the two battles, for it is clearly the uncouth inter- 
 polation of some minstrel — of some midland minstrel — 
 observe the form knotven — haply of Richard Sheal himself, 
 whose particular copy is the one preserved — who knew 
 nothing personally of the country concerned, and follow^ed 
 authorities who knew scarcely more : 
 
 Old men that knowen the ground well enough 
 Call it the Battle of Otterburn. 
 
 No, they did not know the ground well enough, these patri- 
 archs, whoever they were. They must be ' plucked ' in geo- 
 graphy, these greybeards. Assuredly we must not go into 
 Reedsdale if we wish to localise the ' Hunting ' battle. But 
 perhaps the attempt is idle ; poets often make their own maps, 
 and are greatly superior to the latitudes and longitudes of or- 
 dinary atlases. However, if the attempt is to be made it seems 
 fairly clear the battle was fought, or imagined to be fought, in 
 or near the Forest of Cheviot. Now the Forest of Cheviot ^ 
 'formerly covered the lower slopes of Cheviot itself — the parti- 
 cular hill so called — ' was chiefly on the side fronting Scotland, 
 
 ^ See M. Tonilinson's Comprehensive Guide to Northvmherland , a very 
 excellent handbook, p. 483.
 
 CHEVY CHASE 145 
 
 and the remains of il may be seen in the oaks and birches 
 along the Colledge Valley.' The ballad seems certainly to 
 point to some spot near the north-west corner of Northum- 
 berland as the scene of the adventures it celebrates. We 
 are specially told that Percy started from Bamborough, that 
 he drew his forces from the northern district : 
 
 Then the Percy out of Bamborough came, 
 
 With him a mighty many ; 
 With fifteen hondreth archers bold of blood and bone ; 
 
 They were chosen out of shires three. 
 
 The shires three were Island shire or Holy Island, Noreham- 
 shire, and Bamboroughshire. One can scarcely doubt he 
 marched, or was supposed to march, across from Bamborough 
 vici Belford, Wooler, Kirk Newton, and so passing just to 
 the south of Flodden, whose name was to become ' a house- 
 hold word ' in the following century, and just to the north 
 of Mount Cheviot, to enter Scotland at a point some seven 
 or eight miles due east of Kelso and Roxburgh. It may 
 also be noticed that the opposing troops came from Tweed- 
 side. The words are : 
 
 They were borne along by the water o' Tweed, 
 I' th' bounds of Tividale. 
 
 Which are translated in the later version : 
 
 All men of pleasant Tividale 
 Fast by the river Tweed. 
 
 Undoubtedly, these phrases point to the north-east corner of 
 Roxburghshire, and so agree satisfactorily with the hints 
 given us as to Percy's movements, as a glance at a map will 
 at once show. 
 
 The consideration of the locality is of course closely con- 
 nected with this question of the historical basis of the ballad 
 we are studying. Now, we find that in the immediate neigh- 
 
 K
 
 146 FOLIA LITTERAKIA 
 
 bourhood at which, for plausible reasons, we have just 
 arrived, there was fought a notable Border battle, with a 
 Percy and a Douglas in it. This was the battle of Piperden, 
 fought in 1435, o^ possibly, as Bower says, in 1436. And 
 the suggestion made by the editor of the Religi/es, though 
 by no means generally adopted, though very often forgotten 
 or ignored — the suggestion that the ' Hunting,' so far as it is, 
 has a particular historical foundation, relates to the battle of 
 Piperden — appears to be well worth consideration. Piper- 
 den is, indeed, in England, but it is close by the frontier ; 
 and a battle to which it gave a name might well have spread 
 across the frontier. In respect of position, Piperden exactly 
 suits the requirements of the case. And in other respects 
 it is, though not altogether suitable, yet perhaps as much so 
 as can be expected, the freedom of balladry remembered. 
 
 The English invasion that was signalised by the battle of 
 Piperden, or Pepperden, as Ridpath spells it, was, according 
 to the Scottish accounts at least, peculiarly unprovoked and 
 wanton. I will quote Stewart's rendering of the story as 
 given by Boece : 
 
 This beand done as I haif said yow heir. 
 
 He has just narrated the marriage of the Dauphin Louis and 
 
 Margaret, daughter of James I. of Scotland, which took place 
 
 in 1436: 
 
 Sir Henrie Persie in the samin yeir 
 
 Quhat wes the caus I can nocht to yow schaw, 
 
 Agane promit without ordour of law 
 
 With four thousand all into amaour bricht, 
 
 In Scotland come sone efter on ane nycht, 
 
 His appetite syne for to satisfie 
 
 With fyre and blude, haifond no caus or quhy. 
 
 The Erie of Angus in the tyme that was, 
 
 The quhilk to name hccht William of Douglas, 
 
 With equall nummer under speir and schcild 
 
 Mel with the Persie then and gaif him feild ;
 
 CHE VY CHASE 147 
 
 And in that battell so baldie tha baid, 
 
 On euerie syde quhill greit slauchter wes maid. 
 
 The Scottismen so worthie war and wycht, 
 
 The Inglismen on force has tane the flycht, 
 
 And in the feild na langar mycht remane ; 
 
 On euerie syde richt mony than wes slane. 
 
 That da thair deit on the Scottis syde 
 
 Glide Elphinstoun ane nobill of great pryde ; 
 
 Of commoun pepill tha hundreth also 
 
 Departit than and tuke thair leif till go. 
 
 Of Inglismen into the feild did faill 
 
 Ane greit nobill, Henrie of Cliddisdail, 
 
 Richard Persie and Johnne Ogill also, 
 
 Knichtes all thre with mony other mo ; 
 
 Of commoun pepill that tyme young and aid 
 
 Four himdreth into the tyme war told. 
 
 So that Boece describes this expedition as a raid — as a 
 chivachie— which in the ballad it is not ; and so Buchanan : 
 ' Angli terra marique e Scotia praedas agere coeperunt, duce 
 Percio, Northumbrise regulo. Adversus eos missus Gulielmus 
 Duglassus, Angusi^ comes,' etc. 
 
 Boece, however, does admit it was possibly a private and 
 not an authorised enterprise : ' Incertum cujus auctoritate 
 an privata an regia.' Gregory's Chronicle of London states 
 that in the year 1436 'the Erie of Northehomberlande made 
 a viageJn-to Scotlande, and there he made a nobylle jorney.' 
 On the whole, this identification, though it cannot be 
 insisted upon, is not to be roughly rejected. Possibly we 
 must be content, as we well may be, to take the ' Hunting ' 
 as of general historical value rather than particular. Anyhow, 
 it does not reflect the battle of Otterbourne, as is so com- 
 monly stated. Meanwhile, the fight at Piperden answers 
 better than any other that has been suggested for a nucleus. 
 If the tourist would fain realise the scene in his imagination 
 with the aid of the genius loci, or local spirit, let him try the 
 neighbourhood here readvocated. At all events he will
 
 148 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 find himself in a haunted land — a land abounding in 
 
 memories of 
 
 old unhappy [and happy] far-off things 
 And battles long ago. 
 
 On the west side of Piper's Hill were buried many of 
 those who fell in the terrible fight of Flodden close by, and 
 at no great distance are Humbleton, Yeavering, Wark, Kelso, 
 Roxburgh, and many less-known places with associations of 
 various interest. Indeed, all that part has been all one 
 great battlefield. It was the favourite cockpit of the 
 Borders. 
 
 It must be observed that the chronology of the ballad as 
 we have it is all confused ; but it is never consistent with 
 the Otterbourne theory. The Kings of England and 
 Scotland in 1388 were respectively Richard II. and Robert 
 II. The kings mentioned in the ballad are King Henry the 
 Fourth and, in ' Eddenburrowe,' King James, who did not 
 in fact reign at the same time. For it was not till 1424 
 that James was set free from his long English durance, and 
 actually ascended the Scottish throne. The mention of the 
 battle of Homildon, fought in 1402, makes the confusion 
 worse confounded. These blunders may be due not to the 
 ignorance of the original writer, but to that of successive 
 minstrels, 'the crouders, with no rougher voice than rude 
 style,' who took great liberties with their texts, omitting, 
 modifying, adding at their own sweet will, very much as the 
 old Anglo-Saxon glee-men had done, whence certain diffi- 
 culties in Beoiuulf — as probably did the ancient reciters, 
 the pa-^uboi or err/^ujhoi of the Homeric ballads, whence 
 certain difficulties that pervade the Iliad. The old poetry 
 is sometimes ' evil appareled in the dust and cobwebs of 
 " uncivil " reporters.' In the present case a diaskeuast would 
 in some sort restore order, if for ' Henry the Fourth ' he read
 
 CHEVY CHASE 149 
 
 Henry the Sixth,' and if he maintained 11. 155-72 to be an 
 interpolation. It is in this dubious passage that the clumsy 
 stanza occurs as to ' the old men ' and their knowledge of 
 ' the ground,' which has been extracted above. 
 
 As to the date of composition, we may be sure that both 
 the Otterbourne and the Chevy Chase ballads belong to 
 about the same period. Probably those relating to the 
 Otterbourne battle are the older, though the ' Hunting ' has, 
 as it happens, been preserved in a more primitive shape. 
 The Otterbourne ballads must surely have been written 
 shortly after the event described ; and the ' Hunting ' was 
 probably written no long time after them. 
 
 But after all it must not be forgotten that such questions 
 and matters as have been discussed here, though they have 
 a real interest for the careful student of literature, are yet 
 of secondary importance. The great thing — the saving 
 grace — is not to know about poems, but to know them 
 themselves, and to bear in mind that antiquarian and 
 critical and suchlike disquisitions are only helps, or intended 
 helps, towards that supreme knowledge. The great thing 
 is that we should keep our ears clear to catch those trumpet 
 notes that so moved Sidney's heart as he heard them rudely 
 sounded in the Elizabethan streets, that we should duly feel 
 with and for the heroes of those old songs, and recognise 
 in them men of like passions with ourselves, or recognise in 
 ourselves men of hke passions with them. How vigorously 
 they lived while they lived ! With what a will they charged 
 and thrust and struck ! 
 
 At last the Douglas and the Percy met 
 Like to captains of might and of main ; 
 
 They swapt together till they both swat, 
 With swords that were of fine Milon.
 
 150 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 How infinite their boldness ! ' Dare, Madam ! ' exclaimed 
 one of them, the bold Buccleugh, when Queen Elizabeth, 
 greatly irritated by his breaking into her castle of Carlisle and 
 carrying off one of her prisoners — an exploit we have already 
 referred to — asked him how he dared do such a thing. 
 ' Dare, Madam ! ' he exclaimed, ' what dare not a man 
 dare ? ' And they died not less resolutely and daundessly 
 than they hved. They fought to the last, these Marchmen, 
 and submitted to fate without a murmur, even with joy, 
 when their hour came. 
 
 With that there came an arrow hastily 
 
 Forth of a mighty wane ; ^ 
 It hath stricken the yearl Douglas 
 
 In at the breast bane. 
 
 Thorough liver and lungs both 
 
 The sharp arrow is gane, 
 That never after in all his life-days 
 
 He spake mo words but ane : 
 ' Fight ye, my merry men, while ye may ; 
 
 For my life-days ben gane.' 
 
 Fight tvhile ye may ! — such was his rule of life. Not carpe 
 diem, not 'Soul, take thine ease,' but Fight 7vhile ye viay ! 
 The dying Borderer asks for no favour, not even for such an 
 one as Hector vainly begs as he lies in the dust at the feet of 
 Achilles — that his conquerer may be willing to receive 
 ransom money for his body. 
 
 cQiiKO. 8^ otKad' ifibv 56fi€va.L ttoKlv 6(ppa wvpds fxe 
 Tpwes Kal TpJiuv dXoxot XeXdxwtrt ddvovra. 
 
 Nor, as we have seen, does his spirit pass — 
 
 ^v ivbTjiov yodwaa, XtTroOcr' dSpor-^ra Kal T^^rjv, 
 
 And the pathetic picture of Percy mourning over his fallen 
 
 foe is a strange contrast to the iron-hearted Greek {6idr,psog 
 
 1 i.e., a number, a shower, a flight.
 
 CHEVY CHASE 151 
 
 h (ppidi (Ju/xo's) binding Hector's corpse to his chariot, 
 and with so shameful an appendage driving exultantly 
 beneath the Walls from which old Priam and Hecuba are 
 looking down on the piteous scene : — 
 
 Tov d'^u iXKO/J-ei^oio KoviaaXoi afj-cpl ik xairat 
 Kvaveai Trlrvavro, Kap-q 5' dirav iv Kovlrjcn 
 KiiTO irdpos xaptej"* tots 8^ Zet)s dva/j-evieacri 
 duiKev deLKlacracrdaL erj iv iraTpLSi yalri. 
 
 The Percy leaned on his brand, 
 
 And saw the Douglas die. 
 He took the dead man by the hand, 
 
 And said ' Wo is me for thee ! 
 
 To have saved thy life, I would have parted with 
 
 My lands for years three ; 
 For a better man of heart nor of hand 
 
 Was not in the North Country.' 
 
 Happily, the ready shrewdness, the splendid energy, the 
 fearless courage, the chivalrous spirit of the old Borderers 
 are not extinct ; though they have changed the forms in 
 which they exhibit themselves. A very remarkable list 
 might be made of their descendants, in whom their old 
 prowess transmitted has been and is conspicuously displayed. 
 The late General Gordon was ultimately of Border lineage. 
 In the centuries to which we have gone back in this paper 
 the name often occurs ; for instance, we read of a John 
 Gordon, who, ' Angliam ingressus cum ingenti hominum 
 pecudumque prseda coacta rediret,' is opposed by Sir John 
 Gilburn, and overthrows him. And a note in A Short 
 Border History informs us that Coklaw or Ormistown 
 Castle, near Hawick, is ' the peeltower of the Gledstones, a 
 Border family, illustrious now through one of its members, 
 the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.'
 
 XI 
 
 WYATT AND SURREY 
 
 (From The Academy iox 'Dec. i, 1883) 
 
 ALL who wish for an accurate acquaintance with the 
 revival of our Hterature and the rise of certain Hterary 
 orms in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, will like 
 to see the lines in which Leland speaks of Wyatt. 
 
 Leland's Naeniae in Mortem Thomae Viati Eqiiitis in- 
 co7nparabilis is divided into sections (as perhaps the title 
 might lead one to expect) — i.e., into a series of lauds and 
 laments in various metres, hexameters or elegiacs or hon- 
 decasyllabics, each with its title. One headed ' Anglus par 
 Italis ' runs thus : — 
 
 Bella suum merito jactet Florentia Dantem ; 
 
 Regia Petrarchae carmina Roma probet. 
 I lis non inferior patrio sermore Viatus, 
 
 Eloquii secum qui decus omne tulit. 
 
 Now there is every reason to believe, if we study the bio- 
 graphies of Wyatt and Surrey, that Wyatt, and not Surrey 
 as is so commonly stated, led the way in the work which is 
 associated with their names — that ^Vyatt, and not Surrey, 
 was the first to attempt the improvement of our metres by 
 Italian example and precedent. As early as 1526, when 
 Surrey was certainly not more than ten years old, perhaps 
 
 152
 
 W YA TT A ND SURRE Y 153 
 
 only eight, Leland had ' honoured ' Wyatt, then twenty-three, 
 as the most accomplished poet of his time. But it can 
 scarcely be said, I think, that the above lines prove this 
 priority. But there are other passages in Leland's Naeniae 
 which do undoubtedly prove it. First, there is the couplet 
 styled ' Lima Viati ' — 
 
 Anglica lingua fuit rudis et sine nomine rhythmus ; 
 Nunc limam agnoscit, docte Viate, tuam. 
 
 And there are two other pieces that may be pronounced 
 fairly decisive. One is headed ' Nobilitas debet Viato ' — 
 
 Nobilitas didicit te praeceptore Britanna 
 Carmina per varies scribere posse modos. 
 
 Can there be any doubt that among these British nobles in 
 Leland's mind as belonging to the ' school ' of Wyatt were 
 not only Lord Vaux, Lord Rochfort, Sir Francis Bryan (a 
 nephew of Lord Berners), but eminently and specially Lord 
 Surrey ? There can be no doubt at all on this point if we 
 take in this connexion yet another stanza (if I may so use 
 the term) in which Surrey is spoken of as the poetic heir of 
 the great deceased. This stanza is headed ' Vnicus phoenix,' 
 and the words of it are these : — 
 
 Vna dies geminos phoenices non dedit orbi ; 
 
 Mors erit unius, vita sed alterius. 
 Rara auis in terris, confectus amore Viatus 
 
 Houardum heredem scripserat ante suum. 
 
 It must be remembered that Leland is no mean authority ; 
 and he would seem to have known and admired both poets. 
 Wyatt and he had become friends in their college days at 
 Cambridge — 
 
 Me tibi conjunxit comitem gratissima Grants, 
 Granta Camcenarum gloria, fama, deus.
 
 154 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 So runs the couplet headed ' Conjunctio animorum,' and the 
 entire ' carmen ' is addressed in a tone that implies personal 
 acquaintance and friendship ' ad Henricum Houardum Reg- 
 norum comitem juvenem tum nobilissimum turn doctissi- 
 mum.* 
 
 Tulit alter honores. But surely it is time Wyatt had a 
 more general recognition as the first, in time at least, of 
 those ' courtly makers ' Puttenham speaks of — the leader in 
 the remarkable Italianised movement which they effected : 
 and should no longer be regarded as a mere follower of one 
 who in fact followed him — as the heir of one whom he him- 
 self endowed. It ought to be noticed more than it is that 
 the metrical structure of the sonnet was better understood 
 by him than by Surrey, not one of whose efforts in this kind 
 is according to the Petrarchian model. But, whether this 
 credit is given him or not, surely it is time he should more 
 generally have some credit for having introduced the sonnet 
 into our literature. Yet, in his otherwise admirable remarks 
 on the sonnet in the recently published edition of Milton's 
 Sonnets, Mr Mark Pattison, a singularly accomplished 
 scholar, and a most excellent writer and critic, as all the 
 world knows, does not even mention poor Sir Thomas. 
 Sic vos non vobis.
 
 XII 
 
 SPENSERIANA 
 
 (From The Academy, Nov. 28, 1874) 
 
 '^r^HE important discovery as to the poet Spenser's place 
 X. of education, made known in the Fourth Report of 
 the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, makes it 
 probable, though not certain, that Spenser was not only born 
 (see the Prothaiamioji) but bred in London ; and so, perhaps, 
 what I ventured to suggest as to the scene of his early life in the 
 Memoir prefixed to the Globe edition of his works, published 
 in 1869, may require some modification (see p. xviii. of the 
 Globe Spenser), though not necessarily so, if we remember 
 that town and country were not so utterly divorced in the 
 Elizabethan age as now-a-days. What God made, and what 
 man made, as Cowper has it, were not so utterly put asunder 
 but that a man might enjoy both without performing an 
 amazing pedestrian feat. East Smithfield itself was not 
 wholly unrural then. The fields actually touched it ; and 
 the houses did not crowd densely together to make its name 
 a dismal misnomer. 
 
 With regard to his connexion with the Merchant Taylors' 
 School, it may, perhaps, be worth noticing that Spenser's 
 choice of St Barnabas's Day for his wedding may indicate a 
 
 155
 
 156 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 kindly remembrance of his old school life ; for that is the 
 great election day at the Merchant Taylors' (Murray's Hand- 
 book of Modern London). See the Epithalamion, the song 
 devoted to the celebration of his own matrimonial bliss : — 
 
 Ring ye the bels, ye yong men of the lowne, 
 
 And leave your wonted labors for this day. 
 This day is holy ; doe ye write it downe, 
 
 That ye for ever it remember may. 
 This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight, 
 With Barnaby the bright, 
 
 From whence declining daily by degrees, 
 He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, 
 
 When once the Crab behind his back he sees. 
 
 Also, may it not now be possible to discover who 
 'Wrenock' is, mentioned in the Shepheard's Calender, 
 December! Certainly, lines 37-42 seem to refer to his 
 school days, as what follows to his University career, when 
 he became acquainted with Gabriel Harvey : — 
 
 And for I was in thilke same looser yeares 
 
 (Whether the Muse so wrought me from my byrth, 
 Or I to much beleeved my shepherd peeres), 
 Somedele ybent to song and musicks mirth, 
 
 A good olde Shephearde, Wrenock was his name. 
 Made me by arte more cunning in the same. 
 
 Whether Spenser had visited the North before he went 
 up to Cambridge, or not, the old belief as to his visiting it 
 after he left the University, remains undisturbed. (See 
 Glosse to Shep. Cal., June). Plausible reasons, as is well 
 known, have been alleged for supposing that the particular 
 part of the North visited was in the neighbourhood of 
 Burnley in East Lancashire (see the Gentleman's Magazine, 
 for August, 1842). Probably to those reasons something 
 might be added by a careful study of the language of the 
 ShepheanTs Calender. Many of the words quoted by Mr T.
 
 SPENSERIANA 157 
 
 T. Wilkinson in his paper on this subject, read before the His- 
 toric Society of Lancashire and Cheshire in 1867, are of too 
 general occurrence to be of value in localising the poem ; 
 such words, for instance, as kirk, gate (a road), wood (mad), 
 latch, gar (compel), etc., etc. ; and of no word is it shown 
 that it is distinctively East Lancashire. I will only add on 
 this point that, if Spenser passed all his youth in the South 
 country, it is not likely that he writes with complete accuracy 
 the dialect he attempts. His old English is notoriously 
 faulty ; and so probably is the language of his Bucolics. A 
 Clreek brought up at Athens would be liable to trip in his 
 Doric, if he took to writing in the manner of Theokrites 
 when some six Olympiads old. 
 
 Mr F. C. Spenser of Halifax, who first suggested that the 
 neighbourhood of Burnley was the cradle of the poet's race, 
 was of opinion that Hurstvvood was the chief seat of the 
 family, but that the branch to which the author of the Faerie 
 Qiieene immediately belonged, was settled on a little pro- 
 perty still called ' The Spensers,' near Filly Close, two or 
 three miles to the north of Burnley. Such was his theory ; 
 but his practice seems to have been scarcely consistent with 
 it. For he took up his quarters in a house not near Filly 
 Close, but at Hurstwood, and has given currency to a tra- 
 dition that it was there the poet's own people lived. And 
 the house is now becoming known as 'the poet's house,' 
 and people travel from far to see it. And no doubt soon, if 
 only the soil and climate allow, a mulberry tree planted by 
 Spenser will be pointed out ; for, according to the popular 
 fancy, planting mulberry trees was the chief avocation of our 
 great poets. The house is not the principal one in the 
 hamlet— not Hurstwood itself, for that was built for ' Bar- 
 uardus Townley et Agnes uxor ejus,' as an inscription over the 
 door sets forth ; but a house of smaller dimensions, some
 
 158 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 few yards to the west of the abode of the Townleys. As the 
 tradition of its being the poet's is now, as I have said, pre- 
 vailing, and is sure in a few years to be quoted by some 
 biographer, as evidence on the question, I wish here to re- 
 cord that it is, in fact, of altogether modern growth. In a 
 recent visit to Hurstwood, a friend and I tried to discover 
 the time of its origin, and found that, beyond all question, it 
 dates from Mr F. C. Spenser's visit a generation ago. We 
 interviewed the three oldest inhabitants we could hear of — 
 they were all said to be eighty-four — that seems a fashion- 
 able age with the ancients of Hurstwood— and could find 
 no trace of the Spenser legend in the memories of their 
 earlier life. But our most decisive witness was the present 
 tenant of the house in question, a thoroughly intelligent and 
 clear-headed man, whose father lived there before him. He 
 remembered Mr F. C. Spenser's visit, and was quite positive 
 that it was during that visit his father and he first heard of 
 the honour their mansion might boast. Such traditions so 
 easily take root. I remember once being assured at Middle- 
 wich, in Cheshire, by a man who looked incalculably old, 
 that in the house where he dwelt, John Milton, the poet, 
 'came a-courting.' It was an old lath-and-plaster house, 
 inscribed with the names of Edwarde and Prudence Mins- 
 hull, and of Hvonn and Marie and John Minshull ; and 
 from this inscription had sprung the story. Some one with 
 a little learning, with enough learning to know that Milton's 
 third wife was named Minshull, but not enough to know 
 that she hailed from Nantwich or thereabouts, had leapt to 
 a wrong conclusion; and the popular mind, regarding a 
 formal ' courting ' as a necessary preHminary to a marriage, 
 had added a detail of its own, and brought the then blind 
 and feeble poet down in person into Cheshire a-wooing. In 
 this case also the author of the legend might, I believe, be
 
 SPENSERIANA 159 
 
 satisfactorily discovered. Hurstwood is only some three or 
 four miles from Filly Close, so that it may be described as 
 in Spenser's country, and, if the chief seat of his family, may 
 be believed to have been often visited by him ; but there 
 seems no reason for identifying it with his own home. 
 
 The great natural feature of the district is Pen die Hill 
 Both at Hurstwood and at Filly Close it is lord of all. 
 Filly Close, indeed, stands in the ' forest ' on the south- 
 eastern descent. One interest attaching to this mountain 
 that recalls the poetry of Spenser is that it was the great 
 gathering-place of witches — 'the great locale,' saith Murray, 
 ' of the saturnalia of Lancashire witches ' — the Brocken of 
 Old England. Several hundreds of these poor creatures 
 were brought to trial and burnt in the early years of the 
 seventeenth century. His native country may well have 
 furnished Spenser with some hints for the pictures he draws 
 of such beings. The original of the following sketch may 
 have been some actual scene in Pendle Forest : — 
 
 There in a gloomy hollow glen she [Florimel] found 
 A little cottage, built of stickes and reedes 
 In homely wize, and wald with sods around ; 
 In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weedes 
 And wilfull want, all carelesse of her needes ; 
 So choosing solitarie to abide 
 Far from all neighbours that her divelish deedes 
 And hellish arts from people she might hide, 
 And hurt far off unknowne whom ever she envide. 
 
 Faerie Qiieene, III. vii. 6. 
 
 And there are other passages of a like origin possibly. 
 Duessa herself may have been a Lancashire witch to begin 
 with. 
 
 That Rosalind was a Lancashire witch in the modern 
 sense, there can be little doubt. Helps towards her 
 identification are that she was ' the widdowes daughter of
 
 i6o FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 the glenne,' that the poet first met her in some ' neighbour 
 town,' that her name ' RosaHnde' is 'a feigned name, which, 
 being well ordered, will bewray the very name of hys love and 
 mistresse whom by that name he coloureth,' (See Shep. CaL, 
 April and Januarie, and the Glosses) Suppose her Christian 
 name to be EHza, could the name of Nord, or any other 
 combination of the four remaining letters, be found in any 
 local register or document?' Then perhaps we might 
 discover who was the happy Menalcas who supplanted the 
 ])oet. (See Argument to Shep. CaL, June.) Perhaps she 
 was wise in her generation : for Spenser, late of Pembroke, 
 Cambridge, must have cut a poor figure in those days of his 
 life, waiting wearily for something to turn up, with nothing 
 that could be called his own save a few manuscripts, which 
 I dare say Miss Rosalind could not read. Those who think 
 she was a sister of Daniel the poet must ignore the evidence 
 that connects her with the North Country, for the Daniels 
 were of Somersetshire. One may plausibly believe that ' the 
 neighbour town ' was Burnley ; for he does not use ' town ' 
 here in the old sense — in the sense, for instance, of Chaucer's 
 Prologue, 1. 478 (' a pore Persoun of a toun ') — but evidently 
 he is thinking of Vergils' ' urbs ' in the Eclogues, as i. 20 
 and 34, viii. 68, etc. ; and the ' to see ' is significant. 
 
 A thousand sithes I curse that carefull hower 
 Wherein I long'd the neighbour lowne to see, 
 
 And eke tenne thousand sithes I blesse the stowre 
 Wherein I sawre so fayre a sighte as shee ; 
 
 \'et all for naught ; such sight hath bred my bane. 
 
 Ah God ! that love should breede both joy and payne. 
 
 However these things may be, it is certain that he was 
 deeply smitten with her beauty. Fifteen years afterwards 
 the vision of her still haunted him. It was with him in his 
 
 ' But see vol. 1. of Ur Grosart's edition of Sponcr, 1884.
 
 SPENSERIANA i6i 
 
 castle of Kilcolman, and his heart was as tender towards 
 her as ever, so that he would not hear a word said in her dis- 
 paragement (see the conclusion of Colin Clouts come Home 
 again.) 
 
 The registers of St Peter's, Burnley, abound under all 
 the three heads, in entries relating to Spensers. The only 
 one that, in the course of a hasty examination, struck us of 
 possibly immediate importance to the poet, was that of the 
 burial of an Edmund Spenser, November 9, 1577 — an 
 entry seemingly overlooked by Mr F. C. Spenser, if Craik 
 reports him accurately in his Spenser and His Poetry, i. 1 2, 
 ed. 1845. If this was the poet's father, how well it would 
 agree with the poet being then in the North, and also with 
 his leaving it so soon after. 
 
 L
 
 XIII 
 
 SIR JOHN DAVIES'S POEMS 
 
 (From the Aiheihciiin for Sept. 2, 1876) 
 
 WE have to thank Dr Grosart for what is probably a 
 quite complete edition of Sir John Davies's Poems. 
 Besides N'osce Teipum, the Hymns to Astrcea, and other well- 
 known works, he gives us some 200 pages of pieces ' either 
 printed for the first time, or for the first time published 
 among Davies's Poems. These additions are more important 
 for the sake of the completeness of the collection, than for 
 their intrinsic merit. The metaphrase of some of the psalms, 
 printed from a MS. in the possession of Dr David Laing, 
 though superior to some other efforts of the same kind, is 
 yet far from being a success. The work is executed with 
 the editor's characteristic care and accuracy. A few mis- 
 prints may have escaped him, as in ii. 30. (' He first 
 taught him that keeps the monuments.') We do not know 
 how he would read the second of these two lines : 
 
 Brunns wliich deems himself a faire sweet youth, 
 Is thirty-nine yeares of age at least ; 
 Dyce reads : 
 
 Is ninc-and-thirty years of age at least 
 
 with a note, ' So MS., except tliat it has thirtieth, and we 
 
 162
 
 S/Ji lOHN DA VIES'S POEMS 163 
 
 see no reason for altering or retaining the alteration of 
 ' ranging ' into ' raging ' in the seventeenth Epig. : 
 
 To thoughts of drinking, thriving, duelling, war, 
 And borrowing money ranging in his mind. 
 
 But, so far as the collection and the text are concerned, 
 Dr Grosart has done his work well. 
 
 Few will deny that it was work worth doing, and doing 
 well. It is vain indeed to make definitions of poetry which 
 would deprive any poet of his well-won title. Whatever 
 may be said as to what poetry should be, the fact remains 
 that the author of Nosce Teipsiim is a poet. In the 
 kingdom of poetry, as has been said, are many mansions, 
 and undoubtedly one of these belongs to Sir John Davies, 
 however we may describe it, however we may censure its 
 style and arrangement. Far be from us any such critical 
 or scholastic formulse as would prevent us from all due 
 appreciation of such refined, imaginative thought and subtle, 
 finished workmanship, as mark the first notable philosophical 
 poem of our literature. 
 
 The epigrams possess an interest of a very different kind, 
 for Davies differed a good deal from himself, to speak in a 
 Greek manner. Like Stephano's Monster, he had two 
 voices. ' His forward voice' is heard when he discourses of 
 the soul of man and the immortality thereof \ ' his back- 
 ward voice is to utter foul speeches and detract.' Dr 
 Grosart, it seems, had ' compunctious visitings ' as to re- 
 publishing these latter utterances ; but he had the good 
 sense to resist them. Certainly he would have failed to do 
 his duty had he not resisted them. And one must be care- 
 ful not to judge in an exaggerated manner of what there is 
 of grossness in these pieces. There are many worse ways
 
 1 64 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 of speaking than plain language. Words that are nauseous 
 to our fine palates had once no bad taste for natures that 
 were certainly as truly healthful and as genuinely refined as 
 we can boast to be. Anyhow, the life pictures these 
 epigrams give are much too precious to be lost or thrown 
 aside. They bring the old Elizabethan London vividly 
 before us, with all its rough humours, its wild wit, its 
 boisterous vitality. They did not play at living, those 
 Elizabethans, but lived hard, and fully and furiously. It 
 was not their way to sip at the cup of enjoyment, they 
 drank deep, and jested loudly, and laughed louder. 
 Here is a portrait from the gallery : 
 
 Oft in my laughing times, I name a Gull ; 
 
 But this new term will many questions breed ; 
 
 Therefore at first I will express in full, 
 
 Who is a true and perfect Gull indeed. 
 
 A Gull is he who fears a velvet gown, 
 
 And when a wench is brave dares not speak to her. 
 
 A Gull is he which traverseth the town, 
 
 And is for marriage known a common wooer. 
 
 A Gull is he which while he proudly wears 
 
 A silver-hilted rapier by his side, 
 
 Endures the lies and knocks about the ears, 
 
 Whilst in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide. 
 
 A Gull is he which wears good handsome clothes, 
 
 And stands in Presence stroking up his hair, 
 
 And fills up his imperfect speech with oaths, 
 
 But speaks not one wise word throughout the year. 
 
 But to define a Gull in terms precise ; 
 
 A Gull is he which seems and is not wise.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS, WITH 
 THE TWO PARTS OF THE RETURN 
 FROM PARNASSUS! 
 
 (I.) (From The Academy {ox March 19, 1887) 
 
 STUDENTS of the Elizabethan period may well rejoice 
 in the recent addition to their libraries of two such 
 books as Mr Hubert Hall's Society in the Elizabethan Age 
 and the volume now before us. Mr Hall's highly interesting 
 and most useful work reproduces ' original matter,' and gives 
 us information that is ' certainly new.' Mr Macray's work is 
 itself a piece, or a set of pieces, of 'original matter.' It 
 consists of three plays, two now printed for the first time, 
 that brings vividly before us a certain phase of Elizabethan 
 life, and might perhaps provide Mr Hall with some illus- 
 trations, if to his excellent gallery of the landlord, the burgess, 
 the courtier, and the other persons he portrays, he should 
 presently be inclined to add the literary man. 
 
 It is strange, indeed, that the two plays now printed for 
 the first time should not have been discovered before. They 
 
 ' The Pilgrimage to Parnassus, with the Tzvo Parts of the Return from 
 Parnassus. Three Comedies performed in St John's College, Cambridge, 
 A.D. MDXCVii.— MDCI. Edited from MSS. by the Rev. W. D. Macray. 
 (Oxford, at the Clarendon I'ress.) 
 
 165
 
 i66 FOLIA LITTERARTA 
 
 are referred to in a somewhat obscure passage in the Pro- 
 logue to what we must now call the second part of The 
 Return from Parnassus : 
 
 * The Pilgrimage to Parnassus and the Relume from Pemassus,^ 
 says Momus, ' haue stood the honest Stagekeepers in many a crownes 
 expence for linckes and vizards ; purchased many a Sophister a knock 
 with a clubbe ; hindred the buttlers box, and emptied the colledge 
 barrells ; and now vnlesse you know tlie subject well, you may retume 
 home as wise as you came ; for this last is the last part of the Returtie 
 from Parnassus, that is the last time that the authors wit wil turne 
 vpon the toe in this vaine and at this time the scene is not at Parnassus, 
 that is, lookes not good invention in the face.' 
 
 Which words seem to mean that the preceding plays had 
 been extremely popular — had often been acted by link-light, 
 had led to brawls, perhaps, by some at that time unmis- 
 takable personalities, greatly diminished the usual Christmas 
 gambling, and led to the absorption of much college ale by 
 those whom the performance with its excitement and shout- 
 ing had made unquenchably thirsty. But we may presume 
 the third play was yet more popular : perhaps because in its 
 satire it appealed to a yet larger circle, and dealt with a 
 subject about which there was just then much irritation. 
 Its alternative name is ' the Scourge of Simony ; ' and among 
 other things it gives a very full and vigorous picture of the 
 disreputable traffic in ' livings ' — the ' steeple-fairs ' — that 
 then prevailed. (Are they quite extinct in these 'enlightened' 
 days?) However this may be, the third play was twice 
 printed in 1606, and, though forgotten for a time, has long 
 been well known and appreciated by Shakespearian scholars ; 
 the famous scene in Act IV., where Philomusus and Studi- 
 oso in their desperate destitution think of betaking them- 
 selves to the stage, and apply to those distinguished 
 professionals, Burbage and Kempe, and Burbage and Kempe 
 boast of ' our fellow Shakespeare ' and his prowess, having
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 167 
 
 been quoted again and again. The earlier plays, known 
 only by the mention of them given above, were supposed to 
 have perished till the other day, when Mr Macray unearthed 
 them, in no far-away, scarcely-accessible, retirement, but in 
 the Bodleian Library itself. Perhaps for books and MSS., as 
 for men, the truest solitude is to be found in crowds. To 
 lie in an attic in the Hebrides or at the bottom of a box in 
 Kamchatka — neither of these positions is lonely ; but to be 
 well housed in a public library, * this — this is solitude ! ' 
 Who can say what may not yet be found, and found within 
 an arm's length of everybody ? 
 
 The dates of all these plays can happily be fixed with 
 something like certainty. It has been sufficiently shown 
 that the third was acted in December 1601. As to the date 
 of the Pilgrimage, Mr' Macray's adopted date of 1597 is 
 hardly consistent with his own notes ; for they rightly 
 mention that Kinsayder's Satyres and also Bastard's Epi- 
 grams, both which works are named in the text, were not 
 published till 1598. The phrase * some four years ' in Mr 
 Halliwell-Phillipps's MS. copy, denoting the period during 
 which the author has been busy with his two Individui 
 Vagi (which seems to mean ' Wandering Individuals '), 
 certainly cannot be pressed to overrule such evidence, or 
 the fact, quoted by a correspondent in a contemporary, that 
 there is a clear allusion to Marlow's Hero and Leander, 
 which also was not published till 1598. In the second play. 
 Weaver's Epigrams are referred to ; and these, as Mr 
 Macray points out, were not published till 1599. If we 
 put these things and others together — Gullio's record of his 
 exploits * now verie latelie in Irelande,' is worth noting — it 
 would seem fairly certain that the Pilgrimage came out at 
 Christmas 1598-9 ; the Return, part i., at Christmas 1599- 
 1600; and part ii. at Christmas 1601-2.
 
 1 68 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 The subject is ' the discontent ' of scholars — the misery 
 of those who, having no private pecuniary means, would 
 fain devote themselves to poetry and culture. In the 
 Pilgrimage the two heroes, Philomusus and Studioso, set 
 out for Parnassus with high hopes and buoyant spirits. 
 They succeed, these Endymions, in resisting the allurements 
 of the world, the flesh, and the devil, variously represented 
 by Madido a sot, Stupido a Puritan, Amoretto a votary of 
 Venus, and a perhaps yet more dangerous person, one 
 Ingenioso, a demoralised poet, who is now turning his back 
 on the country he once sought, having found to his cost 
 that it is a country stricken with poverty. But the pilgrims 
 press on, and arrive at last at the haven where they would 
 be, still sanguine and confident. The Return presents 
 them to us disappointed and crossed. Ingenioso's account 
 has proved too true. In a stichomythic dialogue they give 
 voice to their bitterness, and determine to beat a retreat : 
 
 Phil. Th' arts are unkind that do their sons neglect. 
 
 Stud. Unkinder friends that scholars do reject. 
 
 Phil. Dissembling arts looked smoothly on our youth. 
 
 Stud. But load our age with discontent and ruth. 
 
 Phil. PMends foolishly us to this woe do train. 
 
 Stud. Fickle Apollo promised future gain. 
 
 Phil. We want the prating coin, the speaking gold. 
 
 Stud. Yea, friends are gained by that yellow mould. 
 
 Phil. Adieu, Parnassus ! I must pack away. 
 
 Stud. Fountains, farewell, where beauteous nymphs do play. 
 
 Phil. In Helicon no more I'll dip my quill. 
 
 Stud. I'll sing no more upon Parnassus' hill. 
 
 Phil. Lets talk no more, since no relief we find. 
 
 Stud. In vain to score our losses on the wind. 
 
 And so the unhappy youths drift out in the world to live as 
 they may. Philomusus gets a situation as a village sexton, 
 Studioso as a private tutor. Both endure much ignominy, 
 and arc at last abruptly dismissed. Then in utter despair
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 169 
 
 they resolve to go to Rome or Rheims, to turn Papists in 
 the hope of being cherished and made much of by the 
 church to which they should by this movement be ' recon- 
 ciled.' And so ends the first part of the Return. The 
 same theme is repeated in the second. 
 
 Of special interest among the personce are certainly 
 Ingenioso and Gullio : GuUio for his adoration of 'sweet Mr 
 Shakespeare,' whose poetry he pays the compliment of 
 constantly quoting or appropriating, and whose picture he 
 vows to have in his study at court ; Ingenioso as a ' study ' 
 of ' the literary man ' — the professional author of the Eliza- 
 bethan days. 
 
 Ingenioso has a wretched time of it. It was the age of 
 patronage, whose death warrant was not to be signed and 
 sealed for some century and a half, as signed and sealed it 
 was by Dr Johnson in that scathing letter of his to my Lord 
 Chesterfield ; and this distressed man of letters cultivates a 
 patron, who at last presents him with two groats — ' a fidler's 
 wages ' as the recipient afterwards describes his ' tip ' — and 
 a reminder that Homer had scarce so much bestowed upon 
 him in all his lifetime ; * indeed, our countinance is enough 
 for a scholler, and the sunshine of our favoure yealdes good 
 heate of itselfe.' And so he will ' live by the printing house ; ' 
 and a miserable livelihood it is he secures in this way, to 
 judge from his subsequent condition. Mr Walter Besant 
 has just been showing, in his able and eloquent address to 
 the Society of Authors, how far from satisfactory are mostly 
 the pecuniary relations of author and publisher at the present 
 time. How would he describe such relations as they were 
 in the Elizabethan age ? The publishers — the ' booksellers,' 
 as they were then called — had it all their own way then ; and 
 certainly it was not a good way for the authors, though one 
 would be sorry to believe that among those publishers there
 
 170 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 were not some men of probity and honour, worthy pre- 
 decessors of the best specimens of ' the trade ' in our own 
 time. There is said to be a good deal of human nature in 
 man, and I suppose in pubUshers as well as in other men ; 
 and it is not, as a rule, a good arrangement that one man 
 should lie at the mercy of another. But that was pretty 
 much the position of the Elizabethan ' author by profession,' 
 as of many an author since. Goldsmith's epitaph on Mr 
 Edward Purden might well have been graven on many a 
 tombstone, with a change of name : 
 
 Here lies poor Ned Purden, from misery freed, 
 
 \Vho long was a bookseller's hack ; 
 He led such a damnable life in this workl, 
 
 I don't think he'll wish to come back. 
 
 Such a condition of things is represented by the career of 
 Ingenioso. He starves by the booksellers rather than lives 
 by them. No doubt he is himself thriftless, but his position 
 was not likely to encourage habits of thrift. And certainly 
 he was no mere fiction. There were only too many writers 
 who might have sat for that portrait. What I wish now to 
 suggest is that the particular writer who was specially before 
 the eye and in the mind of the probably Johnian author of 
 the Parnassus plays was that famous Johnian wit, Thomas 
 Nash. I do not think anyone will doubt this connexion who 
 has studied Nash's Pierce Penniless's Supplicatio7i to the 
 Devil. 
 
 'What, I travel to Parnassus?' shrieks out Ingenioso when the pilgrims 
 ask him for his company. ' Why, I have burnt my books, split my pen, 
 rent my papers, and curse the cozening hearts that brouglit me up to no 
 better fortune. I, after many years study, having almost brought my 
 brain into a consumption, looking still when I should meet with some 
 good Maecenas that liberally would reward my deserts, I fed so long 
 upon hope till I had almost starved. . . . Go to Parnassus ! Alas ! 
 Apollo is bankrupt ; there is nothing but silver words and golden phrases
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 171 
 
 for a man ; his followers want the gold, while tapsters, ostlers, carters 
 and coblers have a foaming pauch [pouch], a belching bag that serves 
 for a chair of estatefor r«?f/«i3:/^«/«/a. . . . Why, would it not grieve a 
 man ofa good spirit to see Hobsonfind more money in the tails of 12 jades 
 than a scholar in 200 books ? Turn home again, unless you mean to be 
 vactii viatores, and to curse your witless heads in your old age for taking 
 themselves to no better trades in their youth.' 
 
 Compare this passage with the opening pages of Pierce 
 Penniless : his Supplication : 
 
 I sate up late, and rose early, contended with the colde and con- 
 versed with scarcitie ; for all my labours turned to loss, my vulgar muse 
 was despised and neglected, my pains not regarded or slightly rewarded, 
 and I myself in prime of my best wit laid open to poverty. Whereupon, 
 in a malcontent humour, I accused my fortune, railed on my patrons, bit 
 my pen, rent my papers, and raged in all points like a madman. . . . 
 Thereby I grew to consider how many base men that wanted those parts 
 which I had enjoyed content at will, and had wealth at command. I 
 called to mind a cobbler that was worth five hundred pound, an hostler 
 that had built a goodly inn and might dispend forty pounds yearly by 
 his land, a car-man in a leather pilch that had whipt a thousand pound 
 out of his horse and tail. . . , Thanks be to God, I am vacuus viator, 
 and care not though I meet the Commissioners of Newmarket-heath at 
 high midnight, for any crosses, images, or pictures that I carry about me 
 more than needs. 
 
 And further parallelisms might be brought forward ; but, 
 perhaps it will be enough to point out that Ingenioso is an 
 admiring student and would-be follower of Juvenal, and 
 that at the end of the third play he informs Academico that 
 writs are out for him to apprehend him for his plays, and 
 that he was bound for the Isle of Dogs, where there seems 
 an evident allusion to Nash's play called the Isle of Dogs, 
 which gave such offence in 1597 that Henslow's company 
 which acted it was silenced for a time, and the author put 
 into prison. I do not mean that Ingenioso and Nash are 
 to be identified, for Ingenioso himself, in the third play, 
 speaks of him as past and gone. ' Ay,' he says, after
 
 172 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 naming Thomas Nash to Judicio, ' here is a fellow, Judicio, 
 that carried the deadly stockado in his pen, whose muse 
 was armed with a gag-tooth, and his pen possest with 
 Hercules' furies ' ; and the other replies : 
 
 Let all his faults sleep with his mournful chest, 
 
 And there for ever with his ashes rest. 
 
 His style was witty, though it had some gall ; 
 
 Some things he might have mended, so may all. 
 
 Yet this I say that for a mother wit 
 
 Few men have ever seen the like of it. 
 
 But clearly Nash illustrates Ingenioso. 
 
 These plays exhibit much wit and humour; and, quite 
 
 apart from their historical interest, are well worth a perusal. 
 
 The hall at St John's must have rung with justifiable 
 
 laughter when Goodman Percival appeared to arrange for 
 
 the comfortable burying of his father, and that without any 
 
 delay. 
 
 ' Hark you, Sexton,' says the ' hard heir,' who is already striding about 
 his lands, ' I pray you bury him quickly ; for he was a good man, and 
 I know he is in a better place that's fitter for him than this scurvey world, 
 and I would not have him alive again to his hindrance. It will be better 
 for him and me too, for there's a great change with me within this two 
 hours; for the ignorant people that before called me Will, now call 
 me William, and you of the finer sort call me Goodman Percival.' 
 
 And there are many other passages and speeches full of 
 excellent fun. Here and there are touches of true poetical 
 feeling and grace, as in the Act IH. of the Pilgrimage, 
 when the young enthusiasts delight in their journey through 
 the fields of learning and culture. Certainly these plays 
 possess real literary merit, which makes it all the more 
 important that the name of the author should be dis- 
 covered. 
 
 Who was this well-informed and sprightly wit, who on no 
 less than three occasions supplied St John's College, Cam-
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 173 
 
 bridge, with such admirable foohng ? This has always been 
 a mystery ; but fresh effort ought now to be made to solve 
 it. The second of the new play seems to say that 'our 
 poet ' had suffered from the popularity of his drama, or 
 perhaps of his acting : 
 
 Surely it made our poet a staid man, 
 
 Kept his proud neck from baser lambskin's wear 
 
 \i.e., from assuming the hood of a Bachelor of Arts.] 
 Had like to have made him Senior Sophister 
 
 \i.e., to have prevented his advancing beyond the status 
 of a third year's man.] 
 He was fain to take his course to Germany, 
 Ere he could get a silly poor degree. 
 He never since durst name a piece of cheese, 
 
 [My friend, Dr Schoell, informs me that ' Farente 
 Scholaren ' were nicknamed ' K'asebettler ' and ' Kase- 
 jager.'] 
 Though Cheshire seems to privilege his name. 
 His look was never sanguine since that day, 
 Ne'er since he lauglied to see a mimic play. 
 
 John Day has been suggested ; but, unless the last line but 
 one can be forced into a pun on his name, it is fatal to his 
 pretensions. Moreover, he was of Caius, though this perhaps 
 might be got over ; and was he connected with Cheshire ? 
 Very little seems made out about the details of his life. It 
 is, perhaps, worth noticing that, though for a time at Cam- 
 bridge, he does not appear to have graduated there. His 
 claims may deserve further consideration. I will just 
 mention, as nothing ought to be neglected that may be of 
 the slightest use, that Nash seems to have had a friend 
 called Beeston, a name sufficiently redolent of Cheshire; 
 and, I think, what I have said and quoted above justifies 
 the supposition that the writer of the Parnassus plays was 
 a friend of Nash. Can anything be found out about 
 ' Maister Apislapis ' to whom Nash's confutation of Gabriel
 
 174 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 Harvey's Four Letters is inscribed? Is he the same as the 
 player Christopher Beeston, first mentioned by Henslow, s.a. 
 1602 ? The notion of his having anything to do with these 
 plays may prove the worthlessest of worthless conjectures ; 
 but it may just be mentioned, if only to be finally refuted 
 and thrown aside. 
 
 There are many other points of interest and of importance 
 in these plays ; but I will only now heartily thank Mr Mac- 
 ray for having placed within our reach a volume of such 
 real value. He does, indeed, deserve well of the republic 
 of letters. 
 
 (2.) (From Macniillaiis Magazine for May 1887) 
 
 EVERY year something is accomplished in our studies 
 of old times : every year something is recovered from 
 oblivion. But it is not often so important an addition is 
 made to the remains of Elizabethan literature as the two 
 plays lately discovered by Mr Macray in one of Thomas 
 Hearne's volumes of miscellaneous collections in the Bodleian 
 Library. It was known that these two plays — The Pilgrimage 
 to Parnassus, and a continuation called The Return from 
 Parnassus — had been composed ; for they are mentioned in 
 the prologue to a play, also called The Retur n from Parnassus, 
 with the alternative name The Scourge of Simony — a play 
 twice printed in the age that produced it, and several times 
 since ; but it was generally supposed they had perished. 
 
 For the future, what has been hitherto known as The Re- 
 turn from Parnassus must be described as Part II. ; and Mr 
 Macray's Return must be described as Part I. Thus we
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 175 
 
 have now a Parnassian trilogy : The Pilgrimage, and the 
 Return in two parts. 
 
 All the three plays show an intimate acquaintance with the 
 literature of the time, and a growing familiarity with the 
 bitterness of a literary man's position, if not indeed a personal 
 experience of it. And certainly they bring clearly before us 
 a man of wit and humour, and no mean dramatic skill, 
 especially if his probable age is considered. But it has not 
 yet been possible to identify him, though with the new facts 
 furnished by Mr Macray's discoveries, it may be hoped this 
 will presently be done. John Day, a well-known play-wright, 
 a colleague of Haughton and Hathway and Chettle and 
 Decker and Wentworth Smith, the sole author of Peregrin- 
 atio Scholastica, or Learning's Pilgrimage^ has been suggested ', 
 but, not to dwell on other objections, Day was certainly a 
 writer for the stage in or before 1593, and therefore was not 
 likely to be a Cambridge undergraduate in 1598. Perhaps 
 some vigorous German explorer may be good enough to un- 
 earth the name of an Englishman who left Cambridge and 
 took a German degree some time in the year 1599. For 
 the present, at any rate, this question is unsettled. 
 
 Putting now on one side all such matters, which after all, 
 though interesting, are of minor importance — for our main 
 consideration concerns the gift, not the giver— concerns the 
 value of what is said rather than the person who says it — let 
 us now see what the plays themselves have to offer us in the 
 way of history, or literary excellence, or criticism of life; 
 that is, as pictures of their age, or as works of art and of 
 wisdom. 
 
 Though evidently written by one who was well at home 
 in London, and especially at the London theatres, these 
 plays take us into an old college hall in the midst of Eliza- 
 bethan Cambridge. We see the University laying aside its
 
 176 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 severer studies and indulging in its Christmas recreations. 
 The passion for the drama, that just at this time (at the 
 close of the sixteenth century) was at its height in England, 
 prevailed in the cloisters as well as in the town. No wonder 
 that amongst the more distinguished dramatists of the day 
 were many foster-children of Oxford and Cambridge. De- 
 light in some sort of drama had long been a national 
 characteristic. But all through the sixteenth century, from 
 the time the revival of learning affected England, this delight 
 had been quickened and increased. Though it is assuredly 
 a grave mistake to speak of our drama as of classical origin, 
 yet it is undoubtedly true that it was shaped and developed 
 by classical influence. The keen dramatic instinct of the 
 time readily recognised the superiorities of Plautus and 
 Terence, and modified its expression accordingly. And 
 naturally this was particularly the case at the Universities, 
 which, of course, shared with the nation at large in that 
 dramatic instinct. Moreover, it was felt in that period of 
 new-born adoration of the classics, as we are beginning to 
 feel now, that an invaluable help to the study of the classical 
 masterpieces was some sort of representation of them. Such 
 representation satisfied both the dramatic instinct and also 
 the classical enthusiasm. Probably no attempt was made, 
 such as is now made, at archaeological exactness at a time 
 of such scanty antiquarian scholarship. But we may believe 
 that the various pieces were rendered with sympathetic 
 energy and intelligence. Possibly, as Mr Mullinger remarks 
 in his history of the University of Cambridge, the precepts 
 of John Sturm, of Strasburg, did much to authorise and 
 encourage this practice. Certainly, about the middle of the 
 century it was well established. 'A statute of Queen's 
 College of the year 1546,' to again quote Mr Mullinger, 
 ' directs that any student refusing to take part in the acting
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 177 
 
 of a comedy or tragedy in the college, and absenting him- 
 self from the performance, contrary to the injunctions of 
 the President, shall be expelled from the society.' But the 
 ancient plays were imitated as well as acted ; and often, no 
 doubt, much local and much party feeling would find its 
 way into these modern plays. Towards the close of the 
 sixteenth century, and in the beginning of the seventeenth, 
 original plays became common ; and sometimes these plays 
 were written in English, or partly in English, in spite of the 
 frowns of the authorities and of a royal prohibitory letter in 
 the second year of King James. The latest performance of 
 the kind seems to have taken place in the hall of Pembroke 
 College in 1747, when and where was acted a comedy called 
 * A Trip to Cambridge, or the Grateful Fair,' by Mr Chris- 
 topher Smart, who has lately been revived by Mr Browning 
 as one of the persons of importance with whom it has pleased 
 him to parley. 
 
 In the catalogue of these University dramas, the Parnas- 
 sus plays have a high, if not the highest, place. They 
 were written in the palmiest days of the University drama, 
 and they are a worthy product of those days. 
 
 Their theme is the intellectual life, the life of scholarship 
 and culture, its nobleness and its impracticability ; how 
 desirable it is, and how for the sake of it much is to be borne 
 and to be forborne. But, on the other hand, how unfavour- 
 able are ordinary circumstances ; how impossible it is for 
 the aspirant after such a hfe to find the means of living it ; 
 how, lest he should starve, he is compelled to desist from 
 the attempt and to devote himself to the vulgar business of 
 making some sort of income. 
 
 The Pilgrimage introduces to us two youthful eager 
 spirits just setting forth in search of learning — just starting 
 for Parnassus. These are the heroes, or central figures, of 
 
 M
 
 178 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 the trilogy that is now before us, and are significantly named 
 Philomusus and Studioso. The father of the former, who 
 is called Consiliodorus, is, in the opening scene, just dismiss- 
 ing his son and his nephew on their journey. He expresses 
 his fear that, as 
 
 My winged soul gins scorn this slimy gaol, 
 
 (an odd Platonistic phrase for the body, ' this muddy vesture 
 of decay ' as Shakespeare calls it) he may not witness their 
 return ; but he hopes that, after they have bathed their lips 
 in Helicon and washed their tongue in Aganippe's well, the 
 gift of poetry may be secured by them, and they may ravish 
 the world with their strains, and in triumph and delight may 
 lead the high life of the poet. And though poets do not 
 make pecuniary fortunes, yet they have their reward. 
 
 Though I foreknew that gold runs to the boor, 
 I'll be a scholar though I live but poor, 
 
 he cries with a fine enthusiasm that is not lost on his ardent 
 hearers. Then he warns them of dangers by the way ; of 
 the unthriftiness that makes poor scholars yet poorer, of the 
 sloth that besets so many, of frivolity and self-indulgence, of 
 specious false teachers. And so he bids them step forward, 
 
 Happy I wish may be your pilgrimage ! 
 Joyful may you return from that fair hill, 
 And make the valleys hear with admiration 
 Those songs which your refined tongue shall sing. 
 But what, do I prolong my studious speech 
 Hind'ring the forward hastening of your steps? 
 Go, happily with a swift swallow's wing 
 To Helicon fair, that pure and happy spring ! 
 Return triumphant with your laurel boughs ; 
 With Phoebus' trees deck your deserving brows \ 
 Haste, haste with sj^eed unto that loving well ; 
 So take from me a loving long farewell,
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 179 
 
 The route by which they proceed is that of the old 
 Trivium. Supposed to know already something of Gram- 
 mar, they pass first into Logic land, and press gaily forward, 
 full of heart and hope, never dreaming of failure or of dis- 
 appointment. Their first tempter meets them in the shape 
 of one Madido, a votary of the wine-cup, compared with 
 whose contents Helicon is but ' puddled water : ' one who 
 cares not to travel Parnassus-wards because there is scarce a 
 good tavern or ale-house on that road. 
 
 ' This Parnassus and Helicon,' he declares, ' are but the fables of 
 the poets. There is no true Parnassus but the third loft in a wine 
 tavern ; no true Helicon but a cup of brown bastard. Will you travel 
 quickly to Parnassus? Do but carry your dry feet into some dry 
 tavern, and straight the drawer will bid you go into the Half-moon or 
 the Rose — that is into Parnassus. Then call for a cup of pure Helicon, 
 and he will bring you a cup of pure hippocras that will make you speak 
 leaping lines and dancing periods. Why, give me but a quart of burnt 
 sack by me, and if I do not with a penniworth of candles make a 
 better poem than Kinsader's Satires, Lodge's Fig for Momus, Bastard's 
 Epigrarns, Leichfield's Tri7nming of Nash, I'll give my head to any 
 good fellow to make a memento viori of ! ' 
 
 Philomusus is for a while nearly carried away by this 
 gospel of the pint-pot ; but presently he realises its falsehood 
 with his friend's help, and when he sees the gross debauchery, 
 ' the beastly bezohng,' the soul-drowning, in which it duly 
 ends. So again they proceed, and find themselves now in 
 the land of Rhetoric, 'a fair land that it is delightful to 
 traverse; for the pilgrims have interims and spaces of 
 pleasure and joy . ' Let idle tongues,' cries Studioso. 
 
 Let idle tongues talk of our tedious way ; 
 I never saw a more delicious earth, 
 A smoother pathway or a sweeter air, 
 Than here is in this land of Rhetoric. 
 Hark how the birds delight the moving air,
 
 i8o FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 With pretty tuneful notes and artless lays ! 
 Hark shrill Don Cicero, how sweet he sings ! 
 See how the groves wonder at his sweet note, 
 And listen unto their sweet nightingale ! 
 
 But such a respite cannot last long. There encounters 
 them a fresh seduction in the person of Stupido, the repre- 
 sentative of the growing Puritanism of the day, one who 
 has come to look upon learning as mere vanity. Better let 
 men study the Mar-prelate tracts, he says, and the Geneva 
 Catechism. To such an effect has his uncle instructed him 
 — a good man ' that never wore cap nor surplice in his life, 
 nor any such popish ornament.' ' Study not,' so had this 
 sagacious relative counselled him, ' those vain arts of Rhe- 
 toric, Poetry, and Philosophy ; there is no edifying know- 
 ledge in them.' ' They are,' Stupido adds, ' more vain than 
 a pair of organs or a morris dance ! If you will be good 
 men indeed, go no further in this way. Follow no longer 
 these profane arts that are the rags and parings of learning.' 
 What, asks Philomusus, 
 
 Are then the arts foolish, profane, and vain, 
 That gotten are with study, toil, and pain ? 
 
 Yes, mere vanity, it seems, in the eyes of a 'zealous pro- 
 fessor.' And Stupido would fain lead the pilgrims aside to 
 ' hear a good man's exercise ' — to ' sit under ' some Puritan 
 fanatic. Thus goodness and learning are presented as 
 antagonistic — as if one or other must be sought after ex- 
 clusively, and not both together. A dire alternative indeed. 
 Studioso is half minded to listen to this ignorant religionist. 
 But happily Philomusus now repays the service he had him- 
 self lately received, and in turn rescues Studioso from a 
 creed so narrow-minded and narrow-hearted, so justly and 
 wholly offensive to all true friends of the higher life.
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS i8i 
 
 And so on once more, towards their Mountain. But soon 
 a new danger confronts them. The inevitable thought arises 
 whether it would not be well to yield themselves to self- 
 indulgence and enjoyment — whether in the language of 
 one of our greatest poets, who, too, went on a like pilgrim- 
 age, it were 
 
 not better done, as others use, 
 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
 Or with the tangles of Nesera's hair, 
 
 — whether, to vary other of Milton's words, it were not good 
 to embrace delights and scorn laborious days. This sore 
 allurement takes the form of one Amoretta, an ardent 
 voluptuary, whose favourite scripture is the Ars Amoris. 
 The youthful nature is unwholesomely stirred by the picture 
 he draws of the pleasures within so easy reach. 
 
 Indeed this land hath many a wanton nymph 
 That knows always all sportful dalliance. 
 
 Why should you vainly spend your blooming age 
 In sad dull plodding on philosophers, 
 Which was ordained for wanton merriments ? 
 
 And he derides the idea of looking beyond the present 
 hour. He sings the old song with its familiar refrain : 
 
 Crop you the joys of youth while that you may ; 
 Sorrow and grief will come another day. 
 
 For a while the pilgrims surrender themselves to this doc- 
 trine of enervation and sloth. But fortunately they soon 
 find such dissipation ' sourly sweet ' — that if it yields honey 
 yet it straight doth sting ; and having 
 
 nigh made shipwreck of their youth, 
 And nipt the blossoms of their budding spring, 
 
 they have strength to recall their great purpose, and again
 
 l82 FOLIA LITTEKARIA 
 
 proceed. They now reach the land of Philosophy. As 
 they pass along, Studioso from his recent experience would 
 speak of Poetry disparagingly ; but Philomusus eloquently 
 points out that if Poetry degrades and corrupts, it is because 
 of the reader's own grossness of mind and thought — that 
 even the freest-spoken writers of verse may be perused with 
 moral impunity by those that are pure of heart. 
 
 O do not wrong this music of the soul, 
 
 The fairest child that e'er the soul brought forth ! 
 
 Nor think Catullus, Ovid, Martial 
 
 Do teach a chaste mind lewder luxuries. 
 
 But who reads poets with a chaster mind 
 Shall ne'er infected be by poetry. 
 
 However, it is certain that they feel more keenly the 
 hardships of their travel after their late evil relaxation. 
 But their perils are not yet exhausted. They now meet 
 Ingenioso, who has turned his back on the famous Hill and 
 urges them to follow his example. He is sick of philosophy ; 
 and moreover he has been credibly informed that Parnassus 
 is ' out of silver pitifully pitifully ' — that it offers its pilgrims 
 nothing better than starvation for all their pains. 
 
 I talked with a friend of mine that lately gave his horse a bottle of 
 hay at the bottom of the hill, who told me that Apollo had sent to 
 Pluto to borrow twenty nobles to pay his commons ; he added further 
 that he met coming down from the hill a company of ragged vicars and 
 forlorn schoolmasters who as they walked scratched their unthrifty 
 elbows, and often put their hands into their unpeopled pockets, that 
 had not been possessed with faces this many a day. 
 
 But this tempter's counsels they bravely resist. He tells 
 them nothing new. They were aware that in choosing a 
 life of learning they were not to expect great wealth — that 
 riches flowed in other directions.
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 183 
 
 Ph. Though I fore-knew that dolts possess the gold, 
 
 Yet my intended pilgrimage I'll hold. 
 .9/. Within Parnassus dwells all sweet content, 
 
 Nor care I for these excrements of earth. 
 
 They press Ingenioso to join them. But in him the 
 sacred fire, if ever it was really kindled, is now quenched. 
 He is the literary man of the Elizabethan age — of an age 
 when a public on whose support an author could depend 
 did not yet exist ; and when, therefore, unless he took to 
 writing for the stage, his only hope, if his private means 
 were scanty, lay in private patronage, in winning the ear 
 and opening the purse of some Maecenas. On the whole, 
 this was a miserable and demoralising state of things for 
 men of letters, though now and then, no doubt, might be 
 found a patron worthy of the rapturous language which it 
 was the necessary custom of the day to employ in dedica- 
 tions, a patron truly appreciative and readily munificent. 
 Ingenioso had discovered that the fine gentlemen, the 
 ' satin suits,' as he calls them, set much more by a ' foggy 
 falconer' than a 'witty scholar.' The carrier (he specially 
 mentions the famous Hobson — Milton's Hobson) and the 
 cobbler could make and bequeath fortunes : the author's 
 fate was starvation, and his children ' must be fain to be 
 kept by the parish.' So he scoffs at the idea of joining the 
 Parnassus Pilgrims : What, I travel to Parnassus ? Why, 
 I have burnt my books, splitted my pen, rent my papers, 
 and curst the cozening hearts that brought me up to no 
 better fortune.' 
 
 And so the buoyant youths, undepressed by his gloom, 
 press forward alone, exulting in the now immediate nearness 
 of their destination. And anon they arrive at the foot of 
 the Hill. Four years have passed since they started : so 
 that their journey corresponds to the ordinary course of
 
 1 84 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Study for a Bachelor's degree. At the close of the Pilgrim- 
 age we see them resting with high delight by the ' Muses 
 Springs,' jubilant and sanguine. 
 
 The second Play of the trilogy tells us the sequel. It is, 
 so to speak, the fourth volume of the novel. Generally, as 
 we all know, novels conclude with the third volume, at 
 whose close we see the hero and heroine triumphant, their 
 desires attained, and about to live content and happy for 
 ever. But sometimes, it may be, the prize so long coveted 
 turns out of less value than was fancied. Do we not read of 
 some who had their desires granted, but into whose souls 
 was sent leanness ? What, if, after all, the Promised Land, 
 whose image has sustained us through weary travellings, 
 should prove as barren as the wilderness itself? Alas for 
 our bright-spirited pilgrims when the fair radiant form of 
 Hope vanishes, and in her place they behold the hard 
 sombre features of Reality ! Bitter disappointment awaits 
 Studioso and Philomusus. Not that the land is not lovely, 
 but even in it one must have something to live on, and they 
 have nothing. One cannot subsist on delightful prospects 
 or the music of falling waters, and when we next see them 
 they are pale and emaciated ; and, sad to say, are already 
 bethinking them that they must flee from this land of their 
 aspirations and their efforts, with what speed they may, if 
 they would fain keep body and soul together. After a few 
 days in the Land of Promise to make for the wilderness 
 again — verily this is a tragical result, though treated in a 
 lighter manner by our poet. For is there indeed a more 
 tragical spectacle than such a shattering of the ideal life 
 nobly conceived and nobly sought after ? Just as the wor- 
 shipper has after much grief and pain reached the shrine of 
 his deity, and is kindling the incense, his golden god changes 
 into clay and tumbles to pieces ; or the walls of the temple
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 185 
 
 crack and yawn and collapse ; or the pilgrims find the 
 expense of his liturgy too great for their resources ! Alas 
 for Philomusus and Studioso ! They must leave their so 
 hardly-won Paradise. 
 
 Ph. Adieu, Parnassus ! I must pack away. 
 St. Fountains, farewell, where beauteous nymphs do play. 
 Ph. In Helicon no more I'll dip my quill. 
 St. I'll sing no more upon Parnassus' hill. 
 
 At this point, by some confusion in the allegory — it is said, 
 and I think rightly, no allegory is quite free from confusion 
 — Ingenioso again meets them, destitute and thriftless as 
 ever, once more patron-hunting. And we have a ridiculous 
 scene in which is represented an interview between a Great 
 Man and his literary client — a scene that makes one wonder 
 how like in some ways was Elizabethan London to the 
 Imperial Rome of Juvenal. Then comes in another scape- 
 grace, one Luxurioso. And all four persons — Philomusus, 
 Studioso, Ingenioso, Luxurioso — agree to quit together the 
 land they love, but in which they cannot afford to dwell. 
 
 Outside those divine precincts they pursue the art of 
 living, or rather of starving, and manage for a while to 
 struggle on in various ways. Philomusus gets a situation as 
 sexton, and is shown in a black frieze coat, carrying keys 
 and a spade, ' dig well and ring well ' his instructions. But 
 soon, after some comic experiences, he is summarily dis- 
 missed for negligence. In the days of his predecessor, he is 
 told by the Warden : ' The chancell was kept in order, the 
 church swept, and the boards rubbed that thou mightest 
 have seen your face in them, and for my part I never used 
 other looking-glass,' But, for him, he does nothing in this 
 line : he does not even ring the bells, nor whip the dogs out 
 of the church. So a passport, a permit to traverse the 
 country, is handed him, and he is sent to the right-about.
 
 i86 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Studioso turns private-tutor in a not very congenial family. 
 He is to have the same food as the household servants, 
 to wait at meals, to work all harvest-time, to make a proper 
 obeisance to his pupil whenever he gives him a lesson, 
 never to flog him when he cannot say his lesson — a peculiar 
 hardship to an Elizabethan teacher, in whose eyes teaching 
 and breeching were as intimately associated in reason as in 
 rhyme ; and to receive for his wages five marks a year and 
 some cast-off garments such as a ploughman would scarce 
 accept. He has a lively time of it with young Hopeful, and 
 is at last abruptly cashiered because he would not suffer one 
 of the ' blue coats to perch above ' him ' at the latter dinner.' 
 So the Pilgrims do not fare much better outside the Parnas- 
 sian borders than within them. Luxurioso takes to writing 
 ballads, which his boy sings at markets and fairs ; but the 
 pecuniary results are anything but satisfactory. 
 
 The main interest in the Second Play attaches rather to 
 Ingenioso, who, as was said above, represents the contem- 
 porary man of letters ; and in several scenes his relations 
 with one GuUio, an arrant fool and impostor, who poses as 
 a literary patron, are portrayed wnth much vivacity. Gullio 
 gives Ingenioso an order for some love-verses, to be written 
 ' in two or three diverse veins, in Chaucer's, Gower's, and 
 Spenser's and Mr Shakespeare's,' that he may make his 
 choice. This creature illustrates the Elizabethan age in 
 several ways ; but our attention is specially drawn to him 
 by the fact that he is an ardent, if not an intelligent, admirer 
 of 'Mr Shakespeare.' 'We shall have nothing but pure 
 Shakespeare and shreds of poetry that he hath gathered at 
 the theatres,' says Ingenioso as the fop is seen approaching. 
 In the sketch of him may be recognised certain reminis- 
 cences of Marston's Satires, published a few months before 
 the play we are considering was acted — of Duceus in the
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 187 
 
 third Satire, and of Luceus in the ninth of The Scourge of 
 Villany. Thus of Luceus we are told that from his hps 
 
 doth flow 
 Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo. 
 
 The two works with which GuUio is acquainted, to judge 
 by his quotations, are Romeo and Juliet and Ve?ius and 
 Adonis,' or at least the first two stanzas of Venus and Adonis. 
 ' Oh ! sweet Mr Shakespeare ! ' he cries ; ' I'll have his picture 
 in my study at the court.' This adoration is no doubt a 
 sign of Shakespeare's popularity, though the adoration of a 
 GuUio may not be a very desirable possession. Probably 
 the author did not mean to pay compliments. He wrote 
 as a University man, with strong prejudices in favour of 
 classical models and dramas that were constructed in 
 accordance with them and with a correspondingly strong 
 suspicion of the popular drama, and of a writer who had 
 not been bred at Cambridge or Oxford. The passage, or 
 passages, in which the Shakespeare-bitten Gullio appears 
 should be read in connexion with the well-known scene in 
 the Second Part of T/te Return (Act iv. Scene iii.) when 
 Burbage and Kemp exalt Shakespeare's fame at the expense 
 of the collegians. 
 
 ' Few of the University pen play swell,' says Kemp ; ' they smell 
 too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and 
 talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow 
 Shakespeare puts them all down, ay and Ben Jonson too.' 
 
 It has often been noticed that nearly all our early dramat- 
 sts were University men, Shakespeare being the notable 
 exception. Thus Marlow was of Corpus Christi College, 
 Cambridge : Green and Nash and Ben Jonson, of St John's: 
 Day, of Caius : Marston and Peel and Massinger belonged 
 to Oxford. Both Universities can claim Lily and Chapman.
 
 i88 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 There is another point worthy of notice in one of the 
 interviews of Ingenioso with GulUo. Just after the latter 
 has been quoting freely from Romeo and Juliet, the former 
 says aside : ' Mark ! Romeo and Juliet ! O monstrous theft ; 
 I think he will run through a whole book of Samuel Daniel's.' 
 This seems to mean that Daniel had helped himself so liber- 
 ally from the stores of Shakespeare that to run through one 
 of his books was as good as going to Shakespeare's own pages. 
 Or what does it mean ? ' Well-languaged ' Daniel has been so 
 highly esteemed by many a lover of poetry from his own time 
 down to that of Wordsworth and to our own day that no dero- 
 gation of his honour is to be lightly allowed. But in the Second 
 Part of The Return (Act. i. Scene ii.) Judicio formally warns 
 him against making too free with the writings of his neighbours. 
 
 Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage 
 
 War with the proudest big Italian 
 
 That melts his heart in sugared sonneting.' 
 
 Only let him more sparingly make use 
 Of others' wit, and use his own the more, 
 That well may scorn base imitation. 
 
 In the Complaint of Rosamund, as has been noticed 
 before now by the commentators, occur many lines and 
 phrases that recall Shakespeare. For example, 
 
 And nought-respecting death (the last of pains) 
 Placed his pale colours (th' ensign of his might) 
 Upon his new-got spoil before his right. 
 
 Ah ! how methinks I see Death dallying seeks 
 To entertain itself in Love's sweet place ; 
 Decayed roses of discolour'd cheeks 
 Do yet retain dear notes of former grace. 
 And ugly Death sits fair within her face. 
 
 It is beyond doubt that these verses were either suggested 
 
 ' That is, is as effective a sonneteer as Petrarch himself. See his Sonnets 
 to Delia.
 
 THE PILGIRMAGE TO PARNASSUS 189 
 
 by certain words in Romeo and Juliet, or suggested them ; 
 and the question has been, which alternative was the fact ? 
 Now the newly-discovered play which we have now before 
 us furnishes valuable evidence in this matter. It clearly 
 informs us that by some at least in his own day it was 
 Daniel who was believed to be the borrower. And to de- 
 cide this question contributes to the decision of the date 
 at or by which Romeo and Juliet was written. Daniel's 
 Rosam^md was first published in 1592; therefore Romeo and 
 Juliet, in some shape or other, cannot be later than that 
 year — unless, indeed, those Shakespearian echoes are heard 
 for the first time in the second edition of Rosamund which 
 was published two years afterwards, and does, it is said, differ 
 considerably from the first edition. In this latter case 
 Romeo and Juliet cannot be later than 1594. 
 
 As might be expected, Ingenioso gets little or nothing out 
 of his ridiculous patron. Their relations become all the 
 more irritable because Gullio sets up for a critic, and pretends 
 to revise the other's compositions. To ask for bread and 
 to receive criticism — that is surely beyond any author's en- 
 durance. And other difficulties arise. So, in no long time, 
 patron and client quarrel violently \ and the client liberates 
 . his soul thus : — 
 
 What, you whoreson tintinnabuhtni, thou that are the scorn of all 
 good wits, the ague of all soldiers, that never spokest witty things but 
 out of a play, never heardest the report of a gun without trembling, 
 why, Monsieur Mingo, is your ass's head grown proud with scratching ? 
 Thinkest thou a man of art can endure thy base usage ? 
 
 To which Gullio rejoins : — 
 
 Terence, thou art a gentleman of thy word : faniiliarilas parit 
 coiitemptum. Sirrah, Alexander did never strive with any but kings, 
 and (nillio will fight with none but gallants. Parewell, base peasant, 
 and thank Ciod thy fathers were no gentlemen ; else thou shouldest not
 
 I90 FOLTA LTTTERARIA 
 
 live an hour longer. Base, base, base peasant, peasant ! So hares 
 may pull dead lions by the beard.' 
 
 The best of friends must part, it is said : so, happily, must 
 the worst. 
 
 Thus the four comrades, Philomusus, Studioso, Luxurioso, 
 and Ingenioso, are all once more thrown upon the world, 
 penniless and forlorn. Luxurioso resolves to drink himself 
 blind, and to throw himself upon the parish. The others 
 wrap themselves in their virtue, as best they may, and would 
 fain cherish the belief that learning is after all a commodity 
 of price, though the world values it not. Ingenioso deter- 
 mines somehow or other to make his wit maintain him. 
 
 The press shall keep me from base beggary. 
 
 Studioso and Philomusus will hasten to Rome or Rheims — 
 will turn Papists to 'mend their state,' for perverts were 
 eagerly welcomed and made much of at that time, as often 
 since; and by such a course at least a comfortable subsist- 
 ence was, they hoped, to be secured. 
 
 And so the play ends, in gloom and misery, the actual 
 facts permitting no other conclusion. 
 
 Ing. If scholars' wants would end with our short scene, 
 Then should our little scene end more content ; 
 
 Sttid. But scholars still must live in discontent. 
 
 What reason then our scene should end content ? 
 
 Phil. Till then our acts some happier fortune see, 
 
 We'll banish from our stage all mirth and glee. 
 
 Ing. Whatever scholars 
 Stud. discontented be 
 
 Phil. Let none but them 
 All. give us a phwdite. 
 
 The Second Part of The Return, as will be remembered, 
 develops what we have shown to be the theme of the First. 
 We see the poor scholars (who have thought better or worse
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARNASSUS 191 
 
 of it, and not gone over to Rome) in the midst of fresh dis- 
 comfitures and distresses, till at last Ingenioso betakes him- 
 self to the Isle of Dogs— goes to the dogs in a double sense — 
 and Philomusus and Studioso adopt a shepherd's life. 
 
 With such lively illustrations as The Filgrhjiage and The 
 Return furnish, it would be interesting to study more par- 
 ticularly the position of authors in the Elizabethan age, and 
 to verify the melancholy story that the dramatist lays before 
 us. But space fails, and I will only add that I trust enough 
 has been said to show that these newly-discovered plays have 
 great value not only as excellent specimens of the Univer- 
 sity drama and as vividly depicting the Elizabethan man of 
 letters, but also for their wit and humour and bright intel- 
 ligence.
 
 XV 
 RICHARD BRATH WAITED 
 
 (From The Academy for Nov. 2, 1S78) 
 
 LIFE is short; and Brathwaite, like Prynne and 
 Wither, is long, very long. It is not likely that 
 anyone will care to reprint all his works, although he has 
 been lucky enough to find good friends both at the begin- 
 ning of this century and now in the latter part of it, and may 
 be always lucky in that respect. But we trust no one's 
 passion for him will be so ardent as to reproduce his writ- 
 ings in their entirety. Reproducers must be expected to 
 show some judgment. There are some old books that enjoy 
 quite as much existence as they deserve if the original copies 
 are still preserved in accessible libraries. It is unnecessary 
 to ask them to step out into the world again, and disport 
 themselves in modern raiment. We do not want them to 
 come and stay with us ; our houses are overcrowded already. 
 We shall be quite content if we can call on them now and 
 then, without expecting a return visit, from which their age 
 and feebleness excuse them. And, in our opinion, much 
 that the voluminous Brathwaite wrote is of this sort. A 
 
 ' A Strappado for the Devil. By Richard Brathwaite. With an introduc- 
 tion by the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth, M.A. (Boston, Lincolnshire : Roberts.) 
 
 192
 
 RICHARD BRATHWAITE 193 
 
 certain vivacity and vigour he certainly has ; but he wrote 
 too much, and too hastily, to write well. He was always at 
 it, and, what was worse, always printing his productions, or 
 rather sending them to the press to be printed as they might, 
 for correcting proofs does not seem to have been much in 
 his line. Indeed, with regard to much which he produced, 
 if it were to be judged merely from the artistic point of view, 
 but slight praise could be bestowed upon it, and small 
 thanks would be due to any editor for recalling it to know- 
 ledge. It is for the most part — for the most part, we say — 
 the somewhat rude expression of a fervid impulsive nature, 
 that thinks aloud, and whose thoughts, as might be feared, 
 are not always worth hearing, still less preserving. 
 
 Happily, in addition to his value as an original author, 
 Brathwaite has a value quite distinct, or he could not have 
 found the favour he has found with certain competent 
 scholars. He is of considerable use for the illustrations he 
 furnishes of contemporary literature ; many a Shakespearian 
 phrase and allusion, for instance, have light thrown upon 
 them from his pages ; and, secondly, he is of considerable 
 interest as a representative man. The characteristics of the 
 late Elizabethan or Jacobean age show clear in him. He 
 threw himself into the life of his time with a wild enthusiasm. 
 ' A mad world, my masters ; ' and Brathwaite was at home 
 in it. Passing from Westmoreland (not Lancashire, as Mr 
 Ebsworth says) to Oxford and also to Cambridge, and from 
 the universities to the Inns of Court, he shared with reckless 
 delight in the revelry of his day. 
 
 ' While roaring was in request,' he writes, long after the uproar of 
 those dissipations had died away in the distance, ' I held it a complete 
 fashion. ... I held my pockets sufficiently stored, if they could but 
 bring me off for mine ordinarj', and after dinner purchase nie a stool on 
 the stage. ... A long winter night seemed but a midsummer night's 
 
 N
 
 194 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 dream, being merrily past in a catch of four parts, a deep health to a 
 light mistress, and a knot of brave blades to make up the consort. . . . 
 A weak blast of light fame was a great part of that portion I aimed at. 
 And herein was my madness ! I held nothing so likely to make me 
 known to the world, or admired in it, as to be debauched, and to 
 purchase a parasite's praise by my riot.' 
 
 He may, perhaps, deepen the colour of his pictures, after 
 the manner of certain religionists who take a fond pleasure 
 in blackening their former complexion, perhaps in order to 
 make their present exceeding fairness the better appreciated — 
 or is it because the ' Old Adam ' likes lingering over those old 
 days, and describing, with not unaffectionate emphasis, their 
 once sweet deliriousness ? But probably, even in the midst 
 of his wildnesses, Brathwaite was not without compunctious 
 visitings. We doubt whether he was ever altogether a re- 
 formed character. Barnabae Ifinerarium, or Barnabee's 
 Journal, was not published till 1638, when he was some fifty 
 years of age. It may have been written in part long before ; 
 but it certainly was not all so. Anyhow there is no reason 
 for supposing that it was published, when it was published, 
 against the author's will. Late in life, too, he reprinted one 
 or two not very edifying pieces from the Strappado : e.g., as 
 late as 1665 in his Comment upon the Two Tales of Our 
 A?icient, Retio7vned, and Ever living Poet Sir Geoffrey 
 Chaucer, Knight, the story of how a ' wily wench ' ' capri- 
 corned ' her husband. Thus we have in Brathwaite a man 
 of a curiously mixed nature, or rather — for that description 
 would apply to us all — a man who displays his mixedness 
 with a curious frankness and fulness. We see him in his 
 cups ; we see him at his prayers. A strange figure this, now 
 reeling, now kneeling. Do not let us doubt his sincerity : 
 he drinks with zest ; he prays with all earnestness. He is 
 a vehement, impulsive man, who must still be talking, still 
 unbosoming himself, still giving voice to the passion of the
 
 RICHARD BRATHWAITE 195 
 
 moment. Always hating Puritanism — it had no heartier 
 enemy — he struggles to be religious and to recommend re- 
 ligiousness in what he thought a more liberal spirit than the 
 Puritanic; yet in the midst of his aspirations and efforts 
 there would intrude at times far other thoughts, and all of a 
 sudden the paraphrast of ' The Psalms of David the King 
 and Prophet and of other Holy Prophets ' is busy conjugat- 
 ing his favourite verb : — 
 
 'o 
 
 Sat est, verbum declinavi, 
 Titubo — titubas — titubavi. 
 
 The Psalms of David and the songs of Anacreon, he can 
 sing them both con amore, this versatile gentleman. In 
 other writers of the time, as in Herrick, one may see some- 
 thing of the same odd combination, or rather of the same 
 plenary representation, of two different sides of our complex 
 nature ; but perhaps in no one so clearly and so abruptly, 
 so to speak, as in the subject of the present notice. 
 
 The reprint before us, for which Mr Ebsworth is to be 
 thanked, is of one of his earliest works. It appeared in 1 6 1 5, 
 the year before Shakespeare's death. The volume consists of 
 two parts : first, the Strappado for the devil, and secondly. 
 Love's Labyrinth : or the True Lover's Knot, including the 
 disastrous falls of two Star-crost lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe. 
 
 The Strappado is a miscellany of epigrams, satires, and 
 occasional pieces. The origin of the collection is no doubt 
 sufificiendy indicated in his Spiritual Spicery, 1638, when he 
 is talking of his early life, how he ' held it in those days an 
 incomparable grace to be styled one of the wits ; where, if at 
 any time invited to a public feast, or some other meeting of 
 the Muses, we hated nothing more than losing time ; 
 reserving even some select hours of that solemnity, to make 
 proof of our Conceits in a present provision of Epigrams,
 
 196 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Anagrams, with other expressive (and many times offensive) 
 fancies. . . By this time I got an eye in the world ; and a 
 finger in the streets. There goes an author ! One of the 
 wits ! ' The title should mean, we suppose, a flogging for 
 the Archfiend, a scourge for evil, very much what Wither 
 meant by his Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613) ; but Brath- 
 waite, in a passage in a subsequent volume, leads us to 
 understand that by ' Devil ' was thought to be meant 
 especially one particular form of evil — detraction. What- 
 ever is the precise meaning of this fantastic title — it was an 
 age of such — the collection included under it may be 
 briefly described as the characteristic offspring of a young 
 Jacobean wit — of a lively Bohemian of the early seventeenth 
 century. It jokes as men joked then, outspokenly and 
 often coarsely. The epigrams might occasionally have 
 more point, the satires bite more keenly. But, as we said 
 to begin with, Brathwaite has always some vivacity and vigour ; 
 he is never utterly dull ; now and then he writes with true 
 force and dignity, and he furnishes here many of those 
 illustrations of contemporary life and literature which we have 
 mentioned as giving value to his works. He quotes 'a 
 horse, a kingdom for a horse,' from Richard III. .• and 
 ' Halloa ye pampered Jades,' from Tamberlaine the Great, 
 second part. Here is an early reference to Cervantes' 
 famous romance : — 
 
 If I had lived but in Don Quixote's time, 
 His Rozinant had been of little worth ; 
 For mine was bred within a colder clime, 
 And can endure the motion of the earth 
 With greater patience ; nor will he repine 
 At any provender, so mild is he. 
 How many men want his humility ! 
 
 ' All true-bred northern sparks ' will find something to
 
 RICHARD BRATHWAITE 197 
 
 interest them in his lines To the Cot toners. There he 
 speaks of Wakefield and its Pindar, of Bradford and its 
 'Souter,' of Kendal and its white coats. Bradford, it seems, 
 was notable for its Puritanism : — 
 
 Bradford, if I should rightly set it forth, 
 
 Style it I might the Banbury of the North ; 
 
 And well this title with the town agrees 
 
 Famous for twanging, Ale, Zeal, Cakes, and Cheese. 
 
 But why should I set zeal behind their ale ! 
 
 Because zeal is for some, but ale for all ; 
 
 Zealous, indeed, some are (for I do hear 
 
 Of many zealous simpring sister there 
 
 Who love their brothers from their heart i' faith). 
 
 The English of the last line but one is noticeable. Brath- 
 waite says 'many sister,' according to the older — the proper 
 — usage: so 'many burden' (p. 67, etc.). Both usages 
 occur in this couplet from Gower : — 
 
 With many an herb and many a stone 
 Whereof she hath there many one.
 
 XVI 
 MILTON'S 'MACBETH' 
 
 (From The Nineteenth Century iox Dec. 1891) 
 
 IT is one of the most curious facts in literary history that 
 Milton at one time proposed to write a drama on the 
 story of Macbeth — that more than thirty years after Shake- 
 speare's great tragedy had been before the world, Milton pro- 
 posed to take up the theme already treated with such in- 
 comparable power. Such a design seems at first sight to 
 imply a strange want of discernment, or an extraordinary 
 self-confidence, or a reckless audacity ; ' for what can the 
 man do that cometh after the King ? ' But the evidence of 
 its entertainment is decisive ; and I wish now to consider 
 what motives could have induced Milton to think of such a 
 thing. 
 
 The evidence that he did think of it is to be found in a 
 well-known MS. in his own handwriting, now one of the 
 treasures of the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 This MS. was in all probability written shortly after his 
 return from his Continental tour, when at last he was leav- 
 ing his father's roof and beginning an independent life. 
 Till the year 1639, at the close of which he became thirty- 
 one, Milton had been permitted by a highly appreciative 
 
 198
 
 MILTON'S ' RI AC BETH' 199 
 
 and generous father to devote himself to learning and cul- 
 ture, that so he might prepare himself for some great poetical 
 effort. Everything had been done for his education that 
 could be done. Not content with the training and the lore 
 imparted by St Paul's School and by Cambridge, he, with 
 his father's sanction and approval, had continued his studies 
 at home for some six years ; and then in 1638 had enjoyed 
 the advantage of a foreign tour, which lasted some ten or 
 eleven months, and acquainted him not only with famous 
 towns and scenes, but also with some of the most distin- 
 guished Europeans of his day. Thus, over thirty years of 
 perpetual and thorough preparation had gone by ; and at 
 last the time seemed come when the fruit of his long ' weari- 
 some labours and studious watchings ' should be put forth. 
 Milton himself clearly felt it was so. He had not been 
 quite at ease that the promise of his youth was so tardy of 
 fulfilment. He speaks in one of his letters — the only extant 
 one in English — of being ' something suspicious of myself,' 
 and of taking notice of ' a certain belatedness in me ' : and 
 in another to his friend Diodati (' Damon '), he remarks, ' it 
 is well known, and you well know, that I am naturally slow 
 in writing and averse to write.' Certainly, when he settled 
 down in lodgings of his own (just off Fleet Street, on part 
 of the site of the ' Punch ' office of our time), or a few 
 months later, wanting more room for his books, in a * garden- 
 house ' in Aldersgate Street (on the east side, nor far from 
 Maidenhead Court), he recognised that something must 
 really be done : and we find him searching for a satisfactory 
 subject. As late as 1639 his thoughts were set upon King 
 Arthur, as can be proved from two of his Larm poems 
 written in that year, viz. the Epitaphium Damonis and the 
 Ma?isus. But for certain reasons, the chief probably that 
 he had realised the fabulousness of the Arthurian story
 
 200 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 (' Who Arthur was,' he writes in his History of Britaifi, 
 ' and whether ever any such reigned in Britain, hath been 
 doubted before, and may again with good reason ' ), he 
 somewhat suddenly as it would seem dismissed that hero, 
 and looked round for a substitute. In the above-mentioned 
 Trinity College MS., most probably penned just at this 
 period, he makes a long list — a hundred minus one — of 
 subjects that might serve his purpose. Of these, fifty-three 
 are taken from the old Testament, and among them 
 Paradise Lost is unmistakably the favourite ; eight are from 
 the New Testament ; thirty-three are from British history ; 
 and five are ' Scotch stories, or rather British of the North 
 Parts ' ; and last of these, and so last of the whole ninety- 
 nine, is ^Macbeth.' Beginning at the arrival of Malcolm at 
 Macduff. The matter of Duncan may be expressed by 
 the appearing of his ghost. 
 
 Now I propose suggesting and discussing two special 
 reasons for the insertion of Macbeth in this list — the one 
 historical, or having reference to the historical facts ; the 
 other didactic, or moral. But before I proceed to these, 
 brief references must be made first to Milton's attitude to 
 the Romantic Drama generally, and to Shakespeare in par- 
 ticular ; and secondly, to the state in which Shakespeare's 
 Macbeth has come down to us, and the manner in which it 
 was presented in the seventeenth century. 
 
 To turn to the first of these points : there is abundant 
 proof that Milton's dramatic sympathies were all in the 
 direction of the classical form. Late in life, in the prefatory 
 note to Samson Agonistes (published in 167 1), he issued, 
 as everybody will remember, what we may call a manifesto 
 on this question, so far at least as Tragedy was concerned. 
 After several remarks by no means friendly to the contem- 
 porary stage, he names ^-Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
 
 MIL TON'S ' MA CBE TH' 201 
 
 as ' the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the 
 best rule to all who endeavour to write tragedy. The 
 circumscription of time,' he adds, ' wherein the whole drama 
 begins and ends, is, according to ancient rule and best 
 example, within the space of twenty-four hours.' And in the 
 work itself that is thus prefaced, he gives us in fact a Greek 
 play in English, a splendid and a still unsurpassed or un- 
 equalled monument of Hellenic scholarship and insight. 
 But it would be a mistake to suppose that these convictions, 
 so trenchantly enounced and so nobly illustrated, belonged 
 only to Milton's senescence, or can be explained by his 
 disgust with the theatre of the Restoration. Years and 
 years before Milton had made up his mind on this matter. 
 In the subject-list, drawn up as we have seen when he 
 began seriously and practically to address himself to what 
 he meant to be the achievement of his life, the dramatic 
 form is the prevailing form — nay, the only form — entertained 
 by him ; and it is the classical {i.e. the Greek) dramatic form. 
 In several cases he specially mentions the chorus, and of 
 whom it is to consist. In many others the very titles suffi- 
 ciently indicate the models that are in his thoughts ; thus 
 Naboth 6\j%o(pavTo\i!J.ivog, Elisceus Hydrochoos, Hezechias, 
 rroXiopxoxjfXivog, Josiah, alaZ^oinvog, Herod Alassacring ox Rachel 
 Weeping., Christus Fatiens, Christ Risen, Vortiger immured, 
 Hardikniite dying in his cups, A the I stem exposing his brother 
 Edwin to the sea and repenting, etc.. And from the note 
 added to the Macbeth entry it is certain that his intention 
 was to treat the subject according to the usage of the Attic 
 stage. Similarly, in one of the most magnificent of the 
 many magnificent passages in his prose writing, in the 
 famous account he renders of himself and his doings and 
 his purposes in The Reason of Church Governmetit urged 
 against Prelaty, when he refers to the form his poem may
 
 202 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 take, whether epic or dramatic, he does not acknowledge 
 or admit under the latter head any other ' constitutions ' 
 than those 'wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign.' He 
 discovers the Greek ' constitutions ' even in Hebrew litera- 
 ture. He agrees with Origen that ' the Scripture also affords 
 us a divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon, con- 
 sisting of two persons and a double chorus ' ; and is of 
 opinion, Paraeus confirming him, that 'the Apocalypse of 
 St John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy 
 shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts 
 with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping sym- 
 pathies.' Beyond question it was the Greek drama that 
 was meet and right in his eyes ; and the modern drama 
 seemed a somewhat dubious growth or creature, with which 
 as an author he meant to have little to do, however he 
 might peruse it as a reader. For that in his younger days 
 at least he read his Shakespeare with immense appreciation 
 and delight, is vividly shown not only by those famous 
 memorial lines beginning ' What needs my Shakespeare for 
 his honoured bones ? ' — happily, the first lines of Milton's 
 composing that appeared in print — but by a much more 
 significant sign in the shape of numberless allusions and 
 echoes to be observed in his earlier poems — in B Allegro 
 and // Fenseroso, and Comus. It is wonderful how well 
 Milton knew his Midsummer Nighfs Dream, his Romeo 
 and Juliet, his Tempest. Often, no doubt, he had seen 
 these plays and others from the same source acted in the 
 Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe. 
 
 Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
 
 If J onsen's learned sock be on, 
 
 Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
 
 Warble his native woodnoles wild. 
 
 Excipit hinc fessum sinuosi pompa theatri, 
 Et vocat ad plausus tjarrula scena sues.
 
 MILTON'S 'MACBETH' 203 
 
 So he writes in his first ' Elegy,' when he describes his 
 London life during a certain absence from Cambridge. But 
 probably from the very beginning, genuinely and heartily as 
 he appreciated the genius of Shakespeare, in theory he was 
 attached rather to Ben Jonson and his school ; and there 
 may be detected in his tone an anticipatory concord with 
 the kind of dramatic criticism which prevailed in Europe till 
 the rise of Lessing, that is, with the habit of crying up 
 Shakespeare's genius, and crying down his art — with the 
 habit of estimating the modern drama by the canons and 
 standard of the classical, instead of recognising it as a new 
 and distinct embodiment of the dramatic spirit. It was 
 Lessing who first led the world to recognise the cardinal fact 
 that Sophocles and Shakespeare represent two quite separ- 
 ate theatres, and that to speak of Shakespeare as a bad 
 Sophocles is as absurd as it would be to speak of Sophocles 
 as a bad Shakespeare. In the seventeenth century this great 
 discovery — for so it was, obvious as what it states now seems 
 to us — had not yet been made ; and we must not be 
 surprised or contemptuous if Milton was not in advance of 
 his age in this respect, and so did not understand the exact 
 relation of the Elizabethan playwrights to the Periclean. 
 Brilliant classical scholar as he was, and the classics at that 
 time having such an ascendency, it is no wonder if he was 
 by no means contented with the popular drama of his 
 time. 
 
 We must also remember, before we note the two particular 
 reasons that probably led Milton to think of treating, in the 
 classical style, the Macbeth story of all the Shakespearian 
 tragedies, that the play of Macbeth seems to have been 
 strangely handled even in its author's lifetime, or, at all 
 events, just after his death. This question cannot here be 
 discussed at length. I can only call attention to the view
 
 204 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 taken by many competent scholars, and venture to express 
 my thorough agreement with it, that Macbeth, as it appears 
 in the first foUo, 1623, is not exactly what Shakespeare 
 wrote, but a revised version of what Shakespeare wrote. 
 There are many difficulties about the present shape of this 
 tragedy, as all students and possibly some ' general readers ' 
 know ; and they are probably best accounted for by the 
 hypothesis that the play, as we have it, has been freely 
 edited and modified by somebody, Middleton very likely, who 
 augmented the lyrical parts and multiplied the dances — 
 operatised it, in short, if I may invent such a verb for the 
 occasion. We may marvel that the right hand that did such a 
 deed did not wither ; we may be pleased to fancy that its 
 owner afterwards repented, and, like Cranmer, denounced 
 such an unworthy member. But none the less the deed 
 seems to have been done, and this tremendous tragedy was 
 mixed with baser matter. A further evolution of this curious 
 process is to be seen in Davenant's Macbeth, the current form 
 in the Restoration period printed in 1674 (the year in which 
 Milton died). ' From hence ' (my Lord Crewe's), writes 
 Mr Pepys in December 1666, 'to the Duke's house, and 
 there saw Macbeth most excellently acted, and a most 
 excellent play for variety ' ; and in the following month still 
 more significantly, he notes : ' To the Duke's house, and 
 saw Macbeth, which, though I saw it lately, yet appears a 
 most excellent play in all respects, but especially in diver- 
 tisement, though it be a deep tragedy, which is a strange per- 
 fection in a tragedy, it being most proper here and suitable ; 
 in which sagacious comment many a modern critic would 
 insert just the opposite adjectives. ' The Weird Sisters,' says 
 Lamb, in a passage well known but deserving to be known 
 yet better, 'are serious things. Their presence cannot co- 
 exist with mirth.' Yet, to the audience of Charles the
 
 MILTON'S ' MACBETH' 205 
 
 Second's reign, they had become comic figures, and were 
 greeted with roars of laughter. Conceive the Eimienides 
 of ^schylus presented in like fashion. Conceive Alecto and 
 her sisterhood as she buffoons, or Pluto ' entering ' with the 
 grimaces and the somersaults of a clown ! This vulgarising 
 of Macbeth, of which the beginnings are discernible, as we 
 have pointed out, in the earlier half of the century, may 
 surely be pleaded in mitigation of Milton's offence when he 
 dared to meditate a fresh dramatic rendering of a story 
 already set forth by Shakespeare. 
 
 Let us now consider those two special reasons that have 
 been suggested above as probably influencing Milton in this 
 matter. The first has relation to the treatment of historical 
 facts by Shakespeare in Macbeth — to the freedom and 
 licence with which they were rearranged and altered. 
 Milton's objection to Shakespeare's Macbeth on this score 
 is, I think, suggested and proved by another entry in his 
 subject-list, which has, I believe, never yet been noticed 
 in this connexion, viz. ' Duff and Donewald : A strange 
 story of witchcraft and murder discovered and revenged.' 
 
 The principles on which the historical drama and the 
 historical novel should be constructed are by no means easy 
 to define. Certainly the historian has often resented, and 
 often resents, the intrusion of the fictionist on his domain. 
 And undoubtedly many popular errors are due to the gross 
 inaccuracies or the daring interferences with historical fact 
 that are to be found in most plays and novels that profess to 
 deal with history. Some writers do not shrink from rewriting 
 what has already been written for ever by the finger of time. 
 The past is not the past with them, but a flexible and 
 manageable present. They arrogate a power beyond that of 
 Jupiter himself, who, however he may cloud or sun the skies 
 to-morrow,
 
 2o6 FOLIA LITTERARTA 
 
 Non tanien inritum, 
 Quodcunque retrost, efficiet, neque 
 Diffinget infectumque reddet, 
 
 Quod fugiens semel hora vexit. 
 
 And, indeed, if they are verily ' creators,' how, they ask, is 
 their creative power to be hmited and fixed ? And they 
 quote, or might quote, for their charter Horace's trite 
 
 dictum : 
 
 Pictoribus atque poetis 
 Quidlibet audendi semper fuit cyqua potestas. 
 
 And accordingly quidlibet audent. On the other hand, 
 Aristotle insists ' that it is not the province of a poet to relate 
 things which have happened, but such as might have 
 happened, and such things as are possible according to 
 probability, or would necessarily have happened. For an 
 historian and a poet do not differ from each other because 
 the one writes in verse and the other in prose; for the 
 history of Herodotus might be written in verse, and yet it 
 would be no less a history with metre than without metre. 
 But they differ in this, that the one speaks of things which 
 have happened, and the other of such as might have happened. 
 Hence poetry is more philosophic and more deserving of 
 attention that history.' However, the service which writers 
 of imagination — Shakespeare and Scott, above all others — 
 have done in exciting a real interest in distant ages — in mak- 
 ing the dry bones live and ' provoking the silent dust '—is 
 so great and grand that we accept their works with grateful 
 thanks, and think it a comparatively little thing that they are 
 not always found in exact agreement with the contemporary 
 records which the researches of the learned from time to 
 time bring to light. Now what were Milton's views on this 
 question ? He seems to have held that the poet, if he dealt 
 with historical fact, should faithfully adhere to it; and,
 
 MILTON'S ' MACBETH' 207 
 
 what is more, he seems to have held that the poet should 
 deal with historical fact. 
 
 ' It was necessary for Milton,' as that excellent critic and 
 writer Mr Mark Pattison observes, ' that the events and 
 personages which were to arouse and detain his interests 
 should be real events and personages. The mere play 
 of fancy with the pretty aspects of things could not satisfy 
 him ; he wanted to feel beneath him a substantial world of 
 reality. . . . His imagination is only stirred by real 
 circumstances.' Perhaps we may relevantly refer to Carlyle's 
 insistence on the impressiveness of ' the smallest historical ' 
 fact ' ' as contrasted with the grandest fictitious event.' 
 
 All those ninety-nine subjects that, as we know, Milton 
 was revolving in his mind when he was earnestly meditating 
 a great poetical work, are historical. All those stories that 
 attracted him in the Old Testament and in the New seemed 
 to him, whatever conclusions or views about them modern 
 criticism may arrive at or entertain, to be strictly historical, 
 not Hebrew or Christian legends. In the Reason for Church 
 Government he tells us how he considered 'what king or 
 knight before the Conquest might be chosen, in whom to 
 lay the pattern of a Christian hero.' As Tasso had chosen 
 an historical person for his hero, finally adopting Godfrey of 
 Boulogne, after some hesitation whether it should be he or 
 Belisarius or Charlemagne, so would Milton select one 
 of our ' ancient stories,' i.e., one of our ancient histories, for 
 the word ' story ' is etymologically but a decapitated form of 
 the word ' history,' and in Elizabethan and even later 
 English it is often used in its original sense. As already re- 
 marked, he rejected King Arthur because he found, after 
 careful scrutiny, that he was not historical — that he was 
 mainly, if not wholly, a mere mythical figment. Finally he 
 selected a Biblical subject, having in the Biblical nana-
 
 2o8 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 tive, as he read it, the terra firma his genius desired. 
 For he accepted the Biblical narrative verbatim et litera- 
 tim ; in his eyes it not only contained the word of God ; 
 it was the word of God. And so, whenever he could, 
 he followed closely the very diction of the Bible; and 
 undoubtedly the comparative inferiority of many parts of 
 Paradise Lost, considered as a poem, is due to this very 
 method. It is as if he deliberately restrained the free move- 
 ment of his wings. In a certain sense, and to a certain 
 degree, he ceases to be a ' poet soaring in the high region 
 of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about 
 him ' ; he reproduces and translates and does not create. 
 Invention came to be regarded as of secondary importance. 
 This view of the poet's function grew more and more upon 
 him, and does much to explain the austerity and baldness of 
 his latest style. And indeed, strange as the statement may 
 at first appear, it leads us on to the immediately subsequent 
 periods of our literature, in which poetry became a kind of 
 decorative art — in which formal themes that belonged rather 
 to the province of prose are taken up by the reigning poets, 
 and argued and discussed in metre. The seeds of the 
 school of Dryden and Pope were sown in the middle of 
 the seventeenth century. It is by no mere accident that 
 Pope in the opening of his Essay ofi Man almost exactly 
 repeats certain words in the opening of Paradise Lost. 
 In Milton's time the tide of the imagination that reached 
 such a height in the Elizabethan age had not yet com- 
 pletely ebbed ; in Pope's time it was gone far down, and 
 often we find ourselves in a sandy tract of metrical essays 
 and treatises, and scarcely ' hear the mighty waters rolling 
 evermore.' 
 
 Pope sneers, perhaps not unjustly — if sneering is ever just 
 — at Milton for turning 'God the Father' into a 'School
 
 MIL TON'S ' MA CBE TH ' 209 
 
 divine ' ; but it is not less true of Pope and his age that the 
 poet is often transformed into the professor, and when we 
 are listening for a song, we have a lecture inflicted upon us ; 
 we look for a vision of Apollo, and behold a doctor of 
 theology or some graduate in metaphysics or. in science. I 
 say the movement in this prosaic direction is perceptible in 
 Milton's age, and in Milton's theory at least, and in his 
 practice, so far as he obeyed his theory. The most splendid 
 passages of Paradise Lost are, in fact, just those where 
 Milton is delivered from his theory — when he has no such 
 facts to go upon as so often make him ' pedestrian.' In the 
 first two books of his great epic, Milton has to rely only on 
 his imagination ; there is no restricting narrative to 'damp ' 
 his ' intended wing depressed,' and the result is one of the 
 finest and noblest achievements of the poetical spirit. 
 
 And so happily in art, as in the moral world, men are 
 often better than their theories : they do not live down to 
 their creeds. Often, no doubt, it is true that 'the better is 
 seen and the worse is followed,' but, if we may vary Ovid's 
 familiar words, it is also often true — 
 
 ViAeo pejora proboque, 
 Seel meliora sequor. 
 
 Nature is stronger than the rules and canons that are 
 formulated for her guidance. The artistic instinct prevails 
 over all the utterances of a self-conscious and a perverse 
 analysis. 
 
 But, however this may be, and to whatever degree Milton's 
 greatness and his theories are in harmony, it is certain Milton 
 had a profound respect for historic fact, and was by no 
 means willing to give poetry a charter to ignore or to 
 reconstruct it. The poet might or might not adopt it as his 
 material, and for his part he inclined to adopt it ; but 
 
 o
 
 210 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 assuredly, if the poet did adopt it, he had no right to take 
 liberties with it, he was bound to be faithful to it. Now 
 what is to be said of Shakespeare's Alacbeth in this respect ? 
 
 Briefly, Shakespeare did just what Milton thought ought 
 not to be done. Whatever may have been his practice with 
 regard to later periods, which there is no time now to dis- 
 cuss, Shakespeare troubled himself little about the historical 
 details in dealing with the more distant ones, e.g., in dealing 
 with the periods of Hamlet., of King Lear, of Cy?nheli?ie, 
 and of Macbeth. He submitted to no such bondage as 
 Milton willingly endured and even gladly welcomed. Not 
 that he altogether ignored the circumstances of his plots, or 
 wholly forgot with what age they were connected, or said 
 to be connected ; but he was contented with a mere general 
 recognition of the circumstances and the age. His first and 
 his last thought was to produce a picture of life ; it was 
 not historical, or archaeological, or ethical. Some local 
 and some historical colour might be introduced ; but 
 such considerations were entirely secondary and sub- 
 ordinate. He would omit, and he would add, even 
 as it pleased him. He would not attempt to tread precisely 
 ii the footsteps of any chronicler, let him chronicle 
 ever so wisely. It was the book of life he studied, and 
 Hall and Holinshed were valuable only as helps to that 
 supreme study. And so in his great tragedy of Macbeth he 
 drew many of the incidents from a quite different story. 
 Nearly all the details of the murder of Duncan are, it is well 
 known, derived from the story of King UufPs murder by 
 Donwald. In both narratives a wife appears, who instigates 
 her husband to crime. But it is from the King Duff 
 narrative that the particulars of the enactment are taken. 
 
 The drugging of the chamberlains, the assassination of 
 the too confiding guest as he slept, the pretended uncon-
 
 MILTON'S 'MACBETH 211 
 
 sciousness — the outraged innocence — of the real criminal, 
 and his slaughter of the royal attendants in a paroxysm of 
 zeal, the wild furious storm which broke over the guilty 
 scene, as if Nature must needs vent her horror at what was 
 so accursedly done ; ' the heavens, as troubled with man's 
 act,' threatening ' his bloody stage'— all these things apper- 
 tain in the old chronicler whom Shakespeare followed to the 
 murder of King Duff, and not to the death of King Duncan. 
 All that Holinshed reports of this latter event is this short 
 paragraph : 
 
 At length, therefore, communicating his purposed intent (to usurp the 
 kingdom by force) with his trusty friends, amongst whom Banquho was 
 the chiefest, upon confidence of their promised aid, he slew the king at 
 Enverness (Inverness), or, as some say, at Botgosvane, in the vj year of 
 his reign. 
 
 It would be easy to mention other points in which Shake- 
 speare varied from his nominal authority ; ^ but this single 
 one is enough for our purpose. For I think we may infer 
 from a certain fact that it was this that caused Milton some 
 discontent and annoyance. The fact is that which I 
 have mentioned above, and which, as I remarked, has not 
 before been quoted in this connexion, and so surely not 
 properly understood — viz., that Milton mentions also in his 
 subject-list Duff and Donwald. Evidently then in Milton's 
 Macbeth, had it ever been written, the story of King Duff 
 would have been kept quite separate from the story of King 
 Duncan ; the two threads which Shakespeare has so boldly 
 intertwined would have been carefully disentangled ; the con- 
 
 1 ' With the exception of Duncan's murderp] in which Macbeth was con- 
 cerned either as principal or accessory, and the character of Lady Macbeth, 
 there is hardly any point in which the drama coincides with the real history. 
 The single point upon which historians agree is that the reign of Macbeth 
 was one of remarkable prosperity and vigorous government.' — So Messrs 
 Clark and Wright in the Preface to the Clarendon VrQSsedaUonoi Macbeth.
 
 212 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 fusion of two distinct historical events would have been in 
 no wise permitted. 
 
 With the ultimate historical value of Holinshed's chronicle 
 we are not here concerned. Shakespeare's disrespectful use 
 of it did not spring, we may be sure, from any enlightened 
 views as to its accuracy or importance ; even the wildest of 
 his idolators will scarcely maintain that he anticipated the 
 results of modern historical criticism and investigation, and 
 so attached but slight weight to what is very largely a tissue 
 of legends. But I may just quote one sentence from Mr 
 Robertson's Scotland imder Her Early Kings. ' The double 
 failure in Northumberland and Murray[Duncan had made 
 unsuccessful expeditions into England and against Thorfin] 
 hastening the catastrophe of the youthful king, he was 
 assassinated " in the smith's bothy " near Elgin, not far from 
 the scene of his latest battle, the Mormaor Macbeth being 
 the undoubted author of his death.' 
 
 On historical grounds then Milton was dissatisfied 
 with Shakespeare's Macbeth. Let us now turn to another 
 point of view from which this play seemed to him no less, 
 probably still more, unsatisfactory. Let us turn to the 
 central action and thought of it, and reflect how Milton 
 would regard Shakespeare's treatment of the great question 
 presented. 
 
 And, first of all, let it be noticed that no other of Shake- 
 speare's plays comes so near dealing with the very subject 
 of Paradise Lost, or we may say does in fact so fully deal 
 with it, as Macbeth. The subject of Paradise Lost is the 
 Ruin of Man ; and what else is the subject of Macbeth ? 
 Each work in its own manner treats of the origin of evil j 
 each portrays a spiritual decline and fall. Adam represents 
 the human race, but he is also as individual as Milton could 
 make him ; Macbeth is an individual, but also he is typical.
 
 MILTON'S ' MACBETH' 213 
 
 Milton formally states the theme which he proposes to set 
 forth. He bids the heavenly muse sing — 
 
 Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
 With loss of Eden. 
 
 Without any such formal enunciation, not less fully, and 
 with far greater power, does Shakespeare paint one of man's 
 later disobediences, the disobedience of a remote son of 
 Adam, and how he too plucked forbidden fruit, and was ex- 
 pelled from his Eden — expelled from the state of happiness, 
 honour, and peace. For indeed the story of Adam is per- 
 petually repeated ; it is a faithful image of what goes on 
 every day in the world. Every day in the world paradises 
 are lost, and looking back poor exiles behold their so late 
 
 Happy seat, 
 Waved over by that flaming brand ; the gate 
 With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms ; 
 
 and, ' with wandering steps and slow,' they have to traverse 
 the stony tracts that spread far away outside. Thus the fall 
 of man never ceases being acted on the human stage. 
 Happily, too, his restoration never ceases being acted ; in 
 some sort daily the lost paradises are regained. But the 
 brighter side of the great human drama does not now claim 
 our consideration. It is with a tragedy of tragedies that we 
 have now to do— one in which all that makes life worth living 
 is wasted and lost, and he who, when we first see him, ' sits 
 high ' in all the people's hearts, is at last cast out into the outer 
 darkness of men's hate and loathing. 
 
 Besides the fall of man Milton presents also the fall of 
 Satan, and in his picture he gives us a scene exactly parallel 
 to that in Macbeth, where the already demoralised nature
 
 214 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 of. Macbeth receives a fresh strong impulse towards its fatal 
 corruption through the preferment of Malcolm to be Prince 
 of Cumberland. 
 
 The Prince of Cumberland ! That is a step, 
 On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, 
 For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires ! 
 Let not light see my black and deep desires ; 
 The eye wink at the hand ! yet let that be. 
 Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. 
 
 In Paradise Lost the appointment by God of His Son to 
 be His Vicegerent awakes similarly the evil — how strange 
 and unaccountable an inmate ! — in the bosom of Satan ; 
 and shordy afterwards he thus addresses him whom we see 
 in another book as his favourite devil : 
 
 Sleep'st thou, companion dear ? What sleep can close 
 Thy eyelids, and rememberest what decree 
 Of yesterday, so late hath passed the lips 
 Of Heaven's Almighty ? . . . 
 
 . . . New laws thou seest imposed ; 
 New laws from him who reigns new minds may laise 
 In us who serve — new counsels to debate 
 What doubtful may ensue. 
 
 And so there is rebellion in Heaven, and in due time 
 rebellion on earth, just as in Macbeth's ' single state of man.' 
 
 But, leaving secondary resemblances alone, I wish to 
 dwell on the fact that Shakespeare and Milton are in these 
 great works, each in his own way, thinking of the same 
 transcendent problem, viz., the freedom of man's will. As 
 to Adam, and as to Macbeth, the old, old questions arise : 
 were they capable of resisting the terrible forces that were 
 arrayed against them ? Could they have delivered them- 
 selves from evil ? How did they come to fall so miserably ? 
 Whence was engendered the weakness that undid them? 
 Plow far were they responsible for such a disastrous debility ?
 
 MILTON'S 'MACBETH' 215 
 
 What is the real parentage of crime ? Even such awful and 
 insoluble problems are at once suggested by the careers of 
 Adam and Macbeth. For in neither case do external 
 causes explain the horrible mischief that is depicted. ' A 
 man's foes are those of his own household.' It was the 
 treachery of the defending garrison, not the overwhelming 
 strength of the attack, that produced the overthrow. If 
 Milton's serpent had had no encouragements or alliances 
 in the heart of his victims, he might have charmed in vain. 
 And it is not the witches that work Macbeth's ruin ; it is 
 Macbeth's own falseness that works it. When he first 
 appears on the stage, so honoured and trusted and loved, 
 and seemingly so loyal and true, he is already in correspond- 
 ence and treaty with the powers of darkness. Already he 
 
 Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, 
 
 A goodly apple rotten at the heart. 
 
 O what a goodly outside falsehood hath ! 
 
 Those wild figures he encounters on the Heath, near 
 Forres, only in fact give voice to the dire imaginings that 
 already have a home in his breast. 
 
 Evil into the mind of God or man 
 
 May come and go, so unapproved, and leave 
 
 No spot or blame behind. 
 
 But Macbeth has invited evil to stay and abide with him, 
 and is already saying, ' Evil, be thou my good.' 
 
 But the manner in which Shakespeare deals with these 
 dark inscrutable problems is very different from that in 
 which Milton deals with them; and what I have now to 
 suggest is that this manner was far from satisfying Milton, 
 and that Milton's dissatisfaction with it was one chief reason 
 why he was guilty of the impertinence, as it will seem to 
 many persons to be, of proposing to write another dramatic
 
 2i6 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 version of the Macbeth story. Briefly, Shakespeare deals 
 with these problems as one who feels their infinite mystery, 
 and that they are ' beyond the reaches of our souls.' Milton, 
 to speak plainly, deals with them in the spirit of a dogmatist 
 — of one who has an exegetic scheme ready drawn up, which 
 he perpetually enforces and reinforces. In this respect 
 Shakespeare's humanity exhibits itself in all its breadth and 
 depth ; and it must be allowed, I think, that Milton, with 
 all his culture and all his greatness, shows by the side of 
 him as one of narrower vision, and a less wide range of 
 sympathy. 
 
 The catholicity of Shakespeare's spirit — I use the word, 
 I need scarcely say, in no limited ecclesiastical sense — is 
 nowhere more amply displayed than in Afacbeth, whatever 
 faults in some respects might be found with this play. As 
 Dryden finely remarks of him, ' he was the man who, of all 
 modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and 
 most comprehensive soul' We may well apply to him 
 Virgil's untranslatable line : 
 
 Sunt lacrymse rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. 
 
 He had a profound sense of the pathos of things. ' But 
 yet the pity of it . . . the pity of it.' He certainly does 
 not spare the sinner. He certainly makes us hate his sin ; 
 but in him ' the quality of mercy is not strained.' As we 
 watch Macbeth drifting towards the precipice, it is not con- 
 tempt for his weakness that he excites overpoweringly within 
 us ; it is rather a profound compassion ; it is not a sense of 
 superiority and pride that we stand firm but a sense of 
 humility — a sense that we are of like passions with him, and 
 might too easily be drifting in a like direction. Pity and 
 terror purify our souls. We feel ourselves face to face 
 with
 
 MILTON'S ' MACBETH' 217 
 
 those mysteries which Heaven 
 Will not have earth to know. 
 
 We are conscious of the amazing shallowness of those who 
 ' take upon ' them the ' mystery of things, as if they ' were 
 God's spies.' We perceive with a new vividness that 
 
 There are more things in heaven and earth 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy ; 
 
 and that the truest reverence, and it may be that the 
 most exemplary ' faith,' are exhibited in the submissive 
 acceptance of the limitedness of human discovery and 
 knowledge. 
 
 In striking contrast is Milton's attitude. He has so 
 clearly, as he believes, reasoned out the matter, that he feels 
 more impatience than pity — more anger than sorrow — as he 
 narrates the fall of man. To him the event appears not so 
 much pathetic as shameful. If I may put it so, he holds a 
 brief for the Almighty as he conceives Him, and is perpetu- 
 ally defending Him from the charge of undue severity. He 
 is always insisting that Adam was made perfectly well able 
 to resist the tempter, had he been so minded. If he fell, 
 he had only himself to blame ; his Maker had done every- 
 thing for him that could be expected — everything that was 
 right. If he fell, 
 
 Whose fault ? 
 Whose but his own ? Ingrate, he had of me 
 All he could have ; I made him just and right, 
 Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. 
 Such I created all the Ethereal Powers 
 And Spirits, both them who stood and them who failed ; 
 Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. 
 
 Qui s'excuse s'acaise. And Milton's God, scarcely perhaps 
 a Being to attract men's devotion and love, ' protests too 
 much, methinks.' To Milton's intellect, indeed, there is no
 
 2i8 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 mystery in what seems to most men so profound a mystery. 
 Everything is amenable to argument, and can be made 
 entirely plain. 
 
 When first this Tempter crossed the gulf for hell, 
 I told ye then he should prevail, and speed 
 On his bad errand. Man should be seduced 
 And flattered out of all, believing lies 
 Against his Maker ; no decree of mine 
 Concurring to necessitate his fall, 
 Or touch with lightest moment of impulse 
 His free will, to his own inclining left 
 In even scale. 
 
 And so, with scarcely an exception, this merely hard- 
 headed, and therefore obviously limited manner, prevails in 
 Milton's treatment of this terrible tragedy. He writes for 
 the most part like some inexorable logician, and not like 
 a man conscious of the infirmities of his kind. Just the 
 same spirit expresses itself in Samson Ago?iistes, especially 
 in the scene between Samson and Dalilah. 
 
 All wickedness is wickedness ; that plea, therefore, 
 With God or man will gain thee no remission. 
 
 Milton was himself of a singularly lofty and strong 
 character, and lived throughout a life of noble and 
 sustained purposes. 
 
 ' Credible est ' ilium ' pariter vitiiscjuc locisque 
 Altius humanis exseruisse caput.' 
 
 And so he found it hard to make allowance — hard to feel 
 any pity — for the weaknesses of ordinary mortals. He had 
 in a high degree the faults of his virtues. And, as suggested 
 above, his genius, with all its rich natural endowments, and 
 with all the talents that learning and culture had contributed 
 to it, was yet narrower — less catholic — than that of Shake- 
 speare.
 
 MIL TON 'S ' MA CBE TH' 219 
 
 I am not, of course, attempting in this paper to discuss 
 the profound and awful questions that are brought before 
 us in Paradise Lost and in Macbeth. I am only calling 
 attention to the difference between the manner in which 
 these works, each in its own way so great and so splendid 
 and priceless, present them to us. And I trust I have 
 made it sufficiently clear how Milton would regard Shake- 
 speare's presentment of them as inadequate — would be per- 
 suaded that Shakespeare had not enough emphasised the 
 wilfulness of Macbeth's ruin, and so to his thinking had not 
 satisfactorily asserted 
 
 Eternal Providence, 
 And justified the ways of God to men.
 
 XVII 
 MILTON AND GRAY'S INN WALKS 
 
 (From the St James's Gazette for July 29 and 30, 1891) 
 
 EXCEPT the years he spent at Cambridge (1625-32), 
 and the following period (1632-38) which he spent at 
 Horton, near Windsor, and the months of his foreign tour 
 (1638-39), and the weeks he spent at Chalfont St Giles, 
 when the plague was raging in town, and possibly some time 
 when, before he went to St Paul's, he was at some school in 
 Essex, Milton's life was wholly passed in London. All these 
 exceptions would not amount to more than some fifteen 
 years ; and during the two longest of them — the Canibridge 
 and the Horton periods — he was perpetually revisiting 
 London, not only during the vacations, but, in one case at 
 least, during term. 
 
 Me tenet urhs reflua quam Thamesis alluit unda ; 
 
 Meque nee invitum pallia dulcis habet. 
 Jam nee arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camuni, 
 
 Nee dudum veliti me laris angit amor. 
 
 So that the connexion of Milton with London is singularly 
 close and intimate, and certainly at one epoch in its history 
 he was proud of the city with which he was thus incessantly 
 associated. And with devoted industry Professor Masson 
 and others have traced his footsteps from one locality to 
 
 220
 
 MILTON AND GRAY'S INN WALKS 221 
 
 another : from St Bride's Churchyard to Aldersgate Street, 
 and from Aldersgate Street to the Barbican ; and so to Hol- 
 born, and to Charing Cross and Whitehall, and to Petty 
 France, Westminster ; and then back to his old neighbour- 
 hood, to Holborn, and to Jewin Street in St Giles's, Cripple- 
 gate, by the side of the father to whom he was bound by no 
 common sympathy and affection, at no great distance from 
 the house in which, some sixty-six years before, he was born. 
 Thus he was no stranger and sojourner in town, as in a sense 
 Shakespeare was ; and his vicinities have been carefully noted. 
 But there is one London allusion in his works to which 
 attention has not, I think, been yet called ; and as it is of 
 some interest both for lovers of Milton and lovers of London, 
 I propose now to point it out and to illustrate it. 
 
 It occurs in the First of what he call his ' Elegies ' — the 
 one from which a quotation has already been given. It was 
 written in the spring of 1626, from London, at a time when 
 through some easily intelligible jar with his tutor, the Rev. 
 William Chappell — easily intelligible from what little we 
 know of the reverend gentleman's character, and from what 
 much we know of the character of the pupil in question— 
 the writer seems to have been temporarily ' sent down ' from 
 his university. It is addressed to his old schoolfellow, 
 Charles Deodati ; who, after leaving St Paul's had gone to 
 Oxford, and after leaving Oxford in December, 1625, was 
 residing for a while in Cheshire. It informs us pretty clearly 
 that though this undergraduate was under a cloud, the posi- 
 tion did not in the least trouble him. If this is exile, he 
 says, he likes exile ; he is free from care — meaning, probably, 
 unbothered with lectures and such frivolous interruptions of 
 serious study. He wishes Ovid (a favourite poet of his) had 
 never had anything worse to bear than he now has ; then he 
 of Tomi might have rivalled Homer, and have won the first
 
 222 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 place amongst the Latins ; for his time is all his own and all 
 devoted to the Muses, and the books, that are his life, wholly 
 ravish him. 
 
 Si sit hoc exilium patrios adiisse penates, 
 
 Et vacuum curis otia grata sequi, 
 Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemve recuso, 
 Lostus et exilii conditione fruor. 
 
 Tempora nam licet hie placidis dare Hbera musis, 
 Et totum rapient me, mea vita, libri. 
 
 And, when he is weary with reading, he goes to the theatre : 
 
 Exciplt bine fessum sinuosi pompi theatri, 
 Et vocat ad plausus garrula scena sues. 
 
 He briefly sketches the comedies that delight him ; but 
 evidently in these sketches he seems to have largely in his 
 mind the Latin stage and the Cantabrigian, which mainly 
 imitated the Latin stage, rather than the Elizabethan or 
 Jacobean. Then he refers to the tragedies that were to be 
 seen acted ; and here too his classics haunt him, as, indeed, 
 they always did ; but along with such memories we find 
 what may well be allusions to Romeo and Juliet and 
 possibly to King Richard III. : — 
 
 Seu peur infelix indelibata reliquit 
 
 Gaudia, et abruplo flendus amore peril ; 
 
 Seu ferus e tenebris ilerat Styga criminis ultor, 
 Conscia funereo pectora torre movens. 
 
 But, he proceeds, he does not always lie perdue under a 
 roof or in the city, or let the springtide hours go by unen- 
 
 joyed : — 
 
 Sed neque sub tecto semper ncc in urbc latemus, 
 Irrita nee nobis tempera veris eunt. 
 
 And now we come to the London passage, which has 
 hitherto, I believe, not been understood. Dr Garnett, in
 
 MILTON AND GRAY'S INN WALKS 223 
 
 his admirable little book on Milton — one of the best little 
 books yet written about him, and, indeed, worth much 
 more than many of the big ones — makes, I venture to think, 
 one slight slip here ; and where so much, so nearly all, is 
 so excellent, I trust I may, without offence, suggest a correc- 
 tion. Dr Garnett supposes the lines that now concern us 
 refer to Milton's residence at Horton ; conjecturing, without 
 any other evidence, that Milton pere had already bought 
 unto himself a country house, and that Milton /A is alluding 
 to this purchase. But I feel sure that a further inspection 
 of this passage will convince Dr Garnett that Milton means 
 some spot in the immediate neighbourhood of London — 
 of Milton's London. He calls it 'suburban,' and he de- 
 scribes it as haunted by what he elsewhere calls ' a store of 
 ladies,' bright-eyed and fascinating : he is evidently think- 
 ing of some fashionable promenade of the day. Even if he 
 might extend the adjective 'suburban' to include a village 
 some eighteen miles from London, as, indeed, in one of his 
 Latin letters he apparently does, yet he would scarcely speak 
 of this out-of-the-way hamlet as the thronged resort of the 
 reigning beauties. He might 'chance' see there 'with 
 nymph like step fair virgin pass,' and 
 
 As one who long in populous city pent, 
 Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, 
 Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe 
 Among the pleasant villages, and farms 
 Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight, 
 The smell of grain or tedded grass or kine 
 Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound ; 
 
 yet finds all his joy augmented if some sweet girl's face 
 brightens the landscape : — 
 
 What pleasing seemed for her now pleases more, 
 She most and in her looks sums all delight ;
 
 224 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 so on Milton sauntering through the green lanes at Horton 
 some such lonely apparition of loveliness might have dawned. 
 But ' bands of virgins ' — how were they likely to be dis- 
 porting themselves there ? 
 
 It seems to me fairly certain Milton in these lines is 
 referring to Gray's Inn Gardens. The place he describes 
 was suburban, as we have already remarked ; so was Gray's 
 Inn at that time. It was planted with elms : so were Gray's 
 Inn Gardens. It was the haunt of ' society ; ' so again were 
 these gardens. Finally, the context proves that he means 
 some place close to London. 
 
 The words are as follows : — 
 
 Nos quoque lucus habet vicina consitus ulmo, 
 
 Atque suburbani nobilis umbra loci. 
 Srepius hie blandas spirantia sidera flammas 
 
 Virgineos videas prceteriisse choros. 
 Ah ! quoties dignee stupui miracula formse, 
 
 Quce possit senium vel reparare Jovis. 
 
 And for four couplets this susceptible young man — ^his 
 susceptibiUty was one day to cost him dear — raves about 
 the exquisite complexions and figures that he beholds in 
 this favoured and favourite spot. All previous beauties — 
 the Heroids, the Persians, the Danaans, the Trojans, the 
 Italians, must give place to these : — 
 
 Gloria virginibus debetur prima Britannis ; 
 Extera, sal tibi sit, femina, posse sequi. 
 
 London — too happy London — encloses within its walls all 
 the loveliness the world contains. There are not so many 
 stars in the clear sky as there are fair maidens in its streets. 
 For himself, he is preparing to leave these blessed precincts 
 as soon as he may, while yet heart-whole ; for it is deter- 
 mined he is to go back to Cambridge. The lines at the
 
 MILTON AND GRAY'S INN WALKS 225 
 
 end of the poem read as if this decision had been arrived 
 at — as if his peace had been made with Dr Bainbridge, the 
 Master of Christ's, and his transference from the ' side ' of 
 Mr Chappell to that of Mr Tovey had been successfully 
 effected — since he wrote the opening passage, 
 
 Tuque urbs, Dardaniis, Londinum, structa colonis 
 
 Turrigerum late conspicienda caput, 
 Tu nimium felix intra tua mcenia claudis 
 
 Quicquid formosi pendulus orbis habet. 
 
 Ast ego, dum pueri sinit indulgentia cccci, 
 Mcenia quam subito linquere fausta paro ; 
 
 Et vitare procul malafida; infamia Circes 
 Atria, divini Molyos usus ope. 
 
 Stat quoque juncosas Cami remeare paludes, 
 Atque iterum raucee murmur adire scholee. 
 
 To the popularity of Gray's Inn Walks, and the elms that 
 threw their shade over them, there are many references in 
 seventeenth-century literature and elsewhere. 'There is 
 good reason for believing,' writes Mr Douthwaite in his in- 
 teresting volume on Grafs Inn : Its History and Associa- 
 tions, that the gardens of Gray's Inn were laid out in the 
 year 1597 under the direction of Bacon. In that year it was 
 ordered "that the surame of ;^7, 15^-. 4^. [some ^^35 of 
 our money] due to Mr Bacon for planting trees in the walkes 
 be paid next term.'" In the following year another order 
 was made for a further ' supply of more yonge elme trees in 
 the places of such as are decayed, and that a new Rayle and 
 quicksett hedge bee set uppon the upper long walke at the 
 good discretion of Mr Bacon and Mr Wilbraham, soe that 
 the charges thereof does not exceed the sum of seventy 
 pounds.' On the 29th of April, a.d. 1600, it was ordered 
 'that there shall bee payed and allowed unto Mr Bacon 
 for money disbursed about the garnishing of the walkes, 
 
 P
 
 226 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 ^60, 6i-. 8^.' . . . The records of the society contain an 
 account of such trees as existed in the year 1583 : — ' In the 
 Grene Courte, xi Elmes and iii Walnut trees ; in the Pannyer- 
 mans Close, v Elmes . . . ; vi Elmes in the Est side of the 
 said Close ; vii Elmes in the North End of the Close ; xx'« 
 Elmes in the West side of the said Close . . . . ; one Elme 
 in Greis Inne Close . . . ; eighteen Elmes standing in and 
 near the Mud Wall and Buyldinges . . . ; xix Elmes in and 
 neare the Walk enclosed, and iii young Elmes in the West 
 end of the Walke and one in the North side, and one younge 
 Ashe near the Seate.' Thus Milton might well speak of 
 these gardens as ' Lucus, vicina consitus ulmo.' 
 
 Naturally enough these grounds and terraces, already so 
 richly wooded before the author of the famous essay on 
 ' Gardens ' gave them some finishing touches, became ' the 
 most fashionable lounge in London.' The current topo- 
 graphical works give us illustrative quotations from Stowe, 
 from Howell, from Pepys, from Dryden, from Addison. ' I 
 hold your walks,' writes Howell from Venice in 1621 — just 
 five years before Milton penned his Elegy — to a Gray's 
 Inn friend, ' to be the pleasantest place about London, and 
 that you have there the choicest society.' Mr Pepys's diary 
 record for June 30, 1661, ' Lord's Day,' runs thus : — ' Here 
 I to Graye's Inn Walk all alone, and with great pleasure 
 seeing the fine ladies walk there.' Under the date May 4, 
 1662, the entry is : — ' When Church was done, my wife and I 
 walked to Graye's Inn to observe fashions of the ladies, be- 
 cause of my wife's making some clothes.' 
 
 As late as 1780 the neighbourhood was fairly rural. Sir 
 Samuel Romilly, to quote again Mr Douthwaite, in a letter 
 to his sister, dated from his chambers in Gray's Inn Square, 
 says: — 'My rooms are exceedingly lively .... The 
 moment the sun peeps out I am in the country . . . having
 
 MILTON AND GRAY'S INN WALKS 227 
 
 only one row of houses between me and Highgate and 
 Hampstead.' And, in one of the Essays of Elia, Lamb 
 speaks with enthusiasm of the beauty of these gardens as he 
 remembered them, ' better than five-and-twenty years ago ; ' 
 and adds : ' They are still the best gardens of any of the 
 Inns of Court — my beloved Temple not forgotten — have the 
 gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and 
 law-breathing. Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon 
 their gravel walks.' 
 
 Yes, the genius loci is surely Bacon. We think of all the 
 others as but a slight and fleeting tribe, like the ghosts that 
 gathered round the trench Odysseus dug in the land of 
 Cimmeria : — 
 
 a'l 5' ayipovTo 
 \f/vxal vve^ 'Ep^/Seiis veKvwv KaTaT€0v7]WTO}v 
 v}jp.(pai t' rjtdeol re, Tro\iiT\T]Toi re yipovres, 
 irapdeviKai r' oLToKaL 
 
 Amaryllis and those who sported with her in the shade, 
 Neaera with the tangled hair, the busy quidnuncs of many 
 generations, the glittering kings and queens of society, and 
 many another personage once of note and fame^haply all 
 these still in spirit hover about the scene that they made 
 gay and lively with their gossip or their beauty ; certainly, 
 in a bright motley train, their images pass before us as we 
 visit the parterre so familiar to the originals when they had 
 their day. But they melt into thin air when Bacon presents 
 himself to our fancy ; their light badinage dies away as we 
 listen to his voice. He had chambers close by, in what 
 was then called Coney Court, now Gray's Inn Square ; and 
 there many of his works were undoubtedly written. In his 
 earlier days this was his chief London residence, and it was 
 so in his later. ' After he had sold York House and reduced 
 his establishment at Gorhambury, he confined himself chiefly
 
 22S FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 to his lodgings in Gray's Inn.' Spedding mentions his hav- 
 ing a long conversation with Sir Walter Raleigh in Gray's 
 Inn Walks, just before Raleigh's last fatal voyage' to the 
 new world. 
 
 I trust those who care to look at old places, and picture 
 them radiant with life and movement as they once were, 
 will the next time they visit Gray's Inn Walks or when first 
 they visit them — 
 
 Most sweet it is, with un-uplifted eyes, 
 To pace the ground, if path there be or none. 
 While a fair region round the traveller lies, 
 WTiich he forbears again to look upon. 
 Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, 
 The work of fancy or some happy tone 
 Of meditation — 
 
 permit the figure of the young Milton to have a place by 
 the side of the ageing Bacon. There could be no more 
 striking juxtaposition. Both men were endowed with a 
 passionate love of knowledge and truth, and with noble 
 powers of expression ; though in character and in conduct, 
 as also in the directions their geniuses led them, the differ- 
 ence was profound. At the close of James I.'s reign. 
 Bacon's life lay behind him, Milton's in front ; in the one 
 case we have splendid performance, in the other splendid 
 promise. 
 
 Professor Masson, in whose investigations the prcefe?i'idzi7n 
 ingenium Scotorum so fully displays itself, plausibly imagines 
 that, as the Mermaid Tavern, a great resort of the Elizabethan 
 wits, was close to Milton's birthplace — one of its entrances 
 seems to have been in Bread Street, just opposite the sign 
 of the Spread Eagle that marked the shop and the dwelling 
 of Milton's father — Milton, when a boy, may have seen 
 Shakespeare and been seen by him. Professor Masson
 
 MILTON AND GRAY'S INN WALKS 229 
 
 supposes that in the 'year 1614, when the dramatist paid 
 his last known visit to London, he may have spent an 
 evening at the Mermaid, and, going down Bread Street 
 with Ben Jonson, on his way may have passed a fair child 
 of six playing at his father's door.' Assuredly, with not less 
 plausibility, we may conceive Bacon and Milton meeting 
 each other in these Gray's Inn Walks ; and, at all events, 
 take for granted that the younger man would gaze with 
 curious interest and respect on the great philosopher with 
 whose writings he perpetually shows his familiarity. Pro- 
 bably enough, we may believe also that the great philosopher 
 would return the compliment, as the younger man was of 
 so noticeable and attractive an aspect, ' the cynosure of 
 neighbouring eyes.' 
 
 But however often they had passed each other in former 
 years, Bacon, at the time when Milton was writing the lines 
 that have suggested this short article, was conspicuous by 
 his absence from the walks which his ' due feet ' had for so 
 long never failed to tread. Elegia Prima was probably 
 written in the first half of April 1626. The Easter Term 
 at Cambridge that year began on the 19th of April, and 
 Milton ' kept ' it. On the 9th of April Bacon died. About 
 the end of March he had set out from his Gray's Inn 
 Chambers for his home at St Alban's, or possibly only for 
 a drive northwards. At Highgate ' he took advantage of an 
 unseasonable fall of snow to try whether it would preserve 
 flesh from putrefaction, as salt does.' He caught a chill, 
 and as he tells us himself in a letter to Lord Arundel, ' when 
 I came to your lordship's house I was not able to go back, 
 and was forced to take up my lodging there, where your 
 housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me.' The 
 story is that this ' careful and diligent ' housekeeper, bent 
 on doing him all honour, put him in the best bed ; but the
 
 230 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 best bed, long unused in the absence of the family, was 
 damp. ' This brought on an attack of what would now be 
 called bronchitis, which lasted some days, and ended (as 
 that complaint so often does with people of all ages) in 
 sudden suffocation.' Early on Easter Sunday morning 
 Lord Bacon, as he is oddly styled, left his 'name and 
 memory ' ' to men's charitable speeches and to foreign 
 nations and the next ages.' 
 
 Thus, while Milton was composing his sprightly elegiacs 
 hard by Cheapside, on Highgate Hill Bacon lay dying. 
 ' Two jars are there,' says the old Greek poet, * that stand 
 at the threshold of Zeus, of gifts that he gives — one of evil 
 things and one of good.' But which are which is, after all, 
 not easy to say. ' Above all, believe it the sweetest canticle 
 is ' Nunc Dimittis,' when a man hath obtained worthy ends 
 and expectations. Death has this also : that it openeth the 
 gate to good fame and extinguisheth envy. ' Extinctus 
 amabitur idem.' So Bacon in his celebrated essay.
 
 XVIII 
 MILTON NOTES 
 
 (i) AN UNEXPLAINED PASSAGE IN 'COM US' 
 (From The Athenmiim for April 20, 1889) 
 
 IT may seem surprising that, after so much industry and 
 acuteness have been given to the elucidation of 
 Comus there should yet remain a passage imperfectly or 
 not at all explained. Yet such appears to be the case. 
 The passage occurs in the Lady's Song, when she is lost in 
 the wood : — 
 
 Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that llvest unseen 
 
 Within thy airy shell. 
 By slow Meander's margent green, 
 And in the violet-embroidered vale 
 Where the love-lorn nightingale 
 
 Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well. 
 
 No one has satisfactorily explained why the Meander is 
 mentioned here ; and no one has considered whether there 
 is, or is not, any special local reference in the lines that 
 follow. 
 
 I. As to the introduction of the Meander, Keightley of 
 the leading commentators seems to be the only one who 
 makes any suggestion, and the suggestion he makes cannot 
 
 231
 
 232 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 be called very valuable. ' It is possible,' he says, ' that he 
 assigns the bank of the Meander as the abode of Echo be- 
 cause its course goes backwards and forwards, returning on 
 itself like the repercussion of an echo.' Surely this is the 
 very type of what are termed far-fetched interpretations. 
 Yet the real reason is obvious enough, if we remember how 
 richly and fully Milton's memory was furnished with the 
 poetry and the lore of the ancient classics. The real reason 
 is that the Meander was a famous haunt of swans, and the 
 swan was a favourite bird with the Greek and Latin writers 
 — one to whose sweet singing they perpetually allude. 
 There are abundant illustrations of these two statements 
 to be found in /Eschylus, Plato, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, 
 Ovid, etc. Here are a few that speak of the swan as a 
 sweet singer : Socrates, when in his last moments, as de- 
 scribed in the Phcedo, he remonstrates with his friends 
 for thinking he regarded his coming fate as a calamity, tells 
 them they seem to give him credit for less divination than 
 swans possess, which, though they have sung in their 
 former days, yet sing most fully and frequently when they 
 rejoice at the prospect of their departure to be with the 
 god whose servants they are; that is, to be with Apollo, 
 'rig so/XE, tZ:v xvxvuv doxu) (pavAoripog v/iTv slvai rrjv fMavrizriv, 
 01 sTiidav alaQuvrai on bit ahro-oQ avo&aviTv, adovTsg '/.at iv rp 
 Tpoe&iv y^pdv^, rciTi hri 'xXusra xal /xccX/ora oioousi, yiyriSong on 
 //,iXAo-jSi 'xa.pa, rov dsov d'^nivcci ovTrep Dspd'aovrsg. And below in 
 this passage, which should all be read in this connexion, he 
 speaks of the swans as rou 'AffoXXwvog ovrsg, /luvnxo!, and 
 rrpoiibliTig to, b A'idov dyada, and that for these reasons they 
 sing on their death-day more excellently (dia(psp6\iTug) than 
 ever before. See Cicero's reproductions of these words in 
 the Tusculan Disputations (i. 30, 73) : 'Cygni qui non sine 
 causa ApoUini dicati sunt sed quod ab eo divinationem
 
 MILTON NOTES 233 
 
 habere videantur quia providentes quid in morte boni sit 
 cum cantu et voluptate moriantur.' Lucretius contrasts the 
 song of the swan with the cry of the crane ; see iv. 181 — the 
 same couplet is repeated below, 11. 910-1 : — 
 
 Parvxis ut est cycni melior canor, ille gruum quam 
 Clamor in setheriis dispersus nubibus austri. 
 
 And elsewhere with that of the swallow (iii. 6) : 
 
 Quid enim contendat hirundo 
 Cycnis ? 
 
 With Virgil, too, it is the type of sweet singing, as the owl 
 and the goose of cacophony ; see Ecl.^ viii. 55 : — 
 
 Certent et cycnis uluhie. 
 
 Ecl.^ ix. 36 : — 
 
 argutos inter strepere anser olores. 
 
 Compare ib. 29 : — 
 
 Cantantes sublime ferent ad sidera cycni. 
 
 In ^neid, i. 398, an augury is drawn from certain swans 
 who at first, scared by an eagle, fly earthwards, but at last 
 wing their way aloft : 
 
 Et csetu cinxere polum cantusque dedere. 
 
 See Mart., i. 54, 8 : — 
 
 Inter Ledaeos ridetur corvus olores. 
 
 And such quotations might be endlessly multiplied. And 
 scarcely less abundant are passages of hke tenor in the 
 modern poets, especially in those of the Elizabethan age. 
 Thus in Shakespeare's King John (V. vii. 21), when the 
 fever-parched monarch has, we are told, broken out into 
 singing, Prince Henry is represented as saying : —
 
 234 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 'Tis strange that death should sing. 
 I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan. 
 Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, 
 And from the organ pipe of frailty sings 
 His soul and body to their lasting rest. 
 
 So Lucrece, 1 6 1 1 : — 
 
 And now this pale swan in her watery nest 
 Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending. 
 
 And in accordance with the old classical tradition, just as 
 Horace alludes to Pindar as a swan (' Multa Dircseum levat 
 aura cygnum,' Od., iv. 2, 25), and speaks of himself as 
 about to be changed into a swan {Od., ii. 20, 15), so 
 Ben Jonson in his noble memorial lines apostrophizes Shake- 
 speare as the ' Sweet Swan of Avon.' Assuredly the swan 
 myth deserves the attention of folk-lore students. As a fact, 
 according to Mr Harting, this bird ' has no song properly 
 so called,' but it has 'a soft and rather plaintive note, 
 monotonous, but not disagreeable.' 
 
 What concerns us further to notice just now is that one 
 
 of its chief reputed haunts was the Meander. Thus Ovid's 
 
 Herotdes, vii. i : — 
 
 Sic ubi fata vocant udis abjectus in herbis 
 Ad vada Maeandri concinit albus olor. 
 
 And that this was a favourite neighbourhood may be illus- 
 trated from Homer's ///ad', ii. 462, though the river specially 
 named there is the Cayster, which flowed a little to the 
 north of the Meander, just on the other side of the Messogis 
 mountains, which divided Caria from Lydia : — 
 
 TQ>v 5' war' opvidwv weTerivQiv tOvea ttoXXo. 
 Xtjj'cDj' -^ yepavcov rj kvkvwv oovXixoSelpuv 
 'Aaiij} iy "Kei/MQivL Kavarplov d/xcpi peedpa 
 ^vda Kal 'ivOa TroruvTai dyaWofxeva iTTEpvyeaaiv, 
 K\ayyr]86v irpoKaOi'^ovruv, a/j.apayei §i re \eipMV' 
 ujs tCov edfea noWa, k. t. X.
 
 MILTON NOTES 235 
 
 Comp. Virg., Ain., vii. 699 : — 
 
 Ceu quondam nivei liquida inter nubila cycni 
 Cum sese e pastu referunt et longa canoros 
 Dant per colla modos. Sonat amnis et Asia longe 
 Pulsa palus. 
 
 Ovid's Trist., v. i, 11 : — 
 
 Utque jacens ripa deflere Caystrius ales 
 
 Dicitur ore suam deficiente necem, 
 Sic ego, Sarmaticas longe projectus in oras 
 
 Efticio, taciturn ne mihi funus eat. 
 
 Perhaps it is worth noticing that the modern name of the 
 Cayster is the Little Meinder ; Meinder being obviously a 
 corruption of Meander. Conceivably, therefore, the Cayster 
 was of old known also by the name of Meander. In any 
 case the rivers are contiguous, and what is said of the 
 swans haunting the one applies also to the other. 
 
 Thus in the mention of the Meander by Milton there is 
 no particular reference to the sinuous course of the river, 
 except so far as the epithet ' slow ' refers to it. What he is 
 thinking of is the swanneries that were to be found on its 
 banks and in its vicinity. 
 
 2. As he thought of the Meander as the haunt of the 
 swan, what special haunt of the nightingale was in his mind 
 in the lines that follow ? Does he mean no place in par- 
 ticular by ' the violet-embroidered vale ' ? Observe the 
 ' the.' What, then, is the vale that is present to his imagi- 
 nation ? 
 
 I think there can scarcely be a doubt he is thinking of 
 the woodlands close by Athens to the north-west, through 
 which the Cephissus flowed, and where stood the birthplace 
 of Sophocles, 
 
 Singer of sweet Colonus and its child.
 
 236 FOLIA UTTER ART A 
 
 He is thinking of the famous passage in the famous ' chorus ' 
 where Sophocles chants the praises of his native hamlet. See 
 CEd. Col., 668 : 
 
 Yiviirirov, i;ivt, rdaSe ^cipas 
 LKov TO. Kpancrra ■ya.'s ^iravKa, 
 rbv apyrjTa KoKwvbv, evd' 
 a Xlyeia iXLVvperai. 
 Oa/xi^ovaa /j-dXiar' drjouiu 
 xXcjpais ii7r6 ISdcraaLS, 
 rbv oivuira v^/xovcra Kurcrbv 
 Kal rav S-fiarov Oeov 
 (pvWdda /uLvpLOKKapTTou dvrjXLOu 
 dvyvefjibv re irdvTUV 
 
 Of all the land far famed for goodly steeds 
 
 Thou com'st, O stranger, to the noblest spot, 
 
 Colonus, glistening bright ; 
 
 Where evermore in thickets freshly green 
 
 The clear-voiced nightingale 
 
 Still haunts and pours her song, 
 
 By purpHng ivy hid. 
 
 And the thick leafage sacred to the god 
 
 With all its myriad fruits, 
 
 By mortal's foot untouched. 
 
 By sun's hot ray unscathed, 
 
 Sheltered from every blast. — Plitinptre. 
 
 Three things point to this identification : the fame of the 
 passage, the verb 'mourneth,' and the epithet 'violet-em- 
 broidered.' The passage is so famous that it could scarcely 
 be absent from Milton's mind when he looked through his 
 classical stores in search of a nightingale's haunt. Then 
 has not the verb ' mourneth ' been suggested by Sophocles's 
 lj,iv\jpiTai. The commentators quote Virgil's 
 
 Flct noctem ramoque sedens miserabile carmen 
 Integral. 
 
 But /iivupiTui, which is best rendered here by ' trills,' might
 
 MILTON NOTES 237 
 
 be taken to mean 'utters plaintively'; so /j^ivvpil^siv, to com- 
 plain in a low tone, Lat. viinurire. Lastly, surely that 
 epithet ' violet-embroidered ' is a translation of the Greek 
 hcri(pa.voc, ; and Joari(pavoi was a current, and, as Aristophanes 
 lets us know {Acharn., 636), a dearly-prized epithet of 
 Athens ; and Colonus, as we have seen, is a suburb of 
 Athens. This epithet seems first to have been bestowed by 
 Pindar ; see his Frag., No. 46 (p. 346 of Donaldson's 
 edition) : — 
 
 a'l re \nrapal Kal Lo<TTi(pavoi. Koi aoidipLOt 
 'EXXaSos ^peicr/xa, ArXeicat 'Adijvai, dai/xoviov 
 IlToXieOpov. 
 
 It occurs again in Aristophanes, Knights, 1322 : — 
 
 eV roldLv lo<jTe<pdi'ois otVet rats apxaiaiaiv 
 'Adrjvais. 
 
 It may have been given with reference to the violets that 
 abound in the neighbourhood (see the quotation from 
 Murray's Greece given below), or to the colour in certain lights 
 of Hymettus and other mountains that stand around the 
 city (see again the quotation just referred to), or it may 
 have arisen from some poetic fantasy. Mr Swinburne finely 
 illustrates it in his glowing lines to the glory of Athens in 
 his Erechtheus. A choral ode sings how the gods, arbitrat- 
 ing between certain claimants, 
 
 Gave Pallas the strife's fair stake, 
 The lordship and love of the lovely land, 
 The grace of the town that hath on it for crown 
 But a headband to wear 
 
 Of violets one-hued with her hair. 
 
 The 'vale,' then, is the valley of Cephissus. That it is so 
 seems confirmed by certain lines in the description of Athens 
 in Paradise Regained, iv. 244-6 ; —
 
 238 _ FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 See there the olive grove of Academe, 
 
 Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird 
 
 Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long. 
 
 The Attic bird is certainly the nightingale (see Mart., Epigr., 
 i. 46) ; for Philomela, as Mr Jerram reminds us in his 
 excellent edition of Paradise Regained, was the legendary 
 daughter of Pandion, king of Athens. And the Academy 
 was situated at no great distance from the hill or knoll of 
 Colonus ; it was a little to the south-west of it. Plutarch 
 speaks of the district as ' the best wooded of all the suburbs ' 
 {dsvdpo(popuTdrriv vpoaffrsiujv) • see again Jerram's Paradise 
 Regained. 
 
 So very pertinent a quotation is given from ' Mr Hughes ' 
 in Murray's Greece, ed. 1872, that a few sentences of it must 
 be here reproduced : — 
 
 We arrived at the banks of the Cephissus, the ancient rival of 
 Ilissus and its superior in utility, flowing through the fertile plains 
 which it still adorns with verdure, fruits and flowers. A scene more 
 delightful can scarcely be conceived than the gardens on its banks, 
 which extend from the Academy up to the hills of Colonus. . . . 
 In the opening of the year the whole grove is vocal with the melody of 
 nightingales, and the ground is carpeted with violets, those national 
 flowers of Athens ; at its close the purple and yellow clusters, the 
 glory of Bacchus, hang round the trellis work with which the numerous 
 cottages and villas are adorned. . . . Nor can anything be more 
 charming than the views which present themselves to the eye through 
 vistas of dark foliage : the temple-crowned Acropolis, the empurpled 
 summits of Hymettus, Anchesmus, and Pentelicus ; or the waving out- 
 lines of Corydalus, ^^galeos, and Parnes. . . . This paradise owes its 
 chief beauty and fertility to the perennial fountains of the Cephissus 
 (ffi'fl'. Col., 685), over whose innumerable rills those soft breezes 
 flow which, according to the ancient muse (Eurip., Med., 835), were 
 wafted l)y the Cytherean queen herself.
 
 MIL TON NO TES 239 
 
 (2) THE NAME LYCIDAS 
 (From The Athenaum for Aug. i, 1891) 
 
 OF the many pastoral names at his service, why did 
 Milton select Lycidas to designate his college friend 
 Edward King ? Commentators refer us to Virgil's Ninth 
 Eclogue, in which two shepherds — Lycidas and Moeris — 
 discourse on certain ejectments that are taking place, and 
 also on certain things poetical. Both are themselves verse- 
 writers, and gracefully quote each other's songs. Lycidas 
 seems to accept the title of ' poeta,' though he modestly 
 shrinks from that of ' vates ' : — 
 
 Et me fecere poetam 
 Pierides, sunt et mihi carmina ; me quoque dicunt 
 Vatem pastores ; sed non ego credulus illis ; 
 Nam neque adhuc Vario videor nee dicere Cinna 
 Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores. 
 
 And this Vergilian use of the name, probably enough, was 
 in Milton's mind when he wrote his exquisite monody. 
 But still more, I wish now to suggest, was he influenced in 
 his choice by three other poets, with whose works he was 
 certainly well acquainted, and even familiar, viz., Theocritus, 
 and two of the Italian pastoralists, Sannazaro and Giovanni 
 Baptista Amaltei. 
 
 In one of the most delightful of Theocritus's idyls we are 
 introduced to a goatherd Lycidas. As Simichidas with his 
 friends Eucritus and Amyntas were on the road to a certain 
 festival, they met another wayfarer; it was Lycidas, a 
 goatherd, as everybody might see who looked at him : — 
 
 Ka\ TLV odirav 
 ia6\ov avu Moi'craicrt KiidojuiKbu eupo/xes avbpa 
 oiivojxa ixiv AvKidav, I'js 5' atTroXoj ovde k€ rts fitv 
 iiyjolrjaev I5u>v, inel aiiroXip ^^ox tipKec,
 
 240 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 We learn that he is a well-known minstrel : — 
 
 avptKTav /xey inrdpoxoy ^v re vofjuvaiv 
 
 'iv T d/J,T]Trjpe(Ta(. 
 
 And with little delay Simichidas proposes that they shall 
 pastoral it together : — 
 
 Boi;/co\to(r5w/uecr^a' rc^x' i^Tspos dWov ovaael. 
 
 Lycidas, after deprecating extravagant praise, sings a song, 
 some of whose echoes may w^ell have attracted Milton's ears 
 when he was brooding over the loss of a friend by shipwreck, 
 as certainly they were not forgotten when he wrote the 
 ' Hymn on the Nativity.' It speaks of one Ageanax, who 
 is voyaging to Mitylene; and promises him calm seas, if 
 only he will deliver Lycidas from the love wherewith he is 
 consumed : — 
 
 "EtrcreTai ^ XyeavaKTi koKo^ ifKbo^ eh lAvrCKavav , 
 Xurav e4>' iffweplots tpicpois v6tos vypa dtd'Kr] 
 Kifiara, xdipiw;' 6't' eTr' wKeavi^ 7r65as '(T%€t, 
 aiKev rbv AvKl5ap oTrTihfXivov i^ 'A(ppo5iTas 
 pvcTTjTai' 6epiJ.(Js yap ^pws avTw fie KaraiOei. 
 Xa.\Kv6ves (jTopeaevvTi to. KUfxara t6.v re 6a.\a<jaav 
 rbv re vorrov t6v t' e^pov 8s iax^-ra <pvKia Kiue?. 
 a\Kvoves yXavKOLS 'NrjpTjlcn rat re fxaXidTO. 
 apvidwv €(pi\y]dev, ocraiS r^ Trep i^ aXos dypa. 
 ibpia iravTa yivoLTo, Kal evTrXoos 6pixov 'lkoito. 
 
 An eclogue of Joh. Bapt. Amaltheus is entitled Zj- 
 cidas : — 
 
 His deploratum in sylvis nemorumque latebris 
 Dicemus Lycidse musam ; quern flumina circum 
 Quern flevere suo spoliati gramine colles. 
 
 Lycidas, it appears, has to leave the land that loves 
 
 him, 
 
 Jussus terras lustrare vepostas ;
 
 MIL TON NO 'I ES 24 1 
 
 and in this his last song bids it adieu : — 
 
 Effudit miseros extremo hoc carmine questus. 
 
 The lovely hills and the fields that the Muses haunt, and 
 the liquid fountains and the caves that neighbour the 
 fountains, and the woodland shades — he bids them all 
 adieu. From their embrace the impious fates tear him 
 asunder to traverse ' the monstrous world,' 
 
 Ut videam iratas errantia monslra per undas. 
 
 He weeps for the so sweet scenes of so many happy 
 memories, which he must now needs quit. He bethinks 
 him of the gentle breezes amidst which he had sung so 
 gaily, and prays them to be with him on his voyage : — 
 
 Vos placidce salvete aurje, mecumque per sequor 
 Atque per insuetos mecum decurrite campos — 
 
 Nunc vero quoniam superi tot gaudia noctis 
 Invidere, trucis tentare pericula ponti, 
 Et Pyrenreo considere vertice certum est. 
 
 Lastly, a certain eclogue by Actius Syncerus Sannazarius, 
 gave associations to the name Lycidas, which certainly in 
 some degree determined Milton's choice. This is the eclogue 
 entitled Phillis, or Phyllis in the old spelling (which was 
 probably inspired by a false etymology.) Like Milton's 
 poem, it is an elegy. Two shepherds, Lycidas and Mycon, 
 on the anniversary of Phillis's death, recall that sad day and 
 all its distresses : — 
 
 Ecce dies aderat, charam qua Phyllida terrae 
 Condidimus, tumuloque pias deflevimus umbras. 
 
 Mycon urges Lycidas to testify their grief and their love 
 in some threnody : — 
 
 Sed tu, siquid habes, veteres quod lugeat ignes, 
 Quod manes cineresque diu testetur amatos, 
 
 Q
 
 242 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 Incipe ; quandoquidem molles tibi littus arenas 
 Sternit, et insani posuerunt murmura fluctus. 
 
 And Standing by Phillis's tomb Lycidas wails his wail. 
 Phillis, it appears, was to have been his bride ; and he can- 
 not live without her. What place will the sea-gods find for 
 him in their domain, for he cannot but have done with the 
 earth, and will become ' Uquidi novus incola ponti ? ' Who, 
 who was it that snatched her from his arms ? He will seek 
 her in the deep : — 
 
 Nunc juvat immensi fines lustrare profundi ; 
 Perque procellosas errare licentius undas 
 Tritonum immistum turbis, scopulosaque cete 
 Inter et informes horrenti corpore Phocas. 
 
 Then, forgetting the swift extinction to which he had just 
 sentenced himself, he vows to build altars and offer sacrifices 
 to his lost love. Panope and her sisters shall weave dances 
 in her honour. And she shall become a deity. 
 
 At tu sive altum felix colis eethera, seu jam 
 Elysios inter manes ctetusque verendos 
 [Midst ' solemn troops and sweet societies '] 
 Lethjeos sequeris per stagna liquentia pisces ; 
 Seu legis osternos formoso poUice flores, 
 Narcissumque crocumque, et vivaces amaranthos, 
 Et violis teneras misces pallentibus algas, 
 Adspice nos mitisque veni ; tum numen aquarum 
 Semper eris, semper Itetum piscantibus omen. 
 
 Compare Milton's words : — 
 
 Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore 
 In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 
 To all that wander in that perilous flood. 
 
 P.S. — Since writing the above note, I find with much 
 pleasure that Mr Symonds, in his Renaissajice in Italy, 
 has called attention to the influence on Milton of the 
 Renaissance Latin ver.se, though he does not refer to the 
 special poems I have named.
 
 MILTON NOTES 243 
 
 DID MILTON SERVE IN THE PARLIA- 
 MENTARY ARMY? 
 
 (From 77/6' Academy for Oct. 31, 1876) 
 
 IN the second volume, pp. 472, et seq., of his Life of Mil- 
 ton, Professor Masson raises the question whether the 
 poet ever was in arms among the Parliamentarians. He 
 seems to feel that Milton ought to have been so ; and also he 
 finds in his writings a singularly minute acquaintance with 
 military matters, of which he gives some very interesting 
 illustrations. On the whole. Professor Masson concludes 
 that Milton did not actually serve. ' The proof positive,' 
 he says, ' that Milton was not in the Parliamentary army is 
 furnished by his own hand ; ' and he presently proceeds to 
 quote the famous sonnet written, 'When the Assault was 
 intended to the City.' Strangely enough, he overlooks a 
 passage in the Defensio Secunda, where Milton speaks ex- 
 plicitly and fully on this very point. It would seem that 
 he was conscious that some persons in his own time thought, 
 as his learned biographer in ours, that he ought to have 
 taken his place in the ranks, and he vindicates himself at 
 some length. Possibly he may have suffered some appeals 
 of conscience on the subject. We may be sure he had fully 
 debated the question with himself in that inner 'forum.' 
 He was not the man to shrink from any duty, however 
 distasteful, that he recognised to be a duty, 'were it the 
 meanest under-service, if God by his secretary — conscience — 
 enjoin it, it were sad for me if I should draw back,' The 
 passage from the Second Defence is as follows : — 
 
 Atque illi quidem (those who took up arms for the laws and religion, 
 Deo perinde confisi, servitutem honestissimis armis pepulere ; iiijtis
 
 244 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 laudis etsi nnllaiit partem niihi vindico, a reprehensione tamen vel 
 timiditatis vel ignariae, siqua infertur, facile ne tueor. 
 
 ' Neque enim militicE labores et periada sic defiigi, ul non alia ratione 
 et operam multo utiliorem nee minora cum periculo meis civibus navarim 
 et animum dubiis in rebus neque demissum unquam neque ullius invidiiV! 
 vel etiam mortis plus requo metuentem pra;stiterim. Nam cum ab 
 adolescentulo humanioribus essem studiis ut qui maxime deditus ct 
 ingenio semper quam corpore validior, posthabita castrensi opera, qua 
 me grcgarius quilibct robustior facile superesset, ad ea me contuli quil)us 
 plus potui ; ut parte mei meliore ac potiore, si saperem, non deteriore, 
 ad rationes patria; causamque banc prxstantissimam quantum maxime 
 possem momentum accederem. Sic itaque existimabam si illos Deus 
 res gerere tam prceclaras voluit, esse itidem alios a quibus gestas dici pro 
 dignitale atque ornari et defensam armis veritatem ratione etiam (quod 
 unicum est presidium vere ac proprie humanum) defendi voluerit. Unde 
 est ut dum illos invictos acie viros admiror, de mea interim provincia 
 non querar ; immo mihi gratuler et gratias insuper largitori munerum 
 ccelesti iterum summas agam obtigisse talem ut aliis invidenda multo 
 magis quam mihi ullo mode poenitentia videatur. 
 
 Relying on the Divine assistance, they used every honourable exer- 
 tion to break the yoke of slavery; of the praises of which, though I 
 claim no share myself, yet I can easily repel any charge which may 
 be adduced against me, either of want of courage, or want of zeal. 
 
 For though I did not participate in the toils or dangers of the war, 
 yet I was at the same time engaged in a service not less hazardous to 
 myself, and more beneficial to my fellow citizens ; nor in the adverse 
 turns of our affairs, did I ever betray any symptoms of pusillanimity 
 and dejection, or show myself more afraid than became me of malice 
 or of death. For since from my youth I was devoted to the pursuits of 
 literature, and my mind had always been stronger than my body, I did 
 not court the labours of a camp, in which any common person would 
 have been of more service than myself, but resorted to that employment 
 ni w hich my exertions were likely to be of most avail. Thus, with the 
 better part of my frame, I contributed as much as possible to the good 
 of my country, and to the success of the glorious cause in w^hich we 
 were engaged ; and I thought that if God willed the success of such 
 glorious achievements, it was equally His will that there should be 
 others 1iy whom those achievements should be recorded with dignity 
 and elegance ; and that the truth, vvhicli had been defended l)y arms, 
 sliould also be defended by reason, which is the best and only legitimate
 
 MIL TON NO TES 245 
 
 means of defending it. Hence, while I applaud those who were 
 victorious in the field, I will not complain of the province which was 
 assigned me ; but rather congratulate myself upon it, and thank the 
 Author of all Good for having placed me in a station, which may be 
 an object of envy to others rather than of regret to myself.'
 
 XIX 
 BUNYAN^ 
 
 (From The Academy for Feb. 20, 1875) 
 
 THE Pilgrim's Progress is one of the strangest pheno- 
 mena of literature ; perhaps, indeed, the strangest. 
 That a man of Bunyan's position, with all its crushing dis- 
 advantages, should have produced a work that was at once 
 welcomed and loved by the class out of which its author 
 sprang, and eventually won the admiration of the best judg- 
 ments of the nation, is an achievement without a parallel. 
 The case of Burns is quite different. As compared with the 
 Bedford tinker, the Ayrshire ploughman was born in favour- 
 able circumstances, and in his very youth acquired no mean 
 culture. Bunyan's high success makes one half doubt the 
 existence of ' mute inglorious Miltons.' His genius was 
 absolutely irrepressible. He was * man and master of his 
 fate.' At no time of his life did he breathe a truly genial 
 atmosphere. Even in the society into which he was happily 
 raised, there were many influences that might have proved 
 fatal to a less hardy and sovereign spirit. One may see 
 from his ' Apology ' for his book that among his co-religion- 
 
 ' The Pilgrim's Progress as Originally Published by John Bunyan, being 
 a Facsimile Reproduction of the First Edition. (London : Elliot Stock..) 
 
 246
 
 BUN Y AN 247 
 
 ists there were many who considered his ' feigning ' to be 
 of the world worldly. But all lets and hindrances — 'the 
 blows of circumstance/ the narrowness of sect, the indiffer- 
 ence or contempt of the powers that were — all these ' invidi- 
 ous bars' he broke through, and in some sort found for 
 himself freedom and power. So did ' the foolish things of 
 the world ' * confound the wise.' 
 
 To many persons it is a distinct pleasure and a valuable 
 help to peruse a man's writings in the very shape in which 
 he sent them forth ; to know his very orthography seems to 
 bring the author nearer. And of course there are cases 
 where the orthography may cast light upon the thought. 
 But it is not only for such reasons that a facsimile reprint 
 of The Pilgrim^ s Progress deserves notice. As we know so 
 little of the growth of Bunyan's genius, a facsimile has 
 special interest from the possibility that it may aid to eluci- 
 date that remarkable problem. The assistance may be 
 inconsiderable ; but certainly in the instance of Bunyan no 
 assistance, however feeble and meagre, is to be rejected. 
 
 Only one copy of the first edition of the First Part of The 
 Pilgrim's Progress is extant, so far as is known ; and this is 
 a comparatively recent find. It is in the library of H. S. 
 Holford, Esq., of Weston-Birt House, Tetbury, Gloucester- 
 shire. It is a significant sign of the popularity of the work 
 that the second edition was issued in the same year as the 
 first, viz. 1678, the date of the Third Part oi Hudibras, four 
 years after the death of Milton, three years before the pub- 
 lication of Absalom and Achitophel. It seems fairly certain 
 that it had been written some years before. One may well 
 accept the common belief that ' the den ' was Bedford 
 Gaol ; and it was in June, 1672, that Bunyan was released 
 therefrom. Moreover, we may gather from the Apology 
 above mentioned that there was an appreciable interval be-
 
 248 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 tween the production and the pubHcation. He was busy, 
 
 he says, 
 
 Writing of the Way 
 And Race of Saints in this our Gospel Day, 
 
 when he 
 
 Fell suddenly into an Allegory 
 
 About their journey and the way to Glory. 
 
 His ideas ' breed so fast ' that he resolved to ' put them 
 by themselves.' 
 
 Well, so I did ; but yet I did not think 
 To shew to all the World my Pen and Ink 
 In such a mode ; I only thought to make 
 I knew not what : nor did I undertake 
 Thereby to please my neighbour ; no, not I ; 
 I did it mine own self to gratifie. 
 
 When ' mine ends ' were thus put together, he consulted 
 others about them, and it is evident the very life of the 
 precious MS. was not altogether secure — 
 
 Some said Let them live ; some, Let them die ; 
 Some said, John, print it ; others said Not so ; 
 Some said It might do good ; others said No. 
 
 Thus his book, ' in wors condition than a peccant soul,' 
 had ' to stand before a Jury ere it ' could ' be born to the 
 world, and undergo yet in darkness the judgment of 
 Rhadamanth and his colleagues ere it ' could ' pass the 
 ferry backward into light.' In these deliberations probably 
 some time was spent. So that at the time of the publication 
 of his pilgrimage, Christian had probably been created at 
 least some six years The Second Part of the work was 
 certainly not written till the wide popularity of the First 
 suggested it. \w this case there could be no hesitation as to 
 printing and publishing ; so that we may believe it was not 
 written, or finished, till 16S3 or 1684. In the latter year it
 
 BUNYAN 249 
 
 was given to the world. There was then an interval of at 
 least some twelve years between the composition of the two 
 parts. Something may certainly be gathered as to Bunyan's 
 development by comparing these representatives of two 
 periods of his life. The difference is in many respects very 
 striking. But obviously what the volume before us sug- 
 gests, is not so much this contrast between the First and 
 Second Parts, as the difference between the early editions 
 of the First Part. 
 
 Messrs Unwin, the printers of the volume, inform us that 
 the following are additions that appear in the second issue 
 of 1678 :— 
 
 The paragraph descriptive of Bunyan's revealing his distress to his 
 family, and of their bearing towards him ; the interruption and turning 
 aside of Christian by Mr Worldly Wiseman (the former being repre- 
 sented in the first edition as going direct to the Wicket-gate from the 
 Slough of Despond), and all the references to this incident; the inter- 
 view between Charity and Christian at the Palace Beautiful ; the meet- 
 ing of Christian and Faithful with Evangelist, just previous to their 
 entering Vanity Fair ; the list of quaint names, descriptive of the 
 relatives of Byends ; the narrative relating to Lot's wife ; and the 
 conversation between Giant Despair and his wife Diffidence.'^ 
 
 Seven noticeable additions. Messrs Unwin further inform 
 us that ' the characters designated Mr Hold-the-world, Mr 
 Money-love, and Mr Save-all, appear for the first time in the 
 third edition.' All subsequent — eight editions were pub- 
 lished before Bunyan's death, in 1638 — changes are 'con- 
 fined to orthography, grammar, and idiom, and the addition 
 of fresh notes,' 
 
 Thus we learn that The Pilgrim's Progress, in the shape in 
 which we have it, was no rapidly improvised production, 
 
 1 For a more minute account of the additions see Godwin and Pocock's 
 edition of The Pilgrim's Progress, illustrated by H. C. Selous (London, 
 1844).
 
 250 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 but beyond doubt the fruit of ' poetic pains ' prolonged and 
 incessant. Like Rovieo and Juliet and Hamlet, it is a 
 growth — an inspiration slowly ripened and perfected so far 
 as might be — a thing whose beauty and joy are no mere 
 accidents, however divine, but the immortal results not only 
 of an overflowing spontaneity but of a faithful loving toil, 
 and a perpetual considerate cherishing. We see that Bun- 
 yan was a true artist, not a mere creature of impulse ; that 
 he too, with all his ignorances, had in him a fine sense of 
 perfection ; that he ever saw before him an ideal towards 
 which he still stretched with devotion his rude-seeming hands, 
 and the light of whose face broke and dispersed the shadows 
 that threatened to close in upon his much-tried soul. 
 
 To learn so much about him — to see that he was ever 
 docile as well as ever aspiring, and conscious that his work 
 might be bettered and amended — is indeed something. 
 But it was known, even before the copy of the first edition 
 was discovered, that in the second edition the work was not 
 as we have it. It did not contain, for instance, the Byends 
 passage. What we can now see for ourselves are differences 
 between the first and second editions. 
 
 In the Second Part no changes at all were made in the 
 narrative. It was first published in 1684, a second time two 
 years later, and in 1688 Bunyan died. 
 
 We have no space now to speak of other matters concern- 
 ing the author of The Pilgrim's Progress. We will only just 
 say, with regard to his sources, that we think his indebted- 
 ness to old romances circulating in popular shapes has not 
 yet been sufficiently recognised. It is especially noticeable 
 in the Second Part. What is Mr Greatheart but one of the 
 old knights sans peur et sans reproclie — a Sir Guy or Sir 
 Bevis — in new surroundings? One thing more. Many 
 who discuss Bunyan's material write as if the idea of pil-
 
 BUNYAN 251 
 
 grimage was as extinct in Bunyan's age as in our own, or 
 rather, perhaps, as it was in our own till its late grotesque 
 revival. In fact, the recollection of the custom must have 
 been quite fresh in Bunyan's boyhood. His own grand- 
 father might have gone on pilgrimage in the good old 
 fashion. The old tinker, as he probably was, may have 
 formed a not unuseful item in just such a throng as Chaucer 
 portrays in that never-fading picture. 
 
 (From The Academy for April 17, 1880) ^ 
 
 It is not yet a century since Cowper shrank from naming 
 Bunyan, warmly as he admired his great work, 
 
 Lest so despised a name 
 Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame. 
 
 And now a University Press is treating him as a classic, and 
 he is ranked among our chief ' Men of Letters ' by the ex- 
 cellent judgment of Mr John Morley. This is an advance 
 in critical freedom and catholicity on which our century 
 may be heartily congratulated. It began with Southey ; it 
 was promoted by Macaulay ; our own day witnesses its com- 
 pletion. The Pilgrim's Progress is now truly recognised as 
 one of the glories of our literature. Its value is no longer 
 merely allowed with condescension and pity. Not less 
 clearly, indeed, are seen its imperfections and weaknesses ; 
 but, shining forth with a brightness that makes these com- 
 
 "^ Bunyan. By J. A. Froude. (Macmillan.) 
 
 Bunyan : The Pilgrims Progress, Grace Abounding, and a Relation of 
 His Imprisonment. Edited, with Biographical Introduction and Notes, by 
 Edmund Venables, M.A. , Precentor and Canon of Lincoln. (Oxford: 
 Clarendon Press.)
 
 252 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 paratively pale and slight, is seen also a genius of real power 
 and brilliancy. 
 
 Certainly, in one way, Bunyan must ever be the chief 
 wonder of our literature. No one has done so much with 
 so little help from predecessors or contemporaries. Few 
 works besides the Bible can be mentioned as seriously affect- 
 ing or informing him. He owed something to the popularised 
 Romance of Chivalry ; he may have taken an idea or two 
 from Foxe's Book of Martyrs ; but, on the whole, Foxe pro- 
 bably did him more harm than good. But the Bible was, 
 in fact, his library. The proverb tells us to beware of the 
 man of one book ; but proverbs are commonly one-sided 
 and partial. Much depends on who the man is, and what 
 the book. No one can overrate either the literary or the 
 spiritual influence of the Bible upon Bunyan. But, as we 
 have just said, there are few other literary influences worth 
 recording. And it is difficult to conceive how Bunyan 
 could have been brought into contact with the literary culture 
 of his time without being ruined. For it was altogether un- 
 favourable to such intensity and fervour as characterise his 
 nature. The genius of Milton, indeed, flourished, and 
 flourished nobly, in that same age. But Milton's was a 
 personality of almost scornful independence. His soul was 
 ' like a star ; it dwelt apart.' Not so Bunyan's. His was an 
 eager, sympathetic spirit that would have withered in the 
 atmosphere in which that other lived its own glorious life, 
 lonely, exalted, supreme — 
 
 Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified. 
 
 Moreover, Bunyan was some twenty years the younger ; and 
 the magnificent inheritance of Elizabethan traditions, in 
 which Milton in some sense shared, was well-nigh exhausted 
 when Bunyan grew up. Milton belongs in many respects
 
 BUN VAN 253 
 
 to the great Elizabethan race. If we take Butler or Dryden 
 as more truly representing the age to which Bunyan be- 
 longed, we shall see reason to suspect that it might have 
 gone ill with Bunyan had he moved in their circle. How 
 could his fervid, passionate soul have thriven there ? In 
 the midst of cynics and satirists, how could it but have 
 languished and died ? Something of the ancient chivalrous 
 spirit lived in the bosom of this Bedfordshire tinker ; he had 
 a lingering love for knight errantry and its ways ; to him were 
 still dear the old ballads whose simplicity and artlessness 
 had won them the contempt of the Restoration wits. Evi- 
 dently, Bunyan could not have been Bunyan had he been 
 so unfortunate as to rise in the social scale. One simply 
 cannot imagine Mr John Bunyan, late of Elstow, sipping 
 coffee at Button's ! 
 
 Not that it is not to be regretted that he was no better 
 educated. We will not be so disloyal to culture as not to 
 believe it might not have vastly benefited and blessed him. 
 But there is culture and culture ; and what could have 
 fostered and strengthened his genius was not then anywhere 
 accessible for him. 
 
 One laudable service, for which let us ever be grateful, his 
 age performed for him — it put him in prison. One could 
 scarcely have expected from the Restoratioiiists any proceed- 
 ing so thoroughly sound and judicious. It may be that they 
 did not altogether appreciate their own action ; they thought, 
 perhaps, they were taking measures to close his mouth ; 
 whereas they opened it. Supreme benefactors to Bunyan 
 and to us, they were in fact preventing the lavish waste of 
 his talents in sermons and such matters, and providing him 
 with the leisure and the retirement necessary for a worthier 
 expression of what his soul yearned to express, and must 
 needs express, in one form or another. They to some ex-
 
 254 FOLIA UTTER ARIA 
 
 tent silenced the preacher, but they gave immortal life and 
 breath to the poet. Such a use of gaols seems now unhap- 
 pily obsolete. It is impossible to say how many ' public men ' 
 of our time might not save their souls alive if only it could 
 be revived — revived with some additional restrictions, such 
 as, for instance, that the supply of writing-paper and of ink 
 should be strictly limited. We all quote with much admira- 
 tion Lovelace's lines about stone walls not making a prison, 
 nor iron bars a cage; but we do not really believe them 
 nowadays. In the seventeenth century they contained an 
 accepted truth. And some of the most famous * studies ' of 
 that period were prison cells. Famous in this way was 
 Bunyan's place of confinement in Bedford, concerning the 
 locality of which all that is fairly certain is that it was not 
 the 'lock-up' on the bridge. There he was enabled to 
 take council with himself, and depict with undying force the 
 terrible struggles with which his ' little state of man ' had 
 been shaken and torn. 
 
 The secret of his success, as of all true success, is that he 
 deals with realities. He could dispense with books, and 
 such knowledge as they can give, because he could paint 
 straight from nature. Few men that have lived have had 
 experiences so intense, so protracted, so tremendous. Thus 
 he found in his own history abundant material ; and to give 
 this shape became now an imperious desire. The creative 
 instinct awoke in him, and the result was the first part of The 
 Pilgrim's Progress. In the ' Author's Apology for his Book ' 
 he tells us in his own manner how he wrote it to relieve his 
 overflowing brain. He was busy, he says, writing of ' the 
 way and race of Saints ' when he 
 
 Fell suddenly into an allegory 
 
 About their journey and the way to glory 
 
 In more than twenty things which I set down j
 
 BUNYAN 255 
 
 This done, I twenty more had in my crown. 
 
 And they began again to multiply, 
 
 Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly. 
 
 Thus I set pen to paper with delight, 
 
 And quickly had my thoughts in black and white. 
 
 For having now my method by the end 
 
 Still, as I pulled, it came ; and so I penn'd 
 
 It down ; until at last it came to be 
 
 For length and breadth the bigness that you see. 
 
 It is the story of a true artist awaking to the consciousness 
 of his gifts and to the joy of their application and use — of a 
 creator feeling at his heart the first divine throbbings of 
 creative energy and might. 
 
 Several of the points we have mentioned are ably and 
 eloquently discussed by Mr Froude. But the main interest 
 of his volume lies in its careful study of Bunyan's spiritual 
 history and of Bunyan as the representative and spokesman 
 of seventeenth century Puritanism. Indeed, one might 
 perhaps complain that Mr Froude does not enough consider 
 Bunyan for his own sake, so to speak, but rather makes use 
 of him for the consideration of the religious question. It is 
 here that his volume is faulty ; and it is for this reason that 
 one closes it with Mr Froude on one's mind rather than 
 John Bunyan. Mr Froude is not sufficiently disengaged and 
 unimpassioned to write with due critical calmness and self- 
 suppression of a work that, in certain ways, moves him so 
 deeply as The Pilgrim's Progress. He cannot stand outside 
 his subject and, vividly and disinterestedly bringing it before 
 us, let it speak for itself. It is as if, in showing us a portrait, 
 the painter should place his own head close alongside of it, 
 and by his brilliant monologue and in other ways so attract us 
 that we should find ourselves thinking about the painter and 
 not the painted. Mr Froude is one of those persons who 
 must take a side and fight vigorously on it; and this is not
 
 256 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 a disposition favourable for the production of sound criticism. 
 Still, there is much to be thankful for, and no admirer of 
 Bunyan must abstain from reading this fresh contribution to 
 the literature that is gathering around Bunyan's name. 
 
 The Clarendon Press volume before us provides an ex- 
 cellently printed text of The Pilgrim s Progress and Grace 
 Abounding, together with A Relation of his Imprisonment. 
 The Grace Abounding is well placed by the side of The 
 Pilgrif)i's Progress, for, as Mr Froude well says, the latter 
 work ' is the same story which he has told of himself in Grace 
 Abounding thrown out into an objective form.' The ' Bio- 
 graphical Introduction' is well informed and well written. 
 Canon Venables does not settle the question as to which 
 side Bunyan served on in the Civil War^ but holds it most 
 probable that it was the side of the Parliament. Certainly 
 Macaulay is scarcely justified in speaking so positively of his 
 enlisting in the Parliamentary army ; but we incline to think 
 Mr Froude is wrong in agreeing with those who assign him to 
 the Royalists. For the rest, Mr Venables' notes are, on the 
 whole, useful and illustrative. Now and then they are some- 
 what irrelevant — that is, if the first purpose of notes is to 
 enlighten the text, and not to convey general information. 
 Thus, a propos of 'they will stick like burs,' we are told that 
 ' bur is allied to the French bourre,' etc., in a paragraph ten 
 lines long ! This, and several other notes, as those on 
 beshrew, trespass, churl, respit, caitiff, should, if inserted at 
 all, have been inserted in a glossary at the end of the volume. 
 They really interrupt the study of the text, whatever philo- 
 logical or other value they may have. Mr Venables is dis- 
 posed to think that Bunyan was acquainted with The Fairy 
 Queen. This is a question never yet thoroughly discussed. 
 Indeed, we may say that the general question of Bunyan's 
 sources and models has never yet been fully considered.
 
 BUNYAN 257 
 
 His one great quarry was, as we have said, tlie Bible ; but 
 there were other works, few no doubt, but not to be forgotten, 
 if we would understand how his mind was furnished. For 
 instance, we know he had read Bevis of Hampton ; and 
 something might be said of the influence on him of this and 
 other old romances. Caught is not a ' strong ' preterite 
 (see p. 448), though Mr Venables has many companions in 
 that error. The cockle-shell (p. 482) was not a badge of all 
 pilgrims, but properly of those to Compostella. On p. 291, 
 1666 is given as the date of the publication of Grace 
 Abounding, but in the work itself (see p. 391) Bunyan 
 speaks of having lain in prison ' now complete twelve years,' 
 i.e., is writing in 1672. Mr Venables is 'provoked' by 
 ' the exceeding beauty ' of the Shepherd Boy's song in the 
 Valley of Humiliation, 'so unlike the rugged rhymes and 
 halting measure of Bunyan's verse generally,' to doubt 
 whether it was ' really composed by him, and not rather, 
 like the stanzas from the Old Version of the Psalms on 
 p. 218, taken from some other source.' As to such a con- 
 jecture, what Mr Froude has to say on pp. 92-95 is well 
 worth reading.
 
 XX 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY IN 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 (From the printed edition of the Percy Folio MS., 1867) 
 
 I DO not now propose to attempt a full description of 
 the great literary revolution which took place in the 
 last century. But I propose confining myself to one par- 
 ticular feature of it — the appreciation of our older literature, 
 and especially of our ballad poetry. The century that had 
 long been fully satisfied with its own productions, at last 
 recognised that the English literature of ages that had pre- 
 ceded it was not wholly barbarous. The century that had 
 given up itself to rules, and reduced the art of poetry to a 
 mechanical trick, at last acknowledged graces beyond the 
 reach of its art. At last it was brought to see that there 
 were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of 
 in its philosophy. 
 
 It discovered that there were innumerable beauties around 
 it to which it had long been blind. It left its gardens and 
 its elaborate manipulations of nature to see Nature herself. 
 It gave over refining the lily and gilding the rose to look at 
 the flowers in their simple beauty. It became conscious of 
 
 the exquisite beauties and glories of Switzerland, of the 
 
 258
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 259 
 
 English lakes, of Wales. New worlds of splendour, and of 
 noble enjoyment, dawned upon it. Not greater discoveries 
 were made by Columbus and his followers four centuries 
 before than were then made. The age, with all its self- 
 complaisance, had been Uving in a prison. The doors were 
 thrown open, and it came forth to feel and enjoy the fresh 
 breezes and the gracious sunshine. The age saw at the 
 same time that, besides the beauties of nature, there were 
 beauties that the art of former days had bequeathed it. It 
 began to discern the subtle loveliness of old cathedral 
 churches that studded the country. It had long eyed them 
 with much disfavour. It had sadly disfigured them with 
 adornments of its own devising, and according with its own 
 notions. It had deplored them as monstrous relics of a 
 profound barbarism. But at last the scales fell from its eyes, 
 and it saw that these ' tabernacles of the Lord of Hosts ' 
 were ' amiable.' It awoke to their supreme, unstinted, 
 refined beautifulness. So with respect to other branches 
 of Gothic art, other fruits of the old Romantic times, it 
 came to a better appreciation of them. Poets and poems 
 that had for many a day been relegated to neglect and 
 oblivion, were more frankly and fairly valued. Voices that 
 had long been silenced or ignored began to find a hearing 
 and a heeding audience. As Classical literature was re- 
 vived in the fifteenth, so was Romantic in the eighteenth. 
 
 A fair criterion of the progress of the century in the 
 recognition of the Romantic ages is its appreciation of 
 Chaucer. The most important event of the century regarding 
 him is the appearance of Tyrwhitt's edition of The Canterbury 
 Tales in 1775. Then at last an attempt was made to vindi- 
 cate his fame from the imputation of rudeness ; to show that 
 he, no less than the eighteenth-century poets, had some 
 sense of melody, some talent for character-drawing, some
 
 26o FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 power of language. Spenser was more readily and continu- 
 ously accepted. The age sympathised with the moralising 
 part of his genius, and found pleasure in imitating him. 
 But, as I have said, I propose now considering the history 
 of our ballad poetry ; and to it I turn. 
 
 The most signal event regarding it is the publication of 
 Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765. Let us 
 see how the century was prepared, or had been preparing, 
 for that famous publication. 
 
 Our English ballads, though highly popular in the 
 Elizabethan age, as innumerable allusions to them in 
 Shakespeare and the other dramatists, and in the general 
 literature of the time, show, were yet never collected into 
 any volume, save in Garlands, till the year 1723. They 
 wandered up and down the country without even sheepskins 
 or goatskins to protect them. They flew about like the 
 birds of the air, and sung songs dear to the heart of the 
 common people — songs whose power was sometimes 
 confessed by the 'higher' classes, but not so thoroughly 
 appreciated as to induce them to exert themselves for their 
 preservation. They were looked down upon as things that 
 were very good in their proper place, but must not be 
 admitted into fashionable society. They were admired in a 
 condescending manner. They were much better than could 
 be expected. But no one thought of them as popular lyrics 
 of great intrinsic value. Scarcely anyone put forth a hand 
 to save them from perishing. The custom of covering the 
 walls of houses with them that happily prevailed in the 
 seventeenth century did something for their preservation. 
 So secured, they had a better chance of keeping a place in 
 men's memories, and meeting some day appreciative eyes. 
 Towards the end of the said century were made one or two 
 collections of the broad .sheets containing them. The black
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 261 
 
 letter literature of the people was collected rather for its 
 curiousness than its power or beauty, by antiquaries rather 
 than by poets or enjoyers of poetry. Whatever their motives, 
 let us praise Wood and Harley, Selden ^ and Pepys, Rawlin- 
 son, Douce, and Bagford, for their services in gathering 
 together and protecting the frail outcasts from destruction. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the powerful mind of Dry den 
 justly appreciated the strength of our old literature, although 
 he so far bows before the spirit of his age as to deface it for 
 the reception of that age. Even when he revised and spoiled 
 Chaucer's works, he felt the power of them. But he resigned 
 his own judgment to that of his contemporaries. This Sam- 
 son in his captivi y consented to make merry and carouse 
 with his captors — to translate the songs he loved into the 
 Philistine dialect. He had a fine appreciation of the old 
 ballads. 'I have heard,' says a Spectator, 'that the late 
 Lord Dorset, who had the greatest wit tempered with the 
 greatest candour, and was one of the finest critics as well as 
 the best poets of his age, had a numerous collection of old 
 English ballads, and took a particular pleasure in the reading 
 of them. I can affirm the same of Mr Dryden, and know 
 several of the most refined writers of our present age who are 
 of the same humour.' He is, I think, the first collector of 
 poems who conceded to popular ballads their due place — who 
 admitted them into the society of other poems — poems by the 
 most Eminent Hands — who perceived their excellence, and 
 welcomed them accordingly. To other collectors of that date 
 it was as disgraceful to a poem as to a man to have no father, 
 or to be suspected of a common origin. Dryden rose above 
 this prejudice. He showed one or two ballads the same 
 hospitality as he extended to the poetasters of Oxford and 
 
 1 Tradition says that Pepys ' borrowed ' a part of his Collection from 
 Selden, and forgot to return it. — W. Chappell.
 
 262 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Cambridge, whose name was Legion at this time. In the 
 Miscellany Poems, edited by him, of which the first volume 
 appeared in 1684, the last in 1708, eight years after his 
 death, are to be found Little Musgrave and the Lady Ber- 
 nard, certainly one of the most vigorous ballads in our 
 language ; Chevy Chase, with a rhyming Latin translation ; 
 Johnnie Armstrong, Gilderoy, The Miller and the King's 
 Daughters. But the evil that men do lives after them. 
 Dryden, in his Knight's Tale and other works, had set the 
 fashion of imitating and modernising our old poems. That 
 fashion survived him. For more than half a century after 
 his death, with the exception of the insertion of two or three 
 in Playford's ^ Wit and Mirth, or Fills to purge Melancholy, 
 and of the Collection of Old Ballads above referred to, we 
 have produced in England imitations or adaptations of 
 ballads — no faithful reprint of the genuine thing. The 
 wine that the age had given it to drink was a miserable 
 dilution, or only coloured water. Conspicuous amongst 
 these imitators or adapters were Parnell, Prior, and Tickell. 
 But there were two men in Queen Anne's time who had a 
 genuine relish for old ballads, and who said a good word for 
 them. These were Addison and Rowe. Addison's taste 
 for them had been awakened during his travels on the 
 Continent. ' When I travelled,' he writes, ' I took a 
 particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are 
 come from father to son, and are most in vogue among the 
 common people of the countries through which I passed ; 
 for it is impossible that anything should be universally tasted 
 and approved by a multitude, though they are only the 
 rabble of a nation, which hath not in it some peculiar apt- 
 
 1 This Collection, though generally called D'Urfey's, was Henry Play- 
 ford's. D'Urfey edited only the last edition (1719), in six volumes. Five 
 were printed in 1714 ; the first volume in 1699. — W. Chappell.
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 263 
 
 ness to please and gratify the mind of man.' He gives, as 
 is well known, two numbers of the Spectator to a considera- 
 tion of Chevy Chase, one to that of the Children in the 
 
 Wood. 'The old song of Chevy Chase,' he writes, 'is the 
 favourite ballad of the common people of England, and Ben 
 Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of it 
 than of all his works.' Then he quotes Sir Philip Sidney's 
 famous words ; and then adds, ' For my own part I am so 
 professed an admirer of this antiquated song that I shall 
 give my reader a critick upon it, without any further apology 
 for so doing.' And he proceeds to investigate the poem 
 according to the critical rules of his time. He compares it 
 with other heroic poems, and illustrates it from Virgil and 
 Horace. He read the old ballad in the light of his age — 
 viewed and reviewed it in a somewhat narrow spirit. But 
 he did read it — he did look at it. In spite of the confining 
 criticism and hypercriticism of the day, he did feel and 
 recognise its vigour. ' Thus we see,' his examen concludes, 
 ' how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from 
 the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely 
 noble ; that the language is often very sounding, and that 
 the whole is written with a true poetical spirit.' In another 
 paper he calls attention to and expresses the ' most exquisite 
 pleasure ' he had received from 77ie Two Children in the 
 
 Wood, which he had encountered pasted upon the wall of 
 some house in the country. He describes it as ' one of 
 the darhng songs of the common people,' and as having 
 been ' the delight of most Englishmen in some part of their 
 age ; ' and then he discusses it after his manner. ' The tale 
 of it is a pretty tragical story, and pleases for no other reason 
 but because it is a copy of nature. There is even a despic- 
 able simphcity in the verse ; and yet because the sentiments 
 appear genuine and unaffected, they are able to move the
 
 264 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 mind of the most polite reader with inward meltings of 
 humanity and compassion.' But he could not bring his 
 contemporaries to sympathise with him. They would not 
 hear, charmed he never so wisely. His Chevy Chase papers 
 were ridiculed and parodied by Dennis and Wagstaff and 
 similar witlings. To them, perhaps, he alludes in the con- 
 cluding words of his notice of the other ballad he reviews : 
 'As for the little conceited wits of the age,' he writes, 'who 
 can only show their judgment by finding fault, they cannot 
 be supposed to admire those productions which have nothing 
 to recommend them but the beauties of nature, when they 
 do not know how to relish even those compositions that, 
 with all the beauties of nature, have also the additional ad- 
 vantages of art.' He fought a losing battle. What apprecia- 
 tion of the old things there was at the beginning of the 
 century was rapidly decaying. An age of elaborate artifici- 
 ality, and studied affectation, was dawning. 
 
 I have mentioned Rowe as sharing Addison's apprecia- 
 tion of the old ballads. He takes for one of his plays a 
 subject that was the theme of a widely popular ballad, and 
 in introducing his tragedy, deprecates the adverse prejudices 
 of his audience, and speaks boldly in favour of the older 
 literature, and against the wretched affectations of his time. 
 The Prologue to his Jafie Shore, first acted in 17 13, opens 
 
 thus : 
 
 To-night, if you have brought your good old taste, 
 We'll treat you with a downright English feast, 
 A tale which, told long since in homely wise, 
 Hath never failed of melting gentle eyes. 
 Let no nice sir despise the hapless dame 
 Because recording ballads chaunt her name ; 
 Those venerable ancient song-enditers 
 Soared many a intch above our modern writers. 
 They caterwauled in no romantic ditty, 
 Sighing for Philis's or Cloe's pity ;
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 265 
 
 Jusily they drew the Fair, and spoke her plain, 
 And sung her by her Christian name — 'twas Jane. 
 Our numbers may be more refined than those, 
 But what we've gained in verse, we've lost in prose ; 
 Their words no shuffling double meaning knew, 
 Their speech was homely, but their hearts were true. 
 In such an age immortal Shakespear wrote. 
 By no quaint rules nor hampering critics taught, 
 With rough majestic force he moved the heart. 
 And strength and nature made amends for art. 
 Our humble author does his steps pursue ; 
 He owns he had the mighty bard in view ; 
 And in these scenes has made it more his care 
 To rouse the passions than to charm the ear. 
 
 But this advocacy, too, of abetter taste was doomed to fail. 
 Rowe, as- Addison, spoke in vain. The Uterary dominion of 
 France was growing more and more supreme. Protests in 
 behalf of our old masters were urged fruitlessly. The charms 
 of our ballad poetry were disregarded, were despised. 
 
 There were, however, others besides Addison and Rowe 
 who had some slight sense of those charms, as, for instance, 
 those whom we have named — Parnell, Tickell, Prior. Par- 
 nell's acquaintance with our older literature is shown in his 
 Fairy Tale in the Ancient English Style. It is but a 
 feeble piece, written in a favourite Romance metre — the 
 metre of Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas — and decorated 
 with occasional bits of bad grammar to give it an antique 
 look. Tickell's friendship with Addison could not but have 
 conduced to some familiarity on his part with the old 
 ballads. He seems to have been inspired by them in no 
 ordinary degree. Apropos of his Lucy aud Colin., Goldsmith 
 remarks : ' Through all Tickell's works there is a strain of 
 ballad-thinking, if I may so express it ; and in this professed 
 ballad he seems to have surpassed himself. It is perhaps 
 the best in our language in this way.' The writer of it has
 
 266 FOLIA LITTER ARIA- 
 
 evidently drunk from the old wells. The story is simple. 
 It is told in a queer style — a sort of strange compromise 
 between the simplicity of the old ballad language and the 
 superfine verbiage that was rising into esteem in Tickell's 
 own day. Lucy, the reader may remember, is deserted by 
 her lover for a richer bride. She cannot survive this cruelty, 
 She says, to quote well-known lines, — 
 
 I hear a voice you cannot hear, 
 
 Which says I must not slay. 
 I see a hand you cannot see, 
 
 Which beckons me away. 
 
 She is buried on the day of her false lover's marriage. The 
 funeral cortege encounters the hymeneal. The bridegroom's 
 old passion, too late, revives. 
 
 Confusion, shame, remorse, despair 
 
 At once his bosom swell ; 
 The damps of death bedew his brow ; 
 
 He shook, he groaned, he fell. 
 
 There is not the true note here, but there is a distant echo 
 of it. In the handsome folio volume of poems published 
 by Matthew Prior in 1718 was printed the Not-Bronnie 
 Maide, not for its own sake, but for the sake of a piece 
 called Henry atid Emma, an extremely loose paraphrase of 
 it, that the reader might see how magic was Mr Prior's 
 touch, who could transmute so rude an effort into a work so 
 finely polished. However, Prior deserves some credit for 
 having brought the old poem forward at all. His Henry 
 and Emma won great applause. What a strange, instructive, 
 significant fact, that when such a paraphrase and such an 
 original were placed before them, men should deliberately 
 choose the paraphrase. No plea that the language was 
 obscure can be advanced in this case, as for Dryden's and
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 267 
 
 Pope's versions of some of the Catiterhury Tales. There is 
 no obscurity in these words : 
 
 Lorde, what is 
 This worldis blisse, 
 
 That chaungeth as the mone ! 
 
 The somers day 
 
 In histy may 
 
 Is derked before the mone. 
 
 1 hear you say 
 Farewel ! Nay, nay, 
 We departe not soo sone ; 
 Why say ye so ? 
 Wheder wyle ye goo ? 
 Alas ! what have ye done ? 
 Alle my welfare 
 
 To sorow and care 
 
 Shulde chaunge yf ye were gon' ; 
 
 For in my mynde 
 
 Of all mankynde 
 
 I loue but you alone. 
 
 But Prior's age did not care for their simple beauty. It 
 could not value that art qiice celat artem. To the above 
 delightful speech it preferred the following : — 
 
 What is our bliss, that changeth with the moon, 
 
 And day of life, that darkens ere 'tis noon ? 
 
 What is true passion, if unlilest it dies? 
 
 And where is Emma's joy, if Henry flies? 
 
 If love, alas ! be pain, the pain I bear 
 
 No thought can figure, and no tongue declare. 
 
 Ne'er faithful woman felt, nor false one feign'd 
 
 The flames which long have in my bosom reign'd ; 
 
 The God of love himself inhabits there, 
 
 With all his rage, and dread, and grief, and care, 
 
 His complement of stores and total war. 
 
 Oh ! cease then coldly to suspect my love. 
 
 And let my deed at least my faith approve. 
 
 Alas ! no youth shall my endearments share, 
 
 Nor day nor night shall interrupt my care ;
 
 268 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 No future story shall with truth upbraid 
 The cold indifference of the nut-brown maid ; 
 Nor to hard banishment shall Henry run, 
 While careless Emma sleeps on beds of down. 
 View me resolved, where'er thou lead'st, to go, 
 Friend to thy pain, and partner of thy woe ; 
 For I attest fair Venus and her son, 
 That I, of all mankind, will love but thee alone. 
 
 Early in the reign of George I., then, the old ballads had 
 grown insipid. Men had no longer eyes to see their wild 
 graces. An age of rules was shocked by their fine irregu- 
 larity. A moralising and sentimentalising age was horrified 
 at their plain-spokenness and objectivity. A didactic age 
 could conceive no interest in such spontaneous songs. It 
 had narrow ideas of what is instructive, and it wanted 
 instructing. It did not understand the singing as the linnet 
 sings. It wanted its theories illustrated, discussed, enforced. 
 In a word, it confounded poetry and morality. It did not 
 cultivate, and it lost the faculty of pure enjoyment. No 
 wonder then, if, finding no response to its ideas in the old 
 ballads, it turned away from them, and would not answer 
 when they called, would not dance when they piped. 
 
 But even at this time, when they were rapidly nearing the 
 nadir of their popularity, the ballads found a friend. In 
 1723 appeared a volume of collected ballads, followed three 
 years afterwards by a second, in 1727 by a third. These 
 three volumes formed that first collection of English ballads 
 (there is only one Scotch' ballad among them) to which we 
 
 1 Songs and ballads of rustic and of humble life were called ' Scotch ' from 
 about the middle of the 17th century, and without any intention of imput- 
 ing to them a Scottish origin, or that they were imitations. The same had 
 before been called ' Northern. ' Mr Payne Cpllier repeatedly reminds the 
 readers of the Registers of the Stationers' Company that this word ' northern ' 
 means 'rustic' {^g.g. Notes and Queries, Dec. 28, 1861, p. 514; Feb. 8, 
 1862, p. 106; Feb. 21, 1863, p. 145.) The substitution of 'Scotch' seems
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 269 
 
 have above adverted. Denmark had made collections of its 
 ballads in 1591 and in 1695 ; Spain in 1510, 1555, 1566, 
 and 16 1 5. England — save the earlier Garlands— ^x%\. did 
 so in 1723. Scotland, without, so far as we know, any 
 knowledge of what had been done in England, in the follow- 
 ing year, when Allan Ramsay, a great student of ' the Bruce,' 
 'the Wallis,' and Lyndsay's works, having 'observed that 
 Readers of the best and most exquisite Discernment fre- 
 quently complain of our modern Writings as filled with 
 affected Delicacies and studied Refinements, which they 
 would gladly exchange for that natural strength of thought 
 and simplicity of style our Forefathers practised,' published 
 his Ever-Green, ' being a collection of Scots Poems wrote by 
 the Ingenious before 1600,' and in the same year The Tea- 
 Table Miscellatiy, or a Collection of Scots Sangs, ' in three 
 volumes.' All three Collections seem to have enjoyed a fair 
 success. Who was the author of the English one is not known. ^ 
 
 to have commenced during the civil war, and perhaps only after Charles II. 
 had been crowned King of .Scots, when ' Scotch ' at length became a popular, 
 and even a party word with the Cavaliers. The first writer in whom I have 
 noted the change is Martin Parker, author of the famous Cavalier ballad 
 ' When the King shall enjoy his own again.' (See, for instance, ' A pair of 
 turtle doves, or a dainty new Scotch dialogue between a young man and his 
 mistresse,' subscribed Martin Parker, Pop. Music, p. 452.) After him came 
 Tom D'Urfey, and many more. The use extended till, at length, even 
 ballads relating to the northern counties of England, and so, in every sense 
 ' northern,' were reprinted as Scotch. (See, for instance, ' Nanny O,' Pop. 
 Music, p. 610, note a.) This conventional meaning of 'Scotch ' seems to 
 have been accepted in Scotland as well as in England, for in no other sense 
 could Allan Ramsay claim, among others. Gay's ballad, ' Black-ey'd Susan,' 
 in the very first part of 'A Miscellany of Scots Sangs,' or W. Thomson 
 appropriate songs by Ambrose Phillips and other well-known Englishmen, 
 in his Orpheus Caledonius. This remark is necessary, because Percy has, 
 throughout, taken the words ' northern ' and ' Scotch ' only in their literal 
 local sense. — W. Chappell. 
 
 ' Dr Farmer ascribes it to Ambrose Phillips. See Lowndes, under 
 'Ballads.'— W. Chappell.
 
 270 FOLTA LITTER ARIA 
 
 It is called 'A Collection of Old Ballads corrected from 
 the best and most ancient copies extant, with Introduc- 
 tions, Historical, Critical, or Humorous, illustrated with 
 copper plates.' The editor adopts an apologetic motto for 
 his book — some of the above quoted words of Rowe. He 
 writes, too, in an apologetic vein. 'There are many,' he 
 says, ' who perhaps will think it ridiculous enough to enter 
 seriously into a Dissertation upon Ballads.' He is evidently 
 rather afraid of being thought a frivolous creature by his 
 lofty-minded contemporaries. He is a little uneasy in intro- 
 ducing his proteges to the polished public. But he does 
 his duty by them bravely, only indulging himself now and 
 then in a little superior laugh at their expense. He gives 
 what account he can of the theme of each one, and shows 
 always a thorough interest in his work. But the time was 
 not yet ripe for his labours. The popularity that attended 
 the first appearance of his collection soon ceased. The pre- 
 dominant character of the age was not changed. The old 
 voices could not yet secure a hearing. The age clung to its 
 idols. Its Pharisaic spirit was too strong to be restrained. 
 It could not yet believe that out of the mouth of the 
 common people there was ordained strength. 
 
 After the middle of the century some promise was shown 
 of a better era. In Capell's ' Prolusions, or Select Pieces of 
 Antient Poetry, compil'd with great care from their several 
 Originals, and ofifer'd to the Publick as Specimens of the 
 Integrity that should be found in the Editions of Worthy 
 Authors,' published in 1760, appeared the Not-browne 
 Mayde, no longer accompanied by a modernised version. 
 This book gives hints of the reaction that was coming 
 against the old manipulating method. ' Fidelity to the best 
 Texts ' is its watchword. In the same year (1760) appeared 
 Macpherson's Ossian, and produced an . immense sensation.
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 271 
 
 Bishop Percy, with the good wishes and assistance of many 
 then distinguished men — of Shenstone, Garrick, Joseph 
 Warton, Farmer — was supplementing the treasures of his 
 wonderful Folio MS. from other quarters, and preparing the 
 materials of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. About 
 the same time (1764) appeared Evans's Specitnens of the 
 Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards. Mallet's work on The 
 Remains of the Mythology and Poetry of the Celtes, 
 particularly of Scandinavia, had already been published 
 some years. About the same time Gray was writing his 
 Welsh and Scandinavian pieces. At the same time 
 Chatterton was striving to satisfy the new taste that was 
 spreading with forgeries of old poems,. The first decade, 
 then, of George III.'s reign is most memorable in the 
 history of the revival of our ballad poetry. Then com- 
 menced an appreciation of it which has grown stronger and 
 stronger with the lapse of years. Then it found itself so well 
 supported that it was able to hold up its head in spite of 
 peremptory contemptuous criticism. It feared no more the 
 frowns of the great. Its beauty was no longer to be hid — 
 its light no longer veiled away from men's eyes. ' Even from 
 the tomb the voice of nature cried.' In the midst of con- 
 ventionalisms and artificialities, Simplicity and Truth asserted 
 themselves. The age was growing sick and weary of its old 
 darlings ; growing sensible that there was no salvation in 
 them, no infallibility, no supreme delight in their worships : 
 
 Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. 
 
 Cinderella had sat by the kitchen fire for many a day. 
 For many a day the elder sisters, tricked out in all the modish 
 finery of the time, every attitude studied, every look elabor- 
 ated, every movement affected, had possessed the drawing- 
 room in all their fashionable state. Cinderella down in the
 
 272 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 kitchen had heard the rustle of their fine silks and satins, 
 and the sound of their polite conversation. She had been 
 perplexed by their polished verbiage, and felt her own 
 awkwardness and rusticity. She had never dared to think 
 herself beautiful. No admiring eyes ever came near her in 
 which she might mirror herself. She had never dared to 
 think her voice sweet. No rapt ears ever drank in fondly 
 its accents. She felt herself a plain-faced, dull-souled, 
 uninteresting person not worthy to receive any attention 
 from any one of the fine gentlemen who adored her sisters, 
 or to enter their well-mannered society. But her lowliness 
 was to be regarded. The songs she had sung in the kitchen 
 to the servants — her humble, unpretentious songs — they 
 were to find greater favour than ever did those of her much- 
 complimented sisters. It was about the year 1760 when 
 the possibility of so great a change in her condition became 
 first conceivable. She met with many enemies, who 
 clamoured that the kitchen was her proper place, and 
 vehemently opposed her admission into any higher room. 
 The Prince was long in finding her out. The sisters put 
 many an obstacle between him and her. They could not 
 understand the failure of their own attractions. They could 
 not appreciate the excellence of hers. But at last the Prince 
 found her, and took her in all her simple sweetness to him- 
 self. At last, to lay metaphors aside, England acknowledged 
 the power and beauty of the ballads that had suffered for 
 so long a time such grievous neglect. 
 
 At the accession of George III., William Whitehead was 
 in the third year of his adornment of the Poet Laureateship. 
 The Pleasures of Imagination, The Schoolmistress, The 
 Complaint, or Nii^ht Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immor- 
 tality — works which had been given to the world some 
 sixteen or eighteen years before — were at the zenith of their
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY I'll 
 
 fame. The general character of our literature at this time 
 was highly didactic. We cannot wonder, then, if the appear- 
 ance of a poetry that was weighted with no overbearing 
 moral, or other purpose, produced a tremendous effect. We 
 may be prepared to understand the prodigious excitement 
 caused by the publication in 1760 of The Works of Ossian 
 the Son of Fingal, ' translated for the Gaelic language by 
 James Macpherson.' With all their magniloquence, they 
 did not sermonise ; they expressed some genuine feehng. 
 Amidst all their affected cries there was a true voice audible. 
 Three years subsequently, Bishop Percy, moved by Ossian's 
 popularity, published a translation from the Icelandic 
 language of five pieces of Runic poetry. 
 
 In the following year, 1764, appeared 'Some Specimens 
 of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards translated into 
 English, with Explanatory Notes on the Historical Passages, 
 and a short Account of Men and Places mentioned by the 
 Bards, in order to give the Curious some Idea of the Taste 
 and Sentiments of our Ancestors and their Manner of Writ- 
 ing, by the Rev. Mr Evan Evans, curate of Glenvair Taly- 
 haern, in Denbighshire ' — a work with which Gray was 
 familiar. Shortly afterwards appeared Gray's own transla- 
 tions, made from translations, of Norse and Welsh pieces : 
 The Fatal Sisters, The Descent of Odin, The Triumphs of 
 Otven, and The Death of Hoel. About the time, then, of the 
 appearance of the Reliques in 1765, there was dispersed over 
 the country some slight knowledge of the Old Celtic and of 
 Scandinavian poetry. 
 
 And now the age was ripe for the reception of such a 
 collection of old ballads as had been published some forty 
 years, but had then, after a short-lived circulation, fallen into 
 neglect. Thomas Percy, the son of a grocer at Bridge- 
 north, Shropshire, a graduate of Oxford, vicar of Easton 
 
 s
 
 274 FOLIA UTTEIiARlA 
 
 Maudit, Northamptonshire, was by nature something of an 
 antiquary. Wlien ' very young,' he became possessed of a 
 foHo MS. of old ballads and romances. ' This very curious 
 old MS., ' he says, in a memorandum made in the old folio 
 itself, ' in its present mutilated state, but unbound and sadly 
 torn, I rescued from destruction, and begged at the hands 
 of my worthy friend Humphrey Pitt, Esq., then living at 
 Shiffnal in Shropshire, afterwards of Prior Lee near that 
 town j who died very lately at Bath ; viz. in Summer 1769. 
 I saw it lying dirty on the floor under a Bureau in y^ 
 Parlour, being used by the maids to light the fire. When 
 I first got possession of this MS.,' he says in another entry in 
 the same place, ' I was very young, and being in no degree 
 an Antiquary, I had not then learnt to reverence it ; which 
 must be my excuse for the scribble which I then spread over 
 some parts of its margin, and in one or two instances for 
 even taking out the leaves, to save the trouble of transcribing. 
 I have since been more careful.' Besides this famous folio, he 
 possessed also a quarto MS. volume of similar pieces, supposed 
 to be the same as one still in the hands of his family, and 
 containing only copies of printed poems. The folio has 
 remained in the hands of the Bishop's family in the greatest 
 privacy hitherto; Jamieson and Sir F. Madden being (I 
 believe) the only editors who have printed from it, though 
 Dibdin was allowed to catalogue part of it. These volumes 
 had in Percy a (for that time) highly appreciative possessor. 
 He determined to introduce to the public some specimens 
 of their contents. This proposal was promoted by the 
 sympathy of many then distinguished men : of Shenstone, 
 Bird, Grainger, Steevens, Farmer, and by others of still 
 greater and more enduring note — Garrick and Goldsmith. 
 At last, in 1 765, appeared Reliques of Aticient English Poetry, 
 consistiui::; of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and other pieces of
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 275 
 
 our earlier poets (chiefly of the Lyric kind) together with some 
 feia of later date. The editor, even as the editor of the 
 collection of 1723, of whom we have spoken, has, manifestly, 
 some misgivings about the character of his proteges. He is 
 not quite sure how they will be received by his polite con- 
 temporaries. He speaks of them, in his Dedication of his 
 volumes to the Countess of Northumberland (he was ex- 
 tremely ambitious to connect himself with the great Percies 
 of the North), as ' the rude songs of ancient minstrels,' ' the 
 barbarous productions of unpolished ages,' and is troubled 
 for fear lest he should be guilty of some impropriety in 
 hoping that they ' can obtain the approbation or the notice 
 of her, who adorns courts by her presence, and diffuses 
 elegance by her example. But this impropriety, it is pre- 
 sumed, will disappear when it is declared that these poems 
 are presented to your Ladyship, not as labours of art but as 
 effusions of nature, shewing the first efforts of ancient genius, 
 and exhibiting the customs and opinions of remote ages.' 
 In his Preface he says that 'as most of the contents of his 
 folio MS. 'are of great simplicity, and seem to have been 
 merely written for the people, the possessor was long in 
 doubt, whether in the present state of improved literature 
 they could be deemed worthy the attention of the public. 
 At length the importunity of his friends prevailed.' ' In a 
 polished age, like the present,' he adds, ' I am sensible that 
 many of these reliques of antiquity will require great allow- 
 ances to be made for them. Yet have they, for the most 
 part, a pleasing simplicity, and many artless graces, which 
 in the opinion of no mean critics [a footnote cites Addison, 
 Dryden, Lord Dorset, etc., and Selden] have been thought 
 to compensate for the want of higher beauties, and if they 
 do not dazzle the imagination [Did The School-mistress, The 
 Sugar-cane, dazzle the imagination ?] are frequently found
 
 276 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 to interest the heart.' Still more striking are the following 
 words : ' To atone for the rudeness of the more obsolete 
 poem?, each volume concludes with a few modern attempts 
 in the same kind of writing.' And then he buttresses his 
 volumes with eminent names — Shenstone, Thomas Warton, 
 Garrick, Johnson (we shall see presently how far Johnson 
 was likely to smile on his undertaking), which ' names of so 
 many men of learning and character, the editor hopes will 
 serve as an amulet, to guard him from every unfavourable 
 censure for having bestowed any attention on a parcel of 
 Old Ballads. It was at the request of many of these gentle- 
 men, and of others eminent for their genius and taste, that 
 this little work was undertaken. To prepare it for the 
 press has been the amusement of now and then a vacant 
 hour amid the leisure and retirement of rural life, and hath 
 only served as a relaxation from graver studies. It hath 
 been taken up and thrown aside for many months during 
 an interval of four or five years.' With such apologies and 
 antidotes did the Reliques make their debut ! How strange 
 — what a wonderful tale of altered taste it tells — that in 
 order to make Chevy Chase, Edom d Gordon, Little Mus- 
 grave and Lady Barnard endurable, to reconcile the reader 
 to their rudeness, such charming chapenmes should be as- 
 signed them as Bryan and Feree?ie, a West Indian ballad 
 by Dr Grainger, Jemmy Datvson, by Mr Shenstone ! Bryan 
 and Fereene, 'founded on a real fact,' narrates how Pereene, 
 ' the pride of Indian dames,' went down to the sea-shore to 
 meet her lover, who after an absence in England of one 
 long long year one month and day, was returning to St 
 Christopher's and his mistress 
 
 Soon as his well-known ship she spied 
 She cast her weeds away,
 
 THE REVIVAL OE BALLAD POETRY 277 
 
 And to the palmy shore she hied 
 All in her best array. 
 
 In sea-green silk, so neatly clad 
 She there impatient stood ; 
 
 Bryan, seeing her in the said sea-green silk, impatient also, 
 leapt overboard in the hope of reaching her sooner. 
 
 The crew with wonder saw the lad 
 Repell the foaming flood. 
 
 Her hands a handkerchief display'd, 
 
 Which he at parting gave ; 
 Well-pleas'd the token he survey'd, 
 
 And manlier beat the wave. 
 
 Her fair companions one and all 
 
 Rejoicing crowd the strand ; 
 For now her lover swam in call, 
 
 And almost touch'd the land. 
 
 Then through the white surf did she haste, 
 
 To clasp her lovely swain ; 
 When ah ! a shark bit through his waist, 
 
 His heart's blood dy'd the main. 
 
 He shriek'd ! His half sprang from the wave, 
 
 Streaming with purple gore, 
 And soon it found a living grave, 
 
 And ah ! was seen no more. 
 
 Now haste, now haste, ye maids, I pray. 
 
 Fetch water from the spring ; 
 She falls, she swoons, she dies away. 
 
 And soon her knell they ring. 
 
 And so the doleful ditty ends with an injunction to the 
 'fair' to strew her tomb with fresh flowerets every May 
 morning, to the end that they and their lovers may not 
 come to similar distress. Jemmy Dawson was one of the 
 Manchester rebels who took part in the '45, and was hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered on Kennington Common in 1746.
 
 278 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Their colours and their sash he wore, 
 
 And in the fatal dress was found ; 
 And now he must that death endure, 
 
 Which gives the brave the keenest wound. 
 
 How pale was then his true love's cheek, 
 When Jemmy's sentence reach'd her ear ; 
 
 For never yet did Alpine snows, 
 So pale, nor yet so chill appear. 
 
 With faltering voice she weeping said : 
 
 Oh ! Dawson, monarch of my heart, 
 Think not thy death shall end our loves, 
 
 For thou and I will never part. 
 
 Poor Kitty inflexibly witnesses his execution. 
 
 The dismal scene was o'er and past, 
 
 The lover's mournful hearse retir'd ; 
 The maid drew back her languid head, 
 
 And sighing forth his name expir'd. 
 
 Such were the pieces whose elegance was to make atone- 
 ment to the readers of a century ago, for the barbarousness 
 of the other components of the Reliques. 
 
 This barbarousness was further mitigated by an applica- 
 tion of a polishing process to the ballads themselves. Percy 
 performed the offices of a sort of tireman for them. He 
 dressed and adorned them to go into polite society. To how 
 great an extent he laboured in their service, is now at last 
 manifested by the publication of the Folio. The old MS. 
 contained many pieces which, it would seem, were considered 
 hopeless. No amount of manipulation could ever make 
 them presentable. It contained many pieces and many 
 fragments — thanks to the anxiety of Mr Humphrey Pitt's 
 servants to light his fires ! — which the art of the editorial re- 
 finer of the eighteenth century deemed capable of adaptation ; 
 and Percy adapted them. The old ballads could reckon on
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 279 
 
 no genuine sympathy. They were, so to speak, the songs of 
 Zion in a strange land. 
 
 Percy, as the extracts we have quoted from his Dedication 
 and Preface have shown, was not free from the prejudices of 
 his time. He was but sHghtly in advance of them ; but he 
 was in advance or them. He did recognise the power and 
 beauty of the old poetry, more deeply, perhaps, than he ever 
 dared confess. And, though unconscious of the greatness 
 of the work he was doing, did for us — for Europe — an un- 
 utterable service. He was, to the end, curiously uncon- 
 scious of it. Men are often reminded to be delicately careful 
 in their actions, because they know not what harm they may 
 do. They might sometimes be encouraged by the thought 
 that they know not what good they do. Certainly Percy 
 performed for English literature a far higher service than he 
 ever dreamt of. He always regarded the Reliques as some- 
 thing rather frivolous. ' I read Edivin and Angelina to 
 Mr Percy some years ago,' writes Goldsmith, in 1767, to the 
 printer of the St James' Chronicle, who had assigned Gold- 
 smith's ballad to Percy, 'and he (as we both considered 
 these things as trifles at best) told me, with his usual good- 
 humour, the next time I saw him, that he had taken my 
 plan to form the fragments of Shakespeare into a ballad of 
 his own. He then read me his litde cento, if I may so call 
 it, and I highly approved of it.' ' I am so little interested 
 about the anmsefjients of my youth,' writes Percy to his 
 publisher in 1794, 'that, had it not been for the benefit of 
 my nephew, I could contentedly have let the Reliques of 
 Ancient Poetry remain unpublished.' The great effect the 
 memorable work produced came ' not with observation.' 
 
 With all the consideration Percy showed for the prevailing 
 taste, he did not succeed in winning over to his support 
 certain great leaders of it. He was extremely solicitous to
 
 28o FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 secure the approval of the leader of the leaders of it — of that 
 supreme potentate, Dr Johnson. In his Preface he twice 
 mentions him : first, as having urged him to publish a 
 selection from the Folio (' He could refuse nothing,' he says, 
 'to such judges as the author of the Rambler, and the late 
 Mr Shenstone ') ; and secondly, as having lightened his 
 editorial task with his assistance ('To the friendship of Mr 
 Johnson,' he writes, 'he owes many valuable hints for the 
 conduct of his work'). But, for all these complimentary 
 mentions, Johnson seems to 'have liked neither the work 
 nor its author, as may be seen in Boswell again and again ; 
 thus : ' The conversation having turned on modern imitations 
 of ancient ballads, and some one having praised their sim- 
 plicity, he treated them with that ridicule which he always 
 displayed when that subject was mentioned.' The 177th 
 number of the Rambler gives a satirical account of a Club 
 of Antiquaries. Hirsute, we are told, had a passion for 
 black-letter books ; Ferratus for coins ; Chartophylax for 
 gazettes; 'Cantilenus turned all his thoughts upon old 
 ballads, for he considered them as the genuine records of 
 the natural taste. He offered to show me a copy of The 
 Children of the Wood, which he firmly believed to be of 
 the first edition, and by the help of which the text might 
 be freed from several corruptions, if this age of barbarity 
 had any claim to such favours from him.' In his Life of 
 Addison, after a sarcastic reference to his Spectators on 
 Chevy Chase, and Wagstaffs ridicule of them, he adds, in 
 modification of Dennis's reductio ad absiirdiDn of Addison's 
 canon — that Chevy Chase pleases, and ought to please, 
 because it is natural—' In Chevy Chase there is not much 
 of either bombast or affectation, but there is chill and life- 
 less imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a 
 manner that shall make less impression on the mind.' With
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 281 
 
 what horror the ghost of Sir Philip Sidney must have been 
 struck if ever it was aware of this crushing dictum ! Still 
 more suggestive are his observations on another old ballad. 
 'The greatest of all his amorous essays,' he remarks in his 
 Life of Prior, ' is Henry and Emma — a dull and tedious 
 dialogue, which excites neither esteem for the man nor 
 tenderness for the woman. The example of Emma, who 
 resolves to follow an outlawed murderer wherever fear and 
 guilt shall drive him, deserves no imitation [would Johnson 
 have said that the Laocoon, or the Venus de Medici, deserved 
 an imitation ? how could his critical rules have been applied 
 to them?], and the experiment by which Henry tries the 
 lady's constancy is such as must end either in infamy to her 
 or in disappointment to himself.' With these terrible sen- 
 tences in our ear, let us read these stanzas : 
 
 Though it be songe 
 
 Of old and yonge, 
 
 That I shold be to blame, 
 
 Theyrs be the charge 
 That speke so large 
 In hurtynge of my name ; 
 For I wy II prove 
 That faythfulle love. 
 It is devoyd of shame ; 
 In your dystresse, 
 And hevynesse, 
 To part with you the same ; 
 And sure all Iho 
 That do not so 
 True lovers are they none. 
 For in my mynde 
 Of all mankynde 
 I love but you alone. 
 
 And, 
 
 I thinke nat nay 
 But as ye say,
 
 2S2 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 It is no mayden's lore ; 
 
 But love may make 
 
 Me for your sake, 
 
 As I have sayd before, 
 
 To come on foote 
 
 Tc hunte, to shote 
 
 To get us mete in store ; 
 
 For so that I 
 
 Your compancy 
 
 May have, I ask no mce. 
 
 From which to part. 
 
 It makyth my hart 
 
 As colde as ony stone ; 
 
 For in my mynde 
 
 Of all mankynde 
 
 I love but you alone. 
 
 Read these high, passionate words, and think of Johnson's 
 criticism.^ He misses, evidently, the point of the poem — 
 does not see how one noble idea permeates and vivifies 
 every line, and glorifies the self-abandonment confessed. 
 
 Here may ye see 
 
 That women be 
 
 In love, meke kynde, and stable ; 
 
 Late never man 
 
 Reprove them than, 
 
 Or call them variable ; 
 
 But rather pray 
 
 God that we may 
 
 To them be comfortable. 
 
 His criticism of the Nut-bnni.')i Maid makes his dislike of 
 the old ballads intelligible enough. We can understand 
 
 ^ Cf. Mr Gilpin's (Saurey-Gilpin, an artist, 1733-1807,) remark, apiid 
 Nichols and Steevens' Hogarth, on the seventh plate of the Rake's Progress : 
 ' The episode of the fainting woman might have given way to many circum- 
 stances more proper to the occasion. This is the same woman whom the 
 Rake discards in the first print, by whom he is rescued in the fourth, Who is 
 present at his marriage, who follows him into jail, and lastly to Bedlam. 
 The thought is rather unnatural, and the moral certainly cnlpahle,'
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 283 
 
 now how he came to despise and abuse them, and parody 
 their form in this wise : 
 
 The tender infant, meek and mild, 
 
 Fell down upon a stone ; 
 The nurse took up the squealing child, 
 
 But still the child squeal'd on. 
 
 VVarburton, Hurd, and others heartily concurred in his 
 opinion. Warburton thought that the old ballads were 
 utterly despicable by the side of the exalted literature of his 
 own and recent times. He called them ' specious funguses 
 compared to the oak.' 
 
 But in the face of this contumely, looked down on and 
 sneered at by the learning and refinement of the age, the old 
 ballads grew dear to the heart of the nation. They stirred 
 emotions that had long lain dormant. They revived fires 
 that had long slumbered. The nation lay in prison like its 
 old Troubadour king ; in its durance it heard its minstrel 
 singing beneath the window its old songs, and its heart leapt 
 in its bosom. It recognised the well-known, though long- 
 neglected, strains that it had heard and loved in the days 
 of its youth. The old love revived. The captive could not 
 at once cast off its fetters, and go forth. But a yearning for 
 liberty awoke in it ; a wild, growing, passionate longing for 
 liberty ; for real, not artificial flowers ; for true feeling, not 
 sentimentalism ; for the fresh life-giving breezes of the open 
 country, not the languid airs of enclosed courts. 
 
 As one who long in populous city pent, 
 Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, 
 Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe 
 Among the pleasant villages and farms 
 Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight, 
 The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine, 
 Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound,
 
 284 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 SO did the nation issue forth from its confinement, and con- 
 ceive truer, more comprehensive joys. 
 
 The pubHcation of the Reliqites^ then, constitutes an 
 epoch in the history of the great revival of taste ; it changed 
 the face of hterature. After 1765, before the end of the 
 century, numerous collections of old ballads, in Scotland 
 and in England, by Evans, Pinkerton, Hurd, Ritson, were 
 made. The noble reformation, that received so great an 
 impulse in 1765, advanced thenceforward steadily. The 
 taste that was awakened never slumbered again. The re- 
 cognition of our old life and poetry that the Reliqiies gave, 
 was at last gloriously confirmed and established by Walter 
 Scott. That great minstrel was profoundly influenced by 
 the Reliques, both directly and indirectly, through Burger 
 and others who had drunk deep of its waters. 
 
 'Among the valuable acquisitions,' says Scott in his Auto- 
 biography, writing of his studies after his leaving Edinburgh 
 High School, ' I made about this time, was an acquaintance 
 with Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered through the flat medium 
 of Mr Hoole's translation. But above all I then first be- 
 came acquainted with Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient 
 Poetry. As I had been from infancy devoted to legendary 
 lore of this nature, and only reluctantly withdrew my atten- 
 tion from the scarcity of materials and the rudeness of those 
 which I possessed, it may be imagined, but cannot be de- 
 scribed, with what delight I saw pieces of the same kind 
 which had amused my childhood, and still continued in 
 secret the Delilahs of my imagination, considered as the 
 subject of sober research, grave commentary, and apt illus- 
 tration by an editor who showed his practical genius was 
 capable of emulating the best qualities of what his pious 
 labour preserved. I remember well the spot where I read 
 these volumes for the first time. It was beneath a huge
 
 THE REVIVAL OF BALLAD POETRY 285 
 
 plantaine tree, in the ruins of what had been intended for 
 an old-fashioned arbour in the garden I have mentioned. 
 The summer day sped onwards so fast that, notwithstanding 
 the sharp appetite of thirteen, I forgot the hour of dinner, 
 was sought for with anxiety, and was still found entranced 
 in my intellectual banquet. To read and to remember was 
 in this instance the same thing, and henceforth I over- 
 whelmed my schoolfellows and all who would hearken to 
 me with tragical recitations from the ballads of Bishop 
 Percy. The first time too I could scrape a few shillings 
 together, which were not common occurrences with me, I 
 bought unto myself a copy of these beloved volumes ; nor 
 do I believe I ever read a book half so frequently or with 
 half the enthusiasm.'
 
 XXI 
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST 
 CENTURY 
 
 (From The Contemporary Review ior Sq^\.. 1892) 
 
 IT is just a hundred and one years since a certain under- 
 graduate of St John's College, Cambridge, by name 
 Wordsworth, took his Bachelor's Degree and went his way 
 into the -world. The studies of the University had not 
 greatly attracted him, at least so as to pursue them in the 
 spirit that wins ' marks ' and produces ' Wranglers.' ' William, 
 you may have heard,' writes his sister to her friend, Miss 
 Pollard, in June 1791, ' lost the chance (indeed, the certainty) 
 of a fellowship by not combating his inclinations. He gave 
 way to his natural dislike to study so dry as many parts of 
 mathematics ; consequently could not succeed at Cambridge. 
 He reads Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Latin, and English, 
 but never opens a mathematical book.' And he himself 
 speakS; in a letter to his sister, of his having acquainted his 
 uncle (his mother's brother, the Rev. Dr Cookson) with his 
 having given up ' all thoughts of a fellowship.' Only in a 
 general way did mathematics, which in the Procrustean 
 system of the then Cambridge formed the main occupation 
 
 of the place, excite his interest and admiration : 
 
 286
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 287 
 
 Yet may we not entirely overlook 
 
 The pleasure gathered from the rudiments 
 
 Of geometric science. Though advanced 
 
 In these enquiries, with regret I speak, 
 
 No farther than the threshold, there I found 
 
 Both elevation and composed delight ; 
 
 With Indian awe and wonder, ignorance pleased 
 
 With its own struggles, did I meditate 
 
 On the relation those abstractions bear 
 
 To Nature's laws, and by what process led. 
 
 Those immaterial agents bowed their heads 
 
 Duly to serve the mind of earth-born man ; 
 
 From star to star, from kindred sphere to sphere. 
 
 From system on to system without end. 
 
 More frequently from the same source I drew 
 
 A pleasure quiet and profound, a sense 
 
 Of permanent and universal sway, 
 
 And paramount belief ; there, recognised 
 
 A type, for finite natures, of the one 
 
 Supreme Existence, the surpassing life 
 
 Which — to the boundaries of space and time. 
 
 Of melancholy space and doleful time, 
 
 Superior and incapable of change, 
 
 Nor touched by welterings of passion — is, 
 
 And hath the name of, God. Transcendent peace 
 
 And silence did await upon these thoughts 
 
 That were a frequent comfort to my youth. 
 
 Prelude, Bk. vi. 
 
 So that it was not so much the spirit of these great studies, 
 as the spirit in which they were prosecuted, that discouraged 
 him from taking them up. He felt then as he felt and wrote 
 some years afterwards, that there is no real antagonism be- 
 tween Poetry and Science, ' Poetry,' he wrote in the preface 
 to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads, ' is the breath and 
 finer spirit of all knowledge ; it is the impassioned expression 
 which is in the countenance of all science .... If the labours 
 of men of science should ever create any material revolution,
 
 288 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions 
 which we habitually receive, the poet will sleep no more than 
 at present ; he will be ready to follow the steps of the men of 
 science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will 
 be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects 
 of science itself.' Thus, after all, the future poet's soul may 
 have found some food and sustenance in the Cambridge at- 
 mosphere. And his experience may be of some significance 
 if any one should thoroughly investigate the striking fact 
 that so many of our chief poetical geniuses from Spenser to 
 Tennyson have been bred in an university especially devoted 
 to ' exact ' studies. Probably there are other respects in 
 which Wordsworth's Cambridge life did more for him than 
 he thought — more, at all events, than he acknowledges in 
 that careful analysis he gives in the Prelude of his develop- 
 ment and growth, and more than any one of his biographers 
 has yet fully ascertained. Still, it remains true that during 
 his residence at Cambridge he had no high opinion of the 
 place, which, indeed, was not then at its best ; nor had the 
 place any very high opinion of him. He achieved no aca- 
 demic distinction ; he was ' disturbed at times ' by 
 
 a strangeness in the mind, 
 A feeling that I was not for that hour, 
 Nor for that place ; 
 
 and when he had completed his terms and ceased to 
 
 frequent the college groves 
 And tributary walks, 
 
 no one dreamt that in the crowd of Bachelors that ' went 
 down ' just a century since was one who would in course of 
 time be ranked amongst the most famous of the many 
 famous sons of St John's — one who would make an epoch 
 in English literature.
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 2S9 
 
 In that same year (1791) there went 'up' to Jesus College 
 of the same University one Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he, 
 too, not ever to take kindly to the then academic ways and 
 limits, though he was a classical scholar of considerable 
 attainments, and won a University prize for Greek verse. 
 Already a brilliant talker, and, as always, a man of a rest- 
 lessly active mind and thirsty for new ideas, he availed him- 
 self much more than did Wordsworth of the social advantages 
 which are one of the most precious benefits of a University 
 career — I mean the advantages of a thorough interchange 
 and comparison of opinions with his contemporaries, though 
 indeed from the very beginning Coleridge seems to have 
 shone rather in monologue than dialogue, and from the 
 beginning his companions seem to have been ready to sit 
 and listen to his wonderful outpourings. At one time 
 pecuniary and other troubles beset him, partly at least due to 
 his own thoughtlessness ; and he disappeared, and no one 
 at Cambridge or elsewhere knew what had become of him. 
 Presently discovered by his writing a Latin sentence {Eheu ! 
 qiiain infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem) on the wall 
 of a stable — he had enlisted as a light dragoon — he came 
 back to the University and ' kept ' two more terms ; but as 
 through certain theological scruples, which the kindly Master 
 of his college in vain discussed with him, he could take no 
 degree, he declined the final examination ; and in December 
 1794 his connection with Cambridge finally ceased. Nor in 
 his case, though he was more highly thought of than Words- 
 worth, was there any conception that he was to be one of the 
 chief beginners of a new literary age. 
 
 Nor, in the last decade of the last century, if Cambridge 
 was so unconscious of the promise and prowess of two such 
 illustrious men, was the world at large better-sighted and 
 better-informed as to the great movement that was then in 
 
 T
 
 290 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 fact taking place. Works like the Pleasures of Memory, 
 published in 1791, Darwin's Loves of the Plants (the second 
 part of the Botatiic Garden), his Zoonomia or Laws of 
 Organic Life, and Physiologia, published respectively in 
 1 791, 1794-6 and 1799, and the Pleasures of Hope, pub- 
 lished in 1799, might well leave the impression that the old 
 poetical paths were still being trodden. The ' Kingdom of 
 Heaven,' we are told, ' cometh not with observation.' And 
 the same may be said of other spiritual kingdoms. The 
 world is slow to recognise a new note in poetry ; it is slow 
 merely to listen and attend to it. The old songs and the 
 old voices occupy its ear, absorb its interest, monopolise 
 its admiration, and to turn to new singers seems a kind of 
 treason. It has been said that every new poet has to make 
 an audience for himself. Certainly his audience is likely to 
 be but small at first ; and for a time the people at large 
 doubt whether the faith of his scanty band of hearers is not 
 a mere craze, or a mere transitory illusion or delusion. And 
 indeed, amidst a great mingling of cries it requires some 
 sensitiveness to select the one that is best worth hearing, and 
 which the coming generations will hear with delight. It is 
 easy to prophesy after the event — to assume the prophetic 
 mantle, and solemnly re-anoint and crown him who is already 
 known to be born a king. Still, contemporary criticism in 
 great periods is for the most part a marvel, and the perusal 
 of it should certainly inspire us in our day with a profound 
 humiUty and an undogmatic caution. 
 
 Looking back to the close of the last century, we now- 
 adays cah easily discern, to a large extent at least, the signs 
 of the times. Figures that reached no great height as their 
 age saw them, have become colossal to us ; and, vice versa, 
 some figures that were then thought gigantic have become 
 smaller and smaller — have dwindled into the puniest dwarfs.
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 291 
 
 The keen intelligence of Coleridge separated him from the 
 crowd that received Wordsworth's Descriptive Sketches, pub- 
 lished in 1793, with indifference and neglect. 'Seldom, if 
 ever,' he wrote, * was the emergency of an original poetic 
 genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced.' 
 But for many a long year there was no poet whom the 
 public and its ordinary advisers more carefully and con- 
 temptuously ignored than Wordsworth. They became 
 ecstatic over Scott, and presently, when Sir Walter ceased 
 to reign in poetry and ascended the throne of prose fiction, 
 over Byron ; they gave Wordsworth a frigid reception ; and 
 yet, who nowadays would compare in value and in influence 
 what Scott and Byron have added to our poetry with the 
 contributions made by Wordsworth ? And not only with 
 regard to men, but with regard to movements, is it difficult 
 for an age to realise what is going on in its midst. I pro- 
 pose now to call attention to some of the tendencies and 
 changes that were working their way in England in the last 
 decade of the last century, and that were profoundly to 
 influence and modify our literature, but which, at the time, 
 were scarcely noticed or perceived. 
 
 Some of these movements will be at once indicated if we 
 mention certain other works which came out in the decade 
 1 791-1800 — viz.: Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the 
 Rights of Women, The Romance of the Forest, Descriptive 
 Sketches, Godwin's Political Justice, Cowper's Miscellaneous 
 Poems, Caleb Williams, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Southey's 
 Joan of Arc, Lewis' Monk, Landor's Poems, Camilla, The 
 Anti-Jacobiti, The Italian, Person's edition of The Hecuba, 
 Malthus' Treatise on Population, Lyrical Ballads, Gebir 
 (the English version). Let us further note that John 
 Wesley died in 1791, Gibbon in 1794, Burns in 1796, 
 Cowper in 1800 ; and that Shelley was born in 1792, Keats
 
 292 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 in 1796, Macaulay in 1800; and we see clearly enough that 
 the last ten years of the last century were in a special sense, 
 so far as literature is concerned, a time of transition — a time 
 in which old things were passing away, and all things were 
 becoming new — a time of death and a time of birth. 
 
 The impulses and energies which I propose to specify, as 
 in an effective way acting upon that decade, and co-operat- 
 ing with each other and with other causes to produce results 
 so noticeable and so far-reaching, are these : the great 
 intellectual vigour and brilliancy of Germany ; the deepened 
 influence of Greek literature and art ; the revived study and 
 appreciation of our own older poetry ; the growing powers 
 of the democratic movement ; and, lastly, the new cult of 
 Nature, so to speak— that is, the new enthusiasm with which 
 men regarded the external world, and what we call natural 
 scenery. 
 
 Now, it is true that many traces of these tendencies and 
 movements can be recognised in the earlier years of the 
 eighteenth century. Influences that so deeply penetrate 
 and pervade the mind of an age cannot be sudden and 
 abrupt in their action. In the case both of individuals and 
 nations, conduct that seems strange and surprising seems so 
 only because our knowledge of their inner history is so 
 limited and so slight. It is in fact the outcome of sugges- 
 tions and aspirations and predispositions that have long been 
 rendering it probable and certain. It is only because of 
 our ignorance that nothing happens but the unexpected. 
 Assuredly, if we were better informed, we might rather say 
 that the unexpectable never happens. In literature, long 
 before a great revolution comes to pass, the murmur of its 
 coming may be detected, by subsequent students at least, if 
 we watch and listen carefully. And all through the last 
 century wc can now perceive the rise and growth of the
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 293 
 
 movements that did not fully prevail till the end of it. 
 When its own peculiar idols were in all their glory, and all 
 men seemed bowing down on their faces before them, there 
 were yet some persons who dissented from the established 
 worships, some who were beginning to burn incense to 
 other deities. All great movements and great men have 
 had their forerunners, and the voice has been raised in the 
 desert, listen who would, proclaiming that the way should 
 be prepared. A most remarkable figure in this respect is 
 the poet Gray. Of course, he is remarkable also for the 
 exquisiteness of some of his own productions ; but he has 
 for the student of literature a very particular interest as hav- 
 ing in many ways anticipated the tastes and the devotions 
 of a subsequent age. It is quite curious to notice how 
 powerfully he was affected by four at least of the move- 
 ments we have specified long before the dawning of their 
 day of triumph. He was a keen and eager Greek scholar. 
 ' I have read Pausanias and Athen?eus all through,' he says 
 in one of his letters, ' and y^schylus again. I am now in 
 Pindar and Lysias, for I take verse and prose together, like 
 bread and cheese.' The Anthologia GrcBca was one of his 
 favourite books. His attachment to older English literature 
 was another of his special distinctions ; yet another was his 
 fine appreciation of mediseval architecture. His famous 
 Eleg}' — what is it but an expression of profound sympathy 
 with ' the rude forefathers of the hamlet ' ? He felt the 
 beauty of the English lakes a generation before the great 
 hierophant of them settled at Dove Cottage, Grasmere. 
 And, though the said hierophant had his quarrel with Gray, 
 and thought that his language was often unintelligible, yet 
 scarcely he himself could have written of a sunrise with a 
 faithfuller observation and a more genuine feeling than Gray 
 describes what he saw one daybreak.
 
 294 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 I must not close my letter [he writes to his friend Nicolls, in Nqv. 
 1764] without giving you one principal event of my history, which was 
 that (in the course of my late tour) I set out one morning before five 
 o'clock, the moon shining through a dark and misty autumnal air, and 
 got to the sea-coast time enough to be at the sun's levee, I saw the 
 clouds and dark vapours open gradually to right and left, rolling over 
 one another in great smoky wreaths, and the tide (as it flowed gently in 
 upon the sands), first whitening, then slightly tinged with gold and 
 blue ; and all at once (before I can write these five words) was grown 
 to half an orb, and now to a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly 
 seen. It is very odd it makes no figure on paper, yet I shall remember 
 it as long as the sun, or at least as long as I endure. I wonder whether 
 anybody ever saw it before ; I hardly believe it. 
 
 And before Gray there was Thomson, some at least of 
 whose lines, we know, clung to the memory of Wordsworth : 
 
 I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; 
 
 You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace ; 
 
 You cannot shut the windows of the sky 
 
 Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ; 
 
 You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
 
 The woods and lawns by living stream at eve ; 
 
 Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
 
 And I their toys to the great children leave ; 
 
 Of fancy, reason, virtue nought can me bereave. 
 
 But, whatever forerunners there may have been of the 
 great movements we are considering, it was certainly not 
 till about the close of the century that these movements 
 began to produce their full effect. 
 
 To turn to them briefly one by one : The dominant 
 foreign influence on our literature, through the great part of 
 the eighteenth century, was certainly French. By this de- 
 claration is not at all meant that we did nothing but ape 
 and imitate the French classics, though they were translated
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 295 
 
 or in some way reproduced often enough. What is meant 
 is that the direction and the tone of our Hterature were to a 
 large extent imparted by France, then, and just before then, 
 at the height of its literary glory. Pope's work is thoroughly 
 his own, and not to be confounded with that of anybody 
 else, at home or abroad ; but in many respects that work 
 would have been different, had not Boileau, for instance, 
 preceded him. And so elsewhere we see deeply impressed 
 the influence of Racine, Voltaire, Rousseau. Hence the 
 somewhat extravagant outburst of Keats in his lines entitled 
 'Sleep and Poetry,' when he denounces the last century 
 versifiers as an 
 
 Ill-fated, impious race, 
 That blasphemed the bright Lyrist [Apollo himself] to his face, 
 And did not know it. No, they went about, 
 Holding a poor decrepit standard out, 
 Mark'd with most flimsy mottoes, and in large 
 The name of one Boileau ! 
 
 Among the most wonderful phenomena of literary history 
 are the revival of the German spirit some hundred and thirty 
 years ago, and the supersession by it of this French leader- 
 ship. The German genius had slept so deeply and so long 
 that the world had arrived at the conviction that no good 
 poetical thing could come from it ; and when it began to 
 wake and speak again, its voice was heard with incredulity 
 not unmixed with contempt. No one imagined that a 
 country so long a proverb for literary inferiority and dulness 
 was about to take the foremost place in the world of litera- 
 ture and science and learning. 'The taste for what is 
 German will pass away like the taste for coffee,' cried a 
 French wit, with curious infelicity. How this resurrection 
 came about would be a fascinating subject to discuss, if the 
 space at our disposal permitted. It would be specially in-
 
 296 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 teresting to dwell upon the part that England played in its 
 accomplishment— upon the influence on Germany of Milton, 
 Shakespeare, Richardson, Goldsmith, Percy's Reliqiies of 
 Ancient Poetry. But just now we have only to remind our- 
 selves of the great fact that it was accomplished, and that 
 whatever Germany owed to us at that time of its so splendid 
 regeneration, it repaid us, and still repays us, ' good measure, 
 pressed down and shaken together, and running over.' The 
 German impulse harmonised with impulses that were already 
 permeating England, and to these it gave a stronger force 
 and more successful action. 
 
 The influence of Germany clearly exhibits itself in the 
 works of Coleridge, Scott, Shelley, Byron, not to mention 
 lesser names. At first it does not exhibit itself at its best. 
 The plays of Kotzebue enjoyed in England, as in their 
 native country, an attention and a popularity they were far 
 from deserving; and Schiller was more thought of than 
 Goethe. The Robbers was wildly admired. The sus- 
 ceptible Coleridge declares : 
 
 I would have wished to die, 
 If through the shuddering midnight I had sent 
 From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, 
 That fearful voice, a famished father's cry, 
 Lest in some after- moment aught more mean 
 Might stamp me mortal ! A triumphant shout 
 Black Horror screamed, and all her goblin rout, 
 Diminished, shrunk from the more withering scene ! 
 Ah ! Bard tremendous in sublimity ! 
 Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, 
 Wandering at eve, with Hnely frenzied eye, 
 Beneath some vast old tempest -swinging wood ! 
 Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood, 
 Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy. 
 
 And in the preface to The Fall of Robespierre he states his 
 design to develop the chief characters 'on a vast scale of
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 297 
 
 horror.' Well-pointed and applied was Canning's satire in 
 The Rovers ; and the picture of the manacled Rogero was 
 not without justification : 
 
 Whene'er with haggard eyes I view 
 This dungeon that I'm rotting in, 
 I think of those companions true 
 Who studied with me at the U- 
 niversity of Gottingen. 
 niversity of Gottingen. 
 
 Sun, nwon, and thou vain world, adieu, 
 That kings and priests are plotting in ; 
 Here doomed to starve on water-gru- 
 el, never shall I see the U- 
 
 niversity of Gottingen. 
 niversity of Gottingen. 
 
 (During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against 
 the walls of his prison, and finally so hard as to produce a 
 visible contusion. He then throws himself on the floor in an 
 agony. The curtain drops, the music still continuing to play 
 till it is wholly fallen.) 
 
 But it would be unfair to assign such sensationalism to a 
 wholly foreign origin. It was, in fact, in the air of the time 
 — in the air of England as well as in that of Germany ; only 
 Germany, as it happened, gave it the most popular expres- 
 sion, and so a greater vogue than it might otherwise have 
 acquired. But these morbid excesses were soon discredited, 
 and the healthier and purer influences of the new intellectual 
 jrgime soon made themselves felt. Coleridge, who had 
 begun to learn German in the autumn of 1797, in order to 
 read Wieland's Oberon, and had practised himself by the 
 translation of Klopstock's Odes, ' determined to continue his 
 education in Germany itself;'^ and in September 1798 
 sailed from Yarmouth for Hamburg, accompanied by Words- 
 
 ' Brandl's Coleridge, Eng. Edition, p. 227.
 
 298 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 worth and his sister. From his sojourn at Goslar the latter 
 poet seems to have derived no special mental benefit — at 
 least, no benefit which he might not have gained anywhere 
 else. He lived all alone, and he was home-sick : 
 
 I travelled among unknown men, 
 
 In lands beyond the sea ; 
 Nor, England ! did I know till then 
 
 What love I bore to thee. 
 
 'Tis past, that melancholy dream ! 
 
 Nor will I quit thy shore 
 A second time ; for still I seem 
 
 To love thee more and more. 
 
 But to Coleridge, his stay in Germany was far from being a 
 mere melancholy dream ; it was a delightful reality, and he 
 gathered a rich store of new ideas. The writer that did 
 most for his development at that time was Lessing. And 
 with that influence began a new era in dramatic criticism. 
 
 It was Lessing [he writes in his Biographia Literaria, p. 275] who 
 first introduced the name and the works of Shakespeare to the admira- 
 tion of the Germans ; and I should not perhaps go too far if I add that 
 it was Lessing who first proved to all thinking men, even to Shake- 
 speare's own countrymen, the true nature of his apparent irregularities. 
 These, he demonstrated, were deviations only from the accidents of 
 the Greek tragedy, and from such accidents as hung a heavy weight on 
 the wings of the Greek poets, and narrowed their flight within the 
 limits of what we may call the heroic opera. He proved that in all the 
 essentials of art, no less than in the truth of nature, the plays of 
 Shakespeare were incomparably more coincident with the principles 
 of Aristotle than the productions of Corneille and Racine, notwith- 
 standing the boasted regularity of the latter. 
 
 The influences on Scott of Goethe's early romantic drama, 
 and of Burger's ballads, were undoubtedly important. They 
 encouraged and strengthened other influences amidst which 
 he had lived and was living, and, coming just at the crisis
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 299 
 
 of his life, had much to do in determining and shaping his 
 Hterary career. 
 
 It would easily be possible to illustrate this German 
 dominion at length and in detail. But what is now pro- 
 posed is a general survey of the movements above men- 
 tioned, rather than a minute exposition. And as our time 
 and space are emphatically finite, we must pass on briefly 
 to consider the Greek influences on the poetic renascence of 
 a hundred years ago. 
 
 II. 
 
 Now the critics and authors of the eighteenth century are 
 for ever talking about the classics ; but if we observe their 
 remarks, we shall find for the most part that they mean the 
 Latin classics — that they have little or no real acquaintance 
 with the Greek. It is true that Bentley's life extends from 
 1662 to 1742; but Bentley is the exception that proves — i.e., 
 tries — the rule, and that verifies it. That his age believed 
 that the so-called Epistles of Phalaris were genuine, and 
 that Bentley had the worse in the controversy about them, 
 at once writes down that age as singularly innocent of 
 Greek learning, and, in fact, incompetent to appreciate a 
 real Greek scholar. In this respect Bentley stands all alone, 
 of such lofty stature that his puny contemporaries cannot 
 even conceive the extent of his dimensions. It is true Pope 
 translated Homer ; but what is there Homeric, or at all 
 events how much is there that is un-Homeric, and even 
 anti-Homeric, in that brilliant performance ! 
 
 To turn to another accomplished Augustan. ' Great 
 praise,' says Macaulay,' 'is due to the notes which Addison 
 appended to his version of the second and third books of 
 
 ' Essays : Addison.
 
 300 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 the Metamorphoses. Yet those notices, while they show 
 him to have been, in his own domain, an accompUshed 
 scholar, show also how confined that domain was. They are 
 rich in apposite references to Virgil, Statius, and Claudian ; 
 but they contain not a single illustration drawn from the 
 Greek poets. . . . All the best ancient works of art at 
 Rome and Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, how- 
 ever, without reading one single verse of Pindar, of Calli- 
 machus, or of the Attic dramatists ; but they brought to his 
 recollection innumerable passages of Horace, Juvenal, 
 •Statius, and Ovid. The same may be said of the Treatise 
 on Medals. We are confident that not a line is quoted from 
 any Greek writer.' 
 
 If we cast a glance at the classical tragedies that were in 
 esteem, we find they belong to the school of Seneca rather 
 than that of Sophocles. 
 
 It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of the fact 
 that towards the close of the century there arose a classicism 
 better worthy of the name — that the relations of Greek and 
 Latin art and literature were more clearly understood, that 
 the supremacy of the Greek genius was fully felt and ac- 
 knowledged.^ The truth of what the most competent 
 Romans had themselves perceived and confessed came now 
 to be accepted. Says Horace : 
 
 Vos exemplaria GrcEca 
 Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. 
 
 Says Goethe : ' Let us study Moliere, let us study Shake- 
 speare ; but, above all things, the old Greeks and always the 
 Greeks.' The Germans lent splendid assistance in this 
 Hellenic revival. The perfection of Greek literary forms, 
 
 ' Mr Pollard's Introduction to his Odes from the Greek Dramatists is well 
 worth reading in this connexion.
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTUR V 301 
 
 and the incomparable beauty of Greek workmanship were 
 studied and appreciated by Western Europe as never before, 
 not even in the period of what is specially called the 
 Renaissance. Nor was it merely an artistic sympathy that 
 was felt. It was a sympathy with the independence and 
 daring of Greek thought — a sympathy with the Greek passion 
 for intellectual freedom and an unfettered spirit, not cribbed 
 and cabined and confined by custom and worldhness and 
 dogma. Those who strove to deliver themselves and their 
 age from the yoke of mere conventionality — to set the soul 
 free, so to speak — drew their inspiration and their strength, 
 largely from Attic sources. Shelley, fleeing from what seemed 
 to him the oppressive and stifling air of England, promises 
 his son a home in Italy or Greece, and from his very child- 
 hood a knowledge of Greek history and literature. 
 
 We soon shall dwell by the azure sea 
 
 Of serene and golden Italy, 
 
 Or Greece, the mother of the free ; 
 
 And I will teach thine infant tongue 
 
 To call upon their heroes old 
 
 In their own language, and will mould 
 
 Thy growing spirit in the flame 
 
 Of Grecian lore : that by such name 
 
 A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim. 
 
 Happily, so far as these Greek studies were concerned, he 
 might well have trained his boy in England; for England 
 was indeed taking a distinguished place in their pursuit. 
 It was in 1793 that Porson was appointed Professor of 
 Greek at Cambridge, and with Porson begins a new era in 
 Greek scholarship. By this Greek influence our hterature is 
 widely and deeply penetrated. It is to be observed even in 
 the work of Wordsworth, a poet not readily or commonly ac- 
 cessible to literary stimulations. What Landor says of his
 
 302 FOLIA LITTEKARIA 
 
 Laodamia may perhaps be somewhat hyperbolical, but there 
 is no little truth in it, and it is very noticeable as coming 
 from such an accomplished Hellenist. He pronounces it 
 ' a composition such as Sophocles might have exulted to own, 
 and a part of which might have been heard with shouts of 
 rapture in the regions he describes — the Elysian Fields.'' 
 But Shelley and Keats are those who most profoundly and 
 abundantly illustrate the mighty power of Greece in the 
 period of our last poetic revival. Conceive their writings 
 with this power withdrawn. How deeply the genius of 
 .^schylus, Theocritus, and of Moschus, stirred and moved 
 the genius of Shelley cannot easily be over-estimated ; and 
 for Keats, we know indeed that it was Spenser who first 
 woke in him a poetical consciousness, but it was Greek art 
 that thrilled him through and through. For Greek art came 
 in a sense to abide amongst us, when in 1816 our Govern- 
 ment purchased ' The Elgin Marbles,' and these ' marbles ' 
 were presently exhibited at the British Museum. The 
 ancient Greek spirit, as embodied in them, strangely moved 
 the spirit of Keats ; and other masterpieces of classical 
 antiquity profoundly affected him. A new sense of beauty 
 awoke in the bosom of this Londoner of the nineteenth 
 century, and a deep sympathetic joy in the sight of these 
 ancient perfections. Let us recall his apostrophe to a 
 Grecian urn : 
 
 O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 
 Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 
 
 With forest branches and the trodden weed ; 
 Thou, silent form ! dost tease us out of thoUi;ht 
 
 As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral ! 
 
 When old age shall this generation waste, 
 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
 
 Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst, 
 
 ' bee Imaginary Conversations : Southey and I'oison,
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 303 
 
 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all 
 
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' 
 
 And this quickening and anergic Greek influence has not 
 throughout the century ceased to perform its divine ministry. 
 A poet only recently passed away — one, I suppose, of what 
 are called ' Minor Poets,' but an exquisite one — thus speaks 
 for himself to a friend who wondered how he kept his soul 
 alive in this modern climate : 
 
 Who prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind ? 
 He much, the old man, who clearest soul'd of men, 
 Saw The Wide Prospect and the Asian Fen, 
 
 And Tmolus hill and Smyrna bay, though blind. 
 
 Much he, whose friendship I not long since won. 
 That halting slave who in Nicopolis 
 Taught Arrian when Vespasian's brutal son 
 
 Clear'd Rome of what most shamed him. But be his 
 My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul 
 
 From first youth tested up to extreme old age 
 
 Business could not make dull, nor passion wild ; 
 Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole ; 
 
 The mellow glory of the Attic stage, 
 
 Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.' 
 
 III. 
 
 But we must hasten on, in this most rapid survey, to 
 notice the revival of our older literature some hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 Now, the last century, admirable as it was in so many 
 ways, and doing so much good service of which we now 
 reap the benefit, made the mistake of prizing too highly its 
 own literary culture and its own productions, and thinking 
 far too little of the culture and productions of preceding 
 times. People often talked as if English poetry began with 
 Waller ! They made some exception, perhaps, in favour of
 
 304 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Spenser ; but for the most part they scarcely thought that 
 our older writers were worth studying, or that the Middle 
 Ages could have anything to offer them in the way of 
 instruction or of delight. The general attitude towards 
 Shakespeare was apologetic. Voltaire had labelled him a 
 ' buffoon,' and there seemed something in it. His best 
 friends allowed he was very ' irregular ; ' and others spoke 
 with less reserve. Hume, one of the finest intellects of his 
 day, describes him as ' born in a rude age, and educated in 
 the lowest manner, without any instruction from the world 
 or from books,' and finally pronounces that ' a reasonable 
 propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold.' Other 
 Elizabethans, except possibly Ben Jonson, fared yet worse 
 when brought before such tribunals. Our still older poetry 
 was as good as unknown. As to Chaucer, nothing more 
 need be said, for nothing more significant could be said, 
 than that Dryden's and Pope's versions of certain pieces of 
 his were currently accepted — versions that should be assidu- 
 ously read by any one who wishes to remain really ignorant 
 of the great Plantagenet poet. That there could be poetry of 
 any high quality in Anglo-Saxon — anything of vigour and 
 power, and having in it some flashes of Homeric fire — this 
 had not yet entered into men's heads to conceive. 
 
 Some hundred years ago a complete and a blessed change 
 took place in this respect. The past, and the poetry of the 
 past, began to excite interest and command attention. The 
 national mind refreshed itself by a perusal of the native 
 masterpieces of previous periods. The way for this revival 
 had been happily prepared by Percy's Reliques of Ancient 
 English Poetry^ and the writings of the Wartons, and the 
 scholarship of Tyrwhitt. And at last men turned with 
 enthusiasm to the Elizabethan literature and to the Middle 
 Ages, both early and late. The result is conspicuous in
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 305 
 
 the works of Scott, of Coleridge, of Keats, to confine 
 ourselves to the greater names. These geniuses delighted 
 to wander amidst the fields of mediaeval thought and feeling 
 that were in their time reopened, and to make others share 
 their delight. The contrasts with modern ideas, and the 
 strange likenesses to them, were a perpetual fascination. It 
 was clearly seen that the present had much to learn from 
 the past, and that the attitude of pity and condescension 
 towards it was by no means just or wise. Astonishing and 
 incredible as it might seem, the Middle Ages, however 
 imperfect their civilisation in some respects, were not a mere 
 wilderness of barbarism, but a time of splendid visions and 
 inspirations — of ' fine intelligence,' that could worthily ex- 
 press and embody itself. Have any centuries left behind 
 them more magnificent monuments than the old churches 
 and cathedrals that are yet one of the supreme glories of 
 our land? What are they but noble poems in stone, the 
 epics of architecture, petrifactions of beauty — 
 
 Thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
 That they were born for immortality ? 
 
 It was Strang e indeed that men's eyes should have been so 
 long blind to art-work so exquisite ; but at last they saw it, 
 and more and more fully realised its incomparable excellence. 
 How deeply Scott felt the spell of Melrose Abbey, and 
 Wordsworth that of King's College Chapel, each poet, in 
 this respect as in others, a minister of ' the Gothic Revival ! ' 
 And how fitly does Sir Walter lie in his last long sleep amid 
 the ruins of Dryburgh ! Once more men delighted to enter 
 the land of Romance, and marvel at its so long-forgotten 
 flowers, and listen to the sweet weird songs that filled the 
 air of it. 
 
 u
 
 306 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 IV. 
 
 The fourth movement I wish briefly to point out is the 
 democratic, using the term in the widest sense. The poetry 
 of Pope does not concern itself with the people at large. It 
 is busy with lords and ladies, with wits and litterateurs. But 
 a profound social change was slowly accomplishing itself, 
 even from the time of Queen Anne ; and this soon began to 
 have some representation in literature. The old exclusive- 
 ness gradually disappeared, and was succeeded by a broader 
 conception of society, inspired by a new sense of brother- 
 hood, and a more comprehensive humanity. It was a bold 
 innovation that Richardson should adopt a servant girl for a 
 heroine ; but he sufficiently acknowledges the old regime 
 when he rewards his sadly persecuted Pamela with the hand 
 of the worthless nobleman who has done his worst to effect 
 her ruin. By the end of the century no writer who was up 
 to date, so to speak — i.e., who really understood the spirit of 
 the age and wrote under its characteristic dictates — would 
 have thought such a finale became the situation. No doubt 
 this expression of sympathy was often marred by what was 
 ill-judged and foolish and grotesque ; and Canning's ridicul- 
 ous picture of the philanthropist who thinks that a needy 
 knife-grinder must necessarily have been, or be, wholly the 
 victim of some proud oppressor, and not at all the victim of 
 himself had its truth and value when he drew it. But on 
 the whole this movement was truly human and humanising. 
 It was good for the mind, and it was good for the soul, that 
 their horizons should be widened. The poetic area was 
 immensely increased. A new world, indeed, was discovered 
 and traversed and annexed. It was finely said of Sir Walter 
 Scott that he spoke to every man as if he were his blood- 
 relation. And not other is the spirit that passed into litera-
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 307 
 
 ture in the great era of the French Revolution, when, in a 
 most important sense, if I may so use St Paul's phrase, not 
 without blood in France itself, the members of each nation 
 were all ' baptised into one body,' whether they were bond 
 or free. Of this noble extension of its interests literature 
 furnishes us with copious examples. Perhaps more than 
 any other poet, Wordsworth, however alienated — and not 
 surprisingly — he became from the Revolutionary movement, 
 taught men a more catholic affection for their kind — that 
 all fellow-creatures were to be regarded with interest and 
 respect ; at least that rank and position should not be 
 allowed to monopolise respect and interest ; that amongst 
 the poorest and the humblest may be found characters of 
 genuine worth, that deserve an unpatronising, a kindly, and 
 even a reverent consideration. Nowadays these statements 
 sound Uke vapid commonplaces ; but it was not always so, 
 and even now they often need reinforcement. The common- 
 est circumstances and things, and persons of the least outward 
 note and distinction, moving in the most ordinary environ- 
 ment — around and on these Wordsworth threw a new li^ht, 
 and made visible and clear their hitherto scarcely recognised 
 attractions : 
 
 O reader, had you in your mind 
 Such stores as silent thought can bring, 
 
 O gentle reader ! you will find 
 A tale in everything. 
 
 Of the poet he asserts that — 
 
 In common things that round us lie 
 
 Some random truths he can impart — 
 The harvest of a quiet eye, 
 
 That broods and sleeps on his own heart. 
 
 It was a lesson which Wordsworth himself had had to learn
 
 308 FOLTA LITTER ARIA 
 
 — a revelation that had come to him after and amidst some 
 bitter experiences. Equable and calm as were his mood and 
 temper when we knew him best, that peace had not been 
 attained without effort, and till after .a severe convulsion. 
 There was a certain dark hour of his life when despair nearly 
 overpowered him — despair of mankind and of the world's 
 future. The horrid orgies of the French Revolution, when 
 it forgot its own prime principles and lost all self-control, 
 profoundly depressed and saddened one who from the first 
 had hailed that movement as the beginning of a better 
 time : 
 
 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young was very heaven. 
 
 Till 1793 he thought that the best dreams of the best 
 friends of humanity were about to be realised. Then there 
 befell, as it seemed, a frightful reverse. And Wordsworth's 
 soul well-nigh died within him ; and for some months his 
 spiritual condition was highly critical. He was tempted to 
 turn cynic and satirist. The influences that saved him from 
 such perdition, and so saved and secured for our literature 
 one of its most purifying and strengthening forces, are a very 
 interesting study ; but only one of them can now be men- 
 tioned — viz., that happily he was led from the observation of 
 men in masses to the observation of men as individuals. 
 The Parisian mob, with its wild excesses, was no edifying 
 spectacle. And often it happens that men in large bodies 
 seem to be guided, not by their collective wisdom, but by 
 their collective folly — that not common sense seems to 
 dominate, but common nonsense, and the human race is 
 not shown at its best, but at its worst. For a mass of men 
 is not merely an accumulation of individuals ; a certain new 
 element is introduced through the very accumulation, and
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 309 
 
 each individual is not exactly himself, but in becoming part 
 of a large conglomeration he is modified and shaped, and to 
 a certain degree transformed. And when conglomerations 
 take a bad turn, then man appears but a wild and hopeless 
 animal. Now, to Wordsworth, the human herd, as he saw 
 it, had ceased to give comfort and pleasure. And he was 
 moved to despair of the Republic. But happily for him, he 
 found in the individual what he so sadly missed in the mob, 
 and so he recovered his faith in his kind. A passage in a 
 letter of his to Fox, the famous statesman, deserves to be 
 quoted in this connexion : — 
 
 Necessitated as you have been, from your public situation, to have 
 much to do with men in bodies and in classes, and, accordingly, to con- 
 template them in that relation, it has been your praise that you have 
 not thereby been prevented from looking upon them as individuals, and 
 that you have habitually left your heart open to be influenced by them 
 in that capacity. This habit [he adds] cannot but have made you dear 
 to poets ; and I am sure that if, since your first entrance into public 
 life, there has been a single true poet living in England, he must have 
 loved you. 
 
 It was Wordsworth's good fortune to number amongst his 
 intimate friends some persons of singularly fine and excellent 
 disposition and genius ; and their society was an infinite 
 blessing to him always, but especially at this time, when his 
 heart was so depressed within him. Not less fortunate was 
 he in discovering amongst the peasantry that lived round his 
 humble home a real dignity of character, a true manliness, 
 a natural nobility. Like the Shepherd-lord in his own 
 exquisite poem. 
 
 Love had he found in huts where poor men lie ; 
 
 and by the intimate knowledge he acquired of his humble 
 neighbours — of their trials and the fortitude with which they 
 were borne — of their principles and their ambitions and their
 
 3IO FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 ideals — he was inspired with a genuine admiration for lives 
 so simple, so unexacting, so brave. And he was content to 
 celebrate them, and the troubles and the defeats and the 
 victories that darkened or brightened those unostentatious 
 careers : 
 
 Long have I loved what I behold, 
 
 The night that calms, the day that cheers ; 
 
 The common growth of mother-earth 
 
 Suffices me — her tears, her mirth. 
 Her humblest mirth and tears. 
 
 The dragon's wing, the magic ring, 
 
 I shall not covet for my dower. 
 If I along that lowly way 
 With sympathetic heart may stray, 
 
 And with a soul of power. 
 
 These given, what more need I desire 
 
 To stir, to soothe, or elevate ? 
 What nobler marvels than the mind 
 May in life's daily prospect find. 
 
 May find, or there create ? 
 
 A potent wand doth Sorrow wield ; 
 
 What spell so strong as guilty Fear ? 
 Repentance is a tender Sprite ; 
 If aught on earth have heavenly might, 
 
 'Tis lodged within her silent tear. 
 
 In the older poetry we are introduced to shepherds and 
 shepherdesses and other rustics, but they are for the most 
 part fine ladies and gentlemen thinly disguised, provided 
 with dainty crooks and fine-spun blouses from the stores of 
 the costumier. But now we have before us the real thing — 
 the bona-fide milkmaid, the dalesman who 
 
 had been alone 
 Amid the heart of many thousand mists. 
 That came to him, and left him on the heights.
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY i\i 
 
 the Female Vagrant, the Pedlar, the Old Huntsman, the 
 Leechgatherer on the Moor. 
 
 It would be easy to illustrate more fully this democratic 
 movement in literature, and from the writings of other poets 
 besides Wordsworth — e.g., of Scott, of Campbell, of Cole- 
 ridge, of Shelley ; but we must now quickly glance at the 
 fifth and last movement which we have specified as marking 
 and directing the literary era that now concerns us. 
 
 A very striking difference between this century and the 
 last is presented to us, if we notice the attitudes of the two 
 periods towards external nature — towards natural scenery in 
 its most ordinary, and yet more noticeably in its wilder and 
 grander forms. Very generally in the time of Pope, and by 
 the school of Pope, natural phenomena were described with- 
 out any real knowledge of them, the eye of the describer not 
 upon the object, to use a phrase of Wordsworth's which is 
 often cited nowadays as invented by Matthew Arnold, who, 
 indeed, borrowed it from Wordsworth. There was Uttle 
 pure delight in nature and the things of nature. There was, 
 indeed, some interest in nature when duly tricked out and 
 arranged in a certain fashion \ but nature, not artificially 
 readjusted and so made presentable, had comparatively few 
 friends. The taste for mountains had not yet arisen. Not 
 a word is said in praise of those ' great creatures of God.' 
 ' Our earUest travellers — Ray, the naturalist, one of the first 
 men of his age ; Bishop Burnet and others who had crossed 
 the Alps, or lived some time in Switzerland — are silent upon 
 the sublimity and beauty of those regions ; and Burnet even 
 uses these words, speaking of the Orisons: "When they 
 have made up estates elsewhere, they are glad to leave Italy
 
 312 FOLIA LITTER ART A 
 
 and the best parts of Germany, and to come and live among 
 those mountains, of which the very sight is enough to fill a 
 man with horror." The accomplished Evelyn, giving an 
 account of his journey from Italy through the Alps, dilates 
 upon the terrible, the melancholy, and the uncomfort- 
 able ; but till he comes to the fruitful country in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Geneva not a syllable of praise or delight.' 
 In Defoe's Totir through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 
 continued by Richardson, and by 'a gentleman of eminence 
 in the literary world' (seventh edition, 1769), the favourite 
 adjective — the cons tans epitheton — for the mountains is 
 'frightful.' Westmoreland is spoken of as 'a country emi- 
 nent only for being the wildest, most barren, and frightful of 
 any that I have passed over in England or in Wales.' Else- 
 where we read : ' But notwithstanding the terrible aspect of 
 the hills, when we had passed by Kendal and descended 
 from the frightful mountains, the flat country began to show 
 itself; and we soon found the north and north-east part of 
 the country to be pleasant, rich, fruitful, and, if compared 
 to the other part, may be said to be populous.' ^ In another 
 passage we are informed that the writer and his companion 
 or companions did 'not think it worth our while to go 
 among the hills and cliffs and rocks and terrible precipices 
 of the Stanmore district, in the North Riding.' 
 
 Since such views were current, what a revolution in taste 
 has come about ! How coaiplete is the contrast presented 
 by the poetry of Wordsworth, of Scott, of Byron ! The very 
 regions which the typical eighteenth-century man carefully 
 avoided, so far as he could, his successor began to visit and 
 frequent with enthusiasm. A new sense of natural beauty 
 
 ' Wordsworth's Prose Works, ii. 327. 
 
 - Defoe's Tour, etc., iii. 304. Ibid. iii. 161.
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 313 
 
 developed itself. Landscapes that once excited only horror 
 were now gazed upon with awe, but also with delight. The 
 solitudes once thought so forbidding and so gloomy, were 
 hailed as homes of refreshment and peace for the weary 
 spirit. A veil was withdrawn from the face of Nature, and 
 she showed herself in all her loveliness and in all her majesty. 
 No wonder if those who so beheld her were fascinated by 
 her charms. The beauty of the earth had never been so 
 keenly realised, and it became a mighty influence. Things 
 that lay all round, and of which little heed had been taken, 
 were now discerned to be gems of price. One might almost 
 say that men seemed now to see for the first time, or to see 
 with a new clearness and appreciation, everything that God 
 had made, and 'behold it was very good.' The visible 
 world was crowned with a new glory, and drew men's eyes 
 and thoughts towards it with a fresh attraction and a new- 
 born ardour : 
 
 The sounding cataract 
 
 Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock, 
 
 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
 
 Their colours and their forms, were then to me 
 
 An appetite ; a feeling, and a love, 
 
 That had no need of a remoter charm, 
 
 By thought supplied, nor any interest 
 
 Unborrowed from the eye. 
 
 And, in Wordsworth's mind at least, this delight in the 
 mere external form was followed by a yet deeper delight in 
 what seemed to lie beneath or within it, and be expressed 
 by it: 
 
 For I have learned 
 To look on Nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity, 
 Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
 To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
 
 314 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Wvvhose dolling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all object of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows, and the woods, 
 And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
 Of eye and ear — both what they half create, 
 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 
 In nature and the language of the sense 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart and soul. 
 Of all my moral being.' 
 
 And such a recognition of Nature and her sway— such a 
 worship of Nature — is perpetually uttered in the poetry of 
 Wordsworth, 'of Nature's inmost shrine . . . the priest.' 
 Thus, to quote the whole of the fine stanza of which I have 
 already in another connexion quoted the first line : 
 
 Love had he found in huts where poor men lie ; 
 
 His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
 The silence that is in the starry sky. 
 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills. 
 
 Or, again, in the well-known lines called TJie Tables Turned, 
 where he disparages book-learning by the side of Nature's 
 lessons for those who know how to receive them : 
 
 Books ! 'tis a dull and endless strife ; 
 
 Come, hear the woodland linnet. 
 How sweet his music ! On my life, 
 
 There's more of wisdom in it. 
 
 And hark ! how blithe the throstle sings ! 
 He, too, is no mean preacher ;
 
 THE LAST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY 315 
 
 Come forth into the light of things, 
 Let Nature be your teacher. 
 
 She has a world of ready wealth, 
 
 Our minds and hearts to bless — 
 Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 
 
 Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 
 
 One impulse from a vernal wood 
 
 May teach you more of man, 
 Of moral evil and of good, 
 
 Than all the sages can. 
 
 Of such teachings that to most ears were inarticulate and 
 obscure, Wordsworth was ordained the interpreter ; and if 
 at times, like priests in other temples, he was excessive in 
 his commentaries, yet not easily can be overrated the service 
 he performed for his day and generation, and for days and 
 generations to come, in making men feel — not only see, but 
 feel — the beauties of the material world in which we live ; 
 not only of its rarer and grander sights and shows, but of its 
 every-day and common phenomena. To 'see nothing in 
 Nature that is ours,' and to give ' our hearts away, a sordid 
 boon,' that, he taught us, is a sorry condition, and this a 
 miserable surrender. He taught us that life had ceased to 
 be worth living when we find ourselves without any responsive 
 emotion in the presence of what is lovely and divine, how- 
 ever common the spectacle of it ; when a thing of beauty 
 ceases to be a ' joy for ever.' 
 
 My heart leaps up when I behold 
 
 A rainbow in the sky : 
 So was it when my life began ; 
 So is it now I am a man ; 
 So be it when I shall grow old, 
 
 Or let me die ! ' 
 
 Other illustrations of this change in the general attitude
 
 3i6 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 towards Nature might be brought forward in abundance from 
 other contemporary authors ; but this rapid survey must now 
 be concluded. I trust that I have made distinct some at 
 least of the influences that effected such a wonderful trans- 
 formation in our literature nearly a century ago ; influences 
 whose force is not yet spent, but is still active and beneficent.
 
 XXII 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 
 
 (From the Gentleman s .Magazine for April and May 1888) 
 
 IN Studying the literature of the nineteenth century, and the 
 life which that literature reflects and represents, we may 
 find it both convenient and accurate to recognise three dis- 
 tinct periods. The first extends from the beginning of the 
 century to the year 1830 or thereabouts ; this is the period of 
 Wordsworth and Shelley. The second extends from the 
 close of the first to about 1870 ; this is the period of Carlyle, 
 Tennyson (if we may venture to omit his title and speak of 
 him in the old familiar way), Browning, Dickens, Thackeray, 
 and ' George Eliot.' The third is now running its course. 
 It can scarcely be said to have brought forward, as yet at 
 least, any writer of equal importance with the great masters 
 that distinguish the preceding periods. It seems a period 
 rather of abundant cleverness than of supreme genius. But 
 it is too early yet to pronounce its character. Possibly, 
 though for certain reasons not probably, some star may 
 arise of surpassing brilliancy, which may illumine these con- 
 cluding years of the century with a special and enduring 
 glory. 
 
 Now in dealing with Victorian literature, it is, of course, 
 
 317
 
 3i8 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 with the two latter periods we are particularly concerned. 
 And I shall first of all point out how these two periods are 
 marked off from the first period. Later on we shall see how 
 they are parted from each other. 
 
 If it is true, as certainly it is and cannot but be, that 
 literature, to repeat the phrase already used, reflects and 
 represents the life of the age to which it belongs, then in 
 defining literary epochs we shall find it serviceable to look 
 at the general history — at the political and social history — 
 of the country whose literature we are surveying. In the 
 present case it can easily be shown that the decade from 
 1830 to 1840 was one of wide general movement and change, 
 and that the decade from i860 to 1870 was also remark- 
 able in the same way — that is, that the middle of the three 
 periods named lies between two epochs of noticeable de- 
 partures. If it is wished to be more precise, we might per- 
 haps take the first two Reform Bills as sufificiently suggestive 
 for our purpose — the Reform Bill of 1832, and that of 1867, 
 
 Let us consider a little the decade from 1830 to 1840 — 
 the decade that witnessed the Queen's accession. It was a 
 time of singular activity and innovation in all departments 
 of life. The prolonged reaction produced by the wild 
 excesses of the first French Revolution was at last exhaust- 
 ing itself. Ideas of political advance that had been put 
 aside for more than a generation began once more to be 
 ardently and irrepressibly entertained. Democracy began 
 to feel its strength and to make its strength felt. It was 
 clear to all that had eyes to see and ears to hear that things 
 could not go on in the old groove — that the old arrange- 
 ments must be readjusted and expanded — that for new needs 
 there must be new accommodations. It was no longer 
 possible to resist the clamorous outcry of excluded popula- 
 tions for some share in the government of the country of
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 319 
 
 which they formed so large and rapidly increasing and so 
 important a part. And so the democratic movement in 
 England won its first paramount recognition in the passing 
 of the first Reform Bill. No wonder if there was then much 
 extravagant elation and hope, to be inevitably followed by 
 some disappointment and depression. But, whatever came 
 afterwards, whatever evils and troubles beyond the medical 
 efficacy of Reform Bills, men, to begin with, were elate and 
 hopeful. ' The world's great age ' seemed beginning anew ; 
 ' the golden years ' seemed returning. And in all directions, 
 along with this political energy, both just before and just 
 after 1832, there were accomplished new developments and 
 signal discoveries. It was in the year 1830 that our railway 
 system was started. And since the printing-press, no inven- 
 tion perhaps has exerted an influence comparable with that 
 of the steam-engine ; by bringing distant people into close 
 and intimate communication, it has made easily possible full 
 and effective conference on all matters, not only on those of 
 business ; and it is by such conferences, such unhampered 
 interchanges of thought and feeling and tendency, that 
 national impulses are quickened and matured. Yet further 
 were the obstacles of space removed by the introduction of 
 the electric telegraph. It was in the year 1837 that that 
 momentous invention was first successfully employed : the 
 first scene, the London and Blackwall railway. In 1838 
 a steamer crossed the Atlantic, though an eminent savant 
 had proved such a feat absolutely impracticable. Mean- 
 while, in 1834, we have a substantial proof that the national 
 conscience was awakening to its duty in respect of the edu- 
 cation of the people. In that year was made the first 
 education grant. It was but a paltry sum for such a 
 purpose — some ^20,000 ; but its importance is not to be 
 estimated by its amount. In 1S36 the newspaper stamp
 
 320 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 tax was reduced from 4^. to \d.; the advertisement tax 
 from IS. 6d. to i^. 6^. In 1837 the proposal of a penny 
 postage was first brought forward by Rowland Hill ; it was 
 adopted two years afterwards. Nor, as illustrating the various 
 activity of the time and the valuable additions then made 
 to our material conveniences and comforts, will any house- 
 holder think it out of place or i?ifra dignitatem if he is 
 reminded or informed that Lucifer matches came into use 
 in 1834. 
 
 Much more might be here recorded to show the event- 
 fulness of the decade we are now considering, but perhaps 
 enough has been said for our special purpose. What we 
 have now to note, and what it is our special business to 
 note, is how in literature too, at this time, the old things 
 passed away, and behold all things became new — how the 
 new political and social movement is, as it was bound to be, 
 accompanied and interpreted by a new literary movement. 
 
 This decade, in fact, witnesses the final passing away of a 
 great race, and the advent of their successors. 
 
 The greatest literary figure of modern days vanished at 
 this time from the ken of Europe : in the spring of 1832 
 (lOethe died. But to confine ourselves to England, at this 
 time there were taken from our midst Scott (in '32), Cole- 
 ridge (in '34), Lamb (also in '34), not to mention miscel- 
 laneously Crabbe ('32,), Mrs Hemans ('35), Hannah More 
 Kzi)^ Hogg ('35), Mackintosh ('32), Jeremy Bentham ('32), 
 James Mill ('36), Malthus ('34), Cobbett ('35), Hazhtt ('30), 
 Wilberforce i^zz), Robert Hall (31), Godwin ('36). Some 
 years previously the Italian winds had blown away the ashes 
 of Shelley, and the heart of Keats had ceased to feel its 
 capacity of misery, and Byron had died worthily and nobly, 
 whatever shall be said of his life. There still rurvived, 
 amongst others of lesser name, Landor, Hallam, Rogers,
 
 VICTORIAN LITER A TURE 321 
 
 Southey, Moore, and he who, as many think, and as may 
 well be thought, is the foremost genius of his generation — 
 Wordsworth. But of all these their best writings had been 
 written. The work of Southey, for instance, was well-nigh 
 done. While he was engaged on his edition of Cowper, a 
 terrible domestic trouble befell him, and presently his health 
 broke down, and, though he lived on till 1843, his intelligence 
 never returned ; though he still fondly handled his dearly 
 loved books, he could not gather their meaning. And for 
 Moore, too, an inferior lyrist at the best, a time of similar 
 darkness was coming. Wordsworth lived on in growing 
 honour till 1850, when Tennyson received the laurel 
 
 Greener from the brows 
 Of him that uttered nothing base. 
 
 But, indeed, his work too was done long before the end 
 came. Not that for him in his latter years the light of 
 reason was ever quenched, as in those other distressing 
 cases, though a severe affliction sorely tried the old man. 
 He still sang on, but his voice had lost its pristine charm. 
 As late as 1837 he wrote Memorials of a Tour m Italy, a 
 collection not indeed without interest, for it contains the 
 ' Musings near Aquapendente ' and the well-known generous 
 reference to Scott as 'the whole world's darling,' and also 
 indignant references to the fallen state of Italy, and ardent 
 wishes for a new era, which have happily been since accom- 
 plished. 'Italia,' he cries, as he stands by the shore of 
 Lago Morto : 
 
 Italia ! on the surface of thy spirit 
 (Too aptly emblemed by that torpid lake) 
 Shall a few partial breezes only creep ? 
 Be its depths quickened ; what thou dost inherit 
 Of the world's hopes, dare to fulfil ; awake, 
 Mother of heroes, from thy death-like sleep. 
 X
 
 322 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 And after 1837 he wrote occasionally, as, for instance, 
 the two sonnets to Miss Fenwick in 1840. But certainly 
 he wrote nothing that increased his fame. Indeed, it was 
 at the end of the eighteenth century and the very beginning 
 of the nineteenth that the genius of Wordsworth was at its 
 best, and produced its most perfect fruit. His reputation 
 would scarcely have been less than it is — it might possibly 
 have been greater — had he kept silence the last half of his 
 life. Still, his venerable figure stands out conspicuous for 
 us in the opening years of the Victorian period. Though 
 to some of the rising generation, as to I\Ir Browning (see 
 Browning's letter in Grosart's WordswortK s Prose Works), 
 he seemed ' a lost leader,' it was at this time he enjoyed his 
 greatest popularity. Certainly, whether then ' lost ' or not, 
 he had been a great leader — a great dehverer. Quite re- 
 cently he had delivered the soul of a certain John Stuart 
 Mill from a bondage that was becoming intolerable, and 
 was paralysing all his powers— from the bondage of an edu- 
 cation that had left half his nature untouched and hard. 
 And for many others he had performed a like inestimable 
 service, so that men looked up to him as something more 
 than a poet in the ordinary use of the term — they looked 
 up to him as a prophet, as a high priest in a wider sense 
 than the ecclesiastical. 
 
 He, too, upon a wintry clime 
 
 Had fallen — on this iron time 
 
 Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. 
 
 He found us when the age had bound 
 
 Our souls in its benumbing round. 
 
 He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. 
 
 He laid us, as we lay at birth. 
 
 On the cool, flowery lap of earth ; 
 
 Smiles broke from us, and we had case. 
 
 The hills were round us, and the breeze
 
 VICTORIAN L ITER A TURE 323 
 
 Went o'er the sunlit fields again ; 
 Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. 
 Our youth return'd ; for there was shed 
 On spirits that had long been dead, 
 Spirits dried up and closely furl'd, 
 The freshness of the early world. 
 
 ' Our youth returned.' What a noble conception of the 
 poet's office this phrase suggests ! It is assuredly his prime 
 business to keep us young in spirit, or make us young again 
 if we have grown secular and old — to keep or make us capable 
 of .simple and innocent enjoyments, tender-natured and sensi- 
 tive, quickly sympathetic. Wordsworth beyond doubt exer- 
 cised a highly important influence on the generation that 
 succeeded his own — as, for example, on Tennyson — and 
 must be carefully taken into account by anyone who would 
 understand the growth and development of Victorian poetry 
 and Victorian thought. The reverence of his younger con- 
 temporaries was some compensation, let us hope, for the 
 loss of coeval friends, which he, like all who grow old, was 
 fated to experience. In a characteristic manner he ex- 
 pressed his sense of loneliness and of the everlasting mystery 
 of life and death in lines which enclose so much literary 
 history that we might well quote them here if space per- 
 mitted, the lines entitled (Wordsworth was often not very 
 happy in his titles) ' Extempore Effusion upon the Death of 
 James Hogg,' written in November 1835. 
 
 So much do our limits permit us to say of the race that 
 was passing in the decade 1830-40. Now let us turn to the 
 race that was advancing, the race to which belong the great 
 masters of the Victorian period — Macaulay, Carlyle, Tenny- 
 son, Browning, Dickens, Thackeray, Mill, Whewell, and 
 others, whose names have become ' familiar in our mouths 
 as household words.' Let us notice also the noble band of 
 scientists — Darwin, Lyell, Faraday, the younger (John)
 
 324 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 Herschell, Owen, Sedgwick, Murchison. All these and 
 others were coming to the front some fifty or fifty-five years 
 ago ; and these are they who have given the Victorian age 
 whatever intellectual glory it wears for its crown. 
 
 Macaulay and Dickens became famous all at once. It 
 was not till after some years of waiting that the voices of 
 Carlyle, of Tennyson, of Browning, of Thackeray won a 
 hearing. But about the year 1830 all these writers were 
 connected, or becoming connected, with literature ; and by 
 the time of the Queen's accession they had all won some 
 degree of distinction. Macaulay's Essay on Milton was 
 published in 1825, when he was only just twenty-five years 
 of age ; and by its singular gift of style at once secured him 
 a popularity which went on increasing to the end of his 
 life, and which probably will, to some extent, be retained, 
 though at present suffering, as Dickens's fame too is suffer- 
 ing, from the reaction inevitable from excessive laudation. 
 Carlyle had won his famous battle with the Everlasting No, 
 which under changed names is described in Sartor Rcsartus, 
 and in the year 1830 was vainly endeavouring to persuade 
 London publishers to bring out this now so famous work. 
 It was in 1834 that he finally left his hermitage at Craigen- 
 puttoch and settled in the then out-of-the-way street in 
 Chelsea which will be associated with his name for ever, or 
 at least until that day comes when London is a mere heap 
 of ruins, and the planet earth is as extinct and dead as the 
 moon. Sartor Resartus was by that time coming out in 
 Fraser's Magazine^ to the serious detriment of that serial's 
 sale, so perplexed was the general reader by both the 
 thought and the style of this strange contributor, so utterly 
 unable to recognise the advent of a new great humorist and 
 a great prophet, who was to stir and move his age as no 
 other man stirred and moved it, who above all others in a
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 325 
 
 time that tended to the grossest mammon-worship and to 
 say to its soul, ' Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be 
 merry/ was to excite in the hearts of men a noble rebellion 
 against a life merely mechanical and material, who, in short, 
 was to be one of the most powerful spiritual forces of the 
 Victorian period. Some three years later, in 1837, when 
 his work on the French Revolution was published, the 
 supremacy of the genius of this Scottish border peasant 
 began to be perceived, and in no long time he took his 
 throne amongst the intellectual kings of his day. In the 
 year 1830 the energy of Dickens, struggling bravely with 
 adverse fortune, had raised him from surroundings that 
 might well have subdued and prostrated a less vigorous 
 nature to the reporters' gallery in the House of Commons, 
 and made possible for him the brilliant career that was to 
 be his. Presently he applied his hand to sketching scenes 
 from the life he saw around him, and discovered powers of 
 observation and powers of insight into certain types of char- 
 acter and certain ranks of society that made him the founder 
 and the unequalled master of a new novelistic school. His 
 papers, afterwards reprinted as Sketches by Bos, began to 
 appear in 1834. At the time of the Queen's accession the 
 Pickwick Papers were in the course of publication. Pro- 
 bably there have never been any other years, in the history 
 of England at least, in which people were so convulsed with 
 laughter as in the years 1836 and 1837 ; one seems to hear 
 the incessant roar across the half-century that separates us. 
 We are not so overwhelmed as its first readers were ; but 
 even now can one easily mention a more laughter-moving 
 book than the Posthiwwus Papers of the Pickwick Club ? 
 And is not the moving of laughter, of hearty, healthy, inno- 
 cent laughter, ' of mirth that after no repentance draws,' 
 an excellent service to perform for the world ? We have it
 
 326 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 on good authority, if authority is wanted, that there is a 
 time to laugh ; but it seems true many persons never re- 
 member that delightful fact. They find time to scold, to 
 grumble, to denounce ; but they are loo busy, they tell us, I 
 suppose with scolding and such vocations, to laugh. Yet a 
 good common laugh is one of the best and hopefuUest 
 bonds of good fellowship — one of the most effective solvents 
 of ill-feeling. What the French call ' gaiety ' in style may 
 be something superior to the power of moving laughter ; but 
 still there are few persons who can make the world laugh 
 heartily. So we do not depreciate the serviceableness of 
 Dickens if we say nothing more of him than that he pro- 
 vided his age with good honest laughter. But he did much 
 more, as we shall presently see. Tennyson may be said, 
 like a preceding master of his craft, to have lisped in num- 
 bers. He and one of his six brothers (Charles) published 
 a volume of poems when they were yet in their teens (1827). 
 At Cambridge, in 1829, he performed the dubious feat of 
 writing the successful University Prize Poem on the fascin- 
 ating subject of 'Timbuctoo.' In the following year he 
 produced his first independent collection of pieces ; and in 
 1832 a second collection. From both these volumes some 
 things were preserved and reproduced ten years later. 'I'he 
 main interest of all these earlier efforts is that they bring the 
 future laureate before us in his poetic apprenticeship, and 
 illustrate the curious care and faithful industry with which 
 he trained himself for the noble ministry to which he felt 
 himself called. His individuality of style, already apparent, 
 had to make its own audience — had to create the taste 
 which was to appreciate it. And thus he met with no 
 cordial reception from the current critics : for indeed very 
 few of the so-called critics are at all in advance of the public 
 for whom they cater, — are anything more than the spokesmen
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 327 
 
 of the prevailing schools. Thus the rising Tennyson had 
 but little cause for gratitude — I do not say none, for happily 
 real critics do exist, though they are scarce — to the literary 
 judgments of the day. However, his cold reception pro- 
 bably did him an undesigned service : it made him, to use 
 Wordsworth's phrase, ' a severe critic of himself,' and saved 
 him from the temptation to which great popularity might have 
 exposed him, of writing too fast and profusely. Moreover, 
 a great trouble for a time shrank the streams of his genius. 
 In 1833 Arthur Hallam, his most intimate friend, one of 
 the most brilliant of the brilliant Cambridge set to which 
 the undergraduate poet belonged, was suddenly taken away 
 from what seemed to be the good to come. 
 
 Beneath Vienna's fatal walls 
 God's finger touched him, and he slept. 
 
 And for a while Tennyson wrestled with this mighty 
 sorrow. It was but slowly that he recovered heart and 
 voice. The chief work of the next following years was 
 that series of ' complaints ' and of cryings for the light, not 
 published till long after they were completed or all but 
 completed (it was published in 1850), which is known as 
 the I/i Menioriaiii, and which amongst Tennyson's longer 
 poems is surely the one that is likely to preserve his memory. 
 We may picture Tennyson, then, in the decade we are 
 surveying as rapidly maturing and perfecting himself in the 
 art of expression, and also gathering in the deep darkness 
 and amidst the lightning flashes of a great affliction the 
 knowledge and the wisdom that were to make his technical 
 mastery of value in giving it worthy themes, the ultimate 
 themes of all literature, the themes of life and death, of 
 endurance and rebellion, of hope and despair. 
 
 Among Tennyson's other contemporaries at Cambridge
 
 328 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 and at Trinity College was a certain William Makepeace 
 Thackeray. Thackeray's lively sense of the ridiculous had 
 already shown itself at the Charterhouse ; but it was long 
 before he took his proper place amongst the princes of his 
 time. He, too, noted the subject of the University Prize Poem 
 in 1829, and professes to print in the S?iob — an undergraduate 
 serial so called — some lines that formed part of his own com- 
 petitive effort, lines that give indications of the facility and 
 the humour that in fuller forms were to characterise his 
 masterpieces : 
 
 In Africa (a quarter of the world) 
 Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curled ; 
 And somewhere there, unknown to public view, 
 A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo. 
 
 There stalks the tiger, there the lion roais. 
 
 Who sometimes eats the luckless blackamoors. 
 
 Desolate Afric ! thou art lovely yet ! 
 
 One heart yet beats which ne'er thee shall forget. 
 
 What though thy maidens are a blackish brown, 
 
 Does virtue dwell in whiter breasts alone ? 
 
 Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no ! 
 
 It shall not, must not, cannot e'er be so. 
 
 The day shall come when Albion's self shall feel 
 
 Stern Afric's wrath, and writhe 'neath Afric's steel. 
 
 I see her tribes the hill of glor}' mount. 
 
 And sell their sugars on their own account ; 
 
 While round her throne the prostrate nations come. 
 
 Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum ! 
 
 It was to the readers oiFraser's J/a^'-rtszV/^? that Thackeray 
 first gave a real taste of his quality, but the exact date of 
 his forming that important connexion seems not at pre- 
 sent ascertainable. Anthony Trollope, in the volume on 
 Thackeray in the 'Men of Letters Series' — a volume 
 neither for information nor discernment quite worthy of
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 329 
 
 that excellent series — says that Thackeray is not in the 
 famous symposium picture of January 1835; but surely he 
 is there, the fifth figure on Maginn's right hand. So that 
 the Fraserian connexion must have begun not later than 
 1834, which, as we have seen, was precisely the year in 
 which Dickens was first attempting original composition. 
 But Dickens quickly outstripped Thackeray in the race 
 for fame. When, on Seymour's death, a new illustrator 
 was needed for the Pickwick Papers, Thackeray offered 
 himself in that capacity. His offer was declined, no doubt 
 on just grounds ; for Thackeray, though fond of drawing, 
 and putting into his sketches abundant humour, seems 
 never to have had patience and ability to acquire technical 
 accuracy. But at last his Fraser papers attracted notice. 
 In 1837 he started the Yellowplush Correspondence; in 
 1840 appeared A Shabby Genteel Story. 
 
 Of all this new generation, the most precocious was 
 certainly John Stuart Mill. He began his contributions to 
 the Westmitister Review in 1824, when he was only some 
 eighteen years of age. Two years subsequendy there fell 
 on his spirit that darkness which, as we have seen, the 
 study of Wordsworth dispersed or reduced ; and very 
 shortly afterwards, ever bent on some good service for his 
 day and generation, he became one of the noblest and best 
 influences of his time. About the year 1837, stimulated by 
 the perusal of Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, 
 he was devoting his attention to those studies of Z^^zV which 
 resulted in his two memorable volumes in 1843. 
 
 But our space forbids our going into further details about 
 the decade 1830-40. We have demonstrated sufficiently 
 for our present purpose how it is one of those important 
 transitional times in which a well-defined era closes, and 
 another not less definite commences.
 
 330 FOLIA LITTERAL'TA 
 
 A few years later the great writers we have named were 
 joined by others of scarcely less note — by Charlotte Bronte, 
 ' George Eliot,' Mr Ruskin, Mr Herbert Spencer, Professors 
 Huxley and Tyndall. Of this distinguished group several, 
 happily, are still with us ; but it may be convenient, as we 
 think it would also be exact, to associate them rather with 
 the middle than with the concluding period of the nineteenth 
 century. Charlotte Bronte's three famous novels w^ere all 
 published between 1847 and 1853. ' George Ehot's ' best 
 work, with the exception of Middkmarch, belongs to the 
 fifties and the sixties, and Middkmarch came out early 
 in the seventies. Mr Herbert Spencer's Social Statics ap- 
 peared in 1 851; his Principles of Psychology in 1855; 
 his Principles of Biology in 1864. Huxley was already 
 prominent in the world of science in 1854. It was in 1856 
 that he and Tyndall made their famous exploration of 
 glaciers. 
 
 Let us now consider the literature whose incoming we 
 have pointed out at such lengths as our limits permit. 
 
 This may be done in several ways. We might take the 
 different literary departments one by one, and observe how 
 far each has flourished during the period we are studying ; 
 or we might adopt the personal method, and pass in review 
 some three or four of the distinguished figures who have 
 done most to express and to direct the tendencies of the 
 age ; or we might follow a merely chronological arrangement ; 
 or, lastly, we might select some of the leading ideas or 
 characteristics of the time, and try to show what various 
 embodiment th^se have found in the current literature. It 
 is this last method I propose now to follow. 
 
 I will briefly dwell upon what seems to be the special 
 feature of our age — viz., its various and many-sided activity,
 
 VICTOR FAN LITER A TURE 3 3 1 
 
 its incessant and thorough movement, or what, perhaps, 
 might be called its revolutionary character ; and then I will 
 illustrate two special phases of this general characteristic — 
 viz., the democratic movement and the scieritific. 
 
 It can scarcely be doubted, I think, that the nineteenth 
 century will hereafter be regarded as one of the great transi- 
 tional centuries of history — as a century resembling in 
 this respect the fifteenth or the fifth- — a century of dissolu- 
 tion, and also in some sort, let us hope, of reconstruction — 
 a century of transformation. In the last century there was 
 prevailing the idea of stationariness — the idea that the 
 social system could be maintained permanently in the 
 condition at which it had arrived. There was prevailing the 
 idea of finality in politics and in other provinces of thought 
 and of action. For example, men looked back at the 
 Great Revolution of 1688 as if it had done all that wanted 
 doing — as if it had settled and arranged things for ever — as 
 if under the shadow of it they might repose undisturbed and 
 placid. This curious peace of mind was first rudely disturbed 
 by the convulsions that shook France and all the world as 
 the eighteenth century closed. Still, England trusted that 
 by a vigorous policy of restraint and suppression it might 
 manage to keep down the forces that were beginning to 
 makp the country tremble and quake — forces whose energy 
 and significance it was then difficult indeed to calculate, and 
 of which the sudden emission might well be deeply dreaded. 
 Happily, with the good practical sense that has saved us from 
 so many a collision that might have been fatal, concessions 
 were presently made ; these new forces, which it was im- 
 possible to hold in lasting durance, received a judicious 
 recognition ; and we turned over to a new page of our history. 
 Even after the first Reform Bill men could i^till dream of 
 renewing the old quiet. An eminent statesman could advise
 
 332 FOLIA UTTER ART A 
 
 his constituents to ' rest and be thankful' But rest was 
 not yet to be our fortune. We had passed into a period of 
 unrest — into a period of great discontent and uneasiness, of 
 new aspirations and strivings, of death pains and birth pains. 
 Our outward habits were greatly changed. Our being was 
 moved to its inmost depths. Creeds of every kind were 
 questioned and revised or rejected. Beliefs that we thought 
 eternal proved strangely temporary and transient. Indeed, 
 there was nothing in any region of life that could evade the 
 daring, relentless scrutiny of this new era. 
 
 Now let us see how our literature reflects and images just 
 such an age. Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, Carlyle, 
 ' George Eliot,' all in one degree or another, in one way or 
 another represent just such an age. 
 
 Tennyson in the earlier part of his life and his poetry 
 kept himself in close contact with his time. In his later 
 years he has lost or relinquished such contact. The move- 
 ments, whose infancy and adolescence he watched without 
 any or with slight apprehension, and cheered with his 
 choicest songs, have now left him behind, so strangely swift 
 has been their pace, so unexpected their developments. 
 Now, in their full strength and vigour, he regards them with 
 but little sympathy ; he is like some godfather who is 
 appalled "at the manners, and what seems to him the turbul- 
 ence and recklessness, of the adult whose childish gambols 
 he used to look on with so warm an affection. Compare 
 the laureate's Locksley Hall Sixty Years After with the 
 Locksley Hall of his youth, and what a tale of change and 
 movement is suggested to us. In both poems he illustrates 
 the temper of his age ; but in the earlier one his sanguine 
 spirit exults in the eager activity he sees around him. It 
 exactly recalls for us that stage in the modern movement 
 when all seemed good and promising, and fear of excess was
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 333 
 
 not excited. Disgusted with his lady-love's treason, the 
 hero appeals to his wondrous mother-age, for shelter and 
 succour. He sees keenly the evils around him, but he does 
 not despair ; he does not mistrust the future. He is 
 tempted to think there might be calm for him in some 
 distant ' isle of Eden,' far away from the impetuous life that 
 rushes on all sides. 
 
 There, methinks, would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, 
 In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. 
 
 But the idea of stagnation repels him ; his old delight in a 
 vital activity returns, and with a hearty cheer he bids the 
 world move on : 
 
 Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. 
 Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. 
 Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day : 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 
 
 Another of Tennyson's poems which it is highly interesting 
 to read in the light of his age is his Ulysses. Through 
 the lips of the old Greek he gives voice to the yearnings of 
 his day. Dante, as is well known, had turned the story of 
 Ulysses to the same account. The spirit of the early 
 Renaissance had recognised in it an excellent symbol. But 
 not the less significant for this previous interpretation is 
 the nineteeth-century rendering of it. Certainly, it is true 
 that the nineteenth-century aspirations are often undefined 
 and vague. Longfellow's popular verses called ' Excelsior ' 
 may be said perhaps to express this vagueness. The passion 
 for knowledge, for the exploration of its limitless fields, for 
 the annexation of new kingdoms of science and thought is 
 what actuates the modern Ulysses. He is intent — 
 
 To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 
 Beyond the utmost bounds of human thought.
 
 334 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 The latter line exactly reminds us of the uncontrollable 
 ambition of the modern mind — its insatiable and implacable 
 thirst for fresh conquests. 
 
 Come, my friends, 
 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
 Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
 The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 Of all the western stars, until I die. 
 
 Notice the vast uncertainty of their destination as given in 
 the following lines : — 
 
 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 
 
 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
 
 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
 
 Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 
 
 We are not now that strength which in old days 
 
 Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are ; 
 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 
 
 What finer wording could there be of the modern spirit 
 of tireless investigation? But, indeed, throughout his 
 poetry, sympathetically or antipathetically, Tennyson reflects 
 his age with singular faithfulness. I am not sure that any 
 other poet has been so largely and fully the spokesman of 
 his age. To use a Hamletian metaphor, he has been the 
 instrument on which his age has played its various tunes. 
 Nor am I sure that a poet who is so specially the spokesman 
 of his own age and its notions, will not be found of the less 
 value by future ages. The supreme poets arc ' not of an 
 age, but for all time,' or, rather, they belong to their 
 respective ages, but to all other ages besides. The lesser 
 poets are limited to their ages. Immersed in the present, 
 for future readers, except for the historical student, they
 
 VICTORIAN IITERATURE 335 
 
 have less interest. Certainly Tennyson mirrors his age in a 
 wonderful manner. But our space permits but one more 
 illustration. How admirably the transitional character of 
 the century is rendered in the famous passage in which 
 King Arthur, with shatter'd casque, his ' brow Striped with 
 dark blood,' his face white and colourless, is placed, dis- 
 abled and broken, in the barge to go 
 
 To the island valley of Avilion ! 
 
 He is the representative of a great age that is being super- 
 seded, of a system, that, after noble service done, is making 
 room for a new system which also shall be nobly service- 
 able ; of a regime that has waxed old as doth a garment, 
 and is being put aside for a vesture new-woven and new- 
 dyed. Sir Bedivere exactly images those persons who hold 
 indiscriminately to the old ideas and the old ways ; who 
 cling blindly to the skirts of the past, and can never see 
 that the costume they have admired is threadbare and 
 discoloured, and ragged and rotten. They 'love not 
 wisely but too well.' They cannot conceive that life may 
 be worth living — may be lived nobly — under other forms 
 than those with which they are familiar. In all transitional 
 ages you may hear the piteous outcries of these weak, forlorn 
 brethren. They would forbid and obstruct the departure 
 of their Arthur, although indeed he is dying, and would 
 fondly cherish a mere corpse, from which, alas ! there 
 must needs proceed corruption and plague. 
 
 Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 ' Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
 Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
 For now I see the true old times are dead, 
 When every morning brought a noble chance, 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 Such times have been not since the light that led
 
 33^ FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
 
 But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
 
 Which was an image of the mighty world, 
 
 And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
 
 And the days darken round me, and the years, 
 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds.' 
 
 And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 
 ' The old order changeth, yieldmg place to nezv. 
 And God fiilfiis Himself in 7)iany ivays. 
 Lest one good ciisfoni should corrupt the world. ' 
 
 In Browning, too, we may easily see reflected the 
 perpetual inquisitiveness and unsettlement of the age. 
 Browning's own religious belief never falters ; but he 
 portrays current scepticisms in such works as the Death ift 
 the Desert, and La Saisiaz. In Paracelsus he gives a 
 memorable enunciation of the idea of progress. It is to 
 be feared that many people confound the ideas of movement 
 and progress, which, obviously, are extremely different. A 
 man may walk, and walk with exemplary vigour, along what 
 is unfortunately quite the wrong road for him, if he has 
 any particular destination in view. He moves, but he does 
 not progress. But we may presume he thinks he is pro- 
 gressing — that his motto is progress. And let us hope 
 that much of the movement of our time is really progressive. 
 Browning thus describes his ideals, and endeavours to guide 
 the impulses of the age accordingly : 
 
 Progress is 
 The law of life, man's self is not yel Man ! 
 Nor shall I deem his object served, his end 
 Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth. 
 While only here and there a star dispels 
 The darkness, here and there a towering mind 
 O'erlooks its prostrate fellows. 
 
 And he goes on to dwell sanguinely on the fresh start that 
 life seems making. Of course the words refer, in the first
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 337 
 
 instance, to the early sixteenth century ; but there cannot 
 be a doubt they are largely suggested by the poet's im- 
 mediate environment. 
 
 Prognostics told 
 Man's near approach ; so in man's self arise 
 August anticipations, symbols, types 
 Of a dim splendour ever on before. 
 In that eternal circle run by life, 
 For men begin to pass their nature's bound, 
 And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant 
 Their proper joys and griefs ; they outgrow all 
 The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade 
 Before the unmeasured thirst for good ; while peace 
 Rises within them ever more and more. 
 
 The same spirit of movement, of alacrity, and of hope 
 permeates the work of Dickens. He is peculiarly the 
 offspring of the first Reform Bill period. He is full of con- 
 fidence' in himself and his age. He was fond of declaring 
 his reliance on Demos. ' My faith in the people govern- 
 ing,' he said, and said more than once, 'is, on the whole, 
 infinitesimal; my faith in the People governed is, on the 
 whole, illimitable.' And the busy, sanguine temper and 
 radiant optimism of his youth were in him to the last. He 
 attacked in his novels various existing evils with vigour and 
 with considerable success. Thus the Pickwick Papers, 
 Oliver Tzvist, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, Little 
 Dorrit, were all in part inspired by a reforming purpose. 
 I am not saying they are the better works of art on this 
 account ; the artist and the reformer have very different 
 natures and functions, and their characters cannot be com- 
 pounded and confounded with impunity. But, happily for 
 Dickens's success as a novelist, the reforming instinct in 
 him was always subordinate to the artistic. Still it was 
 there, and serves at least to remind us of the atmosphere 
 in which his genius grew up. In Macaulay, too, may be 
 
 Y
 
 338 FOLIA I.ITTERARTA 
 
 heard to the end the same cheerful, sanguine tone. To 
 him his age seemed the best of ages ; he was never tired 
 of dilating upon its virtues and glories; indeed there never 
 was such an age. Its material advances were unrivalled, 
 and he delighted to celebrate them ; and he celebrated 
 them with an eloquence and a wit that placed him amongst 
 the masters of language and style. He is the great trumpet- 
 blower of his age, and blows with a will, and with such a 
 power and resonance that we still listen with pleasure to 
 his splendid blasts. But far other did this same vaunted age 
 seem to the eyes of Carlyle — eyes of much deeper insight 
 and penetration than those of Macaulay. For, indeed, 
 Macaulay saw little beneath the surface of life. He had 
 the quickest sense of the picturesque and the external, both 
 in the past and the present ; but of the inner meaning of 
 things and their real significance he has not much to tell 
 us. He could have described in an incomparable way the 
 handwriting on the wall in that old Babylonian palace, but 
 he could never have suggested the interpretation. He never 
 dreamt of the insoluble, or at least utterly tangled and intri- 
 cate, problems that were awaiting the society which seemed 
 to him to be such a glorious success. Carlyle looked deeper 
 and further. It is perhaps true that he did not sufficiently 
 recognise what was good and promising in his age ; the 
 effusive optimism of Macaulay and such zealots may have 
 impelled him in the opposite direction ; also, there was in 
 his disposition a certain tendency to acerbity and censori- 
 ousness ; for in this respect, as in so many others, Carlyle 
 is a striking contrast to Macaulay, whose sweetness of nature 
 it would be difficult to overpraise. ' Thomas,' as his mother 
 frankly said, ' was gay ill to live wi' ' or 'to deal wi' ' as 
 another version has it ; and the accuracy of this maternal 
 verdict his age experienced no less than individuals. But
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 339 
 
 to speak of Carlyle as a mere sharp-tongued dyspeptic 
 anathemiser would be to commit a shameful injustice. 
 Rather he was a great prophet-like figure, notable, indeed, 
 to prophesy smooth things like his buoyant-hearted con- 
 temporary, but in the inmost heart of him, to use his own 
 way of speaking, with a profound admiration for what was 
 really noble and worshipful. To him the glories that were 
 so loudly lauded and hymned seemed of but slight and fleet- 
 ing splendour. To him society seemed profoundly disorgan- 
 ised, and rapidly travelling towards mere anarchy. The 
 aims and triumphs of the prevailing legislature seemed of 
 trivial moment. It was as if a fire brigade should attempt 
 to extinguish Vesuvius, or as if one exposed to a shower 
 of bullets should protect himself with an umbrella. He 
 saw, and saw most truly, as we now too well know, that 
 much of the prosperity that made such a show around him 
 was ' like a green bay tree,' that it would not and could not 
 last. In Past and Present there is a remarkable passage 
 that may justly be called prophetic, in which he predicts 
 that a wide expansion of commerce and a great increase of 
 wealth will follow the removal of certain oppressive laws, but 
 that this expansion and this increase will soon reach their 
 limit, and difficulties and distresses will recur, which is 
 precisely what has happened. Since about the year 1870 
 these difficulties and distresses have direly beset us. As I 
 have never seen these pertinent words pointed out or quoted 
 in this connexion, let me here repeat them. They were 
 written in 1843. ' Yes, were the corn laws ended to-morrow, 
 there is nothing yet ended ; there is only room made for 
 all manner of things beginning. The corn law^s gone, and 
 trade made free, it is as good as certain this paralysis of 
 industry will pass away. We shall have another period of 
 commercial enterprise, of victory and prosperity, during
 
 340 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 which it is hkely much money will again be n)ade, and all 
 the people may by the extant methods still for a space of 
 years be kept alive and physically fed. The strangling 
 band of famine will be loosened from our necks ; we shall 
 have room again to breathe ; time to bethink ourselves, to 
 repent, and consider ! A precious and thrice precious 
 space of years, wherein to struggle as for life in reforming 
 our foul ways, in alleviating, instructing, regulating our 
 people, seeking, as for hfe, that something like spiritual 
 food be imparted them, some real governance and guidance 
 be provided them. It will be a priceless time. For our 
 new period, or paroxysm of commercial prosperity, will and 
 can, on the old methods of " Competition and devil take 
 the hindmost," prove but a paroxysm — a new paroxysm, 
 likely enough, if we do not use it better, to be our last. In 
 this, of itself, is no salvation. If our trade in twenty years, 
 flourishing as never trade flourished, could double itself, 
 yet then also, by the old laissezfaire method, our popula- 
 tion is doubled. We shall then be as we are, only twice as 
 many of us, twice and ten times as unmanageable.' Surely 
 this is the voice of a prophet, whether we accept all its 
 utterances or not. And it is a voice that was heard and 
 heeded. Much has been done in that very way of popular 
 instruction that Carlyle advocates and enjoins — much but 
 for which our confusion at this hour would certainly have 
 been worse confounded, our darkness yet thicker and 
 deeper and dawnless. If this prophet could have perceived 
 how the generation to which he preached was not altogether 
 perverse and viperous — that it did in some sort answer to 
 his awful warnings, and made some efforts to flee from the 
 wrath to come of his denunciation, he might have been 
 saved from the rank pessimism to which he abandoned 
 himself in his latter days. While Macaulay complacently
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 341 
 
 blew the trumpet of the age, here was Carlyle, ' his hoary 
 hair' streaming 'like a meteor to the troubled air,' kindling 
 the alarm beacons on the hill tops, and with their fierce 
 blaze and wild roar startling the age from its security and 
 self-satisfaction. But if Macaulay trusted too much, Carlyle 
 trusted too little. Great and grand as he was, there was 
 yet something of the cynic in Carlyle. He would have been 
 greater had he been humbler, less wilful, more tolerant. 
 With respect to much that was excellent in his age he lived 
 in obstinate isolation, and I do not think it can be said he 
 grew wiser as he grew older. He certainly did not under- 
 stand the capacities and potentialities of his age. He saw 
 with the keenest eyes its dangers and its vices, but the only 
 remedy he could imagine was that of the strong-handed 
 ruler. He was for ever insisting on complete obedience 
 to the God-sent hero as the panacea for all evils, and he 
 declared that his hero would always be sent in time of need. 
 This was Carlyle's great faith, but it cannot but be pro- 
 nounced transcendental. Is it never the case that an 
 afflicted people scan the heavens in vain for the star that 
 is to indicate the presence of ' a Saviour of society ? ' — that 
 in the east, whose space they so wistfully and earnestly 
 explore, they can descry no Epiphany? Can an age do 
 nothing for itself? Must it merely pray and wait till its 
 Great Man appears ? Does God fulfil himself only in one 
 way? Is it not a gross misstatement to say, as is said in 
 the lectures on Hero-Worship, and as Kingsley echoingly 
 and impetuously says, that ' Universal History is at bottom 
 the history of the Great Men who have worked there?' 
 If it may be asserted that a great man makes his age what 
 it becomes, it may also be asserted that his age makes him 
 what he is. It is great ages that produce great men ; and 
 in a highly important sense the great man is the offspring
 
 342 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 of his age. He is the special heir of the past out of which 
 that age has proceeded, the special exponent of its mind, 
 the special representative of its character. We cannot, 
 indeed, fully explain the genesis of genius — there remains 
 something that escapes our present analysis ; we cannot 
 thoroughly understand all the circumstances and conditions 
 under which the genius of the age concentrates and culmin- 
 ates in some select individual. But that a vital relation 
 exists between the individual and his age seems beyond 
 question. And yet Carlyle treats with contempt and 
 derision the notion that a great man is ' the creation of his 
 time.' ^ Tennyson's phrase, ' O thou wondrous mother-age,' 
 in the lines referred to above, reminds us of the great truth 
 Carlyle perversely ignored. Certainly it was not without 
 detriment that ' the Sage of Chelsea ' stood aloof from the 
 scientific impulses of his time — that he wrapped himself 
 in his virtue, and fed on his intuitions and visions, despising 
 the Darwins and the humble plodders along the paths of 
 reason and research. The study of society — of men in 
 combinations and masses — attracted him not at all. Such 
 investigations as Mr Herbert Spencer has formally initiated 
 in his Sociology and other works seemed to him frivolous. 
 What interested him was the individual man of ability and 
 force. Most men, he maintained, were fools, and the 
 greater number of men you get together, the greater the 
 heap of folly. That the average of intelligence and wisdom 
 might be raised was not one of his leading conceptions. 
 The idea of a people, as a whole, educated and cultured 
 was not one of his day dreams. He only thought of the 
 masses as something to be controlled and managed. In 
 short, he was devoid of sympathy with the democratic 
 
 movement. 
 
 ' See Lectures on Heroes, Lect. I.
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 343 
 
 And yet the democratic movement is the one great social 
 and pohtical movement of these latter days, and cannot for 
 one instant be ignored by any competent thinker. In some 
 minds it excites no overwhelming fears ; it is but a natural 
 evolution of society ; it is but a new order, a new system, 
 inevitably arriving. There may be some confusion during its 
 coming and its establishment, but in due time this confusion 
 will cease, and the world will settle down under the new 
 regime^ not less composedly than under the old, till this, too, 
 shall become old, and in its turn be superseded. But, how- 
 ever we may regard democracy — with horror, or with mis- 
 giving, or with confidence, or with exultation — all practical 
 thinkers must accept it. It is one of those facts which 
 Carlyle so eloquently proclaimed it is the mark of greatness 
 to recognise. It cannot be annihilated by the most per- 
 sistent indifference, or the profoundest disgust, or shutting 
 one's eyes with the utmost pertinacity. In one of Dickens's 
 novels — in Our Mutual Friend — there is a certain Mr 
 Podsnap who has the for him happy faculty of believing that 
 what he does not wish to exist does not exist. To ignore a 
 distasteful thing is as good as extirpating and demolishing it. 
 And that gentleman, though perhaps somewhat extravagantly 
 and grotesquely portrayed, as is often the case with Dickens's 
 pictures, is certainly in some degree true to nature. Pod- 
 snappery is, in fact, uncommonly common. It is wonderful 
 how many people there are who think that if they will not 
 look at a thing the thing vanishes, and is not. And often 
 enough they only learn better when the said thing falls upon 
 them, and is crushing them. He that hath eyes to see, let 
 him close them — that is perilous advice. 
 
 One most striking mark of the democratic movement, to 
 use the phrase in the broadest sense, is the extent to which 
 the people, in the more Hmited application of the terra, have
 
 344 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 been the subject-matter of literature during the present cen- 
 tury, and especially the last fifty years. What a contrast our 
 literature presents in this respect to that of the last century. 
 What different social interests are represented by Pope and 
 by Tennyson. It is true that in one well-known passage it 
 does occur to Pope whether it is quite right that ' the great ' 
 should monopolise the poets, and he does proceed to cele- 
 brate somebody without a title, but this somebody is what 
 we should call a private gentleman of limited means, which 
 he uses beneficently : 
 
 Yet all our praises why should lords engross ? 
 Rise, honest Muse, and sing the Man of Ross. 
 
 It is true that the heroine of the first novel, properly so 
 called, is a servant-girl ; but this was accidental, as could be 
 easily shown ; and, moreover, Pamela is in the end married 
 to a lord. In Cowper may be noticed sympathies that 
 comprehend the poor and the humble. The rise of Burns 
 gave a quite new attraction to the 'labouring classes.' 
 That a ploughman should be one of the sweetest and 
 brightest song-writers of his age, and of all ages — here was 
 an amazing phenomenon. Then came Wordsworth with his 
 humble heroes and heroines, to make us feel how in the 
 most ordinary and least illustrious person there may be the 
 possibility, and the reality, of all that makes life noble, and 
 to be desired, and to be admired. And so our interests and 
 sympathies have been broadened and deepened. And this 
 is, perhaps, the supreme distinction of the Victorian period. 
 The sense of brotherhood has been quickened within us. 
 The vast multiplication of manufactures, the huge increase 
 of population, the rapid growth of democracy have inevitably 
 brought before us a knowledge of forms and states of life and 
 experience that has deeply affected the natural conscience,
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 345 
 
 and has widely and variously aroused both shame and pride, 
 condolence and congratulation, both terror and delight. 
 Partitions and walls have been removed ; and the different 
 classes of society know each other better than they did, and, 
 let us hope, judge each other more justly. Dives and 
 Lazarus have conversed together. The east and the west of 
 our great towns have inteirchanged visits. And, if their 
 relations are yet far from being all that could be wished, yet 
 it is something that they are in correspondence, and that 
 they meet. To this deepened and broadened feeling our 
 current literature has given noble utterance. The writings 
 of Dickens, Hood, Tennyson, Thackeray, 'George Eliot,' 
 Mrs Browning, Charlotte Bronte, Carlyle, and of many 
 others whom I would fain name if space permitted, have all in 
 one way or another, directly and indirectly, worthily inter- 
 preted and inspired their age in respect of this 'enthusiasm of 
 humanity.' What fine passion and compassion glow in 
 Carlyle's noble words concerning ' the toilworn craftsman that 
 with earth-made implement labouring conquers the earth, and 
 makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand, 
 crooked, coarse ; wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning 
 virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the sceptre of this planet. 
 Venerable, too, is the rugged face, all weather tanned, 
 besoiled, with its rude intelligence ; for it is the face of a 
 man living manlike. O ! but the more venerable for thy 
 rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee ; 
 Hardly entreated brother ! For us was thy back so bent, for 
 us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed ; thou 
 wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our 
 battles wert so marred. For in thee lay a God-created form, 
 but it was not to be unfolded ; encrusted must it stand, with 
 the thick adhesions and defacements of Labour ; and thy 
 body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet toil on,
 
 346 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 toil on ; thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may ; thou 
 toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread.' 
 Hood might well be content to have inscribed on his tomb- 
 stone : ' He wrote the Song of a Shirt.' That touching cry 
 has assuredly not been heard in vain, though yet far away 
 seems the time when the ' Song of a Shirt ' shall be a song of 
 gladness. Our hearts are deeply stirred, as through the 
 night it goes up to heaven from yonder attic. But the great 
 writer, who has done most to enable the rich and well-to-do 
 classes to understand the poorer, is certainly Charles Dickens. 
 This is from our present point of view, which is not the 
 purely artistic, his highest glory, his best jewelled crown. 
 He undoubtedly fails when he paints the aristocracy, which, 
 happily, he has had the good sense seldom to attempt. Such 
 a character as Lord Verisopht is a mere idiotic puppet. 
 Nor, strangely enough, does he succeed in portraying 
 satisfactorily his own class — the class in which he moved 
 when grown up. His ladies and gentlemen are not exactly 
 the ladies and gentlemen of society in the special sense. 
 They have their merits, but amongst these is not that 
 indefinite something, that precise mark of breeding and 
 manner, which essentially distinguishes this social species. 
 Nor is Dickens happy in his delineation of the artisan. 
 ' Stephen Blackpool,' truly says Mr Ruskin, is 'a dramatic 
 perfection instead of a characteristic example of an honest 
 workman.' It cannot be said that Dickens understood the 
 industrial problem in all its intricacy, as it lies before us 
 nowadays ; it was, indeed, in its earlier phases, and not yet 
 completely articulate when he wrote ; and he is not at ease 
 and in full command when he approaches it. But he had a 
 real fellow-feeling with the industrial classes. ' Ah ! 'he said 
 to his friend Forster, after visiting Venice, ' when I saw those 
 places, how I thought that to leave one's hand upon the
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 347 
 
 time,' lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the 
 mass of toiling people that nothing could obliterate, would 
 be to lift oneself above the dust of all the Doges in their 
 graves, and stand upon a giant's staircase that Samson could 
 not overthrow.' 'In varying forms,' adds Forster, 'this 
 ambition was in all his life.' The Chimes (1844), Bleak 
 House (1853), Hard Times (1854), are the books in 
 which he specially exhibits this sympathy with the working- 
 man. But his sympathetic knowledge of the poor, of the 
 struggles of men of humble position, of the outcasts of 
 society, is displayed in all his writings. He had in his own 
 youth endured many hardships, and been brought into close 
 contact with much distress and poverty. He knew by bitter 
 experience what a truceless wrestle with troubles life is for 
 many people. But happily he knew also how, on the whole, 
 this battle was fought bravely and manfully. He keenly and 
 heartily recognised the kindliness and the goodness that sur- 
 vived, and even flourished amidst what might have seemed, 
 and perhaps used to be thought to be, quite fatal surround- 
 ings. Thus his pictures of what one may call the East End 
 and the Central district of life — pictures painted with the 
 same consummate intimacy which marks Thackeray's pic- 
 tures of the West End — have real value for their truth and 
 their humanity. He does not visit the regions of Rother- 
 hithe and Saffron Hill in the spirit of a patron, or as some 
 superior being; he goes amongst the people as a man 
 amongst men, as one ready and eager to teach, but not less 
 ready and eager to be taught. 
 
 And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach. 
 
 The Pharisee in the parable thanked God he was not as 
 other men, and he draws up a sufficiently forbidding list of 
 what other men are. But should we not rather be thankful
 
 348 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 we are as other men ? — be proud to be the fellows of other 
 men, when mankind is judged generously and with a sym- 
 pathetic insight? Dickens joins the East and the West 
 together in a true human league. Even in the criminal 
 class that finds a place everywhere — in the West as well as 
 the East — he makes us all remember that there are seeds 
 and even growths of nobleness, though the seeds have not 
 always ripened, and the growths are sadly stunted. He 
 unseals in us the fountains of pity ; if he kindles indignation, 
 it is not against nature, but it is against the evil arrange- 
 ments and conventions that so often pervert nature. Pro- 
 bably no writer, in England at least, has ever done more in 
 the way of acquainting us with the proletariat — with their 
 manners and customs, their sorrows and their joys, their 
 genuine kindliness and wonderful generosity to each other ; 
 and thus no man has ever done more to remove the barriers 
 that ignorance and estrangement set up between the classes 
 of society, and to make us really sensible of our common 
 lineage — ^to show us how slight are the differences between 
 men, whatever their birth and condition, as compared with 
 the points of likeness and identity. Mrs Gaskell, and many 
 others, have followed faithfully in the steps of Dickens. 
 And Thackeray too, in a different way, has helped to im- 
 press on the world the same lesson. If Dickens has told 
 us of the goodness and the excellence that bloom in humble 
 quarters, of the love to be found ' in huts where poor men 
 lie, Thackeray has mercilessly exposed the meanness and 
 selfishness that abound in the circles of wealth and rank. 
 He has led his readers along the streets and amidst the 
 booths of Vanity Fair, and shows them how much that looks 
 like gold is the merest tinsel. He is not so utterly perverse 
 and inhuman as to forget that even in Vanity Fair truth has 
 its dwellings, that even there nature is not extinct. Happily
 
 J VC TORI AN LITER A TURK 349 
 
 nature is not easy to extinguish, or no doubt conventionalism 
 would have extinguished it long ago. Even in Vanity Fair, 
 as Thackeray describes it, there is something generous and 
 sincere ; the booths do sometimes contain what the showman 
 outside announces, and promises are not always lies. But 
 undoubtedly the general result of Thackeray's work was to 
 disperse the glamour which had been vulgarly — by such 
 writers as Theodore Hook, for instance — thrown around 
 the tenants of mansions and palaces. He exhibited these 
 tenants as they really were, good, bad, and indifferent, even 
 as other men. And thus he, too, proved there is 'a good 
 deal of human nature in man,' whatever his social status, 
 and reinforced and vivified the old commonplace, that rank 
 and fashion are not invariably associated with goodness and 
 virtue — that, to use Tennyson's phrases, 'kind hearts' and 
 ' coronets ' are not always found together, nor yet ' simple 
 faith ' and ' Norman blood,' and that, after all —   
 
 'Tis only noble to be good. 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 And simple faith than Norman blood. 
 
 Not that Thackeray despised rank and fashion, or that rank 
 and fashion are to be despised — why should they be ? — but 
 that they should be estimated at their proper worth — should 
 not be worshipped blindly and grossly. Amongst his most 
 effective portraits are the figures of those who so worship 
 such comparatively trivial things — of the parasites and 
 hangers on and slaves of ' society ' ; and here he shows us 
 what real vulgarity is, and that it is not a mere ignorance of 
 etiquette, or some inaccuracy of grammar and language. 
 
 Much more might be said of the influence of the democratic 
 movement on literature ; I have only dwelt upon its influence 
 on the subject-matter of it, and the ethical spirit in which
 
 350 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 that subject-matter has been handled. But to discuss, or 
 try to discuss, the matter more fully — as, for instance, the 
 general relation of democracy and art, how art is likely to 
 thrive in a democratic atmosphere, it being remembered 
 that the modern form of democracy is essentially different 
 from the ancient, from that under which art flourished at 
 Athens — would far exceed our present limits of time and 
 space. And I must now very briefly speak of the scientific 
 movement and its influence. 
 
 I do not propose here to celebrate the triumphs of science 
 in the Victorian period, to catalogue the new sciences that 
 have arisen — as, for example, geology and biology — to 
 record the extraordinary advances they have made, and 
 point out the immense influence they have exercised upon 
 all departments of thought ; I wish rather, most briefly, to 
 refer to the influence of the scientific spirit outside the 
 domain of what is commonly known as science. Not only 
 have many of the special ideas and discoveries of science, 
 cosmical and other, acted upon our general conception of 
 things, but this scientific spirit has made and is making 
 itself felt everywhere. Let me mention one of those ideas — 
 perhaps the one that has been most active and influential — 
 the idea of evolution. In biology that idea had been form- 
 ing in men's minds from the beginning of the century ; ex- 
 cept to correct a popular error, I need not say it is not due 
 to Darwin. It was already in the air, and had already been 
 repeatedly stated years before the Origin of Species ap- 
 peared in 1859, which made a great epoch, not by announc- 
 ing the doctrine of evolution, but by explaining the method 
 by which evolution was brought about. One may catch 
 echoes of the doctrine in Tennyson's Li Memoriam (1850, 
 written as we have seen in the thirties) ; as where the poet
 
 VICTORIAN LITER A TURE 35 1 
 
 sketches the gradual formation of the solid earth from ' tracts 
 of fluent heat,' till at the last arose the man, ' the herald of a 
 higher race,' if only he 
 
 Move upward, working out the beast. 
 And let the ape and tiger die ; 
 
 or in the passage when he again looks forward to a yet 
 higher development of humanity to 
 
 The crowning race 
 
 Of those that eye to eye shall look 
 
 On knowledge ; under whose command 
 Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 
 
 Is Nature like an open book ; 
 
 No longer half akin to brute, 
 
 For all we thought and loved and did, 
 And hojied, and suffer'd, is but seed 
 
 Of what in them is flower and fruit ; 
 
 Whereof the man, that with me trod 
 This planet, was a noble type 
 Appearing ere the times were ripe. 
 
 Observe how this idea of evolution is pervading all our 
 studies — our study of history, of language, of society. But, 
 as I have said, let us notice not only the influence of single 
 and special ideas, but of the scientific spirit. What is the 
 scientific spirit ? What does the term ' science ' mean ? 
 Let us remember that science meant originally only know- 
 ledge. It is only quite recently that the term has acquired 
 a special and technical sense; when Gray uses it in his 
 Elegy, he uses it in the old general sense. But it has 
 come to mean knowledge of a special quality — knowledge 
 that is thorough, systematic, complete, so far as it goes, 
 absolutely and finally demonstrated, wholly sifted from
 
 352 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 conjecture and assumption. In In Memoriam Tennyson 
 
 uses the term knowledge in this sense, when he says 
 
 Let knowledge grow from more to more. 
 
 If such is the meaning of the term science, we can now 
 realise what is meant by ihe scientific spirit; and this is 
 a dominant and sovereign spirit in our time. Observe how 
 it is telling on the aims and methods of history. Macaulay, 
 with all his vivid style, is falling from the high place he once 
 held, because he did not study and write in this spirit ; and 
 so such a work as Carlyle's Ft-ench Revolution, with all 
 its picturesque splendour, though we hear the thunder roll 
 as we read it, and are dazzled by the lightning flashes, fails 
 to satisfy the modern requirements of what a successful 
 historical work should be. Let the historian describe and 
 narrate graphically if he can ; it is no slight service to make 
 the past live again in this way. But this is not his highest 
 duty ; it is not his chief glory to rival or surpass the current 
 novelist, and supply our mental gallery with pictures. His 
 real work is to interpret the past — not only to make us 
 realise that it existed, but to explain how and why it existed, 
 what it inherited, how it administered its inheritance, and 
 what it bequeathed — not only to show us what it was ex- 
 ternally, but what it was essentially — not only to describe 
 its customs, and to chronicle its attitudes and its gestures, 
 but to analyse its mind, to discover precisely the special 
 problems with which it had to grapple. In short, by know- 
 ing an age we mean something different and something 
 more than used to be meant. In other words, the scientific 
 spirit has taken possession of the department of historical 
 study. Observe again, how it is influencing the study of 
 philology. Not so long ago etymology was regarded as a 
 mere matter of guesswork. One derivation was thought as
 
 VIC TORI AN LITER A JURE 353 
 
 good as another. The changes in word forms were held to 
 be purely arbitrary. Voltaire remarked that the consonants 
 went for nothing, and the vowels were of no importance. 
 The application of the scientific spirit to this province of 
 study makes such a witticism curiously groundless. In all 
 these letter changes that so transform and disguise words, 
 the reign of law is being discovered. 
 
 'So free' they 'seem, so fettered fast' they 'are.' 
 
 And one of the most conspicuous of the progresses made by 
 the century in England — the linguistic and philological 
 progress — is now being magnificently illustrated in the 
 appearance of the Neiv English Dictionary, which, when 
 completed, bids fair to be not only a noble monument of 
 English scholarship, but one of the completest and best 
 dictionaries the world has yet seen. And in many other 
 areas of thought and life the presence of the historical spirit 
 might readily be indicated. 
 
 So much, and only so much, our space permits us to 
 say of the general character of the middle period of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 This period may be said to have closed, as I remarked 
 above, about the year 1867. The great race whom we saw 
 arise about the year 1832, by that time, with a few honoured 
 exceptions, had in its turn passed, or was passing, g,way. 
 Charlotte Bronte died in 1856, Macaulay in 1859, Thackeray 
 in 1863, Mrs Browning in i86r, Whewell in 1866, Faraday 
 in 1867, Dickens and Murchison in 1870, Sir John Herschell 
 in 187 1, Mill and Sedgwick in 1873, Sir Charles Lyell in 
 1875, Darwin in 1882, Matthew Arnold in 1888. Tennyson, 
 now {1888) a poet amongst the peers, as always a peer 
 amongst the poets, is still amongst us, and long may he be ! 
 
 z
 
 354 FOLIA LITTER ARIA 
 
 But it may be doubted whether his reputation, either as a 
 thinker or a poet, has been materially raised by any of his 
 later writings, though seldom indeed has a poetic career 
 extending over some sixty years been so nobly maintained 
 with such constant energy. Browning, too, is still productive 
 and vigorous ; but it is probably by his earlier works — his 
 Me?i and Wo»iefi, and Dramatis Fersonce — that Browning 
 holds his honoured and distinguished position. Carlyle, 
 who died in 1880, produced little of note after his Life of 
 Frederick, concluded in 1S65, except his Reminiscences — a 
 work which shows indeed that his hand has not lost its 
 cunning, but which, written in a morbid hour, by no means 
 fairly reflects the nature or the conduct of the author. 
 Possibly enough he had much to blame himself for — what 
 honest person has not many charges to bring against him- 
 self? But certainly, as he places himself before us sheeted 
 to do his penance, we cannot throw one word of scorn at 
 him — we can only sadly and humbly bow our heads before 
 so pathetic a spectacle — -an old honoured leader in so 
 strange a guise. 'George Eliot's' Middlemarch (1871) was 
 the last of the great works that charmed the general public. 
 F)a?iiel Deronda, though full of thought and power, and 
 increasing the writer's already great influence over certain 
 minds, yet failed to excite a very general interest. 
 
 Meanwhile, new forces were beginning to act upon the 
 age, or rather, perhaps, the forces and movements I have 
 mentioned were intensified and accelerated. For the last 
 quarter of the century seems likely to behold those earlier 
 forces in yet fuller expansion and energy. As vitally affect- 
 ing the political and social area, we have to note the 
 foundation of the International Working Men's Association 
 in 1864, the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, the second 
 Reform Bill in 1867, the great agricultural movement that
 
 VICTORIAN LITER A TURE 3 5 5 
 
 Started in 1872, and the third Reform Bill enfranchising the 
 peasantry in 1884. In 1866 the first Atlantic cable was 
 laid. In 1861 was effected the final abolition of taxes on 
 knowledge, ' with the removal of the Paper Duties, which 
 were so oppressive that they amounted to ;^2o,ooo on 
 Charles Knight's Encydopadia ; and the effect of their 
 abolition was such that the newspaper circulation, which 
 averaged 800,000 copies weekly at the time of the Queen's 
 accession, rose to io| millions in 1864, and is now 32 
 millions. Cheap editions of the best English authors have 
 found their way into every cottage in the three kingdoms.'' 
 But the pre-eminent opening glory of this new period is the 
 establishment, in 1870, of a national system of popular 
 education. That great Act, far too long delayed, disgrace- 
 fully delayed indeed to the latest moment, has already 
 produced, or helped to produce, results most beneficial and 
 most significant and potent. For instance, juvenile crime 
 since 1869, ' has fallen 53 per cent. ; ' and adult crime has 
 strikingly diminished; 'instead of building new prisons,' 
 says Mr Mulhall, ' we have recently seen eleven sold by 
 auction.' For, let obstructionists urge what they will, 
 there is some real alliance between cultivation and honesty, 
 and ignorance and crime are close confederates. 
 
 Such facts as these sufficiently mark the ushering in of a 
 new era, and a new era must have a new literature — a 
 literature to embody its characteristic ideas and ambitions. 
 Of this new literature it would be premature yet to speak. 
 One may venture, perhaps, to say that the current age is 
 one of great intellectual activity, and that literary ability 
 abounds. It may be questioned whether ever before have 
 lived at the same time so many writers, both of prose and 
 of poetry, of such brilliancy and skill. It would be invidious 
 
 ' Mulhall's Fifty Yea/s of National Progress.
 
 356 FOLIA LITTERARIA 
 
 to select names from such a crowd of distinguished litter- 
 ateurs. But also, as we have already suggested, it may be 
 seriously questioned whether we can boast of any writer 
 of consummate genius : whether amongst our poets we can 
 point to anyone who is for us, in any comparable degree, 
 what Tennyson and Browning were for the last generation 
 — anyone of at all equal originality and power ; and in 
 imaginative prose, whether we have any novelist of the 
 highest creative faculty, or of the finest penetration and 
 insight — anyone whose survey of our time is both broad and 
 deep. And this absence of superior genius in the region 
 of literary art is probably due to the character of our age. 
 While there is much to encourage and to cheer us when we 
 look around, there is undoubtedly much to perturb and to 
 scare. If the sun shines on us, there are frowning clouds 
 also — clouds black and threatening. Institutions that we 
 have regarded as firm and fast for ever are trembling to their 
 base. There is a sense of uncertainty and of revolution. 
 Some ears already catch the roar of Niagara, as they think, 
 and are persuaded we are rapidly drifting towards the 
 fatal precipice ; and others, that are less timorous and hys- 
 terical, yet warn us of breakers ahead. And, indeed, even 
 the lightest-hearted are conscious of strange disquiets and 
 disturbances in the encircling atmosphere. It is a time of 
 profound agitations and commotions, of spiritual and moral 
 mutinies and rebellions which may at any time translate 
 themselves into action — a weary and heavy-laden time. 
 
 In the midst of such rumblings and uproars, no wonder 
 if men fancy themselves on the verge of some portentous 
 earthquake, and their hearts fail them for fear. No wonder 
 if they forget how great are the restorative forces of nature, 
 or how merciful and moderated her processes may be. The 
 storm breaks and the labours of men and oxen lie in rack
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE 357 
 
 and ruin ; but the landscape is soon recruited and revived. 
 The changes from summer to winter and to summer again 
 are immense, but are not abrupt. Still, no wonder if our 
 age is perplexed and distressed when its best statesmanship 
 seems baffled by the problems that beset it, and, at so many 
 points, inscrutable difficulties face and obstruct us. Hence 
 the pessimism of our time, which presents in this respect a 
 curious contrast to the buoyancy and sanguineness of the 
 century in some of its earlier years. ' It is very wonderful 
 to me now,' says Mr Ruskin in a note to his Frondes 
 Agrestes — a series of selections from his Modem Fainters — 
 ' to see what hopes I had once ; but Turner was alive then ; 
 and the sun used to shine and rivers to sparkle.' He, too, 
 had some joy in his time, and some hope of it in his old 
 days. ' Instead of supposing the love of nature necessarily 
 connected with the faithlessness of the age, I believe it is 
 connected with the benevolence and liberty ^ of the age. 
 So he writes in the passage in a note to which appear the 
 first quoted words. But he cannot sufficiently abuse the 
 present age. Neither Carlyle nor he could or can find vials 
 large enough to contain all their disgust and wrath. They 
 exhaust all the resources of objurgation and anathema. 
 And lesser men feel, or assume, a like horror and despera- 
 tion. A poet is the mouthpiece of his time ; and how can 
 sweet or harmonised sounds issue from him when the time . 
 is out of temper or out of heart? 
 
 But the republic is not to be despaired of. It has passed 
 through dark days before, days not less dark than are ours ; 
 it has weathered storms not less malignant and dire. The 
 flood may rise yet higher, but the ark shall go over the face 
 of the waters — that is, if we keep it taut and trim, and steer 
 
 ' Mr Ruskin says he forgets what he meant by ' hberty ' here ; did he 
 mean hberty-loving spirit ?
 
 358 FOLIA LITTEKARIA 
 
 warily and wisely, if the English breed is not degenerate ; 
 and why should we suspect so terrible a decay ? And when 
 the present tyranny is overpast, it shall set forth on a fresh 
 career of enterprise and success and honour. In other 
 words, when the evolution, whose throes we are now suffer- 
 ing, is complete, and society is once more satisfactorily 
 adjusted and settled, we may trust that the spirit of depres- 
 sion that now invades and usurps us will be exorcised, and 
 poetry will recover its heart and its mind and its voice. 
 
 So Milton, amidst the confusion and antagonisms of his 
 middle life, was unable to sing. He could only dream of a 
 day when he should be free to give poetic expression to the 
 thoughts that arose in him. To a noble recital of some of 
 these thoughts he adds these concluding words : ' With 
 such abstracted sublimities as these it might be worth your 
 listening, readers, as I may one day hope to have ye in a 
 still time, when there shall be no chidifig, not in these noises.^
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abuses, Stript and Whipf, 
 
 Wither's, 196. 
 Addison, J., 226, 262, 265. 
 Alfred the Great, 7 ; songs 
 
 about, 8. 
 Amaltei, G. B., 239, 240. 
 A7nys and Aniylioit, 44. 
 Anderson, Dr R., 41. 
 Anti-Jacobin, The, 291. 
 Antwerp, 100. 
 Arabians, the, 2. 
 Arcadia, Sidney's, 27. 
 Ariosto, 22. 
 Aristophanes, 237. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 311, 353. 
 Ascham, Roger, 21. 
 Athelstane, Songs about, 8, 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, 225, 227-30. 
 Bainbridge, Dr, 225. 
 Balbo, Count Cesare, 68. 
 Ballad Poetry, revival of, 258- 
 
 85. 
 Ballad Poetry, collections of, 
 
 261, 268-71, 284. 
 Barbour, 16. 
 Barnabcc Ifinerariion, Brath- 
 
 waite's, 194. 
 Bastard's Epigrams, 167. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 
 Kniglit of tJie Burning 
 
 Pestle, 25. 
 Beda, ^il)- 
 
 Bell, Mr R., 182-3. 
 Benedictus Abbas, 55-61. • 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 320. 
 Bentley, 299. 
 Beowulf, 148. 
 Berners, Lord, 153. 
 Desant, Mr W., 169. 
 Black Prince, the, 16. 
 Blea/c House, 2)37   
 Boccacio, 9, 14, 67 ; Griselda, 
 
 90, 93 ; Palamon, 107. 
 Boece, 146-7. 
 Boethius, 96. 
 Boileau, 27, 295. 
 Book of the Duchess, 75, 78. 
 Boulogne, Peace of, 12 1-2. 
 Bower, 146. 
 
 Brathwaite, Richard, 192-97. 
 Brink, Dr. ten, 83, 84. 
 Britons, the, of Brittany, 2. 
 Britons, History of, Geoffrey of 
 
 Monmouth's, 5. 
 Bronte, C, 330, 353. 
 Browning, Mrs, 353. 
 Browning, R., 317, 322-4, 332, 
 
 336, 354. 
 Bruges, 100. 
 
 Bruit Dengleterre, Le, 39. 
 Bryan, Sir Francis, 153. 
 Bunyan and the Romances, 
 
 26 ; ' Forbidden Country, 
 
 359
 
 36o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 52 
 57. 
 
 Life and Work, 246- 
 
 Burbage, 166, 187. 
 Burger, 298. 
 Burnet, Bishop, 311. 
 Burns, Robert, 246, 291. 
 Butler, Alban, 104. 
 Butler, Samuel, 253. 
 Byron, Lord, 29, 291, 296, 312, 
 320. 
 
 C 
 
 Caedmon, 7. 
 
 Calais, 100. 
 
 Caleb Williams, 291. 
 
 Cambridge, 286-90. 
 
 Camilla, 291. 
 
 Campbell, 311. 
 
 Canning, 297. 
 
 Canterbury Tales, Tyrwhitt's 
 
 edition, 259. 
 Carlyle, 207, 317, 323, 324, 332- 
 
 45, 354, 357- 
 
 Caxton, 18, 20, 21. 
 
 Cayster, the, 234, 235. 
 
 Cedric of Portenan, 86. 
 
 Cephissus, the, 235. 
 
 Cervantes, 22, 28, 196. 
 
 Chalfont, St Giles, 220. 
 
 Chalmers' British Poets, no. 
 
 Chambers, Dr Robert, History 
 of Scotland, 31. 
 
 Chapman, 187. 
 
 Chappell, Milton's tutor, 225. 
 
 Charlemagne, 3, 5, 20. 
 
 Chatterton, 271. 
 
 Chaucer, Elizabeth, 113. 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffry, familiarity 
 with English Romances, 11- 
 13 ; with Italian Literature, 
 14, 15, 68, 69; at Wood- 
 stock, 70-79 ; T/ie Dream, 
 
 87 ; Romaunt of the Rose, 
 80-83 ; Eclympasteyre, 83- 
 85 ; Drv Sea, 86 ; at Aid- 
 gate, 87-89 ; Clerk's Tale, 89- 
 94 ; Lymote, 94-95 ; Parlia- 
 jnent of Fowls, 72, 75, TJ, 
 95-99 ; Date of Canterbury 
 Tales, 99-102 ; Compleynt 
 of Venus, 101-2 ; Prioress's 
 Greatest Oath, 102-5 ; Prees- 
 tes Three, 106-7 \ Name 
 Palamon, 107-9, 259- 
 
 Chaucer, Thomas, grants to, 
 71, 75, 109-113. 
 
 Chevy Chase, 128- 151, 262, 263. 
 
 Child's, Professor, English and 
 Scottish Ballads, 63, 129. 
 
 Children in the J Food, 263. 
 
 Claudian, 300. 
 
 Cobbett, W., 320. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 29, 289-291 ; 
 Fall of Robespierre, 296-7, 
 305, 311, 320. 
 
 Collier, Payne, Mr, 268. 
 
 Colonus, 237. 
 
 Columbcille, 59. 
 
 Confessio A mantis, the, 114- 
 127. 
 
 Complaint of the Black Knight, 
 
 75- 
 Complaint of Rosamund, 
 
 Daniel's, 188. 
 
 Complaynt of Scotland, 42. 
 
 Comus, une.xplained passage 
 in, 231-238. 
 
 Cookson, Rev. Dr, 286. 
 
 Copeland, 19. 
 
 Cow per, W., 344 ; Miscellane- 
 ous Poems, 291. 
 
 Crabbe, 320. 
 
 Craik's History of English 
 . Commerce, 100. 
 
 Crusades, the, 3, 4. 
 
 Cuckoo and the Nightingale, 
 the, 78.
 
 INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 D 
 
 Daniel Derondcx^ 354. 
 
 Daniel, Samuel, 160, 188. 
 
 Dante, 9, 14, 65-69. 
 
 Darwin, Dr, Loves of the 
 Plants, Zoono/nia, Physio- 
 logia, 290. 
 
 Dai-vvin, Charles, 323, 350, 353. 
 
 Davidson, J., 42. 
 
 Davies, Sir John, Nosce Teip- 
 sinn, Hy)iins to Asircea, 162- 
 164. 
 
 Day, John, 173, 175, 187. 
 
 Death in the Desert, Brown- 
 ing's, 336. 
 
 Defoe, Tour through the whole 
 Island of Britain, 312. 
 
 Deloney, Thomas, 93. 
 
 Democratic Movement, the, 
 306, 311. 
 
 Descriptive Sketches, Words- 
 worth's, 291. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 317,323, 325, 
 
 326, 329, 332, 337, 345-348, 
 
 353- 
 Dictionary, The New English, 
 
 353- 
 
 Diodati, Charles, 199, 221. 
 
 Dorset, Lord, 261. 
 
 Douthwaite, Mr, 225. 
 
 Dra7natis Personce, Brown- 
 ing's, 354. 
 
 Dryden and the Romances, 
 24, 208, 216, 226, 253; 
 Version of Chaucer, 261, 
 
 304- 
 Dudon de St Ouentin, ^2)- 
 Duff and Donewald, 205. 
 Dyce, 162. 
 
 East, 19. 
 
 Ebsworth, Rev. J. W., 192 ; 
 note, 193, 195. 
 
 Eclympasteyre, 83, 84. 
 
 Edward I., 31. 
 
 Edward III., 'j']. 
 
 Eger and Grille, 40-54. 
 
 Eleanor Crosses, the, 36. 
 
 Elegies, Milton's, 221. 
 
 Elias de Bockingham, 34. 
 
 Ellis, Mr, Specimens of Early 
 Efiglish Metrical Romances, 
 40, 41. 
 
 English Language, develop- 
 ment of, 8. 
 
 Epistles of Phalaris, 299. 
 
 Epitaphimn Dainonis, Mil- 
 ton's, 199. 
 
 Erechtheiis, Mr Swinburne's, 
 
 237- 
 Essay on Man, Pope's, 208. 
 Evans, Rev. Evan, Welsh 
 
 Poetry, 273. 
 Evelyn, John, 312. 
 Evergreen, Allan Ramsay's 
 
 269. 
 
 Fair Annie, ballad of, 93. 
 
 Eall of Robespierre, Cole- 
 ridge's, 296. 
 
 Faraday, 323, 353. 
 
 P'enwick, Miss, 322. 
 
 Fitzstephen, 57, 58. 
 
 Flodden, 148. 
 
 Eraser's Magazine, 328, 329. 
 
 French Influence, 294-5. 
 
 French Revolution^ The, Car- 
 lyle's, 325, 352. 
 
 French, the Romancetongue,2. 
 
 Froissart, 16; the Douglas 
 Raid, 132. 
 
 Frondes Agrestes, Ruskin's, 
 357-
 
 362 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Froude, Mr, on Bunyan, 255, 
 
 257. 
 Fuller, 72. 
 Furnivall, Dr, 106. 
 Fyrd, the, 35. 
 
 Gaimar, y]. 
 
 Gardiner, Prof., 81. 
 
 Garnett, Dr, 222. 
 
 Gascoigne's 7 Jicological Dic- 
 tionary^ no, III. 
 
 Gebir, 291. 
 
 George III., fourth decade of 
 reign of, 271. 
 
 'George Eliot,' 317, 330, 
 
 354- 
 
 German influence, 295-299. 
 
 Gibbon, 291. 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, 59. 
 
 Gladstone, Mr W. E., 151. 
 
 Godfrey of Boulogne, 20. 
 
 Godwin and Pocock's edition 
 oi Pilgrini\^ Progress^ 249. 
 
 Godwin, W., 320. 
 
 Goethe, 298, 300, 320. 
 
 (Goldsmith, 296. 
 
 Gordon, General, 151. 
 
 Gower, 11 ; Confcssio Amantis, 
 1 14-127 ; allusion to the Can- 
 terbury Talcs, 125 ; Tripar- 
 tite Chronicle, 125. 
 
 Gothic Architecture, 6, 259, 
 
 305- 
 
 Gray, 271, 293. 
 
 Green, Robert, 187. 
 
 Crisclda, Chaucer's, 89-94 ; 
 Petrarch's, 89 ; Pjoccaccio's, 
 90 ; Dekker, Chettle and 
 Haughton's, 93 ; Deloney's, 
 
 93- 
 Grosart, Dr, 162, 163, 322. 
 Guienne, 7. 
 
 Guillaume de Jumidge, 33. 
 Guy, songs about, 8. 
 
 H 
 
 Hall, the Chronicler, 210. 
 Hall, Hubert, Mr, 165. 
 Hall, Robert, 320. 
 Hal lam, 320. 
 Halliwell-Phillipps, Mr, 86, 
 
 167. 
 Handlyncr Synne, Robert of 
 
 Brunne's, 62, 63. 
 Harting, Mr, 234. 
 Harvey, Gabriel, 174. 
 Havclok tlic Dane, 8, 30-39. 
 Hazlitt, 320. 
 Hecuba, The, 291. 
 Hellenic Revival, the, 292, 
 
 293- 
 Hemans, Mrs, 320. 
 Hengham, Sir Ralph, 34. 
 Henry IV., 115, 1 16, 14S. 
 Henry VI., 149. 
 Henry and Emma, Prior's, 
 
 266. 
 Hentzner, 74. 
 Herd, Scottish Sojigs, 130. 
 Here Prophecy, The, 55-61. 
 Herrick, 195. 
 
 Herschell, Sir John, 324, 353, 
 Hobson, the Carrier, 183. 
 Hogg, J., 320. 
 Holford, Mr, 247. 
 Holinshed, 210. 
 Hood, Thomas, 346. 
 Horton, Milton at, 220, 224. 
 Hoveden, 55. 
 Howell, 226. 
 Hughes, Mr, 238. 
 Hume, 304. 
 
 Hume of Godscroft, 12S. 
 Hunt, Leig^h, 29. 
 Huxley, Prof., 330.
 
 INDEX 
 
 363 
 
 I 
 
 Lt Memoriam, 327, 350, 351. 
 
 International Working Men's 
 Association, 354. 
 
 Ireland, 60, 61. 
 
 Italian^ T/ie, 291. 
 
 Italy, intercourse with Eng- 
 land, 66, 67. 
 
 J 
 
 James IV., 42. 
 
 James V., 42. 
 
 Jameson, Mrs, 102. 
 
 Jamieson, Robert, Popular 
 Ballads, 94. 
 
 Jane Shore, Rowe's play of, 
 264, 265. 
 
 Jerrani, Mr, Edition of Para- 
 dise Regained, 238. 
 
 Joan of Arc, Southey's, 291. 
 
 John of Gaunt, 81, 113. 
 
 John of Methingham, 34. 
 
 Johnson, Dr, 169. 
 
 Jonson, Ben, 187, 234. 
 
 K 
 
 Keats, John, 291, 295, 302, 
 
 305, 320. 
 Keightley, 231. 
 Kelts, 3. 
 
 Kempe, 166, 187. 
 King, Edward, 239. 
 King John, Shakespeare's, 233. 
 Kinmont Willie, ballad of, 
 
 .143- 
 Kinsayder, Sa tyres, 167. 
 Klopstock, Odes, 297. 
 Knighton^ 73. 
 Knights, The, of Aristophanes, 
 
 237- 
 
 Kotzebue, 296. 
 
 La Saisiaz, Browning's, 336. 
 Laing, Mr, Early Metrical 
 
 Tales, 40, 41, 43. 
 Lamb, Charles, 227, 320. 
 Landor, 320 ; Poems, 291. 
 Latin influence, 299, 300. 
 Leland, 152, 153. 
 Lessing, 203, 298. 
 Lewis, the Monk, 291. 
 Leyden, Dr, 41. 
 Lily, John, 187. 
 Lionel, Prince, 68. 
 Little Dorrit, ^lyj- 
 Lorris, Guillaume de^ 80, 81, 
 
 82. 
 Lydgate, 75. 
 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, 323, 353. 
 Lyndsay, 42, 43. 
 Lyrical Ballads, 287, 291. 
 Lucy and Colin, Tickell's, 265. 
 
 M 
 
 Macaulay, Lay of Horatius, 
 141, 292, 299, 323 ; Essay 
 on Milton, 324, t^t,-], 338, 
 
 340, 341, 352, 353- 
 Macbeth, Milton's, 198, 219. 
 Mackintosh, Sir J., 320. 
 Macpherson's Ossian, 270, 273. 
 Macray's edition of the Pil- 
 
 grimage to Parnassus, 165- 
 
 191. 
 Madden, Sir F., opinion on 
 
 King Havlock, 10, 30, 31, 
 
 7>2>-, 37; 62, 
 Maitland's Dark Ages, 104. 
 Malory, Sir Thomas, 20. 
 Malthus, 291, 320.
 
 364 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mandeville's, Sir John, Tra- 
 vels, 86. 
 
 Mansus, Milton's, 199. 
 
 Marlowe, 167, 187. 
 
 Afafviifon, 12. 
 
 Marshall's, Mr, History of 
 IVoodsiock Manor, 7:^. 
 
 Marston, 187. 
 
 Massinger, 187. 
 
 Masson, Prof., 228, 229, 243. 
 
 Mategriffon, Richard I.'s 
 Castle of, 60. 
 
 Meander, 231-5. 
 
 iMcn and Women, 354. 
 
 Merlin, 59. 
 
 Metamorphoses, Ovid's, Addi- 
 son's version of, 299-300. 
 
 Meung, Jean de, 80. 
 
 Michel, M. Francisque, edition 
 of the Roman de la Rose, 
 80. 
 
 Middlemarch, 330, 354. 
 
 Middleton, 204. 
 
 Mill, James, 320. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 322, 329. 
 
 Milton, the Arthurian legend, 
 23, 24, 199; Macbeth, 198- 
 219; subject-list, 201 ; Rea- 
 son of Church Go7'ernment, 
 201, 207 ; and the Greek 
 Drama, 200 - 202 ; and 
 Shakespeare, 202-206 ; and 
 Gray's Inn Walks, 220, 
 230; residences, 221 ; Ele- 
 gies, 221 ; Comus, 231-238; 
 Lycidas, 239 - 242 ; the 
 Army, 243, 245 ; Defensio 
 Secunda, 243 ; influence on 
 Germany, 296 ; quotation 
 from, 358. 
 
 Molic-re, 27. 
 
 Monk, Lewis', 291. 
 
 Monmouth, Memoirs of Carey, 
 Earl of, 142. 
 
 Moore, T., 321. 
 
 More, Hannah, 320. 
 Morris, W., 29. 
 Morte d' Arthur, 21. 
 MuUinger's, Mr, History of the 
 
 University of Cambridge, 
 
 176. 
 Murchison, Sir R., 324, 353. 
 Mysteries of Udolpho, 291. 
 
 N 
 
 Nash, Thomas, Pierce Penni- 
 less, 170; Isle of Dogs, 171, 
 
 173, 187- 
 Nicholas Nickleby, 337. 
 Nineteenth century, the, 331. 
 Night Thoughts, 272. 
 Norman-French, 7. 
 Normandy, loss of, 7. 
 Normans, the, 2, 3. 
 
 O 
 
 Oliver Twist, T)2i7- 
 Origin of Species, 350. 
 Ossian, 270, 273. 
 Otterbourne, t,T) ; Battle of, 
 
 133-9- 
 Our Mutual Friend, 343. 
 
 Ovid, 221, 300. 
 
 Owen, Prof., 324. 
 
 Owl and the Nightingale, 58. 
 
 Pamela, Richardson's, 27. 
 Paper Duties, the, 355. 
 Paracelsus, 336. 
 Paradise Lost, 200, 208, 209. 
 Parliament of Fowls, 72, 75, 
 
 n, 95-99- 
 Parnell, 262.
 
 INDEX 
 
 365 
 
 Past atid Present, Carlyle's, 
 
 33.9- 
 
 Pattison, Mark, Milton's Son- 
 nets, 154, 207. 
 
 I'auli, Dr, 115, 116, 118. 
 
 Peel, George, 187. 
 
 Pelli, 68. 
 
 Pepys, 204, 226. 
 
 Percy, Bishop, Reliques, 41, 
 130,260,271,296,304, 129, 
 142, 273. 
 
 Percy, Harry, Hotspur, 132, 
 
 133- 
 Petrarch, 9, 14 ; Griselda, 89- 
 
 91- 
 Pickwick, 325, 337. 
 Piers the Ploughman, 16. 
 Pilgrinis Progress, the, 247, 
 
 256. 
 Pilgrimage to Parnassus, the, 
 
 165, 191. 
 Piperden, battle of, 146, 147. 
 Pleasures of Hope, 290. 
 Pleasures of Inuxgination, 272. 
 Pleasures of Memory, 290. 
 Political Justice, Godwin's, 
 
 291. 
 Pope, 208, 295 ; Homer, 299 ; 
 
 Chaucer, 304, 306, 311, 344. 
 Porson, Hecuba, 291 ; 301. 
 Principles of Biology, 330. 
 Principles of Psychology, 330. 
 Prior, Matt, 94, 262, 266. 
 Prynne, 192. 
 Psalms, Brathwaite's, 195. 
 
 R 
 
 Rabelais, 28. 
 Racine, 295. 
 Ramsay, Allan, 269. 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 228. 
 Rauf de Bonn, 39. 
 Ray, 311. 
 
 Reminiscences, Carlyle's, 354. 
 Revival of Learning, ihe, 15. 
 Richard I., 55. 
 Richard II., 117, 118, 119, 123, 
 
 148. 
 Richard HI., 196. 
 Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 81. 
 Richard Fitzneal, 55. 
 Richardson, 296, 312. 
 Ridpath, 146. 
 Robert II., 148. 
 Robert of Brunne, 39, 62-64. 
 Robin Hood, 16. 
 Rochfort, Lord, 153. 
 Rogers, Samuel, 320. 
 Rogers, Prof.Thorold, 1 10, 1 1 1 . 
 Roland, a song of, 5. 
 Rollo, 5. 
 
 Romance of the Forest, 291. 
 Romances, old English, 1-29. 
 Romaic nt of the Rose, the, 69, 
 
 80-83. 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 226. 
 Rossetti, W. M., 76. 
 Rous, J., 72, J2>- 
 Rousseau, J. J., 295. 
 Rowe, 262. 
 Ruskin, Mr, 330, 357. 
 
 Samson Agonistes, 200. 
 Sandras, M., 83. 
 Sannazaro, 239, 241. 
 Sartor Resart us, 324. 
 Scarron, 28. 
 Scenery, influence of natural, 
 
 311-316. 
 Schiller, 296. 
 Schoolmistress, the, 272. 
 Scotch, a special meaning of 
 
 the term, 268. 
 Scotland under Her Early 
 
 i'sT/w^j-, Mr Robertson's 212.
 
 366 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 29, 41, 94, 
 130, 206, 284, 291, 296, 298, 
 305, 306, 311, 312, 320. 
 
 Sedgwick, Prof., 324, 353. 
 
 Selby, Mr, 1 10. 
 
 Shakespeare, references to, 
 166, 169, 186, 187, 188, 206; 
 and history, 210-212; influ- 
 ence on Germany, 296 ; the 
 eighteenth century and, 
 
 304- 
 
 Sharp, Dr, 89. 
 
 Sharpe, C. K., Mr, 40, note. 
 
 Sheal, Richard, 23, 144. 
 
 Shelley, 291, 296; Greek 
 literature and, 301-2, 311, 
 .317, 320. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 263. 
 
 Simon de Montfort, 8. 
 
 Skeat, Prof, on Havelok, 30, 
 31, ^^, 58, 86, 102. 
 
 Sketches by Boz, 325. 
 
 Smart, Christopher, Trip to 
 Cambridge, 177. 
 
 Social Statics, 330, 342. 
 
 Southey,y^rt« of Arc, 291, 321. 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, 21 ; use of 
 Romances, 22 ; reference to 
 Parliaiiient of Fowls, 97 ; 
 Colin Clout, 108 ; Spenser- 
 iana, 1 55-161 ; Globe Edi- 
 tion, 155; at Merchant 
 Taylors', 155; Prothalainion, 
 155; Epithalaniio7i, 156; 
 ShcpJiercfs Calender, 156; 
 Rosalind, 159, 260, 302. 
 
 Spenser, Mr F. C, at Hurst- 
 wood, 157, 158, 161. 
 
 Spencer, Mr Herbert, Social 
 Statics, etc., 330, 342. 
 
 Spiritual Spieery, Brath- 
 waite's, 195. 
 
 Statius, 300. 
 
 Statute of Kilkenny, 82. 
 
 Statute of Winchester, 'i,'},- 
 
 Stowe, 226. 
 
 Strappado for the Dcinl, Brath- 
 
 waite's, 194, 195. 
 Stratton, 34. 
 Stubbs, Dr, 34, 35, 56. 
 j Sturm, of Strasburg, 176. 
 Surrey, Earl of, 152-154. 
 Swans, singing of the, 232-235. 
 Swinburne's, Mr, Ercchthens, 
 
 237- 
 Swinford, Catherine, 113. 
 Symonds, Mr J. A., 242. 
 
 Taillefer, at Hastings, 5. 
 Tamburlaine the Great, 196. 
 Tasso, 207, 284. 
 Taylor, John, the Water Poet, 
 
 43- 
 
 Tennyson, 29, 321, 323, 324, 
 326 ; hi Menioriajii, 327, 
 332 ; Ulysses, y^^i ; King 
 Arthur, 335, 344, 253. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., 317, 323, 
 324, 328, 329, 348, 349. 
 
 Theocritus, 239. 
 
 Thirteenth century, the, 6. 
 
 Thomson, 294. 
 
 Tickell, 262, 265. 
 
 To the Cottoners, Brathwaite's, 
 197. 
 
 Topographical Excicrsio nist, 
 
 Tovey, Milton's Tutor, 225. 
 Toxophilus, Ascham's, 21. 
 Trollope's, Anthony, Life of 
 
 Thackeray, 328, 329. 
 Trollope, Dr, 62, 63. 
 Troubadours, the, 15. 
 Trouveres, the, 2, 10, 15. 
 Turpin's Life of Charlemagne, 
 
 5- 
 Tyndall, Prof, 320.
 
 INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 Tyrwhitt, 83, 106, 112, 259, 
 
 304- 
 
 U 
 
 Unwin, Messrs, edition of 
 Pilg7-inCs Progirss, 249. 
 
 V 
 
 Vaux, Lord, 153. 
 
 Venables, Canon, on Bunyan, 
 
 256, 257. 
 Victorian literature, 316-358. 
 Vindication of the Rights of 
 
 Women, 21^1. 
 Virgil, 300. 
 Visconti, Giovanni, on Dante, 
 
 69. 
 Voltaire, 295. 
 
 W 
 
 Walford, Mr Edward, 112. 
 Wallace, 32. ' 
 Waller, y:)2). 
 Walsingham, 32. 
 Warton, 16, 271, 304. 
 Weaver's Epigrams, 167. 
 Wesley, John, 291. 
 
 Westminster Review, the, 329. 
 Weyland, Chief Justice, 34. 
 Whewell, Dr, 323 ; History of 
 the Inductive Sciences, 329 ; 
 
 Whitehead, Poet Laureate, 
 
 272. 
 Wieland's Obero7i, 297. 
 Wilberforce, 320. 
 Wilbraham, 225. 
 Wilkinson, Mr f. T., 157. 
 William of Malmesbury, 73. 
 William of Montpellier, 74 
 Wither, G., 192, 196. 
 Witte, Karl, 68. 
 Wood, Antony, no. 
 WoUstonecraft, Mary, 291. 
 Wordsworth, W., 286-288 ; 
 
 Lyrical liallads, 287, 291 ; 
 
 Descriptive S hi etches, 291, 
 
 297 ; Laodamia, 301, 302, 
 
 305, 307-309. 2>^^-'hn\ 
 Tables Tiir7zed, 314, 315, 
 317 ; Tonr in Italy, 321, 
 322, 323 ; 327, 344. 
 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 152-154. 
 
 Wynkyn de Worde, 19. 
 
 Y 
 
 Yelloivplush Correspondence, 
 the, 329. 
 
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