Front matter (continued 15)

[220] 'Thomas Occleve mentions it himself, as one of his own compositions, in a Dialogue which follows his Complaint, MS. Bodley 1504.'—Tyrwhitt.

[221] See Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 52. Cf. Englische Studien, x. 206.

[222] I have found the reference. It is Shirley who says so, in a poetical 'introduction'; see MS. Addit. 16165, fol. 3.

[223] It runs thus:—'Quod loue, I shall tel thee, this lesson to learne, myne owne true seruaunte, the noble Philosophicall Poete in Englishe, which euermore hym busieth & trauaileth right sore, my name to encrease, wherefore all that willen me good, owe to doe him worship and reuerence both; truly his better ne his pere, in schole of my rules, coud I neuer finde: He, quod she, in a treatise that he made of my seruaunt Troilus, hath this matter touched, & at the full this question [of predestination] assoiled. Certainly his noble saiyngs can I not amend; in goodness of gentil manlich spech, without any maner of nicitie of starieres (sic) imaginacion, in wit and in good reason of sentence, he passeth al other makers'; ed. 1561. (Read storieres, story-writer's.)

[224] Hoccleve appeals to St. Margaret, in his Letter of Cupid, st. 6 from the end. Lydgate wrote 'the Lyfe of St. Margarete.' I have a strong feeling that the poem is one of Lydgate's. Lines 24-26 seem to be imitated from Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, ll. 197-9.

[225] I leave this sentence as I wrote it in 1888; shortly afterwards, the attribution of no. 57 to Chaucer received confirmation from a note in the Phillipps MS. See p. 75.

[226] There is another copy of The Craft of Lovers in MS. Harl. 2251. It is there dated 1459.

[227] I. e. Joan of Navarre, who was married to Henry IV in 1403.

[228] A good French Virelai is one by Eustace Deschamps, ed. Tarbé, 1849; i. 25.

[229] See remarks on this poem in The New English, by T. L. Kington Oliphant, i. 402.

[230] It is much to be regretted that Prof. Morley, in his new edition of his English Writers, still clings to the notion of 'the Court of Love' being Chaucer's. It is sufficient to say that, after 1385, Chaucer's poems are of a far higher order, especially as regards correctness of idiom and rhythm. Our knowledge of the history of the English language has made some advance of late years, and it is no longer possible to ignore all the results of linguistic criticism.

[231] A great peculiarity of this poem is the astonishing length, of the sentences. Many of them run to fifty lines or more. As to the MS., see Thynne's Animadversions, ed. Furnivall, 1875, p. 30. A second MS. is now in the British Museum (Addit. 10303), also written about 1550.

[232] The authoress had an eye for colour, and some knowledge, one would think, of heraldry. There is a tinsel-like glitter about this poem which gives it a flashy attractiveness, in striking contrast to the easy grace of Chaucer's workmanship. In the same way, the authoress of 'The Assembly of Ladies' describes the colours of the dresses of the characters, and, like the authoress of 'The Flower and the Leaf,' quotes occasional scraps of French.

[233] Plesir may be meant, but Chaucer does not use it; he says plesaunce.

[234] It is so termed in a table of contents in MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 15, which (as noted on p. 45) contains all three of the pieces here numbered 66, 67, and 68.

[235] The copy of no. XXI. in MS. Fairfax 16 has not been printed. I made a transcript of it myself. There is another unprinted copy in MS. Harl. 7578. I also copied out nos. XII., XXII., XXIII.

[236] Called 'Cm.' in the footnotes to vol. iv.

[237] There are two copies in MS. P.; they may be called P 1 and P 2.

[238] I make but little use of the copies in the second group.

[239] Two copies; may be called T 1 and T 2.

[240] Two copies; F 1 and F 2. The copy in P. is unprinted.

[241] Two copies; P 1 and P 2.

[242] Also a Balade, beginning 'Victorious kyng,' printed in G. Mason's edition of Occleve, 1796; as well as The Book of Cupid, which is another name for the Cuckoo and Nightingale.

[243] Unless they were composed, as Shirley says, by one Halsham, and adopted by Lydgate as subjects for new poems; see pp. 48, 57.

[244] i. e. in the ballad-measure, or 7-line stanzas.

[245] One page of this, in Shirley's writing, has been reproduced in facsimile for the Chaucer Society.

[246] This page has been reproduced, in facsimile, for the Chaucer Society.

[247] It is also twice attributed to Chaucer in MS. P.

[248] I follow the account in Morley's English Writers, 1867, ii. 204; the name is there given as de Guilevile; but M. Paul Meyer writes De Deguilleville.

[249] Morley says 1330; a note in the Camb. MS. Ff. 6. 30 says 1331.

[250] Edited by Mr. W. Aldis Wright for the Roxburghe Club in 1869; see p. 164 of that edition. And see a note in Warton's Hist. Eng. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, 1871, vol. iii. p. 67.

[251] See Furnivall's Trial Forewords, pp. 13-15, and p. 100, for further information.

[252] The initial E stands for et. See next note.

[253] The initial C stands for cetera. It was usual to place &c. (= et cetera) at the end of the alphabet.

[254] Chaucer speaks of writing compleintes; Cant. Ta. 11260 (F. 948).

[255] Cf. 'this eight yere'; Book of the Duchesse, 37.

[256] 'Philippa Chaucer was a lady of the bedchamber, and therefore married, in 1366'; N. and Q. 7 S. v. 289.

[257] But Ten Brink (Sprache und Verskunst, p. 174) dates it about 1370-1372.

[258] 'O ye Herines, nightes doughtren three'; Troilus, last stanza of the invocation in bk. iv.

[259] Most of the passages which he quotes are not extant in the English version of the Romaunt. Where we can institute a comparison between that version and the Book of the Duchess, the passages are differently worded. Cf. B. Duch. 420, with R. Rose, 1393.

[260] i. e. y-treted, treated.

[261] See l. 647. The royal tercel eagle is, then, Richard II; and the formel eagle is Queen Anne; the other two tercel eagles were her other two suitors. See Froissart, bk. ii. c. 86.

[262] Rather, 1382. Ch. could not have foretold a year's delay.

[263] It is quite impossible that the poem can refer, as some say, to the marriage of John of Gaunt in 1359, or even to that of de Coucy in 1364; see Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 70. It is plainly much later than the Book of the Duchess, as the internal evidence incontestably shews.

[264] I leave the remarks upon this poem as I first wrote them in 1888. Very soon afterwards, Dr. Furnivall actually found the ascription of the poem to Chaucer in MS. Phillipps 9053. I think this proves that I know how to estimate internal evidence aright. MS. Phillips 9053 also completes the poem, by contributing an additional stanza, which, in MS. Harl. 78, has been torn away.

[265] mix.

[266] fleeces.

[267] hushed, silent.

[268] rewards.

[269] shed.

[270] dug.

[271] lumps.

[272] See Todd, Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 116; and see above, pp. 55, 56.

[273] The critics who brush aside such a statement as this should learn to look at MSS. for themselves. The make-up of this MS. shews that it is essentially a Chaucer-Lydgate MS.; and Merciless Beautee is not Lydgate's. To weigh the evidence of a MS., it must be personally inspected by such as have had some experience.

[274] Middle-English roundels are very scarce. I know of one by Hoccleve, printed by Mason in 1796, and reprinted in Todd's Illustrations, p. 372; and there is a poor one by Lydgate, in Halliwell's edition of his Minor Poems, p. 10. Two more (one being by Lydgate) are given in Ritson, Anc. Songs, i. 128, 129.

[275] I do not think, as some have guessed, that 'Tregentil Chaucer' means 'Tres gentil Chaucer.' Those who think so had better look at the MS. I see no sense in it; nor do I know why tres should be spelt tre.

[276] A similar note was made in MS. Cotton, Otho. A. xviii., now destroyed. Todd printed the poem from this MS. in his Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 131; it belongs to the 'first group.'

[277] high head.

[278] admonishes.

[279] weighed down.

[280] The poem must have been written not many years before 1413, the date of the accession of Henry V. In 1405, the ages of the princes were 17, 16, 15, and 14 respectively. Shirley's title to the poem was evidently written after 1415, as John was not created Duke of Bedford until that year.

[281] See Furnivall's edition of Borde's Introduction of Knowledge, E. E. T. S., 1870. At p. 31 of the Forewords, the editor says there is no evidence for attributing 'Scoggins Iests' to Borde.

[282] Froissart, bk. iv. c. 105 (Johnes' translation).

[283] See Johnes' translation of Froissart, 1839; ii. 612-7.

[284] It would be decent, on the part of such critics as do not examine the MSS., to speak of my opinions in a less contemptuous tone.

[285] Unless, which is more probable, the Parliament of Foules reproduces, nearly, two lines from the present poem.

[286] Perhaps 'tofore' means 'for use in,' or 'to be presented in'; and 'November' was some special occasion.

[287] As, e. g. in the curious satirical ballad 'Against the King of Almaigne,' printed in Percy's Ballads, Series II. Book I, and in Wright's 'Political Songs,' p. 69. Henry was also called Henry of Winchester, from the place of his birth.

[288] The thief is the Ribauld; the ploughboy, the Labourer; the apothecary, the Physicien; the soldier, the Garde; the tailor, the Marchaunt; the tinker, the Smyth. Only two are changed.

[289] Koch instances góddes in the Envoy to Scogan, 15, which he assumes was góddis. Not at all; it is like Chaucer's rime of clérkes, derk is; the -es being unaccented. This could never produce goddís, and still less goddísse.

[290] In old French, a tard means 'slowly, late'; later French drops a, and uses tard only.

[291] Voto, 'hollow, voide, empty'; Florio.

[292] The MS. has And for Than (wrongly).