'He wrote also full many a day agone By great auise his wittes to dispose, Thus in vertue he set all his entent, Of fowles also he wrote the parliament, And of the Lyon a boke he did write. He made a complaynt dolefull and piteous; 'At Thebes wrought, ful diuers of nature. Like as my master sayth & writeth in dede, It to conserue he shoulde euer liue in dred.' It is clear to me that Lydgate is, at first, simply repeating the information which we have already had upon Chaucer's own authority; he begins by merely following Chaucer's own language in the extracts above cited. Possibly he knew no more than we do of 'Orygene vpon the Maudelayn,' and of the 'boke of the Lyon.' At any rate, he tells us no more about them. Naturally, in speaking of the Minor Poems, we should expect to find him following, as regards the three chief poems, the order of length; that is, we should expect to find here a notice of (1) the House of Fame; (2) the Book of the Duchesse; and (3) the Parliament of Foules. We are natu 1 Not Ovid, but Statius; Lydgate makes a slip here; see note to IV. 245, P. 279. rally disposed to exclaim with Ten Brink (Studien, p. 152)— 'Why did he leave out the House of Fame?' But we need not say with him, that 'to this question I know of no answer.' For it is perfectly clear to me, though I cannot find that any one else seems to have thought of it, that 'Dant in English' and 'The House of Fame' are one and the same poem, described in the same position and connexion. If anything about the House of Fame is clear at all, it is that (as Ten Brink so clearly points out, in his Studien, p. 89) the influence of Dante is more obvious in this poem than in any other. I would even go further and say that it is the only poem which owes its chief inspiration to Dante in the whole of English literature during, at least, the Middle-English period. There is absolutely nothing else to which such a name as ‘Dante in English' can with any fitness be applied. The only thing at all odd about it, is that Lydgate should say 'himselfe doth so expresse'; which seems somewhat too explicit. Perhaps he refers to the lines which really relate only to the description of hell, viz.— 'Which who-so willeth for to knowe, He moste rede many a rowe On Virgile or on Claudian, Or Daunte, that hit telle can'; 11. 447-450. Or I should be quite willing to believe that Chaucer did, on some occasion, allude to his poem by the somewhat humorous title of 'Dante in English,' as confessing his indebtedness; and that Lydgate has preserved for us a record of the remark. This, however, would require us to read did rather than doth in the phrase 'him-selfe doth so expresse.' In any case, I refuse to take any other view until some competent critic will undertake to tell me, what poem of Chaucer's, other than the House of Fame, can possibly be intended. To which argument I have to add a second, viz. that Lydgate mentions the House of Fame in yet another way; for he refers to it at least three times, in clear terms, in other passages of the same poem, i.e. of the Fall of Princes. Fame in her palice hath trumpes mo than one, Within my house called the house of Fame Enhaunceth on to ful hie parties, Wher Iupiter sytteth among the heuenly skies. 'Another trumpet of sownes full vengeable Prol. to Book VI. 'The golden trumpe of the house of Fame1 Book VI. cap. 15. Lydgate describes the Parliament of Foules in terms which clearly shew that he had read it. He also enables us to add to our list the Complaint of Anelida and the Complaint of Mars; for it is the latter poem which contains the story of the broche of Thebes; see p. 70. We have, accordingly, complete authority for the genuineness of the five longest of the Minor Poems, which, as arranged in order of length, are these: The House of Fame (2158 lines); Book of the Duchesse (1334 lines); Parliament of Foules (699 lines); Anelida and Arcite (357 lines); and Complaint of Mars (298 lines). This gives us a total of 4846 lines, furnishing a very fair standard of comparison whereby to consider the claims to genuineness of other poems. Lydgate further tells us that Chaucer 'Made and compiled many a freshe dittie, TESTIMONY OF JOHN SHIRLEY. The next best evidence is that afforded by notes in the existing MSS.; and here, in particular, we should first consider the remarks by Chaucer's great admirer, John Shirley, who took considerable pains to copy out and preserve his poems, and is said by Stowe to have died Oct. 21, 1456, at the great age of ninety, so that he was born more than 30 years before Chaucer died. On his authority, we may attribute to Chaucer the A. B. C.; the Complaint to Pity (see p. 229); the Complaint of Mars (according to a heading in MS. T.); the Complaint of 1 In Lydgate's Lyfe of St. Albon, ed. Horstmann, 1. 15, this line appears in the more melodious form- The golden trumpet of the House of Fame.' Anelida (according to a heading in MS. Addit. 16165); the Lines to Adam, called in MS. T. 'Chauciers Wordes a. Geffrey vn-to Adam his owen scryveyne' (see p. 117); Fortune (see p. 374); Truth (see p. 380); Gentilesse (see p. 383); Lak of Stedfastnesse (see p. 386); the Compleint of Venus (see p. 392); and the Compleint to his Empty Purse (see p. 396). The MSS. due to Shirley are the Sion College MS., Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3. 20, Addit. 16165, Ashmole 59, Harl. 78, Harl. 2251, and Harl. 7333. TESTIMONY OF SCRIBES OF THE MSS. The Fairfax MS. 16, a very fair MS. of the fifteenth century, contains several of the Minor Poems; and in. this the name of Chaucer is written at the end of the poem on Truth (see p. 194) and of the Compleint to his Purse (see p. 211); it also appears in the title of Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan (see p. 201); in that of Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton (see p. 204); in that of the Compleint of Chaucer to his empty Purse (p. 210), and in that of 'Proverbe of Chaucer' (p. 398). Again, the Pepys MS. no. 2006 attributes to Chaucer the A. B. C., the title there given being' Pryer a nostre Dame, per Chaucer'; as well as the Compleint to his Purse, the title being 'La Compleint de Chaucer a sa Bourse Voide' (see p. 210). It also has the title 'Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan.' The Former Age' is entitled 'Chawcer vp-on this fyfte metur of the second book' in the Cambridge MS. Ii. 3. 21; and at the end of the same poem is written 'Finit etas prima. Chaucers' in the Cambridge MS. Hh. 4. 12 (see p. 188). The poem on Fortune is also marked 'Causer' in the former of these MSS.; and in fact these two poems practically belong to Chaucer's translation of Boethius, though probably written at a somewhat later period. The Cambridge MS. Gg. 4. 27, which contains an excellent copy of the Canterbury Tales, attributes to Chaucer the Parliament of Foules (see p. 99); and gives us the title 'Litera directa de Scogon per G. C.' (see p. 201). Of course 'G. C.' is Geoffrey Chaucer. From Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 13, we learn that there is a verse translation of De Deguileville's Pélérinage de la Vie Humaine, attributed to Lydgate, in MS. Cotton, Vitellius C. XIII. (leaf 256), in which the 'A. B. C.' is distinctly attributed to Chaucer1. TESTIMONY OF CAXTON. At p. 116 of the same Trial Forewords is a description by Mr. Bradshaw of a very rare edition by Caxton of some of Chaucer's Minor Poems. It contains: (1) Parliament of Foules; (2) a treatise by Scogan, in which Chaucer's 'Gentilesse' is introduced; (3) a single stanza of 7 lines, beginning-' Wyth empty honde men may no hawkes lure'; (4) Chaucer's 'Truth,' entitled 'The good counceyl of Chawcer'; (5) the poem on 'Fortune'; and (6) part of Lenvoy to Scogan, viz. the first three stanzas. The volume is imperfect at the end. As to the article No. 3, it was probably included because the first line of it is quoted from 1. 415 of the Wyf of Bathes Prologue (Cant. Ta. 5997). At p. 118 of the same is another description, also by Mr. Bradshaw, of a small quarto volume printed by Caxton, consisting of only ten leaves. It contains: (1) Anelida and Arcite, II. 1-210; (2) The Compleint of Anelida, being the continuation of the former, ll. 211-350, where the poem ends; (3) The Compleint of Chaucer vnto his empty purse, with an Envoy headed -'Thenuoye of Chaucer vnto the kynge'; (4) Three 2 couplets, beginning 'Whan feyth failleth in prestes sawes,' and ending'Be brought to grete confusion'; (5) Two couplets, beginning - Hit falleth for euery gentilman,' and ending-'And the soth in his presence'; (6) Two couplets, beginning-'Hit cometh by kynde of gentil blode,' and ending 'The werk of wisedom berith witnes'; followed by-'Et sic est finis.' The last three articles only make fourteen lines in all, and are of little importance 3. EARLY EDITIONS OF CHAUCER'S WORKS. The first collected edition of Chaucer's Works is that edited by W. Thynne in 1532, but there were earlier editions of his separate poems. The best account of these is that which I 1 Hoccleve's poem entitled 'Moder of God' is erroneously attributed to Chaucer in two Scottish copies (Arch. Seld. B 24, and Edinb. 18. 2. 8). 2 Printed 'Six couplets'; clearly a slip of the pen. |