Such two lordes of heize parage
Is not in eorthe whom we schal gete.

And nou heore los beginneth to swage,
That selde iseize is sone forzete.

Another poem which is not without some philological importance, and which is of interest for the light it throws on the manners of the higher classes of society in the fourteenth century, and their probable mode of education, is the Boke of Curtasye, an edition of which has been published by the Camden Society. This is a species of School of good Manners, for pages who were themselves of gentle birth. It discloses a coarseness of habits in the more elevated classes, strangely contrasting with the material luxury which seems, from other evidence, to have prevailed at that period in royal and noble circles. The Forme of Cury-which is stated to have been compiled of the chef Maister Cokes of kyng Richard the Secunde kyng of Englond after the Conquest,' and which exists in a manuscript certainly nearly as old as the beginning of the fifteenth century— shows that the kitchens of its time were, in variety and sensual piquancy, little inferior to those of Lucullus and Apicius. But English luxury, in the fourteenth century, was confined chiefly to the gratification of the grosser appetites; and costly and diversified indulgence of these by no means implies refinement and elegance of manners and sentiment, but, on the contrary, rather supposes a sensuality of constitution, which easily degenerates into a clownish disregard of the graceful conventionalities, and even of the decencies, of civilized life.

The Boke of Curtasye is contained in the same manuscript with the Liber Cocorum, a cookery-book of the fourteenth century, the publication of which, as well as of others of the same class, Wright suggests as a desideratum. The vocabulary of books on these and kindred unfamiliar subjects is rich in terms rarely elsewhere met with, and they furnish much information both on the tastes and habits of medieval Europe, particularly

on a topic which, though of profound interest, has engaged the attention of competent scholars less than almost any other branch of modern history- the commercial relations between the different European states and between Europe and the East. The trade of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was conducted on a larger scale, and a more extensively ramified and more cunningly organized system, than is usually suspected by persons not familiar with the chronicles, and more especially the non-literary records of the Middle Ages. The questions: what were the articles which the great merchants of the Mediterranean countries imported from the East, at different periods between the downfall of Rome and the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; by what mode of exchange and by what routes of transport did they obtain them; and, above all, where and by what instrumentalities these articles were distributed have been as yet but imperfectly answered. Researches in that direction which the throwing open of secret archives is so rapidly facilitating will furnish elucidations of many obscure passages in early literature, and, especially, advance our knowledge of historical etymology, for which, linguistic conjecture is, in very many departments of philology, a very poor substitute.

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Much of the Boke of Curtasye is too repulsive for quotation. The following passage seems to show that pages did not receive a great amount of literary instruction, but it gives a more favourable impression of their moral training than the lives of their lords would authorise us to expect.

Yff that thou be a zong enfaunt,

And thenke tho scoles for to haunt,

This lessoun schulle thy maister the merke,
Cros Crist the spede in alle thi werke;
Sytthen thy Pater Noster he wille the teche,
As Cristes owne postles con preche;
After thy Ave Maria and thi Crede,
That shalle the save at dome of drede;
Thenne aftur to blesse the with the Trinité,
In nomine Patris teche he wille the;

Then with Marke, Mathew, Luke, and Jon,
With the pro cruce and the hegh name;
To shryve the in general thou shalle lere,
Thy confiteor and misereatur in fere;
To seche the kyngdam of God, my chylde,
Thereto y rede thou be not wylde.

Therefore worschip God, bothe olde and gong,
To be in body and soule y-liche strong.
When thou comes to the churche dore,
Take the haly water stondand on flore;
Rede or synge or byd prayeris
To Crist, for alle thy Crysten ferys;
Be curtayse to God, and knele doun
On bothe knees with grete devocioun.
To mon thou shalle knele opon the toun,
The tother to thyself thou halde alone.
When thou ministers at the hegh autere,
With bothe hondes thou serve tho prest in fere,
The ton to stabulle the tother,

Lest thou fayle, my dere brother.
Another curtasye y wylle the teche,

Thy fadur and modur, with mylde speche,
Thou worschip and serve with alle thy mygt,
That thou dwelle the lengur in erthely lyzt.
To another man do no more amys,

Then thou woldys be done of hym and hys,
So Crist thou pleses, and gets the love
Of menne and God that syttes above.
Be not to meke, but in mene the holde,
ffor ellis a fole thou wylle be tolde.
He that to ryztwysnes wylle enclyne,
As holy wrygt says us wele and fyne,
His sede schalle never go seche nor brede,
Ne suffur of mon no shames dede.
To forgyf thou shalle the hast,

To venjaunce loke thou come on last;
Draw the to pese with alle thy strengthe,
ffro stryf and bate draw the on lengthe.
Yf mon aske the good for Goddys sake,
And the wont thyng wherof to take,

Gyf hym bone wordys on fayre manere,
With glad semblaint and pure good cher.
Also of service thou shalle be fre
To every mon in hys degré.

Thou schalle never lose for to be kynde,
That on forgets another hase in mynde.
Yf any man have part with the in gyft,
With hym thou make an even skyft;
Let hit not henge in honde for glose,
Thou art uncurtayse yf thou hyt dose.
To sayntes yf thou thy gate hase hyzt,
Thou schalle fulfylle hit with alle thy mygt,
Lest God the stryk with grete venjaunce,

And pyt the into sore penaunce.

Leve not alle men that speke the fayre,
Whether that hit ben comyns, burges, or mayr;
In swete wordis the nedder was closet,
Disseyvaunt ever and mysloset;
Therfore thou art of Adams blode,
With wordis be ware, but thou be wode;
A short worde is comynly sothe,
That first slydes fro monnes tothe.
Loke lyzer never that thou become,
Kepe thys worde for alle and somme.
Lawze not to of[t] for no solace,
ffor no kyn myrth that any man mase;
Who lawes all that men may se,
A schrew or a fole hym semes to be.

LECTURE VII.

THE AUTHOR OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN AND HIS IMITATORS.

THE precise date of the poem called the Vision of Piers Ploughman is unknown, but there is little doubt that it was given to the world between the years 1360 and 1370. The authorship of the work is also matter of uncertainty, and the tradition which ascribes it to Langlande, an English monk, is not supported by conclusive testimony. But a perhaps imaginary Langlande has long enjoyed the credit of the composition, and until evidence shall be adduced to invalidate his possessory claim and establish an adverse title, there can be no danger of doing injustice to the real author by availing ourselves of that name as a convenient impersonation of an unknown writer.

The familiarity which the poet displays with ecclesiastical literature could, in that age, hardly have been attained by any but a member of the clerical profession, and therefore the presumption is strong that he was a churchman. His zeal and his conviction did not carry him to such perilous lengths as were hazarded by Wycliffe and his school, but he was a forerunner in the same path, and though we know nothing of his subsequent history, it is not improbable that he ultimately arrived at the same results.

The author of Piers Ploughman was evidently well acquainted with the Latin poems ascribed to Walter de Mapes, written chiefly in the previous century, and of which I have been unable to take notice in this succinct view of early English literature, because, having been composed in Latin, they cannot properly