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Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, and the other English poets of the first class.

Contemporary with Chaucer was JOHN GOWER, who wrote moral poetry of considerable merit. The same age produced the two first writers of English prose, SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, a celebrated traveller, and JOHN WICLIFFE, who distinguished himself by his attempts to reform religion. Mandeville travelled for thirty-four years preceding 1356, in Eastern countries, and on his return wrote in English, French, and Latin, an account of all he had seen, mixed up with innumerable fables, derived from preceding writers and from hearsay. Wicliffe, who was a learned ecclesiastic, and professor of divinity in Baliol College, Oxford, began about the year 1377 to write both in Latin and English against the power of the Pope, and the various observances of the Catholic church; from his doing this long before general attention was directed to the subject, he has been called the Morning Star of the Reformation. Among his voluminous writings, was a translation of the Bible into English, which, however, was not the first that had been executed. As a specimen of the prose of this period, a passage from his New Testament is quoted below.*

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Chaucer must also be considered as one of the prose writers of this age; he wrote, in that manner, a philosophical and meditative work called the Testament of Love, and two of the Canterbury Tales are in prose. English language was now beginning to be considered as sufficiently polite for literary purposes, and was everywhere rising in estimation. From the Conquest till this time, French had been the language of education,

* This Moisis ledde hem out, and dide woundris and signes in the lond of Egipte, and in the Reed See, and in Desert, fourti gheeris. This is Moisis that seide to the sones of Israel, God schal reise to ghou a prophete of ghoure britheren; as me ghe schulen heere him. This it is that was in the chirche in wildir. nesse with the aungel that spak to him in the Mount Syna, and with oure fadris, which took wordis of lyf to ghyue to us.

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and when Latin was translated in the schools, it was not translated into English, but into French. But now the schoolmasters began to acknowledge the existence of English, and to construe Latin into it. The King (Edward III.) also abolished the use of French in the public acts and judicial proceedings, and substituted English in its stead. This English, however, as already mentioned, contained many French words, which had been gradually adopted from the Norman gentry.

The language at this time used in the lowland districts of Scotland was chiefly of Teutonic origin, partly through the Saxons who had spread northward, and partly through Danish settlers and others from the north of Europe, who had taken possession of the eastern coasts. Except in its having a slighter mixture of Norman, the Scotch at this time very much resembled the English, and continued to do so till a comparatively recent period. As literary ideas and modes usually rose in the south of Europe, and went northward, England naturally became the medium through which these were communicated to Scotland, and the latter country was of course a little later in exhibiting native writers of all the various orders. Thus the time of Chaucer and of genuine poetry in England, was that in which Scotland first produced rhyming chroniclers; while the minstrels were a little later still. The first of the Scottish chroniclers was JOHN BARBOUR, archdeacon in the cathedral of Aberdeen, and a man of considerable learning. He, about the year 1371, composed a long poem in eightsyllabled measure, commemorating the adventures of King Robert Bruce. Though this work must for general reasons be classed with the chronicles, it is allowed to possess no small share of the spirit of contemporary English poetry; it describes incidents with a graphic force far above the character of a chronicle, and abounds in beautiful episodes and fine sentimental passages. Hence we may assume that, though Barbour bestowed his attention upon a form of composition now beginning to be antiquated in England, he partook nevertheless of the improved style

which Chaucer had adopted, and was capable of producing poems of the same general nature. His apostrophe to freedom, which occurs at the close of a description of the miserable slavery to which Scotland had been reduced by Edward of England, has always been admired for its spirit and tenderness; and many other passages equally worthy of notice, could be pointed out.

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About the year 1420, ANDREW WYNTOWN, prior of St Serf's Monastery in Lochleven, wrote a chronicle of universal history, particularly detailing that of Scotland, but with a very small infusion of poetical spirit. This work may be considered as closing the list of the rhyming chronicles. A little before the time of Wyntown, we find Scottish poets devoting their attention to the minstrel class of compositions, which had also for some time gone out of fashion in the southern part of the island. Among their productions of this kind may be mentioned the Gest of Arthur, by HUCHEON, a poem now lost-and Sir Gawain, by CLERK of Tranent, which has been preserved and printed, but appears as a very uncouth composition. The last poem of this kind seems to have been that entitled the Adventures of Sir William Wallace, composed about the year 1460, by a wandering minstrel named BLIND HARRY, and which presented the general outlines of the history of that hero, *A ! fredome is a nobill thing!

Fredome makes man to have liking!
Fredome all solace to man gives,
He lives at ese that frely lives!
A nobill heart may have nane ese,
Na ellys nocht that may him plese,
Giff fredom faileth; for fre liking
Is yearnyt our all other thing.
Na he, that ay has levit free,
May nocht knaw weil the propyrte,
The angyr, na the wretchyt dome.
That is couplyt to foule thirldome.
But giff he had assayit it,
Than all perquer he suld it wyt ;
And sulde think fredome mair to pryse,
Than all the gold in warld that is.

JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND.

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mixed up with traditionary anecdotes, and aided in part by imagination. This poem, like that of Barbour, contains some passages of great poetical effect, and no small portion of patriotic and heroical sentiment. It differs from the generality of minstrel poems, in its bearing the appearance of an unaffected narration, and in its metre, which is of the kind called epic-that is, a series of rhymed couplets, in lines of ten syllables each. The work of Blind Harry was reduced into modern popular verse, about a century ago, by Mr Hamilton of Gilbertfield, and in that shape has ever since been a favourite book with the country people of Scotland.

SECOND PERIOD.

FROM 1400 To 1558.

WHILE such minds as Chaucer's take shape, in some measure, from the state of learning and civilisation which may prevail in their time, it is very clear that they are never altogether created or brought into exercise by such circumstances. The rise of such men is accidental, and whole ages may pass without producing them. From the death of Chaucer in 1400, nearly two hundred years elapsed in England, before any poet comparable to him arose, and yet those two centuries were more enlightened than the times of Chaucer. He has on this account been likened to a genial day in an English spring,' which is frequently followed by very gloomy weather. This long period, however, produced several poets not destitute of merit. The first of these was JAMES I., King of Scotland, whose mind and its productions, notwithstanding his being a native of that country, must be considered as of English growth. James had been taken prisoner in his boyhood by Henry IV. of England, and spent the nineteen years preceding 1424 in that country, where he was

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instructed in all the learning and polite accomplishments of the age, and appears, in particular, to have carefully studied the writings of Chaucer. The only certain production of this ingenious young sovereign, is a long poem called The King's Quhair, or Book, in which he describes the circumstances of an affection which he formed, while a prisoner in Windsor Castle, for a young English princess whom he saw walking in the adjacent garden. * This lady, a daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and, as it happened, a niece of Chaucer, was afterwards married to the young king, whom she accompanied to Scotland. While in possession of his kingdom, he is said to have written several poems descriptive of humorous rustic scenes; but these cannot be certainly traced to him. He was assassinated at Perth in the year 1437.

About the year 1420, flourished THOMAS OCCLEVE, a lawyer, who wrote several poems of considerable merit, though now very little read. About the same time, or a little later, JOHN LYDGATE, a monk of Bury, was well known for his poetical compositions, which ranged over a great variety of styles. His muse,' says Warton, in his History of English Poetry, was of universal access; and he was not only the poet of the monastery, but of the world in general. If a disguising was intended by the company of goldsmiths, a mask before his Majesty at Eltham, a Maygame for the sheriff's and aldermen of

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• His first thoughts, when this lovely vision was presented to a mind so long immured in prison, are in the highest style of poetry.

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Ah, swete! are ye a warldly creature,

Or hevingly thing in likenesse of nature?

Or ar ye Cupidis owne princesse,

And coming are to loose me out of band?
Or are ye very Nature the Goddesse,

That have depainted with your hevinly hand,
This gardyn full of flouris, as they stand ?
What shall I think, alace! what reverence
Shall I mester unto your excellence?

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