82
LITERATURE.
little is known with certainty ; but from a record it is proved, that our poet was dead in 1290.
According to the popular belief, he still " drees his wierd" in fairv land, and is expected one day to revisit the earth.
In addition to many prophecies. Sir Walter Scott has attributed to him, the romance of Sir Trittram, which he published from a manuscript copy, with very numerous and valuable illustra- tive notes and observations.
Chaucer left two sons, one of whom wasspealter of the house of commons and ambassador to France. His grand-daughter Alice was married to William de la Pole, the exiled duke of Suffolk, who was beheaded at Wingtield, in Suflblk, in May, 1460.
Of the works of Chaucer the Canterbury Tales are by far the best, and have been modernized by Oryden, Pope, and others. The following ex- tract will give some idea of his lang^ge.
THE SCHOLAR.
Him was lever* have at his bed's head,
Twenty bookes, clothed in black or red,
or Aristotle and his pliUosophy,
Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psaltry .
But all be that^e was a philosopher,
Yet hadde he but little ^Id in coffer.
But all that he might of his fricnde's bent.
On booke's and on learning; he it spent.
And busily 'gan for the souie's pray
Of them that gave him to schoUry,
Of study took he moste care and heed.
Not a word spoke he more than was need;
And that was said in form and revercDce,
And short and quick, and full of high sentence,
Sounding in moral virtue was his speech.
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.
1400, Died The celebrated historian Froissart. The age of Froissart was an age of romance and chivalry, when not only the courts of princes, but the castles of barons vied with each other with shews; when tournaments, coronations, royal interviews, and solemn festivals were the grand objects of mankiud. Froissart was an eye wit- ness of many of the ceremonies which he describes. His passion seems to have been that of seeing magnificent ^>ectacles, and of hearing reports concerning them. Although a canon of two churches, he passed his life in travelling from court to court, and from castle to castle ; thus providing materials for his history. He was familiarly known to two kings of Enghind, and one of Scotland. Froissart from his youth was strongly attached to carousals, the music of min- strels, and the sports of hawking and hunting. He cultivated the poetry of the troubadours ;f and was a writer of romances. During his abode at the court of Gaston, earl of Foix, at Orlaix, in Beame, which he himself informs us, was the most brilliant in Europe, where he was enter- tained twelve weeks, he presented to the earl his collection of the poems of the duke of Luxem- burg, consisting of sonnets, ballades, and virelays. Among these was included a romance composed by himself, called Meliader ; or the Knight of the Sun of Gold. Gaston's chief amusement was
• rather. t The tronbadouTs were French minstrels or poets, who chiefly (louiished in Provence, during the twelfth and thiiteenth centuries.
to hear Froissart read this romance every ereDii; after supper. He also presented to Gaston fou greyhounds, " Tristian, Hector, Brut, and Ro- land ;" and we are told that this earl actiullv kept no less than six hundred dogs in his caiilc.
Caxton in his exhortationto Knight, &c. of hb age, ranks Froissart's History* as a book of chi. valry, with the romances of Lancelotaai Peremt.
1400. A copy of the Romam de la Roit »js sold before the palace gates at Paris, for foitj crowns, or £33 6». 6d.
The Roman* de la Rose, which was written during the thirteenth century, places the Fitncli over all European nations in the inventioD of romances of chivalry, and the productionof era; species of offspring of the imagination. It mi; justly be regarded as the predecessor and pro- genitor of all that is admirable in the effasions of modern, in contradistinction to the chivalrons poetry.
The Romans de la Rose was commenced In Guillaume de Lorriz, who lived in the time o'f St. Louis. He was a poet and jurisconsult of i small town of France. Du Verdier says, thai having become enamoured of a certain ladj, he composed this celebrated romance in Frtiidi rhyme, in imitation of the little work of Orid, the Art of Love. It is agreed that he possessed most of those qualities which constitute a poet namely, an agreeable wit, a lively imagination, and great fruitfulness of invention. He under- stood the charms of fiction ; of which cotempoiai; poets knew little. His descriptions still please by their simplicity and truth, and are very cha- racteristic of the times in which they were written.
Guillaume de Lorris died about the year \W. Of the before-mentioned romance he wrote the first 4160 verses. Jean le Meun of Clopinel continued the work forty years after the death of de Lorris, in the reign of Philip le Bel, or at ihe latest about 1300. Jean de Metin (say the French critics) had more learning than de Lorris. Some think he was not only cotemporary with Dante, but the associate of his studies. If the Ucentious-' ness of his muse gave just oflence to some, the pungency of his satire did not fail to enrage others. He found himself assailed by enemiffiof every class. The court ladies were in paiticuJai with great reason, indignant at many passages of his poems, and they determined, says Du Verdier, one day to chastise him. The poet coming on some business to court was stopped by the bis assembly in one of the apartments ; in presence of many lords, who to please them had enga^ not to interrupt their purpose. De Meun Mong theih armed with rods, and hearing them im- portunately urge the gentlemen to strip bim,
- Mr. Warton, from whom the above account is tske^
records that there were in his time existing, in tiic l^^J™ museum, two or three finely illuminated manuscript w("0 of Ftoissart's chronicle ; and that among the storet a Henry VIII. at his manor of Bedington, in Surry,"^ the fashionable reading of those times exempli6ed in tue following works :— " Item, a great book of pardimra" written and lymned with gold of graver's work, Drl /eufone AmantU ; with xviii other hooks. Le premier volume, de Lancelot, Froissabt. Le Orand roftpf Jenaalem, Mand«viili. Engueraiii ie MmulrMi o"^
