T poverty with a light, defiant note. Béranger1 The second of the points on which he was genuine and emphatic was common to the middle ages; a deep and somewhat snivelling conviction of the transitory nature of this life and the pity and horror of death. Old age and the grave, with some dark and yet halfsceptical terror of an after-world- these were ideas that clung about his bones like a disease. An old ape, as he says, may play all the tricks in its repertory, and none of them will tickle an audience into good humour. "Tousjours vieil synge est desplaisant." It is not the old jester who receives most recognition at a tavern party, but the young fellow, fresh and handsome, who knows the new 1 a famous French song-writer (1780-1857) 2 cf. p. 348 a, above 3 Like the Spartan boy in the well-known story. 4 vicious pauper 5 radical revolutionist 6 Such caps are common in the slums of London. 7 An old ape is always tiresome. slang, and carries off his vice with a certain air. Of this, as a tavern jester himself, he would be pointedly conscious. As for the women with whom he was best acquainted. his reflections on their old age, in all their harrowing pathos, shall remain in the original for me. Horace has disgraced himself to something the same tune; but what Horace throws out with an ill-favoured laugh, Villon dwells on with an almost maudlin whimper. It is in death that he finds his truest inspiration; in the swift and sorrowful change that overtakes beauty; in the strange revolution by which great fortunes and renowns are diminished to a handful of churchyard dust; and in the utter passing away of what was once lovable and mighty. It is in this that the mixed texture of his thought enables him to reach such poignant and terrible effects, and to enhance pity with ridicule, like a man cutting capers to a funeral march. It is in this, also, that he rises out of himself into the higher spheres of art. So, in the ballade by which he is best known, he rings the changes on names that once stood for beautiful and queenly women, and are now no more than letters and a legend. "Where are the snows of yester year?" runs the burden." And so, in another not so famous, he passes in review the different degrees of bygone men, from the holy Apostles and the golden Emperor of the East, down to the heralds, pursuivants, and trumpeters, who also bore their part in the world's pageantries and ate greedily at great folks' tables: all this to the refrain of "So much carry the winds away!" Probably, there was some melancholy in his mind for a yet lower grade, and Montigny and Colin de Cayeux clattering their bones on Paris gibbet. Alas, and with so pitiful an experience of life, Villon can offer us nothing but terror and lamentation about death! No one has ever more skilfully communicated his own disenchantment; no one ever blown a more earpiercing note of sadness. This unrepentant thief can attain neither to Christian confidence, nor to the spirit of the bright Greek saying, that whom the gods love die early. It is a poor heart, and a poorer age, that cannot accept the conditions of life with some heroic readiness. * 1 the famous Roman satirist (65-8 B.C.) 2 cí. p. 629, above The date of the Large Testament is the last date in the poet's biography. After having achieved that admirable and despicable performance, he disappears into the night from whence he came. How or when he died, whether decently in bed or trussed up to a gallows, remains a riddle for foolhardy commentators. It appears his health had suffered in the pit at Méun; he was thirty years of age and quite bald; with the notch in his under lip, where Sermaise had struck him with the sword, and what wrinkles the reader may imagine. In default of portraits, this is all I have been able to piece together, and perhaps even the baldness should be taken as a figure of his destitution. A sinister dog, in all likelihood, but with a look in his eye, and the loose flexile mouth that goes with wit and an overweening sensual temperament. Certainly the sorriest figure on the rolls of fame. INTRODUCTORY NOTES1 The That there is little literature in English that is of high quality between the Norman Conquest and the middle of the fourteenth century is not surprising if we remember the social conditions of the country. Scholars in England, as in the rest of Europe at that time, wrote and spoke and read Latin. Most books of learning, therefore, whether sacred or profane, histories, scientific, philosophical, religious, and literary treatises, etc., were written in Latin. language of the upper classes was French. The French literature of the continent was accessible to them, and many of the most interesting literary works in Old French romances, plays, legends of saints, religious songs, love songs, and political satires were written in England by persons whose native language was French. This continued until the fourteenth century, when, as we learn from many evidences, the upper classes began to give up French; see the picturesque account of this given by Trevisa, p. 71 of this book. The history of literature in England is therefore in this period a very different thing from the history of English literature, and we cannot judge of the literary ability, tastes, or culture of Englishmen from 1066 to 1350 without taking into account what they read and wrote in Latin and French as well as in English. During all this time the principal works written in English were such as were supposed to be of practical interest to those who could not read Latin or French: sermons, religious treatises, poems of sacred or secular history, didactic poems, and the like. Some works of entertainment were produced for those who understood English only, but as parchment was very expensive, few of 1 For convenience of reference, page numbers are given throughout. For the poetical selections, line numbers are also given; for the prose selections, a or bis added to the page number, when necessary, to indicate whether the passage discussed is in the first or the second column. AE ,these were written down, the usual way of publishing them being to recite them. 677 Another fact must be taken into consideration in studying the literary culture of England in the Middle Ages. Only a small part of the writings which once existed have come down to us. A large portion of medieval literature has perished by the ordinary decay and accidents natural to the passage of so long a time; but there have been also some special agencies of destruction. Chief among them was the disestablishment of the monasteries in England by Henry VIII. He did not, to be sure, order the destruction of the manuscripts; but no care was taken to preserve them, and many were destroyed by ignorant zealots, while many were wantonly used for the vilest purposes. What happened may be read in Dr. Gasquet's Henry the VIII and the English Monasteries or in John Bale's Leyland's New Year's Gift to King Henry VIII. Bale, who was a learned scholar of that time, says: "Never had we bene offended for the losse of our lybraryes, beynge so many in nombre, and in so desolate places for the more parte, yf the chiefe monumentes and most notable workes of our excellent wryters had bene reserved. .. But to destroye all without consyderacyon is, and wyll be unto England for ever, a moste horryble infamy amonge the grave senyours of other nacyons. A greate nombre of them whych purchased those superstycyouse mansyons [i.e., the monasteries] reserved of those lybrarye bokes . . . some to scoure theyr candel-styckes and some to rubbe their bootes. Some they solde to the grossers and sope sellers, and some they sent over see to the bokebynders, not in small nombre, but at times whole shyppes full, to the wonderynge of the foren nacyons. . . I knowe a merchaunt man, whych shall at thys tyme be namelesse, that boughte the contentes of two noble lybraryes for xl shyllynges pryce, a shame it is to be spoken. This stuffe hathe he occupyed [i.e., used] in the stede of graye paper [wrapping paper] by the space of more than X. yeares, and yet he hath store ynough for as many yeares to come." T THE PRONUNCIATION OF MIDDLE ENGLISH Even those students who do not try to read The pronunciation of Middle English changed The following sounds are commonly given for THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE Pages 1 f. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle belongs for the most part, of course, to the history of English literature before the Norman Conquest; but the later records, especially those of the Peterborough version, from which our selection is taken, are of great importance for the study of modern English prose. The Chronicle seems to have been begun in the reign of Alfred the Great, perhaps in consequence of his efforts for the education of his people. It exists in six versions, differing more or less from one another both as to the events recorded and the period of time covered, but together forming, in a manner, a single work. The early entries, beginning with 60 B.C., were compiled from various sources and are, for the most part, very meager and uninteresting. Here are the complete records for two years: "An. DCCLXXII. Here (that is, in this year) Bishop Milred died." "An. DCCLXXIII. Here a red cross appeared in the sky after sunset; and in this year the Mercians and the men of Kent fought at Otford; and wondrous serpents were seen in the land of the South-Saxons." For long, weary stretches of years, there are, with the notable exception of the vivid account of the death of Cynewulf, few more exciting entries than these. Even when great events are recorded, there is no effort to tell how or why they occurred, no attempt to produce an interesting narrative. In the time of King Alfred, however, a change appears, and, though the records still have the character of annals rather than of history, the narrative is often very detailed and interesting, especially in regard to the long and fierce contest with the Danes. After the Norman Conquest, one version of |