which the half of the story is, as Professor Child says, better than the whole. CAPTAIN CAR, OR EDOM O GORDON Pp. 81 f. The reason for the double title of this ballad is that in some versions the villain is not Captain Car but Edom o Gordon (that is, Adam of Gordon). There was, in fact, in Scotland in the days of Mary Queen of Scots an able and gallant soldier Adam Gordon, whose fame is said to have been destroyed by the infamous deed of his man, Captain Ker. He sent his soldiers under the leadership of Captain Ker to the castle of Towie, demanding the surrender of the castle in the queen's name. In the absence of her lord, the lady of the castle refused, and "the soldiers being impatient, by command of their leader, Captain Ker, fire was put to the house, wherein she and the number of twenty-seven persons were cruelly burnt to the death." According to another account, nearly contemporary, Gordon himself was the inhuman leader. At all events, whether for his own deed or for failing to punish Ker, he was denounced and execrated by his contemporaries. Lines 58 are a chorus or refrain. The tune of this ballad is given in Chappell's Popular Music 74. of the Olden Time, old ed., p. 226, new ed., I, P. 82. Stanza 20 is not in this version of the ballad, but it is traditional. John Hamelton, 90 indicates. of st. 22, is a servant, as I. LORD RANDAL P. 83. This is not an historical ballad. Its origin lies in folk lore. Stories and ballads on this theme are very ancient and almost worldwide in their distribution, and versions of the ballad itself are still sung in parts of the United States. The cels of st. 3 are of course snakes. HIND HORN This ballad is not derived from the Pp. 83 f. romance of King Horn (p. 9), but is a variant of The refrain, which is sung bethe same story. tween the lines, is very different in the other versions of this ballad, of which there are many. Most refrains are, like this, entirely meaningless; one of the most interesting is a Scottish version. Near Edinburgh was a young son born, Hey lilelu an a how low lan An his name it was called young Hyn Horn. ST. STEPHEN AND HEROD P. 84. This is of course a traditional distortion of the story of St. Stephen, for which there is no warrant in sacred or secular history. But a somewhat similar story is told of Judas in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and the incident of the crowing of the cock is found in tales in many languages The picturesque ignorance of the Bible involved in placing the stoning of Stephen on the day after the birth of Christ is characteris tic of the common folk of the Middle Ages. All that they knew was that in the Church calendar St. Stephen's day is the next after Christmas. 1. 2. befalle, befits; subjunctive for indicative. 1. 3. boris hed, the Christmas dish of old England, brought into the hall in procession with the singing of carols. SIR THOMAS MALORY MORTE DARTHUR Pp. 84 ff. The Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory has long been famous, not only as the source of most of the modern poems about King Arthur and his Knights, but also as one of the most interesting books in any language. It has recently been shown by Professor Kittredge that Sir Thomas was not, as some have supposed, a priest, but, as the colophon of his book tells us, a soldier, with just such a career as one would wish for the compiler of such a volume. He was attached to the train of the famous Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and perhaps was brought up in his service. As Professor Kittredge says, "No better school for the future author of the Morte Darthur can be imagined than a personal acquaintance with that Englishman whom all Europe recognized as embodying the knightly ideal of the age." The Emperor Sigismund, we are informed on excellent authority, said to Henry V, "that no prince Cristen for wisdom, norture, and manhode, hadde such another knyght as he had of therle Warrewyk, addyng thereto that if al curtesye were lost, yet myght hit be founde ageyn in hym; and so ever after by the emperours auctorite he was called the 'Fadre of Curteisy."" Sir Thomas derived his materials from old romances, principally in French, which he attempted to condense and reduce to order. His style, though it may have been affected to some extent by his originals, is essentially his own. Its most striking excellence is its diction, which is invariably picturesque and fresh, and this undoubtedly must be ascribed to him. The syntax, though sometimes faulty, has almost always a certain naïve charm. On the whole, regarding both matter and manner, one can hardly refuse assent to Caxton when he says, "But thystorye (i.e., the history) of the sayd Arthur is so gloryous and shynyng, that he is stalled in the fyrst place of the moost noble, beste, and worthyest of the Cristen men." With this version of the death of King Arthur the student should read Layamon's version (p. 5) and Tennyson's (p. 528). WILLIAM CAXTON PREFACE TO THE BOOKE OF ENEYDOS P. 86. William Caxton, the first English printer, was born in Kent about 1422. After serving his apprenticeship in London with the merchant Robert Lange, who became Lord Mayor, he went to Bruges and so prospered that in 1462 he was Governor of the guild of English Merchant Adventurers there. In 1469 he seems to have given up his business and entered the service of the Duchess Margaret of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV of England. For her he began in that year a translation into English of a French prose romance called Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes. So many of those who heard of this translation wished to have a copy of it that he learned the new art of printing in order to provide enough copies. He says in the Epilogue to the Third Book: "And for as moche as in the wryting of the same my penne is worn, myn hand wery and not stedfast, min eyen dimmed with over moche lokyng on the whit paper, and my corage not so prone and redy to laboure as hit hath ben, and that age crepeth on me dayly and febleth all the bodye; and also because I have promysid to dyverce gentilmen and to my frendes to address to hem as hastely as I myght this sayd book; therfor I have practysed and lerned at my grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this sayd book in prynte after the manner and forme as ye may here see; and is not wreton with penne and ynke as other bokes ben, to thende that every man may have them attones (at once); for all the bookes of this storye named the Recule of the Historyes of Troyes, thus enpryntid as ye here see, were begonne in oon day and also fynyshid in oon day." Whether he learned printing in Cologne, where he finished his translation in September, 1471, or in Bruges, he began to print in Bruges in partner ship with Colard Mansion and produced, besides the Troy Book, a translation called The Game and Play of the Chess Moralized. In 1476 he removed to London and set up a press in Westminster Abbey. Such was his diligence that he translated, before his death in 1491, twenty large folio volumes (4900 pages) and printed nearly one hundred volumes (over 18000 pages). With the exception of his continuation of Higden's Polychronicon (see p. 71), his original writings are confined to the prefaces, epilogues, etc., which he supplied to several of his publications. These are very interesting, both for their intrinsic value and for the charming garrulity of his style. The passage here chosen is from his preface to his translation of a French version of the story of Eneas. What he tells us of his difficulty in determining what sort of English to use is a classic in the history of the language (compare the passage given above from Trevisa, p. 71). I have tried to make it easier to read by breaking up into shorter lengths his rambling statements, they can hardly be called sentences, - but I somewhat fear that, in so doing, a part, at least, of their quaint charm may have been sacrificed. STEPHEN HAWES THE PASTIME OF PLEASURE Pp. 86 f. The main stream of English poetry in the fifteenth century was in name and claim Chaucerian, but in reality it showed rather the influence of Lydgate. With the exception of the Scottish Chaucerians, not represented in this volume, the later men were insensible to those qualities of the master which make him significant not for the Middle Ages only but for all time. The literary forms and the style which attracted them and which they most frequently try to reproduce are those which Chaucer himself in the course of his marvelous artistic development outgrew and abandoned. They imitate The Boke of the Duchesse, The Prologue to the Legende of Goode Women, The Parlement of Foules, and above all the Roman de la Rose or the translation of it. Allegory is the chosen form, abstractions are the favorite personages; the ancient conventional machinery of spring mornings and grassy arbors and dreams and troups of men and fair women is used again and again, though all its parts have become loose and worn with use and age and creak audibly at every movement. To all this they add a pretentious diction that smells of schools and musty Latinity. The flowers that deck their fields are withered 1 blossoms that they have picked up and painted This outworn tradition was preserved in the The use of chivalric romance as the form of the allegory is both a link with the world that was passing away and Hawes's sole original contribution to the development of poetry. Even in Chaucer's day the spirit which had informed and vitalized chivalry as a social system was giving way before the new methods of warfare and the rising powers of commerce and industry; but the system remained much longer and the ideals were cherished with an almost fanatic zeal by many lovers of ancient forms of beauty. Malory's Morte Darthur an unallegorical presentation of chivalry was published shortly before Hawes wrote. And nearly a century later, Edmund Spenser found no form so suitable for the embodiment of his allegory of the moral virtues as the persons and incidents of chivalric romance. JOHN SKELTON Pp. 87 f. Skelton was the bitterest satirist of his time. His learning, which was of the old type, was very considerable, and his fondness for displaying it is thoroughly characteristic. He wrote verses on all sorts of subjects, but it is as a satirist of Cardinal Wolsey that he is best remembered. The language used in these satires is vituperative and often obscene, and the ideas are sometimes expressed with such obscurity that we who are ignorant of the petty details of court intrigue in those days are unable to discover their meaning. A brief specimen of his satirical verse at its cleanest and clearest is given in the short extract from Colyn Cloute (p. 88). The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe (p. 87) was written for a young girl, Jane Scroupe, whose pet sparrow had been killed by a cat. The poem contains 1267 lines, not counting the additions (of 115 lines) in which he defends himself for having written as he did. The first 844 lines are supposed to be spoken by Jane; they are largely in the form of a dirge, with sentences and words interspersed from the Latin service for the dead. Some devout persons took offence at this, but Skelton explains that he meant no harm. THE NUTBROWNE MAIDE Pp. 88 ff. This is curiously modern in versification, in language and in tone. One would like to know who was the author-to what class of society he belonged, what education and experience of life were his, and whether he ever wrote anything else. The existence of such isolated originality as is shown in this poem, in The Owl and the Nightingale, in some of the Early Tudor lyrics, and a few other ancient poems, makes one slow to believe that our remote ancestors were less capable of excellence in literature than we are, and confirms the view that the variation in the number of good writers in different periods is due, not so much to differences in intellectual equipment, as to variation in the interests that attract the attention of different periods. The poem was intended for recitation as a dialogue. The object is to set forth the manner in which a loving woman would overcome all obstacles separating her from her lover. It may be held that the attitude expressed in ll. 151-156 is, after the medieval fashion, somewhat exaggerated. Professor Skeat thought the author was a woman; but the last stanza, especially 177, seems against this view, and the whole conception of woman's love seems rather that of a man (cf. Mrs. Browning's Man's Requirements). tion, but in many of the most charming of the lyrics of the latter part of the century one hears, I think, the same notes and discovers the same poetic method that had marked English lyrics at the beginning of the century and for ages before. Only a few specimens of these "native wood-notes wild" are given here, but they will serve to enforce what has just been said. One of them, it will be remarked, is curiously unlike the rest and curiously modern. In both tone and poetic method the love song: Lully, lulley, lulley, lulley! The fawcon hath born my make away! (p. 94) smacks, not of the Middle Ages, but of that interesting nineteenth century imitation of mediævalism associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. CHRISTMAS CAROLS P. 93. I, 1. 36. Some such word as to or for seems needed for the metre before the (= thee). II. The refrain seems to represent a playful conversation between the Mother and the Babe. The Mother says, "What are you seeking, O little son?" The Babe replies, "O sweetest Mother, kiss-kiss!" The question is repeated; and the Babe replies, "Give me the kisses of approval." I take ba-ba and da-da to be the only remarks really made by the Babe, the rest of his speeches being the Mother's interpretation of this babble. Ba-ba and da-da are treated as Latin imperatives, the latter being taken from the actual imperative of do, and the former, as my friends Professors Hale and Beeson suggest, being based on the obsolete English verb ba (meaning "kiss"). CONVIVIAL SONGS P. 94. II. The exclamations in this song are mere convivial outcries, having probably no very definite meaning. Sir James Murray says, however, that "Tyrll on the bery" means "Pass round the wine." THE BEGINNING OF THE RENAISSANCE SIR THOMAS MORE A DIALOGUE Pp. 95 f. Sir Thomas More is one of the most striking and charming figures in the brilliant court of Henry VIII, and is known to all students of literature as the author of Utopia. Unfortunately for our purposes, that interesting book was written in Latin and, though soon translated into English, cannot represent to us the author's English style. I have chosen a selection from his Dialogues rather than from the History of Richard III, partly because the style seems to me more touched with the author's emotion, and partly because the passage presents the attitude of the writer on a question which may interest many modern readers. It is characteristic in its mixture of dignity, good sense, prejudice, enlightenment, spiritual earnestness, and playfulness of temper. The question of making the Bible accessible to the laity was one of the burning questions of the day. Sir Thomas argued that the Church had done all it was safe to do in this matter and that more harm than good would arise from going further. Tyndale and his fellows, a specimen of whose translation follows, thought differently. WILLIAM TYNDALE THE GOSPELL OF S. MATHEW Pp. 96 f. Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1525) was the first of many translations into English that appeared during the sixteenth century. It passed through two editions of 3000 copies each almost immediately, although it had to be printed abroad and distributed surreptitiously. The opposition of the English bishops to its circulation was bitter and effective, and as Henry VIII had not yet broken with the Roman Church, he did not come to the aid of Tyndale as he did to that of Coverdale ten years later. Tyndale's translation is one of the most important monuments of the English language. As will readily be seen, the Authorized Version of 1611 is greatly indebted to it in diction and phraseology; and it has directly or indirectly affected the language of all later writers and speakers of English. WYATT AND SURREY Pp. 97 ff. Most of the lyrics of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey were first printed in a little volume entitled Songes and Sonettes written by the right honourable Lorde Henry Howard, late Earle of Surrey, and other, but commonly known, from the publisher's name, as Tottel's Miscellany. With this volume modern English literature is usu ally regarded as beginning; its significance is duly The contribution of Wyatt, Surrey, and their P. 98. THE LOVER COMPLAINETH This poem appears to be original, as also is the next. Lines 6-8 mean "My song may pierce her heart as soon as a tool of lead can engrave in marble or a sound be heard where there is no ear to hear." A DESCRIPTION, ETC. 1. 4. The in should is pronounced and the word rhymes with gold (1. 6). 1. 7. The printed editions have tried, but tied (the reading of the Mss.) is obviously correct. The poet says that he might be tied to one object of love if she possessed the charms he enumerates, and good sense (wit) in addition. DESCRIPTION AND PRAISE OF HIS LOVE P. 100. This sonnet was addressed to Elizabeth Fitzgerald, daughter of the great Irish Earl of Kildare, who was brought to England and imprisoned by Henry VIII. After her father's execution in 1534, Elizabeth was attached to the household of the Princess Mary. A very romantic story grew up about the love of Surrey for the fair Geraldine, as she was called; but his love poems were probably mere literary exercises, as Elizabeth was only nine years old when this poem is supposed to have been written. The Fitzgeralds claimed to have come from Florence in Tuscany (ll. 1, 2); Camber (1.4) is Wales; Hunsdon (1. 9) and Hampton (1. 11) were royal residences. Surrey was imprisoned at Windsor in 1537 for having struck a courtier, and this poem (because of l. 12) is usually ascribed to that date; but he was also imprisoned there in 1542, and, after all, the passage may mean that Geraldine was at Windsor and he elsewhere. THE MEANS TO ATTAIN A HAPPY LIFE The epigram on this subject by the Latin poet Martial addressed to himself (Ad Seipsum), has been a favorite for translation. Surrey's version is very graceful as well as nearly literal. VIRGIL'S ENEID This is important as the earliest blank verse written in England. Although lacking the flexibility later developed by Shakespeare, Milton, and others, this earliest attempt is far less stiff and monotonous than much blank verse that followed it. The translation keeps pretty close to the original, though it lacks distinction and perfection of phrasing. In this passage Eneas begins to tell Dido the story of the destruction of Troy and his wanderings. ll. 10-11. The soldiers mentioned were enemies of Eneas. 1. 55. Kindled means excited. The punishment of Laocoön, related by Virgil in this same book, has become famous in literature and in art. ROGER ASCHAM THE SCHOLEMASTER Pp. 101 ff. Ascham is of special interest for two reasons: his reforms in the methods of teaching Latin and his services to English criticism. His ideas on education, presented fully in his Scholemaster, were singularly enlightened. He believed in making the study of Latin as easy as possible; he held that the value of the classics lay, not in their difficulty, but in the world of great ideas and great men which they made accessible; and he counseled humane and gentle methods of instruction and discipline. His ideas prevailed for a time, but were long forgotten or disregarded and had to be rediscovered by schoolmasters of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Much of his criticism of literature we now regard as mistaken, particularly his advocacy of classi cal metres for English and his mixture of ethics with æsthetics in his judgments; but his ideas of English style were in the main sound, and he aided not a little in preventing the language from being overrun with ornate words of Latin origin. In some matters he was very conservative. He believed that the replacement of the bow by the gun would cause the decay of manhood and he therefore wrote a book, Toxophilus (Lover of the Bow), to revive and promote archery in England. |