versant with the actions and passions of mankind. Petrarch wrote as much, and finished his works as laboriously and minutely, as Chaucer did; but Petrarch was emphatically a man of the world, ever engaged in business and journeyings, and even in his solitude of Vaucluse living more amid the fields and the trees than in his room; in his later life, when his evening lamp was seen twinkling through the lattice of his chamber at Arqua, he might be seen, not threading the mazes of harmony in the composition of difficult canzoni, but maintaining a correspondence on high matters of state and church policy with the princes or prelates of Italy. Whether waiting in the ante-chamber of the monarch, or carousing in the porch of the hostelrie, or joining in the different debates of the senate, Chaucer was also employed in studying that volume of boundless knowledge which society opened to him, filled with the deepest learning and rich with all the gathered stores of time. One gift, says Winstanley, he had above all other authors; and that is, by the excellence of his descriptions, to possess his readers with a stronger imagination of seeing that done before their eyes which they read, than any other that ever writ in any tongue. Again, Mr. Ascham putteth him nothing behind Thucydides or Homer for his lively description of site of places and nature of persons, both in outward shape of body and inward disposition of mind, &c. He had (says a late biographer) one excellency above all other poets, and wherein none since his time but the famous Shakspere has come near him, viz. such a lively description of persons and things, that it seems to surpass imagination, and you see everything before your eyes which you only read. Warton speaks of Chaucer's warmth of description as a distinguishing feature of his poetry. And, in truth, every description by Chaucer has a fresh out-of-door open-air look with it; it has the light of the sky upon it to him the market-place was a practical volume of moral philosophy; his embassy to Genoa and Florence, a rich and princely picture-book, filled with the costliest forms of nature and art; and his comptrollership of the customs, an excellent tome of never-ending casuistry. Our greatest writers in better days were all men of active lives; look at Bacon, Shakspere, Raleigh, Selden. The poets Surrey and Sidney could unsheath the sword as well as hold the pen. Shakspere read men's hearts, and Ben Jonson read books, and see the result of their different labours. The most unpoetical situation which Chaucer held was supposed to be that of the Clerk of the Works, but even that left him ample leisure for his gentler pursuits. When we look at the long array of volume after volume of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, we see how little he has been embarrassed in his visitations of the muse, by having been half of his life "a distributor of stamps." The first feeling after reading the works of a poet, is the desire to see him; and this wish is not confined alone to the female heart. How delightful it is to gaze on the clustering locks flowing over the "mild temples" of Milton; or to look on the bright quick eye, the thin visage, and the thoughtful features of Pope; and, though we are denied that pleasure where most we should have desired it, in the instance of Shakspere, yet, as regards the poet before us, the affection of Occleve has made Chaucer's person better known than that of any individual of his age. This is the portrait pre Godwin says, "It may be observed of Chaucer, throughout his writings, that description and imagery were not the element of his mind. In this respect he can by no means enter the list with Spenser." Life, i. 377. fixed to this memoir. It was painted from memory after Chaucer's decease, and is apparently the only genuine one in existence; for that prefixed to Mr. Todd's Illustrations we take to be a rough sketch of the worthy archdeacon himself, engaged in his ecclesiastical visitation; and many of the other portraits mentioned by Sir Harris are of a late date, and either degenerate copies, or perhaps altogether fictitious. The present portrait gives a well-formed countenance, and a quiet composure of feature, with a gentle thoughtfulness on the eye and brow, as if the poet was endeavouring to solve, what was an intricate problem in those days, whether the sun went round the earth, or the earth round the sun, or whether sometimes the one and sometimes the other. "All the early portraits," says Sir Harris, "bear much resemblance to each other; and the probability of their being strong likenesses is increased by their agreeing with the description which Chaucer has given of himself in the Can terbury Tales before quoted, wherein he says he was a 'puppet,' 'small and fair of face,' and 'elvish,' that is, according to Tyrwhitt, shy and reserved; and that he was in the habit of looking steadfastly on the ground." Although we do not enter here on the subject of Chaucer's poetry, on which a volume might be written, yet we may observe, that the fame which he obtained during his life not only maintained its rank, but increased in following generations. Numerous impressions of his works were taken, and we read that accomplished and elegant courtiers were perpetually quoting Chaucer; and Warton informs us, that there is a peculiar reason why Chaucer, exclusive of his real excellence, should have been the favourite of a Court (i. e. Edward the VIth's) which laid the foundation of the reformation of religion: it was that his poems abounded with satirical strokes against the corruptions of the church, and the dissolute manners of the monks; and undoubtedly Chaucer, being a lively and popular writer, greatly assisted the doctrines of his contemporary Wickliffe in opening the eyes of the people to the absurdities of popery, and exposing its impositions in a vein of humour and pleasantry. Fox, the martyrologist, perhaps goes too far in affirming that Chaucer has undeniably proved the Pope to be the Antichrist of the Apocalypse. Certainly the manner in which Chaucer attacked "the careless fraternities of the Church," as they have been called, obtained for him the rank of a religious reformer, and enrolled him among our theological writers. He is thus described in a list of Oxford writers, printed in 1605; and in the sketch of Chaucer, left in manuscript by Henry Wharton, and preserved in the Lambeth Library, he is said to be, "In rebus Theologicis apprimè versatus, de quibus acute atque eruditè sæpius disputat-in castioris autem Theologiæ studio, nullos fere non sui temporis Theologos ante celluit, Wicklifii dogmata ut plurimè secutus, et infucatam et genuinam pietatem secutus,"+ &c. We beg to inform the ladies who honour our pages with their perusal, that Dr. Joseph Warton, in his Essay on Pope, says, that many of our English poets have been in their persons remarkably handsome. Such were Spenser, Milton, Cowley, Rowe, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Gray, &c. vol. II. p. 289. ; but in our copy of the work which was Horace Walpole's, he has written his dissent from Warton's assertion, in one or two instances. The portrait of Congreve, as seen in his picture in the Kit-Cat-Club, is eminently handsome and pleasing. + See Todd's Sketches, p. xxxvii. MR. URBAN, Cork, Dec. 18. I OBSERVE in your Minor Correspondence an inquiry, from a "Subscriber for Twenty Years," relative to the arms and name of De Bernay. The arms are not described, but the name, I may tell him, is historically known by a single bearer of it—Alexander de Bernay, born about the year 1150, in the town of Bernay in Normandy, now the " Département de l'Eure." An He largely contributed to various poems, but particularly to the "Roman d'Alexandre," an imitation of Quintus Curtius-but understood to be a translation of an old Latin Romance. "Liber Alexandri Magni de Præliis." The poem of Alexandre had been previously commenced by an unknown writer, who first used, it would appear, the heroic verse, called Alexandrine, from the subject of the work. abridgment was published in the sixteenth century, and appeared at Paris and Lyons under the title of "Histoire du tres noble et tres vaillant roy Alexandre le Grant, jadis roy et seigneur de tout le monde," &c. Or, as in another old edition, " Cy comence hystoire du tres vaillant et noble preux et hardy roy Alexãdre le grat." De Bernay (also called Alexandre de Paris) co-operated with an Englishman, Thomas de Kent, in another poem-" Li Roumans di Tote Chevalerie, ou la Geste d'Alexandre, par Thomas de Kent,"—of which mention will be found in the Duc de la Vallière's manuscripts in the Royal Library, No. 2,702. Its origin is thus expressed. "D'un bon livre en latin fis cest translatement, Qui mun nom demande, Thomas ai nom de Kent." M. The language, says the late Roquefort, is the Norman French, even then, though used in our courts of royalty and law, much corrupted. * Our former correspondent furnished us with an impression of the arms on the book of prayers. As far as they can be ascertained, they are as follow: Quarterly of four: 1. three dogs courant, two and one; 2. a lion passant guardant crowned; 3. a lion rampant; 4. defaced. On an inescutcheon, three bars, apparently fretty. The shield surmounted by a helmet, affrontée, with open bars, as usual abroad, but here confined to the sovereign; without any crest.-EDIT. At this moment the works of a modern poet, Camille Bernay, are passing through the Parisian press; but he is as yet little known. The "Roman Catholic Book of Prayers," found by your correspondent, is doubtless one of the Hora, which, shortly after the invention of printing, replaced the previous manuscripts, and, like them, were generally on vellum, with various decorationsarabesques, &c. so attractively described in Dr. Dibdin's Decameron, (Second Day.) The chief printers were Simon Vostre, who began about the year 1486, Antoine Verard, Thielman, Kerver, Hardouin, Eustace, &c. in Paris; and a few proceeded from the provincial presses. Missals, Breviaries, Preces Pie, with other devotional volumes, received similar embellishments; but no effort of the press has equalled some of the preceding elaborations of the pen and pencil, such as the celebrated Bedford Missal, which, a few years since, cost Sir John Tobin of Liverpool about 1,200l. (including charges,) and others. Yet even that beautiful specimen of industry and art is, 1 think, surpassed by a magnificent Missal in the possession of my neighbour, Ed. Roche, esq. of Trabolgan, the father of our county representative, Ed. Burke Roche, esq. It was obtained at Florence, by the late Colonel Roche, from a convent, during the French invasion in 1796. I have never seen any thing more splendid of the kind, though I carefully inspected the Bedford article. But I particularly advert to the exquisite paintings that adorn the work, less numerous, indeed, because the volume is of slenderer dimensions, than those which enrich its celebrated compeer. It is a small and rather thin folio. Many years, however, have passed since my old friend, Colonel Roche, shewed it to me for examination. He was a gentleman of taste and fortune; while the inmates of, or rather refugees from, the Florentine Monastery, were fortunate in finding such a purchaser for their property, possessed and cherished for ages, in place of its forcible trans. ference, with the numerous other spoils of conquest, to Paris, by Bonaparte, at that period. Yours, &c. J. R. |