meter and not the sense, and there are forced accents, not less than three in the first stanza, and two of these upon rhyme words.-SHERMAN, L. A., 1893, Analytics of Literature, p. 45. Though so many ideas are borrowed, they are worked into the texture of the poem with much skill; the allegory is extremely ingenious; and the descriptions of the birds and of their conversation are given with the vivacity of a fancy evidently delighted with the humours of the Bestiary. COURTHOPE, W. J., 1895, A History of English Poetry, vol. 1, p. 270. TROILUS AND CRESSIDE Go, litel book, go litel myn tregedie (Qd. Loue). I shall tell thee this lesson. to learne: myne owne true seruaunt, the noble Phylosophicall Poete in English, whych euermore him busieth and trauaileth right sore my name to encrease, wherfore all that willen me good, owe to doe hym worship and reuerence both; truely his better ne his pere, in schoole of my rules cud I neuer find: He (qd. she) in a treatise that he made of my seruant Troylus, hath this matter touched, and at the full this question assoiled. Certainly his noble sayings can I not amend in goodnesse of gentle manliche speech, wythout any manner of nicetie of stafieres imagination, in wit and in good reason of sentence, he passeth all other makers. ANONYMOUS, 1387? Testament of Love, Chaucer's Works, ed. Speght, 1602, p. 301. I mend the fyre, and beikit me about, Than tuik ane drink my spreitis to comfort, And armit me weill fra the cauld thairout; To cut the winter nicht, and mak it schort, I trik ane quair, and left all uther sport, Written be worthie Chaucer glorious, Of fair Cresseid and lusty Troylus -HENRYSON, ROBERT, 1493, Testament of Cresseid, s. 6. Chaucer, undoubtedly did excellently in hys "Troylus and Cresseid;" of whom, truly I know not, whether to mervaile more, either that he in that mistie time, could see so clearely, or that wee in this cleare age, walke so stumblingly after him. SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP, 1595, An Apologie for Poetrie. Read as fair England's Chaucer doth unfold, Chaucer, of all admired, the story gives; For, to say truth, it were an endless thing, Content to you! FLETCHER, JOHN AND SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM?, 1616? The Two Noble Kinsmen, Prologue. I'm glad, the stomach of the time's so good, How poets spake three hundred years ago. The depth of his inimitable verse. And then pronounce him dull; or those that sit In judgment of the language they ne'er view'd, And, because they are lazy, Chaucer's rude; Blush they at these fair dealings, which have shewn Thy worth, and yet reserv'd to him his own? -BARKER, WILLIAM, 1635, Commendatory Verses Prefixed to Sir Francis Kynaston's Translation of Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide. A great black-letter book of verses rare; And Troylus yearning with a broken -GOSSE, EDMUND, 1873, Fortunate Love, xi, On Viol and Flute, p. 29. Perhaps the most beautiful narrative poem of considerable length in the English language. -- ROSSETTI, WILLIAM MICHAEL, 1873-83, Chaucer's "Troylus and Cryseyde" compared with Boccaccio's "Filostrato," Prefatory Remarks, p. viii. Perhaps the most interesting and subtle of all Chaucer's portraits of women is the Cressida in the romance of "Troilus and Cressida." Womanly, attractive, wellmeaning, she is the kind of woman we meet every day, and who every day makes shipwreck of men's lives. Not that Chaucer points any officious morals at her; he knows her worthlessness, but he feels her charm, as Troilus felt it, as we feel it. When in her fickleness and frailty she falls, he recognises that it lies in the nature of things, and leaves posterity to be her judge. Only we feel an implied reproach of Cressida in the respect and tenderness with which he treats the honest passion of Troilus. It is with Chaucer as with Thackeray, at least he believes in the entire good faith and unselfish passion of his hero. Troilus loves as Clive loved, as Harry Esmond loved, as Mr. Arthur Pendennis never loved after he left his teens. It is this thorough and delicate comprehension of this love of Troilus that makes Chaucer's romance one of the most natural and poignant, and but that it ends badly-most delightful of love stories. And to write truthfully and sympathetically of love is to secure readers in all ages. "Yonge fresshe loveres, he and she," may if they care see their own faces in this quaint fourteenth-century "Love's Mirror," and find them very little altered.-MACCUNN, FLORENCE, 1893, A Study of Chaucer's Women, Good Words, vol. 34, p. 776. Despite occasional prolixity and a few artistic flaws "Troilus and Cressida" is perhaps the most beautiful poem of its kind in the English language.-POLLARD, ALFRED W., 1893, Chaucer, (Literature Primers,) p. 85. Chaucer wrote one romance which more than "The Canterbury Tales" contains the spirit of our modern novel. This is the "Troylus and Criseyde.' No work in character drawing superior to some of that in this poem was ever done by Chaucer. This slowness in the development of English prose narrative is not altogether to be wondered at. Force of example is strong; and this is what made the "Troylus and Criseyde" a metrical romance-the last, as it was the best-rather than, as it might naturally have been, the first of English romances in prose. This was an accident in form. What is more remarkable is the fact that Chaucer had no immediate successor in the field of realistic art, in prose or poetry; that he marked not only the climax, but the culmination of this new movement in English literature. SIMONDS, WILLIAM EDWARD, 1894, An Introduction to the Study of English Fiction, pp. 22, 23. In "Troilus and Criseyde" we find another Chaucer, far more complete and powerful; he surpasses now even the Italians whom he had taken for his models, and writes the first great poem of renewed English literature. In "Troilus and Criseyde" the Celt's ready wit, gift of repartee, and sense of the dramatic; the care for the form and ordering of a narrative, dear to the Latin races; the Norman's faculty of observation, are allied to the emotion and tenderness of the Saxon. This fusion had been brought about slowly, when however the time came, its realisation was complete all at once, almost sudden. Yesterday authors of English tongue could only lisp; to-day, no longer content to talk, they sing. JUSSERAND, J. J., 1895, A Literary History of the English People, pp. 299, 300. The dramatist's conception of Cressida's character necessarily limits the function of her uncle, and the Pandarus of Shakspere is of far less importance in the development of the plot than his namesake in Chaucer's poem. It is difficult to see why some critics should speak of the later Pandarus as a more finished type than the earlier. We find in him not a trace of the fascination, the highbred polish, the stores of humour and worldly wisdom which distinguish Chaucer's masterly portrait. We see instead a cringing hanger-on of the court and of great houses, whose conversational stockin-trade consists of honeyed, scented phrases, and gossip of the boudoir. Chaucer's Pandarus has a real affection for his friend, and takes care that his affairs of the heart shall be kept a secret from the world. But in the play he is simply a busybody, who revels in holding the threads of a fashionable intrigue, and who is at trouble, by sly looks and hints, to make it plain to outsiders that he knows more than he cares to speak of.-BOAS, FREDERICK S., 1896, Shakspere and his Predecessors, p. 376. The poem in which medieval romance passes out of itself into the form of the modern novel. What Cervantes and what Fielding did was done first by Chaucer; and this was the invention of a kind of story in which life might be represented no longer in a conventional or abstract manner, or with sentiment and pathos instead of drama, but with characters adapting themselves to different circumstances, no longer obviously breathed upon by the master of the show to convey his own ideas, but moving freely and talking like men and women. The romance of the Middle Ages comes to an end, in one of the branches of the family tree, by the production of a romance that has all the freedom of epic, that comprehends all good and evil, and excludes nothing as common or unclean which can be made in any way to strengthen the impression of life and variety.-KER, W. P., 1897, Epic and Romance, p. 420. THE HOUS OF FAME J. fynde nomore of this werke to fore sayd / For as fer as I can vnnderstōde / This noble man Gefferey Chaucer fynysshyd at the sayd conclusion of the metyng of lesying and sothsawe / where as yet they ben chekked and maye not departe / whyche werke as me semeth is craftyly made and dygne to be wreton & knowen / For he towchyth in it ryght grete wysdom & subtyll vnderstondying / And so in alle hys werkys he excellyth in myn oppynyon alle other wryters in our Englyssh/ For he wrytteth no voyde wordes / but alle hys mater is ful of hye and quycke sentence / to whom ought to be gyuen laude and preysyng for hys noble makyng and wrytyng / For of hym alle other haue borrowed syth and taken /in alle theyr wel sayeing and wrytyng/ And I humbly beseche & praye yow / emonge your prayers to remembre hys soule on whyche and on alle crysten soulis I beseche almyghty god to haue mercy Amen.-CAXTON, WILLIAM, 1486? The Book of Fame, Epilogue. This poem contains great strokes of Gothic imagination, yet bordering often on the most ideal and capricious extravagance. Pope has imitated this piece, with his usual elegance of diction and harmony of versification. But in the mean time, he has not only misrepresented the story, but marred the character of the poem. He has endeavoured to correct its extravagancies, by new refinements and additions of another cast: but he did not consider, that extravagancies are essential to a poem of such a structure, and even constitute its beauties. An attempt to unite order and exactness of imagery with a subject formed on principles so professedly romantic and anomalous, is like giving Corinthian pillars to a Gothic palace. When I read Pope's elegant imitation of this piece, I think I am walking among the modern monuments unsuitably placed in Westminsterabbey.-WARTON, THOMAS, 1778-81, The History of English Poetry, sec. xiv. If Chaucer was indebted to any of the Italian poets for the idea of his "House of Fame," it was to Petrarca, who in his "Trionfo della Fama" has introduced many of the most eminent characters of ancient times. It must however be observed, that the poem of Petrarca is extremely simple and inartificial, and consists only in supposing that the most celebrated men of ancient Greece and Rome pass in review before him; whilst that of Chaucer is the work of a powerful imagination, abounding with beautiful and lively descriptions, and forming a connected and consistent whole. . . . Pope's "Temple of Fame" is one of the noblest, though earliest, productions of the author, displaying a fertile invention and an uncommon grandeur and facility of style. It is confessedly founded on Chaucer's "House of Fame;" but the design is greatly altered and improved, and many of the thoughts and descriptions are entirely his own; yet such is the coincidence and happy union of the work with its prototype, that it is almost impossible. to distinguish those portions for which he is indebted to Chaucer from those of his own invention. ROSCOE, WILLIAM, 1824, ed. Works of Alexander Pope, vol. II. The "House of Fame," in homeliness of style, and lameness of versification, falls below almost all the poems of Chaucer, while, in grandeur of scenes and images, it rises above them. In this latter respect, as in the unearthliness of the whole subject, it may be compared to the Commedia of Dante: and the bold and rough sketches which it contains are sometimes not much unlike those of the Italian poet. The "House of Fame" itself, placed on an almost inaccessible rock of ice, is an image of this nature, at once extravagant and sublime.-HIPPISLEY, J. H., 1837, Chapters on Early English Literature, p. 131. The criticism of so strange a composition is hardly to be attempted. It shows a bold and free spirit of invention, and some great and poetical conceiving. The wilful, now just, now perverse, dispensing of fame, belongs to a mind that has meditated upon the human world. The poem is one of the smaller number, which seems hitherto to stand free from the suspicion of having been taken from other poets. -WILSON, JOHN, 1845, North's Specimens of the British Critics, Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 57, p. 621. In none of his other poems has Chaucer displayed such an extent of knowledge, or drawn his images from such a variety of sources. The Arabic system of numeration, then lately introduced into Europe, the explosion of gunpowder, and the theory of sound, may be mentioned as examples of the topics of illustration and disquisition in which he abounds. His intimate acquaintance with classical authors is exhibited in the felicitous judgments he pronounces on their writings.-BELL, ROBERT, 1854-56, Poetical Works of Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI, p. 193. "The Palice of Honour," for example, is far more densely crowded with historical imagery than "The House of Fame, but in vividness of representation it is not even distantly to be compared to Chaucer's poem. With quick, subtle strokes, Chaucer brings a scene or a character so distinctly before our imagination that it hardly ever fades from it, while Douglas's personages are almost all shadowy phantasms, voces et praeterea nihil. Ross, JOHN MERRY, 1884, Scottish History and Literature, etc., ed. Brown, p. 334. No other of his poems has such a personal character as this one, which marks the climax of one species of art in middle English poetry. The allegory grows here so immediately out of the fundamental idea of the work that it remains perfectly transparent, notwithstanding the minutely detailed execution; for the inner truth of what is presented forces itself upon the reader, and never allows the impression of caprice to occur. How ingeniously soever the whole is designed and completed, we feel that there is here more than a mere play of wit; that a full and profound individuality has listened to its own promptings and spoken out its dominating sentiments and views, and was led by a sort of necessity in the choice of the form of expression. TEN BRINK, BERNHARD, 1892, History of English Literature, (Wyclif, Chaucer, Earliest Drama, Renaissance), tr. Robinson, p. 107. It is needless to say that this Poem is genuine, as Chaucer himself claims it twice over; once in his Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, I. 417, and again by the insertion in the poem itself of the name Geffrey. The authorities for the text are few and poor; hence it is hardly possible to produce a thoroughly satisfactory text. There are three MSS. of the fifteenth century, viz. F. (Fairfax MS. 16, in the Bodleian Library); B. (MS. Bodley, 638, in the same); P. (MS. Pepys 2006, in Magdalene College, Cambridge). The last of these is imperfect, ending at 1. 1843. There are two early printed editions of some value, viz. Cx. (Caxton's edition, undated); and Th. (Thynne's edition, 1532). None of the later editions are of much value, except the critical edition by Hans Willert (Berlin, 1883). SKEAT, WALTER W., 1894 ed., Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. III, pp. vii, xiii. The nature of Chaucer's debt is clear; it is in no sense literary copying, but is a more or less distinct recollection of an oral tale, heard perhaps in boyhood. When we consider the evident love for folk-lore which characterized Shakspere's youth, it seems inconceivable that Chaucer was not familiar as a boy with the multitudes of folk-tales rife in early days. Wherever an imaginative mind was free from monastic bonds, it must have met with great quantities of such material; Chaucer, as one of the first great authors thoroughly so emancipated, may well show traces of such knowledge, outgrown perhaps, but undestroyed.-Garrett, A. C., 1896, Studies in Chaucer's House of Fame, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, vol. v, p. 175. We Manuscripts of this poem were, probably, even in our printer's time, difficult to obtain. The copy used by him was certainly very imperfect. Many lines are altogether omitted, and in the last page Caxton was evidently in a great strait, for his copy was deficient 66 lines, probably occupying one leaf in the original. know from his own writings the great reverence in which our printer held the "noble poete," and we can imagine his consternation when the choice had to be made, either to follow his copy and print nonsense, from the break of idea caused by the deficient verses, or to step into Chaucer's shoes and supply the missing links from his own brain. He chose the latter course, and thus instead of the original 66 lines, we have two of the printer's own, which enable the reader to reach the end of the poem without a break-down. BLADES, WILLIAM, 1897, William Caxton, p. 295. The "House of Fame" is introspective. In it Chaucer reviews his life and his aims, and the work affords evidence of some discontent. Apart from books and dreams, the world is a dismal waste. From what is said later it is plain that, under this similitude, he alludes to the dry ciphering which occupied him in his official post. At the date of the composition of the poem he had just come back from a pilgrimage, from mingling with his kind; and, fresh from the delights of society, he seems to have asked himself, with reference to his wearisome toil and fine-spun ideal world, "What profit?" Chaucer, moreover, had not been happy in love, and it is for that reason that the walls of the Temple of Venus are glum with the story of Æneas, and more particularly with Dido's martyrdom. The poet needed distraction. SNELL, F. J., 1899, Periods of European Literature, The Fourteenth Century, p. 303. LEGENDE OF GOOD WOMEN 1384-85 This poete wrote, at the requeste of the quene, But for his labour and besinesse Was importable his wittes to encombre When, in the chronicle of wasted time, cvi. I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade, Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still -TENNYSON, LORD, 1830, A Dream of Fair Women. Part of the "Legende of Good Women" is of great excellence and value. The prologue is to be classed with Chaucer's best writings.--HALES, JOHN W., 1887, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. X., p. 164. The "Legend of Good Women," besides the general interest of all Chaucer's verse, besides its own intrinsic attraction (for the "good women" are the most hapless and blameless of Ovid's Heroides), and the remembrance of its suggestion of what is perhaps, all things con idered, the most perfect example of Tennyson's verse, has the additional charm of presenting to us Chaucer's first experiment in the heroic couplet, the main pillar, with blank verse, of later English poetry, and the medium of his own greatest work. -SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1898, A Short History of English Literature, p. 125 In the "Legende" it is the Prologue, in its two drafts, which gives him his opportunity. Of the nine stories of loving women which he had patience to complete, only the first three (those of Cleopatra, Thisbe, and Dido) are in any way worthy of him.-POLLARD, ALFRED W., 1898, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Globe ed., Introduction, p. xxiv. The chief significance of the poem lies. in this that, whilst its contents may be |