LECTURE THIRD.

Chancer.

The dawn of English Poesy-Difficulties of describing it-Obsolete language-Chaucer the father of English Poetry-Latin PoetryRevival of Learning-English Language-Its Transition Statutes of Edward the Third-Gower-Age of Chivalry-Invasion of France -Cressy and Poitiers-The Black Prince-The Church-Wiclif— Chaucer's birth, A.D. 1328-Friendship with Gower-Taste for natural scenery-The Flower and the Leaf-Burns's Daisy-Romaunt of the Rose-Canterbury Tales-Its outline-His respect for the female sex-Chaucer's influence on the English language-"! "The Well of English undefiled"-His versification-His death, A.D. 1400.

THE era of English poetry may be described as a period of about five hundred years. At the remote point of time forming the distant boundary of those five centuries stands a name illustrious enough to justify the usage of placing it at the head of the English poets when they are considered chronologically. A great living poet closes the catalogue.* It is a consideration of some interest that the calendar which opens so nobly with the name of Chaucer closes worthily in our day with that of Wordsworth. It is a gratification to the literary student to know that, when he seeks acquaintance with the earliest English poets, he will encounter, not the feeble and dull productions of rudeness and mediocrity, but works belonging to the higher order of the art, and also that, when

VOL. I.

* In 1841, Wordsworth was living.

81

he brings down the study to the literature of the present time, he will not have occasion to mourn over the degeneracy of modern inspiration. Upon each frontier of those five hundred years stands the landmark of high poetic genius. It is also worthy of remark that the history of English poetry is contemporaneous with that of the language. Almost as soon as the language spoken in England assumed a form which has continued intelligible to later generations, there appeared a poet of the first rank, who made it the voice of his inspiration. In the primitive of English literature there is one (and but one) name of distinguished eminence. If, therefore, our subject is to be treated with regard to historical considerations, there cannot be a moment's hesitation as to the period when it is to be taken up.

age

The arrangement of this course of lectures is attended, in this particular, with a disadvantage to which it is proper to advert, though I am not aware that it can be avoided except by the sacrifice of more important considerations. The portion of literature in which any reader is naturally first interested is that which is accessible in the fresh and familiar forms of contemporaneous language; and it is only as the taste is invigorated and the knowledge of former ages increased that he carries his reading into earlier literature, no longer displeased or dismayed by antiquated or obsolete dialects. This is probably the course of every student in his individual investigations as he follows the guidance of his own taste. His course is against the stream of time. To obey the same instinct in presenting the subject to your consideration would have enabled me better to conciliate your attention than, I fear, I can hope to do in treating the

THE DAWN OF ENGLISH POETRY.

83

old English poetry. The advantage of beginning the course with modern poetry and passing by a retrograde movement into its previous eras was not to be relinquished without reflection; but, at the same time, such a method would have involved an abandonment of the advantages arising from giving to the subject somewhat of an historical form. I have therefore concluded rather to encounter the risk and inconveniences alluded to, in order to trace the march of the English Muse, and, collaterally, the rise and progress of the English language.

I shall not therefore struggle against the tide of time, though in moving with it, and setting out at a period when the language was in many respects not the English language now spoken, we must hold converse with extinct dialects, words and forms of expression which have yielded to the same power of death which long ago conquered the lips that uttered them. It is a weary thing, no doubt, communing with our native language through the medium of dictionaries and glossaries, to meet, as it were, the curse of Babel upon our own hearth. It is painful to hear the dear voice of our mother-tongue like the voice of a stranger and an alien. The relation in which Chaucer stands to succeeding poets is that of an ancestor to a long lineage of descendants. "The line of English poets," says Mr. Southey, "begins with him, as that of English kings with William the Conqueror; and, if the change introduced by him was not so great, his title is better. Kings there were before the Conquest, and of great and glorious memory too. But the poets before Chaucer are like the heroes before Agamemnon: even of those whose works have escaped oblivion the names of most have perished." "The Father of English

Poetry," "The Morning Star," are the metaphorical phrases so tritely associated with Chaucer's name as to show the general sentiment respecting him. It could scarcely have happened that this kind of rank would have been assigned to an author of secondary merit. But it should be distinctly understood that his fame rests not only upon the fact of his being the acknowledged father of English poetry, but as one of our greatest poets.

Before entering on the question of his merits, it is proper to examine his position relatively to the literature of Europe generally and then to the language of England. The fourteenth century, the period from the year 1300 to 1400,-it will be remembered, was the first century of the rising literature of Europe. The Latin language, which had long since ceased to be a living, colloquial language, had not fallen into the entire obsoleteness of a dead language; for it continued to be the medium of communication for the learned community of all Europe. But in the time just alluded to—the latter Middle Ages-the vernacular tongues in the respective countries were beginning to assume a distinctive form, and thus to furnish to the author an instrument by which he could not only move the monastic intellect of the scholar, but arouse the neglected faculties of all to whom his writings could be made accessible in times when printing had not yet superseded the toilsome and limited labours of the copyist. In the history of modern European literature the foremost great name is that of Dante, and in immediate succession is that of Petrarch. These were men of the fourteenth century; and I have alluded to them for the purpose of showing that the little island we trace our history from was not far behind old Italy in the intellectual

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

85

career. When poetic genius, after its slumber of more than a thousand years, began to breathe again beneath the genial atmosphere of the South, the strain was quickly caught by the cold nations of the North, and the inspiration of the Muse found a fit tone in words which before were known only as the rude and uncouth dialect of barbarism. Between the death of Dante and the birth of Chaucer there was an interval of a very few years. With the second great poet, Petrarch, the life of Chaucer was contemporary. All belonging to the fourteenth century, it will be perceived that the rise of English poetry was coincident with the early era of the modern literature of Europe. The ancestral position of Chaucer in the annals of our poetry makes it important to fix in the mind a distinct idea of the period of time in which he flourished. This may readily be done by the recollection that he died, at an advanced age, in the year 1400,-the border-year of two centuries. He was an author during the last half of the fourteenth century.

Fixing the date of Chaucer's time, let us next briefly examine the condition of the language of his nation. For the information of those whose attention has not been drawn to the subject, it may be proper to state that the English language is a composite language, the chief elements being the Saxon and the Norman. It is extremely difficult perhaps impossible to say when the English language had its beginning, because the transformation from the Anglo-Saxon was a series of slow and gradual changes. What was the nature of those changes would be an inquiry leading me away from the present subject and too important to be disposed of cursorily. The Norman or French dialect was a great tributary to