About her neck, of gentle' entaile,
Was set the richè chevesailed;
In which ther was ful grete plente
Of stonis clere and faire to se.
RICHESE a girdle had upon
The bokill of it was of ston
Of vertu grete and mokill might,
For who so bare the ston so bright
Of venim durst him nothing doubt
While he the ston had him about.-
The mordaunt wrought in noble guise
Was of a ston ful precious,

That was so fin and vertuous

That whole a man it couth ymake
Of palsie, and of the tothe ake:
And yet the ston had soche a grace
That he was sikre in evvrie place
All thilke daie not blinde to bene
That fasting might that ston sene.
The barris were of gold full fine
Upon a tissue of sattin,

Full hevie, grete, and nothing light,
In everiche was a besaunt wight*.
Upon the tressis of RICHESSE

Was sett a circle of noblesse,

Of brende' gold, that full light yshone,

So faire, trowe I, was nevir none.

Of good workmanship, or carving. For which were delivered, "cccbarrs ar

genti." An. 21. Edw. III.-[Clavus in Latin, from whence the Fr. clour is derived, seems to have signified not only an outward border, but also what we call a stripe. Montfaucon, t. iii. P. i. ch. vi. A bar in heraldry is a narrow stripe or fascia.-TRYWHITT.]

"the weight of a besant." A byzant was a species of gold-coin, stamped at Byzantium. A wedge of gold. I burnished.

214

But he were konning for the nonesTM
That could devisin all the stones,
That in the circle shewin clere,

It is a wonder thing to here:

For no man could or preis", or gesse,
Of'hem the value or richesse:
Rubies ther were, saphirs, ragounces,
And emeraudes more than two ounces:
But all before full subtilly

A fine carboncle set sawe I:

The stone so clere was and so bright,
That al so sone as it was night,

m❝well-skilled in these things."

n

appraise, value.

• The gem called a Jacinth. We should read, in Chaucer's text, Jagonces instead of Ragounces, a word which never existed; and which Speght, who never consulted the French Roman de la Rose, interprets merely from the sense of the context, to be "A kind of precious stone. Gloss. Ch. in V. The knowledge of precious stones was a grand article in the natural philosophy of this age: and the medical virtue of gems, alluded to above, was a doctrine much

inculcated by the Arabian naturalists. Chaucer refers to a treatise on gems, called the LAPIDARY, famous in that time. House of Fame, L. ii. v. 260:

And thei were sett as thicke of ouchis Fine, of the finist stonis faire That men redin in the LAPIDAIRE. Montfaucon, in the royal library at Paris, recites, "Le LAPIDAIRE, de la vertu des pierres." Catal. MSS. p. 794. This I take to be the book here referred to by Chaucer. Henry of Huntingdon wrote a book De Gemmis. He flourished about 1145. Tann. Bibl. p. 395. See a Greek Treatise, Du Cange, Gloss. Gr. Barb. ii. Ind. Auctor. p. 37. col. 1. In the Cotton library is a Saxon Treatise on precious stones. TIBER. A. 3. liii. fol. 98. The writing is more antient than the Conquest. See vol. i. p. 11, [The treatise referred to contains a meagre explanation of the twelve precious stones inentioned in the Apocalypse.] Pel

loutier mentions a Latin poem of the
eleventh century on Precious Stones,
written by Marbode bishop of Rennes
[who died in the year 1123], and soon
afterwards translated into French verse.
Mem. Lang. Celt. part. i. vol. i. ch. xiii.
The translation begins,
p. 26.

Evax fut un mult riche reis
Lu reigne tint d'Arabeis.
It was printed in OEUVRES de Hildebert
Eveque du Mons, edit. Ant. Beaugen-
dre, col. 1638. This may be reckoned
one of the oldest pieces of French versi -
fication. A manuscript De Speciebus
Lapidum, occurs twice in the Bodleian
library, falsely attributed to one Adam
Nidzarde, Cod. Digb. 28. f. 169.-Cod.

Laud. C. 3. Princ." Evax rex Arabum legitur scripsisse." But it is, I think, Marbode's book above mentioned. Evax is a fabulous Arabian king, said to have written on this subject. Of this Marbode, or Marbodæus, see Ol. Borrich. Diss. Acad. de Poet. pag. 87. § 78. edit. Francof. 1683. 4to. His poem was published, with notes, by Lampridius Alardus.

The eastern writers pretend, that king Solomon, among a variety of physiological pieces, wrote a book on Gems: one chapter of which treated of those precious stones, which resist or repel evil Genii. They suppose that Aristotle stole all his philosophy from Solomon's books. See Fabric. Bibl. Gr. xiii. 387. seq. And i. p. 71. Compare Her962. b. Artic. belot, Bibl. Oriental. KETAB alahgiar seq.

Men mightin se to go for nede,
A mile or two, in length or brede;
Soche light ysprang out of the stone,
That RICHESSE wondir bright yshone
Both on her hedde and all hir face
And eke about her all the place. P

The attributes of the portrait of MIRTH are very expressive.

Ful young he was and merie' of thought,
And in samette with birdis wrought,
And with golde bete ful fetously,

His bodie was clad full richely;
Wrought was his robe in straunge gise,
And all to slittered for queintise,

In many a place lowe and hie,

And shod he was, with grete maistrie,
With shone decopid and with lace,
By drurie" and eke by solace;

W

His lefe a rosin chapelet

Had made and on his hedde it set. *

FRANCHISE is a no less attractive portrait, and sketched

with equal grace and delicacy.

And next him daunsid dame FRANCHISE, Y
Arayid in ful noble guise.

She n'as not broune ne dunne of hewe,
But white as snowe ifallin newe,
Her nose was wrought at point devise,
For it was gentill and tretise;
With eyin glad and browis bent,
Her hare down to her helis went":
Simple she was as dove on tre,

Ful debonaire of hart was she.b

The personage of DANGER is of a bolder cast, and may serve as a contrast to some of the preceding. He is supposed suddenly to start from an ambuscade; and to prevent Bialcoil, or Kind Reception, from permitting the lover to gather the rose of beauty.

With that anon out start Dangere,
Out of the place where he was hidde;
His malice in his chere was kidded;
Full grete he was, and blacke of hewe,
Sturdie and hideous whoso him knewe;
Like sharpe urchons his heere was grow,
His eyes red sparcling as fire glow,

C

› Apres tous ceulx estoit FRANCHISE,
Qui ne fut ne brune ne bise;
Ains fut comme la neige blanche
Courtoise estoit, joyeuse et franche,
Le nez avoit long et tretis
Yeulx vers rins, soureils saitis,
Les cheveulx eut tres-blons et longs,
Simple feut comme les coulons.
Le cueur eut doulx et debonnaire.
v. 1190.

Z with the utmost exactness.
a All the females of this poem have
grey eyes and yellow hair. One of them
is said to have "Her cyen graie as is a
faucon." v. 546. Where the original
word, translated graie, is vers. v. 546.
We have this colour again, Orig. v. 822.
"Les yeulx eut vers.' This too Chaucer

His nose frouncid full kirkids stoode,

He come criande as he were woode.i

Chaucer has enriched this figure. The circumstance of DANGER'S hair standing erect like the prickles on the urchin or hedge-hog, is his own, and finely imagined.

Hitherto specimens have been given from that part of this poem which was written by William de Lorris, its first inventor. Here Chaucer was in his own walk. One of the most striking pictures in the style of allegorical personification, which occurs in Chaucer's translation of the additional part, is much heightened by Chaucer, and indeed owes all its merit to the translator; whose genius was much better adapted to this species of painting than that of John of Meun, the continuator of the poem.

With her, Labour and eke Travailek,
Lodgid bene, with sorowe and wo,
That nevir out of her court go.

Pain and Distresse, Sicknesse and Ire,

And Melanc❜ly that angry sire,

Ben of her palais' senators;

Groning and Grutching her herbegeorsm;

The day and night her to tourment,
With cruill deth thei her present,

And tellin her erliche" and late,

That DETH stondith armid at her gate.
Then bring they to remembraunce,

The foly dedes of hir enfanceo.

The fiction that Sickness,

Melancholy, and other beings of