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tecture, which began to prevail about his time, and gave rise to the florid Gothic style. There are instances of this in his other poems. In his DREAME, printed 1597.*

And of a sute were al the touris,
Subtily carven aftir flouris.

With many a smal turret hie.

And in the description of the palace of PLEASAUNt Regarde, in the ASSEMBLIE OF LADIES.b

Fairir is none, though it were for a king,
Devisid wel and that in every thing;
The towris hie, ful plesante shal ye finde,
With fannis fresh, turning with everie winde.
The chambris, and the parlirs of a sorte,
With bay windows, goodlie as may be thought:
As for daunsing or othir wise disporte,
The galeries be al right wel ywrought.

In Chaucer's Life by William Thomas*, it is not mentioned that he was appointed clerk of the king's works, in the palace of Westminster, in the royal manors of Shene, Kenington, Byfleet, and Clapton, and in the Mews at Charing. Again in 1380, of the works of St. George's chapel at Windsor, then ruinous h.-But to return.

Within the niches formed in the pinnacles stood all round the castle,

All manir of minstrelis,

And jestours that tellyn tales

Both of weping gand eke of game.

That is, those who sung or recited adventures either tragic or comic, which excited either compassion or laughter. They

b

v. 81. p. 572. Urr. v. 158.

[Chaucer's Life in Urry's edition. William Thomas digested this Life from collections by Dart. His brother, Dr. Timothy Thomas, wrote or compiled the Glossary and Preface to that edition.

See Dart's WESTMINST. ABBEY, i. 80.
Timothy Thomas was of Christ Church
Oxford, and died in 1757.-ADDITIONS.]
c Claus. 8. Ric. II.

h Pat. 14. Ric. II. Apud Tanner, Bibl. p. 166. Note e.

4 This word is above explained.

were accompanied with the most renowned harpers, among which were Orpheus, Arion, Chiron, and the Briton Glaskerion. Behind these were placed, "by many a thousand time twelve," players on various instruments of music. Among the trumpeters are named Joab, Virgil's Misenus, and Theodamas. About these pinnacles were also marshalled the most famous magicians, juglers, witches, prophetesses, sorceresses, and professors of natural magics, which ever existed in antient or modern times: such as Medea, Circe, Calliope, Hermes", Limotheus, and Simon Magus'. At entering the hall he sees an infinite multitude of heralds, on the surcoats of whom were richly embroidered the armorial ensigns of the most redoubted

* Concerning this harper, see Percy's Ballads.

Macrobes." v. 7. Chaucer quotes him in his DREME, v. 284. In the NONNES

See also The MARCHAUNT'S TALE, PRIEST'S TALE, v. 1238. p. 171. Urr. v. 1236. seq. p. 70. Urr.

See the FRANKELEIN'S TALE, where several feats are described, as exhibited at a feast done by natural magic, a favorite science of the Arabians. Chaucer there calls it "An art which sotill tragetoris plaie." v. 2696. p. 110. Urr. Of this more will be said hereafter.

h None of the works of the first Hermes Trismegistus now remain. See Cornel. Agrip. Van. Scient. cap. xlviii. The astrological and other philosophical pieces under that name are supposititious. See Fabr. Biblioth. Gr. xii. 708. And Chan. YEM. TALE, v. 1455. p. 126. Urr. Some of these pieces were published under the fictitious names of Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Solomon, Saint Paul, and of many of the patriarchs and fathers. Cornel. Agripp. De Van. Scient. cap. xlv. Who adds, that these trifles were followed by Alphonsus king of Castile, Robert Grosthead, Bacon, and Apponus. He mentions Zabulus and Barnabas of Cyprus as famous writers in magic. See also Gower's Confess, Amant. p. 134. b. 149. b. edit. 1554. fol. per Berthelette. In speaking of antient authors, who were known or celebrated in the middle ages, it may be remarked, that Macrobius was one. He is mentioned by William de Lorris in the Roman de LA ROSE, v. 9. "Ung aucteur qui ot nom Macrobe." A line literally translated by Chaucer, "An author that hight

In the ASSEMBLIE OF FOWLES, v. 111. see also ibid. v. 31. He wrote a comment on Tully's SOMNIUM SCIPIONIS, and in these passages he is referred to on account of that piece. Petrarch, in a letter to Nicolas Sigeros, a learned Greek of Constantinople, quotes Macrobius, as a Latin author of all others the most familiar to Nicolas. It is to prove that Homer is the fountain of all invention. This is in 1354. Famil. Let. ix. 2. There is a manuscript of the first, and part of the second book of Macrobius, elegantly written, as it seems, in France, about the year 800. MSS. Cotton. Vi TELL. C. iii. Cod. Membr. fol. viii. fol. 138. M. Planudes, a Constantinopolitan monk of the fourteenth century, is said to have translated Macrobius into Greek. But see Fabric. Bibl. Gr. x. 534. It is remarkable, that in the above letter, Petrarch apologises for calling Plato the Prince of Philosophers, after Cicero, Seneca, Apuleius, Plotinus, Saint Ambrose, and Saint Austin.

i Among these he mentions Juglers, that is, in the present sense of the word, those who practised Legerdemain : a popular science in Chaucer's time. Thus in Squ. T. v. 239. Urr.

As jugelours playin at these festis grete. It was an appendage of the occult sciences studied and introduced into Europe by the Arabians.

champions that ever tourneyed in Africa, Europe, or Asia. The floor and roof of the hall were covered with thick plates of gold studded with the costliest gems. At the upper end, on a lofty shrine made of carbuncle, sate Fame. Her figure is like those in Virgil and Ovid. Above her, as if sustained on her shoulders, sate Alexander and Hercules. From the throne to the gates of the hall, ran a range of pillars with respective inscriptions. On the first pillar made of lead and iron*, stood Josephus, the Jewish historian, "That of the Jewis gestis told," with seven other writers on the same subject. On the second pillar, made of iron, and painted all over with the blood of tigers, stood Statius. On another higher than the rest stood Homer, Dares Phrygius, Livy', Lollius, Guido of Columna, and Geoffry of Monmouth, writers of the Trojan story. On a pillar of "tinnid iron clere," stood Virgil: and next him on a pillar of copper, appeared Ovid. The figure of Lucan was placed on a pillar of iron "wroght full sternly," accompanied with many Roman historians". On a pillar of sulphur stood Claudian, so symbolised, because he wrote of Pluto and Proserpine.

That bare up all the fame of hell;
Of Pluto and of Proserpine

That queen is of the darkè pine."

The hall was filled with the writers of antient tales and romances, whose subjects and names were too numerous to be recounted. In the mean time crouds from every nation and of every condition filled the hall, and each presented his claim to the queen. A messenger is dispatched to summon Eolus from his cave in Thrace; who is ordered to bring his two cla

In the composition of these pillars, Chaucer displays his chemical knowledge.

Dares Phrygius and Livy are both . cited in Chaucer's DREME, v. 1070. 1084. Chaucer is fond of quoting Livy. He was also much admired by Petrarch; who, while at Paris, assisted in translating him into French. This circumstance might make Livy a favourite with

Chaucer, See Vie de Petrarque, iii, p. 547.

m Was not not this intended to characterise Lucan? Quintilian says of Lucan, "Oratoribus magis quam poetis annumerandus." Instit. Orat. L. x. c. 1.

B. iii. v. 419. Chaucer alludes to this poem of Claudian in the MARCHAUNT'S TALE, where he calls Pluto, the king of "fayrie." v. 1744. p. 73. Urr.

rions called SLANDER and PRAISE, and his trumpeter Triton. The praises of each petitioner are then resounded, according to the partial or capricious appointment of Fame; and equal merits obtain very different success. There is much satire and humour in these requests and rewards, and in the disgraces and honours which are indiscriminately distributed by the queen, without discernment and by chance. The poet then enters the house or labyrinth of RUMOUR. It was built of sallow twigs, like a cage, and therefore admitted every sound. Its doors were also more numerous than leaves on the trees, and always stood open. These are romantic exaggerations of Ovid's inventions on the same subject. It was moreover sixty miles in length, and perpetually turning round. From this house, says the poet, issued tidings of every kind, like fountains and rivers from the sea. Its inhabitants, who were eternally employed in hearing or telling news, together with the rise of reports, and the formation of lies, are then humourously described: the company is chiefly composed of sailors, pilgrims, and pardoners. At length our author is awakened at seeing a venerable personage of great authority: and thus the Vision abruptly concludes.

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 it's 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 it's 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 Westminster-abbey.

SECTION XV.

NOTHING can be more ingeniously contrived than the occasion on which Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES are supposed to be recited. A company of pilgrims, on their journey to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, lodge at the Tabarde-inn in Southwark. Although strangers to each other, they are assembled in one room at supper, as was then the custom; and agree, not only to travel together the next morning, but to relieve the fatigue of the journey by telling each a story. Chaucer undoubtedly intended to imitate Boccacio, whose DECAMERON was then the most popular of books, in writing a set of tales. But the circumstance invented by Boccacio, as the cause which gave rise to his DECAMERON, or the relation of his hundred stories', is by no means so happily conceived as that of Chaucer for a similar purpose. Boccacio supposes, that when the plague began to abate at Florence, ten young persons of both sexes retired to a country house, two miles from the city, with a design of enjoying fresh air, and passing ten days agreeably. Their principal and established amusement, instead of playing at chess after dinner, was for each to tell a tale. One superiority, which, among others, Chaucer's plan afforded above that of Boccacio, was the opportunity of displaying a variety of striking and dramatic characters, which would not have easily met but on such

There is an inn at Burford in Oxfordshire, which accommodated pilgrims on their road to Saint Edward's shrine in the abbey of Gloucester. A long room, with a series of Gothic windows, still remains, which was their refectory. Leland mentions such another, Itin. ii. 70.

b It is remarkable, that Boccacio chose a Greek title, that is, Azanu, for his Tales. He has also given Greek names to the ladies and gentlemen who recite the tales. His Eclogues are full of Greek words. This was natural at the revival of the Greek language.

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