very naturally avails himself of a circumstance belonging to his profession: on holidays it was his business to carry the censer about the church, and he takes this opportunity of casting unlawful glances on the handsomest dames of the parish. His gallantry, agility, affectation of dress and personal elegance, skill in shaving and surgery, smattering in the law, taste for music, and many other accomplishments, are thus inimitably represented by Chaucer, who must have much relished so ridiculous a character. 。 hair. Now was ther of that chirche a parish clerke, Ful faire, and thickè ben the pointes set: As white as is the blosme upon the rise'. Wel coud he leten blod, and clippe, and shave. P complexion. is, a warden, chaplain and clerk, are or- I And playen songes on a smal ribibles, Therto he song sometime a loud quinible'. His manner of making love must not be omitted. He serenades her with his guittar. gay. He waketh al the night, and al the day, v. 224. A species of guittar. Lydgate, MSS. Bibl. Bodl. Fairf. 16. In a poem, never printed, called Reason and Sensuallite, compyled by Jhon Lydgate. Lutys, rubibis (1. ribibles), and geternes, More for estatys than tavernes. t treble. " by offering money or a settlement. quavering. W y the coals; the oven. See RIME OF SIR THOPAs, v. 3357. p. 146. Urr. Mr. Walpole has mentioned some curious particulars concerning the liquors which antiently prevailed in England. Anecd. Paint. i. p. 11. I will add, that cyder was very early a common liquor among our ancestors. In the year 1295, an. 23 Edw. I. the king orders the sheriff of Southamptonshire to provide with all speed four hundred quarters of wheat, to be collected in parts of his bailiwick nearest the sea, and to convey the same, being well winnowed, in good ships from Portsmouth to Winchelsea. Also to put on board the said ships, at the same time, two hundred tons of cyder. Test. R. apud Canterbury. The cost to be paid immediately from the king's wardrobe. This precept is in old French. Registr. Joh. Pontissar. Episc. Winton. fol. 172. It is re markable that Wickliffe translates, Luc. i. 21. "He schal not drinke wyn ne sydyr." This translation was made about A. D. 1380. At a visitation of St. Swi thin's priory at Winchester, by the said bishop, it appears that the monks claimed to have, among other articles of luxury, on many festivals, "Vinum, tam album quam rubeum, claretum, medonem, bur garastrum," &c. This was so early as the year 1285. Registr. Priorat. S. Swith. Winton. MS. supr. citat. quatern. 5. It appears also, that the Hordarius and Camerarius claimed every year of the prior ten dolia vini, or twenty pounds in money, A. D. 1337. Ibid. quatern. 5. A benefactor grants to the said convent on the day of his anniversary, "unam pipam vini pret. xx.s." for their refection, A. D. 1286. Ibid. quatern. 10. Before the year 1200, "Vina et medones" are mentioned as not uncommon in the abbey of Evesham in Worcestershire. Stevens Monast. Append. p. 138. The use of mead, medo, seems to have been very antient in England. See Mon. Angl. i. 26. Thorne, Chron. sub ann. 1114. Compare DISSERTAT. i. [It is not my intention to enter into the controversy concerning the cultivation of vines, for making wine, in England. I shall only bring to light the following remarkable passage on that subject from an old English writer on gardening and farming. "We might have a reasonable good wine growyng in many places of this realme: as undoubtedly wee had immediately after the Conquest; tyll partly by slouthfulnesse, not liking any thing long that is paincfull, partly by civill discord long Sometime to shew his lightnesse and maistrie Again, Whan that the firstè cocke hath crowe anon, And him arayeth gay at point devise. b But first he cheweth grein and licorise, To smellen sote, or he had spoke with here. For therby wend he to ben gracious; In the mean time the scholar, intent on accomplishing his intrigue, locks himself up in his chamber for the space of two days. The carpenter, alarmed at this long seclusion, and supposing that his guest might be sick or dead, tries to gain admittance, but in vain. He peeps through a crevice of the door, and at length discovers the scholar, who is conscious that he was seen, in an affected trance of abstracted meditation. On this our carpenter, reflecting on the danger of being wise, and exulting in the security of his own ignorance, exclaims, continuyng, it was left, and so with tyme lost, as appeareth by a number of places in this realme that keepe still the name of Vineyardes: and uppon many cliffes and hilles, are yet to be seene the rootes and olde remaynes of Vines. There is besides Nottingham, an auncient house called Chilwell, in which house remayneth yet, as an auncient monument, in a Great Wyndowe of Glasse, the whole Order of planting, pruyning, [pruning,] stamping and pressing of vines. Beside, there [at that place] is yet also growing an old vine, that yields a grape sufficient to make a right good wine, as was lately proved. There hath, moreover, good experience of late yeears been made, by two noble and honorable barons of this realme, the lorde Cobham and the lorde Wylliams of Tame, who had both growyng about their houses, as good wines as are in many parts of Fraunce," &c. Barnabie Googe's FOURE BOOKES OF HUSBANDRY, &c. Lond. 1578. 4to. To a Speght explains this "feats of activity, furious parts in a play." Gloss. Ch. Urr. Perhaps the character of HEROD in a MYSTERY. [The old reading was "heraudes."] b Greyns, or grains, of Paris, or Paradise, occurs in the ROMANT of the ROSE. v. 1369. A rent of herring pies is an old payment from the city of Norwich to the king, seasoned among other spices with half an ounce of grains of Paradise. Blomf. Norf. ii. 264. v. 579. It is to be remarked, that in this tale the carpenter swears, with great propriety, by the patroness saint of Oxford, saint Frideswide, v. 340. This carpenter to blissin him began, And seide now helpin us saint Frideswide. A man wote litel what shal him betide! He saw not that. But yet, by seint Thomas, Me reweth sore of hendy Nicholas : He shall be rated for his studying. But the scholar has ample gratification for this ridicule. The carpenter is at length admitted; and the scholar continuing the farce, gravely acquaints the former that he has been all this while making a most important discovery by means of astrological calculations. He is soon persuaded to believe the prediction: and in the sequel, which cannot be repeated here, this humourous contrivance crowns the scholar's schemes with success, and proves the cause of the carpenter's disgrace. In this piece the reader observes that the humour of the characters is made subservient to the plot. I have before hinted, that Chaucer's obscenity is in great measure to be imputed to his age. We are apt to form romantic and exaggerated notions about the moral innocence of our ancestors. Ages of ignorance and simplicity are thought to be ages of purity. The direct contrary, I believe, is the case. Rude periods have that grossness of manners which is not less friendly to virtue than luxury itself. In the middle ages, not only the most flagrant violations of modesty were frequently practised and permitted, but the most infamous vices. "pry into the secrets of nature." e unlearned. f "Who knows only what he believes:" or, his Creed. Men are less ashamed as they are less polished. Great refinement multiplies criminal pleasures, but at the same time prevents the actual commission of many enormities: at least it preserves public decency, and suppresses public licentiousness. The REVES TALE, or the MILLER of TROMPINGTON, is much in the same style, but with less humour. This story was enlarged by Chaucer from Boccacio*. There is an old English poem on the same plan, entitled, A ryght pleasant and merye history of the Mylner of Abington, with his Wife and faire Daughter, and two poore Scholars of Cambridge'. It begins with these lines. "Faire lordinges, if you list to heere A mery jest your minds to cheere." This piece is supposed by Wood to have been written by Andrew Borde, a physician, a wit, and a poet, in the reign of Henry the Eighth". It was at least evidently written after See also THE SHIPMAN'S TALE, which was originally taken from some comic French trobadour. But Chaucer had it from Boccacio. The story of Zenobia, in the MONKES TALE, is from Boccacio's Cas. Vir. Illustr. (See Lydg. Boch. viii. 7.) That of Hugolin of Pisa in the same Tale, from Dante. That of Pedro of Spain, from archbishop Turpin, ibid. Of Julius Cesar, from Lucan, Suetonius, and Valerius Maximus, ibid. The idea of this TALE was suggested by Boccacio's book on the same subject. Decamer. Giom. ix. Nov. 6. [But both Boccacio and Chaucer probably borrowed from an old CONTE, or FABLIAU, by an anonymous French rhymer, De Gombert et des deux Clers. See FABLIAUX et CONTES, Paris, 1756. tom. ii. p. 115-124. The SHIPMAN'S TALE, as I have hinted, originally came from some such French FABLEOUR, through the medium of Boccacio.-ADDITIONS.] 1 A manifest mistake for Oxford, unless we read Trumpington for Abingdon, or retaining Abingdon we might read Oxford for Cambridge. [There is, however, Abington, with a mill-stream, seven miles from Cambridge.] Imprint. at London by Rycharde Jones, 4to. Bl. Let. It is in Bibl. Bodl. Selden, C. 59. 4to. This book was probably given to that library, with many other petty black letter histories, in prose and verse, of a similar cast, by Robert Burton, author of the ANATOMY of MELANCHOLY, who was a great collector of such pieces. One of his books now in the Bodleian is the HISTORY OF TOM THUMB; whom a learned antiquary, while he laments that antient history has been much disguised by romantic narratives, pronounces to have been no less important a personage than king Edgar's dwarf. story. m n See Wood's Athen. Oxon. BORDE, And Hearne's Bened. Abb. i. Præfat. p. xl. lv. I am of opinion that SolereHall, in Cambridge, mentioned in this poem, was Aula Solarii. The hall, with the upper story, at that time a sufficient circumstance to distinguish and denominate one of the academical hospitia. Although Chaucer calls it, "a grete college," v. 881. Thus in Oxford we had Chimney-hall, Aula cum Camino, an almost parallel proof of the simplicity of their antient houses of learning. Twyne |