rassed, and practicable copy than this before us, will not be produced: although it is for the most part unpointed, and obscured with abbreviations, and with those mispellings which flowed from a scribe unacquainted with the French language. To say no more, however, of the value which these little pieces may derive from being so scarce and so little known, they have much real and intrinsic merit. They are tender, pathetic, and poetical; and place our old poet Gower in a more advantageous point of view than that in which he has hitherto been usually seen. I know not if any even among the French poets themselves, of this period, have left a set of more finished sonnets for they were probably written when Gower was a young man, about the year 1350. Nor had yet any English poet treated the passion of love with equal delicacy of sentiment, and elegance of composition. I will transcribe four of these balades as correctly and intelligibly as I am able: although I must confess, there are some lines which I do not exactly comprehend. BALADE XXXVI. Pour comparer ce jolif temps de Maij, Jeole dirrai semblable a Paradis ; Car lors chantont et merle et papegai, Les champs sont vert, les herbes sont floris; Dont Venus poignt l'amant au tiel assai, Qencontre amour nest qui poet dire Nai. Quant tout ceo voi, et que ieo penserai, Dont pour le temps se fait minote et gai, Qencontre amour nest qui poet dire Nai. En lieu de rose, urtie cuillerai, Dont mes chapeals ferrai par tiel devis, Selonc le ponit qe iai sovent requis, Pour pite querre et pourchacer intris, Qencontre amour nest qui poet dire Nai. Saint Valentin, l'Amour, et la Nature, BALADE XLIII. Plus tricherous qe Jason a Medee, Unques Ector qama Pantasilee*, En tiele haste a Troie ne sarmoit, Cest ma dolour qe fuist amicois ma joie. De Lancelot si fuissetz remembre, z Ariadne. Cest ma dolour qe fuist amicois ma joie. Penthesilea. Commes sont la cronique et listoire 4 Chaucer's WIFE OF BATHES TALE is founded on the story of Florent, a knight of Rome, who delivers the king of Sicily's daughter from the enchantments of her stepmother. His story is also in our author's CONFESSIO AMAN- As ferre as men ride or gon. That is Partenope, or Parthenopeus, one of Statius's heroes, on whom there is an old French romance. See supr. vol. i. p. 142. [where this statement is corrected.] Des toutz les mals tu qes le plus maloit, Cest ma dolour qe fuist amicois ma joie. Si com la nief, quant le fort vent tempeste, Ma dame, ensi mon coer manit en tempeste, Qest en danger falt quil mera supplie. Qest en danger falt quil mera supplie. Qest en danger falt quil mera supplie. Qest en danger falt quil mera supplie. For the use, and indeed the knowledge, of this manuscript, I am obliged to the unsolicited kindness of Lord Trentham; a favour which his lordship was pleased to confer with the most polite condescension, SECTION XX. ONE of the reasons which rendered the classic authors of the lower empire more popular than those of a purer age, was because they were Christians. Among these, no Roman writer appears to have been more studied and esteemed, from the beginning to the close of the barbarous centuries, than Boethius. Yet it is certain, that his allegorical personifications and his visionary philosophy, founded on the abstractions of the Platonic school, greatly concurred to make him a favourite. His CONSOLATION of PHILOSOPHY was translated into the Saxon tongue by king Alfred, the father of learning and civility in the midst of a rude and intractable people; and illustrated with a commentary by Asser bishop of Saint David's, a prelate patronised by Alfred for his singular accomplishments in literature, about the year 890. Bishop Grosthead is said to have left annotations on this admired system of morality. There is a very ancient manuscript of it in the Laurentian library, with an inscription prefixed in Saxon characters. There are few of those distinguished ecclesiastics, whose erudition illuminated the thickest gloom of ignorance and superstition with uncommon lustre, but who either have cited this performance, or honoured it with a panegyric, It has had many imitators. Ec * It is observable, that this SPIRIT OF PERSONIFICATION tinctures the writings of some of the christian fathers, about, or rather before, this period. Most of the agents in the SHEPHERD of HERMAS are ideal beings. An ancient lady converses with Hermas, and tells him that she is the CHURCH OF GOD. Afterwards several virgins appear and discourse with him; and when he desires to be informed who they are, he is told by the SHEPHIRD-ANGEL, that they are FAITH, ABSTINENCE, Patience, Chastity, Con- b Mabillon. Itin. Ital. p. 221. |