to be saint Edmund, seated on a throne under a canopy, and grasping an arrow &. The work is not improperly styled a set of tragedies. It is not merely a narrative of men eminent for their rank and misfortunes. The plan is perfectly dramatic, and partly suggested by the pageants of the times. Every personage is supposed to appear before the poet, and to relate his respective sufferings: and the figures of these spectres are sometimes finely drawn. Hence a source is opened for moving compassion, and for a display of imagination. In some of the lives the author replies to the speaker, and a sort of dialogue is introduced for conducting the story. Brunchild, a queen of France, who murthered all her children, and was afterwards hewn in pieces, appears thus. She came, arayed nothing like a quene, Her hair untressed, Bochas toke good hede; A more wofull creature indede, With weping eyne, to torne was al her wede: Yet in some of these interesting interviews, our poet excites pity of another kind. When Adam appears, he familiarly accosts the author with the salutation of Cosyn Bochas.i Nor does our dramatist deal only in real characters and historical personages. Boccacio standing pensive in his library, is alarmed at the sudden entrance of the gigantic and monstrous image of FORTUNE, whose agency has so powerful and universal an influence in human affairs, and especially in effecting those vicissitudes which are the subject of this work. There is a Gothic greatness in her figure, with some touches of the grotesque. An attribute of the early poetry of all nations, before ideas of selection have taken place. I must add, that it B MSS, Harl. 1766. fol. 5. b Lib. vii. f. xxi. a. col. 1. i B. i. fol. i. a. col. 2. In the same style he calls Ixion Juno's secretary. B. i. ch. xii. fol. xxi, b. col. 2. was Boethius's admired allegory on the CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, which introduced personification into the poetry of the middle ages. Whyle Bochas pensyfe stode in his lybrarye, And of her cherè ful god hede he toke; Her heare untrussd, harde, sharpe, and horyble, Some of her handès lyft up men alofte, Her habyte was of manyfolde colours, Meynt with grene, for chaunge and doublenesse. on either side. 1 distribute. m mingled. Her hundred hands, her burning eyes, and disheveled tresses, are sublimely conceived. After a long silence, with a stern countenance she addresses Bochas, who is greatly terrified at her horrible appearance; and having made a long harangue on the revolutions and changes which it is her business to produce among men of the most prosperous condition and the most elevated station, she calls up Caius Marius, and presents him to the poet. Blacke was his wede, and his habyte also, His heed unkempt, his lockès hore and gray, Which bare recorde of his deadly affray. His robè stayned was with Romayne blode, In slaughter and murdre set at his plesaunce." She then teaches Bochas how to describe his life, and disappears. These wordès saydè, Fortune made an ende, In another place, Dante, "of Florence the laureate poete, demure of loke fullfilled with patience," appears to Bochas; and commands him to write the tale of Gualter duke of Florence, whose days for his tiranny, lechery, and covetyse, ended in mischefe. Dante then vanishes, and only duke Gualter is feft alone with the poet. Petrarch is also introduced for the same purpose'. n mad. • Ibid. f. cxxxviii. b. col. 2. cularly commended. B. iv. Prol. fol. xciii. a. col. 1. P Ibid. fol. cxxxix. a. col. 2. ¶ B. ix. fol. xxxiv. b. col. 1. 2. In another place Dante's three books on heaven, purgatory, and hell, are parti B. viii. fol. 1. Prol. a. b. He mentions all Petrarch's works, Prol. B. iv. fol. 93. a. col. 1. The following golden couplet, concerning the prodigies which preceded the civil wars between Cesar and Pompey, indicates dawnings of that poetical colouring of expression, and of that facility of versification, which mark the poetry of the present times. Serpents and adders, scaled sylver-bryght, Were over Rome sene flying al the nyght. These verses, in which the poet describes the reign of Saturn, have much harmony, strength, and dignity. Fortitude then stode stedfast in his might, Apollo, Diana, and Minerva, joining the Roman army, when Rome was besieged by Brennus, are poetically touched, Appollo first yshewed his presence, Fresshe, yonge, and lusty, as any sunnè shene, Entred the feldè, as it was wel sene: And Dianà came with her arowes kene: And Mynervà in a bryght haberjoun; Which in ther coming made a terrible soun." And the following lines are remarkable. God hath a thousand handès to chastyse, A thousand dartès of punicion, A thousand bowès made in divers wyse, A thousand arlblasts bent in his dongeon." X Lydgate, in this poem, quotes Seneca's tragedies for the story of Oedipus, Tully, Virgil and his commentator Servius, Ovid, Livy, Lucan, Lactantius, Justin" or "prudent Justinus W B. vi. fol. 147. a. col. 1, B. vii. fol. 161. b. col. 1. "B. iv. ch. 22. fol. cxiii. a. col. 1. tower; castle. B, 1. ch. 3. fol. vi. a. col. 1. * B. i. ch. 9. fol, xviii. a. col. 1. y B. i, ch. 11. fol. xxi. b. col. 2. B. ii. ch. 6. fol. xlv. a. col. 1. B. iii, ch. 14. fol. lxxxi. b. col. 1. Ibid. ch. 25. fol. lxxxix. a. col. 2. B. iv. ch. 11. fol, iii. b. col. 1. See PROL. B. i. an old croniclere," Josephus, Valerius Maximus, saint Jerom's chronicle, Boethius 2, Plato on the immortality of the soul, and Fulgentius the mythologist. He mentions "noble Persius," Prosper's epigrams, Vegetius's book on Tactics, which was highly esteemed, as its subject coincided with the chivalry of the times, and which had been just translated into French by John of Meun and Christina of Pisa, and into English by John Trevisa, "the grene chaplet of Esop and Juvenal"," Euripides "in his tyme a great tragician, because he wrote many tragedies," and another called Clarke Demosthenes". For a catalogue of Tully's works, he refers to the SPECULUM HISTORIALE, Or Myrrour Hystoriall, of Vyncentius Bellovacensis; and says, that he wrote twelve books of Orations, and several morall ditties. Aristotle is introduced as teaching Alexander and Callisthenes philosophy ". With regard to Homer, he observes, that "Grete Omerus, in Isidore ye may see, founde amonge Grekes the crafte of eloquence." By Isidore he means the ORIGINES, or ETYMOLOGIES of Isidore His z B. ii. ch. 15. fol. li. a. col. 1. col. 2. Ibid. ch. 16. fol. lii. a. col. 2. Ibid.ch.2. fol. xlii. a. col. 1. Ibid. ch. 30. fol. Ixii. b. col. 1. B. viii. ch. 24. fol. xliii. a. col. 2. a B. iii. ch. 5. fol. lxxi. a. col. 1. B. ix. ch. 1. fol. xx. a. col. 1. From whom Boccacio largely transcribes in his GENEALOGIE DEORUM, hereafter mentioned. MSS. Digb. Bibl. Bodl. 233. Princip. "In olde tyme it was the manere." Finished at the command of his patron Thomas lord Berkeley. See supra, p. 178. d Prol. B. iv. fol. 92. a. col. 2. 93. a. col. 1. e B. ii. ch. 22. fol. 54. b. col. 2. f See supra, vol. i. p. 137. B. vi. ch. 15. fol. 151. b. col. 1. h B. iv. ch. 9. fol. xcix. seq. This is from Aristotle's SECRETUM SECRETORUM, which Lydgate, as I have mentioned above, translated. But he did not finish the translation: for about the middle of it we have this note. "Here dyed this translator and notable poet John Lyd gate, monk of Bury, and FOWLER bygan his prolog in this wyse. Where floure of knighthood the bataile doth refuse." fol 386. MSS. Laud. K. 53. The Prologue consists of ten stanzas: in which he compares himself to a dwarf entering the lists when the knight is foiled. But it is the yong FOWLER, in MSS. Laud. B. xxiv. In the Harleian copy of this piece I find the following note, at fol. 236. "Here deyde the translatour a noble poete Dan Johne Lydgate, and his folowere began his prologe in this wise. Per Benedictum Burghe. Where floure of," &c. MSS. Harl. 2251. 117. Where Folowere may be a corruption of Folwer, or Fowler. But it must be observed, that there was a Benedict Burghe, coeval with Lydgate, and preferred to many dignities in the church, who translated into English verse, for the use of lord Bourchier son of the earl of Essex, CaTONIS moralia carmina, altered and printed by Caxton, 1483. fol. More will be said of Burgh's work in its proper place. i B. ii. ch. 15. fol. 51. a. col. 2. |