example was followed by succeeding parliaments. The three kingdoms of Great Britain were on the verge of adopting the French language: Shakespeare would then have written in the idiom of Rabelais. VOL. I. H CHAUCER. GOWER. BARBOUR. Ar the same time that the public tribunals reverted by command to the native dialect, Chaucer was called to restore the harp of the bards; but Gower, his predecessor by a few years, and his rival, still composed in both languages, and proved far more successful in French than in English. Froissart, Gower's cotemporary, has nothing to compare in point of grace and elegance with this ballad of the poet beyond sea. Amour est chose merveïleuse Dont nul porra avoir le droit certain : Qui plus promet, et moins aporte en main; L'amer est doulz, la doulceur furieuse, Le halt est bas; si est le bas haltein, Quant l'en mieulx quide avoir, tout est en vein; Ore est amour salvage, ore est soulein, The English language of Chaucer is far from possessing the polish of old French, which already attains some degree of perfection in this minor species of literature. Nevertheless, the idiom of the Anglo-Saxon poet, a heterogeneous medley of various dialects, has become the stock of modern English. A courtier, a partisan of the house of Lancaster, a Wickliffite, faithless to his convictions, a traitor to his party, now banished, then travelling in foreign countries, at one time in favour, in disgrace at another, Chaucer had met Petrarch at Padua ; instead of ascending to Saxon sources, he borrowed the spirit of his songs from the troubadours of Provence and the admirer of Laura, and from Boccaccio the character of his tales. In the Court of Love, Chaucer's lady assures him of happiness in the month of May; every thing succeeds well with any one who can wait. The first of May arrives, the birds perform the service in honour of the love of the poet, who is threatened with happiness; the eagle sings the Veni Creator, and the nightingale sighs Domine labia mea aperies. The Ploughman, still the groundwork of old Piers Ploughman, is not deficient in spirit; the clergy, ladies and lords, are the objects of the poet's attacks : Such as can nat ysay ther crede, There was more mercy in Maximine The poet composed at his castle of Dunnington, beneath Chaucer's oak, his " Canterbury Tales," in the style of the Decameron. The English literature of the middle ages was in its origin disfigured by the Roman literature; modern English literature disguised itself at his birth in that of Italy. In France this mania for imitation may perhaps have deprived the age of Louis XIV of an originality which would otherwise have graced it; but, as Racine, Boileau, Bossuet, Fénélon, had happily drawn from none but Greek and Latin sources, the genius of the great monarch was found to harmonize with the genius of Athens and of Rome; from this high alliance sprung works which, drawn from models, must in all times serve as models for future works. Wickliff must be numbered amongst the English authors of Chaucer's age. His first act of reform was an English translation of the Vulgate, which is still consulted as a monument of the language. Treading in his footsteps, Luther translated the Bible into German, but from the Hebrew text. From the time of Alfred the Great, the founder of British liberty, the nation never was wholly excluded from power. The poems, chronicles, and romances of England have an element which was formerly wanting to ours, the popular element. The dramatic action in the works of our neighbours is vivified by it, and hence arise beauties of contrast with religious, aristocratic, and chivalric manners. One is much surprised to find in Barbour, the Scot, and cotemporary with Chaucer, the subjoined verses on liberty: |