His lingo resembles
anything
rather than Middle
English.
English.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 - Cal to Chr
Or are they high-spoke men I now am near?
I'll prove and see. " With this the wary peer
Crept forth the thicket, and an olive bough
Broke with his broad hand; which he did bestow
In covert of his nakedness, and then
Put hasty head out. Look how from his den
A mountain lion looks, that, all embrued
With drops of trees, and weatherbeaten-hued,
Bold of his strength goes on, and in his eye
A burning furnace glows, all bent to prey
On sheep, or oxen, or the upland hart,
His belly charging him, and he must part
Stakes with the herdsman in his beasts' attempt,
Even where from rape their strengths are most exempt:
So wet, so weather-beat, so stung with need,
Even to the home-fields of the country's breed
Ulysses was to force forth his access,
Though merely naked; and his sight did press
The eyes of soft-haired virgins. Horrid was
His rough appearance to them; the hard pass
He had at sea stuck by him. All in flight
The virgins scattered, frighted with this sight,
## p. 3530 (#508) ###########################################
GEORGE CHAPMAN
3530
About the prominent windings of the flood.
All but Nausicaa fled; but she fast stood:
Pallas had put a boldness in her breast,
And in her fair limbs tender fear comprest.
And still she stood him, as resolved to know
What man he was; or out of what should grow
His strange repair to them.
THE DUKE OF BYRON IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH
From the Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron›
Y HORROR of death, let me alone in peace,
And leave my soul to me, whom it concerns;
You have no charge of it; I feel her free:
How she doth rouse, and like a falcon stretch
B
Her silver wings; a threatening death with death;
At whom I joyfully will cast her off.
I know this body but a sink of folly,
The groundwork and raised frame of woe and frailty;
The bond and bundle of corruption;
A quick corse, only sensible of grief,
A walking sepulchre, or household thief:
A glass of air, broken with less than breath,
A slave bound face to face to death, till death.
And what said all you more? I know, besides,
That life is but a dark and stormy night
Of senseless dreams, terrors, and broken sleeps;
A tyranny, devising pains to plague
And make man long in dying, racks his death;
And death is nothing: what can you say more?
I bring a long globe and a little earth,
Am seated like earth, betwixt both the heavens,
That if I rise, to heaven I rise; if fall,
I likewise fall to heaven; what stronger faith
Hath any of your souls? what say you more?
Why lose I time in these things? Talk of knowledge,
It serves for inward use. I will not die
Like to a clergyman; but like the captain
That prayed on horseback, and with sword in hand,
Threatened the sun, commanding it to stand;
These are but ropes of sand.
## p. 3531 (#509) ###########################################
3531
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
(1768-1848)
ISCOUNT
V
DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND, the founder of the romantic
school in French literature, and one of the most brilliant
and polished writers of the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, was born at St. Malo in Brittany, September 14th, 1768. On the
paternal side he was a direct descendant of Thierri, grandson of
Alain III. , who was king of Armorica in the ninth century. Destined
for the Church, he became a pronounced skeptic, and entered the
army. In his nineteenth year he was presented at court, and became
acquainted with men of letters like La
Harpe, Le Brun, and Fontanes. At the
outbreak of the Revolution he quitted the
service, and embarked for America in Jan-
uary, 1791. Tiring of the restraints of
civilization, he plunged into the virgin
forests of Canada, and for several months
lived with the savages. This remarkable
experience inspired his most notable ro-
mantic work.
CHÂTEAUBRIAND
Returning to France in 1792, he cast his
lot with the Royalists, was wounded at
Thionville, and finally retired to England,
where for eight years he earned a bare sup-
port by teaching and translating. His first book was the 'Essay on
Revolutions (1797), which displayed some imagination, little reflec-
tion, and an affectation of misanthropy and skepticism. The subse-
quent change in his convictions followed on the death of his pious
mother in 1798. Returning to France he published Atala,' an idyll
à la mode, founded on the loves of two young savages. Teeming
with glowing descriptions of nature, and marked by elevation of
sentiment combined with a sensuousness almost Oriental, this barbaric
'Paul and Virginia' immediately established the author's fame.
Thus encouraged, in the following year he gave the world his
'Genius of Christianity,' in which the poetic and symbolic features of
Christianity are painted in dazzling colors and with great charm of
style. The enormous success of this book during the first decade of
the century unquestionably did more to revive French interest in
religion than the establishment of the Concordat itself. Napoleon
## p. 3532 (#510) ###########################################
3532
FRANÇOIS RENE AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
testified his gratitude by appointing the author secretary to the em-
bassy at Rome, and afterward minister plenipotentiary to the Valais.
When the Duke d'Enghien was assassinated (March 21st, 1804), Châ-
teaubriand resigned from the diplomatic service, although the ink
was scarcely dry in which the First Consul had signed his new com-
mission. Two years later the successful author departed on a senti-
mental pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He visited Asia Minor, Egypt,
and Spain, where amid the ruins of the Alhambra he wrote The
Last of the Abencerrages. To this interesting tour the world owes
the 'Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem' (1811), that book which in
Saintsbury's opinion remains "the pattern of all the picturesque
travels of modern times. "
With the publication of the 'Itinerary the literary career of
Châteaubriand virtually closes. On the return of the Bourbons to
power, the man of letters was tempted to enter the exciting arena
of politics, becoming successively ambassador at Berlin, at the court
of St. James, delegate to the Congress of Verona, and Minister of
Foreign Affairs. In 1830, unwilling to pledge himself to Louis
Philippe, he relinquished the dignity of peer of the realm accorded
him in 1815, and retired to a life of comparative poverty, which was
brightened by the friendship and devotion of Madame Récamier.
Until his death on the 4th of July, 1848, Châteaubriand devoted
himself to the completion of his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe,' an auto-
biographical work which was published posthumously, and which,
although diffuse and even puerile at times, contains much brilliant
writing.
His contemporaries pronounced Châteaubriand the foremost man
of letters of France, if not of all Europe. During the last half of
this century his fame has sensibly diminished both at home and
abroad, and in the history of French literature he is chiefly signifi-
cant as marking the transition from the old classical to the modern
romantic school. Yet while admitting the glaring faults, exaggera-
tions, affectations, and egotism of the author of the Genius of
Christianity, a fair criticism admits his best passages to be unsur-
passed for perfection of style and gorgeousness of coloring. 'Atala'
is a classic with real life in it even yet,-powerful, interesting, and
even thrilling, in spite of its theatricality, and often magnificent in
description.
In 1811 Châteaubriand was elected to the French Academy as
the successor of the poet Chénier. Among his works not already
mentioned are ‘René' (1807), a sort of sequel to 'Atala'; 'The Mar-
tyrs' (1810); 'The Natchez' (1826), containing recollections of Amer-
ica; an Essay on English Literature' (2 vols. ); and a translation of
Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (1836).
## p. 3533 (#511) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
3533
CHRISTIANITY VINDICATED
From The Genius of Christianity›
D
URING the reign of the Emperor Julian commenced a perse-
cution, perhaps more dangerous than violence itself, which
consisted in loading the Christians with disgrace and con-
tempt. Julian began his hostility by plundering the churches;
he then forbade the faithful to teach or to study the liberal arts
and sciences. Sensible, however, of the important advantages of
the institutions of Christianity, the emperor determined to estab-
lish hospitals and monasteries, and after the example of the
gospel system to combine morality with religion; he ordered a
kind of sermons to be delivered in the pagan temples.
From the time of Julian to that of Luther, the Church, flour-
ishing in full vigor, had no occasion for apologists; but when
the Western schism took place, with new enemies arose new
defenders. It cannot be denied that at first the Protestants had
the superiority, at least in regard to forms, as Montesquieu has
remarked. Erasmus himself was weak when opposed to Luther,
and Theodore Beza had a captivating manner of writing, in
which his opponents were too often deficient.
It is natural for schism to lead to infidelity, and for heresy to
engender atheism. Bayle and Spinoza arose after Calvin, and
they found in Clarke and Leibnitz men of sufficient talents to
refute their sophistry. Abbadie wrote an apology for religion,
remarkable for method and sound argument. Unfortunately his
style is feeble, though his ideas are not destitute of brilliancy.
"If the ancient philosophers," observes Abbadie, "adored the
Virtues, their worship was only a beautiful species of idolatry. "
While the Church was yet enjoying her triumph, Voltaire
renewed the persecution of Julian. He possessed the baneful
art of making infidelity fashionable among a capricious but
amiable people. Every species of self-love was pressed into this
insensate league. Religion was attacked with every kind of
weapon, from the pamphlet to the folio, from the epigram to the
sophism. No sooner did a religious book appear than the author
was overwhelmed with ridicule, while works which Voltaire was
the first to laugh at among his friends were extolled to the
skies. Such was his superiority over his disciples that he some-
times could not forbear diverting himself with their irreligious
## p. 3534 (#512) ###########################################
3534
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
enthusiasm. Meanwhile the destructive system continued to
spread throughout France. It was first adopted in those provin-
cial academies, each of which was a focus of bad taste and fac-
tion. Women of fashion and grave philosophers alike read
lectures on infidelity. It was at length concluded that Christ-
ianity was no better than a barbarous system, and that its fall
could not happen too soon for the liberty of mankind, the promo-
tion of knowledge, the improvement of the arts, and the general
comfort of life.
If no
To say nothing of the abyss into which we were plunged by
this aversion to the religion of the gospel, its immediate conse-
quence was a return, more affected than sincere, to that mythol-
ogy of Greece and Rome to which all the wonders of antiquity
were ascribed. People were not ashamed to regret that worship
which had transformed mankind into a herd of madmen, mon-
sters of indecency, or ferocious beasts. This could not fail to
inspire contempt for the writers of the age of Louis XIV. , who
however had reached the high perfection which distinguished
them only by being religious.
one ventured to oppose
them face to face, on account of their firmly established reputa-
tion, they were nevertheless attacked in a thousand indirect
ways. It was asserted that they were unbelievers in their hearts;
or at least that they would have been much greater characters
had they lived in our times. Every author blessed his good
fortune for having been born in the glorious age of the Diderots
and d'Alemberts, in that age when all the attainments of the
human mind were ranged in alphabetical order in the Encyclo-
pédie,' that Babel of the sciences and of reason.
It was therefore necessary to prove that on the contrary the
Christian religion, of all the religions that ever existed, is the
most humane, the most favorable to liberty and to the arts and
sciences; that the modern world is indebted to it for every
improvement from agriculture to the abstract sciences, from the
hospitals for the reception of the unfortunate to the temples
reared by the Michael Angelos and embellished by the Raphaels.
It was necessary to prove that nothing is more divine than its
morality, nothing more lovely and more sublime than its tenets,
its doctrine, and its worship; that it encourages genius, corrects
the taste, develops the virtuous passions, imparts energy to the
ideas, presents noble images to the writer, and perfect models.
to the artist; that there is no disgrace in being believers with
•
## p. 3535 (#513) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
3535
Newton and Bossuet, with Pascal and Racine. In a word, it was
necessary to summon all the charms of the imagination and all
the interests of the heart to the assistance of that religion
against which they had been set in array.
The reader may now have a clear view of the object of our
work. All other kinds of apologies are exhausted, and perhaps
they would be useless at the present day. Who would now sit
down to read a work professedly theological? Possibly a few
sincere Christians who are already convinced. But, it may be
asked, May there not be some danger in considering religion in
a merely human point of view? Why so? Does our religion
shrink from the light? Surely one great proof of its divine
origin is, that it will bear the test of the fullest and severest
scrutiny of reason. Would you have us always open to the
reproach of enveloping our tenets in sacred obscurity, lest their
falsehood should be detected? Will Christianity be the less true
for appearing the more beautiful? Let us banish our weak
apprehensions; let us not, by an excess of religion, leave religion
to perish. We no longer live in those times when you might
say, "Believe without inquiring. " People will inquire in spite
of us; and our timid silence, in heightening the triumph of the
infidel, will diminish the number of believers.
It is time that the world should know to what all those
charges of absurdity, vulgarity, and meanness, that are daily
alleged against Christianity, may be reduced. It is time to
demonstrate that instead of debasing the ideas, it encourages
the soul to take the most daring flights, and is capable of
enchanting the imagination as divinely as the deities of Homer
and Virgil. Our arguments will at least have this advantage,
that they will be intelligible to the world at large and will
require nothing but common-sense to determine their weight and
strength. In works of this kind authors neglect, perhaps rather
too much, to speak the language of their readers. It is neces-
sary to be a scholar with a scholar, and a poet with a poet. The
Almighty does not forbid us to tread the flowery path, if it
serves to lead the wanderer once more to him; nor is it always
by the steep and rugged mountain that the lost sheep finds its
way back to the fold.
We think that this mode of considering Christianity displays
associations of ideas which are but imperfectly known. Sub-
lime in the antiquity of its recollections, which go back to the
## p. 3536 (#514) ###########################################
35 36
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
-
creation of the world; ineffable in its mysteries, adorable in its
sacraments, interesting in its history, celestial in its morality,
rich and attractive in its ceremonial,- it is fraught with every spe
cies of beauty. Would you follow it in poetry? Tasso, Milton,
Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, will depict to you its miraculous
effects. In belles-lettres, in oratory, history, and philosophy,
what have not Bossuet, Fénélon, Massillon, Bourdaloue, Bacon,
Pascal, Euler, Newton, Leibnitz, produced by its inspiration!
In the arts, what masterpieces! If you examine it in its wor-
ship, what ideas are suggested by its antique Gothic churches,
its admirable prayers, its impressive ceremonies! Among its
clergy, behold all those scholars who have handed down to you
the languages and the works of Greece and Rome; all those
anchorets of Thebais; all those asylums for the unfortunate; all
those missionaries to China, to Canada, to Paraguay; not for-
getting the military orders whence chivalry derived its origin.
Everything has been engaged in our cause - the manners of our
ancestors, the pictures of days of yore, poetry, even romances
themselves. We have called smiles from the cradle, and tears
from the tomb. Sometimes, with the Maronite monk, we dwell
on the summits of Carmel and Lebanon; at others we watch
with the Daughter of Charity at the bedside of the sick. Here
two American lovers summon us into the recesses of their des-
erts; there we listen to the sighs of the virgin in the solitude of
the cloister. Homer takes his place by Milton, and Virgil beside
Tasso; the ruins of Athens and of Memphis form contrasts with
the ruins of Christian monuments, and the tombs of Ossian with
our rural churchyards. At St. Denis we visit the ashes of kings;
and when our subject requires us to treat of the existence of
God, we seek our proofs in the wonders of Nature alone. In
short, we endeavor to strike the heart of the infidel in every
possible way; but we dare not flatter ourselves that we possess
the miraculous rod of religion which caused living streams to
burst from the flinty rock.
## p. 3537 (#515) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
3537
DESCRIPTION OF A THUNDER-STORM IN THE FOREST
From Atala›
IT
WAS the twenty-seventh sun since our departure from the
Cabins: the lune de fer (month of July) had commenced its
course, and all signs indicated the approach of a violent
storm. Toward the hour when the Indian matrons hang up the
plowshares on the branches of the junipers, and when the paro-
quets retire into the hollows of the cypress trees, the sky grew
overcast. The vague sounds of solitude gradually ceased, the
forests were wrapped in universal calm. Suddenly the pealing
of distant thunder, re-echoing through these vast woods as old as
the world itself, startled the ear with a diapason of noises
sublime. Fearing to be overwhelmed in the flood, we hastily
disembarked on the river's bank and sought safety in the seclu-
sion of one of the forest glades.
The ground was swampy. We pressed forward with difficulty
beneath a roof of smilax, among grape-vines and climbing plants
of all kinds, in which our feet were continually entangled. The
spongy soil trembled all around us, and every instant we were
on the verge of being engulfed in the quagmires. Swarms of
insects and enormous bats nearly blinded us; rattlesnakes were
heard on all sides; and the wolves, bears, panthers, and badgers
which had sought a refuge in this retreat filled the air with
their roarings.
Meanwhile the obscurity increased; the lowering clouds en-
tered beneath the shadows of the trees. The heavens were rent,
and the lightning traced a flashing zigzag of fire. A furious
gale from the west piled up the angry clouds in heavy masses;
the mighty trees bowed their heads to the blast. Again and
again the sky was rent, and through the yawning crevices one
beheld new heavens and vales of fire. What an awful, what a
magnificent spectacle! The trees were struck by lightning and
ignited; the conflagration spread like a flaming garland; the
showers of sparks and the columns of smoke ascended to the
very heavens, which vomited their thunders into the sea of fire.
Then the Great Spirit enveloped the mountains in utter dark-
ness; from the midst of this vast chaos came a confused roaring
made by the tumult of many winds, the moaning of the trees,
the howlings of ferocious beasts, the crackling of the flames,
VI-222
## p. 3538 (#516) ###########################################
3538
FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND
and the descent of balls of fire which hissed as they were extin
guished in the water.
The Great Spirit knows the truth of what I now say! At
this moment I saw only Atala, I had no thought but for her.
Beneath the bent trunk of a birch-tree, I succeeded in protect-
ing her from the torrents of rain. Seated myself under the
tree, supporting my well-beloved on my knees, and chafing her
bare feet between my hands, I was even happier than the
young wife who feels for the first time the consciousness of her
motherhood.
## p. 3539 (#517) ###########################################
3539
THOMAS CHATTERTON
(1752-1770)
way to
) THE third quarter of the eighteenth century belongs the
tragedy of the life of Thomas Chatterton, who, misunder-
stood and neglected during his brief seventeen years of
poetic revery, has by the force of his genius and by his actual
achievement compelled the nineteenth century, through one of its
best critics, to acknowledge him as the father of the New Romantic
school, and to accord him thereby a place unique among his contem-
poraries. His family and early surroundings serve in a
explain his development. He was born at
Bristol, a town rich in the traditions and
monuments of bygone times. For nearly
two hundred years the office of sexton to
the church of St. Mary Redcliffe had been
handed down in the family. At the time
of the poet's birth it was held by a mater-
nal uncle; for his father, a "musical genius,
somewhat of a poet, an antiquary and dab-
bler in occult arts," was the first to aspire
to a position above the hereditary one, and
had taken charge of the Pyle free schools
in Bristol. He died before his son's birth,
and left his widow to support her two
children by keeping a little school and by
needlework. The boy, reserved and given to revery from his earliest
years, was at first considered dull, but finally learned to spell by
means of the illuminated capitals of an old musical folio and a black-
letter Bible. He spent much of his time with his uncle, in and
about the church. St. Mary Redcliffe, one of the finest specimens of
mediæval church architecture in England, is especially rich in altar
tombs with recumbent carved figures of knights, and ecclesiastic and
civic dignitaries of bygone days. These became the boy's familiar
associates, and he amused himself on his lonely visits by spelling out
the old inscriptions on their monuments. There he got hold of some
quaint oaken chests in the muniment room over the porch, filled
with parchments old as the Wars of the Roses, and these deeds and
charters of the Henrys and Edwards became his primers. In 1760 he
entered Colston's "Blue-Coat" charity school, located in a fine old
THOMAS CHATTERTON
## p. 3540 (#518) ###########################################
3540
THOMAS CHATTERTON
building of the Tudor times. The rules of the institution provided
for the training of its inmates "in the principles of the Christian
religion as laid down in the Church catechism," and in fitting them
to be apprenticed in due course to some trade. During the six years
of his stay, Chatterton received only the rudiments of a common-
school education, and found little to nourish his genius. But being
a voracious reader, he went on his small allowance through three
circulating libraries, and became acquainted with the older English
poets, and also read history and antiquities. He very early enter-
tained dreams of ambition, without however finding any sympathy;
so he lived in a world of his own, conceiving before the age of
twelve the romance of Thomas Rowley, an imaginary cierk of the
fifteenth century, and his patron Master William Canynge, a former
mayor of Bristol whose effigy was familiar to him from the tomb in
the church. This fiction, which after his death gave rise to the cele-
brated controversy of the Rowley Poems,' matured at this early
age as a boy's life-dream, he fashioned into a consistent romance,
and wove into it among the prose fragments the ballads and lyrics
on which his fame as poet now rests. His earliest literary forgery
was a practical joke played on a credulous pewterer at Bristol, for
whom he fabricated a pedigree dating back to the time of the Nor-
man Conquest, which he professed to have collected from ancient
manuscripts. It is remarkable as the work of a boy not yet four-
teen. He was rewarded with a crown piece, and the success of this
hoax encouraged him further to play upon the credulity of his
townspeople, and to continue writing prose and verse in pseudo-
antique style.
In 1767 he was bound apprentice to John Lambert, attorney. The
office duties were light. He spent his spare time in poetizing, and
sent anonymously transcripts from professedly old poems to the local
papers. Their authorship being traced to him, he now claimed that
his father had found numerous old poems and other manuscripts
in a coffer of the muniment room at Redcliffe, and that he had tran-
scribed them. Under guise of this fiction he produced, within the
two years of his apprenticeship, a mass of pseudo-antique dramatic,
lyric, and descriptive poems, and fragments of local and general his-
tory, connected all with his romance of the clerk of Bristol. A
scholarly knowledge of Middle English was rare one hundred and
thirty years ago, and the self-taught boy easily gulled the local anti-
quaries. He even deceived Horace Walpole, who, dabbling in medi-
ævalism, had opened the way for prose romances with his 'Castle
of Otranto,' a spurious antique of the same time in which Chatter-
ton had placed his fiction. Walpole at first treated him courteously,
even offering to print some of the poems. But when Gray and Mason
## p. 3541 (#519) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3541
pronounced them modern, he at once gave Chatterton the cold shoul-
der, entirely forgetting his own imposition on a credulous public.
Chatterton now turned to periodical literature and the politics of
the day, and began to contribute to various London magazines. In
the spring of 1770 he finally came up to London, to start on the life
of a literary adventurer on a capital of less than five pounds. He
lived abstemiously and worked incessantly, literally day and night.
He had a wonderful versatility; he would write in the manner of any
one he chose to imitate, and he tried his hand at every species of
book-work. But even under the strain of this incessant productivity
he found time to turn back to his boyhood dreams, and produced
one of his finest poems, the 'Ballad of Charity. ' At first his contri-
butions were freely accepted, but he was poorly paid, and sometimes
not at all. Yet out of his scanty earnings he bought costly presents
for his mother and sister, as tokens of affection and an earnest of
what he hoped to do for them. After scarcely two months in Lon-
don he was at the end of his resources. He made an attempt to
gain a position as surgeon's assistant on board of an African trader,
but was unsuccessful. He now found himself face to face with
famine; and, too proud to ask for assistance or to accept even the
hospitality of a single meal, he on the night of August 25th, 1770,
locked himself into his garret, destroyed all his note-books and
papers, and swallowed a dose of arsenic. It is believed that he was
privately buried in the churchyard of St. Mary Redcliffe. There a
monument has been erected, with an inscription from his poem
Will':
"To the memory of Thomas Chatterton. Reader! judge not. If thou art
a Christian, believe that he shall be judged by a superior power. To that
power alone is he now answerable. »
His death attracted little notice, for he was regarded merely as
the transcriber of the Rowley' poems. They were collected after
his death, from the various persons to whom he had given the manu-
scripts, and occasioned a controversy that has lasted almost down
to the present generation. But only an age untrained in philological
research could ever have received them as genuine productions of
the fifteenth century: for Chatterton, who knew little of the old
authors antedating Spenser, constructed with the help of Bailey's and
Kersey's English dictionaries a lingo of his own; he strung together
old words of all periods and dialects, and even coined words himself
to suit the metre.
His lingo resembles anything rather than Middle
English. It is supposed that he wrote first in modern English, and
then translated into his own dialect; for the poems do not suffer by
retranslation, on the contrary, they are more intelligible and often
-
## p. 3542 (#520) ###########################################
3542
THOMAS CHATTERTON
more rhythmical. Chatterton had a wonderful memory, and hav-
ing read enormously, there are frequent though perhaps unconscious
plagiarisms from Spenser, Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Gray, and
others.
Yet after all has been said against the spurious character of the
'Rowley' poems, Chatterton's two volumes of collected writings, pro-
duced under the most adverse circumstances, are a record of youth-
ful precocity unparalleled in literary history. He wrote spirited
satires at ten, and some of his best old verse before sixteen. 'Ella'
is a dramatic poem of sustained power and originality, and its songs
have the true lyric ring; the Ode to Liberty,' a fragment from the
tragedy of Goddwyn,' is with its bold imagery one of the finest
martial lyrics in the language; the 'Ballad of Charity,' almost the
last poem he wrote, comes in its objectivity and artistic complete-
ness near to some of Keats's best ballad work. But more wonderful
perhaps than this early blossoming of his genius is its absolute ori-
ginality. At a time when Johnson was the literary dictator of Lon-
don, and Pope's manner still paramount, Chatterton, unmindful of
their conventionalities and the current French influence, instinctively
turned to earlier models, and sought his inspiration at the true
source of English song. Bishop Percy's 'Reliques of Old English
Poetry,' published in 1765, first made the people acquainted with
their fine old ballads; but by that year Chatterton had already
planned the story of the monk of Bristol and written some of the
poems. Gifted with a rich vein of romance, he heralded the coming
revival of medieval literature. But he not only divined the new
movements of poetry-he was also responsible for one side of its
development. He had a poet's ear for metrical effects, and trans-
mitted this gift to the romantic poets through Coleridge; for the lat-
ter, deeply interested in the tragedy of the life of the Bristol boy,
studied his work; and traces of this study, resulting in freer rhythm
and new harmonies, are found in Coleridge's own verse. The influ-
ence of the author of 'Christabel' on his brother poets is indisputa-
ble; hence his indebtedness to Chatterton gives to the latter at once
his rightful position as the father of the New Romantic school.
Keats also shows signs of close acquaintance with Chatterton; and he
proves moreover by the dedication of his 'Endymion' that he cher-
ished the memory of the unfortunate young poet, with whom he had,
as far as the romantic temper on its objective side goes, perhaps the
closest spiritual kinship of any poet of his time.
But quite apart from his youthful precocity and his influence on
later poets, Chatterton holds no mean place in English literature
because of the intrinsic value of his performance. His work, on the
one hand, aside from the 'Rowley' poems, shows him a true poet of
## p. 3543 (#521) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3543
the eighteenth century, and the best of it entitles him to a fair place
among his contemporaries; but on the other hand he stands almost
alone in his generation in possessing the highest poetic endowments,
-originality of thought, a quick eye to see and note, the gift of ex-
pression, sustained power of composition, and a fire and intensity of
imagination. In how far he would have fulfilled his early promise it
is idle to surmise; yet what poet, in the whole range of English,
nay of all literature, at seventeen years and nine months of age, has
produced work of such excellence as this "marvelous boy," who,
unrecognized and driven by famine, took his own life in a London
garret ?
FINAL CHORUS FROM GODDWYN ›
HEN Freedom, dreste yn blodde-steyned veste,
To everie knyghte her warre-songe sunge,
Uponne her hedde wylde wedes were spredde;
A gorie anlace bye her honge.
She dauncèd onne the heathe;
She hearde the voice of deathe;
WHEN
Pale-eyned affryghte, hys harte of sylver hue,
In vayne assayled her bosomme to acale;
She hearde onflemed the shriekynge voice of woe,
And sadnesse ynne the owlette shake the dale.
She shooke the burled speere,
On hie she jeste her sheelde,
Her foemen all appere,
And flizze alonge the feelde.
Power, wythe his heafod straught ynto the skyes,
Hys speere a sonne-beame, and hys sheelde a starre,
Alyche twaie brendeynge gronfyres rolls hys eyes,
Chaftes with hys yronne feete and soundes to war.
She syttes upon a rocke,
She bendes before hys speere,
She ryses from the shocke,
Wieldynge her owne yn ayre.
Harde as the thonder dothe she drive ytte on,
Wytte scillye wympled gies ytte to hys crowne,
Hys longe sharpe speere, hys spreddynge sheelde ys gon,
He falles, and fallynge rolleth thousandes down.
War, goare-faced war, bie envie burld, arist,
Hys feerie heaulme noddynge to the ayre,
Tenne bloddie arrowes ynne hys streynynge fyste.
## p. 3544 (#522) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3544
THE FAREWELL OF SIR CHARLES BALDWIN TO HIS WIFE
From The Bristowe Tragedie
Α
ND nowe the bell beganne to tolle,
And claryonnes to sounde;
Syr Charles hee herde the horses' feete
A-prauncing onne the grounde:
And just before the officers
His lovynge wyfe came ynne,
Weepynge unfeigned teeres of woe,
Wythe loude and dysmalle dynne.
"Sweet Florence! nowe I praie forbere,
Ynne quiet lett mee die;
Praie Godde, thatt ev'ry Christian soule
May looke onne dethe as I.
"Sweet Florence! why these brinie teeres?
Theye washe my soule awaie,
And almost make mee wyshe for lyfe,
Wythe thee, sweete dame, to staie.
"Tys butt a journie I shalle goe
Untoe the lande of blysse;
Nowe, as a proofe of husbande's love,
Receive thys holie kysse. "
Thenne Florence, fault'ring ynne her saie,
Tremblynge these wordyès spoke :-
"Ah, cruele Edwarde! bloudie kynge!
My herte ys welle nyghe broke:
"Ah, sweete Syr Charles! why wylt thou goe,
Wythoute thye lovynge wyfe?
The cruelle axe thatt cuttes thye necke,
Ytte eke shall ende mye lyfe. "
And nowe the officers came ynne
To brynge Syr Charles awaie,
Whoe turnedd toe hys lovynge wyfe,
And thus to her dydd saie :—
"I goe to lyfe, and nott to dethe;
Truste thou ynne Godde above,
And teache thye sonnes to feare the Lorde,
And ynne theyre hertes hym love:
## p. 3545 (#523) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3545
"Teache them to runne the nobile race
Thatt I theyre fader runne:
Florence! shou'd dethe thee take adieu!
Yee officers, leade onne. "
-
Thenne Florence rav'd as anie madde,
And dydd her tresses tere;
"Oh! staie, mye husbande! lorde! and lyfe! "
Syr Charles thenne dropt a teare.
"Tyll tyrèdd oute wythe ravynge loud,
She fellen onne the flore;
Syr Charles exerted alle hys myghte,
And march'd fromme oute the dore.
Ο
Uponne a sledde hee mounted thenne,
Wythe lookes fulle brave and swete;
Lookes, thatt enshone ne more concern
Thanne anie ynne the strete.
MYNSTRELLES SONGE
! synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Blacke hys cryne as the wyntere nyghte,
Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe,
Rodde hys face as the mornynge lyghte,
Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Swote hys tyngue as the throstles note,
Quycke ynn daunce as thoughte canne bee,
Defte hys taboure, codgelle stote,
O! hee lyes bie the wyllowe tree;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Alle underre the wyllowe tree.
## p. 3546 (#524) ###########################################
3546
THOMAS CHATTERTON
Harke! the ravenne flappes hys wynge,
In the briered delle belowe;
Harke! the dethe-owle loude dothe synge,
To the nyghte-mares as heie goe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie;
Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude;
Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie,
Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Heere, uponne mie true loves grave,
Schalle the baren fleurs be layde;
Nee one hallie Seyncte to save
Al the celness of a mayde.
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Alle under the wyllowe tree.
Wythe mie hondes I'll dente the brieres
Rounde his hallie corse to gre;
Ouphante fairie, lyghte youre fyres;
Heere mie boddie stylle schalle bee.
Mie
ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Comme, wythe acorne-coppe and thorne,
Drayne mie hartys blodde awaie;
Lyfe and all yttes goode I scorne,
Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daie.
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes,
Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde.
I die! I come! mie true love waytes.
Thus the damselle spake, and died.
## p. 3547 (#525) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3547
AN EXCELENTE BALADE OF CHARITIE
AS WROTEN BIE THE GODE PRIESTE THOMAS ROWLEIE, 1464.
IN VIRGYNE the sweltrie sun gan sheene,
IN
And hotte upon the mees did caste his raie:
The apple rodded from its palie greene,
And the mole peare did bende the leafy spraie;
The peede chelandri sunge the livelong daie;
'Twas nowe the pride, the manhode of the yeare,
And eke the grounde was dighte in its mose defte aumere.
The sun was glemeing in the midde of daie,
Deadde still the aire, and eke the welken blue,
When from the sea arist in drear arraie
A hepe of cloudes of sable sullen hue,
The which full fast unto the woodlande drewe,
Hiltring attenes the sunnis fetyve face,
And the blacke tempeste swolne and gatherd up apace.
Beneathe an holme, faste by a pathwaieside,
Which dyde unto Seyncte Godwine's covent lede,
A hapless pilgrim moneynge dyd abide;
Pore in his viewe, ungentle in his weede,
Longe bretful of the miseries of neede,
Where from the hail-stone coulde the almer flie?
He had no housen theere, ne anie covent nie.
Look in his gloomed face, his sprighte there scanne;
Howe woe-be-gone, how withered, forwynd, deade!
Haste to thie church-glebe-house, asshrewed manne!
Haste to thie kiste, thie onlie dortoure bedde.
Cale, as the claie whiche will gre on thie hedde,
Is Charitie and Love aminge highe elves;
Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.
The gatherd storme is rype; the bigge drops falle;
The forswat meadowes smethe, and drenche the raine;
The comyng ghastness do the cattle pall,
And the full flockes are drivynge ore the plaine;
Dashde from the cloudes the waters flott againe;
The welkin opes; the yellow levynne flies;
And the hot fierie smothe in the wide lowings dies.
Liste! now the thunder's rattling clymmynge sound
Cheves slowlie on, and then embollen clangs;
## p. 3548 (#526) ###########################################
3548
THOMAS CHATTERTON
Shakes the hie spyre, and losst, dispended, drown'd,
Still on the gallard eare of terroure hanges;
The windes are up; the lofty elmen swanges;
Again the levynne and the thunder poures,
And the full cloudes are braste attenes in stones showers.
Spyrreynge his palfrie oere the watrie plaine,
The Abbote of Seyncte Godwynes convente came;
His chapournette was drented with the reine,
And his pencte gyrdle met with mickle shame;
He aynewarde tolde his bederoll at the same;
The storme encreasen, and he drew aside,
With the mist almes-craver neere to the holme to bide.
His cope was all of Lyncolne clothe so fyne,
With a gold button fasten'd neere his chynne;
His autremete was edged with golden twynne,
And his shoone pyke a loverds mighte have binne;
Full well it shewn he thoughten coste no sinne:
The trammels of the palfrye pleasde his sighte,
For the horse-millanare his head with roses dighte.
An almes, sir prieste! the droppynge pilgrim saide:
O! let me waite within your covente dore,
Till the sunne sheneth hie above our heade,
And the loude tempeste of the aire is oer;
Helpless and ould am I, alas! and poor:
No house, ne friend, ne moneie in my pouche;
All yatte I calle my owne is this my silver crouche.
Varlet, replyd the Abbatte, cease your dinne;
This is no season almes and prayers to give;
Mie porter never lets a faitour in;
None touch mie rynge who not in honour live.
And now the sonne with the blacke cloudes did stryve,
And shettynge on the grounde his glairie raie,
The Abbatte spurrde his steede, and eftsoones roadde awaie.
Once moe the skie was blacke, the thounder rolde;
Faste reyneynge oer the plaine a prieste was seen;
Ne dighte full proude, ne buttoned up in golde;
His cope and jape were graie, and eke were clene;
A Limitoure he was of order seene;
And from the pathwaie side then turned hee,
Where the pore almer laie binethe the holmen tree.
## p. 3549 (#527) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
An almes, sir priest! the droppynge pilgrim sayde,
For sweete Seyncte Marie and your order sake.
The Limitoure then loosen'd his pouche threade,
And did thereoute a groate of silver take;
The mister pilgrim dyd for halline shake.
Here, take this silver, it maie eathe thie care;
We are Goddes stewards all, nete of oure owne we bare.
But ah! unhailie pilgrim, lerne of me,
Scathe anie give a rentrolle to their Lorde.
Here, take my semecope, thou arte bare I see;
Tis thyne; the Seynctes will give me mie rewarde.
He left the pilgrim, and his waie aborde.
Virgynne and hallie Seyncte, who sitte yn gloure,
Or give the mittee will, or give the gode man power!
THE RESIGNATION
O
GOD! whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom-globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,—
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.
The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial night,
Are past the power of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.
O teach me, in the trying hour-
When anguish swells the dewy tear-
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.
If in this bosom aught but thee,
Encroaching, sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.
Then why, my soul, dost thou complain
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain;
For God created all to bless.
But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
3549
## p. 3550 (#528) ###########################################
THOMAS CHATTERTON
3550
My languid vitals' feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.
But yet, with fortitude resigned,
I'll thank the Inflictor of the blow—
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of misery flow.
The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.
## p. 3550 (#529) ###########################################
## p. 3550 (#530) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
## p. 3550 (#531) ###########################################
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## p. 3551 (#533) ###########################################
3551
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
(13-2-1400)
BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
NGLISH literature, in the strict sense of the word, dates its
beginning from the latter half of the fourteenth century.
Not but an English literature had existed long previous to
that period. Furthermore, it reckoned among its possessions works of
value, and a few which in the opinion of some display genius. But
though the name was the same, the thing was essentially different.
A special course of study is required for any comprehension what-
ever of the productions of that earliest literature; and for the easy
understanding of those written even but a half-century or so before
the period indicated, a mastery of many peculiar syntactical construc-
tions is demanded and an acquaintance with a vocabulary differing
in a large number of words from that now in use.
But by the middle of the fourteenth century this state of things
can hardly be said to exist any longer for us. Everything by that
time had become ripe for the creation of a literature of a far higher
type than had yet been produced. Furthermore, conditions prevailed
which, though their results could not then be foreseen, were almost
certain to render the literature thus created comparatively easy of
comprehension to the modern reader. The Teutonic and Romanic
elements that form the groundwork of our present vocabulary had
at last become completely fused. Of the various dialects prevailing,
the one spoken in the vicinity of the capital had gradually lifted
itself up to a pre-eminence it was never afterwards to lose. In this
parent of the present literary speech, writers found for the first time
at their command a widely accepted and comparatively flexible
instrument of expression. As a consequence, the literature then
produced fixed definitely for all time the main lines upon which
both the grammar and the vocabulary of the English speech were to
develop. The result is that it now presents few difficulties for its
full comprehension and appreciation that are not easily surmounted.
The most effective deterrent to its wide study is one formidable
only in appearance. This is the unfamiliar way in which its words
are spelled; for orthography then sought to represent pronunciation,
and had not in consequence crystallized into fixed forms with con-
stant disregard of any special value to be attached to the signs by
which sounds are denoted.
## p. 3552 (#534) ###########################################
3552
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Of the creators of this literature - Wycliffe, Langland, Chaucer,
and Gower-Chaucer was altogether the greatest as a man of letters.
This is no mere opinion of the present time: there has never been a
period since he flourished in which it has not been fully conceded.
In his own day, his fame swept beyond the narrow limits of country
and became known to the outside world. At home his reputation
was firmly established, and seems to have been established early.
All the references to him by his contemporaries and immediate suc-
cessors bear witness to his universally recognized position as the
greatest of English poets, though we are not left by him in doubt
that he had even then met detractors. Still the general feeling of
the men of his time is expressed by his disciple Occleve, who terms
him
"The firste finder of our fair langage. »
Yet not a single incident of his life has come down to us from the
men who admired his personality, who enrolled themselves as his
disciples, and who celebrated his praises. With the exception of a
few slight references to himself in his writings, all the knowledge
we possess of the events of his career is due to the mention made of
him in official documents of various kinds and of different degrees of
importance. In these it is taken for granted that whenever Geoffrey
Chaucer is spoken of, it is the poet who is meant, and not another
person of the same name. The assumption almost approaches abso-
lute certainty; it does not quite attain to it. In those days it is clear
that there were numerous Chaucers. Still, no one has yet risen to
dispute his being the very person spoken of in these official papers.
From these documents we discover that Chaucer, besides being a
poet, was also a man of affairs. He was a soldier, a negotiator, a
diplomatist. He was early employed in the personal service of the
king. He held various positions in the civil service. It was a conse-
quence that his name should appear frequently in the records. It is
upon them, and the references to him in documents covering trans-
actions in which he bore a part, that the story of his life, so far as
it exists for us at all, has been mainly built. It was by them also
that the series of fictitious events which for so long a time did duty
as the biography of the poet had their impossibility as well as their
absurdity exposed.
The exact date of Chaucer's birth we do not know. The most
that can be said is that it must have been somewhere in the early
years of the reign of Edward III. (1327-77). The place of his birth
was in all probability London. His father, John Chaucer, was a
vintner of that city, and there is evidence to indicate that he was to
1 Poet.
## p. 3553 (#535) ###########################################
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
3553
some extent connected with the court. In a deed dated June 19th,
1380, the poet released his right to his father's former house, which
is described as being in Thames Street. The spot, however unsuit-
able for a dwelling-place now, was then in the very heart of urban
life, and in that very neighborhood it is reasonable to suppose that
Chaucer's earliest years were spent.
The first positive information we have, however, about the poet
himself belongs to 1356. In that year we find him attached to the
household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III.
He is there in the service of the wife of that prince, but in what
position we do not know. It may have been that of a page. He
naturally was in attendance upon his mistress during her various
journeyings; but most of her time was passed at her residence in
Hatfield, Yorkshire. Chaucer next appears as having joined the
army of Edward III. in his last invasion of France. This expedition
was undertaken in the autumn of 1359, and continued until the peace
of Bretigny, concluded in May, 1360. During this campaign he was
captured somewhere and somehow. we have no knowledge of any-
thing beyond the bare fact. It took place, however, before the first
of March, 1360; for on that date the records show that the King per-
sonally contributed sixteen pounds towards his ransom.
From this last-mentioned date Chaucer drops entirely out of our
knowledge till June, 1367, when he is mentioned as one of the valets
of the King's chamber. In the document stating this fact he is
granted a pension - the first of several he received-for services
already rendered or to be rendered. It is a natural inference from
the language employed, that during these years of which no record.
exists he was in some situation about the person of Edward III.
After this time his name occurs with considerable frequency in the
rolls, often in connection with duties to which he was assigned. His
services were varied; in some instances certainly they were of impor-
tance. From 1370 to 1380 he was sent several times abroad to share
in the conduct of negotiations. These missions led him to Flanders,
to France, and to Italy. The subjects were very diverse. One of
the negotiations in which he was concerned was in reference to the
selection of an English port for a Genoese commercial establishment;
another was concerning the marriage of the young monarch of Eng-
land with the daughter of the king of France. It is on his first
journey to Italy of which we have any record - the mission of
1372-73 to Genoa and Florence—that everybody hopes and some suc-
ceed in having an undoubting belief that Chaucer visited Petrarch
at Padua, and there heard from him the story of Griselda, which
the Clerk of Oxford in the 'Canterbury Tales' states that he learned
from the Italian poet.
-
VI-223
## p.
