OCR Text |
Show The firft of our authours, who can be properl faid to have written Englifh, was Sir Fobn Gower who, in his Confeflion of a Lover, calls Chaucer his difand may therefore be confidered as the fathe of our poetry poetically He does not the cenfur tha appear to hav however deferved all the praife which he bas received, oral NOWE for to {peke of the commune It is to drede of that fortune h in confidence of hi abilities, ventured to write of what he had not ex amined, afcribes to Chaucer th All fodeinly, er it be wift Dryden, who fuffered ha for learning miftaking geniu ‘Which hath befalle in fondrye londes But ofte for defaute of bonde firft refinement o our numbers, the firft production of eafy and natura rhymes, and the improvement of our language, b words borrowed from the more polifhed language A tunne, when his lie arif Tobreketh, and renneth all aboute ‘Which els fhulde nought gone cut And eke full ofte a littell fkar Skinmer contrarily blames him i \of the continent Let in the ftreme, whiche with gret peine harfh terms for having vitiated his native {peech b whole cartloads of foreign words But he that read It any man it (hall reftreine the works of Gower wil a bank er me be ware fin numbers an {moot ‘Where lawe failleth, ertour groweth eafy rhymes, of which Chaucer is {uppofed to hav H been the inventor it not wife who that ne troweth In euery londe, where people dwelleth make And eche in his complainte telleth And thervpon his argumen Yeueth euery man in fondrie wife But what man wolde him felfe auif and nought mifule He maie well at the firlt excuf His God, whiche euver ftant in one ~ In him there is defaute non So muft it ftand vpon vs felue Nought only vpon ten ne twelue But plenarly vpon vs all For man is caufe of that fhall fall an forow hath commaunde infanc of ou poetry paucity of books does allow us to di particular exattnefs ; but the works o Lydgate fufliciently evince, that his di general like that of his centemporaries improvements he undoubtedly made b difpofitions' of his rhymes, and by th have been happy and judicious. I have*felecte feveral fpecimens both of his prole and verfe; an among them part of his tran{lation of Boetius, t which another verfion, made in the time of quee Mary 1s oppofed It would be improper to quot very {paringly an authoo r fo much reputation, o to make very large extracts from a book fo generally known writen, and drerie teres At lafte no drede n might overcame tho mufes, that thei ne weren fellowes, and foloweden my waie, that is to faie thei that weren of m grene, comforten no olde man : for elde i hafted by the harme whethe mixture of different numbers, in which he feems t C:H-A U € E-R AL A S!.T wepyng am conftrained to begin verf = of forowfull matter, that whilom in florithyn ftudie made delitable ditees. For lo! rendyn mufes of a Poetes editen to me thinges to b when I was exiled whilom welfull an full wierdes of m unwarely upon me in th like others which th cover wit Gower an tion was i and fom the variou that the worde 1s mifwent His confcience the French words good or bad, of which Chaucer is charged as th Some innovations he might probably importer For it hath proued oft er this And thus the common clamour i Ho an yout forowcome that his age to b in me Heres hore aren fhad overtimeliche upo my hed : and the flacke fkinne tremblethe of min empted bodie Thilke deth of men is welefull that he ne cometh not in yeres that be fwete, bu comet COLVTL Tua in tym of profperite, an e Vpo have o point at which the hiftor o r f l i o t fuppofed to f j e g Geoffry Chaucer, wh o w r i i r v o r f t e tice, be fti florythyn {ftudye, made pleafaunte and deleétable dities or verfes: alas now beyng heauy and fad ouerthrown in aduerfitie ciple t t i The hiftory of our langua TH TH O 'HISTORY am compelled to fele and i heuines and greif. Beholde the mufes Roeticall that is to faye: the pleafure that is in poete verfes, do appoynt me, and compel me to writ thefe verfes 1n meter, and the forowfull verfes d wet my wretched face with ver yfluinge out of my eyes for forowe n feir wi ho waterye tear W hiche mufe dout cou ou rc me bu tha they wold folow me in my iourney of exile or ba nifhment Sometyme the ioye of happy and luft delectable youth dyd comfort me, and nowe th courfe of forowfull olde age caufeth me to reioyfe For hafty old age vnloked for is come vpon m wit |