Wells of English

Front matter

^ oV yo

BY

ISAAC BASSETT 'CHOATE.

Table Of Contents

PAGE

Introduction v

I. Thomas of Erceldoune . ..!'.... ii

II. John Barbour

THIS Scotch poet belongs to the same period as Chaucer, — the latter half of the fourteenth century. Although the date of his birth is not known, yet we do know that he died an old man in 1395, just five years earher than his famous English contemporary. This association in time, but separation in place, makes a comparison of the work of these two poets especially interesting to the student of our language. The English poet wrote for London readers; the Scotch bard used the language which was familiar to the men about him at Aberdeen. Their writings afford us specimens of English from the extremities of its domain. It is to be regretted that we have not a manuscript copy of Barbour bearing an earlier date than 1478. This matters less, however, since the variations were likely to be chiefly in the spelling of the words. Copyists are always held more closely to the vocabulary of the original in making a transcript of poetry than in copying prose. Any variation from the original is apt to affect the rhythm.

Under the strange disguises of various spellings, it is really wonderful how large a proportion of Barbour's words are easily recognizable as in good and common use to-day. The meaning or the appUcation may have changed from what it was in Scotland five hundred years ago, but the words themselves are parts of living English. A good example of this vitality is Barbour's frequent use of the phrase " in hy," meaning " in haste." The connection is easily made, however, just as soon as we recall that the verb " to hie," meaning " to hasten," still in good use in English everywhere, is nothing other than the verbal use of Barbour's noun " hy," haste. Making allowance, then, for the wayward spelling of the poet, which sometimes gives us four distinct forms for a single word, and which, in other instances, makes one form answer for four distinct words, it is not a little surprising to find a larger percentage of Barbour's words than of Chaucer's living in our speech at the present day. While upon this point of spelling, it may be remarked in a general way that the variations were largely in the vowels, and that the tendency here was towards the more open. The vowel " a " predominates. This appears from the use of "ma" instead of "mo," of which we have the comparative form " more." The same word "ma " is used for the auxiliary "may; " and very often it is found used for our word " make."

Going back now to the circumstance that Barbour's vocabulary is more purely English than that of Chaucer, this may be accounted for partly on the ground that French was at that time in quite common use in England, as it had been from the time of the Conqueror, while in Scotland French does not appear to have become fashionable before the days of Mary Stuart. Still further may the fact be accounted for on the ground that Chaucer borrowed much of his material from foreign sources, chiefly from French and Italian writers ; and his work partook more or less of the character of translation, where the translator allows

JOHN BARBOUR. 23

his original to dominate his speech as well as his thought, while on the other hand Barbour told at firsthand the story of the patriotism and the valor of his own countrymen.

i\gain, we may compare the language of this Northern poet with that of Thomas of Erceldoune, and we shall find results unexpected to many. Barbour was well acquainted with the works of the Rhymer, for he refers to one of his prophecies, —

" I hope that Thomas' prophecy Of Erceldoune shall [verray] be In him ; for, so Our Lord help me ! I have great hope he shall be king, And have this land all in leading."

This Thomas was a Lowland Scotch poet of just about one hundred years earlier date than Barbour. What will strike the reader of these two poets is the fact that so far as the forms of words are concerned and their construction, the earlier writer is the one who conforms the more nearly to the use of English in our own time. The conclusion to which this discovery naturally and inevitably leads us is that dialect, in English at any rate, is a matter of place rather than of time ; it is local, not temporal.

This almost necessitates a remark upon the growing use of the phrase, "Middle English." It has been brought in, no doubt, in imitation of such phrases as " Middle High-German," and so on. To the view presented above, " Middle English " ought to signify the dialect spoken in the midland counties, where was formerly the kingdom of Mercia. Another point not to be overlooked here is the recent usage of speaking of translations from early English into the English of our day. The pretentiousness of such talk is not easy to be borne. Barbour is properly classed with early English writers ; but in his case very little is needed to make him intelligible to modern readers except to change his spelling. Speaking for myself, I can only say that when I read this fourteenth-century poet, the pleasure he gives me awakens a regret that I have not trained myself to the use of English as pure as his.

Barbour is known by his romantic story of '* Robert Bruce," — a poem of nearly fourteen thousand verses. That he did not intend this for strictly accurate history, is evident from what he says in the first book, —

*' Lordings who likis for to hear, The romance now begynnys here."

To show his method of treatment, the interview between Bruce and the goodwife of the house to which he came in expectation of finding there James Douglas and Sir Edward Bruce, is here cited, —

" She asked him soon what he was, And whence he came, and where he goes. *A travelling man, dame,' said he, ' That travels here through the country.' She said, ' All that travelling are, For sake of one, are welcome here.' The king said, ' Good dame, what is he That gars [makes] you have such specialty To men that travel ? ' ' Sir, perfay,' Quoth the good wife, ' I will you say ; Good king Robert the Bruce is he, That is right lord of this country. His foes him holdis now in throng.

But I think to see before ought long Him lord and king o'er all the land, That no foes him shall withstand.' ' Dame, lovest thou him so well .? ' said he.

* Yea, sir,' she said, ' so God me see.'

* Dame,' said he, ' lo ! him here thee by, For I am he.' ' Say ye soothly "i '

JOHN BARBOUR. 2$

' Yea, certes, dame.' * And where are gone

Your men, when ye are thus alone ? '

' At this time, dame, I have no ma [more].'

She said, ' It may no wise be swa [so] ;

I have two sons wight and hardy,

They shall become your men in hy [haste].'

As she devised, they have done ;

His sworn men become they soon.

The wife gart [made] soon him sit and eat,

But he had short while at the meat

Sitting, when he heard great stamping

About the house ; then, but letting [without waiting],

They start up, the house to defend ;

But soon after the king has kenned

James of Douglas ; then was he blithe,

And bade open the doors swith [quickly],

And they come in, all that they were,

Sir Edward the Bruce was there."

This is the true romantic style of narrative. Barbour is writing in 137S of what took place in 1307. He enters into particulars such as an eye-witness would scarcely be expected to notice and report. By presenting the parties to this interview in their own proper characters, the poet secures a good degree of dramatic interest. The poem sacrifices all elements of an epic character to the narrative form. It takes in the history of forty-six years, — the period between 1286 and 1332. The interest is therefore centred in its hero rather than in any single exploit of his. Although the account of this period is sufficiently true to the facts in the case, yet the truthfulness of the poem is mainly that element which holds it in sympathy with the spirit of the age.

The reader of Barbour will not fail to see how greatly Sir Walter Scott was indebted to this early work, not only for material, — which the later poet acknowledges repeatedly — but even more, we can believe, for the artistic handling of his subject. In the mere matter of metre, the eight-sy]]abled verse of Barbour furnishes the basis of all Scott's romantic measures. But more than all else to the later poet was the spirit which he imbibed from his early master. Barbour proved that romanticism could live through the fierce contentions of the Crusades, and even thrive from the fervor of religious enthusiasm ; Scott showed that the earnest, single-minded purpose of the Reformation was no more unfriendly to that apparently alien spirit. It remains for those who are curious in such matters to observe how romanticism fares at the hands of the practical philistinism of to-day.

Barbour is at his best — as no doubt every poet is at his best — when roused by some strong and worthy feeling. The passage in which he describes the condition of the Scotch people under Edward I. of England, and his reflections upon that point, is one of the best-known parts of the whole poem, —

" Alas ! that folk that ever was free, And in freedom wont for to be, Through their great mischance and folly Were treated then so wickedly That their foes their judges were ; What wretchedness may man have more ! Ah, freedom is a noble thing !

Freedom makes man to have liking; Freedom all solace to man gives ; He lives at ease that freely lives ! A noble heart may have none ease, Nor ellys [else] nought that may him please, If freedom fall ; for free liking Is yearned o'er all other things."

The allusions to outward Nature are not very frequent in Barbour, but when they do occur they remind us strongly of Chaucer. The feeling of those early i

JOHN BARBOUR. 2/

poets for the beauty about them was something genuine. It amounts to a sympathy so close and true as to lead to confidences on the part of Nature such as a less worthy generation of poets is not often permitted to share. The following will show how easily and naturally the moral character in the elements unfolded itself to the poet's view : —

*' This was in ver [spring], when winter tide With his blastis, hideous to bide, Was overdriven, and birdis small, As throstel and the nightingale, Began right merrily to sing And for to make in their singing Sundry notes and soundis sere [various]. And melody pleasant to hear; And the trees began to ma [make] Bourgeons [buds] and bright blooms alswa [also], To win the healing of their hevede [head], That wicked winter had them revede [reft] ; And all groves began to spring.

Into that time the noble king," etc.

The humor of Barbour is pure Scotch. The exhibitions of it are few, chiefly in cutting repartee, and it shows grim whenever it does appear. A good example of it occurs near the end of the poem. After the death of Bruce, Douglas visits Seville in Spain. Here he receives the Spanish knights, who are attracted by In's fame. One of these prided himself upon having his face all covered over with scars received in combat. The interview with Douglas was not a lengthy one, —

" Ere he the Lord Douglas had seen, He weened [thought] his face had wounded been, But never a hurt in it had he.

When he unwounded can [did] it see. He said that he had great ferly [wonder] That such a knight and so worthy,

And prized of so great bounty,

Might in the face unwounded be.

And he [Douglas] answered thereto meekly

And said, ' Love [praise] God, all time had I

Handis my head for to guard.' "

Long as is " The Bruce," there are points where the poet excuses himself from admitting matters that would properly come within the scope of his poem. One of these occasions is where he leaves a fuller account of the exploits of Douglas to the song-writers of his day :

" I will not rehearse all the manner ;

For whoso likis, they may hear Young women, when they will play, Sing it among them ilke [every] day.'*

It shows a fine literary sense in Barbour that he omitted from his semi-historical narration those matters that were better suited to lyric treatment, since his unvarying measure must have suffered from comparison with the lilting songs of the Scottish maidens. That competition was not to be dreaded by Scott, and he was comparatively free to introduce lyric passages of' great variety into poems similar to "The Bruce."

III. William Langland

BY a singular mistake on the part of his readers, Langland has not infrequently been confounded with the leading character in his poem. It is pretty clear that they fell into the error in this way : The title to the poem was " Vision de Piers Plowman." Readers took the de to be French, and read the title "Vision of Piers Plowman." The work is commonly so spoken of to this day. A reading of it will quickly show that the de of the title is Latin, and that the poem is the "Vision concerning Piers the Plowman." The most superficial examination of the work will make plain the fact that Latin quotations are to be met there at least ten times as often as French.

One circumstance made this mistake in identity easy and natural, and that was the immediate popularity of the "Vision." Piers Plowman became at once a reality with the people. " Pierce the Plowman's Crede " appeared as early as 1394, and "The Plowman's Tale" about a year later. The real author of these is not known ; but that he took " Piers the Plowman " for his pseudonym proves that the name had become a household term in England.

The "Vision concerning Piers the Plowman" is classed with " Early English " literature. It belongs to the same period as the " Canterbury Tales " of Chaucer, and is read with about the same ease or difficulty as that work, according as the reader has or has not made a study of our fourteenth-century writers. For it is not to be disputed that English of that period does require special study ; it is only insisted upon here that the amount of study is not excessive, and that it is not unrewarded.

The precise date of Langland's birth is not known, nor is that of his death. Mr. Skeat places the date of his birth as early as 1332, and that of his death as late as 1400. The years of his life devoted to writing are more nearly made out from allusions to well-known events. He was certainly engaged upon the " Vision " as early as 1362, and he continued to revise, transcribe, and expand this work until 1393. Another work of his, " Richard the Redeles," — that is, " Richard Lacking Counsel," — was completed as late as 1399. In this the author speaks of himself as an old man, and it is reasonable to conclude that his task was then finished.

That Langland and Chaucer chanced to be writing at the same time, very naturally leads to a comparison of their work. In this there is little, except the language, in common. The two men belonged to two different classes, and classes were very wide apart in those days. We can easily set these authors in their proper social relation. Chaucer's wife was a sister-inlaw of John of Gaunt, whose London palace was burned by the insurgents under Wat Tyler in 1381, at the very time when John Ball, their chaplain, was urging Piers Plowman to keep to his work. Chaucer was the genial story-teller to whose view the world was an easy-going one. His several characters are

WILLIAM LANG LAND. 31

distinguished by some one highly cultivatea virtue, whicli is exhibited under any and all circumstances. The England which he paints for us is a " merrie England " indeed, if only it is what he represents it. Langland's method is quite different. He shows us men and women all imperfect ; the best are none too good, the worst not altogether bad. The world as he sees it in his "Vision " is a real one, but it is a hard one.

Of Langland himself we get but faint glimpses in the " Vision." In the "^lyiih passus^ or canto, he says, —

"And I live in London and on London both ; The looms that I laljor with, and livelihood deserve, Is Pater izoste?" and my primer, placebo and dirige^ And my psalter some time, and my seven psalms. Thus I sing for their souls of such as me helpen, And those that find me my food vouchen safe, I trow, To be welcome when I come."

From this and other passages it is plain that the author was a clergyman in orders. The same conclusion would be inferred from his familiarity with the Scriptures, which he quotes in the Latin Vulgate. Mr. Skeat supposes him to have been one of a great number of priests who flocked to London after the plague, and who gained a livelihood by saying masses for the souls of the dead. This is perfectly reasonable ; but I cannot discover that the poem echoes the tone of the city. Skeat is quite positive on this point. He says :

" It is clear, both from very numerous allusions and fronn the whole tone of the poem, that the place which the poet knew best and most dehghted to describe was the city of London. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the reader (especially as the point has often been overlooked) that one great merit of the poem consists in its exhibition of London life and London opinions ; and that to remember the London origin of at any rate the larger portion of the poem is the true key to the right understanding of it."

This is looking at the poem from one point of view. If we look at it from the country side we shall find quite as much evidence that the author was at some time of his life familiar with rustic scenes. Here are some portions of the \\m!&i passus modernized, —

" * Then,' said Parkin Ploughman, * by Saint Peter of Rome, I have a half acre to plough by the highway. Had I ploughed that half-acre and sowed it after, I would wend with you and the way teach.' ' That were a long waiting,' quoth a lady in a chair; ' What should we women work the whiles .'* '

* I pray you, for your profit,' quoth Piers to the ladies, 'That some sew the sack for shedding of the wheat.'

* Wives and widows wool and flax spinneth ; Conscience counselleth you cloth for to make For profit of the poor and pleasure of yourselves.'

' I shall apparel me,' quoth Perkin, ' in pilgrim's wise, And wend with all those that live in truth.' He cast on him his clothes of all kind of crafts. His gaiters and his cuffs, as native wit him taught, And hung his hopper on his neck instead of a scrip; A bushel of bread-corn brought was therein.

* For I will sow it myself, and then will I wend To pilgrimages, as palmers do, pardon to win.

My plough-foot shall be my pike-staff, and pick in two the roots. And help my coulter to carve and cleanse the furrows. And all that help me to plough or else to weed Shall have leave, by our Lord, to go and glean after.* "

This is quite enough to show that Langland must have been acquainted with life in country homes and in the fields. Not only is Piers the typical husbandman of his time, but his household were bred in puritanic ways. Their names will suggest a usage continued down into our colonial days, —

WILLIAM LANGLAND, 33

" Dame Work-when-time-is Piers' wife hight ; His daughter hight Do-right-so-or-thy-dame-shall-thee-beat; His son hight Suffer-thy-sovereign-have-their-will."

These descriptive names are sufficiently picturesque, but the hfe they outhne is a hard-visaged phantom.

Langland's acquaintance with literature was not limited to the sacred writers, although his allusions are too indefinite to help much in tracing the course of his studies. These lines from the thirteenth passus are a sample, —

"Many proverbs I might have of many holy saints To testify for truth the tale that I show, And poets to prove it. Porphyry and Plato, Aristotle, Ovid, and eleven hundred, Tully, Ptolemy, — I cannot tell their names, — Prove patient poverty prince of all virtues.''

He was, moreover, well read in the civil and statute law, as well as in the ecclesiastical. The following lines are to the point : —

"For may no churl a charter make nor his chattel sell ^Yithout leave of the lord; no law would it grant."

The work as a whole gives a favorable impression of the acquirements possible in the fourteenth century.

The poem is wholly allegorical, as much so as Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress." All the "Vision" appears in dreams. Some of its machinery is borro\ved from the earlier moralities and mysteries. In his first dream the poet finds himself in a wilderness, — the universe, — with power to survey a large part of it. On the east side he beholds a tower, the abode of Truth ; that is, of God. To the west is a deep dale, the abode of Death and of wicked spirits, and on the north is Lucifer, —

" He was an archangel of heaven, one of God's knights ; He and other with him that held^nought with Truth, Leaped out in loathly form for his false will ; He had lust to be like his Lord God Almighty. Lord ! why would he thus, that wretched Lucifer, [Rather] leap aloft, in the north side, [Than] sit on the sun's side, where the day roweth?"

Those who exhibited the old moralities are said to have set Belial upon a scaffold on the north side of the open space where the spectators were gathered ; this was taken as a matter of fact (Isaiah xiv. 13). As showing the persistence of the most conventional and the most conservative of all the arts, we find in " Paradise

Lost," book v., —

" Which having passed.

At length into the limits of the north They came, and Satan to his royal seat."

Antiquated as is the manner and language of Langland on the whole, there are times when he seems just to have come in off the street. Speaking of faith without works, he says, —

" For James the Gentile [judgeth] in his books That faith without works is feebler than nought, And dead as a door-nail."

In his confession of the seven deadly sins, a vein of sarcasm shows rich wherever it comes to the surface :

" * I am ever sorry,' said Envy, ' I am but seldom other.' "

Speaking of men of his own order, he says, —

" They cannot out creep, So hard hath avarice hasped thera together."

Holy Church points out a castle in his dream, —

"That is the castle of Care ; whoso cometh therein May ban that he born was, in body and in soul ;

WILLIAM LANG LAND. 35

Therein woneth a wight, that Wrong is his name, Father of Falsehood founded it first of all ; Adam and Eve he egged to do ill."

By giving Langland's lines a form sufficiently modern to suit the eye of the general reader, much mischief has been done the construction of his verse. It will be seen, however, that it is alliterative, like the old Saxon verse, and somewhat rhythmical, but wholly lacking rhyme. The lines describing the fall of the rebel angels require little change, —

" In wonderwise holy writ telleth how they fallen ; Some in earth, some in air, some in hell deep, But Lucifer lowest lieth of them all ; For pride that him poked."

There are few allusions to passing events in the poem, but enough to show that the age was not unfamiliar with politics in the pulpit. There is a passage in the fourth passus which is highly characteristic of the poet's manner, —

" CaitifF-like, thou, Conscience, counseledst the king to let In his enemy's hand this heritage of France. Uncunning is that conscience, a kingdom to sell, That is conquered through common help ; a kingdom or

duchy May not be sold soothly, so many their part ask Of folk that fought therefor and followed the king's will."

It has been supposed that Langland belonged to the Lollards, or Reformers^ of his day ; but he seems to me rather to have been of those who believed in reform within the Church, and to have clung to her communion. Laboring to the end that he might work this internal reform, he was not likely to favor the popular uprising of 1381, and his silence with regard to the events of that time is sufficiently accounted for. His mention of the Lollards in connection with the " lollers" [idlers] at the beginning of the sixth passus, strikes me as an instance of his good-humored bantering, where he does not spare himself, that he may have a laugh at the expense of some of his zealous companions. Before one has finished the book he will find a good many innuendoes lurking under somie word or phrase. The poet was certainly of the Puritan type, but I cannot make out that he was a Separatist.

IV. John Ball. 1381

VERY slender would be the claims of John Ball to recognition as a man of letters if this claim rested solely upon the few fragments of his work which have come to our hands. Bare specimens even of his style and manner are to be gathered only from the out-of-the-way chronicles of his remote time. We can, however, find enough of his bold and honest speech that, taken in connection with the commentary of his Hfe and death, proves him to have been the earliest advocate of labor reform in England. Stephen Langton, who lived nearly a century earlier than Ball, has been honored as a champion of freedom ; but it was rather ecclesiastical than political and civil freedom for which Langton contended. Again, Langton was a highly accomplished scholar, and all his life long he moved in the highest social circles. He did not, like Ball, identify himself in sympathy and interest with the humblest and feeblest ranks of a feudal community. Pretty nearly the same may be said of Wyclif, whose name is among the earliest and most conspicuous of the list of Enghsh Reformers. Wyclif aimed directly at the spiritual and intellectual liberty of the people. Ball, who followed close upon the Reformer's time, aimed just as directly at breaking the fetters of distinc-

38 WELLS OF ENGLISLL.

tions of caste and wealth and privilege and worth in which the masses of the English people were kept, by custom and usage, if not by statute and common law, in a condition of absolute bondage. We find almost as striking a contrast between Ball and Langland, the author of the " Vision of Piers Plowman," who was his contemporary, and with whose writings he was perfectly familiar. Langland had genius and courage to inveigh against the priesthood and to vindicate English rights against Romish invasion ; but he lacked the nerve — or was it the wisdom ? — to lay the issue between labor, crushed under the burdens of taxation, of military and feudal service, of civil disability, and of social contempt, and that party of the second part theretofore claiming the right to lord it over the serfs as kings were divinely appointed over themselves.

Ball had the courage and the ability to initiate a movement which finally brought the villein and the baron into the field, not as knight and retainer, but in hostile ranks. The Peasant War, as it is called, of 1381 had its antecedent causes hke any other similar event. The chief promoter could not have been Wat Tyler, whose tragic death has made him the popular hero of the war. A hundred thousand laborers would not have appeared at Southwark from the eastern shires so suddenly as to overawe the English Government unless a great amount of preparatory work had been done. It was this work that Ball had been engaged at for more than twenty years. As a local preacher he had ministered to many communities in the east of England. Froissart speaks of him as " a mad priest of Kent ; " but at the time of the outbreak his curacy was at Colchester, in Essex, and his lodging in the prison at Maidstone. He had previously been settled at