Halleck's New English Literature Part 11

The sixth comfort is that our Lord, when he suffers that we be tempted, he plays with us, as the mother with her young darling; she flees from it, and hides herself, and lets it sit alone and look anxiously about and cry "Dame! dame!" and weep awhile; and then with outspread arms leaps laughing forth and clasps and kisses it and wipes its eyes. Exactly so our Lord leaves us alone once in a while and withdraws his grace and his comfort, that we find sweetness in nothing that we do well, no relish of heart; and notwithstanding, at the same time, he, our dear Father, loves us nevertheless, but he does it for the great love that he has for us.

Professor Sweet calls the _Ancren Riwle_ "one of the most perfect models of simple, natural, eloquent prose in our language." For its introduction of French words, this work occupies a prominent place in the development of the English language. Among the words of French origin found in it, we may instance: "dainty," "cruelty," "vestments,"

"comfort," "journey," "mercer."

Lyrical Poetry.--A famous British Museum ma.n.u.script, known as _Harleian MS., No. 2253_. which was transcribed about 1310, contains a fine anthology of English lyrics, some of which may have been composed early in the thirteenth century. The best of these are love lyrics, but they are less remarkable for an expression of the tender pa.s.sion than for a genuine appreciation of nature. Some of them are full of the joy of birds and flowers and warm spring days.

A lover's song, called _Alysoun_, is one of the best of these lyrics:--

"Bytuene Mershe ant[3] Averil[4]

When spray biginneth to spring, The lutel[5] foul hath hire wyl On hyre lud[6] to synge."

A famous spring lyric beginning:--

"Lenten[7] ys come with love to toune,[8]

With blosmen ant with briddes[9] roune."[10]

is a symphony of daisies, roses, "lovesome lilies," thrushes, and "notes suete of nyhtegales."

The refrain of one love song is invigorating with the breath of the northern wind:--

"Blou, northerne wynd!

Send thou me my suetyng!

Blou norterne wynd! blou, blou, blou!"

The _Cuckoo Song_, which is perhaps older than any of these, is the best known of all the early lyrics:--

"Sumer is i-c.u.men in Lhude sing cuccu Groweth sed and bloweth med And springeth the wde nu.

Sing cuccu, cuccu."

Summer is a-coming in, Loud sing cuckoo, Groweth seed and bloometh mead, And springeth the wood now.

Sing cuckoo, cuckoo.

A more somber note is heard in the religious lyrics:--

"Wynter wakeneth al my care, Nou this leves waxeth bare; Ofte I sike[11] ant mourne sare[12]

When hit cometh in my thoht Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht."

We do not know the names of any of these singers, but they were worthy forerunners of the later lyrists of love and nature.

Robert Manning of Brunne.--We have now come to fourteenth-century literature, which begins to wear a more modern aspect. Robert Manning, generally known as Robert of Brunne, because he was born at Brunne, now called Bourn, in Lincolnshire, adapted from a Norman-French original a work ent.i.tled _Handlyng Synne_ (_Manual of Sins_). This book, written in the Midland dialect in 1303, discourses of the Seven Deadly Sins and the best ways of living a G.o.dly life.

A careful inspection of the following selection from the _Handlyng Synne_ will show that, aside from the spelling, the English is essentially modern. Most persons will be able to understand all but a few words. He was the first prominent English writer to use the modern order of words. The end rime is also modern. A beggar, seeing a beast laden with bread at the house of a rich man, asks for food. The poem says of the rich man:--

"He stouped down to seke a stone, But, as hap was, than fonde he none.

For the stone he toke a lofe, And at the pore man hyt drofe.

The pore man hente hyt up belyue, And was thereof ful ferly blythe, To hys felaws fast he ran With the lofe, thys pore man."

He stooped down to seek a stone, But, as chance was, then found he none.

For the stone he took a loaf, And at the poor man it drove.

The poor man caught it up quickly, And was thereof full strangely glad, To his fellows fast he ran With the loaf this poor man.

Oliphant says: "Strange it is that Dante should have been compiling his _Inferno_, which settled the course of Italian literature forever, in the selfsame years that Robert of Brunne was compiling the earliest pattern of well-formed New English... Almost every one of the Teutonic changes in idiom, distinguishing the New English from the Old, the speech of Queen Victoria from the speech of Hengist, is to be found in Manning's work."

Mandeville's Travels.--Sir John Mandeville, who is popularly considered the author of a very entertaining work of travels, states that he was born in St. Albans in 1300, that he left England in 1322, and traveled in the East for thirty-four years. His _Travels_ relates what he saw and heard in his wanderings through Ethiopia, Persia, Tartary, India, and Cathay. What he tells on his own authority, he vouches for as true, but what he relates as hearsay, he leaves to the reader's judgment for belief.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHAT MADEVILLE SAW. _Old print from Edition of 1725._]

No such single traveler as Mandeville ever existed. The work attributed to him has been proved to be a compilation from the writings of other travelers. A French critic says wittily: "He first lost his character as a truthful writer; then out of the three versions of his book, French, English, and Latin, two were withdrawn from him, leaving him only the first. Existence has now been taken from him, and he is left with nothing at all." No matter, however, who the author was, the book exists. More ma.n.u.scripts of it survive than of any other work except the _Scriptures_. It is the most entertaining volume of English prose that we have before 1360. The sentences are simple and direct, and they describe things vividly:--

"In Ethiope ben many dyverse folk: and Ethiope is clept[13] Cusis.

In that contree ben folk, that han but o foot: and thei gon so fast, that it is marvaylle: and the foot is so large, that it schadewethe alle the body azen[14] the Sonne whanne thei wole[15] lye and reste hem."[16]

Mandeville also tells of a bird that used to amuse itself by flying away with an elephant in its talons. In the land of Prester John was a valley where Mandeville says he saw devils jumping about as thick as gra.s.shoppers. Stories like these make the work as interesting as _Gulliver's Travels_.

The so-called Mandeville's _Travels_ was one of the few works that the unlearned of that age could understand and enjoy. Consequently its popularity was so great as to bring large number of French words into familiar use. The native "againbought" is, however, used instead of the foreign "redeemed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN WYCLIFFE. _From an old print_.]

John Wycliffe.--Wycliffe (1324-1384) was born at Hipswell, near Richmond, in the northern part of Yorkshire. He became a doctor of divinity and a master of one of the colleges at Oxford. Afterward he was installed vicar of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died.

In history he is princ.i.p.ally known as the first great figure in the English Reformation. He preceded the other reformers by more than a century. In literature he is best known for the first complete translation of the _Bible_,--a work that exerted great influence on English prose. All the translation was not made by him personally, but all was done under his direction. The translation of most of the _New Testament_ is thought to be his own special work. He is the most important prose writer of the fourteenth century. His prose had an influence as wide as the circulation of the _Bible_. The fact that it was forced to circulate in ma.n.u.script, because printing had not then been invented, limited his readers; but his translation was, nevertheless, read by many. To help the cause of the Reformation, he wrote argumentative religious pamphlets, which are excellent specimens of energetic fourteenth-century prose.

Of his place in literature, Ten Brink says: "Wycliffe's literary importance lies in the fact that he extended the domain of English prose and enhanced its powers of expression. He accustomed it to terse reasoning, and perfected it as an instrument for expressing rigorous logical thought and argument; he brought it into the service of great ideas and questions of the day, and made it the medium of polemics and satire. And above all, he raised it to the dignity of the national language of the _Bible_."

The following is a specimen verse of Wycliffe's translation. We may note that the strong old English word "againrising" had not then been displaced by the Latin "resurrection."

"Jhesu seith to hir, I am agenrisyng and lyf; he that bileueth in me, he, if he schal be deed, schall lyue."

Piers Plowman.--_The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman_, popularly called _Piers Plowman_, from its most important character, is the name of an allegorical poem, the first draft ("A"

text) of which was probably composed about 1362. Later in the century two other versions, known as texts "B" and "C" appeared. Authorities differ in regard to whether these are the work of the same man. _The Vision_ is the first and the most interesting part of a much longer work, known as _Liber de Petro Plowman_ (_The Book of Piers the Plowman_).

The authorship of the poem is not certainly known, but it has long been ascribed to William Langland, born about 1322 at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. The author of _Piers Plowman_ seems to have performed certain functions connected with the church, such as singing at funerals.

_Piers Plowman_ opens on a pleasant May morning amid rural scenery.

The poet falls asleep by the side of a brook and dreams. In his dream he has a vision of the world pa.s.sing before his eyes, like a drama.

The poem tells what he saw. Its opening lines are:--

"In a _s_omer _s_eson * whan _s_oft was the _s_onne I _sh_ope[17] me in _sh_roudes[18] * as I a _sh_epe[19] were In _h_abite as an _h_eremite[20] - un_h_oly of workes _W_ent _w_yde in is _w_orld - _w_ondres to here Ac on a _M_ay _m_ornynge - on _M_aluerne hulles[21]

Me by_f_el a _f_erly[22] - of _f_airy me thou te I _w_as _w_ery for_w_andred[23] - and _w_ent me to reste Under a _b_rode _b_ank - _b_i a _b_ornes[24] side, And as I _l_ay and _l_ened[25] - and _l_oked in e wateres I _s_lombred in a _s_lepyng - it _s_weyved[26] so merye."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TREUTHE'S PILGRYME ATTE PLOW. _From a ma.n.u.script in Trinity College, Cambridge._]

The language of _Piers Plowman_ is a mixture of the Southern and Midland dialects. It should be noticed that the poem employs the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter. There is no end rime. _Piers Plowman_ is the last great poem written in this way.

The actors in this poem are largely allegorical. Abstractions are personified. Prominent characters are Conscience, Lady Meed or Bribery, Reason, Truth, Gluttony, Hunger, and the Seven Deadly Sins.

In some respects, the poem is not unlike the _Pilgrim's Progress_, for the battle in pa.s.sing from this life to the next is well described in both; but there are more humor, satire, and descriptions of common life in Langland. Piers is at first a simple plowman, who offers to guide men to truth. He is finally identified with the Savior.

Throughout the poem, the writer displays all the old Saxon earnestness. His hatred of hypocrisy is manifest on every page. His sadness, because things are not as they ought to be, makes itself constantly felt. He cannot reconcile the contradiction between the real and the ideal. In attacking selfishness, hypocrisy, and corruption; in preaching the value of a life of good deeds; in showing how men ought to progress toward higher ideals; in teaching that "Love is the physician of life and nearest our Lord himself,--" _Piers Plowman_ proved itself a regenerating spiritual force, a stepping-stone toward the later Reformation.