4. John was in desert baptisynge, and prechinge the baptysm of penaunce, into remiscioun of synnes.

5. And alle men of Jerusalem wenten out to him and al the cuntree of Judee; and weren baptisid of him in the flood of Jordan, knowlechinge her synnes.

6. And John was clothid with heeris of camelis, and a girdil of skyn abowte his leendis; and he oet locusts, and hony of the wode, and prechide, seyinge:

7. A strengere than I schal come aftir me, of whom I knelinge am not worthi for to vndo, or vnbynde, the thwong of his schoon.

8. I have baptisid you in water: forsothe he shall baptise you in the Holy Goost.'. ..

He and his school introduced or popularized many Latin and Romance terms; and thus enriched literary diction by enriching that of familiar currency, from which the Shakespeares draw their stock of living and breathing words.

He accomplished a work which no ecclesiastical censure could set aside. The period was eminently favorable to a successful revolt through a general spirit of disaffection to the pope. Men of rank became his adherents. The learned of Oxford were his apostles. Wandering scholars carried his writing into Bohemia, and disseminated his principles. Lollardism spread through every class of society, a floating mass of religious and social discontent. The grave nor persecution could extinguish the new forces of thought and feeling which were breaking through the crust of feudalism. His Bible was proscribed; his votaries, as will presently appear, were imprisoned and burned; but the seed had been dropped, and was rooted in the soil. Thirty years hence the vultures of the law will ungrave him, and consuming to ashes what little they can find, will cast it into the brook that runs hard by, thinking thus to make away both with his bones and his doctrines; but

'As thon these ashes, little brook, wilt bear
Into the Avon-Avon to the tide

Of Severn-Severn to the narrow seas-
Into main ocean they-this deed accurst
An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified

By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.'

When the 'simple preachers' have slumbered a century and a half, their day of triumph will be at hand. The age, though strongly disposed, is not yet ripe for revolution. Reforms ordained to be permanent are of slow growth.

CHAUCER.

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath

Preluded those melodious bursts that fill

The spacious times of great Elizabeth

With sounds that echo still.-Tennyson.

Biography.-Born in London, 1328,-the city of London, that is to me so dear and sweet in which I was forth-grown'; studied at Cambridge, then at Oxford; acquired all branches of scholastic and elegant literature, Latin, Italian, English, and French; was page in the royal household; served in the army, was taken prisoner in France; again at the court of Edward III, the most splendid in Europe, surrounded by the wit, beauty, and gallantry of chivalry; marries the queen's maid of honor, wondering that Heaven had fashioned such a being,—

And in so little space

Made such a body, and such face;

So great beauty and such features
More than be in other creatures!"

thus brother-in-law of the heir apparent to the throne, Duke of Lancaster, strengthening their political bond by a family alliance; an ambassador in open or secret missions to Florence, Genoa, Flanders; takes part in pomps of France and Milan; converses with Petrarch, perhaps with Boccaccio and Froissart; is high up and low down,- now a placeholder, now disgraced, now the admired of the Court, now an exile dreading to see the face of a stranger, now incarcerated in the Tower, and again basking in the sunshine of kingly favor; at one time occupied with ceremonies and processions, at another secluded in his lovely retreat at Woodstock; finally, weary of the hurry and turmoil of the varied and brilliant world, retiring to the country quiet of Donnington Castle; then, bowed beneath the weight of years, dying in Palace-yard on the 25th of October, 1400,- his earthly friendship dissolved,-himself the only withered leaf upon a stately branch. He was the first buried in what is now famous as the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

What an education was that, with its splendor, varieties, contrasts! What a stage for the mind and eyes of an artist!

Appearance. Of middle stature, late in life inclining to

corpulency, a point upon which the Tabard host takes occasion to jest with him:

Now ware you, sirs, and let this man have place;

He in the waist is shaped as well as I;
This were a poppet in armes to embrace.'

Of full face, indicative of health and serenity; of fair complexion, verging towards paleness; of dusky yellow hair, short and thin, with small round-trimmed beard; of aquiline nose, of expansive marble-like forehead, and drooping eyes,-a peculiarity likewise noticed by the host:

"What man art thou," quoth he,

"That lookest as thou wouldest find a hare?
Forever on the ground I see thee stare.""

His ordinary dress consisted of a loose frock of camlet, reaching to the knee, with wide sleeves fastened at the wrist; a dark hood, with tippet, or tail, which indoors hung down his back, and outdoors was twisted round his head; bright-red stockings, and black, horned shoes.

Diction. As to the ancient accentuation, we are much in the dark. Certainly it was not in all respects like that of our own day. It is slightly different even in Shakespeare and his contemporaries from what it now is. For example, aspect, which in their time was always accented on the last syllable, is now accented on the first. A short composition is now called an éssay, but a century ago it was called an essay. Thus Pope,

'And write next winter more essays on mán.'

At an earlier period, this change was much more active. There was no recognized standard of accidence, and the modes of spelling, as of emphasis, were extremely irregular. It will render the approach to Chaucer's poetry easier, to remember:

1. That the Romance canons of verse, which were adopted as the laws of poetical composition, tended to throw the stress of voice upon the final syllable, contrary to the Saxon articulation, which inclined to emphasize the initial syllable. Hence the pronunciation would oscillate between the two systems. Thus Chaucer has langage in one line, langage in another, as the verse may require.

2. The ed at the end of verbs, and the es, when it is the plural or possessive termination of a noun, should generally be sounded as distinct syllables.

3. The presence of their Anglo-Saxon root is often denoted by an n at the end of words; as, 'Thou shalt ben quit' (be), withouten doubt' (without), 'I shall you tellen' (tell).

4. Not infrequently two negatives are used; as, ‘I n'ill nat go' (will not), 'I n'am nat sure' (am not), 'I ne owe hem not a word' (do not owe).

5. Forms of the personal pronouns are exhibited in the following declension:

6. Final e (with us totally inoperative upon the syllabication) is usually pronounced,-silent before h or a vowel; as Aprillë,

swootë.

Chaucer's position, so far as we know, has no parallel in literary history. His poems are not in a foreign language - hardly in our own. They present to the eye terms that are familiar, and terms that are uncouth. The use of a glossary is wearisome; the intermingling of sunshine and shadow, in which the reader is uncertain how long the clearness will continue, and how soon the obscurity will recur, is vexatious. He is the star of a misty morning.

Versification.- Chaucer composed several pieces in octosyllabic metre iambic tetrameter; but by far the most considerable part of his poetry was written in our present heroic measure - iambic pentameter in rhymed couplets or stanzas. In practice, spondees (- -), trochees (~~), and anapæsts (~~) -) are often introduced. To vary the position of the accents prevents monotony; to reduce their number, as from five to four, quickens the movement of the line. A line may be catalecticwanting a syllable; or hypercatalectic-lengthened by a syllable or even two, which gives a lifting billowy rhythm. By a little. attention to the law of the verse, the difficulties of pronunciation will greatly diminish, and the air of archaism will rather enhance the effect. Thus of the death of Arcite:

And with that word his spéche faíle gán;
For fró his feéte up toó his brést was cóme
The cold of déth that hádde him óvernóme
And yet moreóver ín his ármes twoó
The vital strength is lóst, and ál agoó.
Ónly the intellect, withoúten móre,

That dwelled in his hérte sík and sóre,

Gan fáyle when the hérte félte déth.'

[overtaken

The poet himself seems anxious that transcribers and reciters should not violate his metre. Thus, gracefully bidding adieu to a finished poem, he adds:

His stanza

And for there is so grete dyversite

In English and in writynge of our tonge,

So preye I God that non miswrite thee
Ne thee mismetre for defaute of tonge.'

-called rhyme royal, from the circumstance of its being used by a royal follower- was formed from the Italian octave rhyme by the omission of the fifth line. It thus consists of seven lines, three on each side of a middle one, which is the last of a quatrain of alternate rhymes, and first of a quatrain of couplets. Thus:

"Nay, God forbede a lover shulde chaunge!"
The turtel seyde, and wex for shame al reed:
"Thoogh that hys lady evermore be straunge,
Yet let hym serve hir ever, tyl he be deed.
Forsoth, I preyse noght the gooses reed;

For though she deyed, I wolde noon other make;

I wol ben hirs til that the deth me take."'

It remained a favorite with English poets down to the reign of Elizabeth.

In rhythmic history, Langland terminates the ancient period, and Chaucer begins the modern. The first presents the AngloSaxon type, but with the accent at the second timeunit of the bar instead of the first.

፡፡

Thus:

BIB B BIB

The second presents the same, with the last two of the eighthnotes joined together into a quarter-note; as if in music we should write, where the slur unites two sounds in one