CHAUCER. 203 



it is as hard to be patient as about the authorship of Shakes 

 peare s plays. It is easy to find all manner of bad metres among 

 these versifiers, and plenty of inconsistencies, many or most of 

 them the fault of careless or ignorant transcribers, but whoever 

 has read them thoroughly, and with enough philological know 

 ledge of cognate languages to guide him, is sure that they at 

 least aimed at regularity, precisely as he is convinced that Ray- 

 nouard s rule about singular and plural terminations has plenty 

 of evidence to sustain it, despite the numerous exceptions. To 

 show what a bad versifier could make out of the same language 

 that Chaucer used, I copy one stanza from a contemporary 

 poem. 



When Phebus fresh was in chare resplendent, 



In the moneth of May erly in a morning, 



I hard two lovers profer this argument 



In the yeere of our Lord a M. by rekening, 



CCCXL. and VIII. yeere following. 



O potent princesse conserve true lovers all 



And grant them thy region and blisse celestial.* 



Here is riding-rhyme, and on a very hard horse too ! Can any 

 one be insensible to the difference between such stuff as this and 

 the measure of Chaucer? Is it possible that with him the one 

 halting verse should be the rule, and the twenty musical ones 

 the exception ? Let us take heed to his own words : 



And, for there is so great diversite 

 In English, and in writing of our tong, 

 So pray I God t that none miswrite the 

 Ne the mismetre for defaut of tong, 

 And redde whereso thou be or elle s song 

 That thou be understood God I beseech. 



Yet more. Boccaccio s Ottawa rima is almost as regular as 

 that of Tasso. Was Chaucer unconscious of this ? It will be 

 worth while to compare a stanza of the original with one of the 

 translation : 



Era cortese Ettore di natura 



Peru vedendo di costei il gran pianto, 



Ch era piu bella ch altra creatura, 



Con pio parlare confortolla alquanto, 



Dicendo, lascia con la ria ventura 



Tuo padre andar che tutti ha offeso tanto, 



E tu, sicura e lieta, senza noia, 



Mentre t aggrada, con noi resta in Troia. \ 



Now was this Hector pitous of nature, 



And saw that she was sorrowful begon 



And that she was so faire a creature, 



* From the Craft of Lovers, attributed by Ritson to Lydgate, but too bad even 

 for him. 



t Here the received texts give So pray I to God. Cf. But Reason said him. 

 T. &C. 



1 Corrected from Kissner, p. 18. 



