OF LITERATURE. 



xivii 



rhymed histories of Robert of Gloucester,* of 

 Robert de Brunne,t or of the spirited Minot ; $ 

 nor on the humorous but obscure vision of Pierce 

 Plowman ; we ascribe in England, as in modern 

 Italy, the rise of genuine poetry to the prodi- 

 gious talents of one man. Impelled by the instinct 

 of a poetical mind, instructed by much study, 

 inflamed by the credit of the Italian masters, 

 .ind perhaps, in his travels, by personal com- 

 munication with Petrarch, CHAUCER B permitted 

 not the cares of public life, in which he was 

 actively engaged, to divert him from the lofty 

 task of enriching his native language with glow- 

 ing pictures of a world he knew under all its 

 phases, and which he idealized, in so far as the 

 principles of his art required, only by combining 

 and concentrating things that had a literal exis- 

 tence of themselves. Chaucer borrowed pro- 

 fusely ; words, forms, metres, and materials ; 

 the stock and instruments of poetry. He was a 

 man of business, and aware of the good of trading 

 with the capital of others. But that practical 

 tendency which made him shun any waste of the 

 inventive faculty, what a command did it not also 

 give him over the realities of life and nature ! 

 He musters, he applies them, with Homeric 

 familiarity and freedom. Nay, had their plan 

 been statelier, and their rhythm more sounding, 

 how nearly would his poems have approached 

 even the Homeric miracles ! Does any one sup- 

 pose that his turn for light satire and humorous 

 description distinguishes Chaucer from Homer ? 

 Let the portraits of Thersites, Melanthius, Irus, 

 be compared with many passages in the Canter- 

 bury Tales, and that impression will vanish 

 away. 



Like Homer, too, Chaucer maintains a solitary 

 grandeur. The grave and moral Gower *[[ was, 

 indeed, his contemporary : the versatile, diffuse, 

 perspicuous, but languid Lydgate ** came soon 

 after him. They did something for the enlarge- 

 ment and refinement of the English language ; 

 but no one would range them with Chaucer, the 

 poet of all ages and the landmark of his own. 

 Nor had anything yet appeared in English prose, 

 worthy to divide our admiration with this extra- 

 ordinary writer. The travels of Mandeville,ft 

 the bible version and theological treatises of 

 Wickliffe,t J yielded, however, certain prognostics 

 of what might afterwards be done. But from the 

 outbreaking of the war between the roses to 

 the accession of the House of Tudor, there occurs 

 a dreary interval of civil confusion, and an 



* A. D. 1280. t A. D. 1303. J A. D. 1352. 



f By Longland ; A. D. 1362. || A. D. 13281406. 



T A. D. 13201402. A. D. 1440. ft Died 1372. 



A A. D 1324-1381. { A. D. 1455. 



eclipse of literature, that was feebly broken by 

 the translations and compilations of Caxton ; * 

 though, by the introduction of printing into 

 England, he made her acquainted with one of 

 those mighty influences, which were to breathe 

 new life into a succeeding age. 



The early literary records of SCOTLAND are not 

 so barren as its long turbulent state might lead 

 us to fear. In the thirteenth century lived 

 Thomas of Ercildoune, whose poetical talents 

 obtained for him the title of the Rymer, 

 whether he were, or were not, author of Sir 

 Tristram : and, before the end of the fourteenth, 

 the Scottish dialect, originally related to the 

 Anglo-Saxon, and improved by direct communi- 

 cation with the north of England, was able 

 to sustain the heroic theme of BARBouR.f About 

 a hundred years later, there was more difference, 

 in some respects, between the two dialects ; 

 though the intervening time was adorned by 

 Harry the minstrel, James I., the picturesque 

 Dunbar, and Gawin Douglas, J the translator 

 of Virgil's .ffineid. Of DUNBAR, Sir Walter 

 Scott asserts, that " he has been justly raised to 

 a level with Chaucer by every judge of poetry, 

 to whom his obsolete language has not rendered 

 him unintelligible :" and were it not for an 

 excess of sameness and of mannerism in the 

 short poems he has left behind him, we might 

 subscribe to this high eulogium. But James 1. 

 merits no less attention ; as one whose just 

 views of policy, and labours in the cause of 

 good government, were not inferior to his 

 learning and literary abilities. During his 

 boyhood the University of St Andrews was 

 founded ; in the time of his successor that of 

 Glasgow followed ; and, in the reign of James 

 IV., a monarch more fortunate in arts than in 

 arms, there was erected, at Aberdeen, a third 

 of those institutions, to which the whole popula- 

 tion of Scotland is so deeply indebted. Even 

 in their infancy " the labours of these learned 

 seminaries were not in vain:"|| they have con- 

 tinued, in every succeeding age, to do more 

 good, and gain more honours, in proportion to 

 their means, than any similar institutions : and, 

 should the attempts of some to change their 

 system ultimately prove as harmless as those of 

 others to decry it, they may still flourish long, 

 without diminution of their usefulness or fame. 



It is conjectured, not improbably, by a recent 

 historian of IRELAND,*!! that, in the brilliant times 



A. D. 1471. t Author of The Bruce: A. D. 132613.%. 

 I James I. A. D. 13951436: Dunbar, 14651530: Douglas, 

 14751522. 



St Andrews, A. D. 1412: Glasgow, 1450: Aberdeen, 1494. 

 || History of Scotland, by Sir W. Scott, Vol. I. p. 333. 

 History of Ireland, by Thomas Moore. Esq. Vol. I. 



