SECTION I.--Life and Character of Shakespeare

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GREAT CLASSICS

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TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D.D. LLD.

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

ARTHUR RICHMOND MARSH. A.B.

PAVL VAN DYKE, D.D.

ALBERT ELLERY BERGH

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[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE BEFORE SIR THOMAS LUCY.

_Photogravure from a painting by T. Brooks._

This picture brings vividly before us an interesting incident of

Shakespeare's early days. He has just been caught red-handed in the

crime of poaching, and is now brought before Sir Thomas Lucy to answer

to the gamekeeper's charge. Though this incident seems well

authenticated, little is definitely known of this period of the great

dramatist's life. But we do know that that energy, which later achieved

so much, in his youth ran to waste in all kinds of lawless pleasures.

The artist here depicts Sir Thomas Lucy sitting stern and grave as he

listens to the constable's charge against Shakespeare. A slaughtered

deer has been brought in, as testimony against him. Shakespeare himself,

though seeming fully aware of the gravity of his offence, appears

nevertheless composed and prepared to answer the charge. Though the

magistrate may not be favorably impressed by the dauntless independence

of Shakespeare's bearing, we may be sure he excites the admiration of

the feminine members of the household, who are watching him with

interest. All the accessories of carved woodwork, leaded casements, and

tapestried walls interest us as depicting the interior of a typical

manor-house of the period.]

HISTORY OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY

HENRY VAN LAUN

WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY

J. SCOTT CLARK, A. M.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

REVISED EDITION

VOLUME I

DEDICATION

Even at the present day, the historian of Civilization in Europe and in

France is amongst us, at the head of those historical studies which he

formerly encouraged so much. I myself have experienced his kindness,

learned by his conversation, consulted his books, and profited by that

intellectual and impartial breadth, that active and liberal sympathy,

with which he receives the labors and thoughts of others, even when

these ideas are not like his own. I consider it a duty and an honor to

inscribe this work to M. Guizot.

H. A. TAINE.

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

The publication of M. Taine's "History of English Literature," in 1864,

and its translation into English, in 1872, mark an epoch in educational

history, especially in that of America. Prior to the appearance of this

work, the total knowledge of British writers gained in the school and

college life of the ordinary American youth was generally derived in the

form of blind memorization from one text-book. This book was a

combination of minute biographical detail with the generalities and

abstractions of criticism. The student, and the general reader as well,

did not really study the great writers at all; he simply memorized what

someone had written about them; and he tried, generally in vain, to

comprehend the real concrete significance of such critical terms as

"bald, nervous, sonorous," etc. But with the distribution of M.

Taine's great work came the beginning of better things. It was the first

step in an evolution by no means yet completed--a movement paralleled in

the development of methods of scientific study during the last four

decades. Forty years ago the pupil did not study oxygen, electricity, or

cellulose; he simply memorized what someone had written _about_ these

elements. He never touched and rarely saw the things themselves, and he

counted himself fortunate if his instructor had the energy and the

facilities to perform before the wondering class a few stock

experiments. But all this has been changed. It is now universally

recognized that the only sound method of studying any science is the

laboratory method; that is, the study of the thing itself in all its

manifestations. In methods of studying literature the progress towards a

true scientific, that is, a laboratory method, has been much slower, but

it seems almost equally sure. We are just now in the intermediate stage,

where we study "editions with notes." Our educators, as a rule, have yet

to learn that to memorize biographical data and the mere generalities

and negations of criticism, or to trace out obscure allusions and

doubtful meanings, is not to study a writer in any broad or fruitful

sense. But the movement towards a true scientific method is already well

begun; and, as we have said, to M. Taine belongs the honor of taking the

initial step.

With Taine's work in hand the thoughtful reader may realize to a large

extent the significance of Leslie Stephen's memorable dictum: "The whole

art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who is

partially revealed to us in his written and spoken words." M. Taine's

pages continually attest his deep conviction that "the style is the

man," in a very comprehensive sense. In his Introduction to his "History

of English Literature," we find such statements as these:--"You study

the document only to know the man, just as you study the fossil shell

only to know the animal behind it; Genuine history is brought into

existence only when the historian begins to unravel... the living man,

toiling, impassioned, entrenched in his customs, with his voice and

features, his gestures and dress, distinct and complete as he from whom

we have just parted in the street; Twenty select phrases from Plato

and Aristophanes will teach you much more than a multitude of

dissertations and commentaries; The true critic is present at the

drama which was enacted in the soul of the artist or the writer; the

choice of a word, the brevity or length of a sentence, the nature

of a metaphor, the accent of a verse, the development of an

argument--everything is a symbol to him;... in short he works out its

(the text's) psychology; there is a cause for ambition, for courage, for

truth, as there is for muscular movement or animal heat." To put M.

Taine's great and characteristic merit into a sentence, we may say that

he was the first writer on English literature to apply to it the

fundamental principle, patent to every person of reflection, that we

necessarily think in concrete terms, and that, therefore, a treatise

must be valuable just in proportion to the concreteness of its

presentation.

In order to show how great was the advance made by M. Taine's work over

its predecessors, let us take a classic English writer at random and

compare the treatment given him by M. Taine with that given in the

text-book already mentioned. Suppose we open to the discussion of

Addison. In the latter work we are told that he was born in 1672 and

died in 1719; that he was a son of Lancelot Addison, a clergyman of some

reputation for learning; that Addison studied at the Charter House,

where he formed a friendship with Richard Steele; that he afterwards

entered Oxford; that he wrote various short poems and one long one, of

which six whole lines are given as a specimen. We are told, also, that

Addison held, in succession, certain political offices; that he

contributed one-sixth of the papers found in Steele's "Tatler," more

than one-half of those in the "Spectator," and one-third of those in the

"Guardian"; that he published a drama called "Cato," which, the book

informs us, is "cold, solemn, and pompous, written with scrupulous

regard for the classical unities." We learn, further, that Addison

married a countess, and died at the early age of forty-seven; that he

had a quarrel with Pope; that his papers published in the "Tatler," the

"Spectator," and the "Guardian" are marked by "fertility of invention

and singular felicity of treatment"; that their variety is wonderful,

and that everything is treated "with singular appropriateness and

unforced energy"; that "there is a singular harmony between the language

and the thought" (whatever that may mean); that Addison's delineations

of the characters of men are wonderfully delicate; that he possessed

humor in its highest and most delicate perfection; that his hymns

breathe a fervent and tender spirit of piety. Contrary to the usage of

its author, the text-book gives the whole sixteen lines of Addison's

most famous hymn--the longest illustrative quotation in the whole four

hundred pages--one blessed little oasis in a vast desert of dry

biographical minutiæ and the abstract generalities of criticism. In the

eight pages devoted to Addison there are not more than ten lines of real

criticism; and these consist, for the most part, of what, to the

ordinary reader, are meaningless adjectives or high-sounding epithets.

Yet this is one of the very best chapters in the book. It is certainly a

fair specimen of the barren method generally prevalent before the

appearance of M. Taine's work.

Now let us compare his treatment of Addison. In the first place,

scattered through the eighteen pages devoted to that writer

(single-volume edition) we find no less than twenty-two illustrative

passages, varying in length from six to 176 lines of very fine print. In

his general treatment M. Taine begins by tracing the physical, social,

and moral environment of Addison, thus leading us up to the

consideration of the man and the writer by a natural process of

evolution. We are first shown what kind of a man to expect, and then we

are made acquainted with him. And all this is done with the most vivid

and brilliant touches. Mere biographical details are either ignored or

given incidental mention. The opening paragraph is a _tableau vivant_,

which we see Addison at Oxford, "studious, peaceful, loving solitary

walks under the elm avenues." We are told how, from boyhood, "his memory

is stuffed with Latin verses"; how "this limited culture, leaving him

weaker, made him more refined" how "he acquired a taste for the elegance

and refinement, the triumphs and the artifices, of style"; how he became

"an epicure in literature"; how "he naturally loved beautiful things"; how

"Addison, good and just himself, trusted in God, also a being good and

just"; how he writes his lay sermons; how "he cannot suffer languishing

or lazy habits"; how "he is full of epigrams against flirtations,

extravagant toilets, useless visits"; how "he explains God, reducing him

to a mere magnified man"; with what literal precision he describes

Heaven; how he "inserts prayers in his papers and forbids oaths"; how he

made morality fashionable.

These illustrations of M. Taine's method might be multiplied

indefinitely, but enough have surely been quoted to demonstrate how

vastly more vivid and concrete is the idea of Addison, the man and the

writer, gained by this method in comparison with that which was in

general vogue before the publication of M. Taine's book. In the one case

the reader has come into contact with a mere abstraction--a man of

straw, with not a single feature that impresses itself on the

imagination or the memory. In the other, he has come into communion with

a real living soul--a man "of like passions with ourselves."

But the very qualities of the great French critic which make his book so

helpful are the source of his defects as a writer. These qualities are

national quite as much as individual. It is a truism that the French

people lead the world in the field of criticism as applied to both

literature and art. This superiority is strikingly illustrated also in

St. Beuve, and is due to a certain quickness of perception, a certain

power of concrete illustration, that seems inherent in the race of

cultivated Frenchmen. M. Taine himself well defines this ethnic trait

when he speaks of "France, with her Parisian culture, with her

drawing-room manners, with her untiring analysis of characters and

actions, her irony so ready to hit upon a weakness, her _finesse_ so

practised in the discrimination of modes of thought." This national

talent is almost invariably associated with a nervous, sanguine

temperament, which easily tends to extremes of expression. We are

therefore compelled to read M. Taine with some degree of caution when we

are seeking exact statement and strict limitation.

Again, M. Taine is sometimes inaccurate or unjust from a lack of

sympathy. He sometimes finds it impossible to rid himself of his Gallic

predilections and aversions, especially when treating of the Puritan

character or the stolid English morality. He cannot appreciate the

religious conditions that surround his subject. He is always the

Frenchman discussing the English writer. He cannot forbear to contrast

the effect or the reception accorded to an author's work in England with

that which it would have received in France; as when he says, concerning

Addison's lay sermons in the "Spectator": "I know very well what success

a newspaper full of sermons would have in France"; and again: "If a

Frenchman was forbidden to swear, he would probably laugh at the first

word of the admonition." A little farther on he objects to what he

calls, with certainly picturesque concreteness, "the sticky plaster of

his (Addison's) morality"--an expression that has led to Minto's sharp

retort that Addison's morality was something which it is quite

impossible for the Gallic conscience to conceive. Another illustration

of that bias which compels us to be somewhat on our guard in reading

Taine is found in his treatment of Milton. Although we may admit that

the great Puritan poet peopled his paradise with characters having

altogether too strong a British tinge, we are almost shocked to hear

Taine and his disciple, Edmond Scherer, dilate upon Milton's Adam as

"your true paterfamilias, with a vote; an M. P., an old Oxford man,"

etc., etc., or to hear them exclaim, "What a great many votes she (Eve)

will gain among the country squires when Adam stands for Parliament!"

Quite as striking is M. Taine's inability to understand Wordsworth.

But, after making these and all other due admissions concerning Taine's

work, the fact stands that his "History of English Literature" meets

fully Lowell's quaint definition of a classic, when he says, "After all,

to be delightful is a classic." In reading this work we never feel that

we have in our hands a text-book or even a history. It is rather a

living, moving panorama. We see again the old miracles and moralities,

with their queer shifts and their stark incongruities; we see the

drawing-rooms and hear the conversation of the reign of Queen Anne, and

walk through Fleet Street with Johnson. In a word, we realize in no

small degree the full meaning of Leslie Stephen's dictum, in that we

really feel that we know, in some degree at least, "the human being who

is partially revealed to us in his written and spoken words."

Of course, no introduction to this work would be complete without some

reference to the psychological theory on which it is based. We have

reserved this point to the last because, for the general reader, what

Taine says and how he says it, are far more interesting considerations

than any theories on which the book may be based. In a word, the author

held that both the character and the style of a writer are the outgrowth

of his social and natural environment. And this environment, in Taine's

opinion, affects not only the individual but the national character as

manifested in the national literature. In discussing any literary

production he would first ask: To what race and nation does the author

belong? What is the influence of his geographical position and of his

nation's advance in civilization? What about the duration of the

literary phase represented by the writer in question? In developing this

theory of the influence of environment M. Taine doubtless sometimes

treats as permanent scientific factors influences and circumstances that

are in their very nature variable. Yet this application of the theory is

as consistent and plausible as it is everywhere apparent. A few

illustrations of his psychological theory will make more plain than much

abstract discussion the almost fatalistic nature of his method. For

example, after vividly portraying the political and social conditions

that had surrounded Milton from his birth, the French critic asks: "Can

we expect urbanity here?" Again, in tracing Dryden's beginnings, he

says: "Such circumstances announce and prepare, not an artist, but a man

of letters." Much might be written of the detailed application of M.

Taine's psychological theory. But the reader has already been too long

detained from a perusal of the riches that fill the following pages.

Charles Lamb once wrote: "I prefer the affections to the sciences." The

majority of the readers of M. Taine will doubtless find so much to enjoy

in his brilliant pages that they will care little for his theories, and

will not allow certain defects in his sympathies to mar their enjoyment

of this monumental work.

J. SCOTT CLARK

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. Historical documents serve only as a clue to reconstruct the visible

individual

II. The outer man is only a clue to study the inner, invisible man

III. The state and the actions of the inner and invisible man have their

causes in certain general ways of thought and feeling

IV. Chief causes of thought and feeling. Their historical effects

V. The three primordial forces.--Race

Surroundings

Epoch

VI. History is a mechanical and psychological problem. Within certain

limits man can foretell

Primordial Causes

VII. Law of formation of a group. Examples and indications

VIII. General problem and future of history. Psychological method.

Value of literature. Purpose in writing this book

BOOK I.--THE SOURCE

CHAPTER FIRST

The Saxons

SECTION I.--The Coast of the North Sea

SECTION II.--The Northern Barbarians

SECTION III.--Saxon Ideas

SECTION IV.--Saxon Heroes

SECTION V.--Pagan Poems

SECTION VI.--Christian Poems

SECTION VII.--Primitive Saxon Authors

SECTION VIII.--Virility of the Saxon Race

CHAPTER SECOND

The Normans

SECTION I.--The Feudal Man

SECTION II.--Normans and Saxons Contrasted

SECTION III.--French Forms of Thought

SECTION IV.--The Normans in England

SECTION V.--The English Tongue--Early English Literary Impulses

SECTION VI.--Feudal Civilization

SECTION VII.--Persistence of Saxon Ideas

SECTION VIII.--The English Constitution

SECTION IX.--Piers Plowman and Wyclif

CHAPTER THIRD

The New Tongue

SECTION I.--The First Great Poet

SECTION II.--The Decline of the Middle Ages

SECTION III.--The Poetry of Chaucer

SECTION IV.--Characteristics of the Canterbury Tales

SECTION V.--The Art of Chaucer

SECTION VI.--Scholastic Philosophy

BOOK II.--THE RENAISSANCE

CHAPTER FIRST

The Pagan Renaissance

_PART I.--Manners of the Time_

SECTION I.--Ideas of the Middle Ages

SECTION II.--Growth of New Ideas

SECTION III.--Popular Festivals

SECTION IV.--Influence of Classic Literature

_PART II.--Poetry_

SECTION I.--Renaissance of Saxon Genius

SECTION II.--The Earl of Surrey

SECTION III.--Surrey's Style

SECTION IV.--Development of Artistic Ideas

SECTION V.--Wherein Lies the Strength of the Poetry of this Period

SECTION VI--Edmund Spenser

SECTION VII.--Spenser in his Relation to the Renaissance

_PART III.--Prose_

SECTION I.--The Decay of Poetry

SECTION II.--The Intellectual Level of the Renaissance

SECTION III.--Robert Burton

SECTION IV.--Sir Thomas Browne

SECTION V.--Francis Bacon

CHAPTER SECOND

The Theatre

SECTION I.--The Public and the Stage

SECTION II.--Manners of the Sixteenth Century

SECTION III.--Some Aspects of the English Mind

SECTION IV.--The Poets of the Period

SECTION V.--Formation of the Drama

SECTION VI.--Furious Passions--Exaggerated Characters

SECTION VII.--Female Characters

CHAPTER THIRD

Ben Jonson

SECTION I.--The Man--His Life

SECTION II.--His Freedom and Precision of Style

SECTION III.--The Dramas Catiline and Sejanus

SECTION IV.--Comedies

SECTION V.--Limits of Jonson's Talent--His Smaller Poems--His Masques

SECTION VI.--General Idea of Shakespeare

CHAPTER FOURTH

Shakespeare

SECTION I.--Life and Character of Shakespeare

SECTION II.--Shakespeare's Style--Copiousness--Excesses

SECTION III.--Shakespeare's Language And Manners

SECTION IV.--Dramatis Personæ

SECTION V.--Men of Wit

SECTION VI.--Shakespeare's Women

SECTION VII.--Types of Villains

SECTION VIII.--Principal Characters

SECTION IX.--Characteristics of Shakespeare's Genius

INDEX

[Illustration: HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE PAINE.

_Photogravure from an engraving._

This picture shows the eminent French critic as he appeared thirty years

ago. At that period his fame as a literary savant was spreading to the

four quarters of the world, and he was lecturing daily to the crowds of

students who had flocked to Paris to study literature under his

guidance. In personal appearance he was unlike the traditional scholar,

but resembled, in his quick, nervous energy and plain business-like

ways, a keen-witted man of affairs. He was simple in dress, as the

picture shows, and it is a noteworthy fact that the honors he received

never caused him to lose his self-poise, or to cease his severe studies,

which he carried on with diligence to the very day of his death. His

face denotes the cool, critical, and well-balanced scholar, with the

initiative to enter new fields of thought, and the will-power to impress

his opinions upon others.]

ILLUSTRATIONS

SHAKESPEARE BEFORE SIR THOMAS LUCY

Photogravure from the original painting

ADOLPHE HIPPOLYTE TAINE

Photogravure from an engraving

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Photogravure from an old engraving

THE NEW PSALTER OF THE VIRGIN MARY

Fac-simile example of Printing and Engraving in the Fifteenth Century

TITLE-PAGE OF THE HYPNEROTOMACHIA

Fac-simile example of Printing and Engraving in the Sixteenth Century

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

I. Historical documents serve only as a clue to reconstruct the visible

individual

History, within a hundred years in Germany, and within sixty years in

France, has undergone a transformation, owing to a study of literatures.

The discovery has been made that a literary work is not a mere play of

the imagination, the isolated caprice of an excited brain, but a

transcript of contemporary manners and customs and the sign of a

particular state of intellect. The conclusion derived from this is that,

through literary monuments, we can retrace the way in which men felt and

thought many centuries ago. This method has been tried and found

successful.

We have meditated over these ways of feeling and thinking and have

accepted them as facts of prime significance. We have found that they

were dependent on most important events, that they explain these, and

that these explain them, and that henceforth it was necessary to give

them their place in history, and one of the highest. This place has been

assigned to them, and hence all is changed in history—the aim, the

method, the instrumentalities, and the conceptions of laws and of

causes. It is this change as now going on, and which must continue to go

on, that is here attempted to be set forth.

On turning over the large stiff pages of a folio volume, or the yellow

leaves of a manuscript, in short, a poem, a code of laws, a confession

of faith, what is your first comment? You say to yourself that the work

before you is not of its own creation. It is simply a mold like a fossil

shell, an imprint similar to one of those forms embedded in a stone by

an animal which once lived and perished. Beneath the shell was an animal

and behind the document there was a man. Why do you study the shell

unless to form some idea of the animal? In the same way do you study the

document in order to comprehend the man; both shell and document are

dead fragments and of value only as indications of the complete living

being. The aim is to reach this being; this is what you strive to

reconstruct. It is a mistake to study the document as if it existed

alone by itself. That is treating things merely as a pedant, and you

subject yourself to the illusions of a book-worm. At bottom mythologies

and languages are not existences; the only realities are human beings

who have employed words and imagery adapted to their organs and to suit

the original cast of their intellects. A creed is nothing in itself. Who

made it? Look at this or that portrait of the sixteenth century, the

stern, energetic features of an archbishop or of an English martyr.

Nothing exists except through the individual; it is necessary to know

the individual himself. Let the parentage of creeds be established, or

the classification of poems, or the growth of constitutions, or the

transformations of idioms, and we have only cleared the ground. True

history begins when the historian has discerned beyond the mists of ages

the living, active man, endowed with passions, furnished with habits,

special in voice, feature, gesture, and costume, distinctive and

complete, like anybody that you have just encountered in the street. Let

us strive then, as far as possible, to get rid of this great interval of

time which prevents us from observing the man with our eyes, the eyes of

our own head. What revelations do we find in the calendered leaves of a

modern poem? A modern poet, a man like De Musset, Victor Hugo,

Lamartine, or Heine, graduated from a college and travelled, wearing a

dress-coat and gloves, favored by ladies, bowing fifty times and

uttering a dozen witticisms in an evening, reading daily newspapers,

generally occupying an apartment on the second story, not over-cheerful

on account of his nerves, and especially because, in this dense

democracy in which we stifle each other, the discredit of official rank

exaggerates his pretensions by raising his importance, and, owing to the

delicacy of his personal sensations, leading him to regard himself as a

Deity. Such is what we detect behind modern meditations and sonnets.

Again, behind a tragedy of the seventeenth century there is a poet, one,

for example, like Racine, refined, discreet, a courtier, a fine talker,

with majestic perruque and ribboned shoes, a monarchist and zealous

Christian, "God having given him the grace not to blush in any society

on account of zeal for his king or for the Gospel," clever in

interesting the monarch, translating into proper French "the _gaulois_

of Amyot," deferential to the great, always knowing how to keep his

place in their company, assiduous and respectful at Marly as at

Versailles, amid the formal creations of a decorative landscape and the

reverential bows, graces, intrigues, and finesses of the braided

seigniors who get up early every morning to obtain the reversion of an

office, together with the charming ladies who count on their fingers the

pedigrees which entitle them to a seat on a footstool. On this point

consult Saint-Simon and the engravings of Pérelle, the same as you have

just consulted Balzac and the water-color drawings of Eugène Lami.

In like manner, on reading a Greek tragedy, our first care is to figure

to ourselves the Greeks, that is to say, men who lived half-naked in the

gymnasiums or on a public square under a brilliant sky, in full view of

the noblest and most delicate landscape, busy in rendering their bodies

strong and agile, in conversing together, in arguing, in voting, in

carrying out patriotic piracies, and yet idle and temperate, the

furniture of their houses consisting of three earthen jars and their

food of two pots of anchovies preserved in oil, served by slaves who

afford them the time to cultivate their minds and to exercise their

limbs, with no other concern than that of having the most beautiful

city, the most beautiful processions, the most beautiful ideas, and the

most beautiful men. In this respect, a statue like the "Meleager" or the

"Theseus" of the Parthenon, or again a sight of the blue and lustrous

Mediterranean, resembling a silken tunic out of which islands arise like

marble bodies, together with a dozen choice phrases selected from the

works of Plato and Aristophanes, teach us more than any number of

dissertations and commentaries.

And so again, in order to understand an Indian Purana, one must begin by

imagining the father of a family who, "having seen a son on his son's

knees," follows the law and, with axe and pitcher, seeks solitude under

a banyan trees, talks no more, multiplies his fastings, lives naked with

four fires around him under the fifth fire, that terrible sun which

endlessly devours and resuscitates all living things; who fixes his

imagination in turn for weeks at a time on the foot of Brahma, then on

his knee, on his thigh, on his navel, and so on, until, beneath the

strain of this intense meditation, hallucinations appear, when all the

forms of being, mingling together and transformed into each other,

oscillate to and fro in this vertiginous brain until the motionless man,

with suspended breath and fixed eyeballs, beholds the universe melting

away like vapor over the vacant immensity of the Being in which he hopes

for absorption. In this case the best of teachings would be a journey in

India; but, for lack of a better one, take the narratives of travellers

along with works in geography, botany, and ethnology. In any event,

there must be the same research. A language, a law, a creed, is never

other than an abstraction; the perfect thing is found in the active man,

the visible corporeal figure which eats, walks, fights, and labors. Set

aside the theories of constitutions and their results, of religions and

their systems, and try to observe men in their workshops or offices, in

their fields along with their own sky and soil, with their own homes,

clothes, occupations and repasts, just as you see them when, on landing

in England or in Italy, you remark their features and gestures, their

roads and their inns, the citizen on his promenades and the workman

taking a drink. Let us strive as much as possible to supply the place of

the actual, personal, sensible observation that is no longer

practicable, this being the only way in which we can really know the

man; let us make the past present; to judge of an object it must be

present; no experience can be had of what is absent. Undoubtedly, this

sort of reconstruction is always imperfect; only an imperfect judgment

can be based on it; but let us do the best we can; incomplete knowledge

is better than none at all, or than knowledge which is erroneous, and

there is no other way of obtaining knowledge approximatively of bygone

times than by seeing approximatively the men of former times.

Such is the first step in history. This, step was taken in Europe at the

end of the last century when the imagination took fresh flight under the

auspices of Lessing and Walter Scott, and a little later in France under

Chateaubriand, Augustin Thierry, Michelet, and others. We now come to

the second step.

II. The outer man is only a clue to study the inner, invisible man

On observing the visible man with your own eyes what do you try to find

in him? The invisible man. These words which your ears catch, those

gestures, those airs of the head, his attire and sensible operations of

all kinds, are, for you, merely so many expressions; these express

something, a soul. An inward man is hidden beneath the outward man, and

the latter simply manifests the former. You have observed the house in

which he lives, his furniture, his costume, in order to discover his

habits and tastes, the degree of his refinement or rusticity, his

extravagance or economy, his follies or his cleverness. You have

listened to his conversation and noted the inflections of his voice, the

attitudes he has assumed, so as to judge of his spirit, self-abandonment

or gayety, his energy or his rigidity. You consider his writings, works

of art, financial and political schemes, with a view to measure the

reach and limits of his intelligence, his creative power and

self-command, to ascertain the usual order, kind, and force of his

conceptions, in what way he thinks and how he resolves. All these

externals are so many avenues converging to one centre, and you follow

these only to reach that centre; here is the real man, namely, that

group of faculties and of sentiments which produces the rest. Behold a

new world, an infinite world; for each visible action involves an

infinite train of reasonings and emotions, new or old sensations which

have combined to bring this into light and which, like long ledges of

rock sunk deep in the earth, have cropped out above the surface and

attained their level. It is this subterranean world which forms the

second aim, the special object of the historian. If his critical

education suffices, he is able to discriminate under every ornament in

architecture, under every stroke of the brush in a picture, under each

phrase of literary composition, the particular sentiment out of which

the ornament, the stroke, and the phrase have sprung; he is a spectator

of the inward drama which has developed itself in the breast of the

artist or writer; the choice of words, the length or shortness of the

period, the species of metaphor, the accent of a verse, the chain of

reasoning--all are to him an indication; while his eyes are reading the

text his mind and soul are following the steady flow and ever-changing

series of emotions and conceptions from which this text has issued; he

is working out its psychology. Should you desire to study this

operation, regard the promoter and model of all the high culture of the

epoch, Goethe, who, before composing his "Iphigenia" spent days in

making drawings of the most perfect statues and who, at last, his eyes

filled with the noble forms of antique scenery and his mind penetrated

by the harmonious beauty of antique life, succeeded in reproducing

internally, with such exactness, the habits and yearnings of Greek

imagination as to provide us with an almost twin sister of the

"Antigone" of Sophocles and of the goddesses of Phidias. This exact and

demonstrated divination of bygone sentiments has, in our days, given a

new life to history. There was almost complete ignorance of this in the

last century; men of every race and of every epoch were represented as

about alike, the Greek, the barbarian, the Hindoo, the man of the

Renaissance and the man of the eighteenth century, cast in the same mold

and after the same pattern, and after a certain abstract conception

which served for the whole human species. There was a knowledge of man

but not of men. There was no penetration into the soul itself; nothing

of the infinite diversity and wonderful complexity of souls had been

detected; it was not known that the moral organization of a people or of

an age is as special and distinct as the physical structure of a family

of plants or of an order of animals. History to-day, like zoölogy, has

found its anatomy, and whatever branch of it is studied, whether

philology, languages or mythologies, it is in this way that labor must

be given to make it produce new fruit. Among so many writers who, since

Herder, Ottfried Müller, and Goethe have steadily followed and

rectified this great effort, let the reader take two historians and two

works, one "The Life and Letters of Cromwell" by Carlyle, and the other

the "Port Royal" of Sainte-Beuve. He will see how precisely, how

clearly, and how profoundly we detect the soul of a man beneath his

actions and works; how, under an old general and in place of an

ambitious man vulgarly hypocritical, we find one tormented by the

disordered reveries of a gloomy imagination, but practical in instinct

and faculties, thoroughly English and strange and incomprehensible to

whoever has not studied the climate and the race; how, with about a

hundred scattered letters and a dozen or more mutilated speeches, we

follow him from his farm and his team to his general's tent and to his

Protector's throne, in his transformation and in his development, in his

struggles of conscience and in his statesman's resolutions, in such a

way that the mechanism of his thought and action becomes visible and the

ever renewed and fitful tragedy, within which racked this great gloomy

soul, passes like the tragedies of Shakespeare into the souls of those

who behold them. We see how, behind convent disputes and the obstinacy

of nuns, we recover one of the great provinces of human psychology; how

fifty or more characters, rendered invisible through the uniformity of a

narration careful of the properties, come forth in full daylight, each

standing out clear in its countless diversities; how, underneath

theological dissertations and monotonous sermons, we discern the

throbbings of ever-breathing hearts, the excitements and depressions of

the religious life, the unforeseen reaction and pell-mell stir of

natural feeling, the infiltrations of surrounding society, the

intermittent triumphs of grace, presenting so many shades of difference

that the fullest description and most flexible style can scarcely garner

in the vast harvest which the critic has caused to germinate in this

abandoned field. And the same elsewhere. Germany, with its genius, so

pliant, so broad, so prompt in transformations, so fitted for the

reproduction of the remotest and strangest states of human thought;

England, with its matter-of-fact mind, so suited to the grappling with

moral problems, to making them clear by figures, weights, and measures,

by geography and statistics, by texts and common sense; France, at

length, with its Parisian culture and drawing-room habits, with its

unceasing analysis of characters and of works, with its ever ready irony

at detecting weaknesses, with its skilled finesse in discriminating

shades of thought--all have ploughed over the same ground, and we now

begin to comprehend that no region of history exists in which this deep

sub-soil should not be reached if we would secure adequate crops between

the furrows.

Such is the second step, and we are now in train to follow it out. Such

is the proper aim of contemporary criticism. No one has done this work

so judiciously and on so grand a scale as Sainte-Beuve; in this respect,

we are all his pupils; literary, philosophic, and religious criticism in

books, and even in the newspapers, is to-day entirely changed by his

method. Ulterior evolution must start from this point. I have often

attempted to expose what this evolution is; in my opinion, it is a new

road open to history and which I shall strive to describe more in

detail.

III. The state and the actions of the inner and invisible man have their

causes in certain general ways of thought and feeling

After having observed in a man and noted down one, two, three, and then

a multitude of, sentiments, do these suffice and does your knowledge of

him seem complete? Does a memorandum book constitute a psychology? It is

not a psychology, and here, as elsewhere, the search for causes must

follow the collection of facts. It matters not what the facts may be,

whether physical or moral, they always spring from causes; there are

causes for ambition, for courage, for veracity, as well as for

digestion, for muscular action, and for animal heat. Vice and virtue are

products like vitriol and sugar; every complex fact grows out of the

simple facts with which it is affiliated and on which it depends. We

must therefore try to ascertain what simple facts underlie moral

qualities the same as we ascertain those that underlie physical

qualities, and, for example, let us take the first fact that comes to

hand, a religious system of music, that of a Protestant church. A

certain inward cause has inclined the minds of worshippers towards these

grave, monotonous melodies, a cause much greater than its effect; that

is to say, a general conception of the veritable outward forms of

worship which man owes to God; it is this general conception which has

shaped the architecture of the temple, cast out statues, dispensed with

paintings, effaced ornaments, shortened ceremonies, confined the members

of a congregation to high pews which cut off the view, and governed the

thousand details of decoration, posture, and all other externals. This

conception itself again proceeds from a more general cause, an idea of

human conduct in general, inward and outward, prayers, actions,

dispositions of every sort that man is bound to maintain toward the

Deity; it is this which has enthroned the doctrine of grace, lessened

the importance of the clergy, transformed the sacraments, suppressed

observances, and changed the religion of discipline into one of

morality. This conception, in its turn, depends on a third one, still

more general, that of moral perfection as this is found in a perfect

God, the impeccable judge, the stern overseer, who regards every soul as

sinful, meriting punishment, incapable of virtue or of salvation, except

through a stricken conscience which He provokes and the renewal of the

heart which He brings about. Here is the master conception, consisting

of duty erected into the absolute sovereign of human life, and which

prostrates all other ideals at the feet of the moral ideal. Here we

reach what is deepest in man; for, to explain this conception, we must

consider the race he belongs to, say the German, the Northman, the

formation and character of his intellect, his ways in general of

thinking and feeling, that tardiness and frigidity of sensation which

keeps him from rashly and easily falling under the empire of sensual

enjoyments, that bluntness of taste, that irregularity and those

outbursts of conception which arrest in him the birth of refined and

harmonious forms and methods; that disdain of appearances, that yearning

for truth, that attachment to abstract, bare ideas which develop

conscience in him at the expense of everything else. Here the search

comes to an end. We have reached a certain primitive disposition, a

particular trait belonging to sensations of all kinds, to every

conception peculiar to an age or to a race, to characteristics

inseparable from every idea and feeling that stir in the human breast.

Such are the grand causes, for these are universal and permanent causes,

present in every case and at every moment, everywhere, and always

active, indestructible, and inevitably dominant in the end, since,

whatever accidents cross their path, being limited and partial, end in

yielding to the obscure and incessant repetition of their energy; so

that the general structure of things and all the main features of events

are their work, all religions and philosophies, all poetic and

industrial systems, all forms of society and of the family, all, in

fine, being imprints bearing the stamp of their seal.

IV. Chief causes of thought and feeling. Their historical effects

There is, then, a system in human ideas and sentiments, the prime motor

of which consists in general traits, certain characteristics of thought

and feeling common to men belonging to a particular race, epoch, or

country. Just as crystals in mineralogy, whatever their diversity,

proceed from a few simple physical forms, so do civilizations in

history, however these may differ, proceed from a few spiritual forms.

One is explained by a primitive geometrical element as the other is

explained by a primitive psychological element. In order to comprehend

the entire group of mineralogical species we must first study a regular

solid in the general, its facets and angles, and observe in this

abridged form the innumerable transformations of which it is

susceptible. In like manner, if we would comprehend the entire group of

historic varieties we must consider beforehand a human soul in the

general, with its two or three fundamental faculties, and, in this

abridgment, observe the principal forms it may present. This sort of

ideal tableau, the geometrical as well as psychological, is not very

complex, and we soon detect the limitations of organic conditions to

which civilizations, the same as crystals, are forcibly confined. What

do we find in man at the point of departure? Images or representations

of objects, namely, that which floats before him internally, lasts a

certain time, is effaced, and then returns after contemplating this or

that tree or animal, in short, some sensible object. This forms the

material basis of the rest and the development of this material basis is

twofold, speculative or positive, just as these representations end in a

general conception or in an active resolution. Such is man, summarily

abridged. It is here, within these narrow confines, that human

diversities are encountered, now in the matter itself and again in the

primordial twofold development. However insignificant in the elements

they are of vast significance in the mass, while the slightest change in

the factors leads to gigantic changes in the results. According as the

representation is distinct, as if stamped by a coining-press, or

confused and blurred; according as it concentrates in itself a larger or

smaller number of the characters of an object; according as it is

violent and accompanied with impulsions or tranquil and surrounded with

calmness, so are all the operations and the whole running-gear of the

human machine entirely transformed. In like manner again, according as

the ulterior development of the representation varies, so does the whole

development of the man vary. If the general conception in which this

ends is merely a dry notation in Chinese fashion, language becomes a

kind of algebra, religion and poetry are reduced to a minimum,

philosophy is brought down to a sort of moral and practical common

sense, science to a collection of recipes, classifications, and

utilitarian mnemonics, the mind itself taking a wholly positive turn.

If, on the contrary, the general conception in which the representation

culminates is a poetic and figurative creation, a living symbol, as with

the Aryan races, language becomes a sort of shaded and tinted epic in

which each word stands as a personage, poesy and religion assume

magnificent and inexhaustible richness, and metaphysics develops with

breadth and subtlety without any consideration of positive bearings; the

whole intellect, notwithstanding the deviation and inevitable weaknesses

of the effort, is captivated by the beautiful and sublime, thus

conceiving an ideal type which, through its nobleness and harmony,

gathers to itself all the affections and enthusiasms of humanity. If, on

the other hand, the general conception in which the representation

culminates is poetic but abrupt, is reached not gradually but by sudden

intuition, if the original operation is not a regular development but a

violent explosion--then, as with the Semitic races, metaphysical power

is wanting; the religious conception becomes that of a royal God,

consuming and solitary; science cannot take shape, the intellect grows

rigid and too headstrong to reproduce the delicate ordering of nature;

poetry cannot give birth to aught but a series of vehement, grandiose

exclamations, while language no longer renders the concatenation of

reasoning and eloquence, man being reduced to lyric enthusiasm, to

ungovernable passion, and to narrow and fanatical action. It is in this

interval between the particular representation and the universal

conception that the germs of the greatest human differences are found.

Some races, like the classic, for example, pass from the former to the

latter by a graduated scale of ideas regularly classified and more and

more general; others, like the Germanic, traverse the interval in leaps,

with uniformity and after prolonged and uncertain groping. Others, like

the Romans and the English, stop at the lowest stages; others, like the

Hindoos and Germans, mount to the uppermost. If, now, after considering

the passage from the representation to the idea, we regard the passage

from the representation to the resolution, we find here elementary

differences of like importance and of the same order, according as the

impression is vivid, as in Southern climes, or faint, as in Northern

climes, as it ends in instantaneous action as with barbarians, or

tardily as with civilized nations, as it is capable or not of growth, of

inequality, of persistence and of association. The entire system of

human passion, all the risks of public peace and security, all labor and

action, spring from these sources. It is the same with the other

primordial differences; their effects embrace an entire civilization,

and may be likened to those algebraic formulæ which, within narrow

bounds, describe beforehand the curve of which these form the law. Not

that this law always prevails to the end; sometimes, perturbations

arise, but, even when this happens, it is not because the law is

defective, but because it has not operated alone. New elements have

entered into combination with old ones; powerful foreign forces have

interfered to oppose primitive forces. The race has emigrated, as with

the ancient Aryans, and the change of climate has led to a change in the

whole intellectual economy and structure of society. A people has been

conquered like the Saxon nation, and the new political structure has

imposed on it customs, capacities, and desires which it did not possess.

The nation has established itself permanently in the midst of

downtrodden and threatening subjects, as with the ancient Spartans,

while the necessity of living, as in an armed encampment, has violently

turned the whole moral and social organization in one unique direction.

At all events, the mechanism of human history is like this. We always

find the primitive mainspring consisting of some widespread tendency of

soul and intellect, either innate and natural to the race or acquired by

it and due to some circumstance forced upon it. These great given

mainsprings gradually produce their effects, that is to say, at the end

of a few centuries they place the nation in a new religious, literary,

social, and economic state; a new condition which, combined with their

renewed effort, produces another condition, sometimes a good one,

sometimes a bad one, now slowly, now rapidly, and so on; so that the

entire development of each distinct civilization may be considered as

the effect of one permanent force which, at every moment, varies its

work by modifying the circumstances where it acts.

V. The three primordial forces.--Race

Three different sources contribute to the production of this elementary

moral state, race, environment, and epoch. What we call race consists of

those innate and hereditary dispositions which man brings with him into

the world and which are generally accompanied with marked differences of

temperament and of bodily structure. They vary in different nations.

Naturally, there are varieties of men as there are varieties of cattle

and horses, some brave and intelligent, and others timid and of limited

capacity; some capable of superior conceptions and creations, and others

reduced to rudimentary ideas and contrivances; some specially fitted for

certain works, and more richly furnished with certain instincts, as we

see in the better endowed species of dogs, some for running and others

for fighting, some for hunting and others for guarding houses and

flocks. We have here a distinct force; so distinct that, in spite of the

enormous deviations which both the other motors impress upon it, we

still recognize, and which a race like the Aryan people, scattered from

the Ganges to the Hebrides, established under all climates, ranged along

every degree of civilization, transformed by thirty centuries of

revolutions, shows nevertheless in its languages, in its religions, in

its literatures, and in its philosophies, the community of blood and of

intellect which still to-day binds together all its offshoots. However

they may differ, their parentage is not lost; barbarism, culture and

grafting, differences of atmosphere and of soil, fortunate or

unfortunate occurrences, have operated in vain; the grand

characteristics of the original form have lasted, and we find that the

two or three leading features of the primitive imprint are again

apparent under the subsequent imprints with which time has overlaid

them. There is nothing surprising in this extraordinary tenacity.

Although the immensity of the distance allows us to catch only a glimpse

in a dubious light of the origin of species,[1] the events of history

throw sufficient light on events anterior to history to explain the

almost unshaken solidity of primordial traits. At the moment of

encountering them, fifteen, twenty, and thirty centuries before our era,

in an Aryan, Egyptian, or Chinese, they represent the work of a much

greater number of centuries, perhaps the work of many myriads of

centuries. For, as soon as an animal is born it must adapt itself to its

[surroundings]; it breathes in another way, it renews itself differently,

it is otherwise stimulated according as the atmosphere, the food, and

the temperature are different. A different climate and situation create

different necessities and hence activities of a different kind; and

hence, again, a system of different habits, and, finally a system of

different aptitudes and instincts. Man, thus compelled to put himself in

equilibrium with circumstances, contracts a corresponding temperament

and character, and his character, like his temperament, are acquisitions

all the more stable because of the outward impression being more deeply

imprinted in him by more frequent repetitions and transmitted to his

offspring by more ancient heredity. So that at each moment of time, the

character of a people may be considered as a summary of all antecedent

actions and sensations; that is to say, as a quantity and as a weighty

mass, not infinite,[2] since all things in nature are limited, but

disproportionate to the rest and almost impossible to raise, since each

minute of an almost infinite past has contributed to render it heavier,

and, in order to turn the scale, it would require, on the other side, a

still greater accumulation of actions and sensations. Such is the first

and most abundant source of these master faculties from which historic

events are derived; and we see at once that if it is powerful it is

owing to its not being a mere source, but a sort of lake, and like a

deep reservoir wherein other sources have poured their waters for a

multitude of centuries.

When we have thus verified the internal structure of a race we must

consider the environment in which it lives. For man is not alone in the

world; nature envelops him and other men surround him; accidental and

secondary folds come and overspread the primitive and permanent fold,

while physical or social circumstances derange or complete the natural

groundwork surrendered to them. At one time climate has had its effect.

Although the history of Aryan nations can be only obscurely traced from

their common country to their final abodes, we can nevertheless affirm

that the profound difference which is apparent between the Germanic

races on the one hand, and the Hellenic and Latin races on the other,

proceeds in great part from the differences between the countries in

which they have established themselves--the former in cold and moist

countries, in the depths of gloomy forests and swamps, or on the borders

of a wild ocean, confined to melancholic or rude sensations, inclined to

drunkenness and gross feeding, leading a militant and carnivorous life;

the latter, on the contrary, living amidst the finest scenery, alongside

of a brilliant, sparkling sea inviting navigation and commerce, exempt

from the grosser cravings of the stomach, disposed at the start to

social habits and customs, to political organization, to the sentiments

and faculties which develop the art of speaking, the capacity for

enjoyment and invention in the sciences, in art, and in literature. At

another time, political events have operated, as in the two Italian

civilizations: the first one tending wholly to action, to conquest, to

government, and to legislation, through the primitive situation of a

city of refuge, a frontier emporium, and of an armed aristocracy which,

importing and enrolling foreigners and the vanquished under it, sets two

hostile bodies facing each other, with no outlet for its internal

troubles and rapacious instincts but systematic warfare; the second one,

excluded from unity and political ambition on a grand scale by the

permanency of its municipal system, by the cosmopolite situation of its

pope and by the military intervention of neighboring states, and

following the bent of its magnificent and harmonious genius, is wholly

carried over to the worship of voluptuousness and beauty. Finally, at

another time, social conditions have imposed their stamp as, eighteen

centuries ago, by Christianity, and twenty-five centuries ago by

Buddhism, when, around the Mediterranean as in Hindostan, the extreme

effects of Aryan conquest and organization led to intolerable

oppression, the crushing of the individual, utter despair, the whole

world under the ban of a curse, with the development of metaphysics and

visions, until man, in this dungeon of despondency, feeling his heart

melt, conceived of abnegation, charity, tender love, gentleness,

humility, human brotherhood, here in the idea of universal nothingness,

and there under that of the fatherhood of God. Look around at the

regulative instincts and faculties implanted in a race; in brief, the

turn of mind according to which it thinks and acts at the present day;

we shall find most frequently that its work is due to one of these

prolonged situations, to these enveloping circumstances, to these

persistent gigantic pressures brought to bear on a mass of men who, one

by one, and all collectively, from one generation to another, have been

unceasingly bent and fashioned by them, in Spain a crusade of eight

centuries against the Mohammedans, prolonged yet longer even to the

exhaustion of the nation through the expulsion of the Moors, through the

spoliation of the Jews, through the establishment of the Inquisition,

through the Catholic wars; in England, a political establishment of

eight centuries which maintains man erect and respectful, independent

and obedient, all accustomed to struggling together in a body under the

sanction of law; in France, a Latin organization which, at first imposed

on docile barbarians, then levelled to the ground under the universal

demolition, forms itself anew under the latent workings of national

instinct, developing under hereditary monarchs and ending in a sort of

equalized, centralized, administrative republic under dynasties exposed

to revolutions. Such are the most efficacious among the observable

causes which mold the primitive man; they are to nations what education,

pursuit, condition, and abode are to individuals, and seem to comprise

all, since the external forces which fashion human matter, and by which

the outward acts on the inward, are comprehended in them.

There is, nevertheless, a third order of causes, for, with the forces

within and without, there is the work these have already produced

together, which work itself contributes towards producing the ensuing

work; beside the permanent impulsion and the given environment there is

the acquired momentum. When national character and surrounding

circumstances operate it is not on a _tabula rasa_, but on one already

bearing imprints. According as this _tabula_ is taken at one or at

another moment so is the imprint different, and this suffices to render

the total effect different. Consider, for example, two moments of a

literature or of an art, French tragedy under Corneille and under

Voltaire, and Greek drama under Æschylus and under Euripides, Latin

poetry under Lucretius and under Claudian, and Italian painting under Da

Vinci and under Guido. Assuredly, there is no change of general

conception at either of these two extreme points; ever the same human

type must be portrayed or represented in action; the cast of the verse,

the dramatic structure, the physical form have all persisted. But there

is this among these differences, that one of the artists is a precursor

and the other a successor, that the first one has no model and the

second one has a model; that the former sees things face to face, and

that the latter sees them through the intermediation of the former, that

many departments of art have become more perfect, that the simplicity

and grandeur of the impression have diminished, that what is pleasing

and refined in form has augmented--in short, that the first work has

determined the second. In this respect, it is with a people as with a

plant; the same sap at the same temperature and in the same soil

produces, at different stages of its successive elaborations, different

developments, buds, flowers, fruits, and seeds, in such a way that the

condition of the following is always that of the preceding and is born

of its death. Now, if you no longer regard a brief moment, as above, but

one of those grand periods of development which embraces one or many

centuries like the Middle Ages, or our last classic period, the

conclusion is the same. A certain dominating conception has prevailed

throughout; mankind, during two hundred years, during five hundred

years, have represented to themselves a certain ideal figure of man, in

mediæval times the knight and the monk, in our classic period the

courtier and refined talker; this creative and universal conception has

monopolized the entire field of action and thought, and, after spreading

its involuntarily systematic works over the world, it languished and

then died out, and now a new idea has arisen, destined to a like

domination and to equally multiplied creations. Note here that the

latter depends in part on the former, and that it is the former, which,

combining its effect with those of national genius and surrounding

circumstances, will impose their bent and their direction on new-born

things. It is according to this law that great historic currents are

formed, meaning by this, the long rule of a form of intellect or of a

master idea, like that period of spontaneous creations called the

Renaissance, or that period of oratorical classifications called the

Classic Age, or that series of mystic systems called the Alexandrine and

Christian [epoch], or that series of mythological efflorescences found at

the origins of Germany, India, and Greece. Here as elsewhere, we are

dealing merely with a mechanical problem: the total effect is a compound

wholly determined by the grandeur and direction of the forces which

produce it. The sole difference which separates these moral problems

from physical problems lies in this, that in the former the directions

and grandeur cannot be estimated by or stated in figures with the same

precision as in the latter. If a want, a faculty, is a quantity capable

of degrees, the same as pressure or weight, this quantity is not

measurable like that of the pressure or weight. We cannot fix it in an

exact or approximative formula; we can obtain or give of it only a

literary impression; we are reduced to noting and citing the prominent

facts which make it manifest and which nearly, or roughly, indicate

about what grade on the scale it must be ranged at. And yet,

notwithstanding the methods of notation are not the same in the moral

sciences as in the physical sciences, nevertheless, as matter is the

same in both, and is equally composed of forces, directions and

magnitudes, we can still show that in one as in the other, the final

effect takes place according to the same law. This is great or small,

according as the fundamental forces are great or small and act more or

less precisely in the same sense, according as the distinct effects of

race, environment and epoch combine to enforce each other or combine to

neutralize each other. Thus are explained the long impotences and the

brilliant successes which appear irregularly and with no apparent reason

in the life of a people; the causes of these consist in internal

concordances and contrarieties. There was one of these concordances

when, in the seventeenth century, the social disposition and

conversational spirit innate in France encountered drawing-room

formalities and the moment of oratorical analysis; when, in the

nineteenth century, the flexible, profound genius of Germany encountered

the age of philosophic synthesis and of cosmopolite criticism. One of

these contrarieties happened when, in the seventeenth century, the

blunt, isolated genius of England awkwardly tried to don the new polish

of urbanity, and when, in the sixteenth century, the lucid, prosaic

French intellect tried to gestate a living poesy. It is this secret

concordance of creative forces which produced the exquisite courtesy and

noble cast of literature under Louis XIV and Bossuet, and the grandiose

metaphysics and broad critical sympathy under Hegel and Goethe. It is

this secret contrariety of creative forces which produced the literary

incompleteness, the licentious plays, the abortive drama of Dryden and

Wycherly, the poor Greek importations, the gropings, the minute beauties

and fragments of Ronsard and the Pleiad. We may confidently affirm that

the unknown creations toward which the current of coming ages is bearing

us will spring from and be governed by these primordial forces; that, if

these forces could be measured and computed we might deduce from them,

as from a formula, the characters of future civilization; and that if,

notwithstanding the evident rudeness of our notations, and the

fundamental inexactitude of our measures, we would nowadays form some

idea of our general destinies, we must base our conjectures on an

examination of these forces. For, in enumerating them, we run through

the full circle of active forces; and when the race, the environment,

and the moment have been considered--that is to say the inner

mainspring, the pressure from without, and the impulsion already

acquired--we have exhausted not only all real causes but again all

possible causes of movement.

VI. History is a mechanical and psychological problem. Within certain

limits man can foretell

There remains to be ascertained in what way these causes, applied to a

nation or to a century, distribute their effects. Like a spring issuing

from an elevated spot and diffusing its waters, according to the height,

from ledge to ledge, until it finally reaches the low ground, so does

the tendency of mind or of soul in a people, due to race, epoch, or

environment, diffuse itself in different proportions, and by regular

descent, over the different series of facts which compose its

civilization.[3] In preparing the geographical map of a country,

starting at its watershed, we see the slopes, just below this common

point, dividing themselves into five or six principal basins, and then

each of the latter into several others, and so on until the whole

country, with its thousands of inequalities of surface, is included in

the ramifications of this network. In like manner, in preparing the

psychological map of the events and sentiments belonging to a certain

human civilization, we find at the start five or six well determined

provinces--religion, art, philosophy, the state, the family, and

industries; next, in each of these provinces, natural departments, and

then finally, in each of these departments, still smaller territories

until we arrive at those countless details of life which we observe

daily in ourselves and around us. If, again, we examine and compare

together these various groups of facts we at once find that they are

composed of parts and that all have parts in common. Let us take first

the three principal products of human intelligence--religion, art, and

philosophy. What is a philosophy but a conception of nature and of its

[primordial causes] under the form of abstractions and formulas? What

underlies a religion and an art if not a conception of this same nature,

and of these same primordial causes, under the form of more or less

determinate symbols, and of more or less distinct personages, with this

difference, that in the first case we believe that they exist, and in

the second case that they do not exist. Let the reader consider some of

the great creations of the intellect in India, in Scandinavia, in

Persia, in Rome, in Greece, and he will find that art everywhere is a

sort of philosophy become sensible, religion a sort of poem regarded as

true, and philosophy a sort of art and religion, desiccated and reduced

to pure abstractions. There is, then, in the centre of each of these

groups a common element, the conception of the world and its origin, and

if they differ amongst each other it is because each combines with the

common element a distinct element; here the power of abstraction, there

the faculty of personifying with belief, and, finally, the talent for

personifying without belief. Let us now take the two leading products of

human association, the Family and the State. What constitutes the State

other than the sentiment of obedience by which a multitude of men

collect together under the authority of a chief? And what constitutes

the Family other than the sentiment of obedience by which a wife and

children act together under the direction of a father and husband? The

Family is a natural, primitive, limited state, as the State is an

artificial, ulterior, and expanded Family, while beneath the differences

which arise from the number, origin, and condition of its members, we

distinguish, in the small as in the large community, a like fundamental

disposition of mind which brings them together and unites them. Suppose,

now, that this common element receives from the environment, the epoch,

and the race peculiar characteristics, and it is clear that all the

groups into which it enters will be proportionately modified. If the

sentiment of obedience is merely one of fear,[4] you encounter, as in

most of the Oriental states, the brutality of despotism, a prodigality

of vigorous punishments, the exploitation of the subject, servile

habits, insecurity of property, impoverished production, female slavery,

and the customs of the harem. If the sentiment of obedience is rooted in

the instinct of discipline, sociability, and honor, you find, as in

France, a complete military organization, a superb administrative

hierarchy, a weak public spirit with outbursts of patriotism, the

unhesitating docility of the subject along with the hotheadedness of the

revolutionist, the obsequiousness of the courtier along with the reverse

of the gentleman, the charm of refined conversation along with home and

family bickerings, conjugal equality together with matrimonial

incompatibilities under the necessary constraints of the law. If,

finally, the sentiment of obedience is rooted in the instinct of

subordination and in the idea of duty, you perceive, as in Germanic

nations, the security and contentment of the household, the firm

foundations of domestic life, the slow and imperfect development of

worldly matters, innate respect for established rank, superstitious

reverence for the past, maintenance of social inequalities, natural and

habitual deference to the law. Similarly in a race, just as there is a

difference of aptitude for general ideas, so will its religion, art, and

philosophy be different. If man is naturally fitted for broader

universal conceptions and inclined at the same time to their

derangement, through the nervous irritability of an overexcited

organization, we find, as in India, a surprising richness of gigantic

religious creations, a splendid bloom of extravagant transparent epics,

a strange concatenation of subtle, imaginative philosophic systems, all

so intimately associated and so interpenetrated with a common sap, that

we at once recognize them, by their amplitude, by their color, and by

their disorder, as productions of the same climate and of the same

spirit. If, on the contrary, the naturally sound and well-balanced man

is content to restrict his conceptions to narrow bounds in order to cast

them in more precise forms, we see, as in Greece, a theology of artists

and narrators, special gods that are soon separated from objects and

almost transformed at once into substantial personages, the sentiment of

universal unity nearly effaced and scarcely maintained in the vague

notion of destiny, a philosophy, rather than subtle and compact,

grandiose and systematic, narrow metaphysically[5] but incomparable in

its logic, sophistry, and morality, si poesy and arts superior to

anything we have seen in lucidity, naturalness, proportion, truth, and

beauty. If, finally, man is reduced to narrow conceptions deprived of

any speculative subtlety, and at the same time finds that he is absorbed

and completely hardened by practical interests, we see, as in Rome,

rudimentary deities, mere empty names, good for denoting the petty

details of agriculture, generation, and the household, veritable

marriage and farming labels, and, therefore, a null or borrowed

mythology, philosophy, and poesy. Here, as elsewhere, comes in the law

of mutual dependencies.[6] A civilization is a living unit, the parts of

which hold together the same as the parts of an organic body. Just as in

an animal, the instincts, teeth, limbs, bones, and muscular apparatus

are bound together in such a way that a variation of one determines a

corresponding variation in the others, and out of which a skilful

naturalist, with a few bits, imagines and reconstructs an almost

complete body, so, in a civilization, do religion, philosophy, the

family scheme, literature and the arts form a system in which each local

change involves a general change, so that an experienced historian, who

studies one portion apart from the others, sees beforehand and partially

predicts the characteristics of the rest. There is nothing vague in this

dependence. The regulation of all this in the living body consists,

first, of the tendency to manifest a certain primordial type, and, next,

the necessity of its possessing organs which can supply its wants and

put itself in harmony with itself in order to live. The regulation in a

civilization consists in the presence in each great human creation of an

elementary producer equally present in other surrounding creations, that

is, some faculty and aptitude, some efficient and marked disposition,

which, with its own peculiar character, introduces this with that into

all operations in which it takes part, and which, according to its

variations, causes variation in all the works in which it cooperates.

VII. Law of formation of a group. Examples and indications

Having reached this point, we can obtain a glimpse of the principal

features of human transformation, and can now search for the general

laws which regulate not only events, but classes of events; not only

this religion or that literature, but the whole group of religions or of

literatures. If, for example, it is admitted that a religion is a

metaphysical poem associated with belief; if it is recognized, besides,

that there are certain races and certain environments in which belief,

poetic faculty, and metaphysical faculty display themselves in common

with unwonted vigor; if we consider that Christianity and Buddhism were

developed at periods of grand systematizations and in the midst of

sufferings like the oppression which stirred up the fanatics of

Cevennes; if, on the other hand, it is recognized that primitive

religions are born at the dawn of human reason, during the richest

expansion of human imagination, at times of the greatest _naïveté_ and

of the greatest credulity; if we consider, again, that Mohammedanism

appeared along with the advent of poetic prose and of the conception of

material unity, amongst a people destitute of science and at the moment

of a sudden development of the intellect--we might conclude that

religion is born and declines, is reformed and transformed, according as

circumstances fortify and bring together, with more or less precision

and energy, its three generative instincts; and we would then comprehend

why religion is endemic in India among specially exalted imaginative and

philosophic intellects; why it blooms out so wonderfully and so grandly

in the Middle Ages, in an oppressive society, amongst new languages and

literatures; why it develops again in the sixteenth century with a new

character and an heroic enthusiasm, at the time of an universal

renaissance and at the awakening of the Germanic races; why it swarms

out in so many bizarre sects in the rude democracy of America and under

the bureaucratic despotism of Russia; why, in fine, it is seen spreading

out in the Europe of to-day in such different proportions and with such

special traits, according to such differences of race and of

civilizations. And so for every kind of human production, for letters,

music, the arts of design, philosophy, the sciences, state industries,

and the rest. Each has some moral tendency for its direct cause, or a

concurrence of moral tendencies; given the cause, it appears; the cause

withdrawn, it disappears; the weakness or intensity of the cause is the

measure of its own weakness or intensity. It is bound to that like any

physical phenomenon to its condition, like dew to the chilliness of a

surrounding atmosphere, like dilatation to heat. Couples exist in the

moral world as they exist in the physical world, as rigorously linked

together and as universally diffused. Whatever in one case produces,

alters, or suppresses the first term, produces, alters, and suppresses

the second term as a necessary consequence. Whatever cools the

surrounding atmosphere causes the fall of dew. Whatever develops

credulity, along with poetic conceptions of the universe, engenders

religion. Thus have things come about, and thus will they continue to

come about. As soon as the adequate and necessary condition of one of

these vast apparitions becomes known to us our mind has a hold on the

future as well as on the past. We can confidently state under what

circumstances it will reappear, foretell without rashness many portions

of its future history, and sketch with precaution some of the traits of

its ulterior development.

VIII. General problem and future of history. Psychological method.

Value of literature. Purpose in writing this book

History has reached this point at the present day, or rather it is

nearly there, on the threshold of this inquest. The question as now

stated is this: Given a literature, a philosophy, a society, an art, a

certain group of arts, what is the moral state of things which produces

it? And what are the conditions of race, epoch, and environment the best

adapted to produce this moral state? There is a distinct moral state for

each of these formations and for each of their branches; there is one

for art in general as well as for each particular art; for architecture,

painting, sculpture, music, and poetry, each with a germ of its own in

the large field of human psychology; each has its own law, and it is by

virtue of this law that we see each shoot up, apparently haphazard,

singly and alone, amidst the miscarriages of their neighbors, like

painting in Flanders and Holland in the seventeenth century, like poetry

in England in the sixteenth century, like music in Germany in the

eighteenth century. At this moment, and in these countries, the

conditions for one art and not for the others are fulfilled, and one

branch only has bloomed out amidst the general sterility. It is these

laws of human vegetation which history must now search for; it is this

special psychology of each special formation which must be got at; it is

the composition of a complete table of these peculiar conditions that

must now be worked out. There is nothing more delicate and nothing more

difficult. Montesquieu undertook it, but in his day the interest in

history was too recent for him to be successful; nobody, indeed, had any

idea of the road that was to be followed, and even at the present day we

scarcely begin to obtain a glimpse of it. Just as astronomy, at bottom,

is a mechanical problem, and physiology, likewise, a chemical problem,

so is history, at bottom, a problem of psychology. There is a particular

system of inner impressions and operations which fashions the artist,

the believer, the musician, the painter, the nomad, the social man; for

each of these, the filiation, intensity, and interdependence of ideas

and of emotions are different; each has his own moral history, and his

own special organization, along with some master tendency and with some

dominant trait. To explain each of these would require a chapter devoted

to a profound internal analysis, and that is a work that can scarcely be

called sketched out at the present day. But one man, Stendhal, through a

certain turn of mind and a peculiar education, has attempted it, and

even yet most of his readers find his works paradoxical and obscure. His

talent and ideas were too premature. His admirable insight, his profound

sayings carelessly thrown out, the astonishing precision of his notes

and logic, were not understood; people were not aware that, under the

appearances and talk of a man of the world, he explained the most

complex of internal mechanisms; that his finger touched the great

mainspring, that he brought scientific processes to bear in the history

of the heart, the art of employing figures, of decomposing, of deducing;

that he was the first to point out fundamental causes such as

nationalities, climates, and temperaments; in short, that he treated

sentiments as they should be treated, that is to say, as a naturalist

and physicist, by making classifications and estimating forces. On

account of all this he was pronounced dry and eccentric and allowed to

live in isolation, composing novels, books of travel and taking notes,

for which he counted upon, and has obtained, about a dozen or so of

readers. And yet his works are those in which we of the present day may

find the most satisfactory efforts that have been made to clear the road

I have just striven to describe. Nobody has taught one better how to

observe with one's own eyes, first, to regard humanity around us and

life as it is, and next, old and authentic documents; how to read more

than merely the black and white of the page; how to detect under old

print and the scrawl of the text the veritable sentiment and the train

of thought, the mental state in which the words were penned. In his

writings, as in those of Sainte-Beuve and in those of the German

critics, the reader will find how much is to be derived from a literary

document; if this document is rich and we know how to interpret it, we

will find in it the psychology of a particular soul, often that of an

age, and sometimes that of a race. In this respect, a great poem, a good

novel, the confessions of a superior man, are more instructive than a

mass of historians and histories; I would give fifty volumes of charters

and a hundred diplomatic files for the memoirs of Cellini, the epistles

of Saint Paul, the table-talk of Luther, or the comedies of

Aristophanes. Herein lies the value of literary productions. They are

instructive because they are beautiful; their usefulness increases with

their perfection; and if they provide us with documents, it is because

they are monuments. The more visible a book renders sentiments the more

literary it is, for it is the special office of literature to take note

of sentiments. The more important the sentiments noted in a book the

higher its rank in literature, for it is by representing what sort of a

life a nation or an epoch leads, that a writer rallies to himself the

sympathies of a nation or of an epoch. Hence, among the documents which

bring before our eyes the sentiments of preceding generations, a

literature, and especially a great literature, is incomparably the best.

It resembles those admirable instruments of remarkable sensitiveness

which physicists make use of to detect and measure the most profound and

delicate changes that occur in a human body. There is nothing

approaching this in constitutions or religions; the articles of a code

or of a catechism do no more than depict mind in gross and without

finesse; if there are documents which show life and spirit in politics

and in creeds, they are the eloquent discourses of the pulpit and the

tribune, memoirs and personal confessions, all belonging to literature,

so that, outside of itself, literature embodies whatever is good

elsewhere. It is mainly in studying literatures that we are able to

produce moral history, and arrive at some knowledge of the psychological

laws on which events depend.

I have undertaken to write a history of a literature and to ascertain

the psychology of a people; in selecting this one, it is not without a

motive. A people had to be taken possessing a vast and complete

literature, which is rarely found. There are few nations which,

throughout their existence, have thought and written well in the full

sense of the word. Among the ancients, Latin literature is null at the

beginning, and afterward borrowed and an imitation. Among the moderns,

German literature is nearly a blank for two centuries.[7] Italian and

Spanish literatures come to an end in the middle of the seventeenth

century. Ancient Greece, and modern France and England, alone offer a

complete series of great and expressive monuments. I have chosen the

English because, as this still exists and is open to direct observation,

it can be better studied than that of an extinct civilization of which

fragments only remain; and because, being different, it offers better

than that of France very marked characteristics in the eyes of a

Frenchman. Moreover, outside of what is peculiar to English

civilization, apart from a spontaneous development, it presents a forced

deviation due to the latest and most effective conquest to which the

country was subject; the three given conditions out of which it

issues--race, climate, and the Norman conquest--are clearly and

distinctly visible in its literary monuments; so that we study in this

history the two most potent motors of human transformation, namely,

nature and constraint, and we study them, without any break or

uncertainty, in a series of authentic and complete monuments. I have

tried to define these primitive motors, to show their gradual effects,

and explain how their insensible operation has brought religions and

literary productions into full light, and how the inward mechanism is

developed by which the barbarous Saxon became the Englishman of the

present day.

[Footnote 1: Darwin, "The Origin of Species." Prosper Lucas, "De

l'Hérédité."]

[Footnote 2: Spinosa, "Ethics," part IV., axiom.]

[Footnote 3: For this scale of coordinate effects consult, "Langues

Sémitiques," by Renan, ch. I; "Comparison des civilisations Grecque

et Romaine," vol. I., ch. I., 3d ed., by Mommsen; "Conséquences

de la démocratie," vol. III., by De Tocqueville.]

[Footnote 4: "L'Esprit des Lois," by Montesquieu; the essential

principles of the three governments.]

[Footnote 5: The birth of the Alexandrine philosophy is due to contact

with the Orient. Aristotle's metaphysical views stand alone. Moreover,

with him as with Plato, they afford merely a glimpse. By way of

contrast see systematic power in Plotinus, Proclus, Schelling, and

Hegel, or again in the admirable boldness of Brahmanic and Buddhist

speculation.]

[Footnote 6: I have very often made attempts to state this law,

especially in the preface to "Essais de Critique et d'Histoire."]

[Footnote 7: From 1550 to 1750.]

BOOK I.--THE SOURCE

CHAPTER FIRST

The Saxons

SECTION I.--The Coast of the North Sea

As you coast the North Sea from the Scheldt to Jutland, you will mark in

the first place that the characteristic feature is the want of slope;

marsh, waste, shoal; the rivers hardly drag themselves along, swollen

and sluggish, with long, black-looking waves; the flooding stream oozes

over the banks, and appears further on in stagnant pools. In Holland the

soil is but a sediment of mud; here and there only does the earth cover

it with a crust, shallow and brittle, the mere alluvium of the river,

which the river seems ever about to destroy. Thick clouds hover above,

being fed by ceaseless exhalations. They lazily turn their violet

flanks, grow black, suddenly descend in heavy showers; the vapor, like a

furnace-smoke, crawls forever on the horizon. Thus watered, plants

multiply; in the angle between Jutland and the continent, in a fat muddy

soil, "the verdure is as fresh as that of England."[8] Immense forests

covered the land even after the eleventh century. The sap of this humid

country, thick and potent, circulates in man as in the plants; man's

respiration, nutrition, sensations and habits affect also his faculties

and his frame.

The land produced after this fashion has one enemy, to wit, the sea.

Holland maintains its existence only by virtue of its dykes. In 1654

those in Jutland burst, and fifteen thousand of the inhabitants were

swallowed up. One need only see the blast of the North swirl down upon

the low level of the soil, wan and ominous:[9] the vast yellow sea

dashes against the narrow belt of flat coast which seems incapable of a

moment's resistance; the wind howls and bellows; the sea-mews cry; the

poor little ships flee as fast as they can, bending almost to the

gunwale, and endeavor to find a refuge in the mouth of the river, which

seems as hostile as the sea. A sad and precarious existence, as it were

face to face with a beast of prey. The Frisians, in their ancient laws,

speak already of the league they have made against "the ferocious

ocean." Even in a calm this sea is unsafe. "Before me rolleth a waste of

water... and above me go rolling the storm-clouds, the formless dark

gray daughters of air, which from the sea, in cloudy buckets scoop up

the water, ever wearied lifting and lifting, and then pour it again in

the sea, a mournful, wearisome business. Over the sea, flat on his face,

lies the monstrous terrible North wind, sighing and sinking his voice as

in secret, like an old grumbler, for once in good humor, unto the ocean

he talks, and he tells her wonderful stories."[10] Rain, wind, and surge

leave room for naught but gloomy and melancholy thoughts. The very joy

of the billows has in it an inexplicable restlessness and harshness.

From Holland to Jutland, a string of small deluged islands[11] bears

witness to their ravages; the shifting sands which the tide drifts up

obstruct and impede the banks and entrance of the rivers.[12] The first

Roman fleet, a thousand sail, perished there; to this day ships wait a

month or more in sight of port, tossed upon the great white waves, not

daring to risk themselves in the shifting winding channel, notorious for

its wrecks. In winter a breast-plate of ice covers the two streams; the

sea drives back the frozen masses as they descend; they pile themselves

with a crash upon the sandbanks, and sway to and fro; now and then you

may see a vessel, seized as in a vice, split in two beneath their

violence. Picture, in this foggy clime, amid hoar-frost and storm, in

these marshes and forests, half-naked savages, a kind of wild beasts,

fishers and hunters, but especially hunters of men; these are they,

Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Frisians;[13] later on, Danes, who during the

fifth and the ninth centuries, with their swords and battle-axes, took

and kept the island of Britain.

A rude and foggy land, like their own, except in the depth of its sea

and the safety of its coasts, which one day will call up real fleets and

mighty vessels; green England--the word rises to the lips and expresses

all. Here also moisture pervades everything; even in summer the mist

rises; even on clear days you perceive it fresh from the great

sea-girdle, or rising from vast but ever slushy meadows, undulating with

hill and dale, intersected with hedges to the limit of the horizon. Here

and there a sunbeam strikes on the higher grasses with burning flash,

and the splendor of the verdure dazzles and almost blinds you. The

overflowing water straightens the flabby stems; they grow up, rank,

weak, and filled with sap; a sap ever renewed, for the gray mists creep

under a stratum of motionless vapor, and at distant intervals the rim of

heaven is drenched by heavy showers. "There are yet commons as at the

time of the Conquest, deserted, abandoned,[14] wild, covered with furze

and thorny plants, with here and there a horse grazing in solitude.

Joyless scene, unproductive soil![15] What a labor it has been to

humanize it! What impression it must have made on the men of the South,

the Romans of Cæsar! I thought, when I saw it, of the ancient Saxons,

wanderers from West and North, who came to settle in this land of marsh

and fogs, on the border of primeval forests, on the banks of these great

muddy streams, which roll down their slime to meet the waves.[16] They

must have lived as hunters and swineherds; growing, as before, brawny,

fierce, gloomy. Take civilization from this soil, and there will remain

to the inhabitants only war, the chase, gluttony, drunkenness. Smiling

love, sweet poetic dreams, art, refined and nimble thought, are for the

happy shores of the Mediterranean. Here the barbarian, ill housed in his

mud-hovel, who hears the rain pattering whole days among the oak

leaves--what dreams can he have, gazing upon his mud-pools and his

sombre sky?"

SECTION II.--The Northern Barbarians

Huge white bodies, cool-blooded, with fierce blue eyes, reddish flaxen

hair; ravenous stomachs, filled with meat and cheese, heated by strong

drinks; of a cold temperament, slow to love,[17] home-stayers, prone to

brutal drunkenness: these are to this day the features which descent and

climate preserve in the race, and these are what the Roman historians

discovered in their former country. There is no living, in these lands,

without abundance of solid food; bad weather keeps people at home;

strong drinks are necessary to cheer them; the senses become blunted,

the muscles are braced, the will vigorous. In every country the body of

man is rooted deep into the soil of nature; and in this instance still

deeper, because, being uncultivated, he is less removed from nature. In

Germany storm-beaten, in wretched boats of hide, amid the hardships and

dangers of seafaring life, they were pre-eminently adapted for endurance

and enterprise, inured to misfortune, scorners of danger. Pirates at

first: of all kinds of hunting the man-hunt is most profitable and most

noble; they left the care of the land and flocks to the women and

slaves; seafaring, war, and pillage[18] was their whole idea of a

freeman's work. They dashed to sea in their two-sailed barks, landed

anywhere, killed everything; and having sacrificed in honor of their

gods the tithe of their prisoners, and leaving behind them the red light

of their burnings, went farther on to begin again. "Lord," says a

certain litany, "deliver us from the fury of the Jutes. Of all

barbarians[19] these are strongest of body and heart, the most

formidable,"--we may add, the most cruelly ferocious. When murder

becomes a trade, it becomes a pleasure. About the eighth century, the

final decay of the great Roman corpse which Charlemagne had tried to

revive, and which was settling down into corruption, called them like

vultures to the prey. Those who had remained in Denmark, with their

brothers of Norway, fanatical pagans, incensed against the Christians,

made a descent on all the surrounding coasts. Their sea-kings,[20] "who

had never slept under the smoky rafters of a roof, who had never drained

the ale-horn by an inhabited hearth," laughed at wind and storms, and

sang: "The blast of the tempest aids our oars; the bellowing of heaven,

the howling of the thunder, hurt us not; the hurricane is our servant,

and drives us whither we wish to go. We hewed with our swords," says a

song attributed to Ragnar Lodbrog; "was it not like that hour when my

bright bride I seated by me on the couch?" One of them, at the monastery

of Peterborough, kills with his own hand all the monks, to the number of

eighty-four; others, having taken King Ælla, divided his ribs from the

spine, drew his lungs out, threw salt into his wounds. Harold Harefoot,

having seized his rival Alfred, with six hundred men, had them maimed,

blinded, hamstrung, scalped, or embowelled.[21] Torture and carnage,

greed of danger, fury of destruction, obstinate and frenzied bravery of

an over-strong temperament, the unchaining of the butcherly

instincts--such traits meet us at every step in the old Sagas. The

daughter of the Danish Jarl, seeing Egil taking his seat near her,

repels him with scorn, reproaching him with "seldom having provided the

wolves with hot meat, with never having seen for the whole autumn a

raven croaking over the carnage." But Egil seized her and pacified her

by singing: "I have marched with my bloody sword, and the raven has

followed me. Furiously we fought, the fire passed over the dwellings of

men; we have sent to sleep in blood those who kept the gates." From such

table-talk, and such maidenly tastes, we may judge of the rest.[22]

Behold them now in England, more settled and wealthier: do you expect to

find them much changed? Changed it may be, but for the worse, like the

Franks, like all barbarians who pass from action to enjoyment. They are

more gluttonous, carving their hogs, filling themselves with flesh,

swallowing down deep draughts of mead, ale, spiced wines, all the

strong, coarse drinks which they can procure, and so they are cheered

and stimulated. Add to this the pleasure of the fight. Not easily with

such instincts can they attain to culture; to find a natural and ready

culture, we must look amongst the sober and sprightly populations of the

south. Here the sluggish and heavy[23] temperament remains long buried

in a brutal life; people of the Latin race never at a first glance see

in them aught but large gross beasts, clumsy and ridiculous when not

dangerous and enraged. Up to the sixteenth century, says an old

historian, the great body of the nation were little else than herdsmen,

keepers of cattle and sheep; up to the end of the eighteenth drunkenness

was the recreation of the higher ranks; it is still that of the lower;

and all the refinement and softening influence of civilization have not

abolished amongst them the use of the rod and the fist. If the

carnivorous, warlike, drinking savage, proof against the climate, still

shows beneath the conventions of our modern society and the softness of

our modern polish, imagine what he must have been when, landing with his

band upon a wasted or desert country, and becoming for the first time a

settler, he saw extending to the horizon the common pastures of the

border country, and the great primitive forests which furnished stags

for the chase and acorns for his pigs. The ancient histories tell us

that they had a great and a coarse appetite.[24] Even at the time of the

Conquest the custom of drinking to excess was a common vice with men of

the highest rank, and they passed in this way whole days and nights

without intermission. Henry of Huntingdon, in the twelfth century,

lamenting the ancient hospitality, says that the Norman kings provided

their courtiers with only one meal a day, while the Saxon kings used to

provide four. One day, when Athelstan went with his nobles to visit his

relative Ethelfleda, the provision of mead was exhausted at the first

salutation, owing to the copiousness of the draughts; but Dunstan,

forecasting the extent of the royal appetite, had furnish the house so

that the cup-bearers, as is the custom at royal feasts, were able the

whole day to serve it out in horns and other vessels, and the liquor was

not found to be deficient. When the guests were satisfied, the harp

passed from hand to hand, and the rude harmony of their deep voices

swelled under the vaulted roof. The monasteries themselves in Edgard's

time kept up games, songs, and dances till midnight. To shout, to drink,

to gesticulate, to feel their veins heated and swollen with wine, to

hear and see around them the riotous orgies, this was the first need of

the barbarians.[25] The heavy human brute gluts himself with sensations

and with noise.

For such appetites there was a stronger food--I mean blows and battle.

In vain they attached themselves to the soil, became tillers of the

ground, in distinct communities and distinct regions, shut[26] in their

march with their kindred and comrades, bound together, separated from

the mass, enclosed by sacred landmarks, by primeval oaks on which they

cut the figures of birds and beasts, by poles set up in the midst of the

marsh, which whosoever removed was punished with cruel tortures. In vain

these Marches and Ga's[27] were grouped into states, and finally formed

a half-regulated society, with assemblies and laws, under the lead of a

single king; its very structure indicates the necessities to supply

which it was created. They united in order to maintain peace; treaties

of peace occupy their Parliaments; provisions for peace are the matter

of their laws. War was waged daily and everywhere; the aim of life was,

not to be slain, ransomed, mutilated, pillaged, hanged, and of course,

if it was a woman, violated.[28] Every man was obliged to appear armed,

and to be ready, with his burgh or his township, to repel marauders, who

went about in bands.[29] The animal was yet too powerful, too impetuous,

too untamed. Anger and covetousness in the first place brought him upon

his prey. Their history, I mean that of the Heptarchy, is like a history

of "kites and crows."[30] They slew the Britons or reduced them to

slavery, fought the remnant of the Welsh, Irish, and Picts, massacred

one another, were hewn down and cut to pieces by the Danes. In a hundred

years, out of fourteen kings of Northumbria, seven were slain and six

deposed. Penda of Mercia killed five kings, and in order to take the

town of Bamborough, demolished all the neighboring villages, heaped

their ruins into an immense pile, sufficient to burn all the

inhabitants, undertook to exterminate the Northumbrians, and perished

himself by the sword at the age of eighty. Many amongst them were put to

death by the thanes; one thane was burned alive; brothers slew one

another treacherously. With us civilization has interposed, between the

desire and its fulfilment, the counteracting and softening preventive of

reflection and calculation; here, the impulse is sudden, and murder and

every kind of excess spring from it instantaneously. King Edwy[31]

having married Elgiva, his relation within the prohibited degrees,

quitted the hall where he was drinking on the very day of his

coronation, to be with her. The nobles thought themselves insulted, and

immediately Abbot Dunstan went himself to seek the young man. "He found

the adulteress," says the monk Osbern, "her mother, and the king

together on the bed of debauch. He dragged the king thence violently,

and setting the crown upon his head, brought him back to the nobles."

Afterwards Elgiva sent men to put out Dunstan's eyes, and then, in a

revolt, saved herself and the king by hiding in the country; but the men

of the North having seized her, "hamstrung her, and then subjected her

to the death which she deserved."[32] Barbarity follows barbarity. At

Bristol, at the time of the Conquest, as we are told by a historian of

the time,[33] it was the custom to buy men and women in all parts of

England, and to carry them to Ireland for sale in order to make money.

The buyers usually made the young women pregnant, and took them to

market in that condition, in order to insure a better price. "You might

have seen with sorrow long files of young people of both sexes and of

the greatest beauty, bound with ropes, and daily exposed for sale. ...

They sold in this manner as slaves their nearest relatives, and even

their own children." And the chronicler adds that, having abandoned this

practice, they "thus set an example to all the rest of England." Would

you know the manners of the highest ranks, in the family of the last

king?[34] At a feast in the king's hall, Harold was serving Edward the

Confessor with wine, when Tostig, his brother, moved by envy, seized him

by the hair. They were separated. Tostig went to Hereford, where Harold

had ordered a royal banquet to be prepared. There he seized his

brother's attendants, and cutting off their heads and limbs, he placed

them in the vessels of wine, ale, mead, and cider, and sent a message to

the king: "If you go to your farm, you will find there plenty of salt

meat, but you will do well to carry some more with you." Harold's other

brother, Sweyn, had violated the abbess Elgiva, assassinated Beorn the

thane, and being banished from the country had turned pirate. When we

regard their deeds of violence, their ferocity, their cannibal jests, we

see that they were not far removed from the sea-kings, or from the

followers of Odin, who ate raw flesh, hung men as victims on the sacred

trees of Upsala, and killed themselves to make sure of dying as they had

lived, in blood. A score of times the old ferocious instinct reappears

beneath the thin crust of Christianity. In the eleventh century,

Siward,[35] the great Earl of Northumberland, was afflicted with a

dysentery; and feeling his death near, exclaimed, "What a shame for me

not to have been permitted to die in so many battles, and to end thus by

a cow's death! At least put on my breastplate, gird on my sword, set my

helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, my battle-axe in my right,

so that a stout warrior, like myself, may die as a warrior." They did as

he bade, and thus died he honorably in his armor. They had made one

step, and only one, from barbarism.

SECTION III.--Saxon Ideas

Under this native barbarism there were noble dispositions, unknown to

the Roman world, which were destined to produce a better people out of

its ruins. In the first place, "a certain earnestness, which leads them

out of frivolous sentiments to noble ones."[36] From their origin in

Germany this is what we find them, severe in manners, with grave

inclinations and a manly dignity. They live solitary, each one near the

spring or the wood which has taken his fancy.[37] Even in villages the

cottages were detached; they must have independence and free air. They

had no taste for voluptuousness; love was tardy, education severe, their

food simple; all the recreation they indulged in was the hunting of the

aurochs, and a dance amongst naked swords. Violent intoxication and

perilous wagers were their weakest points; they sought in preference not

mild pleasures, but strong excitement. In everything, even in their rude

and masculine instincts, they were men. Each in his own home, on his

land and in his hut, was his own master, upright and free, in no wise

restrained or shackled. If the commonweal received anything from him, it

was because he gave it. He gave his vote in arms in all great

conferences, passed judgment in the assembly, made alliances and wars on

his own account, moved from place to place, showed activity and

daring.[38] The modern Englishman existed entire in this Saxon. If he

bends, it is because he is quite willing to bend; he is no less capable

of self-denial than of independence; self-sacrifice is not uncommon, a

man cares not for his blood or his life. In Homer the warrior often

gives way, and is not blamed if he flees. In the Sagas, in the Edda, he

must be over-brave; in Germany the coward is drowned in the mud, under a

hurdle. Through all outbreaks of primitive brutality gleams obscurely

the grand idea of duty, which is, the self-constraint exercised in view

of some noble end. Marriage was pure amongst them, chastity instinctive.

Amongst the Saxons the adulterer was punished by death; the adulteress

was obliged to hang herself, or was stabbed by the knives of her

companions. The wives of the Cimbrians, when they could not obtain from

Marius assurance of their chastity, slew themselves with their own

hands. They thought there was something sacred in a woman; they married

but one, and kept faith with her. In fifteen centuries the idea of

marriage is unchanged amongst them. The wife, on entering her husband's

home, is aware that she gives herself altogether,[39] "that she will

have but one body, one life with him; that she will have no thought, no

desire beyond; that she will be the companion of his perils and labors;

that she will suffer and dare as much as he, both in peace and war." And

he, like her, knows that he gives himself. Having chosen his chief, he

forgets himself in him, assigns to him his own glory, serves him to the

death. "He is infamous as long as he lives, who returns from the field

of battle without his chief."[40] It was on this voluntary subordination

that feudal society was based. Man in this race can accept a superior,

can be capable of devotion and respect. Thrown back upon himself by the

gloom and severity of his climate, he has discovered moral beauty while

others discover sensuous beauty. This kind of naked brute, who lies all

day by his fireside, sluggish and dirty, always eating and drinking,[41]

whose rusty faculties cannot follow the clear and fine outlines of

happily created poetic forms, catches a glimpse of the sublime in his

troubled dreams. He does not see it, but simply feels it; his religion

is already within, as it will be in the sixteenth century, when he will

cast off the sensuous worship imported from Rome, and hallow the faith

of the heart.[42] His gods are not enclosed in walls; he has no idols.

What he designates by divine names is something invisible and grand,

which floats through nature, and is conceived beyond nature,[43] a

mysterious infinity which the sense cannot touch, but which "reverence

alone can feel"; and when, later on, the legends define and alter this

vague divination of natural powers, one idea remains at the bottom of

this chaos of giant-dreams, namely, that the world is a warfare, and

heroism the highest good.

In the beginning, say the old Icelandic legends,[44] there were two

worlds, Niflheim the frozen, and Muspell the burning. From the falling

snow-flakes was born the giant Ymir. "There was in times of old, where

Ymir dwelt, nor sand nor sea, nor gelid waves; earth existed not, nor

heaven above; 'twas a chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere." There was but

Ymir, the horrible frozen Ocean, with his children, sprung from his feet

and his armpits; then their shapeless progeny, Terrors of the abyss,

barren Mountains, Whirlwinds of the North, and other malevolent beings,

enemies of the sun and of life; then the cow Andhumbla, born also of

melting snow, brings to light, whilst licking the hoar-frost from the

rocks, a man Bur, whose grandsons kill the giant Ymir. "From his flesh

the earth was formed, and from his bones the hills, the heaven from the

skull of that ice-cold giant, and from his blood the sea; but of his

brains the heavy clouds are all created." Then arose war between the

monsters of winter and the luminous fertile gods, Odin the founder,

Baldur the mild and benevolent, Thor the summer-thunder, who purifies

the air, and nourishes the earth with showers. Long fought the gods

against the frozen Jötuns, against the dark bestial powers, the Wolf

Fenrir, the great Serpent, whom they drown in the sea, the treacherous

Loki, whom they bind to the rocks, beneath a viper whose venom drops

continually on his face. Long will the heroes who by a bloody death

deserve to be placed "in the halls of Odin, and there wage a combat

every day," assist the gods in their mighty war. A day will, however,

arrive when gods and men will be conquered. Then

"trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing; groans that ancient tree, and

the Jötun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of Hel,[45]

until the fire of Surt has consumed the tree. Hrym steers from the east,

the waters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in jötun-rage. The worm

beats the water, and the eagle screams; the pale of beak tears

carcasses; (the ship) Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the South comes with

flickering flame; shines from his sword the Val-god's sun. The stony

hills are dashed together, the giantesses totter; men tread the path of

Hel, and heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, earth in ocean sinks, fall

from heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails the all-nourishing

tree, towering fire plays against heaven itself."[46]

The gods perish, devoured one by one by the monsters; and the celestial

legend, sad and grand now like the life of man, bears witness to the

hearts of warriors and heroes.

There is no fear of pain, no care for life; they count it as dross when

the idea has seized upon them. The trembling of the nerves, the

repugnance of animal instinct which starts back before wounds and death,

are all lost in an irresistible determination. See how in their epic[47]

the sublime springs up amid the horrible, like a bright purple flower

amid a pool of blood. Sigurd has plunged his sword into the dragon

Fafnir, and at that very moment they looked on one another; and Fafnir

asks, as he dies, "Who art thou? and who is thy father? and what thy

kin, that thou wert so hardy as to bear weapons against me? A hardy

heart urged me on thereto, and a strong hand and this sharp sword....

Seldom hath hardy eld a faint-heart youth." After this triumphant

eagle's cry Sigurd cuts out the worm's heart; but Regin, brother of

Fafnir, drinks blood from the wound, and falls asleep. Sigurd, who was

roasting the heart, raises his finger thoughtlessly to his lips.

Forthwith he understands the language of the birds. The eagles scream

above him in the branches. They warn him to mistrust Regin. Sigurd cuts

off the latter's head, eats of Fafnir's heart, drinks his blood and his

brother's. Amongst all these murders their courage and poetry grow.

Sigurd has subdued Brynhild, the untamed maiden, by passing through the

flaming fire; they share one couch for three nights, his naked sword

betwixt them. "Nor the damsel did he kiss, nor did the Hunnish king to

his arm lift her. He the blooming maid to Giuki's son delivered,"

because, according to his oath, he must send her to her betrothed

Gunnar. She, setting her love upon him, "Alone she sat without, at eve

of day, began aloud with herself to speak: 'Sigurd must be mine; I must

die, or that blooming youth clasp in my arms.'" But seeing him married,

she brings about his death. "Laughed then Brynhild, Budli's daughter,

once only, from her whole soul, when in her bed she listened to the loud

lament of Giuki's daughter." She put on her golden corslet, pierced

herself with the sword's point, and as a last request said:

"Let in the plain be raised a pile so spacious, that for us all like

room may be; let them burn the Hun (Sigurd) on the one side of me, on

the other side my household slaves, with collars splendid, two at our

heads, and two hawks; let also lie between us both the keen-edged sword,

as when we both one couch ascended; also five female thralls, eight male

slaves of gentle birth fostered with me."[48]

All were burnt together; yet Gudrun the widow continued motionless by

the corpse, and could not weep. The wives of the jarls came to console

her, and each of them told her own sorrows, all the calamities of great

devastations and the old life of barbarism.

"Then spoke Giaflang, Giuki's sister: 'Lo, up on earth I live most

loveless, who of five mates must see the ending, of daughters twain and

three sisters, of brethren eight, and abide behind lonely.' Then spake

Herborg, Queen of Hunland: 'Crueller tale have I to tell of my seven

sons, down in the Southlands, and the eight man, my mate, felled in the

death-mead. Father and mother, and four brothers on the wide sea the

winds and death played with; the billows beat on the bulwark boards.

Alone must I sing o'er them, alone must I array them, alone must my

hands deal with their departing; and all this was in one season's

wearing, and none was left for love or solace. Then was I bound a prey

of the battle when that same season wore to its ending; as a tiring may

must I bind the shoon of the duke's high dame, every day at dawning.

From her jealous hate gat I heavy mocking, cruel lashes she laid upon

me."[49]

All was in vain; no word could draw tears from those dry eyes. They were

obliged to lay the bloody corpse before her, ere her tears would come.

Then tears flowed through the pillow; as "the geese withal that were in

the home-field, the fair fowls the may owned, fell a-screaming." She

would have died, like Sigrun, on the corpse of him whom alone she had

loved, if they had not deprived her of memory by a magic potion. Thus

affected, she departs in order to marry Atli, king of the Huns; and yet

she goes against her will, with gloomy forebodings: for murder begets

murder; and her brothers, the murderers of Sigurd, having been drawn to

Atli's court, fall in their turn into a snare like that which they had

themselves laid. Then Gunnar was bound, and they tried to make him

deliver up the treasure. He answers with a barbarian's laugh:

"'Högni's heart in my hand shall lie, cut bloody from the breast of the

valiant chief, the king's son, with a dull-edged knife.' They the heart

cut out from Hialli's breast; on a dish, bleeding, laid it, and it to

Gunnar bare. Then said Gunnar, lord of men: 'Here have I the heart of

the timid Hialli, unlike the heart of the bold Högni; for much it

trembles as in the dish it lies; it trembled more by half while in his

breast it lay.' Högni laughed when to his heart they cut the living

crest-crasher; no lament uttered he. All bleeding on a dish they laid

it, and it to Gunnar bare. Calmly said Gunnar, the warrior Niflung:

'Here have I the heart of the bold Högni, unlike the heart of the timid

Hialli; for it little trembles as in the dish it lies: it trembled less

while in his breast it lay. So far shalt thou, Atli! be from the eyes of

men as thou wilt from the treasures be. In my power alone is all the

hidden Niflung's gold, now that Högni lives not. Ever was I wavering

while we both lived: now am I so no longer, as I alone survive.'"[50]

It was the last insult of the self-confident man, who values neither his

own life nor that of another, so that he can satiate his vengeance. They

cast him into the serpent's den, and there he died, striking his harp

with his foot. But the inextinguishable flame of vengeance passed from

his heart to that of his sister. Corpse after corpse fall on each other;

a mighty fury hurls them open-eyed to death. She killed the children she

had by Atli, and one day on his return from the carnage, gave him their

hearts to eat, served in honey, and laughed coldly as she told him on

what he had fed. "Uproar was on the benches, portentous the cry of men,

noise beneath the costly hangings. The children of the Huns wept; all

wept save Gudrun, who never wept or for her bear-fierce brothers, or for

her dear sons, young, simple."[51] Judge from this heap of ruin and

carnage to what excess the will is strung. There were men amongst them,

Berserkirs,[52] who in battle seized with a sort of madness, showed a

sudden and superhuman strength, and ceased to feel their wounds. This is

the conception of a hero as engendered by this race in its infancy. Is

it not strange to see them place their happiness in battle, their beauty

in death? Is there any people, Hindoo, Persian, Greek, or Gallic, which

has formed so tragic a conception of life? Is there any which has

peopled its infantine mind with such gloomy dreams? Is there any which

has so entirely banished from its dreams the sweetness of enjoyment, and

the softness of pleasure? Endeavors, tenacious and mournful endeavors,

an ecstasy of endeavors--such was their chosen condition. Carlyle said

well, that in the sombre obstinacy of an English laborer still survives

the tacit rage of the Scandinavian warrior. Strife for strife's

sake--such is their pleasure. With what sadness, madness, destruction,

such a disposition breaks its bonds, we shall see in Shakespeare and

Byron; with what vigor and purpose it can limit and employ itself when

possessed by moral ideas, we shall see in the case of the Puritans.

SECTION IV.--Saxon Heroes

They have established themselves in England; and however disordered the

society which binds them together, it is founded, as in Germany, on

generous sentiment. War is at every door, I am aware, but warlike

virtues are within every house; courage chiefly, then fidelity. Under

the brute there is a free man, and a man of spirit. There is no man

amongst them who, at his own risk,[53] will not make alliance, go forth

to fight, undertake adventures. There is no group of free men amongst

them, who, in their Witenagemote, is not forever concluding alliances

one with another. Every clan, in its own district, forms a league of

which all the members, "brothers of the sword," defend each other, and

demand revenge for the spilling of blood, at the price of their own.

Every chief in his hall reckons that he has friends, not mercenaries, in

the faithful ones who drink his beer, and who, having received as marks

of his esteem and confidence, bracelets, swords, and suits of armor,

will cast themselves between him and danger on the day of battle.[54]

Independence and boldness rage amongst this young nation with violence

and excess; but these are of themselves noble things; and no less noble

are the sentiments which serve them for discipline--to wit, an

affectionate devotion, and respect for plighted faith. These appear in

their laws, and break forth in their poetry. Amongst them greatness of

heart gives matter for imagination. Their characters are not selfish and

shifty, like those of Homer. They are brave hearts, simple and strong,

faithful to their relatives, to their master in arms, firm and steadfast

to enemies and friends, abounding in courage, and ready for sacrifice.

"Old as I am," says one, "I will not budge hence. I mean to die by my

lord's side, near this man I have loved so much. He kept his word, the

word he had given to his chief, to the distributor of gifts, promising

him that they should return to the town, safe and sound to their homes,

or that they would fall both together, in the thick of the carnage,

covered with wounds. He lies by his master's side, like a faithful

servant." Though awkward in speech, their old poets find touching words

when they have to paint these manly friendships. We cannot without

emotion hear them relate how the old "king embraced the best of his

thanes, and put his arms about his neck, how the tears flowed down the

cheeks of the gray-haired chief.... The valiant man was so dear to him.

He could not stop the flood which mounted from his breast. In his heart,

deep in the chords of his soul, he sighed in secret after the beloved

man." Few as are the songs which remain to us, they return to this

subject again and again. The wanderer in a reverie dreams about his

lord:[55] It seems to him in his spirit as if he kisses and embraces

him, and lays head and hands upon his knees, as oft before in the olden

time, when he rejoiced in his gifts. Then he wakes--a man without

friends. He sees before him the desert tracks, the seabirds dipping in

the waves, stretching wide their wings, the frost and the snow, mingled

with falling hail. Then his heart's wounds press more heavily. The exile

says:

"In blithe habits full oft we, too, agreed that nought else should

divide us except death alone; at length this is changed, and as if it

had never been is now our friendship. To endure enmities man orders me

to dwell in the bowers of the forest, under the oak-tree in this earthy

cave. Cold is this earth-dwelling: I am quite wearied out. Dim are the

dells, high up are the mountains, a bitter city of twigs, with briars

overgrown, a joyless abode.... My friends are in the earth; those loved

in life, the tomb holds them. The grave is guarding, while I above alone

am going. Under the oak-tree, beyond this earth-cave, there I must sit

the long summer-day."

Amid their perilous mode of life, and the perpetual appeal to arms,

there exists no sentiment more warm than friendship, nor any virtue

stronger than loyalty.

Thus supported by powerful affection and trysted word, society is kept

wholesome. Marriage is like the state. We find women associating with

the men, at their feasts, sober and respected.[56] She speaks, and they

listen to her; no need for concealing or enslaving her, in order to

restrain or retain her. She is a person and not a thing. The law demands

her consent to marriage, surrounds her with guarantees, accords her

protection. She can inherit, possess, bequeath, appear in courts of

justice, in county assemblies, in the great congress of the elders.

Frequently the name of the queen and of several other ladies is

inscribed in the proceedings of the Witenagemote. Law and tradition

maintain her integrity, as if she were a man, and side by side with men.

Her affections captivate her, as if she were a man, and side by side

with men. In Alfred[57] there is a portrait of the wife, which for

purity and elevation equals all that we can devise with our modern

refinements. "Thy wife now lives for thee--for thee alone. She has

enough of all kind of wealth for this present life, but she scorns them

all for thy sake alone. She has forsaken them all, because she had not

thee with them. Thy absence makes her think that all she possesses is

nought. Thus, for love of thee, she is wasted away, and lies near death

for tears and grief." Already, in the legends of the Edda, we have seen

the maiden Sigrun at the tomb of Helgi, "as glad as the voracious hawks

of Odin, when they of slaughter know, of warm prey," desiring to sleep

still in the arms of death, and die at last on his grave. Nothing here

like the love we find in the primitive poetry of France, Provence,

Spain, and Greece. There is an absence of gayety, of delight; outside of

marriage it is only a ferocious appetite, an outbreak of the instinct of

the beast. It appears nowhere with its charm and its smile; there is no

love-song in this ancient poetry. The reason is, that with them love is

not an amusement and a pleasure, but a promise and a devotion. All is

grave, even sombre, in civil relations as well as in conjugal society.

As in Germany, amid the sadness of a melancholic temperament and the

savagery of a barbarous life, the most tragic human faculties, the deep

power of love and the grand power of will, are the only ones that sway

and act.

This is why the hero, as in Germany, is truly heroic. Let us speak of

him at length; we possess one of their poems, that of Beowulf, almost

entire. Here are the stories, which the thanes, seated on their stools,

by the light of their torches, listened to as they drank the ale of

their king: we can glean thence their manners and sentiments, as in the

Iliad and the Odyssey those of the Greeks. Beowulf is a hero, a

knight-errant before the days of chivalry, as the leaders of the German

bands were feudal chiefs before the institution of feudalism.[58] He has

"rowed upon the sea, his naked sword hard in his hand, amidst the fierce

waves and coldest of storms, and the rage of winter hurtled over the

waves of the deep." The sea-monsters, "the many-colored foes, drew him

to the bottom of the sea, and held him fast in their gripe." But he

reached "the wretches with his point and with his war-bill. The mighty

sea-beast received the war-rush through his-hands," and he slew nine

Nicors (sea-monsters). And now behold him, as he comes across the waves

to succor the old King Hrothgar, who with his vassals sits afflicted in

his great mead-hall, high and curved with pinnacles. For "a grim

stranger, Grendel, a mighty haunter of the marshes," had entered his

hall during the night, seized thirty of the thanes who were asleep, and

returned in his war-craft with their carcasses; for twelve years the

dreadful ogre, the beastly and greedy creature, father of Orks and

Jötuns, devoured men and emptied the best of houses. Beowulf, the great

warrior, offers to grapple with the fiend, and foe to foe contend for

life, without the bearing of either sword or ample shield, for he has

"learned also that the wretch for his cursed hide recketh not of

weapons," asking only that if death takes him, they will bear forth his

bloody corpse and bury it; mark his fen-dwelling, and send to Hygelác,

his chief, the best of war-shrouds that guards his breast.

He is lying in the hall, "trusting in his proud strength; and when the

mists of night arose, lo, Grendel comes, tears open the door," seized a

sleeping warrior: "he tore him unawares, he bit his body, he drank the

blood from the veins, he swallowed him with continual tearings." But

Beowulf seized him in turn, and "raised himself upon his elbow."

"The lordly hall thundered, the ale was spilled,... both were enraged;

savage and strong warders; the house resounded; then was it a great

wonder that the wine-hall withstood the beasts of war, that it fell not

upon the earth, the fair palace; but it was thus fast.... The noise

arose, new enough; a fearful terror fell on the North Danes, on each of

those who from the wall heard the outcry, God's denier sing his dreadful

lay, his song of defeat, lament his wound.[59]... The foul wretch

awaited the mortal wound; a mighty gash was evident upon his shoulder;

the sinews sprung asunder, the junctures of the bones burst; success in

war was given to Beowulf. Thence must Grendel fly sick unto death, among

the refuges of the fens, to seek his joyless dwelling. He all the better

knew that the end of his life, the number of his days was gone by."[60]

For he had left on the ground, "hand, arm, and shoulder"; and "in the

lake of Nicors, where he was driven, the rough wave was boiling with

blood, the foul spring of waves all mingled, hot with poison; the dye,

discolored with death, bubbled with warlike gore." There remained a

female monster, his mother, who, like him, "was doomed to inhabit the

terror of waters, the cold streams," who came by night, and amidst drawn

swords tore and devoured another man, Æschere, the king's best friend.

A lamentation arose in the palace, and Beowulf offered himself again.

They went to the den, a hidden land, the refuge of the wolf, near the

windy promontories, where a mountain stream rusheth downwards under the

darkness of the hills, a flood beneath the earth; the wood fast by its

roots overshadoweth the water; there may one by night behold a marvel,

fire upon the flood; the stepper over the heath, when wearied out by the

hounds, sooner will give up his soul, his life upon the brink, than

plunge therein to hide his head. Strange dragons and serpents swam

there; "from time to time the horn sang a dirge, a terrible song."

Beowulf plunged into the wave, descended, passed monsters who tore his

coat of mail, to the ogress, the hateful manslayer, who, seizing him in

her grasp, bore him off to her dwelling. A pale gleam shone brightly,

and there, face to face, the good champion perceived

"the she-wolf of the abyss, the mighty sea-woman; he gave the war-onset

with his battle-bill; he held not back the swing of the sword, so that

on her head the ring-mail sang aloud a greedy war-song.... The beam of

war would not bite. Then caught the prince of the War-Geáts Grendel's

mother by the shoulders... twisted the homicide, so that she bent upon

the floor... She drew her knife broad, brown-edged (and tried to

pierce), the twisted breast-net which protected his life.... Then saw he

among the weapons a bill fortunate in victory, an old gigantic sword,

doughty of edge, ready for use, the work of giants. He seized the belted

hilt; the warrior of the Scyldings, fierce and savage whirled the

ring-mail; despairing of life, he struck furiously, so that it grappled

hard with her about the neck; it broke the bone-rings, the bill passed

through all the doomed body; she sank upon the floor; the sword was

bloody, the man rejoiced in his deed; the beam shone, light stood

within, even as from heaven mildly shines the lamp of the

firmament."[61]

Then he saw Grendel dead in a corner of the hall; and four of his

companions, having with difficulty raised the monstrous head, bore it by

the hair to the palace of the king.

That was his first labor; and the rest of his life was similar. When he

had reigned fifty years on earth, a dragon, who had been robbed of his

treasure, came from the hill and burned men and houses "with waves of

fire. Then did the refuge of earls command to make for him a

variegated shield, all of iron; he knew well enough that a shield of

wood could not help him, lindenwood opposed to fire.... The prince of

rings was then too proud to seek the wide flier with a troop, with a

large company; he feared not for himself that battle, nor did he make

any account of the dragon's war, his laboriousness and valor." And yet

he was sad, and went unwillingly, for he was "fated to abide the end."

Then "he was ware of a cavern, a mound under the earth, nigh to the sea

wave, the clashing of waters, which cave was full within of embossed

ornaments and wires. ... Then the king, hard in war, sat upon the

promontory, whilst he, the prince of the Geáts, bade farewell to his

household comrades. ... I, the old guardian of my people, seek a feud."

He "let words proceed from his breast," the dragon came, vomiting fire;

the blade bit not his body, and the king "suffered painfully, involved

in fire." His comrades had "turned to the wood, to save their lives,"

all save Wiglaf, who "went through the fatal smoke," knowing well "that

it was not the old custom" to abandon relation and prince, "that he

alone... shall suffer distress, shall sink in battle. The worm came

furious, the foul insidious stranger, variegated with waves of fire,...

hot and warlike fierce, he clutched the whole neck with bitter banes; he

was bloodied with life-gore, the blood boiled in waves."[62] They, with

their swords, carved the worm in the midst. Yet the wound of the king

became burning and swelled; "he soon discovered that poison boiled in

his breast within, and sat by the wall upon a stone"; "he looked upon

the work of giants, how the eternal cavern held within stone arches fast

upon pillars." Then he said--

"I have held this people fifty years; there was not any king of my

neighbors, who dared to greet me with warriors, to oppress me with

terror.... I held mine own well, I sought not treacherous malice, nor

swore unjustly many oaths; on account of all this, I, sick with mortal

wounds, may have joy.... Now do thou go immediately to behold the hoard

under the hoary stone, my dear Wiglaf.... Now, I have purchased with my

death a hoard of treasures; it will be yet of advantage at the need of

the people.... I give thanks... that I might before my dying day obtain

such for my peoples... longer may I not here be."[63]

This is thorough and real generosity, not exaggerated and pretended, as

it will be later on in the romantic imaginations of babbling clerics,

mere composers of adventure. Fiction as yet is not far removed from

fact; the man breathes manifest beneath the hero. Rude as the poetry is,

its hero is grand; he is so, simply by his deeds. Faithful, first to his

prince, then to his people, he went alone, in a strange land, to venture

himself for the delivery of his fellow-men; he forgets himself in death,

while thinking only that it profits others. "Each one of us," he says in

one place, "must abide the end of his present life." Let, therefore,

each do justice, if he can, before his death. Compare with him the

monsters whom he destroys, the last traditions of the ancient wars

against inferior races, and of the primitive religion; think of his life

of danger, nights upon the waves, man grappling with the brute creation;

man's indomitable will crushing the breasts of beasts; man's powerful

muscles which, when exerted, tear the flesh of the monsters; you will

see reappear through the mist of legends, and under the light of poetry,

the valiant men who, amid the madness of war and the raging of their own

mood, began to settle a people and to found a state.

SECTION V.--Pagan Poems

One poem nearly whole and two or three fragments are all that remain of

this lay-poetry of England. The rest of the pagan current, German and

barbarian, was arrested or overwhelmed, first by the influx of the

Christian religion, then by the conquest of the Norman-French. But what

remains more than suffices to show the strange and powerful poetic

genius of the race, and to exhibit beforehand the flower in the bud.

If there has ever been anywhere a deep and serious poetic sentiment, it

is here. They do not speak, they sing, or rather they shout. Each little

verse is an acclamation, which breaks forth like a growl; their strong

breasts heave with a groan of anger or enthusiasm, and a vehement or

indistinct phrase or expression rises suddenly, almost in spite of them,

to their lips. There is no art, no natural talent, for describing singly

and in order the different parts of an object or an event. The fifty

rays of light which every phenomenon emits in succession to a regular

and well-directed intellect, come to them at once in a glowing and

confused mass, disabling them by their force and convergence. Listen to

their genuine war-chants, unchecked and violent, as became their

terrible voices. To this day, at this distance of time, separated as

they are by manners, speech, ten centuries, we seem to hear them still:

"The army goes forth: the birds sing, the cricket chirps, the

war-weapons sound, the lance clangs against the shield. Now shineth the

moon, wandering under the sky. Now arise deeds of woe, which the enmity

of this people prepares to do.... Then in the court came the tumult of

war-carnage. They seized with their hands the hollow wood of the shield.

They smote through the bones of the head. The roofs of the castle

resounded, until Garulf fell in battle, the first of earth-dwelling men,

son of Guthlaf. Around him lay many brave men dying. The raven whirled

about, dark and sombre, like a willow leaf. There was a sparkling of

blades, as if all Finsburg were on fire. Never have I heard of a more

worthy battle in war."[64]

This is the song on Athelstan's victory at Brunanburh:

"Here Athelstan king, of earls the lord, the giver of the bracelets of

the nobles, and his brother also, Edmund the ætheling, the Elder a

lasting glory won by slaughter in battle, with the edges of swords, at

Brunanburh. The wall of shields they cleaved, they hewed the noble

banners: with the rest of the family, the children of Edward....

Pursuing, they destroyed the Scottish people and the ship-fleet.... The

field was colored with the warriors' blood! After that the sun on

high,... the greatest star! glided over the earth, God's candle bright!

till the noble creature hastened to her setting. There lay soldiers many

with darts struck down, Northern men over their shields shot. So were

the Scots; weary of ruddy battle.... The screamers of war they left

behind; the raven to enjoy, the dismal kite, and the black raven with

horned beak, and the hoarse toad; the eagle, afterwards to feast on the

white flesh; the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey beast, the wolf in the

wood."[65]

Here all is imagery. In their impassioned minds events are not bald,

with the dry propriety of an exact description; each fits in with its

pomp of sound, shape, coloring; it is almost a vision which is raised,

complete, with its accompanying emotions, joy, fury, excitement. In

their speech, arrows are "the serpents of Hel, shot from bows of horn";

ships are "great sea-steeds," the sea is "a chalice of waves," the

helmet is "the castle of the head"; they need an extraordinary speech to

express their vehement sensations, so that after a time, in Iceland,

where this kind of poetry was carried on to excess, the earlier

inspiration failed, art replaced nature, the Skalds were reduced to a

distorted and obscure jargon. But whatever be the imagery, here, as in

Iceland, though unique, it is too feeble. The poets have not satisfied

their inner emotion, if it is only expressed by a single word. Time

after time they return to and repeat their idea. "The sun on high, the

great star, God's brilliant candle, the noble creature!" Four times

successively they employ the same thought, and each time under a new

aspect. All its different aspects rise simultaneously before the

barbarian's eyes, and each word was like a fit of the semi-hallucination

which possessed him. Verily, in such a condition, the regularity of

speech and of ideas is disturbed at every turn. The succession of

thought in the visionary is not the same as in a reasoning mind. One

color induces another; from sound he passes to sound; his imagination is

like a diorama of unexplained pictures. His phrases recur and change; he

emits the word that comes to his lips without hesitation; he leaps over

wide intervals from idea to idea. The more his mind is transported, the

quicker and wider the intervals traversed. With one spring he visits the

poles of his horizon, and touches in one moment objects which seemed to

have the world between them. His ideas are entangled without order;

without notice, abruptly, the poet will return to the idea he has

quitted, and insert it in the thought to which he is giving expression.

It is impossible to translate these incongruous ideas, which quite

disconcert our modern style. At times they are unintelligible.[66]

Articles, particles, everything capable of illuminating thought, of

marking the connection of terms, of producing regularity of ideas, all

rational and logical artifices, are neglected.[67] Passion bellows forth

like a great shapeless beast; and that is all. It rises and starts in

little abrupt lines; it is the acme of barbarism. Homer's happy poetry

is copiously developed, in full narrative, with rich and extended

imagery. All the details of a complete picture are not too much for him;

he loves to look at things, he lingers over them, rejoices in their

beauty, dresses them in splendid words; he is like the Greek girls, who

thought themselves ugly if they did not bedeck arms and shoulders with

all the gold coins from their purse, and all the treasures from their

caskets; his long verses flow by with their cadences, and spread out

like a purple robe under an Ionian sun. Here the clumsy-fingered poet

crowds and clashes his ideas in a narrow measure; if measure there be,

he barely observes it; all his ornament is three words beginning with

the same letter. His chief care is to abridge, to imprison thought in a

kind of mutilated cry.[68] The force of the internal impression, which,

not knowing how to unfold itself, becomes condensed and doubled by

accumulation; the harshness of the outward expression, which,

subservient to the energy and shocks of the inner sentiment, seek only

to exhibit it intact and original, in spite of and at the expense of all

order and beauty—such are the characteristics of their poetry, and

these also will be the characteristics of the poetry which is to follow.

SECTION VI.--Christian Poems

A race so constituted was predisposed to Christianity, by its gloom, its

aversion to sensual and reckless living, its inclination for the serious

and sublime. When their sedentary habits had reconciled their souls to a

long period of ease, and weakened the fury which fed their sanguinary

religion, they readily inclined to a new faith. The vague adoration of

the great powers of nature, which eternally fight for mutual

destruction, and, when destroyed, rise up again to the combat, had long

since disappeared in the dim distance. Society, on its formation,

introduced the idea of peace and the need for justice, and the war-gods

faded from the minds of men, with the passions which had created them. A

century and a half after the invasion by the Saxons,[69] Roman

missionaries, bearing a silver cross with a picture of Christ, came in

procession chanting a litany. Presently the high priest of the

Northumbrians declared in presence of the nobles that the old gods were

powerless, and confessed that formerly "he knew nothing of that which he

adored"; and he among the first, lance in hand, assisted to demolish

their temple. Then a chief rose in the assembly, and said:

"You remember, it may be, O king, that which sometimes happens in winter

when you are seated at table with your earls and thanes. Your fire is

lighted, and your hall warmed, and without is rain and snow and storm.

Then comes a swallow flying across the hall; he enters by one door, and

leaves by another. The brief moment while he is within is pleasant to

him; he feels not rain nor cheerless winter weather; but the moment is

brief--the bird flies away in the twinkling of an eye, and he passes

from winter to winter. Such, methinks, is the life of man on earth,

compared with the uncertain time beyond. It appears for a while; but

what is the time which comes after—the time which was before? We know

not. If, then, this new doctrine may teach us somewhat of greater

certainty, it were well that we should regard it."

This restlessness, this feeling of the infinite and dark beyond, this

sober, melancholy eloquence, were the harbingers of spiritual life.[70]

We find nothing like it amongst the nations of the south, naturally

pagan, and preoccupied with the present life. These utter barbarians

embrace Christianity straightway, through sheer force of mood and clime.

To no purpose are they brutal, heavy, shackled by infantine

superstitions, capable, like King Canute, of buying for a hundred golden

talents the arm of Augustine. They possess the idea of God. This grand

God of the Bible, omnipotent and unique, who disappears almost entirely

in the Middle Ages,[71] obscured by His court and His family, endures

amongst them in spite of absurd or grotesque legends. They do not blot

Him out under pious romances, by the elevation of the saints, or under

feminine caresses, to benefit the infant Jesus and the Virgin. Their

grandeur and their severity raise them to His high level; they are not

tempted, like artistic and talkative nations, to replace religion by a

fair and agreeable narrative. More than any race in Europe, they

approach, by the simplicity and energy of their conceptions, the old

Hebraic spirit. Enthusiasm is their natural condition; and their new

Deity fills them with admiration, as their ancient deities inspired them

with fury. They have hymns, genuine odes, which are but a concrete of

exclamations. They have no development; they are incapable of

restraining or explaining their passion; it bursts forth, in raptures,

at the vision of the Almighty. The heart alone speaks here--a strong,

barbarous heart. Cædmon, their old poet,[72] says Bede, was a more

ignorant man than the others, who knew no poetry; so that in the hall,

when they handed him the harp, he was obliged to withdraw, being unable

to sing like his companions. Once, keeping night-watch over the stable,

he fell asleep. A stranger appeared to him, and asked him to sing

something, and these words came into his head: "Now we ought to praise

the Lord of heaven, the power of the Creator, and His skill, the deeds

of the Father of glory; how he, being eternal God, is the author of all

marvels; who, almighty guardian of the human race, created first for the

sons of men the heavens as the roof of their dwelling, and then the

earth." Remembering this when he woke,[73] he came to the town, and they

brought him before the learned men, before the abbess Hilda, who, when

they had heard him, thought that he had received a gift from heaven, and

made him a monk in the abbey. There he spent his life listening to

portions of Holy Writ, which were explained to him in Saxon, "ruminating

over them like a pure animal, turned them into most sweet verse." Thus

is true poetry born. These men pray with all the emotion of a new soul;

they kneel; they adore; the less they know the more they think. Someone

has said that the first and most sincere hymn is this one word O! Theirs

were hardly longer; they only repeated time after time some deep

passionate word, with monotonous vehemence. "In heaven art Thou, our aid

and succor, resplendent with happiness! All things bow before Thee,

before the glory of Thy Spirit. With one voice they call upon Christ;

they all cry: Holy, holy art Thou, King of the angels of heaven, our

Lord! and Thy judgments are just and great; they reign forever and in

all places, in the multitude of Thy works." We are reminded of the songs

of the servants of Odin, tonsured now, and clad in the garments of

monks. Their poetry is the same; they think of God, as of Odin, in a

string of short, accumulated, passionate images, like a succession of

lightning-flashes; the Christian hymns are a sequel to the pagan. One of

them, Adhelm, stood on a bridge leading to the town where he lived, and

repeated warlike and profane odes as well as religious poetry, in order

to attract and instruct the men of his time. He could do it without

changing his key. In one of them, a funeral song, Death speaks. It was

one of the last Saxon compositions, containing a terrible Christianity,

which seems at the same time to have sprung from the blackest depths of

the Edda. The brief metre sounds abruptly, with measured stroke, like

the passing bell. It is as if we hear the dull resounding responses

which roll through the church, while the rain beats on the dim glass,

and the broken clouds sail mournfully in the sky; and our eyes, glued to

the pale face of a dead man feel beforehand the horror of the damp grave

into which the living are about to cast him.

"For thee was a house built ere thou wert born; for thee was a mould

shapen ere thou of thy mother earnest. Its height is not determined, nor

its depth measured; nor is it closed up (however long it may be) until I

thee bring where thou shalt remain; until I shall measure thee and the

sod of the earth. Thy house is not highly built; it is unhigh and low.

When thou art in it, the heel-ways are low, the sideways unhigh. The

roof is built thy breast full high; so thou shalt in earth dwell full

cold, dim, and dark. Doorless is that house, and dark it is within.

There thou art fast detained, and Death holds the key. Loathly is that

earth-house, and grim to dwell in. There thou shalt dwell, and worms

shall share thee. Thus thou art laid, and leavest thy friends. Thou hast

no friend that will come to thee, who will ever inquire how that house

liketh thee, who shall ever open for thee the door, and seek thee, for

soon thou becomest loathly and hateful to look upon."[74]

Has Jeremy Taylor a more gloomy picture? The two religious poetries,

Christian and pagan, are so like, that one might mingle their

incongruities, images, and legends. In Beowulf, altogether pagan, the

Deity appears as Odin, more mighty and serene, and differs from the

other only as a peaceful Bretwalda[75] differs from an adventurous and

heroic bandit-chief. The Scandinavian monsters, Jötuns, enemies of the

Æsir,[76] have not vanished; but they descend from Cain, and the giants

drowned by the flood.[77] Their new hell is nearly the ancient

Nástrand,[78] "a dwelling deadly cold, full of bloody eagles and pale

adders"; and the dreadful last day of judgment, when all will crumble

into dust, and make way for a purer world, resembles the final

destruction of Edda, that "twilight of the gods," which will end in a

victorious regeneration, an everlasting joy "under a fairer sun."

By this natural conformity they were able to make their religious poems

indeed poems. Power in spiritual productions arises only from the

sincerity of personal and original sentiment. If they can relate

religious tragedies, it is because their soul was tragic, and in a

degree biblical. They introduce into their verses, like the old prophets

of Israel, their fierce vehemence, their murderous hatreds, their

fanaticism, all the shudderings of their flesh and blood. One of them,

whose poem is mutilated, has related the history of Judith--with what

inspiration we shall see. It needed a barbarian to display in such

strong light excesses, tumult, murder, vengeance, and combat.

"Then was Holofernes exhilarated with wine; in the halls of his guests

he laughed and shouted, he roared and dinned. Then might the children of

men afar off hear how the stern one stormed and clamored, animated and

elated with wine. He admonished amply that they should bear it well to

those sitting on the bench. So was the wicked one over all the day, the

lord and his men, drunk with wine, the stern dispenser of wealth; till

that they swimming lay over drunk, all his nobility, as they were

death-slain."[79]

The night having arrived, he commands them to bring into his tent "the

illustrious virgin"; then, going to visit her, he falls drunk on his

bed. The moment was come for "the maid of the Creator, the holy woman."

"She took the heathen man fast by his hair; she drew him by his limbs

towards her disgracefully; and the mischiefful odious man at her

pleasure laid; so as the wretch she might the easiest well command. She

with the twisted locks struck the hateful enemy, meditating hate, with

the red sword, till she had half cut off his neck; so that he lay in a

swoon, drunk and mortally wounded. He was not then dead, not entirely

lifeless. She struck then earnest, the woman illustrious in strength,

another time the heathen hound, till that his head rolled forth upon the

floor. The foul one lay without a coffer; backward his spirit turned

under the abyss, and there was plunged below, with sulphur fastened;

forever afterward wounded by worms. Bound in torments, hard imprisoned,

in hell he burns. After his course he need not hope, with darkness

overwhelmed, that he may escape from that mansion of worms; but there he

shall remain; ever and ever, without end, henceforth in that

cavern-house, void of the joys of hope."[80]

Had anyone ever heard a sterner accent of satisfied hate? When Clovis

listened to the Passion play, he cried, "Why was I not there with my

Franks!" So here the old warrior instinct swelled into flame over the

Hebrew wars. As soon as Judith returned,

"Men under helms (went out) from the holy city at the dawn itself. They

dinned shields; men roared loudly. At this rejoiced the lank wolf in the

wood, and the wan raven, the fowl greedy of slaughter, both from the

west, that the sons of men for them should have thought to prepare their

fill on corpses. And to them flew in their paths the active devourer,

the eagle, hoary in his feathers. The willowed kite, with his horned

beak, sang the song of Hilda. The noble warriors proceeded, they in

mail, to the battle, furnished with shields, with swelling banners. ...

They then speedily let fly forth showers of arrows, the serpents of

Hilda, from their horn bows; the spears on the ground hard stormed. Loud

raged the plunderers of battle; they sent their darts into the throng of

the chiefs.... They that awhile before the reproach of the foreigners,

the taunts of the heathen endured."[81]

Amongst all these unknown poets[82] there is one whose name we know,

Cædmon, perhaps the old Cædmon who wrote the first hymn; like him, at

all events, who, paraphrasing the Bible with a barbarian's vigor and

sublimity, has shown the grandeur and fury of the sentiment with which

the men of these times entered into their new religion. He also sings

when he speaks; when he mentions the ark, it is with a profusion of

poetic names, "the floating house, the greatest of floating chambers,

the wooden fortress, the moving roof, the cavern, the great sea-chest,"

and many more. Every time he thinks of it, he sees it with his mind,

like a quick luminous vision, and each time under a new aspect, now

undulating on the muddy waves, between two ridges of foam, now casting

over the water its enormous shadow, black and high like a castle, "now

enclosing in its cavernous sides" the endless swarm of caged beasts.

Like the others, he wrestles with God in his heart; triumphs like a

warrior over destruction and victory; and in relating the death of

Pharaoh, can hardly speak from anger, or see, because the blood mounts

to his eyes.

"The folk was affrighted, the flood-dread seized on their sad souls;

ocean wailed with death, the mountain heights were with blood

be-steamed, the sea foamed gore, crying was in the waves, the water full

of weapons, a death-mist rose; the Egyptians were turned back; trembling

they fled, they felt fear: would that host gladly find their homes;

their vaunt grew sadder: against them, as a cloud, rose the fell rolling

of the waves; there came not any of that host to home, but from behind

enclosed them fate with the wave. Where ways ere lay sea raged. Their

might was merged, the streams stood, the storm rose high to heaven; the

loudest army-cry the hostile uttered; the air above was thickened with

dying voices.... Ocean raged, drew itself up on high, the storms rose,

the corpses rolled."[83]

Is the song of the Exodus more abrupt, more vehement, or more savage?

These men can speak of the creation like the Bible, because they speak

of destruction like the Bible. They have only to look into their own

hearts in order to discover an emotion sufficiently strong to raise

their souls to the height of their Creator. This emotion existed already

in their pagan legends; and Cædmon, in order to recount the origin of

things, has only to turn to the ancient dreams, such as have been

preserved in the prophecies of the Edda.

"There had not here as yet, save cavern-shade, aught been; but this wide

abyss stood deep and dim, strange to its Lord, idle and useless; on

which looked with his eyes the King firm of mind, and beheld these

places void of joys; saw the dark cloud lower in eternal night, swart

under heaven, dark and waste, until this worldly creation through the

word existed of the Glory-King.... The earth as yet was not green with

grass; ocean cover'd, swart in eternal night, far and wide the dusky

ways."[84]

In this manner will Milton hereafter speak, the descendant of the Hebrew

seers, last of the Scandinavian seers, but assisted in the development

of his thought by all the resources of Latin culture and civilization.

And yet he will add nothing to the primitive sentiment. Religious

instinct is not acquired; it belongs to the blood, and is inherited with

it. So it is with other instincts; pride in the first place, indomitable

self-conscious energy, which sets man in opposition to all domination,

and inures him against all pain. Milton's Satan exists already in

Cædmon's, as the picture exists in the sketch; because both have their

model in the race; and Caedmon found his originals in the northern

warriors, as Milton did in the Puritans:

"Why shall I for his favor serve, bend to him in such vassalage? I may

be a god as he. Stand by me, strong associates, who will not fail me in

the strife. Heroes stern of mood, they have chosen me for chief,

renowned warriors! with such may one devise counsel, with such capture

his adherents; they are my zealous friends, faithful in their thoughts;

I may be their chieftain, sway in this realm; thus to me it seemeth not

right that I in aught need cringe to God for any good; I will no longer

be his vassal."[85]

He is overcome: shall he be subdued? He is cast into the place "where

torment they suffer, burning heat intense, in midst of hell, fire, and

broad flames; so also the bitter seeks smoke and darkness"; will he

repent? At first he is astonished, he despairs; but it is a hero's

despair.

"This narrow place is most unlike that other that we ere knew,[86] high

in heaven's kingdom, which my master bestow'd on me.... Oh, had I power

of my hands, and might one season be without, be one winter's space,

then with this host I--But around me lie iron bonds, presseth this cord

of chain: I am powerless! me have so hard the clasps of hell, so firmly

grasped! Here is a vast fire above and underneath, never did I see a

loathlier landskip; the flame abateth not, hot over hell. Me hath the

clasping of these rings, this hard-polish'd band, impeded in my course,

debarr'd me from my way; my feet are bound, my hands manacled,... so

that with aught I cannot from these limb-bonds escape."[87]

As there is nothing to be done against God, it is His new creature, man,

whom he must attack. To him who has lost everything, vengeance is left;

and if the conquered can enjoy this, he will find himself happy; "he

will sleep softly, even under his chains."

SECTION VII.--Primitive Saxon Authors

Here the foreign culture ceased. Beyond Christianity it could not graft

upon this barbarous stock any fruitful or living branch. All the

circumstances which elsewhere mellowed the wild sap, failed here. The

Saxons found Britain abandoned by the Romans; they had not yielded, like

their brothers on the Continent, to the ascendancy of a superior

civilization; they had not become mingled with the inhabitants of the

land; they had always treated them like enemies or slaves, pursuing like

wolves those who escaped to the mountains of the west, treating like

beasts of burden those whom they had conquered with the land. While the

Germans of Gaul, Italy, and Spain became Romans, the Saxons retained

their language, their genius and manners, and created in Britain a

Germany outside of Germany. A hundred and fifty years after the Saxon

invasion, the introduction of Christianity and the dawn of security

attained by a society inclining to peace, gave birth to a kind of

literature; and we meet with the venerable Bede, and later on, Alcuin,

John Scotus Erigena, and some others, commentators, translators,

teachers of barbarians, who tried not to originate but to compile, to

pick out and explain from the great Greek and Latin encyclopædia

something which might suit the men of their time. But the wars with the

Danes came and crushed this humble plant, which, if left to itself,

would have come to nothing.[88] When Alfred[89] the Deliverer became

king, "there were very few ecclesiastics," he says, "on this side of the

Humber, who could understand in English their own Latin prayers, or

translate any Latin writing into English. On the other side of the

Humber I think there were scarce any; there were so few that, in truth,

I cannot remember a single man south of the Thames, when I took the

kingdom, who was capable of it." He tried, like Charlemagne, to instruct

his people, and turned into Saxon for their use several works, above all

some moral books, as the "de Consolatione" of Boethius; but this very

translation bears witness to the barbarism of his audience. He adapts

the text in order to bring it down to their intelligence; the pretty

verses of Boethius, somewhat pretentious, labored, elegant, crowded with

classical allusions of a refined and compact style worthy of Seneca,

become an artless, long-drawn-out and yet desultory prose, like a

nurse's fairy tale, explaining everything, recommencing and breaking off

its phrases, making ten turns about a single detail; so low was it

necessary to stoop to the level of this new intelligence, which had

never thought or known anything. Here follows the Latin of Boethius, so

affected, so pretty, with the English translation affixed:

"Quondam funera conjugis

Vates Threicius gemens,

Postquam flebilibus modis

Silvas currere, mobiles

Amnes stare coegerat,

Junxitque intrepidum latus

Sævis cerva leonibus,

Nec visum timuit lepus

Jam cantu placidum canem;

Cum flagrantior intima

Fervor pectoris ureret,

Nec qui cuncta subegerant

Mulcerent dominum modi;

Immites superos querens,

Infernas adiit domos.

Illic blanda sonantibus

Chordis carmina temperans,

Quidquid praecipuis Deæ

Matris fontibus hauserat,

Quod luctus dabat impotens,

Quod luctum geminans amor,

Deflet Tartara commovens,

Et dulci veniam prece

Umbrarum dominos rogat.

Stupet tergeminus novo

Captus carmine janitor;

Quæ sontes agitant metu

Ultrices scelerum Deæ

Jam mœstæ lacrymis madent.

Non Ixionium caput

Velox præcipitat rota,

Et longa site perditus

Spernit flumina Tantalus.

Vultur dum satur est modis

Non traxit Tityi jecur.

Tandem, vincimur, arbiter

Umbrarum miserans ait.

Donemus comitem viro,

Emptam carmine conjugem.

Sed lex dona coerceat,

Nec, dum Tartara liquerit,

Fas sit lumina flectere.

Quis legem det amantibus!

Major lex fit amor sibi.

Heu! noctis prope terminos

Orpheus Eurydicem suam

Vidit, perdidit, occidit.

Vos hæc fabula respicit,

Quicunque in superum diem

Mentem ducere quæritis.

Nam qui tartareum in specus

Victus lumina flexerit,

Quidquid præcipuum trahit

Perdit, dum videt inferos."

--_Book III. Metre 12._

The English translation follows:

"It happened formerly that there was a harper in the country called

Thrace, which was in Greece. The harper was inconceivably good. His name

was Orpheus. He had a very excellent wife, called Eurydice. Then began

men to say concerning the harper, that he could harp so that the wood

moved, and the stones stirred themselves at the sound, and wild beasts

would run thereto, and stand as if they were tame; so still, that though

men or hounds pursued them, they shunned them not. Then said they, that

the harper's wife should die, and her soul should be led to hell. Then

should the harper become so sorrowful that he could not remain among the

men, but frequented the wood, and sat on the mountains, both day and

night, weeping and harping, so that the woods shook, and the rivers

stood still, and no hart shunned any lion, nor hare any hound; nor did

cattle know any hatred, or any fear of others, for the pleasure of the

sound. Then it seemed to the harper that nothing in this world pleased

him. Then thought he that he would seek the gods of hell, and endeavor

to allure them with his harp, and pray that they would give him back his

wife. When he came thither, then should there come towards him the dog

of hell, whose name was Cerberus--he should have three heads—and began

to wag his tail, and play with him for his harping. Then was there also

a very horrible gatekeeper, whose name should be Charon. He had also

three heads, and he was very old. Then began the harper to beseech him

that he would protect him while he was there, and bring him thence again

safe. Then did he promise that to him, because he was desirous of the

unaccustomed sound. Then went he further until he met the fierce

goddesses, whom the common people call Parcæ, of whom they say, that

they know no respect for any man, but punish every man according to his

deeds; and of whom they say, that they control every man's fortune. Then

began he to implore their mercy. Then began they to weep with him. Then

went he farther, and all the inhabitants of hell ran towards him, and

led him to their king: and all began to speak with him, and to pray that

which he prayed. And the restless wheel which Ixion, the king of the

Lapithæ, was bound to for his guilt, that stood still for his harping.

And Tantalus the king, who in this world was immoderately greedy, and

whom that same vice of greediness followed there, he became quiet. And

the vulture should cease, so that he tore not the liver of Tityus the

king, which before therewith tormented him. And all the punishments of

the inhabitants of hell were suspended, whilst he harped before the

king. When he long and long had harped, then spoke the king of the

inhabitants of hell, and said, Let us give the man his wife, for he has

earned her by his harping. He then commanded him that he should well

observe that he never looked backwards after he departed hence; and

said, if he looked backwards, that he should lose the woman. But men can

with great difficulty, if at all, restrain love! Wellaway! What! Orpheus

then led his wife with him till he came to the boundary of light and

darkness. Then went his wife after him. When he came forth into the

light, then looked be behind his back towards the woman. Then was she

immediately lost to him. This fable teaches every man who desires to fly

the darkness of hell, and to come to the light of the true good, that he

look not about him to his old vices, so that he practise them again as

fully as he did before. For whosoever with full will turns his mind to

the vices which he had before forsaken, and practises them, and they

then fully please him, and he never thinks of forsaking them; then loses

he all his former good unless he again amend it."[90]

A man speaks thus when he wishes to impress upon the mind of his hearers

an idea which is not clear to them. Boethius had for his audience

senators, men of culture, who understood as well as we the slightest

mythological allusion. Alfred is obliged to take them up and develop

them, like a father or a master, who draws his little boy between his

knees, and relates to him names, qualities, crimes and their

punishments, which the Latin only hints at. But the ignorance is such

that the teacher himself needs correction. He takes the Parcæ for the

Erinyes, and gives Charon three heads like Cerberus. There is no

adornment in his version; no delicacy as in the original. Alfred has

hard work to make himself understood. What, for instance, becomes of the

noble Platonic moral, the apt interpretation after the style of

Iamblichus and Porphyry? It is altogether dulled. He has to call

everything by its name, and turn the eyes of his people to tangible and

visible things. It is a sermon suited to his audience of thanes; the

Danes whom he had converted by the sword needed a clear moral. If he had

translated for them exactly the last words of Boethius, they would have

opened wide their big stupid eyes and fallen asleep.

For the whole talent of an uncultivated mind lies in the force and

oneness of its sensations. Beyond that it is powerless. The art of

thinking and reasoning lies above it. These men lost all genius when

they lost their fever-heat. They lisped awkwardly and heavily dry

chronicles, a sort of historical almanacs. You might think them

peasants, who, returning from their toil, came and scribbled with chalk

on a smoky table the date of a year of scarcity, the price of corn, the

changes in the weather, a death. Even so, side by side with the meagre

Bible chronicles, which set down the successions of kings, and of Jewish

massacres, are exhibited the exaltation of the psalms and the transports

of prophecy. The same lyric poet can be alternately a brute and a

genius, because his genius comes and goes like a disease, and instead of

having it he simply is ruled by it.

"AD. 611. This year Cynegils succeeded to the government in Wessex, and

held it one-and-thirty winters. Cynegils was the son of Ceol, Ceol of

Cutha, Cutha of Cynric.

"614. This year Cynegils and Cnichelm fought at Bampton, and slew two

thousand and forty-six of the Welsh.

"678. This year appeared the comet-star in August, and shone every

morning during three months like a sunbeam. Bishop Wilfrid being driven

from his bishopric by King Everth, two bishops were consecrated in his

stead.

"901. This year died Alfred, the son of Ethelwulf, six nights before the

mass of All Saints. He was king over all the English nation, except that

part that was under the power of the Danes. He held the government one

year and a half less than thirty winters; and then Edward his son took

to the government.

"902. This year there was the great fight at the Holme, between the men

of Kent and the Danes.

"1077. This year were reconciled the King of the Franks, and William,

King of England. But it was continued only a little while. This year was

London burned, one night before the Assumption of St. Mary, so terribly

as it never was before since it was built."[91]

It is thus the poor monks speak, with monotonous dryness, who, after

Alfred's time, gather up and take note of great visible events; sparsely

scattered we find a few moral reflections, a passionate emotion, nothing

more. In the tenth century we see King Edgar give a manor to a bishop,

on condition that he will put into Saxon the monastic regulation written

in Latin by Saint Benedict. Alfred himself was almost the last man of

culture; he, like Charlemagne, became so only by dint of determination

and patience. In vain the great spirits of this age endeavor to link

themselves to the relics of the fine, ancient civilization, and to raise

themselves above the chaotic and muddy ignorance in which the others

flounder. They rise almost alone, and on their death the rest sink again

into the mire. It is the human beast that remains master; the mind

cannot find a place amidst the outbursts and the desires of the flesh,

gluttony and brute force. Even in the little circle where he moves, his

labor comes to nought. The model which he proposed to himself oppresses

and enchains him in a cramping imitation; he aspires but to be a good

copyist; he produces a gathering of centos which he calls Latin verses;

he applies himself to the discovery of expressions, sanctioned by good

models; he succeeds only in elaborating an emphatic, spoiled Latin,

bristling with incongruities. In place of ideas, the most profound

amongst them serve up the defunct doctrines of defunct authors. They

compile religious manuals and philosophical manuals from the Fathers.

Erigena, the most learned, goes to the extent of reproducing the old

complicated dreams of Alexandrian metaphysics. How far these

speculations and reminiscences soar above the barbarous crowd which

howls and bustles in the depths below, no words can express. There was a

certain king of Kent in the seventh century who could not write. Imagine

bachelors of theology discussing before an audience of wagoners, not

Parisian wagoners, but such as survive in Auvergne or in the Vosges.

Among these clerks, who think like studious scholars in accordance with

their favorite authors, and are doubly separated from the world as

scholars and monks, Alfred alone, by his position as a layman and a

practical man, descends in his Saxon translations and his Saxon verses

to the common level; and we have seen that his effort, like that of

Charlemagne, was fruitless. There was an impassable wall between the old

learned literature and the present chaotic barbarism. Incapable, yet

compelled, to fit into the ancient mould, they gave it a twist. Unable

to reproduce ideas, they reproduced a metre. They tried to eclipse their

rivals in versification by the refinement of their composition, and the

prestige of a difficulty overcome. So, in our own colleges, the good

scholars imitate the clever divisions and symmetry of Claudian rather

than the ease and variety of Vergil. They put their feet in irons, and

showed their smartness by running in shackles; they weighted themselves

with rules of modern rhyme and rules of ancient metre; they added the

necessity of beginning each verse with the same letter that began the

last. A few, like Adhelm, wrote square acrostics, in which the first

line, repeated at the end, was found also to the left and right of the

piece. Thus made up of the first and last letters of each verse, it

forms a border to the whole piece, and the morsel of verse is like a

piece of tapestry. Strange literary tricks, which changed the poet into

an artisan. They bear witness to the difficulties which then impeded

culture and nature, and spoiled at once the Latin form and the Saxon

genius.

Beyond this barrier, which drew an impassable line between civilization

and barbarism, there was another, no less impassable, between the Latin

and Saxon genius. The strong German imagination, in which glowing and

obscure visions suddenly meet and abruptly overflow, was in contrast

with the reasoning spirit, in which ideas gather and are developed only

in a regular order; so that if the barbarian, in his classical attempts,

retained any part of his primitive instincts, he succeeded only in

producing a grotesque and frightful monster. One of them, this very

Adhelm, a relative of King Ina, who sang on the town-bridge profane and

sacred hymns alternately, too much imbued with Saxon poesy, simply to

imitate the antique models, adorned his Latin prose and verse with all

the "English magnificence."[92] You might compare him to a barbarian who

seizes a flute from the skilled hands of a player of Augustus's court,

in order to blow on it with inflated lungs, as if it were the bellowing

horn of an aurochs. The sober speech of the Roman orators and senators

becomes in his hands full of exaggerated and incoherent images; he

violently connects words, uniting them in a sudden and extravagant

manner; he heaps up his colors, and utters extraordinary and

unintelligible nonsense, like that of the later Skalds; in short, he is

a latinized Skald, dragging into his new tongue the ornaments of

Scandinavian poetry, such as alliteration, by dint of which he

congregates in one of his epistles fifteen consecutive words, all

beginning with the same letter; and in order to make up his fifteen, he

introduces a barbarous Græcism amongst the Latin words.[93] Amongst the

others, the writers of legends, you will meet many times with

deformation of Latin, distorted by the outburst of a too vivid

imagination; it breaks out even in their scholastic and scientific

writing. Here is part of a dialogue between Alcuin and prince Pepin, a

son of Charlemagne, and he uses like formulas the little poetic and bold

phrases which abound in the national poetry. "What is winter? the

banishment of summer. What is spring? the painter of the earth. What is

the year? the world's chariot. What is the sun? the splendor of the

world, the beauty of heaven, the grace of nature, the honor of day, the

distributor of the hours. What is the sea? the path of audacity, the

boundary of the earth, the receptacle of the rivers, the fountain of

showers." More, he ends his instructions with enigmas, in the spirit of

the Skalds, such as we still find in the old manuscripts with the

barbarian songs. It was the last feature of the national genius, which,

when it labors to understand a matter, neglects dry, clear, consecutive

deduction, to employ grotesque, remote, oft-repeated imagery, and

replaces analysis by intuition.

SECTION VIII.--Virility of the Saxon Race

Such was this race, the last born of the sister races, which, in the

decay of the other two, the Latin and the Greek, brings to the world a

new civilization, with a new character and genius. Inferior to these in

many respects, it surpasses them in not a few. Amidst the woods and mire

and snows, under a sad, inclement sky, gross instincts have gained the

day during this long barbarism. The German has not acquired gay humor,

unreserved facility, the feeling for harmonious beauty; his great

phlegmatic body continues savage and stiff, greedy and brutal; his rude

and unpliable mind is still inclined to savagery, and restive under

culture. Dull and congealed, his ideas cannot expand with facility and

freedom, with a natural sequence and an instinctive regularity. But this

spirit, void of the sentiment of the beautiful, is all the more apt for

the sentiment of the true. The deep and incisive impression which he

receives from contact with objects, and which as yet he can only express

by a cry, will afterwards liberate him from the Latin rhetoric, and will

vent itself on things rather than on words. Moreover, under the

constraint of climate and solitude, by the habit of resistance and

effort, his ideal is changed. Manly and moral instincts have gained the

empire over him; and amongst them the need of independence, the

disposition for serious and strict manners, the inclination for devotion

and veneration, the worship of heroism. Here are the foundations and the

elements of a civilization, slower but sounder, less careful of what is

agreeable and elegant, more based on justice and truth.[94] Hitherto at

least the race is intact, intact in its primitive coarseness; the Roman

cultivation could neither develop nor deform it. If Christianity took

root, it was owing to natural affinities, but it produced no change in

the native genius. Now approaches a new conquest, which is to bring this

time men, as well as ideas. The Saxons, meanwhile, after the wont of

German races, vigorous and fertile, have within the past six centuries

multiplied enormously. They were now about two millions, and the Norman

army numbered sixty thousand.[95] In vain these Normans become

transformed, gallicized; by their origin, and substantially in

themselves they are still the relatives of those whom they conquered. In

vain they imported their manners and their poesy, and introduced into

the language a third part of its words; this language continues

altogether German in element and in substance.[96] Though the grammar

changed, it changed integrally, by an internal action, in the same sense

as its continental cognates. At the end of three hundred years the

conquerors themselves were conquered; their speech became English; and

owing to frequent intermarriage, the English blood ended by gaining the

predominance over the Norman blood in their veins. The race finally

remains Saxon. If the old poetic genius disappears after the Conquest,

it is as a river disappears, and flows for a while underground. In five

centuries it will emerge once more.

[Footnote 8: Malte-Brun, IV. 398. Not counting bays, gulfs, and canals,

the sixteenth part of the country is covered by water. The dialect

of Jutland bears still a great resemblance to English.]

[Footnote 9: See Ruysdaal's painting in Mr. Baring's collection.

Of the three Saxon islands, North Strandt, Busen, and Heligoland,

North Strandt was inundated by the sea in 1300, 1483, 1532, 1615,

and almost destroyed in 1634. Busen is a level plain, beaten by

storms, which it has been found necessary to surround by a dyke.

Heligoland was laid waste by the sea in 800, 1300, 1500, 1649, the

last time so violently that only a portion of it remained.--Turner,

"History of Anglo-Saxons," 1852, I. 97.]

[Footnote 10: Heine, "The North Sea," translated by Charles G.

Leland. See Tacitus, "Annals," book 2, for the impressions of the

Romans, "truculentia cœli."]

[Footnote 11: Watten, Platen, Sande, Düneninseln.]

[Footnote 12: Nine or ten miles out near Heligoland, are the

nearest soundings of about fifty fathoms.]

[Footnote 13: Palgrave, "Saxon Commonwealth," vol. I.]

[Footnote 14: "Notes of a Journey in England."]

[Footnote 15: Léonce de Lavergne, "De l'Agriculture anglaise."

"The soil is much worse than that of France."]

[Footnote 16: There are at least four rivers in England passing

by the name of "Ouse," which is only another form of "ooze."--Tr.]

[Footnote 17: Tacitus, "De moribus Germanorum," passim: Diem

noctemque continuare potando, nulli proborum.--Sera juvenum

Venus.--Totos dies juxta focum atque ignem agunt. Dargaud, "Voyage

en Danemark. They take six meals per day, the first at five

o'clock in the morning. One should see the faces and meals at

Hamburg and at Amsterdam."]

[Footnote 18: Bede, v. 10. Sidonius, VIII. 6. Lingard, "History

of England," 1854, I. chap. 2.]

[Footnote 19: Zozimos, III. 147. Amm. Marcellinus, XXVIII. 526.]

[Footnote 20: Aug. Thierry, "Hist. S. Edmundi," VI. 441. See

Ynglingasaga, and especially Egil's Saga.]

[Footnote 21: Lingard, "History of England," I. 164, says, however,

"Every tenth man out of the six hundred received his liberty,

and of the rest a few were selected for slavery."--Tr.]

[Footnote 22: Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Danes, up the gaps that

exist in the history of Norwegians, Icelanders are one and the

same people. Their language, laws, religion, poetry, differ

but little. The more northern continue longest in their primitive

manners. Germany in the fourth and fifth centuries, Denmark and

Norway in the seventh and eighth. Iceland in the tenth and eleventh

centuries, present the same condition, and the muniments of each

country will fill up the gaps that exist in the history of the others.]

[Footnote 23: Tacitus, De moribus Germanotum, XXII: Gens nec

astuta nec callida.]

[Footnote 24: William of Malmesbury. Henry of Huntingdon, VI. 365.]

[Footnote 25: Tacitus, "De moribus Germanorum," XXII., XXIII.]

[Footnote 26: Kemble, "Saxons in England," 1849, I. 70, II. 184.

"The Acts of an Anglo-Saxon parliament are a series of treaties

of peace between all the associations which make up the State;

a continual revision and renewal of the alliances offensive and

defensive of all the free men. They are universally mutual contracts

for the maintenance of the frid or peace."]

[Footnote 27: A large district; the word is still existing in

German, as Rheingau, Breiasgau.--Tr.]

[Footnote 28: Turner, "History of the Anglo-Saxons," II. 440,

Laws of Ina.]

[Footnote 29: Such a band consisted of thirty-five men or more.]

[Footnote 30: Milton's expression. Lingard's History, I. chap. 3.

This history bears much resemblance to that of the Franks in Gaul.

See Gregory of Tours. The Saxons, like the Franks, somewhat softened,

but rather degenerated, were pillaged and massacred by those of their

Northern brothers who still remained in a savage state.]

[Footnote 31: Vita S. Dunstani, "Anglia Sacra," II.]

[Footnote 32: It is amusing to compare the story of Edwy and Elgiva

in Turner, II. 216, etc., and then Lingard, I. 132, etc. The

first accuses Dunstan, the other defends him.--Tr.]

[Footnote 33: "Life of Bishop Wolstan."]

[Footnote 34: Tantæ sævitiæ erant fratres illi quod, cum alicujus

nitidam villam conspicerent, dominatorem de nocte interfici juberent,

totamque progeniem illius possessionemque defuncti obtinerent.

Turner, III. 27. Henry of Huntingdon, VI. 367.]

[Footnote 35: "Pene gigas statura," says the chronicler. Henry of

Huntingdon, VI. 367. Kemble, I. 393. Turner, II. 318.]

[Footnote 36: Grimm, "Mythology," 53, Preface.]

[Footnote 37: Tacitus, XX. XXIII., XI., XII. et passim. We may

still see the traces of this taste in English dwellings.]

[Footnote 38: Ibid. XIII.]

[Footnote 39: Tacitus, XIX., VIII., XVI. Kemble, I. 232.]

[Footnote 40: Tacitus, XIV.]

[Footnote 41: "In omni domo, nudi et sordidi... Plus per otium

transigunt, dediti somno, ciboque, otos dies juxta focum atque

ignem agunt."]

[Footnote 42: Grimm, 53, Preface. Tacitus, X.]

[Footnote 43: "Deorum nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod

sola reverentia vident." Later on, at Upsala for instance, they

had images (Adam of Bremen, "Historia Ecclesiastica"). Wuotan (Odin),

signifies etymologically the All-Powerful, him who penetrates

and circulates through everything (Grimm, "Mythology").]

[Footnote 44: "Sæmundar Edda, Snorra Edda," ed. Copenhagen, three

vols., passim. Mr. Bergmann has translated several of these poems

into French, which Mr. Taine quotes. The translator has generally

made use of the edition of Mr. Thorpe, London, 1866.]

[Footnote 45: Hel, the goddess of death, born of Loki and Angrboda.--Tr.]

[Footnote 46: Thorpe, "The Edda of Sæmund, the Vala's Prophecy,"

str. 48-56, p. 9 et passim.]

[Footnote 47: "Fafnismâl Edda." This epic is common to the Northern

races, as is the Iliad to the Greek populations, and is found almost

entire in Germany in the Nibelungen Lied. The translator has also

used Magnusson and Morris's poetical version of the "Völsunga

Saga," and certain songs of the "Elder Edda," London, 1870.]

[Footnote 48: "Thorpe, The Edda of Sæmund, Third Lay of Sigurd

Fafnicide," str. 62-64, p. 83.]

[Footnote 49: Magnusson and Morris, "Story of the Volsungs and

Nibelungs, Lamentation of Guaran," p. 118 et passim.]

[Footnote 50: Thorpe, "The Edda of Sæmund, Lay of Atli," str.

21-27, p. 117.]

[Footnote 51: Ibid., str. 38, p. 119.]

[Footnote 52: This word signifies men who fought without a breastplate,

perhaps in shirts only; Scottice, "Baresarks."--Tr.]

[Footnote 53: See the "Life of Sweyn," of Hereward, etc., even up

to the time of the Conquest.]

[Footnote 54: Beowulf, passim. Death of Byrhtnoth.]

[Footnote 55: "The Wanderer, the Exile's Song, Codex Exoniensis,"

published by Thorpe.]

[Footnote 56: Turner, "History of the Anglo-saxons", III. 63.]

[Footnote 57: Alfred borrows his portrait from Boethius, but

almost entirely rewrites it.]

[Footnote 58: Kemble thinks that the origin of this poem is very

ancient, perhaps contemporary with the invasion of the Angles

and Saxons, but that the version we possess is later than the

seventh century.--Kemble's "Beowulf," text and translation, 1833.

The characters are Danish.]

[Footnote 59: Kemble's "Beowulf," XI. p. 32.]

[Footnote 60: Ibid. XII. p. 34.]

[Footnote 61: "Beowulf," XXII., XXIII. p. 62 et passim.]

[Footnote 62: "Beowulf," XXXIII., XXXVI. p. 94 et passim.]

[Footnote 63: Ibid, XXXVII., XXXVIII. p. 110 et passim. I have

throughout always used the very words of Kemble's translation.--Tr.]

[Footnote 64: Conybeare's "Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry,"

1826, "Battle of Finsborough," p. 175. The complete collection of

Anglo-Saxon poetry has been published by M. Grein.]

[Footnote 65: Turner, "History of Anglo-Saxons," III. book 9,

ch. I. p. 245.]

[Footnote 66: The cleverest Anglo-Saxon scholars, Turner, Conybeare,

Thorpe, recognize this difficulty.]

[Footnote 67: Turner, III. 231 et passim. The translations in French,

however literal, do injustice to the text; that language is too clear,

too logical. No Frenchman can understand this extraordinary phase of

intellect, except by taking a dictionary, and deciphering some pages

of Anglo-Saxon for a fortnight.]

[Footnote 68: Turner remarks that the same idea expressed by King

Alfred, in prose and then in verse takes in the first case seven

words, in the second five.--"History of the Anglo-Saxons," III. 235.]

[Footnote 69: 596-625. Aug. Thierry, I. 81; Bede, XII. 2.]

[Footnote 70: Jouffroy, "Problem of Human Destiny."]

[Footnote 71: Michelet, preface to "La Renaissance"; Didron,

"Histoire de Dieu."]

[Footnote 72: About 630. See "Codex Exoniensis," Thorpe.]

[Footnote 73: Bede, IV. 24.]

[Footnote 74: Conybeare's "Illustrations," p. 271.]

[Footnote 75: Bretwalda was a species of warking, or temporary and

elective chief of all the Saxons.--Tr.]

[Footnote 76: The Æsir (sing. As) are the gods of the Scandinavian

nations, of whom Odin was the chief.--Tr.]

[Footnote 77: Kemble, I. I. XII. In this chapter he has collected

many features which show the endurance of the ancient mythology.]

[Footnote 78: Nástrand is the strand or shore of the dead.--Tr.]

[Footnote 79: Turner, "History of Anglo-Saxons," III. book 9, ch. 3,

p. 271.]

[Footnote 80: Ibid. III. book o, ch. 3, p. 272.]

[Footnote 81: Turner, "History of Anglo-Saxons," III. book 9, ch. 3,

p. 274.]

[Footnote 82: Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsæchsischen poesie."]

[Footnote 83: Thorpe, "Cædmon," 1832, XLVII. p. 206.]

[Footnote 84: Ibid. II. p. 7. A likeness exists between this song

and corresponding portions of the Edda.]

[Footnote 85: Ibid. IV. p. 18.]

[Footnote 86: This is Milton's opening also. (See "Paradise Lost,"

book I. verse 242, etc.) One would think that he must have had some

knowledge of Cædmon from the translation of Junius.]

[Footnote 87: Thorpe, "Cædmon," IV. p. 23.]

[Footnote 88: They themselves feel their impotence and decrepitude.

Bede, dividing the history of the world into six periods, says that

the fifth, which stretches from the return out of Babylon to the

birth of Christ, is the senile period; the sixth is the present,

"ætas decrepita, totius morte sæculi consummanda."]

[Footnote 89: Died in 901; Adhelm died 709, Bede died 735, Alcuin

lived under Charlemagne, Erigena under Charles the Bald (843-877).]

[Footnote 90: Fox's "Alfred's Boethius," chap. 35, sec. 6, 1864.]

[Footnote 91: All these extracts are taken from Ingram's "Saxon

Chronicle," 1823.]

[Footnote 92: William of Malmesbury's expression.]

[Footnote 93: Primitus (pantorum procerum prætorumque pio potissimum

paternoque præsertim privilegio) panegyricum poemataque passim

prosatori sub polo promulgantes, stridula vocum symphonia ac melodiæ

cantilenæque carmine modulaturi hymnizemus.]

[Footnote 94: In Iceland, the country of the fiercest sea-kings,

crimes are unknown; prisons have been turned to other uses;

fines are the only punishment.]

[Footnote 95: Following Doomsday Book, Mr. Turner reckons at

three hundred thousand the heads of families mentioned. If each

family consisted of five persons, that would make one million

five hundred thousand people. He adds five hundred thousand

for the four northern counties, for London and several large

towns, for the monks and provincial clergy not enumerated....

We must accept these figures with caution. Still they agree

with those of Mackintosh, George Chalmers, and several others.

Many facts show that the Saxon population was very numerous,

and quite out of proportion to the Norman population.]

[Footnote 96: Warton, "History of English Poetry," 1840, 3 vols.,

Preface.]

CHAPTER SECOND

The Normans

SECTION I.--The Feudal Man

A century and a half had passed on the Continent since, amid the

universal decay and dissolution, a new society had been formed, and new

men had risen up. Brave men had at length made a stand against the

Norsemen and the robbers. They had planted their feet in the soil, and

the moving chaos of the general subsidence had become fixed by the

effort of their great hearts and of their arms. At the mouths of the

rivers, in the defiles of the mountains, on the margin of the waste

borders, at all perilous passes, they had built their forts, each for

himself, each on his own land, each with his faithful band; and they had

lived like a scattered but watchful army, encamped and confederate in

their castles, sword in hand in front of the enemy. Beneath this

discipline a formidable people had been formed, fierce hearts in strong

bodies,[97] intolerant of restraint, longing for violent deeds, born for

constant warfare because steeped in permanent warfare, heroes and

robbers, who, as an escape from their solitude, plunged into adventures,

and went, that they might conquer a country or win Paradise, to Sicily,

to Portugal, to Spain, to Palestine, to England.

SECTION II.--Normans and Saxons Contrasted

On September 27, 1066, at the mouth of the Somme, there was a great

sight to be seen; four hundred large sailing vessels, more than a

thousand transports, and sixty thousand men, were on the point of

embarking.[98] The sun shone splendidly after long rain; trumpets

sounded, the cries of this armed multitude rose to heaven; as far as the

eye could see, on the shore, in the wide-spreading river, on the sea

which opens out thence broad and shining, masts and sails extended like

a forest; the enormous fleet set out wafted by the south wind.[99] The

people which it carried were said to have come from Norway, and they

might have been taken for kinsmen of the Saxons, with whom they were to

fight; but there were with them a multitude of adventurers, crowding

from all quarters, far and near, from north and south, from Maine and

Anjou, from Poitou and Brittany, from Ile-de-France and Flanders, from

Aquitaine and Burgundy;[100] and, in short, the expedition itself was

French.

How comes it that, having kept its name, it had changed its nature? and

what series of renovations had made a Latin out of a German people? The

reason is, that this people, when they came to Neustria, were neither a

national body, nor a pure race. They were but a band; and as such,

marrying the women of the country, they introduced foreign blood into

their children. They were a Scandinavian band, but swelled by all the

bold knaves and all the wretched desperadoes who wandered about the

conquered country;[101] and as such they received foreign blood into

their veins. Moreover, if the nomadic band was mixed, the settled band

was much more so; and peace by its transfusions, like war by its

recruits, had changed the character of the primitive blood. When Rollo,

having divided the land amongst his followers, hung the thieves and

their abettors, people from every country gathered to him. Security,

good stern justice, were so rare, that they were enough to repeople a

land.[102] He invited strangers, say the old writers, "and made one

people out of so many folk of different natures." This assemblage of

barbarians, refugees, robbers, immigrants, spoke Romance or French so

quickly, that the second Duke, wishing to have his son taught Danish,

had to send him to Bayeux, where it was still spoken. The great masses

always form the race in the end, and generally the genius and language.

Thus this people, so transformed, quickly became polished; the composite

race showed itself of a ready genius, far more wary than the Saxons

across the Channel, closely resembling their neighbors of Picardy,

Champagne, and Ile-de-France. "The Saxons," says an old writer,[103]

"vied with each other in their drinking feats, and wasted their income

by day and night in feasting, whilst they lived in wretched hovels; the

French and Normans, on the other hand, living inexpensively in their

fine, large houses, were besides refined in their food and studiously

careful in their dress." The former, still weighted by the German

phlegm, were gluttons and drunkards, now and then aroused by poetical

enthusiasm; the latter, made sprightlier by their transplantation and

their alloy, felt the cravings of the mind already making themselves

manifest. "You might see amongst them churches in every village, and

monasteries in the cities, towering on high, and built in a style

unknown before," first in Normandy, and later in England.[104] Taste had

come to them at once--that is, the desire to please the eye, and to

express a thought by outward representation, which was quite a new idea:

the circular arch was raised on one or on a cluster of columns; elegant

mouldings were placed about the windows; the rose window made its

appearance, simple, yet, like the flower which gives it its name "_rose

des buissons_"; and the Norman style unfolded itself, original yet

proportioned between the Gothic, whose richness it foreshadowed, and the

Romance, whose solidity it recalled.

With taste, just as natural and just as quickly, was developed the

spirit of inquiry. Nations are like children; with some the tongue is

readily loosened, and they comprehend at once; with others it is

loosened with difficulty, and they are slow of comprehension. The men we

are here speaking of had educated themselves nimbly, as Frenchmen do.

They were the first in France who unravelled the language, regulating it

and writing it so well, that to this day we understand their codes and

their poems. In a century and a half they were so far cultivated as to

find the Saxons "unlettered and rude."[105] That was the excuse they

made for banishing them from the abbeys and all valuable ecclesiastical

offices. And, in fact, this excuse was rational, for they instinctively

hated gross stupidity. Between the Conquest and the death of King John,

they established five hundred and fifty-seven schools in England. Henry

Beauclerk, son of the Conqueror, was trained in the sciences; so were

Henry II and his three sons; Richard, the eldest of these, was a poet.

Lanfranc, first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, a subtle logician, ably

argued the Real Presence; Anselm, his successor, the first thinker of

the age, thought he had discovered a new proof of the existence of God,

and tried to make religion philosophical by adopting as his maxim,

"_Crede ut intelligas._" The notion was doubtless grand, especially in

the eleventh century; and they could not have gone more promptly to

work. Of course the science I speak of was but scholastic, and these

terrible folios slay more understandings than they confirm. But people

must begin as they can; and syllogism, even in Latin, even in theology,

is yet an exercise of the mind and a proof of the understanding. Among

the continental priests who settled in England, one established a

library; another, founder of a school, made the scholars perform the

play of Saint Catherine; a third wrote in polished Latin, "epigrams as

pointed as those of Martial." Such were the recreations of an

intelligent race, eager for ideas, of ready and flexible genius, whose

clear thought was not clouded, like that of the Saxon brain, by drunken

hallucinations and the vapors of a greedy and well-filled stomach. They

loved conversations, tales of adventure. Side by side with their Latin

chroniclers, Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, thoughtful men

already, who could not only relate, but criticise here and there, there

were rhyming chronicles in the vulgar tongue, as those of Geoffroy

Gaimar, Bénoît de Sainte-Maure, Robert Wace. Do not imagine that their

verse-writers were sterile of words or lacking in details. They were

talkers, tale-tellers, speakers above all, ready of tongue, and never

stinted in speech. Not singers by any means; they speak--this is their

strong point, in their poems as in their chronicles. They were the

earliest who wrote the "Song of Roland"; upon this they accumulated a

multitude of songs concerning Charlemagne and his peers, concerning

Arthur and Merlin, the Greeks and Romans, King Horn, Guy of Warwick,

every prince and every people. Their minstrels (_trouvères_), like

their knights, draw in abundance from Welsh, Franks, and Latins, and

descend upon East and West in the wide field of adventure. They address

themselves to a spirit of inquiry, as the Saxons to enthusiasm, and

dilute in their long, clear, and flowing narratives the lively colors of

German and Breton traditions; battles, surprises, single combats,

embassies, speeches, processions, ceremonies, huntings, a variety of

amusing events, employ their ready and wandering imaginations. At first,

in the "Song of Roland," it is still kept in check; it walks with long

strides, but only walks. Presently its wings have grown; incidents are

multiplied; giants and monsters abound, the natural disappears, the song

of the jongleur grows a poem under the hands of the _trouvère_; he

would speak, like Nestor of old, five, even six years running, and not

grow tired or stop. Forty thousand verses are not too much to satisfy

their gabble; a facile mind, copious, inquisitive, descriptive, such is

the genius of the race. The Gauls, their fathers, used to delay

travellers on the road to make them tell their stories, and boasted,

like these, "of fighting well and talking with ease."

With chivalric poetry, they are not wanting in chivalry; principally, it

may be, because they are strong, and a strong man loves to prove his

strength by knocking down his neighbors; but also from a desire of fame,

and as a point of honor. By this one word honor the whole spirit of

warfare is changed. Saxon poets painted war as a murderous fury, as a

blind madness which shook flesh and blood, and awakened the instincts of

the beast of prey; Norman poets describe it as a tourney. The new

passion which they introduce is that of vanity and gallantry; Guy of

Warwick dismounts all the knights in Europe, in order to deserve the

hand of the prude and scornful Félice. The tourney itself is but a

ceremony, somewhat brutal I admit, since it turns upon the breaking of

arms and limbs, but yet brilliant and French. To show skill and courage,

display the magnificence of dress and armor, be applauded by and please

the ladies--such feelings indicate men of greater sociality, more under

the influence of public opinion, less the slaves of their own passions,

void both of lyric inspiration and savage enthusiasm, gifted by a

different genius, because inclined to other pleasures.

Such were the men who at this moment were disembarking in England to

introduce their new manners and a new spirit, French at bottom, in mind

and speech, though with special and provincial features; of all the most

matter-of-fact, with an eye to the main chance, calculating, having the

nerve and the dash of our own soldiers, but with the tricks and

precautions of lawyers; heroic undertakers of profitable enterprises;

having gone to Sicily and Naples, and ready to travel to Constantinople

or Antioch, so it be to take a country or bring back money; subtle

politicians, accustomed in Sicily to hire themselves to the highest

bidder, and capable of doing a stroke of business in the heat of the

Crusade, like Bohémond, who, before Antioch, speculated on the dearth

of his Christian allies, and would only open the town to them under

condition of their keeping it for himself; methodical and persevering

conquerors, expert in administration, and fond of scribbling on paper,

like this very William, who was able to organize such an expedition, and

such an army, and kept a written roll of the same, and who proceeded to

register the whole of England in his Domesday Book. Sixteen days after

the disembarkation, the contrast between the two nations was manifested

at Hastings by its visible effects.

The Saxons "ate and drank the whole night. You might have seen them

struggling much, and leaping and singing," with shouts of laughter and

noisy joy.[106] In the morning they packed behind their palisades the

dense masses of their heavy infantry, and with battle-axe hung round

their neck awaited the attack. The wary Normans weighed the chances of

heaven and hell, and tried to enlist God upon their side. Robert Wace,

their historian and compatriot, is no more troubled by poetical

imagination than they were by warlike inspiration; and on the eve of the

battle his mind is as prosaic and clear as theirs.[107] The same spirit

showed itself in the battle. They were for the most part bowmen and

horsemen, well skilled, nimble, and clever. Taillefer, the _jongleur_,

who asked for the honor of striking the first blow, went singing, like a

true French volunteer, performing tricks all the while.[108] Having

arrived before the English, he cast his lance three times in the air,

then his sword, and caught them again by the handle; and Harold's clumsy

foot-soldiers, who only knew how to cleave coats of mail by blows from

their battle-axes, "were astonished, saying to one another that it was

magic." As for William, amongst a score of prudent and cunning actions,

he performed two well-calculated ones, which, in this sore

embarrassment, brought him safe out of his difficulties. He ordered his

archers to shoot into the air; the arrows wounded many of the Saxons in

the face and one of them pierced Harold in the eye. After this he

simulated flight; the Saxons, intoxicated with joy and wrath, quitted

their entrenchments, and exposed themselves to the lances of his

horsemen. During the remainder of the contest they only make a stand by

small companies, fight with fury, and end by being slaughtered. The

strong, mettlesome, brutal race threw themselves on the enemy like a

savage bull; the dexterous Norman hunters wounded them adroitly, knocked

them down, and placed them under the yoke.

SECTION III.--French Forms of Thought

What then is this French race, which by arms and letters make such a

splendid entrance upon the world, and is so manifestly destined to rule,

that in the East, for example, their name of Franks will be given to all

the nations of the West? Wherein consists this new spirit, this

precocious pioneer, this key of all Middle-Age civilization? There is in

every mind of the kind a fundamental activity which, when incessantly

repeated, moulds its plan, and gives it its direction; in town or

country, cultivated or not, in its infancy and its age, it spends its

existence and employs its energy in conceiving an event or an object.

This is its original and perpetual process; and whether it change its

region, return, advance, prolong, or alter its course, its whole motion

is but a series of consecutive steps; so that the least alteration in

the size, quickness, or precision of its primitive stride transforms and

regulates the whole course, as in a tree the structure of the first

shoot determines the whole foliage, and governs the whole growth.[109]

When the Frenchman conceives an event or an object, he conceives quickly

and distinctly; there is no internal disturbance, no previous

fermentation of confused and violent ideas, which, becoming concentrated

and elaborated, end in a noisy outbreak. The movement of his

intelligence is nimble and prompt, like that of his limbs; at once and

without effort he seizes upon his idea. But he seizes that alone; he

leaves on one side all the long entangling off-shoots whereby it is

entwined and twisted amongst its neighboring ideas; he does not

embarrass himself with nor think of them; he detaches, plucks, touches

but slightly, and that is all. He is deprived, or if you prefer it, he

is exempt from those sudden half-visions which disturb a man, and open

up to him instantaneously vast deeps and far perspectives. Images are

excited by internal commotion; he, not being so moved, imagines not. He

is only moved superficially; he is without large sympathy; he does not

perceive an object as it is, complex and combined, but in parts, with a

discursive and superficial knowledge. That is why no race in Europe is

less poetical. Let us look at their epics; none are more prosaic. They

are not wanting in number: "The Song of Roland, Garin le Loherain,"

"Ogier le Danois,"[110] "Berthe aux grands Pieds." There is a library of

them. Though their manners are heroic and their spirit fresh, though

they have originality, and deal with grand events, yet, spite of this,

the narrative is as dull as that of the babbling Norman chroniclers.

Doubtless when Homer relates he is as clear as they are, and he develops

as they do: but his magnificent titles of rosy-fingered Morn, the

wide-bosomed Air, the divine and nourishing Earth, the earth-shaking

Ocean, come in every instant and expand their purple bloom over the

speeches and battles, and the grand abounding similes which interrupt

the narrative tell of a people more inclined to enjoy beauty than to

proceed straight to fact. But here we have facts, always facts, nothing

but facts; the Frenchman wants to know if the hero will kill the

traitor, the lover wed the maiden; he must not be delayed by poetry or

painting. He advances nimbly to the end of the story, not lingering for

dreams of the heart or wealth of landscape. There is no splendor, no

color, in his narrative; his style is quite bare, and without figures;

you may read ten thousand verses in these old poems without meeting one.

Shall we open the most ancient, the most original, the most eloquent, at

the most moving point, the "Song of Roland," when Roland is dying? The

narrator is moved, and yet his language remains the same, smooth,

accentless, so penetrated by the prosaic spirit, and so void of the

poetic! He gives an abstract of motives, a summary of events, a series

of causes for grief, a series of causes for consolation.[111] Nothing

more. These men regard the circumstance or the action by itself, and

adhere to this view. Their idea remains exact, clear, and simple, and

does not raise up a similar image to be confused with the first, to

color or transform itself. It remains dry; they conceive the divisions

of the object one by one, without ever collecting them, as the Saxons

would, in an abrupt, impassioned, glowing semi-vision. Nothing is more

opposed to their genius than the genuine songs and profound hymns, such

as the English monks were singing beneath the low vaults of their

churches. They would be disconcerted by the unevenness and obscurity of

such language. They are not capable of such an access of enthusiasm and

such excess of emotion. They never cry out, they speak, or rather they

converse, and that at moments when the soul, overwhelmed by its trouble,

might be expected to cease thinking and feeling. Thus Amis, in a

mystery-play, being leprous, calmly requires his friend Amille to slay

his two sons, in order that their blood may heal him of his leprosy; and

Amille replies still more calmly.[112] If ever they try to sing, even in

heaven, "a roundelay high and clear," they will produce little rhymed

arguments, as dull as the dullest talk.[113] Pursue this literature to

its conclusion; regard it, like that of the Skalds, at the time of its

decadence, when its vices, being exaggerated, display, like those of the

Skalds, only still more strongly the kind of mind which produced it. The

Skalds fall off into nonsense; it loses itself into babble and

platitude. The Saxon could not master his craving for exaltation; the

Frenchman could not restrain the volubility of his tongue. He is too

diffuse and too clear; the Saxon is too obscure and brief. The one was

excessively agitated and carried away; the other explains and develops

without measure. From the twelfth century the Gestes spun out degenerate

into rhapsodies and psalmodies of thirty or forty thousand verses.

Theology enters into them; poetry becomes an interminable, intolerable

litany, where the ideas, expounded, developed, and repeated _ad

infinitum_, without one outburst of emotion or one touch of originality,

flow like a clear and insipid stream, and send off their reader, by dint

of their monotonous rhymes, into a comfortable slumber. What a

deplorable abundance of distinct and facile ideas! We meet with it again

in the seventeenth century, in the literary gossip which took place at

the feet of men of distinction; it is the fault and the talent of the

race. With this involuntary art of perceiving, and isolating

instantaneously and clearly each part of every object, people can speak,

even for speaking's sake, and forever.

Such is the primitive process; how will it be continued? Here appears a

new trait in the French genius, the most valuable of all. It is

necessary to comprehension that the second idea shall be contiguous to

the first; otherwise that genius is thrown out of its course and

arrested; it cannot proceed by irregular bounds; it must walk step by

step, on a straight road; order is innate in it; without study, and in

the first place, it disjoints and decomposes the object or event,

however complicated and entangled it may be, and sets the parts one by

one in succession to each other, according to their natural connection.

True, it is still in a state of barbarism; yet its intelligence is a

reasoning faculty, which spreads, though unwittingly. Nothing is more

clear than the style of the old French narratives and of the earliest

poems: we do not perceive that we are following a narrator, so easy is

the gait, so even the road he opens to us, so smoothly and gradually

every idea glides into the next; and this is why he narrates so well.

The chroniclers Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, the fathers of

prose, have an ease and clearness approached by none, and beyond all, a

charm, a grace, which they had not to go out of their way to find. Grace

is a national possession in France, and springs from the native delicacy

which has a horror of incongruities; the instinct of Frenchmen avoids

violent shocks in works of taste as well as in works of argument; they

desire that their sentiments and ideas shall harmonize, and not clash.

Throughout they have this measured spirit, exquisitely refined.[114]

They take care, on a sad subject, not to push emotion to its limits;

they avoid big words. Think how Joinville relates in six lines the death

of the poor sick priest who wished to finish celebrating the mass, and

"nevermore did sing, and died." Open a mystery-play, "Théophilus," or

that of the "Queen of Hungary," for instance: when they are going to

burn her and her child, she says two short lines about "this gentle dew

which is so pure an innocent," nothing more. Take a fabliau, even a

dramatic one: when the penitent knight, who has undertaken to fill a

barrel with his tears, dies in the hermit's company, he asks from him

only one last gift: "Do but embrace me, and then I'll die in the arms of

my friend." Could a more touching sentiment be expressed in more sober

language? We must say of their poetry what is said of certain pictures:

This is made out of nothing. Is there in the world anything more

delicately graceful than the verses of Guillaume de Lorris? Allegory

clothes his ideas so as to dim their too great brightness; ideal,

figures, half transparent, float about the lover, luminous, yet in a

cloud, and lead him amidst all the delicate and gentle-hued ideas to the

rose, whose "sweet odor embalms all the plain." This refinement goes so

far, that in Thibaut of Champagne and in Charles of Orleans it turns to

affectation and insipidity. In them all impressions grow more slender;

the perfume is so weak that one often fails to catch it; on their knees

before their lady they whisper their waggeries and conceits; they love

politely and wittily, they arrange ingeniously in a bouquet their

"painted words," all the flowers of "fresh and beautiful language"; they

know how to mark fleeting ideas in their flight, soft melancholy, vague

reverie; they are as elegant as talkative, and as charming as the most

amiable abbés of the eighteenth century. This lightness of touch is

proper to the race, and appears as plainly under the armor and amid the

massacres of the Middle Ages as mid the courtesies and the musk-scented,

wadded coats of the last court. You will find it in their coloring as in

their sentiments. They are not struck by the magnificence of nature,

they see only her pretty side; they paint the beauty of a woman by a

single feature, which is only polite, saying, "She is more gracious than

the rose in May." They do not experience the terrible emotion, ecstasy,

sudden oppression of heart which is displayed in the poetry of

neighboring nations; they say discreetly, "She began to smile, which

vastly became her." They add, when they are in a descriptive humor,

"that she had a sweet and perfumed breath," and a body "white as

new-fallen snow on a branch." They do not aspire higher; beauty pleases,

but does not transport them. They enjoy agreeable emotions, but are not

fitted for deep sensations. The full rejuvenescence of being, the warm

air of spring which renews and penetrates all existence, suggests but a

pleasing couplet; they remark in passing, "Now is winter gone, the

hawthorn blossoms, the rose expands," and so pass on about their

business. It is a light gladsomeness, soon gone, like that which an

April landscape affords. For an instant the author glances at the mist

of the streams rising about the willow trees, that pleasant vapor which

imprisons the brightness of the morning; then, humming a burden of a

song, he returns to his narrative. He seeks amusement, and herein lies

his power.

In life, as in literature, it is pleasure he aims at, not sensual

pleasure or emotion. He is lively, not voluptuous; dainty, not a

glutton. He takes love for a pastime, not for an intoxication. It is a

pretty fruit which he plucks, tastes, and leaves. And we must remark yet

further, that the best of the fruit in his eyes is the fact of its being

forbidden. He says to himself that he is duping a husband, that "he

deceives a cruel woman, and thinks he ought to obtain a pope's

indulgence for the deed."[115] He wishes to be merry--it is the state he

prefers, the end and aim of his life; and especially to laugh at other

people. The short verse of his fabliaux gambols and leaps like a

schoolboy released from school, over all things respected or

respectable; criticising the Church, women, the great, the monks.

Scoffers, banterers, our fathers have abundance both of expression and

matter; and the matter comes to them so naturally, that without culture,

and surrounded by coarseness, they are as delicate in their raillery as

the most refined. They touch upon ridicule lightly, they mock without

emphasis, as it were innocently; their style is so harmonious, that at

first sight we make a mistake, and do not see any harm in it. They seem

artless; they look so very demure; only a word shows the imperceptible

smile: it is the ass, for example, which they call the high priest, by

reason of his padded cassock and his serious air, and who gravely begins

"to play the organ." At the close of the history, the delicate sense of

comicality has touched you, though you cannot say how. They do not call

things by their names, especially in love matters; they let you guess

it; they assume that you are as sharp and knowing as themselves.[116] A

man might discriminate, embellish at times, perhaps refine upon them,

but their first traits are incomparable. When the fox approaches the

raven to steal the cheese, he begins as a hypocrite, piously and

cautiously, and as one of the family. He calls the raven his "good

father Don Rohart, who sings so well"; he praises his voice, "so sweet

and fine. You would be the best singer in the world if you kept clear

of nuts." Reynard is a rogue, an artist in the way of invention, not a

mere glutton; he loves roguery for its own sake; he rejoices in his

superiority, and draws out his mockery. When Tibert, the cat, by his

counsel hung himself at the bell-rope, wishing to ring it, he uses

irony, enjoys and relishes it, pretends to wax impatient with the poor

fool whom he has caught, calls him proud, complains because the other

does not answer, and because he wishes to rise to the clouds-and visit

the saints. And from beginning to end this long epic of Reynard the Fox

is the same; the raillery never ceases, and never fails to be agreeable.

Reynard has so much wit that he is pardoned for everything. The

necessity for laughter is national--so indigenous to the French, that a

stranger cannot understand, and is shocked by it. This pleasure does not

resemble physical joy in any respect, which is to be despised for its

grossness; on the contrary, it sharpens the intelligence, and brings to

light many a delicate or ticklish idea. The fabliaux are full of truths

about men, and still more about women, about people of low rank, and

still more about those of high rank; it is a method of philosophizing by

stealth and boldly, in spite of conventionalism, and in opposition to

the powers that be. This taste has nothing in common either with open

satire, which is offensive because it is cruel; on the contrary, it

provokes good humor. We soon see that the jester is not ill-disposed,

that he does not wish to wound: if he stings, it is as a bee, without

venom; an instant later he is not thinking of it; if need be, he will

take himself as an object of his pleasantry; all he wishes is to keep up

in himself and in us sparkling and pleasing ideas. Do we not see here in

advance an abstract of the whole French literature, the incapacity for

great poetry, the sudden and durable perfection of prose, the excellence

of all the moods of conversation and eloquence, the reign and tyranny of

taste and method, the art and theory of development and arrangement, the

gift of being measured, clear, amusing, and piquant? We have taught

Europe how ideas fall into order, and which ideas are agreeable; and

this is what our Frenchmen of the eleventh century are about to teach

their Saxons during five or six centuries, first with the lance, next

with the stick, next with the birch.

SECTION IV.--The Normans in England

Consider, then, this Frenchman or Norman, this man from Anjou or Maine,

who in his well-knit coat of mail, with sword and lance, came to seek

his fortune in England. He took the manor of some slain Saxon, and

settled himself in it with his soldiers and comrades, gave them land,

houses, the right of levying taxes, on condition of their fighting under

him and for him, as men-at-arms, marshals, standard-bearers; it was a

league in case of danger. In fact, they were in a hostile and conquered

country, and they have to maintain themselves. Each one hastened to

build for himself a place of refuge, castle or fortress,[117] well

fortified, of solid stone, with narrow windows, strengthened with

battlements, garrisoned by soldiers, pierced with loopholes. Then these

men went to Salisbury, to the number of sixty thousand, all holders of

land, having at least enough to maintain a man with horse or arms.

There, placing their hands in William's they promised him fealty and

assistance; and the king's edict declared that they must be all united

and bound together like brothers in arms, to defend and succor each

other. They are an armed colony, stationary, like the Spartans amongst

the Helots; and they make laws accordingly. When a Frenchman is found

dead in any district, the inhabitants are to give up the murderer, or

failing to do so, they must pay forty-seven marks as a fine; if the dead

man is English, it rests with the people of the place to prove it by the

oath of four near relatives of the deceased. They are to beware of

killing a stag, boar, or fawn; for an offence against the forest-laws

they will lose their eyes. They have nothing of all their property

assured to them except as alms, or on condition of paying tribute, or by

taking the oath of allegiance. Here a free Saxon proprietor is made a

body-slave on his own estate.[118] Here a noble and rich Saxon lady

feels on her shoulder the weight of the hand of a Norman valet, who is

become by force her husband or her lover. There were Saxons of one sol,

or of two sols, according to the sum which they gained for their

masters; they sold them, hired them, worked them on joint account, like

an ox or an ass. One Norman abbot has his Saxon predecessors dug up,

their bones thrown without the gates. Another keeps men-at-arms, who

bring his recalcitrant monks to reason by blows of their swords.

Imagine, if you can, the pride of these new lords, conquerors,

strangers, masters, nourished by habits of violent activity, and by the

savagery, ignorance, and passions of feudal life. "They thought they

might do whatsoever they pleased," say the old chroniclers. "They shed

blood indiscriminately, snatched the morsel of bread from the mouth of

the wretched, and seized upon all the money, the goods, the land."[119]

Thus "all the folk in the low country were at great pains to seem humble

before Ivo Taillebois, and only to address him with one knee on the

ground; but although they made a point of paying him every honor, and

giving him all and more than all which they owed him in the way of rent

and service, he harassed, tormented, tortured, imprisoned them, set his

dogs upon their cattle, ... broke the legs and backbones of their beasts

of burden, ... and sent men to attack their servants on the road with

sticks and swords."[120] The Normans would not and could not borrow any

idea or custom from such boors;[121] they despised them as coarse and

stupid. They stood amongst them, as the Spaniards amongst the Americans

in the sixteenth century, superior in force and culture, more versed in

letters, more expert in the arts of luxury. They preserved their manners

and their speech. England, to all outward appearance--the court of the

king, the castles of the nobles, the palaces of the bishops, the houses

of the wealthy--was French; and the Scandinavian people, of whom sixty

years ago the Saxon kings used to have poems sung to them, thought that

the nation had forgotten its language, and treated it in their laws as

though it were no longer their sister.

It was a French literature, then, which was at this time domiciled

across the channel,[122] and the conquerors tried to make it purely

French, purged from all Saxon alloy. They made such a point of this that

the nobles in the reign of Henry II sent their sons to France, to

preserve them from barbarisms. "For two hundred years," says

Higden,[123] "children in scole, agenst the usage and manir of all other

nations beeth compelled for to leve hire own langage, and for to

construe hir lessons and hire thynges in Frensche." The statutes of the

universities obliged the students to converse either in French or Latin.

"Gentilmen children beeth taught to speke Frensche from the tyme that

they bith rokked in hire cradell; and uplondissche men will likne

himself to gentylmen, and fondeth with greet besynesse for to speke

Frensche." Of course the poetry is French. The Norman brought his

minstrel with him; there was Taillefer, the _jongleur_, who sang the

"Song of Roland" at the battle of Hastings; there was Adeline, the

_jongleuse_, received an estate in the partition which followed the

Conquest. The Norman who ridicules the Saxon kings, who dug up the Saxon

saints and cast them without the walls of the church, loved none but

French ideas and verses. It was into French verse that Robert Wace

rendered the legendary history of the England which was conquered, and

the actual history of the Normandy in which he continued to live. Enter

one of the abbeys where the minstrels come to sing, "where the clerks

after dinner and supper read poems, the chronicles of kingdoms, the

wonders of the world,"[124] you will only find Latin or French verses,

Latin or French prose. What becomes of English? Obscure, despised, we

hear it no more, except in the mouths of degraded franklins, outlaws of

the forest, swineherds, peasants, the lowest orders. It is no longer, or

scarcely written; gradually we find in the Saxon Chronicle that the

idiom alters, is extinguished; the Chronicle itself ceases within a

century after the Conquest.[125] The people who have leisure or security

enough to read or write are French; for them authors devise and compose;

literature always adapts itself to the taste of those who can appreciate

and pay for it. Even the English[126] endeavor to write in French: thus

Robert Grostête, in his allegorical poem on Christ; Peter Langtoft, in

his "Chronicle of England," and in his "Life of Thomas à Becket"; Hugh

de Rotheland, in his poem of "Hippomedon"; John Hoveden, and many

others. Several write the first half of the verse in English, and the

second in French; a strange sign of the ascendancy which is moulding and

oppressing them. Even in the fifteenth century[127] many of these poor

folk are employed in this task; French is the language of the court,

from it arose all poetry and elegance; he is but a clodhopper who is

inapt at that style. They apply themselves to it as our old scholars did

to Latin verses; they are gallicized as those were latinized, by

constraint, with a sort of fear, knowing well that they are but

schoolboys and provincials. Gower, one of their best poets, at the end

of his French works, excuses himself humbly for not having "_de

Français la faconde. Pardonnez moi_," he says, "_que de ce je forsvoie;

je suis Anglais._"

And yet, after all, neither the race nor the tongue has perished. It is

necessary that the Norman should learn English, in order to command his

tenants; his Saxon wife speaks it to him, and his sons receive it from

the lips of their nurse; the contagion is strong, for he is obliged to

send them to France, to preserve them from the jargon which on his

domain threatens to overwhelm and spoil them. From generation to

generation the contagion spreads; they breathe it in the air, with the

foresters in the chase, the farmers in the field, the sailors on the

ships: for these coarse people, shut in by their animal existence, are

not the kind to learn a foreign language; by the simple weight of their

dullness they impose their idiom on their conquerors, at all events such

words as pertain to living things. Scholarly speech, the language of

law, abstract and philosophical expressions--in short, all words

depending on reflection and culture may be French, since there is

nothing to prevent it. This is just what happens; these kind of ideas

and this kind of speech are not understood by the commonalty, who, not

being able to touch them, cannot change them. This produces a French, a

colonial French, doubtless perverted, pronounced with closed mouth, with

a contortion of the organs of speech, "after the school of

Stratford-atte-Bow"; yet it is still French. On the other hand, as

regards the speech employed about common actions and visible objects, it

is the people, the Saxons, who fix it; these living words are too firmly

rooted in his experience to allow of being parted with, and thus the

whole substance of the language comes from him. Here, then, we have the

Norman who, slowly and constrainedly, speaks and understands English, a

deformed, gallicized English, yet English, in sap and root; but he has

taken his time about it, for it has required two centuries. It was only

under Henry III that the new tongue is complete, with the new

constitution; and that, after the like fashion, by alliance and

intermixture; the burgesses come to take their seats in Parliament with

the nobles, at the same time that Saxon words settle down in the

language side by side with French words.

SECTION V.--The English Tongue--Early English Literary Impulses

So was modern English formed, by compromise, and the necessity of being

understood. But we can well imagine that these nobles, even while

speaking the rising dialect, have their hearts full of French tastes and

ideas; France remains the home of their mind, and the literature which

now begins, is but translation. Translators, copyists, imitators--there

is nothing else. England is a distant province, which is to France what

the United States were, thirty years ago, to Europe: she exports her

wool, and imports her ideas. Open the "Voyage and Travaile of Sir John

Maundeville,"[128] the oldest prose-writer, the Villehardouin of the

country: his book is but the translation of a translation.[129] He

writes first in Latin, the language of scholars; then in French, the

language of society; finally he reflects, and discovers that the barons,

his compatriots, by governing the Saxon churls, have ceased to speak

their own Norman, and that the rest of the nation never knew it; he

translates his manuscript into English, and, in addition, takes care to

make it plain, feeling that he speaks to less expanded understandings.

He says in French: "_Il advint une fois que Mahomet allait dans une

chapelle où il y avait un saint ermite. Il entra en la chapelle où il y

avait une petite huisserie et basse, et était bien petite la chapelle;

et alors devint la porte si grande qu'il semblait que ce fut la porte

d'un palais._"

He stops, corrects himself, wishes to explain himself better for his

readers across the Channel, and says in English: "And at the Desertes of

Arabye, he wente into a Chapelle where a Eremyte duelte. And whan he

entred in to the Chapelle that was but a lytille and a low thing, and

had but a lytill Dore and a low, than the Entree began to wexe so gret

and so large, and so highe, as though it had ben of a gret Mynstre, or

the Zate of a Paleys."[130] You perceive that he amplifies, and thinks

himself bound to clinch and drive in three or four times in succession

the same idea, in order to get it into an English brain; his thought is

drawn out, dulled, spoiled in the process. Like every copy, the new

literature is mediocre, and repeats what it imitates, with fewer merits

and greater faults.

Let us see, then, what our Norman baron gets translated for him; first,

the chronicles of Geoffroy Gaimar and Robert Wace, which consist of the

fabulous history of England continued up to their day, a dull-rhymed

rhapsody, turned into English in a rhapsody no less dull. The first

Englishman who attempts it is Layamon,[131] a monk of Ernely, still

fettered in the old idiom, who sometimes happens to rhyme, sometimes

fails, altogether barbarous and childish, unable to develop a continuous

idea, babbling in little confused and incomplete phrases, after the

fashion of the ancient Saxons; after him a monk, Robert of

Gloucester,[132] and a canon, Robert of Brunne, both as insipid and

clear as their French models, having become gallicized, and adopted the

significant characteristics of the race, namely, the faculty and habit

of easy narration, of seeing moving spectacles without deep emotion, of

writing prosaic poetry, of discoursing and developing, of believing that

phrases ending in the same sounds form real poetry. Our honest English

versifiers, like their preceptors in Normandy and Ile-de-France,

garnished with rhymes their dissertations and histories, and called them

poems. At this epoch, in fact, on the Continent, the whole learning of

the schools descends into the street; and Jean de Meung, in his poem of

"La Rose," is the most tedious of doctors. So in England, Robert of

Brunne transposes into verse the "Manuel des péchés" of Bishop

Grostête; Adam Davie,[133] certain Scripture histories; Hampole[134]

composes the "Pricke of Conscience." The titles alone make one yawn:

what of the text?

"Mankynde mad ys do Goddus wylle,

And alle Hys byddyngus to fulfille;

For of al Hys makyng more and les,

Man most principal creature es.

Al that He made for man hit was done,

As ye schal here after sone."[135]

There is a poem! You did not think so; call it a sermon, if you will

give it its proper name. It goes on, well divided, well prolonged,

flowing, but void of meaning; the literature which surrounds and

resembles it bears witness of its origin by its loquacity and its

clearness.

It bears witness to it by other and more agreeable features. Here and

there we find divergences more or less awkward into the domain of

genius; for instance, a ballad full of quips against Richard, King of

the Romans, who was taken at the battle of Lewes. Sometimes, charm is

not lacking, nor sweetness either. No one has ever spoken so bright and

so well to the ladies as the French of the Continent, and they have not

quite forgotten this talent while settling in England. You perceive it

readily in the manner in which they celebrate the Virgin. Nothing could

be more different from the Saxon sentiment, which is altogether

biblical, than the chivalric adoration of the sovereign Lady, the

fascinating Virgin and Saint, who was the real deity of the Middle Ages.

It breathes in this pleasing hymn:

"Blessed beo thu, lavedi,

Ful of hovene blisse;

Swete flur of parais,

Moder of milternisse....

I-blessed beo thu, Lavedi,

So fair and so briht;

Al min hope is uppon the,

Bi day and bi nicht....

Bricht and scene quen of storre,

So me liht and lere.

In this false fikele world,

So me led and steore."[136]

There is but a short and easy step between this tender worship of the

Virgin and the sentiments of the court of love. The English rhymesters

take it; and when they wish to praise their earthly mistresses, they

borrow, here as elsewhere, the ideas and the very form of French verse.

One compares his lady to all kinds of precious stones and flowers;

others sing truly amorous songs, at times sensual.

"Bytuene Mershe and Aueril,

When spray biginneth to springe.

The lutel foul hath hire wyl

On hyre lud to synge,

Ich libbe in loue longinge

For semlokest of alle thynge.

He may me blysse bringe,

Icham in hire baundoun.

An hendy hap ich abbe yhent,

Ichot from heuene it is me sent.

From alle wymmen my love is lent,

And lyht on Alisoun."[137]

Another sings:

"Suete lemmon, y preye the, of loue one speche,

Whil y lyue in world so wyde other nulle y seche.

With thy loue, my suete leof, mi bliss thou mihtes eche

A suete cos of thy mouth mihte be my leche."[138]

Is not this the lively and warm imagination of the south? they speak of

springtime and of love, "the fine and lovely weather" like _trouvères_,

even like _troubadours._ The dirty, smoke-grimed cottage, the black

feudal castle, where all but the master lie higgledy-piggledy on the

straw in the great stone hall, the cold rain, the muddy earth, make the

return of the sun and the warm air delicious.

"Sumer is i-cumen in,

Lhude sing cuccu:

Groweth sed, and bloweth med,

And springeth the wde nu.

Sing cuccu, cuccu.

Awe bleteth after lomb,

Llouth after calue cu,

Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth:

Murie sing cuccu,

Cuccu, cuccu.

Wel singes thu cuccu;

Ne swik thu nauer nu.

Sing, cuccu nu,

Sing, cuccu."[139]

Here are glowing pictures, such as Guillaume de Lorris was writing at

the same time, even richer and more lifelike, perhaps because the poet

found here for inspiration that love of country life which in England is

deep and national. Others, more imitative, attempt pleasantries like

those of Rutebeuf and the fabliaux, frank quips,[140] and even

satirical, loose waggeries. Their true aim and end is to hit out at the

monks. In every French country or country which imitates France, the

most manifest use of convents is to furnish material for sprightly and

scandalous stories. One writes, for instance, of the kind of life the

monks lead at the abbey of Cocagne:

"There is a wel fair abbei,

Of white monkes and of grei.

Ther beth bowris and halles:

Al of pasteiis beth the wallis,

Of fleis, of fisse, and rich met,

The likfullist that man may et.

Fluren cakes beth the schingles alle.

Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.

The pinnes beth fat podinges

Rich met to princes and kinges....

Though paradis be miri and bright

Cokaign is of fairir sight,...

Another abbei is ther bi,

Forsoth a gret fair nunnerie....

When the someris dai is hote

The young nunnes takith a bote...

And doth ham forth in that river

Both with ores and with stere....

And each monk him takith on,

And snellich berrith forth har prei

To the mochil grei abbei,

And techith the nunnes an oreisun,

With iamblene up and down."

This is the triumph of gluttony and feeding. Moreover many things could

be mentioned in the Middle Ages which are now unmentionable. But it was

the poems of chivalry, which represented to him the bright side of his

own mode of life, that the baron preferred to have translated. He

desired that his _trouvère_ should set before his eyes the magnificence

which he displayed, and the luxury and enjoyments which he has

introduced from France. Life at that time, without and even during war,

was a great pageant, a brilliant and tumultuous kind of fête. When

Henry II travelled, he took with him a great number of horsemen,

foot-soldiers, baggage-wagons, tents, pack-horses, comedians, courtesans

and their overseers, cooks, confectioners, posture-makers, dancers,

barbers, go-betweens, hangers-on.[141] In the morning when they start,

the assemblage begins to shout, sing, hustle each other, make racket and

rout, "as if hell were let loose." William Longchamps, even in time of

peace, would not travel without a thousand horses by way of escort. When

Archbishop à Becket came to France, he entered the town with two

hundred knights, a number of barons and nobles, and an army of servants,

all richly armed and equipped, he himself being provided with

four-and-twenty suits; two hundred and fifty children walked in front,

singing national songs; then dogs, then carriages, then a dozen

pack-horses, each ridden by an ape and a man; then equerries with

shields and war-horses; then more equerries, falconers, a suit of

domestics, knights, priests; lastly, the archbishop himself, with his

private friends. Imagine these processions, and also these

entertainments; for the Normans, after the Conquest, "borrowed from the

Saxons the habit of excess in eating and drinking."[142] At the marriage

of Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, they provided thirty thousand

dishes.[143] They also continued to be gallant, and punctiliously

performed the great precept of the love courts; for in the Middle Ages

the sense of love was no more idle than the others. Moreover,

tournaments were plentiful; a sort of opera prepared for their own

entertainment. So ran their life, full of adventure and adornment, in

the open air and in the sunlight, with show of cavalcades and arms; they

act a pageant, and act it with enjoyment. Thus the King of Scots, having

come to London with a hundred knights, at the coronation of Edward I,

they all dismounted, and made over their horses and superb caparisons to

the people; as did also five English lords, imitating their example. In

the midst of war they took their pleasure. Edward III, in one of his

expeditions against the King of France, took with him thirty falconers,

and made his campaign alternately hunting and fighting.[144] Another

time, says Froissart, the knights who joined the army carried a plaster

over one eye, having vowed not to remove it until they had performed an

exploit worthy of their mistresses. Out of the very exuberancy of spirit

they practised the art of poetry; out of the buoyancy of their

imagination they made a sport of life. Edward III built at Windsor a

hall and a round table; and at one of his tourneys in London, sixty

ladies, seated on palfreys, led, as in a fairy tale, each her knight by

a golden chain. Was not this the triumph of the gallant and frivolous

French fashions? Edward's wife Philippa sat as a model to the artists

for their Madonnas. She appeared on the field of battle; listened to

Froissart, who provided her with moral-plays, love-stories, and "things

fair to listen to." At once goddess, heroine, and scholar, and all this

so agreeably, was she not a true queen of refined chivalry? Now, as also

in France under Louis of Orleans and the Dukes of Burgundy, this most

elegant and romanesque civilization came into full bloom, void of common

sense, given up to passion, bent on pleasure, immoral and brilliant,

but, like its neighbors of Italy and Provence, for lack of serious

intention, it could not last.

Of all these marvels the narrators make display in their stories. Here

is a picture of the vessel which took the mother of King Richard into

England:

"Swlk on ne seygh they never non;

All it was whyt of huel-bon,

And every nayl with gold begrave:

Off pure gold was the stave.

Her mast was of yvory;

Off samyte the sayl wytterly.

Her ropes wer off tuely sylk,

Al so whyt as ony mylk.

That noble schyp was al withoute,

With clothys of golde sprede aboute;

And her loof and her wyndas,

Off asure forsothe it was."[145]

On such subjects they never run dry. When the King of Hungary wishes to

console his afflicted daughter, he proposes to take her to the chase in

the following style:

"To-morrow ye shall in hunting fare:

And ride, my daughter, in a chair;

It shall be covered with velvet red,

And cloths of fine gold all about your head,

With damask white and azure blue,

Well diapered with lilies new.

Your pommels shall be ended with gold,

Your chains enamelled many a fold,

Your mantle of rich degree,

Purple pall and ermine free.

Jennets of Spain that ben so light,

Trapped to the ground with velvet bright.

Ye shall have harp, sautry, and song,

And other mirths you among.

Ye shall have Rumney and Malespine,

Both hippocras and Vernage wine;

Montrese and wine of Greek,

Both Algrade and despice eke,

Antioch and Bastarde,

Pyment also and garnarde;

Wine of Greek and Muscadel,

Both clare, pyment, and Rochelle,

The reed your stomach to defy,

And pots of osey set you by.

You shall have venison ybake,

The best wild fowl that may be take;

A leish of harehound with you to streek,

And hart, and hind, and other like.

Ye shall be set at such a tryst,

That hart and hynd shall come to you fist,

Your disease to drive you fro,

To hear the bugles there yblow.

Homeward thus shall ye ride,

On hawking by the river's side,

With gosshawk and with gentle falcon,

With bugle-horn and merlion.

When you come home your menie among,

Ye shall have revel, dance, and song;

Little children, great and small,

Shall sing as does the nightingale.

Then shall ye go to your evensong,

With tenors and trebles among.

Threescore of copes of damask bright,

Full of pearls they shall be pight.

Your censors shall be of gold,

Indent with azure many a fold;

Your quire nor organ song shall want,

With contre-note and descant.

The other half on organs playing,

With young children full fain singing.

Then shall ye go to your supper,

And sit in tents in green arber,

With cloth of arras pight to the ground,

With sapphires set of diamond.

A hundred knights, truly told,

Shall play with bowls in alleys cold,

Your disease to drive away;

To see the fishes in pools play,

To a drawbridge then shall ye,

Th' one half of stone, th' other of tree;

A barge shall meet you full right,

With twenty-four oars full bright,

With trumpets and with clarion,

The fresh water to row up and down....

Forty torches burning bright

At your bridge to bring you light.

Into your chamber they shall you bring,

With much mirth and more liking.

Your blankets shall be of fustian,

Your sheets shall be of cloth of Rennes.

Your head sheet shall be of pery pight,

With diamonds set and rubies bright.

When you are laid in bed so soft,

A cage of gold shall hang aloft,

With long paper fair burning,

And cloves that be sweet smelling.

Frankincense and olibanum,

That when ye sleep the taste may come;

And if ye no rest can take,

All night minstrels for you shall wake."[146]

Amid such fancies and splendors the poets delight and lose themselves,

and the woof, like the embroideries of their canvas, bears the mark of

this love of decoration. They weave it out of adventures, of

extraordinary and surprising events. Now it is the life of King Horn,

who, thrown into a boat when a lad, is wrecked upon the coast of

England, and, becoming a knight, reconquers the kingdom of his father.

Now it is the history of Sir Guy, who rescues enchanted knights, cuts

down the giant Colbrand, challenges and kills the Sultan in his tent. It

is not for me to recount these poems, which are not English, but only

translations; still, here as in France, there are many of them; they

fill the imagination of the young society, and they grow in

exaggeration, until, falling to the lowest depth of insipidity and

improbability, they are buried forever by Cervantes. What would people

say of a society which had no literature but the opera with its

unrealities? Yet it was a literature of this kind which formed the

intellectual food of the Middle Ages. People then did not ask for truth,

but entertainment, and that vehement and hollow, full of glare and

startling events. They asked for impossible voyages, extravagant

challenges, a racket of contests, a confusion of magnificence and

entanglement of chances. For introspective history they had no liking,

cared nothing for the adventures of the heart, devoted their attention

to the outside. They remained children to the last, with eyes glued to a

series of exaggerated and colored images, and, for lack of thinking, did

not perceive that they had learnt nothing.

What was there beneath this fanciful dream? Brutal and evil human

passions, unchained at first by religious fury, then delivered up to

their own devices, and, beneath a show of external courtesy, as vile as

ever. Look at the popular king, Richard Cœur de Lion, and reckon up his

butcheries and murders: "King Richard," says a poem, "is the best king

ever mentioned in song."[147] I have no objection; but if he has the

heart of a lion, he has also that brute's appetite. One day, under the

walls of Acre, being convalescent, he had a great desire for some pork.

There was no pork. They killed a young Saracen, fresh and tender, cooked

and salted him, and the king ate him and found him very good; whereupon

he desired to see the head of the pig. The cook brought it in trembling.

The king falls a-laughing, and says the army has nothing to fear from

famine, having provisions ready at hand. He takes the town, and

presently Saladin's ambassadors come to sue for pardon for the

prisoners. Richard has thirty of the most noble beheaded, and bids his

cook boil the heads, and serve one to each ambassador, with a ticket

bearing the name and family of the dead man. Meanwhile, in their

presence, he eats his own with a relish, bids them tell Saladin how the

Christians make war, and ask him if it is true that they fear him. Then

he orders the sixty thousand prisoners to be led into the plain:

"They were led into the place full even.

There they heard angels of heaven;

They said: 'Seigneures, tuez, tuez!

Spares hem nought, and beheadeth these!'

King Richard heard the angels' voice,

And thanked God and the holy cross."

Thereupon they behead them all. When he took a town, it was his wont to

murder everyone, even children and women. Such was the devotion of the

Middle Ages, not only in romances, as here, but in history. At the

taking of Jerusalem the whole population, seventy thousand persons, were

massacred.

Thus even in chivalrous stories the fierce and unbridled instincts of

the bloodthirsty brute break out. The authentic narratives show it.

Henry II, irritated at a page, attempted to tear out his eyes.[148] John

Lackland let twenty-three hostages die in prison of hunger. Edward II

caused at one time twenty-eight nobles to be hanged and disemboweled,

and was himself put to death by the insertion of a red-hot iron into his

bowels. Look in Froissart for the debaucheries and murders in France as

well as in England, of the Hundred Years' War, and then for the

slaughters of the Wars of the Roses. In both countries feudal

independence ended in civil war, and the Middle Age founders under its

vices. Chivalrous courtesy, which cloaked the native ferocity,

disappears like some hangings suddenly consumed by the breaking out of a

fire; at that time in England they killed nobles in preference, and

prisoners, too, even children, with insults, in cold blood. What, then,

did man learn in this civilization and by this literature? How was he

humanized? What precepts of justice, habits of reflection, store of true

judgments, did this culture interpose between his desires and his

actions, in order to moderate his passion? He dreamed, he imagined a

sort of elegant ceremonial in order the better to address lords and

ladies; he discovered the gallant code of little Jehan de Saintré. But

where is the true education? Wherein has Froissart profited by all his

vast experience? He was a fine specimen of a babbling child; what they

called his poesy, the _poèsie neuve_, is only a refined gabble, a

senile puerility. Some rhetoricians, like Christine de Pisan, try to

round their periods after an ancient model; but all their literature

amounts to nothing. No one can think. Sir John Maundeville, who

travelled all over the world a hundred and fifty years after

Villehardouin, is as contracted in his ideas as Villehardouin himself.

Extraordinary legends and fables, every sort of credulity and ignorance,

abound in his book. When he wishes to explain why Palestine has passed

into the hands of various possessors instead of continuing under one

government, he says that it is because God would not that it should

continue longer in the hands of traitors and sinners, whether Christians

or others. He has seen at Jerusalem, on the steps of the temple, the

footmarks of the ass which our Lord rode on Palm Sunday. He describes

the Ethiopians as a people who have only one foot, but so large that

they can make use of it as a parasol. He instances one island "where be

people as big as gyants, of 28 feet long, and have no clothing but

beasts' skins"; then another island "where there are many evil and foul

women, but have precious stones in their eyes, and have such force that

if they behold any man with wrath, they slay him with beholding, as the

basilisk doth." The good man relates; that is all: doubt and

common-sense scarcely exist in the world he lives in. He has neither

judgment nor reflection; he piles facts one on top of another, with no

further connection; his book is simply a mirror which reproduces

recollections of his eyes and ears. "And all those who will say a Pater

and an Ave Maria in my behalf, I give them an interest and a share in

all the holy pilgrimages I ever made in my life." That is his farewell,

and accords with all the rest. Neither public morality nor public

knowledge has gained anything from these three centuries of culture.

This French culture, copied in vain throughout Europe, has but

superficially adorned mankind, and the varnish with which it decked them

is already tarnished everywhere or scales off. It was worse in England,

where the thing was more superficial and the application worse than in

France, where foreign hands laid it on, and where it could only half

cover the Saxon crust, where that crust was worn away and rough. That is

the reason why, during three centuries, throughout the whole first

feudal age, the literature of the Normans in England, made up of

imitations, translations, and clumsy copies, ends in nothing.

SECTION VI.--Feudal Civilization

Meantime, what has become of the conquered people? Has the old stock, on

which the brilliant Continental flowers were grafted, engendered no

literary shoot of its own? Did it continue barren during all this time

under the Norman axe, which stripped it of all its buds? It grew very

feebly, but it grew nevertheless. The subjugated race is not a

dismembered nation, dislocated, uprooted, sluggish, like the populations

of the Continent, which, after the long Roman oppression, were given up

to the unrestrained invasion of barbarians; it increased, remained fixed

in its own soil, full of sap: its members were not displaced; it was

simply lopped in order to receive on its crown a cluster of foreign

branches. True, it had suffered, but at last the wound closed, the saps

mingled. Even the hard, stiff ligatures with which the Conqueror bound

it, henceforth contributed to its fixity and vigor. The land was mapped

out; every title verified, defined in writing;[149] every right or

tenure valued; every man registered as to his locality, and also his

condition, duties, descent, and resources, so that the whole nation was

enveloped in a network of which not a mesh would break. Its future

development had to be within these limits. Its constitution was settled,

and in this positive and stringent enclosure men were compelled to

unfold themselves and to act. Solidarity and strife; these were the two

effects of the great and orderly establishment which shaped and held

together, on one side the aristocracy of the conquerors, on the other

the conquered people; even as in Rome the systematic fusing of conquered

peoples into the plebs, and the constrained organization of the

patricians in contrast with the plebs, enrolled the private individuals

in two orders, whose opposition and union formed the state. Thus, here

as in Rome, the national character was moulded and completed by the

habit of corporate action, the respect for written law, political and

practical aptitude, the development of combative and patient energy. It

was the Domesday Book which, binding this young society in a rigid

discipline, made of the Saxon the Englishman of our own day.

Gradually and slowly, amidst the gloomy complainings of the chroniclers,

we find the new man fashioned by action, like a child who cries because

steel stays, though they improve his figure, give him pain. However

reduced and downtrodden the Saxons were, they did not all sink into the

populace. Some,[150] almost in every county, remained lords of their

estates, on the condition of doing homage for them to the king. Many

became vassals of Norman barons, and remained proprietors on this

condition. A greater number became socagers, that is, free proprietors,

burdened with a tax, but possessed of the right of alienating their

property; and the Saxon villeins found patrons in these, as the plebs

formerly did in the Italian nobles who were transplanted to Rome. The

patronage of the Saxons who preserved their integral position was

effective, for they were not isolated: marriages from the first united

the two races, as it had the patricians and plebeians of Rome;[151] a

Norman brother-in-law to a Saxon, defended himself in defending him. In

those turbulent times, and in an armed community, relatives and allies

were obliged to stand shoulder to shoulder in order to keep their

ground. After all, it was necessary for the new-comers to consider their

subjects, for these subjects had the heart and courage of men: the

Saxons, like the plebeians at Rome, remembered their native rank and

their original independence. We can recognize it in the complaints and

indignation of the chroniclers, in the growling and menaces of popular

revolt, in the long bitterness with which they continually recalled

their ancient liberty, in the favor with which they cherished the daring

and rebellion of outlaws. There were Saxon families at the end of the

twelfth century who had bound themselves by a perpetual vow to wear long

beards from father to son in memory of the national custom and of the

old country. Such men, even though fallen to the condition of socagers,

even sunk into villeins, had a stiffer neck than the wretched colonists

of the Continent, trodden down and moulded by four centuries of Roman

taxation. By their feelings as well as by their condition, they were the

broken remains, but also the living elements, of a free people. They did

not suffer the extremities of oppression. They constituted the body of

the nation, the laborious, courageous body which supplied its energy.

The great barons felt that they must rely upon them in their resistance

to the king. Very soon, in stipulating for themselves, they stipulated

for all freemen,[152] even for merchants and villeins. Thereafter "No

merchant shall be dispossessed of his merchandise, no villein of the

instruments of his labor; no freeman, merchant, or villein shall be

taxed unreasonably for a small crime; no freeman shall be arrested, or

imprisoned, or disseized of his land, or outlawed, or destroyed in any

manner, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the

land." Thus protected they raise themselves and act. In each county

there was a court, where all freeholders, small or great, came to

deliberate about the municipal affairs, administer justice, and appoint

tax-assessors. The red-bearded Saxon, with his clear complexion and

great white teeth, came and sat by the Norman's side; these were

franklins like the one whom Chaucer describes:

"A Frankelein was in this compagnie;

White was his herd, as is the dayesie.

Of his complexion he was sanguin,

Wel loved he by the morwe a sop in win.

To liven in delit was ever his wone,

For he was Epicures owen sone,

That held opinion that plein delit

Was veraily felicite parfite.

An housholder, and that a grete was he,

Seint Julian he was in his contree.

His brede, his ale, was alway after on;

A better envyned man was no wher non.

Withouten bake mete never his hous,

Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,

It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,

Of all deintees that men coud of thinke;

After the sondry sesons of the yere,

So changed he his mete and his soupere.

Ful many a fat partrich had he in mewe,

And many a breme, and many a luce in stewe.

Wo was his coke but if his sauce were

Poinant and sharpe, and redy all his gere.

His table, dormant in his halle alway

Stode redy covered alle the longe day.

At sessions ther was he lord and sire.

Ful often time he was knight of the shire.

An anelace and a gipciere all of silk,

Heng at his girdle, white as morwe milk.

A shereve hadde he ben, and a contour.

Was no wher swiche a worthy vavasour."[153]

With him occasionally in the assembly, oftenest among the audience, were

the yeomen, farmers, foresters, tradesmen, his fellow-countrymen,

muscular and resolute men, not slow in the defence of their property,

and in supporting him who would take their cause in hand, with voice,

fist and weapons. Is it likely that the discontent of such men to whom

the following description applies could be overlooked?

"The Miller was a stout carl for the nones,

Ful bigge he was of braun and eke of bones;

That proved wel, for over all ther he came,

At wrastling he wold bere away the ram.

He was short shuldered brode, a thikke gnarre,

Ther n'as no dore, that he n'olde heve of barre,

Or breke it at a renning with his hede.

His berd as any sowe or fox was rede,

And therto brode, as though it were a spade.

Upon the cop right of his nose he hade

A wert, and thereon stode a tufte of heres,

Rede as the bristles of a sowes eres:

His nose-thirles blacke were and wide.

A swerd and bokeler bare he by his side.

His mouth as wide was as a forneis,

He was a jangler and a goliardeis,

And that was most of sinne, and harlotries.

Wel coude he stelen corne and tollen thries.

And yet he had a thomb of gold parde.

A white cote and a blew hode wered he.

A baggepipe wel coude he blowe and soune,

And therwithall he brought us out of toune."[154]

Those are the athletic forms, the square build, the jolly John Bulls of

the period, such as we yet find them, nourished by meat and porter,

sustained by bodily exercise and boxing. These are the men we must keep

before us, if we will understand how political liberty has been

established in this country. Gradually they find the simple knights,

their colleagues in the county court, too poor to be present with the

great barons at the royal assemblies, coalescing with them. They become

united by community of interests, by similarity of manners, by nearness

of condition; they take them for their representatives, they elect

them.[155] They have now entered upon public life, and the advent of a

new reinforcement gives them a perpetual standing in their changed

condition. The towns laid waste by the Conquest are gradually repeopled.

They obtain or exact charters; the townsmen buy themselves out of the

arbitrary taxes that were imposed on them; they get possession of the

land on which their houses are built; they unite themselves under mayors

and aldermen. Each town now, within the meshes of the great feudal net,

is a power. The Earl of Leicester, rebelling against the king, summons

two burgesses from each town to Parliament,[156] to authorize and

support him. From that time the conquered race, both in country and

town, rose to political life. If they were taxed, it was with their

consent; they paid nothing which they did not agree to. Early in the

fourteenth century their united deputies composed the House of Commons;

and already, at the close of the preceding century, the Archbishop of

Canterbury, speaking in the name of the king, said to the pope, "It is

the custom of the kingdom of England, that in all affairs relating to

the state of this kingdom, the advice of all who are interested in them

should be taken."

SECTION VII.--Persistence of Saxon Ideas

If they have acquired liberties, it is because they have obtained them

by force; circumstances have assisted, but character has done more. The

protection of the great barons and the alliance of the plain knights

have strengthened them; but it was by their native roughness and energy

that they maintained their independence. Look at the contrast they offer

at this moment to their neighbors. What occupies the mind of the French

people? The fabliaux, the naughty tricks of Reynard, the art of

deceiving Master Isengrin, of stealing his wife, of cheating him out of

his dinner, of getting him beaten by a third party without danger to

one's self; in short, the triumph of poverty and cleverness over power

united to folly. The popular hero is already the artful plebeian,

chaffing, light-hearted, who, later on, will ripen into Panurge and

Figaro, not apt to withstand you to your face, too sharp to care for

great victories and habits of strife, inclined by the nimbleness of his

wit to dodge round an obstacle; if he but touch a man with the tip of

his finger, that man tumbles into the trap. But here we have other

customs: it is Robin Hood, a valiant outlaw, living free and bold in the

green forest, waging frank and open war against sheriff and law.[157] If

ever a man was popular in his country, it was he. "It is he," says an

old historian, "whom the common people love so dearly to celebrate in

games and comedies, and whose history, sung by fiddlers, interests them

more than any other." In the sixteenth century he still had his

commemoration day, observed by all the people in the small towns and in

the country. Bishop Latimer, making his pastoral tour, announced one day

that he would preach in a certain place. On the morrow, proceeding to

the church, he found the doors closed, and waited more than an hour

before they brought him the key. At last a man came and said to him,

"Syr, thys ys a busye day with us; we cannot heare you: it is Robyn

Hoodes Daye. The parishe are gone abrode to gather for Robyn Hoode.... I

was fayne there to geve place to Robyn Hoode."[158] The bishop was

obliged to divest himself of his ecclesiastical garments and proceed on

his journey, leaving his place to archers dressed in green, who played

on a rustic stage the parts of Robin Hood, Little John, and their band.

In fact, he was the national hero. Saxon in the first place and waging

war against the men of law, against bishops and archbishops, whose sway

was so heavy; generous, moreover, giving to a poor ruined knight

clothes, horse, and money to buy back the land he had pledged to a

rapacious abbot; compassionate too, and kind to the poor, enjoining his

men not to injure yeomen and laborers; but above all, rash, bold, proud,

who would go and draw his bow before the sheriff's eyes and to his face;

ready with blows, whether to give or take. He slew fourteen out of

fifteen foresters who came to arrest him; he slays the sheriff, the

judge, the town gatekeeper; he is ready to slay as many more as like to

come; and all this joyously, jovially, like an honest fellow who eats

well, has a hard skin, lives in the open air, and revels in animal life.

"In somer when the shawes be sheyne,

And leves be large and long,

Hit is fulle mery in feyre foreste

To here the foulys song."

That is how many ballads begin; and the fine weather, which makes the

stags and oxen butt with their horns, inspires them with the thought of

exchanging blows with sword or stick. Robin dreamed that two yeomen were

thrashing him, and he wants to go and find them, angrily repelling

Little John, who offers to go first:

"Ah John, by me thou settest noe store,

And that I farley finde:

How offt send I my men before,

And tarry myselfe behinde?

"It is no cunnin a knave to ken,

An a man but heare him speake;

An it were not for bursting of my bowe,

John, I thy head wold breake."[159]...

He goes alone, and meets the robust yeoman, Guy of Gisborne,

"He that had neyther beene kythe nor kin,

Might have seen a full fayre fight,

To see how together these yeomen went

With blades both browne and bright,

"To see how these yeomen together they fought

Two howres of a summer's day;

Yett neither Robin Hood nor sir Guy

Them fettled to flye away."[160]

You see Guy the yeoman is as brave as Robin Hood; he came to seek him in

the wood, and drew the bow almost as well as he. This old popular poetry

is not the praise of a single bandit, but of an entire class, the

yeomanry. "God haffe mersy on Robin Hodys solle, and saffe all god

yemanry." That is how many ballads end. The brave yeoman, inured to

blows, a good archer, clever at sword and stick, is the favorite. There

were also, redoubtable, armed townsfolk, accustomed to make use of their

arms. Here they are at work:

"'O that were a shame,' said jolly Robin,

'We being three, and thou but one,'

The pinder[161] leapt back then thirty good foot,

'Twas thirty good foot and one.

"He leaned his back fast unto a thorn,

And his foot against a stone,

And there he fought a long summer's day,

A summer's day so long.

"Till that their swords on their broad bucklers

Were broke fast into their hands."[162]

Often even Robin does not get the advantage:

"'I pass not for length,' bold Arthur reply'd,

'My staff is of oke so free;

Eight foot and a half, it will knock down a calf,

And I hope it will knock down thee.'

"Then Robin could no longer forbear,

He gave him such a knock,

Quickly and soon the blood came down

Before it was ten a clock.

"Then Arthur he soon recovered himself,

And gave him such a knock on the crown,

That from every side of bold Robin Hood's head

The blood came trickling down.

"Then Robin raged like a wild boar,

As soon as he saw his own blood:

Then Bland was in hast, he laid on so fast,

As though he had been cleaving of wood.

"And about and about and about they went,

Like two wild bores in a chase,

Striving to aim each other to maim,

Leg, arm, or any other place.

"And knock for knock they lustily dealt,

Which held for two hours and more,

Till all the wood rang at every bang,

They ply'd their work so sore.

"Hold thy hand, hold thy hand,' said Robin Hood,

'And let thy quarrel fall;

For here we may thrash our bones all to mesh,

And get no coyn at all.

"And in the forrest of merry Sherwood,

Hereafter thou shalt be free.'

'God a mercy for nought, my freedom I bought,

I may thank my staff, and not thee.'"[163]...

"Who are you, then?" says Robin:

"'I am a tanner,' bold Arthur reply'd,

'In Nottingham long I have wrought;

And if thou'lt come there, I vow and swear,

I will tan thy hide for nought.'

"'God a mercy, good fellow,' said jolly Robin,

'Since thou art so kind and free;

And if thou wilt tan my hide for nought,

I will do as much for thee.'"[164]

With these generous offers, they embrace; a free exchange of honest

blows always prepares the way for friendship. It was so Robin Hood tried

Little John, whom he loved all his life after. Little John was seven

feet high, and being on a bridge, would not give way. Honest Robin would

not use his bow against him, but went and cut a stick seven feet long;

and they agreed amicably to fight on the bridge until one should fall

into the water. They fall to so merrily that "their bones ring." In the

end Robin falls, and he feels only the more respect for Little John.

Another time, having a sword with him, he was thrashed by a tinker who

had only a stick. Full of admiration, he gives him a hundred pounds.

Again he was thrashed by a potter, who refused him toll; then by a

shepherd. They fight to amuse themselves. Even nowadays boxers give each

other a friendly grip before setting to; they knock one another about in

this country honorably, without malice, fury, or shame. Broken teeth,

black eyes, smashed ribs, do not call for murderous vengeance: it would

seem that the bones are more solid and the nerves less sensitive in

England than elsewhere. Blows once exchanged, they take each other by

the hand, and dance together on the green grass:

"Then Robin took them both by the hands,

And danc'd round about the oke tree.

'For three merry men, and three merry men,

And three merry men we be.'"

Moreover, these people, in each parish, practised the bow every Sunday,

and were the best archers in the world; from the close of the fourteenth

century the general emancipation of the villeins multiplied their number

greatly, and you can now understand how, amidst all the operations and

changes of the great central powers, the liberty of the subject

survived. After all, the only permanent and unalterable guarantee, in

every country and under every constitution, is this unspoken declaration

in the heart of the mass of the people, which is well understood on all

sides: "If any man touches my property, enters my house, obstructs or

molests me, let him beware. I have patience, but I have also strong

arms, good comrades, a good blade, and, on occasion, a firm resolve,

happen what may, to plunge my blade up to its hilt in his throat."

SECTION VIII.--The English Constitution

Thus thought Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor of England under Henry VI,

exiled in France during the Wars of the Roses, one of the oldest

prose-writers, and the first who weighed and explained the constitution

of his country.[165] He says:

"It is cowardise and lack of hartes and corage that kepeth the Frenchmen

from rysyng, and not povertye;[166] which corage no Frenche man hath

like to the English man. It hath ben often seen in Englond that iij or

iv thefes, for povertie, hath sett upon vij or viij true men, and robbyd

them al. But it hath not ben seen in Fraunce, that vij or viij thefes

have ben hardy to robbe iij or iv true men. Wherfor it is right seld

that Frenchmen be hangyd for robberye, for that they have no hertys to

do so terryble an acte. There be therfor mo men hangyd in Englond, in a

yere, for robberye and manslaughter, than ther be hangid in Fraunce for

such cause of crime in vij yers."[167]

This throws a startling and terrible light on the violent condition of

this armed community, where sudden attacks are an every-day matter, and

everyone, rich and poor, lives with his hand on his sword. There were

great bands of malefactors under Edward I, who infested the country, and

fought with those who came to seize them. The inhabitants of the towns

were obliged to gather together with those of the neighboring towns,

with hue and cry, to pursue and capture them. Under Edward III there

were barons who rode about with armed escorts and archers, seizing the

manors, carrying off ladies and girls of high degree, mutilating,

killing, extorting ransoms from people in their own houses, as if they

were in an enemy's land, and sometimes coming before the judges at the

sessions in such guise and in so great force that the judges were afraid

and dared not administer justice.[168] Read the letters of the Paston

family, under Henry VI and Edward IV, and you will see how private war

was at every door, how it was necessary for a man to provide himself

with men and arms, to be on the alert for defence of his property, to be

self-reliant, to depend on his own strength and courage. It is this

excess of vigor and readiness to fight which, after their victories in

France, set them against one another in England, in the butcheries of

the Wars of the Roses. The strangers who saw them were astonished at

their bodily strength and courage, at the great pieces of beef "which

feed their muscles, at their military habits, their fierce obstinacy, as

of savage beasts."[169] They are like their bulldogs, an untamable race,

who in their mad courage "cast themselves with shut eyes into the den of

a Russian bear, and get their head broken like a rotten apple." This

strange condition of a militant community, so full of danger, and

requiring so much effort, does not make them afraid. King Edward having

given orders to send disturbers of the peace to prison without legal

proceedings, and not to liberate them, on bail or otherwise, the Commons

declared the order "horribly vexatious"; resist it, refuse to be too

much protected. Less peace, but more independence. They maintain the

guarantees of the subject at the expense of public security, and prefer

turbulent liberty to arbitrary order. Better suffer marauders whom they

could fight, than magistrates under whom they would have to bend.

This proud and persistent notion gives rise to, and fashions Fortescue's

whole work:

"Ther be two kynds of kyngdomys, of the which that one ys a lordship

callid in Latyne Dominium regale, and that other is callid Dominium

politicum et regale."

The first is established in France, and the second in England.

"And they dyversen in that the first may rule his people by such lawys

as he makyth hymself, and therefor, he may set upon them talys, and

other impositions, such as he wyl hymself, without their assent. The

secund may not rule hys people by other laws than such as they assenten

unto; and therfor he may set upon them non impositions without their own

assent."[170]

In a state like this, the will of the people is the prime element of

life. Sir John Fortescue says further:

"A king of England cannot at his pleasure make any alterations in the

laws of the land, for the nature of his government is not only regal,

but political."

"In the body politic, the first thing which lives and moves is the

intention of the people, having in it the blood, that is, the prudential

care and provision for the public good, which it transmits and

communicates to the head, as to the principal part, and to all the rest

of the members of the said body politic, whereby it subsists and is

invigorated. The law under which the people is incorporated may be

compared to the nerves or sinews of the body natural.... And as the

bones and all the other members of the body preserve their functions and

discharge their several offices by the nerves, so do the members of the

community by the law. And as the head of the body natural cannot change

its nerves or sinews, cannot deny to the several parts their proper

energy, their due proportion and aliment of blood, neither can a king

who is the head of the body politic change the laws thereof, nor take

from the people what is theirs by right, against their consents.... For

he is appointed to protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and

laws, for this very end and purpose he has the delegation of power from

the people."

Here we have all the ideas of Locke in the fifteenth century, so

powerful is practice to suggest theory! so quickly does man discover, in

the enjoyment of liberty, the nature of liberty! Fortescue goes further;

he contrasts, step by step, the Roman law, that inheritance of all Latin

peoples, with the English law, that heritage of all Teutonic peoples:

one the work of absolute princes, and tending altogether to the

sacrifice of the individual; the other the work of the common will,

tending altogether to protect the person. He contrasts the maxims of the

imperial jurisconsults, who accord "force of law to all which is

determined by the prince," with the statutes of England, which "are not

enacted by the sole will of the prince,... but with the concurrent

consent of the whole kingdom, by their representatives in Parliament,...

more than three hundred select persons." He contrasts the arbitrary

nomination of imperial officers with the election of the sheriff, and

says:

"There is in every county a certain officer, called the king's sheriff,

who, amongst other duties of his office, executes within his county all

mandates and judgments of the king's courts of justice: he is an annual

officer; and it is not lawful for him, after the expiration of his year,

to continue to act in his said office, neither shall he be taken in

again to execute the said office within two years thence next ensuing.

The manner of his election is thus: Every year, on the morrow of

All-Souls, there meet in the King's Court of Exchequer all the king's

counsellors, as well lords spiritual and temporal, as all other the

king's justices, all the barons of the Exchequer, the Master of the

Rolls, and certain other officers, when all of them, by common consent,

nominate three of every county knights or esquires, persons of

distinction, and such as they esteem fittest qualified to bear the

office of sheriff of that county for the year ensuing. The king only

makes choice of one out of the three so nominated and returned, who, in

virtue of the king's letters patent, is constituted High Sheriff of that

county."

He contrasts the Roman procedure, which is satisfied with two witnesses

to condemn a man, with the jury, the three permitted challenges, the

admirable guarantees of justice with which the uprightness, number,

repute, and condition of the juries surround the sentence. About the

juries he says:

"Twelve good and true men being sworn, as in the manner above related,

legally qualified, that is, having, over and besides their movables,

possessions in land sufficient, as was said, wherewith to maintain their

rank and station; neither inspected by, nor at variance with either of

the parties; all of the neighborhood; there shall be read to them, in

English, by the Court, the record and nature of the plea."[171]

Thus protected, the English commons cannot be other than flourishing.

Consider, on the other hand, he says to the young prince whom he is

instructing, the condition of the commons in France. By their taxes, tax

on salt, on wine, billeting of soldiers, they are reduced to great

misery. You have seen them on your travels....

"The same Commons be so impoverishid and distroyyd, that they may unneth

lyve. Thay drink water, thay eate apples, with bred right brown made of

rye. They eate no fleshe, but if it be selden, a litill larde, or of the

entrails or heds of bests sclayne for the nobles and merchants of the

land. They weryn no wollyn, but if it be a pore cote under their

uttermost garment, made of grete convass, and cal it a frok. Their hosyn

be of like canvas, and passen not their knee, wherfor they be gartrid

and their thyghs bare. Their wifs and children gone bare fote. ... For

sum of them, that was wonte to pay to his lord for his tenement which he

hyrith by the year a scute payth now to the kyng, over that scute, fyve

skuts. Wher thrugh they be artyd by necessite so to watch, labour and

grub in the ground for their sustenance, that their nature is much

wasted, and the kynd of them brought to nowght. Thay gone crokyd and ar

feeble, not able to fight nor to defend the realm; nor they have wepon,

nor monye to buy them wepon withal.... This is the frute first of hyre

Jus regale.... But blessed be God, this land ys rulid under a better

lawe, and therfor the people thereof be not in such penurye, nor therby

hurt in their persons, but they be wealthie and have all things

necessarie to the sustenance of nature. Wherefore they be myghty and

able to resyste the adversaries of the realms that do or will do them

wrong. Loo, this is the fruit of Jus politicum et regale, under which we

lyve."[172] "Everye inhabiter of the realme of England useth and

enjoyeth at his pleasure all the fruites that his land or cattel

beareth, with al the profits and commodities which by his owne travayle,

or by the labour of others, hae gaineth; not hindered by the iniurie or

wrong deteinement of anye man, but that hee shall bee allowed a

reasonable recompence.[173]... Hereby it commeth to passe that the men

of that lande are riche, havying aboundaunce of golde and silver, and

other thinges necessarie for the maintenaunce of man's life. They drinke

no water, unless it be so, that some for devotion, and uppon a zeale of

penaunce, doe abstaine from other drinks. They eate plentifully of all

kindes of fleshe and fishe. They weare fine woolen cloth in all their

apparel; they have also aboundaunce of bed-coveringes in their houses,

and of all other woolen stuffe. They have greate store of all

hustlementes and implementes of householde, they are plentifully

furnished with al instruments of husbandry, and all other things that

are requisite to the accomplishment of a quiet and wealthy lyfe,

according to their estates and degrees. Neither are they sued in the

lawe, but onely before ordinary iudges, where by the lawes of the lande

they are iustly intreated. Neither are they arrested or impleaded for

their moveables or possessions, or arraigned of any offence, bee it

never so great and outragious, but after the lawes of the land, and

before the iudges aforesaid."[174]

All this arises from the constitution of the country and the

distribution of the land. Whilst in other countries we find only a

population of paupers, with here and there a few lords, England is

covered and filled with owners of lands and fields; so that "therein so

small a thorpe cannot bee founde, wherein dwelleth not a knight, an

esquire, or suche a housholder as is there commonly called a franklayne,

enryched with greate possessions. And also other freeholders, and many

yeomen able for their livelodes to make a jurye in fourme

afore-mentioned. For there bee in that lande divers yeomen, which are

able to dispend by the yeare above a hundred poundes."[175] Harrison

says:[176]

"This sort of people, have more estimation than labourers and the common

sort of artificers, and these commonlie live wealthilie, keepe good

houses, and travell to get riches. They are for the most part farmers to

gentlemen," and keep servants of their own. "These were they that in

times past made all France afraid. And albeit they be not called master,

as gentlemen are, or sir, as to knights apperteineth, but onelie John

and Thomas, etc., yet have they beene found to have done verie good

service; and the kings of England, in foughten battels, were wont to

remaine among them (who were their footmen) as the French kings did

among their horssemen: the prince thereby showing where his chiefe

strength did consist."

Such men, says Fortescue, might form a legal jury, and vote, resist, be

associated, do everything wherein a free government consists; for they

were numerous in every district; they were not down-trodden like the

timid peasants of France; they had their honor and that of their family

to maintain; "they be well provided with arms; they remember that they

have won battles in France."[177] Such is the class, still obscure, but

more rich and powerful every century, which, founded by the down-trodden

Saxon aristocracy, and sustained by the surviving Saxon character,

ended, under the lead of the inferior Norman nobility and under the

patronage of the superior Norman nobility, in establishing and settling

a free constitution, and a nation worthy of liberty.

SECTION IX.--Piers Plowman and Wyclif

When, as here, men are endowed with a serious character, have a resolute

spirit, and possess independent habits, they deal with their conscience

as with their daily business, and end by laying hands on church as well

as state. Already for a long time the exactions of the Roman See had

provoked the resistance of the people,[178] and the higher clergy became

unpopular. Men complained that the best livings were given by the pope

to non-resident strangers; that some Italian, unknown in England,

possessed fifty or sixty benefices in England; that English money poured

into Rome; and that the clergy, being judged only by clergy, gave

themselves up to their vices, and abused their state of immunity. In the

first years of Henry III's reign there were nearly a hundred murders

committed by priests then alive. At the beginning of the fourteenth

century the ecclesiastical revenue was twelve times greater than the

civil; about half the soil was in the hands of the clergy. At the end of

the century the commons declared that the taxes paid to the church were

five times greater than the taxes paid to the crown; and some years

afterwards,[179] considering that the wealth of the clergy only served

to keep them in idleness and luxury, they proposed to confiscate it for

the public benefit. Already the idea of the Reformation had forced

itself upon them. They remembered how in the ballads Robin Hood ordered

his folk to spare the yeomen, laborers, even knights, if they are good

fellows, but never to let abbots or bishops escape. The prelates were

grievously oppressing the people by means of their privileges,

ecclesiastical courts, and tithes; when suddenly, amid the pleasant

banter or the monotonous babble of the Norman versifiers, we hear the

indignant voice of a Saxon, a man of the people and a victim of

oppression, thundering against them.

It is the vision of Piers Plowman, written, it is supposed, by a secular

priest of Oxford.[180] Doubtless the traces of French taste are

perceptible. It could not be otherwise; the people from below can never

quite prevent themselves from imitating the people above, and the most

unshackled popular poets, Burns and Béranger, too often preserve an

academic style. So here a fashionable machinery, the allegory of the

Roman de la Rose, is pressed into service. We have Do-well,

Covetousness, Avarice, Simony, Conscience, and a whole world of talking

abstractions. But, in spite of these vain foreign phantoms, the body of

the poem is national, and true to life. The old language reappears in

part; the old metre altogether; no morer rhymes, but barbarous

alliterations; no more jesting, but a harsh gravity, a sustained

invective, a grand and sombre imagination, heavy Latin texts, hammered

down as by a Protestant hand. Piers Plowman went to sleep on the Malvern

hills, and there had a wonderful dream:

"Thanne gan I meten--a merveillous swevene,

That I was in a wildernesse--wiste I nevere where;

And as I biheeld into the eest,--an heigh to the sonne,

I seigh a tour on a toft,--trieliche y-maked,

A deep dale bynethe--a dongeon thereinne

With depe diches and derke--and dredfulle of sighte.

A fair feeld ful of folk--fond I ther bitwene,

Of alle manere of men,--the meene and the riche,

Werchynge and wandrynge--as the world asketh.

Some putten hem to the plough,--pleiden ful selde,

In settynge and sowynge--swonken ful harde,

And wonnen that wastours--with glotonye dystruyeth."[181]

A gloomy picture of the world, like the frightful dreams which occur so

often in Albert Durer and Luther. The first reformers were persuaded

that the earth was given over to evil; that the devil had on it his

empire and his officers; that Antichrist, seated on the throne of Rome,

displayed ecclesiastical pomps to seduce souls and cast them into the

fire of hell. So here Anti-christ, with raised banner, enters a convent;

bells are rung; monks in solemn procession go to meet him, and receive

with congratulations their lord and father.[182] With seven great

giants, the seven deadly sins, he besieges Conscience; and the assault

is led by Idleness, who brings with her an army of more than a thousand

prelates: for vices reign, more hateful from being in holy places, and

employed in the church of God in the devil's service.

"Ac now is Religion a rydere--a romere aboute,

A ledere of love-dayes--and a lond-buggere,

A prikere on a palfrey--fro manere to manere....

And but if his knave knele--that shal his coppe brynge,

He loureth on hym, and asketh hym--who taughte hym curteisie."[183]

But this sacrilegious show has its day, and God puts His hand on men in

order to warn them. By order of Conscience, Nature sends forth a host of

plagues and diseases from the planets:

"Kynde Conscience tho herde,--and cam out of the planetes,

And sente forth his forreyours--feveres and fluxes,

Coughes and cardiaclescrampes and tooth-aches,

Reumes and radegundes,--and roynous scabbes,

Biles and bocches,--and brennynge agues,

Frenesies and foule yveles,--forageres of kynde....

There was 'Harrow! and Help!--Here cometh Kynde!

With Deeth that is dredful--to undo us alle!'

The lord that lyved after lust--tho aloud cryde....

Deeth cam dryvynge after,--and al to duste passhed

Kynges and knyghtes,--kaysers and popes,...

Manye a lovely lady--and lemmans of knyghtes,

Swowned and swelted for sorwe of hise dyntes."[184]

Here is a crowd of miseries, like those which Milton has described in

his vision of human life; tragic pictures and emotions, such as the

reformers delight to dwell upon. There is a like speech delivered by

John Knox, before the fair ladies of Mary Stuart, which tears the veil

from the human corpse just as coarsely, in order to exhibit its shame.

The conception of the world, proper to the people of the north, all sad

and moral, shows itself already. They are never comfortable in their

country; they have to strive continually against cold or rain. They

cannot live there carelessly, lying under a lovely sky, in a sultry and

clear atmosphere, their eyes filled with the noble beauty and happy

serenity of the land. They must work to live; be attentive, exact, keep

their houses wind and water tight, trudge doggedly through the mud

behind their plough, light their lamps in their shops during the day.

Their climate imposes endless inconvenience, and exacts endless

endurance. Hence arise melancholy and the idea of duty. Man naturally

thinks of life as of a battle, oftener of black death which closes this

deadly show, and leads so many plumed and disorderly processions to the

silence and the eternity of the grave. All this visible world is vain;

there is nothing true but human virtue--the courageous energy with which

man attains to self-command, the generous energy with which he employs

himself in the service of others. On this view, then, his eyes are

fixed; they pierce through worldly gauds, neglect sensual joys, to

attain this. By such inner thoughts and feelings the ideal model is

displaced; a new source of action springs up--the idea of righteousness.

What sets them against ecclesiastical pomp and insolence is neither the

envy of the poor and low, nor the anger of the oppressed, nor a

revolutionary desire to experimentalize abstract truth, but conscience.

They tremble lest they should not work out their salvation if they

continue in a corrupt church; they fear the menaces of God, and dare not

embark on the great journey with unsafe guides. "What is righteousness?"

asked Luther, anxiously, "and how shall I obtain it?" With like anxiety

Piers Plowman goes to seek Dowell, and asks each one to show him where

he shall find him. "With us," say the friars. "Contra quath ich,

_Septies in die cadit justus_, and ho so syngeth certys doth nat wel;"

so he betakes himself to "study and writing," like Luther; the clerks at

table speak much of God and of the Trinity, "and taken Bernarde to

witnesse, and putteth forth presompcions... ac the carful mai crie and

quaken atte gate, bothe a fyngred and a furst, and for defaute spille ys

non so hende to have hym yn. Clerkus and knyghtes carpen of God ofte,

and haveth hym muche in hure mouthe, ac mene men in herte;" and heart,

inner faith, living virtue, are what constitute true religion. This is

what these dull Saxons had begun to discover. The Teutonic conscience,

and English good-sense, too, had been aroused, as well as individual

energy, the resolution to judge and decide alone, by and for one's self.

"Christ is our hede that sitteth on hie, Heddis ne ought we have no mo,"

says a poem, attributed to Chaucer, and which, with others, claims

independence for Christian consciences.[185]

"We ben his membres bothe also,

Father he taught us call him all,

Maisters to call forbad he tho;

Al maisters ben wickid and fals."

No other mediator between man and God. In vain the doctors state that

they have authority for their words; there is a word of greater

authority, to wit, God's. We hear it in the fourteenth century, this

grand "word of God." It quitted the learned schools, the dead languages,

the dusty shelves on which the clergy suffered it to sleep, covered with

a confusion of commentators and Fathers.[186] Wycliff appeared and

translated it like Luther, and in a spirit similar to Luther's. "Cristen

men and wymmen, olde and yonge, shulden studie fast in the Newe

Testament, for it is of ful autorite, and opyn to undirstonding of

simple men, as to the poyntis that be moost nedeful to salvacioun."[187]

Religion must be secular, in order to escape from the hands of the

clergy, who monopolize it; each must hear and read for himself the word

of God; he will then be sure that it has not been corrupted; he will

feel it better, and, more, he will understand it better, for

"ech place of holy writ, both opyn and derk, techit mekenes and charite;

and therfore he that kepith mekenes and charite hath the trewe

undirstondyng and perfectioun of al holi writ.... Therfore no simple man

of wit be aferd unmesurabli to studie in the text of holy writ... and no

clerk be proude of the verrey undirstondyng of holy writ, for whi

undirstonding of hooly writ with outen charite that kepith Goddis

heestis, makith a man depper dampned... and pride and covetise of

clerkis is cause of her blindees and eresie, and priveth them fro verrey

undirstondyng of holy writ."[188]

These are the memorable words that began to circulate in the markets and

in the schools. They read the translated Bible, and commented on it;

they judged the existing Church after it. What judgments these serious

and untainted minds passed upon it, with what readiness they pushed on

to the true religion of their race, we may see from their petition to

Parliament.[189] One hundred and thirty years before Luther, they said

that the pope was not established by Christ, that pilgrimages and

image-worship were akin to idolatry, that external rites are of no

importance, that priests ought not to possess temporal wealth, that the

doctrine of transubstantiation made a people idolatrous, that priests

have not the power of absolving from sin. In proof of all this they

brought forward texts of Scripture. Fancy these brave spirits, simple

and strong souls, who began to read at night in their shops, by

candle-light; for they were shopkeepers--tailors, skinners, and

bakers--who, with some men of letters, began to read, and then to

believe, and finally got themselves burned.[190] What a sight for the

fifteenth century, and what a promise! It seems as though, with liberty

of action, liberty of mind begins to appear; that these common folk will

think and speak; that under the conventional literature, imitated from

France, a new literature is dawning; and that England, genuine England,

half-mute since the Conquest, will at last find a voice.

She had not yet found it. King and peers ally themselves to the Church,

pass terrible statutes, destroy books, burn heretics alive, often with

refinement of torture--one in a barrel, another hung by an iron chain

around his waist. The temporal wealth of the clergy had been attacked,

and therewith the whole English constitution; and the great

establishment above crushed out with its whole weight the revolutionists

from below. Darkly, in silence, while the nobles were destroying each

other in the Wars of the Roses, the commons went on working and living,

separating themselves from the established Church, maintaining their

liberties, amassing wealth, but not going further.[191] Like a vast rock

which underlies the soil, yet crops up here and there at distant

intervals, they barely show themselves. No great poetical or religious

work displays them to the light. They sang; but their ballads, first

ignored, then transformed, reach us only in a late edition. They prayed;

but beyond one or two indifferent poems, their incomplete and repressed

doctrine bore no fruit. We may well see from the verse, tone, and drift

of their ballads that they are capable of the finest poetic

originality,[192] but their poetry is in the hands of yeomen and

harpers. We perceive, by the precocity and energy of their religious

protests, that they are capable of the most severe and impassioned

creeds; but their faith remains hidden in the shop-parlors of a few

obscure sectaries. Neither their faith nor their poetry has been able to

attain its end or issue. The Renaissance and the Reformation, those two

national outbreaks, are still far off; and the literature of the period

retains to the end, like the highest ranks of English society, almost

the perfect stamp of its French origin and its foreign models.

[Footnote 97: See, amidst other delineations of their manners,

the first accounts of the first Crusade. Godfrey clove a Saracen

down to his waist. In Palestine, a widow was compelled, up to the

age of sixty, to marry again, because no fief could remain without

a defender. A Spanish leader said to his exhausted soldiers after

a battle, "You are too weary and too much wounded, but come and

fight with me against this other band; the fresh wounds which we

shall receive will make us forget those which we have." At this

time, says the General Chronicle of Spain, kings, counts, and

nobles, and all the knights, that they might be ever ready, kept

their horses in the chamber where they slept with their wives.]

[Footnote 98: For difference in numbers of the fleet and men

see Freeman, "History of the Norman Conquest," 3 vols., 1867,

III. 381, 387.--Tr.]

[Footnote 99: For all the details see "Anglo-Norman Chronicles,"

III. 4, as quoted by Aug. Thierry. I have myself seen the locality

and the country.]

[Footnote 100: Of three columns of attack at Hastings, two were

composed of auxiliaries. Moreover, the chroniclers are not at

fault upon this critical point; they agree in stating that England

was conquered by Frenchmen.]

[Footnote 101: It was a Rouen fisherman, a soldier of Rollo, who

killed the Duke of France at the mouth of the Eure. Hastings, the

famous' sea-king, was a laborer's son from the neighborhood of Troyes.]

[Footnote 102: "In the tenth century," says Stendhal, "a man wished

for two things: First, not to be slain; second, to have a good

leather coat." See Fontenelle's "Chronicle."]

[Footnote 103: William of Malmesbury.]

[Footnote 104: Churches in London, Sarum, Norwich, Durham, Chichester

Peterborough, Rochester, Hereford, Gloucester, Oxford, etc.--William

of Malmesbury.]

[Footnote 105: Ordericus Vitalis.]

[Footnote 106: Robert Wace, "Roman du Rou."]

[Footnote 107: Ibid.

Et li Normanz et li Franfceiz

Tote nuit firent oreisons,

Et furent en aflicions.

De lor péchiés confèz se firent

As proveires les regehirent,

Et qui n'en out proveires prèz,

A son veizin se fist confèz,

Pour ço ke samedi esteit

Ke la bataille estre debveit.

Unt Normanz a pramis e voé,

Si com li cler l'orent loé,

Ke à ce jor mez s'il veskeient,

Char ni saunc ne mangereient

Giffrei, éveske de Coustances.

A plusors joint lor pénitances.

Cli reçut li confessions

Et dona l' béneiçons.]

[Footnote 108: Robert Wace, "Roman du Rou"

Taillefer ki moult bien cantout

Sur un roussin qui tot alout

Devant li dus alout cantant

De Kalermaine e de Rolant,

E d'Oliver et des vassals

Ki moururent à Roncevals.

Quant ils orent chevalchié tant

K'as Engleis vindrent aprismant:

"Sires! dist Taillefer, merci!

Je vos ai languement servi.

Tut mon servise me debvez,

Hui, si vos plaist, me le rendez

Por tout guerredun vos requier,

Et si vos voil forment preier,

Otreiez-mei, ke jo n'i faille,

Li primier colp de la bataille."

Et li dus répont: "Je l'otrei."

Et Taillefer point à desrei;

Devant toz li altres se mist,

Un Englez féri, si l'ocist.

De sos le pis, parmie la pance,

Li fist passer ultre la lance,

A terre estendu l'abati.

Poiz trait l'espée, altre féri.

Poiz a crié: "Venez, venez!

Ke fetes-vos? Férez, férez!"

Done l'unt Englez avironé,

Al secund colp k'il ou doné.]

[Footnote 109: The idea of types is applicable throughout all

physical and moral nature.]

[Footnote 110: Danois is a contraction of le d'Ardennois, from

the Ardennes.--Tr.]

[Footnote 111: Genin, "Chanson de Roland":

Co sent Rollans que la mort le trespent,

Devers la teste sur le quer li descent;

Desuz un pin i est alet curant,

Sur l'herbe verte si est culchet adenz;

Desuz lui met l'espée et l'olifan;

Turnat sa teste vers la paîene gent,

Pour ço l'at fait que il voelt veirement

Que Carles diet e trestute sa gent;

Li gentilz quens, qu'il fut mort cunquérant.

Cleimet sa culpe, e menut e suvent,

Pur ses pecchez en puroffrid lo guant.

Li quens Rollans se iut desuz un pin,

Envers Espaigne en ad turnet sun vis,

De plusurs choses a remembrer le prist.

De tantes terres cume li bers cunquist,

De dulce France des humes de sun lign,

De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit.

Ne poet muer n'en plurt et ne susprit.

Mais lui meisme ne volt mettre en ubli.

Cleimet sa culpe, si priet Dieu mercit:

"Veire paterne, ki unques ne mentis,

Seint Lazaron de mort resurrexis,

Et Daniel des lions guaresis,

Guaris de mei l'arome de tuz perilz,

Pur les pecchez que en ma vie fis."

Sun destre guant à Deu en puroffrit.

Seint Gabriel de sa main l'ad pris.

Desur sun bras teneit le chef enclin,

Juntes ses mains est alet à sa fin.

Deus i tramist sun angle cherubin,

Et seint Michel qu'on cleimet del péril

Ensemble ad els seint Gabriel i vint,

L'anme del cunte portent en pareis.]

[Footnote 112: Mon trés-chier ami débonnaire,

Vous m'avez une chose ditte

Oui n'est pas à faire petite

Mais que l'on doit moult rersongnier.

Et nonpourquant, sanz eslongnier,

Puisque garison autrement

Ne povez avoir vraiement,

Pour vostre amour les occiray,

Et le sang vous apporteray.]

[Footnote 113: Vraiz Diex, moult est excellente,

Et de grant charité plaine,

Vostre bonté souveraine.

Car vostre grâce présente,

A toute personne humaine,

Vraix Diex, moult est excellente,

Puisqu'elle a cuer et entente,

Et que a ce desir l'amaine

Que de vous servir se paine.]

[Footnote 114: See H. Taine, "La Fontaine and His Fables," p. 15.]

[Footnote 115: La Fontaine, "Contes, Richard Minutolo."]

[Footnote 116: Parler lui veut d'une besogne

Où crois que peu conquerrérois

Si la besogne vous nommois.]

[Footnote 117: At King Stephen's death there were 1,115 castles.]

[Footnote 118: A. Thierry, "Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre," II.]

[Footnote 119: William of Malmesbury. A. Thierry, II. 20, 122-203.]

[Footnote 120: A. Thierry.]

[Footnote 121: "In the year 652," says Warton, I. 3, "it was the common

practice of the Anglo-Saxons to send their youth to the monasteries of

France for education; and not only the language but the manners of the

French were esteemed the most polite accomplishments."]

[Footnote 122: Warton, I. 5.]

[Footnote 123: Trevisa's translation of the Polycronycon.]

[Footnote 124: Statutes of foundation of New College, Oxford. In the

abbey of Glastonbury, in 1247: Liber de excidio Trojæ, gesta Ricardi

regis, gesta Alexandri Magni, etc. In the abbey of Peterborough: Amys

et Amelion, Sir Tristam, Guy de Bourgogne, gesta Otuclis les prophéties

de Merlin, le Charlemagne de Turpin, la destruction de Troie, etc.

Warton, ibid.]

[Footnote 125: In 1154.]

[Footnote 126: Warton, I. 72-78.]

[Footnote 127: In 1400. Warton, II. 248. Gower died in 1408; his

French ballads belong to the end of the fourteenth century.]

[Footnote 128: He wrote in 1356, and died in 1372.]

[Footnote 129: "And for als moche as it is longe time passed that

ther was no generalle Passage ne Vyage over the See, and many Men

desiren for to here speke of the holy Lond, and han thereof gret

Solace and Comfort, I, John Maundevylle, Knyght, alle be it I be

not worthi, that was born in Englond, in the town of Seynt-Albones,

passed the See in the Zeer of our Lord Jesu-Crist 1322, in the

Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidreto have been longe tyme over the

See, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse londes, and many

Provynces, and Kingdomes, and Iles."

"And zee shulle undirstonde that I have put this Boke out of Latyn

into Frensche, and translated it azen out of Frensche, into Englyssche,

that every Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde it."--Sir John Maundeville's

"Voyage and Travaile," ed. Halliwell, 1866, prologue, p. 4.]

[Footnote 130: Sir John Maundeville's "Voyage and Travaile," ed.

Halliwell, 1866, XII., p. 139. It is confessed that the original

on which Wace depended for his ancient "History of England"

is the Latin compilation of Geoffrey of Monmouth.]

[Footnote 131: Extract from the account of the proceedings at Arthur's

coronation given by Layamon, in his translation of Wace, executed about

1180. Madden's "Layamon," 1847, II. p. 625 et passim:

Tha the king igeten hafde

And al his mon-weorede,

Tha bugen ut of burhge

Theines swithe balde.

Alle tha kinges,

And heore here-thringes.

Alle tha biscopes,

And alle tha clærckes,

All the eorles,

And alle tha beornes.

Alle the theines,

Alle the sweines,

Feire iscrudde,

Helde geond felde.

Summe heo gunnen æruen,

Summe heo gunnen urnen,

Summe heo gunnen lepen,

Summe heo gunnen sceoten,

Summe heo wræstleden

And wither-gome makeden,

Summe heo on uelde

Pleouweden under scelde,

Summe heo driven balles

Wide geond tha feldes.

Monianes kunnes gomen

Ther heo gunnen driuen.

And wha swa mihte iwinne

Wurthscipe of his gomene,

Hine me ladde mid songe

At foren than leod kinge;

And the king, for his gomene,

Gaf him geven gode.

Alle tha quene

The icumen weoren there.

And alle tha lafdies,

Leoneden geond walles.

To bihalden the dugethen.

And that folc plæie.

This ilæste threo dæges,

Swulc gomes and swulc plæges,

Tha, at than veorthe dæie

The king gon to spekene

And agæf his goden cnihten

All heore rihten;

He gef seolver, he gæf gold,

He gef hors, he gef lond,

Castles, and clœthes eke;

His monnen he iquende.]

[Footnote 132: After 1297.]

[Footnote 133: About 1312.]

[Footnote 134: About 1349.]

[Footnote 135: Warton, II. 36.]

[Footnote 136: Time of Henry III., "Reliquiae Antiquæ," edited by

Messrs. Wright and Halliwell, I. 102.]

[Footnote 137: About 1278. Warton, I. 28.]

[Footnote 138: Ibid., I. 31.]

[Footnote 139: Ibid. I. 30.]

[Footnote 140: "Poem of the Owl and Nightingale," who dispute

as to which has the finest voice.]

[Footnote 141: Letter of Peter of Blois.]

[Footnote 142: William of Malmesbury.]

[Footnote 143: At the installation feast of George Nevill, Archbishop

of York, the brother of Guy of Warwick, there were consumed 104

oxen and 6 wild bulls, 1000 sheep, 304 calves, as many hogs, 2000

swine, 500 stags, bucks, and does, 204 kids, 22,802 wild or tame

fowl, 300 quarters of corn, 300 tuns of ale, 100 of wine, a pipe

of hypocras, 12 porpoises and seals.]

[Footnote 144: These prodigalities and refinements grew to excess

under his grandson Richard II.]

[Footnote 145: Warton, I. 156.]

[Footnote 146: Warton, I. 176, spelling modernized.]

[Footnote 147: Warton, I. 123:

"In Fraunce these rhymes were wroht,

Every Englyshe ne knew it not."]

[Footnote 148: See Lingard's "History," II. 55, note 4.--Tr.]

[Footnote 149: Domesday Book. Froude's "History England", 1858, 1. 13:

"Through all these arrangements a single aim is visible, that every

man in England should have his definite place and definite duty

assigned to him, and that no human being should be at liberty to

lead at his own pleasure an unaccountable existence. The discipline

of an army was transferred to the details of social life."]

[Footnote 150: Domesday Book, "tenants-in-chief."]

[Footnote 151: According to Ailred (temp. Hen. II), "a king, many

bishops and abbots, many great earls and noble knights descended

both from English and Norman blood, constituted a support to the

one and an honor to the other. At present," says another author

of the same period, "as the English and Normans dwell together,

and have constantly intermarried, the two nations are so completely

mingled together, that at least as regards freemen, one can scarcely

distinguish who is Norman and who English.... The villeins attached

to the soil," he says again, "are alone of pure Saxon blood."]

[Footnote 152: Magna Charta, 1215.]

[Footnote 153: "Chaucer's Works," ed. Sir H. Nicholas, 6 vols.,

1845, "Prologue to the Canterbury Tales," II. p. 11, line 333.]

[Footnote 154: Prologue to "The Canterbury Tales," II. p. 17,

line 547.]

[Footnote 155: From 1214, and also in 1225 and 1254. Guizot, "Origin

of the Representative System in England," pp. 297-299.]

[Footnote 156: In 1264.]

[Footnote 157: Aug. Thierry, IV. 56. Ritson's "Robin Hood," 1832.]

[Footnote 158: Latimer's "Sermons," ed. Arber, 6th Sermon, 1869, p. 173.]

[Footnote 159: Ritson, "Robin Hood Ballads," I. IV. verses 41-48.]

[Footnote 160: Ibid, verses 145-152.]

[Footnote 161: A pinder's task was to pin the sheep in the fold, cattle

in the penfold or pound (Richardson).--Tr.]

[Footnote 162: Ritson, II. 3, verses 17-26.]

[Footnote 163: Ibid. II. 6, verses 58-89.]

[Footnote 164: Ritson, verses 94-101.]

[Footnote 165: "The Difference between an Absolute and Limited

Monarchy--A learned Commendation of the Politic Laws of England"

(Latin). I frequently quote from the second work, which is more

full and complete.]

[Footnote 166: The courage which finds utterance here is coarse;

the English instincts are combative and independent. The French

race, and the Gauls generally, are perhaps the most reckless of

life of any.]

[Footnote 167: "The Difference," etc., 3d ed. 1724, ch. XIII. p. 98.

There are nowadays in France 42 highway robberies as against 738 in

England. In 1843, there were in England four times as many accusations

of crimes and offences as in France, having regard to the number of

inhabitants (Moreau de Jonnès).]

[Footnote 168: Statute of Winchester, 1285; Ordinance of 1378.]

[Footnote 169: Benvenuto Cellini, quoted by Froude, I. 20, "History

of England." Shakespeare, "Henry V," conversation of French lords

before the battle of Agincourt.]

[Footnote 170: "The Difference." etc.]

[Footnote 171: The original of this very famous treatise, "de Laudibus

Legum Angliæ," was written in Latin between 1464 and 1470, first

published in 1537, and translated into English in 1775 by Francis

Gregor. I have taken these extracts from the magnificent edition of Sir

John Fortescue's works published in 1869 for private distribution, and

edited by Thomas Fortescue, Lord Clermont. Some of the pieces quoted,

left in the old spelling, are taken from an older edition, translated

by Robert Mulcaster in 1567.--Tr.]

[Footnote 172: "Of an Absolute and Limited Monarchy," 3d ed. 1724,

ch. III. p. 15.]

[Footnote 173: Commines bears the same testimony.]

[Footnote 174: "De Laudibus," etc., ch. XXXVI.]

[Footnote 175: "The might of the realme most stondyth upon archers

which be not rich men." Compare Hallam, II. 482. All this takes us

back as far as the Conquest, and farther. "It is reasonable to suppose

that the greater part of those who appear to have possessed small

freeholds or parcels of manors were no other than the original nation....

A respectable class of free socagers, having in general full right of

alienating their lands, and holding them probably at a small certain

rent from the lord of the manor, frequently occurs in the Domesday Book."

At all events, there were in Domesday Book Saxons "perfectly exempt

from villenage." This class is mentioned with respect in the treatises

of Glanvil and Bracton. As for the villeins, they were quickly liberated

in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, either by their own energies

or by becoming copyholders. The Wars of the Roses still further raised

the commons; orders were frequently issued, previous to a battle,

to slay the nobles and spare the commoners.]

[Footnote 176: "Description of England," 275.]

[Footnote 177: The following is a portrait of a yeoman, by Latimer, in

the first sermon preached before Edward VI, March 8, 1549: "My father

was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of £3 or

£4 by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept

half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother

milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness, with

himself and his horse; while he came to the place that he should receive

the king's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went

unto Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able

to have preached before the King's Majesty now. He married my sisters

with £5 or 20 nobles a-piece, so that he brought them up in godliness

and fear of God; he kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some

alms he gave to the poor; and all this did he of the said farm. Where

he that now hath it payeth £16 by the year, or more, and is not able

to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or

give a cup of drink to the poor."

This is from the sixth sermon, preached before the young king, April

12, 1549: "In my time my poor father was as diligent to teach me to

shoot as to learn (me) any other thing; and so, I think, other men did

their children. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow,

and not to draw with strength of arms, as other nations do, but with

strength of the body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and

strength; as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and

bigger; for men shall never shoot well except they be brought up

in it. It is a goodly art, a wholesome kind of exercise, and much

commended in physic."]

[Footnote 178: In 1246, 1376. Thierry, III. 79.]

[Footnote 179: 1404-1409. The commons declared that with these

revenues the king would be able to maintain 15 earls, 1500 knights,

6,200 squires, and 100 hospitals; each earl receiving annually 300

marks; each knight 100 marks, and the produce of four ploughed lands;

each squire 40 marks, and the produce of two ploughed lands.]

[Footnote 180: About 1362.]

[Footnote 181: "Piers Ploughman's Vision and Creed," ed. T. Wright,

1856, I. p. 2, lines 21-44.]

[Footnote 182: The Archdeacon of Richmond, on his tour in 1216,

came to the priory of Bridlington with ninety-seven horses,

twenty-one dogs, and three falcons.]

[Footnote 183: "Piers Ploughman's Vision," I. p. 191, lines

6,217-6,228.]

[Footnote 184: Ibid. II. Last book, p. 430, lines 14,084-14,135.]

[Footnote 185: "Piers Plowman's Crede; the Plowman's Tale," first printed

in 1550. There were three editions in one year, it was so manifestly

Protestant.]

[Footnote 186: Knighton, about 1400, wrote thus of Wyclif: "Transtulit

de Latino in anglicam linguam, non angelicam. Unde per ipeum fit vulgare,

et magis apertum laicis et mulieribus legere scientibus quam solet esse

clericis admodum litteratis, et bene intelligentibus. Et sic evangelica

margerita spargitur et a porcis conculcatur... (ita) ut laicis commune

æternum quod ante fuerat clericis et ecolesiæ doctoribus talentum

supernum."]

[Footnote 187: Wyclif's Bible, ed. Forshall and Madden, 1850, preface to

Oxford edition, p. 2.]

[Footnote 188: Ibid.]

[Footnote 189: In 1395.]

[Footnote 190: 1401, William Sawtré, the first Lollard burned alive.]

[Footnote 191: Commines, v. ch. 19 and 20: "In my opinion, of all kingdoms

of the world of which I have any knowledge, where the public weal is best

observed, and least violence is exercised on the people, and where no

buildings are overthrown or demolished in war, England is the best; and

the ruin and misfortune falls on them who wage the war.... The kingdom

of England has this advantage beyond other nations, that the people and

the country are not destroyed or burnt, nor the buildings demolished;

and ill-fortune falls on men of war, and especially on the nobles."]

[Footnote 192: See the ballads of "Chevy Chase, The Nut-Brown

Maid," etc. Many of them are admirable little dramas.]

CHAPTER THIRD

The New Tongue

SECTION I.--The First Great Poet

Amid so many barren endeavors, throughout the long impotence of Norman

literature, which was content to copy, and of Saxon literature, which

bore no fruit, a definite language was nevertheless formed, and there

was room for a great writer. Geoffrey Chaucer appeared, a man of mark,

inventive though a disciple, original though a translator, who by his

genius, education, and life, was enabled to know and to depict a whole

world, but above all to satisfy the chivalric world and the splendid

courts which shone upon the heights.[193] He belonged to it, though

learned and versed in all branches of scholastic knowledge; and he took

such a share in it that his life from beginning to end was that of a man

of the world, and a man of action. We find him by turns in King Edward's

army, in the king's train, husband of a maid of honor to the queen, a

pensioner, a placeholder, a member of Parliament, a knight, founder of a

family which was hereafter to become allied to royalty. Moreover, he was

in the king's council, brother-in-law of John of Gaunt, employed more

than once in open embassies or secret missions at Florence, Genoa,

Milan, Flanders, commissioner in France for the marriage of the Prince

of Wales, high up and low down on the political ladder, disgraced,

restored to place. This experience of business, travel, war, and the

court, was not like a book-education. He was at the Court of Edward III,

the most splendid in Europe, amidst tourneys, grand receptions,

magnificent displays; he took part in the pomps of France and Milan;

conversed with Petrarch, perhaps with Boccaccio and Froissart; was actor

in, and spectator of, the finest and most tragical of dramas. In these

few words, what ceremonies and cavalcades are implied! what processions

in armor, what caparisoned horses, bedizened ladies! what display of

gallant and lordly manners! what a varied and brilliant world, well

suited to occupy the mind and eyes of a poet! Like Froissart, and better

than he, Chaucer could depict the castles of the nobles, their

conversations, their talk of love, and anything else that concerned

them, and please them by his portraiture.

SECTION II.--The Decline of the Middle Ages

Two notions raised the Middle Ages above the chaos of barbarism: one

religious, which had fashioned the gigantic cathedrals, and swept the

masses from their native soil to hurl them upon the Holy Land; the other

secular, which had built feudal fortresses, and set the man of courage

erect and armed, within his own domain: the one had produced the

adventurous hero, the other the mystical monk; the one, to wit, the

belief in God, the other the belief in self. Both, running to excess,

had degenerated by the violence of their own strength: the one had

exalted independence into rebellion, the other had turned piety into

enthusiasm: the first made man unfit for civil life, the second drew him

back from natural life: the one, sanctioning disorder, dissolved

society; the other, enthroning infatuation, perverted intelligence.

Chivalry had need to be repressed because it issued in brigandage;

devotion restrained because it induced slavery. Turbulent feudalism grew

feeble, like oppressive theocracy; and the two great master passions,

deprived of their sap and lopped of their stem, gave place by their

weakness to the monotony of habit and the taste for worldliness, which

shot forth in their stead and flourished under their name.

Gradually, the serious element declined, in books as in manners, in

works of art as in books. Architecture, instead of being the handmaid of

faith, became the slave of fantasy. It was exaggerated, became too

ornamental, sacrificing general effect to detail, shot up its steeples

to unreasonable heights, decorated its churches with canopies,

pinnacles, trefoiled gables, open-work galleries. "Its whole aim was

continually to climb higher, to clothe the sacred edifice with a gaudy

bedizenment, as if it were a bride on her wedding morning."[194] Before

this marvellous lacework, what emotion could one feel but a pleased

astonishment? What becomes of Christian sentiment before such scenic

ornamentations? In like manner literature sets itself to play. In the

eighteenth century, the second age of absolute monarchy, we saw on one

side finials and floriated cupolas, on the other pretty _vers de

societé_, courtly and sprightly tales, taking the place of severe

beauty-lines and noble writings. Even so in the fourteenth century, the

second age of feudalism, they had on one side the stone fretwork and

slender efflorescence of aërial forms, and on the other finical verses

and diverting stories, taking the place of the old grand architecture

and the old simple literature. It is no longer the overflowing of a true

sentiment which produces them, but the craving for excitement. Consider

Chaucer, his subjects, and how he selects them. He goes far and wide to

discover them, to Italy, France, to the popular legends, the ancient

classics. His readers need diversity, and his business is to "provide

fine tales": it was in those days the poet's business.[195] The lords at

table have finished dinner, the minstrels come and sing, the brightness

of the torches falls on the velvet and ermine, on the fantastic figures,

the motley, the elaborate embroidery of their long garments; then the

poet arrives, presents his manuscript, "richly illuminated, bound in

crimson velvet, embellished with silver clasps and bosses, roses of

gold": they ask him what his subject is, and he answers "Love."

SECTION III.--The Poetry of Chaucer

In fact, it is the most agreeable subject, fittest to make the evening

hours pass sweetly, amid the goblets filled with spiced wine and the

burning perfumes. Chaucer translated first that great storehouse of

gallantry, the "Roman de la Rose." There is no pleasanter entertainment.

It is about a rose which the lover wished to pluck: the pictures of the

May months, the groves, the flowery earth, the green hedgerows, abound

and display their bloom. Then come portraits of the smiling ladies,

Richesse, Fraunchise, Gaiety, and by way of contrast, the sad

characters, Daunger and Travail, all fully and minutely described, with

detail of features, clothing, attitude; they walk about, as on a piece

of tapestry, amid landscapes, dances, castles, among allegorical groups,

in lively sparkling colors, displayed, contrasted, ever renewed and

varied so as to entertain the sight. For an evil has arisen, unknown to

serious ages--_ennui_; novelty and brilliancy followed by novelty and

brilliancy are necessary to withstand it; and Chaucer, like Boccaccio

and Froissart, enters into the struggle with all his heart. He borrows

from Boccaccio his history of Palamon and Arcite, from Lollius his

history of Troilus and Cressida, and rearranges them. How the two young

Theban knights, Arcite and Palamon, both fall in love with the beautiful

Emily, and how Arcite, victorious in tourney, falls and dies,

bequeathing Emily to his rival; how the fine Trojan knight Troilus wins

the favor of Cressida, and how Cressida abandons him for Diomedes--these

are still tales in verse, tales of love. A little tedious they may be;

all the writings of this age, French, or imitated from French, are born

of too prodigal minds; but how they glide along! A winding stream, which

flows smoothly on level sand, and sparkles now and again in the sun, is

the only image we can compare it to. The characters speak too much, but

then they speak so well! Even when they dispute we like to listen, their

anger and offences are so wholly based on a happy overflow of unbroken

converse. Remember Froissart, how slaughters, assassinations, plagues,

the butcheries of the Jacquerie, the whole chaos of human misery,

disappears in his fine ceaseless humor, so that the furious and grinning

figures seem but ornaments and choice embroideries to relieve the skein

of shaded and colored silk which forms the groundwork of his narrative!

but, in particular, a multitude of descriptions spread their gilding

over all. Chaucer leads you among arms, palaces, temples, and halts

before each beautiful thing. Here:

"The statue of Venus glorious for to see

Was naked fleting in the large see,

And fro the navel doun all covered was

With wawes grene, and bright as any glas.

A citole in hire right hand hadde she,

And on hire hed, ful semely for to see,

A rose gerlond fressh, and wel smelling,

Above hire hed hire doves fleckering."[196]

Further on, the temple of Mars:

"First on the wall was peinted a forest,

In which ther wonneth neyther man ne best,

With knotty knarry barrein trees old

Of stubbes sharpe and hidous to behold;

In which ther ran a romble and a swough

As though a storme shuld bresten every bough:

And dounward from an hill under a bent.

Ther stood the temple of Mars armipotent,

Wrought all of burned stele, of which th' entree

Was longe and streite, and gastly for to see.

Aud therout came a rage and swiche a vise,

That it made all the gates for to rise.

The northern light in at the dore shone,

For window on the wall ne was ther none,

Thurgh which men mighten any light discerne.

The dore was all of athamant eterne,

Yclenched overthwart and endelong

With yren tough, and for to make it strong,

Every piler the temple to sustene

Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene."[197]

Everywhere on the wall were representations of slaughter; and in the

sanctuary

"The statue of Mars upon a carte stood

Armed, and loked grim as he were wood,...

A wolf ther stood beforne him at his fete

With eyen red, and of a man he ete."[198]

Are not these contrasts well designed to rouse the imagination? You will

meet in Chaucer a succession of similar pictures. Observe the train of

combatants who come to joust in the tilting field for Arcite and

Palamon:

"With him ther wenten knightes many on.

Som wol ben armed in an habergeon

And in a brestplate, and in a gipon;

And som wol have a pair of plates large;

And som wol have a Pruce sheld, or a targe,

Som wol ben armed on his legges wele,

And have an axe, and som a mace of stele....

Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon

Licurge himself, the grete king of Trace:

Blake was his berd, and manly was his face.

The cercles of his eyen in his hed

They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red,

And like a griffon loked he about,

With kemped heres on his browes stout;

His limmes gret, his braunes hard and stronge,

His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe.

And as the guise was in his contree,

Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he,

With foure white bolles in the trais.

Instede of cote-armure on his harnais,

With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold,

He hadde a beres skin, cole-blake for old.

His longe here was kempt behind his bak,

As any ravenes fether it shone for blake.

A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight,

Upon his hed sate ful of stones bright,

Of fine rubins and of diamants.

About his char ther wenten white alauns,

Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere,

To hunten at the leon or the dere,

And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound,

Colered with gold, and torettes filed round.

An hundred lordes had he in his route,

Armed ful wel, with hertes sterne and stoute.

With Arcita, in stories as men find,

The gret Emetrius the king of Inde,

Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,

Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele,

Came riding like the god of armes Mars.

His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars,

Couched with perles, white, and round and grete.

His sadel was of brent gold new ybete;

A mantelet upon his shouldres hanging

Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling.

His crispe here like ringes was yronne,

And that was yelwe, and glitered as the sonne.

His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin,

His lippes round, his color was sanguin....

And as a leon he his loking caste.

Of five and twenty yere his age I caste.

His berd was well begonnen for to spring;

His vois was a trompe thondering.

Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene

A gerlond fresshe and lusty for to sene.

Upon his hond he bare for his deduit

An egle tame, as any lily whit.

An hundred lordes had he with him there,

All armed save hir hedes in all hir gere,

Ful richely in alle manere things....

About this king ther ran on every part

Ful many a tame leon and leopart."[199]

A herald would not describe them better nor more fully. The lords and

ladies of the time would recognize here their tourneys and masquerades.

There is something more pleasant than a fine narrative, and that is a

collection of fine narratives, especially when the narratives are all of

different colorings. Froissart gives us such under the name of

Chronicles; Boccaccio still better; after him the lords of the _Cent

Nouvelles Nouvelles_; and, later still, Marguerite of Navarre. What more

natural among people who meet, talk and wish to amuse themselves? The

manners of the time suggest them; for the habits and tastes of society

had begun, and fiction thus conceived only brings into books the

conversations which are heard in the hall and by the wayside. Chaucer

describes a troop of pilgrims, people of every rank, who are going to

Canterbury; a knight, a sergeant of law, an Oxford clerk, a doctor, a

miller, a prioress, a monk, who agree to tell a story all round:

"For trewely comfort ne mirthe is non,

To riden by the way domb as the ston."

They tell their stories accordingly; and on this slender and flexible

thread all the jewels of feudal imagination, real or false, contribute

one after another their motley shapes to form a necklace, side by side

with noble and chivalrous stories: we have the miracle of an infant

whose throat was cut by Jews, the trials of patient Griselda, Canace and

marvellous fictions of Oriental fancy, obscene stories of marriage and

monks, allegorical or moral tales, the fable of the cock and hen, a list

of great unfortunate persons: Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Nebuchadnezzar,

Zenobia, Crœsus, Ugolino, Peter of Spain. I leave out some, for I must

be brief. Chaucer is like a jeweller with his hands full: pearls and

glass beads, sparkling diamonds and common agates, black jet and ruby

roses, all that history and imagination had been able to gather and

fashion during three centuries in the East, in France, in Wales, in

Provence, in Italy, all that had rolled his way, clashed together,

broken or polished by the stream of centuries, and by the great jumble

of human memory, he holds in his hand, arranges it, composes therefrom a

long sparkling ornament, with twenty pendants, a thousand facets, which

by its splendor, variety, contrasts, may attract and satisfy the eyes of

those most greedy for amusement and novelty.

[Illustration: GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

_Photogravure from an old engraving._]

He does more. The universal outburst of unchecked curiosity demands a

more refined enjoyment: reverie and fantasy alone can satisfy it; not

profound and thoughtful fantasy as we find it in Shakespeare, nor

impassioned and meditative reverie as we find it in Dante, but the

reverie and fantasy of the eyes, ears, external senses, which in poetry

as in architecture call for singularity, wonders, accepted challenges,

victories gained over the rational and probable, and which are satisfied

only by what is crowded and dazzling. When we look at a cathedral of

that time, we feel a sort of fear. Substance is wanting; the walls are

hollowed out to make room for windows, the elaborate work of the

porches, the wonderful growth of the slender columns, the thin curvature

of arches--everything seems to menace us; support has been withdrawn to

give way to ornament. Without external prop or buttress, and artificial

aid of iron clamp-work, the building would have crumbled to pieces on

the first day; as it is, it undoes itself; we have to maintain on the

spot a colony of masons continually to ward off the continual decay. But

our sight grows dim in following the wavings and twistings of the

endless fretwork; the dazzling rose-window of the portal and the painted

glass throw a checkered light on the carved stalls of the choir, the

gold-work of the altar, the long array of damascened and glittering

copes, the crowd of statues, tier above tier; and amid this violet

light, this quivering purple, amid these arrows of gold which pierce the

gloom, the entire building is like the tail of a mystical peacock. So

most of the poems of the time are barren of foundation; at most a trite

morality serves them for mainstay: in short, the poet thought of nothing

else than displaying before us a glow of colors and a jumble of forms.

They are dreams or visions; there are five or six in Chaucer, and you

will meet more on your advance to the Renaissance. But the show is

splendid. Chaucer is transported in a dream to a temple of glass,[200]

on the walls of which are figured in gold all the legends of Ovid and

Vergil, an infinite train of characters and dresses, like that which, on

the painted glass in the churches, occupied then the gaze of the

faithful. Suddenly a golden eagle, which soars near the sun, and

glitters like a carbuncle, descends with the swiftness of lightning, and

carries him off in his talons above the stars, dropping him at last

before the House of Fame, splendidly built of beryl, with shining

windows and lofty turrets, and situated on a high rock of almost

inaccessible ice. All the southern side was graven with the names of

famous men, but the sun was continuously melting them. On the northern

side, the names, better protected, still remained. On the turrets

appeared the minstrels and "gestiours," with Orpheus, Arion, and the

great harpers, and behind them myriads of musicians, with horns, flutes,

bagpipes, and reeds, on which they played, and which filled the air;

then all the charmers, magicians, and prophets. He enters, and in a high

hall, plated with gold, embossed with pearls, on a throne of carbuncle,

he sees a woman seated, a "noble quene," amidst an infinite number of

heralds, whose embroidered cloaks bore the arms of the most famous

knights in the world, and heard the sounds of instruments, and the

celestial melody of Calliope and her sisters. From her throne to the

gate was a row of pillars, on which stood the great historians and

poets; Josephus on a pillar of lead and iron; Statius on a pillar of

iron stained with tiger's blood; Ovid, "Venus's clerk," on a pillar of

copper; then, on one higher than the rest, Homer and Livy, Dares the

Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the other historians

of the war of Troy. Must I go on copying this phantasmagoria, in which

confused erudition mars picturesque invention, and frequent banter shows

signs that the vision is only a planned amusement? The poet and his

reader have imagined for half-an-hour decorated halls and bustling

crowds; a slender thread of common-sense has ingeniously crept along the

transparent golden mist which they amuse themselves with following. That

suffices; they are pleased with their fleeting fancies, and ask no more.

Amid this exuberancy of mind, amid these refined cravings, and this

insatiate exaltation of imagination and the senses, there was one

passion, that of love, which, combining all, was developed in excess,

and displayed in miniature the sickly charm, the fundamental and fatal

exaggeration, which are the characteristics of the age, and which,

later, the Spanish civilization exhibits both in its flower and its

decay. Long ago, the courts of love in Provence had established the

theory. "Each one who loves," they said, "grows pale at the sight of her

whom he loves; each action of the lover ends in the thought of her whom

he loves. Love can refuse nothing to love."[201] This search after

excessive sensation had ended in the ecstasies and transports of Guido

Cavalcanti, and of Dante; and in Languedoc a company of enthusiasts had

established themselves, love-penitents, who, in order to prove the

violence of their passion, dressed in summer in furs and heavy garments,

and in winter in light gauze, and walked thus about the country, so that

several of them fell ill and died. Chaucer, in their wake, explained in

his verses the craft of love,[202] the Ten Commandments, the twenty

statutes of love; and praised his lady, his "daieseye," his "Margarite,"

his "vermeil rose"; depicted love in ballads, visions, allegories,

didactic poems, in a hundred guises. This is chivalrous, lofty love, as

it was conceived in the Middle Ages; above all, tender love. Troilus

loves Cressida like a troubadour; without Pandarus, her uncle, he would

have languished, and ended by dying in silence. He will not reveal the

name of her he loves. Pandarus has to tear it from him, perform all the

bold actions himself, plan every kind of stratagem. Troilus, however,

brave and strong in battle, can but weep before Cressida, ask her

pardon, and faint. Cressida, on her side, has every delicate feeling.

When Pandarus brings her Troilus's first letter, she begins by refusing

it, and is ashamed to open it: she opens it only because she is told the

poor knight is about to die. At the first words "all rosy hewed tho woxe

she"; and though the letter is respectful, she will not answer it. She

yields at last to the importunities of her uncle, and answers Troilus

that she will feel for him the affection of a sister. As to Troilus, he

trembles all over, grows pale when he sees the messenger return, doubts

his happiness, and will not believe the assurance which is given him:

"But right so as these holtes and these hayis

That han in winter dead ben and dry,

Revesten hem in grene, whan that May is....

Right in that selfe wise, sooth for to sey,

Woxe suddainly his herte full of joy."[203]

Slowly, after many troubles, and thanks to the efforts of Pandarus, he

obtains her confession; and in this confession what a delightful charm!

"And as the newe abashed nightingale,

That stinteth first, whan she beginneth sing,

Whan that she heareth any heerdes tale,

Or in the hedges any wight stearing,

And after siker doeth her voice outring:

Right so Creseide, whan that her drede stent,

Opened her herte and told him her entent."[204]

He, as soon as he perceived a hope from afar,

"In chaunged voice, right for his very drede,

Which voice eke quoke, and thereto his manere,

Goodly abasht, and now his hewes rede,

Now pale, unto Cresseide his ladie dere,

With looke doun cast, and humble iyolden chere,

Lo, the alderfirst word that him astart

Was twice: 'Mercy, mercy, O my sweet herte!'"[205]

This ardent love breaks out in impassioned accents, in bursts of

happiness. Far from being regarded as a fault, it is the source of all

virtue. Troilus becomes braver, more generous, more upright, through it;

his speech runs now on love and virtue; he scorns all villany; he honors

those who possess merit, succors those who are in distress; and

Cressida, delighted, repeats all day, with exceeding liveliness, this

song, which is like the warbling of a nightingale:

"Whom should I thanken but you, god of love,

Of all this blisse, in which to bathe I ginne?

And thanked be ye, lorde for that I love,

This is the right life that I am inne,

To flemen all maner vice and sinne:

This doeth me so to vertue for to entende

That daie by daie I in my will amende.

And who that saieth that for to love is vice,...

He either is envious, or right nice,

Or is unmightie for his shreudnesse

To loven....

But I with all mine herte and all my might,

As I have saied, woll love unto my last,

My owne dere herte, and all mine owne knight,

In whiche mine herte growen is so fast,

And his in me, that it shall ever last."[206]

But misfortune comes. Her father Calchas demands her back, and the

Trojans decide that they will give her up in exchange for prisoners. At

this news she swoons, and Troilus is about to slay himself. Their love

at this time seems imperishable; it sports with death, because it

constitutes the whole of life. Beyond that better and delicious life

which it created, it seems there can be no other:

"But as God would, of swough she abraide,

And gan to sighe, and Troilus she cride,

And he answerde: 'Lady mine, Creseide,

Live ye yet?' and let his swerde doun glide:

'Ye herte mine, that thanked be Cupide,'

(Quod she), and therwithal she sore sight,

And he began to glade her as he might.

"Took her in armes two and kist her oft,

And her to glad, he did al his entent,

For which her gost, that flikered aie a loft,

Into her wofull herte ayen it went:

But at the last, as that her eye glent

Aside, anon she gan his sworde aspie,

As it lay bare, and gan for feare crie.

"And asked him why had he it out draw,

And Troilus anon the cause her told,

And how himself therwith he wold have slain,

For which Creseide upon him gan behold,

And gan him in her armes faste fold,

And said: 'O mercy God, lo which a dede!

Alas, how nigh we weren bothe dede!'"[207]

At last they are separated, with what vows and what tears! and Troilus,

alone in his chamber, murmurs:

"'Where is mine owne lady lefe and dere?

Where is her white brest, where is it, where?

Where been her armes, and her eyen clere

That yesterday this time with me were?'...

Nor there nas houre in al the day or night,

Whan he was ther as no man might him here,

That he ne sayd: 'O lovesome lady bright,

How have ye faren sins that ye were there?

Welcome ywis mine owne lady dere!'...

Fro thence-forth he rideth up and doune,

And every thing came him to remembraunce,

As he rode forth by the places of the toune,

In which he whilom had all his pleasaunce:

'Lo, yonder saw I mine owne lady daunce,

And in that temple with her eien clere,

Me caught first my right lady dere.

And yonder have I herde full lustely

My dere herte laugh, and yonder play

Saw her ones eke ful blisfully,

And yonder ones to me gan she say,

"Now, good sweete, love me well I pray."

And yonde so goodly gan she me behold,

That to the death mine herte is to her hold,

And at the corner in the yonder house

Herde I mine alderlevest lady dere,

So womanly, with voice melodiouse,

Singen so wel, so goodly, and so clere,

That in my soule yet me thinketh I here

The blissful sowne, and in that yonder place,

My lady first me toke unto her grace.'"[208]

None has since found more true and tender words. These are the charming

"poetic branches" which flourished amid gross ignorance and pompous

parades. Human intelligence in the Middle Age had blossomed on that side

where it perceived the light.

But mere narrative does not suffice to express his felicity and fancy;

the poet must go where "shoures sweet of rain descended soft."

"And every plaine was clothed faire

With new greene, and maketh small floures

To springen here and there in field and in mede,

So very good and wholsome be the shoures,

That it renueth that was old and dede,

In winter time; and out of every sede

Springeth the hearbe, so that every wight

Of this season wexeth glad and light....

In which (grove) were okes great, streight as a line,

Under, the which the grasse so fresh of hew

Was newly sprong, and an eight foot or nine

Every tree well fro his fellow grew."

He must forget himself in the vague felicity of the country, and, like

Dante, lose himself in ideal light and allegory. The dreams love, to

continue true, must not take too visible a form, nor enter into a too

consecutive history; they must float in a misty distance; the soul in

which they hover can no longer think of the laws of existence; it

inhabits another world; it forgets itself in the ravishing emotion which

troubles it, and sees its well-loved visions rise, mingle, come and go,

as in summer we see the bees on a hill-slope flutter in a haze of light,

and circle round and round the flowers.

"One morning,"[209] a lady sings, "at the dawn of day, I entered an

oak-grove"

"With branches brode, laden with leves new,

That sprongen out ayen the sunne-shene,

Some very red, and some a glad light grenc....[210]

"And I, that all this pleasaunt sight sie,

Thought sodainly I felt so sweet and aire

Of the eglentere, that certainely

There is no hert, I deme, in such dispaire,

Ne with thoughts froward and contraire,

So overlaid, but it should soone have bote,

If it had ones felt this savour sote.

"And as I stood, and cast aside mine eie,

I was ware of the fairest medler tree

That ever yet in all my life I sie,

As full of blossomes as it might be;

Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile

Fro bough to bough; and, as him list, he eet

Here and there of buds and floures sweet....

"And as I sat, the birds harkening thus,

Methought that I heard voices sodainly,

The most sweetest and most delicious

That ever any wight, I trow truly,

Heard in their life, for the armony

And sweet accord was in so good musike,

That the voice to angels most was like."[211]

Then she sees arrive "a world of ladies... in surcotes white of

velvet... set with emerauds... as of great pearles round and orient, and

diamonds fine and rubies red." And all had on their head "a rich fret of

gold... full of stately riche stones set," with "a chapelet of branches

fresh and grene... some of laurer, some of woodbind, some of agnus

castus"; and at the same time came a train of valiant knights in

splendid array, with harness of red gold, shining in the sun, and noble

steeds, with trappings "of cloth of gold, and furred with ermine." These

knights and ladies were the servants of the Leaf, and they sate under a

great oak, at the feet of their queen.

From the other side came a bevy of ladies as resplendent as the first,

but crowned with fresh flowers. These were the servants of the Flower.

They alighted, and began to dance in the meadow. But heavy clouds

appeared in the sky, and a storm broke out. They wished to shelter

themselves under the oak, but there was no more room; they ensconced

themselves as they could in the hedges and among the brushwood; the rain

came down and spoiled their garlands, stained their robes, and washed

away their ornaments; when the sun returned, they went to ask succor

from the queen of the Leaf; she, being merciful, consoled them, repaired

the injury of the rain, and restored their original beauty. Then all

disappears as in a dream.

The lady was astonished, when suddenly a fair dame appeared and

instructed her. She learned that the servants of the Leaf had lived like

brave knights, and those of the Flower had loved idleness and pleasure.

She promises to serve the Leaf, and came away.

Is this an allegory? There is at least a lack of wit. There is no

ingenious enigma; it is dominated by fancy, and the poet thinks only of

displaying in quiet verse the fleeting and brilliant train which had

amused his mind, and charmed his eyes.

Chaucer himself, on the first of May, rises and goes out into the

meadows. Love enters his heart with the balmy air; the landscape is

transfigured, and the birds begin to speak:

"There sate I downe among the faire flours,

And saw the birds trip out of hir bours,

There as they rested them all the night,

They were so joyfull of the dayes light,

They began of May for to done honours.

"They coud that service all by rote,

There was many a lovely note,

Some song loud as they had plained,

And some in other manner voice yfained

And some all out with the ful throte.

"The proyned hem and made hem right gay,

And daunceden, and lepten on her spray,

And evermore two and two in fere,

Right so as they had chosen hem to yere,

In Feverere upon saint Valentines day.

"And the river that I sate upon,

It made such a noise as it ron,

Accordaunt with the birdes armony,

Methought it was the best melody

That might ben yheard of any mon."[212]

This confused harmony of vague noises troubles the sense; a secret

languor enters the soul. The cuckoo throws his monotonous voice like a

mournful and tender sigh between the white ash-tree boles; the

nightingale makes his triumphant notes roll and ring above the leafy

canopy; fancy breaks in unsought, and Chaucer hears them dispute of

Love. They sing alternately an antistrophic song, and the nightingale

weeps for vexation to hear the cuckoo speak in depreciation of Love. He

is consoled, however, by the poet's voice, seeing that he also suffers

with him:

"'For love and it hath doe me much wo.'

'Ye use' (quod she) 'this medicine

Every day this May or thou dine

Go looke upon the fresh daisie,

And though thou be for wo in point to die,

That shall full greatly lessen thee of thy pine.

"'And looke alway that thou be good and trew,

And I wol sing one of the songes new,

For love of thee, as loud as I may crie:'

And than she began this song full hie,

'I shrewe all hem that been of love untrue.'"[213]

To such exquisite delicacies love, as with Petrarch, had carried poetry;

by refinement even, as with Petrarch, it is lost now and then in its

wit, conceits, clinches. But a marked characteristic at once separates

it from Petrarch. If over-excited, it is also graceful, polished, full

of archness, banter, fine sensual gayety, somewhat gossipy, as the

French always paint love. Chaucer follows his true masters, and is

himself an elegant speaker, facile, ever ready to smile, loving choice

pleasures, a disciple of the "Roman de la Rose," and much less Italian

than French.[214] The bent of French character makes of love not a

passion, but a gay banquet, tastefully arranged, in which the service is

elegant, the food exquisite, the silver brilliant, the two guests in

full dress, in good humor, quick to anticipate and please each other,

knowing how to keep up the gayety, and when to part. In Chaucer, without

doubt, this other altogether worldly vein runs side by side with the

sentimental element. If Troilus is a weeping lover, Pandarus is a lively

rascal, who volunteers for a singular service with amusing urgency,

frank immorality, and carries it out carefully, gratuitously,

thoroughly. In these pretty attempts Chaucer accompanies him as far as

possible, and is not shocked. On the contrary, he makes fun out of it.

At the critical moment, with transparent hypocrisy, he shelters himself

behind his "author." If you find the particulars free, he says, it is

not my fault; "so writen clerks in hir bokes old," and "I mote, aftir

min auctour, telle...." Not only is he gay, but he jests throughout the

whole tale. He sees clearly through the tricks of feminine modesty; he

laughs at it archly, knowing full well what is behind; he seems to be

saying, finger on lip: "Hush! let the grand words roll on, you will be

edified presently." We are, in fact, edified; so is he, and in the nick

of time he goes away, carrying the light: "For ought I can aspies, this

light nor I ne serven here of nought. Troilus," says uncle Pandarus,

"if ye be wise, sweveneth not now, lest more folke arise." Troilus takes

care not to swoon; and Cressida at last, being alone with him, speaks

wittily and with prudent delicacy; there is here an exceeding charm, no

coarseness. Their happiness covers all, even voluptuousness, with a

profusion and perfume of its heavenly roses. At most a slight spice of

archness flavors it: "and gode thrift he had full oft." Troilus holds

his mistress in his arms: "with worse hap God let us never mete." The

poet is almost as well pleased as they: for him, as for the men of his

time, the sovereign good is love, not damped, but satisfied; they ended

even by thinking such love a merit. The ladies declared in their

judgments, that when people love, they can refuse nothing to the

beloved. Love has become law; it is inscribed in a code; they combine it

with religion; and there is a sacrament of love, in which the birds in

their anthems sing matins.[215] Chaucer curses with all his heart the

covetous wretches, the business men, who treat is as a madness:

"As would God, tho wretches that despise

Service of love had eares al so long

As had Mida, ful of covetise,...

To teachen hem, that they been in the vice

And lovers not, although they hold hem nice,

... God yeve hem mischaunce,

And every lover in his trouth avaunce."[216]

He clearly lacks severity, so rare in southern literature. The Italians

in the Middle Ages made a virtue of joy; and you perceive that the world

of chivalry, as conceived by the French, expanded morality so as to

confound it with pleasure.

SECTION IV.--Characteristics of the Canterbury Tales

There are other characteristics still more gay. The true Gallic

literature crops up; obscene tales, practical jokes on one's neighbor,

not shrouded in the Ciceronian style of Boccaccio, but related lightly

by a man in good humor;[217] above all, active roguery, the trick of

laughing at your neighbor's expense. Chaucer displays it better than

Rutebeuf, and sometimes better than La Fontaine. He does not knock his

men down; he pricks them as he passes, not from deep hatred or

indignation, but through sheer nimbleness of disposition, and quick

sense of the ridiculous; he throws his gibes at them by handfuls. His

man of law is more a man of business than of the world:

"No wher so besy a man as he ther n'as,

And yet he semed besier than he was."[218]

His three burgesses:

"Everich, for the wisdom that he can

Was shapelich for to ben an alderman.

For catel hadden they ynough and rent,

And eke hir wives wolde it wel assent."[219]

Of the mendicant Friar he says:

"His wallet lay beforne him in his lappe,

Bret-ful of pardon come from Rome al hote."[220]

The mockery here comes from the heart, in the French manner, without

effort, calculation, or vehemence. It is so pleasant and so natural to

banter one's neighbor! Sometimes the lively vein becomes so copious that

it furnishes an entire comedy, indelicate certainly, but so free and

life-like! Here is the portrait of the Wife of Bath, who has buried five

husbands:

"Bold was hire face, and fayre and rede of hew,

She was a worthy woman all hire live;

Housbondes at the chirche dore had she had five,

Withouten other compagnie in youthe....

In all the parish wif ne was ther non,

That to the offring before hire shulde gon,

And if ther did, certain so wroth was she.

That she was out of alle charitee."[221]

What a tongue she has! Impertinent, full of vanity, bold, chattering,

unbridled, she silences everybody, and holds forth for an hour before

coming to her tale. We hear her grating, high-pitched, loud, clear

voice, wherewith she deafened her husbands. She continually harps upon

the same ideas, repeats her reasons, piles them up and confounds them,

like a stubborn mule who runs along shaking and ringing his bells, so

that the stunned listeners remain open-mouthed, wondering that a single

tongue can spin out so many words. The subject was worth the trouble.

She proves that she did well to marry five husbands, and she proves it

clearly, like a woman who knew it, because she had tried it:

"God bad us for to wex and multiplie;

That gentil text can I wel understond;

Eke wel I wot, he sayd, that min husbond

Shuld leve fader and moder, and take to me;

But of no noumbre mention made he,

Of bigamie or of octogamie;

Why shuld men than speke of it vilanie?

Lo here the wise king dan Solomon,

I trow he hadde wives mo than on,

(As wolde God it leful were to me

To be refreshed half so oft as he,)

Which a gift of God had he for alle his wives?...

Blessed be God that I have wedded five.

Welcome the sixthe whan that ever he shall....

He (Christ) spake to hem that wold live parfitly,

And lordings (by your leve), that am nat I;

I wol bestow the flour of all myn age

In th' actes and the fruit of mariage....

An husbond wol I have, I wol not lette,

Which shal be both my dettour and my thrall,

And have his tribulation withall

Upon his flesh, while that I am his wif."[222]

Here Chaucer has the freedom of Molière, and we possess it no longer.

His good wife justifies marriage in terms just as technical as

Sganarelle. It behooves us to turn the pages quickly, and follow in the

lump only this Odyssey of marriages. The experienced wife, who has

journeyed through life with five husbands, knows the art of taming them,

and relates how she persecuted them with jealousy, suspicion, grumbling,

quarrels, blows given and received; how the husband, checkmated by the

continuity of the tempest, stooped at last, accepted the halter, and

turned the domestic mill like a conjugal and resigned ass:

"For as an hors, I coude bite and whine;

I coude plain, and I was in the gilt....

I plained first, so was our werre ystint.

They were ful glad to excusen hem ful blive

Of thing, the which they never agilt hir live....

I swore that all my walking out by night

Was for to espien wenches that he dight....

For though the pope had sitten hem beside,

I wold not spare hem at hir owen bord....

But certainly I made folk swiche chere,

That in his owen grese I made him frie

For anger, and for veray jalousie.

By God, in erth I was his purgatorie,

For which I hope his soule be in glorie."[223]

She saw the fifth first at the burial of the fourth:

"And Jankin oure clerk was on of tho:

As helpe me God, whan that I saw him go

Aftir the bere, me thought he had a paire

Of legges and of feet, so clene and faire,

That all my herte I yave unto his hold.

He was, I trow, a twenty winter old,

And I was fourty, if I shal say soth....

As helpe me God, I was a lusty on,

And faire, and riche, and yonge, and well begon."[224]

"Yonge," what a word! Was human delusion ever more happily painted? How

life-like is all, and how easy the tone. It is the satire of marriage.

You will find it twenty times in Chaucer. Nothing more is wanted to

exhaust the two subjects of French mockery than to unite with the satire

of marriage the satire of religion.

We find it here; and Rabelais is not more bitter. The monk whom Chaucer

paints is a hypocrite, a jolly fellow, who knows good inns and jovial

hosts better than the poor and the hospitals:

"A Frere there was, a wanton and a mery...

Ful wel beloved, and familier was he

With frankeleins over all in his contree,

And eke with worthy wimmen of the toun...

Full swetely herde he confession,

And pleasant was his absolution.

He was an esy man to give penance,

Ther as he wiste to han a good pitance:

For unto a poure ordre for to give

Is signe that a man is wel yshrive....

And knew wel the tavernes in every toun,

And every hosteler and gay tapstere,

Better than a lazar and a beggere....

It is not honest, it may not avance,

As for to delen with no swich pouraille,

But all with riche and sellers of vitaille....

For many a man so hard is of his herte,

He may not wepe, although him sore smerte.

Therfore in stede of weping and praieres,

Men mote give silver to the poure freres."[225]

This lively irony had an exponent before in Jean de Meung. But Chaucer

pushes it further, and gives it life and motion. His monk begs from

house to house, holding out his wallet:

"In every hous he gan to pore and prie,

And begged mele and chese, or elles corn....

'Yeve us a bushel whete, or malt, or reye,

A Goddes kichel, or a trippe of chese,

Or elles what you list, we may not chese;

A Goddes halfpeny, or a masse peny;

Or yeve us of your braun, if ye have any,

A dagon of your blanket, leve dame,

Our suster dere (lo here I write your name).'...

And whan that he was out at dore, anon,

He planed away the names everich on."[226]

He has kept for the end of his circuit, Thomas, one of his most liberal

clients. He finds him in bed, and ill; here is excellent fruit to suck

and squeeze:

"'God wot,' quod he, 'laboured have I ful sore.

And specially for thy salvation,

Have I sayd many a precious orison....

I have this day ben at your chirche at messe...

And ther I saw our dame, a, wher is she?'"[227]

The dame enters:

"This frere ariseth up ful curtisly,

And hire embraceth in his armes narwe,

And kisseth hire swete and chirketh as a sparwe."[228]...

Then, in his sweetest and most caressing voice, he compliments her, and

says:

"'Thanked be God that you yaf soule and lif,

Yet saw I not this day so faire a wif

In all the chirche, God so save me.'"[229]

Have we not here already Tartuffe and Elmire? But the monk is with a

farmer, and can go to work more quickly and directly. When the

compliments ended, he thinks of the substance, and asks the lady to let

him talk alone with Thomas. He must inquire after the state of his soul:

"'I wol with Thomas speke a litel throw:

Thise curates ben so negligent and slow

To gropen tendrely a conscience....

Now, dame,' quod he, 'jeo vous die sanz doute,

Have I nat of a capon but the liver,

And of your white bred nat but a shiver,

And after that a rosted pigges hed

(But I ne wolde for me no beest were ded),

Than had I with you homly suffisance.

I am a man of litel sustenance,

My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible.

My body is ay so redy and penible

To waken, that my stomak is destroied.'"[230]

Poor man, he raises his hands to heaven, and ends with a sigh.

The wife tells him her child died a fortnight before. Straightway he

manufactures a miracle; how could he earn his money in any better way?

He had a revelation of this death in the "dortour" of the convent; he

saw the child carried to paradise; he rose with his brothers, "with many

a tere trilling on our cheke," and they sang a _Te Deum_:

"'For, sire and dame, trusteth me right wel,

Our orisons ben more effectuel,

And more we seen of Cristes secree thinges

Than borel folk, although that they be kinges.

We live in poverte, and in abstinence,

And borel folk in richesse and dispence....

Lazer and Dives liveden diversely,

And divers guerdon hadden they therby.'"[231]

Presently he spurts out a whole sermon, in a loathsome style, and with

an interest which is plain enough. The sick man, wearied, replies that

he has already given half his fortune to all kinds of monks, and yet he

continually suffers. Listen to the grieved exclamation, the true

indignation of the mendicant monk, who sees himself threatened by the

competition of a brother of the cloth to share his client, his revenue,

his booty, his food-supplies:

"The frere answered: 'O Thomas, dost thou so?

What nedeth you diverse freres to seche?

What nedeth him that hath a parfit leche,

To sechen other leches in the toun?

Your inconstance is your confusion.

Hold ye than me, or elles our covent,

To pray for you ben insufficient?

Thomas, that jape n' is not worth a mite,

Your maladie is for we han to lite.'"[232]

Recognize the great orator; he employs even the grand style to keep the

supplies from being cut off:

"'A, yeve that covent half a quarter otes;

And yeve that covent four and twenty grotes;

And yeve that frere a peny, and let him go:

Nay, nay, Thomas, it may no thing be so.

What is a ferthing worth parted on twelve?

Lo, eche thing that is oned in himself

Is more strong, than whan it is yscatered...

Thou woldest han our labour al for nought.'"[233]

Then he begins again his sermon in a louder tone, shouting at each word,

quoting examples from Seneca and the classics, a terrible fluency, a

trick of his trade, which, diligently applied, must draw money from the

patient. He asks for gold, "to make our cloistre,"

"... 'And yet, God wot, uneth the fundament

Parfourmed is, ne of our pavement

N' is not a tile yet within our wones;

By God, we owen fourty pound for stones.

Now help Thomas, for him that harwed helle,

For elles mote we oure bokes selle,

And if ye lacke oure predication,

Than goth this world all to destruction.

For who so fro this world wold us bereve,

So God me save, Thomas, by your leve,

He wold bereve out of this world the sonne.'"[234]

In the end, Thomas in a rage promises him a gift, tells him to put his

hand in the bed and take it, and sends him away duped, mocked, and

covered with filth.

We have descended now to popular farce; when amusement must be had at

any price, it is sought, as here, in broad jokes, even in filthiness. We

can see how these two coarse and vigorous plants have blossomed in the

dung of the Middle Ages. Planted by the sly fellows of Champagne and

Ile-de-France, watered by the _trouvères_, they were destined fully to

expand, speckled and ruddy, in the large hands of Rabelais. Meanwhile

Chaucer plucks his nosegay from it. Deceived husbands, mishaps in inns,

accidents in bed, cuffs, kicks, and robberies, these suffice to raise a

loud laugh. Side by side with noble pictures of chivalry, he gives us a

train of Flemish grotesque figures, carpenters, joiners, friars,

summoners; blows abound, fists descend on fleshy backs; many nudities

are shown; they swindle one another out of their corn, their wives; they

pitch one another out of a window; they brawl and quarrel. A bruise, a

piece of open filthiness, passes in such society for a sign of wit. The

summoner, being rallied by the friar, gives him tit for tat:

"'This Frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,

And, God it wot, that is but litel wonder,

Freres and fendes ben but litel asonder.

For parde, ye han often time herd telle

How that a Frere ravished was to helle

In spirit ones by a visoun,

And as an angel lad him up and doun,

To shewen him the peines that ther were,...

And unto Sathanas he lad him doun.

(And now hath Sathanas,' saith he, 'a tayl

Broder than of a Carrike is the sayl.)

Hold up thy tayl, thou Sathanas, quod he,

....... and let the Frere see

Wher is the nest of Freres in this place.

And er than half a furlong way of space,

Right so as bees out swarmen of an hive,

Out of the devils... ther gonnen to drive.

A twenty thousand Freres on a route,

And thurghout hell they swarmed all aboute,

And com agen, as fast as they may gon.'"[235]

Such were the coarse buffooneries of the popular imagination.

SECTION V.--The Art of Chaucer

It is high time to return to Chaucer himself. Beyond the two notable

characteristics which settle his place in his age and school of poetry,

there are others which take him out of his age and school. If he was

romantic and gay like the rest, it was after a fashion of his own. He

observes characters, notes their differences, studies the coherence of

their parts, endeavors to describe living individualities--a thing

unheard of in his time, but which the renovators in the sixteenth

century, and first among them Shakespeare, will do afterwards. Is it

already the English positive common-sense and aptitude for seeing the

inside of things which begins to appear? A new spirit, almost manly,

pierces through, in literature as in painting, with Chaucer as with Van

Eyck, with both at the same time; no longer the childish imitation of

chivalrous life[236] or monastic devotion, but the grave spirit of

inquiry and craving for deep truths, whereby art becomes complete. For

the first time, in Chaucer as in Van Eyck, the character described

stands out in relief; its parts are connected; it is no longer an

unsubstantial phantom. You may guess its past and foretell its future

action. Its externals manifest the personal and incommunicable details

of its inner nature, and the infinite complexity of its economy and

motion. To this day, after four centuries, that character is

individualjzed and typical; it remains distinct in our memory, like the

creations of Shakespeare and Rubens. We observe this growth in the very

act. Not only does Chaucer, like Boccaccio, bind his tales into a single

history; but in addition--and this is wanting in Boccaccio--he begins

with the portrait of all his narrators, knight, summoner, man of law,

monk, bailiff or reeve, host, about thirty distinct figures, of every

sex, condition, age, each painted with his disposition, face, costume,

turns of speech, little significant actions, habits, antecedents, each

maintained in his character by his talk and subsequent actions, so that

we can discern here, sooner than in any other nation, the germ of the

domestic novel as we write it to-day. Think of the portraits of the

franklin, the miller, the mendicant friar, and wife of Bath. There are

plenty of others which show the broad brutalities, the coarse, tricks,

and the pleasantries of vulgar life, as well as the gross and plentiful

feastings of sensual life. Here and there honest old swashbucklers, who

double their fists, and tuck up their sleeves; or contented beadles,

who, when they have drunk, will speak nothing but Latin. But by the side

of these there are some choice characters; the knight, who went on a

crusade to Granada and Prussia, brave and courteous:

"And though that he was worthy he was wise,

And of his port as meke as is a mayde.

He never yet no vilanie ne sayde

In alle his lif, unto no manere wight,

He was a veray parfit gentil knight."[237]

"With him, ther was his sone, a yonge Squier,

A lover, and a lusty bacheler,

With lockes crull as they were laide in presse.

Of twenty yere of age he was I gesse.

Of his stature he was of even lengthe,

And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe.

And he hadde be somtime in chevachie,

In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,

And borne him wel, as of so litel space,

In hope to stonden in his ladies grace.

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede

Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede.

Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,

He was as fresshe, as is the moneth of May.

Short was his goune, with sieves long and wide.

Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride.

He coude songes make, and wel endite,

Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write.

So hote he loved, that by nightertale

He slep no more than doth the nightingale.

Curteis he was, lowly and servisable,

And carf befor his fader at the table."[238]

There is also a poor and learned clerk of Oxford; and finer still, and

more worthy of a modern hand, the Prioress, "Madame Eglantine," who as a

nun, a maiden, a great lady, is ceremonious, and shows signs of

exquisite taste. Would a better be found nowadays in a German chapter,

amid the most modest and lively bevy of sentimental and literary

canonesses?

"Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,

That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy

Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy;

And she was cleped Madame Eglentine.

Ful wel she sange the service devine,

Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;

And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly

After the scole of Stratford-atte-bowe,

For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.

At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle;

So lette no morsel from hire lippes falle,

No wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.

Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,

Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.

In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.

Hire over lippe wiped she so clene,

That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene

Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught,

Ful semely after hire mete she raught.

And sikerly she was of grete disport

And ful plesant, and amiable of port,

And peined hire to contrefeten chere

Of court, and ben estatelich of manere,

And to ben holden digne of reverence."[239]

Are you offended by these provincial affectations? Not at all; it is

delightful to behold these nice and pretty ways, these little

affectations, the waggery and prudery, the half-worldly, half-monastic

smile. We inhale a delicate feminine perfume, preserved and grown old

under the stomacher:

"But for to speken of hire conscience,

She was so charitable and so pitous,

She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous

Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.

Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde

With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.

But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,

Or if men smote it with a yerde smert:

And all was conscience and tendre herte."[240]

Many elderly ladies throw themselves into such affections as these for

lack of others. Elderly! what an objectionable word have I employed! She

was not elderly:

"Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was,

Hire nose tretis; hire eyen grey as glas;

Hire mouth ful smale, and therto soft and red;

But sikerly she hadde a fayre forehed.

It was almost a spanne brode I trowe;

For hardily she was not undergrowe.

Ful fetise was hire cloke, as I was ware.

Of small corall aboute hire arm she bare

A pair of bedes, gauded al with grene;

And thereon heng a broche of gold ful shene,

On whiche was first ywritten a crouned A,

And after, Amor vincit omnia."[241]

A pretty ambiguous device, suitable either for gallantry or devotion;

the lady was both of the world and the cloister: of the world, you may

see it in her dress; of the cloister, you gather it from "another Nonne

also with hire hadde she, that was hire chapelleine, and Preestes thre";

from the Ave Maria which she sings, the long edifying stories which she

relates. She is like a fresh, sweet, and ruddy cherry, made to ripen in

the sun, but which, preserved in an ecclesiastical jar, has become

candied and insipid in the syrup.

Such is the power of reflection which begins to dawn, such the high art.

Chaucer studies here, rather than aims at amusement; he ceases to

gossip, and thinks; instead of surrendering himself to the facility of

flowing improvisation, he plans. Each tale is suited to the teller; the

young squire relates a fantastic and Oriental history; the tipsy miller

a loose and comical story; the honest clerk the touching legend of

Griselda. All these tales are bound together, and that much better than

by Boccaccio, by little veritable incidents, which spring from the

characters of the personages, and such as we light upon in our travels.

The horsemen ride on in good humor, in the sunshine, in the open

country; they converse. The miller has drunk too much ale, and will

speak, "and for no man forbere." The cook goes to sleep on his beast,

and they play practical jokes on him. The monk and the summoner getup a

dispute about their respective lines of business. The host restores

peace, makes them speak or be silent, like a man who has long presided

in the inn parlor, and who has often had to check brawlers. They pass

judgment on the stories they listen to: declaring that there are few

Griseldas in the world; laughing at the misadventures of the tricked

carpenter; drawing a lesson from the moral tale. The poem is no longer,

as in the contemporary literature, a mere procession, but a painting in

which the contrasts are arranged, the attitudes chosen, the general

effect calculated, so that it becomes life and motion; we forget

ourselves at the sight, as in the case of every lifelike work; and we

long to get on horseback on a fine sunny morning, and canter along green

meadows with the pilgrims to the shrine of the good saint of Canterbury.

Weigh the value of the words "general effect." According as we plan it

or not, we enter on our maturity or infancy! The whole future lies in

these two words. Savages or half savages, warriors of the Heptarchy or

knights of the Middle Ages; up to this period, no one had reached to

this point. They had strong emotions, tender at times, and each

expressed them according to the original gift of his race, some by short

cries, others by continuous babble. But they did not command or guide

their impressions; they sang or conversed by impulse, at random,

according to the bent of their disposition, leaving their ideas to

present themselves as they might, and when they hit upon order, it was

ignorantly and involuntarily. Here for the first time appears a

superiority of intellect, which at the instant of conception suddenly

halts, rises above itself, passes judgment, and says to itself, "This

phrase tells the same thing as the last--remove it; these two ideas are

disjointed—connect them; this description is feeble--reconsider it."

When a man can speak thus he has an idea, not learned in the schools,

but personal and practical, of the human mind, its process and needs,

and of things also, their composition and combinations; he has a style,

that is, he is capable of making everything understood and seen by the

human mind. He can extract from every object, landscape, situation,

character, the special and significant marks, so as to group and arrange

them, in order to compose an artificial work which surpasses the natural

work in its purity and completeness. He is capable, as Chaucer was, of

seeking out in the old common forest of the Middle Ages, stories and

legends, to replant them in his own soil, and make them send out new

shoots. He has the right and the power, as Chaucer had, of copying and

translating, because by dint of retouching he impresses on his

translations and copies his original mark; he re-creates what he

imitates, because through or by the side of worn-out fancies and

monotonous stories, he can display, as Chaucer did, the charming ideas

of an amiable and elastic mind, the thirty master-forms of the

fourteenth century, the splendid freshness of the verdurous landscape

and spring-time of England. He is not far from conceiving an idea of

truth and life. He is on the brink of independent thought and fertile

discovery. This was Chaucer's position. At the distance of a century and

a half, he has affinity with the poets of Elizabeth[242] by his gallery

of pictures, and with the reformers of the sixteenth century by his

portrait of the good parson.

Affinity merely. He advanced a few steps beyond the threshold of his

art, but he paused at the end of the vestibule. He half opens the great

door of the temple, but does not take his seat there; at most, he sat

down in it only at intervals. In "Arcite and Palamon," in "Troilus and

Cressida," he sketches sentiments, but does not create characters; he

easily and naturally traces the winding course of events and

conversations, but does not mark the precise outline of a striking

figure. If occasionally, as in the description of the temple of Mars,

after the "Thebaid" of Statius, feeling at his back the glowing breeze

of poetry, he draws out his feet, clogged with the mud of the Middle

Ages, and at a bound stands upon the poetic plain on which Statius

imitated Vergil and equalled Lucan, he, at other times, again falls back

into the childish gossip of the _trouvères_, or the dull gabble of

learned clerks--to "Dan Phebus or Apollo-Delphicus." Elsewhere, a

commonplace remark on art intrudes in the midst of an impassioned

description. He uses three thousand verses to conduct Troilus to his

first interview. He is like a precocious and poetical child, who mingles

in his love-dreams quotations from his grammar and recollections of his

alphabet.[243] Even in the "Canterbury Tales" he repeats himself,

unfolds artless developments, forgets to concentrate his passion or his

idea. He begins a jest, and scarcely ends it. He dilutes a bright

coloring in a monotonous stanza. His voice is like that of a boy

breaking into manhood. At first a manly and firm accent is maintained,

then a shrill sweet sound shows that his growth is not finished, and

that his strength is subject to weakness. Chaucer sets out as if to quit

the Middle Ages; but in the end he is there still. To-day he composes

the "Canterbury Tales"; yesterday he was translating the "Roman de la

Rose." To-day he is studying the complicated machinery of the heart,

discovering the issues of primitive education or of the ruling

disposition, and creating the comedy of manners; to-morrow he will have

no pleasure but in curious events, smooth allegories, amorous

discussions, imitated from the French, or learned moralities from the

ancients. Alternately he is an observer and a _trouvère_; instead of

the step he ought to have advanced, he has but made a half-step.

Who has prevented him, and the others who surround him? We meet with the

obstacle in the tales he has translated of Melibeus, of the Parson, in

his "Testament of Love" in short, so long as he writes verse, he is at

his ease; as soon as he takes to prose, a sort of chain winds around his

feet and stops him. His imagination is free, and his reasoning a slave.

The rigid scholastic divisions, the mechanical manner of arguing and

replying, the ergo, the Latin quotations, the authority of Aristotle and

the Fathers, come and weigh down his budding thought. His native

invention disappears under the discipline imposed. The servitude is so

heavy that even in the work of one of his contemporaries, the "Testament

of Love," which, for a long time, was believed to be written by Chaucer,

amid the most touching plaints and the most smarting pains, the

beautiful ideal lady, the heavenly mediator who appears in a vision,

Love, sets her theses, establishes that the cause of a cause is the

cause of the thing caused, and reasons as pedantically as they would at

Oxford. In what can talent, even feeling, end, when it is kept down by

such shackles? What succession of original truths and new doctrines

could be found and proved, when in a moral tale, like that of Melibeus

and his wife Prudence, it was thought necessary to establish a formal

controversy, to quote Seneca and Job, to forbid tears, to bring forward

the weeping Christ to authorize tears, to enumerate every proof, to call

in Solomon, Cassiodorus, and Cato; in short, to write a book for

schools? The public cares only for pleasant and lively thoughts; not

serious and general ideas; these latter are for a special class only. As

soon as Chaucer gets into a reflective mood, straightway Saint Thomas,

Peter Lombard, the manual of sins, the treatise on definition and

syllogism, the army of the ancients and of the Fathers, descend from

their glory, enter his brain, speak in his stead; and the _trouvère's_

pleasant voice becomes the dogmatic and sleep-inspiring voice of a

doctor. In love and satire he has experience, and he invents; in what

regards morality and philosophy he has learning, and copies. For an

instant, by a solitary leap, he entered upon the close observation, and

the genuine study of man; he could not keep his ground, he did not take

his seat, he took a poetic excursion; and no one followed him. The level

of the century is lower; he is on it himself for the most part. He is in

the company of narrators like Froissart, of elegant speakers like

Charles of Orléans, of gossipy and barren verse-writers like Gower,

Lydgate, and Occleve. There is no fruit, but frail and fleeting

blossoms, many useless branches, still more dying or dead branches; such

is this literature. And why? Because it had no longer a root; after

three centuries of effort, a heavy instrument cut it underground. This

instrument was the Scholastic Philosophy.

SECTION VI.--Scholastic Philosophy

Beneath every literature there is a philosophy. Beneath, every work of

art is an idea of nature and of life; this idea leads the poet. Whether

the author knows it or not, he writes in order to exhibit it; and the

characters which he fashions, like the events which he arranges, only

serve to bring to light the dim creative conception which raises and

combines them. Underlying Homer appears the noble life of heroic

paganism and of happy Greece. Underlying Dante, the sad and violent life

of fanatical Catholicism and of the much-hating Italians. From either we

might draw a theory of man and of the beautiful. It is so with others;

and this is how, according to the variations, the birth, blossoms,

decline, or sluggishness of the master-idea, literature varies, is born,

flourishes, degenerates, comes to an end. Whoever plants the one, plants

the other: whoever undermines the one, undermines the other. Place in

all the minds of any age a new grand idea of nature and life, so that

they feel and produce it with their whole heart and strength, and you

will see them, seized with the craving to express it, invent forms of

art and groups of figures. Take away from these minds every grand new

idea of nature and life, and you will see them, deprived of the craving

to express all-important thoughts, copy, sink into silence, or rave.

What has become of all these all-important thoughts? What labor worked

them out? What studies nourished them? The laborers did not lack zeal.

In the twelfth century the energy of their minds was admirable. At

Oxford there were thirty thousand scholars. No building in Paris could

contain the crowd of Abelard's disciples; when he retired to solitude,

they accompanied him in such a multitude that the desert became a town.

No difficulty repulsed them. There is a story of a young boy, who,

though beaten by his master, was wholly bent on remaining with him, that

he might still learn. When the terrible encyclopædia of Aristotle was

introduced, though disfigured and unintelligible it was devoured. The

only question presented to them, that of universals, so abstract and

dry, so embarrassed by Arabic obscurities and Greek subtitles, during

centuries, was seized upon eagerly. Heavy and awkward as was the

instrument supplied to them, I mean syllogism, they made themselves

masters of it, rendered it still more heavy, plunged it into every

object and in every direction. They constructed monstrous books, in

great numbers, cathedrals of syllogism, of unheard-of architecture, of

prodigious finish, heightened in effect by intensity of intellectual

power, which the whole sum of human labor has only twice been able to

match.[244] These young and valiant minds thought they had found the

temple of truth; they rushed at it headlong, in legions, breaking in the

doors, clambering over the walls, leaping into the interior, and so

found themselves at the bottom of a moat. Three centuries of labor at

the bottom of this black moat added not one idea to the human mind.

For consider the questions which they treat of. They seem to be

marching, but are merely marking time. People would say, to see them

moil and toil, that they will educe from heart and brain some great

original creed, and yet all belief was imposed upon them from the

outset. The system was made; they could only arrange and comment upon

it. The conception comes not from them, but from Constantinople.

Infinitely complicated and subtle as it is, the supreme work of Oriental

mysticism and Greek metaphysics, so disproportioned to their young

understanding, they exhaust themselves to reproduce it, and moreover

burden their unpractised hands with the weight of a logical instrument

which Aristotle created for theory and not for practice, and which ought

to have remained in a cabinet of philosophical curiosities, without

being ever carried into the field of action. "Whether the divine essence

engendered the Son, or was engendered by the Father; why the three

persons together are not greater than one alone; attributes determine

persons, not substance, that is, nature; how properties can exist in the

nature of God, and not determine it; if created spirits are local and

can be circumscribed; if God can know more things than He is aware

of";[245]--these are the ideas which they moot: what truth could issue

thence? From hand to hand the chimera grows, and spreads wider its

gloomy wings. "Can God cause that, the place and body being retained,

the body shall have no position, that is, existence in place?--Whether

the impossibility of being engendered is a constituent property of the

First Person of the Trinity--Whether identity, similitude, and equality

are real relations in God."[246] Duns Scotus distinguishes three kinds

of matter: matter which is firstly first, secondly first, thirdly first.

According to him, we must clear this triple hedge of thorny abstractions

in order to understand the production of a sphere of brass. Under such a

regimen, imbecility soon makes its appearance. Saint Thomas himself

considers, "whether the body of Christ arose with its wounds--whether

this body moves with the motion of the host and the chalice in

consecration--whether at the first instant of conception Christ had the

use of free judgment--whether Christ was slain by himself or by

another?" Do you think you are at the limits of human folly? Listen. He

considers "whether the dove in which the Holy Spirit appeared was a real

animal--whether a glorified body can occupy one and the same place at

the same time as another glorified body--whether in the state of

innocence all children were masculine?" I pass over others as to the

digestion of Christ, and some still more untranslatable.[247] This is

the point reached by the most esteemed doctor, the most judicious mind,

the Bossuet of the Middle Ages. Even in this ring of inanities the

answers are laid down. Roscellinus and Abelard were excommunicated,

exiled, imprisoned, because they swerved from it. There is a complete

minute dogma which closes all issues; there is no means of escaping;

after a hundred wriggles and a hundred efforts you must come and tumble

into a formula. If by mysticism you try to fly over their heads, if by

experience you endeavor to creep beneath, powerful talons await you at

your exit. The wise man passes for a magician, the enlightened man for a

heretic. The Waldenses, the Catharists, the disciples of John of Parma,

were burned; Roger Bacon died only just in time, otherwise he might have

been burned. Under this constraint men ceased to think; for he who

speaks of thought, speaks of an effort at invention, an individual

creation, an energetic action. They recite a lesson, or sing a

catechism; even in paradise, even in ecstasy and the divinest raptures

of love, Dante thinks himself bound to show an exact memory and a

scholastic orthodoxy. How then with the rest? Some, like Raymond Lully,

set about inventing an instrument of reasoning to serve in place of the

understanding. About the fourteenth century, under the blows of Occam,

this verbal science began to totter; they saw that its entities were

only words; it was discredited. In 1367, at Oxford, of thirty thousand

students, there remained six thousand;[248] they still set their

"Barbara and Felapton," but only in the way of routine. Each one in turn

mechanically traversed the petty region of threadbare cavils, scratched

himself in the briers of quibbles, and burdened himself with his bundle

of texts; nothing more. The vast body of science which was to have

formed and vivified the whole thought of man, was reduced to a

text-book.

So, little by little, the conception which fertilized and ruled all

others, dried up; the deep spring, whence flowed all poetic streams, was

found empty; science furnished nothing more to the world. What further

works could the world produce? As Spain, later on, renewing the Middle

Ages, after having shone splendidly and foolishly by her chivalry and

devotion, by Lope de Vega and Calderon, Loyola and St. Theresa, became

enervated through the Inquisition and through casuistry, and ended by

sinking into a brutish silence; so the Middle Ages, outstripping Spain,

after displaying the senseless heroism of the Crusades, and the poetical

ecstasy of the cloister, after producing chivalry and saintship, Francis

of Assisi, St. Louis, and Dante, languished under the Inquisition and

the scholastic learning, and became extinguished in idle raving and

inanity.

Must we quote all these good people who speak without having anything to

say? You may find them in Warton;[249] dozens of translators, importing

the poverties of French literature, and imitating imitations; rhyming

chroniclers, most commonplace of men, whom we only read because we must

accept history from every quarter, even from imbeciles; spinners and

spinsters of didactic poems, who pile up verses on the training of

falcons, on heraldry, on chemistry; editors of moralities, who invent

the same dream over again for the hundredth time, and get themselves

taught universal history by the goddess Sapience. Like the writers of

the Latin decadence, these folk only think of copying, compiling,

abridging, constructing in text-books, in rhymed memoranda, the

encyclopædia of their times.

Listen to the most illustrious, the grave Gower--"morall Gower," as he

was called![250] Doubtless here and there he contains a remnant of

brilliancy and grace. He is like an old secretary of a Court of Love,

André le Chapelain or any other, who would pass the day in solemnly

registering the sentences of ladies, and in the evening, partly asleep

on his desk, would see in a half-dream their sweet smile and their

beautiful eyes.[251] The ingenious but exhausted vein of Charles of

Orléans still flows in his French ballads. He has the same fondling

delicacy, almost a little affected. The poor little poetic spring flows

yet in thin, transparent streamlets over the smooth pebbles, and murmurs

with a babble, pretty, but so low that at times you cannot hear it. But

dull is the rest! His great poem, "Confessio Amantis," is a dialogue

between a lover and his confessor, imitated chiefly from Jean de Meung,

having for object, like the "Roman de la Rose," to explain and classify

the impediments of love. The superannuated theme is always reappearing,

covered by a crude erudition. You will find here an exposition of

hermetic science, lectures on the philosophy of Aristotle, a treatise on

politics, a litany of ancient and modern legends gleaned from the

compilers, marred in the passage by the pedantry of the schools and the

ignorance of the age. It is a cartload of scholastic rubbish; the sewer

tumbles upon this feeble spirit, which of itself was flowing clearly,

but now, obstructed by tiles, bricks, plaster, ruins from all quarters

of the globe, drags on darkened and sluggish. Gower, one of the most

learned of his time,[252] supposed that Latin was invented by the old

prophetess Carmentis; that the grammarians, Aristarchus, Donatus, and

Didymus, regulated its syntax, pronunciation, and prosody; that it was

adorned by Cicero with the flowers of eloquence and rhetoric; then

enriched by translations from the Arabic, Chaldæan, and Greek; and that

at last, after much labor of celebrated writers, it attained its final

perfection in Ovid, the poet of love. Elsewhere he discovered that

Ulysses learned rhetoric from Cicero, magic from Zoroaster, astronomy

from Ptolemy, and philosophy from Plato. And what a style! so long, so

dull,[253] so drawn out by repetitions, the most minute details,

garnished with references to his text, like a man who, with his eyes

glued to his Aristotle and his Ovid, a slave of his musty parchments,

can do nothing but copy and string his rhymes together. Schoolboys even

in old age, they seem to believe that every truth, all wit, is their

great wood-bound books; that they have no need to find out and invent

for themselves; that their whole business is to repeat; that this is, in

fact, man's business. The scholastic system had enthroned the dead

letter, and peopled the world with dead understandings.

After Gower come Occleve and Lydgate.[254] "My father Chaucer would

willingly have taught me," says Occleve, "but I was dull, and learned

little or nothing." He paraphrased in verse a treatise of Egidius, on

government; these are moralities. There are others, on compassion, after

Augustine, and on the art of dying; then love-tales; a letter from

Cupid, dated from his court in the month of May. Love and

moralities,[255] that is, abstractions and affectation, were the taste

of the time; and so, in the time of Lebrun, of Esménard, at the close

of contemporaneous French literature,[256] they produced collections of

didactic poems, and odes to Chloris. As for the monk Lydgate, he had

some talent, some imagination, especially in high-toned descriptions: it

was the last flicker of a dying literature; gold received a golden

coating, precious stones were placed upon diamonds, ornaments multiplied

and made fantastic; as in their dress and buildings, so in their

style.[257] Look at the costumes of Henry IV and Henry V, monstrous

heart-shaped or horn-shaped head-dresses, long sleeves covered with

ridiculous designs, the plumes, and again the oratories, armorial tombs,

little gaudy chapels, like conspicuous flowers under the naves of the

Gothic perpendicular. When we can no more speak to the soul, we try to

speak to the eyes. This is what Lydgate does, nothing more. Pageants or

shows are required of him, "disguisings" for the company of goldsmiths;

a mask before the king, a May entertainment for the sheriffs of London,

a drama of the creation for the festival of Corpus Christi, a

masquerade, a Christmas show; he gives the plan and furnishes the

verses. In this matter he never runs dry; two hundred and fifty-one

poems are attributed to him. Poetry thus conceived becomes a

manufacture; it is composed by the yard. Such was the judgment of the

Abbot of St. Albans, who, having got him to translate a legend in verse,

pays a hundred shillings for the whole, verse, writing, and

illuminations, placing the three works on a level. In fact, no more

thought was required for the one than for the others. His three great

works, "The Fall of Princes, The Destruction of Troy," and "The Siege

of Thebes," are only translations or paraphrases, verbose, erudite,

descriptive, a kind of chivalrous processions, colored for the twentieth

time, in the same manner, on the same vellum. The only point which rises

above the average, at least in the first poem, is the idea of

Fortune,[258] and the violent vicissitudes of human life. If there was a

philosophy at this time, this was it. They willingly narrated horrible

and tragic histories; gather them from antiquity down to their own day;

they were far from the trusting and passionate piety which felt the hand

of God in the government of the world; they saw that the world went

blundering here and there like a drunken man. A sad and gloomy world,

amused by eternal pleasures, oppressed with a dull misery, which

suffered and feared without consolation or hope, isolated between the

ancient spirit in which it had no living hope, and the modern spirit

whose active science it ignored. Fortune, like a black smoke, hovers

over all, and shuts out the sight of heaven. They picture it as follows:

"Her face semyng cruel and terrible

And by disdaynè menacing of loke,...

An hundred handes she had, of eche part...

Some of her handes lyft up men alofte,

To hye estate of worldlye dignitè;

Another hande griped ful unsofte,

Which cast another in grete adversite."[259]

They look upon the great unhappy ones, a captive king, a dethroned

queen, assassinated princes, noble cities destroyed,[260] lamentable

spectacles as exhibited in Germany and France, and of which there will

be plenty in England; and they can only regard them with a harsh

resignation. Lydgate ends by reciting a commonplace of mechanical piety,

by way of consolation. The reader makes the sign of the cross, yawns,

and goes away. In fact, poetry and religion are no longer capable of

suggesting a genuine sentiment. Authors copy, and copy again. Hawes[261]

copies the "House of Fame" of Chaucer, and a sort of allegorical amorous

poem, after the "Roman de la Rose." Barclay[262] translates the "Mirror

of Good Manners" and the "Ship of Fools." Continually we meet with dull

abstractions, used up and barren; it is the scholastic phase of poetry.

If anywhere there is an accent of greater originality, it is in this

"Ship of Fools," and in Lydgate's "Dance of Death," bitter buffooneries,

sad gayeties, which, in the hands of artists and poets, were having

their run throughout Europe. They mock at each other, grotesquely and

gloomily; poor, dull, and vulgar figures, shut up in a ship, or made to

dance on their tomb to the sound of a fiddle, played by a grinning

skeleton. At the end of all this mouldy talk, and amid the disgust which

they have conceived for each other, a clown, a tavern Triboulet,[263]

composer of little jeering and macaronic verses, Skelton[264] makes his

appearance, a virulent pamphleteer, who, jumbling together French,

English, Latin phrases, with slang, and fashionable words, invented

words, intermingled with short rhymes, fabricates a sort of literary

mud, with which he bespatters Wolsey and the bishops. Style, metre,

rhyme, language, art of every kind, is at an end; beneath the vain

parade of official style there is only a heap of rubbish. Yet, as he

says,

"Though my rhyme be ragged,

Tattered and gagged,

Rudely rain-beaten,

Rusty, moth-eaten,

Yf ye take welle therewithe,

It hath in it some pithe."

It is full of political animus, sensual liveliness, English and popular

instincts; it lives. It is a coarse life, still elementary, swarming

with ignoble vermin, like that which appears in a great decomposing

body. It is life, nevertheless, with its two great features which it is

destined to display: the hatred of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which

is the Reformation; the return to the senses and to natural life, which

is the Renaissance.

[Footnote 193: Born between 1328 and 1345, died in 1400.]

[Footnote 194: Renan, "De l'Art au Moyen Age."]

[Footnote 195: See Froissart, his life with the Count of Foix

and with King Richard II.]

[Footnote 196: "Knight's Tale," II. p. 59, lines 1957-1964.]

[Footnote 197: "Knight's Tale," II. p. 59, lines 1977-1996.]

[Footnote 198: Ibid., p. 61, lines 2043-2050.]

[Footnote 199: "Knight's Tale," II. p. 63, lines 2120-2188.]

[Footnote 200: The House of Fame.]

[Footnote 201: André le Chapelain, 1170.]

[Footnote 202: Also the "Court of Love," and perhaps "The Assemble

of Ladies" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci."]

[Footnote 203: "Troilus and Cressida," vol, V. bk. 3, p. 12.]

[Footnote 204: "Troilus and Cressida," vol. V. bk. 3, p. 40.]

[Footnote 205: Ibid. p. 4.]

[Footnote 206: "Troilus and Cressida," vol. IV. bk. 2, p. 292.]

[Footnote 207: Ibid. vol. V. bk. 4, p. 97.]

[Footnote 208: "Troilus and Cressida," vol. V. bk. 5, p. 119 et passim.]

[Footnote 209: "The Flower and the Leaf," VI. p. 244, lines 6-32.]

[Footnote 210: Ibid. p. 245, line 33.]

[Footnote 211: Ibid. VI. p. 246, lines 78-133.]

[Footnote 212: "The Cuckow and Nightingale," VI. p. 121, lines 67-85.]

[Footnote 213: Ibid. p. 126, lines 230-241.]

[Footnote 214: Stendhal, "On Love: the difference of Love-taste

and Love-passion."]

[Footnote 215: "The Court of Love," about 1353, et seq. See also

the "Testament of Love."]

[Footnote 216: "Troilus and Cressida," vol. V. III. pp. 44, 45.]

[Footnote 217: The story of the pear-tree (Merchant's Tale), and

of the cradle (Reeve's Tale), for instance, in the "Canterbury

Tales."]

[Footnote 218: "Canterbury Tales" prologue, p. 10, line 323.]

[Footnote 219: Ibid. p. 12, line 373.]

[Footnote 220: "Canterbury Tales," prologue, p. 21, line 688.]

[Footnote 221: Ibid. II. prologue, p. 14, line 460.]

[Footnote 222: "Canterbury Tales," ii., Wife of Bath's

Prologue, p. 168, lines 5610-5739.]

[Footnote 223: Ibid. p. 179, lines 5968-6072.]

[Footnote 224: "Canterbury Tales," ii., Wife of Bath's Prologue,

p. 185, lines 6177-6188.]

[Footnote 225: Ibid, prologue, II. p. 7, line 208 et passim.]

[Footnote 226: "Canterbury Tales," The Sompnoures Tale, II. p. 220,

lines 7319-7340.]

[Footnote 227: Ibid. p. 221, line 7366.]

[Footnote 228: Ibid. p. 221, line 7384.]

[Footnote 229: Ibid. p. 222, line 7389.]

[Footnote 230: "Canterbury Tales," II., The Sompnoures Tale, p. 222,

lines 7397-7429.]

[Footnote 231: Ibid. p. 223, lines 7450-7460.]

[Footnote 232: Ibid. p. 226, lines 7536-7544.]

[Footnote 233: "Canterbury Tales," II., The Sompnoures Tale, p. 226,

lines 7545-7553.]

[Footnote 234: Ibid. p. 230, lines 7685-7695.]

[Footnote 235: "Canterbury Tales," II., The Sompnoures Prologue,

p. 217, lines 7254-7279.]

[Footnote 236: See in "The Canterbury Tales" the Rhyme of Sir Topas,

a parody on the chivalric histories. Each character there seems a

precursor of Cervantes.]

[Footnote 237: Prologue to "Canterbury Tales," II. p. 3, lines 68-72.]

[Footnote 238: Prologue to "Canterbury Tales," II. p. 3, lines 79-100.]

[Footnote 239: Prologue to "Canterbury Tales," II. p. 4, lines 118-141.]

[Footnote 240: Ibid. p. 5, lines 142-150.]

[Footnote 241: Ibid. p. 5, lines 151-162.]

[Footnote 242: Tennyson, in his "Dream of Fair Women," sings:

"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."--Tr.]

[Footnote 243: Speaking of Cressida, IV. book I. p. 236, he says:

"Right as our first letter is now an a,

In beautie first so stood she makeles,

Her goodly looking gladed all the prees,

Nas never seene thing to be praised so derre,

Nor under cloude blacke so bright a sterre."]

[Footnote 244: Under Proclus and under Hegel. Duns Scotus, at the age of

thirty-one, died, leaving beside his sermons and commentaries, twelve

folio volumes, in a small close handwriting, in a style like Hegel's, on

the same subject as Proclus treats of. Similarly with Saint Thomas and the

whole train of schoolmen. No idea can be formed of such a labor before

handling the books themselves.]

[Footnote 245: Peter Lombard, "Book of Sentences." It was the classic

of the Middle Ages.]

[Footnote 246: Duns Scotus, ed. 1639.]

[Footnote 247: Utrum angelus diligat se ipsum dilectione naturali

vel electiva? Utrum in statu innocentiæ fuerit generatio per coitum?

Utrum omnes fuissent nati in sexu masculino? Utrum cognitio angeli

posset dici matutina et vespertina? Utrum martyribus aureola debeatur?

Utrum virgo Maria fuerit virgo in concipiendo? Utrum remanserit virgo post

partum? The reader may look out in the text the reply to these last two

questions. (S. Thomas, "Summa Theologica," ed. 1677.)]

[Footnote 248: The Rev. Henry Anstey, in his Introduction to

"Munimenta Academica," Lond. 1868, says that "the statement

of Richard of Armagh that there were in the thirteenth century

30,000 scholars at Oxford is almost incredible." P. XLVIII.--Tr.]

[Footnote 249: "History of English Poetry," vol. II.]

[Footnote 250: Contemporary with Chaucer. The "Confessio Amantis"

dates from 1393.]

[Footnote 251: "History of Rosiphele. Ballads."]

[Footnote 252: Warton, II. 240.]

[Footnote 253: See, for instance his description of the sun's crown,

the most poetical passage in book VII.]

[Footnote 254: 1420, 1430.]

[Footnote 255: This is the title Froissart (1397) gave to his collection

when presenting it to Richard II.]

[Footnote 256: Lebrun, 1729-1807; Esménard, 1770-1812.]

[Footnote 257: Lydgate, "The Destruction of Troy"--description of

Hector's chapel. Especially read the Pageants or Solemn Entries.]

[Footnote 258: See the Vision of Fortune, a gigantic figure. In

this painting he shows both feeling and talent.]

[Footnote 259: Lydgate, "Fall of Princes." Warton, II. 280.]

[Footnote 260: The War of the Hussites, The Hundred Years' War,

and The War of the Roses.]

[Footnote 261: About 1506. "The Temple of Glass. Passetyme of

Pleasure."]

[Footnote 262: About 1500.]

[Footnote 263: The court fool in Victor Hugo's drama of "Le Roi

s'amuse."--Tr.]

[Footnote 264: Died 1529; Poet-Laureate 1489. His "Bouge of Court,"

his "Crown of Laurel," his "Elegy on the Death of the Earl of

Northumberland," are well written, and belong to official poetry.]

BOOK II.--THE RENAISSANCE

CHAPTER FIRST

The Pagan Renaissance

_PART I.--Manners of the Time_

SECTION I.--Ideas of the Middle Ages

For seventeen centuries a deep and sad thought had weighed upon the

spirit of man, first to overwhelm it, then to exalt and to weaken it,

never losing its hold throughout this long space of time. It was the

idea of the weakness and decay of the human race. Greek corruption,

Roman oppression, and the dissolution of the ancient world, had given

rise to it; it, in its turn, had produced a stoical resignation, an

epicurean indifference, Alexandrian mysticism, and the Christian hope in

the kingdom of God. "The world is evil and lost, let us escape by

insensibility, amazement, ecstasy." Thus spoke the philosophers; and

religion, coming after, announced that the end was near; "Prepare, for

the kingdom of God is at hand." For a thousand years universal ruin

incessantly drove still deeper into their hearts this gloomy thought;

and when man in the feudal state raised himself, by sheer force of

courage and muscles, from the depths of final imbecility and general

misery, he discovered his thought and his work fettered by the crushing

idea, which, forbidding a life of nature and worldly hopes, erected into

ideals the obedience of the monk and the dreams of fanatics.

It grew ever worse and worse. For the natural result of such a

conception, as of the miseries which engender it, and the discouragement

which it gives rise to, is to do away with personal action, and to

replace originality by submission. From the fourth century, gradually

the dead letter was substituted for the living faith. Christians

resigned themselves into the hands of the clergy, they into the hands of

the pope. Christian opinions were subordinated to theologians, and

theologians to the Fathers. Christian faith was reduced to the

accomplishment of works, and works to the accomplishment of ceremonies.

Religion, fluid during the first centuries, was now congealed into a

hard crystal, and the coarse contact of the barbarians had deposited

upon its surface a layer of idolatry; theocracy and the Inquisition, the

monopoly of the clergy and the prohibition of the Scriptures, the

worship of relics and the sale of indulgences began to appear. In place

of Christianity, the church; in place of a free creed, enforced

orthodoxy; in place of moral fervor, fixed religious practices; in place

of the heart and stirring thought, outward and mechanical discipline:

such are the characteristics of the Middle Ages. Under this constraint

thinking society had ceased to think; philosophy was turned into a

text-book, and poetry into dotage; and mankind, slothful and crouching,

delivering up their conscience and their conduct into the hands of their

priests, seemed but as puppets, fit only for reciting a catechism and

mumbling over beads.[265]

At last invention makes another start; and it makes it by the efforts of

the lay society, which rejected theocracy, kept the State free, and

which presently discovered, or rediscovered, one after another, the

industries, sciences, and arts. All was renewed; America and the Indies

were added to the map of the world; the shape of the earth was

ascertained, the system of the universe propounded, modern philology was

inaugurated, the experimental sciences set on foot, art and literature

shot forth like a harvest, religion was transformed; there was no

province of human intelligence and action which was not refreshed and

fertilized by this universal effort. It was so great that it passed from

the innovators to the laggards, and reformed Catholicism in the face of

Protestantism which it formed. It seems as though men had suddenly

opened their eyes and seen. In fact, they attain a new and superior kind

of intelligence. It is the proper feature of this age that men no longer

make themselves masters of objects by bits, or isolated, or through

scholastic or mechanical classifications, but as a whole, in general and

complete views, with the eager grasp of a sympathetic spirit, which

being placed before a vast object, penetrates it in all its parts, tries

it in all its relations, appropriates and assimilates it, impresses upon

itself its living and potent image, so life-like and so powerful, that

it is fain to translate it into externals through a work of art or an

action. An extraordinary warmth of soul, a superabundant and splendid

imagination, reveries, visions, artists, believers, founders,

creators--that is what such a form of intellect produces; for to create

we must have, as had Luther and Loyola, Michel Angelo and Shakespeare,

an idea, not abstract, partial, and dry, but well defined, finished,

sensible--a true creation, which acts inwardly, and struggles to appear

to the light. This was Europe's grand age, and the most notable epoch of

human growth. To this day we live from its sap; we only carry on its

pressure and efforts.

SECTION II.--Growth of New Ideas

When human power is manifested so clearly and in such great works, it is

no wonder if the ideal changes, and the old pagan idea reappears. It

recurs, bringing with it the worship of beauty and vigor, first in

Italy; for this, of all countries in Europe, is the most pagan, and the

nearest to the ancient civilization; thence in France and Spain, and

Flanders, and even in Germany; and finally in England. How is it

propagated? What revolution of manners reunited mankind at this time,

everywhere, under a sentiment which they had forgotten for fifteen

hundred years? Merely that their condition had improved, and they felt

it. The idea ever expresses the actual situation, and the creatures of

the imagination, like the conceptions of the mind, only manifest the

state of society and the degree of its welfare; there is a fixed

connection between what man admires and what he is. While misery

overwhelms him, while the decadence is visible, and hope shut out, he is

inclined to curse his life on earth, and seek consolation in another

sphere. As soon as his sufferings are alleviated, his power made

manifest, his prospects brightened, he begins once more to love the

present life, to be self-confident, to love and praise energy, genius,

all the effective faculties which labor to procure him happiness. About

the twentieth year of Elizabeth's reign, the nobles gave up shield and

two-handed sword for the rapier;[266] a little, almost imperceptible

fact, yet vast, for it is like the change which sixty years ago made us

give up the sword at court, to leave us with our arms swinging about in

our black coats. In fact, it was the close of feudal life, and the

beginning of court life, just as today court life is at an end, and the

democratic reign has begun. With the two-handed swords, heavy coats of

mail, feudal keeps, private warfare, permanent disorder, all the

scourges of the Middle Ages retired, and faded into the past. The

English had done with the Wars of the Roses. They no longer ran the risk

of being pillaged to-morrow for being rich, and hanged the next day for

being traitors; they have no further need to furbish up their armor,

make alliances with powerful nations, lay in stores for the winter,

gather together men-at-arms, scour the country to plunder and hang

others.[267] The monarchy, in England, as throughout Europe, establishes

peace in the community,[268] and with peace appear the useful arts.

Domestic comfort follows civil security; and man, better furnished in

his home, better protected in his hamlet, takes pleasure in his life on

earth, which he has changed, and means to change.

Toward the close of the fifteenth century[269] the impetus was given;

commerce and the woolen trade made a sudden advance, and such an

enormous one that corn-fields were changed into pasture-lands, "whereby

the inhabitants of the said town (Manchester) have gotten and come into

riches and wealthy livings,"[270] so that in 1553, 40,000 pieces of

cloth were exported in English ships. It was already the England which

we see to-day, a land of green meadows, intersected by hedgerows,

crowded with cattle, and abounding in ships--a manufacturing opulent

land, with a people of beef-eating toilers, who enrich it while they

enrich themselves. They improved agriculture to such an extent that in

half a century the produce of an acre was doubled.[271] They grew so

rich that at the beginning of the reign of Charles I the Commons

represented three times the wealth of the Upper House. The ruin of

Antwerp by the Duke of Parma[272] sent to England "the third part of the

merchants and manufacturers, who made silk, damask, stockings, taffetas,

and serges." The defeat of the Armada and the decadence of Spain opened

the seas to English merchants.[273] The toiling hive, who would dare,

attempt, explore, act in unison, and always with profit, was about to

reap its advantages and set out on its voyages, buzzing over the

universe.

At the base and on the summit of society, in all ranks of life, in all

grades of human condition, this new welfare became visible. In 1534,

considering that the streets of London were "very noyous and foul, and

in many places thereof very jeopardous to all people passing and

repassing, as well on horseback as on foot," Henry VIII began the paving

of the city. New streets covered the open spaces where the young men

used to run races and to wrestle. Every year the number of taverns,

theatres, gambling-rooms, bear-gardens, increased. Before the time of

Elizabeth the country-houses of gentlemen were little more than

straw-thatched cottages, plastered with the coarsest clay, lighted only

by trellises. "Howbeit," says Harrison (1580), "such as be latelie

builded are commonlie either of bricke or hard stone, or both; their

roomes large and comelie, and houses of office further distant from

their lodgings." The old wooden houses were covered with plaster,

"which, beside the delectable whitenesse of the stuffe itselfe, is laied

on so even and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment can be done with

more exactnesse."[274] This open admiration shows from what hovels they

had escaped. Glass was at last employed for windows, and the bare walls

were covered with hangings, on which visitors might see, with delight

and astonishment, plants, animals, figures. They began to use stoves,

and experienced the unwonted pleasure of being warm. Harrison notes

three important changes which had taken place in the farm-houses of his

time:

"One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected, whereas in their

yoong daies there were not above two or three, if so manie, in most

uplandishe townes of the realme.... The second is the great (although

not generall), amendment of lodging, for our fathers (yea and we

ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats

covered onelie with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain, or

hop-harlots, and a good round log under their heads, insteed of a

bolster or pillow. If it were so that the good man of the house, had

within seven yeares after his marriage purchased a matteres or

flockebed, and thereto a sacke of chaffe to rest his head upon, he

thought himselfe to be as well lodged as the lord of the towne....

Pillowes (said they) were thought meet onelie for women in childbed....

The third thing is the exchange of vessell, as of treene platters into

pewter, and wodden spoones into silver or tin; for so common was all

sorts of treene stuff in old time, that a man should hardlie find four

peeces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good

farmers house."[275]

It is not possession, but acquisition, which gives men pleasure and

sense of power; they observe sooner a small happiness, new to them, than

a great happiness which is old. It is not when all is good, but when all

is better, that they see the bright side of life, and are tempted to

make a holiday of it. This is why at this period they did make a holiday

of it, a splendid show, so like a picture that it fostered painting in

Italy, so like a piece of acting that it produced the drama in England.

Now that the axe and sword of the civil wars had beaten down the

independent nobility, and the abolition of the law of maintenance had

destroyed the petty royalty of each great feudal baron, the lords

quitted their sombre castles, battlemented fortresses, surrounded by

stagnant water, pierced with narrow windows, a sort of stone

breastplates of no use but to preserve the life of their master. They

flock into new palaces with vaulted roofs and turrets, covered with

fantastic and manifold ornaments, adorned with terraces and vast

staircases, with gardens, fountains, statues, such as were the palaces

of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, half Gothic and half Italian,[276] whose

convenience, splendor, and symmetry announced already habits of society,

and the taste for pleasure. They came to court and abandoned their old

manners; the four meals which scarcely sufficed their former voracity

were reduced to two; gentlemen soon became refined, placing their glory

in the elegance and singularity of their amusements and their clothes.

They dressed magnificently in splendid materials, with the luxury of men

who rustle silk and make gold sparkle for the first time: doublets of

scarlet satin; cloaks of sable, costing a thousand ducats; velvet shoes,

embroidered with gold and silver, covered with rosettes and ribbons;

boots with falling tops, from whence hung a cloud of lace, embroidered

with figures of birds, animals, constellations, flowers in silver, gold,

or precious stones; ornamented shirts costing ten pounds a piece. "It is

a common thing to put a thousand goats and a hundred oxen on a coat, and

to carry a whole manor on one's back."[277] The costumes of the time

were shrines. When Elizabeth died, they found three thousand dresses in

her wardrobe. Need we speak of the monstrous ruffs of the ladies, their

puffed-out dresses, their stomachers stiff with diamonds? Asa singular

sign of the times, the men were more changeable and more bedecked than

they. Harrison says:

"Such is our mutabilitie, that to daie there is none to the Spanish

guise, to morrow the French toies are most fine and delectable, yer long

no such apparell as that which is after the high Alman fashion, by and

by the Turkish maner is generallie best liked of, otherwise the Morisco

gowns, the Barbarian sleeves... and the short French breeches.... And

as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the

costlinesse and the curiositie; the excesse and the vanitie; the pompe

and the braverie; the change and the varietie; and finallie, the

ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees."[278]

Folly, it may have been, but poetry likewise. There was something more

than puppyism in this masquerade of splendid costume. The overflow of

inner sentiment found this issue, as also in drama and poetry. It was an

artistic spirit which induced it. There was an incredible outgrowth of

living forms from their brains. They acted like their engravers, who

give us in their frontispieces a prodigality of fruits, flowers, active

figures, animals, gods, and pour out and confuse the whole treasure of

nature in every corner of their paper. They must enjoy the beautiful;

they would be happy through their eyes; they perceive in consequence

naturally the relief and energy of forms. From the accession of Henry

VIII to the death of James I we find nothing but tournaments,

processions, public entries, masquerades. First come the royal banquets,

coronation displays, large and noisy pleasures of Henry VIII. Wolsey

entertains him

"In so gorgeous a sort and costlie maner, that it was an heaven to

behold. There wanted no dames or damosels meet or apt to danse with the

maskers, or to garnish the place for the time: then was there all kind

of musike and harmonie, with fine voices both of men and children. On a

time the king came suddenlie thither in a maske with a dozen maskers all

in garments like sheepheards, made of fine cloth of gold, and crimosin

sattin paned,... having sixteene torch-bearers.... In came a new banket

before the king wherein were served two hundred diverse dishes, of

costlie devises and subtilities. Thus passed they foorth the night with

banketting, dansing, and other triumphs, to the great comfort of the

king, and pleasant regard of the nobilitie there assembled."[279]

Count, if you can, the mythological entertainments, the theatrical

receptions, the open-air operas played before Elizabeth, James, and

their great lords.[280] At Kenilworth the pageants lasted ten days.

There was everything; learned recreations, novelties, popular plays,

sanguinary spectacles, coarse farces, juggling and feats of skill,

allegories, mythologies, chivalric exhibitions, rustic and national

commemorations. At the same time, in this universal outburst and sudden

expanse, men become interested in themselves, find their life desirable,

worthy of being represented and put on the stage complete; they play

with it, delight in looking upon it, love its ups and downs, and make of

it a work of art. The queen is received by a sibyl, then by giants of

the time of Arthur, then by the Lady of the Lake, Sylvanus, Pomona,

Ceres, and Bacchus, every divinity in turn presents her with the

first-fruits of his empire. Next day, a savage, dressed in moss and ivy,

discourses before her with Echo in her praise. Thirteen bears are set

fighting against dogs. An Italian acrobat performs wonderful feats

before the whole assembly. A rustic marriage takes place before the

queen, then a sort of comic fight amongst the peasants of Coventry, who

represent the defeat of the Danes. As she is returning from the chase,

Triton, rising from the lake, prays her, in the name of Neptune, to

deliver the enchanted lady, pursued by a cruel knight, Syr Bruse sauns

Pitee. Presently the lady appears, surrounded by nymphs, followed close

by Proteus, who is borne by an enormous dolphin. Concealed in the

dolphin, a band of musicians with a chorus of ocean-deities, sing the

praise of the powerful, beautiful, chaste queen of England.[281] You

perceive that comedy is not confined to the theatre; the great of the

realm and the queen herself become actors. The cravings of the

imagination are so keen that the court becomes a stage. Under James I,

every year, on Twelfth-day, the queen, the chief ladies and nobles,

played a piece called a Masque, a sort of allegory combined with dances,

heightened in effect by decorations and costumes of great splendor, of

which the mythological paintings of Rubens can alone give an idea:

"The attire of the lords was from the antique Greek statues. On their

heads they wore Persic crowns, that were with scrolls of gold plate

turned outward, and wreathed about with a carnation and silver net-lawn.

Their bodies were of carnation cloth of silver; to express the naked, in

manner of the Greek thorax, girt under the breasts with a broad belt of

cloth of gold, fastened with jewels; the mantles were of coloured silke;

the first, sky-colour; the second, pearl-colour; the third, flame

colour; the fourth, tawny. The ladies attire was of white cloth of

silver, wrought with Juno's birds and fruits; a loose under garment,

full gathered, of carnation, striped with silver, and parted with a

golden zone; beneath that, another flowing garment, of watchet cloth of

silver, laced with gold; their hair carelessly bound under the circle of

a rare and rich coronet, adorned with all variety, and choice of jewels;

from the top of which flowed a transparent veil, down to the ground.

Their shoes were azure and gold, set with rubies and diamonds."[282]

I abridge the description, which is like a fairy tale. Fancy that all

these costumes, this glitter of materials, this sparkling of diamonds,

this splendor of nudities, was displayed daily at the marriage of the

great, to the bold sounds of a pagan epithalamium. Think of the feasts

which the Earl of Carlisle introduced, where was served first of all a

table loaded with sumptuous viands, as high as a man could reach, in

order to remove it presently, and replace it by another similar table.

This prodigality of magnificence, these costly follies, this unbridling

of the imagination, this intoxication of eye and ear, this comedy played

by the lords of the realm, like the pictures of Rubens, Jordaens, and

their Flemish contemporaries, so open an appeal to the senses, so

complete a return to nature, that our chilled and gloomy age is scarcely

able to imagine it.[283]

SECTION III.--Popular Festivals

To vent the feelings, to satisfy the heart and eyes, to set free boldly

on all the roads of existence the pack of appetites and instincts, this

was the craving which the manners of the time betrayed. It was "merry

England," as they called it then. It was not yet stern and constrained.

It expanded widely, freely, and rejoiced to find itself so expanded. No

longer at court only was the drama found, but in the village. Strolling

companies betook themselves thither, and the country folk supplied any

deficiencies, when necessary. Shakespeare saw, before he depicted them,

stupid fellows, carpenters, joiners, bellows-menders, play Pyramus and

Thisbe, represent the lion roaring as gently as any sucking dove, and

the wall, by stretching out their hands. Every holiday was a pageant, in

which townspeople, workmen, and children bore their parts. They were

actors by nature. When the soul is full and fresh, it does not express

its ideas by reasonings; it plays and figures them; it mimics them; that

is the true and original language, the children's tongue, the speech of

artists, of invention, and of joy. It is in this manner they please

themselves with songs and feasting, on all the symbolic holidays with

which tradition has filled the year.[284] On the Sunday after

Twelfth-night the laborers parade the streets, with their shirts over

their coats, decked with ribbons, dragging a plough to the sound of

music, and dancing a sword-dance; on another day they draw in a cart a

figure made of ears of corn, with songs, flutes, and drums; on another,

Father Christmas and his company; or else they enact the history of

Robin Hood, the bold archer, around the May-pole, or the legend of Saint

George and the Dragon. We might occupy half a volume in describing all

these holidays, such as Harvest Home, All Saints, Martinmas,

Sheepshearing, above all Christmas, which lasted twelve days, and

sometimes six weeks. They eat and drink, junket, tumble about, kiss the

girls, ring the bells, satiate themselves with noise: coarse drunken

revels, in which man is an unbridled animal, and which are the

incarnation of natural life. The Puritans made no mistake about that.

Stubbes says:

"First, all the wilde heades of the parishe, conventying together, chuse

them a ground capitaine of mischeef, whan they innoble with the title of

my Lorde of Misserule, and hym they crown with great solemnitie, and

adopt for their kyng. This kyng anoynted, chuseth for the twentie,

fourtie, three score, or a hundred lustie guttes like to hymself to

waite uppon his lordely maiestie.... Then have they their hobbie horses,

dragons, and other antiques, together with their baudie pipers and

thunderyng drommers, to strike up the devilles daunce withall: then

marche these heathen companie towardes the churche and churche-yarde,

their pipers pipyng, their drommers thonderyng, their stumppes dauncyng,

their belles rynglyng, their handkerchefes swyngyng about their heads

like madmen, their hobbie horses and other monsters skirmishyng amongest

the throng; and in this sorte they goe to the churche (though the

minister be at praier or preachyng), dauncyng, and swingyng their

handkercheefes over their heades, in the churche, like devilles

incarnate, with such a confused noise, that no man can heare his owne

voice. Then the foolishe people they looke, they stare, they laugh, they

fleere, and mount upon formes and pewes, to see these goodly pageauntes,

solemnized in this sort. Then after this, aboute the churche they goe

againe and againe, and so forthe into the churche-yarde, where they have

commonly their sommer haules, their bowers, arbours, and banquettyng

houses set up, wherein they feaste, banquet, and daunce all that daie,

and peradventure all that night too. And thus these terrestriall furies

spend the Sabbaoth daie!... An other sorte of fantasticall fooles bringe

to these helhoundes (the Lorde of Misrule and his complices) some bread,

some good ale, some newe cheese, some olde cheese, some custardes, some

cakes, some flaunes, some tartes, some creame, some meate, some one

thing, some an other."

He continues thus:

"Against Maie, every parishe, towne and village essemble themselves

together, bothe men, women, and children, olde and yong, even all

indifferently; they goe to the woodes where they spende all the night in

pleasant pastymes, and in the mornyng they returne, bringing with them

birch, bowes, and branches of trees, to deck their assemblies with-all.

But their cheefest iewell they bringe from thence is their Maie poole,

whiche they bring home with great veneration, as thus: They have twenty

or fourtie yoke of oxen, every ox havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers

tyed on the tippe of his homes, and these oxen, drawe home this Maie

poole (this stinckyng idoll rather)... and thus beyng reared up, they

strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up sommer

haules, bowers, and arbours hard by it; and then fall they to banquet

and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the heathen people did at

the dedication of their idolles.... Of a hundred maides goyng to the

woode over night, there have scarcely the third parte returned home

againe undefiled."[285]

"On Shrove Tuesday," says another,[286] "at the sound of a bell, the

folk become insane, thousands at a time, and forget all decency and

common-sense.... It is to Satan and the devil that they pay homage and

do sacrifice to in these abominable pleasures." It is in fact to nature,

to the ancient Pan, to Freya, to Hertha, her sisters, to the old

Teutonic deities who survived the Middle Ages. At this period, in the

temporary decay of Christianity, and the sudden advance of corporal

well-being, man adored himself, and there endured no life within him but

that of paganism.

SECTION IV.--Influence of Classic Literature

To sum up, observe the process of ideas at this time. A few sectarians,

chiefly in the towns and of the people, clung gloomily to the Bible. But

the court and the men of the world sought their teachers and their

heroes from pagan Greece and Rome. About 1490[287] they began to read

the classics; one after the other they translated them; it was soon the

fashion to read them in the original. Queen Elizabeth, Jane Grey, the

Duchess of Norfolk, the Countess of Arundel, and many other ladies, were

conversant with Plato, Xenophon, and Cicero in the original, and

appreciated them. Gradually, by an insensible change, men were raised to

the level of the great and healthy minds who had freely handled ideas of

all kinds fifteen centuries before. They comprehended not only their

language, but their thought; they did not repeat lessons from, but held

conversations with them; they were their equals, and found in them

intellects as manly as their own. For they were not scholastic

cavillers, miserable compilers, repulsive pedants, like the professors

of jargon whom the Middle Ages had set over them, like gloomy Duns

Scotus, whose leaves Henry VII's visitors scattered to the winds. They

were gentlemen, statesmen, the most polished and best educated men in

the world, who knew how to speak, and draw their ideas, not from books,

but from things, living ideas, and which entered of themselves into

living souls. Across the train of hooded schoolmen and sordid cavillers

the two adult and thinking ages were united, and the moderns, silencing

the infantine or snuffling voices of the Middle Ages, condescended only

to converse with the noble ancients. They accepted their gods, at least

they understand them, and keep them by their side. In poems, festivals,

on hangings, almost in all ceremonies, they appear, not restored by

pedantry merely, but kept alive by sympathy, and endowed by the arts

with a life as flourishing and almost as profound as that of their

earliest birth. After the terrible night of the Middle Ages, and the

dolorous legends of spirits and the damned, it was a delight to see

again Olympus shining upon us from Greece; its heroic and beautiful

deities once more ravishing the heart of men; they raised and instructed

this young world by speaking to it the language of passion and genius;

and this age of strong deeds, free sensuality, bold invention, had only

to follow its own bent, in order to discover in them its masters and the

eternal promoters of liberty and beauty.

Nearer still was another paganism, that of Italy; the more seductive

because more modern, and because it circulates fresh sap in an ancient

stock; the more attractive, because more sensuous and present, with its

worship of force and genius, of pleasure and voluptuousness. The

rigorists knew this well, and were shocked at it. Ascham writes:

"These bee the inchantementes of Circes, brought out of Italie to marre

mens maners in England; much, by example of ill life, but more by

preceptes of fonde bookes, of late translated out of Italian into

English, sold in every shop in London.... There bee moe of these

ungratious bookes set out in Printe wythin these fewe monethes, than

have bene sene in England many score yeares before.... Than they have in

more reverence the triumphes of Petrarche: than the Genesis of Moses:

They make more account of Tullies offices, than S. Paules epistles: of a

tale in Bocace than a storie of the Bible."[288]

In fact, at that time Italy clearly led in everything, and civilization

was to be drawn thence, as from its spring. What is this civilization

which is thus imposed on the whole of Europe, whence every science and

every elegance comes, whose laws are obeyed in every court, in which

Surrey, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare sought their models and their

materials? It was pagan in its elements and its birth; in its language,

which is but Latin, hardly changed; in its Latin traditions and

recollections, which no gap has interrupted; in its constitution, whose

old municipal life first led and absorbed the feudal life; in the genius

of its race, in which energy and joy always abounded. More than a

century before other nations--from the time of Petrarch, Rienzi,

Boccaccio--the Italians began to recover the lost antiquity, to set free

the manuscripts buried in the dungeons of France and Germany, to

restore, interpret, comment upon, study the ancients, to make themselves

Latin in heart and mind, to compose in prose and verse with the polish

of Cicero and Vergil, to hold sprightly converse and intellectual

pleasures as the ornament and the fairest flower of life.[289] They

adopt not merely the externals of the life of the ancients, but its very

essence; that is, preoccupation with the present life, forgetfulness of

the future, the appeal to the senses, the renunciation of Christianity.

"We must enjoy," sang their first poet, Lorenzo de Medici, in his

pastorals and triumphal songs: "there is no certainty of tomorrow." In

Pulci the mocking incredulity breaks out, the bold and sensual gayety,

all the audacity of the free-thinkers, who kicked aside in disgust the

worn-out monkish frock of the Middle Ages. It was he who, in a jesting

poem, puts at the beginning of each canto a Hosanna, an _In principio_,

or a sacred text from the mass-book.[290] When he had been inquiring

what the soul was, and how it entered the body, he compared it to jam

covered up in white bread quite hot. What would become of it in the

other world? "Some people think they will there discover becafico's,

plucked ortolans, excellent wine, good beds, and therefore they follow

the monks, walking behind them. As for us, dear friend, we shall go into

the black valley, where we shall hear no more Alleluias." If you wish

for a more serious thinker, listen to the great patriot, the Thucydides

of the age, Machiavelli, who, contrasting Christianity and paganism,

says that the first places "supreme happiness in humility, abjection,

contempt for human things, while the other makes the sovereign good

consist in greatness of soul, force of body, and all the qualities which

make men to be feared." Whereon he boldly concludes that Christianity

teaches man "to support evils, and not to do great deeds"; he discovers

in that inner weakness the cause of all oppressions; declares that "the

wicked saw that they could tyrannize without fear over men, who, in

order to get to paradise, were more disposed to suffer than to avenge

injuries." Through such sayings, in spite of his constrained

genuflexions, we can see which religion he prefers. The ideal to which

all efforts were turning, on which all thoughts depended, and which

completely raised this civilization, was the strong and happy man,

possessing all the powers to accomplish his wishes, and disposed to use

them in pursuit of his happiness.

If you would see this idea in its grandest operation, you must seek it

in the arts, such as Italy made them and carried throughout Europe,

raising or transforming the national schools with such originality and

vigor that all art likely to survive is derived from hence, and the

population of living figures with which they have covered our walls

denotes, like Gothic architecture of French tragedy, a unique epoch of

human intelligence. The attenuated mediæval Christ--a miserable,

distorted, and bleeding earth-worm; the pale and ugly Virgin--a poor old

peasant woman, fainting beside the cross of her Son; ghastly martyrs,

dried up with fasts, with entranced eyes; knotty-fingered saints with

sunken chests--all the touching or lamentable visions of the Middle Ages

have vanished: the train of godheads which are now developed show

nothing but flourishing frames, noble, regular features, and fine, easy

gestures; the names, the names only, are Christian. The new Jesus is a

"crucified Jupiter," as Pulci called him; the Virgins which Raphael

sketched naked, before covering them with garments,[291] are beautiful

girls, quite earthly, related to the Fornarina. The saints which Michel

Angelo arranges and contorts in heaven in his picture of the Last

Judgment are an assembly of athletes, capable of fighting well and

daring much. A martyrdom, like that of Saint Laurence, is a fine

ceremony in which a beautiful young man, without clothing, lies amidst

fifty men dressed and grouped as in an ancient gymnasium. Is there one

of them who had macerated himself? Is there one who had thought with

anguish and tears of the judgment of God, who had worn down and subdued

his flesh, who had filled his heart with the sadness and sweetness of

the gospel? They are too vigorous for that; they are in too robust

health; their clothes fit them too well; they are too ready for prompt

and energetic action. We might make of them strong soldiers or superb

courtesans, admirable in a pageant or at a ball. So, all that the

spectator accords to their halo of glory is a bow or a sign of the

cross; after which his eyes find pleasure in them; they are there simply

for the enjoyment of the eyes. What the spectator feels at the sight of

a Florentine Madonna is the splendid creature, whose powerful body and

fine growth bespeak her race and her vigor; the artist did not paint

moral expression as nowadays, the depth of a soul tortured and refined

by three centuries of culture. They confine themselves to the body, to

the extent even of speaking enthusiastically of the spinal column

itself, "which is magnificent"; of the shoulder-blades, which in the

movements of the arm "produce an admirable effect. You will next draw

the bone which it situated between the hips. It is very fine, and is

called the sacrum."[292] The important point with them is to represent

the nude well. Beauty with them is that of the complete skeleton, sinews

which are linked together and tightened, the thighs which support the

trunk, the strong chest breathing freely, the pliant neck. What a

pleasure to be naked! How good it is in the full light to rejoice in a

strong body, well-formed muscles, a spirited and bold soul! The splendid

goddesses reappear in their primitive nudity, not dreaming that they are

nude; you see from the tranquillity of their look, the simplicity of

their expression, that they have always been thus, and that shame has

not yet reached them. The soul's life is not here contrasted, as amongst

us, with the body's life; the one is not so lowered and degraded that we

dare not show its actions and functions; they do not hide them; man does

not dream of being all spirit. They rise, as of old, from the luminous

sea, with their rearing steeds tossing up their manes, champing the bit,

inhaling the briny savor, whilst their companions wind the

sounding-shell; and the spectators,[293] accustomed to handle the sword,

to combat naked with the dagger or double-handled blade, to ride on

perilous roads, sympathize with the proud shape of the bended back, the

effort of the arm about to strike, the long quiver of the muscles which,

from neck to heel, swell out, to brace a man, or to throw him.

_PART II.--Poetry_

SECTION I.--Renaissance of Saxon Genius

Transplanted into different races and climates, this paganism receives

from each, distinct features and a distinct character. In England it

becomes English; the English Renaissance is the Renaissance of the Saxon

genius. Invention recommences; and to invent is to express one's genius.

A Latin race can only invent by expressing Latin ideas; a Saxon race by

expressing Saxon ideas; and we shall find in the new civilization and

poetry, descendants of Caedmon and Adhelm, of Piers Plowman, and Robin

Hood.

SECTION II.--The Earl of Surrey

Old Puttenham says:

"In the latter end of the same king (Henry the eighth) reigne, sprong up

a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyat th' elder and

Henry Earle of Surrey were the two chieftaines, who having travailed

into Italie, and there tasted the sweete and stately measures and stile

of the Italian Poesie, as novices newly crept out of the schooles of

Dante, Arioste, and Petrarch, they greatly pollished our rude and homely

maner of vulgar Poesie, from that it had bene before, and for that cause

may justly be sayd the first reformers of our English meetre and

stile."[294]

Not that their style was very original, or openly exhibits the new

spirit: the Middle Ages is nearly ended, but not quite. By their side

Andrew Borde, John Bale, John Heywood, Skelton himself, repeat the

platitudes of the old poetry and the coarseness of the old style. Their

manners, hardly refined, were still half feudal; on the field, before

Landrecies, the English commander wrote a friendly letter to the French

governor of Térouanne, to ask him "if he had not some gentlemen

disposed to break a lance in honor of the ladies," and promised to send

six champions to meet them. Parades, combats, wounds, challenges, love,

appeals to the judgment of God, penances--all these are found in the

life of Surrey as in a chivalric romance. A great lord, an earl, a

relative of the king, who had figured in processions and ceremonies, had

made war, commanded fortresses, ravaged countries, mounted to the

assault, fallen in the breach, had been saved by his servant,

magnificent, sumptuous, irritable, ambitious, four times imprisoned,

finally beheaded. At the coronation of Anne Boleyn he wore the fourth

sword; at the marriage of Anne of Cleves he was one of the challengers

at the jousts. Denounced and placed in durance, he offered to fight in

his shirt against an armed adversary. Another time he was put in prison

for having eaten flesh in Lent. No wonder if this prolongation of

chivalric manners brought with it a prolongation of chivalric poetry; if

in an age which had known Petrarch, poets displayed the sentiments of

Petrarch. Lord Berners, Sackville, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and Surrey in the

first rank, were like Petrarch, plaintive and platonic lovers. It was

pure love to which Surrey gave expression; for his lady, the beautiful

Geraldine, like Beatrice and Laura, was an ideal personage, and a child

of thirteen years.

And yet, amid this languor of mystical tradition, a personal feeling had

sway. In this spirit which imitated, and that badly at times, which

still groped for an outlet and now and then admitted into its polished

stanzas the old, simple expressions and stale metaphors of heralds of

arms and _trouvères_, there was already visible the Northern

melancholy, the inner and gloomy emotion. This feature, which presently,

at the finest moment of its richest blossom, in the splendid

expansiveness of natural life, spreads a sombre tint over the poetry of

Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, already in the first poet separates this

pagan yet Teutonic world from the other, wholly voluptuous, which in

Italy, with lively and refined irony, had no taste, except for art and

pleasure. Surrey translated the Ecclesiastes into verse. Is it not

singular, at this early hour, in this rising dawn, to find such a book

in his hand? A disenchantment, a sad or bitter dreaminess, an innate

consciousness of the vanity of human things, are never lacking in this

country and in this race; the inhabitants support life with difficulty,

and know how to speak of death. Surrey's finest verses bear witness thus

soon to his serious bent, this instinctive and grave philosophy. He

records his griefs, regretting his beloved Wyatt, his friend Clère, his

companion the young Duke of Richmond, all dead in their prime. Alone, a

prisoner at Windsor, he recalls the happy days they have passed

together:

"So cruel prison how could betide, alas,

As proud Windsor, where I in lust and joy,

With a Kinges son, my childish years did pass,

In greater feast than Priam's son of Troy.

"Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour,

The large green courts, where we were wont to hove,

With eyes cast up into the Maiden's tower,

And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love.

"The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue,

The dances short, long tales of great delight,

With words and looks, that tigers could but rue;

Where each of us did plead the other's right.

"The palme-play, where, despoiled for the game,

With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love

Have miss'd the ball, and got sight of our dame,

To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above....

"The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust;

The wanton talk, the divers change of play;

The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just,

Wherewith we past the winter night away.

"And with his thought the blood forsakes the face;

The tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue:

The which, as soon as sobbing sighs, alas!

Up-supped have, thus I my plaint renew:

"O place of bliss! renewer of my woes!

Give me account, where is my noble fere?

Whom in thy walls thou dost each night enclose;

To other lief; but unto me most dear.

"Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue,

Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint."[295]

So in love, it is the sinking of a weary soul, to which he gives vent:

"For all things having life, sometime hath quiet rest;

The bearing ass, the drawing ox, and every other beast;

The peasant, and the post, that serves at all assays;

The ship-boy, and the galley-slave, have time to take their ease;

Save I, alas! whom care of force doth so constrain,

To wail the day, and wake the night, continually in pain,

From pensiveness to plaint, from plaint to bitter tears,

From tears to painful plaint again; and thus my life it wears."[296]

That which brings joy to others brings him grief:

"The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale.

The nightingale with feathers new she sings;

The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.

Summer is come, for every spray now springs;

The hart has hung his old head on the pale;

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;

The fishes flete with new repaired scale;

The adder all her slough away she slings;

The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;

The busy bee her honey now she mings;

Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.

And thus I see among these pleasant things

Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!"[297]

For all that, he will love on to his last sigh:

"Yea, rather die a thousand times, than once to false my faith;

And if my feeble corpse, through weight of woful smart

Do fail, or faint, my will it is that still she keep my heart.

And when this carcass here to earth shall be refar'd,

I do bequeath my wearied ghost to serve her afterward."[298]

An infinite love, and pure as Petrarch's; and she is worthy of it. In

the midst of all these studied or imitated verses, an admirable portrait

stands out, the simplest and truest we can imagine, a work of the heart

now, and not of the memory, which behind the Madonna of chivalry shows

the English wife, and beyond feudal gallantry domestic bliss. Surrey

alone, restless, hears within him the firm tones of a good friend, a

sincere counsellor, Hope, who speaks to him thus:

"For I assure thee, even by oath,

And thereon take my hand and troth,

That she is one of the worthiest,

The truest, and the faithfullest;

The gentlest and the meekest of mind

That here on earth a man may find:

And if that love and truth were gone,

In her it might be found alone.

For in her mind no thought there is,

But how she may be true, I wis;

And tenders thee and all thy heale,

And wishes both thy health and weal;

And loves thee even as far forth than

As any woman may a man;

And is thine own, and so she says;

And cares for thee ten thousand ways.

Of thee she speaks, on thee she thinks;

With thee she eats, with thee she drinks;

With thee she talks, with thee she moans;

With thee she sighs, with thee she groans;

With thee she says 'Farewell mine own!'

When thou, God knows, full far art gone.

And even, to tell thee all aright,

To thee she says full oft 'Good night!'

And names thee oft her own most dear,

Her comfort, weal, and all her cheer;

And tells her pillow all the tale

How thou hast done her woe and bale;

And how she longs, and plains for thee,

And says, 'Why art thou so from me?'

Am I not she that loves thee best!

Do I not wish thine ease and rest?

Seek I not how I may thee please?

Why art thou then so from thine ease?

If I be she for whom thou carest,

For whom in torments so thou farest,

Alas! thou knowest to find me here,

Where I remain thine own most dear.

Thine own most true, thine own most just,

Thine own that loves thee still, and must;

Thine own that cares alone for thee,

As thou, I think, dost care for me;

And even the woman, she alone,

That is full bent to be thine own."[299]

Certainly it is of his wife[300] that he is thinking here, not of an

imaginary Laura. The poetic dream of Petrarch has become the exact

picture of deep and perfect conjugal affection, such as yet survives in

England; such as all the poets, from the authoress of the "Nutbrown

Maid" to Dickens,[301] have never failed to represent.

SECTION III.--Surrey's Style

An English Petrarch: no juster title could be given to Surrey, for it

expresses his talent as well as his disposition. In fact, like Petrarch,

the oldest of the humanists, and the earliest exact writer of the modern

tongue, Surrey introduces a new style, the manly style, which marks a

great change of the mind; for this new form of writing is the result of

superior reflection, which, governing the primitive impulse, calculates

and selects with an end in view. At last the intellect has grown capable

of self-criticism, and actually criticises itself. It corrects its

unconsidered works, infantine and incoherent, at once incomplete and

superabundant; it strengthens and binds them together; it prunes and

perfects them; it takes from them the master idea, to set it free and to

show it clearly. This is what Surrey does, and his education had

prepared him for it; for he had studied Vergil as well as Petrarch, and

translated two books of the Æneid, almost verse for verse. In such

company a man cannot but select his ideas and connect his phrases. After

their example, Surrey gauges the means of striking the attention,

assisting the intelligence, avoiding fatigue and weariness. He looks

forward to the last line whilst writing the first. He keeps the

strongest word for the last, and shows the symmetry of ideas by the

symmetry of phrases. Sometimes he guides the intelligence by a

continuous series of contrasts to the final image; a kind of sparkling

casket, in which he means to deposit the idea which he carries, and to

which he directs our attention from the first.[302] Sometimes he leads

his reader to the close of a long flowery description, and then suddenly

checks him with a sorrowful phrase.[303] He arranges his process, and

knows how to produce effects; he uses even classical expressions, in

which two substantives, each supported by its adjective, are balanced on

either side of the verb.[304] He collects his phrases in harmonious

periods, and does not neglect the delight of the ears any more than of

the mind. By his inversions he adds force to his ideas, and weight to

his argument. He selects elegant or noble terms, rejects idle words and

redundant phrases. Every epithet contains an idea, every metaphor a

sentiment. There is eloquence in the regular development of his thought;

music in the sustained accent of his verse.

Such is the new-born art. Those who have ideas, now possess an

instrument capable of expressing them. Like the Italian painters, who in

fifty years had introduced or discovered all the technical tricks of the

brush, English writers, in half a century, introduce or discover all the

artifices of language, period, elevated style, heroic verse, soon the

grand stanza, so effectually, that a little later the most perfect

versifiers, Dryden, and Pope himself, says Dr. Nott, will add scarce

anything to the rules, invented or applied, which were employed in the

earliest efforts.[305] Even Surrey is too near to these authors, too

constrained in his models, not sufficiently free; he has not yet felt

the fiery blast of the age; we do not find in him a bold genius, an

impassioned writer capable of wide expansion, but a courtier, a lover of

elegance, who, penetrated by the beauties of two finished literatures,

imitates Horace and the chosen masters of Italy, corrects and polishes

little morsels, aims at speaking perfectly fine language. Amongst

semi-barbarians he wears a full dress becomingly. Yet he does not wear

it completely at his ease: he keeps his eyes too exclusively on his

models, and does not venture on frank and free gestures. He is sometimes

as a school-boy, makes too great use of "hot" and "cold," wounds and

martyrdom. Although a lover, and a genuine one, he thinks too much that

he must be so in Petrarch's manner, that his phrase must be balanced and

his image kept up. I had almost said that, in his sonnets of

disappointed love, he thinks less often of the strength of love than of

the beauty of his writing. He has conceits, ill-chosen words; he uses

trite expressions; he relates how Nature, having formed his lady, broke

the mould, he assigns parts to Cupid and Venus; he employs the old

machinery of the troubadours and the ancients, like a clever man who

wishes to pass for a gallant. At first scarce any mind dares be quite

itself: when a new art arises, the first artist listens not to his

heart, but to his masters, and asks himself at every step whether he be

setting foot on solid ground, or whether he is not stumbling.

SECTION IV.--Development of Artistic Ideas

Insensibly the growth became complete, and at the end of the century all

was changed. A new, strange, overloaded style had been formed, destined

to remain in force until the Restoration, not only in poetry, but also

in prose, even in ceremonial speech and theological discourse,[306] so

suitable to the spirit of the age that we meet with it at the same time

throughout the world of Europe, in Ronsard and d'Aubigné, in Calderon,

Gongora, and Marini. In 1580 appeared "Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit," by

Lyly, which was its text-book, its masterpiece, its caricature, and was

received with universal admiration.[307] "Our nation," says Edward

Blount, "are in his debt for a new English which hee taught them. All

our ladies were then his scollers; and that beautie in court who could

not parley Euphuesme was as little regarded as shee which now there

speakes not French." The ladies knew the phrases of Euphues by heart:

strange, studied, and refined phrases, enigmatical; whose author seems

of set purpose to seek the least natural expressions and the most

farfetched, full of exaggeration and antithesis, in which mythological

allusions, reminiscences from alchemy, botanical and astronomical

metaphors, all the rubbish and medley of learning, travels, mannerism,

roll in a flood of conceits and comparisons. Do not judge it by the

grotesque picture that Walter Scott drew of it. Sir Piercie Shafton is

but a pedant, a cold and dull copyist; it is its warmth and originality

which give this style a true force and an accent of its own. You must

conceive it, not as dead and inert, such as we have it to-day in old

books, but springing from the lips of ladies and young lords in

pearl-bedecked doublet, quickened by their vibrating voices, their

laughter, the flash of their eyes, the motion of their hands as they

played with the hilt of their swords or with their satin cloaks. They

were full of life, their heads filled to overflowing; and they amused

themselves, as our sensitive and eager artists do, at their ease in the

studio. They did not speak to convince or be understood, but to satisfy

their excited imagination, to expend their overflowing wit.[308] They

played with words, twisted, put them out of shape, enjoyed sudden views,

strong contrasts, which they produced one after another, ever and anon,

and in great quantities. They cast flower on flower, tinsel on tinsel:

everything sparkling delighted them; they gilded and embroidered and

plumed their language like their garments. They cared nothing for

clearness, order, common-sense; it was a festival of madness; absurdity

pleased them. They knew nothing more tempting than a carnival of

splendors and oddities; all was huddled together: a coarse gayety, a

tender and sad word, a pastoral, a sounding flourish of unmeasured

boasting, a gambol of a Jack-pudding. Eyes, ears, all the senses, eager

and excited, are satisfied by this jingle of syllables, the display of

fine high-colored words, the unexpected clash of droll or familiar

images, the majestic roll of well-poised periods. Every one had his own

oaths, his elegances, his style. "One would say," remarks Heylyn, "that

they are ashamed of their mother-tongue, and do not find it sufficiently

varied to express the whims of their mind." We no longer imagine this

inventiveness, this boldness of fancy, this ceaseless fertility of

nervous sensibility: there was no genuine prose at that time; the poetic

flood swallowed it up. A word was not an exact symbol, as with us; a

document which from cabinet to cabinet carried a precise thought. It was

part of a complete action, a little drama; when they read it they did

not take it by itself, but imagined it with the intonation of a hissing

and shrill voice, with the puckering of the lips, the knitting of the

brows, and the succession of pictures which crowd behind it, and which

it calls forth in a flash of lightning. Each one mimics and pronounces

it in his own style, and impresses his own soul upon it. It was a song,

which like the poet's verse, contains a thousand things besides the

literal sense, and manifests the depth, warmth, and sparkling of the

source whence it flowed. For in that time, even when the man was feeble,

his work lived; there is some pulse in the least productions of this

age; force and creative fire signalize it; they penetrate through

bombast and affectation. Lyly himself, so fantastic that he seems to

write purposely in defiance of common-sense, is at times a genuine poet;

a singer, a man capable of rapture, akin to Spenser and Shakespeare; one

of those introspective dreamers who see dancing fairies, the purpled

cheeks of goddesses, drunken, amorous woods, as he says

"Adorned with the presence of my love,

The woods I fear such secret power shall prove,

As they'll shut up each path, hide every way,

Because they still would have her go astray."[309]

The reader must assist me, and assist himself. I cannot otherwise give

him to understand what the men of this age had the felicity to

experience.

Luxuriance and irregularity were the two features of this spirit and

this literature--features common to all the literatures of the

Renaissance, but more marked here than elsewhere, because the German

race is not confined, like the Latin, by the taste for harmonious forms,

and prefers strong impression to fine expression. We must select amidst

this crowd of poets; and here is one amongst the first, who exhibits, by

his writings as well as by his life, the greatness and the folly of the

prevailing manners and the public taste: Sir Philip Sidney, nephew of

the Earl of Leicester, a great lord and a man of action, accomplished in

every kind of culture; who, after a good training in classical

literature, travelled in France, Germany, and Italy; read Plato and

Aristotle, studied astronomy and geometry at Venice; pondered over the

Greek tragedies, the Italian sonnets, the pastorals of Montemayor, the

poems of Ronsard; displaying an interest in science, keeping up an

exchange of letters with the learned Hubert Languet; and withal a man of

the world, a favorite of Elizabeth, having had enacted in her honor a

flattering and comic pastoral; a genuine "jewel of the court"; a judge,

like d'Urfé, of lofty gallantry and fine language; above all,

chivalrous in heart and deed, who wished to follow maritime adventure

with Drake, and, to crown all, fated to die an early and heroic death.

He was a cavalry officer, and had saved the English army at Gravelines.

Shortly after, mortally wounded, and dying of thirst, as some water was

brought to him, he saw by his side a soldier still more desperately

hurt, who was looking at the water with anguish in his face: "Give it to

this man," said he; "his necessity is still greater than mine." Do not

forget the vehemence and impetuosity of the Middle Ages; one hand ready

for action, and kept incessantly on the hilt of the sword or poniard.

"Mr. Molineux," wrote he to his father's secretary, "if ever I know you

to do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his

commandment or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust

to it, for I speak it in earnest." It was the same man who said to his

uncle's adversaries that they "lied in their throat"; and to support his

words, promised them a meeting in three months in any place in Europe.

The savage energy of the preceding age remains intact, and it is for

this reason that poetry took so firm a hold on these virgin souls. The

human harvest is never so fine as when cultivation opens up a new soil.

Impassioned, moreover, melancholy and solitary, he naturally turned to

noble and ardent fantasy; and he was so much the poet that he had no

need of verse.

Shall I describe his pastoral epic, the "Arcadia"? It is but a

recreation, a sort of poetical romance, written in the country for the

amusement of his sister; a work of fashion, which, like "Cyrus" and

"Clélie,"[310] is not a monument, but a document. This kind of books

shows only the externals, the current elegance and politeness, the

jargon of the fashionable world--in short, that which should be spoken

before ladies; and yet we perceive from it the bent of the public

opinion. In "Clélie," oratorical development, delicate and collected

analysis, the flowing converse of men seated quietly in elegant

arm-chairs; in the "Arcadia," fantastic imagination, excessive

sentiment, a medley of events which suited men scarcely recovered from

barbarism. Indeed, in London they still used to fire pistols at each

other in the streets; and under Henry VIII and his children, Queens, a

Protector, the highest nobles, knelt under the axe of the executioner.

Armed and perilous existence long resisted in Europe the establishment

of peaceful and quiet life. It was necessary to change society and the

soil, in order to transform men of the sword into citizens. The high

roads of Louis XIV and his regular administration, and more recently the

railroads and the _sergents de ville_, freed the French from habits of

violence and a taste for dangerous adventure. Remember that at this

period men's heads were full of tragical images. Sidney's "Arcadia"

contains enough of them to supply half a dozen epics. "It is a trifle,"

says the author; "my young head must be delivered." In the first

twenty-five pages you meet with a shipwreck, an account of pirates, a

half-drowned prince rescued by shepherds, a journey in Arcadia, various

disguises, the retreat of a king withdrawn into solitude with his wife

and children, the deliverance of a young imprisoned lord, a war against

the Helots, the conclusion of peace, and many other things. Read on, and

you will find princesses shut up by a wicked fairy, who beats them, and

threatens them with death if they refuse to marry her son; a beautiful

queen condemned to perish by fire if certain knights do not come to her

succor; a treacherous prince tortured for his wicked deeds, then cast

from the top of a pyramid; fights, surprises, abductions, travels: in

short, the whole programme of the most romantic tales. That is the

serious element: the agreeable is of a like nature; the fantastic

predominates. Improbable pastoral serves, as in Shakespeare or Lope de

Vega, for an intermezzo to improbable tragedy. You are always coming

upon dancing shepherds. They are very courteous, good poets, and subtle

metaphysicians. Several of them are disguised princes who pay their

court to the princesses. They sing continually, and get up allegorical

dances; two bands approach, servants of Reason and Passion; their hats,

ribbons, and dress are described in full. They quarrel in verse, and

their retorts, which follow close on one another, over-refined, keep up

a tournament of wit. Who cared for what was natural or possible in this

age? There were such festivals at Elizabeth's "progresses"; and you have

only to look at the engravings of Sadeler, Martin de Vos, and Goltzius,

to find this mixture of sensitive beauties and philosophical enigmas.

The Countess of Pembroke and her ladies were delighted to picture this

profusion of costumes and verses, this play beneath the trees. They had

eyes in the sixteenth century, senses which sought satisfaction in

poetry--the same satisfaction as in masquerading and painting. Man was

not yet a pure reasoner; abstract truth was not enough for him. Rich

stuffs, twisted about and folded; the sun to shine upon them, a large

meadow studded with white daisies; ladies in brocaded dresses, with bare

arms, crowns on their heads, instruments of music behind the trees--this

is what the reader expects; he cares nothing for contrasts; he will

readily accept a drawing-room in the midst of the fields.

What are they going to say there? Here comes out that nervous

exaltation, in all its folly, which is characteristic of the spirit of

the age; love rises to the thirty-sixth heaven. Musidorus is the brother

of Céladon; Pamela is closely related to the severe heroines of

"Astrée";[311] all the Spanish exaggerations abound and all the Spanish

falsehoods. For in these works of fashion or of the Court, primitive

sentiment never retains its sincerity: wit, the necessity to please, the

desire for effect, of speaking better than others, alter it, influence

it, heap up embellishments and refinements, so that nothing is left but

twaddle. Musidorus wished to give Pamela a kiss. She repels him. He

would have died on the spot; but luckily remembers that his mistress

commanded him to leave her, and finds himself still able to obey her

command. He complains to the trees, weeps in verse: there are dialogues

where Echo, repeating the last word, replies; duets in rhyme, balanced

stanzas, in which the theory of love is minutely detailed; in short, all

the grand airs of ornamental poetry. If they send a letter to their

mistress, they speak to it, tell the ink: "Therfore mourne boldly, my

inke; for while shee lookes upon you, your blacknesse will shine: cry

out boldly my lamentation; for while shee reades you, your cries will be

musicke."[312]

Again, two young princesses are going to bed: "They impoverished their

clothes to enrich their bed, which for that night might well scorne the

shrine of Venus; and there cherishing one another with deare, though

chaste embracements; with sweete, though cold kisses; it might seeme

that love was come to play him there without dart, or that wearie of his

owne fires, he was there to refresh himselfe betwen their sweete

breathing lippes."[313]

In excuse of these follies, remember that they have their parallels in

Shakespeare. Try rather to comprehend them, to imagine them in their

place, with their surroundings, such as they are; that is, as the excess

of singularity and inventive fire. Even though they mar now and then the

finest ideas, yet a natural freshness pierces through the disguise. Take

another example: "In the time that the morning did strew roses and

violets in the heavenly floore against the coming of the sun, the

nightingales (striving one with the other which could in most dainty

varietie recount their wronge-caused sorrow) made them put off their

sleep."

In Sidney's second work, "The Defence of Poesie," we meet with genuine

imagination, a sincere and serious tone, a grand, commanding style, all

the passion and elevation which he carries in his heart and puts into

his verse. He is a muser, a Platonist, who is penetrated by the

doctrines of the ancients, who takes things from a lofty point of view,

who places the excellence of poetry not in pleasing effect, imitation,

or rhyme, but in that creative and superior conception by which the

artist creates anew and embellishes nature. At the same time, he is an

ardent man, trusting in the nobleness of his aspirations and in the

width of his ideas, who puts down the brawling of the shoppy, narrow,

vulgar Puritanism, and glows with the lofty irony, the proud freedom, of

a poet and a lord.

In his eyes, if there is any art or science capable of augmenting and

cultivating our generosity, it is poetry. He draws comparison after

comparison between it and philosophy or history, whose pretensions he

laughs at and dismisses.[314] He fights for poetry as a knight for his

lady, and in what heroic and splendid style! He says: "I never heard the

old Song of Percie and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more

than with a trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some blinde Crowder, with

no rougher voyce, than rude stile; which beeing so evill apparelled in

the dust and Cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed in

the gorgeous eloquence of Pindare?"[315]

The philosopher repels, the poet attracts: "Nay hee doth as if your

journey should lye through a faire vineyard, at the very first, give you

a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste, you may long to passe

further."[316]

What description of poetry can displease you? Not pastoral so easy and

genial? "Is it the bitter but wholesome Iambicke, who rubbes the galled

minde, making shame the Trumpet of villanie, with bold and open crying

out against naughtinesse?"[317]

At the close he reviews his arguments, and the vibrating martial accent

of his political period is like a trump of victory: "So that since the

excellencies of it (poetry) may bee so easily and so justly confirmed,

and the low-creeping objections so soone trodden downe, it not being an

Art of lyes, but of true doctrine: not of effeminatenesse, but of

notable stirring of courage; not of abusing man's wit, but of

strengthening man's wit; not banished, but honoured by Plato; let us

rather plant more Laurels for to ingarland the Poets heads than suffer

the ill-savoured breath of such wrong speakers, once to blow upon the

cleare springs of Poesie."[318]

From such vehemence and gravity you may anticipate what his verses will

be.

Often, after reading the poets of this age, I have looked for some time

at the contemporary prints, telling myself that man, in mind and body,

was not then such as we see him to-day. We also have our passions, but

we are no longer strong enough to bear them. They unsettle us; we are no

longer poets without suffering for it. Alfred de Musset, Heine, Edgar

Poe, Burns, Byron, Shelley, Cowper, how many shall I instance? Disgust,

mental and bodily degradation, disease, impotence, madness, suicide, at

best a permanent hallucination or feverish raving--these are nowadays

the ordinary issues of the poetic temperament. The passion of the brain

gnaws our vitals, dries up the blood, eats into the marrow, shakes us

like a tempest, and the human frame, such as civilization has made us,

is not substantial enough long to resist it. They, who have been more

roughly trained, who are more inured to the inclemencies of climate,

more hardened by bodily exercise, more firm against danger, endure and

live. Is there a man living who could withstand the storm of passions

and visions which swept over Shakespeare, and end, like him, as a

sensible citizen and landed proprietor in his small county? The muscles

were firmer, despair less prompt. The rage of concentrated attention,

the half hallucinations, the anguish and heaving of the breast, the

quivering of the limbs bracing themselves involuntarily and blindly for

action, all the painful yearnings which accompany grand desires,

exhausted them less; this is why they desired longer, and dared more.

D'Aubigné, wounded with many sword-thrusts, conceiving death at hand,

had himself bound on his horse that he might see his mistress once more,

and rode thus several leagues, losing blood all the way, and arriving in

a swoon. Such feelings we glean still from their portraits, in the

straight looks which pierce like a sword; in that strength of back, bent

or twisted; in the sensuality, energy, enthusiasm, which breathe from

their attitude or look. Such feelings we still discover in their poetry,

in Greene, Lodge, Jonson, Spenser, Shakespeare, in Sidney, as in all the

rest. We quickly forget the faults of taste which accompany them, the

affectation, the uncouth jargon. Is it really so uncouth? Imagine a man

who with closed eyes distinctly sees the adored countenance of his

mistress, who keeps it before him all the day; who is troubled and

shaken as he imagines ever and anon her brow, her lips, her eyes; who

cannot and will not be separated from his vision; who sinks daily deeper

in this passionate contemplation; who is every instant crushed by mortal

anxieties, or transported by the raptures of bliss: he will lose the

exact conception of objects. A fixed idea becomes a false idea. By dint

of regarding an object under all its forms, turning it over, piercing

through it, we at last deform it. When we cannot think of a thing

without being dazed and without tears, we magnify it, and give it a

character which it has not. Hence strange comparisons, over-refined

ideas, excessive images, become natural. However far Sidney goes,

whatever object he touches, he sees throughout the universe only the

name and features of Stella. All ideas bring him back to her. He is

drawn ever and invincibly by the same thought: and comparisons which

seem farfetched, only express the unfailing presence and sovereign power

of the besetting image. Stella is ill; it seems to Sidney that "Joy,

which is inseparate from those eyes, Stella, now learnes (strange case)

to weepe in thee."[319] To us, the expression is absurd. Is it so for

Sidney, who for hours together had dwelt on the expression of those

eyes, seeing in them at last all the beauties of heaven and earth, who,

compared to them, finds all light dull and all happiness stale? Consider

that in every extreme passion ordinary laws are reversed, that our logic

cannot pass judgment on it, that we find in it affectation,

childishness, witticisms, crudity, folly, and that to us violent

conditions of the nervous machine are like an unknown and marvellous

land, where common-sense and good language cannot penetrate. On the

return of spring, when May spreads over the fields her dappled dress of

new flowers, Astrophel and Stella sit in the shade of a retired grove,

in the warm air, full of birds' voices and pleasant exhalations. Heaven

smiles, the wind kisses the trembling leaves, the inclining trees

interlace their sappy branches, amorous earth swallows greedily the

rippling water:

"In a grove most rich of shade,

Where birds wanton musike made,

May, then yong, his py'd weeds showing,

New perfum'd with flowers fresh growing,

"Astrophel with Stella sweet,

Did for mutuall comfort meet,

Both within themselves oppressed,

But each in the other blessed....

"Their eares hungry of each word,

Which the deere tongue would afford,

But their tongues restrain'd from walking,

Till their hearts had ended talking.

"But when their tongues could not speake,

Love it selfe did silence breake;

Love did set his lips asunder,

Thus to speake in love and wonder....

"This small winde which so sweet is,

See how it the leaves doth kisse,

Each tree in his best attyring,

Sense of love to love inspiring."[320]

On his knees, with beating heart, oppressed, it seems to him that his

mistress becomes transformed:

"Stella, soveraigne of my joy,...

Stella, starre of heavenly fire,

Stella, load-starre of desire,

Stella, in whose shining eyes

Are the lights of Cupid's skies....

Stella, whose voice when it speakes

Senses all asunder breakes;

Stella, whose voice when it singeth,

Angels to acquaintance bringeth."[321]

These cries of adoration are like a hymn. Every day he writes thoughts

of love which agitate him, and in this long journal of a hundred pages

we feel the heated breath swell each moment. A smile from his mistress,

a curl lifted by the wind, a gesture--all are events. He paints her in

every attitude; he cannot see her too constantly. He talks to the birds,

plants, winds, all nature. He brings the whole world to Stella's feet.

At the notion of a kiss he swoons:

"Thinke of that most gratefull time,

When thy leaping heart will climbe,

In my lips to have his biding.

There those roses for to kisse,

Which doe breath a sugred blisse,

Opening rubies, pearles dividing."[322]

"O joy, too high for my low stile to show:

O blisse, fit for a nobler state than me:

Envie, put out thine eyes, lest thou do see

What Oceans of delight in me do flow.

My friend, that oft saw through all maskes my wo,

Come, come, and let me powre my selfe on thee;

Gone is the winter of my miserie,

My spring appeares, O see what here doth grow,

For Stella hath with words where faith doth shine,

Of her high heart giv'n me the monarchie:

I, I, O I may say that she is mine."[323]

There are Oriental splendors in the dazzling sonnet in which he asks why

Stella's cheeks have grown pale:

"Where be those Roses gone, which sweetned so our eyes?

Where those red cheekes, with oft with faire encrease doth frame

The height of honour in the kindly badge of shame?

Who hath the crimson weeds stolne from my morning skies?"[324]

As he says, his "life melts with too much thinking." Exhausted by

ecstasy, he pauses; then he flies from thought to thought, seeking

relief for his wound, like the Satyr whom he describes:

"Prometheus, when first from heaven hie

He brought downe fire, ere then on earth not seene,

Fond of delight, a Satyr standing by,

Gave it a kisse, as it like sweet had beene.

"Feeling forthwith the other burning power,

Wood with the smart with showts and shryking shrill,

He sought his ease in river, field, and bower,

But for the time his griefe went with him still."[325]

At last calm returned; and whilst this calm lasts, the lively, glowing

spirit plays like a flickering flame on the surface of the deep brooding

fire. His love-songs and word-portraits, delightful pagan and chivalric

fancies, seem to be inspired by Petrarch or Plato. We feel the charm and

sportiveness under the seeming affectation:

"Faire eyes, sweete lips, deare heart, that foolish I

Could hope by Cupids helpe on you to pray;

Since to himselfe he doth your gifts apply,

As his maine force, choise sport, and easefull stray.

"For when he will see who dare him gainsay,

Then with those eyes he lookes, lo by and by

Each soule doth at Loves feet his weapons lay,

Glad if for her he give them leave to die.

"When he will play, then in her lips he is,

Where blushing red, that Loves selfe them doth love,

With either lip he doth the other kisse:

But when he will for quiets sake remove

From all the world, her heart is then his rome,

Where well he knowes, no man to him can come."[326]

Both heart and sense are captive here. If he finds the eyes of Stella

more beautiful than anything in the world, he finds her soul more lovely

than her body. He is a Platonist when he recounts how Virtue, wishing to

be loved of men, took Stella's form to enchant their eyes, and make them

see the heaven which the inner sense reveals to heroic souls. We

recognize in him that entire submission of heart, love turned into a

religion, perfect passion which asks only to grow, and which, like the

piety of the mystics, finds itself always too insignificant when it

compares itself with the object loved:

"My youth doth waste, my knowledge brings forth toyes,

My wit doth strive those passions to defend,

Which for reward spoyle it with vaine annoyes,

I see my course to lose my selfe doth bend:

I see and yet no greater sorrow take,

Than that I lose no more for Stella's sake."[327]

At last, like Socrates in the banquet, he turns his eyes to deathless

beauty, heavenly brightness:

"Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,

And thou my minde aspire to higher things:

Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:

Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings....

O take fast hold, let that light be thy guide,

In this small course which birth drawes out to death."[328]

Divine love continues the earthly love; he was imprisoned in this, and

frees himself. By this nobility, these lofty aspirations, recognize one

of those serious souls of which there are so many in the same climate

and race. Spiritual instincts pierce through the dominant paganism, and

ere they make Christians, make Platonists.

SECTION V.--Wherein Lies the Strength of the Poetry of this Period

Sidney was only a soldier in an army; there is a multitude about him, a

multitude of poets. In fifty-two years, without counting the drama, two

hundred and thirty-three are enumerated,[329] of whom forty have genius

or talent: Breton, Donne, Drayton, Lodge, Greene, the two Fletchers,

Beaumont, Spenser, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Wither, Warner,

Davison, Carew, Suckling, Herrick; we should grow tired in counting

them. There is a crop of them, and so there is at the same time in

Catholic and heroic Spain; and as in Spain it was a sign of the times,

the mark of a public want, the index to an extraordinary and transient

condition of the mind. What is this condition which gives rise to so

universal a taste for poetry? What is it breathes life into their books?

How happens it that amongst the least, in spite of pedantries,

awkwardnesses, in the rhyming chronicles or descriptive cyclopedias, we

meet with brilliant pictures and genuine love-cries? How happens it that

when this generation was exhausted, true poetry ended in England, as

true painting in Italy and Flanders? It was because an epoch of the mind

came and passed away--that, namely, of instinctive and creative

conception. These men had new senses, and no theories in their heads.

Thus, when they took a walk, their emotions were not the same as ours.

What is sunrise to an ordinary man? A white smudge on the edge of the

sky, between bosses of clouds, amid pieces of land, and bits of road,

which he does not see because he has seen them a hundred times. But for

them, all things have a soul; I mean that they feel within themselves,

indirectly, the uprising and severance of the outlines, the power and

contrast of tints, the sad or delicious sentiment, which breathes from

this combination and union like a harmony or a cry. How sorrowful is the

sun, as he rises in a mist above the sad sea-furrows; what an air of

resignation in the old trees rustling in the night rain; what a feverish

tumult in the mass of waves, whose dishevelled locks are twisted forever

on the surface of the abyss! But the great torch of heaven, the luminous

god, emerges and shines; the tall, soft, pliant herbs, the evergreen

meadows, the expanding roof of lofty oaks--the whole English landscape,

continually renewed and illumined by the flooding moisture, diffuses an

inexhaustible freshness. These meadows, red and white with flowers, ever

moist and ever young, slip off their veil of golden mist, and appear

suddenly, timidly, like beautiful virgins. Here is the cuckoo-flower,

which springs up before the coming of the swallow; there the hare-bell,

blue as the veins of a woman; the marigold, which sets with the sun,

and, weeping, rises with him. Drayton, in his "Polyolbion," sings

"Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glittring East

Guilds every lofty top, which late the humorous Night

Bespangled had with pearle, to please the Mornings sight;

On which the mirthfull Quires, with their cleere open throats,

Unto the joyfull Morne so straine their warbling notes,

That Hills and Valleys ring, and even the ecchoing Ayre

Seemes all compos'd of sounds, about them everywhere....

Thus sing away the Morne, untill the mounting Sunne,

Through thick exhaled fogs, his golden head hath runne,

And through the twisted tops of our close Covert creeps,

To kiss the gentle Shade, this while that sweetly sleeps."[330]

A step further, and you will find the old gods reappear. They reappear,

these living gods--these living gods mingled with things which you

cannot help meeting as soon as you meet nature again. Shakespeare, in