Warton passed sentence on OCCLEVE as "a cold genius, and a feeble
writer." A literary antiquary, from a manuscript in his possession,
published six poems of Occleve; but that selection was limited to the
sole purpose of furnishing the personal history of the author.[1]
Ritson's sharp snarl pronounced that they were of "peculiar stupidity;"
George Ellis refused to give "a specimen;" and Mr. Hallam, with his
recollection of the critical brotherhood, has decreed, that "the poetry
of Occleve is wretchedly bad, abounding with pedantry, and destitute of
grace or spirit." We could hardly expect to have heard any more of this
doomed victim--this ancient man, born in the fourteenth century,
standing before us, whose dry bones will ill bear all this shaking and
cuffing.
A literary historian, who has read manuscripts with the eagerness which
others do the last novelty, more careful than Warton, and more
discriminate than Ritson, has, with honest intrepidity, confessed that
"OCCLEVE has not had his just share of reputation. His writings greatly
assisted the growth of the popularity of our infant poetry."[2] Our
historian has furnished from the manuscripts of OCCLEVE testimonies of
his assertion.
Among the six poems printed, one of considerable length exhibits the
habits of a dissipated young gentleman in the fourteenth century.
OCCLEVE for more than twenty years was a writer in the Privy Seal, where
we find quarter days were most irregular; and though briberies
constantly flowed in, yet the golden shower passed over the heads of
the clerks, dropping nothing into the hands of these innocents.
Our poet, in his usual passage from his "Chestres Inn by the Strond" to
"Westminster Gate," by land or water--for "in the winter the way was
deep," and "the Strand" was then what its name indicates--often was
delayed by
The outward signe of Bacchus and his lure,
That at his dore hangeth day by day,
Exciteth Folk to taste of his moisture
So often that they cannot well say Nay!
There was another invitation for this susceptible writer of the Privy
Seal.
I dare not tell how that the fresh repair
Of Venus femel, lusty children dear,
That so goodly, so shapely were, and fair,
And so pleasant of port and of manere.
There he loitered,
To talk of mirth, and to disport and play.
He never "pinched" the taverners, the cooks, the boatmen, and all such
gentry.
Among this many in mine audience,
Methought I was ymade a man for ever--
So tickled me that nyce reverence,
That it me made larger of dispence;--
For Riot payeth largely ever mo;
He stinteth never till his purse be bare.
He is at length seized amid his jollities,
By force of the penniless maladie,
Ne lust[3] had none to Bacchus House to hie.
Fy! lack of coin departeth compaignie;
And heve purse with Herte liberal
Quencheth the thirsty heat of Hertes drie,
Where chinchy Herte[4] hath thereof but small.
This "mirror of riot and excess" effected a discovery, and it was, that
all the mischiefs which he recounts came from the high reports of
himself which servants bring to their lord. The Losengour or pleasant
flatterer was too lightly believed, and honied words made more harmful
the deceitful error. Oh! babbling flattery! he spiritedly exclaims,
author of all lyes, that causest all day thy lord to fare amiss. Such
is the import of the following uncouth verse:--
Many a servant unto his Lord saith
That all the world speaketh of him, Honour,
When the contrarie of that is sooth in faith;
And lightly leeved is this Losengour,[5]
His hony wordes wrapped in Errour,
Blindly conceived been, the more harm is,
O thou, FAVELE, of lesynges auctour,[6]
Causest all day thy Lord to fare amiss.
The Combre worldes;[7] 'clept been Enchantours
In Bookes, as I have red----.
OCCLEVE was a shrewd observer of his own times. That this rhymer was
even a playful painter of society we have a remarkable evidence
preserved in the volume of his great master. "The Letter of Cupid," in
the works of Chaucer, was the production of Occleve, and appears to have
been overlooked by his modern critics. He had originally entitled it, "A
Treatise of the Conversation of Men and Women in the Little Island of
Albion." It is a caustic "polite conversation;" and deemed so execrably
good, as to have excited, as our ancient critic Speght tells, "such
hatred among the gentlewomen of the Court, that Occleve was forced to
recant in that boke of his called 'Planetas Proprius.'"[8] The Letter of
Cupid is thus dated:--
Written in the lusty month of May,
In our Paleis where many a million
Of lovers true have habitation,
The yere of grace joyfull and jocund,
A thousand four hundred and second.
Imagery and imagination are not required in the school of society.
Occleve seems, however, sometimes to have told a tale not amiss, for
WILLIAM BROWN, the pastoral bard, inserted entire a long story by old
Occleve in his "Shepherd's Pipe." To us he remains sufficiently uncouth.
The language had not at this period acquired even a syntax, though with
all its rudeness it was neither wanting in energy nor copiousness, from
that adoption of the French, the Provencal, and the Italian, with which
Chaucer had enriched his vein. The present writer seems to have had some
notions of the critical art, for he requests the learned tutor of Prince
Edward, afterwards Edward the Fourth, to warn him, when,--
Metring amiss;
and when
He speaks unsyttingly,[9]
Or not by just peys[10] my sentence weigh,
And not to the order of enditing obey,
And my colours set ofte sythe awry.
We might be curious to learn, with all these notions of the suitable,
the weighty, the order of enditing, and the colours often awry, whether
these versifiers had really any settled principles of criticism. Occleve
is a vernacular writer, bare of ornament. He has told us that he knew
little of "Latin nor French," though often counselled by his immortal
master. His enthusiastic love thus exults:--
Thou wer't acquainted with Chaucer?--Pardie!
God save his soul!
The first finder of our faire langage!
There is one little circumstance more which connects the humble name of
this versifier with that of Chaucer. His affectionate devotion to the
great poet has been recorded by Speght in his edition of Chaucer.
"Thomas Occleve, for the love he bare to his master, caused his picture
to be truly drawn in his book 'De Regimine Principis,' dedicated to
Henry the Fifth." In this manuscript, with "fond idolatry," he placed
the portraiture of his master facing an invocation. From this portrait
the head on the poet's monument was taken, as well as all our prints. It
bears a faithful resemblance to the picture of Chaucer painted on board
in the Bodleian Library.[11] Had Occleve, with his feelings, sent us
down some memorial of the poet and the man, we should have conned his
verse in better humour; but the history of genius had not yet entered
even into the minds of its most zealous votaries.[12]