III.
Alas, that Nature hath in you compassed
So grete beaute, that no man may atteyne
To mercy, though he stewe[3] for the peyne.
So hath, etc.
[2] Dominion, power.
[3] Sterve.
This is given in Furnival's Trial-Forewords to Chaucer's Minor Poems, and is especially interesting in connection with the history of the forms in English use.
Of his immediate followers, Lydgate, a monk of Bury, author of London Lyckpenny, is said by Guest to have written a "roundle," and one by Thomas Occleve is printed in Morley's Shorter English Poems.
John Gower (1340-1408), author of Confessio Amantis, at the coronation of Henry IV. presented the king with a collection of fifty Ballades, written in the Provençal manner, "to entertain his noble court." The thin oblong MS., on vellum, which contains them is still extant in the Marquis of Stafford's library at Trentham, and in 1818 it was printed for the Roxburghe Club; but as the poems are unfortunately written in French, they do not assist in supporting a claim for the early use of the form in England. Professor Henry Morley has translated one for his English Writers; it follows the rhymes accurately, but has a somewhat trite subject. A critic has well said of it, that the poets of Gowers's day "were not burdened with solving 'the riddle of the painful earth.' It may be that a good deal of their guileless delight in things fresh and young was feigned, but then so is much of our more pretentious philosophy." From its special interest it is quoted here—
Winter departs, and comes the flowery May,
And round from cold to heat the seasons fly;
The bird that to its nest had lost the way
Rebuilds it that he may rejoice thereby.
Like change in my love's world I now descry,
With such a hope I comfort myself here,
And you, my lady, on this truth rely:
When grief departs the coming joys are near.
My lady sweet, by that which now I say
You may discover how my heart leaps high,
That serves you, and has served you many a day,
As it will serve you daily till I die.
Remember, then, my lady, knowing why,
That my desire for you will never veer
As God wills that it be, so be our tie:
When grief departs the coming joys are near.
The day that news of you came where I lay,
It seem'd there was no grief could make me sigh;
Wherefore of you, dear lady mine, I pray
By your own message—when you will, not I—
Send me what you think best as a reply
Wherewith my heart can keep itself from fear;
And, lady, search the reason of my cry—
When grief departs the coming joys are near.
Envoy.
O noble Dame, to you this note shall hie,
And when God wills I follow to my dear.
This writing speaks, and says, till I am by,
When grief departs the coming joys are near.
John Shirley, who lived about 1440, made a collection of Ballades, Roundels, Virelais, and Tragedies, in MSS., which are still extant in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. After noticing Gower, who wrote ballades in French, Charles d'Orléans, who wrote rondels in English, comes as another instance of the early use, but again as a mere exception, since the accident which led both writers to adopt exotic forms is outside the history of our native poetry, and cannot be brought forward to prove their early naturalisation. Of Charles d'Orléans much might be said worth saying, but there are so many sources of information open, that here we need note only the poems written during his captivity. He is said to have been our prisoner for about twenty-five years, and during that time to have acquired a taste for our language. The Abbé Sallier, who unearthed the manuscript of his poems in the Royal Library at Paris during the last century, says he wrote but two in English; but in the MS. at the British Museum, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the translator of Dante, found three, quoted in his Early French Poets (Bohn, 1846). The editor of that volume, the Rev. Henry Cary, son of the author, mentions in a footnote a large collection among the Harleian MSS., attributed to Charles d'Orléans, but throws doubt on their being more than translations. Into this question there is no space to enter. These are the three from Cary's book:—
Go forth, my hert, with my lady;
Loke that ye spar no bysines
To serve her with such lolyness
That ye gette her oftyme prively
That she kepe truly her promes.
Go forth, etc.
I must, as a helis-body,[4]
Abyde alone in hevynes;
And ye that dwell with your mastris
In plaisaunce glad and mery,
Go forth, etc.
My hertly love is in your governās,
And ever shall whill that I live may.
I pray to God I may see that day
That ye be knyt with trouthful alyans.
Ye shall not fynd feyning or variaunce
As in my part; that wyl I truly say.
My hertly, etc.
Bewere, my trewe innocent hert,
How ye hold with her aliauns,
That somtym with word of plesūns
Resceyved you under covert.
Thynke how the stroke of love comsmert[5]
Without warnyng or deffiauns.
Bewere, my, etc.
And ye shall pryvely or appert
See her by me in loves dauns,
With her faire femenyn contenauns
Ye shall never fro her astert.
Bewere, my, etc.
[4] Helis-body—One deprived of health or happiness.
[5] Comsmert—Can smart, or comes smart.
Spenser (1553-1599) is said (but I cannot trace the authority) to have used some of these forms. Again, Sir Philip Sidney's (1554-1586) famous ditty, "My true love hath my heart," recalls the rondel, but cannot claim to be one. Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) has a fine sestina (too long for quotation), "Sith gone is my delight and only pleasure."
The Trivial Poems, and Triolets of Patrick Carey deserve mention. This volume was unknown until the beginning of the present century, although dated Warnefurd, 1651. The poems were brought into notice by Sir Walter Scott, who obtained the MSS. from John Murray, and after inserting a few in the Edinburgh Annual Register, 1810, published the whole for the first time in 1819. The following specimen is taken from Scott's reprint, p. 43:—
Worldly designes, feares, hopes, farwell!
Farwell all earthly joyes and cares!
On nobler thoughts my soule shall dwell
Worldly designes, feares, hopes, farwell!
Att quiett, in my peacefull cell,
I'le thincke on God, free from your snares;
Worldly designes, feares, hopes, farwell!
Farwell all earthly joyes and cares.
In the Athenæum, May 7, 1887, is a long article on Carey, signed C. F. S. Warner, M. A. Charles Cotton, the friend of Izaak Walton, wrote a rondeau, "a very ungallant example," cited in Dr. Guests' History of English Rhythms. There is also one unquotable, by reason of its subject, among the correspondence of Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and in the Rolliad, 1784, a volume of satires in prose and verse, that enjoyed a great popularity for a time, there is a set of five rondeaus, written in pure form after the Voiture model. They satirise North, Eden, Pitt, and Dorset, and are perfect in construction, and vigorous in their ridicule. The popularity of these effusions led to many imitations in the periodical prints at the beginning of this century, few, however, of sufficient merit to be worth reviving. By the courtesy of Mr. Austin Dobson, the owner, I am able to extract a specimen from a scarce and little-known book, entitled Rondeaulx; translated from the Black Letter French Edition of 1527, by J. R. Best, Esq.;—
Rondeaulx en Nombre trois cens cinquante.
Singuliers et a tous propos. Nouvellement
Imprimez a Paris. Avec Privelege
On les vend en la grant salle du palays au
Premier pillier en la boutique de Galliot du
Pre marchaut librarie jure de L'universite.
The dedication to Robert Studley Vidal, Esq., is dated 1838. The first poem is preceded by a quaint apology, that unfortunately is too long to quote, but the rondeau itself, if its rhythm is faulty and its language ungraceful, shows that the original had sterling advice to offer, and that the translator was not ignorant of the true rules of the form.