[36] Not that he is specially free from foreign vocables: Marsh (Lec. VI., Eng. Language) gives his percentage of Anglo-Saxon words in Passus XIV. at only 84. See also Skeat’s Genl. Preface, p. xxxiii.
[37] In saying this I follow literal statement of the poem (Pass. xviii., 12,948), as do Tyrwhit, Price, and Rev. Mr. Skeat, whose opinions overweigh the objections of Mr. Wright, (Introduction, p. ix., note 3, to Wright’s Piers Plowman.) The Christian name William seems determined by a find of Sir Frederic Madden on the fly-leaf of a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
Piers Plowman’s Creed, often printed with the Vision, is now by best critics counted the work of another hand.
[38] Church chroniclers who were contemporaries of Wyclif, girded at him as a blasphemer. Capgrave: Cron. of Eng. (Rolls Series), speaks of him as “the orgon of the devel, the enmy of the Cherch, the confusion of men, the ydol of heresie,” etc. Netter collected his (alleged) false doctrines under title of Bundles of Tares (Fasciculi Zizaniorum), Ed. by Shirley, 1858. Dr. Robt. Vaughan is author of a very pleasant monograph on Wyclif, with much topographic lore. Dr. Lechler is a more scholarly contributor to Wyclif literature; and the Early Eng. Text Soc. has published (1880) Mathews’ Ed. of “hitherto unprinted Eng. works of Wyclif, with notice of his life.” Rudolph Buddenseig, (of Dresden) has Ed. his polemical works in Latin (old) besides contributing an interesting notice for the anniversary just passed. Nor can I forbear naming in this connection the very eloquent quin-centenary address of Dr. Richard S. Storrs, of Brooklyn, N. Y.
[39] Those who love books which are royal in their dignities of print and paper, will be interested in Forshall & Madden’s elegant 4to. edition of the Wyclifite versions of the Bible.
[40] The biographers used to say 1328: this is now thought inadmissible by most commentators. Furnival makes the birth-year 1340—in which he is followed by the two Wards, and by Professor Minto (Br. Ency.). Evidence, however, is not as yet conclusive; and there is an even chance that further investigations may set back the birth-year to a date which will better justify and make more seemly those croakings of age which crept into some of the latter verse of the poet. For some facts looking in that direction, and for certain interesting genealogic Chaucer puzzles, see paper in London Athenæum for January 29, 1881, by Walter Rye.
[41] House of Fame, Book II.
[42] There is question of the authenticity of the translation usually attributed to Chaucer—of which there is only one fifteenth century MS. extant. Some version, however, Chaucer did make, if his own averment is to be credited. Prof. Minto (Br. Ency.) accepts the well-known version; so does Ward (Men of Letters); Messrs. Bradshaw (of Cambridge) and Prof. Ten Brink doubt—a doubt in which Mr. Humphrey Ward (Eng. Poets) seems to share.
[43] Sandras: Étude sur Chaucer.
[44] A notable edition is that of Prof. Lounsbury (Ginn & Heath, 1877); and it is much to be hoped that the same editor will bring his scholarly method of estimating dates, sources, and varying texts, to some more important Chaucerian labors.