In Chaucer I am sped
His tales I have red;
His mater is delectable
Solacious and commendable;
His english wel alowed,
So as it enprowed,[228]
For as it is enployed
There is no englyshe voyd—
At those days moch commended,
And now men wold haue amended
His englishe where-at they barke,
And marre all they warke;
Chaucer, that famous Clarke
His tearmes were not darcke,
But pleasunt, easy, and playne;
No worde he wrote in vayne.
(Skelton, introductory lines to the Book of Phillip sparow, 1507?)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Skeat. Chaucer, text and notes, seven volumes (Clarendon Press, 1894).
W. P. Ker. English Literature: Medieval. “Home University Library” (Williams & Norgate, 1913).
Ten Brink. History of English Literature, vol. ii, pp. 33-199. Translated by W. Clarke Robinson, Ph.D. (George Bell & Sons, 1901).
Ten Brink. Language and Metre of Chaucer, translated by M. Bentinck Smith (Macmillan & Co., 1901).
Lounsbury. Studies in Chaucer, his Life and Writings (James R. Osgood McIlvaine & Co., 1892).
G. C. Coulton. Chaucer and his England (Methuen, 2nd ed. 1909).