[291] Velasquez, pp. 165, 442. (in Dieze), mentions, what has escaped Bouterwek, a more ancient Cancionero than that of Castillo, compiled in the reign of John II., by Juan Alfonso de Baena, and hitherto, or at least in his time, unpublished. As it is entitled Cancionero di Poetas Antiguos, it may be supposed to contain some earlier than the year 1400. I am inclined to think, however, that few would be found to ascend much higher. I do not find the name of Don Juan Manuel, which occurs in the Cancionero of Castillo. A copy of this manuscript Cancionero of Baena, was lately sold (1836), among the MSS. of Mr. Heber, and purchased for 120l., by the king of France.
[292] Bouterwek, p. 78.
Charles, duke of Orleans. 47. Charles, duke of Orleans, long prisoner in England after the battle of Agincourt, was the first who gave polish and elegance to French poetry. In a more enlightened age, according to Goujet’s opinion, he would have been among their greatest poets.[293] Except a little allegory in the taste of his times, he confined himself to the kind of verse called rondeaux, and to slight amatory poems, which, if they aim at little, still deserve the praise of reaching what they aim at. The easy turns of thought, and graceful simplicity of style, which these compositions require, came spontaneously to the Duke of Orleans. Without as much humour as Clément Marot long afterwards displayed, he is much more of a gentleman, and would have been in any times, if not quite what Goujet supposes, a great poet, yet the pride and ornament of the court.[294]
[293] Goujet, Bibliothèque Française, ix. 233.
[294] The following very slight vaudeville will show the easy style of the Duke of Orleans. It is curious to observe how little the manner of French poetry, in such productions, has been changed since the fifteenth century.
Petit mercier, petit panier:
Pourtant si je n’ai marchandize
Qui soit du tout à votre quise
Ne blamez pour ce mon mestier;
Je gagne denier à denier;
C’est loin du trésor de Vénise.
Petit mercier, petit panier,
Et tandis qu’il est jour, ouvrier,
Le temps perds, quand a vous devise,
Je vais parfaire mon emprise,
Et parmi les rues crier:
Petit mercier, petit panier.
(Recueil des anciens poètes Français, ii. 196.)
English poetry. 48. The English language was slowly refining itself, and growing into general use. That which we sometimes call pedantry and innovation, the forced introduction of French words by Chaucer, though hardly more by him than by all his predecessors who translated our neighbours’ poetry, and the harsh latinisms that began to appear soon afterwards, has given English a copiousness and variety which perhaps no other language possesses. But as yet there was neither thought nor knowledge sufficient to bring out its capacities. After the death of Chaucer, in 1400, a dreary blank of long duration occurs in our annals. The poetry of Hoccleve is wretchedly bad, abounding with pedantry, and destitute of all grace or spirit.[295] |Lydgate.| Lydgate, the monk of Bury, nearly of the same age, prefers doubtless a higher claim to respect. An easy versifier, he served to make poetry familiar to the many, and may sometimes please the few. Gray, no light authority, speaks more favourably of Lydgate than either Warton or Ellis, or than the general complexion of his poetry would induce most readers to do.[296] But great poets have often the taste to discern, and the candour to acknowledge, those beauties which are latent amidst the tedious dulness of their humbler brethren. Lydgate, though probably a man of inferior powers of mind to Gower, has more of the minor qualities of a poet; his lines have sometimes more spirit, more humour, and he describes with more graphic minuteness. But his diffuseness becomes generally feeble and tedious; the attention fails in the schoolboy stories of Thebes and Troy; and he had not the judgment to select and compress the prose narratives from which he commonly derived his subject. It seems highly probable, that Lydgate would have been a better poet in satire upon his own times, or delineation of their manners; themes which would have gratified us much more than the fate of princes. |James I. of Scotland.| The King’s Quair, by James I. of Scotland, is a long allegory, polished and imaginative, but with some of the tediousness usual in such productions. It is uncertain whether he or a later sovereign, James V., were the author of a lively comic poem, Christ’s Kirk o’ the Green; the style is so provincial, that no Englishman can draw any inference as to its antiquity. It is much more removed from our language than the King’s Quair. Whatever else could be mentioned as deserving of praise is anonymous and of uncertain date. It seems to have been early in the fifteenth century that the ballad of the northern minstrels arose. But none of these that are extant could be placed with much likelihood so early as 1440.[297]
[295] Warton, ii. 348.