[33]. The Cock and the Fox. ‘The Nonne Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen.’
January and May. ‘The Marchantes Tale.’
The story of the three thieves. ‘The Pardoners Tale.’
Mr. West. Benjamin West (1738–1820). See the article on this picture by Hazlitt in The Edinburgh Magazine, Dec. 1817, where the same extract is quoted.
[34]. Ne Deth, alas. ‘The Marchantes Tale,’ 727–38.
[34]. Occleve. Thomas Hoccleve or Occleve (b. 1368), who expressed his grief at his ‘master dear’ Chaucer’s death in his version of De Regimine Principum.
‘Ancient Gower’ John Gower (1330–1408), who wrote Confessio Amantis (1392–3), and to whom Chaucer dedicated (‘O moral Gower’) his Troilus and Criseyde. See Pericles, I.
Lydgate. John Lydgate (c. 1370–c. 1440), poet and imitator of Chaucer.
Wyatt, Surry, and Sackville. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), courtier and poet; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (c. 1518–1547), who shares with Wyatt the honour of introducing the sonnet into English verse; Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (c. 1536–1608), part author of the earliest tragedy in English, Ferrex and Porrex, acted 1561–2.
Sir John Davies (1569–1626), poet and statesman. Spenser was sent to Ireland in 1580 as private secretary to Arthur, Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland. Davies was sent to Ireland as Solicitor-General in 1603, four years after Spenser’s death.