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Sum wtheris better can thair causis pleid;
Sum bene mair crafty in ane wthir steid,
With rewlis and with mesouris by and by
For til excers the art of geometry;

And sum moir subtel to discrive and prent
The sternis movingis and the hevynis went':
Bot thow, Romane, remember, as lord and syre,
To rewle the pepill vndir thyne impyre;

2

Thir sall thi craftis be at weil may seme,
The paix to modyfy and eik manteme,
To pardoun all cumis 3oldin and recreant,
And prowd rabellis in batale for to dant.

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STEPHEN HAWES.

[Of STEPHEN HAWES little is known beyond the facts that he was 1. native of Suffolk, that he was educated at Oxford, had travelled in France, and was Groom of the Privy Chamber to Henry VII. We can gather alsc that he was alive in January 1520-21, and that he was dead in 1530. He was the author of several minor poems which are treasured by collectors, but are of no literary value. It is a proof of the carelessness of those who have dealt with Hawes, that they have assigned to him The Temple of Glasse, though Hawes has himself expressly stated (Pastime of Pleasure, canto xiv.) that Lydgate was the author. Hawes' great work is The Pastime of Pleasure, or the Historie of Graunde Amoure and La Belle Pucel, written in or about 1506, and first printed in 1509. It is an allegorical poem describing the education and history of one Grande Amoure, who learns in the Tower of Doctrine and in the Tower of Chivalry those accomplishments which are necessary to constitute a perfect knight worthy of a perfect love-La Belle Pucel His career through the world is then delineated his combats with monsters, his strange adventures, his marriage, his death, his fame. The poem is dedicated, with an elaborate apology for its deficiencies, to Henry VII, and terminates with another apology 'unto all Poets' on the same grounds.]

Hawes belongs to the Provençal School. His model and master was, as he is constantly reiterating, Lydgate, though he was well acquainted with the works of Chaucer, whose comic vein he occasionally affects, with the verses of Gower, and with the narrative poetry of France and Italy. His poem is elaborately allegorical, though the allegory is not alway easy to follow in detail, and is obviously much impeded with extraneous matter. The style has little of the fluency of Lydgate, and none of his vigour; the picturesqueness and brilliance which are characteristic of Chaucer are not less characteristic of Chaucer's Scotch disciples who were Hawes' contemporaries. The narrative, though by no means lacking incident, and by no means unenlivened with beauties both of sentiment and expression, too often stagnates in

prolix discussions, and wants as a rule life and variety. The com. position is often loose and feeble, the vocabulary is singularly limited, and bad taste is conspicuous in every canto. But Hawes,

with all his faults, is a true poet. He has a sweet simplicity, a pensive gentle air, a subdued cheerfulness about him which have a strange charm at this distance of dissimilar time. Though the hand of the artist is not firm, and the colouring sometimes too sober, his pictures are very graphic. Take one out of many :-

6

The way was troublous and ey nothyng playne,

Tyll at the last I came into a dale,

Beholdyng Phoebus declinying lowe and pale.
With my greyhoundes, in the fayre twylight
I sate me downe.'

His verse is sometimes harsh, but it often breathes a plaintive music, and has a weirdly beautiful rhythm which falls on the ear like the echo of a vanished world,' and seems to transport us back to the dim cloister of some old mediaeval abbey. One such stanza we give :

'O mortall folke you may beholde and see
Howe I lye here, sometime a mighty knight,
The end of joye and all prosperite

Is death at last, thorough his course and mighte,
After the daye there cometh the darke nighte,
For though the daye be never so long,

At last the belle ringeth to evensong.

That couplet alone should suffice for immortality. We may claim also for this neglected poet complete originality at an age when English poetry at least had degenerated into mere translations, into feeble narratives, or into sickly imitations of Chaucer.

But there are two other interesting points connected with The Pastime of Pleasure. It marks with singular precision a great epoch in our literature. It is the last expiring echo of Mediaevalism; it is the first articulate prophecy of the Renaissance. It is the link between The Canterbury Tales and The Faery Queen. Hawes is in poetry what Philippe de Commines is in prose: he belongs to the old world and he breathes its atmosphere-he belongs also to the new, for its first rays are falling on him. He connects the two. The weeds of a time sad and sombre indeed hang about him but Hope is the refrain of his song.

'Drive despaire away,

And live in hope which shall do you good.
Joy cometh after when the payne is past,
Be ye pacient and sober in mode:

To wepe and waile, all is for you in waste.
Was never payne, but it had joy at last
In the fayre morrowe.'

Again,

The dawn had broken, the morning he felt was near. The Pastime of Pleasure was the precursor of The Faery Queen. The two poems are similar in allegorical purpose, similar in the development of their allegory. Some of the incidents, though not identical, are of the same character, and if it would be going too far to say that Spenser was a disciple of Hawes, it would not be going too far to say that Spenser had been a careful student of The Pastime of Pleasure, had been indebted to it for many a useful hint, many a slight preliminary sketch, many a pleasing effect of rhythm and cadence. We have dealt with some minuteness on Hawes, because of the injustice which all his critics have so inexplicably done him. He is,' says Scott, 'a bad imitator of Lydgate, ten times more tedious than his original.' 'Even his name may be omitted,' adds Campbell, 'without any treason to the cause of taste.' Our extracts are, we may add, selected from The Pastime of Pleasure: his minor poems are best forgotten.

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DIALOGUE BETWEEN GRAUNDE AMOURE AND LA PUCEL

[From Cantos xviii. and xix.]

Amoure.

O swete lady, the good perfect starre

Of my true hart, take ye nowe pitie,

Thinke on my paine, whiche am tofore you here,

With your swete eyes beholde you and se,
Howe thought and wo, by great extremitie
Hath chaunged my hue into pale and wanne.
It was not so when I to loue began.

Pucel.

So me thinke, it dothe right well appeare

By your coloure, that loue hath done you wo,—
Your heuy countenaunce, and your doleful cheare,→
Hath loue suche might, for to aray you so

In so short space? I maruell muche also
That you woulde loue me, so sure in certayne
Before ye knew that I woulde loue agayne.

Amoure.

My good deare hart, it is no maruaile why;
Your beauty cleare and louely lokes swete,
My hart did perce with loue so sodainely,
At the firste time, that I did you mete
In the olde temple, when I did you grete.
O lady deare, that pers'd me to the root;
O floure of comfort, all my heale and boote1.

Pucel.

Your wo and paine, and all your languishyng
Continually, ye shall not spende in vayne,
Sithe I am cause of your great mournyng.
Nothinge exile you shall I by disdaine,
Your hart and mine shall neuer part in twaine,

For these two lines the Ed. of 1555 reads:

Your beaute my herte so surely assayde
That syth that tyme it hath to you obayde.

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