29 Mediæval Hymns and Translations. (Handbook, par. 22.) Night Song. Ymnus ad Nocturnas. On nyhte arisende uton wacian ealle Nocte surgentes vigilemus omnes Symle on sealm-sangun uton smeagen and Semper in Psalmis meditemur atque Mid mægenû eallu drihtne uton singan Viribus totis Domino Canamus Werodlice lof-sangas Dulciter ymnos. pam arfæstan cyninge samod singende Mid his halgum we geernian healle Adreogan lif Ducere Vitam. Getipie pæt us godcundnes sy eadige Præstet hoc nobis deitas beata Fæderes and suna and samod pæs halgan Patris et nati pariterque sancti Gastes bæs, hlynp on eallum Spiritus cujus reboat in omni Wuldor middan-earde Gloria mundo. Sy hit swa Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church with Anglo Saxon The Dies Irae of Thomas of Celano (fl. 1208), is one of the most celebrated. In Lisco's Dies Ira (1843), as many as sixty versions are given, chiefly German; and it has been translated by many English poets: Sylvester (1620), W. Drummond, Crashaw, Roscommon, by Scott in part in his Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Rev. T. Williams, Rev. W. J. Irons, Lord Lyndsay, Dr. A. Coles and Rev. Dr. Williams of New York, and Abp. Trench. From the De Contemptu Mundi, by Bernard (fl. 1150) monk of Clugny, who was born at Morlaix, but was the son of English parents. The poem, which contains nearly three thousand lines, was first published by Flaccus Illyricus. A large part of it has been translated by Dr. Neale, in his Rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix on the Heavenly Country (1859). The original metre is dactylic hexameter-each foot except the last a dactyle-with leonine rhymes in every second and fourth foot, and with endrhymes; a metre at once very difficult and musical. Urbs Syon aurea, patria lactea cive decora, Jerusalem the golden! With milk and honey blest; Beneath thy contemplation Sink heart and voice opprest. I know not, oh! I know not What joys await me there; What radiance of glory, What bliss beyond compare. They stand, those walls of Zion, All jubilant with song, And bright with many an angel, And all the martyr throng. The daylight is serene; Are decked in glorious sheen. And there, from care released, The shout of them that triumph, The song of them that feast. CHAPTER III. ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM CHAUCER TO SHAKESPEARE, A.D. 1350-1600. THE latter half of the fourteenth century is the age of Chaucer and Gower of the commencement of cultivated English literature; and of Lollardism under Wycliffe. Colleges founded at Oxford (1249-1324), and Cambridge (1256-1351). The fifteenth century is poor in English poets, though rich in Scotch. It is the age of the commencement of the translation of the classics, of printing, and of popular ballads on the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485). The sixteenth century is the age of the Reformation in Germany and in England; of the wide extension of classical learning; of the completion of the structure of the English language; and of the substitution of the drama for the Mysteries and Moralities of former centuries. Among the poets are Spenser and Shakespeare; among the prose writers, Raleigh, Hooker, and in part Bacon. 30. Geoffrey Chaucer, 1328-1400. (Handbook, pars. 25, 39, 46,112.) Dan (ie. Maister) Chaucer, or Dan Jeffrey, as Spenser calls him, is the founder of English poetry, and is entitled to this praise on various grounds. He is the first poet who sketched our national life and manners. To him we are indebted for the common and vigorous use of our heroic measure, the ten-syllabled line: while his writings exercised great influence on our later poets, he being a special favourite with his contemporary Gower, as well as with Spenser and Milton. Chaucer's forte is in description partly of natural scenery, chiefly of character. Throughout his writings there is a strong admixture of religious sentiment, which shows a leaning to the cause of his friend Wickliffe, and what was afterwards the cause of the Reformation. His style sounds to modern readers intensely French: and he has been tharged by Verstegan, by Skinner, and by Dryden with corrupting our language by importing great numbers of French words. In fact, however, he is not more French in style than his contemporaries, Gower, Wickliffe, and Mandeville. Edmund Spenser calls his poetry a well of English undefiled;' and from the charge of Frenchifying he has been formally and successfully defended by T. Tyrwhitt, in his edition of the Canterbury Tales (Lond. 1775-8); by Sir W. Scott (Miscellaneous Prose Works, i. 426; and by Hippesley, in his Chapters on Early English Literature. A Restitution of Decayed In‘elli- Preface to the Etymologicon Mag gence, 1605. num. |