And yet, God wot, Sampsoun dronk never no wine. Thou fallest, as it were a sticked swine: Thy tonge is lost, and all thine honest cure,1 Of mannes wit, and his discretion. In whom that drinke hath domination, He can no counsel kepe, it is no drede.2 In other wines growing faste by, Of which there riseth swiche fumositee, Loke Attila, the grete conqueror Died in his slepe, with shame and dishonor, The Pardoneres Tale. 1 Care. 2 Doubt. 3 A Spanish town. 4 Cheapside. XVII. GAMBLING. HASARD' is veray mother of lesinges, He is, as by common opinion, Stilbon, that was a wise embassadour, And when he came it happed him par chance, For which, as sone as that it mighte be, 1 Gambling. The Pardoneres Tale. 2 Waste. XVIII. SWEARING. Now wol I speke of othes false and grete 1 Plainly, Thou shalt swere soth thine othes, and not lie: Behold and see, that in the firste table Of highe Goddes hestes honorable, By Goddes precious herte, and by his nailes, And by the blood of Crist, that is in Hailes,' Seven is my chance, and thine is cink and traye: The Abbey of Hailes in Gloucestershire. This fruit cometh of the bicchel bones' two, Now for the love of Christ that for us dide, 1 Dice made of bones. 2 Leave. APPENDIX. BELIEVING that some quotations from a few of the rare old authors alluded to in the text, will not be incompatible with my subject, and will at the same time prove interesting, both as affording an opportunity to measure the stature of Chaucer's genius by his contemporaries, and as illustrating the power of his example; I have ventured to bring together some selections from Gower, Douglas and Lydgate. These are selected from the host that proclaimed Chaucer to be the model which they had studied, because like Saul they were a head and shoulders taller than their fellows, and by their labors made an impression upon our literature, which is (not faintly) discernible at this remote time. Their genius may not command our veneration, but we cannot deny that they did good service in clearing away the obstacles, and in levelling the rocks and chasms which beset the path so soon to be honored by the august presence of Spenser. [A.] Gower.-John Gower did not write anything in English before Chaucer had first led the way. Nor is it probable that he would have done so then, were it not that the king (Richard II.), "hav. ing met him rowing on the Thames, invited him into the royal |