65. Chaucer's A. B. C. Genuine; here printed as poem no. I.
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6. _Eight goodly questions with their answers_; printed in Bell's Chaucer,vol. iv. p. 421; nine 7-line stanzas. In st. 3, _tree_ rimes with _profer_;but _tree_ is an obvious misprint for _cofer_! In st. 5, the gerund _tolie_ (Ch. _ly-e_) rimes with _honestie_ (Ch. _honestee_). This is quiteenough to condemn it. But it may be Lydgate's. 67. _To the Kings most noble Grace, and to the Lords and Knights of theGarter_; pr. as above, p. 424; eight 8-line stanzas. In MS. Phillipps 8151,and written by Hoccleve; it much resembles his poem printed in _Anglia_, v.23. The date may be 1416. The 'King' is Henry V. 68. _Sayings._ Really three separate pieces. They are all found on thefly-leaf of the small quarto edition of Caxton, described above, p. 27.When Caxton printed Chaucer's _Anelida_ and _Purse_ on a quire of tenleaves, it so happened that he only filled up nine of them. But, afteradding _explicit_ at the bottom of the ninth leaf, to shew that he had cometo the end of his Chaucer, he thought it a pity to waste space, and soadded three popular sayings on the front of leaf 10, leaving the back of itstill blank. Here is what he printed:-- 'Whan feyth failleth in prestes sawesAnd lordes hestes ar holden for lawesAnd robbery is holden purchasAnd lechery is holden solasThan shal the lond of albyonBe brought to grete confusio_u_n. Hit falleth for euery gentilmanTo saye the best that he canIn mannes absenceAnd the soth in his presence. 'Hit cometh by kynde of gentil blodeTo cast away al heuynesAnd gadre to-gidre wordes goodThe werk of wisedom berith witnesEt sic est finis ****.' The first of these sayings was probably a bit of popular rime, of thecharacter quoted in Shakespeare's _King Lear_, iii. 2. 81. Shakespearecalls his lines _Merlin's_ prophecy; and it has pleased the editors ofChaucer to call the first six lines _Chaucer's_ Prophecy[234]. They appearin Bell's Chaucer, vol. iii. p. 427, in an 'improved' form, not worthdiscussing; and the last eight lines are also printed in the same, vol. iv.p. 426. Why they are separated, is mysterious. Those who think them genuinemay thank me for giving them Caxton's spelling instead of Speght's. § 13. PIECES ADDED IN MORRIS'S EDITION, 1866. In Morris's edition are some pieces which either do not appear in previouseditions, or were first printed later than 1700. 69. Roundel; pr. in vol. vi. p. 304. The same as Merciless Beaute; hereprinted as no. XI. It first appeared, however, in Percy's Reliques ofEnglish Poetry. See p. 80 below. 70. The Former Age; pr. in vol. vi. p. 300, for the first time. Hereprinted as no. IX. See p. 78. 71. _Prosperity_; pr. in vol. vi. p. 296, for the first time. This is takenfrom MS. Arch. Selden B. 24, fol. 119, where it follows Chaucer's Poem on'Truth.' It has but one stanza of eight lines, and I here give it preciselyas it stands in this Scottish MS.:-- 'Richt as pou_er_t causith sobirnes,And febilnes enforcith contenence,Ry_ch_t so prosperitee and grete richesThe moder is of vice and negligence;And powere also causith Insolence;And hono_ur_ oftsiss changith gude thewis;Thare is no more p_er_ilouss pestilenceThan hie estate geven vnto schrewis.Q_uo_d Chaucere.' I have no belief in the genuineness of this piece, though it is not illwritten. In general, the ascription of a piece to Chaucer in a MS. isvaluable. But the scribe of this particular MS. was reckless. It is he whomade the mistake of marking Hoccleve's 'Mother of God' with the misleadingremark--'Explicit or_aci_o Galfridi Chaucere.' At fol. 119, back, he givesus a poem beginning 'Deuise prowes and eke humylitee' in seven 7-linestanzas, and here again at the end is the absurd remark--'Q_uo_d Chaucerquhen he was ry_ch_t auisit.' But he was himself quite 'wrongly advised';for it is plainly not Chaucer's at all. His next feat is to mark Lydgate'sComplaynt of the Black Knight by saying--'Here endith the Maying anddisporte of Chaucere'; which shews how the editors were misled as to thispoem. Nor is this all; for he gives us, at fol. 137, back, another poem insix 8-line stanzas, beginning 'O hie Emperice and quene celestial'; andhere again at the end is his stupid--'Q_uo_d Chaucere.' The date of thisMS. appears to be 1472; so it is of no high authority; and, unless we makesome verbal alteration, we shall have to explain how Chaucer came to write_oftsiss_ in two syllables instead of _ofte sythe_ in four; see his Can.Yem. Tale, Group G, l. 1031. 72. _Leaulte vault Richesse_; pr. in vol. vi. p. 302, for the first time.This is from the same MS., fol. 138, and is as follows:-- 'This warldly Ioy is onely fantasy,Of quhich non erdly wicht ca_n_ be _con_tent;Quho most has wit, leste suld In It affy,Quho taist_is_ It most, most sall him repent;Quhat valis all this richess and this rent,Sen no ma_n_ wate quho sall his tresour haue?P_re_sume no_ch_t gevin th_a_t god has done but lent,Within schort tyme the quhiche he think_is_ to craue._Leaulte vault richess._' On this poem, I have three remarks to make. The first is that not even thereckless Scottish scribe attributes it to Chaucer. The second is thatChaucer's forms are _content_ and _lent_ without a final _e_, and_repent-e_ and _rent-e_ with a final _-e_, so that the poem cannot be his;although _content_, _repent_, _rent_, and _lent_ rime well enough in theNorthern dialect. The third is that if I could be sure that the above lineswere by a well-known author, I should at once ascribe them to King JamesI., who might very well have written these and the lines called_Prosperity_ above. It is somewhat of a coincidence that the very MS. herediscussed is that in which the unique copy of the _Kingis Quair_ ispreserved. 73. _Proverbs of Chaucer_; printed in vol. vi. p. 303. The first eightlines are genuine; here printed as no. XX. But two 7-line stanzas areadded, which are spurious. In MS. Addit. 16165, Shirley tells us that theywere 'made by Halsham Esquyer'; but they seem to be Lydgate's, unless he_added_ to them. See Lydgate's Minor Poems (Percy Soc. 1840), pp. 193 and74. And see pp. 52, 57. It thus appears that, of the 73 pieces formerly attributed to Chaucer, notmore than 26, and a part of a 27th, can be genuine. These are: _CanterburyTales_, _Troilus_, _Legend of Good Women_, _House of Fame_, about a quarterof _The Romaunt of the Rose_, the _Minor Poems_ printed in the presentvolume and numbered I-XI, XIII-XXI, and two pieces in prose. § 14. DESCRIPTION OF THE MSS. After the preceding somewhat tedious, but necessary discussion of thecontents of the black-letter and other editions (in many of which poemswere as recklessly attributed to Chaucer as medieval proverbs used to be toKing Solomon), it is some relief to turn to the manuscripts, which usuallyafford much better texts, and are altogether more trustworthy. The following is a list of the MSS. which have been followed. I must hereacknowledge my great debt to Dr. Furnivall, whose excellent, careful, andexact reproduction in print of the various MSS. leaves nothing to bedesired, and is a great boon to all Chaucer scholars. They are nearlyall[235] printed among the Chaucer Society's publications. At the sametime, I desire to say that I have myself consulted most of the MSS., andhave thus gleaned a few hints which could hardly have been otherwiseacquired; it was by this process that I became acquainted with the poemsnumbered XXII. and XXIII., which are probably genuine, and with the poemnumbered XII., which is certainly so. An editor should always look at theMSS. for himself, if he can possibly contrive to do so. LIST OF THE MSS.; WITH ABBREVIATIONS. N.B. The roman numbers following the name of each MS. denote the numbers ofthe poems in the present edition. A.--Ashmole 59, Bodleian Library (Shirley's).--X. XIV. XVIII. Ad.--Addit. 16165, British Museum.--VII. XX. XXIII. Add.--Addit. 22139, British Museum.--XIII. XIV. XV. XIX. Ar.--Arch. Selden B. 24, Bodleian Library.--IV. V. XIII. XVIII. Arch.--Arch. Selden B. 10, Bodleian Library.--X. XIII. At.--Addit. 10340, British Museum.--XIII. B.--Bodley 638 (Oxford).--I. II. III. V. VII. X. XXII. Bannatyne MS. 1568, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.--XV.
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