And by night each one unshette;1
Ne porter is there none to let,2
Ne manere tidings in to pace;3
Ne never rest is in that place,
That it n' is filled full of tidings,
Either loud, or of whisperings.
And, ever, all the House's angles
Is full of rownings' and of jangles;
Of wars, of peace, of marriages,
Of rests, of labour, of viages,
Of abode," of death, of life,
Of love, of hate, accord, of strife;
Of loss, of lore, and of winnings,
Of health, of sickness, or lesìngs;7
Of fairé weather, and tempèstis,
Of qualm of folk, and eke of beastis ;
Of divers transmutations

Of estates and of regions;
Of trust, of dread, of jealousy,
Of wit, of winning, of folly;
Of plenty, and of great famine;

Of cheap," of dearth, and of ruìne;
Of good or of misgovernment,

Of fire, and divers accident."

MERCY.

But, sith 'tis so there is a trespass done,
Unto Mercy let yield the trespassour.
It is her office to redress it soon;

For Trespass is to Mercy a mirròur.

And like as the sweet hath the price by sour,

the ocean's ebb and flow. "Alike to him was time or tide,"-Scott: ie., duration or specific period.

"Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times."

Shakesp. Jul. Cæs. Act iii. Sc. 1.

i.e., epochs of duration. 1 Unshut.

Tidy, betide, are derivatives.

2 Hinder. (Ang. -Sax. lettan); let, to permit (Ang.-Sax. lactan); let, applied to leasing of property, is used in the same sense as the Latin, locare. 8 Go.

Rown, roune, or round, to whisper: alleged etymology, "to mutter like a Runic enchanter."-Jamieson.

Journeys. (Fr. voyage. Lat. via.)

Boding; prognostication; "Nay, such abodes ben not worth an haw."-Chauc. Troilus and Cressida. (Ang.-Sax. bodian.)

7 Lies. Lose was anciently written lese: "For lesing of richesse and liberty."Chauc. Monk's Tale; lose is substantially the same word with loose. Lesing is also lying; retained in the law phrase “leasing-making."

Cheapness; plenty. (Ang.-Sax. cyppan, to traffic; German, kauffen;)—coft, bought (Scotch) "Formerly good-cheap, and bad-cheap; i.e., well or ill bought, were the modes of expression. The modern fashion uses the word only for goodcheap."-Tooke. Cheap, a market, as Eastcheap, Cheapside:—to chaffer, to bargain-chapman, a purchaser. Compare the French phrase à bon marché.

This passage is an example of Chaucer's nervous simplicity of style; of the

GOWER.

So by Trespass, Mercy hath all her might:
Without Trespass, Mercy hath lack of light.

What should Physic do but if Sickness were?
What needeth salve but if there were a sore?
What needeth drink where thirst hath no power?
What should Mercy do, but2 Trespass go afore?
But Trespass, Mercy woll be little store;3
Without trespass near execution,*
May Mercy have ne chief perfectiön.

JOHN GOWER.
(1326—1408.)

19

GOWER was a native of Kent, lord of three manors, one in Norfolk, another in Suffolk, and a third in Kent. He was patronized both by Richard II. and Henry IV. He was the author of three works, "Vox Clamantis,' a political and historical treatise in Latin; "Speculum Meditantis," a religious work in French; and "Confessio Amantis,' an English poem in eight books, devoted to the passion of love. The poem was finished in the sixteenth year of King Richard II. (1392-93), and in the old age of the poet. Along with his love stories Gower mingles theological and philosophical disquisitions, embodying the learning and traditions of his day. He styles himself "moral Gower," and Chaucer, and others, mention him by the same title. Though greatly inferior to Chaucer in humour and natural description, Gower has taste and fancy as well as learning, and his poetry is valuable to all who seek to study our language.

facility with which his imagination crowds objects into his pictures; and of his usual unskilfulness in grouping and arrangement. The original of the "House of Fame" is Ovid, Metamph. xii. 39. See also Pope's "Temple of Fame," founded on Chaucer's poem.

1 Unless or without.

2 Unless or without.

In little estimation.

Only a few of her women knew.

4 About to be punished. 6 Walking.

7 Supple, where: the omission of the relative has been noticed above. It appeared to her.

• Supple, she: but the nominative is understood in the preceding her.

Will I abide, under the shaw ;"1
And bade her women to withdraw.
And there she stood aloné still,
To think what was in her will.
She saw the sweeté flowers spring;
She heard (the) gladé fowlés sing;
She saw beastis in their kind,
The buck, the doe, the hart, the hind,
The males go with the female :
And so began there a quarrèll2
Between love and her owné heart,
From which she couthé not astart.3
And as she cast her eye about,
She saw, clad in one suit, a rout1
Of ladies, where they comen ride
Along under the woodé side;
On fair ambulend horse they set,
That were all whité, fair, and great;
And everiche one rid on side.
The saddles were of such a pride,
So riché saw she never none

With pearls and gold so well begone ;7
In kirtels and in copés rich
They were all clothed all alich,10
Departed" even of white and blue
With all lustes12 that she knew
They were embroidered over all ;13
Their bodies weren long and small.
The beauty of their fairé face

There may no earthly thing deface:11

1 Shade (Ang.-Sax, Scua: Greek σκα, skia).

"Whether ridest thou under this green shaw."-(Chaucer.)

This form of the word is familiar in Scotch.

2 Dispute.

8 Start from; she could not free herself from the thought. Rosiphele is a maiden, brought only by the power of circumstances to acknowledge the dominion of love. 4 A company.

The infinitive in our older writers is made to do duty not only for gerunds and participles; but for parts of speech in no way connected with the verb.

6 Ambling (Lat. Ambulare).

7 Furnished. Gower frequently uses the word in this sense:

-he was well begone

With fair daughters many one.-Confessio Amantis, Book V.

Gowns; probably connected with the verb gird.

9 Upper cloaks. Cope is a part of the sacerdotal dress;-also a head-dress-the upper tier of masonry; hence cope-stone. Cop or cope is used as the top of anything. Upon the cop right of his nose he had

10 Alike.

A wart.-Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales. (Latin, caput)-cope; to rival, to contend with, has various origins assigned it.-See the Dictionaries. 11 Variegated with. 12 Lists, colours. The term Du Cange derives from licia (Lat.) threads, strings; the barriers of camps or cities being in mediæval Latin termed licia from this word. The Ang.-Sax. list is a border or hem of cloth; hence any bounding line; the boundary within which combatants fought :-applied to the party colours adopted by combatants; or to colours generally. 13 We write now all over.

14 Deface here seems to mean to spoil by outvying.

BARBOUR.

Corownés on their heads they bare
As each of them a queené were;
That all the gold of Croesus' hall
The least coronal of all

Might not have bought, after the worth:
Thus comen they ridend forth.

21

BARBOUR.

(1320?-1394 or 1395.)

JOHN BARBOUR, the first of the Scottish poets who has descended to us, was Archdeacon of Aberdeen. His great poem, "The Brus," is a metrical history of King Robert Bruce. It professes to be a soothfast story, but is strongly tinctured with romance. Nearly all the personal traits and adventures recorded of Bruce and his Scottish knights are derived from the lively and graphic descriptions of this chivalrous old poet. Barbour enjoyed the bounty of his sovereign, King Robert II. In 1377, on the completion of his poem, he received a donation of £10, in 1378 a pension of 20s. yearly, and in 1388 a pension of £10, supposed to be for a poem on the royal family of Stewart, now lost. Barbour in mature life studied at Oxford and Paris, and was familiar with all the classical and romantic literature of his day. He died in 1394 or 1395. The date of his birth is unknown, but in 1357 he was Archdeacon of Aberdeen.

FREEDOM.

AH, Freedom is a noble thing!
Freedom makes men to have liking;
Freedom all solace to man gives:
He lives at ease that freely lives.
A noble heart may have none ease,
Na ellis nought that may him please,
If freedom faileth; for free liking
Is yearned oure1 all other thing.
Na he that aye has lived free
May not know well the property,2
The anger, na the wretched doom
That is coupléd to foul thyrldom.3
But if he had assayed it,

Then all perquer1 he should it wyt ;5
And should think freedom more to prize

Than all the gold in world that is.

1 Desired above.

2 Evil condition.

Thirl, Thrill; a slave; a thrall. The eastern ceremony of enslaving was boring the ears. Exod. xxi. 6, Ps. xl. 6. "A custom retained by our forefathers and executed by them at the church doors."-Ellis. Thirl, therefore, is one bored: Ang -Sax. therlean (to pierce). Thirl in Scotland was the feudal jurisdiction attached to a mill; thirlage, its legal exactions; put for thraldom in general. The idea bore or hole appears in the words nostril, drill, etc.

• Perfectly.

Blame, condemn :-it may mean also know.

CHARACTER OF SIR JAMES OF DOUGLAS.1

ALL men loved him for his bounty,
For he was of full fair effeir,2
Wise, courteous, and debonair.3
Large, and luffand als" was he,
And oure all things loved lawté.?

*

*

*

He was in all his deedis leal;8
For him dedeynyeit not to deal
With treachery, na with falsèt :
His heart on high honoùr was set;
And him contenit10 on sic manère,
That all him loved that were him near.
But he was not so fair, that we
Should speak greatly of his beauty.
In visage he was some deal grey,
And had black hair, as I heard say;
But of limbs he was well made,

With banys" great, and shoulders braid.

THE BATTLE OF BYLAND'S 13 PATH.

THUS were they fechtand' in the pass,
And when the king Robert, that was
Wiss in his deid,15 and anerly,16
Saw his men sae1 right doughtily
The path upon their fayis ta' ;18
And saw his fayis defend them sae;
Then gart19 he all the Irishry20
That were intill his company,
Of Argyle and the Isles alsua,21

Speed them in great hy to the brae.

1 Called the Good Lord James: See Scott's Lord of the Isles; and Tales of a Grandfather. 8 French de bon air, of a good disposition.

2 Demeanour.

4 Liberal: largesse, the gratuity distributed to the heralds and pursuivants at 5 Loving. 7 Loyalty. (French, loyauté.)

tournaments.

8 Loyal, faithful.

6 Also.

Disdained;-the double negative in the early language has been noticed above. 10 He contained himself-demeaned himself. 11 Banes (Scotch); bones.

12 One of the characteristics of a perfect knight was to be "a lambkin in peace and

a lion in war."

13 Byland Abbey is near Malton in Yorkshire; this battle was fought in 1322. 14 Fighting.

15 Cognizant of his death; viz., of the death of the English leader.

16 Or allenarly-alone, from ane, one.

19 Caused.

17 So.

18 Foes,-take.

20 The Highlanders of Argyle and the Isles were of Irish origin; Erse, the name of their language indicates this.

21 Also.

22 Haste (English verb, hie).