The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland | Page 7

The book of the Lion is mentioned in his Retraction, and by Lidgate in
the prologue to the Fall of Princes, but is now lost, as is that.
De Vulcani vene, i. e. of the Brocke of Vulcan, which is likewise
mentioned by Lidgate.
La belle Dame sans Mercy, was translated from the French of Alain
Chartier, secretary to Lewis XI, king of France.
The Complaint of Mars and Venus was translated from the French of
Sir Otes de Grantson, a French poet.
The Complaint of Annilida to false Arcite.
The Legend of Gode Women (called the Assembly of Ladies, and by
some the Nineteen Ladies) was written to oblige the queen, at the
request of the countess of Pembroke.

The treatise of the Conclusion of the Astrolabie was written in the year
1391.
Of the Cuckow and Nightingale, this seems by the description to have
been written at Woodstock.
The Ballade beginning In Feverre, &c. was a compliment to the
countess of Pembroke.
Several other ballads are ascribed to him, some of which are justly
suspected not to have been his. The comedies imputed to him are no
other than his Canterbury Tales, and the tragedies were those the
monks tell in his Tales.
The Testament of Love was written in his trouble the latter part of his
life.
The Song beginning Fly fro the Prese, &c. was written in his death-bed.
Leland says, that by the content of the learned in his time, the
Plowman's Tale was attributed to Chaucer, but was suppressed in the
edition then extant, because the vices of the clergy were exposed in it.
Mr. Speight in his life of Chaucer, printed in 1602, mentions a tale in
William Thynne's first printed book of Chaucer's works more odious to
the clergy than the Plowman's Tale. One thing must not be omitted
concerning the works of Chaucer. In the year 1526 the bishop of
London prohibited a great number of books which he thought had a
tendency to destroy religion and virtue, as did also the king in 1529, but
in so great esteem were his works then, and so highly valued by the
people of taste, that they were excepted out of the prohibition of that
act.
The PARDONERS PROLOGUE.
Lordings! quoth he, in chirch when I preche,
I paine mee to have an
have an hauteine speche;
And ring it out, as round as doth a bell;

For I can all by rote that I tell.
My teme is always one, and ever was,

(Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas)
First, I pronounce fro

whence I come,
And then my bills, I shew all and some:
Our
liege--lords seal on my patent!
That shew I first, my body to warrent;

That no man be so bold, priest ne clerk,
Me to disturb of Christ's
holy werke;
And after that I tell forth my tales,
Of bulls, of popes,
and of cardinales,
Of patriarkes, and of bishops I shew;
And in
Latin I speake wordes a few,
To faver with my predication,
And for to stere men to devotion,

Then shew I forth my long, christall stones,
Ycrammed full of clouts
and of bones;
Relickes they been, as were they, echone!
Then have
I, in Latin a shoder-bone,
Which that was of an holy Jewes shepe.

Good men, fay, take of my words kepe!
If this bone be washen in any
well,
If cow, or calfe, shepe, or oxe swell
That any worm hath eaten,
or hem strong,
Take water of this well, and wash his tong.
And it is
hole a-non: And furthermore,
Of pockes, and scabs, and every sore

Shall shepe be hole, that of this well
Drinketh a draught: Take keep
of that I tell!
If that the good man, that beasts oweth,
Woll every
day, ere the cocke croweth,
Fasting drink of this well, a draught,

(As thilk holy Jew our elders taught)
His beasts and his store shall
multiplie:
And sirs, also it healeth jealousie,
For, though a man be
fall in jealous rage,
Let make with this Water his potage,
And never
shall he more his wife mistrist,
Thughe, in sooth, the defaut by her
wist:
All had she taken priests two or three!
Here is a mittaine eke,
that ye may see.
He that has his hand well put in this mittaine;
He
shall have multiplying of his graine,
When he hath sowen, be it wheat
or otes;
So that he offer good pens or grotes!
Those who would prefer the thoughts of this father of English poetry,
in a modern dress, are referred to the elegant versions of him, by
Dryden, Pope, and others, who have done ample justice to their
illustrious predecessor.
[Footnote 1: Life of Chaucer prefixed to Ogle's edition of that author
modernized.]

[Footnote 2: Some biographers of Chaucer say, that pope Gregory IX.
gave orders to the archbishop of Canterbury to summon him, and that
when a synod was convened at St. Paul's, a quarrel happened between
the bishop of London and the duke of Lancaster, concerning Wickliff's
sitting down in their