305 OCCLEVE; THE SCHOLAR OF CHAUCER. WARTON passed sentence on OCCLEVE as "a cold genius, and a feeble writer." A literary antiquary, from a manuscript in his possession, published six poems of Occleve; but that selection was limited to the sole purpose of furnishing the personal history of the author *. Ritson's sharp snarl pronounced that they were of "peculiar stupidity;" George Ellis refused to give "a specimen ;" and Mr. Hallam, with his recollection of the critical brotherhood, has decreed, that "the poetry of Occleve is wretchedly bad, abounding with pedantry, and destitute of grace or spirit." We could hardly expect to have heard any more of this doomed victim-this ancient man, born in the fourteenth century, standing before us, whose dry bones will ill bear all this shaking and cuffing. * “Poems by THOMAS HOCCLEVE, never before printed, selected from a manuscript in the possession of George Mason, with a preface, notes, and glossary, 1796." The notes are not amiss, and the glossary is valuable; but the verses printed by Mason are his least interesting productions. The poet's name is here written with an H, as it appeared in the manuscript; but there is no need of a modern editor changing the usual mode, because names were diversely written or spelt even in much later times. The present writer has been called not only Occleve, but Occliffe, as we find him in Chaucer's works. A literary historian, who has read manuscripts with the eagerness which others do the last novelty, more careful than Warton, and more discriminate than Ritson, has, with honest intrepidity, confessed that "OcCLEVE has not had his just share of reputation. His writings greatly assisted the growth of the popularity of our infant poetry *." Our historian has furnished from the manuscripts of OCCLEVE testimonies of his assertion. Among the six poems printed, one of considerable length exhibits the habits of a dissipated young gentleman in the fourteenth century. OCCLEVE for more than twenty years was a writer in the Privy Seal, where we find quarter-days were most irregular; and though briberies constantly flowed in, yet the golden shower passed over the heads of the clerks, dropping nothing into the hands of these innocents. Our poet, in his usual passage from his "Chestres Inn by the Strond" to "Westminster Gate," by land or water-for "in the winter the way was deep," and "the Strand" was then what its name indicates-often was delayed by "The outward signe of Bacchus and his lure, That at his dore hangeth day by day, *Turner's History of England, v. 335. There was another invitation for this susceptible writer of the Privy Seal. cc "I dare not tell how that the fresh repair There he loitered, "To talk of mirth, and to disport and play." He never "pinched" the taverners, the cooks, the boatmen, and all such gentry. 66 Among this many in mine audience, Methought I was ymade a man for ever— So tickeled me that nyce reverénce, That it me made larger of dispence;- He stinteth never till his purse be bare." He is at length seized amid his jollities, "By force of the penniless maladíe, * Ne lust had none to Bacchus House to hie. Fy! lack of coin departeth compaigníe; And hevé purse with Herté liberál Quencheth the thirsty heat of Hertés drie, Where chinchy Herté † hath thereof but small." This "mirror of riot and excess" effected a discovery, and it was, that all the mischiefs which he recounts came from the high reports of himself which servants bring to their lord. The Losengour or pleasant flatterer was too lightly believed, and honied words made more harmful the deceitful error. Oh! babbling + Niggardly heart. * No desire. flattery! he spiritedly exclaims, author of all lyes, that Such is the causest all day thy lord to fare amiss. import of the following uncouth verse :— "Many a servant unto his Lord saith That all the world speaketh of him, Honoúr, O thou, FAVELE, of lesynges auctoúr +, The Combre worldés +"'clept been Enchantoúrs OCCLEVE was a shrewd observer of his own times. That this rhymer was even a playful painter of society we have a remarkable evidence preserved in the volume of his great master. "The Letter of Cupid," in the works of Chaucer, was the production of Occleve, and appears to have been overlooked by his modern critics. * A Chaucerian word, which well deserves preservation in the language. + FAVELL, author of Lyes. FAVELL, the editor of Hoccleve, explains as cajolerie, or flattery, by words given by Carpentier in his supplement to Du Cange. Favel is personified by Piers Ploughman, and in Skelton's Bouge of Court. FAVELE in langue Romane is Flattery-hence Fabel, Fabling.—Roquefort's Dictionnaire. The Italian FAVELLIO, parlerie, babil, caquet—Albertï's Grand Dictionnaire-does not wholly convey the idea of our modern Humbug, which combines fabling and caquet. The encumbrances to the world. In another poem he calls death, "that Coimbre-world." It was a favourite expression with him, taken from Chaucer. See Warton, ii. 352, note. He had originally entitled it, "A Treatise of the Conversation of Men and Women in the Little Island of Albion." It is a caustic, "polite conversation;" and deemed so execrably good, as to have excited, as our ancient critic Speght tells, "such hatred among the gentlewomen of the Court, that Occleve was forced to recant in that boke of his called Planetas Proprius*." The Letter of Cupid is thus dated : "Written in the lusty month of May, In our Paléis where many a millión The yere of grace joyfull and jocúnd, A thousand four hundred and second." Imagery and imagination are not required in the school of society. Occleve seems, however, sometimes to have told a tale not amiss, for WILLIAM BROWN, the pastoral bard, inserted entire a long story by old Occleve in his "Shepherd's Pipe." To us he remains sufficiently uncouth. The language had not at this period acquired even a syntax, though with all its rudeness it was neither wanting in energy nor copiousness, from that adoption of the French, the Provençal, and the Italian, with which Chaucer had enriched his vein. The present writer seems to have had some notions of the critical art, for he requests the learned * A title which does not appear in the catalogue of his writings by Ritson, in his Bibliographia Poetica. |