I will you take, and lady make As shortly as I can: Thus have you won an earl's son, And not a banished man. The most celebrated of these poems, and the last that we shall notice, is the ballad of Chevy Chase. The incident which induced this ballad occurred in the early part of the reign of Henry the Fourth, and was as follows:-Percy, Earl of Northumberland, resolved to hunt for three days in the Scottish border, without asking leave of Douglas, the Scottish Earl, upon whose lands he would thus trespass. This was an insult which the gallant Douglas immediately resented, and as he resolved to repel the intruders by force, the conflict, which the poet has so graphically described, was the consequence. The scene of the action was the Cheviot hills. Of this ballad, Sir Phillip Sydney, in his 'Defense of Poetry,' remarks, ‘I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart more moved than with the sound of a trumpet.' The spelling of the original poem is now so nearly obsolete that we shall present it in a form in which it will be more readily understood :— CHEVY-CHASE. God prosper long our noble king, Our lives and safeties all; A woful hunting once there did To drive the deer with hound and horn, Earl Percy took his way; The child may rue that is unborn, The hunting of that day. The stout Earl of Northumberland, A vow to God did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods The chiefest harts in Chevy-Chase Who sent Earl Percy present word, The English Earl, not fearing that, With fifteen hundred bow-men bold, All chosen men of might, Who knew full well in time of need, To aim their shafts aright. The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran, To chase the fallow-deer: On Monday they began to hunt, Ere daylight did appear; And long before high noon they had The bow-men muster'd on the hills, Their backsides all, with special care, That day were guarded sure. The hounds ran swiftly through the woods, The nimble deer to take, That with their cries the hills and dales Lord Percy to the quarry went, But if I thought he would not come, With that, a brave young gentleman Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, All men of pleasant Tivydale, O cease your sports, Earl Percy said, And now with me, my countrymen, That ever did on horseback come, I durst encounter man for man, Earl Douglas on his milk-white steed, Most like a baron bold, Rode foremost of his company, Whose armor shone like gold. Show me, said he, whose men you be That, without my consent, do chase And kill my fallow-deer. The first man that did answer make, Was noble Percy he; Who said, We list not to declare, Nor show whose men we be: Yet we will spend our dearest blood Ere thus I will out-braved be, One of us two shall die: I know thee well, an earl thou art, But trust me, Percy, pity it were, Let thou and I the battle try, Then stepp'd a gallant squire forth, That e'er my captain fought on foot, You be two earls, said Witherington, I'll do the best that do I may, While I have power to stand: Our English archers bent their bows, At the first flight of arrows sent, From these remarks upon the poetry of England between the age of Chaucer and that of Elizabeth, we proceed to notice the prose writers of the same period. These will be found both more numerous, and of more elevated merit than the former. SIR JOHN FORTESCUE, the first prose writer that appeared after Chaucer and Wickliffe, was born of an ancient family at Wear Gifford, in Devonshire about 1405. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, whence he removed to Lincoln's Inn, London, for the purpose of preparing for the law. His legal attainments soon became so great as to attract the attention of the court, and in 1430 he received the degree of sergeant-at-law. In 1441 he was made king's sergeant-at-law, and the next year appointed chief-justice of the king's bench at Westminster. These marks of royal confidence and favor were the result of Fortescue's integrity, wisdom, and firmness; but his attachment to the house of Lancaster proved the source of bitter persecutions; for in the first parliament of Edward the Fourth, he was attainted of high treason. Henry the Sixth had, meantime, escaped into Scotland, whither Fortescue immediately followed him, and was nominated by the exiled monarch, Chancellor of England. From Scotland he embarked with queen Margaret and her son prince Edward, in 1463, for Holland, and remained for several years in exile in Lorraine. It was during his residence abroad that the chancellor composed most of his literary works, after which he returned to England, became reconciled to the reigning sovereign, and passed the remainder of his life in the quiet of retirement. He lived to reach nearly the ninetieth year of his age, and must therefore have died about 1495. Besides several performances in the Latin language, chief-justice Fortescue wrote, The difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy, as it more particularly regards the English Constitution, in English; in which he draws a striking, though, perhaps, exaggerated contrast between the condition of the French under an arbitrary monarch, and that of his own countrymen, who even at that time possessed very considerable privileges as subjects. The following extract from this work conveys at the same time, an idea of the literary style, and of the manner of thinking of that age. ENGLISH COURAGE. It is cowardice and lack of hearts and courage, that keepeth the Frenchmen from rising, and not poverty; which courage no Frenchman hath like to the Englishman. It hath been often seen in England that three or four thieves, for poverty, hath set upon seven or eight true men, and robbed them all. But it hath not been seen in France, that seven or eight thieves have been hardy to rob three or four true men. Wherefore it is right seld' that Frenchmen be hanged for robbery, for that they have no hearts to do so terrible an act. There be therefore mo men hanged in England, in a year, for robbery and manslaughter, than there be hanged in France for such cause of crime in seven years. There is no man hanged in Scotland in seven years together for robbery, and yet they be oftentimes hanged for larceny, and stealing of goods in the absence of the owner thereof; but their hearts serve them not to take a man's goods while he is present and will defend it; which manner of taking is called robbery. But the Englishman be of an other courage; for if he be poor, and see an other man having riches which may be taken from him by might, he wal not spare to do so, but if2 that poor man be right true. Wherefore it is not poverty, but it is lack of heart and cowardice, that keepeth the Frenchmen from rising. 3 WILLIAM CAXTON, the English prose writer who follows Fortescue, and who is worthy to be held in immortal remembrance as the first who gave to England the means of diffusing knowledge through the medium of printing, was born in the weald of Kent about 1410. Having been brought up a mercer, he was employed by the Mercer's Company of London as their agent in the Netherlands—a situation which he filled with great credit to himself for the space of twenty-three years. During this agency he was employed by Edward the Fourth to negotiate a treaty between that 1 Seldom. 2 But if-unless. 3 The art of impressing characters upon paper with blocks of carved wood, was discovered in 1430, by Laurence Coster of Haarlem, in the Netherlands; and movable types were invented by John Guttenburgh of Mentz, in Germany, 1440; soon after which Shoeffer and Faust founded types of metal. |