Another lyric, beginning Quhen Flora had ourfret the firth, works up the commonplaces about the merle and mavis, and does not shrink from aureation. Scho is sa brycht of hyd and hew, So, too, O Lusty May, with Flora quene proclaims its kinship in such a phrase as 'preluciand bemis.' The Song of Absence, which Pinkerton wrongly attributed to James I', is more lively in its verse. Its irregular lines recall the movement of the 'rustic' stanza; but these are steadied by the ballast of such phrases as the 'hait canicular day' or the 'sweet mow redolent' of the beloved. Evidence of this 'aureate' habit is so persistent in the minor love poems in the collections that they must be grouped with the courtly poetry of the period. Finally, there is the didactic and religious verse of the collections. Little of this is, however, anonymous; and rarely, if ever, may it be described as 'popular.' Engrained as the ethical habit appears to be in Scottish literature-so deeply, indeed, as often to convey the impression of unrelieved seriousness-it is not in any strict sense an idiosyncrasy of pre-reformation verse. In her reflections on life's pains and aspirations, Scotland but conformed to the taste of her neighbours. If she appear, after the sixteenth century, to ponder more upon these things—or, let us say, less upon others-she does so under stress of a combination of special circumstances, rather than in indulgence of an old habit or incurable liking. An additional interest, philological rather than literary, attaches to the Asloan collection from the fact that it contains a number of prose passages, which are among the earliest remains of Scots prose, other than legal and official documents. That there should be any vernacular prose, whether official or quasiliterary, at the beginning of the fifteenth century is almost surprising, when we consider the place held by Latin in the intellectual life, even in the commercial relationships of renascence Scotland. The plea for a native medium is hardly urged before the middle of the sixteenth century; and then it is only occasional, and, as in Lyndsay's Exclamatioun to the Redar, apologetic, 1 Ancient Scotish Poems (1786), 11, 425. See Chapter x of this volume. because of the stress of reformation conflict. It was probably but rarely that a Scot excused his 'Ynglis' on the grounds stated by the earl of March in his letter to Henry IV of England1. We know that Scots was used in public documents in the late fourteenth century. In the Bute MS of Laws six of the twenty-five pieces are in the vernacular; so too are the parliamentary records from the reign of the first James. But neither in these nor in the texts represented in the Asloan MS can we discover any halfconscious effort of style, such as marks the beginnings of fifteenth century prose in England. The earliest examples of vernacular prose are the translations of Sir Gilbert Hay, or 'of the Haye,' dated 1456, and preserved in a single volume now in the collection at Abbotsford. They are (1) The Buke of the Law of Armys, or Buke of Bataillis, based on the French of Honoré Bonet, (2) The Buke of the Order of Knichthood, following L'Ordre de Chevalerie and (3) a version of the pseudo-Aristotelian Government of Princes. To which of these the entry in the Asloan MS ('The Document of Schir Gilbert Hay') refers is not known, for the portion of the MS which contained the text has been lost. Of more originality, but with small claim as literature, is the long treatise on political wisdom and rule of life for a prince, by John of Ireland, rector of Yarrow and quondam confessor to James III and Louis XI of France. The text, labelled Johannis de Irlandia Opera Theologica, is preserved in the Advocates' Library. A long extract from John's writings stands first in the Asloan MS ('On the Passioun,' etc.); and we have clues to his authorship of other vernacular treatises of a semitheological character which are not extant. The place of his prose in the history of the language has been discussed in another chapters. The contents of the Portuus of Noblines in the Asloan MS, and (in part) in the Chepman and Myllar prints, are explained by the fuller title, 'The wertuis of nobilnes and portratours thairof &c. callit the Portuus and matynnis of the samin.' This piece is a dull discussion, in a series of homilies, on Faith, Loyalty, Honour and the other virtues. It purports to be a translation by Andrew Cadiou from the French. The Spectakle of Luf or Delectatioun 1 It 'ys mare cleir to myne understandyng than latyne or Fraunche' (1400). Cf. Chapter IV. 'Perhaps we should say the earliest important examples; for the short fifteenth century tracts, Craft of Deyng, The Wisdom of Solomon and The Vertewis of the Mess, preserved in the Cambridge University MS, Kk. 1. 5, may be earlier. Their interest is, however, entirely philological. See the edition by J. Rawson Lumby, E.E.T.S. 1870. See Chapter IV. of Wemen, translated from the Latin, is an exhortation, in the conventional dialogue-form, 'to abstene fra sic fleschly delectatiounis quhilk thow callis luf.' The reader is informed in the conclusion that the translation was finished at St Andrews on 10 July 1492, by G. Myll, 'ane clerk, quhilk had bene in to Venus court mair than the space of xx 3eiris, quhill (he adds) I mycht nocht mak the seruice that I had bene accustomyd to do; quharfor I was put out of hir bill of hushald.' The Schort Memoriale of the Scottis corniklis for addicioun, an account of the reign of James II, is of no literary pretence. Early in the sixteenth century, Murdoch Nisbet wrote out his version of Purvey's recension of Wyclif's translation of the New Testament. It anticipates the Bassandyne Bible by half-a-century; but it does not appear to have been circulated. It remained in manuscript till 1901. Its mixture of northern and southern forms gives it considerable philological interest. After it, we may name Gau's Richt Vay (a translation from Christiern Pedersen), Bellenden's Livy and Scottish History, the patchwork translation called The Complaynt of Scotlande, Winzet's Tractates, bishop Leslie's History of Scotland, Knox's History and Buchanan's Chamaeleon, Lindesay of Pitscottie's History, the controversial writings of Nicol Burne and other exiled Catholics and king James VI's early effort on versification (Ane Schort Treatise); but the consideration of these belongs to a later chapter. The professional Rolment of Courtis, by Abacuck Bysset, though of the seventeenth century (1622), represents the aureate style of Middle Scots and is the last outpost of that affectation in northern prose. CHAPTER XII ENGLISH PROSE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY I PECOOK. FORTESCUE THE PASTON LETTERS. THE work of popularising prose was a slow and humble process. In the 'century of the commons' literature was consistently homely. Works of utility-books of manners and of cookery, service books and didactic essays, as well as old romances copied and modernised and chronicles growing ever briefer and duller-familiarised the middle classes with books. Dictionaries prove the spread of study; and, though verse was more popular reading than prose, countless letters and business papers remain to show that soldiers, merchants, servants and women were learning to read and write with fluency. The House of Commons and the king's council now conducted business in English; and, in the latter part of the century, politicians began to appeal to the sense of the nation in short tracts. In the meantime, the art of prose writing advanced no further. The Mandeville translations mark its high tide, for even The Master of Game, the duke of York's elaborate treatise on hunting, was, save for the slightest of reflections— 'imagynacioun (is) maistresse of alle werkes-purely technical. A fashionable treatise, as the number of manuscripts proves, it was, in the main, a translation of a well known French work; it is chiefly interesting for its technical terms, mostly French, and as witness to the excessive elaborateness of the hunting pleasures of the great. Save for the solitary and unappreciated phenomenon of Pecock, Latin, for the greater part of the century, maintained its position as the language of serious books. The other two learned men of the time wrote first in Latin, and seem to have been driven to use English by the political ascendency of a middle-class and unlettered faction. The praises of Henry V are recorded in Latin; nearly two dozen Latin chronicles were compiled to some seven in English; the books given by the duke of Gloucester and the earl of Worcester to the universities were in Latin, and so were the volumes purchased by the colleges themselves. John Capgrave, the learned and travelled friar of Lynn in Norfolk, was the best known man of letters of his time. His reputation was based upon comprehensive theological works, which comprised commentaries upon all the books of the Bible, condensed from older sources, besides a collection of lives of saints, lives of the Famous Henries and a life of his patron, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester. All these were in Latin. But he composed in English, for the simple, a life of St Katharine in verse and one of St Gilbert of Sempringham in prose, as well as a guide for pilgrims to Rome and a volume of Annals, presented to Edward IV. Capgrave's chronicle, so far as originality goes, makes some advance on Trevisa, being a compilation from a number of sources with an occasional observation of the writer's own. He seems to have regarded it in the nature of notes: 'a schort remembrauns of elde stories, that whanne I loke upon hem and have a schort touch of the writing I can sone dilate the circumstaunces.' Valuable historically, as an authority on Henry IV, it also attracts attention by the terseness of its style. It 'myte,' says the author, 'be cleped rather Abbreviacion of Cronicles than a book'; but graphic detail appears in the later portion, dealing with Capgrave's own times. It is he who tells us that Henry V 'after his coronacion was evene turned onto anothir man and all his mociones inclined to vertu,' though this is probably in testimony to the peculiar sacredness of the anointing oil. Capgrave was a doctor in divinity and provincial of his order, the Austin Friars Hermit; he was extremely orthodox, violently abusive of Wyclif and Oldcastle, an apologist of archbishops, yet, like other chroniclers, restive under the extreme demands of the papacy. Even apart from his signal achievement in literature, the lively character and ironical fate of Reginald Pecock must attract interest. A learned man and original thinker, he was yet astoundingly vain. Though Humphrey of Gloucester was his first patron, he was raised to the episcopate by the party which ruined the duke, and shared that party's unpopularity. An ardent apologist of the newest papal claims and of the contemporary English hierarchy, he was, nevertheless, persecuted by the bishops and deserted by the pope. Finally, his condemnation on the score of heretical opinions was brought about by the malice of a revengeful political party. |