Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise (Volume 1 de 5)

1: Darwin, De l'origine des espèces.—Prosper Lucas, De l'hérédité.

2: Spinoza, Éthique. 4^e Partie, axiome.

3: Consulter, pour voir cette échelle d'effets coordonnés: Renan, Langues sémitiques, 1^er chapitre.—Mommsen, Comparaison des civilisations grecque et romaine, 2^e chapitre, 1^er volume, 3^e édition.—Tocqueville, Conséquences de la démocratie en Amérique, 3^e volume.

4: Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, Principes des trois gouvernements.

5: La philosophie alexandrine ne naît qu'au contact de l'Orient. Les vues métaphysiques d'Aristote sont isolées; d'ailleurs chez lui, comme chez Platon, elles ne sont qu'un aperçu. Voyez par contraste la puissance systématique dans Plotin, Proclus, Schelling et Hegel, ou encore l'audace admirable de la spéculation brahmanique et bouddhique.

6: J'ai essayé plusieurs fois d'exprimer cette loi, notamment dans la préface des Essais de critique et d'histoire.

7: De 1550 à 1750.

8: Malte-Brun, t. IV, 398, Danemark signifie champ bas. Sans compter les baies, golfes et canaux, la seizième partie du pays est occupée par les eaux. Le patois jutlandais a encore beaucoup de ressemblance avec l'anglais.

9: Tableau de Ruysdaël, galerie de M. Baring. Des trois îles saxonnes, North Strandt, Busen et Héligoland, North Strandt a été envahie par la mer en 1300, 1483, 1532, 1615, et presque détruite en 1634,—Busen est une plaine unie, battue de tempêtes, qu'il a fallu entourer d'une digue,—Héligoland a été dévastée par la mer en 800, en 1300, en 1500, en 1649, cette dernière fois si terriblement, qu'il n'est resté d'elle qu'un morceau.—Turner, I, 118.

10: Henri Heine, Die nordsee. Voir dans Tacite, Annales, liv. II, l'impression des Romains. Truculentia cœli.

11: Watten, Platen, Sande, Düneninseln.

12: C'est à 9 ou 10 milles, près d'Héligoland, qu'on trouve pour la première fois des profondeurs de vingt perches.

13: Palgrave, Saxon commonwealth, t. I.

14: Notes d'un voyage en Angleterre.

15: Léonce de Lavergne, De l'agriculture anglaise. Le sol est beaucoup plus mauvais que celui de la France.

16: Tacite, De moribus Germanorum, passim: Diem, noctemque continuare potando, nulli probrum.—Sera juvenum Venus.—Totos dies juxta focum atque ignem agunt.—Dargaud, Voyage en Danemark. Six repas par jour, le premier à 5 heures du matin. Voir les figures et les repas à Hambourg et à Amsterdam.

17: Bède, V. 10. Sidoine, VIII, 6. Lingard, Histoire d'Angleterre.

18: Zosime, III, 147. Ammien Marcellin, XXVIII, 526.

19: Vikings. Aug. Thierry, Hist. sancti Edmundi, t. VI, 441 apud Surium. Voir l'Yglingasaga, et surtout la Saga d'Egill.

20: Francs, Frisons, Saxons, Danois, Norvégiens, Islandais, sont un même peuple. La langue, les lois, la religion, la poésie diffèrent à peine. Ceux qui sont plus au nord restent plus tardivement dans les mœurs primitives. La Germanie aux quatrième et cinquième siècles, le Danemark et la Norvége au septième et au huitième, l'Islande aux dixième et onzième siècles, offrent le même état, et les documents de chaque pays peuvent combler les lacunes qu'il y a dans l'histoire des autres.

21: Tacite, De moribus Germanorum, XXII: Gens nec astuta, nec callida.

22: Pictorial history of England, by Craig and Mac-Farlane, I, 337. W. de Malmsbury. Henri de Huntington, VI, 365.

23: Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, III, 29.

24: Tacite, De moribus Germanorum, XXII, XXIII.

25: Kemble, Saxons in England, I, 70; II, 184. «Les actes d'un parlement anglo-saxon sont une série de traités de paix entre toutes les associations qui composent l'État, une révision et un renouvellement continuels de toutes les alliances offensives et défensives entre tous les hommes libres. Ils sont universellement des contrats mutuels pour le maintien de la paix.» (Frid.)

26: Turner, III, 238. Lois d'Ina.

27: Mot de Milton (Kites and Crows). Lingard, t. I, ch. III. Cette histoire ressemble beaucoup à celle des Francs dans les Gaules. Voy. Grégoire de Tours. Les Saxons comme les Francs s'amollissent un peu, mais surtout se dépravent, et sont pillés et massacrés par leurs frères du Nord restés sauvages.

28: Pictorial history, I, 171. Vita sancti Dunstani. Anglia sacra, II.

29: Pictorial history, I, 270. Vie de S. Wulston, évêque.

30: «Tantæ sævitiæ erant fratres illi quod, cum alicujus nitidam villam conspicerent, dominatorem de nocte interfici juberent, totamque progeniem illius possessionemque defuncti obtinerent.» Turner, III, 32. Henri de Huntington, VI, 367.

31: Penè gigas statura, dit le chroniqueur. 1055. Kemble, I, 393. Henri de Huntington, liv. VI, 367.

32: «Ein sinniger Ernst, der sie dem Eitlen entfuhrt, und auf die Spur des Erhabenen leitet.» Grimm, Mythologie, 52. Vorrede.

33: Tacite, XX, XXIII, XI, XII, XIII et passim. On peut voir encore les traces de ce goût dans les constructions anglaises.

34: Tacite, XII.

35: «Une fois mariées, ce sont exactement des couveuses occupées à faire des enfants, et en adoration perpétuelle devant le faiseur.» Stendhal, de l'Amour en Allemagne.

36: Tacite, XIX, VIII, XVI. Kemble, I, 232.

37: Tacite, XIV. Kemble, I, 32.

38: «In omni domo, nudi et sordidi.... Plus per otium transigunt, dediti somno, ciboque; totos dies juxta focum atque ignem agunt.»

39: Grimm, 53, Vorrede, Tacite, X.

40: «Deorum nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident.» Plus tard, à Upsal par exemple, il y eut des statues. (Adam de Brême.)

Wuotan (Odin) signifie, par sa racine, le Tout-Puissant, celui qui pénètre et circule à travers tout. (Grimm, Mythologie.)

41: Voyez passim. Edda Sœmundi, Edda Snorri. Ed. Copenhague, 3 vol.

M. Bergmann en a traduit plusieurs poëmes; j'emprunte parfois sa traduction. Visions de la Vala. Discours de Vafthrudnis, etc.

42: Fafnismâl, Edda, t. III. Cette épopée est commune aux races du Nord comme l'Iliade aux peuplades de la Grèce, et se retrouva presque tout entière en Allemagne dans les Niebelungen.

43: Ce mot désigne les hommes qui combattaient sans cuirasse, probablement vêtus d'une simple blouse.

44: Voyez la vie de Sweyn, d'Hereward, etc., même au temps de la conquête.

45: Beowulf, passim. Death of Byrhtnoth.

46: «Gens nec callida, nec astuta.» Tacite.

47: The Wanderer, the Exile's song. Codex Exoniensis, publié par Thorpe.

48: Beowulf, 48. Turner, III, 08. Pictorial history, I, 340.

49: Alfred emprunte ce portrait à Boëce, mais le refait presque entier.

50: Kemble pense que le fond de ce poëme est très-ancien, peut-être contemporain de l'invasion des Angles et des Saxons, mais que la rédaction actuelle est postérieure au septième siècle. Kemble's Beowulf, texte et traduction. Les personnages sont danois.

51: Monstres de l'eau.

52: Fen-dwelling.

53: Conybeare's illustrations of anglo-saxon poetry. Bataille de Finsburg.—La collection complète des poésies anglo-saxonnes a été publiée par M. Grein.

54: La lance, l'épée.

55: Turner, III, 280. Chant sur la bataille de Brunanburh.

56: Les plus habiles entre les érudits qui savent l'anglo-saxon reconnaissent l'obscurité de cette pensée. V. Turner, Conybeare, Thorpe, etc.

57: Turner, III, 261. Nos traductions, si littérales qu'elles soient, faussent le texte; notre langue est trop claire, trop gouvernée par la logique; on ne peut comprendre cette forme d'esprit extraordinaire, qu'en prenant un dictionnaire, et en déchiffrant pendant quinze jours quelques pages d'anglo-saxon.

58: Turner remarque que la même idée exprimée par le roi Alfred, en prose, puis en vers, occupe dans le premier cas seize mots, et dans le second sept. History of the Anglo-Saxons, III, 269.

59: 596-625, Aug. Thierry, I, 81, Bède, 2, XII. Il vaut mieux suivre la traduction du roi Alfred que le latin de Bède.

60: V. Jouffroy, Problème de la destinée humaine.

61: Michelet, préface de la Renaissance. Didion, Histoire de Dieu.

62: Vers 680. Voyez Codex Exoniensis, publié par Thorpe.

63: Conybeare's Illustrations, 222.

64: Kemble, t. I, liv. I, XII. Dans ce chapitre il a rassemblé une foule de traits qui marquent la persistance de l'ancienne mythologie.

65: Grein, Bibliothek der Angelsæchsischen poesie.

66: M. Kemble, 1, 407, a montré que l'analogie subsiste jusque dans les images de ce chant et du morceau correspondant de l'Edda.

67: Ce début est dans Milton. On pense que, par l'érudit Junius, il a pu avoir quelque connaissance de ce poëme.

68: Ils sentent eux-mêmes leur impuissance et leur décrépitude. Bède, divisant l'histoire du monde en six périodes, dit que la cinquième, qui s'étend du retour de Babylone à la naissance du Christ, est la période sénile; la sixième est la présente, ætas decrepita, totius morte sæculi consummanda.

69: Mort en 901. Adlhem, mort en 709. Bède, mort en 735. Alcuin vivait sous Charlemagne, Érigène sous Charles le Chauve.

70: Voici le latin de Boëce, si étudié, si joli, et qu'on ne saurait rendre en français.

«Quondam funera conjugis
Vates Threicius gemens,
Postquam flebilibus modis
Silvas currere, mobiles
Amnes stare coegerat,
Junxitque intrepidum latus
Sævis cerva leonibus,
Nec visum timuit lepus
Jam cantu placidum canem;
Cum flagrantior intima
Fervor pectoris ureret,
Nec qui cuncta subegerant
Mulcerent dominum modi;
Immites superos querens,
Infernas adiit domos.
Illic blanda sonantibus
Chordis carmina temperans,
Quidquid præcipuis Deæ
Matris fontibus hauserat,
Quod luctus dabat impotens,
Quod luctum geminans amor,
Deflet Tartara commovens,
Et dulci veniam prece
Umbrarum dominos rogat.
Stupet tergeminus novo
Captus carmine janitor;
Quæ sontes agitant metu
Ultrices scelerum Deæ
Jam mœstæ lacrymis madent.
Non Ixionium caput
Velox præcipitat rota,
Et longa site perditus
Spernit flumina Tantalus.
Vultur dum satur est modis
Non traxit Tityi jecur.
Tandem, vincimur, arbiter
Umbrarum miserans ait.
Donemus comitem viro
Emptam carmine conjugem.
Sed lex dona coerceat,
Nec, dum Tartara liquerit,
Fas sit lumina flectere.
Quis legem det amantibus!
Major lex fit amor sibi.
Heu! noctis prope terminos
Orpheus Eurydicem suam
Vidit, perdidit, occidit.
Vos hæc fabula respicit,
Quicunque in superum diem
Mentem ducere quæritis.
Nam qui tartareum in specus
Victus lumina flexerit,
Quidquid præcipuum trahit
Perdit, dum videt inferos.

(Livre III, metrum 12)

71: Ingram's Saxon chronicle.

72: Mot de Guillaume de Malmesbury.

73: Primitus (pantorum procerum prætorumque pio potissimum paternoque præsertim privilegio) panegyricum poemataque passim prosatori sub polo promulgantes, stridula vocum symphonia ac melodiæ cantilenæque carmine modulaturi hymnizemus.

74: En Islande, patrie des plus farouches rois de la mer, il n'y a plus de crimes; les prisons ont été employées à d'autres usages; les seules punitions sont des amendes.

75: Pictorial history, I, 249. «Toutes les villes, et même les villages et les hameaux que possède aujourd'hui l'Angleterre, paraissent avoir existé depuis les temps saxons.... La division actuelle en paroisses est presque sans altération celle du dixième siècle.»

D'après le Doomsday-book, M. Turner évalue à trois cent mille le nombre des chefs de famille indiqués. Si chaque famille est de cinq personnes, cela fait un million cinq cent mille. Il ajoute cinq cent mille pour les quatre comtés du Nord, pour Londres et plusieurs grandes villes, pour les moines et le clergé des campagnes qui ne sont point comptés.... Il faut n'accepter ces chiffres que sous toute réserve. Néanmoins ils sont d'accord avec ceux de Mackintosh, de George Chalmers et de plusieurs autres; beaucoup de faits prouvent que la population saxonne était très-nombreuse, et tout à fait hors de proportion avec la population normande.

76: Warton, History of English poetry. Préface.

77: Voir, entre autres peintures de mœurs, les premiers récits de la première croisade: Godefroy fend un Sarrasin jusqu'à la ceinture.—En Palestine, une veuve était obligée, jusqu'à soixante ans, de se marier, parce que nul fief ne pouvait rester sans défenseur.—Un chef espagnol dit à ses hommes épuisés, après une bataille: «Vous êtes trop las et trop blessés; mais venez vous battre avec moi contre cette autre troupe; les blessures fraîches que nous recevrons nous feront oublier celles que nous avons reçues.»—En ce temps-là, dit la Chronique générale d'Espagne, les rois, comtes et nobles, et tous les chevaliers, afin d'être prêts à toute heure, tenaient leurs chevaux dans la salle où ils couchaient avec leurs femmes.

78: Voir, pour tous les détails, les Chroniques anglo-normandes, III, p. 4, citées par Aug. Thierry. J'ai vu moi-même l'endroit et le paysage.

79: Sur trois colonnes d'attaque, à Hastings, il y en avait deux formées par les auxiliaires. Au reste, les chroniqueurs ne se trompent pas sur ce fait capital; ils sont tous d'accord pour déclarer que l'Angleterre fut conquise par des Français.

80: Ce fut un pêcheur de Rouen, soldat de Rollon, qui tua le duc de France à l'embouchure de l'Eure. Hastings, le fameux roi de mer, était fils d'un laboureur des environs de Troyes.

81: «Au dixième siècle, dit Stendhal, un homme souhaitait deux choses: 1^o n'être pas tué; 2^o avoir un bon habit de peau.»—Voy. ici la Chronique de Fontenelle.

82: Guillaume de Malmesbury.

83: Pictorial history, I, 615. Églises de Londres, de Sarum, de Norwich, Durham, Chichester, Peterborough, Rochester, Hereford, Glocester, Oxford, etc.—Guillaume de Malmesbury.

84: Mot d'Orderic Vital.

85: Robert Wace, roman de Rou.

86:

Et li Normanz et li Franceiz
Tote nuit firent oreisons,
Et furent en aflicions.
De lor péchiés confèz se firent
As proveires les regehirent,
Et qui n'en out proveires prèz,
A son veizin se fist confèz,
Pour ço ke samedi esteit
Ke la bataille estre debveit.
Unt Normanz a pramis e voé,
Si com li cler l'orent loé,
Ke à ce jor mez s'il veskeient,
Char ni saunc ne mangeraient.
Giffrei, éveske de Coustances,
A plusors joint lor pénitances.
Cli reçut li confessions
Et dona li béneiçons.

87:

Taillefer ki moult bien cantout
Sur un roussin qui tot alout,
Devant li dus alout cantant
De Kalermaine e de Rolant,
E d'Oliver et des vassals
Ki morurent à Roncevals.
Quant ils orent chevalchié tant
K'as Engleis vindrent aprismant:
«Sires, dist Taillefer, merci!
Jo vos ai languement servi.
Tut mon servise me debvez,
Hui, si vos plaist, me le rendez:
Por tout guerredun vos requier,
Et si vos voil forment preier,
Otreiez-mei, ke jo n'i faille,
Li primier colp de la bataille.»
Et li dus répont: «Je l'otrei.»
Et Taillefer point à desrei;
Devant toz li altres se mist,
Un Englez féri, si l'ocist.
De sos le pis, parmie la pance,
Li fist passer ultre la lance,
A terre estendu l'abati.
Poiz trait l'espée, altre féri.
Poiz a crié: «Venez, venez!
Ke fetes-vos? Férez, férez!»
Donc l'unt Englez avironé,
Al secund colp k'il ou doné.

(Robert Wace.)

88: Cette idée des types s'applique dans toute la nature physique et morale.

89:

Ço sent Rollans que la mort le trespent,
Devers la teste sur le quer li descent;
Desuz un pin i est alet curant,
Sur l'herbe verte si est culchet adenz;
Desuz lui met l'espée et l'olifan;
Turnat sa teste vers la païene gent;
Pour ço l'at fait que il voelt veirement
Que Carles diet e trestute sa gent,
Li gentilz quens, qu'il fut mort cunquérant.
Cleimet sa culpe, e menut e suvent,
Pur ses pecchez en puroffrid lo guant.
Li quens Rollans se jut desuz un pin,
Envers Espaigne en ad turnet sun vis,
De plusurs choses a remembrer le prist,
De tantes terres cume li bers cunquist,
De dulce France, des humes de sun lign,
De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l' nurrit.
Ne poet muer n'en plurt et ne susprit.
Mais lui meisme ne volt mettre en ubli.
Cleimet sa culpe, si priet Dieu mercit:
«Veire paterne, ki unques ne mentis,
Seint Lazaron de mort resurrexis,
Et Daniel des lions guaresis,
Guaris de mei l'anme de tuz perilz,
Pur les pecchez que en ma vie fis.»
Sun destre guant à Deu en puroffrit.
Seint Gabriel de sa main l'ad pris.
Desur sun bras teneit le chef enclin,
Juntes ses mains est alet à sa fin.
Deus i tramist sun angle cherubin,
Et seint Michel qu'on cleimet del péril
Ensemble ad els seint Gabriel i vint,
L'anme del cunte portent en pareis.

(Chanson de Roland, Ed. Génin.)

90:

Mon très-chier ami débonnaire,
Vous m'avez une chose ditte
Qui n'est pas à faire petite
Mais que l'on doit moult resongnier.
Et nonpourquant, sanz eslongnier,
Puisque garison autrement
Ne povez avoir vraiement,
Pour vostre amour les occiray,
Et le sang vous apporteray.

91:

Vraiz Diex, moult est excellente,
Et de grant charité plaine,
Vostre bonté souveraine.
Car vostre grâce présente,
A toute personne humaine,
Vraix Diex, moult est excellente,
Puisqu'elle a cuer et entente,
Et que à ce désir l'amaine
Que de vous servir se paine.

92: La Fontaine et ses Fables, par H. Taine, p. 15.

93: La Fontaine, Contes, Richard Minutolo.

94:

Parler lui veut d'une besogne,
Où crois que peu conquerrérois
Si la besogne vous nommois.

95: À la mort du roi Étienne, il y avait onze cent quinze châteaux de bâtis.

96: A. Thierry, Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre, II.

97: William de Malmesbury. A. Thierry, II, 20, 122-203.

98: «Dès l'an 652, dit Warton, l'usage commun des Anglo-Saxons était d'envoyer leurs enfants dans les monastères de France pour y être élevés; et l'on regardait non-seulement la langue, mais encore les manières françaises, comme un mérite et comme le signe d'une bonne éducation.»

99: Warton. I, p. 5. Ed. Price, 1840.

100: Trevisa's translation of Hygden's Polychronicon.

101: Statuts de fondation de New-College à Oxford. Dans l'abbaye de Glastonbury, en 1247: Liber de excidio Trojæ, gesta Ricardi regis, gesta Alexandri Magni, etc. Dans l'abbaye de Peterborough: Amys et Amelion, sir Tristam, Guy de Bourgogne, gesta Otuclis, les prophéties de Merlin, le Charlemagne de Turpin, la destruction de Troie, etc. V. Warton, ibidem.

102: En 1154.

103: Warton, t. I. 76-78.

104: En 1400. Warton, t. III, 248. Gower meurt en 1408; ses ballades françaises appartiennent à la fin du quatorzième siècle.

105: Il écrit en 1356, et meurt en 1372.

106: And, for als moch as it is long time passed that there was no general passage ne vyage over the sea, and many men desiren for to hear speak of the holy Lond, and han thereof great solace and comfort, I, John Maundeville, knight, all be it I be not worthy, that was born in Englond, in the town of Saint-Albons, passed the sea in the yer of our Lord Jesu-Christ 1322, in the day of saint Michel; and hider-to have ben long time over the sea, and have seen and gone thorough many divers londs, and many provinces, and kingdoms, and isles.

And ye shull understond that I have put this book out of Latin into French and translated it agen our of French into English, that every man of my nation may understond it.

107: Texte français, imprimé en 1487.—Bibl. impériale.

108: And at the desartes of Arabye he wente into a chapell wher a Eremyte duelte. And whan he entred into the chapell that was but a lytill and a low thing, and had but a lytill dor and a low, than the entree began to wexe so great and so large, and so high, as though it had be of a gret mynster, or the zate of a paleys.

109: On sait que l'original où Wace a puisé pour sa vieille Histoire d'Angleterre est la compilation latine de Geoffroy de Monmouth.

110: Extract from the account of the Proceedings at Arthur's Coronation, given by Layamon, in his translation of Wace, executed about 1180.

Tha the king igeten hafde
And al his mon-weorede,
Tha bugan put of burhge
Theines swithen balde.
Alle tha kinges,
And heore here-thringes.
All tha biscopes,
And alle tha clarckes,
All the eorles.
And alle tha beornes.
Alle tha theines,
Alle the sweines,
Feire iscrudde,
Helde geond felde.
Summe heo gunnen æruen,
Summe heo gunnen urnen,
Summe heo gunnen lepen,
Summe heo gunnen sceoten,
Summe heo wræstleden
And wither-gome makeden,
Summe heo on velde
Pleouweden under scelde,
Summe heo driven balles
Wide geond the feldes.
Moni ane kunnes gomen
Ther heo gunnen drinen.
And wha swa mihte iwenne
Wurthscipe of his gomene,
Hine me ladde mide songe
At foren than leod kinge;
And the king, for his gomene,
Gaf him geven gode.
Alle tha quene
The icumen weoren there,
And alle tha lafdies,
Leoneden geond walles,
To bihalden tha duge then,
And that folc plæie.
This ilæste threo dæges,
Swulc gomes and swulc plæghs,
Tha, at than veorthe dæie
The king gon to spekene
And agaf his gode cnihten
All heore rihten;
He gef seolver, he gef gold,
He gef hors, he gef lond,
Castles, and clæthes eke;
His monnen he iquende.

111: Après 1297.

112: Terminé vers 1339. Son Manuel des péchés est de 1303.

113: Vers 1312.

114: Vers 1349.

115:

Mankynde mad ys to do Goddus wille,
Und alle hys byddyngus to fulfille.
For of al hys making more and les,
Man most principal creature es.
Al that he made, for man hit was done,
As ye schal here after sone.

Ces morceaux sont extraits, pour la plupart, de Warton, Ellis, Thomas Wright, Ritson. Jusqu'au seizième siècle l'orthographe varie selon les auteurs et les éditeurs.

116: Temps de Henri III. Reliquiæ antiquæ. Edited by Th. Wright et Halliwell.

117:

Blessed beo thu, Lavedi,
Ful of hovene blisse,
Swete flur of parais,
Moder of milternisse....
Blessed beo thu, Lavedi,
So fair and so briht;
Al min hope is upon the
Bi dai and bi nicht....
Bricht and scene quen of storre,
So me liht and lere
In this false fikele world,
So me led and steore,
That ich at min ende dai
Ne habbe non feond to fere.

118: Vers 1278. Ritson's Essay on national Song. Ritson's ancient Songs.

119:

120:

Sumer is i-cumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu:
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wde nu.
Sing cuccu, cuccu.
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Llouth after calue cu,
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth:
Murie sing cuccu,
Cuccu, cuccu.
Wel singes thu, cuccu;
Ne swik thu, nauer nu.
Sing, cuccu, nu,
Sing, cuccu.

121: Poëme sur le Hibou et le Rossignol, qui disputent pour savoir qui a la plus belle voix.

122:

There is a wel fair abbei,
Of white monkes and of grei.
Ther beth bowris and halles:
Al of pasteiis beth the walles,
Of fleis, of fisse, and rich met,
The likfullist that man may et.
Fluren cakes beth the schingles alle,
Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.
The pinnes beth fat podinges
Rich met to princes and kinges....
Though paradis be miri and bright
Cokaign is of fairir sight....
Another abbei is ther bi,
Forsoth a gret fair nunnerie....
When the someris dai is hote,
The yung nunnes takith a bote....
And doth ham forth in that river
Both with ores and with stere....
And each munk him takes on,
And snelliche berrith forth har prei
To the mochil grei abbei,
And techith the nunnes an oreisun,
With iamblene up and down.

123: Lettre de Pierre de Blois.

124: W. de Malmesbury.

125: Couronnement d'Édouard I^er.

126: Les prodigalités et les raffinements croissent à l'excès sous son petit-fils Richard II.

127: À la fête d'installation de George Nevill, frère de Warwick, archevêque d'York, on consomma 104 bœufs et 6 taureaux sauvages, 1000 moutons, 304 veaux, autant de porcs, 2000 cochons, 500 cerfs, chevreuils et daims, 204 chevreaux, 22802 oiseaux sauvages ou domestiques, 300 quartels de blé, 300 tonnes d'ale, 100 de vin, une pipe d'hypocras, 12 marsouins et phoques.

128:

Swylk on ne seygh they never non;
All it was whyt of huel-bon,
And every nayl with gold begrave:
Off pure gold was the stave.
Her mast was of ivory;
Off samyte the sayl wytterly.
Her ropes wer off truely sylk,
Al so whyt as ony mylk.
That noble schyp was al withoute
With clothys of golde sprede aboute;
And her loof and her wyndas
Off assure forsothe it was.

129:

To-morrow ye shall in hunting fare;
And yede, my doughter, in a chair;
It shall be covered with velvet red,
And cloths of fine gold all about your head,
With damask white and azure blue,
Well diapered with lilies new.
Your pommels shall be ended with gold,
Your chains enamelled many a fold,
Your mantle of rich degree;
Purple pall and ermine free.
Jennets of Spain, that ben so light,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright.
Ye shall have harp, sautry, and song,
And other mirths you among.
Ye shall have Rumney and Malespine,
Both Hippocras and Vernage wine;
Montrese and wine of Greek,
Both Algrade and despice eke,
Antioch and Bastard,
Pyment also and garnard;
Wine of Greek and Muscadel;
Both clare, pyment, and Rochelle,
The reed your stomach to defy;
And pots of Osy set you by.
You shall have venison y-bake,
The best wild fowl that may be take;
A leish of harebound with you to streek,
And hart, and hind, and other like.
Ye shall be set at such a tryst,
That hart and hynd shall come to your fist,
Your disease to drive you fro,
To hear the bugles there y-blow.
Homeward thus shall ye ride,
On-hawking by the river's side,
With gossawk and with gentle falcon,
With bugle horn and merlion.
When you come home your menzie among,
Ye shall have revel, dances and song;
Little children, great and small,
Shall sing as does the nightingale.
Then shall ye go to your even song,
With tenors and trebles among.
Threescore of copes of damask bright,
Full of pearls they shall be pight.
Your censors shall be of gold,
Indent with azure many a fold.
Your quire nor organ song shall want,
With contre-note and descant.
The other half on organs playing,
With young children full fain singing.
Then shall ye go to your supper,
And sit in tents in green arber,
With cloth of arras pight to the ground,
With sapphires set of diamond....
A hundred knights, truly told;
Shall play with bowls in alleys cold,
Your disease to drive away;
To see the fishes in pools play,
To a drawbridge then shall ye,
Th' one half of stone, th' other of tree;
A barge shall meet you full right,
With twenty-four oars full bright,
With trumpets and with clarion,
The fresh water to row up and down....
Forty torches burning bright,
At your bridges to bring you light.
Into your chamber they shall you bring,
With much mirth and more liking.
Your blankets shall be of fustian,
Your sheets shall be of cloth of Rennes.
Your head sheet shall be of pery pight,
With diamonds set and rubies bright.
When you are laid in bed so soft,
A cage of gold shall hang aloft,
With long paper fair burning,
And cloves that be sweet smelling.
Frankincense and olibanum,
That when ye sleep the taste may come;
And if ye no rest can take,
All night minstrels for you shall wake.

130:

In Fraunce these rymes were wroht,
Every Englyshe ne knew it not.

(Warton, I, 123.)

131:

They were led into the place full even.
There they heard angels of heaven;
They said: «Seigneures, tuez, tuez!
Spares hem nought, and beheadeth these!»
King Richard heard the angels' voice
And thanked God and the holy cross.

132: Pictorial history, I, 666. Dialogue on the Exchequer. Temps de Henri II.

133: Domsday book.—Froude's History of England, t. I, 13. «À travers toutes les dispositions perce un but unique: c'est que tout homme, en Angleterre, a sa place définie, et son devoir défini, et que nul être humain n'a la liberté de mener sa vie à son gré sans en rendre compte à personne. C'est la discipline d'une armée transportée dans la vie sociale.»

134: Domsday-book. Tenants in chief.

135: Pictorial history, I, 666. Selon Ailred (Temps de Henri II), «un roi, beaucoup d'évêques et d'abbés, beaucoup de grands comtes et de nobles chevaliers, descendus à la fois du sang anglais et du sang normand, étaient un soutien pour l'un et un honneur pour l'autre.»—«À présent, dit un autre auteur du même temps, comme les Anglais et les Normands habitent ensemble et se sont mariés constamment les uns avec les autres, les deux nations sont si complétement mêlées l'une à l'autre, que, du moins pour ce qui regarde les hommes libres, on peut à peine distinguer qui est de race normande et qui est de race anglaise.... Les vilains attachés au sol, dit-il encore, sont seuls de pur sang saxon.»

136: Grande charte, 1215.

137:

A frankelein was in this compagnie;
White was his berd as is the dayesie.
Of his complexion he was sanguin.
Wel loved he by the morwe a sop in win.
To liven in delit was ever his wone.
For he was Epicures owen sone,
That held opinion, that plein delit
Was veraily felicite parfite.
An housholder, and that a grete was he;
Seint Julian he was in his contree.
His brede, his ale, was alway after on;
A better envyned man was no wher non.
Withouten bake mete never was his hous,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,
Of alle deintees that men coud of thinke.
After the sondry sesons of the yere,
So changed he his mete and his soupere.
Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe;
And many a breme, and many a luce, in stewe.
Wo was his coke but if his sauce were
Poinant and sharpe, and redy all his gere.
His table, dormant in his halle, alway
Stode redy covered alle the longe day.
At sessions ther was he lord and sire;
Ful often time he was knight of the shire.
An anelace and a gipciere all of silk
Heng at his girdel, white as morwe milk.
A shereve hadde he ben and a countour.
Was no wher swiche a worthy vavasour.

138: Prologue des Contes de Cantorbéry, v. 547. Édition Urry.

139:

The Miller was a stout carl for the nones,
Ful bigge he was of braun, and eke of bones;
That proved wel; for over all ther he came,
At wrastling he wold bere away the ram.
He was short shuldered, brode, a thikke gnarre,
Ther n'as no dore, that he n'olde heve of barre,
Or breke it at a renning with his hede.
His berd as any sowe or fox was rede,
And therto brode, as though it were a spade:
Upon the cop right of his nose he hade
A wert, and theron stode a tufte of heres,
Rede as the bristles of a sowes eres:
His nose-thirles blacke were and wide.
A swerd and bokeler bare he by his side.
His mouth as wide was as a forneis:
He was a jangler, and a goliardeis,
And that was most of sinne and harlotries.
Wel coude he stelen corne and tollen thries.
And yet he had a thomb of gold parde.
A white cote and a blew hode wered he.
A baggepipe wel coude he blowe and soune,
And therwithall he brought us out of toune.

140: Dès 1214, et aussi en 1225 et 1254. Guizot, Origine du système représentatif en Angleterre, pages 297-299.

141: 1264.

142: Augustin Thierry, IV, 56. Robin Hood, édition Ritson.

143:

144: Pinder. Son emploi était de taxer le bétail qui vaguait sur le communal.

145:

146:

147:

Then Robin took them both by the hands,
And danc'd round about the oke tree.
«For three merry men, and three merry men,
And three merry men we be.»

148: The difference between an absolute and limited monarchy.—A learned commendation of the politique laws of England. Latine. Je cite souvent ce second ouvrage, qui est plus complet.

149: Les Anglais oublient toujours d'être polis, et ne voient pas les nuances des choses. Entendez ici le courage brutal, l'instinct batailleur et indépendant. La race française, et en général la race gauloise, est peut-être, entre toutes, la plus prodigue de sa vie.

150: It is cowardise and lack of hartes and corage, that kepith the Frenchmen from rysyng, and not povertye; which corage no Frenche man hath like to the English man. It hath ben often seen in Englond that iij or iv thefes, for povertie, hath sett upon viij true men, and robbyd them al. But it hath not ben seen in Fraunce, that vij or viij thefes have ben hardy to robbe iij or iv true men. Wherfor it is right seld that Frenchmen be hangyd for robberye, for that thay have no hertys to do so terryble an acte. There be therfor mo men hangyd in Englond, in a yere, for robberye and manslaughter, than ther be hangid in Fraunce for such cause of crime in vij yers.—Aujourd'hui en France 42 vols sur les grands chemins contre 738 en Angleterre.—En 1843 il y avait, en Angleterre, quatre fois autant d'accusations de crimes et délits qu'en France, proportion gardée du nombre des habitants. (Moreau de Jonnès.)

151: Pictorial history, I, 833. Statut de Winchester, 1285. Ordonnance de 1378.

152: Benvenuto Cellini cité par Froude, I, 20, History of England, Shakspeare, Henri V; conversation des seigneurs français avant la bataille d'Azincourt.

153: Jus regale, par opposition à jus regale et politicum.

154: Ther be two kynds of kyngdomys, of the which that one ys a lordship callid in Latyne Dominium regale, and that other is callid Dominium politicum et regale. And they dyverson in that the first may rule his people by such lawys as he makyth hymself, and therfor, he may set upon them talys, and other impositions, such as he wyl himself, without their assent. The secund may not rule his people by other laws than such as they assenten unto. And therfor he may let upon them non impositions without their own assent.

155: Fortescue, In leges Angliæ, London, 1599, avec trad. anglaise. Non potest rex Angliæ ad libitum suum leges mutare regni sui. Principatu namque nedum regali, sed et politico ipse suo populo dominatur.

In corpore politica, intentio populi primum vividum est, habens in se sanguinem, viz provisionem politicam utilitati populi illius, quam in caput et in omnia membra ejusdem corporis ipsa transmittit, quo corpus illud alitur et vegetatur. Lex vero sub qua cœtus hominum populus efficitur, nervorum corporis physici efficit rationem.... Et ut non potest caput corporis physici nervos suos commutare, neque membris suis proprias vires et propria sanguinis alimenta denegare, nec rex qui caput est corporis politici; mutare potest leges corporis illius, nec ejusdem populi substantias proprias subtrahere, reclamantibus eis, aut invitis. Ad tutelam legis subditorum et eorum corporum et bonorum rex hujusmodi erectus est et ad hanc, potestatem a populo effluxam ipse habet.

Anglia statuta.... nedum principis voluntate, sed et totius regni assensu ipsa conduntur.... plus quam trecentorum electorum hominum prudentia.... (ita ut) populi læsuram illa efficere nequant, vel non eorum commodum procurare.

Élection du shériff.

In quolibet comitatu est officiarius quidam unus, regis vicecomes appellatus, qui inter cætera officii sui ministeria, omnium mandata et judicia curiarum regis in suo comitatu exsequenda exsequitur; cui officium annale est, quo ei post annum in eodem ministrare non licet, nec duobus tum sequentibus annis ad idem officium reassumetur. Officiarius iste sic eligitur: quolibet anno in crastino Animarum[155-A] conveniunt in saccario regis[155-B], omnes consiliarii ejus tam domini spirituales et temporales quam ejus omnes justiciarii[155-C], omnes barones de saccario, clericus rotulorum[155-D], et quidam alii officiarii, ubi hi omnes communi assensu nominant de quolibet comitatu tres milites vel armigeros[155-E], quos inter cæteros ejusdem comitatus ipsi opinantur melioris esse dispositionis et famæ, et ad officium vicecomitis comitatus illius melius dispositos. Ex quibus rex unum tantum eliget, quam per litteras suas patentes constituit vice-comitem comitatus....

Du jury, et des trois récusations successives, permises aux parties:

Juratis demum in forma prædicta XII probis et legalibus hominibus habentibus ultra mobilia sua possessiones sufficientes unde eorum statum ipsi continere poterunt, et nulli partium suspectis nec invisis sed eisdem vicinis, legitur in anglico coram eis per curiam totum recordatum et processus placiti....

155-A: All Souls' day.

155-B: The kings exchequer.

155-C: Justices.

155-D: Master of the rolls.

155-E: Knights or squires.

156: The same Commons be so empoverished and distroyyd, that they may unneth lyve. They drink water, they eate apples, with bread right brown made of rye. They eate no flesh, but if it be selden, a litill larde, or of the entrails or heads of beasts slayne for the nobles and merchants of the land. They weryn no wollyn, but if it be a pore cote under their uttermost garment made of grete canvass, and call it a frok. Their hosyn be of like canvas, and passen not their knee, wherfor they be gartrud and their thygles bare. Their wif and children gone bare fote.... For sum of them that was wont to pay to his lord for his tenement which he hyrith by the year a scute payth now to the kyng, over that scute, fyve skuts. Where thrugh they be artyd by necessitie so to watch, labour and grub in the ground for their sustenance, that their nature is much wastid and the kynd of them brought to nowght. They gone crokyd and ar feeble, not able to fight nor to defend the realm; nor they have wepon, nor monye to buy them wepon withal.... This is the frute first of hyre Jus regale.... But blessed be God this land ys rulid under a better lawe, and therfor the people therof be not in such penurye, nor therby hurt in their persons, but they be wealthie and have all things necessarie to the sustenance of nature. Wherefore they be myghty and able to resyste the adversaries of the realmes that do or will do them wrong. Loo, this is the frut of Jus politicum et regale under which we lyve.

157: Voir Commines, qui porte le même jugement.

158: The might of the realme most stondyth upon archers which be not rich men....

Comparer Hallam, II, 482. Tout cela remonte à la conquête et plus avant:

It is reasonable to suppose that the greater part of those who appear to have possessed small freeholds or parcels of manors were no other than the original nation.

A respectable class of free socagers, having in general full right of alienating their lands and holding them probably at a small certain rent from the lord of the manor, frequently occurs in the Domsday Book.

En tout cas, il y avait dans le Domsday Book des Saxons «parfaitement exempts de villenage.»

Cette classe est traitée avec respect dans les traités de Glanvil et Bracton.

Pour les vilains, ils se sont affranchis de bonne heure, au treizième et au quatorzième siècle, soit en se sauvant, soit en devenant copy-holders.

La guerre des Deux Roses releva encore les communes: avant les batailles, ordre fut donné souvent de tuer les nobles et d'épargner les roturiers.

159: Harrison, 275. Description of England.

160: Portrait d'un yeoman par Latimer, prédicateur de Henri VIII.

My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of £3 or £4 by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as he kept half a dozen men. He had walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the king's majesty now. He married my sisters vith £5 or 20 nobles a-piece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours. And some alms he gave to the poor, and all this did he of the said farm. Where he that now hath it, payeth £16 by the year, or more, and is not able to do any thing for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.

In my time my poor father was as diligent to teach me to shoot, as to learn me any other thing, and so I think other men did their children: he taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of arms as divers other nations do, but with strength of the body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger, for men shall never shoot well, except they be brought up in it: it is a worthy game, a wholesome kind of exercise, and much commended in physic.

161: Pictorial history, I, 802. En 1245, 1246, 1376. A. Thierry. III, 79.

162: 1404-1409. Les Communes déclaraient qu'avec ces revenus le roi serait capable d'entretenir 15 comtes, 1500 chevaliers, 6200 écuyers et 100 hôpitaux; chaque comte recevant par an 300 marcs, chaque chevalier 100 marcs et le produit de quatre charrues de terre, chaque écuyer 40 marcs et le produit de deux charrues de terre.—Pictorial history, II. p. 142.

163: Vers 1362.

164:

And than gan I to mete a mervelyous swevene,
That I was in a wyldyrnese, wyst I never qwere;
And as I beheld on hey, est on to the sonne,
I saw a tour on a toft, ryaly emaked,
A depe dale benethe, a donjon therein,
With depe dykys and dyrke, and dredful of sygth.
A fayr feld ful of folke fond I ther betwene,
Of al maner of men, the mene and the ryche,
Werkynge and wanderyng, as the werld askyth.
Some put hem to the plow, pleyid hem ful seeld
In syttynge and sowing swonken full harde,
And wan what wastours with gloteny dystroid....

165: L'archidiacre de Richmond étant en tournée, en 1216, vint au prieuré de Bridlington avec quatre-vingt-dix-sept chevaux, vingt-et-un chiens et trois faucons.

And now is religion a ridere, a romere bi streetis,
A ledar of love-daiyes and a load bigere;
A prickere on a pelfrey from maner to maner,
An hep of hounds at his ars, as he a lord were.
And but his knave knele that shall hym hys cuppe brynge,
He loureth on him, and axeth who taughtte hym curteise.

166:

Kynde Conscience tho herde, and cam out of the planett,
And sent forth his forreors Feveris and Fluxes,
Coughes, and Cardyacles, Crampes, and Tothe-aches,
Reumes and Redegoundes, and roynous Skalles,
Buyles and Botches, and brennynge Agwes,
Frennesyes and foule Evelis, forageris of Kynde.
There was "Harrow! and Helpe! Here cometh Kynde!
With Death that is dreadful, to undon us alle."
The lord that lyved after lust tho lowde criede.
Deeth came dryving aftir, and al to dust pashed
Kyngs and Knyghttes, Kaysours and popis.
Many a lovely lady and lemmanys of Knyghttes
Swowed and sweltid for sorwe of Dethe's dentes.

167: Dernier livre. The Lazar House.

168: Ce poëme fut imprimé plus tard, en 1550. Il y en eut trois éditions en une année, tant il était visiblement protestant.

169: Voyez Piers Plowman's crede, The Plowman's tale, etc.

170: Knighton, vers 1400, écrit ceci sur Wycleff: «Transtulit de Latino in anglicam linguam, non angelicam. Unde per ipsum fit vulgare, et magis apertum laicis et mulieribus legere scientibus quam solet esse clericis admodum litteratis, et bene intelligentibus. Et sic evangelica margarita spargitur et a porcis conculcatur.... (ita) ut laicis commune æternum quod ante fuerat clericis et ecclesiæ doctoribus talentum supernum.

171: Wycleff's Bible, édition de Forshall and Madden, préface, édition d'Oxford.

172: Prologue de Wicleff, p. 2.

Cristen men and wymmen, olde and yonge, shulden studie fast in the Newe Testament. For it is of full autorite, and opyn to the undirstonding of simple men, as to the poyntis that be moost medful to saluacioun.... and ech place of holy writ, bothe opyn and dark, techith mekenes and charite. And therfore he that kepith mekenes and charite hath the trewe undirstonding and perfectioun of al holi writ.... Therfore no simple man of wit be aferd unmesurabli to studie in the text of holy writ.... and no clerk be proude of the verry undirstondyng of holy writ, for the verrey undirstoudyng of hooly writ withouten charite that kepith Goddis heestis, makith a man depper damned.—.... and pride and covetise of clerkis is cause of her blindness and eresie, and priveth them fro verrey undirstondyng of holy writ.

173: 1395.

174: 1401. William Sawtre, premier lollard brûlé vif.

175: Commines, liv. V. chapitre XIX et XX.

«Or selon mon avis, entre toutes les seigneuries du monde dont j'ay connaissance où la chose publique est mieux traitée, et règne moins de violence sur le peuple, et où il n'y a nuls édifices abattus ny démolis pour guerre, c'est Angleterre, et tombe le sort et le malheur sur ceux qui font la guerre.... Cette grâce a le royaume d'Angleterre par dessus les autres royaumes, que le peuple ni le pays ne s'en détruit point, ny ne brulent, ny ne démolissent les édifices, et tombe la fortune sur les gens de guerre, et par espécial sur les nobles.»

176: Voir les ballades sur Chevy Chace, The Nut Brown maid, etc. Beaucoup d'entre elles sont d'admirables petits drames.

177: Né entre 1328 et 1345, mort en 1400.

178: Renan, de l'Art au moyen âge.

179: Voy. Froissart, sa vie chez le comte de Foix et chez le roi Richard II.

180:

The statue of Venus glorious for to see
Was naked fleting in the large see,
And fro the navel down all covered was
With wawes grene, and bright as any glas.
A citole in hire right hand hadde she,
And on hire hed, ful semely for to see,
A rose gerlond fresshe, and wel smelling,
Above hire hed hire doves fleckering.

181:

First on the wall was peinted a forest,
In which there wonneth neyther man ne best,
With knotty knarry barrein trees old
Of stubbes sharpe and hidous to behold;
In which there ran a romble and a swough,
As though a storme shuld bresten every bough.
And downward from an hill under a bent,
Ther stood the temple of Mars armipotent,
Wrought all of burned stele, of which th' entree
Was long and streite, and gastly for to see.
And therout came a rage and swiche a vise,
That it made all the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the dore shone,
For window off the wall ne was none,
Thurgh which men mighten any light discerne.
The dore was all of athamant eterne,
Yclenched overthwart and endelong
With yren tough, and for to make it strong.
Every piler the temple to sustene
Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene.

182: Knight's tale, p. 21-20.

183:

With him ther wenten knightes many on.
Som wol ben armed in a habergeon,
And in a brest plate, and in a gipon;
And some wol have a pair of plates large;
And some wol have a Pruce sheld or a targe,
Som wol ben armed on his legges wele
And have an axe, and som a mace of stele....
There maist thou se coming with Palamon
Licurge himself, the grete king of Trace:
Blake was his berd and manly was his face.
The cercles of his eyen in his hed
They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red,
And like a griffon loked he about,
With kemped heres on his browes stout.
His limmes gret, his braunes hard and stronge,
His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe
And as the guise was in his contree,
Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he,
With foure white bolles in the trais.
Instede of cote-armure on his harnais,
With nayles yelwe and bright as any gold,
He hadde a beres skin, cole-blake for old.
His longe here was kempt behind his bake,
As any ravenes fether it shone for blake.
A wreth of gold arm gret, of huge weight
Upon his hed sate ful of stones bright,
Of fine rubins and diamants.
About his char ther wenten whit alauns,
Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere,
To hunten at the leon or the dere.
And folwed him with mosel fast ybound,
Colered with gold and torettes filed round.
A hundred lordes had he in his route,
Armed full wel, with hertes sterne and stout.
With Arcita, in stories as man find,
The gret Emetrius the king of Inde,
Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,
Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele,
Came riding like the God of armes Mars.
His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars,
Couched with perles, white, round and grete.
His sadel was of brent gold new ybete;
A mantelet upon his shouldres hanging
Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling.
His crispe here like ringes was yronne,
And that was yelwe and glitered as the sonne.
His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin,
His lippes round, his colour was sanguin,...
And as a leon he his loking caste.
Of five and twenty yere his age I caste.
His berd was well begonnen for to spring;
His vois was as a trompe tundering.
Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene
A gerlond fresshe and lusty for to sene.
Upon his hond he bare for his deduit
An egle tame, as any lily whit.
An hundred Lordes had he with him there,
All armed save hir hedes in all hir gere,
Ful richely in alle manere thinges....
About this king there ran on every part
Ful many a tame leon and leopart.

184:

For trewely comfort ne mirthe is non,
To riden by the way domb as the ston.

185: The House of Fame.

186: André le chapelain, en 1170.

187: The craft of love; the ten commandements of love; ballades; the court of love, peut-être aussi, the assemble of ladies, et la belle dame sans merci.

188:

And as the new abashed nightingale,
That stinteth first, whan she beginneth sing,
Whan that she heareth any heerdes tale,
Or in the hedges any wight stearing,
And after siker doeth her voice outring:
Right so Creseide, whan that her drede stent,
Opened her herte, and told him her entent.

(Liv. III.)

189:

In chaunged voice, right for his very drede,
Which voice eke quoke, and thereto his manere,
Goodly abashed, and now his hewes rede,
Now pale, unto Creseide his ladie dere,
With look doun cast, and humble iyolden chere,
Lo, the alderfist word him astart
Was twice: «Mercy, mercy, o my sweet herte!»

(Liv. III.)

190:

Whom should I thanken but you, God of Love,
Of all this blisse, in which to bathe I ginne?
And thanked be ye, Lorde, for that I love,
This is the right life that I am inne
To flemen all maner vice and sinne.
This doeth me so to vertue for to entende
That daie by daie I in my will amende....
And who says that for to love is vice,....
He either is envious, or right nice,
Or is unmightie for his shrewdness
To loven....
But I with all mine herte and all my might,
As I have said, woll love unto my last
My owne dere herte, and all mine owne knight,
In whiche mine herte growen is so fast,
And his in me, that it shall ever last.

(Liv. II.)

191:

192:

192-A:

193:

194: The Flour and the Leafe.

195:

196: Stendhal, de l'Amour: différence de l'amour-goût et de l'amour-passion.

197: Son nom aujourd'hui en Angleterre désigne la respectable maison de commerce Bonneau et C^ie.

198: And gode thrift (Troïlus) had full oft.

199: The Court of Love, vers 1353 et suiv. Voy. aussi le Testament de l'Amour.

200: Le Poirier, le Berceau sont parmi les Contes de Cantorbéry.

201:

202:

Bold war hire face, and fayre and red of hew,
She was a worthy woman all hire live;
Housbandes at the chirche dore had she had five,
Without other compagnie in youthe....
In all the parish wif ne was ther non,
That to the offring before hire shulde gon,
And if ther did, certain so wroth was she,
That she was out of alle charitee....

203:

God bad us for to wex and multiplie,
That gentil text can I wel understond;
Eke wel I wot, he sayed that min husbond,
Shuld leve fader and moder, and take to me;
But of no noumbre mention made he,
Of bigamie or of octogamie;
Why should men than speke of it vilanie?
Lo here the wise king Dan Salomon,
I trow he hadde wives mo than on,
(As wolde God it leful were to me
To be refreshed half so oft as he)
Which a gift of God had he for all his wives?....
Blessed be God that I hav wedded five.
Welcome the sixthe whan that ever he shall.
Christ spoke to hem that wold live parfitly
And Lordlings (by your leve) that am not I.
I wol bestow the flour of all myn age,
In th' actes and the fruit of mariage....
And husband wol I have, I wol not lette,
Which shall be both my dettour and my thrall,
And have his tribulation withall
Upon his flesh, while that I am his wif.

204:

For as an horse I couth both bite and whine,
I couth compleine though I were in the gilt....
I pleinid first, and so was our war stint.
They were full glad t' excusin them full blive
Of what they agilt nevir in their live....
I swore that all my walking out by night
Was for to espy wenchis that he dight....
For though the Pope had sittin him beside,
I wold not sparin them at their owes bord....
But certainly I madin folk soche chere
That in his own grese made I him to frie
For angir and for very jalousie.
By God, on erth I was his Purgatory,
For which I hope his soule is now in glory....
And Jenkin eke our clerk was one of tho,
As help me God, whan that I saw him go
Aftir the bere, methought he had a paire
Of leggis and of fete so clene, so faire,
That all my hert I gave unto his hold.
He was, I trow, but twenty winter old,
And I was forty, if I shall say sothe ...
As help me God, I was a lusty one,
And faire, and rich, and yong, and well begone.

205:

A Frere there was, a wanton and a merry....
Full wele beloved and familier was he
With Frankeleins all over his contre,
And with the worthie women of the towne....
Full swetely herde he their confessioune,
And plesaunt was his absolutionne.
He was an esy man to give pennaunce,
Ther as he wist to have a gode pittaunce;
For unto a pore order for to give
Is a signe that a man is wel yshrive....
He knewe the tavernes wel in every toun,
And every hostiler and tapistere,
Better than a Lazere and a begger....
It is naught honest, it may not avaunce,
For to have deling with suche base poraille,
But alle with rich and sellers of vitayle....
For many a man so herde is of his herte,
That he may not wepe, although him sore smert;
Therefore instede of weping and prayers,
Man mote give silver to the poor Freres.

(Prologue des Contes de Canterbury.)

206:

In every house he began to por and prie,
And beggid mele, and chese, or ellis corne....
«Yeve us a bushell whete, or malte or rey,
A Godd'is Kichel, or a trip of chese.
Or ellis what ye list, I may not chese,
A Godd'is half-penny, or a masse penny,
Or yeve us of your brawn, if you have any,
A dagon of your blanket, leve Dame,
Our sustir dere, lo, here I write your name.»...
.... And whan he was out at the dore anon,
He playned away the namis everichone.
.... «God wote, quod he, laboured have I full sore,
And specially for thy salvacion,
Haw I said many precious orison.
I have this day ben at your chirche at messe....
And there I saw our Dame, ah, where is she?»
The Frere arisith up full curtisly,
And her embracith in his armie narrow,
And kissith her swetely and chirkith as a sparow....
«Thankid be God that you have soul and life,
Yet sawe I not this day so faire a wife
In alle the whole chirche, so God me save....
I woll with Thomas speke a litil throwe,
These curates ben full negligent and slowe
To gropin tenderly a man 'is conscience....
Now, Dame, quod he, je vous die sans dout,
Have I not of a capon but the liver,
And of your white bred but a shiver,
And aftir that a rostid pigg'is hedde,
(But I n'old for me that no beste were dedde,)
Than hadde I ynow for my suffisaunce.
I am a man of litil sustenaunce,
My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible.
My bodie is so redie and penible
To wakin, that my stomach is distroied.
I praye you, Dame, that ye be nought annoied!»....
«Now, sir, quod she, but one word er I go,
My child is dedde within these wekis two.»—
«—His dethe I saw by revelatioune,
Sayid this Frere, at home in our dortour,
I dare well saye, that within half an hour,
After his dethe, I saw him bore to blisse
In my visioune, so God my soule wisse.
So did our sexton and our Fermetere
That have ben true Freris these fifty yere.
And up I rose and alle our covent eke
With many a tere trilling on our cheke....
Te Deum was our song and nothing elses....
For, sir and dame, trustith ye me right well,
Our orisouns ben more effectuell,
And more we se of Crist'is secret things
Than borell folk, albeit they were kings.
We live in poverty and abstinence
And borell folk in richesse and dispence....
Lazar and Dives livid diversly,
And diverse guerdons haddin they thereby....»

207: Comparer le tableau de Rembrandt au Louvre (le Moine chez le menuisier).

208:

The frere answerde: «O Thomas, dost thou so?
What nedith the diverse freris to seche?
What nedith him, that hath a parfit leche,
To sechin othir lechis in the toune?
Your inconstance is your confusioune.
Hold you me then and eke alle our covent
To prayin for you insufficient?
Thomas, that jape no is not worth a mite,
Your maladie is for we have to lite.
A, yeve that covent four and twenty grotes,
And yeve that covent half a quarter otes,
And yeve that frere a peny', and let him go:
Nay, nay, Thomas, it may be nothing so.
What is a farthing worth partie in twelve?
Lo! eche thing that is onid in himselve
Is more strong, than when it is so yskattered;
Thomas, of me thou shalt not be yflattered:
Thou woldist have our labour all for nought.
.... And yet, God wol, unnethe the fundament
Parfourmid is, ne of our pavement
There is not yet a tile within our wones,
By God, we owin fourtie pound for stones,
Now helpe, Thomas, for him that harrowed helle,
For ellis mote we alle our bokes selle,
And if men lak our predicatioune,
Than goth this world all so destructioune.
For who so fro this world wold us bereve,
So God me savin, Thomas, by your leve,
He wold bereve out of this world the sonne.»

(The Sompnour's tale.)

209:

This frere ybosti that he knowith hell,
And God it wat that it is litil wonder,
Freris and Fendis gon but little asonder.
For parde, ye han ofte time here tell
How that a Frere ravishid was to hell
In spirit onis by a visioune,
And as an Angel led him up and doune
To shewin him the peynis that were there....
And unto Sathanas ladd he him doune.
«And now hath Sathanas, said he, a taile
Brodir than of a Carike is the saile.
Hold up thy taile, thou Sathanas, quod he,
Shew forth thyn erse, and let the Frere se,
Where is the nest of Freris in this place.»
And er that half a furlong wey of place,
Right so as bees swarmin out of a hive,
Out of the Devil's erse they gan to drive,
Twenty thousand Freris all on a rout,
And throughout Hell they swarmid all about,
And come agen as fast as they might gon,
And into his erse they crepte everichone;
He clapt his taile agen, and lay full still.

(The Sompnour's prologue.)

210: The Sompnour's prologue.

211: Voir dans les Contes de Cantorbéry the Rhyme of sir Thopas, parodie des histoires chevaleresques. Chacun y semble un précurseur de Cervantès.

212: Canterbury Tales.

213:

—Though that he was worthy he was wise;
And of his port, as meke as is a mayde:
He never yet no vilainie ne sayde,
In all his lif, unto no manere wight,
He was a veray parfit gentil knight.

214:

With him, ther was his sone, a yonge Squier,
A lover, and a lusty bacheler;
With lockes crull as they were laide in presse,
Of twenty yere of age he was, I gesse.
Of his stature he was of even lengthe;
And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe,
And he hadde be, somtime, in chevachie
In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,
And borne him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to standen in his ladies grace.
Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
All full of freshe floures, white and rede.
Singing he was, or floyting all the day:
He was as freshe as is the moneth of May.
Short was his goune, with sleves long and wide.
Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride,
He coude songes make, and wel endite;
Juste and eke dance; and wel pourtraie and write:
So hote he loved, that by nightertale
He slep no more than doth the nightingale,
Curteis he was, lowly and servisable;
And carf before his fader at the table.

215: J'aurais voulu traduire: «Elle réprimait les bruits de l'estomac.»—Mais le mot propre est naïf dans l'original.

216:

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,
That of hire smiling was full simple and coy;
Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy;
And she was cleped Madame Eglentine.
Ful wel she sange the service devine,
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;
And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.
At mete was she wele ytaughte withalle;
She lette no morsel from her lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hir sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful muche hire lest.
Hire over-lippe wiped she so clene,
That in her cuppe was no ferthing sene
Of grese, whan she dronked hadde hire draught.
Ful semely after hire mete she raught.
And sikerly she was of grete disport,
And ful plesant, and amiable of port,
And peined hire to contrefeten chere
Of court, and ben estatelich of manere,
And to ben holden digne of reverence.
But for to speken of hire conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerde smerte:
And all was conscience and tendre herte.
Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was,
Hire nose tretis; hire eyen grey as glas;
Hire mouth ful smale, and thereto soft and red;
But sikerly she hadde a fayre forehed.
It was almost a spanne brode I trowe;
For hardily she was not undergrowe,
Ful fetise was hire cloke, as I was ware.
Of smale corall aboute hire arm she bare
A pair of bedes, gauded all with grene;
And thereon heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On whiche was first ywriten a crouned A,
And after, Amor vincit omnia.
Another Nonne also with hire hadde she,
That was hire chapelleine, and Preestes thre.

217: Description du temple de Mars d'après la Théséide de Stace.

218: En parlant de Cressida, il dit: «Aussi vrai que notre première lettre est maintenant un A, on ne vit jamais chose digne d'être plus chèrement louée, ni sous un noir nuage d'étoile si brillante.»

219: Sous Proclus et sous Hégel. Duns Scott, à trente et un ans, meurt, laissant, outre ses sermons et ses commentaires, douze volumes in-folio en petit caractère serré, en style de Hégel, sur le même sujet que Proclus. Voyez aussi saint Thomas et toute la file des scolastiques. On n'a pas l'idée de ce travail avant de les avoir maniés.

220: Pierre le Lombard, Manuel des sentences. C'est le livre classique du moyen âge.

221: Duns Scott, éd. 1639.

222:

Utrum angelus diligat se ipsum dilectione naturali vel electiva?
Utrum in statu innocentiæ fuerit generatio per coitum? Utrum omnes fuissent nati in sexu masculino?
Utrum cognitio angeli posset dici matutina et vespertina?
Utrum martyribus aureola debeatur?
Utrum virgo Maria fuerit virgo in concipiendo?
Utrum remanserit virgo post partum?
Le lecteur fera bien d'aller chercher dans le texte la réponse à ces deux dernières questions.

(Saint Thomas, Summa Theologica, édition de 1677.)

223: History of english poetry, t. II.

224: Contemporain de Chaucer. Sa Confessio amantis est de 1393. Histoire de Rosiphèle. Ballades.

225: Warton, II, 225.

226: Voir, par exemple, au septième livre, le passage le plus poétique, la description de la couronne du soleil.

227: 1420, 1430.

228: C'est le titre que Froissart (1397) donna à son recueil de vers, en le présentant au roi Richard II.

229: Lydgate, Histoire de Troie, description de la chapelle d'Hector. Voyez surtout les Pageants ou entrées solennelles.

230: Voyez sa Vision de la Fortune, gigantesque figure. Dans cette peinture, il a de l'émotion et du talent.

231: La guerre des Hussites, la guerre de Cent-Ans, la guerre des deux Roses.

232: Vers 1506. The Temple of glass. Passetyme of pleasure.

233: Vers 1500.

234: Mort en 1529, lauréat en 1489. Les Récompenses de cour, la Couronne de laurier, l'Élégie sur la mort du duc de Northumberland, plusieurs sonnets, sont d'un style convenable et appartiennent à la poésie officielle. Voyez Philarète Chasles, Skelton, études sur le seizième siècle.

235: Mot de Skelton.

Though my rhyme be ragged
Tattered and gagged,
Rudely rain-beaten,
Rusty, moth-eaten,
Yf ye take welle therewithe,
It hath in it some pith.

236: Voir à Bruges les tableaux de Hemling (quinzième siècle). Aucune peinture ne fait si bien comprendre la piété ecclésiastique du moyen âge, toute pareille à celle des bouddhistes.

237: Van Orley, Michel Coxie, Franz Floris, les de Vos, les Sadler, Crispin de Pass et les maîtres de Nuremberg.

238: Le premier carrosse est de 1564. Il étonna beaucoup. Les uns disaient que c'était «une grande coquille marine apportée de Chine,» les autres que c'était «un temple ou les cannibales adoraient le diable.»

239: Voyez la peinture de cet état de choses dans les lettres de la famille Paston, publiées par John Fen.

240: Louis XI en France, Ferdinand et Isabelle en Espagne, Henri VII en Angleterre. En Italie, le régime féodal a fini plus tôt, par l'établissement des républiques et des principautés.

241: 1488. Acte du Parlement sur les inclosures.

242: A Compendious examination, 1581, by William Strafford. Acte du Parlement, 1541. Whereby the inhabitants of the said town have gotten and come into riches and wealthy livings. (Il s'agit de Manchester.)

243: Pictorial history, I, 902.

244: Pictorial history, I, 903. De 1377 à 1583, de 2 millions et demi à 5 millions.

245: Ludovic Guicciardini. En 1585.

246: Henri VIII, au commencement de son règne, n'avait qu'un vaisseau de guerre. Élisabeth en fit partir cent cinquante contre l'Armada.

1553. Compagnie anglaise du commerce russe.

1578. Drake fait le tour du monde.

1600. Compagnie anglaise pour le commerce de l'Inde.

247: Liv. VI, chap. IV, Pictorial History.

248: Nathan Drake, Shakspeare and his Times, passim.

249: Ce style est appelé le style Tudor. Il devient tout à fait italien, voisin de l'antique, sous Jacques I^er, avec Inigo Jones.

250: Voyez Burton, Anatomy of melancoly; Stubbes, etc.

251: Holinshed, 921.

252: Holinshed, ibid.

253: Elisabeth and James' Progresses, by Nichols.

254: Tiré des Masques de Ben-Jonson. Masque of hymen, 76. Éd. Gifford, t. VII.

255: Aussi certaines lettres privées décrivent la cour d'Élisabeth comme un endroit où il y avait «peu de piété et de pratique de la religion, et où toutes les énormités régnaient au plus haut degré.»

256: Midsummer Night's Dream.

257: Nathan Drake, Shakspeare and his times, chap. V et VI.

258: Stubbs, Anatomy of abuses.

259: Hentzner's travels in England.

Il pense que dans la fête de la Moisson la figure qu'on traînait en char était celle de Cérès.

260: Warton, t. II, § 4; t. III, § 1.

Avant 1600, tous les grands poëtes, de 1550 à 1616, tous les grands historiens de la Grèce et de Rome, sont traduits en anglais. Lillye, en 1500, le premier enseigne publiquement le grec.

261: Ungracious.

262: Ma il vero e principal ornemento dell' animo in ciascuno penso io che siano le lettere, benchè i Francesi solamente conoscano la nobilità dell'arme.... et tutti i litterati tengon per vilissimi huomini. Page 112, éd. 1585, Castiglione, il Cortegiano.

263: Voyez Burchard, majordome du pape, récit de la fête où assistait Lucrèce Borgia; Lettres de l'Arétin, Vie de Cellini, etc.

264: Mot de Pulci.

265: Voyez ses esquisses à Oxford et les esquisses du religieux Fra Bartholomeo à Florence. Voyez aussi le Martyre de saint Laurent, par Baccio Bandinelli.

266: Benvenuto Cellini, Principes sur l'art du dessin. «Tu dessineras alors l'os qui est placé entre les deux hanches. Il est très-beau et se nomme sacrum.... Les admirables os de la tête.»

267: Vie de Benvenuto Cellini. Voyez aussi ces exercices que Castiglione prescrit à l'homme bien élevé:

Peró voglio che il nostro cortegiano sia perfetto cavaliere d'ogni sella.... Et perchè degli Italiani è peculiar laude il cavalcare benè alla brida, il maneggiar con raggione massimamente cavalli aspri, il corre lance, il giostare, sia in questo de meglior Italiani.... Nel torneare, tener un passo, combattere una sbarra, sia buono tra il miglior francesi.... Nel giocare a canne, correr torri, lanciar haste e dardi, sia tra Spagnuoli eccellente.... Conveniente è ancor sapere saltare, e correre;.... ancor nobile exercitio il gioco di palla.... Non di minor laude estimo il voltegiar a cavallo. Page 55, édition 1585.

268: Homely.

269:

270:

For all things having life, sometime hath quiet rest;
The bearing ass, the drawing ox, and every other beast;
The peasant and the post, that serves at all assays,
The ship-boy, and the galley-slave, have time to take their ease,
Save I alas! whom care, of force doth so constrain,
To wail the day, and wake the night, continually in pain,
From pensiveness to plaint, from plaint to bitter tears,
From tears to painful plaint again; and thus my life it wears.

271:

The soote season that bud and bloom forth brings
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings,
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs
The hart has hung his old head on the pale.
The buck in brake his winter coat he slings;
The fishe flete with new repaired scale
The adder all slough away she flings,
The swift swallow persueth the flies smalle,
The busy bee her honey now she mings.
Winter is worn that was the flower's bale.
And thus I see among these pleasent things,
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

272:

Yet rather die a thousand times than once to false my faith;
And if my feeble corpse, through weight of woful smart,
Do fail or faint, my will it is that still she keep my heart.
And when this carcass here to earth shall be refar'd,
I do bequeath my wearied ghost to serve her afterward.

273:

I assure thee, even by oath,
And thereon take my hand and troth,
That she is one the worthiest,
The truest and the faithfullest,
The gentlest and meekest of mind,
That here on earth a man may find;
And if that love and truth were gone,
In her it might be found alone.
For in her mind no thought there is,
But how she may be true, I wis;
And tenders thee and all thy heal,
And wisheth both thy health and weal;
And loves thee even as far-forth than
As any woman may a man;
And is thy own and so she says;
And cares for thee ten thousand ways;
On thee she speaks, on thee she thinks.
With thee she eats, with thee she drinks;
With thee she talks, with thee she moans,
With thee she sighs, with thee she groans,
With thee she says: «Farewell, mine own!»
When thou, God knows, full far art gone.
And, even to tell thee all aright,
To thee she says full oft: «Good night.»
And names thee oft her own most dear,
Her comfort, weal, and all her cheer;
And tells her pillow all the tale
How thou hast done her woe and bale;
And how she longs and plains for thee,
And says: «Why art thou so from me?
Am I not she that loves thee best?
Do I not wish thine ease and rest?
Seek I not how I may thee please?
Why art thou then so from thy ease?
If I be she for whom thou carest,
For whom in torments so thou farest,
Alas! thou knowest to find me here,
Where I remain thine own most dear,
Thine own most true, thine own most just,
Thine own that loves thee still and must;
Thine own that cares alone for thee,
As thou, I think, dost care for me;
And even the woman, she alone,
That is full bent to be thine own.

274: Dans une autre pièce, Complaint on the absence of her lover being upon the sea, il parle en propres termes presque aussi tendrement de sa femme.

275: Greene, Beaumont et Flechter, Webster, Shakspeare, Ford, Otway, Richardson, de Foë, Fielding, Byron, Dickens, Thackeray, etc.

276: The frailty and hurtfulness of beauty.

277: Description of spring. A vow to love faithfully.

278: Complaint of the lover disdained.

279: Surrey, édition Nott. Remarques du docteur Nott.

280: Discours du speaker au roi Charles II à sa restauration. Comparer aux discours de M. de Fontanes sous l'Empire. Dans les deux cas, c'est un âge littéraire qui finit.—Lisez comme spécimen le discours prononcé devant l'Université d'Oxford. Athenæ oxonienses, I, 193.

281: Son second ouvrage, Euphues and his England, parut l'an suivant, 1581.

282: Voir les jeunes gens dans Shakspeare, surtout Mercutio.

283: The Maid's metamorphosis.

Adorned with the presence of my love,
The woods, I fear, such secret power shall prove,
As they'll shut up each path, hide every way,
Because thy still would have her go astray.

284: Therefore, mourne boldly, my inke. For, while she looks upon you, your blackness will shine; cry out boldly my lamentations; for while she reads you, your cries will be musicke.

(Éd. in-fol. 1605, p. 118.)

285: They impoverished their clothes to enrich their bed, which might well for that night scorn the shrine of Venus, and there cherishing one another with deare though chaste embracements, with sweet though cold kisses, it might seem that Love was come to play him there without darts, or that, weary of his own fires, he was there to refresh himself between their sweet-breathing lippes..... Some horses lay dead under their dead masters, whom unknightly wounds had unjustly punished for a faithfull duty. Some lay upon their lords by like accidents, and in death had the honour to be borne by them, whom in life they had borne.

286: In the time that the morning did strew roses and violets in the heavenly floore against the coming of the sun, the nightingales (striving one with the other which could in most dainty varietie recount their wronge-caused sorrow) made them put off their sleep.

287: Page 494.

288: I dare undertake Orlando Furioso or honest king Arthur will never displease a soldier. But the quidditie of Ens and prima materia will hardly agree with a corcelet.

Voyez p. 497, la personnification très-railleuse et très-spirituelle de l'Histoire et de la Philosophie. Il y a là un vrai talent.

289: I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet. And yet it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?

290: Nay, he doth as if your journey should lie through a faire vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of that taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions which must blurre the margent with interpretations, and load the memory with doutfullness; but he cometh to you with words set in delightfull proportions, either accompanied with or prepared for the well-enchaunting skill of musick, and, forsooth he cometh unto you with a tale, which holdth the children from play and old men from the chimney-corner.

291: Is it the bitter, but wholesome Iambic, who rubbes the galled mind, in making shame the trumpet of villany, with bold and open crying out against naughtiness?

292: So that since the excellency of poetry may be so easely and so justly confirmed, and the low-creeping objections so soon trodden down, it not being an arte of lies, but of true doctrine; not of effeminateness, but of notable stirring of courage; not of abusing man's witt, but of strengthening man's witt; not banished, but honoured by Plato; let us rather plant more laurels for to ingarland the poets' heads, than suffer the ill favoured breath of such wrong speakers once to blow up on the cleare streams of poesie.

Voyez encore çà et là des vers qui éclatent comme ceux-ci:

Or Pindare's apes, flamet they in phrases fine,
Enam'ling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold.

293:

And Joy which is inseparate from those eyes,
Stella, now learnes (strange case) to weepe in thee.

(101^e sonnet.)

294:

295:

296:

297:

298:

Prometheus when first from heaven hye
He brought downe fire, ere then on earth not seene,
Fond of delight, a satyre standing by
Gave it a kisse, as it like sweete hat beene.
Feeling forthwith the other burning power,
Wood with the smart, with shouts and shrieking shrill,
He sought ease in river, field, and bower,
But for the time, his grief went with him still.

299:

300:

My youth doth waste, my knowledge brings forth toys,
My witt doth strive those passions to defend,
Which for reward spoile it with vaine annoies;
I see my course to lose myself doth bend:
I see and yet no greater sorrow take,
Than that I lose no more for Stella's sake.

301: Dernier sonnet, page 490.

302:

Leave me, o Love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things.
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust;
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings....
O take fast hold, let that light be thy guide,
In this small course which birth draws out to death.

303: Nathan Drake, 310 Shakspeare and his Times. On ne compte pas, dans ces deux cent trente-trois poëtes, les auteurs de pièces isolées, mais ceux qui ont publié et recueilli leurs œuvres.

304: Tous ces mots sont pris dans Jonson, Spenser, Drayton, Shakspeare et Greene.

305:

When Phœbus lifts his head out of the winter's wave,
No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feath'red sylvans sing:
And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole,
Those quiristers are perch't, with many a speckled breast;
Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east
Gilds every lofty top, which late the homorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight;
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes,
That hills and vallies ring, and even the echoing air
Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere....
They sing away the morn, until the mounting sun,
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.

(Drayton, Polyolbion.)

306:

307:

308: Celebration of Charis.

309:

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;
And enamour'd do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.
Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her, she is bright
As love's star when it riseth!....
Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow,
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smell'd of the bud o' the brier?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

310:

Her golden hair o'erspred her face,
Her careless armes abroad were cast,
Her quiver had her pillows place,
Her breast lay bare to every blast.

(Cupid's Pastime, auteur inconnu vers 1621.)

311:

Though mountains meet not, lovers may.
What other lovers do, did they.
The God of Love sat on a tree,
And laught that pleasant sight to see.

(Id.)

312: Rosalind's madrigal.

Love in my bosom like a bee
Doth suck his sweet.
Now with his wings he plays with me
Now with his feet.
Within my eyes he makes his rest,
His bed amid my tender breast,
My kisses are his daily feast.
And yet he robs me of my rest.
Ah! wanton, will ye!

313: Greene (From Menaphon).

314: As you like it.

315: The Sad Shepherd. Voyez aussi Flechter and Beaumont: the Faithful Shepherdess.

316:

317: William Warner.

318: Michel Drayton.

319:

With that she bent her snow-white knee,
Down by the shepherd kneel'd she,
And him she sweetly kist.
With that the shepherd whoop'd for joy;
Quoth he: "There's never shepherd boy
That ever was so blist."

(Michel Drayton.)

320: He died for want of bread in King street. (Ben Jonson, cité par Drummond.)

321: Hymnes à l'amour et à la beauté,—à l'amour et à la beauté célestes.

322:

For that same goodly hew of white and red,
With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,
And those sweete rosy leaves, so fairly spred
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay;
That golden wyre, those sparckling stars so bright,
Shall turne to dust, and lose their goodly light.
But that fair lampe, from whose celestial rays
That light proceedes which kindleth lovers fire,
Shall never be extinguisht nor decay;
But when the vitall spirits doe expyre,
Upon her native planet shall retyre;
For it is heavenly borne and cannot die,
Being a parcell of the purest skye.

323:

For Love is lord of Truth and Loialtie,
Lifting himself out of the lowly dust,
On golden plumes, up to the purest skye,
Above the reach of loathly sinfull lust.
Whose base affect, through cowardly distrust
Of his weake wings, dare not to heaven fly.
But, like a moldwarpe in the earth doth ly.

324:

As an aged tree
High growing on the top of rocky clift,
Whose hart-strings with keene steele nigh hewen be,
The mightie trunck half rent with ragged rift
Doth roll adowne the rocks, and fall with fearefull drift.
Or as a castle, reared high and round,
By subtile engins and malitious slight,
Is undermined from the lowest ground,
And her foundation forst and feebled quight,
At last downe falles; and with her heaped hight
Her hastie ruine does more heavie make,
And yields itselfe unto the victours might.
Such was this gyaunt's fall, that seemed to shake
The stedfast globe of earth, as it for feare did quake.

(Fairie Queene, liv. I, ch. VIII, 42, 43.)

325: The Shepheard's Calendar, Amoretti, Sonnets, Prothalamion, Epithalamion, Muiopotmos, Virgil's Gnat, the Ruins of time, the Tears of the Muses, etc.

326: Publié en 1589; dédié à Philipp Sidney.

327:

There in a meadow, by the river's side,
A flock of nymphes I chaunced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the Flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde,
As each had bene a bryde.
And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entrayled curiously,
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropt full featously
The tender stalkes on hye.
Of every sort which in that meadow grew
They gathered some: the violet pallid blew,
The little dazie that at evening closes,
The virgin lilie, and the primrose trew,
With store of vermeil roses,
To deck their bridegroomes posies
Against the brydale-day, which was not long,
Sweet Themmes, runne softly till I end my song!
With that I saw two swannes of goodly hewe
Come softly swimming down along the lee.
Two fairer birds I yet did never see;
The snow which doth the top of Pindus strew
Did never whiter shew....
So purely white they were,
That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
Seem'd foul to them, and bad his billowes spare
To wet their silken feathers, least they might
Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre,
And marre their beauties bright,
That shone as heavens light,
Against their brydale day, which was not long.
Sweet Themmes! runne softly till I end my song.

(Prothalamion.)

328:

329: C'est Lodowick Bryskett (Discourse of civil life, 1606) qui lui attribue ces paroles.

330: Surtout dans le Calendrier du Berger.

331:

332:

Sweet love, that doth his golden wings embay
In blessed nectar and pure pleasures well.

(Liv. III, ch. II, st. 2.)

333:

334:

335:

336:

A teme of Dolphins raunged in aray
Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent.
They were all taught by Triton to obay
To the long raynes at her commaundement.
As swift as swallows on the waves they went.
That their broad flaggy finnes no fome did reare,
Ne bubbling rowndell they behinde them sent;
The rest of other fishes drawen weare
Which with their finny oars the swelling sea did sheare.

(Liv. III, ch. IV, 33.)

337:

338:

339:

340: Harrington's Nugæ antiquæ.

341:

342: Voyez surtout sa satire contre les courtisans. Ceci est contre les imitateurs:

But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Other's witt fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things outspue
As his own things; and they are his owne, 't is true,
For if one eate my meat, though it be known
The meat was mine, th' excrement is his own.

343:

When I behold a stream, which, from the spring,
Doth, with doubtful melodious murmuring,
Or in a speechless slumber calmly ride
Her wedded channels bosom, and there chide
And bend her brows, and swell, if any bough
Does but stoop down to kiss her utmost brow;
Yet if her often, gnawing kisses win
The traiterous banks to gape and let her in;
She rusheth violently and doth divorce
Her from her native and her long-kept course,
And roares, and braves it, and in gallant scorn
In flatt'ring eddies promising return,
She flouts her channel, which thenceforth is dry,
Then say I: That is she, and this I am.

344:

O do not die, for I shall hate
All women so, when thou art gone,
That thee I shall not celebrate,
When I remember thou wast one.

345:

This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge and you, w'are met,
And cloyster'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that selfe murder added be,
And sacriledge, three sins in killing three.

Aussi Suckling l'appelle the Great lord of witt.

346: 1608-1667. J'ai sous les yeux la onzième édition de 1710.

347: Par exemple: The Spring (The Mistress, tome 1^er, page 72).

348: Shakspeare: Tempest, Measure for measure, Hamlet; Beaumond and Flechter: Thierry and Theodoret, acte 4^e. Voyez aussi Webster, passim.

349: This roving humour (though not with like success) I have ever had, and, like a ranging spaniel, that barks at every bird he sees, leaving his game, I have followed all, saving that which I should, and may justly complain, and truly, qui ubique est, nusquam est, which Gesner did in modesty: that I have read many books, but to little purpose, for want of good method; I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors in our libraries with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgment. I never travelled but in map or card, in which my unconfined thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with the study of cosmography. Saturn was lord of my geniture, culminating, etc., and Mars principal significator of manners, in partile conjunction with mine ascendent; both fortunate in their houses, etc. I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest; I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva's tower. Greater preferment as I could never get, so am I not in debt for it. I have a competency (laus Deo) from my noble and munificent patrons. Though I live still a collegiate student, as Democritus in his garden, and lead a monastic life, ipse mihi theatrum sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world, et tanquam in specula positus (as he said) in some high place above you all, like stoicus sapiens, omnia sæcula præterita præsentiaque videns, uno velut intuitu, I hear and see what is done abroad, how others run, ride, turmoil, and macerate themselves in court and country. Far from those wrangling law-suits, aulæ vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo: I laugh at all, "only secure, lest my suit go amiss, my ships perish, corn and cattle miscarry, trade decay, I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for;" a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts, which methinks are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene. I hear new news every day: and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets; spectrums, prodigies, apparitions; of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, etc., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms—a vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances—are daily brought to our ears: new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, etc. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts, and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies, in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical, then tragical matters. To-day we hear of new lords and officers created, tomorrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred: one is let loose, another imprisoned: one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, etc. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and public news.

350: For what a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader? In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, optic, astronomy, architecture, sculptura, pictura, of which so many and such elaborate treatises are of late written: in mechanics and their mysteries, military matters, navigation, riding of horses, fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, falconry, hunting, fishing, fowling, etc., with exquisite pictures of all sports, games, and what not? In music, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, philology, in policy, heraldry, genealogy, chronology, etc., they afford great tomes, or those studies of antiquity, etc., et quid subtilius arithmeticis inventionibus? quid jucundius musicis rationibus? quid divinius astronomicis? quid rectius geometricis demonstrationibus? What so sure, what so pleasant? he that shall but see that geometrical tower of Garizenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at Strasburgh, will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes to remove the earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument? Archimedis cochlea, and rare devises to corrivate waters, music instruments, and trisyllable echoes again, again, and again repeated, with myriads of such. What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, etc.? Their names alone are the subject of whole volumes: we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them. Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages wherein these books are written, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, etc. Methinks it would well please any man to look upon a geographical map (suavi animum delectatione allicere, ob incredibilem rerum varietatem et jucunditatem et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem excitare) chorographical, topographical delineations; to behold, as it were, all the remote provinces, towns, cities of the world, and never to go forth of the limits of his study; to measure, by the scale and compass, their extent, distance, examine their site. Charles the great (as Platina writes) had three fair silver tables, in one of which superficies was a large map of Constantinople, in the second Rome neatly engraved, in the third an exquisite description of the whole world; and much delight he took in them. What greater pleasure can there now be, than to view those elaborate maps of Ortelius, Mercator, Hondius, etc., to peruse those books of cities, put out by Braunus, and Hogenbergius? to read those exquisite descriptions of Maginus, Munster, Herrera, Laet, Merula, Boterus, Leander Albertus, Camden, Leo Afer, Adricomius, Nic. Gerbelius, etc.? those famous expeditions of Christopher Columbus, Americus Vespucius, Marcus Polus the Venitian, Vertomannus, Aloysius Cadamustus, etc.? those accurate diaries of Portugals, Hollanders, of Bartison, Oliver à Nort, etc., Hacluit's voyages, Pet. Martyr's Decades, Benzo, Lerius, Linschoten's relations, those Hodœporicons of Jod. à Meggen, Brocarde the Monk, Bredenbachius, Jo. Dublinius, Sands, etc., to Jerusalem, Egypt, and other remote places of the world? those pleasant itineraries of Paulus Hentzerus, Jodocus Sincerus, Dux Polonus, etc., to read Bellonius's observations, P. Gillius his surveys; those parts of America, set out, and curiously cut in pictures, by Fratres à Bry? to see a well cut herbal, herbs, trees, flowers, plants, all vegetals, expressed in their proper colours to the life, as that of Matthiolus upon Dioscorides, Delacampius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last voluminous and mighty herbal of Besler of Noremberge; wherein almost every plant is to his own bigness. To see birds, beasts, and fishes of the sea, spiders, gnats, serpents, flies, etc., all creatures set out by the same art, and truly expressed in lively colours, with an exact description of their natures, virtues, qualities, etc., as hath been accurately performed by Ælian, Gesner, Ulysses Aldrovandus, Bellonus, Rondoletius, Hippolytus Salvianus, etc.

351: Anatomy of melancoly, 1621.

352: But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity: who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it; time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse; confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon, without the favour of the everlasting register. Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired: the greatest part must be content to be as though they had not been; to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story before the flood; and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life: and even Pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light in ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementos, and time, that grows old in itself, bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a dream, and folly of expectation.

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroys us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce callosities; miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days; and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions.... All was vanity, feeding the wind, and folly. The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balzams.... Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnising nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.... Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of vain glory, and wild enormities of ancient magnanimity.

353: Consulter Milsand, étude sur sir Thomas Browne, Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1858.

354: As water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle, where it may by union comfort and sustain itself, and, for that cause, the industry of man hath framed and made spring-heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, conferences and places appointed, as universities, colleges and schools, for the receipt and comforting the same....

The greatest error of all the rest, is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate.

355: Voir surtout les Essais.

356: Voyez aussi dans le Novum Organum, liv. I et liv. II, les vingt-sept genres d'exemples, avec leurs noms métaphoriques. Instantiæ crucis, divortii, januæ, Instantiæ innuentes, polychrestæ, magicæ, etc. Voyez encore les Géorgiques de l'esprit, la première Vendange de l'induction, et autres titres semblables.

357: The Works of Francis Bacon. London, 1824. Tome VII, p. 2. Biographie latine, par Rawley.

358: Ce point a été mis en évidence par l'admirable Étude de lord Macaulay.—Critical and historical Essays, tome III.

359: Temporis partus masculus.

360: Novum Organum, lib. II, 15 et 16.

361: Novum Organum, liv. I, 1 et 3.

362: Natural history, 800, 24, etc. De Augmentis, lib. III, 1.

363: Voyez là-dessus presque tous les écrits de Bacon, et notamment son Histoire naturelle.