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PUBLICATIONS 

OF    THE 

MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 


OF 


AMERICA 


EDITED    BY 

WILLIAM  GUILD  HOWARD 

SECRETARY  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION 


VOL.     XXIX 
NEW  SERIES,   VOL.   XXII 


4  ' 


PUBLIBHT  QUARTERLY  BY  THE  ASSOCIATION 
PBTHTED  BY  J.  H.  FUBST  COMPANY 

BALTIMORE 
1914 


'hi. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I. — The  Origin  of  the  Easter  Play.    By  KARL  YOUNG        -       .1 
II. — A   Study   of   the  Metrical  Use   of  the  Inflectional   e 
in  Middle   English,   with   Particular   Reference  to 
Chaucei  and  Lydgate.    By  CHARLOTTE  FARRINGTON 
BABCOCK  **        '.      ff     •        •      59 

III. — Chaucer  and  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins.     By  FREDERICK 

TUPPER  -        -        '     /"•        -        -        -        -       93 

IV. — The  "  Corones  Two  "  of  the  Second  Nun's  Tale:  a  Sup- 
plementary  Note.     By   JOHN   LIVINGSTON    LOWES     129 
V. — The    Renascence    of    Germanic    Studies    in    England, 

1559-1689.      By   C.   F.   TUCKER   BROOKE         -         -     135 
VI. — The     French    Aristotelian    Formalists    and    Thomas 

Rymer.     By  GEORGE  B.   DUTTON            -        -         -     152 
VII.— A  Source  for  Medwall's  Nature.     By  W.  ROY  MAC- 
KENZIE :    "/ 189 

VIII. — The  Story  of  Dante's  Gianni  Schicchi  and  Regnard's 

Legataire     Universel.      By    RUDOLPH     ALTROCCHI    200 
IX. — The     American    Dialect    Dictionary.       By     WILLIAM 

EDWARD  MEADE, 225 

X. — Four  Hitherto  Unidentified  Letters  by  Alexander  Pope. 

By  M.  ELLWOOD  SMITH 236  t 

*~~  XL— The  Theme  of  Paradise  Lost.     By  H.  W.  PECK         -     256* 
XII. — Some  Friends  of  Chaucer.     By  ERNEST  P.  KUHL        -     270 
XIII. — Is  Shakespeare  Aristocratic?     By  ALBERT  H.  TOLMAN     277 
XIV. — The  Influence  of  the  Popular  Ballad  on  Wordsworth 

and  Coleridge.    By  CHARLES  WHARTON  STORK        -    299 
XV. — The  Source  in  Art  of  the  So-called  Prophets  Play  in 

the  Hegge  Collection.     By  JOHN  K.  BONNELL        -     327 
XVI. — The  Enamoured  Moslem  Princess  in  Orderic  Vital  and 

the  French  Epic.    By  F.  M.  WARREN         -         -         -     341 
XVII. — Kleist     at    Boulogne-sur-mer.      By    JOHN    WILLIAM 

SCROLL 359 

XVIII. — Spenser  and  the  Mirour  de  I'Omme.    By  JOHN  LIVINGS- 
TON   LOWES  .  --        -        -         -        -        -        -     388 

XIX. — Ye  and  You  in  the  King  James  Version.    By  JOHN  S. 

KEISIYON  -        '.     » 453 

XX.— Ballad,  Tale,  and  Tradition:  A  Study  in  Popular  Lit- 
erary Origins.     By  ARTHUR  BEATTY        -        -         -     473 
XXI. — The    Dating    of    Skelton's    Satires.      By    JOHN    M. 

BERDAN  -        •> 499 

XXII. — Jaufre  Rudel  and  the  Lady  of  Dreams.     By  OLIN  H. 

MOORE  -_  517 

XXIII. — Repetition  of  W^ords  and  Phrases  at  the  Beginning  of 
Consecutive  Tercets  in  Dante's  Divine  Comedy.    By 

OLIVER  M.  JOHNSTON 537 

XXIV. — The  Organic  Unity  of  Twelfth  Night.     By  MORRIS  P. 

TILLEY  550 


PUBLICATIONS 


OF  THE 


Modern  Language  Association  of  America 


1914 


VOL.  XXIX,   1  NEW  SERIES,  VOL.  XXII,   1 


I.— THE  ORIGIN   OF   THE   EASTER  PLAY 

Of  the  mediaeval  religious  plays  that  emerged  from  the 
Roman  liturgy  the  earliest,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  associated 
with  Easter  Day.1  The  impulse  toward  the  creation  of 
this  particular  play  finds  its  first  definite  record  in  a  di- 

1  For  his  assertion  that  the  Christmas  play  is  older  than  the 
Easter  play  Professor  Wilhelm  Meyer  (Fragmenta  Burana,  Berlin, 
1901,  pp.  37,  38,  173)  offers  no  evidence.  The  dramatic  Easter  trope 
Quern  quceritis  in  sepulchro  is  found  in  manuscripts  of  the  tenth 
century  (St.  Gall  MS.  484  and  Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  latin  1240; 
see  texts  below),  and  a  true  Easter  play, — that  is,  a  presentation 
of  the  story  by  means  of  action  and  impersonation, — is  extant  in 
a  document  composed,  probably,  in  the  period  965-975,  and  pre- 
served in  a  manuscript  of  the  period  1020-30  (see  Chambers,  The 
Mediaeval  Stage,  Vol.  n,  pp.  306-307,  concerning  the  Regularis  Con- 
cordia  of  St.  Ethelwold).  The  dramatic  Christmas  trope  Quern 
quceritis  in  prcesepe  is  not  extant  in  texts  earlier  than  the  eleventh 
century  (see  Young,  in  Transactions  of  the  Wisconsin  Academy  of 
Sciences,  Arts,  and  Letters,  Vol.  xvn,  pp.  300-311),  and  the  earliest 
true  plays  of  the  Christmas  season  are  found  in  manuscripts  <ji 
the  eleventh  century  (see  Young,  in  Modern  Language  Notes,  Vol. 
xxvn,  pp.  68-70). 


2  KARL    YOUNG 

minutive  prose  dialogue  of  which  the  simplest  2  form  runs 
as  follows : 

Iiera  3  DE  ~R&s'U'B,E,ectione  Domini. 

I.NTerrogatio : 

Quem  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpicticole/? 
^Responsio : 

Ihcym  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  caelicolae. 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 

ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit  de  sepulchro. 

R-esurrexi.4 

This  small  composition  is  easily  identified  as  one  of 
gome  thousands  of  literary  intrusions  into  the  canonical 
text  of  the  Roman  liturgy  which  are  technically  called 
tropes.  In  the  present  case  the  trope  is  attached,  obviously, 
to  the  Mass,  and  serves  as  a  mere  introduction  to  the  In- 
troit  of  the  Mass  of  Easter,  of  which  the  first  word  is 
Resurrexi,  and  of  which  the  complete  form  is  the  fol- 
lowing : 

Resurrexi,  et  adhuc  tecum  sum,  alleluia:  posuisti  super  me 
manum  tuam,  alleluia:  mirabilis  facta  est  scientia  tua,  alle- 
luia, alleluia. 

2  Although  this  is  the  simplest,  and,  indeed,  the  oldest  form  of  the 
trope,  the  manuscripts  that  preserve  it  are  not  quite  so  old  as  the 
manuscript  (Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  latin  1240)  that  preserves  a  de- 
rived form.  These  considerations  are  discussed  below,  pp.  12-13. 

8  The  word  Item  indicates  the  fact  that  this  trope  is  one  of  a 
series  of  tropes  for  the  Introit  of  the  Mass  of  Easter. 

4  St.  Gall,  Stiftsbibliothek,  MS.  484,  Troparium  Sangallense  ssec.  x, 
p.  111.  The  last  word  Resurrexi  is  the  first  word  of  the  Easter 
Introit.  It  is  followed  immediately  by  the  rubric  Miter,  indicating 
the  beginning  of  a  fresh  trope.  The  rime,  and  the  arrangement  of 
the  lines  of  the  trope  as  here  printed,  should  mislead  no  one  into 
thinking  that  this  piece  is  other  than  prose.  See  C.  Blume,  Reper- 
torium  Repertorii  (Hymnologische  Beitrdge,  Vol.  li),  Leipzig,  1901, 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  THE  EASTEK  PLAY  O 

Psalmus:    Domine  probasti  me,  et  cognovisti  me:   tu  cogno- 

visti  sessionem  meam,  et  resurrectionem  meam. 

Versus:    Gloria   Patri,    et    Filio,   et    Spiritui    Sancto.     Sicut 

erat  in  principio,  et  mine  et  semper,  et  in  saecula  sseculorum. 

Amen.5 

The  trope  before  us,  however,  did  not  always  attach 
itself  to  the  Mass.  It  has  l>een  justly  observed  that  Quern 
quceritis  in  sepulchro  had  a  double  association  and  develop- 
ment within  the  liturgy  of  Easter :  first  as  an  appendage  to 
the  Introit  of  the  Mass,  and  secondly  as  an  intrusion  in  the 
Canonical  Office,  immediately  before  the  Te  Deum  at  the 
end  of  Matins.6  Of  these  two  developments  the  second, 
called  Visitatio  Sepulcliri,  has  been  assiduously  studied. 
More  than  twenty-five  years  ago  Professor  Carl  Lange  pub- 
lished some  two  hundred  texts  illustrating  the  growth  of 
Quern  quceritis  into  a  true  drama  in  the  office  of  Matins, 
and  expounded  the  chief  stages  of  this  development  in  a 
lucid  commentary.7  The  few  scores  of  similar  texts  more 
recently  published  have  merely  confirmed  the  more  impor- 
tant part  of  Lange's  exposition.8 

'The  manner  in  which  this  Introit  was  rendered  will  be  discussed 
below.  See  p.  16. 

*  The  best  analysis  of  this  double  development  is  that  presented 
by  Chambers,  The  Mediaeval  Stage,  Vol.  n,  pp.  9-36. 

TSee  C.  Lange,  Die  lateinischen  Osterfeiern,  Munich,   1887. 

8  Such  texts  have  been  published  by  N.  C.  Brooks,  in  Zeitschrift 
fur  deutsches  Altertum,  Vol.  L  (1908),  pp.  297-312;  Journal  of 
English  and  Germanic  Philology,  Vol.  vin  (1909),  pp.  464-488;  id., 
Vol.  x  (1911),  pp.  191-196;  by  S.  Windakiewicza,  in  the  bulletin  of 
the  Krakauer  Akademie,  Vol.  xxxm  (1902)  ;  id.,  Vol.  xxxiv  (1903), 
pp.  339-356;  by  H.  Pfeiffer,  in  Jahrbuch  des  Stiftes  Klostemeuburg, 
Vol.  i  (1908),  pp.  3-56;  by  P.  Stotzner,  Osterfeiern,  Programm  No. 
594,  Zwickau,  1901;  and  by  the  present  writer  in  Publications  of 
the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  Vol.  xxiv  (1909),4>p. 
297-329;  id.,  Vol.  xxv  (1910),  p.  351;  Transactions  of  the  Wiscon- 
sin Academy  of  Sciences,  Arts,  and  Letters,  Vol.  xvi  ( 1909 ) ,  pp.  899- 
944;  Modern  Philology,  Vol.  VI  (1908),  pp.  221-222. 


KARL    YOUNG 

It  appears,  however,  that  the  other,  and  earlier,  develop- 
ment of  Quern  quceritis, — as  a  trope  attached  to  the  Introit 
of  the  Mass, — has  never  received  adequate  study.  From 
the  few  examples  of  the  trope  that  have  been  published, 
the  importance  of  this  dramatic  germ  has,  to  be  sure,  been 
duly  discerned;  but  in  the  absence  of  any  considerable 
number  of  published  texts,9  it  has  been  impossible  to  ex- 
pound completely  the  fundamental  factor  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Easter  play,  and  the  very  embryo  of  modern 
drama. 

In  the  following  pages,  then,  I  present  the  texts  of  all 
the  Easter  Quern  quceritis  Introit  tropes  that  are  known  to 
me,  and  try  to  trace  the  growth  of  this  germ  toward  drama 
while  it  remained  attached  to  the  Mass.10  In  the  course  of 

9  Texts  are  given  chiefly  by  the  following :    ( 1 )    L.   Gautier    ( Le 
Monde,  Paris,  August  17,  1872,  p.  2;   Les  Tropes,  Paris,   1886,  pp. 
216,    217,   220);     (2)    G.    Milchsack    (Die   lateinischen    Osterfeiern, 
Wolfenbuettel,  1880,  pp.  38-39)  ;    (3)   C.  Lange  (op.  cit.,  pp.  22-23)  ; 
(4)    W.  H.   Frere    (The  Winchester  Troper,  London,   1894,  p.    17& 

The  text  printed  on  p.  17  I  do  not  regard  as  a  trope  of  the  Introit. 
The  inadequacy  of  Frere's  method  of  editing, — particularly  apparent 
in  the  present  connection, — is  exposed  without  reserve  by  Blume  in 
Analecta  Hymnica,  Vol.  XLVII,  pp.  31-36)  ;  (5)  Clemens  Blume  (Ana- 
lecta  Hymnica,  Vol.  XLIX,  pp.  9-10).  Although  certain  of  these  scho- 
lars possess  an  extensive  and  masterly  knowledge  of  tropes  in 
general,  all  five  writers  combined  have  printed  scarcely  more  than 
a  half  dozen  texts  of  Que'm  quceritis  in  sepulchro  that  arc  both 
correct  and  intelligible.  Lange,  writing  without  an  acquaintance 
with  Gautier's  epoch-making  investigations,  seems  to  have  been 
unaware  of  a  difference  between  the  Troparium  and  the  Graduate 
or  the  Liber  Responsalis.  None  of  these  writers  distinguishes  clearly 
between  the  use  of  Quern  quceritis  as  a  trope  of  the  Introit  and  as 
a  dramatic  intrusion  at  the  end  of  Matins.  Upon  the  basis  of  the 
few  texts  provided  by  these  investigators,  however,  Chambers  (op. 
cit.,  Vol.  n,  pp.  9  ff . )  makes  this  distinction  with  admirable  lucidity. 

10  My  possession  of  most  of  the  new  texts  offered  in  this  study 
was  made  possible  by  the  generosity  of  Keverend  H.  M.  Bannister, 
of  Rome,  and  Le  Re"ve"rend  Pere  Dom  G.  M.  Beyssac,  O.  S.  B.,  of 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE   EASTER  PLAY  *> 

this  procedure  I  shall  treat  the  following  divisions  of  the 
subject:  (1)  the  simplest  form  of  the  trope,  its  sources, 
and  its  provenience;  (2)  the  addition  of  sentences  of  mere 
liturgical  significance;  (3)  the  addition  of  sentences  of 
dramatic,  as  well  as  of  liturgical,  significance;  (4)  the 
conscious  adoption  of  a  mise  en  scene;  (5)  the  develop- 
ment of  the  trope  into  true  drama  while  still  attached  to 
the  Introit;  and  (6)  other  associations  of  the  Quern  quce- 
ritis  formula  with  the  Easter  Mass. 


Eeturning,  then,  to  the  simplest  form  of  the  trope,  we 
may  examine  a  text  quite  similar  to  that  given  above : 

ALITER<P.  247  > 
I^Terrogatio  : 

Quern   queritis   in  sepulchre,    Xpicticolae? 
RESPOND  : 

Ihcum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 
Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 
ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit  de  sepulchre. 

Resurrexi.11 

That  this  text  constitutes  a  dialogue  appears  both  from 
the  content  and  from  the  rubrics.  The  dialogue  clearly 
concerns  the  visit  of  the  Maries  to  Christ's  empty  sepul- 

Quarr  Abbey.  I  cannot  adequately  thank  these  teachers  of  mine 
for  constant  gifts  of  materials  and  for  untiring  instruction.  I 
should,  however,  absolve  them  from  all  responsibility  for  my  parti- 
cular treatment  of  the  materials  in  the  present  study. 

"St.  Gall,  Stiftsbibliothek,  MS.  381,  Troparium  Sangallenae  saec. 
xi,  pp.  246-247.  The  last  word  Resurrexi  is  followed  immediately 
by  the  rubric  Aliter. 


KARL    YOUNG 

chre,  the  first  sentence  consisting  of  the  angelic  challenge, 
the  second,  of  the  reply  of  the  Maries,  and  the  third  (Non 
est  hie),  of  the  angelic  assurance.  The  omission  of  a  ru- 
bric before  the  third  sentence  would  seem  to  suggest  that 
the  second  and  third  sentences  were  delivered  by  the  same 
person,  or  persons.  From  other  texts,  however,  we  infer 
that  this  undramatic  form  of  rendition  did  not  obtain,12 
and  that  the  third  sentence  was  delivered  by  the  person, 
or  persons,  who  delivered  the  first.  In  the  text  before  us 
we  have  no  indication  as  to  how  the  parts  were  distributed : 
whether  between  two  half -choirs,  or  between  a  cantor, — or 
cantors, — and  the  whole  choir,  or  between  two  cantors, — 
or  groups  of  cantors.13 

Since  we  now  have  in  hand  the  simplest  form  of  our 
trope,  we  may  conveniently  inquire  as  to  its  sources. 
Turning  to  the  Vulgate  we  find  the  following  three  ac- 
counts of  the  visit  of  the  Maries  to  the  empty  sepulchre:  l'- 

12  See  the  texts  from  the  following  manuscripts,  printed  below : 
ZUrich,  MS.  Rheinau  97;  Verona  MS.  107;  Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS. 
latin  779;  ibid.,  MS.  latin  118;  Ivrea  MS.  60;  Monza  MS.  C.  13/76; 
Monte  Cassino  MS.  127;  Benevento  MSS.  27  and  28;  Oxford,  MS. 
Douce  222;  Piacenza  MS.  65. 

18  As  to  the  manner  in  which  such  a  trope  was  sung  we  derive  a 
certain  amount  of  information  from  MS.  latin  9498  (Paris,  Bibl. 
Nat. ) ,  one  of  twenty  volumes  of  liturgical  documents  compiled  by 
J.  de  Voisin  in  the  seventeenth  century.  On  page  17  of  MS.  9498, 
in  describing  a  thirteenth-century  Ordinarium  from  the  Abbey 
of  St.  Denis,  de  Voisin  quotes  the  following  concerning  the  singing 
of  the  trope  that  follows  upon  the  procession  (Vidi  aquam)  after 
Terce  : 

Post  processionem  ascendant  infra  sancta  sanctorum  quidam  bene- 
cantantes,  alii  in  dextro  latere  et  alii  in  sinistro  absistentes,  tropas 
bene  et  honorifice  conjubilantes  scilicet:  Quern  quseritis,  et  sibi 
inuicem  respondentes.  Et  cum  intonuerint:  Quia  surrexit,  dicens 
Patri,  etatim  archicantor  et  duo  socii  ejus  assistentes  in  choro 
incipiant  Officium. 

"On  the  relation  of  Quern  quceritis  to  the  Vulgate  see  H.  Anz, 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   THE   EASTEK   PLAY  7 

MATT,  xxviii,  5-7,  10.         MAEC.    xvi,    5-7.  Luc.  xxiv,  4-6. 

5.  Respondens    an-  5.   Et  introeuntes  in  4.    Et     factum   est, 
tem     angelus,      dixit  monumentum,       vide-  dum  mente  consterna- 
mulieribus:  Nolite  ti-  runt    juvenem    seden-  ta  essent  de  isto,  ecce 
mere   vos;    scio   enim  tem  in  dextris  cooper-  duo  viri  steterunt  se- 
quod  Jesum  qui  cruci-  turn  stola  Candida,  et  cus  illas  in  veste  ful- 
fixus  est,  quaeritis.  obstupuerunt.  genti. 

6.  Non  est  hie;  sur-  6.    Qui    dicit    illis:  5.    Cum       timerent 
rexit  enim,  sicut  dixit.  Nolite       expavescere;  autern,  et  declinarent 
Venite,    et   videte    lo-  Jesum  quseritis  Naza-  vultum      in      terram, 
cum,  ubi  positus  erat  renum,       crucifixum;  dixerunt      ad      illas: 
Dominus.  surrexit,  non  est  hie,  Quid    quseritis    viven- 

7.  Et    cito    euntes,  ecce  locus  ubi  posuer-  tem  cum  mortuis? 
dicite   discipulis    ejus  unt  eum.  6.    Non  est  hie  sed 
quia  surrexit;  et  ecce  7.    Sed    ite,     dicite  surrexit;    recordamini 
prsecedet  vos  in  Gali-  discipulis  ejus,  et  Pe-  qualiter     locutus    est 
laeam;  ibi  eum  videbi-  tro,  quia  praecedit  vos  vobis,    cum    adhuc   in 
tis :  ecce  prsedixi  vobis.  in  Galilseam ;  ibi  eum  Galilsea  esset. 

10.  Tune     ait     illis    videbitis,    sicut    dixit 
Jesus:  Nolite  timere;    vobis. 
ite,  nuntiate  fratribus 
meis  ut  eant  in  Gali- 
Iseam,    ubi    me    vide- 
bunt. 

It  will  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that  none  of  the 
Gospels  recounts  the  visit  of  the  Maries  in  dialogue  form. 
In  only  one  account,  that  of  St.  Luke,  is  there  an  angelic 
interrogation,  and  this  interrogation  is  far  from  identical 
with  that  in  the  trope.  It  is  clear,  moreover,  that  in  none 
of  the  accounts  do  the  Maries  explicitly  reply  to  the  an- 
gelic address.  It  appears,  then,  that  although  the  Vulgate 
provides  the  content  and  some  of  the  words  of  the  trope,  it 
does  not  provide  the  essentials  of  dialogue  form.  It  might 
be  suggested  that  the  influence  of  St.  Luke's  version  is  to 

Die  lateinischen  Magierspiele,  Leipzig,  1905,  p.  38;  Gautier,  Les 
Tropes,  p.  219,  note  5;  Milchsack,  pp.  10,  27,  30-31,  116;  A.  Scfcon- 
bach,  in  Zeitschrift  fur  deutsches  Altertum,  Vol.  xxxn  (1888),  p. 
85;  Chambers,  Vol.  n,  pp.  9,  28. 


8  KAEL    YOUNG 

be  seen  in  the  plural  form  celicole  (=ccelicolce) ,  since  only 
in  the  Third  Gospel  are  two  angels  mentioned.  The  plural 
form  celicole,,  however,  is  almost  certainly  due  to  the  rime 
with  the  inevitable  plural  Xpidicolce.^ 

As  another  possible  source  we  may  turn  to  the  liturgy 
itself,  which  the  trope-writer  was  engaged  in  embellishing. 
During  the  Easter  season  he  shared  in  the  singing  of  such 
suggestive  antiphons  as  the  following :  1G 

Antiphona:  Jesum  quern  quaeritis,  non  est  hie,  sed  aur- 
rexit.  . 

Antiphona:  Nolite  expavescere,  Jesum  Nazarenurn  quaeritis 
crucifixum;  non  est  hie,  surrexit,  alleluia. 

Antiphona:  Jesum  qui  crucifixus  est  quaeritis,  alleluia: 
non  est  hie,  surrexit  enim  sicut  dixit  vobis,  alleluia. 

Likewise  familiar  were  the  following  two  well-known 
responsories : 

( 1 )  Responsorium :    Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et 
accedens  revolvit  lapidem;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  muli- 
eribus:    Nolite   timere;    scio  enim   quia   crucifixum   quaeritis. 
Jam  surrexit.     Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat  Domi- 
nus,  alleluia.     Versus:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus 
dicens:   Quern  quseritis,  an  Jesum  quaeritis?     Jam. 

(2)  Responsorium:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribua 
dicens:    Quern   quaeritis,   an   Jesum   quseritis?     Jam   surrexit, 
venite  et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia.     Versus:  Ecce  praecedet  vos 
in  Galilseam,  ibi  eum  videbitis,  sicut  dixit  vobis.     Jam. 

In  view  of  the  somewhat  complex  nature  of  the  respon- 
sory  as  a  type,  it  may  be  well  to  indicate  the  normal  dis- 
tribution of  parts  in  the  singing  of  the  two  responsories 

16  See  Gaston  Paris,  in  Journal  des  Savants,  1892,  p.  684. 

"These  liturgical  pieces  are  conveniently  found  in  Migne,  Patro- 
logia  Latina,  Vol.  Lxxvm,  col.  769-774.  Here  may  be  quoted  also 
the  Offertorium  of  the  Mass  for  Easter  Monday:  Angelus  Domini 
descendit  de  coelo,  et  dixit  mulieribus:  Quern  quaeritis  surrexit,  sicut 
dixit,  alleluia.  (Migne,  Pat.  Lat.  Lxxvm,  678.) 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  THE  EASTEB  PLAY 


9 


before  us.17  In  accordance  with  the  prevailing  mediaeval 
practice,  the  first  responsory  (Angelus  Domini  descendit) 
would  have  been  sung  in  one  of  two  ways,  as  follows : 

(a)  Cantor  Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et  accedens  revolvit 
lapidem;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  mulieribus: 
Nolite  timere;  scio  enim  quia  crucifixum  quseritis. 
Jam  surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 

Chorus:  Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et  accedens  revolvit 
lapidem ;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  mulieribus :  Nolite 
timere;  scio  enim  quia  crucifixum  qUaeritis.  Jain 
surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat  Do- 
minus,  alleluia. 

Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:  Quern 
quaeritis,  an  Jesum  quaeritis? 

Chorus:  Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et  accedens  revolvit 
lapidem;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  mulieribus:  No- 
lite  timere:  scio  enim  quia  crucifixum  quseritis.  Jam 
surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat  Do- 
minus,  alleluia. 

Cantor:  Gloria  Patri,  et  Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto;  sicut  erat  in 
principle,  et  nunc,  et  semper,  et  in  saecula  sseculorum, 
Amen. 

Chorus:  Jam  surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 

Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et  accedens  revolvit 
lapidem;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  mulieribus:  No- 
lite  timere:  scio  enim  quia  crucifixum  quaeritis.  Jam 
surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 

Chorus:  Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et  accedens  revolvit 
lapidem;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  mulieribus:  No- 
lite  timere:  scio  enim  quia  crucifixum  quaeritis.  Jam 
surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 

(6)  Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et  accedens  revolvit 
lapidem;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  mulieribus:  No- 
lite  timere;  scio  enim  quia  crucifixum  quaeritis. 

17  As  to  the  singing  of  antiphons  and  responsories  see  P.  Wdgner, 
Origine  et  D&veloppement  du  Chant  Liturgique,  Tournai,  1904,  pp. 
135-163. 


10 


KARL    YOUNG 


Chorus:  Jam  surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 

Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:  Quern 
quseritis,  an  Jesum  quseritis? 

Chorus:  Jam  surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 

Cantor:  Gloria  Patri,  et  Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto;  sicut  erat  in 
principio,  et  nunc,  et  semper,  et  in  ssecula  sseculorum. 
Amen. 

Chorus:  Jam  surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 

Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  descendit  de  coelo,  et  aceedens  revolvit 
lapidem;  et  super  eum  sedit,  et  dixit  mulieribus:  No- 
lite  timere;  scio  enim  quia  crucifixum  quseritis. 

Chorus:  Jam  surrexit.  Venite  et  videte  locum  ubi  positus  erat 
Dominus,  alleluia. 


Similarly,  the  second  of  the  responsories  (Angelus  Dom- 
ini locutus  est)  would  take  one  of  the  following  forms : 

(a)    Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:    Quern 

quseritis,    an    Jesum    quseritis?      Jam    surrexit,    venite 

et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Chorus:  Angelus  Domini  locutus   est  mulieribus  dicens:    Quern 

quseritis,    an    Jesum    quaeritis?      Jam    surrexit,    venite 

et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Cantor:  Ecce    prsecedet    vos    in    Galilseam,    ibi    eum    videbitis, 

sicut  dixit  vobis. 
Chorus:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:    Quern 

quseritis,    an    Jesum    quseritis?      Jam    surrexit,    venite 

et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Cantor:  Gloria  Patri,  et  Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto;  sicut  erat  in 

principio,  et  nunc,  et  semper,  et  in  ssecula  sseculorum, 

Amen. 

Chorus :  Jam  surrexit,  venite  et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Cantor:   Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:    Quern 

quseritis,    an    Jesum    quseritis?      Jam    surrexit,    venite 

et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Chorus:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:    Quern 

quseritis,    an   Jesum    quseritis?      Jam    surrexit,    venite 

et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 

(6)   Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:   Quern 
quseritis,  an  Jesum  quseritis? 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE   EASTER   PLAY  11 

Chorus:  Jam  surrexit,  venite  et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Cantor:   Ecce    praecedet    vos    in    Galilaeam;    ibi    eum    videbitis, 

sicut  dixit  vobis. 

Chorus:  Jam  surrexit,  venite  et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Cantor:  Gloria  Patri,  et  Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto;  sicut  erat  in 

principio,  et  nunc,  et  semper,  et  in  saecula  saeculorum, 

Amen. 

Chorus:   Jam  surrexit,  venite  et  videte,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
Cantor:  Angelus  Domini  locutus  est  mulieribus  dicens:   Quern 

quaeritis,  an  Jesum  quseritis? 
Chorus:  Jam  surrexit,  venite  et  videte,  alleluia,   alleluia. 

An  examination  of  these  liturgical  pieces  reveals,  once 
again,  certain  of  the  expressions  found  in  the  trope  Quern 
quoeritis,  but  nothing  approaching  the  essential  dialogue. 
The  liturgy  of  Easter  presents  the  necessary  content,  but 
not  the  desired  form. 

In  another  part  of  the  liturgy,  however,  in  an  irrelevant 
context,  appear  certain  passages  that  may  have  served  the 
trope-writer  as  a  nucleus.  During  Mass  on  Good  Friday 
he  stood  for  an  impressive  hour  and  listened  to  the  Dea- 
con's chanting  of  the  Passion  according  to  St.  John.18  In 
the  course  of  this  chastening  ceremony  he  heard  the  fol- 
lowing : 

(1)    [Christus] :  Quern  quaeritis? 
[Narrator] :   Responderunt  ei : 
[  Judaei]  :  Jesum  Nazarenum.1* 


u  John  xviii,  1 — xix,  42. 

*  John  xviii,  4-5.  The  names  of  the  speakers,  in  brackets,  are 
given  merely  for  the  sake  of  intelligibility.  They  should  not  be 
mistaken  as  meaning  that  in  the  singing  of  the  Passion  each  of  the 
three  utterances  was  assigned  to  a  separate  singer.  Until  the  fif- 
teenth century,  the  Passion  was  sung  throughout  by  one  Deacon. 
Concerning  the  singing  of  the  liturgical  Passiones  see  an  article  by 
the  present  writer,  in  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Asso- 
ciation, Vol.  xxv  (1910),  pp.  311-333, — especially  p.  315.  0 


12  KABL    YOUNG 

(2)    [Christus]:    Quern  quseritis? 

[Narrator] :   Illi  autem  dixerunt : 
[Judsei] :  Jesum  Nazaremim.20 

Since  in  the  chanting  of  each  of  these  passages,  each 
separate  utterance  was  marked  by  a  change  of  voice  on  the 
part  of  the  Deacon,  the  force  of  the  question  and  answer 
could  not  escape  the  listener. 

Whether  or  not  any  of  these  Biblical  or  liturgical  pas- 
sages served  the  author  of  Quern  quceritis  as  a  starting- 
point,  none  of  them  approaches  the  finished  dramatic 
form  of  the  trope  itself.  Quern  quceritis  in  sepulchro  must 
be  regarded,  then,  as  an  original  composition.21 

In  view  of  this  fact,  we  may  well  inquire  concerning  the 
home,  the  date,  and  the  name  of  the  author  of  this  produc- 
tive little  dramatic  piece.  The  oldest  extant  text  of  our 
trope  is  found  in  Paris,  Bibliotheque  Rationale,  MS.  latin 
1240,  written  for  the  monastery  of  St.  Martial  at  Limoges 
within  the  period  9 3 3-9 3 6. 22  This  text,  however,  does  not 

20  John  xviii,  7. 

21  This  fact  is  recognized,  upon  the  basis  of  one  consideration  or 
another,  by  Milchsack    (op.  cit.,  pp.  31-32),  Gaston  Paris    (Journal 
des  Savants,  1892,  p.  684),  and  W.  Meyer   (op.  cit.,  p.  34).     Lange 
(op.  cit.,  pp.  19,  168)   seems  to  assume  that  the  trope  Quern  quceritis 
was  a  fundamental  part  of  the  liturgy,  and  that  we  should  no  more 
seek  a  definite  author  for  such  a  piece  than  for  the  traditional  anti- 
phons   and    responsories.     Lange's    error   results   from   his   lack   of 
information  concerning  tropes  as   such, — information  quite  inacces- 
sible, indeed,  before  the  publication  of  Gautier's  monograph,  men- 
tioned above.     The  tropes  were  never  officially  recognized  as  part  of 
the  liturgy,  and  the  troparium  was  never  an  official  service-book. 
The  troparia  were  always  relatively  few  in  number,  and  they  merely 
preserved  the  numerous  musico-literary  embellishments  with  which 
ambitious,    but    misguided,    religious    /commumities    corrup^ted    the 
liturgy  of  Rome. 

23  As  to  the  date  see  the  facts  advanced  by  Reverend  H.  M.  Ban- 
nister in  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  Vol.  n  (1901),  pp.  420  ff., 
and  in  Analecta  Hymnica,  Vol.  XLVII,  pp.  22-23. 


THE   OBIGIN    OF   THE   EASTEE   PLAY  13 

show  the  trope  in  its  simplest  form.  This  simplest  form, — 
and  we  may  confidently  say  also,  original  form, — I  have 
already  printed  above  from  two  St.  Gall  manuscripts  (Nos. 
484  and  381).  Although  the  older  of  these  two  St.  Gall 
manuscripts  (No.  484)  cannot  be  assigned  to  a  date  earlier 
than  the  year  950,23  the  version  of  Quern  quceritis  pre- 
served in  it  must  have  originated  at  a  date  earlier  than 
the  period  933-936,  from  which  we  have  a  text  of  an  elab- 
orated, and  hence  derived,  version.24  If,  then,  the  original 
version  of  our  trope  is  located  at  St.  Gall,  and  if  it  arose 
at  a  date  somewhat  anterior  to  933-936, — say  circa  900, — 
we  can  hardly  hesitate  to  mention  as  the  probable  author, 
the  famous  Tutilo,  who  was  actively  engaged  in  trope - 
writing  at  St.  Gall  about  the  year  900,  and  who  was  still 
living  in  912.25  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  St.  Gall  MS. 
484,  which  preserves  the  earliest  text  of  the  simplest  ver- 
sion of  Quern  quceritis  in  sepulchro,  contains  two  tropes 
which  are  unquestionably  the  work  of  Tutilo,26  and  one  of 
which,  Hodie  cantandus  est,  is  strikingly  dramatic  in 
form.27 

Having  considered  the  possible  sources,  provenience,  and 
authorship  of  the  simplest  version  of  Quern  quceritis,  we 
may  continue  our  observations  upon  the  text  itself,  two  ex- 
amples of  which  have  already  been  printed  above.28 
Minor  variations  from  this  text  are  seen  in  the  following: 

23  See  Bannister,  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  ir,  420  ff. 

24  This  reasoning  seems  to  accord  with  the  general  view  expressed 
by  Blume  in  Analecta  Hymnica,  Vol.  XLIX,  p.  10. 

25  See  Gautier,  pp.  35-36,  et  passim. 
*  See  Gautier,  p.  34. 

37  For  an  account  of  the  trope  Hodie  cantandus  est,  with  texts,  see 
an  article  by  the  present  writer  in  Transactions  of  the  Wisdbnsin 
Academy  of  Sciences,  Arts,  and  Letters,  Vol.  xvil  (1912),  pp.  362- 
368. 

28  From  St.  Gall  MSS.  484  and  381.     See  pp.  2  and  5. 


14  KARL  YOUNG 

<TROPUS> 

1.  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchre,  ho  cristicole? 

2.  Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum. 

3.  Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 

4.  ite,  nuntiate  qm'a  surrexit. 

5.  Resurrexi  et  adhuc.29 

Variant : 

Vercelli,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  162,  Graduale-Troparium  Vercellenae 
saec.  xii,  fol.  191v. — 1.  sepulchro  ho  cristicole]  sepulchre  o  pieole. — 
2.  Hiesum]  Ihm. — 4.  nuntiate]  nunciate. — 5.  et  adhuc]  omitted. 

In  this  version  one  notes  the  shortening  of  the  second 
sentence  (Hiesum  nazarenum),  and  the  consequent  re- 
moval of  the  rime  christicolce :  coelicole.30  The  division  of 
the  dialogue  in  this  version  is  secured  from  another  text : 

IN  PASCHA  INTROITUM 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  o  Xpisticole  ? 
Versus:  Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum. 
Versus:   Non   est  hie,   surrexit  sicut   predixerat;31 

ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit.32 

Antiphona:  Eesurrexi.88 

"Vereelli,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  146,  Graduale-Troparium  Vercellenae 
saec.  xi,  fol.  109r.  The  text  printed  above  is  immediately  preceded, 
in  the  manuscript,  by  a  prose  for  the  Purification,  and  is  immedi- 
ately followed  by  the  words  Ecce  Pater  cunctis,  which  begin  a  fresh 
trope  of  the  Introit. 

"That  this  variation  is  not  merely  scribal  seems  likely  from  the 
evidence  of  three  manuscripts:  Vercelli  146,  Vercelli  162,  and,  aa 
printed  below,  Vercelli  161. 

81  MS.  prediscerat. 

82  MS.   susrexit. 

"Vercelli,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  161,  Graduale-Troparium  ssec.  xii,  fol. 
12 lr.  The  text  printed  above  is  immediately  followed,  in  the  manu- 
script, by  the  words  Ecce  Pater  cunctis,  indicating  a  new  trope  of 
the  Introit. 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   THE  EASTEB,  PLAY  15 

In  the  following  text  the  introductory  trope  itself  shows 
no  important  textual  variations : 

IN  DIE  PASCHAE 

iNTerrogatio : 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpis£tcol§  ? 

'Responsio: 

Ihesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

I^NTerrogantes: 

Non  est  hie ;  surrexit  siciit  predixerat. 
Ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit  de  sepulchro. 

AD  MissAra:  Hodie  processit  leo  fortis  sepulchro,  ob  cuius 
uictoriam  gaudebant  celestes  ministri;  ideo  et  nos 
letemur  canentes.  Resurrezi.  Principe  inferni 
deuicto,  claustris  ac  reseratis.  Et  adlmc  <tecum 
sum>,  alleluia.  A  quo  numquam  recessi,  licet  in 
carne  paruerim.  Posuisti  <super>  me.  Quem  tu 
solus  et  solum  genuisti,  Deus  ante  secula.  Manum 
<tuam>,  alleluia.  Quia  iussu  tuo  mortem  degus- 
taui.  MiTabilis  <facta>  est.  Cui  nulla  sapientia 
mundi  est  equanda.  Scientfm  <tua>,  alleluia. 
Quod  tali  uictoria  uictorem  tumidum  strauisti, 
alleluia.  <Psalmus> :  Domme  probasti  <me,  et 
cognovisti  me:  tu  cognovisti  sessionem  meam,  et 
resurrectionem>  meam.  Qui  me  de  morte  <p.  17> 
turpi  assumptum  sedere  tecum  in  gloria  facis. 
<Gloria  Patri,  et  Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto;  sicut 
erat  in  principio,  et  mine,  et  semper,  et  in  ssecula 
S3eculorum>,  Amen.  Que  angelis  est  ueneranda 

cunctis   atque   mortalibus.     Resurrea^.34 

0 

**Ziirich,  Kantonsbibliothek,  MS.  Rhenoviense  97,  Troparium  San- 
gallense    (?)    sasc,  xi  in.,  pp.  16-17.     The  last  word  Resurrexi  indi- 


16 


KARL    YOUNG 


In  this  case  the  dialogue  is  clearly  indicated  by  the  ru- 
brics. The  connection  of  Quern  quceritis  with  the  Introit 
itself,  however,  is  not  quite  clear.  It  may  be  that  the 
trope  introduced  by  the  rubric  Ad  Missam  is  to  be  re- 
garded merely  as  a  continuation  of  Quern  quceritis;  or 
possibly  Quern  quceritis  may  be  used  merely  as  a  pro- 
cessional, and  is  to  be  understood  as  a  liturgical  piece 
quite  separate  from  the  succeeding  trope.35  In  any  case, 
for  an  understanding  of  the  complete  text  before  us  one 
should  have  a  clear  notion  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
Introit  itself  was  rendered.  The  distribution  of  parts 
most  commonly  observed,  perhaps,  from  the  year  900 
onwards,  may  be  seen  in  the  following :  36 

[Chorus   primus]  Antiphona:      Kesurrexi,     et    adhuc    tecum     sum, 

alleluia;  posuisti  super  me  manum  tuam,  alleluia; 

mirabilis  facta  est  scientia  tua,  alleluia,  alleluia. 
[Chorus  secundus]  Psalmus:  Domine,  probasti  me,  et  eognovisti  me: 

tu   eognovisti   sessionem  meam,   et   resurrectionem 

meam. 
[Chorus  primus]   Doxologia:     Gloria    Patri,    et    Filio,    et    Spiritui 

Sancto;  sicut  erat  in  principio,  et  nunc,  et  semper, 

et  in  saecula  saeculorum,  Amen. 
[Chorus secundus]  Antiphona:      Resurrexi,    et     adhuc     tecum     sum, 

alleluia;  posuisti  super  me  manum  tuam,  alleluia; 

mirabilis  facta  est  scientia  tua,  alleluia,  alleluia. 


cates  the  repetition  of  the  antiphon  of  the  Introit.  This  text  has 
been  previously  published  by  Professor  N.  C.  Brooks,  in  The  Jour- 
nal of  English  and  Germanic  Philology,  Vol.  x,  pp.  191-192.  My 
text,  which  differs  from  that  of  Professor  Brooks  only  in  trifling  de- 
tails, is  printed  from  a  copy  generously  made  for  me  by  Herr  J. 
Werner,  Librarian  of  the  Kantonsbibliothek,  Zurich. 

33  Concerning  the  use  of  Quern  quseritis  as  a  processional  see  below, 
pp.  49  ff. 

36  The  various  practices  connected  with  the  singing  of  the  Introit 
are  explained  by  P.  Wagner,  Origine  et  Developpement  du  Chant 
Liturgique,  Tournai,  1904,  pp.  68-78. 


THE   OEIGIN    OF   THE   EASTER   PLAY  17 

This  expansion  of  the  Introit  reveals  the  extent  of  the 
troping  in  the  manuscript  before  us.  The  rubric  Ad 
Missam  is  followed  by  a  complete  internal  trope  of  the 
Introit.  Not  only  are  the  parts  of  the  Introit  separated 
by  the  trope,  one  from  another,  but  even  the  separated 
parts  are  themselves  disrupted. 


II 

So  far  in  our  observations  we  have  encountered  no  im- 
portant variations  in  the  four  sentences  of  the  original 
trope,  and  we  have  noticed  no  increase  in  content.  We 
must  now  consider  a  few  examples  which  show  a  small 
textual  addition.  The  following  text  is  typical : 

IN  RESUKRECTIONE 

<H>ora  est,  psallite;  iubet  dominus  canere;  eia 

dicite ! 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  cristicole? 
Ihesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,       celicole. 
Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 
ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes: 

Resurrexi.37 

The  addition  (Horn  est)  here  takes  the  form  of  an  excla- 
matory introduction  to  the  original  trope  Quern  quceriiis. 
By  Gautier  this  accretion  is  succinctly  characterized  as 
the  trope  of  a  trope, — "  le  trope  d'un  trope." 38  It 
should  be  observed,  moreover,  that  the  introductory  pas- 


xii,  fol.  2r.     The  trope  does  not  extend  within  the  Introit. 


37Vich   (Spain),  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  Ill,  Troparium  Vicense  ssec.jd- 
fol.  2r.     The  tr< 
Gautier,  p.  226. 

2 


18  KARL    YOUNG 

sage  does  not  unite  organically  with  the  original  text  to 
form  an  extension  of  the  dialogue, — that  it  constitutes  a 
liturgical  rather  than  a  dramatic  addition.39 

A  slight  variation  in  the  new  form  of  the  trope  is  seen 
in  the  following: 

1.  TEOPI  IN  Doi&inica  DE  PASCHA 

2.  Hora  est,  surgite;  iubet  domnus  canere;  eia  dicite! 

3.  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpisticole  ? 
4%    Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

5.  Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 

6.  ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes: 

7.  Kesur<r>ext.40 

Variant: 

Rome,  Biblioteca  Casanatense,   MS.    1741    (C.  iv.   2),  Tioparium 
Nonantulense  ssec.  xi,  fol.  75r-75v. 
1.    Tropi  Dom  in  pasc, 
6.    nuntiate]   nunciate. 

From  another  manuscript  we  have  a  similar  text,  pro- 
vided with  rubrics : 

89  That  the  introductory  formula  Hora  est  was  used  elsewhere  than 
in  connection  with  Quern  quceritis  in  sepulchro  is  shown  by  the 
following  trope  of  the  Introit  of  Pentecost,  from  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS. 
latin  903,  Graduale-Troparium  Sancti  Aredii  ssec.  xii,  fol.  155r: 

In  die  sancto  Pentecosten. 

Hora  est,  psallite;  iubet  Domnus  canere;  eya  dicite. 
Psallite,  fratres  mi  omnes,  una  uoce  dicentes: 

Hodie  descendit  Spiritus  Sanctus  uelut  ignis  super  apostolos,  et 
eorum  pectoribus  inuisibiliter  penetrauit;  docuit  eos  omnis  linguis 
loqui  in  eius  honore  dulce;  carmina  omnes  decantae;  dicite: 

Spiritus  Domini. 

40  Rome,  Biblioteca  Vittorio  Emanuele,  MS.  1343  (Sessor.  62), 
Troparium  Nonantulense  ssec.  xi  in.,  fol.  28v. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE   EASTER   PLAY  19 


IN  DIE  SANCTO41  PA<S>CHE  AD  Missara  SINT 

ORDINATI    IN    CHORO,    et    INCIPIAT    CANTOr    ITA    DICENS  : 

Hora  est,   psallite  ;  42  iubet  domnus  canere  ;   eia 

dicite  ! 
Respondet   SCOLA  : 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchre,  o  cristicole  ? 

Respondet    CANTOR  : 

Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

IRespondet  SCOLA: 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes: 

Kesurrexi.43 

In  this  case  the  dialogue  is  divided  between  the  choir 
(Scola)  and  a  single  singer  (Cantor).  After  the  cantor 
has  sung  the  introductory  liturgical  summons,  he  is  in- 
terrogated by  the  choir,  replies,  and  then  receives  the 
angelic  assurance.  The  choir  in  uttering  the  words  of 
the  scriptural  angel  (or  two),  and  the  cantor  in  answering 
with  the  words  of  the  several  Christicolce,  are  both  pre- 
cluding anything  approaching  dramatic  appropriateness 
in  the  assignment  of  parts. 


Ill 

Far  more  important  than  the  mere  liturgical  introduc- 
tion to  the  trope  that  we  have  just  noticed,  are  a  consi- 
derable number  of  textual  additions  which  either  consti- 


41  MS.  scm. 

42  MS.  spallite. 

43  Verona,  Bibl.  Capit.,   MS.   107,  Troparium  Mantuanum  ssec.  xi, 
fol.  1  lr.     The  last  word  Resurrexi  is  followed  immediately,  iif  the 
manuscript,  by  the  rubric  Item  alia,  indicating  the  beginning  of  a 
fresh  trope. 


20  KARL    YOUNG 

tute  definite  extensions  of  the  dialogue,  or,  at  least,  provide 
new  dramatic  possibilities.  An  addition  of  this  latter 
sort  is  seen  in  the  following : 

~DoM.inicum  DIEM  Sanctuw.  PASCHE 
Tuorm  <fol.  102V> 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  cristicole  ? 

Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,44  o  celicole. 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  enim  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nunciate  qma  surrexit  dicentes : 

Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus  hodie,  resurexit  leo  fortis, 
Xpistus  filius  Dei;  Deo  gracias,  dicite  eia,  alleluia,. 

Resurrexi.45 

The  passage  beginning  Alleluia,,  resurrexit  Dominus  con- 
stitutes a  natural  dramatic  extension  of  the  trope,  an  ex- 
tension which  provides  a  fresh  utterance  for  the  Chris- 
ticolce. 

A  similar  text  appears  as  follows: 

IN  DIE  DOMINICO  SANCTO  PASCHA 
TBOPUS 

Quern  quaeritis  in  sepulchro,   Christicolae  ? 
Responsio : 

lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  coelicolae. 
JsTon  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  praeceperat ; 
ite,  nunciate  quia  46  surrexit. 

44  MS.  crcifixum. 

^Modena,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  O.  i.  7.,  Troparium  Ravennatense 
saec.  xi-xii,  fol.  102r-102v.  The  last  word  Resurrevi  (MS.  Resurrexit) 
is  followed  immediately  by  the  rubric  Aliter. 

4«MS.  sicut. 


THE  OEIGIN   OF  THE  EASTER  PLAT  21 

Hesponsio: 

Resurrexit  Dominus  hodie,  resurrexit  leo 
fortis;  Deo  gratias,  dicite  Alleluia. 
ANTIPHONA:  Resurrexi  et  adhuc  tecum  sum, 
Alleluia.     Psaimus:  Domine  probasti  me.47 

The  rubrics  are  here  somewhat  uncertain  as  to  the  division 
of  parts,  and  at  best  we  can  allow  only  slight  authority 
to  a  text  of  which  we  have  only  a  seventeenth-century  copy. 
The  interest  of  the  following  text  lies  in  the  continua- 
tion of  the  trope  within  the  Introit : 

DE  PASCHA  DomtNi 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpis^cole? 

Thesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

Nbn  est  hie,   surrexit  sicut  locutus  est; 
ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit. 

Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus  hodie,  resurrexit  leo  fortis, 
Xpisfa^s  filius  Dei;  Deo  gramas,  dicite  eya.  Resurrexi. 
Victor  triumpho  potenti.  Et  adhuc  <  tecum  sum,  alle- 
luia>.  Celi,  terre,  adque  maris  sceptra  tenes.  Posu- 
isti  <  super  me  manum  tuam,  alleluia  >.  Glorificasti  me 
deifice.  Mirabilis  facta  est.  In  omni  uirtute.  Scientia 
tua.  <fol.  19r>  Qua  cuncta  gubernas.  Psai,mus: 
Domtne  probasti  me  <et  cognovisti  me:  tu  cognovisti 
sessionem  meam,  et  resurrectionem  meam.  Gloria  Patri>. 
Preclara  adest  dies  Xptsfa/s  quare  surgens,  hoste  trium- 
phato,  uitam  dedit  mundo,  cuius  uoce  summo  Patri  gra- 
tulantes  cum  propheta  j>roclamemus  omnes  ita:  Resur- 


47  Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  lat.  9508,  Miscellanea  liturgica  saec.^xvii, 
fol.  179  r  ("Ex  Missali  Corbeiensi  MS.  num.  622  saeculi  xi"). 
There  is  no  internal  troping  of  the  Introit. 

"Paris,  Bibl.  de  1' Arsenal,  MS.   1169,  Troparium  Aeduense  anni 


22 


KARL    YOUNG 


At  this  point  our  attention  falls  naturally  upon  the 
earliest  extant  text  of  the  trope  Quern  quceritis: 

TROPHI  IN  PASCHE 

Psallite  regi  magno,  deuicto  mortis  imperio! 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  o  Xpis^icole? 
Hesponsio : 

Thesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 
Hesponsio: 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  ipse  dixit; 

ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit. 

Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominies  hodie,  resurrexit  leo  for- 
tis,  Christus  films  Dei,  Deo  gratias,  dicite  eia!  <Resur- 
rexi,  et  adhuc  tecum  sum,  alleluia>.  Dormiui,  Pater  et 
surgam  diluculo,  et  somnus  meus  dulcis  est  michi.  Po- 
<suisti  super  me  manum  tuam,  alleluia>.  Ita,  Pater, 
sic  placuit  ante  te,  ut  moriendo  mortis  mors  fuissem, 
morsus  inferni,  et  mundo  uita.  Mirabel's  <facta  est 
scientia  tua,  alleluia,  alleluia >.  Qui  abscondisti  hec  sa- 
pientibus,  et  reuelasti  paruulis,  alleluia.49 

As  we  have  already  noticed  above,50  this  famous  manu- 
script from  Limoges,  although  it  presents  the  oldest  extant 

996-1024,  fol.  18v-19r.  The  last  word  Resurrexi  indicates  the  repe- 
tition of  the  Introit.  Resurrexi  is  followed  immediately  by  the 
rubric  Alia. 

*"  Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  latin  1240,  Troparium  Martialense  ssec.  x 
(anni  933-936),  fol.  30v.  The  text  above  is  immediately  followed 
by  the  rubric  Item  introducing  another  trope.  Inexact  or  mutilated 
texts  of  the  trope  printed  above  are  given  by  E.  DuM6ril  (Oriqines 
Latines  du  Theatre  Moderne,  Paris,  1897,  p.  97,  note  1),  Milchsack 
(pp.  38-39),  Lange  (pp.  22-23),  and  W.  H.  Frere  (The  Winchester 
Troper,  London,  1894,  p.  176).  In  my  reading  of  the  manuscript  I 
am  forced  to  dissent,  also,  from  the  critical  notes  provided  by  Blume 
in  Analecta  Hymnica,  Vol.  xox,  pp.  9-10. 

M  See  pp.  12-13. 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   THE   EASTER   PLAY  23 

text  of  Quern  quceritis,  does  not  preserve  the  trope  in  its 
simplest  form.  In  addition  to  a  fresh  introductory  for- 
mula of  a  liturgical  nature,  this  text  provides  the  familiar 
concluding  passage,  Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus.  As  to 
the  delivery  of  this  concluding  passage  the  rubrics  give 
no  precise  information.  The  continuation  of  the  trope 
within  the  Introit  is  noteworthy. 

At  this  stage  of  our  survey  the  following  text  is  rele- 
vant: 

IN  PASCHA 

Hora  Qst,  psallite ;  iuhe  dominus  canere ;  eia  dicite ! 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchre  christicole  ? 

Thesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 

ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes : 

Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus  hodie,  resurrexit  <fol. 
34r>  leo  fortis,  Christus,  nlius  Dei ;  Deo  gracias,  dicite 
eia!  AxTiphona:  E-esurrexi 51  et  adhuc  tecum  <sum, 
alleluia >.  Gaudeamus  omnes,  resurrexit  Dominus.  Po- 
suisti  super  me  <manum  tuam.  alleluia  >.  Vicit  leo  de 
trihu  luda,  radix  lesse.  Mirabilis  facta  est  52  <scientia 
tua,  alleluia,  alleluia>.53 

Both  the  introductory  liturgical  formula  in  this  text,  and 
the  concluding  passage  of  the  trope,  immediately  before 
the  Introit,  are  now  sufficiently  familiar. 

Fresh  additions  to  the  original  trope  are  seen  in  the 
following : 

01  MS.  Resurrexit. 

62  Followed  immediately  in  the  manuscript  by  the  rubric  Miter, 
indicating  the  beginning  of  a  new  trope. 

83  Apt,  Archives  of  the  Basilica  of  St.  Anne,  MS.  4,  Troparium 
ssec.  x,  fol.  33v-34r. 


24  KAKL    YOUNG 


IN    RESURRECTIONS 

1.  Quein  queritis  in  sepulchre,  o  Xristicole? 

2.  lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

3.  Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 

4.  ite  <fol.  21V>,  nunciate  quia  surrexit. 

5.  Alleluia,  ad  sepulcrum  residens  angelus 

6.  nunciat  resurrexisse  Xristum. 

7.  En  ecce  completum  est  illud  quod  olim  ipse 

8.  per  prophetam  dixerat  ad  Patrem  taliter  inquiens: 

9.  Kesur<rexi>.54 

Variants  : 

Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  lat.  1120,  Tropharium  S.  Martini  Lemo- 
vicensis  saec.  xi  in.,  fol.  20v-21r.  A.  —  Ibid.,  MS.  lat.  1121,  Troparium 
S.  Martialis  Lemovicensis  saec.  xi  in.,  fol.  llv-12r.  B.  —  Ibid.,  MS. 
lat.  1084,  Troparium  S.  Martialis  Lemovicensis  saec.  x,  fol.  64v-65r. 
C.  —  Huesca,  Bibl.  Capit.  MS.  4,  Troparium  Osceiise  saec.  xi-xii, 
fol.  124r-124v.  D. 

1.  sepulchre]    sepulcrho    C;    sepulcro    D.     Xristicole]    Xpisticole 

A  B;  cristicole  B. 

2.  lesum]  Ihessum  A;   Hiesum  B;   Ihesum  C  D. 

3.  predixerat]  praedixerat  B. 

4.  nunciate]  nuntiate  B  C. 

5.  Alleluia]    Aeuia   C   D.     sepulcrum]    sepulchrum   A   B;    sepul- 

crhum  C. 

6.  nunciat   resurrexisse  Xristum]    nuntiat   resurrexisse   Xpistum 

A  B;   nunciat  resurrexisse  cristum  C;   nunciat  resurrexisset 
Xpm  D. 

8.  per]  omitted  C. 

9.  Kesurrexi]  Resurrexit  A. 

Concerning  the  two  added  sentences  Alleluia,  ad  sepul- 
crum and  En  ecce  completum  est  Chambers  observes, 
"  The  appended  portion  of  narrative  makes  the  trope 

"Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  lat.  1119,  Troparium  S.  Augustini  Lemo- 
vicensis saec.  xi,  fol.  21v-21r.  In  connection  with  this  text  should 
be  listed  the  similar,  but  incomplete,  texts  in  Paris,  Bibl.  Nat., 
MS.  lat.  909,  Troparium  Martialense  saec.  xi,  fol.  21v-22r,  and  Ibid., 
Nouv.  Acq.  latin  1871,  Troparium  Moissiacense  saec.  xi,  fol,  13v. 


THE  OEIGIN   OF  THE  EASTEB  PLAY  25 

slightly  less  dramatic/7  55  and  Gautier  remarks,  "  Quel- 
ques  lignes  y  sont  ajoutees  aux  precedentes  et  semblent 
continuer  discretement  une  rubrique  de  mise  en  scene."  56 
Obviously  these  sentences  do  mark  a  discontinuance  of 
the  dialogue;  for  although  they  constitute  a  continuation 
of  the  part  of  the  Christicolce >,  they  must  be  regarded  not 
as  a  second  reply  to  the  Ccelicolce,  but  either  as  a  mere 
exclamation,  or  as  an  exultant  address  to  an  audience. 
A  similar  text  is  seen  in  the  following : 

IN  PASCA  AD  Missara 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  o  Xpis^cole? 

lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,57  o  celicole. 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nunciate  in  Galileam  dicentes: 

Alleluia,  ad  sepulcrum  residens  angelus  nunciat  resur- 
rexisse  Xpistum. 

En  ecce  completum  est  illud  quod  olim  ipse  per  pro- 
phetam  dixerat,  ad  Patrem  taliter  inquiens: 

Kesurrexi.58 

The  passage  ite,  nunciate  in  Galileam  of  the  third  sentence 
seems  to  have  been  composed  under  the  direct  influence 

58  Chambers,  Vol.  n,  p.  10. 

"Gautier,  p.  220. 

"MS.  crucifisum. 

"Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  lat.  887,  Troparium  S.  Martini  (?)  Lemo- 
vicensis  ssec.  xi,  fol.  19r.  The  last  word  Resurrexi  is  followed  imme- 
diately by  the  rubric  Tropi,  introducing  the  following  series  of 
tropes  of  the  Easter  Introit:  (1)  'Psallite  regi  magno  ...  (2) 
Foetus  homo  tua  iussa  pater  ...  (3)  Ecce  pater  cunctis  ut  ius- 
serat  ...  (4)  Aurea  lux  remeat  Ihesus  ...  (5)  lam  tua  iussa 
pater  ....  For  the  texts  see  Analecta  Hymnica  Medii  Aevi,  Vol. 
XLIX,  Leipzig,  1906,  pp.  54-55.  Any  one  of  these  five  tropes  «nay 
have  been  used  as  an  internal  trope  of  the  Introit  Resurreoci,  in  con- 
tinuation of  the  introductory  trope  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro. 


26  KARL    YOUNG 

of  the  Vulgate:  ite,  nuntiate  fratribus  meis  ut  eant  in 
Galilceam  (Matt,  xxviii,  10). 

As  to  the  distribution  of  parts  in  this  form  of  trope,  the 
following  text  gives  a  slight  indication: 

IN  DIE  Sancto  PASCHE  STACW  AD  SanctuM 

TROPOS   IN  DIE 


Hora   est,    psallite;    iuba    dompnus    canere;    eia,    eia, 

dicite  ! 
Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  o  Xpisticole? 


lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 
Hesvonnent: 

Non  est  hie,60  surrexit  sicut  predixerat  ; 
ite  nunciate  quia  surrexit. 

Ttesponvent: 

Alleluia,  ad  sepulcrum  residens  angelus  nunciat  re- 
surrexisse  Xpistum. 

En  ecce  comple^um  est  illud  quod  olim  ipse  per  pro- 
phetam  dixerat,  ad  Patrem  taliter  inquiens: 

Resurrexi.61 

A  somewhat  similar  text  may  be  seen  in  the  following: 


69  In  speaking  of  the  rubric  Respondent  as  "  la  plus  ancienne 
didascalie  ou  indication  de  mise  en  scene"  Gautier  (Le  Monde,  Aug. 
17,  1872,  p.  2)  is  scarcely  scientific. 

60  MS.  ihc. 

61  Paris,    Bibliotheque   Nationale,    MS.    latin    1118,    Troparium    S. 
Martialis  Lemovicensis  saec.  x    (988-996),  fol.  40v.     The  last  word 
Resurrexi   (MS.  Resurrexit)    is  followed  immediately  by  the  rubric 
Item  altws. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   THE   EASTEE   PLAY  27 

TEOPOS  IN  RESUERECC^me  DomtNi 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  o  cristicole? 

JlesFonsio  : 

Ihesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  caelicole. 


Non  est  hie,  surrexit  <fol.  36V>  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nuneiate  quia  surrexit. 
'Resvonsio  : 

Alleluia,    ad    sepulcrum    residens    angelus    nuntiat 
ressurrexisse  Xpistum. 

Hen  ecce  conpletum  est  illud  quod   olim  ipse  per 
prophetam  dixerat,  ad  Patrem  taliter  inquiens  : 

Ressurrexi   et.62 
In  the  following  text  occur  fresh  additions  : 

<TEOPUS> 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpisticole  ? 
Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum^  o  celicole. 
Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes  : 
Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus,  eia! 
Karrissimi,  uerba  canite  Xpisti.63 
Psallite,  Fratres,  hora  est;  surrexit  Dominus.     Eia  et 
eia! 

Resurrexi.64 

•*  Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  lat.  779,  Graduate  Arelatense  saec.  xiii, 
fol.  36r-36v.  The  last  word  et  is  followed  immediately  by  the  ru- 
bric Alios. 

88  Ms.  Xpiste. 

"Vereelli,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  56,  Missale  plenum  Vercellense  £?) 
ssec.  xi-xii,  fol.  87v.  The  trope  does  not  extend  within  the  Introit. 


28 


KARL    YOUNG 


The  sentence  Alleluia,  resurrexit  DominuSj  eia!  may  be  a 
continuation  of  the  part  either  of  the  Ccelicolce  or  of  the 
Christicolce.  The  sentences  Karrissimi,  uerba  and  Psal- 
lite,  Fratres  are  clearly  liturgical  in  intention. 

A  possible  elucidation  of  the  text  just  given  appears  in 
the  following: 

Versus  AD 


Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  o  Xpisticole? 
Versus:  Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 
Versus:  JSTon  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 

ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes: 
Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus,  eia  ! 

Txopus 

Versus:  Karissimi,  uerba  canite  Xpisti. 
Versus:  Psallite,  fratres,  hora  est,  resurrexit  Dominus, 
eia  et  eia  ! 

Tnopus 

Xpistus  deuicta  morte  persona  uoce  preclara  Patri  dicens. 
Resur<rexi>.  Versus:  Cum  seuiens  ludeorum  me  cir- 
cumdaret65  turba.  Posuisti.  Versus:  Cuncta  quia  ocu- 
li<s>  maiestatis  tue  sunt  aperta.  Mirabi<lis>.66 

The  opening  rubric  Versus  ad  Sepulchrum  and  the  sub- 
sequent rubric  Tropus  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
trope  Quern  quceritis  is  here  detached  from  the  Introit 
and  associated  with  the  Easter  Sepulchre.  It  may  be, 
therefore,  that  this  text  and  the  one  preceding,  from  Ver- 


86  MS.  circumdare. 

"Ivrea,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  60,  Troparium  Eporediense  saec.  xi  in. 
(1001-1011),  fol.  69v.  The  text  above  is  immediately  followed  by 
the  complete  Introit  of  Easter,  and  further  tropes. 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   THE   EASTER   PLAY  29 

celli  MS.  56,  should  not  be  considered  tropes  of  the  Introit. 
As  we  shall  see  later,  however,  the  association  of  a  text 
of  Quern  quceritis  with  the  Introit  does  not  preclude  its 
association  also  with  the  sepulchrum.Q7 

In  a  manner  related  to  the  two  preceding  texts  is  the 
following : 

TROPHWS 

Versus:  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpisticole? 
Versus:  Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 
Versus:  Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes: 
Alleluia,  resurrexit  68  hodie,  hodie  resurrexit  leo  for- 
tis,  Xpistus,  filius  Dei;  <fol.  99r>  Deo  gratias,  dicite 
eia! 

Resurrexi    <et    adhuc  .  .  .  scientia    tua,    alleluia, 
alleluia >.     Eia,  karissimi,  uerba  canite  Xpisti. 
Psalmus:  Domine  probasti  me,   <et  cognovisti  .... 
et  resurrectionem   meam.      Gloria   Patri>.     Psallite, 
fratres,  <h>ora  est  resurrexit  Dominus,  eia  et  eia! 

Resurrect.69 

In  the  present  connection  the  interest  of  this  text  lies  in 
the  use  of  Karissimi,  uerba  and  Psallite,  Fratres  in  the 
internal  troping  of  the  Introit. 

A  smooth  transition  from  dramatic  dialogue  to  litur- 
gical celebration  is  well  accomplished  in  the  following 
text: 

67  See  below,  pp.  42-49. 

w  MS.  resurrexi. 

"Monza,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  C.  13/76,  Graduale-Troparium  Modce- 
tinum  saec.  xi,  fol.  98v-99r.  The  last  word  Resurrexi  indicates  a 
repetition  of  the  antiphon  of  the  Introit.  In  the  manuscript  this 
word  is  followed  immediately  by  a  trope  of  the  Kyrie.  A  tfflct 
similar  to  that  above  is  to  be  found  in  Monza,  Bibl.  Capit.  MS.  77, 
Graduale-Troparium  Modcetinum  saec.  xii,  fol.  Sir. 


30  KARL    YOUNG 

DIEM  DoMmicum  Sanctum  PASCHE. 
STATIC  AD  SanctAm  MARIA  <M>  MAIORE  <M>. 


Quern  queritis  in  sepulchre  Xpislicole  ? 

Thesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  celicole. 

Non  hie  est,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat  ; 
ite  nuntiate  quia  surrexit. 

Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus  hodie,  resurrexit  leo  fortis. 

<D>eo  gratias,  Deo  gratias,  Deo  gratias;  dicite  omnes 
alleluia. 

Eia,  pleps  deuota,  Deo  mine  corde  sereno  cum  Xpisfo 
Deo  celebremus  Pascham  canentes  : 

Resurrexit  sicut  dixit  Dominus;.  in  Galilea  apparuit 
dissipulis.  Resurrexi  70  et  adhuc  tecum  sum.  Ve  tibi, 
luda,  qui  tradidisti  Dominum,  et  cum  ludeis  accepisti 
pretium.  <Posuisti  super  me  manum  tuam,  alleluia  >. 
Mulieres  qui  ad  sepulchrum  uenera<n>t  angelus  dixit 
quia  surrexit  Dominus.  Mirabilis  <facta  est  scientia  tua, 
alleluia,  alleluia  >.  Cito  euntes,  dicite,  dissipuli,  alle- 
luia, alleluia.  Resurrexi.71  Lux  mundi,  Dominus  resur- 
rexit hodie.  Possui<sti>.  Manus  tua,72  Domine, 
saluauit  mundum  hodie.  Mirabilis.  Scientia  Dei  mira- 
bile  facta  est  hodie  alleluia^  alleluia.  Resurrexi  73  et 
adhuc  tecum  sum,  alleluia*  <X>pistus  hodie  resurrexit 
a  raortius,  et  Patrem  glorificans  ait.  Posuisti  super  me 
manum  tuam,  alleluia.  Quoniam  mors  mea  facta  est 
mundi  uita.  Mirabilis  facta  est  s<c>ientia  tua.  Quern 
celum  <et>  terra  simul  collaudant  dicentes  alleluia, 
alleluia.  PsaZmtts:  Domine  probasti.74 

70  MS.  Resurrexit.  72  MS.  tue. 

n  MS.  Resurrexit.  "  MS.  Resurrexit. 

74  Rome,  Vatican,  MS.  lat.  4770,  Missale  plenum  Benedictinum  S. 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   THE   EASTER   PLAY  31 

Although,  in  the  absence  of  rubrics,  the  assignment  of 
parts  in  this  text  cannot  be  demonstrated  with  certainty, 
one  may  be  allowed  to  conjecture  that  Alleluia,  resurrexit 
Dominus  and,  possibly,  one  or  more  of  the  succeeding 
sentences  were  understood  as  extending  the  role  of  the 
Christicolce. 

The  following  text  has,  apparently,  no  fresh  significance 
except  in  the  link  between  Quern  quceritis  and  the  Introit : 

1.  INCIPIUNT  TROPHI  IN  DIE  SANCTO  75  PASCE 

2.  ANTE  INTROITUM 

3.  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpisticole  ? 

4.  Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

5.  Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  locutus  est ; 

6.  ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes  Alleluia. 

7.  Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus* 

8.  ITEM  TROPHI 

9.  Pascha  nostrum  Xpystus  ,est,  immolatus  agnus  est, 

10.  etenim  pascha  nostrum  immolatus  est  Xpystus. 

11.  Hodie  exultent  iusti;  resurrexit  leo  fortis;  Deo 

12.  gratias,  dicite  eia ! 

13.  ITETTI  iNTROiTum:    Resurrexi.76 


Petri  in  Aprutio  ssec.  x-xi,  fol  .117r.  Part  of  the  text  printed 
above  is  given  by  A.  Ebner,  Quellen  und  Forschungen  zur  Geschichte 
und  Kunstgeschichte  des  Missale  Romanum  im  Mittelalter:  Iter 
Italicum,  Freiburg,  1896,  p.  219,  Note  1.  The  last  word  of  the  text 
as  given  above  is  followed,  in  the  manuscript,  by  a  trope  of  the 
Kyrie. 

75  MS.  scm. 

76  Turin,   Royal   Library,  MS.   G.   v.   20,   Graduale-Troparium   Bo- 
biense    ssec.   xi,    fol.   97r.     The   trope    does   not    extend   within  fhe 
Introit. 


32 


KARL    YOUNG 


Variant: 


Turin,  Royal  Library,  MS.  F.  iv.  18,  Troparium  Bobiense  ssec.  xii, 
fol.  85v. 

1.  and  2.  reduced  to  one  word:   Tropi. 

4.  Hiesum]  Versus:  Hiesum. 

5.  Non]    Versus:   Non;     locutus   est]    predixerat. 

6.  nuntiate]  nunciate. 

8.  Item  Trophi]  Aliter.  11.    Hodie]  Aliter.     Hodie. 

9.  Xpystus]  X/oistus.  12.    gratias]  gracias. 

10.  Xpystus]  Xpistus.  13.    Item  Introitum]   omitted. 

Although  the  accretions  of  the  following  text  defy 
explanation,  this  version  belongs,  apparently,  in  the  pres- 
ent series: 

INCIPIT  TROPHMS  IN  DIEM  Sanctum  PASCHE 

AD  IlSTTROITUm 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  cristicole  ? 

Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixnm,  o  celicole. 

I^on  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  locutus  est  ; 

ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes  alleluia,  alleluia. 

Resurrexit  Dominus. 

Surrexit  Cristus,  iam  non  moritur;  mors  illi  ultra  non 
dominabitur,  alleluia,  alleluia. 

Resurrexit. 

Sedit  angelus. 
Prosa  :    Crucifixum  Dominunx  laudate. 

Nolite. 

Recordamini  qualiter. 

ISTolite  usQwe  Alleluia. 
Prosa:    Suggestione    angelica    nutantia   mulierum    corda 

nauiter  solidantur. 


Surrexit  leo  de  tribu  luda,  quern  impii  suspenderunt  in 
ligno. 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   THE   EASTER  PLAY 


33 


Momimenta  hodie  aperta  sunt,  et  multa  corpora  sanc- 
torum^ surrexe<fol.  214v>runt;  dicite  eia! 

Resurrexi. 

AD  Hepetendum  TROPHY 

Virgine  progenitus  creui  temptamina  uicia,  fixusque 
cruci  mortem  moriendo  subegi.  Resurrexi.  Quern  non 
deserui  carnis  dum  tegmina  sumpsi.  Posuisti.  Ut  per 
metua  sit  uirtus  clarescere  alme.  Mirabilis.  Gloria, 
euouae.77 

In  spite  of  the  apparent  intention  of  the  introductory 
rubric,  it  is  entirely  possible  that  a  considerable  part  of 
this  text  constitutes  a  processional  for  use  before  the  Mass 
of  Easter. 

However  seriously  one  may  question  the  dramatic  value 
of  the  textual  accretions  in  the  versions  reviewed  above, 
one  cannot  deny  that  the  following  text  contains  a  definite 
and  substantial  extension  of  the  dialogue: 

1.  IN  DIE  Sancto  PASCHE  TROPUS 

2.  <H>ora  est,  psallite;  iubet  dominus  canere;   eia 

dicite ! 

3.  Ubi  est  Xpist-ws,  meus  Dominus  et  filius  excelsi  ? 

4.  eamus  uidere  sepulcrum. 

5.  Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  Xpisticole? 

6.  Ihesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

7.  Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 

"Rome,  Biblioteca  Angelica,  MS.  123  (olim  B.  in.  18),  Troparium 
Bononiense  (?)  ssec.  xi,  fol.  214r-214v.  The  letters  euouae  at  the 
end  of  the  text  are  the  vowels  of  the  final  words  of  the  Gloria  Patri, 
— seculorum,  amen, — sung  at  the  end  of  the  Introit.  This  vowel 
•cries  is  often  written  in  this  way  merely  as  a  support  for  the 
musical  notes  forming  the  cadence  of  the  Gloria  Patri. 


34 


KAEL    YOUNG 


8.  ite,  mandate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes : 

9.  Alleluia,  ad  sepulcrum  residens  angel  us  nunciat 

10.  resurrexisse  Xpistum. 

11.  En  ecce  completum  est  illud  quod  olim  ipse  per 

12.  prophetam  dixerat  ad  Patrem,  taller  inquiens : 

13.  Besurrexi.78 

Variant : 

Vich,  Museum,  MS.  124,  Processionale  Vicense  ssec.  xiii-xiv,  fol.  Bv- 
O. 
1.    Tropws  in  die  aancto  Pasche. 

The  liturgical  introduction  Horn  est  is  here  followed  by 
an  interrogation,  Ubi  est  Xpistus(?  which  is  appropriate 
only  to  Maria  Mater.  That  the  other  Maries  are  not 
absent  from  the  intention  of  *  the  text,  however,  is  made 
certain  by  the  plurals  eamus  and  Xpisticole.  The  novel 
character  of  the  dramatic  addition  appears  from  the  fact 
that  it  is  found  neither  in  the  Vulgate  nor  in  the  liturgy. 
A  somewhat  similar  text  appears  as  follows: 

<H>OC    ESt   DE    MULIERIBWS 

Ubi  est  Xpistus,  meus  Dominus  et  Filius  excelsus  ? 

Eamus  uidere  sepulcrum. 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  o  Xpisticole? 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 

ite,    nuntiate    discipulis    eius    quia    precedet    uos    in 

Galileam. 

Vere  surrexit  Dominus  de  sepulcro  cum  gloria, 

Alleluia.79 

"Vich,  Museum,  MS.  31,  Troparium  Ripollense  soec.  xii-xiii,  fol. 
48v.  The  trope  is  not  continued  within  the  Introit. 

T>  Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  latin  1139,  Troparium  Martialense  saec.  xii, 
fol.  53r.  The  text  above  is  followed  immediately  in  the  manuscript 
by  the  rubric  Sponsus  and  the  famous  play  of  that  name.  For  a  Hat 


THE  OEIGIN   OF  THE  EASTEB  PLAY  35 

This  text  is  unique.  Although  it  gains  dramatically 
through  the  presence  of  U~bi  est  Xpistus,  it  loses  by  the 
omission  of  the  usual  response  Jeswn  nazarenum  cruci- 
fixum.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
this  version  constitutes  a  trope  of  the  Introit.  The  manu- 
script gives  us  no  assurance,  for  our  text  is  immediately 
preceded  by  a  series  of  irrelevant  versus,  and  is  imme- 
diately followed  by  the  rubric  Sponsiis  and  the  text  of  the 
famous  dramatic  piece  of  that  name.80 


IV 

It  can  scarcely  be  urged  that  the  texts  reviewed  thus  far 
record  an  impressive  advance  toward  real  drama.  In 
some  cases  we  have  observed  a  palpable  enlargement  of 
the  dialogue,  but  as  yet  we  have  noted  no  substantial  indi- 
cation either  of  mise  en  scene  or  of  impersonation.  We 
may  proceed,  then,  to  consider  definite  indications  of  this 
sort  in  the  texts  that  follow.  Pertinent  information 
appears,  for  example,  in  a  text  of  the  eleventh  century 
from  Monte  Cassino: 


Sanctum  PASCHA 


PINITA  TerriA  TJADAT  UNWS  sAcerdos  Awte  ALTewte  ALBA 

TTESTE  INDUTUS  ET  UerSllS  AD  CHOB1WI  DICAT  ALTA  UOCB  : 


of  previous  texts  of  the  version  of  Quern  quceritis  in  this  manuscript 
see  Lange,  p.  4.  Lange's  own  text  of  the  trope  (p.  22)  is  regret 
ably  incomplete. 

80  A  Poitiers  version,  of  uncertain  date,  somewhat  similar  to  the 
version  before  us  is  used  not  as  a  trope  of  the  Introit,  but  as  a 
Visitatio  Sepulchri  at  the  end  of  Matins  (see  Chambers,  Vol.  n, 
p.  29,  note),  Gautier  (p.  221,  note  3)  seems  to  suggest  that  the 
words  Eamus  videre  sepulchrum  of  the  text  printed  above  indicate 
the  presence  of  the  actual  sepulchrum  of  the  Visitatio  Sepulchri. 


36  KARL    YOUNG 

Quern  queritis? 

ET  DUO  ALII  CLEBICI  STANTES  in  MEDIO  CHOKE  KESPOND- 
EANT: 

lesum  nazarenum. 
ET  sAcerDOS : 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit. 
ILLI  uero  conuersi  AD  cnoEwm.  DICANT  : 

Alleluia,   resurrext£  Domtnus. 

POST  HEC  uxcipiatur  TBOPOS.     SEQiuTur  INTROITWS: 

Resurrexi.81 

According  to  this  text  a  single  priest  standing  before  the 
altar  addresses  the  angelic  interrogation  to  two  clerics 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  choir.  The  two  clerics 
deliver  the  reply  of  the  Maries,  and  after  receiving  the 
angelic  assurance,  address  to  the  choir  their  triumphant 
Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus.  In  the  assignment  of 
parts  we  readily  surmise  an  approach  toward  dramatic 
appropriateness, — one  person  speaking  for  the  angel,  and 
two  persons  for  the  Maries.  As  we  shall  see  below, 
moreover,  the  stationing  of  the  personages  anie  altare 
suggests  a  conscious  and  significant  use  of  the  altar  as  a 
stage-setting. 

"Monte  Cassino,  MS.  127,  Missale  Monasticum  ssec.  xi,  fol.  105v. 
In  connection  with  this  text  one  should  observe  the  following  from 
Monte  Cassino  MS.  199,  as  calendared  in  Bibliotheca  Casincnsis,  Vol. 
iv,  p.  124: 

Dum  canitur  Tertia,  aspergantur  Fratres  in  choro  aqua  sancta, 
quae  pridie  benedicta  est,  etc.  Antiph.  ad  Processionem  peculiares. 
Qua  finita  vadat  unus  Sacerdos  ante  altare  alba  veste  indutus,  et 
versus  ad  chorum  dicat  alta  voce:  Quern  quaeritis,  et  duo  alii  clerici 
stantes  in  medio  chori  respondeant:  Jesum  Nazarenum.  Et  Sa- 
cerdos: Non  est  hie.  Illi  vero  conversi  ad  chorum  dicant:  Alleluia, 
resurrexit.  Post  haec  tres  alii  cantent  tropos,  et  agatur  Missa  or- 
dine  suo.  Cf.  Chambers,  Vol.  n,  p.  12,  note  1. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  THE  EASTER  PLAY  37 

A  similar  disposition  of  the  dialogue  is  seen  in  the 
following : 

1.  DoMinicum  sanctum  PASCH&.     STatio  AD  Sanctum 
MARIA<M>. 

2.  INDUTWS  presxyten  SACRIS  UESTIBIAS  STET  POST 

3.  ALTARE   ET  VIGdt  ALTO-  TJOC6  : 

4.  Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  Xpisticole? 

5.  RESPONDEAT  VIACOUUS: 

6.  Hiesura  nazarenum,  o  celicole. 

7.  Hespondeat  pressi/tea: 

8.  Non  ,est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 

9.  ite,  nuntiate  quiz  surrex^. 

10.  TUNC    peroiT    viAcomis    CANENDO    HEC    usQt/e    IN 

CHORO  : 

11.  Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus,. 

12.  ITETTI   versus  DE   iNTRoitu:    Hodie  exultent   iusti, 

13.  resurrexi<t>  leo  fortis;  Deo  gracias,  dicite  onmes. 

14.  Hesurrexi.     Versus:    Lux   mundi   Dominws   resur- 

15.  rexi<t>  hodie.    Posu<isti>.  VERSUS:  Manustua, 

16.  Domine,  saluauit  mundum  hodie,  et  ideo. 

17.  ~M.iTabilis.      Versus:      Sciencia    Domini    mirabilis 

18.  facta  est  hodie,  alleluia. 

19.  A~Liter.       Mulieres    que     ad    sepulcrum     uenerant 

20.  angelus  dixit:  iara  surrexit  Dominic.     Resurrect. 

21.  Versus:    Cito  euntes  dicite,  discipuli,  quia 

22.  surrexit  sicut  dixit  Domnms.     Posu<isti>. 

23.  Versus:  Ve  tibi,  Iu<fol.  48r>   da,  qui  tradidisti 

24.  Dominum,  et  a  Iudei<s>  accepisti  precium. 

25.  MiraHZts.  ALi^er.   Hodie  resurrexit  leo  fortis,  Xpis- 

tus, 

26.  filius  Dei;  Deo  gracias,  dicite  eia!     Ttesurrexi^ 

27.  Versus:    Victor  resurgens  manens  in  secula  Deus. 

28.  Posu<isti>.  Versus:  Omnes  fringens  tartar  a  uictor 


38 


KARL    YOUNG 


29.  exiit  ad  supera.     M.iTabilis.     Versus:  Gloria 

30.  onmes  in  excelsis  Domino  dicite  fratres,  Alleluia. 

31.  IxT-Roitus:    Besurrexi.82 


Variant: 

Benevento,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  26,  Troparium  Beneventanum  i»e. 
xii,  fol.  68r-69r. 

1.  Static  .  .  .  Mariam]  omitted. 

2,  3,  5,  7,  10,  omitted. 

4.  Quern]  Versus  Quern,    sepulcro]  sepulchre. 

11.  resurrexit]   surrexit. 

12.  Item  .  .  .  Introitu]  Tropw*. 

13.  gracias]  gratias. 

14.  Versus]  omitted. 

15.  Versus]  omitted. 

17.  Versus:  Sciencia]  Scientia. 

19.  Sepulcrum]   sepulchrum. 

20.  Resurrexi]   omitted. 

21.  Versus]  omitted. 

23.  Versus]  omitted. 

24.  precium]  pretium. 

26.  gracias  dicite  eia]  gratias  dicite  alieia. 

27.  Versus]   omitted,     manens]  mane. 

28.  Versus]  omitted. 

29.  Versus]  omitted. 

In  this  case  a  single  priest  standing  behind  the  altar  inter- 
rogates a  single  deacon  stationed,  apparently,  in  the  sanc- 
tuary before  the  altar.  After  receiving  the  angelic 
assurance,  the  deacon  transmits  the  message  to  the  choir. 
There  is  no  indication  of  impersonation;  indeed,  the 
assignment  of  parts  is  not  dramatically  appropriate,  for 
the  Christicolw  and  the  Ccelicolce  are  represented  by  single 
persons.  The  familiar  trope  is  here  followed,  under  a 
fresh  rubric,  by  an  internal  troping  of  the  Introit,  and  it 

*  Benevento,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  27,  Troparium  Beneventanum  saec. 
xii,  fol.  47v-48r.  In  the  manuscript  the  full  text  of  the  Introit 
follows. 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  THE   EASTER  PLAY  39 

is  quite  possible  that  in  this  text,  and  in  the  preceding 
one,  Quern  quceritis  is  to  be  regarded  as  entirely  detached 
from  the  Introit. 

Here  may  be  added  another  text  of  the  version  just 
considered : 

1.  DoMinicum  Sanctum  PASCA. 

2.  STET    presxyte'R    INDUTWS    SACRIS    UESTIBI/S    POST 

ALT&RE ; 

3.  DICAT  MAGNA  UOCE  I 

4.  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpisticole? 

5.  He&pondeat  THACOHUS: 

6.  Hiesum  nazarenum,  o  celicole. 

7.  TUNG  vresxyter: 

8.  N~on  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 

9.  ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit. 

10.  PerGAT  DiAconus  CANendo  usQ^e  IN  CHORO: 

11.  Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus. 

12.  KiAter    versus     DE     iNTHoitu:    Hodie     exultent 83 

13.  iusti.84 

Variants : 

Benevento,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  25,  Troparium  Beneventanum  sac.  xii, 
lol.  122v.  A. — Ibid.,  MS.  29,  Troparium  Beneventanum  ssec.  xi,  fol. 
20r.  B. 

1.  Pasca]  Pascha  B.     Line  omitted  A. 

2.  Omitted  A  B. 

3.  Unws  clericus  post  altare  dica*  A.     Omitted  B. 

4.  Bepulchro]   sepulcro  A  B. 

5.  Duo  clerici  albts  induti  ante  altare  respondeant  A.     Omitted  B. 
7.    Unws  dica*  A.     Omitted  B. 

10.    Duo  Meant  A.     Omitted  B. 

12.    Aliter  .  .  .  Introitu]  Tropos  A.     Tropes  B. 

88  MS.  exultant. 

•*  Benevento,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  28,  Troparium  Beneventanum  *ec. 
xii,  fol.  28r.  In  the  manuscript  follows  a  series  of  internal  tropes 
•f  the  Introit.  I  print  the  text  above,  and  the  variants,  in  order 
to  show  the  variety  of  rubrics. 


40  KARL    YOUNG 

A  real  advance  in  dramatic  appropriateness  is  seen  in 
the  following  text: 

IN  DIE  sancto  PASCE,  cum  OMTIES  SIMUL  COTIUENEBINT 

IN  EcCLmAM  AD  MlSSflWl    CELEBBANDAm,  STENT  PABATI  11° 
DIACOm  INDUTI  DALMATICIS  EETro  ALTCire  DICENTES  : 

<fol.  18V>  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xristicole? 
RESPONDEANT  n°  CANTOBES  STANT^S  IN  CHOEO: 

lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 
iTerum  DiACom: 

Non  est  Me,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nunciate  quia  resurrexit,  dicentes: 
TUNG  CANTO/  DICAT  EXCELSA  uooe: 
Alleluia,   resurrexit,  Dorawms. 
Tune  PSALLAT  SCOLA: 

Resurrexi,  <et  adhuc  tecum  sum,  alleluia  >.  Qui 
dicit  Patri  prophetica  uoce.  <fol.  19r>  Posuisti 
< super  me  manum  tuam,  alleluia:  mirabilis  facta  est 
scientia  tua,  alleluia,  alleluia>.  Mirabile  laudat  filius 
patrem.  Psalmus:  Domine  probasti  me,  <et  cognovisti 
me:  tu  cognovisti  sessionem  meam  et  resurrectionem 
meam>.  Eia,  karissimi,  uerba  canite  Xpis/i.  Resur- 
rexi,  <et  adhuc  tecum  sum,  alleluia >.  Victor  ut  ad 
celos  calcata  morte  redire.  Posuisti  <  super  me  manum 
tuam,  alleluia  >.  Quo  genus  humanum,  «pulsis  erroribus, 
altum  scanderetf  ad  celum.  Mirabilis  <  facta  est  scientia 
tua,  alleluia,  alleluia>.  Nunc  omnes  cum  ingenti  gaudio 
celsa  uoce  gloriam  Xpisfo  canite.  Gloria  <  Patri,  et 
Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto;  sicut  erat  in  principio,  et  nunc 
et  semper,  et  in  secula>  seculorum,  Amen.85 

"Oxford,  Bodleian,  MS.  Douce  222,  Troparium  Novaliciense  ssec. 
xi,  fol.  18r-19r.  This  text  has  been  previously  published  by  N. 
C.  Brooks,  in  The  Journal  of  English  and  Germanic  Philology,  Vol. 


THE   ORIGIN    OF   THE   EASTER   PLAT  41 

The  lines  of  the  Christicolce  and  Coelicolce  are  here  appro- 
priately sung,  in  each  ease,  by  two  persons.  The  rubric 
parati  duo  diaconi  induti  dalmaticis,  however,  can  hardly 
be  interpreted  as  an  indication  of  impersonation,  for  the 
dalmatic  is  the  normal  liturgical  vestment  of  a  deacon. 

The  variations  seen  in  the  following  text  are  not  with- 
out interest: 

IN  DIE  SANCTO  86  PASCE  TROPI. 

EINITA  TERTIA  CANTOR  CUM  ALIIS  UADAT  RETRO  ALTARE  ; 
EXCELSA  UOCE  INCIPIAT  : 

87  Quern  queritis  8T  in  sepulcro,  Xpisticole  f 

QUI  ANTE  ALTARE  FUERIT&T  RESPONDEANT  I 

Hiesum  nazarenum  crucifixura,  o  celicole. 
ILLI  uero  <QTJI>  RETro  FUERinT,  DICATIT: 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 
ite,  nunciate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes : 
Qui  ANTE  Respondeant : 

Alleluia,  alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominic. 
ILLI  qui  RETro  DiCAnT: 

Eia,  Carissimi,  uerba  canite  Xpisti. 

HlS  FINITIS  QUI  RETro  FUERINT,  ANTE  ALTARE  UENIANT 
ET  CUm  ALIIS  SIMUL  CANTANT  I 

Resurrexi,  et  adhuc  tecum  sum,  alleluia.  Qui  dicit 
Patri  prophetica  uoce.  Posuisti  super  me  manum  tuam, 
alleluia.  Mirabi<fol.  236r>le  laudat  Filius  Patrem. 
Mirabilis  facta  est  scientia  tua,  alleluia,  alleluia, 
~Psalmus:  Domine  probasti  me,  et  <cognovisti  me:  tu  cog- 

vin,  pp.  463-464,  and  by  the  present  writer,  in  Transactions  of  the 
Wisconsin  Academy  of  Sciences,  Arts,  and  Letters,  Vol.  rvn,  Part  I, 
p.  309.  f 

MM8.  scm. 

""•T  Written  twice  in  the  manuscript. 


42 


KABL    YOUNG 


novisti  sessionem  meam,  et>  resurrectionem  meam. 
Hodie  exultant  iusti,  resurrexit  leo  fortis;  Deo  gracias, 
dicite  eia!  Resurrexi,  et  <adhuc  tecum  sum,  alleluia: 
posuisti  super  me  manum  tuam,  alleluia:  mirabilis  faeta 
est  scientia  tua,  alleluia,  alleluia >.  <G>loria  Patri  <et 
Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto :  sicut  erat  in  principio,  et  nunc, 
et  semper,  et  in  secula  s>e<c>u<l>o<r>u<m>,  A- 
<m>e<n>.88 

In  this  instance  the  number  of  persons  engaged  in  the 
dialogue  is  not  indicated.  The  transition  from  the  dra- 
matic trope  to  the  Introit  Resurrexi  is  gracefully  accom- 
plished through  the  liturgical  formula,  now  familiar,  Eia, 
Carissimi,  uerba  canite  Xpisti,  after  the  singing  of  which, 
the  participants  in  the  Quern  quoeritis  dialogue  join  with 
others  before  the  altar  in  singing  the  Introit. 

Since  a  certain  number  of  the  texts  just  examined  seem 
to  suggest  that  the  altar  was  used  as  mise  en  scene  for  the 
dialogue  of  the  Quern  quceritis  Introit  trope,  it  may  be 
well  to  inquire  concerning  the  rationale  of  this  use,  and  to 
examine  the  independent  evidence  that  the  altar  was  re- 
garded as  sepulchrum.  This  evidence  may  be  convenient- 

"Piacenza,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  65,  Graduale-Troparium  Pla- 
centimim  saec.  xi-xii,  fol.  235v-236r.  Somewhat  similar  rubric* 
occur  in  a  text  to  be  found  in  Pistoia,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  70, 
Troparium  Pistoriense  ssec.  xi-xii,  fol.  32r.  Here  may  be  placed  a 
text  from  Monte  Cassino  recorded,  from  an  unidentified  manuscript, 
by  E.  Martene  (De  Antiquis  Eeclesice  Ritibus,  Lyons,  1788,  Vol. 
IV,  p.  147): 

Processione  finita,  vadat  Sacerdos  post  altare,  et  versus  ad  chorum 
dicat  alta  voce,  Quern  quceritisf  et  duo  alii  Clerici  stantes  in  medio 
chori  respondeant:  Jesum  Nazarenum;  et  Saeerdos:  Non  est  hie, 
Illi  vero  conversi  ad  chorum  dicant:  Alleluja.  Post  haee  alii  qua- 
tuor  cantent  tropos,  et  agatur  Missa  ordine  suo.  Cf.  Lange,  No.  28, 
p.  23;  Chambers,  Vol.  n,  p.  12,  note  1.  ! 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  THE   EASTEE  PLAY  43 

fy  adduced  from  two  chief  sources:  (1)  the  history  of  the 
Christian  altar,  and  (2)  patristic  symbolism. 

During  the  years  immediately  following  the  Crucifixion, 
the  altars  used  in  commemoration  of  the  Last  Supper  were 
probably  mere  tables  of  wood(mens<#)  in  the  houses  of  the 
faithful.89  Later,  during  a  century  or  two  of  persecution, 
the  Commemoration  was  often  observed  in  special  and  re- 
mote places,  such  as  the  catacombs  about  Rome,  and  simi- 
lar places  of  burial.  In  such  burial  places  the  altar  was 
inevitably  placed,  in  some  manner,  over  the  body  of  a  mar- 
tyr or  saint.  It  may  have  been  constructed  in  a  grave 
chapel  above  ground,90  or  it  may  have  been  the  very  cover 
of  a  sarcophagus,  in  a  chamber  under  ground.91  What- 
ever its  particular  form,  the  Christian  altar  very  early  be- 
eame  closely  associated  with  the  tomb  of  a  martyr  or  saint. 
In  the  well-chosen  words  of  Him,  "  The  arca^  i.  e.,  the 
ehest  which  contained  the  martyr's  bones,  became  an  ara, 
i.  e.f  a  table  bearing  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  divine 
man."92  It  was  natural,  then,  that  with  the  erection  of  al- 
tars in  churches,  after  the  Peace  of  the  Church,  the  identi- 
fication of  tomb  and  altar  should  have  been  piously  main- 
tained, and  that  the  church  altar  should  have  been  built, 
normally,  over  the  tomb  of  a  saint,  or,  to  reverse  the  rela- 
tion, that  the  relics  of  a  saint  (Sancta  Sancti)  should  have 
been  buried  under  the  altar.93  Thus  it  happens  that  to 

"C.  Rohault  de  Fleury,  La  Messe:  Etudes  archeologiques  sur  ses 
monuments,  Vol.  i,  Paris,  1883,  pp.  103,  237;  Parenty,  Recherches 
9ur  la  Forme  des  Autels  in  Congres  Scientifique  de  France,  Session 
xx,  1853,  Vol.  n,  pp.  201-202. 

"Y.  Him,  The  Sacred  Shrine,  London,  1912,  pp.  14-18. 

n  Rohault  de  Fleury,  Vol.  i,  pp.  103-109,  237 ;  Parenty,  p.  202. 

"Him,  p.  23. 

*J.  Mallet,  Cours  elementaire  d'Archeologie  religieuse,  Vol.  n, 
Paris,  1900,  pp.  13-14;  J.  Corblet,  Essai  historique  et  liturgique  sur 
lea  Ciboires  et  la  reserve  de  I'Eucharistie,  Paris,  1858,  pp.  77-78; 
Parenty,  p.  202;  Him,  p.  26. 


44  KASL    YOUNG 

this  day,  under  the  main  altar  of  many  an  historic  church 
edifice,  may  be  found  the  tomb  of  a  saint,  the  saint's  place 
of  rest  being  variously  called  Confessio,  Martyrium,  or 
Testimonium. 9  4 

As  the  number  of  churches  increased  throughout  the 
Christian  world,  however,  it  became  impossible  to  provide 
for  each  altar  the  entire  remains  of  a  saint,  and  a  sub- 
dividing of  relics  became  necessary.  Instead  of  resting 
upon  the  body  of  a  saint,  the  altar  could  now  be  associated 
with  only  a  small  particle,  or  small  particles.  These  relics 
were  sometimes  placed  in  an  appropriate  reliquary  under 
the  altar,95  or,  as  was  more  common,  in  an  excavation  in 
the  top  of  the  stone  altar-table,  the  cavity  being  regularly 
called  sepulchrum.96  In  the  sepulchrum  was  placed  a 
closed  box  (capsa), — usually  a  small,  formless  envelope  of 
lead, — containing  the  relics,  and  the  sepulchrum  cavity 
was  closed  with  a  stone  seal  (sigillum).97 

For  the  mediaeval  worshipper  the  transition  was  easy 
from  the  use  of  the  altar  as  the  tomb  of  a  saint  to  the  idea 
of  the  altar  as  the  sepulchre  of  Christ.  It  appears,  indeed, 
that  in  the  sepulchrum  of  the  altar  the  relics  of  the  saint 
were  sometimes  actually  replaced  by  "  fragments  of  the 
Saviour's  body,"  that  is,  by  pieces  of  a  consecrated  wafer.98 

94  De  Caumont,  Cours  d'Antiquites  Monumentales,  Part  vi,  Paris, 
1841,   pp.    112-118;    Congres   Scientifique   de   France,   Session   xxn 
(Puy),  1855,  Vol.  n,  p.  523;  X.  Barbier  de  Montault,  Le  Martyrium 
de  Poitiers,  Poitiers,  1885,  passim;  Parenty,  p.  202. 

95  Parenty,  p.  207. 

"H.  A.  Daniel,  Codex  Lit.urgicus,  Vol.  I,  Leipzig,  1847,  p.  375; 
Parenty,  p.  203;  Mallet,  Vol.  n,  pp.  13-14;  Corblet,  p.  77;  Barbier 
de  Montault,  pp.  45,  53. 

MH.  Otte,  Handbuch  der  Jcirchlichen  Kunst-Archaologie  des 
deutschen  Mittelalters,  Vol.  I,  Leipzig,  1883,  pp.  131,  134. 

•*  See  Him,  p.  68. 


THE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    EASTEB    PLAY  45 

In  such  a  case  the  altar  became  literally  the  grave  of 
Christ. 

Whether  or  not  the  altar  was  often  recognized  as  Sepul- 
chrum  Christi  through  such  material  means,  we  have  am- 
ple evidence  that  the  altar  was  so  accepted  symbolically.9* 

In  the  Theoria  of  Germanus  I,  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople (f  733),  we  read: 

Altare  est  Propiciatorium  in  quo  offerebatur  pro  peccato, 
iuxta  sanctum  monumentum  Christi  in  quo  altari  victimam  se 
Christus  obtulit  Deo  et  Patri,  per  oblationem  corporis  sui. 
....  Altare  est  et  dicitur  praesepe  et  sepulchrum  Domini.™ 

A  similar  interpretation  is  given  by  Amalarius  of  Metz 
(f  83 7)  in  his  De  Ecclesiasticis  Officiis: 

Per  particulam  oblatae  immissae  in  calicem  obatenditur  Christi 
corpus  quod  jam  resurrexit  a  mortuis;  per  comestam  a  sacer- 
dote  vel  a  populo,  ambulans  adhuc  super  terrain;  per  relictam 
in  altari,  jacens  in  sepulcris.™1 

Again,  in  his  Eclogoe  de  Officio  Missce  Amalarius  writes 
the  following  verse : 

Ecce  habes  hie  tumulum  Christi  quam  conspicis  aram.103 

Simeon  Thessalonicus  (f  1430),  in  his  Exposiiio  de 
Divino  Templo,  speaks  of  the  altar  as  magni  sacrificii  offi- 

99  See  Rohault  de  Fleury,  Vol.  I,  pp.  107-109,  239;  Annales  Archeo- 
logiques,  Vol.  iv,  pp.  238,  241-242,  246-248;  F.  X.  Kraus,  Real-En- 
cyclopadie  der  christlichen  Alterthumer,  Vol.  I,  Freiburg,  1882,  pp. 
39,  89-90;  J.  B.  E.  Pascal,  Origines  et  Raison  de  la  Liturgie  Cath- 
olique,  Paris,  1863,  col.  96-97;  De  'Processionibus  Liber,  Paris,  1641, 
pp.  181-191. 

100  Bibliothecae   Patrum   et    Veterum   Auctorum    Ecclesiasticorum, 
Vol.  vi,  Paris,  1610,  col.  116. 

1MMigne,  Patrologia  Latina,  Vol.   cv,  col.    1154-1155.  9 

lt2Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  Vol.  cv,  col.  1326. 


46  KARL    YOUNG 

cina   and   Christi   monumentum,103    and   concerning   th» 
relics  under  the  altar-table,  writes  as  follows : 

Sub  mensa  deinde  repositae  sunt  reliquiae,  utpote  quorum 
spiritus  Christo  magno  martyri  semper  adsint.  Praeterea  tan- 
quam  Ecclesiae  fundamenta  hos  altare  continet,  quae  primo 
Christi,  postea  per  ipsum  martyrum  sanguine  condita  est.1** 

Further  testimony  as  to  the  symbolism  of  the  altar,  and 
final  confirmation  of  our  surmise  that  the  altar  serves  as 
the  sepulchrum  setting  for  the  Quern  quceritis  dialogue  in 
the  texts  given  above,  are  found  in  the  famous  Rationale  of 
Durandus  (1237-1276),  Bishop  of  Mende: 

Nee  omittendum,  qupd  in  quibusdam  Ecclesiis  in  his 
septem  diebus  duo  in  albis  superpelliciis  incipiunt  respon- 
sorium:  Hsec  dies;  et  in  aliis  quosdam  tropos  retro  altare, — 
quod  reprcesentat  sepulchrum  pro  eo  quod  corpus  lesu  in  eo 
sacrament  aliter  collocatur,  et  consecratur, — gerentet  typum 
duorum  angelorum,  qui  stantes  in  sepulchro  Christum  resur- 
rexisse  retulerunt.™ 

This  description  of  tropos  retro  altare  seems  to  applj 
precisely  to  the  texts  printed  above  from  Oxford  MS.  Douce 
222  and  Piacenza  MS.  65,  and  it  proves  definitively  that  in 
such  cases  the  altar  serves  as  a  sepulchrum  for  the  dia- 
logue. From  Durandus'  words  duo  in  albis  superpelliciis 
.  .  .  gerentes  typum  duorum  angelorum  we  might,  in- 
deed, infer  that  in  such  versions  of  Quern  quceritis  the 
characters  concerned  in  the  dialogue  were  actually  imper- 
sonated ;  but  the  evidence  on  this  point  is  not  quite  con- 
clusive. 

103Migne,  Patrologia  Grceca,  Vol.  CLV,  col.  703. 
104  It?.,  Vol.  CLV,  col.  706. 

195  Gulielmus  Durandus,  Rationale  Divinorum  Officiorum,  Lugduni, 
1559,  fol.  378r. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  EASTER  PLAY          47 


• 


It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  the  group  of  versions  just  ex- 
amined, the  advance  toward  drama  is  considerable.  The 
primitive  dialogue  has  at  length  been  provided  with  a 
mise  en  scene,  and  in  some  cases  the  sentences  have  been 
distributed  among  the  singers  with  dramatic  appropriate- 
ness. None  of  these  versions,  however,  can  be  definitively 
identified  as  true  drama,  for  no  dramatic  piece  can  be  so 
identified  unless  the  characters  concerned  in  the  action 
are  unmistakably  impersonated.  Our  search  for  a  version 
providing  such  impersonation  is  rewarded  in  the  following 
text: 

IN  DIE  PASCE  CATITORIA  ACCIPIATIT  DUAS  vomiisAS  ET 

PONAtt,T  POST  ALTABE  MAIUS  ITl  LOCO  ANGELORttm,  ET  CA?l- 

TENT  isTAm  TROPHAra,  sic: 
Quern  qweritis  ? 

ET  CAnTORIA  ACCIPIANT  TRES  DOWINAS  Q,U6  HABEAflT  8Ifl- 
GULA  TTASSA  ARIE71TEA  IU  MAniBUS,  et  CANERE  DEBEAnT  in 
MEDIO  CHORO  AD  MODOM  TRES  MARIE^  ET  RESPOnDEAnT 
ANG6LIS  SIC.' 

Thesum  nazarenum. 
'RespcwveanT  ANGCLI: 

Non  est  hie,  sur<r>exit. 
TRES  MARIE  ET  CAUTE<N>T  ADHUC  TROPHA<M>,  sic: 

Alleluia,  Teaurrexit. 

ET  HOC  FACTO  EBDOMODARIA  EPISTOLE  106  TENEAT  SEPTTL- 
CRTJm  EBORIS  171  MAniBt/5  in  MEDIO  CHORO  DONEC  EXPLEAT 

EpisfoLAra,  et  ITICIPIAT  OFFICIUM  107  MISSE  : 
Resur<r>exi,  et  adhuc  tecum  sum. 

ET  TRES  MARIE  nespo^DeAnT  isTAm  TROPHA??!: 

Qui  dicit  Patri  propheti<c>a  uoce.  ' 

108  MS.  epla.  m  MS.  offitiu. 


48 


KATtL    YOUNG 


ET  CHORUS  ResjpoNDEAT  sic: 

Posuisti  super  me  manum  tuam. 
TRES  MARIE  RespONDEAnT : 

Mirabilem  laudat  Filius  Patrem. 
CHORUS  Res^ONDEAT : 

Mirabillis  f acta  est  scientia  tua. 
ET  TRES  MARIE  UADATIT  DEORSura  TU/IC  AD  ALTARE  MAII« 

AD  OFFEREttDUm  SUA  108  UASA  ARGETITEA,  ET  CHORUS  DIG  AT 

uersum : 

Domine  probasti  me. 
ET  CHORUS  inciPiAT  OFFICIUM  :  109 

Eesurrexi.110 

ET  ALIUS  CHORUS  DICAT : 

Gloria  Patri. 

111  ET      HOC      DICTO      UENIAWT      TANTUM      TRES111      MARIE 

<quae>    Re5/?ONDEA7iT    supenus    in    MEDIO    CHORO    et 

DICA71T  ISTAm  TROPHAW,  StC.* 

Hodie  reswrrexit. 

ET  HITS  FINITIS  TRES  MARIE  REUCrTAWT  AD  LOCA  SUA  ;   ET 
EBDOMODARIA  I/ICIPIAT  ADHUC   OFFICIUM  112  MlSSE  I 

Eesurrexi.113 

ET   CHORUS   EXPLEAT,   ET    CAWTORIA    INCIPIAT    PrOSAm   StC.' 

Domme  redemptor. 
ET  EBDOMODARIA  mciPiAT :  Kvrie.114 

Although  a  blundering  scribe  has  cruelly  mutilated  this 
text,115  the  essentials  of  this  play  can  be  easily  recovered. 

198  MS.  tua.  101>  MS.  offitiu.  119  MS.  Resurexit. 

in-iii  MS>  Et  hoc  dicto  ueniant  tantum  hoc  dicto  tree. 

112  MS.  offitiu. 

113  MS.    Reswrrexit. 

m  Brescia,  Biblioteca  Civica  Quiriniana,  MS.  H.  vi.  11.,  Ordinarium 
Ecclesiae  Sanctae  Juliae  anni  1438,  fol.  30r. 

118 1  have  tampered  as  little  as  possible  with  the  hideous  Latinity 
of  this  text,  and  have,  in  every  case,  indicated  my  alteration. 


THE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    EASTER   PLAY  49 

The  two  nuns  behind  the  altar  certainly  impersonate 
angels, — in  loco  angelorum, — and  the  three  nuns  in  the 
middle  of  the  choir,  who  carry  silver  vessels,  avowedly 
impersonate  the  three  Maries, — ad  modom  tres  Marie. 
The  fact  that  the  Maries  offer  their  vessels  at  the  altar 
suggests  that  the  altar  is  regarded  as  Sepulchrum  Christi. 
The  rubrics  do  not  fully  explain  the  significance  and  use 
of  the  sepulchrum  eboris  which  is  held  in  plain  sight  by 
the  nun  who  reads  the  Epistle,  until  the  reading  has  been 
finished.  The  ivory  sepulchre  may  be  merely  a  part  of  the 
altar  mise  en  scene,  a  stage-property  appropriated  by  the 
Hebdomadaria  Epistolce  during  her  reading.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  observe  that  at  the  conclusion  of  the  dialogue,  the 
tres  Marios  take  part  in  the  singing  of  the  internal  trope 
of  the  Introit,  the  choir  singing  the  liturgical  text,  and  the 
Maries,  the  trope. 

The  text  from  Brescia  appears  to  be  the  only  one  yetf 
.  published  which  presents  a  completely  dramatized  form  of 
the  Quern  quceritis  trope  in  its  attachment  to  the  Easter 
Introit.  Although  this  particular  text  is  late  and  corrupt, 
it  seems  to  represent  the  inevitable  culmination  of  the 
earlier  developments  of  Quern  quceritis  that  we  have  been 
examining,  and  it  appears  to  demonstrate  that  the  trope 
evolved  into  true  drama  in  its  original  position  as  an  in- 
troduction to  the  Easter  Mass. 


VI 

For  the  sake  of  completeness, — even  at  the  risk  of  anti- 
climax,— it  behooves  us  to  consider  two  other  manifesta- 
tions of  Quern  quceritis  in  connection  with  the  Mass  of 
Easter:  (1)  in  the  processional  before  Mass,  and  (2)  as- 
part  of  an  Easter  sequence.  *  ./ 


50  KAKL    YOUNG 

In  our  review  of  the  texts  printed  above  we  have  al- 
ready observed  that  in  some  cases  the  Quern  quceritis  dia- 
logue is  detached  from  the  Introit  proper,  or  is,  at  least, 
attached  to  the  Introit  only  tenuously.116  In  the  text 
from  Monte  Cassino  MS.  127,  for  example,  at  the  end  of 
the  dialogue  occurs  the  rubric  Post  Jiec  incipiatur  tropos. 
Sequitur  Introitus:  Resurrexi.117  This  rubric  seems  to 
indicate  that  Quern  quceritis  is  not  closely  bound  to  the 
Introit,  being  separated  from  it  by  another  trope.  In 
some  of  these  cases  in  which  the  dialogue  appears  to  be 
independent,  it  may  possibly  be  serving  as  a  processional, 
or  even  as  an  independent  dramatic  ceremony  ad  sepul- 
chrum.  The  use  of  it  as  a  processional  seems  to  be  ex- 
plicitly indicated  by  the  introductory  rubric  in  the  fol- 
lowing text: 

IN  PROCESSIONS  Domini 

Hora  est,  psallite;  iube£  dominus  canere;  eia  dicite! 
IixTKnrogatio :  Quern  que<fol.  70r>ritis  in  sepulchro,  o 

Xpisticole  ? 
~Responsio:  Ihesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes: 
Surrexit  enim   <sicut  dixit  Dominus:  Ecce  precedet 
uos  in  Galileam;  ibi  eum  uidebitis,  alleluia,  alleluia  >.118 

118 Examples  may  be  seen  above  from  the  following  manuscripts: 
Zurich,  Rheinau  MS.  97  (see  p.  15),  Turin  MS.  G.  v.  20  (see  p.  31) 
Turin  MS.  F.  iv.  18  (see  p.  32),  and  Rome,  Angelica  MS.  123  (see 
pp.  32-33). 

117  See  above,  pp.  35-36.     See  also  the  text  from  Benevento  MS.  27, 
above,  pp.  37-38. 

118  Oxford,  Bodleian  Library,  MS.  Selden  supra  27,  Troparium  Hei- 
denhemense   ssec.  xi,  fol.   69v-70r.     The  text   above   is   followed  im- 
mediately, in  the  manuscript,  by  the  rubric  In  Die  SewcJo  Paache, 
introducing  a  series  of  tropes  of  the  Introit  Resurrexi. 


THE    OBIGIN    OF    THE    EASTEB,    PLAY  51 

Here  the  processional  text  consists  solely  in  a  form  of  the, 
trope  with  which  we  are  already  familiar.119 

The  use  of  Quern  quceritis  as  an  incidental  element  in 
a  longer  processional  is  shown  in  the  following: 

DOMINICA   SanctA   PASCAE   AD   PEOCESSIONEM 

In  die  resurrectionis  rneae  dicit  Dominus,  aeuia:  Con- 
gregabo  gentes  et  colligam  regna  et  effundam  super  uos 
aquam  mundam,  aeuia. 

Vidi  aquam  egredientem  de  templo  a  latere  dextro, 
aeuia,  et  omnes  ad  quos  peruenit  aqua  ista  salui  facti 
sunt  et  dicent  aeuia,  aeuia. 

iNTerrogatio :  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpicticole? 
'Responsio:  lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  caelicole. 
ISTon  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit  de  sepulchro. 

Surrexit  enim  sicut  dixit  Dominus ;  ecce  precedet  uos  in 
Galileam ;  ibi  eum  uidebitis,  aeuia,  aeuia. 

Sedit  angelus  ad  sepulchrum  Domini  stola  claritatis 
<p.  107 >  coopertus;  uidentes  eum  mulieres  nimio  ter- 
rore  perterrite  substiterunt  a  longe.  Tune  locutus  est 
angelus  et  dixit  eis :  Oolite  metuere ;  dico  uobis  quia  ilium 
quern  queritis  mortuum,  iam  uiuit,  et  uita  hominum  cum 
eo  surrexit,  aeuia.  Versus:  Kecordamini  quomodo  pre- 
dixit  quia  oportet  Filium  hominis  crucifigi,  et  tertia  die 
a  morte  suscitari,  aeuia.  Versus:  Crucifixum  Dominum 
laudate,  et  sepultum  propter  nos  glorificate,  resurgentem- 
que  a  morte  adorate.  Nolite  < metuere;  dico  uobis  quia 
ilium  quern  queritis  mortuum,  iam  uiuit,  et  uita  hominum 
cum  eo  surrexit,  aeuia>.120 

119  See  above,  p.  17. 

120  St.    Gall,    Stiftsbibliothek,    MS.    339,    Graduale-Sacramentarium 
Sangallense  saec.  x,  pp.   106-107.     Reproduced  in  photographic  fac- 


52  KARL    YOUNG 

A  similar  text  from  Hartker's  famous  Liber  Respon- 
salis  appears  as  follows: 

IN  DIE  KESURRECTIONIS  AD  PROCESSIONEM 

AntipJiona:  In  die  resurrectionis  meae  dicit  Dominus, 
aeuia:  Congregabo  gentes,  et  colligam  regna,  et  effundam 
super  uos  aquam  mundam,  aeu<i>a. 

AntipJiona:  Vidi  aquam  egredientem  de  templo  a  latere 
dextro,  aeuia,  et  omnes  ad  quos  peruenit  aqua  ista  salui 
facti  sunt  et  dicent  aeuia,  aeuia. 
IwTerrogatio :  Quern  queritis  in  sepulchro,  Xpicticole? 

>:   Ihesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,   o   celicolae? 
est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat ; 
ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit  de  sepulchro. 

AntipJiona:  Surrexit  enim  sicut  dixit  Dominus:  Ecce 
praecede£  uos  in  Galileam ;  ibi  eum  uidebitis,  aeuia,  aeuia. 

Antiphona:  Sedit  angelus  ad  sepulchrum  Domini  stola 
claritatis  coopertus;  uidentes  eum  mulieres  nimio  terrore 
perterrite  substiterunt  a  longe.  Tune  locutus  est  angelus 
et  dixit  eis:  Oolite  mefaiere,  dico  uobis  quia  ilium  quern 
queritis  mortuum,  iam  uiuit,  et  uita  hominum  cum  eo 
surrexit,  alleluia.  Versus:  Recordamini  quomodo  pre- 
dixit,  quia  oporte£  Filium  hominis  cruci<p.  38>figi  et 
tertia  die  a  morte  suscitari.  Oolite  metuere. 

AntipJiona:  Et  recordate  sunt  uerborum  eius,  et  re- 
gresse  a  monumento  nuntiauerunt  hec  omnia  illis  undecim 
et  ceteris  omnibi/^,  aeuia.  Versus:  Crucifixum  Dominum 

simile  in  PaUographie  Musicale,  Vol.  i,  Solesmes,  1888-90,  pp.  75-76. 
The  text  as  printed  above  is  followed  immediately  by  the  rubric: 
In  Die  ad  Missam,  introducing  the  Introit:  Resurrexi.  With  the 
text  from  MS.  339  may  be  listed  the  similar  text,  in  St.  Gall  MS. 
387,  Breviarium  Sangallense  saec.  xi,  pp.  57-58.  Lange  (no.  4,  p.  22) 
exhibits  the  Quern  quceritis  dialogue  from  MS.  387;  but  since  his 
text  is  isolated  from  the  surrounding  processional  antiphons,  it  is 
quite  misleading  and  useless. 


THE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    EASTER    PLAY  OO 

laudate,  ei  sepultum  propter  uos  glorificate,  resurgentem- 
que  a  morte  adorate,  alleluia.121 

The  presence  of  this  text  in  the  Liber  Responsalis,  and 
its  consequent  association,  externally,  with  the  Canonical 
Office,  might,  at  first  sight,  suggest  that  this  processional 
was  designed  for  use  in  some  part  of  the  Cursus,  rather 
than  as  an  introduction  to  the  Mass.  The  rubric  Ad 
Vesperas,  which  follows  the  processional  text  in  the  manu- 
script, might  seem  to  indicate  that  the  procession  was 
celebrated  as  part  of  Vespers.  The  liturgical  content  of 
the  text,  however,  and  its  resemblance  to  the  processional 
from  St.  Gall  MS.  339, — a  processional  indisputably  asso- 
ciated with  the  Mass, — these  considerations  identify  our 
text  as  a  stray  from  the  Missale,  only  accidentally  lodged 
in  the  Liber  Responsalis  of  the  Cursus. 

In  connection  with  the  next  version,  special  considera- 
tions arise: 

IN  DOMINICO  DIE  SANCTI  PASCAE 
IN  PROCESSIONS  AD  SEPULCRUM     <p.  197  > 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulcro,  o  Xpicticol§  ? 
lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  caelicole. 
]N"on  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  predixerat; 
ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit  de  sepulcro. 

121  St.  Gall,  Stiftsbibliothek,  MS.  391,  Liber  Responsalis  Hartkeri 
saec.  x,  pp.  37-38.  This  text  is  shown  in  photographic  facsimile  in 
Paleographie  Musicale,  Deuxieme  Se"rie,  Vol.  I,  Solesmes,  1900,  pp. 
231-232.  A  mutilated  version  of  the  passage  given  above  is  printed 
by  J.  M.  Thomasius,  Opera  Omnia  (ed.  Vezzosi),  Vol.  iv,  Rome,  1749, 
p.  238.  The  text  printed  above  is  immediately  preceded  by  the  last 
antiphon  of  Lauds,  and  is  immediately  followed  by  the  rubric: 
Ad  Vespero*.  Lange  (No.  3,  p.  22),  extracts  the  Quern  que- 
ritis dialogue  from  this  text,  printing  it  in  useless  isolation  from 
its  context.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Lange's  treatment  of  fiuetn 
quceritis  from  St.  Gall  MSS.  374  and  378  (Lange  Nos.  2  and  5,  p.  22), 
each  of  which  contains  a  processional  essentially  similar  to  that 
printed  above. 


54 


KARL    YOUNG 


Surrexit  enim  sieut  dixit  Dominus:  Ecce  precedet  uos 
in  Galileam ;  ibi  eum  uidebitis,  aeuia,  aeuia. 

Sedit  angelus  ad  sepulcrum  Domini  stola  claritatis  co- 
opertus;  uidentes  eum  nmlieres  nimio  terrore  perterrit§ 
substiterunt  a  longe.  Tune  locutus  est  angelits  et  dixit 
eis:  Oolite  metuere,  dico  uobis  quia  ilium  quern  queritis 
mortuum  iam  uiuit,  et  uita  hominum  cum  eo  surrexit, 
aeuia. 

Recordamini  quomodo  predixit  quia  oportet  Filium 
hominis  crucifigi  et  tercia  die  a  morte  suscitari. 

Crucifixum  Dominion  laudate,  et  sepultum  propter  nos 
glorificate,  resurgentemqwe  a  morte  adorate,  aeuia.122 

Although  this  text  seems  to  constitute  a  processional  for 
use  before  Mass,  the  introductory  rubric  In  Processione  ad 
8epulcrum  indicates  that  the  procession  included  a  sta- 
tion at  a  regular  Easter  Sepulchre, — a  station  which  may 
account  for  the  presence  of  Quern  quceritis  in  this  text 
and  in  other  processional  texts  of  which  the  rubrics  are 
less  explicit.  For  the  existence  of  some  sort  of  Easter 
Sepulchre  at  St.  Gall  as  early  as  the  eleventh  century,  we 
have  independent  evidence.123 

A  brief  version  of  the  processional  appears,  finally,  in 
the  following  form : 

IN  ProcEssiONE 

Sedit  angelus  ad  sepulchrum  Domini  stola  claritatis 
coopertus ;  uidentes  eum  mulieres  nimio  terrore  perterrite 

122  St.  Gall,  Stiftsbibliothek,  MS.  376,  Troparium  Sangallense  saec. 
xi,  pp.  196-197.  This  text  is  followed  immediately  by  the  Introit: 
Resurrexi. 

138  See  an  article  by  the  present  writer  entitled  The  Harrowing  of 
Hell  in  Liturgical  Drama,  .in  Transactions  of  the  Wisconsin  Academy 
of  Sciences,  Arts,  and  Letters,  Vol.  xvi,  Part  n,  pp.  897-898. 


THE    OEIGIN    OF    THE    EASTER    PLAY  55 

astiterunt  a  longe.  Tune  locutus  est  angelus  et  dixit  eis: 
Nolite  metuere ;  dico  uobis  quia  ilium  quern  queritis  mor- 
tuum  iam  uiuit,  et  uita  hominum  cum  <fol.  60V>  eo  sur- 
rexit,  alleluia. 

Quern  queritis  in  sepulchre  Xpis^cole? 

lesum  nazarenum  crucifixum,  o  celicole. 

Non  est  hie,  surrexit  sicut  locutus  est ; 

ite,  nuntiate  quia  surrexit,  dicentes : 

Alleluia,  resurrexit  Dominus. 

Oolite.124 

From  our  examination  of  the  dramatic  dialogue  as  an 
element  in  the  processional  of  Easter  Day  we  pass,  finally, 
to  a  brief  consideration  of  a  special  form  of  the  Quern 
quceritis  formula  as  it  appears  in  certain  sequences  of 
Easter  Week.  This  use  is  seen  in  the  following  text : 

Sequential25 

Quern  queritis,  mulieres,  ad  sepulchrum  regem  ?  Alleluia. 
Versus:  Hiesum  querimus,  et  non  inueniemus  ubi  erat 

positus. 

Versus:  Si  tu  tuleris,  hoc  dicito  126  mihi,  ubi  erat  positus. 
Versus:  Cum  fletu  et  stridore  127  dentium  ubi  uadam? 

Eum  tollam  positum. 

Versus:  O  quam  gloriosus  fuit  ille  mortuus ! 
Versus:  O  quam  gloriosa  erit  uita  ubi  se  reuiscerat! 
Versus:  Stabat  angelus  ad  dextris  Patris:   Noli  flere,  Re- 

gina  Coeli,  quia  mortuus  fuerat,  et  reuixit. 
Versus:  Si  mihi  non  creditis,  operibus  credite  et  uidete,  in 

dextra  Dei  sedens. 

1MMonza,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  K.  11.,  Graduale-Troparium  ssec.  xii  ex., 
60r-60v.  The  text  given  above  is  followed  immediately,  in  the 
manuscript,  by  the  rubric:  Tropht  ad  Introituw  Misse.  ^ 

"5The  Sequence  for  Easter  Monday   (Feria  iia  post  Paschaf. 

128  MS.  dicit. 

127  MS.  stridor. 


• 


56  KARL    YOUNG 

Versus:  Stella  clara,  lux  magna  uita,  regem  sedere  Deo 

nidi. 
Versus:  Deo  gratias,  Deo  gratias,  quia  surrexit  leo  fortis, 

<fol.  74V>. 
Versus:  Deo  gratias,  Deo  gratias,  de  magna  tristitia  re- 

uertimur  in  letitia. 
Versus:   Deo   gratias,   Deo  gratias;     Amen   dico  uobis. 

Alleluia.128 

A  somewhat  different  version  of  this  sequence  appears 
in  the  following  form : 

<SEQUENTIA> 

Ad  sepulcri  custodes  descenderat  angelus  ualde  iam  dilu- 

culo. 
Mulieres  ueniunt  inuisendum  sepulchrum  ad  quas  dixit 

angelus : 

Quern  queritis,  mulieres,  ad  sepulcrum  Domini? 
Eesponderunt  et  dixerunt  cuncte  unanimiter: 
lesum  quaerimus,  et  non  inuenimus  <fol.  138r>  ubi  erat 

positus. 
Si  tu  tuleris,  dicito  michi  ubi  uadam;  eurn  tollam  Domi- 

num. 

O,  quam  gloriosus  fuit  ille  mortuus ! 
O,  quam  gloriosa  erat  uita  ubi  se  reuixerat! 
Stabat  angelus  ad  sepulchrum: 

""Ivrea,  Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  60,  Troparium  Eporediense  ssec.  xi  in. 
(1001-1011),  fol.  74r-74v.  The  text  above,  with  variants  from  the 
text  of  D.  Georgius  (De  Liturgia  Romani  Pontificis,  Vol.  in,  Rome, 
1744,  pp.  492-493),  is  printed  in  Analecta  Hymnica,  Vol.  XL,  Leipzig, 
1902,  p.  15.  Variant  texts,  are  to  be  found  also  in  Benevento, 
Bibl.  Capit.,  MS.  27,  Troparium  Beneventanum  ssec.  xii,  fol.  58r-58v 
(Feria  va  post  Pascha)  ;  Hid.,  MS.  28,  Troparium  Beneventanum 
S8EC.  xii,  fol.  41v  (Feria  V  post  Pascha)  ;  Ibid.,  MS.  29,  Troparium 
Beneventanum  saec.  xii,  fol.  37v-38r  (Sabbato  post  Pascha)  ;  and 
Paris,  Bibl.  Nat.,  MS.  Nouv.  Acq.  1669,  Graduate  Eugubinense  saec. 
xii  ex.,  fol.  96r-96v  (Sabbato  post  Pascha). 


THE    ORIGIN   OF    THE    EASTEB   PLAY 


57 


Noli  fiere,  Eegina  mundi,  quia  mortuus  fuerat,  et  reuixit. 
Deo  gratias,  Deo  gratias,  Deo  gratias. 
De  magna  tristitia  uertit  in  laetitia. 
Deo  gratias,  Deo  gratias,  Deo  gratias. 
Amen  dico  uobis,  Alleluia.129 

Although  the  appearance  of  the  Quern  quceritis  interro- 
gation in  these  sequences  is  interesting,  it  seems  to  have  no 
important  bearing  upon  the  dramatic  development  of  the 
Easter  trope  in  its  association  with  the  Mass.  The  impor- 
tance of  these  sequences  will  appear,  rather,  in  another 
connection :  in  a  study  of  the  Visitatio  Sepulchri  of  Easter 
Matins. 


In  the  pages  above,  the  developments  of  Quern  quceritis 
in  its  association  with  the  Easter  Mass  are,  I  believe,  for 
the  first  time  presented  with  considerable  fulness.  From 
this  examination  of  the  materials,  then,  we  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  draw  one  or  two  conclusions. 

In  the  first  place,  it  appears  that  even  as  an  appendage 
of  the  Introit,  the  trope  achieved  a  considerable  textual  de- 
velopment, and  that  this  growth  continued  until  long  after 
the  time  when  the  trope  of  the  Introit  became  also  a  trope 
of  the  responsory  or  of  the  Te  Deum,  and  began  its  pro- 
ductive dramatic  career  as  a  Visitatio  Sepulchri  at  the  end 
of  Easter  Matins.  The  question  as  to  how  much  one  line 
of  development  influenced  the  other  must  be  dealt  with  at 
another  time.  It  may  be  observed  in  advance,  however, 
that  the  textual  accretions  to  the  Introit  trope  are,  in  gen- 
eral, quite  different  from  the  accretions  embodied  in  the 
texts  of  the  Visitatio  Sepulchri. 

0 

"•  Benevento,  Chapter  Library,  MS.  25,  Troparium  Beneventanum 
s«c.  xii,  fol.  137v-138r.  This  text  constitutes  the  sequence  for  the 
Mass  of  Thursday  in  Easter  Week  (Feria  va  post  Pascha). 


58  KAEL    YOUNG 

The  textual  growth  of  the  Introit  trope  was  due  to  what 
we  may  term  free  composition.  Like  the  sentences  of  the 
simplest  form  of  Quern  quceritis,  the  accretions  are,  as  a 
whole,  not  mere  borrowings  from  the  liturgy  or  the  Vul- 
gate, hut  are  rather  the  original  creations  of  a  succession 
of  liturgical  poets.130 

Still  more  important  is  the  fact  that  the  trope  actually 
developed  into  true  drama  in  its  original  position  at  the 
Introit.  Since  the  only  text  that  unequivocally  records 
this  final  stage  is  presented  in  a  late  manuscript,131  one 
might  surmise  that  this  development  was  due  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  more  fruitful  Visitatio  Sepulchri  of  Matins/ 
Although,  for  the  moment,  the  matter  must  be  left  unde- 
cided, the  variety  of  dramatic  stages  displayed  above 
seems  to  indicate  that  the  final  dramatic  result  of  the  trope 
at  the  Introit  was  an  independent  achievement. 

KARL  YOUNG. 

uo  The  sentence  Pascha  nostrum  Xpystus  est,  immolatus  agnus  est, 
etenim  Pascha  nostrum  immolatus  est  Xpystus,  which  is  found  in 
the  Turin  manuscripts  G.  v.  20  and  F.  iv.  18  (see  above,  p.  31), 
and  which  may  or  may  not  be  considered  part  of  the  trope  proper, 
rests,  in  part,  upon  the  Alleluia-verse  of  Easter  Day,  'Pascha  nos- 
trum immolatus  est  Christus  (see  Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  LXXVIII,  678), 
or  upon  the  Vulgate  Etenim  Pascha  nostrum  immolatus  est  Christus 
(1  Cor.,  v,  7).  The  sentence  Surrexit  Dominus,  surrexit  Cristus; 
iam  non  moritur;  mors  illi  ultra  non  dominabitur,  alleluia,  seen  in 
MS.  123  of  the  Angelica  Library  in  Rome  (see  above,  p.  32),  is 
based,  in  part,  upon  the  Communio  of  the  Mass  for  Wednesday  in 
Easter  week,  Christus  resurgens  ex  mortuis  jam  non  moritur,  alle- 
luia; mors  illi  ultra  non  dominabitur,  alleluia,  alleluia  (see 
Pat.  Lat.,  LXXVIII,  679),  or  upon  the  Vulgate  Scientes  quod  Chris- 
tus resurgens  ex  mortuis  jam  non  moritur;  mors  illi  ultra  non 
Dominabitur  (Rom.  vi,  9).  For  the  added  sentences  as  a  whole, 
however,  no  such  sources  can  be  pointed  out. 

M1  Brescia  MS.  H.  vi.  11.,  of  the  fifteenth  century.  See  above, 
pp.  47-48. 


II.— A  STUDY  OF  THE  METRICAL  USE  OF  THE 

INFLECTIONAL  E  IN   MIDDLE   ENGLISH, 

WITH  PARTICULAR  REFERENCE  TO 

CHAUCER  AND  LYDGATE 

I.     INTRODUCTION 

The  object  of  this  investigation  is  to  make  a  study  of 
the  metrical  use  of  the  inflectional  e  in  Middle  English, 
and  to  ascertain,  as  far  as  possible,  the  relation  between 
metrical  apocopation  and  grammatical  decay.  Although 
a  few  pre-Chaucerian  texts  will  be  examined  to  indicate 
dialectical  variations,  the  chief  emphasis  will  be  placed 
upon  the  works  of  Chaucer  and  of  Lydgate.  These  works 
will  be  treated  chronologically,  with  a  view  to  explaining 
the  linguistic  conditions  existing  in  the  transitional  period 
during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 

In  this  brief  introduction,  it  will  be  impossible  to  refer 
to  the  contributions  already  made  to  this  subject.  They 
may,  however,  be  roughly  divided  into  two  classes:  (1) 
the  intensive  study  dealing  with  a  single  author,  or  more 
often,  a  single  text,  and  (2)  the  less  technical,  more  com- 
prehensive treatment  which  appears  in  the  average  histo- 
rical grammar.  The  first  does  not  pretend  to  draw  any 
general  conclusions  about  the  language;  the  second  con- 
sists mainly  of  such  conclusions.  Morsbach's  Mitteleng- 
lische  Grammatik  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  latter; 
and  his  view  may  be  regarded  as  the  orthodox  one.  He 
has  stated  l  that  the  inflectional  e  was  treated  most  con- 
servatively in  the  South,  especially  in  Kent,  that  in  the 

'§  75. 

59 


60  CHABLOTTE    FARRINGTON    BABCOCK 

Midland  it  became  silent  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
that  in  Scotland  and  the  North  it  was  silent  as  early  as 
the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

The  careful  scholarship  of  the  one  method  has  been 
combined  with  the  broader  outlook  of  the  other  in  Pro- 
fessor Child's  Observations  on  the  Language  of  Chaucer,2 
a  pioneer  work  in  genuine  criticism  of  Chaucer  to  which 
this  investigation  is  deeply  indebted.  As  Professor  Kitt- 
redge  has  said,  "  In  this  brief  treatise  Professor  Child 
has  not  only  defined  the  problems,  but  provided  for  most 
of  them  a  solution  which  the  researches  of  younger  schol- 
ars have  only  served  to  substantiate.  He  also  gives  a 
perfect  model  of  the  method  proper  to  such  inquiries — 
a  method  simple,  laborious,  and  exact."  3  This  model  has 
been  followed  in  many  subsequent  linguistic  studies 
(though  generally  extending  over  a  more  limited  field),  its 
first  and  most  significant  successor  being  Professor  Kitt- 
redge's  own  Observations  on  the  Language  of  the  Troilus, 
appearing  in  189 1.4  In  the  following  section  I  shall 
refer  in  detail  to  my  obligations  to  this  and  to  ten  Brink's 
Chaucers  Sprache  und  Verskunst,  both  of  which  have 
proved  invaluable  to  me. 

Turning  from  Chaucer  to  Lydgate,  we  find  numerous 
monographs  on  individual  poems,  but  nothing  dealing 
with  Lydgate's  work  as  a  whole,  in  any  way  comparable 
to  Professor  Child's  treatment  of  Chaucer.  The  desira- 
bility of  such  a  treatment  becomes  obvious  when  we  see 
the  conflicting  views  that  are  held.  Steele,  for  instance, 
in  the  introduction  to  the  Secrees  (rather  a  slovenly  and 


"In  Memoirs  of  the  American  Academy,   1863. 

*  Intro,  to  Engl.  and  Scotch  Popular  Ballads,  Vol.  I,  p.  xxvi. 

*Cf.  also  J.  M.  Manly,  Observations  on  the  Language  of  the 
Legend  of  Good  Women,  1893;  and  H.  C.  Ford,  Observations  on 
the  Language  of  the  House  of  Fame,  1899. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  6 1 

inaccurate  piece  of  work,  to  be  sure)  is  impressed  by  the 
modernness  of  the  language,  and  claims  5  that  "  the  final 
e  is  rarely  sounded  in  words  of  English  and  still  more 
rarely  in  those  of  French  origin." 

Schick,6  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  Temple  of  Glas  con- 
cludes that  "Lydgate  still  pronounced  the  e  in  the  main 
as  Chaucer  and  indeed  Orm  pronounced  it," — and  that 
"  Lydgate  stands  decidedly;  in  point  of  language,  as  in 
everything  else,  on  the  mediaeval  side  of  the  great  gulf 
that  intervenes  between  Chaucer  and  the  new  school  of 
poetry  that  arose  in  the  sixteenth  century."  His  figure 
of  speech  is  picturesque  and  also  significant  because  it 
deals  with  a  matter  of  the  utmost  importance.  For  it  is 
only  by  clearly  defining  Lydgate's  position  with  regard  to 
Chaucer  and  'his  successors,  that  we  can  hope  to  under- 
stand the  linguistic  conditions  of  the  transitional  period 
— the  period  when  the  inflections  were  being  lost. 

The  matter  which  I  have  undertaken  to  treat  may,  I 
believe,  be  resolved  into  three  questions: 

(1)  What  per-cent.  of  e's  historically  justified  (in  each 
document)  are  apocopated  within  the  line? 

(2)  What   are  the  factors  determining  apocope?     Is 
apocope  merely  a  metrical  license,  or  is  it  in  some 
way  related  to  inflectional  decay,  reproducing  the 
contemporary  conditions  of  the  language  ? 

(3)  What  is  Lydgate' s  relation,  with  regard  to  inflec- 
tional forms,  on  the  one  hand  to  Chaucer,  and  on 
the  other,  to  the  "  new  school  of  poetry  which  arose 
in  the  sixteenth  century  "  ? 

5R.  Steele,  Secrees  of  Old  Philisoffres,  p.  xx.  ^ 

•  Temple  of  Glas,  p.  Ixxiii. 


0-S  CHARLOTTE    FARRINGTON    BABCOCK 

II.     METHOD 

The  three  questions  already  stated  must  be  answered  in 
the  order  in  which  they  stand,  and  the  first  one  is  funda- 
mental : 

What  per-cent.    of   e's   historically  justified 
are  apocopated  within  the  line? 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  section  to  explain  the  methods 
employed,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  exact  per-cents  of 
apocopated  forms.  The  specimen  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales  appearing  at  the  end  of  this  section  is  given  as  an 
illustration  of  the  method. 

The  inflectional  e  at  the  end  of  the  line,  in  rime,  has 
been  left  out  of  account;  for  such  e's  open  up  new  prob- 
lems and  require  independent  treatment.  This  investi- 
gation, then,  concerns  itself  only  with  the  e  within  the 
line.  I  In  each  text  I  have  noted  all  cases  of  e  retained 
(that  is,  having  syllabic  and  metrical  value)  and  all  cases 
of  e  apocopated  (that  is  not  having  syllabic  value)  unless 
followed  by  a  vowel  or  h,  in  which  case  elision  naturally 
occurs. 

In  the  desire  to  avoid  all  unnecessary  impedimenta  and 
to  deal  with  only  significant  cases,  I  have  disregarded  two 
large  classes: 

I.     All  Ambiguous  Cases,  Comprising: 

1.    Words  with  double  forms:  wil,  wille; 

-self,  selve; 
wey,  weye; 
alf  alle  (irregular)7 
cler,  clere 

'  Cf.  Prof.  Kittredge's  Troilus,  §  180. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  63 

2.  Words  with  mute  e  in  two  successive  syllables,  where 
we  may  assume  either  syncope  or  apocope:  lievene, 
owene,  preterites  in  -ede. 

3.  Words  with  syllabic  consonants;  cf.  itible,  temple, 
morwe.8 

II.     All  Cases  of  Syncope.9 

Eliminating  these  two  large  categories  which  at  best 
can  give  evidence  of  only  doubtful  value,  I  have  proceeded 
to  divide  the  remaining  cases  into  two  classes  according 
to  the  usage  of  Chaucer. 

Whether  or  not  this  Chaucerian  basis  is  arbitrary  is 
beside  the  point.  Some  one  standard  must  be  taken 
by  which  to  measure  the  various  texts,  and  at  present 
we  understand  the  forms  of  Chaucer  far  better  than  we 
do  those  of  any  other  Middle  English  poet.  In  defense 
of  this  method,  I  may  anticipate  to  the  extent  of  saying 
that  the  standard  has  proved  adequate  in  all  cases  where 
it  has  been  applied. 

On  the  assumption  that  all  words  do  not  lose  e  with 
equal  frequency,  I  have  formed  two  classes:  Class  I  in- 
cludes all  words  where  apocope  is  the  rule;  Class  II  all 
other  words,  where  we  may  look  for  either  apocope  or 
retention.  We  might  be  inclined  to  seek  a  third  class,  in 
which  e  would  always  be  retained;  but,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  find  no  group  of  forms  and  no  single  word  which 
has  uniformly  withstood  the  levelling  process  of  apocope. 

8  If  the  word  with  syllabic  consonant  is  followed  by  a  word 
beginning  with  a  vowel,  the  final  e  is  silent,  and  the  consonant  is 
pronounced  with  the  following  syllable;  if,  however,  the  next  word 
begins  with  a  consonant,  the  extra  syllable  is  inevitable. 

'  In  es,  ed,  en  ( except  in  cases  where  en  is  interchangeable  with  e, 
as  in  verb  inflection  and  a  few  adverbs.  In  such  cases  en  retained 
is  merely  a  variant  of  e). 


64  CHARLOTTE    FARRINGTON    BABCOCK 

Class  I  has  then  been  subdivided  as  follows : 

1.  Words  with  recessive  accent.     In  accordance  with 
both  ten  Brink  and  Kittredge  10  I  find  the  e  to 
be  regularly  silent  in  such  words. 

2.  Certain  special  words,  most  of  them  in  frequent 
use.11 

a.  Pronouns  and  pronominal  adjectives:  hire,  oure, 
youre,  here,  mine,  thine,  thise. 

Adjectives:  none,  ten. 

b.  Adverbs:     here,     where,     there,     eke,     thanne, 
whanne,  sauf  (preposition). 

c.  Verbs  in  plural:  wil,  shal,  mot,  may,  can,  are. 
In  imv.  plural  lat. 

d.  Participles  and  verbals  in  -ynge. 

e.  Strong  preterites  in  second  person  singular. 

In  determining  the  words  which  should  be  included  in 
this  class  I  have  been  guided  by  the  combined  statements 
of  ten  Brink  and  Kittredge,  but,  as  will  be  observed,  I 
have  made  certain  modifications  and  additions  to  which 
my  own  investigations  have  led  me. 

In  Class  I,  exceptions  only  have  been  noted,  and  they 
are  so  few  as  to  be  negligible.  The  statistics,  then,  will 
be  drawn  always  from  Class  II,  which  includes  all  words 
with  inflectional  e  and  nominative  e  12  which  have  been 
left  after  the  processes  of  elimination  already  described. 

In  drawing  up  the  statistics,  however,  one  is  immedi- 
ately beset  by  pitfalls  of  a  metrical  nature.  So  at  the 


™Troilus,  §  133;  ten  Brink,  §  135. 

11  Cf.  t.  B.,  §  133;   Troilwt,  §  135. 

"In  case  of  some  words  in  Chaucer,  inorganic  e  occurs  so  regu- 
larly that  it  has  been  included  with  nominative  e;  cf.  hewe,  pryme, 
suffix  -hede,  etc. 


E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  65 

outset  I  will  indicate  my  treatment  of  four  or  five  of  the 
most  puzzling  metrical  problems. 

1.  The  epic  ccesura  or  extra  syllable  before  the  caesura 
has  not  been  admitted.     When  a  word  with  inflec- 
tional e  stands  in  the  caesura,  and  would  give  the 
extra  syllable  in  question,  if  the  e  were  pronounced, 
apocope  has  regularly  been  assumed. 

2.  The  headless  line,  on  the  other  hand,  undoubtedly 
exists  in  both  octosyllabic  and  heroic  verse. 

3.  Reversal  of  accent  should,  I  think,  be  conceded.     In 
the  following  line : 

That  no  drope  ne  fille  upon  hire  breast 
there  are  two  alternatives — the  headless  line, 
That  no  dr6pe  n§ 

or  with  reversal  of  accent  That  no  drope.  The 
first  seems  more  natural  to  the  modern  ear,  but 
the  second  is  perfectly  possible.  Moreover,  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  the  accent  in  Chaucer's  time  was 
much  lighter  and  more  shifting  than  it  is  now,  I 
consider  it  preferable  to  give  the  line  its  full  num- 
ber of  syllables.13  If,  however,  the  accent  were 
badly  "  wrenched  "  by  such  reversal,  I  should,  of 
course,  regard  the  line  as  "headless." 

4.  Trisyllabic  foot  undoubtedly  occurs,  but  should  be 
admitted  only  when  necessary.     I  have  never  con- 
sidered the  inflectional  e  as  "  retained  "  when  such 
a  retention  made  a  foot  trisyllabic.     Cf.   for  ex- 
ample ProL  260: 

With  a  thredbare  cope  as  is  a  poure  scholer. 

0 

13  Cf.  French  also,  R.  R.   1:   Maintes  gens  dient  que  en  songes. 
5 


66  CHARLOTTE    FAKRHSTGTON    BABCOCK 

The  first  foot,  with  a  thred,  is  trisyllabic  indubi- 
tably; there  is,  however,  no  occasion  for  making 
the  last  one  such.  Poure  I  should  read  as  a  mono- 
syllable and  consider  a  case  of  apocope. 
5.  Lydgatian  type  C  ("the  peculiarly  Lydgatian  type 
in  which  the  thesis  is  wanting,  so  that  two  accents 
clash  together  ")  14  has  been  the  battle  ground  of 
Lydgate  critics.  Whether  we  take  sides  with  Ber- 
gen 15  who  says  that  some  of  the  most  effective  lines 
of  the  Troy  Book  are  of  this  type,  or  with  Saints- 
bury  16  who  brands  it  as  "  incurable,  intolerable, 
hopelessly  characteristic  of  a  doggerel  poet  without 
a  sensitive  ear  for  rhythm,"  we  must  admit  that  it 
exists  and  even  thrives  in  the  Lydgatian  line.  Oc- 
casional reconstruction  will  obviate  a  C  line,  but 
most  cases  seem  "  incurable." 

The  matter  of  reconstruction  in  cases  of  inade- 
quate texts  is  a  delicate  one.  The  best  MSS.  of 
Chaucer  convince  us  not  only  of  the  poet's  mastery 
of  metrical  form  and  sureness  of  touch,  but  also  of 
his  grammatical  regularity.  Thus,  in  dealing  with 
his  works,  I  have — with  the  less  reliable  texts — 
supplied  e  (in  brackets)  whenever  it  is  grammati- 
cally correct  and  metrically  necessary.  With  Lyd- 
gate too  the  case  is  comparatively  simple,  but  in  the 
metrical  romances  where  we  have  no  evidence  what- 
soever that  the  writer  aspired  to  a  fixed  number  of 
syllables,  reconstruction  becomes  precarious. 

In  a  line  like  the  following,  Amys  and  Amiloun 
788: 

That  hath  don  min  hert[e]  gref, 

"  Schick,  T.  of  (?.,  p.  Iviii. 

*Troy  Book  I,  p.  xiii. 

"Hist   of  Engl.  'Prose,   Lond.,    1906,    §224. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  67 

the  e  in  brackets  is  essential  and  inevitable,  but  I 
have  rarely  ventured  to  supply  it  in  cases  less  ob- 
vious than  this.  Perhaps  my  reconstruction  was 
unwarranted  even  here,  but  inasmuch  as  the  e  (to 
which  herte  is  entitled)  might  perfectly  well  be 
pronounced,  should  not  even  the  "  jog-trot "  roman- 
cer have  the  benefit  of  the  doubt? 

This  section  is  too  brief  to  deal  with  all  the  metrical 
difficulties  that  may  arise,  but  the  great  majority  of  them 
fall  under  one  of  the  categories  above  mentioned.  Occa- 
sionally, to  be  sure,  a  line  has  been  omitted  as  absolutely 
unreadable  from  a  metrical  standpoint ;  such  a  line  occurs 
never  in  Chaucer  and  seldom  in  Lydgate,  but  with  some 
frequency  in  the  metrical  romances.  In  general,  when 
rules  have  conflicted,  I  have  tried  to  read  the  line  in  ques- 
tion in  the  most  natural  and  intelligent  way,  always  taking 
into  consideration  the  peculiarities  of  the  writer  and  the 
metrical  structure  of  the  poem  as  a  whole. 

APOCOPATION  IN  THE  FIRST  100  LINES  OF 'THE  Prologue 
to  the  Canterbury  Tales 

(Words  belonging  to  Class  I  are  italicized;  in  such 
cases  the  form  without  the  e  is  the  normal  one.  In  the 
statistics  only  exceptions  are  noted  (i.  e.,  words  with  syl- 
labic e).  Words  belonging  to  Class  II  are  also  italicized, 
but  are  to  be  distinguished  from  those  of  Class  I  by  the 
fact  that  the  final  e  is  always  marked;  e  denoting  e  re- 
tained ;  e  denoting  e  apocopated.  The  figures  at  the  right 
indicate  the  cases  of  apocope  and  retention  in  each  line.) 

Ap.          Ret. 

1.  Whan  that  Aprille  with  hise  shoures  soote  . .        ,*1 

2.  The  droghte  of  March  hath  perced  to  the  roote 

3.  And  bathed  every  veyne  in  swich  licour 


68  CHAELOTTE    FAEBINGTON    BABCOCK 

Ap.  Ret. 

4.  Of  which  vertu  engendred  is  the  flour 

5.  Whan  Zephirus  eek  with  his  swet e  breeth  . .  1 

6.  Inspired  hath  in  every  holt  and  heeth 

7.  The  tendre "  croppes  and  the  yonge  sonne  . .  1 

8.  Hath  in  the  ram  his  half(e)    cours  y-ronne  ..  1 

9.  And  smale  fowles  maken  melodye  . .  2 

10.  That  slepen  al  the  nyght  with  open  ye  . .  1 

11.  So  prikketh  hem  nature  in  hire  corages 

12.  Thanne  longen  folk  to  goon  on  pilgrimages  . .  1 

13.  And  palmeres  for  to  seken  straunge  strondes  . .  2 

14.  To   ferne  halwes   kouthe  in   sondry   londes  1 

15.  Ans  specially  from  every  shires  ende 

16.  Of   Engelond   to   Caunterbury   they  wende 

17.  The  holy  blisful  martyr  for  to  seke 

18.  That  hem  hath  holpen  whan  that  they  icere  seke       1  1 

19.  Bifil  that  in  that  seson  on  a  day 

20.  In  Southwerk  at  the  Tabard  as  I  lay 

21.  Redy  to  wenden  on  my  pilgrimage  1 

22.  To  Caunterbury  with  ful  devout  corage 

23.  At  nyght  were  come  into  that  hostelrie  1 

24.  Wei  nyne  and  twenty  in  a  companye 

25.  Of  sondry   folk  by   aventure   y-falle 

26.  In   felaweshipe  and   pilgrimes   wer$  they   alle  1 

27.  That   toward    Caunterbury   wolden   ryde 

28.  The  chambres  and  the  stables  wercn  wyde 

29.  And  wel  we  weren  esed  atte  beste 

30.  And  shortly  whan  the  sonne  was  to  reste 

31.  So  hadde  I  spoken  with  hem  everichon 

32.  That  I  was  of  hir  felaweshipe  anon 

33.  And  made  forward  erly  for  to  ryse  . .  1 

34.  To  take  oure  wey  M  ther  as  I  yow  devyse 

35.  But  natheles  whil   I   have  tyme  and   space  1 

36.  Er  that  I  ferther  in  this  tale  pace  . .  1 

37.  Me  thynketh  it  acordaunt  to  resoun 

38.  To  telle  you  all  the  condicioun  . .  1 

39.  Of  ech  of  hem  so  as  it  semed  me  .... 

40.  And  which  they  were(n)    and  of  what  degree         ..  1 

41.  And  eek  in  what  array  that  they  were  inne 

17  This  is  disregarded  as  ambiguous.     In   such  words  e  is   regu- 
larly syllabic  before  a  consonant,  but  not  before  a  vowel. 

18  Disregarded  as  ambiguous.     C.   has   double   forms — wey — weye. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  69 

Ap.        Ret. 

42.  And  at  a  knyght  than  wol  I  first  bigynne 

43.  A  knyght  ther  was  and  that  a  worthy  man 

44.  That   fro   the   tyme   that   he   first   bigan  . .  1 

45.  To  riden  out  he  loved  chivalrie  . .  1 

46.  Trouthe  and  honour  fredom  and  curtesye 

47.  Ful  worthy  was  he  in  his  lordes  werre 

48.  And  therto  hadde  he  riden  no  man  ferre  . .  1 

49.  As  wel  in  Christendom  as  in  Hethenesse 

50.  And  evere  honoured  for  his  worthynesse 

51.  At  Alisaundre  he  was  whan  it  was  wonne 

52.  Ful  ofte  tyme  he   hadde  the  bord  bigonne  1  1 

53.  Aboven  alle  nacions  in   Pruce  . .  2 

54.  In  Lettow  hadde  he  reysed  and  in  Ruce 

55.  No  cristen  man  so  ofte  of  his  degre 

56.  In  Gernade  at  the  seege  eek  hadde  he  be 

57.  Of  Algezir  and  riden 19  in  Belmarye 

58.  At  Lyeys  was  he  and  at  Satalye 

59.  Whan  they  were  wonne  and  in  the  grete  see  11 

60.  At  many  a  noble  armee  hadde  he  be 

61.  At  mortal  batailles  hadde  he  been  fifteene 

62.  And  foughten  for  oure  feith  at  Tramyssene  . .  1 

63.  At  lystes  thryes  and  ay  slayn  his  foo 

64.  This  ilke  worthy  knyght  hadde  been  also  1  1 

65.  Somtyme  with  the  lord  of  Palatye  . .  1 

66.  Agayn  another  hethen  in  Turkye 

67.  And  evermoore  he  hadde  a  sovereyn  prys 

68.  For  though  that  he  were  worthy  he  was  wys  1 

69.  And  of  his  port  as  meeke  as  is  a  mayde 

70.  He  never  yet    no    vilanye  ne  saide  1 

71.  In  all  his  lyf  unto  no  maner  wyght 

72.  He  was  a  verray  parfit  gentil  knyght 

73.  But  for  to  tellen  you  of  his  array  ..  1 

74.  His  hors  weren  goode  but  he  was  not  gay  . .  1 

75.  Of  fustian  he  wered  a  gypon 

76.  Al  besnlotered  with  his  habergeon 

77.  For  he  was  late  y-come  from  his  viage  1 

78.  And  wente  for  to  doon  his  pilgrimage  . .  1 

79.  With  hym  ther  was  his  sone  a  yong  squier 

80.  A  lovere  and  a  lusty  bacheler 

81.  With  lokkes  crulle  as  they  were  leyd  in  presse         1 

0 
19 Riden,  syncope;   so  not  noted. 


70  CHARLOTTE    FARRINGTON    BABCOCK 

Ap.        Ret. 

82.  Of  twenty  yeer  of  age  he  was  I  gesse 

83.  Of  his  stature  he  was  of  evene  lengthe 

84.  And  wonderly  delyvere  and  of  gret  strengthe 

8^5.  And  he  hadde  been  somtyme  in  chyvachie  1 

86.  In  Flaundres  in  Artois  and  Pycardie 

87.  And  born  hym  wel  as  of  so  litel  space 

88.  In  hop?  to  stonden  in  his  lady  grace  1  1 

89.  Embrouded  was  he  as  it  were  a  meede 

90.  Al  ful  of  fressJie  floures,  whyte   and  rede  . .  1 

91.  Syngynge  he  was  and  floytynge  al  the  day 

92.  He  was  as  fressh  as  is  the  month  of  May 

93.  Short  was  his  goivne  with  sieves  longe  and  wyde       1 

94.  Wel  koude  he  sit  on  hors  and  faire  ryde  . .  1 

95.  He  koude  songes  make  and  wel  endite  . .  1 

96.  luste  and  eek  daunce  and  wel  purtreye  and  write 

97.  So  hoote  he  loved  that  by  nyghtertale 

98.  He  slepte  namoore  than  dooth  the  nyghtingale        2 

99.  Curteis  he  was  lowely  and  servisable 
100.  And  carf  biforn  his  fader  at  the  table. 


Percentage  of  apocopation:    29.0%  20  16         39 

III.    FEE-CHAUCERIAN  POETRY 

In  studying  the  linguistic  forms  of  Chaucer  it  is,  of 
course,  necessary  to  take  into  consideration  the  state  of 
the  language  as  he  found  it.  But  when  we  turn  to  the 
Middle  English  poetry  written  in  the  century  before  Chau- 
cer— chiefly  metrical  romances — it  becomes  evident,  at 
the  outset,  that  no  accurate  conclusions  can  be  drawn ;  the 
best  that  we  can  hope  for  is  to  detect  certain  general  ten- 
dencies. For  it  is  not  only  the  imperfect  condition  of 
the  texts  and  the  vagueness  of  chronology  that  baffle  us, 
but  even  more  the  confusion  of  dialects,  the  rhythmical 
ineptitude,  and  the  uncertainty  of  accentuation,  all  point- 
ing to  a  language  in  a  state  of  transition — chaotic  and 
well-nigh  formless. 

"The  apocopation  of  the  whole  Prologue  is  28.1%. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL       E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  71 

That  apocope  began  as  soon  as  Middle  English  began  2l 
we  may  rest  assured.  It  is  clearly  seen  in  the  Poema 
Morale  c.  1160-70  and  Owl  and  Nightingale  c.  1220— - 
both  in  the  Southern  dalect,  though  in  these  two  poems  it 
apparently  followed  no  fixed  rule.  The  words  which  in 
Chaucer  lose  e  most  frequently,  show  no  such  tendency 
here — a  fact  which  convinces  us  that  at  this  date  in  this 
dialect,  the  e  was  not  regularly^  lost  in  such  words.  Not 
very  much  later,  however,  c.  1250,  in  the  East  Midland 
we  find,  in  the-Debate  of  the  Body  and  the  Soul,  23.9% 
apocopated  forms,  and  moreover  apocope  occurring  in 
general  under  the  same  circumstances  as  in  Chaucer.  A 
few  years  later,  perhaps,  is  to  be  dated  Floriz  and  Blanche- 
fleur  in  about  the  same  dialect  with  35.4%  of  apocopa- 
tion. 

The  relation  of  the  dialects  to  one  another  may  be  sug- 
gested by  the  following  table :  22 

c.  1250 
E.  Midi. 

(c.   1250)    Delate,  23.9% 
(c.  1258)  Floriz  and  BL,  35.4% 

c.  1300 

South  N.  E.  Midi.  North 

R.  of  Glouc.,  29.4%       Amys   and  Amiloun       Sir  Tristrem,   62.7% 
Richard   (Kentish),  60.2% 

37.5% 

c.  1350-1400 

E.  Midi.  Northern 

Ipomedon,    67.6%  Sir    Isumbras,    76% 

These   statistics   bear   out   Morsbach's 23    statement   that 
apocope  began  in  the  North,  then  spread  to  the  Midland, 

21  Indeed  the  slurring  of  vowels  in  unaccented  syllables  in  late 
A.  S.  MSS.  suggests  possibility  of  syncope  or  apocope  as  early  as 
the  10th  century. 

38  In  longer  poems,  the  first  1000  11.  have  been  examined. 

38  Cf.  supra,  p.  59. 


72 


CHARLOTTE    FARRINGTON    BABCOCK 


and  finally  reached  the  more  conservative  South.  They 
also  show  that  the  increase  of  apocope  in  all  dialects  was 
rapid;  take  for  example  the  23.9%  of  the  Debate  and  the 
67.6%  of  the  Ipomedon,  barely  a  hundred  years  apart. 

The  text  of  the  Havelok,  which  has  16.6%  of  apoco- 
pated forms,  might  be  mentioned  at  this  point.  Without 
attributing  undue  importance  to  my  statistics,  I  might 
suggest  that  if  the  poem  were  written  c.  1302  24  as  has 
generally  been  stated,  in  accordance  with  a  supposed 
historical  reference,25  it  would  be  half  a  century  later 
than  Floriz  and  Blanchefteur  (in  the  same  dialect)  ;  in 
which  case  the  small  amount  of  apocope  would  be  extra 
ordinary.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  date  it,  with  Skeat,26 
considerably  earlier,  the  conditions  would  be  easily  ex- 
plained. 

It  is  worth  while  to  note,  for  future  reference,  two 
things : 

(1)  In  all  these  texts  the  classification  according  to 
Chaucer  can  be  used,  for  the  forms  which  apocopate 
e  in  Chaucer,  do  likewise  in  these  poems. 

(2)  There  is  a  slight  tendency  for  the  weak  adjective 
to  retain  the  inflectional  e  more  often  than  the  other 
parts  of  speech. 

IV.    CHAUCER 

To  understand  the  history  of  the  inflectional  e  in  Chau- 
cer, it  is  important  to  have  a  clear  idea  of  the  order  in 
which  the  poet's  works  were  produced;  but  unfortunately 

**Cf.  Holthausen's  edit.,  p.  x. 

85  L.  1006  refers  to  Parliament.  Often  held  to  be  the  first  Parlia- 
ment, of  1301. 

28 Skeat  (edition  Oxf.,  Clar.  Press,  1902,  §13,  p.  xxvi)  considers 
the  reference  to  parliament  a  late  interpolation. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  73 

anything  like  a  definite  chronology  of  Chaucer  is  at  pre- 
sent out  of  the  question.  I  shall  make  no  attempt  to  pro- 
pose a  system  of  my  own,  or  to  summarize  the  chrono- 
logical schemes  already  propounded.  I  shall  merely  refer 
in  passing  to  the  most  familiar  theories  and  see  how  far 
my  statistics  are  in  accordance  with  those  which  have  been 
most  widely  accepted. 

I  have  examined  in  full  all  the  longer  poems  of  Chaucer 
— the  Troilus,  Legend  of  Good  Women,  House  of  Fame, 
Book  of  the  Duchess,  Parlement  of  Foules,  and  all  the 
Canterbury  Tales.  Fortunately  we  can  begin  on  safe 
ground  with  the  Boole  of  the  Duchess,  which  is  generally 
conceded  to  have  been  written  13 69-70. 27  In  this  poem 
the  per-cent.  of  apocopation  is  55.1%.  When  we  place 
this  beside  the  Ipomedon  with  67.6%  apocopation  (in  a 
dialect  slightly  more  Northern ;  for  Chaucer's  dialect  was 
that  of  London, — E.  Midland  with  a  tendency  toward 
Southern)  we  may  conclude  that  Chaucer,  at  this  period, 
treated  the  e  much  as  his  predecessors  had  done,  with, 
however,  a  slight  amount  of  conservatism. 

The  Parlement  of  Foules  is  claimed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten in  1381-2  and  to  have  referred  to  the  marriage  of 
Richard  and  Anne  of  Bohemia.28  In  this  poem  the  apo- 
cope is  35.2%.  What  is  responsible  for  the  decrease? 

A  comparison  with  Chaucer's  famous  contemporary, 
Grower,  may  throw  some  light  on  the  subject.  Gower 
wrote  French  verse  voluminously,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  invariable  rule  of  French  poetry,  always  retained  the 
feminine  e  with  syllabic  value.  His  English  works  too 
show  the  same  scrupulous  regularity;  in  the  Prologue 

"After  the  death  of  the  Duchess;  cf.  Kitlr.,  Date  of  Troilus,  Ch. 
Soc.,  second  series,  No.  42. 

38  Koch's  Chronol.  of  Chaucer's  Writings,  Hid.,  No.  27,  p.  37, 
§  120. 


74  CHARLOTTE    FABBINGTON    BABCOCK 

to  the  Confessio  Amantis  only  4.7%  of  the  words  apo- 
copate e.  Gower,  then,  appears  to  have  transferred  the 
French  treatment  of  e  into  English  verse.  It  is  hardly 
probable  that  a  language  exerting  so  considerable  an  in- 
fluence on  Gower  should  not  leave  some  mark  on  an  im- 
pressionable young  poet  like  Chaucer.  Is  not  this  mark 
to  be  seen  in  the  increased  retention  of  the  e  in  the  P.  F.  ? 
To  be  sure,  this  influence  might  have  been  expected  in 
the  B.  D.,  but  the  strong  accentual  character  of  the  lines 
suggests  that  Chaucer  had  not  at  that  date  broken  away 
from  the  older  English  versification.  In  the  twelve  years 
that  followed,  however,  he  had  an  excellent  opportunity  to 
be  evolving  a  style  of  his  own.  Now  any  poet  with  a 
sensitive  ear  for  cadences  could  hardly  have  failed  to  note 
the  vast  superiority  of  French  over  English  verse  in  point 
of  rhythm.  The  increased  retention  of  e  in  P.  F.  may 
indicate  either  the  unconscious  influence  exerted  by  his 
study  of  foreign  models,  or  a  definite  purpose  on  Chaucer's 
part  to  reproduce  the  French  rhythm  by  the  most  obvious 
means — frequent  use  of  feminine  e.  It  is  characteristic 
of  his  habitual  moderation  and  good  sense  that  he  adapted 
the  system  to  his  own  language,  and  did  not,  like  Gower, 
cramp  the  English  verse  after  the  fashion  of  Procrustes, 
by  forcing  it  into  the  French  mold. 

Proceeding  with  the  texts,  we  are  confronted  with  prob- 
lems in  Troilus  and  the  House  of  Fame,  which  are  gen- 
erally considered  together  and  variously  dated  with  refer- 
ence to  each  other.  For  Troilus,  we  may  as  well  assume 
Lowes's  29  date  1383-5  and  grant  with  him  and  Professor 
Kittredge  30  that  the  H.  F.  precedes  it.  I  am  inclined  to 
believe  that  H.  F.  follows  P.  F.  and  that  it  was  written 

"Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  xx,  pp.  823-833. 
10  Date  of  Troilus. 


75 


in  about  the  same  period  as  the  Troilus,  perhaps  even 
while  the  Troilus  was  in  the  making;  in  which  case  the 
poet's  interest  in  his  more  extensive  and  much  greater 
poem  would  easily  account  for  the  unfinished  condition 
in  which  the  H.  F.  was  left. 

My  reasons  for  this  date  are  mainly  linguistic.  The 
H.  F.  has  20.3%  apocope,  the  Troilus  17.6%.  If  the 
H.  F.,  written  in  the  octosyllabic  couplet,  the  metre  of 
B.  D.  (which  has  55.1%  apocope),  were  composed  shortly 
after  B.  D.,  or  at  any  rate  were  the  next  considerable 
poem,  the  situation  would  be  almost  inexplicable.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  assume  that  P.  F.  intervened  and  that 
in  this  poem  in  decasyllabic  line  (a  metre  which  may 
have  been  borrowed  directly  from  Machault)  Chaucer  was 
becoming  familiar  with  the  increased  use  of  the  e,  it  is 
easy  to  imagine  that  he  would  experiment  with  it  soon 
in  an  octosyllabic  poem,  and  for  a  time  employ  the  e  with 
more  and  more  frequency.  At  any  rate,  the  17.6%  of  the 
Troilus,  which  shows  the  high-water  mark  of  retention, 
would  bear  out  such  an  assumption. 

With  the  Legend  of  Good  Women  we  are  again  on  un- 
certain ground.  The  legends  themselves  may  have  been 
written  at  any  time  between  1381-6.  The  earlier  F  pro- 
logue, according  to  Lowes,31  came  in  1386 — the  G  in 
1394.32  The  apocope  for  the  legends  themselves  is  24.7% 
for  the  F  prologue  28.2%,  and  for  G  32.3%.  These  fig- 
ures seem  to  point  to  a  reaction, — a  breaking  away  from 
we  may  call  the  "  French  system."  To  be  sure,  the  difFer- 

81  Lowes,  Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  xix,  pp.  595-7,  shows  influence  of  Ma- 
chault, Froissart,  Deschamps. 

82 If.  Ph.,  1910,  pp.  165-187;  1911,  pp.  23-30:  influence  of  Des- 
champs' Miroir  de  Mariage,  which  could  not  have  reached  Chaucer 
before  1393.  ^ 


76  CHARLOTTE    F ARLINGTON    BAB  COCK 

ence  between  28.2  and  32.3  is  not  great  in  itself;  but  when 
one  considers  the  number  of  identical  lines  in  the  two 
prologues,  the  increase  becomes  significant.  We  shall  have 
to  look  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  however,  to  see  whether 
this  is  merely  fortuitous,  or  whether  it  indicates  a  definite 
purpose  on  Chaucer's  part. 

The  C.  T.  extend  over  such  a  considerable  period  that 
they  are  of  all  Chaucer's  works  the  most  difficult  to  deal 
with.  For  purposes  of  simplification  I  shall  make  use  of 
a  division  suggested  by  Miss  Hammond.33  She  treats  the 
tales  in  the  following  three  classes: 

1.  Those  which  Chaucer  had  previously  written,   as- 
signed to  a  pilgrim  whom  he  created  later,   after 
the  idea  of  the  pilgrimage  had  occurred  to  him. 

2.  Those  written  with  the  pilgrim  in  mind. 

3.  Those  written  after  the  poem  was  in  progress,  and 
forced  upon  a  pilgrim. 

In  the  first  group  I  should  place  Second-  Nun  and  Monk, 
which  have  always  been  regarded  as  early,  and  the  Knight, 
which  is  probably  to  be  dated  c.  1381-2  34 — not  far  at  any 
rate  from  the  time  of  the  Troilus.  The  apocopation — 
Monk  28.7%,  Knight  28.1%,  Nun  25.4% — is  not  un- 
natural, if  we  consider  these  as  roughly  contemporaneous 
with  P.  F. 

The  second  group  is  simplified  by  subdivision  into: 


83  Chaucer,  A  BiUiogr.  Manual,  pp.  250  ff. 

84  Lowes,  in  *Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  xix,  sees  reference  to  Tempest  of  Dec. 
1381.     Emerson,  in  Studies  in  Honor  of  J.  M.  Hart,  N.  Y.,  1910, 
pp.  203  ff.,  finding  reference  to  Richard's  parliament  and  the  alliance 
of  England  and  Bohemia,  suggests  1381-2,  giving  evidence  corrobo- 
rative to  Lowes. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  77 

(a)  earlier          and                     (b)  later 
Gen.  Prol,         28.1%         Nun  s  Priest,     33.3% 

Miller,                 29%            Pardoner,  36.4% 

Reve,                   27.8%          Clerk,  33.6% 

Physic.,              24.3%         tfgtwre,  35.7% 

M.  of  L.,  38.5% 

C.  T.,  35.7% 

Shipman,  35.4% 

It  is  extremely  probable  that  the  earlier  tales  of  the 
second  group  were  composed  at  about  the  same  time.  The 
Physician  has  been  regarded  by  Tatlock  35  as  the  first  tale 
to  be  written  for  the  Canterbury  scheme.  Prioress, 
25.5%,  Thopas,  41.4%,  Manciple,  28.2%,  all  belong  to 
the  main  group,  but  are  rather  too  short  to  give  important 
statistical  evidence.  We  should  expect  greater  apocope 
in  Sir  Thopds,  since  it  is  a  parody  of  the  metrical  ro- 
mance, which  apocopated  with  great  frequency.  With  no 
proof  to  the  contrary,  the  greater  maturity  of  treatment 
which  can  be  detected  in  the  remaining  tales  of  this  group 
makes  a  later  date  seem  reasonable. 
In  the  third  main  group  would  fall: 

Wife  of  Bath's  Prol,         43.8% 
Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,  39.1% 

Freres  Tale,  42.5% 

Somnours  Tale,  37.0% 

Merchant's  Tale,  32.7% 

Franklins  Tale,  44.9% 

All  of  these  which  form  the  so-called  "  marriage  group  " 
are  intimately  related  and  show  the  influence  of  Des- 
champs,  Miroir  de  Mariage,™  also  discernible  in  the  G 
Prologue  of  L.  G.  W.  This  Miroir 37  could  not  have 
reached  Chaucer  before  1393. 

xDevel.  and  Chron.,  pp.  155-6. 

38  and  "Lowes,  M.  Ph.,  1910,  p.  165-187;  and  1911,  pp.  23-30. 


78  CHABLOTTE    FABBINGTON    BABCOCK 

The  head  and  end  links  which  have  been  treated  to- 
gether offer  interesting  testimony.  They  are  presumably 
made  up  from  material  of  widely  divergent  dates;  some 
from  the  time  of  the  general  prologue,  others  from  the 
latest  period.  The  apocope  is  38%,  which  is  just  about 
what  we  should  expect ;  for  an  average  of  the  per-cents  of 
the  Prologue  and  the  Franklins  Tale  is  36.5%  (and  these 
poems  may  be  taken  as  representing  the  extreme  chrono- 
logical limits  of  the  links). 

It  is,  of  course,  unsafe  to  attach  very  great  importance 
to  statistics  of  individual  tales.  Yet,  as  a  whole,  those 
which  have  been  generally  agreed  upon  as  early  apocopate 
considerably  less  than  those  which  are  indubitably  late. 
We  can  see,  then,  in  the  C.  T.  distinct  marks  of  an  increase 
of  apocope,  the  first  suggestion  of  which  appeared  in  the 
L.  G.  W. 

We  may  now  hypothecate  a  chronological  sequence 
which  will  be  something  as  follows: 

Boole  of  Duchess,  55.1% 

Parlement  of  Foules,  35.2% 

House  of  Fame,  20.3 

Troilus,  17.6 

Bk.  I,  21.0 

Bk.  II,  23.7 

Bk.  Ill,  14.6% 

Bk.  IV,  16.5% 

Bk.  V,  14.1% 

Individual  "  legends  "  between  H.  F. 

and  F.  prologue,  24.7% 

F  Prologue  L.  G.  W.  (1386),               28.2% 

G  Prologue  L.  G.  W.  (1394),               32.3% 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  ee  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH 


79 


2. 


Prologue, 
Miller, 


Canterbury  Tales: 

1.    Before  scheme  was  planned  (before  1387) 
Monk,  28.7% 

Second  Nun,  25.4% 

Knight,  28.1% 

Canterbury  Tales  period,  proper   (1387-1391) 
1)   earlier: 

28.1% 
29.0% 
27.8% 
24.3% 
25.5% 
28.2% 
41.4% 

later : 

Nuns  Priest, 

Pardoner, 

Cleric, 

Squire, 


Physician, 
?  Prioress, 
?  Manciple, 


2) 


M.  of  L., 
Canon's  Yeoman, 
Shipman, 


33.3% 

36.4% 
33.6% 
35.7% 
38.5% 
35.7% 
35.4% 


3.    After  C.  T.  period— Marriage  group   (1393-6) 

Wife  of  Bath's  Prol,  43.8% 

Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,  39.1% 

Frere,  42.5% 

Somnour,  37.0% 

Merchant,  32.7% 

Franklin,  44.9% 

Links,  38% 

Or  the  same  order  may  be  expressed  by  a  diagram,*in  a 
curve  like  the  following  (the  lower  line  representing  great- 
est apocopation  and  the  upper  greatest  retention). 


CHARLOTTE    FARRINGTON    BABCOCK 


Period 


SS.1 


Now  having  ascertained  the  per-cent.  of  apocopation  in 
Chaucer's  poem  and  answered  the  first  question,  let  us  turn 
to  the  second. 

What  are  the  factors  determining  apocope? 
Is  apocope  merely  a  metrical  license,  or  is  it  in 
some  way  related  to  inflectional  decay,,  repro- 
ducing the  contemporary  conditions  of  the  lan- 
guage ? 

Certain  factors  clearly  do  not  count,  and  it  will  be 
well  to  eliminate  them  at  first.  The  nature  of  the  pre- 
ceding consonant,  or  of  the  vowel  in  the  preceding  syllable, 
does  not  affect  apocopation.  Are  we  to  conclude  with 
Professor  Kittredge  38  that  "  the  upshot  of  all  this  appears 
to  be  that  apocope,  except  in  the  case  of  a  few  words  .  .  , 
must  be  regarded  as  a  license  for  the  nonce,  and  cannot 
be  brought  under  any  rules  but  those  of  metrical  exi- 
gency "  ? 

At  the  outset  we  assumed  that  two  kinds  of  words  were 
liable  to  lose  e: 

88  Troilus,  §  135,  4. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  8  1 

1)  Words  with  recessive  accent  (which  would  corres- 
pond to  Kittredge's  metrical  exigency). 

2)  A  few  exceptional  cases — especially  words  of  ex- 
treme frequency. 

The  statistics  have  proved  this  assumption  to  be  true. 
Are  there  any  factors  which  are  not  disposed  of  in  the 
categories  "  metrical  exigency  "  and  "  exceptional  cases  "  ? 
Two  possible  distinctions  are  worthy  of  consideration, 
origin  and  grammatical  function: 

1.  7s  the  nominative  e  39  treated  in  the  same  way  in 
nouns  of  Germanic  and  of  Romance  origin?  The 
following  table  will  indicate: 


B.D., 
P.  P., 
H.  F., 
L.  G.  W., 

Troilus, 


Germ. 

Eom. 

9  of  Apoc. 
56.4 

%  of  Apoc. 

66.4 

29.2 

23.3 

11.4 

8.9 

42.3 

32.6 

I  32.7 

I     5.2 

II  27.3 

II  10. 

III  14.7 

Ill  10.7 

IV  11.1 

IY     5.7 

Y  13.0 

Y     4.0 

In  this  table  we  see  at  least  a  tendency  for  the  Komance 
noun  to  retain  e  more  frequently  than  the  Germanic  one. 
The  fact  that  this  is  most  marked  in  the  Troilus  and  that 
the  only  exception  is  offered  by  the  B.  D.  is  interesting 
and  significant;  for  this  is  not  the  first  time  that  the  two 
poems  have  been  diametrically  opposed  in  form.  B.  D. 
(55.1)  represents  the  greatest  and  Troilus  (17.6)  the  least 

•  • 

89 1  have  restricted  this  to  nominative  e-,  for  in  verbs  and  inflected 
adjectives  the  e  indicates  not  origin  but  Germanic  inflection. 


82 


CHARLOTTE    F  ARLINGTON    BAB  COCK 


apocope  in  Chaucer.  Does  not  the  treatment  of  the  Ro- 
mance noun  in  these  two  poems  lend  support  to  the  theory 
that  Chaucer  retained  e  through  French  influence?  If 
he  did,  we  should  expect  the  e  of  Romance  origin  to  be 
preserved  with  particular  frequency,  in  order  to  reproduce 
the  rhythm  of  the  French  verse. 

2.    Does  one  part  of  speech  tend  to  Tceep  e  more  than 
another? 

The  following  statistics  have  been  arranged  according 
to  parts  of  speech  to  answer  this  question: 


$ 

J< 

* 

i 

* 

Troilus   1 

21.0 

Troilus  II 

23.7 

Troilus  III 

14.6 

Troilus  IV 

16.5 

Troilus    V 

14.1 

Wk.    Adj. 

7.8 

Wk.    Adj. 

11.1 

Wk.    Adj. 

7.2 

Wk.    Adj. 

6.3 

Wk.    Adj. 

8.5 

Verb 

19.6 

Adv. 

12.3 

Noun 

13.3 

Noun 

9.3 

Noun 

10.1 

Noun 

25.9 

Noun 

20.6 

Adj. 

14.2 

Adv. 

16.2 

Verb 

16.0 

Adv. 

29.4 

Verb 

28.2 

Adv. 

14.9 

Adj. 

16.6 

Adv. 

17.1 

Adj. 

30. 

Adj. 

35.1 

Verb 

17.3 

Verb 

22.1 

Adj. 

22.2 

Tr.  (wh.) 

17.6 

B.  D. 

55.1 

H.    F. 

20.3 

L.    G.    W. 

26.6 

P.  F. 

35.2 

Wk.    Adj. 

8.1 

Wk.    Adj. 

20.3 

Wk.    Adj. 

7.5 

Wk.    Adj. 

6.7 

Wk.    Adj. 

16.1 

Nou* 

14.6 

Adv. 

38.0 

Noun 

10.3 

Adj. 

20.2 

Adj. 

25. 

AdT. 

17.1 

Adj. 

40. 

Adv. 

16.2 

Verb 

26.3 

Noun 

26.7 

Verb 

20.9 

Noun 

60. 

Verb 

21.8 

Adv. 

26.8 

Verb 

42.3 

Adj. 

22.9 

Verb 

63.5 

Adj. 

41.2 

Noun 

38.9 

Adv. 

50. 

K».    Tale 

28.2 

Miller 

29.0 

Prologue 

28.1 

M.   of  L. 

38.5 

Monk 

28.7 

Wk.    Adj. 

6.7 

Wk.    Adj. 

4.2 

Wk.    Adj. 

8. 

Wk.    Adj. 

16.6 

Wk.    Adj. 

13.8 

AdT. 

26.5 

Adv. 

16.6 

Adj. 

8.5 

Verb 

39.4 

Noun 

17.2 

Verb 

28.6 

Adj. 

23.0 

Adv. 

17.8 

Adj. 

44.4 

Verb 

32.8 

Adj. 

33.7 

Verb 

31.6 

Verb 

30.0 

Noun 

46.6 

Adv. 

40.7 

Noun 

40.8 

Noun 

38.8 

Noun 

44.4 

Adv. 

50. 

Adj. 

41.6 

tfw't  Pr. 

33.3 

Pardoner 

36.4 

W.  B.  Pro. 

43.8 

Somnour 

37.0 

Clerk 

33.6 

Wk.    Adj. 

7.5 

Wk.   Adj. 

18.4 

Wk.    Adj. 

9.0 

Wk.    Adj. 

5.2 

Wk.    Adj. 

15.1 

AdT. 

35.2 

Noun 

27.0 

Noun 

34.2 

Noun 

31.5 

Noun 

24.4 

Adj. 

37.5 

Adv. 

28.5 

Adv. 

39.1 

Adj. 

36.3 

Adv. 

36.1 

Verb 

37.6 

Verb 

42.0 

Adj. 

49.8 

Verb 

44.7 

Verb 

39.3 

Noun 

39.6 

Adj. 

45.4 

Verb 

51.7 

Adv. 

53.5 

Adj. 

53.8 

Verch. 

32.7 

Squire 

35.2 

Franklin 

44.9 

Can.   Yeo. 

35.7 

Links 

38. 

Wk.    Adj. 

6.2 

Wk.    Adj. 

18.1 

Wk.    Adj. 

12.7 

Wk.    Adj. 

20.6 

Wk.    Adj. 

20.3 

Noun 

29.5 

Verb 

32.5 

Noun 

35.0 

Verb 

34.7 

Adj. 

25. 

Adj. 

32:3 

Adv. 

39.2 

Adv. 

50. 

Adv. 

87.1 

Adv. 

29.5 

AdT. 

36.1 

Noun 

41.7 

Verb 

52.6 

Noun 

38.9 

Verb 

40.7 

Verb 

40.7 

Adj. 

50. 

Adj. 

62.5 

Adj. 

69.4 

Noun 

42.6 

THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  83 

These  per-cents  seem  to  represent  every  possible  per- 
mutation and  combination,  with  one  exception — the  weak 
adjective  which  retains  e  more  than  any  other  gramma- 
tical form.  This  phenomenon  is  so  striking  that  there 
must  be  some  explanation  of  it.  iSuch  an  explanation, 
I  believe,  is  to  be  sought  first  on  metrical  grounds.  The 
regular  "definite"  construction  presupposes  a  definite 
article  followed  immediately  by  an  adjective  and  a 
noun.  If  this  adjective  were  a  polysyllable  with 
recessive  accent,  according  to  the  well-established  rule, 
e  would  be  silent ;  so  such  cases  would  not  be  in 
point.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  were  accented  on  the 
penult  and  were  followed  by  a  noun  accented  on  the  first 
syllable  (and  the  larger  proportion  of  nouns  were  or  could 
l)e  so  pronounced),  then  the  inflectional  e  would  afford 
just  the  light  syllable  necessary  to  keep  the  two  accents 
from  clashing.  In  this  respect  we  can  see  that  the  M.  E. 
poet  had  a  great  advantage  over  the  poet  of  today.  Com- 
pare for  example  the  felicity  of 

To  Thebes  with  his  waste  walles  wyde 
or 

Hym  thoughts  that  his  herte  wolde  breke 

with  the  Elizabethan  Surrey's 

For  my  sweet  thoughts  sometime  do  pleasure  bring, 

where  the  accents  fall  awkwardly  on  possessive  and  noun, 
depriving  the  adjective  of  its  proper  stress.  To  be  sure, 
every  inflectional  e  was  dependent  upon  the  accents  of 
other  words  in  the  line,  but  in  other  cases  the  writer  might 
arrange  the  words  in  any  order  that  he  desired;  whereas 
the  weak  adjective  has  its  position  determined  by  its  very 
nature,  and  removed  from  its  context,  loses  its  identity. 
Are  we,  then,  to  say  that  this  is  not  due  to  "gram- 


84  CHABLOTTE    FARRHSTGTON    BAB  COCK 

matical  function,"  but  that  it  resolves  itself  into  another 
aspect  of  "  metrical  exigency  "  ?  Yes  and  no.  Originally 
the  cause  was  a  metrical  one,  but  the  frequent  retention 
of  e  for  the  sake  of  metre  would  almost  inevitably  have 
reacted  upon  the  grammatical  use,  so  that  the  arrangement 
of  article,  adjective  with  e,  and  noun  became  almost  a 
petrified  phrase  which  retained  e  very  late.  It  would 
probably  have  received  the  same  treatment  in  oral  speech, 
owing  to  the  innate  love  of  rhythm  which  manifests  itself 
so  often  in  language. 

Thus  we  may\  conclude  that,  aside  from  metrical  re- 
quirements and  a  few  exceptional  words  of  great  fre- 
quency, 

1.  Chaucer  retained  e  more  often  in  nouns  of  Romance 
than  in  those  of  Germanic  origin. 

2.  For  reasons  both  metrical  and  grammatical,,  Chau- 
cer retained  the  e  of  the  weak  adjective  more  than 
of  any  other  of  the  parts  of  speech.' 

Skeat40  regards  Chaucer's  language  as  intentionally 
archaic.  In  H.  F.  and  Troilus  it  undoubtedly  is,  yet  in 
B.  D.  and  the  Franklins  Tale  the  linguistic  conditions 
of  the  day  are  probably  reflected, — conditions  that  did 
not  change  materially  through  'Chaucer's  lifetime.  If 
they  had  changed,  we  should  naturally  expect  more  than 
38%  apocope  in  the  C.  T.  Links  which  are  almost  entirely 
dialogues;  for  an  artificial  poetic  diction  in  the  mouth  of 
Cook  or  Manciple  would  be  preposterous. 

If  the  language  did  not  lose  its  inflections  to  any 
extent  during  Chaucer's  life,  we  naturally  ask  how  far  he 
himself  was  responsible  for  the  fact.  In  some  measure 
both  Chaucer  and  Gower  unquestionably  exercised  a 

40  Works,  vi,  p.  Ixv. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  85 

conservative  influence;  it  may  even  be  that  without  their 
work,  the  e  would  have  become  obsolete  by  1400.  But 
it  is  aside  from  the  point  to  speculate  upon  what  the  con- 
ditions might  have  been  had  Chaucer  not  written;  let  us 
rather  turn  to  Lydgate  and  find  out  what  they  actually 
were. 

V.    LYDGATE 

Professor  Schick's  view  that  Lydgate,  in  the  main, 
treated  the  e  as  Chaucer  did  is  perfectly  sound,  and  for 
that  reason  Chaucerian  standards  may  be  applied  to  his 
work  with  absolute  safety.  Unquestionably,  Lydgate 
would  feel  free  to  retain  or  apocopate  the  e  under  practi- 
cally the  same  circumstances  that  determined  Chaucer's 
usage.  If  there  is  a  distinction  to  be  drawn,  it  is  merely 
one  of  degree. 

In  an  author  so  prolific  as  Lydgate,  it  has  been  im- 
possible for  me  to  make  an  exhaustive  examination.  The 
poems  that  I  have  chosen,  however,  are  intended  to  repre- 
sent adequately  all  the  phases  of  Lydgate' s  development. 
They  cover  at  least  six  distinct  types  and  may  be  classified 
under  the  following  headings: 

1)  Fable:  Horse,  Goose,  and  Sheep. 

2)  Love-vision  allegory:  Black  Knight,  Flour  of  Cur- 
tesye,  Temple  of  Glas,  Reson  and  Sensualite. 

3)  Narrative  of  Adventure  from  one  of  famous  cycles: 
Troy  Boole  I. 

4)  Religious  work:   (a)   Allegory — Pilgrimage   (1000 
11.)      (&)  Saints'  Lives— St.  Margaret,  St.  Giles,  St. 
Edmund  and  Fremund. 

5)  Autobiographical  Confession:  Testament.       0 

6)  Translation  of  didactic  work:  Secrees. 


86  CHARLOTTE    FABRINGTON    BABCOCK 

My  statistics  of  apocopation  are  as  follows: 

1.  H.,  G.,  and  8.,  52.5%  7.  Pilgrimage,            30.  % 

2.  Flour  of  C.,  33.6 "  8.  St.  Margaret,         37.3 " 

3.  Black  Knight,  29.6 "  9.  St.   Giles,               47.5 " 

4.  Temple  of  Glas,  45.3  "  10.  E.  and  Fremund,  53.6  " 

5.  Reson   and   Sens.,  21.2"  11.  Testament,             62.7" 

6.  Troy  Boole  (I),  29.6"  12.  Seerees,                  48.4" 

This  list  is  in  accordance  with  the  chronology  given  by 
Schick  in  the  introduction  to  the  T.  of  G. — a  sequence 
generally  agreed  upon, — with  the  exception  of  the  T.  G. 
itself, — which  Schick  assigns  to  1403  on  account  of  an 
astrological  allusion  in  the  text.  Dr.  MacCracken,.41  on  the 
other  hand,  finds  reference  to  the  wedding  of  William 
Paston  and  Agnes  Berry,  occurring  in  1420,  and  sub- 
stantiates the  later  date  further  by  citing  the  use  of  heroic 
couplet,  which  would  argue  some  time  between  1412-1426. 
Such  an  arrangement  would  place  T.  G.  between  the 
Troy  Boole  and  Pilgrimage. 

The  statistics  point  to  a  development  not  unlike  Chau- 
cer's. The  text  of  H.  G.  8.  is  so  unsatisfactory  that  we 
cannot  attach  much  importance  to  it.  There  is  every  ap- 
pearance of  slovenliness  with  no  attempt  at  style,  and 
no  influence  of  Chaucer  is  discernible. 

In  the  F.  of.C.  and  Bl.  Kn.,  however,  we  find  echoes 
of  Chaucer  in  subject  matter,  and  with  this,  greater  re- 
tention of  the  e.  It  is  probable  that,  as  in  Chaucer,  the 
study  of  French  poetry  tended  to  increase  the  use  of  e, 
even  so  in  Lydgate  the  French  influence  through  the  me- 
dium of  Chaucer  brought  about  the  same  phenomenon. 

R.  and  8.  represents  e  at  its  height.     After  the  T.  Boole, 

*Publ.  M.  L.  A.,  xxm. 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  87 

it  is  more  frequently  apocopated.  In  this  regard,  the  sta- 
tistics would  argue  for  the  later  date  for  T.  G. 

After  the  completion  of  T.  Book,  we  may  mark  Lyd- 
gate's  "  conversion/'  significant  from  a  literary  point  of 
view  for  the  change  in  subject  matter — beginning  with  the 
translation  of  the  Pilgrimage.  From  this  time  on,  the 
inflections  lapse  into  the  conditions  of  the  contemporary 
language,  stripped  of  the  artificial  restraints  imposed  upon 
it  by  French  and  Chaucerian  poetry.  This  is  best  repre- 
sented by  the  Testament,  which  is  autobiographical  and 
would  be  written,  in  all  probability  in  a  natural,  collo- 
quial styjle. 

The  Secrees,  on  the  other  hand,  reverts  a  little  to  the 
older  style,  and  is  again  reminiscent  of  Chaucer:  cf.  1. 
1327:  So  can  nature  prikke  them  in  their  courage.  Ap- 
parently the  poet  is  trying  to  lighten  the  hopelessly  dull 
texture  by  occasional  purple  patches,  even  though  they 
be  borrowed  finery. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  whether  Lydgate's  gradual  disuse 
of  the  e  was  due  to  lateness  of  date  or  change  of  subject 
matter,  for  the  two  coincide.  Yet  it  is  natural  to  believe 
that  after  Chaucer's  death  Lydgate  would  inevitably  have 
relapsed  into  the  dialect  of  his  day.  It  is  tempting  but 
perhaps  unsafe  to  assume  that  he  took  less  pains  to  retain 
an  artificial  language  when  his  motive  power  was  spiritual 
fervor  rather  than  literary  distinction.  But  this  we  may 
claim,  with  regard  to  the  religious-didactic  work,  that  for 
lack  of  literary  models — notably  the  works  of  Chaucer — 
he  failed  to  retain  the  inflectional  e  to  any  extent. 

In  Lydgate's  work  we  see  no  marked  tendency  for  the 
Romance  word  to  retain  its  e.  In  four  out  of  six  longer 
poems  the  Germanic  word  retains  e  more  frequently. 
There  is,  however,  a  clear  evidence  that  the  weak  adjective 
was  treated  as  in  Chaucer. 


88 


CHARLOTTE    FABRINGTON    BABCOCK 


rf 

« 

t 

Jf 

Troy   Book 

29.6 

R.  and  S. 

21.2 

T.    of   G. 

45.3 

Pilgrimage 

30. 

Wk.   Adj. 

13.2 

Wk.    Adj. 

16.9 

Wk.    Adj. 

25. 

Wk.    Adj. 

18.6 

Adj. 

29.0 

Verb 

19.3 

Adv. 

41.2 

Adj. 

24.S 

Noun 

29.6 

Noun 

20.5 

Noun 

46.2 

Noun 

29.3 

Adv. 

31.3 

Adj. 

24.5 

Verb 

46.9 

Verb 

31.4 

Verb 

32.3 

Adv. 

31.8 

Adj. 

65.3 

Adv. 

36.8 

Secrees 

48.4 

Edmund    Fr. 

53.6 

Testament 

62.7 

Wk.  Adj. 

40.7 

Wk.    Adj. 

41.6 

Wk.    Adj. 

52.3 

Verb 

46.6 

Verb 

51.9 

Noun 

52.6 

Adv. 

48.2 

Noun 

55.9 

Adv. 

59.3 

Adj. 

50.6 

Adv. 

58.8 

Adj. 

68.1  i 

Noun 

52.3 

Adj. 

63.0 

Verb 

69.6 

This  peculiarity,  characterizing  most  of  the  metrical 
romances,  all  of  Chaucer  and  of  Lydgate,  is  seen  also  in 
Clanvowe's  little  poem  the  Cuckoo  and  Nightingale.  May 
we  not  then  regard  this  weak  adjective  as  a  kind  of  touch- 
stone for  the  use  of  the  e. 

The  only  striking  contradiction  that  I  have  found  is  in 
Hoccleve.  In  three  out  of  four  of  his  poems  the  weak 
adjective  retains  the  e  less  than  any  other  part  of  speech. 
There  is,  however,  something  suspicious  about  Hoccleve. 
His  apocopation  is  so  slight  for  the  time  in  which  he  is  writ- 
ing (Letter  of  Cupid  24.1%  ;  Male  Regie  9.4%  ;  Eegement 
of  Princes  13.7%  ;  Lerne  to  Die  10.6%)  that  his  use  of  e 
seems  like  affectation.  A  careful  examination  of  the  text 
makes  us  even  more  skeptical,  for  we  find  words  retaining 
e,  which  in  Chaucer  were  always  monosyllabic — cf.  R. 
of  P.  (238)  here,  (372)  wole,  (694)  where,  (859).fcorame, 
these,  (1018,  1583,  1766  etc.).  Moreover,  the  rule  of 
accent  is  constantly  being  infringed  upon  —  (1.  1523) 
tinknowen,  (582)  maistrye,  (1128)  Si&le — and  ungram- 
matical  e'a  are  added  by  analogy — as  in  the  imperative 
plural  of  strong  verbs,  (139)  take,  (1479)  understonde. 

All  this  convinces  us  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  highly 
artificial  language  written  by  a  man  who  has  little  sense 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  89 

of  rhythm,  who  is  imitating  not  the  spirit,  but  the  letter. 
One  gets  the  impression  that  Lydgate  "  with  all  his  im- 
perfections on  his  head "  (and  their  name  is  legion) 
nevertheless  belongs  to  the  age  and  school  of  Chaucer; 
whereas  Hoccleve  betrays  by  his  very  zeal,  his  kinship 
with  a  later  period. 

Lydgate's  relation  to  Chaucer  has  been  made  clear.  In 
his  early  poetry  he  apocopated  to  about  the  same  extent 
as  Chaucer,  under  pretty  much  the  same  conditions.  Later 
he  broke  away  from  the  Chaucerian  tradition  and  showed 
the  actual  state  of  the  language — a  language  which  was 
fast  losing  all  of  its  inflectional  forms.  Before  we  can 
understand  Lydgate' s  relation  to  his  successors,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  glance  briefly  at  the  poetry  of  the  following 
century. 

We  should  naturally  look  to  the  "  Chaucer-Schule " 
poetry,  if  anywhere,  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  "  final  e 
convention."  There  proves  to  be,  however,  no  evidence  that 
this  school  exerted  any  real  influence.  In  the  Flour  and 
Leaf,  Assembly  of  Ladies,  Ros's  Belle  Dame,  an  occasional 
e  is  retained,  but  the  extra  syllable  is  more  often  supplied 
by  es,  ed,  or  en.  In  the  Court  of  Love  the  use  of  en  has 
been  widely  extended  by  analogy  to  quite  ungrammatical 
forms.  A  proof  that  the  inflections  when  preserved  were 
purely  artificial  is  to  be  found  in  Burgh's  continuation  of 
the  Secrees.  In  the  prologue  of  98  lines,  where  the  writer 
is  using  his  own  language,  there  is  hardly  an  instance  of 
an  inflectional  e,  but  in  the  first  hundred  lines  of  the 
translation,  where  he  is  trying  to  emulate  Lydgate,  28  e's 
are  retained  under  practically  the  conditions  in  which 
Lydgate  would  have  used  them.  We  might  almost  com- 
pare this  to  the  effort  of  a  modern  school  boy  wr^ing 
Chaucerian  verse.  Apparently  the  last  poet  to  use  the  e 
intelligently  was,  strangely  enough,  Skelton.  I  say 


90  CHARLOTTE    FARRINGTON    BABCOCE1 

"  strangely,"  because  Skelton  is  generally  regarded  as 
standing  decidedly  on  the  modern  side  of  Schick's  "  great 
gulf  " ;  and  he  certainly  does  so  stand  in  his  bantering 
satires  in  the  snappy,  doggerel  line  that  has  received  his 
name.  But  in  the  Bowge  of  Court,  a  cumbersome  alle- 
gorical morality,  there  are  thirty-five  cases  of  e  used  cor- 
rectly. It  is  doubtful  whether  e  was  used  at  all  after  him, 
though  syllabic  ens  abound — particularly  in  infinitives. 
Of.  Wyatt,  Surrey,  Spenser,  Chatterton,  Thomson.  We 
know  that  from  the  time  of  Dry  den  till  the  antiquarian 
researches  of  Gray,  the  possibility  of  the  e  as  a  metrical 
resource  was  not  recognized. 

Having  followed  the  e  to  its  last  manifestations,  we  are 
now  ready  to  answer  the  three  questions. 

1.    What  per-cent  of  e's  historically  justified  are  apo- 
copated in  the  line? 

The  statistics  already  stated  are  tabulated  below  for 
purposes  of  reference. 

% 

PRE-CHAUCERIAN  :   Debate,  23.9 

Fl  and  Bl,  35.4 

King  Richard,  37.5 

Eolt.  of  Glouc.,  St.  Thorn.,  29.4 

A.  and  A.,  60.2 

Sir  Tristrem,  62.7 

Ipomedon,  67.6 

Isumbras,  76.0 

CHAUCER:                 B.  D.,  55.1 

P.  F.,  35.2 

H.  F.,  20.3 

Troilus,  17.6 

Legends,  24.7 

F  Prol.,  28.2 


THE  INFLECTIONAL  "  E  "  IN  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  91 

G.  Prol.,  32.3 
C.  Tales  (28.1-44.9)  See  p.  79. 

LYDGATE:  H.  G.  S.,  52.5 

FL  of  C.,  33.6 

BL  Kn.,  29.6 

T.  G.,  45.3 

E.  8.,  21.2 

T.  B.  (7),  29.6 

Pilgrim.,  30. 

St.  Marg.,  37.3 

8t.    Giles,  47.5 

E.  and  Fr.,  53.6 

Testam.,  62.7 

Secrees,  48.4 

2.  What  are  the  factors  determining  apocope?  Is  apo- 
cope merely  a  metrical  license,  or  is  it  in  some  way 
related  to  grammatical  decay,  reproducing  the  con- 
temporary conditions  of  the  language? 

In  the  works  of  Chaucer  and  Lydgate  we  found  that 
the  statements  made  by  Child,  ten  Brink,  and  Kittredge 
were  borne  out  and  that 

1)  Words  with  recessive  accent  lose  e; 

2)  Certain  words  of  extreme  frequency  lose  e. 

Aside  from  this  there  was  in  Chaucer  a  tendency  for 
the  Komance  word  to  retain  e  more  frequently  than  the 
one  of  Germanic  origin.  There  is  no  evidence  of  this 
tendency  in  Lydgate.  In  both,  however,  the  weak  adjec- 
tive retained  the  e  longer  than  any  other  inflectional  form, 
a  situation  which  we  explained  upon  moth  metrical  and 
grammatical  grounds.  9 

Is  metrical  apocope  related  to  grammatical  decay,  and 


92  CHARLOTTE    FARRINGTOI*   BABCOCK 

may  the  per-cent.  of  apocope  in  a  given  poein  be  taken  as 
representing  contemporary  linguistic  conditions? 

In  P.  P.,  H.  F.,  and  Troilus,  Chaucer  has  introduced 
a  French  system  of  versification  and  in  the  Bl.  Kn.,  Fl. 
of  C.,  and  R.  8.,  Lydgate  was  following  both  French  and 
Chaucerian  models.  In  these  works  we  are  dealing  with 
an  artificial  poetic  diction  which  does  not  reproduce  the 
spoken  language.  But  in  the  average  metrical  romance, 
where  apocope  is  determined  largely  by  dialect,  in  Chau- 
cer's B.  D.,  and  the  latest  of  the  "  Tales,"  and  finally  in 
the  poems  of  Lydgate  following  the  Troy  Boole,  the  per- 
cents  assuredly  give  some  indication  of  the  extent  of  gram- 
matical decay  which  the  inflections  have  undergone. 

3.  What  is  Lydgate  s  relation,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
Chaucer,  and,  on  the  other,  to  the  "new  school  of 
poetry  which  arose  in  the  sixteenth  century  "  ? 

The  answer  to  this  has  already  been  suggested.  In  the 
early  work,  the  imitation  of  Chaucer  was  as  thorough- 
going as  it  was  within  Lydgate's  power  to  compass.  The 
later  work,  however,  shows  a  relapse  into  the  vernacular ; 
the  subject  matter,  though  changed,  was  still  mediaeval; 
whereas  the  form  was  becoming  modern.  Lydgate  was  the 
last  poet  in  whose  works  the  inflectional  e  was  a  living 
thing,  and  it  was  so  only  in  his  earlier  productions ;  after 
him  it  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  dead,  and  none  of 
the  later  attempts  to  revive  it  could  impart  to  it  any 
real  vitality. 

Lydgate,  then,  may  be  said,  in  point  of  language,  to 
bridge  the  gulf  between  mediaeval  and  modern,  or  (chang- 
ing the  figure)  to  stand  like  a  two-headed  Janus  facing 
both  the  past  and  the  future. 

CHARLOTTE  FARRINGTO^  BABCOCK. 


III.— CHAUCER  AND  THE  SEVEN  DEADLY  SINS 

Among  men  of  the  Middle  Ages  no  theme,  religious  or 
secular,  was  more  widely  popular  than  the  motif  of  the 
Seven  Deadly  Sins.  From  summae  and  sermons,  from 
u  mirrors  "  and  manuals,  from  hymns,  "  moralities/7  and 
books  of  exempla,  from  rules  of  nuns  and  instructions  of 
parish  priests,  from  catechisms  of  lay  folk  and  popular 
penitentials,  and  finally  from  such  famous  allegories  as 
De  Guileville's  Pelerinage  every  medieval  reader  gleaned 
as  intimate  a  knowledge  of  the  Sins  as  of  his  Paternoster 
and  his  Creed,  and  hence  was  able  to  respond  to  every 
reference  to  these,  explicit  or  implicit.  Moreover  this 
theme,  which  had  absorbed  the  attention  of  Dante  through 
many  cantos  of  his  Purgatorio,  so  familiar  to  Chaucer, 
had,  in  our  poet's  own  day,  won  vivid  portrayal  from 
Langland  in  Piers  Plowman  and  had  claimed  eighteen 
thousand  lines  of  prolix  analysis  in  the  Mirour  de  I'Omme 
of  the  moral  Gower.  And  even  now,  while  Chaucer's 
own  Tales  were  in  the  making,  Gower's  Confessio  was 
reared  high  upon  the  foundation  of  general  interest  in 
this  motif.  ~No  wonder  that  it  made  an  irresistible  appeal 
to  Chaucer  too ! 

Before  any  discussion  of  a  particular  use  of  the  Sins  is 
possible,  it  is  necessary  to  say  a  few  words  of  the  place  of 
these  conceptions  in  medieval  thought.  The  Vices,  unsys- 
tematized  and  unclassified  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers, 
and  unreduced  to  a  strict  sevenfold  division  in  the  hom- 
ilies of  early  Englishmen,  like  Aldhelm  and  ^Elfric,  who 
recognize  eight  principal  Vices,  were  afterwards  adapted 
to  rigid  categories,  and  acquired  phases  and  features 

93 


94 


FREDERICK    TUPPER 


which  soon  became  stereotyped.1  The  very  order  was  fixed 
by  convention:  Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Sloth,  Avarice, 
Gluttony,  Lechery.  This  is  the  sequence  of  Dante's 
circles  of  Purgatory,  of  the  elaborate  analyses  in  Gower's 
Mirour  and  Confessio,  in  Wyclif's  Sermons,  in  Chaucer's 
Parson  s  Tale.  But  evidently  this  order  was  not  felt  to 
be  sacrosanct,  as  frequent  divergences  show.2 

More  formal  even  than  the  sequence  of  the  Sins  are  the 
traits  assigned  to  each.  When  Shakspere  inveighs  in  Ovid- 
ian  fashion  against  "  that  monster  Envy "  or  "  pale 
Envy "  or  "  lean  faced  Envy  in  her  loathsome  cave  "  or 
points  to  "the  unyoked  humor  of  your  idleness,"  he 
is  not  using  stock  conventions  of  the  formula;  but 
when  Chaucer  apostrophises  an  envious  woman  as  a 
serpent  and  her  sin  as  Satan-born  (B.  357)  or  hails 
Idleness  as  "the  nurse  unto  vices"  (G.  1),  he  is  re- 

1  See  Triggs,  Introduction  to  Assembly  of  the  Gods  (E.  E.  T.  Soc., 
Extra  Series,  69 ) ,  pp.  xix  f . 

8  In  the  Parable  of  the  Castle  of  Love  in  the  Cursor  Mundi  11. 
10040  F  (cited  by  Triggs,  p.  Ixx),  the  order  of  the  Sins  is  Pride, 
Envy,  Gluttony,  Lechery,  Avarice,  Wrath,  and  Sloth  (though  in  the 
Book  of  Penance  in  the  same  work  the  normal  order  is  followed)  ;  in 
the  sequence  of  Tales  in  the  Handling  Synne,  Pride,  Wrath,  Envy, 
Sloth,  Avarice,  Gluttony,  Lechery  (though  the  lines  against  Tour- 
naments, 4570  f.  respect  the  normal  order);  in  Piers  Plowman,  B. 
V.,  Pride,  Lechery,  Envy,  Wrath,  Avarice,  Gluttony,  and  Sloth,  but  in 
the  feofment  of  Passus  n,  79  f.,  Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Lechery,  Avar- 
ice, Gluttony,  Sloth.  The  order  in  the  Mireour  du  Monde  and  the 
Ayenbite  is  Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Sloth,  Avarice,  Lechery,  Gluttony, 
and  the  Sins  of  the  Tongue.  Jean  de  Meung's  Testament  (iv,  87) 
11.  1692f.  offers  two  widely  divergent  orders.  Even  in  ecclesiastical 
documents  appear  variations  from  the  norm.  In  "  Peckham's 
Constitutions "  Gluttony  is  the  fourth  Sin  and  Sloth  the  sixth, 
while  in  the  "York  Convocations"  the  order  is  reversed  (see  Lay 
Folk's  Catechism,  E.E.T.Soc.,  118,  p.  xvii).  In  all  lists,  however, 
Pride  is  the  first  of  the  Sins.  Deference  to  the  alphabet  in  the  ex- 
ample-books, which  invariably  illustrate  the  Vices,  shatters  com- 
pletely any  conventional  sequence. 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN"    DEADLY    SINS  95 

peating  traditional  commonplaces.  Only  voluminous 
reading  in  the  literature  of  the  Sins  will  enable  one 
to  distinguish  readily  all  the  branches  and  twigs  of  the 
deadly  tree.  And  such  a  reader  is  interested  to  find 
that  the  medieval  categories  of  error  often  run  directly 
counter  to  our  conceptions.  From  our  point  of  view  it  is 
natural  to  protest  against  the  inclusion  of  "  the  thief  on 
the  cross  "  under  Langland's  head  of  Sloth,  and  yet,  as 
R.  W.  Chambers  points  out,3  that  dilatory  sinner  finds  a 
place  in  every  formal  description  of  that  vice.  It  seems 
reasonable  to  condemn  Chaucer,  as  Simon  and  Eilers  have 
done,  for  his  subheads  of  Wrath  in  the  Parsons  Tale,  but 
these  very  traits  of  "  Idle  Words  "  and  "  Chiding,"  are 
features  of  the  Sin  in  many  a  collection.  A  seeming 
hodge-podge  of  evil  traits  in  the  famous  feofment  of  Piers 
Plowman,  Passus  n,  resolves  itself,  when  scanned  through 
fourteenth-century  glasses,  into  a  lucid  >and  time-honored 
classification  of  the  Vices.4  Hence  we  must  not  be  sur- 
prised to  find  that  to  Chaucer  and  his  fellows  Inobedience 
of  every  kind  is  one  of  the  chief  heads  of  Pride,  that 
Undevotion  in  worship  is  very  prominent  among  the 
phases  of  Sloth,  that  Murmur ation  or  "  Grucching " 
against  one's  own  wretched  lot  belongs  as  truly  to  Envy 
as  does  Detraction  of  one's  neighbors.  It  is  true  that  the 
formula  of  the  Sins  is  not  so  fixed  as  to  forbid  all  varia- 
tions from  its  categories,  but  these  variations  soon  become 
traditional  and  cause  little  confusion.  For  instance. 
Swearing  or  "  Great  Oaths  "  is  usually  classed  under  the 
head  of  Wrath,  and  yet  in  Langland  more  than  once  it  is 
transferred  to  Gluttony  both  as  a  fault  of  the  mouth  and  as 
a  feature  of  tavern-revel.  So,  too,  Chiding  as  a  Sin  of 

.'  Modern  Language  Review,  Jan.,  1910. 
4  Chambers,  I.  c. 


96  FREDERICK    TUPPER 

the  Tongue,  is  sometimes  found  apart,  as  in  the  Ayenbile 
and  Mireour  du  Monde,  from  its  category  of  Wrath. 
Poverty  finds  a  place  under  both  Pride  and  Envy,  and 
occasionally  under  Avarice;  yet  here  there  are  obvious 
distinctions  in  the  point  of  view.  Generally  the  limits  of 
variation  are  so  definitely  fixed  that  an  exemplum  of  the 
Sins,  even  though  its  title  or  tag  be  lacking,  can  be 
referred  easily  to  its  appropriate  head  by  the  discrimin- 
ating student  of  the  old  formula. 

Everyone  recalls  Chaucer's  formal  presentation  of  the 
Deadly  Seven  in  the  Parsons  Tale,  in  due  accord  with  the 
traditional  demands  of  penitential  sermons.4*  Even  the 
superficial  reader  cannot  fail  to  remark  his  casual  refer- 
ences to  each  and  all  the  Vices  in  the  course  of  the  Canter- 
bury stories : — the  passing  mention  of  "  the  sinnes  sevene  " 
in  The  Merchant's  Tale  (E.  1640),  of  Envy  in  the  Physi- 
cian's story  (C.  li4),  of  Pride  in  the  Second  Nun's  (G. 
476),  of  Gluttony  (Drunkenness)  and  Luxury  in  the  Man 
of  Law's  (B.  771  f.,  925  f.)  ;  and  the  incidental  discussion 
of  Wrath,  Avarice,  and  Idleness  in  the  Tale  of  Melibeus 
(§§  18,  51-52,  57-58).  Moreover  I  have  recently  discov- 
ered that  The  Canterbury  Tales  offers  us  yet  another  treat- 
ment of  the  Sins,  not  casual  but  organic;  that  in  several 
of  the  stories  the  poet  finds  these  familiar  conceptions  of 
medieval  theology  so  serviceable  a  framework  that  he 
recurs  often  to  the  well-known  formula  as  a  convenient  and 


*a  Contemporary  interest  in  Chaucer's  treatment  of  the  Sins  is  il- 
lustrated by  the  drawings  that  accompany  the  Parson's  text  in  MS. 
Gg.  4.  27,  Univ.  Cambr.  fols.  416,  432,  433:  Envy  on  his  wolf,  and 
his  antitype  Charity;  Gluttony  on  a  bear,  offset  by  Abstinence;  and 
Lechery  with  goat  and  sparrow  opposed  to  Chastity.  These  figures 
of  Vices  and  Virtues — "  being  all  that  were  not  cut  out  of  the  MS. 
by  some  scoundrel "  ( Furnivall )  — correspond  accurately  to  the 
symbolism  of  the  Sins  in  The  Assembly  of  the  Gods. 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  97 

suggestive  device  of  construction.  This  architectonic  use 
of  the  motif — hitherto  unsuspected — it  is  now  my  pur- 
pose to  consider.  As  there  is  no  better  way  of  convincing 
others  than  to  trace  the  steps  by  which  oneself  has  become 
convinced,  I  shall  now  indicate  the  stages  which  led  me, 
during  the  past  summer,  to  a  conclusion  that  may  have 
large  significance  for  students  of  The  Canterbury  Tales. 

In  a  recent  article  in  The  Nation  (October  16,  1913) 
I  have  pointed  out  that  "  the  interpolation  by  the  Chaucer 
Society,  of  the  Tales  of  the  Physician  and  the  Pardoner 
between  the  stories  of  the  Nun's  Priest  and  the  Wife  of 
Bath  is  opposed  not  only  by  the  evidence  of  the  manu- 
scripts, but  by  the  valuable  though  neglected  testimony  of 
the  Marriage  motif."  5 

When  in  accord  with  the  Ellesmere  or  A-type  tradition, 
favored  here  by  Tyrwhitt  and  Skeat,  I  placed  the  Physi- 
cian's and  Pardoner's  stories  directly  after  that  of  the 
Franklin,6  I  was  struck  by  a  peculiar  circumstance. 
Here  together,  after  the  necessary  shifting  of  the  B2  stories, 
were  the  Physician's  version  of  Gower's  theme  of  Lechery 
in  the  Confessio  Amantis7 — the  foul  wrong  meditated 

3  The  conclusion  expressed  in  my  Nation  article,  that,  "  as  '  Group 
C '  the  narratives  of  Physician  and  Pardoner  interrupt  the  progress 
of  the  spirited  discussion  of  women's  counsels  and  the  wifely  rela- 
tion begun  in  the  Melibeus,  etc./  was  reached  simultaneously  by 
Professor  W.  W.  Lawrence  in  the  pages  of  Modern  Philology  (Octo- 
ber, 1913).  This  coincidence  constitutes  an  interesting  confirmation 
of  the  view  just  presented. 

"It  seems  to  me  a  potent  additional  argument  for  the  order  here 
adopted,  that  the  Physician's  story  of  oppressed  virginity  courting 
death  rather  than  disgrace  follows  so  naturally  upon  the  Franklin's 
many  illustrations  of  this  pathetic  theme  (F.  13641). 

7  Gower's  use  of  the  story  of  Appius  and  Virginia  (Confessio 
Amantis,  vn,  5 13  If.),  for  which  Chaucer  was  indebted  to  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose,  5613  f.,  is  ample  proof  of  the  fitness  of  tn^  tale 
as  an  exemplum  of  Lechery  and  its  antitype,  Chastity.  Here  is 


98  FREDERICK   TUPPER 

against  Virginia,  the  gem  of  chastity,  by  Appius  Claudius 
and  its  tragic  consequences;  the  Pardoner's  long  attack 
upon  Avarice  and  Gluttony  (and  its  attendant  evils)  fol- 
lowed by  his  tale  that  admirably  illustrates  both,  the  story 
of  three  rioters  who  meet  death  through  their  covetous- 
ness;8  and  the  Second  Nun's  Prologue  on  Idleness,  intro- 
ducing that  antitype  of  Sloth,  Saint  Cecilia,9  the  "  bee  " 

that  phase  of  Lechery,  discussed  by  Chaucer  in  the  Parson's  Tale, 
§  76,  11.  867  f.,  "  Another  sinne  of  Lecherie  is  to  bireve  a  mayden 
of  hir  maydenhede ;  for  he  that  so  dooth,  certes,  he  casteth  a  mayden 
out  of  the  hyeste  degree  that  is  in  this  present  lyf,"  and  already 
illustrated  by  the  Franklin's  exampla  from  Jerome  (supra).  Vir- 
ginia's close  resemblance  to  the  "  consecrated  virgin "  ideal  of  pa- 
tristic treatises,  which  I  shall  discuss  later,  emphasizes  the  signal 
fitness  of  the  old  tale  as  an  exemplum  of  Lechery. 

8  Nobody  can  doubt  that  the  Pardoner's  Tale  is  primarily  an 
exemplum  of  Avarice.  In  variants  so  far  afield  as  those  of  Italy 
and  India,  the  same  moral  is  pointed.  In  the  Italian  version  Le 
Ciento  Novelle  Antike,  No.  83,  Christ  warns  his  disciples  against 
the  fatal  effects  of  Avarice.  The  Buddhist  analogue,  the  48th  Jd- 
taka  shows,  like  the  English  story,  that  "  the  passion  of  Avarice  is 
the  root  of  destruction  "  ( Skeat,  Chaucer,  in,  pp.  439-443 ) .  So  the 
German  variant,  Hans  Sachs'  Fastnachtsspiel,  Der  Dot  im  Stock,  is 
an  "  erschrb'cklich  peyspiel  "  of  Covetousness.  ( Modern  Philology,  ix, 
p.  19.).  The  Gluttony  element  in  the  Pardoner's  narrative  (drunken- 
ness with  its  concomitants  of  tavern  revel,  dicing  and  great  oaths) 
though  secondary,  is  not  less  obvious,  as  the  rascal  himself  immedi- 
ately supplies  the  application  at  great  length  ( C.  480  f . ) .  The  val- 
ue of  this  Gluttony  background  as  exemplum  material  is  attested  by 
the  striking  parallels  from  the  example  books  cited  by  Miss  Petersen 
as  illustrating  the  inevitable  accessories  of  the  Sin,  Gaming  and 
Swearing  (The  Sources  of  the  Nonne  Prestes  Tale,  pp.  98-100).  The 
Pardoner  himself  notes  in  his  Prologue  ( C.  435 ) ,  "  Than  telle  I  hem 
ensamples  many  oon,"  etc. 

'It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  Flores  Exemplorum,  vn,  xlvii,  1, 
Cecilia  exemplifies  Fortitude,  which,  as  the  Parson  tells  us  (I, 
727  f.),  is  the  "remedy"  against  the  Sin  of  Sloth: — "  Agayns  this 
horrible  sinne  of  Accidie  (Sloth),  and  the  branches  of  the  same, 
ther  is  a  vertu  that  is  called  Fortitudo  or  Strengthe;  that  is,  an 
affeceioun  thurgh  which  a  man  despyseth  anoyous  thinges.  This 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  99 

of  the  medieval  homilist,10  renowned  not  only  for  her  celi- 
bacy but  for  "  hir  lasting  businesse  "  (G.  98,  116-117)  :— 

Ful  swift  and  bisy  ever  in  good  werkinge, 
And  round  and  hool  in  good  perseveringe. 

Here  then  were  four  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  Lechery, 
Avarice,  Gluttony,  Sloth.  Had  this  fourfold  treatment 
(I  am  not  insisting  now  upon  the  sequence)  of  the  motif 
any  significance?  Possibly  none,  unless  it  appeared  that 
Chaucer  had  treated  the  three  other  Sins  as  well.  And 
then  I  remembered  that  he  had  handled  Gower's  theme  of 
Pride  (Inobedience)11  in  the  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale, 
Gower's  theme  of  Wrath  (Chiding)12  in  the  Manciple's, 

vertu  is  so  mighty  and  so  vigorous,  that  it  dar  withstonde  mightily 
and  wysely  kepen  himself  fro  perils  that  been  wicked,  and  wrastle 
agayn  the  assautes  of  the  devel.  For  it  enhaunceth  and  enforceth 
the  soule,  right  as  Accidie  abateth  it  and  maketh  it  feble." 

10  In  the  Sermones  Aurei  of  Jacobus  a  Voragine  (1760,  pp.  361- 
362 ) ,  to  which  Professor  Lowes  draws  my  attention,  Saint  Cecilia  i8 
likened  to  a  bee  on  account  of  her  five-fold  busyness;  her  spiritual 
devotion,  humility,  contemplation,  teaching  and  exhortation,  saga- 
city. All  of  these  traits  are  abundantly  illustrated  in  Chaucer's 
story  of  the  Saint  (former  material  converted  to  the  purposes  of 
the  motif)  ;  and,  as  we  shall  see  later,  the  first  form  of  "businesse," 
spiritual  devotion,  is  in  complete  accord  with  the  tone  and  function 
of  the  "  Invocatio  ad  Mariam,"  that  antidote  to  Sloth  which  follows 
the  Idleness  Prologue.  This  introductory  matter  has  been  wisely 
retained  from  an  earlier  time. 

"Gower's  Tale  of  Florent  (Confessio,  I,  1407-1861),  the  close  ana- 
logue of  the  Wife's  story,  is  directed  "  against  those  inobedient  to 
love,"  and  is  moreover  designed,  through  the  pattern  of  the  obedient 
knight,  to  teach  the  Lover  to  obey  his  love,  "  and  folwe  hir  will  be 
alle  weie."  It  is  significant  that  Chaucer  places  Inobedience  fore- 
most among  the  divisions  of  Pride  (Parson's  Tale,  390).  Gower 
makes  it  the  second  branch  of  the  Sin.  "A  few  touches  of  minute 
resemblance,"  says  Macaulay  ( Confessio,  Vol.  I,  p.  472 ) ,  "  may  sug- 
gest that  one  poet  was  acquainted  with  the  other's  rendering  <*f  the 
story." 

"Gower  tells  very  briefly    (Confessio,  in,  783-817),  the  story  of 


100  FREDERICK    TUPPER 

and  Gower's  theme  of  Envy  (Detraction)13  in  the  Man  of 
Law's.  Here  were  the  other  three, — Pride,  Wrath, 
Envy.  The  entire  adequacy  of  the  stories  as  exempla  of 
the  Sins  was  thus  established  beyond  question  by  Gower's 
use  in  four  cases,  and  in  the  others  by  their  intrinsic  fit- 
ness for  that  purpose  and  by  the  testimony  of  analogues, 
But  did  Chaucer,  like  Gower  and  the  exemplum  writers, 
intend  that  these  narratives  should  illustrate  the  Vices,  or 
did  he  ignore  utterly  the  very  obvious  applications  ?  Then 
I  turned  to  the  Tales  themselves,  and  was  confronted  by 
twofold  evidence  that  the  poet  deemed  them  exempla  of 
the  Sins. 

First,  each  of  the  stories  was  accompanied  by  a  preach- 
ment against  the  Sin  in  question.  The  long  harangue  of 
the  Wife's  heroine  (D.  1109  f.)  against  the  arrogance 
which  so  often  attends  birth  and  fortune,  but  which  is 
fatal  to  true  "  gentilesse,"  has  frequently  invited  compari- 
son with  passages  in  Boethius,  Dante,  Petrarch,  Boccaccio, 
and  the  Roman  de  la  Rose.  But  no  one  seems  to  have 
remarked  that  this  excellent  sermon  is  but  an  expansion 
of  the  commonplaces  that  inevitably  appear  in  all  medie- 
val discourses  upon  Pride.  If  we  set  by  the  side  of  the 
Wife's  lines,  the  Parson's  discussion  of  the  "  pryde  of 
gentrye"  and  " general  signes  of  gentilesse"  (I.  460- 

Phoebus  and  Cornis,  to  illustrate  Chiding  or  Cheste,  the  second  of 
his  divisions  of  Wrath.  We  shall  see  that  his  moral  is  exactly  the 
same  as  Chaucer's,  who  derives  his  story  directly  from  Ovid. 

18  Gower's  story  of  Constance,  told  to  exemplify  Detraction,  an  im- 
portant phase  of  Envy,  has  in  its  phraseology  so  much  in  common 
with  Chaucer's  version  (Skeat,  in,  413-17)  as  to  suggest  that  in 
several  places  one  poet  copied  the  other.  If  we  believe  with  Lticke 
(Anglia  xiv,  p.  183)  and  Tatlock  (Devel.  and  ChrwoL,  chap,  v,  §  6), 
that  Chaucer  was  the  copyist,  we  must  perforce  admit  his  knowledge 
of  the  value  of  the  tale  as  an  exemplum  of  Envy.  More  of  this 
later. 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS 


101 


4T4),14  John  Wyclifs  eloquent  chapters  upon  the  folly  of 
pride  of  birth  and  pride  of  riches  and  prosperity,15  and 
Gower's  commentary  upon  true  nobility,  and  upon  the 
relation  of  rich  and  poor,16  we  can  no  longer  have  the  least 
doubt  of  Chaucer's  purpose.  He  has  introduced  a  Pride 
sermon  into  the  fitting  environment  of  a  Pride  tale.  More- 
over it  is  noteworthy  that  Grower  classes  the  contempt  of 
the  rich  lord  and  lady  for  the  poor  and  humble,  under  the 
Inobedience  phase  of  Pride,17  just  as  Chaucer  does  here. 
The  medieval  reader,  unlike  the  modern  critic,18  found 
nothing  irrelevant  or  unseasonable  in  the  Dame's  homily 
against  Pride. 

The  Manciple's  Tale,  which,  as  Gower's  use  of  the  theme 
attests,  is  so  well  designed  to  illustrate  the  Chiding  phase 
of  Wrath,  is  supplemented  quite  in  the  exemplum  man- 

14  Indeed  in  the  prose  of  Mackaye  and  Tatlock's  version  of  the 
Tales,  it  is  hard  to  distinguish  throughout  many  lines  the  Wife's 
words  from  those  of  the  Parson's  discourse  on  Pride.     They  might 
well  be  interchanged. 

15  Arnold,  Select  Works  of  JoJvn  Wyclif,  m,  pp.  125-127.     Compare 
with  Chaucer's  "  Christ  wol,  we  clayme  of  him  our  gentilesse,  etc.'*, 
Wyclifs  "  Have  we  nobley  of  oure  fader  and  moder,  that  ben  Jesus 
Crist  and  his  spouse,  holy  Chirche,  for  by  this  noble  kin  we  schal 
be  gentil  in  heven  "  etc.     Strangely  enough  "  Gentilesse "  is  intro- 
duced under  Sloth  by  Grower,  Confessio,  iv,  2200  f . 

16  Cf.  Mirour  de  I'Omme,  12073  f.,  23380  f .     It  is  a  chief  phase  of 
Pride  to  scorn  the  poor,  or  as  Langland  says,  B.  II,  79,  "to  be 
princes  in  pryde  and  poverte  to  despise"   (Cf.  B.  xiv,  215,  "  Pryde 
in  richesse  regneth  rather  than  in  poverte,  etc.").     The  contrast  be- 
tween  the   Dame's   praise   of   Poverty   here   and   the   "grucching" 
against  Poverty  in  the  Envy  Prologue   (cf.  also  Melibeus,  §  50,  B. 
2748  f.)  is  paralleled  by  the  juxtaposition  of  willing  and  impatient 
Poverty  in  DeGuileville's  Pelerinage,    (Lydgate),  pp.  605  f.,  22685- 
22772.     Wyclif,  like  Chaucer,  emphasizes  in  his  Pride  chapter   (m, 
p.  126 ) ,  the  dangers  of  wealth,  from  which  the  poor  man  is  free,  and 
points  to  the  Poverty  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  0 

"Cf.  Mirour,  2220  f. 

"Cf.  Macaulay,  Confessio  Amantis,  Vol.  I,  p.  472. 


102  FREDERICK    TUPPEK 

ner  ("Lordings,  by  this  ensample  I  you  preye"),  by  a 
long  "  morality"  against  Chiding,  (H.  309-362).  For 
this  Chaucer  is  indebted  not  only  to  Albertano  of  Brescia's 
treatise,  De  Arte  Loquendi  et  Tacendi,  but  to  his  own 
Parson's  sermon,  in  its  section  upon  Wrath  (I,  647  f.).19 
That  Chaucer's  purpose  in  both  tale  and  morality  is  the 
same  as  Gower's  is,  moreover,  established  by  the  close 
resemblance  between  his  "  application  "  and  that  of  his 
friend  (Confessio,  m,  831-835)  :— 

Mi  sone,  be  thou  none  of  tho, 
To  jangle  and  telle  tales  so, 
And  namely  that  thou  ne  chyde, 
For  Cheste  can  no  conseil  hide, 
For  Wraththe  seide  nevere  wel. 

Significantly  enough  both  Chaucer  and  Gower  deem  Chid- 
ing one  of  the  divisions  of  Wrath,20  whereas  in  many 
medieval  catalogues  of  the  Sins,  this  fault  is  classed  apart 
from  the  Deadly  Seven  as  a  Sin  of  the  Tongue.  Chaucer, 
however,  seems  to  have  recognized  the  claim  of  Chiding  to 
especial  treatment,,  since  he  had  already  illustrated  the 
general  theme  of  Wrath  in  his  Friar-Summoner  tales: 
but  more  of  ttat  in  due  season. 

The  Man  of  Law's  story,  Gower's  theme  of  Envy  (De- 
traction), is  prefaced  by  a  Poverty  Prologue,  which  all 
scholars  have  deemed  irrelevant.  It  is  really  in  entire 
accord  with  the  Envy  motif  of  the  tale  that  it  introduces, 
since  it  admirably  illustrates  typical  traits  of  that  Vice 

"It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  Manciple's  lines  (H.  343  f.), 
*'  A  Jangler  is  to  God  abominable;  |  Reed  Salomon  so  wys  and 
honurable,"  etc.,  with  the  Parson's  words  on  the  same  theme  (I, 
648),  "Now  comth  Janglinge,  that  may  not  been  without  sinne. 
And  as  seith  Salamon,  '  it  is  a  sinne  of  apert  folye.' " 

30  So  also  does  'Langland,  B.  ii,  74  ( Chambers,  Modern  Language 
Review,  Jan.  1910). 


CHAUCEB   AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  103 

upon  which  the  Parson  dwells  (I.  483,  489) — grudging 
against  Poverty  and  sorrow  at  other  men's  wealth.  That 
Chaucer's  source  here,  Innocent's  famous  tract,  De  Mis- 
eria  Conditionis  Hwnanae,21  which  gives  so  large  a  space 
to  the  Vices,  supplied  him  with  Deadly  Sins  material  in 
the  Pardoner's  Prologue  and  Tale,  is  a  circumstance  not 
without  value  as  an  indication  of  his  present  purpose.  In 
the  second  stanza  of  the  Man  of  Law's  Prologue,  the  poet 
goes  far  beyond  his  source  in  the  dramatic  expression  of  an 
envy,  at  once  vehement  and  vindictive.  The  Tale,  more- 
over, contains  references  (B.  358-374) — Chaucer's,  not 
Trivet's — to  traditional  characteristics  of  Envy,  its 
Satanic  origin  and  serpent-like  nature.22  Can  Chaucer's 
intent  be  any  longer  in  doubt  ? 

Nothing  certainly  could  be  more  in  the  true  exemplwn 
manner  than  the  Physician's  warning  to  governesses  and 
parents  in  the  Tale  of  Lechery  (C.  72-104).  Whenever 
the  dangers  of  youth  are  the  theme,  the  medieval  moralizer 
turns  him  naturally  to  father  and  mother;  so  Jacques  de 


31  Migne,  Patrologia  Latina,  217,  pp.  701  f.  Innocent's  tract  is 
cited  by  Chaucer  in  the  discussion  of  Poverty  in  the  Tale  of  Afeli- 
leus,  B.  2758.  But  Dame  Prudence's  dispraise  of  Poverty  has 
in  it  nought  of  Envy,  since  it  is  characterized  by  a  contempt  for 
ill-gotten  wealth  (B.  2771-2793),  "It  is  a  greet  shame  to  a  man  to 
have  a  povere  herte  and  a  riche  purs,"  and  by  a  preference  for 
Poverty  with  a  good  name  and  conscience,  "  than  to  been  holden 
a  shrewe  and  have  grete  rich  esses  "  (B.  2820). 

"Every  medieval  account  of  Envy,  records  these  traits,  traceable, 
of  course,  to  Wisdom  n,  24,  "  Through  the  envy  of  the  devil  came 
death  into  the  roundness  of  earth."  In  DeGuileville's  Pelerinage 
14768,  Envy  is  a  serpent  as  in  Ancren  Riwle — and  is  moreover  the 
daughter  of  Pride  and  Satan.  The  adder  nature  of  Detraction  is 
illustrated  both  in  the  Pelerinage,  23116  and  in  Handlyng  Synne, 
4168.  Chaucer's  Envious  Serpent  passage  is  closely  paral^led  in 
Occleve's  "Letter  of  Cupid,"  (1.  358),  borrowed  from  Christine  de 
Pisan.  Compare  also  Mireour  du  Monde,  pp.  103,  106. 


104 


FREDERICK   TUPPER 


Vitrj  takes  his  stand  upon  Proverbs  xxir,  6,  "  Train  up 
a  child  in  the  way  he  should  go,  etc."  23  Much  more  to 
our  purpose  is  the  close  resemblance  between  many  lines 
of  the  Physicians  Tale  and  the  well-known  patristic  tracts 
on  Virginity.  The  moral  traits  of  Virginia — her  humil- 
ity, her  modesty  of  bearing  and  array,  her  abstinence  from 
wine,  her  discretion  in  speech,  her  avoidance  of  society, 
her  dislike  of  feasts  and  dances — are  precisely  those  pre- 
scribed to  the  "  consecrated  maiden  "  in  Ambrose's  famous 
treatise,  De  Virginibiis.24  Ambrose's  presentation  of 
the  ideal  of  virginity  and  of  the  perils  to  which  the  lamb 
is  subjected  from  wolves  (cf.  C.  T.,  C.  102)  culminates, 
as  in  Chaucer,  with  a  solemn  warning  to  mothers  and 
fathers  (III,  vi).25  And  the  ten-line  "application"  at 
the  close  of  the  Tale  (C.  277-286),  is  the  traditional  end- 
ing of  an  "  ensample  "  of  Sin : — 

Heer  men  may  seen  how  sinne  hath  his  meryte! 

Beth  war,  for  no  man  woot  whom  God  wol  smyte,  etc. 

So  the  moral  is  driven  home. 

Thus  I  found  undoubted  "  moralities "  on  Pride, 
Wrath,  Envy,  and  Lechery,  accompanying  four  tales  that 
had  been  used  by  Gower  to  illustrate  Pride,  Wrath,  Envy 
and  Lechery.  The  conclusion  was  obvious  that  Chaucer 
designed  them  as  exempla  of  the  Sins,  and  that  in  his  treat- 

83  See  Crane,  Introduction  to  Exempla  of  Jacques  de  Vitry,  p.  xlvi. 
Compare  also  Bromyard,  Summa  Predicantium,  s.  v.  "  Infantia." 

24  This  likeness,  which  extends  even  to  verbal  parallels,  must  be 
discussed  elsewhere.  Chaucer  here  seems  far  closer  to  Ambrose 
than  to  those  other  homilists  upon  Virginity,  Jerome  and  Augustine. 

25 «  \yhat  say  you,  holy  women  ?  Do  you  see  what  you  ought  to 
teach  and  what  also  to  unteach  your  daughters  ? "  etc.,  etc.  Am- 
brose's application  was  popular  in  medieval  exemplum-bookB ;  com- 
pare Flores  Exemplorum,  s.  v.  "  Castitas." 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  105 

ment  he  adhered  closely  to  the  strict  categories  of  human 
errors  recognized  by  all  his  contemporaries.  To  maintain 
that  the  poet  had  in  these  tales  no  intention  of  illustrating 
the  Vices  and  that  these  closely  fitting  "  applications  "  are 
puzzling  irrelevancies  necessitates  not  only  a  disregard  of 
all  evidence  but  an  insensibility  to  the  trend  of  medieval 
thought. 

In  the  Sins  stories  that  have  no  analogues  in  the  Con- 
fessio  but  are  paralleled  in  the  example-books,  Chau- 
cer's design  is  quite  as  clearly  manifest.  The  Pardon- 
er's long  tirades  against  Avarice  and  Gluttony  and 
those  evils  which  attend  it  in  many  medieval  collections, 
Hasardry  and  Great  Oaths,  are  largely  lifted  from  the 
Parson's  Tale  and  from  Innocent's  tract.26  They  offer 

a'See  Koeppel,  Herrigs  Archiv,  LXXXIV,  p.  405,  LXXVH,  p.  33-54,  and 
the  Notes  in  Skeat's  edition.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  Parson's  Tale, 
Hasardry  is'  included  under  Avarice  ( I,  792 )  and  Great  Oaths  under 
Wrath  ( I,  587 ) ;  but  both  the  Ayeribite,  p.  52  and  Piers  Plowman, 
B.  v,  link  Gluttony  and  games  of  chance,  and  Piers  'Plowman  twice 
associates  Gluttony  with  Swearing :  B.  II,  92  f .  "  Glotonye  he  gaf 
hem  eke  and  gret  othes  togydere  And  alday  to  drynke  at  dyverse 
tavernes  "  and  B.  v,  314,  "  Thanne  goth  glotoun  in  and  grete  othes 
after"  (cf.  Chambers,  Modern  Language  Review,  Jan.  1910).  Com- 
pare with  the  Pardoner's  discussion  of  Gluttony  and  its  accessories 
that  of  Bromyard  in  his  Summa  Predicantium  s.  v.  "  Ebrietas " 
and  "Gula": — "Alii  potus  excessu.  Alii  turpibus  verbis  et  can- 
tilenis  .  .  .  et  illicitis  juramentis  .  .  .  et  vanis  narrationibus.  Alii 
luxuria  et  incestu,  quia  ubi  ebrietas  ibi  libido  .  .  .  dominatur.  Et 
sicut  patet  Gen.  19,  ubi  dixerunt  filiae  Loth,  '  Inebriemus  eum  vino, 
etc.'  "  "  Ludi  inordinati  et  prohibit!,  sicut  taxillorum  et  hujusmodi, 
in  talibus  communiter  plus  delectantur  pleni  quam  famelici,  juxta 
proverbium  quod  dicitur,  '  Non  possum  ludere,  neque  ridere,  nisi 
venter  plenus  sit.'  Exemplum  de  Samsone,  Judi.  16;  et  de  Judaeis, 
de  quibus  dicitur,  Exod.  32,  '  Sedit  populus  manducare  et  bibere  et 
Burrexerunt  ludere.' "  In  the  margins  of  MSS.  E.,  Hn.,  Cp.,  Pt.,  and 
HI.  (Pardoner's  Tale,  C.  483),  is  the  note,  "Nolite  inebriari  vino  in 
quo  est  luxuria,"  quoted  from  the  Vulgate  version  of  Ephesians,  v, 
18.  This  is  cited  by  Innocent  in  his  tract,  De  Contemptu  Mundi,  11, 


106 


FREDERICK    TUPPER 


undeniable  evidence  that  this  contribution  is  an  exem- 
plum  of  the  two  vices.27  As  we  have  already  noted, 
the  Second  Nun's  story  of  the  traditionally  busy  Saint 
Cecilia  is  prefaced  by  an  Idleness  Prologue,  which  is  re- 
tained by  the  poet  as  admirably  suited  to  his  present  pur- 
pose. And  in  even  more  definite  fashion,  Chaucer  links 
the  tale  with  the  theme  of  Sloth.  Among  the  chief  phases 
of  that  Sin  is  the  fault,  antipathetic  to  Cecilia's  peculiar 
virtue, — Undevotion,  through  which,  to  quote  the  Par- 
son (I.  722 f.),  "a  man  is  so  blent,  as  seith  Saint  Ber- 
nard, and  hath  swich  langour  in  soule,  that  he  may  neither 
rede  ne  singe  in  holy  churche,  etc."  28  This  Undevotion 
is  definitely  represented  as  neglect  of  Hymns  of  our  Lord 
or  of  our  Lady,29  and  of  the  Daily  Service.30  Now  the 

19,  and  becomes  a  commonplace  of  all  medieval  descriptions  of 
Gluttony.  Compare  Holkot  in  his  Leotiones,  21,  "  scillicet  effective 
exemplum  de  Loth,  Gen.  19";  Le  Testament  de  Jean  de  Meun,  11. 
1748  f.;  DeGuileville,  11.  13060  f.;  Hoccleve,  Regement  of  Princes, 
3802  f. 

8TIn  DeGuileville's  Pelerinage  (Lydgate),  11.  18104f.,  Avarice,  like 
the  Pardoner,  cheats  by  sham  pardon  and  relics. 

28  How  large  a  part  Undevotion  played  in  medieval  illustrations  of 
Sloth  is  seen  by  reference  to  the  example-books.  The  Liber  Exem- 
plorum  ad  Usum  Predicantium,  ed.  by  Little,  Aberdeen,  1908,  thus 
introduces  the  theme  (p.  38)  :  "  Quoniam  autem  orationis  devotio  et 
officii  ecclesiastic!  devota  audicio  accidie  repugnant  et  torpori  pro- 
babile  sumitur  argumentum  quod  unusquisque  quanto  se  ab  ora- 
tionis devotione  et  officio  ecclesiastico  tempore  debito  subtrahit 
tanto  accidie  et  torpori  cor  suum  paratum  vasculum  reddit.  Et 
certe  qui  se  divino  officio  tempore  debito  subtrahunt  impune  tran- 
sire  non  possunt."  And  three  out  of  the  four  Sloth  exempla  that 
follow  relate  to  zeal  in  prayer.  So  in  the  fifteenth  century  Alphabet 
of  Tales  (E.  E.  T.  Soc.,  126,  20),  the  first  exemplum  under  Sloth 
is  that  of  the  monk  who  would  not  attend  Matins;  compare  Herbert, 
Catalogue  of  Romances,  in,  p.  431. 

39  It  is  significant  that  Sloth  in  'Piers  Plowman  is  identified  with 
Undevotion  through  his  portrayal  ( B.  v,  403  f . )  as  a  lazy  priest  and 
parson  who  knows  hymns  "  neither  of  cure  Lorde  ne  of  oure  Lady," 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  107 

"  Invocacio  ad  Mariam  "  of  the  Second  Nun's  Prologue  is 
drawn  not  only  from  Dante  but  from  the  Hours  of  the 
Virgin  in  the  Prymer  or  Lay  Folk's  Prayer  Book,31  and  is 
therefore  the  most  effective  sort  of  protest  against  Sloth  in 
its  phase  of  Undevotion.  Hence  there  is  a  fine  fitness  in 
retaining  this  Hymn  of  our  Lady — whatever  its  time  of 
composition  and  original  function — immediately  after  the 
stanzas  of  Idleness  in  introducing  the  type  of  busyness, 
Saint  Cecilia,  whose  first  trait,  according  to  the  sermon 
of  Jacobus  a  Voragine,  was  the  sweetness  of  spiritual  de- 
votion. Moreover,  the  lines  in  the  "  Invocation "  that 
insist  upon  the  value  of  works  (G.  64-65,  77,  79)  are 
closely  akin  to  the  passage  on  "  werkes  of  goodnesse  "  in 
the  Parson's  discussion  of  Sloth  (I.  6901). 

A  close  examination  of  the  Tales  under  discussion  thus 
revealed  the  significant  circumstance  that  each  story  which 
appositely  illustrated  a  Sin,  was  accompanied  by  a  moral- 
ity against  that  particular  Vice.  But  Chaucer  went  even 
farther  than  this  in  his  use  of  the  Deadly  Seven  as  a 
framework  in  these  narratives.  With  delightfully  sug- 
gestive irony,  he  opposed  practice  to  precept,  rule  of  life 
to  dogma,  by  making  several  of  the  story-tellers  incarnate 
the  very  Sins  that  they  explicitly  condemn. 

Of  this  surprising  perversity,  the  Pardoner  is  the  frank- 
est example.  His  attitude  is  tersely  summarized  in  the 
words  of  his  Prologue  (C.  427-8)  : — 

who  neglects  the  service  "  till  matynes  and  masse  be  done  "  and  who 
"  can  neither  solfe  ne  synge  ne  seyntes  lyues  rede." 

80  Cf.  Handlyng  Synrie,  424  If.;  Gower,  Mirour,  5552  f.,  5620. 

"Carleton  Brown  has  remarked  (Modern  Philology,  July,  1911) 
the  liturgical  elements  in  the  "Invocation,"  but  he  has  overlooked 
its  direct  indebtedness  to  the  "  Hours "  in  the  Prymer,  witk  the 
external  history  of  which  book  he  has  elsewhere  made  us  so 
familiar.  All  this  I  shall  discuss  in  another  place. 


108  FBEDEBICK    TUPPER 

Thus  can  I  preche   agayn  that  same  vyce 
Which  that  I  use,  and  that  is  avaryce. 

Who  so  avaricious  as  he  that  rivals  the  Parson  in  large 
citation  of  Paul's  saying,  "  Radix  malorum  est  Cupidi- 
tas"  (C.  334,  423,  905)  3  He  who  inveighs  for  a  hun- 
dred lines  against  Gluttony  and  its  subordinate  vice, 
Drunkenness  (C.  480-590),  is  himself  so  gluttonous  that 
he  must  pause  "  to  drink  and  eat  of  a  cake  "  before  begin- 
ning his  story  and  loves  on  yon  side  of  idolatry  "  liquor 
of  the  vine  "  and  "  a  draught  of  corny  ale."  Hinckley 
suggests  32  that  the  wildest  indiscretions  of  the  Pardoner's 
Confession  are  due  to  drink.  Certainly  the  Wife  of  Bath 
(D.  170)  hints  that  he  has  been  taking  too  much  ale.  He 
who  thunders  against  that  concomitant  of  Gluttony,  Great 
Oaths,  is  often  blasphemous.33  And  his  ribaldry  is  such 
that  it  disgusts  "the  gentles"  (C.  323-324).  It  is  an 
interesting  coincidence  that  in  Piers  Plowman  (B-text, 
Prologue,  76  f.)  Pardoners  blend  Gluttony  with  their 
Avarice.  I  need  not  labor  long  to  show  that  the  Wife  of 
Bath  includes  in  her  complex  personality  many  of  the 
elements  of  Pride  upon  which  the  Parson  later  dwells:  a 
desire  to  go  first  to  the  offering,  vainglory  or  love  of  fine 
clothes,  arrogance  or  lack  of  humility,  scolding  or  scorn- 
ing. Yet,  while  all  these  traits  are  sufficiently  obvious, 
they  are  neither  so  dominant  nor  conspicuous  as  that  phase 
of  Pride,  which  she,  the  "  Venerien,"  the  epitome  of 
worldly  affection,  proclaims,  with  all  the  frankness  of  the 
Pardoner,  to  be  her  chief  fault — "  Unbuxomness  "  or  "  In- 


82  Notes  to  Chaucer,  pp.  158-159. 

83  Contrast  with  his  approving  comment  upon  the  Second   Com- 
mandment, "  Take  not  my  name  in  ydel  or  amis,"  his  frequent  oaths, 
D.  164,  "by  God  and  by  seint  John,"  C.  320,  "by  seint  Ronyon,'' 
C.  457  "  by  God." 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  109 

obedience  "  in  love.  She  is  essentially  the  Inobedient,  and 
the  sum  and  substance  of  the  marital  confessions  of  her 
Prologue  is  a  full  and  free  admission  of  Unbuxomness. 
Gower's  description  of  this  trait  in  his  picture  of  "  La 
quinte  fille  d'Orguil,  laquelle  ad  a  noun  Inobedience  " 
fits  the  Wife  like  a  glove  (Mirour,  2023  f.)  : 

C'est   un    pecche,    qui    fait    desplaire 
La  femme  qui  n'est  debonnaire 
Au  mary,  qui  la  volt  amer. 

It  is  she,  the  Inohedient,  who  tells  Gower' s  story  of  protest 
against  Inobedience.  To  the  medieval  reader — particu- 
larly to  him  who  knew  Gower — the  irony  of  the  assignment 
must  have  been  evident;  though  to  us  there  seems,  of 
course,  little  irony  in  the  Wife's  implicit  plea  for  the  do- 
mestic subjection  of  the  male.  But  even  we  must  admit 
the  irony  of  a  long  harangue  against  Pride  (and  against 
a  phase  of  the  Sin,  which  is  classed  by  Gower  as  Inobe- 
dience) on  the  lips  of  her  who,  as  many  traits  attest,  is 
the  proudest  character  among  the  pilgrims.34 

Now  for  the  Manciple.  Amusingly  enough,  the  chief 
feature  of  the  Prologue  of  this  teller  of  a  tale  against  Chid- 
ing is  his  long  revilement  of  the  drunken  Cook  (H.  25-45). 
This  rebuke  is  obviously  suggested  by  the  Parson's  picture, 
in  his  paragraph  on  the  chiding  phase  of  Wrath,  of  the  re- 
viler,  who  dubs  his  neighbor,  "thou  holour,"  "thou  dronke- 
lewe  harlot"  (I.  623  f.).  This  chiding  is  reproved  by  the 
Host,  and  the  Manciple  makes  his  amende.  Hence  the 
Manciple  is  himself  guilty  of  the  very  fault  that  he  con- 
demns in  both  his  tale  and  morality.  The  same  delicious 
inconsistency  is  found  in  the  representative  of  Wrath  in 
its  larger  and  more  evil  aspect,  the  Summoner,  to  whose 

ji 

34  Pride  is  the  only  sin  personified  by  Langland  (Piers  Plowman, 
B.  v,  63)  as  a  woman — Peronel  Proudheart. 


110  FBEDERICK   TUPPER 

ireful  contribution  we  must  later  give  especial  considera- 
tion. 

The  Poverty  Prologue  to  the  Tale  of  Constance  shows 
us  clearly  that  the  narrator  of  this  story  of  Envy  is  him- 
self tainted  by  that  Sin.  This  evidence  is  ample  for  our 
present  purpose.  But  it  is  noteworthy  that  from  the  point 
of  view  of  Chaucer's  day,  there  was  an  ironical  fitness  in 
the  final  assignment  of  an  Envy  tale  to  the  Man  of  Law, 
whose  profession  in  the  fourteenth  century  was  tainted  by 
Envy  as  well  as  by  Avarice.35  No  Prologue  specifically 
indicates  the  Physician's  peculiar  disqualification  for  his 
theme  of  Lechery ;  but  the  medieval  reader  must  have  been 
tickled  by  the  praise  of  purity  from  a  profession  notorious 
in  the  fourteenth  century  for  its  willingness  to  increase  the 
passions  of  lovers  through  the  use  of  philters  described  in 
the  wicked  book  of  our  Doctor's  master,  :"Dan  Constan- 
tyn,"  36  and  for  its  eagerness  "  to  gete  of  love  his  lusty 

86  The  Man  of  Law's  contrary  qualifications  for  telling  an  Envy 
story  are  illustrated  by  many  writers:  by  Gower  who  uses  to  des- 
cribe the  Lawyer  (Vtox,  vi,  293)  the  same  image  of  the  Basilisk  that 
he  employs  to  picture  Envy  (Mirour,  3748  f.) ;  by  Hoccleve,  who 
compares  (Regement  of  Princes,  2815  f.)  the  Law  to  the  venomous 
spider,  which  catches  little  flies  and  lets  big  ones  go;  by  Langland, 
who  makes  Envy  instruct  friars  "  to  lerne  logik  and  lawe "  ( C. 
xxin,  273)  ;  and  by  Bromyard  of  Hereford,  who  properly  discusses 
the  Avarice  and  Envy  of  lawyers  under  the  heads  of  "  Advocatus  " 
and  "  Causidicus  "  in  his  Summa  Predicantium.  Many  passages  in 
Gower's  Vox  and  Mirour  and  in  Wyclifs  Sermons  (cited  by  Fliigel, 
Anglia,  xxiv,  pp.  484-496 )  and  the  sorry  part  played  by  "  Civile  "  or 
Civil  Law  in  Piers  Plowman  prove  that  the  legal  profession  was 
then  infected  by  covetousness  of  wealth  and  contempt  for  poverty — 
by  Avarice  intermingled  with  Envy.  The  Advocate  is  the  butt  of 
many  exempla  in  such  example-books  as  Jacques  de  Vitry's  and  the 
Liber  Exemplorum. 

86  Cf.  Merchant's  Tale  E.  1810.  January's  use  of  "letuaries"  as 
aids  to  love  is  paralleled  in  the  exemplum  of  the  old  man  who  seeks 
of  a  physician  that  prescription  called  by  the  doctors,  "  electuarium 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  111 

mede  "  through  all  the  devices  of  Arabist  and  astrologer, 
images,  calculations,  stars,  hours  of  astronomy.37  This 
suggestion  of  satire  in  the  case  of  the  Doctor  is  only  a 
plausible  conjecture.  But  the  objection  that  we  have  no 
hint  in  the  General  Prologue  of  such  a  trait  of  the  Phy- 
sician counts  for  nought,  as  we  hear  nothing  there  of  the 
Gluttony  of  the  Pardoner  and  of  the  Chiding  of  the  Man- 
ciple, of  which  so  much  is  made  in  their  special  Pro- 
logues. Many  things  appear  in  the  headlinks  and  prefa- 
tory matter  of  the  several  tales  that  were  not  contemplated 
by  Chaucer  in  his  main  Introduction.  The  elaboration 
(in  the  special  prologues  of  Sins  tales)  of  traits  that  do 
not  occur  in  the  General  Prologue  merely  serves  to  empha- 
size the  satirical  interest  of  the  moment:  for  instance, 
the  Manciple  is  made  a  chider  for  the  nonce  to  point  better 
the  moral  through  the  irony  of  the  situation.  Of  the  Sec- 
ond Nun,  who  was  finally  chosen  to  present  the  Prologues 
and  Tale  against  Sloth,  we  unfortunately  know  nothing; 
but,  as  Professor  Tatlock  suggests  to  me,  "  there  may  well 
be  some  sarcasm  in  putting  praise  of  diligence  into  the 
mouth  of  a  nun,  as  no  charge  against  the  regulars  is  com- 
moner than  that  of  laziness."  38 

Because  Gower's  use  attests  the  value  of  four  of  Chau- 
cer's stories  as  exempla  of  the  Sins,  and  the  aptness 
of  others  and  the  testimony  of  analogues  give  them 

diasatyrionis,   quod   provocat   libidinem."     (Tomus   Primus   Convi- 
vialium  Sermonum  by  Jean  Gast,  Basel,  1561,  s.  v.  "Medici.") 

87  Cf.  Confessio  Amantis,  VI,  1292-1358. 

88  Mark   DeGuileville's    reprobation    (Pdlerinage,    11.    23538  f.)    of 
"  the  nuns  who  have  liberty  to  sleep  and  wake  at  their  pleasure,  and 
who  take  no  heed  to  keep  their  observance."     Four  of  the  six  illus- 
trations of  Sloth  in  Herolt's  Promptuarium  Exemplorum  are  lazy 
monks.     In  Piers  Plowman  Sloth  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  lazy  priest; 
and  to  the  attack  upon  the  Castle  of  Unity  Sloth  leads  more  than  a 
thousand  prelates  (B.  xx,  216-217). 


112  FBEDEBICK   TUPPBE 

like  warrant,  because  in  each  of  the  tales  that  deal 
with  the  Sins  Chaucer  points  at  length  the  moral,  and 
because  he  assigns  with  a  delightful  irony  each  of  these 
narratives  to  a  fitting  representative  of  the  Sin  under 
rebuke,  I  was  led  inevitably  to  the  opinion  that  the 
Wife  of  Bath  illustrates  Pride,  the  Manciple,  Wrath  (or 
rather  that  Sin  of  the  Tongue,  Chiding),  the  Man  of  Law, 
Envy,  the  Physician,  Lechery,  the  Pardoner,  Avarice  and 
Gluttony,  and  the  Second  Nun,  Sloth.  More  recently  sev- 
eral potent  reasons  have  convinced  me  that  Wrath  in  its 
general  aspect  is  represented  by  the  Friar-^Summoner 
Tales: — (1)  A  wonderfully  exact  parallel  to  the  angry 
quarrel  between  the  Friar  and  the  Summoner  is  furnished 
in  Langland's  illustration  of  Wrath  (B.  v,  13  6  f.)  by  the 
strife  between  friars  and  possessioners  or  beneficed 
clergy.39  (2)  The  Friar's  story  of  the  nemesis  of  hell- 
pains  brought  upon  a  cursing  summoner  by  the  heart-felt 
curses  of  his  intended  victim  exemplifies  most  accurate- 
ly the  section  on  Cursing  in  the  Parson's  discussion  of 
Wrath  (I.  6181,  §  41)  : — "  Speke  we  now  of  swich  curs- 
inge  as  comth  of  irous  herte.  Malisoun  generally  may  be 
seyd  every  maner  power  or  harm.  Swich  cursinge  birev- 
eth  man  fro  the  regne  of  God,  as  seith  Saint  Paul.  And 
ofte  tyme  swich  cursinge  wrongfully  retorneth  agayn  to 
him  that  curseth " ;  etc.  Compare  Handlyng  Synne, 
3757  f.  Moreover,  this  is  the  very  story  used  by  Herolt  in 
his  Promptuarium  Exemplorum  to  illustrate  "  Maledi- 
cere."  Chaucer  introduces  the  element  of  poetic  justice, 
and  thus  doubles  the  story's  aptness  as  an  exemplum  of 
Cursing  (Wrath),  by  making  the  curse  fall  not  upon  a 
grasping  lawyer,  as  in  Herolt,  nor  upon  a  bailiff,  as  in 

89  See  Skeat's  note  to  the  Piers  Plowman  passage.     Compare  the 
parallels  of  Flilgel,  Anglia,  xxiii,  pp.  225-239,  xxiv,  p.  460. 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  113 

another  Latin  analogue,40  but  upon  the  mouth-piece  of 
the  archdeacon's  curse,  the  summoner.  The  Friar  s  Tale 
is  therefore  an  exemplum  of  the  Cursing  phase  of 
Wrath.  (3)  That  the  Summoner' s  Tale  is  also  directed 
against  Wrath  is  indicated  not  only  by  the  anger  of  poor 
Thomas  and  the  boar-like  frenzy  of  the  friar,  but  by  the 
hundred-line  homily  against  Ire,  which  is  put  into  this 
same  friar's  mouth  (D.  2005-2090).  This  sermon  is  de- 
rived partly  from  the  Parsons  Tale,  I.  534,  564  f. 
(Wrath),  but  chiefly  from  Seneca's  De  Ira.  (4)  Like  the 
other  narrators  of  Sins  stories,  the  Summoner  "  uses  "  the 
very  Vice  that  he  condemns.  He  whose  tale  and  "  moral- 
ity "  expose  the  evils  of  Wrath  "  quakes  for  ire  like  an 
aspen  leaf."  (5)  The  irresistible  attraction  of  the  Sins 
theme,  broached  immediately  before  in  the  Wife's  con- 
tribution, explains  adequately  the  abandonment,  for  the 
nonce,  of  the  fascinating  marriage-debate.  That  will  be 
resumed,  after  Wrath  has  twice  received  through  the  same 
threefold  device  of  prologue  and  tale  and  interpolated 
"  morality  "  a  treatment  .even  more  ample  than  the  exposi- 
tion of  Pride. 

Before  completing  our  list  of  Sins  Tales,  a  word  must 
be  said  of  the  Cook's  fragment,  which  presents  an  inter- 
esting problem.  The  story  itself  has  certainly  some  of  the 
earmarks  of  a  tale  of  Gluttony,  for  it  is  told  by  a  glutton 
(cf.  the  Manciple's  Prologue)  and  has  much  in  com- 
mon with  the  tavern  setting  of  Gluttony  and  its  acces- 
sories in  the  Pardoner's  Tale.41  That  this  fragment, 
despite  its  present  position  at  the  end  of  Group  A,  was- 
designed  after  the  tales  of  the  Sins,  and  was  originally 

40  Originals  and  Analogues,  pp.  105-106. 

41  Mark  in  both  stories  the  love  of  drinking,  wenching,  dancing, 
dicing,  gay  music,  and  riot. 

8 


114 


FREDERICK    TTJPPER 


intended  to  follow  the  story  of  the  Manciple,  is  evi- 
denced by  that  chiding  worthy's  Prologue  (H.  28-29 ), 
where  the  Cook's  story  is  spoken  of  as  yet  untold.42  Now 
a  story  composed  immediately  after  the  Sins  narratives 
could  hardly  escape  this  dominant  motif;  and  Gluttony 
would  naturally  suggest  itself  not  only  because  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  drunken  Cook,  but  because  it  alone  among 
the  Vices  had  not  received  the  separate  treatment  of  an  en- 
tire tale.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  Cook's  Tale  has 
nothing  of  the  framework  of  a  Sins  story.  In  his  Pro- 
logue there  is  no  suggestion  of  Gluttony,  nor  does  the  frag- 
ment contain  any  "  morality  "  against  the  Vice.  The  un- 
finished sketch,  therefore,  stands  apart  from  the  stories 
of  the  Sins. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  consider  the  crowning  argu- 
ment for  Chaucer's  deliberate  use  of  the  Sins  motif  in  the 
Tales  under  discussion — the  close  connection  between 
these  and  Chaucer's  own  detailed  discussion  of  the  Sins  in 
his  tract  on  the  Deadly  Seven  which  forms  so  large  a  part 
of  the  Parson's  sermon.43  That  this  tract  was  of  early  com- 
position and  was  freely  used  by  Chaucer  in  several  of  his 

•*-  **  It  seems  more  natural  to  suppose  that  this  shred  of  a  tale  was 
moved  back  to  the  congenial  neighborhood  of  the  Miller's  and 
Reeve's  Tales  than  to  follow  Skeat  (in,  399)  in  thinking  that  the 
Une  in  the  Manciple's  Prologue  marks  Chaucer's  intention  to  sup- 
press this  fragment  and  to  give  the  Cook  another  tale. 

**  That  this  tract  on  the  Sins  is  ultimately  traceable  to  a  different 
source  from  the  rest  of  the  sermon  on  Penitence  has  been  clearly 
established  by  Miss  Petersen  (The  Sources  of  the  Parson's  Tale, 
1901)  ;  yet  the  Parson's  combination  of  the  themes  is  in  strict  accord 
with  the  medieval  division  of  Penance  into  Contrition,  Confession 
(of  the  Capital  Sins),  and  Satisfaction,  and  is  justified  by  the  large 
space  given  to  the  Deadly  Sins  in  numerous  summae  and  peniten- 
tials.  But  in  the  linking  of  the  Sins  with  the  rest,  a  certain  awk- 
wardness suggests  original  separation. 


CHAUCEB    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  115 

stories  Koeppel  long  since  put  beyond  question.44  But  the 
true  significance  of  this  undeniable  indebtedness  of  the  tales 
to  the  tract  has  been  hitherto  overlooked.  When  into  story 
after  story  our  poet  introduces  freely  borrowings  (both  of 
thought  and  word)  from  his  treatise  upon  the  Seven 
Deadly  Sins,  the  conclusion  is  irresistible  that  such  a  bor- 
rowed treatment  of  each  Sin  is  neither  unconscious  nor 
casual,  but  deliberately  designed.  This  conclusion  be- 
comes firm  conviction,  when  there  are  other  strong  grounds 
for  associating  the  tale  with  the  Sin  upon  which  the  pil- 
grim narrator  is  made  to  moralize  almost  in  the  words  of 
the  Parson's  sermon.  The  burden  of  proof  certainly  rests 
upon  him  who  dares  claim  that  Chaucer  has  no  intention 
of  illustrating  Pride,  when  he  tags  the  Wife's  Pride 
exemplum  with  the  edifying  commonplaces  (on  Gentil- 
esse)  with  which,  in  much  the  same  language,  the  Parson 
has  preached  against  the  first  of  the  Vices ;  nor  that  he  has 
any  design  of  exemplifying  Wrath,  when  he  draws  upon 
the  Parson's  discourse  on  Anger  both  for  the  exact  motif 
of  the  Friar's  tale  of  retribution  and  for  the  angry  Sum- 
moner's  morality  against  Ire.  What  else  can  the  large 
plunderings  of  the  Pardoner  from  the  Parson's  reflections 
on  Avarice  and  Gluttony  and  its  auxiliary  vices  betoken 
save  that  the  rascal  is  formally  illustrating  those  Deadly 
Sins?  After  a  comparison  of  the  Parson's  section  on 
Sloth  with  the  Prologue  of  the  Second  Nun's  Tale,  who  can 
miss  the  present  purport  of  the  Idleness  stanzas45  or  ignore 

"Herrig's  Archiv,  87,  pp.  33-54;  cf.  Miss  Petersen,  I.  c. 

**  Between  these  stanzas  and  the  Parson's  sermon,  there  is  a  slight 
verbal  connection.  In  both  appear  the  conventional  epithets  of 
Sloth,  "Norice  into  vyces  (harm)"  and  "gate  of  delices  (alle 
harmes)  ";  and  they  share  other  ideas  (Skeat,  v,  402),  which  i^di- 
cate  a  common  purpose.  But  there  is  here  no  proof  of  direct  bor- 
rowing. 


116  FREDERICK    TUPPER 

the  formal  intent  of  the  zest  of  devotion  and  zeal  of  good 
works  in  the  "  Invocation  " — all  this  as  a  prelude  to  the 
story  of  a  typically  busy  saint  ?  With  what  aim  does  the 
chiding  Manciple  conclude  his  tale  of  Chiding  by  a  cop- 
ious use  of  the  Parson's  words  against  that  fault,  save  to 
make  the  ensample's  mission  clear  ?  And  why  should  we 
hesitate  to  regard  the  Poverty  Prologue  to  the  Man  of 
Law's  Envy  exemplum  as  a  studied  presentation  of  the 
Envious  mood,  when  the  Parson  himself  assures  us  that 
the  motif  of  these  stanzas,  '  grucching  agayns  poverty ' 
and  "  sorwe  of  other  mannes  wele  "  are  among  the  chief 
traits  of  this  Vice  ?  Only  one  of  the  Sins  tales — that  of  the 
Physician  (Gower's  exemplum  of  Lechery) — confesses  in 
.its  moralities  no  indebtedness  or  close  resemblance  to  the 
Parson's  discussion  of  the  corresponding  Vice;46  but  this 
omission  seems  the  less  striking,  when  we  remark  the  gen- 
erous use  of  the  section  on  Lechery  in  the  so-called  Mar- 
riage Group,  particularly  in  the  Merchant's  Tale.  The 
Parson's  portrayal  of  the  Vices  thus  enters  into  the  frame- 
work of  the  Sins  Tales  and  makes  obvious  the  "  applica- 
tion "  of  .each. 

The  Parson's  elaborate  treatment  of  the  Deadly  Seven, 
wrought  into  a  penitential  sermon,  now  stands  at  the  close 
of  the  Tales  "  to  knitte  up  al  this  feeste  and  make  an 
ende."  Is  it  a  thought  too  bold  that  this  last  of  the  Tales 
is  not  a  thing  apart,  but  closely  connected  with  all  those 

"That  the  Physician  probably  knows  the  Parson's  Tale  is  sug- 
gested, however,  by  his  casual  citation  of  Augustine's  definition  of 
Envy,  presented  in  practically  the  same  words  in  the  Sermon.  The 
association  of  wine  and  Venus  (Physician's  Tale,  58-59),  is  a  com- 
monplace, as  old  as  Ephesians,  v,  18,  (supra)  and  is  used  not  only  by 
the  Parson  but  by  the  Wife  and  the  Pardoner.  Of  course  the  leit- 
motif of  the  Doctor's  story  receives  from  the  Parson  due  stress  (I, 
867-872). 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS 


117 


stories  that  have  plundered  it  so  freely?  The  Parson's 
tract — in  some  earlier  form,  perhaps — was  certainly  be- 
fore Chaucer  when  he  wrote  many  of  his  Sins  narratives. 
Of  that  relation  we  have  just  had  ample  evidence.  Why 
is  it  then  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  Chaucer  had  in 
mind  the  other  Tales,  when  he  finally  conducted  the  Par- 
son through  his  homily  against  the  Vices  they  illustrate? 
To  me  the  conclusion  seems  unavoidable  that  this  division 
of  the  Parson's  sermon  is  but  the  culmination  of  the  fre- 
quently recurring  motif  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins. 

All  the  evidence  seems  to  show  that  the  Sins  motif  be- 
longs to  the  latter  part  of  our  collection.  There  is  no  rec- 
ognition in  the  General  Prologue  of  certain  of  the  Vice 
characteristics  upon  which  so  much  stress  is  laid  in  the 
special  prologues.  The  Gluttony  of  the  Pardoner,  though 
a  traditional  trait  of  that  tribe,  and  though  afterwards 
made  so  conspicuous  by  Chaucer,  and  the  Chiding  of  the 
Manciple,  to  which  he  later  gives  so  much  space,  were  ap- 
parently as  far  from  Chaucer's  mind  when  he  first  intro- 
duces those  figures  to  us  as  the  Merchant's  unhappy  expe- 
rience in  marriage  or  the  Franklin's  ill-luck  as  a  father 
or  the  Cook's  drunkenness.  NOT  do  I  believe  that,  at  the 
first  presentation  of  Friar  and  Summoner,  Chaucer  had 
any  thought  of  illustrating  the  Sin  of  Wrath,  as  Langland 
had  done,  by  a  quarrel  between  these  worthies.  At  any 
rate,  we  have  in  the  General  Prologue  no  suggestion  of 
these  things,  though  the  Pride  of  the  Wife,  the  Anger  of 
the  Summoner,  and  the  Avarice  of  the  Pardoner,  which 
later  play  so  perverse  a  part,  accord  well  with  the  earlier 
sketches  of  these  characters.  The  device  of  the  Sins  appar- 
ently came  to  the  poet  late.  If  the  order  of  the  Tales  in 
the  pilgrimage  corresponded  closely  to  the  order  of  com- 
position, we  could  speak  with  large  assurance  of  the  time 


FREDERICK    TUPPER 

of  this  motif,  for  all  the  stories  of  the  Sins,  with  one  ex- 
ception— and  that  only  a  seeming  one — belong  in  the  lat- 
ter half  of  the  Canterbury  series. 

It  has  already  been  recognized  by  scholars  that  the 
Poverty  (or  let  us  say,  Envy)  Prologue  was  written  at  the 
same  time  as  the  Tale  of  Constance,  on  account  of  the 
use  in  both  of  Innocent's  famous  tract,  De  Miseria  Con- 
ditionis  Humanae — not  interpolated,  but  inextricably 
woven  into  the  stuff  of  the  stanzas.  It  now  appears  highly 
probable  that  Prologue  and  Tale  were  written  at  the  same 
time  as  certain  others  of  the  Deadly  Sins  stories,  not  only 
because  Chaucer  adheres  to  the  ironical  design  so  success- 
fully pursued  in  them  by  making  an  envious  man  (the 
anonymous  speaker  of  the  Prologue,  later  identified  with 
the  Man  of  Law  merely  through  the  context)  furnish  in 
his  narrative  large  evidence  against  Envy,  but  because  the 
other  Canterbury  pilgrim  that  employs  freely  Innocent's 
tract  is  the  teller  of  a  Sins  story  (and  a  story  generally  re- 
garded as  late),47  the  covetous  and  gluttonous  Pardoner. 
That  this  time  of  composition  was  later  than  that  of  the 
Introduction  to  the  Man  of  Law  (B.  1-98)  is  obvious,  since 
the  Prologue  and  Tale  of  Envy  were  carried  back  from 
the  companionship  of  the  Sins  stories  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  collection — perhaps  because  among  the  few  pilgrims 
still  silent  no  fitting  narrator  was  available, — and  thrust 
in  here  awkwardly  as  an  appropriate  substitute  for  the 
prose  tale  once  assigned  the  Lawyer.  As  the  Introduction, 

47  This  second  argument  for  the  late  date  of  the  Poverty  prologue 
is  somewhat  weakened  by  the  citation  of  Innocent's  comment  upon 
Poverty,  in  the  Tale  of  Melibeus,  B.  2758,  but  such  a  second-hand 
allusion  has  small  significance.  Very  striking,  however,  is  the  simi- 
lar use  of  Innocent's  Drunkenness  passage  (ii,  chap.  18)  in  The 
Man's  of  Laity's  Tale  (B.  771-7)  and  in  that  of  the  Pardoner  (C.  551- 
500) ;  cf.  Skeat,  m,  408,  444,  445. 


CHATJCEB   AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS 

thus  demonstrably  earlier  than  the  Tale,  refers  to  Gower's 
incestuous  stories,  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
resemblance  between  Chaucer's  and  Gower's  versions  of 
the  Tale  of  Constance  must  be  explained  by  the  indebted- 
ness of  the  greater  poet  to  the  less. 

Something  more  must  be  said  immediately  of  the  re- 
lation between  the  veryj  similar  tales  of  the  two  contem- 
poraries. That  in  such  synchronous  collections  as  the 
Confessio  Amantis  and  the  Canterbury  Tales  there  should 
be  some  coincidence  in  the  use  of  material  is  not  sur- 
prising and  that  four  stories  of  the  one  appear  in  the  other 
also  (in  three  cases  in  quite  different  versions)  would  of 
itself  indicate  no  direct  connection.  But  the  circumstance 
that  the  four  stories  are  made,  in  the  two  works,  to  serve 
the  same  purpose  of  illustrating  four  well-defined  divisions 
of  the  Deadly  Sins — Pride,  Lechery,  Wrath  (Chiding), 
and  Envy48 — would  dispose  conclusively  of  the  theory 
of  coincidence,  even  though  there  were  no  close  verbal 
parallels  between  Gower's  Tale  of  Constance,  and  Chau- 
cer's Man  of  Law's  story.  Is  it  to  be  believed,  for  instance, 
that  Chaucer  and  Gower  were  independent  in  their  com- 
mon use  of  a  Woman's  Wiles  story,  like  that  of  the 
Manciple,  to  illustrate  Chiding  and  in  their  similar  moral 
tags  to  the  tale?  One  poet  is  then  indebted  to  the  other. 
Now  even  if  Gower  were  demonstrably  the  debtor  in  the 
use  of  these  themes,  his  evidence  to  the  fitness  of  Chaucer's 
exempla  as  illustrations  of  the  Sins  would  be  neither  more 
nor  less  potent  than  if  we  accept  the  contrary  view  of  the 
relationship.  But  there  is  the  evidence  that  Chaucer  and 
not  Gower  borrowed  in  the  Tale  of  Constance.  (Here 
I  am  quite  at  one  with  Liicke  and  Tatlock).  And  more- 

**  As  we  have  seen,  prologues  and  moralities  attest  the  likeneA  of 
Chaucer's  design  in  these  four  stories  to  that  of  Gower. 


120 


FREDERICK    TUPPEB 


over  it  seems  much  more  likely  that  Chaucer  was  indebted 
for  the  suggestion  of  fitting  themes  for  the  Sins — the  rela- 
tion in  three  cases  is  hardly  more  than  that — to  Gower'a 
methodical  and  admirably  ordered  classification  of  the 
Vices  than  Gower  to  Chaucer's  intermittent  and  irregular 
use  of  the  formula.  My  own  opinion  is  that  Gower's 
Confessio  Amantis  not  only  suggested  to  his  contemporary 
the  themes  of  the  four  exempla,  but  also  revealed  to  him 
the  possibilities  of  a  combination  between  Sin  theme  and 
Love  theme  within  a  collection  of  stories  (for  where  else 
save  in  Gower  is  such  a  combination  to  be  found?).49  It 
was  possibly  under  the  influence  of  his  "  moral "  friend 
that  Chaucer  realized  the  feasibility  of  employing  for  the 
lessons  of  many  stories  his  own  adaptation  of  a  Deadly 
Sins  homily,  now  an  important  division  of  the  Parson's 
Tale.  As  Miss  Hammond  has  pointed  out,50  "  Chaucer's 
treatment  of  material  used  by  Gower  (taken  in  connection 
with  the  Headlink's  allusion  to  stories  told  by  Gower) 
does  not  warrant  us  in  arguing  a  date  later  than  the 
'  publication '  of  the  Confessio.  For  we  cannot  assert 
that  either  poet  was  unaware  of  the  plans  and  perhaps 
the  details  of  the  other's  work ;  the  relations  between  them, 
for  aught  we  know,  permitted  an  interchange  of  opinions 
and  of  manuscripts." 

However  that  may,  be — and  the  matter  of  the  exact 
relation  between  the  two  poets,  though  interesting,  does 
not  vitally  affect  my  main  contention — it  is  instructive 
for  us  to  compare  the  methods  of  Gower  and  Chaucer  in 
their  respective  uses  of  the  Sins  motif,  or  rather  the 

**The  conversion  of  the  seven  nymphs  of  Boccaccio's  Ameto  into 
Seven  Cardinal  Virtues  at  the  close  of  that  pastoral,  has  no  effect 
upon  their  stories  of  love,  to  which  Professor  Tatlock  has  recently 
drawn  the  attention  of  students  of  Chaucer  (Anglia,  xxxvii,  pp. 
80  f.). 

"Chaucer,  p.  262. 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS 


121 


method  of  the  one  with  the  other's  lack  of  consistent  de- 
sign. To  Gower  the  familiar  formula  is  the  scaffolding 
upon  which,  with  all  regard  to  system  and  traditional 
categories,  he  constructs  every  stage  of  his  elaborate  edi- 
fice. To  Chaucer  the  motif  is  merely  a  device  which 
appealed  at  intervals  through  its  popular  effectiveness,  its 
potent  suggestions  of  irony,  and  its  value  as  a  framework 
in  separate  instances.  In  this  article  I  have  avoided 
speaking  of  the  Sins  tales  as  a  "  Group/'  because  this 
would  seem  to  indicate  an  ordered  sequence,  a  coherence 
between  these  stories,  which  is  entirely  lacking.  It  is 
evident  that  Chaucer  makes  small  account  of  the  con- 
ventional order  of  the  Sins — Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Sloth, 
Avarice,  Gluttony,  Luxury — which  is  so  accurately  ob- 
served in  the  Parsons  Tale.  If,  as  I  believe,  the  Wife 
of  Bath's  is  the  first  of  his  Sins  stories,  his  order  (which 
is,  of  course,  more  or  less  doubtful)  seems  to  be  this — 
Pride,  Wralih,  Luxury,  Avarice  and  Gluttony,  Sloth, 
Chiding  (Wrath  or  a  Sin  of  the  Tongue),  with  Envy 
moved  back  towards  the  beginning  of  the  collection  in 
total  disregard  of  all  categories.51  And  while  in  Chaucer's 
treatment  of  the  Sins  motif,  there  is  certainly  this  much 
of  consistency,  that  prologues  and  moralities  effectively 
supplement  the  purpose  of  the  exemplum — still  these  are 
introduced  with  the  freedom  of  him  who  is  the  master, 
not  the  slave  of  his  plan.  In  the  stories  of  the  Wife  of 
Bath  and  the  Summoner,  the  Pride  and  Wrath  moralities 
are  put  into  the  mouths  of  the  chief  persons  of  the  tales, 
while  in  the  contributions  of  the  Pardoner  and  the  Manci- 

51  As  wo  have  seen,  divergence  from  the  normal  order  of  Sins 
is  not  uncommon  in  medieval  collections.  Pride  is  always  first, 
however,  and  Avarice  and  Gluttony  are  almost  always  in  succession. 
In  Handlyng  Synne  and  in  Dunbar's  Dance  of  the  Sins,  Wrath  fol- 
lows Pride  in  the  list  of  Vices,  as  here  in  Chaucer. 


122  FREDEBICK    TUPPEB 

pie,  which  resemble  each  other  in  structure,  and  of  the 
Physician  and  the  narrators  of  the  tales  of  Sloth  and  Envy, 
the  pointers  of  the  moral  are  the  story-tellers  themselves. 
All  the  prologues  are  alike  in  their  ironical  connection 
with  the  stories;  but  the  Wife's  Inobedience  is  conveyed 
through  her  own  direct  confession,  like  the  Avarice  and 
Gluttony  of  the  Pardoner;  while  the  Wrath  of  the  Sum- 
moner,  the  Chiding  of  the  Manciple,  and  the  Envy  of  the 
"  Constance  "  narrator  are  unconsciously  revealed  by  act 
or  word. 

After  the  Sins  motif  has  once  entered  the  Canterbury 
collection  in  the  Wife's  Tale,  Chaucer  seems  to  develop  it 
in  one  of  three  ways.  First,  he  blends  it  skilfully  with 
the  Love  motif  in  his  four  Gower  stories  (as  does  Gower 
himself  in  these  very  tales)  and  in  the  Tale  of  the  Second 
Nun.  The  tale  of  Florent  is  directed  against  not  Ino- 
bedience merely  but  Inobedience  in  love ;  and  in  the  story, 
as  told  by  the  Wife,  the  motif  of  marriage  is  welded  with 
that  of  Pride.  The  Tale  of  Lechery,  Appius  and  Virginia, 
proclaims  by  its  likeness  to  the  Franklin's  exempla  of  dis- 
tressed virginity,  its  close  relation  with  the  prevailing 
Love  theme.  The  Manciple's  Tale  is  not  only  an  exemplum 
of  Chiding,  ("  Kepe  wel  thy  tongue  and  thenk  upon  the 
crowe  ")  but,  as  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere,  is  a  return 
to  the  cuckold  motif  of  the  earlier  stories,  though  the 
woman's  sin  is  now  a  theme  for  censure  (H.  211  f.) 
rather  than  for  ribald  mirth,  and  the  relation  of  man  and 
wife  is  gravely  discussed  and  vividly  illustrated.  It 
is  significant  that  this  story  of  the  Crow  which  Gower 
employs  to  exemplify  a  phase  of  Wrath  is  really  one  of 
a  Woman's  Wiles  cycle  of  stories.52  The  Man  of  Law's 
Tale,  though  primarily  of  Envy  (as  the  little  Prologue 

*  Clouston,  Originals  and  Analogues,  p.  439. 

i 


CHAUCEE  AND  THE  SEVEN  DEADLY  SINS 

shows),  exalts  the  loyalty  and  strength  of  the  stately 
wife  and  mother.  As  Gower  says  in  the  application  to 
his  version  (Confessio,  n,  1599  f.)  :— 

And  thus  the  wel  meninge  of  love 
Was  ate  laste  set  above; 
And  so,  as>  thou  hast  herd  tofore, 
The  false  tunges  weren  lore, 
Which  upon  love  wolden  lie. 

Saint  Cecilia  is  not  only  the  type  of  busy-ness  but  the 
married  celibate  representing  the  ascetic  ideal  as  opposed 
to  the  delights  of  the  flesh,  and  is  hence  antipodal  to  the 
Wife  of  Bath.  Thus  the  Sins  motif  and  the  Love  motif 
are  artfully  combined. 

Secondly,  Chaucer  makes  the  Sins  motif  the  dominant 
element  in  the  contributions  of  Friar,  Summoner,  and 
Pardoner,  neglecting  for  these  illustrations  of  the  Vices 
his  Love  theme,  as  Gower  neglects  it  in  many  exempla 
of  the  Confessio.^  The  eager  discussion  of  marriage  is 
well  under  way,  and  the  Wife's  views  call  loudly  for  refu- 
tation; yet  so  strong  is  the  claim  of  the  Sins  formula 
that  Chaucer  temporarily  abandons  the  insistent  woman- 
question,  in  order  to  illustrate  Wrath  by  the  Friar-Sum- 
moner  quarrel  and  Tales.  From  this  point  of  view  the 
D  group  forms  a  Sins  cycle  of  Pride  and  Wrath.  It  is 
noteworthy,  however,  that  the  mention  of  the  wife  of 
Thomas  in  the  Summoner's  Tale  compels  a  momentary 
return  (D.  1980-2005)  to  the  all-absorbing  theme  of  the 
relation  between  the  sexes.  The  temporary  dominance  of 


"Such  stories  as  the  Trump  of  Death  (Confessio  I,  2010-2253), 
Nabugodonosor  (i,  2785-3043),  the  Travelers  and  the  Angel  (n, 
291-364),  Demetrius  and  Persius  (n,  1631-1861),  Pope  Bonifac* 
(n,  2803-3084),  etc.,  despite  their  place  in  an  amorous  cycle,  are 
as  remote  from  the  leitmotif  of  Love  and  as  full  of  the  theme  of 
the  Sina  as  the  contributions  of  Friar,  Summoner,  and  Pardoner. 


124  FREDEEICK    TUPPEB 

the  Sins  motif  explains  adequately  the  poet's  departure 
from  the  ruling  motif  of  the  collection — the  many-hued 
theme  of  Love — not  only  in  these  stories,  but  in  the 
Tale  of  the  Pardoner.  It  is  true  that  this  rascal's  attitude 
to  women  is  revealed  in  his  Prologue  (C.  453,  cf.  D.  163) 
and  through  contraries  in  his  tale  (C.  480  f.),  but  in  his 
exposition  of  the  two  Sins  of  Avarice  and  Gluttony,  both 
by  precept  and  practice,  there  is  little  opportunity  for 
any  intrusion  of  other  elements. 

Thirdly,  Chaucer  abandons  the  Sins  motif  in  the  mar- 
riage stories  provoked  by  the  Wife.  In  the  so-called 
Groups  E  and  F — the  Tales  of  Clerk,  Merchant,  Squire, 
and  Franklin — it  finds  no  place.  But  (if  we  follow  the 
modified  Ellesmere  order)  the  device  is  again  revived  in 
the  Tale  of  the  Physician  and  carried  through  the  col- 
lection, barring  the  Canon  Yeoman's  episode.  The  for- 
mula could  be  dropped  and  resumed  at  will.  It  was  to 
the  poet  not  a  crutch  but  a  staff. 

To  the  view  that  the  Parson's  treatment  of  the  Sins 
is  a  culmination  of  this  frequently  recurring  motif,  a 
friendly  critic  offers  the  seemingly  valid  objection  that 
the  Canterbury  Tales  is  only  a  fragment  representing  but 
one  fourth  of  Chaucer's  original  design  and  that  the  addi- 
tion of  a  hundred  other  stories  would  not  only  have  mini- 
mised his  use  of  the  Sins  formula,  but  would  have  shat- 
tered any  seeming  connection  between  the  stories  of  the 
Vices  and  the  concluding  sermon  of  the  Parson.  This 
objection  overlooks  entirely  Chaucer's  later  modification 
of  the  Host's  scheme  in  the  General  Prologue.  The 
Parson's  Prologue  makes  it  very  clear  that  the  author  not 
only  gave  over  all  intention  of  accompanying  the  pil- 
grims on  their  return  to  London,  but  decided  to  restrict 
the  number  of  stories  on  the  outward  journey  to  one  a 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN    DEADLY    SINS  125 

man.54  The  tales  left  untold  are  therefore  not  a  hun- 
dred, but  some  seven — to  be  exact,  those  of  the  five  Bur- 
gesses, the  Yeoman,  and  the  Plowman,  only  these  and 
"namo,"  for  in  the  part  assigned  to  the  Nun's  Priest  in 
Group  B,  his  two  shadowy  companions  of  the  General 
Prologue  are  completely  forgotten.  What  would  have 
been  the  themes  of  these  seven  tales  and  what  place  they 
would  have  found  in  the  collection,  are  interesting  specu- 
lations. We  can  reasonably  conjecture,  with  the  stately 
wives  in  mind  (A.  374-378),  that  the  Citizens  would  have 
made  interesting  contributions  to  the  marriage  question. 
"  Chaucer/7  says  Alfred  Pollard,55  "  no  doubt  intended  to 
retell  the  Tale  of  Gamelyn  as  a  woodland  tale  exactly 
suited  to  the  sturdy  Yeoman."  And  the  Christ-like  Plow- 
man could  not  have  been  made  the  representative  of  a  Vice. 
Indeed  Chaucer's  treatment  of  the  Sins  motif  is  already 
complete.56  That  Chaucer  probably  carried  back  the 
Cook's  Tale  from  the  end  of  the  collection  to  the  company 
of  the  Reeve  and  Miller  stories  shows  that  other  supplemen- 
tary tales  might  well  have  been  inserted  without  marring 
the  connection,  such  as  it  is,  between  the  later  Tales  and 
the  Parson's  sermon.57  Thus  the  objection,  based  upon 
the  fragmentary  condition  of  the  Canterbury  Tales,  to 

MCf.  Parson's  Prologue,  i,  16,  25,  "Now  lakketh  us  no  tales  mo 
than  oon  "  and  "  For  every  man  save  thou  hath  told  his  tale." 

86  Chaucer  Primer,  p.  1 12. 

"All  the  Sins  are  presented  by  precept  and  example.  Chaucer's 
phase  of  Wrath  (Chiding)  in  the  last  tale  of  the  collection  might 
seem  to  some  superfluous  after  the  elaborate  exemplification  of 
Wrath  in  the  Friar-Summoner  quarrel  and  tales.  But  as  we  have 
seen,  the  Sins  of  the  Tongue  well  deserve  specific  exposition.  Com- 
pare their  place  in  Le  Mireour  du  Monde  and  the  Ayeribite. 

5T  Pollard  guesses  (Primer,  p.  112)  that  the  Yeoman  and  the  five 
Burgesses  were  the  narrators  during  the  afternoon  of  tipe  First 
Day,  as  no  tales  are  provided  for  that  time. 


126  FREDEBICK    TUPPER 

the  presence  and  prominence  of  the  Sins  motif  completely 
collapses  under  scrutiny. 

Another  objection  made  with  emphasis  by  certain 
friends,  doubtless  lovers  of  "  art  for  art's  sake/'  is  this, — 
that  Chaucer  was  "not  intrigued  by  the  homiletic  side," 
that  he  was  occupied  with  solidly  concrete  figures  and 
not  with  finely  spun  webs  of  allegory,  that  his  purpose 
was  artistic  and  that,  therefore,  he  never  started  out  to 
preach.  This  protest,  even  if  we  omit  its  question-beg- 
ging epithets,  seems  to  me  founded  entirely  upon  a  priori 
conceptions  and  to  bear  about  the  same  relation  to  facts 
as  the  assured  comment  of  the  gazing  countryman  upon 
the  hippopotamus,  "  Thar  ain't  no  sich  critter !  It  is 
impossible."  He  who  denies  that  Chaucer  does  preach 
and  with  a  definite  purpose  must  either  close  his  eyes  to 
the  many  obvious  "  moralities  "  in  the  several  tales,  or 
else  eyeing  them  askance  must  proclaim,  as  has  been  often 
done,  their  utter  aimlessness  and  irrelevancy.  That  the 
u  moralities  "  are  there,  he  who  runs  may  read.  That 
they  are  "  moralities  "  of  the  Sins,  no  one  can  doubt  who 
takes  the  trouble  to  compare  them  with  Chaucer's  own 
formal  description  of  the  Vices  (Parson's  Tale)  or  with 
the  traditional  traits  of  these  evil  passions  in  medieval 
theology.  That  these  teachings  are  direct  applications 
of  the  tales  that  they  accompany  is  attested  not  only  by 
Gower's  use  of  several  of  these  stories  to  illustrate  the 
very  Sins  under  rebuke,  but  by  the  close  logical  coherence 
between  the  motif  of  the  story  and  the  appended  lesson. 
And  yet  "  thar  ain't  no  sich  critter !  "  "  Gower's  Tales," 
I  quote  from  a  recent  student  of  "  The  Exemplum  in  Eng- 
land," 58  "  embrace  a  wide  range  of  classic  and  medieval 
themes,  which  were  treated  by  such  men  as  Boccaccio  and 

"Mosher,  Columbia  University  Press,  1911,  pp.  125-126. 


CHAUCER    AND    THE    SEVEN"    DEADLY    SHSTS  J27 

Chaucer  with  little  if  any  thought  of  the  exemplum." 
Yet  Chaucer  supplements  one  of  these  Gower  stories,  that 
of  Chiding,  with  the  exemplum  formula  (H.  309  f.)  : — 

Lordings,  by  this  ensample  I  you  preye 
Beth  war  and  taketh  kepe  what  I  seye. 

And  then  follows  an  "  application,"  very  close  to  Gower'i. 
At  the  end  of  another  Gower  story,  that  of  Lechery,  Chau- 
cer says  plainly  (C.  277  f.)  :— 

Heer  men  may  seen  how  sinne  hath  his  meryte! 
Beth  war,  for  no  man  woot  whom  God  wol  smyte. 

Evidently  Chaucer  was  quite  in  the  dark  about  himself! 
Being  of  the  fourteenth  century  he  utterly  failed  to  recog- 
nize that,  as  an  artist,  he  was  absolutely  debarred  from 
pointing  the  moral — that  is  in  his  tales  of  the  Sins — and 
obviously  he  did  not  share  the  modern  tenet  that,  while 
illustrations  of  masculine  or  feminine  submissiveness  in 
the  married  state  are  entirely  worthy  of  a  poet's  art, 
pointed  revelations  of  the  cardinal  emotions  must  be 
deemed  degrading  to  his  genius.  Fallacious  indeed  is  the 
reasoning  that  declares  Chaucer  an  artist  on  the  ground 
that  he  did  not  do  these  very  things  which  he  may  be 
proved  to  have  done  most  frequently.  But  a  truce  to  false 
premises!  The  poet  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  is  no  less 
the  true  "  maker  "  in  his  examples  of  the  Vices  than  the 
poet  of  the  Faery  Queen  in  his  allegories  of  the  Virtues. 
In  both  poems  the  shaping  power  of  the  imagination  is 
so  vividly  present  that  the  joy  of  creation  transcends  even 
avowed  purposes  of  moral  instruction.59  Chaucer's  supe- 

*  Professor  Crane's  description  of  the  Liber  de  Apibus  of  Thomas 
Cantipratensis  (Exempla  of  Jacques  de  Vitry,  p.  xciii)  is  applicable 
to  Chaucer's  tales  of  the  Sins :  "  The  moralisation  does  nof  at  all 
affect  the  story,  but  serves  simply  as  a  framework  in  which  to 
enclose  it." 


128  FREDERICK    TUPPER 

riority  to  Gower  in  the  Sins  stories  lies  not  in  his  avoid- 
ance of  "  moralities/7  for  he  uses  them  with  the  greatest 
freedom,  but  in  the  artistic  dexterity  of  his  escape  from 
the  fetters  of  his  formula,  and  in  the  humanizing  of  his 
teaching  through  the  ironical  association  of  the  Sins  with 
flesh  and  blood  figures,  and  through  the  universal  appeal 
of  his  sometimes  satirical  and  always  dramatic  presentation 
of  elemental  passions.  Robert  Greene  builded  far  better 
than  he  knew  when  he  represented  in  his  Vision  60  Chau- 
cer and  Gower,  "  the  accepted  representatives  of  the 
pleasant  and  sententious  styles  in  story  telling/'  as  com- 
peting with  one  another  in  tales  upon  a  given  subject  (the 
cure  of  jealousy). 

The  medieval  mind  was  wont  to  revolve  about  the  time- 
honored  formula  of  the  Vices ;  and  Chaucer  completed  the 
circle  in  some  seven  or  eight  of  his  stories.  In  four  of 
these  he  used  themes  that  had  served  the  same  purpose 
in  Gower's  most  famous  work.  In  three  others  he  availed 
himself  of  exempla  that  had  pointed  like  morals  else- 
where. He  tagged  his  Sins  tales  with  prologues  that  all 
readers  of  his  time  would  con  aright ;  and  bound  these  to 
their  narratives  with  pungent  satire.  He  added,  too,  fit- 
ting "  applications "  derived  in  part  from  a  sermon 
on  the  Deadly  Seven  and  set  this  same  sermon  at  the 
culmination  of  the  Canterbury  series.  And  despite  all  the 
author's  care  we  sand-blind  moderns  grope  helplessly  about 
in  the  high  noon  of  his  "  ensamples  " ;  because  we  have 
hitherto  been  content  to  regard  as  unrelated  units  these 
parts  of  a  noble  whole  and  have  darkened  with  the  shadows 
of  much  up-to-date  counsel  these  characteristic  products  of 
a  past  leagues  away  from  us  in  both  its  morality  and  its 
humor. 

FREDERICK  TUPPER. 

*°  Cited  by  Macaulay,  Introduction  to  Confessio  Amantis,  p.  ix. 


IV.— THE  "COKONES  TWO"  OF  THE  SECOND 
NUN'S  TALE:    A  SUPPLEMENTAEY  NOTE 

In  an  earlier  article  in  these  Publications  1  I  pointed 
out  that  the  roses  and  lilies  brought  by  the  angel  to  Cecilia 
and  Valerian  symbolized  martyrdom  and  virginity,  and  so 
focussed  in  themselves  the  significance  of  the  story.  My 
illustrations,  however,  were  all  drawn,  as  it  happened, 
from  the  Sermones  aurei  of  Jacobus  de  Voragine.  It  is 
perhaps  worth  while  to  put  beyond  any  possible  doubt 
the  fact  that  the  symbolism  which  permeates  the  Sermones 
was  both  widespread  and  familiar.  I  shall,  accordingly, 
round  out  the  argument  presented  three  years  ago  by  a 
number  of  additional  passages  drawn  from  a  variety  of 
sources. 

In  that  curious  melange.,  the  Miroir  de  Mariage  of 
Eustache  Deschamps,  Repertoire  de  Science,  after  inveigh- 
ing against  "  le  delit  de  femme  estrange/ '  and  moralizing 
at.  length  upon  woman's  beauty,  that  passes  as  the  passing 
of  the  rose,  (with  a  digression  on  the  subject  of  Job's 
wife),  instructs  Franc  Vouloir  regarding  the  Fountain 
of  Compunction,  and  the  garden  that  surrounds  it.  The 
setting  is  as  remote  as  may  be  from  that  of  the  passage 
in  Jacopo's  serrnon-book.  But  among  the  flowers  of  the 
garden,  along  with  "  Polive  de  misericorde "  and  the 
**  palmes  de  justice,"  are  found,  as  in  the  sermons, 

...  la   rose  ensement 
De  martire,   et  semblabtement 
De  chastet6  le  tresdoulz  lis.2 

0 

'Vol.  xxvi,  No.  2    (June,  1911),  pp.  315-23. 
-'Lines  6135-37    (ed.  Raynaiid,  Vol.  xi,  p.  201). 

129 

9 


130  JOHN  LIVINGSTON  LOWES 

It  is  in  a  very  different  poem,  however, — the  Miserere 
of  Kenclus  de  Moiliens — that  the  most  striking  elabora- 
tion of  the  theme  occurs.  I  shall  quote  the  pertinent 
stanzas  in  their  immediate  context: 

Li  tormenteour  s'esbaiirent 
Quant  tel  vertu  en  fames  virent. 
Horn,  tu  dis  fame  est  fr aisle  et  lente; 
Mais  ches  virges  t'en  desmentirent 
Quant  double  offrande  a  Dieu  offrirent. 
Et  Tune  et  1'autre  fu  mout  gente; 
Le  premiere  est  caste  jovente, 
Et  le  seconde  est  le  tormente 
De  le  mort  ke  por  Dieu  soffrirent. 
Ou  est  ore  horn  ki  se  presente 
De  Dieu  sivir  par  tele  sente 
Ki  ches  pucheles  le  sivirent? 

Jhesus,  ki  en  tous  biens  foisones, 
Ki  toutes  coses  asaisones 
A  droit,  et  reus  justes  merites 
Bien  sont  asseiir,  quant  tu  tones, 
Iches  toies  amies  bones, 
Virges,  martires  beneites. 
Bien  sont  de  tes  menaches  quites, 
Ne  n'ont  pas  corones  petites. 
Eles  claiment  doubles  corones 
De  toi,  et  tu  bien  t'en  aquites. 
En  1'escriture  sont  escrites 
Queles  et  por  coi  tu  lor  dones. 

Virge  ki  de  carneus  delis 
Garda  sen  cors  pur  et  alis, 
Quant,  por  haper,  le  faulosa 
Li  mondes  fartillie's,  polis, 
Digne  est  de  corone  de  lis. 
Et  quant  soffrir  martire  osa, 
Ke  sans  se  car  virge  arosa 
Li  vermaus  le  blanc   enrosa. 
Por  chou  li  capeliers  eslis 
Sen  capel  li  entrerosa; 
Le  lis  meale"  o  le  rose  a 
S'en  est  li  capiaus  plus  jolis. 


THE  "  CORONES  TWO  "  OF  THE  SECOND  NUN'S  TALE      131 

Bele  sanlanche  est  et  doucete 
Dou  lis  a  le  car  virge  et  nete 
Et  de  le  martire  a  le  rose. 
A  virge  afiert  blanke  florete 
Et  au  martir  le  flour  rougete. 
Offrande  fait  de  bele  cose 
Ki  por  Dieu  sen  virge  sane  pose; 
Et  por  chou  Dieus  li  entrepose 
Au  blanc  lis  le  rouge  rosete: 
Ch'est  double  joie  ou  el  repose. 
Mais  virge  ki  Tame  despose 
Sans  sane  n'a  fors  le  flour  blankete.3 

Four  centuries  before  Chaucer,  .^Elfric,  who  also  tells 
in  English  verse  the  story  of  St.  Cecilia,4  explains  else- 
where the  symbolism  of  the  lily  and  the  rose: 

Godes  gelatSung  haefS  on  sibbe  lilian,  J?aet  is  clsene  drohtnung;  on 
Csem  gewinne,  rosan,  Cset  is  martyrdom.6 

Dffira  rosena  blostman  getacniaS  mid  heora  readnysse  martyrdom, 
and  $a  lilian  mid  heora  hwitnesse  getacniaS  Sa  sclnendan  clsennysse 
ansundes  maegShades.6 

Two  centuries  earlier  still  Alcuin  wrote  the  following: 

CsBcilia,  Agathes,  Agnes  et  Lucia  virgo: 

Heec  istis  pariter  ara  sacrata  micat, 
Lilia  cum  rosis  fulgent  in  vertice  quarum 

Et  lampas  rutilat  luce  perenne  simul.7 

*  Li  Romans  de  CariU  et  Miserere  de  Renclus  de  Moiliens,  Poemes 
de  la  fin  du  xii*  siecle,  ed.  A.-G.  Van  Hamel,  Paris,  1885,  stanzas 
cxciii-vi,  pp.  238-40. 

4  Lives  of  the  Saints,  xxxiv,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  114,  pp.  356  ff. 

5 Homilies,  H,  546,  2 :  "On  the  Nativity  of  the  Holy  Martyrs." 

6  Homilies,  i,  444,  13 :  "  On  the  Assumption  of  the  Blessed  Mary." 
Professor  Frederick  Tupper — who  has  indicated  the  mystical  mean- 
ing of  the  two  flowers  in  the  notes  to  his  Riddles  of  the  Exeter 
Book,  p.  166 — has  been  kind  enough  to  call  my  attention  to  these 
two  passages. 

T Alcuini  (Albini)  Carmina  (Monumenta  Germanics  Hismrica, 
Poetarum  Latinorum  medii  aevi,  Tom.  I,  310)  ;  No.  ix  (Ad  aram 
sanctarum  virginum)  of  the  "  Inscriptiones  ecclesiae  sancti  Vedasti 
in  Pariete." 


132  JOHN  LIVINGSTON  LOWES 

Still  more  explicit  is  the  reference  in  the  debab  of  the 
rose  and  the  lily  by  Sedulius  Scottus : 

Tu,   rosa,  martyribus  rutilam  das   stemmate  palmam, 
Lilia,  virgineas  turbas  decorate  stolatas.8 

But  it  is  in  the  hymnology  of  the  church  that  one 
finds  the  fullest  recognition  of  the  symbolism  which 
gathers  up  and  concentrates,  in  the  two  fadeless  crowns, 
the  "glorious  lyf  and  passioun"  of  St.  Cecilia — as  the 
dower  of  Crashaw's  St.  Theresa  finds  its  emblem  in  the 
magnificent  hyperbole  of  the  eagle  and  the  dove.  The 
first  lines  of  a  few  of  the  hymns  in  Chevalier's  great 
Kepertorium  will  show  how  thoroughly  the  conception  had 
pervaded  mediaeval  religious  thought: 

Rosa  vernans  charitatis   |   lilium  virginitatis;  9 

Rosa  florens  martyrii  |  ;  10 

Liliis  candens  Emerantiam  |  et  rosis  martyr  rubra  purp.;  " 

Rosa  rubens  et  candens  lilium  |  in  beata  refulget  Aurea;  u 

Lilium   vernat  niveo   colore    |    et  rosse  florent  simul;  13 

Rubra  defluxit  rosa,  sed  coronam     martyrum  poscit  cap;  14 

Virgineus  flos,  lilium,  |  cruore  fusus  roseo.15 

8 Sedulii  Scotti  Carmina  (Hon.  Germ.  Hist.,  Poet.  Lat.  med.  aev., 
in,  231);  No  LXXXI,  11.  41-42,  "  De  rosse  liliique  certamine  idem 
Sedulius  cecinit." 

9  Chevalier,  Repertorium  hymnologicum,  No.  32994.  So  No.  32993, 
with  the  substitution  of  castitatis  for  virginitatis.. 

10 No.  32990.  "No.   10628.  "No.  40556. 

18 No.  10631.  "No.  32998. 

15  No.  21647;  cf.  No.  21646.  A  somewhat  different  turn  is  given 
to  the  symbolism  in  another  hymn,  quoted  in  the  Analecta  Bollandi- 
ana,  VI,  395  (Hymni,  Sequentice  aliaque  carmina  sacra  hact&nus 
inedita,  Cod.  Brux.  9786-90,  *f.  238va,  xv  cent.)  : 

Ave,  virgo  gloriosa, 
Toti  mundo  gaudiosa, 

Beata  tu  Cecilia; 
Rubens  sicut  florens  rosa, 
Tota  dulcis  et  formosa 

Candore  vincens  lylia. 


THE  "  CORONES  TWO  "  OF  THE  SECOND  NTJN?S  TALE       133 

Finally,   in  the  stirring  lines   of  an  eleventh-century 
poet,  the  roses  and  lilies  are  bestowed  upon  Rome  itself : 

0  Roma  nobilis,  orbis  et  domina, 
Cunctarum  urbium  excellentissima, 
Roseo  martyrum  sanguine  rubea, 
Albis  et  virginum  liliis  Candida.18 

The  symbolism,  then,  which  Chaucer  explicitly  recog- 
nizes— 

Thou  with  thy  gerland  wroght  of  rose  and  lilie; 
i    Thee  mene  I,  mayde  and  martir,  seint  Cecilie! — " 

was  without  question  clear  to  his  contemporary  readers. 

JOHN  LIVINGSTON  LOWES. 


18  Quoted  in  Taylor,  The  Medieval  Mind,  n,  p.  200.  I  am  indebted  to 
Professor  H.  M.  Belden  for  this  reference.  Traube's  study  of  the 
poem  (Abhand.  Bairish.  Akad.  Philos.-philol.  Klasse,  1891)  I  have 
not  been  able  to  consult. 

17  G  27-28. 


PUBLICATIONS 


OF  THE 


Modern  Language  Association  of  America 

1914 
VOL.  XXIX,  2  NEW  SERIES,  VOL.  XXII,  2 


V.— THE  RENASCENCE   OF   GERMANIC   STUDIES 
IN  ENGLAND,   1559-1689 

About  the  close  of  the  first  year  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  tne 
Primacy  of  all  England  fell  upon  a  man  peculiarly  fitted 
by  habit  of  mind  and  by  previous  experience  to  employ  the 
vast  prerogatives  of  the  archbishopric  for  the  revival  of 
ancient  knowledge.  Master  of  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Cambridge,  and  twice  Vice- Chancellor  of  the  University, 
Matthew  Parker  had  already  shown  during  the  reigns  of 
Henry  VIII  and  his  son  that  boundless  zeal  for  the  pro- 
motion of  academic  culture  of  which  one  of  the  later  fruits 
was  to  be  the  education  of  Christopher  Marlowe. 

When  reluctantly  obliged,  in  December,  1559,  to  ex- 
change for  the  cares  of  the  archbishopric  of  Canterbury 
the  'delightful  literary  leisure'  of  his  years  of  disgrace 
under  Queen  Mary,  Parker  found  about  him  a  darkness 
of  ignorance  regarding  the  early  history  of  the  English 
church  and  nation,  which  the  revival  of  interest  in  cfessic 
and  romance  civilization  rendered  only  the  more  complete. 

135 


136  C.  F.  TUCKEE  BEOOKE 

An  analogy,  not  unfair,  might  be  drawn  between  the  situ- 
ation faced  by  Archbishop  Parker  at  this  period  and  that 
in  which  King  Alfred  had  found  himself  seven  centuries 
before ;  and  Parker  set  about  the  restoration  of  the  ancient 
learning  of  the  kingdom  by  the  same  steps  which  Alfred 
had  employed:  first,  by  diligent  search  after  scattered  and 
forgotten  Saxon  books;  second,  by  attracting  into  his 
household  all  scholars  with  any  inkling  of  the  old  tongue ; 
third,  by  personally  inspiring  the  translation  and  publica- 
tion of  the  most  vital  documents. 

Already  in  the  second  year  of  his  consecration,  Parker 
was  in  correspondence  with  Matthias  Flacius  Illyricus,  'a 
great  Collector  of  Ecclesiastical  Antiquities/  who  on  May 
22,  1561  wrote  him  a  long  Latin  letter  from  Jena,  'Exhort- 
ing the  Archbishop,  and  shewing  how  profitable  it  would 
be,  if  he  would  make  it  his  Business,  that  all  MSS.  Books 
more  rare,  should  be  brought  forth  out  of  more  remote  and 
obscurer  places  in  this  kingdom  and  in  that  of  Scotland ; 
and  be  put  into  surer  and  more  known  places  (that  they 
might  be  the  better  preserved  from  perishing).'  (Strype's 
translation,  Life  of  Parker,  Book  ir,  ch.  ix.) 

,  Acting  in  accordance  with  a  suggestion  in  this  letter, 
Parker  made  haste  to  secure  the  papers  of  John  Bale  upon 
the  latter' s  death  in  1563.  About  the  same  time  he  wrote 
to  Scory,  Bishop  of  Hereford,  and  Aylmer,  then  Arch- 
deacon of  Lincoln,  requesting  that  careful  search  after 
ancient  books  be  made  among  their  cathedral  archives. 
At  Lincoln,  surprisingly  enough,  nothing  could  apparently 
be  found;  but  three  Saxon  books,  the  titles  unrecorded, 
were  discovered  at  Hereford. 

On  January  24,  1566,  Parker's  voluminous  correspond- 
ence with  Sir  William  Cecil  touches  upon  Saxon  transla- 
tions of  the  Bible,  a  matter  on  which  the  admirable  Cecil's 


GERMANIC   STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND,    1559-1689  137 

mind  seems  to  have  been  as  completely  at  home  as  on  all 
others. 

"  I  return  to  you  your  book  again/'  Parker  writes, 
"  and  thank  you  for  the  sight  thereof.  I  account  it  much 
worth  the  keeping,  as  well  for  the  fair  antique  writing 
with  the  Saxon  interpretation,  as  also  for  the  strangeness 
of  the  translation,  which  is  neither  the  accustomed  old 
text,  neither  St.  Jerome's,  nor  yet  the  Septuaginta." 
(Correspondence  of  Parker,  Parker  Society,  1853,  p. 
253.) 

From  the  same  letter  we  learn  that  Parker  has  in  his 
employ  one  Lylye,  who  is  skilful  at  mending  torn  and 
defective  manuscripts,  and  that  Cecil  has  a  'singular  arti- 
ficer '  of  the  same  sort. 

A  couple  of  months  later  Parker  was  communicating 
with  Bishop  Davies  of  St.  Davids  and  William  Salisbury, 
the  Welsh  antiquary,  concerning  a  manuscript  in  an  un- 
known tongue,  and  in  regard  to  the  contents  of  the  St. 
David's  Cathedral  Library.  On  neither  point  did  he  gain 
much  satisfaction.  Salisbury  could  make  nothing  of  the 
manuscript,  in  which  he  could  find  i  neither  Welsh,  Eng- 
lish, Dutch,  Hebrew,  nor  Greek,  nor  Latin.'  As  for  old 
books,  Bishop  Davies  writes  that  '  in  the  library  of  St. 
Davids  there  is  none  at  all,'  while  of  all  such  as  belonged 
to  his  private  store,  '  Mr.  Secretary  (Cecil)  hath  them 
two  years  ago.'  He  specifies  among  the  works  he  had  sent 
to  Cecil  '  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  a  Chronicle  of  England 
the  author  unknown,  and  Galfridus  Monumetensis.' 

Parker  replies,  28  March,  1566 :  '  I  thank  your  lord- 
ship for  your  return  of  answer  to  my  former  letters,  which 
I  do  consider  accordingly,  and  shall  not  molest  you  here- 
after, seeing  your  store  is  otherwhere  bestowed.  I  p* ay 
you  thank  Mr.  Salisbury,  whose  full  writing  his  conject- 
ures I  like  well ;  and  as  for  deciphering  my  quire  in  such 


138  C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE 

a  strange  charect,  it  shall  be  reserved  to  some  other  op- 
portunity to  be  considered.  As  for  those  charects  wherein 
some  of  your  records  of  donations  be  written,  whereof  he 
sent  a  whole  line  written,  it  is  the  speech  of  the  old  Saxon, 
whereof  I  have  divers  books  and  works,  and  have  in  my 
house  of  them  which  do  well  understand  them.'  (Corres- 
pondence, p.  270  f.) 

In  1568  the  Archbishop  received  formal  authority  from 
the  Council  for  inquiring  after  antiquities.  In  January 
of  ,the  same  year,  in  response  to  his  usual  demand  for  in- 
formation concerning  old  books  in  the  various  cathedrals, 
he  received  an  interesting  letter  from  the  Bishop  of  Sal- 
isbury (Jan.  18,  1568)  : 

'  It  may  please  your  Grace  to  understand,  that  accord- 
ing to  my  Promise,  I  have  ransacked  our  poor  Library 
of  Salisbury ,  and  have  found  nothing  worthy  the  finding, 
saving  only  one  Book  written  in  the  Saxon  Tongue ;  which 
I  mind  to  send  to  your  Grace  by  the  next  convenient  Mes- 
senger. The  Book  is  of  a  reasonable  Bigness/  the  Bishop 
continues  with  amusing  simplicity,  '  well  near  as  thick  as 
the  Communion  Book.  Your  Grace  hath  three  or  four  of 
the  same  Size.  It  may  be  Alfricus  for  all  my  Cunning. 
But  your  Grace  will  soon  find  what  he  is.' 

Accordingly,  the  book  was  sent,  with  another  letter,  on 
Jan.  31.  '  These  Letters,'  adds  Strype,  who  prints  them 
(Life  of  Parker,  Book  in,  ch.  xix),  i  are  found  in  a  Vol- 
ume in  Folio  in  the  Publick  Library  of  Cambridge  (sic), 
being  St.  Gregory's  Tract,  De  Cura  Pastorali  turned  para- 
phrastically  into  Saxon.'  The  work  thus  recovered  formed 
one  of  the  number  of  manuscripts  on  vellum  presented  by 
Parker  six  years  later  (1574)  to  the  library  of  his  Cam- 
bridge College  of  Corpus  Christi  (not  to  the  University 
Library).  The  list  of  Anglo-Saxon  works  included  in  the 
bequest  offers  good  evidence  of  the  importance  of  Parker's 


GERMANIC   STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND,   1559-1689  139 

researches.  Besides  the  Pastoral  Care,  it  comprises  Evan- 
gelia  quattuor  Saxonice;  Bedae  Historia  Britannica  Saxo- 
nice  Versa  per  Aluredum;  Homilia  diversa  34  Saxonice; 
Genesis  cum  Homiliis  51  Saxonice;  Grammatica  &  His- 
toria  Angliae,  Saxonice. 

It  was  probably  the  continued  personal  effort  of  Arch- 
bishop Parker  that  first  gave  purpose  and  effectiveness  to 
the  study  of  Old  English  Literature.  Though  a  sporadic 
interest  in  the  subject  had,  indeed,  been  manifested  by 
earlier  antiquaries,  notably  by  John  Leland,  it  may  per- 
haps be  doubted  whether  any  previous  scholar  had  since 
the  twelfth  century  possessed  an  adequate  reading  knowl- 
edge of  Anglo-Saxon,  and  it  is  certain  that  nothing  had 
been  done  before  the  time  of  Parker  to  facilitate  the  sys- 
tematic study  of  the  language.  The  only  serious  rival  of 
the  archbishop  in  his  claim  to  have  first  surveyed  this  new 
province  of  philology  is  a  probably  younger  contemporary, 
Laurence  Newell  (d.  1576),  celebrated  in  Camden's  Bri- 
tannia as  '  vir  rara  doctrina  insignis,  &  qui  Saxonicam  ma- 
iorum  nostrorum  linguam  desuetudine  intermortuam,  & 
obliuione  sepultam  primus  nostra  aetate  resuscitauit '  (ed. 
1600,  p.  151),  or  as  Edmund  Gibson's  translation  (1695) 
has  it :  '  who  in  this  age  first  restored  the  Saxon  language 
spoken  by  our  Ancestors,  before  quite  laid  aside  and  for- 
gotten.' Nowell  is  reported  to  have  taught  the  rudiments 
of  Old  English  to  his  pupil,  William  Lambard,  a  couple  of 
years  before  Parker  came  to  the  archbishopric.  His  only 
known  writing  on  the  subject  is  a  manuscript  <  Vocabular- 
ium  Saxonicum,  or  a  Saxon  English  dictionary,'  said  by 
Anthony  Wood  to  have  been  written  in  1567.  This  work, 
after  being  used  by  several  early  investigators,  came  into 
the  possession  of  John  Selden,  from  whom  it  passed^to  the 
Bodleian  Library  (Seld.  Arch.  B.  supra  63). 

Parker's  secretaries  seem  all  to  have  been  encouraged  m 


140  C.  F.  TUCKEK  BROOKE 

linguistic  research.  Besides  '  Lylye  '  already  mentioned, 
we  hear  of  Dr.  Thomas  Yale  (1526  ?-15T7),  the  archbish- 
op's chancellor,  '  a  great  Eeader  and  a  great  Collector  out 
of  antient  Records  and  Registers/  whose  vast  excerpts  were 
in  Strype's  time  still  preserved  in  the  Cotton  Library. 
Far  the  most  efficient  of  Parker's  linguistic  helpers  was  his 
Latin  secretary,  John  Joscelyn  (1529-1603),  lauded  in 
the  next  century  by  George  Hickes  as  '  quasi  pater  om- 
nium, qui  linguam  majorum  ex  eo  tempore  coluerunt.' 
At  his  patron's  request  Joscelyn,  like  Yale,  made  collections 
from  Anglo-Saxon  documents.  His  catalogue,  '  Libri  Sax- 
onici  qui  ad  manus  J.  J.  venerunt,'  was  printed  by  Hearne 
in  1720.  In  conjunction  with  Parker's  son  John,  Josce- 
lyn prepared  an  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin  dictionary  on  a 
scale  much  ampler  than  that  of  RTowell.  The  manuscript 
is  still  preserved  in  two  volumes  of  the  Cottonian  collec- 
tion in  the  British  Museum  (Titus  A  xv  and  xvi),  and 
though  never  printed,  was  for  several  generations  one  of 
the  prime  sources  of  inspiration  to  students  of  Old  English. 

Parker's  antiquarian  interests  were,  of  course,  domi- 
nated by  his  theological  ardor.  Very  naturally,  therefore, 
his  first  publication — the  first  book  ever  printed  in  Old 
English — was  a  text  of  JSlfric's  Easter  sermon  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  Roman  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  The 
work  appeared  about  1567"  in  an  undated  octavo  volume 
entitled  '  A  Testimonie  of  Antiquitie,  shewing  the  aun- 
cient  fayth  in  the  Church  of  England  touching  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  body  and  bloud  of  the  Lord  here  publikely 
preached  and  also  receaued  in  the  Saxons  tyme ;  aboue  600 
yeares  agoe.' 

The  book  opens  with  a  learned  and  well-written  preface, 
compiled  probably  by  Joscelyn  in  conjunction  with  Park- 
er, and  signed  by  Parker  and  fourteen  other  bishops  who 


GEBMATaC   STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND,   1559-1689  141 

vouch  for  the  accuracy  of  tKe  text.  The  sermon  follows : 
'  A  Sermon  of  the  Paschall  Lambe  .  .  .  written  in  the 
olde  Saxon  tounge  before  the  Conquest,  and  ...  now 
first  translated  into  our  common  Englishe  speche.'  The 
method  is  to  print  the  Old  English  original  on  the  left- 
hand  pages,  with  a  somewhat  inexact  modern  rendering 
opposite.  '  This  Sermon/  the  editors  announce  at  the  end, 
'  is  found  in  diuers  bookes  of  Sermons,  written  in  the  old 
English  or  Saxon  Tongue :  whereof  two  bookes  be  now  in 
the  hands  of  the  most  reuerend  Father  the  Archbishop  of 
CanterburieS  To  the  foregoing  is  appended,  again  in 
Anglo-Saxon  and  modern  English,  a  second  passage  deny- 
ing the  theory  of  transubstantiation :  i  The  words  of  El- 
frike  Abbot  of  8.  Albons,  and  also  of  Malmesbury,  taken 
out  of  his  Epistle  written  to  Wulffine  Bishop  of  Scyr- 
burne.'  The  Latin  version  of  ^Elfric's  similar  epistle  to 
Wulfstan  Archbishop  of  York,  was  also  in  Parker's  pos- 
session, and  he  subjoined  it  as  a  proof  of  the  accuracy  of 
his  translation  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  '  Now  because  very 
few  there  be/  he  says,  '  that  doe  understand  the  olde  Eng- 
lish or  Saxon  (so  mucli  is  our  speech  changed  from  the 
vse  of  that  time,  wherein  Elfrike  liued  )  and  for  that  also  it 
may  be  that  some  will  doubt  how  skilfully  and  also  faith- 
fully these  words  of  Elfrike  bee  translated  from  the  Saxon 
tongue;  wee  haue  thought  good  to  set  downe  heere  last  of 
all  the  very  words  also  of  his  Latine  Epistle,  which  is 
recorded  in  bookes  faire  written  of  old  in  the  Cathedrall 
Churches  of  Worcester  and  Excester.' 

The  <  Testimonie  of  Antiquitie '  concludes  with  versions 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Creed,  and  the  Ten  Command- 
ments '  in  the  Saxon  &  Englishe  tounge '  and  with  a  list  of 
'  The  Saxon  Characters  or  letters  that  be  most  straunge.' 
Strange  these  characters  may  indeed  appear  even  to  mod- 
ern students  of  Old  English,  for  they  are  accurate  repre- 


142 


C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE 


sentations  of  the  actual  forms  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  alpha- 
bet. The  types  were  cut  by  John  Day  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  Parker's  book  and,  it  is  said,  at  Parker's  expense. 
In  neatness  and  beauty,  according  to  Astle,  the  historian 
of  printing,  they  far  excel  any  Which  have  since  been 
made. 

In  the  following  year  (1568)  Day  employed  the  same 
type  in  the  printing  of  William  Lambard's  important  col- 
lection of  Saxon  laws:  Archaionomia,  i  sive  de  priscis  an- 
glorum  legibus  libri,  sermone  Anglico,  vetustate  antiquis- 
simo  .  .  .  conscripti.'  Lambard's  introductory  epistle  re- 
fers to  '  Laurentius  JSTowelus,  diligentissimus  inuestigator 
antiquitatis  .  .  .  qui  me  (quicunque  in  hoc  genere  sim) 
effecit,'  and  who  first  suggested  to  Lambard  the  publica- 
tion. The  texts  reproduced  were  taken  for  the  most  part, 
Lambard  states,  from  Parker's  library/  In  1571,  the 
Day-Parker  Saxon  press  brought  out  an  edition  of  '  The 
Gospels  of  the  f  ower  Evangelistes '  under  the  editorship 
of  Eoxe  the  Martyr ologist.  In  1574  followed  Parker's 
edition  of  Asser's  Latin  life  of  King  Alfred. 

Parker's  first  work,  the  '  Testimonie  of  Antiquitie,'  was 
long  a  regular  text-book  for  those  who  sought  acquaintance 
with  the  Old  English  language,  and  it  maintained  its  popu- 
larity far  longer  than  any  similar  publication  of  its  time. 
In  1623,  a  second  edition  was  published  by  William  L'Isle, 
together  with  'A  Saxon  Treatise  concerning  the  Old  and 
!N"ew  Testament.  Written  about  the  time  of  King  Edgar 
(700  yeares  agoe)  by  AElfricus  Abbas.  Now  first  pub- 
lished in  Print  with  English  of  our  times.  The  Originall 
remaining  still  to  be  scene  in  Sr.  Robert  Cottons  Librarie, 
at  the  end  of  his  lesser  Copie  of  the  Saxon  Penteteuch.' 

L'Isle  was  one  of  the  most  painstaking  and  accurate  of 
seventeenth-century  scholars,  and  the  account  in  his  pre- 
face of  the  manner  in  which  he  attained  his  desire  t  to 


GEBMANIC   STUDIES   IN  ENGLAND,    1559-1689  143 

know  what  learning  lay  hid  in  this  old  English  tongue ' 
illustrates  forcibly  the  difficulties  which  remained  even 
after  Parker,  Nowell,  and  Joscelyn  had  in  some  measure 
blazed  the  path.  '  I  found  out/  I/Isle  says,  '  this  vneasie 
way,  first  to  acquaint  my  selfe  a  little  with  the  Dutch 
both  high  and  low;  the  one  by  originall,  the  other  by  com- 
merce allied:  then,  to  reade  a  while  for  recreation  all  the 
old  English  I  could  finde,  poetry  or  prose,  of  what  matter 
soeuer.  And_diuers  good  bookes  of  this  kinde  I  got,  that 
were  neuer  yet  published  in  print;  which  euer  the  more 
ancient  they  were,  I  perceiued  came  neerer  the  Saxon: 
But  the  Saxon,  (as  a  bird,  flying  in  the  aire  farther  and 
farther,  seemes  lesse  and  lesse;)  the  older  it  was,  became 
harder  to  bee  vnderstood.  At  length  I  lighted  on  Virgil 
Scotished  by  the  Reuerend  Gawin  Dowglas  .  .  .  And 
though  I  found  that  dialect  more  hard  than  any  of  the 
former  (as  neerer  the  Saxon,  because  farther  from  the 
Norman)  yet  with  the  helpe  of  the  Latine  I  made  shift 
to  vnderstand  it,  and  read  the  booke  more  than  once  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end.  Wherby  I  must  conf esse  I  got 
more  knowledge  of  that  I  sought  than  by  any  of  the  other. 
....  Next  then  I  read  the  Decalogue  &c.  set  out  by 
Fraerus  in  common  character,  and  so  prepared  came  to  the 
proper  Saxon  .  .  .  and  therein  reading  certaine  Sermons, 
and  the  foure  Euangelists  set  out  and  Englished  by  Mr. 
Fox,  so  increased  my  skill,  that  at  length  (I  thanke  God) 
I  found  my  selfe  able  (as  it  were  to  swimme  without 
bladders)  to  vnderstand  the  vntranslated  fragments  of  the 
tongue  scattered  in  Master  Cambden  and  others.' 

In  1638,  L'lsle's  book  was  republished  with  a  changed 
title,  '  Divers  Ancient  Monuments  in  the  Saxon  Tongue/ 
the  Testimony  of  Antiquity  being  again  included.  Yft  a 
fourth  edition  of  Parker's  work  appeared  ninety-eight 
years  later,  in  1736:  'A  Testimony  of  Antiquity.  .  .  . 


144  C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE 

Written  in  the  old  Saxon  Tongue  before  the  Conquest.' 
The  Dedication  to  this  last  version  alludes  to  the  fact  that 
the  little  book  '  had  Archbishop  Parker  for  its  first  Pro- 
prietor, who  extracted  it  out  of  the  very  Ruins  of  the 
Saxon  Monuments  that  lay  scatter' d  up  and  down  in  sev- 
eral Parts  of  this  Kingdom.'  The  age  of  Pope  troubled 
itself  little  about  Saxon  antiquities,  and  the  1736  editor 
is  forced  to  confess :  '  I  had  some  little  struggle  with  my 
Printer  for  retaining  the  old  English,  as  it  stands  in  Mat- 
thew (sic)  Day's  Edition.'  ISTor  was  even  this  the  end  of 
the  book.  As  late  as  1877,  three  hundred  and  ten  years 
after  its  first  appearance,  The  Testimony  of  Antiquity 
again  issued  from  the  press,  this  time  with  copious  notes 
by  W.  A.  Copinger  upon  such  burning  theological  ques- 
tions as  '  Real  Presence,'  '  The  Sacrifice,'  and  '  Wafer 
bread.' 

Parker  died  in  1575 ;  his  disciple  Joscelyn  in  1603. 
The  two  generations  which  followed  saw  a  wide  extension 
of  interest  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  cognate  subjects.  The 
most  eminent  continuator  of  Parker's  work  was  undoubt- 
edly Francis  Junius  (Frangois  Du  Jon,  1589-1677),  bro- 
ther-in-law to  the  elder  Vossius  and  the  originator  in  Eng- 
land, if  not  in  Europe,  of  the  comparative  study  of  Ger- 
manic philology.  Born  at  Heidelberg,  Junius  removed 
to  England  about  the  age  of  thirty-two  (1620)  and  be- 
came librarian  to  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Arundel,  in 
whose  household  he  spent  the  next  thirty  years  of  his 
long  life.  '  In  which  time,'  says  Anthony  Wood,  '  and 
for  about  ten  years  after  he  made  several  excursions  to 
Oxon.  and  was  a  sojourner  there  for  the  sake  of  the 
Bodleian  and  other  libraries,'  where,  as  also  in  the  Cot- 
ton collection,  he  found  '  divers  Saxon  books  of  great  an- 
tiquity.' '  To  this  language  of  the  Saxon,'  Wood  contin- 


GEBMANTC   STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND,   1559-1689  145 

ues,  '  he  added  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  some  northern 
tongues,  as  the  Gothic,  Francic  (i.  e.,  Old  High  German), 
Cimbric  or  Kunic  (Norse)  and  Frisic.' 

About  the  life  of  this  far-wandered  scholar,  as  told  by 
Wood  and  by  his  eighteenth-century  Latin  biographer,  Ed- 
ward Lye  (1743),  there  is  a  flavor  of  real  romance.  After 
nearly  a  generation  passed  among  the  libraries  and  private 
collections  of  England,  he  returned  to  the  Continent,  where, 
as  Lye  records,  i  audivit  saepius  in  occidentali  Frisia 
pagos  &  oppidula  esse,  Worcomum,  Staveram,  Molqueram, 
qui  vetere  Frisica  lingua  intaminata  uterentur,  cujus  mag- 
na  esset  affinitas  cum  Anglo-Saxonica ;  sed  quae  ab  aliis 
Belgis  non  intelligeretur.'  In  this  remote  and  barbarous 
corner  of  West  Friesland,  accordingly,  the  aged  adven- 
turer buried  himself  for  two  years,  emerging  only  after 
he  had  completely  mastered  the  dialect  of  the  natives  and 
worked  out  a  theory  of  language  relationships,  which  in 
part  foreshadowed  the  nineteenth-century  discoveries  of 
Kask  and  Grimm  and  which  maintained  itself  in  all  de- 
tails even  as  late  as  Joseph  Bosworth's  Anglo-Saxon  Gram- 
mar of  1823.  In  Gothic  Junius  saw  the  head  and  source 
of  all  the  Germanic  languages,  '  caput  f  ontemq ;  linguarum 
Septentrionalium,'  and  he  recognized  clearly  at  the  same 
time  the^  essential  kinship  between  Gothic  and  Greek: 
'  Francicam  enim  Anglo-Saxonicamq ;  ex  vetere  Gothica 
promanasse,  ipsam  vero  Gothicam  (ut  quae  sola  dialecto 
differ  at  a  Graeca  vetere)  ab  eadem  origine  cum  Graeca 
profluxisse  judicabam.' 

It  was  at  this  point  in  his  career  that  Junius  received 
the  great  joy  of  his  life  in  suddenly  gaining  access  to  the 
Codex  Argenteus  of  Bishop  Wulfila's  Gothic  Bible,  re- 
cently removed  to  Upsala,  but  hitherto  known  to  studemts 
only  from  a  few  broken  fragments  printed  in  1597  by  the 
Dutch  scholar  Smets  or  Bonaventura  Vulcanius.  Junius's 


146  C.  F.  TUCKEB  BROOKE 

Latin  prose  grows  almost  lyric  as  'he  speaks  of  this  wind- 
fall and  describes  himself  (  ineffabili  quadam  .  .  .  volup- 
tate  delibutus  ex  repentino  inexspectatoq ;  ipsius  Argentei 
codicis  conspectu.  Habeo  sane  quod  Coelo  hie  imputem.' 
In  1655,  Junius  printed  some  notes  on  Willeram's  Old 
High  German  paraphrase  of  the  Song  of  Solomon,  and 
in  the  same  year  an  edition  of  the  priceless  Caedmon 
manuscript,  which  he  had  received  from  his  friend  Arch- 
bishop Ussher,  and  which  he  in  turn  later  gave  to  the 
Bodleian,  along  with  his  copy  of  the  Ormulum  and  his 
other  early  English  collections.  Much  attention  has  been 
paid  by  literary  historians  to  the  publication  of  the  Oaed- 
mon,  (so-called)  '  Caedmonis  monachi  paraphrasis  poetica 
Genesios/  twelve  years  before  the  appearance  of  Paradise 
Lost,  with  whose  author  there  is  some  reason  to  believe 
Junius  was  personally  acquainted.  The  fame  which  the 
version  of  Caedmon  brought  Junius  was,  however,  largely 
casual  and  accidental;  his  true  reputation  as  one  of  the 
chief  inaugurators  of  the  modern  method  in  philological 
research  rests  rather  upon  a  work  of  ten  years  later 
(1665) — upon  his  critical  edition  of  the  four  Gospels  in 
Gothic  and  Anglo-Saxon,  produced  in  conjunction  with 
his  disciple,  Thomas  Marshall :  i  Quattuor  D.  E".  Jesu 
Christi  Euangeliorum  Versiones  perantiquae  duae,  Goth- 
ica  scil.  et  Anglo-Saxonica.'  This  book  was  printed  at 
Dort  from  the  famous  and  beautiful  Junian  types  repre- 
senting the  Gothic  and  Anglo-Saxon  alphabets,  which  Ju- 
nius later  presented  to  the  University  of  Oxford.  The 
Old  English  and  Gothic  texts  are  given  as  far  as  possible 
in  parallel  columns,  the  whole  preceded  by  an  eloquent 
Latin  dedicatory  epistle  to  the  Chancellor  of  Upsala  Uni- 
versity, through  whose  favor  Junius  had  been  privileged 
to  examine  and  publish  the  Codex  Argenteus.  A  second 
volume,  bound  up  with  the  first,  adds  a  Gothic  glossary 


GEKMANIC   STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND,   1559-1689  147 

by  Junius,  preceded  by  a  list  of  all  the  then  known  works 
in  Old  English,  Old  High  German  (Francic),  and  Old 
Norse  (Cimbric),  together  with  a  discussion  of  the  Gothic, 
Anglo-Saxon,  and  Runic  alphabets  and  a  very  interesting 
prefatory  poem  of  about  three  hundred  verses  in  Latin 
elegiac  couplets  by  Janus  Ylitius  of  Breda. 

Marshall's  contribution  to  the  work  consists  in  the  pre- 
paration of  the  Old  English  text  and,  more  particularly,  in 
the  addition  of  a  hundred  and  eighty  pages  of  linguistic 
observationes.  With  reference  to  the  publication  of  the 
latter  Wood  relates  that  Marshall  '  did  thereby  revive  his 
memory  so  much  in  his  college  (Lincoln  College,  Oxford), 
that  the  Society  chose  him  fellow  thereof  without  his 
knowledge  or  seeking,  17  Dec.  1668.'  Four  years  later 
(1672)  Marshall  was  advanced  to  the  rectorship  of  the 
college. 

While  Germanic  studies  at  Oxford  were  being  prose- 
cuted by  Junius  and  Marshall  in  close  connexion  with  the 
Continental  movements  in  the  same  department,  and  were 
extending  themselves  from  Anglo-Saxon  to  Gothic,  Old 
High  German,  and  even  Old  Norse,  the  Cambridge  schol- 
ars of  the  early  seventeenth  century  held  a  much  more 
insular  position,  restricting  themselves  in  large  measure 
to  the  problems  of  Old  English  lexicography. 

The  Maecenas  of  early  English  learning  at  Cambridge 
was  Sir  Henry  Spelman  (1564-1641),  who,  along  with 
Camden  and  Cotton,  had  been  a  member  of  the  famous 
Society  of  Antiquaries,  disbanded  in  1604.  Especially 
interested  in  the  antiquarian  side  of  legal  research,  Spel- 
man compiled  an  extensive  glossary  of  Saxon  law  terms, 
called  Archceologus,  of  which  the  first  volume,  to  the  letter 
L,  appeared  in  1626 ;  the  second  volume  posthumously 
under  the  editorship  of  Dugdale  in  1664.  In  1638,  Spel- 


148  C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE 

man  completed  his  arrangements  for  endowing  a  lecture- 
ship in  Anglo-Saxon  at  Cambridge,  the  first  chair  ever 
established  to  promote  the  teaching  of  any  branch  of  Ger- 
manic philology.  The  original  incumbent  of  the  post  was 
Abraham  Wheelocke  (1593-1653),  an  accurate  investiga- 
tor, who  published  an  edition  of  Alfred's  translation  of 
Bede  in  1643,  and  at  his  patron's  suggestion  made  collec- 
tions toward  a  general  Old  English  dictionary.  On  Wheel- 
ocke's  death,  the  annual  stipend  of  the  lectureship  was 
transferred  by  Spelman's  son  Henry  to  William  Somner, 
who  in  1659  published  his  great  '  Dictionarium  Saxonico- 
Latino-Anglicum/  dedicated  '  Universis  &  Singulis  Lin- 
guae Saxonicae,  Anglis  olim  Yernaculae,  Studiosis,  domes- 
ticis  &  exteris,  praesentibus  &  posteris.'  Besides  his  large 
debt  to  the  Spelmans  and  to  Wheelocke,  Somner  avows  his 
use  of  manuscript  material  in  the  Cotton  library  and  par- 
ticularly of  the  manuscript  vocabularies  of  Laurence  Low- 
ell and  Joscelyn,  the  latter  known  to  him  from  a  tran- 
script made  by  Sir  Simonds  d'Ewes. 

Somner's  Dictionary,  printed  by  the  Oxford  University 
Press,  is  a  very  handsome  and  ambitious  volume,  intro- 
duced by  all  the  elaborate  formality  of  commendatory 
verse  usual  to  the  period.  In  refreshing  contrast  to  the 
conventional  Latin  eulogia  stand  the  English  rimes  of  a 
certain  '  loannes  de  Bosco,  Hodiensis/  a  critic  unjustly 
sceptical  of  the  reception  likely  to  await  a  philological  en- 
deavor in  the  last  year  of  the  Commonwealth. 

'  What  mean'st  thou  man  ?  '  Joannes  complains,  '  think'st  thou  thy 

learned  page, 

And  worthy  pains  will  relish  with  this  age? 
Think'st  that  this  Treasury  of  Saxon  words 
Will  be  deem'd  such  amidd'st  unletter'd  swords? 
Boots  it  to  know  how  our  forefathers  spoke 
Ere  Danish,  Norman,  or  this  present  yoke, 
Did  gall  our  patient  necks?  or  matters  it 


GERMANIC   STUDIES   IN  ENGLAND,   1559-1689  149 

What  Hengest  utter'd,  or  how  Horsa  writ? 

Last,  think'st  that  we,  who  have  destroy'd  what  e're 

Our  Grandsires  did,  will  with  their  language  bear  ? ' 

By  the  time  a  century  had  passed  from  the  publication 
of  Parker's  Testimonie  of  Antiquitie — by  the  close,  that 
is,  of  the  first  decade  of  the  Restoration — the  study  of 
Teutonic  origins  in  England  was,  save  for  a  single  lack, 
definitely  established.  Parker's  great  gifts  to  the  library 
of  Corpus  Christi,  Cambridge;  the  still  larger  collections 
of  Sir  Robert  Cotton ;  and  the  treasures  laid  up  by  Laud, 
Junius,  and  others  for  the  Bodleian  had  made  a  vast  num- 
ber of  the  most  important  early  English  manuscripts  per- 
manently accessible.  The  Saxon  type  cast  by  Day  at 
Parker's  order,  still  more  the  fine  Saxon  and  Gothic  founts 
later  given  by  Junius  to  the  enterprising  University  Press 
of  Oxford,  had  so  far  encouraged  publication  in  this  field 
as  already  to  have  called  forth  in  critical  edition  some  half- 
dozen  selections  from  ^Elfric;  the  Saxon  Laws;  the  Old 
English  and  Gothic  texts  of  the  four  Gospels;  the  Caed- 
monian  Genesis;  Alfred's  translation  of  Bede;  the  inter- 
linear Psalter ;  Asser's  Latin  life  of  King  Alfred,  besides 
Glossaries  of  Old  English  and  Gothic  and  the  extensive 
linguistic  observations  of  Marshall.  Nor  was  the  stimu- 
lus of  academic  appreciation  at  this  time  lacking.  The 
generosity  of  the  two  Spelmans,  father  and  son,  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  of  the  redoubtable  Dr.  Eell  at  Oxford  had 
given  very  substantial  encouragement  to  the  cause  of  Ger- 
manic research.  Wheelocke  and  Somner  had  already  re- 
ceived in  the  one  university,  Marshall  was  receiving  in 
the  other,  a  degree  of  recognition  for  their  achievements 
in  this  department  not  incommensurate  with  the  rewards 
obtainable  by  scholars  working  in  the  more  conventional 
fields  opened  up  by  the  earlier  classical  renascence. 

However,  the  old  Teutonic  languages  were  not  yet,  and 


150  C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE 

could  not  be,  the  subject  of  any  general  academic  study 
for  the  lack  of  grammars  which  might  introduce  beginners 
to  a  knowledge  of  the  elements  of  the  different  tongues  by 
a  way  less  devious  and  heart-breaking  than  that  which 
L'Isle  has  described.  Hickes  estimates  that  from  the  time 
when  the  dissolution  of  monasteries  rendered  the  old  manu- 
scripts generally  accessible  till  the  year  1689,  not  more 
than  two  foreigners  (Vossius  the  Elder  and  J.  Laet  of 
Antwerp)  and  about  twenty  Englishmen  had  acquired  any 
real  mastery  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  Bishop  Fell,  indeed, 
anxious  to  increase  the  study  of  Old  English  at  Oxford, 
had  urged  upon  Marshall  the  preparation  of  a  grammar 
of  that  language,  offering  himself  to  bear  all  expenses  of 
publication;  but  the  work,  though  contemplated,  as  some 
fragments  in  the  Bodleian  attest,  was  not  carried  through. 
J^or  does  a  reported  manuscript  grammar  by  Joscelyn, 
eagerly  sought  for  during  the  seventeenth  century,  appear 
to  be  much  more  than  a  myth,  though  its  bare  title  has 
survived.  It  remained  for  a  later  scholar,  George  Hickes 
(1642-1715),  to  put  the  capstone  upon  the  edifice  of 
which  Parker  and  Nowell  had  begun  the  foundation  a 
century  and  a  quarter  before.  Hickes's  parallel  gram- 
mars of  Anglo-Saxon  and  Gothic,  to  which  he  appended 
E.  Jonas' s  grammar  of  Icelandic,  were  printed  at  Oxford 
from  the  Junian  type  and  published  in  1689  with  the 
title :  '  Institutiones  Grammaticae  Anglo-Saxonicae  et 
Moeso-Gothicae.'  This  great  work,  preceded  by  a  Latin 
historical  and  critical  preface  which  is  a  masterpiece  in 
its  kind,  remained  for  a  hundred  and  thirty-four  years  the 
universal  authority  in  its  field.  The  eighteenth  century 
achieved  little  in  this  department:  even  Hickes's  niece, 
Elizabeth  Elstob  (1683-1756),  owed  the  repute  she  yet 
enjoys  rather  to  her  good  fortune  in  arousing  the  interest 
of  queenly  and  noble  patrons  than  to  any  important  ad- 


GERMANIC   STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND,   1559-1689          151 

vance  of  scholarship.  As  late  as  1819,  the  Reverend  J. 
L.  Sisson  is  fain  to  justify  his  slight  '  Elements  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  Grammar  7  as  merely  '  compiled  with  a  view  of 
offering  to  the  Public,  in  a  compressed  Form,  the  principal 
Parts  of  Dr.  Hickes's  Anglo-Saxon  Grammar,  a  Book  now 
seldom  to  be  met  with.'  Only  in  1823,  as  the  study  of 
Germanic  philology  was  a  second  time  reviving  under  the 
influence  of  Jacob  Grimm,  was  a  modest  attempt  made  by 
Joseph  Bosworth  to  advance  the  frontier  of  linguistic  sci- 
ence beyond  the  point  at  which  Hickes  and  Junius  had 
left  it. 

0.  I\  TUCKER  BROOKE. 

NOTE — Since  this  paper  has  been  in  the  printer's  hands,  I  have 
learned  that  Miss  Eleanor  N.  Adams  has  been  engaged  for  several 
years  on  the  study  of  Old  English  Scholarship  in  England.  A  num- 
ber of  the  matters  alluded  to  in  the  foregoing  article  will  be  treated 
at  much  greater  length  in  Miss  Adams's  monograph. 

C.  F.  T.  B. 


VI.— THE    FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN     FORMALISTS 
AND  THOMAS  RYMER 

That  the  critical  theories  of  the  seventeenth-century 
French  school  of  rules  find  numerous  parallels  in  the  work 
of  Thomas  Rymer  has  been  perceived  by  various  students 
of  literary  criticism.  But  the  recognition  of  general  re- 
semblances has  not  served,  apparently,  to  secure  uniform- 
ity of  opinion  in  classifying  Rymer  as  a  critic,  or  in  deter- 
mining the  extent  to  which  he  represented,  in  English 
criticism,  the  French  codification  of  the  rules.  Profes- 
sor Saintsbury  states  that  Rymer  had  a  "  charcoal-burner's 
faith  in  '  the  rules.'  "  *  On  the  other  hand,  Professor 
Spingarn,  who  has  gone  farthest  in  tracing  the  parallelisms 
between  Rymer' s  work  and  that  of  preceding  critics,  re- 
gards his  work  as  rationalistic,  or  based  upon  common 
sense,  rather  than  formalistic,  based  upon  rule  and  pre- 
cedent.2 The  one  would  regard  Rymer  as  a  participant 
in  the  French  tradition;  the  other,  as  primarily  a  con- 
tinuator  of  certain  previously  existing  English  methods. 
An  analysis  of  the  relationship  between  Rymer  and  the 
French  critics  of  the  school  of  rules,  more  systematic  than 
has  yet  been  attempted,3  may  aid  in  determining  to  what 
extent  the  critical  standards  and  methods  of  the  French 

1  Saintsbury,  A  History  of  Criticism,  Vol.  n,  p.  392. 

2  J.  E.  Spingarn,  Critical  Essays  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  Vol. 
i,  Introduction,  pp.  LXV,  LXXI,  etc. 

8  Certain  parallelisms  are  pointed  out  by  Prof.  Spingarn  in  the 
second  volume  of  the  work  cited,  in  the  notes  to  the  Rymer 
selections.  But  the  notes  of  course  deal  only  with  the  selections 
included  in  the  volume,  and  for  these  are  not  exhaustive,  and 
sometimes  seem  of  doubtful  value.  Any  indebtedness  will  be 
acknowledged. 

152 


FRENCH   ARISTOTELIAN   FORMALISTS   AND   RYMER          153 

Aristotelian  formalists  are  approximated  in  Rymer,  and 
what  influence  the  French  school  had  upon  one  whose  cri- 
ticism, however  it  may  be  regarded  now,-  was  of  great 
weight  and  importance  for  years  after  it  was  written. 

In  carrying  out  the  investigation  certain  questions  de- 
mand attention:  To  what  extent  do  the  standards  of 
criticism  adhered  to  by  the  French  formalists  find  their 
way  into  the  work  of  Thomas  Rymer  ?  Are  their  methods 
of  applying  these  standards  followed  by  him?  Then, 
dismissing  for  the  time  general  resemblances,  is  there  any 
evidence  that  the  French  critics  were  known  to  Rymer? 
Are  there  any  signs  of  actual  borrowing?  Furthermore, 
to  what  extent  could  he  have  got  his  critical  apparatus 
from  any  other  likely  source?  If  these  questions  can  oe 
answered  satisfactorily,  the  material  will  be  at  hand  for 
forming  a  conclusion  as  to  the  main  problem  of  this  in- 
vestigation. 


the  work  of  the  French  school  of  rules  was  chiefly 
concerned  with  two  main  literary  types :  the  epic,  and  the 
drama.  Rymer  as  a  critic  is  concerned  largely,  although 
not  quite  entirely,  with  the  drama.  Consequently  it  is 
chiefly  the  dramatic  criticism  of  the  Frenchmen  that  we 
should  expect  to  find  mirrored  in  Rymer's  work,  if  any 
be  mirrored;  although  of  course  in  certain  respects  the 
French  utterances  in  regard  to  the  epic  may  find  signi- 
ficant analogies  in  the  Englishman's  criticism. 

If  the  work  of  the  French  critics  belonging  to  the  school 
of  rules  be  analyzed,4  certain  critical  standards  are  seen 

9 

*The  lectures  of  Professor  Irving  Babbitt  at  Harvard  University 
were  my  introduction  to  the  study  of  the  French  school  of  rules. 
Professor  Saintsbury's  account  is  striking  but  is  vitiated  by  his 


154  GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 

to  guide  them  all.  All  alike  require  that  the  plot  be 
strictly  probable  in  all  of  its  details,  and  that  the  outcome 
be  in  strict  accord  with  the  demands  of  poetic  justice. 
All  insist  that  the  artificial  code  of  decorum  formulated 
by  this  school  shall  be  observed  in  the  handling  of  char- 
acters. In  regard  to  the  drama,  all  give  their  allegiance 
to  the  rules  of  the  three  unities  and  especially  to  that  re- 
garding unity  of  time.  These  doctrines,  developed  into 
a  code  of  minute  and  systematized  rules,  characterize  the 
work  of  the  French  school.  They  are  formulated  and  fol- 
lowed by  the  earliest  critics  of  the  group:  Chapelain,  La 
Mesnardiere,  Mambrun,  Hedelin.  They  are  accepted  in 
large  part  by  Corneille,  whose  critical  work  shows  certain 
marks  of  their  influence.  And  they  are  in  general  ad- 
hered to  by  the  latest  members  of  the  school  at  the  end 
of  the  century :  Eapin,  Le  Bossu,  and  Dacier. 

Let  us  examine  these  standards  in  detail,  and  see  how 
the  French  critics  formulate  them,  and  how  closely  Kymer 
adheres  to  them. 

As  might  be  expected  in  any  system  of  rules  based  upon 
Aristotle,  the  plot  is  regarded  as  of  fundamental  import- 
ance ;  and  in  choosing  and  developing  the  episodes  that  go 
to  make  up  the  plot,  the  requirements  of  probability  must 
never  be  forgotten.  Aristotle  had  said  that  an  impossible 
probability  is  to  be  preferred  to  an  improbable  possibility, 
and  on  this  basis  was  built  up  by  the  French  formalists  a 
theory  of  strictly  rational  verisimilitude,  a  doctrine  of 
probability  to  conform  not  so  much  to  actuality  as  to  the 
demands  of  logic. 

hostility  to  neo-classicism  in  general.  M.  Brunetiere  in  his  L'fivolu- 
tion  des  Genres,  Tome  I,  pp.  14,  15,  etc.,  does  indeed  distinguish 
the  period  of  the  rules  from  what  precedes  and  what  follows  it, 
but  the  treatment  of  the  period  is  scant  and  does  not  even  mention 
some  of  the  critics  most  important  for  the  purposes  of  this  study. 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS   AND   RYMER  155 

One  of  the  earliest  documents  of  the  school,  the  judg- 
ment of  'the  Academy  upon  the  Cid,5  a  critical  document 
which  is  generally  credited  in  large  part  to  Chapelain, 
and  which  undoubtedly  commanded  his  thorough  sym- 
pathy, voices  this  doctrine  in  no  uncertain  way.  Time 
and  again  the  play  is  condemned  on  the  score  of  impro- 
bability, and  the  rule  is  laid  down  that  all  episodes  must 
appear  so  probable  to  the  spectators  that  they  unhesitat- 
ingly accept  them  as  true.6  History  may  assert  the  truth 
of  certain  improbabilities,  but  in  this  case  history  is  not 
to  be  followed,7  for  such  events  are  in  the  nature  of  Aris- 
totle's improbable  possibilities,  which  are  to  be  shunned 
in  creative  literature.  This  is  echoed  by  Rymer  in  his 
criticism  of  Fletcher's  Duke  in  Rollo:  "History  may 
have  known  the  like.  But  Aristotle  cries  shame."  8  Of 
course  Chapelain's  remark  and  Rymer's  may  be  traced  ul- 
timately back  to  one  of  the  principles  laid  down  in  the 
Poetics  of  Aristotle,  but  the  principle  has  hardened  into 
a  rule. 

Logical  verisimilitude  is  a  doctrine  that  finds  utterance 
in  the  works  of  the  other  French  formalists  also.  La  Mes- 
nardiere,  for  example,  takes  up  the  doctrine  and  expands 
it  into  sets  of  definite  rules.  We  have  ordinary  verisimili- 
tude and  extraordinary  verisimilitude;  both  are  defined 
and  copiously  illustrated  by  examples.9  The  discussion 
of  these  matters  is  concluded  by  the  statement  that  the 

*Les  Sentiments  de  L'Academie  Franqoise  sur  .  .  .  le  Cid  (1638). 
Published  in  the  edition  of  Corneille  by  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  xii,  pp. 
463  ff.  Cf.  Armand  Gaste",  La  Querelle  du  Cid  (Paris,  1898),  ap- 
pendix, for  references  to  Chapelain's  letters  showing  his  attitude 
in  the  quarrel. 

'Ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  op.  cit.,  p.  468. 

7  Op.  cit.,  pp.  468,  471.  0 

8  Tragedies  of  the  Last  Age,  p.  47. 

•Jules  de  la  Mesnardiere,  La  Poetique,  1640;  pp.  36  ff. 


156  GEORGE    B.    DUTTOJtf 

chief  fault  of  writers  lies  in  employing  actions  which  are 
unreasonable,  unbelievable,  contradictory,  and  impossi- 
ble.10 Mambrun,11  too,  places  great  stress  upon  the  need 
for  logical  verisimilitude,12  and  recommends  that  the  poet 
strip  the  action  of  its  names,  in  order  to  test  its  probability 
according  to  general  conditions.  In  particular  he  attacks 
the  medieval  romances  because  they  lack  probability.13 
Hedelin's  La  Pratique  du  Theatre  follows  the  others ;  pro- 
bability is  a  prime  requisite.  The  dramatist  must  take 
particular  care  to  guard  "  la  vraisemblance  des  choses."  14 
All  through  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  first  book  the  need  of 
verisimilitude  is  especially  stressed;  and  in  the  second 
chapter  of  the  second  book,  a  chapter  entitled  "De'la 
Vraisemblance,"  the  first  words  are,  "  Voici  le  fondement 
de  toutes  les  Pieces  du  Theatre."  15  Corneille,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  not,  in  his  critical  utterances,  so  thoroughly 
devoted  to  the  doctrine  as  the  other  critics  previously  men- 
tioned. As  between  probability  and  the  unities,  he  pre- 
fers to  hold  fast  to  the  unities.  Probability  must  some- 
times be  stretched  a  little  to  permit  the  observance  of  the 
rules  of  time  and  place.16  Yet  in  general  he  accepts  the 
doctrine  of  logical  verisimilitude.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
multiply  examples  from  the  later  French  formalists.17 

16  Poetique,  p.  51. 

11  Pierre  Mambrun,  De  Poemate  Epico,  1652.     This  book  unfortu- 
nately is  not  accessible  to  me,  but  through  the  kindness  o'f  Professor 
Irving  Babbitt,  who  put  at  my  disposal  his  notes,  I  am  able  to  give 
some  account  of  its  contents. 

12  Op.  cit.,  p.  138.  »  Op.  cit.,  p.  173. 

14  Op.  cit.,  p.  31.  This  work  appeared  in  1657.  I  have  used  the 
edition  published  in  Amsterdam,  1715. 

™IMd.,  p.  65. 

M  Ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  I,  p.  84. 

"If  other  citations  are  desired,  cf.  Rapin,  Reflexions  stir  la  Poe- 
tique,  (Euvres,  Amsterdam,  1709,  Vol.  n,  pp.  113,  and  149;  Le 
Bossu,  Trait^  du  Poeme  tipique,  ed.  1677,  p.  9;  Andre"  Dacier,  La 


FEENCH   ARISTOTELIAN    FOEMALISTS   AND   EYMEE          157 

Enough  have  been  cited  to  show  that  the  rule  of  logical 
verisimilitude  is  one  of  the  fundamental  rules  of  this 
school. 

And  how  does  Kymer  stand  in  regard  to  this  rule  ?  He, 
too,  holds  it  to  be  fundamental.  In  the  preface  to  his 
translation  of  Rapin's  Reflexions  sur  Id  Poetique  d'Aris- 
tote,  which  preface  marks  his  entrance  into  the  field  of 
literary  criticism,  he  constantly  appeals  to  this  rule.  Spen- 
ser is  condemned  because  "  he  makes  no  Conscience  of 
Probability."  18  Cowley's  Davideis  is  censured  on  the 
same  score ;  and  Rymer  adds,  "Poetry  has  no  life,  nor  can 
have  any  operation,  without  probability."  19  Again,  in  the 
Tragedies  of  the  Last  Age,  the  same  rule  is  stressed.  The 
plot  of  Rollo  is  condemned  for  lacking  verisimilitude.20 
Of  A  King  and  No  King  he  writes,  "  What  sets  this  Fable 
below  History,  are  many  improbabilities."  21  He  has  a 
similar  opinion  of  The  Maid's  Tragedy:  "  Nothing  in  His- 
tory was  ever  so  unnatural,  nothing  in  Nature  was  ever  so 
improbable,  as  we  find  the  whole  conduct  of  this  Tra- 
gedy." 22  This  question  of  rational  probability,  it  should 
be  noted,  is  the  first  which  Rymer  raises  as  he  takes  up 
each  play  in  turn;  and  during  the  course  of  his  examina- 
tion he  subjects  the  various  contributory  episodes  to  this 
same  test.  Finally,  the  Short  View  of  Tragedy  exempli- 
fies the  application  of  this  rule  just  as  rigidly  as  either 
of  the  preceding  pieces  of  criticism,  "  Nothing,"  we  read, 
"  is  more  odious  in  Nature  than  an  improbable  lye ;  and, 
certainly,  never  was  any  Play  fraught,  like  this  of  Othello, 
with  improbabilities." 23  With  this  standard  in  mind 

Poetique  d'Aristote  .  .  .  avec  des  Remarques  Critiques,  Amsterdam, 
1692,  passim. 

18  Op.  tit.,  p.  9.  "Ibid.,  p.  59.  m 

19 Ibid.,  p.  16.  "Ibid.,  p.  107. 

20  Op.  tit.,  p.  19.  «  Op.  tit.,  p.  92. 


158  GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 

Rymer  examines  the  design  of  the  play  carefully,  and 
finds  many  features  which  seem  to  him  not  in  accordance 
with  the  demands  of  logical  verisimilitude.  It  is  im- 
probable that  the  Venetians  would  make  a  man  of  Othello's 
race  their  general;  it  is  opposed  to  human  nature  that 
Desdemona  would  love  him;  it  is  not  reasonable  that  Ro- 
derigo  should  so  soon  have  spent  the  proceeds  of  the  sale 
of  his  lands ;  and  so  on  indefinitely. 

Is  this  rationalistic  criticism?  Is  it  merely  the  appli- 
cation of  common  sense?  In  the  light  thrown  upon  the 
case  by  the  practice  of  the  French  formalists  one  is  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  the  rigid  application  of  one 
of  the  most  fundamental  of  the  rules.  However  unen- 
lightened one  may  regard  the  method  of  application,  one 
must  conclude  that  what  Kymer  is  doing  is  to  adopt  for 
his  own  critical  work  that  same  rule  of  rational  proba- 
bility that  the  French  critics  before  him  so  greatly  em- 
phasized. 

II 

But  before  finally  deciding  whether  in  this  matter  Ry- 
mer  is  formalist  or  rationalist,  let  us  examine  some  of 
the  other  rules,  and  observe  his  attitude  toward  them. 
The  principle  of  poetic  justice  received  considerable  at- 
tention at  the  hands  of  the  formalists.  This  doctrine,  as 
a  phase  of  the  didactic  theory  of  poetry,  naturally  appealed 
to  them.  If  the  primary  purpose  of  poetry  is  to  instruct 
rather  than  to  amuse,  then  what  more  desirable  than  that 
its  instruction  should  be  moralistic  ?  The  moral  interpre- 
tation of  the  principle  of  katharsis  led  to  this  conclusion. 
And  if  this  end  is  to  be  accomplished,  episodes  must  be 
so  managed  as  to  enforce  a  moral  lesson.  Virtue  must 
be  rewarded,  and  vice  must  be  punished. 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS   AND   RYMER  159 

In  view  of  the  fundamental  nature  of  the  doctrine,  it 
is  not  surprising  to  find  the  school  of  rules  emphasizing 
it,  formulating  it  as  a  definite  rule,  whereby  to  guide  its 
criticism.  Thus  in  the  commentary  on  the  Cid,  it  is 
asserted  that  what  seems  to  be  wickedness  on  the  part  of 
Chimene  should  at  the  end  of  the  play  be  punished,  not 
rewarded.24  This  early  piece  of  formalistic  criticism  feels 
the  need  of  observing  poetic  justice.  Hedelin  even  goes 
so  far  as  to  hold  that  the  chief  rule  of  the  dramatic  poem 
is  that  virtue  be  rewarded  and  vice  be  punished.25  Cor- 
neille  himself,  although  his  play  was  held  open  to  criticism 
on  this  score  by  the  Academy,  was  on  the  whole  a  sup- 
porter of  the  rule.  The  first  Discours  recognizes  the  de- 
sirability of  observing  poetic  justice,26  the  better  to  carry 
out  the  didactic  purpose  of  poetry.  In  the  work  of  Le 
Bossu  this  didacticism  receives  its  greatest  emphasis,  al- 
though the  writer  applies  the  theory  to  epic  rather  than 
to  dramatic  poetry.  The  end  of  the  epic  poem,  he  main- 
tains, is  to  lay  down  moral  instructions.27  In  constructing 
a  plot,  the  poet  must  first  select  the  moral  he  wishes  to 
enforce.28  Around  that  he  is  to  build  his  poem.  Dacier 
echoes  the  others  in  teaching  that  the  purpose  of  poetry 
is  didactic.29 

Turning  to  Rymer,  we  find  the  doctrine  of  poetic  jus- 
tice one  of  the  fundamentals  of  his  critical  creed.  Ry- 
mer, no  more  than  the  French  Academy,  would  have  seen 
the  wickedness  of  a  Chimene  go  unpunished.  Poetic  jus- 
tice "  would  require  that  the  satisfaction  be  compleat  and 
full,  ere  the  Malefactor  goes  off  the  Stage,  and  nothing  left 
to  God  Almighty,  and  another  World."  30  It  is  unnecessary 

24  Ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  xn,  p.  472. 

25  Op.  tit.,  p.  5.  KIUd.,  p.  37.  0 

26  Ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  i,  p.  21.     '-"  Op.  cit.,  preface,  p.  xiv. 

27  Op.  cit.,  p.  19.  80  Trag.  of  Last  Age,  p.  26. 


160  GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 

to  quote  numerous  instances  of  Rymer's  application  of 
this  rule.  Incident  after  incident  is  examined  in  its  light, 
and  condemned.  The  application  is  not  implied,  but 
expressed.31  The  murder  by  lago  of  his  benefactor,  Ro- 
derigo,  is  condemned,  in  common  with  Shakspere's  dis- 
position of  other  characters  in  Othello,  because  it  is 
"  against  all  Justice  and  Reason."  32  The  play  as  a  whole 
is  damned,  because  the  audience  can  carry  home  with  them 
nothing  "  for  their  use  and  edification.'7  33  Evidently  a 
play  which  does  not  inculcate  a  plain  moral  lesson  by 
means  of  obvious  poetical  justice  is,  as  he  puts  it,  "  without 
salt  or  savour." 

A  third  principle  systematized  into  rules  by  the  French 
formalists  is  that  concerned  with  the  unities.  This,  it 
should  be  noted  is,  however,  a  principle  much  more  empha- 
sized by  the  French  critics  than  by  the  Englishman.  The 
critics  of  the  Cid  would  restrict  the  action  of  a  play  to 
twelve  hours.34  Corneille,  as  has  been  observed,  is  in  his 
criticism  loyal  to  the  doctrine  of  the  unities,  particularly 
unity  of  time  and  unity  of  place.  The  rules  enforcing 
them  must  be  followed,  in  order  that  stage  conditions  may 
approximate  actual  conditions  in  the  world  at  large.  Da- 
cier  holds  the  same  opinion,  and  is  most  explicit  in  enforc- 
ing it.  For  him  the  duration  of  the  action  in  a  tragedy 
ought  to  be,  not  twelve  hours,  but  just  equal  to  the 
time  of  representation.  Unity  of  action  received  less 
attention  from  critics;  superficially,  at  least,  it  was  ob- 
served by  the  dramatists. 

Although  Rymer  does  not  flout  the  unities,  he  seems 
to  regard  them  as  of  minor  importance.  Yet  if  in  his 
criticism  he  is  disposed  to  slight  them,  his  practice,  in 

81  Cf.  T.  of  L.  A.,  pp.  23,  26,  35,  37,  42,  126,  etc. 
*  Short  View,  pp.   139,   144. 

teZ.,  p.  146.  "Op.  cit.,  p.  471. 


FRENCH   ARISTOTELIAN   FORMALISTS   AND   RYMER 


161 


his  only  play,  Edgar,  proves  his  acceptance  of  their  de- 
mands. There  he  definitely  announces  that  the  duration 
of  the  action  is  ten  hours.  The  rule  in  regard  to  unity 
of  time,  which  was  the  center  of  conflict  between  critics 
and  dramatists,  he  thus  accepts.  Unity  of  place  is  also 
observed  in  the  play.  Nor  does  Rymer  utterly  disregard 
the  unities  in  his  critical  works.  In  the  opening  chapter 
of  the  Tragedies  of  the  Last  Age  he  alludes  to  the  rules 
of  unity  with  approval,  and  in  the  Short  View,  Othello  is 
condemned  for  not  observing  unity  of  place ;  yet  "  ab- 
surdities of  this  kind  break  no  Bones.  They  may  make 
Fools  of  us ;  but  do  not  hurt  our  Morals."  35  This  repre- 
sents his  general  attitude  toward  the  unities;  they  ought 
to  be  observed,  but  after  all  they  are  of  secondary  im- 
portance. As  compared  with  the  criticism  of  the  French 
formalists,  Rymer's  work  shows  in  this  respect  a  differ- 
ence in  degree,  not  in  kind. 


Ill 


Passing  from  considerations  of  plot  to  those  of  char- 
acterization, we  enter  upon  a  topic  of  absorbing  interest 
to  the  school  of  rules :  the  principle  of  decorum ;  to  observe 
which  a  code  of  minute  rules  was  drawn  up,  governing 
the  actions  of  the  characters  in  every  detail. 

These  rules,  however,  did  not  attain  definiteness  for 
some  time.  The  critics  of  the  Cid,  for  example,  merely 
state  that  characters  should  behave  in  accordance  with 
time,  place,  age,  contemporary  customs,  and  so  forth.36 
But  the  matter  is  not  further  elaborated,  although  there 
are  one  or  two  references  to  breaches  of  decorum  in  the 
detailed  criticism  of  the  play. 

85  Op.  tit.,  p.  106. 

86  Op.  cit.,  pp.  467-8. 


162  GEOKGE    B.    BUTTON 

La  Mesnardiere,  however,  is  more  explicit.  He  gives 
multifold  rules.  He  prescribes  the  qualities  with  which 
a  poet  ought  to  endow  a  benevolent  king,  a  tyrant,  a  queen, 
a  prince,  a  chancellor,  and  so  forth.37  He  outlines  char- 
acteristics according  to  age,  sex,  fortune,  rank,  and  na- 
tionality.38 It  is  significant  that  he  is  driven  to  the  con- 
clusion that  a  tragic  poet  ought  to  be  acquainted  with 
court  etiquette.39  He  gives  the  whole  matter  definiteness 
and  system.  Conformity  to  types  is  prescribed,  the  char- 
acteristics of  each  type  are  laid  down,  and  general  con- 
formity to  the  rules  of  behaviour  in  royal  courts  is  insisted 
upon.  The  Aristotelian  idea  that  a  character  ought  to 
act  consistently  has  been  developed  into  a  series  of  hard 
and  fast  rules.  To  be  sure,  Horace,  centuries  before,  had 
made  a  beginning  of  the  business,  but  minuteness  and 
rigidity  the  rules  of  decorum  owe  to  the  French  formalists. 

The  method  of  La  Mesnardiere  is  followed  by  Mam- 
brun,  who  in  some  respects  even  surpasses  the  earlier 
writer.  For  example,  a  hero  may  weep,  but  not  howl.40 
In  Hedelin's  work  similar  minutiae  appear.  A  king  should 
speak  like  a  king,  and  nothing  ought  to  be  done  to  offend 
his  dignity.41  Rapin  42  and  Le  Bossu  43  enunciate  like 
rules.  Dacier  does  not  in  general  go  into  such  great  de- 
tail, but  his  grave  discussion  whether  it  is  proper  in  tra- 
gedy for  a  king  to  come  out  from  his  palace  to  the  scene 
of  action,44  shows  that  this  critic,  like  the  others,  made 
decorum  more  or  less  a  matter  of  court  etiquette. 

When  we  turn  to  Rymer's  critical  utterances,  we  find 
that  he,  too,  has  the  formalistic  attitude  toward  charac- 
terization, and  makes  use  of  the  same  rules  of  etiquette 

87  Op.  cit.,  pp.  120  ff.  tt  Op.  tit.,  p.  68. 

88  Op.  cit.,  pp.  119  ff.  *  Op.  cit.,  p.  116,  etc. 

89  Op.  cit.,  p.  239.  *  Op.  cit.,  Part  II,  Chap.  n. 
40  Op.  cit.,  p.  206.  **  Op.  cit.,  p.  293. 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER  163 

in  discussing  characters.  In  his  earliest  critical  work 
certain  characters  are  condemned  because  they  have  "  hut 
little  of  the  Heroick  in  them/7  45  and  dogs  are  reproved 
for  harking  in  an  heroic  poem — unless  "  they  hark  Heroi- 
cally." 46  And  in  his  later  work  other  minute  rules  are 
applied.  Kings  must  he  of  heroic  mold,47  must  combine 
in  their  dispositions  greatness  of  mind  and  generosity.48 
"  Far  from  decorum  is  it,  that  we  find  the  King  drolling 
and  quibbling//  49  he  writes  of  one  of  Fletcher's  charac- 
ters. That  is  a  breach  of  court  etiquette!  All  feminine 
characters  must  possess  the  trait  of  modesty,  for  modesty 
is  a  typical  feminine  characteristic.50  JSTo  woman  is  to 
kill  a  man,  no  servant  a  master,  no  private  subject  a  king. 
"  Poetical  decency  [i.  e.,  decorum]  will  not  suffer  death 
to  be  dealt  to  each  other  by  such  persons,  whom  the  Laws 
of  Duel  allow  not  to  enter  the  lists  together."  51  Etiquette 
again ! 

That  phase  of  decorum  concerned  with  the  traits  of 
types  finds  application  again  in  the  Short  View.  Othello 
and  lago  have  not  the  traits  ascribed  to  soldiers  by  the 
rules.  Of  lago  we  read  that  Shakspere  "would  pass 
upon  us  a  close,  dissembling,  false,  insinuating  rascal, 
instead  of  an  open-hearted,  frank,  plain-dealing  Souldier, 
a  character  constantly  worn  by  them  for  some  thousands 
of  years  in  the  World."  52  As  in  the  French  critics,  a 
character  must  be  endowed  with  traits  prescribed  by  call- 
ing, age,  sex,  and  so  forth,  and  must  act  in  conformity 
with  the  laws  of  etiquette.  Rymer's  criticism  of  charac- 
terization is  a  sweeping  application  of  the  rules  laid  down 
by  the  French  formalists. 

^Introd.  to  Rapin,  p.  11.  *  Hid.,  p.  64. 

«IUd.,  p.  22.  M /&«*.,  p.  113.  * 

47  T.  of  L.  A.,  p.  61.  ullid.,  p.  117. 

«lUd.,  p.  63.  °*0p.  tit.,  p.  94. 


164  GEORGE    B.    DUTTON 

Thus  in  fundamental  doctrines  Rymer's  criticism  con- 
forms to  the  criticism  of  the  French  school  of  rules.  And 
the  analysis  might  be  extended  to  include  other  rules  than 
those  considered.  A  great  number  of  other  dicta  codified 
into  rules  by  the  French  formalists  find  expression  like- 
wise in  Rymer's  work.  The  representation  of  scenes  of 
bloodshed  is  frowned  upon.  Mixture  of  genres  is  con- 
demned. The  comic  should  not  be  mingled  with  the  tra- 
gic. Judgment  is  a  more  necessary  quality  than  fancy  in 
creative  work.  The  subject  of  tragedy  should  be  some 
great  and  noble  action.  Characters  in  tragedy  must  be 
of  royal  or  noble  birth.  Further  multiplication  of  in- 
stances is  needless.  It  is  clear  that  Rymer  accepts  the 
code  of  minute  rules  promulgated  by  the  French  Aristo- 
telian formalists  and  applies  them  in  his  own  work.  That 
many  of  the  critical  ideas  here  considered  had  been  held 
by  critics  other  than  the  formalists  is  undoubtedly  true. 
But  the  French  formalists  were  the  ones  who  codified  these 
critical  principles  into  an  elaborate  system  of  minute  and 
definite  rules ;  and  these  minute  and  definite  rules  are  the 
ones  taken  up  and  applied  by  Thomas  Bymer.  In  respect 
to  the  rules,  then,  he  is  one  with  the  French  Aristotelian 
formalists. 

IV 

Aside  from  this  similarity  in  substance,  other  and  more 
general  points  of  resemblance  may  be  noted,  points  of  re- 
semblance which  at  least  give  additional  plausibility  to 
the  theory  that  all  of  these  men  belong  to  the  same  school 
of  thought. 

The  analogies  between  Chapelain  and  Rymer  are  especi- 
ally significant  in  this  respect.  Both  men  were  considered 
by  their  contemporaries  exceedingly  erudite,  and  in  the 


FBENCH    ARISTOTELIAN   FORMALISTS   AND   RYMEE  165 

case  of  each  the  erudition  was  particularly  displayed  in 
the  field  of  medieval  French  literature.  Of  Chapelain 
Professor  Saintsbury  remarks  that  he  "  almost  alone  of  his 
time  knew  Old  French  literature/'  and  discusses  his  dia- 
log, De  la  Lecture  des  vieux  Romans,  wherein  this  knowl- 
edge is  displayed.53  Rymer  likewise  was  regarded  as  an 
authority  on  Old  French  and  what  he  terms  "  Provencial  " 
literature,  and  his  eminence  in  this  respect  was  likewise 
lonely.  Of  course,  there  is  little  likelihood  that  Rymer 
was  indebted  to  Chapelain  for  his  interest  in  Old  French ; 
yet  the  resemblance  is  not  without  significance.  It  offers  a 
parallelism  in  mental  traits.  Both  Chapelain  and  Rymer 
were  regarded  as  men  of  sound  learning.  Moreover,  the 
same  general  statement  may  be  made  of  the  other  members 
of  the  school  of  rules. 

Although  in  craftsmanship  Chapelain  was  decidedly 
the  more  finished,  in  critical  temperament  there  are  points 
of  contact  between  the  two  men.  The  opening  paragraph 
of  the  judgment  of  the  Academy  upon  the  Cid  furnishes 
an  instance  of  what  is  meant.  One  sentence  in  particular 
is  significant.  "  C'est  une  verite  reconnue,"  the  passage 
runs,  "  que  la  louange  a  moins  de  force  pour  nous  faire 
avancer  dans  le  chemin  de  la  vertu,  que  le  blame  pour 
nous  retirer  de  celui  du  vice."  54  So  the  criticism  frankly 
sets  out  to  find  faults,  while  professing  at  the  same  time 
—and  here  it  differs  from  the  general  run  of  Bymer's 
work — not  to  withhold  praise  for  what  jseems  praise- 
worthy. The  sentence  quoted,  however,  might  well  have 
served  the  English  critic  as  a  motto  in  his  crusade  against 
the  evils  of  his  native  tragedy. 

One  other  trait  is  shared  by  Kymer  with  Chapelain, 

53  Hist,  of  Lit.  Grit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  258,  260.  ^ 

54  Ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  xii,  p.  463. 


166 


GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 


and  in  this  instance,  not  only  with  Chapelain,  but  also 
with  other  critics  of  the  school  of  rules;  and  that  is,  a 
firm  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  rules  for  stimulating  and 
guiding  creative  work — a  faith  which  several  of  these 
critics  manifested  by  writing  original  poems  or  plays  based 
on  their  rules.  Thus  Chapelain  wrote  La  Pucelle,  an  epic 
which  Boileau  irrevocably  damned.  La  Mesnardiere 
wrote  Allude.  Mambrun  wrote  his  epic  on  Constantine. 
And  Rymer  wrote  his  play,  Edgar.  These  works  were  not 
shining  successes.  They  showed  the  inadequacy  of  the 
rules  rather  than  their  efficacy.  But  they  do  make  mani- 
fest the  faith  of  their  writers,  and  it  is  not  without  signi- 
ficance to  find  Thomas  Kymer  following  the  example  of 
the  French  formalists  in  this  respect. 

Thus  we  find  various  analogies  between  the  interests 
and  beliefs  of  Kymer  and  the  interests  and  beliefs  of  the 
French  school  of  rules,  various  bonds  which  join  them. 
But  it  may  be  objected,  despite  this  testimony,  that  Ky- 
mer has  definitely  stated  that  his  criticism  is  based  on 
common  sense,  on  the  use  of  ordinary  reason,  and  that 
therefore,  although  the  parallelisms  with  the  French  wri- 
ters may  be  numerous,  they  are  accidental ;  that  his  criti- 
cism is  fundamentally  rationalistic,  rather  than  formal- 
istic.  Let  us  examine  this  objection  for  a  moment. 

The  passage  that  seems  to  give  most  basis  for  the  ra- 
tionalistic theory  is  found  in  The  Tragedies  of  the  Last 
Age.  Rymer  has  just  stated  that  a  plot  must  conform  to 
the  requirements  of  reason.  Then  he  notes  what  are  the 
qualities  necessary  to  judge  of  the  reasonableness  of  a 
plot.  "  And  certainly  there  is  not  required  much  Learn- 
ing, or  that  a  man  must  be  some  Aristotle,  and  Doctor 
of  Subtilties,  to  form  a  right  judgment  in  this  particular ; 
common  sense  suffices;  and  rarely  have  I  known  the 
Women- judges  mistake  in  these  points,  when  they  have  the 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER  167 

patience  to  think,  and  (left  to  their  own  heads)  they  de- 
cide with  their  own  sense."  55 

Are  we  to  conclude  from  this  passage  that  Rymer  bases 
his  criticism  upon  "  common  sense/'  that  he  is  funda- 
mentally rationalistic  in  his  critical  method?  Far  from 
it.  The  statement,  it  should  he  noted  in  the  first  place,  is 
confined  to  a  consideration  of  plot.  "  Common  sense  " 
is  the  faculty  to  he  used  in  judging  of  the  reasonableness 
of  a  plot;  it  confers  the  ability  to  discern  marked  incon- 
sistencies. And  the  examination  of  a  plot  to  condemn 
contradictions  and  inconsistencies  is,  as  previously  noted, 
nothing  in  the  world  but  an  application  of  the  formalistic 
rule  of  logical  verisimilitude.  All  that  the  passage  really 
conveys  is  a  declaration  that  knowledge  of  the  rules  is  not 
necessary  in  order  to  judge  of  the  reasonableness  of  a 
plot ;  ordinary  mental  equipment  is  sufficient.  "  Common 
sense  suffices."  But  the  very  process  which  involves  this 
use  of  common  sense  is  that  in  which  is  applied  one  of 
the  chief  rules  of  formalistic  criticism :  the  rule  demanding 
logical  verisimilitude.  Common  sense,  every-day  reason, 
is  but  the  servant  of  the  rules. 

Of  course,  the  rules  themselves  are  not  in  conflict  with 
reason.  Indeed,  they  demand  our  allegiance  just  because 
they  ar,e  rational.  In  one  passage  Rymer  states  that  the 
rules  are  based  on  reasons  as  "  convincing  and  clear  as  any 
demonstration  in  Mathematicks."  5G  But  to  hold  that  is 
not  to  make  oneself  a  rationalistic  critic.  Indeed,  the 
statement  only  links  Rymer  the  more  closely  with  the 
French  formalists.  In  the  criticism  of  the  Cid  we  find 
that  common  sense  (bon  sens)  bears  out  the  teachings  of 
the  rules.57  Hedelin  announces  that  the  rules  are  founded 

55  Op.  tit.,  pp.  4-5.  v     * 

56  Pref.  to  Rapin,  p.  4. 

CT  Ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  xn,  p.  475. 

3 


168 


GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 


upon  reason  and  common  sense — "depend  de  la  raison  et 
du  sens  commun."  58  Rapin  echoes  this  sentiment  almost 
exactly,59  and  Dacier,60  too,  follows  the  example  of  the 
others.  In  short,  it  is  a  cardinal  characteristic  of  the 
school  of  rules  to  hold  that  the  rules  are  reasonable;  and 
Rymer  is  one  with  the  school  in  this  respect  as  in  so  many 
others. 

Rymer,  then,  is  not  fundamentally  a  rationalistic  critic. 
He  does  not  bar  reason  from  criticism,  but  he  holds  that 
the  demands  of  reason  are  formulated  in  the  rules,  and  he 
exercises  his  own  reason,  not  independently,  but  in  the 
process  of  applying  the  rules.  In  all  of  this  he  is  doing 
just  what  the  French  formalists  advocated  before  him. 

One  difference  in  practice  between  Rymer  and  the  typi- 
cal French  formalist  should,  however,  be  noted.  The  typi- 
cal French  formalist  was  a  codifier  of  the  rules.  He 
analyzed  various  Aristotelian  dicta  in  the  light  of  the 
Italian  commentaries,  and  he  wrought  them  into  rules 
and  built  them  up  into  definite  systems.  This  is  the  kind 
of  work  done  by  La  Mesnardiere,  for  example;  and  by 
Hedelin ;  and  by  most  of  the  others  in  the  French  group. 
Eymer  did  not  continue  the  work  of  codification;  rather, 
he  took  the  results  of  the  codification  and  applied  them  in 
his  own  criticism.  To  this  extent  he  differs  from  most  of 
the  Frenchmen  considered.  However,  the  difference  is 
not  essential.  He  bases  his  criticism  upon  the  rules 
formulated  by  the  Frenchmen,  and  by  virtue  of  that  prac- 
tice he  is  fundamentally  a  f ormalistic  critic. 


Since,  then,  it  seems  clear  that  Rymer  belongs  to  the 
school  of  La  Mesnardiere  and  Mambrun,  of  Hedelin  and 

58  Op.  tit.,  pp.  20  and  21.  6I  Op.  cit.,  pp.  vi  and  vii. 

60  Op.  cit.,  p.  104. 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER  169 

Dacier,  the  question  of  his  indebtedness  to  them  individ- 
ually next  arises.  Was  Rymer  acquainted  with  the  work 
of  the  Frenchmen?  Did  he  owe  his  rules  to  them?  Is 
there  any  evidence  of  indebtedness  ? 

That  he  was  in  some  measure  acquainted  with  the  work 
of  the  French  school  of  rules  seems  clear.  The  mere  fact 
that  the  Englishman's  first  venture  into  literary  criticism 
was  his  translation  of  Rapin's  book  indicates  his  familiar- 
ity with  the  .work  of  one  member  of  the  school  and  may 
well  suggest  an  acquaintance  with  the  works  of  some  of  the 
other  members.  Indeed,  there  is  positive  evidence  that  He 
knew  about  the  criticism  of  La  Mesnardiere;  for  in  the 
Preface  to  the  translation  of  Rapin  he  notes  his  indebted- 
ness to  the  earlier  French  critic  for  the  observation  that 
the  French  language  is  "  a  very  Infant "  and  unsuited 
for  use  in  the  conduct  of  love  affairs.61  As  Prof.  Spin- 
garn  points  out,  this  is  a  reference  to  La  Mesnardiere's 
statement  on  the  "  Rudesse  de  la  langue  Franchise  dans  les 
expressions  amoureuses."  62  One  is  justified  in  suspect- 
ing that  Rymer  had  read  the  work  of  the  French  critic 
with  care,  since  he  noted  a  remark  of  such  comparatively 
small  importance  in  general  dramatic  theory. 

Again,  Rymer  knew  the  poetical  work  of  Chapelain,63 
and  was  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  founding  of 
the  Academy;64  consequently  it  is  probable  that  he  had 
read  the  Sentiments  de  I3 Academic  sur  le  Cid,  and  from 
it  he  may  have  taken  some  hints  as  to  methods  of 
applying  the  rules  to  concrete  criticism.  Corneille  is 
another  whom  Rymer  cites  by  name,  although  not  in  con- 
nection with  any  very  important  rule.  In  the  account  of 
the  French  drama  a  passage  from  the  examen  of  Theodore 

• 

81  Op.  cit.,  p.  7.  M  Cf .  Pref.  to  Rapin,  p.  26. 

"La  Mesn.,  p.  371.  "8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  59. 


170  GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 

is  quoted — in  translation — as  testimony  to  that  aversion 
to  immoral  or  questionable  plays  which  was  then  charac- 
teristic of  French  audiences.65  And  near  the  close  of  the 
Short  View  there  is  cited  Corneille's  avowal,  in  the  examen 
of  Melite,  that  when  he  began  to  write  plays,  he  was  ignor- 
ant of  the  rules,  but  common  sens,e  and  the  example  of 
Hardy  led  him  to  observe  unity  of  action  and  of  place.66 
That  is,  Corneille  is  here  cited  as  a  witness  to  the  essen- 
tial reasonableness  of  the  rules.  The  avowed  indebted- 
ness is  for  minor  points,  but  the  avowal  is  important  as 
further  indication  that  Rymer  was  interested  in  French 
criticism  and  was  reading  it. 

Rymer  knew  of  the  existence  of  the  works  of  Le  Bossu 
and  Dacier ;  for  he  mentions  them  in  the  dedication  of  the 
Short  View;  and  there  is  every  r.eason  to  believe  that  he 
read  their  works. 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  Rymer,  in  addition  to  accepting 
critical  rules  identical  with  those  codified  by  the  French 
Aristotelian  formalists,  was  to  some  extent  acquainted 
with  their  work.  That  there  was  actual  indebtedness 
seems  highly  probable,  and  this  probability  is  greatly  in- 
creased by  the  similarities  in  details  between  Rymer's 
work  and  the  works  of  the  French  writers.  Some  of  these 
similarities  remain  to  be  pointed  out. 

Certain  parallelisms  with  Mambrun  appear.  Early  in 
his  work  the  clerical  critic  attacks  Scaliger  for  regarding 
as  the  material  of  poetry  verses,  syllables,  "  and  all  that- 
grammatical  matter.  To  pay  so  much  attention  to  minute 
poetical  detail  is  the  shipwreck  of  poetry."  67  One  is  re- 
minded of  Rymer's  remark  in  the  course  of  his  Preface  to 
Rapin,  that  "  what  has  been  noted  rather  concerns  the 

65  8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  60;  cf.  Corneille,  Vol.  v,  p.  11. 

86  £.  V.  of  T.,  p.  160;  cf.  Corneille,  Vol.  I,  pp.  137  ff. 

"  De  Poemate  Epico,  p.  20   (Prof.  Babbitt's  notes). 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER 


171 


Niceties  of  Poetry  than  any  the  little  trifles  of  Grammar," 
and  of  his  statement  at  the  beginning  of  the  Tragedies  of 
the  Last  Age  that  he  has  not  bothered  himself  with  the 
"  eternal  triflings  of  the  Fr,ench  Grammaticasters."  68 

Other  remarks  in  Rymer  may  be  echoes  of  Mambrun,  or 
of  some  other  member  of  his  school.  Thus  when  Bymer 
accuses  Spenser,  with  Aristo,  of  "  blindly  rambling  on 
marvellous  Adventures,"  69  he  may  have  been  thinking  of 
Mambrun's.  stricture  on  the  Orlando  Furioso,  "  a  mere 
chaos  of  romantic  adventure,"  70  or  he  may  have  been  re- 
calling Rapin,  who  makes  the  same  criticism.  Similarly, 
the  censure  of  Lucan's  Pharsalia  because  it  has  an  his- 
torical subject  is  one  not  confined  to  Mambrun  and 
Rymer.71  But  there  is  a  distinct  flavor  of  Mambrun  in 
Rymer's  remark  in  regard  to  Davenant's  Gondibert: 
"  And  the  Emerald  he  gives  to  Birtha  has  a  stronger  tang 
of  the  Old  Woman,  and  is  a  greater  improbability  than  all 
the  enchantments  in  Tasso."  72  Could  he  have  had  in 
mind  Mambrun's  criticism  of  a  certain  medieval  romance, 
because  it  lacked  verisimilitude :  "  Here  again  is  a  won- 
derful adventure,  but  one  suited  for  old  women's  tales  "  ?  73 

Indeed,  Rymer's  ideas  and  phrases  sometimes  have  a 
"  tang  "  characteristic  of  what  we  know  of  Mambrun ;  but 
in  the  lack  of  the  latter's  book  further  study  of  detail  is 
impossible. 

In  any  event,  since  Mambrun  was  concerned  chiefly 
with  epic  poetry,  and  Rymer  chiefly  with  the  drama,  the 
influence  which  it  seems  probable  did  exist,  must  have 

<*  Cf.  Pref.  to  Rapin,  p.  30,  and  T.  of  L.  A.,  p.  4.  It  seems  prob- 
able that  the  latter  refers  to  Malherbe,  whose  commentary  on  Des- 
portes  might  be  thus  characterized  by  one  impatient  of  the  minutiae 
of  language.  0 

"Pref.  Rap.,  p.  9.  "Mambrun,  p.  133;   Pref.  Rap.,  p.   15. 

70  Op.  tit.,  p.  67  ff.  ™  Pref.  Rap.,  p.   12.     Italics  mine. 

78  Mambrun,  p.  173  ff.    Pointed  out  by  Professor  Babbitt. 


172 


GEOBGE    B.    BUTTON 


been  confined  to  Rymer's  attitude  toward  the  nature  and 
function  of  criticism  and  to  a  few  details  concerning 
poetry  in  general.  In  La  Mesnardiere  we  find  a  critic 
whose  work  would  be  more  likely  to  influence  Eymer  in 
the  larger  part  of  his  criticism,  since  both  are  primarily 
concerned  with  the  drama. 

Certain  passages  on  poetic  justice  in  the  earlier  work 
are  to  a  considerable  extent  paralleled  in  Eymer.  For  ex- 
ample, Rymer's  remarks  on  the  difference  between  histori- 
cal truth  and  universal  truth  in  exhibiting  poetic  justice 
seem  an  echo  of  La  Mesnardiere's  utterances.  The  sim- 
ilarity may  be  worth  exhibiting. 


La   Mesnardiere 

Or  encore  que  dans  le  Monde 
les  bons  soient  souvent  affligez, 
et  que  les  meschans  prosperent, 
il  faut  ne"antmoins  comprendre 
que  le  Poeme  tragique  dormant 
beaucoup  £  1'exemple,  et  plus 
encore  &  la  Raison,  et  qu'Stant 
toujours  oblige  de  recompenser 
les  vertus,  et  de  chastier  les 
vices  .  .  .  etc.  (p.  107). 

La  raison  du  Philosophe  est74 
Que  cette  espece  de  Fables  repre- 
sentant  des  injustices,  ne  pent 
jamais  exciter  que  le  depit  et  le 
blaspheme  dans  I'ame  des  Audi- 
teurs,  qui  munnurent  centre  le 
Ciel,  quand  il  souffre  que  la 
Vertu  soit  traitte"e  cruellement, 
et  que  les  mauvais  triomphent 
tandis  que  les  justes  patissent 
(p.  167). 


Rymer 

And,  finding  in  History,  the 
same  end  happen  to  the  right- 
eous and  to  the  unjust,  vertue 
often  opprest,  and  wickedness  on 
the  Throne:  they  saw  these  par- 
ticular yesterday-truths  were  im- 
perfect and  unproper  to  illus- 
trate the  universal  and  eternal 
truths  by  them  intended.  Find- 
ing also  that  this  unequal  dis- 
tribution of  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments did  perplex  the  wisest, 
and  by  the  Atheist  was  made  a 
scandal  to  the  Divine  Providence. 
They  concluded,  that  a  Poet 
must  of  necessity  see  justice 
exactly  administered,  if  he  in- 
tended to  please  (T.  L.  A.,  p. 
14). 


"He  has  just  quoted  Aristotle,  Chap,  xin,  to  the  effect  that  a 
good  man  should  not  be  represented  as  persecuted. 


FRENCH   ARISTOTELIAN   FORMALISTS   AND   RYMEK          173 

In  these  passages  both  critics  use  the  same  arguments 
in  favor  of  poetic  justice,  and  there  is  some  phrasal 
similarity. 

When  we  find  Rymer,  in  suggesting  changes  and  im- 
provements in  the  plot  of  Rollo,  carefully  providing  that 
the  two  brothers  who  are  to  be  involved  in  tragic  doom 
shall  be  neither  exceedingly  wicked  nor  perfectly  vir- 
tuous, we  are  apt  tcr  attribute  his  attitude  to  the  influence 
of  Aristotle.  But  La  Mesnardiere  deals  with  the  same 
problem,  and  it  is  not  without  significance  that  both 
Kymer  and  the  French  critic  have  in  mind  the  bearing  of 
poetic  justice  on  the  matter,  which  is  a  factor  absent  from 
Aristotle's  discussion.75 

However,  it  is  the  rules  of  decorum  rather  than  the 
provisions  for  poetic  justice  that  are  most  likely  to  fur- 
nish points  of  resemblance  between  Rymer  and  La  Mes- 
nardiere. The  French  critic's  conclusion,  previously 
cited,  that  a  poet  ought  to  be  acquainted  with  court  eti- 
quette in  order  intelligently  to  apply  the  rules  of  dramatic 
decorum,  seems  to  find  echo  in  Rymer's  statement,  "  Trag- 
edy requires  .  .  .  what  is  great  in  Nature,  and  such 
thoughts  as  quality  and  Court-education  might  inspire."  76 
To  be  sure,  Rymer  is  here  referring  to  the  sentiments  ex- 
pressed by  stage  characters  rather  than  to  their  manners ; 
but  how  is  the  dramatist  to  know  what  thoughts  a  court- 
education  inspire,  unless  he  is  familiar  with  the  court? 
Rymer 's  requirement  implies  La  Mesnardiere's.  Again, 
La  Mesnardiere  holds  that  stage  kings  should  be  endowed 
with  virtue,  wisdom,  courage,  and  generosity ;  Rymer  puts 
it  that  "  all  crown' d  heads  "  should  possess  the  qualities 
pf  heroes.77  Rymer's  question,  "  Whether  in  Poetry  a 

75  Cf .  T.  L.  A.,  p.  23 ;  Poetics,  Chap,  xin;  La  Mesnardiere,  p.  20. 

"  T.  L.  A.,  p.  43. 

"Cf.  La  Mesn.,  p.  120;  T.  L.  A.,  p.  61. 


174 


GEORGE    B.    DUTTON 


King  can  be  an  accessary  to  a  crime,"  78  may  be  related  to 
the  same  passage  in  the  French  critic.  If  a  king  is  to  be 
a  model  of  virtue,  naturally  he  is  not  to  be  charged  with 
the  commission  of  crimes.  In  another  place  La  Mesnar- 
diere  enjoins  the  playwright,  "  il  ne  p^rmettra  jamais  que 
la  plus  juste  colere  emporte  si  fort  son  Heros,  qu'il  en 
perde  et  le  jugement  et  le  respect  qui  est  deu  aux  Poten- 
tats  de  la  terre."  79  Under  this  injunction  would  come 
Bymer's  rule  that  a  subject  must  not  kill  a  king. 

A  knowledge  of  the  Frenchman's  rules  is  also  revealed 
by  Rymer  in  many  of  his  concrete  criticisms.  His  effort 
to  make  out  that  the  king  in  the  Maid's  Tragedy  ought  to 
have  been  but  slightly  or  not  at  all  blamed  for  Amintor's 
desertion  of  Aspatia  is  but  an  application  of  the  precept 
in  the  Poetique  that  a  writer  ought  to  hide  the  faults  of 
princes  (on  doit  cacher  leurs  defauts).80  And  when  we 
find  the  king  of  Fletcher's  A  King  and  No  King  rebuked 
for  "  drolling  and  quibbling  with  Bessus  and  his  Buf- 
foons," 81  we  are  reminded  of  the  injunction  in  the 
Poetique  that  characters  ought  not  to  indulge  in  "senti- 
ments abjets,"  "unworthy  of  the  glory  and  pride  of  a 
great  soul."  82  Melantius,  of  the  Maid's  Tragedy,  is  re- 
proved for  his  violent  and  irreverent  conduct  to  the  new 
king;  and  we  find  that  his  conduct  does  break  the  rule 
that  subjects  should  not  outrage  their  sovereigns,  or  cour- 
tiers fail  in  the  observances  which  are  a  part  of  their  pro- 
fession.83 Other  examples  of  this  agreement  between 
Rymer's  censures  and  La  Mesnardiere's  rules  might  be 
given,  but  perhaps  the  above  are  sufficient  to  illustrate  the 

78  T.  L.  A.,  p.  115.    Prof.  Spingarn  points  out  this  parallelism. 

79  La  Mean.,  p.  104.     Quoted  also  by  Spingarn,  Vol.  n,  p.  346. 

80  La  Mesn.,  p.  102.  «  T.  L.  A.,  p.  64.  | 
83  La  Mesn.,  p.  304. 

88  Cf.  T.  L.  A.,  p.  122;  La  Mesn.,  p.  294. 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER  175 

parallelism  between  the  two  authors  in  regard  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  decorum. 

In  addition,  rules  on  various  minor  matters,  promul- 
gated in  the  French  work,  are  applied  by  the  English 
critic.  For  example,  in  the  Poetique  we  find  that  the  title 
of  a  dramatic  poem  ought  to  be  the  name  of  the  hero,  or 
some  phrase  which  will  express  in  a  few  syllables  the  prin- 
cipal action.84  Patly  enough  comes  Rymer,  writing  of 
•the  Maid'$  Tragedy,  "  Amintor  therefore  [i.  e.,  because 
the  action  centres  around  him]  should  have  named  the 
Tragedy,  and  some  additional  title  should  have  hinted  the 
Poet's  design."  85  In  accord  with  the  same  rule  are  the 
remarks  about  Othello:  "So  much  ado,  so  much  stress,  so 
much  passion  and  repetition  about  an  Handkerchief! 
Why  was  not  this  call'd  the  Tragedy  of  the  Handker- 
chief?"86 La  Mesnardiere's  opinion  in  regard  to  his- 
torical characters  is,  "  La  principale  des  Regies  qu'il  doit 
observer  en  ceci,  est  de  n'introduire  jamais  un  Heros  ou 
une  Heroine  avec  d'autres  inclinations  que  celles  que  les 
Histoires  ont  jadis  remarquees  en  eux."  In  this  connec- 
tion note  Rymer's  complaint  about  the  characters  in 
Shakspere's  Julius  Gcesar,  that  the  dramatist  might  write 
over  them,  "  This  is  Brutus ;  this  is  Cicero ;  this  is  Caesar. 
But  generally  his  History  flies  in  his  Face ;  And  comes  in 
flat  contradiction  to  the  Poet's  imagination."  87 

But  enough  of  citing  examples.  The  points  of  con- 
tact are  numerous.  And  since  we  have  seen  that  Rymer 
avows  acquaintance  with  La  Mesnardiere's  work,  it  seems 
highly  probable  that  he  is  indebted  to  the  French  critic 
for  many  of  his  ideas. 

84  La  Mesn.,  p.  47.     Cited  by  Spingarn,  op.  tit.,  Vol.  n,  p.  345, 
who  also  cites  other  critics,  much  less  likely  to  have  been 

by  Rymer. 

85  T.  L.  A.,  p.  105.  *  8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  135. 
"  Cf.  Mesn.,  p.  114,  and  8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  148. 


176 


GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 


VI 


Although  La  Mesnardiere  is  more  closely  akin  to 
Rymer  than  Rapin  is,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  English 
writer  also  borrowed  details  of  criticism  more  or  less 
freety  from  the  critic  with  whom  he,  as  translator,  had 
come  into  such  close  contact. 

Of  course  the  preface  to  Rymer's  translation  of  the 
Reflexions  is  full  of  echoes  of  Rapin.  The  brief  account 
of  criticism,  as  Prof.  Spingarn  points  out,  follows  Rapin 
closely.  Other  resemblances  appear.  The  French  writer 
exclaims,  "  Dans  quelles  fautes  ne  sont  pas  tombez  la 
plupart  des  Poetes  Espagnols  et  Italiens  pour  les  \i.  e., 
"  ces  regies"]  avoir  ignorees?"  Likewise  Rymer  calls 
upon  his  readers  to  "  examine  how  unhappy  the  greatest 
English  Poets  have  been  through  their  ignorance  or  negli- 
gence of  these  fundamental  Rules  and  Laws  of  Aris- 
totle." 88  Rymer  several  times  cites  the  opinions  of  the 
man  whose  work  he  is  translating;  as,  for  instance,  the 
belief  that  the  English  "  have  a  Genius  for  Tragedy  above 
all  other  people,"  and  the  related  remark  on  the  delight 
which  that  nation  takes  in  cruel  spectacles.89  Other 
echoes  are  heard — as  in  the  condemnation  of  Petrarch's 
Africa  and  of  the  chimerical  nature  of  the  Orlando  Fu- 
rioso.  In  short,  as  one  might  expect,  Rymer  in  his  preface 
borrows  many  ideas  from  the  man  whose  work  he  is 
translating. 

It  is  more  significant  to  find  traces  of  similarity  to 
Rapin' s  views  in  Rymer's  other  pieces  of  criticism.  Thus 
the  English  critic's  remarks  on  the  necessity  of  regulating 
"  fancy  "  by  reason,  may  well  have  been  based  upon  a 

88  Rapin,  CEuvres,  Amsterdam,  1709,  Vol.  n,  p.  91;  and  Pref.  to 
Rap.,  p.  8. 

"Rapin,  Vol.  n,  pp.  171,  164;  Pref.,  pp.  5  and  6. 


FRENCH   ARISTOTELIAN"   FORMALISTS   AND   RYMER  177 

recollection  of  the  passage  in  the  Reflexions,,  "  La  raison 
doit  etre  encore  plus  forte  que  le  genie,  pour  sc,  avoir  jus- 
ques  ou  1'emportement  doit  aller  " — which  Rymer  trans- 
lates, "  Reason  ought  to  be  much  stronger  than  the  Fancy, 
to  discern  how  far  the  Transports  may  be  carried." 90 
Again,  as  Prof.  Spingarn  points  out,  Rapin's  censure  of 
Angelica  in  Ariosto's  poem  and  Armida  in  Tasso's  as  too 
immodest  is  paralleled  by  Rymer's  criticism  of  Evadne  in 
the  Maid's  Tragedy.  Rapin  concludes  his  remarks  thus: 
"  Ces  deux  Poetes  otent  aux  femmes  leur  caractere,  qui 
est  le  pudeur;"  and  Rymer  declares  that  "  Mature  knows 
nothing  in  the  manners  which  so  properly  and  particularly 
distinguishes  woman  as  doth  her  modesty."  91 

Similar  resemblances  are  found  in  the  Short  View  of 
Tragedy.  Rapin  states  that  comedy  has  a  moral  aim,  and 
commends  Aristophanes  for  his  evident  didactic  purpose 
in  one  of  his  plays,  the  Lysistmta,  (which  Rapin  terms 
"  Les  Harangueuses,"  and  Rymer,  in  his  translation,  the 
"  Parliament  of  Women  ").  In  like  manner  the  English 
critic  remarks  of  Aristophanes,  "  This  Author  appears  in 
his  Function,  a  man  of  wonderful  zeal  for  Vertue."  92 
Moreover,  Rymer's  remarks  on  the  function  and  place  of 
love  in  tragedy  seem  distinctly  reminiscent  of  passages 
in  the  Reflexions.  He  praises  the  Greeks  because  in  their 
drama  love  did  not  "  come  whining  on  the  Stage  to  Effemi- 
nate the  Majesty  of  their  Tragedy."  Rapin  states,  "  c'est 
degrader  la  Tragedie  de  cet  air  de  Majeste  qui  luy  est 
propre,  que  d'y  meler  de  Tamour";  and,  a  little  later, 
as  Rymer  significantly  translates,  "Nothing  to  me  shews  so 

90  T.  L.  A.,  p.  8;  Rapin.  II,  p.  108;  Rymer's  trans.,  p.  23. 
wCf.  Crit.  Essays  17 'th  Cent.,  Vol.  II,  p.  346;   T.  L.  A.,  pp.  112, 
113;  Rapin,  Vol.  n,  p.  117.  9 

92  Rapin,  Vol.  n,  p.  103 ;  8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  22. 


178  GEORGE    B.    BUTTON" 

mean  and  senseless,   as  for  one  to  amuse  himself  with 
whining  about  frivolous  kindnesses. "  93 

From  the  above  indications  it  seems  clear  that  Rymer 
throughout  his  career  in  criticism  had  in  mind  the  injunc- 
tions of  the  man  whose  work  he  had  translated  at  the  be- 
ginning of  that  career.  It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that 
the  similarities  to  Rapin  are  not  of  the  same  nature  as 
those  to  La  Mesnardiere,  or  ,even,  so  far  as  we  can  judge, 
as  those  to  Mambrun.  In  the  last-mentioned  cases  the 
similarities  occurred  in  the  use  of  numerous  minute  rules 
which  are  especially  characteristic  of  Aristotelian  formal- 
ism. In  the  case  of  Rapin  the  borrowings  are  of  a  less 
distinctive  nature. 

VII 

The  similarities  in  detail  between  Rymer  and  the  re- 
maining French  critics  of  the  group  are  less  weighty  and 
may  be  dismissed  more  briefly. 

The  critique  of  the  Cid,  with  its  civilities  and  its  cour- 
tesies, is  quite  different  from  Rymer 's  bluff  fault-finding ; 
nevertheless  there  are  certain  anticipations  of  Rymer's 
method,  as  in  the  condemnation  of  Chimene  because,  con- 
trary to  what  decorum  assigns  to  her  sex,  she  is  too  senti- 
mental a  lover  and  too  unnatural  a  daughter ;  and  in  the 
examination  of  the  probability  of  Rodrigue's  movements 
after  he  has  killed  the  Count.94  And  it  may  be  worthy 
of  note  that  Chimene  is  upbraided  for  forgetting  her  mod- 
esty in  the  fifth  act.95  But  these  features  are  not  of  great 
significance. 

m 8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  62  (italics  mine) ;  Rapin,  Vol.  H,  p.  165;  Rymer's 
translation,  p.  119. 

MEd.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  xn,  p.  472;  p.  476. 
M  Op.  cit.,  p.  481. 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER  179 

Hedelin's  Pratique  du  Theatre  furnishes  parallelisms 
which  are  rather  more  indicative  of  Rymer's  actual  ac- 
quaintance with  the  work.  It  seems  quite  probable  that 
the  English  writer  in  the  general  content  of  his  account  of 
the  ancient  drama,  found  in  the  Short  View  of  Tragedy, 
is  following  the  Abbe.  The  latter  goes  into  the  matter  in 
some  detail,  and  gives  most  of  the  facts  which  Kymer 
uses.96  And  Kymer 's  anecdote  in  The  Tragedies  of  the 
Last  Age  in  regard  to  the  priests  of  Bacchus,  while  it  may 
have  been  taken  from  some  ancient  authority,  probably 
came  through  Hedelin,  who  writes : 

"  Aussi  quand  dans  la  suite  du  temps  Phrynicus  Dis- 
ciple de  Thespis,  Aeschyle,  et  quelques  autres  a  Pexemple 
de  leur  Maitre  insererent  dans  leurs  Tragedies  des  Ac- 
teurs  recitans  des  vers  touchant  quelque  histoire  qui  ne 
faisoit  point  partie  des  loiianges  de  Bacchus,  les  Pretres 
de  ce  Dieu  le  trouverent  alors  fort  mauvais  et  s'en  plai- 
gnirent  tout  haut,  disans,  Que  dans  ces  Episodes  il  n'y 
avoit  rien  qui  put  s'approprier,  ni  aux  actions,  ni  aux 
bienf aits,  ni  aux  mysteres  de  leur  Dieu :  ce  qui  donna  lieu 
a  ce  Proverbe,  En  tout  cela  rien  de  Bacchus."  Kymer- 
puts  it,  in  his  vigorous  way,  that  the  priests  "  mutinied  " 
against  the  insertion  of  these  episodes,  "  thought  it  ran 
off  from  the  Text,"  and  finally  "  roar'd  out,  Nothing  to 
Dionisus,  nothing  to  Dionysus."  97 

Again,  Rymer's  statement,  "  Some  have  remark'd,  that 
Athens  being  a  Democracy,  the  Poets,  in  favour  of  their 
Government,  expos'd  Kings,  and  made  them  unfortunate," 
may  refer  to  Hedelin's  comment  that  the  Athenians  de- 

96  H^delin,  op.  tit.,  pp.  153  ff.  0 

97  Cf.  He-delin,  p.  161;  T.  L.  A.,  p.  12. 


180  GEORGE    B.    BUTTON" 

lighted  to  see  the  misfortunes  of  Kings  shown  upon  the 
stage.98 

Although  it  seems  probable  that  Rymer  was  chiefly  in- 
fluenced by  Dacier,  as  will  be  seen  shortly,  in  his  advo- 
cacy of  the  chorus,  nevertheless  he  is  in  this  matter  not 
without  points  of  contact  with  the  author  of  the  Pra- 
tique.^ It  will  suffice  to  mention  one.  Hedelin  urges, 
after  advancing  various  other  arguments  for  the  use  of 
the  chorus,  that  it  would  insure  continuity  of  action, 
unity  of  scene,  and  unity  of  time — for  how  could  the 
chorus  be  supposed  to  stay  on  the  scene  of  action  days  and 
weeks  without  eating  or  drinking  or  sleeping?  Rymer 
likewise  contends  that  the  chorus  is  a  valuable  aid  in  pre- 
serving the  unities,  "  Because  the  Chorus  is  not  to  be 
trusted  out  of  sight,  is  not  to  eat  or  drink  till  they  have 
given  up  their  Verdict,  and  the  Plaudite  is  over.77  10° 

All  in  all,  it  would  seem  that  Rymer  must  have  been 
acquainted  with  La  Pratique  du  Theatre. 

W,e  have  seen  that  Corneille's  critical  utterances  were 
known  to  Rymer.  The  detailed  indebtedness,  however, 
seems  slight.  Prof.  Spingarn  points  out  the  resemblance 
between  Rymer's  belief  in  the  didactic  purpose  of  poetry, 
and  Corneille's.101  But  the  similarity  is  confined  to  the 
general  tenor  of  the  statements,102  and  the  same  doctrine 
was  held  by  other  critics,  so  no  specific  indebtedness  may 
be  alleged.  Another  point  of  contact  noted  by  Prof.  Spin- 

98  T.  of  L.  A.,  p.  29;  H6delin,  Book  n,  p.  62.     The  English  trans- 
lation is  quoted  by  Prof.  Spingarn  (in,  p.  341)  but  not  with  refer- 
ence to  this  passage  in  the  T.  of  L.  A. 

99  Prof.  Spingarn  ( op.  cit.,  Vol.  n,  p.  347 )  gives  general  references 
to  both  He"delin  and  Dacier. 

100  Cf.  Hddelin,  pp.  190  ff.;  8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  161;  italics  mine. 
101Crit.  Essays  17th  Cent.,  Vol.  n,  p.  347.     No  specific  reference 

is  given. 

1MEd.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  I,  p.  17;  T.  L.  A.,  p.  140. 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER  181 

garn  concerns  the  care  for  the  royal  prerogative  evinced 
by  the  two  critics.  Rymer  holds  that  in  poetry  a  king  may 
not  be  accessory  to  a  crime;  Corneille  forbids  the  drama- 
tist to  portray  a  king  in  a  secondary  role.103  Whether 
the  two  critics  have  in  view  exactly  the  same  thing  may 
be  doubted.  The  resemblance  is  in  the  minute  care  for 
the  royal  welfare  and  reputation,  to  which  court  decorum 
leads.  Rymer's  inspiration  for  his  remarks  here  more 
probably  came  from  La  Mesnardiere,  as  already  noted. 

Other  uncertain  echoes  might  be  pointed  out.  But 
whereas  it  seems  clear  that  Rymer  knew  Corneille's  cri- 
ticism, it  does  not  seem  probable  that  he  was  much  influ- 
enced by  it.  Nor  is  this  strange.  Corneille  was  only  in 
part  a  formalist.  Rymer  was  thoroughly  one,  and  could 
obtain  elsewhere  critical  doctrines  more  fully  in  accord 
with  his  views  than  Corneille's  were. 

Le  Bossu's  work  appeared  in  1675,  but  there  is  nothing 
to  indicate  that  Rymer  made  use  of  it  in  the  Tragedies  of 
the  Last  Age,  which  appeared  two  years  later.  There  are 
indeed  a  few  parallelisms,  but  these  may  best  be  accounted 
for  by  assuming  a  common  indebtedness  to  earlier  critics. 
Thus  the  idea  that  the  poet's  judgment  should  always 
control  his  fancy  is  found  in  Le  Bossu's  book  and  likewise 
in  Rymer's.  But  it  also  appears  in  the  latter's  Preface 
to  Rapin  published  before  Le  Bossu's  book,  and  its  pro- 
bable source  is  Rapin.104  The  most  striking  points  of 
similarity  between  the  Short  View  and  the  French  trea- 
tise on  the  epic  are  such  as  may  well  be  explained  by  the 
theory  of  a  common  origin.  Le  Bossu  gives  a  brief  ac- 
count of  the  origin  of  tragedy,  and  at  first  it  seems  pro- 

108  T.  L.  A.,  p.  115;  Ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  Vol.  i,  pp.  270  ff.  _ 

104  Cf.  Le  Bossu,  p.  25;   T.  of  L.  A.,  p.  8;  Pref.  Rap.,  p.  5. 


182  GEOEGE    E.    BUTTON 

bable  that  Rymer  used  this  in  preparing  his  treatment 
of  the  same  topic;  but  Hedelin's  account,  already  men- 
tioned, furnishes  closer  parallels,  and  is  a  more  likely 
source ;  and  it  is  worth  noting  that  Le  Bossu  acknowledges 
his  indebtedness  to  the  same  writer. 

In  general,  it  is  altogether  more  probable  that  Eymer, 
concerned  with  the  drama,  should  have  reinforced  his 
ideas  from  French  treatises  on  the  drama,  than  it  is  that 
he  should  have  been  influenced  by  stray  remarks  in  Le 
Bossu's  Traite  du  Poeme  Epique.  The  formalistic  resem- 
blances exist;,  the  evidences  of  indebtedness  are  doubtful. 

The  most  important  feature  of  Dacier's  commentary  on 
Aristotle,  for  those  who  seek  proof  of  his  influence  on  the 
Short  View  of  Tragedy,  is  his  advocacy  of  the  chorus. 
Dacier  recommends  the  use  of  the  chorus  because,  for  one 
reason,  it  compels  the  dramatist  to  preserve  unity  of  place. 
In  addition,  it  prevents  him  from  placing  the  action  of 
his  tragedy  in  ff  chambers  and  cabinets/'  because  the  cho- 
rus, which  must  always  be  on  the  stage,  cannot  reasonably 
be  supposed  to  witness  the  private  transactions  of  kings 
and  princes.  And  it  is  advisable  to  prevent  the  appear- 
ance of  such  actions  on  the  stage,  because  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  audience,  too,  is  always  present,  and 
it  is  essentially  improbable  that  they  should  be  admitted 
to  the  cabinets  of  princes;  the  dramatist  is  apt  to  forget 
this  improbability,  but  the  presence  of  a  chorus  would 
force  it  upon  his  attention.  So  the  chorus  ought  to  be  re- 
established, "  qui  seul  peut  redonner  a  la  Tragedie  son 
premier  lustre,  et  forcer  les  Poetes  a  faire  un  clioix  plus 
juste  des  actions  quils  prennent  pour  sujet."  105 

Rymer,  like  Dacier,  looks  to  the  chorus  to  reform 
tragedy.106  Like  Dacier  he  holds  that  the  chorus  "  is  not 

106  Dacier,  La  Poetique,  p.  330.     Italics  mine. 
loe/8f.  V.  of  T.,  p.  1. 


FRENCH   ARISTOTELIAN   FORMALISTS   AND   RYMER          183 

to  be  drawn  through  a  Key-hole,  .  .  .  nor  stow'd  in  a  gar- 
ret, ...  so  must  of  necessity  keep  the  Poet  to  unity  of 
place."  107  And  of  Jonson's  Catiline  he  asks,  "  how  comes 
the  Chorus  into  Catilins  Cabinet?  " 108  Moreover,  if  the 
chorus  be  employed,  "  the  Spectators  are  thereby  se- 
cured, that  their  Poet  shall  not  juggle,  or  put  upon  them 
in  the  matter  of  Place,  and  Time,  other  than  is  just  and 
reasonable  for  the  representation."  109 

In  another  place  Dacier  advances  another  argument  in 
support  of  the  chorus,  which  Rymer  also  uses.  Dacier 
writes  that  in  barring  the  chorus  from  tragedy,  modern 
writers  have  deprived  themselves  of  a  great  advantage; 
"  car  toute  la  Musique  qu'on  peut  placer  dans  les  inter- 
medes  de  nos  pieces  et  les  balets  qu'on  peut  y  aj outer  ne 
font  nullement  le  meme  effet,  parce  qu'ils  ne  peuvent 
etre  considerez  comme  parties  de  la  Tragedie ;  ce  sont  des 
membres  etrangers  qui  la  corrompent  et  qui  la  rendent 
monstrueuse."110  Echoes  Rymer,  "  And  the  Poet  has 
this  benefit;  the  Chorus  is  a  goodly  Show,  so  that  he  need 
not  ramble  from  his  subject  out  of  his  Wits  for  some  for- 
eign Toy  or  Hobby-horse,  to  humor  the  Multitude."  ni 

With  all  this  similarity,  extending  even  to  phraseology, 
it  is  quite  clear  that  Rymer  derived  his  arguments  for  the 
chorus  from  Dacier.  It  should  be  remembered,  of  course, 
that  this  does  not  preclude  the  possibility  of  his  having 
also  referred  to  Hedelin7  s  arguments  on  the  same  subject ; 
as  we  have  seen,  it  is  probable  he  did  consult  Hedelin. 
But  the  great  bulk  of  his  indebtedness  in  this  matter  is  to 
Dacier ;  and,  from  a  consideration  of  chronological  data,  it 
seems  certain  that  Dacier,  and  not  Hedelin,  furnished  the 

101  Hid.,  p.  161.     Italics  mine.         uo  Dacier,  pp.  516-517. 
168  Ibid.,  p.  160.  «*  8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  2. 

™llid.,  p.  2. 

4 


184  GEORGE    B.    DUTTON 

initial  impulse  for  Rymer's  advocacy  of  the  chorus.  For 
Hedelin's  book  had  appeared  in  1657;  had  Rymer  been 
much  impressed  by  its  arguments  in  favor  of  the  chorus, 
he  could  have  introduced  the  matter  in  his  Tragedies  of 
the  Last  Age,  which  came  out  in  1677.  But  not  until 
Dacier's  book  appeared,  in  1692,  do  we  find  Rymer  inter- 
esting himself  in  the  question. 

Aside  from  the  discussion  of  the  chorus,  there  is  little 
to  show  that  Dacier  had  much  influence  upon  the  English 
critic.  As  in  the  case  of  Le  Bossu,  there  is  resemblance 
in  the  formalism  of  the  critical  ideas;  but  the  important 
critical  details  seem  to  have  been  supplied  to  Rymer  by 
the  earlier  members  of  the  school. 


VIII 

From  the  foregoing  survey  of  the  points  of  contact  be- 
tween Rymer  and  the  members  of  the  French  school  of 
rules  it  is  evident  that  he  agrees  with  them  not  only  in 
general  critical  attitude,  but  also  in  a  great  number  of 
detailed  rules.  And  from  the  phrasal  similarities,  and, 
in  some  cases,  from  explicit  acknowledgment,  it  seems 
clear  that  Rymer  was  familiar  with  the  writings  of  this 
group  and  derived  the  most  important  and  essential  fea- 
tures of  his  critical  theory  from  its  members. 

That  he  could  have  derived  them  from  any  other  school  of 
criticism  is  impossible,  because  he  resembles  no  other 
school  so  closely  as  he  does  the  French  school  of  rules. 
That  he  could  have  formulated  his  method  for  himself, 
basing  his  rules  directly  upon  Aristotle  and  Horace,  is 
highly  improbable.  To  be  sure,  his  references  to  these 
two  authorities  are  constant.  Aristotle  in  particular  is 
cited  as  the  law-giver  of  literary  criticism.  But  the 
Aristotelian  dicta  that  Rymer  emphasizes  are  the  dicta 


FRENCH    ARISTOTELIAN    FORMALISTS    AND    RYMER  185 

emphasized  by  his  formalistic  predecessors,  and  he  inter- 
prets these  dicta  as  they  did.  Aristotle's  demand  for 
probability  was  for  Rymer  a  demand  for  strictly  formal- 
istic verisimilitude;  and  Aristotle's  demand  for  decorum 
was  for  Rymer  a  demand  for  the  observance  of  court 
etiquette.  The  English  critic  may  have  been  acquainted 
with  the  Poetics;  but  he  beheld  it  through  French 
spectacles. 

Rymer  was  probably  more  directly  indebted  to  Horace 
than  to  Aristotle,  for  Horace  tends  to  enunciate  rules 
rather  than  principles;  is  something  of  a  formalist  him- 
self. Yet  in  general  the  Englishman's  relations  to  Horace 
resemble  those  to  Aristotle.  When  we  find  Rymer  com- 
paring those  qualities  Shakspere  has  given  lago  with  those 
Horace  laid  down  as  typical  of  the  soldier,  the  indebted- 
ness may  be  direct.112  But  one  doubts  whether  Rymer 
would  have  been  so  insistent  on  the  matter,  had  not  decor- 
um been  so  strongly  emphasized  by  the  French  Aristotel- 
ian formalists;  and  of  course,  as  we  have  seen,  the  bulk 
of  Rymer's  rules  regarding  decorum  comes  from  La  Mes- 
nardiere.  It  is  significant  that  Rymer  cites  the  Latin 
critic  as  prescribing  the  use  of  the  chorus ;  yet  he  himself 
is  not  won  to  its  advocacy  until  1692,  when  Dacier's  book 
appears ;  although  references  in  the  Tragedies  of  the  Last 
Age  reveal  his  acquaintance  with  the  Ars  Poetica  in  1677. 
Horace  does  not  move  Rymer  to  action.  The  English 
critic  emphasizes  in  Horace,  as  in  Aristotle,  only  what 
the  French  critics  have  emphasized. 

The  examination  of  Rymer's  relations  with  the  critics 
he  cites  most  frequently  merely  corroborates  our  previous 
conclusion  that  his  chief  indebtedness  is  to  the  French 
Aristotelian  formalists.  Rymer's  criticism  is  not  closely 
allied  to  the  compressed  discussion  of  principles  in  Aris- 

112  8.  V.  of  T.,  p.  93;   Ars  Poet.,  line  121. 


186  GEORGE    B.    BUTTON 

totle's  Poetics,  or  to  the  brief  and  graceful  dicta  of  Hor- 
ace, or  to  the  abstract  theorizing  of  the  Italian  commenta- 
tors, or  to  the  unsystematized  and  parasitic  neo-classicism 
of  previous  English  critics,  but  it  is  attached  by  closest 
bonds  to  the  practice  of  the  French  school  of  rules.113 
Rymer  was  not  himself  a  codifier  of  the  rules,  but  he  ap- 
plies the  rules  codified  by  the  French  formalists.  He  is 
predominantly  a  follower  of  the  French  rules. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Certain  facts  indicate  that  it  was 
through  him  that  French  Aristotelian  formalism,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  laxer  forms  of  neo-classicism,  was  in- 
troduced into  England.  It  is  not  necessary  to  enlarge 
upon  the  fact  that  French  literature  in  general  had  a  de- 
cided vogue  in  England  during  the  last  decades  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  M.  Charlanne  114  has  brought  to- 
gether much  evidence  to  prove  this  point ;  and  indeed,  one 
has  but  to  observe  the  numerous  translations  and  importa- 
tions advertised  in  the  Term  Catalogues  to  be  convinced. 
But  while  this  is  true  of  French  literature  as  a  whole,  the 
condition  in  regard  to  French  criticism  requires  more  ac- 
curate statement.  It  is  significant  that  no  evidence  has 
been  adduced  to  prove  that  any  works  of  the  French 
school  of  rules  circulated  in  England  before  Rymer  trans- 
lated the  Reflexions  of  Rapin.  And  it  is  of  equal  signifi- 
cance that  while,  after  1674,  one  finds  fairly  frequent 
mention  of  the  later  French  formalists, — of  Rapin,  Hede- 
lin,  Le  Bossu,  and  finally  Dacier,115 — the  earlier  members 

u3  Of  course  this  is  not  to  deny  that  Rymer  knew  Scaliger,  or 
Sidney  and  Jonson,  or  even  that  he  presents  resemblances  to  them 
in  occasional  unimportant  details. 

U*L.  Charlanne,  L'Influence  Francaise  en  Angleterre,  etc.,  cf. 
especially  pp.  95-120. 

115  Charlanne,  pp.  309  ff.,  gives  proofs  that  these  critics  were  known 
in  England  at  this  time.  Indeed,  Dryden  refers  to  Le  Bossu  and 
Rapin  as  early  as  1679,  in  the  Preface  to  Troilus  and  Cressida.  Ed, 
Ker.,  I,  pp.  213,  228. 


FRENCH   ARISTOTELIAN   FORMALISTS   AND   RYMER  187 

of  the  group  seem  still  to  be  unknown.  Th«e  first  of  these 
facts  supports  the  view  that  Rymer  introduced  Aristotel- 
ian formalism  into  England;  that  it  was  not  familiarly 
known  by  English  critics  before  Kymer's  first  venture  in 
literary  criticism.  The  second  fact  shows  that  when  Eng- 
lish critics  did  turn  to  the  French  Aristotelian  formalists, 
it  was  to  the  later  and  on  the  whole  less  rigid  representa- 
tives that  they  turned.  No  evidence  has  come  to  notice 
to  show  that  Mambrun  and  La  Mesnardiere,  the  critics 
to  whom  Kymer  was  most  closely  related,  were  directly 
known  in  England  at  any  time  throughout  the  last  half 
of  the  century.  Therefore  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
many  of  the  most  rigid  rules  of  the  French  formalistic 
system  were  generally  known  in  England  only  through 
Rymer. 

A  glance  at  the  statistics 116  of  translation  supports 
these  views.  When  a  French  critic  became  relatively  well 
known  in  England,  his  works  were  translated.  It  does  not 
appear  that  La  Mesnardiere  and  Mambrun  were  translat- 
ed at  all.  Moreover,  Rymer  was  the  first  to  translate  into 
English  the  criticism  of  any  member  of  the  French  school 
of  rules,  his  translation  of  Rapin  appearing,  it  will  be  re- 
called, in  16T4.117  Hedelin's  book  was  translated  ten 
years  later,  and  Le  Bossu's  in  1695.  That  is,  it  was  well 
toward  the  end  of  the  century  before  even  the  later  critics 
belonging  to  the  French  school  of  rules  became  well 
enough  known  to  warrant  translation.  And  during  all 
this  time  Rymer's  work  was  exerting  its  influence  on  Eng- 
lish critical  ideas. 

"•Of.  Arber's  reprint  of  the  Term  Catalogues.  Also,  the  Cata- 
logue of  the  British  Museum,  etc.  0 

UTIt  is  true  that  Rapin's  comparison  between  the  eloquence  of 
Demosthenes  and  that  of  Cicero  was  translated  in  1672,  the  com- 
parison between  Plato  and  Aristotle  in  1673.  But  these  are  not 
pieces  of  formalistic  criticism. 


188  GEORGE    B.    DTJTTOtf 

To  corroborate  the  theory  that  these  facts  support  it 
would  be  necessary  to  investigate  English  criticism  during 
the  last  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  analyze  in  it 
the  appearance  of  strictly  formalistic  ideas.  If  such  ideas 
manifest  themselves  only  after  Rymer's  work  is  published, 
and  if  the  expression  of  such  ideas  is  often  accompanied 
by  explicit  acknowledgement  of  indebtedness  to  Rymer, 
the  case  is  well-nigh  proved.  But  that  is  matter  for  a  sep- 
arate inquiry.118  It  is  enough  here  to  note  that  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  not  only  is  Rymer  an  English  repre- 
sentative of  the  French  formalists,  owing  his  critical  ideas 
to  them,  but  that  he  was  largely  instrumental  in  introduc- 
ing into  English  literary  criticism  the  rigid  system  of  the 
French  school  of  rules. 

GEORGE  B.  DUTTON. 


An  inquiry  which  1  hope  to  put  in  shape  soon. 


VII. -A   SOURCE   FOR   MED  WALL'S  NATURE 

A  comparison  of  Henry  Medwall's  Morality  Nature  l 
and  John  Lydgate's  poem,  Reson  and  Sensuallyie?  makes 
it  plain  that  the  two  works  exhibit  remarkable  coinci- 
dences of  character,  situation,  and  language.  The  general 
resemblance  is  obvious  enough.  In  each  of  the  works  the 
plot  is  allegorical,  and  in  each  the  hero,  who  is  entitled 
"  Man  "  in  the  Morality  and,  impersonally,  "  I  "  in  the 
poem,  is  a  type  figure  representing  mankind.  This  repre- 
sentative of  humanity  is  in  each  case  approached  by  the 
lady  Nature,  who,  after  giving  him  a  careful  explanation 
of  herself  and  a  thorough  list  of  admonitions,  finally  sends 
him  away  to  travel  through  the  world.  The  allegory  which 
follows  is  of  the  familiar  type  in  which  the  life  of  man  is 
represented  by  a  journey;  but  the  manner  in  which  this 
journey  is  undertaken  is  carefully  specialized  in  the  poem, 
and  in  this  special  form  is  so  strikingly  reproduced  in  the 
play  that  one  may  readily  conclude  that  the  former  sup- 
plied much  of  the  material  to  be  found  in  the  latter. 

The  most  remarkable  similarities  appear  in  the  opening 
scenes  of  both  works,  where  Nature  converses  with  the 
hero  preparatory  to  sending  him  on  his  travels.  Before 
presenting  the  details  of  my  evidence  I  shall  give  a  very 
brief  synopsis  of  this  preliminary  situation  in  each  case. 

In  the  poem  the  following  plot  is  elaborated  on:  As  I 
lay  in  my  bed  one  April  morning  I  was  approached  by  a 
fair  lady,  Nature,  who  is  the  queen  of  all  creation.  She 

1  Edited  by  J.  S.  Farmer  in  "  Los*  "  Tudor  Plays,  Londcy,  1907. 
The  play  is  assigned  to  a  date  between  1486  and  1500. 

2  Edited  by  Ernest  Sieper  in  the  Publications  of  the  Early  English 
Text  Society. 

189 


190 


W.    EOT   MACKENZIE 


chided  me  for  staying  so  long  abed,  and  bade  me  arise  and 
go  forth  to  visit  the  world  throughout  its  length  and 
breadth,  so  that  I  might  learn  to  praise  God.  The 
world,  she  said,  was  created  solely  for  man,  and  therefore 
man  should  always  restrain  himself  from  vices  and  follow 
virtues.3  I  promised  to  set  out,  and  besought  the  lady  to 
instruct  me  how  to  keep  in  the  right  path.  She  told  me 
that  there  were  two  paths  through  the  world,  the  Way  of 
Sensuality  and  the  Way  of  Reason,  and  urged  me  to  keep 
to  the  latter.4  I  then  took  leave  of  the  lady  and  set  out  on 
my  journey. 

In  the  play  the  same  situation  is  presented  dramatic- 
ally, and  in  much  briefer  and  simpler  style.  Lady  Nature 
appears  and  addresses  Man  in  motherly  fashion.  After 
giving  him  the  necessary  advice  and  information  she  tells 
him  that  he  must  prepare  to  visit  the  World,5  and  presents 
him  with  two  guides,  Reason  and  Sensuality,  with  a  warn- 
ing to  keep  the  latter  in  his  proper  place.6  Man  then  sets 
out  to  visit  the  World. 

I  shall  now  present  a  aeries  of  passages,  from  poem  and 
play,  dealing  with  the  description  of  Nature  and  with  her 
advice  to  Man.  In  the  poem  the  author  describes  and  ex- 

3  These   apparently   inconsequential   remarks   become   rational   as 
soon  as  one  considers  that  the  person  addressed  represents  mankind 
in  general. 

4  There   is  here,   as  is   usual  in   allegory,   a  curious  mixture  of 
allegorical   and   literal  language.     Nature  first  likens  Keason   and 
Sensuality  to  two  roads,  then  speaks  of  the  conflict  in  man's  nature 
between   his    reason   and   his   sensuality,    and   finally    advises    her 
disciple  to  start  out  in  the  company  of  the  guide  and  adviser  Reason 
and  to  ignore  the  advice  of  the  false  guide  Sensuality. 

"Here  the  world  is  personified. 

6  In  both  poem  and  play  sensuality  is  explained  by  Nature  as 
an  essential  quality  in  man,  one  which  enables  him  to  receive  many 
necessary  and  worthy  sensations,  but  which  may  easily  degenerate 
into  a  vice  if  it  is  not  kept  under  the  control  of  reason. 


191 


plains  the  lady;  in  the  play  she  performs  the  office  for 
herself.  As  will  be  seen,  the  explanation  of  the  functions 
of  Nature,  in  the  two  works,  is  practically  the  same,  cor- 
responding even  in  minute  and  unexpected  details.  The 
following  are  only  a  few  of  the  more  striking  parallels. 

1.  Poem  (11.  253-60)  : 

For  this  is  she  that  is  stallyd 
And   the   quene   of   kynde   called, 
For   she   ys   lady   and   maistresse 
And    rnder    god    the    chefe    goddesse 
The  whiche  of  erthe,  this  no  dout, 
Hath  gouernaunce  rounde  about, 
To  whom  al  thing  must  enclyne. 

Play  (p.  43)  : 

Th*  almighty  God  that  made  each  creature, 

As  well  in  heaven  as  other  place  earthly, 

By  his  wise  ordinance  hath  purveyed  me,  Nature, 

To  be  as  minister,  under  Him  immediately, 

For  th'  encheson  that  I  should,  perpetually, 

His  creatures  in  such  degree  maintain 

As  it  hath  pleased  His  grace  for  them  to  ordain. 

2.  Poem  (11.  266-283)  : 

this  lady  debonayre 
Hath  sothly  syttynge  in  hir  stalle 
Power  of  planetes  alle 
And  of  the  brighte  sterrys  clere, 
Euerych  mevyng  in  his  spere, 
And  tournyng  of  the  firmament 
From  Est  in-to  the  Occydent, 
Gouernance  eke  of  the  hevene, 
Of  Plyades  and  sterres  sevene, 
That  so  lustely  do  shyne, 

And  meyyng  of  the  speres  nyne,  A 

Which  in  ther  heuenly  armonye 
Make  so  soote  a  melodye, 
By  acorde  celestiall, 


192  W.    EOT   MACKENZIE 

» 

In  ther  concourse  eternall, 

That  they  be  bothe  crop  and  roote 

Of  musyk  and  of  songis  soote. 

Play  (p.  44) : 

I  am  causer  of  such  impression 

As  appeareth  wondrous  to  man's   sight: 

As  of  flames  that,  from  the  starry  region, 

Seemeth  to  fall  in  times  of  the  night; 

Some  shoot  sidelong,  and  some  down  right: 

Which  causeth  the  ignorant  to  stand  in  dread 

That  stars  do  fall,  yet  falleth  there  none  indeed.7 

3.  Poem  (11.  283-88)  : 

And  she,  throgh  her  excellence, 
Be  the  heuenly  influence, 
And  hir  pover  which  ys  eterne, 
The  elementez  dothe  gouerne 
In  ther  werkyng  ful  contrarye. 

Play  (p.  43)  : 

Atwixt  th'  elements,  fhat  whilom  were  at  strife, 

I  have  suaged  the  old  repugnance 

And  knit  them  together,  in  manner  of  alliance. 

4.  In  both  poem  and  play  Aristotle  is  mentioned  as  the 
wisest  mortal  in  matters  pertaining  to  nature,  but  in  each 
case  it  is  shown  that  his  knowledge  is  perforce  limited. 

Poem  (11.  308-15)  : 

For  which  this  lady  in  hir  forge 
Newe  and  newe  ay  doth  forge 
Thyngys  so  mervelous  and  queynte, 
And  in  her  labour  kan  not  feynte, 

7  The  explanation  of  celestial  control  is  in  the  play  much  simpli- 
fied, and  very  obviously  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  humble  play- 
goer.  The  constant  tendency  of  the  Moralities  was  to  simplify  and 
rationalize  the  material  drawn  from  sources. 


A   SOURCE    FOB    MEDWALL?S    NATURE  193 

But  bysy  ys  euer  in  oon, 
That  to  descrive  hem  ^uerychon 
No  man  alyve  hath  wytte  therto: 
Aristotiles  nor  Plato. 


Also  11.  337-41 : 


no  man   koude   nor  myght  anon 
Noumbre  hir  yeres  euerychon, 
Nor  covnte  hem  alle  in  hys  devys, 
Not  Aristotle  that  was  so  wys. 

Play  (p.  45) : 

But,  if  ye  covet  now  to  know  th'  effect 

Of  things  natural,  by  true  conclusion, 

Counsel  with  Aristotle,  my  philosopher  elect; 

Which  hath  left  in  books  of  his  tradition 

How  every  thing,  by  heavenly  constellation, 

Is  brought  to  effect;  and,  in  what  manner  wise, 

As  far  as  man's  wit  may  naturally  comprise. 

5.  In  the  poem  Nature  wears  a  Mantle  of  the  Four  Ele- 
ments, in  which  are  "  wroght  in  portreyture  "  all  forms 
in  creation.  The  description  of  the  mantle  ends  thus  (11. 
393-407) : 

Man  was  set  in  the  hyest  place 

Towarde  heven  erecte  hys  face, 

Cleymyng  hys  diwe  herytage 

Be  the  syght  of  his  visage, 

To  make   a  demonstracion : 

He  passeth  bestys  of  reson, 

Hys  eye  vp-cast  ryght  as  lyne, 

Where  as  bestes  don  enclyne 

Her  hedes  to  the  erthe  lowe, 

To   shewe  shortely  and  to  knowe 

By  these  signes,  in  sentence, 

The  grete,  myghty  difference 

Of  man,  whos  soule  ys  immortall,  ^ 

And  other  thinges  bestiall. 

In  the  play  Dame  Nature,  with  a  not  unwarranted  dis- 


194  W.    EOT   MACKENZIE 

trust  of  Man's  allegorical  ingenuity,  presents  the  above 
distinction  orally  (p.  46)  : 

God  wondrously  gan  devise 

When  he  made  thee,  and  gave  to  thee  th'  emprise 
Of  all  this  world,  and  feoffed  thee  with  all 
As  chief  possessioner  of  things  mortal. 
In  token  whereof  He  gave  thee  upright  visage: 
And  gave  thee  in  commandment  to  lift  thine  eye 
Up  toward  heaven,  only  for  that  usage 
Thou  shouldst  know  Him  for  thy  Lord  Almighty, 
All  other  beasts  as  things  unworthy; 
To  behold  th'  earth  with  grovelling  countenance; 
And  be  subdued  to  thine  obeisance. 

6.  In  the  poem  an  important  part  is  played  by  the  god- 
dess Diana.     She  joins  the  hero  after  he  sets  out  on  his 
journey,  and  gives  him  good  advice,  to  supplement  that 
already  bestowed  by  Mature.    The  Moralities  did  not  per- 
mit goddesses  to  appear  as  dramatis  persona,  and  practic- 
ally never  admitted  their  names  in  the  dialogue.    But  in 
Nature  occurs  the  following  information,  given  by  Dame 
Nature  herself,  concerning  the  power  of  Diana  (p.  44)  : 

I  have  ordained  the  goddess  Diane, 

Lady  of  the  sea  and  every  fresh  fountain, 

Which  commonly  decreaseth  when  she  ginneth  wane, 

And  waxeth  abundant  when  she  creaseth  again. 

Of  ebb  and  flood  she  is  cause  certain; 

And  reigneth,  as  princess,  in  every  isle  and  town 

That  with  the  sea  is  compassed  environ. 

7.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  Nature  tells  the 
hero  that  he  must  prepare  to  make  a  journey  through  the 
world. 

Poem  (11.  513-20) : 

This  lady  tho,  ful  wel   spayed, 

Quod  she  to  me:  "thow  hast  wel  sayed, 

For  which  I  wil,  in  sentence, 


A   SOURCE   FOE   MEDWALI/S   ITATUBE  195 

That  thow  yive  me  Audience; 

For  more  y  wil  the  nat  respite 

But  that  thou  goo  for  to  visyte 

Rounde  thys  worlde  in  lengthe  and  brede. 

Play  (p.  46) : 

But,  as  touching  the  cause  specially 

Wherefore  I  have  ordained  thee  this  night  to  appear. 

It  is  to  put  thee  in  knowledge  and  memory 

To  what  intent  thou  art  ordained  to  be  here. 

I  let  thee  wit  thou  art  a  passenger 

That  hast  to  do  a  great  and  long  voyage, 

And  through  the  world  must  be  thy  passage. 

8.  After  this  command  the  conversation  proceeds  to  a 
discussion  of  the  nature  of  man,  and  his  rank  in  the 
ordered  scheme  of  things.  In  each  case  it  is  shown  that 
he  is  related,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  things  of  the  world, 
and,  on  the  other,  to  God  Himself. 

Poem  (11.  555-69)  : 

For,   by   recorde   of   olde   scripture, 

Hyt    founden   ys   in    hys   nature, 

So  many  propurte  notable, 

That    man    ys    sothely    resemblable 

Vn-to  the  worlde,  this  no  doute, 

Whiche  ys  so  grete  and  rounde  aboute. 

For  what  this  worlde  dothe  contene, 

Parcel  therof  men  may  sene 

Within  a  man  ful  clerly  shyne, 

As  nature  doth  him  enclyne 

Lych  to  the  goddys  immortall 

That  be  a-boue  celestiall, 

To  whom  a  man,  for  hys  noblesse, 

Ys  half  lyke  throgh  hys  worthynesse. 

Also  11.  721-31 : 

The  tother  vertu,  out  of  drede,  * 

Myn  ovne  frende,  who  taketh  hede, 
Ys  called,  in  conclusion, 


196  W.    ROY   MACKENZIE 

Vnderstondyng   and  reson, 

By   whiche   of    ryght,    with-oute    shame, 

Of  a  man  he  bereth  the  name, 

And  throgh  clere  intelligence 

Fro  bestes  bereth  the  difference, 

And  of  nature  ys  resemblable 

To  goddys  that  be  pardurable. 

Play   (p.  47.     Here  Man  himself  gives  the  informa- 
tion) : 

In  every  place,  wheresoever  I  come, 

Of  each  perfection  Thy  grace  hath  lent  me  some; 

So  that  I   know  that  creature  nowhere 

Of  whose  virtue  I  am  not  partner. 

I  have,  as  hath  each  other  element 

Among  other  in  this  world,  a  common  being; 

And,  over  all  this,  Thou  hast  given  me  virtue 
Surmounting  all  other  in  high  perfection: 
That  is,  understanding,  whereby  I  may  aview 
And  well  discern  what  is  to  be  done; 


And,  in  this  point,  I  am  half  angelic; 
Unto  thy  heavenly  spirits  almost  egal; 
Albeit  in  some  part  I  be  to  them  unlike. 

9.  In  both  poem  and  play  Sensuality  is  accorded  an  ex- 
cuse for  ,existing,  since  he  symbolizes  Man's  ability  to  see, 
hear,  feel,  and  so  on.     But  in  each  case  Nature  warns  Man 
repeatedly  that  Sensuality,  if  he  is  shown  too  much  favor, 
will  lead  him  into  evil  courses.     She  exhorts  Man,  there- 
fore, to  keep  Sensuality  in  subservience  to  Reason,  who  is 
the  true  guide  in  the  journey  through  the  world. 

10.  Finally,  in  both  poem  and  play,  Nature  sends  her 
pupil  on  his  journey,  with  careful  directions  to  follow  the 
guidings  of  Reason.     In  the  poem  this  advice  is  given  at 
some  length ;  in  the  play  it  is  considerably  reduced  in  vol- 
ume. '  The  chief  point  of  difference  here  is  that,  in  the 
play,  Sensuality  is  allowed  to  accompany  Man,  though  in 


197 


a  subordinate  capacity.  There  is  an  insistent  dramatic 
reason  for  this,  since  the  chief  purpose  of  the  play  is  to 
depict,  allegorically,  the  inevitable  strife  between  Sensuali- 
ty and  Reason  in  man's  nature.  In  this  respect,  also,  the 
play  is  much  mor(e  consistent  and  more  closely  knit  than 
the  poem.  In  the  latter,  Sensuality  and  Reason  are 
two  guides  when  Nature  is  interested  in  the  subject  of 
guidance  in  life,  and  two  roads  when  she  becomes  absorbed 
in  the  symbolism  of  paths.  Furthermore,  after  Man  sets 
out  on  his  journey,  the  poem  dispenses  with  Reason  and 
Sensuality,  whose  places  in  the  action  are  presently  taken 
by  Diana  and  Venus,  respectively.  The  play,  by  retaining 
Reason  and  Sensuality  throughout,  not  only  simplifies  the 
allegory,  but  makes  it  infinitely  more  dramatic.  The  two 
admonitory  passages,  similar  except  for  the  difference  ex- 
plained, I  shall  now  present  in  part. 

Poem    (11.    788-95,    803-11,    817-21,    842-45,    851-56, 
870-75) : 

But  Reyson,  that  governeth  al, 
I   dar   afferme   hyt   nat   in   veyn, 
Holdeth   the   weye,   most    certeyn, 
Toiirnyng  towarde  thorient, 
Most  holsom  and  convenient 
To  on  entent  who  haveth  grace 
Therein  to  walkyn  and  to  trace. 

But  my  counsayl  and  myn  avys 

Ys:  that  thou  be  war  and  wys 

To  leve  the  wey,  this  holde  I  best, 

which  that  ledeth   in-to   West, 

And  go  alway,   lyst  thou  be  shent, 

The  way  toward  the  orient, 

which  is  a  wey  most  covenable 

And    to    manne    resonable. 

0 

Begynne  the  weye,  ech  seson, 
First   at   vertu   and  reson, 


198  W.    BOY   MACKENZIE 

And   fle   ech   thing   that   they   dispreyse, 
And  vp  to  god  thy  herte  reyse. 

But  make  thy  self  myghty  and  stronge 
With  all  thyn  hool  entencion 
To  holde  the  weye  of  reson. 

Be  ryghtful  eke  at  alle  dawes 

Especial  vnto  my  lawes, 

As  reson  wil  of  verray  ryght 

And  kepe  the  wel  with  al  thy  myght 

Fro  thilke  wey  that  ledeth  wrong. 

Do  as  reson  techeth  the, 
And  thy  wittis  hool  enclyne 
To  rewle  the  by  hir  doctrine, 
whom  that  y  love  of  hert  entere 
As  myn  ovne   suster  dere. 

Play  (pp.  46,  48) : 

Address  thyself  now  towards  this  journey; 
For,  as  now  thou  shalt  no  longer  here  abide, 
Lo!  here  Reason  to  govern  thee  in  thy  way, 
And  Sensuality  upon  thine  other  side, 
But  Reason  I  depute  to  be  thy  chief  guide. 

Now,  forth  thy  journey!   and  look  well  about 
That  thou  be  not  deceived  by  false  prodition. 
Let  Reason  thee  govern  in  every  condition; 
For,  if  thou  do  not  to  his  rule  incline, 
It  will  be  to  thy  great  mischief  and  ruin. 
I  wot  well  Sensuality  is  to  thee  natural, 
And  granted  to  thee  in  thy  first  creation. 
But,  notwithstanding,  it  ought  to  be  over  all 
Subdued  to  Reason,  and  under  his  tuition. 
Thou  hast  now  liberty,  and  needest  no  mainmission ; 
And,  if  thou  abandon  thee  to  passions  sensual, 
Farewell  thy  liberty!  thou  shalt  wax  thrall. 

Nature  now  leaves  Man,  and  lie  goes  forth  to  visit  the 
world.  From  this  point  the  poem  and  play  show  only  a 
general  resemblance  in  motives  which  are  common  to  nearly 


A   SOURCE   FOE   MED W ALL7 S   NATUEE  199 

all  allegories  of  the  life  of  man,  that  is,  the  vicissitudes 
of  man  as  the  result  of  his  alternate  acceptance  of  good 
and  evil  allegorical  companions.  The  latter  part  of  the 
poem,  with  its  resplendent  goddesses,  its  fair  garden,  and 
its  great  symbolic  game  of  chess,  could  furnish  no  sugges- 
tions for  the  Morality,  which,  given  its  starting-point,  al- 
ways followed  a  comparatively  severe  and  definite  line  of 
action.  But  this  starting-point  was  precisely  what  the 
Morality  playwright  sought — this  new  point  of  view  from 
which  to  observe  the  never-ending  conflict  between  virtues 
and  vices  in  the  heart  of  man.  That  Medwall  selected  his 
point  of  view  with  some  care  from  Lydgate's  poem  seems 
reasonably  certain. 

W.  EOT  MACKENZIE. 


VIII.— THE  STORY  OF  DANTE'S  GIANNI  SCHICCHI 
AND  REGNARD'S  LEG  ATA  IRE  UNIVERSEL 

In  the  thirtieth  canto  of  the  Inferno  we  find  a  Floren- 
tine called  Gianni  Schicchi,  whom  Dante  puts  in  Male- 
bolge  among  the  falsifiers  for  having  impersonated  Buoso 
Donati  and  dictated  a  false  will.  Several  of  the  old  Com- 
mentators x  tell  the  story  of  Gianni  Schicchi  (sometimes 
Sticchi),  who,  though  belonging  to  the  illustrious  family 
of  the  Cavalcanti,  seems  to  have  been  a  notoriously  un- 
scrupulous character  and  particularly  clever  at  impersona- 
tion. The  best  account  of  the  story  is  given  by  the  so- 
called  Anonimo,  and  runs,  briefly,  as  follows:  Messer 
Buoso  Donati  being  sick  with  a  mortal  sickness,  wished  to 
make  his  will,  inasmuch  as  he  thought  he  had  much  to 
return  that  belonged  to  others.  Simone,  his  son,  delayed 
the  old  gentleman  until  he  died.  Fearing  then  that  his 
father  might  not  have  left  a  will  in  his  favor,  he  sought 
advice  from  Gianni  Schicchi,  who  said  to  Simone  Donati : 
"  Have  a  notary  come,  and  say  that  Messer  Buoso  wants  to 
make  a  will;  I  will  enter  his  bed,  we  will  thrust  him  be- 
hind, I  will  bandage  myself  well,  will  put  his  night  cap 
on  my  head,  and  will  make  the  will  as  you  wish."  Then 
he  added :  "  It  is  true  that  I  want  to  gain  by  this." 
Simone  agreed,  all  was  done  accordingly  and  Gianni 
Schicchi  in  a  broken  voice  began  to  dictate:  "I  leave 
twenty  soldi  to  the  Church  of  Santa  Reparata,  and  five 
francs  to  the  Frati  Minori,  and  five  francs  to  the  Predica- 
tori,"  and  thus  he  went  on  distributing  for  God,  but  very 

1  Scartazzini  mentions  Selmi's  Anonimo,  Dante's  son  Jacobus,  Jac. 
della  Lana,  the  O'tttimo  Commento,  Benvenuto,  Buti,  the  Cassinese 
and  Petrus  Dantis. 

200 


201 


little  money.  "  And  I  leave,"  He  continued,  "  five  hun- 
dred florins  unto  Gianni  Schicchi."  At  that  the  son 
jumped  up  and  said:  "  We  must  not  put  that  in  the  will, 
father ;  I  will  give  it  to  him  as  you  leave  it."  "  Simone," 
replied  Gianni,  "  you  will  let  me  do  with  what  is  mine  ac- 
cording to  my  judgment."  Simone,  out  of  fear,  kept 
silent.  "  And  I  leave  unto  Gianni  Schicchi  my  mule,"  for 
Messer  Buoso  had  the  finest  mule  in  Tuscany.  "  Oh,  Mes- 
ser  Buoso,"  said  Simone  to  his  supposed  father,  "  this  man 
Schicchi  really  does  not  care  for  your  mule."  At  which 
the  testator  replied :  "  Silence,  I  know  better  than  you 
what  Gianni  Schicchi  wants."  Simone  began  to  wax 
wrathful,  but  out  of  fear  he  kept  silent.  Gianni  continued 
to  dictate :  "  And  I  leave  unto  Gianni  Schicchi  one  hun- 
dred florins  wThich  are  owed  to  me  by  a  certain  neighbor, 
and  for  the  rest  I  leave  Simone  my  universal  heir  with 
this  clause,  that  unless  every  bequest  be  executed  within 
fifteen  days,  the  whole  heredity  shall  go  to  the  Convent  of 
Santa  Croce."  And  the  notaries  having  departed,  Gianni 
Schicchi  got  out  of  bed,  the  body  of  Messer  Buoso  was  re- 
placed in  it,  and  Simone  began  bewailing  his  father's  sud- 
den death. 

This  version,  which  is  the  one  usually  given  by  modern 
editions  of  Dante,  gives  us  more  details  and  in  a  better, 
more  finished  form  than  any  of  the  other  old  commentators, 
The  latter  I  shall  not  stop  to  consider ;  for  they  have  been 
treated  before,  for  instance,  by  Professor  Toldo.2  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  in  its  essentials  the  plot  remains  the 

'Pietro  Toldo,  La  Frode  di  Gianni  Schicchi,  in  Giornale  Storico 
della  Letteratura  Italiana,  XLVIII,  pp.  113f.  For  the  value  of  the 
various  old  commentators  see  C.  Hegel,  Uber  den  historischen  Werth 
der  dlteren  Dante-Commentare,  Leipzig,  1878.  Unfortunatel/,  Boc- 
caccio's Commentary,  which  would  have  been  most  valuable,  did  not 
reach  the  thirtieth  canto. 


202  RUDOLPH  ALTEOCCHI 

same,3  and  that  this  seems  to  be  the  earliest  appearance  in 
literature  of  this  comical  and  charmingly  gruesome  story. 
It  is  now  my  object  to  set  forth  the  supposed  sources  and 
a  few  possible  descendants  of  this  story. 

Concerning  sources,  as  the  Gianni  Schicchi  story  is  re- 
ported by  Dante  Commentators  only  as  city  gossip,  and  has 
not  been  proved  historically  true,  it  has  been  suggested  4 
that  perhaps  some  unknown  Florentine  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  knowing  the  character  and  inclinations  of  Gianni 
Schicchi,  attributed  to  him  a  story  that  was  much  older. 
This  conjecture  is  very  probable  because  the  mere  motive 
of  the  substitution  to  dictate  a  will  is  too  humanly  natural 
not  to  have  occurred  endless  times  unreported  by  history  or 
literature.  At  least  in  two  instances,  however,  we  do  find 
a  similar  occurrence  reported  by  history:  First,  in  the 

8  In  some  of  the  old  commentators,  for  instance  the  Cassinese, 
and  Petrus  Dantis,  the  old  man  is  killed  by  his  son  and  by  Gianni 
Schicchi.  This,  however,  as  Scartazzini  notes  in  his  commentary, 
was  unknown  to  Dante.  Cf.  Scartazzini's  Enciclopedia  Dantesca, 
Milano,  1896-99,  pp.  896  f.  Moreover,  for  the  exact  relationships  of 
the  persons  implicated  in  the  story  see  Isidore  del  'Lungo,  Una 
vendetta  in  Firenze,  in  ArcMvio  Storico  italiano,  1886,  Quarta  Serie, 
vol.  xvin,  p.  383,  and  also  in  his  volume  Dal  Secolo  e  dal  Poema  di 
Dante,  Altri  ritratti  e  studi,  Bologna,  Zanichelli,  1898,  p.  113.  See 
also  F.  Torraca  in  Rassegna  Bibliografica  della  Letteratura  italiana, 
in,  1895,  p.  230;  and  G.  A.  Venturi,  I  Fiorentini  nella  Divina  Corn- 
media,  in  Rassegna  Nazionale,  16  Giugno,  1898,  p.  788;  who  does 
not  say  enough  about  Gianni  Schicchi. 

*See  Bullettino  della  Societa  Dantesca,  Anno  vni  (1900-1901), 
note  at  the  bottom  of  p.  284.  This  was  kindly  brought  to  my  atten- 
tion by  Professor  E.  G.  Parodi,  Editor  of  the  Bullettino,  in  a  com- 
munication published  in  the  Marzocco,  Sep.  28th,  1913. 

Since  in  the  course  of  my  investigation  I  have  followed  various 
clues  kindly  given  to  me,  I  take  this  opportunity  of  thanking  Pro- 
fessors J.  D.  M.  Ford,  C.  H.  C.  Wright,  G.  L.  Kittredge,  A.  A. 
Howard  of  Harvard  University,  Dr.  Walther  Fischer  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania,  and  Professor  F.  Baldensperger,  Exchange 
Professor  at  Harvard  from  the  University  of  Paris,  as  well  as 
Professor  Parodi  of  Florence. 


DANTE'S  GIANNI  SCHICCHI  203 

case  of  Antiochus  Theos,  King  of  Syria,  who  "married 
Berenice,  the  daughter  of  the  Egyptian  King.  This  so 
offended  his  former  wife  LaodiceT,  by  whom  he  had  two 
sons,  that  she  poisoned  him,  and  suborned  Artemon,  whose 
features  were  similar  to  his,  to  represent  him  as  King. 
Artemon,  subservient  to  her  will,  pretended  to  be  indis- 
posed, and  as  King  called  all  the  ministers,  and  recom- 
mended to  them  Seleucus,  surnamed  Callinicus,  son  of 
Laodice,  as  his  successor.  After  this  ridiculous  imposture, 
it  was  made  public  that  the  King  had  died  a  natural  death, 
and  Laodice  placed  her  son  on  the  throne,  and  dispatched 
Berenice  and  her  son,  246  years  before  the  Christian 
era."  5  Second,  we  find  in  Suetonius's  Lives  of  the  Ccesars, 
under  Nero,  a  law  that  "  no  person  who  wrote  a  will  for 
another  should  put  down  in  it  any  legacy  for  himself." 
If  the  enactment  of  this  law  seemed  necessary,  there  must 
have  been  an  abuse  to  be  remedied.  This  fraud  must  then 
have  been  prevalent  in  the  depraved  days  of  Imperial 
Rome.  Though  these  two  instances  probably  have  no 
direct  connection  at  all  with  our  Gianni  Schicchi  story, 
they  are  worth  noting  to  show  that  the  trick  had  been  in- 
vented long  before.  On  the  other  hand,  such  a  crafty  joke 
as  the  one  perpetrated  by  Gianni  Schicchi  suggests  very 
much  the  ways  of  the  jocose  Florentines  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  whose  beffe  or  practical  jokes  form  so  large  a  part  of 
the  Italian  novella. 


5  This  is  the  story  as  given  in  Lempriere's  Classical  Dictionary, 
and  taken  from  Appian's  history.  See  also  Echard's  Roman  History, 
conveniently  translatetd  into  French  by  La  Roque,  and  Gayot  de 
Pitaval's  Causes  Celebres,  La  Haye,  1738,  vol.  vn,  p.  311,  who 
refers  to  it. 

6 1  quote  from  The  Lives  of  the  First  Twelve  Ccesars,  of  C.  Sue- 
tonius Tranquillus,  translated  by  Alexander  Thomson,  London, 
1796,  p.  436. 


204 


KUDOLPH  ALTEOCCHI 


It  is  strange  to  note,  then,  that  this  story  is  taken  up  by 
none  of  the  famous  old  Italian  story  tellers.  Let  me  re- 
mark at  once  that  in  so  saying  I  am  only  talking  of  this 
particular  form  of  story.  I  am  not  concerned  with  stories 
of  mistaken  identity,  such  as  appear  in  the  Bible,  in  Orien- 
tal stories,  in  Plautus,  Boccaccio,  etc. ;  nor  with  stories  of 
peculiar  wills,  such  as  we  find  in  French  fabliaux,  in  the 
Italian  Novella  and  in  countless  plots  ever  since;  nor 
finally  in  stories  of  pretended  sickness  typified  by  Moliere's 
Malade  Imaginaire  and  by  its  ancestors  and  descendants 
through  all  ages.  The  skeleton  of  the  plot  I  am  studying 
is :  that  a  scoundrel  gets  into  the  bed  of  an  old  man  already 
dead  or  dying,  and,  for  the  benefit  of  some  party  claiming 
heredity,  dictates  a  will,  which  the  said  scoundrel,  taking- 
advantage  of  the  situation,  turns  largely  to  his  own  profit. 

Not  until  the  Sixteenth  Century  do  I  find  again  the 
Gianni  Schicchi  type  of  story  in  Italy,  and  even  then  it  is 
told  rather  poorly  by  two  writers  of  novelle:7  Marco  Cade- 
mosto  da  Lodi  in  the  sixth  of  his  Novelle  8  (1544),  and 
Mcolao  Granucci  in  his  La  piacevol  Notte,  et  lieto  Giorno  9 

7  See  John  Colin  Dunlop,  History   of  Prose  Fiction,    revised  by 
Henry  Wilson,  London,   1888    vol.  n,  pp.  191,  192,  in  which,  how- 
ever, the  Gianni  Schicchi  version  is  not  mentioned  at  all. 

8  Sonetti  ed  altre  Rime  con  proposte  e  risposte  di  alcuni  uomini 
degni  e  con  alcune  Novelle,  Capitoli  e  Stanze:  in  Roma,  per  Antonio 
Blado  Asolano,   1544.     This  edition  is  very  rare.     The  six  stories 
were  reprinted  from  the  original  edition,  in  a  limited  number  of 
copies,  Novelle  di  Marco  Cademosto  da  Lodi  (Milano?),  MDCCXCIX, 
p.   70.     Three  of  Cademosto's   stories  were  reprinted  by  Girolamo 
Zanetti  in  his  Novelliero  italiano.     A  very  brief  sketch  of  Cademosto 
and  a  translation  of  the  very  story  in  question  may  be  found  in 
Thomas  Roscoe's  The  Italian,  Novelists,  London,   1825,  vol.  n,  pp. 
129-138. 

9  La   piacevol   Notte   et    lieto    Giorno,    Opera   morale   di   Nicolao 
Granucci  di  Lucca,  indirizzato  al  molto  Magnifico  e  Nolilissimo  Sig. 
M.    Giuseppe   Arnolfini,    Gentilhuomo   Lucchese.     Venezia,    appresso 


DANTE'S  GIANNI  SCHICCHI  205 

(1574).  These  are  rather  obscure  writers.  Cademosto 
was  a  poet,  apparently  lived  in  Rome,  and  held  an  ecclesi- 
astical office  at  the  Roman  Court  under  Leo  X.  Six  stor- 
ies, rescued,  as  he  says  himself,  from  the  sack  of  Rome 
which  destroyed  twenty-seven  others,  appeared  together 
with  his  poems  in  a  volume  dedicated  to  Ippolito  d'Este. 
Granucci  was  from  Lucca,  as  he  says  himself  at  the  begin- 
ning of  his  book,  which  he  compiled  from  a  volume  given 
to  him  near  ISiena.  The  sixth  story  of  Cademosto's  book 
and  the  story  that  begins  on  page  15Y  of  Granucci's  book 
both  tell  how  an  old  man  about  to  die  was  suspected  of  not 
having  bequeathed  his  property  to  his  two  sons,  and  how  an 
old  servant  came  to  the  rescue  by  proposing  to  impersonate 
the  old  man  and  dictate  a  will  which  would  make  void  all 
previous  wills,  and  insure  the  property  to  them.  In  doing 
this  he,  of  course,  leaves  a  considerable  amount  of  money 
to  himself. 

~Not  only  is  the  situation  practically  the  same  as  in  the 
Gianni  Schicchi  story,10  but  these  two  Sixteenth  Century 
versions  are  almost  identical.  For  the  sake  of  exactness  I 
shall  here  enumerate  the  details  that  these  two  later  ver- 

Jacomo  Vidali,  1574.  See  also  Thorns  Roscoe,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ni, 
p.  225,  where  a  very  brief  sketch  of  Granucci  is  given.  The  story 
here  translated  by  Mr.  Roscoe  is,  unfortunately,  not  the  one  in 
question. 

10  The  similarity  between  the  Gianni  Schicchi  story  and  the  Ca- 
demosto novella  was  noted  by  Professor  Toldo,  op.  cit.,  p.  117,  who 
also  noted  that  neither  Zambrini,  who  published  the  Anonimo 
version  (in  his  Libro  di  Novelle  dntiche  tratte  da  diversi  testi  del 
luon  secolo  della  lingua,  in  Scelta  di  curiositd,  letterarie  etc.,  disp. 
xcin,  nov.  LXVII,  p.  177)  nor  Reinhold  Kohler  (in  his  study  Vber 
Zambrini's  Libro  di  Novelle  antiche,  in  Kleinere  Schriften,  Ed. 
Bolte,  Berlin,  1900,  vol.  11,  pp.  555-569)  say  anything  about  it.  I 
may  add  that  Granucci  is  mentioned  by  nobody  in  connection  with 
the  Gianni  Schicchi  story,  and  that  the  latter  is  overlooked  by 
Dunlop  and  Landau. 


206  EUDOLPH   ALTEOCCHI 

sions  have  in  common,  italicizing  those  that  already  ap- 
peared in  the  Gianni  Schicchi  story.  1^  Same  characters 
having  identical  names.  2.  The  old  man  feels  remorse  for 
his  ill-acquired  riches,  and  wishes  to  make  amends  by 
making  bequests  to  charity.  3.  There  is  doubt  and  sus- 
'picion  about  his  having  any  will.  4.  It  is  an  outsider,  a 
servant  who  has  been  exactly  twenty-four  years  in  the  serv- 
ice of  the  family,  who  suggests  impersonating  the  old  man, 
and  writing  the  {will.  5.  The  falsifier  gets  into  the  old 
mans  bed,  with  a  night  cap  carefully  pulled  over  his  head. 
The  blinds  are  closed.  6.  The  notaries  are  called,  the  two 
sons  remaining  in  the  next  room  at  the  beginning  of  the 
will.  7.  There  is,  however,  an  interruption  in  the  dictat- 
ing of  the  will,  by  one  of  the  beneficiaries.  8.  The  falsi- 
fier leaves  a  goodly  quantity  of  property  to  himself. 
9.  When  all  is  done,  the  dead  man  is  placed  in  bed  again, 
lamentations  begin  for  his  death.  10.  The  moral  is  that 
one  should  be  generous  to  one's  fellow-men,  and  particu- 
larly to  old  servants. 

From  this  pedantically  minute  list  of  details  the  con- 
nection between  the  two  later  stories  is  apparent.  More- 
over, it  is  the  Granucci  story  which  derives  directly  from 
Cademosto's,  because,  apart  from  the  obvious  similarity 
and  the  fact  that  Granucci's  stories  came  out  thirty  years 
later  than  Cademosto's,  Granucci  said  himself,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  book,  that  he  merely  rewrote  some  stor- 
ies n  told  him  by  a  monk  near  Siena,  who  handed  to  him, 
about  1568,  a  volume  containing  them:  "  me  ne  diede  un 
compendio  co  versi,  Sonetti,  Capitoli  e  Stanze  .  .  ." 
And  in  fact  the  title  of  Cademosto's  book  is  exactly:  Son- 

11  The  imitative  inclination  of  Granucci  was  noted  by  Landau  in 
his  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte  der  iialienischen  Novelle,  Wien,  1875, 
p.  98. 


207 


etti  ed  altre  rime  .  .  .  con  alcune  Novelle,  Capitoli  e 
Stanze.  .  .  .  When  this  detail  is  added  to  the  rest  of  the 
evidence,  the  derivation  of  Granucci  from  Cademosto  can 
hardly  be  longer  doubted. 

A  peculiar  coincidence  is  here  to  be  noted:  Granucci 
knew  his  Dante,  for  he  quotes  freely  from  the  Inferno. 
He  then  had  surely  seen  the  name  of  Gianni  Schicchi,  and 
might  well  have  read  the  story  from  an  old  Commentary. 
But  if  he  did,  his  version  does  not  show  the  fact.  All  it 
shows  is  unadulterated  copying  from  Cademosto. 

Now  comparing  the  Cademosto  and  Granucci  stories  as 
one  to  the  Anonimo  version,  we  see  that  though  some  de- 
tails have  changed,  the  story  is  practically  the  same,  but 
not  as  good.  Indeed,  it  has  lost  its  brevity,  its  freshness, 
and  much  of  its  wit.  For  instance,  a  few  comical  details 
are  overlooked  by  the  novellieri:  the  impersonator  does  not 
bequeath  with  ironical  meanness  several  trifling  sums  to 
the  Church  (a  detail,  by  the  way,  which  is  not  taken  up  at 
all  in  later  versions)  ;  nor  does  he  give  himself  gradually 
several  different  properties — a  detail  that  furnishes  comi- 
cal suspense  ;«the  sons  are  not  present  in  the  very  room  at 
the  time  he  begins  to  dictate  the  will,  so  that  we  miss  the 
comical  embarrassment  of  the  situation  due  to  their  forced 
silence;  finally,  when  they  do  complain  to  the  false  testa- 
tor for  his  egotistic  prodigality,  the  latter  does  not  come 
out,  as  he  does  so  charmingly  in  Gianni  Schicchi,  with  the 
remark  (talking  about  himself)  :  "  I  know  better  than  you 
what  Gianni  Schicchi  wants."  The  detail  that  the  sons 
are  two  instead  of  one,  adds  nothing  to  the  plot,  and  the 
fact  that  the  villain  is  not  a  stranger  but  the  old  family 
servant  may  have  been  brought  in  for  the  sake  of  that 
weak  moral,  which  looks  like  an  after-thought,  anyhow. 
The  crafty  servant,  moreover,  is  not  an  infrequent  charac- 
ter in  the  novella. 


208 


RUDOLPH  ALTROCCHI 


Now  if  we  assume,  as  we  may,  that  Cademosto's  main 
object  was  to  amuse,  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  he  had 
before  him  the  Gianni  Schicchi  story.  And  setting  aside 
Cademosto's  assertion  at  the  end  of  his  last  story  that  the 
things  he  tells  actually  happened,  I  am  rather  inclined  to 
suspect  that  he  retold  a  story  that  was  already  in  popular 
tradition.  To  sum  up,  then,  I  conjecture  that  the  story 
of  the  falsified  will  was  probably  told  popularly  before  it 
was  settled  on  Gianni  Schicchi,  and  having  received  liter- 
ary form  through  Dante's  Commentators,  again  entered 
tradition  12  (particularly  perhaps  at  the  time  when  the 
Divine  Comedy  began  to  lose  popular  favor),  and  was 
gathered  in  a  somewhat  changed  and  weakened  form  by 
Cademosto,  whose  version  Granucci  rewrote. 

So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  this  story  does 
not  occur  again  in  Italian  literature.  It  plays,  however, 
an  important  part  in  French  literature,  where  it  first  ap- 
pears in  1708  as  the  central  episode  of  Le  Legataire  Uni- 
versel,  which  is  generally  considered  the  best  play  of  Re- 
gnard.13  In  fact,  in  Act  IV,  Scene  6,  we  have  the  same  in- 

• 

"Professor  Werner  Soderhjelm,  of  the  University  of  Helsingfors, 
the  learned  author  of  La  Nouvelle  Francaise  au  XVeme  Siecle,  would 
probably  not  agree  with  me  in  this;  for  he  kindly  writes  me  that  he 
considers  the  Schicchi  story  to  be  as  true  as  some  of  the  Sacchetti 
stories,  and  that  he  does  not  think  it  came  into  oral  tradition.  His 
opinion  is  most  valuable,  but  perhaps  he  had  not  taken  into  account 
the  Cademosto-Granucci  versions. 

MIt  is  interesting  to  note  that  though  most  critics  speak  of  it  in 
terms  of  praise,  Brunetiere  gives  it  no  credit  for  originality  by  call- 
ing it  (in  his  Hist,  de  la  Litt.  franc,  classique,  Paris,  1904-12,  Vol. 
HI,  pp.  19,  20.)  "  une  combinaison  du  Malade  Imaginaire,  des  Four- 
beries  de  Scapin  et  de  Monsieur  de  Pourceaugnac  " ;  Claretie  (in  his 
Hist,  de  la  Litt.  franc.,  Paris,  1907,  Vol.  Hi,  p.  334)  just  calls  it  a 
"  curieuse  come"die  de  galt6  un  peu  macabre  " ;  and  Jules  Janin  ( in 
his  Hist,  de  la  Litt.  dramatique,  Paris,  1855,  Vol.  n,  p.  354)  puts  it 
still  more  strongly  by  saying:  "Dans  cette  come'die  abominable,  si 


209 


cident  of  the  falsified  will.  To  be  sure,  the  plot  has  under- 
gone some  changes.  The  rich  old  man  insists  on  marrying 
a  young  girl  who  is  lov,ed  by  his  nephew,  but  whom  the 
latter  could  not  take  away  from  his  uncle  without  being 
disinherited.  Besides  the  scheming  manservant  there  is 
the  equally  scheming  servant  girl.  Thus  when  the  old 
gentleman,  the  disposal  of  whose  property  keeps  everybody 
wondering,  happens  to  collapse,  the  crafty  servant  Crispin 
suggests  the  impersonation  and  carries  it  out  splendidly, 
making  handsome  bequests  to  himself,  and  even  to  Lisette, 
the  servant  girl,  provided  she  will  become  his  lawful  wife. 
Another  new  element  brought  in  by  Regnard  is  that  be- 
hind this  rascally  trick  of  Crispin  there  is  apparently  a 
noble  end,  which  is  the  bringing  together  of  two  lovers, 
kept  apart  by  the  whims  and  stinginess  of  the  old  man. 
This  adds  the  attribute  of  hypocrisy  to  our  already  well 
provided  villain.  The  final  denouement  is  also  changed, 
and  for  the  worse,  it  seems  to  me.  For  after  the  false 
will  is  made,  the  old  gentleman  turns  out  to  be  quite  alive, 
having  merely  suffered  a  temporary  swoon.  The  heirs  then, 
guided  by  the  wily  servant  Crispin,  convince  him  that 
during  his  "  lethargy  "  he  did  dictate  that  very  will,  and 
he,  finally  convinced  by  the  unanimous  protestations  of  all 
present,  lets  it  stand.  This  is  not  a  very  plausible  de- 
nouement, and  though  it  forms  the  most  important  scene 
in  what  is  generally  called  the  masterpiece  of  Regnard,  it 

vous  en  6tez  Vesprit,  la  verve  et  la  gaite,  tout  ce  qui  n'appartient  pas 
au  gil>et  appartient  A  I'apothicaire.  Jamais  sujet  plus  triste  et 
cependant  jamais  sujet  plus  rempli  de  gros  rire  n'avait  6t6  invente; 
jamais,  que  je  sache,  on  n'avait  fait  d'un  cercueil  un  treteau  plus 
plaisant"  Note  here  that  if  M.  Janin  had  had  in  mind  Regnard's 
sources  he  probably  would  not  have  used  the  word  "  invente",'  nor 
been  so  emphatic  with  his  "  jamais."  Most  of  these  critics  give  us 
their  own  opinion  of  the  play  and  hardly  ever  mention  the  creative 
originality  of  the  work.  Perhaps  they  are  right,  though  incomplete. 


210 


KUDOLPH   ALTEOCCHI 


is  not  convincing,  and  in  subtleness  of  climax  leaves  indeed 
much  to  be  desired. 

Concerning  the  sources  of  this  scene  of  the  Legataire 
Universal,  a  good  deal  has  been  said.  There  are  at  least 
three  theories:  the  first  derives  it  directly  from  Dante's 
Gianni  Schicchi;14  the  second  from  Cademosto's  story;15 
the  third  from  a  fact  supposed  to  have  actually  occurred  in 
France  a  few  years  before  Regnard's  birth,  and  reported 
to  him  at  Bruxelles  where  he  went  in  1681. 

14  It  is,  of  course,  but  a  natural  coincidence  that  the  Gianni  Schic- 
chi story  should  use  the  very  words  "  reda  universale  " ;  for  that  is 
the  legal  term.     Farinelli  in  a  work  that  practically  sums  up  all 
previous  studies  on  the  subject,  Dante  e  la  Francia,  Milan,  Hoepli, 
1908,  Vol.  n,  p.  302,  in  a  note,  says  that  the  similarity  between 
Gianni    Schicchi   and   the   Legataire   Universel   had  been   noted   in 
France  by  three  Dante  scholars  of  the  eighteenth  century,  namely: 
Moutonnet  de  Clairfons,  who  published  a  translation  of  the  Divine 
Comedy  in  1776,  and  who,  though  mentioning  Regnard' s  play  in  con- 
nection with  Dante,  states  that  Regnard  took  his  subject  from  a  con- 
temporary occurrence   (see  his  Enfer,  p.  515)  ;  then  Rlvarol,  whose 
translation  of  Dante  appeared  in  1785    (see  Oeuvres,  m,  p.  253); 
and  finally  Le  Prevost  d'Exmes,  who  wrote  a  Vie  .  .  .  de  Dante,  in 
1787,  in  which  he  actually  states  that  Regnard's  story  was  taken 
from  Dante    ( see  his  p.  94 ) .     A  short  and  futile  article  on  this 
source  was  published  by  Mr.  Roger  Peyre  in  the  Supplement  of  the 
Journal  des  Debats  for  Dec.  1,  1912.     The  writer  was  unaware  of 
previous  studies  and  made  no  contribution  at  all  to  the  subject. 
Another  flimsy  article  was  published  under  the  title  of  Coincidence 
by  Giovanni  Rabizzani  in  the  Marzocco  of  August  31,  1913,  which  I 
answered  in  the  Marzocco  of  Sep.  28,  and  of  Nov.  16,  1913. 

15  The  one  scholar  who  has  contributed  real  information  on  this 
subject  is  Professor  Toldo,  of  Turin.    He  was  not  the  first,  however, 
to  note  the  parallel  Cadamosto-Regnard,  since  it  was  mentioned  at 
least  in  the  edition  of  Regnard  by  Gamier  Freres,  Paris,  1901  (?), 
p.  xiii.      (Several  books  on  Regnard  and  editions  of  his  works  are 
inaccessible  to  me).    It  was  then  treated  more  fully  by  Prof.  Toldo 
in  his  titudes  sur  le  theatrd  comique  francais  du   Moyen  Age,   in 
Studj  di  Filologia  romanza,  publicati  da  E.  Monaci  e  C.  De  Lollis, 
Torino,  Loescher,  Vol.  ix,  1903,  pp.  356-358;  and  in  1906  in  his  arti- 
cle in  the  Giornale  Storico  mentioned  before. 


DANTE'S  GIANNI  SCHICCHI  211 

The  one  argument  against  the  Gianni  Schicchi  theory 
is  that  it  looks  unlikely  that  Regnard  should  have  been 
sufficiently  familiar  with  Dante  to  find  this  story  in  one 
of  the  old  Commentators.  Regnard  had  doubtless  learned 
Italian  in  his  adventurous  meanderings  in  Italy ;  and  felt 
not  the  slightest  hesitation  in  borrowing  plots,  as  is  shown 
by  his  Menechmes.16  The  one  argument  in  favor  is  that 
besides  corresponding  in  general  plot,  the  Gianni  Schicchi 
story  and  the  Legataire  Universel  coincide  in  several  de- 
tails, such  as  the  false  testator's  wearing  of  a  large  night 
cap,  and  his  remark  when  told  by  the  nephew  that  Crispin 
is  a  rascal  not  worthy  of  any  bequest:  "  Je  connais  ce 
Crispin  mille  fois  mieux  que  vous."  But  it  is  manifestly 
unfair  to  a  writer  of  Regnard's  calibre  not  to  think  him 
capable  of  inventing  such  details.  His  chief  merit  was  to 
wring  out  of  a  given  subject  every  drop  of  humor  it  con- 
tained. To  cause  laughter  was  the  main  philosophy  of 
Regnard's  work. 

The  similarity  with  the  Cademosto  story  is  about  the 
same.  Regnard  has  the  crafty  servant  do  the  trick,  and  in 
some  details  agrees  with  Cademosto.  If  Regnard  saw  the 
Cademosto  version  he  certainly  could  not  have  failed  to 
notice  the  possibilities  of  the  plot  and  the  feeble  way  in 
which  they  were  neglected.  Moreover,  there  is  in  favor  of 
the  Cademosto  theory  the  fact  that  Italian  stories  were 
very  popular  in  France,  and  that  they  were  very  freely 
used  in  both  French  stories  and  plays;  and  finally  the 
opinion  of  Toldo  and  Farinelli.  But  if  my  conjecture  that 
Cademosto  derived  ultimately  from  Dante's  Gianni  Schic- 

16  See  Toldo's  Etudes  sur  le  theatre  comique  .  .  .  mentioned  before, 
and  also  his  excellent  fitudes  sur  le  theatre  de  Regnard,  in  I^vue 
d'histoire  litt^raire  de  la  France,  x,  p.  1.  For  Regnard's  life  see  the 
account  of  Guido  Menasci,  in  his  rather  inadequate  Nuovi  saggi  di 
Letteratura  francese,  Livorno,  1908. 


212 


RUDOLPH  ALTEOCCHI 


chi  is  correct,  it  will  not  make  much  difference  whether 
Kegnard  got  his  idea  from  Dante  or  Cademosto,  the  fact 
is  that  even  in  small  details  here  is  the  same  old  story, 
coming  in  a  vague  but  plausible  sequence  from  the  thir- 
teenth century  to  the  early  eighteenth. 

The  third  theory,  that  Kegnard  took  his  plot  from  an 
actual  occurrence,  is  the  most  peculiar  of  all.  It  was  first 
launched  by  a  certain  obscure  dramatist  of  the  eighteenth 
century  called  Fenouillot  de  Falbaire,  who  wrote  a  trag- 
edy, Les  Jammabos  ou  les  moines  japonais^1  a  rabid  sa- 
tire on  the  Jesuits,  at  the  end  of  which,  among  various 
notes,  he  has  one  referring  to  Regnard's  Legataire  and 
giving  its  real  source,  which  is  a  fact  that  actually  oc- 
curred, says  he,  in  the  Tranche  Comte.  Here  is  the 
story,18  briefly: 

An  old  landowner  of  Besangon  to  whom  the  Jesuit 
brothers  of  that  city  paid  covetous  attentions,  having  to 
make  a  trip  to  Rome,  received  from  them  a  letter  to  their 
Roman  brethren  recommending  him  as  a  friend  whose 
riches  and  age  made  him  attractive.  This  old  gentleman, 
whose  exact  name  was  Antoine-Frangois  Gauthiot,  Sei- 
gneur d'Ancier,  reached  Rome  and  the  Jesuits,  but  almost 
immediately  got  sick  and  died.  Great  desolation  among  the 
Jesuits.  Fortunately,  however,  one  of  the  monks  who  had 
been  to  Besangon,  remembered  seeing  there  a  peasant  who 
greatly  resembled  M.  Gauthiot.  This  monk  was  sent  post- 
haste to  Besangon,  where  he  found  the  peasant,  Denis 
Euvrard,  and  told  him  to  come  at  once  to  Rome  where  the 

"Published  anonymously  and  undated  at  'London — certainly  not 
before  1778,  and  probably  not  much  later. 

18  This  story  may  also  be  found  in  the  (Euvres  de  J.  F.  Regnard,  by 
M.  Gamier,  Paris,  Lequien,  1820,  Vol.  iv,  pp.  15  f.  The  fact  that 
Kegnard  took  his  plot  from  an  actual  occurrence  is  also  suggested  in 
the  Dictionnaire  portatif  des  theatres,  in  an  article  on  the  Legataire. 


213 


Seigneur  d'Ancier  lay  sick  in  bed,  eager  to  see  him  in 
order  to  bequeath  to  him  a  large  farm.     The  peasant  did 
not  hesitate  a  moment,  and  set  out.     As  soon  as  he  ar- 
rived in  Rome  he  received  the  shocking  news  that  old  M. 
d'Ancier  had  just  died,  his  last  words  being  that  he  meant 
to  leave  his  large  farm  to  Euvrard,  and  the  rest  of  his 
property  to  the  Jesuit  Brethren.    Indeed,  said  the  monks, 
though  his  will  was  not  actually  written,  that  was  a  mere 
formality ;  for  the  old  gentleman  had  repeatedly  expressed 
his  wishes  before  God,  and  these  wishes  ought  to  be  re- 
spected.    Arguing  thus,  it  did  not  take  them  long  to  per- 
suade Euvrard  to  impersonate  the  old  man.  Euvrard  ac- 
quiesced gladly,  went  so  far  as  to  rehearse  the  part  several 
times  with  the  monks,  and  then  at  the  crucial  moment  be- 
queathed to  himself  the  large  farm  agreed  upon  plus  a 
mill,  a  small  forest,  a  fine  vineyard,  his  choice  of  the  best 
income-paying  real  estate  in  Besangon,   all  the  moneys 
owed  on  the  farm,  and  finally  five  hundred  francs  for  his 
poor  little  niece!     The  reverend  fathers  were  left  dum- 
founded  and  choking  with  anger.     Still,  he  bequeathed  to 
them  all  the  rest  of  his  property,  with  the  obligation  to 
build  a  church,  wherein  a  daily  service  could  be  celebrated 
for  the  repose  of  his  soul.     ISTow  when  Euvrard  reached 
old  age  and  was  himself  on  the  point  of  death  he  was  sud- 
denly seized  by  remorse,  and  confessed  this  old  imposture 
to  his  priest.    He  was  at  once  ordered  to  return  the  money 
to  the  rightful  heirs,  which  he  did,  then  proceeded  to  die 
in  peace,  leaving  the  heirs  and  the  Jesuits  to  fight  out  the 
bequest.     Law  suits  were  carried  through  three  courts  to 
the  final  victory  of  the  Jesuit  brothers.     These  facts,  says 
Falbaire,  are  attested  by  documents. 

I  have  investigated  this.19     Through  the  kindness  of 

19 This  question  had  been  looked  into  before;  see  T.  de  Loray,  Le 
Legataire  de  Regnard  et  les  Jesuites,  in  Revue  des  questions  histo- 


214  RUDOLPH   ALTEOCCHI 

Professor  Baldensperger,  I  received  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion to  an  eminent  lawyer  at  Besangon,  M.  Paul  Lerch, 
who  most  kindly  undertook  to  look  up  this  affair,  and  after 
searching  the  archives  wrote  to  me  that  the  law  suits  un- 
doubtedly did  happen  in  1629,  but  that  the  story  of  the 
previous  impersonation  is  nowhere  even  mentioned.  It  is 
a  fact,  though,  that  the  Jesuits  built  their  "  College  de 
Besangon  "  with  the  money  that  came  from  the  estate  of 
M.  d'Ancier  whom  "they  had  made  to  testate  after  his 
death,  by  proxy."  20  This  fact  alone  would  have  been 
enough  to  suggest  to  anyone  who  had  previously  seen  one 
of  the  Italian  versions  of  the  story  or  the  Legataire,  to  tack 
it  on  to  this  true  incident  of  M.  d'Ancier  and  make  a  good 
story  of  it.  This  might  have  been  done  by  Fenouillot 
himself,  who  apparently  is  the  first  to  report  it,  or  he  may 
merely  have  reported  a  story  well  known  about  Besangon, 
and  invented  long  before.  At  all  events  it  certainly  looks 
as  if  that  peculiar  bequest  of  d'Ancier,  which  occasioned 
so  many  law  suits,  and  the  gossip  inseparable  from  such 
things,  might  well  have  occasioned  the  coupling  of  the 
old  story  to  an  actual  episode.  Of  course,  we  must  not  for- 
get that  Fenouillot  had  a  personal  detestation  for  the 
Jesuits,  whose  Order  at  the  time  of  his  writing  had  been 
abolished,  so  that  there  could  be  no  official  denial  of  his 
story ;  nor  must  we  forget  that  even  if  Fenouillot  got  his 
story  from  popular  rumor,  he  could  well  model  it  on  the 

riques,  Vol.  vn  (1869),  pp.  614  f.,  who  adds:  "'Le  r6cit  de  cette  his- 
toire  est  reproduit  jusqu'en  1860,  dans  le  travail  que  ideux  erudits 
bisontins  consacrent  a  la  description  de  leur  ville  natale,  et  plus 
re"cemment  encore,  la  Revue  Germanique  s'en  empare  .  .  .  sous  la 
rubrique  A.  M.  D.  G."  While  deploring  the  vagueness  of  such  refer- 
ences, I  may  state  that  it  was  M.  Droz  of  Besangon,  who  with  schol- 
arly fairness  examined  this  question. 
20  See  T.  de  Loray,  op.  cit.,  p.  616. 


DANTE'S  GIANNI  scmccm  215 

Legataire.  All  this  made  me  wonder  whether  this  tale 
ever  belonged  to  popular  lore,  and  whether  there  were 
other  examples  of  such  a  plot  being  acted  out  in  actual 
life.  For  the  first  question,  though  some  critics  insist  that 
Regnard's  story  contains  the  typical  "  esprit  gaulois,"  and 
that  as  such  it  probably  belonged  to  the  fabliau  type  of 
mediaeval  literature,  so  far  as  I  know  there  is  no  such  plot 
in  the  fabliaux,  nor  in  French  tales.  Professor  Toldo,  who 
is  an  expert  on  the  subject,  also  looked  for  it  in  vain.  As 
to  actual  occurrences  in  France,  I  found  a  few  which,  for 
the  sake  of  curiosity,  I  think  worth  reporting.  One  is 
given  in  the  De  I' Art  de  la  Cotnedie  21  by  Cailhava,  who 
says,  talking  of  the  Legataire:  "  Quant  au  fond  de  la 
comedie,  Regnard  n'a  fait  que  mettre  en  action  une  aven- 
ture  arrivee  dans  le  Languedoc.  La  voici : 

Histoire  veritable. 

Un  gentilhomme  carapagnard  etoit  a  toute  extre'mite' ;  il  envoie 
chercher  un  Notaire  dans  une  ville  voisine  pour  6crire  le  testament 
qu'il  veut  faire  en  faveur  de  la  femme  la  plus  vertueuse,  la  plus 
fidelle.  Mais,  he"las!  de"p§ch6  un  peu  trop  vlte  par  un  MMecin  lort 
expeditif,  il  prend  cong6  de  la  compagnie  avant  d'avoir  dict6  ses 
dernieres  volonte's.  La  veuve  jette  les  hauts  cris,  quand  le  pr6cep- 
teur  de  ses  enfans,  qui  1'avait  aide"e  dans  le  particulier  a  soutenir 
publiquement  le  caractere  de  prude,  et  qui  1'avoit  souvent  consolee 
des  infirmites  de  son  mari,  trouve  le  secret  de  la  consoler  encore  de 
sa  mort  precipite"e.  II  enleve  le  de"funt,  le  transporte  dans  un  autre 
lit,  se  met  a  sa  place,  attend  le  Garde-note,  avec  les  rideaux  bien 
forme's,  et,  d'une  voix  mourante,  dicte  un  testament,  par  lequel  il 
laisse  unique  legataire  sa  chere  epouse.  Ce  titre  convenoit  a  la. 
Dame,  a  quelques  formalites  pres!  " 

Now  here  is  undeniably  the  "  esprit  gaulois !  "  The 
author  then  adds  an  interesting  remark :  "  L'aventure  que 

je  viens  de  rapporter  est  tres-vraisemblable  dans  toutes 

p 

21  (Jean  Francois)  de  Cailhava  (d'Estendoux),  De  I' Art  de  la 
Come'die,  Paris,  1786,  n,  pp.  406,  407. 

6 


216 


EUDOLPH  ALTEOCCHI 


ses  circonstances ;  il  est  meme  a  parier  que  dans  les  cam- 
pagnes  elle  se  renouvelle  souvent,  parce  qu'une  telle  four- 
berie  pent  s'executer  avec  beaucoup  de  f  acilite :  cependant, 
transported  sur  la  scene  le  principe  de  Faction  manque  de 
vraisemblance. " 

A  somewhat  similar  occurrence  is  told  by  Pitaval  in  his 
Causes  Celebres.22  Here  the  victim  is  a  poor  old  widow, 
Franchise  Fontaine,  of  Bordeaux,  who,  hypnotised  by  a 
most  unscrupulous  ruffian,  was  persuaded  to  make  some  be- 
quests in  his  favor.  But  before  making  a  regular  will  she 
died.  This  did  not  disconcert  Quiersac,  the  above-men- 
tioned ruffian,  in  the  least,  for  he  at  once  found  Guille- 
mette  Rainteau,  a  woman  extremely  poor,  in  worldly  goods 
as  well  as  in  moral  scruples,  who  was  ready  to  help  him, 
and  together  with  another  worthy  they  planned  to  have 
Guillemette  dictate  a  will  according  to  their  pleasure. 
When  the  two  notaries  were  present  and  the  pseudo-Fran- 
goise  was  asked  to  express  her  last  wishes,  she  began,  with 
her  face  turned  to  the  wall  and  with  a  hoarse  and  broken 
voice,  by  leaving  three  thousand  francs  to  herself.  Says 
Pitaval:23  "II  n'y  a  pas  apparence  qu'elle  voulut  imiter 
la  Comedie  de  Eegnard  ..."  and  then  he  actually  quotes 
three  pages  of  the  Legataire  before  coming  back  to  the 
crafty  pair.  This  affair  got  the  two  notaries  suspiciously 
implicated,  but  finally,  innocence  asserting  itself,  the 
guilty  were  condemned,  and  Pitaval,  after  sermonizing  on 
the  frequently  wicked  influence  of  the  stage,  comes  to  the 
philosophical  and  resigned  conclusion  that  this  crime  "  est 
une  ancienne  f ourberie ;  on  ne  soupgonnera  pas  les  acteurs 
de  cette  intrigue  criminelle  de  V avoir  imitee  d'apres  les 
exemples  de  Fhistoire,  il  y  a  apparence  qu'ils  Fignoroient: 

**  Op.  tit.,  pp.  279  f.,  in  the  chapter  called  La  Fausse  Testatrice. 
K  Op.  cit.,  p.  285. 


217 


mais  le  coeur  de  1'homme  est  le  meme  dans  tons  les  terns,  la 
cupidite  hii  suggere  les  memes  expediens  et  les  memes  ar- 
tifices pour  venir  a  ses  fins." 

As  late  as  the  nineteenth  century  we  find  an  echo  of  the 
Legataire  story  in  a  rather  unexpected  place:  the  Me- 
moir es  d'un  Touriste  of  Stendhal.24  Here  under  date  of 
Mvernais,  the  20th  of  April,  (1837),  Stendhal  says  that 
he  heard  one- evening  in  a  beautiful  castle  the  following 
story,  which  actually  occurred  to  a  local  notary,  M.  Blanc. 
One  night  this  notary,  who  was  caution  personified,  and 
perpetually  afraid  of  getting  into  trouble,  was  called  with 
an  associate,  to  write  the  will  of  an  old  man  who  was  so 
near  death  as  to  have  completely  lost  his  speech.  The 
notary  therefore  wrote  the  will  under  the  direction  of  the 
old  man's  daughter  there  present  (the  son  was  in  another 
part  of  the  country),  and  at  each  bequest  received  from  the 
moribund  gentleman  an  emphatic  nod  of  approval.  It  so 
happened  that  in  the  midst  of  this  ceremony  a  stray  hound 
entered  the  room  barking  wildly,  and  upset  everything. 
In  the  attempt  to  run  the  beast  out  the  notary  unconscious- 
ly dropped  his  handkerchief.  As  soon  as  the  dog  was  gone, 
the  will  was  completed,  and  the  notaries  dismissed.  On 
his  way  out  our  friend  M.  Blanc  saw  his  handkerchief,  and 
stooping  to  pick  it  up  noticed  under  the  bed  two  legs.  He 
was  too  dismayed  to  speak,  but  as  soon  as  he  reached  the 
street  he  reported  the  fact  to  his  associate.  A  long  dis- 
cussion followed  as  to  whether  they  should  go  upstairs  and 
investigate  these  two  legs,  at  the  risk  of  incurring  the  en- 
mity of  Madame,  or  not.  For  Madame  was  socially  very 

prominent — which  worried  the  cautious  M.  Blanc  dread- 

jfi 

24 De  Stendhal  (Henry  Beyle^,  Mtmoires  d'un  Touriste,  Paris,  1854, 
pp.  43-47.  This  parallel  was  discovered  by  Mr.  Rabizzani,  who  re- 
ported it  in  the  above  mentioned  article  in  the  Marzocco. 


218 


RUDOLPH:  ALTROCCHI 


fully.  But  they  resolved  to  return  upstairs,  ostensibly  to 
enquire  about  the  old  man's  health.  Madame  received 
them  coldly  and  said  that  her  father,  fatigued  by  the  cere- 
mony, was  asleep.  The  crestfallen  notaries  returned  down- 
stairs, re-argued  the  matter  at  length,  and  finally,  muster- 
ing their  united  boldness,  resolutely  decided  to  make  a 
second  inquiry.  Madame  received  them  still  more  coldly 
and  said  that  her  father  was  fully  as  fatigued  and  as  much 
asleep  as  twenty  minutes  ago.  On  this  trip,  however,  the 
embarrassed  M.  Blanc  had  time  to  peek  under  the  bed, 
where  he  saw  .  .  .  nothing.  And  he  left  the  house  for  the 
third  time,  still  wondering :  why  those  legs  ?  Finally,  the 
two  worried  notaries  determined  to  take  all  risks  and  report 
the  matter  to  the  police,  among  whom  was  a  young  Paris- 
ian officer  who,  upon  hearing  the  case,  exclaimed  at  once: 
"  Why,  this  is  the  scene  of  Regnard's  Legataire,  let  me  go 
to  the  house  immediately."  As  soon  as  Madame  saw  the 
gendarme  appear  she  fainted;  and  her  husband,  pressed 
by  the  threatening  speeches  of  the  officer,  soon  confessed 
that  his  father-in-law  having  died  that  very  morning, 
rather  than  see  the  estate  divided,  they  had  put  a  trusted 
peasant  under  the  bed,  had  taken  two  slats  out,  made  a  hole 
in  the  mattress,  through  which  he  could  thrust  his  hands 
and  appropriately  regulate  the  nods  of  the  old  man.  Then 
Stendhal,  in  his  characteristic  manner,  adds :  "  J'ai  oui 
citer  dans  mon  voyage  plusieurs  f aits  semblables ;  souvent, 
dans  les  petites  villes,  il  y  a  des  soupgons,  mais,  au  bout  de 
deux  ou  trois  mois,  on  parle  d'autres  choses.  Ce  qui  est 
important  en  pareille  occurrence,  c'est  d'eloigner  les 
chiens." 

Here,  then,  the  story,  somewhat  changed,  though  still 
connected  with  Eegnard's  comedy,  seems  to  be  in  popular 
tradition.  Note  that  Stendhal  suggests  having  heard  simi- 
lar tales  in  other  places,  and  also  that  the  Mvernais  is  not 


DANTE'S  GIANNI  SCHICCHI  219 

very    far    from    Besangon,    both    being    north    of    the 
Languedoc. 

Before  leaving  Regnard  I  must  say  a  couple  of  words 
about  the  Legataire  as  a  literary  source  in  itself.  It  was 
in  fact  imitated  at  least  twice.  Professor  Toldo  25  men- 
tions an  old  German  scenario  of  a  curious  commedia  del- 
I'arte  called :  Anselmo  der  Kranke  in  der  Eiribildung  oder 
Das  durch  List  erzwungene  Testament.  As  he  notes,  this 
play  has  the  stock  characters  of  the  improvised  plays,  An- 
selmo, Colombina,  etc.,  and  among  them  Hans  Wurst, 
which  is  the  German  name  for  the  famous  Zanni.  Of 
course  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  meaningless  coincidence 
that  the  original  hero  of  our  story  should  be  named  Gianni. 
Let  me  note  also  that  Regnard's  impostor,  Crispin,  exact- 
ly performs  the  two  usual  functions  of  the  traditional 
Zannis  of  the  Commedia  dell'  Arte:  namely,  getting 
money  out  of  a  stingy  old  man,  and  bringing  together  the 
pining  lovers.  It  is  interesting  to  find  some  connection 
between  this  story  and  the  Commedia  dell'  Arte,  because, 
knowing  how  closely  Regnard  had  been  connected  with  the 
Italian  players  in  Paris — he  even  wrote  several  comedies 
for  them — it  looks  alluringly  possible  that  Regnard  should 
have  got  from  the  Italians  a  hint  of  this  plot  of  the  counter- 
feit will.  Had  this  been  true,  the  Italians  would  very 
plausibly  have  got  their  material  from  the  Cademosto- 
Granucci  story,  directly  from  a  Dante  Commentary  or 
from  hearsay.  Unfortunately,  however,  no  trace  has  been 
found  of  this  plot  in  the  Commedia  dell'  Arte.26 

25  See  his  above  mentioned  article  in  the  Gior.  Stor.  d.  lett.  ital., 
1906,  p.  123  in  a  foot  note,  where  he  refers  to  A.  Von  Weilen,  Eine 
deutsche  Stegrdifkomodie,  in  Bausteine  zur  roman.  Phil.,  Festgabe 
fur  A.  Mussafia,  Halle,  1905,  pp.  108-116.  * 

29  Professor  Toldo,  who  is  so  familiar  with  this  subject,  also 
searched  in  vain,  and  Miss  Winifred  Smith,  of  Vassar,  who  published 
the  excellent  book  The  Commedia  dell'  Arte,  (New  York,  1912), 


220 


RUDOLPH  ALTROCCHI 


Another  imitation  of  Eegnard  occurs  in  England. 
Thomas  King,  a  prominent  actor  of  Garrick's  time,  wrote 
a  farce  entitled  Wit's  Last  Stake?1  also  called  A  Will  and 
No  Will.  On  the  back  of  the  title  page  is  written :  "  Le 
Legataire  Universel,  A  French  Comedy,  which  furnished 
many  materials  for  this  little  piece,  may  he  found  among 
the  works  of  Monsieur  Regnard."  As  a  matter  of  fact  it 
not  only  "  furnished  many  materials  "  but  everything,  for 
King's  "  dramatic  trifle,"  as  he  calls  it  himself,  is  nothing 
but  a  direct  translation,  with  a  few  slight  changes  and  a 
little  re-arrangement  of  scenes,  of  those  parts  of  the  Lega- 
taire which  contain  our  story.  To  be  exact,  King  used  the 
following  scenes  of  Regnard :  Act  I,  Sc.  1-9 ;  Act  II,  Sc.  8 ; 
Act  III,  Sc.  10;  Act  IV,  Sc.  2,  6-8;  Act  Y,  Sc.  4. 
Thomas  King  28  was  an  excellent  actor,  a  merry  gambler, 
a  friend  of  Sheridan  and  Hazlitt  (the  latter  mentions  him 
in  his  Dramatic  Essays),  and  a  very  interesting  personal- 
ity, but  as  a  dramatist  he  had  nothing  to  say.  This  is, 
therefore,  not  much  of  a  contribution  to  literature.  King 

kindly  writes  to  me  that  she  does  not  remember  ever  running  into 
this  kind  of  plot.  Nor  do  I  find  it  even  mentioned  in  such  works  as 
Agresti's  Studii  sulla  Commedia  italiana  del  secolo  XVI,  Napoli, 
1871,  or  G.  Pellizzaro's  La  Commedia  del  secolo  XVI  e  la  novellistica 
anterior e  e  contemporanea  in  Italia,  Vicenza,  1901. 

27  Thomas  King,  Wit's  Last  Stake,  a  farce,  as  it  is  performed  at  the 
Theatre  Royal,  Drury  Lane,  London,  1769.     This  has  not  been  re- 
printed and  is  rather  rare. 

28  For  more  information  on  King  see  D.  E.  Baker's  Biographia  Dra- 
matica,  London,  1812,  Vol.  I,  part  2,  pp.  435-440  and  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography. 

As  this  study  is  going  to  press  I  note  a  little  article  by  Georges 
Roth,  Une  adaptation  anglaise  du  Legataire  Universel,  in  Revue 
d'Histoire  litteraire  de  la  France,  Janv.-Mars,  1914,  pp.  174  ff.,  in 
which  he  discusses  this  very  play  by  Thomas  King.  I  am  glad 
to  see  that  in  his  criticism  of  this  farce  Mr.  Roth  agrees  with  the 
opinions  I  here  express. 


221 


adds  nothing  to  the  Legataire  episode.  On  the  contrary, 
feeling  obliged  once  or  twice  to  expurgate  Regnard,  whose 
humor  is  notoriously  pretty  coarse,  he  makes  this  English 
farce  much  less  effective  than  the  French. 

I  do  not  think  there  are  other  adaptations  of  the  Lega- 
taire. 

The  best  version  of  the  story  in  English,  and  probably 
the  wittiest  in  any  language,  is  that  given  by  Charles 
Lever,  in  The  Confessions  of  Con  Cregan  (1848),  a  kind 
of  fantastic  biography  of  a  rogue.  The  very  first  chapter 
contains  the  very  same  Gianni  Schicchi  story,  told  in 
Lever's  cleverest  humor.  With  typically  Irish  style,  Lever 
adds  to  the  elements  of  the  original  story,  the  Leitmotiv 
of  whisky.  Each  time  the  cheated  heir  grumbles  at  the 
bequests  that  the  impostor  is  making  to  himself,  the  latter 
begins  to  cough  desperately,  and  as  if  he  were  choking  his 
last,  mumbles:  "I  am  getting  wake;  just  touch  my  lips 
again  with  the  jug,"  .  .  .  and  here  the  dying  man  took  a 
very  hearty  pull,  and  seemed  considerably  refreshed  by  it. 
After  which,  in  a  still  more  mournful  voice,  he  added: 
"  Ah,  Peter,  Peter,  you  watered  the  drink !" 

Apparently  Lever  got  his  plot  from  one  of  the  Dante 
Commentaries,29  though  he  does  not  say  so,  nor  do  his  bio- 
graphers.30 Lever  lived  for  a  long  time  in  Italy,  in  Flor- 

29  This  had  been  noticed  by  W.  W.  Vernon,  see  his  Readings  on  the 
Inferno  of  Dante,  Vol.  n,  p.  499,  in  a  foot-note. 

80  E.  Downey  in  his  Charles  Lever,  His  Life  in  his  Letters,  London, 
1906,  pp.  287,  288,  publishes  a  letter  of  Lever  dated  Bagni  di  Lucca, 
Jan.  20th  (1849?)  in  which  he  says:  "  .  .  .  .  Have  you  received  Con 
Cregan?  Of  course  its  paternity  was  plain  to  you."  Here  Lever  is 
obviously  referring  to  the  authorship  of  the  whole  book,  however,  and 
not  to  the  source  of  the  first  chapter.  In  another  letter  (p.  291)  he 
remarks  "  Con  Cregan  is  a  secret,  and  I  hope  it  will  remain  so.  J.t  is 
atrociously  careless  and  ill-written,  but  its  success  depending  on 
what  I  know  to  be  its  badness,  my  whole  aim  has  been  to  write 


222 


RUDOLPH  ALTROCCIII 


ence,  Genoa,  Lucca,  and  was  British  consul  at  Trieste; 
so  that  it  is  very  probable  that  he  should  have  seen  the 
Gianni  Schicchi  story.  Needless  to  say  that  he  took  full 
advantage  of  his  source,  and  neglected  none  of  the  humor- 
ous possibilities  of  the  original. 

I  have  found  no  other  versions  of  this  plot  in  English 
literature.31  But  Lever's  excellent  short  story  was  recent- 
ly dramatized  by  Mr.  Leonard  Hatch,  for  the  Harvard 
Dramatic  Club,  which  presented  it  successfully  under  the 


down  to  my  public."  This  is  not  very  clear  information.  W.  J. 
Fitzpatrick  in  The  Life  of  Charles  Lever,  London,  1879,  Vol.  11,  p. 
169,  says:"  Con  Cregan  .  .  .  was  undertaken  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
'  same  old  school-fellow '  of  whom  Lever  makes  honourable  mention 
in  his  Preface  to  The  Daltons.  '  I  happened  at  the  time,'  writes 

Major  D ,  '  to  get  a  Spanish  version  of  Gil  Bias,  which  I  preferred 

very  much  to  the  original  French;  and  I  wrote  to  Lever  saying  so, 
and  adding  that  he  ought  to  try  something  in  the  Gil  Bias  style.  It 
was  while  he  was  living  at  Bregenz  ...  It  was  a  regular  pot-boiler. 
Con  Cregan  was  therefore  a  failure."  I  find  nothing  more  definite 
than  that  concerning  Lever's  sources,  and  I  do  not  find  this  story  in 
Gil  Bias. 

31  Jonson's  Volpone  has  really  no  connection  with  the  plot  in  ques- 
tion. I  am  at  a  loss  to  explain  why  Eugenio  Camerini,  in  his 
Divina  Commedia,  Milano,  1887,  p.  240,  commenting  on  Gianni  Schic- 
chi, should  quote  from  The  Rival  Tivins  of  George  Farquhar.  This 
play  has  not  the  slightest  connection  with  the  Gianni  Schicchi  story, 
no  more  than  dozens  of  will-plots.  Much  closer  is  the  parallel  kindly 
suggested  to  me  by  Professors  J.  W.  Cunliffe  and  J.  Erskine,  of 
Columbia  University,  namely,  Thomas  Hardy's  story  called  Netty 
Sargent's  Copyhold  in  his  Life's  Little  Ironies.  Here  a  young  girl 
places  the  body  of  her  uncle,  who  had  just  died  intestate,  on  a  chair 
by  a  table  and  pretending  to  guide  his  feeble  hand  actually  signs 
a  will  in  her  own  favor,  while  the  notary,  who  is  kept  out  of  the 
room,  watches  the  s~cene  from  the  garden,  and  then  ratifies  the  will. 
For  a  similar  case,  which  actually  happened,  see  Maurice  Me"jan, 
Recueil  des  Causes  CeUbres,  Paris,  1810,  Vol.  ix,  pp.  13  f.  But  as 
such  stories  do  not  have  the  element  of  impersonation  and  mercenary 
dictation  of  a  false  will,  they  strictly  cannot  be  included  in  my  study. 


223 


title  of  The  Heart  of  the  Irishman  in  1909.32  Finally,  I 
see  that  in  Paris,  at  the  Theatre  du  Vieux-Colombier,  a 
play  was  given  at  the  beginning  of  February  entitled  Le 
Testament  du  pere  Leleu,  in  three  acts,  by  Martin  du 
Gard,33  which  has  this  same  old  plot.  Here  again  an  old 
peasant  dies,  succumbing  to  an  overdose  of  "  -eau-de-vie  " 
given  by  his  maid,  who  then  calls  in  a  neighbor  to  make  a 
counterfeit  will.  This  worthy  neighbor  makes  a  clean 
sweep  of  the  situation  by  bequeathing  the  whole  of  the 
old  farmer's  property  to  himself,  and  upon  the  departure 
of  the  notary,  jumps  out  of  the  window  to  escape  the  rage 
of  the  servant  girl,  who  is  left  to  weep  out  her  despair 
"  on  the  bed  which  had  been  the  scene  of  her  double  dis- 
appointment." 34 

'  It  would  seem  from  the  foregoing  .examples  that  though 
this  story  does  not  actually  belong  to  folk-lore,35  it  may 
well  have  been  in  popular  tradition,  especially  in  France. 
I  hear  that  it  is  told  also  in  Sicily.  Of  course,  I  make  no 
claims  to  having  exhausted  the  subject.  Indeed,  such 
studies  as  these,  spreading  over  all  literatures,  are  nat- 
urally inexhaustible,  and  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  others  add 
to  the  material  here  for  the  first  time  gathered  together. 

**  Professor  W.  A.  Neilson,  in  criticizing  this  play  for  The  Harvard 
Crimson,  said,  "  It  was  a  pretty  piece  of  pathos  with  a  bit  of  de- 
lightful farce  in  the  middle  .  .  .  the  central  situation  was  uproar- 
iously funny."  This  play  is  still  unpublished.  Another  unpublished 
one-act  play,  taken  directly  from  Gianni  Schicchi,  and  called  The 
Shearer  of  Sheep,  was  written  in  1910,  without  the  slightest  knowl- 
edge of  Mr.  Hatch's,  by  Mr.  Karl  Schmidt,  of  New  York,  and  myself. 

33  See  Journal  des  Debats,  Revue  Hebdomadaire,  Feb.  13th,  1914, 
p.  257  f. 

"This  play  was  briefly  reported  by  The  Boston  Herald  of 
March  8th. 

33 1  do  not  find  anything  even  similar  to  it  in  such  works,  for  in- 
stance, as  W.  A.  Glouston's  Popular  Tales  and  Fictions,  or  in  J.  A. 
Macculloch's  The  Childhood  of  Fiction. 


224  RUDOLPH   ALTROCCIII 

From  which  it  also  appears  that  whether  the  plot  in  ques- 
tion ever  belonged  to  tradition  or  not,  it  has  most  probably 
been  acted  out  in  real  life,  at  various  times  and  places,  and 
has  given  occasion  in  at  least  three  different  literatures  to 
excellent  bits  of  fiction.  It  is  interesting  to  note,  then,  in 
this  new  example,  how  constant  is  the  intermingling  of 
fact  and  fiction — which  is  the  same  as  saying,  of  life  and 
literature.  So  that  such  a  search  for  literary  parallels  is 
not  a  futile  quest  of  petty  plagiarisms,  but  rather  a  minia- 
ture study  of  a  human  motive — so  human,  indeed,  as  to 
subsist  in  various  countries  for  centuries.  Let  me  note 
also  how  Dante,  who  occasioned  the  first  literary  manifesta- 
tion of  this  story,  was  the  only  one  to  take  it  au  tragique, 
by  putting  its  crafty  hero  in  the  depths  of  hell's  torments 
for  his  sinful  impersonation.  And,  strange  contrast  in- 
deed, it  is  ultimately  this  obscure  sinner  of  Dante's  Inferno 
who  becomes  in  literature  the  prototype  of  clownish  crafti- 
ness, the  merry  hero  of  stories  and  farces  that  have  amused 
people  from  the  thirteenth  century  to  our  very  days. 

KUDOLPH  ALTROCCIII. 


IX.— THE  AMERICAN   DIALECT   DICTIONARY 

I  wish  to  call  attention  to  a  work  of  national  importance, 
which,  in  the  judgment  of  those  best  entitled  to  an  opin- 
ion, should  be  accomplished  within  the  next  decade,  if  it 
is  to  be  well  done.  As  is  doubtless  known  to  everyone 
here  to-day,  there  has  been  in  progress  for  many  years  a 
plan  to  prepare  and  publish  an  adequate  dictionary  of 
our  American  vernacular  speech.  But  the  details  of  the 
undertaking,  the  plan  that  should  be  followed,  and  the 
special  reasons  for  making  more  rapid  progress  are  mat- 
ters that  have  received  comparatively  slight  attention, 
even  in  this  Association  of  representative  American 
scholars. 

Very  rarely  has  a  question  directly  bearing  upon  our 
distinctive  American  speech  been  presented  before  this 
Association  in  the  past  twenty  years.  We  listen  with  in- 
terest to  papers  of  much  learning  and  research  on  obscure 
dialectal  questions  relating  to  medieval  French  and  Ger- 
man literature,  and  we  do  well,  but  we  generally  assume 
that  questions  relating  to  the  peculiarities  of  our  American 
speech  will  be  sufficiently  looked  after  by  the  American 
Dialect  Society.  At  all  events,  the  entire  responsibility 
for  considering  the  history  and  the  present  character  of 
the  language  we  try  to  speak  is  relegated  to  that  Society. 
From  one  point  of  view  this  is  well.  The  special  ques- 
tions relating  to  the  details  of  American  speech  may  be 
best  considered  by  an  association  organized  for  that  pur- 
pose, but  an  association  formed,  as  this  is,  for  the 
investigation  of  modern  languages  cannot  entirely  escape 
the  duty  of  considering  from  time  to  time  the  fortunes 
of  the  language  in  which  the  transactions  of  the  Asso- 

225 


226  WILLIAM   EDWARD   MEAD 

elation  itself  are  printed.  If  one  may  judge,  however, 
from  the  number  of  those  that  support  the  American 
Dialect  Society  and  its  investigations,  there  is  in  many 
quarters  a  very  languid  interest,  and  probably  a  very  im- 
perfect understanding,  of  the  purpose  of  that  Society. 
This  lack  of  understanding  in  the  outside  world  we  have 
come  to  take  as  a  matter  of  course.  While  Secretary  of 
the  Society  I  used  regularly  to  receive  inquiries  from  vau- 
deville agencies  as  to  our  lowest  charge  for  a  single  per- 
formance. Perhaps  I  need  not  here  explain  that  as  pro- 
fessional .entertainers  on  the  vaudeville  stage  we  have 
nothing  to  offer. 

Doubtless  one  reason  for  this  lack  of  interest  and  under- 
standing is  the  fact  that  most  Americans  fail  to  realize 
that  their  pronunciation,  their  turns  of  phrase,  and  their 
vocabulary  have  American  peculiarities,  dating  back  hun- 
dreds of  years,  and  they  are  inclined  to  resent  the  sug- 
gestion that  their  utterance  is  in  any  sense  dialectal.  As 
a  whole,  cultivated  American  speech  is  remarkably  homo- 
geneous, and  when  free  from  affectation  compares  very 
favorably  with  the  best  that  England  has  to  offer.  An 
Englishman  would  have  great  difficulty  in  distributing  the 
present  audience  into  groups  on  the  basis  of  dialectal  dif- 
ferences, though  in  some  degree  such  differences  unques- 
tionably exist. 

But  dialects  flourish,  not  .exactly  in  solitude,  but  in 
relative  isolation.  And  there  are  dialect  centers  in  Amer- 
ica, where  communities  have  been  little  disturbed  for  gen- 
erations and  have,  without  a  thought  of  peculiarity,  con- 
tinued the  habits  of  speech  common  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries.  All  sorts  of  cross-currents  of  speech 
have  met,  even  in  these  communities,  so  that  the  historic 
continuity  has  been  somewhat  broken;  and  we  have  no- 


THE  AMERICAN   DIALECT   DICTIONARY  227 

where  in  America  strongly  marked  dialects  such  as  have 
been  rooted  for  centuries  in  England  or  Germany  or  Italy. 
We  have,  rather,  at  most,  a  compromise  speech  which  is  a 
blend  of  elements  not  originally  homogeneous.  The  pio- 
neer from  Dorset,  for  example,  had  as  neighbors  a  York- 
shire man,  a  Warwickshire  man,  a  Scotchman,  an  Irish- 
man, and  his  children  or  grandchildren  have  picked  up 
something  from  four  or  five  chief  sources,  according  to 
the  degree  of  intimate  association,  while  the  main  current 
of  their  speech  represents  what  they  have  had  in  com- 
mon with  the  language  of  the  country  at  large. 
,  These  linguistic  survivals  are  a  more  precious  posses- 
sion than  we  sometimes  realize.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
trivial  interest  that  we  have  preserved  in  out-of-the-way 
corners  of  America  some  of  the  most  expressive  words  of 
Dryden  and  Shakespeare  that  have  long  since  vanished 
from  literary  English;  that  in  our  Southern  States  we 
have  still  current  the  ancient  neuter  pronoun  hit  which 
meets  us  so  often  in  our  earliest  English  and  so  rarely  in 
literature  after  the  fourteenth  century. 

The  completion  within  the  past  decade  of  the  great 
English  dialect  dictionary  in  six  portly  volumes  of  about 
a  thousand  pages  each  emphasizes  the  value  of  dialectal 
survivals  and  makes  it  possible  to  measure  in  some  degree 
the  extent  and  character  of  the  work  to  be  done  in  Amer- 
ica. On  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  however,  the  problem 
is  in  some  particulars  far  more  complicated  than  in  Eng- 
land, owing  to  the  peculiar  conditions  of  development  in 
a  new  country. 

What  some  of  these  are  we  may  well  consider  for  a  mo- 
ment. America,  as  we  cannot  too  often  remind  ourselves, 
was  colonized  for  the  most  part  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  English  settlements  made  a  thin  fringe  of  civilization 


228  WILLIAM    EDWAED    MEAD 

along  the  Atlantic  coast.  Behind  them  stretched  the  great 
forests,  the  great  rivers,  and  the  great  prairies.  In  the 
same  century  the  French  Jesuits  and  some  French  sol- 
diers of  fortune  made  their  way  into  the  regions  of  the 
North  and  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi  and  left  various 
French  names,  including  those  of  their  favorite  saints, 
on  a  long  line  of  settlements  and  trading  posts  from  St. 
Lawrence  to  ~New  Orleans.  Thus  the  English  settlements 
were  kept  from  expansion  toward  the  West.  Quebec,  Mon- 
treal, Detroit,  St.  Louis,  New  Orleans,  marked  some  of 
the  great  strategic  points  where  the  French  had  gained  a 
foothold  and  stood  ready  to  check  the  advance  of  the 
English. 

But  the  westward  movement  was  inevitable  and  irre- 
sistible, and  in  the  course  of  time  the  English  broke 
through  the  frontier  line  and  swept  across  the  prairies  to 
the  Pacific.  In  the  main  the  migration  followed  the  par- 
allels of  latitude,  the  men  of  Massachusetts  and  Vermont 
and  Connecticut  going  by  preference  to  Ohio  and  Illinois 
and  Iowa  rather  than  to  Virginia  and  Tennesee  and  Ar- 
kansas. The  result  of  this  has  been  that  the  entire  range 
of  States  from  Massachusetts  to  California  north  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  Line  shows  a  remarkable  homogeneity  in 
vocabulary  and  pronunciation  and  intonation.  To  a  con- 
siderable extent,  the  migration  of  the  southern  population 
has  not  widely  deviated  from  the  normal  movement  to- 
ward the  setting  sun.  Of  course,  I  am  speaking  in  very 
general  terms  and  taking  no  account  of  the  Southerners 
who  swarmed  into  Kansas  before  the  Civil  War,  of  the 
very  considerable  numbers  of  Northern  investors  who 
have  settled  in  the  South,  and  of  the  ambitious  western 
farmers  who  have  recently  crossed  the  northern  border  and 
taken  up  lands  in  the  Canadian  Northwest, 


THE  AMERICAN  DIALECT   DICTIONARY  229 

What  I  wish  now  to  emphasize  is  the  fact  that  the 
older  conditions  have  in  large  measure  passed  away;  that 
the  frontier  has  been  pushed  westward  to  the  Pacific,  that 
the  wilderness  has  largely  vanished ;  that  the  railroad,  the 
electric  trolley  car,  the  motor  car  and,  in  particular,  the 
telephone  in  every  rural  hamlet,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
cheap  newspaper  and  the  cheap  magazine,  have,  within 
the  past  decade,  been  rapidly  transforming  the  older 
conditions  of  life  in  America  and  breaking  up  the  isola- 
tion, which,  more  than  anything  else,  tends  to  perpetuate 
dialectal  words  and  pronunciations. 

It  would  indeed  be  almost  a  miracle  if  old  dialect  words 
and  forms  and  pronunciations  were  not  swiftly  vanishing 
from  current  speech  in  America  just  as  has  been  the  case 
in  England.  In  the  preface  to  the  English  Dialect  Dic- 
tionary 1  the  editor  notes  that  "  pure  dialect  speech  is 
rapidly  disappearing  from  our  midst,  and  that  within  a 
few  years  it  will  be  almost  impossible  to  get  accurate  in- 
formation about  difficult  points.  Even  now  it  is  some- 
times found  extremely  difficult  to  ascertain  the  exact  pro- 
nunciation and  the  various  shades  of  meanings,  especially 
of  words  which  occur  both  in  the  literary  language  and  in 
the  dialects."  Time  is  required  to  establish  a  dialect, 
and  except  in  our  oldest  American  communities  there 
has  been  lack  of  time  and  opportunity  for  the  current 
speech  to  grow  into  dialectal  forms.  Some  of  the  speech 
of  the  far  West  has  been  picturesque  and  vivid  to  a  degree 
that  defies  reproduction  here;  but  it  has  marvellously 
changed  in  a  single  generation,  and  in  the  course  of 
another  decade  or  two  it  may  cease  to  be  even  a  living 
memory. 


230 


WILLIAM    EDWARD   MEAD 


Up  to  this  point  we  have  taken  no  account  except  of 
the  native  English  element.  But  the  most  striking  fact 
in  the  history  of  the  settlement  of  the  United  States  in 
the  past  half-century  is  the  vast  stream  of  immigrants 
that  have  poured  into  this  country  from  every  country  of 
Europe.  "  The  American,"  as  Professor  Mimsterberg  re- 
minds us,  "  forgets  too  easily  that  the  American  nation  is 
not  a  nation  of  Englishmen,  but  a  new  English-speaking 
people,  in  which  the  most  various  elements  are  fused  into 
something  new  and  original.77  2  Millions  of  English,  Irish, 
Scotch,  Welsh,  Germans,  Danes,  Norwegians,  Swedes, 
Lithuanians,  Italians,  Canadian  French,  Hungarians, 
Greeks,  Poles,  especially  Polish  Jews,  Armenians  and 
Bulgarians  have,  within  the  memory  of  nearly  everyone 
here  present,  swarmed  into  this  country  and  done  what 
they  could  to  modify  the  language  that  we  try  to  speak. 
Note  the  conditions  that  obtain  in  Boston,  in  Lawrence,  in 
New  Bedford,  in  New  York,  in  Chicago,  and  in  hosts  of 
other  industrial  communities  throughout  the  land.  Among 
these  people  the  matter  of  prime  importance  is  to  be  in- 
telligible, and  any  term,  whatever  its  origin,  is  likely  to 
pass,  provided  only  it  is  expressive  and  not  too  shocking. 

We  need  not  exaggerate  the  influence  of  this  great  for- 
eign population  upon  our  speech.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  considerable  villages  and  towns  in  America  where 
practically  no  English  at  all  is  heard,  there  are  great  quar- 
ters in  all  our  cities  where  one  is  reminded  at  every  turn 
of  the  speech  of  the  Old  World,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
these  people  as  a  whole  recognize  that  their  prosperity 
largely  depends  upon  their  mastery,  for  practical  purposes, 
of  the  language  of  the  country,  and  they  learn  a  sort  of 

2  American  Traits,  p.  20. 


THE  AMERICAN  DIALECT   DICTIONARY  231 

graceless  jargon— what  they  call  "  United  States  " — in 
which  they  can  express  their  material  needs.  The  children 
of  these  people  are  often  bilingual,  using  idioms  of  the 
foreign  language  translated  literally  into  English,  and 
sprinkling  their  German  or  their  Swedish  or  their  Italian 
with  English  terms.  Said  one  proud  German  father :  "  Es 
f rent  mich,  dass  meine  kinder  nicht  so  viele  English  words 
brauchen  als  sie  usen  tun." 

Not  for  many  centuries  has  England  faced  linguistic 
conditions  even  remotely  comparable  to  ours,  and  even 
during  the  Danish  invasions  and  the  generations  follow- 
ing the  Norman  Conquest  there  was  little  precisely  like 
the  linguistic  problem  confronting  us  in  America.  The 
fact  to  be  particularly  emphasized  is  that  this  foreign 
population  is  found,  not  merely  in  the  cities  and  towns, 
but  in  the  country.  Countless  abandoned  farms  in  New 
England  have  been  taken  up  by  thrifty  Poles  and 
Swedes  and  Italians.  The  old  New  England  stock  is  in 
many  rural  communities  no  longer  the  dominant  race  in 
point  of  numbers;  and  in  the  development  of  a  language 
numbers  are  a  controlling  factor.  As  a  result,  quaint  ex- 
pressions current  for  generations  in  these  ancient  com- 
munities are  no  longer  heard,  for  those  who  used  them 
have  vanished  for  ever. 

But  in  spite  of  all  adverse  influences,  there  still  exists 
in  America  a  much  larger  amount  of  traditional  material 
than  we  sometimes  realize.  Some  of  it  is  in  the  form  of 
folklore  represented  by  games  and  superstitions  and  old 
ballads,  but  a  much  larger  amount  survives  in  the  words 
and  phrases  of  an  earlier  age.  As  a  rule,  those  who  have 
the  most  valuable  material  for  our  purpose  do  not  live 
in  our  busy  centres,  and  they  have  to  be  sought  out  wfth 
care  and  handled  with  delicate  tact. 


232  WILLIAM    EDWARD    MEAD 

They  are  found  in  the  more  secluded  parts  of  New 
England,  in  the  hill  towns  of  the  Green  Mountains,  in 
the  Adirondack  and  the  Catskill  regions  of  New  York, 
in  the  Eastern  Shore  district  of  Maryland  and,  in  par- 
ticular, among  the  mountains  that  wall  off  the  Valley  of 
the  Mississippi  from  the  Atlantic  Coast.  Many  of  the 
inhabitants  of  these  regions,  sturdy,  shrewd  and  original, 
have  preserved  forms  of  speech  that  far  antedate  the 
War  of  the  Revolution  and  that  are  no  longer  widely 
used  in  either  England  or  America. 

To  gather  this  material  is  a  task  of  immense  extent,  far 
more  difficult  to  compass  than  most  of  the  dialectal  prob- 
lems in  England,  where  the  restricted  area,  the  relative 
immobility  of  the  population,  and  the  consecutive  develop- 
ment of  speech  along  lines  laid  down  centuries  ago,  make 
it  possible  for  the  worker  to  check  up  and  verify  his  data 
with  comparative  ease.  It  is  obvious  that  in  order  to  get 
results  of  much  practical  value  one  must  determine  with 
approximate  accuracy  the  geographical  limits  within 
which  a  phrase  or  a  pronunciation  is  current.  An  indi- 
vidual may  use  it  in  any  place  he  happens  to  be.  An  un- 
trained collector  might  thus  without  warrant  determine 
that  a  chance  New  England  phrase  heard  in  Arizona  rep- 
resented the  typical  speech  of  Arizona. 

Incidentally,  I  may  remark,  that  we  must  guard  against 
the  impression  that  we  are  aiming  merely  to  collect  the 
so-called  queer  expressions.  These  are  often  picturesque 
and  they  are  of  untold  value  to  the  writer  of  dialect  stories. 
But  a  dictionary  of  American  speech  must  aim  to  be  more 
than  merely  amusing  or  even  merely  historical;  it  must 
record  the  everyday  language  as  it  really  is, — the  vocabu- 
lary, the  phonetic  peculiarities,  such  as  the  geographical 
range  of  the  nasal  twang,  of  the  guttural  r,  the  r  intro- 


THE  AMEBICAN  DIALECT  DICTIONARY  233 

duced  to  fill  a  hiatus,  as  in  idean,  African,  and  a  great 
variety  of  other  matter. 

How  great  our  task  is  we  may  perhaps  in  a  measure 
realize  when  we  recall  that  the  area  of  the  United  States 
is  ahout  sixty  times  as  large  as  that  of  England,  though 
the  population  is  only  about  two  and  a  half  times  as  great. 
To  collect  the  material  for  the  English  dictionary  took 
twenty-three  years,  with  the  assistance  of  hundreds  of 
workers.  Even  when  it  seemed  that  the  material  was 
sufficiently  complete  to  warrant  the  editor  in  preparing 
copy  for  the  press  it  was  found  that  the  amount  would 
have  to  he  doubled  before  it  would  be  safe  to  issue  a  dic- 
tionary purporting  to  be  authoritative.  We  may  note  that 
a  part  of  the  material  included  the  eighty  volumes  pub- 
lished by  the  English  Dialect  Society. 

To  get  this  work  properly  done  in  America  within  a  rea- 
sonable time  is  without  question  a  matter  of  considerable 
difficulty.  Notwithstanding  all  that  has  hitherto  been  ac- 
complished, there  is  not  at  this  moment  an  adequate  record 
of  the  dialectal  vocabulary  of  a  single  state  in  the  Union. 
In  none  but  exceptional  cases  are  we  able  to  trace  with 
accuracy  the  geographical  range  of  words  and  phrases 
characteristic  of  relatively  limited  districts.  We  lack 
both  money  and  workers.  Hitherto,  an  occasional  col- 
lector has  gathered,  usually  in  an  amateurish  and  unsys- 
tematic fashion,  a  list  of  terms  employed  in  a  region 
more  or  less  familiar  to  him.  All  this  is  good  as  far  as 
it  goes,  for  the  work  of  one  amateur  can  be  verified  by 
the  work  of  another.  But  whereas  we  can  now  count  our 
active  workers  by  twos  and  threes,  here  and  there,  we 
should  have  several  hundred,  proceeding  according  to  a 
carefully  devised  plan  and  directed  by  a  central  bui^au. 
According  to  this  plan  each  state  would  be  divided  into 


234  WILLIAM   EDWARD   MEAD 

sections  and  placed  in  charge  of  a  director  supervising 
the  active  workers.  He  would  distribute  leaflets  of  in- 
structions to  collectors  and  slips  of  uniform  size  having 
assigned  spaces  for  the  word,  the  meaning,  the  region  rep- 
resented, and  for  a  sentence  illustrating  the  use  of  the 
term. 

Obviously,  the  amount  of  time  and  effort  and  money  that 
the  work  will  cost  will  depend  upon  the  sort  of  book 
we  want.  If  we  could  be  content  with  a  mere  collection 
of  words  and  phrases  known  to  be  peculiar  to  America  at 
some  time  and  somewhere,  but  unverified  as  to  their  age 
or  locality,  we  should  need  only  to  make  a  little  more  com- 
plete the  collections  that  we  now  have.  But  a  book  con- 
structed on  such  a  plan  would  be  practically  useless  for 
tracing  the  historical  linguistic  relation  between  a  given 
district  in  America  and  the  mother  country,  and  would 
serve  only  to  explain  the  meanings  of  words  without  con- 
sidering the  range  of  their  distribution  or  the  period  in 
which  they  flourished. 

But  one  objection  to  the  plan  as  outlined  is  obvious,  that 
the  cost  is  prohibitive ;  and  this  is  a  very  serious  handicap. 
If  dialect  study  had. to  do  with  some  sort  of  parasitic 
microscopic  worm,  there  would  doubtless  be  no  lack  of  help 
from  the  government  or  from  a  well-known  institution, 
to  follow  up  the  little  beast  in  all  stages  of  development. 
What  support  we  get  must  come  from  the  annual  dues 
of  the  American  Dialect  Society,  with  such  contributions 
as  interested  men  of  means  may  choose  to  make.  There 
has  hitherto  been  a  great  amount  of  unremunerated  labor 
bestowed  upon  the  undertaking,  and  this  will  doubtless 
continue  in  even  greater  measure.  But  such  help  is  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  sporadic  and  hence  very  unequally 
distributed,  usually  lacking  altogether  at  the  point  where 


THE  AMERICAN  DIALECT  DICTIONARY  235 

it  is  most  needed.  A  certain  number  of  paid  regular 
workers  appear  indispensable  if  the  undertaking  is  to 
make  rapid  progress. 

In  any  case  the  money  cost  will  be  considerable,  even 
before  a  line  of  the  dictionary  can  be  printed.  Consider- 
ing all  these  facts,  and,  in  particular,  the  inevitable  loss 
within  a  few  years  of  all  of  those  whose  memories  ante- 
date the  Civil  War,  may  we  not  fairly  appeal  for  a  more 
active  cooperation  on  the  part  of  the  members  of  the 
Modern  Language  Association  and,  through  them,  of  the 
men  of  means  whose  financial  aid  is  essential  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  undertaking? 

WILLIAM  EDWARD  MEAD* 


X.— FOUK  HITHERTO  UNIDENTIFIED   LETTERS 
BY  ALEXANDER  POPE1 


Button's,  Monday,  November  12,  1722. 

A  short  Defence  of  two  Excellent  Comedies,  viz.  Sir 

Fopling  Flutter,2  and  The  Conscious  Lovers ;  in  answer 

to  many  scandalous  Reflections,  on  them  both,  by  a 

5  certain  terrible  Critick,  who  never  saw  the  latter,  and 

scarce  knows  anything  of  Comedy  at  all. 

A  FABLE. 

There  lay  in  the  Road 
A  venomous  Toad, 

10  A  fine  Drove  of  fat  Oxen  stood  by; 

He  swelFd  and  he  spit 
His  Venom,  but  yet, 
Their  Beauty,  or  Size,  he  cou'dn't  come  nigh. 

Sir, 

15  If  you  approve  of  what  I  now  send  you,  and  think 
it  worth  publishing,  perhaps  you  may  hear  from  me 
again. 

1  These  four  letters  appeared  in  The  St.  James's  Journal)  now  ex- 
tremely rare,  on  the  following  dates: — Thursday,  Nov.  15  (No.  xxix, 
pp.  172,  173) ;  Thursday,  Nov.  22  (No.  xxx,  p.  178) ;  Saturday,  Dec. 
8  (No.  xxxin,  p.  197);  and  Saturday,  Dec.  15,  1722  (No.  xxxiv, 
p.  201). 

3  In  response  to  A  Defence  of  Sir  Fopling  Flutter,  John  Dennis, 
1722,  in  which  Dennis  answers  an  old  paper  of  Steele's  in  Spectator 
65,  declaring  that  even  at  that  early  date  Steele  had  written  to 
prepare  the  way  for  his  fine  gentleman  of  The  Conscious  Lovers. 
Dennis's  Remarks  on  a  Play  called  The  Conscious  Lovers,  a  Comedy, 
and  The  Censor  Censur'd  in  a  Dialogue*  between  Sir  Dicky  Mar- 
plot and  Jack  Freeman  did  not  appear  until  1723,  and  after  these 
letters. 

236 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTERS  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     237 

No  Writer,  I  think,  can  be  more  unlucky,  than  he 
who  sets  out  with  his  Head  (for  I  scarce  believe  the 
Critick  has  a  Heart,  or,  at  least,  'tis  an  odd  Composi- 
tion) full  of  Malice,  and  Spleen:  To  a  sensible  Reader  f 
5  it  appears  at  once,  and  consequently  lessens  his  Opinion 
of  the  Author;  nor  is  it  any  use  to  the  latter:  on  the 
contrary,  it  overcomes  Reason ;  but,  now  for  the  Heau- 
tontimoureumenos.3 

Our  Critick,  at  his  setting  out,  declares,  he'll  not 

10  only  make  Remarks  on  Comedy  in  general,  (which  he 
has  with  a  vengeance)  but,  that  his  Pamphlet  shall 
also  contain  just  Remarks  on  the  last  new  Comedy, 
which  he  then  had  never  seen. 

Pardon  this  Digression;  but,  I  think,  I  need  not  in- 

15  form  you,  I'm  not  writing  this  for  Fame,  because  I'll 
keep  myself  unknown,  (not  that  I'm  ashamed  of  my 
Cause,  tho,  I  own,  indeed  I  may  of  my  Adversary)  my 
Profits  are  evidently  none.  Why  do  I  write  it  then? 
Why,  as  Sir  John  Suckling  says,  in  a  Prologue,  "  I 

20  write  it  'cause  I've  nothing  else  to  do."  I  don't  know, 
but  I  may  be  guilty  too  of  an  unworthy  Piece  of  Char- 
ity, for  twenty  to  one  but  the  Critick  will  scribble  an 
Answer,  and  so  get  a  Dinner.  But,  if  I  should  ever 
trouble  you  again,  it  will  be  no  Answer  to  him,  I  as- 

25  sure  you:  but,  perhaps,  general  and  particular  Re- 
marks, on  Plays  and  Actors:  since,  I  happen  to  be  part 
of  the  Audience,  almost  every  Night. 

Our   Critick,   thro  his  whole  Preface,   rails  at  the 
good-naturd,    worthy,    short-fac'd    Knight 4    and    the 

30  three  Managers  of  the  Theatre,   (Which  Places  they 

3 Apparently  a  mistaken  (intentional  or  unintentional)  reference 
to  The  Conscious  Lovers,  really  based  on  the  Andria.  Stee^  had 
sentimentalized  the  Heautontimoureumenos  in  Spectator,  No.  602. 

4  Steele.     The  italics  are  always  those  of  the  author. 


238  M.    ELL  WOOD   SMITH 

have  gain'd,  by  near  thirty  Years  indefatigable  labour 
and  Industry,  and  the  kind  Disposition  of  our  beloved 
Monarch,  who  is  for  rewarding  Merit  of  All  Kinds: 
But,  I  dare  not  say  any  more  of  that  Great  King,  and 

5  Good  Man,  of  whom  I  can  never  say  enough.  He  pre- 
tends to  lay  open  the  secret  Arts,  by  which  this  Play 
succeeded.  'Tis  true,  as  I  have  heard,  it  was  read, 
before  Representation,  to  several  Persons  of  Quality, 
of  nice  Taste;  and  many  excellent  Judges  thought  it 

10  worth  their  while  to  be  at  the  Rehearsal,  in  a  Morning, 
and  all  jointly  approved  of  it.  But,  poor  Man!  (if 
it  were  not  the  nature  of  the  Beast,  I  could  pity  him) 
his  Modesty,  notwithstanding,  couldn't  prevent  his  con- 
tradicting the  whole  Town.  As  to  Advertisements  being 

15  published  in  favour  of  it,  to  forestall  Approbation;  no 
one  can  imagine  it  was  a  Friend  who  wrote  'em,  since 
it  might  have  prov'd  fatal,  to  raise  the  Spectator's  Ex- 
pectations too  much:  but,  People  of  Sense  took  'em 
right,  and  the  Play  happen' d  to  have  Real  Merit,  as 

20  has  appear'd  by  Throng' d  Audiences  and  loud  Applause. 

I   can't  help  being  shock' d,   to   find   his   Gracious 

Majesty  is  mention'd,  among  such  a  Heap  of  Scurrility. 

Oh !  but  our  bloody-wise  Politician,  forsooth !  finds  out, 

that  learning,  and  the  Lord  knows  what,  is  running  to 

25  Ruin,  by  the  Mismanagement  of  some  sordid  Wretches, 
as  he  is  pleas' d  to  call  'em. 

Their  Avarice  is  plain,  from  the  Expence  they  have 
lately  been  at,  for  new  Habits,  Clothes,  Scenes,  &c.  and 
to  adorn  the  Theatre.  But,  alas!  Authors  are  dis- 

30  courag'd,  and  these  insolent  Fellows  won't  act  the 
Tragedy  of  Coriolanus,  murder'd  from  Shake- 

s  p  e  a  r ,  by  the  Ingenious  Mr.  D :  tho  he  has,  with 

no  less  ridiculous  Pains  than  Venom,  rail'd  at  'em,  in 
an  odd  Dedication,  to  their  Patron  my  Lord  Chamber- 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTEBS  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     239 

lain,  and  (to  shew  his  Sense,  Good-Nature,  and  Grati- 
tude, to  those,  who,  too  often,  have  been  his  Benefac- 
tors) told  the  Town,  they  are  Rogues  and  Rascals.  Oh 
Lud!  who  can  avoid  laughing?  Besides,  Cloudy  for- 
5  got,  in  a  Postscript  to  his  late  Pamphlet,  to  inform  the 

Town,  that  he  lately  sent  a  Letter  to  Sir  R S 

(as  I  have  been  since  privately  informed)  wherein, 
with  much  good  Manners,  he  threatens  the  Knight, 
with  violent  Remarks  on  his  new  Comedy,  unless  his 

10  Plays  are  acted.  Oh!  to  be  sure,  they  can  do  no  less. 
But,  for  Authors  being  discouraged,  I  believe,  the  whole 
Town  would  be  glad  if  the  number  of  our  new  Plays 
were  less,  and  the  good  old  ones  reviv'd  in  their  stead : 
I  fancy,  the  Actors  would  be  glad  to  have  it  so  too. 

15  Sir,  lest  I  now  swell  my  Epistle  to  too  great  a  Bulk, 
I'll  conclude  for  the  present ;  but,  if  you  approve  my 
Design,  I  shall  pursue  it  against  your  next  Paper, 
when  you  may  expect  to  hear  from  your  constant 
Reader  (His  old  to  say  Admirer,  but  I  am  so). 

20  Townly. 

II 

Button's,  18th  Nov.  1722. 
To  the  Author  of  the  St.  James's  Journal. 
Sir, 

If  you  are  not  so  intirely  taken  up  with  the  Affairs  of 
'Politicks,  as  to  have  no  leisure  for  the  Business  of  us 

25  Idle  People,  Pleasure;  my  Correspondence,  such  as  it 
is,  is  at  your  service.  You  must  know,  Sir,  that  I 
profess  Poetry,  and  if  that  were  a  Science  anything 
were  to  be  got  by,  I  might  by  this  time  have  been  worth 
a  Pomegranate;  but  as  things  are  otherwise  ordered, 

30  you  see  I  write  to  you  upon  the  blank  Leaf  of  a  Book, 
which  I  bought  Yesterday,  but  have  not  yet  paid  for. 


240  M.    ELLWOOD   SMITH 

I  observ'd  in  your  last  Paper,  one  of  your  Corre- 
spondents, in  the  Title  of  his  Letter,  promis'd  us  a 
short  Defence  of  the  Conscious  Lovers;  but  it  seems 
afterwards  utterly  forgot  it,  and  diverted  us  with  his 
5  Severities  upon  the  Old  Qriiick,  and  his  Panegyricks 
upon  his  good  Friends  (as  I  suppose  'em)  the  Trium- 
virate. Now,  Sir,  you  are  to  understand  I  am  a  Person 
above  all  that,  and  as  I  have  thought  myself  concern' d 
to  see  the  Representation  of  this  Comedy  more  than 

10  once,  I  present  your  Readers,  under  favour,  with  the 
following  Account  of  it. 

To  begin  with  the  Fable  (according  to  Method)  'tis 
form'd  upon  the  Model  of  Terence's  Andrian.  Some 
Parts  of  it  are  little  more  than  a  Translation,  and  so 

15  verbal  too,  that  you  cannot  but  recollect  the  very  Words 
of  the  Roman  Poet;  which  make  the  English  appear 
faint,  and  insipid  by  the  Comparison,  which,  I  believe, 
otherwise  would  not.  The  Introduction  of  Women  into 
the  Drama,  has  accommodated  it  somewhat  to  our 

20  Stage,  though  the  Character  of  the  Aunt  is  not  of  abso- 
lute Importance  to  the  Design,  any  more  then  Simber- 
tons  and  some  others.  Davus,  by  being  turned  into  a 
Modern  Footman,  entertains  you;  but  is  not  of  that 
consequence  to  his  Master's  Designs  as  in  the  Original. 

25  The  Incidents  are  pleasant,  those  of  disguising 
the  Characters  particularly  have  a  chearful  Effect. 
That  of  the  Bracelet  is  not  at  all  necessary  and  seems 
somewhat  absurd  in  this  part  of  the  World  now-a-days. 
As  for  the  Characters  and  Manners,  if  there  are  not 

30  many  such  in  real  life,  (I  mean  of  the  principal  ones) 
'tis  pity.  They  appear  at  least  very  gracefully,  I  be- 
lieve, in  the  opinion  of  the  most  Profligate.  That  there 
are  some  such  Characters  in  the  World  is  very  certain. 
I  think  the  Poet  has  very  well  shown  that  the  Splen- 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTERS  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     241 

dour  and  Shine  of  high  Life  is  not  at  all  eclips'd  by 
the  Honour  and  Innocence  of  it.  The  tender,  and  at  the 
same  time  prudent  Concern  of  old  Bevil,  for  his  Son's 
Interest  and  Satisfaction  in  Marriage,  is  very  well  hit ; 
5  so  is  the  filial  Fondness  and  Duty  to  the  Father  with 
the  Struggles  of  Love  and  Generosity  to  the  Lady. 
The  entertaining  Qualities  of  the  Lady  are  well  ex- 
press'd  by  the  Author,  and  represented  by  Mrs.  Old- 
field.  Tire  Honesty  of  an  old  Servant  has  been  better 

10  hit  by  this  Author  in  his  first  Dramatic  Work.  The 
Character  of  Tom  is  a  good  Satyr  enough  upon  our 
modern  Fine  Gentlemen,  and  at  the  same  time  a  pleas- 
ant Representation  of  what  passes  in  that  low  Life, 
tho'  perhaps  there  is  somewhat  too  much  of  it ;  and  'tis 

15  to  be  discerned,  that  this  Character  receives  its  greatest 
force  from  Mr.  Gibber's  admirable  Representation.  I 
doubt  Simberton  is  a  Coxcomb  not  to  be  found  often  in 
the  world,  any  more  than  a  Good-natur'd  Old  Maid. 
As  for  a  learned  Lady,  the  World  is  full  of  'em;  it  is 

20  no  new  Character,  which  indeed  is  hardly  to  be 
expected. 

The  Sentiments  seem  to  be  pretty  much  borrow' d 
from  other  of  this  Author's  Writings.  They  have  al- 
ways somewhat  striking  in  them,  which  those  of  other 

25  Men  have  not.  Those  about  Duelling  have  been  most 
distinguish'd  in  the  Conversations  about  Town.  If 
they  have  tended  to  explode  this  Practice,  'tis  very 
well;  and  if  they  have  not,  'tis  not  much  the  worse. 
They  who  generally  fall  by  these  Engagements  are  a 

30  sort  of  Ill-bred  People,  as  careless  how  they  give  offence 
to  others,  as  they  are  impatient  under  it  themselves: 
so  that  the  loss  of  them  ought  not  to  be  considered  of 
such  ill  consequence;  especially  considering  them  as 
Sacrifices  to  Good  Manners,  and  while  the  News  of 


242  M.    ELLWOOD  SMITH 

these  Kencounters  is  fresh  in  Conversation,  other  People 
are  used  better  during  the  Suspension  of  Valour. 

It  has  been  said  of  all  this  Author's  Comedies,  that 
the  language  is  not  well  adapted  to  Conversation:  how 
5  far  this  is  true  of  the  Conscious  Lovers,  will  be  better 
determined  when  it  appears  in  Print. 

Our  Author  has  long  been  Famous  for  the  Morals 
insinuated  and  expressed  in  his  Writings.  His  last 
Comedy  suffer 'd  extremely  upon  this  very  account,  as 

10  he  tells  us  himself;  and  'twas  thought  a  moot  Point 
whether  this  would  not  have  been  as  unfortunate,  for 
the  same  reason.  I  can't  however,  reconcile  myself  to 
a  great  part  of  Squire  Simbertoris  Conversation ;  some 
of  which  has  since  been  omitted:  nor  did  I  think  it  at 

15  all  of  a  piece  with  those  Rules,  which  our  Kjnight  has 
frequently  laid  down,  relating  to  the  Entertainment  of 
a  polite  Audience,  and  Circle  of  Women  of  Honour. 
Neither  is  the  exposing  the  Infirmities  of  Old  Age,  and 
the  Impediment  of  Speech,  very  reconcileable  to  his 

20  Doctrines  of  the  Dignity  of  Human  Nature;  which, 
according  to  him,  is  sacred  and  honourable,  even  in  its 
very  Imperfections  and  Blemishes. 

I  do  not  at  all  meddle  with  the  Probability  of  his 
Plot,  nor  shall  enquire  how  the  Parties  came  to  be  so 

25  well  acquainted  with  the  Characters,  and  yet  did  not 
know  the  Persons  of  their  own  Council;  and  how  it 
could  happen  in  Probability,  that  Simberton  should 
never  have  seen  his  own  Uncle  before,  nor  two  or  three 
more  Queries  of  the  same  nature. 

30  The  Author  of  this  Comedy  has  certainly  more 
Merit,  as  a  writer,  than  any  Man  now  alive,  and  the 
whole  Nation  have  been  oblig'd  to  him  for  Entertain- 
ments intirely  new,  and  for  very  many  Hours  of  Plea- 
sure which  they  would  never  have  known  without  him. 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTERS  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     243 

His  Wit  seems  now  to  flourish  anew,  to  blossom  even  in 
old  Age.  He  must  always  be  agreeable,  till  lie  ceases 
to  b e  at  all.  And  yet  I  know  not  how  it  is,  but  whether 
he  has  been  too  liberal  of  his  delicious  Banquets,  and 
5  cloyed  us  with  the  rich  Products  of  his  Fancy,  it  has 
been  almost  Fashionable  to  use  him  ill :  Blockheads  of 
Quality,  who  are  scarce  capable  of  Heading  his  Works, 
have  affected  a  sort  of  ill-bred  Merit  in  despising  'em: 
And  they  who  have  no  Taste  for  his  Writings,  have 
10  pretended  a  Displeasure  at  his  Conduct.  If  he  had 
been  less  Excellent,  he  might  very  probably  have  had 
more  Admirers;  as,  if  he  had  been  less  devoted  to  the 
Interests  as  well  as  the  Entertainments  of  the  Publick, 
he  might  have  been  at  more  Ease  in  his  private  Affairs. 
15  I  am, 

Sir,  Your  Reader,  and  Humble  Servant, 

Dorimant. 
Ill 

Button's,  Dec.  3,  1722. 
To  the  Author  of  the  St.  James's  Journal. 
Sir, 

20  I  begg'd  a  Place  in  your  Paper  some  Time  ago  for 
some  cursory  Remarks  upon  the  Conscious  Lovers. 
That  Comedy,  it  seems,  expired  upon  the  18th  Night; 
tho'  it  appear' d  to  the  Town,  that  it  might  have  flour- 
ished some  Time  longer,  if,  upon  other  Considerations, 

25  the  Players  had  not  thought  proper  to  give  it  a  violent 
Death,  without  waiting  for  its  natural  Expiration. 
But  if  this  was  no  Force  upon  the  Author,  we,  of  the 
Audience,  have  very  little  reason  to  quarrel  about ^it; 
most  of  us  being,  I  believe,  by  that  time,  ready  for 

30  some  other  Entertainments.  This  Play  has  since  ap- 
pear'd  in  Print,  and  is  to  pass  a  more  dangerous  Pro- 


244  M.   ELLWOOD  SMITH 

bation  now  than  ever.  The  Industry,  the  Address  of 
the  Actors  appears  no  more;  the  Habits,  the  Scenes, 
the  Lights,  the  Musick,  the  Company,  all  the  little 
Baits  and  Subornations  of  good  Humour  and  Applause, 
5  where  are  they?  A  Reader  who  lolls  in  his  Closet, 
and  is  out  of  humour  with  the  wet  Morning,  will  take 
the  liberty  of  being  sullen  and  peevish,  and  industri- 
ously dissatisfy'd.  He  will  expect  to  find  the  same 
Humour  in  the  Stile,  which  struck  him  only  in  some 

10  particular  Action :  He  will  look  for  the  Wit  of  such  or 
such  an  applauded  Expression,  which  the  Author  per- 
haps finely  intended  for  a  Piece  of  plain  simple 
Drawing  after  Nature. 

The  Author  seems,  in  his  Preface,  to  be  well  aware 

15  of  all  this  Disadvantage  in  the  Closet  Representation; 
and  so  ought  every  just  Reader  to  be  too.  He  then 
proceeds  to  the  Incidents  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  Acts. 
The  former  of  these  I  have  already  considered.  The 
other,  I  mean,  the  tender  Scene  upon  the  Father's  dis- 

20  co very  of  his  Daughter,  has  received  the  most  reason- 
able and  natural  applause  of  eighteen  successive  Audi- 
ences, their  Silence  and  their  Tears.  A  Pleasure  built 
upon  the  most  sincere  Delight,  which  no  sensible  Mind 
wou'd  exchange  for  the  momentary  passant  Transports 

25  of  an  inconsiderate  Laughter.  An  Applause  which  a 
Masterly  Writer  prefers  to  a  thousand  Shouts  of  a 
tumultuous  and  unreasonable  Theatre.  Some  of  our 
best  Comedies,  The  Fool  in  Fashion,5  The  Lady's  Last 
Stake,  The  Careless  Husband,  have  wound  up  their 

30  Catastrophe  in  this  tender  manner  with  great  Success, 

'Three  of  Gibber's  sentimental  comedies;  the  first  is  more  com- 
monly known  as  Love's  Last  Shift.  They  appeared  in  1696,  1708, 
and  1704. 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTEES  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     245 

and  never-failing  Applause.  And  our  Author  has  done 
well,  not  to  descend  to  a  particular  Defence  of  this 
delightful  Scene  against  the  Cavils  of  Criticks,  who, 
as  he  rightly  observes,  are  got  no  farther  than  to  en- 

5  quire  whether  they  ought  to  be  pleas'd  or  not. 

I  have  the  honour,  in  the  Name  of  all  the  minor 
Criticks,  to  thank  our  Author  for  submitting  his  Song 
to  our  Censure  and  Examination.  Tho'  for  my  own 
part  I  must  own,  having  had  the  good  luck  to  get  a 

10  Copy  of  it  some  time  before  the  Play  was  acted,  I  have 
taken  the  Liberty  to  set  about  this  great  Work  long  ago, 
and  have  already  with  vast  Pains  and  Application,  got 
through  the  better  half  of  the  first  Line.  But  finding 
the  Work  grew  upon  me,  and  my  Printer  very  care- 

15  fully  representing,  that  a  private  Man  ought  not  under- 
take so  great  a  Task,  without  the  Commands  of  a 
Prince,  or  the  Encouragement  of  a  Subscription,  I  shall 
decline  the  further  Prosecution  of  this  Design,  unless 
perhaps  I  now  and  then  at  my  leisure  spend  an  Hour 

20  or  two  for  my  own  Entertainment  upon  the  latter  part 
of  that  delightful  Line — With  downcast  Looks  a  silent 
Shade. 

Some  Wags  have  been  very  jocose  upon  the  Manner 
of  Expression,  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  Paragraph 

25  of  the  Preface,  where  the  Knight  seems  to  be  surprised 
that  any  thing  Mr.  Cibber  has  told  him  should  prove 
a  truth.  But  leaving  this  lively  Generation  to  them- 
selves, who  are  always  most  pleasant  upon  the  gravest 
and  most  important  Subjects,  I  beg  leave  to  observe 

30  upon  the  Author's  Translation  of  Terence,  that  tho'  he 
might  very  well  value  himself  upon  it,  yet  the  best 
Translation  must  in  our  Language  be  forc'd  and  u<en- 
tertaining,  especially  upon  the  Stage,  where  the  Audi- 


246  M.    ELLWOOD   SMITH 

ence  cannot  avoid  recollecting  and  comparing  it  with 
the  Original.  Terence's  Beauty,  as  well  as  Horaces, 
consists  chiefly  in  the.  Happiness  of  Phrase  and  Ex- 
pression; and  even  the  Man  who  understands  both 
5  Languages  perfectly,  will  miscarry  when  he  attempts  to 
translate  either  of  those  Writers  into  ours. 

The  Eevival  of  Philasler  was  an  Attempt  that  deserved 
more  Success  than  it  met  with:  The  natural  Rise  of 
the  Distress  in  that  Play,  that  Simplicity  of  Passion 

10  in  the  young  Maid,  with  the  many  fine  Passages 
throughout,  pleas' d  every  one  who  has  a  just  Taste  of 
those  Entertainments ;  and  notwithstanding  the  Success 
of  the  Conscious  Lovers,  the  Town  are  certainly  ne'er 
the  better  Judges,  while  that  Piece  of  Fletcher  is  acted 

15  to  an  empty  House.  The  Spirit  and  Clearness  of  Mr. 
Wilks  was  a  true  Satisfaction  to  the  Audience,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  must  consider  him  as  a  Person 
long  devoted  to  their  Service,  and  now  no  longer  a 
young  Man;  and  that  whenever  they  have  the  misfor- 

20  tune  to  lose  him,  he  will  leave  no  Heir  of  his  excel- 
lent Talents  behind  him. 

The  Play  of  Alexander,  the  Great  is  a  better  Bur- 
lesque upon  Tragedy  itself,  than  that  which  passes  for 
a  Burlesque  upon  Alexander,  is  upon  that  Play.  I 

25  must  not  omit  doing  justice  to  the  Merit  of  a  young 
Man  who  represented  the  principal  Character;  he  is 
of  very  great  Expectations  in  that  Profession,  and 
would  certainly  discharge  a  more  reasonable  Part  with 
greater  Satisfaction  to  good  Judges,  as  well  as  more 

30  Ease  to  himself. 

I  am,  Sir,  Yours, 
•->;,  Dorimant. 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTERS  BY  ALEXANDEB  POPE     247 

IV 

Button's,  12  Decemb.  1722. 
To  the  Author  of  the  St.  James's  Journal. 
Sir, 

I  Hear  several  People  have  thought  fit  to  quarrel0 
with  me  for  my  opinion  of  Philaster,  which  I  shall  take 
5  an  Opportunity  to  justify  as  to  the  Fable,  Sentiments, 
and  Diction,  when  I  have  nothing  better  to  entertain 
you  with.  I  take  notice,  that  several  of  my  gloomy 
Brethren  of  this  Coffee-House,  are  not  able  to  compre- 
hend whether  I  am  a  Friend  or  an  Enemy;  whether 

10  I  am  heartily  in  the  Interests  of  the  Theatre,  or  else 
am  secretly  growling  over  some  old  Grudge,  which  I 
don't  care  to  own.  At  present  I  shall  only  declare 
that  a  Dramatic  Piece  finely  written,  and  justly  repre- 
sented, is,  in  my  opinion,  a  most  reasonable  Entertain- 

15  ment,  and  is  capable  of  being  made  a  very  useful  one ; 
but  that  the  Reputation  of  my  Understanding  ought  to 
rise  or  fall  at  Buttons  Coffee-House,  just  as  my  Sub- 
ject happens  to  lead  me  to  censure  or  commend  the 
.Transactions  of  the  Neighboring  Stage,  is  certainly 

20  very  unjust  Usage  of  your  Humble  Servant, 

Dorimant. 

P.  S.  The  following  lines  have  been 
in  good  Reputation  here,  and  are  now 
submitted  to  Publick  Censure. 

25  If  meaner  Gil — n  draws  his  venal  Quill,7 


Who  would  not  weep  if  Ad n  were  he ! 

6  There  are  no  other  letters  in  the  Journal  concerned  with  these 
matters.  9 

7  These   lines   are   printed   in  this  their  original  form  in  Pope's 
Works,  Elwin  and  Courthope,  Vol.  v.     Corrigenda,  p.  445.     For  their 
final  form,  see  Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  lines  151-214. 


248  M.    ELLWOOD   SMITH 


POPE'S  AUTHORSHIP  CONSIDERED 

The  four  letters  here  reprinted  from  the  St.  James's 
Journal,  with  the  exception  of  that  part  of  the  postscript 
to  the  fourth  constituting  the  earliest  known  form  of 
Pope's  caricature  8  of  Addison,  have  received  little 9  or 
no  consideration.  They  have  been  taken  at  their  face 
value  as  merely  so  many  darts  hurled  by  two  among  the 
many  undistinguished  combatants  in  the  scurrilous  word- 
play of  the  day.  But  certain  peculiarities  in  the  fourth  let- 
ter strike  even  a  casual  reader:  the  circumstances  of  the 
anonymous  publication  of  these  satirical  verses,  the  place  at 
which  the  letter  is  dated,  and  the  wording  of  the  postscript 
itself. 

The  verses  were  known  to  exist  by  at  least  one  of  Pope's 
friends  prior  to  this  date,  for  on  February  26,  1721/2 
they  were  mentioned  in  a  letter  by  Bishop  Atterbury,10 
who  asks  the  poet  for  a  complete  copy ;  but  that  Pope  should 
unintentionally  allow  the  most  brilliant  bit  of  satire  he  ever 
produced  to  pass  out  of  his  control,  seems,  to  say  the  least, 
improbable.  That,  had  he  done  so,  he  should  forget  the 
piracy,  or  have  occasion  to  hazard  the  false  date  of 

"Although  Mr.  G-.  Aitken  pointed  out  in  The  Academy  (Feb.  9, 
1889)  that  this  famous  satire  had  appeared  first  in  print  in  this 
journal  on  Dec.  15,  1722,  the  old  error  started  by  Pope  and  revised 
by  Curll  (The  Curliad.  London,  1729,  p.  12)  to  the  effect  in  its  final 
form  that  it  had  appeared  first  in  Cythereia,  1723,  is  still  repeated 
in  such  authoritative  works  as  Professor  Lounsbury's  The  Text  of 
Shakespeare  (N.  Y.  1906,  p.  300)  and  The  Cambridge  History  of 
English  Literature  (1913,  Vol.  ix,  iii,  p.  87).  Mr.  Courthope's 
reasoning  based  on  revisions  in  the  various  versions  is  also  invali- 
dated (Pope's  Works,  Elwin  and  Courthope,  m,  pp.  231  ff.  See  also 
V,  p.  445). 

9  See  The  Life  of  Richard  Steele,  G.  Aitken,  London,  1880,  n,  p.  284. 

10  Courthope,  m,  p.  231. 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTERS  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     249 

1727  n  again  seems  improbable.  If,  however,  lie  had 
been  free  in  his  exhibition  of  these  lines,  indecent  so  soon 
after  the  death  of  Addison,  it  seems  little  short  of  pre- 
posterous that  it  should  have  been  to  one  of  the  devotees 
of  Button's,  the  Coffee  House  of  Addison,  Steele,  Philips, 
and  Tickell,  that  he  should  have  committed  them.  The  last 
point  immediately  conspicuous  is  the  absurdly  improbable 
statement  made  by  the  publisher  of  these  lines  "  that  they 
have  been  in  good  Reputation  "  there  at  Addison' s  f  avorita 
Coffee  House,  among  the  survivors  of  his  "  little  Senate/' 

These  considerations  almost  inevitably  give  rise  to  the 
suggestion  of  how  pleasant  it  would  have  been  to  Pope 
to  fasten  the  authorship  of  this  libel  upon  one  of  Addi- 
son s  own  disciples;  it  is  Alceste  and  the  filthy  book  all 
over  again.  The  inconsistencies  are  at  least  sufficiently 
surprising  to  justify  one  in  following  back  this  series  of 
letters  of  which  these  verses  by  Pope  are  the  conclusion, 
to  see  whether  or  not  they  themselves  throw  any  light  on 
the  author  and  Pope's  responsibility  in  the  matter. 

The  first  of  this  remarkable  series  is  devoted  primarily 
to  an  attack  upon  John  Dennis,  the  critic,  who  figures  as 
the  "  venomous  Toad  "  12  in  the  clumsy  fable  at  the  head. 

11  In  defense  of  himself,  Pope  laid  the  blame  for  the  first  publica- 
tion of  these  verses  upon  Curll  ( 1727 ) ,  who  retorted  that  they  had 
already  appeared  in  1723  (Curliad  as  above).  It  seems  inconceiv- 
able that  this  attack  on  Addison  from  Button's  could  have  remained 
unknown  to  Pope,  or  the  publication  of  his  verses,  if  piratical,  have 
been  forgotten.  If  they  were  published  without  his  connivance,  here 
was  his  complete  exoneration;  if  not,  he  had  every  reason  to  ignore 
this  1722  edition. 

"It  is  hard  to  imagine  Pope  writing  this  fable,  but  conceivable 
in  an  assumed  part.  At  all  events,  Dennis  in  his  Reflections,  Criti- 
cal and  Satyrical,  upon  a  late  Rhapsody  called  an  Essay  upon*Criti- 
cism  (1711)  had  called  Pope  "a  hunch-backed  toad."  That  was 
not  too  long  before  for  Pope  to  remember  and  retort, — "Toad  in 
your  teeth,  Mr.  Dennis." 


250  M.    ELLWOOD   SMITH 

Incidental  to  this  vehement  arraignment  is  a  eulogium 
of  "  the  good-natur'd  worthy  short-fac'd  Knight," 13 
Steele,  the  three  Managers  of  the  Theatre,  and  the  King 
himself,14  at  once  so  incoherent,  so  equivocal,  and  so  ful- 
some as  to  pass  the  bounds  of  credulity  as  a  sincere  en- 
deavor. Certainly  it  is  hard  to  see  anything  but  studied 
ambiguity  in  such  passages  as:  237,  1.  28-p.  238,  1.  5, 
p.  238,  11.  14-20  (See  also  p.  240,  1.  6). 

Over  and  above  all  the  absurdities  of  this  letter,  which 
seems  calculated  to  bring  into  ridicule  every  person  men- 
tioned, no  less  those  praised  than  those  condemned,  there 
are  two  sentences  in  particular  that  may  be  of  some  sig- 
nificance. The  dinner  joke  as  applied  to  Dennis  early  in 
the  letter  (p.  237, 11.  20-23)  may  have  been  a  commonplace, 
but  at  all  events  it  figures  in  the  second  of -those  verses  by 
Pope  quoted  by  Dorimant  (applied  to  Gildon),  and  was 
evidently  in  Pope's  mind  at  this  time.  The  second  pas- 
sage comes  near  the  end  of  the  letter  (p.  239,  11.  11-14), 
and  sets  forth  Townly's  belief  that  no  harm  were  done 
in  discouraging  authors,  and  decreasing  the  number  of 
new  plays,  so  that  the  good  old  ones  were  revived.  This 
passage  is  hardly  that  we  should  have  expected  from  such 
an  enthusiastic  defender  of  Steele's  latest  production. 
Furthermore,  and  especially,  this  is  the  very  line  of  argu- 

13  "  short-fac'd  "  may  have  been  a  fairly  common  epithet  for  Steele, 
but  it  does  not  seem  to  occur  in  that  pamphlet  by  Dennis  which 
Townly  is  answering.  He  is  therefore  introducing  a  gratuitous 
sneer  into  what  purports  to  be  a  defense.  Only  in  the  later  The 
Censor  Censur'd  (1723)  does  the  expression  "Mr.  Short-Face"  occur, 
and  there  but  once  (p.  4).  In  the  earlier  pamphlet,  it  is  always, 
"Sir  Richard,"  or  "the  facetious  Knight." 

"The  irony  is  apparent.  As  to  Pope's  attitude  toward  the  King, 
in  Remarks  upon  Mr.  Pope's  Translation  of  Homer,  Dennis  had 
called  Pope  an  enemy  of  his  King,  Country,  and  Religion.  Sir  Leslie 
Stephen  in  his  life  of  Pope  observes  (p.  85),  "Pope's  references  to 
his  Sovereign  were  not  complimentary." 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTERS  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     251 

ment  adopted  by  Dorimant,  ostensibly  a  different  writer, 
to  add  a  final  touch  of  disparagement  to  his  review  of  the 
admittedly  successful  Conscious  Lovers  in  a  succeeding 
letter  (p.  246,  11.  12-15). 

The  most  ridiculous  feature  of  this  first  letter  is,  how- 
ever, that  while  it  purports  to  be  a  defense  of  two  plays, 
the  writer  carefully  abstains  from  making  any  critical 
comment  on  them  whatsoever.  He  further  promises,  if 
his  first  letter  is  printed,  to  contribute  again.  Notwith- 
standing this  fine  offer,  he  completely  disappears  from  the 
scene,  but  in  his  place  appears  one  Dorimant,  who  writes 
the  promised  critique,  taking  as  his  point  of  departure  the 
failure  of  his  predecessor. 

If  the  former  writer  were  ambiguously  fulsome,  the 
second  assumes  a  judicial  tone,  beginning  as  one  who 
rather  grudgingly  is  compelled  to  admit  imperfections. 
If  the  writer  had  set  out  definitely  "  to  damn  with  faint 
praise,"  he  would  not  have  proceeded  differently.  So  sub- 
tly veiled  is  the  author's  use  of  delicate  suggestion  and 
equivocal  sarcasm,  that  at  the  end  of  the  letter  the  reader 
may  hardly  be  aware  that  he  has  been  presented  with  a 
catalogue  of  all  the  weaknesses  and  absurdities  malice 
could  hope  to  find.  So  nearly  a  verbal  translation  of  its 
Latin  original  is  the  play  (p.  240,  11.  12-18)  that  remi- 
niscence makes  the  "  English  appear  faint  and  insipid," 
which,  adds  the  writer  in  a  conciliatory  tone,  otherwise 
he  believes  would  not.  Very  gently  does  he  sneer  at  the 
"  -Characters  and  Manners  "  (p.  240, 11.  29  ff.) .  The  senti- 
mental scenes  are  touched  upon  with  apparent  praise. 
One  of  the  finest  bits  of  characterization,  which  it  would 
have  been  unsafe  either  to  censure  outright  or  to  pass 
over  he  disposes  of  with  the  utmost  adroitness  (p.,241, 
11.  10-16).  Similarly  Steele's  sensational  lines  on  duel- 
ing are  made  no  great  matter  (p.  241,  11.  25  ff.).  So  also 
touching  the  dialogue  and  plot,  the  writer  strikes. 


252  M.    ELLWOOD   SMITH 

yet  feigns  to  withhold  his  hand  (pp.  242,  11.  3-6; 
p.  242,  11.  23-29).  Probably  no  better  illustration  of  the 
left-handed  way  in  which  this  writer  doles  out  praise,  and 
his  remarkable  talent  for  fixing  a  sting  in  the  tail  of  a 
compliment  can  be  found  than  the  passage  at  the  end 
(p.  242,  11.  30  if.)  in  which,  while  apparently  lauding 
Steele  to  the  skies,  he  points  out  the  disagreeable  fact  that 
it  has  become  fashionable  to  abuse  him,  and  touches  upon 
his  troubled  private  affairs.  These  could  hardly  have 
been  brought  in  for  any  other  purpose  than  to  serve  as  a 
well-calculated  sneer. 

In  the  next  letter,  the  writer  continues  his  assumption 
if  impartiality,  but  with  less  consistency.  He  admits  that 
the  audience  is  glad  to  have  the  play  withdrawn  (p.  243, 
11.  27-30),  and  while  exhorting  the  reader  to  be  fair  to  the 
play  under  the  more  trying  examination  of  the  closet,  sug- 
gests that  it  cannot  so  well  endure  this.  In  particular, 
he  animadverts  upon  one  of  the  "  tender  scenes  "  (p.  244, 
1.  18-p,  245,  1.1)  with  an  apparent  delight  which  can  not 
fail  to  be  held  suspect  on  the  part  of  the  admirer  of  Ter- 
ence and  the  older  drama,  supporting  his  eulogium  by 
reference  to  three  of  Colley  Obbers  sentimental  comedies. 
According  to  his  wont,  however,  he  does  not  leave  this 
praise  without  its  scorpion's  tail ;  for,  to  clinch  the  matter, 
he  gravely  quotes  from  Steele' s  own  preface  a  passage 
which  here  sounds  like  anything  but  sense  (p.  245,  11. 
1-5),  and  immediately  proceeds  to  open  ridicule  of  that 
preface  and  Steele' s  song  (p.  245,  11.  6-22).  And  no'w  at 
the  end  of  his  review  proper,  like  the  writer  of  the  first 
letter,  he  falls  to  disparaging  Steele  by  a  reference  to  the 
older  drama  (p.  246,  11.  7-15). 

Apparently  these  criticisms  were  taken  too  seriously  to 
please  the  writer,  for  in  a  third  letter  (fourth  in  the 
series)  he  voluntarily  lifts  the  cap  and  reveals  the  wolf 


UNIDENTIFIED  LETTEES  BY  ALEXANDER  POPE     253 

(p.  247,  11.  1-20).  The  ambiguous  character  of  these 
letters,  which  we  have  been  tracing,  had  puzzled  also 
"  several  of  my  gloomy  Brethren  of  this  Coffee  House," 
and  left  them  uncertain  whether  the  writer  were  a  friend 
or  an  enemy  "  secretly  growling  over  some  old  grudge." 
The  writer  snaps  his  fingers  in  their  faces  and  proceeds 
to  print  the  satire  on  Addison.15 

Such  is  the  series  of  letters  ending  in  the  publication 
of  the  satire  which  Pope  had  probably  written  a  consider- 
able time  earlier:  one  signed  "  Townly,"  which,  taking 
a  flying  shot  at  Dennis  (Pope's  old  enemy,  and  the  un- 
conscious occasion  of  Pope's  original  quarrel  with  Addi- 
son), tends  to  make  Steele  ridiculous  by  a  fulsome  and 
incoherent  eulogy,  and  which,  by  failing  to  do  what  it 
sets  out  to,  opens  the  way  for  another  attack;  and  three, 
over  the  name  of  "  Dorimant,"  which  no  less  subtly  con- 
ceal their  malice  beneath  suggestion  and  an  assumption  of 
judicial  fairness.  Both  writers  succeed  in  an  attack  upon 
Steele;  both,  although  assuming  different  points  of  view, 
agree  in  the  use  of  insincerity,  both  agree  in  the  method 
in  which,  as  a  last  stab,  the  current  drama  is  placed  below 
the  older.  The  last  writer  has  in  some  way  become  pos- 
sessed of  Pope's  most  splendid  satire;  the  former  used  a 
turn  of  speech  occurring  in  the  second  line  of  this  passage : 
nothing  is  proved  (proof,  in  the  nature  of  things,  can 
hardly  be  looked  for)  but  much  is  suggested. 

In  the  light  of  what  has  been  said  and  a  careful  reading 
of  the  letters  themselves,  it  will  readily  appear  that: — 
1)  the  last  three  letters  are  a  hoax  of  some  sort;  2)  the 
first,  absurd  in  itself,  affords  the  approach  for  these; 

15  Compare  Pope's  conduct  relative  to  a  travesty  of  one  of  the 
Psalms  the  publication  of  which  he  tried  to  disown.  Lounsmiry, 
The  Text  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  204-205. 


254  M.    ELLWOOD   SMITH 

3)  the  irrelevancies  are  no  more  than  barely  sufficient  to 
support  the  character  we  conceive  the  writer  to  have  as- 
sumed; 4)  the  perpetrator  of  the  hoax  was  an  enemy  of 
Dennis,  Steele,  and  Addison  (an  admirer  of  Gibber?), 
had  Pope's  unpublished  verses,  felt  authorized  to  "  sub- 
mit them  to  public  censure,"  and  manifests  throughout 
a  point  of  view  readily  consistent  with  what  it  known  to 
have  been  Pope's. 

The  situation  at  the  time  was  this :  Pope  had  this  satire, 
which  he  knew  was  superb,  by  him.  He  had  feared  to 
publish  it  during  Addison's  life  time,  and  common  de- 
cency forbade  publication  so  soon  after  Addison's  death.16 
Steele  and  the  whole  Button  crew  moved  his  spleen  every 
time  he  thought  of  them.  Steele  wrote  a  successful  play, 
admittedly  successful.  This  irritated  him  still  more. 
Little  was  to  be  gained  by  the  saw  and  cleaver  method  of 
Dennis  in  defiance  of  popular  approval.  Here  was  a 
chance  for  a  little  fun  with  the  "short-fac'd  knight." 

Whether  a  malicious  desire  for  fun  first  led  Pope  to 
write  the  preposterous  letter  which  opens  the  series,  and 
from  which,  as  not  affording  the  most  advantageous  point 
of  attack,  he  shifts  to  the  posture  of  a  second  contributor ; 
whether  it  was  only  at  the  end  of  this  hoax,  as  an  after- 
thought, that  he  tacked  on  his  verses,  seeing  here  an 
excellent  opportunity  to  produce  them  in  safety  and  put 
off  a  joke  on  his  old  enemies:  or  whether  he  concocted  the 
whole  scheme  as  a  stalking  horse  behind  which  he  could 
accomplish  his  original  purpose  of  publishing  these  lines, 
can  hardly  be  determined.  Knowing  Pope's  inveterate 
fondness  for  chicanery,  that  he  "  could  not  drink  tea  with- 
out strategem,"  recalling  his  similar  trick  in  the  case  of 

"At  a  considerably  later  period  these  verses  demanded  a  defense. 
Curliad  as  before. 


UNIDENTIFIED    LETTERS    BY    ALEXANDEB    POPE  255 

Philips's  Pastorals,  when  his  letter  17  of  feigned  commen- 
dation deceived  Steele  himself,  and  considering  all  the 
imposture,  falsification,  and  trickery  that  was  shortly  to 
attend  the  production  of  the  Dunciad,  one  could  find  even 
the  latter  view  conceivable;  and  the  verses  actually  are 
the  culmination  of  the  series. 

Only  on  the  ground  that  they  are  by  the  same  hand, 
and  that,  Pope's,  are  these  four  letters  entirely  intel- 
ligible; but  admitting  Pope's  authorship,  they  become 
as  clear  as  day,  liheir  purpose,  their  inconsistency,  their 
sarcasm  and  cunning.  Satire  of  this  sort,  when  not  "  the 
oyster  knife  that  hacks  and  hews  "  is  sometimes  difficult 
to  identify,  but  these  letters  seem  almost  as  clearly  akin 
to  the  essay  in  the  Guardian,™  as  the  Epistle  to  Dr.  Ar- 
buthnot  is  to  The  First  Satire  of  the  Second  Book  of 
Horace  (Imitated). 

M.  ELL  WOOD  SMITH. 


17  Guardian,  No.  4=0. 
"  Ibid. 


XI.— THE  THEME  OF  PARADISE  LOST 

Lovers  of  Milton's  poetry  occasionally  note  with  regret 
signs  that  his  great  epic  is  losing  its  influence  upon  the 
mind  of  the  race.  Hence,  any  attempt  to  revive  interest 
in  Paradise  Lost  deserves  the  sympathetic  attention  of 
students  of  literature.  Such  an  attempt  is  the  article  of 
Professor  E.  ~N.  S.  Thompson,  The  Theme  of  Paradise 
Lost,  printed  in  the  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language 
Association,  March,  1913.  As  I  venture  to  differ  from 
the  writer,  however,  in  a  number  of  important  particu- 
lars, I  shall  attempt  to  formulate  what  seems  a  more  com- 
prehensive view  of  the  meaning  of  Milton's  epic. 

But  before  undertaking  this,  it  might  be  profitable  to 
consider  some  of  the  representative  views  of  scholars  and 
critics;  for  Paradise  Lost  has  been  the  subject  of  a  vast 
body  of  critical  writing,  and  opinions  have  been  expressed 
almost  as  varied  as  those  upon  Hamlet. 

The  most  widely  accepted,  and  what  was  for  a  long  time 
the  orthodox  theory,  is  that  Paradise  Lost  is  a  theological 
and  historical  ,epic,  dealing  with  human  and  super-human 
facts,  its  action  beginning  before  the  creation,  and  ending 
with  the  disposition  of  things  for  eternity.  Its  central 
conceptions  are  the  truths  of  Christianity,  represented 
with  splendor  of  language,  and  in  certain  portions  with 
wealth  of  poetic  ornament.  The  attitude  of  earlier  critics 
who  accepted  this  view  was,  in  the  main,  one  of  unstinted 
admiration.  Dennis  and  Addison  may  be  taken  as  repre- 
sentatives. Even  Dr.  Johnson,  who  was  bitterly  opposed 
to  Milton  on  the  subject  of  politics,  and  out  of  sympathy 
with  many  of  the  traits  of  his  character,  yet  reverenced 
256 


THE   THEME   OF   PAEADISE   LOST  257 

his  achievement  in  Paradise  Lost,  and  mentioned  as  an 
undisputed  fact  that  '  the  substance  of  the  narrative  is 
truth.' 

But  with  the  nineteenth  century  there  came  a  different 
view  of  the  universe.  Biblical  criticism  and  the  advance 
of  scientific  knowledge  made  it  impossible  for  many  to  ac- 
cept as  literal  truth  the  Biblical  account  of  the  creation 
and  the  fall.  The  matter  of  Paradise  Lost  is  consequently 
to  be  discarded,  and  the  fame  of  the  poem  is  to  rest  upon 
the  sublimity  and  harmony  of  its  style.  The  chief  repre- 
sentative of  this  class  of  critics  is  Edmond  Scherer. 

Another  variety  of  the  critical  opinion  which  considers 
that  in  substance  Paradise  Lost  is  theological  and  histori- 
cal is  found  in  Mark  Pattison's  work  on  Milton.  (  Mil- 
ton's mental  constitution,  then,  demanded  in  the  material 
upon  which  it  was  to  work,  a  combination  of  qualities  such 
as  very  few  subjects  could  offer.  The  events  and  person- 
ages must  be  real  and  substantial,  for  he  could  not  occupy 
himself  seriously  with  airy;  nothings  and  creatures  of  pure 
fancy.  Yet  they  must  not  be  such  events  and  personages 
as  history  had  portrayed  to  us  with  well-known  characters, 
and  all  their  virtues,  faults,  foibles,  and  peculiarities. 
And,  lastly,  it  was  requisite  that  they  should  be  the  com- 
mon property  and  the  familiar  interest  of  a  wide  circle  of 
English  readers.' x 

Again,  '  The  world  of  Paradise  Lost  is  an  ideal,  con- 
ventional world,  quite  as  much  as  the  world  of  the  Arabian 
Nights,  or  the  world  of  the  chivalrous  romance,  or  that  of 
the  pastoral  novel.  Not  only  dramatic,  but  all,  poetry  is 
founded  on  illusion.  We  must,  though  it  be  but  for  the 
moment,  suppose  it  true.  We  must  be  transported  out  of 
the  actual  world  into  that  world  in  which  the  given  seen* 

1  Pattison's  Milton,  p.  177. 


258  H.    W.    PECK 

is  laid.'  2  The  inconsistency  in  these  passages  is  signifi- 
cant ;  the  writer  seems  to  be  following  two  divergent  paths, 
historical  accuracy,  and  purely  literary  appreciation. 

A  second  class  of  critics,  who  believe  that  the  Biblical 
account  of  the  creation  and  the  fall  is  a  myth,  yet  who 
have  been  deeply  impressed  by  the  grandeur  of  Milton's 
epic,  have  resorted  to  another  method  of  interpretation. 
Assuming  that  Milton's  avowed  purpose  to 

assert  Eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men 

was  a  misconception  of  the  true  spirit  of  his  undertaking, 
they  consider  the  epic  to  be  chiefly  symbolic  and  poetic. 
On  this  view,  the  poet  himself  may  not  be  fully  conscious 
of  his  own  deeper  meaning. 

Among  this  class  are  those  who  hold  that  the  subject  of 
the  poem  is  the  revolt  of  Lucifer;  that  Satan  is  the  hero; 
and  the  central  idea,  the  struggle 'of  liberty  against  au- 
thority. 

The  romantic  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century,  especially 
Byron  and  Shelley,  accepted  this  interpretation;  and  it  is 
congenial  to  the  more  recent  idealization  of  the  Superman. 
Headers  of  Jack  London  will  recall  in  The  Sea-Wolf  the 
admiration  of  Wolf  Larsen  for  those  passages  in  which 
Satan  is  the  dominating  figure. 

A  contemporary  essayist  holds  that  the  (  True  theme  is 
Paradise  itself ' ;  that  the  profound  value  and  interest  of 
the  epic  resides  in  its  poetic  realization  of  the  ideal  of 
pastoral  literature  in  the  portrayal  of  the  Eden  bower.3 

Another  contemporary  believes  that  Paradise  Lost  is 
an  allegory  dealing  with  the  political,  religious,  and  social 

'Pattison's  Milton,  p.  183. 

8  P.  E.  More,  Shelbourne  Essays,  p.  239. 


THE   THEME   OF   PABADISE   LOST  259 

conditions  of  Milton's  own  time ;  4  that  Satan  is  the  hero, 
or  better,  the  villain  of  the  poem;  that  he  represents  the 
Koman  Church ;  that  the  creation  of  Adam  and  Eve  sym- 
bolizes the  Protestant  Christian  world;  that  the  descrip- 
tion of  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  Eden  bower  is  "  a  remark- 
able picture  of  the  ideal  Puritan  combination  of  Church 
and  State'';  that  Michael  represents  Cromwell  and  pure 
religion. 

Finally,  there  is  the  article  already  mentioned  of  Prof. 
E.  "N.  S.  Thompson.  He  maintains  that  Paradise  Lost  is 
not  concerned  with  history  or  theology,  but  is  symbolic. 
The  poet  '  sees  beneath  the  "  fable "  certain  ,enduring 
truths  regarding  man's  relations  to  the  opposed  forces  of 
good  and  evil.  .  .  .  Milton's  theme  is  philosophical, 
not  historical  or  theological.' 

In  brief,  Professor  Thompson  seems  to  consider  Par- 
adise Lost  simply  an  allegory  embodying  an  idealistic 
system  of  ethics,  accepting  as  fact  the  existence  of  evil, 
and  emphasizing  the  enduring  truth  of  free-will,  and  the 
possibility  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  good. 

That  this  is  an  inspiring  and,  from  one  point  of  view, 
a  justifiable  interpretation  will  be  readily  granted;  but 
it  does  not  seem  to  me  the  whole  truth  of  the  matter,  nor 
does  it  approach  as  near  to  historical  accuracy  as  may 
reasonably  be  expected.  After  a  glance  at  the  different 
theories  of  Paradise  Lost  enumerated  above,  one  is  im- 
pressed by  the  necessity  of  caution  in  accepting  a  theory, 
especially  an  allegorical  interpretation  of  Milton's  epic. 
And  at  the  start  we  should  keep  in  mind  the  distinction 
between  allegory  and  allegorizing.  Allegory  is  fiction 
consciously  framed  by  its  author  as  a  means  of  express- 
ing abstract  ideas.  Allegorizing  is  a  process  of  allegor- 

4  Rev.  H.  G.  Rosedale,  Milton  Memorial  Lectures,  pp.  109-10. 


260  H.    W.    PECK 

ical  interpretation  by  subsequent  critics.  The  safest 
method  of  approach  is  doubtless  the  historical  one.  What 
did  the  poem  mean  to  the  author  and  his  contemporaries  ? 
Then,  in  the  light  of  their  interpretation,  what  can  it 
mean  to  us  ?  On  this  method  special  weight  should  be 
given  to  the  text  of  the  epic  itself;  to  Milton's  essay  on 
Christian  Doctrine,  in  which  he  expressed  abstractly  con- 
ceptions which  he  represented  concretely  in  Paradise 
Lost,  and  to  the  criticism  of  contemporaries  or  immediate 
successors,  who,  partaking  of  Milton's  general  attitude 
toward  man,  nature,  and  God,  would  probably  share  his 
views  of  the  significance  of  the  poem. 

After  going  over  this  ground  as  impartially  as  pos- 
sible I  cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  that  in  composing 
Paradise  Lost  Milton  thought  he  was  dealing  with  real 
and  historical  facts.  The  fundamental  matter  of  his 
poem  is  the  Christianity  of  his  time  as  he  accepted  it. 
Paradise  Losi  is  simply  an  elaboration  of  The  Christian 
Epic  as  outlined  by  Professor  Santayana  in  Chapter  vi 
of  his  Reason  in  Religion.  I  cannot  read  Milton's  pro- 
phetically solemn  statement  of  his  purpose  in  Book  I 
without  feeling  that  he  meant  just  what  he  said ;  that  he 
was  to  sing 

Of  Man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  the  World,  and  all  our  woe, 
With  loss  of  Eden,  till  one  greater  Man 
Restore  us,  and  regain  the  blissful  seat. 

Professor  Thompson  states  that  i  Milton  could  not 
write  as  Hebrew  annalist  or  Christian  theologian.  He 
was  free  to  read  the  Bible  as  a  poet,  not  a  historian, 
and  to  interpret  it  liberally.'  Milton's  own  discussion 
of  The  Holy  Scriptures  in  Christian  Doctrine,  Chapter 


THE   THEME   OF   PAEADISE   LOST  261 

xxx,  gives  me  an  exactly  opposite  impression.  '  The 
writings  of  the  prophets,  apostles  and  evangelists,  com- 
posed under  divine  inspiration,  are  called  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures.' 5 

6  The  Scriptures,  therefore,  partly  by  reason  of  their 
own  simplicity,  and  partly  through  the  divine  illumina- 
tion, are  plain  and  perspicuous  in  all  things  necessary  to 
salvation,    and   adapted  to  the   instruction   even  of   the 
most  unlearned,  through  the  medium  of  diligent  and  con- 
stant reading. ' 6     '  ~No  passage  of  Scripture  is  to  be  in- 
terpreted in  more  than  one  sense.'  7     The  author,  how- 
ever, allows  exceptions  to  this  rule.    (  The  rule  and  canon 
of  faith,  therefore,  is  Scripture  alone.'  8     '  Lastly,  no  in- 
ferences from  the  text  are  to  be  admitted,  but  such  as 
follow  necessarily  and  plainly  from  the  words  themselves, 
lest  we   should   be   constrained   to   receive  what   is   not 
written  for  what  is  written,  the  shadow  for  the  substance, 
the  fallacies  of  human  reasoning  for  the  doctrines  of  God, 
for  it  is  by  the  declaration  of  Scripture,  and  not  by  the 
conclusions    of    the    schools    that    our    consciences    are 
bound.' 9     Milton's   literal   interpretation   of   the   Scrip- 
tures is  evidenced  throughout  this  work.     He  evidently 
accepts  the  Biblical  account  of  the  creation  and  the  fall, 
and  the  miracles;  10   and  he  believes  in  the  reality  of 
angels,  good  and  evil.11 

The  tendency  of  the  ninetenth  and  twentieth  century 
mind  is  directly  away  from  this  point  of  view.  The 
story  of  the  creation  and  the  fall  is  now  generally  re- 
garded as  a  myth,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  verbal  inspira- 

8  C.  D.,  p.  437.  9  C.  D.,  p.  443. 

8  C.  D.,  p.  440.  10  C.  D.,  pp.  169,  253. 

7  C.  D.,  p.  442.  u  G.  D.,   p.  213. 
*C.  D.,  p.  445. 


262  H.    W.    PECK 

tion  of  the  Scriptures  has  been  largely  discarded.  But 
there  is  no  reason  for  crediting  Milton  with  views  of 
science  of  which  men  had  at  that  time  hardly  begun  to 
dream. 

As  a  suggestive  classification  of  Milton's  outlook,  the 
history  of  myths  might  be  divided  into  three  stages.  At 
first  there  is  the  era  of  unquestioning  belief.  Later,  in  a 
more  sophisticated  time,  there  arise  doubts  and  differences 
of  opinion,  and  the  corresponding  necessity  of  explana- 
tion and  apologetics.  Finally,  in  a  scientific  or  philo- 
sophic age,  the  myth  is  either  entirely  discarded,  or,  by 
an  allegoristic  interpretation,  is  made  the  artistic  me- 
dium for  the  presentation  of  some  significant  truth.  Ac- 
cording to  the  present  writer,  Milton  lived  in  an  age  of 
transition  from  the  first  to  the  second  period.  But  the 
modern  interpreters,  ignoring  the  vast  changes  which  two 
centuries  have  made  in  the  mental  life  of  the  race,  have 
proceeded  summarily  to  classify  Milton  with  themselves. 

Professor  Thompson,  in  support  of  his  contention  that 
Milton  *  values  the  rebellion  of  Lucifer  and  the  sin  in 
Eden  not  as  historical  fact  but  as  symbolical  of  moral 
truth/  cites  Paradise  Lost  5.  570-576. 

Yet  for  thy  good 

This  is  dispensed ;  and  what  surmounts  the  reach 
Of  human  sense  I  shall  delineate  so, 
By   likening   spiritual  to   corporeal   forms, 
As  may  express  them  best — though  what  if  Earth 
Be  but  the  shadow  of  Heaven,  and  things  therein 
Each  to  other  like  more  than  on  Earth  is  thought! 

This  species  of  symbolism  Milton  explained  more  defi- 
nitely in  Christian  Doctrine.  '  When  we  speak  of  know- 
ing Gk>d,  it  must  be  understood  with  reference  to  the  im- 
perfect comprehension  of  man;  for  to  know  God  as  He 
really  is,  far  transcends  the  powers  of  man's  thoughts, 


THE   THEME   OF   PAEADISE   LOST  263 

much  more  of  his  perception.  .  .  .  Our  safest  way  is 
to  form  in  our  minds  such  a  conception  of  God  as  shall 
correspond  with  his  own  delineation  and  representation  of 
himself  in  the  sacred  writings.' 12  In  other  words,  the 
superhuman  beings  are  represented  as  they  are  in  Para- 
dise Lost,  because  that  method  is  in  accord  with  the  di- 
vinely ordained  symbolism  of  the  Scriptures.  The  use 
of  this  symbolism,  however,  does  not  negate  belief  in  the 
reality  of  the  rebellion  of  Lucifer  any  more  than  it  does 
faith  in  the  being  of  God ;  but  it  changes  the  locus  of  that 
reality  from  the  material  realm  of  human  perception  to 
the  region  of  the  spiritual  and  the  super-sensuous.  Mil- 
ton's description  of  the  revolt  of  Lucifer  is  merely 
adapted  to  human  comprehension;  it  is  a  material  sym- 
bolization  of  historical  facts  in  the  supersensuous  world. 
This  symbolism,  of  course,  refers  not  only  to  events  and 
personages,  but  also  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  forces 
which  they  represent;  but  the  point  I  wish  to  emphasize 
is  that  the  events  which  Milton  narrated  through  the 
mouth  of  Raphael  he  considered  in  the  main  actual 
events,  although  their  reality  was  in  a  different  sphere 
from  that  which  is  possible  to  human  perception. 

This  theory,  if  true,  exonerates  Milton  from  many  of 
the  charges  of  inconsistency  in  his  narrative;  such  as 
his  anthropomorphism,  and  the  confusion  of  material 
and  immaterial  acts  ascribed  to  the  angels. 

Not  only  Professor  Thompson's  contention  that  Milton 
considered  the  revolt  of  Lucifer  valuable  for  its  symbol- 
ism of  abstract  ideas  alone,  but  also  his  treatment  of 
Milton's  devil  as  a  mere  personification  of  the  forces  of 
evil,  is  lacking  in  historical  perspective.  Impossible  as 
the  belief  in  a  personal  devil  is  to  most  people  now,  it 

13  C.  D.,  pp.  16,  17.  i    - 

9 


264  H.    W.    PECK 

was  not  so  in  the  age  of  Milton.  <  Throughout  the  Old 
and  New  Testament  the  devil  figures  as  a  personage  free 
to  dwell  where  he  pleases,  and  to  act  as  he  will ' ;  and  he 
is  so  represented,  together  with  the  legions  of  other  evil 
angels,  in  Chapter  ix  of  Christian  Doctrine.  Students 
of  the  Middle  Ages  are  familiar  with  the  conception  of 
an  actual  personal  devil,  the  originator  and  head  of  the 
forces  of  evil  in  the  universe — the  prince  of  the  powers 
of  the  air — able  to  assume  at  will  various  forms.  The 
modern  tendency  to  attenuate  his  Satanic  Majesty  to  a 
mere  personification  is  the  last  insult.  We  have  only  to 
recall  the  Salem  Witchcraft  to  be  convinced  how  firm  at 
one  time  was  the  conviction  of  the  existence  of  demonic 
agencies.  Philology  as  well  as  history  verifies  this  view. 
Ephesians  6 ;  12,  '  For  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and 
blood,  but  against  principalities,  against  powers,  against 
the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places,'  means  simply :  '  We  are 
fighting  against  wicked  demons  of  the  upper  air.'  13 
The  transition  from  the  mythological  to  the  modern  view 
of  the  devil  is  illustrated  in  Burns'  Address  to  the  Deil. 
Burns  was,  at  least  while  sober,  completely  emancipated 
and  able  to  address  the  devil  with  patronizing  good 
humor.  But  his  '  rev'rend  grannie  '  was  thoroughly  orth- 
odox in  her  belief,  and  Burns  was,  too,  when  he  was 
drunk. 

Turning  to  the  earlier  criticism  of  Paradise  Lost,  not 
only  did  the  vast  body  of  Milton's  contemporaries  agree 
with  him  that  the  epic  is  elaborated  upon  a  basis  of  his- 
toric fact,  but  the  critics,  the  cultivated  men  of  the  sev- 
enteenth and  early  eighteenth  centuries  so  interpreted  it. 

"Greenough  and  Kittredge,  Words  and  Their  Ways  in  English 
Speech,  p.  258. 


THE    THEME   OF   PARADISE    LOST  265 

John  Dennis  wrote  of  Milton  as  a  modern  poet  who  sur- 
passed all  the  ancients  and  all  the  moderns,  because,  avail- 
ing himself  of  the  enthusiasm  derived  from  religion,  he 
wrote  under  the  inspiration  of  true  religion,  or  Chris- 
tianity. Dr.  Johnson  wrote  in  his  life  of  Milton :  '  We 
all,  indeed,  feel  the  effects  of  Adam's  disobedience;  we 
all  sin  like  Adam,  and  like  him  must  all  bewail  our  of- 
fenses; we  have  restless  and  insidious  .enemies  in  the 
fallen  angels,  and  in  the  blessed  spirits  we  have  guardians 
and  friends;  in  the  redemption  of  mankind  we  hope  to 
be  included;,  in  the  description  of  heaven  and  hell  we 
are  surely  interested,  as  we  are  all  to  reside  hereafter 
either  in  the  regions  of  horror  or  bliss.' 

The  main  reason,  then,  for  concluding  that  Milton  be- 
lieved that  his  epic  was  built  upon  a  basis  of  historic  fact 
is  that  it  was  founded  upon  the  Scriptures,  which  were 
accepted  as  revealed  truth  by  Milton  and  the  mass  of  his 
contemporaries.  But  there  is  another  well-known  fact  in 
support  of  this  view — Milton's  idea  of  the  function  of 
poetic  inspiration.  In  more  recent  times  there  has  been 
a  division  of  human  faculty;  objective  truth  being  given 
to  the  domain  of  science,  and  the  subjective  world  of 
imagination  and  fancy  being  relegated  to  the  poet.  But  ,  >  f^ 
in  Milton's  time  this  division  did  not  exist,  and  the  ^  **  ---^ 
imagination  was  considered  an  organ  in  the  acquisition 
of  truth.  Poetry  was  held  by  Sidney  and  the  scholars 
who  inherited  the  theories  of  classical  criticism  as  a 
more  philosophical  and  higher  thing  than  history.  Milton 
looked  upon  his  art  as  a  sublime  mission.  He  identified 
the  muse,  Urania,  with  the  spirit  of  prophetic  inspira- 
tion. In  discussing  the  Holy  Spirit  he  wrote :  14  '  1^  is 
also  used  to  signify  the  spiritual  gifts  conferred  by 

"C.  D.,  p.  153. 


266  H.    W.    PECK 

on  individuals.'  In  other  words,  Milton  considered  the 
gift  of  poetic  inspiration  as  one  phase  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
He  selected  for  his  subject  truths  revealed  in  the  Old 
Testament  by  God,  and  he  believed  himself  also  a  chosen 
medium  of  revelation: 

Descend  from  Heaven,  Urania,  by  that  name 

If  rightly  thou  art  called,  whose  voice  divine 

Following,  above  the  Olympian  hill  I  soar, 

Above  the  flight  of  Pegasean  wing! 

The  meaning,  not  the  name,  I  call;   for  thou 

Nor  of  the  Muses  nine,  nor  on  the  top 

Of  old  Olympus  dwell' st;  but,  heavenly -born, 

Before  the  hills  appeared  or  fountain  flowed, 

Thou  with  Eternal  Wisdom  didst  converse. 

Another  consideration  may  help  to  support  the  view 
that  Milton  believed  in  the  historical  reality  of  the  main 
characters  and  events  of  his  epic.  He  is  accused  of 
blending  incongruously  the  truths  of  Christianity  with 
the  fictions  of  pagan  mythology.  But  this  objection  has 
been  answered  by  De  Quincey.  i  To  Milton  the  person- 
ages of  the  heathen  Pantheon  were  not  merely  familiar 
fictions,  or  established  poetical  -properties ;  they  were  evil 
spirits.  That  they  were  so  was  the  creed  of  the  early  in- 
terpreters. In  their  demonology  the  Hebrew  and  the 
Greek  poets  had  a  common  ground.  Up  to  the  advent 
of  Christ  the  fallen  angels  had  been  permitted  to  delude 
mankind.  To  Milton,  as  to  Jerome,  Moloch  was  Mars, 
and  Chemosh  Priapus.  Plato  knew  of  hell  as  Tartarus, 
and  the  battle  of  the  giants  in  Hesiod  is  no  fiction,  but 
an  obscured  tradition  of  the  war  once  waged  in  heaven.' 15 
I  have  already  noted  how  Milton  gave  the  name  Urania 
to  the  spirit  of  divine  inspiration;  and  one  quotation 
will,  I  believe,  verify  De  Quincey's  theory: 

15  Quoted  by  Mark  Pattison,  Milton,  p.  198. 


THE   THEME   OF   PAUADISE   LOST  267 

The  hasty  multitude 

Admiring  entered;  and  the  work  some  praise, 
And  some  the  architect.    His  hand  was  known 
In  Heaven  by  many  a  towered  structure  high, 
.  .  .  Nor  was  his  name  unheard  or  unadored 
In  ancient  Greece;    and  in  Ausonian  land 
Men  called  him  Mulciber;    and  how  he  fell 
From  Heaven  they  fabled,  thrown  by  Angry  Jove 
Sheer  o'er  the  crystal  battlements:   from  morn 
To  noon  he  fell,  from  noon  to  dewy  eve, 
A  summer's  day,  and  with  the  setting  sun 
Dropt   from  the  zenith,  like  a  falling  star, 
On  Lemnos,  the  JSgsean  isle.     Thus  they  relate, 
Erring;   for  he  with  this  rebellious  rout 
Fell  long  before.16 

Milton,  in  the  words  of  Mark  Pattison,  '  conceives  a 
poet  to  be  one  who  employs  his  imagination  to  make  a 
revelation  of  truth,  truth  which  the  poet  himself  entirely 
believes.7  And  when  he  employs  fictitious  names  and  de- 
scribes material  actions  it  is  but  as  symbolism  of  that 
higher  reality  which  transcends  human  perception  and 
comprehension.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Milton  did 
supplement  imaginatively  (in  the  current  sense)  the  out- 
line of  received  fact.  The  allegory  of  Satan's  meeting 
with  Sin  and  Death,  to  which  Dr.  Johnson  strenuously 
objected,  is  an  instance.  So,  the  incidental  personifica- 
tion of  Chaos  and  Night,  and  of  Rumour,  Chance,  Tu- 
mult, Confusion  and  Discord  is  a  survival  of  the  con- 
ventions of  mediaeval  fiction.  But  that  allegorical  elab- 
oration may  co-exist  with  a  firm  conviction  of  the  truth 
of  the  subject  matter  of  a  work  of  art  may  be  seen  in 
the  case  of  The  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

So  much  for  historical  criticism;  now,  what  is  to  be 
the  attitude  of  the  future  toward  the  greatest  epic  01  the 

16  P.  L.,  i,  732-748.     Cf.   also  P.   L.  i,   364-375. 


268  H.    W.    PECK 

English  language?  The  thought  of  Paradise  Lost,  at 
least  for  many,  '  can  never  again  be  accepted  as  a  liter- 
ally veracious  account  of  the  creation  and  the  fall.'  For 
this  reason  the  poem  can  probably  never  again  hold  quite 
the  place,  especially  in  the  popular  mind,  that  it  once 
had.  But  there  is  left,  for  scholars  at  least,  the  path 
of  historical  receptiveness,  and  the  appreciation  of  Para- 
dise Lost  at  its  maximum  will  be  the  reward  of  the 
scholar.  If  we  cannot  accept  Milton's  theology,  we 
should  be  willing,  in  the  words  of  Professor  Trent,  i  to 
realize  it  imaginatively.'  While  Milton  thought  he  was 
writing  about  a  real  universe,  we  can  accept  it  sympa- 
thetically as  a  conventional,  imaginary  one;  just  as  w,e 
accept  the  supernatural  in  Hamlet,  and  the  fairy  world 
of  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  and  The  Tempest. 

It  would  be  unfair,  however,  in  re-,emphasizing  the 
earlier  interpretation  of  Paradise  Lost,  to  underestimate 
the  contributions  of  recent  criticism.  Beyond  what 
seemed  to  Milton  the  reality,  material  or  immaterial,  of 
his  characters,  there  loomed  the  moral  and  spiritual 
meaning  which  they  embodied.  By  restricting  himself 
to  this  phase  of  criticism  Professor  Thompson  has  made 
an  important  contribution  to  our  understanding  of  Para- 
dise Lost.  My  objection  to  his  view  is  solely  to  his  as- 
sumption that  this  interpretation  practically  covers  the 
field,  and  that  it  embraces  Milton's  own  complete  view 
of  his  epic.  As  a  dramatic  poem  excels  an  allegory,  be- 
cause in  addition  to  its  abstract  or  moral  significance,  it 
contains  the  attraction  of  concrete  personalities  and  the 
complexity  of  real  events,  so  to  our  willing  aesthetic 
imagination  the  interest  in  the  events  and  personages  of 
Paradise  Lost  may  be  added  to  the  value  of  its  ideal  sig- 
nificance. l  But  though  the  machinery  of  spiritual  in- 


THE    THEME    OF   PARADISE    LOST  269 

terpretation  is  thrown  aside,  the  essence  of  it  survives 
as  a  permanent  gain.  The  value  of  human  souls  and  the 
significance  of  their  destiny  are  no  longer  operative  as 
abstract  principles  to  be  clothed  in  allegorical  fantasy, 
but  as  an  added  force  and  tenderness  in  the  penetrative 
imagination.7 17 

In  conclusion,  trying  to  give  the  broadest  possible  in- 
terpretation of  Paradise  Lost,  I  would  define  it  as  an 
artificial  epic,  embodying  structurally  a  theistic  and  Bib- 
lical view  of  the  universe;  but  including  also  a  superb 
portrayal  of  a  type  of  individualism;  supreme  in  its 
poetic  realization  of  the  ideal  of  pastoral  literature;  and 
exemplifying  an  idealistic  system  of  ethics,  which  em- 
phasizes the  doctrine  of  free  will.  In  addition  to  this,  it 
is  written  with  the  greatest  loftiness  and  sublimity  of 
style,  the  reflex  of  a  mind  of  unsurpassable  grandeur. 
That  the  poem  has,  like  Hamlet,,  such  a  breadth  of  sug- 
gestiveness,  and  elements  that  are  of  interest  to  such  a 
variety  of  types  of  mind,  is  an  evidence  of  its  enduring 
greatness. 

H.  W.  PECK. 


"Bosanquet,  History  of  Esthetic,  p.   161, 


XII.— SOME   FRIENDS   OF   CHAUCER 

Though  no  new  light  seems  forthcoming  on  the  nature 
of  the  accusation  made  by  Cecily  Chaumpaigne  against 
Chaucer,  the  names  of  the  witnesses  (to  her  release)  are 
not  without  interest.  Of  the  five  witnesses,  four  1  were 
prominent  men  in  their  day.  Of  the  fifth,  however,  noth- 
ing has  hitherto  been  known. 

Richard  Morel  was  a  grocer  2  whose  name  first  occurs 
in  a  list  of  "  certain  good  folk  "  of  London  in  1378-9,  from 
whom  the  mayor  and  aldermen  borrow  certain  sums  of 
money.3  In  1384  he  is  living  in  Aldgate  Ward,  and  is  a 
member  of  the  Common  Council.4  Two  weeks  later  (15 
Aug.)  he  is  one  of  the  "good  and  sufficient"  men  sum- 
moned to  the  King's  Council  at  Heading  to  hear  the  trial 
of  John  Northampton.5  In  the  following  year  (1385)  the 

1  Sir  William  de  Beauchamp,  chamberlain  of  the  King,  John  de 
Clanebowe  (Clanvowe),  a  Lollard,  and  William  de  Nevylle,  Knights, 
John  Philippott  grocer  and  afterwards  Mayor  of  London  (Life 
Records,  pp.  225  f.). 

a  Grocers  Company,  edited  Kingdon.  London,  1886,  2  vols.,  I, 
pp.  58,  68. 

8  Calendar  of  Letter-Books,  H,  edited  R.  R.  Sharpe.  London,  1907, 
p.  125.  Of  the  150  or  so  contributors  about  125  (including  Morel) 
gave  each  5  marks.  The  Mayor  gave  10  £,  and  the  remainder  4  and 
5  f  each.  The  City  had  been  charged  with  crimes  against  the  Lords 
of  the  realm  who  were  withdrawing  from  the  city,  thereby  damaging 
the  victuallers  and  hostelers.  As  the  city  had  no  funds,  and  the 
Mayor  wished  to  bring  about  reconciliation,  this  process  was 
resorted  to. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  238.  Others  from  Aldgate  Ward  were  William  Badby 
and  John  Halstede.  On  the  latter  see  infra. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  246.  A  number  of  the  prominent  people  of  London  were 
summoned  to  this  meeting,  including  some  of  Chaucer's  business 
friends.  Morel  appears  to  have  been  the  only  delegate  from  Aldgate. 

270 


SOME   FBIENDS   OF    CHAUCER  371 

mayor  "  caused  good  men  of  each  Ward  "  to  meet  in  the 
Council  chamber  to  take  steps  against  the  threatened  in- 
vasion of  the  French.  Among  those  summoned  from  Aid- 
gate  Ward  were  Kichard  Morel  and  John  Cobham  (fellow 
J.  P.  of  Chaucer).6  In  1386  Morel  and  William  Tonge 
(vintner  and  alderman  from  Aldgate  Ward  in  1381)  7  were 
collectors  of  murage  for  the  "  suburbs  without  '  la  pos- 
terne  '  and  for  '  la  posterne.'  "  8 

In  1388  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen  order  certain  Com- 
mons to  meet  "  at  the  Guildhall  on  Monday  next  at  8 
o'clock,  under  penalty  of  20  s.,  to  consult  on  certain  mat- 
ters touching  the  coming  Parliament  and  the  City  itself." 
Richard  Morel  was  among  those  from  Aldgate.9  In  1389 
he  is  one  of  the  sureties  for  the  minor  of  a  fellow  merchant 
(John  Halstede),10  also  of  Aldgate  Ward.11  Morel  was  a 
member  of  the  Grocers  Company,12  and  died  before 
1397.13 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  what  sort  of  man  Richard  Morel 
was.  He  was  a  grocer  of  modest  means,  presumably  a  re- 
tailer, yet  sufficiently  prominent  to  be  a  member  of  the 
Grocers  Company.  He  was  likewise  identified  with  the 
civic  affairs  of  London,  and  also  belonged  to  the  Brembre 


.,  p.  269. 

7Beaven,  The  Aldermen  of  the  City  of  London,  London,  1908, 
p.  10. 

8  Letter-Book  H,  p.  300.     The  surveyors  of  murage  were  Nicholas 
Exton   (cf,  Life  Records,  p.  268),  Henry  Vanner   (cf.  Life  Records, 
p.  284),  and  others. 

9  Hid.,  p.  333. 

10  Ibid.,  p.  345.    Morel  is  here  mentioned  as  a  merchant. 
ullid.,  p.  238. 

u  Grocers  Company,  etc.,  i,  pp.  58,  68.  His  name  occurs  in  the 
lists  of  members  who  were  clothed  in  livery  at  Christmas  in  1383 
and  1386. 

™Ilid.,  p.  76.  At  any  rate  his  name  does  not  appear  in  the  list 
of  members  for  that  year. 


272  ERNEST    P.    KUHL 

faction  which  was  particularly  favored  by  the  King.  Why 
he  should  appear  with  several  eminent  men  as  a  witness  for 
Chaucer  we  shall,  of  course,  never  know.  It  is  highly 
probable,  however,  that  he  was  a  personal  friend  of  the 
poet,  and,  as  a  resident  of  Aldgate  Ward,  may  well  have 
been  Chaucer's  neighbor. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Council  which  Morel  attended  in 
1384  there  "  were  read  divers  articles  by  many  wise  and 
discreet  men."  14  Among  the  numerous  important  busi- 
ness matters  disposed  of,  one  is  of  peculiar  interest  to  stu- 
dents of  Chaucer.  At  this  meeting  it  was  "  agreed  that 
Ealph  Strode  should  have  4  marks  annual  rent  .... 
for  loss  of  a  mansion  over  the  gate  oi  Aldrichesgate."  15 

That  the  philosophical  Kalph  Strode  of  Oxford,  insepar- 
ably linked  with  Troilus  and  Criseyde,  is  identical  with 
the  Ralph  Strode  of  London,  has  never  been  definitely 
known.  Israel  Gollancz 16  is  non-committal  when  he 
states :  "  It  is  noteworthy  that  soon  after  the  references  to 
Strode  cease  in  the  Merton  records,  a  '  Radulphus  Strode  ' 
obtained  a  reputation  as  a  lawyer  in  London.  He  was 
common  sergeant  of  the  city  between  1375  and  1385, 17  and 
was  granted  the  gate  of  Aldrich-gate,  i.  e.  Alder sgate." 
Gollancz  assumes  identity  when  he  says :  "  The  fact  that 
Chaucer  was  in  possession  of  Aldgate,  and  resided  there  at 
the  same  date  as  the  Common-serjeant  Strode  occupied 
Aldersgate,  suggests  the  possibility  of  friendly  intercourse 
between  the  two."  Coulton  18  sees  "  no  obvious  reason  to 

14  Letter-Book  E,  p.  240. 

™Il>id.,  p.  245.  Cf.  Introduction,  p.  xxxiii;  Die.  Natl.  Biog.  under 
Strode. 

18 Die.  Natl.  Biog.  under  Strode.  Cf.  Skeat,  Chaucer  (Complete 
Works),  n,  p.  505. 

"This  is  an  error.  Strode  was  appointed  in  1373  (Letter-Book  G, 
p.  317). 

18  Chaucer  and  his  England,  London,  1908,  p.  117. 


SOME   FBIENDS   OF    CHAUCEB 


273 


dissociate  the  city  lawyer  from  the  Oxford  scholar."  Now, 
by  means  of  an  entry,  dated  1374,  doubts  on  this  point  can 
probably  be  removed.  In  this  year  Ralph  Strode  of  Lon- 
don and  Master  John  Wycliffe  of  Leicestershire  were 
mainpernors  for  a  parson.19  That  two  men,  not  friends, 
should  go  bail  for  a  person  is  inconceivable.  We  do  know 
that  Wycliffe  was  associated  in  a  friendly  way  with  a 
Ealph  Strode  of  Oxford.20  We  also  know  that  a  Ralph 
Strode  of  Oxford  disappears  when  a  Ralph  Strode  of  Lon- 
don appears  upon  the  records.21  '  Whether  they  are  the 
same  we  have  no  absolute  proof,  but  it  is  pretty  difficult  to 
believe  that  there  should  be  two  men  with  the  same  name 
associated  with  the  great  reformer. 

The  earliest  reference  to  Ralph  Strode  of  London  is  in 
1373  (25  November),  when  he  was  elected  Common 
Pleader  22  of  the  city.23  In  1375  (27  October)  he  was 
granted  the  mansion  over  Aldersgate  including  the  gar- 
dens, to  hold  as  long  as  he  remained  in  office.24  (Chaucer 
had  received  Aldgate  and  its  gardens  for  life  the  year 
before).  4  November,  1377,  the  grant  of  the  mansion  was 
extended  for  life.25  In  1382,  during  Northampton's  may- 
oralty, we  find  a  curious  entry.  We  learn  that  Strode 

"Richard  Beneger  of  Donyngton,  Berkshire  (Cal.  Close  Rolls, 
1374-7,  p.  94). 

20  Die.   Natl.  Biog.  under   Strode.     In   fact  they  were  colleagues 
at  Merton. 

21  Ibid.    There  was  another  Ralph  Strode  of  London,  son  of  Robert 
Strode,  mercer.     (Letter-Book  H,  p.  310). 

22  Communis  narrator  or  Common  Serjeant. 

23  Letter-Book  G,  p.  317.     Cf.  Ibid.,  pp.  201,  217,  249;  Ibid.  H,  pp. 
12,  38,  40,  73,  89. 

24  Ibid.  H,  p.  15.     Cf.  Riley,  Memorials,  p.  388. 

35  Ibid.  H,  p.  83.  There  is  no  mention  of  his  tenancy  of  office. 
Appended  to  this  grant  is  an  account,  undated,  annulling  "  for  cer- 
tain reasons"  the  grant.  Sharpe  thinks  this  was  appended  in 
Northampton's  mayoralty  (Ibid.,  p.  245,  n.). 


274  ERNEST    P.    KUHL 

"  had  of  his  own  accord  relinquished  his  office,  and  thereby 
forfeited  his  title  to  the  mansion  (Aldrichgate)."  26  This 
is  cleared  up  when  we  learn  that  Strode  received  in  1384 
(during  Brembre's  mayoralty)  an  annuity  of  4  marks  for 
the  loss  of  the  gate  from  which  he  had  been  "speciously 
ousted"  during  Northampton's  mayoralty!  27  In  1386  (4 
May)  this  yearly  grant  was  extended  for  life.28  (Chaucer 
lost  Aldgate  in  the  following  October)".  23  May  (1386) 
Strode  was  appointed  Standing  Counsel  for  the  city  for 
seven  years.  For  his  services  he  is  to  receive  20  marks 
yearly  and  the  same  livery  as  the  Chamberlain  and  Com- 
mon Pleader.  He  is  not  to  plead  against  any  freeman  of 
the  city  except  in  cases  affecting  the  municipality  or  a  gild, 
"  or  the  orphans  of  the  City  or  himself.'7  29  In  1387,  the 
year  in  which  he  died,30  he  was  a  serjeant-at-arms  31 — 
otherwise  known  as  the  Common  Crier.32 

Strode,  therefore,  like  Morel,  belonged  to  the  Brembre 
faction  which  was  particularly  favored  by  the  King.  That 
he  continued  in  the  good  graces  of  this  faction  until  his 
death  is  likewise  clear.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  rea- 
sons for  Chaucer's  downfall  beginning  with  1386,  of  this 
much  we  are  certain:  that  in  dedicating  Troilus  and 

™Ilid.,  p.  208. 

"Ibid.,  p.  245.    This  rent  is  to  cease  if  he  be  restored  to  the 
mansion. 

28  Ibid.,  pp.  287  f.     This  writing  was  delivered  to  Strode  18  Oct., 
1386.    There   is   no   reference  to   "  in  case  he  be  restored  to  the 
mansion." 

29  Ibid.,  p.  288. 

80  Die.  Natl.  Biog.  under  Strode. 

81  Letter-Book  H,  p.  306.     It  is  not  known  when  he  was  elected. 

82  Calendar  of  Wills,  Court  of  Hustings,  London,  1889-1890,  2  Parts. 
Part  I,  p.  xv.     His  duties  were  "  to  give  notice  to  the  judges  of  the 
sittings  of  the  Court,  and  to  open  and  adjourn  the  same."     For  oath 
taken  see  Liber  Albus  I  (Rolls  Series,  Vol.  xn,  London,  1859),  pp. 
310  f. 


SOME   FBIENDS   OF    CHAUCER  275 

Criseyde  to  his  friend  Strode  he  was  conferring  an  honor 
upon  a  man  who  was  a  favorite  of  the  King's  party.33 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  Strode,  as  Standing  Counsel 
for  the  City  in  which  he  was  to  plead  for  the  orphans  and 
the  like,  had  had  abundant  experience  as  Common 
Pleader.34  Chaucer  students  will  recall  that  in  1375  the 
poet  was  made  guardian  of  the  heirs  of  Edmund  Staple- 
gate,35  of  Canterbury36  and  of  John  (de)  Solys,  of  Kent.37 
Is  it  not  possible  that  Chaucer  owed  his  appointment — 
indirectly,  to  be  sure — to  his  friend  Strode?  Brembre 
was  one  of  the  Collectors  of  Customs  in  this  year — a 
known  friend  of  Strode  and  the  King.  However  that  may 
be,  we  may  be  pretty  certain  that  the  two  men  often  dis- 
cussed matters  pertaining  to  guardianship.38 

In  connection  with  the  Staplegate  affair  can  be  men- 
tioned the  name  of  another  person  inseparably  linked  with 
Troilus  and  Criseyde — John  Gower.  In  1386 39  and 
1387  40  John  Gower  and  Edmund  Staplegate  were  among 
the  purveyors  of  victuals  at  Dover  Castle.  Macaulay41 

33  Nor  should  we  forget  that  Strode  seemed  to  have  been  on  friendly 
terms  with  Wy  cliff e  who  was  supported  by  John  of  Gaunt  (see  supra, 
and  Die.  Natl.  Biog.  under  Strode) . 

**Cal.  Letter-Book  H,  p.  288,  n.  For  Strode's  hearing  of  cases 
affecting  orphans,  see  ibid.,  pp.  14,  28,  33,  53,  72,  84,  169.  Hid.  G, 
pp.  201,  217. 

**Life  Records,  pp.  196  f.,  207  ff. 

™Cal.  Pat.  Rolls,  1350-4,  p.  306;  Cal.  Close  Rolls,  1364-8,  p.  373. 

37 Life  Records,  p.  198.  Of  Nonington,  Kent.  Ibid.,  p.  198,  n.; 
Cal.  Close  Rolls,  1374-7,  p.  164. 

88  We  must  not  forget,  either,  that  the  wives  had  common  bonds  of 
sympathy,  though  the  Chaucers  did  not  lose  Aldgate  until  several 
years  after  the  Strodes  forfeited  their  rights  in  Aldersgate.  See 
T.  and  C.  (Book  v,  w.  263-4)  for  advice  to  young  people. 

38  Cal.  Pat.  Rolls,  1385-9,  p.  208.  *°  Ibid.,  p.  266. 

41  The  Complete  Works  of  John  Gower  (Oxford,  1902),  4  Volf., 
Vol.  rv,  p.  xi.  Bylsyngton  manor,  in  possession  of  Staplegate,  was 
but  a  short  distance  from  Dover — in  the  marsh  near  Nev?  Romney 
(Cf.  Hasted,  Vol.  vm,  pp.  345  ff.,  361;  also  Index,  p.  viii). 


276 


ERNEST    P.    KUHL 


points  out  this  fact  but  does  not  say  it  is  the  poet  Gower. 
In  view  of  the  fact  that  Staplegate  is  his  associate,  the 
probabilities  are  that  it  is  Gower  the  poet.  Simon  Burley, 
the  Queen's  favorite,  was  constable  of  Dover  Castle  at  this 
time.42  Accepting  these  statements,  then,  we  are  forced  to 
the  conclusion  that  Troilus  and  Criseyde  was  dedicated  to 
two  friends  who  were  members  of  the  King's  faction.43 

EKNEST  P.  KUHL. 


42  Cal.  Pat.  Rolls,  1385-9,  pp.  175-178,  216,  225,  etc.  See  Index  for 
further  references. 

"The  Nation  (March  20,  1913)  contains  an  interesting  letter  by 
W.  W.  Comfort  on  the  "  Trials  of  a  Housekeeper  in  1400."  He  quotes 
extracts  from  Gower's  Mirour  de  I'omme,  in  which  the  poet  la- 
ments the  vices  of  society.  The  poet  attacks  among  others  the 
victualling  class.  This  poem,  however,  according  to  Macaulay  was 
probably  written  by  1381  (op.  cit.,  I,  p.  xlii). 


PUBLICATIONS 


OF  THE 


Modern  Language  Association  of  America 


1914 


VOL.  XXIX,  3  NEW  SERIES,  VOL.  XXII,  3 


XIII.— IS  SHAKESPEARE   AKISTOCK ATIC  ? l 

In  the  first  scene  of  Shakespeare's  Julius  Ccesar  the 
common  people  are  depicted  as  if  they  were  English  me- 
chanics. We  are  led  to  wonder  whether  the  contempt  ex- 
pressed in  this  play  for  the  vile-smelling  and  fickle- 
minded  Roman  mob  represents  Shakespeare's  own  attitude 
toward  his  humbler  fellow-citizens.  Indeed,  a  larger  ques- 
tion suggests  itself.  John  Hampden  was  already  of  age 
in  1616,  when  the  dramatist  died;  in  1649  Charles  I  was 
beheaded,  and  England  proclaimed  itself  a  commonwealth. 
Did  Shakespeare  appreciate  at  all  the  strength  of  the 
movement  which  sought  to  put  limitations  upon  tL  King 
and  to  increase  the  power  of  the  people  ?  Where  were  his 
sympathies  ? 

The  Puritans  were  interested  primarily  in  religious  re- 
forms. But  they  could  not  claim  for  parliament  the  right 
to  regulate  matters  of  religion  without  making  the  same 
demand  in  other  fields.  We  find  them  displaying  a  steacjf 

1 A  few  sentences  of  this  paper  have  previously  appeared  in  print. 

277 


278  ALBEET    H.    TOLMAIT 

ily  increasing  independence  of  mind  and  a  spirit  of  resist- 
ance to  the  extreme  claims  of  the  crown. 

Opposed  to  this  growing  assertiveness  of  the  parliament 
and  the  people  stood  the  sovereign  and  the  nobles,  the  rep- 
resentatives of  privilege  and  inherited  authority.  Certain 
facts  •undoubtedly  caused  Shakespeare  to  antagonize  the 
Puritans,  and  to  favor  the  crown  and  the  nobility. 

The  Puritans  were  intensely  opposed  to  the  stage,  wish- 
ing to  suppress  all  theatrical  performances.  The  London 
corporation,  the  governing  body  of  the  city,  was  Puritan 
in  its  sympathies,  and,  during  Shakespeare's  life-time, 
allowed  no  playhouse  to  exist  within  its  jurisdiction. 

We  cannot  wonder  that  the  Puritans  were  sharply  as- 
sailed by  the  dramatists  in  many  plays.  Shakespeare  wras 
usually  too  tolerant  to  join  in  this  attack ;  but  in  Twelfth 
Night  Maria  calls  Malvolio  "  a  kind  of  puritan,"  and  the 
comments  of  the  other  characters  upon  him,  when  they  pre- 
tend to  believe  that  he  is  possessed  of  the  devil  (III,  iv), 
demand  for  their  supreme  comic  effect  that  we  should  con- 
sider him  a  Puritan. 

Stratford,  the  home  of  Shakespeare's  youth  and  of  his 
last  years,  surrendered  to  Puritanism.  In  1568,  when  the 
poet's  father  was  bailiff  of  the  city,  the  corporation  enter- 
tained actors  at  Stratford;  but  in  1602  the  sentiment  had 
changed,  and  the  council  decreed  that  any  alderman  or 
citizen  giving  his  consent  to  the  representation  of  plays  in 
the  Guild-hall  should  be  fined  ten  shillings;  and  in  1612 
this  fine  was  increased  to  £10.  The  dramatist's  own  wife 
and  daughters  seem  to  have  become  Puritans.  The  epitaph 
upon  his  daughter  Susanna,  who  died  in  1649,  begins: 

Witty  above  her  sexe,  but  that's  not  all, 
Wise  to  Salvation  was  good  Mistress  Hall, 
Something  of  Shakespere  was  in  that,  but  this 
Wholy  of  him  with  whom  she's  now  in  blisse. 


IS     SHAKESPEAEE    ARISTOCRATIC  ?  279 

It  is  hard  to  realize  that  Shakespeare's  own  family 
probably  felt  somewhat  ashamed  of  the  career  of  the 
world's  greatest  poet. 

Queen  Elizabeth,  James  I,  and  the  English  nobles  were 
as  friendly  to  the  stage  as  the  Puritans  were  hostile.  A 
famous  statute  of  1572  made  it  necessary  for  a  company 
of  players  to  obtain  a  license  from  some  member  of  the 
higher  nobility,  permitting  them  to  pursue  their  calling 
as  his  servants;  otherwise  they  were  to  be  considered 
rogues  and  vagabonds. 

James  I  arrived  in  London  from  Scotland  on  May  7, 
1603.  Ten  days  later  he  granted  to  the  company  of  which 
Shakespeare  was  a  member  a  patent  constituting  them  his 
servants.  In  the  list  of  nine  "  servants  "  mentioned  by 
name,  Shakespeare  stands  second.  The  document  is  ad- 
dressed "  To  all  Justices,  Maiors,  Sheriffs,  Constables, 
Hedboroughes,  and  other  our  officers  and  loving  subjects." 
The  favored  actors  are  permitted  to  play  anywhere  in 
England. 

The  patent  concludes  with  the  following  remarkable 
expression  of  the  sovereign's  personal  favor :  "  Willing 
and  commanding  you,  and  every  of  you,  as  you  tender  our 
pleasure,  not  only  to  permitt  and  suffer  them  heerin, 
without  any  your  letts,  hindrances  or  molestacions  ... 
but  also  to  be  ayding  and  assisting  to  them  yf  any  wrong 
be  to  them  offered.  And  to  allowe  them  such  former 
Courtesies,  as  bathe  been  given  to  men  of  their  place  and 
qualitie:  And  also  what  further  favor  you  shall  show  to 
these  our  servants  for  our  sake,  we  shall  take  kindely  at 
your  hands.  In  witness  wherof,  etc."  2 

Moreover,  Shakespeare  received  the  friendship  and  t^e 

2V.  C.  Gildersleeve,  Government  Regulation  of  the  Elizabethan 
Drama,  Columbia  Univ.  Press,  1908,  p.  37. 


280  ALBERT    H.    TOLMAN 

patronage  of  great  nobles.  He  dedicated  two  poems,  Ve- 
nus and  Adonis  (1593)  and  The  Rape  of  Lucrece  (1594), 
to  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  the  second  in  terms  of  warm 
affection.  In  the  chorus  to  Act  V  of  Henry  V  he  gives 
glowing  praise  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  the  close  friend  of 
Southampton,  and  presumably  his  own  friend.  A  record 
brought  to  light  a  few  years  ago  tells  of  a  fee  paid  "  to 
Mr.  Shakespeare  "  and  "  to  Eichard  Burbadge  "  by  the 
Earl  of  Rutland  for  an  interesting  personal  service.3  The 
Folio  edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  appearing  seven 
years  after  his  death,  was  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke and  the  Earl  of  Montgomery,  because  they  had 
shown  to  the  plays  and  to  the  author  "  so  much  favour." 

Two  significant  facts  may  be  here  put  side  by  side.  In 
1593  three  prominent  Puritans  were  hanged  because  of 
their  obnoxious  beliefs.  At  Christmas,  1594,  William 
Shakespeare  and  others  played  two  comedies  before  Queen 
Elizabeth. 

Whether  the  poet  was  influenced  by  the  considerations 
that  have  been  indicated  or  not,  many  students  believe 
that  he  favored  the  monarchy  and  the  nobility,  and  that 
he  was  opposed  to  increasing  the  power  of  the  people. 
Walt  Whitman,  for  example,  though  showing  in  his  utter- 
ances on  Shakespeare  a  genuine  appreciation  of  the  poet's 
artistic  greatness,  has  a  firm  belief  in  the  anti-democratic 
spirit  of  his  dramas.  He  says : 

The  great  poems,  Shakespeare  included,  are  poisonous  to  the  idea 
of  the  pride  and  dignity  of  the  common  people,  the  life-blood  of 
democracy. 

Shakespeare  .  .  .  seems  to  me  of  astral  genius,  first-class,  entirely 
fit  for  feudalism  .  .  .  there  is  much  in  him  ever  offensive  to  dem- 
ocracy. He  is  not  only  the  tally  of  feudalism,  but  I  should  say 

8  See  preface  to  the  revised  edition  of  Sir  Sidney  Lee's  A  Life  of 
William  Shakespeare,  Macmillan,  1909,  pp.  xviff. 


IS    SHAKESPEARE    ARISTOCRATIC  ?  281 

Shakespeare  is  incarnated,  uncompromising  feudalism,  in  literature 
.  .  .  the  democratic  requirements  .  .  .  are  not  only  not  fulfilled  in 
the  Shakespearean  productions,  but  are  insulted  on  every  page. 

Shakespeare  .  .  .  has  been  called  monarchical  or  aristocratic 
(which  he  certainly  is).4 

The  publication  in  1906  of  the  late  Mr.  Ernest  Cros- 
by's article  on  Shakespeare's  Attitude  toward  the  Working 
Classes?  called  renewed  attention  to  the  subject  before  us. 
The  paper  deserves  careful  study;  but  the  writer  is  not 
always  fair,  even  disregarding  at  times  the  larger  purport 
of  passages  which  he  cites  because  they  contain  contempt- 
uous words  directed  against  laborers. 

If  we  take  each  idea  on  its  good  side,  we  may  fairly  say 
that  the  words  aristocracy  and  democracy  embody  great 
complementary  truths.  The  important  question  is:  Does 
the  dramatist  give  adequate  expression  to  the  verity  con- 
tained in  each  of  these  contrasted  conceptions  ? 


Let  us  look  at  the  features  of  Shakespeare's  work  and 
the  particular  plays  which  have  been  considered  distinctly 
anti-democratic  in  their  spirit. 

I  quote  from  Troilus  and  Cressida  a  portion  of  the 
speech  in  which  Ulysses  explains  why  the  Greeks  have  not 
yet  succeeded  in  taking  Troy : 

Troy,  yet  upon  his  basis,  had  been  down, 

And  the  great  Hector's  sword  had  lack'd  a  master, 

But  for  these  instances. 

The  specialty  of  rule  hath  been  neglected: 

And  look,  how  many  Grecian  tents  do  stand 

Hollow  upon  this  plain,  so  many  hollow  factions. 

0 

*  Complete  Works  of  Walt  Whitmali,  Putnam's,  1902,   10  Vols.: 
Vol.    v,    pp.    90,    275-6     ("Collect");    Vol.    vi,    137     ("November 
Boughs"). 
8  In  the  vol.  Tolstoy  on  Shakespeare,  Funk  and  Wagnalls  Co.,  1906. 


282  ALBERT    H.    TOLMAN 

0,  when  degree  is  shaked, 

Which  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
Then  enterprise  is  sick!     How  could  communities, 
Degrees  in  schools  and  brotherhoods  in  cities, 
Peaceful  commerce  from  dividable  shores, 
The  primogenitive  and  due  of  birth, 
Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels, 
But  by  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place? 
Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 

And,  hark,  what  discord  follows! 

Great  Agamemnon, 

This  chaos,  when  degree  is  suffocate, 

Follows  the  choking. 

And  this  neglection  of  degree  it  is 

That  by  a  pace  goes  backward,  with  a  purpose 

It  hath  to  climb.     The  general's  disdain'd 

By  him  one  step  below,  he  by  the  next, 

That  next  by  him  beneath;  so  every  step, 

Exampled  by  the  first  pace  that  is  sick 

Of  his  superior,  grows  to  an  envious  fever 

Of  pale  and  bloodless  emulation: 

And  'tis  this  fever  that  keeps  Troy  on  foot, 

Not  her  own  sinews. 

I,  iii,  75-136. 

We  have  in  the  entire  speech  a  very  elaborate  expres- 
sion of  what  Whitman  would  call  Shakespeare's  feudal- 
mindedness.  What  right  have  we  to  accept  these  senti- 
ments as  Shakespeare's  own? 

In  some  of  the  plays  there  are  characters  who  comment 
upon  the  passing  action  and  upon  larger  questions  of  life 
and  duty  in  a  peculiarly  tolerant,  fair-minded  way.  These 
semi-detached  persons  may  be  called  chorus-characters, 
because  their  comments  seem,  in  the  intention  of  the 
author,  to  reflect  ideal  truth,  somewhat  as  do  the  utter- 
ances of  the  chorus  in  the  Greek  tragedies.  Each  chorus- 
character,  though  standing  within  the  frame-work  of  the 
play,  is  an  impartial  spectator  of  the  action,  and  an  ideal 
interpreter  of  the  play  in  its  larger  aspects.  Such  char- 
acters are,  for  example,  the  Duke  in  Measure  for  Measure, 


IS     SHAKESPEARE    AEISTOCEATIC  ? 


283 


Theseus  in  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  Prospero  in 
The  Tempest,  and  Ulysses  in  Troilus  and  Cressida. 
Ulysses,  wisest  of  the  Greeks,  is  properly  endowed  by 
Shakespeare  with  the  utmost  sagacity.  Herford  calls  him 
"  the  mouthpiece  of  Shakespeare's  ripest  political  wis- 
dom.7' It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  these  utterances 
concerning  "  degree  "  may  fairly  be  accepted  as  Shake- 
speare's own. 

Parts  I  and  II  of  Henry  VI  have  also  been  taken  to 
show  Shakespeare's  aristocratic  sympathies.  In  Part  I 
the  character  of  Joan  of  Arc  is  brutally  misrepresented. 
This  fact  has  been  attributed  to  Shakespeare's  aristo- 
cratic spirit,  to  his  dislike  that  a  woman  of  humble  birth 
should  interfere  in  affairs  of  State.  But  his  extravagant 
English  partisanship  is  more  likely  to  be  the  main  reason 
for  his  unchivalrous  treatment  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans. 

In  Part  II,  Henry  VI,  Shakespeare  gives  a  false  im- 
pression of  the  rebellion  of  1450,  headed  by  Jack  Cade. 
He  introduces  into  the  story  many  features  borrowed 
from  the  villeins'  revolt  of  1381.  Professor  Gardiner 
tells  us  that  the  rebellion  under  Cade  was  a  justifiable 
revolt  against  intolerable  abuses.  Cade  asked  "  that  the 
burdens  of  the  people  should  be  diminished,  the  Crown 
estates  recovered,  and  the  Duke  of  York  recalled  from 
Ireland  to  take  the  place  of  the  present  councillors, 
.  .  .  that  is  to  say,  that  a  ruler  who  could  govern  should 
be  substituted  for  one  who  could  not,  and  in  wThose  name 
the  great  families  plundered  England."6  We  learn  nothing 
about  this  in  the  play.  Mr.  C.  W.  Thomas  declares  that 
this  play  presents  Cade's  rebellion  "  with  a  mendacity,  so 
far  as  I  know,  unsurpassed  in  literature."  7 

0 

6  A  Student's  History  of  England,  Longmans,  1892,  pp.  322-3. 

7  Edition  of  //  Henry  VI  in  The  Bankside  Shakespeare,  Vol.  xix, 
N.  Y.,  1892,  Intro,  p.  xi. 


284  ALBEET    H.    TOLMAIT 

Cade  claims  to  be  a  Mortimer  and  rightful  heir  to  the 
throne  of  England.  Like  present-day  reformers,  he  is 
opposed  to  the  high  cost  of  living. 

Cade.  Be  brave,  then;  for  your  captain  is  brave,  and  vows  refor- 
mation. There  shall  be  in  England  seven  halfpenny  loaves  sold  for 
a  penny:  the  three-hooped  pot  shall  have  ten  hoops;  and  I  will  make 
it  felony  to  drink  small  beer:  all  the  realm  shall  be  in  common;  and 
in  Cheapside  shall  my  palfry  go  to  grass:  and  when  I  am  king,  as 
king  I  will  be, — 

All.     God  save  your  majesty! 

Cade.  I  thank  you,  good  people:  there  shall  be  no  money;  all 
shall  eat  and  drink  on  my  score;  and  I  will  apparel  them  all  in  one 
livery,  that  they  may  agree  like  brothers  and  worship  me  their  lord. 

Dick.     The  first  thing  we  do,  let's  kill  all  the  lawyers. 

Cade.  Nay,  that  I  mean  to  do.  Is  not  this  a  lamentable  thing, 
that  of  the  skin  of  an  innocent  lamb  should  be  made  parchment? 
that  parchment,  being  scribbled  o'er,  should  undo  a  man?  Some  say 
the  bee  stings:  but  I  say,  'tis  the  bee's  wax;  for  I  did  but  seal  once 
to  a  thing,  and  I  was  never  mine  own  man  since  (IV,  ii,  69-91). 

The  clerk  of  Chatham  is  then  brought  before  Cade, 
charged  with  being  able  to  read,  write,  and  cast  accounts, 
and  with  setting  copies  for  boys.  He  is  pronounced  guilty, 
and  is  led  off  to  be  hanged. 

Says  Walter  Bagehot:  u  An  audience  which  ~bona  fide 
entered  into  the  merit  of  this  scene  would  never  believe 
in  everybody's  suffrage.  They  would  know  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  nonsense;  and  when  a  man  has  once 
attained  to  that  deep  conception,  you  may  be  sure  of  him 
ever  after."  8 

In  a  later  scene,  Cade  solemnly  commands  "  that,  of 
the  city's  cost,  the  [little]  conduit  run  nothing  but  claret 
wine  this  first  year  of  our  reign"  (IV,  vi,  3-5). 

Thus  Shakespeare  ignores  the  bitter  grievances  which 
caused  this  uprising,  and  portrays  with  evident  satisfac- 

8  The  Works  of  Walter  Bagehot,  Hartford,  Conn.,  1889,  Vol.  I.,  pp. 
288-9  (Essay  on  Shakespeare). 


IS     SHAKESPEARE    ASISTOCKATIC  ?  285 

tion  and  drastic  power  the  absurdities  which  he  attributes 
to  this  English  mob  and  their  leader.  Naturally  this 
play  has  been  looked  upon  as  a  plain  manifestation  of 
antagonism  to  the  people. 

Julius  Ccesar  and  Coriolanus  seem  to  show  with  especial 
clearness  Shakespeare's  hostility  to  the  common  folk. 
Professor  MacCallum,  in  his  work  on  Shakespeare's 
Roman  Plays,  brings  out  clearly  the  indifference  of  the 
poet  "  to  questions  of  constitutional  theory,  and  his 
inability  to  understand  the  ideals  of  an  antique  self-gov- 
erning commonwealth  controlled  by  all  its  free  members 
as  a  body." 9  This  mental  blindness  of  the  myriad- 
minded  Shakespeare  is  manifest  in  these  two  plays. 

The  poet  is  not  following  Plutarch,  his  source,  when 
he  represents  the  Roman  populace  as  entirely  without 
intuitive  political  capacity,  as  completely  fickle,  ignorant, 
cowardly,  and  subject  to  demagogues.  Plutarch's  ac- 
count of  the  wisdom  and  steadfastness  of  the  common  peo- 
ple of  Rome  in  securing  from  the  patricians  the  appoint- 
ment of  tribunes  is  ignored  in  Coriolanus,  apparently  be- 
cause the  author  is  "  unable  to  conceive  a  popular  up- 
rising in  any  other  terms  than  the  outbreak  of  a  mob."  10 
In  the  play,  Caius  Marcius  tells  the  plebeians : 

He  that  depends 

Upon  your  favours  swims  with  fins  of  lead, 
And  hews  down  oaks  with  rushes.    Hang  ye!  Trust  ye? 
With  every  minute  you  do  change  in  mind  (I,  i,  183-86). 

It  seems  clear  that  the  evil  smell  of  the  very  crowds 
which  thronged  his  theatre  and  helped  to  make  him  rich 
was  most  distasteful  to  the  sensitive  player-poet.  Casca's 
contemptuous  description  of  the  rabble  who  "  threw  *ip 

•Macmillan,  1910,  p.  518. 
"MacCallum,  p.  525. 


286  ALBERT    H.    TOLMAN 

their  sweaty  night-caps,  and  uttered  such  a  deal  of  stink- 
ing breath  "  recurs  many  times  in  different  forms  in  the 
dramas  in  which  the  common  herd  plays  a  part. 

Hazlitt,  the  good  democrat,  dislikes  intensely  the  play 
of  Coriolanus ;  he  is  even  led  to  attack  the  poetic  imagina- 
tion itself  as  a  "  monopolizing,  aristocratical  faculty  "  of 
the  mind.  He  says : 

This  is  the  logic  of  the  imagination  and  the  passions;  which  seek 
to  aggrandize  what  excites  admiration  and  to  heap  contempt  on 
misery,  to  raise  power  into  tyranny,  and  to  make  tyranny  absolute; 
to  thrust  down  that  which  is  low  still  lower,  and  to  make  wretches 
desperate:  to  exalt  magistrates  into  kings,  kings  into  gods;  to 
degrade  subjects  to  the  rank  of  slaves,  and  slaves  to  the  condition 
of  brutes.11 

Other  writers  also  have  felt  the  whole  tone  of  this  dra- 
ma to  be  hostile  to. the  people.  Brandes,  in  his  venture- 
some way,  holds  that  the  poet  was  alluding  to  the  strained 
relations  existing  between  King  James  and  his  Parlia- 
ment; and  believes  that  Shakespeare  regarded  the  popu- 
lace both  of  Home  and  of  England  "  wholly  as  mob,  and 
looked  upon  their  struggle  for  freedom  as  mutiny,  pure 
and  simple."  He  declares  that  "  we  must  actually  put  on 
blinders  not  to  see  on  which  side  Shakespeare's  sympa- 
thies lie  "  in  this  play.12 

I  long  felt  a  dissatisfaction  with  the  play  of  Julius 
Ccesar  which  I  could  not  explain.    I  think  that  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  determining  the  cause.     I  believe  it  to  be  a 
defect  in  this  play  that  nowhere  in  the  last  two  Acts  does 
Brutus  express  any  sorrow  because  the  republic  is  hope- 
lessly overthrown.    At  the  beginning  of  the  drama  Brutus 

II  Characters  of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  Bohn  Library,  p.  53. 

13  William  Shakespeare,  one  vol.  ed.,  Macmillan,  1899,  pp.  534,  536, 
542,  etc. 


IS     SHAKESPEARE    ARISTOCRATIC  ?  287 

is  intensely  afraid  that  a  monarchy  will  be  established  in 
Eome.     This  is  why  he  suspects  Caesar. 

I  do  fear,  the  people 
Choose  Caesar  for  their  king  (I,  ii,  79-80). 

The  memory  of  the  elder  Brutus,  who  expelled  the  Tar- 
quins,  calls  loudly  upon  him  to  defend  the  Roman  republic 
from  danger. 

Why  is  it,  at  the  close  of  the  play,  that  Brutus  has  for- 
gotten all  about  the  republic ;  that  he  is  nowhere  concerned 
for  the  cause  to  which  he  was  formerly  devoted,  and  for 
the  sake  of  which  he  killed  his  dear  friend  Csesar  ?  The 
fickleness  of  the  people  may  well  have  convinced  him  that 
a  republic  is  impossible  in  Rome,  but  there  should  at 
least  be  some  reference  to  his  lost  hopes.  The  conclusion 
of  the  drama  is  in  this  respect  a  plain  non  sequitur.  It 
would  be  a  far  more  powerful  catastrophe  if  we  could  see 
Brutus  meet  death  for  a  principle.  As  the  play  stands,  he 
seems  to  be  interested  solely  in  the  question  how  he  may 
die  in  good  form.  Why  is  this  weakness  allowed  to  mar 
the  close  of  the  tragedy?  My  own  belief  is  that  Shake- 
speare, when  he  was  writing  this  play,  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  idea  of  a  republic,  that  he  was  personally  antag- 
onistic to  the  democratic  spirit,  and  that  at  this  point,  per- 
haps unconsciously,  the  needs  of  the  tragedy  were  dis- 
regarded to  suit  his  individual  opinions,  his  personal 
prejudices. 

Mr.  Crosby  feels  that  the  following  lines  from  The 
Tempest  are  an  insult  to  the  laboring  classes : 

Prospero.    We'll  visit  Caliban  my   slave,  who  never 

Yields  us  kind  answer. 
Miranda.  'Tis  a  villain,  sir, 

I  do  not  love  to  look  on. 


288 


ALBERT    H.    TOLMAN" 


Prospero.  But,   as  'tis, 

We  cannot  miss  Mm:  he  does  make  our  fire, 
Fetch  in  our  wood,  and  serves  in  offices 
That  profit  us    (I,  ii,  308-13). 

In  two  of  his  last  comedies  Shakespeare  seems  to  assert 
the  almost  magical  power  of  royal  blood  to  ennoble  its 
possessor.  In  Cymbeline  two  young  princes,  ignorant  of 
their  kingly  origin,  have  lived  from  infancy  in  a  moun- 
tain cave  with  the  banished  courtier  Belarius.  This 
foster-father  has  reared  them  carefully,  but  the  only  ex- 
planation which  he  offers  for  their  princely  bearing  is  the 
fact  of  their  royal  blood :  "  How  hard  it  is  to  hide  the 
sparks  of  nature !  " 

This  same  conception  is  carried  to  an  impossible  ex- 
treme in  The  Winter's  Tale.  Perdita,  a  king's  daughter, 
is  brought  up  from  infancy  by  a  shepherd  and  his  wife, 
and  supposes  herself  to  be  their  child.  She  grows  up  with- 
out any  means  of  education,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  but 
seems  to  be  educated,  nevertheless.  Not  only  has  she  ex- 
quisite refinement,  but  in  charming  poetry  she  alludes  to 
the  stories  of  classical  mythology  with  complete  knowledge 
and  appreciation.  The  mere  possession  of  royal  blood  ex- 
plains it  all.  'Not  only  does  blood  tell  in  her  case,  but  it 
tells  her  all  that  other  people  learn  by  hard  study.  Polix- 
enes,  the  disguised  king  of  Bohemia,  says,  as  he  watches 
her: 

This  is  the  prettiest  low-born  lass  that  ever 
Ran  on  the  green-sward:  nothing  she  does  or  seems 
But  smacks  of  something  greater  than  herself, 
Too  noble  for  this  place  (IV,  iv,  156-59). 

Is  there  not  something  of  courtier-like  servility  in  this 
extreme  glorification  of  kingly  blood  ? 

The  fact  that  Magna  Charta  is  not  referred  to  in  any 
way  in  Shakespeare's  King  John  seems  at  first  sight  to 


IS     SHAKESPEAKE    AKISTOCEATIC  ?  289 

prove  conclusively  that  he  was  hostile  to  democratic  ideas. 
But  Shakespeare's  drama  follows  very  closely  the  order 
of  the  incidents  in  his  source,  the  old  play  called  The 
Troublesome  Reign  of  King  John,  printed  in  1591.  Tht 
Troublesome  Reign  knows  nothing  of  Magna  Charta,  and 
Shakespeare  does  not  appear  to  have  made  an  independent 
study  of  the  history  of  that  period. 

II 

It  is  now  time  to  turn  to  the  other  side,  to  examine  the 
elements  in  Shakespeare's  work  and  the  individual  plays 
which  show  a  sympathy  for  the  plain  people,  an  apprecia- 
tion of  the  essential  worth  of  lowly  men  and  women.  And 
first  let  us  note  that  some  of  the  plays  that  have  already 
been  cited  are  not  so  distinctly  and  strongly  anti-demo- 
cratic in  their  tendency  as  they  have  sometimes  been  sup- 
posed to  be. 

In  Renan's  philosophical  drama  Caliban,  written  as  a 
sequel  to  The  Tempest,  Shakespeare's  slave-monster  is 
made  into  a  personification  of  ignorant  democracy,  of  "  the 
eternal  plebeian."  But  Renan,  writing  long  after  the 
French  Revolution,  is  developing  an  interesting  conception 
of  his  own,  not  interpreting  Shakespeare.  The  Tempest 
was  almost  certainly  written  in  1611.  The  dramatist 
probably  had  especially  in  mind  the  experiences  of  the 
English  settlers  in  the  new  colony  of  Virginia.  No  politi- 
cal interpretation  of  the  relation  of  Caliban  to  Prosper o 
is  so  likely  to  be  true  as  that  which  makes  Caliban  repre- 
sent the  savage  serving  the  settler.  Professor  R.  G.  Moul- 
ton  has  worked  this  out  in  some  detail.13  I  do  not  believe 

0 

w  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist,  3d  ed.,  Clarendon  Press,  1893, 
pp.  250-1. 


290  ALBEET    H.    TOLMAN 

that  Caliban  was  intended  by  Shakespeare  to  represent 
the  ignorant  populace  of  England. 

So  far  as  the  play  of  Coriolanus  contains  a  wise,  impar- 
tial chorus-character,  whose  opinions  we  may  accept  as 
those  of  the  poet  himself,  it  is  the  humorous  old  patrician 
Menenius  Agrippa,  a  role  which  is  mainly  the  creation  of 
Shakespeare.  Menenius  reasons  in  a  kindly  way  with  the 
populace,  and  wins  them  by  the  force  and  fairness  of  his 
words.  He  is  the  character  in  the  play  with  whom  we  can 
most  fully  sympathize.  It  is  certainly  the  tribunes 
Brutus  and  Sicinius  whom  the  poet  scorns  most  of  all. 
They  are  artful  demagogues  of  the  most  unworthy  type. 
But  we  cannot  look  upon  the  central  figure  of  the  play  as 
entirely  admirable ;  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  Shake- 
speare's full  sympathy  is  given  to  the  proud,  intractable, 
self -destroyed  Coriolanus. 

In  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  the  wives  of  two  plain 
citizens  have  our  entire  sympathy  as  against  the  knight 
who  would  seduce  them.  This  play  certainly  shows  no 
aristocratic  bias.  We  have  "  ordinary  human  beings  pok- 
ing fun  at  a  knight,"  as  Mr.  Appleton  Morgan  puts  it.14 

The  play  of  Henry  V  displays  a  democratic  spirit,  even 
though  monarchy  is  the  accepted  form  of  government. 
This  drama  is  the  climax  of  the  historical  plays ;  and  the 
youthful  Henry  Fifth  has  been  considered  to  be  "  Shake- 
speare's ideal  of  active,  practical,  heroic  manhood." 

Throughout  this  play,  Shakespeare  feels  that  his  ideal 
king  must  show  himself  the  wise  leader  of  a  united, 
capable  people.  He  sees  that  a  thoughtful,  intelligently 
cooperating  soldiery  is  necessary  in  order  to  reflect  the 
truest  honor  upon  their  king  and  general. 

14  Intro,  to  ed.  of  Merry  Wives  in  The  Bankside  Shakespeare,  Vol. 
I,  N.  Y.,  1888,  p.  1. 


IS    SHAKESPEARE    ARISTOCRATIC?  291 

In  the  latter  portion  of  Act  III,  Scene  ii,  Shakespeare 
introduces  an  English  captain,  a  Welsh  captain,  a  Scotch, 
and  an  Irish,  all  loyal  and  efficient  fellow-soldiers.  This 
passage  seems  to  be  Shakespeare's  prophecy  of  a  unified 
Great  Britain,  a  prophecy  which  is  not  yet  wholly 
fulfilled. 

Act  IV,  Scene  i,  is  soundly  democratic  in  spirit.  On 
the  night  before  Agincourt,  King  Henry  goes  in  disguise 
among  the  common  soldiers,  discussing  the  situation  with 
them,  learning  their  sentiments,  and  inspiring  them  with 
bravery.  The  play  emphasizes  the  courage  of  the  plain 
soldiers.  The  king  grieves  because  his  men  are  enfeebled 
with  sickness ;  but,  in  spite  of  their  "  lank-lean  cheeks 
and  war-worn  coats,"  they  patiently  and  bravely  await  the 
coming  battle. 

The  great  address  of  King  Henry  to  his  army  in  Act  IV, 
Scene  iii,  is  filled  with  a  spirit  of  genuine  brotherhood. 
He  is  above  his  soldiers  in  place,  but  one  with  them  in 
spirit. 

He  that  outlives  this  day,  and  comes  safe  home, 
Will  stand  a  tip-toe  when  this  day  is  named, 
And  rouse  him  at  the  name  of  Crispian. 
He  that  shall  live  this  day,  and  see  old  age, 
Will  yearly  on  the  vigil  feast  his  neighbours, 
And  say  "To-morrow  is  Saint  Crispian": 
Then  will  he  strip  his  sleeve  and  show  his  scars, 
And  say  "These  wounds  I  had  on  Crispin's  day." 

then  shall  our  names, 

Familiar  in  his  mouth  as  household  words, 
Harry  the  king,  Bedford  and  Exeter, 
Warwick  and  Talbot,  Salisbury  and  Gloucester, 
Be  in  their  flowing  cups  freshly  remember'd. 
This  story  shall  the  good  man  teach  his  son; 
And  Crispin  Crispian  shall  ne'er  go  by, 
From  this  day  to  the  ending  of  the  world, 
But  we  in  it  shall  be  remembered; 
We  few,  we  happy  few,  we  band  of  brothers; 


292  ALBEET    H.    TOLMAN 

For  he  to-day  that  sheds  his  blood  with  me 

Shall  be  my  brother;  be  he  ne'er  so  vile, 

This  day  shall  gentle  his  condition: 

And  gentlemen  in  England  now  a-bed 

Shall  think  themselves  accurs'd  they  were  not  here, 

And  hold  their  manhoods  cheap  whiles  any  speaks 

That  fought  with  us  upon  Saint  Crispin's  day. 

(IV,  iii,  41-67.) 

Probably  the  finest  motto  that  aristocracy  ever  pro- 
duced is  noblesse  oblige,  rank  imposes  obligation.  Demo- 
cracy would  reverse  this,  and  insist  that  the  performance 
of  duty  is  the  right  way  of  winning  rank.  Our  democratic 
king  almost  reaches  this  position  in  the  words  just  quoted. 

Mr.  Crosby's  explanation  that  Shakespeare  here  "  puts 
flattering  words  into  the  mouth  of  Henry  V,"  is  mani- 
festly unfair.  Harry's  words  are  genuine,  sincere.  For- 
tunately these  words  are  read  a  hundred  times  oftener 
than  the  labored  plea  for  "  degree/'  rank,  in  the  enig- 
matic and  unpleasing  Troilus  and  Cressida. 

In  All's  Well  Tliat  Ends  "Well  the  lowly-born  Helena 
loves  the  nobly-born  Bertram.  The  King  of  France,  on 
condition  that  she  shall  cure  him  of  a  malignant  disease, 
has  promised  to  give  to  Helena  the  husband  that  she  shall 
choose.  She  is  the  daughter  of  a  famous  physician  now 
dead,  knows  some  of  her  father's  remedies,  and  succeeds 
in  curing  the  King.  She  then  chooses  Bertram  for  her 
husband;  but  he  is  unwilling  to  accept  her.  Bertram's 
mother,  the  charming  old  countess  of  Rousillon,  has 
brought  up  Helena,  and  loves  and  favors  her  foster- 
daughter. 

In  Shakespeare's  source,  the  English  translation  of  one 
of  Boccaccio's  stories,  the  king  is  l  very  loath '  to  grant 
Bertram  to  Helena;  but  the  dramatist  remakes  the  story 
completely  at  this  point.  In  the  play  the  King  gladly 
favors  Helen's  wish,  and  makes  light  of  noble  birth  in 


IS     SHAKESPEARE     ARISTOCEATIC  ?  293 

comparison  with  essential  worth.  He  says  to  the  unwilling 
Bertram : 

'Tis  only  title  thou  disdain'st  in  her,  the  which 

I  can  build  up.    Strange  is  it  that  our  bloods, 

Of  colour,  weight,  and  heat,  pour'd  all  together, 

Would  quite  confound  distinction,  yet  stand  off 

In  differences  so  mighty.'    If  she  be 

All  that  is  virtuous,  save  what  thou  dislikest, 

A  poor  physician's  daughter,  thou  dislikest 

Of  virtue  for  the  name:  but  do  not  so: 

From  lowest  place  when  virtuous  things  proceed, 

The  place  is  dignified  by  the  doer's  deed: 

The  property  by  what  it  is  should  go, 
Not  by  the  title.    She  is  young,  wise,  fair ; 
In  these  to  nature  she's  immediate  heir, 

And  these  breed  honour: 

honours    thrive, 

When  rather  from  our  acts  we  them  derive 

Than  our  foregoers: 

WThat  should  be  said? 

If  thou  canst  like  this  creature  as  a  maid, 

I  can  create  the  rest:  virtue  and  she 

Is  her  own  dower;  honour  and  wealth  from  me. 

(II,  iii,  124-51.) 

These  democratic  words  make  as  little  of  social  dis- 
tinctions founded  upon  blood  alone  as  do  the  lines  of 
Goldsmith : 

Princes  and  lords  may  flourish  or  may  fade, — 
A  breath  can  make  them,  as  a  breath  has  made. 

Walter  Bagehot  believes  that  a  peculiar  tenet  of  Shake- 
speare's political  creed  "  is  a  disbelief  in  the  middle 
classes.  We  fear/'  says  Bagehot,  that  "  he  had  no  opinion 
of  traders  .  .  .  when  a  (  citizen '  is  mentioned,  he  gener- 
ally does  or  says  something  absurd."  But  these  state- 
ments need  much  qualification.  In  Richard  III,  in  the 
next  scene  after  we  learn  of  the  death  of  Edward  IV,  three 


294 


ALBEET    II.    TOLMAN 


citizens  of  London  meet  upon  the  street  and  discuss  the 
political  outlook.  They  appreciate  fully  the  ominous  con- 
dition of  affairs.  "  O,  full  of  danger  is  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester !  "  says  one  of  them.  All  the  citizens  are 
impressed  by  the  dangerous  situation. 

Truly,  the  souls  of  men  are  full  of  dread: 
Ye  cannot  reason  almost  with  a  man 
That  looks  not  heavily  and  full  of  fear. 

(II,  iii,  38-40.) 

Indeed,  it  is  a  common  thing  for  Shakespeare  to  assume 
that  the  instincts  and  judgments  of  the  people  as  a  whole 
are  wise  and  right.  The  good  Duke  Humphrey  in  II 
Henry  VI  is  loved  by  the  common  people.  King  Clau- 
dius dares  not  take  any  open  steps  against  Hamlet  because 
the  prince  is  loved  by  the  folk,  "  the  general  gender." 
The  populace  are  hostile  to  King  John  because  they  fear 
that  he  has  murdered  the  young  prince  Arthur.  Mr. 
Crosby  overlooks  this  right-mindedness  of  the  English 
laborers,  as  Shakespeare  portrays  them,  and  seems  to  be 
affronted  by  the  realistic  details  in  the  following  lines : 

I  saw  a  smith  stand  with  his  hammer,  thus, 
The  whilst  his  iron  did  on  the  anvil  cool, 
With  open  mouth  swallowing  a  tailor's  news; 
Who,  with  his  shears  and  measure  in  his  hand, 
Standing  on  slippers,  which  his  nimble  haste 
Had  falsely  thrust  upon  contrary  feet, 
Told  of  a  many  thousand  warlike  French 
That  were  embattailed  and  rank'd  in  Kent: 
Another  lean  unwash'd  artificer 
Cuts  off  his  tale  and  talks  of  Arthur's  death. 

(King  John,  IV,  ii,  193-202.) 

Charles  Cowden  Clarke  makes  the  following  comparison 
between  Shakespeare  and  Scott  with  reference  to  the  way 
in  which  they  present  the  relation  of  master  and  servant: 


IS    SHAKESPEARE    AfclSTOCKATIC  ?  295 

We  may  observe  the  different  sentiment  of  Shakespeare  as  regards 
menial  attachment,  and  that  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  has  so  often 
been  compared  with  him.  Shakespeare,  who  in  his  love  for  his  spe- 
cies seems  to  have  been  a  cosmophilanthropist,  took  an  evident  pleas- 
ure in  uniting  the  several  grades  of  society  in  the  bonds  of  mutual 
respect  and  unselfish  attachment.  ...  He  has  therefore  constantly 
identified  both  master  and  man  in  one  common  interest.  ...  If  we 
retrace  the  stories  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  we,  I  think,  uniformly  per- 
ceive that  his  idea  of  the  connection  between  master  and  servant 
is  strictly  feudal.  Throughout  his  writings  we  scarcely  meet  with 
any  other  idea  of  their  reciprocal  duties  than  that  of  irresponsible 
sway  and  command  on  the  one  hand,  with  mechanical  and  implicit 
obedience  on  the  other,  and  not  a  spark  of  free  and  intrinsic  attach- 
ment existing  between  them." 

The  contrast  just  indicated  may  not  be  entirely  accu- 
rate; but  there  certainly  are  many  examples  in  Shake- 
speare of  devoted  love  between  servant  and  master.  Call 
to  mind  the  faithful  steward  of  Timon  of  Athens ;  the 
attachment  between  Brutus  and  his  page  Lucius ;  the 
fidelity  of  the  aged  Adam  to  Orlando ;  the  faithful  service 
of  Pisanio  to  Posthumus  and  Imogen ;  the  pitying  attend- 
ant who  watches  over  Lady  Macbeth  as  she  walks  in  sleep ; 
and  the  former  groom  of  Richard  II,  who,  just  before 
Richard  is  murdered,  seeks  out  his  old  master  in  order  to 
express  his  affection. 

Shakespeare's  darkest,  bitterest  plays  are  probably 
King  Lear,  Timon  of  Athens,  and  Troilus  and  Cressi-da. 
The  darkness  of  King  Lear  is  illumined  by  Cordelia.  The 
fidelity  of  his  steward  Flavius  forces  Timon  to  admit  that 
the  world  contains  "  one  honest  man."  But  Troilus  and 
Cressida  contains  neither  a  good  woman  nor  a  good  ser- 
vant. It  is  in  this  unpleasant  play  that  we  find  the  lines 
upon  "  degree,"  Shakespeare's  most  elaborate  setting  forth 

0 

15  Cited  by  W.  J.  Rolfe  in  his  old  edition  of  Cymleline,  Harper, 
1898,  pp.  28-29,  from  the  unpublished  Second  Series  of  the  Shake- 
speare-Characters, loaned  to  him  by  Mrs.  Cowden-Clarke. 


296  ALBERT    H.    TOLMAKT 

of  feudal  principles.  It  seems  to  have  been  when  the 
poet's  mind  was  least  wholesome  that  it  was  most  aristo- 
cratic. 

Ill 

Mr.  Denton  J.  Snider  holds  that  "  the  purely  moral 
stand-point  is  not  strong  in  Shakespeare;  he  is  decidedly 
institutional.  He  has  portrayed  no  great,  heroic,  trium- 
phant personage  whose  career  is  essentially  moral,  and 
who  collided  with  the  established  system  of  an  epoch  and 
ultimately  overthrew  it  by  his  thought  and  example,  like 
Socrates  or  Christ.  .  .  .  The  sympathies  of  Shakespeare 
were  decidedly  conservative,  institutional."  1G 

A  recent  writer,  Miss  Gildetrsleeve,  speaks  thus  of 
Shakespeare's  detachment  from  the  political  questions  of 
his  own  day : 

Obviously  in  sympathy  with  the  government  and  the  customs  pre- 
vailing in  his  time,  the  great  poet  seems  to  have  looked  with  some 
contempt  upon  the  populace  and  their  desire  for  civic  rights.  But  on 
the  whole  such  questions  interested  him  little, — and  religion  appar- 
ently scarcely  at  all.  The  persons  with  whom  he  associated,  the 
audiences  for  whom  he  wrote,  the  patrons  who  assisted  him,  had  no 
real  concern  with  these  ideas  which  were  about  to  revolutionize  the 
nation.17 

If  these  words  are  correct,  then  Caius  Marcius  expresses 
a  feeling  like  Shakespeare's  own  when  he  says  contemptu- 
ously of  the  Roman  populace: 

They'll  sit  by  the  fire,  and  presume  to  know 
What's  done  i'  the  Capitol 

(Coriolanus,  I,  i,  195-6.) 

18  The  Shakespearian  Drama:  The  Tragedies,  St.  Louis,  1887, 
Intro.,  p.  xxxix. 

17  Government  Regulation  of  the  Elizabethan  Drama,  Columbia 
Univ.  Press,  1908,  pp.  135-6. 


IS     SHAKESPEAEE    ARISTOCRATIC  ? 


297 


A  better  expression  of  the  American  ideal  of  government 
than  that  given  in  these  words  could  hardly  he  found. 
Mr.  George  Bernard  Shaw  says : 

I  define  the  first  order  in  Literature  as  consisting  of  those  works 
in  which  the  author,  instead  of  accepting  the  current  morality  and 
religion  ready-made  without  any  question  as  to  their  validity, 
writes  from  an  original  moral  standpoint  of  his  own,  thereby  making 
his  book  an  original  contribution  to  morals,  religion,  and  sociology, 
as  well  as  to  belles  lettres.  I  place  Shakespeare  with  Dickens,  Scott, 
Dumas  pere,  etc.,  in  the  second  order,  because,  though  they  are 
enormously  entertaining,  their  morality  is  ready-made.18 

These  are  cogent  words  j  but  what  writers  can  be  placed 
in  the  first  order  ?  The  great  Goethe  would  very  plainly 
be  excluded.  Who,  in  addition  to  the  redoubtable  Mr. 
Shaw  himself,  is  to  be  included  in  this  select  company  ? 

How  far  does  the  conservative  character  of  Shake- 
speare's mind  lessen  his  greatness?  Could  he  have  por- 
trayed the  world  for  us  with  all  the  fulness  and  delight 
for  which  we  thank  him  if  his  attention  had  been  diverted 
to  doctrinaire  schemes  for  reform  ?  This  much,  however, 
I  admit:  if  in  Shakespeare's  own  thinking  he  had  no 
vision  of  the  coming  of  more  democratic  institutions,  then 
-by  so  much  his  strong  mind  failed  him. 


CONCLUSION 

Great  poets  sum  up  and  interpret  the  entire  develop- 
ment of  civilization  up  to  their  own  time.  The  greatest 
pass  on  from  this  to  forecast  in  some  degree  what  is  to 
come.  Seeing  the  invisible  future,  they  become  true 
seers,  and 


58  In  the  vol.  Tolstoy  on  Shakespeare,  Funk   and  Wagnalls  Co., 
1907,  pp.  166-7. 


.ALBERT    H.    TOLMATT 

do  attain 
To  something  like  prophetic  strain. 

Plainly  the  author  of  All's  Well  and  Henry  V  had  some 
measure  of  this  forward  vision.  If  not  a  John  the  Baptist 
of  democracy,  he  was  at  least  one  of  the  prophets. 

Shakespeare's  natural  affinities  were  with  the  court  and 
the  nobility,  the  wealthy  and  influential  patrons  of  the 
stage.  His  usual  ideal  of  government  was  the  rule  of  a 
benevolent  despot,  assisted  by  public-spirited  nobles.  His 
general  attitude  toward  society  was  plainly  aristocratic. 
But  he  would  not  be  the  many-sided  genius  that  the  world 
honors  if  he  had  accepted  the  restrictions  of  any  one  set  of 
men,  if  he  had  rested  content  with  a  single  point  of  view. 
Man  so  delighted  him,  and  women  too,  that  he  transcended 
at  times  the  limitations  of  his  own  class,  and  felt  his  way 
to  a  very  clear  expression  of  some  of  the  choicest  ideas 
that  we  associate  with  the  conception  of  democracy.  No 
one  has  expressed  more  effectively  than  Shakespeare  the 
great  truths  that  rank  and  honor  should  be  the  reward  of 
proved  merit ;  that  the  settled  opinion  of  the  .entire  people 
is  probably  right;  that  birth  is  of  small  importance  in 
comparison  with  worth;  and  that  faithful  love,  irrespec- 
tive of  rank,  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world.  Shake- 
speare has  not  expressed  all  the  truth  about  human  nature 
and  society,  for  all  time;  but  who  else  has  expressed  so 
much  ?  Take  him  for  all  in  all,  we  shall  hardly  look  upon 
his  like  again. 

ALBERT  H.  TOLMAN. 


XIV.— THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAR   BAL- 
LAD ON    WORDSWORTH   AND   COLERIDGE 

Although  both  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  were  strongly 
influenced  by  the  popular  ballad,  they  were  attracted  by 
this  form  for  very  different  reasons  and  affected  by  it  in 
very  different  ways.  The  one  point  in  common  is  that 
this  influence  was  in  both  cases  mainly  for  good.  Words- 
worth was  drawn  to  the  ballad  by  its  directness  and  sim- 
plicity of  style,  and  by  the  fact  that  it  often  treats  of 
the  lower  classes  of  men  in  what  Rousseau  would  have 
called  a  natural  state  of  society.  Coleridge  took  up  the 
ballad  for  a  nearly  opposite  reason;  i.  e.,  because  of  its 
remoteness  from  modern  life,  a  remoteness  that  left  him 
free  play  for  his  imagination.  Thus,  oddly,  Wordsworth 
cultivated  the  ballad  because  it  had  once  been  close  to 
common  life;  Coleridge  because  it  was  now  remote  from 
common  life  and  gave  him  a  form  remarkably  susceptible 
of  that  strangeness  which  the  romantic  genius  habitually 
adds  to  beauty.  Wordsworth  preferred  the  domestic,  or 
occasionally  the  sentimental-romantic,  ballad;  Coleridge 
markedly  adhered  to  the  supernatural  ballad. 

As  the  subject  is  rather  complex  for  a  brief  survey,  the 
following  arrangement  will  be  adopted:  to  examine  in 
each  author  separately  the  influence  of  the  ballad,  first 
generally  and  in  relation  to  his  theory  of  poetry ;.  secondly, 
in  detail  as  to  the  subject,  treatment,  and  form  of  the 
poetry  itself. 

At  the  outset  we  encounter  Wordsworth's  prefaces  to 
the  Lyrical  Ballads  and  Coleridge's  attempts  to  explain 
them  in  his  Biograplila  Literaria.  Wordsworth's  theory 
of  poetry  has  been  such  a  mooted  question  that  we  are 

299 


300 


CHARLES    WIIARTON    STORK 


certain  to  overemphasize  his  statement  of  it  unless  we 
note  what  he  himself  thought  of  the  Prefaces.  In  a 
side-note  l  on  the  manuscript  of  Barron  Field's  Memoirs 
of  the  Life  and  Poetry  of  William  Wordsivorth  the  poet 
asserts :  "  I  never  cared  a  straw  about  the  '  theory/  and 
the  l  preface  '  was  written  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Coleridge, 
out  of  sheer  good  nature."  And  again:  "I  never  was 
fond  of  writing  prose."  Coleridge,  too,2  claims  the  Pre- 
face as  "  half  a  child  of  my  own  brain."  We  may  pause 
to  note  that  it  was  rather  unfair  of  the  philosopher-critic 
to  tempt  his  colleague  into  disadvantageous  ground  and 
then  fall  upon  him. 

What  influence  the  Reliques  had  upon  Wordsworth  it 
may  not  be  easy  to  determine ;  that  he  felt  such  an  influ- 
ence is  proved  by  the  following  passage :  3  "  I  do  not  think 
that  there  is  an  able  writer  in  verse  of  the  present  day 
who  would  not  be  proud  to  acknowledge  his  obligations  to 
the  '  Reliques ' ;  I  know  that  it  is  so  with  my  friends ;  and, 
for  myself,  I  am  happy  on  this  occasion  to  make  a  public 
avowal  of  my  own." 

We  may  safely  assert  that  the  influence  of  ballad  nar- 
rative treatment  upon  Wordsworth's  conception  of  poetry 
was  very  slight  and  very  indirect.  He  wrote  but  few 
real  ballads,  though  he  wrote  a  good  many  poems  he  called 
ballads.  His  theory  of  poetry  clearly  and  repeatedly  dis- 
avows the  only  purpose  for  which  a  true  ballad  can  exist, 
viz.,  the  effective  telling  of  a  dramatic  story  for  its  own 

sake. 

The  moving  accident  is  not  my  trade; 
To  freeze  the  blood  I  have  no  ready  arts: 


1  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,  ed.  Knight,  Vol.  m,  p.  121. 
a  Coleridge's  Letters  edited- by  Ernest  Hartley  Coleridge,  p.  386. 
9  Essay  Supplementary  to  the  Preface,  1815.     Prose  Works  of  Wil- 
liam Wordsworth,  ed.  Knight,  Vol.  n,  p.  247. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAE  BALLAD       301 

Tis  my  delight,  alone  in  summer  shade, 
To  pipe  a  simple  song  for  thinking  hearts.4 

Again,  speaking  of  the  White  Doe,  he  writes : 5  "I  did 
not  think  the  poem  could  ever  be  popular  just  (qy.  first?) 
because  there  was  nothing  in  it  to  excite  curiosity,  and  next 
because  the  main  catastrophe  was  not  a  material  but  an 
intellectual  one."  All  the  action  proceeding  from  the 
will  of  the  chief  agents  is  "  fine-spun  and  unobtrusive  " ; 
Emily  "  is  intended  to  be  loved  for  what  she  endures/'' 
Let  the  dramatist  "  crowd  his  scene  with  gross  and  visible 
action  " ;  but  let  the  narrative  poet  "  see  if  there  are  no 
victories  in  the  world  of  spirit/'  let  him  bring  out  the  in- 
terest in  "  the  gentler  movements  and  milder  appearances 
of  society  and  social  intercourse,  or  the  still  more  mild  and 
gentle  solicitations  of  irrational  and  inanimate  nature." 
Wordsworth  decries 6  the  qualities  of  writing  which 
"  startle  the  world  into  attention  by  their  audacity  and 
extravagance "  or  by  "  a  selection  and  arrangement  of 
incidents  by  which  the  mind  is  kept  upon  the  stretch  of 
curiosity,  and  the  fancy  amused  without  the  trouble  of 
thought." 

Other  passages  could  be  added,  but  the  foregoing  will 
suffice  to  show  why  Wordsworth's  ballads  as  ballads  are 
unsatisfying.     His  entire  theory  (which,  at  least  in  this  — 
case,  underlay  his  practice)  was  opposed  to  the  method  of 
the  popular  ballad.      The  ballad   depends   upon   action,  , 
Wordsworth  upon  description  and  reflection;  the  ballad 
is  objective  and  impersonal,  Wordsworth  maintains  7  that 
the  poet  should  treat  of  things  not  "  as  they  are"  but  "  as 
they  seem  to  exist  to  the  senses,  and  to  the  passions." 

4  Hart-Leap  Well,  opening  stanza  of  PUrt  Second.  9 

*  Letters,  in,  pp.  466,  467. 

6  Prose  Works,  II,  p.  253. 

7  Idem,  n,  p.  226. 


302 


CHARLES    WHARTON    STORK 


Consequently  the  ballad  proceeds,  as  Professor  Gummere 
says,8  by  a  "  leaping  and  lingering  "  method,  holding  the 
attention  by  rapid  movement,  suspense,  and  adequate  cli- 
max ;  whereas  Wordsworth  disbelieves 9  in  "  gross  and 
violent  stimulants  "  and  says  10  that  in  his  poems  "  the 
feeling  therein  developed  gives  importance  to  the  action 
and  situation,  and  not  the  action  and  situation  to  the  feel- 
ings." The  ballad  is  unconscious,  existing  in  and  for 
itself;  but  in  Wordsworth's  opinion  u  poetry  should  have 
a  purpose  and  should  be  the  product  of  a  mind  which  has 
thought  long  and  deeply. 

In  general  we  may  say  that  no  other  of  the  great  Eng- 
lish poets  was  by  temperament  so  incapable  of  writing  a 
good  ballad  as  Wordsworth.  All  that  he  got  from  the 
subject  matter  of  the  ballad  was  the  idea  of  attaching  his 
descriptions  and  reflections  to  a  story,  or,  as  it  often 
proved,  to  an  incident.  What,  then,  were  these  "  obliga- 
tions "  to  the  ballad  which  the  poet  was  so  careful  to 
acknowledge  ? 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  Wordsworth's  genius  (which, 
as  Coleridge  says,  was  one  of  the  most  marked  in  English 
poetry)  was  scarcely  at  all  imitative.  The  ballad  first 
suggested  to  the  philosopher  that  he  should  convey  his 
teaching  by  means  of  narrative.  Afterwards  it  suggested 
something  else  far  more  important ;  namely,  that  he  should 
adopt  a  simple  style,  close  to  the  usage  of  common  people 
in  real  life.  In  any  case,  when  Wordsworth  wrote  ob- 
jectively, he  would  have  written  of  the  peasants  who  lived 
around  him,  but  Percy's  Reliques  caused  him  to  write  in 
a  more  direct  and  intimate  way  than  Crabbe  had  done. 
Yet  though  the  style  of  We  are  Seven  is  simple,  it  is  not 


8  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  91.  w  Idem,  I,  p.  51. 

9  Prose  Works,  I,  p.  52.  al  Prose  Works,  i,  pp.  49,  50. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAB  BALLAD      303 

with  a  ballad  simplicity,  but  in  a  manner  akin  to  Blake, 
whose  every  phrase  must  be  pondered,  even  dreamt  over, 
before  we  realize  its  full  significance.  As  we  read  the 
Lyrical  Ballads  we  get  not  so  much  the  incident  that  is 
related,  as  the  personality  of  the  poet;  we  see  things  not 
as  they  are,  but  as  they  seemed  to  Wordsworth. 

It  was  fortunate  that  such  a  profound  po>et  should  have 
early  formed  a  style  so  lucid,  but  in  other  ways  the  choice 
of  models  was'  not  advantageous.  Wordsworth  evidently 
thought 12  he  was  writing  as  primitive  men  had  written, 
and  justified  his  deviation  from  the  prevalent  fashion  by 
declaring  13  that  "  poems  are  extant,  written  upon  humble 
subjects,  and  in  a  more  naked  and  simple  style  than  I  have 
aimed  at,  which  have  continued  to  give  pleasure  from  gen- 
eration to  generation."  The  foregoing  obviously  refers  to 
ballads.  Wordsworth  wrote  of  humble  people  as  he 
thought  they  might  have  written  of  themselves,  he  strove 
to  be  a  voice  to  those 

men  endowed  with  highest  gifts, 
The  vision  and  the  faculty  divine, 
Yet  wanting  the  accomplishment  of  verse.14 

Whether  or  not  he  succeeded  in  this,  he  gave  English  lit- 
erature some  of  its  noblest  poetry  in  the  attempt,  though 
his  most  successful  narrative  form  was  not  the  stanza  but 
blank  verse  or  octosyllabic  couplets. 

The  reason  why  the  narrative  style  of  the  Lyrical  Bal- 
lads seems  to  us  often  so  flat,  even  now  that  we  know  its 
elements  of  greatness,  is  easy  to  explain.  The  old  ballads 
which  the  critics,  from  Sir  Philip  Sidney  to  Professor 
Child,  have  taught  us  to  admire  are  elementally  tragic 

f 

u  Prose  Works,  i,  p.  77.  13  Idem,  i,  p.  66. 

14  The  Excursion,  Book  i,  11.  78-80. 


304  CHAELES    WHAETON    STOEK 

and  compelling;  the  ballads  Wordsworth  preferred  we'ro 
^  tame  and  dilute  Eighteenth-Century  versions.  He  culti- 
vated the  spirit  not  of  "  the  grand  old  ballad  of  Sir  Pat- 
rick Spence,"  but  of  The  Babes  in  the  Wood;15  and  we 
may  suppose  he  enjoyed  less  the  stirring  tales  of  Percy 
and  Douglas,  than  16  the  "  true  simplicity  and  genuine  pa- 
thos "  of  Sir  Cauline,  principally  (as  he  knew)  the  pro- 
duct of  the  "  Augustan  "  Thomas  Percy.  Without  deny- 
ing a  certain  merit  to  Wordsworth's  favorites,  we  need  not 
be  surprised  to  find  insipidities  in  the  poems  which  they 
inspired.  These  faults  are  prominent  from  the  fact  that 
a  simple  style  more  than  any  other  demands  an  unusual 
inspiration  in  its  matter  to  raise  it  above  the  commonplace, 
and  Wordsworth  could  never  see  when  his  subject  fell 
from  the  significant  to  the  trivial.  The  "  gross  and  vio- 
lent stimulants"  of  the  old  ballad  narrative  gave  vitality 
to  many  a  weak  phrase  and  line ;  with  the  modern  poet  the 
interest  of  each  passage  started  from  a  dead  level  and, 
being  helped  by  no  poetic  convention  of  any  sort,  depend- 
ed solely  on  the  intrinsic  power  of  the  given  poetic  impulse. 
Few  writers  have  dared  to  depend  upon  pure  poetry 
(re-inforced,  however,  by  deep  moral  purpose)  so  entirely 
as  did  Wordsworth,  who  discarded  story  interest  and  all 
'  the  adventitious  helps  of  imagery  associated  with  poetic 
stimuli.  The  result  was  that  he  earned  all  he  won.  It  is 
of  course  true,  as  Coleridge  says,17  that  in  the  Lyrical 
Ballads  there  is  a  certain  "  inconstancy  of  style "  (we 
should  call  it  a  lack  of  integrity  in  tone)  which  intrudes 
because  the  poet  will  not  choose  suitable  subjects,  or,  hav- 
ing chosen,18  will  not  raise  the  weaker  portions  to  the  level 

15 Prose  Works,  I,  p.  71.  "Prose  Works,  u,  p.  243. 

1T  Biographia  Literaria,  chap.  xxn. 
18  Idem,  chap.  xrv. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAR  BALLAD       305 

of  the  best  by  the  use  of  poetical  conventions  of  any  sort. 
But  in  the  Lyrical  Ballads  Wordsworth  has  established 
the  habit  of  absolute  sincerity  which  has  made  his  greatest 
passages  and  poems  a  model  of  what  Bagehot  justly  calls 
"  the  pure  style  "  in  poetry.  How  large  a  share  the  bal- 
lad had  in  forming  this  habit  every  reader  must  judge  for 
himself.  The  influence  of  Milton,  while  it  tended  to 
obviate  baldness  of  style,  was  at  the  same  time  a  re-inforce- 
ment  to  Wordsworth's  native  sincerity.  Perhaps  even 
Pope,  with  whom  he  rather  unexpectedly  asserts  that  he 
is  familiar,19  may  have  helped  Wordsworth  to  clarity  and 
memorable  lines.  But  the  ballad  influence  is  always  to  be 
reckoned  with,  particularly  in  some  of  the  greatest  later 
poems. 

Having  considered  the  general  influence  of  the  ballad 
on  Wordsworth's  poetry  and  theory  of  poetry,  we  shall 
now  take  up  the  specific  details  of  his  practice.    There  are   ' 
three  distinct  types  of  influence  to  be  noted:  first,  imita-     < 
tions  of  the  Eighteenth-Century  domestic  ballad,  usually 
built  around  trifling  incidents  of  the  poet's  own  experi- 
ence;  secondly,   ballads  proper,   impersonal  poems  with 
genuine  story  interest  usually  taken  from  tradition;  and 
thirdly,  poems  founded  on  old  ballad  ideas  but  given  a 
totally  new  significance. 

In  the  first  class  the  subjects  are  all  modern  and  real- 
istic. We  think  at  once  of  Lucy  Gray,  Peter  Bell,  Ruth, 
The  Idiot  Boy,  etc.,  etc.  This  is  the  class  which  illustrates 
Wordsworth's  remark  that  the  situations  were  only  used  to 
bring  out  the  characters.  Poetry  of  this  class  is  very 
uneven,  because  the  simplified  style  leaves  each  theme  to 
stand  or  fall  on  its  merits.  In  Peter  Bell  a  great  deal  of 
incident  is  used  rather  unconvincingly  to  account  for  a 

19  Letters,  m,  p.  122. 


306  CHAKLES    WHARTOjST    STORK 

change  of  heart  in  the  hero.  In  Ruth  the  story  brings  out 
the  chastened  beauty  of  a  soul  ennobled  by  suffering. 
These  two  may  stand  as  types  of  the  poet's  failure  and  suc- 
cess ;  as  to  the  others,  let  every  reader  form  his  own  opin- 
ion, remembering,  however,  that  a  trivial  subject  may  be 
developed  into  a  far  from  trivial  poem. 

A  difficulty  that  besets  us  here  is  to  distinguish  between 
the  ballad  and  the  lyric  in  a  given  case.  Where  shall  we 
class  The  Reverie  of  Poor  Susan,  or  The  Childless  Father, 
or  The  Fountain?  As  all  the  poems  are  in  a  sense  lyrical, 
i.  e.,  the  vehicle  of  personal  feeling,  and  none  strictly  a  bal- 
lad, we  shall  give  up  any  formal  attempt  to  classify  them. 
In  the  Lyrical  Ballads  Wordsworth  sometimes  uses  sub- 
jects remote  in  place,  but  he  introduces  only  two  which  are 
set  in  the  traditional  past.  Of  these  Hart-Leap  Well 
begins  with  a  true  narrative  swing,  but  shirks  the  climax 
("I  will  not  stop  to  tell  how  far  he  fled  Nor  will  I  mention 
by  what  death  he  died"),  runs  into  description  and  re- 
flection, and  ends  with  a  moral.  Ellen  Irwin  belongs  to 
the  second  class  of  ballad  influence. 

Despite  the  praise  given  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  Words- 
worth hardly  ever  returned  to  their  method.  He  may  have 
felt  that  the  blank  verse  of  The  Brothers  and  Michael  was 
a  less  dangerous  and  more  dignified  medium  for  the  les- 
sons he  wished  to  impart  by  means  of  the  life  around  him. 
At  all  events,  his  next  attempts  in  the  ballad  are  ballads 
proper,  objective,  set  in  the  past  and  in  story  sufficient  unto 
themselves.  To  this  class  belong  Ellen  Irwin,  The  Seven 
Sisters,  The  Horn  of  Egremont  Castle,  and  The  Force  of 
Prayer.  All  of  these  subjects  are  medieval  and  all  are  on 
stock  ballad  themes;  that  is  why  they  are  so  easy  to 
classify.  The  point  here  to  be  noted  is  that,  though  all  of 
these  are  respectable  poems,  never  descending  to  bathos, 
they  have  contributed  and  will  contribute  very  little  to 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    POPTJLAB    BALLAD  307 

their  author's  reputation.  When  Wordsworth  does  with 
a  ballad  what  a  ballad  should  do,  he  achieves  only  medio- 
crity. Better  are  his  earlier  nondescript  efforts,  with 
their  glaring  faults  and  their  characteristic  virtues. 

The  third  class  is  the  most  interesting  of  all,  uniting  as 
it  does  the  attraction  of  the  old  ballad  with  some  of  the 
finest  poetry  in  all  of  Wordsworth.  To  this  we  may  per- 
haps relegate  two  poems  from  the  Tour  in  Scotland,  Rob 
Roy's  Grave  and  The  Solitary  Reaper.  The  hero  of  the 
former  appears  in  a  dramatic  monologue  which  anticipates 
the  manner  of  Browning ;  it  breathes  healthy  humor  and  a 
fine  open-air  spirit  of  liberty.  In  The  Solitary  Reaper  we 
have  a  picture  as  immortal  as  any  by  Millet.  So,  Words- 
worth believed,  the  two  principal  themes  of  the  ballad  were 
handed  down ;  the  "  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things  "  and  the 
"  familiar  matter  of  to-day."  It  was  the  latter  type  which 
the  poet  had  cultivated  first;  he  was  later  to  reflect  the 
spirit  of  "  battles  long  ago." 

If  there  are  any  two  poems  of  Wordsworth  more  strik- 
ingly noble  than  the  rest,  are  they  not  the  Song  at  the 
Feast  of  Brougham  Castle  and  The  White  Doe  of  Ryl- 
stone?  If  we  answer  yes,  the  reason  will  be  because  in 
these  two  poems  only  is  Wordsworth's  philosophy  of  life 
brought  into  relief  by  contrast  with  its  opposite.  In  Lord 
Clifford  we  have  opposed  glorious  action  and  humble  but 
soul-sufficing  patience,  and  it  is  because  the  impulse  to 
action  is  so  splendidly  connoted  in  the  lines 

Armor  rusting  in  his  halls 
On  the  blood  of  Clifford  calls 

that  the  victory  of  forbearance  is  so  memorable. 

In  the  White  Doe  the  case  is  similar,  although  the 
motives  are  less  dramatically  contrasted.  This  poem  em- 
bodies perhaps  the  deepest  expressions  of  Wordsworth's 


308  CHAKLES    WHARTON    STOKK 

belief  in  the  refining  power  of  suffering,  especially  when  it 
is  endured  amid  "  nature's  old  felicities,"  20  The  mystic 
symbolism  of  the  doe  is  a  new  effect,  slightly  anticipated, 
perhaps,  by  such  lyrics  as  The  Cuckoo  and  by  the  fish  in 
Brougham  Castle.  It  was  evidently  Wordsworth's  hope  21 
that  the  story,  taken  bodily  from  the  ballad  The  Rising  in 
the  North,  might  serve  to  present  his  convictions  more 
clearly  and  forcibly  than  they  could  otherwise  be  stated, 
and  although  Hazlitt 22  thought  the  narrative  part  a 
*'  drag,"  the  majority  of  critics  have  sustained  the  author's 
choice.  The  narrative  is  very  spirited  in  itself  and,  as  in 
the  case  of  Brougham  Castle,  the  virtues  of  action  bring 
out  most  clearly  the  higher  virtues  of  endurance.  It 
would  be  out  of  place  to  praise  further ;  we  may  only  re- 
mark that  in  The  White  Doe  Wordsworth  makes  his  best 
use,  both  in  style  and  in  substance,  of  the  popular  ballad. 
As  we  noted  in  treating  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  an  accurate 
classification  of  ballad  influence  upon  Wordsworth  is 
impossible;,  but  at  least  a  few  random  cases  of  the  first 
and  third  types  should  here  be  mentioned.  After  the  Lyri- 
cal Ballads  there  are  only  two  important  stanzaic  narrative 
poems  dealing  with  the  present,  viz.,  Fidelity  and  The 
Highland  Boy;  a  fact  showing  how  far  the  poet  had  re- 
ceded from  his  earlier  practice.  Both  of  these  poems  con- 
tain beauties  far  more  noteworthy  than  any  in  the  objec- 
tive medieval  ballads.  A  little-known  piece,  which  is, 
however,  remarkable  from  our  point  of  view,  is  George  and 
Sarah  Green,  perhaps  the  only  poem  composed  as  a  bal- 
ladist  would  have  composed  it.  These  lines  were  not  the 

20  From  the  sonnet,  The  Trosachs. 

21  Letters,  I,  p.  343. 

22  Letters,  rr,  p.  62.     Coleridge  also  says  in  generalising,  "  Words- 
worth  should   never   have   abandoned   the   contemplative   position '' 
(Table  Talk,  July  21,  1832). 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAR  BALLAD       309 

result  of  "  emotion  recollected  in  tranquillity " ;  for 
Wordsworth  tells  us  23  he  "  effused  them  "  under  the  direct 
emotion  caused  by  the  event.  They  give  that  impression 
to  the  reader;  the  reflections  attached  are  scarcely  more 
complicated  than  those  of  a  villager  might  have  been,  and 
the  whole  has  the  ballad  quality  of  being  more  affecting 
than  the  sum  of  its  parts — as  if  the  poet  had  composed  too 
fast  to  put  in  all  he  felt.  Similar,  but  more  extended  and 
less  poignant,  is  Wordsworth's  last  narrative  effort,  The 
Westmoreland  Girl. 

For  the  third  class  of  influence,  old  ballad  motives  with 
modern  treatment,  we  may  perhaps  claim  the  Yarrow 
series,  with  their  haunting  sense  of  ancient  wrong  and 
sorrow  in  the  background  of  the  scene.  On  the  other  hand, 
Wordsworth's  early  and  very  interesting  play  The  Border- 
ers,, disappoints  the  promise  of  its  title  by  giving  us  no 
hint  of  traditional  matter  save  a  passing  allusion  to  the 
fairies.  The  classic  Laodamia  is  out  of  our  province;  so 
are  the  medieval  romances,  The  Egyptian  Maid  and  Arte- 
gal  and  Elidure,  both  in  the  manner  of  Spenser.  The 
faint  traces  noticeable  in  blank-verse  poems  such  as  The 
Brothers  may  also  be  passed  by. 

Nearly  all  the  ballads  of  the  first  (contemporary)  class 
(Part  One  of  Hart-Leap  Well  belongs  to  the  second)  are 
told  either  by  the  poet  or  by  some  unnecessary  third  per- 
son, as  opposed  to  the  popular  usage  of  never  bringing  in 
the  pronoun  "  I."  Again,  Wordsworth's  primary  interest 
in  character  gives  us  individual  figures  instead  of  ballad 
types,  people  who  merely  do  things.  In  his  objective 
medieval  ballads  he  has  less  chance  for  intimate  analysis, 
a  principal  reason  why  these  poems  are  nugatory.  In  the 
more  subjective  poems  of  our  third  class  we  have  for  thg 

23  Letters,  m,  p.  465. 

3 


\ 


310  CHARLES    WHARTOIvT    STORK 

first  time  character  contrast,  that  feature  essential  to  all 
dramatic  effects.  Lord  Clifford  in  Brougham  Castle  has 
two  natures,  the  active  spirit  of  the  ballad  hero  and  the 
passive  fortitude  developed  in  him  by 

Tlie  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky, 
The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills. 

In  The  White  Doe  Emily  and  Francis  are  represented 
minutely,  the  others  almost  with  ballad  brevity,  but  with 
the  more  effect  in  contrast  for  that  very  reason. 

Wordsworth  began  with  the  regular  four-line  stanza,  but 
soon  branched  out  into  variants ;  e.  g.,  an  eight-line  stave 
riming  ababcdcd,  in  which  the  "  a's  "  have  always  a 
double  ending.  Then  there  are  many  original  combina- 
tions of  couplets  and  alternate  rimes,  such  as  those  in  the 
ten-line  stanza  of  Her  Eyes  are  Wild  and  the  eleven-line 
stanza  of  The  Thorn.  It  would  be  out  of  proportion  here 
to  enumerate  others ;  suffice  it  to  say  that  they  are  all  built 
upon  the  two  original  ballad  norms  of  the  rimed  couplet 
and  the  four-line  stanza  with  alternate  rimes.  The  poet 
seems  to  have  been  experimenting  to  find  a  slightly  more 
complex  arrangement  that  would  make  his  lines  appear 
somewhat  less  bare,  in  fact  he  tells  us  24  that  he  thinks  the 
stanza  used  in  Goody  Blake  an  improvement  on  the  stereo- 
typed method.  In  Ellen  Irwin  he  imitates  Burger's 
Lenore.  The  foot  is  nearly  always  the  iambus,  notable  ex- 
ceptions being  The  Reverie  of  Poor  Susan  and  The  Child- 
less Father,  in  anapests.  In  lyric  flexibility  The  White 
Doe  is  reminiscent,  not  always  happily,  of  Christabel. 

The   three  most   marked   qualities   of   popular   ballad 
y style25 — the  refrain,  repetition  of  conventional  lines  and 

14  Prose  Works,  I,  p.  69. 

35  Cf.  Professor  G.  L.  Kittredge's  Introduction  to  the  Cambridge 
edition  of  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads  and  his  references  to 
Professor  Gummere's  works. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAB  BALLAD      311 

phrases,  and  "  incremental  repetition " — are  conspicu- 
ously rare,  diminishing  from  a  moderate  importance  in 
We  Are  Seven  to  negligibility  in  almost  all  poems  after  the 
Lyrical  Ballads.  We  have  refrains  in  The  Thorn  and  The 
Seven  Sisters,  that  of  the  latter,  "  the  solitude  of  Ben- 
norie,"  suggesting  of  course  the  ballad  of  The  Two  Sisters. 
The  Idiot  Boy  abounds  in  repeated  phrases,  but  as  a  rule 
Wordsworth  followed  the  modern  method  of  thinking  out 
synonyms  and  finding  original  adjectives.  Of  incremental 
repetition  used  for  dramatic  suspense  and  climax,  as  in 
Babylon,,  Edward,  and  many  more  of  the  best  popular  bal- 
lads, there  is  not  one  example.  There  is  no  conscious  allit- 
eration in  Wordsworth.  His  forced  use  of  inversion,  bor- 
rowed from  the  imitation  ballads,  decreases  steadily. 

As  to  the  language  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads  not  being  the 
language  of  real  life,  Coleridge  26  is  of  course  right.  In  a 
broad  sense  Wordsworth  never  wrote  of  anybody  but  him- 
self ;  he  gives  us  27  not  people  as  they  are  but  people  as 
they  appear  to  him.  We  cannot,  therefore,  expect  him  to 
make  them  talk  as  they  really  would  talk.  His  creations 
have  a  very  strong  and  definite  actuality,  but  it  is  largely 
an  actuality  lent  them  by  their  creator.  As  a  penetrating 
critic  has  said  in  another  connection,  fact  plus  imagina- 
tion gives  another  fact — the  final  fact  being,  as  Coleridge 
notes,28  much  more  interesting  and  universal  than  the 
original.  Had  Wordsworth  written  as  he  proposed,  his 
poems  would  have  been  a  little  better  and  a  great  deal 
worse.  It  was  in  imitation  of  the  Eighteenth-Century 
ballad  style,  which  Wordsworth  supposed  was  an  adapta- 

28  Biog.  Lit.,  chaps,  xvil,  xx. 

27  Of.  p.  301,  supra,  a^id  note.  Wordsworth  expressly  says  that  soml 
of  his  figures  were  composites  (Dowden,  Studies  in  Literature,  p.  145 
and  note). 

28  Biog.  Lit.,  chap.  xvn. 


312  CHARLES    WHAKTOK    STOEK 

tion  of  the  speech  of  real  life,  that  Lucy  Gray  was  made  to 
answer,  "  That,  father,  will  I  gladly  do,"  surely  a  cardinal 
specimen  of  the  namby-pamby ;  it  was  from  the  poet's  own 
heart  that  the  lines  came — 

No  mate,  no  comrade  Lucy  knew; 
She  dwelt  on  a  wide  moor, 
— The  sweetest  thing  that  ever  grew 
Beside  a  human  door. 

This  last  is  what  we  may  call  the  Blake  note,  so  much  like 
the  ballad — and  so  much  more  unlike !  Of  course  the  two 
blend  in  different  proportions,  the  personal  driving  out  the 
imitative  as  time  goes  on.  But  if  the  style  of  the  ballad 
had  done  no  more  than  help  Wordsworth  to  find  the  lan- 
guage of  common  sense,  it  would  have  rendered  an  infinite 
service  in  those  days  of  the  Delia  Cruscans  and  other  con- 
tinuators  of  Eighteenth-Century  artificiality.  The  extent 
of  this  influence,  as  already  stated,  can  never  be  calculated 
in  the  case  of  a  poet  who  so  entirely  assimilated  and  so 
strongly  modified  all  that  affected  him  from  outside. 

The  question  of  ballad  influence  on  Coleridge  is  com- 
paratively simple,  but  extremely  interesting  none  the  less ; 
for  although  but  one  poem  of  importance  is  directly  in- 
volved, that  happens  to  be  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner.  The  Three  Graves,  the  fragment  of  The  Dark 
Ladle  and  Alice  du  Clos  are  the  only  other  ballads,  though 
suggestions  of  the  tradition  appear  elsewhere.  And  not 
only  is  the  field  of  ballad  influence  in  Coleridge  very  lim- 
ited, but  the  character  of  that  influence  is  almost  uniform. 
As  noted  at  the  beginning  of  this  article,  it  consists  of  a 
medieval  glamour  and  remoteness  almost  invariably  tend- 
ing toward  the  supernatural.  Wordsworth  had  at  first 
made  use  of  the  ballad  process  somewhat  as  he  conceived 
a  peasant  might  have  done;  its  closeness  to  common  life 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAB  BALLAD       313 

and  its  directness  of  style  had  impressed  him ;  he  may  have4 
liked  to  think  he  was  keeping  the  convention  alive. 
Coleridge,  on  the  other  hand,  was  in  his  best  poetry  pri- 
marily a  stylist,  or  perhaps  we  should  rather  say  an  artist. 
As  with  De  Quincey  and  Poe  (both  of  whom,  like  himself, 
were  a  prey  to  stimulants)  his  soul  was  enamoured  of  a 
beauty  exquisitely  strange  and  terrible,  a  beauty  not  of 
time  or  place,  but  dwelling  in  the  utmost  regions  of  the 
imagination.  3STow  to  the  generation  of  Coleridge  (and 
largely  to  those  following)  the  strange  and  the  terrible 
seemed  to  belong  of  right  to  the  Middle  Ages.  De  Quin- 
cey's  Avenger  and  Poe's  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  show 
how  these  kindred  geniuses  sought  a  kindred  atmosphere. 
It  was  almost  inevitable  that  Coleridge  should  have  antici- 
pated them,  and  that  he  should  have  used  the  ballad,  as 
Chatterton  did,  only  because  in  many  ways  it  connoted 
the  medieval. 

Coleridge's  theory  and  practice  of  poetry  were  instinc- 
tively those  of  art  for  art's  sake.  Despite  his  admiration 
for  Wordsworth's  stronger  and  sounder  genius,  even  de- 
spite his  preference  29  of  his  friend's  poetry  to  his  own,  he 
could  not  have  written  other  than  he  did.  Consequently, 
polemical  critics  must  range  themselves  under  the  banner 
of  Arnold  or  of  Swinburne  in  the  dispute  as  to  the  priority 
of  the  two  poets.  With  this  dispute  we  have  here  nothing 
to  do.  It  is,  however,  important  to  notice  Coleridge's  em- 
phasis on  style.  He  maintains  30  that  "  poetry  justifies  as 
poetry  new  combinations  of  language,  and  commands  the 
omission  of  many  others  allowable  in  other  compositions. 
Wordsworth  has  not  sufficiently  admitted  the  former  in  his 
system  and  has  in  his  practice  too  frequently  sinned 

0- 

89 Traill's  Life  of  Coleridge  (English  Men  of  Letters  Series),  p.  41. 
30  Letters,  pp.  374-5. 


314 


CHAELES    WHAETOET    STOEK 


against  the  latter."  Again,31  "  Every  phrase,  every  meta- 
phor, every  personification  should  have  its  justifying 
clause  in  some  passion  "  of  the  poet  or  his  characters.  He 
finds  Wordsworth's  Preface  32  "  very  grand,  .  .  .  but  in 
parts  obscure  and  harsh  in  style."  Coleridge  was  evidently 
a  man  who  justified  literature,  especially  poetry,  pretty 
largely  by  its  style.  We  need  not,  then,  be  surprised  to 
find  that  the  ballad  for  him  was  not  a  method  of  treating 
actual  life  as  it  appeared  to  him,  but  rather  an  assortment 
of  poetic  devices  by  which  to  give  the  effects  he  was 
planning. 

^LBut  the  ballad  did  far  more  for  Coleridge  than  furnish 
'him  with  a  few  pigments  by  which  to  obtain  what  we  may 
call  delocalized  local  color,  a  coloring  which  makes  real  to 
us  the  country  of  his  imagination.  It  is  not  by  a  coinci- 
dence that  his  greatest  finished  poem,  the  one  poem  uni- 
versally known  and  universally  praised,  happens  to  be  a 
ballad.  Coleridge's  weaknesses  were  lack  of  substance, 
lack  of  purpose,  and  lack  of  virility.  '  The  popular  ballad 
exists  only  by  right  of  substance,  because  the  composer  has 
a  story  to  tell;  its  purpose  is  clear  and  inevitable,  to  tell 
the  story  and  be  done  with  it;  and  its  form — in  stanza, 
line,  and  phrase — is  terse  and  vigorous.  Here,  then,  is  the 
reason  why,  as  Mr.  Traill  has  observed,33  "  The  Ancient 
Mariner  abounds  in  qualities  in  which  Coleridge's  poetry 
is  commonly  deficient " ;  why  here  alone  we  have  "  an 
extraordinary  34  vividness  of  imagery  and  terse  vigor  of 
descriptive  phrase  " ;  why  we  find  35  "  brevity  and  self-re- 
straint "  here  and  not  in  any  other  poem  by  the  same 
author.  It  was  surely  the  ballad  convention  that  kept  the 

31  Idem,  p.  374.  "  Idem,  p.  51. 

83  Idem,  p.  387.  K  Idem,  p.  53. 

83  Life  of  Coleridge,  p.  47. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAE  BALLAD       315 

poem  going,  and  it  was  possibly  the  ballad  tenacity  of  pur- 
pose that  caused  it  to  be  finished;  the  incomplete  Dark 
Ladie  throws  some  doubt  on  the  latter  point. 

As  to  the  causes  of  Coleridge's  failure  with  his  other 
poems,  much  has  been  said  that  need  not  here  be  rehearsed. 
He  himself  asserted36  that  the  alleged  obscurity  of  his 
poetry  came  from  the  uncommon  nature  of  his  thought, 
not  from  any  defect  in  expression.  He  said  37  that  poetry 
nearly  always  consists  of  thought  and  feeling  blended,  and 
that  with  him  philosophical  opinions  came  in  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  form  a  peculiar  style  that  was  sometimes  a 
fault  and  sometimes  a  virtue.  But  on  this  point  Coleridge, 
the  subtle  specialist  in  criticism,  contradicts  himself;  for 
in  another  place  38  he  declares  that  Milton's  definition  of 
poetry  as  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate  "  sums  up  the 
whole  -matter.  The  second  statement  is  of  course  the 
sounder  view.  Doubtless  Coleridge  hoped  to  write  of  ab- 
struse subjects  in  a  style  that  would  not  be  abstruse,  but 
it  was  impossible  to  get  any  simple,  sensuous,  or  passionate 
results  out  of  such  an  involved  mode  of  thought  as  his. 
One  has  only  to  look  at  his  prose,  with  its  continual  dis- 
criminations, qualifications,  and  parentheses,  to  see  what 
so  often  hindered  him  from  being  a  poet.  On  the  other 
hand,  Wordsworth's  philosophical  ideas,  though  deep,  were 
simple ;  and  his  conviction  as  to  their  truth  was  so  strong 
as  to  become  a  passion,  as  witness  particularly  the  Ode  on 
Intimations  of  Immortality. 

Why  was  it,  we  may  ask,  that  in  The  Ancient  Mariner 
Coleridge  forgot  his  involutions  and  assumed  the  virtues 
he  so  seldom  had  ? — how  could  he  for  this  once  adopt  the 
methods  of  the  ballad?  The  answer  is  to  be  found  in  a 

38  Letters,  pp.  194-5.  *  Idem,  p.  387. 

37  Idem,  p.  197. 


316  CHAELES    WHAETOIST    STOEK 

certain  mysticism  which  the  modern  man  feels  in  the 
finest  passages  of  the  old  ballads,  a  mysticism  far  simpler 
than  that  of  Coleridge,  but  sufficiently  permeating  to 
appeal  strongly  to  his  sympathies.  This  effect  is  hardly 
to  be  described,  hardly  even  to  be  illustrated — one  critic 
will  find  it  where  another  will  deny  that  it  exists — but 
every  true  lover  of  the  ballad  will  have  felt  it  again  and 
again  in  favorite  passages.  Perhaps  as  safe  a  selection  as 
any  is  the  stanza  of  Sir  Patrick  Spence  which  Coleridge 
himself  prefixed  to  his  Dejection: 

Late,  late  yestreen  I  saw  the  new  Moon, 

With  the  old  Moon  in  her  arms; 
And  I  fear,  I  fear,  my  Master  dear ! 

We  shall  have  a  deadly  storm.89 

Anyone  who  has  tried. to  teach  the  ballad  knows  how  diffi- 
cult it  is  to  bring  the  latent  beauty  of  such  passages'  before 
an  average  mind;  but  once  the  beauty  is  perceived,  it  has 
a  strangely  pervasive  and  enduring  power.  This  Coleridge 
felt  as  no  other  man  has  ever  felt  it.  Launching  into  the 
story  with  typical  ballad  abruptness,  he  yielded  himself 
to  the  narrative  current  and  was  borne  by  it  safely  through 
the  labyrinthine  reefs  of  metaphysics  indicated  by  his 
own  notes  in  the  margin.  Though  The  Ancient  Mariner 
is  true  Coleridge,  it  is  in  this  case  a  Coleridge  that  has 
given  up  his  own  intricate  and  nebulous  mysticism  for  the 
more  direct  and  concrete  mysticism  of  the  ballad. 

Coming  to  the  consideration  of  Coleridge's  ballads  in 
detail,  we  find  the  first  of  these  to  be  The  Three  Graves. 
The  first  two  parts  of  this  poem  seem  40  certainly  to  ante- 
date The  Ancient  Mariner.  In  the  first  place  the  poet 

89 The  correct  form  of  this  line  is:  "That  we  will  come  to  harm." 
Coleridge  must  have  mixed  stanzas  7  and  8  of  Percy's  version. 
40  Quoted  in  Mr.  J.  D.  Campbell's  notes,  Globe  ed.,  p.  590. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAR  BALLAD       317 

asserts  41  that  the  story  was  taken  from  facts,  in  the  sec- 
ond the  style  very  strongly  suggests  Wordsworth,  espe- 
cially in  its  imitation  of  faults  which  Coleridge  later  con- 
demns. As  in  Wordsworth,  the  tale  is  put  into  the  mouth 
of  an  unnecessary  third  person,  and  such  a  prosaic  indi- 
rectness as  the  following  indicates  a  most  inartistic  resem- 
blance to  its  models : 

She  started  up — the  servant  maid 

Did  see  her  when  she  rose; 
And  she  has  oft  declared  to  me 

The  blood  within  her  froze. 

But  the  story  itself  was  one  that  would  have  been  abhor- 
rent to  Wordsworth ;  the  idea  of  a  mother's  guilty  love  for 
the  affianced  husband  of  her  daughter  would  have  repelled 
him  at  once.  Coleridge  professes 42  to  have  chosen  the 
subject  not  from  "  any  partiality  to  tragic,  much  less  to 
monstrous  events,"  but  for  its  imaginative  and  psychologi- 
cal interest.  This  defense,  by  the  way,  is  exactly  that 
which  a  modern  decadent  might  use  on  a  similar  occasion. 
The  treatment,  too,  is  distinctly  immoral,  or,  as  some 
critics  now  prefer  to  call  it,  unmoral.  That  an  innocent 
pair  should  suffer  from  the  curse  of  the  guilty  mother  is, 
at  least  to  an  average  person,  repugnant.  Coleridge's 
penchant  toward  the  supernatural  appears  in  his  dwelling 
on  this  point  and  even  going  so  far  as  to  imagine  that 

the  mother's  soul  to  Hell 
By  howling  fiends  was  borne, — 

an  unsatisfactory  bit  of  poetic  justice,  as  her  curse  lives 
after  her.  But  there  is  power  in  the  poem,  a  power  of  just 
the  sort  that  "anticipates  the  success  of  later  pieces. 
Throughout  the  stanzas  we  feel  the  uncanny  genius  of  tlie 

41  Ibid.,  p.  599.  « IUd.,  p.  590,  589. 


318  CHAELES    WHARTON    STORK 

poet  struggling  in  a  trammeling  element,  often  rising  head 
and  shoulders  above  it.  The  Three  Graves  is  far  from 
being  a  good  poem,  but  fragmentary  and  inchoate  though 
it  is,  we  can  hardly  understand  The  Ancient  Mariner 
without  it. 

This  brings  us  to  the  center  of  our  subject.  After  the 
experiment  of  The  Three  Graves  Coleridge  selected  just 
the  theme  that  suited  him,  and  in  the  treatment  kept 
tolerably  clear  of  the  hampering  influence  of  his  colleague. 
To  be  sure,  Wordsworth  supplied  the  idea  43  that  the  suf- 
fering of  the  Mariner  should  be  represented  as  an  atone- 
ment for  the  death  of  the  albatross,  and  no  doubt  the 
concluding  moral  "  He  prayeth  best  "  was  composed  under 
his  influence;  but  these  can  easily  be  detached  from  the 
body  of  the  poem.  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  agree- 
ment 44  in  regard  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads  by  which  Words- 
worth was  to  bring  out  the  supernatural  side  of  natural 
scenes  and  Coleridge  was  to  bring  out  the  natural, ,  the 
humanly  comprehensible,  side  of  his  supernatural  phan- 
tasies. It  was  only  in  The  Ancient  Mariner  that 
Coleridge  definitely  carried  out  his  share  of  the  under- 
taking. 

The  Ancient  Mariner,  however,  was  not  written  to  illus- 
trate a  theory  or  even  to  carry  out  a  conscious  purpose. 
Few  phrases  could  better  sum  up  the  effect  of  the  poem 
than  that  of  an  inspired  undergraduate  who  called 
Coleridge  "  a  literary  Turner."  There  is  in  these  two  the 
same  glorifying  brilliance  of  color,  the  same  triumph  of 
beauty  over  mere  subject,  the  same  marvellous  gift  of  style 
which  raises  their  respective  arts  almost  to  the  emotional 
level  of  music.  Even  the  human  soul  living  through  the 

^Quoted  in  Mr.  Campbell's  notes,  Globe  ed.,  p.  594. 
**  Biog.  Lit.,  beginning  of  chap.  xiv. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAR  BALLAD       319 

scenes  of  the  poem,  which  Lamb  thought  the  greatest 
achievement  of  all,  is  rendered  in  a  light  of  unreality ;  for 
the  Mariner's  most  passionate  outcry  awakens  no  real  pain 
in  us.  Why,  then,  if  they  are  so  vague,  do  this  poem  and 
(say)  Turner's  Ulysses  Deriding  Polyphemus  exercise 
such  a  powerful  and  enduring  influence  over  us?  In  the 
case  of  Turner  we  know  that  it  is  largely  from  the  firm 
command  of  draughtsmanship  which  he  allows  us  to  see 
more  clearly  in  his  water-colors.  In  Coleridge  a  similar 
firmness  comes  from  the  groundwork  of  the  ballad,  the 
most  marked  and  dominating  of  all  the  conventional 
forms  in  poetic  narrative.  The  conciseness  of  the  ballad 
and  its  insistent  progression  demand  a  relation  of  the  parts 
to  the  whole  not  unlike  that  required  by  the  laws  of  per- 
spective. (This,  like  most  analogies,  may  be  carried  too 
far,  but  in  general  it  seems  to  be  not  inaccurate.) 

Taking  his  plot  from  a  dream,45  Coleridge  began  his 
long  flight  unhampered  by  the  weight  of  actuality ;  course 
and  destination  indefinite,  as  it  were.  Though  the  Mari- 
ner tells  the  tale,  the  effect  on  the  reader  is  almost  that  of 
an  impersonal  narrative.  The  speaker  tells  nothing  of 
who  he  is  and  little  of  what  he  does,  he  is  as  a  helpless 
soul  passing  through  strange  experiences.  Consequently 
we  feel  the  events  of  the  poem  very  immediately ;  we  do 
not  watch  the  hero  as  we  watch  Lord  Clifford  or  Emily 
Norton,  we  live  his  adventure  with  our  inmost  being. 
It  would  seem  from  this  that  The  White  Doe  is  nearer  to 
the  old  ballad  than  is  The  Ancient  Mariner,  but  in  reality 
we  feel  that  the  Gortons  are  always  illustrating  a  philoso- 
phical idea,  whereas  the  Mariner  neither  reasons  nor 
causes  us  to  reason.  The  explanations  of  his  voyage  are  as 
mystically  simple  as  are  those  about  death  in  The  Wife  oj 

46  Quoted  in  Mr.  Campbell's  notes,  Globe  ed.,  p.  594. 


320  CHAELES    WHAETON    STOEK 

Usher's  Well  or  about  fairyland  in  Thomas  Rymer;  the 
modern  poet  exercises  hardly  more  arbitrary  control  than 
does  the  nameless  bard.  In  both  cases  we  feel  intensely 
but  abstractly.  We  notice  that  Coleridge  is  often  tempted 
to  digress,  but  the  ballad  inspiration  drives  him  on,  just 
as  it  drove  the  author  of  Sir  Patrick  Spence. 

The  story  exists  for  its  own  sake  as  a  work  of  art ;  essen- 
tially it  conveys,  or  should  convey,  no  moral.  Its  one 
weakness  in  form  is  its  promise  of  a  moral  suggested,  as 
we  have  seen,  by  Wordsworth.  For  the  shooting  of  the 
albatross  is  an  absurdly  small  offense  to  bring  about  such 
a  punishment,  and  the  attempt  to  make  the  other  sailors 
responsible  by  having  them  approve  the  deed  is  even 
worse;  besides,  the  accomplices  are  punished  with  death, 
whereas  the  principal  expiates  his  sin.  Fortunately  we 
feel  these  defects  but  slightly,  for  we  must  relinquish  our 
judicial  qualities  to  follow  the  magical  now  of  the  lines. 

We  have  been  somewhat  over-accenting  the  resemblance 
of  The  Ancient  Mariner  to  the  ballad ;  the  differences  must 
not  be  forgotten.     As  a  poet  of  the  highest  imaginative 
power  and  the  most  exquisite  technic,   Coleridge  raises 
every  stanza,  every  phrase,  to  a  miracle  of  design.     The 
very  absence  of  apparent  effort  in  the  process  is  the  final 
proof  of  his  perfect  art.     What  we  find  in  a  happy  stanza 
here  and  there  among  the  old  ballads  is  a  regular  rule 
with  the  modern  poet.  *   His  similes   are  nearly  always 
brief  and  his  metaphors  direct,  but  the  best  of  ballads  is 
dull   and   uninspired   in   comparison.     His   greater    sub- 
i  tlety  and  sensitiveness  make  the  old  forms  seem  rough 
I  and  childish ;  his  control  of  sound  and  color  is  like  a  sixth 
[  sense.     And  yet  the  balance  is  not  all  on  one  side. .   If  the 
I  ballad  has  no  real  description,  Coleridge  has  no  real  nar- 
ration.    What  we  have  called  a  story  is  but  a  succession 
of  descriptions  photographed  on  the  receptive  soul  of  the 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAR  BALLAD      321 

Mariner.  No  one  does  anything,  least  of  all  the  hero. 
Tried  in  the  heat  of  normal  human  interest  (the  test  of 
the  ballad),  the  story  melts  away  to  nothing,  its  appeal 
can  he  only  to  the  few.  To  the  peasant  for  whom  The 
Hunting  of  the  Cheviot  was  written,  the  whole  would  have 
seemed  the  "  tale  of  a  cock  and  a  bull  "  that  the  early  re- 
viewers found  it.  The  imagery  and  verbal  music  of  Coler- 
idge are  opposed  to  the  compact  statement  and  strong  beat 
of  the  ballad  not  wholly  to  the  advantage  of  the  former. 
After  all,  there  is  a  difference  between  real  and  acquired 
simplicity. 

The  unfinished  Ballad  of  the  Dark  Ladie  is  closely  con- 
nected46 with  the  more  lyrical  poem,  Love.  The  latter 
piece,  Coleridge  tells  us,  was  intended  to  be  an  introduc- 
tion to  the  Ballad.  But  the  incidental  story  told  in  Love 
is  apparently  not  that  of  The  Dark  Ladie.  In  Love  the 
knight  wears  on  his  shield  a  burning  brand,  whereas  the 
Dark  Ladie  sends  her  page  to  find  "  the  Knight  that 
wears  /  The  Griffin  for  his  crest."  We  have  little  clue 
as  to  what  the  tale  of  the  Ballad  is  to  be,  but  this  little 
seems  to  indicate  another  motive  than  that  used  in  Love. 
When  Lord  Falkland  speaks  to  his  lady  of  stealing  away 
to  his  castle  "  Beneath  the  twinkling  stars "  and  she 
shrinks  from  the  idea  of  darkness  and  wishes  to  be  mar- 
ried at  noon,  we  have  a  foreboding  of  the  Lenore  theme, 
the  dead  lover  returned  to  claim  a  living  bride.  There 
is  a  feel  of  the  German  ballad  of  terror  about  the  poem 
noticeable  in  the  rather  gushing  sentiment  and  in  the 
effort  to  arouse  a  shudder.  Farther  than  this  the  evi- 
dence will  not  take  us.  In  Alice  du  Clos,  however,  we 
have  a  distinctly  German  ballad  with  several  passages 
reminiscent  of  Scott.  The  theme  is  violent  and  painful, 

46  Quoted  in  Mr.  Campbell's  notes  to  the  Globe  ed.,  p.  612-3. 


322  CHARLES    WHABTCXN"    STOEK 

the  narrative  style  labored,  the  diction  overwrought.  The 
fragile  strength  of  Coleridge  is  sadly  strained  in  handling 
such  material;  crude  acts,  the  staple  of  the  ballad,  belong 
to  a  world  outside  his  knowledge.  Nevertheless  the  poem 
has  beautiful  descriptive  lines  and  one  stirring  passage  in 
Scott's  better  style: 

Scowl  not  at  me ;  command  my  skill 
To  lure  your  hawk  back,  if  you  will, 
But  not  a  woman's  heart. 

Alice  du  Clos  is  at  least  a  better  excursion  into  the  terri- 
tory of  the  rough  and  ready  school  of  poetry  than  is  Scott's 
ballad  of  Glenfinlas  into  the  realm  of  the  fantastic. 

Passing  on  to  consider  ballad  influence  in  the  poems 
which  are  not  ballads,  we  begin  naturally  with  Christabel. 
If  ever  style  without  substance  could  make  a  perfect  poem, 
it  would  be  in  the  case  of  this  unrivalled  piece  of  filigree 
work.  To  Swinburne  it  seemed  the  acme  of  poetic  art; 
but  few  even  of  the  truest  art-lovers  can  be  satisfied  by 
melody  without  sequence,  and  color  without  shape.  The 
poem,  if  one  must  define  it,  is  a  sort  of  lyric  romance- 
caprice,  in  which  the  lights  are  always  changing  like 
those  of  moonlight  on  a  waterfall.  But  there  are  ballad 
elements  in  the  misty  atmosphere  of  Christabel.  Terse 
and  direct  phrasing  often  lends  the  same  vividness  to 
supernatural  effects  that  we  have  noted  in  The  Ancient 
Mariner  and  Sir  Patrick  Spence.  For  instance, 

And  Christabel  saw  that  lady's  eye, 
And  nothing  else  saw  she  thereby. 

Quoth  Christabel,  So  let  it  be! 
And  as  the  lady  bade,  did  she. 
Her  gentle  limbs  did  she  undress, 
And  lay  down   in  her  loveliness. 

But  the  steady  flow  of  the  ballad  narrative  and  the  steady 
pulse  of  the  ballad  stanza  are  not  there  to  give  purpose 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAR  BALLAD      323 

and  consistency  to  the  whole.  Perhaps  it  was  because  he 
had  no  traditional  model  to  sustain  him  that  Coleridge 
confessed  47  he  had  "  scarce  poetical  enthusiasm  enough 
to  finish  Christabel."  This  at  least  we  know:  the  story 
in  Christabel  forgets  itself  in  long  descriptions,  loses  itself 
in  digressions,  changes  repeatedly,  and  never  ends. 

Kubla  Khan  in  small  corresponds  to  Christabel  in  large, 
except  that  in  it  the  element  of  mystery  is  oriental  instead 
of  medieval;  a  fact  which  reminds  us  that  at  this  period 
the  oriental  novel  was  rivaling  the  "  Gothic  "  in  tales  of 
terror.  The  only  point  of  interest  for  us  in  the  shorter 
poem  is  the  "  woman  wailing  for  her  demon  lover,"  a 
figure  more  indigenous  to  the  medieval  ballad  48  than  to 
the  Arabian  tale.  Dejection  in  the  line  "  The  grand  old 
ballad  of  Sir  Patrick  Spence  "  gives  us  the  only  specific 
mention  of  a  ballad  or  of  the  ballad  which  has  thus  far 
appeared  in  Coleridge's  published  writings.  His  quota- 
tion from  Sir  Patrick  at  the  beginning  of  such  a  personal 
poem  shows  how  sensitive  he  was  to  the  uncanny  feel  of 
ballad  lines  even  when  they  merely  displayed  a  popular 
belief  as  to  the  weather.  The  Knight's  Tomb  also  has  a 
ballad  touch.  Love  has  been  sufficiently  treated  in  con- 
nection with  The  Dark  Ladie.  The  Water  Ballad  is  too 
feeble  to  deserve  the  second  part  of  its  title.  The  Devil's 
Walk  is  an  excellent  humorous  ballad. 

It  remains  only  to  examine  the  details  of  ballad  influ- 
ence on  Coleridge.  The  Three  Graves  is  in  form  an  imi- 
tation of  Wordsworth's  early  style  with  but  a  suggestion 
of  independence.  In  Parts  One  and  Two  the  four-line 
stanza  is  unvaried,  in  Parts  Three  and  Four  occur  several 
of  the  five  and  six-line  stanzas  common  in  The  Ancient 

0 

"Letters,  p.  317. 

48  Cf.  the  ballad  James  Harris  or  The  Demon  Lover,  Cambridge  ed. 
of  Ballads. 


324  CHARLES    WHARTON    STORK 

Mariner.  As  the  story  is  modern,  no  medievalism  can  be 
brought  in. 

The  original  form  of  the  title,  which  was  The  Rime  of 
the  Ancyent  Mariner  e,  shows  at  once  what  effect  the 
author  intended  to  create,  but  later  Coleridge  covered  his 
tracks.  In  the  first  version  of  the  text  two  repetitions 
and  the  words  "  phere,"  "  n'old  "  and  "  aventure  "  were 
excised,  probably  to  diminish  the  appearance  of  borrow- 
ing from  the  ballad ;  the  word  "  swound  "  was  also  changed, 
but  later  restored.  The  spelling  was  modernised  as  in 
the  title ;  the  cases  were  not  numerous,  "  cauld,"  "  Emer- 
auld,"  "  chuse  "  and  "  neres  "  being  examples.49  Coler- 
idge's taste  was  well-nigh  perfect  in  this  point,  for  the 
vocabulary  of  the  poem  conveys  the  idea  of  remoteness 
and  never  of  affectation.  In  contrast,  the  unfortunate 
phrase  "  bootless  bene  "  in  The  Force  of  Prayer  is  almost 
the  only  archaism  in  Wordsworth. 

Ballad  repetition,  similarly,  though  much  more  fre- 
quent than  in  Wordsworth,  is  used  with  great  discrimina- 
tion. The  echoing  of  a  single  word  gives  a  greater  physi- 
cal reality  to  the  idea  in 

The  ice  was  here,  the  ice  was  there 
The  ice  was  all  around ; 

as  in  "  Alone,  alone,  all,  all  alone "  and  "  Water,  water 
everywhere."  Phrases  are  repeated  and  parallelism  pre- 
served with  the  same  effect,  i.  e.,  the  reader's  attention  is 
kept  on  the  sensuous  object  and  not  diverted  to  the  style 
by  any  unnecessary  change  of  the  wording.  The  phe- 
nomena of  sunrise  and  sunset  are  made  particularly  inti- 
mate by  this  means  and  by  the  added  touch  of  personifica- 

'  '  _•   V» 

49  One  of  Professor  Archibald  MacMechan's  students  has  discovered 
that  all  Coleridge's  borrowings  came  from  the  first  volume  of  Percy. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  POPULAB  BALLAD      325 
••  •/ 

tion.  Incremental  repetition  is  not  carried  beyond  the 
progression 

He  holds  him  with  his  glittering  eye. 

followed  at  the  opening  of  the  next  stanza  by 
£Ie  holds  him  with  his  glittering  eye. 

There  is  no  refrain  anywhere  in  Coleridge.  Alliteration, 
rugged  in  the  ballad,  is  toned  down  so  as  not  to  jar  the 
delicate  verbal  music  of  the  whole.  "  The  furrow  fol- 
lowed free  "  subtly  relieves  the  insistence  of  the  "  f  "s  by 
the  play  of  "  r  "s  and  "  1."  There  is  strong  vowel  allit- 
eration 50  in  "  Alone,  alone,  all,  all  alone/'  but  the  change 
of  shading  and  the  fact  that  the  "  glottal  catch  "  is  so  faint 
a  sound  serve  again  to  show  how  perfect  is  the  poet's  ear. 
Inversion,  which  is  often  so  awkward  in  Wordsworth,  is 
handled  with  the  same  care  that  appears  in  the  other 
details  of  The  Ancient  Mariner. 

That  Coleridge  was  working  toward  a  more  purely  lyri- 
cal metre  we  see  by  his  variants  of  the  regular  ballad 
stanza.  Internal  rime  is  frequent.  The  five-line  stanza 
a  b  c  c  b  is  used  sixteen  times,  so  that  the  following  form 
is  nearly  typical: 

With  throats  unslaked,  with  black  lips  baked 

We  could  nor  laugh  nor  wail; 
Through  utter  drought  all  dumb  we  stood! 

I  bit  my  arm,  I  sucked  the  blood, 

And  cried,  A  sail,  a  sail! 

Coleridge  also  cultivated  the  six-line  stanza  (occasionally 
found  in  the  old  ballad),  often  repeating  with  a  slight 
variation  in  lines  5  and  6  the  thought  of  lines  3  and  4, 
as  in  p 

50  Cf .  the  paper  read  by  Professor  F.  N.  Scott  before  The  Modern 
Language  Association,  Dec.  30th,  1913. 


326  CHAELES    WHAETOIT    STOEK 

A  spring  of  love  gushed  from  my  heart, 

And  I  blessed  them  unaware; 
Sure  my  kind  saint  took  pity  on  me 

And  1  blest  them  unaware. 

This  device  is  used  by  Poe  in  Tlie  Raven,  Ulalume,  and 
Annabel  Lee.  One  passage,  lines  203-211,  is  very  irregu- 
lar, suggesting  the  movement  of  Cliristabel.  Two  similes, 
lines  446-451  and  433-438,  are  so  extended  as  to  divert 
the  eye  to  the  secondary  picture,  and  the  description  of 
the  hermit  at  the  opening  of  Part  Seven  is  an  absolute 
digression.  All  these  points  show  the  tendency  toward 
lyric  freedom  and  difhiseness  which  were  to  prevail  in 
CTiristabel  and  Kubla  Khan. 

It  seems  not  worth  while  to  examine  the  details  of  bal- 
lad influence  on  other  poems  more  minutely  than  has 
already  been  done.  The  Dark  Ladie  is  very  regular,  Alice 
du  Clos  very  irregular. 

In  The  Three  Graves  we  have  a  failure  in  the  unmodi- 
fied ballad,  in  Christabel  we  have  a  failure,  at  least  from 
the  point  of  view  of  narrative,  in  the  lyrical  romance; 
The  Ancient  Mariner  stands  between  them,  combining  the 
merits  of  tradition  with  the  merits  of  the  poet's  individual 
genius.  It  is  hardly  a  coincidence,  we  may  repeat,  that 
!  Coleridge's  most  famous  poem  is  that  in  which  he  made 
the  most  well-considered  use  of  the  popular  ballad.51 

CHAELES  WHAETON  STOEK. 


51  In  other  chapters  of  a  proposed  book  on  ballad  influence  upon 
English  poetry  since  1765  the  author  hopes  to  show  that  the  ballad 
has  had  in  general  a  salutary  effect  in  modifying  the  extreme  indi- 
vidualism of  the  Romantic  Poets. 


XV.— THE   SOURCE   IN  ART   OF  THE   SO-CALLED 
PROPHETS  PLAY  IN  THE  HEGGE  COLLECTION 

The  seventh  play  in  the  Hegge  collection  of  English 
mystery  plays  is  unique:  in  it  is  to  be  found  a  striking, 
and  I  believe  hitherto  unnoted,  influence  of  art.  James 
Orchard  Halliwell,  in  his  edition  of  the  Hegge  plays,1 
calls  this  play  "  The  Prophets."  But  whatever  its  super- 
ficial likeness  to  the  liturgical  Processus  Prophetarum, 
and  other  prophet  plays,  it  is  my  conviction  that  this 
single  English  play  is  directly  influenced  by  —  indeed, 
largely  derived  from — that  pictorial  representation  of  the 
genealogy  of  Christ  which  is  known  in  art  as  the  Tree  of 
Jesse ,  Stirps  Jesse,  or  Radix  Jesse. 

In  order  to  make  this  matter  clear,  I  must  first  set  forth 
what  is  meant  by  the  Tree  of  Jesse;  how  it  was  usually 
represented;  what  its  probable  age;  and  what  the  extent 
of  its  dissemination.  Then  a  brief  consideration  of  the 
play  will  indicate  the  chain  of  relationship  between  the 
iconographic  and  the  dramatic  form. 

It  is  convenient  to  begin  with  the  prescription  for  the 
representing  of  the  tree  of  Jesse,  found  in  that  Byzantine 
Guide  to  Painting  discovered  by  M.  Adolphe  Napoleon 
Didron : 

"  The  righteous  Jesse  sleeps.  Out  of  the  lower  part 
of  his  breast  spring  three  branches ;  the  two  smaller  ones 
surround  him,  the  third  and  larger  one  rises  erect  and 
entwines  round  the  figures  of  Hebrew  kings  from  David 
to  Christ.  The  first  is  David;  he  holds  a  harp.  Then 
comes  Solomon;  and  after  him,  the  other  kings  following 

1Ludus  Coventrice,  etc.,  London,  Shakespeare  Society,  1841. 

327 


328  JOHN    K.    BONNELL 

in  their  order  and  holding  sceptres.  At  the  top  of  the 
stem,  the  birth  of  Christ.  On  each  side,  in  the  midst  of 
the  branches,  are  the  prophets  with  their  prophetic  scrolls ; 
they  point  out  Christ,  and  gaze  upon  Him.  Below  the 
prophets,  the  sages  of  Greece  and  the  soothsayer  Balaam, 
each  holding  their  [sic]  scrolls.  They  look  upwards  and 
point  towards  the  Nativity  of  Christ."  2 

The  tree  of  Jesse,  then,  is  the  family  tree  of  Christ,  in 
which  Jesse  occupies  the  position  of  the  first  great  an- 
cestor, the  founder  of  the  line.  It  is  a  pictorial  repre- 
sentation of  the  middle  part  of  the  genealogy  given  by 
Saint  Matthew  (Matt.  if  6-16  )3 — that  part  which  is  royal. 
Its  apparent  intention  is  to  establish  the  title  of  Christ  to 
the  throne  of  Israel.  The  whole  symbol  takes  its  rise 
from  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah : 

Et  egredietur  virga  de  radice  Jesse,  et  flos  de  radice 
ejus  ascendet  (Is.  xi,  1). 


2  Didron,  Christian  Iconography,   translated  from  the  French  by 
E.  J.  Millington,  London,   1851. 

3  Saint  Matthew  begins  the  genealogy  of  Christ  with  Abraham  and 
traces  the  line  through  Jesse,  by  David,  Solomon,  and  the  other  kings 
of  Israel;  and  after  the  end  of  the  kings — in  the  Babylonian  cap- 
tivity— through  men  who  were  not  kings,  to  Joseph,  the  husband  of 
Mary.     Thus  by  Jewish  law  Christ  was  the  descendant  of  Jesse,  and 
the  son  of  David.     Saint  Luke  on  the  other  hand  traces  the  gene- 
alogy of  Christ  backwards  from  Mary   (thus  the  learned  commenta- 
tors interpret  Luke  in,  23)   through  a  non- royal  line  to  David,  and 
so  on  back  to  Adam,  "who  was  of  God." 

It  was  natural  that  in  the  middle  ages  interpretative  comment, 
playing  somewhat  upon  words,  should  seek  a  mystic  significance 
in  the  similarity  between  virga,  of  Isaiah's  prophecy  and  the  word 
virgo.  But  though  with  the  increase  of  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
there  might  be  a  shifting  of  the  emphasis  from  the  line  through 
Joseph  to  that  through  Mary,  the  pictorial  tree  of  Jesse  persisted 
as  a  kingly  line  headed  by  David  and  Solomon. 


SOUECE  IN  ART  OF  SO— CALLED  PROPHETS  PLAY    329 

Thus  we  find  Jesse  reclining  at  the  root  of  the  tree  in  much 
the  posture  of  the  founder  of  any  ancient  noble  family 
in  old  charts. 

The  prophets  in  the  pictured  tree  are  there  to  support 
and  reinforce  by  their  inspired  word  the  central  idea. 
"  They  point  out  Christ  and  gaze  upon  him."  They  fill 
out  the  design,  preserving  a  certain  balance  or  proportion 
in  number  with  the  central  figures.  They  are  among  the 
branches  of  the  tree  but  not  of  them;  or  else  they  merely 
stand  at  the  sides.  There  are  representations  of  the  tree 
of  Jesse  from  which  the  prophets  are  lacking.  When  they 
are  present,  Isaiah  is  often  recognisable — e.  g.,  in  the 
painting  of  the  Eomanesque  wood  ceiling  of  St.  Michael's 
at  Hildesheim — by  his  cartel  bearing  the  word  Egredietur. 

The  Byzantine  Guide  to  Painting,  discovered  by  M. 
Didron  among  the  monks  of  Mt.  Athos,  though  the  oldest 
manuscript  be  not  more  than  three  centuries  old,  is  in 
considerable  part  of  its  prescription  much  older.  M. 
Chas.  Bayet 4  attributes  its  tradition  to  the  ninth  or  tenth 
century,  or  even  earlier.  Other  critics,  notably  M. 
Charles  Diehl,5  are  inclined  to  regard  the  work  as  so 
modified  and  contaminated  in  the  transmission,  as  to  be 
unreliable.  M.  Diehl  would  not  ventrue  to  put  it  earlier 
than  the  fifteenth  century. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  a  well  known  fact  that  the  source 
of  a  large  part  of  the  symbolism  and  traditional  represen- 
tation of  Christian  art  in  Europe  lay  in  the  manuscript 
illuminations  and  ivory  carvings  of  Byzantium.6  More- 
over, what  seems  to  be  the  earliest  recorded  Jesse  tree  in 


*Ch.  Bayet,  L'Art  Byzantin,  Paris,  1904. 
"Charles  Diehl,  Manuel  d'Art  Byzantin. 

'  See,  for  example,  Viollet-le-Duc,  Dictionnaire  Raisonnt  de  V Archi- 
tecture, under  the  article  Vierge. 


330  JOHN    K.    BONNELL 

Europe  was,  according  to  the  Abbe  Corblet,  brought  from 
the  Orient:  "  Nous  savons  qu'en  1097  Guillaume  de  Tour- 
nay  fit  venir  d'Orient  un  candelabre  d'airain  en  forme 
d'arbre  de  Jesse."  It  might  have  been  this  same  candle- 
stick which  Hugo  de  Flori,  abbot  of  St.  Augustine's,  Can- 
terbury, bought  for  the  choir  in  the  same  year — 1097: 
"  Candelabrum  magnum  in  choro  aereum  quod  Jesse  voca- 
tur  in  partibus  emit  transmarinis."  7 

The  earliest  Jesse  tree  in  a  church  window  was  pro- 
bably that  at  Saint-Denis,  described  by  the  abbot  Suger  as 

8tirps  Jesse  in  capite  ecclesiae 

among  the  new  glass  windows  of  notable  variety  which  he 
had  painted  for  him  by 

magistorwn  multorum  de  diversis  nationibus  manu 
exquisita.8 

This  was  about  1140-1144.  The  window  at  Chartres, 
— according  to  M.  Emile  Male,  in  the  chapter  on  glass  in 
Michel's  history  of  art,  a  replica  or  copy  of  Suger's  at 
Saint-Denis, — is  fortunately  in  a  good  state  of  preserva- 
tion to  this  day. 

At  York  Minster  another  Jesse  window  was  put  in 
place  in  the  latter  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  after  1159. 
M.  Male  ventures  the  opinion  that  this  window  was  also 
a  duplicate  of  that  at  Saint-Denis,  and  even  that  it  was 
made  in  France.  The  window  at  Chartres,  then,  is  the 
oldest  and  best  example  we  have  of  the  tree  of  Jesse 
during  what  is  sometimes  called  the  period  of  Byzantine 
influence. 


7  Corblet,  Etude  Iconographique  sur  Varbre  de  Jesse,  in  Revue  de 
I'Art  Chre'tien,  1860. 

8  A.  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  CEuvres  Completes  de  Suger,  Paris,  1867. 


Chartres,  c.  1149 

derivative  of  Saint-Denis 


SOURCE   IN   AUT   OF   SO-CALLED   PKOPHETS   PLAY          33 1 

The  following  table,  by  no  means  complete,  but  serving 
somewhat  to  show  the  extent  of  the  dissemination  of  the 
tree  of  Jesse,  is  compiled  from  an  article  by  the  Abbe 
Corblet  in  the  Revue  de  I' Art  Chretien  and  from  standard 
works  on  art  by  Didron,  Michel,  Liibke,  Reber,  Venturi, 
Lewis  F.  Day. 

XI  CENTURY 

Candlesticks  ....  Belgium   (?),  and  Canterbury  ....  1097. 

XII  CENTURY 
Windows : 

Saint-Denis,    1140-1144. 

York  Minster,  after  1159   } 
Mans 
Painted  wood  ceiling: 

St.  Michael's,  Hildesheim,  1186 

Sculpture: 

Parma,  Baptistery 

XIII  CENTURY 

"Windows : 

Amiens 

Troyes 

Reims 

Paris,  Sainte  Chapelle 

Wells 

Saint-Cunibert  de  Cologne 
Sculpture: 

Laon,  main  door  and  vaulting  of  door 

Chartres,  door 

Amiens,  door 
Miniature: 

Psalter  of  Queen  Ingeburge,  c,  1236    (Mus.  Conde") 

OQ 

Bible  historicale,  (Biblio.  de  Reims,  MS.  —  ) 

18 

XIV  CENTURY 
Miniature: 

'St.    Omer    psalter,    (English   MS.   begun    1325.     Ref .  *in 
Burl.  Mag.  XIII,  269) 


332  JOHN    K.    BONNELL 

Psalter,    (Probably  English,   Biblio.  Douai,   MS.    171) 
Speculum    liumanae    salvationis     (Biblio.    Arsenal,    MS. 
Theol.  Lat.  42). 

Sculpture: 

Orvieto  cathedral,  c.  1330   (Very  elaborate,  on  pilasters) 
Longpont,   (alabaster.  Cf.  Corblet) 

In  the  fifteenth  century  the  examples  in  sculpture,  in 
painting,  and  in  different  kinds  of  decorative  art,  are 
very  numerous  and  show  a  great  variety  of  design.  A 
splendid  example  of  a  fifteenth-century  Jesse  window  is 
that  at  Dorchester  in  Oxfordshire.  The  subject  was  so 
popular  that  it  was  employed  even  in  decorating  private 
residences. 

But,  for  all  changes  of  detail,  the  essential  design  re- 
mains: the  righteous  Jesse  sleeps,  lying  at  the  foot  of 
the  tree,  or  with  the  tree  growing  out  of  his  body;  the 
tree,  or  vine,  bears  the  royal  ancestors  of  Christ,  sometimes 
represented  by  only  three  or  four;  and  generally — especi- 
ally in  the  windows,  and  in  the  Hildesheim  ceiling — the 
prophets  form  a  border,  flanking  the  kings ;  at  the  summit 
is  Christ. 

Turning  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  play,  I  shall 
endeavor  to  show  that  it  ought  not  to  be  called  "  The 
Prophets,"  but  rather  "The  Tree  of  Jesse,"  or  "The 
Rote  of  Jesse  "  (radix  Jesse)  ;  and  after  that  I  shall  show 
what  I  believe  to  be  its  indebtedness  to  the  Tree,  or  Root, 
of  Jesse  in  art. 

In  the  first  place  the  title  "  The  Prophets  "  does  not 
occur  in  the  manuscript.9  This  name  was  foisted  upon 
the  text  by  Halliwell,  who  mistook  it  for  a  simple  evolu- 

9  Though  I  have  not  been  able  to  examine  the  MS.  myself,  I  have 
it  on  the  authority  of  Dr.  Karl  Young,  who  has  examined  and  made 
careful  notes  upon  it,  that  the  words  "  The  Prophets  "  do  not  occur 
at  the  head  of  this  play. 


SOURCE    IN   ART   OF    SO-CALLED   PROPHETS    PLAY 


333 


tion  of  the  prophet  play.  In  casting  about  for  a  title,  it 
is  odd  that  he  did  not  refer  to  the  prologue  to  the  cycle,10 
which  describes  the  play  thus: 

Off  the  gentyl  Jesse  rote 

The  sefnt  pagent  forsothe  xal  ben 

Out  of  the  whiche  doth  sprynge  oure  bote 

As  in  prophecye  we  redyn  and  sen; 

Kyngys  and  prophetes  with  wordys  fful  sote, 

Schulle  prophesye  al  of  a  qwene.  .  .  . 

At  the  end  of  the  play,  moreover,  stands  this  rubric: 
Explicit  Jesse. 

When  we  begin  to  read  the  text,  we  observe  that  the 
first  speaker,  Isaiah,  who  pronounces  the  more  familiar 
of  his  prophecies — virgo  concipiei  et  pariet  filium — is 
followed  immediately  by  a  speaker  designated  in  the  rubric 
as  Radix  Jesse.  This  speaker,  as  it  were  taking  the  words 
out  of  Isaiah's  mouth,  gives  that  prophecy  of  Isaiah  which 
we  have  seen  was  the  inspiration  of  artists : 

Egredietur  virga  de  radice  Jesse 
Et  flos  de  radice  ejus  ascendet. 

It  is  indeed  Jesse  who  speaks,  in  his  capacity  of  root  of 
the  genealogical  tree,  for  he  continues  thus : 

A  blyssyd  braunch  xal  sprynge  of  me 

That  xal  be  swettere  than  bawmys  brethe; 

Oute  of  that  braunche,  in  Nazareth 
A  flowre  xal  blome  of  me,  Jesse  rote, 

The  whiche  by  grace  xal  dystroye  dethe, 
And  brynge  mankende  to  blysse  most  sote. 

The  next  speaker  is  Jesse's  son,  the  first  king  in  the  line 
of  Christ's  ancestors,  Davyd  Rex: 


"The  prologue  certainly  belongs  to  the  first  seven  plays  in  the 
Hegge  collection. 


334  JOHN    K. 

I  am  David,  of  Jesse  rote 

The  fresche  kyng  by  naturelle  successyon, 
And  of  my  blood  xal  sprynge  oure  bote.  ... 

Following  David  comes  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  and 
thereafter  the  kings  alternate  regularly  with  prophets,  so 
that  each  king  save  the  last  comes  between  two  prophets. 
In  all  there  are  thirteen  prophets  and  thirteen  kings:  the 
line  of  ancestors  including  Jesse,  therefore,  comprises  four- 
teen. 

Now  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  prophets  in  our  play  are 
not  all  chosen  because  of  the  significance  of  their  scrip- 
tural prophecies.  In  the  first  place,  in  the  case  of  Jere- 
mias,  Ozyas  (i.  e.,  Hosed),  and  Sophosas,  they  supply  no 
prophecy  of  their  own,  but  merely  echo  that  of  Isaiah. 

For  example : 

Jeremias — 

I  am  the  prophete  Jeremye, 

And  fulliche  accorde  in  alle  sentence 
With  king  David  and  with  Ysaie.  .  .  . 

Ozyas — 

Off  that  byrthe  wyttnes  bere  I, 

A  prophete  Osyas  men  me  calle, 
And  aftyr  that  tale  of  Isaye, 
That  mayd  xal  bere   Emanuelle. 

In  the  second  place,  the  prophecies  are  in  some  cases 
obscure  and  incorrect.  Thus  the  prophecy  of  Daniel — 

I  prophete  Danyel  am  welle  apayed 

In  figure  of  this  I  saw  a  tre; 
All  the  fendys  of  helle  xalle  ben  affrayd 

Whan  maydenys  ffrute  theron  thei  se.  .  .  . 

seems  to  be  an  incorrect  allusion  to  Daniel  iv,  10  et  seq., 
wherein  we  read  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  vision  of  a  great  tree 
reaching  to  heaven.  The  author  of  our  play,  in  my  opin- 


SOURCE    IN    ART    OF    SO-CALLED    PROPHETS    PLAY  335 

ion,  brings  in  this  vision  of  the  tree  because  he  wishes  a 
prophecy  appropriate  to  a  representation  of  the  tree  of 
Jesse.11  Though  the  same  metaphor  is  sometimes  em- 
ployed in  allusion  to  the  cross — the  tree  on  which  is  the 
fruit  of  a  maid — such  an  interpretation  is  only  partially 
satisfactory  here.  Daniel  says,  "  In  fygure  of  this  I  saw 
a  tre  " :  surely  it  is  permissible  to  find  in  this  a  double 
allusion. 

That  the  genealogical  tree  is  the  central  and  dominant 
theme  of  the  whole  piece  is  further  attested  by  the  speech 
of  Aggeus  propheta,  the  prophet  Haggai,  who  following 
King  Joathan's  boast,  "  Of  my  kynrede  God  wol  be  man," 
says: 

With  yow  I  do  holde  that  am  prophete  Aggee, 

Come  of  the  same  hygh  and  holy  stok, 
God  of  oure  kynrede  in  dede  born  wyl  be.  ... 

Thus  prophecy  is  subordinated  to  the  claim  of  kinship  in 
the  same  high  and  holy  stock. 

Prophets  and  their  prophecies,  then,  seem  to  be  included 
with  a  view  to  filling  out  a  predetermined  number.  The 
author  seems  rather  put  to  it  to  find  a  suitable  speech  for 
every  one.  But  if  he  had  been  directly  indebted  to  the 
Processor  Prophetarum,  or  other  prophet  plays,  he  would 
scarcely  have  been  at  such  a  loss ;  for  in  that  case  he  would 
have  had  an  appropriate  prophecy  together  with  each  pro- 
phet. Needless  to  say,  had  he  chosen  his  prophets  for  the 
special  significance  of  their  prophecies,  he  would  not  have 
been  confronted  with  any  such  problem.  Why  does  he 
wish  just  thirteen  prophets  ?  It  may  be  because  the  num- 

11  The  customary  prophecy  for  Daniel  in  the  prophet  plays  is  that 
of  the  pseudo-Augustinian  sermon  (cf.  M.  Sepet,  Les  Prophfyes  du 
Christ) — Cum  venerit  '  sanctus  sanctorum  cessdbit  unctio  vestra. 
This  is  not  found  in  the  Vulgate. 


336  JOHN    K.    BONNELL 

ber  is  regarded  as  sacred,  it  may  possibly  be  due  to  some 
influence  of  the  Processus  Prophetarum,1'2  or  it  may  be 
simply  to  fill  out  the  plan  of  having  the  prophets  alternate 
with  the  kings.  It  is  interesting  to  note  here  a  typical 
arrangement  of  the  pictured  tree.  In  the  Chartres  win- 
dow there  are  seven  persons  in  the  tree  and  fourteen 
prophets  in  the  border. 

Why  are  there  thirteen  kings  ?  The  answer  is  not  hard 
to  find:  it  lies  in  that  same  passage  of  the  gospel  of  St. 
Matthew  which  together  with  Isaiah's  prophecy  of  the 
branch  out  of  the  root  of  Jesse  furnished  the  basis  for 
the  iconographic  tree.  St.  Matthew  divides  the  genealogy 
of  Christ  into  three  parts  of  fourteen  each — from  Abra- 
ham to  David,  from  David  to  the  Babylonian  captivity, 
and  from  the  captivity  to  Christ.  The  middle  division, 
— the  royal  line, — appears  in  the  play  with  the  exception 
of  the  last  two  kings,  Josiah  and  Jechonias.  The  play- 
writer,  having  begun  with  Jesse  and  David — whereas  St. 
Matthew  begins  his  second  group  with  Solomon — com- 
pletes the  tally  of  fourteen  at  Amon  and  there  stops.  The 
list  from  Jesse  to  Amon  agrees  exactly  with  that  in  the 
gospel.  Inasmuch  as  the  evangelist,  doubtless  influenced 
by  a  sense  of  sacredness  in  number  (fourteen  being  a 
multiple  of  seven)  has  given  a  list  that  does  not  entirely 
agree  with  the  Old  Testament,  there  is  little  doubt  that 
this  is  the  source  of  the  names  and  the  determination  of 
the  number  of  the  kings  in  our  play. 

The  playwriter  could  not  readily  have  depended  upon 
the  pictured  tree  for  names  and  number,  because  the  kings 

"The  pseudo-Augustinian  sermon  pointed  out  by  M.  Sepet  as 
the  source  of  the  Processus  Prophetarum,  and  the  Limoges  Processus, 
have  each  just  thirteen  prophets;  but  the  prophets  of  our  play  cor- 
respond with  neither  of  these  groups  save  in  the  case  of  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  Daniel,  and  Habbakuk. 


SOUKCE  IN  ART  OF  SO-CALLED  PROPHETS  PLAY     337 

being  the  chief  persons  in  the  design  were  generally  shown 
much  larger  than  the  prophets,  and,  space  on  this  account 
lacking,  they  were  in  consequence  restricted  to  a  repre- 
sentative few.  Thus  while  David  and  Solomon  were  al- 
most always  recognizable,  the  number  and  identification  of 
the  other  kings  was  a  matter  determined  by  the  exigencies 
of  the  medium.  I  may  mention,  for  what  it  may  be  worth, 
that  a  fifteenth-century  fresco  in  the  Buurkerke  at  Utrecht 
indicates  by  name  exactly  thirteen  kings,  ending  with 
Amon.  They  correspond,  with  one  exception,  with  those 
in  the  play. 

Let  us  now,  skipping  the  prophets  who  alternate  with 
them,  consider  the  kings  and  their  speeches.  This  will 
show  better  than  anything  else  how  the  play  is  built  up  on 
the  central  theme  of  the  genealogical  tree. 

David,  who  in  the  regular  prophet  plays  is  a  chief  pro- 
phet, here  heads  the  line  of  kings,  and  instead  of  giving 
voice  to  one  of  the  many  prophecies  from  the  psalms,  is 
content  to  announce  himself  the  son  of  Jesse — "  of  Jesse 
rote," — the  ancestor  of  Christ,  and  to  echo  the  prophecy 
of  Isaiah. 

Salamon  Rex. 

I  am  Salamon  the  secunde  kynge. 

Roboas  Rex. 

The  iij.de  kynge  of  the  jentylle  Jesse 

My  name  is  knowe,  kynge  Roboas, 
Of  our  kynrede  yitt  men  xul   se 
A  clene  mayde  trede  down  foule  Sathanas. 

Alias  Rex. 

I,  that  am  calde  kynge  Abias 

Conferme  for  trewe  that  ye  han  seyd.  .  .  . 

Asa  Rex. 

I  kynge  Asa,  beleve  alle  this.  ...  (p*  , 

Josophat  rex. 

And  I,  Josophat,  the  vj.te  kynge  serteyne 


338  JOHN    K.    BONNELL 

Of  Jesse  rote  in  the  lenyalle  successyon, 
All  that  my  progenitouris  hath  befor  me  seyn.  .  .  . 

Joras  Rex. 

And  I,  Joras,  also  in  the  number  of  sefne 
Of  Jesse  rote  kynge.  .  .  . 

Ozias  Rex. 

And  I  Ozyas,  kynge  of  hygh  degre", 
'Spronge  of  Jesse  rote.  .  .  . 

Joathas  rex. 

My  name  is  knowe  kyng  Joathan 
The  ix.e  kynge  spronge  of  Jesse.  .  .  . 

Achas  rex. 

Off  Jesse  kyng  Achas  is  my  name.  .  .  . 

Ezechias  rex. 

The  xj.te  kyng  of  this  geneologye.  .  .  . 

Manasses  rex. 

Of  this  nobylle  and  wurthy  generacion 
The  xij.te  kyng  am  I  Manasses.  .  .  . 

The  last  speaker  in  the  play,  Eing  Amon,  pronounces 
a  sort  of  epilogue — 

Amon  rex. 

Amon  kynge,  ffor  the  last  conclusyon, 

Al  thynge  beforn  seyd  ffor  trowthe  do  testyfie, 
Praynge  that  lord  of  oure  synne  remyssyon, 

At  that  dredful  day  he  graunt  mercye. 

Thus  we  alle  of  this  genealogye, 

Accordinge  in  on  here  in  this  place, 
Pray  that  heyj  lorde  whan  that  we  xal  dye, 

Of  his  gret  goodnesse  to  grawnt  us  his  grace! 

Then  come  the  words  Explicit  Jesse, — the  play  of  Jesse 
is  ended. 

There  seems  to  be  no  ascertainable  source  for  the  play 
as  a  play  of  the  Tree,  or  Root,  of  Jesse,  save  in  art.  M. 
Sepet  cites  a  reference  to  a  Corpus  Christi  procession  of 
prophets  followed  by  a  procession  of  Kings  descended  from 
Jesse,  with  their  father,  Jesse,  which  took  place  at  May- 


SOURCE    IN   ART   OF   SO-CALLED   PROPHETS   PLAY          339 

enne  about  1655.13  But  this  is  too  late  to  be  of  impor- 
tance to  us,  .even  though  we  agreed  with  the  suggestion  that 
it  is  referable  to  some  earlier  mysteries  at  Laval. 

It  is  curious  that  Dr.  Paul  Weber,  seeking  .explanation 
for  the  occurrence  of  Roboam  and  Jese  in  a  row  of  prophets 
on  a  little  ivory  casket  of  the  end  of  the  eleventh  or  begin- 
ning of  the  twelfth  century,  points  triumphantly  to  our 
play,  with  the  comment  that  '  Eoboam '  and  i  Jese '  are 
found  also  among  the  prophets  in  the  English  Ludus 

13L'Idee  de  faire  paraitre  a  c6t6  des  prophetes  proprement  dits 
la  lign£e  de  Jesse",  les  rois  de  Juda,  fils  de  David  et  ance"tres  du 
Messie,  n'est  pas  particuliere  au  Ludus  Coventrice.  La  scene  a  cer- 
tainement  eu  ce  caractere  dans  des  mysteres  francais,  comme  le 
prouve  le  passage  suivant  d'une  description  des  usages  encore  ob- 
serve au  commencement  du  XVIIe  siecle  dans  les  ce"re"monies  de  la 
F§te-Dieu  de  Mayenne.  Nous  empruntons  ce  passage  aux  savants 
Recherches  sur  les  mysteres  qui  ont  ete  reprts&ntes  dwns  le  Maine 
par  le  R.  P.  Dom  P.  Piolin,  Be"ne"dictin  de  la  Congregation  de  France 
(Angers,  1858,  broch.  in  8°,  p.  45). 

"  On  fit  vers  ce  temps  (vers  1655),  dit  1'abbe  Guyard  de  la  Fosse, 
une  grande  re"forme  en  la  solennite"  de  la  procession  de  la  Fete-Dieu, 
qui  passoit  pour  celebre  a  Mayenne.  Voici  ce  qui  s'y  observoit: 
apres  les  deux  bannieres,  marchoient  deux  personnes  reprgsentant 
Adam  et  five,  au  milieu  desquelles  on  portoit  un  petit  arbre  charge 
de  pommes,  avec  la  figure  d'un  serpent.  Ensuite  paraissoient  ceux 
qui  repre"sentoient  les  patriarches  et  les  prophetes,  vetus  de  soutanes 
et  manteaux  de  diffe"rentes  couleurs,  avec  de  grandes  barbes  et  des 
perruques,  portant  sur  le  dos  un  e"criteau  du  nom  du  personnage  de 
chacun,  comme  d' Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  MoTse,  Isaie,  J6r6mie,  etc., 
leur  nombre  e"toit  fini  par  Saint  Jean-Baptiste  couvert  d'une  peau 
de  chameau,  et  portant  un  agneau.  Apres  eux  venoient  les  rois 
descendus  de  Jesse",  comme  David,  'Salomon,  etc.,  habill^s  magni- 
fiquement,  la  couronne  sur  la  tete  et  le  sceptre  a  la  main.  Us 
e"toient  suivis  de  leur  pere  Jess6,  qui  avoit  une  grande  chevelure 
blanche,  une  robe  fourree,  et  s'appuyoit  sur  un  baton.  .  .  ." 

C'est  avec  toute  raison  que  le  savant  be"nedictin  rapprochant  ces 
usages  des  mystfcres  repr6senij6s  plus  anciennement  a  Laval,  l^jour 
de  la  Fete-Dieu  ....  dit  que  "les  acteurs  e"taient  descendus  de 
leurs  planches  et  marchaient  dans  la  rue"  (Marius  Sepet,  Les 
Prophetes  du  Christ,  Paris,  1878,  p.  168,  note). 


340  JOHN    K.    BONNELL 

Coventriae.  Weber  is  looking  at  the  art  representations 
for  evidence  of  the  existence  of  earlier  prophet  plays.  He 
overlooks  the  fact  that  Eoboam  is  distinctly  labeled  reo?; 
and  that  Jesse  is  neither  king  nor  prophet.14  In  speaking 
of  the  intrusion  of  the  ancestors  of  Christ  into  the  ranks 
of  the  prophets,  he  seems  unconscious  of  the  convention 
of  the  tree  of  Jesse.  Ernst  Falke  in  a  special  study  of 
the  sources,  merely  echoes  Sepet 15  in  referring  to  the 
Processus. 

The  play  most  likely  derived  the  names  of  the  kings 
from  the  liturgy  for  Christmas  day,  in  the  reading  from 
St.  Matthew.  But  as  we  have  seen,  the  line  in  the  gospel 
begins  with  Abraham,  and  is  not  even  divided  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  Jesse  prominent. 

The  subject,  moreover,  is  not  one  that  is  readily  adapt- 
able to  dramatic  treatment :  it  is  distinctly  a  pictorial  sub- 
ject. Considering,  then,  the  fact  that  in  art  it  was  a 
subject  familiar  for  at  least  two  or  three  centuries  before 
the  play,  it  seems  all  but  inevitable  that  we  should  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  play  was  simply  an  attempt  to 
dramatize  the  iconographic  Tree  of  Jesse. 

JOHN  K. 


14 "  Roboam  "  und  "  Jese  "  f anden  sich  auch  unter  den  Propheten 
im  englischen  Ludus  Coventriae  ....  Durand  hat  klargestellt,  was 
Sepet  nicht  bestimmt  genug  hervorhob,  dass  das  Eindringen  der 
Vorfahren  Christ!  in  die  Reihe  der  Propheten  Christi  auf  die  Litur- 
gie  des  Weihnachtsfestes  zuriickzufuhren  ist,  in  welcher  die  Gene- 
alogie  Christi  von  alters  her  zur  Verlesung  kam.  Die  in  mittelalter- 
lichen  Kirchen,  namentlich  auf  Glasfenstern,  so  beliebte  Darstel- 
lung  der  Vorfahren  Christi  ist  also  wieder  ein  Beweis  fiir  den  inni- 
gen  Zusammenhang  zwischen  Liturgie  und  bildender  Kunst  im 
Mittelalter  (Geistliches  Schauspiel  und  Eirchliche  Kunst,  Stuttgart, 
1894). 

"'Ernst  Falke,  Die  Quellen  des  sog.  Ludus  Coventrice,  Leipzig, 
Reudnitz,  1908. 


XVI. —THE    ENAMOURED    MOSLEM    PRINCESS    IN 
ORDERIC   VITAL  AND   THE   FRENCH  EPIC 

In  the  tenth  book  of  his  Historia  Ecclesiastica,  Orderic 
Vital  gives  an  account  of  Bohemond's  surprise  and  capture 
by  the  Turkish  Emir,  Daliman,  and  his  imprisonment, 
with  other  French  nobles,  in  one  of  the  Emir's  fortresses. 
Now  there  happened  to  live  in  this  particular  stronghold 
the  Emir's  daughter,  Melaz.  She  had  often  heard  the 
bravery  of  the  Crusaders  praised,  and  welcomed  this  op- 
portunity to  make  the  acquaintance  of  such  famous  heroes. 
So  she  would  visit  Bohemond  and  his  friends  in  their  dun- 
geon and  talk  with  them.  Her  favorite  topic  was  the  tenets 
of  the  Christian  faith.  Conversation  naturally  led  to  a 
good  understanding  and  assistance  on  Melaz's  part. 

Two  years  went  by.  Daliman  had  become  involved  in  a 
war  with  his  brother,  Soliman.  To  aid  her  father,  Melaz 
had  the  French  armed  and  sent  to  the  front.  Battle  was 
already  joined  when  they  arrived.  They  charged,  and 
Soliman's  ranks  wavered.  Bohemond  engaged  Soliman's 
son  in  single  combat  and  killed  him.  After  great  carnage 
the  enemy  fled.  But  true  to  a  promise  given  Melaz,  the 
French  left  the  pursuit  and  returned  to  their  prison,  where, 
at  Melaz' s  instigation,  they  overpowered  their  former 
jailors  and  seized  the  citadel. 

It  held  an  immense  treasure.  The  royal  palace  stood 
close  by.  Consequently  when  Daliman  came  back  from  the 
war  and  proceeded  to  reproach  Melaz  for  giving  weapons 
to  the  French,  at  the  same  time  threatening  her  and  them 
with  death  at  the  stake,  Bohemond  could  witness  the  scene 
from  his  post  in  the  keep.  He  lost  no  time  in  coming  to 
5  341 


342  F.  M. 


Melaz's  rescue,  and  assured  her  safety  by  making  himself 
master  of  Daliman's  person,  an  easy  task,  since  the  Emir's 
guards  had  scattered  to  find  quarters  in  the  town. 

Thus  relieved  in  regard  to  herself,  Melaz  began  to  work 
on  her  father.  She  reminded  him  that  the  French  had 
won  his  battle  for  him,  had  returned  when  they  could  have 
escaped,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  could  dispose  of  him  as 
they  pleased.  Daliman  admitted  the  force  of  these  argu- 
ments and  asked  for  advice.  It  was  to  make  peace  with 
the  Christians,  arrange  for  a  general  exchange  of  pris- 
oners, and  reward  Bohemond.  But  whether  the  advice  was 
taken  or  not,  Melaz's  mind  was  made  up.  She  had  turned 
Christian,  and  would  abandon  her  father  and  his  vile 
creed  as  well. 

Violent  gestures  were  Daliman's  only  reply,  a  demon- 
stration which  prompted  Melaz  to  arrest  all  the  Moslems 
in  the  palace,  garrison  it  with  the  French  and  usurp  the 
power.  For  a  fortnight  the  Emir  stood  fast,  and  many 
were  the  curses  he  hurled  at  Mahomet,  his  god,  at  his  for- 
mer subjects  and  his  faithless  neighbors.  But  in  the  end 
he  gave  way  to  his  sense  of  discretion  and  the  persuasion 
of  his  men.  He  agreed  to  the  terms  proposed,  and  even 
promised  Melaz  in  marriage  to  Bohemond.  This  submis- 
sion, however,  did  not  lull  the  prudent  mind  of  Melaz,  and 
she  took  the  precaution  of  summoning  Tancred  from 
Antioch  with  a  force  strong  enough  to  protect  Bohemond's 
retreat.  Moslem  prisoners  also  accompanied  Tancred, 
among  them  the  former  princess  of  Antioch,  who  came  in 
tears,  we  are  told,  because  she  was  compelled  to  bid  fare- 
well to  pork.  For  though  Turks  enjoy  the  flesh  of  dogs 
and  wolves,  they  abhor  pork,  "and  thereby  prove  that  they 
are  without  all  the  laws  of  Moses  and  Christ,  and  belong 
neither  to  the  Jews  nor  the  Christians." 


THE  ENAMOURED  MOSLEM  PEINCESS  343 

But  Melaz's  precautions  were  unnecessary.  Before 
Tancred  could  arrive,  Daliman  had  been  won  over  by  the 
charms  of  Bohemond's  conversation  to  join  daughter  and 
subjects  in  reviling  Mahomet  and  extolling  the  power  of 
Christ.  The  peace  remained  unbroken.  The  French 
journeyed  quietly  back  to  Antioch.  Melaz  soon  followed 
them  with  her  attendants,  and  a  rousing  welcome  awaited 
all. 

Bohemond's  first  care  was  to  dispatch  his  friend,  Richard, 
to  St.  Leonard's,  in  Limousin,  with  gifts  of  silver  chains  as 
thank-offerings  for  his  deliverance.  Melaz  was  baptized, 
and  was  persuaded  by  Bohemond  to  seek  some  other  noble 
in  marriage,  for  he  himself  had  already  suffered  great  hard- 
ships and  was  to  undergo  many  others,  and  also  must  per- 
force discharge  a  vow  he  had  made  to  Saint  Leonard  while 
in  captivity.  So  a  sorry  husband  he  would  make.  Rather 
let  her  choose  his  cousin,  Roger,  his  junior,  handsome, 
high-born  and  rich.  The  reasoning  was  good,  and  the 
princess  heeded  it,  and  in  the  midst  of  universal  plaudits 
the  wedding  took  place.1 

A  curious  intermingling  of  fact  and  invention  is  this 
narrative  of  Orderic's.  The  framework  is  historical. 
Bohemond  and  his  retinue  were  captured  by  surprise  and 
held  prisoners  for  several  years.  The  vow  to  Saint  Leonard 
and  Bohemond's  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  in  Limousin  are 
also  historical.  In  the  continuation  to  Tudeboeuf's  chron- 
icle we  even  read  that  it  was  an  offering  of  silver  balls,  like 
the  balls  on  his  chains,  that  Bohemond  made  to  the  saint,2 
a  qualification  which  varies  only  slightly  from  the  silver 
chains  of  Orderic.  There  is  also  an  allusion  to  this  vow  in 

*Historia  Ecclesiasticu,  x,  23  (Edition  of  the  Soctete  de  PHistoire 
de  France,  Vol.  iv,  p>  139-158). 

2  Recueil  des  historiens  occidentaux  des  Croisades,  Vol.  in,  p.  228. 


344  F.  M.  WAEREN 

Raoul  de  Caen,  who  visited  Palestine  in  1107,3  while 
Orderic  on  a  later  page  tells  of  the  actual  visit  to  St. 
Leonard's.4 

On  the  other  hand,  Bohemond's  appearance  in  Dali- 
man's  battle-line  is  probably  fictitious.  We  read  in  Albert 
of  Aix  that  the  Emir  ("Donomannus")  entered  Bohe- 
mond's  prison  in  quest  of  advice  about  the  campaign,  and 
that  this  conference  led  to  the  hero's  ransom,  for  which  the 
Emir  was  soundly  rated  by  Soliman.5  But  the  incongruity 
of  such  a  happening  excites  the  suspicion  that  Albert  is 
here  affected  by  the  same  report  which  ascribed  armed 
assistance  in  Orderic. 

The  general  exchange  of  prisoners,  however,  finds  cor- 
roboration  in  an  anonymous  Greek  chronicle.  The  Moslem 
princess  of  Antioch  even  appears  there,  though  without  the 
regrets  that  Orderic  notes.6  But  Matthew  of  Edessa  is  not 
aware  of  any  exchange.  He  says  that  Bohemond  was  ran- 
somed, and  that  an  Armenian  chief  was  the  principal  mover 
in  raising  the  ransom.7 

Yet,  while  admitting  that  Orderic's  account  of  Bohe- 
mond's captivity  is  substantiated  at  more  than  one  point, 
we  must  confess  that  these  substantiations  confirm,  after 
all,  only  a  small  portion  of  his  story.  The  larger  part  is 
built  around  the  person  and  deeds  of  Melaz,  and  of  Melaz 
sober  chronicle  is  silent.  The  Moslem  princess  who  yields 
to  the  attractions  of  her  father's  French  prisoner,  befriends 
him,  discusses  religion  with  him,  professes  conversion  to 
his  creed  and  offers  him  hand  and  heart  is  well  known  to 


3  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  m,  p.  713. 

4  Hist.  EC.,  xi,  12  (edition  cited,  Vol.  iv,  pp.  211,  212). 

5  Recueil  des  hist.  oc.  etc.,  Vol.  iv,  pp.  524,  611  sq. 

6  Recueil  des  \historiens  orientaux  etc.,  Vol.  I,  p.  212. 

7  Recueil    des    historiens    des    Croisades,    Documents    Armeniens, 
Vol.  I,  p.  69. 


THE  ENAMOUBED  MOSLEM  PRINCESS  345 

medieval  romance.  So,  too,  is  the  Christian  captive,  who 
accepts  this  homage  and  profits  by  it,  who  through  it  aids 
his  captor  in  war  or  seizes  his  palace  and  perhaps  his  per- 
son, and  thus  wrests  an  unwilling  assent  to  the  daughter's 
union.  But  of  both  knight  and  princess  medieval  history 
seems  ignorant.  Consequently  the  question  comes  to  us, 
where  did  the  legend,  since  legend  there  is,  start  ?  How  did 
it  enter  into  literature? 

It  is  possible  that  the  latter  query  may  find  an  answer  in 
Orderic  himself.  For  it  is  his  work  which  offers  the  earl- 
iest European  version  of  the  legend,  dating  as  it  does 
around  1135.  But  something  like  it  had  already  appeared 
in  the  West,  and  had  perhaps  been  assimilated  to  the  main 
story  by  Orderic  or  Orderic's  informant.  We  refer,  of 
course,  to  the  epic  poem  of  Mainet. 

The  hero  of  Mainet,  the  future  Charlemagne,  had  found 
refuge  from  his  enemies  with  the  Emir  of  Toledo,  had 
helped  him  in  his  wars,  had  rid  his  daughter,  Galienne,  of 
an  unwelcome  Moslem  suitor  by  means  of  a  single  combat, 
had  been  offered  Galienne  and  the  kingdom,  had  accepted 
the  one  but  not  the  other,  and  had  carried  his  willing  bride 
back  to  France  and  a  Christian  wedding.  But  in  all  this 
there  was  no  question  of  captivity,  nor  of  release,  nor  of 
violence  done  the  father,  nor  of  religious  variance.  Indeed, 
matters  went  on  as  they  may  very  well  have  gone  on  in 
tenth-century  Spain,  where  Christian  adventurers  fought 
with  Moslems  against  Moslems  or  Christians  indifferently, 
and  undoubtedly  contracted  more  or  less  stable  unions  with 
Moslem  women.  The  career  of  the  great  Almanzor,  ruler 
of  Cordova  from  978  to  1002,  might  be  cited  as  a  partial 
proof  of  these  elastic  conditions.  Almanzor  used  Christian 
mercenaries  against  his  father-in-law  and  enemy,  GBalib, 
and  Ghalib  hired  Christians,  too.  Almanzor  also  took 


346 


F.  M.  WARREX 


wives  from  among  the  high  nobility  of  Castille  and  Leon. 
Of  such  a  marriage  his  successor  was  born. 

Contemporaneous  in  tradition  with  Mainet,  as  Professor 
Lang  reminds  me,  and  reflecting  the  same  political  and  so- 
cial conditions,  is  the  Spanish  poem  of  the  Infantes  de 
Lara.  The  father  of  the  Laras  had  been  sent  to  Almanzor 
to  be  executed,  a  Christian  betrayed  to  a  Moslem  by  a 
Christian.  But  the  Moslem,  respecting  the  victim,  refused 
to  do  the  evil  work,  and  for  death  substituted  imprison- 
ment. He  also  committed  the  Spaniard  to  the  care  of  a 
fair  jailor,  perhaps  Almanzor's  sister,  who  fell  in  love  with 
her  charge  and  bore  him  a  son,  who  was  destined  to  avenge 
the  wrongs  suffered  by  his  father's  family.  Here  again, 
though  of  quite  a  different  tenor  from  Mainet,  neither 
racial  nor  religious  enmity  forms  the  theme,  and  its  re- 
semblance to  Orderic's  account  of  Melaz's  dealings  with 
Bohemond  remains  wholly  superficial,  accidental.  The 
essential  plot  is  lacking  to  the  Infantes  de  Lara  quite  as 
much  as  to  Mainet. 

Now  wiiat  is  the  plot  ?  What  are  the  essential  elements 
in  the  story  of  the  enamoured  Moslem  princess?  They 
are  these:  the  release  of  a  prisoner  by  the  daughter  of  his 
captor;  her  conversion  to  his  faith;  her  return  with  him 
to  his  native  land.  Mainet  chanced  upon  one  of  the  vital 
factors  of  the  legend.  It  is  wholly  innocent  of  the  others. 
And  the  approximation  of  the  Infantes  de  Lara  is  seen  to 
be  of  the  feeblest. 

Still  two  of  these  factors,  the  vital  two,  joined  together 
in  a  close  and  logical  combination,  existed  long  before 
Orderic's  time,  before  Almanzor's,  before  Charlemagne's, 
or  even  before  Charles  Martel's.  Already  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era,  Seneca  the  Rhetorician,  had  formu- 
lated them  in  the  heading  of  the  sixth  controversia  of  his 


THE  ENAMOURED  MOSLEM  PRINCESS  347 

first  book  of  questions  for  argumentation:  "Captus  a  piratis 
scripsit  patri  (de)  redemptione.  Non  redimebatur.  Arci- 
piratae  filia  jurare  eum  coegit,  ut  duceret  se  uxorem  si 
dimissus  esset.  Eelicto  patre  secuta  cst  adulcscentcm. 
Rediit  ad  patrem,  duxit  illam.  Orba  incidit.  Pater  im- 
perat  ut  arcipiratae  filiam  dimittat  et  orbem  ducat.  Nolen- 
tem  abdicat."  And  the  discussion  that  follows  this  outline 
casts  further  light  on  its  incidents.  The  youth  is  shown 
lying  in  a  dungeon  ("  in  tenebris  jacebam"),  working  on 
the  sympathy  of  his  tender-hearted  (or  ambitious)  warden, 
promising  her  marriage  for  his  freedom  and  urging  her 
to  fly  with  him.  The  story  undoubtedly  came  to  Seneca 
from  the  store  of  the  Greek  sophists.  Nor  did  his  version 
suffer  much  change  in  the  Western  world.  The  fifth  tale 
of  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  of  the  thirteenth  century,  pre- 
serves all  its  fundamentals.  The  orphaned  rival  has  fallen 
out,  to  be  sure,  but  the  father  still  threatens  disinheritance 
if  the  son  marries  his  rescuer — who  is  now  promoted  to 
the  grade  of  princess,  in  keeping,  perhaps,  with  Seneca's 
arcipirata. 

Now  what  did  Orderic  know  of  Seneca's  controversia, 
or  of  the  antecedents  of  the  coming  Gesta  Romanorum? 
Nothing,  it  is  quite  safe  to  say.  His  knowledge  of  the  de- 
votion of  a  Moslem  princess  to  the  captive  Bohemond  came 
to  him  from  the  East  by  the  way  of  knight,  minstrel  or 
pilgrim,  and  it  is  in  the  East  that  we  are  likely  to  come 
upon  the  source  of  his  story.  The  difference  between  that 
story  and  Seneca's  controversia,  apart  from  the  admixture 
of  military  exploits  with  Orderic,  mainly  consists  in  the 
idea  of  the  maiden's  conversion  to  the  faith  of  her  captive. 
And  Seneca's  controversia-  was  to  receive  this  striking  ad- 
dition in  one  of  those  Oriental  tales  which  were  to  make 
up  the  collection  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 


348  F.  M.  WAKKEI* 

The  Magian,  Bahrain,  has  thrown  Prince  As' ad,  a  Mos- 
lem, into  a  dungeon  beneath  his  house,  and  has  set  over 
him  as  tormentor  his  daughter,  Bustan.  But  when  Bustau 
went  down  to  beat  As'ad,  his  great  beauty  stayed  her  hand. 
Instead  of  blows,  she  freed  him  from  his  chains  and  began 
to  talk  with  him.  The  conversation  soon  turned  on  ques- 
tions of  religion,  and  so  persuasive  were  As'acl's  words 
that  after  much  instruction  Bustan  foreswore  her  faith 
for  As'ad's,  and  gave  him  her  heart  in  keeping  as  well. 
After  she  had  nursed  him  back  to  health  she  learned  of  his 
identity  by  a  crier  and  restored  him  to  his  family.  Her 
father,  however,  was  seized  by  the  Sultan  and  condemned 
to  death.  He  asked  for  a  few  moments'  grace ;  they  were 
granted,  and  he  used  them  in  abjuring  Magianism.  So 
his  life  was  spared.  Yet,  notwithstanding  all  these  serv- 
ices, Bustan  did  not  receive  her  due  reward.  For  As'ad 
was  claimed  by  a  former  flame,  and  it  was  his  older  brother 
who  finally  married  the  submissive  Bustan.8 

When  we  compare  the  outline  of  this  tale  to  Orderic's 
narrative  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  we  have  in  it  his  prin- 
cipal source.  Not  only  is  the  girl's  conversion  stressed 
with  emphasis,  but  the  eventual  disposition  of  her  hand 
is  strangely  like  Melaz's  fate,  who  was  at  last  given  to 
Bohemond's  cousin  and  not  to  Bohemond.  And  the  rea- 
son alleged  in  the  Nights  is  the  good  one.  As'ad  was  al- 
ready bespoken.  So  with  the  fathers  of  the  two  heroines. 
After  long  resistance  the  charms  of  Bohemond's  conversa- 
tion won  Dalimaii  over  to  Christianity.  Bahram  rejected 
Mohammedanism  until  it  was  that  or  his  head  for  him. 
Again  the  good  reason  is  given  by  the  Nights,  and  Orderic's 
appears  again  the  derived  version. 

9  Arabian  Nights,  Tales  236,  237,  248.  Cf.  V.  Chauvin,  Biblio- 
graphic des  ouvrages  arabes,  Vol.  v,  pp.  209,  210. 


THE  ENAMOURED  MOSLEM  PRINCESS  349 

Besides,  as  Professor  LeCompte  suggests,  Order  ic's  ac- 
count shows  another  strongly  marked  impress  of  its  East- 
ern origin.  All  of  the  characters  in  his  chronicle  of  Bohe- 
mond's  adventures  bear  historical  names  of  the  day,  save 
the  most  important  one,  the  heroine.  Her  name  had  to  be 
invented.  All  the  names  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  tale  are 
descriptive,  and  if  this  were  Orderic's  ultimate  source, 
the  fabrication  of  a  descriptive  name,  to  add  to  those  fur- 
nished by  history,  would  be  wholly  in  keeping.  So  Melaz 
would  be  borrowed  from  the  Greek  adjective  /-te'Xa?,  black 
or  swarthy.  But  the  adoption  of  this  appellative  indicates 
Greek  territory.  The  earlier  form  of  this  tale  of  the 
Nights  would,  therefore,  have  been  carried  to  Orderic 
from  Syria  or  Byzantium. 

Indeed,  if  you  set  that  tale,  even  as  we  now  know  it, 
into  the  authenticated  framework  of  Bohemond's  captivity 
and  release,  you  need  but  two  more  incidents  to  make 
Orderic's  narrative  complete.  One  is  the  assistance  ren- 
dered the  captor  by  his  prisoner  in  war ;  the  other  is  the 
seizure  of  the  captor's  fortress  by  the  prisoner,  at  the 
daughter's  instigation.  Current  French  epic  could  have 
easily  supplied  both.  We  have  noticed  the  former  in 
Mainet.  The  latter  was  apparently  numbered  among  the 
exploits  of  William  of  Orange,  and  has  been  handed  down 
to  us,  though  considerably  modified,  probably,  by  the  poem 
of  the  Prise  d' Orange. 

Considerably  modified,  and  perhaps  affected  by  an  echo 
of  the  Nights  tale  itself.  The  beginning,  however,  is 
wholly  unlike  that  tale.  William  enters  Orange  not  as  a 
captive,  but  as  one  attracted  thither  by  the  fame  of  Orable's 
beauty.  With  him  are  several  comrades.  All  are  dis- 
guised as  Turks.  They  excite  Or  able' s  sympathy  by  tneir 
accounts  of  William's  prowess,  so  that  when  their  disguise 


350 


F.  M.  WAKREN 


is  finally  penetrated  she  yields  to  their  entreaties  and  prom- 
ises of  reward  far  enough  to  give  them  the  arms  with  which 
they  drive  the  Saracens  from  the  tower.  Their  triumph 
is  hrief.  Overcome  by  numbers,  they  are  thrown  into  a 
dungeon,  where  Orable  soon  comes  to  visit  them.  She  tells 
them  she  will  free  them  if  William  will  marry  her,  and  she 
will  also  adopt  their  faith.  William  consents,  binds  him- 
self by  pledge  and  oath,  and  they  are  released.  At  Or  able' s 
suggestion  they  send  home  for  aid,  seize  the  tower  again 
and  hold  it  until  help  comes.  The  poem  concludes  with 
the  baptism  and  wedding  of  Orable,  who  brings  Orange  in 
dower  to  William. 

After  all,  then,  the  heroine  of  the  poem  does  free  the 
prisoners  and  marry  their  leader.  She  undergoes  con- 
version and  baptism,  too.  But  the  French  were  really  not 
captives.  They  had  put  themselves  in  the  enemy's  powTer 
out  of  curiosity.  Nor  was  Orable  a  maiden  and  a  daughter 
of  the  Pagan.  She  was  his  wife.  2sTor  did  she  follow  her 
lover  home.  On  the  contrary,  she  set  him  over  her  own 
land,  and  together  they  ruled  Orange.  So  the  plot  of  the 
Prise  d' Orange  at  bottom  is  quite  different  from  the  tra- 
ditional plot  of  the  rescued  captive.  Its  likeness  to  Or- 
deric's  narrative  comes  from  the  marriage  of  a  princess 
to  a  foreigner  she  has  befriended,  and  her  apostasy.  But 
Orable  reminds  you  strongly  of  Melaz.  She  possesses 
Melaz's  prudence  and  wise  determination.  Consequently, 
the  resemblances  between  the  epic  and  Orderic  are  strik- 
ing enough  to  suggest  the  idea  that  a  connection  may  have 
existed  between  them,  and  that  Orderic's  source,  or  Orderic 
himself,  may  have  given  the  poem  its  tone  and  at  least  one 
of  its  episodes. 

But  we  should  also  remember  that  Orderic  was  familiar 
with  the  story  of  William  of  Orange,  and  knew  an  earlier 


THE  E35TAMOUBED  MOSLEM  PRINCESS  351 

Prise  d' Orange?  from  which  he  could  have  easily  borrowed 
the  tower  motive.  His  informant  could  have  done  this, 
too,  and  if  we  are  inclined  to  believe  it  was  the  informant, 
and  not  Orderic,  who  made  the  loan,  it  is  because  this 
particular  incident  appears  elsewhere  in  another  version, 
where  the  notion  of  military  aid,  which  Orderic  stresses, 
does  not  appear.  Orderic,  therefore,  would  find  the  tower 
motive  in  his  source.  How  plausible  this  conclusion  about 
the  origin  of  the  tower  motive  in  Orderic  may  be  can  be 
seen  by  the  comparison  of  his  account  with  this  new  ver- 
sion, the  version  contained  in  the  epic  poem  of  Fierabras. 

Oliver  has  won  his  duel  with  the  giant,  but  with  several 
comrades  falls  victim  to  Pagan  treachery,  and  is  lodged  in 
a  dungeon  of  the  Emir  of  Spain.  The  Emir's  daughter, 
Eloripas,  hears  the  lamentations  of  the  captives  and  goes 
to  relieve  them.  She  kills  their  jailor,  who  would  oppose 
her,  and  releases  the  knights,  but  only  after  they  have 
sworn  fealty  to  her.  She  leads  them  to  her  room,  exacts  a 
pledge  of  complete  obedience  to  her,  and  finally  confesses 
her  love  for  the  absent  Guy  of  Burgundy.  Eor  him  she 
would  even  renounce  her  faith. 

Soon  Guy  comes  upon  the  stage,  as  one  of  an  embassy 
sent  the  Emir  by  Charlemagne.  The  reception  of  the  em- 
bassy is  insulting,  its  retort  defiant,  and  the  Emir  plans  to 
put  its  members  to  death.  While  he  is  deliberating  with 
his  leading  men,  Floripas  enters  the  hall,  grasps  the  situa- 
tion at  once,  urges  on  her  father,  and  asks  for  the  custody 
of  the  prisoners  in  the  meantime.  This  is  granted,  and 
Guy,  with  his  friends,  rejoins  Oliver's  party.  All  pledge 
again  to  obey  Floripas,  and  Guy,  facing  death  as  an  alter- 
native, accepts  her  love. 

But  there  is  a  Moslem  suitor,  whose  suspicions   are 

9  J.  Bedier,  Les  legendes  epiques,  Vol.  i,  p.  121. 


352 


F.   M.   WARREN 


aroused  by  Floripas's  long  absence,  and  who  breaks  into  her 
room  to  his  own  destruction.  Floripas  seizes  this  crisis 
as  the  moment  to  act.  The  French  rush  into  the  hall,  drive 
out  the  Saracens,  and  make  themselves  masters  of  palace 
and  tower.  The  Emir  besieges  them  there.  As  in  Orderic, 
the  tower  held  much  treasure,  but  lacked  provisions,  and 
Guy,  sallying  forth  to  get  food,  was  first  captured,  then 
rescued.  Provisions  are  obtained,  and  the  garrison  stand 
off  the  enemy  until  Charlemagne  comes.  The  Emir,  re- 
fusing to  recant,  is  slain,  with  his  daughter's  entire  ap- 
proval. Floripas  is  baptized,  married  to  Guy,  and  is 
crowned  queen  with  him  over  her  inheritance. 

Here  is  an  account  singularly  like  Orderic's.  So  much 
so,  indeed,  that  we  may  almost  assume  it  was  derived  from 
the  same  original.  It  omits  the  idea  of  military  aid  ren- 
dered the  captor,  which  is  in  Orderic,  and  it  introduces  the 
motive  of  the  rival  suitor — lacking  in  Orderic  unless  Soli- 
man's  son,  who  is  worsted  in  single  combat  by  Bohemond, 
is  a  faint  shadow  of  him.  It  presents  two  rescues  of  Chris- 
tian knights  by  the  heroine,  after  the  manner  of  the  Prise 
d'Orange,  it  has  the  Emir  beheaded  instead  of  allowing 
him  to  recant,  and  it  invests  Guy  with  Floripas's  lands,  as 
William  had  been  with  Orable's.  But  all  these  are  pure 
differences  of  incident.  They  do  not  touch  the  plot,  which 
remains  the  same,  with  the  exception  of  the  traditional 
elopement  of  the  heroine.  And  the  heroine  remains  the 
same  also,  prudent,  quick  in  decision,  wise  in  counsel. 
Surely,  the  old  romance  was  endowed  with  great  tenacity 
of  life,  a  tenacity  all  the  more  surprising  here  because  the 
author  of  Fierabras  knew  of  the  adventures  of  Charles 
and  Galienne,  and  yet  did  not  incorporate  them  into  his 
story,  as  we  have  supposed  Orderic  Vital  did.10 

"This  knowledge  of  Mainet  on  our  poet's  part  is  shown  in  the 


THE  ENAMOURED  MOSLEM  PRINCESS  353 

The  intimate  relation  of  the  Fierabras  version  to  Or- 
deric's  account  is  further  indicated  by  the  free  treatment 
the  story  received  at  the  hands  of  other  writers.  The  au- 
thor of  Elie  de  Saint-Gilles,  for  instance,  makes  the  Emir 
offer  the  captured  Elie  his  daughter,  Rosamond,  provided 
he  will  turn  Pagan.  Elie  refuses  and  escapes.  Later  he 
is  wounded  by  the  infidels,  and  is  secretly  carried  to  Rosa- 
mond's tower.  She  has  the  power  of  healing  wounds,  and 
Elie  is  quickly  restored  to  health.  In  gratitude  he  becomes 
her  champion  against  an  unwelcome  suitor,  kills  her 
brother,  who  has  abused  her  for  favoring  a  Christian, 
stands  a  siege  by  her  father  in  her  tower  and  is  finally 
rescued  by  Louis.  The  father  is  put  to  death,  Rosamond 
is  baptized,  and  (in  the  original  version)  married  to  Elie. 
She  must  have  also  brought  him  her  land  in  dower,  in  the 
original,  inasmuch  as  she  seems  to  be  the  sole  survivor  of 
the  family. 

The  variations  of  Elie  de  Saint-Gilles  are,  as  we  see, 
not  particularly  vital.  In  spite  of  its  strong  immixture 
of  romantic  incident,  it  still  preserves  the  traditional  trend 
of  the  Eastern  story.  But  with  the  Siege  de  Barbastre 
the  matter  is  quite  otherwise,  and  we  miss  in  it  essential 

warning  the  Einir  receives  from  one  of  his  council,  when  Floripas 
is  asking  him  for  the  custody  of  the  defiant  embassy : 

Du  rice  Challemaine  vous  devroit  ramenbrer, 

Que  tant  nori  Galafre,  qui  1'ot  fait  adouber; 

Puis  li  tolli  sa  fille,  Galiene  au  vis  cler, 

L'enfant  Garsilium  en  fist  desireter. 

Fierabras,    II.    2735-38,   as    corrected    by   Gaston 
Paris,  Histoire  poetique  de  Charlemagne,  p.  232. 

In  considering  the  investment  of  the  hero  with  the  heroine's  lands, 
in  both  the  Prise  d'Orange  and  Fierabras,  we  should  remember  that 
Galafre  offered  to  give  Charles  his  kingdom  and  Galienne,  if  he 
would  stay  in  Spain,  an  offer  which  may  have  suggested  the 
denouement  of  the  two  younger  poems. 


354  F.  M.  WAEEEN 

features  of  the  old  plot.  For  the  rescue  of  the  captured 
Commarcis  family  and  its  retainers  from  the  tower  of  Bar- 
bastre  is  accomplished  by  a  Saracen  of  the  town,  who  thus 
avenges  his  private  wrongs  on  the  Emir.  And  the  heroine 
is.  not  the  Emir's  daughter.  She  is  Malatrie  of  Cordova, 
betrothed  to  the  Emir's  son,  and  she  is  summoned  by  the 
Emir  to  the  camp  where  he  is  besieging  his  capital,  now  in 
the  power  of  the  French.  But  Malatrie  has  fallen  in  love 
with  Girard  de  Commarcis  by  hearsay,  and  has  her  tent 
pitched  near  the  tower  in  the  wall,  which  he  is  defend- 
ing. So  when  Girard  makes  a  sortie  one  day  he  comes 
upon  her,  and  learns  of  her  love.  He  returns  it,  and  soon 
contrives  her  escape  into  the  city.  Her  Moslem  suitor  is 
unhorsed  by  him  in  one  of  the  many  combats  which  fill 
out  the  poem,  and,  the  French  resisting  until  Louis  raises 
the  siege,  the  union  of  knight  and  princess  eventually  takes 
place.11 

After  Orderic,  therefore,  the  story  of  the  enamoured 
Moslem  princess  suffered  deterioration.  Even  in  Fiera- 
bras,  nearest  of  the  French  versions  to  Orderic,  the  situa- 
tion is  less  simple,  the  recital  more  labored.  Consequently 
it  is  Orderic's  narrative  that  is  of  paramount  importance 
in  the  history  of  the  tale  in  the  West.  And  as  Seneca  un- 
doubtedly got  his  caption  for  argumentation  from  his 
Greek  teachers  of  rhetoric,  so  Orderic  as  surely  heard 
about  Bohemond  and  Melaz  from  a  returned  pilgrim  or 
Crusader.  The  story-tellers  of  the  Eastern  Empire  had 
obstinately  refused  to  forget  the  romance  of  the  rescued 
captive,  and  when  reviving  religious  zeal  drove  the  votaries 
of  Mohammed  on  to  the  war  with  older  creeds,  the  added 
episode  of  the  rout  of  Magianism  endowed  its  well-known 

11  Ph.  A.  Becker,  Le  Sitge  de  Barbastre,  in  Festgabe  fur  G.  Grober, 
pp.  252-266. 


THE  ENAMOUEED  MOSLEM  PEINCESS 


355 


incidents  with  a  deeper  meaning.  Little  wonder  that  the 
Christians  of  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  should  take  advantage 
of  its  renewed  popularity  to  restate  its  moral.  To  adapt 
it,  however,  to  the  known  facts  of  Bohemond's  capture  and 
ransom  demanded  brains  and  imagination.  This  adapta- 
tion was  surely  the  work  of  a  man  of  talent. 

Who  was  this  man  of  talent,  of  brains  and  imagination  ? 
Is  it  possible  it  was  Bohemond  himself  ?  Could  any  other 
than  he  or  his  comrades  in  trouble  have  possessed  the  au- 
thority to  make  such  a  fable  pass  muster  with  a  sober  Latin 
chronicler  ?  On  a  later  page  of  his  book  Orderic  tells  how 
Bohemond  made  his  pilgrimage  to  St.  Leonard's  in  the 
winter  of  1106,  paid  his  vow  to  the  saint,  and  passed  on  to 
a  veritable  tour  of  central  France.  During  Lent  he  visited 
many  castles  and  towns,  made  many  gifts  to  shrines,  and 
stood  godfather  to  many  children.  And  everywhere  he 
went  he  told  of  his  recent  experiences.  Even  at  Easter, 
after  he  had  married  Constance  of  France  at  Chartres,  he 
took  his  stand  before  the  high-altar  of  the  cathedral  and, 
with  the  recital  of  his  own  fortunes  and  exploits,  exhorted 
his  audience  to  follow  him  against  the  Greek  emperor.12 
And  what  more  telling  illustration  of  the  glories  of  a  Cru- 
sader's career  in  Syria  couM  he  have  used  than  the  story 
of  Melaz's  devotion  to  the  Trench  and  her  conversion  to 
the  true  faith  ? 

In  the  spring  of  1106  Orderic  made  a  visit  to  the  region 
north  of  the  Loire.13  The  countryside  was  ringing  with 
Bohemond's  praises.  Orderic  may  have  learned  of  the 
hero's  "fortunes  and  exploits"  from  his  own  lips.  He  cer- 
tainly heard  them  told  by  many  who  had  seen  him,  and,  as 

™Hist.  EC.,  xi,  12  (edition  cited,  Vol.  iv,  pp.  210-213).  Ordferic's 
words  about  Bohemond's  plea  are :  "  Casus  suos  et  res  gestas  enar- 
ravit." 

13  Op.  cit.,  xi,  15    (edition  cited,  Vol.  IV,  p.  215). 


356 


F.  M.  WABREN 


was  his  habit,  we  may  suppose  lie  wrote  them  down.  Did 
they  already  contain  their  epic  embellishments,  the  mili- 
tary aid  rendered  Daliman,  the  seizure  of  his  tower  ?  A 
score  of  years  and  more  were  to  pass  before  they  were  to 
assume  their  final  shape,  years  echoing  with  epic  song,  and 
it  may  well  be  that  during  this  interval  these  incidents 
wTere  added  to  the  original  story.  But  the  presence  of  the 
tower  episode  in  Fierabras  might  imply  that  this  event 
had  already  been  incorporated  into  Orderic's  source.  The 
other,  wanting  in  Fierabras,  Orderic  would  have  adapted 
from  Mainet.14 

Now  if  our  conclusion  that  the  story  of  the  enamoured 
Moslem  princess  reaches  back  through  its  Mohammedan 
revision  to  the  Greek  tale  of  the  rescued  captive  is  well 
founded,  we  might  derive  from  its  very  genealogy  the  expla- 
nation of  an  interesting  feature  of  its  psychology,  the  char- 
acter of  the  heroine.  The  traits  of  a  Melaz  or  a  Floripas  or 
an  Orable — for  we  may  perhaps  consider  the  extant  Prise 
d' Orange  a  product  in  part  of  the  Eastern  story — are  not 
the  traits  of  the  medieval  woman  of  the  West.  Compare 
their  dispositions,  for  instance,  with  Bertha's  in  Girard 
de  Roussillon.  Even  Galienne,  who  forsakes  her  own  land 
and  creed  for  her  lover's,  and  who,  we  may  presume,  had 
imbibed  some  of  the  spirit  of  Bustan  through  Arabic  in- 

14  Orderic's  loans  from  the  story  of  William,  and  perhaps  also  from 
the  Chanson  de  Roland,  in  his  account  of  an  event  that  happened 
while  he  was  in  the  midst  of  composing  his  Historia,  show  how  he 
could  combine  epic  tradition  with  historical  fact.  See  The  Battle  of 
Fraga  and  Larchamp  in  Orderic  Vital,  Modern  Philology,  xi 
(January,  1914),  pp.  339-346. 

Orderic  could  also  be  the  most  faithful  of  reporters,  as  his  picture 
of  the  Moslem  Princess  of  Antioch  in  tears  over  her  farewell  to  pork 
proves.  The  scene  must  have  been  intended  to  raise  a  laugh  in  the 
crowd,  but  Orderic  fails  to  give  us  the  least  notion  of  humor  in  it. 
Nor  does  he  elsewhere  in  his  long  narrative. 


TIEE  ENAMOUEED  MOSLEM  PRINCESS  357 

termediaries,  is  not  the  principal  actor  in  Mainet.  Her 
sole  initiative  seems  to  consist  in  warding  off  threatened 
danger  from  Charles.  But  Melaz  and  her  sisters  are  the 
action  itself.  They  guide  and  direct.  The  knights  heed 
their  least  word.  They  are  the  genuine  descendants  of  the 
pirate's  daughter,  who  made  absolute  conformity  to  her 
behests,  even  to  the  extreme  of  marriage,  the  price  of  her 
prisoner's  freedom.  And  if  the  dominance  of  Bustan  in 
the  Arabian  Nights  is  not  so  evident,  we  may  assume  that 
it  is  because  the  traditional  qualities  in  her,  and  which  she 
must  have  possessed  at  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century, 
had  suffered  much  toning  down  by  the  process  of  har- 
monizing them  with  the  social  conditions  prevalent  when 
the  collection  was  given  its  final  shape. 

The  masterful  nature  of  these  women,  foreign  to  France 
and  to  the  feminine  ideal  of  the  French,  would  therefore 
be  ancestral,  inherited.  It  would  have  been  bequeathed 
to  them  by  their  virile  progenitor  of  classical  antiquity. 
Did  their  example  affect  in  any  degree  their  more  retiring 
sisters  of  the  West,  nurtured  in  the  true  faith  ?  Did  the 
romantic  heroines  of  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  the 
Idoines,  the  Aelises,  the  Lienors,  owe  to  them  some  meas- 
ure of  their  prudent  self-confidence?  It  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  say.  Orderic,  for  one,  seems  to  have  been  impressed 
by  the  type.  For  when  he  has  to  chronicle  the  capture  of 
Baldwin  II,  of  Jerusalem,  and  his  confinement  in  a  Turk- 
ish fortress,  he  (or  again  it  may  be  his  informant)  patterns 
the  situation  on  the  adventures  of  Bohemond  and  Melaz. 
Baldwin  and  his  companions  free  themselves  and  seize  the 
stronghold.  The  Emir  besieges  them  to  no  purpose,  and 
then  offers  an  advantageous  armistice.  The  French  are 
about  to  accept  it,  when  Fatumia,  the  Emir's  wife^  ap- 
pears in  the  midst  of  their  council  (she  resided  in  this  fort- 

6 


358  F.  M.  WAREEtf 

ress),  urges  them  to  break  off  negotiations  and  rely  on  the 
castle's  strength  and  their  valorous  renown  as  knights  of 
France.  Should  they  successfully  resist,  she  will  embrace 
Christianity.15 

The  name,  Fatumia,  betrays  the  tongue  of  the  returned 
pilgrim  or  Crusader.  And  Fatumia  is  not  altogether  a 
Melaz,  any  more  than  Baldwin  is  anywhere  near  a  Bohe- 
mond.  She  is  neither  a  sweetheart,  nor  a  rescuer.  But  she 
is  all  the  rest:  a  resolute  adviser,  an  enemy  to  her  own 
people,  a  willing  apostate.  In  her  mental  attributes,  at 
least,  she  fairly  takes  her  stand  beside  Floripas,  Orable 
and  Melaz,  a  worthy  specimen  of  those  resourceful  infidel 
princesses  who  compelled  the  unqualified  admiration  of 
the  romancers  of  Christian  France. 

F.  M.  WAEEEN. 


Op,  cit.,  xi,  26   (edition  cited,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  252-255). 


XVIL—  KLEIST   AT  BOULOGNE-SUK-MER 

In  October,  1803,  Kleist  secretly  left  Paris  and  traveled 
alone  and  without  the  customary  passports  to  the  northern 
coast  of  France,  to  the  vicinity  of  Boulogne-sur-mer.  In 
and  near  this  city  Napoleon  I.  was  assembling  a  vast  army, 
with  munitions  and  transports,  for  the  ostensible  purpose 
of  making  a  descent  upon  England.  Kleist  wished  to 
enter  this  army  and  share  its  fate  on  English  soil,  in  the 
hope  of  a  soldier's  death. 

The  most  direct  and  reliable  information  we  have  con- 
cerning this  episode  in  Heist's  life  is  given  us  in  his  let- 
ter to  Ulrike  von  Kleist  dated  at  St.  Omer,  in  the  district 
Pas-de-Calais  about  45  km.  inland  from  Boulogne,  Oct. 
26,1803: 

"  Meine  theure  Ulrike !  Was  ich  dir  schreiben  werde, 
kann  dir  vielleicht  das  Leben  kosten;  aber  ich  musz,  ich 
musz,  ich  musz  es  vollbringen.  Ich  habe  in  Paris  mein 
Werk,  so  weit  es  fertig  war,  durchgelesen,  verworfen  und 
verbrannt:  und  nun  ist  es  aus.  Der  Himmel  versagt 
mir  den  Ruhm,  das  Groszte  der  Giiter  der  Erde: 
ich  werfe  ihm,  wie  ein  eigensinniges  Kind  alle  iibrigen 
hin.  Ich  kann  mich  deiner  Freundschaft  nicht 
wiirdig  zeigen,  ich  kann  ohne  diese  Freundschaft 
doch  nicht  leben :  ich  stiirze  mich  in  den  Tod. 
Sei  ruhig,  du  Erhabene,  ich  werde  den  schonen  Tod 
der  Schlachten  sterben.  Ich  habe  die  Hauptstadt 
dieses  Landes  verlassen,  ich  bin  an  seine  ISTordkiiste 
gewandert,  ich  werde  franzb'sische  Kriegsdienste  nehmen, 
das  Heer  wird  bald  nach  England  hiniiber  rudern, 
unser  aller  Verderben  lauert  liber  den  Meeren, 

359 


360  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

ich  f rohlocke  bei  der  Aussicht  auf  das  unendlich  prachtige 
Grab.    O  du  Geliebte,  du  wirst  mein  letzter  Gedanke  sein." 

The  biographers  from  Tieck  (1821)  to  Meyer-Benfey 
(1911)  and  ELerzog  (1911)  have  had  almost  as  much  diffi- 
culty with  this  part  of  Kleist's.life  as  with  the  journey  to 
Wiirzburg,  and  the  most  recent  are  in  certain  respects 
more  unsatisfactory  than  many  of  their  predecessors. 

If  we  compare  their  accounts  in  chronological  order  we 
see  that  the  story  is  complete  in  detail  by  1863.  We  note 
a  distinct  increase  in  the  degree  of  abnormality  ascribed 
to  Kleist.  W,e  have  no  longer  a  mere  recital  of  the  suc- 
cession of  events,  but  an  interpretation,  a  motivation.  A 
tendency  to  minimize  the  importance  of  details  drawn 
from  rather  uncertain  oral  tradition,  or  to  reject  them,  is 
accompanied  by  an  injection  of  theoretical  elements  drawn 
from  later  portions  of  their  subject's  life.  There  is  every- 
where much  dependence  of  phraseology  and  still  greater 
dependence  of  matter,  but  here  and  there  subjective  varia- 
tions which  seem  to  have  no  other  basis  than  the  writer's 
desire  to  find  a  meaning  in  the  episode  which  will  satisfy 
his  conception  of  the  poet's  character. 

This  is  a  legitimate  function  of  the  biographer,  but 
hazardous  unless  ample  corroborative  evidence  is  at  hand. 
In  this  case,  however,  we  have  not  a  shred  of  contempor- 
ary evidence  as  to  Kleist's  psychic  condition  between  Oct. 
5,  1803  and  June,  1804,  except  his  letter  written  at  St. 
Omer.  We  have  to  rely  upon  preceding  and  succeeding 
documents,  upon  general  considerations  and  oral  tradi- 
tion traceable  ultimately  to  Kleist  himself  or  to  his  travel- 
ing companion,  Pfuel,  who  fails  us  for  all  events  subse- 
quent to  the  disappearance  from  Paris. 

New  data  make  it  possible  now  to  set  the  events  in 
their  proper  chronological  order,  and  the  writer  hopes  to 


KLEIST    AT    BOTJLOG-NE-SLTR-MER  361 

interpret  the  whole  episode  more  satisfactorily  by  a  recon- 
sideration of  all  available  evidence. 

Aside  from  Kleist' s  actual  suicide  in  November,  1811, 
•which  caused  many  people  to  reconstruct  their  notions  of 
the  poet's  whole  life  in  the  light  of  what  they  believed  its 
end  to  be,  there  are  principally  two  things  which  have 
been  drawn  upon  for  this  obscure  period:  (1)  certain 
reports  by  Pfuel,  and  (2)  letters  by  Kleist  himself,  one 
of  June  24,  1804,  to  Ulrike  von  Kleist,  and  another  of 
July  29,  1804,  to  Henriette  von  Schlieben,  of  Dresden. 

Pfuel  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  gossipy  about  his 
friendship  with  Kleist.  He  related  to  several  persons  at 
different  times  the  events  of  the  journey  from  Dresden 
via  Berne,  Milan,  Geneva,  and  Lyons  to  Paris,  with  its 
abrupt  termination  in  October,  1803.  The  variations  of 
his  story  show  that  his  memory  was  not  very  clear,  or  that 
he  was  not  very  careful  in  regard  to  details,  (v.  Bieder- 
mann's  Gesprache,  pp.  96  ff.)  What  seems  reasonably  cer- 
tain from  these  sources  is,  that  Kleist's  moods  ranged 
between  great  hopefulness  and  deep  depression,  as  the 
prospects  of  finishing  his  tragedy  of  Robert  Guiskard  rose 
and  fell.  As  the  difficulties  seemed  to  increase,  the  moods 
of  depression  became  preponderant,  and  from  time  to 
time  suicide  seemed  the  only  escape.  There  is  no  good 
reason  to  doubt  that  Kleist  asked  Pfuel  on  more  than  one 
occasion  to  join  him  in  a  double  suicide.  But  there  is 
little,  if  anything,  in  Pfuel's  various  accounts  to  justify 
the  view  usually  held,  that  the  desire  for  suicide  was  due 
to  an  insane  impulse.  Ambition  and  pride  coupled  with 
peculiar  adversities  were  the  cause. 

Wieland's  letter  to  Dr.  Wedekind  of  Mainz,  April  10, 
18-04,  suggests  a  number  of  elements  which,  takei*  to- 
gether, make  up  a  very  fair  diagnosis  of  Kleist's  condi- 
tion, though  the  emphasis  on  single  items  might  be  shifted : 


362  JOHN  WILLIAM  SCHOLL 

(1)  "  semen    auf    Selbstgefiihl   gegriindeten,    aber    von 
seinem    Schicksal   gewaltsam    niedergedriickten    Stolz " ; 

(2 )  "  die  Excentricitat  der  ganzen  Lauf  bahn,  worin  er 
sich,   seitdem   er  aus  der  militarischen   Karriere  ausge- 
treten,  hin  und  her  bewegt  hat";   (3)   "seine  fiirchter- 
liche  tiberspannung  " ;  (4)  "  sein  fnichtloses  Streben  nach 
einem  unerreichbaren  Zauberbild  von  Vollkommenheit  in 
seinem  bereits  zur  fixen  Idee  gewordenen  Guiskard  " ;  (5) 
"seine  zerriittete  geschwachte  Gesundheit " ;    (6)    "die 
Miszverhaltnisse,  worin  er  mit  seiner  Familie  zu  stehen 
scheint."  * 

A  review  of  Kleist's  early  life  and  extracts  from  his 
intimate  letters  will  show  that  the  elder  Wieland  judged 
the  case  very  well,  but  at  the  same  time  indicate  that  the 
emphasis  is  to  be  laid  primarily  upon  the  external  condi- 
tions and  the  temperament  of  the  poet,  and  only  sec- 
ondarily upon  the  transient  state  of  his  health  and  his  ill 
success  with  the  Guiskard. 

Kleist  was  born  into  a  family  with  almost  exclusively 
military  traditions.  His  father  was  a  major  in  the  Prus- 
sian army,  his  grandfather  a  captain  of  staff,  and  scores 
of  his  kinsmen  had  been  or  were  army  officers.  To  break 
with  such  a  tradition  was  in  itself  almost  a  calamity. 

Moreover,  he  was  born  under  a  benevolent  despotism, 
whose  favorite  implement  of  rule  was  the  army.  His 
childhood  fell  in  the  last  nine  years  of  the  reign  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great.  To  forsake  the  army  for  any  other 
career  whatsoever  in  such  a  militaristic  state,  was  at  once 
to  forfeit  the  favor  of  the  king. 

Add  to  this  the  fact  that  Kleist  belonged  to  a  family  of 
the  oldest  nobility,  a  family  over  five  hundred  years  old, 
whose  traditions  absolutely  precluded  the  choice  of  cer- 

1  Biedermann,  Heinrich  von  Eleists  Gesprache,  pp.  77  if . 


KLEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUR-MER 


363 


tain  careers  open  to  the  middle  and  lower  classes,  whose 
inheritance  was  an  intense  pride  and  consciousness  of 
rank,  however  much  softened  by  philosophy.  Such  a  man 
might  serve  in  the  army,  the  civil  service,  the  Church,  the 
university,  but  a  literary  career  was  frowned  upon  by  his 
class. 

Again,  Kleist's  father  died  when  his  son  was  but  eleven 
years  old,  leaving  him  under  guardianship  2  with  a  fortune 
too  small  to  support  him  even  in  the  most  modest  fashion. 
His  mother  died  a  few  years  later.  During  his  tute- 
lage additional  help  was  needed.  The  kinsfolk  upon 
whom  he  could  count  for  aid  were  two,  his  half-sister 
Ulrike,  who  helped  him  financially  from  time  to  time,  and 
a  distant  cousin,  Marie  von  Kleist,  who  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  the  new  queen  and  could  help  him  through  her 
influence  at  court. 

Through  the  latter  young  Kleist  received  his  appoint- 
ment as  "  Gefreiter  Corporal "  in  the  regiment  of  Koyal 
Guards  stationed  at  Potsdam.  This  was  the  king's  favor- 
ite regiment.  The  boy  was  but  fifteen  years  old  and  there 
was  prospect  of  promotion.  A  brilliant  military  career  was 
before  him.  The  king  felt  that  he  had  strained  a  few 
points  in  young  Kleist' s  favor  to  please  his  queen's  good 
friend.  The  Kleist  family  rejoiced,  and  had  every 
reason  to  rejoice  at  the  signal  favor  shown  the  boy.  He 
was  well  provided  for,  in  spite  of  his  orphanage  and  his 
reduced  estates. 

But  two  things  were  fatal  to  the  permanency  of  this 
arrangement:  (1)  Kleist' s  tastes  and  temperament,  and 
(2)  the  scale  of  living  of  the  regiment  of  Royal  Guards. 
Salaries  were  not  sufficient  and  the  needed  additions 


3  Kleist' s  tutelage  lasted  till  he  was  twenty-four  years  old.  "  Ich 
bin  in  einem  Jahr  majorenn"  (v.  Letter  to  Ulrike,  October  27, 
1800). 


354  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCIIOLL 

either  ate  into  the  principal  of  his  estate  or  had  to  he 
advanced  by  Ulrike  or  other  members  of  the  family,  a  fact 
which  justified  their  desire  to  advise  him  in  any  juncture 
of  affairs. 

For  the  time  being  the  former  was  the  more  important. 
The  disciple  of  Rousseau,  who  came  to  look  upon  self- 
culture  as  the  only  worthy  aim  in  life,  became  disgusted 
with  the  mechanical  slavery  and  degrading  routine  of  the 
army.  After  enduring  seven  years  of  such  existence 
Kleist  petitioned  to  be  released,  giving  as  his  reason  a 
desire  to  continue  his  studies  at  the  university.  The  king 
granted  the  request,  though  grudgingly.  At  the  express 
royal  command  Kleist  made  the  following  definite 
promise : 

"  Nachdem  Sr.  Koniglichen  Majestat  von  Preuszen  mir 
Endesunterschriebenem  den  aus  freier  Entschlieszung  und 
aus  eigenem  Antriebe  um  meine  Studia  zu  vollenden 
allerunterthanigst  nachgesuchten  Abschied  aus  Hochst 
Dero  Kriegsdiensten  in  Gnaden  bewilliget:  so  reversiere 
ich  mich  hierdurch  auf  Hochst  Dero  ausdriicklichen 
Befehl:  dasz  ich  weder  ohne  Dero  allerhochsten  Konsens 
jemals  in  auswartige  Kriegs-  oder  Zivildienste  treten, 
noch  in  Hochstdero  Staaten  wiederum  in  Konigl.  Krlegs- 
dienste  aufgenommen  zu  werden,  anhalten  will;  dagegen 
ich  mir  vorbehalte,  nach  Absolvierung  meiner  Studia 
Seiner  Majestat  dem  Konige  und  dem  Vaterlande  im 
Zivilstande  zu  dienen.  Diesen  wohliiberdachten  R-evers 
habe  ich  eigenhandig  ge-  und  unterschrieben.  So  gesche- 
hen  Frankfurt  a.  Oder  den  17.  April  1799.  Heinrich 
von  Kleist,  vormals  Lieut,  im  Regt.  Garde." 

Thus  at  one  stroke  Kleist  forfeited  the  good-will  and 
active  favor  of  the  king,  and  disappointed  and  angered  his 
family,  who  could  see  in  his  act  nothing  but  the  most 
stupid  and  irresponsible  folly.  From  new  on  he  had  to 


KLEIST    AT    BOULOGNE'S  UR-MEB  365 

live  on  the  proceeds  or  principal  of  his  estates  and  what 
could  be  wrung  from  others,  chiefly  from  the  self -sacrific- 
ing Ulrike. 

Now  begins  a  period  of  half-conscious,  if  not  quite 
wholly  intentional  dissembling.  Kleist  had  to  meet  in  a 
fashion  the  wishes  of  his  family,  or  give  up  his  career  of 
self-culture  at  the  university.  He  represented  to  the  king 
and  to  his  family  that  he  intended  preparing  for  a  career 
in  the  civil  service.  However,  he  did  almost  nothing  in 
that  direction  during  his  three  semesters  at  Frankfurt, 
and  the  family  became  impatient.  They  insisted  upon  his 
preparing  for  an  '  Amt.'  They  wanted  him  to  choose 
some  '  Brotstudium.' 

To  complicate  matters  still  further  Kleist  became  enam- 
oured of  a  young  friend  of  his  sister,  and  his  love  was  re- 
turned after  a  fashion.  She  was  Wilhelmine  von  Zenge, 
daughter  of  Ma j. -Gen.  von  Zenge,  then  in  charge  of  the 
regiment  stationed  at  Frankfurt.  Her  parents  consented 
to  the  betrothal  on  one  condition,  that  the  marriage  should 
not  take  place  until  Kleist  had  an  '  Amt.'  This  merely 
intensified  those  "  Miszverhaltnisse  zu  seiner  Familie  " ; 
for  here  was  another  group  of  persons  whose  wishes  were 
to  be  considered  and  whose  feelings  were  to  be  conciliated 
by  a  dissembling  wholly  foreign  to  Kleist's  temperament. 

Add  to  this  the  mysterious  journey  to  Wiirzburg  for 
medical  or  surgical  treatment,  his  unsettled  position  in  the 
finance  department  in  Berlin  after  his  return,  his  re- 
ported unwillingness  to  perform  distasteful  services  re- 
quired of  him,  the  constant  financial  drain  on  his  own  and 
the  family's  resources,  his  hypersensitive  attitude  toward 
those  on  whom  he  depended  or  toward  whom  he  had  obli- 
gations, the  gradual  wear  of  such  unsatisfactory  condi- 
tions upon  his  health  already  threatened  by  intense  study, 
the  shock  of  disappointment  at  finding  his  desire  of  abso- 


366  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

lute  knowledge  negatived  by  the  convincing  logic  of  Kant's 
Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  and  the  result  was — a  journey 
to  Paris  to  escape  it  all. 

Against  all  this  only  too  well  grounded  distrust  and 
opposition,  and  these  very  intelligible  and  wholly  excusa- 
ble, even  commendable  demands  of  his  family,  Kleist  had 
only  one  thing  to  set :  his  genius.  Of  this  he  alone  could 
judge.  He  alone  could  have  confidence  in  it,  and  its  ulti- 
•mate  triumph.  As  yet  he  had  accomplished  nothing  more 
by  it  than  to  break  from  old  bonds. 

The  journey  to  Paris  was  not  without  its  keen  disap- 
pointments. He  was  under  many  obligations  to  Ulrike 
and  had  previously  given  her  a  promise  not  to  travel  in 
foreign  lands  without  her  company.  He  kept  his  promise. 
But  thus  he  was  no  longer  able  to  travel  on  his  mere  ma- 
triculation card.  He  had  to  secure  passports  for  both.  To 
secure  them  he  had  to  give  a  reason  for  his  journey.  He 
could  not  tell  the  truth ;  so  he  told  a  half-truth.  His  object 
was  a  desire  to  learn.  This  was  understood  to  mean  study 
at  the  University  of  Paris,  and  his  friends  armed  him 
with  letters  of  introduction  to  various  scholars  there.  The 
dissimulation  had  to  be  kept  up  by  actual  calls  upon  these 
persons.  These  letters  and  these  supposed  plans  of  study 
awakened  "expectations"  in  friends  outside  the  family 
circle,  which  Kleist  knew  he  could  not  fulfill,  and  he  dis- 
liked to  return  and  meet  them,  and  have  to  confess  that 
he  had  tried  nothing,  accomplished  nothing. 

Under  such  circumstances,  he  endured  Paris  a  few 
months,  and  then  went  to  Switzerland.  The  fruit  of  this 
journey  was  his  first  tragedy,  Die  Familie  Ghonorez,  or 
as  now  named,  Die  Familie  8chroffenstein.  It  aroused 
some  interest,  some  favorable  comment,  but  the  '  Honorar ' 
was  not  paid,  and  he  himself  soon  became  unjustly  harsh 
in  his  criticism  of  it.  It  certainly  was  not  an  "  elende 


KLEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUE-MEE 


367 


Scharteke,"  as  lie  called  it.  However  promising,  it  was 
not  the  work  with  which  he  dared  to  return  home,  face  his 
family,  and  claim  his  bride.  Its  financial  returns  did  not 
render  an  i  Amt '  any  the  less  necessary.  Meanwhile  a 
second  drama  had  dawned  upon  him,  and  this  seemed  so 
much  greater  that  it  promised  to  be  a  full  justification  of 
his  course  of  life  in  opposition  to  tradition,  king,  fate, 
family,  bride,  and  learned  friends.  It  treated  the  Death 
of  Eobert  Guiskard  the  Norman.  The  fragment  we  have 
of  it  shows  that  it  would  have  been  a  magnificent  drama, 
if  completed,  perhaps  unsurpassed  in  all  German  litera- 
ture. It  deserved  Kleist's  best  devotion  as  well  as  the 
elder  Wieland's  high  praise.  Whether  we  assume  that 
his  ideal  was  too  high — a  union  of  classic  and  romantic 
styles — or  that  his  powers  were  too  weak  ("  die  halben 
Talente  "),  or  that  he  was  supersensitive  to  such  defects  as 
had  marred  his  first  drama,  the  one  fact  is  apparent,  and 
of  the  utmost  importance:  Kleist  stakes  his  last  hope  on 
this  tragedy  of  Robert  Guiskard.  It  is  to  be  his  justifica- 
tion, his  redemption,  the  only  draught  that  will  satisfy 
his  thirst  for  glory. 

Hindrances  were  constantly  thrust  in  his  way.  Thwart- 
ed in  his  dream  of  an  idyllic  life  at  Thun,  breaking  with 
his  bride  who  would  not  consent  to  help  him  realize  a 
Rousseauistic  return  to  nature,  interrupted  by  months  of 
illness,  driven  by  political  accident  from  Switzerland  to 
Weimar,  to  Wieland,  driven  again  to  Leipzig  to  escape  a 
new  love  affair  with  Wieland' s  daughter,  hounded  every- 
where by  poverty  (for  his  own  estate  was  not  wholly  ex- 
hausted and  he  was  to  depend  henceforth  on  charity  or 
his  literary  earnings),  he  did  not  make  satisfactory  prog- 
ress with  his  tragedy.  It  would  have  been  a  marvel  if  he 
had  done  so. 

A  few  passages  from  Kleist' s  letters  to  Ulrike  at  Frank- 


368  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

f  urt,  and  to  other  friends,  will  throw  light  upon  his  actions 
and  motives,  and  completely  justify  the  view  we  have 
presented  above : 

"  Es  ist  wahrscheinlich,  dasz  ich  nie  in  mein 
Vaterland  zuriickkehre"  (to  C.  von  Schlieben,  Paris, 
July  18,  1801). 

"  Mein  liebes  Ulrikchen,  zuriickzukehren  zu  Euch  ist, 
so  unaussprechlich  ich  Euch  auch  liebe,  doch  unmoglich, 
unmoglich.  Ich  will  lieber  das  Auszerste  ertragen.— 
Lasz  mich.  Erinnere  mich  nicht  mehr  daran.  Wenn 
ich  auch  zuriickkehrte,  so  wiirde  ich  doch  gewisz,  gewisz, 
ein  Amt  nicht  nehmen.  Das  ist  nun  einmal 
abgetan.  Dir  selbst  musz  es  einleuchten,  dasz  ich 
fiir  die  iiblichen  Verhaltnisse  gar  nicht  mehr  passe. " 
— "  Darum  eben  straube  ich  mich  so  gegen  die  Riickkehr, 
denn  unmoglich  ware  es  mir,  hinzutreten  vor  jene 
Menschen,  die  mit  Hoffnungen  auf  mich  sahen, 
unmoglich  ihnen  zu  antworten,  wenn  sie  mich  fragen: 
wie  hast  du  sie  erfiillt?  Ich  bin  nicht  was 
die  Menschen  von  mir  halten,  mich  driicken  ihre 
Erwartungen. — Ach  es  ist  unverantwortlich,  den  Ehr- 
geiz  in  uns  zu  erwecken,  einer  Eurie  zum  Raub 
sind  wir  hingegeben. — Aber  nur  in  der  Welt  wcnig  zu 
sein,  ist  schmerzhaft,  auszer  ihr  nicht"  (to  Ulrike, 
Bern,  Jan.  12,  1802). 

"  Ich  arbeite  unaufhorlich  um  Befreiung  von  der 
Verbaniiung — du  verstehst  mich.  Vielleicht  bin  ich 
in  einem  Jahr  wieder  bei  Euch  "  (to  Ulrike,  Delosea 
Insel,  May  1,  1802). 

"  Ich  werde  wahrscheinlicher  Weise  niemals  in  mein 
Yaterland  zuriickkehren.  Ihr  Weiber  versteht  in  der 
Regel  ein  Wort  in  der  deutschen  Sprache  nicht,  es 
heiszt  Ehrgeiz.  Es  ist  nur  ein  einziger  Fall,  in 
welchem  ich  zuriickkehre,  wenn  ich  der  Erwartung 


KLEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUK-MEB  36  i) 

der  Menschen,  die  ich  thb'richter  Weise  durch 
eine  Menge  von  prahlerischen  Schritten  gereizt 
habe,  entsprechen  kann.  Der  Fall  1st  moglich,  aber 
nicht  wahrscheinlich.  Kurz,  kann  ich  nicht  mit 
Kuhm  im  Vaterland  erscheinen,  geschieht  es  nie. 
Das  1st  entschieden,  wie  die  JSTatur  meiner  Seele"  (to 
Wilhelmine,  Delosea  Insel,  May  20,  1802). 

"  Wenn  ihr  mich  in  Ruhe  ein  Paar  Monate  bei  Euch 
arbeiten  lassen  wolltet,  ohne  mich  mit  Angst,  was  aus  mir 
werden  werde,  rasend  zu  machen,  so  wiirde  ich — ja  ich 
wiirde! "  (to  Ulrike,  Leipzig,  Mar.  14,  1803). 

"  Ich  erbitte  mir  also  von  dir,  meine  Teure,  so  viel 
Fristung  meines  Lebens,  als  notig  ist,  seiner  groszen 
Bestimmung  vollig  genug  zu  tun."  "  Du  wirst  mir  gern 
zu  dem  einzi!gen  Vergniigen  helfen,  das,  sei  es 
noch  so  spat,  gewisz  in  der  Zukunft  meiner  wartet, 
ich  meine,  mir  den  Kranz  der  Unsterblichkeit 
zusammenzupniieken J>  (to  Ulrike,  Dresden,  July  3, 
1803). 

"  Und  so  soil  ich  denn  niemals  zu  Euch,  meine  teuer- 
sten  Menschen,  zuriickkehren ?  O,  niemals!  Eede 
mir  nicht  zu.  Wenn  du  es  thust,  so  kennst  du  das  gefahr- 
liche  Ding  nicht,  das  man  Ehrgeiz  nennt "  (to  Ulrike, 
Geneva,  Oct.  5,  1803). 

In  this  mood  Kleist  goes  with  Pfuel  to  Paris.  The 
desire  for  death  as  the  only  solution  of  such  a  tangled 
destiny  is  only  too  explainable.  His  attempted  suicide 
in  1803  may  appear  to  us  now,  just  as  his  actual  suicide 
in  November,  1811,  did  to  Pfuel  himself,  as  a  most  nat- 
ural and  justifiable  act.  Pfuel  classified  Kleist's  friends 
at  that  time  into  two  groups,  (1)  those  who  were  Chris- 
tians first  and  Kleist's  friends  afterwards,  and  (2^  those 
who  were  first  of  all  Kleist's  friends  and  then  Christians. 
The  former  were  horrified  at  the  suicide  and  heaped  con- 


370  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

demnation  upon  their  former  friend:  the  latter  weighed 
Kleist's  act  against  the  undeserved  wretchedness  of  his 
fate,  and  understood  and  pardoned  it,  and  remained  his 
friends,  in  spite  of  their  Christian  professions. 

When  we  consider  Kleist's  rationalistic  deism,  his  naive 
belief  in  the  soul's  continued  existence  in  a  sphere  free 
from  the  annoyances  and  limitations  of  the  life  in  the 
flesh  ("  auf  einem  andern  Stern"),  where  it  might  con- 
tinue its  progress  toward  infinite  perfection,  there  seems 
to  be  something  in  the  motive  to  his  act  akin  to  the  old 
Stoic  doctrine  of  the  "  open  door  "  through  which  one  may 
retire  at  will  to  escape  dishonor. 

That  is,  there  is  nothing  in  the  evidence  drawn  from  the 
period  preceding  the  episode,  which  compels  us  to  ascribe 
to  Kleist  any  disorder  of  mind  bordering  on  insanity  or 
constituting  real  mania. 

We  will  now  turn  to  the  passages  from  the  subsequent 
correspondence  which  refer  to  these  matters. 

Home  again  in  Berlin,  ambition,  at  least  literary 
ambition,  crushed  out,  humbled  before  his  family,  Kleist 
yields  the  point  in  dispute,  and  consents  to  make  an  effort 
to  secure  appointment  to  an  '  Amt.'  He  reports  his  ex- 
perience at  the  court  thus  (to  Ulrike,  Jun.  24,  1804)  : 

"  Ich  kam  Dienstags  Morgens  mit  Ernst  und  G-leiszen- 
berg  hier  an,  muszte,  weil  der  Konig  abwesend  war,  den 
Mittwoch  und  Donnerstag  versaumen,  fuhr  dann  am 
Freitag  nach  Charlottenburg,  wo  ich  Kokritzen  3  endlich 
im  Schlosse  fand.  Er  empfing  mich  mit  einem  finstern 
Gesichte,  und  antwortete  auf  meine  Frage,  ob  ich  die  Ehre 

3  Karl  Leopold  von  Kockeritz,  General  Major  from  1803  on,  was 
a  very  incompetent  man,  who,  however,  as  the  favorite  of  the  king, 
Friedrich  Wilhelm  III.,  was  much  sought  after  for  his  reputed  per- 
sonal influence  in  securing  appointments  to  the  various  branches 
of  the  government  service  (v.  Allg.  Deutsch.  Biog.,  xvi,  p.  416). 


EXEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUE-MEE 


371 


hatte,  von  ihm  gekannt  zu  sein,  mit  einem  kurzen:  ja. 
Ich  kame,  fuhr  ich  fort,  ihn  in  meiner  wunderlichen 
Angelegenheit  um  Eat  zu  fragen.  Der  Marquis  von 
Lucchesini  hatte  einen  sonderbaren  Brief,  den  ich  ihm 
aus  St.  Onier  zugeschickt,  dem  Konige  vorgelegt.  Dieser 
Brief  miisse  unverkennbare  Zeichen  einer  Gemutskrank- 
heit  enthalten,  und  ich  unterstiinde  mich,  von  Sr.  Majestat 
Gerechtigkeit  zu  hoffen,  dasz  er  vor  keinen  politischen 
Richterstuhl  gezogen  werden  wiirde.  Ob  diese  Hoffnung 
gegriindet  ware?  Und  ob  ich,  wiederhergestellt,  wie  ich 
mich  fiihlte,  auf  die  Erfiillung  einer  Bitte  um  Anstellung 
rechnen  diirfe,  wenn  ich  wagte,  sie  Sr.  Majestat  vorzu- 
tragen  ?  Darauf  versetzte  er  nach  einer  Weile :  '  sind  Sie 
wirklich  jetzt  hergestellt? — Ich  meine/  fuhr  er,  da  ich 
ihn  befremdet  ansah,  mit  Heftigkeit  fort,  '  ob  Sie  von 
alien  Ideen  und  Schwindeln,  die  vor  kurzem 
im  Schwange  waren,  (er  gebrauchte  diese  Worter) 
vollig  hergestellt  sind  ? ' — Ich  verstiinde  ihn  nicht,  ant- 
wortete  ich  mit  so  vieler  Kuhe  als  ich  zusammenfassen 
konnte;  ich  ware  kb'rperlich  krank  gewesen,  und  fiihlte 
mich,  bis  auf  eine  gewisse  Schwache,  die  das  Bad  viel- 
leicht  heben  wiirde,  so  ziemlich  wiederhergestellt.  Er 
nahm  das  Schnupftuch  aus  der  Tasche  und  schnaubte 
sich.  '  Wenn  er  mir  die  Wahrheit  gestehen  solle '  fing 
er  an,  und  zeigte  mir  jetzt  ein  weit  besseres  Gesicht,  als 
vorher,  '  so  konne  er  mir  nicht  verhehlen,  dasz  er  sehr 
ungiinstig  von  mir  denke.  Ich  hatte  das  Militair  ver- 
lassen,  dem  Civil  den  Riicken  gekehrt,  das  Ausland  durch- 
streift,  mich  in  der  Schweiz  ankaufen  wollen,  Versche 
gemacht  (O  meine  teure  Ulrike),  die  Landung  mit- 
machen  wollen,  usw.,  usw.,  usw.  tiberdies  sei  des  Konigs 
Grundsatz,  Manner,  die  aus  dem  Militair  ins  Civil  iiber- 
gingen,  nicht  besonders  zu  protegieren.  Er  konne  nichts 
fur  mich  tun.' — Mir  traten  wirklich  die  Tranen  in  die 


372 


JOHN    WILLIAM    SCIIOLL 


Augen.     Ich  sagte,  ich  ware  im  Stande,  ihm  eine  ganz 
andere  Erklarung  aller   dieser   Schritte  zu  geben,   eine 
ganz    andere    gewisz,    als    er    vermutete.      Jene    Ein- 
schiffungsgeschichte,      z.     B.     hatte     gar     keine 
politischen    Motive    gehabt,     sie    gehore    vor     das 
Forum  eines  Arztes,  weit  eher,   als  des  Cabinets.     Ich 
hatte  bei  einer  fixen  Idee  einen  gewissen  Schmerz  im 
Kopfe  empfunden,  der  unertraglich  heftig  steigernd,  mir 
das   Bediirfnis   nach   Zerstreuung   so   dringend   gemacht 
hatte,  dasz  ich  zuletzt  in  die  Verwechslung  der  Erdachse 
gevdlligt  haben  wiirde,  ihn  los  zu  werden.     Es  ware  doch 
grausam,     wenn     man     einen     Kranken     verantwortlich 
machen  wollte  fiir  liandlungen,  die  er  im  Anfalle  von 
Schmerzen   beging. — Er   schien    mich   nicht   ganz    ohne 
Teilnahme  anzuhoren. — Was  jenen  Grundsatz  des  Konigs 
betrafe,  fuhr  ich  fort,  so  konne  er  des  Konigs  Grundsatz 
nicht  immer  gewesen  sein.     Denn  Se.   Majestat  hatten 
die  Gnade  gehabt,  mich  mit  dem  Versprechen  einer  Wie- 
deranstellung  zu  entlassen:   ein  Versprechen,   an  dessen 
Nichterfullung   ich    nicht   glauben   konne,    so   lange    ich 
mich  seiner  noch  nicht  vollig  unwiirdig  gemacht  hatte. — 
Er   schien   wirklich   auf   einen   Augenblick   unschliissig. 
Doch   die  zwangvolle   Wendung,    die   er    jetzt   plotzlich 
nahm,  zeigte  nur  zu  gut,  was  man  bereits  am  Hofe  iiber 
mich  beschlossen  hatte.     Denn  er  holte  mit  einem  Male  das 
alte  Gesicht  wieder  hervor  und  sagte :  (  Es  wird  Ihnen 
zu  nichts  helfen.     Der  Konig  hat  eine  vorgefaszte  Mei- 
nung  gegen  Sie.     Ich  zweifle,  dasz  Sie  sie  ihm  benehmen 
werden,  etc.,  etc.7 ' 

About  a  month  later  (July  29,  1804)  he  gives  a  differ- 
ent account  of  the  episode  under  discussion  in  a  letter  to 
his  friend  Henriette  von  Schlieben  in  Dresden :  "  Von 
dort  aus  (Varese,  Madonna  del  Monte)  bin  ich,  wie  von 
der  Eurie  getrieben,  Frankreich  von  E"euem  mit  blinder 


EXEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUE-MEK  373 

Unruhe  in  zwei  Richtungen  durchreist,  liber  Genf ,  Lyon, 
Paris,  naeh  Boulogne-sur-mer  gegangen,  wo  ich,  wenn 
Bonaparte  sich  damals  wirklich  nach  England  mit  dem 
Heere  eingeschifft  hatte,  aus  Lebensiiberdrusz  einen  ra- 
senden  Streich  begangen  haben  wiirde;  sodann  von  da 
wieder  zuriick  liber  Paris  nach  Mainz,  wo  ich  endlich 
krank  niedersank,  und  nahe  an  flinf  Monaten  abwech- 
selnd  das  Bett  oder  das  Zimmer  gehlitet  habe.  Ich  bin 
nicht  im  Stande  vernlinftigen  Menschen  einigen  Auf- 
schlusz  liber  diese  seltsame  Reise  zu  geben.  Ich  selber 
habe  seit  meiner  Krankheit  die  Einsicht  in  ihre  Motiven 
veiloren,  und  begreife  nicht  mehr,  wie  gewisse  Dinge  auf 
andre  erfolgen  konnten." 

This  later  note  assigns  t  Lebensliberdrusz  '  as  the  motive 
for  his  attempted  death  in  the  descent  upon  England,  and 
this  is  consistent  with  Kleist's  preceding  experience,  as  we 
have  shown.  Surely  the  explanation  offered  Kockritz, 
that  it  was  a  '  Gemlitskrankheit '  of  such  a  degree  as  to 
relieve  him  of  all  responsibility,  is  something  more  than 
(  Lebensliberdrusz/  That  he  has  lost  all  insight  into  his 
motives,  is  surely  not  quite  consistent  with  the  claim  made 
to  Kockritz,  that  he  could  explain  the  whole  affair  so 
satisfactorily  that  all  blame  must  disappear. 

The  above-quoted  letter  to  Ulrike  is  generally  accepted 
by  Kleist's  biographers  at  its  face  value.  This  displays 
6  Pietiit,'  but  is  curious  in  view  of  Kleist's  own  confession 
that  he  could  give  no  account  of  the  matter  to  reasonable 
men,  and  had  himself  lost  all  insight  into  his  motives. 
We  must  remember  that  Kleist  is  seeking  from  an  incensed 
monarch  reinstatement  into  office  to  please  an  insistent 
and  disappointed  family.  As  he  had  dissembled  before 
in  respect  to  his  '  Amt,'  and  had  not  shrunk  from  actual 
falsification  in  regard  to  details  of  his  Wiirzburg  journey, 
had  resorted  to  a  trick  hardly  distinguishable  from  open 


374  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

fraud  to  get  a  matriculation  card  at  Leipzig  University, 
made  a  disingenuous  and  mostly  false  representation  of 
his  object  in  going  to  Paris  the  first  time,  in  order  to 
secure  passports,  we  must  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  possi- 
bility of  distortion,  if  not  misrepresentation,  here.  He 
had  the  strongest  possible  motive  to  throw  the  most  favor- 
able light  upon  the  whole  episode. 

The  act  had  been  given  political  significance  by  King 
and  Cabinet. — "  Ideen  und  Schwindeln,  die  vor  kurzem 
im  Schwange  waren."  Kleist's  evident  anxiety  to  secure 
a  promise  that  the  letter  would  not  be  taken  before  a 
cabinet  or  military  tribunal,  is  confession  that  the  con- 
tents were  of  a  political  nature.  King  and  Cabinet  had 
apparently  concluded  from  Kleist's  desire  to  join  Napo- 
leon's army,  that  he  was  affected  by  the  principles  of  the 
French  Revolution,  whose  embodiment  they  saw  in  the 
First  Consul.4  Such  sympathy  was  then  abundant  in 
the  western  portions  of  Prussia,  and  even  in  the  capital. 
Accordingly,  Kleist  denies  that  his  desire  to  join  Napo- 
leon's army  had  any  political  motives,  and  offers  to  explain 
it  in  a  way  wholly  unsuspected  by  Kockritz.  The  expla- 
nation turns  out  to  be  an  excuse,  '  Kopf  schmerzen  '  caused 
by  a  '  fixe  Idee/  that  demanded  '  Zerstreuung/  which  he 
sought  in  this  military  escapade,  for  which  it  would  be 


4  "  Im  Allgemeinen  diirfte  man  sagen,  dasz  der  gegen  friiher  be- 
merkbare  Unterschied  darin  bestand,  dasz,  wahrend  es  sich  bisher 
um  allgemeine  Freiheitsverherrlichung  gehandelt  hatte,  nun  die 
spezielle  Vorliebe  fur  Frankreich,  besonders  fur  Napoleon  als  den 
Retter  aus  der  Not,  sich  hervorwagte."  Geiger,  Berlin,  Bd.  II,  p. 
56.  Cf.  Gentz's  opinion  of  the  French  Revolution  cited  ibid.,  p.  42; 
also  the  Berlinese  estimate  of  Napoleon  as  "  der  neu  entstandene 
iigyptische  Prophet  Bonaparte " — "  einen  von  Gott  hoch  erleuch- 
teten,  geistvollen  Mann,  vcn  dessen  Seite  alles  Gute  herkomme " 
<1799,  ibid.,  p.  57). 


EXEIST   AT    BOULOGNE-SUR-MER 


375 


cruel  to  hold  him  responsible,  since  it  was  due  to  such 
sufferings. 

Whether  this  explanation  explains,  may  be  left  to  the 
acumen  of  the  reader.  However,  it  may  not  be  necessary 
to  assume  an  intentional  misrepresentation.  It  is  possible 
that  Kleist  had  passed  through  certain  psychological  and 
political  crises  within  a  few  months'  time,  which  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  see  his  past  actions  in  their  true 
light.  An  intensely  imaginative  person  is  inclined  to  use 
his  own  past  as  material  for  artistic  reconstruction,  just  as 
he  would  use  any  other  historical  data.  This  elaboration 
may  be  conscious  or  unconscious.  In  such  persons  un- 
controlled memory  may  be  very  unreliable,  though  no 
intention  to  distort  is  present.  Intense  feelings  have  still 
greater  power  than  the  imagination  to  disturb  the  normal 
process  of  remembering.  Kleist  was  a  man  of  unsurpassed 
imaginative  powers  and  of  unequaled  intensity  of  feeling. 
His  memory  may  have  been  p,eculiarly  unreliable. 

An  examination  of  the  historic  background  of  this 
period  is  needed  as  a  control  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
letters  and  of  the  whole  episode  to  which  they  refer. 

For  the  present,  the  most  patent  fact  in  the  record  of 
the  visit  to  Kockritz  at  the  palace  is  the  existence  of  a 
letter  from  Kleist,  which  is  in  the  hands  of  the  king. 
It  is  clear  that  its  contents  could  be  interpreted  in  such  a 
way  as  to  incriminate  the  writer.  We  have  seen  how 
Kleist  tried  to  break  the  force  of  this  interpretation  by 
ascribing  to  his  letter  "  unverkennbare  Zeichen  einer  Ge- 
miitskrankheit,"  which  had  certainly  not  been  recognized 
by  his  Majesty's  Cabinet. 

Unfortunately,  this  letter  is  lost.  It  is  not  in  the  Kgl. 
Geheim.  Staatsarchiv,  and  is  not  likely  to  have  been  pre- 
served elsewhere.  One  might  hazard  a  surmise  that 


376  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

powerful  and  interested  hands,  possibly  no  other  than 
those  of  Marie  von  Kleist,  the  queen's  friend  and  Kleist' s 
good  genius  at  court,  were  able  to  get  possession  of  it  and 
destroy  it,  in  order  to  keep  it  from  appearing  before  a 
tribunal.  As  to  its  contents,  we  are  left  to  make  shrewd 
guesses  based  upon  references  to  it. 

We  know  that  it  was  written  by  Kleist  to  Marquis  von 
Lucchesini,  Prussian  ambassador  at  Paris,  and  forwarded 
by  him  to  the  king,  Friedrich  Wilhelm  III.  at  Berlin. 
New  evidence  helps  us  to  be  a  little  more  specific.  Most  of 
the  biographers  merely  affirm  that  it  requested  passports, 
which  were  sent  at  once,  but  in  such  a  form  as  to  compel 
a  return  to  Potsdam.  But  it  must  have  contained  some- 
thing much  more  important  than  a  simple  request  for 
passports,  or  the  ambassador  would  not  have  sent  it  on 
to  the  king,  and  the  king  would  not  have  been  so  angered 
by  it.  Ulrike's  account 5  says  that  Kleist  begged  the 
king's  permission  to  join  the  expedition  against  England. 
She  was  with  her  half-brother  almost  immediately  after 
his  return  to  Berlin,  and  enjoyed  his  confidence  more 
than  any  other  person;  so  that  this  testimony  is  tolerably 
direct.  It  is  probable  enough  in  itself  that  Kleist  would 
ask  such  permission,  after  solemnly  pledging  the  king,  in 
the  above-cited  '  Revers,'  not  to  enter  the  military  service 
of  any  foreign  power  without  the  royal  consent.  The 
words  of  Kockritz  show  that  King  and  Cabinet  are  in  pos- 
session of  knowledge  concerning  his  plan  to  join  the  forces 
at  Boulogne,  which  could  hardly  have  been  derived  from 
any  other  source  than  Kleist's  own  letter,  unless  the  am- 
bassador's report  contained  it,  and  he  would  have  been 
wholly  dependent  upon  the  original  letter.  The  other  mat- 
ters mentioned  by  Kockritz,  the  withdrawal  from  the 

8  Biedennaim,  I.  c.,  pp.  53  ff. 


KLEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUB-MER 


377 


army,  the  desertion  of  the  civil  service,  his  travels  in 
foreign  parts,  his  plan  of  settlement  in  Switzerland,  his 
literary  work,  were  all  matters  of  common  knowledge  in 
military  and  government  circles  in  Berlin,  so  that  only  the 
Napoleonic  episode  need  be  referred  to  the  lost  letter.  To 
prove  still  more  conclusively  that  this  information  did  not 
come  through  the  regular  ambassadorial  report  from  Paris, 
I  insert  here  the  text  of  Marquis  von  Lucchesini's  report, 
which  has  been  kindly  furnished  me  by  the  Kgl.  Geheim. 
Staats-archiv  in  Berlin.  It  bears  the  date  Oct.  31,  1803, 
and  is  as  follows:  "  Un  jeune  Mr.  de  Kleist,  ci-devant  offi- 
cier  au  premier  bataillon  des  gardes,  qu'un  desir  vague 
destruction  avait  ramene  depuis  trois  semaines  a  Paris 
avec  le  Sr.  de  Pfuel,  avait  disparu  a  Timproviste  et  nous  a 
fait  craindre  pour  sa  vie.  Je  viens  d'apprendre  dans  ce 
moment  que  sans  se  munir  de  mes  passeports  et  sans  aucune 
autorisation  de  la  police  de  Paris,  il  est  alle  a  St.  Omer, 
ou  il  pouvait  courir  le  risque  merite,  surtout  en  temps  de 
guerre,  d'etre  arrete  comme  suspect  et  compromettre  aussi 
la  protection  que  sa  qualite  de  suj,et  Prussien  lui  assurait 
ici." 

Having  considered  the  circumstances  which  led  up  to 
the  incidents  in  question,  and  having  examined  the  subse- 
quent references  to  them,  in  both  cases  showing  that 
reasons  exist  for  modifying  the  current  views  in  the  direc- 
tion of  greater  moderation,  an  emphasis  of  the  sanity  of 
the  poet  at  that  period,  rather  than  an  exaggeration  of 
his  abnormality,  we  will  now  take  up  the  extant  St.  Omer 
letter  itself,  the  only  documentary  evidence  of  unquestioned 
validity,  to  see  whether  it  contains  elements  which  neces- 
sarily point  to  madness. 

I  believe  that  anyone  taking  up  the  letter  for  sf  first 
reading,  without  being  prejudiced  by  the  legend  handed 


378  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

down  by  the  biographers,  will  find  a  certain  intensity  of 
phraseology,  an  exaltation  of  spirit,  such  as  is  found  on 
page  after  page  of  Kleist's  literary  works,  but  nothing 
more,  nothing  unusual,  nothing  abnormal,  if  he  takes  the 
poet's  well-ascertained  temperament  as  the  norm,  rather 
than  that  foolish  abstraction,  an  average  man.  Confused 
or  disordered  the  letter  certainly  is  not.  No  intellectual 
disturbance  is  betrayed  by  a  lack  of  perspicacity.  It  is 
certainly  far  removed  from  the  "  wildest  ecstacy."  The 
words  do  not  "  fall  like  pyramids,  each  greater  and  might- 
ier  than  the  preceding."  They  do  not  "  overtopple  one 
another." 

Whether  the  whole  scheme  deserves  to  be  called  "  den 
kopflosen  Plan,"  "  der  wahnwitzige  Vorsatz  "  (Brahm),  or 
"  gerade  das  Irrsinnigste,  das  seinem  Innern  am  scharfsten 
widersprach"  (Herzog),  may  be  judged  from  the  following 
considerations. 

While  involving  what  seem  to  us  errors  of  judgment, 
it  was  not  more  impractical  than  other  plans  of  Kleist 
which  have  been  explained  without  recourse  to  mania.  Cf . 
plans  of  marriage,  made  in  Berlin,  which  involved  renun- 
ciation of  all  prejudices  of  rank  and  claims  of  family 
tradition,  and  a  domestic  establishment  supported  on  his 
estates,  while  he  devoted  himself  to  self -culture :  also  the 
plan  of  settlement  in  Switzerland,  as  a  i  Bauer/  to  realize 
his  dream  of  a  return  to  Nature :  also  his  whole  dream  of  a 
union  of  Austria  and  Prussia  against  Napoleon  under 
the  hegemony  of  Austria:  etc.,  etc. 

Kleist  wished  to  cast  away  his  life.  The  French  army 
was  mustering  at  Boulogne-sur-mer.  It  was  officially  given 
out  that  a  descent  was  to  be  made  upon  England.  Napo- 
leon, to  be  sure,  in  a  conversation  with  Metternich  6  at  a 

6  Memoirs  of  Prince  Metternich,  Vol.  i,  p.  48,  foot-note. 


KLEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUR-MER 

later  date,  denied  that  he  had  ever  really  intended  to 
attempt  the  invasion,  and  assured  him  that  he  was  keep- 
ing the  English  navy  occupied  while  gathering  strength 
against  Austria.  The  naval  officers  of  England  also  re- 
fused to  believe  in  the  imminence  of  an  attack  of  that  sort ; 
but  the  army  officers  and  the  English  people  generally  be- 
lieved in  the  danger.  All  Europe  seems  to  have  believed 
in  the  feasibility  of  the  descent  and  in  Napoleon's  inten- 
tion to  strike  the  threatened  blow,  when  the  favorable  con- 
junction of  events  should  arise.  Good  English  publicists 
of  today  still  express  their  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  men- 
ace, though  confident*  of  disastrous  results,  if  a  landing  had 
been  attempted,  or  even  successfully  made.  German  offi- 
cials of  today  are  said  to  entertain  some  such  plan  of 
descent  in  case  an  Anglo-German  war  should  have  to  be 
waged.  If  Kleist  believed  in  the  imminence  of  the  at- 
tack, and  considered  it  unusually  hazardous,  and  likely 
to  offer  him  a  military  death,  he  was  simply  one  among 
thousands  of  intelligent  Europeans  who  entertained  the 
same  beliefs. 

Further,  though  Kleist  was  disappointed  in  the  society 
and  learning  of  Paris,  and  called  the  Parisians  "  Affen 
der  Vernunft,"  and  after  1805  became  the  bitterest  hater 
of  Napoleon,  we  have  no  right  or  reason,  either  to  assume 
that  the  poet  confused  Napoleon,  the  incarnation  of  the 
spirit  of  human  liberty,  with  those  Parisian  e  Affen,'  or  to 
antedate  his  hatred  of  the  Consul.  Previous  to  1805 
Kleist  was  ratlher  individualistic  and  unpolitical,  not 
national  but  cosmopolitan.  Though  he  bore  a  part  in  the 
war  of  the  First  Coalition  for  the  restoration  of  the  royal 
family  of  France,  he  longed  for  peace,  for  an  opportunity 
to  redeem  in  some  more  humane  way  the  time  they  were 
killing  so  immorally  in  the  campaign.  With  such  an  atti- 
tude, he  must  have  greeted  the  peace  of  Basel  and  Prussian 


380 


JOHN"    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 


neutrality  with  great  satisfaction,  as  the  majority  of  Prus- 
sians of  his  time  did.  He  probably  shared  in  the  general 
sympathy  of  the  Prussians  with  the  French  Republic,  with 
its  great  principles,  at  least.7  He  may  have  been  shocked 
at  the  regicide  and  the  excesses  of  the  republicans,  but 
enthusiastic  over  the  return  of  Bonaparte  from  Egypt,  and 
the  establishment  of  the  Consulate.  We  may  properly 
conceive  of  Kleist  as  sharing  the  general  Prussian  opinion, 
that  Napoleon,  by  the  treaties  of  Luneville  and  Amiens, 
*  was  the  founder  and  powerful  guarantor  of  European 
peace.8  This  is  not  a  pleasant  chapter  for  the  Prussian 
of  today,  but  he  should  not  allow  mere  sentiment  to  dis- 
tort his  presentation  of  fact.  Napoleon  was  not  considered 
Prussia's  i  Erbfeind.'  In  fact  the  alliance  between  the 
Napoleonic  consular  government  and  the  Prussian  mon- 
archy was  closer  than  that  of  the  latter  with  any  other 
Continental  power.9  Though  Prussia  was  nominally  neu- 

7  V.  Gentz's  opinion  of  the  French  Revolution.  "  Wie  Gentz  dach- 
ten  auch  die  ubrigen  Kreise  der  hoher  Gebildeten "  (Geiger,  I.  c., 
p.  42). 

8 "  Quant  &  la  Prusse,  elle  avait  seule  &  se  plaindre  des  stipula- 
tions secretes  du  traits  de  Campo  Formio;  mais  elle  conservait 
encore  la  croyance,  malheureusement  erronee,  que  1'intention  du  pre- 
mier consul  6tait  r6ellement  de  pacifier  I'Europe,  comme  de  la 
preserver  de  tout  'bouleversement  inttrieur"  (Hardenberg,  Memoires 
tires  des  Papiers  d'un  Homme  d'titat,  tome  huitieme,  p.  16).  "  Aussi 
Tannonce  de  la  paix  de  LuneVille  produisait-elle  une  allegresse  vive 
et  gen6rale.  Dans  les  transports  qu'elle  fit  gprouver  on  croyait  voir 
succSder  la  plus  brillante  prosp6rit6  a  1'oppression  dont  on  avait 
souffert,  et  les  esp6rances  9.  cet  egard  n'avait  pas  plus  de  bornes 
que  les  d6sirs  toujours  exage're's  du  vulgaire"  (ibid.,  p.  49). 

9 "  Mais  arretons-nous  ici  aux  int6r6ts  de  la  Prusse  qui  se  lient 
essentiellement  a  ceux  de  la  France,  etc."  (Hardenberg,  1.  c.,  p.  227). 
"  Puis,  tandis  que  1'Empire  tombait  en  ruine,  le  premier  consul  sem- 
blait  vouloir  rendre  la  Prusse  assez  puissante  pour  devenir  la  pro- 
tectrice  de  TAllemagne  septentrionale,  intention,  qu'il  ne  cessa  de 
manifester  jusqu'A  V^poque  de  la  rupture  du  traite"  d' Amiens " 


EXEIST    AT    BOULOGISTE-SUK-MEK  381 

tral,  the  only  thing  which,  on  various  occasions,  prevented 
her  from  allying  herself  with  France  against  England  was 
the  well-grounded  fear  that  the  latter's  navy  would  in- 
stantly ruin  her  commerce  in  the  Baltic  and  elsewhere. 
Kleist's  desire  to  enter  Napoleon's  service  was  not  there- 
fore an  evidence  of  mental  disorder. 

The  expression  "  unser  aller  Verderben  lauert  liber  den 
Meeren  "  has  caused  some  difficulty.  Herzog's  facile  as- 
sertion that  the  whole  conception  is  transferred  to  the 
sphere  of  historic  reality  from  the  drama  Robert  Guiskard 
is  certainly  ill-grounded.  A  little  attention  to  the  drama 
itself  should  have  prevented  this  error.  The  destruction 
of  all  the  Normans  does  not  lie  in  wait  for  them  beyond 
seas.  Its  source  is  the  pest  raging  in  the  camp  before  the 
walls  of  Stamboul,  and  the  people  plead  to  be  led  beyond 
seas  as  the  only  means  of  escape  from  universal  destruc- 
tion. 

Franz  Muncker's  interpretation  might  be  accepted  at 
once  as  the  simplest  and  most  natural,  if  not  too  obvious. 
'  Unser  aller  '  refers  to  the  French  army  of  invasion,  and 
the  '  Yerderben '  is  the  disastrous  result  likely  to  attend 
an  attempt  to  cross  the  Channel  in  spite  of  the  watchful 
British  Channel  fleet. 

Another  interpretation  is  possible.  '  Unser  aller  ?  may 
refer  to  Kleist's  countrymen,  or  even  to  Europeans  in 
general,  and  '  Verderben '  may  have  a  larger  sense,  as  the 
ruin  of  European  prosperity  under  England's  commercial 
policy.  England's  insistence  upon  the  i  dominium  maris  ' 
and  her  practical  control  of  commerce  put  all  Europe  at 

{p.  240).  "Le  roi  avait  mgme  assez  de  peine  a  register  aux  in- 
stances de  Bonaparte  pour  s'unir  a  lui  contre  I'Angleterre..  .  9 .  et 
il  6tait  dans  la  politique  de  Fr6d6ric  Guillaume  de  n'avoir  a  com- 
battre  ni  pour  ni  contre  la  France"  (p.  345). 


382 


JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 


her  mercy.10  This  forced  Prussia  at  one  time  into  a 
hostile  league  of  the  northern  powers  against  England. 
Also  England's  money,  in  form  of  subsidies  and  gratuities 
at  the  European  courts,  came  near  being  all  powerful 
in  moulding  the  policies  of  these  courts  in  war  and  peace. 
Just  at  the  time  of  this  military  project  England  was  in 
nominal  isolation,  as  a  result  of  the  peace  of  Amiens ;  but 
her  agents  and  her  gold  were  at  work  preparing  a  new 
curb  to  the  power  of  ]STapoleon.  This  meant  war,  war  in 
which  Prussia  could  not  maintain  her  neutrality,  war 
hateful  to  all  whose  advantages  depended  upon  the  main- 
tenance of  peace.  England's  dogged  fight  against  Napo- 
leon might  seem,  and  did  seem  to  many,  an  unjustifiable 
assault  upon  the  Protector  of  Europe,  the  great  Pacifi- 
cator. If  this  interpretation  should  prove  correct,  then 
Kleist  could  feel  that  his  life  would  not  merely  be  ter- 
minated, but  sacrificed  against  a  common  enemy.  At 
present  the  historical  evidence  is  not  complete  enough  to 
be  decisive. 

On  either  interpretation  Kleist's  conduct  is  not  '  kopf- 
los  7  nor  t  wahnsinnig  '  but  based  on  a  sensible  view  of  the 
situation. 

10 "Car  son  acceptation  (the  cession  of  Hanover  to  Prussia)  unissait 
hostilement  la  Prusse  a  la  France  centre  le  reste  de  1'Europe  mari- 
time ou  continentale,  et  pouvait  la  pre"cipiter  dans  une  guerre  g^ne"- 
rale  et  terrible,  dont  le  cours  eut  e'te'  ruineux  et  Tissue  incertaine  " 
(Hardenberg,  1.  c.,  p.  266).  "Mais  Pimportance  de  son  (Eng- 
land's) commerce,  116  a  celui  de  toute  1'Europe,  et  la  preponderance 
de  sa  marine  qui  la  lend  aggressive  partout,  vulnerable  nulle  part, 
lui  impriment  une  telle  vie  politique,  une  telle  influence  sur  la 
prosperity  des  autres  e"tats,  qu'on  peut  la  conside"rer  comme  le  siege 
du  principe  vital  du  corps  social  europ6en "  (ibid.,  p.  219).  "  Ce- 
pendant,  on  se  battait  de  part  et  d'autre  aux  depens  des  puissances 
neutres.  L'Angleterre,  en  bloquant  les  cotes  dont  on  lui  interdisait 
le  commerce,  ruinait  celui  de  la  Basse-Allemagne  "•  (1803,  ibid., 
p.  226). 


KLEIST   AT    BOULOGNE-SUK-MER  383 

Now,  if  all  this  is  true,  and  if  his  profession  to  Henri- 
ette  von  Schlieben  is  trustworthy,  how  could  Kleist  lose 
insight  into  his  motives  ?  Naturally  enough,  if  we  remem- 
ber the  dates.  October  26,  1803,  he  is  in  St.  Omer.  In 
November  he  breaks  down  at  Mainz,  his  illness  caused 
not  so  much  by  physical  overwork  and  overstrain  as  by 
the  crushing  sense  of  being  compelled  to  return  home  and 
face  his  family  and  friends,  a  ruined  man  without  fame 
and  almost  without  self-respect.  He  is  in  his  bed  or  in 
his  room  for  five  months,  a  recluse  from  the  world,  giving 
scant  heed  to  events  in  the  political  arena.  In  June,  1804 
he  returns  to  Berlin  to  face  life  with  whatever  grace  he 
can,  and  have  another  trial  with  his  fate. 

During  this  period  the  banishment  of  the  republican 
Moreau  to  America  occurs.  On  March  20,  1804  the  Duke 
d'Enghien,  taken  in  a  raid  on  his  asylum  at  Ettenheim, 
is  put  to  death  by  Napoleon's  orders.11  It  became  evident 
by  this  sacrifice  of  republican  and  of  royal  prince  that 
Napoleon  was  making  the  paths  straight  to  an  imperial 
throne.  In  June,  1804  he  occupied  neutral  Hanover  with 
his  army.  Prussian  neutrality  could  not  long  remain 
sacred  to  an  ambitious  despot  who  was  on  the  point  of 
throwing  off  the  Consular  mask  and  assuming  the  imperial 
title.  Instead  of  a  protector  of  the  peace  of  Europe  men 
now  saw  in  him  only  the  ambitious  and  unscrupulous 
autocrat,  to  whom  no  obligations  were  sacred,  and  with 

11 "  En  Prusse  cette  nouvelle  (the  execution  of  the  Due  d'Enghien) 
oausa  la  sensation  la  plus  douloureuse"  (Hardenberg,  1.  c.,  p.  332). 
"La  violation  du  territoire  de  1'Empire,  Tarrestation  et  le  meurtre 
du  due  d'Enghien  avait  excite"  hors  de  la  France  comme  dans  son 
sein  la  plus  vive  horreur  "  (ibid.,  p.  352).  "  6v6nements  qui  firant 
plus  que  jamais  fermenter  les  esprits  dans  le  cabinet  prussien,  ou 
dominait  une  opinion  politique  devenue  toute  antifrang aise  "  (1804, 
ibid.,  p.  414). 


384  JOHN    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

whom  there  could  be  no  settled  peace.  When  Kleist 
emerged  from  solitude  it  was  into  this  changed  Europe 
that  he  came,  and  he  felt  as  keenly  as  the  rest,  possibly 
more  keenly  because  of  his  earlier  admiration,  the  terrible 
menace  of  the  emperor  to  German  independence.  From 
the  new  point  of  view  of  bitter  hatred  his  previous  actions 
must  seem  inexplicable.  His  own  interpretation,  partly 
unconsciously,  partly  intentionally,  took  the  hue  it  bears 
in  his  letter  to  Ulrike  concerning  the  visit  to  Kockritz. 

Thus  again  in  the  St.  Omer  letter  no  evidence  of  mental 
disorder  is  discoverable,  more  than  is  involved  in  the  mere 
desire  to  end  a  wretched  life. 

The  chronology  of  the  events  may  now  be  considered. 
Kleist  was  in  Geneva  October  5.  He  is  in  St.  Omer 
October  26.  October  31  Marquis  von  Lucchesini  reports 
to  Berlin  the  arrival  of  the  letter  of  Kleist  at  the  embassy 
in  Paris.  This  report  says  that  Kleist  and  Pfuel  came  to 
Paris  "  depuis  trois  semaines,"  i.  e.,  about  October  10. 
This  is  reasonably  consistent  with  a  journey  from  Geneva 
via  Lyons  to  Paris.  The  date  of  the  sudden  flight  from 
Paris  is  not  so  definitely  ascertainable.  As  he  went  "  zu 
Fusz  "  and  the  distance  from  Paris  to  St.  Omer  is  at  least 
180  to  200  km.,  it  must  have  required  at  least  a  week, 
probably  longer,  though  he  went  "  in  blinder  Unruhe."  On 
the  assumption  that  he  wrote  to  Ulrike  at  once  on  arriving, 
the  date  of  the  "  quarrel "  and  departure  from  Paris  must 
have  fallen  about  the  middle  of  October.  Oral  tradition 
says  that  Kleist  received  the  requested  passports  "nach  vier 
Tagen."  12  As  the  request  for  them  arrived  in  Paris  on 

"No  direct  evidence  as  to  the  speed  made  by  the  stage  coaches 
between  St.  Omer  and  Paris  in  1803  is  before  me.  In  1793  Kleist 
made  a  journey  from  Frankfurt  a/0.  to  Frankfurt  a/M.  via  Leipzig, 
Erfurt,  Gotha,  Eisenach,  Gelnhausen,  and  Hanau,  spending  one 
whole  day  in  Leipzig.  The  journey  of  over  450  km.  in  an  air  line 


KLEIST   AT    BOULOGNE-SUR-MER 


385 


the  last  day  of  October,  it  must  have  been  written  about 
the  28th  or  29th,  after  the  letter  to  Ulrike,  not  before, 
as  implied  by  Wilbrandt  and  Brahm.  It  was  written  in 
St.  Omer,  not  at  Boulogne.  The  passports  reached  him 
about  November  2  or  3,  and  several  days  later  he  must 
have  been  back  in  Paris  on  his  way  to  Potsdam.  Kleist 
himself  says  he  went  to  Boulogne.  If  this  is  literally 
true,  and  Boulogne  does  not  stand  merely  as  a  general 
designation  for  the  whole  region  in  which  the  army  of 
Napoleon  was  encamped,  he  must  have  gone  on  from  St. 
Omer  to  Boulogne  while  awaiting  the  passports,  for  he 
could  not  have  gone  later.  This  gives  some  slight  color  to 
the  other  tradition  that  he  was  protected  by  a  French 
Surgeon-Major  and  taken  as  his  servant  to  Boulogne. 

We  are  now  able  to  substitute  for  the  incorrect  or  dis- 
torted accounts  of  previous  biographers  the  following: 
Kleist  and  Pfuel  arrived  in  Paris  about  October  10,  1803, 
accompanied  by  Herr  and  Frau  von  Werdeck,  whom  they 
had  met  in  Switzerland.  They  spent  some  days  together 
in  pleasant  companionship,  but  in  one  of  his  moods  of 
depression,  when  his  future  seemed  hopeless,  Kleist  re- 
quested Pfuel  to  join  him  in  suicide.  Pfuel  refused,  and 
used  his  strongest  arguments  to  induce  Kleist  to  give  up 
all  thoughts  of  such  an  end.  Kleist  had  believed  Pfuel 
capable  of  understanding  him,  had  considered  him  the  only 

required  just  eight  days,  i.  e.,  seven  days'  travel.  A  similar  speed 
would  cover  the  distance  from  St.  Omer  to  Paris  in  a  fraction  over 
two  days.  In  1800  the  return  journey  from  Wiirzburg  to  Berlin, 
47  old  Prussian  miles=220  English  mile&=254:  km.,  required  just 
five  days.  This  speed  would  make  the  St.  Omer-Paris  trip  in  less 
than  three  days.  Ihiring  one  portion  of  the  journey  the  coach 
made  4  Pr.  m.  in  five  and  one-half  hours.  At  this  pace  the  trip  from 
St.  Omer  to  Paris  would  take  about  one  and  one-half  days*  The 
correctness  of  the  traditional  "  nach  vier  Tagen  "  may  be  accepted 
without  question. 


386  JOHN"    WILLIAM    SCHOLL 

man  who  could  appreciate  the  tragedy  of  his  life  and 
genius.  This  argument,  the  most  serious  of  the  kind  they 
had  yet  had,  revealed  the  gulf  of  misunderstanding  be- 
tween them  and  intensified  Kleist's  sense  of  loneliness. 
The  companionship  in  death,  upon  which  he  had  fondly 
reckoned  as  a  solace,  was  shown  to  be  a  baseless  dream. 
The  argument  grew  heated,  became  a  "quarrel,"  and  Kleist 
left  his  lodgings,  and  departed  from  the  city.  While 
Pfuel  and  the  Werdecks  were  seeking  him  in  vain,  even 
among  the  dead  in  the  Morgue,  he  was  traveling  northward 
toward  St.  Omer,  not  resolved  to  seek  death  alone  (Brahm) 
but  to  find  companionship  in  death  among  the  French  sol- 
diery; not  wandering  without  a  goal  (Brahm)  but  with 
the  enlistment  in  Napoleon's  army  clearly  fixed  upon; 
not  seeking  death  in  any  form  whatever  (Brahm),  for  he 
shrank  from  dying  without  companionship  and  from  exe- 
cution as  a  spy,  but  the  honorable  death  of  a  soldier  in  bat- 
tle. On  the  way  to  St.  Omer  he  may  well  have  met  a  troop 
of  conscripts.  There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  tradi- 
tion that  he  tried  to  substitute  himself  for  one  of  them  and 
was  refused,  since  these  Frenchmen  knew  what  penalty  de- 
sertion brought,  and  that  such  unauthorized  evasion  of  the 
conscription  was  desertion,  and  easily  discoverable  besides. 
In  St.  Omer  on  October  26  he  writes  his  farewell  greetings 
to  his  sister  Ulrike  in  words  of  exalted  devotion  to  her 
and  to  his  crushed  ideal,  giving  her  in  a  few  brief,  clear 
words  a  sufficient  account  of  his  recent  movements  and 
his  plan  of  escape  from  this  world's  tragedy.  Being  so 
near  the  encampment,  he  delays  some  time  at  St.  Omer. 
On  leaving  to  make  the  last  stage  of  his  journey  to  the 
coast  he  probably  meets  by  chance  a  French  Surgeon-Major 
whom  he  had  known  before  in  Paris,  and  who,  astonished 
to  find  a  Prussian  citizen  without  a  passport  at  the  ?eat  of 
war,  explains  to  him  his  danger  of  sharing  the  fate  of 


KLEIST    AT    BOULOGNE-SUR-MER  387 

another  Prussian  nobleman,  who  had  recently  been  arres- 
ted and  shot  as  a  supposed  Russian  spy.  Revulsion  from 
such  an  inglorious  end  (Cf.  Prinz  Friedrich  von  Horn- 
capable  of  understanding  him,  had  considered  him  the  only 
had  yet  had,  revealed  the  gulf  of  misunderstanding  be- 
quis  von  Lucchesini,  at  Paris,  requesting  permission  to  join 
the  Napoleonic  army  at  Boulogne,  possibly  adding  some 
reason  for  the  request,  and  demanding  passports  guaran- 
teeing his  safety  while  awaiting  enlistment  or  embarka- 
tion. This  letter,  sent  from  St.  Omer  about  October  28  or 
29,  arrived  in  Paris  October  31.  The  ambassador,  real- 
izing the  delicate  situation  of  Prussia  as  a  neutral  state 
in  the  war  between  France  and  England,  and  not  daring 
to  give  official  sanction  to  the  enlistment  of  a  Prussian 
subject,  a  former  military  officer,  sent  the  letter  on  to  the 
king,  but  without  comment,  and  sent  passports  to  Kleist 
which  forced  him  to  return  to  Potsdam  at  once  via  Paris. 
While  waiting  for  these  Kleist  was  allowed  to  enjoy  the 
protection  of  the  Surgeon-Major,  passing  himself  for  the 
latter's  servant,  and  thus  perhaps  accompanied  him  to 
Boulogne.  On  arrival  of  the  passports,  about  November 
2  or  3,  Kleist  returned  at  once  to  Paris.  The  failure  of 
Napoleon  to  make  the  descent  had  no  influence  what- 
soever in  determining  this  action,  as  is  generally  affirmed, 
on  the  authority  of  the  letter  to  Henriette  von  Schlieben. 
On  arriving  in  Paris  Kleist  was  apparently  in  good  spirits 
and  was  as  normal  as  ever.  On  his  way  home,  he  broke 
down  at  Mainz,  the  first  city  on  the  German  border.  His 
disease  puzzled  the  physician.  It  was  probably  due  to 
the  crushing  sense  of  being  compelled  to  return  home  and 
face  his  family — an  acknowledged  failure,  an  object  of 
pity  or  of  scorn,  or  at  best  a  dependent  upon  charity.  9 

WILLIAM  SCROLL. 


XVIII. —SPENSER  AND  THE  MIR  OUR  DE  L>  OMME 

It  has  been  tacitly  assumed  that  the  Mirour  de  I'Omme 
lived  only  in  its  name  (and  even  in  that  somewhat  equivo- 
cally) until  the  discovery  of  the  single  extant  manuscript 
in  1895.  To  suggest  that  the  poem  not  only  did  not  die 
when  it  was  born,  but  that  on  the  contrary  it  was  well 
known  to  Spenser,  and  that  it  gave  to  the  Faerie  Queene 
one  of  its  most  famous  purple  patches — such  a  suggestion, 
one  may  readily  grant,  would  occur  offhand  to  no  one. 
Yet  there  is  weighty  evidence  in  support  of  just  this  con- 
tention, and  that  evidence  it  is  the  object  of  this  paper  to 
present.  That  the  case  is  one  which  challenges  somewhat 
sharply  our  established  preconceptions,  and  that  it  must 
rest  on  firm  ground  to  command  assent,  I  am  thoroughly 
aware. 


In  the  fourth  canto  of  the  first  book  of  the  Faerie 
Queene  occurs  the  brilliant  description  of  the  progress  of 
Pride,  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  the  beasts  on  which  are 
mounted  the  other  six  Deadly  Sins.  It  is  vividly  pictorial 
in  its  effect,  with  its  details  sharply  visualized  in  Spen- 
ser's most  characteristic  vein.  Dealing  as  it  does  with 
one  of  the  most  conventional  of  all  mediaeval  themes,  its 
warp,  of  course,  is  made  up  in  part  of  the  familiar  com- 
monplaces. But  the  pattern  is  strongly  individual;  in 
certain  striking  details  the  passage  stands  alone  and  un- 
matched among  the  hitherto  noted  literary  treatments  of 
the  Seven  Deadly  Sins.  That,  to  be  sure,  is  in  large 
measure  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  Spenser  who  this  time 
388 


SPENSER   AND    THE    "  MIROUR    DE    I/OMME "          389 

is  treating  them.  But  nothing  is  more  characteristic  of 
Spenser  than  his  weaving  together,  into  a  fabric  peculiar- 
ly his  own,  of  borrowed  strands.  For  his  imagination  (it 
is  clear)  was  exquisitely  sensitive  to  suggestion,  and  when 
he  imagines  most  vividly  the  initial  stimulus  is  seldom 
far  to  seek.  In  a  word — and  though  a  paradox,  his  prac- 
tice gives  it  proof — when  he  is  most  original  we  have 
fullest  warrant  for  suspecting  some  antecedent  influence 
that  has  sprung^  his  imagination  with  a  word  or  phrase  or, 
particularly,  with  a  hint  of  pictorial  possibilities.  But 
no  source  of  what  is  thus  peculiarly  Spenserian  in  the 
great  progress  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  has  yet  been 
found. 

The  traits  which  combine  to  give  the  description  its 
distinctive  character  may  be  readily  summarized.  In 
the  first  place,  to  the  device  of  representing  each  Sin  as 
riding  on  a  symbolic  animal  Spenser  has  added  the  further 
symbolizing  touch  of  depicting  each  Vice  as  holding  an 
appropriate  object  in  its  hand.  Second,  with  each  of 
the  six  Sins  thus  pictured  he  has  associated  a  specific 
malady  (in  the  case  of  Wrath,  a  number  of  maladies). 
And  finally,  he  has  elaborated  each  portrait  by  a  massing 
of  vividly  pictorial  or  sharply  characterizing  details.  I 
wish  to  point  out  that  in  the  description  of  the  marriage 
of  Pride  and  the  World  in  the  Mirour  de  I'Omme  Gower 
represents  each  of  the  Sins  as  riding  on  a  symbolic  beast, 
and  also  as  carrying  an  appropriate  object  in  its  hand; 
that  in  the  fuller  account  of  the  Sins  which  follows  he 
associates  each  with  a  specific  malady ;  and  that  a  very  large 
number  of  Spenser's  most  strongly  visualized  details  are 
present  (though  less  closely  focussed)  in  Gower.  And 
finally,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  correspondences  are  dbt 
only  general,  but  in  many  cases  definitely  verbal.  In  no 
other  treatment  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  so  far  as  I 

8 


390  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

know,  does  the  same  combination  of  salient  details  occur. 
And  the  verbal  parallels,  taken  in  conjunction  with  this 
fact,  seem  to  point  to  but  one  conclusion. 

The  passage  in  the  Mirour  with  which  we  are  first 
concerned  is  the  section  beginning  at  line  841,  with  the 
rubric:  "  Comment  les  sept  files  du  Pecche  vindront  vers 
leur  mariage,  et  de  leur  arrai  et  de  leur  chiere."  For 
purposes  of  immediate  comparison  I  shall  quote  it  in  full. 
The  corresponding  stanzas  in  Spenser  2  are  readily  accessi- 
ble, and  it  is  assumed  that  they  will  be  before  the  reader. 

Chascune  soer  endroit  du  soy 

L'un  apres  Fautre  ove  son  conroi 

Vint  en  sa  guise  noblement, 

Enchivalchant  par  grant  desroy; 

Mais  ce  n'estoit  sur  palefroy, 

Ne  sur  les  mules  d'orient: 

Orguil  qui  vint  primerement 

S'estoit  monte  moult  fierement 

Sur  un  lioun,  q'aler  en  coy 

Ne  volt  pour  nul  chastiement,  850 

Ainz  salt  sur  la  menue  gent, 

Du  qui  tous  furent  en  effroy. 

Du  selle  et  frein  quoy  vous  dirray, 
Du  mantellet  ou  d'autre  array? 
Trestout  fuist  plain  du  queinterie; 
Car  unques  pree  flouriz  en  mail 
N'estoit  au  reguarder  si  gay 
Des  fleurs,  comme  ce  fuist  du  perrie: 
Et  sur  son  destre  poign  saisie 

Une  aigle  avoit,  que  signefie  8GO 

Qu'il  trestous  autres  a  1'essay 
Volt  surmonter  de  s'estutye. 
En  si  vint  a  la  reverie 
La  dame  dont  parle  vous  ay. 

l?uis  vint  Envye  en  son  degre", 
Q'estoit  desur  un  chien  monte, 


c 


Et  sur  son  destre  poign  portoit 


*F.  Q.,  I,  iv,  17-35. 


SPENSER   AND  THE   "  MIROUR   DE  L/OMME"         391 

Un  espervier  q'estoit  mue: 

La  face  ot  moult  descoloure" 

Et  pale  des  mals  que  pensoit,  870 

Et  son  mantell  dont  s'affoubloit 

Du  purpre  au  droit  devis  estoit 

Ove  cuers  ardans  bien  enbroude, 

Et  entre  d'eux,  qui  bien  seoit, 

Du  serpent  langues  y  avoit 

Par  tout  menuement  proudrS. 

Apres  Envye  vint  suiant 
Sa  soer  dame  Ire  enchivalchant 
Moult  fierement  sur  un  sengler, 

Et  sur  son  poign  un  cock  portant.  880 

Soulaine  vint,  car  attendant 
Avoit  ne  sergant  n'escuier; 
La  cote  avoit  du  fin  acier, 
Et  des  culteals  plus  d'un  millier 
Q'au  coste  luy  furont  pendant: 
Trop  fuist  la  dame  a  redouter, 
Tous  s'en  fuiont  de  son  sentier, 
Et  la  lessont  passer  avant. 

Dessur  un  asne  lent  et  lass 

Enchivalchant  le  petit  pass  890 

Puis  vint  Accidie  loign  derere, 
Et  sur  son  poign  pour  son  solas 
Tint  un  huan  ferm  par  un  las: 
Si  ot  toutdis  pres  sa  costiere 
Sa  couche  faite  en  sa  litiere; 
N'estoit  du  merriem  ne  de  piere, 
Ainz  fuist  de  plom  de  halt  en  bass. 
Si  vint  au  feste  en  tieu  maniere, 
Mais  aulques  fuist  de  mate  chere, 
Pour  ce  q'assetz  ne  dormi  pas. 

Dame  Avarice  apres  cela 
Vint  vers  le  feste  et  chivalcha 
Sur  un  baucan  qui  voit  toutdis 
Devers  la  terre,  et  pour  cela 
Nulle  autre  beste  tant  prisa: 
Si  ot  sur  1'un  des  poigns  assis 
Un  ostour  qui  s'en  vait  toutdis  ^ 

Pour  prove,  et  dessur  1'autre  ot  mis 
Un  merlot  q'en  larcine  va. 


392  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

Des  bources  portoit  plus  que  dis,  910 

Que  tout  de  Forr  sont  replenis: 
Moult  fuist  Fonour  q'om  le  porta. 

Bien  tost  apres  il  me  sovient 
Que  dame  Gloutonie  vient, 
Que  sur  le  lou  s'est  ehivalche, 
Et  sur  son  poign  un  coufle  tient, 
Q'a  sa  nature  bien  avient; 
Si  fist  porter  pres  sa  costee 
Beau  cop  de  vin  envesselle: 

N'ot  guaire  deux  pass  chivalche'e,  920 

Quant  Yveresce  luy  survient, 
Saisist  le  frein,  si  Fad  mene, 
Et  dist  de  son  droit  heritee 
Ques  eel  office  a  luy  partient. 

Puis  vi  venir  du  queinte  atour 
La  dame  q'ad  fait  maint  fol  tour, 
C'est  Leccherie  la  plus  queinte: 
/    En  un  manteal  de  fol  amour 

Sist  sur  le  chievre  q'est  lechour, 

Ul3n  qui  luxure  n'est  restreinte.  930 

Et  sur  son  poign  soutz  sa  constreinte 
Porte  un  colomb;  dont  meint  et  meinte 
Pour  Faguarder  s'en  vont  entour. 
Du  beal  colour  la  face  ot  peinte, 
Oels  vairs  riantz,  dont  mainte  enpeinte 
Ruoit  au  fole  gent  entour. 

Et  d'autre  part  sans  nul  demeure 
Le  Siecle  vint  en  mesme  Feure, 
Et  c'estoit  en  le  temps  joly 

Du  Maii,  quant  la  deesce  Nature  940 

Bois,  champs  et  prees  de  sa  verdure 
Reveste,  et  Foisel  font  leur  cry, 
Chantant  deinz  ce  buisson  flori, 
Que  point  Famie  ove  son  amy: 
Lors  cils  que  vous  nomay  desseure 
Les  noces  font,  comme  je  vous  dy: 
Moult  furont  richement  servy 
Sanz  point,  sanz  reule  et  sanz  mesure.8 

8  The  Complete  Works  of  John  Gower,  ed.  G.  C.  Macaulay,  Oxford, 
1899,  Vol.  I,  pp.  13-14. 


SPENSER   AND   THE    "  MIROUR    DE   L7OMME "         393 

Certain  divergences  between  the  two  accounts  may  at 
once  be  given  their  due  weight.  In  the  first  place,  the 
order  of  the  Sins  is  not  the  same.  The  succession  in 
Spenser  is  Pride,  Idleness,  Gluttony,  Lechery,  Avarice, 
Envy,  Wrath.  In  Gower  the  order  is  the  more  conven- 
tional one — Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Idleness,  Avarice,  Glut- 
tony, Lechery.4  But  the  difference  in  arrangement  has 
no  significance.  The  order  in  the  Assembly  of  Gods 5 
is  Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Avarice,  Gluttony,  Lechery,  Idle- 
ness. In  Piers  the  Pldwman  (Passus  v)  the  series  is 
Pride,  [Lechery],  Envy,  Wrath,  Lechery,  Avarice,  Glut- 
tony, Idleness.6  And  other  variations  are  numerous.7 

4 Dante,  Purgatorio;  Cursor  Mundi  (Book  of  Penance);  Kalender 
of  Shepherdes;  Chaucer,  Parson's  Tale;  etc.  Except  that  Wrath  and 
Envy  are  interchanged,  this  is  also  the  order  in  Handling  Synne,  as 
it  is  likewise  (with  the  interchange  of  Gluttony  and  Lechery)  in 
the  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt  and  Le  Mireour  du  Monde. 

6  Professor  MacCracken's  rejection  of  the  poem  as  Lydgate's  seems 
to  be  warranted  by  the  evidence.  See  The  Minor  Poems  of  John 
Lydgate  (E.  E.  T.  S.,  1911),  pp.  xxxv-vi. 

6  In  Passus  n,  79  ff.,  Lechery  and  Avarice  are  interchanged. 

7 In  the  Cursor  Mundi  (Castle  of  Love)  the  order  is  Pride,  Envy, 
Gluttony,  Lechery,  Avarice,  Wrath,  Idleness.  In  the  Lay  Folk's 
Catechism  it  is  Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Gluttony,  Avarice,  Idleness, 
Lechery;  in  Mirk's  Instructions  for  Parish  Priests,  Pride,  Idleness, 
Envy,  Wrath,  Avarice,  Gluttony,  Lechery;  in  the  Castle  of  Perse- 
verance, Avarice,  Pride,  Wrath,  Envy,  Lechery,  Gluttony  (the  last 
two  interchanged  when  the  Sins  actually  appear)  ;  in  Nature, 
Pride,  Avarice,  Wrath,  Envy,  Gluttony,  Idleness,  Lechery;  in  Dunbar, 
Pride,  Wrath,  Envy,  "Sweirnes"  (=  Idleness),  Lechery  (with  Idle- 
ness), Gluttony.  See  further  Professor  Tupper's  article  on  "Chaucer 
and  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins"  (Publications  of  the  Modern  Language 
Association,  xxix,  March,  1914),  p.  94,  especially  note  1.  Professor 
Tupper's  statement  that  "in  all  lists,  however,  Pride  is  the  first  of 
the  sins,"  is  not  quite  correct.  See  the  order  in  the  Castle  of  Per- 
severance above  ( where  Pride  is  second ) ,  and  compare  de  Qfeguile- 
ville,  The  Pilgrimage  of  the  Life  of  Man  (E.  E.  T.  S.,  pp.  316 ff.), 
where  the  order  is  [Idleness],  Gluttony,  Lechery  (under  the  guise 
of  Venus),  'Sloth,  Pride,  Envy,  Wrath,  Avarice. 


394  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

~No  valid  conclusion,  accordingly,  may  be  drawn  from  this 
particular  divergence.  The  sex  of  the  Sins,  moreover,  is 
different  in  the  two  accounts.  In  the  Mirour  all  seven 
are  the  daughters  of  Sin  and  Death ;  in  the  Faerie  Queene 
Pride  is  a  "  mayden  Queene,"  the  others — her  "  six  sage 
Counsellours  " — are  masculine.  But  the  sex  of  the  Sins 
is  inherent  in  the  fundamental  plan  of  Gower's  poem ;  the 
divergence  in  Spenser  grows  out  of  his  conception  of  the 
House  of  Pride,  and  is  susceptible  of  interpretation  as 
representing  a  perfectly  familiar  mode  of  adapting  bor- 
rowed material.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  fact  that 
in  Gower  the  Sins  ride  in  procession  single  file,  while  in 
Spenser  they  ride,  apparently,  side  by  side.8  Inasmuch 
as  Gower's  plan  demands  at  this  point  a  bridal  procession, 
Spenser's  a  chariot  drawn  by  a  team,  the  difference  in  de- 
tail is  again  inherent  in  the  difference  in  plan.  In  a 
word,  the  divergences  are  either  without  significance  (as 
in  the  case  of  the  order  of  treatment),  or  else  they  grow 
out  of  the  different  settings  of  the  situation  in  the  two 
poems,  and  are  so  without  real  bearing  on  the  point  at 
issue. 

It  is  likenesses,  however,  with  which  we  are  most  con- 
cerned. And,  quite  apart  from  details,  the  similarities 
between  the  two  descriptions  both  in  general  conception 
and  even  in  method  are  obvious — so  obvious,  indeed,  as  to 
constitute  in  themselves  (especially  after  even  a  cursory 
survey  of  the  other  treatments  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins) 

8  Spenser's  picture  here  is  not  clear  at  a  glance.  The  "six  un- 
equall  beasts"  on  which  the  Sins  ride  draw  the  chariot  of  Pride. 
Idleness  is  spoken  of  as  "the  first,"  and  is  represented  as  having 
"  guiding  of  the  way,"  while  Gluttony  rides  "  by  his  side."  Lechery 
rides  "next  to  him,"  Avarice,  "by  him";  Envy,  "next  to  him," 
Wrath,  "  him  beside."  The  alternation  of  "  next  to  him  "  with  "  by 
his  side,"  "by  him,"  "him  beside,"  seems  to  point  to  a  procession 
two  and  two. 


SPENSER  AND  THE   "  MIROUR   DE   L'OMME "         395 

a  strong  piece  of  presumptive  evidence.  For  in  Gower's 
concrete  and  definitely  visualized  imagery  are  precisely 
the  elements  on  which  Spenser's  imagination  was  wont 
to  seize  for  transmutation  in  his  own  alembic,  and  the 
lines  in  the  Faerie  Queene  stand  to  those  in  the  Mirour 
in  a  relation  strikingly  similar  to  that  which  other  well 
known  passages  in  Spenser  bear  to  Ariosto.9 

But  such  evidence  can  at  best  be  merely  presumptive, 
and  the  general  parallel,  however  striking,  is  inconclusive. 
It  is  necessary  to  examine  closely  the  details.  And  it  will 

•  See,  in  particular,  Professor  R.  E.  Neil  Dodge's  illuminating 
discussion  of  "Spenser's  Imitations  from  Ariosto,"  in  the  Publica- 
tions of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  Vol.  xil 
(1897),  pp.  151-204.  Professor  Dodge's  brief  summary  may  be 
quoted  here,  for  it  is  highly  pertinent  to  this  discussion:  "When  he 
copies  Ariosto  it  is  almost  always  with  a  change.  He  may  take  the 
facts  of  a  plot  one  by  one  as  they  stand  in  his  original;  the  peculiar 
rendering  will  always  be  his  own.  He  may  adopt  a  situation — it  will 
be  with  certain  modifications  which  alter  its  character.  He  may 
imitate  a  reflective  passage — the  spirit  of  the  version  will  be  new" 
(p.  196).  Compare  p.  197:  "Every  passage  borrowed  might  be  re- 
cast, modified,  animated  with  another  spirit,"  etc.  Of  all  this  Pro- 
fessor Dodge's  article  itself  gives  ample  illustration.  Two  more 
recent  statements  bearing  on  Spenser's  methods  of  borrowing  and 
adapting  may  be  cited.  The  first  is  from  an  article  by  Professor 
E.  A.  Hall  ("Spenser  and  Two  Old  French  Grail  Romances")  in  the 
same  Publications,  Vol.  xxvm  (Dec.,  1913)  :  "The  acceptance  of  the 
variations  as  Spenser's  own  contribution  to  the  episode  .  .  .  does 
not  require  the  embarrassing  qualification  that  the  poet  has  in 
this  instance  handled  source  material  in  a  manner  differing  in  any 
respect  from  his  recognized  method.  Everywhere  in  Spenser  we 
find  borrowed  'matter,  sometimes  from  one  source,  sometimes  from 
two  or  more  sources,  combined  with  the  stuff  of  the  poet's  own  fancy 
after  the  fashion  of  a  patchwork  quilt,  but  in  a  pattern  superior 
to  any  of  his  originals,"  etc.  (pp.  542-43).  Compare  also  Pro- 
fessor Reed  Smith's  study  (Modern  Language  Notes,  Vol.  xxvm, 
March,  1913,  pp.  82-85)  of  "The  Metamorphoses  in  Muiopotmos,'' 
especially  the  remarks  on  Spenser's  method  of  borrowing  (Note  5, 
p.  84). 


396 


JOHN    LIVINGSTON   LOWES 


simplify  matters  to  present  the  more  salient  facts  in  tabu- 
lar form. 


Sin. 

Beast. 

Object  carried. 

Malady. 

Gower 

Spenser 

Gower 

Spenser 

Gower 

Spenser 

[Pride] 

lion 

eagle 

mirror 

breviary 

frenzy11 

Idleness 
(3)10 

ass 

ass 

owl 

lethargy 

fever 

Gluttony 
(5) 

wolf 

swine 

kite 
(  +  vessel 
of  wine) 

bouzing 
can 

"loup 
roial" 

dropsy 

Lechery  (6) 
Avarice  (4) 
Envy  (1) 

goat 

goat 

dove 

burning 
heart 

leprosy 

pox(?) 

horse 

camel 

hawk  (  + 
"bources") 

[gold] 

dropsy 

gout 

dog 

wolf 

sparrow- 
hawk 

[toad] 

fever 
("ethike") 

leprosy 

Wrath  (2) 

boar 

lion 

cock 

burning 
brand 

cardiacle 

spleen, 
palsy,  etc. 

It  should  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  essential  correspond- 
ence in  the  two  accounts,  so  far  as  the  facts  of  the  table 
are  concerned,  is  the  striking  conjunction  in  both  of 
symbolic  animals,  symbolic  objects  carried  in  the  hand, 
and  symbolic  maladies.  That  both  beasts  and  objects 
(leaving  for  the  moment  the  maladies  out  of  account) 
should  vary,  is  to  be  expected,  when  a  greater  artist 
is  dealing  with  the  symbolism.  But  even  so  the  di- 
rect correspondences  are  closer  than  at  first  appears. 
Idleness  in  Spenser  rides  "  upon  a  sloutJifull  Asse " ;  *' 
in  Gower  it  is  "  dessur  un  asne  lent  et  lass/' 13  And 

10  The  order  of  the  Sins  is  that  in  Spenser.     The  figure  in  paren- 
thesis represents  the  place  of  the  Sin  in  Gower's  order. 

11  For  the  references  in  the  case  of  the  maladies  see  below,  p.  408. 
"St.  xvin,  1.  7.     Hereafter,  in  giving  the  references  to  Spenser, 

the  Roman  numeral  will  indicate  the  stanza;  the  Arabic,  the  line. 

13  L.  889.  But  compare  also  the  "dull  asse"  in  the  Assembly  of 
Gods  below,  p.  398. 


SPENSER   AND   THE    "  AflROUR   DE    L'OMME  "          397 

"  his  heavie  hedd "  14  corresponds  to  "  de  mate  chere."  15 
Gluttony's  "  bouzing  can  "  16  is  in  Gower  as  the  "  beau 
cop  de  vin  envesselle."  17  Lechery  in  Gower  rides  "  sur 
le  chievre  q'est  lecchour  " ; 18  in  Spenser  he  rides  upon 
"a  bearded  Gote,  whose  rugged  heare  .  .  .  was  like  the 
person  selfe  whom  he  did  l>eare"  19  The  "  burning 
hart "  which  he  bears  in  his  hand  takes  the  place  of  the 
dove,  and  is  not  in  Gower's  description  of  Lechery.  But 
it  is  in  his  account  of  Envy,  as  the  "  cuers  ardans  "  of  1 
73.  Avarice  in  Gower  "  des  bources  portoit  plus  que 
dis,  Que  tout  de  I'orr  sont  replenish  20  In  Spenser,  "  two 
iron  coffers  hung  on  either  side,  With  precious  metal  full 
as  they  might  hold.77  21  Envy's  kirtle  in  Spenser  is  "  of 
discolourd  say  " ;  22  in  Gower,  Envy's  face  is  "  moult 
descoloure"  23  This  kirtle  in  Spenser  is  "  ypaynted  full 
of  ieies " ;  24  in  Gower  "  son  mantell  dont  s'affoubloit 
[compare  Spenser's  "  all  in  a  kirtle  .  .  .  he  clothed 
was  "]  Du  purpre  au  droit  devis  estoit  Ove  cuers  ardans 
~bien  eribroude"  25  The  burning  hearts  have  been  trans- 
ferred to  Lechery;  the  eyes  more  fittingly  (cf.  xxx,  7; 
xxxi,  6)  take  their  place.  In  Envy's  bosom,  in  Spenser, 
lies  "  an  hatefull  Snake  "  ;  26  in  Gower,  between  the  burn- 
ing hearts  are  scattered  serpents'  tongues.27  To  Wrath's 
dagger  correspond  "  des  culteals  "  in  Gower.28  I  grant  at 

14  xix,  5.  15  L.  899.  1(i  xxn,  6. 

1TL.  919.     See  also  below,  p.  415.  18  L.  929. 

19  xxiv,  2,  4.  »L1.  910-11. 

21  xxvil,  3-4.     See  also  below,  p.  424,  n.  49.      "xxxi,  1. 

™  L.  869.  Envy  is  also  "megre,  pale  and  lene,  Dyscolouryd" 
("descoloree"  in  the  French  text  of  Le  Romant  des  trois  pelerinaiges) 
in  de  Deguileville  (E.  E.  T.  S.,  p.  401,  11.  14867-68).  Too  much 
stress,  accordingly,  may  not  be  laid  on  this  detail.  ^ 

24  xxxi,  2.  »L1.  871-73.  ™  xxxi,  3-4. 

"LI.  874-76.     Compare  also  below,  pp.  436,  442,  446. 

28  L.  884. 


398  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

once  that  these  details  in  themselves  cannot  for  a  moment 
be  regarded  as  conclusive.  Some  of  them,  of  course,  are 
conventional  touches.29  But  others  (especially  in  the 
case  of  Envy)  are  not  so  easily  accounted  for,  and  they 
are  of  a  piece,  as  we  shall  later  see,  with  far  more  strik- 
ing and  significant  correspondences. 

If  we  turn  more  definitely  to  the  animals,  several 
interesting  facts  appear.  The  following  table  gives  at  a 
glance  the  relation  of  the  two  lists  to  each  other,  so  far 
as  the  symbolic  beasts  are  concerned,  and  I  have  added 
for  comparison  the  lists  from  the  Assembly  of  Gods3* 
and  the  Ancren  Riwle  (in  the  last  of  which,  of  course, 
there  is  no  question  of  riding).31 


21  See  below,  p.  433,  n.  97. 

30  The  passage  in  the  Assembly  is  brief,  and  I  shall  quote  it  in  full: 

Pryde  was  the  furst  J?at  next  him  [Vyce]  roode, 

God  woote, 

On  a  roryng  lyon;  next  whom  came  Enuy, 

Sytting  on  a  wolfe — he  had  a  scornful  ey. 
Wrethe  bestrode  a  wylde  bore,  and  next  him  gan  ryde. 

In  hys  hand  he  bare  a  blody  nakyd  swerde. 
Next  whom  came  Couetyse,  that  goth  so  fer  and  wyde, 

Rydyng  on  a  olyfaunt,  as  he  had  ben  aferde. 

Aftyr  whom  rood  Glotony,  with  hys  fat  berde, 

Syttyng  on  a  bere,  with  his  gret  bely. 

And  next  hym  on  a  goot  folowyd  Lechery. 
Slowthe  was  so  slepy  he  came  all  behynde 

On  a  dull  asse,  a  full  wery  pase. 

(The  Assembly  of  Gods,  ed.  Triggs,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  11.  621-32).  The 
setting  of  the  procession  in  the  Assembly  is  that  of  a  troop  in  battle 
array.  The  seven  Sins  are^he  "unhappy  capteyns  of  myschyef  croppe 
and  roote." 

81  The  Sins  are  mounted — on  horseback,  however, — and  armed 
(often  with  symbolic  devices  on  their  shields)  in  Le  Tornoiement  de 
I'Antechrist  of  Huon  de  Mery  (ed.  Tarbe,  Reims,  1851,  pp.  18-37). 
But  there  are  no  parallels  with  the  processions  we  are  considering. 


SPENSER   AND   THE    "MIROUR    DE    L'OMME 


399 


Gower 

Spenser 

Assembly 

Ancren 
Riwle 

Pride 

lion 

lion 

lion 

Idleness 

ass 

ass 

ass 

bear 

Gluttony 

wolf 

swine 

bear 

sow 

Lechery 

goat 

goat 

goat 

scorpion 

Avarice 

horse 

camel 

elephant 

fox 

Envy 

dog 

wolf 

wolf 

adder 

Wrath 

boar 

lion 

boar 

unicorn 

Spenser  agrees  with  Gower  in  four  out  of  the  seven  ani- 
mals, and  in  two  cases  (those  of  Idleness  and  Lechery) 
the  association  of  the  animal  and  the  Vice  corresponds.32 
The  change  in  the  case  of  the  lion,  moreover,  is  no  less 
significant  than  the  agreement.  Wrath  in  Gower  rides 
upon  a  boar;  in  Spenser  he  is  mounted  on  a  lion.  Now 
in  the  Mirour  it  is  Pride  who  is  borne  by  a  lion.  In 
the  Fairie  Queene,  however,  Pride  is  in  the  chariot  drawn 
by  the  remaining  Sins,  so  that  her  lion  is  available  for 
other  use.  And  it  is  difficult  to  doubt  that  it  is  from 
Pride  in  the  Mirour  that  Spenser  has  transferred  the  lion 
to  his  own  Wrath.  For  Gower's  description  is  at  once 
uncommonly  pictorial  and  apt :  "  un  lioun,  qaler  en  coy 

™  It  is  at  least  possible  that  the  author  of  the  Assembly  may  have 
known  Gower's  account.  At  all  events  the  two  passages  agree  in 
five  out  of  the  seven  animals,  and  in  four  cases  (those  of  Pride, 
Idleness,  Lechery,  and  Wrath)  the  assignment  of  animals  to  vices 
corresponds.  It  is  of  course  further  possible  that  Spenser  may 
have  known  the  procession  in  the  Assembly.  He  agrees  with  it  in 
four  of  the  seven  animals,  and  in  three  cases  ( those  of  Idleness, 
Lechery,  and  Envy)  the  conjunction  of  animal  and  vice  is  identical. 
But  the  crucial  test  of  the  combination  in  one  account  of  aniipals, 
objects,  and  maladies — quite  apart  from  verbal  agreements — throws 
the  procession  in  the  Assembly  decisively  out  of  court,  except  as  a 
possible  subsidiary  source. 


400  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

N&  volt  pour  nul  chas}tiement,  Ainz  salt  sur  la  menue  gent, 
Du  qui  tons  furont  en  effroy."  33  And  it  is  precisely  this 
distinctive  touch  34  which  appears  condensed  in  Spenser's 
phrase:  "  Upon  a  Lion,  loth  for  to  be  led."  35  As  for  the 
other  three  changes,  one  can  perhaps  only  guess.  But  the 
swine  (associated  with  Gluttony  in  both  the  Ancren  Eiwle 
and  the  Ayenbtte  of  Inwyt)  is  obviously  more  in  keeping 
with  the  superb  grossness  of  Spenser's  conception  of  Glut- 
tony than  the  wolf,  and  the  wolf,  thus  available  for  other 
use,  may  readily  have  been  transferred  (possibly  under 
the  influence  of  the  Assembly)  to  Envy,  to  whose  mali- 
cious and  devastating  character,  as  Spenser  conceives  it, 
it  is  certainly  more  appropriate  than  the  dog.  Spenser's 
choice  of  the  camel  for  Avarice  will  be  discussed  below ;  36 
and  Gower's  rather  inept  assignment  of  the  horse  cried 
out  in  any  case  for  the  reviser's  hand. 

The  changes  in  the  objects  carried — once  the  idea  of 
such  objects  was  suggested — are  again  what  we  should 
expect.  Gower's  symbolism  is  general ;  the  object  chosen 
— in  each  case  a  bird  (with  the  addition,  in  the  case  of 
Gluttony  and  Avarice,  of  two  objects  which  also  appear  in 
Spenser)37 — is  broadly  appropriate  to  the  Vice,  rather 
than  an  integral  part  of  a  description  conceived  and 
executed  as  an  artistic  whole.  In  Spenser,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  objects — in  no  case  a  bird — are  part  and  parcel 
of  a  composition;  as  in  Gower,  they  have  a  symbolic  rela- 
tion to  the  Vice,  but  they  also  blend  with  the  other  details 
to  create  a  unified  impression.  Their  choice,  in  other 
words,  is  determined  not  only  by  their  symbolic,  but  also 

33  Ll.  849-52. 

34  Compare,   for  instance,  the  conventional  "roring   lyon"   of  the 
procession  in  the  Assembly. 

85  xxxni,  2.  E*  See  p.  424. 

87  See  above,  p.  396 ;  below,  pp.  415,  424. 


SPENSER   AND    THE    "  MIKOUR    DE    I/OMME "          401 

by  their  artistic  value.  Thus  the  conception  of  Idleness 
is  dominated  by  the  religious  aspect  of  Somnolence,  and 
the  unused  breviary — instead  of  an  owl  "  pour  son  solas  " 
— is  completely  in  harmony  with  that.  Gluttony's  "  bouz- 
ing  can  "  (with  its  suggestion  in  Gower)  follows  inevi- 
tably from  the  rest  of  the  description;  the  kite,  however 
apposite  to  the  Vice  per  se,  would  be  extraneous  to  the 
composition.  Lechery's  burning  heart  (the  hint  for  which 
is  also  found  in  Gower)  and  Wrath's  burning  brand  are 
organically  symbolic — they  grow  out  of  their  respective 
conceptions  and  at  the  same  time  focus  them ;  the  dove  and 
the  cock  in  Spenser's  setting  would  strike  a  discordant 
note.  And  this  more  organic  treatment  is  carried  one  step 
farther  in  the  case  of  Avarice  and  Envy,  whose  hands  are 
occupied,  in  the  one  case  with  telling  the  gold,  in  the 
other  with  holding  the  toad.  In  either  description  the 
bird  would  be  a  mere  mechanical  device.  Once  more, 
given  on  the  one  hand  the  apt  suggestion  of  a  symbolizing 
object,  given  on  the  other  Spenser's  gift  for  composing — 
for  harmonizing  descriptive  details  into  organic  unity — 
and  the  naive  symbolism  of  Gower's  birds  would  inevitably 
give  place  to  emblems  of  a  subtler  sort. 

One  may,  however,  agree  that  Spenser  would  have  done 
thus  or  so,  and  yet  be  unconvinced  that  he  did  just  these 
things — that  the  case,  after  all,  is  anything  but  hypotheti- 
cal. Let  us  see,  accordingly, .  if  there  are  other  indications 
that  point  more  directly  toward  borrowing  on  Spenser's 
part.  We  have  so  far  left  Pride  out  of  the  reckoning. 
She  must,  however,  be  brought  into  the  account.38  In  the 

88  In  both  passages  Pride  is  a  woman.  And  in  Gower,  as  in 
Spenser,  she  is  set  off  sharply  from  the  other  Sins.  Not  only  is  she 
represented  as  their  leader  ("Orguil,  des  autres  capiteine,"  1.  1040) — • 
a  distinction  which  is  of  course  a  commonplace  of  commonplaces— 
but  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  the  marriage  centers  about  her. 


402  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

Faerie  Queene  her  position  in  the  chariot  takes  her  out 
of  the  procession  of  four-footed  beasts,  but  it  does  not 
deprive  her  of  her  symbolic  object.  In  Gower  the  bird  is 
— fittingly  enough — an  eagle.  But  Spenser's  symbolism 
is  once  more  inherent: 

And  in  her  hand  she  held  a  mirrhour  bright, 

Wherein  her  face  she  often  vewed  fayne, 

And  in  her  selfe-lov'd  semblance  took  delight.89 

The  significance  of  the  emblem  in  the  Mirour,  however,  is 
retained  in  the  Faerie  Queene.  The  eagle  in  Gower  "  si- 
gnefie  Qu'il  trestous  autres  a  1' essay  Volt  surmonter  de 
s'estutye."  40  Spenser  remarks  of  Pride : 

For  to  the  highest  she  did  still  aspyre, 

Or,  if  ought  higher  were  than  that,  did  it  desyre.41 

When  the  Redcrosse  Knight  and  Duessa  have  made  obeis- 
ance to  Pride  "  on  humble  knee," 

With  loftie  eyes,  halfe  loth  to  looke  so  lowe, 
She  thancked  them  in  her  disdainefull  wise; 
Ne  other  grace  vouchsafed  them  to  shoice.42 

So  in  the  Mir  our: 

Desdaign,  quant  passe  aval  la  rue, 
Par  fier  regard  les  oels  il  rue 


99  x,  6-8.    Pride  in  the  Pilgrimage  also 

Held  a  large  merour  in  hyr  hond, 

Hyr  owgly  ffetuyrs  to  behold  and  se   (11.  14002-03). 

In  the  Pelerinaige: 

Et  vng  mirouer  luy  tenoit 
Ann  que  dedans  regardast 
Et  que  sa  face  elle  y  mirast.  (Romant,  f.  xlviii). 

But  the  fitness  of  detail  is  sufficiently  obvious  in  any  case. 
40  LI.  860-61.  41xi,  8-9.  "xiv,  1-3. 


SPENSER   AND  THE   "  MIROUR   BE   L/OMME "         403 

Dessur  les  povres  gens  mcnuz  .  .  . 
Que  ne  respont  a  lew  saluz.43 


Pride's  chariot  is 


Adorned  all  with  gold  and  girlonds  gay, 

That  seemed  as  fresh  as  Flora  in  her  prime" 

OrguiPs  saddle  and  bridle  are 

Trestout  .  .  .  plain  du  queinterie; 
Car  unques  pree  flouriz  en  mail 
N'estoit  au  reguarder  si  gay 
Des  fleurs,  comme  ce  fuist  du  perrie.45 

Moreover,  Spenser  gives  Pride  (so  far  as  I  know)   a 
unique  parentage : 

Of  griesly  Pluto  she  the  daughter  was, 
And  sad  Proserpina,  the  Queene  of  hell.40 


"LI.  2257-59,  2262.  These  lines  are  from  a  direrent  portion  of 
the  Mirour,  where  Pride  is  dealt  with  in  detail.  The  significance  of 
this  fact  will  appear  later  (see  below,  sec.  n).  Todd  properly 
refers  "  with  loftie  eyes  "  to  Prov.  xxx,  13.  But  Gower  translates 
Prov,  xxx,  13  a  few  lines  below: 

De  celle  generacioun 

Portant  les  oels  d'elacioun 

Ove  la  palpebre  en  halt  assise, 

Que  ja  d'umihacioun 

Ne  prent  consideracioun  (11.  2293-97). 

The  verse  reads  in  the  Vulgate :  "  Generatio  cujus  excelsi  sunt 
oculi,  et  palpebrae  ejus  in  alta  surrectae." 

44 xvn,  2-3.  "LI.  855-58. 

48  xi,  1-2.  In  the  very  remarkable  account  of  the  coronation  of 
Pride  in  the  thirteenth-century  Renart-le-Nouvel  of  Jacquemars 
Gie"le"e  (text  in  Le  Roman  du  Renart,  ed.  Me"on,  Paris,  1826,  Vol.  iv, 
pp.  125  ff.;  see  also  Renart-le-Nouvel,  ed  Houdoy,  Paris,  1874)  Pro- 
serpine is  the  mistress  of  Orguel: 

K'envoie  li  ot  Proserpine  0 

Del  puc  d'lnfier,  c'or  d'amor  fine 
Amoit  Orguel  et  Orgeus  li, 


404  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

Her  descent  in  Gower  (where  she  is  the  daughter  of  Sin 
and  Death)  is  different,  but  in  the  very  next  section  of  the 
Mirour,  in  the  account  of  the  marriage  of  Pride  and  the 
World,47  three  lines  after  the  mention  of  her  parentage 
we  read : 

Au  table  q'estoit  principal 
Pluto  d'enfem  Emperial 
Ove  Proserpine  s'asseoit.48 

And  immediately  there  follows  an  account  of  the  feast- 
ing at  the  wedding  which  concerns  us  nearly: 

Dont  fuist  leur  feste  et  joye  maire  .  .  . 4B 
Mais  pour  servir  d'especial 
Bachus  la  sale  ministroit, 
Et  Venus  plus  avant  servoit 
Toutes  les  chambres  del  hostal.80 

So  in  Spenser,  after  "  the  solace  of  the  open  aire," 

That  night  they  pas  in  joy  and  jollity, 
Feasting  and  courting  both  in  bowre  and  hall.51 

The    ministrations    of    Bacchus    and    Venus    correspond 


Mais  a  Pluto  pas  n'abieli, 

Car  il  en  fu  en  jalousie  (11.  233-37). 

In  this  account  Pride  is  masculine,  and  the  other  six  Sins  are 
"sis  Dames"  (11.  1173ff.),  who  come  to  meet  Pride  two  by  two, 
but  "a  pie"  (1.  1181),  in  the  order  Wrath  and  Envy,  Avarice  and 
Idleness,  Luxury  and  Gluttony.  But  there  are  no  farther  parallels. 
See  11.  1172-1247.  Pluto  and  Proserpine  also  appear  (together  with 
Jupiter,  Saturn,  Apollo,  Mercury,  Neptune,  and  Mars)  in  Le 
Tornoiement  de  I'Antechrist  (p.  18),  but  in  no  immediate  connec- 
tion with  Pride. 

47 "  Coment  lez  sept  files  du  Pecche"  furont  espousez  au  Siecle,  des 
quelles  la  primere  ot  a  noun  dame  Orguil." 

4(1  LI.  961-63. 

48  Compare,  in  the  same  account,  "Del  tiel  revel,  del  tiele  joye" 
(1.  999). 

00  LI.  960,  969-72.  C1  XLm,  5-6. 


SPENSER   AND   THE   "  MIEOUB   DE   L/OMMS "         405 

exactly  to  "  feasting  and  courting,"  52  and  "  bowre  and 
hall "  (like  "  joy  and  jollity  ")  are  verbally  carried  over. 
But  that  is  not  the  only  verbal  correspondence.  Bacchus 
and  Venus  would  scarcely  fit  at  this  point  into  Spenser's 
scheme,  along  with  Sansfoy  and  Duessa.  They  are  not, 
however,  the  only  ones  who  serve  at  Pride's  wedding. 
Thirteen  lines  farther  on  occurs  the  following: 

Lors  Gloutonie  a  grant  mesure 
Du  large  main  mettoit  sa  cure 
As  grans  hanaps  du  vin  emplirJ* 

The  next  lines  in  Spenser  are  as  follows: 

For  Steward  was  excessive  Gluttony, 
That  of  his  plenty  poured  forth  to  all. 

But  even  that  is  not  all.     For  Spenser  has  apparently 
remembered  an  earlier  summary  of  the  Sins  in  the  Mirourf 
and  with  his  close  paraphrase  of  Gower's  three  lines  in  the 
account  of  the  marriage  on  which  he  is  freely  drawing, 
he  has  interwoven  the  very  phraseology  of  the  earlier  pas- 
Accidie  estoit  son  chamlerer, 
Et  Glotonie  de  son  droit 
Estoit  son  maistre  hotelier.™ 

For  Steward  was  excessive  Gluttony, 
That  of  his  plenty  poured  forth  to  all; 
Which   doen,  the  Chamberlain,  Slowth,  did  to 
rest  them  call.05 

We  shall  have  abundant  evidence  later  of  the  same  sort 
of  selection  and  dexterous  combination  on  Spenser's  part. 

w  So  far  as  "courting"  is  concerned,  see  further  11.  981-83 : 
Car  mainte  delitable  geste 

Leur  dist,  dont  il  les  cuers  entice  ^ 

Des  jofnes  dames  au  delice. 

And  compare  11.  1009-20,  1045-56. 

98  LI.  985-87.  M  LI.  296-98.  M  XLIII,  7-9 


406  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

But  even  were  that  not  so,  the  last  five  lines  of  the  forty- 
third  stanza  put  the  burden  of  proof  on  the  denial  of  his 
borrowing.  And  it  will  be  observed  that  it  is  precisely  the 
same  sort  of  readjustment  for  his  own  purposes  (in  this 
case  demonstrable)  which  we  have  seen  (where  it  was 
more  a  matter  of  assumption)  in  the  case  of  the  animals 
and  the  birds. 

Nor  does  this  exhaust  the  parallels  in  the  stanzas  imme- 
diately following  the  account  of  the  Progress.  In  Spenser, 

.     .     .     after  all,  upon  the  wagon  beame, 
Rode  Nathan  with  a  smarting  whip  in  hand, 
With  which  he  forward  lasht  the  laesy  teme.56 

In  Gower,  the  lines  that  immediately  follow  his  account 
)f  the  procession  are  these : 

As  noces  de  si  hault  affaire 
Ly  deables  ce  q'estoit  a  faire 
Tout  ordena  par  son  devis.™ 

To  the  "  huge  routs  of  people  [that]  did  about  them 
band"  in  Spenser  (xxxvi,  5)  corresponds  the  fefole  gent 
entour"  (1.  936)  and  "la  menue  gent"  (1.  851)  on  which 
Pride's  lion  leaps  in  Gower.  The  "fresh  flowering  fields  " 
in  which  Spenser's  company  sports  (xxxvii,  3)  are  paral- 
leled by  the  " champs  et  prees  de  sa  verdure  Reveste"  and 
the  "buisson  f,ori"  (11.  941-43)  which  give  the  setting  of 
the  procession  in  the  Mirour.58  Instinctive  prepossessions 
aside,  the  evidence  seems  clear  that  Spenser  has  done 
with  Gower  what  we  know  that  he  did  with  Ariosto 

60  xxxvi,  1-3.  B7L1.  949-51. 

68  The  two  lines,  moreover,  which  close  the  account  of  the  feast  in 
•Cower  correspond  word  for  word  with  a  line  in  one  of  the  earlier 
stanzas  in  Spenser  which  likewise  describe  the  House  of  Pride : 

Et  pour  solempnement  tenir 


SPENSER   AND   THE    "  MIROUR   DE   I/OMME  "         407 

and  Tasso,  with  Ovid  and  Chaucer  and  the  romances. 
Even  on  the  ground  of  the  facts  so  far  before  us,  it  is 
hard  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  the  entire  fourth 
canto  is  an  amazing  piece  of  marquetry — that  in  its  com- 
position Spenser  characteristically  culled  and  dovetailed 
as  he  wrote.  The  importance  in  particular  of  just  this 
group  of  parallels  that  involve  the  background  of  the  two 
accounts  is  obvious.  For  they  are  entirely  independent 
of  the  treatment  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  as  such.  They 
constitute,  that  is,  a  differentia  of  this  particular  treatment, 
and  this  differentia  of  Gower's  account  appears  in  Spenser 
too.58*  And  the  way  in  which  not  only  the  description  of 
the  procession  in  Gower  (of  which  there  is  still  much  more 
to  say),  but  also  his  account  of  the  feast,  is  inlaid  (unless  I 
much  mistake)  in  Spenser's  own  narrative  "  [speaks]  the 
praises  of  the  workman's  witt"  no  less  than  the  "goodly 
heape"  of  the  House  of  Pride  itself. 

The  consideration  of  Pride  and  "of  the  feste  that  was 
at  hir  weddinge  "  has  withdrawn  our  attention  from  Spen- 


Le  feste,  a  toute  gent  ovrir 

Les  portes  pront  a  toute  hure  (11.  994-96). 

Arrived  there,  they  passed  in  forth  right; 

For  still  to  all  the  gates  stood  open  wide  (vi,  1-2). 

"Still"  =  a  toute  hure;  "to  all"r=a  toute  gent;  "the  gates"  —  Les 
portes;  "stood  open"  =  ovrir  .  .  .  firont.  The  only  word  in  Spen- 
ser's line  (barring  "For")  which  does  not  literally  translate  a  cor- 
responding word  or  phrase  in  Gower  is  the  rhyme-word  "  wide."  But 
striking  as  the  verbal  identity  is,  it  is  possible  that  in  this  case  the 
two  poets  are  simply  expressing  a  very  common  idea  in  the  obvious 
words,  and  that  the  correspondence  is  accidental.  It  would  certainly 
have  no  value  whatever  were  it  an  isolated  parallel.  Standing  as  it 
does,  however,  in  immediate  connection  with  a  number  of  other  close 
parallels  too  numerous  and  too  remarkable  to  be  safely  regardedfas 
coincidences,  this  line  too  is  very  possibly  an  instance  of  verbal 
memory  on  Spenser's  part. 

68a  See  especially  below,  p.  449. 


408 


JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 


ser's  treatment  of  the  other  six  Sins,  and  to  that  we  may 
now  return.  I  have  said  that,  in  both  Spenser  and  Gower, 
each  Sin  is  associated  with  a  definite  malady.  This  asso- 
ciation, in  Gower,  occurs  in  the  elaborate  exposition  of  the 
Seven  Sins  which  immediately  follows  the  account  of  the 
marriage  of  Pride.  And  it  appears  in  each  case  as  a  part 
of  the  final  summarizing  section.59  In  Spenser,  too,  it 
serves,  in  each  instance,  as  the  final  characterizing  detail. 
1  shall  repeat  the  tabular  view,  so  far  as  it  includes  the 
maladies : 


Gower 

Spenser 

Pride 

frenzy  60 



Idleness 

lethargy  81 

fever 

Gluttony 

loup  roial63 

dropsy 

Lechery 

leprosy  " 

pox 

Avarice 

dropsy  M 

gout 

Envy 

fever  6! 

leprosy 

Wrath 

cardiacle  66 

spleen,  j^ilsy, 
&c. 

The  two  lists  have  three  of  the  seven  diseases  in  com- 
mon ;  in  no  instance,  however,  do  Spenser  and  Gower  asso- 
ciate the  same  malady  with  a  given  Sin.  But  once  more, 
it  is  the  common  device  which  is  the  essential  point.  A 
different  application,  in  Spenser's  case,  is  what,  a  priori, 
we  should  expect.  Some  of  the  divergences — I  think  it  is 
not  difficult  to  see — are  due  (as  in  the  case  of  the  objects 
carried)  to  the  necessities  of  the  case,  or  to  a  finer  sense  of 


51  See  below,  pp.  410-11. 
00  LI.  2525-32. 
"LI.  6157-68;  cf.  XX,  5-8. 
«L1.  8521-32;  cf.  xxiil,  6-8. 


"LI.  9637-72;  cf.  xxvi,  6-8. 
ML1.  7603-08;  cf.  xxix,  6-8. 
08  LI.  3817-28;  cf.  xxxn,  8. 
88  LI.  5093-5100;  cf.  xxxv,  7-8. 


SPENSER  AND   THE   "  MIROUR   DE    L7OMME  "         409 

fitness.67  But  at  least  two  (if  not  three)  give  evidence  of 
having  heen  suggested  by  Gower.  The  least  significant 
may  be  briefly  mentioned  here.  In  the  Mirour  dropsy  is 
associated  with  Avarice.  In  the  Faerie  Queene  it  is  as- 
signed to  Gluttony.  But  that  the  one  passage  has  sug- 
gested the  other  seems  probable.  Spenser's  lines  are  as 
follows : 

And  a  dry  dropsie  through  his  flesh  did  flow, 

Which  by  misdiet  daily  greater  grew.65 

Gower's  lines  are  these : 

Oil  q'ad  le  mal  d'idropesie, 
Comme  plus  se  prent  a  beverie, 
Tant  plus  du  soif  desnatural 
Ensecche.60 

The  two  agree  not  only  in  the  idea  of  thirst  (which  is 
not  remarkable),70  but  also  in  the  emphasis  on  its  increase 

67  Leprosy,  with  its  medieval  associations,  is  appropriate  enough 
to  Lechery.  The  change,  however,  to  the  unnamed  but  easily  identi- 
fied disease — 

.    .    .  that  foule  evill,  which  all  men  reprove, 
That  rotts  the  marrow,  and  consumes  the  braine — 

was  practically  inevitable,  after  pox,  as  the  accompaniment  of 
lechery,  had  been  defined  and  differentiated.  Gout  is  a  more  realistic, 
more  picturesque  (if  less  conventionally  symbolic)  disease  for 
Avarice  than  dropsy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  highly  symbolic  group 
of  diseases — "The  swelling  Splene,  and  Frenzy  raging  rife,  The 
shaking  Palsey,  and  St.  Fraunces  fire  " — form  a  striking  climax  to 
the  long  catalogue  of  mischiefs  that  follow  Wrath;  Gower's  cardiacle 
(entirely  appropriate  in  fact)  would  in  this  case  have  come  in  as 
an  anticlimax.  Indeed,  the  plan  of  this  particular  stanza  (and 
that,  as  we  have  seen,  is  with  Spenser  a  paramount  consideration) 
excludes  the  treatment  he  has  accorded  the  diseases  in  the  other 
instances,  where  they  prey  upon  the  Sin  itself. 

08  xxm,  7-8.  °9  LI.  7603-06. 

70  "Signa  autem  hydropsis  .  .  .  sunt  .  .  .  sitis  ineavtinguibilis 
(Bernardus  Gordonius,  Lilium  medicinae,  Particula  vi,  cap.  v — 


410  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

by  what  it  feeds  on.  The  case  of  Envy  is  particularly 
striking,  but  I  shall  reserve  it  (together  with  that  of  Idle- 
ness) for  discussion  below,71  where  the  evidence  becomes 
cumulative. 

II 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  concerned  with  the  agree- 
ment of  the  two  accounts  in  the  threefold  conjunction  of 
animals,  symbolic  objects,  and  maladies — a  conjunction 
without  other  parallel — and  with  the  adroit  interweaving 
of  Gower's  description  of  the  wedding  feast  with  Spenser's 
narrative.  The  divergences  in  detail  (however  accounted 
for)  between  the  two  lists  of  animals,  objects,  and  maladies 
may  be  felt  to  deprive  their  agreement  (however  unique) 
of  entire  conclusiveness.  On  the  other  hand,  the  verbal 
borrowings  in  the  dovetailed  fragments  of  the  festival  seem 
to  admit  no  alternative.  And  we  .have  now  to  consider  a 
mass  of  correspondences  of  a  similar  sort,  which  should  go 
far,  I  think,  to  dispel  any  lingering  doubts.  The  list  is 
too  long  to  give  entire,  and  I  shall  select  those  details  which 
are  most  significant.  They  involve  especially  the  portraits 
of  Gluttony,  Envy,  Avarice,  Idleness,  and  Wrath. 

Spenser's  descriptions  of  the  six  Deadly  Sins  (excluding 
Pride)  subsume,  in  each  case,  characteristics  which  are 
frequently,  in  other  accounts,  distributed  among  the  various 
"branches"  or  "species"  of  the  respective  Sins.  In  Gower 
(in  the  long  section  of  the  Mir  our  that  follows  the  recital 

ed.  1550,  p.  543) ;  "  Quartum  [signum]  est  sitis  "  (Valescus  de  Tar- 
anta,  Philonium,  Lib.  v,  cap.  8 — ed.  1526,  f.  ccliv).  The  older  com- 
mentators- misunderstood  "dry,"  and  Upton's  emendation  "dire 
dropsy"  (see  Warton's  note  in  the  1805  Variorum)  and  Collier's 
"hydropsy"  are  of  course  unnecessary. 
71  See  pp.  436,  428. 


SPENSER    AND    THE    "  MIROUB   DE    LJOMME  "          411 

of  the  marriage  of  the  seven  Vices)  this  distribution  is 
actually  made  between  their  progeny.  Each  Vice  bears  the 
World  five  children,  and  each  of  these  is  characterized  at 
length.  And  each  of  the  five  accounts  is  followed  by  a  sec- 
tion bearing  the  rubric:  "La  discripcioun  d'Envie  [Ire, 
etc.]  proprement"  (or  "par  especial").  What  Spenser~f 
has  done — if  evidence  has  any  meaning — is  to  draw  freely 
for  suggestion  on  these  very  detailed  and  often  vividi  ,y 
"  characters."  1  For  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  shall  give  the 
parallels,  in  what  follows,  with  as  little  comment  as  pos- 
sible. 

It  has  long  been  recognized  that  Spenser's  Gluttony  is 
in  part  modelled  on  the  classical  descriptions  of  Bacchus 
and  (especially)  Silenus,  and  that  Vergil,  Ovid,  Aristotle, 
and  the  Bible  have  contributed  to  the  thoroughly  Spenser- 
ian mosaic.  I  shall  first  give  the  evidence  that  certain 
details  for  which  parallels  have  not  hitherto  been  adduced 
are  drawn  from  Gower,  and  then  return  to  the  lines  which 
represent,  in  part  at  least,  other  influences. 

With  which  he  swalloived  up  excessive  feast, 
For  want  whereof  poore  people  oft  did  pyne.1* 

.    .    .   ensi  pour  maintenir 
Sa  guele  il  fait  avant  venir 
Ce  q'est  dedeinz  le  mesuage 
Des  povres,  dont  se  fait  emplir: 

1It  is  not  (be  it  said  at  once)  that  there  are  in  the  portraits 
only  such  traits  as  appear  nowhere  else.  To  suggest  that  Spenser 
knew  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  only  through  Gower  would  be  a  palpa- 
ble absurdity.  That  he  knew  other  treatments  and  remembered  them, 
admits  no  doubt.  On  conventions  common  to  both,  then,  I  shall 
lay  but  little  stress.  But  even  where  the  traits  that  are  common  to 
the  two  poems  are  more  or  less  conventional,  it  is  obvious  that  they 
must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  massing  of  correspondences 
that  are  not  mere  conventions  of  the  genre. 

laxxi,  6-7. 


412  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

L'en  doit  tieu  feste  trop  hai'r 

Dont  I'autre  plourent  lour  dammage.2 

His  belly  was  upblowne  with  luxury  .  .  . 

And  all  the  way,  most  like  a  brutish  beast, 

He  spued  up  his  gorge,  that  all  did  him  deteast* 

II  porte  d'omme  1'estature, 
Et  est  semblable  de  nature 
A.U  chien,  qant  ad  le  ventre  enfle 
Plain  de  caroigne  et  vile  ordure, 
Dont  pardessoutz  et  pardessure 
S'espurge,  et  est  trop  abhosme.4 

Spenser's     "  belly     .     .     .     upblowne "     is     identically 
Gower's  "ventre  enfle"5;  "most  like  a  brutish  beast"  is 

*  Ll.  8431-36.    So  four  lines  later: 

Par  tout  le  paiis  enviroun 

N'y  laist  gelline  ne  capoun, 

Ainz  tolt  et  pile  a  sa  pitance, 

Ove  tout  celle  autre  appourtenance ; 

Et  si  ly  povre  en  fait  parlance, 

Lors  fait  sa  paie  du  bastoun   .    .    . 

Ne  luy  souffist  tantsoulement 

Ensi  piler  du  povre  gent, 

Aingois  des  riches  aprompter 

Quiert  et  leur  orr  et  leur  argent, 

Pour  festoier  plus  largement; 

Car  riens  luy  chalt  qui  doit  paier, 

Maisq'il  s'en  pourra  festoier  .  .  . 

Maldit  soit  tieu  festoiement ! 

(Ll.  8440-45,   8449-55,  8460). 
Cf.  also  11.  8407-08. 
8  xxi,  3,  8-9. 
«L1.  8347-52.     Cf.  11.  8333-34: 

Car  de  son  ventre  le  forsfait 
Est  de  vomite  en  grant  danger. 

See,  indeed,  the  whole  section. 

0  Luxury,  too,  is  directly  associated  with  Gluttony  at  least  twice  in 
the  pertinent  passages  in  Gower.  See  11.  8605-06;  985,  989.  Upton's 
parallel  for  "His  belly  was  upblowne  with  luxury" — "Inflatum 


SPENSER    AND    THE    "  MIROUR   DE    L7OMME  "          413 

"  semblable  de  nature  An  chien  " ;  Gower's  fourth  line  is 
summed  up  in  "his  gorge" ;  and  the  verbal  identity  of  the 
last  lines  in  each  needs  no  comment.6 

His  drunken  corse  he  scarse  upholden  can: 

In  shape  and  life  more  like  a  monster  then  a  man.1 

Ce  fait  homme  yvre  en  son  degre". 
Car  il  n'ad  corps,  ainz  enfieblis 
Plus  que  dormant  s'est  endormis   .    .    . 
II  n'est  pas  homme  au  droit  devis, 
Ne  beste,  ainz  est  disfigure, 
Le  monstre  dont  sont  abhosme 
Dieus  et  nature  a  leur  avis.8 

"  Disfigure "  appears  in  the  preceding  stanza  as  "  de- 
formed creature"  ;  the  other  verbal  parallels,  I  think,  speak 
for  themselves.9 

hesterno  venas,  ut  semper,  laccho"  (Vergil,  Eel.,  vi,  15) — is  not 
verbal  ( except  in  "inflatum" ) ,  and  it  is  not  accompanied  ( as  in  the 
case  of  "ventre  .  .  .  enfle")  by  further  parallels  for  almost  every 
word  of  its  immediate  context. 

6  Somewhat  earlier  in  the  description  of  the  five  daughters  of  Glut- 
tony, Gower  has  also  laid  emphasis  on  the  Glutton's  belly: 

So  large  pance  au  plein  garnie, 

Sicome  le  grange  est  du  f rument  ( 11.  7737-38 ) . 

And  he  at  once  proceeds  to  compare  it  to  the  tautness  of  a  tennis 
ball  (11.  7741-45).  Vomit  is  also  associated  with  Gluttony  in  Le 
Pelerinaige.  Gluttony  says  she  is  properly  called  "Gastrimargie," 
and  that  is  "vne  plongerie  et  submersion  de  morceaulx."  Then  (she 
continues), 

Puis  quen  mon  sac  les  ay  plungiez 

Et  si  te  dy  bien  quen  sachez 

Jen  ay  que  renomir  et  rendre 

Ma  conuenu  et  hors  respandre    (f.  xliiiivo). 

See  the  Pilgrimage,  11.  12839-49.  But  the  other  details  are  wholly 
wanting.  A 

7  xxii,  8-9.  »L1.  8187-89,  8193-96. 

9  The  corresponding  passage  in  the  Confessio  Amantis   (vi,  44-47) 
is  as  follows: 


414  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

Whose  mind  in  meat  and  drinke  was  drouned  so.10 

Dont  [au  boire]  I'alme  pert  le  seignourage 
Du  corps,  et  corps  de  son  oultrage 
Tres  tous  ses  membres  plonge  et  note.11 

Full  of  diseases  was  his  carcas  blew." 

De  Gule  qui  vouldra  chanter 
Ses  laudes,  om  la  poet  loer 
De  sesze  pointz,  dont  je  1'appelle: 
L'estommac  grieve  au  digestier, 
La  resoun  trouble  au  droit  jugier, 
Le  ventre  en  dolt  ove  la  bouelle, 
La  goute  engendre  et  la  cervelle 
Subverte,  et  1'oill  de  cil  ou  celle 
Cacheus  les  fait  enobscurer, 
La  bouche  en  put  plus  que  chanelle, 
L'oraile   auci    et   la   naselle 
Du  merde  fait  superfluer.13 

And  tlie  "  dry  dropsie  "  of  the  next  line  has  heen  discussed 
above. 


And  for  the  time  he  knoweth  no  wyht, 
That  he  ne  wot  so  moche  as  this, 
What  maner  thing  himselven  is, 
Or  he  be  man,  or  he  be  leste. 

I  shall  take  up  below  the  part  played  by  the  Confessio  in  Spenser's 
rather  startling  procedure.  It  is  sufficient  to  note  here  that  it  is 
clearly  the  Mirour  and  not  the  Confessio  on  which,  in  this  instance, 
he  has  drawn.  None  of  the  passages  from  the  Mirour  thus  far  cited 
have  been  taken  over  by  Gower  into  the  Confessio.  He  explicitly 
confines  (vi,  11-14)  his  treatment  of  Gluttony  to  two  branches — 
"Dronkeschipe"  and  "Delicacie." 

10  xxin,  4. 

11  LI.  8122-24.     The  phrase  "plonge  et  noie"  perhaps  represents  a 
commonplace.    Gluttony  (as  "Gastrimargie" )   in  the  Pelerinaige  re- 
marks:    "Trestous  lopins  ie  plunge  et  noye"    (f.  xliiiivo).     But  the 
turn  given  to  the  phrase  in  de  Deguileville  (where  the  morsels  which 
Gluttony  swallows  are  drowned  in  her  "sac")  is  very  different  from 
that  in  Gower  and  Spenser,  where  it  is  the  mind  or  the  members  con- 
trolled by  the  mind  that  are  drowned  in  meat  and  drink — or  (as  in 
Gower)   in  drink  alone. 

"xxra,  6.  13L1.  8593-8604. 


I 

SPENSER  AND   THE   "  MIROUR   DE   I/OMME  "         415 

The  correspondences  thus  far  given  are  scarcely  sus- 
ceptible of  more  than  one  interpretation.  In  his  descrip- 
tion of  Gluttony,  Spenser  has  drawn  upon  Gower,  it  would 
seem,  for  the  suggestion  of  a  number  of  his  most  vivid 
touches.  But  he  has  characteristically  interwoven  them 
with  materials  from  other  sources.  Even  in  such  cases, 
however,  the  hint  in  at  least  one  instance  may  have  come 
from  Gower.  The  "  bouzing  can "  has  been  identified 
with  the  "  cantharus  "  in  Vergil's  description  of  Silenus.14 
But  Gower' s  "  beau  cop  de  vin  envesselle  "  may  certainly 
have  been  the  intermediary,  if  not  the  sole  suggestion.15 
Silenus  (this  time  by  way  of  Ovid)  does  perhaps  appear  in 
xxii,  8 :  "  His  dronken  corse  he  scarse  upholden  can."  16 
And  that  the  vine  leaves  and  ivy  garlands  of  stanza  xxii 
belong  to  either  Bacchus  or  Silenus  there  is  little  doubt. 
The  crane's  neck  seems  to  go  back  ultimately  to  the  ISTicho- 
machean  Ethics,17  but  it  had  evidently  become  a  common- 
place.18 In  a  word,  the  portrait  of  Gluttony  is  a  composite, 
but  by  far  the  largest  contribution  is  John  Gower's. 


14  Eel.    vi,   17:      "Et    gravis    attrita    pendebat    cantharus    ansa" 
(Upton). 

15  The  line  "And  eke  with  fatness  swollen  were  his  eyne"  (xxi,  4) 
has  been  properly  referred  to  the  Prayer  Book  version  of  the  Psalms 
(Psa.    Ixxiii,    7;    "Their   eyes    swell   with    fatness").      But    Gower 

writes : 

C'est  ly  pecches  dont  Job  disoit 
Qe  tout  covert  du  crasse  avoit 
La  face  (11.  7777-79)  — 

and  this  may  have  suggested  to  Spenser  the  happier  phrase. 
10  Met.  iv,  27 :  "Et  pando  non  fortiter  haeret  asello." 
17  m,  13. 
"Cf.  the  Pilgrimage: 

By  that  golet,  large  and  strong,  0 

Off  mesour  nat  .iij.  Enche  long; 
I  wolde,  ffor  delectacioun, 


416  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

The  case  of  Avarice  is  no  less  remarkable.     I  shall  give 
at  once  the  more  striking  parallels. 

And  unto  hell  him  selfe  for  money  sold: 
Accursed  usury  was  all  his  trade.19 

Gil  q'ensi  doublement  usure 

Et  fait  le  vice  ou  le  procure, 

Au  deables  est  le  droit  marchant; 

Dont  en  la  Cite  q'est  oscure 

Pour  gaign  q'il  prent  a  present  hure 

Prendra  le  gaign  del  fieu  ardant.20 

Ne  scarse  good  morsell  all  his  life  did  taste, 
But  both  from  backe  and  belly  still  did  spare, 
To  fill  his  bags,  and  richesse  to  compare: 
Yet  childe  ne  kinsman  living  had  he  none 
To  leave  them  to   .    .    .21 

L'enfrons  eschars  au  mangerie 
Ne  quiert  avoir  amy  n'amye, 
Ainz  tout  solein  s'en  vait  mangant; 
Et  de  s'escharcete  menant 
Les  grans  tresors  vait  amassant, 
Nonpas  pour  soy,  car  sa  partie 
N'en  ose  prendre  a  son  vivant, 
Dont  un  estrange  despendant 
Apres  sa  mort  tout  I'esparplie.22 

It  is  worth  while  to  dwell  for  a  moment  on  this  passage. 
The  first  line  (1.  3)  in  Spenser  is  an  easy  inference  from 
the  first  three  lines  in  Grower.  But  the  next  two  lines  in 
Spenser,  as  compared  with  the  next  two  lines  in  Gower, 


That  yt  were  (off  his  ffacoun) 

Long  as  ys  a  kranys  nekke  [col  de  grue] 

(11.  12899-903). 

See  also  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt  (E.  E.  T.  S.),  p.  56,  and  compare  Pro- 
fessor Dodge's  note  in  the  Cambridge  Spenser.  Alciati  may  be  best 
consulted  in  the  edition  of  1546.  To  his  lines  under  Gula  add  those 
under  Invidia  and  Avaritia. 

18  xxvn,  7-8.  ai  xxvui,  3-7. 

20  LI.  7303-08.  22  LI.  7528-36. 


SPENSER   AND   THE    u  MIROUB   DE   L'OMME"         417 

afford  a  signal  exemplification  of  Spenser's  procedure. 
Menant  (1.  7531)  is  not  in  Professor  Macaulay's  glossary. 
It  is,  however,  a  variant  form  of  manant  ("rich,  opulent"), 
of  which  numerous  examples  are  given  in  Godefroy.23 
Gower's  "et  de  s'escharcete  menant"  ("rich,  from  his  stingi- 
ness") becomes  "But  both  from  back  and  belly  still  did 
spare  To  fill  his  bags."  The  abstract,  rather  epigrammatic 
line  of  the  original  has  been  expanded  into  a  concrete  and 
picturesque  equivalent,  and  the  "richesse  to  compare" 
which  follows  isx  of  ;course,  "les  grans  taesors  vait;amassant" 
of  Gower's  next  line.  The  correspondence  of  the  following 
lines  is  obvious.  The  three  statements,  that  is,  in  Spenser's 
four  and  a  half  lines  (3 ;  4-5 ;  6-7)  follow  the  same  order, 
with  the  same  connection,  and  in  part  with  actual  para- 
phrase, the  corresponding  statement  in  Gower.24 

And  now  I  come  to  a  phase  of  the  matter  on  which  I 
enter  with  some  hesitation.  For  the  procedure  which  Spen- 
ser seems  to  have  followed  is  too  remarkable  to  command 
assent  without  indubitable  evidence.  Yet  the  evidence 
(which,  as  we  shall  see,  extends  beyond  this  passage)  seems 
again  to  point  to  only  one  conclusion.  And  one's  instinct- 
ive skepticism  is  after  all  perhaps  without  full  warrant. 

23  The  form  manant  occurs  in  1.  5807  of  the  Mirour:  "Et  d'estre 
riches  et  manant";  1.  17260:  "Si  tu  n'es  riche  et  Men  manant." 
It  is  in  the  combination  "  riche  et  manant  [menant]  "  that  the  word 
commonly  occurs,  and  it  would  have  offered  no  difficulty  to  Spenser. 

-*  The  idea  of  wasting  no  money  on  clothes  (which  is  obvious 
enough)  appears  in  connection  with  Avarice  in  the  Pilgrimage: 

And  that  I  am  thus  evele  arrayed, 

I  do  yt  only  off  entent 

That  my  gold  be  not  spent, 

On  clothys  wastyd,  nor  my  good  (11.  17462-65). 

But  its  context  is  entirely  different  from  that  in  Gower  and  (Spenser, 
where  it  is  the  common  order  of  common  details  that  is  significant. 


418  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

Gower — as  has  been  well  known  since  Professor  Macaulay's 
publication  of  the  lost  French  poem — made  large  use  of 
the  Mirour  in  the  Confessio  Amantis,  as  he  had  earlier 
used  it  in  the  Vox  Clamantis,  on  which  in  turn  he  also 
3rew  in  the  Confessio.  "What  he  had  said  in  one  language 
he  was  apt  to  repeat  in  another/'25  and  much  of  the  mate- 
rial in  the  Mirour  which  deals  with  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins 
(not,  however,  any  part  of  the  description  of  the  procession 
or  of  the  marriage  of  Pride)  is  transferred  almost  bodily 
to  the  English  work.  And  what  I  have  now  to  point  out 
is  that  Spenser  seems  to  have  turned  to  (or  perhaps  re- 
called) some  of  these  corresponding  passages  in  the  Con- 
fessio  to  supplement  his  borrowings  from  the  Mirour.  And 
the  present  passage  is  a  case  in  point.  The  lines  in  the 
Confessio  run  as  follows : 

Bot  Avarice  natheles, 

If  he  mai  geten  his  encress 

Of  gold,  that  wole  he  serve  and  kepe, 

For  he  takth  of  noght  elles  kepe, 

Bot  forto  fille  his  bagges  large; 

And  al  is  to  him  bot  a  charge, 

For  he  ne  parteth  noght  withal, 

Bot  kepth  it,  as  a  servant  schal: 

And  thus,  thogh  that  he  multiplie 

His  gold,  withoute  tresorie 

He  is,  for  man  is  noght  amended 

With  gold,  bot  if  it  be  despended 

To  mannes  us;  whereof  I  rede 

A  tale,  etc.26 

It  is  obviously  not  from  the  Confessio  that  Spenser  has 
drawn  the  major  part  of  xxviii,  2-7,  as  quoted  above.  The 
development  of  the  thought  is  entirely  different;  the  ref- 
erences to  Avarice's  diet  and  to  his  lack  of  heirs  are  absent 
in  the  Confessio,  as  are  the  lines  directly  paraphrased. 

"Macaulay,  in  I,  p.  xxxvi.  *0v,  125-138. 


SPENSER   AND   THE   "  MIROUR   DE   lA)MME  "         419 

But  one  phrase  in  Spenser's  lines — "  to  fill  his  bags  " — , 
wanting  in  the  Mirour,  is  found  in  the  Confes&io.  That  by 
itself  might  be  coincidence.  But  Spenser's  stanza  ends 
with  a  detail  for  which  there  is  no  parallel  in  the  Mir  our: 

....   but  thorough  daily  care 
To  get,  and  nightly  feare  to  lose  his  owne, 
He  led  a  wretched  life,  unto  himselfe  unknowne.27 

Just  that  detail,  however,  is  in  the  Confessio,  a  little 
farther  on  in  the  account  of  Avarice : 

Men  oghten  Avarice  eschuie; 
For  what  man  thilke  vice  suie, 
He  get  himself  bot  litel  reste. 
For  hou  so  that  the  body  reste, 
The  herte  upon  the  gold  travaileth, 
Whom  many  a  nyhtes  drede  assaileth; 
For  thogh  he  ligge  abedde  naked, 
His  herte  is  everemore  awaked, 
And  dremeth,  as  he  lith  to  slepe, 
How  besi  that  he  is  to  kepe 
His  tresor,  that  no  thief  it  stele. 
Thus  hath  he  bot  a  woful  wele.2* 

What  is  not  in  the  Mirour  is  in  the  Confessio,  and  in 
each  instance  the  borrowings  are  partly  verbal.  We  shall 
soon  see  more. 

The  first  five  lines  of  stanza  xxix  are  marked  by  what 
Professor  Percival  has  called  "the  antithetic  balances  in 
[their]  Euphuism.29  And  this  balanced  structure  Spen- 
ser has  again  drawn  directly  from  Gower — this  time 
chiefly  (but  not  wholly)  from  the  Confessio. 

Most  wretched  wight,  whom  nothing  might  suffise; 
Whose  greedy  lust  did  lacke  in  greatest  store; 
Whose  need  had  end,  but  no  end  covetise; 

'"  xxvm,  7-9.  1>8v.  417-28. 

"The  Faerie  Quecne,  Book  I  (1902),  p.  233. 


420  '  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

Whose  welth  was  want,  whose  plenty  made  him  pore; 
Who  had  enough,  yett  wished  ever  more; 
A  vile  disease:  etc. 

The  fourth  line  of  the  stanza  (it  can  scarcely  be  doubted) 
is  from  the  Mirour: 

C'est  cil  q'est  riclie  et  souffreitous,™ 
Du  propre 31  et  auci  busoignous,92 
Comme  s'il  du  rein  fuist  possessour.33 

Gower's  two  lines — who  is  rich  and  in  want,  possessed 
of  goods  and  also  needy" — seein  simply  to  have  been  com- 
pacted into  one  by  Spenser:  "Whose  welth  was  want, 
whose  plenty  made  him  pore.7734  And  there  is  no  equivalent 
for  these  lines  in  the  Confessio.  They  immediately  fol- 
low in  the  Mirour,  however,  a  stanza  describing  the  pains 
of  Tantalus35 — a  stanza  which  is  paraphrased  (and  in  part 

30  "In  want"  (Macaulay).  32  "Needy"  (Macaulay). 

31  Possessed  of  property.  :J3  LI.  7636-38. 

34  This  is  not  inconsistent  with  Upton's  assumption  that  the  last 
phrase  of  Spenser's  line  is  suggested  by  Ovid's  "  inopem  me  copia 
fecit"  (Met.  in,  466) — which  is  not,  however,  said  of  Avarice.    The 
two  lines  of  Gower,  from  a  passage  which  deals  with  "Avarice  par 
especial,"  account  for  all  the  balanced  words  in  Spenser's  line.    That 
the  particular  turn   of  his   phrase  may  be  due  to  his   recollection 
of  Ovid  is  both  possible  and  in  keeping  with  his  general  procedure. 

35  Dame  Avarice  est  dite  auci 
Semblable  au  paine  Tantali, 
Q'est  deinz  un  flum  d'enfern  estant 
Jusq'au  menton  tout  assorbi, 

Et  pardessur  le  chief  de  luy 
Jusq'as  narils  le  vait  pendant 
Le  fruit  des  pommes  suef  flairant; 
Mais  d'un  ou  d'autre  n'est  gustant, 
Dont  soit  du  faym  ou  soif  gary, 
Les  queux  tous  jours  vait  endurant. 
Dont  m'est  avis  en  covoitant 
Del  averous  il  est  ensi  (11.  7621-32). 


SPENSER   AND   THE    "  MIROUR   BE    L?OMME "          421 

translated)  in  the  account  of  Avarice  in  the  Confessio.56 
And  the  lines  which  immediately  follow  this  very  descrip- 
tion of  Tantalus  in  the  Confessio  are  these : 

Lich  to  the  peines  of  this  flod 
Stant  Avarice  in  worldes  good: 
He  hath  ynowh  and  yit  him  nedeth, 
For  his  skarsnesse  it  him  forbiedeth, 
And  evere  his  hunger  after  more 
Travaileth  him  aliche  sore.37 

Spenser's  next  line,  accordingly — "  who  had  enough,  \ 
yet  |  wished  ever  more" — is  almost  word  for  word  in  the 
Confessio.38  The  next  phrase  in  Spenser — "a  vile  dis- 
ease"39— takes  us  at  once  to  another  passage  in  Gower,  the 
description,  namely,  of  the  dropsy,  which  Spenser  had 
already  transferred  from  Avarice  to  Gluttony.40  Like 
the  account  of  Tantalus,  it  appears  in  both  the  Mirour  and 
the  Confessio.  In  the  Mirour  it  precedes,  with  one  stanza 
between,  the  description  of  Tantalus  already  quoted. 

Gil  q'ad  le  mal  d'idropsie, 
Comme  plus  se  prent  a  beverie, 
Tant  plus  du  soif  desnatural 

36  v,  363-97. 

37 v,  391-96.    This  passage   (it  may  also  be  noted)   is  on  the  same 
page  with  the  lines  about  the  "  nyhtes  drede  "  quoted  above,  p.  419. 

38  There  is  a  very  similar  line — "Ainz  comme  plus  ad,  plus  en- 
famine"    (1.  6768) — in  the  Mirour,  but  it  lacks  the  verbal  identity 
which  marks  the  passage  in  the  Confessio. 

39  Church's  note :   "A  vile  disease  of  the  mind  this,  viz.  Covetous- 
ness;  and,  besides  that  a  grievous  gout  etc." — with  its  protest  against 
a  comma  after  "disease" — is,  of  course,   sound.     It  is  to  be  noted 
that  Gower  a  number  of  times  definitely  calls  the  vice  itself    (as 
Spenser  does  here)    a  disease.     See,  for  example,  Mirour,  11.  5365, 
5715,  etc. 

40  See  above,  p.  409.     It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  the  assopia- 
tion  of  specific  maladies  with  the  various  Sins  is  not  followed  out  in 
the  Confessio. 

10 


422  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

Ensecche;  et  tiele  maladie 
Ad  I'averous  de  sa  partie, 
Comme  plus  ad,  meinz  est  liberal.41 

But  it  has  evidently  recalled  to  Spenser  the  correspond- 
ing lines  in  the  Confessio,  for  it  is  there  (and  not  in  the 
Mir  our)  that  we  find  some  of  his  very  words : 

....   hot  lie  [Midas]  excedeth 

Mesure  more  than  him  nedeth. 

Men  tellen  that  the  maladie 

Which  cleped  is  ydropesie 

Resembled  is  unto  this  vice 

Be  weie  of  kinde  of  Avarice: 

The  more  ydropesie  drinketh, 

The  more  him  thursteth,  for  him  thinketh 

That  he  mai  nevere  drinke  his  fille; 

So  that  ther  mai  nothing  fulfille 

The  lustes  of  his  appetit: 

And  riht  in  such  a  maner  plit 

Stant  Avarice  and  evere  stod; 

The  more  he  hath  of  worldes  good, 

The  more  he  wolde  it  kepe  streyte, 

And  evere  mor  and  mor  coveite.42 

Spenser's  second  and  third  lines,  that  is — 

Whose  greedy  lust  did  lacke  in  greatest  store; 
Whose  need  had  end,  but  no  end  covetise — 

seem  to  be  definitely  reminiscent  of  the  phraseology  of  the 
Confessio.^3  The  first  line  of  the  stanza  may  derive  its 
light  from  either  poem :  , 

41  Ll.  7603-08.    With  the  last  line,  which  has  the  same  antithetical 
quality  as  lines  2-5  in  Spenser's  stanza,  compare  also  11.  7669-70: 

L'omme   averous   ensi   se   riche, 

Tant  comme  plus  ad,  plus  en  est  chiche. 

42  v,  247-62. 

43  The  words  "in  greatest  store"  seem  to  hark  back  to  the  picture 
of  Tantalus — or,  perhaps,  to  the  account  of  Midas's  feast  of  gold, 
which  immediately  follows  in  the  Confessio  (11.  279-89). 


SPENSER   AND   THE    "  MIROUR   DE   I/OMME "         423 

Most  wretched  wight,  whom  nothing  might  suffise; 
A  1'averous  desresonnal  .    .    . 
N'iert  unques  plain  en  ceste  vie;** 

....  Avarice, 

Which  of  his  oghne  propre  vice 
Is  as  the  helle  wonderfull; 
For  it  mai  neveremor  be  full*6 

The  account  of  Avarice,  then,  is  drawn  almost  equally 
from  the  Mirour  and  the  Confessio,  and  it  is  possible  even 
to  trace,  with  some  assurance,  the  association  of  ideas  be- 
tween the  two.  That  the  Mirour  was  Spenser's  chief 
source  in  the  canto  as  a  whole  there  can  be  no  question. 
The  procession  and  the  wedding  and  a  host  of  verbal  paral- 
lels belong  to  it  alone.  But  that  he  knew  the  Confessio 
there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  in  any  case.46  And  it  is 
not  so  remarkable  that  he  should  have  turned  from  certain 
lines  in  the  Mirour  to  what  he  must  have  recalled— if  he 
knew  the  Confessio  at  all — as  parallel  treatments  of  the 
subject.47  And  since  he  was  obviously  exploring  Gower's 
mine  for  gold  to  coin  in  his  own  mint,  the  results  need  lay 
no  heavy  tax  on  our  credulity.  The  amazing  thing,  after 
all,  is  the  workmanship  with  which  the  impossible  is  ac- 
complished, and  bilingual  scraps  of  Gower  transmuted  into 
pure,  authentic  Spenser. 

Two  or  three  other  details  in  the  account  of  Avarice  de- 
mand brief  mention.  The  garb  of  the  Vice  (xxviii,  2)  is 
probably  drawn  (as  Upton  pointed  out)  from  the  descrip- 

44  Ll.  7597,  7602.  «  v,  .347-50.  "  See  below,  p.  450. 

47  It  should  be  observed  that  the  borrowings  from  the  Confessio 
are  chiefly  in  the  portrait  of  Avarice  that  we  have  just  discussed. 
Their  association  there  with  the  two  very  striking  passages  in  the 
Mirour  that  deal  with  Tantalus  and  "1'idropsie"  would  be  particu- 
larly apt  to  recall  the  parallel  treatment  in  the  other  poem.  For 
other  evidence  of  slighter  influence  of  the  Confessio,  see  below,  pp. 
424,  n.  49;  429;  430,  n.  82. 


424  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

tion  of  Avarice  in  the  Roman  de  la  Rose.48  The  sugges- 
tion for  the  "two  coffers"  (xxvii,  3-4)  we  have  already 
seen  in  Gower's  "  bources."49  The  sixth  line  of  stanza 
twenty-seven — 

For  of  his  wicked  pelfe  his  God  he  made — 

represents  what  is  probably  a  commonplace.50  But  in  the 
initial  list  of  the  Sins  in  the  Mirour,  on  which  Spenser 
drew  for  Gluttony  the  Steward  and  Sloth  the  Chamber- 
lain,51 the  suggestion  for  the  line  lay  at  his  hand : 

La  quarte  est  celle  d' Avarice, 
Que  I'or  plus  que  son  dieu  cherice.62 

There  is  left  only  the  camel  to  be  accounted  for.     And 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  real  point  of  Spenser's 

48  Ed.  Michel,  11.  210  ff.    Spenser  probably  knew  it  in  the  Chaucer- 
ian translation.    'See  Fragment  A,  11.  219ff.     The  first  line  of  the 
stanza — "  His  life  was  nigh  unto  death's  dore  yplaste  " — seems  to 
come  from  the   same  account    (1.  215):    "She  was   lyk   thing  for 
hungre  deed"  ("Chose  sembloit  morte  de  fain"). 

49  See   above,   p.  397.     The  substitution  of  the  "two  coffers"   for 
"des  bources   .    .    .   plus  que  dis"  of  the  Mirour  may  have  been  due 
to  a  reminiscence  of  the  second  tale  which  Gower  tells  in  the  Con- 
fessio   (v,  2273  ff.)  to  illustrate  Coveitise,  in  which  the  story  centers 
about    "two    cofres"     (see    especially    11.    2295,    2332).     Professor 
Macaulay's  heading,  in  his  edition,  is  "The  Tale  of  the  Two  Coffers." 

50  See,   at  least,    the   description   in   de  Deguileville   of   Avarice's 
"Mawmet"     (Pilgrimage,    11.    18370-18442;     cf.    Pelerinaige,    lxiivo: 
"  Mon  ydole  est  mon  mahommet,"  etc. ) .   Compare  especially :    "  This 
is  the  god  whiche,  by  depos,  Loueth  to  be  schutte  in  hucches  clos" 
(11.  18377-78)  :    "Gold  is  ther  god,  gold  is  ther  good;    I  worschipe 
gold  and  my  tresour  As  ffor  my  god  and  savyour;  Saue  gold,  noon 
other  god  I  haue"   (11.  18396-99)  ;  "Gold  is  my  god  and  my  Maw- 
met"   (1.  18411).     The  first  lines  quoted  are  in  the  French   ("Cest 
ung  dieu  qui  emmaillote  Veult  estre  souuent,"  etc. ) ;  the  rest  are  Lyd- 
gate's  elaborations. 

51  See  above,  p.  405. 

82  LI.  253-54.     The  references  to  Gluttony  and  Sloth    (11.  295-98) 
are  on  the  same  folio  of  the  Mirour. 


SPENSER  AND   THE    "  MIBOUR   DE   LJOMME "         425 

choice  of  the  camel  has  been  missed  by  the  commentators. 
The  usual  suggestion  is  that  Spenser  had  in  mind  the 
camels  in  Herodotus,  on  which  the  Indians  carried  off  the 
gold-dust  hoarded  by  the  ants,53  and  that,  of  course,  is  very 
possible.  But  the  camel  (as  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
observed)  has  another  and  very  definite  association  with 
Avarice.  In  the  Pelerinaige  the  hag  Avarice  herself  is 
represented  as  humped  ("bossue"),  and  in  her  long  and 
interesting  exposition  of  "the  bouche  upon  [her]  bake"54 
she  interprets  it  as  follows : 

La  bosse  est  chose  superflue 
Par  qui  sa  regie  fait  bossue 
Qui  fait  le  riche  comparer 
Au  chamel  qui  ne  peut  passer 
Pour  la  bosse  la  porte  acus.155 

Avarice,  then,  was  associated  definitely  with  the  camel 
through  the  famous  saying  of  Christ.  Now  Gower  makes 
the  same  application  of  the  passage.  .For  in  the  account 
of  Covoitise  in  the  Mirour  occurs  the  following : 

63 The  camel's  power  of  hoarding  water   (so  to  speak)   might  also 
have  been  suggested  as  a  reason  for  the  choice. 
"Pilgrimage,  1.  18294. 
55  F.  Ixii.      Compare  the  Pilgrimage : 

Ryght  so,  ryches  and  gret  plente 

ar  cawse  that  a  ryche  man, 

as  the  gospell  rehers[e]   can, 

May  in-to  heven  have  none  entre, 

But  euen  lyke  as  ye  may  se, 

A  camell  may  hym-silffe  applye 

To  passen  through  a  nedelyes  eye, 

Whiche  is  a  thyng  not  credible, 

But  a  maner  impossible, 

Thys  beste  is  so  encomerous 

Off  bak  corbyd  and  tortuous, 

And  so  to  passe,  no  thyng  able  (11.  18310-21). 


426  JOHN   LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

Pour  ce  dist  dieus,  que  plus  legier 
L'oill  de  1'aguile  outrepasser 
Poet  ly  chameals,  q'en  ciel  entrer 
La  Covoitise  q'est  mondaine.M 

It  is  not  necessary  to  deny  that  Spenser  may  have  re- 
membered (from  Herodotus,  or  Pliny,  or  Mandeville)  the 
gold-bearing  camels ;  his  symbolism  throughout  the  Fairie 
Queene  is  often  complex  enough.  But  that  he  also  had  in 
mind  the  more  striking  and  apposite  symbolism  of  the 
Biblical  association  seems  highly  probable.  That  this  par- 
ticular association  was  not  confined  to  Gower,  I  have 
shown.  But  in  the  Mirour  the  suggestion  once  more  lay 
close  to  his  hand. 

Envy  follows  Avarice.  But  for  reasons  which  will  ap- 
pear later  I  shall  reserve  consideration  of  its  treatment 
until  the  last.  Meantime,  Idleness  and  Wrath  may  be 
dealt  with  more  briefly.57 

The  account  of  Idleness  lays  stress  on  its  particular 
aspect  of  Somnolence,  and  Spenser's  description  is  con- 
ceived in  the  spirit  of  what  is  perhaps  the  most  vivid  pas- 
sage in  this  part  of  the  Mirour.  For  the  very  essence  of 
Gower's  conception  of  Sompnolence58  is  the  fact  that  "of 
devotion  he  had  little  care,"59  and  he  elaborates  his  theme 
with  a  picturesqueness  worthy  of  Spenser  himself.60  I 

68  Ll.  6750-53. 

w  Once  more  I  wish  to  say  that  I  am  omitting,  in  the  case  of  each 
Sin,  parallels  which,  though  less  definite  than  those  which  are  given, 
may  still  have  weight  when  considered  in  the  light  of  what  the 
more  explicit  correspondences  seem  to  disclose.  But  space  is  want- 
ing for  them  all,  and  I  am  anxious  besides,  in  a  case  necessarily  so 
intricate,  to  avoid  all  possible  complications  of  the  issue. 

68  Ll.  5125-5376,  especially  11.  5135-5268. 

"  Compare  Professor  Tupper's  discussion  of  Sloth  and  Undevotion 
(printed  after  this  paper  was  written)  in  Publications  of  the  Mod' 
ern  Language  Association,  xxix,  pp.  106-07  (March,  1914). 

e°The  passage  is  one  which  has  been  much  discussed,  on  account 


427 


shall  take  space,  however,  for  but  two  groups  of  parallels. 
The  first  involves  the  account  of  Sompnolence  already 
mentioned. 

For  of  devotion  he  had  little  care, 

Still  drownd  in  sleepe,  and  most  of  his  dales  dedd.01 

Ainz  comme  pesant  et  endoriny 
Ses  deux  oils  clos  songe  au  plus  fort, 
Et  ensi  gist  comme  demy  mort, 
Qu'il  est  d' Accidie  ensevely.6" 

Scarse  could  he  once  uphold  his  heavie  hedd, 
To  looken  whether  it  were  night  or  day.63 

.    .    .    .   Mais  ja  du  reins  s'apreste 
A  dieu  prier,  ainz  bass  la  teste 
Mettra  tout  suef  sur  I'eschamelle, 
Et  dort,  et  songe  en  sa  cervelle,  etc.64 

It  is,  however,  in  Gower's  description  of  CEdivesce  that 
the  most  striking  parallels  occur.  I  shall  compare  Spen- 
ser's twentieth  stanza  with  a  series  of  passages  from  Gower 
which  follow  one  another  (with  the  exception  of  the  second 
in  the  order  in  which  they  are  here  given)  on  the  same 
folio  of  the  Mir  our.™ 

From  worldly  cares  himselfe  he  did  esloyne, 
And  greatly  shunned  manly  exercise.66 

De  tons  labours  loign  se  desmette 
Q'au  corps  ne  rent  sa  due  dette.67 


of  its  supposed  bearing  on  the  date  of  Chaucer's  Troilus.  See  Tat- 
lock,  Development  and  Chronology  of  Chaucer's  Works,  pp.  26  ff.; 
Kittredge,  The  Date  of  Chaucer's  Troilus,  pp.  26-27. 

61  xix,  3-4. 

"LI.  5145-48.  Cf.  11.  255-56:  "La  quinte  Accide  demy  morte, 
Q'au  dieu  n'au  monde  fait  service." 

63  xix,  5-6. 

64  LI.  5428-51.     See  also  above,  p.  397.  9  ' 

65  They  are  in  the  same  column  in  Macaulay's  edition. 
86  xx,  1-2. 

67 LI.  5815-16.     Compare  especially  "himself  he  did  esloyne"  and 


428  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

From  everie  worke  he  chalenged  essoyne.68 
Quant   il   s'estrange  au  tout   labour.69 

.     .     .     .     Yet  otherwise 
His  life  he  led  in  lawlesse  riotise, 
By  which  he  grew  to  grievous  malady.™ 

.    .    .   Ainz   comme  volage 
Oedif  s'en  vait  en  rigolage    .     .     . 
Dont  puis,  quant  vient  le  froid  orage     .     .     . 
Languir  1'estoet  en  povrete.71 

For  in  his  lustlesse  limbs,  through  evill  guise, 
A  shaking  fever  raigned  continually.12 

Ly  sages  dist,  nuls  poet  comprendre 
Les  griefs  mals  q'CEdivesce  emprendre 
Fait  a  la  gent  du  fole  enprise: 
Oar  quant  la  char  q'est  frele  et  tendre 
N'au  dieu  n'au  siecle  voet  entendre  .  .  . 
Lors  sanz  arest  deinz  sa  pourprise 
Des  vices  ert  vencue  et  prise.™ 

For  "des  vices"  Spenser  Las  substituted  the  specific  malady 
with  which  his  stanza  has  to  close.  The  change  of  the 
disease  from  the  otherwise  quite  appropriate  lethargy 
(as  in  Gower)  to  the  shaking  fever  is  accordingly  moti- 
vated, it  would  seem,  by  his  taking  over  from  the  account 
of  QEdivesce  in  Gower  a  trait — that  of  indulgence  in 

"  loign  se  desmette."  The  two  second  lines  are  identical  in  substance, 
though  without  the  verbal  correspondence  of  the  other  two. 

08  xx,  3.  eo  L.  5842.  70  xx,  4-6. 

71  LI.  5827-28,  5830,  5832.     See  also  note  73  below. 

Taxx,  7-8. 

73  LI.  5845-49,  5851-52.  The  phrase  "  grew  to  grievous  malady  "  of 
Spenser's  preceding  line  corresponds  to  "  languir  "  (1.  5832)  in  the 
passage  already  quoted.  But  "  les  griefs  mals  "  seems  to  have  sug- 
gested the  wording.  "  Du  fole  enprise"  (especially  in  its  context) 
is  equivalent  to  "  through  evill  guise  " ;  "  la  char  q'est  frele  et  tendre  " 
is  in  substance  "  lustlesse  limbs " — "  lustlesse "  here  meaning,  of 
course,  "languid"  (Todd),  "without  vigor  or  energy"  (N.  E.  D.) ; 
"  sanz  arest"  and  "continually"  need  no  comment;  and  the  striking 
word  "  raignd  "  is  paralleled  by  "  vencue  et  prise." 


SPENSER   AND   THE    "  MIROUR   DE    L'oMME  "  429 

"riotise" — with  which  the  immediate  passage  to  lethargy 
would  be  entirely  out  of  keeping. 

In  the  account  of  Wrath  but  two  passages  need  be  con- 
sidered.   The  first  is  stanza  xxxiv,  3-7. 74 

Through  unadvised  rashness  woxen  wood.75 

"Unadvized  rashness"  appears  in  the  Mirour  as  "ITole 

hastivesse" : 

Contek  du  Pole  hastivesse 
Fait  sa  prive  consailleresse, 
Que  n'ad  ne  resoun  ne  mesure.78 

But  it  seems  to  have  been  the  parallel  lines  in  the  Con- 
fessio  that  were  in  Spenser's  mind : 

Contek,  so  as  the  bokes  sein, 

Folhast  hath  to  his  Chamberlein, 

Be  whos  conseil  al  unavised 

Is  Pacience  most  despised, 

Til  Homicide  with  hem  meete   .    .    . 

And  thus  lich  to  a  beste  wod 

Thei  knowe  noght  the  god  of  lif.™ 

For  of  his  hands  he  had  no  governement, 
Ne  car'd  for  Uood  in  his  avengement.78 

.    .    .  fol  Contek,  qui  piere  et  miere 
De  sa  main  fole  et  violente 
Blesce  ou  mehaigne  .    .    . 

74  The  striking  parallel  in  connection  with  Wrath's  lion  has  already 
been  discussed   (p.  399  above).     His  "burning  brand"  is  not  in  the 
Mirour;  the  familiar  comparisons  between  wrath  and  fire  are  fre- 
quent.   See  especially  11.  3938-41,  3971-72,  and  5101-06,  with  its  com- 
parison  of  "  cruele  Ire"    (cf.  xxxv,   1)    to  Greek  fire.     With  the 
"  sparcles  "  of  xxxni,  5,  cf .  11.  3987-88 :  "  Car  d'ire  dont  son  cuer 
esprent    Tiele    estencelle    vole    entour,"    and    with    "hasty    rage" 
(xxxni,  9)  cf.  11.  3866,  3965.     But  these  are  commonplaces. 

75  xxxiv,  3.  9 
78  LI.  4741-43 — and  compare  the  entire  stanza. 

77  m,  1095-99,  1106-07.  78xxxiv,  4-5. 


430  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES  : 

Que  par  ses  mains  soit  espandu 
Sicome  du  pore  le  sane  humein.™ 

His  cruel  facts  he  often  would  repent.*' 

Trop  perest  Moerdre  horrible  et  fals 
En  compassant  ses  fais  mortals;  n 

He,  Ire,  ove  ta  cruele  geste, 

En  toua  tes  fais  es  deshonneste.82 

The  second  passage  is  the  account,  in  stanza  xxxv,  of  the 
"many  mischiefs"  that  follow  Wrath.  The  list  is  in  part, 
as  has  been  recognized,  an  enumeration  of  the  "boughs" 
of  Wrath,  and  as  such  is  conventional.  Two  lines,  however, 
seem  to  indicate  that  Spenser  still  had  in  mind  Gower's 
embodiment  of  the  convention.  The  reference  to  "unmanly 
murder'  varies  from  the  usual  phraseology,  which  com- 
monly employs  the  term  "homicide"  or  "manslaughter." 
The  Mirour,,  however,  includes  "Moerdre,"  and  strongly 
emphasizes  its  unmanly  element: 

Mais  TOmicide  ad  un  servant 
Q'est  d'autre  fourme  mesfaisant 
Mortiel,  et  si  ad  Moerdre  a  noun: 

78  LI.  4778-80,  4805-06.  With  Spenser's  next  line— "  But,  when 
the  furious  fitt  was  overpast  " — compare :  "  Car  pour  le  temps  que 
Tire  dure "  (1.  3891);  "Que  pour  le  temps  que  Tire  endure" 
(1.  4014),  and  add  1.  4677. 

80  xxxiv,  7. 

81  LI.  4873-74. 

82  LI.  5065-66.    The  idea  of  repenting,  which  is  not  in  the  Hirour, 
may  possibly  have  been  suggested  by  the  following  lines  in  the  Con- 
fess™  (under  Homicide)    about  the  strange  bird  with  a  man's  face, 
which,  when  it  sees  the  man  it  has  slain, 

.     .     .     .     anon  he  thenketh 
Of  his  misdede,  and  it  forthenketh 
So  gretly,  that  for  pure  sorwe 
He  liveth  noght  til  on  the  morwe 

(m,  2613-16). 


SPENSER  AND   THE   "  MIROUR  DE   I/OMME  "  431 

Cist  tue  viel,  cist  tue  enfant, 
Cist  tue  femmes  enpreignant    . 
Cist  tue  I'omme  par  poisoun, 
Cist  tue  I'omme  en  son  dormant.83 

Rancor  and  despite  are,  of  course,  commonplaces,  but  it 
is  worth  noting  that  in  the  Mirour}  as  in  Spenser,  they 
are  named  in  the  same  line : 

Bitter  despight,  with  rancours  rusty  knife.84 
Ce  sont  Rancour  et  Maltalent.*5 

The  account  of  Lechery  is  couched  in  more  general  terms 
than  any  of  the  others,  and  although  its  substance  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Mirour,  I  have  observed  no  very  definite 
parallels  in  phraseology  beyond  those  already  noted.86 

There  is  left  the  account  of  Envy,  which  I  have  reserved 
till  the  last,  in  order  to  bring  it  into  closer  juxtaposition 
with  the  remarkable  parallels  in  Books  IV  and  V  of  the 
Faerie  Queene.  The  description  of  Envy  in  the  procession 
is  largely  made  up  of  recognized  commonplaces,  with  two 
markedly  distinctive  details — the  toad,  and  the  spewing  of 
spiteful  poison  from  leprous  mouth.  I  shall  first  deal  with 
the  more  conventional  traits. 

The  last  four  lines  of  the  thirtieth  stanza  are  common^ 
places.  Starting  with  Ovid,87  they  appear  with  great  detail 
in  almost  all  the  later  accounts  of  Envy.88  But  they  occur 
also  in  Gower,  and  in  the  light  of  what  we  have  already 
seen  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  it  is  the  Mirour 
that  apparently  suggested  Spenser's  phrasing. 

83  Ll.  4861-65,  4868-69.  84  xxxv,  4. 

85  L.  4575.     Compare  1.  4640:   "  Dont  son  coutell  maltalentive." 
88  See  above,  p.  397.  8T Met.  n,  778-81.  *. . 

88  See  the  very  incomplete  list  in  Percival,  p.  223. 


432  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

At  neighbours  welth,  that  made  him  ever  sad.89 

D'Envie  ce  sont  ly  mestier     .    .    . 
Et  doloir  sur  le  prosper er 
De  'ses  voisins.™ 

The  next  line  but  one — "And  wept,  that  cause  of  weep- 
ing none  he  had" — is  with  little  doubt  from  Ovid :  "Vixque 
tenet  lacrimas ;  quia  nil  lacrimabile  cernit."9 

But  when  he  heard  of  harme  he  wexed  wondrous  glad.02 

Si  mat  de  luy  parler  orroit, 
Dedeinz  son  cuer  s'esjoyeroit.93 

The  close  parallel  in  the  case  of  the  kirtle  of  Envy, 
(xxxi,  1-2)  has  already  been  discussed,94  and  the  snake,  as 
associated  with  the  Vice,  is,  of  course,  a  commonplace.95 
The  next  three  lines  link  Envy  definitely  with  his  col- 
leagues in  the  procession,  and  the  first  two  lines  of  the  next 
stanza  summarize  conventional  material.  The  two  lines 
next  following  (xxxii,  3-4)  embody  a  thrust  of  Spenser's 
own  at  'the  Antinomians.  But  in  the  fifth  line  we  come 
back  to  Gower's  phraseology : 

89  xxx,  6. 

80  Ll.  3697,  3700-01.  "  Welth "  is,  of  course,  here  "prosperity." 
"  Sorrow  for  another  man's  joy "  is  treated  in  the  Confessio  only 
in  connection  with  love. 

91  Met.  n,  796.     But  compare  also  Mirour,  1.  3106:  "Ainz  plourt, 
quant  autri  voit  rier." 

92  xxx,  9. 

83  Ll.  3202-03.     The  corresponding  passage  in  the  Confessio  reads : 

Which  envious  takth  his  gladnesse 
Of  that  he  seth  the  hevinesse 
Of  othre  men  (n,  223-25). 

It  is  obvious  that  in  this  case  the  suggestion  does  not  come  from 
the  Confessio. 

M  See  above,  p,  397. 

w'See  especially  the  Ancren  Riwle,  the  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt,  and  the 
Pilgrimage. 


SPENSER   AND    THE    "  MIROUE   DE   I/OMME  "  433 

So  every  good  to  bad  he  doth  abuse. 
Le  bien  en  mal  fait  destorner.98 

Even  in  the  case  of  admittedly  conventional  details,  ac- 
cordingly, there  are  rather  definite  indications  that  Gower 
was  the  immediate  influence.97 

We  may  now  come  to  the  two98  distinctive  details.  And 
first  the  toad: 

....    [he]  still  did  chaw 
Between  his  cankred  teeth  a  venemous  tode, 
That  all  the  poison  ran  about  his  chaw.99 

Warton  long  ago  referred  the  passage  in  Spenser  to 
Ovid.100  That  Spenser  had  the  description  in  the  Meta- 
morphoses in  mind  there  can  be  no  doubt,  since  the  very 
detail  which  Warton  sets  down  as  Spenser's  addition  is 
merely  a  slight  expansion  of  another  of  Ovid's  lines.  For 

00  L.  2687.  Compare  1.  2988 :  "  Dont  ly  bien  sont  en  mal  torne." 
The  only  line  in  the  Confessio  which  at  all  corresponds  is  11,  407: 
"  He  torneth  preisinge  into  blame  " — and  this  is  taken  over  from  an- 
other passage  in  the  Mirour:  "  Sique  du  pris  le  finement  Ert  a 
blamer"  (11.2718-19). 

97  Although  it  is  not  on  correspondences  of  this  sort  that  the  case 
rests,  it  must  still  be  remembered  that  even  commonplaces  may  be 
borrowed  from  definite  sources.     Where  they  occur  in  conjunction 
with    common   details  that   are   not   conventional — in   other  words, 
where  there  is  independent  evidence  that  the  work  in  which  they 
appear  is  known  to  the  second  writer — such  similarities  in  phrase- 
ology aa  are  noted  above  must  be  granted  a  certain  weight.     Inde- 
pendent value,  of  course,  they  have  none. 

98  Including  the  kirtle,  really  three.     See  p.  397. 
"xxx,  2-4. 

100  Observations  on  the  Faerie  Queene  (1754),  p.  47:  "Ovid  tells 
us,  that  Envy  was  found  eating  the  flesh  of  vipers,  which  is  not  much 
unlike  Spenser's  picture.  But  our  author  has  heighten'd  this  cir- 
cumstance to  a  most  disgusting  degree ;  for  he  adds,  that  the  jjjoyson 
ran  about  his  jaw.  This  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most  loathsome  ideas 
that  Spenser  has  given  us."  The  line  to  which  Warton  refers  is 
Met.  n,  768-69:  "videt  intus  [Invidiam]  edentem  Vipereas  cwrnes." 


434  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

"his  cankred  teeth"  is  Ovid's  "livent  rubigine  dentes"  a 
little  farther  on  (ir,  776),  and  the  next  line  in  Spenser  (to 
which  Warton  objects) — "That  all  the  poison  ran  about 
his  chaw" —  is  Ovid's  next  line:  "Pectora  felle  virent; 
lingua  est  suffusa  veneno."™1  Now  in  the  mediaeval  ac- 
counts the  representation  of  Envy  as  chewing  some  object 
is  common  enough.102  And  it  occurs  in  the  long  description 
of  Detraction  in  the  Mirour.™3  But  neither  there  nor  in 
any  of  the  accounts  that  I  know  is  the  toad  the  object.  In 
the  description  of  Delicacie  (under  Gluttony),  however, 
just  before  a  peculiarly  vivid  account  of  the  eating  of  ser- 
pents,104 occurs  the  following: 

101  The  portrayal  of  Invidia  in  the  second  book  of  the  Metamor- 
phoses was  enormously  influential  in  the  development  of  the  stock 
conception  of  Envy  as  one  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins. 

102  See,  for  instance,  in  the  Pilgrimage,  the  account  of  Detraction 
gnawing  a  bone  (1.  14806),  and  the  amplification  of  its  symbolism  in 
11.  15288-15316  (in  the  Pelerinaige,  folios  liii-iv).     The  idea  is  also 
elaborated  in  the  Mir  our: 

Semblance  a  la  hyene  porte, 
Que  char  mangut  de  la  gent  morte; 
Oar  Malebouche  rounge  et  mort 
Ensi  le  vif  sicomme  le  mort  .    .    . 
He,  quelle  bouche  horrible  et  fort, 
Que  tout  mangut  et  riens  desporte ! 

(11.  2884-87,  2891-92). 

The  third  line  above  appears  in  substance  (in  an  otherwise  mildly 
phrased  account  of  the  lover's  detraction  of  his  rivals)  in  the 
Confessio : 

For  ever  on  hem  I  rounge  and  gknawe   (n,  520). 

Compare  Pilgrimage,   11.    15007-10,   where   Detraction   is  taught   to 
eat  men's  flesh,  and  "  gnawe  and  Rounge  hem  to  the  boonys  "  (Pele- 
rinaige,  f .  liii :  "  et  iusques  aux  os  les  ronger  " ) . 
108  See  the  passage  quoted  in  the  preceding  note. 

104  Le  chief  des  serpens  suchera, 

Sicomme  fait  enfes  la  mammelle  (11.  8081-82), 

See  the  whole  stanza. 


SPENSER   AND    THE    "  MIROUR   DE    L?OMME  "  435 

Et  le  doulgour  de  sa  pitance 
Serront  crepalde  envenime: 
Ja  d'autre  pyment  ne  claree 
Lors  emplira  sa  vile  pance.105 

The  passage  is  in  the  section  immediately  preceding  the 
two  on  which  Spenser  has  drawn  freely  in  his  account  of 
Gluttony,  and  the  transfer  of  the  eaten  toad  from  Delicacy 
to  Envy  is  in  keeping  with  what  he  has  done  elsewhere, 
and  need  raise  no  serious  question.106  The  parallel  (on 
account  of  the  transfer)  is  not  in  itself  conclusive,  but, 
taken  in  conjunction  with  its  immediate  setting,  it  is  too 
striking  to  be  lightly  dismissed  as  accidental. 

The  second  detail  peculiar  to  the  two  accounts,  however, 
is  not  open  to  the  same  reservation.  The  reference  to  the 
backbiting  of  poets  is  possibly  enough  drawn  from  Mar- 
tial,107 but  it  is  scarcely  open  to  doubt  that  it  is  Gower  who 
gives  it  the  distinctive  turn : 

.    .    .   and  spightfull  poison  spues 
From  leprous  mouth  on  all  that  ever  writt.108 

For  Gower's  account  of  Detraccioun  contains  the  following 

lines : 

Fagolidros,  comme  fait  escire 
Jerom,  en  grieu  volt  tant  a  dire 
Comme  cil  qui  chose  q'est  maldite 
Mangut,  dont  le  vomit  desire: 
Et  ensi  cil  q'en  voet  mesdire, 
De  1'autri  mals  trop  se  delite 


11:8  LI.  8073-76.  The  toad  appears  in  two  other  passages  in  the 
account  of  the  Sins  in  Gower— once  not  as  eaten,  but  as  the  eater 
(11.  8567-68);  once  as  the  punitive  pillow  of  Sompnolence  (11. 
5335-37). 

106  That  the  fable  of  the  toad  swelling  with  Envy,  to  which  Upton 
refers  (with  the  citation  of  Horace,  8at.f  n,  iii,  314),  may  havf  con- 
tributed its  quota  is  of  course  possible, 

™  Epigr.  v,  10  (Percival).  lcs  xxxn,  7-8. 


436  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

A  manger  les;  mais  au  vomite 

Les  fait  venir,  et  les  recite, 

Quant  il  les  autres  voet  despire.™ 

The  unusual  figure  of  vomit  in  this  connection  is  strik- 
ing enough,  but  the  poison  also  appears  in  the  next  stanza 
but  one,  still  with  reference  to  detractors : 

.    .    .    .   ils  leur  lange  ont  fait  agu 
Comme  du  serpent,  et  plus  grevain 
Dedeinz  leur  lievres  ont  regu 
Venym,  que  quant  s'est  espandu, 
Fait  a  doubter  pres  et  longtain.™ 

Moreover,  the  suggestion  for  Envy's  "leprous  mouth"  is 
no  less  clear.  The  disease  specifically  associated  with 
Envy  in  the  Mir  our  is  the  "hectic'7 : 

Au  maladie  q'est  nomme 
Ethike  Envie  est  compare".1" 

But  Spenser  has  already  used  the  fever  for  Idleness. 
In  the  same  summarizing  section  in  which  "  Ethike  "  ap- 
pears, however,  two  full  stanzas  are  given  to  a  comparison 
between  Envy  and  leprosy: 

Sicomme  du  lepre  est  deforme 
En  corps  de  Tomme  la  beute", 
Ensi  de  1'alme  la  figure 
Envie  fait  desfigure",  etc."2 

But  that  is  not  all.  In  the  section  on  Detraccioun  from 
which  the  figure  of  vomit  is  drawn,  the  case  of  Miriam  is 
given  as  an  exemplum  : 

Maria  la  soer  Moyses 

Son  frere  detrahist  du  pres, 

Qu'il  ot  pris  femme  ethiopesse: 


109  LI.  2749-57. 

UOL1.  2780-84.     See  also  below,  pp.  442,  446. 

mLl.  3817-18.  mLl.  3769-72. 


SPENSER  AND   THE   "  MIROUE   DE   L/OMME  "  437 

Mais  so,  detraccioun  apres 
La  fist  porter  trop  chargant  fees; 
Car  dieus  en  son  corous  1'adesce 
Du  lepre    .     .    .     ™ 

In  Gower  as  in  Spenser,  that  is,  leprosy  is  associated  not 
only  witH  Envy  in  general,  but  with  Detraction  in  par- 
ticular, and  both  the  choice  of  leprosy  as  the  disease  as- 
cribed to  Envy  and  the  specific  turn  given  to  it  in  the 
phrase  "leprous  mouth"  are  present  in  Gower's  lines.  As 
we  shall  see  in  a  moment,  however,  the  evidence  for  Spen- 
ser's use  of  the  account  of  Envy  in  the  Mirour  does  not  rest 
on  the  portrait  in  the  procession  alone. 

Spenser's  great  descriptive  passage,  then — to  take  stock 
for  a  moment — agrees  with  the  Mirour  (and  apparently 
with  the  Mirour  alone)  in  its  framework  of  beasts,  objects 
carried  in  the  hand,  and  maladies.  And  this  definite  struc- 
tural outline  is  filled  in  with  a  wealth  of  detail  which 
parallels  directly  (often  even  verbally)  the  descriptions 
of  the  same  Sins  in  the  Mirour  and  (in  part)  in  the  Con- 
fessio.  And  the  procession  in  the  Faerie  Queene  is  pro- 
jected against  the  striking  and  distinctive  background  of 
the  procession  in  the  Mirour.  In  his  dealing  with  the 
framework — with  the  large  composition  of  his  canvas — 
Spenser  has  exercised  the  breadth  and  freedom  of  handling 
which  marks  his  treatment  of  Ariosto  elsewhere.  In  the 
massing  of  his  details,  on  the  other  hand,  he  employs  the 
closer  verbal  imitation  with  which  he  elsewhere  follows 
Tasso.  If  I  am  right,  he  found  his  framework  ready  to 
his  hand  in  Gower's  series  of  strikingly  pictorial,  arresting 
stanzas  ?  he  found  a  mine  of  suggestive  detail  in  the  un- 
wieldly  mass  of  descriptive  material  that  followed,  as  well 
as  in  its  partial  reembodiment  in  Gower's  later  work ;  and 

113  Ll.  2653-59. 
11 


438  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

he  proceeded  to  select  and  combine.  Read  in  the  light  of 
its  sources,  the  Progress  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  is  seen 
as  a  tour  de  force  of  masterly  technique,  that  has  fused 
disjointed  and  intractable  materials  into  a  rounded  and 
balanced  whole  that  is  one  of  the  imperishable  glories  of 
English  verse.114 

Ill 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  dealing  solely  with  the 
Progress  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  in  the  first  book  of  the 
Faerie  Queene.  But  the  evidence  that  Spenser  knew  and 
used  the  Mirour  is  not  confined  to  the  great  canto  that 
glorifies  the  House  of  Pride.  In  two  other  passages  in  the 
Faerie  Queene  Spenser  comes  back  to  Envy  (both  spe- 
cifically and  in  two  of  its  branches),  and  in  both  descrip- 
tions the  influence  of  the  older  poem  seems  to  be  clear. 
The  first  is  the  account  of  the  "foule  and  loathly  crea- 
ture .  .  .  men  Sclaunder  call"  in  the  eighth  canto  of 
the  fourth  book;  the  second  is  the  long  and  detailed  de- 
scription of  the  "two  old  ill  favoured  Hags/'  Envie  and 
Detraction,  in  the  twelfth  canto  of  the  fifth  book.  I  shall 
once  more  confine  myself  to  the  more  striking  correspond- 
ences. The  list  could  easily  be  made  much  longer. 

114  After  this  article  had  been  announced  (as  a  paper  read  by 
title  at  the  meeting  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America, 
Harvard  University,  Dec.  29-31,  1913),  Professor  Tatlock  kindly 
called  my  attention  to  an  article  of  his  own  on  "  Milton's  Sin  and 
Death"  (Modern  Language  Notes,  xxi,  No.  8 — Dec.,  1906 — pp. 
241-42),  in  a  footnote  to  which  he  refers  to  the  procession  of  the 
Sins  in  the  Mirour.  He  there  suggests,  however,  correspondences 
between  the  passage  in  Gower  and  Spenser's  Mask  of  Cupid  in 
F.  Q.,  in,  xii,  and  makes  no  mention  of  the  procession  in  i,  iv. 
I  doubt  whether  the  Mask  of  Cupid  is  influenced  by  Gower.  But 
Spenser's  use  of  the  Mirour  at  least  leaves  the  way  open  for  the  sug- 
gestion that  Milton  may  have  used  it  too. 


SPENSEE  AND   THE   "  MIEOUE  DE   I/OMME  "  439 

In  Book  IV,  Canto  vm,  the  Squire  of  Dames,  ^Emylia, 
and  Amoret  come  to  a  little  cottage,  where  they  find 

.     .     .    one  old  woman  sitting  there  beside 
Upon  the  ground  in  ragged  rude  attyre, 
With  filthy  lockes  about  her  scattered  wide, 
Gnawing  her  nayles  for  felnesse  and  for  yre, 
And  thereout  sucking  venime  to  her  part's  entyre.1 

The  next  stanza  continues: 

A  foule  and  loathly  creature  sure  in  sight, 
And  in  condition  to  be  loath'd  no  lesse; 
For  she  was  stuft  with  rancour  and  despight2 
Up  to  the  throat,  that  oft  with  bitternesse 
It  forth  would  breake,  and  gush  in  great  excesse, 
Pouring  out  streames  of  poyson  and  of  gall 
Gainst  all  that  truth  or  vertue  doe  prof esse ;  3 
Whom  she  with  leasings  lewdly  did  miscall 
And  wickedly  backbite:  Her  name  men  Sclaunder  call. 

That  Spenser  in  this  stanza  is  recalling  and  elaborating 
his  own  earlier  description  is  obvious.  In  the  next  two 
stanzas,  however,  the  indications  are  clear  that  he  has 
again  turned  the  pages  of  the  Mirour.  The  passages  I 
shall  quote  are  drawn  without  exception  from  Gower's  sec- 
tion on  Detraccioun,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  (with  one  or 
two  slight  shifts)  the  order  of  treatment  in  Spenser  and 
Gower  is  .the  same. 

Her  nature  is  all  goodnesse  to  abuse.* 
Oil  est  toutdis  acustumme' 
Derere  gent  au  plus  cele"e 
De  mentir  et  de  malparler.5 

And  causelesse  crimes  continually  to  frame, 
Par  ce  qu'il  voit  un  soul  semblant, 
Voit  dire  qu'il  ad  veu  le  fait  .    .    . 


1  xxm,  4-9.  2  See  above,  p.  431. 

8  See  below,  p.  444. 

*  xxv,  i.    The  remaining  lines  of  the  stanza  follow  in  order. 
°L1.  2680-82. 


440  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

Car  s'il  ne  voit  aucun  forsfait, 
De  so,  mengonge  contrefait 
Ja  ne  serra  le  ineinz  parlant.6 

With  which  she  guiltlesse  persons  may  accuse,  • 

Quant  Malebouche  soul  et  sole 
Voit  homme  ove  fern  me  qui  parole, 
Combien  qu'ils  n'eiont  de  mesfaire 
Voloir,  nientmeinz,  '  Vei  ci  la  f ole !  ' 
Dist  il,  '  Vei  cy  comme  se  rigole ! 
Trop  est  comune  leur  affaire.' 7 

And  steale  away  the  crowne  of  their  good  name: 
Dont  bonne  fame  est  desfamee* 

Ne  ever  Knight  so  bold,  ne  ever  Dame 

So  chast  and  loyall  liv'd,  but  she  would  strive 

With  forged  cause  them  falsely  to  defame; 

These  three  lines,  it  will  be  observed,  paraphrase  lines 
2701-07"  of  the  Mirour  which  I  have  just  quoted  above, 
with  a  return  (in  "forged  cause'7)  to  the  "menc,onge  con- 
trefait" of  line  2699  above.9 

Ne  ever  thing  so  well  icas  doen  alive, 

But  she  with  Uame  would  blot,  and  of  due  praise  deprive. 


8L1.  2690-91,  2698-2700.  7  LI.  2701-07.  8  L.  2685. 

9  With  these  same  lines  and  those  which  immediately  follow  in 
Gower — 

Sams  nul  desert e  esclandre  vole, 

Que  rougist  dames  le  viare  (11.  2709-10)  — 

compare  Spenser's  thirty-fifth  stanza,  in  which  the  'Squire  and  the 
two  ladies  became  the  "  homme  ove  femme  "  of  Gower's  lines,  evqn 
to  the  specific  calling  of  names  ("  Vei  ci  la  fole!  ",  "  Vei  cy  comme  se 
rigole !  " ) ,  the  absence  of  intention  "  de  mesfaire,"  and  the  ladies' 
shame  ( "  Que  rougist  dames  le  viare  " ) : 

That  shamefull  Hag,  the  Slaunder  of  her  sexe, 

Them  followed  fast,  and  them  reviled  sore, 

Him  calling  thefe,  them  whores;  that  much  did  vexe 

His  noble  hart;  thereto  she  did  annexe 

False  crimes  and  facts,  such  as  they  never  ment, 

That  those  two  ladies  much  asham'd  did  wexe  (xxxv,  2-7). 


SPENSEE  AND   THE   "  MIEOUE  DE   L?OMME  "  441 

•  *  -          Quant  ceste  fille  [Malebouche]  son  amy 
Vorra  priser  vers  ascuny 
'  Salve,'  endirra  darreinement;10 
Lors  contera  trestout  parmy 
Si  male  teche  soit  en  luy; 
Sique  du  pris  le  finement 
Ert  a  blamer.11 

The  next  stanza  carries  on  the  parallels. 

Her  words  were  not,  as  common  words  are  ment, 
Texpresse  the  meaning  of  the  inward  mind, 
But  noysome  breath,  and  poysnous  spirit  sent 
From  inward  parts,  with  cancred  malice  lind, 
And  breatlied  forth  with  blast  of  bitter  wrind?3 

Tout  ensi  M  vait  de  la  parole 

Que  de  malvoise  langue  vole  .  .  , 

Ensi  la  bouche  au  desloyal 

Par  souffle  de  son  malparler 

La  renomee  du  bon  vassal 

Soudaignement  en  un  journal 

A  tous  jours  mais  ferra  tourner. 

Le  souffle  au  bouche  detrahant 

C'est  le  mal  vent  du  Babilant     .     .    , 

Si  comme  le  vent  du  pestilence.™ 

Which  passing  through  the  eares  would  pierce  the  hart, 

Comme  la  saiette  du  leger, 

Quelle  ist  du  main  au  fort  archer, 


10  As  Macaulay  points  out,  there  is  something  wrong  here,  His 
suggestion  that  "  perhaps  we  ought  to  read  *  primerement '  for  'dar- 
reinement ' "  is  probably  correct.  See  Confessio,  u,  394  ff . 

J1L1.  2713-19.  Compare  especially  (together  with  the  general 
parallel  in  sense)  "male  teche  .  ,  .  blamer"  and  "with  blame 
would  blot,"  in  their  connection  with  "pris"  and  "praise."  See 
also  below,  pp.  445-46. 

.  "xxvi,  1-5. 

:  M  The  reference  in  "  tout  ensi  "  will  be  found  in  the  passage  next 
quoted  ( 11.  2833-37 ) .  Spenser  has  simply  reversed  the  or jer  of 
statement. 

.  "  LI.  2838-39,  2852-58,  2863.  With  11.  2854-56  cf.  "  And  steale 
away  the  crowne  of  their  good  name"  above  (xxv,  4). 


442  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

Entre  en  la  char  q'est  tendre  et  mole  .  .  . 
Tout  ensi  vait  de  la  parole 
Que  de  malvoise  langue  vole.15 

And  wound  the  soule  it  selfe  with  grief e  unkind; 

De  Pautry  tolt  le  bon  renoun 
En  corps,  et  soy  en  alme  tue.™ 

The  last  two  lines  are  a  commonplace : 

For,  like  the  stings  of  aspes  that  kill  with  smart, 

Her  spightfull  words  did  pricke  and  wound  the  inner  part. 

But  the  same  commonplace  occurs  in  the  same  section  of 
the  MirouTj  in  the  reference  to  detractors  who 

....   leur  lange  ont  fait  agu 
Comme  du  serpent.17 

If  correspondences  such  as  these  in  sense,  order,  and 
phraseology  are  accidental,  it  is  hard  to  see  on  what 
grounds  any  influence  on  Spenser  has  been  accepted. 

The  passage  in  Book  V,  Canto  xir,  is  no  less  striking  in 
its  significance.  After  his  battle  with  Grantorto,  Sir 
Artegall  comes  upon  "two  old  ill  favoured  Hags,"  who 
turn  out  to  be  Envy  and  Detraction.  The  description  of 
the  "two  griesly  creatures"18  is  too  long  to  quote.  In  part, 

15  LI.  2833-35,  2838-39.     See  above,  p.  441,  n.  13. 

"LI.  2975-76.  "LI.  2780-81. 

38  F.  Q.,  V,  xii,  28-36.  The  especially  hideous  appearance  of  Envy 
in  particular  as  described  in  stanzas  29  and  30  bears  a  strong  re- 
semblance to  the  portrayal  of  the  seven  hags  in  the  Pilgrimage.  See 
especially  the  accounts  of  Gluttony  (Pilgrimage,  ed.  E.  E.  T.  S., 
p.  346),  Lechery— as  "  olde  Venus"  (pp.  355-56),  Sloth  (p.  371), 
Envy  (pp.  398-99),  and  Avarice  (pp.  459-61),  and  compare  the  cor- 
responding passages  in  the  Pelerinaige.  Into  the  question  of  Spen- 
ser's knowledge  and  possible  use  (here  and  there)  of  the  Pelerinaige 
(or  of  Lydgate's  translation)  I  may  not  take  space  to  enter  here.  I 
have  given  in  the  course  of  the  discussion  such  parallels  as  I  have 
observed.  It  is  not  impossible  that  Spenser  may  have  been  ac- 
quainted with  the  poem  either  in  French  or  English. 


SPENSER  AND   THE   "  MIROUR   DE   I/OMME  "  443 

however,  Spenser  is  once  more  recalling  and  expanding 
the  details  of  his  own  earlier  accounts.  In  the  case  of 
Envy  the  Ovidian  "  snake  with  venime  fraught "  19  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  "venemous  tode,"  and  the  detail  of 
the  poison  running  about  the  jaw  has  been  developed20 
with  a  gusto  equalled  only  by  the  zest  with  which  Envy's 
feeding  on  his  (or  her)  own  maw  has  been  elaborated.21 
But  in  the  next  stanza  (xxxii)  the  influence  of  the  Mir  our 
seems  unmistakable.  The  borrowings  are  chiefly  (as  in 
the  case  of  Slander  in  Book  IV)  from  Gower's  section  on 
"Detraccioun,"  with  slight  use  of  the  section  (the  next  but 
one)  on  "Joye  d'autry  mal" — both  of  them  under  Envy, 

But  if  she  heard  of  ill  that  any  did, 

Or  harme  that  any  had,  then  would  she  make 

Great  cheare,  like  one  unto  a  banquet  bid, 

And  in  anothers  losse  great  pleasure  take, 

As  she  had  got  thereby  and  gayned  a  great  stake.22 

Le  mal  d'autry  1'une  a  derere 
Reconte,  et  1'autre  la  matiere 
Ascoulte  du  joyouse  o'ie; 
Car  d'autry  perte  elle  est  gaignere.™ 

That  Spenser  is  simply  elaborating  Gower's  lines — 
compare  especially  "harm  that  any  had"  and  "Le  mal 
d'autry" ;  "in  another's  losse"  and  "d'autry  perte" ;  and 
Spenser's  last  line  with  "elle  est  gaignere" — is  obvious. 

The  other  nothing  better  was  then  shee, 
Agreeing  in  bad  will  and  cancred  kynd; 
But  in  bad  maner  they  did  disagree.24 

That  is  to  say  (the  stanza  goes  on),  what  Envy  conceals, 
Detraction  spreads  abroad.25  So  in  Gower: 

19  xxx.  5.     See  above,  pp.  433-34. 

20 xxx,  8-9.  "xxxii,  5-9.  "  xxxni,  1-3. 

21  xxxi,  6-9.  i3  LI.  3211-14.  "xxxrn,  4-5. 


444  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

La  tierce  soer  est  molt  diverse, 

A  la  seconde  soer  reverse, 

Mais  sont  d'envie  parigal; 

Si  1'une  est  mal,  1'autre  est  perverse.28 

These  are  the  opening  lines  of  the  section  from  which 
Spenser  has  just  quoted.  Grower's  contrast  (which  Spen- 
ser is  closely  paraphrasing)  is  between  the  second  and 
third  daughters  of  Envy — "Dolour  d'autry  Joye"  and 
"Joye  d'autry  mal."  Spenser,  however,  as  before,  is  mak- 
ing his  own  synthesis,  and  refers  them  to  Envy  and  De- 
traction. The  next  four  lines  (xxxiii,  6-9)  are  reminiscent 
of  the  account  of  Slander.27  In  the  following  stanza,  how- 
ever, a  remarkable  (but  I  think  perfectly  demonstrable) 
situation  develops.  Spenser,  in  accordance  with  his  well- 
known  habit  of  mind,  is  recalling  once  more  his  own  earlier 
description  in  Book  IV.  But  he  is  also  recalling — or  (it 
would  seem)  actually  turning  back  to  in  his  exemplar — 
that  part  of  the  account  of  Detraction  in  the  Mirour  which 
he  had  there  used.  The  first  five  lines  of  stanza  xxxiv,  that 
is,  are  reminiscent  of  the  first  seven  lines  of  the  twenty- 
fifth  stanza  in  Book  IV,28  but  they  also  recall  the  corre- 
sponding passage  in  the  Mirour. 

For,  whatsoever  good  by  any  sayd 

Or  doen  she  heard,  she  would  streightweyes  invent 29 

How  to  deprave  or  slaunderously  upbrayd, 

Or  to  misconstrue  of  a  man's  intent, 

And  turne  to  ill  the  thing  that  well  was  ment. 

The  general  correspondence  with  the  Mirour  is  even 
closer  here  than  in  Book  IV,  as  may  readily  be  seen : 

Quant  Malebouche  soul  et  sole 
Voit  homme  ove  femme  qui  parole, 


'M  LI.  3157-60.  2S  See  above,  pp.  439-40. 

27  Compare  iv,  viii,  36,  11.  1-5,  and  35,  1.  4.     See  above,  p.  440. 

29  Compare  iv,  viii,  25,  1.  2,  with  its  parallels.     See  above,  p.  439. 


SPENSER  AND   THE   "  MIEOUK  DE   I/OMME  "  445 

Combien  qu'ils  n'eiont  de  mesfaire 
Voloir,  nientmeinz,  '  Vei  ci  la  fole!  ' 
Dist  il,  'Vei  cy  comme  se  rigole! 
Trop  est  comune  leur  affaire.' 
De  malparler  ne  s'en  poet  taire.80 

But  in  the  next  lines  in  Spenser  the  general  parallel 
becomes  a  verbal  one : 

Therefore  she  used  often  to  resort 

To  common  haunts,  and  companies  frequent, 

To  hearke  what  any  one  did  good  report. 

For  the  very  next  lines  in  the  Mirour  are  these : 

Pour  ce  sovent,  u  qu'il  repaire, 
Sanz  nul  deserte  esclandre  vole, 
Que  rougist   dames   le  viaire.81 

The  idea  of  "common  haunts"  and  "companies  frequent" 
is  implicit  in  the  picture  (in  the  preceding  lines)  of 
Malebouche  watching  men  and  women  innocently  talk- 
ing, and  "misconstruing  their  intent/7  and  the  correspond- 
ence of  "resort* '  and  "repaire"  (not  to  mention  "often" 
and  "sovent")  is  explicit.  ~No  one  would  question  for  a 
moment  Spenser's  recollection  in  the  stanza  of  his  own 
earlier  description.  Yet  the  reminiscence  of  Gower  is 
closer  still,  and  it  includes  a  part  of  the  passage  which  does 
not  occur  in  his  earlier  account.  The  last  line  of  the 
stanza  discloses  a  similar  state  of  affairs. 

To  blot  the  same  with  blame,  or  wrest  in  wicked  sort. 

"To  blot  the  same  with  blame"  recalls,  of  course,  "But 
she  with  blame  would  blot"  in  Book  IV.32  In  that  account 
the  next  phrase — "and  of  due  praise  deprive" — is  sug- 
gested by  the  same  sentence  in  Gower  ("sique  du  prft  le 

80  Ll.  2701-07.  "Ll.  2708-10.  ra  See  above,  p.  440. 


446  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

finement,"  etc.).  Here,  however,  Spenser's  "wrest  in 
wicked  sort"  sums  up  in  four  words  the  exact  sense  of  the 
next  five  lines  in  Gower: 

.     .     .     et  molt  sovent, 
Quant  om  parolt  de  bonne  gent, 
Lors  fait  comparisoun  ensi, 
Sique  le  pris  q'al  un  y  tent 
West  dit  pour  pris,  ainz  soulement 
Pour  amerrir  le  pris  d'autry.8* 

Even  the  thing  that  is  wrested — "what  any  one  did  good 
report" — is  the  same:  "Quant  om  parolt  de  bonne  gent." 
The  relation  of  the  first  two  lines  of  Spenser's  next 
stanza  to  the  immediately  preceding  stanza  in  the  Mirour 
is  no  less  obvious. 

And  if  that  any  ill  she  heard  of  any, 
She  would  it  eeke, 

Et  d'une  parole  ascultant, 
Tout  une  conte  maintenant 
De  sa  malice  propre  fait.34 

.    .   .  and  make  much  worse  by  telling. 

Par  ce  qu'il  voit  un  soul  semblant, 
Voet  dire  qu'il  ad  veu  le  fait.** 

I  shall  cite  but  one  more  parallel. 

Foming  with  poyson  round  about  her  gils, 

In  which  her  cursed  tongue,  full  sharpe  and  short, 

Appeared  like  Aspis  sting  that  closely  kils.36 

....   leur  lange  ont  fait  agu 
Comme  du  serpent,  et  plus  grevain 
Dedeinz  leur  lieveres  ont  regu 
Venym   .    .    ,37 

Spenser's  repeated  recalling  of  Gower's  phraseology  is 
no  less  striking  than  his  constant  recollection  of  his  own. 

"LI.. 2719-24.  3B  LI.  2690-91.  8T  LI.  2780-83. 

M  LI.  2692-94.  80  xxxvi,  2-4. 


SPENSEK  AND   THE   "  MIKOUR  DE   L?OMME  "  447 

The  passage  in  Book  V  is  reminiscent  of  the  two  descrip- 
tions in  Books  I  and  IV,  but  he  also  comes  back  to  Gower 
precisely  as  he  returns  upon  himself.  And  it  should  be  ob- 
served that  in  the  accounts  in  Books  IV  and  V  he  is  draw- 
ing38 from  a  single  section  in  the  Mir  our — a  section,  more- 
over, which  he  had  also  used  in  Book  I.39 


IV 

The  one  alternative  to  the  conclusion  reached  in  this 
paper  is  the  assumption  of  a  common  source  for  both 
Spenser  and  Gower.  In  other  words,  there  is,  of  course, 
the  possibility  that  Spenser  may  have  drawn  upon  the 
document  or  documents  from  which  Gower  derived  his 
materials.  That  possibility,  however,  is  strongly  nega- 
tived by  all  the  evidence  which  we  possess.  The  general 
conclusions  reached  by  Miss  R.  E.  Fowler  in  her  careful 
study  of  the  sources  of  the  Mirour  40  I  had  come  to  inde- 
pendently (although  on  the  basis  of  less  adequate  evi- 
dence), but  I  prefer  to  state  them  in  her  words.  In  the 

38  With  the  exception  of  half  a  dozen  lines  from  the  next  section 
but  one. 

89  It  is  very  possible  that  a  thorough  examination  of  the  Faerie 
Queene  would  disclose  other  borrowings  from  Gower,  but  I  have 
not  had  time  to  make  the  search.  I  shall  only  suggest,  in  passing, 
that  Spenser  may  have  drawn  at  least  the  name  Alma  from  the 
Alme  of  the  Mirour.  Not  only  is  Alme  (naturally  enough)  the 
central  figure  in  the  contest  of  the  Vices  and  the  Virtues,  but  her 
castle  is  again  and  again  described  in  terms  which  Spenser's  account 
in  Book  II,  cantos  ix  and  xi  (both  of  the  House  of  Alma  and  of  the 
attack  on  it)  recalls.  See  especially  11.  11281  ff.,  11797  ff.,  14125  ff., 
14712  ff.,  16309  ff.,  16375  ff. 

40  Une  source  francaise  des  poemes  de  Gower  ( These  pour  le  doc- 
torat  de  .rUniversite"  de  Paris,  1905).  Compare  Macaulay,  Vol.  I, 
p.  liii. 


448  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

first  place,  it  seems  clear  that  the  source  of  the  Mir  our  is 
not  a  single  document,  but  that  it  comprises  (so  far  as  its 
treatment  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  is  concerned)  at 
least  two  distinct  elements.  "II  est  probable  que  les  em- 
prunts  de  Gower  pour  la  premiere  partie  du  Mir  our  de 
rOmme  remontent  principalement  a  deux  compositions  on. 
deux  groupes  de  compositions.  Dans  la  premiere,  ou  dans 
les  premieres,  les  vices  ont  du  etre  representes  comme  les 
filles  du  Diable;  dans  la  description  de  leur  personne  et 
de  leur  vie,  il  n'y  avait  sans  doute  rien  de  masculin.  On 
aurait  ici  la  source  de  la  chevauchee  des  Vices  et  de  leur 
manage  avec  Peche  dans  le  poeme  de  Gower. 

"  L'autre  composition,  qui  semble  unique,  d'apres  les  re- 
cherches  que  j'ai  deja  signalees  dans  cette  these,  a  du  etre 
analogue  au  Mireour  du  Monde  et  a  la  Somme  le  Roi. 
Nous  le  savons  grace  a  ces  memes  recherches.  Or  les 
vices  dans  le  Mireour  du  Monde  et  dans  la  Somme  le  Roi 
sont  a  peine  personnifies.  C'est  vrai  qu'on  les  designe  com- 
me les  filles  du  diable,41  mais  c'est  une  personnification  si 
legere  qu'elle  n'a  que  la  valeur  d'une  metaphore.  Je  ne 
crois  pas  qu'on  puisse  trouver  une  allusion  a  leur  sexe. 
Dans  la  somme  latine  de  Peraud,  les  Vices  sont  des  hom- 
ines, et  ils  sont  representes  comme  les  princes  d'Enfer  et 
les  chefs  de  bataillon  de  Farmee  du  Diable.  L'Orgueil 
est  1'heritier  du  Diable;  dans  les  sommes  franchises,  c'est 
sa  fille  ainee."  42 

In  the  second  place,  the  sources  of  the  Mirour  are  with 
practical  certainty  to  be  sought  among  the  French  (very 
possibly  Anglo-French)  or  Latin  theological  or  didactic 
treatises  of  the  preceding  century.  In  substance  this  is  in 
agreement  with  Miss  Fowler's  summing  up :  "Cette  etude 

41  Ayenbite  (p.  17) ;  Mir.  du  Monde,  MS.  14939  (f.  11  rb). 

42  Fowler,  pp.  57-58. 


SPE1STSEE  AND    THE    "  MIEOTJR   DE    I/OMME  "  449 

sur  les  sources  du  Mir  our  de  I'Omme  fait  mieux  connaitre 
la  place  que  doit  prendre  Gower  dans  1'historie  de  la  lit- 
terature.  II  faut  chercher  ses  modeles  en  France  parmi 
les  ecrivains  du  xme  siecle  et  non  parmi  ses  contempo- 
rains."  43 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  then,  to  observe  again  44 
that  in  his  fourth  canto  Spenser  includes  material  drawn 
from  both  elements  in  Gower' s  treatment — from  the  mar- 
riage of  the  Vices,  with  its  background  and  accompani- 
ments, and  from  the  sections  which  constitute  essentially 
a  conventional  Summa  Vitiorum  et  Virtutum.  That  he 
should  have  known  both  the  treatises  (or  groups  of  treati- 
ses) which  underlie  Gower's  work  is  in  the  last  degree 
unlikely.  Whatever  improbability  is  felt  to  attach  to  his 
knowledge  of  the  Mir  our  is  doubled  on  such  an  hypothesis. 
Indeed  it  is  far  more  than  doubled.  For  the  chances  of 
his  acquaintance  with  a  work  of  Gower — a  writer  of  dis- 
tinction in  precisely  the  period  where  his  own  linguistic 
interests  chiefly  lay — are  overwhelming  in  comparison 
with  the  chances  that  he  had  and  drew  upon  two  or  more 
separate  documents  of  the  date  and  character  of  Gower's 
sources.  To  the  positive  evidence  of  the  close  verbal 
correspondences  with  the  Mirour  (in  conjunction  with  the 
Confessio)  must  be  added  the  strong  negative  testimony 
of  all  we  know  about  the  sources  of  the  poem. 

If  valid  evidence  is  at  hand,  any  indictment  of  a  priori 
improbability  is  thereby  quashed.  But  it  may  still  be 
worth  while  to  observe  that  the  general  unlikelihood  which 
is  felt  at  first  blush  to  attach  to  the  assumption  of  Spen- 
ser's knowledge  of  the  Mirour  is  in  any  case  very  largely 
one  of  seeming.  We  are  apt  to  estimate  John  Gower  in 
the  light  of  our  own  predilections,  and  to  overlook  his'dis- 

43  Fowler,  p.  80.  *•  See  above,  p.  407. 


450  JOHN    LIVINGSTON    LOWES 

tinguished  (and  by  no  means  undeserved)  reputation  as  a 
poet  not  only  in  his  own  day,  but  in  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries  as  well.45  That  the  Confessio  Amantis  was 
known  to  Spenser,  who  was  "much  traveiled  and  thoroughly 
redd  "  in  the  older  English  writers,  and  who  shows  on  every 
page  the  meticulous  care  with  which  he  studied  them  for 
his  own  purposes,  we  may  (quite  apart  from  the  evidence 
in  this  article)  be  sure.46  If  he  knew  Gower's  English 
works,  he  would  certainly,  with  his  own  strong  ethical  bias, 
have  been  keenly  interested  in  so  characteristic  a  perform- 
ance as  the  Mirour  de  I'Omme,  if  he  ever  saw  it.  To 


45  Leland,  for  example,  writing  at  some  time  before  1552,  states 
explicitly  that  Gower's  works  "  vel  hoc  nostro  florentissimo  tempore 
a  doctis  studiose  leguntur  "   (Commentarii  de  Scriptoribus  Britanni- 
ois,  Oxford,  1709,  p.  415;   see  Bale's  repetition  of  the  statement  in 
the  Catalogus,  Cent,  vn,  No.  xxiii).     The  facts  given  by  Professor 
Macaulay  (The  Works  of  John  Gower,  Vol.  n,  pp.  vii-x)  in  exempli- 
fication of  Gower's  "  great  literary  reputation  "  in  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries  are  conclusive,  and  as  he  remarks  ( p.  x )  :  "  Gow- 
er's early  popularity  and  reputation  are  facts  to  be  reckoned  with." 
Dr.  H.  Spies's  collectanea  of  allusions  to  Gower  (Englische  Studien, 
xxviii,  161  ff.;  xxxiv,  169  ff.;  xxxv,  105  n.)    afford  still  further  evi- 
dence.    Even  more  striking  is  the  indication  of  interest  in  Gower's 
French  poems  in  Yorkshire  afforded  by  one  Quixley's  translation  of 
the  Trait^  pour  essampler  les  amanz  marietz,  recently  printed  from  a 
fifteenth-century    MS.   by   Professor   H.   N.   MacCracken    ( YorksMre 
Archaeological  Journal,  Vol.  xx, — 1909 — pp.  33-50).    The  significance 
of  the  fifteenth-century  Spanish  translation  of  the  Confessio    (now 
published:  Confision  del  Amante  por  Joan  Goer,  ed.  Birch-Hirschfeld, 
Leipzig,  1909),  and  of  the  lost  Portuguese  version  cannot  be  over- 
looked.    None  of  these  facts,  of  course,  prove  sixteenth-century  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Mirour,  but  they  do  show  the  danger  of  dog- 
matizing about  its  improbability. 

46  E.  K.    (whose  words  have  just  been  quoted)    was  well  enough 
read  in  the  Confessio  to  point  out  in  the  Glosse  to  the  July  Eclogue 
in  the  Shepheardes  Calendar,   that  glitterand  is   "  a  particle  used 
sometimes  in  Chaucer  but  altogether  in  I.  Gower."     Gabriel  Harvey, 
too,  not  only  knew  but  read  Gower.     See  Letter-Book  of   Gabriel 
Harvey,  A.  D.  1573-1580,  Ed.  Scott  (Camden  Soc.),  p.  134;  cf,  p.  37. 


SPENSEK   AND   THE    "  MIBOUR   DE    L?OMME  "  451 

argue  that  he  could  not  have  seen  it,  simply  because  it 
happens  to  exist  today  in  but  a  single  manuscript,  is  a 
procedure  absolutely  unwarranted  by  all  the  facts.  The 
list  of  well  known  and  influential  works  that  have  sur- 
vived in  unique  manuscripts  is  a  long  and  notable  one, 
and  the  mere  accident  of  such  a  survival  may  be  given  only 
its  due  (and  often  relatively  small)  weight.  Moreover, 
until  such  a  manuscript  is  brought  to  light,  and  so  made 
accessible  for  comparison,  it  is  obviously  fallacious  to 
suggest  that  any  lost  work  has  left,  no  traces  of  its  cur- 
rency. If  such  traces  actually  appear,  they  at  once  out- 
weigh all  considerations  based  on  the  accidental  vicissi- 
tudes of  manuscripts.  The  question,  in  a  word,  is 
purely  one  of  evidence,  and  in  the  light  of  such  facts  as 
are  here  submitted,  it  is  our  estimate  of  general  probabili- 
ties that  must  be  revised.47 

Finally,  the  utmost  care  has  been  exercised  in  this  study 
to  avoid  any  forcing  of  the  facts  to  make  a  case.  Starting 
as  the  investigation  did  with  the  more  obvious  resemblances 
between  the  two  processions,  the  evidence  has  thrust  itself 
upon  me  step  by  step.  None  of  my  readers  can  be  more 

47  That  Spenser,  with  his  antiquarian  and  archaizing  tastes,  must 
have  been  familiar  with  manuscripts,  both  at  Cambridge  and  later, 
there  is  every  reason,  a  priori,  to  believe.  On  the  general  question  of 
his  use  of  manuscripts,  see  Miss  C.  A.  Harper,  The  Sources  of  Brit- 
ish Chronicle  History  in  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene  (Bryn  Mawr  Col- 
lege Monographs,  1910),  pp.  24-26.  As  indicating  the  way  in  which 
MSS.  were  actually  distributed  in  the  sixteenth  century  among  pri- 
vate owners  (often  in  just  such  country  houses  as  Spenser  knew) 
see,  for  instance,  the  notes  on  the  sixteenth  century  ownership  of 
MSS.  of  the  Gonfessio,  in  Macaulay,  Vol.  u,  pp.  cxxxix-xl,  cxlii, 
cxlvii-viii,  cl,  clvii,  clx-xi,  and  compare  Karl  Meyer,  John  Gower's 
Beziehungen  zu  Chaucer,  etc.,  pp.  49-50,  58,  63. 

Gower's  French  would  certainly  have  offered  to  Spenser,  who  kn^v 
the  French  romances  well,  no  greater  obstacle  than  Chaucer's 
English. 


452  JOHN    LIVINGSTON   LOWES 

astonished  than  I  am  myself  at  the  results  that  have  fol- 
lowed what  began  as  a  light-hearted  and  innocent  excursion 
into  the  domain  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins.  I  have  given  the 
facts  as  I  found  them,  with  what  seems  to  me  to  be  in- 
volved. If  the  parallels  were  with  Ariosto  or  Tasso  or 
Ovid,  instead  of  with  Gower,  no  one,  I  think,  would  hesi-: 
tate  for  a  moment  to  accept  their  obvious  implications. 
And  for  my  own  part  I  can  see  no  escape  from  the  con- 
clusions to  which  they  point  with  reference  to  Spenser  and 
Gower. 

If,  then,  the  contention  of  this  paper  is  justified,  it 
makes  at  least  two  contributions  of  some  value.  It  dis- 
closes a  new  and  wholly  unsuspected  literary  relationship 
of  uncommon  interest  and  importance.  And  it  throws 
fresh  light  on  Spenser's  craftsmanship.  The  bits  from 
the  Mir  our  and  the  Confessio  are  in  all  conscience  "piece- 
meal gain."  That  Spenser  in  the  first  instance  knew 
them  for  gold  is  significant  enough.  But  even  more  illu- 
minating is  the  "added  artistry.'' 

JOHN  LIVINGSTON  LOWES. 


XIX.  —  YE  AND    YOU  IN  THE  KING  JAMES 
VERSION.1 

In  Morris's  Historical  Outlines  of  English  Accidence, 
§  155,  occurs  this  statement:  "  .  .  .in  Old  English  Ye 
was  always  used  as  a  nominative,  and  you  as  a  dative  or 
accusative.  In  the  English  Bihle  this  distinction  is  very 
carefully  observed,  hut  in  the  dramatists  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan period  there  is  a  very  loose  use  of  the  two  forms/' 
Similarly  Lounsbury:2  "Ye  in  the  language  of  Chaucer 
invariably  denotes  the  nominative;  you  the  objective;  and 
this  distinction  will  still  be  found  observed  in  the  Au- 
thorized Version  of  the  Bible."  Emerson:3  "This  is  the 
use  in  Chaucer,  and  in  the  English  Bible  of  1611,  the  lan- 
guage of  which,  however,  is  based  on  the  translations  of 
earlier  times."  Smith:4  "This  distinction  is  preserved 
in  the  King  James  Version  of  the  Bible :  Ye  in  me,  and  I 
in  you ;  but  not  in  Shakespeare  and  later  writers."5 

These  statements  are  all  based  on  present-day  prints  of 
the  Bible ;  for  when  we  turn  to  the  first  edition  in  1611,  we 
find,  for  example,  in  the  passage  quoted  by  Professor 

1  For  the  privilege  of  examining  Bibles  and  for  other  favors  in  the 
preparation  of  this  paper,  I  acknowledge  my   indebtedness  to  Mr. 
J.  C.  M.  Hanson  of  the  University  of  Chicago  Library,  Mr.  W.  N.  C. 
Carlton  of  the  Newberry  Library,  Chicago,  the  late  Mr.  T.  J.  Kiernan 
of  the  Harvard  University  Library,  Mr.  H.  M.  Lydenberg  and  Mr. 
Wilberforce  Eames  of  the  New  York  Public  Library,  and  Sir  Fred- 
erick Kenyon  of  the  British  Museum. 

2  History  of  the  English  Language,  p.  128. 

3  History  of  the  English  Language,  §381. 

4  Old  English  Grammar,  p.  51. 

6  Statements  to  the  same  effect  are  found  in  Abbott's  tthakespearidk, 
Grammar,  §  236,  and  Kaluza's  Grammatik  der  englischen  Sprachc, 
§469. 

453 
12 


454  JOHN    S.    KEXYON 

Smith  from  John  14.  20,  You  in  me,  and  I  in  you.    Note 
also  the  following  passages  from  the  same  edition : 

Gen.  9.  4     But  flesh  with  the  life  thereof,  which  is  the  blood 

thereof,  shall  you  not  eate. 
Gen.  42.  34     then  shall  I  know  that  you  are  no  spies,  but  that 

you  are  true  men. 
Deut.   11.    13     if  you   shall  hearken  diligently  vnto  my   Com- 

mandementg  .  .  . 
Deut.  12.  7     and  yee  shall  reioyce  in  all  that  you  put  your  hand 

vnto,  ye  and  your  housholds,  .  .  . 

Josh.  24.  15  choose  you  this  day  whome  you  will  serue,  .  .  . 6 
Job  13.  5  0  that  you  would  altogether  hold  your  peace,  .  .  . 
Matth.  5.  47  And  if  yee  salute  your  brethren  only,  what  do  you 

more  then  others f 
1  Cor.   15.  1     I  declare  vnto  you  the  Gospel  which  I  preached 

vnto  you,  which  also  you  haue  receiued,  and  wherein  yee  stand. 

I  find  in  the  whole  Bible  about  3830  nominative  yes 
and  300  nominative  yous,  or  over  7  per  cent,  of  yous. 
The  ratio  of  yous  to  yes  is  in  the  Old  Testament  about  6 
per  cent.,  Apocrypha  35  per  cent.,  and  New  Testament  5 
per  cent.7 

6  The  first  you  in  this  passage  is  objective. 

7  The  instances  follow:     Gen.  9.  4,  7;    18.  5(2),  5  marg.;   22.  5; 
24.  49;  32.  19(2)  ;  34.  10;  42.  9,  12,  34(2)  ;  44.  23;  45.  8,  9,  13(2)  ; 
47.  24;  Exod.  2.  18;  3.  18;  5.  5,  8(2),  11,  21;  8.  28;  10.  11;  12.  13, 
14(2),  31;    14.    13    marg.;    16.    23;    17.   2;    30.   37;    Lev.    10.   6,   7; 
11.  11;   18.  24;   22.  24;  Num.  10.  6,  7(2);    11.   18;   14.  41;   15.  29; 
16.  3;    18.  3,  28;   34.  6,   7;   Deut.  1.   10,   17(2),    19,  43,  43  marg.; 
4.  2,  26;   5.  32,  33;  6.  17;  9.   23;   11.  2,  13;    12.  3(2),  7;    13.  3,  4; 

20.  3;    27.  2;    29.   6;    Josh.  2.   10(2);    4.   3(2),   6;    6.    18;    10.   19; 
18.  3;  22.  24;  23.  8  marg.;  24.  6,  15;  Judg.  2.  2;  8.  24;  9.  7;  14.  12; 

21.  22;  Ruth  1.  9,  11;   1  Sam.  15.  32;   17.  8;   21.  14;   25.  13;  27.  10 
marg.;  2  Sam.  13.  28  marg.;  21.  4;   1  Kings  9.  6(2)  ;  12.  6;  2  Kings 
2.  3,  5;    1  Chron.  15,  12;   16.  9;  2  Chron.  13.  5,  12;   20.  20;  23.  7; 
29.  11;   Ezra  4.  3;   Neh.  2.  20;  5.  7,  8;  Job  6.  27;   12.  3,  3  marg.; 
13.   5,   7;    17.    10;    18.   2;    19.    3(2);    32.    11;    Ps.    14.   6;    58.   2(2); 
115.   15;    Prov.   4.  2;    Isa.   50.   1;    58.   3;    61.  6,  7;    62.   10;    65.   18; 


"  YE  "  AND  "  YOU  "  IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION       455 

I  have  seen  no  full  discussion  of  the  disappearance  of 
these  nominative  you's  from  modern  Bibles.  Scrivener8 
notes,  "Other  variations  .  .  .  .  spring  from  gram- 
matical inflections  common  in  the  older  stages  of  our  lan- 
guage, which  have  been  gradually  withdrawn  from  later 
Bibles,  wholly  or  in  part,  chiefly  by  those  painful  modern- 
izers,  Dr.  Paris  (1762)  and  Dr.  Blayney  (1769)."  Fur- 
ther, "The  several  editors,  especially  those  of  1762  and 
1769,  carried  out  to  the  full  at  least  two  things  on  which 
they  had  set  their  minds:  they  got  rid  of  the  quaint  old 
moe  for  more,  and  in  3649  places  ....  they  have 
altered  the  nominative  plural  you  into  ye,  besides  that 
Blayney  makes  the  opposite  change  in  Build  you  ISTum. 

Jer.  3.  20;   7.  5;    17.  27;   23.  38;   33.  20;  42.  20  marg.;   44.  3,  23; 
Mai.  1.  13  marg.;    1  Esdr.  4.  22;  5.  69;  6.  4,  11;  8.  58,  85;  2  Esdr. 

I.  14,  15,  17(2),  22,  26,  31;   14.  33,  34;    16,  63;  Tob.  7.  3;   12.  19; 
13.  6;   Jud.   1.   10(2),   12;   2.  24;    7.   24(2);    8.   11,    12,    13,   14(2), 
33(2),  34;  10.  9;   14.  2(2),  4,  5;  Esth.  16.  22;  Wisd.  6.  2,  4;  Ecclus. 
41.  8,  9(3);  43.  30(4),  51.  23,   24(2),  Baruch  4.  6,  27;   6.  23,  72; 
Bel.   1.  27,   27   marg;    1   Mac.  2.   33(2),  37,   64(2);    4.   18;    5.   19; 
10.  26,  27;    11.  31;    12.  7,   10,  22;    15.  28,   31;    2  Mac.  7.  22,  23; 

II.  19,  36;    14.   33;   Matth.   5.  47;    15.  3;    21.   28;   24.  44;    27.  65; 
Mk.  4.  13,  24,  40;  9.  50;  11.  26;  14.  6;  Lk.  11.  41,  41  marg.;  12.  5; 
13.  25,  27;   22.  67,  68;  Jno.  9.  27;    14.  20,  24;   15.  16;  Acts  5.  28; 

10,  37;   13.  41;  20.34;  Rom.  1.  11;   13.  6;  14.  1;  1  Cor.  4.  15;  6.  8; 
7.  5,  35;  9.  1;  10.  13;   11.  2,  17;  14.  9,  18;  15.   1,  58;   16.  3;  2  Cor. 
1.  7,  11,    13(2),  14,  15;  2.  4,  8;   5.   12;    7.  3,  15;   8.  11,   13;   9.  4; 

11.  1,  1  marg.,  7;  12.  19;  Gal.  1.  6;  3.  1;  4.  15,  17;  5.  10;  Eph.  5.  22; 
Philip.  1.  7  marg.;  Col.  2.  12;  3.  8;  4.  6;   1  Thes.  2,  11;  Jas.  2.  16; 
1  Pet.  4.  4,  2  Pet.  1.  4,  15;   1  Jno.  2.  13;  4.  3. 

In  counting  the  ye's  I  have  omitted  certain  stereotyped  phrases  in 
the  Psalms  and  The  Song  of  the  Three  Children,  such  as  "  Praise  ye 
the  Lord,"  in  which  you  never  occurs. 

8  F.  H.  A.  Scrivener,  The  Authorized  Edition  of  the  English  Bible 
(1611),  Its  Subsequent  Reprints  and  Modern  Representatives;  Cam- 
bridge Univ.  Press,  1884,  pp.  101  f.  (A  reprint  of  the  introduction 
to  the  Cambridge  Paragraph  Bible,  1873.) 

9 1  am  unable  to  find  so  many. 


456 


JOHN    S'/'KENYON 


32.  24 ;  Wash  you  Isa.  1.  16 ;  Get  you  Zech.  6.  7 ;  Turn  you 
Zech.  9.  12.".10  Also,  "It  cannot  be  doubted  that  these  two 
editors  are  the  great  niodernizers  of  the  diction  of  the 
version,  from  what  it  was  left  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
to  the  state  wherein  it  appears  in  modern  Bibles."  lx  Dr. 
Paris  in  1762  edited  a  standard  edition  for  the  Cambridge 
press,  and  Dr.  Blayney  edited  a  corresponding  standard 
edition  for  the  Oxford  press  in  1769. 

Before  examining  the  work  of  these  editors  it  will  be 
well  to  follow  our  problem  through  the  most  important 
editions  from  1611  to  1762.  There  is  no  tendency  to  sub- 
stitute nominative  you  for  ye  in  the  successive  editions.12 
Isolated  instances  of  the  change  of  you  to  ye  appear  very 
early  and  reappear  successively.  The  first  (Ex.  16.  23 
you  will  bake)  is  changed  in  the  Barker  black-letter  4° 
'of  1614,  and  remains.  Ten  more  scattered  changes  appear 
/first  in  London  and  Cambridge  ff°  of  1629, 13  three  in  a 
-Cambridge  f°  of  1638,  two  in  a  Cambridge  16mo  of  1657, 
and  one  in  a  Cambridge  4°  of  1675,  a  total  of  seventeen 
up  to  1675.  These  changes  are  not  in  groups,  are  probably 
accidental,  and  continued  unconsciously. 

Scrivener  14  mentions  a  number  of  errors  in  Blayney?s 
edition  of  1769,  which  "can  be  best  accounted  for  by  sup- 
posing that  Blayney's  sheets  were  set  up  by  Paris's,  used 
as  copy."  On  examining  these  errors,  however,  I  find 
that  many  of  them,  perhaps  the  majority,  are  not  to  be  laid 
at  Dr.  Paris's  door.  Several  appear  in  London  if0  of 
1753  and  1751,  and  one  in  particular,15  which  Scrivener 

10  P.  104.  "  P.  30. 

12  In  cases  where  you  is  substituted  for  ye  it  is  a  reappearance  of 
an  earlier  you  from  some  former  edition. 

"  A  small  Roman  fo  has  one  of  these,  and  three  others  that  did  not 
come  down. 

"Pp.  31  f. 

15  James  2.  16.   Be  ye  warmed,  and  be  ye  filled. 


"  YE  "  AND  "  YOU  "  IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION       457 

attributes  directly  to  Paris,  appears  identically  in  Cam- 
bridge editions  of  1760,  1759,  1752, 1747,  1743,  and  1683 
(not  in  1675). 

These  facts  led  me  to  question  whether  Paris  and  Blay- 
ney  were  chiefly  responsible  for  the  changes  of  you  to  ye, 
and  to  examine  the  earlier  editions  with  regard  to  that. 
No  considerable  changes  were  made  in  the  London  and 
Oxford  editions  before  1751,  and  those  made  were  mainly 
in  the  New  Testament.  On  the  other  hand,  I  found  that 
the  first  changes  on  a  large  scale  appear  in  a  Cambridge  4° 
of  1683.  The  first  two  instances  in  Genesis  are  changed,  one 
other  in  Gen.  42.  9,  the  first  two  in  Leviticus,  and  most 
of  the  rest  from  Numbers  through  the  Old  Testament. 
All  in  I  Esdras  are  changed,  but  the  rest  of  the  Apocrypha 
neglected.  The  changes  in  the  New  Testament  are  prac- 
tically complete. 

John  Lewis,  in  his  History  of  the  English  Translations 
of  the  Bible  (1739),  mentions  an  important  Cambridge  f  ° 
of  1678,  edited  by  Dr.  Antony  Scattergood,  a  Cambridge 
scholar.  This  edition  is  not  known  to  be  extant,  but  it  is. 
believed16  to  be  represented  by  a  Cambridge  4°  of  1683. 
As  there  appears  to  be  but  one  Cambridge  4°  of  1683,  it 
is  probable  that  we  are  to  attribute  to  Dr.  Scattergood  the 
first  extensive  changes  from  you  to  ye  in  our  modern 
Bibles. 

Important  Cambridge  editions  are  rare  from  1683  to 
1760,  but  examination  of  several  12  °'s  and  an  8°17  in- 
dicates that  in  the  Cambridge  editions  the  tradition  of  the 
change  of  you  to  ye  was  continued  with  constantly  added 

18  T.  Scattergood,  Diet,  of  National  Biography,  Vol.  L,  p.  407. 

"1743,  1747,  1752,  1759  (12o's),  and  1760  (80).  The  first  foui*of 
these  I  have  not  personally  examined.  In  these  four,  in  the  British 
Museum,  I  have  had  about  fifty  random  passages  examined,  and  the 
evidence  consistently  points  in  the  direction  indicated. 


458  JOHN    S.    KEN  YON 

cases  until  it  was  substantially  complete  in  1760.  The 
]STew  Testament  was  mostly  complete  in  1683 ;  the  Old 
Testament  and  Apocrypha  were  completed  later. 

In  the  Oxford  and  London  editions,  some  dozen  of  Dr. 
Scattergood's  changes  first  appear  in  a  1743  Oxford  f  °,  16 
in  a  1751  London  f  °,  35  in  a  1753  London  f°.  In  a  1761 
London  4  °  appear  65  changes  not  before  found  in  Oxford 
or  London  editions,  but  found  in  previous  Cambridge  edi- 
tions. On  the  whole,  then,  the  Cambridge  editors  are 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  change,  as  it  did  not  greatly 
affect  the  Oxford  and  London  Bibles  till  it  was  substan- 
tially completed  in  the  Cambridge  editions. 

In  Dr.  Blayney's  report  to  the  Clarendon  Press,  October 
25,  1769,18  he  says,  "The  editor  of  the  two  editions  of  the 
Bible  [1769  4°  and  f  °]  lately  printed  at  the  Clarendon 
Press  thinks  it  his  duty,  now  that  he  has  completed  the 
whole  in  a  course  of  between  three  and  four  years7  close 

application,  to  make  his  report According  to 

the  instructions  he  received,  the  folio  edition  of  1611,  that 
of  1701  [London],  and  two  Cambridge  editions  of  a  late 
date,  one  in  quarto,  the  other  in  octavo,  have  been  care- 
fully collated "  The  quarto  used  was  that  edited 

by  Dr.  Paris  as  a  standard  Cambridge  edition  in  1762 
(printed  also  in  folio).19  In  discussing  Blayney's  use  of 

"Printed  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  1769  (Vol.  xxxix, 
p.  517),  and  reprinted  by  Scrivener,  p.  238. 

18  The  quarto  and  folio  were  printed  from  the  same  setting  up  by 
shortening  or  lengthening  the  forms,  as  Blayney  (in  his  Report, 
Scrivener,  pp.  242  f . )  tells  us  the  two  Oxford  editions  were  also  made. 
The  copies  of  the  Cambridge  4<>  and  fo  I  examined  correspond  page 
for  page,  errors  and  defective  types  appearing  in  the  same  places. 
If  it  is  true,  as  stated  in  the  British  Museum  folio  copy,  that  only 
six  copies  were  preserved  from  a  fire  at  the  book-seller's,  this  may 
account  for  Blayney's  using  the  quarto.  There  are  two  folio  copies 
in  the  New  York  Library  and  one  in  the  Harvard  University 
Library. 


"  YE  "  AND  "  YOU  "  IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION       459 

Paris' s  work  in  this  edition.  Scrivener20  does  not  mention 
the  octavo.  Yet  it  appears  that,  at  least  in  the  change  of 
you  to  ye  (which  Scrivener  mentions  only  incidentally), 
this  octavo  represents  a  more  advanced  stage  than  Paris's 
work.  The  octavo  mentioned  by  Blayney  is  probably  rep- 
resented in  the  British  Museum  and  the  New  York  Public 
Library  by  a  Cambridge  8  °  in  two  volumes.21  In  this  the 
change  of  you  to  ye  is  substantially  completed,  whereas  in 
Paris's  edition  of  1762  a  large  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  still  unchanged.  The  editor  of  the  1760  8°  (or  some 
predecessor)  did  so  thorough  a  piece  of  work  that  he  also 
changed  most  cases  of  1611  take  you,  get  you,  etc.,  to  ye. 
Paris  has  retained  the  objective  form  in  most  of  these  in- 
stances. 

After  1760  the  work  left  for  Blayney  in  the  matter  of 
you  and  ye  was  very  slight.  He  appears  to  have  changed 
you  to  ye  first  only  in  ISTum.  18.  3 ;  Tobit  13.  6 ;  Judith 
1.  10(2),  12 ;  2.  24  (in  each  of  these  four  cases  you  is  an 
indefinite  pronoun)  ;  Bel  1.  27;  1  Mac.  15.  28,  31;  and 
possibly  2  Cor.  8.  13.22 

In  three  cases  nominative  you  in  the  text  escaped 
Blayney,23  and  consequently  stands  in  our  present-day 
Bibles: 

21  Pp.  29  ff. 

21  The  Holy  Bible,  etc.,  With  Apocrypha.    Cambridge.    Printed  by 
Joseph  Bentham,  etc.     1760.     2  Vols.     8°.     Price  6s  unbound.     The 
only   other   Cambridge   octavos  mentioned   in   the   British    Museum 
catalog,  and  in  the  catalog  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society, 
are  an  octavo  of  1760,  and  two  of  1765.    They  all  appear  to  be  sub- 
stantially the  same  text. 

22  This  was  ye  in  the  1683  edition,  but  you  in  subsequent  editions. 
It  is  changed  to  ye  in  the  B.  M.  Cambridge  80  of  1765.     It  is  not 
likely,  however,  that  this  is  the  octavo  collated  by  Blayney,  since 
it  lacks  the  Apocrypha. 

23  No  further  changes  in  the  use  of  ye  and  you  have  been  made 
since  Blayney. 


460  JOHIT    S.    KENYOIS" 

Gen.  9.  7     And  you,  be  ye  fruitful!,  .  .  . 

Gen.  45.  8     So  now  it  was  not  you  that  sent  me  hither,  .  .  . 

Job  12.  3     But  I  haue  vnderstanding  as  well  as  you,  .  .  . 

For  the  first  example  compare  Ezek.  36.  8  But  ye,  O 
mountaines  of  Israel,  ye  shall  shoot  forth  your  branches ; 
Josh.  6.  18  And  you,  in  any  wise  keepe  your  selues  from 
the  accursed  thing;  and  1  Cor.  14.  9  So  likewise  you,  ex- 
cept ye  vtter  by  the  tongue  words  easie  to  be  vnderstood, 
how  shall  it  be  knowen  what  is  spoken  ?  In  the  last  two 
cases  you  of  1611  was  changed  to  ye.2*  For  the  second 
case,  compare  Matth.  10.  20  For  it  is  not  yee  that  speake.25 
For  the  third,  compare  1  Cor.  14.  181  speake  with  tongues 
more  then  you  all.  Here  you  was  changed  to  ye.2Q 

Besides  the  287  or  more  nominative  yous  in  the  text 
of  1611  there  are  some  13  in  the  margin.27  Five  of  theso 
were  corrected  by  1683,  but  only  one  of  the  corrections 
stood  in  later  editions  up  to  1769.  Blayney  recorrected 
3,  and  corrected  4  others,  and  4  were  never  corrected  (Gen. 
18.  5 ;  1  Sam.  27.  10 ;  2  Sam.  13.  28 ;  Job  12.  3,  where  you 
of  the  text  also  remains),  so  that  5  (the  other  is  Luke  11. 

24  Expressions  like  Gen.  9.  7,  where  the  Hebrew  has  an  emphatic 
nominative  pronoun,  are  rendered  in  1611  in  two  ways;  one  with 
English  pleonastic  nominative,  as  in  the  examples  cited;  cf.  also 
Num.  18.  6  And  I,  beholde,  I  haue  taken  your  brethren.  .;  the  other 
with  as  for  +  objective,  as  Josh.  24.  15  as  for  mee  and  my  house,  we 
will  serue  the  LORD/  Gen.  44.  17  as  for  you,  get  you  vp  in  peace  . . .; 
Jer.  40.  10  As  for  me,  behold,  I  will  dwell  at  Mizpah . .  :  but  yee, 
gather  yee  wine, .  .  .  Cf.  also  Luke  17.  10;  21.  31;  1  Cor.  14.  12. 

28  So  Mark  13.  11. 

26  Cf.  Deut.  5.  14;   Ezek.  42.  11;   Acts  10.  47.     In  Job  12.  3  the 
Bishops'  Bible  has  ye.     The  A.   V.  here  follows  the  Geneva  Bible 
(ed.  1602). 

27  In  six  of  the  cases  there  is  no  ye  or  you  in  the  text;  in  four,  you 
of  the  margin  corresponds  to  ye  of  the  text;  in  three,  you  occurs 
both  in  text  and  margin. 


"  YE  "  AND  "  YOU  "  IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION       461 

41)  remain  today.  There  are  therefore  in  the  text  and 
margin  of  our  present  day  Authorized  Version  8  nomina- 
tive you's.28 

We  have  to  deal  in  the  Authorized  Version  with  an- 
other apparent  confusion  between  nominative  and  object- 
ive in  the  second  person  plural  of  the  pronoun,  the  use  of 
the  unstressed  form  ye  as  an  objective.  This  form  occurs 
as  early  as  Chaucer  in  unstressed  positions.29  It  is  fre- 
quent in  the  Bible  of  1611,  but  Blayney  and  his  predeces- 
sors have  substituted  you  for  it  throughout.30  The  follow- 
ing are  examples: 

Gen.  19.  14    Vp,  get  yee  out  of  this  place. 

Deut.  1.  40     turne  ye,  and  take  your  iourney  into  the  wildernesse. 

28  At  least  such  is  the  case  in  an  Oxford  Bible  I  got  in  1907.     In 
another,  which  I  got  in  1913,  without  date,  but  probably  set  up  within 
two  or  three  years,  these  marginal  you's  are  restored. 

29  Although  as  early  as  1883  Professor  Gummere   (Amer.  Jour,  of 
Phil.,  iv,  p.  284)  pointed  out  the  well-known  passage  in  the  opening 
of  Troilus  and  Criseyde,  Spies  (Das  englische  Pronomen,  1897)  cites 
an  apparent  example  in    1426  as   the  earliest  theretofore  noted, — 
"  Gramercy  God,  and  ye,"  in  which  ye  is  stressed.    But,  though  cited 
by  the  Ox.  D.,  this  is,  to  my  mind,  very  doubtful.     It  can  be  ex- 
plained as  a  vocative,  analogous  to  "  Graunt  mercy,  leve  sir,"  and 
other  15th  c.  examples  (see  Ox.  D.).    The  only  other  of  Spies's  ex- 
amples with  full  stress  is  a  sheer  misunderstanding  of  the  common 
phrase  "Saw  me  not  with  yee"   (Battle  of  Otterburn,  St.  39).     Jes- 
persen   (Progress  in  Language,  p.  254)    is  undoubtedly  right  in  re- 
garding ye  objective  as  merely  an  unstressed  form  of  you,  a  view 
that  Spies  appears  not  to  recognize.    Almost  all  of  the  examples  in 
Shakespeare  are  unstressed,  and  none  have  full  stress.    In  the  Bible 
they  are  invariably  without  stress. 

30  Dr.   Scattergood  made  only  occasional  changes  of  objective  ye 
to  you.    He  changes,  for  example,  Isa.  30.  11  get  ye,  but  leaves  it  in 
Josh.  22.  4  and  Ezek.  11.  15.    He  retains  objective  you  in  such  cases, 
contrary  to  some  of  his  followers.     He  changed  Isa.  1.  16  wasfr  ye 
and  was  followed  by  the  Cambridge  editions  I  have  seen  till  Paris, 
who  has  ye.     Blayney    (contrary  to   Scrivener's   statement,   p.   456 
above)  followed  here  the  Cambridge  8°  and  its  predecessors. 


462  JOHN    S.    KENTON 

Josh.  3.  12  Now  therefore  take  yee  twelue  men. 
Num.  32.  24  Build  ye  cities  for  your  litle  ones. 
Isa.  32.  11  strip  ye  and  make  ye  bare.81 

In  such  instances  we  have  to  be  on  our  guard,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  in  seventeenth-century  English  many  verbs, 
transitive  and  intransitive,  could  take  after  them  either  a 
nominative  or  objective  pronoun,  such  as  stay  thou  or 
stay  thee,  go  thou  or  go  thee  (Ezek.  21.  16). 32  Since  ye 
and  you  were  each  either  nominative  or  objective,  it  is 
difficult  in  many  instances  to  know  which  case  the  trans- 
lators felt,  if  any.  Get  ye  (you)  appears  to  be  always 
objective.  Get  thee  is  frequent  and  get  thou  does  not  oc- 
cur. Get  you  is  much  more  frequent  than  get  ye  in  the 
1611  version,  so  that  Blayney  and  his  predecessors  are 
consistent  in  changing  all  to  get  you. 

In  choose  you  (Josh.  24.  15,  22,  etc.)  you  is  usually 
objective,  as  in  Hebrew.  Choose  ye  does  not  occur.  Since, 
however,  choose  thou  occurs  (Ezek.  21.  19),  it  seems  likely 
that  in  1  Sam.  17".  8  chuse  you  a  man  for  you,  and  1  Kings 
18.  25  Chuse  you  one  bullocke  for  your  selues,  the  trans- 
lators regarded  the  first  you  as  nominative,  since  the  He- 
brew objective  is  expressed  by  an  additional  phrase.  Blay- 
ney, however,  regarded  it  as  objective,  and  it  so  stands 
today. 

It  seems  probable  also  that  in  Isa.  1.  16  Wash  yee,  make 
you  cleane,  the  translators  intended  yee  to  be  nominative. 
The  intransitive  verb  wash  in  Hebrew  is  rendered  simply 

81  In  those  of  the  examples  where  the  English  pronoun  is  am- 
biguous in  case,  the  Hebrew  has  a  reflexive  pronoun. 

81  See  Jespersen,  Progress  in  Language,  pp.  241  f.  These  verbs  with 
pronouns  well  illustrate  Tyndale's  remark  about  the  very  great  simi- 
larity in  style  between  Hebrew  and  English.  Go  thee,  and  lay  thee 
hold  and  take  thee  (2  Sam.  2.  21)  all  have  reflexive  forms  in  Hebrew, 
and  are  rendered  literally  in  English  by  equally  idiomatic  forms. 


YOU  "  IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VEKSION       463 

wash  in  2  Sam.  12.  20,  2  Kings  5.  10,  12, 13,  though  some- 
times the  object  pronoun  is  added,  as  in  Ruth  3.  3,  Ezek. 
23.  4*0.  In  Isa.  1.  16  the  Hebrew  has  no  object  pronoun, 
but  the  verb  make  clean  is  reflexive;  hence  you  in  Eng- 
lish.33 

In  the  phrase  take  ye  (you)  Blayney's  corrections  are 
consistent  according  to  the  Hebrew.  When  the  Hebrew 
has  the  simple  verb,  take  ye  of  1611  is  left,  as  a  nomina- 
tive (Ex.  16.  16 ;  35.  5  ;  Lev.  9.  3,  etc.)  ;  when  the  Hebrew 
has  an  object  pronoun,  take  ye  of  1611  is  changed  to  take 
you  (Deut.  1.  13;  Josh.  3.  12),  and  take  you  of  1611  of 
course  retained.34  Build  ye  he  has  treated  in  the  same  way. 
Where  the  Hebrew  has  a  simple  verb  he  retains  build  ye 
(1  Chron.  22.  19;  Jer.  29.  5,  28),  and  where  the  Hebrew 
has  the  object  pronoun,  changes  to  build  you  (Num.  32. 
24). 

In  the  case  of  turn  ye  (you),  Blayney  is  less  consistent. 
Though  perhaps  justified,  on  his  principle  of  normalizing 
ye  and  you,  in  leaving  turn  you  Num.  14.  25 ;  Deut.  1.  7, 
where  the  Hebrew  has  the  simple  form  of  the  verb  (since 
the  reflexive  is  often  added  in  English  with  turn  where  the 
Hebrew  has  no  reflexive,  as  1  Sam.  14.  47  turned  him- 
selfe),  and  in  changing  turne  ye  Deut.  1.'40  to  turn  you 
(since  the  Hebrew  has  the  reflexive),  yet  why  should  he 
change  turne  ye  Zech.  9.  12  to  turn  you,  but  leave  turne  ye 
in  Lev.  19.  4;  2  Kings  17.  13;  Isa.  31.  6;  Jer.  25.  5; 
Ezek.  33.  11;  Joel  2.  12;  Zech.  1.  3,  4,  from  the  same 
Hebrew  simple  form  of  the  verb  ? 35 

33  See  note  30,  last  part. 

34  So  far  as  I  have  seen,  take  you  of  1611  always  goes  back  to  the 
reflexive   form   in   Hebrew,   while   take   ye   represents  both  Hebrew 
simple  verb  and  reflexive. 

85  The  two  principal  Hebrew  verbs  for  turn  show  the  same  relation 
to  the  English  in  this  respect. 


464  JOHN    S.    KE3STYON 

Similarly,  Blayney  should  consistently  have  changed 
Jer.  49.  14  Gather  ye  together,  &  come  against  her,  .... 
for  ye  was  doubtless  intended  as  a  reflexive  object.  The 
Hebrew  form  is  reflexive,  as  it  is  in  1  Sam.  22.  2  ;  2  Chron. 
20.  4  gathered  themselues;  Ezek.  39.  17  assemble  your 
selues.  The  translators  were  very  particular  in  rendering 
the  Hebrew  reflexive;  cf.  Zeph.  2.  1  where  the  Hebrew 
reflexive  and  simple  forms  of  the  same  verb  are  rendered, 
Gather  your  selues  together,  yea  gather  together.  It  is 
probable,  therefore,  that  in  Jer.  49.  14  we  have  an  object- 
ive ye  in  our  modern  Bibles.  The  R.  V.  renders  it  your- 
selves. 

In  abide  you  (Gen.  22.  5)  and  haste  you  (Gen.  45.  9) 
Blayney  follows  the  Hebrew,  which  is  without  reflexive,  in 
adopting  ye  from  previous  Cambridge  editors.  But  ap- 
parently he  was  ignorant  of  the  Elizabethan  idiom  which 
used  the  reflexive  after  these  verbs  regardless  of  the  form 
of  the  original,  as  in  the  case  of  get  you.  Haste  thee  in 
1611  is  very  frequent  where  the  Hebrew  has  no  reflexive, 
and  haste  thou  does  not  occur.  That  you  is  objective  is 
also  indicated  by  the  fact  that  Coverdale  (ed.  1535)  here 
has  haste  you,  and  he  does  not  confuse  ye  and  you. 

These  facts  raise  the  question  whether  it  would  not  have 
been  better,  while  modernizing  the  A.  V.  in  some  other 
respects,  to  have  left  ye  and  you  as  they  were  in  1611. 3G 

Ye  and  you  invariably  represent  the  plural  when  used 
as  the  second  personal  pronoun.  Many  instances  appear  at 
first  sight  to  contradict  this ;  for  example : 

Josh.  4.   1  ff.     the  LORD   spake  vnto  loshua,   saying,  Take  you 

twelue  men  out  of  the  people, . . .  And  command  you  them, . . . 

Deut.  12.  7     and  yee  shall  reioyce  in  all  that  you  put  your  hand 

86  This  was  done  by  Dr.   Scrivener  in  his  Cambridge  Paragraph 
Bible,  1873. 


"  YE  "  AND  "  YOU  "  IN"  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION       465 

vnto,  ye  and  your  housholds,  wherein  the  LOBD  thy  God  hath 
blessed  thee. 

Deut.  13.  5  to  turne  you  away  from  the  LORD  your  God,  which 
brought  you  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  redeemed  you  out 
of  the  house  of  bondage,  to  thrust  thee  out  of  the  way  which 
the  LOBD  thy  God  commanded  thee  to  walke  in. 

Such  instances  abound,  but  so  far  as  English  is  con- 
cerned ye  and  you  are  always  plural;  for  the  pronouns 
invariably  correspond  in  number  with  the  original.37 

ifany  of  these  examples  illustrate  a  very  effective  trait 
of  biblical  style.  In  addressing  a  group,  the  speaker  ap- 
pears suddenly  to  address  himself  to  one  person  singled 
out  from  the  rest.  For  example : 

Deut.  29.  10  ff.  Ye  stand  this  day  all  of  you  before  the  LOBD  your 
God:  your  captaines  of  your  tribes,  your  Elders,  and  your 
officers,  with  all  the  men  of  Israel,  Your  little  ones,  your 
wiues,  and  thy  stranger  that  is  in  thy  campe,  from  the  hewer 
of  thy  wood,  vnto  the  drawer  of  thy  water:  That  thou 
shouldest  enter  into  Couenant  with  the  LOBD  thy  God,  and  into 
his  othe  which  the  LOBD  thy  God  maketh  with  thee  this  day: 

This  is  seen  to  advantage  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount : 

Matth.  6.  1  ff.  Take  heed  that  yee  doe  not  your  almes  before 
men,  to  bee  seene  of  them:  otherwise  ye  haue  no  reward  of 
your  father  which  is  in  heauen.  Therefore,  when  thou  doest 
thine  almes,  doe  not  sound  a  trumpet  before  thee,  ....  But 
when  thou  doest  almes,  let  not  thy  left  hand  know,  what  thy 
right  doeth : 

Matth.  6.  16  f.  Moreouer,  when  yee  fast,  be  not  as  the  Hypo- 
crites, ....  But  thou,  when  thou  fastest,  anoint  thine  head, 
and  wash  thy  face: 

There  are  four  instances  in  Judith  (1.  10,  12;  2.  24) 
in  which  you  is  the  singular  indefinite  pronoun : 

0 

"Where  there  is  no  original  the  contemporary  idiom  is  observed. 
In  the  dedication  to  King  James  you  is  used  as  the  singular,  since 
obviously  thou  could  not  be  used. 


466  JOHN    S.    KENYON 

Jud.  1.  12     all  ludea,  and  all  that  were  in  Egypt,  till  you  come 
to  the  borders  of  the  two  Seas. 

This  represents  the  Greek  &»?  rov  e\6elv,  Latin  usque 
ad  veniendum,  and  is  rendered  in  the  Geneva  version 
by  till  one  come,  unto  one  come,  to  one  come.  Blayney  is, 
so  far  as  I  know,  the  first  editor  to  change  these  yous 
to  yes. 

The  use  of  you  as  a  nominative  in  English  appears  to 
date  from  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.38  Accord- 
ing to  Spies,39  you  begins  to  predominate  over  ye  about 
1550.  In  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  you  and 
ye  are  found  used  indiscriminately.40  As  is  to  be  ex- 
pected, nominative  you  is  more  frequent  in  the  spoken 
than  in  the  literary  dialect.  The  great  frequency  of  you 
in  Shakespeare  well  represents  the  situation  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  spite  of  its  300 
nominative  yous,  therefore,  the  Bible  is  very  conservative 
in  the  use  of  this  popular  form. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  we  find  that 
this  conservatism  is  characteristic  of  the  Bible  translations. 
In  Tyndale's  New  Testament  I  find41  no  nominative  yous. 
The  same  is  true  of  Coverdale's  and  the  Great  Bible  of 
1549.42  There  is  one  in  Matthew's  Bible  (1538),  a  few 
in  the  Geneva  of  1557,  and  they  become  frequent,  though 
still  relatively  few,  in  the  Bishops'  Bible  of  1568.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Eheims  Bible  of  1582  has  relatively  few 
yes. 

^Kellner,  Historical  Outlines  of  English  Syntax,  §  212. 

39  Das  englische  Pronomen,  §135. 

40  Cf.  Lord  Berners  (1532;,  Chronicles  of  Froissart:    "Why  do  you 
thus  fly  away?     Be  you  not  well  assured?     Ye  be  to  blame  thus  to 
fly." 

41  Contrary  to  Spies's  implication,    §  135. 

42  In  these  two  my  search  was  extended,  but  not  exhaustive. 


"  IE  "  AND  "  YOU  "  IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION       467 

In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  there  appears  a 
tendency  to  associate  ye  with  Biblical  and  other  dignified 
language.  Perhaps  this  is  as  much  a  result  as  a  cause  of 
the  conservative  use  in  Bible  versions,  a  desire  to  translate 
accurately  doubtless  being  at  the  bottom  of  the  matter  in 
Tyndale  and  his  immediate  successors.  For  Tyndale  and 
other  men  intimately  associated  with  early  Bible  transla- 
tions employed  nominative  you  in  their  writings.43  This 
difference  in  .style  is  perhaps  most  noticeable  in  the  first 
Prayer  Book  of  Edward  VI  (1549).  In  the  scriptural 
parts  ye  and  you  are  carefully  distinguished,  but  in  the 
other  parts  nominative  you  is  frequent.  There  is  also  a 
difference  to  be  seen  in  the  more  and  less  formal  passages 
of  the  non-scriptural  parts.  For  example,  the  formal  pas- 
sage following  the  Creed  in  the  Communion  has  ye,  but  the 
more  personal  and  intimate  exhortation  following  has 
you.** 

To  the  question  of  the  source  of  the  nominative  you's  in 
the  Authorized  Version,  one  answer  at  least  is  definite. 
Of  the  rules  laid  down  for  the  translators,  the  first  was, 
"The  ordinary  Bible  read  in  the  Church,  commonly  called 
the  Bishops  Bible,  to  be  followed,  and  as  little  altered  as 
the  Truth  of  the  original  will  permit.'7  The  fourteenth 
was,  "These  translations  to  be  used  when  they  agree  better 
with  the  Text  than  the  Bishops  Bible:  Tindoll's,  Mat- 
ihew's,  Coverdale's,  Whitchurch's,  Geneva."  An  examina- 
tion of  the  passages  shows  that  none  of  the  yous  go  back 

43  Cf.    Tyndale,    An    Answere    vnto    Sir    Thomas    Mores   Dialoge: 
"  What  can  you  saye  to  this  V  " 

44  The  distinction  is  of   course  not  rigidly  made.     Ye  frequently 
occurs  with  you  in  less  formal  parts.     E.  g.  in  the  form  of  Public 
Baptism  we  find,  "  you  heare,"   "  ye   perceyue,"   "  doubte  ye  ^not" ; 
and  in  the  form  of  Private  Baptism  corresponding,  "  ye  heare/'  "  ye 
perceiue,"  "doubt  you  not." 


468 


JOHN    S.    KEN  YON 


to  Tyndale,  Matthew,  Coverdale,  or  Whitechurch  (Great 
Bible).  A  number  of  parallel  passages  will  show-  at  once 
that  many  of  them  come  from  the  Bishops'  Bible. 


BISHOPS'  BIBLE. 

Ex.  12.  31  Else  vp,  and  geate 
you  out  from  amongst  my 
people,  both  you  and  also 
the  chyldren  of  Israel. 

Lev.  22.  24  Ye  shal  not  offer 
vnto  the  LORDE  that  which 
is  bruised,  or  crushed,  or 
broken,  or  cut  away,  neither 
shall  you  make  any  offering 
thereof  in  your  land. 

Deut.  1.  17  Ye  shal  haue  no  re- 
spect of  any  person  in  iudg- 
ment,  but  you  shal  heare  the 
smal  aswel  as  the  great :  you 
shal  not  feare  the  face  of 
any  man. 

Deut.  4.  26  I  call  heauen  and 
earth  to  recorde  agaynst  you 
this  day,  that  ye  shal  short- 
ly perishe  from  of  the  lande 
whereunto  you  goe  ouer  lor- 
dane  to  possesse  it:  ye  shal 
not  prolong  your  dayes 
therin, . . . 

Josh.  2.  10  For  we  haue  hearde 
howe  the  LOKDE  dryed  vp  the 
water  of  the  redde  se  before 
you,  when  you  came  out  of 
Egypt,  and  what  you  dyd 
vnto  the  two  kynges  .  .  . 
whom  ye  vtterly  destroyed. 

Josh.  24.  15  Chose  you  this  day 
whom  you  wyl  serue,  .  .  . 

Luke  12.  5  I  wyl  forewarne  you 
whom  you  shal  feare: 


KING  JAMES  VERSION. 

Rise  vp,  and  get  you  forth  from 
amongst  my  people,  both  you 
and  the  children  of  Israel: 

Ye  shal  not  offer  vnto  the  LORD 
that  which  is  bruised,  or 
crushed,  or  broken,  or  cut, 
neither  shall  you  make  any 
offering  thereof  in  your  land. 

Ye  shall  not  respect  persons  in 
iudgement,  but  you  shall 
heare  the  small  aswell  as  the 
great:  you  shall  not  bee 
afraid  of  the  face  of  man,  .  .  . 

I  call  heauen  and  earth  to  wit- 
nesse  against  you  this  day, 
that  ye  shall  soone  vtterly 
perish  from  off  the  land 
whereunto  you  goe  ouer  lor- 
dan,  to  possesse  it:  yee  shall 
not  prolong  your  dayes  vpon 
it,  ... 

For  wee  haue  heard  how  the 
LORD  dried  vp  the  water  of 
the  red  Sea  for  you,  when 
you  came  out  of  Egypt,  and 
what  you  did  vnto  the  two 
kings  .  .  .  whom  ye  vtterly 
destroyed. 

Choose  you  this  day  whome  you 
will  serue,  .  .  . 

But  I  will  forewarne  you  whom 
you  shall  feare: 


"  TE  "  AND  "  YOF  "  IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION 


,469 


John  9.  27  I  told  you  yer  while 
and  ye  dyd  not  heare :  where- 
fore woulde  you  heare  it 
agayne:  wyl  ye  also  be  his 
disciples  ? 

1  Cor.  14.  9  So  lykewyse  you, 
except  ye  vtter  woordes  by 
the  tongue  easie  to  be  vn- 
derstoode,  howe  shal  it  be 
knowen  what  is  spoken?  for 
ye  shal  speake  into  the  ayre. 


I  haue  told  you  already,  and  ye 
did  not  heare:  wh  erf  ore 
would  you  heare  it  againe? 
Will  ye  also  be  his  disciples? 

So  likewise  you,  except  ye  vtter 
by  the  tongue  words  easie  to 
be  vnderstood,  how  shall  it  be 
knowen  what  is  spoken?  for 
ye  shall  speake  into  the  aire. 


Many  instances  not  attributable  to  the  Bishops'  Bible 
can  be  traced  directly  to  the  Geneva  version.  Note  the 
following  from  the  Barker  folio  of  1602  : 


Gen.  22.  5  Abide  you  here  with 
the  asse:  for  I  and  the  child 
will  go  yonder  and  worship, 
and  come  againe  vnto  you. 

Job  12.  3  I  haue  vnderstanding 
as  well  as  you,  .  .  . 

Judith  14.  2  And  so  soone  as 
the  morning  shall  appeare, 
and  the  Sunne  shall  come 
forth  vpon  the  earth,  take 
you  euery  one  his  weapons, 
and  goe  forth  euery  valiant 
man  out  of  the  city,  and  set 
you  a  captaine  ouer  them,  as 
though  you  would  goe  downe 
into  the  fielde  toward  the 
watch  of  the  Assyrians,  but 
goe  not  downe. 


Abide  you  here  with  the  asse,  and 
I  and  the  lad  will  goe  yon- 
der and  worship,  and  come 
againe  to  you. 

But  I  haue  vnderstanding  as  well 
as  you,  .  .  . 

And  so  soone  as  the  morning 
shall  appeare,  and  the  Sunne 
shal  come  forth  vpon  the 
earth,  take  you  euery  one  his 
weapons,  and  goe  forth  euery 
valiant  man  out  of  the  city, 
&  set  you  a  captaine  ouer 
them,  as  though  you  would 
goe  downe  into  the  field 
toward  the  watch  of  the  As- 
syrians, but  goe  not  downe. 


About  200  of  the  yous  in  the  Authorized  Version  are  in 
passages  substantially  identical  in  phrasing  with  either  the 
Bishops'  Bible  or  the  Geneva.  About  87  of  these  yous 
are  taken  directly  from  the  Bishops',  and  40  from  fhe 
Geneva  version.  That  the  remainder  are  easily  accounted 
for  by  the  tendency  of  the  contemporary  language  is  indi- 

13 


470  JOHN    S. 

cated  by  the  situation  in  the  Bishops'  and  Geneva  versions. 
In  the  Bishops'  Bible  of  1602  a  number  of  yous  occur 
which  were  yes  in  the  first  edition  (1568),  and  the  same 
is  true  of  the  Geneva.  The  influence  on  the  Authorized 
Version  from  the  Bishops'  Bible  is  most  evident  in  the 
Pentateuch.  From  Job  to  the  end  of  the  Apocrypha  the 
Geneva  version  is  most  prominent.  Neither  furnished 
many  yous  in  the  New  Testament,  the  greater  number 
coming  from  the  Bishops'.  It  is  perhaps  significant  of 
the  translators'  sense  of  the  closer  connection  of  the  New 
Testament  with  the  life  of  the  people  that  here  the  great 
majority  of  the  nominative  yous  are  not  derived  from  a 
definite  source,  and  may  therefore  be  attributed  to  a  feel- 
ing for  a  slightly  more  familiar  and  popular  style. 

That  the  normalizing  of  ye  and  you  has  to  some  extent 
affected  the  style  of  the  original  version  of  1611  there  can 
be  little  doubt.  Though  perhaps  it  would  be  difficult  to 
offer  proof  from  particular  passages,  the  euphony  has  un- 
doubtedly been  affected  in  places  by  the  changes.  This  will 
not  seem  too  slight  a  matter  to  those  who  appreciate  the  re- 
markable qualities  of  the  version  in  this  respect. 

Again,  the  translators'  use  of  you  is  of  interest  as  an 
indication  among  many  others  of  their  attitude  toward  the 
popular  idiom.  Recent  scholars  have  pointed  out  definite 
traits  of  popular  style  in  the  Bible,  and  this  takes  its  place 
among  them.  We  have  seen  a  progressive  tendency  in  the 
translations  to  approximate  the  popular  idiom,  a  tendency 
that  accounts  either  immediately  or  through  previous  trans- 
lations for  the  nominative  yous  in  the  1611  version.  The 
later  correctors  have  therefore  deprived  us  of  this  element, 
so  scattered  through  the  Bible  as  to  assist  in  keeping  that 
nice  balance  between  formal  dignity  and  popular  sim- 
plicity that  is  universally  recognized  in  the  version  in 
other  respects. 


IN  THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION 


471 


Finally,  the  normalization  has  removed  an  element  of 
variety  in  style  that  is  not  inconsiderable.  Not  only  in 
euphony,  but  in  the  avoidance  of  rigidity,  and  in  the  slight 
variations  in  formality,  the  occasional  use  of  the  more 
popular  form  plays  a  part.  Compare,  for  example,  in  the 
light  of  contemporary  usage,  the  tone  of  Ps.  24.  7  Lift 
vp  your  heads,  O  yee  gates,  with  that  of  Gen.  24.  49  And 
now  if  you  wil  deale  kindly  and  truely  with  my  master, 
tell  me.45  The  translators  themselves  did  not  intend  that 
their  style  should  be  mechanically  uniform  even  in  matters 
that  did  not  affect  the  sense.  In  The  Translators  to  the 
Reader  they  say :  "But,  that  we  should  expresse  the  same 
notion  in  the  same  particular  word,  ....  wee  thought 
to  sauour  more  of  curiositie  then  wisedome,  ....  if 
wee  should  say,  as  it  were,  vnto  certaine  words,  Stand  vp 
higher,  haue  a  place  in  the  Bible  alwayes,  and  to  others  of 
like  qualitie,  Get  ye  hence,  be  banished  for  euer,  wee 
might  be  taxed  peraduenture  with  S.  lames  his  words, 
namely,  To  be  partiall  in  ourselues  and  nidges  of  euill 
thoughts/'  The  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century  cor- 
rectors, admirable  as  their  work  was  in  many  respects, 
said  in  effect  to  the  nominative  yous  and  objective  yes  of 
the  King  James  Version,  "Get  ye  hence,  be  banished  for 
ever,"  and  we  have  followed  them  ever  since. 

S.  KENYON. 


46 1  do  not  maintain  that  such  a  distinction  is  always  made,  and 
in  such  instances  as  this  it  is  perhaps  unconscious.  But  its  effect 
is  none  the  less  real,  and  it  is  due  in  part  at  least  to  a  sense  of 
style;  for  example,  in  the  passage  from  the  Psalms  you  could  not 
have  been  used.  It  seems  significant  that  nominative  you  is  most 
frequent  in  the  narrative  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  ^ihe 
Apocrypha,  and  the  narrative  and  epistolary  parts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  rare  in  the  Prophets  and  Psalms,  and  the  book  of 
Kevelation. 


PUBLICATIONS 


OF  THE 


Modern  Language  Association  of  America 


1914 


VOL.  XXIX,  4  NEW  SERIES,  VOL.  XXII,  4 


XX.— BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TRADITION:  A  STUDY 
IN  POPULAR  LITERARY  ORIGINS 

To  anyone  who  has  followed  the  development  of  the 
theory  of  ballad  origins,  it  is  well  known  that  there  are  two 
main  theories  in  the  field  for  our  suffrages  at  the  present 
time:  the  communal;  and  the  individualistic,  literary,  or 
anti-communal  theory.  The  last  name  of  the  second  the- 
ory is  indicative  of  the  attitude  of  its  upholders,  for  they 
have  in  truth  been  largely  occupied  with  a  criticism  of  the 
communalists,  always  demanding  of  them  more  and  ever 
more  light,  and  ever,  like  doubting  Thomas,  refusing  to 
believe  until  an  actual  ballad  dating  from  at  least  the  time 
of  Hereward  the  Wake  is  produced  for  their  fingers  to 
touch.  The  communalists,  by  an  appeal  to  the  well-estab- 
lished facts  of  folk-lore  and  ethnology,  maintain  that  the 
ballads  are  the  product  of  the  communal  stage  of  society 
in  Europe,  in  which  the  populace  held  festive  dances,  and 
in  which  there  was  actual  improvisation  of  certain  tradi- 
tional lyric  narratives.  These  narratives  had  their  verse- 
form  determined  by  the  dance;  and  the  whole  poem  from 

473 


474  ARTHUR    BE  ATT  Y 

beginning  to  end  was  the  product  of  the  people,  and  was 
not  in  any  way  composed  by  literary  persons.  Moreover, 
these  ballads  have  been  handed  down  by  oral  tradition, 
and  live  in  the  mouths  of  the  people.  Of  course,  there  is 
no  claim  that  one  expects  to  find  in  the  ballads  of  the  col- 
lections anything  which  springs  directly  from  the  ancient 
source ;  all  that  is  claimed  is  that  the  poetic  form  is  handed 
down,  and,  so  to  say,  the  general  ballad  tradition.  This 
claim  of  long  descent  is  substantiated  by  the  very  features 
of  the  ballads  as  they  exist  to-day ;  by  their  impersonality, 
their  refrain,  their  depicting  of  but  a  single  situation, 
their  use  of  incremental  repetition.  Thus,  it  is  main- 
tained, the  ballad  is  not  derived  from  any  pre-existing  liter- 
ary material,  but  is  the  result  of  a  primary  impulse  which 
is  as  old  as  man,  and  out  of  which  the  various  forms  of 
communal  poetry  spring.  Finally,  the  ballad  is  not  con- 
nected with  the  popular  tale ;  "  it  follows  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent line  and  springs  from  an  entirely  different  im- 
pulse." l 

To  all  of  this  the  individualists  reply  that  the  method 
of  the  communalist  begs  the  question: 

"An  opinion  is  widely  prevalent  among  folklorists,"  they  say, 
"that  since  ballads  come  down  to  us  by  tradition,  they  represent 
poetry  in  its  most  primitive  forms,  and  that  the  character  and 
origin  of  the  ballad  can  only  or  best  be  determined  by  a  compre- 
hensive study  of  the  poetry  of  those  races  that  are  least  civilized. 
This  is  not  merely  to  beg  the  whole  question;  it  is  to  manipulate 
facts  to  adapt  them  to  a  theory;  for  even  a  cursory  knowledge  of 
the  poetry  of  the  least  civilized  races  is  sufficient  to  show  that  it 
has  little  in  common,  as  regards  form,  with  the  modern  ballad; 
and  it  is  assumed  on  no  evidence^  and  in  the  face  of  all  likelihood, 
that  the  modern  ballad  has,  in  the  course  of  ages,  been  transformed 
into  its  present  shape  by  what  is  vaguely  termed  the  fancy  or  com- 

1 F.  B.  Gummere,  The  Popular  Ballad,  1907,  pp.  16-61,  68-71. 
George  Lyman  Kittredge,  Introduction  to  the  Cambridge  Edition 
of  Child's  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,  1904. 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TEADITION"          475 

bined  genius  of  the  folk.  On  this  theory,  also,  ballads  do  not  de- 
teriorate, but  improve,  by  folk  recital,  provided  the  folk  be  suffi- 
ciently unsophisticated  or  illiterate;  and  the  modern  deterioration 
of  ballads  is  caused  by  contact  with  the  corrupting  influences  of 
modern  civilization."  a 

But  even  among  nature-folk,  the  anti-communalists  con- 
tinue, poetry  is  the  product  of  gifted  individuals;  this 
phrase  "  heart  of  the  people  "  is  a  vile  phrase,  and  so  are 
all  its  kinsmen,  such  as  "  popular  imagination,"  or  "  folk 
fancy."  "  The  majority  of  surviving  ballads  are  histori- 
cal, and  therefore  comparatively  recent,"  and  the  fact  that 
"  the  large  number  of  what  may  be  termed  romantic  bal- 
lads are  plainly  related  in  some  way  to  romances,  must  be 
regarded  as  strong  presumptive  evidence  against  the  very 
early  origin  of  any  existing  ballads."  3  Finally,  the  anti- 
communalists  bring  in  the  argument  of  fact  and  say,  "  We 
can  only  take  the  ballads  as  we  find  them,  and  it  is  a  waste 
of  time  to  argue  about  the  characteristics  of  productions 
which  no  one  has  ever  heard,  and  whose  very  existence 
depends  upon  bare  conjecture."  4 

It  would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  show  how  completely  in 
the  main  Professor  Gummere  and  the  late  Andrew  Lang 
have  met  the  objections  of  those  who  oppose  the  communal 
theory.  But,  while  this  is  true,  it  may  not  be  unprofitable 
to  show  where  the  defences  of  the  communalists  are  weak 
and  where  their  assumptions  seem  to  be  scantily  sup- 
ported by  facts.  This  may  be  done  under  two  main  heads : 

1.  The  communalists  have  persistently  maintained  that 
the  ballad  is  a  thing  apart,  and  have  neglected  to  deal  with 
it  in  connection  with  the  other  forms  of  popular  art,  such 

aT.  H.  Henderson,  Preface  to  his  edition  of  Scott's  Minstrelsy  of 
the  Scottish  Border,  pp.  xxiii-xxiv. 

8  J.  H.  Millar,  Literary  History  of  Scotland,  1903,  p.  182. 
4  J.  H.  Millar,  Literary  History  of  Scotland,  1903,  p.  182. 


476  ARTHUR    BEATTY 

as  popular  tale  and  popular  drama,  which  were  developed 
among  the  people  out  of  whose  general  life  the  ballad  also 
arose.  Thus  they  have  dwelt  upon  certain  characteristics 
of  the  ballad  which  differentiate  it  from  cultivated  poetry, 
but  in  no  wise  differentiate  it  from  related  forms  of 
popular  art.  To  correct  this,  it  is  necessary  to  dwell  on 
its  similarity  to  related  forms,  and  so  to  deal  with  the  gen- 
eral conditions  under  which  popular  art  originates.  As 
the  quotation  from  Professor  Gummere  shows,  they  neglect 
the  prose  popular  tale  in  particular,  evidently  holding  as 
an  axiom  the  priority  of  poetry  over  prose. 

2.  While  they  have  made  excellent  use  of  anthropolo- 
gical evidence,  they  have  placed  too  great  trust  in  it,  and 
have  neglected  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  ballad  "  as 
we  have  it"  is  an  European  product  and  develops  in  a 
certain  environment,  within  a  rather  fixed  social  complex; 
and  can  be  explained  only  by  a  strict  reference  to  the  con- 
ditions of  the  age  in  which  the  ballad  originated  and  de- 
veloped. In  the  case  of  the  ballad,  this  means  that,  while 
anthropological  considerations  are  most  valuable,  the  bal- 
lad as  we  have  it  and  as  it  is  defined  in  standard  discus- 
sions of  the  English  ballad  must  be  studied  in  its  origin 
in  medieval  Europe  in  connection  with  those  social  activi- 
ties which  led  to  its  origin. 

I 

THE  POPULAR  TALE  AND  POPULAR  DRAMA 

As  has  been  said,  despite  the  fact  that  much  has  been 
written  about  ballads  and  folk-tales,  very  little  attention 
has  been  paid  to  their  relations.  This  may  be  partially 
accounted  for  by  the  different  paths  by  which  ballad  and 
folk-tale  have  come  irito  the  ken  of  scholars.  The  ballad 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TEADITION          477 

came  by  way  of  poetry,  and  so  naturally  became  the  centre 
of  interest  as  the  possible  source  of  epic,  drama,  lyric, 
and  what  not.  The  folk-tale,  however,  was  not  admitted 
into  the  literary  holy  temple  so  readily,  for  it  came  as  a 
foreigner  and  outlandish  heathen,  as  it  were,  from  the 
country  of  mythology  and  religion.  So  persistent  was  the 
belief  that  folk-tales  were  the  broken-down  forms  (of  myth 
that  M.  Emmanuel  Cosquin,  in  the  preface  to  his  Contes 
de  Lorraine?  had  to  fight  for  his  assertion  that  tales  were 
tales  and  not  myths  in  any  form  whatsoever. 

The  prevailing  opinion  is  well  exemplified  by  Professor 
Gummere's  statement  of  his  conception  of  the  relation  be- 
tween ballad  and  tale,  when  he  says: 

Artless  narrative  is  best  studied  in  the  popular  tale.  This  mar- 
chen,  again,  itself  as  old  as  any  aesthetic  propensity  in  man,  will  do 
nothing  for  the  origins  of  balladry;  it  follows  an  entirely  different 
line  and  springs  from  an  entirely  different  impulse,  as  any  observer 
can  determine  for  himself  who  watches  the  same  group  of  children, 
now  playing  "Ring  round  the  Rosy,"  or  what  not,  singing  and 
shouting  in  concert  with  clasped  hands  and  consenting  feet,  not 
sitting  silent,  absorbed,  while  some  one  tells  them  a  story.  As  with 
the  manner,  so  with  the  material.  No  test  can  be  obtained  for  the 
ballad  by  a  comparison  of  its  matter  with  these  tales  which  have 
long  formed  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  European  narrative.  The 
actual  community  of  subject  in  ballad  and  folk- tale  is  limited. 
Ballads  rest  primarily  on  situation  and  deed  of  familiar,  imitable 
type;  the  popular  tale,  untrammeled  by  rhythmic  law,  by  choral 
conditions,  tends  to  a  more  subtle  motive,  a  more  striking  fact,  a 
more  unexpected,  memorable  quality,  and  a  more  intricate  coherence 
of  events.8 

-  It  will  be  the  purpose  of  the  first  part  of  this  paper  to 
call  attention  to  the  importance  of  the  popular  tale  in  solv- 
ing the  riddle  of  the  origin  of  popular  literature  in  general 
and  of  the  ballad  in  particular.  This  will  chiefly  consist 

0 

5  2  vols.,  1886. 
9  The  Popular  Ballad,  pp.  69-70.  :    » I  >  •  * 


478 


ARTHUR    BEATTY 


in  the  presentation  of  evidence  for  the  early  origin  of  the 
prose  tale  and  of  its  close  connection  with  the  ballad,  in 
that  it  furnishes  an  explanation  of  much  of  the  content 
of  that  form,  and  in  that  they  have  very  strong  resem- 
blances in  essential  characteristics.  This  evidence  will 
be  furnished  by  presenting  the  results  of  research  in 
certain  typical  portions  of  the  whole  (field.  The  general 
method  has  been  the  anthropological;  and  as  this  method, 
when  correctly  used,  is  recognized  as  valid  by  all  compe- 
tent students,  it  requires  no  defence  on  the  present  occa- 
sion. It  is  assumed  as  proved  that  the  ballad  and  the  tale 
have  an  origin  in  real  ideas,  customs,  and  beliefs,  and  that 
these  ideas,  customs,  and  beliefs  are  survivals  of  an  earlier 
stage  of  thought  and  living  among  the  more  stationary 
groups  of  European  society,  and  among  whom  the  tale  and 
ballad  are  still  in  circulation. 

Among  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  all  savage 
philosophy  is  the  belief  that  the  present  form  man  wears 
is  accidental  and  non-essential.  To-day  he  is  a  man,  to- 
night he  may  be  a  wolf;  to-morrow  a  tree.  By  all  the  sys- 
tems of  totemism,  this  change  from  form  to  form  is  taken 
as  beyond  question.  Now,  taking  this  theme  as  treated 
in  ballad  and  folk-tale,  what  are  the  results?  The  Two, 
Sisters  7  is  a  good  example.  Briefly,  the  story  as  told  in  the 
ballad  is  as  follows :  Two  sisters,  the  elder  dark  and  the 
younger  fair,  are  in  love  with  the  same  young  man,  and 
the  elder  drowns  the  younger  through  jealousy.  The 
body  floats  to  the  mill-dam,  where  it  is  found  by  a  harper, 
or  other  person,  who  takes  certain  of  her  bones  and  other 
parts  of  her  body  and  makes  a  harp,  or  violin.  When  the 
musical  instrument  is  played  upon,  it  speaks  and  tells  of 
the  murder.  In  certain  of  the  Scandinavian  ballads,  the 

TF.  J.  Child,  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,  No.  10. 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TRADITION  479 

harper  breaks  the  instrument,  and  the  younger  sister  is 
revived.  The  prose  tales  as  a  whole  agree  with  this,  but 
add  some  very  important  particulars.  In  the  first  place, 
certain  of  them  state  clearly  that  the  body  grows  into  a 
tree,  and,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  instrument  is  made 
from  this  tree,  thus  completing  the  cycle  of  changes  of 
the  maiden  changed  to  the  tree,  and  the  tree  changed  to 
the  maiden,  and  so  preserving  the  idea  of  transformation 
in  a  much  clearer  form. 

Now,  it  seems  reasonable  to  argue  that  the  form  of 
popular  literature  which  preserves  any  belief,  or  custom, 
or  ritual  most  clearly  must  be  the  earliest  in  origin,  or  at 
least  must  have  the  closest  relationship  with  the  belief,  or 
custom,  or  ritual.  By  this  (test,  the  folk-tale  gives  over- 
whelming evidence  of  closer  connection,  for  of  the  sixty 
European  ballads,  none  present  the  complete  cycle,  and 
only  ten  (all  Scandinavian)  present  the  revival  of  the 
dead  girl;  while  of  the  eighty-four  European  tales  only 
one  is  without  transformation  in  some  form.  Moreover, 
African,  American,  Asiatic,  and  Australasian  forms  of 
the  story  as  a  rule  preserve  the  complete  cycle  of  trans- 
formation in  this  and  similar  stories.  Geographically, 
too,  the  folk-tale  is  more  closely  related  to  the  belief.  The 
story  is  told  in  ballads  only  in  the  north  of  Europe,  while 
the  tale  is  found  in  all  the  continents,  except  Australia. 
From  the  evidence  of  this  one  story,  we  are  forced  to  con- 
clude that  the  tale  has  a  better  claim  than  the  ballad  to  be 
considered  the  more  primitive  in  content.8 

8  Full  evidence  can  be  gained  from  the  chief  studies  of  The  Twa 
Sisters  and  allied  themes:  J.  and  W.  Grimm,  Kinder-  und  Haus* 
marchen,  1812-1814.  No.  28,  "Der  Singende  Knochen,"  Notes. 
With  notes,  1882,  in  a  third  volume;  J.  Grimm,  Deutsche  Hfytho- 
logie,  1835,  Vol.  m,  pp.  689-690.  Fourth  edition.  Ed.  Meyer,  1878. 
Eng.  trans.  Stallybrass,  1882-1888;  A.  Koberstein,  fiber  die  For- 


480 


ARTHUR    BEATTY 


Even  more  decisive  results  are  obtained  from  a  study 
of  the  cycle  of  ballads  and  tales  which  have  to  do  with 
the  Water  of  Life  and  Eesuscitation.  In  the  ballads  the 
incident  appears  very  seldom,  while  it  is  a  commonplace  in 
the  popular  tale,9  occurring  times  almost  without  number. 

stellung  von  dem  Fortleben  menschlicher  Seelen  in  der  Pflanzenwelt, 
Naumburg,  1849,  also  in  Weimarisches  Jahrbuch,  I,  pp.  72-100  (Rose 
and  Briar)  ;  Reinhold  Kohler,  Notes  to  No.  51,  Der  Singende  Dudel- 
sack  of  Laura  Gonzenbach:  Sicilianische  Marchen,  1870;  Reinhold 
Kohler,  Weimarisches  Jahrbuch,  I,  pp.  479-483 ;  Reinhold  Kohler,  Her' 
rigs  Archiv  f.  d.  Stud,  der  n.  Sprachen,  xvn,  p.  444;  Reinhard 
Kohler,  Sitzungsberichte  der  Wiener  Akademie,  xx,  p.  94,  1856; 
E.  Grohmann,  Aberglaube  aus  Bdhmen,  pp.  193,  1301,  93,  648;  E.  B. 
Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  First  ed.  1871,  2nd,  1872;  W.  Mannhardt, 
Wald-  und  Feld-Kulte,  1874.  I.  Baumkultus,  pp.  3,  39-44;  II. 
Antike  Wald-  und  Feld-Kulte,  pp.  10-14,  20-23,  61-62,  280;  F.  J. 
Child,  The  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads.  1st  Ed.,  1860 
(very  little),  New  Ed.  1882.  No.  10,  Introductory  study;  R. 
Kohler,  Aufsatze  iiber  Marchen  und  Volkslieder,  1882,  "Die  Spre- 
chende  Harfe,"  pp.  79  ff.;  H.  Gaidoz,  Melusine,  Vol.  iv.  Cols.  61-62, 
85-91,  142;  1.  882,  "  Les  deux  Arbres  EntrelacSs  " ;  Emmanuel  Cos- 
quin,  Oontes  de  Lorraine,  I,  pp.  lix-lxii,  1886;  J.  G.  Frazer,  The 
Golden  Bough,  Third  Ed.,  Part  I,  Vol.  n,  1911,  passim;  Eugene  Mon- 
seur,  L  'Os  qui  Chante,  Bulletin  de  Folklore  Wallon,  I,  pp.  89  ff., 
1891-2;  Grant  Allen,  The  Attis  of  Catullus,  1892,  pp.  17-125,  Excur- 
sus II ;  Charles  Ploix,  L  'Os  qui  Chante,  Revue  des  Traditions  Popu- 
lates, vin,  pp.  129  ff.,  1893;  E.  Sidney  Hartland,  The  Legend  of  Per- 
seus, 1894-6,  I,  pp.  182-224;  Le"on  Pineau,  Les  Vieux  Chants  Popu- 
laires  Scandinaves,  Vol.  I,  1898;  J.  A.  Macculloch,  The  Childhood  of 
Fiction,  1905,  Chap,  iv,  pp.  80-117;  Paul  S6billot,  Le  Folk-Lore  de 
France,  Vol.  in,  sect.  1-9;  E.  S.  Hartland,  Primitive  Paternity 
(Transformation  and  Metempsychosis),  2  vols.,  1909-10,  Chap,  m; 
Arnold  van  Gennep,  Les  Rites  de  Passage,  1909,  Chap,  vi,  Les  Ritea 
d'Initiation ;  J.  G.  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  Third  Edition,  Part 
VII,  Vol.  n,  Chaps,  x-xn,  1913  (A  very  complete  study  of  the  ex- 
ternal soul  in  folk-tale  and  folk  custom  and  of  totemism). 

"Typical  forms  of  the  story  are:  For  the  ballads,  Child,  Nos.  15 
and  272,  with  the  introductions.  For  the  tales,  Europe: — J.  and 
W.  Grimm,  Kinder-  und  Haus-Mdrchen,  1812-1814,  with  notes,  1824 
(No.  97);  J.  G.  von  Hahn,  Griechische  und  Albanesische  Marchen, 
1864  (Nos.  22,  32,  37) ;  Asbjornsen  und  Moe',  Norse  Tales  (No.  35) ; 


BALLAJ),    TALE,   AND    TEADITION  481 

Moreover,  this  incident  is  the  central  motif  of  the  most 
widely  spread  English  and  European  popular  drama, 
which  is  known  in  England  as  the  St.  George  Pl&y,  and 
which  is  closely  related  to  agricultural  spring  ceremonies 
of  savages  and  of  people  wherever  agricultural  operations 
are  carried  on.  This  I  have  shown  at  length  elsewhere ; 10 
so  that  it  will  suffice  to  say  merely  that  in  this  case  again 
the  ballad  barely  touches  the  deep-seated  belief  of  primi- 
tive man  in  the  efficacy  of  magic  ceremony  and  ritual, 
which  is  fully  developed  in  drama  and  tale.11 

The  place  of  the  tale  in  the  relations  with  folk  thought 
I  have  studied  by  a  somewhat  different  method.  Taking 
as  a  basis  of  study  the  usual  ideas  of  primitive  men  re- 
garding the  government  of  the  world  which  are  distinctly 
not  our  civilized  ideas  and  noting  the  frequency  of  occur- 

G.  W.  Dasent,  Popular  Tales  from  the  North,  1859  (No.  3) ;  W.  R. 
S.  Ralston,  Russian  Folk  Tales,  1873  (The  Fiend,  p.  17,  also  Chap. 
IV) ;  J.  F.  Campbell,  Popular  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands,  1860- 
1862  (Conall  Gulban,  m,  p.  66)  ;  Lady  Charlotte  Guest,  The  MaUno- 
gion,  p.  39  (Branwen,  the  Daughter  of  Llyr) ;  Emmanuel  Cosquin, 
Contes  de  Lorraine,  1886  (Appendice  B.,p.  Ix,  and  No.  17,  L'Oiseau 
de  Verite)  ;  Child,  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads  (Notes 
to  No.  15,  Leesome  Brand;  No.  272,  Suffolk  Miracle).  Other  Coun- 
tries:— F.  A.  von  Schiefner,  Thibetan  Tales,  1882,  p.  Ixi;  R.  H. 
Nassau,  Fetishism  in  West  Africa,  1904,  pp.  372-378. 

10  Transactions  of  the  Wisconsin  Academy  of  Sciences,  Arts,  and 
Letters,  Vol.  xv,  Pt.  n,  pp.  273-324. 

"General  treatises  on  the  story  are: — 

W.  A.  Clouston,  Popular  Tales  and  Fictions,  1887,  Vol.  n,  pp. 
407-412,  497-499;  J.  G.  Frazer,  Adonis,  Attis,  and  Osiris,  1906; 
Paul  S6billot,  Le  Folk-Lore  de  France,  Vol.  n,  1905  (La  mer  et  les 
eaux  douces) ;  W.  Mannhardt,  Wald-  und  Feld-Kulte,  1874;  Rein- 
hold  Kohler,  Kleinere  Schriften,  Vol.  I,  pp.  55,  185,  562,  367,  394, 
581;  J.  A.  Macculloch,  The  Childhood  of  Fiction,  1905.  Chaps,  m, 
IV,  and  v  (The  work  contains  references  to  a  great  number  of 
tales)  ;  Jane  Harrison,  Themis,  1912;  Ancient  Art  and  Ritual,  J913; 
H.  Dawkins,  "  The  Modern  Carnival  in  Greece,"  Journal  of  Hellenic 
Studies,  Vol.  xxvi,  1906,  p.  191  (On  the  dramatic  treatment  of 
this  motif). 


482 


ARTHUR    BEATTY 


rence  in  ballad  and  tale,  a  standard  of  comparison  was 
established.  In  the  first  place,  in  order  to  rule  out  all  the 
peculiarities  of  the  tales  of  individual  countries,  compari- 
sons were  made  between  the  tales  of  England,  and  of  Scot- 
land, and  of  France.12  The  beliefs  adopted  were:  Imposed 
Tasks  and  Riddles,  Outwitting  (by  Magic),  Helpful  Ani- 
mals, Magical  Instruments,  Transformation,  Resuscita- 
tion, Fairies,  Ghosts,  -Giants,  Revenants,  The  Thankful 
Dead,  Speaking  Animals  and  Inanimate  Objects,  Words 
of  Power  (Charms),  The  External  Soul,  and  Etiological 
(or  Explanatory)  motifs ;  and  with  surprisingly  little  vari- 
ation the  approximately  proportionate  frequency  of  occur- 
rence of  these  motifs  in  any  one  collection  of  tales  and  the 
English  ballads  was  found  to  be  two  to  one,  while  each 
collection  of  folk-tales  when  compared  with  any  other  gave 
the  approximate  proportion  of  one  to  one.  The  French 
tale  shows  a  higher  proportion  of  these  incidents  than 
either  the  English  or  Scottish.  This  method  also  shows 
clearly  that  the  body  of  European  folk-tale  has  a  closer 
affiliation  with  fundamental  primitive  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices than  has  the  ballad. 

The  last  primitive  element  mentioned  in  the  above  list 
must  be  considered  as  specially  important,  as  a  clue  to  the 
possible  origin  of  tales.  As  we  proceed  backward  to  the 
tales  of  peoples  in  the  lowest  stages  of  culture,  the  motif 
which  becomes  increasingly  important  is  the  etiological, 
or  explanatory,  purpose  of  the  story.  To  all  men  the  world 
is  full  of  things  which  demand  explanation;  and  in  the 

"The  collections  used  were  as  follows:  For  England,  E.  S.  Hart- 
land,  English  Fairy  and  Other  Folk  Tales,  1908;  Joseph  Jacobs, 
English  Fairy  Tales,  1904;  More  English  Fairy  Tales,  1894.  For 
Scotland:  J.  F.  Campbell,  Popular  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands, 
1890.  For  France:  Emmanuel  Cosquin,  Contes  Populaires  de  Lor- 
raine, 1885. 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TRADITION"          483 

lower  cultures  this  demand  is  met  by  resort  to  etiological 
stories.  Habits  of  animals,  features  of  the  landscape,  the 
stars,  the  sky,  the  nature  of  water,  the  customs  and  cere- 
monies of  the  tribe,  and  the  thousand  other  things,  are  all 
explained  in  stories.  In  other  words,  the  great  majority 
of  the  tales  and  traditions  which  savages  tell  are  scientific 
hypotheses  giving  explanations  of  phenomena  which  are 
abundantly  satisfying  if  we  accept  the  assumptions  and 
fundamental  outlook  of  the  tellers.  This  seems  to  be  the 
origin  of  plots,  just  as  the  same  impulse  is  the  origin  of 
myths.13 

As  mankind  progresses  from  the  earlier  stages  of  cul- 
ture towards  the  higher,  new  attitudes  of  thought  displace 
the  earlier  hypotheses,  but  the  story  remains  and  becomes 
what  Profesor  A.  C.  Haddon  14  calls  a  skeuomorph,  that 
is,  an  aesthetic  development  of  a  real  fact,  or  object,  or 
phenomenon.  In  harmony  with  the  changed  attitude  with 
regard  to  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  the  universe 
would  work  the  principle  of  natural  selection.  "  It  was 
not  art,  but  happy  chance,"  says  Aristotle,  "  that  led 
poets  by  tentative  discovery  to  impress  the  tragic  quality 
upon  their  plots."  15  And  so  with  the  development  of  plots 
in  general.  Primitive  and  savage  stories  have  many  com- 
binations that  are  singularly  infelicitous ;  and  these  would 
be  dropped  with  increasing  aesthetic  development  and  liter- 
ary skill.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  plots  of  Euro- 

18  Robertson  Smith,  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  1889;  Franz  Boas, 
On  the  Kwakiutl  Indians  (Reports  of  the  U.  S.  National  Museum), 
1895.  W.  Y.  Evans  Wentz,  The  Fairy  Faith  in  Celtic  Countries, 
1911,  collects  a  great  mass  of  materials  which  connect  the  tales 
and  traditions  of  the  Celts.  One  can  admire  the  method  of  this 
book  without  agreeing  with  its  theories.  9 

"Evolution  in  Art,  1895. 

M  Poetics,  xrv,  9. 


484 


AETHTJE    BEATTY 


pean  tales,  simple  though  they  be,  are  the  result  of  a  long 
process  of  natural  selection.16 

Thus,  the  prose  tale  has  been  the  form  of  popular  art 
which  has  as  its  primary  impulse  the  telling  of  a  story  or 
plot.  The  plot  may  be  that  of  a  simple  savage  tale  of  ex- 
planation, or  it  may  be  the  more  complicated  tale  of  Eu- 
rope, but  in  each  case  the  story  is  there.  Now  when  we 
turn  to  the  ballad,  an  interesting  fact  is  seen.  In  the  case 
of  the  story  of  The  Two,  Sisters,  we  noted  that  among 
savages  the  story  is  never  told  in  verse;  and  the  same 
thing  is  true  of  all  savage  forms  of  European  stories;  for 
the  savage  poem  does  not  tell  a  story.  It  is  made  up  of  a 
simple  phrase  repeated  over  and  over,  accompanied  by  the 
dance  or  other  form  of  bodily  movement.17  -  On  the  other 

16  Representative  tales  of  peoples  in  lowly  stages  of  culture  may 
be  found  in  the  following: — G.  M.  Theal,  Kaffir  Folk  Lore,  1882; 
A.  L.  Kroeber,  "  Animal  Tales  of  the  Eskimo,"  in  Journal  of  Ameri- 
can Folk-Lore,  xn,  p.  17;  Charles  Hill-Tout,  "  'Sqaktkquaclt,  or  the 
Benign-Faced,"  Folk  Lore,  x,  p.  195.  These  give  materials  for  a 
judgment  on  such  savage  tales  and  their  very  rudimentary  idea  of  a 
plot.  Their  structure  and  length  has  been  best  explained  by  Mr. 
Theal: — "There  is  a  peculiarity  in  many  of  these  stories  which 
makes  them  capable  of  almost  indefinite  expansion.  They  are  so 
constructed  that  parts  of  one  can  be  made  to  fit  into  parts  of  the 
other,  so  as  to  form  a  new  tale.  In  this  respect  they  are  like  the 
blocks  of  wood  in  the  form  of  cubes  with  which  European  children 
amuse  themselves.  Combined  in  one  way  they  represent  the  picture 
of  a  lion,  another  combination  shows  a  map  of  Europe,  another  still, 
a  view  of  St.  Paul's,  and  so  on.  So,  with  many  of  these  tales. 
They  are  made  up  of  fragments  which  are  capable  of  a  variety  of 
combinations  "  ( Op.  cit.,  p.  vii ) . 

See  also  Dozon,  Contes  Albanais,  xviy  Andrew  Lang,  International 
Folk  Lore  Oongress,  1891,  p.  65;  Macculloch,  Childhood  of  Fiction, 
p.  467,  and  H.  A.  Junod,  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe,  2  vols.,  1913, 
vol.  u,  pp.  191-248.  The  introductory  matter  and  the  tales  given 
in  this  work  are  of  primary  importance. 

"Richard  Wallaschek,  Primitive  Music,  1893;  Ernst  Grosse,  The 
Beginnings  of  Art,  1894,  Eng.  translation,  1897;  Karl  Biicher,  Arleit 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TRADITION          485 

hand,  we  cannot  conceive  of  the  modern  ballad  as  not 
telling  a  story.  Therefore,  if  we  trace  our  ballad  back 
through  the  lower  stages  of  culture  we  find  that  the  char- 
acteristic thing  disappears.  To  be  sure,  we  have 
rhythm  and  meaningless  words  or  vocables  in  the  savage 
song  but  no  story;  it  evaporates,  and  if  we  ask  where 
the  story  is  to  be  found  among  savages,  we  answer: 
"  in  the  prose  story."  '  Similarly,  if  we  follow  certain 
Kaffir  stories  up  through  the  higher  stages  of  culture 
to  Europe,  we  find  them  in  ballad  form  as  well  as  in 
prose  form.  ISTow,  does  this  not  seem  to  indicate  that, 
for  the  ballad  at  least,  the  form  is  not  the  constant? 
So  it  would  seem.  What  is  the  constant  then?  The 
content,,  the  plot,  the  story.  Here  we  have  something 
which  is  not  only  as  wide  as  Europe,  but  as  wide  as  the 
world,  and  which  connects  not  only  all  the  ballads  of 
Europe,  but  the  ballads  with  those  forms  of  literature 
which  have  the  same  content:  the  marchen,  the  folk-tales 
of  Europe  and  Asia,  and  the  tales  of  savage  Africa,  Aus- 
tralia, America,  and  Oceania.  Clearly,  the  question  of 
the  origin  and  diffusion  of  ballads  is  not  an  isolated  one, 
but  is  connected  with  the  origin  and  diffusion  of  popular 
and  savage  tales.  Some  of  these  connections  will  be  indi- 
cated in  the  second  part  of  this  paper. 


II 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL  EVIDENCE  AND  TRADITION 

The  second  aspect  of  the  ballad  problem  which  we 
marked  out  for  consideration  is  the  too  absolute  trust  of 
the  communalists  on  general  anthropological  evidence,  ^nd 

und  Rhythmus,  3rd  Ed.,  1909 ;  Yrjo  Him,  The  Origins  of  Art,  1900  j 
F.  B.  Gummere,  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  1901. 


486 


ARTHUR    BEATTY 


their  neglect  of  the  actual  European  conditions  in  which 
the  ballad  developed.  This  has  led  to  a  wholly  unwarrant- 
ed division  between  the  ballad  and  other  popular  forms 
of  art,  and  to  the  insistence  upon  certain  characteristics 
as  exclusive  marks  of  the  ballad,  which  are,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  shared  alike  by  all  traditional  art  forms,  and  all 
methods  of -popular,  traditional  thought. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  ballad  is  of  two  sorts:  first,  our 
direct  knowledge,  that  which  we  gain  by  direct  study  of 
the  texts  themselves,  together  with  the  information  we  pos- 
sess concerning  the  conditions  of  the  production  of  the  bal- 
lads as  we 'have  them;  and  second,  our  inferential  knowl- 
edge, which  is  derived  from  study  of  the  various  fields  of 
anthropology,  archeology,  and  their  allies,  and  through 
which  we  are  able  to  cast  upon  the  problems  of  ballad 
origin  and  development  a  reflected  but  very  welcome  light. 
By  means  of  the  inferential  knowledge  students  of  the  bal- 
lad have  been  enabled  to  interpret  known  facts  about  that 
particular  kind  of  poetry  and  through  it  to  bring  our 
theory  of  the  ballad  up  to  what  it  now  is. 

It  is  not  our  present  purpose  to  join  with  those  who  at- 
tack the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  ballad  which  is 
derived  from  the  second  of  these  sources,  nor  to  question 
the  ultimate  propriety  of  using  materials  derived  from 
anthropology  and  archaeology,  and  cry  that  all  we  can  do 
is  to  study  the  ballad  as  we  have  it.18  Instead,  we  take 
it  for  granted  that  ballads  and  tales  and  folk  materials  in 
general  are  all  so  similar  to  the  products  of  peoples  in  low 
states  of  culture  that  beyond  question  the  ballad  problem 
is  illuminated  by  reference  'to  such.  All  that  this  paper 
attempts  is  to  present  some  aspects  of  the  problem  in  the 

18  For  instance,  J.  H.  Millar,  Literary  History  of  Scotland,  1903, 
p.  82;  W.  J.  Courthope,  History  of  English  Poetry,  Vol.  I,  1895. 


BALLAD,    TALE,    ANtf    TRADITION  487 

light  of  some  of  the  later  work  in  some  of  these  related 
fields  of  scientific  enquiry  and  to  suggest  possible  re-ad- 
justments in  discussing  it. 

First,  let  the  general  problem  of  the  ballad  be  put  briefly 
in  its  relation  to  anthropological  enquiry.  (1)  E"o  one 
who  has  a  true  appreciation  of  the  matter  would  think  for 
a  moment  of  denying  that  communal,  or  community, 
dancing  is  a  characteristic  of  every  people  in  a  low  stage 
of  culture.  (2)  Furthermore,  no  one  who  takes  account 
of  the  evidence  would  deny  that  from  the  earliest  times 
in  Europe  the  people  danced  in  companies.  (3)  Again, 
it  is  just  as  certain  that  investigation  into  the  ballad  in 
Europe  must  connect  the  ballad-form,  and  some  of  its 
characteristic  features,  like  the  refrain,  with  dancing. 
More  than  this,  however,  we  cannot  say.  That  is,  between 
the  savage  or  primitive  dance  and  the  European  dance 
there  are  striking  resemblances;  but  between  the  savage 
dances  and  the  particular  European  dance  which  produced 
our  ballads  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  without  any  con- 
necting bridge  permitting  of  a  free  passage  from  the  one 
to  the  other.  Thus,  those  like  Mr.  J.  H.  Millar,19  who 
protest  against  the  slightest  tendency  to  connect  directly 
the  carmina  spoken  of  by  Tacitus  and  the  English  chron- 
icles, with  our  modern  ballad  form,  are  justified  in  a 
measure.  There  is  little  or  nothing  in  any  description  of 
any  of  these  carmina  which  warrants  us  in  thinking  that 
they  resembled  our  ballads  in  form,  or  had  in  them  the 
elements  which  would  have  necessarily,  or  probably,  de- 
veloped into  our  ballad  forms. 

The  same  thing  is  true  regarding  the  dances  of  the 
savage  people  of  to-day.  There  is  no  record  among  any  of 
these  peoples  of  a  dance  or  dance-song  which  evenfre- 

19  Literary  History  of  Scotland,  1903. 


488  ABTHTTB    BEATTY 

motely  suggests  the  precise  forms  of  our  European  ballads, 
whether  English,  or  Danish,  or  French,  nor  yet  which  sug- 
gests any  of  the  lyric  dance-songs  of  Europe.  Moreover, 
there  is  small  resemblance  between  the  dances  and  dance- 
songs  of  the  different  primitive  or  savage  peoples  them- 
selves ;  and  the  constant  in  all  is  no  specific  characteristic, 
but  merely  the  general  idea  of  dance,  or,  occasionally,  of 
communal  dance.  A  study  of  these  various  dances  of 
present-day  savages  brings  out  a  fact  which  must  be  recog- 
nized: namely,  that  each  tribe  develops  its  dances  within 
its  own  tradition;  and  when  there  are  specific  resem- 
blances, they  are  to  be  explained  by  borrowing.  The  con- 
stant feature  is  dancing,  together  with  the  various  motives 
which  lead  the  tribes  to  dance,  whether  they  be  those  which 
lead  to  initiation  rites,  magic  rites  to  produce  food,  or 
what  not.  That  is,  the  specific  constant  is  rather  a  non- 
aesthetic  thing,  which  has  no  necessary  connection  with  the 
dance  and  which  the  dance  does  not  exclusively  express, 
as  various  other  practices  give  these  motives  expression 
also. 

These  underlying  motives  are  much  more  fundamental 
than  the  characteristic  of  communality ;  for  it  is  scarcely 
true  that  the  dance  is  any  more  communal  in  its  origin 
than  any  of  the  other  activities,  beliefs,  or  practices  of 
primitive  folk.  The  new  anthropological  school  of  Durk- 
heim  and  L'Annee  Sociologique  is  doing  valuable  work 
in  insisting  on  a  normative  principle  in  savage  life — that 
of  "  representations  collectives  "  and  "  the  law  of  partici- 
pation " — which  brings  the  whole  of  the  mind  of  the  sav- 
age under  one  law,  and  precludes  excessive  attention  to  any 
one  external  manifestation  of  savage  life,  such  as  the 
dances.  Under  the  scrutiny  of  Levy-Bruhl  20  dancing  re- 

20  Les   Fonctions    Mentales    dans    les    Soci6t£s    Inf6rieures,    1910. 
Important  papers  of  6mile  Durkheim  are  to  be  found  in  the  volumes 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TRADITION  489 

tires  into  the  background,  as  it  does  in  the  recent  excellent 
study  of  the  Thonga  tribe  of  South  Africa,21  and  other 
things,  like  customs,  rites,  laws,  tales  in  prose,  and  lan- 
guage come  to  the  foreground.  In  other  words,  the  spe- 
cial development  of  the  tribe  is  insisted  upon,  or  the  spe- 
cial tradition  in  each  case.  Herein  the  anthropology  of 
Durkheim  and  his  school  is  an  advance  upon  that  of  Tylor 
and  the  English  school,  as  it  makes  a  more  searching 
analysis  of  the  tribal  life  and  emphasizes  the  individuality 
of  each  rather  than  the  characteristics  which  each  holds  in 
common  with  all  others,  and  so  subjecting  each  activity  of 
the  tribe  to  the  life  of  the  whole  community.  And  what 
is  it  that  seems  to  give  to  us  the  best  conception  of  the  real 
life  and  individuality  of  the  tribe  ?  !N"ot  the  dance,  as  has 
been  indicated,  but  the  tales  and  traditions,  customs,  and 
ceremonies.  Osarquaq,  the  Eskimo  friend  of  Knud  Ras- 
mussen,22  speaks  for  the  people  of  lowly  culture  of  every 
continent  and  tribe,  as  well  as  for  every  recent  anthro- 
pologist, whether  he  be  descriptive  or  theoretical,  when  he 
says: 

Our  tales  are  men's  experiences,  and  the  things  one  hears  of  are 
not  always  lovely  things.  But  one  cannot  deck  a  tale  to  make  it 
pleasant,  if  at  the  same  time  it  shall  be  true. 

The  tongue  must  be  the  echo  of  the  event  and  cannot  adapt  itself 
to  taste  or  caprice. 

To  the  words  of  the  newly  born  none  give  much  credence,  but 
the  experience  of  older  generations  contains  truth.  When  I  nar- 
rate legends,  it  is  not  I  who  speak;  it  is  the  wisdom  of  our  fore- 
fathers, speaking  through  me. 

The  bearing  of  this  attitude  of  anthropology  on  the  bal- 
lad problem  may  be  easily  made  clear.    Just  as  the  songs 

of  L'Annee  Sociologique,  n,  1898,  and  in  La  Revue  de  Metaphysique 
et  Morale,  vi,  1898;  xvn,  1909. 

"Henri  Junod,  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe,  2  vols.,  1913. 

a  The  People  of  the  Polar  North,  1909,  p.  97. 


490  ARTHUR    BEATTY 

and  dances  of  each  individual  tribe  form  a  problem  within 
the  tradition  of  that  particular  tribe,  so  the  ballad  prob- 
lem is  a  specific  one.  Granted  the  universal  impulse  in 
primitive  man  to  dance,  and  to  dance  communally,  what 
are  the  results  for  Europe  and  what  are  the  means  by 
which  the  results  are  produced?  In  the  light  of  savage 
life  and  the  more  recent  anthropology,  we  cannot  look 
upon  the  ballad  as  something  which  is  fundamentally 
unique,  and  to  be  explained  by  certain  specific  character- 
istics which  it  possesses  solely.  Eather,  we  must  regard 
it  as  only  one  of  many  manifestations  of  community  life 
and  to  be  understood  only  in  connection  with  the  whole 
body  of  folk-lore  within  a  given  tradition. 


Ill 
THE  ENGLISH  BALLAD  IN  EUROPEAN  TRADITION 

Let  us  begin  by  examining  the  ballad  and  enquiring 
what  characteristics  have  to  do  with  its  supposed  origin  in 
the  dance  ?  Not  impersonality,  nor  lack  of  an  author,  for 
that  is  a  peculiarity  of  all  folk-lore  products.  Proverbs, 
tales  in  prose,  customs,  beliefs,  dramas:  all  these  arc 
community  products  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  indi- 
vidual ;  all  are  as  "  masterless  "  as  the  ballad.  Neither 
can  we  say  that  communality  necessarily  connects  the  bal- 
lad with  the  dance,  for  communality  is  the  essential  pro- 
cess of  folk  production  as  well  as  of  primitive  man's  pro- 
duction; and  is  as  strongly  marked  in  customs,  rites,  pro- 
verbs, and  tales  as  it  is  in  the  ballad.  The  folk  play,  for 
instance,  carries  on  traditions  quite  independently  of  the 
ballad,  and  is  as  impersonal  and  as  communal  as  is  any  of 
the  ballads.  Who  wrote  the  various  versions  of  the  Eng- 
lish play  of  St.  George?  The  authorship  of  these  is  as 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TRADITION  491 

impersonal  as  that  of  the  ballads.  Nor,  again,  can  repe- 
tition be  looked  upon  as  a  distinct  characteristic  of  the 
ballad,  for  that  feature  is  abundantly  shared  by  the  folk 
tale  and  by  the  folk  rhyme.23 

It  would  seem  that  of  all  the  features  that  have  been 
proposed  as  characteristic  of  the  ballad,  there  are  only  (1) 
metre  of  a  rather  uniform  kind  (but  not  wholly  so),  and 
(2)  refrain  in  various  forms.  Now,  as  dance  and  rhythm 
are  related,  and  as  refrains  are  rather  easily  connected  with 
the  dance,  let  us  see  how  some  definite  connection  can  be 
made  in  Europe.  In  the  first  place,  where  was  it  made  in 
Europe?  That  is,  have  we  any  clear  evidence  that  the 
ballad  form  as  we  have  it  to-day  did  originate  in  any  defi- 
nite locality?  Is  there  any  specific,  particular  dance  to 
which  we  can  appeal  ?  We  must  not  make  any  supposed 
or  theoretical  connections  and  identify  the  carmind  of 
Tacitus,  of  the  Germans,  or  of  the  Saxon  warriors  with 
our  ballads.  The  answer  is :  Nowhere  in  Europe  have  we 
direct  evidence  of  such  origins  of  still  living  ballads  ex- 
cept perhaps  in  the  Faroe  Islands.  To  the  out-and-out 
communalists,  the  case  of  the  Faroe  Islands  can  give  but 
small  comfort;  for  since  the  study  of  the  Faroe  Island 
ballads  by  Mr.  Hjalmar  Thuren,24  we  possess  information 
of  a  rather  precise  sort  about  them.  We  learn:  (1)  that 
the  tunes  are  derived  from  the  Protestant  hymn  books,  and 
(2)  that  the  important  dance  (the  Kaededansen)  is  abso- 
lutely the  same  as  the  mediaeval  French  branles  as  de- 
scribed by  Bishop  Arbaud  in  his  Orckesographie,  1589 — 
the  Faroe  slow  dance  corresponding  to  the  French  branle 
simple,  and  the  fast  dance  with  the  branle  gai.25  More- 

,  0 

83  See  my  paper,  The  St.  George  or  Mummers'  Play,  in  Transac- 
tions of  the  Wisconsin  Academy  of  Sciences,  Arts,  and  Letters,  Vol. 
XV,  1907. 

24  Folkesanger  paa  Faerperne,  1906. 

25  Thuren,  op.  cit.,  pp.  44-51. 


492  ARTHUR    BEATTY 

over,  the  work  of  Olrik,  Kecke,  Steenstrup,  Larsen,  Ker, 
and  Jeanroj  26  makes  it  quite  clear  that  this  resemblance 
is  not  merely  a  fortuitous  one,  but  is  the  result  of  a  real 
historical  connection  between  the  French  and  the  Scandi- 
navians, for  the  French  caroles  did  about  1100  spread 
over  the  north  of  Europe. 

ISTow,  we  should  note  carefully  what  happened,  accord- 
ing to  this  evidence.  The  dance  and  lyric  refrains  devel- 
oped in  France,  possibly  beginning  under  communal  con- 
ditions, as  Wolf  maintains,27  but,  consciously  and  artisti- 
cally elaborated  and  made  more  precise,  were  carried  to 
the  Scandinavian  countries  and  there  developed  the  ballad. 
RTow,  according  to  the  communal  theory,  one  would  have 
expected  the  ballad  to  have  developed  in  France,  where 
these  refrains  and  dances  were  developed.  However,  no 
such  thing  happened.  Instead,  the  French  dance  continued, 
barren  and  without  literary  result  so  far  as  ballads  are 
concerned,  until  long  after  the  Scandinavian  ballad  had 
flourished,  set  a  new  fashion  in  Europe,  and  faded.  As 
M.  Bedier  shows,  the  French  dances  developed  into 
"  rather  complicated  ballets."  28 

It  is  to  be  noted,  further,  that  the  French  influence  as  far 
as  content  and  plot  are  concerned  was  only  partial.  For, 
from  the  evidence  it  seems  rather  clear  that  the  Scandina- 

26  Axel  Olrik,  Danske  Folkeviser  i  Udvalg,  New  Ed.,  1913.  Danske 
Studier,  1906,  pp.  175  ff.;  Johannes  Steenstrup,  Vore  Folkeviser, 
1891.  Translated  by  E.  G.  Cox,  with  title  The  Medieval  Popular 
Ballad,  1914;  Sofus  Larsen,  Tilskueren,  Nov.,  1903;  Ernst  von  der 
Becke,  Nogle  Folkeviser edaktioner,  1906;  W.  P.  Ker,  On  the  History 
of  the  Ballads,  1909,  Danish  Ballads,  in  Scottish  Historical  Review, 
July,  1904,  July,  1908;  A.  Jeanroy,  Origines  de  la  Poesie  Lyrique 
en  France,  1889. 

"Ferdinand  Wolf,  Uber  die  Lais,  1841. 

88  R.  Meyer,  J.  Bedier,  P.  Aubry.  La  Chanson  de  Bele  Aelis,  par 
le  trouvere  Baude  de  la  Quariere,  1906. 


BALLAD,    TALE,   AND    TEADITIOIT  493 

vian  ballad  treated  the  older  heroic  stuff,  such  as  stories 
about  the  God  Thor,  or  about  Sigurd;  and  the  ballads 
which  treat  of  these  themes  seem  tobe  of  an  earlier  age  than 
those  which  deal  with  more  nearly  contemporary  subjects. 
In  this  respect,  the  Scandinavian  ballads  show  continuity 
of  tradition  such  as  our  English  ballads  can  in  no  sense 
claim.  Indeed,  as  one  studies  the  Danish  ballads,  one  must 
almost  inevitably  feel  that  a  number  of  our  English  bal- 
lads are  but  far  off  derivatives  from  them,  written  in  the 
general  literary  tradition  of  the  ballad  form.29 

Thus,  the  Faroe  and  other  Scandinavian  ballads  betray 
an  origin  in  a  definite  tradition  originating  in  a  borrowed 
artistic  form  superimposed  on  a  native  form  and  practice. 
In  the  Scandinavian  countries  this  took  place  about  1100, 
very  soon  after  that  in  England,  in  Germany  about  1200, 
in  Spain  about  1400,  in  Italy  about  the  same  date,  while 
France  had  to  wait  until  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century  for  anything  which  can  be  called  a  ballad.30  Ice- 
land, be  it  noted,  though  exposed  to  French  influence,  did 
not  develop  ballads  of  its  own.  The  testimony  of  Vig- 
fusson  and  Powell  to  this  effect  is  supported  by  the  bril- 
liant work  of  Recke  31  and  Olrik,32  who  show  that  the  im- 
perfect rhymes  of  the  Icelandic  forms  of  the  Ribold  ballad 
for  instance,  can  be  made  perfect  by  the  substitution  of 
old  Danish  words,  and  thus  demonstrate  the  derivative 
nature  of  the  Icelandic  forms. 

If  the  argument  from  the  refrain  be  of  value  as  an  argu- 
ment for  dance  origin,  the  Danish  and  Faroe  inset  refrain 
is  much  nearer  to  the  actual  conditions  of  the  dance  than 


M  Sophus  Bugge,  The  Home  of  the  Eddie  Poems,  trans,  by  W.  H. 
Schofield,  1899. 

"°Gaston  Paris,  Journal  des  Savants,  Sept.-Nov.,  1889. 
"Ernst  von  der  Recke,  Nogle  Folkeviseredaktioner,  1906. 
"Axel  Olrik,  Danske  Studier,  1906,  pp.  80  and  175;  1907,  p.  79. 


494 


AETIIUE    BEATTY 


the  ballads  of  any  of  the  other  nations.  Some  of  the  Eng- 
lish ballads  have  refrains  that  strongly  resemble  the  sim- 
plest of  the  Scandinavian,  but  for  the  most  part  they  seem 
to  be  merely  literary  refrains  having  connection  with 
tunes,  but  not  with  dances.  The  same  thing  applies  more 
particularly  to  the  German,  and  still  more  to  the  Spanish. 
It  would  seem  that  even  of  the  Danish  ballads  only  a  few 
preserve  refrains  which  connect  them  with  the  dance; 
though  we  may  grant  that  those  which  do  so  are  the  most 
primitive  in  form  and  thereby  nearer  to  the  archetype  of 
the  ballad.  In  the  great  majority  of  the  ballads  of  Eu- 
rope, we  have  literary  refrains  only  distantly  recalling 
the  original  ancestors  and  totally  ignorant  of  their  high 
lineage.  They  are  the  product  of  a  complicated  tradition 
made  up  from  many  sources.33 

As  has  been  already  said,  the  Erench  dance  and  carole 
did  not  carry  to  the  north  plots  and  subjects  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  native  subjects  and  plots.  It  is  impossible  to  sup- 
pose, however,  that  there  has  not  been  some  interchange 
of  these  between  the  two  regions,  on  account  of  the  great 
similarity  which  exists  between  the  two  groups  of  ballads, 
a  similarity  altogether  closer  than  that  which  exists  be- 
tween the  Danish  and  the  English.  It  is  to  be  noted,  how- 
ever, that  the  peculiarly  Danish  heroic  local  ballad  sub- 
jects are  not  to  be  found  in  Erench  ballads,  nor  are 
the  peculiar  local  Erench  subjects  to  be  found  in  the 
Danish.  The  great  common  element  is  made  up  of 
beliefs  and  customs  which  are  likely  to  be  found  in 
any  quarter,  such  as  the  return  from  the  dead  (The 
Dead  Mother's  Return),  transformation  (La  Biche 
Blanche),  drawing  of  lots  (La  Courte  Faille — Thack- 
eray's Little  Billee),  and  such  like  themes. 

83  For  the  refrain  in  Danish  Ballads,  see  'Steenstrup,  Vore  Folke- 
viser,  Chap,  iv,  and  for  English  see  Gummere,  The  Popular  Ballad, 
pp.  73-74. 


BALLAD,  TALE,  A1*D  TRADITION  495 

However,  we  must  not  over-emphasize  these  likenesses  in 
subject,  but  rather  emphasize  the  differences  in  subject. 
Moreover,  when  there  are  likenesses  in  subject,  examination 
shows  that  there  is  a  distinct  difference  in  the  treatment  of 
the  theme  in  each  case,  because  of  the  fact  that  each  dis- 
trict has  its  own  distinct  tradition.  Take  as  an  example 
the  riddle  ballads,  and  let  us  ask :  "  To  what  extent  can  the 
riddles  answer  the  questions  of  borrowing  or  of  possible 
relationship  between  belief  and  ballad  ?  "  E"ow,  it  is  use- 
less to  conjure  with  the  rod  of  universality,  for  of  course 
we  know  that  the  riddle  is  universal  in  the  lower  degrees 
of  culture  and  in  European  folk-lore,  without  any  demon- 
stration. What  we  must  do  is  first  to  remember  that  the 
riddle  is  a  traditional  form  and  takes  on  a  particular  form 
within  a  certain  tradition.  More  than  that,  the  riddle  is 
impersonal,  and  its  answer  is  frequently  absolutely  fixed 
independently  of  any  rational  process.  This  fundamental 
fact  is  mentioned  here  because  it  has  been  overlooked  by 
students  of  riddles. 

"What  is  sharper  than  the  thorn?" 
"What  is  louder  than  the  horn?" 

is  asked  of  the  maid,  and  her  answer  must  be  within  very 
strict  traditional  limits,  if  she  is  to  escape  from  Satan's 
clutches.  The  title  of  the  ballad  given  by  Child,  "  Eiddles 
Wisely  Expounded,"  34  is  misleading,  for  the  answers  re- 
quire only  memory  or  traditional  knowledge  and  not  clev- 
erness, nor  skill,  nor  wisdom  in  any  measure.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  note  that  among  savages,  the  answers  are 
still  more  strictly  determined  by  tradition.  M.  Junod 
shows  that  the  Thonga  riddes  are  strictly  traditional  and 
"the  answers  must  be  learned  by  heart."  35 

34  Child,  No.  1. 

MH.  Junod,  op.  cit.,  n,  pp.  160-166. 


496  ARTHTJB    BEATTY 

With  regard  to  the  content  of  ballads  in  general — how 
are  we  to  account  for  it  ?  Is  the  ballad  form  older  than 
the  subject,  or  is  the  subject  matter  older  than  the  form? 
In  the  great  majority  of  cases  undoubtedly  the  latter  is 
true.  Fairies,  heroes,  ghosts,  superstitions, — all  the  stock 
subjects  and  motifs  of  ballads — is  it  not  plainly  true,  as 
we  have  indicated  in  the  first  part  of  this  paper,  that  all 
these  have  been  perpetuated  in  belief,  practice,  and  in  prose 
tales  ?  Have  we  any  account  that  the  Germans  danced  and 
sang  tales  about  such  things,  or  about  anything  save  gods 
and  heroes  ?  Clearly  not ;  the  carmina  of  which  we  read 
in  Tacitus  were  heroic.  Now,  just  as  the  ballad  took  up 
existing  heroic  material  (of  which  we  know  from  inde- 
pendent sources),  so  it  took  up  all  this  other  traditional 
material  and  incorporated  it  into  itself,  adopting  the  form 
of  the  popular  story  or  tradition,  and  adapting  it  to  its 
own  individual  genius.  The  popular  tale,  too,  and  the 
popular  traditions  as  well,  were  undergoing  a  process  of 
growth  by  a  process  of  borrowing  and  selection;  but  the 
evidence  rather  clearly  indicates  that  so  far  as  content  is 
concerned,  the  ballad  is  the  later,  secondary  form.36 

To  answer  these  questions,-  at  least  in  part,  we  may  have 
the  means  before  long.  Archaeologists  are  doing  useful 
work  in  this  direction,  and  what  may  come  from  a  study 
of  the  remains  of  older  civilization  of  Europe,  and  of  the 
wonderful  cave  of  Altamira  ancj.  other  caves  in  Pyrenean 
and  Northern  Spain,  and  in  Prance,  one  cannot  pretend 
to  foretell.  Certainly,  we  must  revise  our  ideas  of  the 
degree  of  culture  possessed  by  inhabitants  of  Europe 
hundreds  of  centuries  ago.37  Connect  this  with  all 

"See  Friedrich  von  der  Leyen,  Das  Marchen,  1913,  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  European  popular  tale.  Adolf  Thimme,  Das 
Marchen,  1912,  has  a  bibliography. 

87  L'Anthropologie,   Vol.  xv,   with   reproductions  of   the   pictures. 


BALLAD,  TALE,  AND  TEADITION          497 

our  knowledge  of  the  migrations  of  Europe,  and  we 
have  untold  possibilities  of  tracing  the  source  and  pro- 
gress of  ideas,  beliefs,  and  perchance  of  plots.  When 
all  these  complicated  matters  are  understood  (if  ever 
they  can  be  understood)  we  may  then  see  the  interchange 
of  ideas  giving  and  taking,  where  we  now  can  see  only 
the  nebulous  process  of  independent  origin.  It  behooves 
us  to  make  the  attempt  at  least,  and  in  this  way  give 
substance  and  .consistency  to  such  admirable  work  as  that 
of  Panzer  38  and  Chadwick  39  in  Germanic  tradition,  and 
of  Dahnhardt  40  in  Aryan  traditions. 

I  have  said  that  the  anthropologists  of  to-day,  both  de- 
scriptive and  theoretical,  give  much  less  attention  to  the 
dances  of  savages  than  did  those  of  an  earlier  generation; 
and  we  find  that  men  like  Biicher  41  and  Haddon42  con- 
nect the  origin  of  art  with  aspects  of  life  which  we  are 
likely  to  regard  as  non-aesthetic — Biicher  connecting 
poetry  with  labor,  and  Haddon  connecting  representative 
art  with  actual  objects  and  the  process  of  decorative 
transformation  of  them — the  "  skeuomorphic  "  process,  as 
he  calls  it.  Both  these  theories  (and  they  are  of  great 
importance  in  their  implications)  are  directly  opposed  to 
the  communal  theory,  or  theory  of  the  festal  origin  of 
poetry,  which  has  as  its  fundamental  assumption  the  play 
theory  of  the  origin  of  art. 

See  also  succeeding  volumes  for  palaeolithic  materials.  Robert  Munro, 
Palceolithic  Man,  1912,  and  Lord  Avebury,  Prehistoric  Times,  1913, 
have  good  selections  from  L'Anthropologie. 

""Friedrich  Panzer,  Hilde-Gudrun,  1901;  Studien  zur  Germa- 
nischen  Sagengeschichte,  Vol.  I  (Beowulf),  1910.  (Valuable  folk-tale 
bibliographies  in  both  volumes.) 

89  H.  M.  Chadwick,  The  Heroic  Age,  1907. 

40  O.  Dahnhardt,  Natursagen,  4  vols.,  1907-1913.  0  '    ••' 

41  Carl  Biicher,  Arbeit  und  Rhythmus,  3rd  ed.,  1909. 
43  Alfred  C.  Haddon,  Evolution  in  Art,  1907. 


498  ARTHUR    BEATTY 

In  conclusion,  it  would  seem  that  the  ballad,  as  we  have 
it,  is  a  distinct  and  individual  phenomenon,  appearing  at 
a  definite  time  in  definite  portions  of  Western  Europe, 
through  explicable  causes,  from  1100  to  1450,  by  borrow- 
ing from  France  in  the  first  place  and  then  by  borrowing 
and  re-borrowing.  But  it  does  not  appear  everywhere 
in  Western  Europe:  Iceland,  Italy  south  of  Piedmont, 
and  portions  of  Spain  have  no  ballads.43  These  lands 
had  dances,  but  other  forms  of  literature  absorbed  the 
artistic  capabilities  of  the  people  and  the  dances  did  not 
burst  into  blossom  and  fruit.  They  withered  away,  or 
remained  stunted  growths  and  unprofitable.  More  may 
be  said:  we  have  no  warrant  for  saying  that  if  they  had 
resulted  in  literary  form,  the  literary  form  would  have 
been  our  ballad.  Quite  the  contrary ;  for  wherever  we  do 
not  find  this  definite  Western  European  tradition,  we 
have  not  ballads  in  our  sense.  Eastern  Europe  has  some- 
thing like  ballads,  but  they  are  not  in  form  like  our  bal- 
lad. They  represent  a  different  tradition.  Indeed,  when 
we  consider  the  great  body  of  folk-lore  which  makes  up 
the  content  of  the  ballad,  when  we  contemplate  the  vast 
mass  of  folk  thought,  folk  custom,  ritual,  and  belief,  the 
ballad  becomes  a  very  little  thing,  an  almost  accidental 
thing,  as  every  form  of  art  is,  related  to  the  tales  and 
traditions,  dramas  and  epics,  of  the  people;  but  young 
and  modern,  yet  of  the  old  blood;  and  so  precious  as 
another  example  of  the  race  of  man  ever  tending  to  break 
forth  into  song  when  favored  with  the  proper  environment 
and  instructors. 

ARTHUR  BEATTY. 


43  Count  Nigra,  Canti  Popolari  del  Piemonte,  1888.  Mila  y  Fon- 
tanals,  De  la  Poesia  heroico-popular  Oastellana,  1874.  Mengndez 
y  Pelayo,  Tratado  de  los  Romances  viejos,  2  vols.,  1903-6. 


XXI.— THE   DATING  OF  SKELTON'S   SATIRES 

Satires  are  of  two  general  types.  Those  in  which  the 
general  characteristics  of  humanity  are  subjected  to  ridi- 
cule, and  those  in  which  the  attack  is  directed  at  specific 
individuals  and  definite  events.  The  first,  since  human- 
ity has  not  greatly  changed  thru  the  centuries,  always 
retains  about  the  same  amount  of  interest.  Nor  is  it  ever 
much  resented  because,  as  Swift  says,  "  satire,  being  lev- 
elled at  all,  is  never  resented  for  any  offense  by  any, 
since  every  individual  person  makes  bold  to  understand 
it  of  others,  and  very  wisely  removes  his  particular  part 
of  the  burden  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  world,  which  are 
broad  enough,  and  able  to  bear  it."  This  however  by  no 
means  applies  to  satire  of  the  second  type.  There  the 
contemporaneous  interest,  heightened  by  the  excitement  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  persons  or  the  events,  is  purchased 
at  the  expense  of  posterity  enlightened  only  by  a  depres- 
sing foot-note.  Unhappily  it  is  to  the  second  class  that 
Skelton's  satires  belong.  In  his  lifetime  he  was  palpi- 
tatingly alive ;  as  is  shown  by  Hall,  his  epigrams  were  on 
everyone's  lips,  and  even  before  his  death,  as  in  Kastall's 
Hundred  Mery  Talys  (1526),  he  was  a  celebrated  char- 
acter ;  today  his  satires  are  like  old  riddles  the  answer  to 
which  has  been  forgotten.  The  reason  for  this  condition 
is  not  only  that  he  dared  not,  or  cared  not,  to  be  too  plain, 
but  also  that,  owing  to  an  absence  of  dates,  we  cannot  be 
sure  exactly  to  what  period  his  allusions  refer.  The  earli- 
.est  editions  that  we  have,  altho  undated,  are  at  least  twenty 
years  after  his  death.  This  may  be  because  all  the 
copies  of  the  early  editions  have  perished,  or  because,  as 
he  himself  intimates  in  Colin  Clout  (1239-41),  no  early 

499 


500  JOHW    M.    BEKDAN 

editions  were  allowed  to  be  printed.  A  second  result 
arising  from  this  condition  is  that  equally  we  can  never  be 
sure  of  his  text.  Consequently  his  satires,  at  times  appar- 
ently intelligible,  are  yet  as  a  whole  hopelessly  confused. 

To  solve  the  riddle,  the  first  object  obviously  should  be 
to  determine  the  dates  of  the  major  satires.  Of  these 
there  are  five  in  the  order  given  by  Dyce's  edition :  A  re- 
plycacion  agaynst  certayne  yong  scolers  abiured  of  late 
&c,  Colyn  Clout,  Speke,  Parrot,  Why  come  ye  nat  to  court, 
and  How  the  doughty  Duke  of  Albany,  &c.  Almost  the 
sole  external  evidence  consists  in  the  enumeration  of  his 
works  in  the  Garland  of  Laurel,  an  edition  of  which  bears 
the  colophon,  Inpryntyd  by  me  Rycharde  faukes  .  .  . 
The  yere  of  our  lorde  god  .M.CCCCC.XXIII.  The  .Hi.  day  of 
October.  It  is  customary  to  divide  these  poems  into  two 
classes,  those  (named  in  the  Garland)  composed  before 
1523,  and  those  not,  composed  after  1523.  From  inter- 
nal evidence  based  on  the  use  of  recurrent  rhyme,  repe- 
tition, and  alliteration,  Brie  *  ranks  them  in  the  following 
order:  Colin  Clout,  Why  Come,  Albany,  and  the  Reply- 
cacion.  The  change  in  putting  the  Replycacion  last  in- 
stead of  first  he  supports  by  showing  that  there  is  a  defi- 
nite allusion  in  the  poem  to  an  event  in  1527.  This 
order  is  accepted  faute  de  mieux  by  Koelbing.2  Thus 
the  case  rests. 

But  it  is  the  belief  of  the  present  writer  that  the  poems 
may  be  much  more  definitely  dated  from  the  allusions. 
The  assumption  must  first  be  made,  as  Skelton  himself 
states  repeatedly,  that  the  poems  mean  something  definite. 
But  this  meaning  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  time 
was  veiled  in  "  convert  terms."  Still  more,  he  used  cryp- 

1  Friedrich     Brie,     Skelton-Studien,     Englische     Studien,      Band 
xxxvn,  p.  46. 

a  Arthur  Koelbing,  Cambridge  History,  vol.  ni,  chapter  Iv. 


THE   DATING    OF    SKELTON^S    SATIRES  501 

tograms  in  Ware  the  Hawke  and  in  the  Garland.  Yet,  to 
explain  his  contemporary  reputation,  at  the  time,  to  one 
familiar  with  the  situation,  the  poems  must  have  been 
comparatively  clear.  And  Skelton' s  position  must  be  re- 
membered. In  the  Skelton  of  the  apocryphal  Merie  Tales 
we  have  lost  the  real  Skelton,  chosen  to  be  tutor  to  a  prince 
of  the  blood  royal,  praised  by  Erasmus  for  his  learning, 
and  patronized  by  the  great  house  of  Howard.  At  the 
date  of  the  composition  of  'these  poems,  he  must  by  any 
computation  have  been  passed  middle  life.  Naturally, 
then,  in  the  affairs  of  both  Church  and  State  he  is  con- 
servative, resenting  the  new  order  brought  in  by  Wolsey. 
And  yet  he  is  always  intensely  loyal  to  the  King.  It  is 
on  Wolsey,  in  whose  grasp  are  the  affairs  of  both  Church 
and  State,  that  he,  as  a  Churchman  of  the  old  school  and 
as  a  protege  of  the  old  nobility,  pours  forth  his  scorn. 

This  is  first  shown  in  Speke,  Parrot,  "which  would 
require  the  scholia  of  a  Tzetzes  to  render  it  intelligible."  3 
The  peculiarity  of  this  poem  is  that  it  seems  divided  into 
separate  sections,  each  with  its  own  date,  "  Penultimo  die 
Octobris,  33°,"  "  In  diebus  Novembris,  34,"  "  15  kalendis 
Decembris,  34,"  "34,"  etc.  These  figures  have  been 
abandoned  as  meaningless,  as  in  1533  Skelton  was  dead. 
On  the  other  hand,  since  for  years  Skelton  had  been  an 
official  in  the  court  of  Henry  VII  and  as  such  must  have 
dated  all  his  formal  documents  from  the  accession  of  the 
king,  it  seems  probable  that  for  reasons  of  sentiment  or 
purpose  of  concealment,  even  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII 
he  continued  the  custom.  As  Henry  Richmond  became 
king  at  the  battle  of  Bosworth  Field,  August  22nd,  1485, 
"  penultimo  die  Octobris,  33°  >?  is  simply  October  30th, 
1517,  etc.  This  assumption,  altho  the  method  of  datirfg 

8  Dyce,  vol.  i,  p.  xliii. 


502  JOHIT    M.    BEKDAN 

is  unprecedented,  is  not  extreme  in  the  case  of  an  author 
that  substitutes  figures  for  letters  or  makes  nonsense  Latin 
by  transposing  his  syllables,  as  he  does  in  the  passage  in 
the  Garland.4"  A  suggestive  coincidence  may  be  found 
that  a  previous  entry  in  the  manuscript  book  (Harl.  MS. 
2252)  is  dated  1517.5  The  problem  then  is  merely  to 
locate  the  events  upon  the  dates  thus  given,  and  the  poem 
proves  to  be  a  running  commentary  of  those  years.6  The 
only  possible  proof  that  this  is  the  correct  solution  is  that 
now  the  poems  make  sense.  If  this  be  true,  it  follows 
that  the  Decastichon  Virulentum  in  Galeratum  Lycaonia 
M  annum,  etc.,7  at  present  attached  to  the  end  of  the  Why 
Come  with  the  numeral  "  xxxiiii  "  should  be  transferred  to 
the  Speke,  Parrot  group.  This  is  inherently  probable,  as 
we  find  the  same  expressions,  "  Lycaon,"  "  vitulus," 
"  Oreb,"  "  Salmane,"  "  Zeb,"  etc.,  used  in  both  poems. 
These  passages  are  not  like  the  previous  Why  Come  and 
they  are  very  like  the  jargon  used  in  Speke,  Parrot;  read 
in  connection  with  the  first  they  are  unintelligible,  while 
read  in  connection  with  the  second  they  make  sense.  The 
probability  is  that  in  some  manuscripts  they  became  con- 
fused. 

The  importance  of  this  interpretation  is  that  it  gives  a 
conception  of  Skelton's  manner  of  composition.  The  poems 
were  not  written  at  a  single  sitting.  Apparently  he  wrote 
a  section,  waited  months,  then  continued  with  little  indi- 
cation of  a  break.  Apparently  during  these  years  he 
must  have  had  some  relation  with  the  Court,  as  his  poems 
Agaynst  Gamyssche  are  indorsed  "  By  the  King's  com- 
mandment." 8  This  would  explain  his  attack  against  Wol- 

4Dyce,  i,  p.  163.  B  Dyce,  n,  p.  345. 

6  For  a  detailed  interpretation  of  the  poem  the  reader  is  referred 
to  a  forthcoming  article  in  Hod.  Lang.  Notes,  vol.  xxx  (1915). 

7  Brie,  op.  cit.,  p.  59.  8  Brie,  op.  eit.,  p.  59. 


THE    DATING    OF    SKELTON^S    SATIRES  503 

sey  as  a  statesman  in  Why  Come.  The  first  definite  date 
is  to  be  found  in  the  lines  (72-74) 

Treatinge  of  trewse  restlesse, 
Pratynge  for  peace  peaselesse. 
The  countrynge   at   Gales 
Wrang    us    on    the    males. 

This  must  refer  to  Wolsey's  expedition  to  Calais,  July- 
November,  1521,  as  mediator  between  Francis  and 
Charles.  But  in  1.  122  et  seq.,  he  objects  to  the  policy 
toward  the  Scots. 

We  have   cast  vp   our   war, 

And  made  a  worthy  trewse  (137-8) 

refers  to  the  truce  between  Lord  Dacre  and  Albany,  Sep- 
tember 11,  1522. 

Yet  the  good  Erie  of  'Surray, 

The  Frenche  men  he  doth  fray  (150-1) 

alludes  to  the  expedition  led  by  Surrey,  July  29,  1522, 
against  the  French  coast.  As  he  does  not  however  know 
that  Surrey  will  be  appointed  lieutenant-general  of  the 
army  against  the  .Scots,  February  26th,  1523,  the  passage 
must  have  been  written  in  the  fall  of  1522.  And  as  it 
alludes  to  Thomas  Manners,  Lord  Eos,  it  must  have 
been  in  October  of  that  year,  as  by  October  31st  Dacre  is 
suggesting  to  Wolsey  his  recall.9  Again  the  allusion, 
somewhat  mysterious,  to  Montreuil  (374)  seems  to  refer 
to  suspicions  during  the  early  autumn  that  a  French  fleet 
was  collecting  there  for  an  invasion  of  England.  But 
lines  7 8 2-8 3 5  unexpectedly  accuse  John  Meautis  (the 
King's  French  secretary)  of  treachery.  The  poem  stages 

9  All  these  dates  are  taken  from  the  Calendar  of  State  Papers, 
Part   3. 


504  JOHN    M.    BERDAN 

that  he  is  gone.  This  must  be  later  than  March  15th, 
1523,  as  on  that  date  is  the  patent  for  Brian  Take:  "  To 
be  secretary  for  the  French  tongue,  vice  John  Meauties, 
with  100  marks  a  year."  Here  then  are  the  extremes. 
The  poem  was  written  in  parcels  varying  from  the  fall  of 
1521  to  the  spring  of  1523.10 

The  poem  on  the  retreat  of  the  Duke  of  Albany,  like  the 
earlier  celebration  over  the  Battle  of  Flodden,  seems  to 
have  been  written  immediately  on  the  receipt  of  the  news. 
As  the  retreat  may  be  dated  November  2nd,  1523,  that 
poem  may  be  placed  toward  the  end  of  that  year. 

Such  poems  as  these,  where  the  allusions  are  to  definite 
events,  require  only  a  detailed  knowledge  of  the  Calendar 
of  Letters  and  State  Papers  to  be  correctly  dated.  It  is 
merely  a  question  of  selecting  the  proper  events,  and, 
since  many  of  the  references  are  unmistakable,  -the  chance 
of  error  is  not  very  great.  And  in  each  case  the  limit 
of  the  time  of  composition  is  within  two  years.  Unhap- 
pily this  does  not  apply  to  the  next  poem  on  the  list,  Colin 
Clout.  This  is  the  best  known  of  his  poems,  perhaps, 
because  the  name  was  adopted  by  Spenser.  Another  ob- 
vious reason  is  that  as  the  references  are  to  a  general  con- 
dition, they  are  more  generally  intelligible.  But  this  very 
fact  increases  the  difficulty  in  the  dating.  As  with  Speke, 
Parrot,  Colin  Clout  is  mentioned  in  the  Garland,  the  con- 
clusion seems  apparently  inevitable  that  it  was  written 
before  October  3rd,  1523,  altho  how  much  before  is  matter 
for  conjecture.  Therefore  Brie11  bounds  the  date  of  com- 
position by  1521,  and  owing  to  the  mention  of  Luther,  at 
the  other  extreme  by  1518.  In  this  connection,  conse- 
quently, it  is  necessary  to  consider  the  phrasing  in  the 

10  Brie,  op.  tit.,  shows  that  v.  905  is  an  allusion  to  the  mayoralty 
of  Sir  John  Mundy,  who  became  mayor  October  28th,  1522. 
"Bide,  op.  tit.,  p.  85. 


-»_  ~ . 505 


THE   DATING   OF    SKELTON  S    SATIRES 

Garland.  Under  Henry  VIII  the  open  expression  of 
political  opinion  was  unsafe.  That  in  the  avowed  list  of 
his  writing  Skelton  should  intrude  upon  public  notice 
poems  in  which  he  attacked  the  powerful  minister  of  the 
King  seems  almost  incredible.  Yet  in  the  Garland  he 
mentions, 

Item  the  Popingay,  that  hath  in  commendacyoun 
Ladyes  and  gentylwomen  suche  as  deseruyd, 
And  suche  as  be  counterfettis  they  be  reseruyd. 

To  make  his  meaning  perfectly  clear,  a  side  note  is  added : 
"  Fac  cum  concilio,  et  in  aeternum  non  peccabis ;  Sala- 
mon  " !  This  must  refer  to  Speke,  Parrot,  that  has  the 
verse  (280): 

Go,  litell  quayre,  namyd  the  Popagay. 

On  the  other  hand,  unless  he  had  written  two  poems  both 
called  the  Popingay,  SpeJce,  Parrot  by  no  possible  con- 
struction can  be  taken  to  refer  to  ladies  of  any  kind.  The 
unavoidable  inference  is  that,  feeling  that  he  has  gone 
too  far,  he  deliberately  suggests  a  wrong  interpretation. 
But  there  is  no  misinterpretation  possible  in  Why  Come. 
It  is  an  open  attack  upon  Wolsey  and  his  policy.  There- 
fore he  omits  all  mention  of  it,  merely  remarking  that  the 
list  is  not  complete.  Colin  Clout,  on  the  contrary,  is  men- 
tioned by  name: 

Also  the  Tunnynge  of   Elinour  Rummyng, 

With  Colyn  Clowt,  lohnn  lue,  with  loforth  lack; 

To   make   suche   trifels    it   asketh   sum   konnyng, 
In  honest  myrth  parde  requyreth  no  lack; 

And  after  cuenyauns  as  the  world  goos, 

It  is  no  foly  to  vse  the  Walshemannys  hoos. 

The  side  notes  are :  "  Quis  stabit  mecum  adversus  of>er- 
antes  inquitatem?  Pso.  Arrident  melius  seria  picta 
jocis:  In  fabulis  Aesopi."  In  other  words,  he  does  not 

3 


506  JOHN    M.    BEBDAN 

feel  it  necessary  to  veil  his  meaning  as  in  Speke,  Parrot 
nor  to  omit  it  as  in  Why  Come.  The  assumption  is  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  poem  that  would  offend  any  par- 
ticular individual.  Therefore  it  is  classified  with  Elinour 
Rumming,  where  general  satire  is  used  for  "  honest 
mirth." 

Yet  tradition  asserts  that  the  satire  in  Colin  Clout  is 
not  general,  but  particular,  and  that  it  is  directed  against 
Wolsey.  The  tale  is  told  by  Francis  Thynne  in  his 
Animadversions: 12 

....  whereupon  the  kinge  bydd  hym  goo  his  waye,  and  feare 
not.  All  whiche  not  withstandinge,  my  father  was  called  in  ques- 
tione  by  the  Bysshoppes,  and  heaved  at  by  Cardinall  Wolsey,  his 
olde  enymye  for  manye  causes,  but  mostly  for  that  my  father  had 
furthered  'Skelton  to  publishe  his  'Collen  Cloute'  againste  the  Car- 
dinall, the  moste  parte  of  whiche  Booke  was  compiled  in  my  fathers 
bowse  at  Erithe  in  Kente. 

Francis  Thynne' s  memory  has  played  him  false  in  stating 
that  Colin  Clout  was  composed  at  Erith,  because  his  father 
did  not  buy  the  house  there  until  two  years  after  Skelton' s 
death.  This  confusion  is  immaterial,  since  it  involves 
only  the  date  of  the  purchase  of  the  Erith  house.  As 
Thynne  was  born  there  fifteen  years  later,  to  him  it  was 
the  home  of  his  father  from  time  immemorial.  Yet  the 
fact  of  the  conflict  of  the  elder  Thynne  with  the  Cardinal, 
together  with  the  reason  for  that  conflict,  would  be  pre- 
served in  the  family  memory.  Therefore  unless  Skelton 
had  written  two  poems  while  staying  with  Thynne  senior, 
and  the  son  confused  them, — an  hypothesis  that  seems 
quite  unwarranted, — Colin  Clout  must  be  considered  as 
directed  against  Wolsey.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact 
that  among  the  Lansdown  MSS.  (762.  fol.  75 ),13  lines  462- 

13  Francis    Thynne's    Animadversions    upon    Speght's    first     ( 1598 
A.  D.)  Edition  of  Chaucer's  Workes,  Chaucer  Society,  1875,  p.  10. 
"Quoted  by  Dyce,  I,  p.  329. 


THE   DATING   OF    SKELTON's    SATIRES  507 

480  of  Colin  Clout  are  given  as  an  independent  poem, 
endorsed  "  The  profecy  of  Skelton,  1529."  And  this  pas- 
sage, prophesying 

A  fatall  fall  of  one 

That  shuld  syt  on  a  trone, 

And  rule  all  thynges  alone.  .  . 

must  refer  to  Wolsey. 

An  independent  testimony  that  in  Colin  Clout  Skelton 
aims  at  Wolsey  is  afforded  by  William  Bullein.14  In  1564, 
if  not  earlier,15  he  wrote  a  Dialogue  against  the  Feuer 
Pestilence,  in  which  amongst  others,  he  thus  mentions 
Skelton: 

Skelton  satte  in  the  corner  of  a  Filler  with  a  Frostie  bitten 
face,  frownyng,  and  is  scante  yet  cooled  of  the  hotte  burnyng 
Cholour  kindeled  againste  the  cankered  Cardinall  Wolsey;  wrytyng 
many  sharpe  Disticchons  with  bloudie  penne  againste  hym,  and 
sente  them  by  the  infernal  riuers  Styx,  Flegiton,  and  Acheron  by 
the  Feriman  of  helle,  called  Charon,  to  the  saied  Cardinall. 

How  the  Cardinall  came  of  nought, 
And  his  Prelacie  solde  and  bought; 
And  where  suche  Prelates  bee 
Sprong  of  lowe  degree, 
And  spirituall  dignitee, 
Farewell  benignitee, 
Farewell  simplicitee, 
Farewell  good  charitee! 

Thus  paruum  literatus 
Came  from  Rome  gatus, 
Doctour  dowpatus, 
Scante  a  Bachelaratus :  , 

And  thus  Skelton  did  ende 
With  Wolsey  his  frende. 

These  fourteen  lines,  with  of  course  the  exception  of  the 
final  couplet,  are  made  up  of  two  separate  passages  from 

0 

14  Early  English  Text  Society,  Extra  Series,  Ln,  p.  16. 

15  The  earliest  edition  reads  "newly  corrected." 


508  JOHN    M.    BEBDAET 

Colin  Clout,  vs.  585-594  and  vs.  797-802.  But  in  the 
Dyce  the  reading  differs.  The  first  couplet  is 

Howe   prelacy    is    solde    and   bought, 
And  come  up  of  nought. 

And  the  second  passage  reads: 

But  doctour  Bullatus, 
Parum  litteratus, 
At   the  brode  gatus 
Doctour  Daupatus.  .  .  . 

Neither  has  any  reference  to  Wolsey.  As  is  evidenced 
by  this  and  the  "  Profecy,"  Colin  Clout  circulated  in 
fragments  where  the  satire  was  more  open. 

And  the  internal  evidence  tells  the  same  tale.  It  is 
hard  to  understand  such  lines  as  (990-1006) 

It  is  a  besy  thyng 

For  one  man  to  rule  a  kyng 

Alone  and  make  rekenyng, 

To  gouerne  ouer  all 

And  rule  a  realme  royall 

By  one  mannes  verrey  wyt;  .  .  . 

For  I  rede  a  preposycyon, 

Cum  regibus  amicare, 

Et  omnibus  dominari, 

Et  supra  te  pravare; 

Wherfore  he  hathe  good  ure 

That  can  hymselfe  assure 

How  fortune  wyll  endure 

in  any  other  sense  than  as  an  attack  upon  Wolsey.  Altho 
Kele's  edition  reads  "ging"  (obs.  a  crowd),  the  Latin 
lines  make  the  allusion  almost  as  pointed.  Some  of  Colin 
Clout  certainly  was  read  as  an  attack  upon  Wolsey. 

If  the  reasoning  up  to  this  point  has  been  accurate,  it 
follows  that  one  version  of  the  poem  was  written  previous 
to  the  composition  of  the  Garland,  namely  the  portions 
in  which  Skelton  objects  to  the  conditions  of  the  Church 


THE   DATING   OF    SKELTOlT's    SATIKES  509 

in  general,  and  that,  as  lie  did  in  Speke,  Parrot,  upon  this 
he  grafted  other  portions  definitely  aimed  at  Wolsey. 
The  present  problem  is  by  detecting  the  Wolsey  additions 
to  date  the  final  composition  of  the  poem.  The  first  160 
lines  purport  to  give  the  common  criticism  against  the 
Church.  Then  follows  a  passage  (162-185)  in  which  the 
clergy  are  urged  to  remember  the  example  of  St.  Thomas 
a  Becket, 

Thomas  manum  mittit  ad  fortia, 
Spernit  damna,  spernit  opprobria, 
Nulla  Thomam  frangit  injuria. 

But  as  St.  Thomas  was  killed  defending  the  rights  of  the 
Church  against  the  secular  power,  the  passage,  to  be  ap- 
propriate, must  refer  to  a  similar  conflict.  The  occasion 
is  found  in  the  events  of  1523.  The  clergy  of  the  Con- 
vocation, summoned  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
were  on  the  first  day  of  the  meeting  in  St.  Paul's  cited  to 
appear  before  Wolsey  by  virtue  of  his  legatine  authority. 
And,  after  a  protest,  on  the  2nd  of  June  they  voted  a  tax 
"  being  no  less  than  fifty  per  cent,  income  tax,  to  be  paid 
by  installments  in  five  years."  16  Great  was  the  indigna- 
tion of  the  clergy  over  this  assertion  of  the  legatine  power 
by  Wolsey,  "whiche  was  never  sene  before  in  England, 
wherof  master  Skelton,  a  mery  Poet  wrote 

Gentle  Paule  laie  doune  thy  swearde: 

For  Peter  of  Westminster  hath  shaven  thy  beard."  " 

As  Skelton,  as  we  know  from  Albany,  considered  the  war 
mismanaged,  this  wholesale  appropriation  of  church  prop- 
erty naturally  caused  him  to  protest. 

Lines  376-438  show  how  religious  men  and  nuns  are 

"Brewer,  Reign  of  Henry  VIII,  I,  p.  494. 

"Hall's  King  Henry  the  VIII,  ed.  by  Charles  Whibley,  I,  p.  287. 


510  JOHN    M.    BEEDAN 

turned  from  their  houses  and  forced  to  wander.  The 
religious  establishments  are  torn  down,  the  leads  and  bells 
sold,  and  the  property  confiscated,  to  the  detriment  of  the 
souls  of  the  founders. 

What  coulde  the  Turke  do  more 

With  all  his  false  lore, 

Turke,   Sarazyn,   or  Jew? 

I  reporte  me  to  you, 

O  mercyful  Jesu, 

You  supporte  and  resuce, 

My   style  for  to  dyrecte, 

It  may  take  some  effecte! 

In  1524  Wolsey  procured  from  Clement  YII  bulls  to  en- 
able him  to  found  Cardinal  College  at  Oxford  and  to 
endow  it  by  the  suppression  of  a  number  of  small  mon- 
asteries. "  The  dissolution  of  these  monasteries,  how- 
ever, small  as  they  were,  was  not  liked  in  the  country; 
and  at  Bayham,  a  Premonstratensian  house  in  Sussex, 
the  country  people,  disguising  themselves,  put  the  can- 
ons in  again  for  a  time — an  outrage  which,  of  course, 
was  duly  punished."  18  Colin  Clout,  here,  is  merely  echo- 
ing popular  sentiment. 

Still  more  curious  is  the  passage  936-981.     Here  the 
bishops  are  accused  of 

Buylding  royally 
Theyr  mancyons  suryously, 
With  turrettes  and  with  toures, 
With  halles  and  with  boures, 
Stretchynge    to    the    starres, 
With  glasse  wyndowes  and  barres. 

Of  course  the  only  bishop  that  might  be  said  to  be  build- 
ing "  royally  "  is  Wolsey  with  Hampton  Court — an  edifice 

"James  Gairdner,  The  English  Ohurch,  p.  81. 


THE   DATING    OF    SKELTON^S    SATIRES  511 

that  suits  the  description.     Within,  the  building  is  hung 
with  tapestry  described  in  lines  942-973 : 

Hangynge  aboute  the  walles 
Clothes  of  golde  and  palles, 
Arras  of  ryche  aray, 
Fresshe  as  flours  in  May; 
Wyth  dame  Dyana  naked; 
Howe  lusty  Venus  quaked, 
And  howe  Cupyde  shaked 
.  His  dart,  and  bent  his  bowe 
For  to  shote  a  crowe 
At  her  tyrly  tyrlowe; 
And  howe  Parys  of  Troy 
Daunced  a  lege  de  moy, 
Made  lusty  sporte  and  ioy 
With  dame  Helyn  the  quene; 
With  suche  storyes  bydene 
Their  chambres  well   besene; 
With  triumphes  of  Cesar, 
And    of    Pompeyus    war, 
Of  renowne  and  of  fame 
By  them  to  get  a  name: 
!Nowe  all  the  worlde  stares, 
How   they   ryde   in  goodly   chares, 
Conueyed    by    olyphantes, 
With    lauryat    garlantes, 
And    by    vnycornes 
With  their  semely  homes; 
Vpon  these  beestes  rydynge, 
Naked  bodyes  strydynge, 
With  wanton  wenches  winkyng. 
Nowe  truly,  to  my  thynkynge, 
That  is  a  speculacyon 
And  a  mete  meditacyon 
For  prelates  of  estate,  .  .  . 

These  lines  apparently  describe,  as  was  pointed  out  by 
Ernest  Law,19  a  definite  set  of  tapestries  at  Hampton 

|( 

19  A  History  of  Hampton  Court  Palace,  2nd  ed.  1890,  i,  pp.  64-65. 
As  sketches  of  the  designs  are  here  given,  the  reader  may  see  for 


512 


JOHN    M.    BERDAN 


Court.  "  Of  these  six  triumphs  (Wolsey  having  dupli- 
cates of  those  of  Time  and  Eternity),  we  at  once  identify 
three,  namely,  those  of  Death,  Renown,  and  Time,  as  still 
remaining  at  Hampton  Court  in  Henry  VIII's  Great 
Watching  or  Guard  Chamber;  while  the  other  three — 
of  Love,  Chastity,  and  Eternity,  or  Divinity, — complete 
the  set  of  six  designs,  which  were  illustrative,  in  an  alle- 
gorical form,  of  Petrarch's  Triumphs.  ...  In  each  piece 
a  female,  emblematic  of  the  influence  whose  triumph  is 
celebrated,  is  shown  enthroned  on  a  gorgeously  magnifi- 
cent car  drawn  by  elephants,  or  unicorns,  or  bulls,  richly 
caparisoned  and  decorated;  while  around  them  throng 
a  host  of  attendants  and  historical  personages,  typical  of 
the  triumph  portrayed.  Thus,  in  the  Triumph  of  Fame 
or  Renown,  we  have  figures  representing  Julius  Caesar 
and  Pompey;  and  in  the  first  aspect  of  the  Triumph  of 
Chastity  we  see  Venus,  driven  by  naked  cupids,  and  sur- 
rounded by  heroines  of  amorous  renowned,  attacked  by 
Chastity.  The  reader  will  now  recognize  how  pointed  is 
the  reference  to  these  tapestries  in  the  following  lines  of 
Skelton's  satire.  .  ."  Unless  there  chanced  to  be  in  Eng- 
land and  familiar  to  Skelton  another  set  of  tapestries 
allegorically  representing  Petrarch's  triumphs — an  hy- 
pothesis that  does  not  seem  probable — Skelton's  lines  refer 
to  these.  But  these  appear  in  Wolsey ?s  inventory  as 
"  hangings  bought  of  the  'xecutors  of  my  lord  of  Durham 
anno  xiiii0  Reg.  H.  viii."  But  as  Ruthall,  Bishop  of 
Durham,  died  February  4,  1523,  the  passage  is  either  an 
attack  upon  Ruthall,  or  the  list  in  the  Garland  was  written 
at  the  earliest  only  eight  months  before  it  was  published 
by  Hawkes.  Neither  alternative  seems  very  probable. 

himself  the  accuracy  of  Skelton's  description.  Mr.  Law,  however, 
gives  no  indication  of  the  difficulty  in  the  dating  caused  by  his 
discovery. 


THE   DATING   OF    SKELTON's    SATIRES  513 

Altho  Ruthall  caused  to  be  built  the  great  chamber  at 
Bishop  Aukland,  the  expression  "  royally "  seems  over- 
done to  apply  to  that ;  nor  does  eight  months'  intermission 
between  the  composition  of  a  poem  and  the  publication 
of  it  seem  in  accordance  with  the  leisurely  methods  of 
printing  used  in  the  16th  century.  The  simplest  expla- 
nation of  the  difficulty,  therefore,  is  the  assumption  that 
there  were  two  versions  of  the  poem.  The  first  was  a 
general  attack  upon  ecclesiastical  conditions,  and  as  such 
was  alluded  to  in  the  Garland.  Skelton  then  added  pas- 
sages specifically  attacking  Wolsey,  altho  not  by  name. 
The  result  of  this  reticence  was,  however,  that  as  of  Wolsey 
alone  could  it  be  said  (605-6), 

And  upon  you  ye  take 

To  rule  bothe  kynge  and  kayser, 

the  16th  century  read  Wolsey  into  the  whole  poem,  even 
into  those  parts  that  originally  had  no  application  to  him. 
Consequently  Wolsey  was  held  up  to  ridicule  as  the  type 
of  the  sensual  luxury-loving  prelate  that  sacrificed  the 
needs  of  the  Church  to  the  demands  of  the  State.  And  it 
is  on  this  side  that  Wolsey 's  career  cannot  be  defended.20 
Altho  Wolsey's  statesmanship,  as  revealed  in  the  State 
Papers,  may  justify  Brewer's  enthusiasm,  his  sacrifice  of 
the  Church  to  the  State  explains  the  attitude  of  Skelton. 
This  also  explains  why  Wolsey  could  afford  to  overlook, 
provided  that  he  ever  saw  it,  the  heavy  personal  invective 
and  the  attack  upon  his  foreign  policy  in  Why  Come.  The 
first  was  much  exaggerated  and  the  second  misunder- 
stood. And  neither  greatly  interested  the  country  at  large. 
The  personal  vices  of  rulers  in  fact  rather  tend  toward 

| 

80 1  do  not  understand  why  Bridgett  in  the  Life  of  Blessed  Thomas 
More  and  the  Abbe"  Gasquet  in  The  Eve  of  the  Reformation  should 
ignore  the  testimony  of  pre-Reformation  writers. 


514 


JOHN    M.    BERDAN 


enhancing  their  popularity  by  making  them  more  human ; 
and  the  average  Englishman  of  the  time  had  not  the  infor- 
mation at  hand  to  enable  him  to  discuss  Wolsey' s  foreign 
policy.  But  when  he  saw  the  Church,  a  national  insti- 
tution that  he  loved,  endangered,  Skelton's  protest  was 
merely  the  expression  of  his  own  convictions.  In  that 
lies  the  power  of  the  poem. 

The  obvious  objection  to  the  preceding  dating  of  the 
poems  and  the  consequent  interpretation  of  them  lies  in 
the  fact  that  in  the  Dyce  are  four  pieces  that  state  ex- 
plicitly that  they  were  written  for  Wolsey,  The  Boke  of 
Three  Fooles,  Lautre  Enuoy  affixed  to  the  Garland,  an 
Enuoy  affixed  to  Albany.,  and  the  dedication  to  the  Reply- 
cacion.  The  dilemma  is  that  after  he  had  composed  bitter 
attacks  and  while  he  was  still  composing  them  he  also  was 
apparently  in  most  friendly  relations  with  his  enemy. 
The  situation  presupposes  both  a  moral  weakness  on  the 
part  of  the  author  and  a  general  obtuseness  on  the  part  of 
the  Cardinal.  To  avoid  this  inference,  scholars  have  sug- 
gested a  number  of  explanations,  none  of  which  is  com- 
pletely satisfactory.21  To  attack  the  question  anew,  there 
needs  must  be  a  further  analysis.  Of  the  four  cases  men- 
tioned above,  where  Skelton  places  himself  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Wolsey,  the  first  three  group  into  one  class.  The 
passages  referring  to  Wolsey  appear  for  the  first  time  in 
Marshe's  edition  of  Skelton's  works,  in  1568,  nearly  forty 
years  after  Skelton's  death.  In  this  interval  of  tran- 
scription it  would  be  reasonable  to  infer  that  errors 
should  creep  in.  That  this  is  actually  the  case  is  shown 
by  Brie  by  indicating  the  Boke  of  Three  Fooles  as  the 
work  of  Watson,  a  translator  of  Droyn's  French  prose 

21  Brie,  op.  cit.y  p.  13;  Koelbing,  Zur  Charakteristik  John  Skel- 
tons,  p.  140;  Thiimmel,  Studien  uber  John  Skelton,  p.  44. 


THE   DATING    OF    SKELTON's    SATIRES  515 

version  of  Locher's  Latin  version  of  Brant's  Narren- 
schiff.  As  this  was  published  in  London  in  1509,  the 
passage  in  question  is  not  by  Skelton  nor  could  his  con- 
temporaries have  thought  so.  This  gives  a  curious  in- 
sight into  Marshe's  critical  ability.  Of  the  other  two,  it 
is  worth  comment  that  the  original  edition  of  the  Garland,, 
1523,  has  no  such  envoy  to  the  Cardinal.  Therefore  until 
these  are  shown  to  be  the  work  of  Skelton,  it  seems  rather 
a  waste  of  time  to  discuss  them. 

This  does  not  apply,  however,  to  the  dedication  to  the 
Replycacion.  This  was  printed  by  Pynson,  who  died  in 
1530.  It  is  therefore  practically  contemporaneous.  The 
poem  itself,  by  the  allusion  to  the  punishment  of  the  Cam- 
bridge scholars,  Thomas  Bilney  and  Thomas  Arthur, 
must  be  dated  as  late  as  1527.  As  the  latest  possible  date 
of  publication  is  so  near  the  latest  possible  date  of  com- 
position, there  is  little  margin  of  time  for  error  to  occur. 
Consequently  the  inference  seems  unavoidable  that  the 
dedication  to  Wolsey  in  this  case  is  genuine.  The 
probable  explanation  seems  to  have  been  found  by  Mr. 
SeBoyar,22  who  found  in  this  report  of  the  visitation 
of  Bishop  Nicke  to  the  Cathedral  of  Norwich,  1526,  that 
a  Dominus  Johannes  Shelton  had  been  accused  of  gravia 
crimina  et  nephanda  peccata.  The  identification  of  this 
Shelton  with  the  poet,  whose  name  was  sometimes  spelled 
so,  seems  plausible.  Skelton,  who  traditionally  had  had 
trouble  with  Bishop  Nicke,  finding  himself  accused,  turn- 
ed even  to  his  old  enemy,  the  all-powerful  minister.  But 
this  assumes  that  Wolsey  had  not  understood  Speke,  Par- 
rot,, or  seen  Why  Come.  Probably,  therefore,  they  were 
circulating  in  manuscript.  This  also  justifies  the  very 
late  dating  of  Colin  Clout.  When  this  came  into  Wolsef  7s 

•  Modern  Language  Notes,  December,  1913. 


516  JOHN    M.    BEEDAN 

hands,  lie  naturally  enough  refused  his  aid  to  Skelton, 
who  therefore  took  refuge  with  Islip  in  the  sanctuary  of 
Westminster.  Thus,  while  this  is  entirely  inferential,  it 
is  also  plausible. 

The  dating  of  the  five  satires  then  is  as  follows: 

Speke,  Parrot  1517-18. 

Decastichon,  et  al.  1518. 

Why  Come  Ye  not  to  Court?  1521-1523. 

Duke  of  Albany  The  end  of  1523. 

Colin  Clout  ? — 1524-5. 

Replycacion  1527. 

JOHN  M.  BEKDAN-. 


XXII.— JAUFRE  RUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF 
DREAMS 

The  Provencal  biographer's  account  of  Jaufre  Rudel's 
dying  visit  to  the  "  faraway  lady "  was  first  seriously 
called  in  dispute  by  E.  Stengel.  Afterward,  Gaston 
Paris  *•  disposed  of  the  whole  legend,  as  well  as  of  the 
general  reliability  of  the  Provengal  biographers,  whose 
testimony  had  been  accepted  without  question  half  a  cen- 
tury before  by  Fauriel  and  others.  Monaci,  while  granting 
the  legendary  character  of  "  Melissenda,"  attempted  to 
identify  Jaufre  RudePs  beloved  with  Eleanor  of  Aqui- 
taine.2  Appel,  arguing  from  the  number  of  religious 
phrases  occurring  in  Jaufre' s  poems,  concluded  that  the 
lady  of  his  devotions  was  the  Virgin.3  Appel's  theory, 
supported  as  it  is  by  a  vast  erudition,  is  confuted  in  my 
opinion  by  P.  Savj-Lopez.4  Giulio  Bertoni  would  adopt 
a  middle  ground  between  those  who,  like  Appel,  maintain 
the  idealism  of  Jaufre' s  love,  or  like  Monaci,  believe  that 
his  passion  was  fixed  upon  a  woman  of  earth,  more  or  less 
identified  by  allusions  in  his  verse.5  Ramiro  Ortiz  would 
accept  the  conclusions  of  Monaci,  etc.,  admitting  the  re- 

1  Revue  Historique,  mi   (1893),  pp.  225  ff. 

*Rendiconti  delta  Reale  Accademia  del  Lincei,  Serie  IV,  Scienze 
Morali,  etc.,  vol.  n  (1893),  pp.  927  ff. 

8  Archiv  fur  das  Studium  der  neueren  Sprachen  und  Litteraturen, 
cvn  (1901),  pp.  338  ff. 

*Rendiconti,  Serie  V,  vol.  XI   (1902),  pp.  212-225. 

5  Zeitschrift  fur  Romanische  PMlologie,  xxxv  (1911),  pp.  533-542. 
Bertoni's  position,  which  might  suffer  from  being  too  rapidly  gener- 
alized, is  quoted  here  from  p.  533 :  "  6  un  fatto  die  Pimagine  terrena, 
che  si  proflla  dietro  i  versi  del  soave  sire  di  Blaia,  appare  qps! 
trasparente  e  idealizzata,  da  perdere  quasi  del  tutto  i  caratteri 
della  realta,  astraendosi  nelle  region!  della  fantasia  e  dei  sogni." 

517 


518  OLiisr  H.  MOORE 

ality  of  the  lady,  but  feels  that  either  Jaufre  Budel  was 
directly  influenced  by  certain  passages  of  William  of 
Poitiers,  or  else  some  of  the  minstrels  who  sang  Jaufre's 
poetry  made  interpolations  borrowed  from  William.6 

Before  venturing  to  present  my  own  view  regarding 
the  identity  of  the  faraway  lady,  it  may  be  in  order  to 
essay  a  few  general  remarks  concerning  historical  method. 
The  conclusions  of  Graston  Paris  about  the  unreliability 
of  the  Provencal  biographers  appear  to  have  found  uni- 
versal acceptance,  and  reviewers,  such  as  Schultz-Gora, 
have  contented  themselves  with  repeating  and  enlarging 
upon  the  opinions  which  he  so  admirably  expressed. 
While  uniformly  condemning  the  razos  and  the  vidas, 
however,  many  critics  have  proceeded  to  rely  heavily 
upon  the  text  of  the  poems,7  although,  in  perhaps  the 
majority  of  cases,  this  text  is  itself  the  basis  of  the  dis- 
credited biographies.  Several  instances  could  be  cited 
where  an  entire  episode  in  the  supposedly  scientific  biog- 
raphy of  a  -troubadour  has  been  founded  on  a  solitary, 
and  doubtful,  reading  of  one  or  two  verses. 

Let  me  dare  to  say  it:  the  testimony  of  the  poetry  of 
the  troubadours  must  be  received  with  almost  as  great 
caution  as  that  of  the  razos,  and  for  nearly  the  same 
reasons.  Gaston  Paris,  in  his  splendid  article  on  the 
biography  of  Jaufre  Rudel,  refers  to  a  stock  legend  which 
attached  itself  to  several  of  the  troubadours,  and  was  even 
found  in  the  Cento  Novelle  Antiche.  May  I  note  a  single, 
but  typical  case  of  the  same  sort  in  the  poetry  of  the  trou- 
badours ?  Bertran  de  Born,  in  order  to  find  a  lady  equal 

«  Zeit schrift ,  op.  tit.,  pp.  543-554. 

7  Schultz-Gora,  Archiv  filr  das  Studium  der  neueren  Sprachen  und 
Litteraturen,  xcn  (1894),  p.  225,  says  that  the  razos  and  vidas 
"  miissen  fortwahrend  durch  die  Lieder  selbst  .  .  .  kontrolliert  wer- 
den  .  .  ."  Can  the  blind  lead  the  blind? 


JAUFRE  RUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF  DREAMS      519 

to  Maeuz  de  Montanhac,  imagines  a  being  composed  of 
the  virtues  of  a  multitude  of  other  ladies. 

Frescha  color  natural 
Pren,  bels  Cembelis,  de  vos 
E'l  doutz  esguart  amoros 
E  fatz  gran  sobrieira 

Quar  re'i  lais, 

Qu'anc  res  de  be  no  us  sofrais; 
Mi  dons  na  Elis  deman 
Son  adrech  parlar  gaban, 
Que'm  do  a  mi  dons  ajuda, 
Puois  non  er  fada  ni  muda,  etc.8 

The  same  idea  is  found  in  a  poem  by  Elias  de  Barjols, 
who  nevertheless  reverses  the  process  and  imagines  a  com- 
posite gentleman,  instead  of  the  lady  fantastically  con- 
ceived by  Bertran  de  Born. 

Pus  negus  no  es  tan  pros 
Que  us  o  digua,  ni  que  ja  sapcha  tan 
Que  vos  o  aus  dir,  ni  que  vos  o  man. 

Farai  n'un  tot  nou  qu'es  bos, 

E  penrai  de  las  faissos 
De  quadaun  de  las  melhors  qu'auran, 
Tro  vos  aiatz  cavalier  benestan. 
N  Aymars  me  don  sa  coyndia, 

EN  Trencaleos 
Sa  gensozia,  EN  Randos 
Donar  qu'es  la  senhoria 

El  Dalfis  sos  belhs  respos, 

EN  Peyr  cuy  es  Monleos 
Do  m  son  guabar,  e  volrai  d'EN  Brian 
Cavallairia,  e'l  sen  vuelh  d'EN  Bertran.9 

That  the  troubadours  had  a  common  stock  of  ideas, 
particularly  the  expressions  which  connected  love  with  the 
feudal  system,  and  that  these  ideas  found  among  them 

0 

8  Bertran  de  Born,  ed.  'Stimming   (1892),  no.  32,  w.  21  ff. 
'Raynouard,  Choix  de  Poesies  des  Troubadours,  m,  p.  351. 


520  OLIN   H.    MOOEE 

endless  repetition,  is  too  obvious  to  have  escaped  frequent 
comment.  The  subject  is  excellently  discussed,  for  ex- 
ample, by  Gaspary,  in  connection  with  the  Sicilian  School. 
In  eulogies — and  Provencal  poetry  is  studded  with  eulo- 
gies— one  may  find  numberless  repetitions.  Compare,  for 
example,  the  two  celebrated  laments  by  Bertran  de  Born 
on  the  Young  King,  "  Mon  chan  fenisc  ab  dol  et  ab  mal 
traire,"  10  and  "  Si  tuit  li  dol  e'l  plor  e'lh  marrimen,"  ll 
with  the  plank  of  Gaucelm  Faidit  over  Richard  Coeur- 
de-Lion,  "  Fortz  chauza  es,  que  tot  lo  maior  dan."  12 

Ramiro  Ortiz,  it  has  been  noted,  has  remarked  on  a 
close  connection  between  the  language  of  Jaufre  Rudel 
and  that  of  William  of  Poitiers.  He  might  have  added 
that  both  the  thought  and  language  of  Jaufre  Rudel  bear 
a  marked  resemblance  to  the  commonplaces  found  in  many 
other  poets.13  Jaufre  has  the  banalities  of  feudal  ser- 

10  Stimming,  ed.  1892,  no.  8. 
v-Op.  cit.,  no.  9. 

12  Raynouard,  op.  cit.,  rv,  pp.  54-56. 

13  Gaston   Paris   says:    "  Ses    poesies   ont    de"ja  .  .  .  un   caract&re 
conventionnel :  il  n'y  f aut  pas  chercher  1'expression  naive  et  spontane"e 
de    sentiments   vrais;    d'ailleurs,    la   forme   rythmique   en    est   tres 
artistique,  le  style  en  est  tres  etudie",  et  les  formules  convenues  y 
abondent:  toutes,  sauf  une,  commencent  par  cette  evocation  du  prin- 
temps  et  de  ses  manifestations  typiques  qui  e"tait  le  style  dans  la 
poe"sie  courtoise.     Ce  sont  des  exercices  de  Pesprit  et  non  des  effu- 
sions du  coeur  .  .  ."    Op.  cit.,  p.  229. 

Nevertheless,  for  the  poem  numbered  I  in  the  collection  of 
Stimming,  Paris  is  far  more  indulgent.  He  thinks  that  Jaufre 
Rudel  here  "  trouve  m§me  des  accents  d'une  since'rite"  rare  dans  la 
po6sie  courtoise.  .  .  ."  (Op.  cit.,  p.  239).  Savj-Lopez  declares 
that  the  poet  "  f reme  di  sincera  passione.  .  .  ."  (Op.  cit.,  p.  218). 
The  following  comparisons  may  serve  to  show  that  even  this  poem 
of  Jaufre's,  which  has  won  praise  for  its  freshness  and  sincerity, 
is  quite  as  commonplace  as  the  others. 

D'un'  amistat  soi  envejos, 

car  no  sai  joja  plus  valen.      (Jaufre  Rudel,  ed.  Stim- 
ming, I,  vv.  8,  9.) 


JATJFRE    RUDEL   AND    THE    LADY    OF   DREAMS  521 

vice,  as  Savj -Lopez  has  observed — the  confidant,  and  the 
excessive  humility,  which  prompts  him  twice  to  express  a 


Per  una  joja  m'esbaudis 
D'una  qu'anc  re  non  amiey  tan. 

(Cercamon,  ed.  De Jeanne,  Annales  du 

Midi,  xvn,  1905,  n,  w.  13,  14.) 

....  que  bonam  fos 
Sim  fazia  damor  prezen. 

(Jaufre  Rudel,  i,  vv.  10,  11.) 

Toz  mos  talenz  m'ademplira 
Ma  donna,  sol  d'un  bais  m'aizis. 

(Cercamon,  I,  vv.  43,  44.) 

D'aquest'  amor  soi  cossiros 
velhan  e  pueis  sompnhan  durmen. 

(Jaufre  Rudel,  I,  w.  15,  16.) 

Totz  trassalh  e  brant  e  fremis 
Per  s'amor,  dormen  o  velhan. 

(Oercamon,  n,  w.  31,  32.) 

mas  sa  beutatz  nom  val  nien, 
car  nulhs  amicx  nom  essenha 
cum  ieu  ja  n'aja  bon  saber. 

(Jaufre  Rudel,  I,   19-21.     For  the  conventional  character  of  the 
confidant  here  alluded  to,  cf.  Savj-Lopez,  op.  cit.,  p.  214,  and  note  1.) 

E  domna  nom  pot  ren  valer 

Per  riquessa  ni  per  poder 

Se  jois  d'amor  no  1'espira.    (Cercamon,  I,  w.  19-21.) 

Jaufre  Rudel  dares  avow  his  love  to  his  lady.  Cercamon  does 
so  also,  but  apologizes  for  this  violation  of  the  rules  of  the  courts 
of  love: 

Ges  tan   leu   no   Penquesira 

S'eu  sabes  cant  leu  s'afranquis.     (i,  vv.  15-16.) 

Bernard  de  Ventadour  restrains  himself  with  difficulty  from  the 
rashness  of  the  others: 

Meravilh  me  cum  puesc  durar 

Que  no'lh  demostre  mon  talan.     (Mahn,  Werke,  I,  p. 

Jaufre  Rudel  speaks  of  actually  going  to  his  lady: 

que  quand  ieu  vauc  ves  lieis  corren, 

vejaire  m'es,  qu'a  reverses 

m'en  torn,  e  qu'ella  m'an  fugen.     (i,  w.  23-25.) 

4 


522  OLIN    H.    MOOEE 

desire  to  go  to  his  lady  disguised  as  a  pilgrim.14     Once  he 
would  steal  in  as  a  thief: 

Lai  n'irai  al  sieu  repaire 
laire.15 

But  substantially  the  same  idea  is  expressed  by  Bernard 
de  Ventadour: 

Ben  la  volgra  sola  trobar 

Que  dormis  o'n  fezes  semblan, 

Per  qu'ieu  Pembles  un  dous  baisar.™ 

A  similar  banality  is  to  be  seen  in  the  use  of  the  word 
"  ric."     Jaufre  Rudel  writes : 

Ric  me  fai  la  noig  en  somnian 

can 
m'es  vis  q'e  mos  bratz  1'enclauza.17 


Bernard  de  Ventadour  just  falls  short  of  the  same  experience: 
Per  pauc  me  tenc  qu'ieu  enves  lieys  no  cor. 

(I.  o.) 
Jaufre  Rudel  declares: 

De  tal  dompna  sui  cobeitos, 

a  cui  non  aus  dir  mon  talen, 

anz  quan  remire  sas  faissos, 

totz  lo  cors  m'en  vai  esperden.     (i,  w.  29-32.) 

Cercamon    says : 

Quan   suy  ab   lieys  si   m'esbahis 

Qu'ieu  no  sai  dire  mon  talan  (11,  w.  15,  16.) 
Again : 

Tal  paor  ai  que  no'm  falhis 

No  sai  pensar  cum  la  deman.     (n,  w.  33,  34.) 

The  conventionality  of  the  description  of  the  lady  by  Jaufre 
Rudel  will  be  discussed  later. 

"  Jaufre  Rudel,  ed.  Stimming  (1873),  v,  v.  33,  and  vi,  v.  34.  Tris- 
tan resorts  to  this  disguise  to  see  Isolde.  Cf.  G.  Paris,  op.  cit.,  p. 
246,  and  n.  3. 

"G.  Bertoni,  op.  cit.,  p.  540.     As  Savj-Lopez  has  remarked,  the 
figure  of  the  thief  is  imitated  by  Pier  della  Vigna: 
Or  potess  'eo  venire  a  voi,  amorosa, 
Come  lo  larone  ascoso  e  non  paresse! 

16  Mahn,  Werke,  I,  p.  12.  1T  Bertoni,  I.  c. 


JATJFEE    BUDEL    AND    THE    LADY    OF    DBEAMS  523 

Oercamon  writes: 

E  sivals  d'aitant  m'enrequis 
Que  disses  que  ma  donna  era.1* 

Augier  declares: 

Quan  m'auretz  dat  so  don  m'avetz  dig  d'oc, 
Serai  plus  ricx  qu'el  senher  de  Marroc.19 

In  French,  there  is  Perrin  d'Angicourt,  who  declares : 

et  me  puet  plue  enrichir, 
que  faire  roi  de  Cesaire.80 

In  Spanish,  Pero  Ferrus  avers: 

Nunca    fue    Rrey    Lysuarte 
De  rriquesas  tan  bastado 
Commo  yo,  nin  tan  pagado.21 

Space  forbids  carrying  further  these  comparisons,  which 
lead  moreover  to  conclusions  only  too  obvious  to  even  the 
most  casual  reader  of  Provencal  poetry.  I  should  like, 
however,  to  lay  special  emphasis  upon  the  use  of  stock 
proper  names  among  the  troubadours.  Every  hero  was 
either  a  Roland,  an  Alexander,  or  both.  Every  lover  was 
a  Tristan.  Every  lady  that  he  wooed  was  an  Isolde, 
and  fair,  of  course.  The  same  liberty  prevailed  with  re- 
gard to  geographical  names.  The  following  is  the  list  of 
those  who  rejoiced  at  the  death  of  Richard  Cceur-de-Lion, 
as  recounted  by  Gaucelm  Faidit: 

E   Sarrazi,  Turc,  Payan   e   Persan.  .  .  ." 

Here  is  the  list  of  the  nations  who  mourned  the  Young 

King: 

Engles  e  Norman, 
Breto    e    Yrlan, 

18  Edition  Dejeanne,  Annales  du  Midi,  xvn   (1905),  I,  w.  24-^p. 

19  Raynouard,  op.  cit.,  in,  p.  105. 

30  Ed.  G.  Steffens,   (1905),  no.  3,  p.  197. 

21  El  Cancionero  de  Juan  Alfonso  de  Baena,  (1851),  no.  301. 

23  Raynouard,  Ohoix,  in,  p.  55. 


524  OLIN   H.    MOOEE 

Guia  e  Guasco 

Et  Anjaus  pren  dan;  ' 

E  Maines  e  Tors, 
Franza  tro  Compenha 
De  plorar  no*  a  tenha 
E   Flandres  de  Gan 
Tro'l  port  de  Guisan 
Ploran,  neia  li  Alaman.88 

The  following,  according  to  Giraud  de  Calanson,  lamented 
the  Infante  Ferdinand: 

.  .  .  .  li  Franses  ne  fan  dol  e  grans  critz 
E  li  Engles,  tug  silh  d'ams  los  regnatz, 
Li  Alamans,  totz  lors  ricx  parentatz, 
Senhor  del  mon,  e'l  valen  emperaire, 
E  Samsuenha,  Espanha  et  Aragos.  .  .  .** 

Perhaps  the  most  formidable  list  of  all  occurs  in  a  poem 
by  Rambaud  de  Vaqueiras,25  in  which  he  imagines  that 
ladies  from  a  great  number  of  cities  make  war  upon  Bea- 
trice, out  of  jealousy  for  her  beauty.  Obviously  what  is 
desired  in  such  roll-calls  of  names  is  resonance,  rather 
than  strict  historical  accuracy,  or  even  a  decent  regard 
for  the  bounds  of  poetic  license. 

For  this  reason,  let  us  beware  of  arguments  like  those 
of  Monaci,  who  would  assume  that  the  faraway  lady  loved 

''Bertran  de  Born,  op.  tit.,  no.  8. 

24  Raynouard,  op.  cit.,  iv,  p.  66. 

25  Raynouard,  op.  cit.,  in,  pp.  260  ff.     The  foregoing  citations  are 
only  one  step  removed  from  the  use  of  geographical  names  illustrated 
below : 

Qu'ien  no  vuolh  aver  Ravena, 

Ni  Roais, 
Ses  cujar  qu'ela  'm  retena.      (Bertran  de  Born,  op.   cit., 

no.  34,  w.  22-24.) 
Que  ses  la  vostr'  atendensa 
No  volgr'  aver  Proensa 

Ab  tota  Lombardia.  .  .  .   (Augier,  in  Raynouard,  op.  cit., 

m,  p.  105.) 


JAUFEE  EUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF  DEEAMS      525 

by  Jaufre  Rudel  was  the  mother  of  two  of  the  monarchs 
mentioned,  Eleanor  of  Aquitaine.  His  inference  is  drawn 
from  the  following  lines: 

.  .  .  .car  gens  Peitavina 
de  Beiriu  e  de  Gujana 
s'esgau  per  leis  e  Bretanha.8* 

It  is  true  that  Monaci  is  not  very  tenacious  of  his  theory, 
which  is  furthermore  sufficiently  disposed  of  hy  Appel 
on  other  grounds.27  However,  accepted  as  it  is  hy  Ramiro 
Ortiz  and  not  rejected  by  Savj -Lopez,  it  represents  a  type 
of  reasoning  all  too  frequent ;  so  that  it  seemed  proper  to 
make  the  foregoing  citations  in  order  to  demonstrate  the 
danger  of  relying  upon  a  mere  list  of  proper  names  in 
Provencal  poetry. 

More  serious  is  the  contention  of  Savj-Lopez.28  He 
says :  "  Invece  della  canzone  di  partenza  Quand  lo  ros- 
sinhols  abbiamo  la  certezza  che  il  poeta  s'e  awicinato  a  lei, 
si  che  per  la  volta  da  qualche  particolare  sulla  sua  per- 
sona (vv.  12,  39-40).  .  .  ." 

The  following  are  the  verses  referred  to: 

quel  cors  a  gras,  delgat  e  gen  (v.  12) 
and 

....  c'ajal  cors  tant  gen 

grailes,  fresca,  ab  cor  plazen.  .  .  (w.  39-40.) 

Surely  the  conventional  character  of  the  descriptions 
of  women  in  Provencal  poetry,  especially  in  the  early 
period,  has  been  sufficiently  demonstrated  by  R.  Benier.29 

26  Jaufre  Rudel,  op.  tit.,  no.  2,  w.  33-35. 
"Appel,  op.  tit.,  p.  339. 

38  Savj-Lopez,  op.  cit.,  p.  221.  0 

w  R.  Renier,  II  Tipo  Estetico  della  Donna  net  Medioevo.  Ancona, 
1881. 


526 


OLIN    H.    MOORE 


For  this  particular  description,  the  following  examples 
may, serve  to  show  its  perfect  banality: 

E'l  cors  graile,  delgat  e  fresc  e  lis.30 

So  Bernard  de  Yentadour  declares  that  his  lady  has  a 
"  cors  gens/'  31  "  sotil,"  32  with  "  fresca  color,"  33  a  "  cor 
guai."  34  Likewise  the  lady  of  Cercamon  follows  the 
regular  pattern: 

Genser  domn'  el  mon  no's  mira, 
Bell'  e  blancha  plus  c'us  hermis, 
Plus  fresca  que  rosa  ne  lis.35 

Let  these  citations  suffice  here,  as  the  tables  worked  out 
by  Eenier  seem  more  than  adequate  to  establish  the  point. 
The  reader  is  referred  to  them,  and  to  that  epitome  of  con- 
ventional descriptions  given  by  Arnaud  de  Marueil.36 
Perhaps  that  will  clear  up  the  apparent  inconsistency— 
that  Jaufre  Rudel  is  able  to  describe  a  lady  whom,  he  has 
declared,  he  is  never  to  see.37  Furthermore,  it  may  then 
appear  strange  that  Savj -Lopez  has  attempted  to  date  sev- 
eral poems  of  Jaufre  Rudel  on  the  basis  of  the  stock 
description. 

Not  only  is  the  mention  of  Poitou  or  Bretagne  insuffi- 
cient to  prove  that  Jaufre's  lady  was  Eleanor  of  Aqui- 
taine;  not  only  is  a  conventional  reference  to  the  physical 
form  of  his  lady  inadequate  to  show  that  he  ever  saw  her ; 
but  there  is  nothing  really  distinctive  about  the  fact  that 
she  was  far  away,  that  he  loved  her  without  seeing  her. 


80  Bertran  de  Born,  op.  tit.,  no.  35,  v.  35. 

81  Malm,  Werke,  I,  p.  17.  M  Op.  cit.,  p.  42. 
"Op.  tit.,  p.  45.                                M0p.  cit.,  i,  w.  36-39. 

U0p.  tit.,  p.  12.  ^Raynouard,  op.  tit.,  in,  p.  202. 

87  It  is  here  assumed  that  I.  in  the  Stimming  collection  refers  to 
the  same  person  as  II,  III,  V,  and  VI.  Gaston  Paris  inclined  to 
admit  this  as  a  possibility  (op.  tit.,  p.  252,  n.  1). 


JAUFEE  RUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF  DREAMS      527 

On  this  point  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  quote  the  words  of 
Gaston  Paris  regarding  the  French  romance  Durmart: 
"  S'eprendre  d'amour  pour  une  princesse  lointaine  sur  le 
seul  bruit  de  sa  beaute  est  un  trait  qui  se  retrouve  dans 
les  fictions  romanesques  de  tous  les  peuples,  et  il  n'y  a 
aucun  lieu  de  soupgonner,  avec  1'editeur,  dans  la  bio- 
graphie,  fabuleuse  a  notre  avis  comme  au  sien,  du  trou- 
badour Geoffroi  Rudel,  la  source  oil  notre  poete  Paurait 
puise."  38  Indeed,  that  there  are  numerous  and  wide- 
spread literary  instances  of  falling  in  love  from  hearsay, 
and  particularly  in  a  dream,  has  long  been  recognized, 
and  the  fact  was  adequately  discussed  by  Felix  Liebrecht 
as  early  as  185 1.39  He  there  refers  to  Medea,  who  ac- 
cording to  Lucian  saw  Jason  in  a  dream,  and  became 
infatuated  with  him.40  A  noble  knight  in  the  Roman  des 
Sept  Sages  dreams  of  loving  a  beautiful  lady :  "  Ne  sot, 
dont  fu,  ne  de  quel  tierre."  41  After  the  same  fashion, 
the  Chevalier  a  la  Trappe  falls  in  love  with  a  lady,  and 
she  with  him,  in  a  dream.  Neither  has  seen  the  other 
before,  but  they  recognize  each  other  from  the  dream.42 
The  knight  of  the  Red  Cross  likewise  has  a  dream : 

Me  seemed,  by  my  side  a  royall  Mayd 

Her  daintie  limbes  full  softly  down  did  lay: 

So  faire  a  creature  yet  saw  never  sunny  day.43 

88  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,  xxx   (1888),  p.  152. 

39  John  Dunlop's  Geschichte  der  Prosadichtungen  ( Felix  Liebrecht's 
translation),  Berlin,   1851,  Anm.   180.     Cf.  Schultz-Gora  in  ArcTiiv 
fur    das    Studium    der    Neueren    Sprachen    und   Litteraturen,    xcn 
(1894),  p.  220. 

40  Hermotimus,  §  73. 

41  Ed.  Heinrich  Adelbert  Keller,  Tubingen,  1836    (w.  4216 ff.). 

43  Fabliaux  ou  Oontes  du  Xlle  et  du  XHIe  Siecle,  by  Pierre  Jean 
Baptiste  Legrand  d'Aussy  (Paris,  1779),  n,  p.  293. 

"Fairie  Queen,  Book  I,  Canto  ix,  stanza  xiii  (J.  C.  Smith  ed., 
1909). 


528  OLIN   H.    MOORE 

Adam  de  la  Hale  receives  in  a  vision  the  first  inkling 
of  the  woman  who  seemed  so  captivating  at  first,  but  was 
destined  to  prove  so  disappointing.44  In  Le  Loyer  des 
Folles  Amours,  the  lover  dreams  of  meeting  a  maid  who 
holds  in  her  hands  bows,  darts,  and  arrows.  This  vision 
serves  as  a  preface  to  his  actual  acquaintance  with  the 
woman  who  was  to  deceive  him.45 

There  are  a  multitude  of  cases  of  falling  in  love 
through  hearsay,  other  than  through  the  medium  of 
dreams.  Crescini  has  cited  the  salut  recounting  the  love 
felt  by  Azalais  d'Altier  for  Clara  Andusa,  without  having 
seen  her.46  Bernart  d'Arnaut  d'Armagnac,  infatuated 
with  a  lady  whose  reputation  has  reached  his  ears,  jour- 
neys to  Tolosa  to  see  her.47  In  Aymeri  de  Narbonne, 
Hugues  de  Barcelonne  tells  Aymeri  about  Hermengarde, 
daughter  of  Didier,  and  sister  of  Boniface,  King  of  the 
Lombards.  Aymeri  falls  in  love  with  her  immediately 
upon  hearing  her  described.48  Le  Roman  de  Marques  de 
Rome  contains  the  story  of  the  daughter  of  Daires,  King 
of  Persia.  She  becomes  enamored  of  Zoroas,  whose  ex- 
ploits she  has  heard  of,  but  on  whom  she  has  never  laid 
eyes.49 

Clearly  Jaufre  Rudel,  often  referred  to  as  the  father 
of  the  "  princesse  lointaine  "  legend,  will  have  consider- 
able competition  both  at  home  and  abroad.  There  is  even 

"Adam  de  la  Hale,  ed.  E.  de  Coussemaker,  1872,  pp.  299 ff. 

45  (Euvres  Poetiques   de   Guillaume  Alexis,  Prieur  de  Bucy    (ed. 
Arthur  Piaget  &  Emile  Picot),  Paris,  1896,  I,  p.  355. 

46  Crescini  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Romanische  Philologie,  xiv,  p.  130. 

47 II  Canzoniere  Provenzale  II — cod.  Vaticano  3207 — (edited  by 
Louis  Gauchat  and  Heinrich  Kehrli,  in  the  Studi  di  Filologia  Ro- 
manza,  v.  p.  494,  no.  141).  Cf.  Schultz-Gora,  I.  c. 

48 Aymeri  de  Narbonne  (ed.  Louis  Demaison,  Paris,  1887),  w. 
1353-80. 

48 Le  Roman  de  Marques  de  Rome  (ed.  Johann  Alton,  1889),  p. 
123  [xii]. 


JATJFEE  EUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF  DEEAMS      529 

something  very  similar  in  the  verse  of  William  of  Poitiers, 
as  Ramiro  Ortiz  has  pointed  out.50     William  writes : 

Amigu'  ai  ieu,  no  sai  qui  s'es 
Qu'anc  non  la  vi,  si  m'ajut  fes, 
Ni'm  fes  que'm  plassa  ni  que'm  pes, 
Ni  no  m'en  cau.61 

Again  he  declares: 

Anc  no  la  vi  et  am  la  fort, 

Anc  no  m'aic  dreyt  ni  no'm  fes  tort; 

Quam  no  la  vey,  be  m'en  deport, 

No'm  pretz  un  jau 
Qu'ie  'n  sai  gensor  e  bellazor 

E  que  mais  vau.M 

Similarly  Jaufre  Rudel  sings  of  a  lady  whom  he  has  never 
seen: 

Nulhs  horn  nos  meravilh  de  mi 

S'ieu  am  so  que  ja  nom  veira, 

Qu'el  cor  joi  d'autr'  amor  non  a 

Mas  d'aissella  que  anc  non  vi; 

Ni  per  nulh  joi  aitan  no  ri, 

E  no  sai  quals  bes  m'en  venra  a  a.a 

There  is  this  difference  to  be  observed  between  William  of 
Poitiers   and   Jaufre  Rudel,   however.     William   appar- 

09  Ramiro  Ortiz  may  have  derived  his  suggestion  from  Gaston 
Paris,  op.  tit.,  p.  247.  On  this  page,  note  2,  Paris  also  notes  some 
imitations  of  Jaufre  Rudel's  "  amor  lonhdana."  In  the  ease  of 
Guillem  de  Bgziers,  at  least  (Raynouard,  Choix,  ill,  p.  133),  I  see  no 
necessity  for  assuming  such  a  direct  imitation.  May  the  source  of 
his  "  anc  nous  vi  "  not  be  William  of  Poitiers'  "  anc  no  la  vi  "  ?  Or, 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  both  poets  are  evidently  using  a  highly 
artificial  and  conventional  form,  extremely  "  e'loigne'e  de  la  re"alite*  •"* 
as  Paris  would  admit,  may  they  not  have  had  a  common  source? 

81  A.  Jeanroy,  Poesies  de  Chiillaume  rx,  Conte  de  Poitiers,  in  An- 
nales  du  Midi,  xvn  (1905),  no.  4,  w.  25-30.  0 

M  Jeanroy,  op.  tit.,  no.  5,  w.  31  ff. 

83  Gaston  Paris,  op.  tit.,  pp.  259-260  [No  sap  chantar  quil  so  no  di]. 


530  OLIN    H.    MOOBE 

ently  does  not  take  the  unseen  lady  too  seriously,  but  con- 
soles himself  with  the  reflection 

X^u'ie  'n  sai  gensor  e  bellazor, 
E  que  mais  vau. 

For  Jaufre  Kudel,  on  the  other  hand,  the  literary  device 
of  William  becomes  a  central  theme.  We  shall  presently 
note  another  instance  of  the  same  sort. 

The  attempts  of  serious  critics  to  identify  the  lady  ap- 
pear strange.  The  scraps  of  the  concrete  which  Jaufre 
has  allowed  us,  the  castle,  the  husband,  the  gilosj**  her 
renown  in  Poitou  and  in  Bretagne,  and  her  form — like 
the  form  of  every  other  lady  celebrated  by  the  troubadours 
of  this  period — are  all  of  a  piece.  Any  of  the  other  in- 
stances of  love  at  hearsay  which  have  been  cited  would 
furnish  more  detail.  Even  the  legend  cited  by  Gaston 
Paris  55  as  an  "  exemple  typique  "  to  prove  the  "  veritable 
neant  au  point  de  vue  historique  "  of  the  Provengal  bio- 
graphies furnishes  us  with  the  greatest  detail,  in  the  ac- 
cepted style  of  the  langue  d'oc.  The  biographer  of  Ber- 
tran  de  Born  couples  the  legend  with  Maeut  de  Montanhac, 
wife  of  Talairans,  brother  of  the  Count  of  Perigord,  and 
daughter  of  the  Viscount  of  Turenne,  and  sister  of  Maria 
de  Yentadorn  and  Elis  de  Montfort.  For  the  biographer 
of  Pons  de  Capduelh,  the  lady  was  Azalais  de  Mercuer, 
wife  of  a  great  count  of  Auvergne,  and  daughter  of  Ber- 
nart  d'Anduza.  For  the  biographer  of  Kichard  de  Bar- 
bezieux,  it  was  the  wife  of  Giaufre  de  Tanay.  In  the 
Novellino  the  affair  starts  at  "  Puy-Notre-Dame,"  in 
Provence,  and  concerns  Madonna  Grigia. 

Not  only  are  the  fair  form,  and  the  faraway  castle  of 

64  Cf .  Malm,  Werke,  i,  p.  19 :  E  s'il  gilos  vos  bat  defer  ( Bernart  de 
Ventadour ) . 

K0p.  cit.,  pp.  235,  236. 


JAUFRE  RUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF  DREAMS      531 

the  unseen  princess  purely  matters  of  convention,  not 
to  speak  of  the  banal  conception  of  the  poet's  loving 
her  without  having  seen  her,  but  there  is  another  char- 
acteristic feature  of  Jaufre  Kudel's  poetry  quite  as 
commonplace  as  these:  the  lady  appears  to  him  frequently 
in  his  slumber.  Indeed,  the  poet  prefers  the  pleasures  of 
his  dream  to  any  solace  that  might  come  during  his  waking 
hours,  and  would  willingly  continue  sleeping  forever. 

So  passionate  are  the  love-dreams  of  Jaufre,  that 
one  might  conclude  that  here  at  least  was  a  note  of 
sincerity.  Yet  it  will  be  our  task  not  to  leave  such  a 
person  even  this  crumb  of  comfort,  and  to  note  that  love 
in  a  dream  is  quite  as  universal  a  feature  of  literature  as 
love  at  hearsay;  indeed,  the  one  motif  is  often  connected 
with  the  other.  In  Solomon's  Song,  the  bride  hears 
in  slumber  the  voice  of  her  beloved :  "  Ego  dormio, 
et  cor  meum  vigilat:  vox  dilecti  mei  pulsantis:  Aperi 
mihi,  soror  mea,  arnica  mea,  columba  mea,  immacu- 
lata  mea,  quia  caput  meum  plenum  est  rore,  et  cin- 
cinni  mei  guttis  noctium."  56  A  twelfth-century  Latin 
poet  dreams  of  winning  the  love  of  the  goddess  Leda, 
concluding  with  the  exultant  boast  that  a  poor  mortal  man 
— an  "  homuntio " — had  been  accorded  freely  a  favor 
which  Jupiter  had  obtained  only  by  compulsion.57  Adel- 
bert  Keller  cites  from  le  livre  de  Cassiodorus  empereur 
de  Costantinoble  a  dream  of  Cassiodorus,  to  whom  Hel- 
cana  appears  repeatedly.  His  desire  for  her  waxes  so 
ardent  that  he  feels  compelled  to  see  her.58  In  Le  Bel 
Inconnu,  Giglain  dreams  of  lying  with  the  lady  of  the 

68  Canticum  Canticorum  Salamonis,  v,  v.  2. 

BT  Zeitschrift  fur  Deutsches  Altertum  und  Deutsche  Litteratur 
(1908),  L,  pp.  289-296:  Die  Moderne  Leda  (Wilhelm  Meyer). 

68  Dyocletianus  Leben  von  Hans  von  Biihel,  ed.  Adalbert  Keller 
(1841),  Einleitung,  p.  26. 


532  OJL.IN   H.    MOORE 

chateau  of  the  He  d'Or.59  Durmart  dreams  that  "  la  bele 
roine  franche  "  kisses  him,  with  a  laugh.  But  "  Al  res- 
veillier  part  son  desduit."  60  In  Meliador,  Sagremor, 
awakening,  regrets  that  his  beautiful  dream  of  Sebille  is 
only  a  snare  and  a  delusion.61 

Among  the  troubadours,  this  sort  of  dream  is  a  favorite 
device,  and  there  is  often  the  same  note  of  regret  at  the 
necessity  of  awakening  which  is  recurrent  elsewhere,  as  in 
Durmart  and  in  Meliador.  Arnaud  de  Marueil  would 
keep  sleeping  forever,  so  much  does  he  prefer  the  pleasures 
of  dreaming  to  the  harshness  of  reality : 

E  quan  m'esvelh,  cug  murir  deziran, 
Per  qu'ieu  volgra  aissi  dormir  tot  Tan.** 

Again  he  says: 

Mas  m'en  platz  us  somnjatz 
De  vos,  quan  sui  colguatz, 
Que  us  tengues  en  mos  bratz, 
Que  d'autra  esser  jauzire." 

Similarly  Folquet  de  Eomans  declares: 

qu'eu  volria  toz  temps  dormir, 
qu'en  son j  an  vos  pogues  tenir.6* 

Frayre  Eamon  de  Cornet  likewise  exclaims: 

Per   que  tostemps   volgra  viure   dormen.8* 


58  Le  Bel  Inconnu,  ed.  C.  Hippeau,  Paris,  1860,  w.  2443-50. 

•°  Li  Romans  de  Durmart  le  Galois,  ed.  E.  Stengel,  1873,  w.  4097  ff. 

61  Meliador,  w.  28752-77,  ed.  A.  Longnon,  Paris,  1899. 

62  Raynouard,  op.  cit.,  in,  p.  215. 

"Raynouard,  op.  cit.,  m,  p.  222.  Cf.  George  Sand,  La  Mare  au 
'Dialle,  chap,  xvn :  "  Depuis  ce  temps-la  j'ai  r§v6  a  toi  toutes  les 
nuits.  Ah!  comme  je  1'embrassais,  Marie!  " 

64  Folquet  de  Romans,  ed.  Rudolph  Zenker,  13,  vv.  29-30. 

85  J.  B.  Noulet  et  Camille  Chabaneau:  Deuce  Manuscrits  Proven- 
du  XlVe  Siecle  (Montpellier-Paris,  1888),  p.  26. 


JAUFBE  EUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF  DEEAMS     533 

Pier  della  Vigna,  following  the  troubadours,  reaches  vainly 
for  the  hands  he  imagines  he  has  held : 

.  .  .  .  et  dum  non  invenit  manus  quam  tenuerat,  genas  confestim 
laniat  et  deturpat.66 

As  in  the  case  of  the  love  at  hearsay  theme,  William  of 
Poitiers  uses  the  device  of  the  dream  as  an  artifice: 

Farai  un  vers  de  dreyt  nienj 

Qu'enans  fu  trobatz  en  durmen 
Sobre  chevau." 

Also: 

Farai  un  vers,  pos  mi  somelh 
E  'm  vauc  e  m'  estauc  al  solelh.88 

This  literary  trick,  with  which  William  of  Poitiers  in- 
tended merely  to  transport  the  auditor  into  the  world  of 
fantasy,  became  again  with  Jaufre  Rudel  a  leading  theme. 
Jaufre  professes  to  prefer  to  sleep  forever,  rather  than  to 
remain  awake: 

Anc  tan  suau  no  m'adurmi 
Mos  esperitz  tost  non  fos  la, 
Ni  tan  d'ira  non  ac  de  sa 
Mos  cors  ades  no  fos  aqui; 
Mais  quant  mi  reissit  lo  mati, 
Totz  mos  bos  sabers  mi  desva  a  a.w 

It  might  be  observed  here  that  not  only  the  literary 
device — love  in  slumber — but  to  a  considerable  extent  the 


QQVie  et  Oorrespondance  de  Pierre  de  la  Vigne,  ed.  A.  Huillard- 
Breholles,  Paris,  1864,  p.  420. 

eTA.  Jeanroy,  op.  cit.,  no.  4,  w.  1-6. 

88  Op.  tit.,  no.  5,  vv.  1-2.  Of  course  it  is  not  denied  that  the  dream 
had  a  physiological  basis,  and  may  be  explained  on  that  ground. 
My  contention  is  simply  that  we  are  here  dealing  with  something 
universal,  both  as  to  thought  and  as  to  literary  form. 

"Gaston  Paris,  op.  tit.,  p.  260. 


534  OLHST   H.    MOOEE 

very   language   of   Jaufre  Rudel,    was   a   commonplace. 
Bernart  de  Ventadour  writes: 

Lo  cor  ai  pres  d'amor, 
Que  Fesperit  lai  cor 
Et  lo  cors  estai  alhor 
Lonh  de  leis.  .  .  .70 

Again : 

Sels  qui  cuion  qu'ieu  sia  sain 
No  sabon  ges  cum  1'esperitz 
Es  de  licis  privatz  et  aizitz, 
Silot  lo  cors  s'en  es  lonhans: 
Sapchatz  lo  mielhers  messatgiers 
Qu'ai  de  lieis,  es  mos  cossiriers 
Que  m  recorda  sos  belhs  semblans. 

Arnaud  de  Marueil,  in  a  passage  already  referred  to, 
expressed  himself  in  similar  fashion.  He  declared  that 
he  had  left  his  heart  with  his  lady,  where  it  had  remained 
since  first  he  met  her.  Wherever  he  was,  his  thoughts 
reverted  to  her;  in  his  imaginings  he  paid  court  to  her 
day  and  night.  Often,  when  his  mind  seemed  to  be  on 
other  things,  his  heart  would  come  as  a  messenger  from 
his  lady,  and  recall  to  him  her  image.72 

Savj-Lopez  73  has  demonstrated  the  conventional  char- 
acter of  the  religious  phraseology  employed  by  Jaufre 
Rudel,  confuting  thereby  Appel's  identification  of  Jaufre' s 
lady  as  the  Virgin.  By  the  same  token,  let  us  conclude 
that  the  lady  described  was  no  person  of  earth.74  I  would 
deny  that  Jaufre  "  idealized  "  a  lady  who  was  more  or 
less  real,  as  Bertoni  would  hold,  or  that  he  made  a  "  jeu 

70  Mahn,  Werke,  I,  p.  24. 

71  Op.  tit.,  i,  p.  22. 

"Bartsch,  Chrestomathie  Provencale  (1904),  cols.  104,  105.  Cf. 
Rpynouard,  I.  c. 

73  L.  c. 

"Gaston  Paris  to  the  contrary:  "  .  .  .  .  il  semble  Men  qu'il  ait 
en  vue  une  personne  precise  .  .  .  ."  op.  cit.,  p.  248. 


JAUFEE  EUDEL  AND  THE  LADY  OF  DEEAMS      535 

de  Fimagination,"  to  adopt  the  phrase  of  Gaston  Paris.75 
Jaufre  Rudel  merely  took  what  was  a  commonplace  in 
Provencal,  as  in  other  literatures,  and  concentrated  upon 
it.  Hence  the  great  amount  of  repetition  in  the  small 
number  of  poems  preserved  to  us.  Hence  some  of  the 
contradictions,  inevitable  where  the  artist  is  not  drawing 
from  life.  That  he  may  have  really  loved  a  lady,  there 
is  no  denying;  but  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  his  lady 
bore  any  real  relation  to  the  conventional  description 
which  he  gives,  or  was  a  faraway  princess  whom  he  never 
expected  to  behold,  but  who  appeared  vividly  in  his 
dreams.  In  the  same  way  a  modern  swain,  to  gain  the 
affections  of  "  sweet  Marie,"  with  black  hair,  might  sing 
of  a  more  remote  "  sweet  Alice,"  with  "  hair  so  brown." 

The  objection  has  probably  occurred  to  the  reader  that 
the  foregoing  argument,  if  it  established  that  the  "  prin- 
cesse  lointaine  "  of  Jaufre  Rudel  was  a  mere  convention, 
would  prove  with  equal  conclusiveness  something  of  the 
sort  for  the  lady  celebrated  by  any  of  the  other  troubadours. 
Of  course,  it  is  far  from  my  present  intention  to  attempt 
so  sweeping  a  generalization,  although  I  venture  to  sur- 
mise that  it  is  perhaps  less  preposterous  than  might  appear 
at  first  glance.  My  feeling  is  that,  despite  our  professions 
to  the  contrary,  we  are  more  under  the  influence  of  the 
legendary  biographies  than  we  admit.  Indeed,  it  has  hap- 
pened often  enough  that  writers  on  the  lives  of  the  trouba- 
dours— even  the  most  recent,  such  as  Anglade — while 
prefacing  their  work  with  protestations  of  disbelief  in 
the  razos  and  in  the  vidas,  have  unconsciously  proceeded 
tc  follow  the  legends  which  they  condemned.  Doubtless 
the  reason  is  that  suggested  by  Gaston  Paris  concerning 

9 

75  Gaston  Paris,  op.  cit.,  p.  234. 


536  GLUT   H.    MOORE 

Diez,  that  he  "  hesitait  a  couper  la  branche  sur  laquelle  il 
etait  assis."  76 

In  treating  the  palpable  case  of  Jaufre  Kudel,  who  be- 
longed to  a  highly  artificial  and  conventional  school  of 
poets,  there  is  no  necessity  for  involving  fthe  whole  fabric 
of  troubadour  love-affairs.  His  allusions  to  his  mistress 
are  so  unusually  vague  that  many  have  felt  that  he  was 
purposely  obscure,  while  others  have  fled  to  opposite  poles 
in  their  speculations  on  the  identity  of  his  beloved.  Per- 
haps many  other  love-affairs  of  the  troubadours,  which 
present  less  doubt  and  cause  less  speculation,  would  not 
be  seriously  related  to  the  foregoing  discussion. 

H.  MOORE. 


"Gaston  Paris,  op.  cit.,  p.  234. 


XXIII.  —  REPETITION  OF  WORDS  AND  PHRASES  AT 
THE  BEGINNING  OF   CONSECUTIVE  TER- 
CETS IN  DANTE'S  DIVINE  COMEDY 

The  Divine  Comedy  contains  three  examples  of  the 
repetition  of  a  word  or  a  phrase  at  the  beginning  of  suc- 
cessive lines,1  one  where  the  first  word  of  a  line  is  re- 
peated from  the  last  of  the  preceding  line,2  another  pas- 

1  Per  Me  Si  Va  Nella  Citta.  Dolente, 

Per  Me  Si  Va  Nell*  Eterno  Dolore, 
Per  Me  Si  Va  Tra  La  Perduta  Gente. 

(Inf.  m,  1-3.) 

A  similar  artifice  occurs  in  Par.  I,  115-7;  xxvii,  7-9.  Repetitions 
of  this  class  are  more  or  less  common  in  the  different  literatures 
known  to  Dante.  Examples  of  anaphora  in  Latin  may  be  found  in 
an  article  by  Professor  B.  O.  Foster,  On  Certain  Euphonic  Embel- 
lishments in  the  Verse  of  Propertius  (Transactions  and  Proceedings 
of  the  American  Philological  Association,  Vol.  XL,  pp.  39-40;  52). 
Note  especially  the  following  lines  from  Propertius: 

Vidistis  pleno  teneram  can'dore  puellam, 
Vidistis  fusco.  ducit  uterque  color; 
Vidistis  quandam  Argiva  prodire  figura, 
Vidistis  nostras,  utraque  forma  rapit; — 

(II,  25,  41  ff.) 

This  usage  was  especially  common  in  Old  French  and  Old  Pro- 
vencal. In  a  poem  of  twenty-five  lines  by  Christine  de  Pisan 
(Bartsch-Wiese,  Chrestomathie  de  I'ancien  franc. ais,  89  c),  all  of 
the  lines  except  one  begin  with  Je  congnois.  For  examples  of  repeti- 
tion in  consecutive  initial  lines  in  Provencal,  compare  Raynouard, 
Choix  des  Poesies  Originales  des  Troubadours,  vol.  v,  p.  25;  pp.  200-1. 

For  a  similar  use  of  repetition  in  English,  compare  Kying  Ali- 
saunder,  3205-16  (Weber's  Metrical  Romances,  I,  pp.  133-4),  where 
the  word  Mony  occurs  at  the  beginning  of  twelve  successive  lines. 

Ricomincid :    "  Noi  semo  usciti  fuore  9 

Del  maggior  corpo  al  ciel  ch'  6  pura  luce: 
Luce  intellettual,  piena  d'  amore; 

537 
5 


538  OLIVER    M.    JOHNSTON 

sage  where  a  phrase  occurs  three  times  in  succession,8  and 
a  few  instances  of  a  word  riming  with  itself.4     The  most 

Amor  di  vero  ben,  pien  di  letizia; 
Letizia  che  trascende  ogni  dolzore. 

(Par.  xxx,  38-42.) 

We  note  the  same  device  in  a  Provencal  poem  (Raynouard,  op.  cit., 
vol.  v,  p.  298)  : 

En  est  son  fas  cansoneta  novella; 

Novella  es  quar  eu  cant  de  novell; 

E  de  novell  ai  chauzit  la  plus  bella, 

Bell'   en  totz   sens,  et   tot  quan   fai  es  bel 

Per   que   m'es    bel   qu'ieu   m'    aleger'   e   m   deport, 

Quar  en  deport  val  pauc  qui  no  s  deporta. 

Jois  deporta  mi   quar   am   domn'  isnella; 

Isnella  es  sella  que  m  ten  isnel: 

Isnel  cor  n'ai  quar  tan  gen  si  capdella 

Qu'il  capdela  mi  ses  autre  capdel, 

Qe*  rnais  capdel  non  quier  mar  per  conort: 

Per  gieu  conort  qu'om  no  s  pes  qui  m  conorta. 

With  reference  to  this  poetical  device,  Tozer  (Commentary  on 
Dante's  Divina  Oommedia,  Par.  xxx,  40)  says:  "It  is  occasionally 
found  in  the  troubadour  poets."  Professor  Foster  (op.  cit.,  p.  51) 
cites  several  examples  from  Propertius  where  a  word  at  or  near  the 
end  of  the  hexameter  is  repeated  in  the  beginning  of  the  short  line. 
A.  J.  Butler  calls  attention  to  early  Italian  poems  (The  Fore- 
runners of  Dante,  I,  xm,  xxn,  XLV  ) ,  in  which  each  stanza  opens  with 
one  or  two  of  the  words  with  which  its  predecessor  concludes.  The 
author  of  The  Pearl  (Early  English  Text  Society,  vol.  I,  pp.  1-37) 
also  makes  use  of  a  similar  device. 

Quegli  ch'  usurpa  in  terra  il  loco  mio, 
II  loco  mio,  il  loco  mio,  che  vaca 
Nella  presenza  del  Figliuol  di  Dio. 

(Par.  XXVIL,  22-4.) 

Compare  also  Jeremiah,  vn,  4.  For  examples  of  the  repetition 
of  a  phrase  in  prose,  compare  Convivio  iv,  5,  where  E  non  pose  Iddio 
lv  mani  occurs  four  times. 

4  Cos!  mi  si  cambiaro  in  maggior  feste 

Li  fiori  e  le  faville,  si  ch'io  vidi 
Ambo  le  corti  del  ciel  manifesto. 


DANTE'S  DIVINE   COMEDY  639 

complex  and  interesting  examples  of  the  repetition  of 
words  and  phrases  in  our  poem,  however,  are  those  oc- 
curring at  the  beginning  of  several  consecutive  tercets. 
The  object  of  this  kind  of  repetition  is,  in  general,  to  draw 
attention  to  a  succession  of  forciable  examples  of  some- 
thing that  is  to  be  illustrated.  In  Purgatorio  xn,  25-63, 
we  have  a  most  striking  instance  of  this  symmetrical  ar- 
rangement. The  purpose  of  these  lines  is  to  call  attention 
to  a  series  of  notable  examples  of  pride.  Each  example  is 
described  in  a  single  tercet  and  the  tercets  are  divided  into 
groups  of  four,  the  initial  word  of  the  first  group  being 
Vedea,  that  of  the  second  0,  and  that  of  the  third  Mos- 
trava.  Finally,  in  a  tercet  describing  the  fall  of  Troy,  the 
most  notable  instance  of  defeated  pride,  all  of  these  words 
are  resumed  and  united.5  In  the  very  phrasing  of  these 
descriptions  we  note  a  kind  of  "  architectural  symmetry," 
as  if  the  poet  were  endeavoring  to  convey  a  picture  of  the 
lifelike  carvings  on  the  floor  through  the  symmetry  of  his 
verse. 

0  isplendor  di  Dio,  per  cu'io  vidi 
L'alto  trionfo  del  regno  verace, 
Dammi  virtu  a  dir  com'io  lo  vidi! 

(Par.  xxx,  94-9.) 

Compare  also  per  amenda  (Purg.  xx,  65-9)  and  Cristo  (Par.  xn, 
71-5;  xiv,  104-8;  xix,  104-8 ;  xxxii,  83-7).  In  Provencal  poetry  the 
same  word  sometimes  occurs  in  rime  once  in  each  stanza  of  a  poem. 
In  Raynouard  (op.  cit.,  vol.  v,  pp.  411-13)  we  find  a  poem  of  six 
stanzas,  the  word  lenga  being  repeated  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  line 
of  all  the  stanzas  except  the  last  (where  the  repeated  word  occurs 
at  the  end  of  the  first  line).  .A  similar  device  is  found  in  two 
other  poems  contained  in  Raynouard's  collection  (pp.  413-4;  414-6). 
Compare  also  the  repetition  of  the  word  lonh  at  the  end  of  the 
second  and  fourth  lines  of  all  the  stanzas  of  a  poem  (with  the 
exception  of  the  last,  which  contains  only  three  lines)  by  Jliufre 
Rudel  (AppeFs  Provenzalische  Chrestomathie,  p.  15). 

•  This  entire  passage  is  quoted  infra,  p.  548. 


540  OLIVER    M.    JOHNSTON 

Another  striking  instance  of  elaborate  repetition  and 
symmetrical  arrangement  is  found  in  the  Paradiso  (xix, 
115-132),  where  the  poet  is  describing  what  will  be  seen 
in  the  book  containing  the  record  of  human  deeds  when  it 
shall  be  opened  at  the  Last  Judgment.  The  examples 
mentioned  in  this  series  are  intended  to  illustrate  the  mis- 
deeds of  the  Christian  princes  of  Dante's  time.  The  de- 
scription is  continued  through  nine  tercets,  the  first  three 
beginning  with  LI  si  vedra,  the  next  three  with  Vedrassi, 
and  the  last  three  with  E.  The  first  three  tercets  will 
illustrate : 8 

Li  si  vedrti,  tra  Topere  d'Alberto, 
Quella  che  tosto  movera  la  penna, 
Per  che  il  regno  di  Praga  fia  diserto; 
Li  si  vedrd,  il  duol  che  sopra  Senna 
Induce,  falseggiando  la  moneta, 
Quei  che  morrJl  di  colpo  di  cotenna; 
Li  si  vedrd,  la  superbia  ch'  asseta, 
Che  fa  lo  Scotto  e  T  Inghilterra  folle, 
SI  che  non  pud  soffrir  dentro  a  sua  meta. 

In  the  twentieth  canto  of  the  Paradiso  (40-73)  the 
eagle  names  the  six  spirits,  who,  on  account  of  their  pre- 
eminence in  justice,  form  the  pupil  of  its  eye  and  its  eye- 

6  A  poem  bearing  a  very  striking  resemblance  to  these  lines  in 
Dante  is  found  in  Rime  di  Trecentisti  Minori,  a  cura  di  Guglielmo 
Volpi,  Firenze  (Sansoni),  1907,  pp.  247-51.  This  little  poem  (en- 
titled Profezia)  consists  of  thirty-seven  stanzas,  thirty-one  of  which 
begin  with  Vedrai.  The  following  quotation  will  illustrate: 

Vedrai  colei  che  veste 
Quella  ch'  ha  sette  teste 
Avr&  di  gran  tempeste 

E   gran   paura. 
Vedrai  dreto  alle  mura 
Rinchiusi  con  rancura: 
La  lor  fiera  armadura 

Saran  gli  spromi. 


541 


brow.  The  description  of  these  six  spirits  includes  six 
sections  of  six  verses  each,  and  the  second  tercet  of  every 
section  begins  with  Ora  conosce.  The  four  following  ter- 
cets will  serve  to  illustrate  the  character  and  purpose  of 
the  repetition  in  this  passage : 

Colui  che  luce  in  mezzo  per  pupilla, 

Fu  il  cantor  dello  Spirito  Santo, 

Che  1'arca  traslatd  di  villa  in  villa: 
Ora  conosce  il  merto  del  suo  canto, 

In  quanto  effetto  fu  del  suo  consiglio, 

Per  lo  remunerar  ch'e  altrettanto. 
Dei  cinque  che  mi  fan  cerchio  per  ciglio, 

Colui  che  piu  al  becco  mi  s'accosta, 

La  vedovella  consold  del  figlio: 
Ora  conosce  quanto  caro  costa 

Non  seguir  Cristo,  per  1'esperienza 

Di  questa  dolce  vita  e  dell'  opposta, 
E  quel  che  segue  in  la  circonferenza 

Di  che  ragiono,  per  1'arco  suferno, 

Morte  indulgid  per  vera  penitenza: 
Ora  conosce  che  il  giudizio  eterno 

Non  si  trasmuta,  quando  degno  preco 

Fa  crastino  laggiu  dell'  odierno. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  description  of  each  of  these 
six  spirits  occupies  two  tercets.  The  first  tercet  deals  with 
the  life  of  the  hero  on  earth  and  the  second  with  his  con- 
dition in  Paradise.  The  symmetrical  arrangement  of  this 
magnificent  passage  is  not  only  pleasing  to  the  ear,  but 
the  contrast  brought  out  by  the  repeated  phrase  Ora 
conosce  also  makes  the  description  more  vivid. 

Dante's  purpose  in  repeating  words  and  phrases  was 
probably  two-fold,  namely,  for  the  sake  of  euphony  and 
of  emphasis.  In  the  remaining  examples  of  this  poetic 
'device  the  idea  of  emphasis  or  rhetorical  repetition  seems 
to  be  more  prominent  than  in  the  case  of  the  three  exam- 
ples already  cited.  For  instance,  in  the  fifth  canto  of 


542  OLIVER    M.    JOHNSTON 

the  Inferno  (100-7),  Francesca  da  Rimini,  in  describing 
the  power  of  love  over  her  and  her  lover,  says :  7 

"Amor,  che  al  cor  gentil  ratio  s'apprende, 

Prese  costui  della  bella  persona 

Che  mi  fu  tolta;  e  il  modo  ancor  m'offende. 
Amor,  che  a  nullo  amato  amar  per  dona, 

Mi  prese  del  costui  piacer  si  forte, 

Che,  come  vedi,   ancor  non  m'abbandona. 
Amor  condusse  noi  ad  una  morte: 

Caina  attende  chi  vita  ci  spense." 

The  display  of  sympathy  and  affection  between  Virgil 
and  his  fellow-countryman  Sordello  furnishes  Dante  an 
opportunity  of  inveighing  against  the  want  of  patriotism 
in  Italian  cities.  A  series  of  examples  illustrating  this 
general  discord  and  strife  is  given  in  Purgaiorio  vi, 
106-7,  where  Vieni  occurs  at  the  beginning  of  four  suc- 
cessive tercets  addressed  to  Albert  of  Germany.  In  Para- 
diso  xv,  100-11,  the  immodesty  of  the  Florentine  society 
of  Dante's  time  is  described  in  four  tercets  each  beginning 
with  Non.s 

Instances  of  repetition  similar  to  those  cited  above  are 
also  found  in  a  well-known  type  of  medieval  composition, 
the  Provencal  enueg.  The  two  main  characteristics  of 
this  kind  of  poem,  according  to  Eaymond  Thompson 
Hill,9  are:  (1)  the  absence  of  continuity  of  thought,  and 

T  For  a  similar  use  of  repetition  in  Dante's  lyrics  compare  Canz. 
17  and  Son.  33. 

8  In  Paradiso  xin,  94-102,  we  find  a  group  of  three  tercets  begin- 
ning with  Non. 

In  a  poem  of  four  stanzas  by  Lorenzo  Moschi  (Guglielmo  Volpi, 
op.  cit.,  iv),  the  word  Benedetto,  occurs  at  the  beginning  of  each 
stanza.  Compare  the  Beatitudes  (Math,  v,  3-11;  Lu.  vi,  20-22)  and 
also  the  repetition  of  the  word  cursed  in  Deut.  xxvn,  15-26;  xxvin, 
16-19. 

•  See  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America, 
vol.  xxvii,  pp.  265-6. 


DANTE'S   DIVINE   COMEDY  543 

(2)  "  the  repetition  at  regular  or  irregular  but  frequent 
intervals  of  a  word  or  phrase  which  indicates  the  attitude 
of  the  poet." 

The  best  examples  of  the  enueg  are  found  in  the  works 
of  the  Monk  of  Montaudon.10  In  a  poem  of  nine  stanzas 
by  this  author,  a  form  expressing  the  idea  of  vexation 
(usually  enoia)  occurs  in  the  first  and  fifth  xl  line  of  each 
stanza.  The  first  two  stanzas  of  this  poem  are  as 
follows : 12 

Fort  m'  enoia,  so  auzes  dire? 
Horn  parliers  qu'es  avols  servire; 
Et  horn  que  trop  vol  autr'  aucire 
M'  enoia,  e  cavals  que  tire; 
Et  enoia  m,  si  Dieus  m'aiut, 
Joves  horn,  quan  trop  port'  escut 
Que  negun  colp  no  i  a  avut, 
Capellan  e  monge  barbut 
E  lausengier  bee  esmolut. 
E  tenc  dona  per  enoiosa, 
Quant  es  paubra  et  orgoillosa, 
E  marit  qu'ama  trop   sa  sposa, 
Neus  s'era  domna  de  Tolosa; 
Et  enoia  m  de  cavalier 
Fors  de  son  pais  ufanier, 
Quant  en  lo  sieu  non  a  mestier 
Mas  sol  de  pizar  el  mortier 
Pebre  o  d'estar  al  foguier. 

In  another  poem  by  the  Monk  of  Montaudon  13  the  word 
enueia  occurs  in  the  first  line  of  each  of  the  seven  strophes, 
and  is  repeated  once  or  twice  within  the  stanza.14 

10  See  Hill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  266-8. 

"In  five  of  the  stanzas  enoia  occurs  three  times. 

11  Provenzalische  Chrestomathie   (second  edition),  von  Carl  Appel, 
43.    Compare  also  E.  Philippson,  Der  Monch  von  Montaudon,  jflalle, 
1873,    p.    51;    Bartsch,    Chrestomathie,    p.    134;    Otto    Klein,    Die 
Dichtungen  des  Monchs  von  Montaudon,  Marburg,  1885,  p.  54. 

M  See  Raynouard,  op.  cit.,  vol.  v,  pp.  244-6. 

"Compare  Raynouard,    op.   cit.,   where  we  find  a  similar  repe- 


544  OLIVER    M.    JOHNSTON 

With  reference  to  this  type  of  poetry  in  Italian  litera- 
ture, Mr.  Hill  says:15  "  In  order  to  follow  the  more 
consistent  and  complete  development  of  the  enueg,  it  is 
necessary  to  turn  to  the  literature  of  Italy,  where  this  kind 
of  poem  received  an  early  start  and  finally  attained  its 
most  perfect  maturity.  The  enueg  or  noie,  as  it  is  known 
in  its  Italian  form,  appeared  in  Italy  in  the  first  part  of 
the  thirteenth  century." 

The  most  elaborate  example  of  the  Italian  noie  is  that 
of  the  fourteenth-century  writer  Antonio  Pucci.16  The 
poem  is  entitled  Capitolo  morale  17  and  consists  of  more 
than  three  hundred  verses.  It  is  written  in  terza,  rima 
and  all  the  terzine  except  the  first  five  and  the  last  begin 
with  A  now,  m'e.  The  repeated  phrase  occurs,  therefore, 
about  a  hundred  times  in  this  little  poem. 

The  examples  of  the  enueg  cited  above  will  suffice  to 
show  the  main  characteristics  of  this  kind  of  poem.  A 
comparison  of  these  poems  with  the  more  elaborate  in- 
stances of  repetition  found  in  the  Divine  Comedy  lead  one 
to  believe  that  Dante's  use  of  this  device  is  a  survival  of 
the  enueg  type  of  composition.  This  connection  becomes 
very  clear  when  we  examine  the  later  forms  of  this  kind 
of  poetry.  While  the  earliest  examples  of  the  enueg  con- 
sist of  a  series  of  disconnected  ideas  and  the  repeated  word 

tition  of  enutia  in  another  poem  by  the  same  author.  For  other 
examples  of  the  enueg  in  Provencal  literature,  compare  Hill,  op.  tit., 
pp.  269-74. 

a  See  op.  tit.,  pp.  276-7. 

11  For  a  general  discussion  of  the  enueg  in  Italy,  compare  Hill, 
op.  tit.,  pp.  276-293. 

11  See  Kenneth  McKenzie,  Le  Noie  di  Antonio  Pucci  secondo  la 
lezione  del  codice  di  Wellesley  gib  Kirkupiano  (Studi  dedicati  a 
Francesco  Torraca,  pp.  179-90);  The  Oxford  Text  of  the  Noie  of 
Antonio  Pucci  (Reprinted  from  Anniversary  Papers  by  Colleagues 
and  Pupils  of  George  Lyman  Kittredge,  Boston,  1913). 


DANTE'S  DIVINE   COMEDY  545 

is  always  a  form  meaning  '  vexation '  or  e  that  which  is 
vexing/  18  in  its  later  developments  we  find  greater  free- 
dom both  in  the  connection  of  the  thought  of  the  poem  and 
in  the  use  of  repetition.  For  instance,  Pucci's  Capitolo 
morale,  the  most  elaborate  form  of  the  enueg  that  we  have, 
"is  not  composed  of  disconnected  sentences  arranged  by 
chance,  but  consists  of  a  series  of  well-chosen  observations 
grouped  in  special  classes  according  as  they  refer  to  re- 
ligion, politeness,  social  relations,  or  table  manners."  19 
If  we  compare  Pucci's  poem  with  any  one  of  the  examples 
of  repetition  noted  in  the  Divine  Comedy,  we  shall  observe 
also  that  the  two  are  exact  parallels  so  far  as  the  continu- 
ity of  thought  is  concerned.  In  both  cases  a  word  or  a 
phrase  is  repeated  at  the  beginning  of  a  number  of  suc- 
cessive tercets,  and,  while  each  tercet  contains  an  observa- 
tion, the  series  of  observations  serve  to  illustrate  a  general 
subject. 

In  the  later  forms  of  the  enueg  or  noie  the  repeated 
word  is  also  varied.  For  example,  in  a  Portuguese  poem 
of  three  hundred  and  forty-one  verses,  attributed  to  Gry- 
gorio  Alfonso  criado  do  bispo  d'Evora,  the  alternate  lines 
begin  with  arreneguo  or  rreneguo.  However,  the  best 
illustration  of  the  liberty  permitted  in  the  use  of  repeated 
forms  is  found  in  the  following  canzone  of  Bindo 
Bonichi:20 

Guai  a  chi  nel  tormento 
Sua  non  puo  spander  voce 
Et  quando  foco  il  coce 
Gli   convien  d'allegrezza  far  sembianti. 
Guai  a  chi  suo  lamento 
Dir  non  po  chi  li  noce 

18  For  examples  of  the  piaster,  a  similar  type  of  compositionf  com- 
pare Hill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  268-9;  284-5. 
"See  Hill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  290-1. 
"  See  Scelta  di  Curiositd,  Letterarie,  vol.  LXXXH,  pp.  65-8. 


546 


OLIVER    M.    JOHNSTON 

Et  qual  gli  e  piu  feroce 

Costretto  e  d'aggradir,  se  gli  e  d'avanti. 

Guai  a  chi  '1  ben  di  se  in  altrui   commette 

Che   '1  non   certo  di  se,  vive  languendo; 

Et  sovente  temendo 

D'alto    in    bassezza    ritorna   suo    state. 

Guai  a  chi   a  servir  alcun  si  mette, 

Che    cominci    amista    frutto   cherendo; 

Perche,    1'util    fallendo, 

Dimostra  '}  fine  el  cominci  ar  viziato. 

Grave  e  potere  in  pace 
Injuria  sofferire, 
Da  cui   dovria  venire, 
Per  merito  servire  e  onorare. 
Grav'  £  all'  h6m  verace 
Reprension,  se  '1  fallire 
D'  altrui  fa  in  se  perire 
Le  virtu  e  coi  vizii  dimorare. 
Grav'  e  stare   innocente  tra  i  corrutti 
Fa   lunga  usanza   debile  '1  costante 
Non  avrai  virtu  tante 
Che  sol  non  sia,  se  tu  loro  abbandoni. 
Grav'  e   all'  om  poter  piacere  a  tutti 
Perche  a  ciascun  suo  piace  simigliante 
Cosi  il  leve,  e  '1  pesante 
Son  differenti:    Piaci  dunque  a  boni. 

,    Foil'  e  chi  si  diletta 
E  a  diservir  prende 
H6m  che  non  si  difende, 
Perche   fortuna  tolle  e   da   podere. 
Foil'  e  chi  non  aspetta 
Prezzo  di   quel  che  vender 
Cosi  chi  1'altro  offende. 
Di   quel  che  fa  de'  guiderdone  avere 
Foil'  fc  chi  si  compreso  6  d'arroganza 
Che  di  se  presumme  valer  tanto 
Che  fa  del  pianger  canto 
Perch*  6mo  inciampa  talor,  e  non  cade. 
Foil'  e  chi  chier  d'  offesa  perdonanza, 
Et   mentre   offende   con   celato   manto, 
Perche  1'  offeso  alquanto 
Dimostra   non  veder   chi   die  tro  il   trade. 


DANTE'S  DIVINE   COMEDY  547 

8agg'  fe  chi  ben  misura 
La  sua   operazione 
Et  sempre  a  se  prepone 
Be,  mentre  fa,  come  ricevitore. 
8agg'  e  1'   Cm  che  procura 
Viver   ogni    stagione 
In  modo  che  ragione 
Vinca  il  voler;  e  quei  ne  v£  col  fiore. 
Sagg'  e  chi  1'  6m  non  giudica  per  vesta, 
Ma  per  lo   far  die  'n  lui  si  sente  e  vede 
Saver   talor  si   crede, 
Per  apparenza,  in  tal  che  dentro  6  vano 
8agg'  e   1'   6m  circundato  da  tempesta, 
Quel    che   scampar   non   po,    se'n   don   concede 
Avendo  sempre  fede 
Che  dopo  '1  monte  puo  trovar  lo  piano. 

Guai  o  poi  che  mio  danno 
Dir  non  m'e  conceduto 
Perch'   oggi  e  vil   tenuto, 
Schifando   vizii,    P    animo   gentile. 
Grave  m'  e  per  inganno, 
Trovando    mi    traduto 
Convenirmi  star  muto. 
Richiede  '1  ver  talor  segreto  stile 
Folle  fui  quando  'n  fals'  om  mi  commisi. 
Chi  vuol   fuggir  malvagi  viva  solo: 
Padre    inganna   figliuolo 
Chi  men  si  fida  via  miglior  ellegge 
Saggio  non  so',   ma  quel  ch'   altrui   promisi 
Sempre   observai,   e   di   cio  non   ho   lodo. 
Vorrei    posare    e   volo: 
Dio  tratti  altrui  per  qual  me  tratta  legge. 

With  reference  to  this  canzone,  Mr.  Hill  says:  21  "  Al- 
though no  form  of  the  word  noia  is  found,  still  the  com- 
position comes  easily  under  the  definition ;  for  it  is  a  poem 
which  consists  of  a  series  of  disconnected  ideas,  and  is 
marked  by  the  frequent  use  of  a  phrase  expressing  a  sen- 
timent of  dislike  or  approval."  0 

Now,  if  we  compare  the  following  passage  in  Purga- 

n  Op.  tit.,  p.  286. 


548  OLIVER    M.    JOHNSTON 

torio  xn,  25-63,  with  Bindo  Bonichi's  canzone,  we  shall 
observe  that  the  symmetrical  arrangement  is  exactly  the 
same  in  both  cases: 

Vedea  colui  che  fu  nobil  create 

Piu  ch'  altra  creatura,  giu  dal  cielo 

Folgoreggiando    scender    da    un    lato. 
Vedea   Briareo,   fitto   dal   telo 

Celestial,  giacer  dall'  altra  parte, 

Grave  alia  terra  per  lo  mortal  gelo. 
Vedea  Timbreo,   vedea  Pallade   e   Marte, 

Armati  ancora,  intorno   al  padre  loro, 

Mirar  le  membra  de'  Giganti  sparte. 
Vedea  Nembrot  a  pie  del  gran  lavoro, 

Quasi   smarritb,  e   riguardar   le   genti 

Che  in  Sennaar  con  lui  superbi  foro. 
O  Niobe,  con  che  occhi  dolenti 

Vedeva  io  te  segnata  in  sulla  strada 

Tra    sette    e    sette    tuoi    figliuoli    spenti! 
0  Saiil,  come  in  sulla  propria  spada 

Quivi    parevi   morto    in    Gelbofc, 

Che  poi  non  sent!  pioggia  ne  rugiada! 
O   folle  Aragne,   si  vedea  io  te 

Gia    mezza     aragna,     trista     in     su    gli     stracci 

Dell'  opera  che  mal  per  te  si  fe'. 
0  Roboam,  giS.  non  par  che  minacci 

Quivi   il   tuo    segno;    ma   pien   di    spavento 

Nel    porta    un    carro    prima    che    altri    il    cacci. 
Mostrava  ancor   lo   duro   pavimento 

Come  Almeon   a   sua  madre   fe'   caro 

Parer    lo    sventurato    adornamento 
Mostrava   come   i   figli   si   gittaro 

Sopra    Sennacherib    dentro    dal    tempio, 

E  come,  morto  lui,  quivi  il  lasciaro. 
Mostrava  la  rui'na  e  il  crudo  scempio 

Che   fe'    Tamiri,    quando    disse   a   Giro: 

'Sangue  sitisti,  ed  io  di  sangue  t'  empio'. 
Mostrava  come  in  rotta  si   fuggiro 

Gli  Assiri,  poi  che  fu  morto  Oloferne, 

Ed   anche  le   reliquie  del  martiro. 
Vedea  Troia  in  cenere  e  in  caverne. 

0  Ili'on,  come  te  basso  e  vile 

Mostrava  il  segno  che  11  si  discerne! 


549 


In  the  passage  just  given  there  are  three  groups  of  four 
tercets  each,  the  initial  word  of  each  tercet  of  the  first 
group  being  Vedea,,  that  of  the  second  0,  and  that  of  the 
third  Mostrava.  Finally,  all  three  of  these  words  are 
brought  together  and  form  the  initial  words  of  the  three 
lines  composing  the  tercet  following  the  three  groups  just 
mentioned.  The  canzone  of  Bindo  Bonichi  consists  of 
five  strophes,  each  having  a  repeated  phrase,  which  occurs 
at  the  beginning  of  every  fourth  line  of  the  sixteen  verses 
composing  the  strophe.  The  repeated  phrase  of  the  first 
strophe  is  Guai  af  that  of  the  second  Grave  ef  that  of  the 
third  Foil'  e,  that  of  the  fourth  Sagg9  e,  and  in  the  fifth 
all  four  of  these  phrases  are  repeated  just  as  Vedea,  0, 
and  Mostrava  are  repeated  in  a  single  tercet  by  Dante.22 

OLIVER  M.  JOHNSTON. 


21  For  examples  of  repetition  in  Old  French,  compare  Paris, 
Extraits  de  la  Chanson  de  Roland,  p.  xxxix;  Grober,  Zeitschrift, 
vi,  pp.  492-500;  A.  Nordfeld,  Les  Couplets  similaires  dans  la*vieille 
4pop6e  francaise,  Stockholm,  1893;  Geddes,  La  Chanson  de  Roland, 
New  York,  1906,  p.  LXI. 


XXIV.— THE   ORGANIC   UNITY   OF    TWELFTH 
NIGHT 

There  is  no  agreement  among  Shakespearian  critics 
with  regard  to  the  organic  unity  of  Twelfth  Night.  Dr. 
Furnivall  in  one  place  believes  that  "  the  leading  note  of 
the  play  is  fun."  *  In  another  place  he  says  less  aptly 
that  "  the  lesson  is,  sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity."  2 
Morton  Luce  records  his  "  impression  that  the  perfect 
unity  of  Twelfth  Night  lies  in  the  wise  good  humor  that 
pervades  the  play."  3  Schlegel  is  representative  of  a  group 
of  critics  who  believe  that  "  love  regarded  as  an  affair  of 
the  imagination  rather  than  of  the  heart,  is  the  fundamen- 
tal theme  running  through  all  the  variations  of  the  play."  * 
Most  commentators,  however,  have  agreed  that  the  leading 
thought  of  this  play  may  be  discovered  in  its  title;  that 
the  words  Twelfth  Night,  or  What  You  Will,  are  them- 
selves the  key-note  of  the  play;  that  Shakespeare's  first 
thought  was  to  provide  a  comedy  suitable  for  the  festival. 
No  one  of  these  critics  has  thought  that  an  organic  idea 
has  been  more  than  incidental  in  this  creation  of  pure 
mirth.  So  purely  comic  are  its  scenes,  and  so  entirely 
sufficient  are  all  of  its  incidents,  that  critics  have  not  gone 
behind  its  gay  life  to  look  for  an  underlying  moral  law. 

But  such  a  moral  law  does  exist  as  the  fundamental 
idea  of  the  play.  Twelfth  Night  is  a  philosophical  de- 
fence of  a  moderate  indulgence  in  pleasure,  in  opposition 
on  the  one  hand  to  an  extreme  hostility  to  pleasure  and  on 

1  Twelfth  Night.     Ed.  by  Morton  Luce.     P.  xxxiy    (foot-notes). 

2  IMd. 

'Twelfth  Night.    Ed.  by  Morton  Luce,  p.  nix. 
*Brandes,  Shakespeare,  vol.  1,  p.  273. 

550 


OEGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  551 

the  other  hand  to  an  extreme  self-indulgence.  Of  the  two 
extremes,  the  course  of  life  that  would  banish  all  indul- 
gence is  emphasized  as  the  more  objectionable.  In  con- 
trast to  both,  wise  moderation  is  held  up  as  the  course  to 
follow. 

In  opposing  the  extreme  of  excessive  austerity  Shake- 
speare is  taking  up  cudgels  for  the  stage  in  its  struggle 
against  the  puritans ;  for  the  dramatists  and  the  puritans 
fell  out  about  the  question  of  pleasure  and  pastime.  The 
puritans  in  Shakespeare's  day  were  permitting  less  and 
less  of  pleasure  in  their  own  lives,  and  in  the  lives  of 
those  about  them.  In  this  endeavor  they  were  turning 
away  from  "  stage-plays  "  as  one  of  the  chief  purveyors 
to  the  people's  pleasure.  So  little  recreation,  indeed,  did 
they  allow  in  their  own  life  of  discipline  that  their  ene- 
mies accused  them  of  banishing  all  recreation. 

Stephen  Gosson  in  his  Apology  of  the  School  of  Abuse? 
contended  that  the  puritans  did  not  banish  recreation. 
However,  recreation  meant  one  thing  to  the  dramatists 
and  another  and  entirely  different  thing  to  the  puritans. 
Puritans  allowed  as  recreation,  "  food,  sleep,  change  of 
labour,  music,  conference  with  holy  men,  reading  Fox, 
the  Bible,  and  doing  problems."  6  To  the  puritans  it  was 
strictly  re-creation,  "  signifying  to  refresh  either  the  body 
or  the  mind  .  .  .  when  wearied,  or  spent  in  the  employ- 
ment of  men's  lawful  callings,  to  the  end  that  men  re- 
areated  and  refreshed,  may  cheerfully  return  to  their  law- 
ful callings  again,  and  therein  serve  God  faithfully."  7 
To  the  man  of  the  renaissance,  with  his  love  of  imaginative 

"  An  Apologie  of  the  Schools  of  Abuse:  Arber  Keprint  edition, 
p.  72.  * 

•A  Short  Treatise  against  Stage  Playes  (1625),  p.  241.  In  Eng- 
lish Drama  and  Stage  (Rox.  Lib.  1869). 

T  A  Short  Treatise  against  Stage  Playes    (1625),  pp.  240,  241. 


552  MORRIS    P.    TILLEY 

freedom  and  of  pagan  latitude,  this  definition  of  a  recrea- 
tion leading  to  asceticism  was  entirely  repellent. 

The  puritan's  aversion  to  pleasure  did  not  cease  with 
his  withdrawing  of  himself  from  pastimes  and  plays.  He 
strove  to  make  it  impossible  for  others  to  enjoy  what  he 
thought  a  sin.  It  was  not  enough  that,  being  virtuous, 
he  did  not  care  for  cakes  and  ale,  and  ginger  hot  in 
the  mouth;  he  was  determined  that  others  enjoying  these 
things  of  the  flesh  should  join  him  in  giving  them  up,  if 
not  of  their  own  free  will,  then  by  force  of  legislation  or 
of  arms.  As  a  result  the  puritans  stood  out  prominently 
and  disagreeably  in  the  mind  of  the  average  man  of  the 
street  in  Shakespeare's  day,  for  their  hostile  attitude 
towards  pleasure,  and  their  zeal  in  trying  to  force  their 
opinion  upon  others. 

To  the  dramatist  the  name  of  puritan  was,  therefore, 
anathema;  and  he  savagely  attacked  him  in  his  most 
effective  way.  On  every  stage  he  held  him  up  to  scorn  as 
a  man  who  merely  affected  holiness.  This  he  gave  out 
to  be  the  real  puritan.  In  these  attacks  he  presented  the 
puritan  condemning  all  pastimes,  not  that  the  puritan 
might  grow  strong  by  righteous  living,  but  that  he  might 
enjoy  the  good  opinion  of  others  for  a  piety  which  in 
reality  he  did  not  possess.  In  short  the  dramatist  made 
the  puritan  out  to  be  a  religious  hypocrite:  to  the  world 
a  strict  observer  of  religious  forms,  but  at  heart  a  self- 
seeker. 

William  Prynne  in  1633,  reviewing  the  dramatist's 
hostility  to  his  fellow  puritans,  said  rightly  that  in  their 
plays  puritans  were  represented  as  either  "  hypocrites, 
fools,  or  furious  mad-ones."  Such  indeed  might  be  a  gen- 
eral description  of  the  puritans  that  Jonson,  Marston,  and 
Chapman  give  us  in  their  plays.  Zeal-of-the-Land  Busy 
in  Bartholomew  Fair  and  Deacon  Ananias  in  The 


ORGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  553 

Alchemist  well  correspond  to  Prynne's  description  of  the 
dramatist's  attack  upon  the  puritan. 

The  puritan  as  he  appears  in  the  plays  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan dramatists  meets  no  mercy.  He  is  created  for 
the  purpose  of  derision.  After  he  has  been  given  an 
opportunity  to  display  his  churlish  parts  in  denouncing 
vices,  he  is  quickly  revealed  the  hypocrite  in  word  and 
deed,  while  the  degree  of  his  back-sliding  is  proportioned 
to  his  earlier  pretence  of  virtue.  As  a  result  his  dis- 
grace at  the  end  of  the  play  is  as  satisfying  to  his  enemies 
as  it  is  humiliating  to  himself. 

Shakespeare's  method  of  attacking  the  puritans,  how- 
ever, is  far  less  obvious  than  that  of  his  fellow  dramatists. 
By  some  he  has  even  been  thought  to  pass  over  with  indif- 
ference the  dispute  of  the  theatre  with  the  puritans.  His 
infrequent  mention  of  puritans  lends  appearance  to  this 
view,  as  does  the  fact  that  in  his  dramas  we  find  only  in- 
frequent, and  then  only  obscured,  satire  of  puritan  cos- 
tume, speech,  and  manner.  However,  he  does  take  part 
in  the  dispute,  but  in  his  distinctive  way.  Measure  for 
Measure  is  characteristic  of  Shakespeare's  method  of' 
attacking  the-  enemy  of  the  stage.  In  it  he  elevates  his 
criticism  of  the  religious  reformers  of  the  day  from  the 
level  of  personal  satire  and  abuse  to  a  higher  plane  of 
philosophical  discussion.  Angelo  in  this  play  is  a  scath- 
ing denunciation  of  a  hypocrite  who  in  his  abuse  of  power 
falls  from  heights  of  severe  virtue  to  gross  sin. 

In  Twelfth  Night  certain  factors  have  obscured  the 
organic  unity  that  is  behind  the  spontaneous  and  satis- 
fying mirth  of  the  play.  The  fact  that  Shakespeare's 
art  is  romantic  and  not  realistic,  has  hidden  the  under- 
lying purpose  of  the  play  behind  its  story  of  love  at 
cross  purposes.  Another  fact  that  contributes  to  make 
our  understanding  of  the  play  less  complete  is  our  re- 

6 


554  MOKBIS    P.    TILLEY 

moval  from  the  thought  of  the  day  for  which  the  play  was 
written.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  this  as  in  Shake- 
speare's other  plays  there  is  a  large  body  of  ideas,  facts, 
and  sentiments  which  the  author  could  presuppose  oa 
the  part  of  his  audience,  but  which  we  have  to  reconstruct 
with  the  assistance  of  notes  and  comments,  so  far  as  we 
&re  able  to  reconstruct  them  at  all.  The  theme  of  Twelfth 
Night,  closely  related  as  I  believe  that  it  is  to  the  actual 
thought  of  the  day,  required  less  explanation  at  that  time 
than  it  requires  now.  Malvolio's  dress,  his  starched  gait, 
his  close  cut  hair,  his  nasal  intonation  of  voice,  told  the 
Elizabethan  audience  what  has  frequently  been  doubted 
by  critics  since  that  time,  that  Malvolio  was  none  other 
than  a  puritan. 

The  organic  idea  quickening  and  giving  life  to  Twelfth 
Night  was  born  of  the  strife  of  Shakespeare's  day.  Writ- 
ten at  a  time  when  the  renaissance  and  the  reformation 
had  come  in  England  to  the  parting  of  the  ways,  Twelfth 
Night  bears  testimony  of  the  influence  of  these  contend- 
ing currents  of  freedom  and  of  restraint.  Society  was  at 
variance  with  itself;  and  in  the  excitement  of  political 
and  religious  strife,  extremes  of  every  kind  were  champi- 
oned. The  puritan  party  was  rallying  to  the  defense  of 
an  extreme  virtue ;  and  against  them  were  arrayed  all  the 
elements  of  society  that  held  either  other  ideals  or  no 
ideals  at  all.  It  was  no  time  for  dispassionate  judgment 
to  assert  itself.  A  judicious  Hooker  was  at  this  time  as 
rare  as  he  was  influential.  Well-balanced  natures  that 
could  at  the  same  time  feel  deeply  and  judge  rightly  were 
conspicuously  infrequent. 

There  was  in  the  controversial  puritan  writing  of  the 
time  as  in  the  writing  of  their  opponents,  especially  at  the 
beginning  of  the  dispute,  the  attempt  to  insist  upon  moder- 
ation in  everything  in  life.  In  and  out  of  the  drama  is 


OEGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  555 

heard  the  plea  for  moderation,  measure,  a  mean  in  all 
things;  it  is  pointed  out  repeatedly  that  nature  tolerates 
nothing  in  extreme  degree.  At  first  both  puritans  and 
their  enemies  allowed  the  use,  but  disallowed  the  abuse. 
The  middle  ground  of  things  that  were  "  indifferent," 
however,  grew  smaller  to  the  puritans  as  the  years  ad- 
vanced ;.  and  forms  and  ceremonies,  recreations  and  diver- 
sions, that  at  one  time  were  allowed,  were  gradually  added 
to  the  list  of  forbidden  things.  The  moderate  middle 
ground  upon  which  the  man  of  the  renaissance  could  meet 
and  enjoy  the  reformed  protestant  became  finally  too  small 
to  stand  upon;  and  the  sweet  uses  of  philosophy  and  of 
reasonableness  gave  way  to  party  strife  and  prejudice. 

The  well  balanced  life,  although  an  ideal  that  in  theory 
hovered  before  the  eyes  of  both  dramatists  and  puritans, 
gave  way  in  the  heat  of  persecution  and  of  hatred  to  pas- 
sion; and  as  a  result  the  followers  of  the  reformation 
found  an  ever-increasing  gulf  forming  between  themselves 
and  the  men  of  the  new  learning.  "  Tell  many  of  these 
men  of  the  Scripture,"  says  an  ardent  follower  of  the 
reformation,  in  speaking  of  the  true  sons  of  the  renais- 
sance, "they  will  scoff  and  turn  it  into -a  jest.  Rebuke 
them  for  breaking  the  Sabbath  day,  they  will  say,  you  are 
a  man  of  the  Sabbath,  you  are  very  precise,  you  will  al- 
low us  nothing,  you  will  have  nothing  but  the  word  of 
God ;  you  will  permit  us  no  recreation,  but  have  men  like 
asses,  who  never  rest  but  when  they  are  eating."  8 

The  correction  of  the  abuse  alone  did  not  satisfy  the 
cry  for  reform,  but  because  this  or  that  practice  was  not 
found  mentioned  in  Holy  Scripture,  it  should,  therefore, 
the  reformer  maintained,  be  taken  away.  The  determina- 
tion of  the  puritans  to  follow  every  action  of  Clfrist's 

8  A  Short  Treatise  against  Stage  Playes   (1625),  pp.  240,  241. 


556  MORRIS    P.    TILLEY 

(and  no  other's)  as  nearly  as  they  were  able  ("  omnis 
Christ!  actio  nostra  est  instructio  "),9  left  no  common 
standing  ground  upon  which  the  pleasure  seeker  of  the 
theatre  and  the  sterner  abstainer  from  pleasure  could 
meet.  The  lack  of  balance,  of  moderation,  on  the  part  of 
the  reformers,  caused  the  friends  of  the  arts  to  plead  in 
vain  that  because  of  the  abuse,  the  use  should  not  be  de- 
nied. "  But  what !  "  Sir  Philip  Sidney  exclaims  in  de- 
fending poetry  against  its  def  amers,  "  Shall  the  abuse  of 
a  thing,  make  the  right  use  odious  ?  "  10 

Shakespeare,  one  of  the  sanest  men  that  ever  lived,  view- 
ed the  struggles  about  him  with  a  calmness  that  refused  to 
allow  him  to  become  a  partisan  on  either  side.  When  the 
reformers  were  sweeping  aside  all  pastime,  and  their  op- 
ponents in  reaction  were  sinking  to  new  follies  in  their 
opposition,  Shakspeare  composed  Twelfth  Night  in  praise 
of  the  much-needed,  well-balanced  nature,  to  extoll  that 
happy  union  of  judgment  and  of  feeling  which  is  the  basis 
of  a  higher  sanity.  He  does  this  so  deftly,  with  so  little 
intrusion  of  his  purpose  in  other  than  the  most  perfect  dra- 
matic form,  that  we  of  another  time,  removed  from  the 
strife  of  the  puritan  age,  enjoy  the  result  without  realiz- 
ing the  purpose  behind  the  finished  production.  Only  the 
figure  of  Malvolio  stands  out  in  his  hostility  to  all  forms  of 
amusement,  to  remind  us  that  he  is  Shakespeare's  con- 
tribution to  the  portraits  of  those  enemies  of  art  and  of 
life  in  its  fullest  development,  which  aroused  the  Eliza- 
bethan dramatists  to  energetic  and  continued  opposition. 

The  problem  of  life  as  Shakespeare  saw  it,  and  reveals 
it  to  us  in  this  play,  is  basic ;  far  greater  than  that  of  any 
group  or  sect  of  persons.  It  is  the  conflict  in  human 
nature  between  the  reason  and  the  emotions;  and  he  sug- 

'  Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  p.  111. 

"Defense  of  Poesy.     Ed.  by  A.  S.  Cook   (1890),  p.  36. 


ORGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  557 

gests  to  us  in  the  perfect  sanity  of  Viola  and  of  Feste  that 
the  solution  lies  not  in  the  exclusion  of  the  one  or  the 
other,  but  in  the  union  of  the  two.  In  two  groups  of  char- 
acters in  the  play  he  presents  to  us  the  evil  results  of  fol- 
lowing, to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  either  reason  or 
emotion.  In  the  self-conceited  Malvolio  and  the  strict 
Olivia  he  gives  us  representatives  of  those  reformers  of 
his  day  who,  ignoring  the  moderate,  gravitate  to  an  ex- 
treme course  of  life  in  which  reason  is  exalted  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  emotions.  Similarly,  in  Sir  Andrew  and  Sir 
Toby,  the  other  extreme  from  a  well-ordered  life  is  repre- 
sented, one  in  which  pleasure  and  folly  make  up  the  whole 
existence  of  man. 

Edmund  Spenser,  in  the  second  canto  of  the  second 
book  of  the  Fairie  Queene,  which  is  devoted  to  the  virtue 
of  temperance,  gives  us  in  allegorical  narrative  form  what 
Shakespeare  is  giving  us  in  Twelfth  Night  in  dramatic 
form.  There  we  are  shown  "the  face  of  golden  Mean/7 
whom  "her  sisters,  two  extremities,  strive  to  banish  clean." 
These  three  sisters  correspond  to  the  three  divisions  that 
may  be  made  of  the  important  characters  of  Twelfth 
Night.  Of  the  three  sisters,  Medina,  or  Golden  Mean,  is 
opposed  on  the  one  hand  to  Elissa,  melancholy  and  un- 
friendly to  good  cheer ;  and  on  the  other  hand  to  the  young 
Perissa,  "  full  of  disport  still  laughing,  loosly  light." 

Betwixt  them  both  the  fair  Medina  sate, 
With  sober  grace  and  goodly  carriage; 
With  equal  measure  she  did  moderate 
The  strong  extremities  of  their  outrage. 
The  forward  pair  she  ever  would  assuage 
When  they  would  strive  due  reason  to  exceed. 

Malvolio  and  Olivia  in  Twelfth  Night  may  be  s^d  to 
correspond  to  Elissa  who  "  with  bent  lowering  brows,  as 
she  would  threat,  she  scould  and  fround  with  froward 


558  MOEKIS    P.    TILLEY 

countenance."  Similarly  Andrew  Aguecheek  and  Orsino 
correspond  to  Perissa,  the  other  sister,  in  whom  is  em- 
bodied the  opposite  extreme: 

No  measure  in  her  mood,  no  rule  of  right, 
But  poured  out  in  pleasure  and  delight; 
In  wine  and  meats  she  flowed  above  the  bank, 
And  in  excess  exceeded  her  own  might. 

In  Feste  and  Viola,  we  have  the  golden  mean  of  the  play. 
The  description  of  Medina  by  Spenser  might  well  describe 
Viola: 

Ne  in  her  speech,  ne  in  her  havior, 
Was  lightness  seen  or  looser  vanity, 
But  gracious  womanhood  and  gravity, 
Above  the  reason  of  her  youthly  years. 

There  is  general  agreement  among  critics  with  regard 
to  the  excellence  and  the  sanity  of  the  characters  of  Viola 
and  Feste.  To  them  Shakespeare  has  given  self-control 
and  a  penetration  that  guide  them  in  their  course  of  life, 
without  exposing  them  to  the  extreme  either  of  folly  or 
of  austerity.  They  represent  the  golden  mean  of  tem- 
perance, in  whom  reason  and  emotion  are  at  poise. 

The  affection  that  Shakespeare  has  for  Viola,  who  with 
Feste  shares  the  distinction  of  standing  between  the 
"  lighter  people  "  and  "  the  prudent  ones,"  is  clear.  It  is 
she  to  whom  Shakespeare  gives  his  own  thoughts  when  she 
defends  Feste' s  fooling,  condemned  by  both  Malvolio  and 
Olivia : 

This  fellow  is  wise  enough  to  play  the  fool, 
And  to  do  that  well,  craves  a  kind  of  wit; 
He  must  observe  their  mood  upon  whom  he  jests, 
The  quality  of  person  and  the  time: 

This  is  a  practice 
As  full  of  labour  as  a  wise  man's  art: 

III,    1. 


ORGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  559 

In  another  place  Viola  shows  a  sense  of  proportion  in 
rating  sins,  that  we  neither  expect  nor  find  in  Malvolio 
or  Olivia. 

I  hate  ingratitude  more  in  a  man 
Than  lying,  vainess,  babling,  drunkeness, 
Or  any  taint  of  vice,  whose  strong  corruption 
Inhabits  our  frail  blood. 

Ill,  4. 

But  this  ability  to  see  and  to  think  clearly,  and  to  con- 
trol her  affections  when  necessary,  was  Viola's  part  in 
Shakespeare's  plan  of  the  play.  As  a  further  result  of 
her  well-balanced  character,  the  plan  of  the  play  rewards 
her  with  the  husband  of  her  choice,  while  Orsino  and 
Olivio  are  defeated  in  the  aims  of  their  affections.  Sim- 
ilarly Feste  in  the  sub-plot  does  not  meet  disappointment 
as  do  Andrew  and  Malvolio,  but  remains  the  happy  son  of 
mirth,  to  whom  Shakespeare  has  given  in  goodly  measure 
his  own  penetration  into  the  motives  of  others. 

In  the  persons  of  Orsino  and  Sir  Andrew  we  have 
characters  that  are  accepted  as  examples,  in  different  de- 
grees, of  ungoverned  natures.  Orsino  has  surrendered  him- 
self entirely  to  his  passion  for  Olivia,  that  will  "  bide  no 
denay."  No  check  of  reason  holds  him  back  from  his  ex- 
travagance of  love;  and  when  count  is  taken  at  the 
end,  his  suit  for  the  hand  of  Olivia  is  no  more  successful 
than  that  of  the  witless  Sir  Andrew,  who  has  wasted  his 
time  in  "  fencing,  dancing,  and  bear-baiting."  So  far  as 
they  are  shown  to  us  they  have  acted  without  reference  to 
the  guidance  of  reason  •  and  are  the  products  of  their  sur- 
render to  their  unchecked  inclinations. 

With  Sir  Andrew  may  be  included  Sir  Toby,  Maria,  and 
Fabian,  as  representatives  of  the  extreme  of  mirth  *and 
frivolity.  Andrew  is  in  the  fore-rank  of  these  "  lighter 
people."  He  is  closely  followed,  however,  by  Sir  Toby, 


560  MOEEIS    P.    TILLEY 

who  will  not  hear  of  a  song  of  "  good-life/'  but  clamors 
for  a  "  love-song/7  which  has  as  its  theme  the  present  en- 
joyment of  life — 

For  in  delay  there  lies  no  plenty, 
Present  mirth   has   present  laughter, 
What's  to  come  is  still  unsure. 


On  the  same  occasion  it  is  Sir  Andrew  who  gives  utterance 
to  his  belief  that  life  consists  not  of  the  four  elements,  but 
rather  of  eating  and  drinking;  and  for  this  sentiment 
he  is  proclaimed  by  Sir  Toby,  to  the  accompaniment  of  a 
call  for  wine,  no  less  than  a  scholar. 

The  character  of  Olivia  is  open  to  no  misunderstanding. 
She  is  the  most  impulsive  of  the  whole  impulsive  group ; 
nor  do  we  feel  the  smallest  surprise  when  her  exaggerated 
grief  gives  sudden  place  to  exaggerated  passion.  With  re- 
gard to  grouping  her  with  Malvolio,  however,  it  is  impor- 
tant to  dwell  upon  her  determination  to  spend  seven  years 
in  mourning.  Her  actions  and  words  ally  her  with  "  her 
sad  and  civil  steward,"  who  suits  so  well  with  her  fortunes. 
Her  nature  and  his  agree  in  looking  upon  life  with  sever- 
ity. Her  austere  attitude  is  natural  to  her,  so  that  it  is 
not  solely  because  of  the  recent  death  of  her  brother  that 
she  hath  abjured  the  company  and  the  sight  of  men.  Until 
her  distracting  frenzy  for  Cesario  seizes  upon  her,  she  not 
only  rules  pleasure  out  of  her  own  life  but  regulates  the 
life  of  her  household  with  severity.  The  reproofs  that  she 
administers  to  Feste  and  to  Cesario,  upon  her  first  visit, 
reveal  her  a  stern  governess  of  her  household.  "  She  has 
no  folly,"  as  the  Clown  says  of  her.  Her  whole  endeavor 
is  concentrated  upon  a  rule  of  reform  that  will  either  sep- 
arate Sir  Toby  and  the  other  members  of  her  household 
from  their  disorders,  or  else  dismiss  them  from  her  house. 

It  is  to  this  model  of  virtue  that  comes  the  distracting 


OBGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  561 

frenzy  of  falling  in  love  with  Viola  disguised  as  a  mes- 
senger from  Orsino.  Her  self-discipline  does  not  save  her 
from  the  folly  of  loving  Viola  madly  in  spite  of  her  reso- 
lution not  to  admit  the  suit  of  man.  She  is  conscious  of 
her  revolt  from  her  standard  of  reason  and  refers  to  it 
several  times : 

There  is  something  in  me  that  reproves  my  fault 
But  such  a  headstrong  potent  fault  it  is, 
That  it  but  mocks  reproof. 

Ill,  4. 

I  love  thee  so,  that  maugre  all  thy  pride, 
Nor  wit  nor  reason  can  my  passion  hide. 

Ill,  1. 

Olivia  is  only  one  of  a  number  of  examples  that  Shake- 
speare gives  us  in  his  plays,  to  show  the  futility  of  the 
aims  of  those  who  would  be  wiser  than  nature ;  and  seek, 
in  ruling  out  of  life  the  emotions,  to  exalt  the  single  stand- 
ard of  reason  to  supreme  importance. 

Malvolio  shares  with  Olivia  the  distinction  of  repre- 
senting the  extreme  of  austerity,  and  is  similarly  brought 
to  see  his  error.  The  placing  of  Olivia  and  Malvolio  in 
the  centre  of  the  plot  interest,  points  to  Shakespeare's 
intention  in  this  play  of  emphasizing  the  inability  of  the 
puritans  to  rule  out  of  life  pleasure  and  pastime. 

Those  critics  who  have  found  Malvolio's  punishment  n 
both  coarse  and  excessive  have  failed  to  conceive  Malvolio 
as  the  hypocrite  that  Shakespeare  intended  him  to  be. 
This  was  the  Elizabethan  dramatist's  usual  denunciation 
of  the  puritans  who  ordered  their  life  after  Malvolio's 

11 T.  Kenny  (1864).  Furness,  Twelfth  Night,  p.  382:  "There  is 
nothing  in  his  conduct  to  justify  the  unscrupulous  persecution  of 
his  tormentors." 

Wm.  Archer,  in  Furness,  Twelfth  Night,  p.  399:  "Punishment 
excessive  to  the  point  of  barbarity." 


562 


MORKIS    P.    TILLEY 


principles.  It  is  Maria,  Olivia's  handmaid,  who  reveals 
him  to  us.  She  knows  from  frequent  observation  both 
what  he  is  and  what  he  is  not.  He  is  not  as  he  seems,  a 
genuinely  pious  man.  It  is  only  sometimes  that  he  is  a 
kind  of  a  puritan.  His  puritanism  is  a  pose  that  he  adopts 
to  advance  himself  at  this  time  when  with  his  mistress 
puritanical  mannerisms  are  in  favor.  He  affects  it  all. 
The  show  of  wisdom  and  of  gravity  that  he  puts  on,  he 
learns  from  books.  He  is  not  what  he  appears,  a  grave 
and  sedate  man  of  virtue,  acting  from  the  conviction  of  his 
inner  spirit,  zealous  in  the  truth,  and  therefore  not  suffer- 
ing any  vice  to  go  unreprehended  in  Olivia's  house.  At 
heart  he  is  very  different,  as  Maria  tells  us,  from  that 
which  he  appears  to  be.  He  is  not  humble  in  spirit;  but 
proud  and  arrogant  to  those  below  him.  He  is  the  best 
persuaded  of  himself,  so  crammed,  as  he  thinks,  with 
excellences,  that  it  is  his  ground  of  faith  that  all  who  look 
upon  him  love  him. 

A  complete  antithesis  exists  between  his  ground  of  faith 
and  that  of  the  true  Christian  of  the  day,  who,  wishing  to 
make  more  sincere  his  expression  of  love  to  God  and  man, 
had  given  to  him,  in  derision  at  first,  the  name  of  puritan. 
Maria's  exposition  of  Malvolio's  ground  of  faith  as  self- 
love  marks  him  off  in  spirit  from  the  part  he  acts,  and 
classes  him  as  a  hypocrite. 

The  inconsistencies  in  Malvolio's  character  that  Mr. 
Archer  and  other  critics  12  have  noted  and  have  attributed 
to  Shakespeare's  incomplete  mastery  in  the  delineation  of 
Olivia's  steward,  are  not  defects,  but  the  natural  incon- 
sistencies that  would  arise  in  such  a  conflict  between  the 
real  Malvolio  and  the  part  that  he  is  acting. 

It  is  probable  that  to  the  audience  of  his  day,  Malvolio 

u  Furness,  Twelfth  Night,  pp.  399,  400. 


ORGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  563 

appeared  as  a  designing  steward,  who  hoped  to  win  his 
lady's  favor  by  playing  the  puritan  in  her  household. 
Feste  had  a  shrewd  suspicion  of  his  motive  when  he  wished 
him  a  "  speedy  infirmity  for  the  better  increasing  his 
folly."  Maria  also  saw  through  him.  She  based  her  plot 
of  the  letter  on  this  weakness.  Finally  we  hear  Malvolio 
confessing  in  secret  that  his  thoughts  are  upon  the  days 
when  he  shall  be  Count  Malvolio  by  reason  of  marriage  to 
his  lady.  If  we  keep  this  motive  of  his  in  mind,  and 
measure  his  desire  to  please  Olivia  accordingly,  there  will 
arise  no  doubt  in  our  mind  as  to  whether  his  punishment 
is  excessive. 

In  the  presence  of  Olivia  and  of  others  he  may  feign  a 
humbleness,  but  there  is  no  genuine  humility  in  Malvolio's 
make-up.  When  alone,  in  thinking  of  the  favor  his  mis- 
tress shows  him,  "  contemplation  makes  a  rare  turkey- 
cock  of  him  "  and  "  he  jets  under  his  advanced  plumes." 
And  later  he  shows  his  inner  self  by  believing  the  passages 
of  impossible  grossness  in  the  letter  with  their  appeal  to  'his 
enormous  self-conceit.  Besides  being  encouraged  in  the 
letter  to  make  love  to  Olivia,  he  is  urged  to  cast  his  humble 
slough,  and  appear  fresh,  to  be  opposite  with  a  kinsman, 
surly  with  servants.  He  is  commanded  to  let  his  tongue 
tang  with  arguments  of  state  and  to  put  himself  into  the 
trick  of  singularity. 

"No  order  could  be  more  welcome  to  Malvolio,  whose 
thoughts  are  constantly  on  "  state  "  and  on  the  acquiring 
of  power.  "  This  is  open,"  he  exclaims  with  delight  upon 
receiving  the  command,  "  I  will  be  proud,  I  will  read  poli- 
tick authors,  I  will  baffle  Sir  Toby,  I  will  wash  off  gross 
acquaintance,  I  will  be  point  devise  the  very  man.  I  will 
be  strange,  stout,  in  yellow  stockings  and  cross-gartered, 
even  with  the  swiftness  of  putting  on."  And  he  is 


564  MORRIS    P.    TILLEY 

"  strange "  and  "  stout "  when  he  comes  to  Olivia  in 
yellow  stockings.  With  ridiculous  boldness  in  his  lady's 
presence,  he  answers  Maria  with,  "  Shall  nightingales 
answer  daws  ? "  And  later,  when  given  over  to  the  care 
of  Sir  Toby,  he  is  both  surly  with  servants  and  opposite 
with  a  kinsman.  Here  it  is  that  he  revels  according  to  his 
nature  in  disdain  and  arrogance,  "  Go  hang  yourselves  all, 
you  are  idle,  shallow  things;  I  am  not  of  your  element; 
you  shall  know  more  hereafter." 

If  further  proof  were  needed  to  mark  off  Malvolio  and 
Olivia  as  of  "  the  prudent  ones,"  a  formidable  list  of 
qualities  and  practices  objectionable  to  them  might  be 
compiled,  in  which  together  they  shared  their  disapproval 
with  other  puritans.  In  such  a  list  would  be  included 
health-drinking,  drunkeness,  quarrelling,  bear-baiting, 
fencing,  bad  manners,  dancing,  evil  company,  mis-spend- 
ing time,  poetry,  plays,  idle  compliment,  untruths,  idle- 
ness, jesting,  pranks,  boldness,  oaths,  lack  of  regard  for 
proper  place  and  proper  time,  singing,  disorderly  conduct, 
staying  out  late  at  night,  feasting,  music,  discourtesy, 
disrespect  of  persons,  folly,  fashionable  dress,  shallowness. 
The  sure  hand  of  the  master  dramatist  has  touched  Mal- 
volio's  and  Olivia's  dislike  of  these  habits  lightly,  but  suffi- 
ciently to  score  his  points  with  an  audience  alive  to  the 
significance  of  each  touch.  In  forming  our  opinion  of 
Olivia  and  of  Malvolio  with  regard  to  this  list,  it  is  well 
to  keep  in  mind  that  in  an  age  of  greater  license  than  our 
own,  some  of  the  habits  objected  to  by  Malvolio,  such  as 
excessive  drinking,  bear-baiting  and  oaths,  which  are  offen- 
sive to  us,  were  not  objectionable  to  most  people. 

At  the  end  of  Twelfth  NigJii  is  a  song  sung  by  Festo 
that  is  thought  by  some  to  be  full  of  wisdom  and  by  others 
to  be  hardly  intelligible.  The  refrain  to  each  couplet 
omitted,  the  words  of  the  song  are  as  follows : 


ORGANIC    UNITY    OF    TWELFTH    NIGHT  565 

',-,.-    When  that  I  was  and  a  little  tiny  boy, 
A  foolish  thing  was  but  a  toy. 

But  when  I  came  to  man's  estate, 

Gainst  Knaves  and  Thieves  men  shut  their  gate. 

But  when  I  came  alas  to  wive, 
By  swaggering  could  I  never  thrive. 

But  when  I  came  unto  my  beds, 

With  tosspots  still  had  drunken  heads. 

A  great  while  ago  the  world  begun, 
But  that's  all  one,  our  play  is  done, 
And  we'll  strive  to  please  you  every  day. 

In  these  words  we  have  Feste  touching  lightly  upon  the 
fundamental  idea  of  the  play.  Experience,  coming  to  him 
with  man's  estate,  has  taught  him  the  difference  between 
men  who  are  knaves  and  men  who  are  not.  The  third  and 
fourth  stanzas  of  his  song  give  his  division  of  knaves 
into  two  classes,  representatives  of  each  of  which  he  finds 
in  his  fellows  of  the  sub-plot.  Malvolio,  who  by  swagger- 
ing tries  to  thrive  in  his  suit  for  Olivia's  hand,  is  his 
reference  to  the  one  class ;  and  Sir  Toby,  Olivia's  drunken 
cousin,  and  his  foolish  dupe  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek,  whom 
canary  has  put  down,  are  the  point  of  his  allusion  to  the 
tosspots,  who  go  to  bed  with  drunken  heads.  This  divi- 
sion of  knaves  by  Feste  is  his  reference  to  the  followers 
of  the  two  extremes  in  the  play.  Experience  has  taught 
him  that  against  both  "  men  shut  their  gates." 

"A  great  while  ago  the  world  begun,"  he  adds.  This 
matter  of  good  and  evil  is  as  old  as  the  world,  is  his 
thought.  You  have  seen  the  folly  of  the  fools,  and  the 
disappointments  that  they  have  reaped  from  their  folly. 
"  But  that's  all  one,  the  play  is  done,  we  will  strive  to 
please  you  every  day." 

Thus  it  is  that  Eeste,  the  wise  discerner  of  motives 


566  MORRIS    P.    TILLEY 

throughout  the  play,  gives  us  in  this  his  song,  and  the  last 
words  of  the  comedy,  assistance  in  penetrating  to  its 
fundamental  idea;  and  in  so  doing  adds  his  word  to  the 
support  of  the  theory  that  Shakespeare  in  Twelfth  Night 
scorns  the  folly  of  extremes,  and  holds  up  to  high  praise 
the  mean  that  we  term  golden. 

MORRIS  P.  TILLEY. 


APPENDIX 


PROCEDINGS    OF    THE    THIRTY-FIRST  ANNUAL 

MEETING  OF  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGE 

ASSOCIATION    OF    AMERICA, 

A  JOINT  MEETING  WITH 
THE   AMERICAN   PHILOLOGICAL   ASSOCIATION, 

HELD  UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY,  AT  CAMBRIDGE,  MASS., 

DECEMBER  29,  30,  31,  1913, 

AND  OF  THE 
NINETEENTH  ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE  CENTRAL 

DIVISION  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION, 

HELD  UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CINCINNATI,  AT  CINCINNATI,  OHIO, 

ON  THE  SAME  DAYS. 


THE  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 
OF  AMERICA 


MEETING  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION 

The  thirty-first  annual  meeting  of  the  MODERN  LAN- 
GUAGE ASSOCIATION  OF  AMERICA,  a  joint  meeting  with 
the  AMERICAN  PHILOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION,  was  held 
under  the  auspices  of  Harvard  University,  at  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  December  29,  30,  31,  1913,  in  accordance  with  the 
folloing  invitation: 

HABVARD  UNIVERSITY, 
CAMBRIDGE. 

DECEMBER,  17,  1912. 
Dear  Mr.  Howard: 

I  write  to  say  that  if  there  is  any  chance  of  the  Modern  Language 
Association  of  America  meeting  in  Cambridge  and  Boston  a  year 
hence,  I  hope  you  will  extend  a  most  cordial  invitation  to  them  on 
behalf  of  Harvard  University. 

Very  truly  yours, 

A.  LAWRENCE  LOWELL. 
PROFESSOR  W.  G.  HOWABD. 

All  sessions  of  both  Associations  wer  held  in  Emerson 
Hall. 

FIRST  SESSION  OF  THE  M.  L.  A.,  MONDAY,  DECEMBER  29 

The  meeting  was  cald  to  order  by  Professor  Alexander 
E.  Hohlfeld,  President  of  the  Association,  at  2.50  p.  m. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Association,  Professor  W.  Gr.  How- 
ard, presented  as  his  report  volume  xxvm  of  the  Publica- 
tions of  the  Association,  including  the  Procedings  of  Ahe 
last  annual  meeting;  and  the  report  was  unanimusly  ac- 
cepted. 

iii 


V  MODERN   LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

The  Tresurer  of  the  Association,  Professor  Karl  Young, 
presented  the  folloing  report: 

A.     CURRENT   RECEITS   AND   EXPENDITURES 

RECEITS 

Balance  on  hand,  December  20,   1912,  -                            -    $  634  15 

From    Members    for    1906,  $    3  00 

"    1907,       -  3  00 

"     1908,       -  3  00 

"     1909,       -         -  6  00 

"     1910,       -  12  00 

"     1911,  74  00 

"     1912,       -  294  00 

"     1913,       -         -  2,830  50 

"      1914,       -  48  10 
From   Members,    for    Life   Member- 
ship,  on   behalf   of   the   Trustees 


of   the   Permanent    Fund,     - 

100  00 

<j»Q  070    fin 

From  Libraries,  for  Vol.  XXVI,     -     $ 

2  70 

"       "     XXVII,    - 

27  00 

"       "     XXVIII, 

178  20 

"      "     XXIX, 

65  80 

$    °73  70 

For  Publications,  Vols.  VIII-XX,          $ 

120  94 

"      XXI,   - 

10  20 

"      XXII, 

6  75 

"      XXIII, 

5  40 

"      XXIV, 

6  30 

"      XXV, 

10  00 

"      XXVI, 

10  00 

"      XXVII, 

21  35 

"      XXVIII,      - 

63  55 

"               "     Miscellaneous, 

36  80 

(ft        Oft]      Oft 

For  Reprints,  Vol.  XXVIII, 

15  00 

From  Advertisers,  Vol.  XXVII,       -  $ 

157  50 

"     XXVIII,      - 

37  50 

Interest,    Bank    of    Wisconsin,    Madison, 

Wis.,          44  72 

-  $4,193  31 

$4,827  46 


PROCEDINGS    FOE    1913  V 

EXPENDITURES 

To  Secretary,  for  Salary,  -  -    $  400  00 

"  "          "     Stationery         and 

Printing,    -  42  63 

"     Postage    and    Ex- 

pressage,    -         -          22  90 

$  465  53 

To   Secretary,    Central    Division,    for 

Salary,       -         -  $  100  00 

"             "                 Expenses,  91  34 

$191  34 

To  Tresurer,  for  Salary,     -         -         -  $  200  00 
"           "          "     Stationery         and 

Printing,  15  55 
"                       "     Postage     and     Ex- 

pressage,        -  83  84 

"     Clerical  services,     -  17  85 

"  Tresurer's  Assistant,   for   Salary,  50  00 

"                     "             Expenses,  50  10 

$  417  34 

For  Printing  Publications, 

Vol.  XXVIII,  No.  1,        -         -    $  677  67 
"     XXVIII,  No.  2,  611  23 

"     XXVIII,  No.  3,  672  11 

—  $1,961  01 
For  Reprinting  Publications, 

Old  Series,  Vols.  I  and  II,  -    $  215  50 

Fior  Printing  and  Mailing  Program, 

31st    Annual    Meeting,  -         -        163  50 

To  Committee  of  Central  Division  on  Prepara- 
tion of   College   Teachers  of   English,     -          21  10 
To  Committee  of  Central  Division  on  Simplified 

Spelling,  -         -         -        21  00 

For  Purchase  of  Publications,  -         -         -         -          72  24 
Transferd   to    Permanent    Fund,         -  100  00 

Exchange,  2  30 

$3,630  86 

Balance  on  hand,  December  22,  1913,  1,196  60 

$4,827  46 


VI  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

B.     INVESTED   FUNDS 

Bright  Fund   (Eutaw  Savings  Bank, 

Baltimore), 

Principal,  December  20,  1912,     -  $1,668  45 
Interest,  April  1,  1913,       -         -         74  93 

$1,743  38 

Ton  Jagemann  Fund  (Cambridge  Savings  Bank), 
Principal,  December  20,  1912,     -  $1,157  52 
Interest,  January  23,  1913,         -          23  14 
Interest,   July   24,    1913,     -  23  60 

1,204  26 

$2,947  64 


The  President  of  the  Association  appointed  the  folloing 
committees : 

(1)  To  audit  the  Tresurer's  report:  Professors  H.  E. 
Greene,  E.  H.  Mensel,  and  J.  D.  Bruce. 

(2)  To  nominate  officers:  Professors  Gustav  Gruener, 
E.  C.  Armstrong,  and  C.  F.  Brown. 

To  test  the  feeling  of  the  meeting  the  Secretary  askt  for 
a  vote  on  the  folloing  proposition: 

Resolvd:  that  this  meeting  favors  the  holding  of  a  Union 
Meeting  in  1914  and  the  holding  of  an  annual  meeting  of  the 
Association  at  San  Francisco  in  the  summer  of  1915. 

There  wer  no  votes  in  the  affirmativ. 

On  motion  of  the  Secretary  it  was 

Voted:  that  the  Executiv  Council  be  authorized  to  appoint  a 
delegate  or  delegates  to  the  Conference  of  Teachers  of  English  at 
Stratford-upon-Avon  in  the  first  week  of  August,  1914. 

On  behalf  of  Professor  E.  M.  Hopkins,  Chairman,  the 
Secretary  offerd  to  those  interested  copies  of  a  Report  on 
the  Cost  and  Labor  of  English  Teaching  by  a  Committee 


PEOCEDINGS    FOB    1913  vii 

of  the  Central  Division  of  the  Modern  Language  Associa- 
tion of  America  and  the  National  Council  of  Teachers  of 
English,  and  conveyd  to  the  meeting  Professor  Hopkins's 
invitation  to  all  members  of  the  Association  to  apply  to 
him  for  additional  copies. 

The  Secretary  red  the  f olloing  letter : 

DEPABTMENT  OF  THE  INTEBIOB 
Bureau  of  Education 

WASHINGTON 

December  26,    1913. 
Mr.  W.  G.  HOWABD, 

Secretary,  Modern  Language  Association  of  America, 
Cambridge,  Massachusetts. 

My  dear  Mr.  Howard: 

May  I  ask  that  you  will  kindly  give  to  the  members  of  the 
Modern  Language  Association  of  America  the  greetings  of  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Education  and  my  hearty  good  wishes  for 
a  most  pleasant  and  profitable  meeting.  Will  you  also  assure  them 
that  it  will  give  us  great  pleasure  to  serve  them  in  any  way  we 
can  at  any  time. 

Yours  sincerely, 

P.  P.  CLAXTON, 

Commissioner. 

This  letter  was  gratefully  acknoledged. 
The  reading  of  papers  was  then  begun. 

1.  "  Bishop  Las  Casas  and  the  Eise  of  the  Myth  of  the 
Noble  Indian."  By  Professor  Camillo  von  Klenze,  of 
Brown  University. 

[The  discoverers  of  America,  like  Columbus  and  Vespucci,  and 
other  travelers  to  the  new  continent  in  the  15th  and  16th  centuries, 
like  Magellan,  Staden,  Thevet,  Ulrich  Schmidt,  etc.,  describe  the 
nativs  sometimes  as  kindly,  sometimes  as  savage.  They  Ifav  no 
thesis  to  prove.  Several  writers,  however,  like  Oviedo  (1535), 
Gomara  (1553),  and  others,  in  order  to  extenuate  the  Spanish  atro- 


Vlll  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

cities  'in  Central  and  South  America,  make  the  Indian  the  embodi- 
ment of  all  that  is  savage  and  bestial.  Such  injustis,  added  to  the 
unutterable  cruelties  inflicted  on  the  aborigines,  evoked  the  protest 
of  the  Spanish  Bishop  Las  Casas  and  caused  him  to  spend  his  life 
in  the  attempt  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  the  defenseless  nativs. 
His  pamflet,  Brevissima  relation  de  la  destruycion  de  las  Indias 
(1552),  is  an  eloquent  vindicaton  of  the  gentle  and  kindly  Indian 
whom  Spanish  selfishness  had  wittingly  misrepresented.  The  book 
was  taken  up  with  almost  incredible  avidity  by  the  enemies  of 
Spain  and  of  Catholicism — and  their  name  was  legion — in  the  16th 
and  17th  centuries.  Over  forty  editions  appeard  in  seven  languages, 
in  the  Netherlands,  in  France,  in  Germany,  in  England,  and  in 
Italy.  The  introductions  to  these  translations  reflect  the  great 
political  and  theological  struggles  of  the  age  of  the  Counter-Refor- 
mation and  of  dawning  Toleration.  Other  writers  soon  folloed.  So 
the  Milanese  Benzoni,  Englishmen  like  Francis  Drake  and  Walter 
Raleigh,  and  especially  the  half-breed  Garcillasso  de  la  Vega,  whose 
voluminus  Commentaries  reales  (Lisbon,  1609)  add  grandeur  and 
dignity  to  the  picture  of  the  innocent  and  noble  Indian  of  Las 
Casas.  Thus,  before  the  opening  of  Canada  in  the  second  half  of 
the  17th  century,  the  way  had  been  thoroly  prepared  for  an  enthu- 
siastic reception  of  the  North-American  Indian  who  was  destind  to 
play  so  powerful  a  part  in  the  imagination  of  Europe. — Tiventy^five 
minutes.  ] 

2.  "  Emerson  et  Montaigne."  By  Professor  Eegis 
Michaud,  of  Princeton  University. 

[L'essai  d'Emerson  sur  Montaigne,  dans  ses  Representative  Men, 
constitue  un  chapitre  important  de  1'histoire  de  Pinfluence  de  Mon- 
taigne a  Petranger.  Par  une  comparaison  suivie  de  certains  pas- 
sages du  Journal  d'Emerson  re"cemment  public,  de  ses  essais  et  d'une 
edition  de  Montaigne  annote"e  par  Emerson  lui-meTne,  Pauteur  de  ce 
rapport  precisait  Petendue  de  la  dette  d'Emerson  envers  Montaigne. 
II  attribuait  a  Montaigne  1)  une  influence  directe  sur  certain  33 
dates  critiques  de  la  vie  de  pensee  d'Emerson,  2)  la  doctrine  essen- 
tielle  de  certains  essais  sur  1'amitie,  les  livres,  1'histoire,  Peducation, 
3)  la  philosophic  des  h^ros,  4)  le  scepticisme  relatif  d'Emerson  et  ce 
qu'il  nomine  sa  "gaie  science."  L'auteur  finissait  par  une  critique 
du  portrait  de  Montaigne  tel  que  le  donne  Emerson  dans  les  Repre- 
sentative Men. — Ttoenty-five  minutes.] 

3.  "  Goethe  as  viewed  by  Emerson."  By  Dr.  Fred- 
erick A.  Braun,  of  Princeton  University. 


PROCEDLNGS    FOE    1913  IX 

[The  esteem  in  which  Emerson  is  held  as  one  of  our  foremost 
thinkers  and  the  groing  sentiment  that  he  is  the  most  represen- 
tativ  American  poet  lend  increasing  interest  to  his  relation  to  the 
great  literary  men  of  Europe.  The  present  study  treated  of  Emer- 
son's diverse  attitudes  toward  Goethe  and  sought  to  thro  new  light 
on  them  from  sources  hitherto  unused  and  but  little  known. — Twenty 
minutes.] 

4.  "  The  History  of  the  Letters  of  Abelard  and  He- 
lo'ise"     By  Dr.  Charlotte  E.  Morgan,  of  Mrs.  Randall- 
Mclver's  Classes. 

[The  purpose  of  the  paper  was  twofold:  in  the  first  place,  it 
traced  the  history  of  the  Letters  from  the  first  printed  edition, 
in  1616,  to  date,  and  shoed  how  the  changes  introduced  in  the 
French  versions  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  retaind  in  the  Eng- 
lish versions  to  this  day,  wer  due  to  direct  imitation  of  The  Letters 
of  a  Portuguese  Nun;  in  the  second  place,  it  indicated  the  known 
facts  concerning  Abelard  and  Heloise  from  their  time  to  1616,  and 
the  problems  presented — the  lateness  of  the  manuscript,  1359  or 
later,  the  lack  of  contemporary  reference  to  the  letters,  or  to  the 
romance,  the  renown  of  both  in  the  time  of  Jean  de  Meung;  and 
finally  it  suggested  questions  pertinent  to  the  further  investigation 
of  the  authenticity  of  some  or  all  of  the  Letters. — Ten  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  W.  H.  Hulme. 

5.  "  A  Twelfth-Century  Vision  of  the  Other  World." 
By  Dr.  H.  W.  L.  Dana,  of  Columbia  University. 

[An  account  of  a  hitherto  unpublisht  Vision,  found  in  a  manu- 
script of  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  at  Paris.  The  Vision  seems  to 
hav  been  written  by  a  Cistercian  Monk  at  the  end  of  the  12th  cen- 
tury. It  describes  the  departure  of  a  monk's  soul  from  his  body; 
his  visit  to  the  regions  of  Purgatory,  the  mouth  of  Hell,  the  throne 
of  God,  etc.;  and  his  return  to  the  body.  The  relation  of  this 
Vision  to  other  Medieval  Vision  Literature  and  to  Dante's  Divine 
Comedy. — Twenty-five  minutes.] 

6.  "  ISTotes  on  Dante's  Gianni  Schicchi  and  a  Few  Par- 
allels."    By   Mr.   Rudolph   Altrocchi,   of  Harvard*  Uni- 
versity. 

[The  episode  of  Gianni  Schicchi  as  given  by  erly  Dante  commen- 


X  MODEEN   LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

tators.  Conjectures  on  its  origin.  Two  parallels  in  the  Italian 
Novella.  The  same  story  dramatized  by  Regnard.  His  supposed 
sources,  and  two  imitators.  The  story  as  it  appears  in  a  French 
and  in  an  English  novel  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Possible  relations  between  these  varius  forms. — Fifteen  minutes. ] 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  Monday,  December 
29,  members  of  both  Associations  assembled  in  Emerson 
Hall,  Professor  A.  K.  Hohlfeld  in  the  chair.  In  the  name 
of  President  Lowell  they  wer  welcomd  to  Harvard  Uni- 
versity by  Professor  George  Herbert  Palmer.  Thereupon 
an  address  was  deliverd  by  Professor  Harold  N.  Fowler, 
of  Western  Reserve  University,  President  of  the  American 
Philological  Association,  on  "  The  Present  and  Future  of 
Classical  Studies  in  the  United  States." 

After  these  addresses,  members  and  gests  of  the  Associa- 
tions wer  receivd  in  The  Harvard  Union  by  Professor 
and  Mrs.  Herbert  Weir  Smyth  and  Professor  and  Mrs. 
George  Lyman  Kittredge,  representing  the  Divisions  of 
Ancient  and  Modern  Languages  of  the  Harvard  Faculty 
of  Arts  and  Sciences. 

SECOND  SESSION  OF  THE  M.  L.  A.,  TUESDAY,  DECEMBER  30 

The  session  began  at  9.55  a.  m.,  Professor  Kenneth 
McKenzie  in  the  chair. 

For  the  Trustees  of  the  Permanent  Fund  Professor 
William  Allan  Neilson,  Managing  Trustee,  reported  that 
the  amount  of  the  fund  on  hand  was  $6600.,  and  the 
report  was  unanimusly  accepted. 

For  the  Committee  on  the  Reproduction  of  Erly  Texts 
Professor  John  William  Cunliffe,  Chairman,  reported 
progress,  and  the  report  was  unanimusly  accepted. 

The  reading  of  papers  was  then  resumed. 


PROCEDINGS    FOE    1913  xi 

7.  "  The  American  Dialect  Dictionary."     By  Profes- 
sor William  Edward  Mead,  of  Wesleyan  University,  Con- 
necticut. 

[The  importance  and  the  magnitude  of  the  work  of  preparing  an 
adequate  American  Dialect  Dictionary  ar  not  generally  appreciated, 
altho  more  than  one  tentativ  effort  has  been  made  to  deal  with 
the  problem.  But  the  completion  within  the  past  decade  of  the 
great  English  Dialect  Dictionary  emphasizes  the  value  of  dialectal 
survivals  and  makes  it  possible  to  mesure  in  some  degree  the  extent 
and  the  caracter  of  the  work  to  be  done  in  America.  The  problem 
is,  however,  far  more  complicated  than  in  England,  owing  to  the 
greater  territory  to  be  coverd  and  the  peculiar  conditions  of  de- 
velopment on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Obviusly,  the  work  can  be 
done  only  by  wide  cooperation,  and  by  the  expenditure  of  consider- 
able money.  For  a  multitude  of  reasons  it  shud  be  accomplisht 
within  the  next  few  years  if  it  is  to  be  done  at  all.  Delay  involvs 
irreparable  loss. — Twenty  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  F.  ]$T.  Scott. 

8.  "  Is  Shakespeare  Aristocratic  ?  "     By  Professor  Al- 
bert H.  Tolman,  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

[The  different  conclusions  of  scolars  upon  this  question.  Why  it 
was  natural  for  Shakespeare  to  favor  the  crown  and  the  nobility. 
The  features  of  his  work  and  the  individual  plays  that  seem  dis- 
tinctly anti-democratic.  Those  elements  in  Shakespeare  and  the 
particular  plays  which  show  simpathy  for  the  plain  people,  an 
appreciation  of  lowly  worth.  Can  we  safely  draw  any  conclusion 
concerning  the  poet's  personal  attitude?  Shakespeare  usually  aris- 
tocratic in  spirit,  but  also  remarkably  catholic.  His  simpathetic 
presentation  of  important  ideas. — Thirty-five  minutes.'] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  W.  H.  Hulme. 

9.  "Typical   American   Folk-Songs."     By   Professor 
John  A.  Lomax,  of  the  University  of  Texas. 

[These  folk-songs  came  from  widely  different  sources  thruout  the 
cuntry  and  from  groups  of  people,  usually  living  in  isolation,  who 
folio  a  variety  of  occupations. — Fifty  minutes.] 


Xll  MODERN   LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

During  the  reading  of  this  paper,  and  to  the  end  of  the 
session,  Professor  A.  H.  Thorndike  was  in  the  chair. 

10.  "  The  Ballad  and  Tradition.77     By  Professor  Ar- 
thur Beatty,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

[The  paper  considerd  unsolvd  problems  in  the  origin  and  diffusion 
of  ballads,  in  the  light  of  recent  developments  in  anthropology, 
archeology,  folklore  and  esthetics. — Tiventy-five  minutes.] 

11.  "  Vowel   Alliteration   in   Modern   Poetry.:77     By 
Professor  Fred  J^ewton  Scott,  of  the  University  of  Michi- 
gan. 

[Vowel  alliteration,  tho  slighted  by  prosodists,  is  a  not  incon- 
siderable element  in  modern  English  verse.  It  must  be  carefully 
distinguish!  from  tone  color  or  "  vowel  music."  Its  peculiar  effect 
is  probably  due  to  the  glottal  catch. — Fifteen  minutes.] 

At  one  o7clock  on  Tuesday,  December  30,  the  members 
and  gests  of  the  two  Associations  wer  entertaind  at  lun- 
cheon by  the  President  and  Fellows  of  Harvard  College 
at  The  Harvard  Union. 

From  one  to  three  o7clock  in  the  afternoon  of  Tuesday, 
December  30,  Mrs.  John  L.  Gardner  of  Boston  admitted 
members  of  the  Associations  to  her  residence  in  Fenway 
Court,  and  gave  them  an  opportunity  to  inspect  her  re- 
markable collection  of  works  of  art. 

At  two  o?clock  on  Tuesday,  December  30,  there  was  a 
meeting  of  the  CONCORDANCE  SOCIETY. 

JOINT   SESSION 

of   the   Modern   Language   Association    and   the   American 
Philological  Association 

TUESDAY,  DECEMBER  30 

The  session  began  at  2.45  p.  m.,  Professor  A.  K.  Hohl- 
f eld  in  the  chair. 


PROCEDINGS    FOR     1913 

The  reading  of  papers  was  continued. 

12.  "  The  Life  and  Work  of  Francis  Andrew  March.-1' 
By  Professor  James  W.  Bright,  of  the  Johns  Hopkins 
University. 

[An  address  in  commemoration. — Thirty  minutes.} 

13.  "The  Witch  Scene  in  Lucan."     By  Professor  H. 
J.  Rose,  of  McGill  University. 

[Not  surprizing  to  find  a  Stoic  conversant  with  witchcraft.  Ele- 
ments of  originality.  Why  Erichtho  livs  in  the  cuntry.  Why  she 
uses  ded  bodies.  Reasons  for  this:  the  ded  are  poisonus;  flesh  more 
realistic  than  the  wax  doll;  the  ded  hav  a  magnetic  power  over  the 
living.  The  incantation:  the  thret  to  the  Furies;  the  thret  to  tel 
the  story  of  Persephone;  magic  power  of  the  tale;  the  address  to 
Pluto;  an  evil  deity  is  addrest,  probably  Ahriman.  Minor  points. 
— Twenty  minutes.} 

14.  "  The  Germanic  Preterit.'7    By  Professor  Eduard 
Prokosch,  of  the  University  of  Texas. 

[1.  The  Germanic  preterit  is  not  chiefly  a  perfect  tense,  but  a 
contamination  of  perfect  and  aorist  forms  in  which  the  latter 
largely  prevail.  2.  The  plurals  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  ablaut 
classes  ar  pure  aorist.  3.  The  sixth  and  seventh  ablaut  classes  ar 
to  be  explaind  on  the  basis  of  aorist  presents. — Twenty  minutes.} 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  Hermann  Collitz. 

During  the  reading  of  this  paper  Professor  C.  D.  Buck 
was  in  the  chair.  Thereafter  Professor  H.  ~N.  Fowler 
presided  until  the  end  of  the  session. 

15.  "  The   Harmonizing  of  Grammatical  JSTomencla- 
ture."     By  Professor  Wm.  Gardner  Hale,  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago. 

[A  Report  of  the  Committee  of   Fifteen. — Twenty  minutef.} 

This  report  was  discust  hy  Professor  C.  H.  Grandgent. 


XIV  MODEEN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

16.  "  An  Especial  Need  of  the  Humanities  in  Demo- 
cratic Education."  By  Mr.  William  Fenwick  Harris,  of 
Cambridge,  Mass. 

At  the  conclusion  of  this  session  there  was  a  meeting  of 
THE  AMERICAN  DIALECT  SOCIETY. 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  Tuesday,  December 
30,  members  of  both  Associations  assembled  in  Emerson 
Hall,  Professor  H.  N".  Eowler  in  the  chair.  Professor 
Alexander  E.  Hohlfeld,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin, 
President  of  the  Modern  Language  Association,  deliverd 
an  address  on  "  Light  from  Goethe  on  Our  Problems." 

After  the  address  by  Professor  Hohlfeld,  ladies  in  at- 
tendance wer  receivd  by  Mrs.  Herbert  Weir  Smyith,  at 
her  residence,  15  Elmwood  Avenue. 

After  the  address  by  Professor  Hohlfeld,  gentlemen  in 
attendance  wer  entertaind  by  the  Divisions  of  Ancient 
and  Modern  Languages  of  the  Harvard  Faculty  of  Arts 
and  Sciences  at  a  Smoker  in  The  Harvard  Club  of  Boston. 
An  address  was  made  by  the  Eeverend  Samuel  M.  Croth- 
ers,  D.  D.,  of  Cambridge. 

THIRD  SESSION  OF  THE  M.  L.  A.,  WEDNESDAY,  DECEMBER  31 

The  session  began  at  10  a.  m.,  Professor  A.  E.  Hohlfeld 
in  the  chair. 

The  Eeport  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  on  the  Harmo- 
nizing of  Grammatical  Nomenclature  was  presented  for 
action.  Professor  C.  H.  Grandgent  proposed  two  mo- 
tions and  one  resolution.  After  discussion  by  Professors 
J.  W.  Bright,  Hermann  Collitz,  W.  A.  Adams,  Albert 
Schinz,.W.  G.  Hale,  C.  E.  Fay,  F.  BT.  Scott,  G.  L.  Kitt- 
redge,  Adolphe  Cohn,  and  L.  F.  Mott,  it  was 

Voted:   (1)   that  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen,  as  pro- 


PBOCEDINGS    FOE    1913  XV 

sented  by  the  Joint  Committee  on  Grammatical  Nomenclature,  be 
accepted,  and  that  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  be  discharged; 

(2)  that  the  Report  of  the  Joint  Committee  be  approved;  that 
the  present  representation  of  our  Association  on  that  Committee 
be  continued,  and  that  our  representativs  be  authorized  to  take, 
on  our  behalf,  such  action  as  may  be  necessary  to  complete  the 
Report  and  to  arrange  for  its  publication;  and  that  our  Tresurer 
be  authorized  to  contribute  from  the  moneys  of  our  Association 
such  a  sum  as  lie  may  deem  expedient,  to  cover  our  share  of  tihe 
expenses  of  the  Committee;  and 

Resolvd:  that  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America  ex- 
presses to  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  and  to  the  Joint  Committee 
on  Grammatical  Nomenclature  its  gratitude  for  their  long,  arduus, 
and  devoted  servis. 

Professor  H.  E.  Greene  reporting  for  the  Auditing 
Committee  that  the  Tresurer's  accounts  wer  found  correct, 
the  Tresurer's  Report  was  unanimusly  accepted. 

Professor  C.  F.  Kayser  presented  a  resolution  and  a 
motion,  and  after  discussion  by  Mr.  W.  B.  Snow,  Profes- 
sors Hermann  Collitz,  Marian  P.  Whitney,  J.  W.  Bright, 
Kenneth  McKenzie,  C.  H.  Handschin,  and  Dr.  Clara  L. 
Nicolay,  it  was 

Resolvd:  that  the  proper  collegiate  training  of  young  men  and 
women  who  intend  to  teach  modern  foren  languages  in  secondary 
scools  is  a  subject  demanding  immediate  attention  from  the  Modern 
Language  Association  of  America;  and 

Voted:  that  a  Committee  of  seven,  whereof  the  chair  shal  be  one, 
be  appointed  by  the  chair  to  consider  the  subject  of  the  foregoing 
resolution  and  report  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  Association. 

For  the  Nominating  Committee,  Professor  Gustav  Grue- 
ner  reported  the  f  olloing  nominations : 

President:  Felix  E.  Schelling,  University  of  Pennsyl 
vania. 

First  Vice-President:  Camillo  von  Klenze,  Brown  Uni- 
versity. 


XVI  MODEEN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

Second  Vice-President:  Benjamin  P.  Bourland,  West- 
ern Reserve  University. 

Third  Vice-President:  John  S.  P.  Tatloek,  University 
of  Michigan. 

The  Secretary  was  instructed  to  cast  one  ballot  for  the 
gentlemen  nominated,  and  they  wer  declared  unanimnsly 
elected  to  their  several  offices  for  the  year  1914. 

On  motion  of  Professor  G.  L.  Kittredge,  seconded  by 
Professor  Adolphe  Cohn,  and  assented  to  by  the  Secre- 
tary, it  was 

Voted:  that  the  Secretary  be  requested  to  ascertain  by  postal 
card  the  wishes  of  the  members  as  to  the  use  of  the  co-cald  reformd 
spelling  by  the  Association. 

For  Honorary  Membership  in  the  Association  the  Ex- 
ecutiv  Council  presented: 

Francesco  Flamini,  University  of  Pisa, 
Abel  Lefranc,  College  de  France, 
Gustav  Roethe,  University  of  Berlin, 
Edward  Schroeder,  University  of  Gottingen, 
Francesca  Torraca,  University  of  Naples, 

and  they  were  unanimnsly  elected  Honorary  Members. 

On  motion  of  Professor  A.  H.  Tolman  the  folloing  reso- 
lution'was.  adopted  by  a  rising  vote: 

We,  the  members  of  the  Modern  Language  Association,  express 
our  harty  thanks  to  Harvard  University,  to  Radcliffe  College,  to 
Professor  George  Herbert  Palmer,  to  Professor  and  Mrs.  Herbert 
Weir  Smyth,  to  Professor  and  Mrs.  George  Lyman  Kittredge,  to 
Mrs.  John  L.  Gardner,  to  the  Reverend  Samuel  M.  Crothers,  to 
the  officers  of  the  Colonial  Club,  the  Harvard  Union,  the  Harvard 
Club  of  Boston,  the  University  Club  of  Boston,  and  to  the  members 
and  associates  of  the  Local  Committee,  for  the  kind  hospitality  with 
which  we  haV  been  welcomd. 

[The  thanks  of  the  Association  wer  subsequently  conveyd  to  all 
of  the  persons  and  organizations  mentiond.] 


PEOCEDINGS    FOE    1913 

The  reading  of  papers  was  then  resumed. 

17.  "  Guy  of  Warwick  in  the  Sixteenth  and  Seven- 
teenth Centuries."     By  Dr.  Konald  S.  Crane,  of  North- 
western University. 

[This  paper  ainid  to  thro  light  on  the  history  of  the  medieval 
romances  in  England  after  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  by  tracing 
from  the  days  of  the  erly  printers  to  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  fortunes  of  the  story  of  Guy  of  Warwick.  Shortly  be- 
fore 1500,  one  of  the  several  existing  versions  of  the  Middle-English 
metrical  romance  of  Sir  Guy  was  printed  by  Richard  Pynson.  It 
went  thru  several  later  editions,  and  up  to  about  1570  remaind  in 
circulation  as  the  favorit,  if  not  the  only,  version  of  the  legend 
known  to  the  public.  It  then  seems  to  hav  fallen  into  neglect, 
partly  perhaps  as  a  rosult  of  the  criticisms  which  assaild  all  the 
old  romances  in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  partly  as  a 
result  of  the  antiquated  caracter  of  the  language  and  versification. 
Interest  in  the  story  itself,  however,  survived;  for  between  1592 
and  1640  there  appeard  no  fewer  than  six  fresh  accounts  of  Guy's 
career — a  ballad,  three  poems,  and  two  plays.  Of  these  by  far  the 
most  important  was  Rowlands's  poem,  The  Famous  History  of  Guy 
Earle  of  Warwick  (lie.  1608).  Not  only  was  it  very  widely  red, 
but  in  the  later  seventeenth  century  it  furnisht  the  material  for  a 
second  group  of  new  versions  of  the  legend,  five  prose  chapbooks 
publisht  between  1680  and  1706.  In  these  chapbooks,  the  old 
medieval  saga — now  much  alterd  by  the  addition  of  new  episodes 
and  the  abridgment  of  the  old  ones — lived  on  thru  the  eighteenth 
century. — Twenty -five  minutes.] 

18.  "  Comment    faut-il    etudier    les    Litteratures    du 
Moyen-Age."     By  Professor  Jean  B.  Beck,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois. 

[Au  moyen-age,  la  production  litte"raire  e"tait  intimement  lic'e  aux 
productions  de  1'art.  "  Ars "  comprenait  alors  la  theorie  et  la 
pratique.  Distinction  moderne  entre  art  et  science.  Les  re"sultats 
obtenus  par  la  me"thode  analytique  dans  les  nombreuses  histoires 
litte"raires  ne  paraissent  pas  ge"ne"ralement  satisfaisants.  Toute 
litte"rature  morte  doit  e"tre  vivifie"e  par  une  me"thode  illustre*e  et 
synthgtique,  en  vne  de  faire  comprendre  a  Pe"tudiant  la  parfaitefinite" 
de  la  culture  des  arts  et  des  lettres.  Conditions  particulifcres  dans 
lesquelles  se  trouve  Petudiant  americam  par  rapport  a  Pe"tudiant 
romaniste,  germaniste  ou  angliciste  en  Europe. — Twenty  minutes.'] 


XV111  MODERN   LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

19.  "The  Renascence  of  Germanic  Studies  in  England, 
1559-1689."     By  Professor  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke,  of  Yale 
University. 

[A  sketch  of  the  revival  of  interest  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  other  erly 
Germanic  languages  from  the  investigations  of  Archbishop  Parker 
and  his  secretaries  to  the  appearance  of  the  first  Old  English  and 
Gothic  Grammars  by  George  Hickes. — Twenty  minutes.] 

20.  "  Chaucer  and  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins."     By  Pro- 
fessor Frederick  Tupper,  of  the  University  of  Vermont. 

[Because  Gower's  use  in  the  Confessio  Amantis  attests  the  value 
of  four  of  Chaucer's  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  as  exempla  of  the  Dedly 
Sins  and  the  aptness  of  others  givs  them  like  warrant,  because  in 
each  of  the  stories  that  deal  with  the  Sins  Chaucer  points  at  length 
the  moral,  because  he  assigns  each  of  these  narrativs  to  a  representa- 
tiv  of  the  vice  under  rebuke,  and,  finally,  because  he  closely  links, 
by  large  plunderings  of  his  own  prose,  the  tales  in  question  with 
the  Parson's  sermon  against  the  Sins,  the  conclusion  is  reacht  that 
certain  of  the  pilgrims  illustrate  in  their  persons,  prologs,  and  tales 
the  Dedly  Seven,  and  that  the  Parson's  tract  is  but  the  culmination 
of  a  long  sustaind  motif. — The  discovery  of  this  motif  imparts  to 
some  seven  of  the  "  Tales "  a  new  interest  as  revelations  of  car- 
dinal emotions,  it  vindicates  the  relevancy  of  sundry  "  moralities," 
hitherto  deemd  episodes,  and  it  unmasks  many  instances  of  delightful 
irony. — Twenty  minutes.] 

21.  "Four   Hitherto   Unidentified   Letters   by   Alex- 
ander Pope,   and  new  Light  on  the  Famous  Satire  on 
Addison."     By  Professor  M.  Ellwood  Smith,  of  Syracuse 
University. 

[Current  history  stil  mistakes  the  date  of  first  publication  of 
Pope's  Atticus  passage.  That  this  appeard  in  the  St.  James's  Jour- 
nal in  1722  has  been  pointed  out,  but  not,  it  is  believd,  that  the 
four  letters  to  which  these  verses  ar  appended  wer  also  by  Pope. 
Yet  many  circumstances  point  to  such  conclusion.  The  evidence 
and  motivs,  Pope's  responsibility  for  the  publication,  and  the  letters 
themselvs  as  masterly  examples  of  feignd  adulation  and  veild  sar- 
casm, wer  considerd. — Twenty  minutes.] 


PROCEDINGS    FOB    1913 


FOURTH  SESSION  OF  THE  M.  L.  A.,  WEDNESDAY,  DECEMBER  31 

The  session  began  at  2.50  p.  m.,  Professor  Kenneth 
McKenzie  in  the  chair. 

The  reading  of  papers  was  resumed. 

22.  "  George  Borrow  in  Spain."     By  Professor  Ru- 
dolph  L.  Schevill,  of  the  University  of  California. 

[Some  comments  on  Sorrow's  recently  publisht  Letters  to  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society.  A  large  portion  of  these  letters 
was  not  included  in  TJie  Bible  in  Spain,  and  permits  us  to  add  a  few 
traits  to  the  accepted  caracter  of  Borrow  as  a  man  and  a  writer. 
The  proportion  of  truth  and  fiction  in  his  experiences  becomes  a 
little  clearer  from  these  letters,  the  gist  of  which  was  often  changed 
for  presentation  to  the  general  public. — Twenty  minutes.} 

23.  "  The  Source  in  Art  of  the  so-called  '  Prophets  ' 
Play  of  the  Hegge  Cycle."     By  Mr.  John  K.  Bonnell,  of 
the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

[What  Halliwell  calls  "  The  Prophets "  in  the  Hegge  cycle,  is 
found  to  be  in  reality  a  combination  of  an  equal  number  of  profets 
with  the  thirteen  royal  ancestors  of  Christ  from  David  to  Amon. 
It  is,  in  short,  a  genealogical  tree  springing  from  the  root  of  Jesse, — 
the  Radix  Jesse  (so  designated  in  the  rubric)  which  introduces  the 
line  of  kings.  This  combination  of  the  profets  with  the  royal 
ancestors  is  a  familiar  device  in  plastic  art,  where  it  is  known  as 
the  Jesse  Tree  (Radix  Jesse,  Arbre  de  Jesse).  It  dates  from  at 
least  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  is  known  to  hav  been 
fairly  widespred  at  that  time.  A  window  in  York  Minster  in  the 
twelfth  century  represented  the  Jesse  Tree. — Twenty  minutes.} 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  H.  J.  Rose. 

24.  "  Ye  and  You  in  the  King  James  Version."     By 
Professor  John  S.  Kenyon,  of  Butler  College. 

[Varius  histories  and  grammars  of  the  English  language  state  that 
in  the  King  James  Version  ye  is  always  nominativ  and  you  objecflv. 
But  in  the  edition  of  1611  there  ar  some  three  hundred  nominativ 
you's  and  many  objectiv  ye's.  The  first  extensiv  changes  wer  made 


XX  MODEK^   LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

by  a  Cambridge  editor,  probably  Dr.  Antony  Scattergood,  in  1678. 
These  wer  added  to  by  Cambridge  and  other  editors  about  1760, 
and  completed  by  an  Oxford  editor  in  1769.  Objectiv  ye  was  like- 
wise changed  to  you.  In  present-day  editions  three  nominativ  you's 
remain  in  the  text  and  a  varying  number  in  the  margin.  Xearly  half 
the  nominativ  you's  of  the  A.  V.  wer  taken  directly  from  the 
Bishop's  and  Geneva  Bibles;  the  rest  ar  probably  due  to  the  ten- 
dency of  the  current  language.  Ye  and  you,  often  apparently 
singular,  invariably  correspond  to  a  plural  original,  except  in  four 
Instances  where  you  is  the  indefmit  pronoun.  These  facts  modify 
somewhat  our  ideas  of  the  style  of  the  version,  especially  as  they 
thro  added  light  on  the  attitude  of  the  translators  to  their  con- 
temporary language. — Ten  minutes.] 

During  the  reading  of  this  paper,  and  until  the  end  of 
the  session,  Professor  A.  R.  Hohlfeld  was  in  the  chair. 

25.  "  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  in  Medieval  Art."     By 
Mr.  Roger  S.  Loomis,  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 

[I.  Richard's  encounter  with  Saladin.  Illustrations  found  in 
mural  painting,  tile,  painted  chest,  and  three  illuminated  psalters. 
These  influenst  by  Continental  illustrations  of  combats  between 
Christian  and  pagan  champions.  II.  Richard's  struggle  with  a  lion. 
Illustrations  in  tile,  illuminated  psalter,  and  carvel  boss.  III.  The 
Pas  Saladin.  Illustration  on  carvd  chest. — Twenty  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  D.  S.  Blondheim. 

26.  "  The    Influence   of    the    Popular   Ballads    upon 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge.1'     By  Dr.  Charles  Wharton 
Stork,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

[Wordsworth  was  influenst  mainly  by  the  fact  that  the  ballad 
often  deals  with  common  people  and  homely  events.  He  often  used 
ballad  subjects,  but  always  gave  them  a  filosofical  or  reflectiv  tone, 
altogether  foren  to  the  popular  stile.  Lucy  Gray,  Ruth,  and  Heart- 
leap  Well  all  tel  stories,  but  in  every  case  the  story  is  of  minor 
importance.  At  his  weakest  in  Peter  Bell.  The  White  Doe  of 
Rylstone  and  the  Song  for  the  Feast  at  Brougham  Castle,  two  of 
Wordsworth's  greatest  poems,  ar  both  on  ballad  subjects,  the  forms 
being  taken  from  the  ballad  The  Rising  in  the  North.  In  each  case 
the  beauty  of  the  poem  comes  from  the  contrast  of  Wordsworth's 


PROCEEDINGS    FOE     1913 

higher  moral  aspect  with  the  more  primitiv  conventions  of  the 
ballad.  Ballad  atmosfere  has  never  been  better  given  than  in  The 
Solitary  Reaper. 

Coleridge's  best  poems  ar  all  ballads.  This  was  the  one  form 
which  gave  solidity  to  his  otherwise  vaporus  genius.  In  contrast 
with  Wordsworth,  he  used  all  the  devices  of  ballad  stile  with  mas- 
terly effect,  infusing  his  own  special  qualities  of  subtle  music  and 
psycological  power  at  the  same  time.  The  Ancient  Mariner,  Chris- 
tabel,  and  the  Dark  Ladye  ar  of  course  the  great  examples,  and  in 
Kubla  Khan  the  "  woman  wailing  for  her  demon  lover  "  is  a  familiar 
figure  of  ballad  tradition,  again  alluded  to  in  Genevieve.  The  Ode 
to  Dejection  opens  with  the  mention  of  Sir  Patrick  Spens. — Twenty 
minutes.} 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  Archibald  Mac- 
Mechan. 

At  4.50  p.  m.  the  Association  adjurnd. 


PAPERS  RED  BY  TITLE 

The  folloing  papers  presented  to  the  Association  wer 
red  by  title  only: 

27.  "  A  Fifteenth-Century  Italian  Version  of  the  Legend  of  Saint 
Alexius."     By  Mr.  Rudolph  Altrocchi,  of  Harvard  University. 

[Description  and  transcription  of  the  manuscript,  which  is  in  a 
volume  of  Ore,  dated  1439,  and  in  the  library  of  the  University  of 
Chicago.  Study  of  the  peculiarities  of  this  version;  subject-matter, 
versification,  dialect.  Its  literary  value.  Its  relation  to  the  older 
Italian  versions.] 

28.  "  Notes   on   the   Discussion   concerning   True   Nobility."     By 
Professor  Harry  Morgan  Ayres,  of  Columbia  University. 

[The  discussion  concerning  the  nature  of  true  nobility,  found, 
among  other  places,  in  Chaucer's  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,  which  Tyr- 
whitt  credits  Boethius  with  having  set  abroach  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
proves  to  contain  much  that  antedates  the  Consolations  of  Philos- 
ophy, and  provides  an  excellent  example  of  a  literary  commonplace  of 
which  Classical  Antiquity,  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  Renaissance 
alike  made  abundant  use.] 


XX11  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

29.  "  A  Study  of  the  Metrical  Use  of  the  Inflectional  -e  in  Middle 
English,  with  Particular  Reference  to  Chaucer  and  Lydgate."     By 
Dr.  Charlotte  Farrington  Babcock,  of  Simmons  College. 

[The  writer  has  examind  a  number  of  erly  Middle  English  texts, 
all  of  Chaucer's  verse,  and  representativ  works  of  Lydgate,  in  the 
endevor  to  show  the  relation  between  metrical  apocopation  and 
grammatical  decay,  and  to  establish,  if  possible,  new  criteria  for 
literary  cronology  in  Middle  English.] 

30.  "  Grammatical  Tact."    By  Professor  Josephine  M.  Burnham, 
of  Wellesley  College. 

[Certain  grammatical  difficulties  assail  even  the  practist  writer — 
difficulties  (a)  inherent  in  the  language  used;  (b)  psycological.  To 
avoid  these  the  tactful  writer  employs  varius  devices,  hitherto  only 
partially  formulated :  ( 1 )  variation  in  form  of  f rase  or  in  connectiv ; 
(2)  substitution  of  an  equivalent  construction;  (3)  evasion — dodging 
the  difficulty;  (4)  omission  of  trublesome  copula,  etc.;  (5)  depart- 
ure from  the  norm.] 

31.  "  Scott    and   the    Spanish    Historical    Novel."     By    Professor 
Philip  H.  Churchman,  of  Clark  College. 

[From  1800  to  1830  the  Spanish  novel  was  weak  and  sentimental. 
During  this  period  Scott  is  rarely  mentiond  in  Spanish  periodicals, 
but  liberal  exiles  in  London  write  often  of  him  and  begin  to  trans- 
late his  novels.  Other  translations  begin  also  to  be  publisht  in 
Spain  itself.  In  1830  original  historical  novels,  quite  in  Scott's 
manner,  begin  to  appear;  and  during  the  next  ten  or  fifteen  years 
almost  every  young  romantic  tried  his  hand  at  the  new  genre,  but 
none  of  them  achievd  great  results.] 

32.  "  The  Source  of  Juan  del  Encina's  figloga  de  Fileno  y  Zam- 
bardo."     By  Professor  J.  P.  Wickersham  Crawford,  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania. 

[Most  of  the  historians  of  the  Spanish  drama  hav  denied  any  in- 
fluence of  Italian  literature  upon  the  plays  of  Juan  del  Encina, 
claiming  that  the  tragic  denouement  in  the  figloga  de  Fileno  y  Zam- 
~bardo  is  derived  from  the  Celestina  or  from  the  Cdrcel  de  Amor  of 
Diego  de  San  Pedro.  The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  show  that  the 
tigloga  de  Fileno  y  Zambardo  is  a  close  imitation  of  the  second 
eclog  of  Antonio  Tebaldeo  da  Ferrara,  first  publisht  in  1499.] 

33.  "The    Origin    of    the    Euphuistic    Rhetoric."     By    Professor 
Morris  W.  Croll,  of  Princeton  University. 

[The  caracteristic  figures  of  the  Euphuistic  retoric  ar  parallelism 


PEOCEDINGS    FOR    1913  XXlii 

(exact  balance,  especially  in  the  form  of  antithesis)  and  parisonity 
(likeness  of  sound  between  corresponding  parts  of  parallel  members). 
The  use  of  these  figures,  which  is  alredy  a  caracteristic  feature  of 
sixteenth-century  prose  before  Euphues,  is  attributed  by  Norden, 
Feuillerat,  and  hence  many  others,  to  the  training  given  by  humanist 
teachers  in  the  imitation  of  the  same  figures  in  Cicero  and  Isocrates. 
It  is  here  maintaind,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  ar  chiefly  medieval 
survivals,  and  that  their  increast  use  in  England  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  tho  ultimately  due  to  the  new  literary  impetus  of  human- 
ism, was  contrary  to  humanistic  ideals  and  precepts.] 

34.  "  Anti-Jacobin  Satire  in  America."     By  Dr.  Harold  M.  Ellis, 
of  the  University  of  Texas. 

[A  study  of  literary  opposition  in  America  to  the  advocates  of 
"  French  freedom,"  with  reference  to  literary  antecedents  and  to  the 
place  of  this  group  of  writers  and  documents  in  the  history  of  satire 
in  English.  The  Echo  papers  (1791-1800),  of  Alsop,  Hopkins, 
Dwight,  and  other  Hartford  wits;  J.  S.  J.  Gardiner's  Remarks  on 
the  Jacobiniad  (1795);  William  Cliffton's  Group  (1795)  and  other 
writings  ( 1796-1799 )  ;  T.  G.  Fessenden's  Democracy  Unveiled  ( 1805) .] 

35.  "  Problems  of  Present  Day  Criticism."     By  Dr.  Jos.  E.  Gillet, 
of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

[I.  World's  unrest;  forms  of  literary  criticism;  unrest  in  criti- 
cism more  on  modern-language  side.  II.  A  glance  back.  Promi- 
nent present-day  sistems:  Taine,  Hennequin,  Bruneti&re,  Gervinus. 
Subjectiv  criticism.  The  teaching  of  Dutch  literary  history.  III. 
Some  reasons  of  failure:  heaping  of  material  and  extension  of  field 
of  reserch;  backward  state  of  psycology  and  premature  desire  of 
finding  laws.  IV.  Suggestions  for  remedies:  comparativ  treatment 
on  larger  scale;  more  knolege  of  and  attention  to  practical  value 
of  past  experiments  in  criticism.  V.  A  glance  on  recent  critical 
work.  Conclusion.] 

36.  "Literary    Relations   of    England    and    Germany — Two    New 
Items."     By  Professor  James  H.  Hanford,  of  Simmons  College. 

[  ( 1 )  The  fable  of  the  three  vicius  brethren,  which  forms  the 
theme  of  one  of  Hans  Sachs's  Fastnachtsspiele,  appears  also  in  an 
English  prose  version  of  1580,  compiled  by  Thomas  Salter.  Salter's 
dialog  is  not  derived  from  the  work  of  Hans  Sachs  but  from  the 
Latin  of  Philippus  Beroaldus  or  from  one  of  the  German  trauisla- 
tions  publisht  during  the  sixteenth  century.  (2)  The  English  dis- 
putation between  the  Cap  and  the  Head,  publisht  in  1564,  is  a  trans- 
lation from  a  German  work  by  Niclas  Praun.] 


XXIV  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

37.  "  Survivals  of  the  Enueg  and  Plazer  in  French  and  Italian 
poetry  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Centuries."     By  Dr.  Raymond 
Thompson  Hill,  of  Yale  University. 

[This  tipe  of  popular  poetry  appears  in  French  in  many  short 
anonimus  poems  often  didactic  in  caracter.  Sometimes  these  take 
the  form  of  warnings  against  dangers,  diseases,  etc.,  as  in  certain 
works  of  Eustache  Deschamps  and  Guillaume  Alexis.  The  relation- 
ship of  this  kind  of  poetry  to  rimed  imprecations.  Another  fase  is 
seen  in  satires  against  women,  of  which  one  of  the  best  examples  is 
11  Manganello,  an  anonimus  Italian  poem  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
one  chapter  of  which  is  a  perfect  enueg.  Two  series  of  sonnets  by 
Folgore  da  San  Gimignano  resemble  the  plazer,  while  a  closely  re- 
lated set  by  Gene  della  Chitarra  ar  examples  of  noie.  A  classifica- 
tion of  these  varius  forms  and  a  comparativ  study  wil  afford  insight 
into  the  lives  of  some  of  the  authors  and  the  society  of  the  time.] 

38.  "  The  Inconsistency  of  John  Dryden."     By  Dr.  Percy  Hazen 
Houston,  of  the  University  of  Texas. 

[Dryden's  curius  wavering  between  the  large  expansivness  which 
he  admired  in  his  ancestors  the  Elizabethans,  and  the  necessity 
which  he  felt  of  bending  his  neck  beneath  the  neo-classic  yoke  has 
been  often  noted,  and  varius  explanations  and  excuses  hav  ben  made 
therefor.  An  attempt  is  here  made  to  trace  this  mental  attitude  to 
certain  temperamental  antinomies  between  him  and  his  time.  Thru 
a  study  of  political  and  religius  life,  his  poetical  and  dramatic 
practis,  and  finally  his  critical  utterances,  his  whole  life  may  be 
shown  to  be  in  a  fair  degree  consistently  out  of  joint  with  his 
age.  It  was  by  sheer  force  of  genius  that,  while  nearly  always  a 
follower  in  critical  activity,  he  remains  the  outstanding  figure  of 
his  age  in  nearly  every  form  of  literary  endevor.] 

39.  "  Opitz   and   his   Relation   to    the   Scandinavian    Countries." 
By  Dr.  Amandus  Johnson,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

[A  chapter  on  literary  relations  based  upon  newly  discoverd 
letters  of  Martin  Opitz.] 

40.  "Illustrations    of    Chaucer    in    the   Life    of    the    Fourteenth 
Century."     By  Dr.  Ernest  P.  Kuhl,  of  Harvard  University. 

[An  investigation  of  some  of  Chaucer's  minor  contemporaries 
reveals  the  fact  that  the  descriptions  in  the  General  Prolog  corres- 
pond strikingly  with  the  biografies  of  some  of  these  contemporaries. 
Particularly  is  this  true  of  the  Monk,  the  Merchant,  the  Man  of 
Law,  and  the  Franklin.  This  paper  is  not  an  attempt  to  identify 
the  actual,  but  rather  the  kind  of  man  Chaucer  had  in  mind.] 


PROCEDI^GS    FOE    1913 

41.  "  The  Sources  of  Greene's  Orlando  Furioso."     By  Mr.  Charles 
W.  Lemmi,  of  Simmons  College. 

[This  paper  attempts  to  sho  that,  contrary  to  Dr.  Churton  Collins's 
belief,  Greene's  play  is  derived  almost  entirely  from  Ariosto's  poem; 
and  that,  in  the  light  of  such  a  derivation,  varius  obscure  passages 
in  it  become  interestingly  significant,  and  the  date  of  its  compo- 
sition becomes  less  a  matter  of  conjecture  than  before.] 

42.  "  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  and  the  English  Novel."     By  Dr.  Gus- 
tavus  H.  Maynadier,  of  Harvard  University. 

[Despite  frequent  faulty  selection  of  material,  weakness  in  con- 
versation of  caracters,  and  crude  workmanship,  Mr.  Bennett  givs, 
thru  unvarying  power  of  vivid  description,  sense  for  dramatic 
situations,  and  the  capacity  to  analyze  human  nature,  as  strong 
assurance  as  any  writer  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic  that  the 
novel  is  stil  an  important  part  of  the  civilization  of  the  English 
race.] 

43.  "  Poets  as  Heroes  of  Epic  and  Dramatic  Works  in  German 
Literature."     By  Dr.  Allen  Wilson  Porterfield,  of  Barnard  College, 
Columbia  University. 

[There  ar  more  than  two  hundred  instances  in  which  a  German 
poet  has,  in  good  faith,  made  another  poet  of  German  or  other 
nationality  a  speaking  caracter  in  an  epic  or  dramatic  work  and  has 
given  him  an  important  if  not  the  leading  role.  The  paper  discusses 
the  availability  of  the  poet  for  such  treatment,  analyzes  a  few  of 
the  works  in  question,  and  attempts  to  explain  their  frequency  in 
German  literature.] 

44.  "  The  Origin  of  the  Runes."     By  Dr.  Amandus  Johnson,  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

[I.  Brief  history  of  the  varius  views:  erly  opinions;  theories  of 
Wimmer,  Hempl-Tailor,  and  von  Friesen.  II.  Home  and  Date:  the 
Black  Sea  district;  circa  150  A.  D.  III.  Individual  runes  largely 
from  the  Greek  "  commercial  "  script.  IV.  Migration  and  adoption 
of  the  runes:  Scandinavains,  Germans,  Anglo-Saxons.] 

45.  "The  Completeness  of  Chaucer's  Hous  of  Fame."     By  Pro- 
fessor W.  Owen  Sypherd,  of  Delaware  College. 

[Chaucer's  Hous  of  Fame  must  not  be  regarded  as  a  prolog  to  a 
story  or  group  of  stories;  but  rather,  except  for  the  missing  brief 
conclusion,  as  a  poem  complete  in  itself,  unified  and  consistent  in 
subject-matter  and  form.  There  is  no  evidence  in  the  poem  or  in 


XXVI  MODERN   LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

Chaucer's  other  works  that  the  poet  uses  "  love  tydynges "  in  the 
sense  of  "  love  stories,"  or  that  he  wil  tel  such  tidings  ( or  stories ) 
merely  because  he  hears  them.  Considerd  in  the  light  of  proba- 
bilities, such  essential  elements  as  the  explanation  of  the  purpose 
of  the  jurny  and  the  nature  of  the  reward;  the  division  into  three 
books;  the  emfasis  on  the  unusual  experiences  of  the  jurny, — all 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  poem  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  story 
of  this  wonderful  jurny  to  the  house  of  tidings,  and  not  for  the 
sake  of  a  story  or  stories  to  folio.] 

46.  "Kayrrud  in  the  Franklin's   Tale."     By   Professor   John   S. 
P.  Tatlock,  of  the  University  of  Michigan. 

[Kayrrud,  the  home  of  Dorigen,  is  the  modern  Kerru,  a  name  stil 
found  in  Brittany,  and  usually  indicating  a  former  Gallo-Roman 
settlement.  The  spelling  goes  to  sho  that  the  source  of  the  tale  was 
not  French.] 

47.  "  The  Problem  of  Setting  in  Pre-Richardsonian  Fiction."     By 
Dr.  Arthur  Jerrold  Tieje,  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 

[Term  limited  to  accounts  in  fiction  of  scenery,  objects,  customs. 
Five  uses  consciusly  discust  before  Richardson ;  setting  to  lend  "  var- 
iety " — to  impart  information — to  giv  vividness — to  express  love  for 
nature — to  show  influence  of  scenery  upon  man.  Practically  all 
setting  apologized  for  as  digression — a  situation  resulting  from  the 
antagonism  of  realists  and  romancers.  Effort  for  geografical  accu- 
racy traceable  from  1590,  for  temporal  accuracy  from  1626.] 

4"8.  "  A  Comparative  Study  of  the  Abruzzese  Dialects."  By  Dr. 
Herbert  II.  Vaughan,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

[The  most  interesting  points  to  be  noted  ar:  (1)  the  lines  of 
demarcation  between  Central  Italian  and  Abruzzese;  (2)  the  modifi- 
cation of  the  tonic  vowel  under  the  influence  of  the  final  Latin 
vowel;  (3)  the  breaking  down  of  the  consonant  sistem  due  to  late 
preservation  of  vowel  quantity;  (4)  local  peculiarities.] 

49.  "The  Present  Status  of  the  Study  of  Henry  Fielding."  By 
Professor  John  Edwin  Wells,  of  Beloit  College. 

[The  extent  and  the  nature  of  the  additions  recently  made,  or 
redily  to  be  made,  to  knolege  of  Fielding  and  his  works,  render 
opportune  a  general  review  of  the  writings  on  Fielding  of  the  past 
twenty  years,  with  consideration  of  the  folloing:  Additions  to  the 
Fielding  Canon;  Corrections  of  dates  of  composition,  publication, 
performance;  New  facts  concerning  Fielding's  life:  New  notions  of 
his  works;  Sources  and  collections  recently  become  accessible; 


PEOCEDINGS    FOR    1913 

Special  problems  awaiting  solution;   Investigations  now  being  pur- 
sued by  varius  students.] 

50.  "Mrs.  Bunyan's  Dowry."     By  Professor  James   B.  Wharey, 
of  the  University  of  Texas. 

[Mrs.  Bunyan's  dowry  consisted  of  two  books — Arthur  Dent's 
Plain  Man's  'Pathway  to  Heaven  and  Lewis  Bayly's  Practice  of 
Piety.  There  ar  no  traces  of  influence  by  Bayly  upon  Bunyan,  but 
the  influence  of  Dent  upon  both  the  thought  and  stile  of  Bunyan  ia 
clearly  traceable  in  The  Life  and  Death  of  Mr.  Badman.] 

51.  "The  Origin  of  the  Easter  Play."    By  Professor  Karl  Young, 
of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

[By  means  of  some  thirty  new  texts  of  the  Quern  quaeritis  Introit 
trope  of  Easter,  it  is  possible  to  revise  the  accepted  accounts  of  the 
origin  of  the  Easter  play.] 

52.  '•'  Extant  Elizabethan  Jigs."     By  Professor  Charles  Read  Bas- 
kervill,  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

[Evidence  of  the  Stationers'  Register  shows  that  jigs  wer  ballads. 
Jigs  wer  first  enterd  on  the  Register  in  1591.  Rowland  and  the 
Sexton,  enterd  in  that  year,  is  extant  in  a  German  version.  Of 
the  two  dramatic  ballads  publisht  in  the  Shir~burn  Ballads,  Rowland's 
Godsonne  was  moralized  as  erly  as  1592,  and  is  known  from  JSTashe's 
Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament  to  be  a  jig,  while  Attowel's 
Jigge  was  enterd  on  the  Register  in  1595,  and  is  defmitly  con- 
nected with  the  stage  by  its  translation  into  German  as  a  Singspiel 
and  by  the  ascription  of  it,  in  a  copy  in  the  Pepys  Ballads  (I,  226), 
to  George  Attowell,  in  1591  a  leading  member  of  the  combined 
Strange's  and  Admiral's  actors.  The  short  dialog  in  the  Dulwich 
MSS.  belongs  to  a  very  widely  spred  class  of  dialog  songs  and  ballads 
dealing  with  wooings.  Other  probable  song  dramas  ar  studied,  and 
questions  of  development  and  influence  ar  discust.] 

53.  "  Blood-brotherhood  in  the  Middle  English  Romances."     By 
Miss  Rose  Jeffries  Peebles,  of  Vassar  College. 

[The  present  study  has  for  its  object  the  examination  of  the  pri- 
mitiv  custom  of  sworn  brotherhood  as  it  occurs  in  the  medieval 
English  romances.  The  fragmentary  suggestions  of  ritual  and  obli- 
gations connected  with  the  custom  obtaind  from  Eger  and  Grine, 
Amis  and  Amiloun,  The  Knight's  Tale,  Athelston,  Rauf  Cfyilyear 
some  of  the  Arthurian  romances,  and  elsewhere  assume  new  signi- 
ficance when  considerd  in  the  light  of  the  known  ritual  and  obli- 
gations of  blood-brotherhood  as  it  stil  survives  among  barbarus 
peoples.] 


XXV111  MODERN   LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

54.  "The  Drama  of  the  Interregnum,  1642-1660."     By  Professor 
Arthur  Llewellyn  Eno,  of  the  Pennsylvania  State  College. 

[An  account  of  surreptitius  dramatic  performances,  despite  the 
parliamentary  ordinances  against  the  stage.  The  occupations  of 
surviving  Elizabethan  actors  and  playwrights.  The  exiles  in  France 
and  Holland.  Strolling  players  on  the  Continent.  The  impetus 
given  to  printing  by  the  closing  of  the  theatres.  Analisis  of  the 
tendencies  leading  to  the  presentation  of  the  so-cald  first  English 
opera.  In  assembling  much  scatterd  information,  and  in  presenting 
some  new  material,  this  paper  tends  to  prove  that  the  drama  was 
by  no  means  so  ded  as  is  commonly  supposed  during  the  Puritan 
suppression  of  the  stage.] 

55.  "  Our    Vocabulary    in    the    Making."      By    Professor    Albert 
Schinz,  of  Smith  College. 

[What  is  ment  when  we  use  the  trite  frase,  language  the  result 
of  natural  growth,  shown  in  connection  with  the  recent  formation 
of  a  vocabulary  for  aviation. 

Definit  laws  of  thought  and  of  speech  ar  at  work,  laws  as  definit  as 
laws  in  the  fisical  world;  laws  which,  if  once  we  kno  them  suffi- 
ciently, can  be  applied  in  improving  our  vocabulary  and  language. 
Just  as  an  artificial  crane  constructed  in  folloing  the  fisical  laws 
renders  greater  servis  than  the  natural  crow-bar  which  is  a  mere 
stick,  so  vocabulary  and  a  language  constructed  in  folloing  the 
laws  of  speech  ought  to  render  greater  servis  than  a  merely  natu- 
ral way  of  expressing  oneself.l 

56.  "  The  Theme  of  Paradise  Lost."     By  Mr.  H.  W.  Peck,  of  the 
University  of  Texas. 

[Treatment  of  subject  prompted  by  the  article  of  Professor  E.  N". 
S.  Thompson,  in  the  'Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Associa- 
tion, March,  1913.  In  opposition  to  the  view  of  Professor  Thomp- 
son, the  writer  holds  that  Milton,  in  composing  Paradise  Lost, 
thought  he  was  dealing  with  historical  facts  and  with  theology  as 
wel  as  with  moral  principles;  that  he  did  not  consider  the  poem 
merely  simbolic.  An  attempt  to  prove  this  thesis  from  the  text  of 
Paradise  Lost,  from  Christian  Doctrine,  and  from  the  views  of  the 
erly  interpreters.  Since  Milton's  theology  is  now  antiquated,  we  shud 
approach  Paradise  Lost  from  the  historical  and  literary  points  of  view. 
Definition  of  Paradise  Lost  which  includes  the  contribution  of  varius 
tipes  of  constructiv  criticism.] 


PROCEDI]*GS    FOR    1913 

57.  "  A  Note  on  the  Tannhauser-Legend."     By  Professor  Arthur 
F.  J.  Remy,  of  Columbia  University. 

[In  Liliencron's  collection  of  historic  German  folk-songs  there  is 
one  by  a  certain  Jorg  Wetzel  von  Schussenried  dealing  with"  events 
of  the  Peasant  War  during  the  year  1525.  Speaking  of  the  fall  of 
Weissenburg  (July  7),  the  poet  says  that  its  citizens  wer  taut  "  to 
sing  Danheuser  in  Latin" — evidently  a  proverbial  way  of  saying 
that  they  wer  severely  and  harshly  treated.] 

58.  "The  Symbolism  of  the  Mystery  in  Holderlin's  Hyperion." 
By  Miss  Louise  Mallinckrodt  Kueffner,  of  Vassar  College. 

[The  monistic  reaction  of  the  eighteenth  century  against  the  con- 
sciusness  of  dualism  and  the  mecanistic  interpretation  of  nature. 
The  study  of  the  filosofy  of  mithology.  Interest  in  the  mistery  and 
pre-Socratic  thought.  Recognition  of  the  "  romantic  ''  element  in 
Greek  religion,  thought  and  literature.  Revival  of  secret  brother- 
hoods. Influence  of  this  thought  on  literature.  Holderlin's  Hy- 
perion analized  from  this  point  of  view.] 

59.  "  Chaucer  and  Renclus  de  Moiliens."     By  Professor  John  L. 
Lowes,  of  Washington  University,  St.  Louis. 

[The  relation  between  the  account  of  the  Parson  in  the  Prolog  to 
the  Canterbury  Tales  and  the  Romans  de  CarUe"  is  even  closer  than 
has  hitherto  been  pointed  out.  The  figure  of  the  Parson  is  a  tissue 
of  conventions  so  amazingly  vivified  that  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  they  ar  conventions.  These  commonplaces,  one  here,  one  there, 
occur  in  a  wide  variety  of  documents,  and  what  Chaucer  has  done 
is  to  bring  them  together.  But  the  parallels  .  between  Chaucer's 
grouping  of  half  a  dozen  of  these  same  conventions  (two  at  least 
of  which  hav  been  alredy  observd)  and  their  similar  arrangement 
by  Renclus  de  Moiliens  is  so  close  as  to  raise  again  the  question 
of  Chaucer's  use  of  the  Romans.  And  the  general  subject  of  Chau- 
cer's artistic  methods  is  also  involvd.] 

60.  "  Spenser    and    Gower."     By    Professor    John    L.    Lowes,    of 
Washington  University,   St.  Louis. 

[The  procession  of  the  Seven  Dedly  Sins,  in  the  fourth  Canto  of 
the  First  Book  of  the  Faerie  Queene,  shows  certain  very  striking 
parallels  with  the  treatment  of  the  procession  of  the  Sin^  in  the 
erly  part  of  Gower's  Miroir  de  I'Omme.  The  question  thus  raised  is 
one  which  demands  further  investigation.] 


XXX  MODEEN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 


MEETING   OF   THE   CENTRAL  DIVISION 

The  nineteenth  annual  meeting  of  the  Central  Division 
of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America  was 
held  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cincinnati,  December  29,  30,  and  31,  1913. 
All  the  sessions  were  held  in  McMicken  Hall.  Professor 
Thomas  Atkinson  Jenkins,  Chairman  of  the  Central  Divi- 
sion, presided  at  all  the  sessions  except  the  departmental 
sections  on  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day. 

FIRST  SESSION,  MONDAY,  DECEMBER  29 

The  Central  Division  met  at  2.35  p.  m. 

The  Secretary,  Professor  Charles  Bundy  Wilson,  pre- 
sented as  his  report  the  Procedings  of  the  meeting  of 
1912  and  the  Program  for  the  meeting  of  1913. 

This  report  was  accepted. 

The   Chairman  announced  the   following  committees: 

(1)  On  nomination  of  officers:  Professors  O.  F.  Emer- 
son, Bu  A.  Law,  P.  Ogden,  H.  Z.  Kip,  and  M.  Levi. 

(2)  On  place  of  next  meeting:  J.  Goebel,  S.  W.  Cutting, 
A.  F.  Kuersteiner,  D.  Ford,  and  E.  E.  Brandon. 

(3)  On  resolutions:  G.  L.  Swiggett,  L.  M.  Gay,  and 
C.  H.  Gray. 

The  reading  of  papers  was  then  begun. 

'1.  "  Emigration  to  America  in  German  Fiction."  By 
Dr.  Preston  A.  Barba,  of  Indiana  University. 


PEOCEDINGS    FOB     1913 


[The  Democratizing  of  German  fiction  thru  Scott  and  Cooper.  The 
great  exodus  of  Germans  to  America  and  its  impetus  to  the  develop- 
ment of  German  Emigration  Fiction.  Goethe  and  his  embryonic 
plans  for  an  "Auswanderungs-Roman."  Willkomm's  Europamiider 
as  a  precursor.  The  Emigration  Novel  of  Sealsfield,  and  his  suc- 
cessors, Ruppius,  Gerstiicker,  Strubberg,  and  Mollhausen.  —  Ten  min- 
utes.] 

2.  "  Folk  Criticism."     By  Miss  Jean  Olive  Heck,  of 
the  Raschig  School,  Cincinnati. 

[Children's  singing  games  furnish  our  most  easily  accessible  ma- 
terial for  a  study  of  contemporaneous  folk  poetry.  Children's  state- 
ments about  these  games  throw  light  on  the  attitude  of  primitiv 
people  toward  their  ballads  and  other  forms  of  literature.  In 
Cincinnati,  some  adaptations  and  compositions  indicate  the  be- 
ginnings of  new  traditional  singing  games.  In  different  neighbor- 
hoods, variations  suggest  the  conditions  under  which  the  diffusion 
of  such  traditions  takes  place.  The  reasons  given  by  the  children 
for  their  preferences  among  the  singing  games  show  what  elements 
have  led  to  the  perpetuation  of  these  traditions.  —  Ten-minute  sum- 
mary.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  G.  M.  Miller, 
J.  T.  Hatfield,  H.  G.  Shearin,  T.  A.  Jenkins,  S.  W.  Cut- 
ting, Miss  Aldrich,  Dr.  J.  M.  Rudwin,  and  the  author. 

3.  "  The  Modern  German  Fairy-Drama:  Its  Relation 
to  the  Drama  in  General  and  its  Fundamental  Thought.  :' 
By  Professor  Herman  Babson,  of  Purdue  University. 

[Comprehensiv  study  of  plays  produced  from  1889  to  1907  shows 
(a)  that  they  fail  to  meet  tests  sufficient  to  accord  them  a  place 
within  the  limits  of  strict  drama;  (6)  that  their  underlying  thought, 
essentially  idealistic  in  tone,  concerns  itself  with  the  struggle  of  the 
individual  to  realize  and  to  express  himself  amid  present-day  con- 
ditions and  forces  which  tend  to  prevent  his  doing  so.  —  Fifteen 
minutes.] 

4.  "  Some  Characteristic  Traits  of  the  Early  Dramas 
of  Maurice  Maeterlinck."     By  Professor  Moritz  Le^i,  of 
the  University  of  Michigan. 


XXX11  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

[The  romantic  element  as  seen  in  the  setting,  the  events,  and  char- 
acters. Silence,  mystery,  and  blind  forces  enshrouding  the  per- 
sonages. Nature  of  these  forces.  Symbolism.  Affinity  between  na- 
ture and  man.  Scenic  transition.  Style:  Personification;  peculiar- 
ities of  metaphor,  etc.;  repetition;  brevity  of  speech.  Imitation  and 
originality.  Beauty  of  these  early  dramas. — Ten  minutes.] 

5.  "  Der  Teufel  im  Geistlichen  Drama  des  deutschen 
Mittelalters."     By    Dr.    Josef    Maximilian   Rudwin,    of 
Purdue  University. 

[Der  erste  textliche  Beleg  fur  den  Teufel  im  mittelalterlich- 
religiosen  Drama  ist  der  lateinisch-romanische  Sponsus  aus  dem 
zwolften  Jahrhuiidert.  Das  erste  Auftreten  des  Teufels  in  einem 
kirchlichen  Schauspiel  ist  aber  nicht  im  Parabelspiel,  sondern  im 
Osterdrama  gewesen,  and  zwar  in  der  Hollenfahrtsszene,  obgleich 
wir  diese  in  der  Kirche  hochstens  bis  zur  Mitte  des  dreizehnten 
Jahrhunderts  zuriickverfolgen  konnen.  Der  religiose  Btihnenfeufel 
ist  keine  lustige  Person,  sondern  eine  biblische  Figur,  und  seine 
komische  Rolle  ist  die  natiirliche  Folge  des  Stoffes. — Ten  minutes.] 

6.  "  Interdependence  in  English  Fiction/'     By  Pro- 
fessor Robert  Baylor  Whiteford,  of  Toledo  University. 

[The  purpose  was  to  show  the  unconscious  and  conscious  indeted- 
ness  of  the  English  novelists  to  their  English  predecessors  in  at- 
mosphere, motivation,  dialog,  and  characterization.  This  method  of 
study  of  the  English  novels,  from  Sir  Thomas  Malory  to  William  De 
Morgan,  proves  that  there  is  a  common  national  genius,  a  surprizing 
network  of  common  reticulation,  which  has  developt  fiction  as  a 
piece  of  our  national  literature. — Fifteen  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  S.  W.  Cutting, 
J.  M.  Clapp,  and  R.  A.  Law. 


SECOND  SESSION,  MONDAY  EVENING,  DECEMBER  29 

7.  Address  of  welcome  by  President  Charles  William 
Dabney,  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati. 

8.  Address  of  the  Chairman  of  the  Central  Division  of 
the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  Professor 


PROCEDINGS  FOR   1913  xxxiii 

Thomas  Atkinson  Jenkins,  of  the  University  of  Chicago, 
on  "  Scolarship  and  Public  Spirit." 

These  addresses  were  followd  by  a  reception  to  the 
members  and  their  friends. 


THIRD  SESSION,  TUESDAY,  DECEMBER  30 

The  session  began  at  10.00  a.  m.,  when  the  reading  of 
papers  was  resumed. 

9.  "  Sans  et  Matiere  in  the  Works  of  Crestien  de 
Troyes."     By   Professor   William   Albert   Mtze,    of  the 
University  of  Chicago. 

[Sketch  of  a  longer  treatment  of  the  technique  of  the  twelfth- 
century  poet.  Crestien  uses  the  terms  in  the  prolog  to  his  Lancelot. 
Comparison  of  this  with  the  prolog  of  the  Erec.  Comparison  of  the 
prologs  of  the  Thebes,  Troie,  and  Lais  of  Marie  de  France.  Tracing 
back  of  the  ideas  there  exprest  to  the  Liber  Sapientice,  which  formd 
a  part  of  the  Vulgate.  The  '  moral '  interpretation  of  literature, 
Gregory's  use  of  sensus,  Dante's,  etc.  Finally,  the  bearing  of  this 
indication  of  method  on  the  material  (matiere)  in  Crestien's  Ar- 
thurian works. — Fifteen  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Profesors  L.  M.  Gay  and 
O.  F.  Emerson. 

10.  "  The  Roman  a  Clef  in  Seventeenth-Century  Eng- 
lish Fiction."     By  Professor  Alfred  Horatio  Uphain,  of 
Miami  University. 

[Under  French  influence  the  roman  a  clef  seems  to  have  had  wid<? 
popularity  in  England  after  the  Restoration,  to  have  affected  all 
narrativ  forms  then  prevalent,  and  to  have  aided  materially  in 
shifting  the  emphasis  of  fiction  from  heroic  extravagance  to  concrete 
detail  presumably  founded  on  fact.  This  appears  from  considera- 
tion of  numerous  specimens  still  accessible,  particularly  in  th^Bri- 
tish  Museum. — Ten-minute  summary.] 


XXXIV  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

This  paper  was  disgust  by  Professors  J.  W.  Kuhne  and 
J.  M.  Clapp. 

11.  "Tannhauser,    tlie    Pseudo-Hero    of    the    Folk- 
Song.' ?     By  Dr.  Philip  Stephan  Barto,  of  the  University 
of  Illinois.     Eead  by  Mr.  M.  W.  Steinke,  of  the  North- 
western University. 

[Tannhauser  as  hero  of  the  Venusberg  myth  appears  first  in  the 
folk-song  of  the  sixteenth  century,  of  which  numerous  versions  exist. 
A  critical  examination  shows  which  one  is  the  oldest.  From  the 
name  in  this  version  and  the  orthography  thereof  in  the  others  we 
conclude  the  hero  of  the  folk-song  story  was  not  originally  Tann- 
hauser, but  that  this  latter  name  is  of  accidental  introduction. — 
Ten-minute  summary.] 

12.  "  Lodowick  CarlielPs  Position  in  the  Late  Eliza- 
bethan Drama."     By  Professor  Charles  Henry  Gray,  of 
the  University  of  Kansas. 

[English  heroic  drama,  formerly  regarded  as  a  new  departure,  has 
of  late  years  been  shown  to  be  a  continuation  of  late  Elizabethan 
drama.  The  position  of  connecting  link  has  been  given  to  Davenant. 
More  typical  is  Lodowick  Carliell,  whose  plays  show  earlier  expres- 
sion of  the  prevailing  dramatic  tendency,  more  variety  of  type,  and 
greater  devotion  to  the  heroic  ideal. — Fifteen  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  A.  H.  Upham 
and  D.  L.  Thomas. 

13.  "  The  Present  'Crisis  in  the  Science  of  Literature 
in  Germany."     By  Professor  Julius  Goebel,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois. 

[The  development  of  the  present  situation  and  its  explanation. 
The  fundamental  causes  of  the  crisis.  Academic  fetishes.  The  col- 
lapse of  the  Scherer  school.  New  movements. — Fifteen  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  J.  T.  Hatfield, 
S.  W.  Cutting,  C.  E.  Eggert,  and  the  author. 


PROCEDINGS    FOR     1913  XXXV 

The  members  of  the  association  and  their  friends  were 
entertaind  at  luncheon  by  the  University  at  half-past 
twelve  on  Tuesday  in  McMicken  Hall. 

Immediately;  after  the  luncheon  the  ladies  were  enter- 
taind by  an  automobil  ride  around  the  city. 

FOURTH  SESSION,  TUESDAY  AFTERNOON,  DECEMBER  30 

In  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  Central  Division, 
this  session  was  devoted  to  three  departmental  meetings, 
representing  the  English,  Germanic,  and  Romance  lan- 
guages and  literatures.  Subjects  of  importance  to  the 
advancement  of  instruction  constituted  the  programs  of 
the  respectiv  sections.  All  three  sections  met  in  lecture- 
rooms  in  McMicken  Hall. 

ENGLISH 

Chairman — Professor  John  Mantel  Clapp,  of  Lake  Eor- 
est  College. 

Secretary — Professor  George  Morey  Miller,  of  Wabash 
College. 

The  chairman  announced  the  distribution  of  the  "  Re- 
port of  the  Committee  on  the  Labor  and  Cost  of  English 
Teaching,"  and  reported  progress  for  the  Committee  on  the 
Preparation  of  English  Teachers,  stating  that  a  more  com- 
plete report  would  be  presented  at  the  next  meeting.  The 
regular  program  was  then  taken  up. 

14.  "  The  Correlation  of  Rhetoric,  English  Literature, 
and  Foreign  Literature,  in  College  Teaching."  By  Pro- 
fessor Frank  Aydelotte,  of  Indiana  University.  Red  jpy 
Professor  Clyde  William  Park,  of  the  University  of  Cin- 
cinnati. 


XXXVI  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  J.  S.  Harrison, 

F.  W.  Chandler,  K.  A.  Law,  C.  C.  Freeman,  E.  McVea, 
A.  H.  Upham,  H.  G.  Shearin,  F.  G.  Hubbard,  O.  F. 
Emerson,  G.  M.  Miller,  C.  W.  Park,  and  D.  Ford. 

GERMANIC   LANGUAGES 

Chairman — Professor  M.  Blakemore  Evans,  of  the  Ohio 
State  University. 

Secretary — Professor  Charles  Bundy  Wilson,  of  the 
State  University  of  Iowa. 

The  secretary  announced  that  a  message  had  been  re- 
ceivd  from  Professor  Evans  stating  that  he  was  detaind  at 
home  by  illness.  On  motion,  Professor  George  Oliver 
Cnrme,  of  the  Northwestern  University,  was  thereupon 
cald  to  the  chair.  The  regular  program  was  then  taken 
up. 

15.  "  A  Few  Hints  on  German  Composition."     By 
Professor  Max  Poll,  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati. 

The  discussion  of  this  paper  was  opend  by  Professor 

G.  H.  Danton,  and  was  continued  by  Professors  H.  Bab- 
son,  G.  0.  Curme,  C.  E.  Eggert,  F.  W.  Truscott,  L.  M. 
Price,  S.  W.  Cutting,  and  E.  Elias. 

16.  "  The    Character    of    Intermediate    Texts."     By 
Professor  Ludwig  Lewisohn,  of  the  Ohio  State  University. 

The  discussion  of  this  paper  was  opend  by  Professor 
W.  W.  Florer.  The  discussion  of  the  first  paper  had  con- 
sumed so  much  time  that  no  further  discussion  of  this 
paper  was  possible. 


PKOCEDINGS    FOR     1913 

17.  "  Kequirements  for  the  M.  A.  Degree."     Bj  Pro- 
fessor Starr  Willard  Cutting,  of  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago. 

The  discussion  of  this  paper  was  opend  by  Professor 
Julius  Goebel.  Lack  of  time  prevented  further  discussion. 

ROMANCE  LANGUAGES 

Chairman — Professor  Bert  Edward  Young,  of  Yan- 
derbilt  University. 

Secretary — Dean  Edgar  Ewing  Brandon,  of  Miami 
University. 

18.  "  How  Are  We  to  Teach  French  Literature  to 
Undergraduates?"     Method  of  presentation,  reading  in 
and  out  of  class,  etc.     By  Professor  J.  L.  Borgerhoff,  of 
the  Western  Reserve  University. 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  W.  A.  Nitze,  J. 
Lustrat,  E.  E.  Brandon,  B.  L.  Bowen,  M.  Levi,  and 
A.  Nonnez. 

19.  "  Prose  Composition.77     By  Professor  Henry  Ray- 
mond Brush,  of  the  University  of  North  Dakota. 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  P.  Ogden,  J. 
Lustrat,  M.  Levi,  J.  L.  Borgerhoff,  B.  L.  Bowen,  W.  A. 
Nitze,  C.  A.  Bruce,  and  O.  K.  Boring. 

The  gentlemen  were  receivd  on  Tuesday  evening,  in 
the  rooms  of  the  Literary  Club,  No.  25  East  Eighth  St. 
Among  the  entertainments  of  the  evening  were  an  inter- 
esting informal  talk  by  President  Charles  William  Pab- 
ney,  readings,  and  songs  in  several  dialects  by  members 
and  guests.  The  Swiss  songs  by  Professor  A.  C.  Zembrod 


XXXV111  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

and  the  Spanish  songs  by  Professor  A.  F.  Kuersteiner 
were  particularly  well  receivd. 

FIFTH  SESSION,  WEDNESDAY,  DECEMBER  31 

The  session  began  at  9.35  a.  m. 

Professor  F.  G.  Hubbard  presented  the  following  re- 
port and  resolutions  for  the  executiv  committee  of  the 
Central  Division : 

REPORT  OF  THE  EXECUTIV  COMMITTEE  OF  THE  CENTRAL 
DIVISION  OF  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIA- 
TION CONCERNING  SIMPLIFIED  SPELLING. 

At  the  fifth  session  of  the  Indianapolis  meeting  of  the  Central 
Division  there  was  red  a  letter  addrest  to  the  Central  Division  by 
Mr.  E.  O.  Vaile,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Simplified  Spelling 
of  the  Illinois  State  Teachers'  Association.  This  letter  concluded 
with  a  request  that  our  Association  "  endeavor  in  some  organized, 
efficient  way  to  promote  the  establishment  of  the  new  spellings  in 
the  usage  of  our  universities  and  colleges." 

On  motion  of  Professor  James  Taft  Hatfield  it  was  voted  that  the 
matter  be  referd  to  the  Executiv  Committee  to  investigate  and  to  re 
port  at  our  next  meeting  (see  Procedings  for  1912,  page  xxxiv). 

The  letter  of  Mr.  Vaile  reads  as  follows: 

Oak  Park,  111.,  Dec.  24,  1912. 
To  the  Modern  Language  Association, 
Mr.  Charles  B.  Wilson, 

Secretary,  Central  Division. 

Gentlemen : 

As  representing  the  teachers  of  the  State  of  Illinois  and  sharing 
your  interest  in  the  simplification  of  our  English  spelling,  may  we 
most  respectfully  express  to  you  our  conviction  that  a  great  desid- 
eratum in  this  movement  at  the  present  time  is  its  substantial  and 
practical  endorsement  by  our  universities  and  colleges? 

The  teachers  in  our  elementary  and  secondary  schools  can  not  with 
propriety  introduce  the  new  spellings  in  their  school  rooms  until 
these  spellings  are  more  fully  authorized.  In  the  estimation  of  our 
school  boards  and  of  the  school  public  in  general  the  adoption  of 


PEOCEDINGS    FOE     1913 

new  spellings  in  our  schools  can  be  sanctioned  only  when  they  have 
some  into  regular  and  dominant  use  by  our  universities  and  colleges. 
Changes  once  established  there,  in  the  usage  of  the  highest  court  of 
appeal,  will  be  challenged  no  further.  In  fact,  in  progressive  com- 
munities our  lower  schools  will  then  be  put  on  the  defensive  if  they 
do  not  come  into  line. 

Your  action  of  a  year  ago  in  adopting  the  recommendations  of 
Circular  23  issued  by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board,  had  a  decided 
effect  in  improving  the  standing  of  this  movement  with  the  general 
public.  But  such  endorsement  does  not  appeal  with  commanding 
force  to  school  boards  and  teachers.  Tho  their  personal  convictions 
and  practice  may  entirely  agree  with  it,  yet  as  public  servants,  ac- 
countable to  public  opinion,  or  rather  prejudice,  they  must  have  due 
warrant  for  what  they  teach  or  permit  to  be  taught.  They  must 
know  that  they  are  sustained  by  a  weight  of  authority  that  can  not 
be  disputed,  nor  with  credit  ignored. 

This  being  the  situation,  shall  we  not  be  pardoned  for  begging  you, 
in  your  position  of  potent  influence,  to  make  it  your  endeavor,  in 
some  organized,  efficient  way,  to  promote  the  establishment  of  the 
new  spellings  in  the  usage  of  our  universities  and  colleges? 

Very   respectfully   yours, 
COMMITTEE  ON  SIMPLIFIED  SPELLING 

ILLINOIS  STATE  TEACHEBS'  ASSOCIATION, 

By  its  Chairman. 

The  Executiv  Committee  began  its  investigation  of  the  matter  by 
formulating  two  questionnaires,  which  were  sent  out  in  the  month  of 
May,  1913.  One  of  these  questionnaires  was  addrest  to  members  of 
the  Modern  Language  Association  living  in  the  territory  from  which 
come  ordinarily  those  who  attend  the  meetings  of  the  Central  Di- 
vision. This  territory  covers  the  following  States:  Ohio,  West  Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Oklahoma, 
Arkansas,  Colorado,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Indiana,  Illi- 
nois, Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  North  and  South  Dakota. 
The  other  questionnaire  was  addrest  to  the  presidents  of  colleges  and 
universities  and  was  sent  to  institutions  in  the  territory  described 
above,  with  the  addition  of  the  following  States:  California,  Oregon, 
Washington,  Nevada,  Montana,  Wyoming,  Idaho,  Utah,  Arizona,  New 
Mexico. 

The  first  questionnaire  was  sent  to  450  members  of  the  ^Ssocia- 
tion;  206  replies  were  receivd.  The  second  questionnaire  was  sent 
to  300  institutions;  132  replies  were  receivd. 


x  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

SUMMABY  OF  ANSWERS  TO  QUESTIONNAIBE  SENT  TO  COLLEGES  AND 
UNIVERSITIES 

The  replies  to  the  questiannaire  sent  to  colleges  and  universities 
will  be  considerd  first.  Total  number  of  questionnaires  sent  out, 
300;  total  number  of  replies,  132. 

Question  1.  Has  your  institution  adopted  officially  the  changes  in 
spelling  recommended  by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board?  Total  num- 
ber of  replies,  132.  No,  121.  Yes,  6.  Yes,  conditionally,  5.  Of  the 
six  that  reply  yes,  two  have  adopted  simplified  spelling  to  a  limited 
extent  as  indicated  in  a  printed  list  of  words.  One  has  adopted  it  to 
be  introduced  "  as  rapidly  as  feasible."  Three  have  adopted  it  in 
full.  Of  conditional  adoptions,  five  are  in  the  State  of  Illinois.  Here 
the  adoption  comes  into  force  when  two-thirds  of  the  colleges  and 
universities  in  the  State  agree  to  it.  One  is  in  Kansas  under  the 
same  conditions  for  that  State.  A  little  further  information  may  be 
gleand  from  the  answers  to  Question  7  in  the  questionnaire  sent  to 
members  of  the  Association.  "  Has  your  institution  adopted  them 
(i.  e.,  simplified  spellings)  ?"  In  addition  to  the  institutions  enum- 
erated above,  one  normal  school  has  partially  adopted  simplified 
spelling;  one  State  agricultural  college  has  adopted  some  of  the  300; 
and  one  State  university  has  adopted  a  selected  list  from  the  300. 

Question  2.  If  these  changes  have  been  adopted,  was  their  adoption 
through  action  of  (a)  the  president?  (&)  the  board  of  trustees? 
(c)  the  faculty?  In  the  institutions  where  simplified  spelling  has 
been  adopted,  it  has  been  thru  action  of  the  president  in  three  cases; 
of  the  president  and  board  of  regents  in  two  cases;  of  the  president, 
board  of  regents,  and  faculty  in  one  case;  and  by  the  faculty  alone 
in  three  cases. 

Question  3  (a).  Has  your  faculty  ever  voted  on  the  question? 
Total  number  of  replies,  132.  No,  122.  Yes,  17.  Committee  ap- 
pointed, 4. 

Question  3(6).  If  so,  what  was  the  vote  ?  In  seven  cases  the  vote 
was  negativ.  In  four  of  these  cases  no  numbers  were  given.  In  one 
case  the  majority  was  three  to  one;  in  one  case  the  vote  was  fourteen 
to  two;  and  in  another,  twelve  to  six.  In  six  cases  the  vote  was 
affirmativ;  in  one  of  these  it  was  nearly  unanimous;  in  one,  unani- 
mous; in  one,  twelve  to  two;  in  the  other  cases  no  numbers  are 
given. 

Question  4.  What  is  the  present  attitude  of  the  faculty  of  your 
institution  toward  simplified  spelling?  Total  number  of  replies,  110. 
In  32  cases  the  attitude  is  unknown;  in  15  cases  the  attitude  is  that 
of  indifference  or  lack  of  interest;  in  11  cases  the  attitude  is  divided 


PROCEDINGS    FOE     1913  xli 

or  neutral;  in  19  cases  the  majority  is  favorable  or  friendly;  and  in 
19  cases  the  majority  is  opposed.  In  two  cases  simplified  spelling 
seems  to  be  used  by  comparativly  large  numbers;  in  three  cases  by 
few.  In  one  case  it  is  reported  that  the  modern  language  depart- 
ments are  favorable,  and  in  one  case  the  English  department  is  re- 
ported as  unfavorable.  In  three  cases  the  attitude  is  favorable  pro- 
vided that  united  action  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  can  be  obtaind. 
In  one  case  it  is  reported  that  a  committee  has  been  appointed,  and 
in  another  case  it  is  suggested  that  the  attitude  of  the  faculty  is  to 
a  certain  extent  affected  by  fear  of  an  unfavorable  attitude  toward 
simplified  spelling  on  the  part  of  the  State  legislature. 

Question  5  (a).  To  what  extent  is  simplified  spelling  used  in  pub- 
lications of  your  institution?  Total  number  of  replies,  111.  In  93 
cases  the  reply  is  "not  at  all;"  in  ten,  "very  little;"  in  two,  "mod- 
erately ; "  in  one,  "  as  rapidly  as  feasible ; "  in  one,  "  partially  in  bul- 
letins, none  in  catalogue."  In  one,  "  the  first,  second,  and  third  lists 
are  used  in  all  but  the  catalogue;  and  many  beyond  the  first  list  in 
the  catalogue."  In  one,  "  it  has  come  into  use  as  far  as  adopted ; " 
and  in  two,  "  it  is  in  use  to  the  full  extent." 

Question  5(6).  In  official  correspondence?  Total  number  of  re- 
plies, 110.  In  89  cases  the  reply  is  "not  at  all;"  in  14  cases,  it  is 
used  to  a  small  extent;  in  two  cases  its  use  is  optional;  in  one  case 
the  first,  second,  and  third  lists  are  used;  in  one  case  it  is  used  to 
the  full  extent,  and  in  one  case  simplification  goes  farther  than  the 
Board  has  yet  gone.  In  one  case  adoption  is  preceding  as  rapidly  as 
possible,  and  in  another  all  officers  do  not  yet  use  it. 

Question  6.  (a).  Do  you  believe  that  the  official  adoption  of  sim- 
plified spelling  by  colleges  and  universities  would  hasten  its  adoption 
in  the  high  schools  and  in  the  grade  schools?  Total  number  of  re- 
plies, 101.  Yes,  69.  No,  3.  In  21  cases  the  answer  is  a  weak  affirma- 
tiv  exprest  by  such  words  as  "  possibly,"  "  probably,"  "  perhaps," 
"  may  be,"  "  very  likely."  In  five  cases  strong  dout  is  exprest.  In 
two  cases  there  is  qualification  concerning  extent  or  co-operation,  and 
in  one  case  the  reply  is  "  no  opinion." 

Question  6  (6).  Are  you  in  favor  of  the  official  adoption  by  col- 
leges and  universities  of  simplified  spelling?  Total  number  of  re- 
plies, 100.  Yes,  37.  No,  33.  "Not  at  present,"  eight.  In  dout, 
five.  Open  to  conviction,  one.  Not  interested,  two.  In  favor  of  but 
little  change,  or  of  a  change  at  a  slow  rate,  ten.  In  favor  of  official 
adoption,  under  conditions  involving  co-operation  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent,  four.  0 

From  this  summary  the  committee  draws  the  following  inferences: 
( 1 )  Very  few  institutions,  six  out  of  132,  have  adopted  the  changes 


Xlii  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

of  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board.    Five  others  have  adopted  them 
conditionally. 

(2)  Where  the  changes  in  spelling  have  been  adopted,  the  action  has 
been  taken  by  the  president  alone,  by  the  president  and  the  gov- 
erning board,  and  sometimes  by  the  faculty  alone. 

(3)  Few  faculties  have  ever  voted  upon  the  matter  (17  out  of  133). 
In  seven  of  these  cases,  the  vote  was  negativ;   in  six  it  was 
amrmativ;  in  four  cases  no  definit  information  is  given  concern- 
ing the  result. 

(4)  The  attitude  of  the  faculties  of  110  institutions  is  in  general 
one  of  lack  of  interest  or  indifference.     In  19  cases  only  is  the 
majority  of  the  faculty  reported  as  favorable  or  friendly,  and  in 
the  same  number  of  cases  the  majority  is  reported  as  opposed. 
In  32  cases  the  attitude  of  the  faculty  is  reported  as  unknown 
or   unexprest,   which   may   be   taken   to    indicate   that   there   is 
very  little  interest  in  the  matter. 

(5)  In  only  18  institutions  out  of  111  is  "simplified  spelling"  used 
in  the  publications,  and  in  only  21  cases  out  of  110  is  it  used  in 
official  correspondence,  and  in  14  of  these  its  use  is  but  little. 

(6)  A  majority  of  the  replies  express  a  belief  that  the  official  adop- 
tion of  the  suggestions  of  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board  by  col- 
leges and  universities  would  hasten  adoption  in  the  high  schools 
and  in  the  grade  schools.     About   one-third   of  those  replying 
favor  the  official  adoption  by  colleges  and  universities.     About 
the  same  number  are  opposed,  and  the  rest  are  doutful  or  favor 
postponement  or  gradual  adoption. 

From  all  this  we  think  that  it  may  fairly  be  inferd  that  "  simpli- 
fied spelling"  has  obtaind  almost  no  recognition  from  colleges  and 
universities,  and  that  faculties  in  general  have  exprest  little  inter- 
est or  concern  in  the  matter.  While  a  majority  of  the  institutions 
replying  think  that  adoption  by  higher  institutions  of  learning  would 
hasten  adoption  in  secondary  schools,  only  about  one-third  are  in 
favor  of  adoption  by  colleges  and  universities. 

SUMMARY  OF  ANSWERS  TO  QUESTIONNAIRE  SENT  TO  MEMBERS  OF  THE 
CENTRAL  DIVISION 

We  consider  now  the  replies  to  the  questionnaire  sent  out  to  mem- 
bers of  the  Central  Division.  Total  number  of  questionnaires,  450; 
total  number  of  replies,  206.  These  replies  may  be  summarized  as 
follows : 

Question  1.  Are  you  in  favor  of  "simplified  spelling?"  Total 
number  of  replies,  206.  Yes,  118.  No,  56.  Qualified,  32.  Of  the 


PKOCEDINGS    FOE     1913 

qualified  answers,  16  may  be  called  qualified  yes,  eight  qualified  no, 
and  eight  neutral.  The  qualifications  generally  limit  the  extent  of 
the  application  of  the  term  "  simplified  spelling."  Some  of  them  ex- 
press objection  to  the  procedure  of  the  Board. 

Question  2  (a).  Do  you  approve  the  changes  recommended  by  the 
Simplified  Spelling  Board?  Total  number  of  replies,  199.  Yes,  79. 
No,  65.  Qualified,  55.  Almost  all  of  the  qualified  affirmativ  answers 
make  reservations  with  regard  to  the  extent  of  the  changes  recom- 
mended by  the  Board.  The  qualified  negativ  answers  object  in  a  more 
decided  way  to  the  extent. 

Question  2  (b\.  Do  you  wish  to  have  the  Board  go  further?  Total 
number  of  replies,  189.  Yes,  62.  No,  73.  Qualified,  54,  about  evenly 
divided  between  yes  and  no.  Most  of  the  qualified  aftirmativs  sug- 
gest limitation  in  the  way  of  slower  and  less  radical  changes  than 
those  proposed  in  the  past.  Two  or  three  express  a  desire  to  have 
the  Board  precede  more  rapidly.  Nearly  all  of  the  qualified  nega- 
tivs  express  opposition  to  any  further  action  by  the  Board  at  pres- 
ent. 

Question  3  (a).  Are  you  in  favor  of  recognizing  the  Simplified 
Spelling  Board  as  the  authority  in  the  determination  of  simplifica- 
tions? Total  number  of  replies,  185.  Yes,  98.  No,  66.  Qualified,  21. 
Of  the  affirmativ  qualifications  (7),  most  are  concernd  with  the  ex- 
pediency of  accepting,  temporarily,  the  present  Board,  in  lieu  of  any 
other  existing  authority  of  the  same  nature.  The  qualifications  in 
the  negativ  (14)  generally  object  to  the  Board  as  authority,  or  as 
the  only  authority,  or  criticize  the  composition  and  action  of  the 
Board. 

Question  3  (&).  If  not,  whom  would  you  suggest  as  proper  au- 
thority in  this  matter?  Total  number  of  replies,  53.  As  might  be 
expected,  there  is  a  very  wide  range  to  the  suggestions  for  a  proper 
authority.  In  five  cases,  it  is  suggested  that  the  present  Board  would 
be  acceptable  if  its  authority  were  limited;  if  it  were  more  uniform 
and  thorogoing;  if  it  containd  more  members  from  various  bodies; 
if  it  co-operated  with  universities  and  societies;  if  it  showd  greater 
wisdom.  An  international  board  is  favord  by  five,  three  of  whom 
favor  a  fonetic  alfabet.  A  board  representing  all  English-speaking 
nations,  or  representing  England  and  America,  is  favord  by  six.  An 
American  joint  board  is  favord  by  six.  The  bodies  mentiond  are  the 
Modern  Language  Association,  American  Philological  Association, 
the  most  important  universities,  philologists,  men  of  letters,  news- 
paper men,  publishers,  and  writers.  The  Modern  Language  Assfcia- 
tion  is  favord  by  seven.  Three  of  these  propose  co-operation  with  the 
Simplified  Spelling  Board.  Usage  is  proposed  as  the  only  authority 


MODEEN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

by  four,  the  dictionaries  by  four,  and  eight  want  no  authority.    There 
are  six  recommendations  of  a  miscellaneous  character. 

Question  4.  To  what  extent  do  you  simplify  your  own  spelling? 
Total  number  of  replies,  186.  In  71  cases  spelling  is  not  simplified 
at  all.  In  25  cases  there  is  very  little  simplification.  In  nine  cases 
substantially  all  the  simplifications  proposed  by  the  Board  are  used. 
This  use  is  confined  to  correspondence  in  ten  cases.  Most  of  the  sim- 
plifications are  used  by  four,  and  seven  limit  their  use  to  the  list  of 
300  words.  In  13  cases  members  report  that  they  use  the  simplifica- 
tions to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  determind  by  convenience,  practica- 
bility, permission,  the  occasion,  the  person  addrest,  the  desire  to 
avoid  criticism  or  to  appear  peculiar,  in  theory  but  not  in  practice. 
There  are  four  other  replies,  too  miscellaneous,  and  too  extended  for 
classification.  In  23  cases  specific  words  are  mentiond.  Among  them 
are  the  following:  Thru,  tho,  catalog,  program,  rime,  thot,  altho, 
labor,  center,  defense,  honor,  medieval;  the  use  of  the  past  participle 
in  -t  is  mentiond  by  six. 

Question  5.  Do  you  urge  others  to  use  the  changes  recommended 
by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board?  Total  number  of  replies,  189.  Yes, 
50.  No,  117.  Qualified,  22.  In  almost  all  cases  the  qualification  is 
concernd  with  the  extent  of  the  simplification  or  with  the  degree  of 
urgency. 

Question  6  (a).  Do  you  favor  the  use  of  these  changed  spellings 
by  colleges  and  universities?  Total  number  of  replies,  160.  Yes,  89. 
No,  65.  Qualified,  6.  The  qualifications  concern  the  extent  or  sug- 
gest greater  or  less  option. 

Question  6  (&).  Do  you  favor  the  use  of  these  changed  spellings 
by  normal  schools?  Total  number  of  replies,  152.  Yes,  89.  No,  62. 
Qualified,  one  ("  doubtful  ") . 

Question  6  ( c ) .  Do  you  favor  the  use  of  these  changed  spellings 
in  high  schools?  Total  number  of  replies,  153.  Yes,  89.  No,  62. 
Qualified,  two  ("hardly,"  "some"). 

Question  6  (d).  Do  you  favor  the  use  of  these  changed  spelling*) 
by  grade  schools?  Total  number  of  replies,  157.  Yes,  92.  No,  63. 
Qualified,  two. 

In  13  replies  general  qualifications  to  (a),  (&),  (c),  and  (d)  to- 
gether are  stated.  The  character  of  these  is  rather  too  miscellaneous 
for  brief  presentation. 

Question  7.  Has  your  institution  adopted  them?  The  results  of 
the  replies  to  this  question  have  been  combined  with  those  of  the  re- 
plies to  Question  1  of  the  questionnaire  sent  to  presidents  of  col- 
leges and  universities :  "  Has  your  institution  adopted  officially  the 
changes  in  spelling  recommended  by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board?  ' 
They  have  been  given  above. 


PEOCEDINGS    FOR     1913  xlv 

Question  8.  Are  you  in  favor  of  having  the  Central  Division  of 
the  Modern  Language  Association  adopt  resolutions  urging  colleges 
and  universities  to  recognize,  adopt,  and  put  into  use  the  changes 
already  recommended  by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board,  and  to  be 
recommended  by  the  Board  in  the  future?  Total  number  of  replies, 
181.  Yes,  79.  No,  76.  Qualified,  26.  Of  the  qualified  answers  15 
may  be  called  qualified  affirmativ,  nine  qualified  negativ,  and  two 
neutral.  As  examples  of  the  qualified  affirmativ  the  following  may 
be  given :  "  Chiefly  cases  of  divided  usage."  "  The  list  of  300  words 
only,  for  the  present."  "  Only  in  co-operation  with  the  Modern  Lan- 
guage Association."  "  For  past  simplifications."  "  Must  go  slowly." 
"  To  recognize,  not  to  adopt  and  put  into  use."  As  examples  of  the 
qualified  negativ  the  following  may  be  given:  "Not  if  use  is  to  be 
compulsory."  "Not  until  spelling  is  completely  remodeled."  "Not 

yet." 

From  this  summary  the  committee  draws  the  following  inferences: 

Question  1.  It  is  clear  that  a  majority,  tho  not  a  very  large  one, 
favors  simplified  spelling. 

Question  2  (a).  A  majority  does  not  approve  the  changes  recom- 
mended to  their  full  extent. 

Question  2  ( 6 ) .  There  is  a  strong  feeling  that  the  Board  should  go 
no  further,  at  least  for  the  present. 

Question  3  (a).  About  53  per  cent,  accept  the  Board  as  authority; 
about  35  per  cent,  do  not  accept  it;  and  the  rest  either  accept 
the  Board  as  authority  because  there  is  no  other  authority  at 
present,  or  they  object  to  the  present  composition  of  the  Board. 

Question  3  (&).  The  suggestions  concerning  another  authority  are 
rather  miscellaneous,  but  in  general  favor  a  body  composed  of 
representativs  of  language  associations,  educational  'associa- 
tions, institutions  of  higher  education,  writers,  and  publishers. 
Some  suggest  an  international  English  committee.  No  one  pro- 
poses a  self-constituted  body. 

Question  4.  Simplified  spelling  is  not  used  to  any  considerable  ex- 
tent by  the  members  of  this  association. 

Question  5.  About  135  of  those  who  replied  to  the  questionnaire  ap- 
prove simplified  spelling  (see  Question  1),  but  only  about  one- 
half  of  this  number  urge  others  to  use  it. 

Question  6.  About  58  per  cent,  of  those  who  reply  to  this  question 
favor  the  use  of  simplified  spelling  in  colleges,  normal  schools, 
high  schools,  and  grade  schools.  j} 

Question  7.  A  very  small  number  of  colleges  and  universities  use 
simplified  spelling  either  in  their  publications  or  in  official  cor- 
respondence. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

Question  8.  The  majority  in  the  affirmativ  is  too  small  to  warrant 
the  Executiv  Committee  to  recommend  that  the  Central  Divi- 
sion adopt  resolutions  urging  colleges  and  universities  to  recog- 
nize, adopt,  and  put  into  use  the  changes  already  recommended 
by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board,  and  to  be  recommended  by  the 
Board  in  the  future. 

F.  G.  HUBBAED, 

<&  A.    F.    KUEBSTEINEB, 

G.  0.  CUBME. 

Committee. 

RESOLUTIONS  RECOMMENDED  BY  THE  EXECUTIV  COMMITTEE 

Rcsolvd,  1.  That  the  Central  Division  of  the  Modern  Language 
Association  of  America  favors  the  movement  for  the  reform  of  Eng- 
lish orthography; 

2.  That  the  Central  Division  requests  the  Executiv  Council  for 
the  year  1914-15  to  consider  the  whole  subject  of  the  further  reform 
of  English  orthography  and  to  make  recommendations  to  the  Asso- 
ciation at  the  union  meeting  to  be  held  in  1915. 

Professor  B.  E.  Young  moved  that  the  report  of  the 
Executiv  Committee  be  approved  and  that  the  resolutions 
presented  by  them  be  adopted.  Professor  J.  T.  Hatfield 
moved  the  following  amendment: 

Resolvd,  That  the  Central  Division  favors  and  advocates  the  im- 
mediate adoption,  on  the  part  of  all  American  institutions,  of  the 
list  of  300  simplified  words  issued  by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board. 

This  amendment  was  lost,  and  then  the  original  motion 
was  carried,  approving  the  report  of  the  Executiv  Com- 
mittee and  adopting  their  resolutions  as  recommended. 

On  behalf  of  the  committee  on  place  of  meeting,  Pro- 
fessor Julius  Goebel  reported  recommending  that  the  Cen- 
tral Division  accept  the  invitation  of  President  George  E. 
^7incent  to  hold  the  meeting  of  1914  in  Minneapolis  under 
the  auspices  of  the  University  of  Minnesota. 
h:s  recommendation  was  adopted. 


TEOCEDINGS  FOE   1913  xlvii 

For  the  committee  on  the  nomination  of  officers  Profes- 
sor O.  F.  Emerson  presented  the  following  nominations: 

Chairman:  Julius  Goebel,  University  of  Illinois. 
Executiv   Committee : 

Max  Poll,  University  of  Cincinnati. 

Lucy  M.  Gay,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

Morgan  Callaway,  Jr.,  University  of  Texas. 

On  motion  the  report  was  accepted  and  the  persons 
nominated  were  unanimously  elected. 

On  behalf  of  the  committee  on  resolutions,  Professor 
Lucy  M.  Gay  presented  the  folowing  resolutions: 

Resolvd,  That  the  Central  Division  of  the  Modern  Language  Asso- 
ciation of  America  express  by  a  rising  vote  our  sense  of  loss  in  the 
deth  of  Professor  Charles  W.  Benton  and  of  Professor  Henry  Lc 
Daum,  and  our  appreciation  of  the  services  they  renderd  to  educa- 
tion; 

That  the  secretary  be  requested  to  communicate  our  sympathy  and 
respect  to  Mrs.  Benton  and  to  Mrs.  Le  Daum. 

These  resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted,  and  the 
secretary  sent  communications  as  directed. 

On  behalf  of  the  committee  on  resolutions,  Professor 
Lucy  M.  Gay  presented  the  following  resolution : 

Resolrd,  That  the  Central  Division  of  the  Modern  Language  Asso- 
ciation of  America  convey  to  the  University  of  Cincinnati  our  appre- 
ciation of  its  thoughtful  attention  for  our  every  need  and  every 
pleasure  and  our  thanks  for  its  generous  hospitality. 

This  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted. 

On  behalf  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Grammatical 
Nomenclature,  Professor  F.  G.  Hubbard  presented  a*re- 
port  in  pamphlet  form.  And  then  on  motion  of  Professor 
B.  L.  Bowen  the  following  resolutions  were  adopted: 


MODEKN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

Resolvd,  1.  That  the  Report  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Grammati- 
cal Nomenclature  be  approved;  that  the  present  representative  of  our 
Association  on  that  committee  be  authorized  to  take,  on  our  behalf, 
such  further  action  as  may  be  necessary  to  complete  the  report  and 
to  arrange  for  its  publication;  and  that  our  tresurer  be  authorized 
to  contribute  from  the  moneys  of  our  association  such  a  sum  as  he 
may  deem  expedient  to  cover  our  share  of  the  expenses  of  the  com- 
mittee. 

2.  That  the  Central  Division  of  the  Modern  Language  Association 
of  America  hereby  recommends  that,  as  soon  as  may  be  found  prac- 
ticable, the  nomenclature  provided  in  the  report  be  used  in  the 
schools  of  the  United  States. 

The  secretary  reported  that  the  foren  scholars  whose 
names  follow  had  been  nominated  for  honorary  member- 
ship by  the  Executiv  Council  of  the  Association.  On  his 
suggestion'  the  Central  Division  took  favorable  action  on 
these  nominations : 

Francesco  Flamini,  Professor  at  the  University  of 

Pisa. 

Abel  Lefranc,  Professor  in  the  College  de  France. 
Gustav   Koethe,    Professor    at   the   University   of 

Berlin. 
Edward  Schroeder,  Professor  at  the  University  of 

Gottingen. 
Francesco  Torraca,  Professor  at  the  University  of 

Naples. 

On  the  suggestion  of  the  chairman  the  following  resolu- 
tion was  adopted: 

Resolvd,  That  the  secretary  and  the  Executiv  Committee  be  direct- 
ed to  arrange,  if  possible,  to  devote  the  fifth  session  to  a  colloquium 
at  which  one  or  two  subjects  of  wide  general  interest  shall  occupy 
the  whole  of  the  session  except  the  part  needed  for  routine  business. 

On  motion  of  Professor  O.  F.  Emerson  the  following 
resolution  was  adopted: 


PEOCEDINGS    FOR     1913 


Resolvd,  That  the  Central  Division  of  the  Modern  Language  Asso- 
ciation asks  and  urges  the  departments  of  Latin  in  our  colleges  and 
universities  to  offer  courses  in  medieval  Latin  as  of  important  as- 
sistance to  the  study  of  the  medieval  and  modern  literatures. 

The  reading  of  papers  was  then  resumed. 

20.  "The   Early   English   Translations   of   Burger's 
Lenore,"     By  Professor  Oliv,er  Farrar  Emerson,  of  the 
Western  Reserve  University. 

[The  appearance  of  five  English  translations  and  seven  versions  in 
the  single  year  1796  has  been  often  noted.  Some  new  light  may  now 
be  thrown  on  the  relations  of  these  translations,  their  authors,  and 
the  different  influences  affecting  them.  —  Fifteen  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  H.  G.  Shearin. 

21.  "  Chretien  de  Troyes'  Technical  Use  of  Proverb 
and  Sentenz."    By  Professor  Henry  Eaymond  Brush,  of 
the  University  of  North  Dakota. 

[It  was  early  noticed  by  Holland  and  others  that  Chretien  de 
Troyes  makes  frequent  use  of  proverbs  and  Sentenzen.  It  is  also  to 
be  observd  that  he  uses  them  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  earlier 
writers  do,  and  that  his  successors  imitate  him  in  their  use  of  pro- 
verbial expressions.  Chretien's  chief  sources  of  proverbs  are  (  1  )  the 
Bible,  (2)  classical  Latin  authors,  (3)  medieval  Latin  authors,  (4) 
Li  Proverb  au  Vilain.  It  has  not  been  brought  out  that  he  uses  pro- 
verbs increasingly  in  succeeding  works,  that  they  constitute  an  es- 
sential part  of  his  style,  and  that  he  utilizes  them  in  different  ways. 
The  frequent  use  of  the  popular  proverb  is  worthy  of  note  on  account 
of  Chretien's  often  exprest  antipathy  to  the  vilain.  Chretien  seems 
also  to  have  coind  many  proverbs  and  Sentenzen  that  were  taken  into 
popular  currency.  —  Ten-minute  summary.'] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  L.  M.  Gay,  J.  L. 
Borgcrhoi?,  and  T.  A.  Jenkins. 

22.     "  Shakespeare  and  Thomas  Heywood."     By  I*ro- 
fessor  Daniel  Ford,  of  the  University  of  Minnesota. 


1  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

[A  collation  of  Heywood's  plays,  particularly  his  early  ones,  with 
Shakespeare's  Titus  Andronicus,  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  Troilus 
and  Cressida,  and  Timon  of  Athens  suggests  that  in  these  semispur- 
ious  plays  there  is  present  "  at  the  least  a  maine  finger  "  of  Thomas 
Heywood.  Viewd  from  the  standpoints  of  subject  matter,  spirit, 
meter,  and  diction,  they  yield  evidences  of  his  connection  with  them. 
— Fifteen  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  E.  A.  Law,  D.  L. 
Thomas,  and  G.  M.  Miller. 

The  members  of  the  association  and  their  friends  were 
entertaind  at  luncheon  by  the  University  at  half-past 
twelve  on  Wednesday  in  McMiken  Hall. 

After  luncheon  several  members  and  their  friends  ac- 
cepted the  invitation  of  Professor  J.  M.  Burnam,  Pro- 
fessor of  Latin  in  the  University  of  Cincinnati,  to  inspect 
his  collection  of  rare  manuscripts  and  books  which  are  pre- 
servd  in  the  Van  Wormer  Library. 


SIXTH  SESSION,  WEDNESDAY,  DECEMBER  31 

The  session  began  at  2.10  p.  m.,  when  the  reading  of 
papers  was  continued. 

23.  "  Chretien  de  Troyes  and  Hue  de  Rotelande's 
Ipomedon/'  By  Professor  Lucy  Maria  Gay,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin. 

[The  content,  language,  and  style  of  Ipomedon,  make  it  difficult  to 
believe  with  Kolbing,  that  Hue  was  influenced  by  Chretien's  Charrcte 
or  Yvain.  Bardoux's  interpretation  of  Ipomedon  in  his  work  on 
Walter  Map.  Possibility  of  dating  more  closely  its  composition. 
Contrary  to  the  statement  of  Paul  Meyer,  Hue  often  breaks  the 
couplet,  but  even  Thebes  offerd  encouragement  in  this. — Fifteen 
minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  H.  R.  Brush. 


PROCEDINGS    FOB     1913  11 

24.  "  Colonial  Theatres  in   Charleston,   South  Caro- 
lina."   By  Professor  Robert  Adger  Law,  of  the  University 
of  Texas. 

[A  recent  article  in  The  Nation  (February  27,  1913)  has  shown 
that  one  of  the  first  American  theatres  was  erected  in  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  as  early  as  1736,  and  that  plays  were  seen  there  at 
irregular  intervals  from  that  year  till  the  Revolution.  Search  of 
contemporary  newspapers  reveals  information  concerning  the  history 
of  several  colonial  theatres,  the  plays  given  in  them,  and  the  acting 
companies. — Fifteen  minutes.] 

25.  "  The  Provencal  Lais,  Markiol  and  Nompar:  Their 
Relation  to  the  Latin  Sequences  and  to  the  French  Lais 
and  Descourts."    By  Mr.  John  Eaymond  Shulters,  of  the 
University  of  Illinois. 

[Bartsch's  edition  of  the  Lais,  Markiol  and  Nompar,  left  many 
questions  unsolvd.  This  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  left  completely 
aside  the  musical  notation.  The  purpose  of  this  study  is  to  furnish 
a  complete  text  of  the  lais  and  to  discuss  in  detail  their  form,  versi- 
fication, and  rhythm  as  revealed  by  the  aid  of  their  musical  notation. 
The  method  of  modal  interpretation,  establisht  by  Dr.  J.  B.  Beck 
(Melodien  der  Troubadours,  Strassburg,  1908)  is  used.  A  proper  in- 
terpretation of  the  melodies  should  throw  a  new  light  on  the  origin 
of  the  lais  and  their  relation  to  the  Latin  sequences,  and  also  on 
difficult  problems  of  accentuation,  rhythm,  and  versification.  Final- 
ly, it  is  the  purpose  of  the  author  to  show  what  bearing,  if  any,  these 
sequences  and  older  lais  had  on  the  later  development  of  poetic  form, 
especially  in  the  French  lais  and  the  descorts  and  acorts  in  both  Pro- 
vencal and  French  literature. — Ten-minute  summary.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professor  T.  A.  Jenkins  and 
the  author. 

26.  "  Dry  den's  Relation  to  the  German  Lyric  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century."     By  Professor  Milton  D.  Baum- 
gartner,  of  the  University  of  ISTebraska.    Red  by  Professor 
S.  W.  Cutting,  of  the  University  of  Chicago.  * 

[The  fame  of  Dryden  as  a  lyricist  in  Germany  centerd  in  his  sec- 
ond Saint  Cecelia  ode,  Alexander's  Feast.  The  favorable  English 


Hi  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

criticism,  and  the  musical  composition  of  Handel  account  for  the  fav- 
orable reception  in  Germany.  Numerous  translations  and  commen- 
datory reviews  by  poets  and  critics  of  note  bespeak  its  popularity  in 
Germany,  where  this  and  some  of  Dryden's  other  odes  influenced  the 
odes  of  Germany.  This  is  a  part  of  a  study  of  Dryden's  Relation  to 
Germany  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  now  being  publisht. — Fifteen 
minutes.'] 

27.  "  Notes  on  Gustav  Frenssen."  By  Professor  War- 
ren Washburn  Florer,  of  the  University  of  Michigan,  and 
Miss  Mary  J.  Kuthrauff. 

[This  paper  containd  information  on  the  life  of  Gustav  Frenssen 
and  especially  material  on  Jorn  Uhl.  It  was  based  on  letters  from 
Frenssen  and  on  an  interview  with  Frenssen  by  Miss  Ruthrauff. — 
Twelve  minutes.] 

This  paper  was  discust  by  Professors  S.  W.  Cutting  and 
W.  W.  Florer. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  reading  of  papers  the  chairman 
gave  a  brief  review  of  the  various  sessions,  and  then  the 
Central  Division  adjournd  at  3.35  p.  m. 


PAPERS  PRESENTED  BY  TITLE  ONLY 

28.  "  Italian  and  Spanish  Drama  on  the  English  and  American 
Stage."     By  Professor  Charles  Carlton  Ayer,  of  the  University  of 
Colorado. 

[Italy  and  Spain,  unlike  France  and  Germany  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  furnisht  but  few  plays  to  the  modern  English  repertory. 
Even  Salvini,  Ristori,  and  Rossi  took  their  plays  largely  from  abroad. 
At  present,  however,  the  works  of  modern  Italian  and  Spanish  dra- 
matists (D'Annunzio,  Bracco,  Echegaray,  Guimera,  etc.)  in  English 
translation,  are  commanding  attention  in  England  and  in  the  United 
States.] 

29.  "  Pronunciation  Reform  versus  Spelling   Reform."     By   Pro- 
fessor Calvin  S.  Brown,  of  the  University  of  Mississippi. 

[English  spelling  and  pronunciation  should  be  brought  into  closer 
harmony.  In  some  cases  it  would  be  better  to  try  to  change  the 


PEOCEDINGS  FOR  1913  liii 

spelling  to  agree  with  the  pronunciation;  in  other  cases  it  would 
be  better  to  try  to  change  the  pronunciation  to  agree  with  the 
spelling.] 

30.  "The  Pronouns  of  Address  in  Goethe's  Faust."    By  Professor 
William  Herbert  Carruth,  of  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University. 

[In  Faust,  Part  1,  Goethe  uses  for  the  second  person  singular 
nominativ:  Du,  Ihr,  and  Er  (or  Sie),  and  the  corresponding  oblique 
cases,  with  a  single  instance  of  Ihnen  as  dativ  singular.  The  nomi- 
nativ plural  is  always  Ihr.  Accordingly  the  singular  forms  alone 
afford  ground  for  examination.  Goethe's  usage  is  in  the  main  the 
conventional  literary  usage  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  it  is  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible,  to  establish  a  change  in  attitude  correspond- 
ing to  the  many  and  abrupt  shifts  in  the  pronoun  of  address.  It  is 
the  writer's  belief  that  such  shifts  without  change  in  attitude  were 
not  regarded  by  many  German,  as  well  as  English  authors,  as  rhet- 
orical defects.] 

31.  "  A  Modification  of  the  Theory  of  Prose  Rhythm."    By  Dean 
Joseph  Villiers  Denney,  of  the  Ohio  State  University. 

[Both  the  Jespersen  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  sentence  and  the 
James  theory  of  the  "stream  of  thought"  compel  a  restatement  of  the 
doctrin  of  dynamic  stress.  The  dynamic  stress  is  not  often  concen- 
trated at  one  point  in  the  sentence.  The  "  point  of  dynamic  stress  " 
is  not  the  "  fountain  of  stress."  The  latter  is  the  valuation  which 
the  speaker  puts  upon  his  idea.  The  signs  of  this  valuation  are  the 
numerous  points  of  major  and  minor  stress.  The  minor  are  not  de- 
rived from  the  major  stresses.] 

32.  "  On  the  Paleography  and  the  Language  of  Konungs  Skuggsjd 
A.  M.  243,  B,  a."     By  Professor  George  Tobias  Flom,  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Illinois. 

[Presents  some  of  the  results  of  a  study  of  the  script,  the  typical 
scribal  errors,  and  the  vocabulary  of  this  principal  Old  Norwegian 
manuscript  of  the  Konungs  Skuggsjd.  The  study  is  based  on  the 
complete  photographic  copy  in  the  library  of  the  University  of  Illi- 
nois, and  forms  part  of  the  introduction  of  a  fac-simile  and  diplo- 
matic edition  of  the  manuscript  at  present  in  the  course  of  prepara- 
tion.] 

0 

33.  "Theodor  Korner  and  Alexander  Petofi:  a  study  in  Parallel 

Development."  By  Dr.  Alexander  Green,  of  the  University  of  Illi- 
nois. 


liv  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

[As  Korner  the  aspirations  of  the  German,  so  Petofi  graspt  the  es- 
sence of  the  struggle  of  his  nativ  land  against  Austrian  oppression. 
Korner  was  the  bard  of  the  German  War  of  Liberation;  Petofi  was 
the  Tyrtaeus  of  the  Hungarian  War  of  Independence.  Poets  tho 
they  were,  both  did  in  deeds  what  they  preacht  in  words.] 

34.  "  Cultural  Movements  in  Germanic  Mythology."    By  Professor 
Paul  H.  Grummann,  of  the  University  of  Nebraska. 

[The  purpose  of  the  paper  is  to  show  how  the  principles  followd 
by  Sophus  Bugge  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Baldr  myth  are  appli- 
cable to  the  whole  field.  Incidentally,  the  paper  is  in  harmony  with 
the  new  theory  in  regard  to  the  original  home  of  the  Indo-Euro- 
peans.] 

35.  "  Ollanta,,  A  Quichua  Drama."     By  Professor  Elijah  Clarence 
Hills,  of  Colorado  College. 

[This  drama  in  the  Quichua  language  of  Upper  Peru  has  been 
commonly  accepted  as  an  ancient  Inca  drama.  It  came  to  light  be- 
tween 1770  and  1780,  when  a  manuscript  was  produced  by  Dr.  An- 
tonio Valdes,  parish  priest  of  Tinta,  Peru.  Editions  have  been  pub- 
lisht  by  von  Tschudi,  Markham,  Pacheco  Zegarra,  Middendorf,  and 
others.  An  attempt  to  determin  the  origin  and  the  age  of  the  play 
by  a  critical  study  of  the  fable,  language,  and  prosody.] 

36.  "  A  Visualisation  Method  for  Teaching  German  Grammar." 
By  Dr.  Francis  Waldemar  Kracher,  of  the  State  University  of  Iowa. 

[This  treatise,  which  is  to  appear  in  print  in  the  near  future,  de- 
scribes in  detail  a  visualisation  method,  which  can  be  applied  with 
equally  good  results  for  individual  or  class  instruction.  Every  teach- 
er knows  that  he  must  stimulate  the  students'  ability  to  comprehend 
grammatical  forms  by  means  of  the  eye  as  well  as  by  the  ear.  All 
grammarians,  therefore,  try  to  present  changes  in  inflections  and 
word  order  in  a  conspicuous  way,  attractiv  to  the  eye.  This  particu- 
lar method  uses  movable  cards,  which  the  student  himself  bandies  in 
laboratory  fashion,  thereby  really  and  practically  working  out  the 
changes  which  occur  and  which  to  some  are  difficult  to  comprehend. 
In  this  manner  the  pupil  obtains  a  more  rapid  and  a  clearer  im- 
pression of  changes  in  constructions  and  inflections  than  he  could  by 
merely  writing  them  down  or  repeating  them  orally.] 

37.  "The   Prioress's   Oath."     By  Professor   John  L.   Lowes,   of 
Washington  University. 

[A  large  and  interesting  mass  of  material  dealing  with  St.  Eligius 


PKOCEDINGS    FOR     1913  ]v 

has  accumulated  in  recent  years,  without  apparently  having  attract- 
ed the  notice  of  Chaucerian  scholars.  It  gives  valuable  aid  towards 
the  interpretation  of  Chaucer's  well-known  line.] 

38.  "The  Lady  of  Dreams  in  Mediaeval  Poetry."     By   Dr.   Olin 
Harris  Moore,  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 

[Visions  of  Jaufre  Rudel,  Arnaud  de  Marueil,  Giraud  de  Borneil, 
Amanieu  des  Escas,  Folquet  de  Romans.  Relations  with  mariolatry. 
The  Quant  li  solleiz  converset  en  Leon.  Relations  with  the  legend  of 
the  Princesse  Lolntaine.  Bearing  on  autobiographical  questions  in 
Li  jus  Adan.  Development  of  subject  in  Italy.] 

39.  "  Word-Coinage   and   Modern   Trade-Names."      By   Professor 
Louise  Pound,  of  the  University  of  Nebraska. 

[Prolific  and  untrammeld  invention  of  trade-names  at  the  present 
time.  Variety  of  devices  employd  in  the  effort  to  produce  something 
striking  or  rememberable.  Popularity  of  curtailments  and  distor- 
tions, of  extensions,  of  hyphenated  forms,  of  fanciful  and  phonetic 
spellings,  of  blends,  of  arbitrarily  created  and  seemingly  meaningless 
new  words.  Contrast  with  the  type  of  commercial  name  thought  ef- 
fectiv  some  generations  ago.] 

See  Dialect  Notes  for  January,  1914. 

40.  "  English  Influences  upon  Freytag's  Soil  und  Haben."    By  Dr. 
Lawrence  Marsden  Price,  of  the  University  of  Missouri. 

[The  investigation  is  based  on  a  study  of  Julian  Schmidt's  atti- 
tude toward  the  English  novel  as  defined  in  the  Grenzboten,  1848- 
1862.  Soil  und  Haben  is  presented  as  an  integral  part  of  the  Grenz- 
boten  literary  policy.  Freytag  tries  to  realize  in  practice  what 
Schmidt  commends  in  theory.  The  intimate  relations  of  the  Grenz- 
boten editors  with  Auerbach,  Reuter,  and  Ludwig  are  referd  to,  and 
the  influence  of  the  English  novel  upon  the  early  works  of  poetic 
realism  indicated.  As  an  intermediary  in  this  influence  the  Grenz- 
boten is  shown  to  have  playd  an  important  role.] 

41.  "  The  Source  of  Wilhelm  Raabe's  Sankt  Thomas."     By  Dr. 
Charles  Allyn  Williams,  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 

[According  to  Raabe's  statement,  the  chief  source  of  his  historical 
tale,  Die  schwarze  Galeere  (written  1860),  was  a  continuation  of 
Schiller's  Geschichte  des  Abfalls  der  Vereinigten  Niederlande  by  Karl 
Curths  (Der  niederldndische  Revolutionskrieg,  Leipzig,  edition  of 
1823).  An  examination  of  Curths's  history  shows  that  it  also  fur- 


v  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

nisht  .Raabe  the  basis  for  Sankt  Thomas  (begun  in  1861,  not  finisht 
until  1865).  In  this  story  the  author  shows  even  a  greater  inclina- 
tion to  depend  upon  Curths  than  was  the  case  in  Die  schwarze  Ga- 
leere,  but  he  is  no  less  skilful  in  constructing  the  tale  upon  the  sober 
account  of  the  history.] 

42.  "  Brieux,  the  Moralist  on  the  Stage  and  the  Paradox  of  His 
Work."    By  Professor  Charles  Edmund  Young,  of  Beloit  College. 

[While  Brieux  is  generally  accepted  as  a  serious  writer,  seeking  to 
bring  about  various  reforms  through  the  medium  of  the  stage,  there 
is  also  a  widespred  impression  that  many  of  his  plays  are  of  a  ques- 
tionable nature  on  account  of  his  freedom  in  boldly  handling  sub- 
jects usually  avoided.  There  is,  furthermore,  an  idea  that  he  is  a 
rank  pessimist,  seeing  contemporary  life  in  the  worst  possible  light. 
This  paper  aims  to  study  the  extent  of  his  reform  crusade  and  to 
point  out  the  solid  qualities  of  his  work,  showing  also  how  he  con- 
tradicts the  pessimism  of  his  plays  by  one  in  which  he  warns  his 
readers  that  French  literature  does  not  present  a  correct  picture  of 
French  society.] 

43.  "  The  Verbal  as  Adverb."     By  Dr.  Jacob  Zeitlln,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois. 

[The  present  participle  in  English  frequently  fails  to  conform  to 
its  definition,  for  in  sentences  like  "  he  went  riding,"  it  seems  to  have 
the  nature  of  an  adverb.  This  adverbial  function  is  probably  based 
on  the  primary  force  of  the  participle  in  Indo-Germanic.  The  disap- 
pearance of  the  adjectival  inflection  in  Modern  English  tended  to 
loosen  the  organic  bond  between  the  verbal  in  -ing  and  the  noun. 
Where  its  meaning  brings  it  into  close  relation  with  the  noun  it  still 
retains  the  nature  of  an  adjectiv,  but  very  frequently  its  meaning 
connects  it  unmistakably  with  the  verb  or  with  the  sentence  as  a 
whole,  and  in  such  cases  a  reasonable  method  of  analysis  demands 
that  it  be  treated  like  any  other  adverbial  expression.] 


PROCEDINGS    FOR    1913  Ivii 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  ADDRESS 

DELIVERS  ON  TUESDAY,  DECEMBER  30,  1913,  AT  CAM- 
BRIDGE, MASS.,  AT  THE  THIRTY-FIRST  ANNUAL 
MEETING  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION 

BY  ALEXANDER  R.  HOHLFELD 


LIGHT  FROM  GOETHE  ON  OUR  PROBLEMS 

Many  of  you,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  may  be  wondering 
why  I  should  have  chosen  Goethe  as  a  guide  in  considering 
some  of  the  professional  problems  of  the  modern  language 
men  of  this  country.  Let  me  assure  you  that  the  selection 
is  neither  accidental,  nor  meant  to  be  facetious. 

In  the  majority  of  the  presidential  addresses  delivered 
before  this  Association,  in  its  Eastern  as  well  as  in  its 
Western  branch,  it  has  been  customary  for  the  speaker  to 
present  his  case  from  a  frankly  personal  point  of  view. 
Indeed,  a  deliverance  like  this,  if  it  is  to  measure  up  at  all 
to  rightful  expectations,  must  needs  partake  of  the  nature 
of  a  confession  of  faith.  Emotions,  to  be  sure,  should  not 
take  the  place  of  argument.  But  argument  should  be  of 
such  a  character  as  to  reveal  those  fundamental  aspects  of 
personality  that  lie  beyond  the  reach  of  ready  and  con- 
scious adjustment. 

Whatever  opinion  of  Goethe  you  may  therefore  have,  in- 
dividually and  collectively,  I  think  I  had  better  admit 
from  the  outset  that  with  advancing  years  I  have  const^nt- 
ly  grown  in  admiration  and  in  reverence  for  him  of  whom 
even  Emerson  could  finally  say,  "  The  old  Eternal  Genius 


Iviii  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

who  built  this  world  has  confided  more  to  this  man  than  to 
any  other."  More  and  more  I  have  developed  such  a  sense 
of  dependence  on  Goethe  for  counsel  and  courage,  for  light 
and  leading  that,  even  though  I  tried,  I  could  not  keep  it 
from  asserting  itself  whenever  on  broad  questions  of  prin- 
ciple I  am  to  express  my  deeper  personal  convictions.  It 
would  not  matter  whether  Goethean  influence  were  specifi- 
cally referred  to  or  not  in  the  title  chosen  for  this  address. 
It  would  inevitably  be  present ;  even  as  biblical  standards 
would  necessarily  have  determined  the  attitude  of  the 
early  Puritan  settlers  here  in  New  England  on  any  large 
problem  of  culture  or  education. 

To  reassure  you,  however,  I  can  truthfully  say  that  my 
admiration  is  not  blind.  'Nor  is  it  ignorant  of  all  that  the 
most  determined  advocatus  diaboli  could  urge  against  the 
canonization  of  my  saint.  On  the  contrary,  favorite  in- 
vestigations of  my  own  and  of  my  pupils  have  brought  me 
into  unusually  close  contact  with  most  of  the  adverse  opin- 
ions concerning  Goethe  that  have  been  voiced  by  German 
and  by  foreign  writers.  But  I  am  more  willing  than  ever 
to  endorse  the  sentiment  of  a  recent  biographer,  whose 
words,  to  be  sure,  have  immediate  reference  to  the  German 
people : 

Whenever  a  solar  eclipse  has  threatened  the  orbits 
of  our  nation's  public  affairs  or  cultural  life,  we  have 
invoked  Goethe  as  the  helper  and  bringer  of  light, 
and  never  yet  in  vain. 

And  on  further  reflection,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  hope 
you  may  be  disposed  to  agree  with  me  that  the  patron  saint 
whom  I  invoke  has  some  peculiar  warrant  for  presiding 
over  a  gathering  like  this,  and  that  he  has  not  been  chosen 
merely  to  humor  the  racial  idiosyncrasies  of  an  unregen- 
erate  president. 


PROCEDHSTGS   FOE   1913  lix 

Auspicious,  you  will  grant,  is  Goethe's  early  and  sincere 
interest  in  the  institution  whose  guests  we  are  on  this  occa- 
sion, an  interest  engendered  through  personal  acquaintance 
with  men  of  resonant  iSTew  England  names,  like  Everett, 
Ticknor,  Cogswell,  Bancroft,  and  graciously  expressed  in 
the  dedication  of  a  set  of  his  writings  in  1819  "to  the  lib- 
rary of  the  University  of  Cambridge  in  New  England,  as  a 
mark  of  deep  interest  in  its  high  literary  character,  and  in 
the  successful  zeal  it  has  displayed  thro'  so  long  a  course  of 
years  for  the  promotion  of  solid  and  elegant  education." 

But  granting  that  this  is  merely  a  casual  though  happy 
coincidence,  let  me  remind  you  how  fitly  Goethe  represents 
that  living  union  of  the  ancient  and  the  modern  humani- 
ties which  this  meeting  may  be  claimed  to  symbolize.  A 
typically  modern  poet,  Goethe  remained  a  -convinced  ad- 
mirer of  ancient  literature  and  art  through  all  the  vicis- 
situdes of  his  long  literary  career,  and  the  masterpieces  of 
his  ripe  manhood  are  the  noblest  products  of  the  classical 
renaissance  in  modern  German  literature. 

To  our  Latin  colleagues  let  me  point  out  what  Rome 
meant  for  the  maturing  of  his  art  and  for  his  happiness 
as  a  man.  Many  years  after  he  had  left  the  Eternal  City, 
he  could  still  exclaim : 

Wandelt  von  jener  Nacht  mir  das  traurige  Bild  durch  die  Seele, 
Welche  die  letzte  fur  mich  ward  in  der  romischen  Stadt; — 
Wiederhol'  ich  die  Nacht,  wo  des  Teuren  soviel  mir  zuriickblieb, 
Gleitet  vom  Auge  noch  jetzt  mir  eine  Trane  herab. 

And  oh,  what  comfort  our  Greek  friends  can  find  amid 
the  chill  blasts  of  modern  indifference  in  the  shelter  of 
him  for  whom  the  ancient  Greeks  always  remained  those 
models  to  whom  we  moderns  should  ever  return;  nofr in- 
deed to  imitate  them  mechanically,  but  to  be  moved  to  like 
efforts  in  our  sphere  by  the  never  failing  inspiration  of 


Ix  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

Greek  health  and  strength  and  beauty.  "  Every  man  be  a 
Greek  in  his  own  way,  but  be  one !  "  And  as  to  those  of 
us  who  are  primarily  students  of  modern  life  and  letters, 
can  we  not  safely  entrust  ourselves  to  Goethe  with  his 
strong  sense  of  reality  and  of  the  present,  who  with  un- 
diminished  interest  and  remarkable  freedom  from  preju- 
dice kept  in  touch  to  the  last  with  all  the  significant  cul- 
tural movements  of  his  day  ?  It  is  true,  he  often  and  elo- 
quently expressed  his  deep  sense  of  the  continuity  of  all 
human  knowledge  and  experience. 

Wer  nicht  von  dreitausend  Jahren 
Sich  weiss  Rechenschaft  zu  geben, 
Bleib'  im  Dunkeln  unerfahren, 
Mag  von  Tag  zu  Tags  leben. 

And  yet,  at  the  reminiscent  age  of  80  years,  he  could  still 
say  with  equal  assurance  and  truth,  "  Only  because  men 
do  not  know  how  to  appreciate  and  vivify  the  present,  do 
they  long  so  much  for  a  better  future  or  coquettishly  ogle 
with  the  past." 

Those  among  us  who  are  devoting  our  labors  to  the 
study  of  Germanic  culture  claim  him  as  our  own  in  a 
deeper  sense  and  see  in  him,  in  the  words  of  Jacob  Grimm, 
"  the  sun  in  the  literary  heavens  of  Germany."  But  the 
colleagues  in  the  fields  of  English  and  of  the  Romance 
languages  may  none  the  less  accept  him  as  their  spokes- 
man with  equal  confidence.  What  foreigner  ever  pro- 
claimed more  enthusiastically  the  greatness  of  Shake- 
speare and  of  English  literature,  or  more  heartily  acknowl- 
edged the  cultural  debt  of  gratitude  that  he  owed  to  the 
classic  poets  of  France  ?  Not  only  his  wide  first-hand  ac- 
quaintance with  the  languages  and  literatures  of  England, 
France,  and  Italy,  but  also  his  actual  critical  and  exposi- 


PEOCEDINGS    FOE    1913  Ixi 

tory  writings  in  these  fields  would,  from  a  purely  scholar- 
ly point  of  view,  assure  him  a  place  of  distinction  among 
the  ablest  members  of  this  Association.  And  were  the 
Orientalists  meeting  with  us,  they  would  unquestionably 
be  willing  to  do  homage  not  only  to  the  inspiration,  but 
also  to  the  learning  of  the  poet  of  the  West-ostlicJier  Divan. 

Not  only  as  scholars,  however,  but  also  as  teachers,  we 
may  be  sure  of  finding  our  efforts  appreciated  at  the  hands 
of  one  who,  despite  his  preeminently  artistic  endowment, 
found  and  nurtured  a  characteristic  trait  of  didacticism  in 
his  own  nature.  More  specifically,  as  teachers  of  foreign 
tongues  we  are  indebted  to  him  for  that  happy  axiom  so 
frequently  quoted  in  support  of  our  work,  that  he  who  has 
no  knowledge  of  a  foreign  language  does  not  know  his 
own :  "  Wer  f remde  Sprachen  nicht  kennt,  weiss  nichts  von 
seiner  eignen." 

In  fact,  as  teachers  and  as  scholars,  as  philologists  in 
the  broader  and  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term,  as  rep- 
resentatives of  ancient  and  of  modern  literature,  as  Ang- 
lists,  Romanists  and  Germanists,  as  classicists,  romanti- 
cists and  realists,  we  all  can  confidently  .enter  the  temple 
consecrated  to  the  service  of  the  patron  saint  whom  I  in- 
voke. "  Introite,  nam  et  hie  dii  sunt." 

In  the  brief  time  at  my  disposal,  I  cannot  attempt  to 
suggest  all  of  the  relations  that  might  readily  be  estab- 
lished between  characteristic  views  and  utterances  of 
Goethe  and  some  of  those  manifold  interests  and  problems 
that  confront  at  the  present  time  "  the  advancement  of  the 
Modern  Languages  and  their  Literatures,"  in  constitu- 
tional parlance  the  object  of  the  existence  of  our  Associa- 
tion. Every  one  who  knows  fairly  well  not  only  the  poet 
Goethe  in  his  recognized  "  works,"  but  also  the  man  fnd 
thinker,  as  he  has  gradually  become  more  and  more 


Ixii  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

revealed  through  the  rich  treasures  of  his  letters  and  con- 
versations, every  one  so  informed  will  be  ready  to  admit 
that  of  such  relations  there  exist  a  large  number  that  sug- 
gest themselves  easily  and  naturally.  Some  of  them  I 
have  already  referred  to,  or  at  least  hinted  at,  as  the 
advantage  of  the  study  of  foreign  languages,  or  the  rela- 
tive claims  of  the  ancients  and  the  moderns.  Others 
might  easily  take  us  far  afield  into  those  general  problems 
of  education  in  which  our  own  professional  destinies  are 
deeply  involved,  as,  for  instance,  the  latter-day  invasion 
of  the  champions  of  the  practical  and  utilitarian  with  its 
many  reactions  on  the  study  of  the  humanities  and  chiefly 
perhaps  of  language  and  literature. 

Instead,  I  propose  to  single  out  three  important,  broad 
and  characteristic  aspects  of  Goethe's  view  of  life  which 
had  a  profound  bearing  on  his  own  work  and  development, 
which  have  proved  very  illuminating  to  me  in  dealing  with 
the  poet's  complex  and  many-sided  nature,  and  which 
permit  of  a  ready  and  natural  application  to  our  own 
professional  aims  and  conditions.  If  thus  far  I  have  laid 
the  emphasis  of  "my  remarks  upon  Goethe  himself  as  a 
source  of  light,  I  shall  henceforth  rather  dwell  upon  thoso 
problems  of  ours  that  appear  to  be  illumined  by  his  light. 

First,  I  desire  to  direct  your  attention  to  a  group  of 
thoughts  suggested  by  the  Goethean  conception  of  Welt- 
literatur,  which  in  his  old  age  appeared  to  him  as  a 
matter  of  great  moment  and  promise.  Of  course,  in  a 
sense,  the  facts  underlying  this  idea  are  old,  as  far  as  it 
relates  to  a  literary  interchange  between  the  leading 
nations  of  Europe,  if  not  of  the  world.  But  what  pre- 
viously had  been  left  to  the  play  of  chance  or  the  stress  of 
necessity  was  conceived  by  Goethe,  who  was  justly  aware 


PROCEDINGS  FOB  1913  Ixiii 

that  lie  himself  had  become  one  of  the  great  "Weltdich- 
ter,"  as  a  conscious  movement  growing  out  of  new  condi- 
tions of  international  life.     According  to  his  view,  this 
movement  should  be  fostered  and  guided,  as  on  the  other 
hand  there  are  to  be  expected  from  it  far-reaching  results 
in  the  super-national  life  of  the  civilized  world.     Goethe's 
ideal  must  not  be  confused  with  that  of  the  non-national 
cosmopolitanism  of  rationalistic  thinkers  of  the  18th  cen- 
tury.   In  their  view  the  national  differences  separating  the 
various  peoples  were  in  the  main  to  be  considered  as  hin- 
drances to  be  reduced  and  eliminated  as  much  as  possible 
in  the  interest  of  a  uniform  and  universally  human  ideal 
of  life  and  culture.    Goethe,  however,  developed  and  advo- 
cated his  ideas  after  romanticism  had  successfully  vindi- 
cated the  deeper  significance  of  the  historical,  racial,  and 
popular  elements  in  the  life  and  thought  of  a  nation.    He 
is  far  from  seeing  in  these  tendencies  mere  hindrances  to 
a  speedy  consummation  of  his  hopes,  but  rather  acknowl- 
edges them  as  characteristic  factors  of  significant  value 
and  advantage.     Just  because  nations,   like  individuals, 
are   differently   endowed    and   cannot   escape   the    "  dai- 
mon  "  that  animates  and  controls  them,  they  can  aid  each 
other  toward  a  fuller  conception  and  realization  of  human 
perfection.     For  this  purpose,  in  the  cultural  traffic  of 
nations,  those  tendencies  should  be  strongly  encouraged 
which  point  toward  closer  harmony  and  fuller  apprecia- 
tion; tolerance  is  to  be  insisted  on  where  there  are  deep- 
seated  and  irreconcilable  differences ;  and,  lastly,  those  as- 
pects of  a  nation's  life  in  which  it  is  strongest  and  most 
successful — what  Goethe  calls  "  die  Vorziige  "  of  a  given 
nation — are  to  be  considered  as  worthy  of  special  recogni- 
tion.    The  following  brief  quotations  may  illustrate  tBese 
assertions. 


Ixiv  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

Truly  universal  tolerance  is  most  securely  estab- 
lished if  we  are  not  disturbed  by  the  peculiarities  of 
individuals  or  nations,  but  at  the  same  time  adhere 
to  the  conviction  that  everything  truly  meritorious  is 
distinguished  by  being  common  to  all  mankind. 

Only  we  repeat  that  we  should  not  possibly  expect 
that  nations  should  think  alike;  but  they  should  at 
least  take  notice  of  each  -other,  comprehend  each 
other,  and  if  they  cannot  love  each  other,  at  least 
learn  to  bear  with  each  other. 

From  the  manner  in  which  [foreigners]  think  of 
us,  more  or  less  favorably,  we  in  turn  learn  to  judge 
ourselves,  and  it  cannot  do  any  harm  if  for  once  we 
are  made  to  reflect  upon  ourselves. 

In  the  spirit  of  this  conception  Goethe  was  eager  to  do 
all  that  lay  in  his  power  to  increase  the  nations'  interest 
"an  einer  edlen  allgemeinen  Lander-  und  Weltannahe- 
rung."  What  he  ultimately  hoped  for  as  at  least  one  of  the 
results  of  such  mutual  approach  and  appreciation  is  most 
clearly  shown  in  a  passage  from  a  letter  of  Carlyle  which 
he  translated  for  his  German  fellow-countrymen  with 
terms  of  highest  approval : 

Let  nations,  like  individuals,  but  know  one  another 
and  mutual  hatred  will  give  place  to  mutual  helpful- 
ness; and  instead  of  natural  enemies,  as  neighboring 
countries  are  sometimes  called,  we  shall  all  bo 
natural  friends. 

This  noble  thought,  thus  sanely  pictured,  neither  sug- 
gests nor  tolerates  that  puerile  spirit  of  Utopian  reckless- 
ness which  has  done  much  to  discredit  the  entire  movement 
in  the  minds  of  many  people  who  otherwise  might  well 
come  under  its  spell  and  help  serve  its  ends.  In  Goethe's 


PEOCEDINGS    FOR    1913  Ixv 

sober  conception,  the  idea  is  entirely  free  from  the  blemish 
of  an  unruly  and  short-sighted  disregard  for  the  estab- 
lished laws  of  life.  Results,  he  knows,  will  neither  be  sud- 
den nor  perfect,  and  he  expressly  warns  his  followers  that 
they  should  not  expect  more  than  is  reasonable. 

Such  a  program  of  international  appreciation,  toler- 
ance, and  helpfulness  has,  it  seems  to  me,  a  highly  valuable 
significance  for  us  modern  language  men  who  represent 
disciplines  in  the  pursuit  of  which,  no  matter  how  objec- 
tively and  judiciously  we  may  proceed,  the  respective  na- 
tional points  of  view  are  bound  to  manifest  themselves. 
This  natural  state  of  affairs  is  even  further  accentuated 
by  the  fact  that  in  a  large  number  of  institutions,  in  our 
subjects  far  more  than  in  others,  and  in  this  country  far 
more  than  elsewhere,  native  Americans  are  working  side 
by  side  with  the  representatives  of  other  nationalities. 
The  conditions  of  our  profession  thus  offer  an  unusual  op- 
portunity for  putting  to  the  test,  on  a  small  scale,  as  it 
were,  the  Goethean  principle  "  einer  edlen  allgemeinen 
Lander-  und  Weltannaherung." 

Pray  do  not  fear  that  I  have  any  intention  of  advocating 
that  our  Association  as  such  recognize  or  support  any  of 
the  specific  movements  now  organized  in  this  country  and 
abroad  in  behalf  of  international  conciliation  and  world 
peace.  What  I  do  desire  to  accomplish,  however,  thru 
these  feeble  words  of  mine  is  to  aid  in  arousing  among  us 
as  a  profession  a  more  general  consciousness  of  the  peculiar 
opportunities  and  responsibilities  which  apparently  are 
ours  in  regard  to  a  great  world  movement  that  has  begun 
to  fire  the  imagination  and  the  will  of  many  of  the  best 
minds  of  our  age.  We,  above  all,  ought  to  have  and  un- 
doubtedly do  have  that  deeper  knowledge  that  is  claimedPto 
be  the  warrant  of  appreciation  and  sympathy.  But  if  so,. 


MODEBN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 


should  we  not  remember  that  "  no  man,  when  he  hath 
lighted  a  candle,  putteth  it  in  a  secret  place,  neither  under 
a  bushel,  but  on  a  candlestick,  that  they  which  come  in 
may  see  the  light  ?  "  Of  course,  I  have  no  reference  to  the 
thoughtless  use  of  high-sounding  arguments  such  as  yon 
must  have  heard  at  teachers'  meetings  or  seen  in  print  in 
our  popular  proselyting  literature,  when  the  promotion  of 
the  peace  of  the  world  is  conjured  up  as  one  of  the  reasons 
why  John  and  Mary  should  not  fail  to  elect  German  or 
French  in  their  high  school  course,  maybe  in  preference  to 
Latin  or  Greek.  But  what  has  often  seemed  strange  to 
me  is  that,  to  my  knowledge,  so  very  few  of  the  scholars 
working  in  the  field  of  the  modern  languages  have  been. 
known  to  make  their  influence  felt  in  a  cause  that  is  so 
peculiarly  related  to  their  specific  work  and  interests. 

An  attitude  of  mind  that  would  naturally  emphasize  the 
solidarity  of  our  interests  rather  than  those  elements  that 
tend  to  keep  us  apart  would,  moreover,  have  valuable  re- 
sults of  a  more  immediate  and  practical  nature  nearer 
home.  We  all,  the  East  no  less,  I  understand,  than  the 
West,  are  keenly  conscious  of  the  change  that  is  going  OR 
in  regard  to  the  value  placed  upon  the  study  of  foreign 
language  in  the  national  scheme  of  education.  We  are 
under  fire  from  almost  all  sides,  and  if  the  most  peremp- 
tory of  up-to-date  reformers  could  have  their  way,  lan- 
guage and  literature  would  promptly  be  removed  from  the 
essentials  of  the  new  education,  if  not  altogether  excluded. 
It  is  evident  that  under  such  circumstances  the  strength  of 
our  position  will  be  greatly  augmented  by  all  that  makes 
for  harmony  and  mutual  helpfulness  within  the  fold; 
while  everything  that  fosters  dissension  and  jealousy  and 
extreme  rivalry  cannot  but  reduce  our  prospects.  United 
we  surely  stand  more  firmly,  divided  we  shall  certainly  fall 
more  easily. 


PEOCEDINGS   FOE    1913 

In  making  these  suggestions,  I  am  primarily  thinking 
of  our  own  Association.  But  as  this  is  a  joint  meeting  of 
the  classical  and  of  the  modern  language  groups,  I  feel  jus- 
tified in  laying  especial  stress  on  the  fact  that  in  this  re- 
spect, if  in  no  other,  all  the  language  interests  form  a  com- 
munity the  individual  members  of  which  are  closely  de- 
pendent on  one  another.  The  more  indifferent  the  pur- 
chasing public  becomes  to  the  wares  we  have  to  offer,  the 
more  solicitous  some  of  us  are  likely  to  grow  in  our  efforts 
to  retain  old  customers  or  to  find  new  ones,  either  over- 
praising our  own  goods  or  calling  in  question  the  quality 
of  those  of  our  rivals.  Of  course,  fair  and  frank  competi- 
tion is  inevitable  and,  within  limits,  desirable  and  neces- 
sary. We  all  believe  or  should  believe  in  the  value,  even 
the  superior  value,  of  the  subject  in  which  our  work  pri- 
marily lies.  But  we  should  aim  to  make  our  claims, 
whether  in  theory  or  in  practice,  in  public  or  in  private,  on. 
the  positive  side  of  what  our  subjects  legitimately  have  to 
offer  and  avoid  all  wilful  disparagement  of  the  character- 
istic values  of  rival  claimants.  Differences  of  opinion 
need  not  be  glossed  over,  convictions  must  be  expressed, 
preferences  plainly  stated.  But  none  the  less  we  should  be 
able  to  convey  the  sincere  impression  that  back  of  it  all  we 
are  animated  by  good  will  for  those  who  work  in  another 
field,  by  interest  in  their  success,  respect  for  their  labors. 
Let  us  be  assured  that  a  public  and  a  student  body,  prone 
as  they  are  to  linguistic  and  literary  scepticism,  will  only 
too  readily  assent  to  and  be  influenced  by  whatever  we  urge 
against  a  competitor  and,  no  doubt,  will  soon  find  or  make 
an  occasion  for  again  quoting  it  garnished  to  taste,  as  com- 
ing from  those  who  ought  to  be  in  a  position  to  know.  So 
far  so  good.  But  do  not  forget  that  the  claims  whiclf  we 
may  make  in  support  of  our  own  subjects  will  be  riddled 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

by  similar  counter-arguments  which  our  colleagues  may 
have  leveled  against  us  on  other  occasions.  To  quote  an 
instance  that  has  recently  come  to  my  notice,  it  certainly 
should  not  be  necessary  that  the  just  claims  for  the  high 
value  of  Latin  training  in  the  schools  should  assume  the 
form  of  an  uncalled  for  and  reckless  attack  upon  German 
because  it  is,  at  least  with  us  in  the  West,  "  that  most  seri- 
ous competitor  of  Latin  in  secondary  schools."  And  mat- 
ters are,  of  course,  not  improved,  but  only  rendered  worse, 
if  it  be  pointed  out  that  equally  ill-considered  and  damag- 
ing statements  against  the  classics  emanate  from  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  modern  tongues. 

I  think  we  are  ready  to  admit  that  the  cause  of  language 
was  not  advanced  in  any  true  sense  thru  the  acrimonious 
charges  and  counter-charges  which  flew  thru  the  air  not 
so  many  years  ago  when  the  conflict  was  waging  over 
the  introduction  of  the  modern  languages  into  the  tradi- 
tional curricula  of  schools  and  colleges.  What  was  unwise 
then  would,  however,  be  suicidal  today,  when  the  attack  is 
from  without.  Only  the  common  enemy  is  deriving  advan- 
tage from  any  ammunition  we  may  use  against  one  an- 
other. 

I  plead,  then,  both  in  the  interest  of  a  great  world  move- 
ment and  in  the  interest  of  our  undivided  attention  upon 
the  common  cause  of  linguistic  and  literary  culture,  for 
the  maximum  of  unity  of  effort,  of  mutual  appreciation,  of 
whole-souled  emphasis  on  what  unites  us  as  co-workers  and 
not  on  what  separates  us  in  regard  to  minor  matters  of  aim 
and  method  or  of  a  characteristically  national  point  of 
view.  It  may  be  that  this  warning  is  unnecessary.  No- 
body would  be  happier  than  myself  if  I  could  be  shown  to 
be  mistaken.  But  I  admit  that  it  has  seemed  to  me  as 
though  of  late  there  were  a  tendency  gaining  ground,  not 


PROCEDINGS    FOE    1913 

only  in  matters  of  mere  language  instruction,  but  also  in 
regard  to  the  higher  cultural  values  represented  by  the  var- 
ious literatures  which  we  represent,  that  could  not  be 
claimed  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  Goethean  conception  of 
Weltliteratur  and  that  does  not  augur  well  for  the  most 
successful  defense  of  our  present  endangered  position. 

In  Goethe's  ideal  of  Weltliteratur,  and  even  more  strik- 
ingly in  some"  of  the  other  attitudes  and  opinions  of  his 
already  alluded  to,  we  find  recurrent  an  underlying  princi- 
ple which  I  have  selected  as  the  second  matter  to  bring  to 
your  attention.  Be  a  Greek  and  be  a  German,  be  an  artist 
and  be  a  teacher,  prize  the  present  and  honor  tradition, 
rely  on  personality  and  esteem  foreign  achievement — for- 
mulas like  these  reveal  a  mode  of  thought  that  seeks  the 
secret  of  health  and  beauty  and  greatness  in  a  harmonious 
synthesis  of  conflicting  tendencies,  an  idea  charmingly  ap- 
plied to  Goethe  himself  in  those  two  little  characteristic 
lines : 

Bin  Weltbewohner, 

Bin  Weimaraner. 

And  indeed  we  are  touching  here  upon  one  of  the  most 
vital  and  fertile  of  the  more  fundamental  concepts  of  Goe- 
the's philosophy  of  life.  All  growth  and  development,  in 
fact,  all  life,  physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual,  is  viewed 
by  him  as  a  constant  fluctuation  between  opposites  which 
are  .equally  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  the  evolution- 
ary process.  This  perpetual  flux  and  reflux  appears  to 
him  as  by  no  means  void  of  meaning  or  consistency.  He 
firmly  believes  in  positive  progress,  in  a  real  upward  or 
forward  tendency,  and  bases  his  assurance  on  the  obs^rva- 
tion,  made  in  nature  and  in  human  life,  that,  in  the  last 
analysis,  a  development  in  a  given  direction  is  benefited  by 


SX  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

the  succeeding  rebound  in  the  opposite  direction.  It  is 
corrected  and  enriched  by  it,  and  the  entire  process  is  thus 
lifted,  as  it  were,  to  a  new  and  higher  level.  In  this  sense 
the  life  of  the  entire  universe  in  its  dynamic  evolution  is 
symbolized  by  Goethe  now  as  the  interaction  of  attracting 
and  repelling  magnetic  poles,  now  as  a  pulsating  process  in 
which  systole  and  diastole,  contraction  and  dilation,  fol- 
low upon  each  other  with  rhythmic  regularity.  In  either 
case  syntheses  between  opposites  lead  gradually  to  ever 
new  and  ever  more  refined  forms  of  development. 

A  few  brief  quotations  may  again  illustrate  this  princi- 
ple, which  in  all  guises  and  disguises  occurs  again  and 
again  in  many  of  Goethe's  conceptions  and  utterances. 

Polaritat  und  Steigerung,  die  zwei  grossen  Trieb- 
rader  aller  Natur. 

People  say  that  half-way  between  two  conflicting 
opinions  lies  truth.  By  no  means!  It  is  the  prob- 
lem that  lies  there .  .  .  eternally  dynamic  life 
imagined  only  as  tho  at  rest. 

A  century  that  relies  entirely  upon  analysis  and 
is  afraid,  as  it  were,  of  synthesis  is  not  on  the  right 
track.  Only  the  two  together,  like  exhalation  and 
inhalation,  constitute  the  li£e  of  science. 

During  my  entire  life  I  had  proceeded  now  as  poet 
and  now  as  observer,  now  synthetically  and  then 
again  analytically.  The  systole  and  diastole  of  tho 
human  spirit,  as  tho  a  second  breathing,  were  with 
me  never  separate,  always  pulsating. 

This  doctrine  of  opposites  as  one  of  the  basic  principles 
of  life,  no  less  in  the  most  complex  cosmic  processes  than 
in  the  minutest  problems  of  individual  existence,  is,  of 
course,  not  of  Goethe's  invention.  In  some  form  or 
other  it  is  as  old  as  the  history  of  human  speculation,  and 


PEOCEDINGS    FOE    1913 

philosophers  trace  it  far  beyond  the  Platonic  system  to 
Heraclitus  or  even  to  doctrines  of  earliest  oriental  medi- 
tation. What  gives  us  a  right  to  consider  it  as  a  charac- 
teristically Goethean  principle  is  the  frequency  and 
intensity  with  which  he  insists  on  it  and  the  illuminating 
power  which  it  assumes  if  applied  to  Goethe's  own  contra- 
dictory and  yet  harmonious  personality. 

Viewed  in  the  light  of  such  a  theory,  that  which  we  con- 
ceive as  rest,  both  in  the  moral  and  in  the  physical  world, 
is  not  rest  at  all,  but  rather  a  temporary  state  of  tension  or 
balance,  resulting  from  the  equalizing  influence  of  two  op- 
posite forces.  The  solution  of  any  problem  of  life  is  there- 
fore not  to  be  spught  at  either  extreme,  nor  indeed  at  some 
comfortable  "  dead  "  point  representing  a  definitive  and 
permanent  adjustment.  As  far  as  any  "  solution  "  is  pos- 
sible at  all,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  vigilant  maintenance  of 
a  relative  balance  amid  the  constant  shifts  of  conflicting 
tendencies,  which  in  themselvse  are  equally  true  and  equal- 
ly false. 

Permit  me  to  apply  this  theory  for  a  few  moments  to  the 
work  of  an  association  as  complex  as  the  one  whose  welfare 
depends  on  us.  We  are  all  aware  that  within  its  limits 
there  exists  a  wealth  of  different  and  maybe  antagonistic 
tendencies,  all  of  which  we  are  bound  to  consider  necessary 
for  the  welfare  of  the  whole :  the  classic  and  the  romantic, 
the  medieval  and  the  modern,  the  Germanic  and  Romance, 
literature  and  "  philology,"  culture  and  learning,  teaching 
and  research.  What  a  fruitful  field  for  discussion  and  de- 
bate! At  every  turn  live  problems  which  will  never  per- 
mit of  static  solution,  except  perchance  in  the  abstract 
reasoning  of  speculation. 

Nur  der  verdient  sich   Freiheit  wie  das  Leben, 
Der  tftglich  sie  erobern  muss. 


MODEKX     LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

From  these  conflicting  interests  I  desire  to  single  out  for 
brief  consideration  one  phase  of  the  much-discussed  prob- 
lem of  the  relation  of  teaching  and  research.  And  in 
speaking  on  this  question  I  trust  I  may  be  pardoned  if  I 
repeat  some  statements  which  I  made  several  years  ago  in 
an  address  as  chairman  of  the  Central  Division  of  our  As- 
sociation. I  considered  the  issue  an  unsolved  problem 
then,  as  far  as  the  activities  of  our  Association  are  con- 
cerned, simply  because  no  trace  of  balance  existed  be- 
tween conflicting  claims  of  approximately  equal  weight 
and  dignity.  For  the  same  reason  I  must  consider  it  an 
unsolved  problem  now.  At  the  same  time  I  feel  convinced 
that  a  fairly  thorogoing  attempt  at  a  more  equitable 
settlement  cannot  safely  be  put  off  very  much  longer. 
Unfortunately,  I  myself  am  far  less  sure  than  I  thought 
I  was  several  years  ago  as  to  the  best  method  of  se- 
curing improvement.  I  only  feel  more  convinced  than 
ever  that  the  present  situation  is  an  anomaly  which  we 
cannot  continue  to  countenance  with  equanimity. 

A  brief  historical  retrospect  will  help  to  justify  my  con- 
viction that  our  profession  should  no  longer  delay  making 
strong  and  liberal  provision,  in  some  form  or  other,  for 
the  pedagogical  and  broadly  cultural  interests  of  our  work 
in  addition  to  those  in  pure  scholarship  and  research. 

The  first  volume  of  our  Publications  of  the  year  1884- 
5,  out  of  a  total  of  17  printed  papers,  contained  as  many 
as  nine,  over  one-half,  of  a  general  and  in  the  main 
pedagogical  character.  Thus  we  clearly  see  to  what  ex- 
tent the  teaching  interests  were  then  overshadowing  the 
ideal  of  research.  Soon,  however,  the  pendulum  began  to 
swing  in  the  opposite  direction;  systole  followed  upon 
diastole.  After  the  first  three  volumes,  not  more  than  one 
or  two  papers  of  a  general  or  pedagogical  character  ap- 


PKOCEDINGS    FOR    1913 

peared  each  year,  until  finally,  in  the  seventh  volume,  that 
of  1892,  there  is  not  a  single  paper  printed  that  deals  di- 
rectly with  the  teaching  problems  of  our  profession. 
Since  then,  aside  from  some  of  the  presidential  addresses 
that  have  dealt  with  such  questions,  scarcely  a  single  non- 
technical article  seems  to  have  been  printed  as  a  regular 
part  of  the  Publications  of  our  Association.  A  so-called 
"  Pedagogical  Section  "  which  at  least  in  name  had  kept 
up  the  older  tradition,  ceased  to  exist  about  1902,  and  in 
the  same  year  the  presidential  address  frankly  proclaimed 
that  the  object  of  this  Association,  as  phrased  in  the  third 
section  of  the  Constitution,  should  be  interpreted  as:  "  the 
advancement  of  philology  in  the  departments  of  the  mod- 
ern languages."  This  meant,  of  course,  that  in  our  Asso- 
ciation, as  far  at  least  as  its  official  character  and,  above 
all,  its  publications  were  concerned,  the  older  college  ideal 
had  been  entirely  superseded  by  the  modern  university 
ideal,  chiefly  that  of  the  graduate  school,  as  it  had  devel- 
oped in  our  strongest  institutions;  and  these — as  was  nat- 
ural and  proper — have  been  the  acknowledged  leaders  in 
the  policy  of  the  Association. 

Most  of  us,  I  feel  sure,  rejoice  heartily  in  this  ascend- 
ancy and  final  victory  of  scholarship,  and  we  can  easily 
imagine  how  much,  in  the  early  history  of  the  Associa- 
tion, the  repression  of  narrowly  and  superficially  peda- 
gogical interests  was  needed.  We  feel  deeply  grateful  to 
those  who,  in  this  struggle  for  supremacy,  held  high  the 
banner  of  learning  and  ultimately  won  the  day.  The 
legitimate  question  now,  however,  seems  to  be  whether  the 
swing  of  the  pendulum  has  not  carried  us  too  far  toward 
the  opposite  pole.  With  our  present  strength  as  a  strictly 
scholarly  body  assured,  should  we  not  be  ready  to  rec^g- 
nize  that  it  behooves  us  to  give  more  attention  and  en- 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

couragement  than  we  do  now  to  the  broader  educational 
and  practical  interests  of  our  profession?  Has  the  ideal 
of  productive  scholarship  in  all  these  years  taken  root  so 
little  that  we  must  fear  it  will  suffer  and  die  unless  we 
keep  it  surrounded  by  the  high  walls  of  a  protective  tariff  ? 
The  exclusiveness  which  once,  no  doubt,  was  the  part  of 
wisdom  and  has  helped  to  make  us  strong  is  now  the  part 
either  of  superciliousness  or  of  timidity  and  impairs  the 
fullness  of  the  influence  which  we  might  wield. 

When  I  speak  of  important  educational  problems  that 
require  recognition  at  the  hands  of  the  leaders  of  our  pro- 
fession, I  am  far  from  thinking  primarily  of  the  well- 
worn,  though  in  its  place  important  question  of  sound 
methods  of  elementary  language  teaching.  Very  differ- 
ent subjects  claim  our  attention  with  at  least  equal  force; 
as,  for  instance,  the  broad  and  complex  problem  of  the  ex- 
act function  of  the  modern  languages  and  literatures  in 
the  general  intellectual  and  cultural  training  of  our  Amer- 
ican undergraduates  and  all  that  results  from  clearness 
on  this  point;,  or  the  question  of  the  proper  university 
training  for  prospective  secondary  and  college  teachers  of 
modern  languages,  a  question  which,  in  turn,  involves  the 
scrutiny  of  the  character  and  sequence  of  the  work  con- 
stituting a  "  major  "  for  the  degrees  of  bachelor  or  master 
of  arts  and,  in  a  measure,  even  for  the  doctor's  degree 
And  there  are  many  other  problems  of  similar  weight  and 
difficulty  that  call  for  consideration  and  solution. 

The  seriousness  of  the  situation  is  even  greater  than 
might  appear  at  first  sight.  Had  we  journals  of  high 
standing  specifically  devoted  to  the  interests  and  problems 
of  modern  language  instruction,  then  indeed  interested 
members  might  make  good  thru  their  individual  efforts 
what  we  leave  undone  as  an  association  at  our  meetings 


PEOCEDINGS    FOE    1913  IxXV 

and  in  our  publications.  But  this  is  not  the  case.  Every 
European  country  has  one  or  more  such  publications.  We 
in  this  country  possess  practically  nothing  of  the  kind  for 
the  modern  foreign  languages,1  even  tho  we  have  a 
fairly  large  number  of  journals  and  of  other  serial  publi- 
cations exclusively  devoted  to  the  interests  of  research — a 
situation  which  corresponds  neither  to  the  actual  condi- 
tions nor  to  the  real  needs  of  our  profession.  Our  classical 
colleagues,  with  more  sincerity  and  wisdom,  have  recog- 
nized the  need  of  a  publication  of  a  more  practical  charac- 
ter. They  have  thereby  not  jeopardized  their  legitimate 
interests  in  research  while  they  have  greatly  enhanced  both 
the  thoroness  and  effectiveness  of  their  school  and  college 
teaching  and  the  all-important  feeling  of  a  real  solidarity 
all  along  the  line.  A  similar  venture  has  been  made  for 
English,  it  is  true.  But  I  for  one  must  regret  that  it  does 
not  represent  a  closer  connection  with  the  spirit  and  mem- 
bership of  our  Association. 

This  suggests  the  trend,  however,  which  things  are 
bound  to  take  if  we  do  not  bestir  ourselves.  If  even  the 
most  solid  and  important  educational  problems  of  our 
profession  are  to  remain  practically  eliminated  from  our 

*The  Monatshefte  fur  deutsche  Sprache  und  Pddagogik,  excellent 
service  tho  it  has  rendered  in  the  otherwise  unoccupied  field,  has, 
for  various  reasons,  never  become  a  journal  of  general  appeal  to  sec- 
ondary and  college  teachers.  Some  of  the  most  important  contribu- 
tions on  modern  language  instruction  have  been  published  of  late 
years  in  The  Educational  Review,  The  School  Review,  Science,  and 
other  journals  of  a  general  character  in  which  they  are  in  danger  of 
being  overlooked  by  the  profession.  We  have,  moreover,  no  channel 
of  communication  whatsoever  for  those  minor  matters  of  information 
which  men  working  together  in  a  professional  brotherhood  should 
have  of  each  other,  as  for  instance,  significant  new  appointment^  new 
foundations  of  chairs,  or  libraries,  or  seminaries,  important  changes 
in  the  requirements  for  degrees,  and  so  forth. 


MODERN     LANGUAGE     ASSOCIATION 

meetings  and  publications,  these  interests  must  eithe-r  be 
transferred  to  other  organizations  already  in  existence  or 
they  must  find  expression  in  new  organizations  of  their 
own.  Should  the  Association,  after  careful  consideration 
of  all  matters  involved,  desire  to  remain  a  research  society 
pure  and  simple,  as  learned  societies  rightfully  may  be, 
such  a  result  need  not  dismay  us.  If,  however,  we  desire 
to  be  recognized  as  leaders  in  all  legitimate  questions 
concerning  the  scholarly  teaching  of  our  subjects,  we  can- 
not view  idly  the  growing  estrangement  and  dissatisfac- 
tion of  an  important  element  of  our  profession. 

I  myself,  as  I  have  already  indicated,  have  no  remedy 
to  propose.  But  what  I  think  we  owe  to  ourselves  is  a 
frank  recognition  of  the  existing  unsatisfactory  situation, 
a  searching  diagnosis  of  the  case  with  the  aid  of  the  bes'c 
expert  advice  available,  and  a  firm  resolve  to  do  squarely 
whatever  the  situation  may  seem  to  require.  It  will  not 
do  for  us  to  shirk  our  responsibility  toward  the  more  im- 
mediate teaching  interests,  remote  as  they  may  be  from 
the  personal  work  of  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  Associa- 
tion, by  claiming  that  we  are  not  our  brother's  keeper. 
The  best  talent  and  most  vigorous  life  of  our  profession 
have  been  gathered  together  by  us  in  our  body  and — 
noblesse  oblige. 

If  we  decide  to  remain  what  we  are,  we  should  make  it 
clear  to  those  of  our  colleagues  who  feel  that  their  peda- 
gogical interests  require  organization,  that  we  would  not 
stand  in  the  way  of  any  attempt  of  theirs  to  solve  their 
problems  through  some  organized  form  of  their  own,  but 
that  on  the  contrary  we  wish  them  Godspeed  and  are 
willing  to  render  them  all  possible  assistance.  In  that 
case  we  might  lose  a  few  members,  though  surely  not 
many ;  whereas  we  should  gain  in  homogeneity  of  temper 
and  aspiration. 


PROCEDINGS    FOR    1913 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  prefer  to  enlarge  our  sphere, 
we  should  from  the  start  face  the  fact  that  no  half-hearted 
measure  will  do.  We  must  not  attempt  to  put  off  the 
discontented  a  few  years  longer  by  throwing  them  a  sop. 
A  lamely  revived  pedagogical  section  for  instance,  with 
the  right  to  get  into  a  corner  by  itself  and  talk,  will  never 
do.  Nothing  but  a  pretty  thorogoing  reorganization  could 
accomplish  the  purpose.  For  what  the  teaching  inter- 
ests in  my  opinion  need  above  all  is  a  journal,  a  channel 
of  expression  and  communication  that  should  be  both 
scholarly  and  practical,  and  cost  considerably  less  than  the 
Publications  of  the  Association.  As  regards  annual 
meetings,  I  consider  it  exceedingly  doubtful  whether 
national  conventions  could  ever  be  made  to  bring  together 
a  representative  number  of  high  school  teachers  or  teach- 
ers of  small  colleges  and  normal  schools  for  the  purpose 
of  discussing  professional  questions.  Such  an  effort 
would,  no  doubt  be  doomed  to  failure  unless  it  were  in- 
tegrally connected  with  national  monster  meetings  of  a 
general  character  like  those  of  the  National  Education 
Association.  But  the  distracting  atmosphere  of  such  he- 
terogeneous gatherings  is  anything  but  advantageous  to 
the  thoughtful  and  patient  discussion  of  detailed  prob- 
lems interesting  only  to  the  specialist. 

But  whether  the  teaching  interests  find  the  needed  rec- 
ognition and  organization  inside  of  the  Association  or  out- 
side of  it,  in  either  case  the  balance  which  now  is  lacking 
would  be  restored.  For  from  the  standpoint  of  the  general 
interests  of  the  profession  it  does  not  matter  whether  that 
balance  be  adjusted  between  our  Association  and  some 
outside  organization  or  between  two  equally  vigorous  and 
active  divisions  within  the  Association.  What  does  mailer 
in  the  light  of  Goethean  thought  is  the  frank  recognition 


Ixviii  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

of  the  problem  that  lies  half-way  between  the  two  conflict- 
ing opinions,  and  of  the  fact  that  only  synthesis  and 
analysis  together,  like  inhalation  and  exhalation,  constitute 
the  healthy  life  of  a  science. 

Some  such  adjustment  of  the  present  unsatisfactory 
condition  I  should  claim  to  be  highly  desirable  under  any 
circumstances.  It  becomes  an  absolute  necessity  under 
those  peculiar  difficulties  to  which  I  have  already  alluded 
?.nd  from  which  our  interests  are  suffering  at  this  time. 
Teachers  of  foreign  languages  are  at  present  constantly 
exposed  to  criticisms  of  and  attacks  upon  their  work, 
even  tho  s'uch  criticisms  may  in  no  way  be  aimed  at 
their  individual  fitness  or  service,  but  leveled  at  the  sub- 
jects themselves  which  they  represent.  And  in  this  hour 
of  stress  and  need,  our  teachers  have  neither  a  journal, 
nor  an  organization  of  generally  recognized  prestige  to 
which  they  can  look  for  information  and  guidance.  They 
lack  entirely  the  sustaining  consciousness  of  a  corporate 
body  back  of  them.  That  is  a  grievous  tactical  error,  and 
we  must  blame  ourselves  if  we  cannot  hold  our  own  at 
well  as  we  could  if  better  organized  and  disciplined. 

This  brings  me  to  my  third  and  last  point — the  present 
general  situation  in  education  and  the  outlook  for  the 
future.  In  this  connection  also  I  hope  to  find  light  in 
some  characteristic  views  of  Goethe.  Pardon  me  if  I  ap- 
pear to  treat  with  undue  brevity  a  subject  as  intricate  and 
perplexing  as  it  is  significant  and  worthy  of  careful  analy- 
sis. But  I  feel  that  I  ought  not  to  tax  your  patience 
much  longer.  Besides,  my  immediate  predecessor  in 
office  has  ably  and  fully  discussed  this  question  in  his 
recent  address  on  "  The  Dark  Ages,"  which,  no  doubt,  is 
still  fresh  in  the  minds  of  most  of  von.  It  is  with  hesi- 


PROCEDINGS    FOE    1913 

tation,  therefore,  that  I  beg  leave  to  differ  from  him  in 
some  measure,  though  not  in  regard  to  the  facts  which  he 
described,  nor  in  regard  to  the  strictures  he  made.  They 
were  correct  and  just.  His  aim  was  to  point  out  the 
deep  and  gloomy  shadows  that  are  in  the  picture  and  that 
are  indeed  disheartening.  And  he  did  it  vigorously  and 
convincingly.  But  if  he  held  a  brief  for  revealing  dark- 
ness I,  on  the  contrary,  hold  a  brief  for  finding  light. 
For  does  not  the  evolutional  theory  of  my  spiritual  guide 
bid  me  look  for  light  even  in  the  darkness,  or  at  least  ex- 
pect that  darkness  must  again  be  followed  by  light? 

Verily,  few  great  men  of  modern  times  are  exponents 
of  so  contagious  a  spirit  of  refined  optimism  in  regard  to 
life  in  its  totality,  in  its  essential  goodness  and  promise, 
as  Goethe.  This  note  of  hopefulness  and  of  confidence 
characterizes  almost  everything  said  and  done  by  Goethe 
in  the  years  of  his  maturity  and,  even  more,  of  his  old 
age.  I  again  quote  a  few  passages  chosen  almost  at 
random. 

'  Nein,  heut  1st  mir  das  Gliick  erbost!  ' 

Du  sattle  gut  und  reite  getrost. 

At  times  our  fortune  looks  like  a  fruit  tree  in 
winter.  Who,  at  its  sorry  sight,  would  believe  that 
these  rigid  branches  and  jagged  twigs  could  burst  into 
leaf  and  blossom  in  the  coming  Spring  and  then  bear 
fruit!  And  yet  we  hope  for  it,  we  know  it. 

Even  tho  error  should  gain  control  in  a  science, 
truth  will  always  retain  a  minority ;  and  should  this 
minority  dwindle  down  to  one  single  mind,  there 
would  still  be  no  reason  for  alarm.  This  one  mind 
will  continue  in  his  quiet  and  secluded  work  and 
influence,  and  a  time  will  come  when  people  will  lake 
an  interest  in  him  and  his  convictions  and,  as  fight 
begins  to  spread  more  generally,  his  convictions  will 
again  be  able  to  venture  into  the  open. 


1XXX  MODERN     LANGUAGE     ASSOCIATION 

But  tho  an  optimist,  Goethe  cannot  be  said  to  have 
taken  life  lightly.  On  the  contrary,  it  appeared  emi- 
nently serious  to  him;  so  serious  that  he  confessed  he 
could  not  understand  how  humor,  a  faculty  which  was  by 
no  means  lacking  in  him,  could  ever  with  a  thoughtful 
critic  of  life  be  more  than  an  incidental  touch  in  a  por- 
trayal of  human  affairs.  Goethe,  as  he  himself  said,  had 
inherited  from  his  father  not  only  his  bodily  frame,  but 
also  "  des  Lebens  ernstes  Fiihren."  !Nor  did  Goethe  con- 
sider himself  personally  the  pet  child  of  fortune  that 
many  persist  in  seeing  in  him.  He  knew  too  well  how 
intensely  he  had  been  compelled  to  struggle  for  all  the  real 
prizes  which  he  had  won  from  life.  These  prizes  he  saw 
in  things  inward  and  spiritual  which  are  not  to  be  meas- 
ured in  terms  of  financial  comfort,  material  success,  and 
physical  well-being.  In  fact,  Goethe  had  gradually  learned 
not  to  expect  too  much  of  life  and  to  practice  that  art  of 
wise  resignation  which  keeps  as  free  from  quietistic 
self-effacement  as  from  the  rankling  bitterness  of  disap- 
pointment, and  gratefully  and  joyously  aims  to  fix  the  eye 
upon  those  things  of  life  that  are  good  and  helpful. 

'In  this  spirit,  then,  I  beg  leave  to  express  my  convic- 
tions. The  present  educational  situation  unquestionably 
has  in  it  many  disquieting  elements.  Some  of  these  are 
deplorable  from  whatever  angle  we  view  them;  others, 
though  hurtful,  impress  us  as  being  due  to  temporary  con- 
ditions of  transition  and  no  doubt  will  readjust  themselves 
as  soon  as  a  new  equilibrium  has  been  found.  But  I  see 
still  other  elements  which  clearly  seem  to  have  in  them  the 
promise  of  real  progress,  and  which  in  the  broadest  in- 
terest of  human  development  need  and  deserve  our  sup- 
port, even  tho  they  may  point  to  a  different  concep- 
tion of  wisdom  and  of  culture  from  that  in  which  most 
of  us  of  the  older  generation  have  grown  up. 


PROCEDLSGS    FOR    1913 


Deplorable  under  all  circumtances  is  the  spirit  of  super- 
ficiality and  of  narrow  utilitarianism  which  has  invaded 
the  realm  of  education  on  all  sides,  spreading  confusion 
of  trade  with  life,  of  efficiency  with  wisdom,  of  success 
with  happiness,  of  narrowly  vocational  training  with  real 
education.  Not  that  vocational  training  is  negligible  ;  but 
its  substitution  for  education,  not  only  in  practice,  which 
is  bad  enough,  but  even  in  theory,  which  is  worse,  is  bane- 
ful and  must  carry  in  its  wake  the  worst  errors  and 
delusions. 

Bad,  tho  in  all  likelihood  of  only  transitory  promi- 
nence, are  those  elements  which  result  from  the  sudden 
expansion  in  educational  affairs  that  we  are  witnessing. 
In  consequence  of  the  far-reachnig  social  and  economic 
changes  that  are  going  on  in  this  as  in  all  modern  coun- 
tries, large  numbers  of  individuals  and  entire  strata  of 
society  are  drawn  into  those  channels  of  higher  education 
which  were  formerly  reserved  for  smaller  and  more  select 
groups.  The  result  is  on  the  one  hand  a  spirit  of  insta- 
bility and  adventurousness  that  prefers  the  new  simply 
because  it  is  new  ;  on  the  other  hand  a  spirit  of  external- 
ism  that  worships  size  and  numbers,  budgets  and  plants, 
mechanical  efficiency  and  administrative  availability  as 
tho  they  were  in  themselves  indications  of  cultural  growth 
and  spiritual  power. 

These  tendencies  we  should  likewise  discountenance,  in 
high  places  and  in  low  places,  in  ourselves  —  for  few  of 
us  remain  immune  —  no  less  than  in  others.  But  let  us 
not  forget  that  historically  we  are  committed  to  the  policy 
of  a  national  life  on  democratic  lines,  even  tho  not  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  man  in  the  street  conceives  the 
idea.  Let  us  not  forget  that  ultimate  -success  in  this  tr%- 
mendous  experiment  becomes  visionary  as  soon  as  the  best 
minds  of  the  nation  do  not  identify  themselves  with  it; 


Ixxxii  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

as  soon  as  they  assume  beforehand  that  our  greatest 
national  hope,  our  noblest  contribution  to  the  large  ideals 
of  mankind,  is  bound  to  end  in  defeat  instead  of  leading 
to  new  heights  of  achievement.  Let  us  hope  that  a  true 
spirit  of  learning  and  wisdom  and  culture  can  be  kept 
sufficiently  active  and  alive  in  our  higher  educational 
institutions,  so  that  when  its  hour  returns,  and  be  confi- 
dent with  Goethe  that  it  will  return,  it  may  be  able  to 
draw  into  its  circle  of  influence  far  larger  .elements  of 
society  than  was  possible  under  the  old  order. 

So  much,  however,  seems  certain;  this  future  ideal  of 
culture  in  whose  ultimate  reign  we  must  believe  unless  we 
are  willing  to  give  up  all  hope  of  true  progress,  will  not 
be  merely  a  return  to  the  older  one  we  have  cherished  for 
generations.  The  Goethean  conception  of  the  periodicity 
of  life,  as  I  have  said  before,  would  be  void  of  deeper 
meaning,  did  it  not  include  the  promise  of  an  absolute 
advance.  The  interplay  of  action  and  reaction  to  him  in- 
volved the  principle  of  an  ever  renewed  synthesis  between 
the  conflicting  opposites,  whereby  life  and  its  ideals  are 
to  be  lifted  to  ever  higher  levels  of  content  and  meaning. 

For  the  uncompromising  traditionalists  among  us,  who 
can  see  true  progress  only  in  a  return  to  the  cherished 
position  that  was  once  their  own,  this  view  of  the  trend 
of  things  contains  but  little  comfort,  I  fear.  In  fact,  I 
see  the  real  promise  of  growth  in  a  direction  in  which  I 
should  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  many  of  my  more 
immediate  colleagues  see  nothing  but  danger — in  the  rich 
and  growing  development  of  an  ever  deeper  study  of  the 
natural  sciences.  Superficially  viewed,  to  be  sure,  they 
seem  to  be  the  arch-enemies  of  humanistic  culture  as  rep- 
resented in  the  disciplines  of  language  and  literature,  of 
history  and  philosophy.  No  doubt,  they  have  largely 
usurped  the  place  formerly  held  in  the  estimation  of  the 


PBOCEDINGS  FOR  1913  Ltxxiii 

public  and  in  our  college  curricula  by  the  older  human- 
istic subjects.  But  usurpation  of  a  place  formerly  held 
byi  another  good  occupant  is  in  itself  no  ground  for 
arraignment,  either  in  education,  or  in  life  in  general. 
Otherwise,  how  should  we  modern  language  men  feel  in 
the  presence  of  our  esteemed  colleagues  of  the  ancient 
classical  dispensation  ? 

As  long  as  science  is  studied  and  taught  solely  as  '  pure  ' 
theory  or  as  '  applied '  practice,  it  cannot  claim  to  aspire 
to  recognition  of  a  more  broadly  cultural  character.  But 
thoughtful  scientists  who  are  not  only  scholarly  investi- 
gators or  practical  men  of  applied  science,  but  who  are 
also  broad-minded  educators  and  believers  in  the  spiritual 
values  of  human  culture,  have  long  begun  to  scan  their 
field  of  study  from  a  subtler  point  of  view.  The  tech- 
nical study  of  the  humanities  is  not  identical  with  human- 
istic culture,  but  it  is  an  indispensable  aid  toward  pre- 
paring the  ground  for  it  and  rendering  it  more  generally 
accessible.  Similarly,  modern  scientists  seem  to  ask 
themselves  whether  the  theoretic  study  of  nature  and  her 
facts  and  laws  cannot  likewise  be  made  to  unlock  ulti- 
mately new  elements  of  true  culture  ?  The  question  is 
far  too  difficult  for  me  to  do  more  than  suggest  it.  Suffice 
to  say  that  among  modern  men  of  science  there  are  con- 
vinced advocates  of  human  culture,  who  by  no  means  con- 
fuse culture  with  mere  skill  or  knowledge  and  yet  answer 
this  question  in  the  affirmative.  They  have  begun  to 
search  nature,  not  nature  in  its  practical  applications,  nor 
nature  in  its  picturesque  or  so-called  emotional  aspects, 
but  nature  in  its  strictly  scientific  principles,  for  esthetic 
and  moral  elements  of  culture  and  wisdom,  and  I  believe 
not  in  vain.  0 

Scientific  men  of  such  temper  and  aspirations  I  know 
are  as  yet  in  a  small  minority,  and  the  wisdom  and  cul- 


MODEEN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

ture  they  are  looking  for  in  science  is  only  dimly  foreseen 
by  them  as  a  far  away  beckoning  goal.  The  question  for 
us,  however,  is  the  attitude  we  should  assume  toward  such 
strivings.  Should  it  be  one  of  self -sufficient  disdain  or  of 
appreciative  sympathy? 

If  the  representatives  of  language  and  literature  con- 
sider themselves,  in  the  educational  world,  as  the  tradi- 
tional guardians  of  humanistic  culture,  they  are  under 
obligation  to  give  serious  consideration  to  every  thought- 
ful movement  on  behalf  of  a  hoped-for  enrichment  and 
enlargement  of  this  culture.  Apodictic  judgments  of  a 
priori  condemnation  might  bespeak  more  egotism  than 
insight.  Man  will  no  doubt  always  remain  the  center  of 
man's  cultural  interests.  But  to  future  generations  man's 
relation  to  nature  is  certain  to  appear  in  a  very  different 
light  from  that  in  which  it  has  long  been  viewed  by  either 
a  transcendental  or  an  exclusively  rationalistic  interpre- 
tation of  human  life.  As  our  knowledge  grows  deeper 
and  broader,  "  Law  for  man,  and  law  for  thing  "  may  in- 
deed be  seen  to  have  more  in  common  than  many  of  us 
are  now  willing  to  admit.  Out  of  the  discipline  of  sci- 
ence may  come,  not  a  substitute  for  humanism,  heaven 
forbid,  but  perhaps  a  significant  enrichment  of  humanism. 
I  hope  it  may  come  through  that  synthesis  of  component 
opposites,  which  Goethean  theory  leads  us  to  look  and 
hope  for. 

And  is  not  Goethe  himself  a  striking  symbolization  of 
the  development  toward  which  humanistic  culture  seems 
to  be  tending  ?  If  advocates  of  the  cultural  possibilities 
dormant  in  science  voice  their  regret  that  modern  science 
has  as  yet  inspired  no  poet,  I  think  I  may  well  point  to 
Goethe,  the  poet-scientist,  who,  in  this  as  in  many  other 
respects,  seems  to  have  been  far  in  advance  of  his  age. 
It  would  be  an  engaging  task  to  examine  in  detail  how 


PBOCEDINGS    FOE    1913 

much  of  his  art  and  of  his  spiritual  personality  Goethe 
owed,  not  only  to  his  deep  and  sincere  love  of  nature, 
wherein  many  another  poet  resembles  him,  but  even  more 
to  those  strictly  scientific  interests  in  nature  in  which  he 
virtually  stands  alone  among  the  sons  of  Apollo.  To  men- 
tion but  one  instance,  who  would  not  admit  that  in  a  poem 
like  "  Die  Metamorphose  der  Pflanzen  "  modern  science 
has  indeed  inspired  true  and  noble  poetry — not  didac- 
ticism in  verse,  but  genuine  poetry  of  a  deeply  human  ap- 
peal and  significance?  If  most  critics  still  deplore  the 
years  which  they  think  Goethe  wasted  on  his  scientific 
studies,  the  time  may  be  nearer  than  we  think  when  men 
will  marvel  at  such  a  short-sighted  lack  of  comprehension. 
Then  perhaps  one  of  Goethe's  chief  claims  to  greatness  as 
a  representative  of  modern  culture  may  be  seen  in  the  fact 
that  as  a  humanist  and  poet  he  accepted  science  and  made 
his  scientific  wisdom  contribute  to  a  truer  and  larger  and 
richer  conception  of  man  in  nature  and  of  nature  in  man. 
Let  me  quote  at  least  one  passage  from  those  words  in 
which  the  old  Goethe  himself  referred  to  the  inability 
of  his  contemporaries  to  understand  the  union  of  poet  and 
scientist  in  him.  They  sound  like  a  prophecy  of  what  the 
future  may  bring  us. 

On  all  sides  people  refused  to  admit  that  science 
and  poetry  could  be  united  -  They  forgot  that  science 
had  developed  from  poetry;  they  failed  to  consider 
that  after  a  cycle  of  generations  (nach  einem 
Umschwung  von  Zeiten)  both  might  easily  meet 
again  on  a  higher  level  in  a  friendly  spirit  and  to 
mutual  advantage. 

How  far  away  this  time  is,  who  would  venture  to  wy? 
When  it  comes,  when  science  thru  more  and  more  of  its 
representatives  shall  seek  to  establish  connections  with 


MODEEN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

liumanistic  culture  in  the  effort  to  evolve  a  new  interpre- 
tation of  man's  nature  and  history  and  aspirations,  I  hope 
we  of  the  older  humanities,  may  be  ready  to  meet  the  move- 
ment critically,  but  not  without  sympathy  and  under- 
standing, as  Goethe,  the  humanist,  would  no  doubt  meet 
it,  if  he  were  among  us;  and  not  only  we  of  the  modern 
field,  but  also  our  classical  colleagues.  For  it  is  not  un- 
likely that  a  deepened  interest  in  the  classics  will  arise 
under  the  sway  of  such  a  new  dispensation.  The  ancients, 
tho  naively  and  by  instinct,  were  truer  disciples  of  nature 
than  we  moderns  have  often  been. 

As  advocates  of  learning  and  culture,  let  us  then  not 
lose  hope  and  courage.  Let  us  stand  together  in  helpful 
sympathy  and  cooperation;  let  us  minister  faithfully  and 
liberally  to  all  the  various  needs  of  the  work  committed 
to  us;  let  us  meet  with  appreciation  those  who,  from  a 
different  point  of  view,  may  aim  at  the  same  lofty  goal 
toward  which  there  are  many  avenues  of  approach.  The 
luck  of  the  day!  and  of  the  hour,  I  admit,  is  not  with  us, 
but  light  may  come  sooner  than  we  think.  And  thus  I 
close  with  the  Goethean  message  of  determination  and 
good  cheer  conveyed  in  the  simple  couplet  quoted  before: 

'  Nein,  heut  1st  niir  das  Gliick  erbost!  ' 
Du  sattle  gut  und  reite  getrost! 


PROCEEDINGS    FOR    1913 


THE  CHAIRMAN'S  ADDRESS 

DELIVERD  ON   MONDAY,   DECEMBER  30,   1913,  AT   CIN- 
CINNATI, OHIO,  AT  THE  NINETEENTH  ANNUAL 
MEETING  OF  THE  CENTRAL  DIVISION  OF 
THE   ASSOCIATION 

BY   T.   ATKINSON   JENKINS 


SCOLARSHIP    AND    PUBLIC    SPIRIT 


IL  MAESTRO 

Dottrina  abbia  e  bonta,  ma  principale 
Sia  la  bonta ;   ch£  non  vi  essendo  questa, 
N6  molto  quella,  alia  mia  estima,  vale. 
ABIOSTO,  Satira  settima,  16. 

"  The  scolars  of  the  world,"  said  a  speaker  before  the 
International  Students'  Congress  at  Cornell  University  last 
summer,  "  have  often  been  reproacht  for  their  self-indul- 
gence and  for  their  lack  of  heroism  in  great  crises,  and,  like 
all  other  classes,  they  have  much  to  answer  for."  From 
venerable  Oxford  issued  the  other  day  an  equally  serious 
charge.  We  professors  were  challenged  ato  solve  some- 
thing which  has  real  importance  in  practical  life,  and," 
continues  our  critic,  "  as  the  professors  of  the  literary  arts 
dare(  ?)  not  do  this,  they  would  have  a  bad  time,  and  could 
hardly  make  a  living,  if  their  subjects  did  not  providenti- 
ally happen  to  be  endowed."  This  is  indeed  a  cruel  thrust, 
a  veritable  coup  de  Jarnac  from  one  of  our  own  gwild. 
The  author  of  a  recent  "best  seller"  tells  us  that  the 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

present  generation  finds  itself  in  a  dilemma.  "  We  have 
the  choice,"  says  one  of  them,  "of  going  to  people  like 
yourself  (the  person  addressed  is  professor  of  history  in 
the  thriving  local  university)  who  know  a  great  deal  and 
don't  believe  anything,  or  of  going  to  clergymen,  who — 
hut  I  oinit  the  rest  of  that  sentence  and  shall  leave  you  to 
complete  it. 

Last  year,  Charles  Tennyson,  in  a  volume  of  reminis- 
cences of  the  English  Cambridge,  noted  the  existence  of 
'*'  a  certain  inhumanity  among  the  intellectual,  and  an 
aimlessness  which  comes  from  too  diffuse  a  culture." 
About  the  same  time  but  nearer  home  a  sterner  voice  was 
raised  to  complain  of  "  intellectual  intolerance  and  super- 
ciliousness in  the  teacher,  which  should  be  educated  out 
of  him  before  he  is  fit  for  his  job."  Moreover,  continues 
this  vox  clamantis,  "  there  is  a  well-founded  distrust  of 
the  capacity  of  the  academic  mind  to  set  the  standards  for 
society,"  because  the  academic  mind  is  "too  reasonable, 
over-critical  and  afraid  of  action;  it  distrusts  democracy, 
lacks  the  broad  outlook  and  the  human  sympathy  which 
should  be  the  evidence  of  culture,  and,  in  fine,  exalts  clev- 
erness overmuch."  Even  the  new  President  of  Amherst 
College  declares  that  "  when  professors  are  questioned 
as  to  results,  they  give  little  satisfaction.  It  often  ap- 
pears (he  continues)  as  if  our  teachers  and  scolars  were 
deliberately  in  league  to  mystify  and  befog  the  popular 
mind  as  to  the  practical  value  of  intellectual  work." 

Notice  that  we  cannot  object  that  these  criticisms  eman- 
ate from  regions  "where  ignorance  wags  his  ears  of 
leather  " ;  on  the  contrary,  all  but  one  of  these  voices  hail 
us  from  what  used  to  be  pleasantly  known  as  the  classic 
shades.  And  we  are  denounced  in  still  other  quarters. 
A  man  of  the  world,  author  of  a  recent  "  Plea  for  the 
Younger  Generation,"  after  complaining  that  Science  and 


PBOCEDINGS    FOR    1913 

System  are  the  twin  gods  of  the  twentieth  century,  goes 
on  to  upbraid  us  in  these  terms :  "  O  you  teachers  and  pro- 
fessors .  .  .  don't  be  so  infinitely  superior,  so  self-con- 
sciously clever,  so  ultra-modern."  We  would  do  well  to 
appoint  special  professors  of  character  "  to  supply  the 
much-needed  human  note  in  our  mostly  inhuman  schools 
and  colleges." 

It  is  probable  that  these  animadversions  point  to  some 
disturbing  symptom  in  the  body  academic,  rather  than  to 
any  deep-seated  or  wide-spread  evil:  but  to  what  extent 
are  they  founded  in  anything  real?  Boiled  down,  they 
accuse  us  professors  of  failure,  or  partial  failure,  in  two 
respects:  as  regards  our  life  in  the  community,  we  are 
said  to  be  lacking  in  humanity  and  public  spirit;  as  re- 
gards our  pupils,  while  laboring  to  attend  to  the  needs  of 
their  minds,  we  are  not  at  the  same  time  inspiring  them 
with  an  effective  idealism.  Well-founded  or  not,  these 
criticisms  may  at  least  cause  us  to  pause  and  reflect;  and 
they  may  stimulate  us  to  clarify  our  conceptions  of  the 
calling  wherewith  we  are  called.  To  focus  the  matter  I 
have  ventured  to  propose  for  our  consideration  to-night 
these  two  propositions : 

That  to  be  satisfied  with  a  scolarship  which  is  devoid  of 
public  spirit  is  a  reduced  conception  of  the  scolar's  calling. 

That  as  the  religious  temper  is  the  best  available  source 
of  public  spirit,  something  of  the  religious  temper  should 
not  be  absent  in  the  scolar  and  teacher. 

~No  time  should  be  lost  in  making  three  observations : 

First,  these  propositions  are  not  put  forward  in  a  spirit 
of  contention,  but  merely  for  our  candid  .examination. 
Unlike  Dr.  Pancrace  I  do  not  propose  to  defend  them 
pugnis  et  calcibus,  unguibus  et  rostro;  I  cannot  offer,  lifte 
the  jovial  Pantagruel  at  the  Sorbonne,  to  debate  them 


XC  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

daily  for  six  weeks  from  4  a.  m.  to  6  p.  m.,  excepting  two 
hours  for  lunch. 

Second,  by  the  expression  a  man  of  "  the  religious  tem- 
per "  is  here  meant  any  complete  man  who  enjoys  good 
health7  just  as,  according  to  Cardinal  Newman,  Shakspere 
was  a  religious  poet,  "  exhibiting  the  religion  of  nature 
and  of  conscience."  Would  it  be  shocking  to  admit  even 
Rabelais  as  possessing  a  good  deal  of  the  religious  tem- 
per ?  It  is  true  that  because  of  certain  glaring  shortcom- 
ings of  his  he  may  at  this  moment  be  languishing  on  the 
seventh  ledge  of  Dante's  Purgatorio,  but  yet,  as  they  know 
who  have  taken  the  trouble  to  filter  his  turbid  stream, 
there  is  in  pure  Pantagruelism  a  great  plenty  of  sanity, 
hopefulness,  and  constructive  wisdom.  Rabelais  indeed 
might  have  furnished  us  with  a  motto  for  this  address, 
he  who  wrote :  "  Learning  and  knowledge  without  con- 
science are  only  ruin  to  the  soul." 

And  third,  to  consider  these  two  propositions  we  need 
not,  I  hope,  go  deeply  into  philosophy  or  the  philosophy 
of  education.  God  forbid;  such  an  excursion  would  be 
beyond  our  time  and  quite  beyond  my  capacity.  The  phil- 
osophic Isms — pragmatism,  activism,  and  the  rest — are 
now  as  of  old  engaged  in  athletic  struggles;  mere  pro- 
fessors of  declensions  can  only  hover,  like  Shakspere's  Ce- 
lia,  on  the  edge  of  the  scrimmage  and  say  to  their  fellow- 
spectators  :  "  Would  that  we  were  invisible  that  we  might 
seize  the  strong  fellows  by  the  leg ! "  Or  we  may  adopt 
the  wise  attitude  of  the  Boston  gentleman  who,  on  being 
askt  whether  he  had  understood  one  of  Emerson's  most 
transcendental  lectures,  replied,  "No,  but  my  daughters 
did."  The  younger  generation,  no  doubt,  fully  under- 
stand all  these  things. 

The  second  proposition,  which  calls  for  something  of 
the  religious  temper  in  the  teacher  and  scolar,  seems  to 


PBOCEDINGS    FOK    1913  Xcl 

imply  that  persons  of  the  intellectual  temper  may  gener- 
ally be  wanting  in  public  spirit.  If  this  really  were  im- 
plied, the  history  of  scolarship  would  prove  the  contrary 
to  be  true;  for  whether  love  of  truth  or  love  of  goodness 
has  been  their  ruling  passion,  men  of  both  tempers  have 
been  gloriously  active  for  the  common  good.  Take,  for 
example,  the  two  founders  of  the  University  of  Halle,  the 
first  modern  university.  They  were,  as  you  know,  Tho- 
masius  and  Francke,  professor  of  law  and  professor  of  the- 
ology. The  former,  author  of  an  ambitious  Historia  sap- 
ientice  et  stultitice  in  three  volumes  octavo — ambitious,  I 
mean,  in  the  hopeful  attempt  to  do  justice  to  human  fool- 
ishness in  three  volumes — Christian  Thomasius  labored 
for  forty  years  against  the  intolerances  and  superstitions 
of  his  day.  His  was  a  rational  mind  with  a  great  love  of 
common  sense.  That  he  drew  plentiful  blood  from  his  ad- 
versaries seems  indicated  by  the  fact  that  the  Universitas 
Halensis  was  in  those  early  days  often  referred  to  as  "  em 
hollisches  Institut."  Francke,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a 
deeply  religious  nature.  In  early  manhood  he  was  pro- 
foundly imprest  by  a  certain  passage  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment; he  tells  us  that  it  never  left  his  mind,  and  that  it 
became  the  lever  of  his  whole  life.  His  teaching  of  a  prac- 
tical Christianity  assumed  international  importance, 
reaching  even  to  the  American  colonies. 

Thus  both  men,  opposite  as  they  were  in  temper,  were 
fine  examples  of  the  public-spirited  scolar.  It  does  seem 
to  be  true,  however,  that  the  religious  mind  is  oftener  in 
the  mood  for  active  public  service  and  has  more  staying 
power.  If  we  compare  Goethe  with  Fichte  in  the  age  of 
the  first  Napoleon,  or  Renan  with  Mazzini  or  Amiel  in  the 
time  of  Napoleon  the  Third,  the  contrast  in  mental  temper 
is  gtriking.  It  was  Goethe  who  said :  "  I  have  always 


XC11  MODEEN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

kept  myself  as  much  as  possible  aloof  from  religion  and 
politics."  It  is  true  that  a  great  deal  of  water  has  flowed 
under  the  religious  and  political  bridges  since  the  sage  of 
Weimar  thus  refused  to  disturb  his  Olympian  calm.  Both 
religion  and  politics  were  in  his  day  waters  more  troubled 
even  than  they  are  now.  But  listen  for  a  moment  to  the 
ardent  Fichte:  "  The  scolar  ought  to  be  morally  the  best 
man  of  his  age.  .  .  .  Let  him  investigate  as  a  matter  of 
duty  and  not  from  simple  intellectual  curiosity,  or  merely 
to  occupy  himself.  .  .  .  The  scolar  must  have  a  living  and 
active  integrity  of  purpose.  .  .  .  No  one  can  labor  suc- 
cessfully for  the  improvement  of  the  human  race  who  is 
not  himself  a  good  man,  for  we  also  teach  much  more  im- 
pressively by  example." 

But  the  arch-priest  of  the  intellectuals  is  no  doubt 
Renan,  he  who  wrote :  "  Le  savant  ne  se  propose  qu'un 
but  speculatif,  sans  aucune  application  directe  a  1'ordre 
des  faits  contemporains.  .  .  .  Spectateur  dans  Funivers, 
il  sait  que  le  monde  ne  lui  appartient  que  comme  sujet 
d'etude,"  And  to  the  French  clericals  Renan  said  in  ef- 
fect :  "  If  you  will  not  dispute  us  our  places  in  the  Uni- 
versity and  in  the  French  Academy ;  if  you  will  not  bother 
yourselves  about  what  we  teach  or  write,  we  will  gladly 
hand  over  to  you  the  country  schools  and  the  guidance  of 
the  common  people." 

Witness  now  the  indignation  of  Mazzini  at  this  attitude  of 
cold  detachment.  The  Italian  patriot  hotly  retorts :  "  We 
are  here  on  earth  not  to  contemplate,  but  to  transform. 
.  .  .  Our  world  is  not  a  spectacle,  it  is  a  field  of  battle. 
.  .  .  Every  existence  has  an  aim :  the  moral  sense  and  the 
spirit  of  action  are  indissoluble."  And  from  his  Swiss  se- 
clusion Amiel  also  protested  that  "  the  modern  separation 
of  the  intellectual  aristocracy  from  the  honest  and  vulgar 


PKOCEDINQS    FOB    1915  XClii 

crowd  is  the  greatest  danger  that  can  threaten  liberty. 
Scolars  who,  like  Renan,  are  mere  spectators,  are  no  pro- 
tection to  society  from  any  ill  that  may  attack  it."  Amiel, 
of  course,  did  not  know  that  amid  the  clutter  on  Kenan's 
desk  there  would  be  found,  after  his  death,  a  stray  slip 
of  paper  upon  which  he  had  written:  "  De  tout  ce  que  j'ai 
fait,  j'aime  mieux  le  Corpus";  that  is,  the  monumental 
Corpus  Inscriptionum  Semiticarum,  a  constructive  work 
of  the  first  magnitude.  We  shall  do  well,  then,  to  dismiss 
this  distinction  of  mental  tempers  as  not  essential  to  the 
present  purpose.  It  was  Descartes  who  said :  "  We  should 
not  conceive  of  any  priority  or  preference  between  the 
mind  of  God  and  his  will."  This  profound  reflection  may 
furnish  us  both  the  explanation  of  the  existence  of  the  two 
tempers,  and  a  warning  against  disputing  as  to  their  rela- 
tive merits.  Let  us  return,  then,  to  our  two  propositions, 
which  call  for  some  public  spirit  in  every  scolar,  and  a 
measure  of  the  religious  temper  in  most  scolars.  And 
first,  what  has  been  in  the  past  the  prevailing  tradition  of 
American  scolarship  in  this  matter?  What  has  been  our 
record  as  to  public  spirit  and  as  to  public  service,  and 
where  does  our  tradition  begin  ? 

We  are  told  that  free  intellectual  inquiry — the  libertas 
philosophandi — dates  from  Spinoza's  famous  Tractatus 
(16YO).  Halle,  the  first  modern  university,  was  founded 
in  1693-4,  but  the  spirit  of  inquiry  was  not  liberated  there 
until  about  1740.  A  decade  later,  Gottingen  achieved  in- 
dependence of  church  control.  In  1805,  August  Wilhelm 
Schlegel  entered  as  tutor  the  decker  family  at  Coppet; 
in  1810  to  1813  appeared  Mme.  de  StaeTs  De  I'Allemagne, 
and  this  remarkable  book  contains  (Ch.  18)  these  well- 
known  and  historic  sentences :  "  The  whole  north  of  Ger* 
many  is  full  of  universities,  the  most  learned  in  Europe. 


XC1V  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

In  no  country,  not  even  in  England,  are  there  such  facili- 
ties for  gaining  knowledge.  .  .  .  Not  only  are  the  pro- 
fessors [in  these  universities]  men  of  astonishing  learn- 
ing, hut  what  gives  them  an  especial  distinction  is  the 
conscientiousness  of  their  teaching.  In  Germany,  in  fact, 
conscience  enters  into  everything."  Mme.  de  Stael  then 
mentions  hy  name  Gottingen,  Halle,  and  Jena.  It  is  a  cap- 
ital fact  in  the  intellectual  history  of  this  country  that, 
these  sentences  crost  the  Atlantic  and  fell  under  the  eyes 
of  a  generation  of  young  men  who,  horn  after  the  close 
of  the  Revolution,  were  growing  up  to  feel  the  need  of  a 
culture  hroader  and  deeper  than  the  New  World  then  af- 
forded. George  Ticknor,  horn  in  Boston  in  1791,  arrived 
in  Gottingen  during  the  historic  summer  of  1815,  and  it 
was  four  years  before  he  came  back  to  New  England. 
u  Germany,"  says  Emerson,  "  had  created  science  in  vain 
for  us  until  1820,  when  Edward  Everett  returned  from  his 
five  years  in  Europe  and  brought  to  Cambridge  his  rich 
results."  Here  were  the  beginnings.  From  1815  to  1850 
some  225  Americans  are  counted  at  German  universitie*, 
and  of  these  137  filled  academic  positions  on  their  re- 
turn home.  Ticknor,  Everett,  Bancroft,  Cogswell,  Pat- 
ton,  Greene,  Fresco tt,  Stuart,  Longfellow,  Allen,  Lincoln, 
Lane,  Whitney,  Goodwin,  Gildersleeve — these  are  some 
of  the  honored  names  of  these  intellectual  pioneers.  They 
might  well  have  appropriated  to  themselves  the  well-known 
words  of  old  Pasquier :  "  It  was  a  fine  campaign  that  we 
undertook  against  ignorance  in  those  days,  and  the  van- 
guard was  in  command  of  Ticknor  and  Everett,  or,  if  you 
would  have  it  otherwise,  these  were  the  forerunners  of  the 
others."  They  came  to  Germany  at  a  fortunate  moment ; 
it  was,  as  you  know,  the  height  of  the  Romantic  ferment, 
and  the  northern  universities  were  in  a  high  tide  of  en- 


PROCEDINQS    FOB   1913  XCV 

thusiasm  and  expansion  which  began  to  ebb  only  about 
1840. 

What  historian,  a  scolar  himself  and  knowing  some- 
thing of  the  trade,  will  write  for  us  the  fascinating  nar- 
rative of  these  our  Argonauts?  What  great  plans  and 
high  hopes  filled  their  young  minds  as  they  journeyed 
uncomfortably  by  sailing  vessel  and  diligence?  Who  in 
Gottingen  represented  to  them  the  blind  seer  Phineus, 
who  counseled  with  them  as  to  the  future  journey?  How 
deeply  did  they  feel  the  atmosphere  of  high  seriousness 
prevailing  in  intellectual  studies?  Were  they  not  toucht 
with  enthusiasm  at  their  first  perceptions  of  a  method 
which  directed  their  acute  and  eager  minds  straight  to  the 
sources,  and  which  sifted  and  weighed  "  authorities  "  in- 
stead of  merely  citing  them  ?  What  were  their  sensations 
when  they  contemplated  the  staggering  products  of  the 
German  Sitzfleiss?  How  much  did  they  imbibe  of  the 
inimitable  German  AJcribie?  Can  we  not  imagine  them 
studying  the  dumpy  Gelehrte  Anzeigen  of  that  day,  and 
perchance  hitting  upon  such  bits  of  the  scolar's  ironical 
wisdom  as — 

Hatt'  or  etwas  melir  gelesen. 
So  erfaruT   er   hicht   so  viel. 

There  is  no  mystery  about  their  choice  of  Gottingen, 
as  against  Halle  or  Jena,  Oxford  or  Paris.  Hanover  was 
in  those  days  English  territory,  the  reputation  of  the 
professors  and  the  size  of  the  library  had  imprest  even 
Napoleon:  the  Emperor  of  the  French  declared  that  Got- 
tingen belonged  neither  to  Hanover  nor  to  Germany,  but 
to  Europe.  Experiences  at  the  English  universities  like 
those  of  Coleridge  may  have  steered  them  away  from  the 
mother  country — from  Oxford  and  Cambridge  where  to 
be  a  versifex,  a  writer  of  Greek  and  Latin  verse,  was  the 


XCV1  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

main  pathway  to  distinction,  while  both  universities  were 
perhaps  too  acutely  mindful  of  the  very  recent  unpleas- 
antness with  "  the  States "  to  welcome  Young  America 
with  enthusiasm.     From  Oxford  itself  Everett  wrote,  in 
1818,  "  There  is  more  teaching  and  more  learning  in  our 
American  Cambridge  than  there  is  in  both  the  English 
Universities  together."     This  was  written  almost  a  cen- 
tury ago :  it  is  evident  that  even  then,  in  the  winged  words 
of  President  Hadley,  you  could  "  tell  a  Harvard  man  a 
long  way  off,"  etc.     In  muddy  old  Gottingen,  called  by 
Ticknor  the  "  land  of  gutturals  and  tobacco,"  the  first 
Argonauts  made  themselves  royally  at  home.     Until  our 
A.rgonautica  shall  be  fitly  written,  we  have,  however,  only 
glimpses  of  their  interesting  experiences.     Ticknor  wrote 
home  that  America  did  not  know  what  the  study  of  Greek 
meant ;  he  compared  the  Harvard  library  to  a  closetf ul  of 
books.     Everett  "  blushed  burning  red  to  the  ears  "  when 
a  German  Gelehrter  pickt  up  an  American  newspaper  con- 
taining a  Latin  address  by  the  students  of  Baltimore  to 
President  Monroe:  for  the  Latin  was  not  Latin,  and  the 
language  of  the  translation  which  accompanied  the  ad- 
dress could  not,  alas,  be  called  English.     The  more  mature 
Cogswell  wrote :  "  It  appals  me  when  I  think  of  the  differ- 
ence between  an  education  here  and  in  America."     As  to 
the  faculty  of  Georgia  Augusta,  no  doubt  these  young 
men  felt  as  had  felt,  some  time  before,  the  Englishman 
33r.  Askew  upon  first  meeting  the  encyclopedic  Gesner, 
founder  of  the  Gottingen  library:  talem  virum  nunquam 
vidi  was  Askew's  solemn  pronouncement.     I  imagine  they 
were  imprest  much  as  in  our  own  day  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  astonisht  by  Carl  Schurz :  "  You  are  an  awful  fel- 
low," said  Lincoln,  as  Schurz  concluded  an  impassioned 
address,  "now  I  can  understand  your  power."     George 
Bancroft,  for  his  part,  was  not  imprest  to  the  point  of  being 


PEOCEDINGS    FOR    1913  XCVli 

overawed.  Keferring  to  his  Latin  oration  delivered  when 
he  was  made  Doctor,  the  young  man  tells  us  that  it  pleased 
the  audience,  "tho  some  thot  I  spoke  too  dramatically. 
'Tis  not  the  custom  here,"  he  continues,  "  to  declaim,  but 
I  chose  to  do  it  as  an  American  for  the  sake  of  trying 
something  new  to  the  good  people."  This  I  believe  is  one 
of  the  first  recorded  instances  of  "  letting  the  eagle 
scream  "  in  foreign  parts :  would  to  Heaven  it  had  been 
the  last ! 

Like  a  church-spire  or  a  mountain  peak,  the  figure  of 
George  Ticknor  looms  up  taller  the  farther  we  recede 
from  his  life-time.  He  was  a  hard  and  serious  worker; 
his  enthusiasm  and  gratitude  for  the  new  outlook  given 
him  were  genuine,  and  he  defended  German  science  with 
warmth.  At  the  University,  he  reports,  it  was  Dissen, 
an  associate  professor  of  Greek,  who  taught  him  the  most. 
Altho  then  a  young  man  of  barely  thirty  and  of  feeble 
constitution,  "  Dissen,'7  said  Ticknor,  "  comes  entirely  up 
to  my  idea  of  what  a  scolar  ought  to  be,  for  he  has  at  the 
same  time  a  deep  religious  feeling,  he  has  the  desire  to 
impart  his  learning  and  to  do  good."  Edward  Everett, 
after  two  years,  took  the  oath  of  Doctor  (September, 
1817),  but  Ticknor  after  twenty  months  at  Georgia  Au- 
gusta went  on  to  Paris,  carrying  among  others  three  let- 
ters of  introduction  to  Mme.  de  Stae'l.  He  had  mean- 
time received  news  of  his  appointment  to  the  new  Smith 
chair  at  Harvard  College :  the  languages  to  be  taught  were 
originally  French  and  Spanish.  At  Paris  he  found  in 
the  works  of  Barbazan  and  Raynouard  material  wherewith 
to  study  privately  Old  French  and  Provencal,  but  the 
public  courses  at  the  French  university  disappointed  him : 
"  There  is  too  much  striving  for  effect,  too  little  desire  t» 
instruct."  He  reports  in  the  same  vein  that  Villemain's 


XCV111  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

public  lecture  contained  no  "  severe "  instruction :  as  a 
whole  it  seemed  to  him  little  •  else  than  "  a  spectacle " ; 
but  the  young  Bostonian  seems  to  have  appreciated  the 
lively  spirit  and  the  charm  of  French  society.  Inaugu- 
rated Smith  professor  in  August  1819,  Ticknor  held  this 
position  for  fifteen  years.  It  is  claimed  that  he  deserves 
the  title  of  "  the  father  of  all  serious  modern  language 
study  in  America."  Rather  a  formal  and  taciturn  man, 
Ticknor  freely  gave  of  his  best  in  counsel,  and — what  is 
perhaps  more  significant — he  lent  his  books  generously. 
He  labored  to  liberalize  the  Harvard  curriculum  and  did 
much  to  stimulate  the  idea  of  the  necessity  of  great  li- 
braries to  the  welfare  of  the  nation.  To  measure  the 
solid  worth  of  his  History  of  Spanish  Literature  we  have 
only  to  compare  it  with  its  immediate  predecessor,  that 
of  Bouterwek,  who  was  reading  at  Gottingen  when  Tick- 
nor was  there.  Bouterwek's  was  a  vast  history  of  Euro- 
pean eloquence  (Beredsamkeit)  :  George  Ticknor,  remark- 
ably enough,  was  able  to  work  himself  free  from  the  rhe- 
torical preoccupation,  and  in  this  achievement  he  markt 
himself  as  more  modern  than  his  fellow  Argonauts  Eve- 
rett, Bancroft,  Motley,  and  others.  Ticknor  in  fact  be- 
longs in  a  class  of  Romance  scolars  with  Friedrich  Diez 
and  Gaston  Paris,  both  of  whom  followed  him  at  Gottin- 
gen and,  like  him,  were  among  those  who  can  easier  bear 
the  reproach  of  being  dull  and  uninteresting  than  that 
of  turning  aside  for  temporary  applause  or  for  any  other 
trivial  reason  from  their  far-reaching  pursuit  of  the  sober 
and  often  baffling  facts  in  the  history  of  the  human  spirit. 
Ticknor's  better-known  companion,  Edward  Everett, 
had  a  career  remarkable  for  the  variety  of  its  public  ser- 
vice. He  was  at  first  professor  of  Greek,  but  later  also 
Member  of  Congress,  college  president,  Governor  of  the 


PKOCEDINGS    FOR    1913 

State,  Minister  to  England,  United  States  Senator,  and 
Secretary  of  State.  In  his  lectures,  Emerson  tells  us, 
i:  he  abstained  from  all  ornament,  detailing  erudition  in 
a  style  of  perfect  simplicity ;  it  was  all  new  learning  that 
wonderfully  took  and  stimulated  the  young  men."  His 
influence  was  great :  his  graces  of  person  and  presence,  his 
mastery  of  fact,  quotation,  and  expression,  the  perfect  self- 
command  and  security  of  his  manner,  all  lent  weight  to 
his  many  public  appearances.  "Education,"  said  Eve- 
rett, "  is  the  mind  of  this  age  acting  upon  the  mind  of 
the  next.  .  .  .  The  business  of  education  is  to  assist  the 
growth  of  our  spiritual  nature.  .  .  .  Knowledge  is  the 
faithful  ally  of  both  natural  and  revealed  religion."  Ho 
noted  with  real  concern  the  scanty  place  assigned  to  reli- 
gion in  the  new  University  of  Virginia,  while  from  his 
addresses  it  appears  that  he  used  his  influence  to  promote 
the  education  of  women,  prison  reform,  the  improvement 
of  public  sanitation,  the  temperance  movement,  and  even 
the  humane  treatment  of  animals.  Evidently  here  was  a 
scolar  who  saw  "  all  in  the  one  as  well  as  one  in  the  all." 
Longfellow,  Ticknor's  successor  in  the  Smith  chair,  was 
only  a  short  time  in  G-ottingen  (1829),  but  long  enough 
to  be  imprest  by  the  professors  who  studied  sixteen  hours 
a  day  and  came  forth  only  on  Sundays.  You  have  seen 
in  print  Longfellow's  inaugural  at  Bowdoin  College, 
1830- ;  it  gives  us  a  respectful  idea  of  his  scolarship  and 
this  is  confirmed  later  by  his  version  of  the  Divina  Corn- 
media^  and  by  certain  little-known  articles  of  his  on  the 
Origins  of  the  French  Language,  on  the  French  Lan- 
guage in  England,  and  on  the  Old  French  Komances. 
His  conception  of  the  scolar's  method  could  not  have  been 
profound,  for  after  his  first  return  from  Europe  he  wro^ 
of  that  semi-learned  fribble  Menage,  author  of  Observations 


C  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

de  Monsieur  Menage  sur  la  Langue  Frangoise  (1672) : 
"  we  have  no  fears/7  writes  Longfellow,  "  of  falling  under 
the  imputation  of  such  rigid  scrutiny  "  as  his.  While  not 
an  intellectual  leader ,  Longfellow's  services  during  his 
eighteen  years  of  professorship,  are  important.  He  tells 
us  that  he  "  hated  to  lecture  hefore  small  audiences " ; 
no  doubt  he  was  conscious  of  power  over  a  wider  public. 
As  we  know,  his  vocation  was  that  of  the  poet  and  public- 
spirited  citizen.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  who  was  his 
pupil,  reports  that  "  We  students  were  proud  to  have  Long- 
fellow in  college,  but  all  the  same  we  respected  him  as 
a  man  of  affairs."  During  the  anti-slavery  troubles, 
Longfellow,  as  he  tells  us,  longed  to  "  do  something  in  my 
humble  way  for  the  great  cause  of  negro  emancipation," 
and  he  issued  in  favor  of  the  movement  a  pamphlet  which 
brought  him  his  share  of  popular  odium.  His  religious 
temper  is  revealed  by  his  verdict  upon  Fichte's  Jena  ad- 
dresses on  the  Vocation  of  the  Scolar :  "  Nobly  done !  " 
exclaims  Longfellow,  "  and  from  the  highest  point  of  view. 
To  Fichte's  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Idea  must  every  scolar 
conform  himself."  He  himself  went  to  the  polls,  and  in 
the  early  war-time  found  it  "  disheartening  to  see  how 
little  sympathy  there  is  in  the  hearts  of  young  men  here 
for  freedom  and  great  ideas." 

Lowell,  Longfellow's  successor  in  1855,  and  once  the 
honored  president  of  this  Association,  had  a  wider  range 
of  mind  than  either  of  his  predecessors.  The  genial  and 
prolific  Mr.  Saintsbury  sees  in  Lowell  the  main  apostle 
of  criticism  in  America  •  for  our  purposes  we  may  merely 
note  that  Lowell  declared  that  he  would  make  out  of  every 
youth  at  college  "  a  man  of  culture,  a  man  of  intellectual 
resource,  a  man  of  public  spirit."  The  manifold  pub- 
lic services  of  the  brilliant  and  kindly  Lowell  are  too 


PKOCEDINGS    FOB    1913  ci 

recent  and  too  well  known  to  need  rehearsal  here.  He 
once  confest  to  his  friend  Curtis: 

I  love  too  well  the  pleasures  of  retreat, 
Safe  from  the  crowd  and  cloistered  from  the  street; 
I  sank  too  deep  in  this  soft-stuffed  repose 
That  hears  but  rumors  of  earth's  wrongs  and  woes; 
Too  well  these  Capuas  could  my  muscles  waste, 
Not  void  of  toils,  but  toils  of  choice  and  taste; 
These  still  had  kept  me  could  I  but  have  quelled 
The  Puritan  drop  that  in  my  heart  rebelled! 

Finally,  the  prevailing  temper  of  all  this  noble  group  was 
well  exprest  by  the  serious  Sumner,  in  his  oration  upon 
the  True  Grandeur  of  Nations,  1845  :  "  The  true  greatness 
of  a  nation  cannot  be  in  triumphs  of  the  intellect  alone 
.  .  .  the  true  grandeur  of  humanity  is  in  moral  elevation 
.  .  .  Christian  beneficence  and  justice."  Or,  if  we  hear- 
ken to  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  "  the  last  of  the  Komans," 
we  meet  with  essentially  the  same  spirit.  Norton  wrote 
in  1895  to  Henry  B.  Fuller,  of  Chicago:  "I  hold  with 
the  poets  and  idealists,  not  the  idealizers,  but  those  who 
have  ideals,  and,  knowing  that  they  are  never  to  be  real- 
ized, still  strive  to  reach  them  and  to  persuade  others  to 
take  up  the  same  quest."  Ticknor,  Longfellow,  Lowell, 
Norton,  in  the  words  of  the  poet, 

These  suns  are  set.     O  rise  some  other  such! 

But  if  we  pass  from  these  representatives  of  the  Har- 
vard group  to  a  trio  of  scolars  who  drew  their  first  in- 
spiration from  Yale,  we  find  the  same  conception  of  the 
scolar's  role  in  society.  The  life  of  William  Dwight 
Whitney  is  full  of  instruction  for  the  young  teacher. 
"  He  possest,"  said  Victor  Henry,  "  not  only  a  vigorous 
intelligence  but  also  in  the  highest  degree  the  power  that 
is  given  by  conscience  and  kindness."  As  another  of  his 


Cll  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

eulogists  has  observed,  he  conquered  the  love  of  ease,  the 
love  of  money,  and  the  love  of  praise ;  he  overcame  selfish- 
ness and  the  pains  of  weakness  and  ill-health  in  the  steady 
pursuit  of  his  professional  labors:  the  result  was  that, 
in  the  words  of  the  aged  Boehtlingk,  "the  distant  future 
will  use  his  works  with  thankfulness."  It  is  told  that 
Whitney  made  some  progress  upon  a  Sanskrit  vocabulary 
the  day  his  household  was  moved  to  a  new  dwelling. 
Nulla  dies  sine  linea  was  evidently  his  rigid  program, 
and  yet  he  also  took  an  open  part  in  politics  and  lent  a 
hand  in  the  affairs  of  his  community ;  he  was  both  a  good 
neighbor  and  a  good  citizen. 

From  Yale  and  Harvard  a  good  deal  of  this  spirit  was 
transferred  to  Johns  Hopkins  in  1876,  by  Gilman  and 
his  close  friend  and  adviser,  Andrew  D.  White.  Ex- 
President  Eliot  gave  the  opening  address;  Child  and 
Lowell  lectured  in  Baltimore  soon  after  the  opening, 
"  The  object  of  the  University,"  declared  Gilman,  "  is  to 
develop  character,  to  make  men/'  while  Eliot  saw  in  uni- 
versities "  fountains  of  spiritual  and  moral  power.  These 
contribute  to  the  true  greatness  of  a  state,  which  consists 
in  immaterial  or  spiritual  things,  in  the  purity,  fortitude, 
and  uprightness  of  their  people.  .  .  .  Above  all,  here 
may  many  generations  of  manly  youth  learn  righteous- 
ness." 

For  an  institution  where  the  physical  and  medical  sci- 
ences have  always  been  most  prominent,  one  might  find 
a  surprising  amount  of  "  the  ethical  preoccupation  "  in 
these  utterances.  And  one  might  wonder  why,  with  so  re- 
ligious an  aim,  it  was  announced  from  the  same  platform 
that  a  faculty  of  theology  "  is  not  now  proposed."  We 
must  remember  that  in  those  days  theology,  the  ancient 
and  legitimate  queen  of  the  sciences,  was  a  Queen  of 


PROCEDINGS  FOR  1913  ciii 

Sheba,  abasht  and  silent  before  the  inf  alii  ble  wisdom  of  the 
scientific  Solomons.  Personally,  I  believe  it  forever  im- 
possible for  a  university  to  shape  the  Complete  Man  and 
ignore  two  of  the  most  ancient  and  fundamental  of  human 
institutions,  the  Church  and  the  Law:  the  absence  of 
these  two  disciplines  means  a  more  or  less  narrow  pro- 
fessionalism. But  this  ideal  of  the  Complete  Man  makes 
me  wander,  like  Aucassin  in  search  of  Mcolette,  away 
from  the  highway.  My  subject  is  public  spirit  in  Amer- 
ican scolars,  and  we  hardly  need  to  be  reminded  that 
Gilman  was  a  man  of  open  mind,  and  of  conscientious 
and  generous  concern  for  the  public  welfare.  "Wisdom," 
said  James  Bryce,  "  grows  out  of  the  temper  and  heart 
of  a  man  as  well  as  out  of  his  intellect.  Where  there  is 
practical  work  and  delicate  work  to  be  done,  insight  and 
sympathy  must  go  together.  They  were  happily  united 
in  Gilman,  and  to  their  union  in  him  your  University 
largely  owes  its  present  high  position.'/ 

Is  it  not  sufficiently  apparent,  even  from  this  mere 
pochade,  that  a  public-spirited  scolarship  has  been  the 
ideal  of  our  intellectual  leaders  from  Ticknor  to  Gilman, 
Angell,  Eliot,  and  Hadley?  Review  all  that  America 
accomplisht  in  the  19th  century  towards  religious  tol- 
eration, towards  the  extension  of  suffrage,  toward  the 
liberal  treatment  of  immigrants,  toward  the  discontin- 
uance of  war,  and  toward  the  general  diffusion  of  educa- 
tion and  well-being:  it  is  certain  that  underneath  all  these 
movements  there  has  been  noble  endeavor,  determined 
effort,  and  a  strong  moral  purpose.  And  there  is  a  vital 
connection  betwen  these  two  facts:  the  public-spirited 
ideal  of  scolarship  has  had  its  share,  along  with  other 
forces,  in  bringing  these  results  to  pass.  The  conclusion 
is  that  for  us  any  other  idea  or  conception  of  the  role  of 


CIV  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

scolarship  is  un-American.  "  The  necessity  of  bringing 
all  our  special  investigations  into  relations  with  the  whole 
body  of  philological  work,  with  the  life  of  the  world"  has 
been  laid  before  us  as  his  weightiest  message  by  the  Nestor 
of  American  scolars,  Grildersleeve,  who  asserts  also  that 
"  the  most  effective  work  is  done  by  those  who  see  all  in 
the  one  as  well  as  one  in  the  all,"  and  that  "the  true 
life  [of  the  scolar  as  of  other  leaders]  is  due  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  service." 

They  who  are  complaining  of  late  that  this  ideal  has 
weakened  among  us  are,  let  us  hope,  only  superficial  ob- 
servers. It  may  well  be  that  our  intellectuals  have  been 
intimidated  by  the  overweening  claims  of  the  physical 
sciences,  whose  advance  has  been  accompanied  by  indif- 
ference or  hostility  to  humanistic  studies.  The  religious 
tempers  have  been  disconcerted  by  the  apparent  break-up 
of  religion,  not  perceiving  that  we  are  assisting  not  at  a 
deluge  nor  a  debacle,  but  at  the  periodic  readjustment: 
confronted  with  a  free  and  thoro  investigation  of  religious 
origins  and  with  a  closer  grapple  with  Oriental  thot,  the 
Church  has  merely  been  forced  to  a  restatement  of  its 
truth.  A  third  reason  for  the  impression  that  scolarship 
in  America  has  ceast  to  concern  itself  with  the  public  wel- 
fare is  the  process,  now  going  on  under  our  eyes,  by  which 
the  colleges  are  being  blasted  loose  from  Church  control. 
This  process,  to  be  sure,  is  not  yet  completed:  even  now 
if  we  listen  we  can  hear  heavy  detonations  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Tennessee,  and  I  am  told  that  large  orders  for 
dynamite  have  been  placed  for  early  use  in  Virginia  and 
elsewhere.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  old  denomi- 
national college  deserved  well  of  us  for  upholding  the 
ideal  of  public  spirit  before  its  graduates.  The  Inde- 
pendent printed  some  statistics  as  to  the  professions  fol- 


PROCEDINGS    FOR    1913  CV 

lowed  by  the  American  college  graduates  of  the  years  1796 
to  1800,  as  compared  with  those  of  1896  to  1900.  The 
figures  are  presented  as  human  forms  of  different  sizes. 
Noteworthy  in  the  data  for  1796  to  1800  is  a  sizable 
young  fellow  who  represents  the  graduates  of  those  years 
who  fitted  themselves  for  various  kinds  of  public  service: 
in  1896-1900  this  young  man  has  shrunk  to  a  veritable 
Liliputian.  The  Ministry  figure  has  also  terribly  dwin- 
dled :  those  wha  have  profited  by  his  dwindling  are  Law, 
Business,  and — largest  of  all — Education,  that  is,  teacher* 
and  scolars.  Thus  college  deans  and  college  professors 
have  fallen  heir  to  greatly  increast  responsibilities  in 
gar  ding  the  public-spirited  ideal  of  scolarship.  No  doubt 
this  has  been  said  often  enough,  but  I  believe  we  are  not 
yet  fully  under  the  weight  of  it,  otherwise  the  complaints 
which  were  quoted  at  the  outset  this  evening  would  not 
have  found  their  way  into  print. 

One  curious  result  of  these  three  depressing  factors  in 
the  immediate  situation — the  extravagant  claims  of  sci- 
ence, the  general  readjustment  of  religion,  and  the  with- 
drawal of  denominational  control  of  colleges — one  curious 
result  has  been  that  the  downfall  of  dogma  has  been 
often  confused  with  the  abolition  of  righteousness.  How 
else  explain  that  in  academic  circles  words  like  '  pious ' 
and  '  virtuous '  have  lost  caste  to  the  point  of  becoming 
terms  of  reproach  among  those  who  have  cut  their  eye- 
teeth;  even  ' benevolent7  and  ' philanthropic ?  are  not 
without  a  shade  of  suspicion,  while  puritanical  restraint 
and  Sunday-scool  goodness  have  become  if  not  anathemas 
then  at  least  taboos.  It  is  probable  that  Church  and  Sun- 
day-scool have  deserved  this  fate,  but  it  would  be  a  serious 
error  to  assume  that  they  must  needs  continue  to  deseare 
it ;  for  Science  has  recently  become  much  more  modest  in 
tone,  there  has  been  a  remarkable  revival  of  the  religious 


CV1  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

spirit  directed  to  social  betterment  and  to  moral  educa- 
tion, while  college  students  show  a  much  more  lively  in- 
terest in  religion  than  they  did  twenty  years  ago.  It  is 
also  well  known  that  the  anti-intellectualist  philosophy- 
one  which  recognizes  other  sources  of  knowledge  than  the 
senses  and  the  reason — is  gaining  in  favor.  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  reflected  this  recent  change  of  attitude  when  he  said 
before  the  British  Association  meeting  this  year :  "  Emo- 
tion and  intuition  and  instinct  are  immensely  older  than 
Science.  The  prescientific  insight  of  genius — of  poets 
and  prophets  and  saints — is  of  supreme  value,  and  the 
access  of  those  inspired  seers  to  the  heart  of  the  universe 
is  profound."  In  Germany  Fechner,  Eucken,  Kuhne- 
mann,  Paulsen,  and  Herman  Grimm,  in  Switzerland 
Hilty,  in  France  Bergson  and  Boutroux,  in  America 
William  James  and  others  have  advanced  philosophies 
which  have  in  common  a  series  of  affirmations:  some  of 
these  are  deeply  significant  for  all  those  who  would  deal 
with  life  as  a  whole.  The  young  scolar  of  today  may  find 
— no  doubt  many  of  you  have  already  found — much  that  is 
vital  and  stirring  in  the  message  of  these  thinkers.  If 
you  cut  yourself  off  from  your  social  instincts,  they  tell 
us,  you  doom  yourself  to  be  a  crank — yea  verily,  a  crank 
of  some  sort  you  will  inevitably  be.  It  rests  with  each 
of  us,  as  with  all  men,  to  help  or  not  to  help  in  making 
this  world  more  inhabitable,  a  better  place  to  live  in.  A 
real  neutrality  is  unattainable:  he  who  is  not  for  the 
commonwealth  is  against  it.  It  is  the  function  of  the 
trained  minds  to  educate  by  example  as  well  as  precept 
the  great  neutral,  uninformed  public,  and  to  dig  channels 
for  their  vast  energies.  This  expert  guidance  is  all  the 
more  needed  in  a  country  where  Church  and  State  are 
separate  and  in  which  there  is  at  present  no  one  great 
unifying  intellectual  influence — no  one  great  city,  no  uni- 


PEOCEDINGS    FOE   1913 

versal  military  service,  no  national  university,  no  single 
great  newspaper.  The  new  philosophy  further  reminds 
the  scolar  that  any  truth  is  helpless  until  some  man  or 
woman  takes  it  up  and  acts  upon  it,  and  that  from  time 
to  time  the  professor  "  in  spectacles  and  starched  shirt " 
should  be  that  man.  Some  principle,  some  central  pur- 
pose should  inform  his  studies  and  his  teaching,  to  give 
them  dynamic  and  steadiness.  He  needs  the  grip  of  some 
such  principle  as  this  to  counteract  the  influence  of  ex- 
treme specialization,  a  matter  which  we  may  now  take  a 
moment  to  consider. 

"  To  see  all  in  the  one  "  is  no  doubt  the  right  ideal 
for  the  young  scolar,  but  we  know  that  in  practice  speci- 
alization works  against  this  ideal.  If  one  is  to  fight  with 
his  strongest  arm  and  make  his  talent  tell  where  it  will 
be  the  most  effective  (and  best  paid)  one  must  now  more 
than  ever  seek  mastery  over  a  narrow  field.  Specialization 
is  also  the  right  corrective  for  much  crude  and  uninspired 
work,  for  it  is  only  the  specialist  who  has  a  discrimin- 
ating respect  for  the  great  achievements  of  the  past. 
And  so  our  academic  public  requires  us  to  ignore  an 
ancient  maxim  and  adopt  instead  Mark  Twain's  modern 
version  of  it :  "  Put  all  your  eggs  into  one  basket,  and 
watch  that  basket !  "  The  time  seems  to  have  gone  by 
when  a  poorly  prepared  young  scolar  could  expect  from 
his  colleagues  that  vast  indulgence  which  Anatole  France 
tells  us  was  extended  to  one  of  his  fellow  students :  "  We 
called  him,"  relates  the  French  litterateur,  "  little  Kay- 
mond.  He  knew  nothing,  and  his  mind  was  not  of  the 
sort  to  take  knowledge  in;  but  he  was  very  fond  of  his 
mother.  We  were  all  very  careful  not  to  expose  the 
ignorance  of  one  who  was  so  excellent  a  son,  and,  thanks 
to  our  indulgence,  little  Kaymond  succeeded  in  all  his 
ambitions.  Even  after  his  mother  was  gone,  honors  show- 


CV111  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

ered  upon  him,  to  the  great  detriment  of  his  colleagues 
and  of  science." 

The  enthusiasm  which  lies,  as  Ritschl  said,  only  in 
one-sidedness  is  a  real  and  precious  working  force,  but 
there  are  too  many  of  us  who  hug  Hitachi's  saying  to 
our  bosoms  and  make  of  it  an  excuse  for  a  masterly  non- 
intervention in  community  affairs  where  we  might  be 
helpful.  And  within  the  field  of  our  own  studies  what 
except  public  spirit  can  keep  our  specializing  within  due 
inetes  and  bounds  ?  What  else  will  prevent  us  from  in- 
vestigating entirely  useless  subjects  such  as  (to  use  the 
classic  example)  "  the  effect  of  fishtails  in  motion  upon 
the  undulations  of  the  sea,"  or  from  aspiring,  like  Rich- 
ter's  Fixlein,  to  the  distinction  of  publishing  a  catalogue 
raisonne  of  all  the  misprints  to  be  found  in  the  German 
authors  ? 

In  France  at  this  moment,  as  in  the  days  of  Rabelais, 
the  Sorbonistes  and  the  Sorbonicoles  (notably  Lanson  and 
his  scool)  are  the  object  of  attack:  the  complaint  is  that 
the}r  are  putting  forth  studies  which  the  assailing  party 
describes  as  enidiiion  sans  pensee.  If  the  dissertations 
of  the  Lanson  scool  really  contain  no  pensee,  no  vital 
point  of  connection  with  the  national  life,  past  or  present ; 
if  they  are  mere  finger-and-thumb  work  or  the  lucubra- 
tions of  those  who  would  make  a  parade  of  learning,  then 
these  critics,  belletristic  or  chauvinistic,  have  a  perfect 
right  to  grow  black  in  the  face  and  talk  of  a  crise  uni- 
versitaire.  But  all  such  critics,  in  France  or  in  America, 
are  either  forgetful  or  ignorant  of  two  things,  first,  that 
a  lot  of  inside  bricks  and  other  coarse  material  that  does 
not  show  on  the  outside  must  go  into  the  building  of  the 
cathedral  of  knowledge,  and,  second,  that  if  the  pensee 
be  new  to  the  world,  the  young  candidate,  like  any  other 
scolar,  is  bound  to  show  his  proofs.  Baron  Bunsen,  says 


PEOCEDINGS   FOB   1913  cix 

Max  Miiller,  made  the  mistake  of  "  throwing  away  his 
ladders  as  soon  as  he  had  reacht  his  point/'  and  Bunsen'g 
works,  tho  by  no  means  without  influence,  have  been  nota- 
bly short-lived.  Goethe  was  disappointed  and  angry  be- 
cause his  discoveries  in  optics  and  osteology  were  received 
with  a  great  coolness  by  the  naturalists  and  physicists  of  his 
time:  the  sage  of  Weimar  must  have  been  unacquainted 
with  that  first  principle  of  cathedral  building  which  has 
been  so  well  formulated  by  Helmholtz,  that  "  theoretic 
ideas  can  be  expected  to  attract  the  notice  they  deserve 
from  those  competent  in  the  field  only  when  their  publi- 
cation is  accompanied  by  the  whole  supporting  evidence 
— das  ganze  beweisende  Material.  My  colleagues  assure 
me  that  Lanson  and  his  pupils  may  safely  ignore  the 
criticism  that  their  work  is  unimportant  or  not  co-ordi- 
nated nearly  enough  with  anything  the  public  knows 
about:  the  New  Sorbonne  knows  that  it  is  precisely  be- 
cause the  public  cannot  always  judge  as  to  what  is  signi- 
ficant and  what  is  not  that  the  scolar  and  his  pupils  are 
bound  by  a  moral  responsibility  as  to  what  they  do  and 
what  they  leave  undone. 

An  activistic  world-philosophy  working  in  the  scolar  is 
thus  the  proper  influence  to  save  him  from  going  round 
"  in  an  eddy  of  purposeless  dust,"  and  it  ..will  preserve  him 
from  the  other  traditional  failings  of  his  guild.  Perhaps 
the  worst  of  our  professional  failings,  as  Gildersleeve  has 
said,  is  specialization  for  personal  vanity.  This  disease 
usually  attacks  us  soon  after  the  examination  for  the  doc- 
torate. Some  never  outgrow  it:  they  must  exhibit  their 
superior  Belesenheit  or  their  greater  penetration.  In- 
stead of  viewing  their  colleague's  work  solely  in  its  rela- 
tion to  the  Whole,  they  must  pick  here  and  there  a  pin- 
point flaw.  They  secretly  regret  that  it  is  not  now  as  it 
was  in  the  good  old  days  when,  in  an  acid  foot-note,  one 


CX  MODEBN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

could  roundly  refer  to  the  confrere  who  espied  the  weak 
spot  in  his  argument,  as  vir  ineptissimus,  or  asinus  prae- 
clarus.  But  more  serious,  to  my  mind,  than  vanity  or 
vain  emulation  in  scolars  is  the  specialization  which  aims 
at  money  and  social  position.  These  inglorious  Ichabods 
have  their  reward,  but  their  punishment  is  that  in  the 
sifting  process  of  time  they  must  lose  their  claim  to  leader- 
ship and  must  see  others  who  have  not  made  "the  great 
refusal"  distance  them  in  pointing  out  to  the  world  the 
true  meaning  of  life,  the  right  field  of  action  and  the  real 
grounds  of  hope.  I  believe  it  to  be  true,  as  John  Dewey 
has  said,  that  "  the  highest  product  of  the  interest  of  man 
in  man  is  the  Church  " ;  next  come  the  agencies  for  the 
enlarging  and  training  of  the  mind.  'Church  and  Scool 
are  the  great  depositories  of  the  experience  and  culture  of 
the  past,  and  of  ideals  for  the  future.  Our  particular 
chapel  in  this  great  temple,  our  particular  allotment  in 
this  vast  field,  or — to  come  gradually  nearer  to  the  truth 
unadorned — our  particular  floor  in  this  vast  department 
store  is  that  where  the  modern  languages  are  sold,  or  per- 
haps I  should  say,  given  away.  The  latest  guess  at  the 
figures  is  that  English  is  now  spoken  by  160  million 
people,  German  by  130  millions,  and  the  Romance  lan- 
guages by  195  millions.  There  is  nothing  in  our  Consti- 
tution which  excludes  from  our  activity  the  languages  of 
India,  Japan  and  China,  and  I  can  see  no  reason  why  the 
Central  Division  should  not,  in  the  near  future,  shoulder 
some  of  the  responsible  work  of  interpreting  Oriental 
thought  and  of  adapting  Western  ideals  to  our  neighbors 
beyond  the  Pacific.  If  upon  serious  reflection,  the  mag- 
nitude of  such  a  task  should  seem  almost  staggering,  we 
may  yet  remember  that  truth  is  always  to  be  weighed 
rather  than  counted,  and  that  from  one  point  of  view  our 
task  is  comparatively  simple.  The  very  core  and  nucleus 


PBOCEDISTGS    FOE    1913  ,  Cxi 

of  our  teaching,  that  which  gives  significance  to  our  goings 
and  comings,  is  the  upholding  of  the  humanistic  ideals; 
by  these  I  mean  freedom  of  inquiry,  intellectual  honesty, 
the  disinterested  pursuit  of  truth,  and  the  courage,  self- 
denial,  and  perseverance  which  are  involved  in  that  pur- 
suit, and  finally,  the  promotion  of  a  social  consciousness 
which  shall  be  wider  than  national  boundaries. 

It  would  be  a  congenial  task  to  develop  here  a  chapter 
De  virtutibus  eruditorum;  especially  attractive  is  this  idea 
of  a  modern  confraternity  of  scolars,  international  in 
scope,  representing  to  us  what  the  Civitas  Dei  was  to  the 
keener  medieval  minds.  Admission  to  this  confraternity 
will  depend  not  upon  cleverness,  but  upon  a  sense  of  unity 
with  and  fidelity  to  the  humanistic  ideals.  Have  we  not 
our  enemies  ?  Are  not  perhaps  ten  per  cent,  of  our  own 
population  hostile  to  culture  and  free  inquiry  ?  Are  not 
eighty  per  cent,  if  not  hostile  at  least  indifferent  or  dis- 
trustful? Must  we  not  reaffirm  almost  daily  the  noble 
ideal  exprest  in  Dante's  words,  Nos  autem  cui  mundus 
est  patria? 

Probably  there  is  no  need  to  urge  allegiance  to  this 
program  before  this  audience:  the  paper  last  year  which 
evoked  the  heartiest  applause  was  one  in  which  this  idea  of 
the  higher  nationality  was  warmly  advocated.  But  I  am 
afraid  my  effort  and  your  amiable  attention  will  both  have 
been  wasted  unless  we  go  on  to  realize  that  faith  in  the 
humanistic  program  comes  only  by  trying  it  out — by  ap- 
plication and  experiment.  We  are  not  toiling  ourselves 
or  leading  others  toward  intellectual  freedom  merely  to 
find  congenial  pursuits  and  pleasures  in  the  field  of 
knowledge.  If  so,  we  have  no  fighting  edge  to  our  in- 
tentions and  we  need  the  sharp  reminder  of  one  of  o^r 
most  trusted  leaders :  "  The  more  ideals  a  man  has,"  said 
William  James,  "  the  more  contemptible,  on  the  whole, 


CX11  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

do  you  continue  to  deem  him  if  the  matter  ends  there 
for  him."  To  get  some  of  our  vision  into  brick  and  mor- 
tar, to  do  our  share  toward  making  our  community  more 
inhabitable,  is  the  natural  and  proper  function  of  the 
complete  man  or  woman  of  whatever  vocation. 

It  is   also  true  that  scolars   and  teachers  need  from 
week   to  week   something  of  the   refreshment   of   direct 
action.     "  Thot  expands  but  lames,"  said  Goethe :  let  me 
add  that  you  and  I  need  almost  daily  treatment  and  exer- 
cise for  this  lameness.     Fortunate  it  is  for  us,  tho  it  is 
the  fashion,  I  know,  to  say  just  the  opposite,  that  we  have 
successive  waves  of  young  and  inexperienced  minds  to 
deal  with  in  more  or  less  practical  relations.     If  Jackson 
cannot  get  his  dissertation  into  print,  it  is  wholesome  for 
me  to  have  to  convince  somebody  of  the  vast  significance 
of  dissertations  in  general  and  of  Jackson's  in  particular. 
Then  too,  Art  is  desperately  long,  Life  is  fearfully  short. 
The  rate  of  progress  in  the  world's  total  knowledge,  won 
as  it  must  be  by  the  hardest  of  work  upon  the  materials 
of  human  experience,  resembles  that  of  a  glacier.     To  use 
a   different  metaphor,   the  great  cathedral   of  organized 
knowledge  is  always  building  and  never  complete:  scaf- 
folding disfigures  this  or  that  tower,  large  parts  of  it  are 
always  shut  off. for  alterations  and  repairs.     Many  who 
aspire  to  carve  a  cinquefoil  or  an  airy  pinnacle,  or  merely 
to  square  a  humble  stone  for  use  in  the  foundation,  never 
attain  to  so  laudable  an  ambition:  their  role  is  reduced 
to  that  of  personally  conducting  the  flocks  of  more  or  less 
serious  tourists  who  annually  '"  do "  the  cathedral.     To 
be  bent  upon  getting  more  of  the  humanistic  ideals  into 
circulation  will  meantime  help  to  keep  us,  builders  and 
conductors,  from  many  a  pitfall:  from  laziness  after  we 
have  reacht  our  saturation  point  in  academic  promotion; 
from   falling  behind   and  dissipation  of   energy   by  too 


PEOCEDINGS    FOK    1913 


CX111 


many  diners  en  ville;  from  discouragement  and  cui  bono- 
ism  of  all  kinds ;  from  that  insidious  temptation  to  neglect 
the  less  well-endowed  among  our  pupils;  and  from  petti- 
ness of  whatever  description. 

Lastly,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  competence  which  is 
accompanied  by  some  degree  of  participation  in  its  appli- 
cation to  public  affairs,  is  good  pedagogy.  A  serious 
medical  student  at  one  of  our  State  universities  said  to  me 
that  the  teachers  who  were  known  to  be  effective  as  men 
of  affairs  made  deeper  impressions  upon  his  mind,  even 
tho  they  were  less  able  lecturers  on  technical  subjects, 
than  those  professors,  however  brilliant,  who  were  known 
to  hold  themselves  aloof.  Adolescence  and  youth  are  no- 
toriously humanistic  in  their  sympathies  and  ideals,  un- 
compromisingly so.  The  President  of  Amherst  College 
believes  that  the  freshman  year  is  none  too  soon  to 
introduce  young  men  to  the  urgent  problems  of  our 
time.  "  I  should  like  to  see  every  freshman,"  he 
says,  "  at  once  plunged  into  the  problems  of  philos- 
ophy, into  the  difficulties  and  perplexities  about  our 
institutions,  into  the  scientific  accounts  of  the  world, 
especially  as  they  bear  upon  human  life."  The  teacher's 
sympathetic  interest,  his  open-minded  readiness  to  consi- 
der new  solutions,  his  willingness  to  join  and  promote 
even  unpopular  causes  are  among  the  most  communicable 
of  mental  attitudes:  public  spirit,  in  other  words,  is  emi- 
nently contagious,  and  the  student  respects  none  of  his 
instructors  more  than  him  whose  class-room  pronounce- 
ments are  habitually  made  with  the  caution  born  of  at- 
tempts to  change  conditions  in  this  exasperating  world. 
Experience  should  have  taught  the  older  mind  that  what 
Emerson  calls  "  the  sore  relation  to  persons  "  is  involve^ 
in  nearly  every  attempt  at  progress.  Progress,  we  are 


CX1V  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

told,  is  the  effort  to  combine  ideal  novelty  with  reality,  and 
it  is  the  professor's  duty  and  privilege  to  present  the  two 
—the  real  and  the  ideal — with  such  clearness,  insight,  op- 
timism, and  faith  that  to  the  younger  minds  improvement 
shall  seem  the  next  natural  and  desirable,  nay  the  inevi- 
table, step.  In  our  explanations  of  texts — and  we  are 
after  all  an  association  of  explainers  of  texts — we  have 
often  been  besought  not  to  leave  off  till  our  text  has  been 
"  riddled  with  light " ;  with  light,  yes,  but  for  the  total 
effect  of  our  work  we  must  not  forget  that  it  takes  more 
than  liffht  to  make  a  fire  that  burns.  We  must  add  to  our 

O 

light  warmth,  and  to  our  warmth  -motion  if  we  would 
kindle  and  maintain  a  fire  which,  like  Bishop  Latimer's 
candle,  shall  never  be  put  out. 

The  speaker  at  Cornell  was  Edwin  D.  Mead,  of  Boston.  He  be- 
lieved, however,  "  that  there  was  no  other  class  which  on  the  whole 
has  been  so  faithful  or  shown  so  much  true  leadership."  The 
Oxford  volume  is  Schiller's  Formal  Logic,  reviewed  in  Current  Lite- 
rature 53,  p.  551  (see  also  The  Independent  73,  p.  375).  The  "  best 
seller  "  is  Churchill's  The  Inside  of  the  Cup.  C.  Tennyson's  book  ia 
Cambridge  from  Within,  1912;  vox  clamantis  is  A.  K.  Rogers, 
Popular  Science  Monthly  80,  p.  574.  President  Meiklejohn's  Inaugural 
is  printed  in  the  Amherst  Graduates'  Quarterly  for  November,  1912, 
p.  65.  The  reference  is  to  Cosmo  Hamilton,  A  Plea  for  the  Younger 
Generation,  1913. — The  merry  jest  of  haling  Celia  of  As  You 
Like  It  into  a  company  of  dryasdusts  is  not  my  own,  but  belongs 
to  Professor  J.  Rendel  Harris :  see  his  essay,  "  The  Art  of  Con- 
jectural Emendation"  (Side-Lights  on  New  Testament  Research, 
1908).  For  Thomasius,  besides  Paulsen,  one  might  reread  Andrew 
D.  White's  article  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  95,  p.  520.  What  is  said 
of  Francke  is  noted  by  Harnack,  in  Revue  de  Theologie  et  Philos- 
ophic 30,  p.  264.  Francke's  scriptural  motto  was  II  Cor.  ix,  8 :  "Dieu 
peut  faire  que  possedant  en  toutes  choses  de  quoi  satisfaire  a  vos 
besoins,  vous  ayez  encore  en  abondance  pour  toute  bonne  cewvre." 
Our  English  version  is  not  so  clear  in  its  rendering.  Thomasiua 
also  had  his  motto:  Acts  xxiv,  13-14.  The  passages  from  Fichte 
ar  taken  from  Smith's  edition  of  his  Works  (i,  p.  188).  For  Renan 
and  Mazzini,  see  the  latter's  essay,  "  M.  Renan  and  France " ;  for 


PBOCEDINGS    FOB   1&13  CXV 

Amiel,  his  Journal  Intime,  pp.  xl,  178,  188  (Mrs.  Ward's  transla- 
tion, 1889). 

The  invasion  of  Germany  by  Young  America  in  1815  and  there- 
after has  heen  treated  by  Hinsdale,  in  Report  of  the  U.  8.  Com- 
missioner of  Education  for  1897-8,  Vol.  i,  also  by  Viereck  in  the 
same  Report  for  1900-1901,  p.  531  ff.,  and  by  E.  G.  Sihler,  in  three 
articles  in  the  Neue  Jahrbiicher,  1902.  None  of  these  writers  pre- 
tends to  exhaust  the  subject;  there  is  much  additional  material  in 
the  letters  of  Ticknor  (see  also  G.  T.  Northup,  "  Ticknor's  Travels 
in  Spain,"  University  of  Toronto  Studies,  Philological  Series,  No.  2, 
1913)  of  Everett  (see  also  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine,  for  Septem- 
ber, 1897)  of  Bancroft  and  others.  The  best  summary  is  that  of 
A.  B.  Faust  in  his  German  Element  in  the  United  States,  u,  p. 
202  ff.  For  the  condition  of  classical  instruction  in  America  in 
1815,  see  Sandys,  A  History  of  Classical  Scholarship,  in,  p.  453.  The 
anecdote  of  Lincoln  and  Schurz  is  quoted  in  The  Nation,  97,  p.  261. 

Dissen  became  Professor  Ordinarius  in  1817;  he  edited  Pindar, 
Tibullus,  and  Demosthenes,  but  seems  to  have  excelled  more  as  a 
teacher  and  interpreter.  "  Little  Dissen,"  wrote  Bancroft,  "  is  the 
most  learned  of  the  whole  [group  of  professors  of  ancient  litera- 
ture, but  he]  is  so  sickly  and  so  easily  disturbed  and  brought  low 
that  his  good  will  exceeds  his  powers  of  action." — The  foundation 
of  the  Abiel  Smith  chair  is  described  by  Quincy,  History  of  Harvard 
College  n,  p.  323.  Ticknor  was  unable  to  make  much  headway  against 
conservative  influences  in  Harvard;  he  finally  resigned  and  devoted 
14  years  to  his  Spanish  Literature.  Ba'rrett  Wendell,  in  his  Lite- 
rary History  of  America,  damns  the  work  with  faint  praise:  it  is 
"  heavily  respectable,"  and  "  not  interesting."  Similarly,  Adams's 
Catalogue  of  American  Authors  describes  Ticknor's  work  as  "  dull, 
but  accurate."  We  presume  the  same  shallow  comments  might  be 
made  on  many  another  epoch-making  tool,  forged  with  wide 
aims  and  infinite  toil.  Everett's  addresses  at  Amherst  and  Yale 
Colleges  are  representative  (Works,  Vol.  i).  Longfellow's  articles 
are  found  in  the  North  American  Review  April,  1831  and  Octo- 
ber, 1840.  Lowell's  words  are  quoted  in  our  own  Publications  25, 
p.  496.  For  Whitney  see  the  Report  of  that  session  of  the  first  Am- 
erican Congress  of  Philologists  which  ivas  devoted  to  the  Memory  of 
the  late  Professor  William  Dwight  Whitney,  of  Yale  University,  held 
at  Philadelphia,  Dec.  28,  1894.  Edited  by  Charles  R.  Lanman,  Boston, 
1897;  especially  pp.  56,  62,  71.  88.  For  Bryce's  tribute  to  Gilman, 
see  Johns. Hopkins  University  Circular  No.  211,  Dec.  1908,  p.  23  fl^— 
The  quotations  are  from  Gildersleeve's  Oscillations  and  Nutations 


CXV1  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

of  Philological  Studies  (J.  H.  U.  Circular  No.  151)  and  from  his 
Hellas  and  Hesperia,  1909,  pp.  45-6.  Anatole  France's  friend  Ray- 
mond figures  in  Le  Crime  de  Sylvestre  Bonnard,  where  this  quondam 
laxity  is  contrasted  with  the  supposed  pitilessness  of  M.  Paul 
Meyer  and  the  Romania.  "  Fishtails  in  motion  "  is  an  ancient  jibe 
from  the  days  of  la  jeune  France  (Wright's  History  of  French 
Literature,  p.  663 ) .  One  may  begin  to  read  of  the  alleged  "  Ger- 
manization  "  of  the  Sorbonne  in  P.  Lasserre,  La  Doctrine  officielle 
de  I'Universite,  3me  e"d.,  1913,  506  pp.  ('Parvum  in  multo) . — For 
Bunsen  and  Max  Miiller,  see  the  latter's  CUps  in,  p.  385.  For  Goethe 
and  Helmholtz,  see  the  latter's  lecture  "  Goethe's  Naturwissen- 
scliaftliche  Arbeiten "  (Populdre  wissenschaftliche  Vortrage,  1876). 
William  James's  doctrine  is  in  everybody's  mind:  this  sentence  is 
from  the  Talks  on  Psychology  and  Life's  Ideals,  p.  292. 


PROCEDINGS    FOE   1913  CXVU 


AN   ADDRESS   IN   COMMEMORATION   OF 

FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH,   1825-1911 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  JOINT  SESSION  OF  THE  AMERICAN 

PHILOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  AND  THE  MODERN 

LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION  OF  AMERICA, 

AT   CAMBRIDGE,    MASS.,   30 

DECEMBER,,  1913 

BY  PROFESSOR  JAMES  WILSON  BRIGHT 


In  the  history  of  philological  studies  in  America,  as  in 
the  history  of  other  departments  of  knowledge,  a  limited 
number  of  names  will  always  stand  out  prominently,  if  not 
as  heads  of  chapters,  at  least  as  marking  centers  of  influ- 
ence or  direction  of  tendencies.  The  name  of  Francis  An- 
drew March  is  one  of  these.  It  is,  therefore,  highly  ap- 
propriate, at  this  first  joint  convention,  since  his  death  two 
years  ago,1  of  the  American  Philological  Association  and 
the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  to  pay  a 
special  tribute  to  Professor  March,  in  commemoration  of 
his  long-sustained  and  distinguished  devotion  to  the  com- 
mon cause  promoted  by  these  organizations. 

He  was  born  October  25,  1825,  in  Millbury,  Mass.,  and 
three  years  later  the  family  removed  to  Worcester,  Mass., 
where  his  education  was  begun  in  a  manner  that  was 
gratefully  recalled  in  his  maturity.2  The  child  was 

1  Professor  March  died  September  9,  1911. 

'Use  has  been  made  of  the  "Biographical  Note"  by  his  son, 
Professor  Francis  Andrew  March,  Jr.,  which  is  published  in  Ad- 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

admitted  to  "  a  kind  of  kindergarten  in  the  family  of 
Dr.  L.  I.  Hoadley,  Sabbath-school  author,  then  preach- 
ing in  Worcester,  in  which  Miss  Collins,  with  ingenious 
contrivances  and  apparatus,  made  the  children  under- 
stand many  things  before  the  usual  time."  It  was  a 
good  preparation  for  the  public  schools  of  Worcester ; 
which  were  then  reputed  to  be  excellent,  and  the  lad  soon 
attained  the  rank  of  an  efficient  pupil,  of  a  clever  par- 
ticipant in  the  activities  of  the  literary  societies  of  the 
High  School,  and  also  of  "  a  leader  on  the  play- 
ground." He  became  a  ready  writer  in  "  prose  and 
verse,  took  part  in  the  acting  of  plays,  in  searching  for 
good  old  plays  to  act,  and  making  new  ones."  The  library 
of  the  school  and  especially  the  library  of  the  American 
Antiquarian  Society  stimulated  in  him  an  eagerness  to 
read  incontinently  on  a  wide  range  of  subjects.  In  due 
time  he  was  prepared  for  college,  but  his  father  had  mean- 
while experienced  disaster  in  business.3  This  dishearten- 
ing condition  was,  however,  mitigated  by  the  Hon.  Alfred 
D.  Foster,  of  Worcester,  a  trustee  of  Amherst,  who  offered 
him  "  a  provision  of  $200  a  year  for  a  college  course  at 
Amherst." 

Young  March   entered    college   at   the   age   of   fifteen 

dresses  delivered  at  a  celebration  in  honor  of  Professor  Francis  A. 
March,  LL.D.,  L.H.D.,  at  Lafayette  College,  October  25,  1895. 
Easton,  Pa.,  Lafayette  Press,  1895.  The  reader  may  also  be  referred 
to  a  pamphlet  prepared  by  Richard  N.  Hart,  entitled  Francis 
Andrew  March:  a  Sketch.  Easton,  Pa.,  1907. 

8  His  father,  Andrew,  removing  to  Worcester  had  "  entered  upon 
various  business  projects,  particularly  the  manufacture  of  fine 
cutlery,  one  of  the  first  enterprises  of  this  character  in  this  country, 
and  for  which  it  was  necessary  to  import  English  workmen."  But 
now  his  partner  in  the  cutlery  business  had  defrauded  him,  and  by 
fire  he  had  sustained  further  loss,  finally  even  that  of  his  own 
••esidence. 


PEOCEDINGS   FOE   1913 


(1841),  and  in  competition  with  clever  and,  for  the  most 
part,  older  class-mates  4  won  and  maintained  prominence  in 
scholarship  and  in  the  exercises  of  the  speaker's  platform 
and  the  exhibition  stage.  At  graduation  he  was  appointed 
valedictorian  of  his  class,  and  it  is  not  without  special 
significance  in  his  case  to  add  that  he  had  continued  to 
be  a  leader  in  athletics. 

At  this  point  in  the  story  one  may  begin  to  observe  the 
proclivities  of  the  young  man's  mind.  A  strong  inclina- 
tion to  philosophic  speculation  is  indicated  in  the  subject 
of  his  '  Junior  Oration/  "  Greatest-Happiness  Philoso- 
phy," and  in  that  of  his  commencement  discourse,  "  God 
in  Silence." 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  that  his  liking  for  the 
study  of  languages  was  definitely  directed  to  the  scientific 
study  of  English  mnder  the  instruction,  during  the  first 
two  years  of  his  college  course,  of  Professor  William 
Chauncey  Fowler.  It  was  in  the  year  1843  that  Professor 
Fowler  retired  from  the  college  (continuing  his  residence 
in  Amherst,  however,  to  the  year  1858)  to  gain  time  for 
his  linguistic  studies,  which  culminated  in  his  well-known 
book,  English  Grammar:  The  English  Language  in  its 
Elements  and  Forms,  1850  (second  .edition,  revised  and 
enlarged,  1855). 

The  relation,  at  this  time,  of  young  March  to  his  teach- 
er may  be  inferred  from  a  later  acknowledgment  of  his 
assistance  in  the  preparation  of  the  school  edition  of  this 
grammar  (1858),  which  was  afterward  enlarged  to  em- 
brace, as  an  appendix,  March's  Method  of  Philological 

*  Some  of  these  are  enumerated  in  the  "  Biographical  Note  "  :  Hon. 
Henry  Stockbridge,  of  Baltimore;  Professor  Marshall  Henshaw  of 
Rutgers;  J.  R.  Bingham,  Esq.,  of  Milwaukee;  and  "preachers  better 
known  in  India  and  Zululand  and  through  the  wilds  of  the  west  — 
Noyes,  Tyler,  Packard,  Woodworth." 


CXX  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Study  of  the  English  Language  J*  The  inference  is  clear 
that  Professor  Fowler,  as  teacher  and  author,  and  Noah 
Webster  (Professor  Fowler's  father-in-law),  thru  his 
writings,  together  exercised  a  dominant  influence  on 
March's  mind  at  this  early  period.  Both  masters  were 
philosophic  and  historic  grammarians.  They  were  also 
k  practical '  in  their  aims  (as  is  made  clear,  for  example, 
in  the  title  of  one  of  Webster's  books,  A  Philosophic  and 
Practical  Grammar  of  the  English  Language,  1807),  and 
these  descriptives  are  applicable  to  their  follower.  More- 
over, it  may  be  said  that  however  self-reliant  and  cre- 
ative in  his  work,  Professor  March  always  maintained 
in  his  linguistic  philosophy  something  of  the  characteris- 
tics of  a  disciple  of  these  two  masters. 

From  the  close  of  his  career  at  college  to  his  call  to 
Lafayette  is  a  period  of  educational  experiments  and  of 
physical  discouragement.  He  began  by  teaching  for  a  short 
term  at  Swanzey,  ]ST.  H.,  then  for  two  years  in  the  Leices- 
ter Academy,  where  he  "  made  trial  of  the  plan  of  teach- 
ing English  classics  like  the  Greek  and  Latin."  He  was 
next  a  tutor  at  Amherst  from  1847  to  1849.  Here,  it 
might  be  supposed,  was  an  opportunity  to  secure  anchor- 
age in  English  scholarship,  but  his  active  and  perhaps 
wavering  mind  took  another  turn,  as  is  shown  by  the  title 
of  his  '  Master's  Oration,'  delivered  in  1848,  "  The  Eela- 
tion  of  the  Study  of  Jurisprudence  to  the  Origin  and 
Progress  of  the  Baconian  Philosophy."  6  This  inclination 

6  It  is  to  be  noticed  also  that  in  March's  Method  there  is  the 
acknowledgment  that  "  the  name  and  form  of  this  book  are  taken 
from  the  Method  of  Classical  Study,  by  Dr.  [Samuel  Harvey] 
Taylor,  of  Andover  [1861]." 

e  It  is  interesting  to  repeat  the  report  that  this  oration  was  much 
praised,  and  that  it  was  heard  and  approved  by  Rufus  Choate.  It 
was  published  in  the  New  Englander  for  October  of  that  year,  aiid 
is  the  first  number  on  the  list  of  Professor  March's  publications. 


PROCEDINGS    FOR    1913  CXXl 

to  the  study  of  law  was,  however,  soon  converted  into  a 
fixed  purpose.  During  his  vacations  he  studied  in  the 
office  of  F.  H.  Dewey,  Esq.,  of  Worcester,  and  in  the  year 
1849  entered  as  a  student  the  office  of  Barney  and  Butler, 
in  ISFew  York  city.  In  the  following  year  (1850)  he  be- 
gan the  practice  of  the  profession,  in  partnership  with 
Gordon  L.  Ford,  Esq. ;  but  after  two  years  the  former 
i  leader  on  the  playground '  was  warned  by  a  hemorrhage 
of  the  lungs,  and  was  hurried  to  Cuba  for  restoration  of 
his  health.  The  effect  of  the  climate  of  Cuba  and  Key 
West  gave  encouragement  to  resume  his  professional  work 
the  next  year ;  but  the  ominous  warning  was  repeated,  and 
"  he  gave  up  finally  all  hope  of  a  legal  career,  and  even  of 
life."  In  this  depression  of  spirit  he  was  persuaded  to  try 
the  milder  climate  of  Virginia,  and  thru  the  mediation  of 
the  Rev.  Lyman  Coleman,  of  Philadelphia  (who  after- 
ward was  for  many  years  one  of  his  colleagues  at  Lafay- 
ette), he  secured  a  teacher's  place  "  in  a  private  academy 
at  Fredericksburg."  His  residence  there  of  three  years 
proved  to  be  an  important  link  in  the  chain  of  his  destiny 
both  domestic  and  professional.  Among  his  pupils  in  the 
academy  was  Miss  Margaret  Mildred  Stone  Conway  (a 
sister  of  Moncure  D.  Conway),  who,  in  the  year  1860, 
came  to  Easton  as  Mrs.  March;  and  the  head  of  the 
school  was  Dr.  George  Wilson  McPhail,  who  brought  him 
to  the  notice  of  the  authorities  of  Lafayette.  Dr.  McPhail 
had  gone  to  Easton  to  become  pastor  of  the  Brainard 
Presbyterian  Church,  and  was  in  consultation  with  the 
faculty  of  Lafayette  when  the  college  required  a  teacher 
in  Philosophy  and  English,  and  upon  his  recommenda- 
tion the  position  of  a  tutor  in  these  subjects  was  offered  to 
the  young  teacher  in  Fredericksburg.7  The  offer  was 

'Tradition   has   preserved   the   words   in   which   Dr.   McPhail   ex- 
pressed his  enthusiastic  judgment:    "I  know  a  young  man  who  is 


CXX11  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

accepted.  This  was  in  the  year  1855,  when  March  was 
thirty  years  of  age.  Here  the  story  of  his  experimenta- 
tions and  wanderings  comes  to  an  end.  Fifty-six  years 
were  added  to  his  life,  and  these  were  spent  in  loyal  devo- 
tion to  Lafayette  College.8 

Loyalty  to  Lafayette  College  dominated  his  life.  But 
this  sentiment  must  be  interpreted  in  that  profounder 
sense  which  can  be  verified  only  in  uncommon  instances. 
A  faithful  adherence  to  a  college  thru  years  of  financial 
disabilities,  and  a  steadfast  hope  and  cheerful  self-denial 
thru  a  long  period  of  development  from  inconvenient  com- 
promise with  the  demands  of  the  function  assumed  by  a 
college  to  the  honorable  state  of  satisfying  those  demands, 
these  are  true  virtues,  and  they  are  placed  conspicuously 
to  the  credit  of  Professor  March.  But  the  practice  of 
these  and  allied  virtues  is  fortunately  not  so  uncommon 
as  in  itself  to  evoke  altogether  exceptional  praise.  The 
degree  of  merited  praise  is  to  be  read  on  the  graduated 
scale  of  character  and  personality.  Applying  this  rule, 
Professor  March's  loyal  devotion  to  the  growth  and  wel- 
fare of  his  adopted  institution  rises  to  the  highest  point 
of  academic  virtue. 

He  was  not  provincial  or  self-deceived  at  any  stage  of 
his  progress  to  wide  recognition  as  a  scholar.  For  some 
years  he  assumed  an  inordinate  share  of  the  work  de- 
manded of  a  small  and  more  or  less  undifFerentiated 
group  of  teachers.  He  shared  in  the  teaching  of  Latin 
and  Greek  as  well  as  in  that  of  French  and  German,  and 

just  the  one  you  want.  ...  He  knows  more  than  all  of  us.  It  is 
Mr.  March  of  Fredericksburg."  Dr.  McPhail  was  President  of 
Lafayette  College  from  1857  to  1863. 

8  Professor  March  retired  from  active  service  in  the  year  1906, 
but  as  Professor  Emeritus  he  continued  to  the  end  to  be  influential 
and  revered  in  the  councils  of  the  college. 


PROCEDINGS  FOE  1913  cxxiii 

for  a  considerable  number  of  years  he  conducted  even  the 
classes  in  Botany.  There  was,  however,  no  perfunctory 
manner  in  all  this,  but  a  deep  purpose  to  do  everything  aa 
well  as  possible  under  the  conditions,  and  a  prophetic  hope 
that  gave  a  vision  of  a  better  future.  This  comment  is  not 
merely  logically  warranted  by  inferences  from  his  charac- 
ter. It  is  a  statement  of  fact,  plainly  made  unavoidable 
by  the  records  of  the  college,  which  abound  in  acknowledg- 
ments of  Professor  March's  unequalled  share  of  the  fore- 
sight and  wisdom  by  which  Lafayette  was  brought  to  its 
best  estate. 

To  complete  the  outlines  of  diversified  occupation  as 
a  teacher,  it  must  be  added  that  Professor  March  also 
taught  Blackstone  for  many  years;  was  " Lecturer  on 
Constitutional  and  Public  Law  and  the  Koman  Law" 
from  1875  to  1877;  until  near  the  close  of  his  career, 
taught  Political  Economy,  together  with  a  critical  exami- 
nation of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  (after 
1863)  speculative  philosophy,  under  the  designation  of 
Mental  Philosophy.9  All  this  while  he  bore  the  title 
(newly  devised  for  him  and  bestowed  in  the  year  1857) 

9  His  study  of  the  national  Constitution  led  him  to  prepare  "  a 
scheme  of  amendments  .  .  .  intended  to  bring  about  a  peaceful 
settlement  of  the  difficulties  between  the  North  and  South,  which 
he  advocated  by  letters  to  the  New  York  Times  and  World  [1860- 
1861].  These  amendments  attracted  much  attention,  and  were  in- 
troduced in  Congress,  in  the  Virginia  legislature  and  elsewhere." — 
"  Biographical  Note,"  p.  18. 

At  this  time  he  also  made  an  important  contribution  to  philo- 
sophic thought  in  two  articles  on  Sir  William  Hamilton's  "Theory 
of  Perception,"  and  "  Philosophy  of  the  Conditioned,"  published  in 
The  Biblical  Repertory  and  'Princeton  Review,  April  and  July,  1860. 
The  second  article  was  reprinted  in  The  British  and  Foreign  Evan- 
gelical Review,  Edinburgh,  Jan.,  1861.  These  articles  brought  hid 
into  friendly  relations  with  Dr.  James  McCosh  (then  still  in  Ire- 
land) and  Victor  Cousin. — "Biographical  Note,"  p.  17. 


CXX1V  MODERN"    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

and  performed  the  duties  of  "Professor  of  the  English 
Language  and  Comparative  Philology." 

A  teacher  thus  occupied  might  well  be  excused  for  sub- 
mitting to  a  restriction  of  the  sphere  of  his  diligence  by 
the  immediate  demands  of  the  college.  But  Professor 
March  connected  himself  actively  with  the  organized 
agencies  for  promoting  scholarship  in  philology,  both  in 
America  and  in  England,  and  became  a  close  student  of 
the  work  of  the  great  scholars  in  Germany.  Altho  always 
fettered  by  the  necessity  of  guarding  against  exertions 
that  might  disturb  the  uncertain  poise  of  his  health,  he 
was  notably  regular  in  his  attendance  at  the  meetings  of 
the  philological  societies,  was  a  frequent  contributor  to 
the  proceedings,  served  on  important  committees,  and 
performed  in  turn  the  duties  of  the  presiding  officer. 
Add  to  this  his  contributions  to  periodical  publications, 
his  work  as  an  author  of  books,  and  his  participation  in 
general  educational  matters  of  various  character,  and  the 
resultant  sum  is  a  large  one  to  be  placed  to  the  credit  of 
a  busy  teacher  in  a  college. 

It  is  surely  deserving  of  special  consideration  in  this 
sketch  that  Professor  March  was  content  to  remain  a  col- 
lege teacher.  The  statement  must,  however,  be  strength- 
ened and  made  more  specific  by  saying  that  he  was  un- 
alterably fixed  in  his  wish  to  remain  a  teacher  in  Lafay- 
ette College.  In  proof  of  his  loyalty  to  this  college,  he 
steadfastly  refused  invitations  to  larger  institutions.  It 
must  be  clear  that  we  are  now  reflecting  on  the  most  im- 
portant aspect  of  his  view  of  the  academic  life.  An 
institution  that  had  fostered  him  in  his  growth  might 
urge  a  right  to  his  maturity;  and  he  was  not  lacking  in 
the  sentiment  of  pietdt.  But  he  was  governed  by  a  more 
profound  theory  of  what  a  scholar  should  do  for  his  insti- 
tution. The  principal  features  of  this  theory  he  has  made 


PEOCEDINGS    FOR    1913  CXXV 

plainly  deducible.  Eminence  in  scholarship,  he  would 
have  us  believe,  does  not  unfit  a  man  for  work  in  a  college ; 
it  makes  him  all  the  more  effective  in  the  class-room. 
Rightly  to  teach  the  elements  of  knowledge  requires  ripe- 
ness in  knowledge,  philosophic  breadth  of  view,  insight 
into  the  laws  of  the  mind,  sound  judgment,  and  much 
wisdom.  He  might  be  supposed  to  say,  if  a  college  stands 
for  the  things  of  the  mind,  does  it  not  stand  also  for  the 
higher  and  the  highest  things  of  the  mind? — and  thus 
to  drive  home  the  reflection  that  there  should  be  no  false 
notions  concerning  the  relative  satisfactions  offered  at 
intermediate  halting-places  on  the  journey  to  completes! 
attainments, — no  false  notions  in  the  policy  of  an  edu- 
cational institution  or  in  the  mind  of  either  teacher  or 
learner.  In  short,  a  college  must  be  kept  in  touch  with 
the  foremost  thought  of  the  day,  and  it  must  contribute 
to  the  growth  of  knowledge.  A  college  in  which  the  in- 
fluence of  these  conceptions  is  felt  as  a  stimulating  force, 
that  college  will  be  sure  to  do  in  the  right  manner  its 
more  immediate  work  of  instructing  the  youthful  mind. 
2sTor  did  the  new  '  university-  idea '  and  the  establishment 
of  schools  of  research  change  Professor  March's  judgment 
respecting  the  office  of  the  college.  The  plain  infer- 
ence is  that  the  college  has  all  the  more  important  work 
to  do  as  knowledge  increases,  and  as  the  fetters  of  tra- 
dition are  reverently  and  with  candor  broken  in  obedi- 
ence to  newer  revelations  of  truth.  Nor  must  the  most 
effective  college  necessarily  be  a  large  one ;  it  may  indeed 
be.  a  very  small  one.  Its  character  is  determined  by  the 
superior  tests  of  corporate  attitude  to  truth,  the  personal 
and  scholastic  quality  of  its  teachers,  and  of  its  wider  rela- 
tions to  the  educational  world.  9 
Few  colleges  can  rival  Lafayette  in  having  had  such 
a  nobly  conceived  theory  of  the  character  and  function  of 


CXXV1  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

the  college  represented  by  so  richly  endowed  a  man,  and 
by  him  made  so  effective  in  the  general  policy  of  the  in- 
stitution, in  its  various  departments  of  instruction,  and 
especially  in  his  own  work  in  the  class-room  and  in  his 
winning  and  maintaining  a  position  in  the  guild  of  the 
leading  scholars  of  his  time.  And  Lafayette  College  has 
earned  the  warmest  approval  of  the  educational  world  in 
due  and  amply  expressed  appreciation,  at  all  times,  of 
Professor  March's  character,  influence,  and  work.  Some- 
thing has  previously  been  said  on  this  point,  but  the 
significant  detail  may  be  added  here,  that  at  his  seventieth 
birth-day  the  annual  exercises  of  '  Founders  Day '  were 
officially  converted  into  a  celebration  in  honor  of  Professor 
March  as  one  of  the  principal  founders  of  the  college. 

Professor  March  was  a  truly  great  teacher.  On  this 
subject  one  could  hardly  hope  to  say  anything  that  would 
not  promptly  be  declared  by  all  the  surviving  members 
of  his  classes  to  fall  short  of  the  full  truth.  He  was  that 
one  teacher  who,  above  all  others,  left  the  most  significant 
group  of  ineffaceable  impressions  on  the  mind,  those  im- 
pressions that  thruout  life  serve  as  rallying-points  of  theo- 
retic thought  or  as  germinal  centers  of  purposeful  action. 
His  methods  were  simple — unrelentingly  simple^-but  how 
they  enabled  him  to  pull  at  the  unsuspected  strings  of 
one's  mental  operations,  to  get  at  the  very  inmost  recesses 
of  one's  mind!  At  every  recitation  might  be  learned 
some  new  discriminations  in  thought;  clearer  notions  of 
authority  in  the  ascertainment  of  truth  and  of  the  rela- 
tive values  of  tradition  are  definitely  associated  with 
the  exercises  in  that  class-room;  and  it  was  there,  more 
than  elsewhere  in  the  college,  that  one  was  corrected  in 
self-judgments  and  encouraged  in  good  efforts.  His 
methods  were  simple  and  his  manner  most  gentle,  but  his 
searching  questions  were  so  adroitly  levelled  at  the  specific 


PEOCEDINGS    FOB    1913  CXXVU 

point  as  to  impress  the  immature  mind  with  a  sense  akin 
to  severity.  Many  a  student  stood  before  him  in  bewilder- 
ment at  the  '  cruel  kindness '  (the  student's  favorite  illus- 
tration of  oxymoron)  of  this  master-questioner  of  the 
dodging  and  evasive  mind  of  youth.  The  student's  con- 
fusion was,  of  course,  not  the  effect  sought,  for  he  was 
duly  rescued  (if  there  was  something  pertinent  in  him  to 
take  hold  of,  otherwise  he  was  temporarily  abandoned 
to  his  own  reflections)  and  by  a  gradual  dispersion  of 
difficulties  brought  to  a  clear  perception  of  the  matter  in 
hand. 

In  Professor  March's  severely  gentle  manner  there  was 
also  a  touch  of  suppressed  playfulness.  His  eyes  will  be 
remembered  for  a  twinkle  that  betokened  a  delight  in 
subtleties  of  thought,  in  the  intricacies  of  a  problem.  Just 
as  memorable  was  that  look  of  human  kindness  that  as- 
sured one  of  benevolent  concern  for  every  good  thing 
pertaining  to  mind  and  character. 

He  was  so  dominated  by  philosophic  reflections  and 
comprehensive  human  sympathy  that,  in  his  instruction 
in  whatever  subject  and  with  whatever  relentless  insist- 
ence on  details,  he  always  aimed  to  impart  a  sense  of  the 
relation  of  one  subject  to  another,  and  of  a  unity,  a  philo- 
sophic whole,  of  all  the  knowledges.  There  could,  there- 
fore, be  no  tolerance  in  his  mind  for  the  follies  of  pe- 
dantry, or  for  pride  in  the  display  of  wit.  He  had,  more- 
over, in  large  measure  the  saving  sense  of  humor,  which 
made  him  alert  in  genial  observation,  and  apt  in  varying 
his  illustrations  for  the  enforcement  of  a  truth.  In  a 
summary  fashion  one  can  only  say  that  it  was  all  instruc- 
tive, inspiring,  and  unforgetable. 

During  a  long  period  of  years  Professor  March  htd 
under  his  supervision  a  succession  of  students  in  graduate 
work.  One  and  another  Bachelor  of  Arts  lingered  in  the 


CXXV111  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

college  after  his  graduation  to  study  English  under  the 
continual  guidance  of  him  who  had  awakened  a  special 
interest  in  the  subject.  This  is  not  a  negligible  fact  in  an 
account  of  the  teacher's  work  and  influence. 

As  is  well  known,  Professor  March  gave  precision  and 
depth  to  the  methods  of  language-study  that  were  in  use 
in  his  earlier  years.  He  informed  the  method  with  the 
spirit  of  an  unwavering  confidence  in  rigid  discipline  in 
minute  details.  As  professor  of  '  The  English  Language 
and  Comparative  Philology'  he  set  the  method  forth  in 
several  elementary  text-books ;  and  as  chief  director  of  all 
the  language-work  in  the  college  he  required  conformity 
to  it  in  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin,  Erench  and  Ger- 
man. As  expounded  and  illustrated  by  him,  it  is  the 
method  of  a  keenly  analytic  mind  and  of  an  unquestioned 
master  in  linguistic  science;  and  it  was  fruitful  of  good 
results  in  the  master's  hand;  but  in  the  hands  of  weaker 
men  it  must  have  contributed  something  to  that  practice 
in  the  schools  which  in  time  evoked  an  ignorant  repudia- 
tion of  '  philology/  as  it  was  called,  of  which  there  is  still 
to  be  heard  an  occasional  but  faint  echo.  No  progress  in 
the  science  of  philology  and  no  changes  in  methods  of 
instruction,  however,  can  obliterate  the  merit  of  the  gram- 
matical acumen  and  of  the  philosophic  control  of  princi- 
ples exhibited  in  Professor  March's  manuals.  Every  de- 
tail, even  of  very  familiar  facts,  is  carried  along  in  a 
current  of  profound  thought. 

Professor  March's  fame  rests  chiefly  on  that  extraordi- 
nary book  into  which  one  can  never  look  without  amaze- 
ment. It  is  one  of  the  most  notable  monuments  of  indus- 
try bestowed  on  the  study  of  the  earliest  state  of  our 
language.  The  title-page  must  have  startled  the  schools 
of  that  day.  Something  had  been  heard,  and  occasionally 
something  had  been  learned,  of  Anglo-Saxon,  but  who 


PROCEDINGS    FOR    1913 


CXX1X 


could  find  out  the  secrets  of  such  a  wide  relationship 
with  other  languages?  But  there  was  the  declaration: 
"A  Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Language ; 
in  which  its  forms  are  illustrated  by  those  of  the  Sans- 
krit, Greek,  Latin,  Gothic,  Old  Saxon,  Old  Friesic,  Old 
Norse,  and  Old  High  German."  The  preface  is  dated 
October  25,  1869,  and  the  book  was  published  in  the  fol- 
lowing year.  This  book  revealed  the  author's  full  stature 
as  a  commanding  figure  in  the  world  of  philological  scho- 
larship. Foreign  scholars  greeted  him  with  bountiful 
praise,  and  placed  his  name  on  the  list  of  their  most 
eminent  colleagues.  Twenty-six  years  later  (in  the  sum- 
mer of  1896),  Professor  March  crossed  the  ocean,  for  the 
first  and  only  time  in  his  life,  to  receive  the  final  proofs 
of  his  uninterrupted  reputation  abroad.  The  University 
of  Oxford  bestowed  on  him  the  degree  of  D.C.L.,  and  the 
University  of  Cambridge  that  of  Litt.D. 

To-day  the  Grammar  would  have  to  be  tried  by  the  same 
tests,  and  by  no  others,  that  were  applied  to  it  in  the 
year  1870;  for  obviously  the  purpose,  the  plan,  and  the 
execution  of  the  work  can  be  judged  only  with  reference 
to  the  time  of  the  author,  and  not  with  reference  to  the 
present  and  changed  conditions  of  the  science. 

To  touch  briefly  on  the  critical  tests,  no  ordinary  cour- 
age was  required  to  form  the  resolution  to  prepare  a 
treatise  on  Anglo-Saxon  in  accordance  with  the  pertinent 
resrlts  of  Indo-European  philology.  There  was  no  pattern 
to  follow;  and  to  train  oneself  to  handle  such  diverse 
materials  was  a  stupendous  task, — just  the  opportunity 
for  the  exceptional  man  to  do  that  which  he  alone  could 
do.  The  universal  and  final  decision  declares  that  the 
Grammar  '  marked  an  epoch/ — conclusive  proof  that  tMe 
exceptional  man  was  at  hand,  and  that  all  possible  ques- 
tioning of  the  purpose,  the  plan,  and  the  execution  of  the 


CXXX  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION  < 

work  is  closed,  unless  it  be  for  exceptional  lessons  in 
wisdom  and  in  industry,  and  for  tracing  the  operations 
of  a  mind  strongly  original  in  thought  and  ingenious  in 
method  and  devices  for  clear  and  coherent  instruction  in 
abstruse  and  complicated  subjects. 

How  many  years  elapsed  between  the  beginning  of  the 
work  and  its  completion  with  the  simultaneous  publication 
of  the  Reader  is  not  recorded.  The  outward  limits  of 
time,  if  reckoned  from  the  author's  first  year  at  Lafayette, 
would  be  fifteen  years.  From  this  sum  must  be  deducted 
at  least  five  years,  and  there  are  indications  that  still 
more  must  be  taken  off.  Something  less  than  a  decade 
is  not  an  excess  of  time  for  the  performance  of  such  an 
undertaking  by  a  college  teacher  daily  occupied  in  the 
class-room. 

The  Grammar  was  to  be  comprehensive,  and  as  ac- 
curate in  all  its  parts  as  it  could  then  be  made.  There 
was  to  be  no  evasion  of  difficulties  in  collecting  the  nec- 
essary apparatus;  no  faltering  in  the  self -instruction  that 
would  fit  him  to  make  a  trustworthy  use  of  facts  and 
principles  that  had  to  be  observed  in  a  diversity  of  lan- 
guages. All  the  published  Anglo-Saxon  texts  were,  there- 
fore, brought  together  and  carefully  read ;  the  grammars, 
the  lexicons,  and  the  special  treatises  were  sifted.  As 
he  was  wont  to  enjoin  upon  others,  he  spent  days  and 
nights  with  Grein;  also  with  Grimm  and  Bopp,  Curtius 
and  Pott.  He  numbered  among  his  "  constant  compan- 
ions "  Maetzner,  Koch,  and  Heyne ;  Schleicher,  Kumpelt, 
and  Holtzmann  were  at  hand  "  for  phonology  and  ety- 
mology," and  Becker  for  syntax.  This  enumeration  is 
in  accord  with  what  Professor  March  selected  for  special 
mention  in  his  too  brief  preface.  It  embraces  merely  the 
summits  of  his  "  authorities,"  which  may  be  taken  to 


PROCEDINGS    FOE    1913 


CXXX1 


symbolize  the  full  equipment  of  his  workshop  reported  in 
subjoined  lists  of  "  texts  cited  "  and  "  helps  "  used. 

The  scientific  grammarian  will  always  be  well  rewarded 
for  any  attention  he  may  bestow  on  this  chef-d'oeuvre. 
The  unrestrained  promise  of  the  title-page  is  fulfilled  in 
a  surprisingly  complete  manner.  The  collection  of  facts 
from  the  extensive  domain  laid  under  contribution  has 
not  converted  the  author  into  a  statistician;  there  is  no 
suspicion  of  the  mere  collector  of  '  instances/  The  author 
is  an  erudite  investigator,  seeking  to  restate  accepted 
knowledge  in  conformity  with  increments  of  indepen- 
dently observed  phenomena.  Governing  principles  and 
underlying  rules  are  elicited  with  sound  reasoning  and 
keen  insight.  Noteworthy  in  the  manner  of  handling  his 
thousands  of  interrelated  details  is  the  free,  one  may  say 
the  almost  excessive,  use  of  technical  terminology,  and  the 
accompanying  feature,  thus  made  possible,  of  the  com- 
plexity of  cross-references.  All  the  technical  terms  of  the 
science  are  admitted  on  the  condition  of  clear  and  illus- 
trative definition  and  of  constant  and  consistent  applica- 
tion. He  thus  gains  an  indispensable  help  in  that  com- 
pression of  statement  without  loss  of  clearness  in  which 
he  is  unsurpassed ;  it  is  a  help  that  enables  him  always  to 
hang  facts  on  principles,  and  to  mark  out  the  pursuit  of 
principles  into  various  directions  for  fulness  of  import. ld 

"Professor  March  expressed  his  view  on  the  usefulness  of  tech- 
nical terms  in  words  that  may  be  cited  also  to  illustrate  the  playful 
range  of  his  illustrations :  "  Now  and  then  he  would  have  been 
clearer  even  to  general  readers  if  he  had  used  precise  technical 
terms  instead  of  indefinite  popular  expressions.  .  .  .  Scientific  treat- 
ment which  abjures  technicalities  cannot  be  very  exact.  .  .  .  The 
stupidest  land-lubber  gets  more  from  the  sailor's  technical  slang 
than  from  any  explanatory  circumlocutions  for  it."  Review  of 
Morris's  Historical  Outlines  of  English  Accidence,  in  The  Nation, 
September  5,  1872,  p.  154. 


CXXX11  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

The  book  is  a  noteworthy  contribution  to  grammatical 
science  and  method.  The  spirit  in  which  it  was  con- 
structed is  unmistakable.  The  whole  is  held  together  and 
permeated  by  the  dignity  and  earnestness  of  philosophic 
thought,  and  begets  the  conviction  that  one  is  being  taught 
to  deal  with  a  great  subject  in  that  comprehensive  de- 
partment of  knowledge,  philology,  which  gives  report  of 
transcendent  laws  and  achievements  of  the  human  mind. 
Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  laid  on  the  point  that 
to  understand  his  character,  his  works,  and  the  enduring 
elements  of  his  fame  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  Pro- 
fessor March  was  completely  controlled  by  the  noblest 
philosophic  conception  of  the  science  of  grammar.  This 
conception  was  the  spring  of  his  sustained  enthusiasm, 
the  central  dogma  of  his  most  assured  faith,  and  came  to 
expression  on  all  possible  occasions.  An  illustration  may 
be  observed  in  a  few  sentences  from  his  Presidential  Ad- 
dress before  the  American  Philological  Association  in  the 
year  1874:  1X  "  .  .  .  these  facts  and  laws  of  language  are 
seen  to  be  facts  and  laws  of  mind  and  of  the  history  of 
man.  .  .  .  The  ignorant  man's  cosmos  is  little  like  the 
real  one,  and  the  scientific  study  of  the  real  one  by  the 
aid  of  language  brings  out  the  truth  in  the  clearest  light. 
Such  studies  as  these  are  the  honor  of  the  race,  and  enlarge 
the  vision  and  wisdom  of  man,  and  they  dilate  the  ima- 
gination more  than  all  other  uses  of  his  powers.  .  .  . 
Mind  is  the  highest  object  we  know.  Discoveries  about  it 
are  the  most  important  and  most  fascinating  discoveries. 
In  truth,  space  fascinates  us  because  it  is  the  sensorium 
of  the  universal  reason;  time,  because  it  is  the  movement 
of  the  universal  rational  energy.  There  is  nothing  great 
in  the  world  but  mind." 

11  The  Presbyterian   Quarterly   and  Princeton   Review,   N.    S.    in 
(1874),  713. 


PKOCEDINGS    FOR   1913 

Professor  March's  commanding  personality,  his  wide 
reputation  for  scholarship,  the  increased  use  of  his  books, 
and  his  cooperation  in  a  diversity  of  educational  activities 
placed  him  conspicuously  in  the  position  of  a  national 
leader  in  all  that  pertained  to  the  thoro  study  of  English. 
Anglo-Saxon  came  to  be  studied  more  and  more  in  the 
schools  and  colleges,  despite  the  fact  that  as  late  as  the 
year  1883  the  President  of  one  of  the  largest  colleges 
banished  the  subject  to  the  limbo  of  merited  neglect,  or  of 
something  worse.12  America  was  thus  preparing  to  re- 
act favorably  to  the  new  movement  in  Modern  Philology, 
which  was  inaugurated,  as  it  is  usually  held,  about  the 
year  1876,  and  to  make  the  progress  that  is  now  repre- 
sented by  The  Modern  Language  Association  of  America. 

The  progress  made  in  philology  since  the  publication 
of  the  Grammar  might  suggest  an  interest  in  checking  its 
pages  off  against  modern  doctrine.  Undoubtedly  that  would 
be  an  instructive  exercise;  but  it  is  more  appropriate 
to  this  occasion  to  be  reminded  of  what  the  author  himself 
did  in  this  matter,  by  his  continued  participation  in  the 
progressive  work  of  his  colleagues  in  the  science.  He 
continued  to  the  last  to  observe  with  minute  interest,  and 
with  frequent  comment  or  original  suggestion  to  promote, 
the  discussion  of  new  theories  concerning  old  facts.  He 
discussed  subtle  aspects  of  such  questions  as  the  shifting 
of  consonants,  ablaut,  the  inviolability  of  phonetic  law, 
and  quantity  in  English  verse ;  expounded  a  group  of  phe- 

*  He  laments  that  "  some  professors  of  Greek  should  be  foremost 
in  desiring  to  reduce  the  study  of  Greek  to  an  elective  branch  and 
to  treat  it  as  a  select  and  rare  form  of  intellectual  culture,  like 
Quaternions  or  Anglo-Saxon  or  Icelandic."  The  Princeton  Review 
for  September,  1883,  p.  127.  This  reference  is  also  applicable  4o 
Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  xvm, 
p.  xlv. 


CXXX1V  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

nomena  that  must  now  be  designated  by  his  own  term, 
*  dissimilated  germination ? ;  and  by  a  subtle  examina- 
tion of  "  time  and  space  in  word  concepts  "  arrived  at  a 
psychological  explanation  of  compensatory  lengthening. 
At  one  time  he  called  himself  a  junggrammatiker  'of  a 
primeval  period/  to  secure  a  genial  effect  for  a  search- 
ing question  on  the  order  of  the  elements  in  the  tri-literal 
form  of  roots;  at  another  time  he  was  even  in  advance 
of  the  neo-grammarians,  postulating  problems  that  he 
assigned  to  the  coming  '  newer-grammarians.'  Perhaps 
such  an  era  has  now  come  to  pass,  with  its  theory  of 
nebenton  and  gegenton  and  other  glottogonic  problems, 
in  which  he  would  have  taken  deep  interest.  He  reviewed 
books  and  special  articles,  wrote  summary  reports  of  what 
was  most  important  in  the  current  work  of  scholars,  con- 
tributed original  articles  to  American  and  foreign  peri- 
odicals, and  delivered  addresses.  All  this  activity  cannot 
be  analyzed  at  this  time.  In  a  published  u  Biblio- 
graphy"13 everything  to  the  year  1895  is  enumerated 
in  chronological  order. 

There  was,  however,  coherent  and  centralized  occupa- 
tion, which  also  must  now  be  dismissed  by  mere  enumera- 
tion. Professor  March  was  willing  to  revise  an  old  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  i  Christian  writers/  and  to  urge  the 
colleges  to  admit,  as  a  parallel  to  the  usual  course  in  the 
'classics/  an  optional  course  in  patristic  Latin  and 
Greek.14  An  opportunity  to  supply  the  texts  necessary 
for  experimentation  was  given  in  the  endowment  of  the 
"  Douglas  Series  of  Christian  Greek  and  Latin  Writers, 

M  See  Addresses  mentioned  in  the  first  foot-note. 

"For  an  illustration  of  Professor  March's  advocacy  of  this  view, 
»ee  The  Presbyterian  Quarterly  and  Princeton  Review,  N.  S.  in 
(1874),  712.  See  also  Professor  Gildersleeve's  reminiscences  in 
The  American  Journal  of  Philology,  xxv  (1904),  484. 


PEOCEDINGS    FOB    1913  CXXXV 

for  use  in  Schools  and  Colleges,"  of  which  Professor 
March  was  appointed  Editor-in-chief.  Five  volumes  were 
published  in  rapid  succession  ( 1874-1877"),  and  others 
were  in  a  state  of  preparation,  when  the  endowment  was 
cancelled  by  reason  of  financial  reverses.  Perhaps  the 
most  thorogoing  trial  of  the  course  was  made  at  Lafayette, 
Professor  March  himself  taking  part  in  the  instruction. 
However,  a  permanent  result  of  the  experiment  remains 
in  the  usefulness  of  Professor  March's  edition  of  Latin 
Hymns  (the  first  volume  of  the  series),  and  in  Professor 
Gildersleeve's  indispensable  notes  to  his  edition  of  The 
Apologies  of  Justin  Martyr  (the  last  published  volume  of 
the  series). 

He  was  chief  of  the  reformers  of  English  spelling;  kept 
the  subject  uniiitermittingly  before  the  philological  so- 
cieties and  before  the  public  at  large,  and  cooperated  with 
the  efforts  of  scholars  in  England.  He  memorialized 
Congress,  and  published  a  short-lived  quarterly.  With- 
out faltering  or  an  abatement  of  zeal,  he  survived  a  period 
of  general  quiescence  and  became  an  earnest  and  active 
member  of  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board.  His  name  had 
almost  become  a  popular  synonym  for  the  cause  he  had  so 
much  at  heart. 

Professor  March  did  considerable  work  on  dictionaries 
of  the  language.  From  1879  to  1882  he  selected  and 
directed  the  American  readers  for  the  Oxford  Dictionary; 
and  from  1890  to  1895  he  was  the  Consulting  Editor  of 
Funk  and  Wagnalls'  Standard  Dictionary.  His  share 
in  the  preparation  of  A  Thesaurus  Dictionary  of  the 
English  Language  (1903),  however,  was  very  slight;  he 
did  little  more  than  read  printer's  proofs  and  contribute 
"  A  Foreword."  He  must  have  rendered  valuable  assisfc- 
ance  to  the  editors  at  Oxford ;  and  the  Standard  is  con- 
fessedly planned  and  executed  according  to  his  well- 


CXXXV1  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

thought-out  methods  and  devices.  He  was  intensely  in- 
terested in  this  latter  project,  and  one  must  regret  the 
lack  of  a  specific  account  of  the  labor  he  bestowed  on  it. 

During  all  the  years,  Professor  March  was  a  close 
student  oF  literature  and  taught  the  subject  in  an  effective 
manner.  He  had  keen  insight  and  notable  strength  and 
individuality  in  criticism.  Intolerant  of  affected  atti- 
tudes of  appreciation,  he  renounced  the  popularizing  cri- 
tic with  his  conceits  and  vanities  and  time-serving  super- 
ficialities. The  homely,  rational  phrase  is  better,  more 
direct,  more  accurate,  more  honest;  it  may  also  be  grace- 
ful and  rich  in  allusion.  The  history  of  man's  develop- 
ment shows  that  reason  presides  over  the  sense  of  beauty 
as  surely  as  over  the  senses  of  "  use,  right,  and  truth. " 
The  profoundly  human  truth  and  purpose  of  literature  is 
to  be  kept  in  mind  steadfastly.  ~No  writer  is  truly  worthy 
of  attention,  if  he  is  not  deeply  concerned  with  the  needs  of 
the  human  heart  and  mind.  Judgments  in  literature  are, 
therefore,  based  on  elements  that  are  plain  to  the  reason. 
All  about  the  life  of  an  author  must  be  understood  before 
the  character  of  his  work  can  be  rightly  understood.  His 
education  and  environment  determine  much.  The  views 
of  life  and  the  state  of  society  and  of  knowledge  in  his  day 
are  answerable  for  much  that  would  fail  in  power  arid 
effect,  if  these  elements  were  not  sympathetically  con- 
sidered. The  true  author  is  easily  recognized.  Under 
all  conditions  he  speaks  to  the  universal  consciousness,  and 
he  speaks  sincerely,  and  attractively  according  to  the  ap- 
proved canons  of  his  art.  Only  approved  authors,  and 
especially  the  greatest,  should  be  diligently  studied.  It 
is  a  vain  academic  fashion  to  be  bringing  to  light  so  many 
obscure  or  forgotten  writers, — even  if  it  be  difficult  to 
find  subjects  for  the  doctors'  dissertations.  The  thoughts 
of  the  best  authors  should  be  minutely  probed  for  fullest 


PROCEDINGS    FOR    1913 


CXXXV11 


meaning;  their  art  should  be  finely  felt.  The  memory 
should  be  stored  with  words  and  passages  that  are  im- 
mortal. These  are  partial  indications  of  his  doctrine, 
and  they  have  been  expressed  somewhat  in  the  style  and 
manner  of  his  terse  judgments  and  admonitions,  which 
linger  in  the  memory  of  his  pupils.  It  would  be  profit- 
able to  pursue  his  work  as  a  critic  thru  his  reviews  of 
books,  public  discourses,  and.  original  contributions  to  the 
solution  of  literary  problems. 

A  philosophic  and  erudite  scholar,  a  resourceful  teacher, 
subtle  and  profound  in  thought,  disinterested  in  purpose, 
simple  in  life,  and  warm  of  heart, — Professor  March  was 
a  notable  personality. 

The  life  of  a  truly  great  and  good  man  imparts  a  bene- 
ficence to  those  who  may  reflect  on  it  with  discerning 
sympathy.  Every  scholar  has  access  to  such  help  and 
inspiration  in  reflection  on  the  character  and  career  of 
Professor  Francis  A.  March.  This  enduring  influence  is 
uppermost  in  the  thoughts  of  all  who  knew  him  best,  who 
will  accordingly  be  heartiest  in  approval  of  this  tribute 
to  his  memory — however  imperfectly  composed — on  be- 
half of  the  two  philological  societies  convened  to-day  in 
a  joint  session. 


CXXXV111  MODEEN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION  FOR   1914 


President, 
FELIX  E.  SCHELLING, 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa, 

Vice-Presidents, 
CAMILLO  VON  KLENZE,          BENJAMIN  P.  BOURLAND, , 

Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I.         Western  Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  Ohio- 

JOHN  S.  P.  TATLOCK, 

University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Secretary,  Tresurer, 

WILLIAM  GUILD  HOWARD,  ARTHUR  F.  WHITTEM, 

Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

CENTRAL  DIVISION 

Chairman,  Secretary, 

JULIUS  GOEBEL,  CHARLES  BUNDY  WILSON, 

University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  III.  State  University  of  Iowa,  loiva  City,  la. 

EXECUTIV  COUNCIL 

THE  OFFICERS  NAMED  ABOVE  AND 

J.   DOUGLAS  BRUCE, 

University  of  Tennessee,  Knoxville,  Tenn. 

ARTHUR  G.  CANFIELD,  ALBERT  B.  FAUST, 

University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

CHARLES  MILLS  GAYLEY,  MARION  D.   LEARNED, 

University  of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal.          University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

JOHN  L.    LOWES,  RAYMOND  WEEKS, 

Washington  University,  St.  Louis,  Mo.  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 


EDITORIAL  COMMITTEE 

W.  G.  HOWARD,  CHARLES  BUNDY  WILSON, 

Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  State  University  of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la. 

JAMES  W.    BRIGHT,  F.    M.    WARREN, 

Johnt  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  Md.  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn. 


PBOCEDINGS    FOR    1913  CXXxix 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGE 
ASSOCIATION  OF  AMERICA 

ADOPTED  ON  THE  TWENTY-NINTH  OF  DECEMBER,  1903 


The  name  of  this  Society  shal  be  The  Modern  Language 
Association  of  America. 


1.  The  object  of  this  Association  shal  be  the  advance- 
ment of  the  study  of  the  Modern  Languages  and  their 
Literatures  thru  the  promotion  of  friendly  relations  among 
scholars,  thru  the  publication  of  results  of  investigation 
by  members,  and  thru  the  presentation  and  discussion  of 
papers  at  an  annual  meeting. 

2.  The  meeting  of  the  Association  shal  be  held  at  such 
place  and  time  as  the  Executiv  Council  shal  from  year  to 
year  determin.     But  at  least  as  often  as  once  in  four 
years  there  shal  be  held  a  Union  Meeting,  for  which  some 
central  point  in  the  interior  of  the  country  shal  be  chosen. 

in 

Any  person  whose  candidacy  has  been  approved  by  the 
Secretary  and  Tresurer  may  become  a  member  on  the 
payment  of  three  dollars,  and  may  continue  a  member  by 
the  payment  of  the  same  amount  each  year.  Persons  wlio 
for  twenty  years  or  more  hav  been  activ  members  in  good 


Cxi  MODEKN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

and  regular  standing  may,  on  retiring  from  activ  servis 
as  teachers,  be  continued  as  activ  members  without  further 
payment  of  dues.  Any  member,  or  any  person  eligible  to 
membership,  may  become  a  life  member  by  a  single  pay- 
ment of  forty  dollars  or  by  the  payment  of  fifteen  dollars 
a  year  for  three  successiv  years.  Persons  who  for  fifteen 
years  or  more  hav  been  activ  members  in  good  and  regular 
standing  may  become  life  members  upon  the  single  pay- 
ment of  twenty-five  dollars.  Distinguisht  foren  scholars 
may  be  elected  to  honorary  membership  by  the  Association 
on  nomination  by  the  Executiv  Council.  But  the  number 
of  honorary  members  shal  not  at  any  time  excede  forty. 

IV 

1.  The  officers  and  governing  boards  of  the  Association 
shal  be :  a  President,  three  Vice-Presidents,  a  Secretary,  a 
Tresurer;   an  Executiv  Council  consisting  of  these  six 
officers,  the  Chairmen  and  Secretaries  of  the  several  Di- 
visions, and  seven  other  members ;  and  an  Editorial  Com- 
mittee consisting  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Association  (who 
shal  be  Chairman  ex  officio),  the  Secretaries  of  the  several 
Divisions,  and  two  other  members. 

2.  The   President    and   the    Vice-Presidents    shal   be 
elected  by  the  Association,  to  hold  offis  for  one  year. 

3.  The  Chairmen  and  Secretaries  of  Divisions  shal  be 
chosen  by  the  respectiv  Divisions. 

4.  The  other  officers  shal  be  elected  by  the  Association 
at  a  Union  Meeting,  to  hold  offis  until  the  next  Union 
Meeting.     Vacancies  occurring  between  two  Union  Meet- 
ings shal  be  fild  by  the  Executiv  Council. 


1.     The    President,    Vice-Presidents,    Secretary,    and 
Tresurer  shal  perform  the  usual  duties  of  such  officers. 


PROCEDIETGS    FOR    1913  Cxli 

The  Secretary  shal,  furthermore,  Lav  charge  of  the  Pub- 
lications of  the  Association  and  the  preparation  of  the 
program  of  the  annual  meeting. 

2.  The    Executiv    Council   shal   perform   the   duties 
assignd  to  it  in  Articles  II,  III,  IV,  VII  and  VIII ;  it 
shal,  moreover,  determin  such  questions  of  policy  as  may 
be  referd  to  it  by  the  Association  and  such  as  may  arise 
in  the  course  of  the  year  and  call  for  immediate  decision. 

3.  The  Editorial  Committee  shal  render  such  assist- 
ance as  the  Secretary  may  need  in  editing  the  Publications 
of  the  Association  and  preparing  the  annual  program. 

VI 

1.  The  Association  may,  to  further  investigation  in  any 
special    branch    of    Modern    Language    study,    create    a 
Section  devoted  to  that  end. 

2.  The  officers  of  a  Section  shal  be  a  Chairman  and  a 
Secretary,    elected   annually   by   the   Association.     They 
shal  form  a  standing  committee  of  the  Association,  and 
may  add  to  their  number  any  other  members  interested  in 
the  same  subject. 

vn 

1.  When,  for  geografical  reasons,  the  members  from 
any  group  of  States  shal  find  it  expedient  to  hold  a 
separate  annual  meeting,  the  Executiv  Council  may 
arrange  with  these  members  to  form  a  Division,  with 
power  to  call  a  meeting  at  such  place  and  time  as  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Division  shal  select;  but  no  Division  meeting 
shal  be  held  during  the  year  in  which  the  Association 
holds  a  Union  Meeting.  The  expense  of  Division  njeet- 
ings  shal  be  borne  by  the  Association.  The  total  number 
of  Divisions  shal  not  at  any  time  excede  three.  The 
present  Division  is  hereby  continued. 


Cxlli  MODERN  LANGUAGE  ASSOCIATION 

2.  The  members  of  a  Division  shal  pay  their  dues  to 
the  Tresurer  of  the  Association,  and  shal  enjoy  the  same 
rights  and  privileges  and  be  subject  to  the  same  conditions 
as  other  members  of  the  Association. 

3.  The  officers  of  a  Division  shal  be  a  Chairman  and 
a  Secretary.     The  Division  shal,  moreover,  hav  power  to 
create  such  committees  as  may  be  needed  for  its  own 
business.     The  program  of  the  Division  meeting  shal  be 
prepared  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Division  in  consultation 
with  the  Secretary  of  the  Association. 

VIII 

This  Constitution  may  be  amended  by  a  two-thirds  vote 
at  any  Union  Meeting,  provided  the  proposed  amendment 
has  receivd  the  approval  of  two-thirds  of  the  members  of 
the  Executiv  Council. 


ACTS     OF     THE     EXECUTIV     COUNCIL  CxliH 


ACTS  OF  THE   EXECUTIV  COUNCIL 


I.  In  accordance  with  a  proposition  of  date  January 

8,  1914,  Voted: 

That  the  invitation  of  Columbia  University  to 
hold  the  next  annual  meeting  under  its  aus- 
pices be  accepted. 

II.  In  accordance  with  a  proposition  of  date  April  6, 

1914,  Voted: 

That  the  Association  subscribe  to  the  permanent 
fund  of  The  American  Dialect  Society  the  sum 
of  one  hundred  dollars,  payment  to  be  made 
when  the  American  Dialect  Society  shal  hav 
secured  subscriptions  to  the  amount  of  five 
thousand  dollars. 

III.  In  accordance  with  propositions  of  date  May  2, 

1914,  Voted: 

That  the  folloing  distinguisht  foren  scolars  be 
nominated  for  Honorary  Membership  in  the 
Association: 

Professor  Ferdinand  Brunot,  University  of  Paris. 
Professor  Alfred  Jeanroy,  University  of  Paris. 

IV.  In  accordance  with  a  proposition  of  date  May  12, 

1914,  Voted: 

That  Dr.  Percy  W.  Long,  of  Harvard  University, 
be  appointed  a  delegate  of  the  Association^  to 
attend  the  Conference  of  Teacliers  of  English 
at  Stratford-upon-Avon  in  August,  1914. 


cxliv  ACTS   OF   THE   EXECUTIV   COUNCIL 

V.        In  accordance  with  a  proposition  of  date  Septem- 
10,  1914,  Voted: 

That  Professor  Willy  Bang,  of  the  University  of 
Louvain,  be  nominated  for  Honorary  Member- 
ship in  the  Association. 

W.  G.  HOWARD, 

Secretary. 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS 


MEMBERS  OF  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGE 
ASSOCIATION  OF  AMERICA 

INCLUDING  MEMBERS  OF  THE  CENTRAL  DIVISION  OF  THE 
ASSOCIATION 

Names  of  Life  Members  ar  printed  in  small  capitals 


Adams,  Arthur,  Professor  of  English,  Trinity  College,  Hartford, 
Conn. 

ADAMS,  EDWAED  LAERABEE,  Assistant  Professor  of  French  and  Span- 
ish, University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mica.  [1333  Washte- 
naw  Ave.] 

Adams,  John  Chester,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Yale  Uni- 
versity, New  Haven,  Conn. 

Adams,  Joseph  Quincy,  Jr.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Cornell 
University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [169  Goldwin  Smith  Hall] 

Adams,  Warren  Austin,  Professor  of  German,  Dartmouth  College, 
Hanover,  N.  H. 

Alberti,  Christine,  Head  of  the  French  Department,  Allegheny  High 
School,  N.  S.  Pittsburgh,  Pa.  [318  W.  North  Ave.] 

Albright,  Evelyn  May,  Associate  in  English,  University  of  Chicago, 
Chicago,  111. 

Alden,  Raymond  Macdonald,  Professor  of  English,  Leland  Stanford 
Jr.  University,  'Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Alderman,  William  E.,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis.  [1216  W.  Washington  Ave.] 

Alexander,  Luther  Herbert,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Col- 
umbia University,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [660  Riverside  Drive] 

Allen,  Clifford  Gilmore,  Associate  Professor  of  Romanic  Languages, 
Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

ALLEN,  EDWABD  ARCHIBALD,  Professor  Emeritus  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage and  Literature,  University  of  Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo. 

Allen,  F.  Sturges,  Springfield,  Mass.     [75  Bay  St.] 

Allen,  Hope  Emily,  Kenwood,  Oneida  Co.,  N.  Y. 

Allen,  Philip  Schuyler,  Assistant  Professor  of  German  Literature, 
University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.  [1508  E.  61st  St.,  Jaofc- 
son  Park  Sta.] 

Allen,  William  H.,  Jr.,  Oxford  University  Press,  35  W.  32nd  St., 
New  York,  N.  Y. 


MODEBN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Almstedt,  Hermann,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  University  of 
Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo. 

Altrocehi,  Rudolph,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, Cambridge,  Mass.  [33  Concord  Ave.] 

Anderson,  Frederick,  Instructor  in  French  and  Spanish,  Sheffield 
Scientific  School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [1007 
Yale  Station] 

Andrews,  Albert  LeRoy,  Instructor  in  German  and  Scandinavian, 
Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

Andrews,  C.  Edward,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Amherst  Col- 
lege, Amherst,  Mass. 

Andrist,  Charles  Martin,  Professor  of  French,  University  of  Minne- 
sota, Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Ansley,  C.  F.,  Professor  of  English  and  Dean  of  the  College  of  Fine 
Arts,  State  University  of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la. 

Armstrong,  Edward  C.,  Professor  of  the  French  Language,  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Armstrong,  Edwin  Stanley,  Instructor  in  English,  Baltimore  Poly- 
technic Institute,  Baltimore,  Md.  [5361  Wingshocking  Ter- 
race, Germantown,  Pa.] 

Arnold,  Frank  Russell,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  State  Agri- 
cultural College,  Logan,  Utah. 

Arnold,  Morris  LeRoy,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Hamline 
University,  St.  Paul,  Minn.  [2628  Park  Ave.,  Minneapolis, 
Minn.] 

Arrowsmith,  Robert,  Orange,  N.  J.     [253  Highland  Ave.] 

Ashley,  Edgar  Louis,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Massachusetts 
Agricultural  College,  Amherst,  Mass.  [Prospect  House] 

Austin,  Herbert  Douglas,  Instructor  in  French  and  Italian,  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Aydelotte,  Frank,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Indiana  University, 
Blcomington,  Ind. 

Ayer,  Charles  Carlton,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Colorado,  Boulder,  Col. 

Ayres,  Edward,  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  Purdue  University,  West  La- 
fayette, Ind.  [1003  State  St.] 

Ayres,  Harry  Morgan,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Columbia 
University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Babbitt,  Irving,  Professor  of  French  Literature,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [6  Kirkland  Road] 

Babcock,  Charlotte  Farrington,  Instructor  in  English,  Simmons  Col- 
lege, Boston,  Mass.  [11  Downer  Ave.,  Dorchester,  Mass.] 

Babcock,  Earle  Brownell,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  University 
of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.  [5546  Madison  Ave.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBEBS 

Babson,  Herman,  Professor  of  German,  Purdue  University,  West 
'Lafayette,  Ind. 

Bachelor,  Joseph  Morris,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
Cornell  College,  Mt.  Vernon,  la. 

Bacon,  George  William,  Wyncote,  Pa. 

Bagster-Collins,  Elijah  William,  Associate  Professor  of  German, 
Teachers'  College,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Baillot,  Edouard  Paul,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  North- 
western University,  Evanston,  111.  [2109  Sherman  Ave.] 

Baker,  Asa  George,  G.  &  C.  Merriam  Co.,  Publishers  of  Webster's 
Dictionaries,  Springfield,  Mass. 

Baker,  Fannie  Anna,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Modern  Languages, 
Fort  Smith  High  School,  Fort  Smith,  Ark.  [515  N.  15th  St.] 

Baker,  Franklin  Thomas,  Professor  of  English,  Teachers'  College, 
Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [525  W.  120th  St.] 

Baker,  George  Pierce,  Professor  of  Dramatic  Literature,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [195  Brattle  St.] 

Baker,  Louis  Charles,  Professor  of  German,  Lawrence  College,  Apple- 
ton,  Wia.  [490  College  Ave.] 

Baker,  Thomas  Stockham,  Head  Master,  Tome  School  for  Boys,  Jacob 
Tome  Institute,  Port  Deposit,  Md. 

Baldwin,  Charles  Sears,  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  Columbia  University, 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Baldwin,  Edward  Chauncey,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111.  [1002  S.  Lincoln 
Ave.] 

Barba,  Preston  Albert,  Instructor  in  German,  Indiana  University, 
Bloomington,  Ind.  [412  E.  4th  St.] 

Bargy,  Henry,  Professor  of  French,  Hunter  College  of  the  City  of 
New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Barlow,  William  M.,  Instructor  in  German,  Commercial  High  School, 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  [282  Halsey  St.] 

Barnes,  Nathaniel  Waring,  Professor  of  English  Composition  and 
Rhetoric,  De  Pauw  University,  Greencastle,  Ind.  [P.  O. 
Box  27] 

Barney,  Winfield  Supply,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Hobart  College,  Geneva,  N.  Y.  [408  Pultney  St.] 

Barrows,  Sarah  T.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Ohio  State  Uni- 
versity, Columbus,  O. 

Barry,  Phillips,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [1640  Cambridge  St.] 

BARTLETT,  Mrs.  DAVID  LEWIS,  Baltimore,  Md.  [16  W.  Monumfcit 
St.] 

Barto,  Philip  Stephen,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Illinois, 
Urbana,  111.  [312  W.  Springfield  Ave.,  Champaign,  111.] 


MODEBN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Barton,  Francis  Brown,  Instructor  in  Komance  Languages,  Williams 
College,  Williamstown,  Mass. 

Baskervill,  Charles  Read,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.  [Faculty  Exchange] 

Bates,  Madison  Glair,  Professor  of  English,  South  Dakota  College  of 
Agriculture  and  Mechanic  Arts,  Brookings,  S.  D. 

Batt,  Max,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  North  Dakota  Agricul- 
tural College,  Fargo,  N.  D. 

BATTIN,  BENJAMIN  F.,  Professor  of  German,  Swarthmore  College, 
Swarthmore,  Pa. 

Baugh,  Albert  C.,  Instructor  in  English,  Universit}^  of  Pennsylvania, 
Philadelphia,  Pa.  [638  S.  54th  St.] 

Baumgartner,  Milton  D.,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  Butler 
College,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Baxter,  Arthur  H.,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Amherst  College,  Amherst,  Mass. 

Beach,  Joseph  Warren,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn.  [1801  University  Ave.,  S.  E.] 

Beall,  Mrs.  Emilie,  Teacher  of  French,  German,  and  Spanish,  High 
School  of  Commerce,  Columbus,  O.  [961  S.  High  St.] 

Beam,    Jacob   N.,    Assistant    Professor,    Preceptor    in   Modern    Lan- 
guages, Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Bean,  Helen,  Professor  of  English,  Lenox  College,  Hopkinton,  la. 

Bear,  Maud  Cecelia,  Instructor  in  German  and  Latin,  Bellefonte  High 
School,  Bellefonte,  Pa.  [Bush  House] 

Beardsley,  Wilfred  Attwood,  Instructor  in  French,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [Yale  Station] 

Beatty,  Arthur,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis.  [1824  Vilas  St.] 

de  Beaumont,  Victor,  Associate  Professor  of  the  French  Language 
and  Literature,  Victoria  College,  University  of  Toronto,  To- 
ronto, Canada. 

Beck,  Jean  Baptiste,  Associate  Professor  of  Mediaeval  French  Litera- 
ture, Bryn  Mawr  College,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa.  [1140  County 
Line  Rd.] 

Becker,  Ernest  Julius,  Principal,  Eastern  High  School,  Baltimore, 
Md. 

Becker,  Wilhelmina  Marie,  Professor  of  German,  Penn  College,  Oska- 
loosa,  la.  [149  College  Ave.] 

Bek,  William  G.,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  North  Dakota, 
Grand  Forks,  N.  D.  [Box  1233,  University,  N.  D.] 

Belden,  Henry  Marvin,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Missouri, 
Columbia,  Mo.  [811  Virginia  Ave.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS 

Belknap,  Arthur  Train,  Professor  of  English,  Franklin  College  of 
Indiana,  Franklin,  Ind. 

Bell,  Robert  Mowry,  Minneapolis,  Minn.     [229  Fifth  Ave.,  S.  E.] 

Bender,  Harold  H.,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  Modern  Lan- 
guages, Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Benson,  Adolph  Burnett,  Instructor  in  German,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [East  Berlin, 
Conn.] 

Berdan,  John  Milton,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Yale  Univer- 
sity, New  Haven,  Conn. 

Bergeron,  Maxime  L.,  Instructor  in  French,  College  of  the  City  of 
New  York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Bernbaum,  Ernest,  Instructor  in  English,  Harvard  University,  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.  [86  Sparks  St.] 

Bernkopf,  Margarete,  Head  of  the  German  Department,  Yonkers  High 
School,  Yonkers,  N.  Y.  [503  W.  121st  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y.] 

DE  BfiTHUNE,  Baron  FBANQOIS,  Louvain,  Belgium.  [34  rue  de 
Beriot] 

Betz,  Gottlieb  A.,  Instructor  in  Germanic  Languages  and  Literatures, 
Barnard  College,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Bgziat  de  Bordes,  Andre",  Professor  of  French,  Newcomb  College, 
Tulane  University,  New  Orleans,  La. 

Bigelow,  Eleanor,  Radcliffe  College,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [6  Welling- 
ton Terrace,  Brookline,  Mass.] 

Bigelow,  Otis  Munro,  Jr.,  Instructor  in  French,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [124  Mansfield 
St.] 

Billetdoux,  Edmond  W.,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Rutgers  College,  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.  [144  Hamilton  St.] 

Bishop,  David  Horace,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Mississippi,  Oxford,  Miss.  [University, 
-Miss.] 

Blackwell,  Robert  Emory,  President  and  Professor  of  English,  Ran- 
dolph-Macon  College,  Ashland,  Va. 

Blanchard,  Frederic  Thomas,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of 
California,  Berkeley,  Cal.  [2610  Russell  St.] 

BLAU,  MAX  FBIEDBICH,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Blayney,  Thomas  Lindsey,  Professor  of  the  German  Language,  Rice 
Institute,  Houston,  Texas.  [Yoakum  Boulevard] 

Blondheim,  David  Simon,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languors, 
University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111.  [University  Club] 

Blood,  Edna  Banks,  Teacher  of  German,  Lower  Merion  High  School, 
Ardmore,  Pa.  [119  Coulter  Ave.] 


cl  MODERN    LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

Bloomfield,  Leonard,  Assistant  Professor  of  Comparative  Philology 
and  German,  University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

Blount,  Alma,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Michigan  State  Nor- 
mal College,  Ypsilanti,  Mich.  [712  Ellis  St.] 

Blume,  Carlos  August,  Instructor  in  French  and  Spanish,  Dartmouth 
College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 

Bockstahler,  Oscar  Leo,  Professor  of  German  and  French,  Charles 
City  College,  Charles  City,  la. 

Boesche,  Albert  Wilhelm,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Cornell 
University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [Forest  Home  Drive] 

Bonn,  William  Edward,  Teacher  of  English,  School  of  Ethical  Cul- 
ture, New  York,  N.  Y.  [206  N.  Maple  Ave.,  East  Orange, 
N.  J.] 

Boll,  Helene  Hubertine,  New  Haven,  Conn.     [409  Orange  St.] 

Bond,  Otto  Ferdinand,  University  Fellow  in  Romance  Languages, 
University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.  [1017  E.  54th  St.,  Hyde 
Park] 

Bonilla,  Rodrigo  Huguet,  Instructor  in  French  and  Spanish,  U.  S. 
Naval  Academy,  Annapolis,  Md. 

Bonnell,  John  Kester,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis.  [625  Mendota  Court] 

Booker,  John  Manning,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  North  Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Borgerhoff,  J.  L.,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Western  Reserve 
University,  Cleveland,  O. 

Borgmann,  Albert  Stephens,  Detroit,  Mich.     [295  Seminole  Ave.] 

Bothne,  Gisle  C.  J.,  Head  Professor  of  Scandinavian  Languages  and 
Literatures,  University  of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Boucke,  Ewald  A.,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Michigan, 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Bourland,  Benjamin  Parsons,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Adelbert  College  of  Western  Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  0. 

Bouton,  Archibald  Lewis,  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  New  York  Uni- 
versity, University  Heights,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Bowen,  Abba  Willard,  Professor  of  German,  Peru  State  Normal 
School,  Peru,  Neb. 

Bowen,  Benjamin  Lester,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Ohio 
State  University,  Columbus,  O. 

Bowen,  Edwin  Winfield,  Professor  of  Latin,  Randolph-Macon  College, 
Ashland,  Va. 

Bowen,  James  Vance,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Mississippi 
Agricultural  and  Mechanical  College,  Agricultural  College, 
Miss. 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS  cli 

Bowman,  James  Cloyd,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Iowa  State 
College,  Ames,  la.  [109  Hyland  Ave.] 

Boyer,  Clarence  Valentine,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of 
Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

Boynton,  Percy  Holmes,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.  [5748  Kimbark  Ave.J 

Boysen,  Johannes  Lassen,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Texas, 
Austin,  Tex. 

Bradshaw,  S.  Ernest,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Furman  Uni- 
versity, Greenville,  S.  C. 

Bradsher,  Earl  Lockridge,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of 
Texas,  Austin,  Tex. 

Brandon,  Edgar  Ewing,  Vice-President  and  Dean,  Miami  University, 
Oxford,  0. 

Brandt,  Hermann  Carl  Georg,  Professor  of  the  German  Language 
and  Literature,  Hamilton  College,  Clinton,  N.  Y. 

Braun,  Frederick  Augustus,  Instructor  in  Modern  Languages,  Prince- 
ton University,  Princeton,  N.  J.  [18  Bank  St.] 

Braun,  Wilhelm  Alfred,  Associate  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages 
and  Literatures,  Barnard  College,  Director  of  the  Deutsches 
Haus,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Brede,  Charles  F.,  Professor  of  German,  Northeast  Manual  Training 
High  School,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [1937  N.  13th  St.] 

Bremicker,  Charles,  Professor  of  German,  Macalester  College,  St. 
Paul,  Minn.  [1507  Selby  Ave.] 

Brewer,  Theodore  Hampton,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Uni- 
versity of  Oklahoma,  Norman,  Okla.  [P.  0.  Box  564] 

Briggs,  Fletcher,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Iowa  State  Col- 
lege, Ames,  la.  [Station  A] 

Briggs,  William  Dinsmore,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Leland 
Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

BRIGHT,  JAMES  WIUSON,  Professor  of  English  Philology,  Johns  Hop- 
kins University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Bristol,  Edward  N.,  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  34  W.  33d  St.,  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

Bronk,  Isabelle,  Professor  of  the  French  Language  and  Literature, 
Swarthmore  College,  Swarthmore,  Pa. 

Bronson,  Thomas  Bertrand,  Head  of  the  Modern  Language  Depart- 
ment, Lawrenceville  'School,  Lawrenceville,  N.  J. 

Bronson,  Walter  C.,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Brown  Univer- 
sity, Providence,  R.  I.  - 

Brooke,  C.  F.  Tucker,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Yale  Univ^r- 
sity,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [725  Yale  Station] 


clii  MODEBN    LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

Brooks,  Neil  C.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Illi- 
nois, Urbana,  111. 

Brown,  Arthur  C.  L.,  Professor  of  English,  Northwestern  University, 
Evanston,  111.  [625  Colfax  St.] 

Brown,  Calvin  S.,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  University  of 
Mississippi,  University,  Miss. 

Brown,  Carleton  F.,  Professor  of  English  Philology,  Bryn  Mawr 
College,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. 

Brown,  Frank  Clyde,  Professor  of  English,  Trinity  College,  Durham, 
N.  C.  [410  Guess  St.] 

Brown,  Frederic  Willis,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Bowdoin 
College,  Brunswick,  Me. 

Brown,  Harold  Gibson,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis.  [University  Club] 

Brown,  Kent  James,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
North  Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Brown,  Hollo  Walter,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  Composition,  Wabash 
College,  Crawfordsville,  Ind.  [607  S.  Water  St.] 

Brownell,  George  Griffin,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Alabama,  University,  Ala. 

Bruce,  Charles  A.,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Ohio  State 
University,  Columbus,  O. 

Bruce,  James  Douglas,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Lit- 
erature, University  of  Tennessee,  Knoxville,  Tenn. 

Bruner,  James  Dowden,  President,  Chowan  College,  Murfreesboro, 
N.  C. 

Bruns,  Friedrich,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [423  N.  Brtler  St.] 

Brush,  Henry  Raymond,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  North  Dakota,  Grand  Forks,  N.  D.  [607  Walnut  St.] 

Brush,  Murray  Peabody,  Collegiate  Professor  of  French,  Johns  Hop- 
kins University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Brusie,  Charles  Frederick,  Principal,  Mt.  Pleasant  Military  Academy, 
Ossining,  N.  Y. 

Bryan,  Walter  Speight,  Assistant  Instructor  in  German,  Yale  Col- 
lege, New  Haven,  Conn.  [173  Park  St.] 

Buchanan,  Milton  Alexander,  Associate  Professor  of  Italian  and 
Spanish,  University  of  Toronto,  Toronto,  Canada.  [88  Wells 
Hill  Ave.] 

Buck,  Gertrude,  Professor  of  English,  Vassar  College,  Poughkeepsie, 
N.  Y.  [112  Market  St.] 

Buck,  Philo  Melvin,  Jr.,  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  University  of 
Nebraska,  'Lincoln,  Neb.  [1825  Pepper  Ave.] 

BUCKINGHAM,  MABY  H.,  Boston,  Mass.     [96  Chestnut  St.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS 


eliii 


Buffum,  Douglas  Labaree,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Prince- 
ton University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Burchinal,  Mary  Cacy,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Foreign  Lan- 
guages, West  Philadelphia  High  School  for  Girls,  47th  and 
Walnut  Sts.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Burkhard,  Oscar  Carl,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University 
of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Burnet,  Percy  Bentley,  Director  of  Modern  Languages,  Manual 
Training  High  School,  Kansas  City,  Mo.  [3751  Flora  Ave.] 

Burnett,  Arthur  W.,  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  34  W.  33d  St.,  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

Burnham,  Josephine  May,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Wellesley 
College,  Wellesley,  Mass. 

Burrage,  Leslie  M.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Pennsylvania 
State  College,  State  College,  Pa.  [243  S.  Pugh  St.] 

Bursley,  Philip  E.,  Instructor  in  French  and  Spanish,  University  of 
Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [917  Olivia  Ave.] 

Burton,  John  Marvin,  Professor  of  French  and  German,  Millsaps 
College,  Jackson,  Miss. 

Busey,  Robert  Oscar,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Ohio  State 
University,  Columbus,  O.  [2050  Inka  Ave.] 

Bush,  Stephen  Hayes,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la. 

Bushee,  Alice  H.,  Instructor  in  Spanish,  Wellesley  College,  Wel- 
lesley, Mass. 

Busse,  Paul  Gustav  Adolf,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Hunter 
College,  68th  St.  and  Park  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Butler,  Pierce,  Professor^of  English,  Newcomb  College,  New  Orleans, 
La. 

Cabeen,  Charles  William,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Syra- 
cuse University,  Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

Cabot,  Stephen  Perkins,  Head  of  the  Department  of  French  and 
German,  St.  George's  School,  Newport,  R.  I. 

Cady,  Frank  William,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Middlebury 
College,  Middlebury,  Vt. 

Cairns,  William  B.,  Assistant  Professor  of  American  Literature, 
University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [2010  Madison  St.] 

Callaway,  Morgan,  Jr.,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Texas, 
Austin,  Tex.  [1104  Guadalupe  St.] 

Camera,  Amerigo  Ulysses  N.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Col- 
lege of  the  City  of  New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Cameron,  Ward  Griswold,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Syra- 
cuse University,  Syracuse,  N.  Y.  [526  Ostrom  Ave.] 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Campbell,  Gertrude  H.,  Fellow  in  English,  Bryn  Mawr  College,  Bryn 
Mawr,  Pa. 

Campbell,  James  Andrew,  Professor  of  German,  Knox  College,  Gales- 
burg,  111. 

Campbell,  Killis,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Texas,  Austin,  Tex.  [2301  Rio  Grande  St.] 

Campbell,  Lily  B.,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wisconsin, 
Madison,  Wis. 

Campbell,  Oscar  James,  Jr.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [15  E.  Gilman  St.] 

Campbell,  Thomas  Moody,  Professor  of  German,  Randolph-Macon 
Woman's  College,  Lynchburg,  Va.  [College  Park,  Va.] 

Canby,  Henry  Seidel,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Sheffield  Sci- 
entific School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [105  East 
Rock  Road] 

Canfield,  Arthur  Graves,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [909  E.  University 
Ave.] 

Cannon,  Lee  Edwin,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Eureka  Col- 
lege, Eureka,  111. 

Carhart,  Paul  Worthington,  Assistant  Editor,  G.  and  C.  Merriam 
Co.,  Myrick  Building,  Springfield,  Mass. 

Carnahan,  David  Hobart,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

CARNEGIE,  ANDREW,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [2  E.  91st  St.] 

Carpenter,  Fred  Donald,  Instructor  in  German,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [130  Howe  St.] 

CARPENTER,  FREDERIC  IVES,  Barrington,  111. 

Carpenter,  Jennette,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Iowa  State  Teachers'  College,  Cedar  Falls,  la.  [412 
W.  8th  St.] 

Carr,  Muriel  Bothwell,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis.  [419  'Sterling  PI.] 

Carruth,  William  Herbert,  Professor  of  Comparative  Literature, 
Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Carson,  Lucy  Hamilton,  Professor  of  English,  Montana  State  Normal 
College,  Dillon,  Mont. 

Carteaux,  Gustave  A.,  Professor  of  the  French  Language,  Polytechnic 
Institute,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Cave,  Charles  E.,  Head  of  the  Department  of  German,  Idaho  State 
Normal  School,  Albion,  Idaho. 

Cehrs,  Carrie  M.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Montana  State 
College  of  Agriculture  and  Mechanic  Arts,  Bozeman,  Mont. 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS  <;ly 

Cerf,  Barry,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 

of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.     [1911  Monroe  St.] 

Chamberlain,  May,  Adjunct  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  University  of  Nebraska,  Lincoln,  Neb.  [Station  A] 

Chamberlin,  Willis  Arden,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  Denison  University,  Granville,  0. 

Chandler,  Edith  Beatrice,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Highland 
Park  College,  Des  Moines,  la. 

Chandler,  Frank  Wadleigh,  Professor  of  English  and  Comparative 
Literature,  University  of  Cincinnati,  Cincinnati,  0.  [222 
Hosea  Ave.,  Clifton,  Cincinnati] 

Chapin,  George  Scott,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Ohio  State  University,  Columbus,  0. 

Charles  Arthur  M.,  Professor  of  German  and  French,  Earlham  Col- 
lege, Richmond,  Ind. 

Chase,  Lewis  Nathaniel,  London  W.,  England.  [54  Digby  Mansions,. 
Hammersmith  Bridge] 

Chase,  Stanley  P.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Union  College, 
Schenectady,  N.  Y. 

Chatfield-Taylor,  Hobart  C.,  Lake  Forest,  111. 

Cheever,  Louisa  Sewall,  Associate  Professor  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage and  Literature,  Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 
[Chapin  House] 

Chenery,  Winthrop  Holt,  Librarian  and  Assistant  Professor  of 
'Spanish,  Washington  University,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Cherington,  Frank  Barnes,  Chillicothe,  0.     [83  N.  Ulain  St.] 

Child,  Clarence  Griffin,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia,  Pa.  [4237  Sansom  St.] 

Childs,  Francis  Lane,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege, Hanover,  N.  H.  [Box  142] 

Chiles,  James  Alburn,  Professor  of  German  and  French,  Wofford 
College,  Spartanburg,  S.  C. 

Chinard,  Gilbert,  Associate  Professor  of  French,  University  of  Cali- 
fornia, Berkeley,  Cal. 

Church,  Henry  Ward,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Monmouth 
College,  Monmouth,  111.  [1014  E.  First  Ave.] 

Church,  Howard  Wadsworth,  Instructor  in  German,  Yale  College, 
New  Haven,  Conn.  [719  Yale  Station] 

Churchill,  George  Bosworth,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Am- 
herst  College,  Amherst,  Mass. 

Churchman,  Philip  Hudson,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Clark 
College,  Worcester,  Mass.  [20  Institute  Rd.]  0 

Claassen,  Peter  A.,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Centre  College 
of  Central  University,  Danville,  Ky. 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Clapp,   John  Mantell,   Professor   of   English,   Lake   Forest   College, 

Lake  Forest,  111. 
Clark,  Eugene  Francis,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Dartmouth 

College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 
Clark,   Thatcher,    Head   of    the   Department   of    French,    School    of 

Ethical  Culture,  63d  St.  and  Central  Park,  West,  New  York, 

N.  Y. 

Clark,  Thomas  Arkle,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  Dean  of  Men,  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 
Clarke,   Charles  Cameron,  Professor  of   French,    Sheffield  Scientific 

iSchool,   Yale   University,   New   Haven,    Conn.     [254    Bradley 

St.] 

Clary,  S.  Willard,  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  50  Beacon  St.,  Boston,  Mass. 
Clementine,    Sister   M.,    Teacher   of    English,    Saint    Clara   College, 

Sinsinawa,  Wis. 
Coffman,  George  Raleigh,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 

of  Montana,  Missoula,  Mont. 
Cohen,  Helen  Louise,  First  Assistant  in  English,  Washington  Irving 

High  School,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [38  W.  93d  St.] 

Cohn,   Adolphe,  Professor  of  the  Romance  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
Cohn-McMaster,    Albert    Marian,    Professor    of    Modern    Languages, 

Sweet  Briar  College,  Sweet  Briar,  Va. 
Cole,  George  Franklin,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 

Dickinson  College,  Carlisle,  Pa. 
Ceilings,  Harry  T.,  Professor  of  German,  Pennsylvania  State  College, 

State  College,  Pa.     [308  S.  Burrows  St.] 

Collins,    George    Stuart,    Professor    of    German    and    Spanish,    Poly- 
technic Institute,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
Collins,   Varnum  Lansing,   Professor   of   the   French   Language   and 

Literature,  Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
COLUTZ,  HERMANN,  Professor  of  Germanic  Philology,  Johns  Hopkins 

University,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Colton,  Molton  Avery,  Instructor  in  Modern  Languages,  U.  S.  Nnval 

Academy,  Annapolis,  Md. 
Colville,   William  T.,  Carbondale,  Pa. 
Colwell,   William  Arnold,   Professor   of  the  German   Language  and 

Literature,  Adelphi  College,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
Comfort,  William  Wistar,  Professor  of  the  Romance  Languages  and 

Literatures,  Cornell  University,   Ithaca,   N.   Y. 
Compton,  Alfred  D.,  Tutor  in  English,  College  of  the  City  of  New 

York,   138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
Conant,   Martha   Pike,   Associate  Professor   of   English    Literature, 

Wellesley  College,  Wellesley,  Mass.     [25  Weston  Rd.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBEES  civil 

Condit,  Lola  M.,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  State  College, 
Brookings,  S.  Dak. 

Conklin,  Clara,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages  and  Literatures, 
University  of  Nebraska,  Lincoln,  Neb. 

Conrow,  Georgianna,  Instructor  in  French,  Vassar  College,  Pough- 
keepsie,  N.  Y. 

Cons,  Louis,  Associate  in  Romance  Languages,  Bryn  Mawr  College, 
Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. 

Cook,  Albert  S.,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Literature> 
Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [219  Bishop  St.] 

Cool,  Charles  Dean,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [1607  Adams  St.] 

Cooper,  Lane,  Assistant  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [Cornell 
Heights] 

Cooper,  William  Alpha,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Leland  Stan- 
ford Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Corbin,  Alberta  Linton,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 

Corbin,  William  Lee,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Wells  College, 
Aurora,  N.  Y. 

Corley,  Ames  Haven,  Instructor  in  Spanish,  Yale  University,  New 
Haven,  Conn.  [1007  Yale  Station] 

Corwin,  Robert  Nelson,  Professor  of  German,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [247  St.  Eonan 

St.] 

Cory,  Herbert  Ellsworth,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal.  [2558  Buena  Vista  Way] 

Cosulich,  Gilbert,  Teacher  of  Second- Year  English,  West  Des  Moines 
High  School,  Des  Moines,  la. 

Coues,  Robert  Wheaton,  Assistant  in  English,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [10  Mason  St.] 

Cox,  Edward  Godfrey,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Washington,  Seattle,  Wash. 

Cox,  John  Harrington,  Professor  of  English  Philology,  West  Vir- 
ginia University,  Morgantown,  W.  Va.  [188  Spruce  St.] 

Craig,  Hardin,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Minnesota,  Min- 
neapolis, Minn. 

Crane,  Ronald  Salmon,  Instructor  in  English,  Northwestern  Univer- 
sity, Evanston,  111.  [725  Foster  St.] 

Crawford,  Douglas,  Instructor  in  English,  Phillips  Academy,  An- 
dover,  Mass.  [Bishop  Hall] 

Crawford,    James    Pyle    Wickersham,    Assistant    Professor    of 

manic  Languages  and  Literatures,  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
Philadelphia,  Pa.     [College  Hall] 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Crawshaw,  William  Henry,  Dean  and  Professor  of  English  Litera 
ture,  Colgate  University,  Hamilton,  N.  Y. 

Creek,  Herbert  L.,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Illinois!, 
Urbana,  111.  [501  W.  High  St.] 

Croissant,  De  Witt  C.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 

Croll,  Morris  William,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Princeton 
University,  Princeton,  N.  J.  [53  Patton  Hall] 

Crook,  Mrs.  Martha  Loescher,  Professor  of  German,  Denver  Univer- 
sity, Denver,  Col.  [1055  Lincoln  St.] 

Cross,  Tom  Peete,  Associate  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Cross,  Wilbur  Lucius,  Professor  of  English,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [24  Edgehill 
Road] 

Crowell,  Asa  Clinton,  Associate  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages 
and  Literatures,  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I.  [66 
Oriole  Av.,  East  'Side  Sta.] 

Crowne,  Joseph  Vincent,  Instructor  in  English,  College  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Cru,  Robert  Loyalty,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  Hunter  College 
of  the  City  of  New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

CUNLIFFE,  JOHN  WILLIAM,  Professor  of  English  and  Associate  Di- 
rector of  the  School  of  Journalism,  Columbia  University,  New 
York,  N.  Y. 

Curdy,  Albert  Eugene,  Associate  Professor  of  French,  Yale  Univer- 
sity, New  Haven,  Conn.  [743  Yale  Station] 

Curme,  Gx-orge  Oliver,  Professor  of  Germanic  Philology,  Northwest- 
ern University,  Evanston,  111.  [629  Coif  ax  St.] 

Curts,  Paul,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Wesleyan  University, 
Middletown,  Conn. 

Cushwa,  Frank  William,  Professor  of  English,  Phillips  Exeter  Acad- 
emy, Exeter,  N.  H. 

Cutting,  Starr  Willard,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Germanic  Languages  and  Literatures,  University  of  Chicago, 
Chicago,  111. 

Daland,  Rev.  William  Clifton,  President  and  Professor  of  English 

and  Biblical  Literature,  Milton  College,  Milton,  Rock  Co.,  Wis. 
Damon,   Lindsay   Todd,   Professor   of   Rhetoric,    Brown   University, 

Providence,  R.  I. 
Dana,    Henry    Wadsworth    Longfellow,    Instructor    in    English    and 

Comparative    Literature,    Columbia    University,    New    York, 

N.  Y. 


LIST    OF    MEMBEES 

Daniels,  Francis  Potter,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Wabash 
College,  Crawfordsville,  Ind.  [107  Marshall  St.] 

Danton,  George  Henry,  Field  Agent,  Simplified  Spelling  Board,  New 
York,  N.  Y.  [7  Livingston  Ave.,  Lyndhurst,  N.  J.] 

Dargan,  Edwin  Preston,  Assistant  Professor  of  French  Literature, 
University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Darnall,  Henry  Johnston,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Tennessee,  Knoxville,  Tenn. 

David,  Henri  Charles-Edouard,  Assistant  Professor  of  French  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.  [5469  Madison 
Ave.] 

Davidsen,  Hermann  Christian,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Cor- 
nell University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [Highland  Ave.] 

Davies,  William  Walter,  Professor  of  the  German  Language,  Ohio 
Wesleyan  University,  Delaware,  O. 

Davis,  Edward  Ziegler,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [424  N.  34th  St.] 

Davis,  Edwin  Bell,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Rutgers  College, 
New  Brunswick,  N.  J.  [145  College  Ave.] 

Davis,  Henry  Campbell,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Rhetoric,  University  of  South  Carolina,  Columbia,  S.  C.  [2532 
Divine  St.] 

Davis,  William  Hawley,  Professor  of  English  and  Public  Speaking, 
Bowdoin  College,  Brunswick,  Me.  [4  Page  St.] 

Davis,  William  Rees,  Professor  of  English,  Whitman  College,  Walla 
Walla,  Wash. 

Daw,  Elizabeth  Beatrice,  Reader  in  English,  Bryn  Mawr  College, 
Bryn  Mawr,  Pa.  [Low  Buildings] 

Dearborn,  Ambrose  Collyer,  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  34  W.  33d  St.,  New 
York,  N.  Y. 

De  Beck,  B.  0.  M.,  American  Book  Co.,  300  Pike  'St.,  Cincinnati,  O. 

Deering,  Robert  Waller,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Lite- 
ratures, Western  Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  0.  [2931 
Somerton  Road,  Mayfield  Heights,  Cleveland] 

De  Forest,  John  Bellows,  Instructor  in  French,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [1019  Yale 
Station] 

De  Haan,  Fonger,  Professor  of  Spanish,  Bryn  Mawr  College,  Bryn 
Mawr,  Pa. 

Deister,  John  Louis,  R.  F.  D.  3,  Parkville,  Mo. 

Delamarre,  Louis,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  College  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [237  Tecumseh  Ave.,  Mt. 
Vernon,  N.  Y.] 


Cx  MODEKN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION" 

Denney,  Joseph  Villiers,  Professor  of  English  and  Dean  of  the  College 
of    Arts,    Philosophy,    and    Science,    Ohio    State    University^ 
Columbus,  0. 
Dey,  William  Morton,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 

of  North  Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 
Diekhoff,  Tobias  J.  C.,  Junior  Professor  of  German,  University  of 

Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 
Dingus,  Leonidas  Reuben,  Professor  of  German,  Richmond  College, 

Richmond,  Va.     [108  N.  West  St.] 
Dodge,    Daniel    Kilham,    Professor    of    the    English    Language    and 

Literature,  University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 
Dodge,  Robert  Elkin  Neil,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 

of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.     [15  W.  Gorham  St.] 
Doernenburg,  Emil,  Professor  of  German,  Ohio  University,  Athens,  O. 
Domroese,  Frederick  C.,  Teacher  of  German,  Manual  Training  High 

School,  Indianapolis,  Ind.     [110  W.  Arizona  St.] 
Doniat,  Josephine  C.,  Instructor  in  French  and  German,  Carl  Schurz 

High  School,  Chicago,  111. 
Donnelly,  Lucy  Martin,  Professor  of  English,  Bryn  Mawr   College, 

Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. 
Douay,    Gaston,   Professor   of    French,   Washington   University,    St. 

Louis,  Mo. 
Dow,  Louis  Henry,  Professor  of  French,  Dartmouth  College,,  Hanover, 

N.  H. 

Downer,  Charles  Alfred,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  College 
of  the  City  of  New  York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave., 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Doyle,  Henry  Grattan,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [29  Berkeley  St.,  Somerville, 
Mass.] 

Drummond,  Robert  Rutherford,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Uni- 
versity of  Maine,  Orono,  Me. 
Dudley,  Louise,  Professor  of  English,   Lawrence  College,  Appleton, 

Wis. 

Dunlap,  Charles  Graham,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Univer- 
sity of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 

Dunn,  Joseph,  Professor  of  Celtic  Languages   and  Lecturer  in  Ro- 
mance Languages,  Catholic  University,  Washington,  D.   C. 
Dunster,  Annie,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Foreign  Languages,  Wil- 
liam Penn  High  School  for  Girls,  15th  and  Wallace  Sts.,  Phil- 
adelphia, Pa. 

Durham,  Willard  Higley,  Instructor  in  English,  Sheffield  Scientific 
'School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [179  Vanderbilt- 
Scientific  Hall] 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS 


clxi 


Dutton,  George  B.,  Instructor  in  English,  Williams  College,  Wil- 
liamstown,  Mass. 

Dye,  Alexander  Vincent,  Secretary,  Phelps,  Dodge  &  Co.,  Bisbee, 
Ariz. 

van  Dyke,  Henry,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Princeton  Uni- 
versity, Princeton,  N.  J. 

Easley,  Owen  Randolph,  Teacher  of  French  and  German,  High  School, 
Lynchburg,  Va. 

Eastburn,  lola  Kay,  Professor  of  German,  Oxford  College  for 
Women,  Oxford,  O. 

Easter,  De  la  Warr  B.,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Washing- 
ton and  Lee  University,  Lexington,  Va. 

Eastman,  Clarence  Willis,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  Amherst  College,  Amherst,  Mass. 

Eaton,  Horace  Ainswortli,  Professor  of  English,  Syracuse  Univer- 
sity, Syracuse,  N.  Y.  [609  Comstock  Ave.] 

Eberhardt,  Edward  Albert,  Jefferson  City,  Mo. 

Eckelmann,  Ernst  Otto,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Wash- 
ington, Seattle,  Wash.  [3442  Cascade  View  Drive] 

Effinger,  John  Robert/ Junior  Professor  of  French  and  Dean  of  the 
Summer  Session,  University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Eggert,  Carl  Edgar,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [924  Baldwin  Ave.] 

Eisenlohr,  Berthold  A.,  Professor  of  German,  Ohio  State  University, 
Columbus,  O. 

Eiserhardt,  Ewald,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Rochester,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

Elias,  Edward,  Professor  of  German  and  French,  Hope  College,  Hol- 
land, Mich. 

Elliott,  George  Roy,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Bowdoin  Col- 
lege, Brunswick,  Me. 

Elson,  Charles,  Instructor  in  German,  Adelphi  College,  Brooklyn, 
N.  Y.  [118  Oak  St.,  Kane,  Pa.] 

Emerson,  Oliver  Farrar,  Professor  of  English,  Western  Reserve  Uni- 
versity, Cleveland,  0.  [98  Wadena  St.] 

Emery,  Fred  Parker,  Professor  of  English,  Dartmouth  College,  Han- 
over, N.  H. 

Eno,  Arthur  Llewellyn,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Pennsylvania 
State  College,  State  College,  Pa. 

Erskine,  John,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Columbia  University, 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Espinosa,  Aurelio  Macedonio,  Associate  Professor  of  Spanish,  Leland 
Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

8 


MODEKIsT    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Evans,  Marshall  Blakemore,  Professor  of  German,  Ohio  State  Uni- 
versity, Columbus,  0. 

Evers,  Helene  M.,  Mary  Institute,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Ewart,  Frank  Carman,  Professor  of  Romanic  Languages,  Colgate 
University,  Hamilton,  N.  Y. 

Fahnestock,  Edith,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Vassar  Col- 
lege, Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Fairchild,  Arthur  Henry  Rolph,  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo.  [708  Maryland  Place] 

Fairchild,  J.  R.,  American  Book  Co.,  100  Washington  Sq.,  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

Fairley,  Barker,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Alberta,  Edmon- 
ton South,  Alberta,  Canada. 

Farley,  Frank  Edgar,  Professor  of  English,  Simmons  College,  Boston, 
Mass. 

Farnsworth,  William  Oliver,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Pittsburgh,  Pittsburgh,  Pa.  [103  Orchard  St.,  W. 
Somerville,  Mass.] 

Farr,  Hollon  A.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Yale  University, 
New  Haven,  Conn.  [351  White  Hall] 

Farrand,  Wilson,  Head  Master,  Newark  Academy,  Newark,  N.  J. 

Farrar,  Thomas  James,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  Wash- 
ington and  Lee  University,  Lexington,  Va. 

Faulkner,  William  Harrison,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia,  Charlottesville,  Va.  [Box  228] 

FAUST,  ALBERT  BERNHARDT,  Professor  of  German,  Cornell  University, 
Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [Cornell  Heights] 

Fay,  Charles  Ernest,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Tufts  College, 
Tufts  College,  Mass. 

Fay,  Percival  Bradshaw,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal. 

Feise,  Richard  Ernst,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [1011  Edgewood  Ave.] 

Ferguson,  John  De  Lancey,  Fellow  in  English,  Columbia  University, 
New  York,  N.  Y.  [924  Sherman  Ave.,  Plainfield,  N.  J.] 

Ferren,  Harry  M.,  Professor  of  German,  Allegheny  High  School, 
North  Side,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 

Ferrin,  Dana  Holman,  The  Century  Co.,  623  S.  Wabash  Ave.,  Chi- 
cago, 111. 

Few,  William  Preston,  President  and  Professor  of  English,  Trinity 
College,  Durham,  N.  C. 

Ficken,  Hilbert  Theodore,  Professor  of  German,  Baldwin-Wallace 
College,  Berea,  O. 


UST    OF    MEMBERS 


clxiii 


Fife,  Robert  Herndon,  Jr.,  Professor  of  German,  Wesleyan  Univer- 
sity, Middletown,  Conn.     [347  High  St.] 

Files,  George  Taylor,  Professor  of  German,  Bowdoin  College,  Bruns- 
wick, Me. 

Fischer,  Walther  Paul,   Instructor  in  French,  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Fisher,  John  Roberts,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Randolph- 
Macon  College,  Ashland,  Va. 

Fiske,   Christabel  Forsyth,  Associate  Professor   of   English,  Vassar 
College,  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Fitz-Gerald,  John  Driscoll,  Assistant  Professor  of  the  Romance  Lan- 
guages, University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

FITZ-HUQH,   THOMAS,   Professor   of   Latin,   University   of  Virginia, 
University,  Va. 

Fletcher,    Jefferson    Butler,    Professor    of    Comparative    Literature, 
Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [112  E.  22d  St.] 

Fletcher,  Robert  Huntington,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Grin- 
nell  College,  Grinnell,  la. 

Flom,    George   Tobias,    Assistant    Professor   of    Scandinavian   Lan- 
guages, University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

Florer,  Warren  Washburn,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.     [910  Olivia  Ave.] 

Flowers,  Olive,  Teacher  of  French  and  English,  West  High  'School, 
Columbus,  O.     [763  Franklin  Ave.] 

Foerster,  Norman,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  North  Caro- 
lina, Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Fogel,  Edwin  Miller,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Miller  Moore,  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  University  of  Nebraska, 
Lincoln,  Neb. 

David    Edgar,    Professor    of    German,    Georgetown    College, 
Georgetown,  Ky. 

Fontaine,  Canaille,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Co- 
lumbia University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Ford,  Daniel,  Assistant  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  Composition,  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Ford,  J.   D.   M.,  Professor  of  the  French  and  Spanish  Languages, 
Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [9  Riedesel  Ave.] 

Ford,  Joseph  Sherman,  Assistant  to  the  Principal,  The  Phillips  Exe- 
ter Academy,  Exeter,  N.  H. 

Ford,  R.  Clyde,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  State  Normal  Col- 
lege, Ypsilanti,  Mich. 

Forsythe,  Robert  Stanley,   Instructor  in  English,  Adelbert  College, 
Western  Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  0.     [18  Adelbert  Hall] 


Foglc 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Fortier,  Edward  J.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [Hamilton 
.  Hall] 

Fossler,  Laurence,  Head  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Languages  and 
Literatures,  University  of  Nebraska,  Lincoln,  Neb. 

Foster,  Irving  Lysander,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Pennsyl- 
vania State  College,  State  College,  Pa. 

Fowler,  Earle  Broadus,  Monroe,  N.  C. 

Fowler,  Thomas  Howard,  Professor  of  German,  Wells  College,  Au- 
rora, N.  Y. 

Fox,  Charles  Shattuck,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Lehigh 
University,  South  Bethlehem,  Pa.  [230  Wall  St.,  Bethlehem] 

Francke,  Kuno,  Professor  of  the  History  of  German  Culture  and 
Curator  of  the  Germanic  Museum,  Harvard  University,  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.  [3  Berkeley  Place] 

Frank,  Colman  Dudley,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, De  Witt  Clinton  High  School,  59th  St.  and  Tenth  Ave., 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Franklin,  George  Bruce,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Simmons 
College,  Boston,  Mass.  [22  Trowbridge  St.,  Cambridge,  Mass.] 

Frantz,  Frank  Flavius,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Central  Col- 
lege, Fayette,  Mo. 

Fraser,  William  Henry,  Professor  of  Italian  and  Spanish,  University 
of  Toronto,  Toronto,  Canada. 

Freeman,  Clarence  Campbell,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Tran- 
sylvania College,  Lexington,  Ky. 

French,  George  Franklin,  Instructor  in  Modern  Languages,  Phillips 
Academy,  Andover,  Mass.  [12  School  St.] 

French,  John  Calvin,  Associate  in  English,  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
Baltimore,  Md. 

French,  Mrs.  W.  F.,  (M.  Katherine  Jackson),  London,  Ky. 

Friedland,  Louis  Sigmund,  Instructor  in  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  138th  St.  and 
Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Froelicher,  Hans,  Professor  of  German,  Goucher  College,  Baltimore, 
Md. 

Fuentes,  Ventura  P.,  Assistant  Professor  of  Spanish,  College  of  the 
City  of  New  York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

Fuess,  Claude  Moore,  Instructor  in  English,  Phillips  Academy,  An- 
dover, Mass. 

Fulton,  Edward,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Illi- 
nois, Urbana,  111. 

Fulton,  Maurice  Garland,  Professor  of  English,  Davidson  College, 
Davidson,  N.  C. 


LIST    OF    MEM3EES 

Galloo,  Eugenie,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages  and  Literatures, 

University  of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 
Galpin,   Stanley  'Leman,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Trinity 

College,  Hartford,  Conn. 
Gait,  Mary  Meares,  Teacher  of  French,  Williams  Memorial  Institute, 

New  London,  Conn. 
Gambrill,  Louise,  Instructor  in  French,  Wellesley  College,  Wellesley, 

Mass. 
Gardner,  Edward  Hall,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 

of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.     [1924  Kendall  Ave.] 
Gardner,  May,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  University  of  Kan- 
sas, Lawrence,  Kas. 
Garver,  Milton  Stahl,  Instructor  in  French,  Sheffield  Scientific  School, 

Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.     [811  Yale  Station] 
Gaston,  Charles  Robert,  Head  of  the  Department  of  English,  Rich- 
mond Hill  High   School,   New  York,  N.  Y.      [215  Abingdon 
Road,  Richmond  Hill,  N.  Y.] 

Gauss,   Christian,   Professor  of  Modern  Languages,   Princeton   Uni- 
versity, Princeton,  N.  J. 

GAW,  MRS.  RALPH  H.,  Topeka,  Kas.     [1321  Filmore  St.] 
Gay,  Lucy  Maria,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.     [216  N.  Pinckney  St.] 
Gayley,  Charles  Mills,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, University  of,  California,  Berkeley,  Cal.     [Parr's  Bank, 
Ltd.,  4  Bartholomew  Lane,  London,  England] 

GEDDES,  JAMES,  JR.,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Boston  Uni- 
versity, Boston,  Mass.     [20  Fairmount  St.,  Brookline,  Mass.] 
Geissendoerfer,  John  Theodore,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of 

Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Gerig,  John  Lawrence,  Associate  Professor  of  Celtic,  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, New  York,  N.  Y. 
Gerould,    Gordon   Hall,   Assistant   Professor,   Preceptor   in   English, 

Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Getz,  Igerna  Miriam,  Instructor  in  German  and  English,  Marshall- 
town  High  School,  Marshalltown,  la.     [5  S.  4th  St.] 
Gideon,   Abram,   Professor   of   German   and   French,   University   of 

Wyoming,  Laramie,  Wyo. 
Gilbert,  Allan  H.,  Instructor  in  English,  Cornell  University,  Ithaca, 

N.  Y.     [215  Pleasant  St.] 

Gilbert,  Donald  Monroe,  Institute  Nacional,  Panama,  Pan. 
Gildersleeve,   Virginia   Crocheron,    Dean   and   Professor   of  Englwh, 

Barnard  College,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
Gillet,   Joseph   Eugene,  Instructor   in   German,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis. 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Gingerich,  Solomon  Francis,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [517  Elm  St.] 

Gingrich,  Gertrude,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Wooster,  Wooster,  O.  [575  University 
St.] 

Glascock,  Clyde  Chew,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Sheffield  Sci- 
entific School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [Gradu- 
ates' Club] 

Goddard,  Eunice  Rathbone,  New  Salem,  Mass. 

Goddard,  Harold  Clarke,  Professor  of  English,  Swarthmore  College, 
Swarthmore,  Pa. 

Goebel,  Julius,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  University  of  Illi- 
nois, Urbana,  111. 

Goettsch,  Charles,  Assistant  Professor  of  Germanic  Philology,  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Goodnight,  Scott  Holland,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Director 
of  the  'Summer  Session,  University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison, 
Wis.  [2130  W.  Lawn  Ave.] 

Goodsell,  Marguerite,  Teacher  of  French  and  German,  Gilbert  School, 
Winsted,  Conn. 

Gorham,  Maud  Bassett,  Instructor  in  English,  Swarthmore  College, 
Swarthmore,  Pa. 

Gould,  Chester  Nathan,  Assistant  Professor  of  German  and  Scan- 
dinavian Literature,  University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Gould,  William  Elford,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [55  Irving  PI.] 

GBANDGENT,  CHARLES  HALL,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Har- 
vard University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [107  Walker  St.] 

Graves,  Thornton  Shirley,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Trinity 
College,  Durham,  N.  C. 

Gray,  Charles  Henry,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Uni- 
versity of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas.  [4303  Baltimore  Ave., 
Philadelphia,  Pa.] 

Gray,  Roland  Palmer,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Maine, 
Orono,  Me. 

Green,  Alexander,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Illinois, 
Urbana,  111.  [924  Illinois  St.] 

Greene,  Ernest  Roy,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Dartmouth  College,  Hanover,  N.  H.  [19  Maple  St.] 

Greene,  Herbert  Eveleth,  Collegiate  Professor  of  English,  Johns  Hop- 
kins University,  Baltimore,  Md.  [1019  St.  Paul  St.] 

Greenfield,  Eric  Viele,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Purdue  Uni- 
versity, West  Lafayette,  Ind. 

Greenlaw,  Edwin  Almiron,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  North 
Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS 


clxvii 


Greenough,  Chester  Noyes,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [17  Lawrence  Hall] 

Greever,  Gustavus  Garland,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Arkansas,  Fayetteville,  Ark.  [American  Express  Com- 
pany, 6  Haymarket,  London,  S.  W.,  England] 

Griebsch,  Max,  Director,  National  German-American  Teachers'  Semi- 
nary, 558-568  Broadway,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

Griffin,  James  O.,  Professor  of  German,  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  Univer- 
sity, Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Griffin,  Nathaniel  Edward,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  English, 
Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J.  [14  N.  Dod  Hall] 

Griffith,  Reginald  Harvey,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Texas,  Austin,  Tex.  [University  Station] 

Grimm,  Karl  Josef,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Pennsylvania  College,  Gettysburg,  Pa. 

Gronow,  Hans  Ernst,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Chicago, 
Chicago,  111. 

Griinbaum,  Gustav,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Johns  Hop- 
kins University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

GBUENER,  GUSTAV,  Professor  of  German,  Yale  University,  New  Haven, 
Conn.  [146  Lawrance  Hall] 

Grumbine,  Harvey  Carson,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  University  of  Wooster,  Wooster,  0. 

Grummann,  Paul  H.,  Professor  of  Modern  German  Literature,  Uni- 
versity of  Nebraska,  Lincoln,  Neb.  [1967  South  St.] 

Gubelmann,  Albert  Edward,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Yale 
College,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [806  Yale  Station] 

Gu6rard,  Albert  Le"on,  Professor  of  the  History  of  French  Culture, 
Rice  Institute,  Houston,  Tex. 

Guerlac,  Othon  G.,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  Cornell  University, 
Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [3  Fountain  Place] 

Guitner,  Alma,  Professor  of  German,  Otterbein  University,  Wester- 
ville,  O.  [75  W.  College  Ave.] 

Gummere,  Francis  B.,  Professor  of  English,  Haverford  College, 
Haverford,  Pa. 

Gunn,  Sidney,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [3  Linnaean  St.] 

Gutknecht,  Louise  L.,  Instructor  in  German  and  French,  J.  Bowen 
High  School,  Chicago,  111.  [7700  Bond  Ave.,  Windsor  Park] 

Guyer,  Foster  Erwin,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  Dartmouth 
College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 

Haertel,  Martin  H.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis. 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Hale,  Edward  E.,  Professor  of  English,  Union  College,  Schenec- 
tady,  N.  Y. 

Hale,  Wm.  Gardner,  Professor  of  Latin,  University  of  Chicago,  Chi- 
cago, 111. 

Hall,  Edgar  A.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Adelphi  College, 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  [420  Park  Place] 

Hall,  John  'Lesslie,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, College  of  William  and  Mary,  Williamsburg,  Va. 

Hall,  Margaret  Woodburn,  Acting  Chairman  of  the  French  Depart- 
ment, Evander  Childs  High  School,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [P.  S. 
47] 

Haller,  William,  Instructor  in  English,  Barnard  College,  Columbia 
University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Halley,  Albert  Roberts,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Modern  Lan- 
guages, Chatham  Academy,  Savannah,  Ga.  [Box  154] 

Hamilton,  George  Livingstone,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

Hamilton,  Theodore  Ely,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Ohio  State  University,  Columbus,  O. 

Hammond,  Eleanor  Prescott,  Chicago,  111.     [1357  E.  57th  St.] 

Handschin,  Charles  Hart,  Professor  of  German,  Miami  University, 
Oxford,  0. 

Haney,  John  Louia,  Professor  of  English  Philology,  Central  High 
School,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Hanford,  James  Holly,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  North  Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Hardy,  Ashley  Kingley,  Assistant  Professor  of  German  and  Instruc- 
tor in  Old  English,  Dartmouth  College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 

Harper,  Carrie  Anna,  Associate  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
Mount  Holyoke  College,  So.  Hadley,  Mass. 

Harper,  George  McLean,  Professor  of  English,  Princeton  University, 
Princeton,  N.  J. 

HARRIS,  CHARLES,  Professor  of  German,  Western  Reserve  University, 
Cleveland,  0 

Harris,  Lancelot  Minor,  Professor  of  English,  College  of  Charleston, 
Charleston,  S.  C. 

Harrison,  Frederick  Browne,  Instructor  in  English,  Jacob  Tomo 
Institute,  Port  Deposit,  Md. 

Harrison,  John  Smith,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Kenyon  Col- 
lege, Gambier,  0. 

Harry,  Philip  Warner,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, Colby  College,  Waterville,  Me. 

HART,  CHARLES  EDWARD,  Professor  Emeritus  of  Ethics  and  Evidences 
of  Christianity,  Rutgers  College,  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.  [33 
Livingston  Avc.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS 

HABT,  JAMES  MOBGAN,  Professor  Emeritus  of  the  English  Language 
and  Literature,  Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [English 
Seminary,  Cornell  University  Library] 

Hart,  Walter  Morris,  Associate  Professor  of  English  Philology,  Uni- 
versity of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal.  [2255  Piedmont  Ave.] 

Hartmann,  Jacob  Wittmer,  Instructor  in  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  New  York^  N.  Y. 
[468  W.  153d  St.] 

Harvitt,  Helen  J.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.     [192  Hooper  St.] 

Hastings,  Harry  Worthington,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  New 
York  State  College  for  Teachers,  Albany,  N.  Y. 

Hastings,  William  Thomson,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Brown 
University,  Providence,  K.  I.  [13  John  St.] 

HATFIELD,  JAMES  TAFT,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  Northwestern  University,  Evanston,  111. 

Hauhart,  William  F.,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Michigan, 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Haussmann,  John  Fred,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis.  [531  State  St.] 

Havens,  Raymond  Dexter,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Rochester,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

Hayden,  Philip  Meserve,  Professor  of  French,  Tufts  College,  Tufts 
College,  Mass.  [1120  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y.] 

Heck,  Jean  Olive,  Instructor  in  History,  Raschig  School,  Cincinnati, 
0.  [3757  Darvin  Ave.,  Station  L] 

Heiss,  John,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Purdue  University, 
West  Lafayette,  Ind.  -[403  University  St.] 

Heller,  Anna  Marie,  Teacher  of  German  and  French,  William  Penn 
High  School,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Heller,  Otto,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Literature, 
Washington  University,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Helmholtz-Phelan,  Mrs.  Anna  Augusta,  Instructor  in  English,  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn.  [Faculty  Box  951 

Hemingway,  Samuel  Burdett,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Yale 
College,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [72  Yale  Station] 

Hempl,  George,  Professor  of  Germanic  Philology,  Leland  Stanford  Jr. 
University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Henby,  Abbie,  Instructor  in  German,  High  School,  Kokomo,  Ind. 
[530  E.  Mulberry  St.] 

He"nin,  Benjamin  Louis,  Professor  of  French,  High  School  of  Com- 
merce, 157  W.  65th  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Henning,  George  Neely,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  G«arg« 
Washington  University,  Washington,  D.  C. 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 


Herford,  Charles  Harold,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  University 

of  Manchester,  Manchester,  England. 
Hermannsson,    Halldor,    Curator    of    the    Icelandic    Collection    and 

Lecturer  in  Scandinavian,  Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 
Herrick,  Asbury  Haven,  Instructor  in  German,  Harvard  University. 

Cambridge,  Mass.     [34  Maple  Ave.] 
Hersey,  Frank  Wilson  Cheney,  Instructor  in  English,  Harvard  Uni- 

versity, Cambridge,  Mass.     [61  Oxford  St.] 
HEBVEY,  WILLIAM  ADDISON,  Associate  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Lan- 

guages and  Literatures,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
Heuser,  Frederick  W.  J.,  Assistant  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Lan- 

guages and  Literatures,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
Heusinkveld,   Arthur  Helenus,   University  of   Chicago,   Chicago,   111. 

[5825  Maryland  Ave.] 
HEWETT,  WATERMAN   THOMAS,  Professor   Emeritus   of   the  German 

Language  and  Literature,  Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 
Hewitt,  Theodore   Brown,  Instructor  in  German,  Williams  College, 

Williamstown,  Mass. 
Heyd,  Jacob  Wilhelm,  Professor  of  German,   State  Normal  School, 

Kirksville,  Mo.     [917  E.  Normal  Ave.] 
Hicks,  Fred  Cole,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Dakota  Wesleyan 

University,  Mitchell,  S.  Dak. 
Hicks,  Rivers  Keith,  Instructor  in  French,  Dartmouth  College,  Han- 

over, N.  H. 
Hill,  Herbert  Wynford,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Nevada, 

Reno,  Nev. 
Hill,   Hinda   Teague,   Professor   of    French,   State    Normal   College, 

Greensboro,  N.  C. 
Hill,  John,  Dresden,  Tenn. 
Hill,  Murray  Gardner,  Instructor  in  English,  Adelbert  College,  West- 

ern Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  O. 
Hill,   Raymond  Thompson,   Instructor   in   French,   Yale  University. 

New  Haven,  Conn. 
Hills,  Elijah  Clarence,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages  and  Litera- 

tures, Colorado  College,  Colorado  Springs,  Col.     [12  College 

Place] 

Hinckley,  Henry  Barrett,  Northampton,  Mass.     [54  Prospect  St.] 
Hinsdale,  Ellen  C.,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Litera- 

ture, Mount  Holyoke  College,  South  Hadley,  Mass. 
Hochdorfer,  K.  F.  Richard,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Witten- 

berg College,  Springfield,  O. 

HODDEB,  Mrs.  ALFRED,  Baltimore,  Md.     [33  Mt.  Vernon  Place,  East] 
Hohlfeld,  Alexander  R.,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis. 


LIST    OF   MEMBERS  clxxi 

Holbrook,  Richard  Thayer,  Associate  Professor  of  Old  French  and 
Italian,  Bryn  Mawr  College,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. 

Hollander,  Lee  M.,  Instructor  in  German  and  Scandinavian,  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [312  Prospect  Ave.] 

Holt,  Josephine  White,  Head  of  the  French  Department,  John  Mar- 
shall High  School,  Richmond,  Va.  [113  N.  3d  St.] 

Holzwarth,  Charles  Homer,  Head  of  the  Modern  Language  Depart- 
ment, West  High  School,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

Holzwarth,  Franklin  James,  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Languages 
and  'Literatures,  Syracuse  University,  Syracuse,  N.  Y.  [911 
Walnut  Ave.] 

Hopkins,  Annette  Brown,  Instructor  in  English,  Goucher  College, 
Baltimore,  Md. 

Hopkins,  Edwin  Mortimer,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  the  English 
Language,  University  of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 

Horning,  Lewis  Emerson,  Professor  of  Teutonic  Philology,  Victoria 
College,  Toronto,  Canada. 

Hosic,  James  Fleming,  Professor  of  English,  Chicago  Teachers'  Col- 
lege, 68th  St.  and  Stewart  Ave.,  Chicago,  111.  [10423  Seeley 
Ave.] 

Hoskins,  John  Preston,  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Languages,  Prince- 
ton University,  Princeton,  N.  J.  [22  Bank  St.] 

Hospes,  Mrs.  Cecilia  Lizzette,  Teacher  of  German,  McKinley  High 
School,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

House,  Ralph  Emerson,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Houston,  Percy  Hazen,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Texas, 
Austin,  Tex. 

HOWARD,  WILLIAM  GUILD,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [39  Kirkland  St.] 

Howe,  Thomas  Carr,  President,  Butler  College,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 
[48  S.  Audubon  Road] 

Howe,  Will  David,  Professor  of  English,  Indiana  University,  Bloom- 
ington,  Ind. 

Hoyt,  Prentiss  Cheney,  Professor  of  English,  Clark  College,  Worces- 
ter, Mass.  [940  Main  St.] 

Hrbkova,  Sarka  B.,  Assistant  Professor,  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Slavonic  Languages  and  Literatures,  University  of  Nebraska, 
Lincoln,  Neb.  [105  M.  Arts  Hall] 

Hubbard,  Frank  Gaylord,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis.  [409  N.  Murray  St.] 

Hughes,  Mrs.  Charlotte  Conde",  Tutor  in  Romance  Languages,  Gfcand 
Rapids,  Mich.  [20  North  College  Ave.] 


Clxxii  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Hulbert,  James  Root,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Chicago, 
Chicago,  111. 

Hulme,  William  Henry,  Professor  of  English,  College  for  Women, 
Western  Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  0. 

Humphreys,  Wilber  R.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [1435  Cambridge  Rd.] 

Hunkins,  Charles  H.,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I. 

Hunt,  Theodore  Whitefield,  Professor  of  English,  Princeton  Univer- 
sity, Princeton,  N.  J. 

Hurlburt,  Albert  Francis,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [513  Elm  St.] 

Hutchins,  Henry  Clinton,  Instructor  in  English,  Lafayette  College, 
Easton,  Pa. 

HYDE,  JAMES  HAZEN,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [23  W.  50th  St.] 

Ilgen,  Ernest,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  College  of  the  City  of 
New  York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Imbert,  Louis,  Instructor  in  'Spanish,  Columbia  University,  New 
York,  N.  Y.  [Hamilton  Hall,  Columbia  University] 

Ingraham,  Edgar  Shugert,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Ohio 
State  University,  Columbus,  O. 

Jaeck,  Emma  Gertrude,  Professor  of  German,  Converse  College, 
Spartanburg,  S.  C. 

von  Jagernann,  H.  C.  G.,  Professor  of  Germanic  Philology,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [113  Walker  St.] 

JENKINS,  T.  ATKINSON,  Professor  of  French  Philology,  University  of 
Chicago,  Chicago,  111.  [5411  Greenwood  Ave.] 

Jenney,  Adeline  Miriam,  Fellow  in  English,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis.  [191  W.  Johnson  St.] 

Jensen,  Gerard  Edward,  Instructor  in  English,  Cornell  University, 
Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [203  De  Witt  Place] 

JESSEN,  KARL  DETLEV,  Professor  of  German  Literature,  Bryn  Mawr 
College,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. 

Johnson,  Amandus,  Instructor  in  Scandinavian  and  German,  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [Box  39,  College  Hall] 

Johnson,  Carl  Wilhelm,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Williams 
'  College,  Williamstown,  Mass. 

Johnson,  Henry,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Bowdoin  College, 
Brunswick,  Me. 

Johnson,  Herman  Patrick,  Acting  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Mississippi,  University,  Miss. 


LIST   OF   MEMBEES         ^ 

Johnson,  William  Savage,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
University  of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas.  [1135  Ohio  St.] 

Johnston,  Oliver  Martin,  Associate  Professor  of  Romanic  Languages, 
Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Jonas,  Johannes  Benoni  Eduard,  Teacher  of  German,  DeWitt  Clinton 
High  School,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [50  Turner  Ave.,  Riverside, 
R.  L] 

Jones,  Everett  Starr,  Head  Master,  Allen  School,  West  Newton,  Mass. 

Jones,  Florence  Nightingale,  University  of  Nebraska,  Lincoln,  Neb. 

Jones,  Harry  Stuart  Vedder,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

Jones,  Jessie  Louise,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Lewis  Institute, 
Chicago,  111. 

Jones,  Raymond  Watson,  Instructor  in  German,  Dartmouth  College, 
Hanover,  N.  H. 

Jones,  Richard,  Professor  of  English,  Tufts  College,  Tufts  College, 
Mass.  [9  Concord  Ave.,  Cambridge,  Mass.] 

Jones,  Richard  Foster,  Instructor  in  English,  Western  Reserve  Uni- 
versity, Cleveland,  O. 

Jones,  Virgil  Laurens,  Professor  of  English,  Sweet  Briar  College, 
Sweet  Briar,  Va. 

Jordan,  Daniel,  Assistant  Professor  of  the  Romance  Languages  and 
Literatures,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Jordan,  Mary  Augusta,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass.  [Hatfield 
House] 

JOYNES,  EDWARD  S.,  Professor  Emeritus  of  Modern  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  South  Carolina,  Columbia,  S.  C. 

Judson,  Alexander  Corbin,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of 
Texas,  Austin,  Tex. 

Kaufman,    J.    Paul,    Harvard    University,    Cambridge,    Mass.      [56 

Brentford  Hall] 
Kayser,  Carl  F.,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Literature, 

Hunter  College,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [71  E.  87th  St.] 
Keep,    Robert    Porter,    Instructor    in    German,    Phillips    Academy,  . 

Andover,  Mass. 

Keidel,  George  Charles,  Library  of  Congress,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Keidel,  Heinrich  C.,  Instructor  in  German,  Ohio  State  University, 

Columbus,  0. 
Keith,    Oscar    L.,    Professor    of    Modern    Languages,    University    of 

South  Carolina,  Columbia,  'S.  C.     [1518  University  Plafe] 
Kellogg,    Robert    James,    Professor    of    Modern    Languages,    James 

Millikin  University,  Decatur,  111.      [6   Sacramento  St.,  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.] 


MODEKST    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Kent,  Charles  W.,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  University  of 
Virginia,  University,  Va. 

Kenyon,  John  Samuel,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
English,  Butler  College,  Indianapolis,  Ind.  [5339  University 
Ave.] 

Keppler,  Emil  A.  C.,  Tutor  in  Germanic  Languages  and  Literatures, 
College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [214 
Drake  Ave.,  New  Rochelle,  N.  Y.] 

Kerlin,  Robert  Thomas,  Professor  of  English,  Virginia  Military 
Institute,  Lexington,  Va. 

Kern,  Alfred  Allan,  Professor  of  English,  Millsaps  College,  Jackson, 
Miss. 

Kerr,  William  Alexander  Robb,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages, 
University  of  Alberta,  Edmonton  South,  Alberta,  Canada. 

Kind,  John  Louis,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [425  Sterling  Court] 

King,  James  Percival,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Rochester, 
Rochester,  N.  Y. 

King,  Robert  Augustus,  Professor  of  German,  Wabash  College,  Craw- 
fordsville,  Ind. 

Kinoshita,  Junichiro,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [156  E.  49th  St.] 

Kip,  Herbert  Z.,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Vanderbilt  Univer- 
sity, Nashville,  Tenn. 

KITTEEDGE,  GEORGE  LYMAN,  Professor  of  English,  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, Cambridge,  Mass.  [8  Hilliard  St.] 

Kittredge,  Rupert  Earle  Loring,  Professor  of  French,  Trinity  Col- 
lege, University  of  Toronto,  Toronto,  Canada. 

Klaeber,  Frederick,  Professor  of  Comparative  and  English  Philology, 
University  of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

KLEIN,  DAVID,  Instructor  in  English,  College  of  the  City  of  New 
York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Kleinhans,  Sophie  Dorothea,  Head  Teacher  of  German,  High  School, 
Crawfordsville,  Ind. 

von  Klenze,  Camillo,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I. 

Knoepfler,  John  Baptist,  Professor  of  German  and  French,  Iowa 
State  Teachers'  College,  Cedar  Falls,  la. 

Knowlton,  Edgar  Colby,  Instructor  in  English,  Lafayette  College, 
Easton,  Pa.  [226  Porter  'St.] 

Kolbe,  Parke  Rexford,  President,  Municipal  University  of  Akron, 
Akron,  O. 

Koller,  Armin  Hajman,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Illi- 
nois, Urbana,  111.  [1110  S.  3d  St.,  Champaign,  111.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBEES 

Kotz,  Theodore  Franklin,  Instructor  in  German,  Ohio  State  Univer- 
sity, Columbus,  O. 

Kracher,  Francis  Waldemar,  Assistant  Professor  of  the  German  Lan- 
guage and  Literature,  State  University  of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la. 
[405  N.  Linn  St.] 

Krapp,  George  Philip,  Professor  of  English,  Columbia  University, 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Krause,  Carl  Albert,  Head  of  the  Modern  Language  Department, 
Jamaica  High  School,  Jamaica,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [1087A 
Prospect  Place,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.] 

Kroeh,  Charles  F.,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Stevens  Institute 
of  Technology,  Hoboken,  N.  J. 

Krowl,  Harry  G.,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  College  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  139th  St.  and  Convent  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Kruse,  Henry  Otto,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 

Kueffner,  Louise  Mallinckrodt,  Instructor  in  German,  Vassar  Col- 
lege, Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Kuersteiner,  Albert  Frederick,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Indiana  University,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Kuhl,  Ernest  P.,  Instructor  in  English,  Dartmouth  College,  Hanover, 
N.  H.  [6  College  St.] 

Kuhne,  Julius  W.,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Miami  University,  Oxford,  O. 

Kuhns,  Oscar,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Wesleyan  Univer- 
sity, Middletown,  Conn. 

Kullmer,  Charles  Julius,  Professor  of  German,  Syracuse  University, 
Syracuse,  N.  Y.  [505  University  Place] 

Kurrelmeyer,  William,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Johns  Hop- 
kins University,  Baltimore,  Md.  [Ellicott  City,  Md.] 

Lambert,  Marcus  Bachman,  Teacher  of  German,  Richmond  Hill  High 
School,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [5  Maxwell  Ave.,  Jamaica,  New 
York] 

Lancaster,  Henry  Carrington,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Am- 
herst  College,  Amherst,  Mass. 

Lang,  Henry  R.,  Professor  of  Romance  Philology,  Yale  University, 
New  Haven,  Conn.  [176  Yale  Station] 

Lange,  Carl  Frederick  Augustus,  Professor  of  German,  Smith  Col- 
lege, Northampton,  Mass. 

Langley,  Ernest  F.,  Professor  of  French,  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology,  Boston,  Mass. 

Lathrop,  Henry  Burrowes,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis. 


MODEBN    LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

Laubscher,  Gustav  George,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Ran- 
dolph-Macon  Woman's  College,  Lynchburg,  Va.  [College  Park, 
Va.] 

Lauer,  Edward  Henry,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  'State  Uni- 
versity of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la.     [702  Iowa  Ave.] 
Lavertu,  Francis  Louis,  Head  of  the  Modern  Language  Department, 
Hill  School,  Pottstown,  Pa. 

Law,  Robert  A.,  Adjunct  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Texas, 
Austin,  Tex.  [2108  San  Gabriel  St.] 

Lawrence,  William  Witherle,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Colum- 
bia University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Layton,  Katherine  A.  W.,  Instructor  in  German,  Smith  College, 
Northampton,  Mass.  [11  Arnold  Ave.] 

Leach,  Henry  Goddard,  Secretary,  The  American-Scandinavian  Foun- 
dation, 25  W.  45th  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Learned,  Henry  Dexter,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia,  Pa.  [229  S.  44th  St.] 

Learned,  Marion  Dexter,  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Languages  and 
Literatures,  University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Lecompte,  Irville  Charles,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  Yale  Uni- 
versity, New  Haven,  Conn.  [764  Yale  Station] 

Le  Due,  Alma  de  L.,  Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 

Lemmi,  Charles  W.,  Instructor  in  English,  Simmons  College,  Bos- 
ton, Mass. 

Leonard,  Arthur  Newton,  Professor  of  German,  Bates  College,  Lewis- 
ton,  Me.  [24  Riverside  St.] 

Leonard,  William  Ellery,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis. 

Lcser,  Eugene,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Indiana  University, 
Bloomington,  Ind.  [420  S.  'Sluss  Ave.] 

Lessing,  Otto  Eduard,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Illinois, 
Urbana,  111.  [905  S.  Lincoln  Ave.] 

Levi,  Moritz,  Professor  of  French,  University  of  Michigan,  Ann 
Arbor,  Mich. 

Lewis,  Charlton  Miner,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Yale  Uni- 
versity, New  Haven,  Conn. 

Lewis,  Edwin  Herbert,  Professor  of  English  and  Dean  of  the  Fac- 
ulty, Lewis  Institute,  Chicago,  111. 

Lewisohn,  Ludwig,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Ohio  State  Uni- 
versity, Columbus,  0.  [23  Sixteenth  Ave.] 

Licklider,  Albert  Harp,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
Williams  College,  Williamstown,  Mass. 

Liddell,  Mark  Harvey,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Purdue  Uni- 
versity, West  Lafayette,  Ind.  [523  Waldron  St.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS 

Lieder,  Frederick  William  Charles,  Instructor  in  German,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [6  Holyoke  House] 

Limper,  Henry  William,  Professor  of  the  German  -Language  and 
Literature,  Southwestern  College,  Winfield,  Kas. 

Lincoln,  George  Luther,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [2000  Commonwealth  Ave., 
Boston,  Mass.] 

Lindsay,  Julian  Ira,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Vermont, 
Burlington,  Vt. 

Lipari,  Angelo,  Lecturer  in  French,  Trinity  College,  University  of 
Toronto,  Toronto,  Canada. 

Livingston,  Albert  Arthur,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Lockwood,  Francis  Cummins,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  Allegheny  College,  Meadville,  Pa. 

Lockwood,  Laura  E.,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Wellesley  Col- 
lege, Wellesley,  Mass.  [8  Norfolk  Terrace] 

Logeman,  Henry,  Professor  of  English  Philology,  University  of 
Ghent,  Ghent,  Belgium.  [343  boulevard  des  Hospices] 

Loiseaux,  Louis  Auguste,  Associate  Professor  of  the  Romance  Lan- 
guages and  Literatures,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Lomax,  John  Avery,  Secretary  of  the  Faculties,  University  of  Texas, 
Austin,  Tex. 

Long,  Orie  William,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute,  Worcester,  Mass. 

Long,  Percy  Waldron,  Instructor  in  English,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [18  Willard  St.] 

Longden,  Henry  Boyer,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  De  Pauw  University,  Greencastle,  Ind. 

Loomis,  Roger  Sherman,  Tutor  in  English,  University  of  Illinois, 
Urbana,  111.  [1008  Oregon  St.] 

Lorenz,  Charlotte  Marie,  Instructor  in  German,  Iowa  State  Teachers' 
College,  Cedar  Falls,  la. 

Lotspeich,  Claude  Meek,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  University 
of  Cincinnati,  Cincinnati,  0. 

Lovell,  George  Blakeman,  Instructor  in  German,  Sheffield  Scientific 
School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [753  Yale  Sta- 
tion] 

Lowes,  John  Livingston,  Professor  of  English,  Washington  Univer- 
sity, St.  Louis,  Mo.  /~ 

Luebke,  William  Ferdinand,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  State 
University  of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la.  0 

Luquiens,  Frederick  Bliss,  Assistant  Professor  of  Spanish,  Sheffield 
Scientific  School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [97 
Canner  St.] 

9 


MODEBN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Lustrat,  Joseph,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University  of 
Georgia,  Athens,  Ga. 

Lutz,  Frederick,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages  and  Acting  Pro- 
fessor of  Latin,  Albion  College,  Albion,  Mich. 

Lynch,  Samuel  Adams,  Head  of  the  Department  of  English,  Iowa 
State  Teachers'  College,  Cedar  Falls,  la. 

Lyon,  Charles  Edward,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Clark  Col- 
lege, Worcester,  Mass.  [21  King  St.] 

McBryde,  John  McLaren,  Jr.,  Professor  of  English,  and  Editor  of 
the  Sewanee  Review,  University  of  the  South,  Sewanee,  Tenn. 

McClelland,  George  William,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [3706  Locust  St.] 

MacClintock,  William  D.,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Chi- 
cago, Chicago,  111.  [5629  Lexington  Ave.] 

McCobb,  Arthur  Lewis,  Instructor  in  German,  Clark  College,  Worces- 
ter, Mass. 

MACCRACKEN,  HENRY  NOBLE,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 

MacDonald,  Wilbert  L.,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  New 
Brunswick,  Fredericton,  N.  B. 

Mclntyre,  Clara  Frances,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wyo- 
ming, Laramie,  Wyo. 

Mackall,  Leonard  Leopold,  Hon.  Member,  Georgia  Historical  Society, 
Foreign  Member,  Bibliographical  Society  of  London,  Jena, 
Germany.  [Forstweg  14] 

Mackenzie,  Alastair  St.  Clair,  Professor  of  English  and  Dean  of  the 
Graduate  School,  'State  University  of  Kentucky,  Lexington, 
Ky.  [Box  208] 

McKENZiE,  KENNETH,  Assistant  Professor  of  Italian,  Yale  Univer- 
sity, New  Haven,  Conn.  [142  Cold  Spring  St.] 

Mackenzie,  William  Roy,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Washington 
University,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

McKibben,  George  Fitch,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Denison 
University,  Granville,  O. 

MacKimmie,  Anderson,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  Massachusetts 
Agricultural  College,  No.  Amherst,  Mass. 

McKnight,  George  Barley,  Professor  of  English,  Ohio  State  Univer- 
sity, Columbus,  0. 

McLaughlin,  William  Aloysius,  Instructor  in  French,  University  of 
Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [644  S.  Ingalls  St.] 

McLay,  Walter  Scott  Williams,  Professor  of  English  and  Dean  of 
Arts,  McMaster  University,  Toronto,  Ont. 


LIST    OF   MEMBERS 

McLean,  Charlotte  Frelinghuysen,  Professor  of  English,  College  of 
Montana,  Deer  Lodge,  Montana. 

McLouth,  Lawrence  A.,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, New  York  University,  University  Heights,  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

McMahon,  Charles  Omar,  Instructor  in  Pvomance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Louisville,  Louisville,  Ky. 

Macmillan,  Beulah  A.,  Instructor  in  English,  Wilson  College  for 
Women,  Chambersburg,  Pa. 

Mahr,  August  Carl,  Instructor  in  German,  Sheffield  Scientific  School, 
Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [116  Vanderbilt  Hall 
(Sheff.)] 

Maloubier,  Eugfcne  F.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Adelphi 
College,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Manchester,  Frederick  A.,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis. 

Manley,  Edward,  Englewood  High  School,  Chicago,  111.  [6100  Lex- 
ington Ave.] 

Manly,  John  Matthews,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Chicago, 
Chicago,  111. 

Manthey-Zorn,  Otto,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Amherst  Col- 
lege, Amherst,  Mass. 

Marcou,  Philippe  Belknap,  Paris,  France.     [28  quai  d'0r!6ans] 

Marden,  Charles  Carroll,  Professor  of  Spanish,  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, Baltimore,  Md. 

Marquardt,  Carl  Eugene,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Pennsyl- 
vania State  College,  State  College,  Pa. 

Marsh,  George  Linnaeus,  Extension  Associate  Professor  of  English, 
University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Marvin,  Robert  B.,  Head  of  the  German  Department,  Commercial 
High  School,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  [826  Marcy  Ave.] 

Mason,  James  Frederick,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

Mason,  Lawrence,  Instructor  in  English,  Yale  College,  New  Haven, 
Conn. 

Mathews,  Charles  Eugley,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  Modern 
Languages,  Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

MATTHEWS,  BRANDEB,  Professor  of  Dramatic  Literature  (English), 
Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [337  W.  87th  St.] 

Maxfield,  Ezra  Kempton,  Instructor  in  English,  Colby  College, 
Waterville,  Me.  [17  West  St.]  , 

Mayfield,  G.  R.,  Instructor  in  German,  Vanderbilt  University,  Nash- 
ville, Tenn. 


MODEKN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Maynadier,  Gustavus  H.,  Instructor  in  English,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [24  Fairfax  Hall] 

Mead,  William  Edward,  Professor  of  the  English  Language,  Wes- 
leyan  University,  Middletown,  Conn. 

Meader,  Clarence  Linton,  Junior  Professor  of  General  Linguistics, 
University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [1941  Geddes  Ave.] 

Meisnest,  Frederick  William,  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Washington,  Seattle,  Wash.  [4705  Sixteenth  Ave.,  N.  E.] 

Mensel,  Ernst  Heinrich,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Lit- 
eratures, Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 

Mercier,  Louis  Joseph  Alexander,  Instructor  in  French,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Metzinger,  Leon,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Minnesota, 
Minneapolis,  Minn.  [979  Fourteenth  Ave.,  S.  E.] 

Meyer,  Edward  Stockton,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Western 
Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  O. 

Meyer,  George  Henry,  Assistant  Dean  and  Assistant  Professor  of  the 
German  Language  and  Literature,  University  of  Illinois,  Ur- 
bana,  111. 

Michaud,  Re"gis,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  Modern  Lan- 
guages, Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Miles,  Dudley  Howe,  Chairman  of  the  English  Department,  Evander 
Childs  High  School,  Bronx,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [509  W.  122d 
-St.] 

Miles,  Louis  Wardlaw,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  English, 
Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Miller,  George  Morey,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Lit- 
erature, Wabash  College,  Crawfordsville,  Lid.  [609  E.  Wa- 
bash  Ave.] 

Miller,  Kate  Belle,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Lewis  Institute, 
Chicago,  111. 

Miller,  Raymond  Durbin,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo.  [305  Hicks  Ave.] 

Mills,  Agnes  Dorothy,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [401  W.  118th  St.] 

Mims,  Edwin,  Professor  of  English,  Vanderbilt  University,  Nashville, 
Tenn. 

Mitchell,  Robert  McBurney,  Assistant  Professor  of  Germanic  Lan- 
guages and  Literatures,  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I. 
[144  Congdon  St.] 

Monroe,  Robert  Emmett,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Transyl- 
vania University,  Lexington,  Ky. 

Mookerjee,  H.  C.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Calcutta  Univer- 
sity, Calcutta,  India.  [1  and  2  Dehi  Serampore  Rd.] 


LIST   OF   MEMBERS 

Moore,  Cecil  Albert,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Trinity  College, 
Durham,  N.  C.  [9  Lamont  Ave.] 

Moore,  Clarence  King,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Rochester,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

Moore,  Olin  Harris,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111.  [University  Club] 

Moore,  Robert  Webber,  Professor  of  German,  Colgate  University, 
Hamilton,  N.  Y. 

Moore,  Samuel,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis.  [112  Lathrop  St.] 

Morgan,  Bayard  Quincy,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University 
of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [1710  Adams  St.] 

Morgan,  Charlotte  E.,  Instructor  in  English,  Mrs.  Randall-Mclver's 
Classes  (Miss  Davidge's  Classes),  New  York,  N.  Y.  [1173 
Bushwick  Ave.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.] 

Moriarty,  William  Daniel,  Instructor  in  Rhetoric,  University  of  Mich- 
igan, Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [309  Thompson  St.] 

Morley,  Sylvanus  Griswold,  Professor  of  Romanic  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal. 

Morris,  George  Davis,  Associate  Professor  of  French,  Indiana  Uni- 
versity, Bloomington,  Ind. 

Morris,  John,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  University  of 
Georgia,  Athens,  Ga. 

Moseley,  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages, 
Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Mosher,  William  Eugene,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  Oberlin  College,  Oberlin,  0. 

MOTT,  LEWIS  F.,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Literature, 
College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  139th  St.  and  Convent  Ave., 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Moyse,  Charles  Ebenezer,  Vice-Principal,  Professor  of  English,  Mc- 
Gill  University,  Montreal,  Canada. 

Mueller,  Eugene,  Teacher  of  German,  Shortridge  High  School,  In- 
dianapolis, Ind. 

Mulfinger,  George  Abraham,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  Allegheny  College,  Meadville,  Pa. 

Murray,  William  Henry,  Assistant  Professor  of  Modern  Languages, 
Tuck  School,  Dartmouth  College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 

Mutterer,  Frederick  Gilbert,  Professor  of  German,  Indiana  State 
Normal  School,  Terre  Haute,  Ind.  [667  Oak  St.] 

Myers,  Clara  Louise,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  College  for 
Women,  Western  Reserve  University,  Cleveland,  O.  * 

Myers,  Walter  R.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn.  [1629  University  Ave.,  S.  E.] 


CIXXXJJ  MODEBN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Myrick,  Arthur  B.,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University  of 
Vermont,  Burlington,  Vt.  [86  Williams  St.] 

Nadal,  Thomas  William,  Dean  and  Professor  of  English,  Olivet  Col- 
lege, Olivet,  Mich. 

Nason,  Arthur  Huntington,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  New 
York  University,  University  Heights,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Neef,  Francis  J.  A.,  Instructor  in  German,  Dartmouth  College,  Han- 
over, N.  H. 

Neff,  Theodore  Lee,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  University  of 
Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Neidig,  William  J.,  Chicago,  111.     [1156  N.  Dearborn  St.] 

NEILSON,  WILLIAM  ALLAN,  Professor  of  English,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [34  Kirkland  'St.] 

Nelson,  Clara  Albertine,  Professor  of  French,  Ohio  Wesleyan  Univer- 
sity, Delaware,  0. 

Nelson,  Joseph  Raleigh,  Assistant  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  University 
of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [927  Forest  Ave.] 

Nettleton,  George  Henry,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Sheffield 
Scientific  School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [570 
Prospect  St.] 

Neumann,  Gustaf  Julius,  Professor  of  English  and  Psychology,  Wart- 
burg  College,  Clinton,  la. 

NEWCOMEB,  CHAELES  BEBEY,  Des  Moines,  la.     [1131  25th  St.] 

Newport,  Mrs.  Clara  Price,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Swarth- 
more  College,  Swarthmore,  Pa. 

Nichols,  Charles  Washburn,  Assistant  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Nichols,  Edwin  Bryant,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  DePauw 
University,  Greencastle,  Ind.  [529  Anderson  St.] 

Nicolay,  Clara  Leonora,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Queen's 
College,  Charlotte,  N.  C. 

Nitze,  William  Albert,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Romance  Languages,  University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 
[1220  E.  56th  St.] 

Noble,  Alvin  Buell,  Professor  of  Literature  and  Rhetoric,  Iowa  State 
College,  Ames,  la.  ['Station  A] 

Noble,  Charles,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Rhetoric, 
Grinnell  College,  Grinnell,  la.  [1110  West  St.] 

von  Noe",  Adolf  Carl,  Assistant  Professor  of  German  Literature, 
University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Noe",  Rachel,  Teacher  of  French,  Bayonne  High  School,  Bayonne,  N.  J. 
[105  W.  8th  St.] 


LIST   OF   MEMBEKS 

Nolle,  Alfred  Henry,  Assistant  in  German,  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, Philadelphia,  Pa.  [122  S.  33d  St.] 

Nollen,  John  S.,  President,  Lake  Forest  College,  Lake  Forest,  111. 

Northrop,  George  Norton,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Min- 
nesota, Minneapolis,  Minn.  [2213  Grand  Ave.] 

NOBTHUP,  CLABK  SUTHERLAND,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Cor- 
nell University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [407  Elmwood  Ave.] 

Northup,  George  Tyler,  Assistant  Professor  of  Italian  and  Spanish, 
University  of  Toronto,  Toronto,  Ont.  [211  Cottingham  St.] 

Nykerk,  John  Bernard,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  Hope  College,  Holland,  Mich. 

Odebrecht,  August,  Assistant  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Deni- 
son  University,  Granville,  O.  [Box  365] 

Ogden,  Phillip,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University  of  Cin- 
cinnati, Cincinnati,  0. 

O'Leary,  Raphael  Dorman,  Associate  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  Univer- 
sity of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 

Oliver,  Thomas  Edward,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111.  [912  W.  California  Ave.] 

Olmsted,  Everett  Ward,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Romance  Languages,  University  of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis, 
Minn. 

Olthouse,  John  W.,  Adjunct  Professor  of  French  and  German,  Uni- 
versity of  Wooster,  Wooster,  O. 

Osgood,  Charles  Grosvenor,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  English, 
Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Osthaus,  Carl  Wilhelm  Ferdinand,  Professor  of  German,  Indiana 
University,  Bloomington,  Ind.  [417  S.  Fess  Ave.] 

Osuna,  Andres,  Instructor  in  Spanish,  Vanderbilt  University,  Nash- 
ville, Tenn.  [3021  Beech  Ave.] 

Ott,  John  Henry,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Literature, 
College  of  the  Northwestern  University,  Watertown,  Wis. 

Owen,  Arthur  Leslie,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
University  of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas.  [536  Ohio  St.] 

Owen,  Edward  Thomas,  Professor  of  French  and  Linguistics,  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [614  State  St.] 

Owen,  Ralph  Woodland,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis.  [21  Mendota  Court] 

Pace,   Roy   Bennett,   Assistant   Professor   of   English,    Swarthmoy 

College,  Swarthmore,  Pa. 
Padelford,   Frederick  Morgan,  Professor  of  English,  University  of 

Washington,  Seattle,  Wash.     [University  Station] 


MODEKN"    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION" 

PAGE,  CUBTIS  HIDDEN,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Dartmouth  College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 

Palmblad,  Harry  V.  E.,  Instructor  in  Germanic  Languages  and 
Literatures,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Palmer,  Arthur  Hubbell,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [221  Everit 
St.] 

Palmer,  Earle  Fenton,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  College  of  the 
City  of  New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Palmer,  Inez  Ethel,  Instructor  in  Latin,  German,  and  English,  High 
'School,  Cashmere,  Wash.  [P.  0.  Box  436] 

Palmer,  Philip  Mason,  Professor  of  German,  Lehigh  University,  So. 
Bethlehem,  Pa.  [University  Park] 

Panaroni,  Alfred  G.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  College  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  139th  St.  and  Convent  Ave.,  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

PANCOAST,  HENRY  SPAOKMAN,  Chestnut  Hill,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
[Spring  Lane] 

Park,  Clyde  William,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Cincinnati,  Cincinnati,  O. 

Parker,  E.  F.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  University  of  North 
Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Parker,  Luther  Wood,  Instructor  in  French,  University  of  Minnesota, 
Minneapolis,  Minn.  [1206  S.  E.  5th  St.] 

Paton,  Lucy  Allen,  Paris,  France.  [Morgan,  Harjes  &  Co.,  31  boule- 
vard Haussmann] 

Patterson,  Arthur  Sayles,  Professor  of  French,  Syracuse  University, 
Syracuse,  N.  Y.  [415  University  Place] 

Patterson,  Frank  Allen,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Columbia 
University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Patton,  Julia,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [417  W.  120th  St.] 

Paul,  Harry  G.,  Assistant  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

Payne,  Leonidas  Warren,  Jr.,  Adjunct  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Texas,  Austin,  Tex.  [2104  Pearl  St.] 

PEARSON,  CALVIN  WASSON,  Professor  Emeritus  of  the  German  Lan- 
guage and  Literature,  Beloit  College,  Beloit,  Wis.  [Walling- 
ford,  Pa.] 

Pease,  Samuel  J.,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  North  Dakota, 
Grand  Forks,  N.  D.  [University,  N.  D.] 

Peck,  Harvey  Whitefield,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Texas, 
Austin,  Tex.  [506  W.  33d  St.] 

Peck,  Mary  Gray,  Geneva,  N.  Y.     [R.  F.  D.  2] 


LIST   OF   MEMBEES 

Peebles,  Rose  Jeffries,  Instructor  in  English,  Vassar  College,  Pough- 
keepsie,  N.  Y. 

Peirce,  Walter  Thompson,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, Ohio  State  University,  Columbus,  0. 

Pellissier,  Adeline,  Instructor  in  French,  Smith  College,  Northamp- 
ton, Mass.  [302  Elm  St.] 

PENNIMAN,  JOSIAH  HABMAE,  Vice-Provost,  Professor  of  English 
Literature,  University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
[4326  Sansom  St.] 

Percival,  Virginia  E.,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Lake  Erie  College,  Painesville,  O. 

Perrin,  Ernest  Noel,  Long  Lake,  Hamilton  Co.,  N.  Y. 

PEBBIN,  MABSHALL  LIVINGSTON,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages, 
Boston  University,  688  Boylston  St.,  Boston,  Mass. 

Perring,  Roy  Henderson,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Grinnell 
College,  Grinnell,  la.  [916  Sixth  Ave.] 

Perrow,  Eber  Carl,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Louisville, 
Louisville,  Ky. 

Perry,  Bliss,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [5  Clement  Circle] 

Pettengill,  Ray  Waldron,  Instructor  in  German,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [12  Rutland  St.] 

Phelps,  Ruth  'Shepard,  Instructor  in  Italian,  University  of  Minne- 
sota, Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Phelps,  William  Lyon,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Yale  Univer- 
sity, New  Haven,  Conn. 

Pierce,  Frederick  Erastus,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Sheffield 
Scientific  School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [188 
Canner  St.] 

Pittenger,  Lemuel  Arthur,  Critic  in  English,  Indiana  University, 
Bloomington,  Ind. 

Plimpton,  George  A.,  Ginn  &  Co.,  70  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Poll,  Max,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Cincinnati,  Cincin- 
nati, O. 

Pope,  Paul  Russel,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Cornell  Univer- 
sity, Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [Cayuga  Heights,  Ithaca] 

Porterfield,  Allen  Wilson,  Instructor  in  Germanic  Languages  and 
Literatures,  Barnard  College,  Columbia  University,  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

Potter,  Albert  K.,  Associate  Professor  of  the  English  Language, 
Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I.  [220  Waterman  St.] 

POTTEB,  MUBBAY  A.,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [191  Commonwealth 
Ave.,  Boston,  Mass.] 


MODEEN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Pound,  Louise,  Professor  of  the  English  Language,  University  of 
Nebraska,  Lincoln,  Neb.  [1632  L  St.] 

Preston,  Herbert  French,  St.  George's  School,  Newport,  R.  I. 

Prettyman,  Cornelius  William,  Professor  of  German,  Dickinson  Col- 
lege, Carlisle,  Pa. 

Price,  Lawrence  Marsden,  Instructor  in  Germanic  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo. 

Price,  William  R.,  State  Inspector  of  Modern  Languages,  Albany, 
N.  Y. 

Priest,  George  Madison,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Lit- 
eratures, Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Prokosch,  Eduard,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  University  of 
Texas,  Austin,  Tex. 

Pumpelly,  Laurence,  Instructor  in  French,  Cornell  University,  Ithaca, 
N.  Y. 

Purin,  Charles  M.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis. 

Putnam,  Edward  Kirby,  Acting  Director,  Davenport  Academy  of 
Sciences,  Davenport,  la. 

PUTZKEE,  ALBIN,  Professor  Emeritus  of  German  Literature,  Univer- 
sity of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal. 

Pyre,  James  Francis  Augustine,  Associate  Professor  of  English, 
University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis. 

Quinn,  Arthur  Hobson,  Dean  of  the  College,  and  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish, University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Raggio,  Andrew  Paul,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
University  of  Maine,  Orono,  Me. 

Ramsay,  Robert  Lee,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo.  [25  Allen  Place] 

Rand,  Albert  Edward,  Instructor  in  German,  Brown  University, 
Providence,  R.  I.  [134  Lloyd  Ave.] 

Rand,  Edwin  Watson,  Master  in  Classics,  Montclair  Academy,  Mont- 
clair,  N.  J.,  and  Head  Master,  Rand  'Summer  School,  Allen- 
hurst,  N.  J.  [Hodge  Road,  Princeton,  N.  J.] 

Rankin,  James  Walter,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo. 

Ransmeier,  John  Christian,  Professor  of  German,  Tulane  University 
of  Louisiana,  New  Orleans,  La.  [St.  Charles  Ave.] 

Raschen,  John  Frederick  Lewis,  Professor  of  the  German  Language 
and  Literature,  University  of  Pittsburgh,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 

Rau,  Charlotte,  Teacher  of  German,  Laurel  School,  1956  E.  101st  St., 
Cleveland,  O. 

Raymond,  Frederic  Newton,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Univer- 
sity of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas.  [812  Illinois  St.] 


LIST   OF   MEMBEES 

Rea,  John  Dougan,  Professor  of  Classical  and  English  Literature, 
Earlham  College,  Richmond,  Ind.  [8  S.  12th  St.] 

Read,  William  A.,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Literature, 
Louisiana  State  University,  Baton  Rouge,  La.  [338  Lafayette 
St.] 

Reed,  Albert  Granberry,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Louisiana 
State  University,  Baton  Rouge,  La. 

Reed,  Edward  Bliss,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Yale 
University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [Yale  Station] 

Reed,  Frank  Otis,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [401  Wisconsin  Ave.] 

Reed,  Warren  W.,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [6  Ash  ton 
Place] 

Rees,  Byron  Johnson,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Williams  Col- 
lege, Williamstown,  Mass. 

Reeves,  William  Peters,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Lit- 
erature, Kenyon  College,  Gambier,  0. 

Reichard,  Harry  Hess,  Professor  of  German,  Knox  College,  Gales- 
burg,  111. 

Reid,  Elizabeth,  Professor  of  German,  Huron  College,  Huron,  S.  D. 
[718  Illinois  St.] 

Reining,  Charles,  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  Palo  Alto,  Cal. 
[340  Embarcadero  Road] 

Remy,  Arthur  Frank  Joseph,  Assistant  Professor  of  Germanic  Phil- 
ology, Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Rendtorff,  Karl  G.,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Leland  Stanford 
Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal.  [1130  Bryant  St., 
Palo  Alto] 

Rennert,  Hugo  Albert,  Professor  of  Romanic  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [2212 
Pine  St.] 

Reynolds,  George  Fullmer,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Mon- 
tana, Missoula,  Mont. 

Rice,  John  Pierrepont,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Williams  College,  Williamstown,  Mass. 

Rice,  Richard  Ashley,  Jr.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Indiana 
University,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Richards,  Alfred  Ernest,  Professor  of  English,  New  Hampshire  State 
College,  Durham,  N.  H. 

Richardson,  Henry  Brush,  Master  in  French,  Lake  Forest  Academy, 
Lake  Forest,  111. 

Riddle,  Lawrence  Melville,  Professor  of  the  French  Language,  U^- 
versity  of  Southern  California,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

Riddle,  Lawrence  Melville,  Professor  of  the  French  Language  and 
Literature,  University  of  Southern  California,  Los  Angeles, 
Cal. 


MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Ridenour,  Harry  Lee,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis.  [424  S.  Mills  St.] 

Riemer,  Guido  Carl  Leo,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Bucknell 
University,  Lewisburg,  Pa. 

Riethmiiller,  Richard  Henri,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [P.  0.  Lock  Box 
1615] 

Rinaker,  Clarissa,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Illinois,  Ur- 
bana,  111.  [321  University  Hall] 

Ristine,  Frank  Humphrey,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  Hamilton  College,  Clinton,  N.  Y. 

Robertson,  James  Alexander,  Librarian,  Philippines  Library,  Ma- 
nila, P.  I. 

ROBINSON,  FRED  NOBBIS,  Professor  of  English,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [Longfellow  Park] 

Rockwell,  Leo  Lawrence,  Instructor  in  German,  Bucknell  University, 
Lewisburg,  Pa. 

Rockwood,  Robert  Everett,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
[32  Conant  Hall] 

Roe,  Frederick  William,  Assistant  Dean,  and  Assistant  Professor  of 
English,  University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [608  E. 
Gorham  -St.] 

Roedder,  Edwin  Carl,  Associate  Professor  of  German  Philology,  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [1614  Hoyt  St.] 

Roessler,  John  Edward,  Professor  of  German,  Valparaiso  University, 
Valparaiso,  Ind. 

Root,  Robert  Kilburn,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  English, 
Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Rosenberg,  S.  L.  Millard,  Professor  of  French  and  Spanish,  Girard 
College,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Roulston,  Robert  Bruce,  Associate  in  German,  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, Baltimore,  Md. 

Routh,  James,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Tulane  University 
of  Louisiana,  New  Orleans,  La. 

Royster,  James  Finch,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  North 
Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Rudwin,  Maximilian  Josef,  Instructor  in  German,  Purdue  University, 
West  Lafayette,  Ind.  [120  Andrew  Place] 

Ruthrauff,  Mary  Josephine,  Teacher  of  German,  Owosso  High  School, 
Owosso,  Mich. 

Ruutz-Rees,  Caroline,  Head  Mistress,  Rosemary  Hall,  Greenwich, 
Conn. 

de  Salvio,  Alfonso,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Northwestern  University,  Evanston,  111.  [1115  Davis  St.] 


LIST   OF   MEMBEBS 

Sampson,  Martin  Wright,  Professor  of  English,  Cornell  University, 
Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

Samra,  Emile  Sam,  Instructor  in  French,  Colby  College,  Waterville, 
Me.  [11  Center  St.] 

Sanderson,  Robert  Louis,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  Yale  Uni- 
versity, New  Haven,  Conn. 

Sandison,  Helen  Estabrook,  Instructor  in  English,  Vassar  College, 
Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Sbedico,  Attilio  Filippo,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Washington,  Seattle,  Wash. 

Schappelle,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Acting  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, Pennsylvania  College,  Gettysburg,  Pa. 

Schelling,  Felix  E.,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of  Eng- 
lish, University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [Col- 
lege Hall,  University  of  Pennsylvania] 

Scherer,  Peter  J.,  Director  of  German,  Pubic  Schools,  Indianapolis, 
Ind. 

Schevill,  Rudolph,  Professor  of  Spanish,  Head  of  the  Department 
of  Romanic  Languages,  University  of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal. 

Schilling,  Hugo  Karl,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, University  of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal.  [2316  Le  Conte 
Ave.] 

Schinz,  Albert,  Professor  of  the  French  Language  and  Literature, 
Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 

Schlatter,  Edward  Bunker,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [2259  Re- 
gent St.] 

Schlenker,  Carl,  Professor  of  German,  University  of  Minnesota, 
Minneapolis,  Minn.  [514  Eleventh  Ave.,  S.  E.] 

Schmidt,  Friedrich  Georg  Gottlob,  Professor  of  the  German  Lan- 
guage and  Literature,  State  University  of  Oregon,  Eugene, 
Ore.  [609  E.  14th  Ave.] 

Schmidt,  Gertrud  Charlotte,  Head  of  the  German  Department,  Miss 
Wright's  School,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa.  [631  Montgomery  Ave.] 

Schoenemann,  Friedrich,  Instructor  in  German,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [3  Avon  St.] 

Schoepperle,  Gertrude,  Associate  in  English,  University  of  Illinois, 
Urbana,  111. 

SCHOFIELD,  WILUAM  HsNBY,  Professor  of  Comparative  Literature, 
Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [21  Commonwealth 
Ave.,  Boston,  Mass.] 

Scholl,  John  William,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  University  ftf 
Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [917  Forest  Ave.] 

Schreiber,  Carl  F.,  Instructor  in  German,  Sheffield  Scientific  School, 
Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [368  Norton  St.] 


CXC  MODERN"    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION" 

SCOTT,  CHABLES  PAYSON  GUBLEY,  Editor,  1  Madison  Ave.,  New  York, 

N.  y. 

Scott,  Franklin  William,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111. 

Scott,  Fred  Newton,  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  University  of  Michigan, 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [1351  Washtenaw  Ave.] 

Scott,  James  Hubert,  Professor  of  English,  Coe  College,  Cedar 
Rapids,  la.  [312  So.  12th  St.] 

Scott,  Mary  Augusta,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 

Searles,  Colbert,  Associate  Professor  of  Romanic  Languages,  Leland 
Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Sechrist,  Frank  Kleinfelter,  Lecturer  in  Educational  Psychology, 
Clark  University,  Worcester,  Mass.  [7  Homer  St.] 

Segall,  Jacob  Bernard,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Maine,  Orono,  Me.  [Colonial  Apartments,  Bangor,  Me.] 

Sehrt,  Edward  H.,  Fellow  in  German,  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
Baltimore,  Md.  [3425  Eastern  Ave.] 

Seiberth,  Philipp,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Washington  Uni- 
versity, St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Semple,  Lewis  B.,  Teacher  of  English,  Bushwick  High  School, 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  [229  Jefferson  Ave.] 

Seronde,  Joseph,  Instructor  in  French,  Sheffield  Scientific  School, 
Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [1009  Yale  Station] 

Severy,  Ernest  Elisha,  Shelby  County  High  School,  Millington,  Tenn. 

Seymour,  Arthur  Romeyn,  Associate  in  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111.  [909  Nevada  St.] 

Seymour,  Clara  Gertrude,  Editorial  Department,  The  Survey,  105 
E.  22d  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Shackford,  Martha  Hale,  Associate  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
Wellesley  College,  Wellesley,  Mass.  [7  Midland  Ave.] 

Shanks,  Lewis  Piaget,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Shannon,  Edgar  Finley,  Professor  of  English,  and  Dean  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Arts  and  Sciences,  University  of  Arkansas,  Fayette- 
ville,  Ark.  [15  So.  Duncan  St.] 

Sharp,  Robert,  Professor  of  English,  Acting  President,  Tulane  Uni- 
versity of  Louisiana,  New  Orleans,  La. 

Shaw,  Esther  Elizabeth,  Instructor  in  English,  Vassar  College, 
Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Shaw,  James  Eustace,  Associate  Professor  of  Italian,  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Shaw,  Marlow  Alexander,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
State  University  of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la. 


LIST   OF   MEMBERS 

Shearin,  Hubert  Gibson,   Professor  of  English  Philology,  Transyl- 
vania University,  Lexington,  Ky.     [451  N.  Broadway] 
Sheffield,  Alfred  Dwight,  Instructor  in  English,  Wellesley  College, 

Wellesley,  Mass. 

SHELDON,  EDWARD  STEVENS,  Professor  of  Romance  Philology,  Har- 
vard University,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [11  Francis  Ave.] 
Shelly,  Percy  Van  Dyke,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia,,  Pa. 
Shepard,  Grace  Florence,  Instructor  in  English,  Wheaton  College, 

Norton,  Mass. 

Shepard,  William  Pierce,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Hamil- 
ton College,  Clinton,  N.  Y. 

Sherman,  Lucius  A.,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Nebraska,  Lincoln,  Neb. 
Sherman,  Stuart  Pratt,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Illinois, 

Urbana,  111.     [1016  W.  Nevada  St.] 

Sherzer,  Jane,  President  and  Professor  of  English,  The  Oxford  Col- 
lege for  Women,  Oxford,  0. 

Shulters,  John  Raymond,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.     [1011  Monroe  St.] 
Shumway,  Daniel  Bussier,  Professor  of  German  Philology,  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Shute,  Henry  Martin,  Instructor  in  German,  Phillips  Exeter  Acad- 
emy, Exeter,  N.  H. 
Sibley,  Robert  Pelton,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Lake  Forest 

College,  Lake  Forest,  111. 
Sievers,  John  Frederick,  Professor  of  German,  Acadia  University, 

Wolfville,  N.  S. 
Sills,  Kenneth  Charles  Morton,  Dean  and  Professor  of  Latin,  Bow- 

doin  College,  Brunswick,  Me. 
Simonds,  William   Edward,  Professor  of   English  Literature,  Knox 

College,  Galesburg,  111. 

SIMONTON,  JAMES  SNODGRASS,  Professor  Emeritus  of  the  French  Lan- 
guage   and    Literature,    Washington    and    Jefferson    College, 
Washington,  Pa. 
Sisson,  Louis  Eugene,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University  of 

Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas.     [1236  Louisiana  St.] 

Skidmore,  Mark,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 
Skillings,  Everett,  Professor  of  German,  Middlebury  College,  Mid- 

dlebury,  Vt.     [133  Main  St.] 
Skinner,    Macy   Millmore,    Associate   Professor    of   German,    Liland 

Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 
Skinner,  Prescott  Orde,  Professor  of  the  Romance  Languages,  Dart- 
mouth College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 


CXC11  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Sloane,  Thomas  O'Conor,  Consulting  Engineer  and  Chemist,  South 

Orange,  N.  J. 
Smart,    Walter   Kay,    Professor    of    English,    Armour    Institute    of 

Technology,  Chicago,  111.     [1122  E.  54th  Place] 
Smith,  Charles  Alphonso,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Vir- 
ginia, University,  Va. 
Smith,  Edward  Laurence,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Delaware 

College,  Newark,  Del. 
Smith,  Florence  Mary,  Instructor  in  English,  Hunter  College  of  the 

City  of  New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [418  W.  118th  -St.] 
SMITH,  FBANK  CLIFTON,  Gurleyville,  Conn. 
Smith,    Horatio   Elwin,    Instructor   in    French,   Yale    College,    New 

Haven,  Conn.     [837  Orange  St.] 
'Smith,  Hugh  Allison,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 

of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.     [15  Prospect  Ave.] 
Smith,  Mahlon  Ellwood,  Assistant  Professor   of  English,   Syracuse 

University,  Syracuse,  N.  Y.     [737  Maryland  Ave.] 
Smith,  Pinckney  Freeman,  Brownington,  Mo.     [R.  F.  D.  40,  Box  53] 
Smith,   Reed,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  South  Carolina, 

Columbia,  S.  C.     [1628  Pendleton  St.] 
Smith,  Richard  R.,  Manager,  College  Department,   The  Macmillan 

Company,  66  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
Smith,  Stanley  Astredo,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romanic  Languages, 

Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  University,  Cal. 
Smith,  Winifred,  Instructor  in  English,  Vassar  College,  Poughkeep- 

sie,  N.  Y. 

Smyser,  William  Emory,  Professor  of  English,  Ohio  Wesleyan  Uni- 
versity, Delaware,  O. 

Snavely,  Guy  Everett,  Registrar  and  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages and  Literatures,  Allegheny  College,  Meadville,  Pa. 
[University  Heights,  New  York,  N.  Y.] 

Snow,  William  Brackett,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Modern  Lan- 
guages, English  High  School,  Boston,  Mass. 

Snyder,  Alice  Dorothea,  Assistant  in  Rhetoric,  University  of  Michi- 
gan, Ann  Arbor,  Mich.     [814   S.  University  Ave.] 
Snyder,  Henry  Nelson,  President  and  Professor  of  English  Litera- 
ture, Wofford  College,  'Spartanburg,  S.  C. 
Spaeth,    J.    Duncan,    Professor    of    English,    Princeton    University, 

Princeton,  N.  J. 
Spalding,    Mary    Caroline,    Professor    of    English,    Wilson    College, 

Chambersburg,  Pa. 

Spangler,  Glen  Harwood,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [26  Boylston  St.] 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS  CXciil 

Spanhoofd,  Arnold  Werner,  Head  of  the  Modern  Language  Depart- 
ment in  the  High  and  Manual  Training  Schools,  Washington, 
D.  C.  [2015  Hillyer  Place,  N.  W.] 

Spanhoofd,  Edward,  Head  of  the  Department  of  German,  St.  Paul's 
School,  Concord,  N.  H. 

'Speare,  Morris  Edmund,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Madison,  Wis.  [803  State  St.] 

Spencer,  Matthew  Lyle,  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  Lawrence  College, 
Appleton,  Wis.  [8  Alton  Place] 

Spiers,  Alexander  Guy  Holborn,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance 
Languages,  Haverford  College,  Haverford,  Pa. 

SPINGABN,  JOEL  ELTAS,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [9  W.  73d  St.] 

Spooner,  Edwin  Victor,  Instructor  in  French,  Phillips  Exeter  Acad- 
emy, Exeter,  N.  H. 

Sprung,  Annette  Mabel,  Instructor  in  German,  Lincoln  High  School, 
Lincoln,  Neb.  [1500  South  'St.] 

Starck,  Taylor,  Fellow  in  German,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Balti- 
more, Md. 

Stathers,  Madison,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  West  Vir- 
ginia University,  Morgantown,  W.  Va. 

van  Steenderen,  Frederic  C.  L.,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Lake  Forest  College,  Lake  Forest,  111. 

Steeves,  Harrison  Ross,  Instructor  in  English,  Columbia  University, 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Stempel,  Guido  Hermann,  Associate  Professor  of  Comparative  Phi- 
lology, Indiana  University,  Bloomington,  Ind.  [400  E.  2d  St.] 

Sterling,  Susan  Adelaide,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [109  W.  Washington  Ave.] 

Stevens,  Alice  Porter,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Mt.  Holyoke 
College,  South  Hadley,  Mass. 

Stewart,  Morton  Collins,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Union 
College,  Schenectady,  N.  Y.  [725  Van  Vranken  Ave.] 

Stewart,  William  Kilborne,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Dart- 
mouth College,  Hanover,  N.  H. 

Stoddard,  Francis  Hovey,  Dean  of  the  College  of  Arts  and  Pure 
Science,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Literature, 
New  York  University,  University  Heights,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
[22  W.  68th  St.] 

Stoll,  Elmer  Edgar,  Professorial  Lecturer,  University  of  Minnesota, 

Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Stone,  Herbert  King,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Minnesota,  Minneapolis,  Minn.  * 

Stork,  Charles  Wharton,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  [Logan  P.  O.,  Phila- 
delphia] 

10 


CXC1V  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Stowell,  William  Averill,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
Amherst  College,  Amnerst,  Mass. 

Strauss,  Louis  A.,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Michigan, 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [1601  Cambridge  Road] 

Stroebe,  Lilian  L.,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Vassar  College, 
Pouglikeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Struck,  Henriette,  Instructor  in  German,  Vassar  College,  Pougli- 
keepsie, N.  Y. 

Strunk,  William,  Jr.,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [107  Lake  St.] 

Stuart,  Donald  Clive,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  Modern  Lan- 
guages, Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J.  [Western 
Way] 

Sturgis,  Cony,  Director  and  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages, 
Sturgis  Tutoring  School,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [404  Stewart  Ave.] 

Sturtevant,  Albert  Morey,  Assistant  Professor  of  German  and  Scan- 
dinavian, University  of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas.  [924  Loui- 
siana St.] 

iSupple,  Edward  Watson,  Assistant  in  French  and  Spanish,  Sheffield 
Scientific  School,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [3 
Byers  Hall] 

van  Sweringen,  Grace  Fleming,  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Lan- 
guages, University  of  Colorado,  Boulder,  Col.  [Hotel  Boulder- 
ado] 

Swiggett,  Glen  Levin,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Tennessee,  Knoxville,  Tenn. 

Sykes,  Frederick  Henry,  President,  Connecticut  College,  New  Lon- 
don, Conn. 

Sypherd,  Wilbur  Owen,  Professor  of  English  and  Political  Sciences, 
Delaware  College,  Newark,  Del. 

Taft,    Arthur    Irving,    Instructor    in    English,    Yale    College,    New 

Haven,  Conn. 
Talamon,  Rene",  Instructor  in  French,  University  of  Michigan,  Ann 

Arbor,  Mich. 
Tatlock,   John   Strong   Perry,   Professor   of   English,   University   of 

Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 
Taylor,  Archer,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [35  Conant 

Hall] 

Taylor,  Marion  Lee,  Albany,  N.  Y.     [362  Clinton  Ave.] 
Taylor,  Robert  Longley,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Williams 

College,  Williamstown,  Mass. 
Telleen,  John  Martin,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Case  School 

of  Applied  Science,  Cleveland,  0. 


LIST   OF   MEMBERS 


CXCV 


Temple,  Maud  Elizabeth,  Hartford,  Conn.     [28  Highland  St.] 

Terracher,  Louis  Adolphe,  Professor  of  French,  University  of  Liver- 
pool, Liverpool,  England. 

Thayer,  Harvey  Waterman,  Assistant  Professor,  Preceptor  in  Modern 
Languages,  Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Thieme,  Hugo  Paul,  Junior  Professor  of  French,  University  of 
Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [3  Geddes  Heights] 

Thomas,  Calvin,  Professor  of  the  Germanic  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Thomas,  Daniel  Lindsey,  Professor  of  English,  Central  University, 
Danville,  Ky. 

Thomas,  May,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Ohio  State  University, 
Columbus,  O.  [233  W.  Eleventh  Ave.] 

Thompson,  Elbert  N.  S.,  Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
State  University  of  Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la.  [714  Iowa  Ave.] 

Thompson,  Everett  Edward,  Editor,  American  Book  Co.,  100  Wash- 
ington Sq.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Thompson,  Garrett  William,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department 
of  German,  University  of  Maine,  Orono,  Me. 

Thompson,  Guy  Andrew,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  University 
of  Maine,  Orono,  Me. 

Thormeyer,  Bertha,  Instructor  in  German,  Manual  Training  High 
School,  Indianapolis,  Ind.  [93  Butler  Ave.] 

Thorndike,  Ashley  Horace,  Professor  of  English,  Columbia  Univer- 
sity, New  York,  N.  Y. 

Thurber,  Charles  H.,  Ginn  &  Co.,  29  Beacon  St.,  Boston,  Mass. 

Thurber,  Edward  Allen,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  American  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Oregon,  Eugene,  Ore.  [751  Eleventh 
Ave.,  E.] 

Tieje,  Arthur  Jerrold,  Instructor  in  Rhetoric,  University  of  Minne- 
sota, Minneapolis,  Minn.  [1314  6th  St.,  S.  E.] 

Tilley,  Morris  Palmer,  Junior  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [611  W.  156th  St.,  New  York, 
N.  Y.] 

Tinker,  Chauncey  B.,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Yale  Univer- 
sity, New  Haven,  Conn.  [38  Vanderbilt  Hall] 

Tisdel,  Frederick  Monroe,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo. 

Titsworth,  Paul  E.,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Alfred  Univer- 
sity, Alfred,  N.  Y. 

TODD,  HENEY  ALFRED,  Professor  of  Romance  Philology,  Columbia 
University,  New  York,  N.  Y.  0 

Todd,  T.  W.,  Professor  of  German,  Washburn  College,  Topeka,  Kas. 


CXCV1  MODEKN    LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

Tolman,  Albert  Harris,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  University 
of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Tombo,  Rudolf,  ;Sr.,  Assistant  Professor  of  German,  Adelphi  College, 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  [321  St.  Nicholas  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y.] 

Tomlinson,  Willard  Pyle,  Assistant  Master,  Swarthmore  Preparatory 
School,  Swarthmore,  Pa. 

Torrey,  Annie,  Teacher  of  French  and  German,  Morse  High  School, 
Bath,  Me. 

Towles,  Oliver,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  North  Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Toy,  Walter  Dallam,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Litera- 
tures, University  of  North  Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

Trent,  William  Peterfield,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Columbia 
University,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [279  W.  71st  St.] 

Tressmann,  Conrad  A.,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Wash- 
ington, Seattle,  Wash. 

Truscott,  Frederick  W.,  Professor  of  Germanic  Languages,  West 
Virginia  University,  Morgantown,  W.  Va. 

Tucker,  Samuel  Marion,  Professor  of  English,  Brooklyn  Polytechnic 
Institute,  85  Livingstone  St.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Tufts,  James  Arthur,  Professor  of  English,  Phillips  Exeter  Academy, 
Exeter,  N.  H. 

Tupper,  Frederick,  Jr.,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Lit- 
erature, University  of  Vermont,  Burlington,  Vt. 

Tupper,  James  Waddell,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Lafayette 
College,  Easton,  Pa. 

Turk,  Milton  Haight,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Hobart  College,  Dean  of  William  Smith  College,  Geneva, 
N.  Y.  [678  Main  St.] 

Turner,  Leslie  M.,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal. 

Turrell,  Charles  Alfred,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Arizona,  Tucson,  Arizona. 

Tweedie,  William  Morley,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature,  Mount  Allison  College,  Sackville,  N.  B. 

Tynan,  Joseph  Lawrence,  Tutor  in  English,  College  of  the  City  of 
New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [911  Ogden  Ave.] 

Umphrey,  George  Wallace,  Assistant  Professor  of  Spanish,  Univer- 
sity of  Washington,  Seattle,  Wash. 

Underwood,  Charles  Marshall,  Jr.,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance 
Languages,  Simmons  College,  Boston,  Mass.  [40  Prentiss  St., 
Cambridge,  Mass.] 


LIST    OF   MEMBERS  CXCvii 

Upham,   Alfred  Horatio,   Professor   of  English,  Miami  University, 

Oxford,  0.     [314  E.  Church  St.] 

Uterhart,  Henry  Ayres,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [27  Cedar  St.] 
Utter,    Robert    Palfrey,    Associate    Professor    of    English,    Amherst 

College,  Amherst,  Mass. 

Van  Home,  John,  Teacher  of  Latin  and  Modern  Languages,  River- 
view  Academy,  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Vaughan,  Herbert  H.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Veenker,  August  Rudolph,  Professor  of  German  and  French,  Morgan 
Park  Academy,  Morgan  Park,  111.  [8  West  Hall] 

Vestling,  Axel  E.,  Professor  of  German,  Carleton  College,  Northfield, 
Minn. 

Vogel,  Frank,  Professor  of  German  and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Modern  Languages,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 
Boston,  Mass.  [95  Robinwood  Ave.,  Jamaica  Plain,  Mass.] 

Vollmer,  Clement,  Fellow  in  German,  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
Philadelphia,  Pa.  [5830  Warrington  Ave.] 

Vos,  Bert  John,  Professor  of  German,  Indiana  University,  Blooming- 
ton,  Ind. 

Voss,  Ernst  Karl  Johann  Heinrich,  Professor  of  German  Philology, 
University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [175  Nelson  Ave.] 

Voss,  John  Henry,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Oklahoma,  Norman,  Okla. 

Wagner,  Charles  Philip,  Junior  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.  [900  Lincoln  Ave.] 

Wahl,  George  Moritz,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, Williams  College,  Williamstown,  Mass. 

Wait,  William  Henry,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  University  of 
Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Waldron,  Albert  Ladd,  Instructor  in  German,  St.  Paul's  School, 
Concord,  N.  H. 

Walter,  Hermann,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  McGill  Univer- 
sity, Montreal,  Canada. 

WALZ,  JOHN  ALBBECHT,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [42  Gar- 
den 'St.] 

Ware,  John  Nottingham,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages  (French 
and  Spanish),  University  of  the  South,  Sewanee,  Tenn.  , 

.WABBEN,  FBEDEBICK  MOBBIS,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Yale 
University,  New  Haven,  Conn. 


CXCV111  MODEKN   LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

Warshaw,  Jacob,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Uni- 
versity of  Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo.  [721  Missouri  Ave.] 

Watt,  Homer  Andrew,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wis. 

Wauchope,  George  Armstrong,  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
South  Carolina,  Columbia,  S.  C.  [6  Campus] 

Waxmah,  Samuel  Montefiore,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, Boston  University,  Boston,  Mass. 

Weber,  Hermann  Julius,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  University 
of  California,  Berkeley,  Cal.  [1811  La  Lama  Ave.] 

WEBSTER,  KENNETH  G.  T.,  Instructor  in  English,  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, Cambridge,  Mass.  [Gerry's  Landing] 

Weeks,  Raymond,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages  and  Literatures, 
Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Weill,  Felix,  Assistant  Professor  of  French,  College  of  the  City  of 
New  York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

WELLS,  EDGAE  HUIDEKOPEB,  Boston,  Mass.     [16  Hereford  St.] 

Wells,  John  Edwin,  Professor  of  English  Literature  and  Head  of  the 
Department  of  English,  Beloit  College,  Beloit,  Wis.  [911 
Park  Ave.] 

Wells,  Leslie  C.,  Professor  of  French  and  'Spanish,  Clark  College, 
Worcester,  Mass. 

Wernaer,  Robert  Maximilian,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [8  Prescott  St.] 

Werner,  Adolph,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Litera- 
ture, College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [401 
West  End  Ave.] 

Wesselhoeft,  Edward  Karl,  Professor  of  German,  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

West,  Henry  Titus,  Professor  of  German,  Kenyon  College,  Gam- 
bier,  0. 

Weston,  George  Benson,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [21  Craigie  St.] 

Weygandt,  Cornelius,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Wharey,  James  Blanton,  Adjunct  Professor  of  English,  University 
of  Texas,  Austin,  Tex. 

Whicher,  George  Frisbie,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Illi- 
nois, Urbana,  111. 

Whitcomb,  Selden  Lincoln,  Associate  Professor  of  English  Litera- 
ture, University  of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kas. 

White,  Horatio  Stevens,  Professor  of  German,  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.  [29  Reservoir  St.] 

Whiteford,  Robert  N.,  Head  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Toledo,  Toledo,  0.  [2415  Warren  St.] 


LIST    OF   MEMBEES 

Whitelock,  George,  Counsellor  at  Law,  Baltimore,  Md.  [1407  Con- 
tinental Trust  Building] 

WMteeide,  Donald  Grant,  Instructor  in  English,  College  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  138th  St.  and  Amsterdam  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Whitman,  Charles  Huntingdon,  Professor  of  English,  Rutgers  Col- 
lege, New  Brunswick,  N.  J.  [116  Lincoln  Ave.,  Highland 
Park,  N.  J.] 

Whitman,  Frederick  Wyman,  Assistant  Professor  of  Modern  Lan- 
guages and  Latin,  New  Hampshire  State  College,  Durham, 
N.  H. 

Whitmore,  Charlea  Edward,  Instructor  in  English,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, Cambridge,  Mass.  [10  Remington  St.] 

Whitney,  Marian  P.,  Professor  of  German,  Vassar  College,  Pough- 
keepsie,  N".  Y. 

Whittem,  Arthur  Fisher,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [9  Vincent  St.] 

Whoriskey,  Richard,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  New  Hamp- 
shire 'State  College,  Durham,  N.  H. 

Whyte,  John,  Instructor  in  German,  New  York  University,  New 
York,  N.  Y.  [2336  Loring  Place,  Bronx,  N.  Y.] 

Widtsoe,  Osborne  J.  P.,  Head  of  the  Department  of  English  and 
Principal  of  the  High  School  Department,  Latter  Day  Saints 
University,  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah.  [382  Wall  St.] 

Wiehr,  Josef,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  Smith  College,  North- 
ampton, Mass. 

Wightman,  John  Roaf,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Oberlin 
College,  Oberlin,  O. 

Wilkens,  Frederick  H.,  Associate  Professor  of  German,  New  York 
University,  University  Heights,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Wilkins,  Ernst  Hatch,  Associate  Professor  of  Romance  Languages, 
University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Williams,  Charles  Allyn,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Illi- 
nois, Urbana,  111.  [907  W.  Oregon  St.] 

Williamson  de  Visme,  Hiram  Parker,  Directeur  de  1'Ecole  du 
Chateau  de  Soisy,  Soisy-sous-Etoilles,  Seine  et  Oise,  France. 

Wilson,  Charles  Bundy,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
the  German  Language  and  Literature,  State  University  of 
Iowa,  Iowa  City,  la.  [323  N.  Capitol  'St.] 

Winchester,  Caleb  Thomas,  Professor  of  English  Literature,  Wes- 
leyan  University,  Middletown,  Conn. 

Winkler,  Max,  Professor  of  the  German  Language  and  Literature, 
University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Winter,  Irvah  Lester,  Associate  Professor  of  Public  Speaking,  Har- 
vard University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [Hubbard  Park] 


CC  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

Wischkaemper,  Richard,  Instructor  in  German,  University  of  Min- 
nesota, Minneapolis,  Minn.  [Faculty  Box  70] 

Withington,  Robert,  Instructor  in  English,  University  of  Indiana, 
Bloomington,  Ind. 

Wolfe,  Howard  Webster,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Trinity 
University,  Waxahachie,  Tex. 

Wolff,  Samuel  Lee,  Instructor  in  English,  Extension  Teaching, 
Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.  [401  W.  118th  St.] 

WOOD,  FRANCIS  ASBURY,  Professor  of  Germanic  Philology,  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 

Wood,  Henry,  Professor  of  German,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Bal- 
timore, Md.  [109  North  Ave.,  W.] 

Woodbridge,  Benjamin  Mather,  Adjunct  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, University  of  Texas,  Austin,  Tex. 

Woods,  George  Benjamin,  Professor  of  English,  Carleton  College, 
Northfield,  Minn. 

Worthington,  Hugh  S.,  Instructor  in  Romance  Languages,  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Wright,  Arthur  Silas,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Case  School 
of  Applied  Science,  Cleveland,  O. 

Wright,  Charles  Baker,  Professor  of  English  Literature  and  Rhet- 
oric, Middlebury  College,  Middlebury,  Vt. 

WRIGHT,  CHARLES  HENRY  CONRAD,  Professor  of  the  French  Lan- 
guage and  Literature,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
[5  Buckingham  Place] 

Wright,  Ernest  Hunter,  Instructor  in  English  and  Comparative  Lit- 
erature, Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Wylie,  Laura  J.,  Professor  of  English,  Vassar  College,  Poughkeep- 
sie,  N.  Y.  [112  Market  St.] 

Yost,  Mary,  Fellow  in  Rhetoric,  University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor, 
Mich.  [1004  Oakland  Ave.] 

Young,  Bert  Edward,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Vande^rbilt 
University,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

Young,  Bertha  Kedzie,  Assistant  Professor  of  English,  University  of 
Cincinnati,  Cincinnati,  O.  [343  Bryant  Ave.,  Clifton] 

Young,  Charles  Edmund,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Beloit 
College,  Beloit,  Wis. 

YOUNG,  KARL,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Wisconsin,  Madi- 
son, Wis. 

Young,  Mary  Vance,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  Mt.  Holyoke 
College,  South  Hadley,  Mass. 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS  CCl 

Zdanowicz,  Casimir  Douglass,  Assistant  Professor  of  Romance  Lan- 
guages, University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.  [1818  Madi- 
son St.] 

Zeitlin,  Jacob,  Associate  in  English,  University  of  Illinois,  Urbana, 
111. 

Zembrod,  Alfred  Charles,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Univer- 
sity of  Kentucky,  Lexington,  Ky.  [456  W.  4th  St.] 

Zeppenfeld,  Jeannette,  Professor  of  Modern  Languages,  Franklin 
College,  Franklin,  Ind. 

Zinnecker,  Wesley  Daniel,  Instructor  in  German,  Cornell  University, 
Ithaca,  N.  Y.  [707  E.  State  St.] 

Zwierzina,  Konrad,  Ord.  Professor  fur  deutsche  Sprache  und  Litera- 
tur  an  der  Universitat,  Graz,  Austria.  [Zinzendorfgasse  19] 


CC11  MODERN   LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 


LIBEARIES 

SUBSCRIBING  TO  THE  PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE 
ASSOCIATION 

Akron,  0. :     Library  of  the  Municipal  University  of  Akron 

Albany,  N.  Y.:    New  York  State  Library 

Amherst,  Mass.:    Amherst  College  Library 

Ann  Arbor,  Mich. :     General  Library  of  the  University  of  Michigan 

Austin,  Texas:     Library  of  the  University  of  Texas 

Baltimore,  Md. :     Enoch  Pratt  Free  Library 

Baltimore,  Md. :     Goucher  College  Library 

Baltimore,  Md. :    Johns  Hopkins  University  Library 

Baltimore,  Md.:     Library  of  the  Peabody  Institute 

Baton  Rouge,  La.:  Hill  Memorial  Library,  Louisiana  'State  Univer- 
sity 

Beloit,  Wis. :     Beloit  College  Library 

Berkeley,  Cal.:     Library  of  the  University  of  California 

Berlin,  Germany:  Englisches  Seminar  der  Universitiit  [Dorotheen- 
strasse  5] 

Bloomington,  Ind.:     Indiana  University  Library 

Bonn,  Germany :     Englisches  Seminar  der  Universitat 

Boston,  Mass.:     Public  Library  of  the  City  of  Boston 

Boulder,  Col. :     Library  of  the  University  of  Colorado 

Brooklyn,  N.  Y. :    Adelphi  College  Library 

Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. :    Bryn  Mawr  College  Library  % 

Buffalo,  N.  Y. :     Buffalo  Public  Library 

Burlington,  Vt.:     Library  of  the  University  of  Vermont 

Cambridge,  Eng.:     University  Library 

Cambridge,  Mass.:     Child  Memorial  Library,  Warren  House 

Cambridge,  Mass. :    Harvard  University  Library 

Cambridge,  Mass. :    Radcliffe  College  Library 

Cedar  Rapids,  la. :     Coe  College  Library 

Chambersburg,  Pa.:     Wilson  College  Library 

Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. :    Library  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina 

Charlottesville,  Va. :     Library  of  the  University  of  Virginia 

Chicago,  111.:     General  Library  of  the  University  of  Chicago 

Chicago,  111. :    Newberry  Library 

Cincinnati,  0.:  Library  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati  [Burnet 
Woods  Park] 

Cleveland,  0. :    Adelbert  College  Library 

Columbia,  Mo. :     Library  of  the  University  of  Missouri 

Concord,  N.  H. :    New  Hampshire  State  Library 


SUBSCRIBING    LIBRARIES 

Crawfordsville,  Ind.:     Wabash  College  Library 

Decorah,  Iowa:     Luther  College  Library 

Detroit,  Mich.:     The  Public  Library 

Earlham,  Ind. :     Earlham  College  Library 

Easton,  Pa.:    Van  Wickle  Memorial  Library,  Lafayette  College 

Edmonton  South,  Alberta,  Canada:     Library  of  the  University  of 

Alberta 

Eugene,  Ore.:    University  of  Oregon  Library 
Evanston,  111.:    Northwestern  University  Library 
Gainesville,  Fla. :     Library  of  the  University  of  Florida 
Galesburg,  111. :    Lombard  College  Library 
Giessen,  Germany:     Grossherzogliche  Universitats-Bibliothek 
Graz,  Austria:     K.  K.  Universitats-Bibliothek 
Halifax,  Nova  Scotia :     Dalhousie  College  Library 
Hartford,  Conn.:  Watkinson  Library 

Houston,  Tex.:  The  Wm.  Rice  Institute  Library     [P.  O.  Box  17] 
Iowa  City,  la. :    Library  of  the  State  University  of  Iowa 
Irvington,  Ind.:     Bona  Thompson  Memorial  Library 
Ithaca,  N.  Y. :     Cornell  University  Library 
Knoxville,  Tenn. :     University  of  Tennessee  Library 
Laramie,  Wyo. :     University  of  Wyoming  Library 
Leipzig,  Germany :    Englisches  Seminar  der  Universitat 
Lincoln,  Neb. :     University  of  Nebraska  Library 
London,  England:     London  Library     [St.  James  Square,  S.  W.] 
Louisville,  Ky. :     Library  of  the  University  of  Louisville 
Lynchburg,  Va. :     Library  of  the  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
Lyons,  France:     Bibliotheque  de  rUniversite"     [18  quai  Claude  Ber- 
nard] 

Madison,  Wis. :     Library  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin 
Madrid,  Spain:     Centro  de  Estudios  Historicos,  Palacios  de  Biblio- 

tecas  y  Museos     [Paseo  de  Recoletos] 
Manchester,  England:     The  John  Ry lands  Library 
Manchester,  England:     Library  of  the  Victoria  University 
Middlebury,  Vt.:     Middlebury  College  Library 
Middletown,  Conn.:     Wesleyan  University  Library 
Minneapolis,  Minn.:     Minneapolis  Athenaeum 
Minneapolis,  Minn.:     University  of  Minnesota  Library 
Missoula,  Mont. :     University  of  Montana  Library 
Munich,  Germany :     Konigliche  Hof-  und  'Staats-Bibliothek 
Nashville,  Tenn. :     Library  of  the  Peabody  College  for  Teachers 
Nashville,  Tenn.:     Vanderbilt  University  Library 
New  Haven,  Conn. :     Yale  University  Library 
New  Orleans,  La.:     H.  Sophie  Newcomb  Memorial  Library     [1220 

Washington  St.] 
New  York,  N.  Y.:     Columbia  University  Library 


CC1V  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 

New  York,  N.  Y.:     Library  of  New  York  University     [University 

Heights] 

New  York,  N.  Y.:     New  York  Public  Library     [476  Fifth  Ave.] 
New  York,  N.  Y.:     University  Club  Library     [Fifth  Ave.  and  54th 

St.] 

Northampton,  Mass. :     Smith  College  Library 
Northfield,  Minn.:     Scoville  Memorial  Library,  Carleton  College 
Northfield,  Minn. :     St.  Olaf 's  College  Library 
Oberlin,  O. :     Oberlin  College  Library 
Olivet,  Mich. :     Olivet  College  Library 
Oroho,  Me. :     University  of  Maine  Library 
Oxford,  0. :     Library  of  Miami  University 
Oxford,  0. :     Reading  Room  of  the  Western  College  for  Women 
Peoria,  111. :     Peoria  Public  Library 
Painesville,  0.:     Library  of  Lake  Erie  College 
Philadelphia,  Pa.:     Free  Library     [13th  and  Locust  Sts.] 
Philadelphia,  Pa.:     University  of  Pennsylvania  Library 
Pittsburgh,  Pa.:  Carnegie  Library 
Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. :     Library  of  Vassar  College 
Providence,  R.  I.:     Library  of  Brown  University 
Providence,  R.  I.:     Providence  Public  Library     [Washington  St.] 
Pullman,  Wash. :    Library  of  the  State  College  of  Washington 
Rennes,  France:     Biblioth&que  de  I'Universite" 
Reno,  Nev.:     University  of  Nevada  Library 
Rochester,  N.  Y.:     Library  of  the  University  of  Rochester     [Prince 

St.] 

Rock  Hill,  6.  C.:     Winthrop  Normal  and  Industrial  College  Library 
Sacramento,  Cal.:     State  Library  of  California 
St.  Louis,  Mo.:     Library  of  Washington  University 
St.  Paul,  Minn. :     Hamline  University  Library 
St.  Paul,  Minn.:     St.  Paul  Public  Library 
Sofia,  Bulgaria:     Bibliotheque  de  I'Universite" 
Seattle,  Wash.:     University  of  Washington  Library 
Sioux  City,  la.:     Library  of  Morningside  College 
South  Bethlehem,  Pa.:     Lehigh  University  Library 
Stanford  University,  Cal.:     Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University  Library 
Swarthmore,  Pa.:     Swarthmore  College  Reading  Room 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. :     Library  of  Syracuse  University 
Tallahassee,  Fla.:     Library  of  the  Florida  State  College  for  Women 
Urbana,  111.:      Library  of  the  University   of  Illinois      [University 

(Station] 

Washington,  D.  C.?    Library  of  the  Catholic  University  of  America 
Wellesley,  Mass.:    Wellesley  College  Library 
Williamstown,  Mass. :    Library  of  Williams  College 
Worcester,  Mass.:     Free  Public  Library 


LIST    OF    MEMBERS  CCV 


HONORARY  MEMBERS 


ALESSANDRO  LVANCONA,  University  of  Pisa 

K.  VON  BAHDER,  University  of  Leipzig 

JOSEPH  B^DIER,  College  de  France,  Paris 

HENRY  BRADLEY,  Oxford,  England 

ALOIS  L.  BRANDL,  University  of  Berlin 

W.  BRAUNE,  University  of  Heidelberg 

KONRAD  BURDACH,  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  Berlin 

BENEDETTO  CROCE,  Naples,  Italy 

FRANCESCO  FLAMINI,  University  of  Pisa 

WENDELIN  FOERSTER,  University  of  Bonn- 

OTTO  JESPERSEN,  University  of  Copenhagen 

J.  J.  JUSSERAND,  French  Ambassador,  Washington,  D.  C. 

FR.  KLUGE,  University  of  Freiburg 

EUGEN  KUHNEMANN,  University  of  Breslau 

GUSTAVE  LAN  SON,  University  of  Paris 

ABEL  LEFRANC,  College  de  France 

RAM6N  MEN^NDEZ  PIDAL,  University  of  Madrid 

PAUL  MEYER,  Ecole  des  Chartes,  Paris 

W.  MEYER-LUBKE,  University  of  Vienna 

ERNESTO  MONACI,  University  of  Rome 

SIR  JAMES  A.  H.  MURRAY,  Oxford,  England 

ARTHUR  NAPIER,  University  of  Oxford 

FRITZ  NEUMANN,  University  of  Heidelberg 

ADOLF  NOREEN,  University  of  Upsala 

FRANCESCO  NOVATI,  University  of  Milan 

FRANCESCO  D'Ovioio,  University  of  Naples 

H.  PAUL,  University  of  Munich 

Pio  RAJNA,  R.  Istituto  di  Studi  Superior!,  Florence 

GUSTAV  ROETHE,  University  of  Berlin 

AUGUST  SAUER,  University  of  Prague 

J.  SCHIPPER,  University  of  Vienna 

EDWARD  SCHROEDEE,  University  of  Gottingen 

H.  SCHUCHARDT,  University  of  Graz 

EDUARD  SIEVERS,  University  of  Leipzig 

JOHAN  STORM,  University  of  Christiania 

ANTOINE  THOMAS,  University  of  Paris 

FRANCESCO  TORRACA,  University  of  Naples   ' 


CCV1  MODERN    LANGUAGE    ASSOCIATION 


EOLL  OF  MEMBERS  DECEAST 


J,  T.  AKERS,  Central  College,  Richmond,  Ky.     [1909] 

GBAZIADO  I.  ASCOLI,  Milan,  Italy     [1907] 

ELYS£E  AVIEAGNET,  Bucknell  University,  Lewisburg,  Pa.     [1908] 

T.  WHITING  BANCROFT,  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I.     [1890] 

DAVID  LEWIS  BARTLETT,  Baltimore,  Md.     [1899] 

GEORGE  ALONZO  BARTLETT,   Harvard  University,   Cambridge,  Mass. 

[1908] 

W.  M.  BASKERVILL,  Vdnderbilt  University,  Nashville,  Tenn.     [1899] 
ALEXANDER  MELVILLE  BELL,  Washington,  D.  C.     [1905] 
A.  A.  BLOOMBERGH,  Lafayette  College,  Easton,  Pa.     [1906] 
DANIEL  G.  BRINTON,  Media,  Pa.     [1899] 
FRANK    EGBERT    BRYANT,    University    of    Kansas,    Lawrence,    Kas. 

[1910] 

SOPHUS  BUGGE,  University  of  Christiania  [1907] 
FRANK  ROSCOE  BUTLER,  Hathorne,  Mass.  [1905] 
GEORGE  RICE  CARPENTER,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

[1909] 

JOSEPH  W.  CARR,  University  of  Maine,  Orono,  Me.    [1909] 
HENRY  LELAND  CHAPMAN,  Bowdoin  College,  Brunswick,  Me.     [1913] 
CHARLES  CHOLLET,  West  Virginia  University,  Morgantown,  W.  Va. 

[1903] 

J.  SCOTT  CLARK,  Northwestern  University,  Evanston,  111.     [1911] 
PALMER   COBB,  University  of  North   Carolina,   Chapel  Hill,  N.   C. 

[1911] 

HENRY  COHEN,  Northwestern  University,  Evanston,  111.     [1900] 
WILLIAM  COOK,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [1888] 
ADELAIDE  CRAPSEY,  Rochester,  N.  Y.     [1914] 
SUSAN  R.  CUTLER,  Chicago,  111.     [1899] 
A.  N.  VAN  DAELL,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  Boston, 

Mass.     [1899] 

EDWARD  GRAHAM  DAVES,  Baltimore,  Md.     [1894] 
W.  DEUTSCH,  St.  Louis,  Mo.    [1898] 

ERNEST  AUGUST  EGGERS,  Ohio  State  University,  Columbus,  O.     [1903J 
A.  MARSHALL  ELLIOTT,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  Md. 

[1910] 
FRANCIS  R.  FAVA,  Columbian  University,  Washington,  D.  C.     [1896] 


BOLL   OF   MEMBERS   DECEAST 

FOBTIEB,  Tulane  University  of  Louisiana,  New  Orleans    La, 

[1914] 

FBEDEBICK  JAMES  FUBNIVALL,  London,  England    [1910] 
WILLIAM  KENDALL  GILLETT,  New  York  University,  New  York  N  Y 

[1914] 

LEIGH  R.  GBEGOB,  McGill  University,  Montreal,  Canada     [1912] 
GUSTAV  GR^BER,  University  of  Strassburg    [1911] 
THACHEB  ROWLAND  GUILD,  University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111.     [1914] 
L.  HABEL,  Norwich  University,  Northfield,  Vt.     [1886] 
JAMES  ALBERT  HABBISON,  University  of  Virginia,  Charlottesville,  Va. 

[1911] 

B.  P.  HASDEU,  University  of  Bucharest,  Bucharest,  Roumania    [1908] 
RUDOLF  HAYM,  University  of  Halle     [1901] 
RICHABD  HEINZEL,  University  of  Vienna     [1905] 
GEORGE  A.  HENCH,  University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.    [1899] 
JOHN  BELL  HENNEMAN,   University  of  the  South,  Sewanee,  Tenn. 

[1908] 

RUDOLF  HILDEBBAND,  University  of  Leipzig     [1894] 
JULES  ADOLPHE  HOBIGAND,  Boston,  Mass.     [1906] 
JULIAN    HUGUENIN,    University    of    Louisiana,    Baton    Rouge,    La. 

[1901] 
THOMAS  HUME,  University  of  North  Carolina,  Chapel  Hill,  N.  C. 

[1912] 

ANDBEW  INGBAHAM,  Cambridge,  Mass.    [1905] 
J.  KABGfi,  Princeton  College,  Princeton,  N.  J.     [1892] 
GUSTAF  E.  KARSTEN,  University  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  111.     [1908] 
F.  L.  KENDALL,  Williams  College,  Williamstown,  Mass.     [1893] 
PAUL  OSCAB  KEBN,  University  of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.    [1908] 
EUGEN  KOLBING,  University  of  Breslau,  Germany     [1899] 
CHBISTIAN  LARSEN,  Utah  Agricultural  College,  Logan,  Utah     [1913] 
J.  LfiVY,  Lexington,  Mass.     [1891] 
AUGUST  LODEMAN,  Michigan  State  Normal  School,  Ypsilanti,  Mich. 

[1902] 

JULES  LOISEAU,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [1891] 
J.  LUQUIENS,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.    [1899] 
ALBERT  BENEDICT  LYMAN,  Baltimore,  Md.     [1907] 
THOMAS  McCABE,  Bryn  Mawr  College,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa.     [1891] 
J.   G.  R.   MCELROY,  University  of  Pennsylvania,   Philadelphia,  Pa. 

[1899] 

EDWARD  T.  MCLAUGHLIN,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.    [1893] 
JAMES  MACNIE,  University  of  North  Dakota,  Grand  Forks,  N.^D. 

[1909] 
EDWARD  H.  MAGILL,  Swarthmore  College,  Swarthmore,  Pa.    [1907] 


CCV111  MODERN    LANGUAGE   ASSOCIATION 

FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH,  Lafayette  College,  Easton,  Pa.    [1911] 
JOHN  E.  MATZKE,  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  Stanford  Univer- 
sity, Cal.    [1910] 

MARCELINO  MEN^NDEZ  Y  PELAYO,  University  of  Madrid     [1912] 
Louis  EMIL  MENGER,  Bryn  Mawr  College,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa.     [1903] 
CHARLES   WALTER   MESLOH,    OMo    State   University,    Columbus,    0. 

[1904] 

JACOB  MINOR,  University  of  Vienna     [1912] 
SAMUEL    P.   MOLENAER,   University   of   Pennsylvania,    Philadelphia, 

Pa.     [1900] 

EDWARD  PAYSON  MORTON,  Chicago,  111.     [1914] 

JAMES  O.  MURRAY,  Princeton  University,  Princeton,  N.  J.     [1901] 
ADOLF  MUSSAFIA,  University  of  Vienna      [1905] 
BENNETT  HUBBARD  NASH,  Boston,  Mass.     [1906] 
C.  K.  NELSON,  Brookville,  Md.     [1890] 
W.  N.  NEVIN,  Lancaster,  Pa.     [1892] 
WILLIAM  WELLS  NEWELL,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [1907] 
AMALIE  IDA  FRANCES  Nix,  St.  Paul,  Minn.     [1913] 
CONRAD  H.  NORDBY,  College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  New  York, 

N.  Y.     [1900] 
FREDERICK   CURRY   OSTRANDER,   University   of    Texas,   Austin,    Tex. 

[1913] 
C.  P.  OTIS,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,   Boston,   Mass. 

[1888] 

GASTON  PARIS,  College  de  France,  Paris,  France      [1903] 
W.    H.    PERKINSON,    University    of    Virginia,    Charlottesville,    Va. 

[1898] 

HERBERT  T.  POLAND,  Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.     [1906] 
SAMUEL    PORTER,    Gallaudet    College,    Kendall    Green,    Washington, 

D.  C.     [1901] 

FRANCES  BOARDMAN  SQUIRE  POTTER,  University  of  Minnesota,  Min- 
neapolis, Minn.     [1914] 

F.  YORK  POWELL,  University  of  Oxford,  Oxford,  England     [1904] 
REN£    DE    POYEN-BELLISLE,    University    of    Chicago,    Chicago,    111. 

[1900] 

THOMAS  R.  PRICE,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [1903] 
SYLVESTER  PRIMER,  University  of  Texas,  Austin,  Tex.     [1912] 
EUGEN  REINHARD,  University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison,  Wis.     [1914] 
LEWIS  A.  RHOADES,  Ohio  State  University,  Columbus,  O.     [1910] 
HENRY  B.  RICHARDSON,  Amherst  College,  Amherst,  Mass.     [1906] 
CHARLES  H.  Ross,   Agricultural  and  Mechanical   College,  Auburn, 

Ala.     [1900] 

OLIVE  RUMSEY,  Westfield,  N.  Y.     [1912] 

MARY  J.  T.  SAUNDERS,  Randolph-Macon  Woman's   College,  College 
Park,  Va.     [1914] 


ROLL   OF   MEMBERS   DECEAST 

M,   SCHELE   DE  VERB,  University  of  Virginia,  Charlottesville,  Va. 

[1898] 

ERICH  SCHMIDT,  University  of  Berlin      [1913] 
O.    SEIDENSTICKER,    University   of   Pennsylvania,   Philadelphia,   Pa. 

[1894] 
JAMES  W.  SHERIDAN,  College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  New  York, 

N.  Y. 

WALTER  WILLIAM  SKEAT,  University  of  Cambridge,  England    [1912] 
MAX  SOHRAUEB,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [1890] 
CARLO  LEONARDO  SPERANZA,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

[1911] 

F.  R.  STENGEL,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [1890] 
CARLTON  BEECHER  STETSON,  University  of  Vermont,  Burlington,  Vt. 

[1912] 

CAROLINE  STRONG,  Portland,  Ore.     [1908] 
HERMAN  SUCHIER,  University  of  Halle- Wittenberg     [1914] 
HENRY  SWEET,  Oxford,  England     [1912] 
H.  TALUCHET,  Austin,  Tex.     [1894] 
ADOLF  TOBLER,  University  of  Berlin     [1910] 

RUDOLF  TOMBO,  JR.,  Columbia  University,  New  York,  N.  Y.     [1914] 
HIRAM   ALBERT  VANCE,    University   of   Nashville,   Nashville,   Tenn. 

[1906] 

E.  L.  WALTER,  University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.     [1898] 
KARL  WEINHOLD,  University  of  Berlin     [1901] 
CARLA  WENCKEBACH,  Wellesley  College,  Wellesley,  Mass.     [1902] 
H6LJ&NE  WENCKEBACH,  Wellesley  College,  Wellesley,  Mass.     [1888] 
MARGARET  M.  WICKHAM,  Adelphi  College,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.     [1898] 
R.  H.  WILLIS,  Chatham,  Va.     [1900] 

CHARLES  F.  WOODS,  Lehigh  University,   Bethlehem,   Pa.     [1912] 
RICHARD  PAUL  WULKER,  University  of  Leipzig     [1910] 
CASIMIR  ZDANOWICZ,  Vanderbilt  University,  Nashville,  Tenn.    [1889] 
JULIUS  ZUPITZA,  University  of  Berlin,  Germany     [1895] 


11 


INDEX 

Procedings  of  the  Thirty-first  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Mod- 
ern Language  Association  of  America,  a  joint  meeting 
with  the  American  Philological  Association,  held  under 
the  Auspices  of  Harvard  University,  at  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  December  29,  30,  31,  1913,  and  of  the  Nineteenth 
Annual  Meeting  of  the  Central  Division  of  the  Associa- 
tion, held  under  the  Auspices  of  the  University  of  Cin- 
cinnati, at  Cincinnati  O.,  on  the  same  days. 

Letter   of   Invitation,              iij 

Report  of  the  Secretary, iii 

Report  of  the  Tresurer, -  iv 

Appointment    of    Committees,        -  vi 

1.  Bishop  Las  Casas  and  the  Rise  of  the  Myth  of  the  Noble 

Indian.    By  CAMILLO  VON  KLBNZE,        -  vii 

2.  Emerson  et  Montaigne.     By  Rfiais  MICHAUD,        -        -  viii 

3.  Goethe  as  Viewed  by  Emerson.    By  FREDERICK  A.  BRAUN,  viii 

4.  The  History  of  the  Letters  of  Abelard  and  Helvise.    By 

CHARLOTTE  E.  MORGAN,  -  ix 

5.  A  Twelfth-Century  Vision  of  the  Other  World.     By  H. 

W.  L.  DANA,  ix 

6.  Notes  on  Dante's  Gianni  Schicchi  and  a  Few  Parallels. 

By  RUDOLPH  ALTROCCHI, ix 

Address  of  Welcome.    Professor  GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER,  x 
Address  by  Professor  HAROLD  N.  FOWLER,  "  The  Present  and 

Future  of  Classical  Studies  in  the  United  States,"  x 

Report  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Permanent  Fund,          -  x 

Report  of  Committee  on  Reproduction  of  Erly  Texts,        •  x 

7.  The  American  Dialect  Dictionary.    By  WILLIAM  EDWARD 

MEAD, xi 

8.  Is  Shakespeare  Aristocratic?    By  ALBERT  H.  TOLMAN,  xi 

9.  Typical  American  Folk-Songs.     By  JOHN  A.  LOMAX,  xi 

10.  The  Ballad  and  Tradition.    By  ARTHUR  BEATTT,  xii 

11.  Vowel  Alliteration  in  Modern  Poetry.     By  FRED  NEW-       , 

TON  SCOTT, xH 

ccxi 


CCX11  INDEX 

PAGE 
Meeting  of  the  Concordance  Society,  xii 

12.  The   Life    and    Work    of    Francis    Andrew   March.     By 

JAMES  W.  BRIGHT,  xiii 

13.  The  Witch  Scene  in  Lucan.    By  H.  J.  ROSE,  xiii 

14.  The  Germanic  Preterit.     By  EDUAED  PBdKOSCH,  xiii 

15.  The   Harmonizing   of   Grammatical   Nomenclature.  By 

WM.  GARDNER  HALE, xiii 

16.  An  Especial  Need  of  the  Humanities  in  Democratic  Edu- 

cation.   By  WILLIAM  FENWICK  HARRIS,  xiv 

Meeting  of  the  American  Dialect  Society,     -  xiv 

Address  of  the  President  of  the  Association: 

"  Light  from  Goethe  on  Our  Problems."     By  ALEX- 
ANDER  R.    HOHLFELD, Xiv 

Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  on  the  Harmonizing  of 

Grammatical  Nomenclature,     -  xiv 

Report  of  the  Auditing  Committee,       -  xv 

Report  of  the  Nominating  Committee,  xv 

Resolution  of  Thanks,  xvi 

17.  Gwy    of    'Warwick    in    the    Sixteenth    and    Seventeenth 

Centuries.    By  RONALD  S.  CRANE,  ...        xvii 

18.  Comment  faut-il  e*tudier  les  Litte"ratures  du  Moyen-Age. 

By  JEAN  B.  BECK,  xvii 

19.  The  Renascence  of  Germanic  Studies  in  England,  1559- 

1689.     By  C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE,  -        -        -       xviii 

20.  Chaucer   and  the   Seven   Deadly   Sins.     By   FREDERICK 

TTJPPER,  -  xviii 

21.  Four  Hitherto  Unidentified  Letters  by  Alexander  Pope, 

and  New  Light  on  the  Famous  Satire  on  Addison. 

By  M.  ELLWOOD  SMITH, xviii 

22.  George  Borrow  in  Spain.    By  RUDOLPH  L.  SCHEVILL,  xix 

23.  The  Source  in  Art  of  the  So-called  "Prophets"   Play 

of  the  Hegge  Cycle.    By  JOHN  K.  BONNELL,  xix 

24.  Ye  and  You  in  the  King  James  Version.     By  JOHN  S. 

KENYON,  - xix 

25.  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  in  Medieval  Art.     By  ROGER  S. 

LOOMIS,  xx 

26.  The  Influence  of  the  Popular  Ballad  upon  Wordsworth 

and  Coleridge.    By  CHARLES  WHARTON  STORK,        -          xx 
Papers  red  by  Title,  -        -         xxi 


INDEX  ccxiii 

MEETING  OF  THE  CENTBAL  DIVISION 

PAGE 

Report  of  the  Secretary,        -----_,         xxx 
Appointment  of  Committees,          - TCYY 

1.  Emigration  to  America  in  German  Fiction.    By  PBESTON 

A.   BABBA, xxx 

2.  Folk  Criticism.     By  JTEAN  OLIVE  HJECK,        -        -        -       xxxi 

3.  The  Modern  German  Fairy-Drama:  Its  Relation  to  the 

Drama  in  General  and  its  Fundamental  Thought. 

By  HERMAN  BABSON, xxxi 

4.  Some    Characteristic    Traits    of   the   Early   Dramas   of 

Maurice  Maeterlinck.  By  MOBITZ  LEVI,  -  -  xxxi 
5.  Der  Teufel  im  Geistlichen  Drama  des  deutschen  Mittel- 

alters.  By  JOSEF  MAXIMILIAN  RUDWIN,  -  -  xxxii 
6.  Interdependence  in  English  Fiction.  By  ROBEBT  NAYLOB 

WHITEFOBD,  - xxxii 

Address  of  Welcome.  By  President  CHARLES  WILLIAM  DAB- 

NEY, -        -        _        .      xxxii 

Address  of  the  Chairman  of  the  Central  Division:  Scol- 
arship  and  Public  Spirit.  By  THOMAS  ATKINSON 
JENKINS,  --------  xxxii 

9.  Sans  et  Matidre  in  the  Works  of  Crestien  de  Troyes.    By 

WILLIAM  ALBEBT  NITZE,          ...        -        -     xxxiii 

10.  The  Roman  a  Clef  in  Seventeenth-Century  English  Fic- 

tion.   By  ALFBED   HOBATIO  UPHAM,      -        -        -     xxxiii 

11.  Tannhauser,    the   Pseudo-Hero    of   the    Folk-Song.      By 

PHILIP   STEPHEN   BABTO,         -        -        -        -        -     xxxiv 

12.  Lodowick   Carliell's   Position   in   the   Late   Elizabethan 

Drama.     By  CHABLES  HENBY  GRAY,        -        -        -     xxxiv 

13.  The  Present  Crisis  in  the  Science  of  Literature  in  Ger- 

many.    By  JULIUS  GOEBEL,  -        ...     xxxiv 

Departmental  Meetings: 

English,              ......---  xxxv 

Germanic   Languages,       -------  xxxvi 

Romance  Languages, xxxvii 

Report  of  the  Committee  on  'Simplified  Spelling,       -        -  xxxviii 

Report   of   the   Committee   on   Nominations,        -        -        -  xlvii 

Resolutions,  


CX1V  INDEX 

PAGE 

Report  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Grammatical  Nomencla- 
ture,   xlvii 

20.  The    Early    English    Translations    of    Biirger's   Lenore. 

By  OLIVEB  FABBAB  EMEBSON,          ....        xiix 

21.  Chretien  de  Troves'  Technical  Use  of  Proverb  and  Sen- 

tenz.     By  HENBY  RAYMOND  BBUSH,        -        -        -        xlix 

22.  Shakespeare  and  Thomas  Heywood.     By  DANIEL  FOBD,        xlix 

23.  Chretien  de  Troyes  and  Hue  de  Rotelande's  Ipomedon. 

By  LUCY  MABIA  GAY,  1 

24.  Colonial  Theatres  in  Charleston,  South  Carolina.     By 

ROBEBT  ADGEB  LAW,  li 

25.  The  Provencal  Lais,  Markiol  and  Nompar:  Their  Rela- 

tion to  the  Latin  Sequences  and  to  the  French  Lais 

and  Descourts.    By  JOHN  RAYMOND  SHULTEBS,        -  li 

26.  Dryden's  Relation  to  the  German  Lyric  in  the  Eighteenth 

Century.     By  MILTON  D.  BAUMGABTNEB,        -        -  li 

27.  Notes    on   Gustav    Frenssen.     By   WABBEN    WASHBTJBN 

FLOBEB, Hi 

Papers  Presented  by  Title  only,      ------  Hi 

Address  of  the  President  of  the  Association: 

"  Light  from  Goethe  on  our  Problems."     By  ALEX- 

ANDEB    R.    HOHLFELD,  IvH 

Address  of  the  Chairman  of  the  Central  Division: — 

Scolarship    and   Public    Spirit.     By   T.   ATKINSON 
JENKINS, Ixxxvii 

Address  in  Commemoration  of  Francis  Andrew  March,  1825- 

1911.    By  JAMES  W.  BBIQHT,  -        -        -  -      cxvii 

Officers  of  the  Association, cxxxviii 

Constitution  of  the  Association, cxxxix 

Acts  of  the  Executiv  Council, cxliii 

Members  of  the  Association, cxlv 


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