Archbishop at once espoused their cause, and immediately ordered Wickliffe to resign his office; but as Wickliffe refused to submit to this order, Langham had recourse to a sequestration of the revenues of the college, and thus left it without support. Wickliffe and his secular associates now appealed from the decision of the Archbishop to Pope Urban the Fifth. The Pope, however, having been well advised of all the circumstances connected with this contest between Wickliffe and the monks, confirmed the decree of the archbishop, and Wickliffe having no alternative left him, resigned his position, and retired to a small living which he had previously secured at Lutterworth in Leicestershire. Being now released from all obligation to the court of Rome, Wickliffe began more seriously to inquire into its impositions. The authority of the pope, and the temporalities of the church, were at that time very firmly established in England, and the jurisdiction of the bishops was of vast extent. Wickliffe resolved to oppose both; and he had scarcely entered upon the course of opposition which he had determined to pursue, before he found many able associates and protectors; for the doctrine which he inculcated was favorable to the king, whose authority was weakened by that of the pope and the bishops; to the great lords, who were in possession of the revenues of the church; and to the people, to whom the tax of Peterpence and other impositions of the Church of Rome were very burthensome. Wickliffe's doctrines having now become a matter of public notoriety, Simon Sudbury, who had recently succeeded to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, assembled in 1377, a council at Lambeth, before which he cited Wickliffe to appear and defend himself against the charge of heresy preferred against him by the monks. This summons he unhesitatingly obeyed; and being accompanied by the duke of Lancaster, who, at that time, exercised an important share in the government, and by other noble lords, he was honorably acquitted. Pope Gregory the Eleventh, however, being advised of the doctrines which Wickliffe was inculcating, and of the protection which he received from those who were able to screen him from condemnation, wrote to the bishops of England, and directed that if they could not have him apprehended, they should cite him to repair to Rome, and there defend himself before the pope. But Wickliffe, now the favorite both of the lords and of the people, refused to obey the pontiff's summons, in consequence of which another council was held at Lambeth, before which Wickliffe unhesitatingly appeared, and in the event as signally triumphed as he had in the former case. Strengthened by these recurring discomfitures of his opponents, Wickliffe now proclaimed his new doctrines boldly and without reserve; and as he drew after him great numbers of disciples, William Courteney, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, called a council in 1382, and condemned the Reformer's doctrines by public decree. Unfortunately the weak and pusillanimous Richard the Second now occupied the English throne, and through fear of the power of the Romish church, gave to this decree his royal sanction; in consequence of which the followers of Wickliffe were severely persecuted, though he himself remained undaunted: and such was the respect in which he was held, that the reformation, which he had so boldly commenced, was rapidly advancing, when he unfortunately died, just at the time when nothing but a leader equal to the exigency was needed to carry the work to a successful consummation. His death occurred 1384, in the sixty-first year of his age; but the good seed which he had already sown, continued, though slowly, yet surely, to geminate in the heart of the whole nation, until it burst forth in the full bloom of the Reformation, perfected more than two centuries afterward under the auspicious reign of Queen Elizabeth. 6 More than forty years after his death, by decree of the same council of Constance which condemned John Huss and Jerome of Prague to be burned, Wickliffe's bones were ordered to be disinterred, and burnt, and the ashes thrown into a brook. This brook,' says Fuller, the church historian, in a passage which brings quaintness to the borders of sublimity, 'hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean: and thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all over the world." The principles of the Romish church against which Wickliffe particularly inveighed, were the supremacy of the pope, his infallibility, and the corruptions to which these unfounded pretensions necessarily lead; and in his controversy with his antagonists, he wrote many works on those subjects, the principal of which was the Trialogus, a dialogue, the three speakers in which were Truth, Lye, and Wisdom. But by far his most important literary performance was a translation of the Bible into his native language. This important work he accompanied by explanatory notes, the value of which is still very generally acknowledged. A single passage from this translation will close our notice of this important character in English literature. It is given in the original spelling, that it may serve as a specimen of the language at that period. And Marye seyde, My soul magnifieth the Lord, For he hath behulden the mekenesse of his handmayden: for lo for this alle generatiouns schulen seye that I am blessid. For he that is mighti hath don to me grete thingis, and his name is holy. And his mercy is fro kyndrede into kyndredis to men that dreden him. He hath made myght in his arm, he scatteride proude men with the thoughte of his herte. He sette doun myghty men fro seete, and enhaunside meke men. He hath fulfillid hungry men with goodis, and he has left riche men voide. He heuynge mynde of his mercy took up Israel his child. As he hath spokun to oure fadris, to Abraham, and to his seed into worlds. CHAUCER, the remaining member of this bright trio, next demands our attention; but before we proceed to investigate his life and genius, we must glance at those of his predecessors who immediately preceded him; for until that time, English poetry assumed no other form than that of the Chronicle, and the Romance. Henceforward, however, we shall be called upon to regard it under all those varied and interesting aspects under which it has been employed to point a moral lesson, to describe natural scenery, to convey satiric reflections, and to give expression to refined and delicate sentiment. The dawn of miscellaneous poetry, as these poems may be comprehensively called, is to be faintly discovered about the middle of the thirteenth century, during the reign of Henry the Third. The earliest of these poems which can be said to possess any literary merit, is an Elegy, written in 1307, on the death of king Edward the First. This poem is executed in musical and energetic stanzas, of which the following may be taken as a fair specimen : Jerusalem, thou hast i-lore, The flour of all chivalerie, Nou kyng Edward liveth na more, Our baners that bueth broht to grounde; Wel longe we mowe clepe2 and crie, Er we such a kyng han y-founde! The first name that occurs in this department of English literature, is that of Lawrence Minot, who about 1350 composed a series of short poems on the victories of Edward the Third, beginning with the battle of Halidon Hill, and ending with the Siege of Guines Castle. At about the same time flourished Richard Rolle, a hermit of the order of St. Augustine, who lived a solitary life in the vicinity of the nunnery of Hampole, near Doncaster. He wrote paraphrases of various parts of the Scriptures, and an original poem of a moral and religious nature, entitled, The Precke of Conscience. From this long and generally tedious poem, we select the following agrecable passage, and present it in the original spelling. 1 High. WHAT IS IN HEAVEN. Ther is lyf withoute ony deth, And ther is youthe without ony elde ;3 And ther is pees without ony strife, And ther is bright somer ever to se, 2 Call. 3 Age. And ther is grete melodie of aungeles songe, And ther is alle manner frendshipe that may be, And ther is wisdom without folye, And ther is honeste without vileneye. Al these a man may joyes of hevene call: Ac yutte the most sovereyn joye of alle In wham resteth alle mannere grace. The Vision of Pierce Ploughman, a satirical poem of the same periva, ascribed to Robert Langlande, a secular priest, also shows very clearly and expressively the progress which was made about the middle of the fourteenth century, toward a literary style. This poem is, in many respects, one of the most important works that appeared in England previous to the invention of printing. It is the popular representative of the doctrines which were even then silently bringing about the Reformation; and it is also a peculiarly national poem, not only as being a purer specimen of the English language than even Chaucer's poetry presents, but as exhibiting the revival of the same system of alliteration to which we have already alluded as characterizing the Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is, in fact, both in this particular, and in its political character, characteristic of a great literary and political revolution, in which the language as well as the independence of the AngloSaxons had at last gained the ascendency over those of the Normans. Pierce is represented as falling asleep on the Melvern hills, and as seeing, in his sleep, a series of visions. In describing these, he exposes the corruptions of society, and particularly the dissolute lives of the religious orders, with much bitterness. From this poem we present the allegory of Mercy and Truth, as fairly indicating the spirit of the entire work. MERCY AND TRUTH ALLEGORIZED. Out of the west coast, a wench, as me thought, A full benign burd,1 and buxom of speech; Her sister, as it seemed, came soothly walking, Even out of the east, and westward she looked, A full comely creature, Truth she hight, For the virtue that her followed afeard was she never. Either axed other of this great wonder, Of the din and of the darkness. With these imperfect models before him as his only native guides, arose the great Father of English poetry, GEOFFREY CHAUCER. Though the English language had risen into importance with the rise of the Commons in the time of Edward the First, yet the French long kept possession of the court, 1 Maiden. the schools, and the higher circles; and it required a genius like that of Chaucer-familiar with different modes of life both at home and abroad, and openly patronized by his sovereign-to give literary permanence and consistency to the language and poetry of England. From that period his native style, which Spencer terms 'the pure well of English undefiled,' formed a standard for composition, though the national distractions which followed, and the absence of any striking poetical genius for at least a century and a half after his death, too truly exemplified the fine simile of Warton, that 'Chaucer was like a genial day in an English spring, when a brilliant sun enlivens the face of nature with unusual warmth and lustre, but is succeeded by the redoubled horrors of winter, and those tender buds and early blossoms which were called forth by the transient gleams of a temporary sunshine, are nipped by frosts and torn by tempests.' GEOFFREY CHAUCER was born in the city of London, in 1328, one year after that eminent monarch, Edward the Third, ascended the English throne. He entered the university of Cambridge in the sixteenth year of his age, and during that part of his collegiate course which he there pursued, though he did not neglect his more important duties, get much of his attention was devoted to poetry. Before he reached the eighteenth year of his age, and while he was still a student at Cambridge, he wrote and published the Court of Love, and some other minor poems, all of which gave promise of the future poetic eminence to which he was destined to attain. From Cambridge Chaucer removed, according to Warton and others, to the university of Oxford; and having there completed his collegiate studies, he thence returned to London, and soon after left his native country for the purpose of travelling upon the continent, that he might thus, by freely intermingling with other nations, increase his accomplishments both of mind and manners. Having travelled through France, Holland, and some other countries, and critically regarded whatever fell under his observation, he returned to London, and soon after entered the Inner Temple as a student of law. He, however, was not permitted long to remain in the obscurity of a law student; for the beauty of his person, and his distinguished accomplishments, attracting the attention of the court, he was invited to leave his prospective profession, and enter into the service of the king. Assenting without hesitation to this proposition, Edward the Third at once appointed him one of his pages, with an annuity of twenty marks per annum-a sum equal to about two hundred pounds sterling. From the office of king's page, Chaucer was elevated to the position of Gentleman of the King's Privy Chamber,' with twenty additional marks to his annual income. From the position of 'Gentleman of the King's Privy Chamber,' he became shield-bearer to his majesty, and in that capacity attended the king during his celebrated invasion of France, which terminated in the prostration of that nation by the victory obtained upon the field of Cressy, and the siege and capture of Calais |