FROM LYDGATE'S 'DIETARY,' OR RULES FOR HEALTH. And if so be that lechis done the faile1, Nat malicious for none adversité; Riche with litel, content with suffisaunce; Fyre at morowe, and towards bed at eve, Suffre no surfetis in thy house at nyght, And sloth at morow, and slomberyng idelnes, Voyde al drunklew, lyers, and lechours; Of al unthriftës exile the mastres, That is to say, dyse-players, and haserdours. After mete beware, make not to longë slepe, Suffre in tymë, in thi right be bold; Swerë none othis no man to begyle; In thy youth be lusty, sad whan thow art olde. 1 if physicians make thee fall ill. 3 air. 2 4 late suppers. murmuring. Dyne nat at morwe aforne thyn appetite, Clere eyre and walkyng makith goode digestioun, To feble stomakes, whan they can nat refrayne; Thus in two thinges standith al the welthe 4 This ressayt is bought of no poticarye, Of maister Antony, nor of maister Hewe, To all indifferent, richest diatorye 5. DESCRIPTION OF THE GOLDEN AGE. [Falls of Princes, book vii.] Rightwisenes chastised al robbours, By egall balaunce of execucion, Fraud, false mede, put backward fro jurours, That golden world could love God and drede, The true marchant by measure bought and sold, Making no balkes1, the plough was truely hold, Of wast in clothing was that time none excesse; This golden world long whylë dyd endure, 1 leaving no ridges unfurrowed. 3 virgin gold. 2 soldierlike frugality. THOMAS OCCLEVE. [THOMAS OCCLEVE, or HOCCLEVE (the name is spelt both ways in the MSS. of his works), was born between 1365 and 1370. He is thought to have been of north-country parentage, deriving his name from the village of Hocclough in Northumberland. One of his minor poems, addressed to Richard duke of York, cannot well have been written before 1448, since the young prince Edward (born in 1441) and his French tutor Picard are mentioned in it. Occleve must therefore have lived to a great age, but the precise year of his death is unknown. His principal poem, De Regimine Principum, was written in 1411 or 1412. The ascertainable dates of his minor poems, of which only a portion has been printed, range between 1400 and 1448.] The principal work of Thomas Occleve is the poem De Regimine Principum, a free version of the Latin treatise written under that title by Aegidius or Giles, a native of Rome and a disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas, which he dedicated to Philip le Hardi, son of St. Louis. This poem is in the rhyme royal, and contains between five and six thousand lines. Nearly a third part of it is taken up with a Prelude or proem, which is considerably more interesting than the work itself. A slight analysis of this proem will bring Occleve before us, both as a man and a writer, more clearly than anything else could. After a restless night, spent in painful and fruitless musing on the insecurity of all things here below, the poet goes forth into the fields near his lodging in the Strand. A poor old man meets him, and plies him with questions as to the reason of his dejection. After naming various causes of trouble, he says— "If thou fele the in any of thise ygreved, Thou seest, al day the begger is releved, That syt and beggith, crookyd, blynd, and lame; And whi? for he ne lettith for no shame His harmes and his povert to bewreye To folke, as thei goon bi hym bi the weye.' The old man goes on to warn him against indulgence in too prolonged and solitary meditations. By these, he says, men are sometimes led on to deny the faith, as happened in the case of a heretic 'not longe agoo,' who denied that after consecration the eucharistic bread was Christ's body. For this he was burnt, though the prince (Henry) tried hard to save him, and promised to obtain his full pardon and the means of living from the king, if he would return to the faith1. He speaks also of the folly of extravagance in dress,—that costly and 'outragious array,' which will ruin England if it is not stopped,—on the thoughtlessness and wantonness of youth, and so on. The author, much consoled and edified, tells his mentor who he is, and how he lives. He is a writer to the Privy Seal, and has an annuity of twenty marks a year in the Exchequer, granted him by Henry IV. But his misfortune is that he can never depend on this being paid regularly, so that he is sometimes in danger of starving. If this be so now, what will be his plight when he is grown old, and has no other resource but the annuity? Herein lies the secret cause of his dejection. The old man, after counselling a religious resignation to the divine will, questions him still further, and finding that he is a literary man, and had known Chaucer, advises him to compose some new work and present it to the Prince, who will perhaps graciously accept it and relieve the author from his distress: 'Write him no thinge that sowneth unto vice, Kithe thi love in mater of saddenesse *, Loke if thou finde canst any tretice Grounded on his astates holsomnesse; Suche thing translate, and unto his highnesse, Do this, my sonë.' 'Fadir, I assent.' But he laments that 'the honour of English tounge is deed,' with whom he might have taken counsel; then follows the celebrated passage on Chaucer, which will be found among our extracts 5. The poet returns home, takes parchment, and writes a dedication 1 This was Thomas Badby, executed in April 1410, under the statute of 1401. 2 Among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum may be seen a large volume, No. 24,062, the documents in which, or the greater part of them, are said to be in Occleve's handwriting. 3 Make known. 4 a serious subject. 5 See pp. 127, 128. |