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THE HOUSE OF FAME.

[THE Editio-princeps of The House of Fame was that printed by Caxton in quarto, under the title of The Boke of Fame. It was reprinted, with other works of Chaucer, by Rycharde Pynson in 1526. In 1508 a version in the Scottish dialect, or orthography, was published in Edinburgh by Walter Chepman, called The Maying or Disport of Chaucer. The received text is that of Speght's edition of 1604, in which he has followed his customary system of adapting the orthography to that of his time, thus destroying both grammar and metre.

The text of the present edition is taken from a MS. on vellum, contained in a volume of miscellaneous poems by Chaucer, Lydgate, and others, marked 16 in the Fairfax Collection, Bod. Lib. This MS. is written in a fine, small hand, is richly illuminated, and the volume bears the autograph of Fairfax, and the date of 1450 on a fly-leaf. In this MS. the grammatical inflections, a point of the greatest moment, are generally preserved with accuracy throughout, and the metre is consequently restored by collation to regularity and correctness.

The central feature of The House of Fame is, as its title indicates, the description of the palace of the goddess; but that occupies only a small part of the poem. The allegory, as on other occasions, takes the form of a dream, in which the poet finds himself in the Temple of Venus, from whence he is carried by an eagle to a magnificent palace built upon a mountain of ice, and supported by rows of pillars, on which are inscribed the names of the most illustrious poets. Here he finds the goddess seated on her throne, dispensing her judgments to the crowds who come to solicit her favours. The caprice and injustice of her decrees constitute the satire of the piece. Leaving the palace to seek for further information, Chaucer is again caught up by the eagle, and conveyed to a house sixty miles in length, built of twigs, and continu

lly whirling about. Under this strange mansion are colected, in the forms of their original propagators, all the 'umours current upon earth, which, issuing out through innumerable doors, windows, and crevices, ultimately fly to the presence of the goddess, who assigns a name and duration to each.

Warton infers, from the frequent introduction of similes drawn from continental scenes and customs, that The House of Fame is a translation from the Provençal; and amongst other evidences of a foreign origin, points out two places in which the eagle addresses the poet under the name of Peter. The continental allusions, however, may be explained without referring them to a Provençal author. In Chaucer's time a considerable part of the British dominions lay on the continent; France was the native country of many of our aristocracy; and it can be easily supposed that a courtly poet, like Chaucer, might designedly choose his images from abroad, for the purpose of imparting an air of refinement and elegance to his verse. With respect to the name of Peter, Warton is in error in supposing that it is addressed to Chaucer. It is not employed as a name at all, but as an oath, or exclamation, very common at that period, and really meaning 'By Saint Peter!'

In none of his other poems has Chaucer displayed such an extent of knowledge, or drawn his images from such a variety of sources. The Arabic system of numeration, then lately introduced into Europe, the explosion of gunpowder, and the theory of sound, may be mentioned as examples of the topics of illustration and disquisition in which he abounds. His intimate acquaintance with classical authors is exhibited in the felicitous judgments he pronounces on their writings. For instance, what can be more happy than the distinction he indicates between Homer and Virgil, by placing each on a pillar of iron, characteristic of their warlike themes, but at the same time covering Virgil's iron with tin?

The octosyllabic measure adopted in The House of Fame is peculiarly suited to this style of familiar narrative interspersed

with humorous dialogue. It is that which Butler afterwards employed so successfully; and there are in this essentially different work, many passages that will remind the reader of the wit, erudition, and burlesque rhymes of Hudibras.]

Go

OD turne us every dreme, to goode!
For hyt is wonder thing, be1 the roode,
To my wytte, what causeth swevenes
Eyther on morwes, or on evenes;
And why theffecte folweth of somme,
And of somme hit shal never come;
Why this is an avision,

And why this a revelacion;

Why this a dreme, why that a swevene,
And noght to every man lyche evene;
Why this a fantome, why these oracles,
I not: but who so of these meracles
The causes knoweth bet then I,
Devyne he; for I certeinly

Ne kan hem noght, ne never thinke
To besely my wytte to swinke,"
To knowe of hir significaunce

The gendres, neyther the distaunce

Of tymes of hem, ne the causis,

For why this more then that cause is;*

As yf folkys complexiouns,

Make hem dreme of reflecciouns;

Or ellis thus, as other sayne,

For to grete feblenesse of her brayne,

1 It may save the reader trouble to observe that in the MS. Fairfax 16, from which the text of this poem is taken, the word by is generally written be, as it was pronounced.

2 Swinke is here a verb active, governing my witte. To belabour my wit too busily.'

The meaning is,

3 This line is somewhat obscure. The meaning appears to be,' Why any one circumstance [the complexion, or feebleness of brain, or abstinence, or sickness, &c.] rather than another, should be the cause of dreams.'

By abstinence, or by sekenesse,
Prison, stewe or grete distresse;
Or ellis by disordynaunce,
Or naturel accustumaunce,
That somme man is to curiouse
In studye, or melancolyouse;
Or thus, so inly ful of drede,
That no man may hym bote bede;"
Or ellis that devocion

Of somme, and contemplacion,
Causeth suche dremes ofte;

Or that the cruelle lyfe unsofte
Whiche those ilke lovres leden,
Oft hopen over moche or dreden,
That purely her impressions
Causeth hem avisions;

Or yf that spiritis have the myght
To make folke to dreme anight;
Or yf the soule, of propre kynde,
Be so perfit as men fynde,
That yt forwote that ys to come,
And that hyt werneth al and some
Of everyche of her aventures,

Be avisions, or be figures,

But that oure flessh ne hath no myghte

To understonde hyt arighte,

For hyt is werned to derkly;

But why the cause is, noght wote I.

Wele worthe' of this thinge grete clerkes,

That trete of this, and other werkes;

For I of noon opinion

Nyl as now make mensyon;

1 Speght reads rede.

2 Worthe is a verb, of which grete clerkes is the subject. It often occurs in combination with wele and woe. [It means to be or to become, like G. werden. Thus the meaning of this sentence is, 'May good befal great clerks as respects this matter;' and the exclamation, 'Woe worth the day,' means May evil be to this day.'-W. W.S.]

But oonly that the holy roode1
Turne us every dreme to goode;
For never sith that I was borne,
Ne no man elles me beforne,
Mette, I trowe stedfastly,
So wonderful & dreme as I,

The tenthe day now of Decembre;
The whiche, as I kan yow remembre,
I wol yow telle everydele.

But at my begynnynge, trusteth wele,
I wol make invocacion,

With special devocion

Unto the god of slepe anoon,

That dwelleth in a cave of stoon,
Upon a streme that cometh fro Lete,3
That is a floode of helle unswete,
Besyde a folke men clepeth Cymerie;"
There slepeth ay this god unmerie,
With his slepy thousand sonnes,
That alwey for to slepe hir wone is;
That to this god that I of rede,
Prey I, that he wolde me spede,
My swevene for to telle aryght,
If every dreme stonde in his myghte.
And he that mover ys of alle
That is and was, and ever shalle,
So yive hem joye that hyt here,
Of alle that they dreme to-yere;
And for to stonde al in grace
Of her loves, or in what place

1 The Cross.

2 In the margin of the MS. is the following Latin note. 'Ovidius: tamen exit ab imo, Rivus aque lethes.' It is from the description of the Palace of Somnius in the xith book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which had already supplied Chaucer with the original of the description in The Boke of the Duchesse.-See ante, p. 403.

3 Here again is a gloss in the margin. Unde Ovidius, lio. xio. Est prope Cimmerios longo spelunca recessu,' &c.