XXIX.

1369.

and timorous consent, and the happy nuptials CHAP.
with which his wishes were ultimately crown-
ed. He expatiates with enthusiasm upon the
felicity of his marriage state. Many of these
passages have been already quoted.
poem then draws to a conclusion.

Sir, 'quod I, and where is she now?
Now, quod he, andystinte anone,
Therwith he woxe as dedde as stone,
And saied, Alas, that I was bore!
That was the losse, that here before
I toldé the that I hadde lorne.

Bethinke the how I saied beforne,

The

"Thouwoste full litel what thou menest,
For I have loste more then thou wenest."
God wot, alas! right that was She!

Alas, sir, how? what maie that be?
She is dedde! Naie! Yes, by my trouthe.-
Is that your losse? By God, 'tis " routhe!

CHAP. and "this kyng," as Chaucer now styles

XXIX.

1369.

Defects of the poem.

him, mounting his horse, rides homeward,

Unto a place was there beside,

Whiche that was from us but a "lite,

A long castell, with wallés white,
On a riche hill..

ver. 1316.

There are several passages in this poem upon the death of the duchess, which mark in no common degree the crudeness of taste of the times in which Chaucer wrote. It is scarcely worth while again, as we did in examining the Troilus and Creseide, to quote single lines which are trite, vulgar and impotent; such as where Chaucer makes his hero say, exclaiming upon fortune,

for she is nothing stable,

Nowe by the fyre, nowe at the table.

ver. 645.

The present poem has much more considerable deformities. Nothing can be in a poorer

little.

XXIX.

1369.

or more contemptible taste, than where the CHAP.
author, after having worked up the imagin-
ation of his readers with a picture of the
inconsolable distress of the knight, goes on
to make him describe his mischance under
the allegory of having played at chess with
fortune, and having lost the game. It may
however be a still more intolerable absurdity,
that his hero proceeds to excuse the con-
queror, alleging,

And eke she is the lasse to blame,
My selfe I wolde have do the same,
Before God, had I ben as she.

For al so wise God give me reste,
I dare wel swere she toke the beste.

ver. 675.

In answer to all this, Chaucer frigidly undertakes to console him by the examples of Medea, Phyllis and Dido, from Ovid's Epistles. These ladies, he observes, destroyed themselves, and are justly censured for their

• less.

CHAP. desperation. They indeed were driven upon XXIX. their fate by the perfidious inconstancy of 1369. the men they adored:

But there is no man alive here

Р

Wolde for ther ferés make this wo.

ver. 740.

It is in a similar style of insufferable trifling that, further on in the poem, where John of Gaunt is introduced speaking of the verses he wrote in praise of his mistress, Chaucer makes him digress into an impertinent discussion whether Pythagoras, or Jubal the son of Lamech, were the first discoverer of the art of music and this in a discourse, delivered on an occasion of the utmost distress,

interrupted with groans, and accompanied with all the tokens of the deepest affliction.

Such are some of the faults of Chaucer's epicedium. We have already had occasion to quote from it many passages of exquisite beauty, and shall presently introduce another,

his companion, his partner.

XXIX.

which cannot fail to afford uncommon plea- CHAP. sure to every reader of taste.

But perhaps the principal value of the Book of the Duchess, is to be found in the light which it is calculated to afford to the history

of its author. Some uncertainty has been endeavoured to be thrown by Mr. Tyrwhit upon the question, whether the Parliament of Birds and the Dream of Chaucer are to be interpreted as alluding to the courtship and marriage of his illustrious patron. But no reasonable doubt can be formed that the Book of the Duchess relates to the untimely death of the heiress of Lancaster. Lydgate informs us that Chaucer wrote

the dethe of Blaunché the duchesse ".

Chaucer, in the enumeration of his works in the Legend of Good Women', uses precisely the same words as Lydgate. And, in the body of this epicedium, as if on purpose to defeat the groundless scepticism of those

1369.

nlustration this poem

which

affords to

the his

tory of Chaucer.

Certainly occasion

written on

of the

death of chess of

the du

Lancaster.

Fall of Princes, Prologue, stanza 44.

r verse 418.