XVII. CHAP precise; Boswell could not be more direct in describing the tone of conversation of Johnson or Burke; it is exactly what we would wish to believe of the familiar and confidential` friend of Chaucer; but where, we are naturally led to ask, did the learned Johannes Pitseus collect this minute information concerning a man, of whom we can scarcely be said to know any thing with certainty, except that he existed four hundred and fifty years ago?]. When Strode returned from Italy, he engaged in the controversy, then dépending, respecting the dogmas of Wicliffe. His proceedings in this business are delineated with a very different feeling by the Protestant and the Popish historian. Bale thus describes his measures and their success. "When he re-. turned from Italy, he began to ruffle his feathers against Wicliffe, placing his confidence in certain sophisms and tricks of logic. the glory of God confounded his pride, and caused him to fall into the pit which himself had digged. Insomuch that his boasted sophisms and elenchs were found unable to But XVII. support either the fabled donation of Con- CHAP stantine, or the papal supremacy, or the obscene law of celibacy, or those masses of the devil, hours of superstitious laziness, and exhibitions of apish mummery. He vomited forth however, for the plague of posterity," certain works which the good bishop enumerates. It might be imagined that the above censures were fully adequate to the blackness of the poet's crime. The prelate however thought otherwise; and in the close of his little article goes out of his way to renew the invective. "He flourished," adds Bale, "under Edward III; and had the impudence to say, frontless hypocrite that he was! that the permission granted to priests to enter into wedlock with Christian women, was a shred of pagan idolatry." The friendship of Chaucer could not save the "philosophical Strode" from this rude abuse. Pits however, the competitor of Bale, saw the matter in a different light. "Strode," says he, "like another David, rose against this blaspheming Goliah, and would not endure that Wicliffe, uncircumcised in heart, CHAP. should defy the church of the living God. XVII. He took the sling of eloquence, and, with a Conjecture smooth stone from the brook of truth, smote the adversary on the forhead, that he fell; then, drawing the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, he at one blow cut off the head of this doctrine of devils.' Both these writers agree to fix the period of Strode's greatest eminence and fame to the year 1370. According to Tanner, the Phantasma and some other of his works were printed in quarto at Venice, with the comments of Alexander Sermoneta, in 1517. pre The writer of the Life of Chaucer respecting fixed to Urry's edition has endeavoured to Strode in Urry's Chaucer, add to the stock of information respecting this friend of our author. For that purpose he has extracted' a Latin colophon, or postscript, from a manuscript copy of Chaucer's treatise of the Conclusions of the Astrolabie, the sense of which is," Here ends the trea • Bibliotheca Britannica, art. Strodæus. 'Life of Chaucer, note 4 Z XVII. rise of the conclusions of the astrolabe, com- CHAP. piled by Geoffrey Chaucer, for the use of his son Lewis, at that time a student of the university of Oxford, and under the tuition of the most excellent philosopher Master N. Strode." From this passage the writer infers that the person to whom Chaucer inscribed his Troilus and Creseide, was afterward tutor to Chaucer's son. But there are two difficulties in the way of this inference. First, that the person whom Leland treats as Chaucer's friend appears to have been named Ralph, while the person spoken of in the manuscript, as the tutor of Chaucer's son, is named N. probably Nicholas. The biographer says indeed, that "the Christian name of the friend to whom Chaucer dedicates, according to Leland, was Ralph; but according to others, Nicholas." In the first of these assertions he appears to be mistaken; Leland has an article treating of Ralph Strode, but does not affirm this Strode and Chaucer's friend to have been the same person. The biographer says, that the XVII. CHAP. Christian name of Chaucer's.early friend was according to others, Nicholas." But he has not named these others: and it is probable that, arguing viciously and in a circle, he had in his mind this very colophon to the manuscript of the Astrolabe. Warton however, seduced by the authority of this writer, has fallen into the same mistake, and gravely informs us, without referring to any testimony to support his statement, that the early friend of our poet was "eminent for his scholastic knowledge, and tutor to Chaucer's son Lewis at Merton college in Oxford &." A further objection to this hypothesis, arises from the chronological view of the question. The Troilus and Creseide has appeared to have been written about the year 1350. It is dedicated to Gower and Strode; and, as the author was then a very young man, it is likely that the latter, as well as the former, of the persons to whom Hist. of Eng. Poetry, Vol. I, Sect. xiv... |