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times. 'Sith' appears as prep. in 'siththan' (after-that); later forms of which are 'sithens,' 'sithence,' 'sith,' 'since,' 'syn (sin, sen),' 'syne' (100). The common phrase 'syn syne' (since then) shews different forms in different uses (prep., and adv. for noun).

103. Guise is the same word as 'wise' (100). When the O. Ger. wisa was taken into French, Frenchmen could not pronounce it without putting ag before the w (which was eventually dropped in pronunciation), and so they made it guise. We have taken both forms. Cf. war, Fr. guerre; ward, guard; warrant, guarantee; wile, guile. 106. From the spleen. Now we should say 'from the heart.'

132. Observance, playing, singing, &c., in celebration of May. Cf. Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, 187, and note (pp. 33, 34).

252. Mirthful May, of every mon(e)th

Queen. The poet's enthusiasm for May is unbounded, as becomes a professed disciple of Chaucer. Comp. 82, 'May, of mirthful monthis queen;' and, generally, the whole stanza (82-90).

253. Chaucer was Dunbar's ever-admired master. Note the epithet

reverend.'- -Rhetors, poets; lit. (public) speakers, orators, hence composers in elevated language. Cf. 'rhetoric' (270). So Sir D. Lyndesay laments Bishop Gawain Douglas as 'in our English rhetoric the rose.'

254. In our tongue. Compare

Our

English' (259), 'our rude language' (266), 'our speech' (267). Dunbar, though writing in Scotland, clearly affirms that his language is English. By Scottish,' in his day, was generally understood the language of

the Scots, the Gaelic or Erse; the language of the Lowlands was English. Gawain Douglas (about 1474-1522) was perhaps the first native writer to apply the political term to the language, as if the language of the Scottish people (or people in Scotland) were Scottish; so that there is not a little of the irony of fate in his being commemorated by Sir David Lyndesay as ' in our English rhetoric the rose.' (See Dr J. A. H. Murray's Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, Introd., sect. 13, 14.) 256. Thou bears, 'beiris.' 'bearest'; but 'bears' (2d sing.) is good Northern English. -Makers. The poet (Gr. poiētēs, Lat. poēta, a maker, from poiein, to make) is very commonly called a maker by our older writers. The name expressively suggests originating or creative force. Sir Philip Sidney (Apologie for Poetrie, 1581) calls it a 'high and incomparable title.' Tennyson has: "And she can make, and she can sing.'

We say

259. Was thou. Cf. 256, note; also 'thou could write' (67), and 'thou has spent (274). See (below)

Burns.

262. John Gower (1340?—1408) and John Lydgate (1380-1450?) are usually joined with Chaucer, when the tuneful brethren in Scotland sing the praises of the great poets in the southern kingdom.--Moral. This epithet, first applied by Chaucer, has continued to stick to Gower. His stories, however immoral, were intended to point a moral.

271. Quair, quire, book. The most famous English poem of the 15th century is entitled "The King's Quhair,' or Book. It was written (1424) by King James I.

THOMAS MORE.-1480-1535.

Sir THOMAS MORE was the son of a judge of the Court of King's Bench. From being a page in the household of Cardinal Morton, he became a student at Oxford, whence he proceeded to the bar, and soon rose to distinction. He sat in parliament in 1504; and by successfully opposing Henry VII.'s demand for a heavy subsidy, drew upon himself the resentment of the king. Under the smiles of Henry VIII., however, he advanced rapidly, becoming Chancellor on the fall of Wolsey in 1530. He was a staunch Roman Catholic, and would not follow Henry in breaking with Rome; and, as he refused to acknowledge the validity of the divorce of Catherine, and the king's remarriage with Anne Boleyn, he was beheaded in 1535.

More's chief work in English is a Life and Reign of Edward V., and of his Brother, and of Richard III., which has been very much praised. It was written probably about 1509; and a Latin version, which breaks off at Richard's coronation, is represented as the hasty work of the author some four years later (1513). The Utopia, written in Latin (1516), is the typical book of the Revival' of learning in the beginning of the 16th century. It describes an ideal state of society, anticipating many schemes of political, social, and religious reform, since carried into effect, and many others that are yet among the aspirations of advanced thinkers. More was also an energetic writer of controversial tracts directed against the Reform doctrines, and particularly against Tyndale.

KING RICHARD THE THIRD.

(From The History of King Richard the Third.)

[Richard, youngest son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, was born at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, 1452; was created Duke of Gloucester when his brother Edward became king, 1461; supplanted-tradition says murdered-his two nephews, and raised himself to the throne, 1483; and was killed at Bosworth in Leicestershire, in the last battle of the Roses, August 22, 1485, at the age of thirty-three. Bad as he must have been, his bad qualities, physical as well as moral, have certainly been much exaggerated, and his biographers, who wrote under his enemies the Tudors, would lead us to suppose that he had no good qualities at all. He was the last king of the House of York, and the last English sovereign of the line of the Plantagenets. He was one of our great soldier kings; and he is the only English sovereign since Harold that has fallen on the field of battle.]

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Richard, the third son,1 ... was in wit and courage equall with either of them, in body and prowess far under them both, little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favoured of visage, and such as is in states called warly, in other men otherwise, he was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth ever froward. It is for truth reported that ... he came into the world with the feet forward, and (as the fame runneth) also not untoothed, whether men of hatred report above the truth, or else that nature changed her course in his beginning, which in the course of his life many things unnaturally committed. None evil captain was he in the war, as to which his disposition was more meetly than for peace. Sundry victories had he, and sometimes overthrows, but never in default as for his own person, either of hardiness or politic order, free was he called of dispence, and somewhat above his power liberal, with large gifts he got him unstedfast friendship, for which he was fain to pill and spoil in other places, and got him stedfast hatred. He was close and secret, a deep dissimuler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill dispitious and cruel, not for evil will alway, but ofter for ambition, and either for the surety or increase of his estate. Friend and foe was much-what indifferent, where his advantage grew; he spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew with his own hands King Henry the Sixth, being prisoner in the Tower, as men constantly say, and that without commandment or knowledge of the king, which would undoubtedly, if he had intended that

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1 Of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. 2 His two surviving brothers, Edward IV., and George, Duke of Clarence. 3 Warlike.

thing, have appointed that butcherly office to some other than his own born brother.

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Some wise men also ween that his drift covertly conveyed lacked not in helping forth his brother of Clarence to his death which he resisted openly, howbeit somewhat (as men deemed) more faintly than he that were heartily minded to his wealth. And they that thus deem think that he long time in king Edward's life forethought to be king in case that the king his brother (whose life he looked that evil diet should shorten) should happen to decease (as in deed he did) while his children were young. And they deem that for this intent he was glad of his brother's death the Duke of Clarence, whose life must needs have hindered him so intending, whether the same Duke of Clarence had kept him1 true to his nephew, the young king, or enterprised to be king himself. But of all this point is there no certainty, and whoso divineth upon conjectures may as well shoot too far as too short. Howbeit this have I by credible information learned, that the self night in which king Edward died, one Mistlebrook long ere morning came in great haste2 to the house of one Pottier dwelling in Redcross Street without Cripplegate: and when he was with hasty rapping quickly letten in, he showed unto Pottier that king Edward was departed.3 "By my truth, man,' quod Pottier, then will my master the Duke of Gloucester be king.' What cause he had so to think, hard it is to say, whether he being toward him any thing knew that he such thing purposed, or otherwise had any inkling thereof: for he was not likely to speak it of nought.

1 Himself, Clarence. 2 Lat. ed. curriculo contendisse (drove in haste). Lat. ed. eadem hora extinctum (that very hour departed). Quoth.

The third son.

NOTES.

More means the third surviving son; not reckoning the second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, who was slain with his father at Wakefield in Yorkshire, Dec. 30, 1460.

Equal. The original text has 'egall,'

which shews the influence of Fr. égal (Lat. æquālis). Limbs. Orig. 'limmes.' The 'b' is an accretion in spelling: it is not pronounced. Cf. thumb. Similarly we have 'number' (Lat. numerus), 'humble' (Lat. humilis), &c.

even

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Many things &c.

The inversion of the usual order is probably due to the author's feeling of how it would run in Latin.

Dissimuler has given way to the Frenchified' dissembler.'

Not letting, not hesitating, not restraining himself from. Cf. Isaiah xliii. 13: 'Iwill work, and who shall let (thwart, hinder) it?' Shak., Twelfth Night, v. 1: 'nothing lets (hinders) to make us happy.' So 2 Thess. ii. 7; &c. See also note to 'those that be unfittest' &c. pp. 72-3. 'Without let or hindrance' is a common phrase,

admitting tautology for the sake of emphasis: 'let' = 'hindrance.' Whom. Antecedent, 'him' or 'those,' omitted.

Dispitious, full of despite, resentment, malice. O. Fr. despit. It has nothing to do with piteous. Cf. dispiteous, Spenser, Faery Queene, I. ii. 15, and Shak., K. John, IV. i. 34, note.

Friend and foe was &c. Why 'was' and not 'were?' Observe also the omission of an article with 'friend and 'foe.'

Much-what. Cf. 'somewhat.'

His wealth, his weal, his well-being. Lat. ed. has salutem.

Edward's life. Orig. has 'Edwardes life,' preserving the usual genitive inflection. Yet, two paragraphs earlier, it has also 'King Harry his life.' Cf. Layamon, Brut, 28,539,

note.

His brother's death the Duke of Clarence.

We do not postpone the adjunct; we say 'his brother the Duke of Clarence's death.' "For King Henry's sake the sixth' is another example from More. See Langley, Piers the Plowman, Passus V. 185, and note (page 28).

The self night, 'the same night;' 'self' being anciently an adjective meaning 'same.' Cf. Cadmon, Par. I., xxi. 128, note.

Departed, one of the multitude of our euphemisms for 'dead.' The Lat. ed. says roughly extinctum—' extinguished,' 'quenched,' 'put or snuffed out:' literally 'pricked or punched out.' 'Dead' gives the exact sense; 'departed,' 'gone,' 'fallen asleep,' 'passed away,' &c., are more general expressions, more distantly and thus more softly and reverentially indicating the unpleasant fact; the special nature of the 'departing,' 'going,' &c., being inferred from the circumstances.

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