CHAPTER L

PROSE WRITERS BEFORE 1580.

FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

Sir John Mandeville, 1300-1371.-The earliest book of prose able to take for itself a place in our literature, was a book of Travels by Sir John Mandeville.

In the various manuscript collections of Early English compositions are to be found prose fragments written before Mandeville's work. Some of these have been printed by the Early English Text Society—namely, Homilies of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries; the Ayenbyte of Inwyt, illustrating the Kentish dialect in 1340; also, from a MS. of the fifteenth century, some fragments by the ascetic Yorkshire preacher, Richard Rolle de Hampole, who died in 1349. But these fragments are inconsiderable; and seeing that they had not vitality enough to keep themselves alive, they must not be allowed to take away from Mandeville the honour of being the Father of English Prose. Mr Henry Morley calls him "6 our first prose writer in formed English," and says "that with him and Wiclif begins, at the close of the period of the Formation of the Language, the true modern history of English Prose."

Mandeville professes to write what he had seen and heard in the course of thirty-four years of travel in the East. Nearly all that is known of his life may be given in his own words :

"I, John Maundevylle, knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond, in the Town of Seynt Albones, passed the See in the Zeer of our Lord Jesu Crist MCCCXXII., in the day of Seynt Michelle; and hidre to have ben longe tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse Londes, and many Provynces and Kingdomes, and Iles, and have

passed thorghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye the litylle and the grete; thorghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope; thorghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many othere Iles, that ben abouten Inde; where dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and Lawes, aud of dyverse Schappes of Men.”

Besides this, we know that before leaving England he studied physic, a branch of knowledge that the traveller would find serviceable wherever he went. He is said to have returned to England in 1356, and to have then written his book in Latin, in French, and in English :—

"And zee schulle undirstonde, that I have put this Boke out of Latyn into Frensche, and translated it azen out of Frensche into Englyssche, that every man of my Nacioun may undirstonde it."

His book completed, he seems to have been again seized with his passion for travel. He is said to have died at Liège in 1371.

There being no printing-press in England till the last quarter of the fifteenth century, Mandeville's book of Travels was not printed till more than a century after his death; but immediately upon its composition, it began to circulate widely in manuscript. It was translated into Italian by Pietro de Cornero, and printed at Milan in 1480. It was first printed in England in 1499, when an edition was issued by Wynkyn de Worde.

Geoffrey Chaucer, 1328-1400.-Of the 'Canterbury Tales' two are in prose-the "Parson's Tale" and the "Tale of Melibus." The "Parson's Tale" is a long and somewhat tedious discourse on the Seven Deadly Sins; the "Tale of Melibus" (and his wife Prudence) is an allegory, closely translated from a French treatise. Neither of them has the spirit of Chaucer's verse, and they would hardly have been preserved had they appeared in less illustrious company.

Besides these tales, he wrote in prose a translation of the 'De Consolatione Philosophia' of Boethius, date unknown; and a "Treatise on the Astrolabe,' addressed to his son Lewis, conjectured date 1391.

John de Wycliffe, Wicliffe, or Wyclif, the Reformer, 1324-1384, although he wrote mostly in Latin, and probably wrote little in English till near the close of his life, was the most eminent and influential writer of English prose in the fourteenth century. Mr Shirley's conjecture is that he did not begin to use the vernacular in controversy till after the great Western Schism under the antipope Clement in 1378. In his opinion "half the English religious tracts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been assigned to him in the absence of all external, and in defiance of all internal evidence." The reader may be referred to Mr Arnold's 'Select English Works of Wyclif' for examples of what may reasonably be

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ascribed to the pen of the great reformer, when every allowance is made for the extreme difficulty of identifying works that have remained in manuscript till within recent years. Mr Matthew's edition for the English Text Society of certain other writings may also be recommended, as well for the interest of the subjects, as for the careful and thorough introductory biography.

In the account of Wycliffe's life, prefixed to his edition of the 'Fasciculi Zizaniorum,' Mr Shirley argued strongly against several traditional views. One of his chief points was that Wycliffe has been confounded with another man of the same name, and that it was this other Wycliffe whose appointment to the Wardenship of Canterbury Hall in 1365 was disputed, and finally set aside by the Pope. This theory, however, has by no means been unanimously adopted. Mr Matthew follows Lechler in rejecting it. Many of the incidents in Wycliffe's life are still matter of dispute. He was a Yorkshireman, born in 1324 at Spreswell or Ipswell, near Wyclif. He studied at Oxford; but no particulars of his life are known till 1361, when he appears as Master of Balliol. In this year he was presented to the rectory of Fylingham in Lincolnshire, and shortly after went there to reside. In 1363, having taken a doctor's degree, he used the privilege of lecturing in divinity at Oxford. At this date he broached no doctrinal heresy, but assailed abuses in Church government, especially recommending himself to the Court by his attacks on the temporal power of the Pope, and by defending Parliament's refusal to recognise the Pope's claim for arrears of tribute. In 1368, to be nearer Oxford, he obtained the living of Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire. In 1374 he was one of a legation sent by Edward III. to arrange some difficulties with the Pope. presented to the living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which was his home for the remainder of his life. From 1378 Mr Shirley dates a new stage in the reformer's career. He then became more exclusively theological. At what date he began his great enterprise of translating the Bible into English is not ascertained. So long as he attacked only the pretensions of Church dignitaries, he was supported by the Court against their attempts at revenge. But when in 1380 he began to attack the doctrines of the Church, and proclaimed his heresy on transubstantiation, the Court dared no longer support him. He was banished from Oxford; and nothing but his death in 1384 could have saved him from further persecutions.

On his return he was

That it should be difficult to identify Wycliffe's writings is not to be wondered at, when we remember that in those days tracts and books circulated only in manuscript. Wycliffe towering so high above other theologians of the time, his name could not fail to become a nucleus for all writings of a reforming tenor. His

translation of the Bible, completed in 1383, and used as the basis for subsequent versions, was not printed for centuries. His New Testament first appeared in 1731, and the Old Testament was never printed till so late as 1850.

The whole of the New Testament is said to be by Wycliffe's own hand. It can be conveniently seen and compared with other early versions in Bagster's 'English Hexapla.' Energy and graphic vigour are the characteristics of his controversial prose.

The only other name usually mentioned among the prose writers of the fourteenth century is John de Trevisa, who in 1387 translated Higden's 'Polychronicon.' The translation was printed in 1482 by Caxton, who took upon him "to change the rude and old English"-an evidence of the rapid growth of the language. Trevisa is said to have made other translations from the Latin. Of a translation of the Scriptures said to have been executed by him nothing is now known.

FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

Prose writers in this century are not numerous, and their works contain little to tempt anybody but the antiquary. Indeed, up to the last quarter of this century there was little inducement to cultivate the vernacular. A work, as we have said, circulated only in manuscript; and the learned, chiefly clergymen, addressed their brethren in Latin. The following are the most famous of those that wrote in the mother tongue.

Reynold Pecock, 1390-1460.—The Bishop of Chichester followed Wycliffe in denying the infallibility of the Pope, and in upholding the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith. He also questioned the doctrine of transubstantiation. He opposed the persecution of the Lollards; urged that the Church should reason them out of their heresy, not burn them; and set an example of this more humane way in a work entitled 'Repressor of overmuch blaming of the Clergy.' This curious work is reprinted in the Rolls series, edited by Mr Babington. The prose style is much more formal and less homely than Wycliffe's, being elaborately periodic. When taken to task for his heterodoxies, he recanted; and thus escaping martyrdom, was imprisoned for the rest of his life in Thorney Abbey.

Sir John Fortescue, 1395-1483.-Legal and political writer, author of a Latin work, 'De Laudibus Legum Angliæ' (concerning the excellence of the laws of England), and an English work, "The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy, as it more particularly regards the English Constitution.' These are perhaps the first works that avow in their title the strong English

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pride of country. The one extols the English upon the ground of their civil law, and the other sets forth the superiority of the English people to the French.

In his 'De Laudibus,' Fortescue calls himself Cancellarius Angliæ, Chancellor of England; but this title seems to have been no better than the titles conferred by James VIII. at St Germains He was Chief-Justice of the King's Bench in the reign of Henry VI., fled with that prince after the battle of Towton, was probably made Chancellor when in exile, returned with Margaret and Prince Edward, was taken prisoner at Tewkesbury in 1471, made his submission to Edward ÏV., and spent the close of his life in retirement at Ebrington in Gloucestershire.

His Monarchy' was first printed in 1714 by his descendant, Baron Fortescue, the friend of Pope. The 'De Laudibus' is more famous; it was translated into English in 1516, and subsequently annotated by Selden, the antiquary.

John Capgrave, 1393—, born at Lynne, educated probably at Cambridge, made Provincial of the Order of Austin Friars in England, was one of the most learned men of his time, a voluminous author in Latin, and wrote a biography and a chronicle in English. The 'Chronicle of England' is reprinted in the Master of the Rolls series of Chronicles. It begins with the Creation, and is distinguished by its conciseness.

William Caxton, the Printer, 1420-1492.-Printing was introduced into England not by scholars, but by an enterprising English merchant, who had lived for more than thirty years in Bruges, then the capital of the Duke of Burgundy, and a great centre of literary activity as well as trade. Caxton settled in Bruges as a merchant, after serving his apprenticeship to an eminent mercer in London: rose in time to be "Governor of the English Nation," or English Consul, at Bruges; and on the marriage of Edward IV.'s sister, Margaret, with Charles of Burgundy, in 1468, entered her service, probably as her business agent. Book-collecting and book-making had been for years, and more particularly under Philip the Good, an ardent fashion at the Court of Burgundy. Caxton caught the enthusiasm, and translated into English a version of the History of Troy,' made by Le Fevre, one of the royal chaplains. His version was admired. He was asked for copies of the work. This turned his attention to the art of printing-introduced about that time into Bruges by Colard Mansion, an ingenious member of the craft of book-copying. It occurred to him apparently that it would be a good speculation to set up a printing-press in London. The first book issued by Caxton that bears the Westminster imprint, was a translation of 'The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers'

"enprynted at Westmestre," 1477. But Mr Blades, the great authority on the subject, puts it eighth in the list of books printed