New-York tribune., 1891-12-16

meanwhile INDUCED in such satire and story tell
ing ana sage reflection as human life is bound TO
suggest Az the last, perhaps, the knowledge was
lofceu upon MIN that he a great poet The
| literary men of his time might have convinced
him. even If praise reached him from no other
source. but in his graver moments he declared
| immortality of fame something that could not
De. Oblivion awaited ALL
10 this sceptcal turn Of Chaucer's mind I'VE
may safely attribute all his shortcomings lie
with other great poets has shared repute for
Doundless learning. He was certainly learned
enough for his own purposes But it is not TO
be supposed, if he had really prided himself upon
this point in his literary equipment, that he
would have depended often upon memory
that none of the best; that he would have
been content with chance knowledge of many
authors and really accurate knowledge of very
few; or that he would often have taken his
illusions at second or third hand, when he might
almost easily, perhaps just easily, have
turned TO the proper source. He knew the Aeneid
Of Virgil the poems Of Ovid and Status. the un-
finished PrOserpina" of Claudian and something
of Lucan, as indicated by Professor LOunsbury.
He not altogether to seek in Juvenal, Horace
and Persius. BOethius, who wrote mingled prose
and verse in style once popular and the COM
mentary of Macrobus on Cicero's Dream of
Scipio0 were both well studied by him, and he
probably had read also Cicero DivinatiOn, some
portions of Seneca and the anecdotes collected
by Valerius MaXimus, possibly something of Livy,
of Suetonius, of Florus Hyginus and Orosius
st. Jerome's controversial attack on the monk
Jovinian he must have read with delight That
had in it no atom Of sympathy for the abusive
and fanatcal author. Probably he had read some
work of Tertullian, and it may he part of
- GoI I'm nplN T.
tributed TO Origen that he was acquainted with
turns out to be spurious He had read the forged
histories of the Trojan war that went under the
names of Dictys and Dares, the legends of Arthur
and Charlemagne and Acknowledgement he might
have become familiar with these fctions in his
day without ever turning the leaves of book
possibly the "Gesta RomanOrum," the Golden
Legend" and the Latin History of the Seven
Wise Men" lives Of the saints, and certainly
the treatise Of Innocent Ill on con-
tempt of the world, the poem OF Petrus
de Riga, the "Speculum Stultorum," the works
of Alanus de insults. Walter dc Chatillon, Geo1rey
de Vnesauf Marbodus Martanus Copela' John
of Salisbury Vincent of Beauvais, and many others;
the literary dictators of their times who are now
so utterly forgotten that to apply to them the
prOverbial phrase, "as dead as julius caesar
would be to treat them with needless delicacy. He
ndQ gdJnprPu SOnpnOW d COmpItucholNt hh""'''-N
of the science of his time. He familiar with
the now neglected poems of Boccaccio, with the
Latin writings Of Petrarch, and with Dantes
"Divina Commedia," and among French authors
with Nicholas Trivet Jean de Meung, Guillaume de
Machault and probably many others and there
was one French poem, the Roman de la Rose
the influence of which remained an appreciable
quantity in his writings throughout This is
only portion of the list which Professor Louns
bury discusses in detai but it is plainly the list
rather Of the man of letters than the man Of
learning. That this is true would be very OBJ
viOus if one were to take the list of ancient
authors as it stands, supplying In place of the
medieval writers series of modern authors with
which he is familiar Manifestly, Chaucer read
not as student, but as who found in books
one and only one,of the of his satisfaction.
In all ages since books began to be made there
have been such men in greater or smaller numbers.
and their desutory reading, when guided by an
acute intellect, and accompanied by power Of eX-
preston, has often proved more useful TO the
world than the tones OF n whole generation of
mere scholars. Chaucer must have viewed books
just as he viewed himself and the living men and
women who mhe met, with genial questioning
air A dull book that met his question with an
answer would not have seemed dull TO him.
OF Greek, Chaucer knew little or nothing.
ITOlcSSOr LOunSDury VIII not allow tlat he knew
even enough to have compounded two proper
names. The argument in the place where it is
used adds nothing to the strength of the case
which the critic is making against the genuine
ness of certain poem. 1t is besides an open
question whether the present age does not go too
far, not merely In belitling the knowledge of the
medieval period, but in eXaggerating its ig-
nOrance. If a modern sOapmaker can cOntrive q
possible compound in Greek with an English end
ing name for his wares it does not seem
impossible that Chaucer may have done as well.
Two Of the perpleAing small problems in Chau-
GERS works refer to Greek names lie speaks of
an author named Agatha, and OF a
work by the title of "Argonauticon" 1t has
been pointed out that he probably took
the former from Dante. but what is inexplica6le is
that he has even ventured to cite this Agatho for
the statement that Alcestis. after her death. was
raised TO a place among the stars. remark which
cannot be traced to any of the Acathos of antiq.
uity 1t is not impossible that Chaucer. while
taking the word from Dante may have had in
mind something which he had heard or read
from an author of similar but not the same name,
for example, Agathas, OF the collectors OF
the Greek Anthology The final collector Of that
miscellany. MaXimus Panudes a contemporary
Of Chaucer, and of so late date that the English
poet could hardly have been aware his ex-
istence; that if any Greek epigrams had been
brought to his attention in any form. whether
original or translated, they would have been from
the collection of Agathias As TO the word Argo-
nquticOn," it must be remembered that experts
persistently deny TO the Middle Ages any knowl-
edge Of the "Argonautica" Of Vaerus Flaccus,
even of the fact that such work existed. This
was one Of the manuscripts which Poggio Bracci-
olini claimed to have rescued from destruction in
the mOnastry of st Gall. Supposing this TO be a
valid claim, Chaucer could have known nothing
Of the poem. Professor Lounsbury quotes pas
sage from the PseudoD Dares in which the Argo-