The herald., 1896-11-17
GARVANZA LITERARY CLUB
An Intere sting Session of the Organiza.
tion Saturday Evening
Several Scholarly Papers Read-The
Science of Chaucer's Time-The
Program for Next Session.

The Garvanza Literary club met Sat-
urday evening at the home of Mr.. w. S.
Abbot. Those present were: Prof. w.
l.. Judson, Rev. J. A. II. Wilson, Prof.
b. V. Garwood, Messrs. McBurney, Fell
lows, Baird, Goode and Abbot, Mes
danes Owens, Fellows, Covey. Nc
Cracken. Baird. Ingham and McBurney,
and Misses E. F. Thornton, C. E. Thorn
ton, Blanche Donnell, Jennie Gilbert,
Maude Weaver, Melvinia Jones and M.
e. Abbot.
AT the preceding meeting Miss NJ.
Elizabeth Abbot, A NJ, had been chosen
instructor, and had elected for proper
starting point in the study of English
literature, the time of Chaucer, the
fourteenth century, when Europe was
emerging from the lethargy of the dark
ages and starting off upon the trends
of thought leading up to our present CIV
ilization.
Mrs. McCracken read an interesting
paper upon Dante, Europe's greatest
poet, who fiourished in the south at the
end of the century preceding Chaucer's
time. Professor Judson, the eminent
artist, whose studio at Garvanza is the
artistic pride and honor of the place,
delivered an instructive address upon
Cimabue. who first gave expression to
the paintings OF the human counte-
nance, and Giotto, and the evidences
from his earliest youth of his great gen.
ius both as painter and architect
Miss Jennie Gilbert, the clubs vice
president, read historical paper upon
The Black Prince, son of King Edward
Ill of England, the Visigoth kingdom
and the Iberian peninsula.
Mr.. Thomas Fellows, the architect,
promised to have ready for the next
meeting an exhibit of models to show
and illustrate the great advance in ca
thedral building that took place in the
fourteenth century.
Miss Melvinia Jones read a classical
paper upon Petrarch. and Ingham, pres
ident of the club, an artistic treatise
upon Sculpture.
Prof. b. V. Garwood principal of the
public schools and secretary of the club.
promised an address upon Thomas a.
kempis and John Huss at the next
meeting of the club, and Miss E. F.
Thornton spoke of the Troubadours in
the South and the Trouveres in the
North of France
Mr.. H. c. McBurney of the board of
school trustees described Rome in the
time of Rienzi. who died when Chaucer
was In his twenty-seventh year.
MRS. Covey read a poem descriptive
OF the self-sacrifice of Arnold Won Win
kelried. the fourteenth century hero of
the Swiss, who In their battle with the
Austrians had dashed ahead of all his
comraoes alone upon the waiting enc
my and drew their spears unto himself.
that his followers might break through
the disarmed ranks.
Mr.. w. s. Abbot, to whom had been
allotted for a subject The Science of
Chaucer's Time read from Chaucer's
works to show that astronomy had not
advanced beyond astrology devoted to
horoscopic divinat tion. Chemistry was
still alchemy, a "black art" whose OBJ
Ject was to transform baser metals
INTO gold and silver. Logic was in the
Ars1totelian age. Sir John MandeyilIe
mad announced the rotundity of the
earth from north to south, but not from
east to west and published an account
OF travels in China and India, contain
ing some truth and considerable fiction.
The long bow was the strong arm of the
milltary service; the navy was made up
OF one-masted vessels carrying seldom
more than $50 men; the mariners com
pass was unknown; gunpowder, dis
covered by the monk. Roger Bacon. fiftv
years before, was first used in war at
the battle of Crecy, led by the Black
Prince. them Is years old, but was used
only for the purpose of frightening by
its noisy explosions the cavalry horses
OF the enemy. A bank credit system was
conducted by the Bank of Genoa similar
to that sustained for GOO years bv the
Bank of Venice. and in radical princi-
pies similar to the modern greenback
theory. Woolen manufacture was start
ed in England, adapted from France.
Exports and imports were all sent to
certain towns called Staples, to be ac-
counted for and taxed by the govern
ment, hence our modern commercial
term staple commodity" The punish
ment for the avoidance of the tariff tax
was death. There being no patent Of
flee In those days, invention is hard to
trace, but mostly confined to improve
ments in armor. A visor being added to
the helmet led to the wearing of crest
and coat of arms for the Identification
of the wearer, and this led to heraldry,
now ranked as science of some histor-
ical Importance
Miss M. e. Abbot announced that Sir
John Mandeville's volume of travels was
the first English prose work Printing
was not yet discovered, but this book
was written first in Latin, that the
learned might read it, then in French.
that the mobiles might read it, and then
in English, that the common people
might read it. William Langland was
at this time writing his Piers Plowman,
contrasting "the wealth and the woe"
of the world, and John Wycliffe, a lee
turer of the college of Oxford, founded
the century before, was circulating the
first English translation of the Bible.
through the order of Poor Priests or
ganized by him to attack the religious
and political corruption of the age.
Chaucer was writing the Canterbury
Tales, the first great poem of English
literature. The widespread mortality
of the black plague, following the
French campaign in the seventh decade
of the fourteenth century resulted in
the first great labor strike on record In
which the employe assumed the RIGHT
to set the rate of wages the employer
should pay. 1t lasted for thirty wears
and eliminated in the emancipation of
the serfs and villeins in Wat Tyler's re-
be'llion in the reign of Richard II at
the end of the century. Chaucer's poem
to his empty purse indicates that h.
was a gold bug" and, if alive todav
might have voted for Mckinley. sIJere
is an extract from it:
Now vouchsafe this day ere it be night
That I of you the blissful sound may
hear.
Or see your color like the sunne bright.
That of yellowness he han never peer;
Ye be my life, ye be my hearte's steer;
(helm)
Queen of comfort and of good company,
Be heavy again or elles I must die"
At the meeting Of the club to be. held
Friday evening November goth, at the
home of Mrs. McCracken, the plan of
short addresses and condensed papers