Chaucerian and Other Pieces. Various
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of Caius College, Cambridge, to which my attention was drawn by a note in Hazlitt's Bibliographer's Handbook. This copy, here taken as the basis of my text, and collated with Speght, is a small book consisting of only 16 leaves. The title-page contains the following words, within a square border. ¶ Jack vp Lande | Compyled by the | famous Geoffrey | Chaucer. | Ezechielis. xiii. | ¶ Wo be vnto you that | dishonour me to me (sic) peo | ple for an handful of bar | lye & for a pece of bread. | Cum priuilegio | Regali.
At the end of the treatise is the colophon: ¶ Prynted for Ihon Gough. Cum Priuilegio Regali.
Hazlitt conjectures that it was printed about 1540. I think we may safely date it in 1536; for it is bound up in a volume with several other tracts, and it so happens that the tract next following it is by Myles Coverdale, and is dated 1536, being printed in just the very same type and style. We can also tell that it must have been printed after 1535, because the verse from Ezekiel xiii, as quoted on the title-page (see above), exactly corresponds with Coverdale's version of the Bible, the first edition of which appeared in that year.
The text of Jack Upland, in the Caius College copy, has the following heading, in small type:—'¶ These bē the lewed questions of Freres rytes and obseruaunces the whych they chargen more than Goddes lawe, and therfore men shulden not gyue hem what so they beggen, tyll they hadden answered and clerely assoyled these questions.'
As this copy is, on the whole, considerably superior to Speght's both as regards sense and spelling, I have not given his inferior readings and errors. In a very few places, Speght furnishes some obvious corrections; and in such instances his readings are noted.
§ 24. A very convenient reprint of Speght's text is given in Wright's edition of Political Poems and Songs (Record Series), vol. ii. p. 16. In the same volume, p. 39, is printed a reply to Jack Upland's questions by a friar who facetiously calls himself Friar Daw Topias, though it appears (from a note printed at p. 114) that his real name was John Walsingham. Nor is this all; for Friar Daw's reply is further accompanied by Jack Upland's rejoinder, printed, for convenience, below Friar Daw's text. It is most likely, as Mr. Wright concludes, that all three pieces may be dated in the same year. It was necessary that Friar Daw (who gave himself this name in order to indicate that he is a comparatively unlearned man, yet easily able to refute his audacious questioner) should produce his reply at once; and we may be sure that Jack's rejoinder was not long delayed. Fortunately, the date can be determined with sufficient exactness; for Jack's rejoinder contains the allusion: 'and the kyng by his juges trwe [sholde] execute his lawe, as he did now late, whan he hangid you traytours,' p. 86. This clearly refers to June, 1402[15], when eight Franciscan friars were hanged at Tyburn for being concerned in a plot against the life of Henry IV. We may, accordingly, safely refer all three pieces to the year 1402; shortly after Chaucer's death.
§ 25. It is also tolerably clear that there must have been two texts of 'Jack Upland,' an earlier and a later one. The earlier one, of which we have no copy, can easily be traced by help of Friar Daw's reply, as he quotes all that is material point by point. It only extended as far as the 54th question in the present edition (p. 199); after which followed two more questions which do not here reappear. The later copy also contains a few questions, not far from the beginning, which Friar Daw ignores. It is clear that we only possess a later, and, on the whole, a fuller copy. One of the omitted questions relates to transubstantiation; and, as any discussion of it was extremely likely, at that date, to be ended by burning the disputant at the stake, it was certainly prudent to suppress it. Not perceiving this point, Mr. Wright too hastily concluded that our copy of Jack Upland is extremely corrupt, a conclusion quite unwarranted; inasmuch as Friar Daw, in spite of his affectation of alliterative verse, quotes his adversary's questions with reasonable correctness. On this unsound theory Mr. Wright has built up another, still less warranted, viz. that the original copy of Jack Upland must have been written in alliterative verse; for no other reason than because Friar Daw's reply is so written. It is obvious that alliteration is conspicuously absent, except in the case of the four lines (424–7), which are introduced, by way of flourish, at the end. My own belief is that our copy of Jack Upland is a second edition, i.e. an amended and extended copy, which has been reasonably well preserved. It is more correct than the Plowmans Tale, and very much more correct than the Testament of Love.
§ 26. Mr. Wright further imagines that Jack Upland's rejoinder to Friar Daw's reply, which he prints from 'a contemporary MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, MS. Digby 41,' was also originally in alliterative verse. This supposition is almost as gratuitous as the former; for, although there are very frequent traces of alliteration as an occasional embellishment, it is otherwise written in ordinary prose. The mere chopping up of prose into bits of not very equal length, as in Mr. Wright's print, does not produce verse of any kind. Friar Daw's verses are bad enough, as he did not understand his model (obviously the Ploughman's Crede), but he usually succeeds in making a kind of jingle, with pauses, for the most part, in the right place. But there is no verse discoverable in Jack Upland; he preferred straightforward prose, for reasons that are perfectly obvious.
For further remarks, I beg leave to refer the reader to Mr. Wright's Introduction, pp. xii-xxiv, where he will find an excellent summary of the arguments adduced on both sides. There is a slight notice of Jack Upland in Morley's English Writers, vi. 234.
§ 27. IV. John Gower: The Praise of Peace.
In Morley's English Writers, iv. 157, this poem is entitled 'De Pacis Commendatione,' on MS. authority (see p. 216). Mr. E. B. Nicholson, who has made a special study of Gower's poems, suggested 'The Praise of Peace,' which I have gladly adopted. I am much obliged to Mr. Nicholson for his assistance in various ways; and, in particular, for the generous loan of his own transcript of this poem.
§ 28. In Todd's Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer, p. 95, is a notice of a MS. 'in the present Marquis of Stafford's library at Trentham,' which had been previously described in Warton's Hist. of E. Poetry as being 'in Lord Gower's library.' Mr. Wright alludes to it as 'a contemporary MS. in the possession of his grace the duke of Sutherland.' It may be called 'the Trentham MS.' 'The Praise of Peace' was printed from it by Mr. Wright, in his Political Poems and Songs, ii. 4–15; and I have followed his text, which I denote by 'T.' At the same time, I have collated it with the text of Thynne's edition of 1532, which is a very good one. The differences are slight.
Warton describes the MS. as 'a thin oblong MS. on vellum, containing some of Gower's poems in Latin, French, and English. By an entry in the first leaf, in the handwriting and under the signature of Thomas lord Fairfax, Cromwell's general, an antiquarian, and a lover and collector of curious manuscripts, it appears that this book was presented by the poet Gower, about 1400[16], to Henry IV; and that it was given by lord Fairfax to his friend and kinsman Sir Thomas Gower, knight and baronet, in the year 1656.' He goes on to say that Fairfax had it from Charles Gedde, Esq., of St. Andrews; and that it was at one time in the possession of King Henry VII, while earl of Richmond, who wrote in it his own name in the form 'Rychemond.'
The MS. contains (1) The Praise of Peace, preceded by the seven Latin lines (386–392), which I have relegated to the end of the poem, as in Thynne. The title is given in the colophon (p. 216); after which follow the twelve Latin lines (393–404), printed on the same page. (2) Some complimentary verses in Latin, also addressed to Henry IV, printed in Wright's Political Poems, ii. 1–3. (3) Fifty Balades in French, which have been printed by Stengel (Warton prints four of them), with the colophon—'Expliciunt carmina Johīs Gower que Gallice composita Balades dicuntur.' (4) Two short Latin poems in elegiacs; see Warton. (5) A French poem on the Dignity or Excellence of Marriage. (6) Seventeen Latin hexameters. (7) Gower's Latin verses on his blindness, beginning—
'Henrici quarti primus regni fuit annus,
Quo michi defecit visus ad acta mea,' &c.
See Todd and Warton for more minute particulars.
§ 29. The poem itself may safely be dated in the end of 1399, for reasons given in the note to l. 393. It is of some interest, as being Gower's last poem in English, and the spirit of it is excellent, though it contains no very striking lines. We have not much of Gower's work in the form of seven-line stanzas. The Confessio Amantis contains only twelve such stanzas; iii. 349–352.