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Show WOMAN'S EXPONENT A GOOD WIFE. . Goddesses, unknown worlds, monsters, serpents &c. Their legends are sad and grand and bear witness of heroes an4 warriors, One poem and two or three fragments are all that remain of this poetry of England. The rest of the Pagan current was overwhelmed, first by - Yon epcak of your "good wife" my brother, You praise her, and well you may, For a better one never lived, man, Than blesses your heart At home infthe working kitchen, ' At home in the parlor fine; And a mother, that Is a mother, To all the dear children of thine. to-da- the influx of Christian religion,then by thecon-queof the Norman French. But the remnant suffices to show the strange poetic genius of the race. Christianity took root owing to natnral affinities but it did not change the native genius. There was a conquest which brought new ideas, different men. In the course of six centuries the Saxons had multiplied enormously; they were now about two millions and the Norman army numbered sixty thousand. Although history tells us the Normans conquered the Saxons we may well reverse it. For in vain did the Normans import their manners, poesy and language, in three years the conquerors themselves were conquered. Their language was English, and owing to frequent intermarriages the English blood ended by gaining the predominance over the Norman blood in their st . Her home is her precious ea6tle, Her law is her husband's love, And fihe owns no other, allegiance, Except to her God above. . And I thought when I heard her singing Her lullaby 6ongs this morn, That no sweeter purer music, Could e'er on the winds be borne. This Jewel (a wife's devotion) This gem in Us setting bright, Is to home, with its sweet surroundings - A steady unfading light. No trials will dim its beauty, No poverty quench its ray, I tell you, nothing but cold neglect Will cause it to pass away. veins. Then'think of it, wives and husbands! Oh! think of it oft! with care For, God has joined you together Not to live in doubt and fear You have married and asked God's blessing or woe, You have chosen And it is within your compass To make your home Heaven below. for-we- The literature of the Normans consisted of barbarous and childish sentiments unable to develop a continuous idea, confused and phrases after the fashion of the ancient Saxon. Among these writers were Robert of Brunne, and Robert of Gloucester, who had the faculty of easy narration without deep emotion. They garnished with rhymes their histories and dissertations, and called them wrote a "Prick of the Omscience ' and such pieces of which the titles alone make one shudder, what of the text? I will give you an illustration, ete al Sisteu Plunket. poe-The- Van Hornesville, N. Y., June 3rd, 1880. NOTES ON EARLY ENGLISH to do Goddass wyile And alle hy& biddyngs to fulfylle, For of alle Hys inakyng more or lees Mau most principal creature es that He .made, for man. hit was done AsJIcjshal here after BonnE"" "MkyTdc A nation lives twenty, thirty centuries and longer and a man Jives but sixty or seventy yrsp. and.pt there are. .inany. which a nation instances in resemBIernffir '.. ..-- m long and almost interminable, a nation has a mental and moral character which develops itself from epoch to epoch, preserving the same fundamental qualities from its origin to its decline. In the literature of a nation we have its portraits. The Canterbury Tales, dramatic works, of the Renaissance and the Reformation, the various lines of authors in prose and verses who have followed each other from Shakes- - ; " . : m&a ys There, is a poem which if properly name we could call a sermon. Here and there we find divergences, more or less awkward, into the domain of genius. No one has ever spoken so well to the ladies as the French and they do not forget this, when they are settled in England. There are some very pretty verses of English mistresses. rhymsters praising their earthly They compare their ladies to all kinds of precious stones and flowers. They bring into this northern clime the lively and warm imagination of the south. Like the troubadours they and spoke of lovely Springtime with its birds peare and Bacon, down to Dickens, Tennyson and Carlyle, .place before us all literary forms and poetic images, the variations of thought, sentiment and expression in which the soul of the English nation has found delight. Among all people the earliest form of literature is the Ballad. The oldest of all British poems, or indeed of all modern European writings are some Irish ballads, found in the Annalists and ascribed to the first century. Yet our literature does not begin with the Irish,but the Sax-son- s a gluttonous, barbaric people. What do we expect of their literature? We find it as we thought filled with carnage, torture, and all kinds of horrible deeds and butcherly instincts; for instance, "The daughter of the Danish Jarl, seeing Egil taking his seat near her, regards him with scorn, reproaching him with seldom having provided the wolves with hot meat, with never having een for a whole Autumn,the raven croaking after the carnage." "But Egil seized her and pacified her by singing. I have marched with my bloody sword, and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought, the fire passed over the dwellings of men; we slept in the blood of those who kept the gates." From such talk and such maiden fancies .you may judge of the rest Under (this, native barbarism there were noble dispositions such as .Magnurson, Morris and Thorpe whose poems are legends of Gods and . y flowers &. ItalThey have glowing pictures such as the beians wrote but perhaps richer and .livelier cause the poet found here for inspiration that love of country life, which in England is deep and national. As we read the literature of this day, knighta and ladies, dwarfs, giants, fairies, pass bedragons, earthquakes and magicians, distorted fore us in a highly colored, much panorama. The Romances relating to King Arthur are modern poets very interesting and many of our have founded their legends, on these old tales. The names of the false knight Lancelot, Merlin the enchanter, and many others familiar to those who have, read the Idylls of the King constantly occur in the Romances of Arthur. The best known of the Norman French poets " is Wace. His best poems are "Brut d Agrgle-terrea former is and "Roman de Rose.!' The Monmouth's of History i translation of Geofirey of Romance Rollo, The of Britain. The latter, f Dukes of which narrates the Hstory of the the sixteenth year of Normandy from Hollo to The prmcipal Henry the second. m is the minute account of the Battle this ; 1 tetm tf: There are two other Anglo Norman romancers,which should be named.not so much for the excellence of their verse as for their prominence in English History. Cardinal Stephen Langton and Richard Coenr de Lion. The first composed some very pretty French songs, the latter several military poems. During the middle agesthe literature of England, indeed of all Europe, lay in the hands of the monks and minstrels. The monks sat in their cells and wrote long manuscripts on Theology. The minstrels wandered aronnd singing ballads of love. All these were barren endeavors, the Norman literature was content to copy, the Saxon bore no fruit. A definite language was nevertheless attained and there was room for a great writer, Geoffrey Chaucer appeared. He was inventive and original though a translator. He had life, energy, education, genius and above all was enabled to satisfy the cnival-ri- c world the splendid courts in which he lived. Though learned and versed in all the branches of scholastic knowledge he was a man of the world and a man of action. Now in the fourteenth century we have a man, so great that we call him 'Father of English poetry, and well does he wear that name. Consider his subjects. How does he select them. He goes far and wide to Italy, France, the popular legends and the ancient classics,. He makes it a business sk him his subject to provide fine tastes: Tt ia tlm moat tainir flow evening hour ue subject fitted to jn ho. translated the Homan . xi ia. is love of true very jrcose in which the course beautiwith filled is The piece finely depicted. ful descriptions of May Months, flowery earth, ladies and green hedgerows, portraits of smiling characters gallant knights relieved by true sad . minutely described, all in dances, There are" castle, landscapes, " lively sparkling colors contrasted and displayed ever renewed and varied. so as to entertain the rests chiefly sight. Chaucer's fame as a writer idea of which upon his Canterbury tales. The of Decameron Is perhaps borrowed from the of Hastings. . jr-frs- t. tinner,tW posed to be told "'offer spending leu dy in a country house near Florence during a time of plague. His plains or thirty pilgrims collect this; some twenty-nin- e at the Tabbard Inn, in Southwark bound, lor the shrine of St. Thomas A. Becket at Canter. . bury. of contains nearly .The gathering specimens in the streets and common then character every homes of England. After the prologue has a braV3 knight described the company, bronzed by the Syrian sun, tells the first tale, and so then follows the miller, dronken of ale, the tale goes round 0aen merry but sometimes or more sad. Each pilgrim ought to tell two and two- more stories,one going to Canterbury, whole proceedon the homeward way and the at the lab-bar- d ings to be wound up with a supperbest tales was Inn whre the teller of the to be entertained by the rest of the band, lhe his only poet did not live to complete Thedesign, at arrival gfven. are tales twenty-fou- r Canterbury, the scenes at the unf the return, the wind-u- p supFJ; Canterbury the could surpass Nothing middle class Engof series as a pictures of the lish life during the fourteenth century. works are Mostof Chaucer's minor and earlier translated from French, Latin or Itahan. " and "The Court of Love" and "Troillus" days are poems attributed to his college Good oi "The House of Fame," The legend the lives Women in which some passages from - &?ihoZf Cres-sida- ofaeopatra,Mo,Ariadneandwith a renown are given together the leat and little allegory entitled the flower of are poeml of special beauty and worthy high praise. W. |