THE stream of allegorical literature flows, broadening upon its way to Spenser, and in the reign of Henry VIII. we have a religious allegory of life from Stephen Hawes, "groom of King Henry the Seventh his chamber." Stephen Hawes was a Suffolk man who studied at the University of Oxford, travelled in France, and became skilled in French and Italian poetry before he was established in favour at the court of Henry VII. A payment to "Mr. Hawse" for a play in the twelfth year of Henry VIII. may indicate that Stephen Hawes was then still living. The most important of his books was an allegorical poem in Troilus verse or Chaucer's measure, entitled "The History of Graund Amoure and La Bel Pucell, called The Pastime of Pleasure, containing the Knowledge of the Seven Sciences, and the Course of Man's Life in this World." To Henry VII. he writes in the opening

And prayed with all her heart for him who released her of bandoun, from thraldom.

7 Merk, dark. First-English "mirc," dark, murky, troubled. "Mirc," darkness, meant also a prison. Compare Lady Macbeth's "Hell is murky," when, in tormented sleep, her mind is carried back nto the darkness of the night when Glamis murdered sleep. In quert, in gay spirits. 9 Heir, here.

From whom descendeth by the rightful line
Noble Prince Henry to succeed the crown;1
That in his youthé doth so clerely shine,
In 2
every virtúe casting the vice adown.
He shall of fame attain the high renown;
No doubt but gracé shall him well enclose,
Which by true right sprang of the red rose.

Your noble grace and excellent highness

For to accept I beseech right humblý This little book, opprest with rudéness Without rhetoric or coloúr craftý; Nothing I am expert in poetry,

As th' Monk of Bury,3 flower of eloquence, Which was in the time of great excellence

Of your predecessor the fifth King Henrý

Unto whose [sovereign] grace he did present Right famous books of perfect memory,

Of his high feigning with terms eloquent,
Whose fatal fictions are yet permanent;
Grounded on reason with cloudý figúres
He cloked the truth of all his [wise] scriptúres.

The Light of Truth I lack cunning to cloke,
To draw a curtain I dare not presume,
Nor hide my matter with a misty smoke,
My rudeness cunning doth so sore consume;
Yet as I may I shall blow out a fume
To hidé my mind underneath a fable,
By coverit colour well and probable.

Beseeching your grace to pardon mine ign'ránce
Which this feigned fable t' eschew idleness
Have so compiléd now without doubtance
For to present to your high worthiness:
To follow the trace and all the perfectness
Of my master 6 Lydgate with due exercise,
Such feignéd tales I do find and devise.

lead, until he saw an image with hands pointing towards two highways; and in the right hand was this description:

"This is the straight way of contémplacion

Unto the joyful tower perdurable:

Whoso that will unto that mansion
He must forsake all thingés variable,
With the vain glory so much deceivable,
And though the way be hard and dangerous
The last end thereof shall be right precious.'

"And in the other hand right fairé written was "This is the way of worldly dignitie

Of the active life: who will in it pass
Unto the Tower of fair dame Beautie,
Fame shall him tell the way of certaintie
Unto La Bell Pucell, the fair lady excellent,"
Above all other in clear beautý splendent.'"

Graundamoure took the way of Active Life, and, noticing the charm of pleasant byways, went straight on, until at evening he came to a figure which had inscribed in its breast,

"This is the way and the situatión

Unto the Tower of famous Doctrine;

Who that will learn must be ruled by Reasón,

And with all diligence he must incline
Sloth to eschew, and for to determine
And set his heart to be intelligible; 10

To a willing heart is nought impossible."

As he rested by this image, Sloth caught his head in a net, and while he yet slept there came a royal blast of a great horn that awoke him. There were the red clouds of daybreak in the sky, and he saw riding from a far valley a goodly lady-Fameenvironed with tongues of fire as bright as any star, on a palfrey swift as the wind, with two white greyhounds before her. Espying Graundamoure, the greyhounds ran to him, and leapt and fawned upon him; their names, written in diamond on their gold collars, were Governance and Grace. The lady who followed marvelled that her greyhounds were so friendly with him, and asked his name. He was Graundamoure, who sought her direction to the Tower of Doctrine, and she-She was Fame, whose horn had blown after the death of many a champion :

"And after this, Famé gan to express

Of jeopardous way to the Tower Perilous, And of the beauty and the seemliness Of La Bell Pucell, so gay and glorious That dwelled in the tower so marvellous; To which might come no manner of creatúre But by great labour and hard adventúre."

8 In the other, pronounced "i' th' o'r" (see Note 18, page 84, of "Shorter English Poems").

The ม in "lady" blends as one syllable with the e in "excellent," and the verse runs: 'nto L' Bell | Pucell | the fair | lady-ex | cellent |. This running of a final y into an initial vowel is natural and common in the poets. So in "Paradise Lost," J. 141, "Though all our glory extinct and happy state."

10 Intelligible, sensible, intellectual.

the youth to begin, and undergo his years of education in the Tower of Doctrine, whose seven stages rise from Grammar with her A B C to heavenly contemplations of Theology. Countenance was the portress who admitted Graundamoure, and showed him on the arras of the entrance-hall an image of the career before him, setting forth how in the labour towards La Bel Pucell "a noble knight should win the victory." Then the portress introduced the adventurer to the lady Grammar, into whose chamber "the right noble Dame Congruity" admitted him. Dame Grammar told him how to the wise of old it was their whole delight, for common profit of Lombers feu Methaphie

Unto Dame Doctrine give perfect audience,
Which shall inform you in ev'rý science."

Fame left Graundamoure with the greyhounds. He travelled on, again rested till morning, and then saw set on a rock "the royal tower of moral document," made of fine copper, with turrets that shone against the sun. It is the pilgrimage of man, whose way was first over the flowery fields of childhood till a path in life had to be chosen; the path of Active Life being chosen, fame of the prize to be won nerved

1 Nobly. Pronounced nob-l-y, as three syllables. See Dr. Abbot's "Shakespearian Grammar," section 477, "Liquids in dissyllables are frequently pronounced as though an extra vowel were introduced between them and the preceding consonant." So in "Comedy of Errors," act v., scene 1, "And these two Dromios, one in semb-l-ance;" "Coriolanus," act iii., scene 2, "Be thus to them. You do the nob-l-er." Two lines farther on "sciences" is pronounced "science," the s being merged in the similar final sound of the word.

humanity, to study the seven sciences many a long winter's night. After this she taught Graundamoure right well, first his Donet, and then his accidence. When he had been taught by Grammar, he went up to the bright chamber of Logic; and when that fair lady had instructed him, "then above Logic up we went a stair," and there was the star of famous eloquence, the Lady Rhetoric to kneel to. Rhetoric explained to him at length the five parts of her science, which was founded by Reason

"Man for to govern well and prudently;
His words to order, his speech to purify."

His Donet. Elius Donatus, born about A.D. 333, was the teacher of St. Jerome. He wrote an elementary book on the eight parts of speech applied to Latin, and the long-continued use of this in elementary teaching caused a Donatus, or a Donet, to become the common name for a grammar, or a first book of instruction upon any subject. We have seen (page 121) Reginald Pecock giving the name of "Donet" to a book on the First Principles of Faith.

This section of the poem closes with loving lines to the memory of Chaucer and of Lydgate, whom Stephen Hawes honoured more especially as the master upon whose trace he would seek to follow. Graundamoure next passed to the chamber of Arithmetic,

"With gold depainted, every perfect number,
To add, detray,' and to divide asunder."

The next stage led Graundamoure to the tower of Music, and in her chamber, advanced by knowledge to a sense of the harmonies of life, he first saw La Bell Pucell.

"There sat Dame Music with all her minstrelsy,
As tabors, trumpets with pipes melodious,
Sackbuts, organs and the recorder swetely,
Harps, lutes, and crowdés right delicious,

1 Detray ("detrahere"), to draw away, subtract.

aside to conceal, in a temple, hope, doubt, and despair; the coming again of Graundamoure, led by Good Counsel, to declare his love to the lady in a long

2 The Tabor was a small drum usually played with accompaniment of fife. The Sackbut was a bass-trumpet with stops, and as its name "sambuca" was derived from the elder-tree, it was probably formed of wood, a sort of bassoon. The Recorder was a flageolet or birdpipe, so named from the word "record" once commonly applied to the singing of birds, as in an eclogue by Drayton :

"Fair Philomel, night music of the spring, Sweetly records her tuneful harmony." The Crowd, "crwth" of the Cymry, was the old British fiddle; "chrotta Britanna canat," wrote Venantius Fortunatus at the end of the sixth century. Invented in Britain, and returned to us with improvements by the Arabs, the fiddle in a simple form, still called a "crowd," and the fiddler a "crowder," remained familiar among the people. Cymphans were "symphonies," or "chyfchies;" named in the "Roman de Brut "

"Symphonies, salterions,

Monocordes, tymbres, corrons." They were large stringed instruments, a sort of harp. Doussemer

dialogue of alternate stanzas which ended in her acceptance of his suit. But he must seek her by a long and dangerous way, for now she is withdrawn from him to a far country :

"To me to come is hard and dangerous
When I am there, for giantés uglý,
Two' monsters also, black and tedious,
That by the way await full cruelly
For to destroy you all and utterly,

When you that way do také the passage
To attainé my love by high advantage."

So Graundamoure was parted from the fair ideal of life which he had touched, and with which he had kept step when his heart was young and he had been trained up to a perception of true harmony. His friend Good Counsel bade him never flinch, but complete his training by the Seven Sciences, and then go forward to the tower of Chivalry, and be armed for the battles of the life before him. Forth he went, therefore, to the tower of Geometry, and from her to the green meadow whence Astronomy looks heavenward, and where he learnt from her that

"God himself is chief astronomer

That made all things according to His will;
The sun, the moon, and every little star,

To a good intent and for no manner of ill.
Withouten vain he did all things fulfil;
As Astronómy doth make apparaunce,

By reason he weighed all things in balance."

More is taught by Astronomy of the works of Nature and the wits of man, of the high influence of stars and planets as the instruments to Nature's working in every degree.

2

Instructed in the seven sciences, the Quadrivium of Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, and the Trivium of Music, Geometry, Astronomy, Graundamoure with a varlet called Attendance and his greyhounds Grace and Governance, proceeded over a hill and down a dale to the Tower of Chivalry, where a horn hung by a shield and helmet at the entry. The loud blast of the horn brought to the tower door its gentle porter, Steadfastness, who admitted him into the base-court. There he saw four images of armed knights on horseback, contrived to meet in shock of arms by craft of Geometry, with wheels, and cogs, and cords. Beside this tower was a temple which Graundamoure entered. It was the temple of Mars, whose image he saw therein on a wheel-top in the embrace

(dulcimer) was a stringed instrument, usually triangular, with about fifty wires, cast over a bridge at each end, struck with little iron rods. The dulcimer was laid on a table and played with a small rod in each hand. The Clavi-cimbal was a kind of spinet, which the French called clavecin, and the Italian cembalo. Some of Bach's concertos were written "a due cembali." Like the clavichord, it was played with keys, and ranks with the ancestors of the pianoforte. The Rebeck is another form of rustic fiddle, taking a corruption of the name rebab, or rebebbe, by which the British erwth or crowd, played with a bow, was returned to Europe from the East by the Crusaders. Use of the fiddle-bow is said to have had its origin in ancient Britain, 1 Tro. In the original "With two," the first syllable being dropped in the scanning.

2 Trivium and Quadrivium. (See "Shorter English Poems," Note 2, paze 12.)

3 Base-court, outer or lower court.

of Lady Fortune, who had two faces under one hood. Of Mars Graundamoure prayed for grace to secure enduring fame. To Mars he said that in the thirtyfirst year of his young flowering age he thought himself escaped from childish ignorance, and that his wit could withstand and rule Venus and Cupid, but she had wounded him with fervent love, and set before him perilous adventure in which he needed help from Mars. Mars answered that Graundamoure was born under the rule of Venus, and therefore, when he had learned perfectly to govern himself by prudent chivalry, he must go humbly to the temple of Venus and make his oblation, suing to her by the disposition which constrained him to love ladies with a true affection. But here Fortune with the two faces, from behind Sir Mars, laughed at the notion that Mars could have aid to give in the search, where all depended upon Fortune's ordering. Then Fortune declared at large the power of the turning of her wheel; Mars had less might; to her, therefore, Graundamoure must sue. Mars answered that she was nothing substantial, neither spiritual nor terrestrial, and nothing can do nothing. He said to her,

"The Man is Fortune, in the proper deed,

And is not thou that causeth him to speed."

While yet marvelling at the argument between Mars and Fortune, Graundamoure was approached by Minerva, who led him into her own hall. Knights were there playing at chess, who left their play gently to welcome him; especially was he welcomed by Sir Nurture and his brother Courtesy. They took him up a stair into a chamber gaily glorified. At its door stood a knight named Truth, who told Graundamoure that before entry he should promise to love him. The chamber door was held in custody for King Melezius, that no man might enter wrongfully, and seek without Truth to be chivalrous, King Melezius admitted Graundamoure :

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