The Allegories of Stephen Hawes.

STEPHEN HAWES was a favorite at the court of Henry VII. and groom of the King's chamber. Born in Suffolk about the year 1483, he was educated at Oxford, and afterwards travelled extensively in France, where he acquired a thorough mastery of the French language. No other Englishman of his time had so complete a knowledge of French and Italian poetry, and he could repeat from memory the works of most of the older English poets. He died at the age of twenty-nine. His works possess in themselves but little interest, and have been very aptly characterized as monuments of the bad taste of a bad age."

"The Temple of Glasse" is plainly an imitation of Chaucer's "House of Fame." It was printed in 1500, when Hawes was but seventeen years old. It begins thus:

Me did oppress a sudden, deadly sleep,
Within the which methought that I was
Ravished in spirit into a Temple of Glass,
I ne wist how ful far in wilderness
That founded was, all by likeliness,
Not upon steel, but on a craggy rock
Like ice yfroze; and, as I did approach,
Against the sun it shone, methought, as clear
As any crystal; and ever near and near.

As I gan nigh1 this grisly, dreadful place
I waxed astonied,2 the light so in my face
Began to smite, so piercing ever in one,
On every part where that I did gone
That I ne might nothing as I would
About me consider, and behold

The wonder chambers, for brightness of the sun.
Till, at the last, certain skiës dun

With wind ychased, had their course ywent
Before the streams of Titan3 and yblent,*
So that I might within and without,
Whereso I would, beholden me about,
For to report the fashion and manére
Of all this place, that was circulére
In compass-wise, round by entail ywrought.
And when I had long gone and well sought,
I found a wicket, and entered in as fast
Into the temple, and mine eyen cast
On every side.

A more pretentious allegory, and one having some slight merit, in spite of its prolixity and dulness, is "The Pastime of Pleasure; or, the History of Grand Amoure and la Bel Pucell," "contayning the knowledge of the seven sciences, and the course of man's lyfe in this worlde." It is dedicated to King Henry VII., and was probably finished in 1506. It is written in the stereotyped form, and with the inevitable accessories of a spring morning and a walk in the meadows. Grand Amoure, who is here represented as the poet himself, comes in the course of his walk to two highways, one of which is the path of Contemplation, the other of Active Life. He chooses the latter way, and in it he meets Fame, with her two milk-white greyhounds, Grace and

1 gan nigh, approached.

3 streams of Titan, rays of the sun.

2 grew astonished.

4

mingled.

Governance. She rides on a beautiful palfrey which is none other than Pegasus, and is encircled with tongues. of fire. By her Grand Amoure is informed of a matchless lady named Bel Pucell, who lives in a tower upon an enchanted island, and who can be reached only after surmounting many difficulties. Following the suggestions of Fame, who presents him with her two greyhounds, our hero visits the castle of Doctrine, a fortress made of copper, and built upon a craggy rock. Doctrine introduces him to her seven daughters - the seven sciences. These are Grammar, who delivers a learned oration; Logic, who dismisses him with a grave exhortation; Rhetoric, seated in a gorgeous chamber strewn with flowers and adorned with mirrors; Arithmetic, upon the walls of whose chamber the three fundamental rules are painted in gold; Music, in whose crystal tower the hero meets and is enamoured with the lady of the enchanted island, the Bel Pucell; Geometry, who also sits in a wondrous tower; and Astronomy, who dwells in a gorgeous pavilion in the midst of a flowery meadow. After many adventures with giants and dragons, each of which personates some human quality, the hero comes in sight at last of the stately palace of Bel Pucell, "walled with silver, and many a story upon the wall enameled royally." Into this palace he is received by Peace, Mercy, Justice, Reason, Grace, and Memory; and next morning he and Bel Pucell are married, according to the Catholic Ritual, by Lex Ecclesiæ. Here one would have expected the allegory to end. But the poet goes on to relate the subsequent events in his hero's life, his death and burial. While Remembrance is writing his elegy, Fame again comes forward, promising that his name shall be enrolled with those of Joshua, Hector, Alexander, Cæsar, Arthur,

Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, and other great heroes. Time and Eternity, crowned with triple diadems of gold, pronounce an exhortation, and the poem closes with an epilogue, in which the author apologizes for having attempted to write such a fable. The allegory is easily interpreted; it is designed to point out the qualities which constitute the character of a true gentleman, and to illustrate the progress of his education and his achievements in life. It is a kind of secular "Pilgrim's Progress," in which the pilgrim is represented as a knight-errant seeking for the summum bonum of this life, instead of that of the life which is to come.

A single short extract will suffice:

In the time of old antiquity

The noble philosophers, with their whole delight,
For the common profit of all humanity,
Of the seven sciences for to know the right
They studied many a long winter's night,
Each after the other their parts to express, -
This was their guise to eschew idleness.

The pampered carcase with food delicious
They did not feed, but to their sustenance.
They followed not their flesh so vicious,
But ruled it by prudent governance.
They were content alway with suffisance,
They coveted not no worldly treasure,
For they knew that it might not endúre.

But now-a-days the contrary is used:
To win the money their studies be all set;
The common profit is often refused,
For well is he that may the money get
From his neighbor without any let.
They think nothing they shall from it pass,
When all that is shall be turned to was.

Douglas, Lyndesay, and Barclay.

GAWAIN DOUGLAS, a son of that famous Earl of Angus who is known in history and romance as "Bell the Cat," was born about the year 1474, and was educated at the University of St. Andrews. The story of the intrigues through which he was finally raised to the dignity of Bishop of Dunkeld is one of the most interesting in the annals of that stormy period. In 1513 he was obliged to flee from Scotland. He was kindly received by Henry VIII of England, who was so highly pleased with his work in literature that he allowed him a liberal pension during the rest of his life. He died in exile in 1521. Douglas translated into heroic rhymed verse the "Eneid" of Virgil, the first metrical version of any classic that had yet been made in English. He wrote, also (in 1501), a long allegorical poem entitled "The Palice of Honour," in which he endeavored to show the vanity of human glory, and to prove that it is only through virtue that true happiness and honor can be attained. "Like the other poets, French and English, of the last two centuries, Douglas woke on a morning of May, wandered in a garden, and beheld various masques or revels of the goddesses, heroes, poets, virtues, vices (such as 'Busteousness'), and classical and Biblical worthies. In his vision he characteristically confused all that he happened to know of the past,