University of Virginia Library

2. § II

The literature of the later part of the fourteenth century affords us glimpses of other readers who were not merely collectors. The author—or authors—of Piers Plowman seems to have had within his reach a fair library. His reading was carelessly done for the most part, his references are vague and incorrect, and his quotations not always exact. But he was well read in the Scriptures, which he knew far better than any other book. From the Fathers he gathered much, perhaps by means of collections of extracts from their works. He used the Golden Legend, Huon de Meri's allegorical poem of the fight between Jesus and the Antichrist, Peter Comestor's Bible History, Rustebeuf's La Voie de Paradis, Grosseteste's religious allegory of Le Chastel d' Amour, the paraded learning of Vincent of Beauvais in Speculum Historiale, and other works—numerous and small signs of booklore, which are completely overshadowed by his illuminating comprehension of the popular side in the politics of his day. Gower, too, had at his disposal a little library of some account, including the Scriptures, theological writings and ecclesiastical histories, Aristotle, some of the classics, and a good deal of romance in prose and verse

But Chaucer was the ideal book-lover: knowing Dante, Boccaccio, and in some degree "Franceys Petrark, the laureat poete," who "enlumined al Itaille of poetry," Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, Ovid—his favourite author—and Boëthius;

as well as Guido delle Colonne's prose epic of the story of Troy, the poems of Guillaume de Machaut, the Roman de la Rose, and a work on the astrolabe by Messahala.[9.18] We have some excellent pictures of Chaucer's habit of reading. When his day's work is done he goes home and buries himself with his books— In the Parliament of Fowls he tells us that he read books often for instruction and pleasure, and the coming on of night alone would force him to put away his book. He would not have been a true reader had he not developed the habit of reading in bed. So he found solace and delight, as countless thousands have done, in his Ovid. The world of books and of reading is apt to seem stuffy, the favoured home of the moody spirit, a lair to which a dirty and ragged Magliabechi retreats, a palace where a Beckford gloats solitary over his treasures—a world whence we often desire to escape, since we know we can return to it when we will. For if good books shelter us from the realities of life, life itself refreshes the student like cool rain upon the fevered brow. Chaucer was the bright spirit who let his books fill their proper place in his life. In books, he says— Yet books are something much less than life: there is the open air,—the meadows bright with flowers,—the melody of birds,—