CHAUCER AND SPENSER FOR CHILDREN.* Two books have been lately
published,—to one of which we have already given some brief notice—uniform in size and general appearance, with the view of bringing some of the works of two of our greatest English poets within the reach or the comprehen- sion of children. Luxuriously got up, and illustrated with artistic taste as well as technical skill, they will both, no doubt, take their place among that higher child's literature whose existence is so characteristic of the present age, and will before very long be favourite Christmas books in many a nursery and schoolroom.
Having said thus much of the books together, we must proceed to point out that they are works of very different merit, both in plan and execution. In the first place, we think that Chaucer's poetry, at all events certain parts of it, including those tales selected by Mrs. Haweis, is more suited to children than anything that Spenser ever wrote. The story of Griselda or the Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales" is more interesting and certainly more comprehensible to a child's mind than the tedious adventures of Sir Guy or Gloriana, or even the simpler allegory of the Red-Cross Knight. Chaucer's natural wit and the easy terseness of his style, the more homely character of some of his tales, full of human interest and never extravagantly long, render him much more of a children's author than the poets' poet, who has clothed his tedious and interminable moral allegory in a style which is at once affected and beautiful, wearisome and brilliant, who has written poetry for poets and constructed plots for meta- physicians, but has not composed tales for children, or even for those "plain men and women" who find no place among the characters in the Faerie Queene.
If Spenser is prolix to grown-up men and women, what must he be to children? This peculiarity, among other con- siderations, has no doubt induced Miss Towry to adopt a different mode of treatment from that which has been, we think, happily adopted by Mrs. Haweis. The story, or rather the main story, contained in each book of the Faerie Queene is told in ordinary or perhaps somewhat Spenserian prose, and the entire work thus so to speak "boiled down" to six fairy-tales. In fact, Spenser for Children bears somewhat the same relation to Spenser's Faerie Queene that Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare do to the great dramatist's complete works, only the work of Charles and Mary Lamb follows the original somewhat more closely and with more detail than the modern dispenser of the poets' poet. Miss Towry makes it, at all events, possible for grown-up people to get through the poem, so much admired and so little read, and would allow some of us to be "in at the Death of the Blatant Beast "—only, unfortunately, the Blatant Beast is never killed—much in the same way as an idle schoolboy reads Virgil or Homer by means of a "crib." But we doubt whether the exercise is a profitable one. We have performed it. Since Macaulay wrote his celebrated essay on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Pro- gress, no one, not even a reviewer, has been ashamed to confess that he has not got through the whole of the six books of the Faerie Queene, but of what we have read the charm has consisted not in the story, but in the poetry. It is the story that is tedious. It is the allegory that is wearisome. The poetry is divine. Miss Towry gives us the stories without the poetry, or more distinctly speaking, without the verse, for her prose is not only good, but like Astrophers, somewhat poetic. But we do not think that children will be deeply interested or amused by the adventures of Vyrrhochles and Cymoehles, of Pilo:Aria and Acrasia, of Archimago and Braggadochio ; that they will realise or enjoy the per- sonifications of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, or take much delight in Proserpine's garden, with its "hellebore coloquintida and the poisonous cicuta," even when conducted thither by Mammon along the banks of the black river Cocytus. And we feel sure that it will do thenr no manner of good. Now, Mrs. Haweis's work is very different. We suppose that few children regularly read the Spectator, and that therefore we shall not endanger the success of the book by saying—what indeed we believe we said when it first appeared—that it is eminently calculated to do them good. Indeed, it is a book from which even grown-up people may not only derive a great deal of pleasure, but a great deal of information. But the pill—if knowledge be a medicine—is admirably gilt. The illustrations, in the first place, are charming. It is said that comparisons are odious. They fre- quently are. But the two works under our notice are, as it were, • Chaucer for Children: a Golden Key. By Mrs. IL R. Bowels. Illustrated, London : Obatto and Windt's. 1877.
Spenser for Children. Illuotrated. By M. II. Towry. London: Matto and Winduo. 1878. made to be compared. Their scheme, their title, the mode and circumstances of their publication, not only justify, but almost require it. One bit of carelessness—for we cannot think it can be anything else—in Miss Towry's book rather struck us, — namely, that the Red Cross introduced among the equipments of St. George in the frontispiece of the work is displayed upon an azure instead of an argent shield, which is not only not in accordance with the text, but is a flagrant violation of one of the most elementary rules of heraldry, which lays down that colour shall never be displayed upon colour. In the case of a mere children's book, this might be considered a hypercriticism, though we do not see why children or their parents should pay half-a-guinea for having false heraldry, or anything else that is false, put before them,—but the books under consideration are something more.
The Chaucer illustrations are superior to the Spenser, not merely in brightness and artistic delicacy, but inasmuch as they have evidently a tale to tell, and they tell it. The Spenser illustrations look as if they had been designed to illustrate, with a certain con- ventional correctness, certain incidents in the Faerie Queene. They are good enough in their way. They are pictures one looks at and turns over the page without giving them another thought. They would illustrate equally well and equally fitly half-a-dozen other books. The best of them, representing Cymo6nt and Marinell, is charmingly drawn and delicately coloured, but like an old-fashioned sign-painting, it might change its name and be none the worse for it. But Mrs. Haweis's illustra- tions speak for themselves. They interest the reader as well as the gazer. They are part and parcel of the book itself. They really illustrate the text, as well as embellish the volume. In addi- tion to eight coloured plates, there are some thirty little woodcuts, designed with as much fidelity as spirit. The fair Emelye gathering flowers is really a very pretty picture, while the frontispiece, intro- ducing a dozen of the Canterbury pilgrims, including Chaucer himself, is not only drawn and executed with great spirit, but conveys a lively and, as far as we can judge, a perfectly accurate impression of the dress and figure of each of the persons repre- sented. The Spenser illustrations are six in number, all coloured, and the work of Mr. Walter Morgan. The Chaucer illustrations are all designed by Mrs. Haweis herself, and the impress of her mind is as apparent in the character and execution of the illus- trations as in the design and the execution of the more solid portion of the book. Her work has thus the advantage of being a complete whole, and springs, as we fancy all good work springs and ever sprang, from a mind which had something to express, and which expressed it as well as it possibly could.
Chaucer for Children consists of the Prologue to the "Canter- bury Tales," "'rho Knight's Tale," " The Friar's Tale," 44 The Clerk's Tale," "The Franklin's Tale," "The Pardoner's Tale," and one or two of the poet's minor pieces, all given according to the readings of the best texts ; and side by side with the texts a version in modern English, differing as little from the original as is possible to make the explanation complete. The poems are not given entire, as in the original, but a prose paraphrase re- places, from time to time, what is passed over. This combina- tion of paraphrase and extract is done with judgment, the spirit Of the original whole is well preserved, and the "Tales," as given by this now editor are pleasant reading for old or young. But this is not all. There is that in Chaucer fin. Children which, without spoiling it as a child's picture-book and story-book, makes it take rank almost as a work of critical authority. An introductory chapter, addressed to the mother, on Chaucer's metres, and the mode of pronouncing many of his words and of reading his poetry, is brief and good; while the chapter, addressed as much to the child as to the parent, on the material condition of England in the fourteenth century, illustrated by appropriate woodcuts, as well as a coloured picture of an " interior " and a 44 street," abounds in correct and interesting information, told in simple language. Two maps, one of London in the fifteenth and another of London in the nineteenth century, are here appro- priately introduced. In her chapter on Chaucer's life, Mrs. Haweis has evidently consulted the latest authorities ; and though we do not agree with her that it is by any means established that Chaucer's father was a vintner—a theory which is of compara- tively recent origin—and on one or two other details which are mere matters of speculation, but which are given by her as established fads, we think the little biography is very well done. Of the notes with which the volume abounds, some are original, others taken from the works of Tyrwhitt, Morris, Skeet, and other critics. Some of the latter are beyond the wants or the comprehension of the child, but may be read with advantage by the mother ; nor will the father, if he be a man of taste, fail to find much to interest as well as to please him in his child's poetry-book.
The following extract affords a very fair specimen of Mrs. Haweis's way of treating Chaucer's "Tales :"—
" A knight ther was, and that a worthy "A knight there was, and that a worthy
IT11111, man, That from the tymw that he forst algae Who from the time in which he first began To ryden out he lovede ehyvalrye, To ride afield, loved well all chivalry, 'Trouthe and honour, Imam and Honour and frankness, truth and eurteste. courtesy.
Vol worthi was he in his lordes werre, Most worthy was he in his master's war, And therto heads he Men, noman Perm, And thereto had he ridden, none more far, An wrl in Cristenaom as in hethenessr, AR well in Christian as In heathen lands, And evore honoured for his worth- And borne with honour many high cam-
nesse.
"Ho had been at Alexandria when it was won, in Prussia he had gained great honours, and in many other lands. He had been in fifteen mortal battles, and bad fought in the lists for our faith three times, and always slain his foe. He had served in Turkey and in the Great Sea. And he was always very well paid, too. Yet, though so great a soldier, he was wise in council, and in manner ho was gentle as a woman. Never did he use bad words in all his life, to any class of teen; in fact He WAS a verray pert-eau, gentil knight lie was a very perfect, noble knight.
"As for his appearance, his horse was good, but not gay. He wore a gipon of fustian, all stained by his haborgeon ; for he had only just arrived home from a long voyage."
But in praising Mrs. Ilaweis's work, we have no desire to disparage that of Miss Towry. It is somewhat unfortunate for Spenser for Children that it should have appeared at a time and in a way which, so to speak, challenged comparison with the earlier publi- • cation, but we have thought it our duty to compare them. We lave pointed out how they differ. Miss To wry does not aim as high as Mrs. llaweis. And we think, on the whole, her subject was less manageable. But the work she has set herself to do she has .clone well, the first tale, that of Una and the Red-Cross Knight, being, on the whole, the most successful paraphrase. And she as at least earned for herself a niche in the temple of fame, as one of those, " few and weary," who have made their way through the whole of the six books of the Faerie Queene, and been, in the well-known, but somewhat inaccurate, language of the great
• essayist, in at the death of the Blatant Beast.
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