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Initial from MS. of Mandeville's Travels. (Cotton.)

IV. SHORTER PROSE WORKS.

CHAPTER I.

BEFORE THE USE OF PRINTING.--A.D. 1356 TO A.D. 1474.

HYTHM is associated with the first utterances de

or

signed for frequent repetition and continued life. The praise of chiefs, the cherished memories beliefs of a people, formed into musical sequences of words with alliteration, or other device to secure for each important word both emphasis and good help to its recollection, make the substance of that early literature which lives on the lips of its authors and in the memories of those who learn it from them and diffuse it pleasantly in cadenced chant among the people. Prose was not written when few read and literature lay between the reciters and a world of listeners. When there were more readers, cultivated men and women, with the written page before them, could recite at will for pleasure of their friends. Still, they were supplied chiefly with verse; but the good stories current among daily talk could be collected and written in the manner of those who told them well in the direct phrase of common speech. Such tales in prose Boccaccio told again for the Italians in his "Decameron," about

1 Next to the case containing six books rolled and labelled, are tables, hinged and wax-covered, for writing. Below are a reed pen or

the middle of the fourteenth century. But when Chaucer and Gower followed the example of his story-telling, their English tales were still in verse, except that Chaucer included two prose pieces in his Canterbury Tales-a moral story from the French, and a homily for his Parson.2 The direct preaching of Wiclif, and his urging of reform upon the Church and people, are represented also by English prose tracts and sermons, which are thoroughly simple and straightforward, as it is the nature of right prose to be. The word "Prose" means straightforward. It is derived from the Latin prorsus, and so was the name of a Roman goddess, Prorsa, called also Prosa, who presided over ordinary births with the head foremost. Prose signifies, therefore, the direct manner of common speech without twists or unusual ways of presentation.

Coleridge said that he wished our clever young poets would remember his "homely definition of prose and poetry- that is, prose is words in their best order; poetry, the best words in the best order." The definition may be homely, but it is not true. No writer of prose would wish to use second-best words. Setting aside the difference that lies deep in the nature of the thought, there remains only the mechanical distinction that verse is a contrivance for

calamus and an ink-stand. Behind is another kind of table hanging from a metal pen or style, here used as a pin. To the right of that is a thick book of tables. In front are a style and a group of single volumes in cases or unrolled, with their titles attached, sometimes to the papyrus, sometimes to the wood in the centre.

2 Part of this homily-on Anger-is quoted on pages 103-106 of the volume of this Library illustrating English Religion. In the same volume, on pages 71-73, will be found specimens of Wiclif's prose.

obtaining by fixed places of frequently recurring pause and elevation of the voice, by rhyme and other devices, a large number of places of fixed emphasis, that cause stress to be laid on every important word, while they set thought to music. Whatever will bear this continuous enforcement is fit matter for verse; but the customary thought of men, though put into words that fit it perfectly, and are therefore the best, is less intense, and therefore is best expressed in the straightforward method of our customary speech.

Much of our early English prose is translation, cramped by some transference of foreign idiom, and with the choice of words sometimes determined rather by a foreign text than by the familiar association between word and thought. But it is always unaffected. Thus, Sir John Mandeville's account of his travels, written, as it appears from the texts, first in French, and then translated into Latin, was translated also into English, and that version is ascribed in the Introduction to some copies of it to Sir John himself. As there are errors of translation into which the original author of the book could not have fallen, because they imply gross ignorance of his meaning, the English version of the Travels must have been from another hand; but it represents prose of the fourteenth century.

Sir John Mandeville was born at St. Albans, and was old enough in 1322 to set out upon his travels. He was absent thirty years, and when he came back, troubled with rheumatic gout, he busied himself with his pen. The English version of his Travels is said to have been made in 1356. The chief aim of Mandeville's Travels was to describe routes to Jerusalem; he adapted his record of travel to this view of the chief object of travel. He says that he and his men served in a war the Sultan of Babylon, and were for fifteen months with the Great Khan of the Tartars of Cathay. Although Mandeville

travelled far and saw much, there can be little doubt that in his desire to gain a lively and full view of the travellers' world he worked into his narrative some records of other men's adventures.

In other respects he tells honestly what he has seen, and shows only the good appetite of his time for marvels that he heard. The fabulous Prester John, whose country is described in the section here given from Mandeville's Travels, was first heard of at Rome in 1145 as a Nestorian priest who claimed to be descended from the Magi. He had taken Ecbatana, and was going to Jerusalem, after the example of his ancestors the Magi, but taking with him all his force, when he was stopped by the Tigris, went north, where he hoped to cross at the winter freezing of the river, waited some years, found no ice, and went back. Fables thenceforth spread rapidly concerning Prester John as a great Christian emperor of the East. Travellers to the far East were inquisitive upon this subject, and this is the account given by Sir John Mandeville of

THE LAND OF PRESTER JOHN.

This emperor, Prester John, possesses very extensive territory, and has many very noble cities and good towns in

his realm, and many great and large isles. For all the country of India is divided into isles, by the great floods that come from Paradise, that separate all the land into many parts. And also in the sea he has full many isles. And the best city in the isle of Penthexoire is Nyse, a very royal city. noble and very rich. This Prester John has under him many kings and many isles, and many divers people of divers conditions. And this land is full good and rich, but not so rich as the land of the Great Khan. For the merchants come not thither so commonly to buy merchandise, as they do in the land of the Great Khan, for it is too far. And on the other side, in the isle of Cathay,2 men find all things needful to man, cloths of gold, of silk, and spicery. And therefore, although men have them cheap in the isle of Prester John, they dread the long way and the great perils in the sea. For in many places of the sea are great rocks of stone of adamant (loadstone), which of its nature draws iron to it: and therefore there pass no ships that have either bonds or nails of iron in them; and if they do, anon the rocks of adamant draw them to them, that they may never go thence. I myself have seen afar in that sea, as though it had been a great isle full of trees and bushes, full of thorns and brier. in great plenty; and the shipmen told us that all that was of ships that were drawn thither by the adamants, for the iron that was in them. And of the rottenness and other things that were within the ships, grew such bushes, and thorns, and briers, and green grass, and such kinds of things; and of the masts and of the sail-yards, it seemed a great wood or a grove. And such rocks are in many places there about. And therefore merchants dare not pass there, except they know well the passages, or unless they have good pilots. And also they dread the long way, and, therefore, they go to Cathay, because it is nearer; and yet it is not so nigh but men must travel by sea and land eleven or twelve months, from Geno or from Venice, to Cathay. And yet is the land of Prester John more far, by many dreadful days' journey. And the merchants pass by the kingdom of Persia, and go to a city called Hermes, because Hermes the philosopher founded it. And after that they pass an arm of the sea, and then they go to another city called Golbache; and there they find merchandise, and as great abundance of parrots as men find here of geese. In that country is but little wheat or barley, and therefore they eat rice and honey, milk, cheese, and fruit. This emperor, Prester John, takes always to wife the daughter of the Great Khan; 3 and the Great Khan also in the same wise the daughter of Prester John. For they two are the greatest lords under the firmament.

In the Land of Prester John are many divers things and many precious stones, so great and so large, that men make of them plates, dishes, cups, &c. And many other marvels are there, that it were too long to put in a book. But I will tell you of his principal isles, and of his estate, and of his law. This emperor Prester John is a Christian, and a great part of his country also; but they have not all the articles of our faith. They believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and they are very devout and true to one another. And he has under him seventy-two provinces, and in every province is a king, all which kings are tributary to Prester John. And in his lordships are many great marvels, for in his country is the sea called the Gravelly Sea, which is all

Great and large isles. Colonel Yule observes that Mandeville makes islands of nearly all the Eastern regions. He ascribes this old practice partly to the loose use by the Arabs of the word Jazireh, but asks also, Was the word used for a place reached by sea?

2 Cathay was the medieval name of China.

3 The Great Khan was the Emperor of China in Cambalu or Pekin (Khan-bálig, the Khan's City).

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