gurney, II; James (M.R.), 515.
[3] B. M. MS. Reg., 9 B ix. I.
[4] Lyte, 135
In his poems Chaucer endows two poor clerks with
small libraries. His first portrait of an Oxford clerk is
delightful--
"For him was lever have at his beddes heed [rather]
Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed,
Of Aristotle and his philosophye,
Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye [fiddle, psaltery].
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but liter gold in cofre;
But al that he mighte of his freendes hente [get],
On bokes and on lerninge he it spente,
And bisily gan for the soules preye
Of hem that yaf him wherewith to scoleye [gave, study].
Of studie took he most cure and most hede.
Noght o word spak he more than was nede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence [high].
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche [conducing to],
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."
Almost equally pleasing is his picture of another who
lived with a rich churl--
"A chambre hadde he in that hostelrye
Allone, with-outer any companye,
. . .
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