48. _The .x. Commaundementes of Loue._ Fol. cccxlij.
49. The _.ix. Ladies worthie_. Fol. cccxlij., back.
50. [_Virelai; no title._] Begins--'Alone walkyng.' Fol. cccxliij.
51. _A Ballade._ Begins--'In the season of Feuerere when it was full colde.' Same page.
52. _A Ballade._ Begins--'O Mercifull and o merciable.' Fol. cccxliij., back. [Made up of scraps from late poems; see p. 57.]
53. _Here foloweth how Mercurie with Pallas, Venus and Minarua, appered to Paris of Troie, he slepyng by a fountain._ Fol. cccxliiij.
54. _A balade pleasaunte._ Begins--'I haue a Ladie where so she bee.' Same page. At the end--'Explicit the discriuyng of a faire Ladie.'
55. _An other Balade._ Begins--'O Mossie Quince, hangyng by your stalke.' Fol. cccxliiij., back.
56. _A balade, warnyng men to beware of deceitptfnll women (sic)._ Begins--'LOke well aboute ye that louers bee.' Same page. [By Lydgate.]
57. These verses next folowing were compiled by Geffray Chauser, and in the writen copies foloweth at the ende of the complainte of petee. Begins--'THe long nyghtes when euery [c]reature.' [This is the 'Compleint to his Lady,' as I venture to call it.] Fol. cccxlv[218].
58. _A balade declaring that wemens chastite Doeth moche excel all treasure worldly._ Begins--'IN womanhede as auctours al write.' Back of same leaf.
59. _The Court of Loue._ Begins--'WIth temerous herte, and tre_m_bling hand of drede.' Fol. cccxlviij.
60. Chaucers woordes vnto his owne Scriuener[219]. Fol. ccclv., back. _At the end_--Thus endeth the workes of Geffray Chaucer. (This is followed by 34 Latin verses, entitled _Epitaphium Galfridi Chaucer_, &c.)
61. _The Storie of Thebes._ [By Lydgate.] Fol. ccclvj.
§ 10. DISCUSSION OF THE POEMS IN PART I. OF ED. 1561.
Of the 41 pieces in Part I. of the above, we must of course accept as Chaucer's the four poems entitled Canterbury Tales, Troilus, Legend of Good Women, and House of Fame; also the prose translation of Boethius, and the prose treatise on the Astrolabie. The remaining number of Minor Poems (excluding the Romaunt of the Rose) is 34; out of which number I accept the 13 numbered above with the numbers 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 23, 24, 33 (so far as it quotes Chaucer), 34, 35, 36, 37, and 39. Every one of these has already been shewn to be genuine on sufficient external evidence, and it is not likely that their genuineness will be doubted. In the present volume they appear, respectively, as nos. III, XVII, V, II, VII, IV, XVIII, XIV, XV, XIII, X, XVI, XIX. Of the remaining 21, several may be dismissed in a few words. No. 4 is well known to have been written by Robert Henryson. Nos. 11, 28, 29, and 40 are distinctly claimed for Lydgate in all the editions; and no. 27 is similarly claimed for Gower. No. 25 was written by Hoccleve[220]; and the last line gives the date--'A thousande, foure hundred and seconde,' i. e. 1402, or two years after Chaucer's death. No. 13 is translated from Alain Chartier, who was only four years old when Chaucer died; see p. 28, note 2. Tyrwhitt remarks that, in MS. Harl. 372, this poem is expressly attributed to a Sir Richard Ros[221]. No one can suppose that no. 41 is by Chaucer, seeing that the first line is--'Maister Geffray Chauser, that now lithe in graue.' Mr. Bradshaw once assured me that no. 17 is ascribed, on MS. authority, to Lydgate; and no one who reads it with care can doubt that this is correct[222]. It is, in a measure, an imitation of the Book of the Duchesse; and it contains some interesting references to Chaucer, as in the lines--'Of Arcite, or of him Palemoun,' and 'Of Thebes eke the false Arcite.' No. 20, i. e. the Testament of Love, is _in prose_, and does not here concern us; still it is worth pointing out that it contains a passage (near the end) such as we cannot suppose that Chaucer would have written concerning himself[223].