Thou wer't acquainted with Chaucer?--Pardie! God save his soul! The first findér of our faire langáge!
There is one little circumstance more which connects the humble name of this versifier with that of Chaucer. His affectionate devotion to the great poet has been recorded by Speght in his edition of Chaucer. "Thomas Occleve, for the love he bare to his master, caused his picture to be truly drawn in his book 'De Regimine Principis,' dedicated to Henry the Fifth." In this manuscript, with "fond idolatry," he placed the portraiture of his master facing an invocation. From this portrait the head on the poet's monument was taken, as well as all our prints. It bears a faithful resemblance to the picture of Chaucer painted on board in the Bodleian Library.[11] Had Occleve, with his feelings, sent us down some memorial of the poet and the man, we should have conned his verse in better humour; but the history of genius had not yet entered even into the minds of its most zealous votaries.[12]
[1] "_Poems by_ THOMAS HOCCLEVE, _never before printed, selected from a manuscript in the possession of George Mason, with a preface, notes, and glossary_," 1796. The notes are not amiss, and the glossary is valuable; but the verses printed by Mason are his least interesting productions. The poet's name is here written with an H, as it appeared in the manuscript; but there is no need of a modern editor changing the usual mode, because names were diversely written or spelt even in much later times. The present writer has been called not only _Occleve_, but _Occliffe_, as we find him in Chaucer's works.
[2] Turner's "History of England," v. 335.
[5] A Chaucerian word, which well deserves preservation in the language.
[6] FAVELL, author of "Lyes." FAVELL, the editor of Hoccleve, explains as _cajolerie_, or flattery, by words given by Carpentier in his supplement to "Du Cange." Pavel is personified by "Piers Ploughman," and in Skelton's "Bouge of Court." FAVELE in langue Romane is Flattery--hence _Fabel_, Fabling.--Roquefort's "Dictionnaire." The Italian FAVELLIO, parlerie, babil, caquet--Alberti's "Grand Dictionnaire"--does not wholly convey the idea of our modern _Humbug_, which combines _fabling_ and _caquet_.