The first of these is the only versifier that can be assigned to England
in the reign of Henry IV. His name was John Walton, though he was
generally known as _Johannes Capellanus_ or 'John the Chaplain.' He was
canon of Oseney, and died sub-dean of York. He, in the year 1410,
translated Boethius' famous treatise, 'De Consolatione Philosophiae,'
into English verse. He is not known to have written anything original.
--Thomas Occleve appeared in the reign of Henry V., about 1420. Like
Chaucer and Gower, he was a student of municipal law, having attended
Chester's Inn, which stood on the site of the present Somerset House;
but although he trod in the footsteps of his celebrated predecessors, it
was with far feebler powers. His original pieces are contemptible, both
in subject and in execution. His best production is a translation of
'Egidius De Regimine Principum.' Warton, alluding to the period at which
these writers appeared, has the following oft-quoted observations:
--'I consider Chaucer as a genial day in an English spring. A brilliant
sun enlivens the face of nature with an unusual lustre; the sudden
appearance of cloudless skies, and the unexpected warmth of a tepid
atmosphere, after the gloom and the inclemencies of a tedious winter,
fill our hearts with the visionary prospect of a speedy summer, and we
fondly anticipate a long continuance of gentle gales and vernal serenity.
But winter returns with redoubled horrors; the clouds condense more
formidably than before, and those tender buds and early blossoms which
were called forth by the transient gleam of a temporary sunshine, are
nipped by frosts and torn by tempests.' These sentences are, after all,
rather pompous, and express, in the most verbose style of the _Rambler_,
the simple fact, that after Chaucer's death the ground lay fallow, and
that for a while in England (in Scotland it was otherwise) there were
few poets, and little poetry.