[612] "Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur partes et tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi gradibus viam, qua peccator transgressus, ad sui Creatoris agnicionem redire debet, recto tramite docere conatur. Titulusque libelli istius Speculum Meditantis nuncupatus est." This analysis is to be found in several MSS.; also in the edition of the "Confessio," printed by Caxton; Pauli gives it too: "Confessio," i. p. xxiii. The "Speculum Meditantis" was sure to resemble much those works of moralisation (hence Chaucer's "moral Gower"), numerous in French mediaeval literature, which were called "bibles." See for example "La Bible Guiot de Provins": Dou siecle puant et orrible M'estuet commencier une bible. "On this stinking and horrid world, I want to begin a bible;" and Guiot reviews all classes of society, all trades and professions, and blames everything and everybody; Gower did the same; everything for them is "puant." Rome is not spared: "Rome nos suce et nos englot," says Guiot. See text of Guiot's "Bible" in Barbazan and Meon, "Fabliaux," 1808, vol. ii. p. 307. [613] "Balades and other Poems," Roxburghe Club, 1818, 4to. [614] Jeo ris en plour et en sante languis, Ars en gelee et en chalour fremis. Ballad ix. No passage in Petrarch has been oftener imitated. Villon wrote: Je meurs de soif aupres de la fontaine ... Je ris en pleurs et attens sans espoir, &c. [615] "Les balades d'amour jesqes enci sont fait especialement pour ceaux q'attendont lours amours par droite mariage. Les balades d'ici jesqes au fin du livere sont universeles a tout le monde selonc les propertes et les condicions des amants qui sont diversement travailez en la fortune d'amour." [616] Camelion c'est une beste fiere Qui vit tansoulement de l'air sanz plus; Ensi pour dire en mesme la maniere, De soule espoir qe j'ai d'amour concuz Sont mes pensers en vie sustenuz. Ballad xvi; what a chameleon is, was thus explained in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere vivit--_a buttyrfle_" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," 1857, 4to, p, 220). [617] "Poema quod dicitur Vox Clamantis," ed. Coxe, Roxburghe Club, 1850, 4to. He also wrote in Latin verse "Chronica Tripartita" (wherein he relates, and judges with great severity, the reign of Richard II., from 1387 to the accession of Henry IV.), and several other poems on the vices of the time, the whole printed by Th. Wright, in his "Political Poems," vol. i. Rolls. The "Chronica" are also printed with the "Vox Clamantis." [618] P. 31. He jeers at the vulgarity of their names: Hudde ferit, quos Judde terit, dum Cobbe minatur ... Hogge suam pompam vibrat, dum se putat omni Majorem Rege nobilitate fore. Balle propheta docet, quem spiritus ante malignus Edocuit ... (p. 50.)