In Hoccleve's Poems, ed. Furnivall (Early Eng. Text Soc., Extra Series, 1892), there are several clever and intricate examples of the Virelay. Thus, in Balade IV, at p. 39, there are five stanzas, but only three rimes, viz. in _-al_, _-ee_, and _-ay_. The formula of rimes, for the first and third stanzas, is _a b a b b c b c_; for the second and fourth stanzas, _c b c b b a b a_; and for the fifth stanza, _a c a c c b c b_. See also the same, pp. 41, 47, 49, 58, 59, 61, 62. Beyond all doubt, Hoccleve copied the forms of Chaucer's lost virelays. 424. _Holynesse_, holy employment, religious composition. This is, clearly, an intentional substitution for the _besinesse_, i.e. 'laborious employment,' in the A-text, l. 412. 425. Chaucer made an excellent prose translation of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, a Latin treatise much admired in the middle ages, and still worthy of admiration. For further remarks, see vol. iii. --A. 414. This is the only notice we possess of a work by Chaucer which is no longer extant. We gather from it that he made a translation of the Latin prose treatise by Pope Innocent III., entitled De Miseria Conditionis Humanæ, a gloomy enumeration of human woes without a single alleviating touch of hope, fiercely and unrelentingly set forth. It is probable that it was written in 7-line stanzas; for portions of it appear to be preserved in the Prologue to the Man of Lawes Tale, B 99-126, and in other stanzas of the same (B 421-7, 771-7, 925-931, 1135-8). 426. _The Lyf of Seynt Cecyle_ is happily preserved. It was one of Chaucer's early productions; but he himself rescued it from possible disappearance by introducing it into the Canterbury Tales, with the title of the Second Nonnes Tale. 428. This is another of the lost works. We gather that he made a translation from a piece attributed to Origen, one of the most eminent of the early Christian writers, who was born at Alexandria in 186. Tyrwhitt says the piece meant is doubtless 'the Homily _de Maria Magdalena_, which has been commonly, though falsely, attributed to Origen; see Opp. Origenis, Tom. ii. p. 291, ed. Paris, 1604.' Tyrwhitt adds, very justly and incontrovertibly--'I cannot believe that the Poem entitled The Lamentation of Marie Magdaleine, which is in all the [older] editions of Chaucer, is really that work of his. It can hardly be considered as a translation, or even as an imitation, of the Homily; and the composition, in every respect, is infinitely meaner than the worst of his genuine pieces.'