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Among the old romances of pris' (price or praise) referred to by Chaucer, is supposed to be the Squire of Low Degree. The daughter of the King of Hungary had fallen into a state of melancholy from the supposed loss of the squire, her lover, and the king comforts his daughter by promising her many presents and luxuries :

To-morrow ye shall in hunting fare;1
And yede, my doughter, in a chair;
It shall be covered with velvet red,
And cloths of fine gold all about your head,
With damask white and azure blue,
Well diapered with lilies new.

Your pommels shall be ended with gold,
Your chains enamelled many a fold,
Your mantle of rich degree,
Purple pall and ermine free.
Jennets of Spain, that ben so wight,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright.
Ye shall have harp, sautry, and song,
And other mirths you among.
Ye shall have Rumney and Malespine,
Both Hippocras and Vernage wine;
Montrese and wine of Greek,
Both Algrade and despice1 eke,
Antioch and Bastard,
Pyment also and garnard;
Wine of Greek and Muscadel,

Both claré, pyment, and Rochelle,
The reed your stomach to defy,
And pots of Osy set you by.
You shall have venison y-bake,
The best wild fowl that may be take;
A leish of harehound with you to streek,
And hart, and hind, and other like.

Ye shall be set at such a tryst,
That hart and hind shall come to you first,
Your disease to drive you fro,
To hear the bugles there y-blow.
Homeward thus shall ye ride,
On-hawking by the river's side,
With gosshawk and with gentle falcón,
With bugle-horn and merlión.

When you come home your menzie' among,
Ye shall have revel, dances, and song;
Little children, great and small,
Shall sing as does the nightingale.
Then shall ye go to your even song,
With tenors and trebles among.
Threescore of copes of damask bright,
Full of pearls they shall be pight.8
Your censers shall be of gold,
Indent with azure many a fold.
Your quire nor organ song shall want,
With contre-note and descant.
The other half on organs playing,
With young children full fain singing.
Then shall ye go to your supper,
And sit in tents in green arbér,
With cloth of arras pight to the ground,
With sapphires set of diamond..
A hundred knights, truly told,
Shall play with bowls in alleys cold,
Your disease to drive away;
To see the fishes in pools play,

To a drawbridge then shall ye,

...

Th' one half of stone, th' other of tree;

A barge shall meet you full right,

With twenty-four oars full bright,

With trumpets and with clarion,

The fresh water to row up and down. . . .

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Forty torches burning bright,

At your bridges to bring you light.
Into your chamber they shall you bring,
With much mirth and more liking.
Your blankets shall be of fustian,
Your sheets shall be of cloth of Rennes.

EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS.

The century and a half from 1250 to 1400 has been designated the Early or Old English period of our language. A division into dialects also became more marked. There were the Northern (including the Lowlands of Scotland), the Midland, and the Southern; or as they have been historically termed, the Northumbrian, Mercian, and West Saxon dialects.

THOMAS OF ERCILDOUN.

The military spirit then abroad, and the chivalrous enthusiasm of the Normans, were displayed in the literature of the day no less than in tournaments or in war and crusades. The mixed English language became a vehicle for romantic metrical tales, derived from the French. The name of one minstrel, THOMAS THE RHYMER, or THOMAS OF ERCILDOUN, is great in traditional story. He was a person of some consideration, owner of an estate, which he transmitted to his son, and he died shortly before 1299. Thomas, besides being a seer or prophet, is supposed to have been the author of our first metrical romance. An English rhyming chronicler, Robert de Brunne, refers to Sir Tristrem, a 'sedgeing tale,' or story for recitation, by Thomas of Ercildoun, which was esteemed above all other tales, if recited as written by the author. Few of the minstrels, however, gave it as it was made, in quaint or difficult English, but corrupted and lowered it in the course of recitation. It was a matter of regret that this genuine version of Sir Tristrem had been lost, and great satisfaction was expressed when Mr (afterwards Sir) Walter Scott, in 1804, published what he conceived to be a faithful copy of it, though modified in language in passing orally through different generations. This copy is contained in an old collection in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, called, from the name of its donor, the Auchinleck Manuscript, being presented by Lord Auchinleck, father of James Boswell, the biographer of Johnson. The story of Sir Tristrem was familiar to poetical antiquaries. It was one of the ancient British legends taken up by the Norman minstrels. The style of the poem is elliptical and concise. It is divided into three 'fyttes' or cantos, and the following stanza will shew the style and orthography of the Auchinleck Manuscript:

Glad a man was he

The turnament dede crie, That maidens might him se And over the walles to lye; Thai asked who was fre

To win the maistrie;

Thai seyd that best was he
The child of Ermonie

In Tour:

Forthi chosen was he

To maiden Blaunche Flour.

Sir Walter's theory as to the originality and

Scottish origin of the poem has not been gener- art of printing was introduced. Chaucer, in his ally accepted. It is believed to be the production Rhime of Sire Thopas, has parodied the style of of some minstrel who had heard Thomas of these compositions, and made 'mine host' in the Ercildoun recite his romance. Mr Garnet, a high Canterbury Tales abuse all such 'drafty rhyming' authority on early English dialects, concludes that as destitute of mirth or doctrine. the present Sir Tristrem is a modernised copy of an old Northumbrian romance which was probably written between 1260 and 1300, and derived from a Norman or Anglo-Norman source, but the author may have availed himself of the previous labours of Ercildoun on the same theme.

An elaborate work of about 20,000 lines, The Romance of King Alexander, appears to have been written previous to 1300. It has been ascribed, but erroneously, to ADAM DAVIE, marshal of Stratford-le-Bow, near London. Davie, however, was a voluminous versifier, and wrote Visions, The Battle of Jerusalem, &c. Two romances, Havelok the Dane, and William and the Werwolf, have been edited (1828 and 1832) by an able antiquary, Sir Frederick Madden. The story of Havelok relates the adventures of an orphan child, son of a Danish king; the author is unknown.

Extract from Havelok.

Hwan he was hosled1 and shriuen,
His quiste maked and for him gyuen,
His knictes dede he alle site,
For throw them he wolde wite
How micte yem hise children yunge
Till that he couthen speken wit tunge;
Speken, and gangen, on horse riden,
Knictes and sweynes bi here siden.
He spoken there offe, and chosen sone
A riche man was, that, under mone,
Was the trewest that he wende-
Godard, the kinges oune frende;

And seyden, he moucthe hem best loke
Yif that he hem undertoke,

Till hise sone mouthe bere

Helm on heued, and leden ut here

(In his hand a spere stark),
And king ben maked of Denmark.

When he was housled and shriven,
His bequests made and for him given,
His knights he made all sit,
For from them he would wit
Who should keep his children young
Till they knew how to speak with tongue;
To speak, and walk, and on horse ride,
Knights and servants by their side.
They spoke thereof, and chosen soon
Was a rich man, that, under moon,
Was the truest that they kenned-
Godard, the king's own friend;
And saying he might best o'erlook
If their charge he undertook,
Till his son might [himself] bear
Helm on head, and lead out there
(In his hand a spear stark),
And king be made of Denmark.

The Geste of King Horn, the romantic history of Guy of Warwick (supposed to have been written about 1292 by a Cornish friar, WALTER OF EXETER), Sir Bevis of Southampton, Richard Cœur de Lion, The King of Tars, La Morte Arthur, Sir Eglamour, and a host of other metrical romances, belong to this period, and most of them were subsequently modernised when the

1 When he had the sacrament administered to him, and been shriven or confessed.

The principal metrical chroniclers were two ecclesiastics-ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER and ROBERT DE BRUNNE. The former was a monk of Gloucester, who lived in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. His chief work is a rhymed chronicle of England from the legendary age of Brutus to the close of Henry III.'s reign, partly taken from the fabulous history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and written in the long line (or couplet) of fourteen syllables. This monk also wrote poems on the Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, and the Life of St Brandan, and other saints. His language is strongly Anglo-Saxonninety-six per cent., according to Mr Marsh—but he speaks of the prevalence of the French tongue.

England and the Normans about 1300.

Thuse come, lo! Engelond into Normannes honde; And the Normans ne couthe speke tho bote her owe speche,

And speke French as dude atom, and here chyldren dude al so teche;

So that heymen of thys lond, that of her blod come,
Holdeth alle thulke speche that hii of hem nome;
Vor bote a man couthe French me tolth of hym wel lute;
Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss and to her kunde
speche yute.

Ich wene ther ne be man in world contreyes none
That ne holdeth to her kunde speche bot Engelond one.
Ac wel me wot vor to conne both wel yt ys;

Vor the more that a man con, the more worth he

ys.

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children did all so teach;

So that high men of this land, that of their blood come, Hold all the same speech that they of them took ;

For but [except] a man know French men tell of him well little;

But low men hold to English and to their natural speech yet.

I wene there not be man in world countries none That not holdeth to their natural speech but England alone.

But well I wot for to know both well it is;

For the more that a man knows, the more worth he is.

Mr Ellis, in his Specimens of the Early English Poets, praises Robert of Gloucester's description of the first crusade, but the narrative is generally flat and prosaic. The following is a portion partly modernised:

The Muster for the First Crusade.

A good pope was thilk time at Rome, that hecht1 Urban,
Therefore he send preachers thorough all Christendom,
That preached of the creyserie, and creysed mony man.
And himself a-this-side the mounts and to France come;
And preached so fast, and with so great wisdom,
That about in each lond the cross fast me nome.3
In the year of grace a thousand and sixteen,
This great creyserie began, that long was i-seen.
of so much folk nyme the cross, ne to the holy lond go,
Me ne see no time before, ne suth nathemo."

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For self women ne beleved,1 that they ne wend thither fast, Ne young folk [that] feeble were, the while the voyage y-last.

So that Robert Curthose thitherward his heart cast, And, among other good knights, ne thought not be the last.

He wends here to Englond for the creyserie,

And laid William his brother to wed" Normandy,
And borrowed of him thereon an hundred thousand mark,
To wend with to the holy lond, and that was some-deal
stark....

The Earl Robert of Flanders mid3 him wend also,
And Eustace Earl of Boulogne, and mony good knight

thereto.

There wend the Duke Geoffrey, and the Earl Baldwin there,

And the other Baldwin also, that noble men were,
And kings syth all three of the holy lond.

The Earl Stephen de Blois wend eke, that great power had on hond,

And Robert's sister Curthose espoused had to wive. There wend yet other knights, the best that were alive; As the Earl of St Giles, the good Raymond,

And Niel the king's brother of France, and the Earl
Beaumond,

And Tancred his nephew, and the bishop also
Of Podys, and Sir Hugh the great earl thereto;
And folk also without tale, of all this west end
Of Englond and of France, thitherward gan wend,
Of Normandy, of Denmark, of Norway, of Britain,
Of Wales and of Ireland, of Gascony and of Spain,
Of Provence and of Saxony, and of Alemain,
Of Scotlond and of Greece, of Rome and Aquitain.

The good knight Robert Curthose was the bastard son of the Conqueror, and the monk thus describes him :

Thick man he was enow, but he nas well long,
Quarry he was and well i-made for to be strong.
Therefore his father in a time i-see his sturdy deed,
The while he was young, and byhuld," and these words
said:

"By the uprising of God, Robelin, me shall i-see,
Curthose my young son stalward knight shall be.'
For he was some deal short, he cleped him Curthose,
And he ne might never eft afterward thilk name lose.
Other lack had he nought, but he was not well long;
He was quaint of counsel and of speech, and of body
strong.

Never yet man ne might, in Christendom, ne in Paynim, In battle him bring adown of his horse none time.

ROBERT DE BRUNNE, or more properly ROBERT MANNING, a native of Brunne or Bourn, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1303, translated, under the name of Handlyng Synne, a French work by William de Waddington entitled Le Manuel des Pechiez. He afterwards (between 1327 and 1338) translated a French chronicle of England, which had been written by Piers or Peter de Langtoft, a contemporary of his own, and an Augustine canon of Bridlington, in Yorkshire. This chronicle comes down to the death of Edward I. in 1307. The earlier part is translated from Wace's Brut. Manning has been characterised as an industrious, and, for the time, an elegant writer, possessing, in particular, a great command of rhymes. The verse adopted in his chronicle is shorter than that of the Gloucester monk, making an approach to the octosyllabic stanza of modern times. language is also nearer modern English :

The

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Lordynges, that be now here,
If ye wille listene & lere
All the story of Inglande,

Als Robert Mannyng wryten it fand,
& on Inglysch has it schewed,
Not for the lerid bot for the lewed,1
For tho that in this land wonn,
That the Latyn no Frankys conn,2
For to haf solace & gamen

In felawschip when thai sitt samen.3

Manning, or De Brunne, speaks of disours (Fr. diseurs, reciters) and seggers, or sayers, in his day, who recited metrical compositions, and took unwarrantable liberties with the text of the poets. He did not write for them; he

Made nought for no disours,
Ne for no seggers, no harpours,
But for the love of simple men
That strange English cannot ken.

The following is slightly modernised :

Interview of Vortigern with Rowen, the beautiful
Daughter of Hengist.

Hengist that day did his might,
That all were glad, king and knight.
And as they were best in glading,
And well cup-shotten, knight and king,
Of chamber Rowenen so gent,
Before the king in hall she went.
A cup with wine she had in hand,
And her attire was well farand.5
Before the king on knee set,
And in her language she him gret.
'Laverd king, wassail!' said she.
The king asked, What should be.
On that language the king ne couth.8
A knight her language lerid in youth,
Bregh hight that knight, born Breton,
That lerid the language of Saxon.
This Bregh was the latimer,
What she said told Vortiger.

7

'Sir,' Bregh said, 'Rowen you greets,
And king calls and lord you leets.10
This is their custom and their gest,
When they are at the ale or feast,
Ilk man that loves where him think,
Shall say, Wassail! and to him drink.
He that bids shall say, Wassail!
The tother shall say again, Drinkhail!
That says Wassail drinks of the cup,
Kissing his fellow he gives it up.
Drinkhail he says, and drinks thereof,
Kissing him in bourd and skof.'
The king said, as the knight gan ken,
'Drinkhail,' smiling on Rowenen.
Rowen drank as her list,

And gave the king, syne him kissed.
There was the first wassail in dede,
And that first of fame gaed.

Of that wassail men told great tale,
And wassail when they were at ale,
And drinkhail to them that drank,
Thus was wassail ta'en to thank.
Fell sithes 11 that maiden ying
Wassailed and kissed the king.
Of body she was right avenant, 12
Of fair colour with sweet semblant.

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Her attire full well it seemed,
Mervelik the king she queemed.1
Of our measure was he glad,

For of that maiden he wax all mad.
Drunkenness the fiend wrought,
Of that Paen was all his thought.
A mischance that time him led,
He asked that Paen for to wed.
Hengist would not draw o lite,
Bot granted him all so tite.3

And Hors his brother consented soon.
Her friends said, it were to done.

They asked the king to give her Kent,
In dowery to take of rent.

Upon that maiden his heart was cast;
That they asked the king made fast.
I ween the king took her that day,
And wedded her on Paen's lay.*

Praise of Good Women.-From the Handling of Sins.'

Nothing is to man so dear

As woman's love in good manner.
A good woman is man's bliss,

Where her love right and steadfast is.
There is no solace under heaven,
Of all that a man may neven,5
That should a man so much glew, 6
As a good woman that loveth true;
Ne dearer is none in God's hurd,7

Than a chaste woman with lovely wurd.

The death of Edward I.-'the greatest of the Plantagenets'-July 7, 1307, called forth an elegy, preserved among the Harleian MSS. The following are two of the stanzas (spelling simplified) :

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to the Conquest, who deserved the name of a poet. His dialect is Northumbrian :

God that schope1 both se and sand
Save Edward, King of Ingland,
Both body, saul, and life,

And grante him joy withowten strife!
For mani men to him er wroth,

In Fraunce and in Flandres both;
For he defendes fast his right,

And tharto Jhesu grante him might!

A few more stanzas from the same poem (spelling simplified) will shew the animated style of Minot's narrative :

How Edward the King came in Brabant.
Edward, oure comely king,
In Braband has his woning

With many comely knight;
And in that land, truely to tell,
Ordains he still for to dwell

To time 3 he think to fight.

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RICHARD ROLLE, a hermit of the order of St Augustine, and doctor of divinity, lived a solitary life near the priory of Hampole, four miles from Doncaster. He died in 1349. Rolle wrote metrical paraphrases of certain parts of Scripture, and an original poem of a moral and religious nature, entitled The Pricke of Conscience, an elaborate work in seven books and nearly ten thousand lines. It was published for the Philological Society, edited by Mr Morris, in 1863. This poem is also in the Northumbrian dialect, many words of which are still in use in Scotland-as thole, to bear; greeting, weeping; tine, lose; auld, old; fae, foe; frae, from ; &c.

What is in Heaven.-From the 'Pricke of Conscience.'
Ther is lyf withoute ony deth,

And ther is youthe without ony elde;
And ther is alle manner welthe to welde:
And ther is rest without ony travaille;
And ther is pees without ony strife,
And ther is alle manner lykinge of lyf:
And ther is bright somer ever to se,
And ther is nevere wynter in that countrie:
And ther is more worshipe and honour,
Then evere hade kynge other emperour.
And ther is grete melodie of aungeles songe,
And ther is preysing hem amonge.

And ther is alle manner frendshipe that may be,
And ther is evere perfect love and charite;
And ther is wisdom without folye,

And ther is honeste without vileneye.
Al these a man may joyes of hevene call:
Ac yutte the most soveryn joye of alle
Is the sighte of Goddes bright face,

In wham resteth alle mannere grace.

WILLIAM LANGLAND, author of The Vision concerning Piers the Plowman, was the most vigorous, truly English, and popular of all the poets preceding Chaucer. He was born about 1332, supposed to be a native of Cleobury Mortimer, in Shropshire, and the son of a franklin or freeman. He wore the clerical tonsure, probably as having taken minor orders, and earned a precarious living by singing the placebo, dirige, and seven psalms for the good of men's souls. He says he was married, and this may perhaps explain why he never rose in the church. He has many allusions to his extreme poverty. Lastly, he describes himself as being in Bristol in the year 1399, when he wrote his last poem. This is the last trace of him, and he was then about sixty-seven years of age, so that he may not have long survived the accession of Henry IV. (September 1399). In personal appearance he was so tall that he obtained the nickname of Long Will, as he tells us in the line:

I have lyved in londe, quod I, my name is Long
Wille.*

Langland's poem is one of the most important works that appeared in England previous to the invention of printing. It is the popular representative of the doctrines which were silently bringing about the Reformation, and it is a peculiarly national poem, not only as being a much purer specimen of the English language than Chaucer, but as exhibiting the revival of the same system of alliteration which characterised the Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is, in fact, Introduction to Piers the Plowman, edited by Rev. W. W. Skeat (Oxford, 1869).

both in this peculiarity and in its political character, characteristic of a great literary and political revolution, in which the language as well as the independence of the Anglo-Saxons had at last gained the ascendency over those of the Normans. Piers is represented as falling asleep on the Malvern Hills, and seeing in his sleep a series of visions; in describing these, he exposes the corruptions of society, and particularly the dissolute lives of the religious orders, with much bitterness. The first part of the work was written about 1362; it was enlarged in 1370, and still further enlarged after 1378. Its great popularity induced some unknown writer to give a supplement in the same alliterative verse, entitled Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, being a satire on the friars. Langland in his poem versifies the curious fable of the rats conspiring to bell the cat, which figures in Scottish history of the time of James III. The alliterative style of the work will be seen from the opening

lines:

In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne,
I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were,1
In habite as an heremite, unholy of workes,
Went wyde in this world, wondres to here.
Ac2 on a May mornynge, on Maluerne hulles,
Me byfel a ferly3 of fairy, me thouhte;

I was wery forwandered, and went me to reste
Vnder a brode bank by a bornes side;

And as I lay, and lened, and loked in the wateres,
I slombred in a slepyng, it sweyued so merye.6

Warton and Ellis quote the following as a remarkable prediction of the Reformation (spelling simplified):

Ac now is Religion a rider, a roamer about,
A leader of lovedays, and a lond-buyer,

A pricker on a palfrey from manor to manor.
An heap of hounds [behind him] as he a lord were:
And but if his knave kneel that shall his cope bring,
He loured on him, and asketh him who taught him
courtesy?

Little had lords to done to give lond from her heirs
To religious, that have no ruth though it rain on her
altars.

In many places there they be parsons by hemself at

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