about that time either addreffed directly to the prin cipal perfons at the English court, or at leaft written on fuch fubjects as we may fuppofe to have been moft likely to engage their attention. Whatever therefore of English poetry was produced in this infancy of the art being probably the work of illiterate authors, and circulating only among the vulgar (51), we need not be much furprifed that no more of it has been tranfmitted down to pofterity. § 4. The learned Hickes however has pointed out to us two very curious pieces which may with probability be referred to this period. The firft of them is a paraphrafe of the gofpel hiftories, entitled Ormulum (52), by one Orm or Ormin. It feems to have norant of the English language) was by no means behindhand with his matter in his encouragement of French poets; for of this bithop the paffage in Hoveden is to be understood which Mr. Walpole has applied to the king himself; it is part of a letter of Hugh Bishop of Coventry, who, fpeaking of the Bithop of Ely, fays that he, "ad augmentum et famam fui nominis, "emendicata carmina et rythmos adulatorios comparabat, "et de regno Francorum cantores et joculatores muneribus "allexerat, ut de illo canerent in plateis; et jam dicebatur "ubique, quod non erat talis in orbe." Hoveden, p. 103. (51) To thefe caufes we may probably impute the lofs of thofe fongs upon Hereward (the laft perhaps of the Saxon heroes) which according to Ingulphus were fung about the streets in his time. Ht. Croyl. p. 69. Robert of Brunne alfo mentions a rhyme concerning Gryine the fither, the founder of Grymesby, Hanelok the Dane, and his wife Goldeburgh, daughter to a King Athelwold, who all now, together with their bard, -illacrymabiles Urgentur ignotique longa Nocte See Tranflation of Peter of Langtoft, p. 25, and Camden's Brit. P. 569. (52) The Ormulum feems to be placed by Hickes among the been confidered as mere profe by Hickes and by Wanley, who have both given large extracts from it; but I apprehend every reader who has an ear for metre will eafy perceive that it is written very exactly in verfes of fifteen fyllables, without rhyme, in imitation of the most common fpecies of the Latin first writings after the conqueft, [Gram, Ang, Sax. c. xxii. p. 165,] but I confefs I cannot conceive it to have been earlier than the reign of Henry II. There is a peculiarity in the author's orthography which confifts in doubling the confonants; 2. g. brother he writes brotherr; after, affierr, &c. He has done this by defign, and charges thofe who thall copy his book to be very careful to write thofe letters twice which he has written fo, as otherwife, he affures them, "they will not write "the word right." Hickes has taken notice of this peculiarity, but has not attempted to explain the author's reafons for it; and indeed without a more perfect knowledge than we now probably can have of the Saxon pronunciation they seem to tally inexplicable. In the few lines which I think it necessary to quote here as a fpecimen of the metre, I thall venture (firft begging Ormin's pardon for difregarding his injunction) to leave out the fuperfluous letters, and I thall also, for my own cafe as well as that of the reader, tranfcribe them in modern characters. The first lines of Wanley's extract from mf. Bod. Junius. 1. [Cat. Codd. mf. Septent, p. 59,] will answer my purpole as well as any other. Nu, brother Walter, brother min after the fleshes kinde, The reader will obferve, that in calling these verses of fifteen fyllables Iconfider the words---kinde, trowthe,wife, fette,wille, tare--as diffyllables------The laws of metre require that they (a) r. forthed, mf. tetrameter iambic. The other piece (53), which is a moral poem upon old age, &c. is in rhyme, and in a metre much resembling the former, except that the verfe of fifteen fyllables is broken into two, of which the first should regularly contain eight and the fecond feven fyllables; but the metre is not fo exactly obferved (at least in the copy which Hickes has followed) as it is in the Ormulum. S 5. In the next interval, from the latter end of fhould be fo confidered as much as folghen and lened ; and for the fame reason thride, in ver. 3, and haje, in ver. 6 and 7, are to be pronounced as confifting of two fyllables.——It is the more extraordinary that neither Hickes nor Wanley thould have perceived that Ormin wrote in metre, as he himself men tions his having added words for the fake of filling his rhyme or verfe, for he calls it by both those names in the following pallages; Ic hafe fett her o this hock among Godfpelles wordes And again, And ic ne mihte noht min fers ay with Godfpelles wordes, Among Godspelles wordes don min word, min fers to fillen It is fcarce necessary to remark that rhyme is here to be underftood in its original sense, as denoting the whole verfe, and not merely the confonancy of the final fyllables. In the fecond quotation fers or verse, is substituted for it as a fynonymous term. Indeed I doubt whether in the time of Ormin the word rhyme was, in any language, ufed fingly to convey the idea of confonant terminations. (53) A large extract from this poem has been printed by Hickes, [Gram. Ang, Sax. c. xxiv. p. 222,] but evidently from very incorrect mff. It begins thus; le am nu elder thanne ic wes A wintre and ec a lore; Ic ealdi more thanne ic dede, Mi wit oghte to bi more. the reign of Henry III. to the middle of the fourteenth century, when we may fuppofe Chaucer was beginning to write, the number of English rhymers feems to have increafed very much. Befides feveral whofe names we know (54), it is probable that a great part of the anonymous authors, or rather tranf lators (55), of the popular poems which (from their (54) Robert of Gloucefter and Robert of Brunne have been mentioned already.-To thefe may be added Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hampole, who died in 1 349, after having com→ pofed a large quantity of English rhymes. See Tanner, Bib. Brit. art. Humpole.--Laurence Minot, who has left a collection of poems upon the principal events of the former parts of the reign of Edward III. mf. Cotton, Galba. E. ix.---Within the fame period flourished the two poets who are mentioned with great commendations by Robert of Brunne [App. to Pref. to Peter Langt. p. xcix,] under the names of Erceldoun and of Kendale. We have no memorial, that I know, remaining of the latter befides this paffage; but the former I take to have been the famous Thomas Leirmouth of Erceldoun, (or Erfülton, as it is now called, in the thire of Merch) who lived in the time of Edward 1. and is generally diftinguished by the honourable addition of The Rhymour. As the learned editor of Ancient Scottith poems, Edinburgh 1770, has for irrefragable reafons deprived this Thomas of a prophefy in verfe which had ufually been afcribed to him, [See Mackenzie, art. Thomas Rhymour,] I am inclined to make him some amends, by attributing to him a romance of Sir Triftrem, of which Robert of Brunne, an excellent judge! (in the place above cited) fays, Over geftes it has th'efteem Over all that is or was, If men it fayd as made Thomas. (55) See Dr. Percy's curious Catalogue of English metrical romances, prefixed to the third volume of Reliques of Ancient Poefy. I am inclined to believe that we have no English romance prior to the age of Chaucer which is not a translation having been originally written in the Roman or French language) were called Romances flourished about this or imitation of some earlier French romance. The principal of thofe which being built upon English ftories bid the fairest for having been originally compofed in English are allo extant in French. A confiderable fragment of Hornchild (or Dan Horn, as he is there called) is to be found in French alexandrines in mi. Harl. 527. The firft part of Guy of Warwick is in French, in the octofyllable metre, in mf. Harl. 3775, and the last part in the fame language and metre in mf. Bib. Reg. 8 F. ix. How much may be wanting I have not had opportunity to examine. I have never feen Bevis in French; but Du Fresnoy in his Biblioth. des Romans, t. ii. p. 241, mentions a mf, of Le Roman de Beuves de Hantonne, and another of Le Roman de Beues et Rofiane, en rime; and the Italians, who were certainly more likely to borrow from the French than from the English, language, had got among them a romance di Buovo d'Anto na, before the year 1348. Quadrio, Storia della Poesia, t. vi, P. 542.----However, I think it, extremely probable that these three romances, though originally written in French, were compofed in England, and perhaps by Englishinen, for we find that the general currency of the French language here engaged several of our own countrymen to use in it in their compofitions. Peter of Langtoft may be reckoned a dubious inftance, as he is faid by fome to have been a Frenchman; but Robert Groffetefte, the famous Bithop of Lincoln in the time of Henry III. was a native of Suffolk, and yet he wrote his Eballeau d''Amours and his Manuel des Pechees in French. [Tanner's Bib. Brit. and Hearne's Pref. to Robs of Gloucester, p. 58.]—There is a tranflation of Cato in French verse by Helis de Guinceftre, i. e. Winchefter, inf. Harl. 4388, and a romance alfo in French verfe, which I fuppofe to be the origi nal of the English Ipomedon [Percy's Cat. n. 22,] by Hue de Rotelande, is to be found in mf. Cotton, Vesp. A. vii.---A French dialogue in verfe, mf. Bod. 3904, entitled La pleinte par entre mis Sire Henry de Lacy Counte de' Nichole et Sire auter de Bybelefworth par la croiferie en la terre Seinte, was most probably |