Robert of Gloucester.-Specimen.- Various small Poems apparently written during the latter part Change in the Language produced by frequent Translations from the French. Minstrels.- Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole.-Laurence Minot. Pierce Ploughman's Vision.-Specimens Hugh de Campeden.-Thomas Chestre.-Scotish Poets. Clerk of Tranent.-Holland.—Henry the Minstrel.-Extracts.- REIGNS OF EDWARD IV. AND V.- Harding.-Scogan.-Norton.- Ripley. -Lady Juliana Berners.-Specimen from the Book of Hawking and Hunting.-William of Nas- syngton.-Lord Rivers.-Scotish Poets.-Robert HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH POETRY AND LANGUAGE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON LANGUAGE.-ON THE POETRY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.-SPECIMEN OF SAXON POETRY. THERE is, perhaps, no species of reading so popular as that which presents a description of manners and customs considerably different from our own; and it is the frequency of such pictures, interspersed in the relations of voyages and travels, that principally recommends them to notice, and explains the avidity with which they are usually received by the public. But, as the pleasure we derive from this source must be proportionate to the degree of interest which we take in the persons described, it is probable that a series of the works of our own ancestors, and particularly of their poetry, which, whatever may be its defects, is sure to exhibit the most correct and lively delineation of contemporary manners, would attract very general notice, if it were not considered, by the greater number of readers, as a hopeless attempt, to search for these sources of amusement and VOL. I. B information, amidst the obscurity of a difficult and almost unintelligible language. To appreciate this difficulty is one of the objects of the present sketch: it may, therefore, be proper, for the benefit of the unlearned reader, to preface it by a few general remarks on this part of the subject. It is well known that our English is a compound of the Anglo-Saxon, (previously adulterated with a mixture of the Danish,) and of the Norman-French: but the proportion in which these elements were combined, at any period of our history, cannot be very easily ascertained. Hickes is of opinion, that no less than nine-tenths of our present English words are of Saxon origin; as a familiar proof of which he observes, that there are in the Lord's Prayer only three words of French or Latin extraction. On the other hand, Mr. Tyrwhitt contends that, about the time of Chaucer, " though the form of our language was still Saxon, the matter was, in a great measure, French." These opinions, indeed, relate to such different periods, that they are not, strictly speaking, capable of being opposed to each other; but it is nearly evident that both are exaggerated: Dr. Hickes having probably imagined that he saw traces of a Gothic etymology in words which were, in fact, purely French; while Mr. Tyrwhitt, being misled by his own glossary of obsolete words, (in which the two languages are pretty nearly balanced,) has neglected to observe that the greater part of his author's text, which required no explanation, was almost solely derived from the Saxon. But, be the proportion what it may, it should seem that we ought to possess in the various existing glossaries of the Gothic and Romance dialects, the means of recovering nearly all the original materials of our language. It is true that these materials, in passing from the parent tongues into English, are likely to have undergone considerable changes in their appearance: it may, there |