The other is from a manuscript in the Bodleian library 12 : Ave, pulcra pelle, pulpâ, Fœcundata sine culpâ, Sine viri semine : Ave, cujus pulcrimenti Ave, pulcra naso, malis, Pulcra pulcram aliorum Ave, pulcra columellis, Sciret Seraph studio. Ave, pulcra pulcris suris, Pulcra pulcri nomine cruris, Musculis et tibiis: Pulcra plantis, pulcra talis, Pernis, et arteriis. 12 MSS. Bodl. Arch. C. 29. No. 851. In this volume there are many other rhyming verses-as Bridlington's Prophecies. Ave, pulcra fauce, nare, Potest formam graphicis; I shall quote only one passage more : Ave, castè fœcundata, Lascivâ libidine. Ave, templum summi Regis, Altare thuricæum : Ave, cujus faber poli Reservavit sibi soli Virginale hymeneum 13. Geoffrey de Vinesauf, educated at Saint Frideswide's priory, and in France and Wales, professed himself an enemy to Leonine verse, and wrote a long poem in hexameters, dedicated to pope Innocent the third, entitled De Novâ Poetriâ, to recommend both by precept and example a new and more classical style. Of his own reformed and reforming verse the following specimen from a poem written on the 13 Observe the word caraxare, from the Greek kapάoow, ažw. death of king Richard the first, on a Friday in the year 1199, may suffice 14: O Veneris lacrimosa dies! O sidus amarum! Illa dies tua nox fuit, et Venus illa venenum. This is ridiculed by Chaucer in the Nun's Priest's Tale, where Chanticleer is killed on a Friday: O Gaulfride, dear master sovereign, That, when that worthy king Richard was slain The Thirteenth Century. Leonine verse was pressed into the service of science. Alexander de Villâ Dei, a friar minor of Dole in France, and educated at Paris, in 1209 wrote a metrical entitled Doctrinale Puerorum, grammar, of which the rules were taken from Priscian, and 14 Selden, judicium de decem scriptoribus Anglicanis, Opera, Ed. Wilkins, vol. ii. p. 1166. 15 Ed. Speght, 1602, fol. 83. who may be considered as the precursor of Lilly and Busby. It was first printed at Venice in 1473, in a small quarto, with a commentary, under the title of Alexandri Grammatici Opus, interpretatum a Ludovico de Guaschis. This is the beginning: Scribere clericulis paro doctrinale novellis, Of his rules the following is a specimen; of the fourth declension he says Quarta dat us recto: dabit u, sed nisi neutro. Us genitivus habet, sed tertius Ui tibi præbet. It is uncertain when Alanus was born. He presided over the ecclesiastical school at Paris, was 16 That is, as it is explained in the commentary, Maximian's work was held to be so valuable, that they would not communicate it to their dearest friends. styled Doctor Universalis, and became a lay-brother of the Cistertian order. He was the best poet of his age, and wrote many poems of great length, and which have been much admired. Amongst these, Anti-Claudianus, in nine books, is a work of great learning, and a perfect Encyclopædia. Planctus Naturæ, in prose and verse, is an imitation of Boethius. He composed likewise Parables in verse, De Christi Incarnatione, and other works: but none in rhyme, except the following, which consists of one hundred and forty-eight lines: Contra Amorem Veneris, probans Virgines et non Mulieres ad Matrimonium esse ducendas. Vix nodosum valeo nodum denodare, Hujus arte magicâ quivis protheatur, Dulce malum amor est, et dulcor amarus, Ignara prudentia, sapiens ignarus, I |