the Virgin, is printed in GUEST; the romances of Ipomydon, Richard, and King Alisaunder, printed in Weber's Metrical Romances; Havelok, edited by Sir F. Madden; and the Harrowing of Hell, published in the Archæologia.

FOURTEENTH CENTURY.-ROBERT MANNING OF BRUNNE, and hence sometimes called Robert de Brunne. He was author of the Rhyming Chronicle of England, the first of which is a version of WACE'S Brut, and the second was a translation of LANGTOFT's Chronicle, a work written in French by Peter de Langtoft, of Yorkshire. He is also said to have made a metrical version of a work written by Robert Grostete, the ever memorable Bishop of Lincoln, entitled Manuele Pecche, or a treatise on the decalogue and the seven deadly sins. The work of Grostête was in French metre. ADAM DAVIE, marshal of Stratford-le-bow, was the author of certain Visions, preserved in MS. in the Bodleian Library; and, probably, of the Siege of Jerusalem, printed in GUEST; the Legend of St. Alexius, Scripture Histories, and Life of Alexander. Part of the last is in Ellis.

WILLIAM OF SHOREHAM is also said to have written considerable poetry in the early part of this century, but we are not aware that any of it has been published.

RANDAL HIGGENET was the author of the Chester Plays. They appear to have been written about 1327, but were not published until the author had visited Rome three times, to obtain permission.

RICHARD ROLLE of Hampole made a translation of the Stimulus Conscientiæ, or Prick of Conscience. A metrical paraphrase of the book of Job is also ascribed to him, as also of the Lord's Prayer and the seven penitential psalms.

GILBERT PILKINGTON, Rector of Tottenham. He wrote the Tournament of Tottenham, and a poem on the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

WILLIAM HERBERT make a collection of Hymns and Antiphones, which were preserved for a long time.

THOMAS VICARY of Wimburne, Dorsetshire, wrote the romance of Apollonius of Tyre.

WILLIAM, patronized by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, translated the romance of William and the Werwolf.

This brings us to the days of LANGLAND, GOWER, and CHAUCER, who lived about the same time. And here we take leave of the subject for the present. It would have been a pleasant task to have gone more into detail on very many points, to have described more fully many of the An

glo-Saxon poems, their peculiarities and contents; but this would have extended our article far beyond our limits. We trust, however, that the brief account we have been able to present our readers will give them a bird's-eye view of the field, and the objects contained in it, and that it will spur some of them forward to explore the beauties which lie hidden therein.

ART. IV. Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, from 1602 to 1625. Now first collected from Original Records and Contemporaneous printed Documents, and illustrated with Notes. By ALEXANDER YOUNG. Boston: 1841. C. C. Little and J. Brown. 8vo. pp. 504.

IT is the unlucky fate of men who involve themselves in religious controversies, that they draw a veil over their own virtues. Considering that the worst enemies of the English puritans have never charged upon them any immoralities, we might be at a loss to account for the opprobrious epithets which have been attached to their names, their opinions and practices, in English literature. In the sequel of our remarks we shall endeavor to explain this wonder. At present we may say, that the weaker party in a religious controversy, always, for the time, loses the credit of even its most meritorious qualities. It is put forward on the field of observation as engaged in a quarrel, as in a militant posture, as oppugning, destroying and insulting what others reverence; and thus while its own language is never as gentle as it might be, it provokes abuse from its opponents. Meanwhile, whatever of devotion, affection, or virtue, may properly belong to the party, is known only to its own members. They who are familiar with its secret counsels, with its private relations and communions, can rightly stimulate the honest and worthy motives which actuate it. If this statement be true, and it would admit of a various, not to say a tedious proof, then it is plain that justice can be done to a religious sect only after time has softened its harsh features, and exposed its private history, its individual memoirs. When in the tranquil retrospect of long years we can make the long past present before us by the pages of faithful history, we shall judge not only more charitably, but far more truly of the extravagances

and the excellences of the contending sect. This fair judgment is not to be expected from contemporaries. For not only do their own prejudices and opinions hinder it, but, as we have said, the antagonist attitude of the dissentients brings into use the weapon of fight, rather than the olive branch. It is on this account we are always pleased to receive as among the treasures of our library, all those memoirs and histories of modern publication which are compiled from the private records of ancient sects. We feel that we are enabled to divest ourselves of our prejudices, to do justice to those who may have been wronged, and, what is most desirable of all, to judge each vexed cause after full knowledge and impartial study. Good service is done to any sect, at any time, by affixing its name to one or more volumes of accurate narrative or biography, in which it may begin, pursue, and complete its defence, without interruption or clamor. This service Mr. Young has performed for the "pilgrim fathers," restricting the use of that term to those who have the sole title to it, the original settlers or planters at Plymouth Colony. It is but little to say of the book before us, that it has wiped off from the page of history some odious slanders which had become attached to the characters and proceedings of those devoted men. It has performed a higher service for them, and for us, in giving us, from their own pens, some minute and most ingenuous narratives of their private and social life. As we have read its pages, we have more than once felt ourselves as mingling in the company of that austere, but by no means cheerless band of exiles. We have read of their sour visages, their bigoted and fanatical zeal, their obstinacy and spiritual pride, but in the pages before us not a single statement, opinion, action, or occurrence, has verified or confirmed the prejudice which dwelt in our minds concerning them. We do, indeed, observe, (p. 349,) that on a fast day which they kept on occasion of a drought in their plantation, their exercise continued "some eight or nine hours," and under present circumstances we cannot pretend that the length of the service would not be irksome to us, yet they had willing spirits, and thought that a special service on their part would ensure a special providence from God; their expectations being most remarkably fulfilled in this instance by a copious and fruitful rain. We do not hesitate to say, that there never was a body of men who more solemnly and cheerfully realized the near presence of God, and found more

instant comfort in prayer, than those pilgrim fathers. They felt themselves not only to be pilgrims through this wilderness, but pilgrims to a heavenly country, and they often spoke as if with their hands they grasped the staff which the Almighty stretched forth for their guidance. Every occurrence presented itself to their minds in a religious aspect. They knew of no such thing as an accident. Though the bond by which they were limited together in their perils, and trials, and prayers, must have been one of intense affection, yet the survivors of the first year at Plymouth scarcely speak with regret of the half of the company who within that year were gathered to their rest. The successive deaths are chronicled-"This month there died six"-" This month there died eight;" but there is no lamentation, no bitterness of mourning. They were believed to have been mercifully delivered from evil to come, to have been translated after a brief trial, and they were envied rather than mourned. When" the burial hill" became as populous as the dwellings of the living, they found a new attachment to the spot which they seemed to have visited on their way to heaven. There was no weak point in their faith, it was in reality "the substance," the solid, palpable" substance of things hoped for," not a vague and unstable shadow. It was this complete and undoubting piety which bore up their spirits under a weight much more heavy than those which had frustrated every former attempt upon the part of the English to plant a flourishing colony upon this continent.

We conceive that the general effect which the book before us will produce upon all its readers, will be to demand from them an allowance of all the merit which religious heroism may claim to the pilgrim fathers. They will stand clear from all unworthy imputations in the eyes of the world. In the infinite variety of manifestations which the religious sentiment has made of itself, their mode of piety will not require an especial vindication, nor a peculiar indulgence from charity. Sincerity, consistency and faithfulness to professed sentiments, go far to excuse the eccentricities of a religious sect, and there certainly should have been a place in Christian history for the exhibition of that aspect of faith. The prevalent assumption that obstinacy or bigotry was the moving impulse which induced the pilgrim fathers to cross the ocean, and plant a colony in Virginia, is an equal wrong to them, and to the facts of history. It is remarkable that

the undisturbed enjoyment of their own peculiar fancy, or faith, is not mentioned even as one among the many reasons which induced them to come hither. Nor could they have been by any means assured, that after their arrival here they would have been undisturbed. The mercantile company of whom they purchased their own privilege, was not pledged in any way to regard their religious motives or prejudices, but viewed the company of emigrants only in the light of adventurers for trading or fishing. The pilgrims knew that it was not in their power to decide who their next neighbors might be, when their purpose was gained. Indeed it so happened that the feeble colony was soon troubled by the proximity of a disorderly and irreligious company whom they were obliged as Englishmen to defend against the animosity which, by injustice, had been excited against it among the Indians. Those settlers at Weymouth were no credit to their country, and the fact that the territory around them was thus open to settlers of any character, must even have induced the Plymouth colonies to fear that they might have worse neighbors in the new world than they had left behind in the old.

Their perseverance and success after their arrival here, prove that obstinacy could not have been the impulse which guided them; for obstinacy is one of those unworthy passions which, after leading men into difficulties, leaves them there, without helping them out from, or sustaining them under their burdens. If they had come hither with no better furniture in their breasts than misanthropy and bigotry, their passion would have been cooled on the Atlantic, or at least by their houseless endurance of a New England winter immediately after their arrival, and they would have seized the opportunity of the return of their vessel in the spring to have gone back to their homes. But in no record that they have left behind them is there any expression of regret at the step which they had taken-any suggestion of a conditional purpose to abandon their enterprise, even should death reduce their number to two individuals. They were able, in spite of hardships and reverses, which our imaginations cannot paint, to carry out their plans, even to realize more than they had hoped, and, therefore, we must allow that purposes of noble and devoted sincerity entered with them upon their work. Imputations upon their motives reached their ears, and they do not seem to have been anxious to answer them,