Not for the lered but for the lewed [lay people]; That the Latin ne Frankys conn [know neither Latin nor French], For to hauf solace and gamen, In felauschip when tha sitt samen [together]; And it is wisdom for to wytten [know] The state of the land, and hef it wryten, And of what kynde it first began; And gude it is for many thynges For to here [hear] the dedis of kynges, Whilk [which] were foles, and whilk were wyse, And whilk of tham couth [knew] most quantyse [quaintness, i.e., artfulness]; And whilk did wrong, and whilk ryght, And whilk mayntened pes [peace] and fight. Of thare dedes sall be mi sawe [story], In what tyme, and of what law, I sholl you tell, from gre to gre [degree, i.e., step by step] The language of the "Ormulum," a singular poem of the thirteenth century, not rhymed but rhythmical, is of an intermediate character; it has fewer Anglo-Saxon forms, and more French or Latin words, than Layamon's "Brut," but is much less modernized than that of Manning. It consists of passages and narratives, taken from Scripture, and rudely versified, with accompanying commentaries. The date of its composition is supposed to be about 1250. The following passage may serve as a specimen: "Annd o patt illke nahht tatt Crist patt cann innsihht o steorrness. And son se pegg þatt steorrne leom preo kingess off patt illke land TRANSLATION. "And on that same night that Christ Was He, as His will was, Manifested in yet another fashion. Full broad, and bright, and fair, That knows insight of stars. And that people was a heathen people, Because that He them would then To right belief turn. And, as soon as they that star's gleam There saw up in the sky, Three kings of that same land Full well it understood, And knew clearly thereby That such a new king was showed forth, 1 The doubling of the consonants throughout this extract is merely a peculiar device employed by Ormin, the author, to indicate that the preceding vowel in all such cases is short. 2 From the Ormulum (edited by Dr. R. White, 1852), vol. i., line 3,426. CHAPTER II.. EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD. 1350-1450. HITHERTO Such English writers as we have met with since the Conquest have generally appeared in the humble guise of translators or imitators. In the period before us we at last meet with original invention applied on a large scale: this, therefore, is the point at which English literature takes its true commencement. The Latin and French compositions, which engaged so much of our attention in the previous period, may in this be disposed of in a few words. That Englishmen still continued to write French poetry, we have the proof in many unprinted poems by Gower, and might also infer from a passage, often quoted, in the prologue to Chaucer's "Testament of Love." But few such pieces are of sufficient merit to bear printing. In French prose scarcely any thing can be mentioned besides the despatches, treaties, &c., contained in Rymer's "Fœdera," and similar compilations, and the original draft of Sir John Maundevile's "Travels in the Holy Land." Froissart's famous "Chronicle " may, indeed, almost be considered as belonging to us, since it treats principally of English feats of arms, and its author held a post in the court of Edward III. In Latin poetry there is nothing that deserves men tion except the "Liber Metricus" of Thomas Elmham, concerning the career of Henry V.; edited by Mr. Cole, for the Rolls Series, in 1858. Elmham, who flourished about the year 1440, was a Benedictine monk in the monastery of St. Austin's, Canterbury. The poem contains 1349 lines, and is, as Byron would have said, not so much poetry as "prose run mad;" in proof of which, let these lines suffice : "Hic Jon Oldcastel Christi fuit insidiator, Amplectens hæreses, in scelus omne ruens; Whether the last line means, "He wishes ill to the king's devout objects," or any thing else, it is hard to say. In Latin prose, we have a version, made by himself, of "Maundevile's Travels," and the chroniclers (amongst others of less note) Robert de Avesbury, Henry Knyghton, Thomas Walsingham, and John Fordun. Robert de Avesbury was registrar of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Court, and wrote a fair and accurate history of the reign of Edward III. (published by Hearne in 1720), coming down to the year 1356, in which, or in the following year, he died. Henry Knyghton, the date of whose death is unknown, was a canon regular of Leicester; he is the author of "Compilatio de Eventibus Angliæ a tempore Regis Edgari usque ad mortem Regis Ricardi II." His account of the rise of Lollardism, though written with a strong anti-Wycliffite bias, is highly interesting and valuable. The "Historia Anglicana" of Thomas Walsingham, a work to which all modern historians continually refer in writing of the events of the fourteenth and earlier portion of the fifteenth centuries, was edited by Mr. Riley for the Rolls Series in 1864. Scarcely any thing is known of Walsingham, except that he was a monk of St. Albans; that he compiled, besides the " Historia,” an account of Normandy, called " Ypodigma Neustriæ; and that he was still alive in 1419. The "Historia," as it stands, extends from 1272 to 1422; but Mr. Riley shows some ground for supposing that the portion compiled by Walsingham himself may reach no further than to 1392; the only really original and valuable part even of this being the fifteen years between 1377 and 1392, while the concluding thirty years were added by some unknown hand. John Fordun, a secular priest of Kincardineshire, is the author of the "Scotichronicon," a history of Scotland in Latin prose, written toward the close of the fourteenth century. The entire work contains sixteen books; but of these only five and part of the sixth were composed by Fordun, the remainder being the work of Abbot Bower, who brings down the story to the death of James I. in 1437.1 In theology and philosophy occurs the name of John Wyclif, the ablest schoolman of his day in England, admired by his contemporaries as an expert logician and prolific system-monger, long before he wrote those attacks on the hierarchy, the mendicant friars, and the received doctrine concerning the eucharist, which gained for him with posterity the name of the first English reformer. His numerous Latin works, very few of which have ever been printed, are classed by Dr. Shirley in his excellent "Catalogue of the Original Works of John Wyclif," 2 under six heads: 1. Philosophy and Systematic Theology; 2. Sermons, Expositions, 1 Irving's History of Scottish Poetry, edited by Dr. Carlyle, p. 116. 2 Clarendon Press, 1865. |