THEATRUM POETARUM. ENGLISH POETS. ROBERT of GLOUCESTER. 66 ROBERT firnamed of Glocester, a not "altogether obscure writer in the reign of Hen. "3d. and feeming to pass for a poet in the " esteem of Camden, who quotes divers of his "old English Rhythms in praise of his native "country England." Such is the earlieft English poet, who wrote in his native tongue, mentioned by Phillips. Nor have the later and deeper researches of Mr. Warton commenced with an earlier name than this. The following is the account of this moft able modern critic. "The first poet whose name occurs in the reign of Edw. I. and indeed in these annals, is Robert of Glocester, a monk of the abbey of Glocefter. He has left a poem of confiderable length, which is a history of England in verfe, from Brutus to the reign of B Edward Edward the first, It was evidently written after the year 1278, as the poet mentions king Arthur's fumptuous tomb, erected in that year before the high altar of Glaftonbury church; and he declares himself a living witnefs of the remarkably difmal weather, which diftinguished the day on which the battle of Evesham was fought in the year 1265. From these and other circumftances this piece appears to have been compofed about the year 1280. It is exhibited in the manufcripts, is cited by many anti-. quaries, and printed by Hearne, in the Alexandrine measure: but with equal probability might have been written in four-lined ftanzas. This rhyming chronicle is totally deftitute of art and imagination. The author has cloathed the fables of Geoffery of Monmouth in rhyme, which have often a more poetical air in Geoffrey's profe. The language is not much more eafy, or intelligible than that of many of the Norman-Saxon poems: it is full of Saxonifms, which indeed abound more or lefs in every writer before Gower and Chaucer. But this obfcurity is perhaps owing to the western dialect, in which our monk of Glocefter was educated. Provincial barbarisms are naturally the growth of extreme counties, and of fuch as are fituated at a distance from the metropolis: and it is probable, that the Saxon heptarchy, which confifted confifted of a clufter of feven independent ftates, contributed to produce as many different provincial dialects. In the mean time it is to be confidered that writers of all ages and languages have their affectations and fingularities, which occafion in each a peculiar phrafeology."* Of the poets mentioned by Phillips, the next in point of time is Chaucer; but the great critic laft cited records a few names in the intervening period, which I fhall flightly repeat. At the clofe of the reign of Edw. I. and in the year 1303, occurs ROBERT DE BRUNNE, a Gilbertine monk of the monaftery of Brunne, or Bourne, near Depyng in Lincolnshire. He was merely a tranflator. His largest work is a metrical chronicle of England.‡ Although much poetry began to be written about the reign of Edward the second, yet Mr. Warton has found only one English poet of that reign whofe name has defcended to pofterity: This is ADAM DAVY OF DAVIE, who may be placed about the year 1312. He could collect no circumstances of his life, but that he was marshall of Stratford le Bow near London.§ The first person in the reign of Edward the third, is RICHARD HAMPOLE, an eremite of the * History of English Poetry, I. 48, 49. † Ibid. p. 59. Ibid. p. 62. Ibid. p. 214. B 2 order order of St. Auguftine, and a doctor of divinity, who lived a folitary life near the nuns of Hampole, four miles from Doncaster in Yorkfhire. He flourished in 1349. His principal pieces in English rhyme are a paraphrase of part. of the book of Job, of the Lord's prayer, of the feven penitential pfalms, and the Pricke of Confcience. But his poetry has no tincture of fentiment, imagination, or elegance.+ The next poet in fucceffion is one who deferves more attention on various accounts. This is ROBERT LONGLANDE, author of the poem called the "Vifion of Pierce Plowman," a fecular prieft, and a fellow of Oriel College in Oxford, who flourished about the year 1350. This poem contains a series of diftinct vifions, which the author imagines himself to have seen, while he was fleeping after a long ramble on Malverne-hills in Worcestershire. It is a fatire on the vices of almost every profession; but particularly on the corruptions of the clergy, and the abfurdities of fuperftition. These are ridiculed with much humour and fpirit, couched under a ftrong vein of allegorical invention. But instead of availing himself of the rifing, and rapid improvements of the English language, Longland prefers and adopts the style * History of English Poetry, p. 255. † Ibid. p. 256, of |