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time. It is unncceffary to enter into particulars here concerning any of them, as they do not appear to compofed by the latter, who has alfo left us another work in French profe. [See this article in Tanner, Bibl. Brit.]---Even as late as the time of Chaucer Gower wrote his Speculum Meditantis in French, but whether in verfe or profe is uncertain. John Stowe, who was a diligent fearcher after mff, had never feen this work, [Annals, p. 326,] nor does either Bale or Pitts fet down the beginning of it, as they generally do of the books which they have had in their hands. However one French poem of Gower's has been preferved. In mf. Harl. 3869, it is connected with the Confeffio Amantis by the following rubrick; "Puifqu'il ad dit cidevant en Englois par voie d'effample la "fotie de cellui qui par amours aime par efpecial, dirra ore " apres en Francois a tout le monde en general une traitie fe"lonc les auctours, pour effampler les amants marriez, au fin "q'ils la foi de leurs feints efpoufailles pourront par fine loialte "guarder, et al honeur de dieu falvement tenir." Pr. Le creatour de toute creature. It contains 55 ftanzas of 7 verfes each, in the laft of which is the following apology for the language;

Al' univerfite de tout le monde
Johan Gower cefte Balade envoie,
Et fi jeo nai de Francois la faconde,
Pardonetz moi qe jeo de ceo forsvoie;
Jeo fuis Englois, fi quier par tiele voic
Entre excufe.

Chaucer himself feems to have had no great opinion of the performances of his countrymen in French, [Prol. to Teft, of Love, ed. 1542.] "Certes," (fays he) "there ben fome that "speke thyr poyfy mater in Frenche, of whyche speche the

Frenche men have as good a fantasye as we have in hearing "of French mennes Englythe." And he afterwards concludes with his ufual good fente; "Let then clerkes endyten in Latyn, for they have the propertye of fcience and the know"inge in that facultye, and lette Frenchmen in theyr Frenche "alfo endyte theyr queynt termes, for it is kyndly to theyr "mouthes, and let us fhewe our fantafyes in fuche wordes as "we lerneden of our dames tonge."

have invented or imported from abroad any new modes of Verfification by which the art could be at all advanced (56), or even to have improved those

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(56) It was necessary to qualify the affertion that the rhymers of this period" did not invent or import from abroad any new "modes of Versification,” as in fact Robert of Brunne (in the paffage referred to in n. 54,) has mentioned three or four forts of verfe different from any which we have hitherto met with, and which appear to have been much cultivated (if not introduced) by the writers who flourished a little before himself: he calls them Cowee,Strangere,Enterlace,and Bafton. Mr.Bridges, in a fenfible letter to Thomas Hearne [App. to Pref. to Peter Langt. p. ciii,] pointed out these terms as particularly needing an explanation; but Thomas chose rather to stuff his book with accounts of the nunnery at Little Gidding,c. which coft him only the labour of transcribing. There can be little doubt, I think, that the rhymes called Cowće and Enterlacée were derived from the Verfus Caudati and Interlaqueati of the Latin rhymers of that age. Though Robert of Brunne, in his Prologue, profeffes not to attempt these elegancies of compofition, yet he has intermixed several paffages in rhyme Couwée; [See p. 266, 273, 6, 7, 8, 9, et al.] and almost all the latter part of his work from the conqueft is written in rhyme Enterlacée, each couplet rhyming in the middle as well as at the end. [This was the nature of the Verfus Interlaqueati, according to the following specimen, mf. Harl. 1902. ;

Plaufus Grecorum | lux cecis et via claudis
Incola celorum virgo digniffima laudis.]

I cannot pretend to define the exact form of the rhyme called Bafton, but I dare fay it received its appellation from the Car melite Robert Bafton, a celebrated Latin rhymer in the reigns of Edward I. and II. [See Tanner, Bibl. Brit. in v. and Hearne's Pref. to Fordun, p, 226, et feq.] His verfes upon the battle of Bannockburn, in 1313, are printed in the Appendix to Fordun, p. 1570; they afford inftances of all the whimsical combinations of thymes which can well be conceived to find a place

which were before in ufe. On the contrary, as their works were intended for the ear more than for the eye, to be recited rather than read, they were apt to be more attentive to their rhymes than to the exactness of their metres, from a prefumption, I fuppofe, that the defect or redundance of a syllable might be easily covered in the recitation, especially if accompanied, as it often was, by fome mufical inftrument.

§ 6. Such was, in general, the state of English poetry at the time when Chaucer probably made his first eflays. The ufe of rhyme was established, not exclufively, (for the author of The Visions of Pierce Ploughman wrote after the year 1350 (57) without rhyme)

In the Latin heroick metre. As to rhyme Strangerė, I fuspect (upon confidering the whole paffage in Robert of Brunne) that is was rather a general name, including all forts of uncommon rhymes, than appropriated to any particular species.----Upon the whole, if this account of thefe new modes of Verfification thall be allowed to be any thing like the truth, I hope I fhall be thought juftified in having added, "that the art could not be at all advanced by them."

(57) This is plain from fol. 68, edit. 1550, where the year 1350 is named as a year of great scarcity. Indeed from the mention of the kitten in the tale of the Rattons, fol. 3, 4, I fhould fufpect that the author wrote at the very end of the reign of Edward III. when Richard was become heir-apparent. ----The Vifions of (i. e. concerning) Pierce Ploughman are ge nerally afcribed to one Robert Langland; but the beft mi that I have feen make the Chriftian name of the author William, without mentioning his furname: fo in ms. Cotton, Vefp. B. xvi, at the end of page 1, is this rubrick; "Hic incipit fe"cundus paffus de vifione Willelmi de Petro Plouhman." And in ver. 5 of p. 2, instead of " And fayde, sonne, flepeft thou ?” the mf. has" And fayde, Wille, Aspeft thou ?” See alfo the account of mf. Harl. 2376, in the Harleian catalogue.----I can

but very generally, so that in this refpect he had little to do but to imitate his predeceffors. The metrical part of our poetry was capable of more improvement, by the palifhing of the measures already in ufe, as well as by the introducing of new modes of Verfitication, and how far Chaucer actually contributed to the improvement of it in both or either of these particulars we are now to confider.

§ 7. With refpe& to the regular metres then in ufe they may be reduced, I think, to four. Fift, the

net help obferving that thefe Vifions have been printed from fo faulty and imperfect a mf. that the author, whoever he was, would find it difficult to recognize his own work. However, the judgment of the learned Dodors Hickes and Percy, [Gram. 4. S. p. 217.—Kel. of Anc. Poet. v. ii. p. 265,] with refped to the laws of his Verlification is confirmed by the mff. Each of his verfes is in fact a diftich composed of two verfes after the Saxon form, without rhyme, and not reducible to any certain metre. I do not mean to say that a few of his veries may not be picked out confiiting of fourteen and fifteen fyllables, and refembling the metre ufed in the Ormulum, and there are till more of twelve and thirteen fyllables, which might pafs for very tolerable alexandrines; but then, on the other hand, there is a great number of his verfes (warranted for genuine by the beit mil.) which cannot by any mode of pronunciation be extended beyond nine or ten fyllables; fo that it is impoffible to imagine that his verfe was intended to confift of any determinate number of fyllables. It is as clear that his accents, upon which the harmony of modern rythms depends, are not difpofed according to any regular fyftem. The firit divifion of a verfe is often trochaick, and the laft iambick, and vice verf.. The only rule which he feems really to have prescribed to Limfelf is what has been taken notice of by his firit editor, vis. *to have three wordes at the leafte in every verfe whiche be'ginne with fome one letter." Crowley's Pref. to edit. 1550. Volume I.

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long iambick metre (58), confifting of not more than fifteen nor less than fourteen fyllables, and broken

(58) The most perfect example of this metre has been given above, (n. 52,) from the Ormulum. Each verfe is compofed of fifteen fyllables, and broken by a cæfura on the eighth, which always terminates a word. The accents are to difpofed upony the even fyllables, particularly the eighth and fourteenth, as to produce the true iambick cadence.----The learned reader will recollect that the Political Verfes (as they are called) of Tzetzes and others, who wrote when the Greek verfification was become rythmical inftead of metrical, are chiefly of this form. [See Du Cange, v. Politici verfus.] And it is remarkable that about the time of our Orm Ciullo d'Alcamo, a poet of Sicily, where the Greek was still a living language, [Montf. Paleog. Gr. 1. vi,] made ufe of thefe verses of fifteen fyllables, intermixed with hendecafyllables, in the only production of his which has been preferved. [Raccolta dell' Allacci, p. 403-16.] The firft ftanza is quoted by Crescimbeni, [lor. d. V. P. 1. i. p. 3,] who however labours very much to perfuade us that the verfes in queftion ought not to be confidered as verfes of fifteen fyllables, but as containing each of them two verfes, the one of eight and the other of feven fyllables. If this were allowed the nature of the verfe would not be altered; [Sec before, n. 54,] but the fuppofition is highly improbable, as by that diftribution there would be three verfes in each ftanza not rhyming. In what follows Crefcimbeni thews very plainly that he had not adverted to the real nature of Ciullo's meafure, for he compares it with the noted tetrameter, Gallias Cafar fubegit, Nicomedes Cæfarem,which is a trochaick, where-' as thefe verfes of Ciullo are evidently iambicks, like thofe of Orm.-I fufpect that if we could recover the genuine text of Robert of Gloucefter he would be found to have written in this metre: it was used by Warner in his Albion's England (another chronicle in verfe) in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and Gascoigne about the fame time [Inftruction concerning the making of Verfe in Eng. Signature U ii,] fpeaks of the couplet, confifting of one verfe of twelve and another of four

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