Ay me! I am forlorne, Now Phillida is dead! Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, My Phillida is dead! I'll stick a branch of willow END OF THE SECOND BOOK. 45 RELIQUES OF ANCIENT POETRY, &c. SERIES THE SECOND. BOOK III. : I. The Complaint of Conscience. I SHALL begin this Third Book with an old allegoric Satire a manner of moralizing, which, if it was not first introduced by the author of Pierce Plowman's Visions, was at least chiefly brought into repute by that ancient satirist. It is not so generally known that the kind of verse used in this ballad hath any affinity with the peculiar metre of that writer, for which reason I shall throw together some cursory remarks on that very singular species of versification, the nature of which has been so little understood. ON THE ALLITERATIVE METRE, WITHOUT RHYME, We learn from Wormius', that the ancient Islandic poets 1 Literatura Runica. Hafniæ, 1636, 4to.-1651, fol. The Islandic language is of the same origin as our Anglo-Saxon, being both used a great variety of measures: he mentions 136 different kinds, without including rhyme, or a correspondence of final syllables: yet this was occasionally used, as appears from the Ode of Egil, which Wormius hath inserted in his book. He hath analyzed the structure of one of these kinds of verse, the harmony of which neither depended on the quantity of the syllables, like that of the ancient Greeks and Romans, nor on the rhymes at the end, as in modern poetry, but consisted altogether in alliteration, or a certain artful repetition of the sounds in the middle of the verses. This was adjusted according to certain rules of their prosody, one of which was, that every distich should contain at least three words beginning with the same letter or sound. Two of these correspondent sounds might be placed either in the first or second line of the distich, and one in the other: but all three were not regularly to be crowded into one line. This will be best understood by the following examples 2. "Meire og Minne "Gab Ginunga There were many other little niceties observed by the Islandic poets, who, as they retained their original language and peculiarities longer than the other nations of Gothic race, had time to cultivate their native poetry more, and to carry it to a higher pitch of refinement, than any of the rest. Their brethren, the Anglo-Saxon poets, occasionally used the same kind of alliteration, and it is common to meet in their writings with similar examples of the foregoing rules. Take an instance or two in modern characters 3: dialects of the ancient Gothic or Teutonic. Vide Hickesii Præfat. in Grammat. Anglo-Saxon, & Moeso-Goth. 4to. 1689. 2 Vide Hickes, Antiq. Literatur. Septentrional. tom. i. p. 217. 3 Ibid. "Skeop tha and Skyrede "Ham and Heahsetl I know not, however, that there is any where extant an entire Saxon poem all in this measure. But distiches of this sort perpetually occur in all their poems of any length. Now, if we examine the versification of Pierce Plowman's Visions, we shall find it constructed exactly by these rules; and therefore each line, as printed, is in reality a distich of two verses, and will, I believe, be found distinguished as such, by some mark or other in all the ancient MSS. viz. "In a Somer Season, when 'hot'4 was the Sunne, I Habite as an Harmet | unHoly of werkes, Went Wyde in thys world | Wonders to heare," &c. So that the author of this poem will not be found to have invented any new mode of versification, as some have supposed, but only to have retained that of the Old Saxon and Gothic poets: which was probably never wholly laid aside, but occasionally used at different intervals: though the ravages of time will not suffer us now to produce a regular series of poems entirely written in it. There are some readers whom it may gratify to mention, that these Visions of Pierce [i. e. Peter] the Plowman, are attributed to Robert Langland, a secular priest, born at Mortimer's Cleobury in Shropshire, and Fellow of Oriel College in Oxford, who flourished in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., and published his poem a few years after 1350. It consists of xx Passus or Breaks 5, 4 So I would read with Mr. Warton, rather than either 'soft,' as in MS. or 'set,' as in P.CC. 5 The poem properly contains xxi. parts: the word Passus, adopted by the author, seems only to denote the break or division between two parts, though by the ignorance of the printer applied exhibiting a series of visions, which he pretends happened to him on Malvern hills in Worcestershire. The author excels in strong allegoric painting, and has with great humour, spirit, and fancy, censured most of the vices incident to the several professions of life; but he particularly inveighs against the corruption of the clergy, and the absurdities of superstition. Of this work I have now before me four different editions in black-letter quarto. Three of them are printed in 1550 by Robert Crowley dwelling in Elye rentes in Holburne. It is remarkable that two of these are mentioned in the title-page as both of the second impression, though they contain evident variations in every page. The other is said to be newlye imprynted after the authors olde copy by Owen Rogers, Feb. 21, 1561. As Langland was not the first, so neither was he the last that used this alliterative species of versification. To Rogers's edition of the Visions is subjoined a poem, which was probably writ in imitation of them, entitled Pierce the Plowman's Crede. It begins thus : "Cros, and Curteis Christ, this beginning spede And through the Special Spirit, that Sprong of hem tweyne, The author feigns himself ignorant of his Creed, to be instructed in which he applies to the four religious orders, viz. the gray friers of St. Francis, the black friers of St. Dominic, the Carmelites or white friers, and the Augus to the parts themselves. See vol. iii. preface to ballad iii. where Passus seems to signify Pause. 6 That which seems the first of the two, is thus distinguished in the title-page, nowe the seconde tyme imprinted by Roberte Crowlpe: the other thus, nowe the seconde time imprinted by Robert Crowley. In the former, the folios are thus erroneously numbered, 39, 39, 41, 63, 43, 42, 45, &c. The booksellers of those days were not ostentatious of multiplying editions. |