Hevene

For this," &c.

Among Mr. Garrick's collection of old plays* is a prose narrative of the adventures of this same Knight of the Swan, "newly translated out of Frenshe into Englyshe, at thinstigacion of the puyssant and illustryous prynce, lorde Edward duke of Buckynghame." This lord, it seems, had a peculiar interest in the book, for in the preface the translator tells us, that this, "highe dygne and illustryous prynce my lorde Edwarde by the grace of god Duke of Buckyngham, erle of Hereforde, Stafforde, and Northampton, desyrynge cotydyally to encrease and augment the name and fame of such as were relucent in vertuous feates and triumphaunt actes of chyvalry, and to encourage and styre every lusty and gentell herte by the exemplyficacyon of the same, havyng a goodli booke of the highe and miraculous histori of a famous and puyssaunt kynge, named Oryant sometime reynynge in the parties of beyonde the sea, havynge to his wife a noble lady; of whome she conceyved sixe sonnes and a daughter, and chylded of them at one only time; at whose byrthe echone of them had a chayne of sylver at their neckes, the which were all tourned by the provydence of god into whyte swannes, save one, of the whiche this present hystory is compyld, named Helyas, the knight of the swanne, 'of whome linially is dyscended my sayde lorde.' The whiche ententifly to have the sayde hystory more amply and unyversally knowen in thys hys natif countrie, as it is in other, hath of hys hie bountie by some of his faithful and trusti servauntes cohorted mi mayster Wynkin de Wordef to put the said vertuous hystori in prynte . . . . . at whose instigacion and stiring I (Roberte Copland) have me applied, moiening the helpe of god, to reduce and translate it into our maternal and vulgare english tonge after the capacitè and rudenesse of my weke entendement."-A curious picture of the times! While in Italy literature and the fine arts were ready to burst

.....

* K. vol. X.

of the Swan.”*

To return to the metre of Pierce Plowman: In the folio MS. so often quoted in this work, are two poems written in that species of versification. One of these is an ancient allegorical poem, entitled "Death and Life" (in 2 fitts or parts, containing 458 distichs), which, for aught that appears, may have been written as early, if not before the time of Langland. The first forty lines are broke as they should be into distichs, a distinction that is neglected in the remaining part of the transcript, in order, I suppose, to save room. begins,

"Christ Christen king

that on the Crosse tholed;
Hadd Paines and Passyons
to defend our soules;
Give us Grace on the Ground

the Greatlye to serve,
For that Royal Red blood

that Ranu from thy side."

It

The subject of this piece is a vision, wherein the poet sees a contest for superiority between

66

our lady Dame Life," and the "ugly fiend Dame Death;" who with their several attributes and concomitants are personified in a fine vein of allegoric painting. Part of the description of Dame Life is,

"Shee was Brighter of her Blee,

then was the Bright sonn:
Her Rudd Redder then the Rose,

that on the Rise hangeth:
Meekely smiling with her Mouth,
And Merry in her lookes;
Ever Laughing for Love,

as shee Like would.

And as shee came by the Bankes,
the Boughes eche one
They Lowted to that Ladye,

And Layd forth their branches;
Blossomes and Burgens

Breathed full sweete;
Flowers Flourished in the Frith,
where shee Forth stepped;

And the Grasse, that was Gray,

Greened belive."

Death is afterwards sketched out with a no less bold and original pencil.

The other poem is that which is quoted in the 181st page of this work, and which was probably the last that was ever written in this kind of metre in its original simplicity, unaccompanied with rhyme. It should have been observed above in page 181, that in this poem the lines are throughout divided into distichs, thus:

Grant Gracious God,

Grant me this time, &c.

It is entitled, "Scottish Feilde" (in 2 fitts, 420 distichs,) containing a very circumstantial narrative of the battle of Flodden, fought Sept. 9, 1513: at which the author seems to have been present, from his speaking in the first person plural:

"Then we Tild downe OUR Tents,

that Told were a thousand."

was of that country appears from other passages in the body of the poem, particularly from the pains he takes to wipe off a stain from the Cheshiremen, who it seems ran away in that battle, and from his encomiums on the Stanleys Earls of Derby, who usually headed that county. He laments the death of James Stanley, bishop of Ely, as what had recently happened when this poem was written; which serves to ascertain its date, for that prelate died March 22, 1514–5.

Thus have we traced the Alliterative Measure so low as the sixteenth century. It is remarkable that all such poets as used this kind of metre, retained along with it many peculiar Saxon idioms, particularly such as were appropriated to poetry: this deserves the attention of those who are desirous to recover the laws of the ancient Saxon Poesy, usually given up as inexplicable: I am of opinion that they will find what they seek in

the metre of Pierce Plowman.*

About the beginning of the sixteenth century this kind of versification began to change its form the author of "Scottish Field," we

"He was a Gentleman by Jesu, that this Gest* made: Which Say but as he Sayd

for Sooth and noe other.

At Bagily that Bearne

his Biding place had; And his ancestors of old time have yearded theire longe, Before William Conquerour

this Cuntry did inhabitt. Jesus Bring them' to Blisse, that Brought us forth of BALE, That hath Hearkned me Heare

Or Heard my TALE."

The village of Bagily or Baguleigh is in Cheshire, and had belonged to the ancient family of Legh for two centuries before the battle of Flodden. Indeed, that the author

* Jest, MS.

† Probably corrupted for-" Says but as he Saw." Yearded, i. e. buried, earthed, earded. It is common to pronounce" Earth," in some parts of England “Yearth,” particularly in the North.-Pitscottie, speaking of James III., slain at Bannockbourn, says, "Nae man wot whar they yearded him."

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rhyme this was an innovation that did but prepare the way for the general admission of that more modish ornament: till at length the old uncouth verse of the ancient writers would no longer go down without it. Yet when Rhyme began to be superadded, all the niceties of Alliteration were at first retained along with it; and the song of Little John Nobody" exhibits this union very clearly. By degrees the correspondence of final sounds engrossing the whole attention of the poet, and fully satisfying the reader, the internal embellishment of Alliteration was no longer studied, and thus was this kind of metre at length swallowed up and lost in our common Burlesque Alexandrine, or Anapestic verse,†

note.

And in that of Robert of Gloucester. See the next

† Consisting of four Anapests() in which the accent rests upon every third syllable. This kind of verse, which I also call the Burlesque Alexandrine to distinguish it from the other Alexandrines of eleven and fourteen syllables, the parents of our lyric measure (See examples, pp. 151, 152, &c.) was early applied by Robert of Gloucester to serious subjects. That writer's metre, like this of Langland's, is formed on the Saxon models (each verse of his containing a Saxon distich); only instead of the internal alliterations adopted by Langland, he rather chose final

specimen.

now never used but in ballads and pieces of light humour, as in the following song of "Conscience," and in that well-known doggrel,

"A cobler there was, and he lived in a stall." But although this kind of measure hath with us been thus degraded, it still retains among the French its ancient dignity; their grand heroic verse of twelve syllables* is the same genuine offspring of the old alliterativo metre of the ancient Gothic and Francic poets, stript like our Anapestic of its alliteration, and ornamented with rhyme. But with this difference, that whereas this kind of verse hath been applied by us only to light and trivial subjects, to which by its quick and lively measure it seemed best adapted, our poets have let it remain in a more lax unconfined state, as a greater degree of severity and strictness would have been inconsistent with the light and airy subjects to which they have applied it. On the other hand, the French having retained this verse as the vehicle of their epic and tragic flights, in order to give it a stateliness and dignity were

"The Saxons tho in their power, tho thii were so rive,
Seve kingdoms made in Engelonde, and sutlie but vive:
The king of Northomberlond, and of Eastangle also,
Of Kent, and of Westsex, and of the March, therto."

Robert of Gloucester wrote in the western dialect, and his language differs exceedingly from that of other contemporary writers, who resided in the metropolis, or in the mid

land counties. Had the heptarchy continued, our English language would probably have been as much distinguished

for its different dialects as the Greek; or at least as that of the several independent states of Italy.

* Or of thirteen syllables, in what they call a feminine verse. It is remarkable that the French alone have retained

this old Gothic metre for their serious poems; while the English, Spaniards, &c., have adopted the Italic verse of ten syllables, although the Spaniards, as well as we, anciently used a short-lined metre. I believe the success with which Petrarch, and perhaps one or two others, first used the heroic verse of ten syllables in Italian Poesy, recommended it to the Spanish writers; as it also did to our Chaucer, who first attempted it in English; and to his successors Lord Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat, &c.; who afterwards improved it and brought it to perfection. To Lord Surrey we also owe the first introduction of blank verse in his versions of the second and fourth books of the Eneid, 1557, 4to. †Thus our poets use this verse indifferently with twelve, eleven. and even ten syllables. For though regularly it consists of four anapests() or twelve syllables, yet they frequently retrench a syllable from the first or third anapest; and sometimes from both; as in these instances from Prior and from the following song of Conscience: Who has eer been at Pāris must needs know the Greve, The fatal retreat of th' unfortunate brave. He stept to him straight, and did him require.

obliged to confine it to more exact laws of Scansion; they have therefore limited it to the number of twelve syllables; and by making the Cæsura or Pause as full and distinct as possible, and by other severe restrictions, have given it all the solemnity of which it was capable. The harmony of both, however, depends so much on the same flow of cadence and disposal of the pause, that they appear plainly to be of the same original; and every French heroic verse evidently con

sists of the ancient Distich of their Francic ancestors: which, by the way, will account to us why this verse of the French so naturally resolves itself into two complete hemistichs. And indeed by making the cæsura or pause always to rest on the last syllable of a word, and by making a kind of pause in the sense, the French poets do in effect reduce their hemistichs to two distinct and

independent verses: and some of their old poets have gone so far as to make the two hemistichs rhyme to each other.*

After all, the old alliterative and anapestic metre of the English poets being chiefly used in a barbarous age, and in a rude unpolished language, abounds in verses defective in length, proportion, and harmony; and therefore cannot enter into a comparison with the correct versification of the best modern French writers; but making allowances for these defects, that sort of metre runs with a cadence so exactly resembling the French heroic Alexandrine, that I believe no peculiarities of their versification can be produced, which cannot be exactly matched in the alliterative metre. I shall give by way of example a few lines from the modern French poets accommodated with parallels from the ancient poem of "Life and Death;" in these I shall denote the Casura or Pause by a perpendicular line, and the cadence by the marks of the Latin quantity.