538 We cannot take leave of this very entertaining and masterly performance, without expressing our regret at not finding, in this volume, the history of Border-poetry, which, if we mistake not, the editor had in his former volumes given us reason to expect. We trust but has reserved the performance for cre that he has not forgotten his promise, of the works which we see announced a nearly ready for publication; viz. Th lay of the last Minstrel, and an edition of Sir Tristram, as written in the thirteenth century by Thomas of Erceldoune, ART. IV. Specimens of the early English Poets; to which is prefixed, an Historical Sketch WE take advantage of the re-appear, The Historical Sketch, as it is modestly called, which comes down to the reign of Henry VIII. contains more of pertinent matter than is to be found in the volumes of Warton; nothing irrelevant is introduced, and no labour of research has been spared to obtain whatever information appertained to the subject. After some preliminary observations on the language of our ancestors, Mr. Ellis gives, as a specimen of AngloSaxon poetry, the ode on Athelstan's victory, with a literal translation, and likewise a metrical version, in the style and language of the 14th century. The last was written by the present ambassador at Madrid, then an Eton school-boy, and is certainly the most wonderful instance of critical imitation, in one so young, that has ever fallen within our knowledge. The origin of rhyme is next considered on this subject some light has been thrown by Mr. Turner's essay in the Archæologia. An abstract of M. de la Rue's very curious dissertations is then given, and his decisive opinion adduced to prove the important fact, that it was from England and Normandy that the French received the first Works which deserve to be cited in their Language. The section is concluded thus: But it is not sufficient that the mines of literature contained in our public libraries should be distinctly pointed out, unless some steps are taken to render them generally useful. All the information that can be obtained from the professed historians of the middle ages has been collected by the successive labour of our antiquaries, whose activity, acuteness, and perseverance, do them the highest honour and their ingenuity has often been successful in detecting, and extorting by comparative criticism, many particuJars respecting the state of society, and the progress of arts and manners, the direct communication of which would have been con sidered by the monkish annalists as degrad ing to the dignity of their narrative. Bat these details, which are neglected by the historian, form the principal materials of the poet. His business is minute and particular that passes before his eyes; and the dress, the customs, the occupations, the amuse description; he must seize on every thing ments, as well as the arts and learning of the day, are necessary, either to the embellishment or the illustration of his subject. An edition of the works of the Norman poets, or at least of a copious and well selected series of extracts from them, would be a most va is only in this shape that they can be very Juable present to the public; and, indeed, it the old manuscript characters is a permanent generally useful because the difficulty of tax on the ingenuity of cach successive stu dent; it is in every case a delay to the grati fication of his curiosity; and the talent of decyphering obsolete characters is not necessarily attached to the power of profiting or the information which is concealed under them. Besides, a scarce and valuable manuscript cannot possibly he put into general cessarily debarred, either by distance, or by circulation; and many learned men are pe infirmity, or by the pressure and variety of their occupations, from spending much tu in those public repositories of learning, which the access has indeed been rendered easy, but could not be made convenient, by the liberality of their founders." A specimen is given of Layamon's the language of Chaucer, a subject proved what Dryden denied, viz. that Chan obliterated by the changes that have en place in the mode of accenting our uage. But Chaucer's reputation as an rover of our versification principally rests he invention (or at least on the first adop) of the ten-syllable or heroic verse, of verse which has been employed by every of eminence from Spenser to Dr. Johnand in which its original inventor has many specimens, both in the Knight's and in the Flower and the Leaf, which den despaired of improving. With respect to Chaucer's language, it mossible not to feel some disappointment he entious and doubtful opinion deliverthe author of our national dictionary, delivered in the introduction to that truly le monument of his genius. That Chaumight probably make some innova, and that his diction was in general e that of his contemporaries,' we should ve conjectured without Dr. Johnson's asre; because a writer of genius and thing will be likely to make some innovain a barbarous language, but, in so will not choose to become quite uninble. From a critic so intimately aciated with the mechanism of language should have expected to learn, whether aucer had in any degree added to the preion of our English idiom by improvements is syntax, or to its harmony by the introction of more sonorous words; or whether was solely indebted for the beauty and spicuity of his style to that happy selecn of appropriate expressions which distinshes every writer of original thinking and al genius. bence;' vids are "All Chancer's immediate successors, ose who studied him as their model, Hoc eve, Lydgate, King James I. &c. speak ith rapture of the elegance and splendour his diction. He is the flower of closuperlative in eloquence; his the gold dew drops of speech. neh exaggerated praises certainly imply an thusiastic though, perhaps, absurd adinira on; and, as these poets would probably at mpt to imitate what they considered as minently beautiful, it seems likely that an xamination of their style must enable us to scover what they considered as the imrovements introduced by Chaucer. Now the characteristics of our poetry during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries e an exuberance of ornament, and an affectation of Latinity, neither of which peculiarities are to be found in Robert of Gloucester, Robert de Brunne, Minot, Langland, or inded in any of the poets anterior to Chaucer. This, therefore, may be supposed to be what Chaucer himself and his successors meant by what they called an ornate style, of which the following stanza, extracted from the Court of Love, is a curious specimen : "Honour to thee, celestial and clear, Goddess of love, and to thy colsitude, That giv'st us light so far down from thy sphere, [St. 88. fol. 830. ed. 1602.] of Chaucer's usual style; indeed no poet is, "It is not meant that this is an example in general, more free from pedantry: but the attentive reader will find that in the use of words of Latin derivation, most of which are common to the French and Italian lantions of the latter, either as thinking them quages, he very generally prefers the inflecmore sonorous, or because they are nearer to the original; and that in his descriptive poetry he is very fond of multiplying his epithets, and of copying all the other peculiarivourite metre is unquestionably derived), with ties of the Italian poetry (from which his fa- · the view of refining our numbers, and improving our language, by words borrowed from the more polished languages of the Continent." It is well said of the Canterbury Tales that they contain more information respecting the manners and customs of the fourteenth century, than could be gleaned from the whole mass of contemporary writers, English or foreign. The section upon the private life of our ancestors contains more than is to be found in any single writer upon the subject. It is not possible to make any abstract of this part, in which every sentence is of essential import. ed in some unaccountable humour, and Stephen Hawes, whom Warton praiswho in consequence has since been prais ed abundantly at second-hand, is treated by the present writer with just severity, The specimens which he has extracted are thoroughly worthless; and we, who have read the poem, know that they fairly represent the baldness and affectation of this miserable writer. We will insert here a curious specimen of metre from this poem, which has not been selected by Mr. Ellis. "Cace doubtfull, may yet a whyle abyde; Grace may in space a reinedy provyde. Countenance causeth the promotion, Nought avayleth service without attendaunce, Repentance is after all abusion, Thought afore wolde have had perse Abusyon is causer of all varyaunce, Perseveyraunce causeth great honour, Mischaunee alway is roote of dolour. Dede done cannot be called agayne, Mede well rewarded both with joye and payne." Of all our old poets, Stephen Hawes is the very worst. This poet brings us to the close of Henry VII.'s reign. "The accession of Henry VIII. could not fail to promote the progress of elegant literature in England. His title to the crown was so undoubted that it left him no apprehension of a rival, and fully secured his subjects against the recurrence of those sanguinary civil wars which had so long desolated the country. He was young, handsome, accomplished, wealthy, and prodigal; and the nobility, effectually humbled by the policy of his father, crowded round his person, with no higher ambition than that of gaining his favour and sharing his profusion, which was exhibited in frequent tournaments, in masques, or entertainments consisting of music, dancing, gaming, banquetings, and the display of dresses at once grotesque and magnificent. All the pleasures and all the gallantry of the age were assembled at his court. The press, which had already produced complete and sumptuous editions of our best early poets, furnished an abundant supply of metrical romances, Christmas carols, and other popular compositions. Henry himself is known to have been a proficient in music, and was perhaps an occasional writer of poetry; and though his skill in the art be rather problematical, his taste for it is fully evinced by the almost universa! practice of his courtiers. Accordingly, this reign forms a marked epocha in our poetical history. Chaucer, as we have seen, had formed his taste upon the model of the Italian no less than of the French poets; but the masculine beauties of Boccaccio in the Teseide and Filostrato had excited his admiration much more than the gentler graces of Petrarch, who now became the universal favourite. It may, perhaps be matter of surprize, that the style of this poet was not sooner adopted as a model by our writers of lovesongs, because the manners of chivalry had, in the very infancy of our literature, blended the tender passion with a very competent share of ceremonious enthusiasm. It is probable, however, that the Italian language alone possessed, at that time, sufficient bility to form a compound of metaphor metaphysics in the contracted shape of. sonnet. "This difficult novelty seems to h been first attempted by the court poets of reign of Henry VIII. It must be confesse.. that a string of forced conceits, in which imagination of the reader is quite bewildere!. of harsh and discordant rhymes,-andphrases tortured into the most unnatural versions,-is, not unfrequently, the only 2sult of their perverse ingenuity. But e these abortive struggles were not quite 1 less. In their repeated endeavours to exhibe with distinctness the most minute and fancful shades of sentiment, they were sometimes led to those new and happy combinations of words, to those picturesque compound ep thets, and glowing metaphors, of which suc ceeding writers, particularly Shakspeare ad Spenser, so ably availed themselves. The necessity of comprising their subject within definite and very contracted limits taught them conciseness and accuracy; and the dificult construction of their stanza forced them to atone for the frequent imperfection of their rhymes, by strict attention to the general harmony of their metre. Although, from their contempt of what they thought the rustic and sordid poverty of our early l guage, they often adopted a cumbrous and gaudy magnificence of diction; they acremulated the ore which has been refined b their successors, and provided the maters of future selection." cimens commences. At this æra the regular series of speWe must conter ourselves with exhibiting a few from t many delightful poems here brought :gether: to comment upon them would be to enter into a critical history English poetry. Richard Edwards, who died in 15% is the author of the following ballad. “Amantium iræ amoris redintegratio er. [In the Paradise of Dainty Devices.] "In going to my naked bed, as one would have slept, I heard a wife sing to her child, that l before had wept. She sighed sore, and sang full sweet, to bra the babe to rest, That would not cease, but cried still, in sciing at her breast. She was full weary of her watch, and grie with her child, "The following lines are, in the Nuge Antiquæ, ascribed to this monarch: The eagle's force subdues each bird that flies. What metal can resist the flaming fire? Doth not the sun dazzle the clearest eyes, And melt the ice, and make the frost retire? The hardest stones are pierced through with tools: "On his Muse, by George Withers, (Written in prison.) "And though for her sake I'm crost, Here I waste away the light, Than the sweet-voiced Philomel; Though of all those pleasures past Whence she should be driven too, Comfort in the midst of sorrow, She could more infuse in me, POESY-thou sweet'st content Tho' they as a trifle leave thee limited it may be doubted whether ther circumstances had not the effect, of ult mately rendering more complete that alters Whose dull thoughts can not conceive thee, tion of language, which they certainly cor Tho' thou be to them a scorn That to nought but earth are born; Let my life no longer be Than I am in love with thee. Though our wise ones call thee madness, Let me never taste of gladness If I love not thy maddest fits More than all their greatest wits. In the remarks upon our language which form the conclusion of this work, Mr. Ellis advances an opinion that it rather supplanted the Saxon, than succeeded to it as it were by legitimate inheri tance. "The general disaffection and spirit of revolt, excited among the English by the evident partiality of the Conqueror to the partners of his victory, compelled him to adopt a system of defence for his newly acquired dominions, which had a necessary tendency to produce the changes that afterwards took place in the language of his subjects. "It has been observed by all our historians, that the Saxons, though a brave and warlike people, had made little progress in the art of fortification, and that to this cir cumstance the Danes were indebted for the almost constant success of their piratical incursions. The Normans, on the contrary, surpassed all the nations of Europe in this branch of tactics; and William, availing himself of this superiority, erected numerous citadels, which, being filled with Norman garrisons, secured and over-awed all the towns in the kingdom, and afforded him the means of assembling his army with safety and expedition. "It is evident that each of these garrisons bore a much higher proportion to the number of inhabitants in the neighbouring cities, at whose expence they were from the first supported, than that of the whole body of Normans to the aggregate population of the kingdom. It was necessary, therefore, that some mercantile jargon should be adopted as a medium of communication between the foreigners and the natives; and although such a jargon, being only employed for occasional purposes by each, could not immediate ly displace and become a substitute for the established language of either: though the Normans were, during a very considerable length of time, completely separated from their English neighbours by the strongest opposition of passions and prejudices: though even their commercial intercourse was very tributed, in the first instance, to retard. "In fact, the most striking peculiarity in the establishment of our vulgar English is, that it appears to have very suddenly superseded the pure and legitimate Saxon, from which its elements were principally derived, instead of becoming its successor, as generally has been supposed, by a slow and inperceptible process. The Saxon, certainly never ceased to be cultivated during mors than a century after the Conquest, because the conclusion of the Saxon Chronicle, which relates the death of Stephen, cannot have been written before the following reign and the translation of Wace by Layamon a not likely to have been composed much be fore the year 1180. From this period, I be lieve, the language began to decline, but i did not cease till much later; for we have Saxon charter dated in the 43d year of Henry III. that is to say, in 1258. It has been often printed, particularly by Lord Lyttel ton and Dr. Henry, both of whom have thought it necessary to add an English trans lation. On the other hand, we possess some English specimens, which, in the opinion of all our antiquaries, cannot be referred to a later period than 1250: it follows therefore that, during several years after the establis ment of our present mixed language, the Saxon continued to be the only form af speech known to a large portion of the inhabitants of this country. "Now, if we consider that the Saxon, however it might have degenerated from former elegance, still retained the advant of a regular and established grammar, was the construction of the Anglo-Norman, " English, was extremely fluctuating and b barous; it will, probably, be thought t the latter could only have acquired the supe riority over its parent language by means the predominant wealth and influence of th part of the community by whom it was er clusively cultivated." This work has been materially in proved since its first appearance. We still miss a few authors of merit or celebrity: Hobbes, Chamberlayne, Chalk hill, Cleaveland, Stanihurst, Abraham Fraunce. A second series of specimen selected from our early metrical mances, to complete the sketch of our poetical antiquities, is nearly ready fu the press. The lovers of English literaunlike most antiquarians, Mr. Ellis p ture will rejoice at this intelligence sesses not only the knowledge and the patience necessary to collect material but also the judgment to select, and the taste to arrange them. |