BOOK
VIII.

HISTORY OF

ENGLISH

POETRY.

The eighth, Pain :

Is the horrible vermyn and venemous,
And wild bestes that beth horrible and grym-
With woodnesse drawynge into hell wel sone,
And adders fast knawynge by the bone-
And that vermyn shal ever on him creep,
And on them fastneth their clawes wel deep,
And them bylappe on eche side about,
And eche limb gnawe within and without:
And vermyn shall be alle their clothinge,
And vermyn shall be alle their beddynge.

The eleventh is Weeping:

And their tears shulleth ever laste

And their tears shulleth so grete heat have—
That the water that from their eyes doth renne
Thanne shall them scaldy and brenne—
For hit shall be hotter thanne ever was
Ony lead imulte, other ony brass.

On the fourteenth, Despair, he says-
Hy shulleth desire for to dye,

Ac deth shal nought come in their weye.
And eche of them shal have othir in hate,
And ever amonge them shal be gret debate:
And full of wrathe hy shulleth be thanne
And eche of them shal other
warye and banne.

After these dismal pictures, it may amuse the reader to know how this versifying Hermit sketches his Heaven:

There is lyf without ony deth,
And ther is youthe without ony elde;
And ther is all maner welthe to welde:
And ther is reste without ony travaille-
And ther is peace without ony strife;
And ther is all maner likynge of lyf-
And ther is bright somer ever to se;
And ther is nevere wynter in that cuntree;
And ther is more worshipe and honour,
Thanne ever hadde kynge other emperour.

And ther is grete melodee of Aungeles songe,
And ther is preysing hem amonge..

And ther is alle maner friendshipe that may be,
And ther is evere perfect love and charitie;
And ther is wisdom without folye;
And ther is honeste without vilenye:

All these a man may joyes of hevene call.
Ac yutte the most soveryn joye of alle,
Is the sight of Goddes bright face,
In wham resteth alle manere grace.

Hampole, MS. Bib. Reg. 18. A 5.
There is another moral and religious poem, tre-
mendous in its length, for when complete it must have
contained from forty to fifty thousand lines, written
after the above, and with more perfect rhythm; of
which a parchment manuscript much burnt, but very
neatly written, still exists in the British Museum.100
Of this, one extract, of an apparition, may be cited
as a specimen both of its style and metrical fluency.
It begins with friars going to sing the funeral masses
for
a corpse they buried:—

СНАР.
I.

ENGLISH

POETS WHO
PRECEDED
GOWER.

BOOK
VIII.

-

HISTORY OF

ENGLISH
POETRY.

Sum of the folk tharfore were flaid; 103
And soon the Prior unto it said:

"I conjore ye, with main and mode,
In the vertu of Christes blode;
In this stede that you stand still,
And answer what we ask ye will."

Than the Voice, with wordes meke,
Als a man that had been seke,
Until the Prior thus gan say:

104

"Why deres 11 you me thus ilk day?
It es naght lang sen 105 I tald ye,
All that you wald ask of me.
What sold 106 I now say to you here?”
And than answered another frere
And anowre 107 of grete clergi.
He said, "Tell here till us in hi
Whether that thou of pain be quit,
Or els what pain you sufferes yitt."
The Voice answered sore onane,
And said, "I love God al his lane.108
For swilk grace unto me is graid 109
Thurgh messes that war for me said,
That fro this time now efterward
Am I past fra all paynes hard."

MS. Cott. Lib. Tib. E 7.

Another English Poem, called the Pilgrim, exists in manuscript, which is a dialogue between a pilgrim and several virtues and vices.110 It is a didactic poem, attempting moral satire, and therefore is entitled to notice in the history of our poetry." As a moral and religious satire, the alliterative work of Piers Plouhman, remarkable for its freedoms with the religious of his day, and for being written without rime,

104 hurt.
108 for his favors,

105 since.
109 ordered.

106 should.

103 fled. 107 another. 110 It is in the Cott. Lib. MS. Tiberius, A 7. It contains above 4,000 lines.

The following verses are attached in it to a colored drawing, which exhibits a man shewing his chest of gold to the pilgrim, who looks fearfully at it, and praying; while a little devil is seated on the man's head:

I.

POETS WHO

claims also both perusal and commendation.112 Seve- CHAP. ral effusions of genius appear in the songs and ballads of our ancestors, which the taste of our poetical anti- ENGLISH quaries within the last fifty years has rescued from oblivion. The historical poem of Barbour we have GOWER. already quoted, and ought not to be neglected. The poems of Adam Davie may be here recollected.

á stone coffin is near, of which death is taking off the lid, and shewing a corpse within.

112 Mr. Whittaker has made his edition of the Visions of this author valuable by his commentary and notes. His Crede has been also republished. As Mr. Warton has written fully on this author, I would refer the reader to his work.

PRECEDED

VIII.

CHA P. II.

ON THE ENGLISH ROMANCES.

BOOK IN this stage of the history of our Poetry, our ancient vernacular Romances deserve our attention, from their intrinsic merit and important effects. They belong to a class of compositions, with which the gravest of us have been delighted in the morning of our lives, and which most of us still value in their best form, altho the severer taste of our maturity exacts superior requisites. All romances and tales being the offspring of the imagination, they derive their birth from one of the great sources of poetry; and they usually display, especially those of distinguished merit, the charms and excellencies of every part of the Parnassian region. Tho often wearisome, yet in some passages they recreate our fancy; by others they agitate the sensibility; in others they gratify the cultivated taste. Fictitious, or allowed to be so, in every part; in their characters, incidents, and dialogue; they are confined by no limits but those of probability, while they relate to human beings; and of possibility beyond them: except indeed those rules of moral decorum, which no sane writer will violate. These friendly boundaries are so undefined and so moveable, and admit so vast an extent of range, that genius in its fictions has all the kingdoms of nature at its command, and may appropriate and use whatever they contain. It may, like Shakespear, exhaust known worlds, and then imagine new. The mind will never cease to hail its flights, to welcome its