lines in the Saxon Chronicle upon the death of William the Conqueror, which feem to have been intended for veries of the modern fashion, and a short Canticle which, according to Matthew Paris (45), the bleffed Virgin was pleafed to dictate to Godric, an hermit near Durham, I have not been able to difcover any attempts at rhyming poetry which can with Of his leode For littelre neode He fatte mycel deor-frith, And he lægde laga ther with- Swylce eac tha baras; Swa fwithe he lufode tha hea-deor Swylee he wære heora fæder. Eac he fætte be tham haran, That hi moften freo faran The concluding lines are, Se al-mihtiga God Kithe his faule mild-beortniffe And do him his fynna forgifeneffe. The writer of this part of the Chronicle (as he tells us himself, p. 189,) had feen the Conqueror. (45) Hift. Angl. p. 100. Godric died in 1170, so that according to tradition the Canticle was prior to that period: the first flanza being incorrectly printed I shall only transcribe the laft Seinte Marie, Chriftes bur, Meidenes clen had, moderes flur, Bringe me to winne with felfe God Hoc canticum (fays M. P.) poteft hoc modo in Latinum transferri. Santa Maria, Chrifli thalamus, virginalis puritas, matris flos, dele mea crimina, regna in mente mea, duc me ad felicitatem cum folo Deo. Upon the authority of this tranflation I have altered pinne (as it is in the print) to winne. The Saxon p is often mistaken for a p. probability be referred to an earlier period than the reign of Henry II. In that reign Layamon (46), a priest of Ernleye near Severn, as he calls himself, tranflated (chiefly from) the French of Wace (47) (46) This work of Layamon is extant among the Cotton, m Cal. A. ix. A much later copy, in which the author by a natural corruption was called Latbeman, was destroyed by the fire. There is an account of both copies in Wanley's Ct. m. Septent. p. 228. and p. 237..-----The following thort extract from fol. 7,8, containing an account of the Sirens which Brutus met with in his voyage, will serve to support what is said in the text of this author's intermixing rhymes with his profe: Ther heo funden the Merminnen, That beoth deor of muchele ginnen. Bineothe thon gurdle bif thuneeth fifc Ne bèo tha dai na fwa long, Ne bith na man weri Heora fonges to heran (47) The French clerk whom Layamon professes to have followed in his hiftory is called by Wanley [Cat. mf. Sept. p. 228,] Wate, as if poor Maistrè Trace were doomed to have his name perpetually mistaken. Fauchet, and a long ftring of French antiquaries, have agreed to call him Wistace. I thall here, in juftice to Maifire Wace, (for whom I have a great respect not only as a very ancient but as a very ingeniousrhymer) ftate my reasons thortly for believing that, he was the real author of that translation in French verfe of Geffrey of Monmouth's romance which is commonly called Le Brut.--In the first place, his name is diftin&tly written in the text of three mff. of very confiderable antiquity: two of them are in the Museum, viz. Cotton, Vitell. A. x. and Reg. 13 A. xxi. : the third is at Cambridge, in the library of Bennet College, n. 58. In a fourth mf. alfo in the Museum, Harl: 6508, it is written Gazce and Gace, by a substitution of G for W, very utual in the French language.-----Secondly, in the mf. above-mentioned of Layamon's history, Eal. A. ix, ifI may truft my own Volume I. M a fabulous hiftory of the Britons entitled Le Brut; which Wace himself, about the year 1155, had trans eyes the name is Wace, and not Wate, as Wanley read it. The Saxon is not very unlike a c. What Layamon has said further, "that this Wace was a French clerk, and presented his "book to Alienor the queen of Henry," [the Second] agrees perfectly well with the date of Le Brut, (in 1155, according to all the copies) and with the account which Wace himself, in his Roman de Rou, has given of his attachment to Henry.----Thirdly, in a subsequent tranflation of Le Brut, which was made by Robert of Brunne in the beginning of the 14th century, he repeatedly names Mayer Wace as the author (or ra ther tranflator from the Latin) of the French hiftory. See Hearne's App. to Pref. to Peter Langtoft, p. 98.---In oppofition to this frong evidence in favour of Wace we have nothing material except the mf. of Le Brut quoted by Fauchet, [de la Langue Francoife, 1. ii,] in which according to his citation the author is called Wiface. The later Frenchwriters who have called him fo, I apprehend, have only followed Fauchet. The reader will judge whether it is not more probable that the writer of the mf. or even Fauchet himself, may have made a little flip in this matter, than that somany mff. as I have quoted above, and the fucceflive teftimonies of Layamon and Robert of Brunne, thould have concurred in calling the author of Le Brut Wace, if that had not been his true name. I will just add that La vie de Seint Nicholas, which is frequently quoted by Hickes, (Gr. A. S. p. 146, 149, et al.] was probably a work of this fame Wace, as appears from the following paflage, [mf. Bod!. 1687, v. 17 from the end,] Ci faut le livre metre Guace, Qui Seint Nicholas mout amout. And I thould fufpect that Le Martyre de St. George en vers Francois par Robert Guaco, mentioned by M. Lebeuf as extant in the Bibl. Colbert. Cod, 3745, [Mem. de l'Acad. D. J. et lated from the Latin of Geffrey of Monmouth. Tho' the greatest part of this work of Layamon resemble the old Saxon poetry, without rhyme or metre, yet he often intermixes a number of short verfes of unequal lengths, but rhyming together pretty exactly, and in fome places he has imitated not unfuccefsfully the regular octofyllable measure of his French original. $3. It may feem extraordinary, after thefe proofs that the art of rhyming was not unknown or unpractifed in this country in the time of Henry II. that we should be obliged to fearch through a space of a¬ bove an hundred years without being able to meet with a single maker of English rhymes whom we know to have written in that interval. The cafe I fufpect to have been this. The fcholars of that age (and there were many who might fairly be called fo in the Englih dominions abroad (48) as well as at home) affected to write only (49) in Latin, so that we do not B. L. t. xvii. p. 731,] ought to be ascribed to the fame author, as Guaco is a very strange name. The Chriftian name of Wace was Robert. See Huet, Orig. de Caen, p. 412. (48) The following paffage of Roger de Hoveden [p. 672,] gives a ftriking description of the extent of the English dominions in the time of Richard I.; "Sciendum eft quod tota ter86 ra, quæ eft ab Anglia ufque in Hifpaniam, fecus mare, vide"licet Normannia, Britannia, Pictàvia, eft de dominio Regis 'Angliæ." The kings of France at that time were not poffeffed of an inch of territory upon the coafts of the ocean. (49) It will be fufficient to name John of Salisbury, Peter of Blois, Jofeph of Exeter, Gerald Barry, Nigell Wireker, Geffrey Vinfauf: I thould add to this lift Walter Map, if there were not a tradition, not entirely deftitute of probability, that he was the author of the Roman de Saint Graal in French. I find this in an old mf. of Tristan, Bib. Reg, 20. D, ii. P. antep. Quan "Boort ot conte laventure del Saint Graal, teles come ele, find that they ever compofed in verfe or profe in any other language. On the other hand they who meant to recommend themfelves by their poetry to the fa→ your of the great took care to write in French, the only language which their patrons understood; and hence it is that we fee fo many French poems (50) "eftcient avenues, eles furent mises en efcrit, gardees en la"mere de Salibieres, dont Meftre Galtier Map l'ftreft a faire fon livre du Saint Graal, por lamor du roy Herri son fengnor, "qui fift leftorie tralater del Latin en Romanz." The adven ture of the Saint Graal is plainly written upon a very different plan from the other romances of the Round Table, and is likely enough to have come from an ecclefiaftick, though rather I confefs, from a graver one than Walter Map may be supposed to have been. The French romance from which our romance called Mort d'Arthur is tranflated seems to be an injudicious jumble of Le Brut, Lancelot, Tristan, the Saint Graal, and fome other romances of lefs note, which were all, I apprehend, originally feparate works. (50) Le Bestiaire, by Philippe de Thaun, addressed to Queen Adeliza, Le Brut, and Le Roman de Rou by Wace, have been mentioned above. Besides the Roman de Rou, there is another Chronicle of Normandy in French verfe by Maitre Beneit, compiled by order of Henry H. mf. Harl. 1717. The fame Beneit was perhaps the author of the Vie de St Thomas, ml. Harl 3775, though he there calls himfelf Frere Beneit, le pecheour, oves les neirs dras At the end of a copy of Le Brut, Bibl, Reg. 13. A xxi, there is a continuation of the hiftory to the death of William II. in the fame metre, by a Geffrei Gaimar, which efcaped the obfervation of Mr. Cafley; and at the end of another copy, Vitel. A. x, the hiftory is continued by an anonymous author to the acceffion of King John.-Richard I. composed himself in French: a fpecimen of his poetry has been published by Mr. Walpole, Cat. of Royal Authors, v. i.; and his Chancellor, William Bi thop of Ely, (who, as has been obferved before,was totally ig |