surname of the monk, and the remarks of Hearne upon the subject show with what care that zealous antiquary exerted himself in elucidating every question relating to his favourite author. The result of his inquiries was, that his name is not to be found in either an ancient or modern hand in the Harleian manuscripts; that it appears only once in the Cottonian collection, and that without the surname; and that no previous antiquary seems to have been acquainted with him by any other appellation than that of Robert of Gloucester. It is supposed that his surname began to be disused after he attained notice as a writer, and from this circumstance it is inferred that he must have enjoyed, among his cotemporaries, his ordinary share of celebrity. "That his fame was very great," says Hearne, may appear from hence, that though many Robert of Gloucesters are met with in old registers, yet, as far as we can learn, they were all eclipsed by the historian, the acts of all of them put together being not equal to what he hath done by compiling this work." Of the merits of the chronicler as a poet, Hearne prudently forbears, with all his zeal and veneration, to say much. But his authority is of weight in whatever concerns our ancient literature, and he boldly asserts, that of all books likely to prove useful in the study of the Saxon tongue, none is so valuable as the chronicle of Robert of Gloucester. Declining also, as he does, to compare him with Chaucer, in respect to poetical merit, he claims for him the honour of being the first of English writers. "He, and not Chaucer," says he, " as Dr Fuller and some others would have it, is the genius of the English nation, and he is, on that account, to be as much respected as ever Ennius himself was among the Romans, and I have good reason to think that he will be so by friends to our antiquities and our old history." "Tis the genius of the age that is to be regarded in such pieces of poetry. The poetry of those times consisted of rhythms both here and in other countries, and the poets thought they had done their parts well, if their rhythms, however mean otherwise, related matter of fact, and were agreeable to truth. Fuller, in the mention he has made of Robert of Gloucester among the other worthies of England, observes in his usual quaint but forcible style, "they speak truly who term him a rhymer, whilst such speak courteously who call him a poet. Indeed, such his language, that he is dumb in effect to the readers of this our age, without an interpreter, and such a one will hardly be procured. Antiquaries, among whom Mr Selden, more value him for his history than poetry, his lines being neither strong nor smooth, but sometimes sharp." Camden, however, speaks more favourably of his poetry, and contends, like his editor Hearne, for the merit of his verses on the plea of their being thoroughly English. "Old Robert of Gloucester," says he, "in the time of King Henry the Third, honoured his country with these his best English rimes, which, I doubt not, but some, (although most now are of the new cut,) will give the reading." The lines he quotes will afford as good a sample, perhaps, of his Chronicle, the only work he is known to have written, as could be selected.

England is a well good land, in the stead best

Set in the one end of the world, and reigneth west.
The sea goeth him all about. he stint as an yle,
Of foes it need the lesse doubt; but it be through gile

Of folke of the self land, as me hath I sey while
From south to north it is long, eight hundred mile
And two hundred mile broad from east to west to wend,
Amid the land as it might be, and not as in the one end,
Plentie men may in England of all good see,

But folke it agult, other yeares the worse and worse be.
For England is full enough of fruite and of treene,
Of woods and of parks that joy it is to seene.

The principal cities are thus briefly characterized :—

In the countrey of Canterbury, most plenty of fish is,
And most chase of wilde beasts about Salisbury Irvis.
And London ships most, and wine at Winchester.
At Hartford sheep and oxe, and fruite at Worcester,
Soape about Coventry, and yron at Glocester.
Metall, lead, and tinne, in the countrey of Exeter.
Evorwicke of fairest wood, Lincolne of fairest men.
Cambridge and Huntington most plenty of deep venne.
Elie of fairest place; of fairest sight Rochester.

"Far short," it is shrewdly observed, "was he that would compri the excellencies of England in this one verse:'

Montes, fontes, pontes, ecclesiæ, feminæ, lana.

Mountains, fountains, bridges, churches, women and wool.

It was more, however, owing perhaps to the naturally staid temperament of Robert himself, than to the taste of the age, that his poetry exhibited so few marks of vigour or imagination. Between the period when he flourished and that when the verses were written which exhibit so many traces of fancy, there had elapsed about fifty or sixty years. In that time, the people had been gradually acquiring a greater degree of freedom, and consequently of knowledge and refinement. What is still further to the purpose, there were in existence when this dry chronicle of facts was produced, a variety of chivalrous ballads and romances, remarkable for the strangeness of their fictions, and their unlicensed freedom of imagery. That such must have been in circulation at the time, we may fairly believe, when we consider the state of manners and the events which were then engrossing the thoughts of almost every individual in the kingdom. The crusades had just filled the world with the spirit of enthusiasm and adventure. Consequent on this were a train of new and more strongly excited sympathies than had ever before agitated the minds of men in general. Devotion led some, the love of novelty others, to undertake the perilous enterprize; but whatever was the motive which sent them to the plains of Syria, their course was contemplated by those they left behind with an intense and breathless emotion. Hence poetry would naturally strain every nerve to depict the virtues of the soldiers of the cross: would rejoice in relating their varied fortunes, in proving how well they deserved the applause or the tears which every heart was ready to bestow. But of the poetry which celebrated the grandeur of chivalry and the worth of its professors, few examples remain, few at least that can be ascribed to the age of which we are speaking. When we consider, says Warton, "the feudal manners, and the magnificence of our Norman ancestors, their love of military glory, and the enthusiasm with which they engaged in the crusades, and the wonders to which they must have been familiarized

from those eastern enterprises, we naturally suppose, what will hereafter be more particularly proved, that their retinues abounded with minstrels and harpers, and that their chief entertainment was to listen to the recital of romantic and martial adventures." "But," continues the historian, "I have been much disappointed in my searches after the metrical tales which must have prevailed in their times. Most of those old heroic songs have perished, together with the stately castles in whose halls they were sung." We cannot, therefore, tell from an examination of the originals, what was the precise character of the old songs of English chivalry, but the substance of them, it is supposed, was wrought into the metrical romances of which so many specimens still remain, and most of which are strikingly opposed in character to the work of Robert of Gloucester. It is evident, therefore, that there were now in vogue two very distinct species of poetry, and it is not improbable, but that it was owing to this circumstance that the poetry of the next age possessed such high and genuine merit. The unambitious chroniclers, who so readily sacrificed every sparkling of fancy to the plain narrative of facts,-who were only desirous of being historians in rhyme, because in that form they would be more generally read, and the facts they related better remembered,—the writers of this class did, there is little doubt, important service to the poetical literature of the country, by teaching the people to regard verse as a fit medium for regular and sustained narrative, and thereby to look for those species of poetry in which fiction is imitative of reality, and the likenesses unbroken by any thing heterogeneous in the medium through which we see them.

The obscurity which attends the personal fortunes and character of Robert of Gloucester pertains to most of the names which occur in the literary history of this period. There is not even a traditional lustre to attract the attention of the antiquarian to their fates. But it is in this as in other cases: the want of biographical materials is in great measure compensated for by the historical interest attached to the compositions of these obscure writers, and it is to that consequently, even the student of biography, when he passes a certain line in the aunals of either this or any other nation, will chiefly direct his thoughts

Robert Mannyng.

FLOR. CIRC. A. D. 1270.

THIS writer, like Robert of Gloucester, with whom he was cotemporary, was a monk, and belonged to the monastery of Brunne, or Bourne, near Depyng in Lincolnshire, of which he was a Gilbertine canon. A passage occurs in one of his poems, in which he alludes to his early education, and, according to the interpretation of Mr Ellis, it may be decided therefrom, that he was a native of Malton, and fourshed as late as the reign of Edward the Third. The lines are:

In the Third Edward's time was I,
When I wrote all this storey.

In the house of Sixille I was a throwe,
Dan Robert of Malton that ye know.

Did it write for fellows' sake,
When thai willed solace make.

He appears to have occupied a somewhat conspicuous station among the writers of his age, and Hearne observes, that it is probable he assumed the appellation of De Brunne, choosing to let his proper surname fall into forgetfulness, in imitation of Robert of Gloucester. It was not, however, only in this respect that he followed the example of that author. His principal work is a metrical history, or chronicle of England. But, according to the testimony of the most ingenious antiquaries, the former part of this poem is a mere translation of a French romance, entitled Roman de Rois d'Angleterre,'' or Brut d'Angleterre ;' and it is a circumstance not unworthy of attention, that the version is made in the exact measure of the original. The prologue also is in perfect accordance with the style of similar addresses, as they are found in the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo, and other Italian romantic poets.—

Lordynges that be now here,

If ye wille listene and lere,

All the story of Inglande,

Als Robert Mannyng wryten it fand,

And on Inglysh has it schewed,

Not for the lered but for the lewed;

For tho that on this lond wonn

That the Latin ne Franky's conn,

For to half solace and gamen

In felauschip when tha sitt samen,

And it is wisdom forto wytten

The state of the land, and hef it wrytten,

What manere of folk first it wan,

And of what kind it first began.

The Chronicler then proceeds to relate, with great seriousness, all the events which happened in this country from the time of Sir Noe,' unto Eneas; from Eneas unto Brutus; and from Brutus to Cadweladres. In doing which, he professes to show in respect to these kings—

Whilk were foles, and whilk were wyse,
And whilk of them couth most quantyse;
And whilk did wrong, and whilk ryght,
And whilk mayntaned pes and fyght.

On completing that portion of the poem of which the divisions are thus laid down, the author leaves the Brut d'Angleterre, and draws his materials from another French work, which, it is remarkable enough, had been written a few years before by a canon of the monastery of Bridlington in Yorkshire. The name of this author was Peter Langtoft, and his chronicle, which consists of five books, is written in Alexandrines, a measure which was long one of the most admired species of verse both in France and England. Robert de Brunne, who was a most faithful translator, imitated his style as closely as he did that of Wace, the author of the Brut d'Angleterre, and the second part of his poem accordingly is in Alexandrines. Warton, has observed that he had little more poetry in him than Robert of Gloucester; but has added, as some apology for him, that he has acquainted his readers that he avoided high description and the usual phraseology of the minstrels

and harpers of his time.

His lines on the subject give a good idea of

the state of the language at the period :

I mad noght for no disours,
Ne for seggers no harpours,
Bot for the luf of symple men,
That strange Inglis cannot ken,
For many it ere that strange Inglis
In ryme wate never what it is.
I made it not for to be praysed,
Bot at the lewed men were aysed.

But Robert de Brunne did not confine his labours to these historical subjects: he also translated the treatise written in French by the cele brated Grosthead, bishop of Lincoln, entitled 'Manuel de Peche,' or Manual of Sins; a work which throws some singular light on the religious notions of the age and on the modes in which they were disseminated. Robert himself tells us that he translated it to furnish men with amusement, "for gamys and festys at the ale," when they love to listen to tales and rhymes. The most serious moral injunctions are, therefore, accompanied in this work, with numerous romantic legends, and Bishop Grosthead himself is represented as having his harper lodged in a chamber next his own, as employing his skill by night and day, and answering a person who inquired 'Why he held the harper so dear?' that,

The virtu of the harpe, thurgh skyle and ryght,

Wyll destrye the fendys myght;
And to the cros by gode skylle

Ys the harpe lykened weyl.

The other work of Robert de Brunne was a translation of the treatise of Cardinal Bonaventura, the title of which, in the version of our author, is Medytaciuns of the Soper of our Lorde Jhesu, and also of hys Passyun, and eke of the Peynes of hys swete Modyr mayden Marye, the whyche made yn Latyn Bonaventure Cardynall.'

Warton's opinion that Robert was nothing more than a translator, has been controverted by the learned editor of the History of English Poetry, who observes that he generally enlarges the moral precepts of the original, introduces occasional illustrations of his own, and sometimes avails himself of other authorities than those employed by this writer whom he chiefly follows. The same remark may also be made in respect to this writer, which was made in the notice of Robert of Gloucester. Notwithstanding his want of fancy, he was instru mental in improving the poetical literature of the country, by introducing a more regular species of metrical narrative than has hitherto been known; to which may be added, that he deserves very high praise for having discernment enough to adapt his productions to that class of persons whom it was most beneficial and necessary to inspire with a taste for literature.

Adam Davie, who is commonly mentioned as the next of our poets, appears to have been nearly contemporary with De Brunne, and may perhaps be considered as rather his superior both in elegance and spirit. Laurence Minot, whose works had been entirely forgotten till they were accidentally discovered by the late Mr Tyrrwhitt, while