788 
P O E T R Y. 
men of Englifli poetry refemble the language of the 
prefent day, that it requires little alteration, except that 
of being written according to the modern mode of fpel- 
ling, to render it perfe&ly intelligible to the moft un¬ 
learned reader: > 
Another abbey is there by, 
Forfooth a great nunnery ; 
Up a river of fvveet milk. 
Where is plenty great of filk. 
When the fummer’s day is hot, 
The young nuns do take a boat 
And go them forth in that river 
Both with oars and with rudder: 
When they be far from the abbey, 
They make them naked for to play. 
And lay them down into the brim. 
And then prepare them for to fwim : 
The young monks that them do fee 
They raife them up and forth they flee. 
And come they to the nuns anon, 
And then each monk doth take him one. 
And quickly beareth forth his prey 
To the mickle gray abbey. 
In the Bodleian Library are three manufcript copies of 
the Lives of the Saints, which Warton thinks were pro¬ 
bably tranflated or paraphrafed from Latin or French 
profe into Englifli rhyme before the year 1200. The 
metre of this poem is like the French Alexandrines. 
Our anceftors, even in thofe remote times, ventured to 
fpeak of the abufes of the church without reftraint; and 
we find, from a poem written by one of the partifans of 
the brave Simon de Montford, earl of Leicefter, that they 
were not lefs liberal in their fatire upon the ftate. There 
is a fatirical production, a fong or ballad compofed foon 
after the battle of Lewes, which was fought in the year 
1264, and which proved very fatal to the interefts of 
Henry the Third. According to fome manufcripts, 
Richard, the brother of the Englifli king, was taken in a 
windmill, and the writer of the ballad therefore humor- 
oufly fuppofes, that he took the mill for a fortification, 
and believed the fails to be military engines. It has been 
well conjeftured, that this and other poems written on 
behalf of Simon de Montford’s party, occafioned a ftatute 
againft libels in the year 1275, under the title, “ Againft 
Slanderous Reports, or Tales to caufe Difcords betwixt 
King and People.” But the ballad alluded to above is 
not the oldeft extant. The following is faid to be the 
moft ancient fong in the Englifli language. It was writ¬ 
ten, according to Dr. Todd, as early as the year 1250; 
though Warton, adopting the judgment of Sir John 
Hawkins and Dr. Burney, has moft erroneoufly referred 
it to the fifteenth century. It is in praife of the cuckoo. 
We give this alfo in modern orthography : 
Summer is a coming in ; 
Loud fing cuckoo: 
Gloweth feed and bloweth meed. 
And fpringeth the wood new. 
Sing cuckoo. 
Ewe bleateth after lamb j 
Loweth after calve cow; 
Bullock ftarteth. 
Buck verteth ; 
Merry fings cuckoo. 
Cuckoo, cuckoo. 
Well fing’ft thou cuckoo 5 
Ne fwik’lt thou never. 
That is, may’ll: thou never ceafe. 
In the reign of Edward the Firft occurs the name of 
Robert of Gloucefter, a monk of the abbey of Glou- 
cefter, who has left a poem of confiderable length, being 
a Hiftory of England from Brutus to the clofe of the 
reign of Henry the Third. This poem is generally writ¬ 
ten and printed in the Alexandrine meafure; but might, 
as Warton obferves, with equal probability have been 
originally compofed in four-lined ftanzas. The following 
fliort extract will ferve as a fpecimen of the language 
and verfification. It is a defcription of the fate of a 
giant: 
Tho griftych yal theflrew tho, that grifiych was his bere, 
He vel doung as a gret ok, that bynethe ycorve were, 
That it thogte that al hul myd the vallynge flok. 
This paflage is thus tranflated by Warton : “ This cruel 
giant yelled fo horribly, and fo vehement was his fall, 
that he fell down like an oak cut through at the bottom, 
and all the hill (hook while he fell.” 
At the clofe of the reign of Ed ward the Firft, and in the 
year 1303, a poet occurs of the name of Robert Mannyng 
a Gibertine monk, in the abbey of Brunne, or Bourne, 
in Lincolnfttire, and hence called Robert de Brunne. He 
was merely a tranflator. The following is an extraft from 
the Prologue to his tranflation of a French work called 
Manual de Peche: 
For lewed men I undyrtoke 
In Englilhe tonge to make this boke : 
For many beyn of fuche manere 
That talys and rymys wyle blethly here. 
In gamys and feftys at the ale, 
Love men to leftene trotonale. 
Robert de Brunne’s largeft work is a tranflation of a me¬ 
trical Chronicle of England, 
Several Englifli metrical romances appeared about the 
reign of Edward the Second. Amonglt thefe was that 
of Richard Cceur de Lyon. The fubje&s of this poena 
are the achievements, real and imaginary, of the hero 
whofenameit bears. The battle-axe which Richard car¬ 
ried with him to the Holy Land is thus defcribed; 
KingRycharde I underftonde 
Or he went out of Engelonde 
Let him make an axe for the nones 
To brake therewith the Sarafyns bones. 
The heed was wroght right wele, 
Therein was twenti pounde of ftele: 
And when he com into Cyprus londe 
The axe toke he in his honde 
All that he hytte he all to frapped 
The gryffons away fade rapped. 
And the pryfon when he came to 
With his axe he fmote ryght thro 
Dores, barres, and iron chaynes, &c. 
From the romance of Sir Guy, which is enumerated by' 
Chauceramong the “Romances of Pris,” (price or praife,} 
we extradf the defcription of Guyon’s expedition into the 
Souldan’s (Sultan’s) camp: 
Guy alked his armes anone. 
Hofen of yron Guy did upon : 
In hys hawberke Guy hym clad, 
He drad no ftroke whyle he it had. 
Upon his head hys helme he caft, 
And halted hym to ryde full fall. 
The paflage then goes on to defcribe the hnrnefs of his- 
horfe, and his courfe to the “ pavylyon of the Soudone,” 
where having arrived. 
He ne rought with whom he mette, 
But on thys wys the Soudon he grette : 
“ God’s curfe have thou and thyne, 
And tho that leve on Apoline.” 
Then faid the Soudan, “ What art thou. 
That thus prowdlie fpeakeft now ? 
Yet found I never man certayne 
That fuch wordes durft me fayne.” 
Guy faid, “ So God me fave from hell, 
My ryght nam I Ihall the tell, 
Guy of Warwicke my name is.” 
Then fayd the Soudan, ywis, 
“ Arte thou the bolde knyght Guyon, 
That arte here in my pavylyon ? 
Thou 
