To the same period with the foregoing we ought, perhaps, to refer the following short descriptive song, preserved by Sir John Hawkins in his History of Music: Summer is y-comen in Loud sing cuckoo : Groweth seed, and bloweth' mead, And springeth the wood now, Sing cuckoo. Ewe bleateth after lamb, Loweth after calf cow: Bullock starteth, Buck verteth,2 Merry sing cuckoo ! Cuckoo, cuckoo, Well sings thou cuckoo, Ne swick thou never now. The first poet who occurs in the beginning of the fourteenth century, is Robert Manning, commonly called Robert de Brunne. He was, as far as we know, merely a translator. His first work, says Mr. Warton, was a metrical paraphrase of a French book, written by Grosthead, bishop of Lincoln, Blooms. 3 Cease. Goes to harbour among the fern. called Manuel Peche, (Manuel des Pêchés) being a treatise on the Decalogue, and on the seven deadly sins, which are illustrated with many legendary stories. It was never printed, but is preserved in the Bodleian library, MSS. No. 415, and in the British Museum, MSS. Harl. No. 1701. His second, and more important work, is a metrical chronicle of England, in two parts, the first of which is translated from Wace's Brut d'Angleterre; and the second, from a French chronicle, written by Peter de Langtoft, an Augustine canon of Bridlington, in Yorkshire, who is supposed to have died in the reign of Edward II. and was therefore contemporary with his translator. Robert de Brunne has furnished his biographers with the only particulars that are known concerning his life. In the prologue to his first work he says, that he had lived fifteen years at Brunne, in the priory of Sympryngham, when he began his translation, in 1303. He was therefore received into the order, A. D. 1288, and was probably born before the year 1270. With respect to his second work, he says: Of Brunne I am, if any me blame, Blessed be he, of God of heaven, That me Robert with good will neven.' In the house of Sixille I was a throw." By this passage he seems to mean, that he was born at a place called Malton; that he had resided some time at a house in the neighbourhood called Sixhill; and that there he, Robert de Brunne, had composed at least a part of his poem, during the reign of Edward III. Mr. Warton, therefore, is perhaps inaccurate in his account of this author, when he says, that " he was a Gilbertine monk "in the monastery of Brunne, or Bourne, near "Depyng, in Lincolnshire, but he had been before "professed in the priory of Sixhill, a house of "the same order, and in the same county." Mr. Hearne, the editor of Robert de Brunne, has thought fit to suppress the whole of his translation from Wace, excepting the prologue, and a few extracts which he found necessary to illustrate his glossary. The learned antiquary perhaps thought, 1 Names. 2 For some time. that having carefully preserved the whole of Robert of Gloucester's faithful and almost literal version of Geoffrey of Monmouth, it was unnecessary to print the more licentious paraphrase, that had passed through the medium of a Norman poet. The following description of the first interview between Vortigern and Rowena, is one of the few specimens that he has preserved. It is not given as an example of beautiful poetry, or of refined language, for its style is scarcely to be distinguished from that of the Monk of Gloucester; but it is a curious description of ancient manners. Of chamber Rouwen so gent, And on her language scho him gret : This Breg was the latimer1 "Sir" (Breg said)" Rowen you greets, The king said, as the knight gan ken,6 Rowen drank, as her list, And gave the king: sine 7 him kist. Latinier. Fr.; an interpreter. 2 Esteems. 3 Invites. Kissing. This is the usual termination of the participle in old English, as it is in French. 5 In sport and in play. 6 "As the knight had signified." The word gan (began) is often used to form the tenses of verbs. 7 Since, afterwards. |