CHAPTER IV. Robert of Gloucester.-Various small Poems apparently written during the latter Part of the thirteenth Century. Robert de Brunne. We are now arrived at the poet whom his editor, Mr. Hearne, emphatically calls "the British Ennius," but concerning whom we know little more, than that he was a monk of the abbey of Gloucester; that his christian name was Robert; that he lived during the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I.; and that he wrote, in English rhymes, an history of England from the days of the imaginary Brutus, to his own time. His work seems to have been completed about the year 1280. "This "rhyming chronicle," says Mr. Warton, is totally "void of art or imagination. The author has "clothed the fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth in "rhyme, which have often a more poetical air "in Geoffrey's prose. The language is full of "Saxonisms; but this obscurity is perhaps owing "to the western dialect, in which our monk of "Gloucester was educated." It would be quite hopeless to attempt a defence of Robert of Gloucester's poetry: perhaps his own wish was merely to render more generally intelligible a body of history which he considered as curious, and certainly believed to be authentic, because it was written in Latin, the language of truth and religion. Addressing himself to his illiterate countrymen, he employed the vulgar language as he found it, without any attempt at embellishment or refinement; and perhaps wrote in rhyme, only because it was found to be an useful help to the memory, and gave his work a chance of being recited in companies, where it could not be read. The latter part of his poem, in which he relates the events of his own time, will not appear quite uninteresting to those, who prefer the simple and desultory narratives of contemporary writers, to the philosophical abridgments of the moderns; and a great part of his obscurity will be found to result from that unnecessary mixture of the German or black letter with the Saxon characters, in which Mr. Hearne, from his inordinate appetite for antiquity, has thought proper to dress this ancient English author. Robert of Gloucester, though cold and prosaic, is not quite deficient in the valuable talent of arresting the attention; and the orations with which he occasionally diversifies the thread of his story, are in general appropriate and dramatic, and not only prove his good sense, but exhibit no unfavourable specimens of his eloquence. In his description of the first crusade he seems to change his usual character, and becomes not only entertaining, but even animated; and the vision, in which a holy man" is ordered to reproach the Christians with their departure from their duty, and at the same time to promise them the divine intervention, to extricate them from a situation in which the exertions of human valour were apparently fruitless, would not, perhaps, to contemporary readers, appear less poetical, nor less sublime and impressive, than the introduction of the heathen mythology into the works of the early classics. The expectations awakened by this grand incident are, indeed, miserably disappointed by the strange morality which our monk ascribes to the Supreme Being, who declares himself offended, not by the unnecessary cruelties of the crusaders, nor by the general profligacy of their manners, so much as by the reflection, that they "With women of Paynim did their foul kind, "Whereof the stench came into heaven on high." But these absurdities and inconsistencies present, perhaps, a more lively picture of the reigning manners and opinions, than could have been intentionally delineated by a writer of much superior abilities to Robert of Gloucester. Our sententious annalist has given, in the following few lines, the same description which we have already examined, as exhibited more at length by Wace, and imitated by Layamon. The king was to his palace, tho' the service was y-do, Y-lad with his menye," and the queen to hers also. For hii held the old usages, that men with men were By them selve, and women by them selve also there. Tho hii were each one y-set, as it to her state be come, Kay, king of Anjou, a thousand knights nome 4 Nom also, in his half a fair company, 1 When, sometimes then, but never though, which our old authors sometimes spell they, sometimes thogh, &c. &c. Fr. Attendants. 4 Took. Sax. 3 They. 5 In the same dress. On his behalf, or on his part. The use of the several Of one suit, for to serve of the butlery. For to tell all the nobley that there was y-do, Though my tongue were of steel, me should nought dure thereto. Women ne kept of 3 no knight as in druery,4 But 5 he were in arms well y-proved, and at least thrye, 6 That made, lo, the women the chaster life lead, And the knights the stalworder, 7 and better in her deed. 8 Soon after this noble meat, as right was of such tide, The knights atyled 9 them about, in each side, prepositions was not fixed as it now is, but many of them were used indifferently. Many proofs of this occur in the present extract, and they are therefore marked in italics. 'Noble feats. Old Fr. * Took no account of. 5 Unless, 7 Bolder. Sax. 2 Endure, last. ↑ Gallantry. 6 Thrice. 8 Feast. 9 Prepared, or perhaps armed. It seems to be the French word atteller; and the English word harness was also syno, |