his spiritual music to the lips of rich and poor; thus, for example 'pe sope luve is al rihtwis ne kepep heo non onde,* Mid pan folke pat rihtwis is Vre louerd Crist þat almyhti is alese us of his bonde, And lede us into heovene blys, and sette us on his ryht honde." In his edition of an Alliterative Homily upon the Holy State of Maidenhood† the Rev. Oswald Cockayne expressed a belief that it had been written for the ladies at Tarrant Kaines by the same hand that gave them the "Ancren Riwle." The "Ancren Riwle" speaks of the story of Saint Margaret as known to those ladies; and the "Hali Meidenhad" recommends the study also of the lives of St. Katherine, St. Juliana, St. Margaret, St. Lucy, and St. Cecilia. Oswald Cockayne himself edited the lives of St. Margaret§ and St. Juliana,|| written in aid of the same doctrine of holy maidenhood, which was enforced as vigorously in the thirteenth century as in the days of Aldhelm. T Dr. Richard Morris has also edited from MSS. in the British Museum, Lambeth and Bodleian Libraries, a * Onde, envy, malice. "Hali Meidenhad, from MS. Cott. Titus D. xviii. fol. 112c. An Alliterative Homily of the Thirteenth Century. Edited by Oswald Cockayne, M. A., once of St. John's College, Cambridge" (Early English Text Society, 1866). "E. W." III. 236-8. S "Saint Marherete, 1200-1330," ed. Rev. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S., 1866). "The Liflade of St. Juliana, from Two Old English Manuscripts of 1230 A.D., with Renderings into Modern English by the Rev. O. Cockayne and Edmund Brock" (E. E. Text Soc., 1872). TE. W." II. 137, 138. Poema Morale. collection of English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These volumes include a Poema Morale, perhaps older than Layamon's "Brut." It is in long lines of seven accents, called, therefore, Septenar, a catalectic tetrameter, differing only from that of the Ormulum in having complete rhymes. It was imitated from a form of verse used in monastic Latin, not from the French poets. There is art in the structure of a prose piece—written in the spirit of Thomas of Hales's Love-song for a Maiden vowed to God— "The Wooing of our Lord," with its refrain "A, ihesu, mi swete ihesu, leue þat te luue of þe seo al mi likinge!” A Metrical Sermon and fifteen Signs before Judgment (both pieces in four-lined stanzas, and written near the end of the thirteenth century) have been printed by Dr. Furnivall from a Harleian MS.* Hendyng. In the south of England there was shaped at the close of the thirteenth century a series of strophes, each introProverbs of ducing a proverb, known as the Proverbs of Hendyng.† English proverbs had been fathered on King Alfred. Their new father is called in an opening stanza "Marcolve's son," but Hendyng seems to have been only an imaginary proverb - maker. So the old French proverbs were fathered on "li Vilains "_" Ce dit li Vilains," answering to the "Quoth Hendyng" of the English rhymes. Hendyng may have had Marcolph given to him for a father because in an old popular poem of the Middle Ages, "Salomo and Marcolph," Marcolph represents the homely wisdom of the people in communion with the *From Harleian MS. 913. In "Early English Poems and Lives of Saints" (Berlin, 1862). First printed from the Harleian MS. 2,253 in Wright and Halliwell's "Reliquiæ Antiquæ ;" and also by J. M. Kemble in the appendix to his "Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn" (Ælfric Society, wisdom of the wise. As for the name Hendyng itself, I believe that it suggests only the wisdom of age and experience, and is one of the vernacular words drawn from the Celtic part of our population, for Henddyn means in Welsh "an aged person." I translate two of these sayings into modern English before giving their original form— ["Wise man's words are well kept in ; For he will no song begin Ere he have tuned his pipe. The fool's a fool, and that is seen; For he will speak words while they're green 'The fool's bolt is soon shot;' "Wis mon holt is wordes ynne ; Sot is sot, ant that is sene; ["Never let thy foeman hear Of shame or pain thou hast to bear, Of thy woe or trouble. If he can he'll find a way, Working at it night and day, Every grief to double. 'Tell thou never thy foe that thy foot acheth;' Quoth Hendyng.] "Tell thou never thy fo-mon Shome ne teone that the is on, Thi care ne thy wo: For he wol fonde, yef he may, Both by nyhtes ant by day, Of on to make two. 'Tel thou never thy fo that thy fot aketh;' X-VOL. III. The Harleian MS. 2,253,* which contains "The Proverbs of Hendyng," is rich in illustration of the rising music of the land. Its contents were copied into it about the year 1310, and the English verse in it represents fusion of southern with northern forms, that gave new charm to song at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries. The way is made ready for Chaucer. "" 'Blow, norberne wynd, Blou blou blou !" is the refrain of a graceful love-song of this time. The southern wind, too, is awakening the flowers. The Fox and the Wolf,† ascribed to the reign of Edward I. (1272-1307), tells how the fox, after failure of an attempt on a hen-yard, drank at a spring, fell in and escaped by a trick, leaving the wolf in his place. It is a story founded on Æsop, taken by the English poet from the French Roman du Renart, with free variations in the matter and the treatment. Another popular poem assigned to the latter part of the thirteenth century is a satire upon corruptions in the Church, that paints a Fool's Paradise for monks, wherein all the delights are sensual, and spiritual life passes for nothing. The Paradise of this satire, which spread through several countries, was entitled "the Land of Cockaigne "—that is * Dr. K. Böddeker has edited with grammar and glossary the "Alt englische Dichtungen des MS. Harl. 2,253" (Berlin, 1878). I must defer to the next volume a discussion of the multiplying forms of song. + Printed in Wright and Halliwell's "Reliquiæ Antique "from the Digby MS. No. 86, in the Bodleian. It was printed imperfectly from the Harleian MS. 913 in Hickes's "Thesaurus," then modernised in Ellis's "Specimens," then to say, Kitchenland. From coquere, to cook, came the Latin coquina, Italian cucina, English kitchen, French cuisine; which yielded such names as the Italian Cuccagna, Spanish Cucaña, French Coquaine, to the land of animal delights painted by popular satire as the happy land of monks who had turned their backs upon the higher life to which they were devoted. An old German poet described it as "dat edele lant van Cockœngen." In what spirit this popular satire was written none can doubt, when they find at the close how such a Paradise as it paints is to be earned only by seven years' wading chin-deep in swinish filth. published by Thomas Wright in vol. i. of "Altdeutsche Blätter," and carefully given by Dr. Furnivall in "Early English Poems" (Berlin, 1862). |