ADDITIONS TO THE ESSAY ON THE ALLITERATIVE METRE.

Since the foregoing essay was first printed, the Editor hath met with some additional examples of the old alliterative metre.

The first is in MS.[907] which begins thus:

"Crist Crowned Kyng, that on Cros didest,[908]
And art Comfort of all Care, thow[909] kind go out of Cours,
With thi Halwes in Heven Heried mote thu be,
And thy Worshipful Werkes Worshiped evre,
That suche Sondry Signes Shewest unto man,
In Dremyng, in Drecchyng,[910] and in Derke swevenes."

The Author from this proemium takes occasion to give an account of a dream that happened to himself: which he introduces with the following circumstances:

"Ones y me Ordayned, as y have Ofte doon,
With Frendes, and Felawes, Frendemen, and other;
And Caught me in a Company on Corpus Christi even,
Six, other[911] Seven myle, oute of Suthampton,
To take Melodye, and Mirthes, among my Makes;
With Redyng of Romaunces, and Revelyng among,
The Dym of the Derknesse Drewe me into the west;
And beGon for to spryng in the Grey day.
Than Lift y up my Lyddes, and Loked in the sky,
And Knewe by the Kende Cours, hit clered in the est:
Blyve y Busked me down, and to Bed went,
For to Comforte my Kynde, and Cacche a slepe."

He then describes his dream:

"Methought that y Hoved on High on an Hill,
And loked Doun on a Dale Depest of othre;
Ther y Sawe in my Sighte a Selcouthe peple;
The Multitude was so Moche, it Mighte not be nombred:
Methoughte y herd a Crowned Kyng, of his Comunes axe
A Soleyne[912] Subsidie, to Susteyne his werres.
* * * * *
With that a Clerk Kneled adowne and Carped these wordes,
Liege Lord, yif it you Like to Listen a while,
Som Sawes of Salomon y shall you shewe sone."

The writer then gives a solemn lecture to kings on the art of governing. From the demand of subsidies "to susteyne his werres," I am inclined to believe this poem composed in the reign of K. Henry V., as the MS. appears from a subsequent entry to have been written before the 9th of Henry VI. The whole poem contains but 146 lines.

The alliterative metre was no less popular among the old Scottish poets, than with their brethren on this side the Tweed. In Maitland's collection of ancient Scottish poems, MS. in the Pepysian library, is a very long poem in this species of versification, thus inscribed:

"Heir begins the Tretis of the Twa Marriit Wemen, and the Wedo, compylit be Maister William Dunbar.[913]
Upon the Midsummer evven Mirriest of nichtis
I Muvit furth alane quhen as Midnight was past
Besyd ane Gudlie Grene Garth,[914] full of Gay flouris
Hegeit[915] of ane Huge Hicht with Hawthorne treeis
Quairon ane Bird on ane Bransche so Birst out hir notis
That nevir ane Blythfuller Bird was on the Beuche[916] hard &c."

The Author pretends to overhear three gossips sitting in an arbour, and revealing all their secret methods of alluring and governing the other sex; it is a severe and humorous satire on bad women, and nothing inferior to Chaucer's Prologue to his Wife of Bath's Tale. As Dunbar lived till about the middle of the sixteenth century, this poem was probably composed after Scottish Field (described above in p. [384]), which is the latest specimen I have met with written in England. This poem contains about five hundred lines.

But the current use of the alliterative metre in Scotland, appears more particularly from those popular vulgar prophecies, which are still printed for the use of the lower people in Scotland, under the names of Thomas the Rymer, Marvellous Merling, &c. This collection seems to have been put together after the accession of James I. to the crown of England, and most of the pieces in it are in the metre of Pierce Plowman's Visions, The first of them begins thus:

"Merling sayes in his book, who will Read Right,
Although his Sayings be uncouth, they Shall be true found.
In the seventh chapter, read Whoso Will,
One thousand and more after Christ's birth, &c."

And the prophesie of Beid:

"Betwixt the chief of Summer and the Sad winter;
Before the Heat of summer Happen shall a war
That Europ's lands Earnestly shall be wrought
And Earnest Envy shall last but a while, &c."

So again the prophesie of Berlington:

"When the Ruby is Raised, Rest is there none,
But much Rancour shall Rise in River and plain
Much Sorrow is Seen through a Suth-hound
That beares Hornes in his Head like a wyld Hart, &c."

In like metre is the prophesie of Waldhave:

"Upon Lowdon Law alone as I Lay,
Looking to the Lennox, as me Lief thought,
The first Morning of May, Medicine to seek
For Malice and Melody that Moved me sore, &c."

And lastly, that intitled the prophesie of Gildas:

"When holy kirk is Wracked and Will has no Wit
And Pastors are Pluckt, and Pil'd without Pity
When Idolatry Is In ens and re
And spiritual pastours are vexed away, &c."

It will be observed in the foregoing specimens, that the alliteration is extremely neglected, except in the third and fourth instances; although all the rest are written in imitation of the cadence used in this kind of metre. It may perhaps appear from an attentive perusal, that the poems ascribed to Berlington and Waldhave are more ancient than the others: indeed the first and fifth appear evidently to have been new modelled, if not intirely composed about the beginning of the last century, and are probably the latest attempts ever made in this species of verse.

In this and the foregoing essay are mentioned all the specimens I have met with of the alliterative metre without rhyme: but instances occur sometimes in old manuscripts, of poems written both with final rhymes and the internal cadence and alliterations of the metre of Pierce Plowman.

This Essay will receive illustration from another specimen in Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 309, being the fragment of a MS. poem on the subject of Alexander the Great, in the Bodleian Library, which he supposes to be the same with No. 44 in the Ashmol. MSS. containing twenty-seven passus, and beginning thus:

"Whener folk fastid [feasted, qu.] and fed, fayne wolde thei her [i.e. hear]
Some farand thing, &c."

It is well observed by Mr. Tyrwhitt on Chaucer's sneer at this old alliterative metre (vol. iii. p. 305), viz.:

"——I am a Sotherne [i.e. Southern] man,
I cannot geste, rom, ram, raf, by my letter,"

that the fondness for this species of versification, &c. was retained longest in the northern provinces: and that the author of Pierce Plowman's Visions is in the best MSS. called William, without any surname. See vol. iv. p. 74.

[The Rev. Walter W. Skeat, editor of Piers Plowman, for the Early English Text Society, has written An Essay on Alliterative Poetry, for Hales and Furnivall's edition of the Percy folio MS., which will be found in the third volume of that work (pp. xi.-xxxix.). He gives a list of all the poems he has met with that have been written as alliterative, yet without rhyme, since the Conquest, and ends his essay with the following note:—"The reader must be warned against three extraordinary mis-statements in this (Percy's) essay, following close upon one another near the end of it. These are (1) that Robert of Gloucester wrote in anapæstic verse, whereas he wrote in the long Alexandrine verse, containing (when perfect) six Returns; (2) that the French alone have retained this old Gothic metre [the twelve-syllabled Alexandrine] for their serious poems, whereas we may be sure that Michael Drayton, the author of the Polyolbion, meant his poem seriously; and (3) that the cadence of Piers Plowman 'so exactly resembles the French Alexandrine, that I believe no peculiarities of their versification can be produced which cannot be exactly matched in the alliterative metre.' This is indeed a curious craze, for the alliterative metre is founded on Dominants, the Alexandrine on Returns. Percy gives some examples, and the metre which he selects for numbering is the French one, as the reader may easily judge for himself when he finds that the line

"Lĕ sŭccēs fŭt toŭjoūrs | ŭn ĕnfānt dĕ l'aŭdāce"

is marked by him as it is marked here, and is supposed to consist of four Anapæsts! Yet one more blunder to be laid at the door of the 'Anapæsts!' Would that we were well rid of them, and that the 'longs' and 'shorts' were buried beside them.">[

FOOTNOTES:

[884] Literatura Runica. Hafniæ, 1636, 4to.—1651, fol. The Islandic language is of the same origin as our Anglo-Saxon, being both dialects of the ancient Gothic or Teutonic. Vid. Hickesii Præfat. in Grammat. Anglo-Saxon. & Moeso-Goth, 4to. 1689.

[885] Vid. Hickes Antiq. Literatur. Septentrional. tom. i. p. 217.

[886] Ibid.

[887] So I would read with Mr. Warton, rather than either "soft," as in MS. or "set," as in PCC.

[888] The poem properly contains xxi. parts: the word passus, adopted by the author, seems only to denote the break or division between two parts, though by the ignorance of the printer applied to the parts themselves. See vol. iii. preface to ballad iii. where Passus seems to signify Pause.

[889] That which seems the first of the two, is thus distinguished in the title-page, "nowe the seconde tyme imprinted by Roberte Crowlye;" the other thus, "nowe the seconde time imprinted by Robert Crowley." In the former the folios are thus erroneously numbered 39, 39, 41, 63, 43, 42, 45, &c. The booksellers of those days did not ostentatiously affect to multiply editions.

[890] Signature T. ii.

[891] Caligula A. ij. fol. 109. 123.

[892] K. vol x.

[893] W. de Worde's edit. is in 1512. See Ames, p. 92. Mr. G.'s copy is "¶ Imprinted at London by me Wylliam Copland."

[894] He is said in the story-book to be the grandfather of Godfrey of Boulogne, through whom I suppose the duke made out his relation to him. This duke was beheaded May 17, 1521, 13 Hen. VIII.

[895] Jest, MS.

[896] Probably corrupted for—"Says but as he Saw."

[897] Yearded, i.e. buried, earthed, earded. It is common to pronounce "Earth," in some parts of England "Yearth," particularly in the north.—Pitscottie speaking of James III. slain at Bannockbourn, says, "Nae man wot whar they yearded him."

[898] "us." MS. In the 2d line above, the MS. has "bidding."

[899] And in that of Robert of Gloucester. See the next note.

[900] Consisting of four Anapests (˘ ˘ ¯) in which the accent rests upon every third syllable. This kind of verse, which I also call the burlesque Alexandrine (to distinguish it from the other Alexandrines of eleven and fourteen syllables, the parents of our lyric measure: see examples, pp. 151, 152, &c.), was early applied by Robert of Gloucester to serious subjects. That writer's metre, like this of Langland's, is formed on the Saxon models (each verse of his containing a Saxon distich), only instead of the internal alliterations adopted by Langland, he rather chose final rhymes, as the French poets have done since. Take a specimen:

"The Saxons tho in ther power, tho thii were so rive,
Seve kingdoms made in Engelonde, and suthe but vive:
The king of Northomberlond, and of Eastangle also,
Of Kent, and of Westsex, and of the March, therto."

Robert of Gloucester wrote in the western dialect, and his language differs exceedingly from that of other contemporary writers, who resided in the metropolis, or in the midland counties. Had the Heptarchy continued, our English language would probably have been as much distinguished for its different dialects as the Greek; or at least as that of the several independent states of Italy.

[901] Or of thirteen syllables, in what they call a feminine verse. It is remarkable that the French alone have retained this old Gothic metre for their serious poems; while the English, Spaniards, &c. have adopted the Italic verse of ten syllables, although the Spaniards, as well as we, anciently used a short-lined metre. I believe the success with which Petrarch, and perhaps one or two others, first used the heroic verse of ten syllables in Italian poesy, recommended it to the Spanish writers; as it also did to our Chaucer, who first attempted it in English; and to his successors Lord Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat, &c.; who afterwards improved it and brought it to perfection. To Lord Surrey we also owe the first introduction of blank verse in his versions of the second and fourth Books of the Æneid, 1557, 4to.

[902] Thus our poets use this verse indifferently with twelve, eleven, and even ten syllables. For though regularly it consists of four Anapests (˘ ˘ ¯) or twelve syllables, yet they frequently retrench a syllable from the first or third Anapest; and sometimes from both; as in these instances from Prior, and from the Song of Conscience:

"Whŏ hăs eēr beĕn ăt Pārĭs, mŭst nēeds knŏw thĕ Grēve,
Thĕ fātăl rĕtrēat ŏf th' ŭnfōrtŭnăte brāve.
Hĕ stēpt tŏ hĭm strāight, ănd dīd hĭm rĕquīre."

[903] See instances in L'Hist. de la Poesie Françoise, par Massieu, &c. In the same book are also specimens of alliterative French verses.

[904] Catalina, A. 3.

[905] Boileau Sat.

[906] Boil. Sat. ii.

[907] In a small 4to. MS. containing thirty-eight leaves in private hands.

[908] Didst dye.

[909] though.

[910] being overpowered.

[911] i.e. either, or.

[912] solemn.

[913] Since the above was written, this poem hath been printed in Ancient Scottish Poems, &c. from the MS. Collections of Sir R. Maitland, of Lethington, knight, of London, 1786, 2 vols. 12mo. The two first lines are here corrected by that edition.

[914] Garden.

[915] Hedged.

[916] Bough.

[INDEX OF BALLADS AND POEMS IN THE SECOND VOLUME.]

Agincourt, For the Victory at, [29].

Aldingar (Sir), [54].

Althea (To) from Prison, [321].

Argentile and Curan, [252].

As ye came from the Holy Land, [101].

Baffled Knight, or Lady's Policy, [336].

Barton (Sir Andrew), [188].

Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green, [171].

Bothwell's (Lady Anne) Lament, [209].

Braes of Yarrow, [362].

Charing Cross, Downfall of, [323].

Charles I., Verses by, [329].

Chaucer, Original Ballad by, [14].

Complaint of Conscience, [279].

Corin's Fate, [262].

Corydon's Doleful Knell, [274].

Cromwell (Thomas Lord), [71].

Cupid's Assault, by Lord Vaux, [50].

Dawson (Jemmy), [371].

Distracted Lover, [355].

Distracted Puritan, [347].

Edward I., On the Death of, [10].

Edward IV. and Tanner of Tamworth, [92].

Eleanor's (Q.) Confession, [164].

Elizabeth's (Q.) Verses while Prisoner at Woodstock, [137].

---- Sonnet, [218].

Fair Rosamond, [154].

Fancy and Desire, [185].

Frantic Lady, [357].

Gaberlunyie Man, [67].

Gascoigne's Praise of the Fair Bridges, afterwards Lady Sandes, [150].

Gentle Herdsman, tell to me, [86].

Hardyknute, [105].

Harpalus, [75].

Heir of Linne, [138].

Hosier's (Admiral) Ghost, [367].

James I., Verses by, [300].

Jane Shore, [263].

John Anderson, my Jo, [131].

John (King) and the Abbot of Canterbury, [303].

King of Scots and Andrew Browne, [221].

Lady distracted with Love, [354].

Lilli Burlero, [358].

Little John Nobody, [133].

Loyalty Confined, [326].

Lunatic Lover, [351].

Luther, the Pope, a Cardinal, and a Husbandman, [125].

Lye (The), by Sir Walter Raleigh, [297].

Mary Ambree, [231].

Murder of the King of Scots, [213].

Murray, Bonny Earl of, [226].

Not-Browne Maid, [31].

Old Tom of Bedlam, [344].

Old and Young Courtier, [314].

Plain Truth and Blind Ignorance, [285].

Richard of Almaigne, [3].

Rivers (Earl), Balet by, [48].

Robin and Makyne, [79].

Sale of Rebellious Houshold Stuff, [332].

Spanish Lady's Love, [247].

Sturdy Rock, [169].

Suckling's (Sir John) Campaigne, [318].

Turnament of Tottenham, [17].

Victorious Men of Earth, [242].

Wandering Jew, [291].

Why so Pale, [343].

Willoughbey, Brave Lord, [238].

Winning of Cales, [243].

You meaner Beauties, [312].

Young Waters, [228].

END OF VOLUME THE SECOND.

Transcriber's Notes:

Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected.

Punctuation normalized.

Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.

Page vii ERRATA were applied where indicated

Proper drop caps were not possible with poetry as the poem would not wrap properly around the image. The drop cap images were included in the left margin adjacent to where they should have been.

This e-text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode) file encoding, such as:

If any of these characters do not display properly, you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts. First, make sure that the browser's "character set" or "file encoding" is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change your browser's default font. The free [ Junicode] font works well.

The following Anglo-Saxon Uncial characters have no Unicode equivalent. Ordinary Latin 1 characters were substituted instead.

UncialC
e
G
M
S