He sette him on a benche
His harpe for to clenche.”
“King Horn,” ed. J. R. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1866, l. 1465.
[247] Wordsworth, “The Solitary Reaper.”
[248] “Cursor Mundi,” a Northumbrian poem of the fourteenth century, edited by R. Morris for the Early English Text Society, vol. v. p. 1651 and vol. i. p. 8.
[249] It began to be customary to read aloud verses too, instead of singing them. Chaucer foresees that his poem of “Troilus” may be indifferently read or sung, and he writes, addressing his book:
“So preye I to God, that non myswrite the,
Ne the mys-metere, for defaute of tonge!
And red wher so thow be, or elles songe,
That thow be understonde, God I beseche!”