"Paene in Gallicam transierat."
He therefore added to the polish, introduced by his predecessor, though at so late an hour that the change for the better was scarcely perceptible, before it merged in the more important one, introduced by the Norman invasion.
I now proceed to an examination of poetry through ages of comparative light. Although from the gradual intercourse between the two nations prior to their amalgamation, no alteration of feeling or manners had taken place, extensive enough to mark the "conquest" as a grand and important era in the history of national customs, still many and subtle changes were produced, bearing in no small degree upon the subject before us.
The poetry of the Saxons was without rhyme, and the author of "an essay on Chaucer," says, "without metre." The learned antiquary must have attached a meaning to the word metre, wholly at variance with that now and usually received. Metre (from the Greek [Greek: metron] and Latin metrum) has several meanings, but scarcely distinct ones: all may be included in that of 'an harmonious disposition of words.' It is not enough to say that it differed from prose in being the language of passion. The general rules by which we judge poetry, are immutable, and equally applicable to that of Greeks, Saxons, and modern English. Dr. Blair and his authorities, define poetry to be "the language of passion metrically arranged," (I quote from memory) and supported so ably, I will not consent to a halving of the definition. The before mentioned Essayist on Chaucer, adduces the "vision of Pierce Ploughman" as a specimen of the Saxon style of poetry. And herein it becomes evident that he mistakes the meaning of the word metre. For those old lines, composed about the middle of the fourteenth century, are, notwithstanding the ancient mode of writing without breaks or division into lines, beyond doubt capable of being arranged in separate and distinct verses. I am not without support in the opinion here given; Dr. Hickes6 maintains that the Saxons observed syllabic quantities "though perhaps not so strictly as the Greek and Latin heroic poets." It may be asked how this comes to be at all a question, since monuments of Saxon poetry still remain by which we can judge. But it is no such easy matter to judge correctly. Syllables were accented much at the whim of the versifyer; so much so that general rules for the disposition of accent are little less than useless. Add to this the common custom, before mentioned, of writing poetry and prose alike; and when we remember that the object in view is to ascertain the number and accentuation of syllables, the wonder will disappear.
6 Pref. Sax. Gram.
One among the earliest specimens of the use of rhyme in the Island of Great Britain, is to be found in the Saxon Chronicle. The author says that he himself had seen the Conqueror, and we may thence infer that the lines were written in the reign of William Rufus, or at farthest in that of his brother and successor Henry. It may be as well before quoting this literary curiosity, to notice a distich in itself trifling, and only worth noticing as the very earliest specimen of Saxon Rhyme, on record.
Aldred, Archbishop of York, threw out two rhyming verses against one Urse, sheriff of Worcestershire, not long after the conquest:
| "Hatest thou Urse—Have thou God's curse." Vocaris Ursus—Habeas dei maledictionem. |
William of Malmsbury, who has preserved this precious morsel, says that he inserts this English, "quod Latina verba non sicut Anglica concinnati respondent." The concinnity I presume consisted in the rhyme, and would scarcely have been deemed worth repeating if rhyme in English had not been a rare thing. It is quite apparent that rhyme and an improved metre were introduced by the Normans, among whom composition in their own dialect had been long before attempted in imitation of the jingling Latin rhythm.
The lines in the Saxon Chronicle to which I have referred, are a comment upon the changes effected by William. I will set them down in legible characters.