Hie were caught by the net, so bird is in snare
With rouncin and with stede:
The Flemishe hem dabbeth on the hed bare,
Hie nolden take for hem raunsoun ne ware
Hie doddeth off here hevedes, fare so hit fare,
And thare to haveth hie nede.
This style of political journalism in rhyme was carried on later with much spirit, and one author is well known by name and has had his poems often edited—Lawrence Minot, a good workman who is sometimes undervalued. Lawrence Minot has command of various lyrical measures; he has the clear sharp phrasing which belongs generally to his northern dialect, and he can put contempt into his voice with no recourse to bad language. After describing the threats and boasting of the French, when Minot remarks
And yet is England as it was,
the effect is just where it ought to be, between wind and water; the enemy is done for. It is like Prior’s observation to Boileau, in the Ode on the taking of Namur, and the surrender of the French garrison—
Each was a Hercules, you tell us,