the zenith of his reputation about the year 1283, when occurred his prediction of the death of Alexander III., which confirmed the fame

of prophet to his name. The whole Prophecies of Scotland, England, Ireland, France, and Denmark, prophesied by Thomas Rymer, did not, however, appear in collective print until 1615.

Robert de Brunne, we have seen, commemorates him as the author, jointly with Thomas Kendal, of the romance of Sir Tristram, the exact position of which poem, however, whether original composition or translation, whether Scotch or English, has been matter of vehement controversy amongst the later critics. An admirable edition of the poem was given to the public by Sir Walter Scott. The metrical merit of Sir Tristram is not conspicuous, but it contains curious pictures of ancient manners, and, on this account alone, is a valuable acquisition to the general treasure of our literature.

JOHANNES PECKAM.

(Circa 1270.)

Johannes Peckam, a Franciscan monk in the reign of Edward I., was the author of Carmina Diversa and many other poetical works enumerated by Bale.

LLYGAD GWYR.

(Circa 1270.)

Llygad Gwyr, a Welsh poet of the 13th century, is the author of a long Ode to Llewelyn ap Gruffyd, grandson of Llywelyn the Great. The production is of slight metrical merit; but it is useful as an historical document, the names of places, persons, and battles greatly facilitating the business of the historian.

GRUFFYD AP YR YNAD COCH.
(Circa 1282.)

Gruffyd ap yr Ynad Coch, the ablest Welsh bard of his day, is the author of a fine elegy on the death of Llywelyn the Great, the last king of Wales, killed in the battle of Builth by Sir Adam de Francton, 10th Dec. 1282. It was after the death of Llywelyn that, according to the popular tradition, consecrated by Gray's thrilling ode, the victorious Edward I. ordered the Welsh bards to be all put to death. This ruthlessness on the part of the English monarch is indeed affirmed by Sir John Gwynne, in his History of the Gwydyr Family; but the statement is unsupported by a single contemporary historian. Edward, indeed, found it necessary, on the submission of the Welsh, to issue an edict, "that the westours, bards, rhymers, and other idlers and vagabonds, who lived upon the gifts called Cymmortha, be not supported nor sanctioned in the country, lest, by their invectives and lies, they lead the people to mischief, and harden the common folk with their impositions:" but this edict was certainly not directed against the "respectable" bards, nor were any bards at all killed by the English king, except those who, being, as many of them were, warriors also, fell in battle against their country's foe.

WILLIAM LANGLAND.

(Circa 1300.)

William Langland was born at Shipton-under-Whichwood, Shropshire, somewhere about the year 1300, and became a secular priest, and fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. The work for which his name is famous is the Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, a poem containing a series of twenty distinct visions, which the author imagines himself to have seen while he was sleeping after a long ramble on Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. It is a satire on the vices of almost every profession, but particularly on the corruptions of the clergy and the absurdities of superstition. A dream is certainly the best excuse that can be offered for the introduction of allegorical personages, and for any incoherences that may result from the conduct of a dialogue carried on between such fanciful actors; and, it must be confessed, the writer has taken every advantage of a plan so comprehensive and convenient, and has dramatised his subject with great ingenuity. The work may be considered as a long moral and religious discourse, and as such is full of good sense and piety; but it is further rendered interesting by a succession of incidents, enlivened sometimes by strong satire, sometimes by the keenest ridicule. It is ornamented also by many fine specimens of descriptive poetry, in which the genius of the author appears to great advantage. But his most striking peculiarity is the structure of his versification, which is the subject of a very learned and ingenious essay in the second volume of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. His verses are not distinguished from prose, either by a determinate number of syllables or by rhyme, or indeed by any other apparent test, except the studied recurrence of the same letter three times in each line, a contrivance which we should not suspect of producing much harmony; but to which (as Crowley, the original editor of the poem, justly observes) even a modern ear will gradually become accustomed. This measure is referred by Dr. Percy to one of the 136 different kinds of metre which Wormius has discovered amongst the works of the Icelandic poets; but the principal difficulty is to account for its adoption in Piers Plowman's Vision.

Perhaps this alliterative metre, having become a favourite with the northern scalds during the interval which elapsed between the departure of the Anglo-Saxons from Scandinavia and the subsequent migration of the Danes, may have been introduced by the latter into those provinces of England where they established themselves; and being adopted by the numerous body of minstrels for which those

provinces were always distinguished, may have maintained a successful struggle against the Norman ornament of rhyme, which was universally cultivated by the poets of the south. Giraldus Cambrensis describes by the title of annomination what we now call alliteration, and informs us that it was highly fashionable among the English and even the Welsh poets of his time. That it effectually stood its ground in some parts of the kingdom during the reign of Edward III. and even long after, appears from the numerous imitations of Langland's style which are still preserved; and it is evident that a sensible and zealous writer in the cause of religion and morality was not likely to sacrifice those great objects, together with his own reputation, to the capricious wish of inventing a new, or of giving currency to an obsolete mode of versification.

An edition of Piers Plowman, edited by Dr. Whittaker, was published in 1813; but the later impression, produced under the care of Mr. Wright, may be estimated as the most valuable reproduction of this valuable work: for Langland's poem, whatever may be thought of its poetical merit, cannot fail to be considered an entertaining and useful commentary on the general histories of the 14th century, not only from its almost innumerable pictures of contemporary manners, but also from its connexion with the particular feelings and opinions of the time. The minds of men were then greatly incensed by the glaring contradictions that appeared between the professions and the actions of the two great orders of the state. The clergy of a religion founded on humility and self-denial united the most shameless profligacy of manners with the most inordinate magnificence. An armed aristocracy, who, by their oath of knighthood, were bound to the maintenance of order and to the protection of the helpless and unfortunate, were not satisfied with exercising in their own persons the most intolerable oppression on their vassals, but were the avowed protectors of the subordinate robbers and assassins who infested the roads, and almost annihilated the internal intercourse of every country in Europe. The people were driven to despair, flew to arms, and took a most frightful revenge on their oppressors. Various insurrections in Flanders, those of the Jacquerie in France, and those of Wat Tyler and others in England, were the immediate consequences of this despair; but the popular discontents had been in a great degree prepared and fomented by itinerant preachers, who inveighed against the luxury and crimes of the great, and maintained the inalienable rights and natural equality of man.

Langland's poem, addressed to popular readers, written in simple but energetic language, and admirably adapted, by its dramatic form and by the employment of allegorical personages, to suit the popular

taste, though it is free from these extravagant doctrines, breathes the pure spirit of Christianity, and inculcates the principles of rational liberty. This may have prepared the minds of men for those bolder tenets which for a series of years were productive only of national restlessness and misery, but which ultimately terminated in a free government and a reformed religion.

To the Vision of Piers Plowman has been commonly annexed a poem called Piers the Plowman's Crede, and which may be properly considered as its appendage. It is professedly written in imitation of the Vision, but by a different hand, and, from internal evidence, subsequent to 1384. The author, in the character of a plain, uninformed person, pretends to be ignorant of his creed, to be instructed in the articles of which, he applies by turns to the four orders of Mendicant Friars. This circumstance affords an obvious occasion of exposing in lively colours the tricks of these societies. Leaving them all with indignation, the inquirer finds an honest poor ploughman in the fields, and tells him how he has been disappointed by the four orders. The ploughman answers with a long invective against them. The Crede, the style of which is less embarrassed than that of the Vision, is printed with the latter poem in Mr. Wright's edition. There are several other satirical pieces anterior to the Revolution which bear the adopted name of Piers the Plowman. Under the character of a ploughman, the religious orders were likewise lashed in a poem written in apparent imitation of Langland's Vision, and attributed to Chaucer The Plowman's Tale. The measure of this poem, indeed, is different, and it is in rhyme; but it has Langland's alliteration of initials, as if his example had, as it were, appropriated that mode of versification to the subject, and the supposed character which supports the satire.

ADAM DAVIE.
(Circa 1312.)

With the exception of Robert Manning, although much poetry began to be written about the reign of Edward II., there seems only one English poet whose name has descended to posterity. This is Adam Davy or Davie, who may be placed about the year 1312. No circumstances of his life are known, other than that he was marshal of Stratford-le-Bow, near London. He has left several poems, never printed, which are almost as forgotten as his name. The only manuscript of these pieces now remaining, which seems to be coeval