as he is not translating from chanson de geste form, he does not, as Robert of Brunne sometimes does, fall into complete laisses. I have counted as many as twenty continuous rhymes in Manning, and there may be more but there is nothing of that extent in the earlier Robert. Romances. Verse history, however, must always be an awkward and unnatural form at the best. The end of the thirteenth century had something better to show in the appearance of romance proper and of epic. When the study of any department of old literature begins, there is a natural and almost invariable tendency to regard it as older than it really is; and when, at the end of the last century, the English verse romances began to be read, this tendency prevailed at least as much as usual. Later investigation, besides showing that, almost without exception, they are adaptations of French originals, has, partly as a consequence of this, shown that scarcely any that we have are earlier than the extreme end of the thirteenth century. Among these few that are, however, three of exceptional interest (perhaps the best three except Gawaine and the Green Knight and Sir Launfal) may probably be classed-to wit, Horn, Havelok, and the famous Sir Tristram. As to the last and best known of these, which from its inclusion among Sir Walter Scott's works has received attention denied to the rest, it may or may not be the work of Thomas the Rhymer. But whether it is or not, it can by no possibility be later than the first quarter of the fourteenth century, while the most cautious critics pronounce both Havelok the Dane and King Horn to be older than 1300.1 Havelok the It is, moreover, not a mere accident that these three, though the authors pretty certainly had French originals before them, seem most likely to have had yet older English or Anglo-Saxon originals of the French in the case of Horn and Havelok, while the Tristram story, as is pointed out in the chapter on the Arthurian Legend, is the most British in Dane. tone of all the divisions of that Legend. Havelok and Horn have yet further interest because of the curious contrast between their oldest forms in more ways than one. Havelok is an English equivalent, with extremely strong local connections and identifications, of the homelier passages of the French chansons de geste. The hero, born in Denmark, and orphan heir to a kingdom, is to be put away by his treacherous guardian, who commits him to Grim the fisherman to be drowned. Havelok's treatment is hard enough even on his way to the drowning; but as supernatural signs show his kingship to Grim's wife, and as the fisherman, feigning to have performed his task, meets with very scant gratitude from his employer, he resolves to escape from the latter's power, puts to sea, and lands in England at the place afterwards to be called from him Grimsby. Havelok is brought up simply as a rough fisher-boy; but he obtains employ 1 Tristram, for editions v. p. 116: Havelok, edited by Madden, 1828, and again by Prof. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868. King Horn has been repeatedly printed-first by Ritson, Ancient English Metrical Romances (London, 1802), ii. 91, and Appendix; last by Prof. Skeat in the Specimens above mentioned. 208 ment in much Now it SO Lincoln Castle as porter to the kitchen, and rough horse-play of the chanson kind occurs. happens that the heiress of England, Goldhas been treated by her guardian with as injustice though with less ferocity; and the seeks to crown his exclusion of her from her marrying her to the sturdy scullion. When borough, much traitor rights by the two rights are thus joined, they of course prevail, ve their doom, Godard the Dane being hanged, traitors, after a due amount of hard fight and the t ing, recei wo and Godric nd rough an vigorous the Englishman burnt at the stake. This vigorous story is told in rough and -octosyllabic couplets, with full licence but with no additional syllables ex in shortening, verse cept an English, Occasional double rhyme-in very sterling and alliteration Horn King nilde, &c.) King Horn. mark, and is with some, though slight, traces of Horn, Horn-Child and Maiden Rimsomewhat more courtly in its general outlines, and has less of the folk-tale about it ; it but it also has connections with Denturns upon treachery, as indeed do nearly all the romances. Horn, son of a certain King consequence of a raid of heathen in ships, orphaned and exiled in his childhood across the finds an asylum in the house of King His love for Aylmer's Westerness. sea, where he Aylmer of daughter Rimenhild and hers for him (he is the most beautiful of men), the faithfulness of his friend Athulf undergo the very trying experience of being made violent love to by Rimenhild under the (who has to impression that he is Horn), and the treachery of his friend Fikenild (who nearly succeeds in making the princess his own), defray the chief interest of the story, which is not very long. The good steward Athelbrus also plays a great part, which is noticeable, because the stewards of Romances are generally bad. The rhymed couplets of this poem are composed of shorter lines than those of Havelok. They allow themselves the syllabic licence of alliterative verse proper, though there is even less alliteration than in Havelok, and they vary from five to eight syllables, though five and six are the commonest. The poem, indeed, in this respect occupies a rather peculiar position. Yet it is all the more valuable as showing yet another phase of the change. The first really charming literature in English has, however, still to be mentioned: and this is to be found in the volume-little more than a pamphlet-edited fifty years ago for the Percy Society (March 1, 1842) by Thomas Wright, under the title of Specimens of Lyric Poetry composed in England in the Reign of Edward the First, from MS. 2253 Harl. in the British Museum. The first three poems are in French, of the well-known and by this time far from novel trouvère character, of which those of Thibaut of Champagne are the best specimens. The fourth "Middel-erd for mon wes mad," is English, and is interesting as copying not the least intricate of the trouvère measures an elevenline stanza of eight sevens or sixes, rhymed ab, ab, 210 ab, ab, c, b, c; but moral-religious in tone and much The fifth, also English, is anapæstic tetra alliterated. meter heavily alliterated, and mono-rhymed for eight verses, with the stanza made up to ten by a couplet on another with VI. fore, sma the 11 rhyme. It is not very interesting. But chorus of sweet sounds begins, and there as is the room for extract here, it must be given in full: Bytuene Mershe and Avoril The When spray beginneth to springe, Ich libbe in love-longinge For semlokest of alle thynge, He may me blisse bringe alle wymmen my love is lent From hew Hire On on Alisoun. hire her is fayr ynoh browe bronne, hire eye blake; With lovsom chere he on me loh; Long to lyven ichulle forsake, Ant feye fallen a-doun. An hendy hap, &c. Nihtes when I wenke ant wake, |