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CHAPTER VII.

EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Distinct National Spirit and Language - Early Literary Works
-Layamon-Edition of Sir Francis Madden -- Philological
Vocabulary
"Ancren Riwle "

Value - Verse
Ormulum"-Dr. White's Edition

"The

- Orthography - Traces of Norman Influence - Marsh's Estimate of the Work-The Proclamation of Henry III.- The Romance of Alexander

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"Surtees Psalter" "Chroni

-"The Geste of Kyng Horn "

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Old Sermons from "Reliquiæ Antiquæ Most important Grammatical Changes of the Thirteenth Century-Vocabulary according to Coleridge's Glossarial Index.

UNTIL the middle of the fourteenth century, there was nothing in the native literature that was really distinctive, or possessing national traits, or imbued with the national spirit. The various works which have come down to us, both in prose and verse, are of value rather as showing the condition and progressive development of the language than for any truly literary merit. Any discussion, however, of these works in the latter sense is foreign to our present purpose; yet some more particular reference is necessary in order to show the condition of the language. The most important of these works are "The Brut” of Layamon, "The Ormulum," "The Ancren Riwle," "Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle," and one or two romances poems. For an extended and careful notice of these

and

works, with copious extracts accompanied with valuable notes, the reader is referred to Marsh's Lectures, Second Series, and to the larger work of Craik. A brief outline is all that can here be attempted, and as only a part of the works referred to are accessible to the writer, this outline will, in part, be derived from the authors just named.

The work of Layamon has a philological interest from its marking the boundary-line, so to speak, between the Saxon and Old English. By some writers it is classed on one side, and by some on the other. It is best regarded as marking the transition. It is only since 1847 that this work has been accessible to the majority of English scholars, through the pains-taking labors of Sir Francis Madden, Keeper of the MSS. of the British Museum. He has carefully edited the work, and published it in three octavo volumes, with a valuable preface, glossary, and notes. It passes by the name of Layamon's Brut, and is a poetical paraphrase of the Brut of Wace, a French versification of the Latin history of Geoffrey of Monmouth. As Wace enlarged upon his original, so Layamon has enlarged upon his, making his work more than double in contents by additions of his own invention, by episodes derived from current traditions, and by materials gleaned from such other sources as were accessible to him. Wace's work is comprised in some 15,000 lines; Layamon's in 32,250.

Layamon was no servile copyist. He possessed much imagination of his own, and often improves upon his author in the beauty and power of his description, and the addition of striking incidents. This makes his work much more like an original composition, and adds greatly to its philological value.

All that is known of the author is contained in a few lines in the preface of his work, from which we learn that he was a priest of a church at Ernley, on the banks of the Severn, in Worcestershire. It is supposed that he wrote his work between the years 1180 and 1207, perhaps completing it in the latter year. There are two copies of the work in MS., the one just cited, as the author left it, and a copy slightly abridged, made, it is supposed, about fifty years later. The second MS. has been injured, and is defective in some parts. Both were printed by the editor in parallel columns, with a running translation at the foot of the page in modern English. The value of the second MS. depends upon the changes of grammatical forms and in the use of words, which had taken place in the interval of the fifty years. In the later text, we find much less adherence to the grammatical forms of the old Saxon, and many forms coming into use which afterwards became fixed in the English tongue. The gender of nouns, for instance, in the earlier text, follows the Anglo-Saxon; in the later, it is often neglected. The genitive of proper names in es of the earlier text is generally expressed by the pronoun his in the later; Arthures lond by Arthur his lond. Again the dual of the pronoun in the earlier text disappears in the later; so too the final n of the infinitive. In the earlier, the usual ending of the present participle is ende or inde, and only one instance of inge; in the later, both are found about equally. Yet more remarkable is the fact, that many words and phrases in the earlier text had become obsolete or unintelligible to the later writer. The blunder of the copyist in one instance, in repeating eighteen lines, answers a valuable purpose, in consequence of the variations made, showing that very little

reliance can be placed on the verbatim et literatim accuracy of the transcribers of the thirteenth century, or what is more probable, that the language was so unsettled as to make such variations of no account.

This work shows, most conclusively, that the change of the Saxon into English was purely an organic change of the Saxon itself, helped on, it may be, by the presence of the Norman, but not as the result, in the first instance, of union with it. Considering that Layamon translated from a French work, it is certainly remarkable that not more than fifty words in the earlier text are derived from the French, including some that may have come directly from the Latin, and some in use before the time of Layamon. "Of this number," the editor observes, "the later text retains some thirty, and adds to them rather more than forty, not found in the earlier version; so that if we reckon merely words of French origin in both texts, containing more than 56,800 lines, we shall be able to form a tolerably correct estimate, how little the English language was really affected by foreign converse even as late as the middle of the thirteenth century." Another circumstance of importance to be noted here, is the colloquial character of much of the work, rendering it especially valuable as conveying to us the current speech

of the writer's time.

The form of the verse is characteristic of the time, partly alliterative like the old Saxon, and partly of rhyming couplets. Many couplets occur in which both alliteration and rhyme are employed, whilst others have neither. The latter probably depended wholly on acThe author slides from one form to the other quite at pleasure. There is, however, more of alliteration than of rhyme, even including the imperfect or as

cent.

sonant terminations. Yet considering the unsettled condition of the language, the form is one that reflects great credit upon the author as an honest effort to give form to what was wellnigh formless.

The influence of this work in fixing the character of the language, notwithstanding its merits, was far less than it would have been, but for the subject-matter. Its object was to perpetuate the memory and exploits not of a still flourishing race, but rather of one passed away; it was not therefore national or patriotic, like the works of Homer, for instance, and failed of awakening a general interest, and so of its legitimate influence as a literary work of real merit.

The "Ancren Riwle," or the Anchoresses' Rule, was probably written about the same time as the work of Layamon. The subject-matter of this too, was not of a kind to gain for it any wide influence, and is of interest only as another witness to the character of the language. It was a treatise on the duties of monastic life, addressed to three ladies who with their servants, or lay sisters, appear to have constituted a religious house at Tarente in Dorsetshire. It is in prose, and thus has a greater philological value, as better illustrative of the language of common life. It retains quite as many of the old Saxon forms as Layamon's Brut. The spelling is of a very unsettled character. The moods and tenses are both changed, and in many words not at all from the old forms. The most noticeable difference between this work and that of Layamon is found in the vocabulary. "The quantity of matter in the Ancren Riwle,'” observes Marsh,1 "exclusive of Latin quotation, is less than half of that in Layamon, but the glossary to the former con

1 Lectures, Second Series, pp. 170, 171.

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