Aristophanes; it is not political, and does not attack individuals, but paints society and phases of character. With a frequent touch of satire, or flavour of cynicism, the Fabliau is upon the whole a true account of the everyday life and manners of the time, of which it conveys no very pleasing or edifying impression. Many fabliaux were drawn from eastern sources; e.g. the famous Indian tale of the Seven Wise Masters, which has been rendered or imitated in so many different languages. The glaring inconsistencies which this world presents between promise and performance-between theory and practice-give rise in every age to satire. Every village has its satirist, who with greater or less skill exposes the hypocrite, and ridicules the dupe. It is quite a secondary question whether the satire current in any particular age finds or misses literary expression. In the Middle Ages the great literary movement of France, which we are now considering, could not fail to extend to satire also. And as deficient practice and performance are nowhere so offensive as when they accompany the grandest theories and the most uncompromising professions, it was natural that the vices of ministers of the Church, that one powerful European institution, the very grandeur of which made it a more obvious mark, should be the principal theme of mediæval satirists. The continuation of the Roman de la Rose, by Jean de Meun, composed about the end, and the famous tale of Reynard the Fox, composed about the middle, of the thirteenth century, are full of satirical attacks upon men in high places and established institutions, in all which the clergy come in for the principal share of invective. The period which produced so many Latin chronicles. for circulation among the clergy, gave birth also to French chronicles in verse for the entertainment of the laity. In verse- because few laymen could read, and a history 1 See p. 414. in rhyme was easier and more agreeable to remember, both for the reciter and for the hearer. We do not hear of prose chronicles in French, still less in English, until the next period, by which time a reading and cultivated lay audience had been formed. The chief name of note among these French metrical chroniclers is that of Maitre Wace, a learned clerk, born in Jersey, near the end of the eleventh century, and educated in Normandy. His first history, the Brut d'Angleterre (Chronicle of England), is in the main a translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Britonum before mentioned, and ends with the year 680. His second work, the Roman de Rou (Rollo), is a history of the Dukes of Normandy, reaching down to 1170, the sixteenth year of Henry II. Part of this latter work is in the Alexandrine measure; the remaining portion, and all the Brut d'Angleterre, are in the eight-syllable romance metre. Another chronicler, Benoit, also composed, at the desire of Henry II., a history of the Dukes of Normandy, which appeared some years after that of Wace. Wace died about the year 1175. English Translators; "Havelok'; Layamon, and other Rhyming Chroniclers; English Hymns and Ballads. The English poetry of the period bears witness, as we have said, in almost every line, to the powerful foreign influences amid which it grew up, and to which it owed the chief part of its inspiration. It may be arranged, therefore, under the same four heads as the French poetry; to these, however, we will add two others, religious poems, and occasional poems; since it is in these compositions that we first find a marked originality, a promise of an independent growth to come. English versions or imitations of the popular French romances began to be multiplied towards the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries. For a particular account of these English romances, the reader may consult the excellent work of Ellis.' Besides the two heroic subjects, Charlemagne and Arthur, (the heroes of classical antiquity seem to have been less popular with the English versifiers,) the crusades, particularly the one in which King Richard was engaged, and many miscellaneous topics, are handled by these writers. Yet even Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hamptoun, and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, though the names have such a local and national sound, were founded upon French originals, the authors of which, indeed, were probably Englishmen, but derived from France their literary culture. The earliest, or one of the earliest, and perhaps the most remarkable, of these English romances is the AngloDanish legend of Havelok, the unique MS. of which, discovered not many years ago in the middle of a volume of Lives of Saints in the Bodleian Library, was of course unknown to Ellis. This MS. dates from about the end of the thirteenth century. But we possess a French version of the same story about a hundred and fifty years earlier in the Estorie des Engles by Geffrei de Gaimar, who evidently derived it from an English chronicle-the book of 'Wassinbure' (Washingborough, near Lincoln)—which he mentions among his authorities. It would be interesting to know whether this book was in verse or prose; but Gaimar does not say. The substance of the story, according to the English version, is briefly this. The sovereigns of England and Denmark, dying about the same time, leave to inherit their kingdoms, the one a daughter, Goldeboro', the other a son, Havelok. The guardians of the children, Godrich in England, and Godard in Denmark, are both false to their trust; Goldeboro' is placed in Dover castle, and Havelok is given by Godard to the fisherman Grim, to be drowned in the sea. But a miracu 1 See also p. 404. lous light issuing from the chiid causes Grim to spare him; and soon after, taking all his family with him, together with the young prince, he sails for England, and landing on the coast of Lincolnshire founds the town. of Grimsby, which still bears his name. Twelve years pass, and Havelok has become a youth of marvellous size, strength, and beauty; Goldeboro', too, has become the loveliest of English maidens. Going to Lincoln for work in a time of scarcity, Havelok by feats of strength attracts the notice of Godrich; the traitor resolves to force Goldeboro' to marry him, as a kind of fulfilment of his promise to her father, to marry her to the best, fairest, and strongest man' in England. The marriage takes place in spite of the resistance of both; but Goldeboro' is soon comforted by beholding one night the marvellous splendour issuing out of Havelok's mouth. At her suggestion he sails for Denmark; there, after a long train of adventures, which the reader must imagine, he is recognised as king, and defeats and slays Godard. Returning with a Danish army to England, he visits Godrich with the like retribution. Goldeboro' and he are crowned, reign over England for sixty years, and have fifteen children, of whom all the sons live to be kings, and all the daughters queens. Finally, the poet beseeches all who have heard his tale pat ilke of you, with gode wille, For him þat haveth be ryme maked, Bi-fore his Fader at his endinge. To a somewhat later date (1320-30) is assigned the legend of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, published by the Early English Text Society. Scarcely any English versions of Fabliaux are known to exist of earlier date than 1350. The raillery and more refined touches which belong to this class of compositions F were not suited to the rude intelligences of the Englishspeaking population in the Norman period, and would have been utterly thrown away upon them. The only instance of a fabliau given by Ellis is the version of the Indian story before mentioned of the Seven Wise Masters, supposed to have been made from the French about the year 1330. Under the head of satire, there exists a curious poem, entitled the Land of Cockaygne, the date of which is not certainly known, though Warton is undoubtedly wrong in placing it as early as the twelfth century. It is a biting satire on the monastic orders, and bears the stamp of the flippant age of Boccaccio rather than that of the grave and earnest century of St. Bernard. Nothing is known about the author, nor is the French original, from which it was evidently taken, in existence. Of the metrical chroniclers, who, in imitation of Wace and his fellow-labourers, related the history of England in English verse for the entertainment of the laity, the earliest in date is Layamon, priest of Ernley-on-Severn, in Worcestershire, who about the close of the twelfth century produced an amplified imitation of Wace's Brut d'Angleterre. This curious work, the earliest existing poem of considerable magnitude in the English language, extends to about 16,000 long lines of four accents. To produce the effect of metre, Layamon employs both alliteration and rhyme, both of the rudest description; sometimes, too, he seems unable to achieve either the one or the other. The writer seems to have been balancing between the example of his French prototype, who uses rhyme, and the attractions of the old native Saxon poets, who employed nothing but alliteration. This may be seen even in the following short extract, borrowed from Ellis's specimens : Tha the king was i-sete |