The village of Bagily or Baguleigh is in Cheshire, of which county the author appears to have been from other paffages in the body of the poem, particularly from the pains he takes to wipe off a stain from the Cheshire-men, who it feems ran away in that battle, and from his encomiums on the Stanleys earls of Derby, who ufually headed that county. He laments the death of James Stanley bishop of Ely, as what had recently happened when this poem was written: which ferves to afcertain its date, for that prelate died March 22. 1514-5.

Thus have we traced the alliterative meafure fo low OLS the fixteenth century. It is remarkable that all fuch poets as used this kind of metre, retained along with it many peculiar Saxon idioms, particularly fuch as were appropriated to poetry : this deferves the attention of those, who are defirous to recover the laws of the ancient Saxon poefy, ufually given up as inexplicable: I am of opinion that they will find what they feek in the metre of Pierce Ploruman ‡.

About the beginning of the fixteenth century this kind of verfification began to change its form; the author of SCOTTISH FIELD, we fee, concludes his poem with a couplet of rhymes; this was an innovation, that did but prepare the way for

C

the

Probably corrupted for fays but as he faw.' + 'us' MS. And in that of Robert of Gloucefter. See the next note.

the general admiffion of that more modifh ornament. When rhyme began to be fuperadded, all the niceties of alliteration were at firft retained with it: the fong of LITTLE JOHN NOBODY exhibits this union very clearly. It may also be traced, tho' not so perfectly, in an older poem by no means inelegant, intitled A DYALOGUE (between a falcon and pye]

DEFENSYVE FOR WOMEN AGAYNST MALICYOUS DETRACTOURES. The author's name ROBERT VAGHANE is prefixed to a few epiloguizing fonnets at the end of the book, which thus concludes ¶ Thus endeth the fawcon and the pye. Anno Dni. 1542. ¶ Imprynted by me Rob. Wyer for Richarde Bankes, &c. If this differtation were not al ready too prolix I could give fome pleafing extracts from this pcem.

To proceed; the old uncouth verfe of the ancient writers would no longer go down without the more fashionable ornament of rhyme, and therefore rhyme was fuperadded. This correfpondence of final founds engroffing the whole attention of the poet and fully fatisfying the reader, the internal imbellishment of alliteration was no longer ftudied, and thus was this kind of metre at length fwallowed up and loft in our common burlesque alexandrine now never used but in Songs and pieces of low humour, as in the following ballad, and that wellknown doggrel,

*

"A

What is here called the burlesque alexandrine (to diftinguift it from the other alexandrines of 12 and 14 fyllables, the parents of our lyric measure: jee examples p. 152. &c.) was early applied by Robert of Gloucefler to serious fubjects. That writer's metre, like this of Langland's, is formed on the Saxon models, (each verfe of bis containing a Saxon diftich) only inftead of the internal allitera tions adopted by Langland, be rather chofe final rhymes, as the French poets have done fince. Take a specimen,

"The Saxons tho in ther power, tho thii were fo rive, "Seve kingdoms made in Engelonde, and futhe but vive: "The king of Northomberland, and of Eaftangle alfo,

Of Kent, and of Weffex, and of the March therto."

"A cobler there was, and he lived in a fall."

But altho' this kind of measure hath with us been thus degraded, it ftill retains among the French its ancient dignity: the French heroic verfe is the fame genuine offspring of the old alliterative metre of the ancient Gothic and Francic poets, Stript like our doggrell of its alliteration and fettered with rhyme. But, lefs reftrained than ours, it ftill exercifes its ancient power of augmenting and contracting the number of its fyllables, its harmony wholly depending on the difpofal of the paufe, and adjustment of the cadence. It is remarkable that while the heroic verfe of the English, Italian, and Spanish poets is invariably limited to ten fyllables, that of the French, a loofe rambling kind of measure, is confined to no certain number, but admits of fuch variety that a verse of eleven fyllables fhall not unfrequently be coupled to another of fourteen. This freedom better fits it for the loofe numbers of ftage, than for the more ftately measure of Epic poetry. The Vifions of Pierce Plowman and other pieces in the alliterative metre, exhibit the fame variety, with a cadence fo exactly refembling the heroic measure of the French poets, that no peculiarity of their verfification can be produced, which cannot be exactly matched in the alliterative metre. Take a few infrances both in fingle and double rhymes, confronted with part of the defcription of DEATH, in the old allegorical poem abovementioned. In thefe I fhall denote the pause by a perpendicular line, and the cadence by the marks of the Latin profody t.

Lĕ

*Or eleven, when terminated with a double rhyme. I believe both the Spanish and English poets borrowed their heroic verje of ten fyllables from the Italian, or perhaps Provençal Bards.

The French verfe properly confifts of four Anapefis [~~~] tho' to vary the cadence they are often intermingled with Spondees, Iambics, Trochees, &c.

To conclude; the metre of Pierce Plowman's Vifions has no kind of relation with what is commonly called blank verfe, yet has it a fort of harmony of its own, proceeding not so much from its alliteration, as from the artful difpofal of its cadence, and the contrivance of its paufe. So that when the ear is a little accustomed to it, it is by no means unpleafing, but claims all the merit of the French heroic numbers, only Somewhat lefs polished; being sweetened, instead of their final rhymes, with the internal recurrence of fimilar founds.

A

S I walked of late by an wood fide,

To God for to meditate was mine entent;
Where under an hawthorne I fuddenly spyed
A filly poore creature ragged and rent,

With bloody teares his face was besprent,

His fleshe and his color confumed away,

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And his garments they were all mire, mucke, and clay.

This made me muse, and much to' defire

To know what kind of man hee shold bee;

I ftept

I ftept to him ftraight, and did him require
His name and his fecrets to fhew unto mee.
His head he caft up, and woeful was hee,

My name, quoth he, is the caufe of my care,
And makes me fcorned, and left here fo bare.

ΤΟ

Then straightway he turnd him, and prayd me fit downe, And I will, faith he, declare my whole greefe ;

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My name is called, CONSCIENCE:- - wheratt he did

frowne,

He repined to repeate it, and grinded his teethe,

Thoughe now, filly wretche, I'm denyed all releefe,"

• Yet' while I was young, and tender of yeeres,
I was entertained with kinges, and with peeres.

There was none in the court that lived in fuch fame,
For with the kinges councell I fate in commiffion;
Dukes, earles, and barons esteem'd of
my name;
And how that I liv'd there, needs no repetition :
I was ever holden in honest condition,

For how-e'er the lawes went in Westminster-hall,
When sentence was given, for me they wold call.

No incomes at all the landlords wold take,
But one pore peny, that was their fine;

And that they acknowledged to be for my fake.
The poore wold doe nothing without councell mine:
I ruled the world with the right line :

For nothing ere paffed betweene foe and friend,
But Confcience was called to be at the end.

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