"There is a cloister fair and light,
Broad and long, of seemly sight.
The pillars of that cloister all
Beth y-turned of chrystal,
With harlas 1 and capital-
Of green jaspe and red coral.
In the praer 2 is a tree,
Swithe 3 likeful for to see.
The root is ginger and galingale 4,
The scions beth all sedwale 5,
Trie 6 maces hath the flower,
The rind canel 7 of sweet odour.;
The fruit gilofre of good smack.8
Of cucubes 9 there n' is no lack,
There beth roses of red blee 10,
And lily, likeful for to see:
They falloweth 11 never no night;
This ought he a sweet sight.

There beth four wells 12 in the abbey
Of treacle, and halwei 13,

Of baum, and eke pimint 14,
Ever ernend to right rent 15;
Of they streames all the mould,
Stones precious, and gold.
These is sapphire, and uniune,
Carbuncle, and astiune,

Smaragde, lugre, and prassiune.
Beryl, onyx, toposiune,
Amethyst, and chrysolite,
Chalcedon, and epetite.

There beth birdes many and fale 16
Throstle, thrush, and nightingale,
Chalandre, and wood-wale 17,
And other birdes without tale,
That stinteth never by har might
Merry to sing, day and night.

Yet I do you mo to wit,

The geese y-roasted on the spit
Flee to that abbey, God it wot,
And gredith Geese all hot! all hot!'
Hi bringeth galek 2 great plentè,
The best y-dight 3 that man may see.
The leverokes that beth couth 4,
Lieth adown to man-is mouth,
Y-dight in stew full swithe 5 well,
Powder'd with gingelofre and canèl. 6
"N' is no speech of no drink;

All take enough withoute swink.7
When the monkes geeth 8 to mass,
All the fenestres 9, that beth of glass,
Turneth into chrystal bright,
To give monkes more light.
When the mass beth isend 10,
And the bookes up-ilend 11,
The chrystal turneth into glass
In state that it rather was.

"The young monkes each day
After meat goeth to play;

N' is there hawk no fowl so swift
Better fleeing by the lift

Than the monkes, high of mood,
With har sleeves and har 12 hood.
When the abbot seeth ham flee,
That be holds for much glee.
Ac natheless, all there among,
He biddeth ham light to eve song.
The monkes' lighteth nought adown,
Ac for fleth into randun 13 ;
When the abbot him y-seeth,
That his monks from him fleeth,
He taketh maiden of the route
And turneth up her white toute,
And beateth the tabor with his han
To make his monkes light to land.
When his monkes that y-seeth,
To the maid down hi fleeth,

And goeth the wench all aboute
And thwacketh all her white toute.
And sith, after her swink
Wendeth meekly home to drink;
And goeth to har collation
A well fair procession.

"Another abbey is thereby,

Forsooth a great fair nunnery:
Up a river of sweet milk
Where is plenty great of silk.
When the summer's day is hot,
The young nunnes taketh a boat,
And doth ham forth in that rivere,
Both with oares and with steer.
When hi beth far from the abbey
Hi maketh ham 1 naked for to play,
And lieth down into the brim,
And doth ham slily for to swim.
The young monkes that hi seeth,
Hi doth ham up and forth hi fleeth,
And cometh to the nunnes anon.
And each monke him taketh one,
And snellich 2 beareth forth har prey
To the mochil grey abbey.

And teacheth the nunnes an orison

With jumbleuc 3

up and down.

The monke that wol be stalan 4 good,

And can set aright his hood,

He shall have, without dangere,

Twelve wives each year:

All through right, and nought through grace,

For to do himself solace.

And thilk monke that dipeth 5 best,

And doth his likam 6 all to rest,

Of him is hope, God it wot,
To be sure father abbot.

The number of English poets before Gower and Chaucer is very considerable. By Robert of Gloucester we have a rhymed chronicle of England, containing, however, nothing worthy the name of poetry. The same judgment may be passed on Robert de Brunne, author of the Manuel des Peches; whose tales, however, are not without interest. For an account of him, as well as of Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hanpole, and author of the "Prihke of Conscience," we refer to Mr. Turner, who has, very creditably to himself, rummaged the MSS. of the Museum with success. To the same valuable work, too, we refer for an account of Piers the Ploughman's Vision and Creed, - ascribed to a secular priest, named Langland, of the fourteenth century. With our poets from Gower and Chaucer downwards, every reader is or ought to be acquainted; and as they have been published in so many forms, so as to be accessible every where, we will dwell no longer on the subject.†

The vernacular literature of our ancestors was not confined to poetry. In our great libraries there are prose homilies and tales in abundance, and there are not a few moral discourses. Some of the tales were printed in the latter half of the fifteenth century; but the great majority remain in MS. Many of both relate to the days of chivalry, especially to Arthur and his knights; but there are not a few which may be regarded as 2 Again.

1 Civil.

Ellis, Specimens of the early English Pocts, vol. i. p. 83, &c. +Turner, History of England, vol v. Warton, History of English Poetry, vol. i. and ii. (edit. 1824). Ellis, Specimens, vol. i.

the great storeTo

house of legendary lore during the middle ages. these, and not to the Italian novelists, is Chaucer indebted for some of his best stories. These Gesta were originally collected and published in Latin, about the middle of the fourteenth century; but from what sources the collector derived them we know not. Boccaccio seems to have been indebted to the same unknown source; for we can hardly think that he took his stories from the Gesta, which were, probably, not published when he began his inimitable work. Into this wide field, however, richly as it would repay the trouble of exploring, we cannot enter. Literary history has been lamentably neglected, in no country so much as England. We may add, that in none is there so little encouragement to laborious research.*

III. SCIENCE, &c. At this subject we can but glance. After the Conquest, the English had the benefit not only of the scientific works written by Saxon ecclesiastics, by Bede and Bridferth especially, but of such as had recently appeared on the Continent. By being brought into a closer contact with the scholars of the Continent, especially of France, their knowledge was greatly extended. The improvement in their architectural skill is sufficiently obvious from the noble ruins still extant of the Norman times. Agriculture was no less cultivated: foreigners speak with admiration of the fertility of the island; and this fertility must be ascribed to cultivation alone. In a former passage † we have shown, that the vine was reared with success in England, and that our wines were, by some, thought equal to those of France. In the domestic arts there was evidently, too, a progress for the better. In astronomy, the mathematics, physics, logic, and metaphysics, considerable accessions were made to the knowledge of the An

See the Gesta Romanorum, the Mort d'Arthur, and other works of the period. Some curious books were printed by Wynkin de Worde and Caxton.

† See Agriculture of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii.