II. OF LATIN LITERA AFTER THE every Christian country were compelled to acquire CHAP. it, for it was found that if they did not, they ridiculously mispronounced it.50 Thus made general REVIVAL from technical necessity, it was found convenient as an universal language, in which the students TURE and writers of every part of Europe could commu- NORMAN nicate with each other; it became the language of CONQUEST. their correspondence, as well as of their compositions; and from the unceasing importance of the acquisition, grammar, or the art of understanding and writing Latin correctly, was the earliest and the most common study of all the schools we have alluded to. Priscian and Donatus were the masters resorted to; and from this custom, the merry priest Walter Mapes derives the image by which he personifies grammar, in his satire on misused learning: "Here is Priscian giving stripes to the hands."51 The castigation, however general, was not always availing; for even Priscian, with all the activity of his ferula, could not make some minds recollect either the cases or the conjugations.52 But a very 50 As in the well-known mumpsimus for sumpsimus. Even a pope could be so ignorant of Latin, as to write- eorumque novilissimis suivoles— una cum indiculum-una cum omnes benebentani.' This occurs in a letter of Adrian I. Murat. Ant. Ital. p. 811. 51 This In fronte micuit ars Astrologica; In cava Musica ludit articula; Pallens in oculis stat Geometrica ; In tergo scriptæ sunt Artes Mechanicæ. 52 Giraldus Cambrensis furnishes us with an instance of this sort, in the old hermit his friend, who would say Noli, for nolo; Vana, for vanum; and the infinitive active, for the infinitive passive. Giraldus de se gestis. Anglia Sacra, v. 2. p. 497. VI. BOOK high degree not only of precision, but even of ele, ENGLAND. Latin Versifiers. 54 Europe. The miscellaneous Essays of John of Salis- : 53 His chief works are the De nugis Curialium, and the Metalogicon. Stephanius often quotes him, in his notes on Saxo, and with these eulogiums:-aureus scriptor-eleganter ut omnia-auctor cum veterum quopiam comparandus. p. 151 and p. 2. 54 His de Gestis Regum Anglorum extends from Hengist to Henry I. in five books. His Historia Novellæ, in two more, pursues our history to the escape of the empress Matilda from Oxford. He wrote five others on the prelates of England. 55 His Monologium, or Metaphysical Contemplations on the Essence of the Deity, written at the request of his friends, who admired his speculations; and his Prosologion, a chain of reasoning composed on the solicitations of others, who wished that some one argument might he found to prove the divine existence; are interesting treatises, which do credit to his Latin diction. 56 II. OF LATIN LITERA- 1 AFTER THE vation and the study of the great classical authors, CHAP and was perpetually operating to create a good poetical taste. Joseph of Exeter indeed surprises us by REVIVAL a versification, in his poem on the Trojan War, which reads almost classical; 50 and Jeffry of Monmouth TURE attained a smoothness and fluency in his poetical NORMAN diction, which Milton has condescended to notice.57 CONQUEST. The jocose poetry of Walter Mapes is also free and voluble, and sometimes happy, tho he attempts to bend the majesty of the Roman diction to the rhymes and cadence of our popular poetry. His chief merits were, good sense, good humor, and some useful satire. These vital qualities tempt us to forget his bacchanalian jovialities. 58 It contains, in six books, 3636 good hexameters, but not always' good taste, as witness Nox fera, nox vera, nox noxia, turbida tristis, Insidiosa, ferox, tragicis ululanda cothurnis, It is printed at the end of the Dictys Cretensis, and Dares Phrygius, in 57 Milton, in his History of England, says of the verses which Jeffryinserted in his History, They are much better than for his age, unless perhaps Joseph of Exeter, the only smooth poet of the times, befriended him.' Milton seems not to have known Jeffry's poem on the life of Merlin, which is in MS. in the British Museum. Cotton Lib. Vespasian E 4. The passages quoted from this MS. in the vindication of the ancient British poets, will be found smooth and fluent. Mr. Ellis has given a copious account of its contents, in his Specimen of ancient Romances, vol. 1. 58 Camden has printed, in his Remains, Mapes' verses on Wine, and on the lives of the Clergy. In the British Museum, both in the Harlejan and King's Library, are many of his MS. poems. His mirth is not always pure, but his satire is usually good humored, and the free spirit of his muse announces the improving spirit of his country. His critique on the ancient authors is worth preserving: Hic Priscianus est dans palmis verbera Tractat Boetius innumerabilia. BOOK VI. ENGLAND. 59 Other authors among us displayed no inconsider able power of arranging their dactyles and spondees LITERARY into plausible imitations of the classical metres. To HISTORY OF notice all, when the crowd was so great, would be absurd; it will be sufficient to mention two, from the importance of their subjects. One was Geoffrey Vinesauf, the friend, companion, and encomiast of our Richard I. who attempted to teach his contemporaries the art of poetry, or criticism, in Latin verse. He treats on invention and memory, on the ornaments of the style, and the disposition of the thoughts; he explains the tropes and figures of poetry, and dilates on the description, the prosopopeia and the apostrophe. He is even bold enough to attempt by his own example to strengthen all his laws; tho his lamentation on his king, and its apostrophe on Friday, the day on which Richard fell, may induce us to prefer his criticism to his poetry." The Anti-Claudianus of Alanus de Insulis," who is Frequens Pythagoras pulsat fabrilia. Saltat Terentius plebeius ystro.-Harl. MS. 978. 59 It is entitled, De Arte Dictandi, or De Nova Poetica. It is in the British Museum, Cott. MS. Cleop. B. 6. pp. 1-30; where it is followed by another work on prose, intermixed with verse, on the same subject.→ His History of Richard's expedition to Palestine has been already noticed. 60 O Veneris lacrimosa dies! O sidus amarum! Bromton Chron. 1280. Illa dies tua nox fuit, et Venus illa Venenum, B P IL sciences, and morals, with great fluency of versifica- CHAP tion, and some good precepts. He was certainly a man of talent, and has left another singular work REVIVAL: in his Doctrinale Altum.' This is also called his LITERA 'Parabolarum.' It is a series of moral aphorisms, OF LATIN TURE CONQUEST. rabolarum. in six books. Each remark is preceded by some NORMAN natural image or simile, not unlike the Gorwynion of the old Welsh bard, Llywarch Hen. The first book Alan's Pagives two lines to the remark and its imagerical introduction; and these, in every succeeding book, are expanded by two additional lines above the number of those preceding. As I have never seen the work quoted, the notes will contain some specimens of the four first books.63 But if these and innumerable others, 62 Of the two copies 'I have seen, one was printed at Daventry in 1494, and the other, without a date, at Cologne, with a prose commentary. 63 The Parables in the first book are an hexameter and a pentameter; as, Clarior est solito post maxima nubila Phoebus, Loricam duram possunt penetrare sagittæ. t Fragrantes vicena rosas curtica perurit. In the second book each reflection is increased to four lines, thus :- Non possunt habitare simul contraria, cum sint Sic duo sunt quæ non possunt intrare cor unum, In the third book six lines are devoted to each thought, as this judi cious one on flogging : Diversis diversa valent medicamina morbis: Ut variant morbi, sic variantur ea. |