specimen, retaining only a few Saxon letters, has been given. It occasionally enlarged the system of alliteration, introducing three or four, or even five words, beginning the same word in the same line. This conçetti-ing is carried throughout a very long poem, Pierce Ploughman's Visions, of the 14th century, and the humourous little piece entitled the Tournament of Tottenham, to be seen in Percy's Collection of English Ballads:

Of all kene conquerors to karp were our kind,

Of fell fighting folk a ferly we find.

Our Cambridge poet, Gray, retains more of this devise than any of our other English poets, as may be seen at the beginning of his BARD: Mason, also, thought proper to tread in his steps.

In our public and college libraries are, as might be expected, several manuscript poems of our old poets, as Chaucer, Lydgate, Ocleve, and Langland, the author of Pierce Ploughman's Visions: one may be mentioned, as a literary curiosity, if for no other reason, than that, probably, it was never read through, at least, since it was placed in Bene't College by Archbishop Parker; and we may presume never will. His secretary gave not the true title: he never read it: and Mr. Nasmyth, the most conversant in these MSS. owns he had not courage enough to go far in ita. I need not blush, therefore, to say, tantum vidi, and read a few lines in it. Nasmyth had read

Nasmyth's Catalogue of the MSS. in Archbishop Parker's Library.

enough, for his account: it is entitled-the Romance of the St. Grayl; and consists of 40,000 lines. He thinks it translated from the French, mentioned in Nicholson's Hist. Lib. p. 91. 1st edit.

It is thought by some that Chaucer was of this University, as well as Oxford; and Fuller, in confirmation of the opinion, quotes the well-known lines

What is your name?

Rehearse it here, I pray,

Of when, and where, and what condition

That ye been of, let see, come off and say;
Fain would I know your disposition.

To which (says Fuller) he returned, under the assumed name of Philogenet, of CAMBRIDGE CLERK ".

Archbishop Tennison, quoted and followed by Smyth ", thinks, Chaucer was not of Cambridge, though I do not think their reason has any thing to do with the subject. Chaucer was a man of distinguished rank, and it is likely enough, as many eminent men were, that he was of both universities. It is probable that some of our earliest poets, prior to Chaucer, were of Cambridge University, having been born in the neighbouring counties, as were St. Godric, Henry of Huntingdon, and

a Chaucer is commonly spoken of as the father of English poetry; but we should incorrectly trace (yet some have ventured to trace) the purity of the English language to Chaucer; the fact being, that in attempting to enlarge and enrich the language, he corrupted it, by introducing into it many Gallicisms, as the Normans had done before; which did not comport with the English idiom, and, indeed, stripped our language of much of its original grace. See Skinner's Preface to his Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ.

b MS. Notes on Carter.

Bishop Grosteta; though the latter is, for certain, known to have been at Oxford.

a Bishop Godwin gives Grosthet to Oxford; but adds Dr. Richardson, Cantabrigiæ studuit ait author Vitæ, Cap. 16.

Doctrinam cupiens, quæ Cantabrigia dicta.

Dr. Richardson's edition of Godwin, de Præsul.

Angl. p. 289.

It is remarkable, that neither Godwin nor Richardson take any notice of Grosthet as a poet. But see Ritson's Biblioth. Poet. p. 11.

CHAP, III.

AGE OF WICKLIFFE, AND PROGRESS OF LITERATURE.

WE should exceed in dwelling on the poetry of these times it is more to our purpose to observe, it had no small influence on their literature. The age of Chaucer forms an epoch in the history of the English language; and most of our English poets were Lollards, zealous in exposing the vices of the clergy and the abuses of monasteries. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and his prose Dialogue (quoted at large in Fox's Martyrology) are stored with raillery on the subject; Gower was a satirist of the clergy; Bishop Grostet went to Rome, and in the presence of the Pope and Cardinals, violently exposed the enormous sums drawn by beneficed Italians out of England, and taught the doctrine of GRACE. The two latter were seized with a spirit of prophecy common to most early poets, in denouncing the clergy, and the downfal of monasteries : the following passages are worth quoting. The first are from Gower (no great poet, indeed, even for his time); he is speaking of Grostet:

For of the greet clerk Grostest

I red, how redy that he was
Upon clergy an head of brasse

To make it, and forge it, for to tell
Of such things, as befell.

And seven years business

He laid: but for the lacknesse

Of half a minute of an houre,
From first that he began labour,
He lost all that he had doea.

Pierce the Ploughman was more successful as a prophet: the passage is very remarkable, and is made by some to refer immediately to the downfal of abbies under Harry VIII.

There shall come a king, and confesse you religious,

And beat you as the Bible telleth for breaking of your rule,

And amend monials, monkes and chanons,

And put hem to her penaunce, ad pristinum statum ire

And than shall the Abbot of Abington, and all his issue for ever,
Have a knocke of a kynge, and incurable the wounde b.

This work was written about the year 1362, and brings us to the age of Wickliffe, the harbinger of the Reformation. The writings of this worthy man had great influence both on the religion and literature of the times. His doctrines embrace what are called the five points, including absolute predestination, agreeably to the notions of his "spiritual father" Archbishop Bradwardin, in his famous book De causa Dei. Hence he was called the Evangelical Doctor, as Bradwardin was the Profound.

a Wood's Hist. & Antiq. Univers. Oxon. 1. i. p. 82.

b There are only two editions of this curious book, one by Robert Crowley, in 1550, the other by Rogers, in 1561. There is a MS. of it in the public library, and Bishop Parker's, Cambridge; among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum library, and two or three in the Bodleian. The printed editions vary (as do the MSS.) from each other; and it would require both skill and industry to give a good edition.

c See ample quotations from this Treatise in Toplady's Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England. Works, vol. i. p. 190. He observes rightly of Dr. Wickliffe, that he was an absolute Necessitarian, supposing God himself to be a necessary agent.