THE religious life of England, dwelling always upon duty to be done, now found its native voice again in moral and religious poems, songs, satires, fables, proverbs, homilies, addressed in their own tongue to the people.

From the middle of the thirteenth century there has come down to us a song of the Creation and of Israel to the Genesis and death of Moses, drawn from the books of Genesis Exodus. and Exodus, with some addition of legend from Peter Comestor and supplementary detail from the book of Numbers. We have it in one copy only, a manuscript on parchment bound in vellum which is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The handwriting is of about the year 1300; and the poems of "Genesis" and "Exodus" were written, perhaps not by the same singer, about the year 1250. "One should love," says the unknown poet in the opening of " Genesis," "the rhyme that teaches the layman how he may defend himself, love God and serve him, though he be not learned in books; how, with peace and love towards all Christians, he may win, below and above, the love of the Almighty, who will give him everlasting bliss and rest. The song," this poet says, "is drawn from Latin into English, and Christian men who hear the story of salvation in little words of the speech of their own land should be as glad as birds are at the coming of the dawn."

"Genesis" and "Exodus" were transcribed from the unique MS., which places them in natural succession, by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, and edited by Dr. Richard Morris for the Early English Text Society in 1865, the proof-sheets being carefully read with the MS. by Professor Skeat.* Our three best workers in early English were thus labouring together for the publication of one of the chief pieces of English literature of the thirteenth century. Its grammatical and verbal forms are of the Midland dialect, and correspond very closely to those of the Bestiary, next to be mentioned. Dr. Morris regards the English of the Ormulum as that of the northern part of the East Midland district, but the "Genesis" and "Exodus" and the Bestiary as in dialect of the southern part, perhaps of Suffolk. There is no good reason for supposing-though it is possible to suppose, and is therefore supposed by some—that the author of the poem of "Genesis was not the author of the "Exodus." The version of "Genesis" ends, no doubt, by saying

"An here endede to ful, in wis,

de boc de is hoten Genesis,
de Moyses, durg Godes ned,
Wrot for lefful soules ned."

And a prayer for blessing on the poet's soul has been added for use in recitation of the song among the people. "Exodus" then begins simply with a brief God bless us :—

"Godes bliscing be wið us
Her nu bi-ginneð Exodus.
Pharao kinges," &c.

There is no change in style or versification, and at the

* There was a second and revised edition of it in 1872. "The Story of Genesis and Exodus: an Early English Song, about A.D. 1250. Edited from a Unique MS. in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary, by the Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D." (Early English Text Society).

opening of "Genesis " there were lines suggesting a design in the writer to put all the main features of the Bible story into song that should delight and teach the people. If more was written, it is lost; but the condition of recitation, whether of sacred or secular tales, made it necessary to shape into distinct passus, or stretches of song, coherent parts that could be taken at a single hearing. Thus the "Genesis," in 2,536 short lines, is not quite four times as long as Coleridge's "Christabel; " and although selected parts of it would be more commonly recited, the whole could well be brought within the limits of an afternoon's or evening's amusement. The song of "Exodus" was shorter; it was contained in 1,606 lines.

In each poem the story was enlivened by free use of the Bible History from the Creation to the Deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, written by Petrus Comestor, Pierre le Mangeur, so called for his devouring of meats for the mind, his wide reading of books. He was a French theologian who at one time had charge of the school of philosophy in Paris, and who died in 1198, leaving all his goods to the poor. Over his tomb it was inscribed that he was called Eater, and now was eaten.

of the Genesis and Exodus.

The versification of these songs of "Genesis and "Exodus" is of especial interest. Their story is told in a Versification rhyming octosyllabic romance measure, caught from the French poets and imitated in some of our early English metrical tales. Where the lines do not seem to be octosyllabic they were often made so by the swift pronunciation leading to phonetic contractions, especially in "Exodus," of which there is well-marked evidence in our old ballad poetry. But the Teutonic form of verse, in which accent was more regarded than the number of the syllables, sometimes asserted itself against the new French influence, the chief care being to preserve the rhythm of four accents in every line.

and the

The oldest English poem in short rhyming lines is a Paraphrase of the Pater Noster, made in the twelfth century, which also shows the Teutonic habit of reliance upon regularity of accent rather than on strict agreement in the number of the syllables. In another poem of the middle of the thirteenth century, "The Owl and the Nightingale," The Owl the syllables have their full value-none being Nightingale. slipped over. This lively southern English poem tells how the owl and the nightingale advanced each against the other his own several claims to admiration, and set forth the demerits of his antagonist; and how they agreed that Nicholas of Guildford should be judge between them. Master Nicholas-if he be the author-lets us know that from a gay youth in the world he had passed into the Church, where his merits had been neglected, and that he was living at Portisham, in Dorsetshire. Portisham lies about seven miles westward of Dorchester. In this poem we have good wit, homely proverb, with direct reference to King Alfred, and a style so English that its 1,792 lines contain only about twenty words of old French origin; yet there is evidence of taste and culture in the accuracy with which its author uses the rhyming eight-syllabled measure. 'There is reference in this poem to a King Henry who punished the snaring of nightingales. Joseph Stevenson, who first printed the piece in 1838, believed that this king was Henry II.† The frequent use of proverbs he associated with the currency of a Collection of Proverbs, ascribed

Proverbs of

Alfred.

to King Alfred, who sat at Seaford surrounded by many

* See upon these questions Dr. J. Schipper's "Alt englische Metrik" (Bonn, 1881), pp. 270-282.

十 “The Owl and the Nightingale, a Poem of the Twelfth Century. Now first printed from Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library and at Jesus College, Oxford; with an Introduction and Glossary. Edited by Joseph Stevenson" (Roxburghe Club, 1838). The poem was edited

again by Thomas Wright for the Percy Society in 1843.

These Proverbs were printed both by Thomas Wright in his

thanes, bishops, and book-learned men, earls and knights -Earl Ælfric being there with Alfred, England's Darling. Then Alfred began to teach

But the pieces in that MS. at Jesus College which contains. "The Owl and the Nightingale" and also the Proverbs of Alfred, include, as Dr. Richard Morris has pointed out,* a reference to Papal exactions on the clergy, through which "holy Church is under foot ;" and these must have been the exactions of Pope Innocent IV., against which there were remonstrances from the King and Parliament of England from the year 1244 to the year 1247. It is to be observed, again, that in the Cotton. MS. which contains "The Owl and the Nightingale "-the same MS. which contains also the earlier of the two copies of LayamonNicholas of Guildford's poem is in the same, or a contemporary, handwriting with another piece that gives a brief Chronicle ending with the reign of Henry III.

"Reliquiæ Antiquæ," and by J. M. Kemble in his edition of the "Dialogues of Solomon and Saturnus" for the Ælfric Society, from a MS. which has since been lost from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It has been printed also from the MS. at Jesus College, Oxford, which includes one of the two copies of "The Owl and the Nightingale" that have come down to us, the other being in the Cotton. Collection, Caligula A ix.

* In the introduction to "An Old English Miscellany, Containing a Bestiary, Kentish Sermons, Proverbs of Alfred, Religious Poems of the Thirteenth Century from Manuscripts in the British Museum, Bodleian Library, Jesus College Library, &c. Edited, with Introduction and Index of Words, by the Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D." (Early English Text Society, 1872).