it, and the joy of pride to all that it produces. Its poets, when inspired to relate to it its own deeds, and describe its own customs, are certain of never meeting with an ear that will not listen or a heart that will not respond; their art is at once the charm of the lower classes of society, and the honor of the most exalted ranks. More than in any other country, poetry is united with important events in the ancient history of England. It introduced Alfred into the tents of the Danish leaders; four centuries before, it had enabled the Saxon Bardulph to penetrate into the city of York, in which the Britons held his brother Colgrim besieged; sixty years later, it accompanied Anlaf, king of the Danes, into the camp of Athelstan; and, in the twelfth century, it achieved the honor of effecting the deliverance of Richard Cœur-de-Lion. These old narratives, and a host of others, however doubtful they may be supposed, prove at least how present to the imagination of the people were the art and profession of the minstrel. A fact of more modern date fully attests the power which these popular poets long exercised over the multitude: Hugh, first Earl of Chester, had decreed, in the foundation-deed of the Abbey of St. Werburgh, that the fair of Chester should be, during its whole duration, a place of asylum for criminals, excepting in the case of crimes committed in the fair itself. In the year 1212, during the reign of King John, and at the time of this fair, Ranulph, last Earl of Chester, traveling into Wales, was attacked by the Welsh, and compelled to retire to his castle of Rothelan, in which they besieged him. He succeeded in informing Roger, or John de Lacy, the constable of Chester, of his position; this nobleman interested the minstrels who had come to the fair in the cause of the earl; and they so powerfully excited, with their songs, the multitude of outlawed per-
