the Lord's Prayer published by Dr. Morris, the proportion of words of weight, now obsolete, is one-fifth of the whole, much as it is in English prose of that same date.[1] In the poem of 1066, nearly fifty out of a hundred of these words are clean gone; in the poem of 1170, only twenty out of a hundred of these words cannot now be understood. I think it may be laid down, that of all the poetic words employed by English Makers, nearly one-third passed away within a hundred years of the Battle of Hastings. Henry of Huntingdon makes laughable mistakes, when he tries to turn into Latin the old English lay on Brunanburgh fight, though its words must have been in the mouths of poets only fourscore years before his time. English poetry could not thrive without patrons; and these, the Abbots and Aldermen who thronged the Winchester Court of old, had been swept away to make room for men who cared only for the speech of Rouen and Paris. The old Standard of English died out: if chronicles were written at Peterborough, or homilies still further to the South, they were compiled in corrupt English, at which Bede or Alfred would have stared. As to English poetry, its history for one hundred years is all but a blank. Old legends of England's history, it is true, such as those that bear on Arthur or Havelok, were dressed up in verse; but the verse was French, for thus alone could the minstrel hope that his toil would be rewarded. In 1066, England's King was praised in good ringing English lines, that may have been shouted
- ↑ Morris, Early English Homilies, First Series, I. 55 (Early English Text Society). I gave a specimen at page 77.
