about the same time.[1] Layamon's no (nec) becomes nor, in the Salopian poem quoted at page 205; this is shortened from nother. Reule, having long been a substantive, now becomes a verb, and we see ine mêne time. The form graciouser, in the Ayenbite, is one of the last attempts to force the English sign of comparison on a French adjective ending in ous. The old dysig (stultus) gets our modern sense of dizzy; and Langland's kill (occidere) replaces the old cwell, which now has only the meaning of opprimere.
A curious poem, the Debate of the Carpenter's Tools (Hazlitt's Collection, I. 88), is the compilation that best represents Manning's style; it seems to have been written about 1340, and must belong to the Rutland neighbourhood: it certainly has a dash of the Northern speech. I give a few lines as alink between Manning and Mandeville.
Bot lythe to me a lytelle space,
I schall ʓow telle all the case,
How that they wyrke fore ther gode,
I wylle not lye, be the rode.
When thei have wroght an oure ore two,
Anone to the ale thei wylle go.
And drinke ther, whyle thei may dre:
Thou to me, and I to the.
And seys the ax schall pay fore this.
Therefore the cope ons I wylle kys;
And when thei comme to werke ageyne,
The belte to hys mayster wylle seyne:
‘Mayster, wyrke no oute off resone.
The dey is vary longe of seson.[2]
- ↑ It is found under the form of ho-besteʓ, in the Lancashire poem quoted at page 204.
- ↑ In this last line, we have the first use of our foreign very (valdè), which appears next in Yorkshire letters of 1450; it was a long time making its way to London, though Chaucer uses it as an adjective. In the above poem we meet the expression ‘reule the roste.’
