-Meritosque offensus in hostes Arma patris, nunc ultor, habet: sed tanta recusant Colla petit, breviorque manus vix colligit hastam.' Afterwards a Grecian leader, whose character is invective, insults Penthesilea, and her troop of heroines, with these reproaches, Tunc sic increpitans, Pudeat, Mars inclyte, dixit: Plena rotant, sparguntque colos. Hoc milite Troja, I will add one of his comparisons. The poet is speaking of the reluctant advances of the Trojans under their new leader Memnon, after the fall of Hector: Qualiter Hyblæi mellita pericula reges, Si signis iniere datis, labente tyranno Alterutro, viduos dant agmina stridula questus; V His ANTIOCHEIS was written in the same strain, and had equal merit. All that remains of it is the following fragment", w, in which the poet celebrates the heroes of Britain, and particularly king Arthur. t Lib. vi. p. 589. " Lib. vi. 609. * Lib. vi. 19. Camd. Rem. p. 410. POEMS. See also Camd. Brit. Leland having learned from the Bellum Trojanum that Josephus had likewise written a poem on the Crusade, searched for it in many places, but without success. At length he found a piece of it in the library of Inclyta fulsit Posteritas ducibus tantis, tot dives alumnis, Flos regum Arthurus", cujus tamen acta stupori Camden asserts, that Joseph accompanied king Richard the First to the holy land, and was an eye-witness of that heroic monarch's exploits among the Saracens, which afterwards he celebrated in the ANTIOCHEIS. Leland mentions his loveverses and epigrams, which are long since perished". He flourished in the year 1210°. Rein. ut supr. p. 407. 2 Bale, iii. 60. Compare Dresenius ad Leland, ut supr. p. 239. Our bio- Lectorem. Prefixed to the De Bello There seems to have been a rival spirit of writing Latin heroic poems about this period. In France, Guillaume le Breton, or William of Bretagny, about the year 1230, wrote a Latin heroic poem on Philip Augustus king of France about the commencement of the thirteenth century, in twelve books, entitled PHILIPPIS. Barthius gives a prodigious character of this poem; and affirms that the author, a few gallicisms excepted, has expressed the facility of Ovid with singular happiness. The versification much resembles that of Joseph Iscanus. He appears to have drawn a great part of his materials from Roger Hoveden's annals. But I am of opinion, that the PHILIPPID is greatly exceeded by the ALEXANDREID of Philip Gualtier de Chatillon, who flourished likewise in France, and was provost of the canons of Tournay, about the year 1200'. This poem celebrates the actions of Alexander the Great, is founded on Quintus Curtius, consists of ten books, and is dedicated to Guillerm archbishop of Rheims. To give the reader an oportunity of comparing Gualtier's style and manner with those of our countryman Josephus, I will transcribe a few specimens from a beautiful and antient manuscript of the ALEXANDREID in the Bodleian library". This is the exordium : Gesta ducis Macedum totum digesta per orbem, TROJANO. Francof. 1620. 4to. Mr. Wise, He wrote it at fifty-five years of a fage. PHILIPP. lib. iii. v. 381. It was first printed in Pithou's "Eleven Historians of France," Francof. 1536. fol. Next in Du Chesne, SCRIPT. FRANC. tom. v. p. 93. Paris. 1694. fol. But the best edition is with Barthius's notes, Cygn. 1657. 4to. Brito says in the PHILIPPIS, that he wrote a poem called KARLOTTIS, in praise of Petri Carlotti sui, then not fifteen years f It was first printed, Argent. 1513. 8vo. And two or three times since. See infr. SECT. iii. p. 143. And Barth. h MSS. Digb. 52. 4to. A beautiful rural scene is thus described: -Patulis ubi frondea ramis Laurus odoriferas celabat crinibus herbas: Sæpe sub hac memorant carmen sylvestre canentes Garrulus, et strepitu facit obsurdescere montes. He excells in similies. Alexander, when a stripling, is thus compared to a young lion: Qualiter Hyrcanis cum forte leunculis arvis The ALEXANDREID soon became so popular, that Henry of Gaunt, archdeacon of Tournay, about the year 1330, complains that this poem was commonly taught in the rhetorical schools, instead of Lucan' and Virgilm. The learned Charpentier i fol. xiii. a. * fol. xxi. a. Here, among many other proofs which might be given, and which will occur hereafter, is a proof of the estimation in which Lucan was held during the middle ages. He is quoted by Geoffrey of Monmouth and John of Salisbury, writers of the eleventh century. Hist. Brit. iv. 9. and Policrat. p. 215. edit. 1515. &c. &c. There is an anonymous Italian translation of Lucan, as early as the year 1310. The Italians have also cites a passage from the manuscript statutes of the university of Tholouse, dated 1328, in which the professors of grammar are directed to read to their pupils "De Historiis Alexandri"." Among which I include Gualtier's poem. It is quoted as a familiar classic by Thomas Rodburn, a monkish chronicler, who wrote about the year 1420P. An anonymous Latin poet, seemingly of the thirteenth century, who has left a poem on the life and miracles of Saint Oswald, mentions Homer, Gualtier, and Lucan, as the three capital heroic poets. Homer, he says, has celebrated Hercules, Gualtier the son of Philip, and Lucan has sung the praises of Cesar. But, adds he, these heroes much less deserve to be immortalised in verse, than the deeds of the holy confessor Oswald. In nova fert animus antiquas vertere prosas Alciden hyperbolice commendat HOMERUS, I do not cite this writer as a proof of the elegant versification which had now become fashionable, but to shew the popularity of the ALEXANDREID, at least among scholars. About the year 1206, Gunther a German, and a Cistercian monk of the there were six other editions of this classic, whose declamatory manner rendered him very popular. He was published at Paris in French in 1500. Labb. Bibl. p. 339. m See Hen. Gandav. Monasticon. c. 20. and Fabric. Bibl. Gr. ii. 218. Alanus de Insulis, who died in 1202, in his poem called ANTI-CLAUDIANUS, a Latin poem of nine books, much in the manner of Claudian, and written in de fence of divine providence against a passage in that poet's RUFINUS, thus attacks the rising reputation of the ALEXANDREID : Mævius in cœlis ardens os ponere mu- GESTA DUCIS MACEDUM, tenebrosi car- "Suppl. Du Cang. Lat. Gloss. tom. ii. p. 1255. V. METRIFICATURA. By which barbarous word they signified the Art of poetry, or rather the Art of writing Latin verses. "See SECT. iii. p. 132. infr. P Hist. Maj. Winton. apud Wharton, Angl. Sacr. i. 242. I will add some of the exordial lines almost immediately following, as they |