-Meritosque offensus in hostes

Arma patris, nunc ultor, habet: sed tanta recusant
Pondera crescentes humeri, majoraque cassis

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:
En ! tua signa gerit, quin nostra effœminat arma
Staminibus vix apta manus. Nunc stabitis hercle
Perjuræ turres; calathos et pensa puellæ

Plena rotant, sparguntque colos. Hoc milite Troja,
His fidit telis. At non patiemur Achivi:
Etsi turpe viris timidas calcare puellas,
Ibo tamen contra. Sic ille: At virgo loquacem
Tarda sequi sexum, velox ad prælia, solo
Respondet jaculo", &c.-

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;
Et, subitum vix nacta ducem, metuentia vibrant
Spicula, et imbelli remeant in prælia rostro.

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
Abingdon abbey in Berkshire.
"Cum
excuterem pulverem et tineas Abban-
dunensis bibliothecæ." Ut supr. p. 238.
Here he discovered that Josephus was a
native of Exeter, which city was highly
celebrated in that fragment.

Inclyta fulsit

Posteritas ducibus tantis, tot dives alumnis,
Tot fœcunda viris, premerent qui viribus orbem
Et fama veteres. Hinc Constantinus adeptus
Imperium, Romam tenuit, Byzantion auxit.
Hinc, Senonum ductor, captiva Brennius urbe "
Romuleas domuit flammis victricibus arces.
Hinc et Scæva satus, pars non obscura tumultus
Civilis, Magnum solus qui mole soluta
Obsedit, meliorque stetit pro Cæsare murus.
Hinc, celebri fato, felici floruit ortu,

Flos regum Arthurus", cujus tamen acta stupori
Non micuere minus: totus quod in aure voluptas,
Et populo plaudente favor*. Quæcunque priorum
Inspice: Pellæum commendat fama tyrannum,
Pagina Cæsareos loquitur Romana triumphos;
Alciden domitis attollit gloria monstris;
Sed nec pinetum coryli, nec sydera solem
Æquant. Annales Graios Latiosque revolve,
Prisca parem nescit, æqualem postera nullum
Exhibitura dies. Reges supereminet omnes:
Solus præteritis melior, majorque futuris.

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,
Quam large dispersit opes, quo milite Porum
Vicit aut Darium; quo principe Græcia victrix
Risit, et a Persis rediere tributa Corinthum,
Musa, refer.

TROJANO. Francof. 1620. 4to. Mr. Wise,
the late Radcliffe librarian, told me that
a manuscript of the ANTIOCHEIS was in
the library of the duke of Chandois at
Canons.

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
old. PHILIPP. lib. i. v. 10.
This poem
was never printed, and is hardly known.
In Not. p. 7. See also Adversar.
xliii. 7. He prefers it to the ALEXAN-
DREIS mentioned below, in Not. p. 528.
See Mem. Lit. viii. 536. edit. 4to.

f It was first printed, Argent. 1513. 8vo. And two or three times since.

See infr. SECT. iii. p. 143. And Barth.
Advers. lii. 16.

h MSS. Digb. 52. 4to.
i fol. 1. a.

A beautiful rural scene is thus described:

-Patulis ubi frondea ramis

Laurus odoriferas celabat crinibus herbas:

Sæpe sub hac memorant carmen sylvestre canentes
Nympharum vidisse choros, Satyrosque procaces.
Fons cadit a læva, quem cespite gramen obumbrat
Purpureo, verisque latens sub veste jocatur,
Rivulus et lento rigat inferiora meatu,

Garrulus, et strepitu facit obsurdescere montes.
Hic mater Cybele Zephyrum tibi, Flora, maritans,
Pullulat, et vallem fœcundat gratia fontis.
Qualiter Alpinis spumoso vortice saxis
Descendit Rhodanus, ubi Maximianus Eoos
Extinxit cuneos, cum sanguinis unda meatum
Fluminis adjuvit. i

He excells in similies. Alexander, when a stripling, is thus compared to a young lion:

Qualiter Hyrcanis cum forte leunculis arvis
Cornibus elatos videt ire ad pabula cervos,
Cui nondum totos descendit robur in artus,
Nec bene firmus adhuc, nec dentibus asper aduncis,.
Palpitat, et vacuum ferit improba lingua palatum;
Effunditque prius animis quam dente cruorem. *

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
Lucano in volgare, by cardinal Monti-
chelli, at Milan 1492. It is in the octave
rime, and in ten books. But the trans-
lator has so much departed from the
original, as to form a sort of romance of
his own. He was translated into Spanish
prose, Lucano pocta y historiador antiquo,
by Martin Lasse de Orespe, at Antwerp,
1585. Lucan was first printed in the
year 1469.
And before the year 1500,

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
Carmina, &c.

Alciden hyperbolice commendat HOMERUS,
GUALTERUS pingit torvo Philippida vultu,
Cæsareas late laudes LUCANUS adauget:
TRES illi famam meruerunt, tresque poetas
Auctores habuere suos, multo magis autem
Oswaldi regis debent insignia dici.a

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-
tum,

GESTA DUCIS MACEDUM, tenebrosi car-
minis umbra,
Dicere dum tentat.

"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