NOTES
- Literatura Runica. Hafniæ, 1636, 4to.--1651, fol. The Islandic language is of the
same origin as our Anglo-Saxon, being both dialects of the ancient Gothic or
Teutonic.-- Vid. Hickesii Præfat. in Grammat. Anglo-Saxon & Mœso-Goth. 4to.
- Vid. Hickes Antiq. Literatur. Septentrional. tom. i. p. 217.
- Ibid.
- The poem properly contains xxi. parts. The wordPassus, adopted by the author,
seems only to denote the break or division between two parts, though, by the
ignorance of the printer, applied to the parts themselves. See Book vii. preface to
ballad iii, where Passus seems to signify pause.
- That which seems the first of the two, is thus distinguished in the title page:nowe
the seconde time imprinted by Roberte Crowlye; the other thus,nowe the seconde time
imprinted by Robert Crowley. In the former the folios are thus erroneously numbered,
34, 39, 41, 63, 43, 42, 45, &c. The booksellers of those days did not ostentatiously
affect to multiply editions.
- SignatureCii.
- Caligula A. ij. fol. 109, 123.
- K. vol. x.
- W. de Worde's edit. is in 1512.-- See Ames, p. 92. Mr. G.'s copy is --"¶Emprinted
at London by me William Copland."
- He is said in the story book to be the grandfather of Godfrey of Boulogne, through
whom I suppose the duke made out his relation to him. This duke was beheaded May
17, 1521, 13 Henry VIII.
- Probably corrupted for --"Says but as he Saw."
- "Yearded,"i.e.buried, earthed, earded. It is common to pronounce "earth," in
some parts of England, "yearth," particularly in the north.-- Pitscottie, speaking of
James III. slain at Bannockbourn, says, "Nae man wot whar theyyeardedhim."
- And in that of Robert of Gloucester.-- See the next note.
- Consisting of four anapests ( ̆ ̆ˉ) in which the accent rests upon every third
syllable. This kind of verse, which I also call the burlesque Alexandrine (to
distinguish it from the other Alexandrines of eleven and fourteen syllables, the parents
of our lyric measure: see examples, preface to book v. no. vi &c.) was early applied
by Robert of Gloucester to serious subjects. That writer's metre, like this of
Langland's, is formed on the Saxon models (each verse of his containing a Saxon
distich); only instead of the internal alliterations adopted by Langland, he rather chose
final rhymes, as the French poets have done since. Take a specimen:
"The Saxons tho in ther power, tho thii were so rive,
Seven kingdoms made in Engelonde, and sutlie but vive:
The king of Northomberlond, and of Eastangle also
Of Kent, and of Westsex, and of the March, therto."
