erplexing in languages as in individuals. But, in
the reign of Henry II., a version of Wace's poem of Brut, by one
Layamon, a priest of Ernly-upon-Severn, exhibits as it were the
chrysalis of the English language, in a very corrupt modification of the
Anglo-Saxon.[888] Very soon afterwards the new formation was better
developed; and some metrical pieces, referred by critics to the earlier
part of the thirteenth century, differ but little from our legitimate
grammar.[889] About the beginning of Edward I.'s reign, Robert, a monk
of Gloucester, composed a metrical chronicle from the history of
Geoffrey of Monmouth, which he continued to his own time. This work,
with a similar chronicle of Robert Manning, a monk of Brunne (Bourne) in
Lincolnshire, nearly thirty years later, stand at the head of our
English poetry. The romance of Sir Tristrem, ascribed to Thomas of
Erceldoune, surnamed the Rhymer, a Scottish minstrel, has recently laid
claim to somewhat higher antiquity.[890] In the fourteenth century a
great number of metrical romances were translated from the French. It
requires no small portion of indulgence to speak favourably of any of
these early English productions. A poetical line may no doubt
occasionally be found; but in general the narration is as heavy and
prolix as the versification is unmusical.[891] The first English writer
who can be read with approbation is William Langland, the author of
Piers Plowman's Vision, a severe satire upon the clergy. Though his
measure is more uncouth than that of his predecessors, there is real
energy in his conceptions, which he caught not from the chimeras of
knight-errantry, but the actual manners and opinions of his time.

[Sidenote: Cause of its slow progress.]

The very slow progress of the English language, as an instrument of
literature, is chiefly to be ascribed to the effects of the Norman
conquest, in degrading the native inhabitants and transferring all power
and riches to foreigners. The barons, without perhaps one exception, and
a large proportion of the gentry, were of French descent, and preserved
among themselves the speech of their fathers. This continued much longer
than we should naturally have expected; even after the loss of Normandy
had snapped the thread of French connexions, and they began to pride
themselves in the name of Englishmen, and in the inheritance of
traditionary English privileges. Robert of Gloucester has a remarkable
passage, which proves t