hat have come down to us are
of a more recent epoch, and belong to the first half of the fourteenth
century. In the thirteenth, as has been noticed, many Englishmen
considered French to be, together with Latin, the literary language of
the country; they endeavoured to handle it, but not always with great
success. Robert Grosseteste, who, however, recommended his clergy to
preach in English, had composed in French a "Chateau d'Amour," an
allegorical poem, with keeps, castles, and turrets, "les quatre tureles
en haut," which are the four cardinal virtues, a sort of pious Romaunt
of the Rose. William of Wadington had likewise written in French his
"Manuel des Pechiez," not without an inkling that his grammar and
prosody might give cause for laughter. He excused himself in advance:
"For my French and my rhymes no one must blame me, for in England was I
born, and there bred and brought up and educated."[340]

These attempts become rare as we approach the fourteenth century, and
English translations and imitations, on the contrary, multiply. We find,
for example, translations in English verse of the "Chateau"[341] and the
"Manuel"[342]; a prose translation of that famous "Somme des Vices et
des Vertus," composed by Brother Lorens in 1279, for Philip III. of
France, a copy of which, chained to a pillar of the church of the
Innocents, remained open for the convenience of the faithful[343]; (a
bestiary in verse, thirteenth century), devotional writings on the
Virgin, legends of the Cross, visions of heaven and hell[344]; a Courier
of the world, "Cursor Mundi," in verse,[345] containing the history of
the Old and New Testaments. A multitude of legends are found in the
"Cursor," that of the Cross for instance, made out of three trees, a
cypress, a cedar, and a pine, symbols of the Trinity. These trees had
sprung from three pips given to Seth by the guardian angel of Paradise,
and placed under Adam's tongue at his death; their miraculous existence
is continued on the mountains, and they play a part in all the great
epochs of Jewish history, in the time of Moses, Solomon, &c.

Similar legends adorn most of these books: what good could they
accomplish if no one read them? And to be read it was necessary to
please. This is why verse was used to charm the ear, and romantic
stories were inserted to delight the mind, for, says Robert Mannyng in
his translation of the "Manuel des Pechiez," "many people are so made
that it pleases them to