THE

ROYAL AUTHORS

OF

ENGLAN D.

RICHARD THE FIRST.

THOUGH Henry the first obtained the fair appellation of Beauclerc, or the Learned, yet has no author, I think, ascribed any composition to him. Considering the state of literature in that age, one may conjecture what was the erudition of a prince to whom the monks (the doctors of his time!) imparted a title so confined to their own brotherhood. One is more surprised to be obliged to attribute the first place in this catalogue to his fierce great-grandson, Cœur de

Bishop Tanner, in his "Bibliotheca Britannica," has ranked Henry among his authors; but I cannot so lightly call him one, as the bishop does after Leland, on the latter having discovered in St. Austin's church at Dover, a book composed from laws or decrees elucidated and enacted by that king, vide p. 95; nor is it sufficient that bishop Bale says he wrote epistles to Anselm.

Lion! It is asserted, that towards the end of his father's reign, which his rebel temper disturbed, he lived much in the courts of the princes of Provence, learned their language, and practised their poetry, then called the gay science3, and the standard of politeness of that age. The English, who had a turn to numbers, are particularly said to have cultivated that dialect, finding their own tongue too stubborn and inflexible.

Mr. Rymer, in his Short View of Tragedy, is earnest to assert the pretensions of this monarch as a poet, against Roger Hoveden the monk, who, he supposes, was angry at the king's patronizing the Provençal bards, reckoned of the party of the Albigenses, then warring on the pope and France. Hoveden says positively, that Richard, to raise himself a name, bought and begged verses and flattering rhymes, and drew over singers and jesters from France, to

[Cinthio Giraldi supposed that the art of the troubadours, commonly called the gay science, was first communicated from France to the Italians, and afterward to the Spaniards. This, says Mr. Warton, may perhaps be true: but at the same time, as the Spaniards had their juglares, or convivial bards, very early, as from long connexion they were immediately acquainted with the fictions of the Arabians, and as they were naturally fond of chivalry, it is highly probable that the troubadours of Provence in great measure caught this turn of fabling from Spain. Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. i. p. 149.]