preserved in Ossian not a few real fragments of the songs of Selma. And,
as we shall see immediately, Wace's production became the basis of the
earliest of English poems.

Maistre Wace is the author also of a History of the Normans, which he
calls 'Roman de Rou;' or, 'The Romance of Rollo.' He was a great favourite
with Henry II., who bestowed on him a canonry in the Cathedral of Bayeux.
Besides Wace, there flourished about the same time Benoit, who wrote a
History of the Dukes of Normandy; and Guernes, a churchman of Pont St
Maxence in Picardy, who wrote in verse a Life of St Thomas a Becket.

At the beginning of the century following the Conquest, the chief authors,
such as Peter of Blois, John of Salisbury, Joseph of Exeter, and Geoffrey
of Monmouth, all wrote in Latin. Layamon, however, a priest of Ernesley-
upon-Severn, used the vernacular in a poem which, as we have already
hinted, was essentially a translation of Wace's 'Brut d'Angleterre.' The
most remarkable thing about Layamon's poem is the language in which it is
written-language in which you catch English in the very act of chipping
the Saxon shell, or, as Campbell happily remarks, 'the style of Layamon is
as nearly the intermediate state of the old and new languages as can be
found in any ancient specimen --something like the new insect stirring its
wings before it has shaken off the aurelia state.'

Between Layamon and Robert of Gloucester a good many miscellaneous
strains--some of a satirical, others of an amatory, and others again of
a legendary and devout style--were produced. It was customary then for
minstrels, at the instance of the clergy, to sing on Sundays devotional
strains on the harp to the assembled multitudes. At public entertainments,
during week-days, gay ditties were common. One of these is extant, but
is too coarse for quotation. It is entitled 'The Land of Cokayne,' an