Drayton's 'Polyolbion.' It is more valuable in this respect than as a
piece of imagination.

He narrates the grandest events--such as the first crusaders bursting
into Asia, with a sword of fire hung in the firmament before them, and
beckoning them on their way--as coolly as he might the emigration of a
colony of ants. Yet, although there is little animation or poetry in his
general manner, he usually succeeds in riveting the reader's attention;
and the speeches he puts into the mouths of his heroes glow with at
least rhetorical fire. And as a critic truly remarks--'Injustice to the
ancient versifier, we should remember that he had still only a rude
language to employ, the speech of boors and burghers, which, though it
might possess a few songs and satires, could afford him no models of
heroic narration. In such an age the first occupant passes uninspired
over subjects which might kindle the highest enthusiasm in the poet of
a riper period, as the savage treads unconsciously in his deserts over
mines of incalculable value, without sagacity to discover or inplements
to explore them.' We give the following extracts from Robert of
Gloucester's poem:--


THE SPOUTS AND SOLEMNITIES WHICH FOLLOWED KING ARTHUR'S CORONATION.

The king was to his palace, tho the service was ydo,[1]
Yled with his meinie,[2] and the queen to her also.
For they held the old usages, that men with men were
By themselve, and women by themselve also there.
When they were each one yset, as it to their state become,
Kay, king of Anjou, a thousand knightes nome[3]
Of noble men, yclothed in ermine each one