Ah, sweetest Jesu, Lord of mine,
My life, my heart, and all is Thine.
Unlock my heart, set light therein
And guard me from the tempter's tine.

O sweetest Jesu, my soul's food,

Sweet are Thy works, dear Lord, and good
Thou boughtest me upon the rood;

For me Thou sheddest Thy heart's blood!

Sweet Jesu, it doth rue me sore

The guilt that I have wrought of yore :
Thy grace, Thy mercy, on me pour.
Ah, Lord, I fain would sin no more.

O Jesu, well to him shall be
Who in the bliss Thy face shall see!
If but Thy angels come for me
I seek not here for game or glee.

Ah, sweetest Jesu, heaven's King,
Fairest and best of every thing,
O speed me well in my longing,
And come to me at my ending.1

The following is the first verse of another hymn in the same collection :

Little doth any man take heed,

How straitly he is bound

By Love that on the rood did bleed,

And bought us with His wound.

The love of Him hath made us sound,

And cast the grisly ghost to ground.

Ever and aye, both night and day, He beareth us in thought,
He would not lightly lose what He so dear hath bought.2

1 Specimens of Lyric Poetry of the Reign of Edward I., ed. by Th. Wright. Percy Society, vol. iv. No. xviii :

Suete Jhesu, King of blysse

Myn huerte love, min huerte lisse.

2 Id. No. xl.: 'Lutel wot hit any mon.'

The Cursor Mundi, or Course of the World, is a work of something the same character as the Ormulum. The four existing manuscripts of it as a whole are of various dates in the fourteenth century, but there is a copy of parts of it which is supposed to have been made about 1300. It was written originally in NormanFrench, and was evidently translated into our tongue by one who lived at a time when the line between Englishman and Norman and English and Norman-French was still tolerably strongly marked. There is something almost defiant in the loving tone with which he dwells upon the name of Englishman. Let, he says, the 'frankis-man'-the Frenchman-have what is most profitable to him. But no Englishmen can understand it; let them have what they can take in. Wherefore, he continues, I translate this book

In to Inglis tong to rede,

For the love of Inglis lede [people]

Inglis lede of England.1

He writes with an earnest hope that the book may arrest the attention of those who have been living heedlessly and for the world:

And to those folk I speak the maist
Who dwell in unwork and in waste,
In trifling and in trewantise
Jesu to me His good grace send
That what I write may them amend.2

Struants from the ર right way.

The Courier of the World carries its reader through the chief events-the 'gestes principale'—of the Bible from beginning to end, not without many imaginary or legendary additions; and, looking forward to the future of the world, descants of the coming of Anti-Christ, and of the Day of Judgment. It is written with much vigour, and was deservedly popular. The Bodleian manuscript is prefaced with the heading that 'This is in

1 Cursor Mundi, 233, in E.E.T.S. ed. Morris.

2. Id. 251: And to thoo speke i alther-mast.'

the best boke of alle: The Cours of the Werlde men dos hit calle.' The Trinity College (Cambridge) MS. calls it 'The boke of storyes that men callen Cursor Mundi.' It is quite possible that even in our own time a well-written series of Bible stories, not written for children, but easily and graphically told in simple verse, might still be in considerable demand.

The following are some lines from the Story of the Flood::

When all was wrought, there was no bide;
The storms uprose on every side;

Sun and moon their beams must hide

Murky was all this world so wide.
The rain it fell full fierce and fast ;-

The burns o'erran; the banks were burst;
The sea it rose; the earth it clove;
The springs o'er all the world outdrove.
Lightning with thunder fell and rain,
The whole earth quaked and dinned again.
Sun and moon had lost their light,
All this world was turned to night.
Men saw the woe with fear and awe;
Their cities fell both high and low.
The water waxed o'er all the plains;
The beasts ran up to the mountains.
Men and women went them with,

Well they weaned to win them grith [peace].
But all for nought they toiled afoot, —

When they came there, it was no boot.1

The following is of St. Stephen's martyrdom :

While they him with stoning quelled,

Up to heaven his hand he held :

Upon his knees he down him set,

With prayer of price his Lord he greet.

Good Lord!' he said, 'to Thee, Jesu,

Yield I my ghost, receive it now.

Lord, these men forgive their plight,

For of a sooth have they no sight.'

With this his hallowed ghost he yold [yielded]
To Jesu, that for him was sold.2

1 Cursor Mundi, 1761: 'Quen al was tift, was thar na bide.'

2 Id. 11. 19,467-76, E. E. T. S.: 'Quils thai him with staning queld.`

I also give a specimen of the practical teaching given in the book :

Therefore this life he hath us lent
To serve Him aye with our intent,
To hold aye well His commandment;
If we do miss, do mendèment.
Ordained to travail is this life,
Against our foes therein to strive.
The flesh, the world, and the foul fiend
Bounden are we to ward and fend.
The flesh to ill lusts leadeth us;
Spiteful the world and covetous;
The fiend is fell with wrath and pride.

These war with us on every side:

These three then we must well forth drive

If we would truly lead our life,

For both may quell them-man and wife [woman]—
That stalwartly against them strive.

And if we stoutly will us steer,

Christ'es good help shall be us near

His help, and our own wisdom eke,—

If we will truly Him beseech.

If we will use on them our might,
They certes will be felled in fight.1

Robert of Gloucester's rhymed Chronicle was written in the thirteenth century. He speaks, for instance, of the great darkness of the day of the battle of Evesham in 1265. It is thought that he lived at Oxford, appointed by the directors of the great abbey at Gloucester to take charge at the University of the youths who had been trained by them. I will give an extract from his work in illustration of the First Crusade. He has been speaking of the famine and pestilence which worked ravage among the Crusaders in 1098:—

Then many a one of hunger died; how might the woe be more?
And amid all the Christian host was sorrow great and sore.
No sort of hope was left to them of better time to come :
They had not strength to carry arms, and so were overcome.
At last our sweet Lord thought in mercy of that death:
He came unto a holy man, and to him this word saith :---

1 Cursor Mundi, 23,741-63: 'Forthi this lijf he has us lent.'

'Go, say unto the Christian men, those of the western land
Aforetime led I them with love, and with a gentle hand;
I made them win the town of Nice, that great and strong city,
And many another battle more, the while they served me.
Yet though I did all this for them, faithless from me they wend
In sin and lust most woefully they do their deeds of shame
With paynims of a heathen land, mindless of my great name.
The savour of their evil deeds has risen to heaven on high.'
The good man fell at the Lord's feet in all humility.

'O, if it be Thy will,' he said, 'good Lord, in this our need
Help them e'en now, and still forgive their foul and sinful deed.'
'Yea, I have helped them,' said the Lord, 'aforetime, well I wis,
And I will help in time to come. But go, and bid them this,—
That they do turn again to Me; so will I without fail,

Even in these five days to come, be with them in battail.' from this how e'en a few, by sin of lechery,

Mark

ye

May take away the grace of God from all their company.-
And then the holy man went forth, and told to every one

That grace again was won to them, and wherefore grace had gone.
So when they heard that grace was given, surely great joy was

there;

And for three days were orisons, fasting, and solemn prayer.
Yea, there were many masses, many processions made,
And then with great devotion were many confessions said.
And when each one had owned his sin with great devotioun,
Then weeping put he on his mail, the while his tears ran down.
In seven parts were ranged the host under knights brave and true.
The Earl of Flanders led the first, and the great earl, Sir Hugh.
Duke Godfrey ruled the next, and Earl Baldwin also;
Robert Courthose the third, as none could better do;
He was best knight of all, his peer you might not see.
The Bishop next of Padua led the fourth company.
Sir William de Montpellier in the fifth led the right,
Sir Richard de Pruyce, and Tancred the good knight.
The sixth the Earl of Rasquele, and with him Earl Beaumont.
To these the government was given; and after this was done,
In honour of the Holy Ghost, a seventh then made they,
And named Sir Raymond chief. Such was the whole array.
Sir Raymond with good company kept stalwart watch behind,
That if the men should suffer need, here they might refuge find.
When all was ready as they would, they blest themselves each one,
And asked God's grace, and so to battle went anon.
There was great calling upon God, and many a weeping eye,
Of them that tarried from the field, but might the fray descry,
Of bishops who were there, and priests, men of religioun.
And thereupon the clerkly men, with good devotioun,
In seemly robes within the church 'gan unto God to cry,
With tears, and with processions, and sang their litany