1208. _Bret_, Briton, one of the British. This form is quite correct, being the A.S. _Bret_, a Briton (see A.S. Chronicle, an. 491), commonly used in the pl. _Brettas_. This correct spelling occurs in MS. B. only; MS. P. turns it into _Bretur_, Th. and Cx. read _Briton_, whilst MS. F. turns _Bret_ into _gret_, by altering the first letter. The forms _gret_ and _Bretur_ are clearly corruptions, whilst _Briton_ spoils the scansion. _Glascurion_; the same as Glasgerion, concerning whom see the Ballad in the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, i. 246. Of this 'a traditional version, under the name of _Glenkindie_, a various form of Glasgerion, is given in Jamieson's Popular Songs and Ballads, and in Alex. Laing's Thistle of Scotland (1823).' G. Douglas associates 'Glaskeriane' with Orpheus in his Palice of Honour, bk. i. (ed. Small, i. 21); this poem is a palpable imitation of Chaucer's House of Fame. The name is Celtic, as the epithet _Bret_ implies. Cf. Irish and Welsh _glas_, pale. 1213. 'Or as art imitates nature.' Imitated from Le Rom. de la Rose, where Art asks Nature to teach her; l. 16233 is-- 'E la _contrefait comme singes_.' 1218. There is a similar list of musical instruments in Le Rom. de la Rose, 21285-21308:-- 'Puis _chalemiaus_, et chalemele Et tabor, et _fléute_, et timbre ... Puis prent sa muse, et se travaille As estives de Cornoaille.' And in Le Remède de Fortune, by G. de Machault, 1849, p. 87, is a similar long list:-- '_Cornemuses_, flaios, chevrettes, Dousainnes, cimbales, clochettes, Timbre, la _flahute_ brehaigne, Et le grant cornet d'Alemaigne, Flaiot de saus, fistule, _pipe_'; &c. And a few lines below there is mention of the _muse de blez_ (see note to l. 1224). Warton, Hist. E. Poet., ed. Hazlitt, iii. 177. quotes a similar passage from Lydgate's poem entitled Reason and Sensualite, ending with-- 'There were trumpes, and trumpettes, Lowde shallys [shalmys?] and _doucettes_.' Cf. also Spenser, F. Q. vi. 9, 5; Shep. Kal. _Feb._ 35-40. In the latter passage, the imitation of ll. 1224-6 is obvious. _Cornemuse_ is a bagpipe; _shalmye_ is a shawm, which was a wind-instrument, being derived from Lat. _calamus_, a reed; Chaucer classes both instruments under _pipe_. Willert (on the House of Fame, p. 36) suggests (and, I think, correctly) that _doucet_ and _rede_ are both adjectival. Thus _doucet_ would refer to _pipe_; cf. '_Doucet_, dulcet, pretty and sweet, or, a little sweet'; Cotgrave. _Rede_ would also refer to _pipe_, and would mean 'made with a reed.' A reed-instrument is one 'in which the sound was produced by the vibration of a reed, as in the clarionet or hautboys'; note in Bell's Chaucer. There is no instrument properly called a _doucet_ in Old French, but only _dousainne_ (see above) and _doucine_ (Godefroy).