For the partie which hath pleigned 215 The lawe hath diemed and ordeigned Be hem that were avised wel, That he schal have the halvendel Thurghout of Adrianes good. And thus of thilke unkinde blod 220 Stant the memoire into this day, Wherof that every wys man may Ensamplen him, and take in mynde What schame it is to ben unkinde; Aȝein the which reson debateth, 225 And every creature it hateth. XIII JOHN OF TREVISA'S TRANSLATION OF HIGDEN'S POLYCHRONICON 1387. Ranulph Higden (d. 1364) was a monk of St. Werburgh's at Chester, and has been doubtfully identified with the 'Randal Higden' who is said to have travelled to Rome to get the Pope's consent to the acting of the Chester miracle plays in English. His _Polychronicon_, so called because it is the chronicle of many ages, is a compilation covering the period from the Creation to 1352. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was the favourite universal history; and the First Book, which deals with general geography, has still a special interest for the light it throws on the state of knowledge in Chaucer's day. Two English prose translations are known: Trevisa's, completed in 1387, and modernized and printed by Caxton in 1482; and an anonymous rendering made in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. Both are printed, with Higden's Latin, in the edition by Babington and Lumby, Rolls Series, 9 vols., 1865-86. John of Trevisa was a Cornishman. He was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, from 1362 to 1365; and was one of those expelled from Queen's College for 'unworthiness' in 1379. He became vicar of Berkeley, and at the request of Sir Thomas Berkeley undertook the translation of the _Polychronicon_. In 1398 he brought to an end another long work, the translation of _Bartholomaeus de Proprietatibus Rerum_, the great encyclopaedia of natural science at this time. He died at Berkeley in 1402. Trevisa was a diligent but not an accurate or graceful translator. He rarely adds anything from his own knowledge, though we have an example in the account of the reform of teaching at Oxford while he was there. The interest of his work depends chiefly on the curiosity of some passages in his originals. A. THE MARVELS OF BRITAIN. CHAP. xlii. MS. Tiberius D. vii (about 1400), f. 39 a. In Brytayn buþ hoot welles wel arayed and yhyȝt to þe vse of mankunde. Mayster of þulke welles ys þe gret spyryt of Minerua. Yn hys hous fuyr duyreþ alwey, þat neuer chaungeþ into askes, bote þar þe fuyr slakeþ, hyt changeþ ynto stony clottes. {5}