Layamon thought himself a chronicler in rhyme, a historian; in his book he has many tales, not that of Arthur alone; he has dull passages in plenty, none the less the good priest had many qualities of the great poet. The verse of Layamon is sometimes of the old Anglo-Saxon sort already described, with alliteration and without rhyme; and in other parts consists of rhyming couplets varying in length, all intermixed. A rhyming couplet is _Thet avere either other_ _luvede alse if brother_. That ever either other Loved as if brother. In the words the tendency is to drop the old inflections, the language is shaking off its original grammar and approaching modern English. In the later of two manuscripts of the poem this tendency is much more strong. Thus the older manuscript has He wes a swithe aehte gume And he streonde (begat) threo _snelle_ sunen. The later copy has He was a strong gome And he streonede threo sones. The word "snell" in the older version still survives in Scots, "There cam a wind out o' the East A sharp wind and a _snell_," _snell_ meaning "keen". Ormulum. Layamon was too great a poet to mingle sermons with his song. The pulpit was his preaching place, he scarcely ever preaches in his poem. On the other hand the worthy brother Ormin or Orm did nothing but preach in his versified book "The Ormulum". He was an Augustinian canon of the North Midlands who, about 1200, paraphrased the Gospels read on each day, and the homily which followed, often drawn from Bede (for Orm was not an advanced theologian), in a kind of blank verse. Nothing could be more simply edifying to plain congregations, but edification is not the aim of literature. Orm is best known for his determination to have English properly pronounced. A vowel, in English is, and was, sounded short before two consonants, and Orm was bent on making the reader pronounce the vowels thus and not otherwise. He therefore _wrote_ the two consonants after every short vowel, and explained himself thus, the lines also give the metre of his verses:-- And whase wilenn shall thiss hoc Efft others sithe writenn Him bidde Icc thatt het write rihht Swa summ thiss hoc him teachethh.... And tatt he loke wel thatt he An bocstaff write twiyess Eyywhaer thaes itt upo thiss boc Iss written o thatt wise. By using some Scots words we may translate this in the original metre. And whasae willen shall this book Another time be writing Him do I bid that he write richt Even as this book him teacheth. And that he do look well that he Ane letter writeth twice Aye there where it upon this book Is written in that wise.