had a nobler era been marked in the history of literature. For here was a tongue born which was destined to mate even with that of Greece in richness and flexibility, to make the language of Cicero and Virgil seem stiff and stilted in comparison, and, if not to vie with the French in airy grace, or with the Italian in liquid music, to excel them far in teeming resources and robust energy. Memorable and hallowed for ever be the hour when the 'well of English undefiled' first sparkled to the day! Previous to this the chief of the poets, after the Conquest, were Normans. The country whence that people came had for some time been celebrated for poetry. France was, as to its poetic literature, divided into two great sections--the Provencal and the Northern. The first was like the country where it flourished--gay, flowery, and exuberant; it swam in romance, and its rhymers delighted, when addressing large audiences under the open skies of their delightful climate, to indulge in compliment and fanfaronade, to sing of war, wine, and love. The Normans produced a race of simpler poets. That some of them were men as well as singers, is proved by the fact that it was a bard named Taillefer who first broke the English ranks at the battle of Hastings. After him came Philippe de Thaun, who tried to set to song the science of his day; Thorold, the author of a romance entitled 'Roland;' Samson de Nauteuil, the translator of Solomon's Proverbs into French verse; Geoffrey Gaimar, who wrote a Chronicle of the Saxon kings; and one David, a minstrel of no little note and power in his day. But a more remarkable writer succeeded, and his work, like Aaron's rod, swallowed up all the productions of these clever but petty poets. This was Wace, commonly called Maistre Wace, a native of Jersey. In 1160, or as some say 1155, Wace finished his 'Brut d'Angleterre' which is in reality a translation into French of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote a History of Britain from the imaginary Brutus of Troy down to Cadwallader in 689. Literature owes not a little to Wace's poem. He collected into a permanent shape a number of traditions and legends--many of them interesting--which had been floating through Europe, just as Macpherson preserved in Ossian not a few real fragments of the songs of Selma. And, as we shall see immediately, Wace's production became the basis of the earliest of English poems. Maistre Wace is the author also of a History of the Normans, which he calls 'Roman de Rou;' or, 'The Romance of Rollo.' He was a great favourite with Henry II., who bestowed on him a canonry in the Cathedral of Bayeux. Besides Wace, there flourished about the same time Benoit, who wrote a History of the Dukes of Normandy; and Guernes, a churchman of Pont St Maxence in Picardy, who wrote in verse a Life of St Thomas a Becket.