In the scrap of Saxon poetry quoted above, the reader will perceive that the chronicler mentions William's severe restrictions upon the exercise of woodcraft in the wide waste lands of the escheated manors. Following the same lines farther, we find in the old chronicle the winding up words, which I will translate from the original. After remarking that "he forbade men to kill harts or boars," the chronicler adds, "Rich men bemoaned it and poor men shuddered at it. But he was so stern and hot that he recked not the hatred of them all." In consequence of these laws, Robinhoods and Littlejohns gathered in the matted thickets, and among the oak glades on the banks of every obscure lake and river, from the Thames to the Tweed. There was something alluring in the romantic life of an outlawed forester, and many a tall deer and bristling boar, died on the 'green shawe,' against whom that law, intended as a shield, pointed the arrow. Thus sprung up a race of men of whom the ballad makers delighted to sing--coupling their names with 'Hereward the hardy outlaw' and the patriot heroes of the ground and trampled Saxons. That the introduction of Norman manners brought with it more softness--a fact mentioned more than once--we may discover by comparing the productions of those bards who in the same age, sung in the rugged north country, and those who grew up in Kent and on the Thames. These latter were for years before the Norman's coming, receiving polish from their neighborhood, while those of Northumberland retained much of their early rudeness ages after. The bard who sings of the reyde on which "The Perse out off Northumberland" went to be killed among the Cheviot hills, has more roughness as well as more strength than any of his compeers on the Thames. This old poem is an important stone in the temple of English literature, and I will treat of it in due season, as coming within the pale of English classic poetry. This polish and increased softness introduced by the Normans, opened the eyes and ears of all to "the soother and honeyeder" style of poetry. And, indeed, unless Lord Bacon's remark,--that verse is a better balm than any the Egyptians knew, "for that it not only preserveth the stateliness of the form and the color of the face--which the Egyptian preservative doth not--but giveth to the one tenfold stateliness and borroweth from the rose for the other,"--be true, their women were passing stately and very beautiful. There were the three Mauds, all queens and all heroines. There was the proud yet "fair Rosamond," who forgot her pride in the arms of a royal lover; and many another fitting sharer in immortality with the Elgivas and Ediths of an earlier time.