What of Henry of Huntingdon, who, besides a learned
history of England, wrote a treatise on the contempt of the world,
which the world has revenged by forgetting him? What is quoted of
Joseph of Exeter, styled the miracle of his age in classical
composition? Of his three great heroic poems one is lost forever,
excepting a mere fragment; the others are known only to a few of the
curious in literature; and as to his love verses and epigrams, they
have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis,
the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the tree of life? Of
William of Malmsbury;- of Simeon of Durham;- of Benedict of
Peterborough;- of John Hanvill of St. Albans;- of-"
"Prithee, friend," cried the quarto, in a testy tone, "how old do
you think me? You are talking of authors that lived long before my
time, and wrote either in Latin or French, so that they in a manner
expatriated themselves, and deserved to be forgotten;* but I, sir, was
ushered into the world from the press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde.
I was written in my own native tongue, at a time when the language had
become fixed; and indeed I was considered a model of pure and
elegant English."
* In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to
endite, and have many noble thinges fulfilde, but certes there ben
some that speaken their poisye in French, of which speche the
Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as we have in hearying of
Frenchmen's Englishe.
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