Note 165 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 3)
Reading edition
Engelond his a wel god lond · ich wene ech londe best ... The see geth him al aboute · he stond as in an yle, Of fon hii dorre the lasse doute · bote hit be thorgh gyle ... Plente me may in Engelond · of alle gode ise.
W. A. Wright, "Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester," 1887 (Rolls), vol. i. pp. 1, 2. Robert's surname, "of Gloucester," is not certain; see Mr. Wright's preface, and his letter to the Athenæum, May 19, 1888. He is very hard (too hard it seems) on Robert, of whose work he says: "As literature it is as worthless as twelve thousand lines of verse without one spark of poetry can be."