Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/108

Rh

The poem, part of which I have set out above, is the earliest long specimen of an English riming metre that is still popular. Having been compiled somewhere about 1160, the work stands about half way between the Beo&shy;wulf and the last work of Mr. Tennyson. The French riming lays, of which our Norman and Angevin rulers were so fond, must have been the model followed by the English bard, whoever he was. In the same volume are many Homilies, which give us a good idea of the English spoken in the South at this time. The follow&shy;ing are the main points of difference between them and the Homilies of Henry the First's time.

A new combination of letters, au (well known in Gothic), is seen for the first time in English; as blauwen, naut, bicauhte.