The most famous are, perhaps, those of Ælfred, Notker, and Chaucer. Ibid, Book V, prose v. "Quidam autem poetae Theologici dicti sunt, quoniam de diis carmina faciebant.

[80] Bentley, in the preface to his edition of Paradise Lost, says: 'Sunt et mihi carmina; me quoque dicunt Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis.'

The eulogium of Ovid is "Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucretî, Exitio terras quum dabit una dies.

Dulcia Mnemosyne demirans carmina Sapphus, Quaesivit decima

"Atque ursum et pugiles media inter carmina poscunt.

Pater Ennuis vnus Dictus in innumeris sapiens: laudatur at ipse Carmina vesano fudisse liquentia vino.

Thus Horace, speramus carmina fingi Posse linenda cedre, & lavi servanda cupresso.

By which means it comes to pass, "that not only libraries and shops are full of our putrid papers, but every close-stool and jakes," Scribunt carmina quae legunt cacantes; they serve to put under pies, to lap spice in, and keep roast meat from burning.

" "Fortunati ambo si quid mea carmina possunt, Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet aevo.

Petronius in Tacitus, when he was now by Nero's command bleeding to death, audiebat amicos nihil referentes de immortalitate animae, aut sapientum placitis, sed levia carmina et faciles versus; instead of good counsel and divine meditations, he made his friends sing him bawdy verses and scurrilous songs.

Ille cutim spissam visus hebetare vetabit, Reclusisque oculis infundet amabile lumen; Obstrictasque diu linguas in carmina solvet.

Ille quidem recte, sublimis, doctus et acer, Quem decuit majora sequi, majoribus aptum, Qui veterum modo facta ducum, modo carmina vatum, Gesserat, et quicquid virtus, sapientia quicquid Dixerat, imperiique vices, coelique meatus, Ingentemque animo seclorum volveret orbem.

Quod autem ad exemplar ipsum, quo Adamus Exsul comprehenditur, spectat, id lubens, si meum foret, ad te perferri curarem, verum illud a clarissimo possessore tanti aestimatur, ut perrsuasum habeam me istud minime ab ipso impetraturum: et sane sacra carmina Grotii adeo raro obvia sunt, ut eorundem exemplar apud ipsos remonstrantium ecclesiastas frustra quaesiverim.

Hoc volo, nunc nobis carmina nostra placent.

'Ipsi lætitia voces ad sidera jactant Intonsi montes: ipsæ jam carmina rupes, Ipsæ sonant arbusta' Virg.

'Ducite ab Urbe Domum, mea Carmina, ducite Daphnim.' Virg.

Pars in gramineis exercent membra palæstris, Contendunt ludo, & fulva luctanter arena: Pars pedibus plaudunt choreas, & carmina dicunt.

Many of them carried dulcimers, accordions, fiddles, flutes and various kinds of brass horns, and in those days a great many people could sing the good old hymns in the Carmina Sacra, and the glees and part-songs in the old Jubilee, with the soprano, tenor, bass and alto, and the high tenor and counter which made better music than any gathering of people are likely to make nowadays.

The ministers, too, were among those who hunted up the singers in the crowds and organized the song services from the Carmina Sacra.

In the admirable ease with which the words are adapted to the sense, the songs are unsurpassed except by the very best of the carmina vagorum.

Carmina uagorum selecta in usum laetitiae, Leipzig, 1879, p. 124.

The origin of the name 'Licori' may possibly, as Carducci points out (p. 94), be sought in an epigram, Ad Licorim, found among Pigna's Latin Carmina (1553).

[Footnote 5: "Carmina," iii. 6. 5.]

What truth there may be in Roger of Hovenden's statement concerning his motives cannot be said; "Hic ad augmentum et famam sui nominis emendicata carmina et rhythmos adulatorios comparabat et de regno Francorum cantores et joculatores muneribus allexerat ut de illo canerent in plateis, et jam dicebatur ubique, quod non erat talis in orbe."

A. Jeanroy, De nostratibus medii aevi poetis qui primum Aquitaniae carmina imitati sint, Paris, 1889.