e. It was not in use among the Hebrews, Greeks, or Romans, but chiefly among the northern nations, the Teutones, Saxons, Britons, &c. It is not employed by the French, Italians, Spaniards, or Portuguese, except in proper names, and other terms borrowed from languages in which it is originally used, and even then it is sounded like the single v. This letter is of an ambiguous nature; being a consonant at the beginning of syllables, and a vowel in all other positions. It may stand before all the vowels except u, as water, wedge, winter, wonder: it may also follow the vowels a, e, o, and unites with them into a kind of double vowel, or diphthong; as in saw, few, cow. It also goes before r, and follows s and th; as in wrath, swear, thwart; it goes before h also, though in reality it is sounded after it; as in when, what. In some words it is obscure, as in shadow, widow.ROBERT, an Anglo-Norman poet who flourished in the twelfth century. His name is written in a great variety of forms; and seems to have been a corruption of Eustace. He was born in Jersey about 1112, and received most of his education at Caen in Normandy. After spending some time in the French dominions, he returned to Caen, where Henry I., of England usually held his court. He was patronised by this monarch and by Henry II.; and was raised by the latter to the rank of a canon in Bayeux. He is supposed to have been also private chaplain to Henry II.; and to have died in England in 1184. His principal work is called Roman du Rou et des Ducs de Normandie, consisting of a history of the dukes of Normandy from the conquest of the country by Rollo to the eighth year of Henry I. He also wrote Le Brut d'Angleterre, narrating the adventures of a certain Brutus, a great-grandson of Æneas the Trojan, supposed to have reigned over Britain. An edition of the Roman du Rou was published at Rouen in 1827.