"And fyrst Captain Cox, an od man I promiz yoo; by profession a Mason, and that right skilfull; very cunning in fens, and hardy az Gavin; for hiz ton-sword hangs at hiz tablz eend; great oversight hath he in matters of storie: For az for King Arthurz book, Huon of Burdeaus, the foour sons of Aymon, Bevys of Hampton, The Squyre of lo degree, The Knight of Courtesy, and the Lady Faguell, Frederick of Gene, Syr Eglamoour, Syr Tryamoour, Syr Lamwell, Syr Isenbras, Syr Gawyn, Olyver of the Castl, Lucres and Curialus, Virgil's Life, the Castl of Ladiez, the Wido Edyth, the King and the Tanner, Frier Rous, Howleglas, Gargantua, Robinhood, Adam Bel, Clim of the Clough and William of Clondsley, the Churl and the Burd, the Seven Wise Masters, the Wife lapt in a Morels Skin, the Sak full of Nuez, the Seargeaunt that became a Fryar, Skogan, Collyn Clout, the Fryar and the Boy, Elynor Rumming, and the Nutbrooun Maid, with many moe then I rehearz heere; I believe hee have them all at hiz fingers endz.

"Then in Philosophy, both morall and naturall, I think hee be az naturally overseen; beside Poetrie and Astronomie, and oother hid Sciencez, az I may gesse by the omberty of his books; whearof part, az I remember, The Shepherd'z Kalender, The Ship of Foolz, Danielz Dreamz, the Booke of Fortune, Stans puer ad Mensam, The by way to the Spitl-house, Julian of Brainford's Testament, the Castle of Love, the Booget of Demaunds, the Hundred Mery Talez, the Book of Riddels, the Seaven Sororz of Wemen, the Prooud Wives Pater Noster, the Chapman of a Peneworth of Wit: Beside hiz Auncient Playz, Yooth and Charitee, Hikskorner, Nugizee, Impacient Poverty, and herewith Doctor Boords Breviary of Health. What should I rehearz heer, what a bunch of Ballets and Songs, all auncient; as Broom broom on Hill, So Wo iz me begon, troly lo, Over a Whinny Meg, Hey ding a ding, Bony lass upon a green, My hony on gave me a bek, By a bank as I lay: and a hundred more he hath fair wrapt up in parchment, and bound with a whip cord. And az for Almanacks of Antiquitee (a point for Ephemeridees), I ween he can sheaw from Jazper Laet of Antwarp unto Nostradam of Frauns, and thens untoo oour John Securiz of Salsbury. To stay ye no longer heerin, I dare say hee hath az fair a Library for theez Sciencez, and az many goodly monuments both in prose and poetry, and at after noonz can talk az much with out book, az ony inholder betwixt Brainford and Bagshot, what degree soever he be."[520:A]

Of the library of this military bibliomaniac, who is represented as "marching on valiantly before, clean trust and gartered above the knee, all fresh in a velvet cap, flourishing with his ton sword," Mr. Dibdin has appreciated the value when he declares, that he should have preferred it to the extensive collection of the once celebrated magician, Dr. Dee. "How many," he observes, "of Dee's magical books he had exchanged for the pleasanter magic of Old Ballads and Romances, I will not take upon me to say: but that this said bibliomaniacal Captain had a library, which, even from Master Laneham's imperfect description of it, I should have preferred to the four thousand volumes of Dr. John Dee, is most unquestionable."

He then adds in a note, in reference to the "Bunch of Ballads and Songs, all ancient!—fair wrapt up in parchment, and bound with a whip cord!" "it is no wonder that Ritson, in the historical essay prefixed to his collection of Scotish Songs, should speak of some of these ballads with a zest, as if he would have sacrificed half his library to untie the said 'whip cord' packet. And equally joyous, I ween, would my friend Mr. R. H. Evans, of Pall-Mall, have been—during his editorial labors in publishing a new edition of his father's collection of Ballads—(an edition, by the bye, which gives us more of the genuine spirit of the Coxean Collection than any with which I am acquainted)—equally joyous would Mr. Evans have been, to have had the inspection of some of these 'bonny' songs. The late Duke of Roxburgh, of never-dying bibliomaniacal celebrity, would have parted with half the insignia of his order of the Garter, to have obtained clean original copies of these fascinating effusions!"[520:B]

Though the Romances and Ballads in Captain Cox's Library are truly termed "ancient," yet it appears, from unquestionable contemporary authority, that these romances, either in their original dress or somewhat modernised, were still sung to the harp, in Shakspeare's days, as well in the halls of the nobility and gentry, as in the streets and ale-houses, for the recreation of the multitude: thus Puttenham, in his "Arte of English Poesie," published in 1589, speaking of historical poetry adapted to the voice, says, "we our selves who compiled this treatise have written for pleasure a little brief Romance or historicall ditty in the English tong of the Isle of great Britaine in short and long meetres, and by breaches or divisions to be more commodiously song to the harpe in places of assembly, where the company shal be desirous to heare of old adventures and reliaunces of noble knights in times past, as are those of king Arthur and his knights of the round table, Sir Bevys of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke and others like;" and he afterwards notices the "blind harpers or such like taverne minstrels that give a fit of mirth for a groat, their matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough and such other old Romances or historicall rimes, made purposely for recreation of the com̄on people at Christmasse diners and bride ales, and in tavernes and ale-houses and such other places of base resort."[521:A]

Bishop Hall, likewise, in his Satires printed in 1598, alluding to the tales that lay

exclaims,—

and even so late as Burton, who finished his interesting work just previous to our great poet's decease, we have sufficient testimony that the major part of our gentry was employed in the perusal of these seductive narratives: "If they read a book at any time," remarks this eccentric writer, "'tis an English Chronicle, Sr. Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis de Gaul &c.;" and subsequently, in depicting the inamoratoes of the day, he accuses them of "reading nothing but play books, idle poems, jests, Amadis de Gaul, the Knight of the Sun, the Seven Champions, Palmerin de Oliva, Huon of Bordeaux, &c."[522:B]

These contemporary authorities prove, to a certain extent, what were considered the most popular romances in the reigns of Elizabeth and James; but it will be satisfactory to enquire a little more minutely into this branch of literature.

The origin of the metrical Romance may be traced to the fostering influence of our early Norman monarchs, who cultivated with great ardour the French language; and it was from the courts of these sovereigns that the French themselves derived the first romances in their own tongue.[522:C] The gratification resulting from the recital or chaunting of these metrical tales was then confined, and continued to be for some centuries, to the mansions of the great, owing to the vast expense of maintaining or rewarding the minstrels with whom, at that time, a knowledge of these splendid fictions exclusively rested. No sooner, however, was the art of printing discovered, than the wonders of romance were thrown open to the eager curiosity of the public, and the presses of Caxton and Winkin de Worde groaned under the production of prose versions from the romantic poesy of the Anglo-Norman bards.

So fascinating were the wild incidents and machinery of these volumes, and so rapid was their consequent circulation, that neither the varied learning nor the theological polemics of the succeeding age, availed to interrupt their progress; and it was not until towards the close of the seventeenth century, that the feats of the knight and the spells of the enchanter ceased to astonish and exhilarate the halls of our fathers.

In the whole course of this extensive career, from the era of the conquest to the age of Milton, a poet whose youth, as he himself tells us, was nourished "among those lofty fables and romances, which recount, in sublime cantos, the deeds of knighthood[523:A]," perhaps no period can be mentioned in which a greater love of romantic fiction existed, than that which marks the reign of Elizabeth; and this, too, notwithstanding the improvement of taste, and the progress of classical learning; for though the national credulity had been chastened by the gradual efforts of reason and science, yet was the daring imagery of romance still the favourite resource of the bard and the novelist, who, skilfully blending its potent magic with the colder but now fashionable fictions of pagan antiquity, flung increasing splendour over the union, and gave that permanency of attraction which only the peculiar and unfettered genius of the Elizabethan era could bestow.

Confining ourselves at present, however, chiefly to the consideration of the prose romance, we may observe, that five distinct classes of it were prevalent in the age of Shakspeare, which we may designate by the appellations of Anglo-Norman, Oriental, Italian, Spanish, and Pastoral, Romance.

Under the first of these titles, the Anglo-Norman, we include all those productions which have been formed on the metrical romances of the feudal or Anglo-Norman period, and to which the terms Gothic or Chivalric have been commonly, though not exclusively, applied. These are blended not only with much classical fiction, but with a large portion of oriental fable, derived from our commerce with the East during the period of the Crusades, and are principally occupied either in relating the achievements of Arthur, Charlemagne, and the knights engaged in the holy wars, or in chivalarising, if we may use the word, the heroes of antiquity, or in expanding the wonders of oriental machinery.

The most popular prose romance of this class was undoubtedly La Morte D'Arthur, translated from various French romances by Sir Thomas Malory, and printed by Caxton in 1485, a work which includes in a condensed form the most celebrated achievements of the knights of the Round Table.[524:A] This "noble and joyous book," as it is termed by its venerable printer, was the delight of our ancestors until the age of Charles the First; and in no period more decidedly so than in the reign of Elizabeth, when probably there were few lordly mansions without a copy of this seducing tome, either in the great hall or in the ladies bower. Such were its fascinations, indeed, as to excite the apprehensions, and call forth the indignant, and somewhat puritanical, strictures of Ascham and Meres; the former in his Schoole master 1571, when, reprobating the inordinate attachment to books of chivalry, instancing "as one for example, Morte Arthur, the whole pleasure of which booke," he says, "standeth in two specyall poyntes, in open mans slaghter and bolde bawdrie: in which booke, those be counted the noblest knights that doe kill most men without any quarrell, and commit fowlest adoultries by sutlest shifts: as, Syr Lancelote with the wife of King Arthure, his maister: Syr Tristram with the wife of King Marke, his uncle: Syr Lameroche with the wife of King Lote, that was his own aunte. This is good stuffe for wise men to laughe at, or honest men to take pleasure at. Yet I knowe when God's Bible was banished the court and Morte Arthure receaved into the princes chamber, what toyes the dayly reading of such a booke may worke in the will of a yong gentleman, or a yong maide, that liveth welthely and idlely, wise men can judge, and honest men do pittie[525:A];" and the latter declaring in his "Wits' Commonwealth," that "as the Lord de la Nonne in the sixe discourse of his politike and military discourses censureth of the bookes of Amadis de Gaule, which he saith are no less hurtfull to youth, than the workes of Machiavell, to age; so these bookes are accordingly to be censured of, whose names follow; Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwicke, Arthur of the Round Table," &c.[525:B]

That these strictures are too severe, and that the consequences apprehended by these ingenious scholars did not necessarily follow, we have the authority of Milton to prove; who, so far from deprecating the study of romances as dangerous to morality, declares "that even those books proved to me so many enticements to the love and stedfast observation of virtue[525:C];" a passage which appears to have kindled in the mind of a modern writer, a spirited defence of the utility of these productions, even at the present day. "There is yet a point of view," he remarks, "in which Romance may be regarded to advantage, even in the present age. The most interesting qualities in a chivalrous knight, are his high-toned enthusiasm, and disinterested spirit of adventure—qualities to which, when properly modified and directed, society owes its highest improvements. Such are the feelings of benevolent genius yearning to diffuse love and peace and happiness among the human race. The gorgeous visions of the imagination, familiar to the enthusiastic soul, purify the heart from selfish pollutions, and animate to great and beneficent action. Indeed, nothing great or eminently beneficial ever has been, or can be effected without enthusiasm—without feelings more exalted than the consideration of simple matter of fact can produce. That Romances have a tendency to excite the enthusiastic spirit, we have the evidence of fact in numerous instances. Hereafter, we shall hear the great Milton indirectly bearing his testimony of admiration and gratitude for their inspiring influence. It is of little consequence, comparatively speaking, whether all the impressions made, be founded in strict philosophical truth. If the imagination be awakened and the heart warmed, we need give ourselves little concern about the final result. The first object is to elicit power. Without power nothing can be accomplished. Should the heroic spirit chance to be excited by reading Romances, we have, alas! too much occasion for that spirit even in modern times, to wish to repress its generation. Since the Gallic hero has cast his malign aspect over the nations, it is become almost as necessary to social security, as during the barbarism of the feudal times. There is now little danger of its being directed to an unintelligible purpose.

"Romances, then, not only merit attention, as enabling us to enter into the feelings and sentiments of our ancestors,—a circumstance in itself curious, and even necessary to a complete knowledge of the history of past ages; they may still be successfully employed to awaken the mind—to inspire genius: and when this effect is produced, the power thus created may be easily made to bear on any point desired."[526:A]

The demand for Morte Arthur, which continued for nearly two centuries, produced of course several re-impressions: the second issued from the press of Winkin de Worde in 1498, the colophon of which, as specified by Herbert, is singularly curious. "Here is the ende of the hoole boke of kynge Arthur, and of his noble knygtes of the rounde table. That whane they were hoole togyder, there was ever an C. and XL. And here is the ende of the deth of Arthur. I praye you all gentylmen and gentylwymmen that rede thys boke of Arthur and his knyghtes from the beginnynge to the endynge praye for me whyle I am a lyue, that, God send me good utterance. And when I am deed, I pray you all pray for my soule: for the translacion of this boke was fynisshed the IX. yere of the regne of kyng Edwarde the fourth, by syr Thomas Maleore knyght, as Jhesu helpe him for his grete myghte, as he is the servaunt of Jhesu bothe day and nyghte. Emprynted fyrst by William Caxton, on whose soul God have mercy."[527:A]

The re-impression of De Worde was followed by the editions of Copland, East, and William Stansby, this last being dated 1634. Of the elder copies East's was probably the one most generally used in the reign of Elizabeth, and it differs only in a few unessential phrases from the edition of Caxton.

La Morte D'Arthur, which, by its frequent republication, kept alive a taste for romantic fiction, may be considered as giving us, with a few exceptions as to costume, a very pleasing though somewhat polished picture of the chivalric romance of the Anglo-Norman period. It has the merit also of furnishing an excellent specimen of purity and simplicity in style and diction; qualities which have stamped upon many of its otherwise extravagant details the most decided features of sublimity and pathos. A passage in the twenty-second chapter of the second book, for example, furnishes a noble instance of the former, and the speech of Sir Bohort, over the dead body of Sir Launcelot, towards the close of the work, is as admirable a specimen of the latter. These, as short, peculiarly interesting, and characteristic of the work, we shall venture to transcribe.

The description of, and the effect arising from, so simple a circumstance as that of blowing a horn, are thus painted:—

"So hee rode forth, and within three days hee came by a cross, and thereon was letters of gold written, that said, It is not for a knight alone to ride toward this castle. Then saw hee an old hoar gentleman coming toward him, that said, Balin le Savage, thou passest thy bounds this way, therefore turn againe and it will availe thee. And hee vanished away anon; and so hee heard an horne blow as it had been the death of a beast. That blast, said Balin, is blown for mee; for I am the prize, and yet am I not dead."

Sir Ector de Maris, the brother of Sir Launcelot, after having sought him in vain through Britain for seven years, has at length the melancholy satisfaction of recognising the body of the hero, who had just breathed his last.

"And then Sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helme, from him. And when hee beheld Sir Launcelot's visage, hee fell downe in a sowne. And when hee awaked, it were hard for any tongue to tell the dolefull complaints that he made for his brother. Ah Sir Launcelot, said hee, thou were head of all christian knights, and now I dare say, said Sir Bors, that Sir Launcelot, there thou liest thou were never matched of none earthly knight's hands. And thou were the curtiest knight that ever beare shield. And thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrod horse, and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman. And thou were the kindest man that ever stroke with sword. And thou were the goodliest parson that ever came among presse of knights. And thou were the meekest man and the gentlest that ever eate in hall among ladies. And thou were the sternest knight to thy mortall foe that ever put speare in the rest."[528:A]

We have taken the more notice of this work, not only as it affords a pretty correct idea of what the old chivalric metrical romance consisted, but as it was in Shakspeare's time the favourite book in this branch of literature, and furnished Spenser with many incidents for his "Faerie Queene."[529:A] It constitutes, in fact, an exemplar and abridgment of the marvels of the Round Table, such as were dispersed through a variety of metrical tales, and can only be found condensed in this production, and of which the popularity may be considered as an indubitable mark of the taste of the age in which it was so much admired and cherished.

If it be objected, that, though Morte Arthur was very popular, it did not originate during our period, it may be answered, that many prose imitations of the Anglo-Norman romance, the undoubted offspring of the Elizabethan era, might, if necessary, be mentioned; but one will suffice, and this has been selected from its having maintained an influence over the public mind nearly as long as the Death of Arthur.

We allude to the well-known romance entitled The Seven Champions of Christendome, written in the age of Elizabeth by Richard Johnson, the author of various other productions during this and the subsequent reign. In what year the first part of the Seven Champions made its appearance is not known; but the second was published with the following title and date:—"The Second Part of the famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendome. Likewise shewing the princely Prowesse of Saint George's three Sonnes, the lively Sparke of Nobilitie. With many memoriall atchieuements worthy the Golden Spurres of Knighthood. Lond. Printed for Cuthbert Burbie, &c. 1597." 4to. Black letter.[529:B] If Mr. Warton's opinion be correct, that Spenser was indebted to this work for some incidents in the conduct of his Faerie Queene, the first part must have been printed before 1590; and Mr. Todd, indeed, seems to think that the second part "was published some time after the first[529:C];" a supposition which is corroborated by the address to the reader prefixed to the second part, in which, after mentioning "the great acceptance of HIS First Part," he nevertheless deprecates the severity of criticism to which it had been exposed: "thy courtesy," he says, "must be my buckler against the carping malice of mocking jesters, that being worse able to do well, scoff commonly at that they cannot mend, censuring all things, doing nothing, but, monkey-like, make apish jests at any thing they see in print: and nothing pleaseth them, except it savour of a scoffing or invective spirit;" passages which indicate that the first part of this romance had been for some length of time before the public. We may also add, that Johnson is known to have been a popular writer in 1592, having published in that year his "Nine Worthies of London."

If we except La Morte D'Arthur, and one or two Spanish romances, which will be afterwards mentioned, the Seven Champions appears to have been the most popular book of its class. It has accumulated in a small compass the most remarkable adventures of the ancient metrical romances, and has related them in a rich and figurative, though somewhat turgid style. Justice has been done to this compilation, once so high in repute, both by Percy and Warton: the former speaks of its "strong Gothic painting," and of its adherence to the old poetical legends[530:A]; and the latter declares it to contain "some of the most capital fictions of the old Arabian romance," and instances the adventure of the Enchanted Fountain.[530:B]

The various editions of this once celebrated compilation attest the longevity of its fame; and though now no longer the amusement of the learned and the great, yet is it far from being a stranger to the literature of our juvenile libraries. A London impression appeared in 1755, and it has lately been reprinted in a pocket-edition of the British Classics.

Having thus brought forward La Morte D'Arthur and the Seven Champions as the most popular prose compilations in Shakspeare's time from the Anglo-Norman metrical romances, we shall proceed to notice two collections which were more immediately built on an ORIENTAL foundation, and which have enjoyed, both at the epoch of their first translation into English in the sixteenth century, and subsequently to a very modern date, an almost unrivalled circulation.

A little anterior to the birth of our great poet, W. Copland printed, without date, a romance entitled The Seven Wise Masters, a direct version from the Latin of a book published in Germany, soon after the discovery of the art of printing, under the appellation of Historia Septem Sapientum. This interesting series of tales has been traced by Mr. Douce[531:A] to an Indian prototype; to "The Book of the Seven Counsellors, or Parables of Sendebar or Sandabar," an Indian philosopher, who is supposed to have lived about a century before the Christian æra. The work of this sage, it appears, had been early translated into Persic, Syriac, Arabic, and, from this latter, into Hebrew by Rabbi Joel, under the title of Mischle Sandabar, a version which is conjectured to have been made about the middle of the fourteenth century, and is believed to be the only oriental manuscript of these Parables which has been subjected to the press; having been printed at Constantinople in 1517, and at Venice in 1544 and 1608. A MS. of this Hebrew Sandabar is in the British Museum (Harleian MSS., No. 5449.), but no English version of it has been hitherto attempted.

The romance of our Indian fabulist made its next appearance, though with some alterations in the incidents and names, in Greek, under the title of Syntipas, of which many MSS. exist, the greater number professing to be translated from the Syriac; but in the British Museum is preserved a copy from the Persic, of so late a date as 1667.

The first Latin version is said to have proceeded from the pen of Jean de Hauteselve, a native of Lorraine, but the existence of such a copy is now only known, from its having been translated into French verse, by an ecclesiastic of the name of Herbers, who died 1226, and who, in the opening of his poem, to which he has given the singular title of Dolopatos, confesses to have taken it from the "bel Latin" of Hauteselve.

Another French version, however, of greater importance, as it makes a nearer approach to the remote original, and has been the source of numerous imitations, is preserved in the French National Library, and numbered 7595. It is a MS. in verse, of the 13th century, and was first noticed by Mr. Ellis, through a communication from Mr. Douce, who believes it to be not only the immediate original of many imitations in French prose, but the source whence an old English metrical romance in the Cotton Library (Galba, E. 9.) has been taken.

This poem, a large fragment of which exists in the Auchinleck MS., is entire in the Cotton Library, and is written in lines of eight syllables. It is entitled "The Proces of the Sevyn Sages," and Mr. Ellis refers its composition to a period not later than 1330.[532:A]

The copy, however, which has given rise to the greatest number of translations, is that already mentioned under the title of "Historia Septem Sapientum," the first edition of which, with a date, was published by John Hoelhoff at Cologne in 1490. This was very rapidly transfused into the German, Dutch, Italian, French, Spanish, English, and Scotch languages.

Of the Scotch version, which is metrical, and was undertaken by the translator "at the request of his Ant Cait (Aunt Kate) in Tanstelloun Castle, during the siege of Leith," 1560, the first edition was printed at Edinburgh in 1578, with the following title:—"The Sevin Seages, Translatit out of Prois in Scottis Meter, Be Johne Rolland, in Dalkeith; with ane Moralitie after everie Doctouris tale, and siclike after the Emprice tale, togidder with ane loving and laude to everie Doctour after his awin tale, and ane exclamation and outcrying when the Empreouris wife after hir fals construsit tale. Imprentit at Edinburgh be John Ros, for Henry Charteries."[533:A]

The prose translation by Copland, which made its appearance between the years 1550 and 1567, under the title of "The Seven Wise Masters," was one of the most popular books of the sixteenth century. It has undergone a variety of re-impressions, and when no longer occupying its former place in the hall of the Baron and the Squire, descending to a less ambitious station, it became the most delectable volume in the collection of the School-boy. This change in the field of its influence seems to have taken place in little better than a century after its introduction into the English language; for in 1674, Francis Kirkman, publishing a version from the Italian copy of this romance, which he entitles the "History of Prince Erastus, son to the emperor Diocletian, and those famous philosophers called The Seven Wise Masters of Rome," informs us, in his preface, "that the book of 'The Seven Wise Masters' is in such estimation in Ireland, that it was always put into the hands of young children immediately after the horn-book."[533:B]

The "Book of the Seven Counsellors," in short, appears to have been familiarised in the language of every civilised nation in Asia and Europe, and though often interpolated and disguised by the admixture of fables from other oriental collections, and especially from the fables of Pilpay, it has still preserved, through every transfusion, a resemblance of its Indian type. Its admission into English literature contributed to cherish and keep alive the taste for Eastern romance, which had been generated during the period of the Crusades, and adopted by the Anglo-Norman minstrels.

If the collection of oriental apologues, to which we have alluded under the name of Pilpay, had been as early naturalised amongst us, the effect in favour of oriental fable would probably have been greater; but it was the fate of this work, though superior in merit perhaps, and of equal antiquity and similar origin with the Parables of Sandabar, and alike popular in the East, not to have acquired an English dress until the eighteenth century. The Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma, the undoubted source of Pilpay's stories, we, at length, possess, in a correct state, forming certainly the most interesting series of fables extant.[534:A]

There is another set of tales, however, in their complection almost entirely oriental, which not only co-operated in their effect, but also in their period of introduction, with the "Seven Wise Masters," from the press of Copland.

In 1577 Richard Robinson, a voluminous author who lived by his pen, published "A record of ancyent historyes intituled in Latin Gesta Romanorum;" and in a catalogue of his productions, written by himself, and preserved in the British Museum, he says of this work that it was "translated (auctore ut supponitur Iohane Leylando antiquario) by mee perused corrected and bettered."[534:B]

This is a partial version of one of two distinct works entitled, Gesta Romanorum, collections of tales in the Latin language which, there is reason to suppose, originated in the fourteenth century, and certainly once enjoyed the highest popularity.

Of the first, or what may be called the Continental Gesta, Mr. Warton has given us a very elaborate and pleasing analysis. No manuscript of this primary collection is known to exist, but it was printed about 1473; the first six editions of it are in folio without dates; three containing 152 chapters or gests each, and three 181 each, and of those printed with dates, in folio, quarto, octavo, and duodecimo, a list, amounting to twenty-eight, has been published by Mr. Douce, from the year 1480 to 1555 inclusive. A Dutch translation appeared in 1481; a German translation in 1489; the first French translation with a date in 1521; but no English translation until 1703, when only forty-five histories or gests were published, the translator, either from want of encouragement, or from some other cause, having only printed volume the first of his intended version.

The second or English Gesta must be considered as the discovery of Mr. Douce, for Warton, not perceiving its frequent discrepancy, had confounded it with the original work. It is likewise remarkable, that the circumstances attending its circulation are diametrically different from those accompanying the prior collection; for while numerous MSS. of the English Gesta exist in this country, not one copy in the original Latin has been printed.

It appears from the researches of Mr. Douce, that this compilation very soon followed the original Gesta, and that the first manuscript may with great probability be ascribed to a period as early as the reign of Richard the Second; most of the MSS. however, none of which have ever been found upon the continent, are of the age of fifth and sixth Henries, and of these twenty-five are yet remaining preserved in the British Museum, at Oxford, and in other collections.

As the English Gesta was intended as an imitation of the Continental collection, many of its stories have, of course, been retained; but these have undergone such alterations in language, and sometimes in incident, together with new moralizations, and new names, as to give it, with the addition of forty tales not found in its prototype, the air of an original work.[535:A] It is not, however, so extensive as the foreign compilation, the most complete manuscripts containing only one hundred and two stories; yet as the sources from which it has drawn its materials are, with a few exceptions, correspondent, in respect to their oriental origin, with the continental copy, the character which Mr. Warton has given of the primary, will apply to the secondary, series.

"This work," he observes, "is compiled from the obsolete Latin chronicles of the later Roman or rather German story, heightened by romantic inventions, from Legends of the Saints, oriental apologues, and many of the shorter fictitious narratives which came into Europe with the Arabian literature, and were familiar in the ages of ignorance and imagination. The classics are sometimes cited for authorities; but these are of the lower order, such as Valerius Maximus, Macrobius, Aulus Gellius, Seneca, Pliny, and Boethius. To every tale a Moralization is subjoined, reducing it into a christian or moral lesson.

"Most of the oriental apologues are taken from the Clericalis Disciplina, or a Latin Dialogue between an Arabian Philosopher and Edric[536:A] his son, never printed[536:B], written by Peter Alphonsus, a baptized Jew, at the beginning of the twelfth century, and collected from Arabian fables, apothegms, and examples.[536:C] Some are also borrowed from an old Latin translation of the Calilah u Damnah, a celebrated set of eastern fables, to which Alphonsus was indebted.

"On the whole, this is the collection in which a curious enquirer might expect to find the original of Chaucer's Cambuscan:—

Of the translations of the English Gesta, which, owing to the Latin original not being known upon the continent, are solely confined to the English language, three only have been noticed; and of these, the first is a manuscript in the Harleian collection, No. 7,333, of the age of Henry the Sixth, containing but seventy stories, and which Mr. Douce conjectures to have been produced either by Lydgate, Gower, or Occleve, as the English Gesta appears familiar to them, and this version possesses not only several pieces by Lydgate, but some tales from the Confessio Amantis of Gower.[537:B]

The first printed translation is said to have issued from the press of Wynkyn de Worde, though without a date, and this edition has been mentioned and referred to, both by Mr. Warton[537:C] and Dr. Farmer.[537:D] Neither Herbert, however, nor Mr. Dibdin, has been fortunate enough to detect its existence, and if it really had, or has, a being, it is probably either the manuscript version of the reign of Henry the Sixth, or the translation to which Robinson alludes as the work of Leland the antiquary.

We must, therefore, look to Robinson's Translation of 1577, as the only one which has met with a general and undisputed circulation; and this was so popular, that in 1601 it had been printed six times by Thomas Easte.[537:E] The most enlarged edition, however, of Robinson's version, contains but forty-four stories, and it is, therefore, much to be regretted, that the Harleian manuscript is not committed to the press.

As this was then the only English translation accessible to the public, of a collection of tales which in the original Latin, and under the same name, had amused the learned and the curious for some centuries, both on the continent, and for nearly the same space of time on our own island, we shall not be surprised if we find, in a subsequent page, that Shakspeare has availed himself of a portion of its contents, especially as its subjects, and the mode of treating them, coincided with his track of reading.

The popularity of Robinson's work seems to have extended to the eighteenth century; for the last edition, which we can now recollect, is dated 1703, and there is reason to think it the fifteenth, while the edition immediately preceding was published in 1689, but fourteen years anteriorly.

If Ascham thought he had reason to complain of the popularity of Morte Arthur, and its associates, he found tenfold cause of complaint in the daily increasing circulation of Italian Romances and Tales; "ten La Morte d'Arthures," he exclaims, "doe not the tenth parte so much harme, as one of these bookes made in Italie, and translated in Englande."[538:A]

The frequent communication indeed with Italy, which took place about the middle of the sixteenth century, had not only induced an indiscriminate imitation of Italian manners, but had rendered the literature of the Italians so fashionable, that, together with their poetry, was imported into this island a multiplicity of their prose fictions and tales, a species of composition that had been cultivated in Italy with incredible ardour from the period of Sacchetti and Boccacio.

These tales, by blending with the romantic fiction of the Normans and Orientals the scenes of domestic life and manners; by introducing greater complexity and skill in the arrangement of fable and greater probability in the nature and construction of incident; by intermingling more frequent and more interesting traits of the softer passions, and by exciting more powerfully the emotions of pity and compassion, presented to the public a new and poignant source of gratification, and furnished the dramatic poets and the caterers for the then universal appetite for story-telling with innumerable bases for plays, tales, and ballads.[539:A]

It may be asserted, we believe, with a close approach to accuracy, that in the space which elapsed between the middle of the sixteenth century, and the accession of James the First, nearly all the most striking fictions of the Italian novellists had found their way to the English press; either immediately translated from the original Italian, or through the medium of Latin, French, or Spanish versions.

Of these curious collections of prose narrative, real or imaginary, comic or tragic, it will be thought necessary that we should notice a few of the most valuable, and especially those to which our great poet has been most indebted.

One of the earliest of these works and mentioned by Laneham in 1575, as an article in Captain Cox's library, was entitled The Hundred Merry Tales. This series of stories, though existing in English so late as 1659[539:B], is now unfortunately lost; the probability, however, is, that it was a translation from Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, printed at Paris before the year 1500, and compiled from Italian writers. The English copy, says Warton, was licensed to be printed by John Waly, in 1557, under the title of "A Hundreth mery tales," together with The freere and the boye, stans puer ad mensam, and youthe, charite, and humylite.[540:A] It is again noticed in the register of the Stationers' Company for 1581, by Ames, under the article for James Roberts, and in the following manner in a black-letter pamphlet of 1586:—"Wee want not also pleasant mad headed knaves that bee properly learned and well reade in diverse pleasant bookes and good authors. As Sir Guy of Warwicke, the Foure Sons of Aymon, the Ship of Fooles, the Budget of Demandes, the Hundredth merry Tales, the Booke of Ryddles, and many other excellent writers both witty and pleasaunt."[540:B] It is alluded to by Shakspeare, in his Much Ado about Nothing, written about 1600, where Beatrice complains of Benedict having declared, that she had "her good wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales."[540:C] That this collection was justly entitled to the epithet merry has been proved by Mr. Douce, from a reference to the supposed original, in which only five stories out of the hundred are of a tragic cast, and where the title, in the old editions, gives further propriety to the appellation, by terming these tales Comptes plaisans et recreatiz pour deviser en toutes compaignies, et Moult plaisans á raconter par maniere de joyeuseté.[540:D] It should not be forgotten, however, that the work entitled Cento novelle antiche was in existence at this period, though no translation of it is known to have been made, either before or during Shakspeare's age; nor is it improbable that the term A hundred merry tales, might have become a kind of cant expression for an attack of personal satire; for Nashe, as Mr. Douce has observed, "in his Pappe with an hatchet, speaks of a book then coming out under the title of A hundred merrie tales, in which Martin Marprelate, i. e. John Penry, and his friends, were to be satirized."[541:A]

Though no complete translation of the Decameron of Boccacio was executed before 1620, the greater part of his novels was given to the public in 1566, by William Paynter, in his once popular collection, entitled "The Pallace of Pleasure." This entertaining work occupies two volumes, 4to.; of which, the first, dedicated to Lord Warwick, appeared in the year above-mentioned, "containing sixty novels out of Boccacio," and the second followed in 1567, including thirty-four novels, principally from Bandello, and dedicated to Sir George Howard. It appears to have been the intention of the compiler to have added a third part; for at the close of the second volume, he tells us, "Bicause sodeynly, contrary to expectation, this volume is risen to greater heape of leaves, I doe omit for this present time Sundry Novels of mery devize, reserving the same to be joyned with the rest of an other part, wherein shall succeede the remnant of Bandello, specially sutch, suffrable, as the learned French man François de Belleforrest hath selected, and the choysest done in the Italian. Some also out of Erizzo, Ser Giouanni Florentino, Parabosco, Cynthio, Straparole, Sansovino, and the best liked out of the Queene of Nauarre, and others;" a passage which is important, as showing, in a small compass, the nature and extent of his resources.

What motive prevented the continuance of the work, is unascertained; it certainly could not be want of encouragement, for a second edition of the first volume, and a third of the second, were published together in 4to. in 1575, and, as the author informs us in his title, "eftsones perused, corrected, and augmented" by him. The conjecture of Warton, that Painter, "in compliance with the prevailing mode of publication, and for the accommodation of universal readers, was afterward persuaded to print his sundry novels in the perishable form of separate pamphlets," is not improbable.

The Palace of Pleasure is, without doubt, not only one of the earliest, but one of the most valuable selections of tales which appeared during the reign of Elizabeth; and that it formed one of the ornaments of Shakspeare's library, and one to which he was in the habit of referring, the industry of his commentators has sufficiently established.[542:A]

In the same year with the second volume of Painter's Palace, appeared "Certaine Tragicall Discourses" by Geffray Fenton, in one volume 4to. bl. letter. This passing pleasant booke, as Turberville terms it, consists of stories principally from Italian writers, and, in the dedication to Lady Mary Sydney, the author expresses his high opinion of their merit, by declaring, "neyther do I thinke that oure Englishe recordes are hable to yelde at this daye a Romant more delicat and chaste, treatynge of the veraye theame and effectes of love, than theis Hystories;" an estimate of the value of his collection in which he is borne out by his friend Turberville, who, in one of the recommendatory poems prefixed to the book, says—