[1] Warton and Percy, Ritson and Leyden, Ellis and Turner and Price,
and recently the late Abbe de la Rue.
[2] A profound and poetic genius has thrown out a new suggestion on
the origin of these Eastern tales. "I think it not unlikely that the
'Milesian Tales' contained the germs of many of those _now in the_
'Arabian Nights.' The Greek empire must have left deep impressions on
the Persian intellect--so also many of the Roman Catholic _Legends_
are taken from _Apuleius_. The exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche is
evidently a philosophical attempt to parry Christianity with a quasi
Platonic account of the fall and redemption of man."--Coleridge's
"Literary Remains," i. 180. Whatever were these "Milesian Tales,"
they amused the Grecian sages in the earliest period of their
history.
[3] Ritson and Weber have elegantly printed some of the best English
metrical romances. In France they have recently enriched literature
with many of these manuscript romances. See "Gentleman's Magazine,"
Oct. 1839.
[4] It is a curious fact, that in 1390 Sir James Douglas, of
Dalkeith, the ancestor of the Earl of Morton, apparently valued them
as about equal to the statutes of the realm; for he bequeathed in his
will to his son, "Omnes libros meos tam _Statutorum_ Regni Scocie
quam _Romancie_."--Laing's "Early Metrical Tales," Edinburgh, 1826.
[5] A collection of these romances formed into three folio tomes in
manuscript was enriched by seven hundred and forty-seven miniatures,
_avec les Initiales peintes en or et couleurs_. 6093, Roxburgh Cat.
[6] Cat. of the Duke de la Valliere, 4507. Strutt would have done as
much for ourselves, but he worked in unrequited solitude with all the
passion of the French amateur, but without his "best artists."
[7] This romance was composed about the year 1200; the present copy
was made in 1338. There is also a splendid manuscript with rich and
delicate illuminations of the ancient romance of Alexander in prose
in the Brit. Mus., Bib. Reg. 15, E. 6.
[8] Campbell's "Essay on English Poetry."
[9] Our vernacular literature owes to the unremitting ardour of our
laureate recent editions of "La Morte d'Arthur," "Palmerin of
England," and a new translation from the Portuguese of "Amadis of
Gaul." For readers who are not antiquaries, and who may recoil from
the prolixity of the ancient romances, there is a work of their
species which may amply gratify their curiosity, and it is of easy
acquisition. It is not an unskilful compilation from the romances of
chivalry made by RICHARD JOHNSON, a noted bookwright in the reign of
Elizabeth; it has passed through innumerable editions, and has at
last taken its station in the popular library of our juvenile
literature. I suspect that the style has been too often altered in
the modern editions, which has injured its raciness. It is well known
as "The Renowned History of the Seven Champions of Christendom." The
compiler has metamorphosed the Rowland, Oliver, Guy, Bevis, &c., into
seven saints or champions of Christendom; but "he has preserved some
of the most capital fictions of the old Arabian romance."--Warton,
iii. 63, Ed. 8vo. It may serve as a substitute for the old
black-letter romances, being a compendium of their rich or their
grotesque fancies; or, as Ritson observes with his accustomed
energetical criticism, "It is a compound of superstition, and, as it
were, all the lyes in Christendom in one lye, and is in many parts of
the country believed at this day to be as true as the
gospel."--"Dissertation on Romance," xxxiv.
[10] One of the most celebrated romantic histories is "the Troy-book
of Guido delle Colonne," which has been considered as the original of
all the later tales of Troy. On the acute suggestion of Tyrwhit,
Douce ascertained that this fabulous history, by many regarded as
original, is only a Latin translation of a Norman poet,* which Guido
passes off as a history collected from Dares and other fictitious
authorities, but disingenuously conceals the name of Benoit de Saint
Maur, whose works he appears to have found when he came to England.
It was a prevalent practice in the middle ages to appropriate a work
by a cautious suppression of any mention of the original. Tiraboschi
might now be satisfied that Guido delle Colonne was in England, which
he doubted, since he now stands charged with only turning into Latin
prose the poem of a Norman, that is, an English poet at the court of
our Henry the Second.
* Douce's "Illustrations of Shakspeare."
[11] In the curious catalogue of these romances in the Roxburgh
Library, the cataloguer announced three or four of these pretended
authors as "names unknown to any literary historians," and considered
the announcement a literary discovery.
[12] Pere Menestrier, "Chevalerie Ancienne et Moderne," chap. v. On
HERALDS.
[13] See Bentham's "History and Antiquities of Ely," 27.