My father was an "aged "knight, And yet it chanced soe, He "tooke to wife" a "false"❞ ladyè, "Whiche" broughte me to this woe. Shee witched me, being a faire young lady, And there I must walke in womans liknesse, Shee witched me, being a faire yonge "maide," And there" to abide " in lothlye shape, Midst mores and moses; woods and wilds, Till some yong faire and courtlye knight Nor fully to gaine mine owne trewe shape, Until he wolde yielde to be rul'd by mee, Come kisse her, brother Kay, then said sir Gawaine, I sware this is the same lady Sir Kay kissed that lady bright, The spice was never soe sweete. Well, cozen Gawaine, saies sir Kay, For thou hast gotten one of the fairest maids, It is my fortune, said sir Gawaine, I am as glad as grasse wold be of raine, Sir Gawaine tooke the lady by the one arme, King Arthur beheld that lady faire, For Sir Gawaine that gentle knight. Soe did the knights, both more or lesse, For the good chance that hapened was This mode of publishing ancient poetry displays, it must be confessed, considerable talent and genius, but savours strongly, at the same time, of unfairness and dishonesty. Here are numerous stanzas inserted which are not in the original, and others omitted which are there. The purchasers and perusers of such a collection are deceived and imposed upon; the pleasure they receive is derived from the idea of antiquity, which, in fact, is perfect illusion. If the ingenious editor had published all his imperfect poems by correcting the blunders of puerility or inattention, and supplying the defects of barbarian ignorance, with proper distinction of type (as, in one instance, he actually has done), it would not only have gratified the austerest antiquary, but also provided refined entertainment "for every reader of taste and genius." He would have acted fairly and honorably, and given every sort of reader complete satisfaction. Authenticity would have been united with improvement, and all would have gone well; whereas, in the present editions, it is firmly believed, not one article has been ingeniously or faithfully printed from the beginning to the end; nor did the late eminent Thomas Tyrwhitt, so ardent a researcher into ancient poetry, and an intimate friend of the possessor, ever see this curious, though tattered, fragment, nor would the late excellent George Stevens, on the bishop's personal application, consent to sanction the authenticity of the printed copy with his signature.* * The Bishop of Dromore (as he now is), on a former occasion, having himself, as he well knows, already falsified and corrupted a modern Scottish song, "This A change similar to that which is before represented to have taken place in France, took place in England at a somewhat later period. Caxton, our first printer, had so little taste for poetry that he never printed one single metrical romance, nor, in fact, any poetical compositions whatever, beside Gower's Confessio amantis, The Canterbury Tales, and a few other pieces of Chaucer, Lydgate, etc. He translated, indeed, Virgil and Ovid, out of French into English prose, and we are indebted to him, by the like mean, for several venerable black-letter romances in folio or quarto, such as Mort D'Arthur, compiled, it seems, by Sir Thomas Malory; Charlemagne, Reynard the Fox, and others; the first of which, though most abominably mangled, became exceedingly popular, and was frequently reprinted; although no copy of the original edition is now known to exist. Several of the old English metrical romances were, afterward, printed by Wynken de Worde, Pinson, Copland, and others, chiefly in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, many of line," he says, 66 being quoted from memory and given as old Scottish poetry, is (by no one, in such a case, except himself) now usually printed" (Reliques, 1775 I., xxxviii.*) "Come ye frae the border?" to give it a certain appearance of rust and antiquity. This identical song being afterward, faithfully and correctly printed in a certain collection of such things, from the earliest copy known, which, like all the rest, was accurately referred to "LIVE YOU upo' the border?" (Scottish Songs printed for J. Johnson, 1794, i., 266), the worthy prelate thought proper, in the last edition of his already recited compilation, to assert that his own corruption "would have been readily corrected by that copy, had not all confidence been destroyed by its being altered in the Historical Essay, prefixed to that publication to "YE LIVE upo' the border ;' the better," he adds, with his usual candour, "to favour a position, that many of the pipers might live upon the borders, for the conveniency of attending fairs, etc., in both kingdoms." This, however, is an INFAMOUS LYE; it being much more likely that he himself, who has practised every kind of forgery and imposture, had some such end to alter this identical line, with much more violence, and, as he owns himself, actual "CORRUPTION," to give the quotation an air of antiquity, which it was not entitled to. The present editor's text is perfectly accurate, to a single comma, but, "this line," as he pretends to apologise for his own, "being quoted (in the Essay) from memory," having frequently heard it so sung, in his younger days, by a north country blacksmith, without thinking it necessary, at the moment, to turn to the genuine text, which lay at his elbow, and which his lordship DARE NOT IMPEACH. "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see (more) clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye" (Gospel according to ST. MATTHEW, chap. vii., verse 5). * Scottish poetry, of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, has been so printed, but not that of the eighteenth, unless by impostors. which are still preserved in public libraries, and a few private collections. "When we consider," says Mister Warton, "the feudal manners, and the magnificence of our Norman ancestors, their love of military glory, the enthusiasm with which they engaged in the crusades, and the wonders to which they must have been familiarised from these eastern enterprises, we naturally suppose, that their retinue abounded with minstrels and harpers, and that their chief entertainment was to listen to the recital of romantic and martial adventures. But I have been much disappointed in my searches after the metrical tales which must have prevailed in their times. Most of those old heroic songs are perished with the stately castles in whose halls they were sung. Yet they are not so totally lost as we may be apt to imagine. Many of them still partly exist in the old English metrical romances,* yet divested of their original form, polished in their style, adorned with new incidents, successively modernised by repeated transcription and recitation, and retaining little more than the outlines of the original." This, it must be confessed, is not only a just and accurate, but also a beautiful and interesting description of the old English romances. Many, however, in the French language still remain, correct and perfect as they came from the hands of the poet or minstrel, and preserved in contemporary manuscripts, more or less, in most of the public libraries in Europe, being likewise infinitely superior, in point of style and expression, to their translations into English; of the comparative merit whereof it is highly probable our learned historian had a very imperfect idea. It is no slight honour to ancient romance that so late as the seventeenth century, when it was become superannuated and obsolete, the expansive and enlightened mind of our British Homer was enraptured with the study, as is manifested by frequent and happy allusions in his two principal poems : "" and what redounds In fable or romance of Uther's son, Begirt with British and Armoric knights, * But many more in the French, some of which were actually written in England. † P. L. B., I., v., 579. "Next," he says, "I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood. that even those books. steadfast observation of. See Toland's Life, p. 35. So • proved to me so many inticements to the love and virtue. ("Though like a covered field, where champions bold To mortal combat or career with lance.")* The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win, His daughter, sought by many prowest knights, Such and so numerous was thir chivalrie.” † He had even meditated a metrical romance, or epic poem, upon the story of Arthur, which would, doubtless, have excelled in sublimity and interest everything he has left us, had not his increasing attachment to the puritanical superstition of the times perverted his intention. "Since first this subject for heroic song Pleased me long choosing, and beginning late, Warrs, hitherto the only argument Heroic deemed chief maistrie to dissect, Or tilting furnature, emblazoned shields, Notwithstanding his religious enthusiasm, he still appears to regard the favourite pursuits of his earlier days with a kind of melancholy sensation : And casts a long and lingering look behind. To the above design he himself alludes in his Epitaphium Damonis, v., 161, etc. Ipse ego Dardanias Rutupina per æquora puppes Dicam, et Pandrasidos regnum vetus Inogeniæ, Brennumque Arviragumque duces, priscumque Belinum, Tum gravidam Arturo, fatali fraude, Iogernen, * Ibid., v., 762. † Paradise Regained, Bk. 3, v., 336. See the Orlando inamorate of Boiardo. P. L. B., 8 (edition 1667); see Toland's Life, pp. 16, 17. |