by Charles Swan
“The disconsolate Felice, during the long interval of his absence, had passed her whole time in acts of devotion or of charity. Her husband, presenting himself at her gate in his pilgrim’s weeds, was invited into the hall; was plentifully entertained; and enjoyed the pleasure of witnessing, unknown and unsuspected, her daily observance of those duties to which he had, long since, devoted the remainder of his life. Unwilling to withdraw her from these salutary pursuits, he again departed unknown, taking with him a single page as an attendant, and retired to a solitary hermitage in the forest of Ardenne, where he was advertised by an angel of his approaching dissolution. He then despatched his page to Felice with the gold ring which he had received from her at parting, and adjured her to come and give directions for his burial. She arrived; found him dying; received his last breath; and, having survived him only fifteen days, was buried in the same grave.
“Now is the story brought to an end,
Of Guy, the bold baron of price,
And of the fair maid Felice,
Fair ensamples men may lere,
Whoso will listen and hear.
True to love, late and early,
As, in his life, did good Sir Guy;
For he forsook worldly honour,
To serve God his creatour;
Wherefore Jesu, that was of a maid born
To buy man’s soul that was forlorn,
And rose from death the third day,
And led man’s soul from hell away,
On their souls have mercy!
And ye, that have heard this story,
God give you all his blessing,
And of his grace to your ending;
And joy, and bliss, that ever shall be !
Amen, Amen, for charitè!”
“The History of Sir Guy,” says Bishop Percy (Reliques of Anc. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 101), “though now very properly resigned to children, was once admired by all readers of wit and taste: for taste and wit had once their childhood. Although of English growth,1 it was early a favourite with other nations; it appeared in French in 1525, and is alluded to in the old Spanish Komance TERENTE EL BLANCO, which, it is believed, was written not long after the year 1430.—See advertisement to the French translation, 2 vols. 12mo.
“The original, whence all these stories are extracted, is a very ancient romance in old English verse, which is quoted by Chaucer as a celebrated piece even in his time, viz.:—
“Men speken of romances of price,
the old Spanish KomanOf Home childe and Ippotes,
Of Bevis and SIR GUY, etc. R. OF THOP.
And was usually sung to the harp at Christmas dinners and brideales, as we learn from Puttenham’s Art of Poetry, 4to. 1589.”
But the Gesta Romanorum is most probably the origin of the tales in question, since the date is unquestionably earlier than those fixed upon by Bishop Percy.
NOTE 36. Page 337.
“About the year 1470, a collection of Latin fables in six books, distinguished by the name of Esop, was published in Germany.” — Warton.
From a work of this kind, probably the same, the following fable has been extracted, derived, no doubt, from the Gesta Romanorum:—
“None ought to render evil for good; and they that help ought not to be hurt, as this fable sheweth, of a dragon which was within a river; and as the river was diminished of water, the dragon abode at the river, which was all dry; and thus for lack of water he could not stir him. A labourer, or villain, came that way, and demanded of the dragon, saying, What doest thou here ? And the dragon said, Here I am without water, without the which I cannot move; but if thou wilt bind me, and set me upon thy asse, and lead me into a river, I shall give thee abundance of gold and silver; and the villain, for covetousnesse bound him, and led him into a river: and when he had unbound him, he demanded of him his salary or payment. The dragon said to him, because thou hast unbound me, thou wilt be paid; and because that I am now hungry, I will eat thee. And the villain answered and said, for my labour wilt thou eat and devour me? And as they strived together, the fox being within the forest, and hearing their questioning, came to them, and said in this manner: Strive ye no more together, for I will accord, and make peace betwixt you; let each of you tell me his reason, for to wit which of you have right. And when each of them had told his tale, the fox said to the villain, shew to me how thou unboundest the dragon, that I may give thereof a lawful sentence. And the villain put the dragon upon his asse, and bound him as he did before. Then the fox demanded of the dragon, held he thee so fast bound as thou art now ? And the dragon answered, yea, my lord, and yet more hard. And the fox said to the villain, bind her yet harder; for he that well bindeth, well can unbind. And when the dragon was fast bound, the fox said to the villain, bear him again where thou didst first bind him, and there leave him bound as he is now, and so he shall not eat and devour thee.”—Æsap’s Fables, 18nio. 1658, p. 144.
NOTE 37. Page 337.
This allegorical race of beings is thus described in Sir John Mande-vile’s rare work:—
“From this isle men go to another that is called Macumeran, which is a great isle and a fair; and the men and women of this country have heads like hounds; they are reasonable, and worship an ox for their God They are good men to fight, and they bear a great target, with which they cover all their body, and a spear in their hand. And if they take any man in battle they send him to their king, which is a great lord, and devout in his faith: for he hath about his neck, on a chain, three hundred great pearls, and as the papists say their Pater Nosier, and other prayers, so their king saith every day three hundred prayers to his God, before he either eat or drink; and he beareth also about his neck a ruby orient, fine, and good, that is near a foot and five fingers long. For when they chuse their king, they give to him that ruby to bear in his hand, and then they lead him riding about the city, and then ever after they are subject to him, and therefore he beareth that ruby alway about his neck; for if he bear not the ruby, they would no longer hold him for their king. The great Caane of Cathay, hath much coveted this ruby; but he might never have it neither by war nor by other means. And this king is a full, true, and vertuous man, for men may go safely and surely through his land, and bear all that they will, for there is no man so hardy to let them.” —Voyages and Travels, p. 95.
In the Turkish Tales we have also some notice of this “virtuous” people:—
“The Samsards were monstrous anthropophagi, or men-eaters, who had the body of a man and the head of a dog.”—Vol. ii. p. 349.
And Pliny (whom the Gest writer quotes), B. vii. c. 2, speaks of a country of India, “where there is a kind of men with heads like dogs, clad all over with the skins of wild beasts, who in lieu of speech used to bark.”
1 Belief.
2 Called.
3 Then.
4 Spread.
5 Cut; from the French entailler.
6 Pearls.
7 Purpose.
8 Knowledge.
9 Except.
1 Took.
2 Goods.
3 Foolish.
4 Give.
5 Accepted.
1 Blame.
2 Acquit.
3 Garment.
4 Time.
5 Warm.
6 Many.
7 Madder. Sax. Vascan, insanire.
8 Heave or go.
9 Stop.
1 Selfsame kind.
2 i.e. His crooked or disorderly hair, combed.
3 Brooch.
4 Woods.
5 In order that.
6 Beat, palpitate.
7 Sigheth.
8 Restore again.
9 Not.
1 Confess to me.
2 Left.
3 Because.
4 Never so many.
5 Mass.
6 If.
7 Befallen.
8 Work.
9 Desire.
10 Fain.
11 Great thanks.
1 Before.
2 Assignat
ion.
3 “Estreiné; handselled; that hath the handsell or first use of.”—COTGRAVE. The word is still extant.
4 Except.
5 This perhaps signifies made free with.
6 Altar; place of offering.
7 Knows.
8 Less.
9 Prayer.
10 Work.
1 Wont.
2 Toes.
3 Many.
1 A moment.
2 “Hystor. lxxxix. fol. clviii. edit. 1479, fol., and in Vincent of Beauvais, who qnotes GESTA ALEXII SPECUL. HIST., lib. xviii. cap. 43, seq. f. 241–6.”—WARTON.
3 Warton seems to be in error respecting this work, which he confounds with “THE LIVES OF THE FATHERS, translated out of Frensshe into Englisshe by William Caxton of Westminster, late deed, and fynisshed it at the last day of hys lyff.” The GOLDEN LEGEND (properly so called) consists wholly of the legends of the Saints; but the LIVES OF THE FATHERS is interspersed with stories of the character given above.
1 Syria.
2 Sicily.
1 Many; NORM, FR. Commonly a household.
2 Committed.
1 That is—Show that thou wert our son.
2 Partner, companion.
3 Henceforward.
4 Plenty, number.
5 July.
6 From the Golden Legend, ed. 1526. Printed by Wynkyn de Worde, “at the sygne of the Sonne,” in Fleet Street.
1 Signs, tokens.
1 This production deserves every share of public favour; and, large as the present sale is said to be, I have no doubt of its increase. The nature of the publication, confined as it is to past ages of literature, will probably preclude that circulation to which its merits justly entitle it; but no man who takes an interest fn the progress of the human mind, and who would know something of works formerly so popular, though now subjected to the mutabilities of human caprice, “to time and chance, which happeneth to all,” will neglect an occasion of acquiring as much as investigation can achieve, or ability communicate. In support of these remarks I refer to an article on CHAUCER contained in the Seventeenth Number—not perhaps as the best, but as one among many good.
1 Let the reader here turn to the “life of Alexius,” and particularly to page 33 of this volume.
2 Compare with this account what is said of Alexius in page 34, et seq.
3 Vide page 37.
1 See page 33.
1 Robertson’s Charles V., vol. iii. b. 6. Bayle, Art. LOYOLA.
1 Though his biographers considered him of an ardent temperament, his physicians thought him of a phlegmatic constitution.
2 Retrospective Review, No. XVII.
3 Prol. v. 342.
1 A trochisk [Latin, trociscus] is a kind of medicinal pill or pastille.
2 Derived from a wild beast.
1 Conduit.
1 One; i.e. in one.
2 “ A hand’s breadth.”
3 “The custom of shaving fools, so as to give them in some measure the appearance of friars, is frequently noticed in our oldest romances.”
1 Sour.
1 “I must not forget that it occurs, as told in our GESTA, among a collection of Latin apologues, quoted above, MSS. HARL, 463, fol. 8a. The rubric is, De Angelo qui duxit Meremitam ad diversa Eospitia”—WARTON.
2 Clubs.
3 Conjurations.
4 Swift-sailing vessels. Gr. or from a DROMEDARY.
5 “Jealousy or anger.”—WARTON.
6 Near thirty; i.e. kings.
7 Might.
8 Feud.
1 Battles.
2 Foes.
3 Go.
4 Most distinguished.
5 Qu Choisel ? i.e. choice.
6 A kind of cloth.
7 A receptacle for herbs.
8 Wax.
9 His table or book of art he began to unclose.
10 “Dream”—WARTON.
1 Edit. 1603, 4to. b. ii. ch. iv. p. 44, et seq.
2 For instance, “the art and mystery of printing.”
3 Chancer calls his monk
——“fayre for the maistre,
An out-rider that loved Venerie.”—Prol. v. 165;
and from many other instances which I could produce, I will only add, that the search of the Philosopher’s Stone is called in the Latin Geber INVESTIGATE MAGISIEBII.
1 Pearls.
2 Rubbish.
3 Accompanied.
4 This is most probable.
5 The immediate source of Shakspeare’s “Merchant of Venice” will be found in the INTRODUCTION.
1 MSS. Land. c. 72. Bibl. Bodl. Compare Caxton’s GOLDEN LEGENDE, fol. 393b, and Surius VITA SANCTORUM.
1 Bath.
1 Palata, Lat., Paletot, O. Fr., sometimes signifying a particular stuff, and sometimes a particular dress. See Du Cange.
2 Grieved.
1 Name.
2 Voice.
1 Eclogue 1.
1 “Some local matters were then in agitation at Manchester, particularly an application to Parliament for a Bill to abrogate the custom of grinding wheat at the school mills.”
1 Always.
1 This is the text of all the modem editions: it is, however, inaccurate. There are two verbs to one nominative case. I would read—
“And these our ships which haply you may think
Are, like the Trojan horse,” &c.
“Are stored,” &c.
The passage would then be sense.
1 “The shining of the nails not being forgotten.” This has been rendered somewhat paraphrastically in the text. The nails, it should be remembered, are coloured in the East.
1 Had—it should be.
2 This beautiful line is SHAKSPEARE’S—Pericles, Act III. Sc. I.
3 The Peri’s Song in “Lalla Rookh” may have been suggested to Mr. Moore by these lines;
1 Fearful, terrible.—Fr.
2 “The printer of that name. He also translated from the French, at the desire of Edward duke of Buckingham, the romance of the KNYGHT OF THE SWANNE. See his Prologue”—WARTON.
3 Mingled.
4 Tournament.
1 Cap. xi.
2 This is not strictly true. He is frequently called PRINCEPS, and generally so in the opening of the story.
1 Boast.
2 Mr. Ellis (Specimens, vol. ii. p. 5) supposes this a mistake; the original romance being written in French as early as the 13th century, and the GESTA ROMANORUM not composed till the commencement of the 14th. But the date of the Gesta is very uncertain, and may have been written long before.
1 Saints.
2 Took.
1 From the circumstance of the outline of the story being in the Gesta Roman’ orum, this is very disputable; and it is known to have existed in French as early as the conclusion of the 13th century. I should be inclined to give the Gesta the precedence.
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