lykeneffe of a gret dragoun, that is an hundred fadme in lengthe, as men feyn: for I have not feen hire. And they of the ifles callen hire, lady of the land." We are not to think then, thefe kind of ftories, believed by pilgrims and travellers, would have lefs credit either with the writers or readers of romances: which humour of the times therefore may well account for their birth and favourable reception in the world.

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The other monkih hiftorian, who fupplied the romancers with materials, was our Geoffry of Monmouth. For it is not to be fuppofed, that these children of fancy (as Shakspeare in the place quoted above, finely calls them, infinuating that fancy hath its infancy as well as manhood,) fhould ftop in the midst of fo extraordinary a career, or confine themfelves within the lifts of the terra firma. From him therefore the Spanish romances took the ftory of the British Arthur, and the knights of his round table, his wife Gueniver, and his conjurer Merlin. But ftill it was the fame fubje&, (effential to books of chivalry,) the wars of Chriftians against Infidels. And, whether it was by blunder or defign, they changed the Saxons into Saracens, I fufpect by defign; for chivalry without a Saracen was fo very lime and imperfect a thing, that even the wooden image, which turned round on an axis, and ferved the knights to try their fwords, and break their lances upon, was called by the Italians and Spaniards, Saricino and Sarazino; so closely were these two ideas connected.

In these old romances there was much religious fuperstition mixed with their other extravagancies; as appears even from their very names and titles. The first romance of Launcelot of the Lake and King Arthur and his Knights, is called the Hiftory of Saint Greaal. This faint Greaal was the famous relick of the holy blood pretended to be collected into a vessel by Jofeph of Arimathea. So another is called Kyrie Eleifon of Montauban. For in those days Deuteronomy and Paralipomenon were fuppofed to be the names of holy men. And as they made faints of the knights-errant, fo they made knights-errant of their tutelary faints; and each nation advanced its own into the order of chivalry. Thus every thing in those times being either a faint or a devil, they never wanted for the marvellous. In the old romance of Launcelot of the Lake, we have the do&rine and difcipline of the church as formally delivered as in Bellarmine himfelf. La confeflion (fays the preacher) ne vaut rien fi le cœur

"For it is not to be fuppofed, that thefe Children of Fancy, as Shakspeare calls them, infinuating thereby that fancy hath its infancy as well as manhood, should ftop,

&c.]

I cannot conceive how Shakfpeare, by calling Armado the Child of Fancy, infinuates that fancy hath its infancy as well as manhood. The showing that a woman had a child, would be a ftrange way of proving her in her infancy. By calling Armado the Child of Fancy, Shakspeare means only to defcribe him as fantaftical. M. MASON.

n'eft repentant; & fi tu es moult & eloigné de l'amour de noftre Seigneur, tu ne peus eftre recordé fi non par trois chofes: premierement par la confeffion de bouche; fecondement par une contrition de cœur; tiercement par peine de cœur, & par oeuvre d'aumône & charité. Telle eft la droite voye d'aimer Dieu. Or va & fi te confeffe en cette manière & reçois la difcipline des mains de tes confeffeurs, car c'eft le figne de merite. - Or mande le roy fes evefques, dont grande partie avoit en l'oft, & vinrent tous en fa chapelle. Le roy vint devant eux tout nud en pleurant, & tenant fon plein point de vint menuës verges, fi les jetta devant eux, & leur dit en foupirant, qu'ils priffent de luy vengeance, car je fuis le plus vil pecheur, &c. Après prinft difcipline & d'eux & moult doucement la receut. Hence we find the divinity le&ures of Don Quixote and the penance of his 'fquire, are both of them in the ritual of chivalry. Laftly, we find the knight-errant, after much turmoil to himself, and difturbauce to the world, frequently ended his courfe, like Charles V. of Spain, in a monaftery; or turned hermit, and became a faint in good earnest. And this again will let us into the spirit of thofe dialogues between Sancho and his master, where it is gravely debated whether he fhould not turn faint or archbishop.

There were feveral caufes of this ftrange jumble of nonsense and religion. As first, the nature of the subje&, which was a religious war or crufade: fecondly, the quality of the firft writers, who were religious men; and thirdly, the end of writing many of them, which was to carry on a religious purpose. We learn, that Clement V. interdi&ed jufts and tournaments, because he understood they had much hindered the crufade decreed in the council of Vienna. Torneamenta ipfa & haftiludia five juxtas in regnis Franciæ, Angliæ, & Almanniæ, & aliis nonnullis provinciis, in quibus ea confuevere frequentiús exerceri, fpecialiter interdixit. Extrav. de Torneamentis C. unic. temp. Ed. I. Religious men, I conceive, therefore, might think to forward the defign of the crufades by turning the fondness for tilts and tournaments into that channel. Hence we fee the books of knight-errantry fo full of folemn jufts and torneaments held at Trebizonde, Bizance, Tripoly, &c. Which wife project, I apprehend, it was Cervantes's intention to ridicule, where he makes his knight propofe it as the beft means of fubduing the Turk, to affemble all the knights-errant together by proclamation. * WARBURTON.

It is generally agreed, I believe, that this long note of Dr. Warburton's is, at least, very much misplaced. There is not a single paffage in the character of Armado, that has the least relation to any Hory in any romance of chivalry. With what propriety therefore a

*Sce Part II. 1. 5. c. 1.

differtation on the origin and nature of those romances is here introduced, I cannot fee; and I fhould humbly advife the next editor of Shakspeare to omit it. That he may have the lefs fcruple upon that head, I fhall take this opportunity of throwing out a few remarks, which, I think, will be fufficient to fhow, that the learn ed writer's hypothefis was formed upon a very hafty and imperfe& view of the fubje&.

At fetting out, in order to give a greater value to the information which is to follow, he tells us, that no other writer has given any tolerable account of this matter; and particularly,

that

Monfieur Huet, the bishop of Avranches, who wrote a formal treatife of the Origin of Romances, has faid little or nothing of thefe [books of chivalry in that fuperficial work." The fact is true, that Monfieur Haet has faid very little of Romances of chivalry; but the imputation, with which Dr. W. proceeds to load him, of putting the change upon his reader, dropping his proper fubject" for another, "that had no relation to it more than in the name," is unfounded.

and

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It appears plainly from Huet's introdu&ory addrefs to De Segrais, that his object was to give some account of those romances which were then popular in France, fuch as the Afrée of D'Urfé, the Grand Cyrus of De Scuderi, &c. He defines the Romances of which he means to treat, to be " fictions des avantures amoureufes ;' and he excludes epic poems from the number, because Enfin les poëm s ont pour fujet une action militaire ou politique, & ne traitent d'amour que par occafion; les Romans au contraire ont l'amour pour fujet principal, & ne traitent la politique & la guerre que par incident. Je parle des Romans réguliers; car la plupart des vieux Romans François, Italiens, Espagnols font bien moins amoureux que militaires." After this declaration, furely no one has a right to complain of the author for not treating more at large of the old romances of chivalry, or to ftigmatise his work as fuperficial, upon account of that omiffion. I fhall have occafion to remark below, that Dr. W who, in turning over this fuperficial work, (as he is pleased to call it,) feems to have fut his eyes against every ray of good fenfe and juk obfervation, has condefcended to borrow from it a very grofs miftake.

Dr. W's own pofitions, to the fupport of which his fubfequent facts and arguments might be expected to apply, are two; I That Romances of chivalry being of Spanish original, the heroes and the Scene were generally of that country; 2. That the fubject of these romances were the crufades of the European Chriftians against the Saracens of Afa and Africa. The firft pofition, being complicated, should be divided into the two following; 1. That romances of chivalry were of Spanish original; 2. That the heroes and the Scene of them were generally of that country.

1

Here are therefore three pofitions, to which I fhall fay a few words in their order; but I think it proper to premise a fort of definition of a Romance of Chivalry. If Dr. W. had done the fame, he must have feen the hazard of fyftematizing in a fubject of fuch extent, upon a curfory perufal of a few modern books, which indeed ought not to have been quoted in the difcuffion of a queftion of antiquity.

A romance of chivalry therefore, according to my notion, is any fabulons narration, in verfe or profe, in which the principal characters are knights, condu&ting themselves in their feveral fituations and adventures, agreeably to the inftitutions and cuftoms of Chivalry. Whatever names the characters may bear, whether hiftorical or fictitious, and in whatever country, or age, the fcene of the action may be laid, if the actors are reprefented as knights, I fhould call fuch a fable a Romance of Chivalry.

In

I am not aware that this definition is more comprehensive than it ought to be: but, let it be narrowed ever fo much; let any other be fubftituted in its room; Dr. W's firft pofition, that romances of chivalry were of Spanish original, cannot be maintained. Monfieur Huet would have taught him better. He fays very truly, that les plus vieux," of the Spanish romances, font pofterieurs à nos Triftans & à nos Lancelots, de quelques centaines d'années. deed the fact is indifputable. Cervantes, in a paffage quoted by Dr. W. fpeaks of Amadis de Gaula (the first four books) as the first book of chivalry printed in Spain. Though he fays only printed, it is plain that he means written. And indeed there is no good reafon to believe that Amadis was written long before it was printed. It is unneceffary to enlarge upon a fyftem, which places the original of romances of chivalry in a nation, which has none to produce older than the art of printing.

Dr. W.'s fecond pofition, that the heroes and the Scene of these romances were generally of the country of Spain, is as unfortunate as the former. Whoever will take the fecond volume of Du Fresnoy's Bibliotheque des Romans, and look over his lifts of Romans de Chevalerie, will fee that not one of the celebrated heroes of the old romances was a Spaniard. With refpect to the general fcene of fuch irregular and capricious fiaions, the writers of which were ufed, literally, to " give to airy nothing, a local habitation and a name,' I am fenfible of the impropriety of afferting any thing pofitively, without an accurate examination of many more of them than have fallen in my way. I think, however, I might venture to affert, in dire& contradiction to Dr. W. that the fcene of them was not generally in Spain. My own notion is, that it was very rarely there; except in thofe few romances which treat exprefsly of the affair at Roncesvalles.

His laft pofition, that the jubject of these romances were the cruJades of the European Chriftians, against the Saracens of Afia and VOL. VII. C c

Africa, might be admitted with a small amendment. If it flood thus; the fubject of fome, or a few, of these romances were the crufades, &c. the pofition would have been incontrovertible; but then it would not have been either new, or fit to fupport a fystem.,

After this ftate of Dr. W.'s hypothefis, one must be curious to fee what he himself has offered in proof of it. Upon the two first pofitions he fays not one word: I fuppofe he intended that they fhould be received as axioms. He begins his illuftration of his third pofition, by repeating it (with a little change of terms, for a reason which will appear.) Indeed the wars of the Chriftians against the Pagans were the general subject of the romances of chivalry. They all feem to have had their ground-work in two fabulous monkish hiftorians, the one, who, under the name of Turpin, archbishop of Rheims, wrote the History and Atchievements of Charlemagne and his twelve Peers; the other, our Geoffry of Monmouth." Here we fee the reason for changing the terms of crufades and Saracens into wars and Pagans; for, though the expedition of Charles into Spain, as related by the Pfeudo-Turpin, might be called a crufade against the Saracens, yet, unluckily, our Geoffry has nothing like a crufade, nor a fingle Saracen in his whole hiftory; which indeed ends before Mahomet was born. I muft obferve too, that the speaking of Turpin's hiftory under the title of the Hiftory of the Atchievements of Charlemagne and his twelve Peers," is inaccurate and unscholarlike, as the fiction of a limited number of twelve peers is of a much later date than that history.

However, the gronnd-work of the romances of chivalry being thus marked out and determined, one might naturally expe& fome account of the first builders and their edifices; but instead of that we have a digreffion upon Oliver and Roland, in which an attempt is made to fay fomething of those two famous characters, not from the old romances, but from Shakspeare, and Don Quixote, and fome modern Spanish romances. My learned friend, the dean of Carlisle, has taken notice of the ftrange mistake of Dr. W. in fuppofing that the feats of Oliver were recorded under the name of Palmerin de Oliva; a miftake, into which no one could have fallen, who had read the firft page of the book. And I very much fufpe& that there is a mistake, though of lefs magnitude, in the affertion, that "in the Spanish romance of Bernardo del Carpio, and in that of Roncesvalles, the feats of Roland are recorded under the name of Roldan el Encantador." Dr. W.'s authority for this affertion was, I apprehend, the following paffage of Cervantes, in the firft chapter of Don Quixote. "Mejor estava con Bernardo del Carpio, porque en Roncesvalles avia muerto á Roldan el Encantado, valiendofe de la induftria de Hercules, quando ahogó á Anteon el hijo de la Tierra entre los braços. Where it is obfervable, that Cervantes does not appear to fpeak of more than one romance; he calls Roldan el encantado, and not el encantador; and moreover the word encantado is not to

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