the English language in North and South Britain may also be dismissed as not immediately relevant. But when it is seriously affirmed, that the English language was once spoken with greater purity in the Lowlands of Scotland than in this country, we "Sothrons" receive the communication with the same smile of incredulity, that we bestow upon the poetic dogma of the honest Frieslander: Buwter, breat en greene tzies Is guth Inglisch en guth Fries 15. This Note had been printed, when the writer received the first volume of Professor Müller's Saga-Bibliothek; (Kiöbenhavn 1817,) and Lohengrin, an old German romance edited by Mr. Görres (Heidelberg 1813). He is happy in being able to add from these interesting works a further confirmation of some of the positions assumed in the preceding pages.-The former contains the following passage: "The artifice here resorted to by the mistress of Dromund (one of the heroes in Grettur's-Saga), and which enables her to swear thus equivocally, is indisputably taken from the romance of Tristrem so generally known in the middle ages. In the romance of Tristrem by Thomas of Erceldoune, queen Ysoude avails herself of a similar manœuvre. See Fytte the Second, Stanzas 104, 105. This circumstance is also recorded in the old French version, and forms the 58th chapter of the Islandic translation executed in the year 1226, at the command of king Hacon. The Icelandic Saga closely follows the order of the English poem." (page 261.) We are not informed whether the Northern version was made from the French or German, or, what is more probable, from a German translation of some French romance*. But as it exhibits the story in the same form as the English poem, the Rymer's claim to 66 an original property in the fable" inevitably falls to the ground. The preface to Lohengrin contains a general account of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Titurel and Parcifal. In the former, Wolfram cites the authorities he had consulted in the compilation of his work; and after mentioning the British history (which Mr. Görres with evident probability interprets the Brut of G. of Monmouth) declares himself to have been further assisted in his researches by "Thomas of Brittany's Chronicle of Cornwall." This is clearly the same Thomas so repeatedly referred to in the preceding page, and whose celebrity may now be accounted for on better grounds than the belief that he was the author of a romance on Tristrem's story. The Chronicler of Cornwall was a much more important personage than a mere minstrel composer of chivalric poems; and though the critics of the present day might refuse to acknowledge the distinction between 15 Butter, bread, and green cheese, Is good English and good Friese. [It was translated from the French, and being entire, would, if published, de cide the question as to the priority of the French and English Romances. See Michel's Tristan, vol. i. Introd. p. xcii., and an article in the Gent.'s Mag., Oct. 1833, p. 307.-M.] Thomas and his ryming cotemporaries, the characteristics of romantic and authentic history were not so rigidly defined at the period we are concerned with*. ADDITIONAL NOTE ON SIR TRISTREM. [IT WILL not be necessary, after Mr. Price's able investigation of the subject, to dwell much on Sir Walter Scott's singular hypothesis respecting the origin of this romance. He has expended a profusion of labour and ingenuity in maintaining an opinion, paradoxical in itself and totally unsupported by external evidence; overlooking a solution of the question, more natural and probable in every respect. When we recollect the origin of the Bretons, nothing seems more likely than that they should have among them romantic traditions relating to Arthur and his contemporaries. When we learn, moreover, that the dukes of Normandy gave great encouragement to Breton settlers in their territories, the familiarity of the Norman minstrels and trouveurs with those Celtic traditions is at once accounted for. The occurrence of names like Blanche Flour, Gouvernail, Triamour, &c., makes it almost certain that the English Sir Tristrem was, like the great majority of our metrical romances, derived from a Norman original; and the corrupt Celtic names-e. gr., Canados for Caradoc, are not very favourable to the assumption that the author had access to native British sources of information. The supposition that the English Sir Tristrem is, in substance, the work of Thomas of Erceldoune, cannot be proved, nor perhaps absolutely disproved, with such imperfect data as we now possess. The [The editor of the new edition of Sir Walter Scott's poetical works has, in a preface to Sir Tristrem, made some observations upon the foregoing note of Mr. Price, which seem to me to partake too much of the nature of quibbles to need any answer. It required the full extent of Scottish nationality to fight for the rights of any Thomas of Erceldoune to the poem of Sir Tristrem, either in English or French. There can, however, be no doubt that Price has fallen into one or two inaccuracies. Two things are ascertained: 1, That an Anglo-Norman romance of Tristan was written by a person named Thomas, and, 2, that the name of Thomas of Erceldoune was in the English romance, from which it seems to me no less certain, that the latter was the poem alluded to by Robert de Brunne, and, after all that Price has said, I think that no one who has compared it with the other poetry of the time, can deny that it answers to his description. The Thomas of Erceldoune of poetry is a legendary character, and I will as soon believe the poem to be written by him, as I would that it was written by the king of the fairies. At the time of the Anglo-Scottish wars it seems to have been found more convenient or more natural to publish the prophecies, which were then spread about, in his name than in that of Merlin, and it had thus become so popular, that the person who made the English poem from the French, and who, I should think, might even have been a Londoner for anything the language says to the contrary, not knowing who the Thomas of his original was, may perhaps have taken him for the Thomas whose name was then most famous, namely, Thomas of Erceldoune, and have thus put his name to his English edition. Sir Walter Scott's editor speaks of the importance of what he calls the Greek romance of Tristrem; but he seems not to be aware that the modern Greek poem, of which a fragment was published by Von der Hagen, was not a romance of Tristrem, but a romance in which that hero happens to be introduced, and in which, moreover, there is not the slightest allusion to his romance, or any of its incidents.-W.] language of De Brunne, strictly interpreted, would imply that the work alluded to by him was a joint production of Erceldoune and Kendale; at least, though he mentions two authors, he only seems to speak of one poem. His description of the poem, as far as we can understand it, does not correspond very closely to the one now extant. Nor is it necessary to suppose that the romance composed wholly or partly by Erceldoune, was the only one on the subject. The popularity of the story is shown by the numerous early French and German versions of it; and it is extremely probable that it existed in several different forms in this country before the middle of the fourteenth century. The decision of the question, from internal evidence, is rendered more difficult by the hybrid form of the only copy which we now possess. It is easy to perceive, that the Auchinleck transcript was made in a southern English county, and that the transcriber, or some still earlier one, has, in innumerable instances, accommodated the language of the poem to his own dialect. Every page exhibits words, which, in their present form, could not possibly proceed from the pen of a Northumbrian or Scottish poet of the thirteenth century. Many of them are the ordinary English of the fifteenth century; but the greater part approximate to the dialect of Peirs Plouhman. This corre spondence appears not only in individual words, such as blinne (to cease), swiche, tho (those), her (their), chirche, &c., &c., but also in gram. matical forms, e. gr., the infinitives and plurals of verbs in en, foren, to go; wexen, they grow; both well-known peculiarities of the Midland or Mercian dialect. Frequently these Mercian forms vitiate the rhyme; for instance, we may be assured that in Fytte 3, s. 30, 1. 3, the original author did not write "sothe to sain," but "sothe to say," to agree with away, ay, day, in the corresponding lines of the stanza. Another class of words in the poem belongs more properly to the Western dialect. Among these may be specified, icham, ichave, ichil, (I will); sigge, (to say); and more particularly, the infinitives in iaski, mendi, chaci, desiri, harpi, still used in Somersetshire. We have no means of knowing whether this mixture of forms is to be attributed to several successive transcribers, or to a single one. It is possible that some such dialect might be current near the boundary of the Mercian and Western districts; for example, in the tract between the Avon and the Isis. Notwithstanding the changes which the poem has undergone, there is still sufficient proof that it was originally written in the Northumbrian dialect. The words tine (lose); linn, (stop); bayn, graythed; the forms stan, are, sare (for stone, oar, sore); and particularly the infinitive construction at ete, (to eat); at weld, (to possess or enjoy), were either unknown in the southern part of the island, or discontinued at a very early period. In most cases these northern forms have been preserved for the sake of the rhyme and metre; and when the present rhymes are defective, they may be easily rectified by restoring the original dialect,—for example, the substitution of the Northumbrian form alswa, for the present reading also, in Fytte 1, st. 31, 1. 7, immediately restores the consonance with ga, ta, ma. There are probably a hundred similar instances in the course of the poem. But though the language of the romance was originally northern, there is no evidence that it was ever Scottish. Many of the terms employed in it are undoubtedly current in Scotland, but not one is exclusively so,—a pretty strong negative argument against its supposed Berwickshire origin. All the purely northern words are or have been familiar in the district between the Tweed and the Humber; in fact most of them may be found in Britayn's Skill-kay of Knawing,' a manuscript known to be written at Fountain's Abbey about the fifteenth century. Words also occur in the poem not now used in Scotland, or found in compositions indisputably Scottish.* The age of the existing copy must be determined by inspecting the Auchinleck MS., which has been assigned from internal evidence to the middle of the fourteenth century, or rather earlier; but it would be easy to point out many MSS. written about A. D. 1350, in which the general cast of the orthography is more ancient. However, enough has escaped from this modernizing process to show that the original poem must have been considerably older. Many of the still surviving archaisms are of a strongly marked cast, and might, with some probability, be referred to the middle of the thirteenth century, or a period not much later. Such are the diversified constructions with genitive personal pronouns, some of which are of rare occurrence after the semi-Saxon period of the language, our on, (one of us); whether our, (whether of us); her aither, (either of them); her bother, (of them both); her non, (none of them); and several others of parallel form and import. To these may be added other, (or); the accusative article then (then ende'); les, (Ang. Sax. leas, false or falsehood); for thi, (for or because); and the pure Saxon idiom, fiftende som, (about fifteen). In Fytte 3, st. 7, l. 6, an, (gives or grants), might be supposed to be a license for the sake of the rhyme. It is, however, pure Anglo-Saxon and Norse, and was doubtless, perfectly grammatical at the time when the poem was written. Upon the whole, then, it appears-1. That the present Sir Tristrem is a modernized copy of an old Northumbrian romance, which was probably written between A.D. 1260-1300: 2. That it is not, in the proper sense of the word, an original composition, but derived more or less directly from a Norman or Anglo-Norman source: 3. That there is no direct testimony in favour of Thomas of Erceldoune's claim to the authorship of it, while the internal evidence is, as far as it goes, (to thrive); unride, (huge); cum multis For example, greves, (groves); ore, (grace or favour); tharf, (to` need); the, aliis. greatly adverse to that supposition. It is, however, by no means improbable that the author availed himself of the previous labours of Erceldoune on the same theme. The minstrels of those days were great plagiarists, and seldom gave themselves the trouble of inventing subjects and incidents when they found them ready prepared to their hands. On this point, however, and several others relating to the literary history of the poem, we have nothing but conjectures to offer, until the production of further evidence help to remove our uncertainty. R. G.] SECTION III. Effects of the Increase of Tales of Chivalry. Rise of Chivalry. Crusades. Rise and Improvements of Romance. View of the Rise of Metrical Romances. Their Currency about the End of the Thirteenth Century. French Minstrels in England. Provencial Poets. Popular Romances. Dares Phrygius. Guido de Colonna. Fabulous Histories of Alexander. Pilpay's Fables. Roman d'Alexandre. Alexandrines. Communications between the French and English Minstrels. Use of the Provencial Writers. Two sorts of Troubadours. We have seen, in the preceding Section, that the character of our poetical composition began to be changed about the reign of the first Edward; that either fictitious adventures were substituted by the minstrels in the place of historical and traditionary facts, or reality disguised by the misrepresentations of invention; and that a taste for ornamental and even exotic expression gradually prevailed over the rude simplicity of the native English phraseology. This change, which with our language affected our poetry, had been growing for some time; and among other causes was occasioned by the introduction and increase of the tales of chivalry. The ideas of chivalry, in an imperfect degree, had been of old established among the Gothic tribes. The fashion of challenging to single combat, the pride of seeking dangerous adventures, and the spirit of avenging and protecting the fair sex, seem to have been peculiar to the Northern nations in the most uncultivated state of Europe. All these customs were afterwards encouraged and confirmed by corresponding circumstances in the feudal constitution. At length the Crusades excited a new spirit of enterprise, and introduced into the courts and ceremonies of European princes a higher degree of splendor and parade, caught from the riches and magnificence of eastern cities. These oriental expeditions established a taste for hyperbolical I cannot help transcribing here a curious passage from old Fauchet. He is speaking of Louis the young, king of France about the year 1150. "Le quel fut le premier roy de sa maison, qui monstra dehors ses richesses allant en Jerusa |