As a colt that scholde souke; And [ac?] he was war off that pouke". He strook the feend that undyr hym yede, And gaff the Sawdon a dynt off dede. In his blasoun, verrayment, Was i-paynted a serpent. With the spere, that Richard heeld, 12 He beor him thorwgh and undyr the scheeld, They wer bolde, her herte they tooke; Stedes prekyd, schaufftes schooke1. Richard arming himself is a curious Gothic picture. It is certainly a genuine picture, and drawn with some spirit; as is the shock of the two necromantic steeds, and other parts of this description. The combat of Richard and the Soldan, on the event of which the christian army got possession of the city of Babylon, is probably the DUEL OF Shad is separated. [Scheltron, turma f Line 5642. KING RICHARD, painted on the walls of a chamber in the royal palace of Clarendon . The soldan* is represented as meeting Richard with a hawk on his fist, to show indifference, or a contempt of his adversary; and that he came rather prepared for the chace, than the combat. Indeed in the feudal times, and long afterwards, no gentleman appeared on horseback, unless going to battle, without a hawk on his fist. In the Tapestry of the Norman conquest, Harold is exhibited on horseback, with a hawk on his fist, and his dogs running before him, going on an embassy from king Edward the Confessor to William duke of Normandy. Tabour, a drum, a common accompanyment of war, is mentioned as one of the instruments of martial music in this battle with characteristical propriety. It was imported into the European armies from the Saracens in the holy war. The word is constantly written tabour, not tambour, in Joinville's HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS, and all the elder French romances. Joinville describes a superb bark or galley belonging to a Saracen chief, which he says was filled with cymbals, tabours, and Saracen horns'. Jean d'Orronville, an old French chronicler of the life of Louis duke of Bourbon, relates, that the king of France, the king of Thrasimere, and the king of Bugie, landed in Africa, according to their custom, with cymbals, kettle drums, tabours, and whistles'. Babylon, here said to be besieged by king Richard, and so frequently mentioned by the romance writers and the chroniclers of the crusades, is Cairo or Bagdat. Cairo and Bagdat, cities of recent foundation, were perpetually confounded with Babylon, which had been destroyed many centuries before, and was situated at a considerable distance from either. Not the least inquiry was made in the dark ages concerning the true situation of places, or the disposition of the country in Palestine, although the theatre of so important a war; and to this See supr. p. 119. [This is founded on an erroneous interpretation of the text, where Warton has mistaken "A faucon brode," (black letter edition) or a broad falchion, for a falcon.PRICE.] [See Ritson's remarks on this passage.-M.] The hawk on the fist was a mark of great nobility. We frequently find it, upon antique seals and miniatures, attributed to persons of both sexes. So sacred was this bird esteemed, that it was forbidden in a code of Charlemagne's laws, for any one to give his hawk or his sword as part of his ransom. "In compositionem Wirigildi volumus ut ea dentur quæ in lege continentur excepto accipitre et spatha." Lindebrog. Cod. Leg. Antiq. p. 895. In the year 1337, the bishop of Ely excommunicated certain persons for stealing a hawk sitting on her perch in the cloisters of the abbey of Bermondsey in Southwark. This piece of sacrilege, indeed, was committed during service-time in the choir; and the hawk was the property of the bishop. Registr. Adami Orleton, Episc. Winton. fol. 56 b. In Archiv. Winton. In Domesdei-Book, a Hawk's Airy, dira Accipitris, is sometimes returned among the most valuable articles of property. Histoire de S. Loyis, p. 30. The original has "Cors Sarazinois." See also p. 52.56. And Du Cange's Notes, p. 61. * I cannot find Glais, the word that follows, in the French dictionaries. But perhaps it answers to our old English Glee. See Du Cange, Gl. Lat. V. CLASSICUM. [Roquefort, who cites the same passage, calls Glais, a musical instrument, without defining its peculiar nature.-PRICE.] neglect were owing, in a great measure, the signal defeats and calamitous distresses of the christian adventurers, whose numerous armies, destitute of information, and cut off from every resource, perished amidst unknown mountains and impracticable wastes. Geography at this time had been but little cultivated. It had been studied only from the antients as if the face of the earth, and the political state of nations, had not, since the time of those writers, undergone any changes or revolutions. So formidable a champion was king Richard against the infidels, and so terrible the remembrance of his valour in the holy war, that the Saracens and Turks used to quiet their froward children only by repeating his name. Joinville is the only writer who records this anecdote. He adds another of the same sort. When the Saracens were riding, and their horses started at any unusual object, "ils disoient a leurs chevaulx en les picquant de l'esperon, et cuides tu que ce soit le Roy RtCHART?" It is extraordinary, that these circumstances should have escaped Malmesbury, Matthew Paris, Benedict, Langtoft, and the rest of our old historians, who have exaggerated the character of this redoubted hero, by relating many particulars more likely to be fabulous, and certainly less expressive of his prowess. SECTION V. Specimens of other Popular Metrical Romances which appeared about the end of the thirteenth century. Sir Guy. The Squier of Low Degree. Sir Degore. King Robert of Sicily. The King of Tars. Ippomedon. La Mort Arthure. Subjects of antient tapestry. THE romance of SIR GUY, which is enumerated by Chaucer among the "Romances of pris," affords the following fiction, not uncommon indeed in pieces of this sort, concerning the redemption of a knight from a long captivity, whose prison was inaccessible, unknown, and enchanted". His name is Amis of the Mountain. ment of this Romance belonged to Dr. Farmer, and afterwards to Mr. Douce, which Ritson in his MS. Cat. of Engl. Romances, states to have been printed by W. de Worde, about 1495. In the possession of Mr. Staunton of Longbridge House, co. Warw. is a larger fragment of thirtysix leaves, printed in a thinner letter than W. de Worde's, with wood-cuts, which I should feel inclined to ascribe to Pynson. Ritson mentions also an edition by John Cawood.-M.] It seems to be "Here besyde an Elfish knyhte "Was Amis," quoth Heraude, "your husbond? How he loved his father Guyon: older than the Squyr of lowe degree, in Or els so bolde in chivalrie As was syr Gawayne or syr GIE. The two best manuscripts of this romance are at Cambridge, MSS. Bibl. Publ. Mor. 690. 33. and MSS. Coll. Caii, A. 8. [An analysis of this romance will be found in the "Specimens ' of Mr. Ellis, who is of opinion that "the tale in its present state has been composed from the materials of at least two or three if not more romances. The first is a most tiresome love story, which, it may be presumed, originally ended with the marriage of the fond couple. To this it should seem was afterwards tacked on a series of fresh adventures, invented or compiled by some pilgrim from the Holy Land; and the hero of this legend was then brought home for the defence of Athelstan, and the destruction of Colbrand." Mr. Ritson in opposition to Dugdale, who regarded Guy as an undeniably historical personage, has laboured to prove that "no hero of this name is to be found in real history," and that he was "no more an English hero than Amadis de Gaul or Perceforest." Mr. Ellis, on the other hand, conceives the tale "may possibly be founded on some Saxon tradition," and that though the name in its present form be undoubtedly French, yet as it bears some resemblance to Egil, the name of an Icelandic warrior, who "contributed very materially to the important victory gained by Athelstan over the Danes and their allies at Brunanburgh;" he thinks "it is not impossible that this warlike foreigner may have been transformed by some Norman monk into the pious and amorous Guy of Warwick." This at best is but conjecture, nor can it be considered a very happy one. Egil himself (or his nameless biographer) makes no mention of a single combat on the occasion in which he had been engaged; and the fact, had it occurred, would have been far too interesting, and too much in unison with the spirit of the times, to have been passed over in silence. In addition to this, the substitution of Guy for Egil is against all analogy, on the transformation of a Northern into a French appellation. The initial letters in Guy, Guyon, and Guido, are the representatives of the Teutonic W, and clearly point to some cognomen beginning with the Saxon Wig, bellum.-PRICE.] b In Chaucer's Tale of the Chanon Yeman, chemistry is termed an ELFISH art, that is, taught or conducted by Spirits. This is an Arabian idea. Chan. Yem. T. p. 122. v. 772. Urry's edit. Whan we be ther as we shall exercise Again, ibid. v. 863. ---- Though he sit at his boke both daie and night, In lerning of this ELVISH nicè lore. "Into the land of Fairy, into the region of Spirits." God hym help, his steede was goode, And lyghted downe of his steede full soone. Raynborne grete hym as a knyght courtoise, "Thou art," quod Raynburne, "in feeble plight, That knyghte sayd to hym agayne, "My name is Amys of the Mountayne. The lord is an Elvish man That me into thys pryson wan." "Arte thou Amys," than sayde Raynborne, d" Walls built by the Pagans or Saracens. Walls built by magic." Chaucer, in a verse taken from Syr Bevys, [Sign. a. ii.] says that his knight had travelled As well in Christendom as in hethness. Eglamour sayd to hym yeys, Also, Sign. C. i. The first dede withouten lesse That Bevys dyd in hethenesse. [I do not perfectly understand the materials of this fairy palace: The walles thereof were of cristall, But Chaucer mentions corall in his temple And northward, in a touret on the wall, En celle chambre n'oit noienz, |