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mental appendages of a character, in the fame manner, and on the fame principles, of speech with accomplishment. Compliment is, as Armado well expreffes it, the varnish of complete man. JOHN. and REV.

L. 14. This child of fancy, that Armado bight, &c.] This relates to the ftories in the books of Chivalry. A few words therefore concerning their Origin and Nature may not be unacceptable to the reader. As I don't know of any writer who has given any tolerable account of this matter: and especially as Monfieur Huet, the Bishop of Avranches, who wrote a formal treatife of the Origin of Romances, has faid little or nothing of these in that fuperficial work. For having brought down the account of romances to the later Greeks, and entered upon those compofed by the barbarous western writers, which have now the name of Romances almost appropriated to them, he puts the change upon his reader, and, instead of giving us an account of these books of Chivalry, one of the most curious and interesting parts of the subject he promised to treat of, he contents himself with a long account of the Poems of the Provencial Writers, called likewise Romances: and fo, under the equivoque of a commonterm, drops his proper fubject, and entertains us with another that had no relation to it more than in the name.

The Spaniards were of all others the fondest of these fables, as fuiting beft their extravagant turn to gallantry and bravery; which in time grew fo exceffive, as to need all the efficacy of Cervantes's incomparable fatire to bring them back to their fenfes. The French fuffered an eafier cure from their Doctor Rabelais, who enough difcredited the books of Chivalry, by only using the extravagant stories of its Giants, &c. as a cover for another kind of fatire against the refined Politicks of his countrymen; of which they were as much poffeffed as the Spaniards of their Romantic Bravery. A bravery our Shakespear makes their characteristic, in this defcription of a Spanish Gen

Weman:

A man of compliments, whom right and wrong
Have chofe as Umpire of their mutiny :
This Child of fancy, that Armado bight,
For interim te cur fitudies, fhall relate

In high-born words, the worth of many a Knight, From tawny Spain, loft in the world's debate. The fenfe of which is to this effect: This Gentleman, fays the speaker, fhall relate to us the celebrated Stories recorded in the old Romances, and in their very ftile. Why he says, from tawny Spain, is because, thefe Romances being of Spanish Original, the Heroes and the Scene were generally of that country. He fays, loft in the world's debate, because the fubject of thofe Romances were the Crufades of the European Chriftians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa.

Indeed the wars of the Chriftians against the Pagans were the general fubject of the Romances of Chivalry. They all feem to have had their ground-work in two fabulous monkish Historians: the one, who, under the name of Turpin Archbishop of Rheims, wrote the Hiftory and Atchievements of Charlemagne and his twelve peers; to whom, instead of his father they affigned the task of driving the Saracens out of France and the fouth parts of Spain: the other, our Geoffry of Monmouth,

Two of those peers, whom the old Romances have rendered most famous, were Oliver and Rowland. Hence Shakespear makes Alanfon, in the first part of Henry VI. fay, "Froylard, a countryman of ours, records, England all "Olivers and Rowlands bred, during the time Edward the "Third did reign." In the Spanish Romance of Bernardo del Carpio, and in that of Roncesvalies, the feats of Rowland are recorded under the name of Roldan el encantador; and in that of Pulmerin de Oliva, or fimply Oliva, thofe of Oliver: for Oliva is the fame in Spanish as Olivier is in French, The account of their exploits is in the highest degree monstrous and extravagant, as appears from the judgment passed upon them by the priest in Don Quixote, when he delivers the Knights library to the fecular arm of the houfe-keeper, "Eccetuando à un Bernardo del Carpio que anda por ay, 66 yà otro Flamado Roncesvalles; que eftos en Ilegando a "mis manos, an de eftar en las de la ama, y dellas en las "del fuego fin remiffion alguna." And of Oliver he fays; "effa Oliva fe haga luego rajas, y fe queme, que aun no "queden della las cenizas." The reasonableness of this fentence may be partly feen from one story in the Bernardo

del Carpio, which tells us, that the cleft called Roldan, to be feen on the fummit of an high mountain in the kingdom of Valencia, near the town of Alicant, was made with a single back-ftroke of that hero's broad fword. Hence came the proverbial expreffion of our plain and fenfible ancestors, who were much cooler readers of these extravagances than the Spaniards, of giving one a Rowland for his Oliver, that is, of matching one impoffible lye with another: as, in French, faire le Roland means, to fwagger. This driving the Saracens out of France and Spain, was, as we fay, the fubject of the elder Romances. And the firft that was printed in Spain was the famous Amadis de Gaula, of which the Inquifitor Prieft fays; "fegun he oydo dezir, efte libro "fuè el primero de Cavallerias que fe imprimiò en Espana, 16 y todos los demás an tomado principio y origen defte;" and for which he humorously condemns it to the fire, como à Dogmatizador de una feƐta tan mala. When this fubject was well exhausted, the affairs of Europe afforded them another of the fame nature. For after that the western parts had pretty well cleared themselves of these inhofpitable guests: by the excitements of the Popes, they carried their arms against them into Greece and Afia, to fupport the Byzantine empire, and recover the holy fepulchre. This gave birth to a new tribe of Romances, which we may call of the Second race or clafs. And as Amadis de Gaula was at the head of the first, fo, correfpondently to the fubject, Amadis de Grecia was at the head of the latter. Hence it is, we find, that Trebizonde is as celebrated in these Romances

as

Roncesvalles is in the other. It may be worth obferving, that the two famous Italian epic poets, Ariofto and Taffo, have borrowed from each of thefe claffes of old Romances, the scenes and fubjects of their feveral ftories: Arifto choofing the first, the Saracens in France and Spain; and Tao, the latter, the Crufade against them in Afia: Arifto's hero being Orlando or the French Roland: for as the Spaniards, by one way of tranfpofing the letters, had made it Roldan, fo the Italians by another, make it Orland.

The main fubject of these fooleries, as we have faid, had its original in Turpin's famous history of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. Nor were the monftrous embellishments of

enchantments, &c. the invention of the Romancers, but formed upon eastern tales, brought thence by travellers from their crufades and pilgrimages; which indeed have a caft peculiar to the wild imaginations of the eastern people. We have a proof of this in the travels of Sir J. Maundevile, whofe exceffive fuperftition and credulity, together with an impudent monkish addition to his genuine work, have made his veracity thought much worse of than it deferved. This voyager, fpeaking of the ifle of Cos, in the Archipelago, tells the following story of an enchanted dragon. "And "alfo a zonge Man, that wifte not of the Dragoun, went "out of the Schipp, and went thorghe the Ifle, till that "he cam to the Caftelle, and cam into the Cave; and "went fo longe till that he fond a Chambre, and there "he faughe a Damy felle, that kembed hire Hede, and "lokede in a Myrour: and fche hadde meche Trefoure "abouten hire: and he trowed that fche hadde been a . 66 comoun Woman, that dwelled there to receyve Men to "Folye. And he abode, till the Damyfelle, faughe the

fchadewe of him in the Myrour. And fche turned hire "toward him, and asked him what he wolde. And he "fayde, he wolde ben hire Limman or Paramour. And "fche asked him, if that he were a Knyghte. And he "fayde, nay. And then sche fayde, that he myghte not "ben hire Limman. But fche bad him gone azen unto his "Felowes, and make him Knyghte, and come azen upon "the Morowe, and fche fcholde come out of her Cave "before him; and thanne come and kyffe hire on the "Mowth and have no drede. For I fchalle do the no "maner harm, alle be it that thou see me in lykeness of a "Dragoun. For thoughe thou fee me hideoufe and horrible "to loken onne, I do the to wytene that it is made by "Enchauntement. For withouten doubte, I am none "other than thou feeft now, a Woman; and herefore "drede the noughte. And zif thou kyffe me, thou schalt "have all this Trefoure, and be my Lord, and Lord also "of all that Ifle. And he departed, &c." p. 29. 30. Ed. 1725. Here we fee the very fpirit of a Romanceadventure. This honeft traveller believed it all, and fo, it feems, did the people of the ifle. And fome men feyen (lays

he) that in the Ifle of Lango is it the Doughtre of Ypocras in forme and lykenee of a great Dragoun, that is an bundred Fadme in lengbe, as Men feyn: for I have not fɛen bire. And thei of the Fles callen bire, Lady of the Land. We are not to think then, these kind of stories, 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.

The other monkish historian, who fupplied the Romancers with materials, was our Geoffry of Monmouth. For it is not to be fuppofed, that these children of fancy (as Shakes fpear in the place quoted above finely calls them, infinuating that Fancy hath its infancy as well as manhood) should stop in the midft of fo extraordinary a carier, or confine themfelves within the lifts of the terra firma. From Him therefore the Spanish Romancers took the story of the British Arthur, and the Knights of bis round-table, his wife Guenver, and his conjurer Merlin. But ftill it was the fame fubject, (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 lame and imperfect a thing, that even that 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, Saracino and Sarazino; fo closely were these two ideas connected.

In thefe old Romances there was much religious fuperftition mixed with their other extravagancies; as appears even from their very names and titles. The firft Romance of Lancelot of the Lake and King Arthur and his Knights, is called the Hiftory of Saint Greaal. This St. Greaal was the famous relick of the holy blood pretended to be collected into a veffel by Jofeph of Arimathea. So another is called Kyrie Eleifon of Montauban. For in those days Deuteronomy and Paralipomenon were supposed to be the names of holy men. And as they made Saints of their knights-errant, fo they made knights-errant of their tutelary faints; and each nation advanced its own into the order of chivalry.

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