Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

companion of the round table. He is equally remark. able for his gallantry and good fortune; being never overcome, in either just or tournament, unless by en. chantment or treachery; and being in high favour with the queen, whom he love'd with fingular fidelity to the last; doing for her many magnanimous deeds of arms, and actually faveing her from the fire through his noble chivalry. This connection involve'd him in a long and cruel war with king Arthur; after whofe death he became a hermit. His adventures, which take up a confiderable portion of Mort d'Arthur, are the subject of a very old French romance, in three folio volumes, befide a number of MSS,

V. 19. Kyng Ban-Booght, and hyng Bos.] Ban was king of Benoic, and Boort (not Boozt) king of Gannes, They were brothers, and both knights of the round table. Ban was the father of fir Lancelot, Boort in Mort d'Arthur, is called Bors. There is no king Bos? nor, in fact, does any of these names occur in the French original. There was, indeed, another Boort, or Bors, afterward king of Benoic; but the translatour has evidently misfuppofe'd Ban-Boozt to be the name of one king, and Bos, that of the other. A “roman des rois Bans & Beors freres germains," fo. is among the MSS. of the French national library (Bib. du roi, 7184).

V. 22. Syr Galafre.] No fuch name occurs among the knights of the round table, or is to be met with in any old romance. It is, probablely, a corruption of Galehaut, Galahalt, or Galahad, of whom in Mort d'Arthur.

V. 38. Marlyn was Artours counfalere.]

Merlin, a powerful magician, was begoten by a devil, or incubus, upon young damfel of great beauty, and daughter, as Geoffrey of Monmouth asferts, to the king of Demetia. He remove'd, by a wonderful machine of his own invention, The giantsdance, now Stone-henge, from Ireland, to Salisburyplain, where part of it is stil standing; and, in order to enable Uther Pendragon, king of Britain, to enjoy Igerna, the wife of Gorlois duke of Cornwall, transform'd him, by magical art, into the likeness of her husband; which amorous connection, (Igerna being render'd an honest woman by the murder of her fpoufe, and timely intermarriage with king Uther,) enlighten'd the world, like another Alcmena, with a a fecond Hercules, videlicet, the illustrious Arthur. This famous prophet, being violently enamour'd of a fairy damfel, in the march of Little-Britain, name’d Aivienne, or Viviane, alias The lady, or damfel, of the lake, taught her fo many of his magick fecrets, that, once upon a time, she left him asleep in a cave within the perilous forest of Darnantes, on the borders of the fea of Cornwall, and the fea of Soreloys, where, if the creditable inhabitants of thofe countrys may be believe'd, he stil remains in that condition: the place of his repose being effectually feal'd by force of grand conjurations, and haveing himself been never seen by any man, who could give intelligence of it; even that courteous knight fir Gawin, who, after his enchantment, had fome conversation with him, not being permitted the gratification of a fingle look. (See Lancelot du lac, fo. 6.) Her enchantments, however, are relateëd with fome difference, and more particu

larity, in the romance of her venerable gallant, or, rather, unfortunate dupe, tome 2, fo. 127, whereby it appears that, after being enchanted by his mistress, as aforefay'd, he found himself, when he awoke, in the strongest tower in the world, to wit, in the forest of Broceliande, whence he was never able to depart, though the continue'd to visit him both by day and night at her pleasure. The divine Ariosto, by poetical licence, has place'd the tomb of this magician in fome part of France; and our admirable Spenfer, after an old tradition, in Wales, which, in fact, feems to have the best title to him. His prophecys, which were first publish'd in The British history, have fince experience'd repeated editions, in Latin, French, and Engleifh.

V. 40. To kyng Ryon of Irlond ryzt.]

This king Ryon, or Ryence, was allfo king of NorthWales, and of many iles. He fent to king Arthur, for his beard, to enable him, with those of eleven other kings, whom he had already discomfited, to purfle his mantle. See Mort d'Arthur, B. 1, C. 24. According, however, to Geoffrey of Monmouth, this infulting mesfage proceeded from the giant Ritko, whom Arthur flew upon the mountain Aravius. Ryon was afterward brought prifoner to Arthur (C. 34); and is named among the knights of the round-table. The authour is fingular in makeing Guenever his daughter.

V. 56. But he wer prelat, other baronette.]

There was no baronet, properly so call'd, before the

reign of James the firft. The word, at the fame time, is by no means fingular in ancient historians; but whether a diminutive of baron, or a corruption of banneret, is uncertain.

D. 88. Karlyon.] Caerleon (the Urbs Legionum of Geoffrey), formerly in Glamorganfhire, but now in Monmouthfhire, upon the river Ufk, near the Severnfea. The district, in which this city stood, was call'd Gwent, of which Arthur is fay'd to have been king. See Carte. Caerlegion, or Cair Lheon (Civitas Legionum), is, likewife, the ancient name of Chester upon Dee. There is nothing of this in the original.

V. 114. That arn of Lytyll-Bretayne.]

Little-Britain, or Britany, call'd, by the French, Baffe- Bretagne, and, by the ancients, Armorica, on the coaft of France, oppofite to Great-Britain, where certain refugee Britons are fay'd to have fled, and establish'd a settlement, on the fuccefs of the Saxons, in or about the year 513. See Vertots Critical history, &c. I, 103. Bede, however, by fome ftrange mistake, fup. pofeës the Southern Britons to have proceeded from Armorica. There was a fuccesfion of British kings in this little territory, who are famous in the old French annals. Thefe British emigrants feem to have been chiefly Cornish, not onely from their haveing giveën the name of Cornwall to a part of their new acquifition, where they, likewife, had, as in their old posfesfions, a Mount St. Michael, but from the affinity of the two dialects, one of which is extant in its literary remains, and the other is ftil spokeën.

V. 278. The kynges doughter of Olyroun.]

Oleron is an ile of France, on the coast of Aunis,

and of Saintonge. It was known to the ancients under the name of Ularus, as appears from Pliny. Sidonius Apollinaris calls it Olario. The maritime laws of France and Engleland hence receive'd the appellation they still retain of La ley Olyron; and here it was that king Richard the first stop'd, in his return from the holy land, to correct them. In 1047 it belong'd to Geoffrey de Martel, earl of Anjou, and Agnes his wife. See Martiniere, and Cokes 4th inftitute, 144.

V. 279. Dame Tryamour.] This ladys name is not mention'd in the original. Tryamour, at the same time, is, elsewhere, that of a knight, and the subject of a metrical romance, certainly from the French.

[ocr errors]

V. 280. Her fadyr was kyng of fayrye.] The following description of a female fay, or fairy, is giveën in the romance of Lancelot du lac, Paris, 1533, fo. C. 8, "La damoifelle qui Lancelot porta au lac eftoit une fée, et en celluy temps eftoient appellees faées toutes celles qui fentremettoient denchantemens et de charmes. et Scavoient la force et la vertu des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles eftoient tenue en jeunesse et en beaulté, et en grandes richesses comment elles devifoient." These fairys, not unfrequent in the old romanceës, uniteëd the ideas of power and beauty; and it is to fuch a character that Shakspeare alludes, where he makes Antony to say of CLEOPATRA,

"To this GREAT FAIRY i'l commend thy acts." Milton, too, appears to have had an accurate notion upon this fubject:

"Nymphs of Diana's train, and Naiades,
And ladies of th' Hefperides, that seem'd
Fairer then feign'd of old, or fabl'd fince

« PredošláPokračovať »