Of fairy damfels met in forest wide Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore." It is perfect ignorance to confound the fairys of romance either with the pigmy race of that denomination, of whom the fame great poet has giveën a beau tyful and correct defcription, or with the fancyful creation of Spenser. V. 326. Iyeve the Blaunchard my stede lel, And Gyfre my owen knave.] No fuch names occur in the original. Giflet (or Girflet) le filz Mu (alias Do) is a character in the old French romance of Lancelot du lac. V. 393. Than feyde the boy, Nys he but a wrecche? What thar any man of hym recche ?] Mister Ellis, who publish'd this romance, for the first time, at the end of the fecond volume of "the fabliaux or tales," of his decease'd friend, G. L. Way, efquire, hath strangely misconceive'd this fimple pasfage; fuppofeing awreche, as it is there printed, to be one word, and the meaning," He is not without his revenge, (i. e. compenfation) whatever any man may think of him." The boy, however, manifeftly intends our feedy knight no compliment in the question he asks: "Is he aught," fays he, "but a wretch (or begerly rascal?) What does any one care for him?" V. 505. A knyght ther was yn Lumbardye.] This episode, the introduction of the mayor of Carleon, and his daughter, even the name of that place, and several other incidents, are entirely oweing to the Engleish poet, there being nothing of this fort in the original. V.750. And the, that me is worft fore, Thou blysful berde yn bour.] "These two lines," at least in mister Ellises edition, he fays, are rather obfcure;" but that obscurity was merely occafion'd by his printing THAN for THOU. The perfpicacious editour, nevertheless, saw how the original must have been. Another typographical errour, in that edition, has been the cause of his explaining foth (misprinted for) by fure. VOLUME II. LYBEAUS DISCONUS.* THIS ancient romance is preferve'd in the Cotton MS. already mention'd, mark'd Caligula A. II. from which it is here giveën. About the latter half of another copy is in one of fir Matthew Hales MSS. in the library of Lincolns-inn, apparently a different translation, but onely containing, as ufual, numberless various readings, of little confequence; a third is say'd by doctor Percy to be in his folio MS. It was certainly printed before the year 1600, being mention'd, by the name of "Libbius," in "Vertues common wealth or The highway to honour," by Henry Croffe, publish'd in that year; and is even alludeëd to by Skelton, who dye'd in 1529: "And of fir Libius named Disconius." The French original is unknown. A story similar to that which forms the principal fubject of the present poem may be found in the "Voiage and travaile of fir John Maundeville" (London, 1725, 8vo. P. 28). It, likewise, by fome means, has made its way into a pretendedly ancient Northhum * i. e. Le beau desconnu, or the fair unknown. The runing-title is ever after uniformly Desconus; but the editour thought himself at liberty to follow the head, which bears Disconus; and had proceeded too far before he began to doubt the propriety of his conduct. It is never Disconus in the text. Mister Tyrwhitt, however, so prints it. berland ballad, intitle'd "The laidly worm of Spindlefton-heugh," writen, in reality, by Robert Lambe, vicar of Norham, authour of The history of chefs, &c. who had, however, hear'd some old stanzas, of which he avail'd himself, fung by a maid-fervant. The remote original of all these storys was, probablely, much older than the time of Herodotus, by whom it is relateëd (Urania). Chaucer, in his Rime of fire Thopas, among the " romances of pris" there enumerateëd, mentions thofe "Of fire Libeaux and Pleindamour,” (as Tyrwhitt reads after all the MSS. truely, and the old printed copys haveing Blandamoure, or Blaindamoure); upon which the learned and ingenious editour of the "Reliques of ancient English poetry," in the first three editions of that work, remarks that "As fir [Pleindamoure or] Blandamoure, no romance with this title has been discovered; but as the word occurs in that of Libeaux, 'tis posfible Chaucer's memory deceived him :" a remark, in which he is implicitly follow'd by his friend Warton, who says, " Of fir Blandamoure, i find nothing more than the name occurring in Sir Lebeaux" (History of English Poetry, I, 208): which he, most certainly, did not there find. "Even the titles of our old ROMANCES," he fays, "fuch as SIR BLANDAMOURE, betray their French extraction." (lbi. 139.) From the fourth and last edition, however, of the fay'd Reliques, we now learn that the word in question is neither Pleindamoure nor Blandamoure, but Blaundemere, which is foreign to the purpofe; neither does any fuch name occur in the present copy; nor, as the pasfage is carefully fupprefs'd by the right reverend posfesfour, can one venture to imagine whe This ther it be that of a man, a woman, or a horse. fort of tergiverfation has, to use the worthy prelates own words, "deftroyed all confidence." Generally speaking, the Cotton MS. has z for y or gh, and p for th. The rimes, allfo, of the third and fixth lines of every two ftanzas are the fame, except in a few instanceës, which have render'd it necessary to disregard that circumstance. V. 11. With Artour of the rounde table.] This famous table, to which were attach'd one hundred knights, was the property of Leodegrance, king of Camelard, who appears to have had it from Uther Pendragon, for whom it had been made by the forcerer Merlin, in token, as the book fays, of the roundnefs of the world, (or, according to his own romance, in imitation of one establish'd by Jofeph of Arimathea, in the name of that which Jefus had made at the fupper of the twelve apostles), fee vo. I, fo. 40, &c. and came to king Arthur, as the portion of his wife Guenever, daughter of that monarch. Every knight had his feat, in which was his name, writen in letters of gold. One of these was "the fiege perillous," * This venerabilisfimus episcopus had the address to perfuade a gentleman to whom he fhew'd his folio MS. and whofe testimony was to convince the skepticism of the prefent editour, that he actually faw the word Blandamoure, which, it now turns out, does not exift; though he would not fuffer him to transcribe the line in which it occur'd: he wil eafeyly recollect his name: upon a different occafion he gave mister Steevens a transcript from the above MS. of the vulgar ballad of Old Simon the king, with a ftri&t injunction not to fhew it to this editour (who suspected, as the fact turn'd out, that he had sophisticateëd it, in a note to the last edition of Shakspeare), which, however, he immediately brought to him: |