where no man was to fit but one: an honour reserve'd for fir Galaad, the son of Lancelot du lake. "King Arthur," according to the history, "stablish'd all his knights, and gave them lands that were not rich of land, and charge'd them never to do outrage nor mur. der, and alway to fle treason. Alfo, by no means, to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asked mercy, upon paine of forfeiture of their worship, and lordship of king Arthur, for evermore, and alway to do ladies, damofels, and gentlewomen, fuccour upon paine of death. Also that no man take no battailes in a wrong quarell for no law, nor for worldly goods. Unto this were all the knights fworne of the round table, both old and young." Mort d'Arthur, Part 1, C. 59. It is not once mention'd by Geoffrey of Monmouth, though master Wace, not twenty years after the time of that unworthy prelate, thus speaks of it: "Fift Artur la ronde table, Dunt Breton dient meinte fable." V. 19. And for love of hys fayr vyys, Hys modyr clepede hym Bewfys, And no nothyr name.} V. 69. Giglan, the natural fon of Gawain and the fairy Blanchevallee, appears at the court of king Arthur; and, being ask'd his name, fays that his mother (who had carefully conceal'd it) had never call'd him any thing but Beaufils; in confequence of which the queen gives him that of Le bel inconnu. (Histoire de Giglan, n. d. 4to. g. 1.) In this romance the lady is call'd Helen; but the main incidents bear little or no refemblance to thofe of Lybeaus. See allfo the episode or adventure of Beaumains, in fir Thomas Malorys Mort d'Arthur. In the Promptorium parvulorum (Har. MS. 221) Befyce, is explain'd filius. V. 99. Whefch and yede to mete.] It was a conftant custom, in former times, to wash the hands before fiting down to, and after riseing up from, table. Thus, in Emare, V. 217: "Then the lordes that wer greté, They wesh and seten down to mete, Again, V. 889: "Then the lordes, that wer grete, Again, in Sir Orpheo, V. 473: "The steward wasched and wente to mete." Again, in Le bone Florence of Rome, V. 1009: "Then they wyfche, and to mete be gone." Thus, allfo, in Robyn Hode and the potter, the sherif says, "Let os was, and go to mete." V. 259. Beaumains, in his expedition to relieve the lady Liones, is treated in a similar manner by her fister Linet: it is a very entertaining adventure. See Mort d'Arthur, P. 1, C. 122, &c. See, allso, that of the damfel Maledifaunt, and the young knight nickname'd La cote male tailé, P. 2, C. 44. V. 1240. Yle dore.] L'ifle d'or, The ile of gold, or golden iland; but whether design'd for French or Engleifh feems rather doubtful. V. 1301. That levede in Termagaunt.] So, afterward, in the King of Tars : "Of Tirmagaunt and of Mahoun.” "TERMAGAUNT," fays doctor Percy, "is the name given in the old romances to the god of the Saracens : S in which he is conftantly linked with MAHOUND of Mahomet." (i, 76.) "This word," he ads, "is derived by the very learned editor of Junius from the Anglo-Saxon Typ very, and Magan mighty. As this word had fo fublime a derivation, and was fo applica ble to the true ged, how fhall we account for its being fo degraded Perhaps Typ-magan or Termagant had been a name originally given to fome Saxon idol, before our ancestors were converted to christianity; or had been the peculiar attribute of one of their false deities; and 'therefore the first christian misfionaries rejected it as profane and improper to be implied [r. applied] to the true god. Afterwards, when the irruptions of the Saracens into Europe, and the crufades into the east, had brought them acquainted with a new fpecies of unbelievers, our ignorant ancestors, who thought all that did not receive the christian law were necesfarily pagans and idolaters, supposed the Mahometan creed was in all refpects the fame with that of their pagan forefathers, and therefore made no fcruple to give the ancient name of Termagant to the god of the Saracens : juft in the same manner as they afterwards ufed the name of Sarazen to express any kind of pagan idolater.” (77.) "I cannot," fays he, afterward, "conclude this fhort memoir, without obferving that the French romancers, who had borrowed the word Termagant from us, and applied it as we in their old romances, corrupted it into TERVAGAUNTE.* This may be added to the other proofs adduced in these volumes of the great intercourfe that formerly fubfifted between the old minstrels and legendary writers of both nations, and that they mutually borrowed each others romances" (78). In a note, at * See, below, L. 7; and, afterward, P. 269, L.7. P. 379, he, likewife, obferves that "The old French romancers, who had corrupted TERMAGANT into TERVAGANT, couple it with the name of Mahomet as conftantly as ours. As TERMAGANT," he fays, "is evidently of Anglo-Saxon derivation, and can only be explained from the elements of that language, its being corrupted by the old French romancers proves that they borrowed fome things from ours." In another note (III, xxii), in order to fupport his hypothefis, that "The ftories of king Arthur and his round table, of Guy and Bevis, with fome others, were probably the invention of English minstrels," he has the following words: "That the French romancers borrowed fome things from the English, appears from the word TERMAGANT, which they took up from our minftrels, and corrupted into TERVAGAUNTE... What is fingular, Chaucer, who was most conversant with the French poets, adopts their corruption of this word. SEE TYRWHITT'S EDIT." In this purfuit the venerable prelate (though he might not be one at that time) has fuffer'd himself to be misled by an ignis-fatuus. All that he has fay'd, about Typ-mazan or Termagant being the name of a Saxon deity, remains to be prove'd. The learned editour of Junius impofe'd upon him: the combination Typ magan, is not to be found even in his own Saxon dictionary, neither, according to that authority, is Typ very; and maga, not magan, is mighty: and, after all, this is onely in effect the ter-magnus of former etymologifts. As little foundation is there for fuppofeing that the French romanceërs not onely borrow'd the word Termagant from the Engleish, but, likewife, corrupted it into TERVAGAUNTE: which is contrary to every authenticateëd fact. The Engleish romanceërs not onely fervilely follow'd the French, but even themselves corrupted the word TERVAGANTE, after they had got it. This corruption, however, muft have takeën place before the time of Chaucer, who, notwithstanding what doctor P. has asserted, even in mister Tyrwhitts edition, gives the Engleish CORRUP TION, and not the French ORIGINAL: "He fayde, Child, by TERMAGAUNT." (II. 235; and fee IV, 318.) A much greater mistake than the prefent editour made, by inadvertently quoteing his own book, by which the worthy doctor (forgetful of his own hallucinations) was please'd to say "all confidence [had] been deftroyed." But, in the King of Tars, a romance, in all probability, anteriour to Chaucers time, as preserve'd in the Edinburgh MS. we find "Be Mahoun and TERVAGANT:" and had we more copys of that age, we should, doubt. lefs, recover many other inftanceës of the word; as, in fact, there may be in that identical MS. With refpect to the etymology of the original name TERVAGANTE (for it is perfectly ridiculous to feek for that of the corruption Termagant), it may, possiblely, be refer'd to the two Latin words ter and vagans, i. e. the action of going or turning thrice round, a very ancient ceremony in magical incantation. Thus Medea, in Ovids Metamorphofis (L. 7, V. 189): Ter fe convertit; ter fumtis flumine crinem Solvit." "She turn'd her thrice about, as oft fhe threw |