are two copys of this poem; one, from which it was transcribe'd, among the Harleian manuscripts, number 3810; and another in the Auchinleck manuscript (W. 4. 1. number lii), in the Advocates-library, Edinburgh each more or less imperfect. The Jatter, which omits the prologue, and commenceës, abruptly,

"Orpheo was a ryche king,"

is much longer than the poem here printed, which feems abridge'd from it, by confiderable omisfions, many of the remaining lines being the fame: but whether it be a translation from a French original (which, at leaft, is fufficiently probable) there is no mean to ascertain. Another fragment in the fame MS. (num. xxxv), though upon a different fubject, begins, precifely, like the Harleian copy, but is intitle'd Lay le freine (The tale of the afh), and, apparently, a version of Marys poem under the fame title.

Among the "pleyfand ftoreis," enumerateëd in The complaynt of Scotland, 1549, is " Opheus, kyng of Portingal" but whether the name should have been Orpheus, and the story were the fame, or a different one, cannot be ascertain'd. "A tedious fable, according to Pinkerton, by [Robert] Henryfon, with a fpiritual moralization," of " Orpheus kyng, and how he yeid to hewyn and to hel to feik his quene," was printed at Edinburgh, by Walter Chepman, in 1508. In an old poem of "the laying of a gaist," quoteëd, by mister Leyden, from the Bannatyne MS. the "gaift" is marryd to "the Spenzie flie,

And crownd him kyng of Kandelie;
And thay gat them betwene

Orpheus king, and Elpha quene."

(P. 283.)

V. 29. His fadre was come of king Pluto,

And his modur cam of quene Juno.]

The original pasfage of the Harley MS. reads thus: "His fadre was come of fir Pilato,

And his modur cam of Yno;"

which do not accord fo wel with the following couplet, "That in time were goddys holden,

For wordys that they dedyn and tolden,”

as thofe of the Edinburgh one:

are

"His fader was comen of king Pluto,

And his moder of king [r. quene] Juno.”

V. 47. Orpheo fujerneth in Crasfens.]

The corresponding lines of the Edinburgh copy

"This king fojourned in Tracens
That was a cité of noble defens,"

to which it ads

"For Winchester was cleped tho
Traciens withouten no."

V. 140. Then com her kyng also blyve.]

This monarch, (who is anonymous), it appears, from a fubfequent verse was " kyng of Fayré," his attendants are numerous, his riches and magnificence immense; and fuch fair knights, as the thousand and more who accompany'd him, Erodys had never feen: no notice, therefor, being takeën of their verdant vesture, or diminutive fize, the characteristicks of Engleish fairys, it may be fairly concludeëd that the poem was not invented or compofe'd in this country; the fairys of the French and Italian romanceës being esfentially distinct, and, in fact, generally females, endow'd with fingular beauty and fupernatural powers. See an account of this fort of fairy in the roman d'Ogier

3

le Danois, or that of Huon de Bourdeaux, of which there

is an Engleish verfion.

:V. 179. The kyng of Fayré with his route,

Com to hunte all aboute,

With dunnyng and with blowyng,

And houndys cryeng;

But forfothe no beft they nome,

Ne he wift wher they becom.]

In Chaucers Marchantes tale he speaks of
“Pluto, that is the king of Faerie.”
V. 336. And asked what wilt thou do?
Perfay, y am a mynftral lo.]

Thus, in the Auchinleck copy:

"And asked what he wold have ydo.
Parfay, quath he, icham a minstrel lo.”
The Harley MS. reads so, in the first line.
V. 510. Explicit Orpheo regis.
The Edinburgh copy ends thus:

"Now king Orfeo coround is,
And his quen dame Heurodis;
And lived long afterward,

And seththen was king the steward.
Harpours in Bretain after than

Herd how this mervail bigan,

V. 10101.

And made her of a lay of gode likeing

And nempned it after the king;

That lay Orfeo is yhote,

Gode is the lay, swete is the note.

Thus com fir Orfeo out of his care:

God graunt ous al wele to fare."

In the library of Geneva (Num. 179) is " Defcription de la defcente d'Orphée aux enfers, lorsqu'il alla pour y chercher fa femme Eurydice." MS. en vers “tres ancien.”

CHRONICLE OF ENGLAND.

Of this old metrical chronicle (transcribe'd from a manufeript of the royal library (12 C XII) there is another copy in that of the faculty of advocates, allready notice'd, to which are prefix'd the following lines by way of title:

"Here may men read, who co can,
How Inglond first bigan;

Then mow it find in Englische,

As the Brout it telleth y wis.'

At the end is "Explicit liber regum Angliæ."

There can be no doubt that this and fimilar chronicles were compofe'd for the purpose of being fung in publick to the harp. “ Our modern ballads,” according to Hearne, "are, for the most part, romantick; but the old ones contain matters of fact, and were generally written by good scholars...They were a fort of chronicles. So that the wife founder of New-college permitted them to be fung, by the fellows and scholars of that college, upon extraordinary days." (Appendix to Hemingi Chartularium, P. 662.) He refers, for the laft fact, to "Statuta Coll. Novi, Rubric XVIII : the words of which statute, as giveën by Warton, are as follows: "Quando ob dei reverentiam aut fue matris, vel alterius fancti cujuscunque, tempore yemali, ignis in aula fociis miniftratur; tunc fcolaribus et fociis poft tempus prandii aut cene, liceat, gracia recreationis, in aula, in cantilenis et aliis folaciis honestis, moram facere condecentem; et poemata, regnorum chronicas, et mundi hujus mirabilia, ac cetera que ftatum clericalem condecorant, #OL. III.

feriofius pertractare." (History of English poetry, I, 92.) "The latter part of this injunction," he ads, " seems to be an explication of the former: and on the whole it appears, that the cantilena which the scholars fhould fing on these occasions, were a fort of poemata, or poetical chronicles, containing general histories of kingdoms." "The fame thing," he fays, "is enjoined in the ftatutes of Winchester college ;" was afterward "adopted into the ftatutes of Magdalen college;" and from thence, if he recollects right, "copyed into those of Corpus Christi, Oxford.” (Ibi. 93.)

The practice of delivering oral history appears, in fact, to be of much greater antiquity, and, if not of the Saxon times, cannot be much lower. Matthew Paris, in his legend of Offa the first, fays that king Warmund, his father, is celebrateëd with the chief praise of commendation by those who had ufe'd historys of the Engles, not onely to utter by relation, but allfo to infert in writeings. (P. 961).

Even Robert of Brunne, though he professes to have "mad noght for no difours,

Ne for no feggers no harpours,"

fays, at the fame time,

"And therfore for the comonalte

That blythely wild listen to me,
On light lange i it began

For luf of the lewed man ;"

and concludes his prologue by affirming, that he

"Did it wryte for felawes fake,

When thai wild folace make;"

that is, as mister Warton properly explains it, "he intended his chronicle to be fung, at least by parts, at public festivals.”