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to "The knight of Curtefy")*, and la dame de Faïel (Gabrielle de Vergi, or de Levergies), here call'd "the lady of Faguell," are celebrateëd loveërs, and the fubject of a metrical romance in French of the thirteenth century, stil extant in the national library at Paris (Num. 195).†

This amiable and accomplish'd hero was a poet of fingular merit for his age, several of his pasfionate and tender fongs being preserve'd, and in the hands of the publick. He appears to have accompany'd his lord, uncle, and name-fake, Raoul fire de Couci, in 1190, to the holy-land, where the latter was flain, at the fiege of Acre, in the following year. He has been generally, but improperly, confounded, as the poet, and loveër of the fair Gabrielle, with his chastellain, who receive'd his mortal wound at the fame fiege. It is, however, fay'd, in the ancient romance, that he did not arrive in Palestine, with king Richard, til after the capture of Acre, where his uncle Raoul had been kil'd. The husband of this unfortunate lady was Aubert de Faïel, lord of the castle and seignory of that name, near the town of St. Quintin. See Fauchet, Recueil de l'origine de la langue & poëfie Françoife, 1581, and "Memoires historiques fur Raoul de Coucy," Paris, 1781 (the latter of which works contains his fongs), and Le Grand, Fabliaux ou contés, D, 142. It is fay'd, in the French romance, that Faïel, fearing left the relations of his wife should avenge her death, caufe'd

* His name was Raoul, though mistakëenly call'd, both by Fauchet, and the French romance, Regnaud or Regnault.

Le Grand, who lowers this MS. to the fifteenth, allows it may be the copy of one of an earlyer age.

her to be inter❜d with a great deal of honour, and departed for the holy-land. The remembrance, however, of his barbarity purfue'd him every where : after he return'd home he was never seen to laugh, and furvive'd his wife but a few years.

This anecdote is, allfo, told by Howell, from the relation of a knowing gentleman whose society he lighted upon in his return in a coach from Paris to Rouen, in a letter, To his " honoured friend and father Mr. Ben. Johnson," in 1635, in which he calls the loveër "one captain Coucy, a gallant gentleman, of an ancient extraction, and keeper of Coucy-castle, which," he says, "is yet ftanding, and in good repair. The gentleman aded that this sad story was painted in Coucy-castle, and remain'd fresh to that day. In the above Memoires is a small view of it.

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The prefent poem, fome fort of translation, it is prefume'd, from the French (but not, it seems, the Roman du chastellain de Coucy & de la dame de Faïel, before-mention'd, unlefs with great libertys), is now republifh'd from an old quarto pamphlet in blackletter, and without date, "Imprynted at London by me Willyam Copland," before 1568. The ful title is "Here begynneth a litell treatise of the knight of Curtefy and the lady of Faguell." The copy made ufe of, in the Bodleian-library, is the onely one known to exist.

An elegant romance, on the unfortunate loves of Gabrielle de Vergi and Raoul de Coucy, was writen by the late duke de la Valliere; which, it feems probable, is the "beautiful old ballad" mention'd to have been feen by the editour of "Reliques of ancient English

poetry," III, xlii. The ftory appears to be stil preferve'd by tradition at St. Quintin and Faïel.

The romance of La châtelaine de Vergy, which seems to have been confounded, by Froisfart and others, with that of Le châtelain de Coucy, is an entirely different ftory. See Fabliaux ou contes, D, 49.

An anecdote, fimilar, in its main circumstanceës, to this of Raoul de Coucy, is relateëd of William de Cabestaing, a Catalan or Provençal poet of the fame age. See Histoire litteraire des troubadours, I, 134. Boccaccio has made it the subject of one of his novels (Gior. 4, No. 9).

V. 32. This lorde to ferve with humylitè.]

The authour feems to have made use of an original which, in this respect, confounded the two storys of Raoul de Coucy and William de Cabestaing. The latter, indeed, applys for, and obtains, a service as valet or page with Raymond de Castel Roussillon, the husband of his mistrefs; but neither the old romance nor Fauchets chronicle relates any fuch event of Raoul. He was castellan, in fact, of his uncles castle of Coucy, whence he occasionally visited the fair Gabrielle, whose refidence of Faïel was at no great distance, fo that he could go and return in the course of the night: though it appears, at the fame time, from an extract of the old romance, that, being once on a vifit to Faïel, he was prefs'd by Aubert to remain there in his abfence. V. 177. A payre of fheres &c.]

V. 205. Than did he her heer unfolde, &c.]

This incident is notice'd both in the French romance and the chronicle citeëd by Fauchet. "La dame de Faiel," fays the latter, "quand elle fçeut qu'il f'en

devoit aller, fift un lags de foye moult bel & bien fait, & y avoit de fes cheveux ouvrés parmi la foye; dont l'oeuvre femblot moult belle & riche: dont il lioit un bourrelet moult riche par desfus fon heaume: & avoit longs pendans par derriere, a gros boutons de perles."

V. 222. So when he came to Lumberdye.]

This adventure with the dragon is unnotice'd both in the extracts from the French romance, and by Fauchet.

V.277. Towarde the Rodes.]

It was Acre, not Rhodes.

V. 375. He called his page haftely.]

The name of this page is Gobert in the French romance. He had been in the fervice of Aubert.

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