great splendour, waiting for the destined day which shall restore him to the throne of Britain.

Warton, in his Ode called The Grave of King Arthur, has thus beautifully availed himself of this romantic tradition:

when he fell, an elfin queen,

All in secret, and unseen,

O'er the fainting hero threw
Her mantle of ambrosial blue;
And bade her spirits bear him far,
In Merlin's agate-axled car,
To her green isle's enamell'd steep,
Far in the navel of the deep.
O'er his wounds she sprinkled dew
From flowers that in Arabia grew:
On a rich inchanted bed

She pillow'd his majestic head;
O'er his brow, with whispers bland,
Thrice she wav'd an opiate wand;
And to soft music's airy sound,
Her magic curtains clos'd around.
There, renew'd the vital spring,
Again he reigns a mighty king;
And many a fair and fragrant clime,
Blooming in immortal prime,
By gales of Eden ever fann'd,
Owns the monarch's high command:
Thence to Britain shall return,
(If right prophetic rolls I learn)
Borne on victory's spreading plume,
His ancient sceptre to resume;
Once more, in old heroic pride;
His barbed courser to bestride;

His knightly table to restore,
And brave the tournaments of yore.

The fiction seems immediately to have been derived from an Arabian or Persian romance; in the former, the fairies are called Ginn, and fairy-land Ginnistan; in the latter, one of the most eminent of the fairy-tribe or Peri, is termed Mergian Peri, or Mergian the fairy, whence, most probably, has arisen the Morgian le fay who preserved king Arthur, and who is said to have been instructed in the art of magic by Merlin *.

The fate of this enchanter, though removed from the earth like Arthur by the intervention of a fairy, was widely different from that which befel his illustrious prince; it is, however, equally a copy from oriental romance, in which the confinement in some vast cavern of magicians, dives, or genii, is a common incident: thus, the Peri

*From this Peri, observes Mr. Hole, 66 we may fairly derive Ariosto's La Fata Morgana, whose existence is still unquestioned by the vulgar in some parts of Italy. To the exertion of her supernatural powers they even now attribute a peculiar appearance, which the sky occasionally exhibits during the heat of summer over the strait between Calabria and Sicily. Palaces, groves, and gardens, appear in beautiful order and rapid succession. It is mentioned by Mr. Brydone, and accounted for by Mr. Swinburn, in a satisfactory manner, in the first volume of his travels into Sicily. She was probably imported into Europe from the East at a very early period, with other beings of the same unsubstantial nature." Hole's Remarks on the Arabian Nights, p. 15.

Mergian is imprisoned for ages in a cavern by the Giant Demrusch *. Merlin," says Mr.

Ellis, "according to Geoffery of Monmouth and the romances, was the issue of a demon and a virgin. He was born in Britain, and was very serviceable to Arthur by his proficiency in magic, which, however, was at last the cause of his own destruction. Having communicated to his mistress, the young and beautiful Viviana, two spells; the one to lay her parents asleep, and the other to confine them whenever she might think proper; she employed the first to protect her chastity from his attempts, and made a more cruel use of the second, confining him in a forest, (other manuscripts say in a tomb) in which he died. His spirit, however, still hovered about the place, and his voice was often heard by passengers +."

Spenser has worked up this story relative to Merlin with much fire and imagination; with the addition of particulars and imagery, indeed, which strongly impress the mind, and give it perfectly the air of oriental necromancy and magic:

* Vide Herbelot. Bibl. Orient. p. 1017.

+ Ellis's Notes to Way's Fabliaux, vol. i. p. 232.

1

the wise Merlin whylome wont, they say,

To make his wonne, lowe underneath the ground,

In a deepe delve, farre from the view of day,

That of no living wight he mote be found,

Whenso he counsel'd, with his sprights encompast round.

And if thou ever happen that same way

To travell, goe to see that dreadful place :
It is an hideous hollow cave, they say,
Under a rocke that lies a little space

From the swift Barry, tombling downe apace
Emongst the woody hilles of Dyneuowre:
But dare thou not, I charge, in any case,

To enter into that same balefull bowre,

For feare the cruel feends should thee unwares devowre.

But standing high aloft, lowe lay thine ear,

And thence such ghastly noise of yron chaines,
And brasen Caudrons thou shalt rombling heare,
Which thousand sprights with long enduring paines
Doe tosse, that it will stonne thy feeble brains,
And oftentimes great grones and grievous stounds,
When too huge toile and labour them constraines :
And oftentimes loud strokes, and ringing sounds
From under that deepe rock most horribly rebounds.

The cause, some say, is this: a little while
Before that Merlin dyde, he did intend
A brasen wall in compass to compile
About Cairmardin, and did it commend
Unto these sprights to bring to perfect end.

During which worke, the Lady of the Lake,
Whom long he lov'd, for him in haste did send;
Who, thereby forc't his workmen to forsake,

Them bound till his returne their labour not to slake.

In the mean time, through that false ladies traine,
He was surpris'd, and buried under bere,
Ne ever to his work return'd againe :

Nath❜lesse those feends may not their work forbeare,
So greatly his commandement they feare,
But there doe toyle and travell day and night,
Untill that brasen wall they up doe reare:

For, Merlin had in magicke more insight
Than ever him before or after living wight.

For, he by words could call out of the sky

Both sunne and moone, and make them him obay :
The land to sea, and sea to maine-land dry,
And darksome night he eke could turne to day:
Huge hostes of men he could alone dismay,
And hostes of men of meanest things could frame,
Whenso him list his enemies to fray:

That to this day, for terror of his fame,

The feends do quake, when any him to them does name.

And, sooth, men say that he was not the sonne

Of mortall sire, or other living wight;
But wondrously begotten, and begunne
By false illusion of a guileful spright,

On a faire Lady Nonne, that whilome hight
Matilda, daughter to Pubidius,

Who was the lord of Marthravall by right,
And coosen unto king Ambrosius:

Whence he indued was with skill so marvellous*.

To enumerate all the circumstances in these chronicles, and immediately subsequent romances, which appear to be founded on imagery drawn from the newly opened communication with the East, would be to fill a volume. One more specimen, however, of Merlin's necroman

* Faerie Queene, Book 3d. Canto 3. Stanza 7, &c. &c.