with his extravagancies. A distant scene, like a distant period, gives the writer an arbitrary power of supposing almost all that he pleases; and we admit without reluctance, what we cannot contradict without difficulty. Romance was soon advanced. Arthur, and the knights of his round table; Charlemagne, with Roland and his compeers, saw their circle enlarged by additional heroes, by Godfrey and Tancred, Richard and Saladin. The machinery of the piece received the most striking embellishments from the introduction of oriental inventions. The horn of Roland was eclipsed by greater wonders, the speed of a horse outstripped by the flight of a dragon and a griffin; and Merlin himself with all his charms can be considered only as qualified for the humble agent of an Asiatic enchanter *.”

In the period which elapsed between the commencement of the first crusade at the close of the eleventh century, and the termination of the third towards the end of the twelfth (a period of nearly one hundred years) a vast variety of tales and fables, many of which were oriental, had obtained a rapid circulation. Piers Alfonse, whom we have already mentioned as the translator of what are called Pilpay's fables, compiled early in the twelfth

* Introduction to the Literary History of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, p. 170.

century a collection of Arabian tales and apologues, under the title of Clericalis Disciplina, a dialogue in Latin, between an Arabian philosopher and his son Edric. This work, though never printed, was multiplied astonishingly in manuscript, owing to the practice which then obtained among the monks and priests of quoting these romantic stories as illustrative of the precepts which they inculcated in their sermons. It at length gave birth to a very large collection of legends in folio under the appellation of Gesta Romanorum, published by Peter Berchorius about the beginning of the fourteenth century, and which continued, for nearly three hundred years, to be the storehouse whence many a poet drew the materials of fiction.

As most of the oriental fables, however, in the Gesta Romanorum are taken either from the Clericales Disciplina of Alfonse, or consist of the scattered pieces which were introduced with the Arabian literature during the first century of the crusades*, it will be necessary in this stage of our enquiry to notice, as proofs of the early progress of a taste for oriental fiction, a few of the curious narratives with which the folio of Berchorius abounds.

*See Warton's Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum, p. 5.

It is a compilation, indeed, in which, as Warton has justly observed, we might expect to find the original of Chaucer's Cambuscan:

Or, if aught else great bards beside

In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys and of trophies hung,

Of forests and inchantments drear,

Where more is meant than meets the ear *.

Many editions in black letter of the Latin original, and of English, French, and Dutch translations, have been published during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Of the original, the best edition is of the year 1488, and of the eight editions of the English version of Wynkyn de Worde, the first was printed in the year 1577, the last so late as 1699.

From the ample analysis which the late poet laureat has given of this singular collection, which contains one hundred and eighty-one stories or chapters, it may be pronounced to include a number of very wild and romantic, but, at the same time, very interesting fictions; and there can be little doubt but that a well executed translation of the best parts of this series of once popular narratives, accompanied by a body of illustrative notes, would at the present day, when our

* Milton's Il Penseroso.

ancient literature has become a study so general and attractive, meet with a welcome reception.

We

To enumerate all the tales and apologues which in this large collection appear to have been immediately drawn from oriental sources, would occupy a space very disproportioned to the limits that we must necessarily assign to this shall therefore content ourselves with the transcription but of two, which will, however, afford sufficient evidence of a very early acquired taste for the wonders of Arabian fiction.

essay.

The one hundred and twentieth chapter contains the relation of King Darius's legacy to his three sons. To the eldest he bequeaths all his paternal inheritance: to the second, all that he had acquired by conquest: and to the third, a ring and necklace, both of gold, and a rich cloth. All the three last gifts were endued with magical virtues. Whoever wore the ring on his finger, gained the love or favour of all whom he desired to please. Whoever hung the necklace over his breast, obtained all his heart could desire. Whoever sate down on the cloth, could be instantly transported to any part of the world that he chose.

"From this beautiful tale," remarks Warton, "of which the opening only is here given, Occleve, commonly called Chaucer's disciple, framed

a poem in the octave stanza, which was printed in the year 1614, by William Browne, in his set of eclogues called the SHEPHEarde's pipe. Occleve has literally followed the book before us, and had even translated into English prose the Moralization annexed. He has given no sort of embellishment to his original, and by no means deserves the praises which Browne, in the following elegant pastoral lyrics, has bestowed on his performance, but which more justly belong to the genuine Gothic, or rather Arabian, inventor.

Well I wot, the man that first

Sung this lay, did quenche his thirst
Deeply as did ever one

In the Muses Helicon.

Many times he hath been seene

With the faeries on the greene,

And to them his pipe did sound
As they danced in a round;

Mickle solace would they make him,
And at midnight often wake him,

And convey him from his roome
To a fielde of yellow broome,

Or into the medowes where
Mints perfume the gentle aire,

And where Flora spreads her treasure
There they would begin their measure.
If it chanc'd night's sable shrowds

Muffled Cynthia up in clowds,

Safely home they then would see him,
And from brakes and quagmires free him.
There are few such swaines as he

Now adayes for harmonie.