b

In the thrydde korner wyth grete honour
Was FLORYS and BLAUNCHEFLOUR

As love was hem betwene,

For they loved wyth honour,

Portrayed they wer with trewe loveflour,
With ftones bryzht and shene.-

In the fourth korner was oon
Of Babylone the fowdans fonn,

The amerayles dowzter hym by:
For hys fake the cloth was wrowght,
She loved hym in hert and thowght,
As teftymoyneth thys storye.
The fayr mayden her byforn,
Was portrayed an unikorn,

Wyth hys horn fo hye;
Flowres and bryddes on ylka syde,
Wyth stones that wer fowght wyde,
Stuffed wyth ymagerye.

d

When the cloth to ende was wrowght,
To the Sowdan fone hyt was browzt,
That femely was of fyzte;

My fadyr was a nobyll man,

Of the Sowdan he hyt wan

Wyth maystrye and wyth myzte.

Chaucer fays in the ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE, that RICHESSE wore a robe of purple, which,

And purtraied in the ribaninges

Of DUKIS STORIES and of KINGES.

And, in the original,

Portraictes y furent d'orfroys

Hyftoryes d'empereurs et roys.

CHAP. clxxix. Cefarius, faint Bafil, the Gofpel, Boethius, and Ovid, are quoted to fhew the deteftable guilt of gluttony and ebriety.

Cefarius, I fuppofe, is a Ciftercian monk of the thirteenth century; who, befide voluminous Lives, Chronicles, and Homilies, wrote twelve Books on the Miracles, Vifions, and Examples, of his own age. But there is another and an older monkish writer of the fame name. In the British Museum, there is a narrative taken from Cefarius, in old northern English, of a lady deceived by the fiends, or the devil, through the pride of rich clothing ".

CHAP. clxxx. Paul, the hiftorian of the Longobards, is cited, for the fidelity of the knight Onulphus.

CHAP. clxxxi. The fagacity of a lion.

This is the last chapter in the edition of 1488.

Manufcript copies of the GESTA ROMANORUM are very numerous 1. A proof of the popularity of the work. There are two in the British Museum; which, I think, contain, each one hundred and two chapters. But although the printed. copies have one hundred and eighty-one ftories or chapters, there are many in the manufcripts which do not appear in the editions. The story of the CASKETTS, one of the principal incidents in Shakespeare's MERCHANT OF VENICE, is in one of the manufcripts of the Museum'. This ftory, however, is in

f Ver. 1076.

8 Ver. 1068.

h MSS. HARL. 1022. 4.

i See fupr. vol. ii. p. 19.
MSS. HARL. 2270. And 5259.

1 Viz. CHAP. xcix. fol. 78. b. MSS. HARL. 2270. In the CLERICALIS DISCIPLINA of Alphonfus, there is a narrative of a king who kept a FABULATOR, or ftory-teller, to lull him to fleep every

an old English translation printed by Wynkyn de Worde, without date; from which, or more probably from another edition printed in 1577, and entitled A RECORD OF ANCIENT HYSTORYES in Latin GESTA ROMANORUM, corrected and bettered, Shakespeare borrowed it. The story of the BOND in the same play, which Shakespeare perhaps took from a translation of the PECORONE of Ser Florentino Giovanni", makes the fortyeighth chapter of the laft-mentioned manuscript ". Giovanni flourished about the year 1378°. The tale of Gower's FLORENT", which resembles Chaucer's WIFE OF BATH, Occurs in fome of the manuscripts of this work. The fame may be faid of a tale by Occleve, never printed; concerning the chafte confort of the emperor Gerelaus, who is abused by his fteward, in his abfence. This is the first stanza. A larger specimen shall appear in its place.

In Roman Actis writen is thus,
Somtime an emperour in the citee
Of Rome regned, clept Gerelaus,
Wich his noble aftate and his dignite
Governed wifely, and weddid had he
The douztir of the kyng of Vngrye,
A faire lady to every mannes ye.

At the end is the MORALISATION in profe".

night. The king on fome occafion being feized with an unufual difquietude of mind, ordered his FABULATOR to tell him longer ftories, for that otherwise he Could not fall afleep. The FABULATOR begins a longer ftory, but in the midft falls afleep himself, &c. I think I have feen this tale in fome manufcript of the GESTA ROMANORUM.

" GIORN. iv. Nov. 5. In Vincent of Beauvais, there is a ftory of a bond between a Chriftian and a Jew; in which the former ufes a deception which occafions the converfion of the latter. HIST. SPECUL. fol. 181. a. edit. ut fupr. Jews, yet under heavy reftrictions, were originally tolerated in the Chriftian kingdoms

of the dark ages, for the purpose of bor-
rowing money, with which they supplied
the exigencies of the ftate, and of mer-
chants, or others, on the most lucrative
ufurious contracts.
n Fol. 43. a.
In this ftory MAGISTER
VIRGILIUS, or Virgil the cunning man, is
confulted.

• See Johnson's and Steevens's SHAKESPEARE, iii. p. 247. edit. ult. And Tyrwhitt's CHAUCER, iv. p. 332. 334.

P CONFESS. AMANT. Lib. i. f. xv. b. See fupr. vol. ii. p. 31.

9 MSS. SELD. Sup. 53. Bibl. Bodl. De quadam bona et nobili Imperatrice. It is introduced with "A Tale the which I in "the Roman dedis, &c." Viz. MSS, LAUD, 1 2 ibid.

I could point out other stories, beside those I have mentioned, for which Gower, Lydgate, Occleve, and the author of the DECAMERON, and of the CENTO NOVELLE ANTICHE, have been indebted to this admired repofitory'. Chaucer, as I have before remarked, has taken one of his Canterbury tales from this collection; and it has been fuppofed that he alludes to it in the following couplet,

And ROMAIN GESTIS makin remembrance
Of

many a veray trewe wife alfo '.

The plot alfo of the knight against Conftance, who having killed Hermegild, puts the bloody knife into the hand of Constance while asleep, and her adventure with the steward, in the MAN OF LAWES TALE, are alfo taken from that manuscript chapter of this work, which I have just mentioned to have been verfified by Occleve. The former of these incidents is thus treated by Occleve.

She with this zonge childe in the chambre lay
Every nizt where lay the earle and the counteffe,
Bitween whose beddis brente a lampe alway.

ibid. K. 78. See alfo MSS. DIGB. 185. Where, in the first line of the poem, we have, "In the Roman jeftys writen is this.” It is in other manufcripts of Occleve. This story is in the GESTA ROMANORUM, MSS. HARL. 2270. chap. 101. fol. 80. a. Where Gerelaus is Menelaus.

8 Bonifacio Vannozzi, in Delle LETTERE MISCELLANEE alle Academia Veneta, fays, that Boccace borrowed [Nov. i. D. iii.] the Novel of Mafeto da Lamporecchio, with many other parts of the DECAMERON, from an older Collection of Novels. "In uno libro de Novelle, "et di Parlare Gentile, ANTERIORE al Boccacio, &c." In Venetia, 1606. 4to. pag. 580. feq. I believe, however, that many of the tales are of Boccace's own

"

*

invention. He tells us himself, in the GENEALOGIA DEORUM, that when he was a little boy, he was fond of making FICTIUNCULE. Lib. xv. cap. x. p. 579. edit. Bafil. 1532. fol.

f MARCHANT'S TALE, ver. 10158. edit. Tyrw. This may ftill be doubted, as from what has been faid above, the ROMAN GESTS were the Roman history in general.

Here we fee the antient practice, evenin great families, of one and the fame bed-chamber ferving for many perfons. Much of the humour in Chaucer's 'TROMPINGTON MILLER arifes from this circumftance. See the Romance of SYR TRYAMORE. And Gower, CONF. AM. ii f. 39. a.

And

And he efpied, by the lampes lizt,
The bedde where that lay this emprice
With erlis douztur', and as blyve rizt,
This feendly man his purpose and malice
Thouzte" for to fulfille and accomplice;
And fo he dide, a longe knife out he drouze
And ther with alle the maiden childe he flouze *.

Hir throte with the knyfe on two he kutte

And as this emprice lay fleeping;

Into her honde this bloody knyfe he putte,
Ffor men fhoulde have noon othir deemyng
But she had gilty ben of this murdring:

W

And whanne that he had wrouzte this curfidneffe,
Anoone oute of the chambre he gan hem dreffe.

The countess after hir slepe awakid

And to the emperesse bedde gan caste hir look
And fy the bloody knyfe in hir hande nakid,
And, for the feare fhe tremblid and quook.-

She awakens the earl, who awakens the emprefs.-
And hir awook, and thus to hir he cried,
"Woman, what is that, that in thin hand I fee ?
"What haft thou doon, woman, for him that diede,
"What wickid spirit hath travaylid the ?”

And as fone as that adawed was fhe,

The knyfe fel oute of hir hand in the bedde,
And she bihilde the cloothis al forbledde,

* Earl's daughter.

"Thought.

w Drew.

* Slew.

▾ Opinion.

2 He haftened, &c.

• Saw.

And