SECTION XXXVIII. p. 355. Sackville's Gordobuc. Our first regular tragedy. Its fable, con- SECTION XXXIX. P. 372. Claffical drama revived and ftudied. The Phoeniffe of Euripides SECTION XL. P. 395. Moft of the claffic poets tranflated before the end of the fixteenth SECTION. Kendal's Martial. Marlowe's verfions of Coluthus and Mufeus. His other works. Verfion of Clitophon and Leucippe. Origin of the Greek erotic romance. Palingenius tranflated by Googe. Criticism on the original. Specimen and merits of the translation. Googe's other works. Incidental stricture on the philofophy of the Paynter's Palace of Tranflation of Italian novels. Of Boccace. General view and character of the poetry of queen Elifabeth's age. A DISSERTATION ON THE GESTA ROMANORU M. T ALES are the learning of a rude age. In the progrefs of letters, fpeculation and enquiry commence with refinement of manners. Literature becomes fentimental and difcurfive, in proportion as a people is polished: and men must be inftructed by facts, either real or imaginary, before they can apprehend the subtleties of argument, and the force of reflection. Vincent of Beauvais, a learned Dominican of France, who flourished in the thirteenth century, obferves in his MIRROR Of HISTORY, that it was a practice of the preachers of his age, to rouse the indifference and relieve the languor of their hearers, by quoting the fables of Esop: yet, at the same time, he recommends a sparing and prudent application of these profane fancies in the difcuffion of facred fubjects. Among the Harleian a SPECUL. HIST. Lib. iii. c. viii. fol. 31. b. edit. Ven. 1591. VOL. III. a manufcripts manufcripts in the British Museum we find a very antient collection of two hundred and fifteen stories, romantic, allegorical, religious, and legendary, which were evidently compiled by a profeffed preacher, for the use of monaftic focieties. Some of these appear to have been committed to writing from the recitals of bards and minstrels: others to have been invented and written by troubadours and monks b. In the year 1389, a grand fystem of divinity appeared at Paris, afterwards tranflated by Caxton under the title of the COURT OF SAPYENCE, which abounds with a multitude of hiftorical examples, parables, and apologues; and which the writer wifely fuppofes, to be much more likely to intereft the attention and excite the devotion of the people, than the authority of science, and the parade of theology. In confequence of the expediency of this mode of of inftruction, the Legends of the Saints were received into the ritual, and rehearfed in the courfe of public worship. For religious romances were nearly allied to songs of chivalry; and the fame grofs ignorance of the people, which in the early centuries of christianity created a neceffity of introducing the vifible pomp of theatrical ceremonies into the churches, was taught the duties of devotion, by being amufed with the achievements of fpiritual knight-errantry, and impreffed with the examples of pious heroism. In more cultivated periods, the DECAMERON of Boccace, and other books of that kind, ought to be confidered as the remnant of a fpecies of writing which was founded on the fimplicity of mankind, and was adapted to the exigencies of the infancy of fociety. Many obfolete collections of this fort ftill remain, both printed and manufcript, containing narratives either fictitious or historical, Of king and heroes old, Such as the wife Demodocus once told In folemn fongs at king Alcinous' feast *. MSS. HARL. 463. membran. fol. Milton. AT A VACATION EXERCISE, &C.. Among But among the antient ftory-books of this character, a Latin compilation entitled GESTA ROMANORUM feems to have been the favorite. This piece has been before incidentally noticed: but as it operated powerfully on the general body of our old poetry, affording a variety of inventions not only to Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, but to their distant fucceffors, I have judged it of fufficient importance to be examined at large in a separate differtation: which has been defignedly reserved for this place, for the purpose both of recapitulation and illustration, and of giving the reader a more commodious opportunity of surveying at leisure, from this intermediate point of view, and under one comprehensive detail, a connected difplay of the materials and original fubjects of many of our past and future poets. At Indeed, in the times with which we are now about to be concerned, it seems to have been growing more into esteem. the commencement of typography, Wynkyn de Worde published this book in English. This tranflation wasre printed, by one Robinson, in 1577. And afterwards, of the fame translation there were fix impreffions before the year 1601. There is an edition in black letter fo late as the year 1689. About the year 1596, an English verfion appeared of "Epitomes des cent "HISTOIRES TRAGIQUES, partie extraictes des ACTES DES "ROMAINS et autres, &c." From the popularity, or rather familiarity, of this work in the reign of queen Elisabeth, the title of GESTA GRAYORUM was affixed to the history of the acts of the Christmas Prince at Grays-inn, in 1594. In Sir GILES GOOSECAP, an anonymous comedy, presented by the Children of the Chapel in the year 1606, we have, "Then "for your lordship's quips and quick jefts, why GESTA RO"MANORUM were nothing to them." And in George Chapman's MAY-DAY, a comedy, printed at London in 1611, a man of the highest literary taste for the pieces in vogue is cha See fupr. vol. ii. p. 18. feq. 4to. a 2 f Lond. Printed for John Windet. 1606. racterised, |