guarded with barbicans, portculliffes, chains, and foffes*. Adraftus wishes to close his old age in the repofe of rural diverfions, of hawking and hunting .

b

The fituation of Polymite, benighted in a folitary wilderness, is thus forcibly described.

Holding his way, of hertè nothing light,
Mate and weary, till it draweth to night:
And al the day beholding envirown,

He neither fawe ne caftle, towre, ne town;
The which thing greveth him full fore,
And fodenly the fee began to rore,
Winde and tempèst hidiously to arife,
The rain down beten in ful grifly wife;
That many à beast thereof was adrad,
And nigh for ferè gan to waxè mad,
As it seemed by the full wofull fownes
Of tigres, beres, of bores, and of liounes
Which to refute, and himself for to fave,
Evrich in hafte draweth to his cave.

But Polymitè in this tempeft huge
Alas the whilè findeth no refuge.

;

Ne, him to fhrowde, faw no where no fuccour,
Till it was paffed almost midnight hour“.

When Oedipus confults concerning his kindred the oracle of Apollo, whofe image ftood on a golden chariot with four wheels burned bright and sheen, animated with a fiend, the manner in which he receives his answer is touched with spirit and imagination.

And when Edipus by great devotion

Finifhed had fully his orifon,

The fiend anon, within invifible,

With a voice dredefull and horrible,

с

Pag. 644. col. 2. Pag. 635. col. 1. Afraid. Fatigued. P. 631. col. 2.

Bade

Bade him in hafte take his voyage

Towrds Thebes, &c.—

In this poem, exclufive of that general one already mentioned, there are some curious mixtures of manners, and of claffics and scripture. The nativity of Oedipus at his birth is calculated by the most learned aftronomers and physicians ‘. Eteocles defends the walls of Thebes with great guns. And the priest " Amphiorax, or Amphiaraus, is styled a bishop', whofe wife is alfo mentioned. At a council held at Thebes, concerning the right of fucceffion to the throne, Efdras and Solomon are cited: and the hiftory of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerufalem is introduced. The moral intended by this calamitous tale confifts in fhewing the pernicious effects of war: the diabolical nature of which our author ftill further illuftrates by obferving, that difcord received its origin in hell, and that the first battle ever fought was that of Lucifer and his legion of rebel angels'. But that the argument may have the fullest confirmation, Saint Luke is then quoted to prove, that avarice, ambition, and envy, are the primary fources of contention; and that Christ came into the world to destroy these malignant principles, and to propagate universal charity.

At the close of the poem, the mediation of the holy virgin is invoked, to procure peace in this life, and falvation in the next. Yet it should be remembered, that this piece is written by a monk, and addressed to pilgrims ".

SECT. V.

HE third of Lydgate's poems which I proposed to confider, is the TROY BOKE, or the DESTRUCTION OF TROY. It was first printed at the command of king Henry the eighth, in the year 1513, by Richard Pinson, with this title, "THE HYSTORY SEGE AND DESTRUCCION OF TROYE. "The table or rubrifshe of the content of the chapitres, &c. Here after foloweth the TROYE BOKE, otherwise called the SEGE OF "TROYE. Tranflated by JOHN LYDGATE monke of Bury, and emprynted at the commaundement of oure fouveraygne lorde the kynge Henry the eighth, by Richarde Pinson, &c. the yere " of our lorde god a м.ccccc. and XIII"." Another, and a much more correct edition followed, by Thomas Marshe, under the care of one John Braham, in the year 1555°. was begun in the year 1414, the last year of the reign of king Henry the fourth. It was written at that prince's

Among other curious decorations in the title page, there are foldiers firing great guns at the city of Troy. Caxton, in his RECUYLE OF THE HYSTORYES OF TROYE, did not tranflate the account of the final destruction of the city from his French author Rauol le Feure," for as "muche as that worshipfull and religious

man Dan John Lydgate monke of Burye "did tranflate it but late, after whose "worke I feare to take upon me, &c." At the end of B. ii.

• With this title. "The auncient hif"torie, and only true and fyncere croni"cle, of the warres betwixte the Gre"cians and the Troyans, and fubfequently "of the fyrst evercyon of the auncient and "famouse cyte of Troye under Laomedon

the king, and of the laft and fynall de"ftructyon of the fame under Pryam: wrytten by Daretus a Troyan and Dictus

It

"a Grecian, both fouldiours and prefent at "and in all the fayd warres, and digested "in Latyn by the learned Guydo de Co"lumpnis, and fythes tranflated into Eng

lyfhe verfe by John Lydgate moncke of "Burye and newly imprinted." The colophon," Imprinted at London in Flete"ftrete at the fygne of the Princes Armes " by Thomas Marfhe. Anno. do. M.D.L.V." This book was modernifed, and printed in five lined ftanzas, under the title, "The "LIFE AND DEATH OF HECTOR, &C. "written by John Lydgate monk of Berry, " &c. At London, printed by Thomas "Purfoot. Anno Dom. 1614." fol. But I fufpect this to be a fecond edition. Princip. "In Theffalie king Peleus once did raigne." See Farmer's ESSAY, p. 39. 40. edit. 1767. This fpurious TROYE BOKE is cited by Fuller, Winftanley, and others, as Lydgate's genuine work.

66

command,

command, and is dedicated to his fucceffor. It was finished in the year 1420. In the Bodleian library there is a manufcript of this poem elegantly illuminated, with the picture of a monk presenting a book to a king. From the splendour of the decorations, it appears to be the copy which Lydgate gave to Henry the fifth.

This poem is profeffedly a tranflation or paraphrase of Guido de Colonna's romance, entitled HISTORIA TROJANA. But whether from Colonna's original Latin, or from a French verfion' mentioned in Lygdate's Prologue, and which existed foon after the year 1300, I cannot ascertain. I have before obferved', that Colonna formed his Trojan History from Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretenfis "; who perpetually occur as authorities in Lydgate's translation. Homer is however referred to in this work; particularly in the catalogue, or enumeration, of the fhips which brought the

P MSS. Digb. 232.

Princip. "Licet cotidie vetera recentioribus obruantur."

Of a Spanish verfion, by Petro Nunez Degaldo, fee Nic. Anton. Bibl. Hifpan. tom. ii. p. 179.

See fupr. vol. i. p. 127. Notes. Yet he fays, having finished his verfion, B. v. Signat. EE. i.

I have no more of Latin to translate,
After Dytes, Dares, and Guydo.
Again, he defpairs of tranflating Guido's
Latin elegantly. B. ii. c. x. See also B.
iii. Sign. R. iii. There was a French
tranflation of Dares printed, Cadom. 1573.
See WORKS OF THE LEARNED. A. 1703.
P. 222.

Ibid.

P. 126.

"As Colonna's book is extremely scarce, and the fubject interefting, I will tranflate a few lines from Colonna's Prologue and Poftfcript. From the Prologue." Thefe

things, originally written by the Gre"cian Dictys and the Phrygian Dares, (who "were prefent in the Trojan war, and

nephew of the great Salluftius, tran"flated Dares and Dictys into Latin, yet, "attempting to be concife, he has very "improperly omitted thofe particulars of "the history, which would have proved "most agreeable to the reader. In my

66

own book therefore every article belonging to the Trojan ftory will be compre"hended."-And in his Poftfcript. " And "I Guido de Colonna have followed the "faid Dictys in every particular; for this "reason, because Dictys made his work

perfect and complete in every thing."And I should have decorated this history "with more metaphors and ornaments of "ftyle, and by incidental digreffions, "which are the pictures of compofition. "But deterred by the difficulty of the work, "&c." Guido has indeed made Dictys nothing more than the ground-work of his ftory. All this is translated in Lydgate's Prologue.

feverat

feveral Grecian leaders with their forces to the Trojan coast. It begins thus, on the testimony of Colonna".

Myne auctor telleth how Agamamnon,

The worthi kynge, an hundred fhippis brought.

And is closed with thefe lines.

Full many shippès was in this navye,
More than GUIDO maketh reherfayle,
Towards Troyè with Grekès for to fayle:
For as HOMER in his difcrypcion

Of Grekès fhippès maketh mencion,

Shortly affyrminge the man was never borne
That such a nombre of shippes fawe to forne*.

In another place Homer, notwithstanding all his rhetoryke and fugred eloquence, his lufty fonges and dytees fwete, is blamed as a prejudiced writer, who favours the Greeks': a cenfure, which flowed from the favorite and prevailing notion held by the western nations of their descent from the Trojans. Homer is also faid to paint with colours of gold and azure *. A metaphor borrowed from the fashionable art of illumining. I do not however suppose, that Colonna, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, had ever seen Homer's poems: he might have known these and many other particulars, contained in the Iliad, from those factitious hif

w From Dict. Cretenf. lib. i. c. xvii. p. 17. feq. edit. Dacer. Amftel. 1702. 4to. And Dar. Phryg. cap. xiv. p. 158. ibid. There is a very ancient edition of Dares in quarto, without name or place. Of Dictys at Milan, 1477. 4to. Dares is in German, with cuts, by Marcus Tatius, Auguft. Vindel. 1536. fol. Dictys, by John Herold, at Bafil, 1554. Both in Ruffian, at Moscow, 1712. 8vo.

x B. ii. c. xvi.

y B. iv. c. xxxi. And in the PROLOGUE, Virgil is cenfured for following the traces

M

2

of HOMERIS Ayle, in other refpects a true
writer. We have the fame complaint in
our author's FALL OF PRINCIS. See fupr.
And in Chaucer's HOUSE OF FAME, CO-
lonna is introduced, among other authors of
the Trojan ftory, making this objection to
Homer's veracity. B. iii. p. 468. col. I.
v. 389. Urr. edit.

One faied that OMERE made lies,
And feinyng in his poetries;
And was to the Grekès favorable,
And therefore held he it but fable.

2 B. iv. c. xxxi. Signat. X, ii.

torians