priests were hired from Coventry to assist in celebrating a yearly obit in the church of the neighbouring priory of Maxtoke; as were six minstrels, called MIMI, belonging to the family of lord Clinton, who lived in the adjoining castle of Maxtoke, to sing, harp, and play, in the hall of the monastery, during the extraordinary refection allowed to the monks on that anniversary. Two shillings were given to the priests, and four to the minstrels and the latter are said to have supped in camera picta, or the painted chamber of the convent, with the subprior', on which occasion the chamberlain furnished eight massy tapers of wax. That the gratuities allowed to priests, even if learned, for their labours, in the same age of devotion, were extremely slender, may be collected from other expences of this priory'. In the same year, the prior gives only sixpence" for a sermon, to a DOCTOR PRÆDICANS, or an itinerant doctor in theology of one of the mendicant orders, who went about preaching to the religious houses. We are now arrived at the reign of king Edward the Fourth, who acceded to the throne in the year 1461 ". But before I proceed in my series, I will employ the remainder of this section. in fixing the reader's attention on an important circumstance, now operating in its full extent, and therefore purposely reserved for this period, which greatly contributed to the improvement of our literature, and consequently of our poetry: I mean the many translations of Latin books, especially classics, which the French had been making for about the two last centuries, and were still continuing to make, into their own language. In Ex Computis Prioris Priorat. de Maxtock. penes me. [See supr. vol. i. p. 93-94.]"Dat. sex Mimis domini Clynton cantantibus, citharisantibus, et ludentibus, in aula in dicta Pietantia, iiii. s.' "Mimis cenantibus in camera picta cum suppriore eodem tempore," [the sum obliterated.] Ex comp. Camerarii, ut supr. Ex comp. prædict. "Worth about five shillings of our present money. tioning, that a metrical Dialogue between God and the penitent Soul, belonging to the preceding reign, is preserved at Caius college, Cambridge. Pr. “Our gracious lord prince of pite." MSS. E. 147. 6. With other pieces of the kind. The writer, William Lichfield, a doctor in theology, shone most in prose; and is said to have written, with his own hand, 3083 English sermons. See T. Gascoign, (MS.) Diction. V. PRÆDICATOR. He died 1447. See Stowe, Lond. 251. 386. w I know not whether it is worth men- Newcourt, i. 819. order to do this more effectually, I will collect into one view the most distinguished of these versions: not solicitous about those notices on this subject which have before occurred incidentally; nor scrupulous about the charge of anticipation, which, to prepare the reader, I shall perhaps incur by lengthening this inquiry, for the sake of comprehension, beyond the limits of the period just assigned. In the mean time it may be pertinent to premise, that from the close communication which formerly subsisted between England and France, manuscript copies of many of these translations, elegantly written, and often embellished with the most splendid illuminations and curious miniatures, were presented by the translators or their patrons to the kings of England; and that they accordingly appear at present among the royal manuscripts in the British Museum. Some of these, however, were transcribed, if not translated, by command of our kings; and others brought into England, and placed in the royal library, by John duke of Bedford, regent of France. It is not consistent with my design, to enumerate the Latin legends, rituals, monastic rules, chronicles, and historical parts of the Bible, such as the BOOK OF KINGS and the MACCABEES, which were looked upon as stories of chivalry, translated by the French before the year 1200. These soon became obsolete: and are, besides, too deeply tinctured with the deplorable superstition and barbarity of their age, to bear a recital". I will therefore begin with the thirteenth century. In the year 1210, Peter Comestor's HISTORIA SCHOLASTICA, a sort of breviary of the old and new testament, accompanied with elaborate expositions from Josephus and many pagan writers, a work compiled at Paris about the year 1175, and so popular, as not only to be taught in schools, but even to be publicly read in the churches As "Plusieurs Battailes des Roys d'Israel en contre les Philistiens et Assyriens," &c. Brit. Mus. MSS. Reg. 19 D. 1. 7. y I must however except their LapiDAIRE, a poem on precious stones, from the Latin of Marbodeus; and the BES TIAIRE, a set of metrical fables, from the Latin Esop. These, however, ought to be looked upon as efforts of their early poetry, rather than translations. ? Or Le Mangeur, because he devoured the Scriptures. with its glosses, was translated into French by Guiart des Moulins, a canon of Aire. About the same time, some of the old translations into French made in the eleventh century by Thibaud de Vernon, canon of Rouen, were retouched: and the Latin legends of many lives of saints, particularly of saint George, of Thomas a Beckett, and the martyrdom of saint Hugh, a child murthered in 1206 by a Jew at Lincoln, were reduced into French verse. These pieces, to which I must add a metrical version of the bible from Genesis to Hezekiah, by being written in rhyme, and easy to be sung, soon became popular, and produced the desired impression on the minds of the people. They were soon followed by the version of ÆGIDIUS DE REGIMINE PRINCIPUM, by Henri de Gauchi. Dares Phrygius, The SEVEN SAGES OF ROME by Herbers, Eutropius, and Aristotle's SECRETUM SECRETORUM, appeared about the same time in French. To say nothing of voluminous versions of PANDECTS and feudal COUTUMES, Michael de Harnes translated Turpin's CHARLEMAGNE in the year 1207. It was into prose, in opposition to the practice which had long prevailed of turning Latin prose into French rhymes. This piece, in compliance with an age addicted to romantic fiction, our translator undoubtedly preferred to the more rational and sober Latin historians of Charlemagne and of France, such as Gregory of Tours, Fredegaire, and Eginhart. In the year 1245, the The French was first published, without date or place, in two tomes. With old wood-cuts. Vossius says that the original was abridged by Gualter Hunte, an English Carmelite, about the year 1460. Hist. Lat. lib. iii. c. 9. p. 197. edit. Amst. 1689. fol. It was translated into German rhymes about 1271. Sander. Bibl. Belg. pag. 285. There are numerous and very sumptuous manuscripts of this work in the British Museum. One of them, with exquisite paintings, was ordered to be written by Edward the Fourth at Bruges, 1470. MSS. Reg. 15 D. i. Another is written in 1382. Ibid. 19 B. xvii. b See Chaucer, PRIORES. T. p. 144. col. 2. v. 3193. SPECULUM MUNDI, a system of theology, the seven sciences, geography, and natural philosophy, was translated at the instance of the duke of Berry and Auvergne1. Among the royal manuscripts, is a sort of system of pious tracts, partly of ritual offices, compiled in Latin by the confessors of Philip in 1279, translated into French"; which translation queen Isabel ordered to be placed in the church of saint Innocents at Paris, for the use of the people. The fourteenth century was much more fertile in French translation. The spirit of devotion, and indeed of this species of curiosity, raised by saint Louis, after a short intermission, rekindled under king John and Charles the Fifth. I pass over the prose and metrical translations of the Latin bible in the years 1343, and 1380, by Macè, and Raoul de Presles. Under those reigns, saint Austin, Cassianus, and Gregory the Great", were translated into French; and they are the first of the fathers that appeared in a modern tongue. Saint Gregory's HoMELIES are by an anonymous translator. His DIALOGUES were probably translated by an English ecclesiastic P. Saint Austin's DE CIVITATE DEI was translated by Raoul de Presles, who acted professedly both as confessor and translator to Charles the Fifth, about the year 1374. During the work he received a yearly pension of six hundred livres from that liberal monarch, the first founder of a royal library in France, * One of the most eminent astronomers in this work is the poet Virgil. I know not when "LE LIVRE ROYALL," a sort of manual, was made French. The Latin original was compiled at the command of Philip le Bell, king of France, in 1279. Pref. to Caxton's Engl. Translat. 1484. fol. 1 See Brit. Mus. MSS. Reg. 19 A.ix. This version was translated into English, and printed by Caxton, 1480. Brit. Mus. MSS. Reg. 19 C. ii. " See Brit. Mus. MSS. Reg. 15 D. v. 1. 2. Brit. Mus. MSS. Reg. 15 D. v. 1. 20 D. v. ? It is supposed that they were rendered by an Englishman, or one living Yet in England, as the translator's name is marked by an A. And as there is a prayer in the manuscript to saint Frideswide, an Oxford saint. Mem. Litt. xvii. p. 735. 4to. It is very rare that we find the French translating from us. Fauchet mentions a French poetess, named Marie de France, who translated the fables of Esop MORALISED, from English into French, about the year 1310. But this was to gratify a comte Guillaume, with whom she was in love, and who did not perhaps understand English. See Fauchet, RECUEIL, lxxxiv. p. 163. edit. 1581. I know nothing of the fables. [See Dissertation i.] Brit. Mus. MSS. Reg. 17 F. iii. With pictures. And 14 D. i. at whose command it was undertaken. It is accompanied with a prolix commentary, valuable only at present as preserving anecdotes of the opinions, manners, and literature, of the writer's age; and from which I am tempted to give the following specimen, as it strongly illustrates the antient state of the French stage, and demonstrably proves that comedy and tragedy were now known only by name in France'. He observes, that Comedies are so denominated from a room of entertainment, or from those places, in which banquets were accustomed to be closed with singing, called in Greek CONIAS: that they were like those jeux or plays, which the minstrel, le Chanteur, exhibits in halls or other public places, at a feast: and that they were properly styled INTERLUDIA, as being presented between the two courses. Tragedies, he adds, were spectacles, resembling those personages which at this day we see acting in the LIFE and PASSION of a martyr'. This shews that only the religious drama now subsisted in France. But to proceed: Cassianus's COLLATIONES PATRUM, or the CONFerences, was translated by John Goulain, a Carmelite monk, about 1963. Two translations of that theological romance Boethius's CONSOLATION, one by the celebrated Jean de Meun, author of the ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, existed before the year 1340. Others of the early Latin Christian writers were ordered to be turned into French by queen Jane, about 1332. But finding that the archbishop of Rouen, who was commissioned to execute this arduous task, did not understand Latin, she employed a Mendicant friar. About the same period, and under the same patronage, the LEGENDA AUREA, written by James de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, about the year 1260, that inexhaustible repository of religious fable', was translated by Jehan de Vignay, a monk hospitaler". The same translator gave also a See supra, vol. ii. p. 67. * In the year 1555, the learned Claud. Espence was obliged to make a public recantation for calling it LEGENDA FERREA. Thuan, sub ann. Laun. Hist. Gymnas. Navarr. p. 704. 297. VOL. II. "Brit. Mus. MSS. Reg. 19 B. xvii. The copy was written 1382. This version seems to be the same which Caxton translated, and printed, 1483. While it was printing, William lord Arundel gave Caxton annually a buck in summer and a doe in winter. 2 E |