before I proceed in my feries, I will employ the remainder of this fection 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 confequently of our poetry: I mean the many tranflations of Latin books, especially claffics, which the French had been making for about the two last centuries, and were still continuing to make, into their own language. In order to do this more effectually, I will collect into one view the most distinguished of these verfions: not folicitous about those notices on this subject which have before occurred incidentally; nor fcrupulous about the charge of anticipation, which, to prepare the reader, I fhall perhaps incur by lengthening this enquiry, for the fake of comprehenfion, beyond the limits of the period juft affigned. In the mean time it may be pertinent to premise, that from the clofe communication which formerly fubfifted 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 prefented by the tranflators or their patrons to the kings of England; and that they accordingly appear at prefent among the royal manuscripts in the British Museum. Some of these, however, were transcribed, if not tranflated, 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 confiftent with my design, to enumerate the Latin legends, rituals, monaftic rules, chronicles, and historical parts of the bible, fuch as the BOOK OF KINGS and the MACCABEES, which were looked upon as ftories of chivalry, tranflated by the French before the year 1200. These foon * As "Plufieurs Battailes des Roys d'Ifrael en contre les Philiftiens et Affyriens, &c." Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 19 D. 1. 7. became obfolete: and are, befides, too deeply tinctured with the deplorable fuperstition and barbarity of their age, to bear a recital. I will therefore begin with the thirteenth century. In the year 1210, Peter Comeftor's HISTORIA SCHOLASTICA, a fort of breviary of the old and new teftament, accompanied with elaborate expofitions from Jofephus and many pagan writers, a work compiled at Paris about the year 1175, and fo popular, as not only to be taught in schools, but even to be publicly read in the churches with its gloffes, was tranflated into French by Guiart des Moulins, a canon of Aire'. About the fame time, fome 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 faints, particularly of faint George, of Thomas a Beckett, and the martyrdom of faint Hugh, a child murthered in 1206 by a Jew at Lincoln', were reduced into French verfe. These pieces, to which I must add a metrical verfion of the bible from Genesis to Hezekiah, by being written in rhyme, and easy to be fung, foon became popular, and produced the defired impreffion on the minds of the people. They were foon followed by the verfion of ÆGIDIUS DE REGIMINE PRINCIPUM ', by Henri de ▾ I must however except their LAPIDAIRE, a poem on precious stones, from the Latin of Marbodeus; and the BESTIAIRE, a fet of metrical fables, from the Latin Efop. Thefe however ought to be looked upon as efforts of their early poetry, rather than tranflations. 2 Or Le Mangeur, because he devoured the fcriptures. The French was first published, without date or place, in two tomes. With old wood-cuts. Voffius fays that the original was abridged by Gualter Hunte, an English Carmelite, about the year 1460. Hift. Lat. lib. iii. c. 9. p. 197. edit. Amft. 1689. fol. It was tranflated into German rhymes about 1271. Sander. Bibl. Belg. pag. 285. There are numerous and very fumptuous ma- See Chaucer, PRIORES. T. p. 144. col. 2. v. 3193: It is rather befide my purpose to speak particularly of fome of the divine Offices now made French, and of the churchhymns. See modo fupr. p. 39. And MSS. Reg. 15 E. vi. 11. And ibid. 19 B. i. And ibid. 19 A. xx. "Stephanus Fortis cle"ricus fcripfit. An. 1395." Gauchi. Gauchi. Dares Phrygius, The SEVEN SAGES OF ROME by Hebers, Eutropius', and Aristotle's SECRETUM SECRETORUM", appeared about the fame time in French. To fay nothing of voluminous verfions of PANDECTS and feudal COUTUMES", Michael de Harnes tranflated Turpin's CHARLEMAGNE in the year 1207'. It was into profe, in oppofition 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 tranflator undoubtedly preferred to the more rational and fober Latin hiftorians of Charlemagne and of France, fuch as Gregory of Tours, Fredegaire, and Eginhart. In the year 1245, the SPECULUM MUNDI, a fyftem of theology, the seven sciences, geography, and natural philofophy, was tranflated at the inftance of the duke of Berry and Auvergne'. Among the royal manufcripts, is a fort of system of pious tracts, partly of ritual offices, compiled in Latin by the confeffors of Philip in 1279, tranflated into French"; which tranflation queen Ifabel ordered to be placed in the church of faint Innocents at Paris, for the ufe of the people. The fourteenth century was much more fertile in French tranflation. The fpirit of devotion, and indeed of this fpecies of curiofity, raised by faint Louis, after a fhort intermiffion, rekindled under king John and Charles the fifth. I pafs over the profe and metrical translations of the Latin bible in the years 1343, and 1380, by Macè, and Raoul de e See fupr. vol. i. p. 462. f He was early tranflated into Greek at Conftantinople. 8 Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 20 B. iv. 3. h See a French JUSTINIAN, &c. Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 20 D. ix. 2. 3. A manufcript before 1300. Caxton printed a life of CHARLES THE GREAT, 1485. * One of the most eminent astronomers in this work is the poet Virgil. I know not when the LE LIVRE ROYALL, a fort 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. Tranflat. 1484. fol. See Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 19 A. ix. This version was tranflated into English, and printed, by Caxton, 1480. Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 19 C. ii. Prefles. Prefles. Under thofe reigns, faint Austin, Caffianus, and Gregory the Great", were tranflated 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 tranflated by an English ecclefiaftic". Saint Auftin's DE CIVITATE DEI was translated by Raoul de Prefles, who acted profeffedly both as confeffor and tranflator to Charles the fifth, about the year 1374. During the work he received a yearly pension of fix hundred livres from that liberal monarch, the first founder of a royal library in France, at whofe command it was undertaken. It is accompanied with a prolix commentary, valuable only at present as preferving anecdotes of the opinions, manners, and literature, of the writer's age; and from which I am tempted to give the following fpecimen, as it ftrongly illuftrates the antient state of the French stage, and demonftrably proves that comedy and tragedy were now known only by name in France'. He obferves, that Comedies are fo denominated from a room of entertainment, or from those places, in which banquets were accustomed to be closed with finging, 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 ftyled INTERLUDIA, as being prefented between the two courses. Tragedies, Tragedies, he adds, were fpectacles, refembling those personages which at this day we see acting in the LIFE French poetefs, named Marie de France, who tranflated the Fables of Efop MORALISED, from English into French, about the year 1310. But this was to gratify a comte Guillaume, with whom he was in love, and who did not perhaps understand English. See Fauchett, RECUEIL, lxxxiv. p. 163. edit. 1581. I know nothing of the fables. 9 Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 17 F. iii. With pictures. And 14 D. i. See fupr., vol. i. p. 235. and and PASSION of a matyr'. This fhews that only the religious drama now fubfifted in France. But to proceed, Caffianus's COLLATIONES PATRUM, or the CONFERENCES, was tranflated by John Goulain, a Carmelite monk, about 1363. Two tranflations of that theological romance Boethius's CONSOLATION, one by the celebrated Jean de Meun, author of the ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, exifted 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 commiffioned to execute this arduous task, did not understand Latin, she employed a mendicant friar. About the fame period, and under the fame patronage, the LEGENDA AUREA, written by James de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, about the year 1260, that inexhaustible repository of religious fable', was tranflated by Jehan de Vignay, a monk hospitalar ". The fame translator gave also a verfion of a famous ritual entitled SPECULUM ECCLESIÆ, or the MIRROUR OF THE CHURCH, of CHESS MORALISED, written by Jacobus de Cafulis": and of Odoricus's VOYAGE INTO THE EAST. Thomas Benoit, a prior of faint Genevieve gratified the religious with a tranflation into a more intelligible language of fome Latin liturgic pieces about the year 1330. But his chief performance was a tranflation into French verfe of the RULE OF SAINT AUSTIN. This he undertook merely on a principle of affection and charity, for the edification of his pious brethren who did not understand Latin. Ch. viii. liv. ii. In the year 1555, the learned Claud. Efpence was obliged to make a public recantation for calling it LEGENDA FERREA. Thuan. fub. ann. Laun. Hift. Gymnaf. Navarr. p. 704. 297. "Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 19 B. xvii. The copy was written 1382. This version feems to be the fame which Caxton tran flated, and printed, 1483. While it was printing, William lord Arundel gave Caxton annually a buck in fummer and a doe in winter. w Brit. Muf. MSS. Reg. 19 C. xi. 1. This verfion was translated in English, and printed, by Caxton, 1474. * Ibid. 19 D. i. 4. 5. Pour |