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 prefenting a book to a king". From the fplendour of the decorations, it appears to be the copy which Lydgate gave to Henry the fifth. This poem is profeffedly a tranflation or paraphrafe 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 tranflation. Homer is however referred to in this work; particularly in the catalogue, or enumeration, of the fhips which brought the 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 finifhed his verfion, B. v. Signat. EE. i. I have no more of Latin to translate, Ibid. P. 126. "As Colonna's book is extremely scarce, and the fubject interefting, I will translate 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 - "faithful, relators of what they faw,) are "transferred into this book by Guido, of "Colonna, a judge. And although a " certain Roman, Cornelius by name, the "nephew of the great Salluftius, tran"flated Dares and Dictys into Latin, yet, every attempting to be concife, he has very "improperly omitted thofe particulars of "the hiftory, which would have proved "most agreeable to the reader. In my 66 own book therefore 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 "reafon, because Dictys made his work "perfect and complete in every thing."And I fhould 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 tranflated in Lydgate's Prologue. feveral everal Grecian leaders with their forces to the Trojan coaft. Myne auctor telleth how Agamamnon, The worthi kynge, an hundred fhippis brought. And is closed with these lines. Full many fhippès was in this navye, Of Grekès fhippès maketh mencion, Shortly affyrminge the man was never borne In another place Homer, notwithstanding all his rhetoryke and From Dict. Cretenf. lib. i. c. xvii. p. * B. ii, c. xvi. y B. iv. c. xxxi. And in the PROLOGUE, of HOMERIS ftyle, in other respects a true One faied that OMERE made lies, torians torians whom he profeffes to follow. Yet it is not, in the mean time, impoffible, that Lydgate might have seen the Iliad, at leaft in a Latin tranflation. Leontius Pilatus, already mentioned, one of the learned Conftantinopolitan exiles, had tranflated the Iliad into Latin profe, with part of the Odyffey, at the defire of Boccacio, about the year 1360. This appears from Petrarch's Epiftles to his friend Boccacio": in which, among other curious circumftances, the former requests Boccacio to fend him to Venice that part of Leontius's new Latin verfion of the Odyssey, in which Ulyffes's descent into hell, and the vestibule of Erebus, are described. He wishes alfo to fee, how Homer, blind and an Afiatic, had described the lake of Averno and the mountain of Circe. In another part of these letters, he acknowledges the receipt of the Latin Homer; and mentions with how much fatisfaction and joy the report of its arrival in the public library at Venice was received, by all the Greek and Latin scholars of that city. The Iliad was alfo translated into French verse, by Jacques Milet, a licentiate of laws, about the year 1430°. Yet I cannot believe that Lydgate had ever confulted these translations, although he had travelled in France and Italy. One may venture to pronounce peremptorily, that he did not understand, as he probably never had feen, the original. After the migration of the Roman emperors to Greece, Boccacio was the first European that could read Homer; nor was there perhaps a copy of either of Homer's poems exifting in Europe, till about the time the Greeks were driven by the Turks from Conftantinople. Long after Boccacio's time, the knowledge of the Greek tongue, and confequently of Homer, was confined only to a few scholars. Yet fome ingenious French critics have infinuated, that Homer was familiar in France very early; and that Christina of Pisa, in a poem never printed, written in the year 1398, and entitled L'EPITRE D' OTHEA A HECTOR', borrowed the word Othea, or WISDOM, from w Jea in Homer, a formal appellation by which that poet often invocates Minerva3. This poem is replete with descriptions of rural beauty, formed by a selection of very poetical and picturesque circumstances, and cloathed in the most perfpicuous and musical numbers. The colouring of our poet's mornings is often remarkably rich and splendid. When that the rowes and the rayes redde 6. 7. See Boccat. GENEAL. DEOR.XV. Theodorus archbishop of Canterbury in the feventh century brought from Rome into England a manufcript of Homer; which is now faid to be in Bennet library at Cambridge. See the SECOND DISSERTATION. In it is written with a modern hand, Hic liber quondam THEODORI archiepifcopi Cant. But probably this Theodore is THEODORE Gaza, whofe book, or whofe tranfcript, it might have been. Hody, abi fupr. Lib. i. c. 3. p. 59. 60. ' In the royal manufcripts of the British Museum, this piece is entitled LA CHEVALERIE SPIRITUELLE de ce monde. 17 E. iv. 2. & Monf. L'Abbè Sallier, Mem. Litt. xvii. And while the twilight and the rowis red i Salute. And And with the brightnes of his bemès shene, Again, among more pictures of the fame fubject. When Aurorà the fylver droppès fhene, n With fundry notes her forowe to " tranfmuè ". The spring is thus described, renewing the buds or blossoms of the groves, and the flowers of the meadows. And them whom winter's blaftes have shaken bare With fotè blofomes freshly to repare ; And the meadows of many a fundry hewe, Frequently in these florid landscapes we find the fame idea differently expreffed. Yet this circumftance, while it weakened the defcription, taught a copiousness of diction, and a variety of poetical phrafeology. There is great softness and facility in the following delineation of a delicious retreat. |