and immediately after I have placed The Murchant's Prologue, beginning Weeping and wailing, care and other forwe, This arrangement, which recommends itself at first fight, is alfo fupported by so many mff. of the best authority that without great negligence or dulnefs I could not have either overlooked or rejected it, efpecially as the whole turn of The Marchant's Prologue, and the exprefs mention of Grifilde in ver. 9100, demonstrate that he is fuppofed to speak with The Clerke's Tale fresh in his memory. $ 22. The scene of The Marchant's Tale is laid in Italy, but none of the names except Damian and Juftin feem to be Italian, but rather made at pleasure, fo that I doubt whether the story be really of Italian growth. The adventure of The Peartree I find in a fmail collection of Latin fables written by one Adolphus, in elegiack verfes of his fashion, in the year 1315. As this fable has never been printed but once, and in a book not commonly to be met with, I fhall tranfcribe below (22) the material parts of it, and I dare say the reader will not be very anxious to fee any more. (22) Adolphi Fabulæ, ap. Leyfer. Hift. Poet. Medii Ævi, p. 2008. Fabula I. Cæcus erat quidam, cui pulcra virago In curtis viridi refident hi cefpite quadam Luce. Petit mulier robur adire Pyri. Vir favet, amplectens mox robur ubique lacertis, Amplexatur eam dans bafia dulcia. Terram Incepit colere vomere cum proprio. Audit vir ftrepitum. nam fæpe carentia fenfus Heu mifer! exclamat; te lædit adulter ibidem. Whatever was the real original of this Tale, the machinery of the Faeries, which Chaucer has used fo happily, was probably added by himfelf; and indeed I cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Proferpina were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania (23,) or rather that they themselves have, once at least, deigned to revifit our poetical fyftem under the lat ter names. Conqueror hoc illi qui dedit effe mihi. Tunc Deus omnipotens, qui condidit omnia verbo, Percipit illa virum. Vultu refpondet alacri : Tunc fopor irrepit mea languida corpora : quædam Ludere cum juvene ftudeas in roboris alta; The fame ftory is inferted among the Fables of Alphonfe, printed by Caxton in English, with those of Æsop, Avian, and Pogge, without date; but I do not find it in the original Latin of Alphonfus, mf. Reg. 10. B. xii, or in any of the French tranflations of his work that I have examined. (23) This obfervation is not meant to extend further than the King and Queen of Faery, in whofe characters I think it is plain that Shakespeare, in imitation of Chaucer, has dignified our Gothick elves with the manners and language of the claffical gods and goddeffes. In the reft of his Faery fyftem 'Shakespeare feems to have followed the popular fuperftition of his own time. $23. The Prologue to The Squier's Tale appears noW for the first time in print. Why it has been omitted by all former editors I cannot guefs, except, perhaps, because it did not fuit with the place which (for reafons best known to themselves) they were determined to affign to The Squier's Tale, that is, after The Man of Lawe's and before 'The Marchant's. I have chofen rather to follow the mff. of the best authority in pla cing The Squier's Tale after The Marchant's, and in connecting them together by this Prologue, agreeably as I am perfuaded to Chancer's intention. The lines which have ufually been printed by way of Prologue to The Squier's Tale, as I believe them to have been really compofed by Chaucer, though not intended for The Squier's Prologue, I have prefixed to The Shipman's Tale, for reafons which I fhall give when I come to fpeak of that Tale. $24. I fhould have been very happy if the mff. which have furnished The Squier's Prologue had fupplied the deficient part of his Tale, but I fear the judgment of Milton was to true, that this ftory was left balf-told by the Author. I have never been able to difcover the probable original of this Tale, and yet I fhould be very hardly brought to believe that the whole, or even any confiderable part of it, was of Chaucer's invention. $25. We are now arrived with the common editions (though by a different courfe) at The Frankeleine's Tale; and here again we must be obliged to the mff. not indeed, as in the last inftance, for a new Prologue, but for authorizing us to prefix to this Tale of The Frankelein a Prologue which in the common editions is prefixed to The Tale of the Marchant, together with the true Prologue of that Tale, as printed above. It is fcarce conceivable how thefe two Pro fogues could ever be joined together and given to the fame character, as they are not only entirely unconnected, but also in one point directly contradictory to eachother; for in that which is properly the Marchant's he fays exprefsly, Ever.9110,] that he had been married trvo monthes and not more, whereas in the other the fpeaker's chief difcourfe is about bis fun, who is grovn up. This therefore, upon the authority of the belt mil. I have restored to the Frankelein; and I muft obferve that the fentiments of it are much more fuitable to his characterthantothat of the Marchant. It is quite natural that a wealthy landholder, of a generous difpoftion, as he is defcribed [ver. 332-62,] who has been Sheriff, Knight of the Shire, &c. fhould be anxious to fee his fon (as we fay) a gentleman, and that he fhould talk flightingly of money in compariton with polifhed manners and virtuous endowments; but neither the character which Chaucer has drawn of his Marchant, nor our general notions of the profeffion at that time, prepare us to expect from him fo liberal a ftrain of thinking. $26. The Frankelein's Tale, as he tells us himself, is taken from a British lay (24;) and the names of (24) Les premieres chanfons Francoifes furent nommées des lais," fays M. de la Ravaliere, Poef. du Roi de Nat. t. i. p. 215; and fo far I believe he is right. But I fee no foundation for fuppofing with him (in the fame page) that the lay was une forte d'elegie, and that it was derived du mot Latin Leffus, qui fignifie des plaintes; or [in p. 217,] that it was la chanfon------la plus majestueufe et la plus grave. It seems more probable that lai in French was anciently a generical term anfwering to fong in Englith. The paffage which M. de la Ravaliere has quoted from Le Brut, Molt fot de lais, molt fot de notes Volume I. S perfons and places, as well as the fcene and circumitances of the ftory, make this account extremely pro is thus rendered by our Layamon. [See before, Fay, c. n. 46,] Ne cuthe na mon fwa muchel of fong. The fame word is ufed by Peirol d'Alvergna, mf. Crofs, fol.85, to denote the fongs of birds (certainly not of the plaintive kind) Et li aufell s'en van enamoran L'uns per l'autre, et fan vantas (or cantas) et lais. For my own part I am inclined to believe that liod, Ifland. lied, Teuton. lecth, Saxon, and lai, French, are all to be deduced from the fame Gothick original.-But befide this general fenfe, the name of lay was particularly given to the French. tranflations of certain poems originally compofed in Armorican Bretagne, and in the Armorican language: I fay the French tranfations, because lay not being (as I can find) an Armorican word, could hardly have been the name by which a fpecies of poetry not imported from France was diftinguished by the first compofers in Bretagne.The chief (perhaps the only) collection of thefe lais that is now extant was tranflated into French octofyllable verfe by a poetefs who calls herself Marie, the same (without doubt who made the tranflation of Efope, quoted by Pafquier [Recb. 1. viii. ch. 1,] and Fauchet, [L. ii. n. 84,3 and placed by them in the reign of St. Louis, about the middle of the 13th century. Both her works have been preserved together in mf. Harl. 978, in a fair land, which I fee no reafon to judge more recent than the latter end of that century. The Lais (with which only we are at prefent concerned) were addrelled by her to fomne king, ful. 139; En lé honur de vous, noble reis, Ki tant cites pruz e curteis, Een ki quoer tus biens vacine, A few lines after the names herself, Ocz, Signs, ke dit Marie. |