The

TINDAL, Rev. NICHOLAS. History of Essex; Number I. Containing the History of Felsted and Pantfield, with a large and exact Map of the Hundred of Hinckford. London, n. d. 4to.

"This work, by the Translator of Rapin, was left unfinished at the 104th Page." Morant inGough's Brit. Topog. I. 345. serted Tindal's Map in his Essex with a new Dedication to P. Muilman. This copy has both Maps.

TINDAL, WILLIAM. The history and antiquities of the Abbey and Borough of Evesham : compiled chiefly from MSS. in the British Museum. Evesham, 1794. Plates. 4to. L. P. R.

TIRABOSCHI, GIROLAMO. Storia della Letteratura Italiana, con la Continuatione di Lombardi. Venezia, 1795. Modena, 1827-30. 8vo. 13 vol. in 20.

TIRANT LO BLANCH. A honor lahor e gloria de nostre senyor Jesu christ e de la gloriosa sacratissima Maria mare sua senyora nostra. Comenca la letra del present libre appellat Tirant lo Blanch; Dirigida per Mossen joanot Martorell cavaller al serenissimo Princep Don Ferrando de Portogal.

Azi feneix lo libre del valeros e strenu Cavaller Tirant lo Blanch Princep e Cesar del Imperi grech de Contestinoble. Lo qual fon traduit de Angles en lengua Portoguesa e apres en vulgar lengua valenciana per lo magnifich: e virtuos cavaller, mossen johanot martorell. Lo qual per mort sua non pogue acabar de traduir sino les tres parts. La quarta part que es la fin del libre es stada traduida apregaries de la noble Senyora Dña Ysabel de Loriz: per lo magnifich cavaller mossen Marti johan de Galba: e si defalt hi sera trobat vol sia atribuit a la sua ignorancia. Al qual nostre senyor Jesu Crist per la sua inmensa bondat vulla donar en premi de sos treballs la gloria de paradis. E protesta que si en lo dit libre haura posades algunes coses que no sien catholiques que no les vol hauer dites, ans les remet a correccio de la sancta catholica Iglesia.

Fon acabada de empremptar la present obra en la Ciutat de Valencia a. xx. del mes de Nohembre del ay de la nativitat de nostre Senyor deu Jesu Crist mil CCCCLXXXX.

Collation. On the reverse of a 1. (the recto being blank) the Table commences thus, a honor; laor; e gloria de la inmensa; e diuina bondat de nostre Senyor deu ihesu crist; e de la sacratissima mare sua, comencen les rubriques del libre de aquell admirable Caualler tirant lo blanch.

This table contains eight leaves, and

concludes on the reverse of the eighth with the Register. The first leaf of a. is blank. On the reverse of Z. 5, is the above address and date followed by a blank leaf.

The whole volume, comprising the Table and two blank leaves, contains 338 leaves.

"This is the identical copy of Tirant lo Blanch described by Mendez, in his Typographia Española. It was brought from

el Nuevo Bastan, in October 1824, and no other copy is known to exist in Spain. This Romance is one of the few spared from the flames by the Curate in his scrutiny of Don Quixote's Library." O. Rich.

But one other copy of this First Edition of Tirant Lo Blanch in the Limosin dia

lect, is now known, which is in the Vati

can.

The beauty and matchless condition of the present, cannot be surpassed. It was purchased by Mr. Heber for Three Hundred Guineas.

The following interesting account of this Romance and its author is taken from

Ritson's General Catalogue of Romances, MS. formerly in the Heber Collection, and

now in the British Museum. It follows a transcript from the Barcelona Edition of 1497. The Don Ferdinand to whom the

Romance is Dedicated is said in a note by Ritson to be Ferdinand Prince of Portugal, Duke of Viseo, second son of Edward I. who died in 1471 aged 30, and whose son Emanuel, on a failure of the issue of Alphonsus V. his elder brother, afterwards succeeded to the crown.

As this book is very little known, even than ordinarily particular in the descripin Spain, it was thought proper to be more tion of it and the Dedication appearing worthy of peculiar attention, not only as exhibiting a very elegant specimen of the Valencian or Catalan dialect, but as containing some assertions with respect to

the origin and history of the work which excite curiosity, is therefore given at length. Although Martorell, in this dedication, professes to have translated the history and acts of his hero out of English, in which he found them written, we are only to regard this as one of those venial deceits which are frequently practised by such sitions an air of mystery, antiquity or like writers, in order to give their compotruth. There can be no doubt that he was

the real Author of this Romance; but whether he originally wrote it in Portuguese, into which, he says, he first translated it, or in his native dialect, the Valencian, cannot at present be ascertained: certain it is, however, that no copy of it in the Portuguese language is known to exist. (But if the account given at the conclusion of the printed book be true, viz., that Martorell died after he had finished

no more than the three first books and that the fourth was translated at the instance of a lady, by another hand; if this be true, it must be admitted, either that there was a Portuguese version, or that Martorell was not the author of the fourth book.) It is not improbable, indeed that Martorell during his stay in England, whither he is supposed to have come in the suite of Peter Duke of Coimbra, son to John I. K. of Portugal, in 1425, might have got acquainted with some books, stories, anecdotes, or popular traditions, which he has made use of in his work. In one part of it the hero fights with a mastiff; and the curious reader will find the undoubted original of this strange combat in Montfaucon, Monumens de la Monarchie Francoise, vol. 3. p. 70. as an event that actually happened in the year 1371. What renders this conjecture the more plausible is, that in the commencement of the book he has introduced the story of the celebrated Guy of Warwick, whom he calls "Comte Gillem de Veroych," which was certainly then extant both in English and French. The magnificent feasts, jousts and tournaments with which they celebrate the marriage of the King of England with the King of France's daughter,. (by which he may possibly allude to that of Richard II. with the Princess Isabella of France) together with the origin of the Order of the Garter, and some other particulars may have been likewise communicated to him at that time; unless indeed it may be thought more probable that he was indebted for a good deal of this kind of information to Froissart, a favourite author of that age. See particularly in vol. ii. chap. 173. an account of the feasts and jousts made by the K. of England in 1390. In the following chapter also mention is made of a report which prevailed in the christian camp in Barbary that the Genoese, whose treachery forms a striking incident in this romance, were about to bargain with the Saracens and betray the Christian men. The French translator (Comte de Caylus, who however knew nothing of the original edition) is of opinion that the model of all the feasts which the author describes in this Romance is to be found in the Catalan chronicle of Miguel Carbonnell in a very detailed relation of those given at Saragossa in 1399 on account of the coronation of Martin I. of Arragon and his Queen Mary de Luna; and it certainly may be so. But the fact is that the Duke of Coimbra (in whose train Martorell is supposed to have been) was magnificently entertained at the court of our Henry VI. (then a child) by the King's uncles, and actually installed a Knight of the Garter; so that the author

might have been an eye witness of the ceremony. One reason of the fiction adopted by Martorell might be, that as his patron Ferdinand was great grandson to John of Gaunt (who under the title of Duke of Lancaster and uncle to the King (which renders Froissart's assistance still more probable) is actually introduced as a distinguished character in the work), he was likely to be more gratified with the idea of its being an English story than with the naked truth. Be all this however as it may, the work itself is perhaps superior to every other composition of the same nature. Every writer who has read it, and particularly in the original, is lavish in its praise. Antonio Bastero in his "Crusca Provenzale" (Roma, 1724, folio) refers to a copy preserved in the library Della Sapienza at Rome, and calls the author one of the clearest lights of the Provenzal tongue, of which the Catalan is considered as a branch. He takes particular notice of the variation of his style and manner, not only in Tirant's reply to his rivals and his letters to his beautiful and constant lady the Princess Carmesina, but in his own Dedication to the King (Prince) of Portugal, whom he addresses in a language very different from that which he uses to the reader in his Preface, This particularity is likewise insisted on by Vicente Ximeno, in his Escritores del Reyno de Valencia (Val. 1747. fol.) p. 13, where he says that it is written as such works should be, because the author has accommodated, with adroitness and propriety, the language and style to the person speaking: and indeed the artful discrimination of character must strike every one who peruses the work even in the translation of a translation."

"Tirant the white, the hero of this Romance, is a gentleman of Bretagne, who coming, with certain of his relations, to the celebration of the nuptials of the King of England, loses his company in a reverie, out of which he is awakened at a hermitage inhabited by the famous Guy of Warwick, who is reading a book upon the order of chivalry, intitled, L'Arbre des Batailles, out of which, after some agreeable conversation, in the course of which Tirant declares his family and descent, and the reason of his being so called (viz. from the March of Tirania, of which his father was lord, and Blanch the name of his mother), he reads him a chapter, and on his departure delivers him the book. Tirant arrives at the English Court, where he conducts himself in the most gallant manner, receives the order of Knighthood, and has the honour of being the first Knight of the Garter. He afterwards relieves the isle of Rhodes,

which is besieged by the Infidels, in confederacy with the treacherous Genoese. He is sent for by the Emperor of Greece, who is in great danger of losing his Empire to the Turks, of whom Tirant in the end entirely frees the country. In consideration of his important services, he is betrothed by the Emperor to the Princess Carmesina his daughter, of whom he has been long violently enamoured, and is proclaimed Cæsar and heir to the Empire. Having made an advantageous peace, and restored the Emperor to the quiet possession of all his ancient dominions, as he is returning to Constantinople to enjoy the reward of his toils and heroism, he is seized with a sudden sickness of which he dies. The news of this unhappy event proves fatal to the Emperor; nor does the Princess long survive her husband and her father. The foregoing is the slightest and most imperfect sketch of this inimitable history; every page is interesting and material; and the author is equally happy in the most majestic and the most familiar parts of his narration; in the senate house and the bedchamber; in the eloquent military ha

rangues of Tirant, and the artful pleasantries of the Princess's waiting-maid. In short, it is doubtless the most ingenious, entertaining and excellent work of the species that has ever been composed."

"Nicholas Antonio, and Vicente Ximeno, after him, mention a report that this romance was printed at Valencia in 1480; but this is probably a mistake; at least no one has ever pretended to say he had seen such an edition, or in fact any other of the original. The only copy of this most curious and inestimable book (of the edition of Barcelona, 1497) known to exist was in the Library of the Rev. Mr. Crofts, at whose sale it was purchased by the Portuguese Ambassador for 17 guineas; the Editor of this Catalogue, who is still happy in the reflection of having frequently had it in his hands, and made so considerable a transcript from it, being the losing bidder."

"Mr. Warton, in his "History of English Poetry," (V. iii. p. 476), in order to establish an hypothesis that "A British Knight means a Knight of Bretagne or Britany, in France, (" a common mistake, he pretends, arising from an equivocation which has converted many a French Knight into an Englishman,") mentions the learned Nicholas Antonio, in his Spanish Library, as affording a remarkable example of this confusion, and a proof of its frequency," where he speaks "of the Spanish translation" of this romance in 1480." This writer says that Martorell

"

more aliorum talium otiosorum consueto,

fingit se hunc librum ex Anglica in Lusitanam, de inde Lusitana in Valentinam linguam, anno 1460; transtulisse," that is, "according to a practice common to such idle historians, he pretends he translated this book from English into Portuguese, and from thence into the Valencian language." "Now," says Mr. Warton, "The hero is a gentleman of Bretagne, and the book was first written in the language of that country." The first part of the proposition, indeed, happens to be true, but the latter is utterly false and groundless. Antonio, as we have already seen, as to the different translations of the work, has faithfully given the Author's own account; and his "Mos talium otiosorum" will be sufficiently explained in the course of the present Catalogue, without recurring to the imaginary confusion of Mr. Warton, of which, in fact, the reader will never meet with a single instance."

They

"Mr. Park and Mr. Seward assert that the Prince of Wales, father to George III., had written memoirs of his own times under the name of Prince Titi.' neither appear conscious of the present work, of which a translation in English appeared in 1736, by a Person of Quality.' MS. note. TITSINGII, M. Illustrations of Japan; consisting of private memoirs and anecdotes of the reigning dynasty of the Djogouns, or Sovereigns of Japan : a description of the Feasts and Ceremonies observed at their Court; and of the Ceremonies customary at Marriages and Funerals. Translated from the French, by F. Shoberl. With coloured plates. London, 1822. 4to.

TODD, HENRY JOHN. The his

TOLAND. Mr. Toland's Clito dissected and Fuller's Plain Proof of the true mother of the pretended Prince of Wales, made out to be no proof. London. 1700. 8vo.

Fuller once more fulleris'd; or, the Coneywooll-Cutters two and twenty new dispositions, preface, and impudent dedication taken to pieces; in relation to Mrs. Mary Grey's being the mother of the Gentleman, whom the French King has called by the name of James the third. In a letter to himself. London, 1702. 8vo.

These two tracts are very uncommon.

TOLAND, JOHN. A critical history of the Celtic Religion and Learning: containing an account of the Druids; or, the Priests and Judges, of the Vaids, or the Diviners and Physicians; and of the Bards, or the Poets and Heralds ; of the Ancient Gauls, Britons, Irish and Scots. By John Toland, M.A.