In this play, which all the editors have concurred to cenfure, and fome have rejected as unworthy of our Poet, it must be confeffed that there are many paffages mean, childish, and vul. gar; and fome which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are fcattered, through the whole, many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the band of Shakespearė.

ACT I. SCENE I. Page 119.

This child of fancy, that Armado hight, &c.] This, as I have fhewn, in the note in its place, relates to the ftories in the books of Chivalry. A few words therefore concerning their Origin and Nature may not be unacceptable to the reader. As I don't know of any writer who has given any tolerable account of this matter: and especially as Monfieur Huet, the Bishop of Avranches, who wrote a formal treatife of the Origin of Romances, has faid little or nothing of thefe in that fuperficial work. For having brought down the account of romances to the later

[Exeunt omnes *.

Greeks, and entered upon those compofed by the barbarous weftern writers, which have now the name of Romances almost appropriated to them, he puts the change upon his reader, and, instead of giving us an account of thefe books of Chivalry, one of the most curious and interefting parts of the fubject he promifed to treat of, he contents himself with a long account of the Poems of the Provincial Writ ers, called likewise Romances: and fo, under the equivoque of a common term, drops his proper fubject, and entertains us with another that had no relation to it more than in the name.

The Spaniards were of all others the fondeft of these fables, as fuiting beft their extravagant turn to gallantry and bravery; which in time grew fo exceflive, as to need all the efficacy of Cervantes's incomparable fatire to bring them back to their fenfes. The French fuffered an easier cure from their Doctor Rabelais, who enough difcredited the books of Chival ry, by only ufing the extravagant ftories of its Giants, & as a cover for another kind of fatire against the refined Politicks

of

of his countrymen; of which they were as much poffeffed as the Spaniards of their Romantic Bravery. A bravery our Shakefpeare makes their characteristic, in this defcription of a Spanish Gentleman:

A man of compliments, whom right and wrong Have chofe as Umpire of their mutiny:

This Child of fancy, that Armado bight,

twelve Peers; to whom, instead of his father, they affigned the task of driving the Saracens out of France and the South parts of Spain: the other, our Geoffry of Monmouth.

Two of thofe Peers, whom the old Romances have rendered most famous, were Oliver and Rowland. Hence Shakespeare makes Alanfon, in the first part of Henry VI. fay, " Froysard, a countryman of ours, re"cords, England all Olivers

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The feofe of which is to this effect: This Gentleman, fays the fpeaker, shall relate to us the celebrated Stories recorded in the old Romances, and in their very ftile. Why he fays, from tawny Spain, is because, thefe Romances being of Spanish Original, the Heroes and the Scene were generally of that country. He says, loft in the world's debate, because the fubject of thofe Romances were the Crusades of the Euro. pean Chriftians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa.

Indeed, the wars of the Chrif tians against the Pagans were the general fubject of the Romances of Chivalry. They all feem to have had their ground-work in two fabulous Monkish historians: The one, who, under the name of Turpin Archbishop of Rheims, wrote the Hiftory and Atchievements of Charlemagne and his

1 B. i. c. 6.

VOL. II.

"the time Edward the Third

did reign." In the Spanish Romance of Bernardo del Carpio, and in that of Roncesvalles, the feats of Roland are recorded under the name of Roldan el en. cantador; and in that of Palme rin de Oliva, or fimply Oliva, thofe of Oliver: for Oliva is the fame in Spanish as Olivier is in French. The account of their exploits is in the highest degree monftrous and extravagant, as appears from the judgment paffed upon them by the Priest in Don Quixote, when he delivers the Knight's library to the fecu lar arm of the house-keeper, "Eccetuando à un Bernardo "del Carpio que anda por ay,

66

y à otro Ilamado Roncefval"les; que eftos en llegando a "mis manos, an de eftar en las "de la ama, y dellas en las des "fuego fin remiffion alguna "." And of Oliver he fays; " effa "Oliva fe haga luego rajas, y "fe queme, que aun no queden "della las cenizas 2." The reafonableness of this fentence may be partly feen from one story in

z Ibid,

the

the Bernardo del Carpio, which tells us, that the cleft called Rol. dan, to be seen on the fummit of an high mountain in the kingdom of Valencia, near the town of Alicant, was made with a fingle back-ftroke of that hero's broad fword. Hence came the proverbial expreffion of our plain and fenfible Ancestors, who were much cooler readers of thefe extravagances than the Spaniards, of giving one a Rowland for his Oliver, that is, of matching one impoffible lye with another: as, in French, faire le Roland means, to fwagger. This driving the Saracens out of France and Spain, was, as we fay, the fubject of the elder Romances. And the first that was printed in Spain was the famous Amadis de Gaula, of which the Inquifitor Priest fays: "fegun he oydo dezir, efte "libro fue el primero de Caval"lerias que fe imprimiò en Ef pana, y todos los demás en "tomado principio y origen "defte 3 ;" and for which he humourously condemns it to the fire, como à Dogmatizador de una Jecta tan mala. When this fubject was well exhaufted, the affairs of Europe afforded them another of the fame nature. For after that the western parts had pretty well cleared themfelves of thefe inhofpitable Guests: by the excitements of the Popes, they carried their arms against them into Greece and Afia, to fupport the Byzantine empire, and recover the holy Sepulchre. This gave birth to a new tribe of Romances, which we may call of the fecond race or clafs. And

as Amadis de Gaula was at the head of the first, so, correfpondently to the fubject, Amadis de Grecian was at the head of the latter. Hence it is, we find, that Trebizonde is as celebrated in thefe Romances as Roncefvalles is in the other. It may be worth obferving, that the two famous Italian epic poets, Arifto and Taffo, have borrowed, from each of thefe claffes of old Romances, the fcenes and fubjects of their feveral ftories: Ariefta choofing the firt, the Saracens in France and Spain; and Taffe, the latter, the Crufade againft them in Afia: Ariofto's hero being Orlando or the French Roland: for as the Spaniards, by one way of tranfpofing the letters, had made it Roldan, fo the Italians, by another, make it Orland.

The main fubject of thefe fooleriés, as we have faid, had its original in Turpin's famous history of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. Nor were the monftrous embellishments of enchantments, &c. the invention of the Romancers, but formed upon eastern tales, brought thence by travellers from their crufades and pilgrimages; which indeed have a caft peculiar to the wild imaginations of the caftern people. We have a proof of this in the travels of Sir J. Maundevik, whofe exceffive fuperftition and credulity, together with an im pudent monkish addition to his genuine work, have made his veracity thought much worse of than it deferved. This voyager, speaking of the ifle of Cos, in the Archipelago, tells the follow