illues, that they are at a fuitable diftance from the Scean gate, (500 yards) that the women of the village ftill wash at the warm fpring, that they are perennial, that the ftream they form is still fo narrow that a fallen tree may reach from bank to bank; all these are properties defcribed in Homer, and all exift at prefent; but this is not fufficient for the curious vifitor; he will ftill feek for the fingle characteristic which is wanting; and he will ftill put leading queftions to the ignorant inhabitants, in order to obtain their teltimony to the fact*. Profeffor Heynè is not fo ardent in the enquiry, he is content with the concurrence of the other resemblances enumerated, and thinks much ought to be conceded to the lapfe of time, and to the amplification of the poet. We are for leaving the fact to further enquiry, at different seasons of the year; at prefent the contrary temperature of the fprings is certainly not afcertained. Mr. Gell, who was as defirous of confirming it as others that have preceded him, speaks modeftly on the subject, and with hesitation. He found a difference by the thermometer; but imputes it to the warm fpring being confined, and the cold fpring fpreading out on a larger furface; within the ground the cold one had the fame temperature (p. 76) and fo far as his teftimony goes, the question is decided; unlefs the change of feafons fhould hereafter be found fufficient in its effects to countenance the defcription of the poet. We have before us another evidence, which we can add to that of Mr. Gell; and which, united with his, may juftly be efteemed conclufive. The question was propofed to Mr. Hawkins, what fort of reliance there might be on the affertion of the inhabitants? His anfwer was this: "The Turks at Bounarbafhi fpeak of all the fprings as warm in winter, and cold in fummer; which if they preferve the fame temperature throughout the year, is a very natural obfervation for peasants to make, in a country where the winters are fo cold, and the fummers fo hot; they even fay, that the nearest to Bounarbashi Imokes in cold winter mornings; but fuch hyperbolical expreffions are very ufual with them. "For my own part, I found no fenfible difference to the touch; but to put an end to all doubt on this head, I measured at my laft vifit every one of the fprings with a thermometer, and found their temperature to vary only from 62° to 63°, but for the moft part to be that of 63°; the temperature of the ambient air being 59°. It is remarkable that Mr. Wood, in following up the Simois, which he conceived to be the Scamander, fearched for a hot and cold fpring, and found them. ་་་་་ "There "There are two groups of these springs, amounting to about forty, and one folitary fpring at the distance of about fifty yards, to the eastward, which is generally confidered as the warm fpring; the temperature of which Mr. Choifeul found to be 22° of Reaumur, or 74° of Fahrenheit, while the others measured 8 of Reaumur, or 49 of Fahrenheit; the temperature of the atmosphere being then 9° and 10°. But that my obfervations are correct, and fome unaccountable error has been committed by Mr. Choifeul, is proved by the medium temperature of the climate in this latitude; which according to the formula of Mayer, of Gottingen, is 62 of Fahrenheit, and it is now pretty well afcertained by natural philofophers, that the heat of spring water at the moment it iffues from the earth, is a correct index of the medium temperature. "That travellers fhould have been deceived is not extraordinary, when it is confidered, how many circumstances in this fpot confpire to heat their imaginations; anxious, moreover, to find every thing conformable to Homer's defcription, they put leading questions to the poor ruftic inhabitants at Bounarbashi, at leaft the questions are fo put by the Turkish interpreter, who reports the answer which he knows will be please. "Mr. de Choifeul Gouffier was at Bounarbafhi on the 10th of February, my two vifits were made in April and September." We now leave this question at reft, concluding that these two accounts fo nearly correfpondent are definitive; without precluding, however, further enquiry, whenever the Troad may be vifited again; and if fuch a traveller as Profeffor Carlisle had published his opinion on this fubject, or any other connected with the controverfy, we should have been happy to attend him on his progrefs, to have shown a deference to his judgment, or propofed our objections to his fyftem, with all the refpect due to his merit and his learning. Of Mr. Bryant, however he was offended at our animadverfions, we never fpoke difrefpectfully; and though he never condefcended to retract the charge of affaffination, which he brought against us in his Expoftulation, we are anxious to declare, that all animofity was buried in his grave; and that we should fcorn to add a word that could give offence to any of his furviving friends. His many virtues, his learning, and the vigour of his mind, fupported to the laft, we reverence as much as the warmest of his admirers; but his opinions, if he chofe to publifh them, were open for every one to admit or reject. We have little hefitation, however, in fubfcribing to the eulogium given by Mr. Gell (p. 57) that the learned Bryant was an authority to which almost every opinion might yield, except what is founded on obfervation. A greater proportion of our pages has been affigned to this controverfy, than the generality of our readers perhaps may think requifite; but the fubject is interefting to every man of claffical and liberal education; and however individuals on the continent may contend for the palm in the field of Greek literature, a general acquaintance with it, is more widely diffused in our country than in any other. To thofe who have a pleasure in this reflection, to all those who have explored this fource of pleasure and inftruction, we recommend the work of Mr. Gell, as one of the most honourable monuments which has been erected to the moft ancient, the first and beft of poets; as one of the most acceptable and illuftrative works that have appeared. fince a defire of visiting the Troad has revived. The efforts of his pencil we confign to the judgment of artifts; the accuracy of his delineations we leave to be compared, and determined by future travellers; but fo far as we, who fit at home, can judge, his merit in both is pre-eminent; and we have no fcruple to class him among those in the firft rank, who have done credit to their country, as men of talent, elegance, and difcern ment. ART. II. Sir Triftrem, a Metrical Romance of the Thir- T is now univerfally admitted that history and romance have a much more intimate connection than was fufpected by the antiquaries of the laft century; and that a reader who has obtained from the former a competent knowledge of the fovereigns who fucceffively inherited or feized the throne of this country, of the battles which they won or loft, and of the laws which they promulgated, may very reasonably proceed to the perufal of compofitions confeffedly fabulous, if from fuch compofitions he may hope to learn the manners, the private life, and modes of thinking of the nation at large; topics which are below the notice of the political hif torian, but which, in this inquifitive age, have begun to engage a portion of public curiofity. We therefore confider as entitled to our gratitude every editor who prefents to us, in a legible ftate, a fragment of our early literature, becaufe every fuch fragment may be regarded as an ancient medal, tending to illuftrate A illuftrate fome facts connected with our domestic annals. But though all these reliques, which still remain in MS. or in black letter in our public libraries, are of value, either in this point of view, or as fpecimens of our early language, it is obvious that fome must poffefs peculiar claims to our attention, from fuperior merit in the conduct of the story, from a more animated and poetical ftyle, or from a higher degree of antiquity; and it is only by a judicious felection of fuch pieces that an editor can hope to allure a curfory reader to encounter a series of rhymes, in a difficult and obfolete language. The ftory of Sir Triftrem, whether folely fabulous, or founded on fome real anecdote, was received with rapture in every part of Europe, and is alluded to by almoft all the early poets of France, of Italy, and of England. That it is capable of being rendered no lefs interefting to modern readers has been proved by M. de Treffan, whofe "Corps d'extraits des romans de chevalerie", are well known to all perfons of taste, and who has formed from the materials of the old profe romance one of the moft feducing tales in that very amusing collection; and the work now before us will teftify that the ftory in its original and fimple ftate, poffeffes beauties which amply atone for its rudenefs of language, and of which M. de Treffan would have been glad to avail himself. Mr. Scott has, very wifely, prefixed to each of the four cantos into which the poem is now divided, a fhort argument of its contents, from which thofe readers who may be too indolent to ftruggle with the difficult phrafeology of the original, will obtain a connected and circumflantial narrative of the incidents which have immortalized the hero of Cornwall. But it is not only by the merit of the fable that Sir Tristrem is recommended to our notice; the author of the romance is an object of not lefs curiofity than its hero; because there is reafon to doubt whether Thomas of Erceldoune is not to be confidered as the earliest known writer in the English language. Hitherto, though much light has been lately thrown on the fubject of our literary antiquities, it has been impoffible to trace, with any degree of precifion, the progrefs of our poetry and language from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the fourteenth century, that is to fay, during about one hundred years which preceded the earliest English compofitions of Gower and Chaucer. It was indeed highly probable that much English poetry had been written in the course of that period, and that many of the romances to which our earliest writers fo frequently allude, had become familiar to their readers by being tranflated from the French language into Dr. Hickes had noticed many poems to which, on our own. account account of what he thought a very flight deviation from the Saxon, he was induced to afcribe a very high degree of antiquity; and Mr. Warton believed that many of those anonymous romances, ftill extant in our libraries, were tolerably faithful copies of poems ftill more ancient; but we were not in poffeffion of any documents by which we could ascertain whether this belief was well founded. The obfcurity in which this fubject was involved has been in a great measure diffipated by Mr. Scott, by means of the Auchinleck MS. contained in the Advocate's library in Edinburgh. "This valuable record of ancient poetry", fays he, "forms a thick quarto volume, containing 333 leaves, and 42 different pieces of poetry; fome mere fragments, and others works of great length. The beginning of each poem has originally been adorned with an illumination, for the fake of which the firft leaf has, in many cafes, been torn out, and in others cut and mutilated. The MS. is written on parchment, in a diftinct and beautiful hand, which the most able antiquaries are inclined to refer to the earlier part of the 13th [14th] century." This, we know, was the opinion of the late Mr. Ritson, than whom no man was able to eftimate more accurately the age of a MS. and the concurrence of internal evidence feems to prove that it was written about the year 1330, It contains copies more or less perfect of, "the King of Tars"; "Amis and Amelion"; "Sir Degaré"; "the Seven Wife Mafters"; "Florice and Blancheflour"; " Guy of Warwick, with a continuation in a different ftanza"; "Rembrun, Guy's fon of Warwicke"; "Sir Beves of Hamtoun"; "Arthour and Merlin"; "Lai le Fraine"; "Roland and Ferragus"; "Otuel"; two leaves of the Romance of Alexander"; "Sir Triftrem": "King Orfeo"; "Horn Child"; and a fragment of "Richard Coeur de Lion." All these, therefore, together with twenty-four pieces of hiftorical, fatirical, religious, or moral poems, were inconteftibly compofed between the time of Robert of Gloucester and that of Chaucer, unlefs fome of them, and particularly the tale of Sir Tristrem, fhould be referred to a ftill earlier period. Thomas of Erceldoune, it appears from Mr. Scott's researches, was a person of fome rank, and must have died in or before the year 1299, because there ftill exifts a deed dated in that year, by which his fon conveyed the lands of Erceldoune to the convent of Soltra. His birth cannot, confiftently with... the historical documents given by the editor, be placed lower than 1219; and Mr. Scott fuppofes, from various concurrent circumstances, that his poem on Sir Triftrem was compofed. about 1250, a date which appears extremely probable, and |