FOOTNOTES:
[96] p. j. For the benefit of those who may have an opportunity of consulting the original, a mistake in Mr. Warton's reference to the Speculum historiale is corrected, which should be lib. IV. c. viii.
[97] A fine collection of them, in verse, was in the library of the Duke de la Valliere. One volume is in MS., Harl. 4401, two others in the author's possession, as well as a third in prose, beautifully painted in camaieu gris. Some of those in prose have been printed. See a memoir by Racine in the Acad. des inscript. tom. xviii. p. 360. Specimens of them may be seen in the fifth volume of that very entertaining work, the Fabliaux et contes of M. Le Grand.
[98] There is a great deal of confusion respecting this man, some making him an English Jacobin of the fourteenth century. He has been mistaken for other persons of the same name, and his works are by no means well ascertained, being often confounded with those of Nicolas Trivet and others. In his Ovid he has been indebted to a preceding work by Alexander Neckam. Another allegorical work on Ovid's metamorphoses was written about 1370, by Giovanni Buonsignore di Castello, and a tropological explanation of them was published by Pierre Lavigne, about 1500. There is also a manuscript in the Royal library at Paris, entitled Ovidii metamorphosis moralisata, per Johannem Bourgauldum. See Labbe nova bibl. MSS., p. 321.
[99] It was printed at Paris, 1494, in 12mo, by Geringard Rembolt.
[100] MS. Harl. 5396. This manuscript contains another similar collection; and these are the more worthy of being noticed, as we have very few of the kind printed in England.
[101] These were printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and at Paris, without date.
[102] "Hic mihi stultam aliquam et indoctam fabulam, ex Speculo opinor historiali, aut Gestis Romanorum, in medium adferunt, et eandem interpretantur allegoricè, tropologicè, et anagogicè."—Stultitiæ laus. Basil. 1780, 8vo, p. 261.
[103] Amœnit. eccles., i. 807.
[104] Observ. on Italy, ii. 108.
[105] This MS. is in the author's possession, as well as another of the same work with considerable variations. A third is in the library of the Royal Society, No. 292, and there ascribed to Odo de Ceriton. Concerning this person, who was tutor in theology to the celebrated John of Salisbury, see Bale, Script. Brytann. catal. pars i. p. 221, edit. 1559. Tanner, Bibl. Britannico-Hibernic. p. 560. A great deal of confusion, and yet not more than is often found on similar occasions, has been made concerning this work and its author. It has been confounded with a moral treatise on natural history called Bestiarium, from which it is totally different. If the reader be desirous of perplexing himself with further inquiries concerning this subject, he may consult Fabricius, Bibl. med. ætat., i. 93, & v. 466, edit. 1734. Cave, Script. eccles. p. 572. Pitts, p. 245. There is another similar but anonymous work among the Harl. MSS., No. 219, that has some fables not in the others, and wants many in both.
[107] That is, "Though the wolf come to the priest, and be set to his book to learn psalms, yet is one of his eyes ever turned towards the wood." A similar fable is among those composed by Marie de France in the twelfth century. A curate having tamed a wolf, undertook to teach him to read. "Now," says he to the scholar, "repeat after me, A." The wolf articulated A. "Good," says the curate; "now say B." The wolf cried "bee, bee;" but thinking he heard the bleating of the sheep, away he ran to the fold. This apologue is probably from the East. See the story of Bohetzad and his ten vizirs in the continuation of the Arabian nights' entertainments. The other seems to have been borrowed from the celebrated and interesting romance of Reynard the Fox, evidently composed long before the twelfth century.
[108] Printed at Nuremberg, 1485. Paris, 1500. Basil, sine anno, in folio.
[109] Michael Neander, apud Schelhorn. Amœnit. ecclesiast. i. 798.
[110] Diss. on the Gesta Romanorum, p. lxxxvi.
[111] The Repertorium or Reductorium morale is an extraordinary performance for the time in which it was composed. It contains a system of natural history that may be consulted with advantage, even by modern students; but it is obscured by unlimited credulity and the grossest absurdities, which may nevertheless have their use in exhibiting the folly of learning when unaccompanied by judgment. The good monk is even occasionally witty, but without design. In speaking of the noise which frogs make, he compares them to the lawyers, "Tales sunt causidici et advocati quod vero isti sunt clamosi, quia clamando litigant ad invicem."
[112] Canterbury tales, iv. 331.
[113] Vol. ii. p. 14.
[114] Diss. on the Gesta Romanorum, p. xc.
[115] Ubi supr. p. lxxxviii.
[116] Biblioth. Belgic. i. 353.
[117] Biblioth. MSS. tom. i. p. 17. No. 172.
[118] Recherches sur l'origine de l'imprimerie. Bruxelles, an vii. 8vo, p. 246.
[119] Recherches, &c. p. 205.
[120] An obsolete word that signifies a flower-pot.
[121] Cant. tales, IV. 331.
[122] MS. Harl. 5396.
[123] There may perhaps be one exception in the Vatican MS. mentioned before in p. [531].
[124] MS. Harl. 2270, chap. 53.
[125] MS. Harl. 5259, chap. 28; but in most of the MSS. they are omitted.
[126] See Mr. Ellis's Metrical romances, vol. iii. pp. 155, 157.
[127] P. 253, folio edit.
[128] Vol. iii. p. 647. Mr. Gough speaks of it as separately printed. Brit. Topogr. ii. 27. It is also copied in Burton's Unparallelled varieties, p. 159, edit. 1699, 12mo, and The gentleman's magazine, vol. 1. p. 310. It has been twice versified: 1. anonymously, under the title of A hue and cry after the priest, or the convent, a tale, 1749, 8vo; and 2. by Mr. Jodrell under that of The knight and friars, 1785, 4to.
[129] The curious reader may also consult the following authorities, where he will find the above story in some shape or other. Fauchet, Anciens poetes Francois, chap. lxxxix. Barbasan, Fabliaux et contes, ii. 125. The first novel of Masuccio. Straparole, Piacevole notte, N. v. fab. 3. Patrañas di Timoneda, patr. 3. Comptes du monde adventureux, 1595, 18mo, compte xxiii. Guellette Contes Tartares, in the story of Les 3 bossus de Damas. Histoire des larrons, tom. i. pp. 2, 239. Biblioth. amus. et instructive, tom. ii. p. 14. Bibl. de Du Verdier et La croix du Maine, par Juvigny, tom. iv. p. 376. Pasquil's Jests, or Mother Bunch's merriments, p. 51; and Marlow's Jew of Malta, in Reed's Old plays, vol. viii. p. 366.
[130] This fable is only to be found in Mons. de Cardonne's translation, book V.; Galland's and the English edition having no more than the first 4 books. It occurs also in that exceedingly rare and curious work, the Directorium vitæ humanæ, printed in Germany, without date, place, or name of printer, at the end of the fifteenth century; and in its imitation, the Moral. philosophia of Doni, part ii. p. 68, in the English translation of which, printed by Denham, 1570, 4to, it has been omitted. It is also in Starkij Specimen sapientiæ Indorum, 1697, 12mo, p. 339. The two last works are in fact the fables of Pilpay under different forms, or rather the Heetopades of Veeshnu Sarma, the Hindoo fabulist, who appears to be the parent of all.
The same story occurs likewise in the following works. Le Grand, Fabliaux et contes, tom. iii. p. 168. Sansovino, Cento novelle, giorn. 9, nov. 1. Les facetieuses journées, p. 287. Lestrange's Æsop, vol. i. fab. 464, 8vo edition. Asiatic miscellany, 12mo, 1787, p. 73, from the Ayar Danish of Abulfazel, which seems to have been extracted from, or at least much resembles, the oriental work that forms the seventh chapter in the Directorium humanæ vitæ.
[131] Jones's Relics of the Welsh bards, p. 75, where there is an old Welsh song, or Englyn on the subject.
[132] See Le Grand, Fabliaux et contes, ii. 426, who quotes the Tartarian tales for a similar story.
[133] See the exempla at the end of the Sermones discipuli, ex. ix. de. B. The Sermones fratris Gulielmi Cartusiensis, 1494, 12mo, sig. V. 7 b. An ancient collection of Latin sermons in the Harl. coll. No. 5396. See likewise A christen exhortation unto customable swearers, at the end of The christen state of matrimonye, 1543, 12mo, p. 28, the author of which cites the Preceptorium Johannis Beets, a German preacher about 1450; and Burton's Unparellelled varieties, p. 21.
[134] From Memorandums in India by John Marshall, beginning Sep. 11th, 1678, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 4523. The above person appears to have been a very curious and intelligent traveller, and many of his observations on the manners of the Indians would be exceedingly well worth publishing. Marshall was educated at Cambridge, had a great desire to travel, and by the interest of Lord Craven, went out 1667, in the India ship the Unicorn, in the Company's service.
[135] The whole of Occleve's poem may be seen in MS. Reg. 17 D. vi. with the moralisation, omitted by Browne, who has otherwise mutilated the poem.
[136] One reason for suspecting it might have originated in the East is that it forms the subject of one of the old French fabliaux, many of which came in with the Crusades. See Sinner, Catal. des MSS. de Berne, iii. 389. It has been likewise imitated by La Harpe in his Pied de nez. Some traces of resemblance may be found in the stories of Ahmed, and the enchanted horse in the Arabian nights entertainments.
[137] This incident has been introduced into the popular old ballad of The children in the wood.
[138] This was a common practice in the times of chivalry, and many examples of it may be found in ancient romances. The ladies not only assisted in bathing the knights, after the fatigues of battle, but administered proper medicines to heal their wounds. Similar instances occur in the writings of Homer. In the Odyssey, Polycaste, one of the daughters of Nestor, bathes Telemachus; and it appears that Helen herself had performed the like office for Ulysses.
[139] The incident of the weasel in this story is manifestly borrowed from a similar relation in the chronicle of Helinandus, a monk of the twelfth century, from which it is inserted in Wierus De præstigiis dæmonum, lib. i. cap. 14, as in allusion of the devil.
[140] Coll. of old ballads, vol. i. No. xiii.
[141] See Scott's Tales from the Arabic and Persian, p. 53, where there is an excellent story of similar construction.
[142] Le Grand, Fabliaux, v. 74.
[143] Cento novelle antiche. nov. 68. Patrañas de Timoneda, pat. 17. Dialogus creaturarum moralizatus, cap. 120. Minsheu's address to the reader, before his Spanish grammar, 1623, folio.
[144] MS. Reg. 17 D. vi.
[145] Patr. 21.
[146] See Vincent de Beauvais, Specul. historiale, lib. viii. cap. 90, 91. Herolt, Sermones discipuli, par. iii. exempl. i. de mirac. b. Virginis, and Le Grand, Fabliaux, v. 164.
[147] Confessio Amantis, fo. 32.
[148] Biblioth. Britannico-Hibern. p. 476.
[149] Dufresnoy, in his catalogue of Roman historians, has this strange article, "Thomas Walheis gesta Romanorum, cum applicationibus moralisatis ac mysticis. Paris, 1499, in 4." Methode pour etudier l'histoire, xi. 78, edit. 1772, 12mo. It remains to account for this most extraordinary assertion. It is certain that the book itself, which is the original Gesta, affords no evidence in support of it.
[150] No. 7333. Out of the seventy stories there are twenty-four of the additional. The whole deserve to be printed, partly as a curious monument of the English language.
[151] Vol. ii. p. 18, and vol. iii. p. lxxxiii.
[152] Typogr. antiq. p. 233.
[153] This seems a mistake for 1602.
[154] He had already stated himself a member of their company. Of this man little more is known than that he lived by his pen. He appears to have assisted in a translation from Meteranus of an account of the civil wars in the Netherlands, published in 1602, by Thomas Churchyard, who in the dedication says that he was "a man more debased by many then he merits of any, so good parts are there in the man."
[155] MS. Reg. 18, A. lxvi. In 1576, Robinson appears to have had a licence to print, xpmas recreacons of histories and moralizacons aplied for our solace and consolacons. See Herbert's typogr. antiq. p. 1023. This might have been his then intended title for the translation of Gesta Romanorum.