[DISSERTATION II.]
ON THE GESTA ROMANORUM.
Enquiries like the present, however unimportant to the generality of readers, will not fail of being duly appreciated by those who take an interest in tracing the origin and progress of literary genius, which has perhaps been never more successfully, and even laudably, employed, than in the composition of such works as combine amusement with instruction. Of these the simple and engaging apologues of many ancient writers form a considerable portion, and have always been justly and generally esteemed. This mode of conveying instruction became so attractive in the middle ages, that the ecclesiastics themselves were under the necessity of introducing narrations both historical and imaginary into their discourses, in order to acquire that degree of popularity and attention which might otherwise have been wanting, and also for the purpose of enforcing their morality by such examples as should touch the feelings of the hearers, and operate, with respect at least to ruder minds, more efficaciously than precept. The work before us was designed to answer these purposes; and it not only proceeded on this ground in common with others of a similar nature, but has even furnished the materials to some of the best writers, and more especially poets, of ancient and modern times.
It will perhaps be expected that some reason should be assigned why the present essay has been attempted, after the labours of Mr. Warton on the same subject, which some may think has been amply and satisfactorily treated, if not exhausted; and if the judgment and accuracy of that pleasing and elegant writer had been commensurate with his taste and industry, the expectation had been exceedingly well founded. This however is, unfortunately, not the case. He has, in this and many other instances, left much to be done and undone; but we ought to feel very grateful to him for having founded a school that has already produced some accomplished pupils, and will, no doubt, contribute to form many a future one. Thus much seems due to an amiable man and excellent character, who has been most undeservedly insulted for errors of small moment, and censured for opinions of the most innocuous kind. Even his antiquarian dullness and perseverance have been arraigned, as if in a work like the history of English poetry, genius should have occupied the place of industry, and have created those facts which honest men are content to discover; a method not uncommon with some writers who have derived too much of their importance from the indolence and superficiality of their readers, and who are unwilling to submit to those laws of providence which justly impose on man the duty of penetrating to the mine before he be permitted to enjoy the precious metal. Such was not Warton. His taste and research will remain the admiration of future ages, when the flimsy compositions of some of his opponents shall be totally forgotten. He has effected, however imperfectly, more for the illustration of English poetry than any or all of his predecessors, or than has hitherto been, accomplished for the poetry of other nations, by any writer whatever.
Mr. Warton's dissertation would, no doubt, have been rendered more perfect, had he been aware of a fact which had not only escaped his own attention, but even that of Mr. Tyrwhitt. Neither of these gentlemen, in consulting the manuscripts of the Gesta Romanorum, had perceived that there were two works so entitled, totally distinct from each other, except as to imitation, and certainly compiled by different persons. Of that treated of by Mr. Warton, it is presumed no manuscript has been yet described; of the other several manuscripts remain, but it has never been printed, except in some translated extracts. It will be better to postpone for the present any further mention of the latter, and to proceed to submit some additional remarks on the other. And first of its use and design.
A particular mode of instruction from the pulpit has been already hinted at, and will admit of some enlargement. Mr. Warton has mentioned one of the earliest instances of introducing Æsop's fables, as recorded by Vincent of Beauvais in the thirteenth century.[96] Supplies of another kind were furnished to those who might be more scrupulous as to the use of profane examples, not only in that great repertory of pious fictions, The golden legend, but in multitudes of similar stories, denominated in France contes devots, and composed for the purpose of counteracting the great influence which the witty and licentious stories of the minstrels had obtained, of which they were palpable imitations both in construction and versification. Most of these were founded on miracles supposed to have been operated by the Virgin Mary. The earliest known specimens of them were composed in the twelfth century by Hugues Farsi, a monk of St. John de Vignes at Soissons, who was soon followed by many imitators both in prose and verse.[97] His own work was turned into French verse by Gautier de Coinsi, another monk of Soissons, about 1230. A similar collection is the Lives of the holy fathers, chiefly from Saint Jerome, and anonymously composed in French verse by some person whose name deserved to have been recorded on account of the great merit of the work, which would be deemed an ornament to any period, for the excellence of the poetry.
The promptuary of examples for the use of preachers, at the end of Herolt's Sermones discipuli, composed in 1418, has been already mentioned by Mr. Warton, who has given a curious and correct account of that work; but he has omitted to notice, that, among a multitude of pious authors cited in it, the name of Ovid appears. This practice of indiscriminate quotation became afterwards very common. It was, indeed, sanctioned by a preceding custom, among religious writers, of moralizing works of all denominations. Thus, to mention only a few, Thomas Walleys, a Welsh Dominican friar, had published his moralizations of Ovid's metamorphoses, in the fourteenth century.[98] The Bestiarium, a treatise on animals, is, as well as the Gesta Romanorum, perhaps an earlier instance. Afterwards the celebrated, but licentious, Romance of the rose was moralized by Jean Molinet. Even the game of chess was moralized; for the reader who may take up Caxton's translation of Jacobus de Cæsolis, will be grievously disappointed should he expect to find any didactic or even historical information. We are not to wonder, therefore, if on the restoration of letters, a system of morality was extracted from Æsop and other fabulists; and, accordingly, some of the early printed editions of Æsop were published under the title of Æsopus moralizatus, and this, no doubt, led the way to the moral applications to his fables which afterwards appeared in other languages.
Among the preachers who interspersed their sermons with narrations of various kinds, a Carthusian monk of the fifteenth century deserves particular mention. With as much quaintness as humility, he styles himself Guillelmus Hilacensis quondam simplex cordatus pauperculus discalciatus ac contemptibilis denudatus, sapientissimorum rudissimus, electorum infimus, et minorum minimus. He has left a volume of sermons on the Lord's prayer, with stories in every page.[99] In the British Museum there is a very curious collection of Latin sermons, compiled about the reign of Henry the Sixth, by a person who calls himself a vicar of Magdalen college, Oxford. They abound with stories from Æsop, Cicero, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Saint Austin, venerable Bede, &c.[100] Stephen Baron, an English Minorite in the reign of Henry the Eighth, has left a similar volume of sermons preached before the university of Cambridge.[101]
Among the most remarkable persons of this description who soon followed, were fathers Menot, Maillard, Barelete, Raulin, Vincent Ferrier, Pierre de Boves, &c., whose discourses are filled with quotations from Virgil, Valerius Maximus, Apuleius, Dante, Petrarch, and the Gesta Romanorum. Erasmus, ridiculing the absurdities of some of the theologians, mentions their practice of quoting the Speculum historiale and Gesta Romanorum.[102] Schelhorn speaks of a copy of the latter in his possession, dated 1499, in which some former possessor had marked against many of the stories the year in which he had used them in his sermons.[103] Even in the eighteenth century the Italians had not left off this custom. Grosley states, that he heard a buffoon preacher at Rome, who stuffed his discourse with a thousand tales, among which was that of father Philip's geese, from Boccaccio.[104]