Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

[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.