[186] According to the romantic history of Charlemaign, Gano, or Ganelon, betrayed the Christian army, at the battle of Roncesvalles, where Orlando and the Peers of France were slain. The pun upon Gallic, which is renewed in deriving the cock from Brennus and Belinus, a little farther down, is entirely Dryden's.
[187] Thomas Bradwardin, archbishop of Canterbury, a contemporary of Chaucer, composed a treatise on Predestination, and a work entitled, De Causu Dei, against Pelagius.
[188] Nigellus Wireker, who, in Richard the First's reign, composed a Book, called "Burnellus, seu Speculum Stultorum." The story alluded to, is of a cock, who, having been lamed by a priest's son, called Gundulfus, in revenge, omitted to crow upon a morning, when his enemy had directed that he should be called very early, in order to go to a distant church, where he was to take orders. By this stratagem, Gundulfus overslept himself, and was disappointed of his ordination.
[189] Native, in astrology, is the person whose scheme of nativity is calculated.
[190] Ganfride, or Geoffrey de Vinsauf, a Norman historian, and parcel poet, bewailed the death of Richard in plaintive hexameters, in which he particularly exclaims against Friday, the day on which that hero was shot by Bertram de Gurdun:
Oh Veneris lacrymosa dies, O sydus amarum
Illa dies tua nox fuit, et Venus illa venenum, &c.
[191] Dryden has given Jack Straw the national antipathies of the mob in his own time. Chaucer says more correctly, their rage was directed against the Flemings. In the next two lines, Dryden again alludes to the riots of his own time, whose gathering cry used to be "one and all."
[192] This excellent parody upon Virgil is introduced by Dryden, and marks his late labours:
——Vicisti! et victum tendere palmas
Ausonii videre.——
[193] In the original, the tale concludes by a reflection of the Fox. The cock had said,