to the marvellous. Several specimens of the Comic Romance are also to be found mingled with those which are serious; and we have the best and most positive authority that the recital of these seductive fictions is at this moment an amusement as fascinating and general among the people of the East, as the perusal of printed Romances and novels among the European public. But a minute investigation into this particular species of Romance would lead us from our present field, already sufficiently extensive for the limits to which our plan confines it. When the chase is assembled, the yoeman puts up | city of invention, and in their more strong tendency the hare, who with little difficulty makes her escape from the mongrel mastiffs, and breaks a ring which had been formed by the peasants, armed with their great clubs and bats. Great is the terror of the individual over whom she ran in her retreat, and who expected fully that she would have torn his throat out. The inexperienced curs and mastiffs, instead of pursuing the game, commence a battle royal amongst themselves, their masters take part in the fray, and beat each other soundly. In short, the hunting of the hare, scarce less doleful than that of Cheviot, concludes like the latter, with the women of the village coming to carry off the wounded and slain. It can hardly be supposed the satire is directed against the sport of hunting itself; since the whole ridicule arises out of the want of the necessary knowledge of its rules, incident to the ignorance and inexperience of the clowns, who undertook to practise an art peculiar to gentlemen. The ancient poetry of Scotland furnishes several examples of this ludicrous style of romantic composition; as the Tournament at the Drum, and the Justing of Watson and Barbour, by Sir David Lindsay. It is probable that these mock encounters were sometimes acted in earnest; at least King James I. is accused of witnessing such practical jests; "sometimes presenting David Droman and Archie Armstrong, the King's fool, on the back of other fools, to tilt at one another till they fell together by the ears."-(Sir Antony Weldon's Court of King James.) The European Romance, wherever it arises, and in whatsoever country it begins to be cultivated, had its origin in some part of the real or fabulous history of that country; and of this we will produce, in the sequel, abundant proofs. But the simple tale of tradition had not passed through many mouths, ere some one, to indulge his own propensity for the wonderful, or to secure by novelty the attention of his audience, augments the meagre chronicle with his own apocryphal inventions. Skirmishes are elevated into great battles; the champion of a remote age is exaggerated into a sort of demi-god; and the ene mies whom he encountered and subdued are multplied in number and magnified in strength, in order to add dignity to his successes against them. Chanted to rhythmical numbers, the songs which celebrate the early valour of the fathers of the tribe become its war-cry in battle, and men march to conflict hymning the praises and the deeds of some real or supposed precursor who had marshalled their fathers in the path of victory. No reader can have forgotten, that, when the decisive battle of Hastings commenced, a Norman minstrel, Taillefer, advanced on horseback before the invading host, and gave the signal for onset, by singing the Song of Roland, that renowned nephew of Charle magne, of whom Romance speaks so much, and history so little; and whose fall, with the chivalry of Charles the Great in the pass of Roncesvalles, has given rise to such clouds of romantic fiction, that its very name has been for ever associated with it. The remarkable passage has been often quoted from the Brut of Wace, an Anglo-Norman metrical Chronicle. In hastily noticing the various divisions of the Romance, we have in some degree delayed our promised account of its rise and progress; an inquiry which we mean chiefly to confine to the Romance of the middle ages. It is indeed true that this species of composition is common to almost all nations, and that even if we deem the Iliad and Odyssey compositions too dignified by the strain of poetry in which they are composed to bear the name of Metrical Romances; yet we have the Pastoral Romance of Daphnis and Chloe, and the Historical Romance of Theagenes and Charielea, which are sufficiently accurate specimens of that style of composition. The Milesian fables and the Romances of Antonius Diogenes, described by Photius, could they be recovered, would also be found to belong to the same class. It is impossible to avoid noticing that the Sybarites, whose luxurious habits seems to have been intellectual, as well as sensual, were peculiarly addicted to the perusal of the Milesian Which may be thus rendered: fables; from which we may conclude that the narratives were not of that severe kind which inspired high thoughts and martial virtues. But there would be little advantage derived from extending our researches into the ages of classical antiquity respecting a class of compositions, which, though they existed then, as in almost every stage of society, were neither so numerous nor of such high repute as to constitute any considerable portion of that literature. Want of space also may entitle us to dismiss the consideration of the Oriental Romances, unless in so far as in the course of the middle ages they came to furnish materials for enlarging and varying the character of the Romances of knight-errantry, That they existed early, and were highly esteemed both among the Persians and Arabians, has never been disputed; and the most interesting light has been lately thrown on the subject by the publication of Antar, one of the most ancient, as well as most rational, if we may use the phrase, of the Oriental fictions. The Persian Romance of the Sha-Nameh is well known to Europeans by name, and by copious extracts; and the love-tale of Mejnoun and Leilah is also familiar to our ears, if not to our recollections. Many of the fictions in the extraordinary collection of the Arabian Tales, that of Codadad and his brethren, for example, approach strictly to the character of Romances of Chivalry; although in general they must be allowed to exceed the more tame northern fictions in dauntless viva Taillefer, qui moult bien chantont Taillefer, who sung both well and loud, Who died at fatal Roncevaux. This champion possessed the sleight-of-hand of the juggler, as well as the art of the minstrel. He tossed up his sword in the air, and caught it again as he galloped to the charge, and showed other feats of dexterity. Taillefer slew two Saxon warriors of distinction, and was himself killed by a third. Ritson, with less than his usual severe accuracy, supposed that Taillefer sung some part of a long metr cal Romance upon Roland and his history; but the words chanson, cantilena, and song, by which the composition is usually described, seems rather to apply to a brief ballad or national song; which is also more consonant with our ideas of the time and place where it was chanted. But neither with these romantic and metrical chronicles did the mind long remain satisfied. More details were demanded, and were liberally added by the invention of those who undertook to cater for the public taste in such matters. The same names of kings and champions, which had first caught the national ear, were still retained, in order to secure attention; and the same assertions of authenticity, and affected references to real history, were stoutly made, both in the commencement and in the course of the narrative. Each nation, as will presently be fore, we would gladly have seen handled with more diffidence, and better temper, in proportion to their uncertainty. seen, came at length to adopt to itself a cycle of heroes like those of the Iliad; a sort of common property to all minstrels who chose to make use of then, under the condition always that the general The late venerable Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, character ascribed to each individual hero was pre- led the way unwarily to this dire controversy, by asserved with some degree of consistency. Thus, in cribing the composition of our ancient heroic songs the Romances of The Round Table, Gawain is usu- and metrical legends, in rather too liberal language, ally represented as courteous; Kay as rude and to the minstrels, that class of men by whom they boastful; Mordred as treacherous; and Sir Launce- were generally recited. This excellent person, to lot as a true though a sinful lover, and in all other whose memory the lovers of our ancient lyre must respects a model of chivalry. Amid the Paladins of always remain so deeply indebted, did not, on pubCharlemagne, whose cycle may be considered as pe-lishing his work nearly fifty years ago, see the rigid culiarly the property of French in opposition to Nor- necessity of observing the utmost and most accuman-Anglo Romance, Gan, or Ganelon of Mayence, rate precision either in his transcripts or his definiis always represented as a faithless traitor, engaged tions. The study which he wished to introduce was in intrigues for the destruction of Christianity; Ro- a new one-it was his object to place it before the land as brave, unsuspicious, devotedly loyal, and public in an engaging and interesting form; and, in somewhat simple in his disposition; Renaud, or Ri- consideration of his having obtained this important naldo, who possessed the frontier fortress, is paint-point, we ought to make every allowance, not only ed with all the properties of a borderer, valiant, for slight inaccuracies, but for some hasty conclualert, ingenious, rapacious, and unscrupulous. The sions, and even exaggerations, with which he was same conventional distinctions may be traced in the induced to garnish his labour of love. He defined history of the Nibelung, a composition of Scandi- the minstrels, to whose labours he chiefly ascribed navian origin, which has supplied matter for so the metrical compositions on which he desired to fix many Teutonic Romances. Meisteir Hildebrand, the attention of the public, as "an order of men in Etzel, Theodorick, and the champion Hogan, as well the middle ages, who subsisted by the arts of poetry as Chrimhilda and the females introduced, have the and music, and sung to the harp verses composed same individuality of character, which is ascribed, by themselves or others."* In a very learned and in Homer's immortal writings, to the wise Ulysses, elegant essay upon the text thus announced, the the brave but relentless Achilles, his more gentle reverend Prelate in a great measure supported the friend Patroclus, Sarpedon the favourite of the gods, definition which he had laid down; although it may and Hector the protector of mankind. It was not be thought that, in the first editions at least, he has permitted to the invention of a Greek poet to make been anxious to view the profession of the minstrels Ajax a dwarf, or Teucer a giant, Thersites a hero, or on their fairest and most brilliant side; and to assign Diomedes a coward; and it seems to have been un- to them a higher station in society than a general der similar restrictions respecting consistency, that review of all the passages connected with them will the ancient romancers exercised their ingenuity up- permit us to give to a class of persons, who either on the materials supplied them by their predecessors. lived a vagrant life, dependent on the precarious But, in other respects, the whole store of romantic taste of the public for a hard-earned maintenance, history and tradition was free to all as a joint stock or, at best, were retained as a part of the menial rein trade, on which each had a right to draw as suit- tinue of some haughty baron, and in a great meaed his particular purposes. He was at liberty not sure identified with his musical band. only to select a hero out of known and established names which had been the theme of others, but to imagine a new personage of his own pure fancy, and combine him with the heroes of Arthur's Table or Charlemagne's Court, in the way which best suited his fancy. He was permitted to excite new wars against those bulwarks of Christendom, invade them with fresh and innumerable hosts of Saracens, reduce them to the last extremity, drive them from their thrones, and lead them into captivity, and again to relieve their persons, and restore their sovereignty, by events and agents totally unknown in their form er story. In the characters thus assigned to the individual personages of romantic fiction, it is possible there might be some slight foundation in remote tradition, as there were also probably some real grounds for the existence of such persons, and perhaps for a very few of the leading circumstances attributed to them. But these realities only exist as the few grains of wheat in the bushel of chaff, incapable of being winnowed out, or cleared from the mass of fiction with which each new romancer had in his turn overwhelmed them. So that Romance, though certainly deriving its first original from the pure font of History, is supplied, during the course of a very few generations with so many tributes from the Imagination, that at length the very name comes to be used to distinguish works of pure fiction. When so popular a department of poetry has attained this decided character, it becomes time to inquire who were the composers of these numerous, lengthened, and once admired narratives which are called Metrical Romances, and from whence they drew their authority. Both these subjects of discussion have been the source of great controversy among antiquarians; a class of men who, be it said with their forgiveness, are apt to be both positive and polemical upon the very points which are least susceptible of proof, and which are least valuable if the truth could be ascertained; and which, there The late acute, industrious, and ingenious Mr. Joseph Ritson, whose severe accuracy was connected with an unhappy eagerness and irritability of temper, took advantage of the exaggerations occasionally to be found in the Bishop's Account of Ancient Minstrelsy, and assailed him with terms which are anything but courteous. Without finding an excuse, either in the novelty of the studies in which Percy had led the way, or in the vivacity of imagination which he did not himself share, he proceeded to arraign each trivial inaccuracy as a gross fraud, and every deduction which he considered to be erroneous as a wilful untruth, fit to be stigmatized with the broadest appellation by which falsehood can be distinguished. Yet there is so little room for this extreme loss of temper, that, upon a recent perusal of both those ingenious essays, we were surprised to find that the reverend Editor of the Reliques, and the accurate Antiquary, have differed so very little, as, in essential facts, they appear to have done. Quotations are, indeed, made by both with no sparing hand; and hot arguments, and, on one side at least, hard words, are unsparingly employed; while, as is said to happen in theological polemics, the contest grows warmer, in proportion as the ground concerning which it is carried on is narrower and more insignificant. But notwithstanding all this ardour of controversy, their systems in reality do not essentially differ. Ritson is chiefly offended at the sweeping conclusion, in which Percy states the minstrels as subsisting by the arts of poetry and music, and reciting to the harp verses composed by themselves and others. He shows very successfully that this definition is considerably too extensive, and that the term minstrel comprehended, of old, not merely those who recited to the harp or other instrument romances and ballads, but others who were distinguished by their skill in instrumental music only; and, moreover, that jugglers, sleight-of-hand performers, dan Essay on Ancient Minstrels in England, prefixed to the first volume of Bishop Percy's Reliques. cers, tumblers and such like subordinate artists, who were introduced to help away the tedious hours in an ancient feudal castle, were also comprehended under the general term of minstrel. But although he distinctly proves that Percy's definition applied only to one class of the persons termed minstrels, those namely who sung or recited verses, and in many cases of their own composition; the bishop's position remains unassailable, in so far as relates to one general class, and those the most distinguished during the middle ages. All minstrels did not use the harp, and recite or compose romantic poetry; but it cannot be denied that such was the occupation of the most eminent of the order. This Ritson has ra-poser of music. Whatsoever individual among a ther admitted than denied; and the number of quotations which his industry has brought together, rendered such an admission inevitable. merous one, made poetical recitations their chief, if not their exclusive occupation. The memory of these men was, in the general case, the depository of the pieces which they recited; and hence, although a number of their Romances still survive, very many more have doubtless fallen into oblivion. That the minstrels were also the authors of many of these poems, and that they altered and enlarged others, is a matter which can scarce be doubted, when it is proved that they were the ordinary reciters of them. It was as natural for a minstrel to become a poet or composer of Romances, as for a player to be a dramatic author, or a musician a comclass, whose trade it was to recite poetry, felt the least degree of poetical enthusiasm in a profession so peculiarly calculated to inspire it, must, from that Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with ancient very impulse, have become an original author, or Romances of the metrical class, shows us that they translator at least: thus giving novelty to his rewere composed for the express purpose of being re- citations, and acquiring additional profit and fame. cited, or, more properly, chanted, to some simple-Bishop Percy, therefore, states the case fairly in tune or cadence, for the amusement of a large audi- the following passage:-" 'It can hardly be expected, ence. Our ancestors, as they were circumscribed in that we should be able to produce regular and unknowledge, were also more limited in conversational broken annals of the minstrel art and its professors, powers than their enlightened descendants; and it or have sufficient information, whether every minseems probable, that, in their public festivals, there strel or bard composed himself, or only repeated, the was great advantage found in the presence of a min- songs he chanted. Some probably did the one, and strel, who should recite some popular composition some the other; and it would have been wonderful, on their favourite subjects of love and war, to pre- indeed, if men, whose peculiar profession it was, and vent those pauses of discourse which sometimes fall who devoted their time and talents to entertain their heavily on a company, even of the present accom-hearers with poetical compositions, were peculiarly plished age, and to supply an agreeable train of ideas deprived of all poetical genius themselves, and had to those guests who had few of their own. It is, been under a physical incapacity of composing those therefore, almost constantly insinuated, that the Ro- common popular rhymes, which were the usual submance was to be chanted or recited to a large and jects of their recitation." While, however, we ac festive society, and in some part or other of the quiesce in the proposition, that the minstrels compiece, generally at the opening, there is a request of at-posed many, perhaps the greater part, of the metri tention on the part of the performer; and hence, the cal Romances which they sung, it is evident they perpetual "Lythe and listen, lordings free," which in were frequently assisted in the task by others, who, those, or equivalent words, forms the introduction to though not belonging to this profession, were so many Romances. As, for example, in the old prompted by leisure and inclination to enter upon poem of Guy and Colbrand, the minstrel speaks of the literary or poetical department as amateurs. his own occupation: These very often belonged to the clerical profession, amongst whom relaxation of discipline, abundance of spare time, and impatience of the routine of ceremonious duties, often led individuals into worse occupations than the listening to or composing metrical Romances. It was in vain that both the poems and the minstrels who recited them were, by statute, debarred from entering the more rigid monas teries. Both found their way frequently to the refectory, and were made more welcome than brethren of their own profession; as we may learn from a memorable Gest, in which two poor travelling priests, who had been received into a monastery with acclamation, under the mistaken idea of their being minstrels, are turned out in disgrace, when it is discovered that they were indeed capable of furnishing spiritual instruction, but understood none of the entertaining arts with which the hospitality of their hosts might have been repaid by itinerant bards. "When meat and drink is great plentye, And sit and solace lythe. Chaucer, also, in his Ryme of Sir Thopas, assigns to the minstrels of his hero's household the same duty, of reciting Romances of spiritual or secular heroes, for the good knight's pastime while arming for battle: "Do cum," he sayd, "my minestrales, Anon in min arming, Of romaunces that ben reales, And eke of love-longing." Not to multiply quotations, we will only add one of "To harp and carp, Thomas, wheresoever ye gon, For tonge is chefe of Mynstralse."* Nay, besides a truant disposition to a forbidden task, many of the grave authors may have alleged, in their own defence, that the connexion between history and Romance was not in their day entirely dissolved. Some eminent men exercised themselves in both kinds of composition; as, for example, Maitre Wace, a canon of Caen, in Normandy, who, besides the metrical chronicle of La Brut, containing the earliest history of England, and other historical legends, wrote in 1155, the Roman de Chevalier de Lyon, probably the same translated under the title of Ywain and Gawain. Lambert li Cors, and Benoit de Saint-Maur, seem both to have been of the clerical order; and, perhaps, Chretien de Troyes, * Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, p. 30. Another authority of ancient date, the Chronicle of Bertrand Guesclin, distinctly attributes the most renowned Iomances to the composition of the minstrels by whom they were sung. As only say, that after enumerating Arthur, Lancelot, Godfrey, Ro the passage will be afterwards more fully quoted, we must here land, and other champions, he sums up his account of them as being the heroes "De quoi cils minestriers font les nobles romans." 1 a most voluminous author of Romance, was of the To explain the history of Romance, it is necessa- In a very early period of civilization, ere the division of ranks has been generally adopted, and while each tribe may be yet considered as one great family, and the nation as a union of such independent tribes, the poetical art, so nearly allied to that of oratory or persausion, is found to ascertain to its professors a very high rank. Poets are, then, the historians and often the priests of the society. Their command of language, then in its infancy, excites not merely pleasure, but enthusiasm and admiration. When separated into a distinct class, as was the case with the Celtic Bards, and, perhaps, with the Skalds of Scandinavia, they rank high in the scale of society, and we not only find kings and nobles listening to them with admiration, but emulous of their art, and desirous to be enrolled among their numbers. Several of the most renowned northern kings and champions valued themselves as much upon their powers of poetry as on their martial exploits; and of the Welsh princes, the Irish kings, and the Highland chiefs of Scotland, very many practised the arts of poetry and music. Llwarch Hen was a prince of the Cymraig, Brian Boromhe, a harper and a musician, and, without resorting to the questionable authenticity of Ossian, several instances of the same kind might be produced in the Highlands. 33 their highest enjoyments, yet some justification is usually to be drawn from the manners of the classes who were thus lowered in public opinion. It must be remembered, that, as professors of this joyous science, as it was called, the minstrels stood in direct opposition to the more severe part of the Catholics, and to the monks in particular, whose vows bound them to practise virtues of the ascetic order, and to look upon every thing as profane which was connected with mere worldly pleasure. The manners of the minstrels themselves gave but too much room for clerical censure. usual assistants at scenes, not merely of conviviality, but of license; and, as the companions and enThey were the temptible in the eyes, not only of the aged and the secouragers of revelling and excess, they became conrious, but of the libertine himself, when his debauch palled on his recollection. The minstrels, no doubt, like their brethren of the stage, sought an apology in the corrupted taste and manners of their audience, with which they were obliged to comply, under the true but melancholy condition, that But this very necessity, rendered more degrading by they who live to please must please to live. their increasing numbers and decreasing reputation, only accelerated the total downfall of their order, and the general discredit and neglect into which they had fallen. The statute of the 39th of Queen Elizabeth, passed at the close of the sixteenth century, ranks those dishonoured sons of song among rogues and vagabonds, and appoints them to be punished as such; and the occupation, though a vestige of it was long retained in the habits of travelling balladcontempt. Of this we shall have to speak hereafter; singers and musicians, sunk into total neglect and our business being at present with those Romances, which, while still in the zenith of their reputation, were the means by which the minstrels, at least the better and higher class among them, recommended themselves to the favour of their noble patrons, and of the audiences whom they addressed. minstrels, like all who merely depend upon gratifying the public, carried in their very occupation the It may be presumed, that, although the class of evils which first infected, and finally altogether depraved, their reputation; yet, in the earlier ages, their duties were more honourably estimated, and some attempts were made to introduce into their motley body the character of a regular establishment, subjected to discipline and subordination. Several individuals, both of France and England, bore the title of King of Minstrels, and were invested probably with some authority over the others. The Serjeant of Minstrels is also mentioned; and Edward IV. seems to have attempted to form a Guild or exclusive Corporation of Minstrels. John of Gaunt, at an earlier period, established (between jest and earnest, perhaps) a Court Baron of Min strels, to be held at Tilbury. There is no reason, however, to suppose, that the influence of their estabody of artists so unruly as well as numerous. blishments went far in restraining the license of a But, in process of time, when the classes of society come to assume their usual gradation with respect to each other, the rank of professional poets is talents in the arts of music, or of the stage, rise to It is not, indeed, surprising that individuals, whose uniformly found to sink gradually in the scale, along the highest order, should, in a special degree, attain with that of all others whose trade it is to contri- the regard and affection of the powerful, acquire bute to mere amusement. The professional poet, wealth, and rise to consideration; for in such prolike the player or the musician, becomes the compa- fessions, very high prizes are assigned only to prenion and soother only of idle and convivial hours; eminent excellence; while ordinary or inferior prachis presence would be unbecoming on occasions of tisers of the same art may be said to draw in the gravity and importance; and his art is accounted lottery something worse than a mere blank. In the at best an amusing but useless luxury. Although useful arts, a great equality subsists among the the intellectual pleasure derived from poetry, or members, and it is wealth alone which distinguishes from the exhibition of the drama, be of a different a tradesman or a mechanic from the brethren of his and much higher class than that derived from the guild; in other points their respectability is equal accordance of sounds, or from the exhibition of The worst weaver in the craft is still a weaver, and feats of dexterity, still it will be found, that the opi- the best, to all but those who buy his web, is little nions and often the laws of society, while individu-more-as men they are entirely on a level. In what als of these classes are cherished and held in the highest estimation, have degraded the professions themselves among its idle, dissolute, and useless appendages. Although it may be accounted ungrateful in mankind thus to reward the instruments of VOL. I.-50 are called the fine arts, it is different; for excellence ter. was, after all, by profession, the same with the un- | identified with those of real history, that graver hisfortunate stroller, whom the British laws condemn torians quote the actions of the former in illustration as a vagabond, and to whose dead body, other coun- of, and as a corollary to, the real events which they tries refuse even the last rites of Christianity. In narrate.** The virtues recommended in Romance the same manner it is easy to suppose, that when, were, however, only of that overstrained and extrain compliance with the taste of their age, monarchs vagant cast which consisted with the spirit of chientertained their domestic minstrels, those persons valry. Great bodily strength, and perfection in all might be admitted to the most flattering intimacy martial exercises, was the universal accomplishwith their royal masters; sleep within the royal ment inalienable from the character of the hero, and chamber, amass considerable fortunes, found hos- which each romancer had it in his power to confer. pitals, and receive rewards singularly over-propor- It was also easily in the composer's power to devise tioned to the perquisites of the graver professions ; dangers, and to free his hero from them by the exerand even practise, in company with their royal mas- tion of valour equally extravagant. But it was more ters, the pleasing arts of poetry and music, which all difficult to frame a story which should illustrate the are so desirous of attaining; whilst, at the same manners as well as the feats of Chivalry; or to detime, those who ranked lower in the same profes-vise the means of evincing that devotion to duty, and sion were struggling with difficulty to gain a precari- that disinterested desire to sacrifice all to faith and ous subsistence, and many of a rank still more su- honour;-that noble spirit of achievement which labordinate, were incurring all the disgrace usually boured for others more than itself-which form, perattached to a vagabond life and a dubious charac-haps, the fairest side of the system under which the In the fine arts, we repeat, excellence is de- noble youths of the middle ages were trained up. manded, and mere mediocrity is held contemptible; The sentiments of Chivalry, as we have explained and, while the favour with which the former is load-in our article on that subject, were founded on the ed, sometimes seems disproportioned to the utility most pure and honourable principles, but unfortu of the art itself, nothing can exceed the scorn pour- nately carried into hyperbole and extravagance; uned out on those who expose themselves by underta- til the religion of its professors approached to fanatiking arts which they are unable to practise with cism, their valour to frenzy, their ideas of honour to success; and it follows, that as excellence can only absurdity, their spirit of enterprise to extravagance, be the property of a few individuals, the profession and their respect for the female sex to a sort of idolin general must be regarded as a degraded one, atry. All these extravagant feelings, which really though these gifted persons are allowed to pass as existed in the society of the middle ages, were mageminent exceptions to the general rule. Self-con- nified and exaggerated by the writers and reciters ceit, however, love of an idle life, and a variety of of Romance; and these, given as resemblances of combined motives, never fail to recruit the lower or- actual manners, became, in their turn, the glass, by ders of such idle professions with individuals, by which the youth of the age dressed themselves; whose performances, and often by their private cha- while the spirit of Chivalry and of Romance thus graracters, the art which they have rashly adopted is dually threw light upon and enhanced each other. discredited, without any corresponding advantage The Romances, therefore, exhibited the same systo themselves. It is not, therefore, surprising, that tem of manners which existed in the nobles of the while such distinguished examples of the contrary age. The character of a true son of chivalry was appeared amongst individuals, the whole body of raised to such a pitch of ideal and impossible perfecminstrels, with the Romances which they compo- tion, that those who emulated such renown were sed and sung, should be reprobated by graver histo- usually contented to stop far short of the mark. The rians in such severe terms as often occur in the most adventurous and unshaken valour, a mind monkish chronicles of the day. capable of the highest flights of romantic generosity, Respecting the style of their composition Du a heart which was devoted to the will of some fair Cange informs us, that the minstrels sometimes de- idol, on whom his deeds were to reflect glory, and voted their strains to flatter the great, and sing the whose love was to reward all his toils, these were praises of those Princes by whom they were pro-attributes which all aspired to exhibit who sought to tected; while he owns, at the same time, that they rank high in the annals of chivalry; and such were often recommended to their hearers the path of vir- the virtues which the minstrels celebrated. But, like tue and nobleness, and pointed out the pursuits by the temper of a tamed lion, the fierce and dissolute which the heroes of Romance had rendered them- spirit of the age often showed itself through the fair selves renowned in song.¶ He quotes from the varnish of this artificial system of manners. The Romance of Bertrand Guesclin, the injunction on valour of the hero was often stained by acts of cruthose who would rise to fame in arms to copy the elty, or freaks of rash desperation; his courtesy and valiant acts of the Paladins of Charles, and the munificence became solemn foppery and wild profuKnights of the Round Table, narrated in Roman- sion; his love to his lady often demanded and receices; and it cannot be denied, that those high tales, ved a requital inconsistent with the honour of the in which the virtues of generosity, bravery, devotion object; and those who affected to found their attachto his mistress, and zeal for the Catholic religion, ment on the purest and most delicate metaphysical were carried to the greatest height of romantic per- principles, carried on their actual intercourse with a fection in the character of the hero, united with the license altogether inconsistent with their sublime scenes passing around them, were of the utmost im- pretensions. Such were the real manners of the portance in affecting the character of the age. The middle ages, and we find them so depicted in these fabulous knights of Romance were so completely ancient legends. *Berdic, (Regis Joculator,) the jongleur or minstrel of William the Conqueror, had, as appears from the Doomsday record, three vills and five caracates of land in Gloucestershire without rent. Henry I. had a minstrel called Galfrid who received an annuity from the Abbey of Hide. A minstrel of Edward I., during that prince's expedition to the Holy Land, slept within his tent, and came to his assistance when an attempt was made to assassinate him. The Priory and Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in London, was founded in the reign of Henry I. by Royer, or Raher, a minstrel of that prince. In 1441, the monks of Maxlock, near Coventry, paid a donation of four shillings to the minstrels of Lord Clinton for songs, harping, and other exhibitions, while, to a doctor who preached before the community in the same year, they assigned only sixpence, The noted anecdote of Blondel and his royal master, Richard Cour de Lion, will occur to every reader. MINISTEILI dicti præsertim Scurræ, mimi, joculatores, quos etiamnuin vulgo Menestreux vel Menestriers, appellamus-Porro ejusmodi scurrarum erat Principes non suis duntaxat ludicris oh lectare, sed et eorum aures variis avorum, adeoque ipsorum Principum laudibus, non sine assentatione, cum cantilenis et musicis instrumentis, demulcere.-Interdum etiam virorum insignium et Qui veut avoir renom des bons et des vaillans De quoy cils Menestriers font les nobles Romans. |