supposed unattainable by those of England. Subsequent to the reign of Edward III., most of the popular French romances were translated into English, which then became the language, as well of the nobles as of the vulgar. Why the minstrels, who were most interested in these translations, should be deemed unequal to the task of accomplishing them, we can see no good reason for believing. A wandering and idle race of men, attendant on the barons who went to war in France, they had time to acquire both languages; and the art of rhyming must have been easy to persons who almost every day of their lives were employed in poetical recitation. Minstrels and bards are often employed as synonymous terms, although the poetic powers of the bards are indisputable. As late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, this combination occurs in the poem of a Scottish satirist describing London.

"Bot yet the menstrallis and the bairdis,
Thair trowand to obtain rewardis,
About his ludgene loudlie played."

Legend of the Bischop of St Androis.

A proof how far the task of the poet and of the reciter were required from the minstrel, occurs in a very ancient poem, of which there is one MS. in the British Museum, and another in the library of Peterborough cathedral. It contains the history of an intrigue betwixt Thomas of Erceldoune, called the Rhymer, and the Queen of Fairies, by whom, as every one knows, he was transported to the "Londe of Faeri," and gifted with those supernatural powers of poetry and prophecy, by which he was afterwards distinguished. The following dialogue passes betwixt the bard and his faery leman upon this memorable occasion.

"Fare wel, Thomas, I wend my way,

I may no longer stande with the."

'Gif me sum tokyn, Lady gaye,

That I may say I spake with the.'

"To harp and carpe, Thomas, wher so ever ze gon,
Thomas, take the these with the.'-
'Harping,' he said, 'ken I non,

For tong is chefe of mynstralcie.'

"If the wil spelle, or talys telle,
Thomas thu shall never make lye;
Wher so ever thu goo, to fryth or felle,

I pray thu speke never non ille of me.'"

From this decisive declaration, which a poet and minstrel made on the nature of his own profession, it appears plainly, that, in more ancient times, the minstrel's principal and most honourable occupation referred to poetry, rather than music; and the Rhymer might have been justly described as one "who united the arts of poetry and music, and sung verses to the harp, of his own composing," if he had

that the talents of the minstrel were exclusively limited. We should have been anxious to have heard what reply his keen and eager spirit could have suggested; but poor Ritson is now probably deciphering the characters upon the collar of Cerberus, or conversing in unbaptized language with the Saxon and British chiefs of former times;

"With Oswald,

Vortigern, Harold, Hengist, Horsa, Knute
Allured, Edgar and Cunobeline."

Upon the whole, it occurs to us, from a careful perusal of his Essay, that Mr Ritson's talents were better adapted to research than to deduction, to attack than to defence, to criticism than to composition; and that he has left us a monument of profound industry and extensive study, undirected by any attempt at system, and tarnished by the splenetic peculiarities of an irritable temperament. Still let it be remembered to his honour, that, without the encouragement of private patronage, or of public applause; without hopes of gain, and under the certainty of severe critical censure, he has brought forward such a work on national antiquities, as in other countries has been thought worthy of the labour of universities, and the countenance of princes.

The work of Mr Ellis is of a nature adapted for general circulation, and for conveying a lively and pleasing picture of the contents of the ancient metrical romances, without literal transcription of their whole contents. With this view, the editor has analyzed each romance in prose, introducing, at the same time, occasionally, as a continuation of the narrative, such parts of the original as seemed to possess either peculiarities of expression or poetical beauty, sufficient to render their preservation desirable, as fair or favourable specimens of the whole composition. In transcribing these selected passages, Mr Ellis has discarded the antique orthography, preserving, however, carefully, every ancient word, while he reduces the spelling to the modern standard, according to the mode adopted in his previous publication, entitled, "Specimens of Ancient English Poetry."

Such is the plan of the present work. It is obvious, that by adopting it, Mr Ellis voluntarily resigned the object of Mr Ritson's publication, who gave his romances entire to the world; a mode more acceptable, doubtless, to the antiquary, though infinitely less interesting and amusing to the general reader, as well as to the editor. We have no doubt that some more severe student of our national antiquities may censure the liberties which Mr Ellis has taken with his materials, and deprecate his scouring the shield of ancient chivalry. But, with great reverence for such grave judges, we presume to think, that the shield may be safely scoured, where there is no danger of its being proved, in the process of purification, to be no antique

VI.

buckler, but a barber's bason, or a paltry old sconce. This is far from being the case in the present instance. The burnishing of the armour has only tended to ascertain the valuable materials of which it is sometimes composed, and which were heretofore obscured by cobwebs and rust. So far are we from thinking that the popular labours of Mr Ellis will supersede a complete edition of these curious legends, that, we doubt not, the wit and elegance with which he has abridged and analyzed their contents, will encourage many a gentle reader to attempt the originals, who would before have as soon thought of wearing the dress, as of studying the poems of his ancestors. Socrates is said to have brought philosophy from heaven to reside among men; and Addison claimed the merit of introducing her to the tea-tables of the ladies. Mr Ellis, in his turn, has brought the minstrels of old into the boudo rs and drawing-rooms, which have replaced the sounding halls and tapestried bowers in which they were once familiar; so that the age of chivalry, instead of being at an end for ever, may perhaps be on the point of revival. In this point of view, much is gained, and nothing lost by the plan of Mr Ellis. Those whom an abridgment cannot satisfy, may consult the originals with more convenience and facility, from a previous knowledge of their contents, and of the libraries where they exist, while curiosity is excited in others who would never otherwise have thought on the subject. This general interest may perhaps end in a complete edition of all that old bards

"In sage and solemn times have sung,

Of turneys and of trophies hung;

Of forests, and enchantments drear,

Where more is meant than meets the ear."

To the Romances, Mr Ellis has prefixed an introduction, which contains a more plain and comprehensive view of the rise and progress of the minstrels and their poetry, than we ever remember to have met with. As the subject is curious, we will endeavour to give the reader a short statement of their history, with such remarks as occur to us.

Normandy appears to have been the cradle of minstrelsy. The Northmen who wrested that province from the feeble successors of Charlemagne, had, doubtless, like all other barbarous people, especially the Scandinavian tribes, their national poets, under the name of scalds, or by whatever other term they were distinguished. On their settling in Neustria, their native speech speedily melted down into the more commodious and extended language used by the inhabitants of Northern France, which was called Romance, being, in fact, a corrupted Latin, introduced by the Romans into their Gallic province. In this language the minstrels composed most of their

nifying the early Norman French, came at length to mean those chivalrous tales usually composed in that tongue. Of the authors of these compositions, Mr Ellis has given us the following concise, but excellent account.

467.

"The following may perhaps be accepted as a tolerable summary of the history of the minstrels. It appears likely that they were carried by Rollo into France, where they probably introduced a certain number of their native traditions; those, for instance, relating to Ogier le Danois, and other northern heroes, who were afterwards enlisted into the tales of chivalry; but that, being deprived of the mythology of their original religion, and cramped perhaps, as well by the sober spirit of Christianity, as by the imperfection of a language whose tameness was utterly inapplicable to the sublime obscurity of their native poetry, they were obliged to adopt various modes of amusing, and to unite the talents of the mimic and the juggler, as a compensation for the defects of the musician and poet. Their musical skill, however, if we may judge from the number of their instruments, of which very formidable catalogues are to be found in every description of a royal festival, may not have been contemptible; and their poetry, even though confined to short compositions, was not likely to be void of interest to their hearers, while employed on the topics of flattery or satire. Their rewards were certainly, in some cases, enormous, and prove the esteem in which they were held; though this may be partly ascribed to the general thirst after amusement, and the difficulty experienced by the great in dissipating the tediousness of life; so that the gift of three parishes in Gloucestershire assigned by William the Conqueror for the support of his joculator, may perhaps be a less accurate measure of the minstrel's accomplishments, than of the monarch's power and of the insipidity of his court.

"To the talents already enumerated, the minstrels added, soon after the birth of French literature, the important occupation of the diseur or declaimer. Perhaps the declamation of metrical compositions might have required, during their first state of imperfection, some kind of chant, and even the assistance of some musical instruments, to supply the deficiencies of the measure; perhaps the aids of gesture and pantomime may have been necessary to relieve the monotony of a long recitation; but at all events it is evident, that an author who wrote for the public at large, during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, was not less dependent for his success on the minstrels, than a modern writer of tragedy or comedy on the players of the present day. A copyist might multiply manuscripts for the supply of convent-libraries! but while ecclesiastics alone were able to read, there was no access to the ears of a military nobility, without the intervention of a body of men who travelled in every direction, and who were every were welcomed as the promoters of mirth and conviviality.

"The next step was easy. Being compelled to a frequent exercise of their talent in extemporaneous compositions, the minstrels were probably, like the improvisatori of Italy, at least equal, if not superior, to more learned writers, in the merely mechanical parts of poetry; they were also better judges of the public taste. By the progress of translation they became the dispositaries of nearly all the knowledge of the age, which was committed to their memory; it was natural, therefore, that they should form a variety of new combinations from the numerous materials in their possession; and it will be shown hereafter, that many of our most popular romances were most probably brought by their efforts to the state in which we now see them. This was the most splendid era of their history, and seems to have comprehended the latter part of the twelfth, and perhaps the whole of the thirteenth century. After that time, from the general progress of instruction, the number of readers began to increase; and the metrical romances were insensibly supplanted by romances in prose, whose monotony neither required nor could derive much assistance from the art of declamation. The visits of the minstrels had been only periodical, and generally confined to the great festivals of the year; but the resources, such as they were, of the ponderous prose legend were always accessible. Thus began the decline of a body of men, whose complete degradation seems to have been the subsequent result of their own vices. During the period of their success they had most impudently abused the credulity of the public; but it is a whimsical fact, that the same fables which were discredited while in verse, were again, on their transfusion into prose, received without suspicion. It should seem that falsehood is generally safe from detection, when concealed under a sufficient cloak of dulness."-ELLIS, i. p. 19-23.

By attending to this history, we may easily solve the difficulty which Ritson found in reconciling the degraded state of the minstrels to the high rewards and countenance which they sometimes received, even in preference to those of the clerical profession. It appears, on one occasion, that two mendicant friars, soliciting hospi

the idea of their being minstrels, and kicked out again when they announced their real character. It is also proved, we believe, that one minstrel received four shillings for his performance, and six priests only sixpence at the same festival.* But such instances of extravagant reward to individuals of a class which dedicates personal exertions to public amusement, are consistent with the general disrespect to which this body in general is condemned. Individual instances excepted, the player and the musician of modern days, the genuine successors of the minstrels, incur a certain degree of contempt fro their situation, which they are too often driven to merit. It is somewhat hard that, as society advances in civilisation, and as demands are made on this class of men for refinement and improvement in their respective arts, their seclusion from the society where that refinement is to be acquired, becomes proportionally more rigid and strict. We cannot stop to appreciate the moral causes of the fastidious harshness with which society requites those on whom it depends for its most exquisite amusements.

Having shortly traced the history of the minstrels, Mr Ellis proceeds to examine the progress of their compositions. Of these, as we have already hinted, the first seem to have been unadorned annals or histories, reduced to measure for the convenience of the reciter, who was to retain them upon his memory. This field, however, soon became too barren and uninteresting. Other sources of narration were sought for. Some occurred in the ancient songs of the scalds, the legitimate productions of the minstrels. Others, of Arabian origin, found their way to France through Spain. But a much more numerous class was derived from the tales of the Armoricans, the neighbours of the Normans, who derived themselves from a Welsh colony. From this source, the minstrels probably drew their first accounts of

This theme, however, acquired its chief popularity after the acquisition of England by William the Conqueror. It is now completely proved, that the earliest and best French romances were composed for the meridian of the English court, where that language continued to be exclusively used, at least till the time of Edward III. When the Norman race of monarchs had once secured themselves on the throne of England, and identified the honour of that country with their own, they began to feel an interest in its early history, and to listen with applause to the feats of its heroes. The legends of the Welsh, on these

*This is no doubt quite consistent with modern manners, as may appear, by considering whether Young Roscius or a Welsh curate is best paid, and to which the gates of an episco