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was attended with too much facility, and so fell into the hands of very inferior composers, or that they were composed for the ruder and more illiterate part of the nation, it is certain, and is proved by the highest authority, that of Chaucer himself, that even in his time these rhyming Romances had fallen into great contempt. The Rime of Sir Thopas, which that poet introduces as a parody, undoubtedly, of the rhythmical Romances of the age, is interrupted by mine host Harry Bailly with the strongest and most energetic expressions of total and absolute contempt. But though the minstrels were censured by De la Brunne for lack of skill and memory, and the poems which they recited were branded as "drafty rhymings," by the far more formidable sentence of Chaucer, their acceptation with the public in general must have been favourable, since, besides many unpublished volumes, the two publications of Ritson and Weber bear evidence of their popularity. Some original compositions doubtless occur among so many translations, but they are not numerous, and few have been preserved. The very curious poem of Sir Eger and Sir Greme, which seems of Scottish origin, has no French original; nor has any been discovered either of the Squire of Low Degree, Sir Eglamour, Sir Pleindamour, or some others. But the French derivation of the two last names renders it probable that such may exist.

The minstrels and their compositions seem to have fallen into utter contempt about the time of Henry VIII. There is a piteous picture of their

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condition in the person of Richard Sheale, which it is impossible to read without compassion, if we consider that he was the preserver at least, if not the author, of the celebrated heroic ballad of Chevy Chace, at which Sir Philip Sydney's heart was wont to beat as at the sound of a trumpet. This luckless minstrel had been robbed on Dunsmore Heath, and, shame to tell, he was unable to persuade the public that a son of the muses had ever been possessed of the twenty pounds which he averred he had lost on the occasion. The account he gives of the effect upon his spirits is melancholy, and yet ridiculous enough.

"After my robbery my memory was so decayde,

That I colde neather syne nor talke, my wytts wer so dismayde.

My audacitie was gone, and all my myrry tawk,

Ther ys sum heare have sene me as myrry as a hawke;
But nowe I am so trublyde with phansis in my mynde,
That I cannot play the myrry knave, according to my kynd.
Yet to tak thought, I perseve, ys not the next waye
To bring me out of det, my creditors to paye.
I may well say that I hade but evil hape,
For to lose about threscore pounds at a clape.
The losse of my mony did not greve me so sore,
But the talke of the pyple dyde greve me moch mor.
Sum sayde I was not robde, I was but a lyeng knave,
Yt was not possyble for a mynstrell so much mony to have;
In dede, to say the truthe, that ys ryght well knowene,
That I never had so moche mony of myn owene,
But I had frendds in London, whos namys I can declare,
That at all tyms wolde lende me cc.lds. worth of ware,
And sum agayn such frendship I founde,
That thei wold lend me in mony nyn or ten pownde.
The occasion why I cam in det I shall make relacion,
My wyff in dede ys a sylk woman be her occupacion,
And lynen cloths most chefly was her greatyste trayd,
And at faris and merkytts she solde sale-ware that she made;

As shertts, smockys, partlytts, hede clothes, and othar

thinggs, As sylk thredd, and eggyngs, skirrts, bandds, and strings." From The Chant of Richard Sheale,

British Bibliographer, No. xiii., p. 101.

Elsewhere, Sheale hints that he had trusted to his harp, and to the well-known poverty attached to those who used that instrument, to bear him safe through Dunsmore Heath. From this time, the poor degraded minstrels seem literally to have merited the character imposed on them by the satirist Dr Bull, and quoted with such glee by Ritson, whose enmity against Dr Percy seems to have extended itself against the race.

"When Jesus went to Jairus house,
[Whose daughter was about to dye,]
He turn'd the minstrels out of doors,
Among the rascal company:

Beggars they are with one consent,
And rogues, by Act of Parliament."

At length the order of English minstrels was formally put down by the act 39th of Queen Elizabeth, classing them with sturdy beggars and vagabonds; in which disgraceful fellowship they only existed in the capacity of fiddlers, who accompanied their instrument with their voice. Such a character is introduced in the play of Monsieur Thomas, as the "poor fiddler who says his songs." Such, too, was Sheale, already mentioned: the "Minstrel's Farewell," by this unlucky child of the muses, intimates the degraded character of his profession, the professors of which now sung for their victuals.

"Now for the good chear that ye have had heare,

I gyve you hartte thanks, with bowyng off my shanks.

Desyryng you be petycyon to graunte me suche commission,
Becaus my name ys Sheale, that bothe by meat and meale
I may resorte, sum tyme to mye comforte.
For I perseive here at all tymes is good chere,

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Both ale, wyne, and beere, as hit dothe nowe apere.

I perseve wythoute fable, ye kepe a good table,

Sum tyme I wyll be your gueste, or els I were a beaste, Knowynge off your mynde, yff I wolde not be so kynde, Sumtyme to tast youre cuppe, and wyth you dyne and suppe.. I can be contente, yf hit be out of Lente,

A peace of byffe to take mye honger to aslake :

Bothe mutton and veile ys goode for Rycharde Sheale."

British Bibliographer, No. xiii., p. 105.

The Metrical Romances which they recited also fell into disrepute, though some of the more popular, sadly abridged and adulterated, continued to be published in chap books, as they are called. About fifty or sixty years since, a person acquired the nickname of Rosewal and Lilian from singing that Romance about the streets of Edinburgh, which is probably the last instance of the very

strel craft.

proper

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If the Metrical Romances of England can boast of few original compositions, they can show yet fewer examples of the Prose Romance. Sir Thomas Malory, indeed, compiled, from various French authorities, his celebrated Morte d'Arthur, indisputably the best Prose Romance the language can boast. There is also Arthur of Little Britain; and the Lord Berners compiled the Romance of the Knight of the Swan. The books of Amadis were likewise translated into English; but it may 'be doubted whether the country in general ever took that deep interest in the perusal of these records of love and honour with which they were greeted in

France. Their number was fewer; and the attention paid to them in a country where great political questions began to be agitated, was much less than when the feudal system still continued in its full vigour.

III. We should now say something on those various kinds of romantic fictions which succeeded to the Romance of Chivalry. But we can only notice briefly works which have long slumbered in oblivion, and which certainly are not worthy to have their slumbers disturbed.

Even in the time of Cervantes, the Pastoral Romance, founded upon the Diana of George of Monté Mayor, was prevailing to such an extent as made it worthy of his satire. It was, indeed, a system still more remote from common sense and reality than that of chivalry itself. For the maxims of chivalry, high-strained and absurd as they are, did actually influence living beings, and even the fate of kingdoms. If Amadis de Gaule was a fiction, the Chevalier Bayard was a real person. But the existence of an Arcadia, a pastoral region in which a certain fantastic sort of personages, desperately in love, and thinking of nothing else but their mistresses, played upon pipes, and wrote sonnets from morning to night, yet were supposed all the while to be tending their flocks, was too monstrously absurd to be long credited or tolerated.

A numerous, and once most popular, class of fictions, was that entitled the Heroic Romance of the Seventeenth Century.

If the ancient Romance of Chivalry has a right

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