N.B. Half our modern Legends are either borrow’d or translated from the German. Return

This is the conclusion of all that was originally printed under the title of “My Night-gown and Slippers.” Return

Roses were not emblems of faction, cries the Critick, till the reign of Henry the Sixth.—Pooh!—This is a figure, not an anachronism. Suppose, Mr. Critick, you and all your descendants should be hang’d, although your father died in his bed:—Why then posterity, when talking of your father, may allude to the family gallows, which his issue shall have render’d notoriously symbolical of his House. Return

says Æneas, by way of proem; yet, for a Hero, tolerably “use’d to the melting mood,” he talks, on this occasion, much more than he cries; and, though he begins with a wooden Horse, and gives a general account of the burning of Troy, still the “quorum pars magna fui” is, evidently, the great inducement to his chattering:—accordingly, he keeps up Queen Dido to a scandalous late hour, after supper, for the good folks of Carthage, to tell her an egotistical story, that occupies two whole books of the Æneid.—Oh, these Heroes!—I once knew a worthy General—but I wont tell that story. Return

Far be it from me to offer a pedantick affront to the Gentlemen who peruse me, by explaining the word Incubus; which Pliny and others, more learnedly, call Ephialtes.—I, modestly, state it to mean the Night-Mare, for the information of the Ladies. The chief symptom by which this affliction is vulgarly known, is a heavy pressure upon the stomach, when lying in a supine posture in bed. It would terrify some of my fair readers, who never experience’d this characteristick of the Incubus, were I to dwell on its effects; and it would irritate others, who are in the habit of labouring under its sensations. Return

An old Gentlewoman, a great admirer of the black letter, (as many old Gentlewomen are) presented the Author of these Tales with the Original MS. of this Sonnet; advising the publication of a facsimile of the Knight’s hand-writing. It is painful, after this, to advance, that the Sonnet, so far from being genuine, is one of the clumsiest literary forgeries, that the present times have witnessed. It appears, in this authentick Story, that Sir Thomas Erpingham was married in the reign of Henry the Fifth; and it is evidently intended, that Moderns should believe he writ these love-verses almost immediately after his marriage; not only from the ardour with which he celebrates the beauty of his wife, but from the circumstance of a man writing any love-verses upon his wife at all;—but the style and language of the lines are most glaringly inconsistent with their pretended date. The fact is, we have here foisted upon us a close imitation of Cowley, (vide the Mistress) who was not born till the year 1618,—two centuries after the era in question. Chaucer died, A. D. 1400; and Henry the Fifth (who was king only 9 years, 5 months, and 11 days) began his reign scarcely 13 years after the death of that Poet. Sir Thomas, then, must, at least, have written in the obsolete phraseology of Chaucer,—and, probably, would have imitated him,—as did Lidgate, Occleve, and others;—nay, Harding, Skelton, &c. who were fifty or sixty years subsequent to Chaucer, were not so modern in their language as their celebrated predecessor. Having, in few words, prove’d (it is presume’d) this Sonnet to be spurious, an apology may be thought necessary for not saying a great deal more;—but this Herculean task is left, in deference, to the disputants on Vortigern; who will, doubtless, engage in it, as a matter of great importance, and, once more, lay the world under very heavy obligations, with various Pamphlets in folio, upon the subject:—and, surely, too many acknowledgments cannot be given to men who are so indefatigably generous in their researches, that half the result of them, when publish’d, causes even the sympathetick reader to labour as much as the Writer!

How ungratefully did Pope say!

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If the Knight knew the aptness, in its full extent, of his oath, upon this occasion, we must give him more credit for his reading than we are willing to allow to military men of the age in which he flourish’d;—for, observe: he vows to cudgel a man lurking to rob his Lady of her virtue, in a bower;—how appropriately, therefore, does he swear by the God of the Gardens! who is represented with a kind of cudgel (falx lignea) in his right hand; and is, moreover, furnished with another weapon of formidable dimensions, (Horace calls it Palus) for the express purpose of annoying Robbers.

“Fures dextra coercet,
ObscÆnoque ruber porrectus ab inguine Palus.”

It must be confess’d that the last mention’d attribute of this Deity was stretch’d forth to promote pleasure in some instances, instead of fear;—for it was a sportive custom, in the hilarity of recent marriages, to seat the Bride upon his Palus;—but this circumstance by no means disproves its efficacy as a dread to Robbers; on the contrary, that implement must have been peculiarly terrifick, which could sustain the weight of so many Brides, without detriment to its firmness, or elasticity. Return

There is a terrible jumble in Somnus’s family. He was the son of Nox, by Erebus;—and Erebus, according to different accounts, was not only Nox’s husband, but her brother,—and even her son, by Chaos;—and Mors was daughter of Somnus, by that devil of a Goddess Nox, the mother of his father and himself!—The heathen Deities held our canonical notions in utter contempt; and must have laugh’d at the idea (which, surely, nobody does now,) of forbidding a man to marry his Grandmother. Return

Vide Lord Chesterfield’s Letters.—This noble Author, by the by, has set his dignified face against risibility. It would be well for us poor devils, who call ourselves Comic Writers, if our efforts were always as successful in raising a Laugh as his Lordship’s censure upon it. Return

I am aware that much has been said, of old, relative to the “cura boum,” and the “optuma torvÆ forma bovis;”—but, for a show of cattle, I would back Smithfield, or most of our English market Towns, against any forum boarium of the Romans. Return

Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome;—he was a haughty Monarch, and built the Cloaca maxima. Return

This is a palpable plagiarism. Rolla thus addresses Pizarro: “Behold me, at thy feet—Me,—Rolla!—Me, that never yet have bent or bow’d—in humble agony I sue to you.”—The theft is more glaring, as the Apostrophe, both here, and in the original, occurs in the midst of a strong incident, and is address’d to an Enemy by a proud spirit, in very moving circumstances. Return

Vide Part 1st, page 61, lines 4-7. Return

Shakspeare certainly borrow’d this expression from Sir Thomas.—See Macbeth. Return

This seems to be a new comparative; for which the Author takes to himself due credit;—Novelty being scarce in poetical compositions. Return