KING LEAR. ACT I.

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Scene 1. Page 11.

Cor. ... I am sure, my love's
More richer than my tongue.

Dr. Warburton would have it their tongue, meaning her sisters', which would be very good sense. Dr. Johnson is content with the present reading, but gives no explanation. Cordelia means to say, "My love is greater than my powers of language can express." In like manner she soon afterwards says, "I cannot heave my heart into my mouth."

Scene 1. Page 12.

Lear. Nothing can come of nothing.

In the fourth Scene of this Act, Lear uses the same expression in answer to the fool, who had asked him if he could "make no use of nothing." For this ancient saying of one of the philosophers, Shakspeare might have been indebted to the following passage in The prayse of nothing, by E. D. 1585, 4to. "The prophane antiquitie therefore, unlesse by casuall meanes, entreated little hereof, as of that which by their rule, that nihil ex nihilo fit, conteined not matter of profit or commendation: for which those philosophers hunted, as ambicious men for dominion and empire."

Scene 4. Page 60.

Fool. That such a king should play bo-peep.

Mr. Steevens remarks that little more of this game than its mere denomination remains. He had forgotten the amusements of his nursery. In Sherwood's Dictionary it is defined, "Jeu d'enfant; ou (plustost) des nourrices aux petits enfans; se cachans le visage et puis se monstrant." The Italians say far bau bau, or baco baco, and bauccare; which shows that there must at some time or other have been a connexion between the nurse's terriculamentum, the boggle or buggy bo, and the present expression. See the note in p. 202. Minsheu's derivation of bo-peep from the noise which chickens make when they come out of the shell, is more whimsical than just.

Scene 4. Page 65.

Lear. Lear's shadow?

We are told that "the folio has given these words to the fool." And so they certainly should be, without the mark of interrogation. They are of no use whatever in Lear's speech; and without this arrangement, the fool's next words, "which they will make an obedient father," are unintelligible. It will likewise dispose of Mr. Steevens's subsequent charge against Shakspeare, of inattention to the rules of grammar.

ACT II.

Scene 2. Page 92.

Kent. I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you.

It is certain that an equivoque is here intended by an allusion to the old dish of eggs in moonshine, which was eggs broken and boiled in salad oil till the yolks became hard. They were eaten with slices of onions fried in oil, butter, verjuice, nutmeg and salt.

Scene 3. Page 109.

Edg. Pins, wooden pricks, &c.

Rightly explained skewers. Greene, in his admirable satire, A quip for an upstart courtier, speaking of the tricks played by the butchers in his time, makes one of his characters exclaim, "I pray you, goodman Kilcalfe, have you not your artificial knaveries to set out your meate with pricks?" The brewers and bakers come in also for their share of abuse.

Scene 3. Page 110.

Edgar. Poor Turlygood!

Warburton would read Turlupin, and Hanmer Turluru; but there is a better reason for rejecting both these terms than for preferring either; viz. that Turlygood is the corrupted word in our language. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect that overran France, Italy, and Germany, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were at first known by the names of Beghards or Beghins, and brethren and sisters of the free spirit. Their manners and appearance exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction. The common people alone called them Turlupins; a name which, though it has excited much doubt and controversy, seems obviously to be connected with the wolvish howlings which these people in all probability would make when influenced by their religious ravings. Their subsequent appellation of the fraternity of poor men might have been the cause why the wandering rogues called Bedlam beggars, and one of whom Edgar personates, assumed or obtained the title of Turlupins or Turlygoods, especially if their mode of asking alms was accompanied by the gesticulations of madmen. Turlupino and Turluru are old Italian terms for a fool or madman; and the Flemings had a proverb, As unfortunate as Turlupin and his children.

Scene 4. Page 113.

Lear. To do upon respect such violent outrage.

Explained by Dr. Johnson, "to violate the character of a messenger from the king." It is rather "to do outrage to that respect which is due to the king." This, in part, agrees with the ensuing note.

Scene 4. Page 114.

Kent. They summon'd up their meiny.

Meiny, signifying a family, household, or retinue of servants, is certainly from the French meinie, or, as it was anciently and more properly written, mesnie; which word has been regarded, with great probability, by a celebrated French glossarist and antiquary, as equivalent with mesonie or maisonie, from maison: in modern French mÉnage. See glossary to Villehardouin, edit. 1657, folio.

Mr. Holt White has cited Dryden's line,

"The many rend the skies with loud applause,"

as supplying the use of many in Kent's sense of train or retinue. With great deference, the word is quite unconnected with meiny, and simply denotes any multitude or collection of people. It is not only used at present in its common adjective form for several, divers, multi, but even substantively: for in the Northern parts of England they still say a many, and a many people, i. e. of people. In this sense it is never found in the French language; but we have received it directly, as an adjective, from the Saxon man? man??, and as a substantive from men?u, mÆn??eo, men??o, &c. &c.; for in that language the word is found written not less than twenty different ways. It is the same as the Latin manus. Horace uses manus poetarum; and Quintilian oratorum ingens manus. It does not appear that the Saxons used many for a family or household.

Scene 4. Page 121.

Fool. Cry to it nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels.

The difficulties that have attended all inquiries concerning this term, have been not a little augmented by an expectation of finding an uniformity which it does not possess, and by not reflecting that it is in reality susceptible of very different explanations.

There is hardly a doubt that it originates in an Utopian region of indolence and luxury, formerly denominated the country of cocaigne,[21] which, as some have thought, was intimately connected with the art of cookery; whilst others, with equal plausibility, relate that the little pellets of woad, a commodity in which Languedoc was remarkably fertile, being called by the above name, the province itself acquired the appellation of the kingdom of cocaigne or of plenty, where the inhabitants lived in the utmost happiness, and exempt from every sort of care and anxiety. Hence the name came to be applied to any rich country. Boileau calls Paris un pays de cocagne. The French have likewise some theatrical pieces under this title. The Italians have many allusions to it; and there is said to be a small district between Rome and Loretto so called from its cheapness and fertility. With us the lines cited by Camden in his Britannia, vol. i. col. 451,

"Were I in my castle of Bungey
Upon the river of Waveney
I would ne care for the king of Cockeney,"

whencesoever they come, indicate that London was formerly known by this satirical name; and hence a Londoner came to be called a cockney. The French have an equivalent word, coqueliner, to pamper, cherish, or dandle, whence our cocker.

From the above circumstances it is probable that a cockney became at length a term of contempt; one of the earliest proofs of which is Chaucer's use of it in the Reve's tale, v. 4206: "I shall be halden a daffe or a cokenay." In the Promptuarium parvulorum, 1516, 4to, it is explained to be a term of derision. In Shakspeare's time it signified a child tenderly brought up, a dearling, a wanton. See Barret's Alvearie; and a little before it had been used in a bad sense, from an obvious corruption. See HulÆt's Abcedarium, 1552, folio. In this place too Mr. Steevens's quotations from Meres and Deckar might be introduced.

The next sense in which cockney was used seems to be conveyed in the line cited by Mr. Tyrwhitt from Pierce Plowman's Visions:

"And yet I say by my soule I have no salt bacon,
Ne no cokeney by Christe coloppes to make:"

as well as in those from the tournament of Tottenham;

"At that feast were they served in rich array,
Every five and five had a cokeney:"

where in both instances, with deference to the respectable authorities of Dr. Percy and Mr. Tyrwhitt, it signifies a little cock. In the latter quotation it might mean a peacock, a favourite dish among our ancestors; and this conjecture is countenanced by the words served in rich array. This mode of forming a diminutive with respect to animals is not unfrequent. Thus in the Canterbury tales, l. 3267: "She was a primerole, a piggesnie." And here again some apology may be necessary for differing from Mr. Tyrwhitt, who supposes that Chaucer "meant no more than ocellus, the eyes of that animal being remarkably small, and the Romans using oculus as a term of endearment." But the objection to this ingenious explanation is, that nie cannot well be put for eye; that in this case the word would have been pigseye, and that it is rather formed from the A. S. p??a, a girl. See Lye's Saxon dict. Similar words were afterwards constructed, but without due regard to the above etymology. For example, "Prythee sweet birdsnye, be content."—Davenport's City night cap, Act III. Scene 1. "Jella, why frownst thou? say sweet biddiesnie?"—Davies's Scourge of folly. "Ay birdsneys, she's a quean."—Shadwell's Virtuoso, Act III. And in Congreve's Old bachelor, Fondlewife calls his mate cockey.

It is observable that in all the above instances these appellations are only used to females. It is not improbable therefore, that, in an abstract sense, cockney might sometimes be used in speaking to male children as a term of endearment; and it may be necessary to make this remark here, for the purpose of anticipating any suggestion that it is connected with the present subject.

It remains only to notice the cockneys or sugar pellet which Mr. Steevens's old lady remembered to have eaten in her childhood. The French formerly used a kind of perfumed pastry made of the powdered Iris flower, sugar, musk, and rose-water; these were called pastilles; and from the similitude of the word to pastel, or the Languedoc woad mentioned at the beginning of this note as the produce of the pays de cocagne, it is not improbable that some latent affinity may exist. The animal involved in the English term might indeed be thought sufficient to indicate the form. Had the old lady, happily for us, described the shape of these comfits, and which motives of delicacy might have prevented, we could possibly have traced them from our Gallic neighbours in another descent of a very singular nature. The following extract from Legrand's Vie privÉe des Francois, tom. ii. p. 268, will explain this: "Croira-t-on qu'il a existÉ en France un tems ou l'on a donnÉ aux menues pÂtisseries de table les formes les plus obscenes, et les noms les plus infÂmes? Croira-t-on que cet incroyable excÉs de depravation a durÉ plus de deux siÉcles? Aussi sont ce moins les noms de ces pÂtisseries qu'il faut blÂmer que les formes qu'on leur donnait. Champier, apres avoir dÉcrit les differentes pÂtisseries usitÉes de son temps, dit, QuÆdam pudenda muliebria, aliÆ virilia (si diis placet) representant. Sunt quos c... saccharatos appellitent. AdeÒ degeneravere boni mores, ut etiam Christianis obscoena et pudenda in cibis placeant."

Minsheu's tale of the cock neighing, and Casaubon's derivation of cockney from ?????e???, i. e. domi natus, may serve to increase those smiles of compassion which it is to be feared some of the present remarks may have already excited.

It is worth remarking, although not immediately connected with the present subject, that in the Celtic languages coeg, and kok, signified anything foolish or good for nothing. They seem connected with the radical word for a cuckow, a silly bird, which has thus transmitted its appellation to persons of a similar nature. See the words cog in the Welsh dictionaries, and cok in Pryce's Cornish vocabulary. In the North they call the cuckow a gowk, whence genkit, foolish, and gawky. Our term cokes, for a fool, is of the same family, and, perhaps, cuckold.

Scene 4. Page 132.

Lear. Thou art a boil.

The note on this word states that it was written byle in the old copies, which all the modern editors have too strictly followed; that the mistake arose from the word boil being often pronounced as if written bile; and that in the folio we find in Coriolanus the same false spelling as here.—But this charge against the editors seems to have originated in a misconception. The ancient and true orthography is byle and bile, and such was the common pronunciation. The modern boyl and boil are corruptions. Thus in the Promptuarium parvulorum, 1516, we have "Byle sore,—Pustula." In Mathews's bible, 1551, "Satan smote Job with marvelous soore byles." In Whetstone's Mirour for magestrates of cyties, 1584, 4to, "Dicyng houses are of the substance of other buildinges, but within are the botches and byles of abhomination." Bile is pure Saxon, and is so given in most of the old dictionaries.

Scene 4. Page 135.

Lear. ... but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws.

On the word flaws we have the following note: "A flaw, signifying a crack or other similar imperfection; our author, with his accustomed license, uses the word here for a small broken particle. So again in the fifth Act,

'... but his flaw'd heart
Burst smilingly.'"

Now there is some reason for supposing that flaw might signify a fragment in Shakspeare's time, as well as a mere crack; because among the Saxons it certainly had that meaning, as may be seen in Somner's Diction. Saxon. voce ?loh. It is to be observed that the quartos read flowes, approaching nearer to the original. In the above quotation flaw'd seems to be used in the modern sense.

ACT III.

Scene 2. Page 147.

Fool. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool.

Shakspeare has with some humour applied the above name to the fool, who, for obvious reasons, was usually provided with this unseemly part of dress in a more remarkable manner than other persons. To the custom Gayton thus alludes, when speaking of the decline of the stage: "No fooles with Harry codpieces appeare."—Festivous notes upon Don Quixote, p. 270.

Scene 2. Page 150.

Fool. No hereticks burn'd but wenches suitors.

Dr. Johnson has very well explained why wenches suitors were burned; but Mr. Steevens's quotation from Isaiah iii. 24, "—and burning instead of beauty," has not been applied on this occasion with his usual discernment. Not to mention the improbability that the burning in question should have existed in the time of Isaiah, the expression itself is involved in the deepest obscurity. Saint Jerome has entirely omitted it; and if the Hebrew word, which in some translations has been rendered adustio, be susceptible of any fair meaning, it is that of shrivelled or dried up by heat. It is, therefore, in the bishop's bible and some foreign translations paraphrastically given, "and for their bewty witherednesse and sunne burning." The manuscript regulations for the stews in Southwark, printed but abridged in Stowe's Annals, would have furnished the learned commentator with a far more apposite illustration. In these it is said, "no stewholder shall keep any woman that hath the perilous infirmity of burning."

Scene 4. Page 160.

Edg. Pillicock sat on pillicock's hill.

In the metrical romance of Sir Gawain and Sir Galaron, there is this line,

"His polemous with pelicocus were poudred to pay."
Pinkerton's Scotish poems, vol. iii. 214.

In the comedy of Ignoramus by Ruggles, Act III. Scene 6, Cupes talks of "quimbiblos, indenturas, pilicoccos, calimancas;" where it is perhaps a new-fangled term for any kind of stuff or cloth. There is an attempt to explain the word in Warner's Letter to Garrick, p. 30; but whoever would be certain of finding the exact meaning, may consult, besides the article in Minsheu, 9299, the following books: Durfey's Pills to purge melancholy, iv. 311.—The Nightingale, (a collection of songs) 1738, p. 380.—Lyndsay's Works, as edited by Mr. Chalmers, ii. 145, and the excellent glossary.—Florio's Italian dictionary, 1611, under the articles piviolo, and rozzone.

Scene 4. Page 162.

Edg. Keep thy pen from lenders books.

When spendthrifts and distressed persons resorted to usurers or tradesmen for the purpose of raising money by means of shop-goods or brown paper commodities, they usually entered their promissory notes or other similar obligations in books kept for that purpose. It is to this practice that Edgar alludes.

In Lodge's Looking-glasse for London and Englande, 1598, 4to, a usurer says to a gentleman, "I have thy hand set to my book that thou received'st fortie pounds of me in money." To which the other answers, "It was your device, to colour the statute, but your conscience knowes what I had." Parke, in his Curtaine-drawer of the world, speaking of a country gentleman, alludes to the extravagance of his back, which had got him into the mercer's book.

Scene 4. Page 163.

Edg. ... ha, no nonny.

This was the burden of many old songs. One of these, being connected with Mr. Henley's curious note, is here presented to the reader. It is taken from a scarce collection, entitled Melismata. Musicall phansies, fitting the court, citie and countrey humours, To 3, 4, and 5 voyces, 1611, 4to. In Playford's Musical companion, p. 55, the words are set to a different tune.

Scene 4. Page 164.

Lear. ... unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.

Forked is a very strange epithet, but must be taken literally. See a note by Mr. Steevens in Act IV. Scene 6, of this play. The Chinese in their written language represent a man by the following character.

Scene 6. Page 176.

Fool. He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

Though health will certainly do, it has probably been substituted for heels, by some person who regarded it as an improved reading. There are several proverbs of this kind. That in the text has not been found elsewhere, and may be the invention of Shakspeare. The Italians say, Of a woman beware before, of a mule beware behind, and of a monk beware on all sides; the French, Beware of a bull's front, of a mule's hinder parts, and of all sides of a woman. In Samuel Rowland's excellent and amusing work, entitled The choice of change, containing the triplicity of divinitie, philosophie, and poetrie, 1585, 4to, we meet with this proverbial saying, "Trust not 3 thinges, dogs teeth, horses feete, womens protestations."

Scene 6. Page 184.

Edg. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.

On this speech Dr. Johnson has remarked that men who begged under pretence of lunacy, used formerly to carry a horn and blow it through the streets. To account for Edgar's horn being dry, we must likewise suppose that the lunatics in question made use of this utensil to drink out of, which seems preferable to the opinion of Mr. Steevens, that these words are "a proverbial expression, introduced when a man has nothing further to offer, when he has said all he has to say," the learned commentator not having adduced any example of its use. An opportunity here presents itself of suggesting a more correct mode of exhibiting the theatrical dress of Poor Tom than we usually see, on the authority of Randle Holme in his most curious and useful work The academy of armory, book III. ch. iii. p. 161, where he says that the Bedlam has "a long staff and a cow or ox-horn by his side; his cloathing fantastic and ridiculous; for being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubins, feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not, to make him seem a madman or one distracted, when he is no other than a dissembling knave." It is said that about the year 1760 a poor idiot called Cude Yeddy, went about the streets of Hawick in Scotland habited much in the above manner, and rattling a cow's horn against his teeth. Something like this costume may be seen in the portrait of that precious knave Mull'd Sack, who carries a drinking horn on his staff. See Caulfield's Portraits, memoirs, and characters of remarkable persons, vol. ii.

ACT IV.

Scene 2. Page 209.

Ale. Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.

"Fishes," says Dr. Johnson, "are the only animals that are known to prey upon their own species." But Shakspeare did not mean to insinuate this; for he has elsewhere spoken of "cannibals that each other eat." He only wanted a comparison. Many of the insect tribes prey on their own species, as spiders, scorpions, beetles, earwigs, blattÆ, &c.

Scene 4. Page 233.

Lear. That fellow handles his bow like a crow keeper.

The notes on this passage serve only to identify the character of a crow-keeper; but the comparison still remains to be explained. On this occasion we must consult our sole preceptor in the manly and too much neglected science of archery, the venerable Ascham. In speaking of awkward shooters he says, "Another coureth downe and layeth out his buttockes, as thoughe hee should shoote at crowes."

Scene 4. Page 234.

Lear. O well-flown bird!

The notes are at variance as to whether Lear allude to archery or falconry. Certainly to the latter. In an old song on hawking, set for four voices by Thomas Ravenscroft, O well flown is a frequent address to the hawk.

Scene 4. Page 239.

Lear. Hark, in thine ear: change places: and handy-dandy, which
is the justice, which is the thief?

Mr. Malone's explanation of this children's sport is confirmed by the following extract from A free discourse touching the murmurers of the tymes, MS. "They hould safe your childrens patrymony, and play with your majestie as men play with little children at handye dandye, which hand will you have, when they are disposed to keep any thinge from them." The above discourse is a very bold and libellous address to King James I. on his pacific character, written, anonymously, with great powers of composition.

Scene 4. Page 240.

Lear. There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obey'd in office.——
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand:
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind,
For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear:
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.

This admirable speech has a remarkable coincidence with the following passage from "Parke's Curtaine-drawer of the world," 1612, 4to, p. 16, a work of very considerable merit. "The potency and power of magnificence and greatnesse dare looke sinne openly in the face in the very market place, and the eye of authority never takes notice thereof: the poore harlot must be stript and whipt for the crime that the courtly wanton and the citie-sinner ruffle out, and passe over and glory in, and account as nothing. The poore thiefe is hanged many times that hath stolne but the prise of a dinner, when sometimes hee that robbes both church and commonwealth is seene to ride on his footecloth." If this book was written according to its date, and Mr. Malone be right as to that of Lear, a fact which is not meant to be controverted, the merit of originality will rest with Shakspeare.

Scene 4. Page 241.

Edg. O, matter and impertinency mix'd.

This word was not used in its modern and corrupted sense of sauciness or intrusion, but merely to express something not belonging to the subject. Thus, an old collection of domestic recipes, &c., entitled, The treasurie of commodious conceits, 1594, is said to be "not impertinent for every good huswife to use in her house amongst her own familie." It does not seem to have been used in the sense of rude or unmannerly till the middle of the seventeenth century; nor in that of saucy till a considerable time afterwards.

Scene 4. Page 241.

Lear. ... we came crying hither.
Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air,
We wawl and cry:——

Evidently taken from Pliny as translated by Philemon Holland. "Man alone, poor wretch [nature] hath laid all naked upon the bare earth, even on his birth day to cry and wrawle presently from the very first houre that he is borne into this world."—Proeme to book 7.

THE FOOL.

The fool in this play is the genuine domestic buffoon: but notwithstanding his sarcastical flashes of wit, for which we must give the poet credit, and ascribe them in some degree to what is called stage effect, he is a mere natural with a considerable share of cunning. Thus Edgar calls him an innocent, and every one will immediately distinguish him from such a character as Touchstone. His dress on the stage should be parti-coloured; his hood crested either with a cock's comb, to which he often alludes, or with the cock's head and neck. His bauble should have a head like his own with a grinning countenance, for the purpose of exciting mirth in those to whom he occasionally presents it.

The kindness which Lear manifests towards his fool, and the latter's extreme familiarity with his master in the midst of the most poignant grief and affliction, may excite surprise in those who are not intimately acquainted with the simple manners of our forefathers. An almost contemporary writer has preserved to us a curious anecdote of William duke of Normandy, afterwards William I. of England, whose life was saved by the attachment and address of his fool. An ancient Flemish chronicle among the royal MSS. in the British Museum, 16, F. iii., commences with the exile of Salvard lord of Roussillon and his family from Burgundy. In passing through a forest they are attacked by a cruel giant, who kills Salvard and several of his people; his wife Emergard and a few others only escaping. This scene the illuminator of the manuscript, which is of the fifteenth century, has chosen to exhibit. He has represented Emergard as driven away in a covered cart or waggon by one of the servants. She is attended by a female, and in the front of the cart is placed her fool, with a countenance expressive of the utmost alarm at the impending danger. Nor would it be difficult to adduce, if necessary, similar instances of the reciprocal affection between these singular personages and those who retained them.

ON THE STORY OF THIS PLAY.

To the account already given of the materials which Shakspeare used, nothing perhaps of any moment can be added; but for the sake of rendering this article more complete, it may be worth while to add that the unpublished Latin Gesta Romanorum contains the history of Lear and his daughters under different names, and with some little variety of circumstance. As it is not tedious, and has never been printed, at least as far as we know at present, it is here subjoined in its English form. The manuscript used on this occasion is No. 7333, in the Harleian collection.

"Theodosius regned, a wys emperour in the cite of Rome and myghti he was of power; the whiche emperour had thre doughters. So hit liked to this emperour to knowe which of his doughters lovid him best. And tho he seid to the eldest doughter, how moche lovist thou me? fforsoth, quod she, more than I do myself, therfore, quod he, thou shalt be hily avaunsed, and maried her to a riche and myghti kyng. Tho he cam to the secund, and seid to her, doughter, how moche lovist thou me? As moche forsoth, she seid, as I do myself. So the emperour maried her to a duc. And tho he seid to the thrid doughter, how moche lovist thou me? fforsoth, quod she, as moche as ye beth worthi, and no more. Tho seid the emperour, doughter, sith thou lovist me no more, thou shalt not be maried so richely as thi susters beth. And tho he maried her to an erle. Aftir this it happid that the emperour held bataile ayend the king of Egypt. And the kyng drove the emperour oute of the empire, in so moche that the emperour had no place to abide ynne. So he wrote lettres ensealed with his ryng to his first doughter that seid that she lovid him more than herself, for to pray her of socouryng in that grete nede, bycause he was put oute of his empire. And when the doughter had red thes lettres, she told hit to the kyng her husbond. Tho, quod the kyng, it is good that we socour him in this nede. I shal, quod he, gadern an host and help him in all that I can or may, and that will not he do withoute grete costage. Yee, quod she, hit were sufficiant if that we wold graunt him V knyghts to be in felashyp wt him while he is oute of his empire. And so hit was ydo indede. And the doughter wrote ayen to the fader, that other help myght he not have but V knyghts of the kyng to be in his felashyp at the cost of the kyng her husbond. And when the emperour herd this, he was hevy in his hert, and seid, alas! alas! all my trust was in her, for she seid she lovid me more than herself, and therfore I avaunced her so hye.

"Then he wrote to the seconde that seid she lovid him as moche as hirself, and when she had herd his lettres, she shewid his erand to hir husbond, and yaf him in counseil that he shuld fynde him mete and drink and clothing honestly, as for the state of such a lorde during tyme of his nede. And when this was graunted, she wrote lettres agein to hir fadir. The emperour was hevy wt this answere, and seid, sith my two doughters have thus yhevid me, sothely I shal preve the third. And so he wrote to the thrid that seid she lovid him as moche as he was worthi, and praied her of socour in his nede, and tolde her the answere of her two sustris. So the thrid doughter when she had considered the myschief of her ffader, she told her husbond in this fourme: my worshipfull lord do socour me now in this grete nede, my fadir is put oute of his empire and his heritage. Then spake he, what were thi will I did therto. That ye gadre a grete oste, quod she, and helpe him to fight ayens his enemys. I shal fulfill thi will, seide the erle, and gaderid a grete oste and yede with the emperoure at his owne costage to the bataile, and had the victorye, and set the emperour ayen in his heritage. And then seid the emperour, blessed be the hour I gate my yongist doughter: I lovid her lesse than eni of the othir, and now in my nede she hath socoured me, and the othir have yfailed me; and therefore aftir my deth she shal have myn empire. And so hit was ydo in dede; for aftir the deth of the emperour, the yongist doughter regned in his sted and ended pesibly."

The same story is to be found in the formerly celebrated English chronicle erroneously supposed to have been written by Caxton, the early part of which was copied from Geoffrey of Monmouth. The circumstance of its having been printed by Caxton more than once, with a continuation to his own time, probably by himself, seems to have occasioned the mistake. See what has been said of it before, p. 261.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] This country has been humorously described by an old French fablier, from whose work an extract may be found in Mons. Legrand's entertaining collection of Fabliaux, tom. i. p. 251; and which verifies Mr. Tyrwhitt's conjecture, that the old English poem first published by Hickes, G. A. Sax. p. 231, was a translation from the French. See Cant. tales, vol. iv. p. 254.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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