couraged, but the originals were burnt and destroyed. If any furvived this religious maffacre, 'twas partly owing to fome particular attachment to a favourite author, and partly to meer accidental caufes. About the fame time the northern nations difmantled the empire, and at length left it an easy prey to the Turk.

If we turn our eyes to our own country, we cannot go farther than the invasion of Julius Caefar, without being immerged in legends and romances. But even in that late period of arts and fciences, our Britifh barbarity was fo very notorious, that our 5 inhofpitality to ftrangers, our poverty and meannefs, and our ignorance of

every

fabellas, et Sapphus, Erinnae, Anacreontis, Minermimi, [Mimnermi] Bionis, Alcmanis, Alcaei carmina intercidiffe, tum pro bis fubftituta Nazianzeni noftri poemata; quae, etfi excitant animos noftrorum hominum ad flagrantiorem religionis cultum, non tamen verborum Atticorum proprietatem et Graecae linguae elegantiam edocent. Turpiter quidem facerdotes ifti in veteres Graecos malevoli fuerunt, fed integritatis, probitatis et religionis maximum dedere teftimonium. Petrus Alcyonius de Exil. p. 29. edit. Bafil.

5. Horace, Lib. III. Ode 4. Vifam Britannos hofpitibus feros. See Caefar's description of Britain (if 'tis Caefar's, and not inferted by a later hand) de bello Gallic. V, 12. &c. Cicero ad Attic. Epift. IV, 16. Illud jam cognitum eft, neque argenti fcrupulum esse ullum in illa infula, neque ullam fpem praedae, nifi ex mancipiis. If Caefar did not thoroughly conquer us, the reafon was, because we were not worth

every polite art, made us as contemptible to the Romans, as the loweft of the Indian clans can poffibly at this day appear to us. And even when we were beaten into a better behaviour, and taught by our conquerors a little more civility, yet we always relish'd the Gothic, more than the Roman manners. Our reading, if we could read at all, was fuch as the Monks were pleased to allow us, either pious tales of their own forging, or lying hiftories of adventurous knighterrants. Our heroes were of a piece with our learning, formed from the Gothic and Moorish models.

A pleasant picture of our ancient chivalry may be seen in Shakespeare's K. Richard II. where Bolingbroke, fon to John of Gaunt, appeals the duke of Norfolk, on an accufation of high treason. He would have been thought a moft irreligious perfon, who should have dared to queftion the immediate interpofition of hea

conquering. He had other defigns than fpending his time in such a miserable country; which Rome foon began to be fenfible of.

6. "In our forefathers time, when papistry, as a stand"ing pool, covered and overflowed all England, few books were read in our tongue, faving certain books of chival"ry, as they faid for paftime and pleafure; which, as "fome fay, were made in monafteries by idle Monks or

"wanton Canons." Afcham's Scholemafter, p. 86.

L

ven in defending the right caufe. The judge therefore allowing the appeal, the accufed perfon threw down his gage, whether glove or gauntlet, which was taken up formally by the accufer; and both were taken into fafe cuftody till battle was to decide the truth. The champions arms being ceremoniously blessed, each took an oath, that he ufed no charmed weapons. 7 Macbeth, according to the law of arms, tells Macduff,

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.

To this Pofthumus alludes in Cymbeline, Act V.

I, in my own woe charm'd

Could not find death.

The action began with giving one another the lye in the moft reproachful terms,

Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Thro' the false passage of thy throat, thou lyest!

The vanquished were always deem'd guilty, and deferving their punishment. In the fecond part of K. Henry VI. there is exactly fuch a duel fought, as, in Don Quixote, the fquire of the knight of the wood propofes between himself

8

7. Macbeth, A& V.

8. Don Quixote, vol. 2, chap. 14.

and

D 3

and Sancho. For the plebeians, not being allowed the use of the fword or lance, fought with wooden ftaves, at the end of which they tied a bag filled with fand and pebbles. When poor Peter is killed with this weapon by his mafter, K. Henry makes this reflection,

Go take bence that traitor from our fight,
For by his death we do perceive his guilt.

When our judges now a days afk the accused perfon, how he will be tryed; they would hardly I believe allow his appealing to his fword or his fandbag to prove his innocency.

Our Gothic chivalry Shakespeare has likewise touched on, in his K. Henry VIII. Hall and Holingshed, whom our poet has followed, tells us, that in the year 1520 a king of arms from France came to the English court, with a folemn proclamation, declaring, that in June enfuing, the two kings, Henry and Francis, with fourteen aids, would in a camp, between Ardres and Guifnes, anfwer all comers that were gentlemen, at tilt, tourney and barriers. The like proclamation was made by Clarencieux in the French court: and these defiances were fent likewife into Germany, Spain and Italy. Knights and fquires accordingly affembled, All clinquant, all in gold, as our poet has it: And the two kings, efpecially our sturdy Henry, performed wonders

equal

equal to any knight-errant in fairy land. The ladies were not only fpectators of these knightly jufts, and fierce encounters, but often the chief occafion of them: for to vindicate their unspotted honors and beauty, what warrior would refuse to enter the lifts? The witty earl of Surry, in Henry the eighth's reign, like another Don Quixote, travelled to Florence, and there, in honor of a fair Florentine, challenged all nations at fingle combat in defence of his Dulcinea's beauty. The more witty and wife Sir Philip Sydney,

9 Yclad in mightie arms and fylver shield,

in honor of his royal mistress, fhew'd his knight-errant chivalry before the French nobles, who came here on an embassy about the marriage of Elizabeth with the duke of Anjou.

Would it not be unjuft to ridicule our forefathers, for their aukward manners, and at the fame time have no other teft of ridicule but mode or fashion? For we, of a modern date, may poffibly appear, in many refpects, equally ridiculous to a critical and philofophical inquirer, who takes no other criterion and ftandard to

9. Spencer in his Fairy Queen, of Prince Arthur. This Arthur reprefents his patron, Sir Philip Sydney. And every one of his knight-errants reprefented fome hero in the court of Elizabeth.