IV. When all aloud the wind doth blow, Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, Thyne hote tonge to kele." Mr. Lambe obferves in his notes on the ancient metrical Hiftory of The Battle of Floddon, that it is a common thing in the North for a maid fervant to take out of a boiling pot a wheen, i. e. a fmall quantity, viz. a porringer or two of broth, and then to fill up the pot with cold water. The broth thus taken out, is called the keeling wheen. In this manner greasy Joan keeled the pot." "Gie me beer, and gie me grots, 2 "And lumps of beef to fwum abeen; the parfon's faw,] Saw feems anciently to have meant, not as at prefent, a proverb, a fentence, but the whole tenor of any inftru&ive difcourfe. So, in the fourth chapter of the first book of the Tragedies of John Bochas, tranflated by Lidgate: "Thefe old poetes in their fawes fwete "Full covertly in their verfes do fayne," &c. STEEVENS. Yet in As you like it, our author ufes this word in the fenfe of a fentence, or maxim: "Dead fhepherd, now I find thy faw of might,' &c. It is, I believe, fo ufed here. MALONE. When roasted crabs, &c.] i. e. the wild apples fo called. Thus, in The Midfummer-Night's Dream: "And fometimes lurk I in a goffip's bowl, "In very likeness of a roafted crab." Again, in Like will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587: "Now a crab in the fire were worth a good groat: That I might quaffe with my captain Tom Tofs-pot. ARM. The words of Mercury are harsh after the You, that way; we, this way. fongs of Apollo. You, that [Exeunt.* Again, in Summer's laft Will and Teftament, 1600; Sitting in a corner, turning crabs, "Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale." STEEVENS. The bowl must be supposed to be filled with ale; a toast and fome fpice and fugar being added, what is called Lamb's wool is produced. So, in K. Henry V. 1598 (not our author's play): "Yet we will have in store a crab in the fire, "With nut-brown ale, that is full ftale," &c. MALONE. 4 In this play, which all the editors have concurred to cenfure, and fome have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confeffed that there are many paffages mean, childish, and vulgar; and fome which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are fcattered through the whole many fparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare. JOHNSON. ACT I. SCENE I. Page 191. This child of fancy, that Armado hight, &c.] This, as I have fhown in the note in its place, relates to the ftories in the books of chivalry. A few words, therefore, concerning their origin and nature, may not be unacceptable to the reader. As I don't know of any writer, who has given any tolerable account of this matter: and especially as monfieur Huet, the bishop of Avranches, who wrote a formal treatise of the Origin of Romances, has faid little or nothing of these in that fuperficial work. For having brought down the account of Romances to the later Greeks, and entered upon those compofed by the barbarous weftern writers, which have now the name of Romances almost appropriated to them, he puts the change upon his reader, and inftead of giving us an account of thefe books of chivalry, one of the moft curious and interefting parts of the fubje&t he promised to treat of, he contents himself with a long account of the poems of the Provincial writers, called likewife romances; and fo, under the equivoque of a common term, drops his proper subject, and entertains us with another, that had no relation to it more than in the name. The Spaniards were of all others the fondeft of these fables, as fuiting beft their extravagant turn to gallantry and bravery; which in ume grew fo exceffive, as to need all the efficacy of Cervantes's incomparable fatire to bring them back to their fenfes. The French fuffered an eafier cure from their doctor Rabelais, who enough difcredited the books of chivalry, by only ufing the extravagant ftories of its giants, &c. as a cover for another kind of fatire against the refined politicks of his countrymen; of which they were as much poffeffed as the Spaniards of their romantick bravery: a bravery our Shakspeare makes their characteristic in this defcription of a Spanish gentleman: A man of complements, whom right and wrong In high-born words, the worth of many a knight, The fenfe of which is to this effect: This gentleman, fays the fpeaker, Jhall relate to us the celebrated ftories recorded in the old romances, and in their very tile. Why he fays from tawny Spain, is because these romances, being of the Spanish original, the heroes and the scene were generally of that country. He fays, loft in the world's debate, because the fubje&s of thofe romances were the crufades of the European Chriftians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa. Indeed, the wars of the Chriftians against the Pagans were the general fubject of the romances of chivalry. They all feem to have had their ground-work in two fabulous monkish hiftorians: the one, who under the name of Turpin, archbishop of Rheims, wrote the History and Atchievements of Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers; to whom, inftead of his father, they affigned the task of driving the Saracens out of France and the fouth parts of Spain: the other, our Geoffry of Monmouth. Two of those peers, whom the old romances have rendered moft famous, were Oliver and Rowland. Heuce Shakspeare makes Alençon, in the first part of Henry VI. fay; "Froyffard, a countryman of ours, records, England all Olivers and Rowlands bred, during the time Edward the third did reign. In the Spanish ro * From tawny Spain, &c.] This paffage may, as Dr. Warburton imagines, be in allufion to the Spanish Romances, of which feveral were extant in English, and very popular at the time this play was written. Such, for inftance, as Amadis de Gaule, Don Bellianis, Palmerin d'Oliva, Palmerin of England, the Mirrour of Knighthood, &c. But he is egregiously mistaken in afferting that the heroes and the fcene were generally of that country," which, in fact, (except in an inftance or two nothing at all to the prefent purpofe) is never the cafe. If the words loft in the world's debate will bear the editor's conftruction, there are certainly many books of chivalry on the fubje&. I cannot, however, think that Shakspeare was particularly converfant in works of this defcription: But, indeed, the alternately rhyming parts, at least, of the prefent play are apparently by an inferior hand; the remains, no doubt, of the old platform. RITSON. The mance of Bernardo del Carpio, and in that of Roncesvalles, the feats of Roland are recorded under the name of Roldan el encantador; and in that of Palmerin de Oliva, or fimply Oliva, thote of Oliver: for Oliva is the fame in Spanish as Olivier is in French. account of their exploits is in the high ft degree monstrous and extravagant, as appears from the judgement palled upon them by the prieft in Don Quixote, when he delivers the knight's library to the fecular arm of ae houfe-keeper, Exceptuando à un Bernardo del Carpio que anda por ay, y á otro llamado Ronceivalles; que eltos en llegando á mis manos, han de eftar en las del ama, y dellas en las del fuego in remifiion alguna." And of Oliver he says, effa Oliva fe haga luego raxas, y fe queme, que aun no queden della las cenizas." The reasonableness of this fentence may be partly feen from one ftory in the Bernardo del Carpio, which tells us, that the cleft called Roldan, to be feen in the fummit of an high mountain in the kingdom of Valencia, near the town of Alicant, was made with a single back-stroke of that hero's broad-sword. Hence came the proverbial expreffion of our plain and fenfible ancestors, who were much cooler readers of these extravagancies than the Spaniards, of giving one a Rowland for his Oliver, that is of matching one impoffible lye with another; as, in Freuch, faire le Roland means, to fwagger. This driving the Saracens out of France and Spain, was, as we fay, the fubje& of the elder romances. And the first that was printed in Spain was the famous Amadis de Gaula, of which the inquisitor prieft fays: fegun he oydo dezir, efte libro fue el primero de Cavallerias que fe imprimio en Efpaua, y todos los demas han tomado principio y origen defte;"§ and for which he humourously condemns it to the fire, como á Dogmatazador de una feta lan mala. When this fubje&t was well exhaufted, the affairs of Europe afforded them another of the same nature. For alter that the western parts had pretty well cleared themselves of these inhofpitable guefts, by the excitements of the popes, they carried their arms against them into Greece and Asia, to support the Byzantine empire, and recover the holy fepulchre. This gave birth to a new tribe of romances, which we may call of the fecond race or class. And as Amadis de Gaula was at the head of the first, fo, correfpondently to the subject, Amadis de Græcia was at the head * Dr. Warburton is quite miftaken in deriving Oliver from (Palmerin de) Oliva, which is utterly incompatible with the genius of the Spanish language. The old romance, of which Oliver was the hero, is entitled in Spanish, "Hiftorias de los nobles Cavalleros Oliveros de Caftilla, y Artus de Algarbe, in fol. en Valladolid, 1501, in fol. en Sevilla, 1507;" and in French thus, "Hiftoire d'Olivier de Castille, & Artus d'Algarbe fon loyal compagnon, & de Heleine, Fille au Roy d'Angleterre, &c. tranflatée du Latin par Phil. Kamus, in fol. Gothique." It has alfo appeared in English. See Ames's Typograph. p. 94, 47. PERCY. B. i. c. 6. ++ Ibid. § Ibid. of the latter. Hence it is, we find, that Trebizonde is as celebrated in thefe romances as Roncefvalles is in the other. It may be worth obferving, that the two famous Italian epic poets, Ariofto and Tatio, have borowed, from each of thefe claffes of old romances, the scenes and fubjects of their feveral ftories: Ariolto choofing the first, the Saracens in France and Spain; and Taffo. the latter, the Crufade against them in Afia: Ariofto's hero being Orlando the French Roland: for as the Spaniards, by one way of tranfpofing the letters, had made it Roldan, fo the Italians, by another, make it Orland. or The main fubje& of these fooleries, as we have faid, had its original in Turpin's famous Hiftory of Charlemagne and his Twelve Pcers. Nor were the monftrous embellishments of enchantments, &c. the invention of the romancers, but formed upon eaftern tales, brought thence by travellers from their crufades and pilgrimages; which indeed have a caft peculiar to the wild imaginations of the eastern people. We have a proof of this in the travels of Sir John Maundeville, whofe exceffive fuperftition and credulity, together with an impudent monkifh addition to his genuine work, have made his veracity thought much worfe of than it deferved. This voyager, fpeaking of the ille of Cos in the Archipelago, tells the following ftory of an enchanted dragon. "And also a zonge man, that wift not of the dragoun, went out of the fchipp, and went through the ile, till that he cam to the caftelle, and cam into the cave; and went fo longe till that he fond a chambre, and there he faughe a damyfelle, that kembed hire hede, and lokede in a myrour: and fche hadde moche trefoure abouten hire: and he trowed that sche hadde ben a comoun woman, that dwelled there to receive men to folye. And he abode till the damyfelle faughe the fchadowe of him in the myrour. And fche turned hire toward him, and asked him what he wolde. And he feyde, he wolde ben hire limman or paramour. And fche asked him, if that he were a knyghte. And he fayde, nay. And then sche fayde, that he might not ben hire limman. But fche bad him gon azen unto his felowes, and make him knyghte, and come azen upon the morwe, and sche scholde come out of her cave before him; and thanne come and kyffe hire on the mowth and have no drede. For I fchalle do the no maner harm, alle be it that thou fee me in lykenefs of a dragoun. For thoughe thou fee me hideoufe and horrible to loken onne, I do the to wytene that it is made be enchauntement. For withouten doubte, I am none other than thou feeft now, a woman; and herefore drede the noughte. And zyf thou kyffe me, thou fchalt have all this trefoure, and by my lord, and lord alfo of all that ifle. And he departed, ' &c. p. 29, 30, ed. 1725. Here we see the very spirit of a romance adventure. This honeft traveller believed it all, and fo, it seems did the people of the ifle. "And fome men feyne (fays he) that in the ille of Lango is zit the doughtre of Ypocras in forme and |