Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/15

Rh of our great national library is strange. There is a complete copy in the University Library, Cambridge.

It is impossible to do more here than to give a brief résumé of Herr Oesterley's conclusions regarding the Gesta. To go into his proofs, except in the merest outline, would be to reproduce his book, for it contains nothing whatever but what is strictly relevant to the matter in hand. Those who are acquainted with the subject will be aware how obscure and perplexing it is. Mr. Swan's Introduction, though rather vague and rambling, is worth studying. It contains some valuable conjectures, which subsequent inquiry has shown to be sound. Warton's "Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum" (Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. p. cxxxix.), as being the earliest attempt to arrive at definite conclusions as to the origin of this collection of stories, is worth reading, apart from the deservedly high authority of its author. But its inadequacy was obvious even to Warton's contemporaries. Douce's "Dissertation" (Illustrations of Shakespeare, p. 516) is a really useful piece of work. Although mistaken in several points, his remarks are always acute and valuable; and he called attention to the importance of a thorough examination of the MSS. contained in the libraries of the Continent, with a view to discovering, if possible, the origin of the Gesta. "It is a fact," he says, "as remarkable as the obscurity which exists concerning the author of the Gesta, that no manuscript of this work, that can with certainty be pronounced as such, has hitherto been described. If the vast stores of manuscripts that are contained in the monastic and other libraries of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, were examined, there is scarcely a doubt that some original of a work so often printed would be discovered." Douce's expectations have been falsified by the result of Herr Oesterley's