Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/40

xxxii or reign of a Roman emperor; who, at the same time, is often a monarch that never existed, and who seldom, whether real or supposititious, has any concern with the circumstances of the narrative."

The influence which this work has had on English poetiy is not the least surprising fact connected with it. Not only the earlier writers of our country—Grower, Chaucer, Lydgate, Occleve, &c.—have been indebted to it, but also, as the reader will perceive in the notes, the poets of modern times. Its popularity in the reign of Queen Elizabeth is proved by many allusions in the works of that period. In an anonymous comedy, published early in the following reign, entitled Sir Giles Goosecap, we have: "Then for your lordship's quips and quick jests, why were nothing to them." In Chapman's May-Day, a person speaking of the literary information of another character, styles him—"One that has read Marcus Aurelius,, the Mirrour of Magistrates, &c to be led by the nose like a blind beare that has read nothing!"

The author of this popular work has been often guessed at, but nothing certain is known. Warton believes him to be Petrus Berchorius, or Pierre Bercheur, a native of Poitou; and prior of the Benedictine convent of Saint Eloi, at Paris, in the year 1362. Mr. Douce, on the other hand, contends that he is a German, because "in the Moralization to chapter 144" [Tale CXLIV. of the translated Gesta], "there is, in most of the early editions, a German proverb; and in chapter 142" [Tale CXLII], "several German names of dogs." I apprehend, however, that these names may be found more analogous to the Saxon; and, at all events, Warton's idea of an interpolation is far from improbable. Mr. Douce adds, that the earliest editions of the Gesta were printed in Germany; and certainly they often bear the name of some place in that country. But in the first ages of the art of printing, such might be the case, without actually identifying the point where the impression was struck off. It is a fact, sufficiently well known, that copies of certain books, printed in Italy, appeared, in every respect similar, and at the same time, in many parts of Germany, the Netherlands, &c. The only observable difference was in the alteration of names in the title-page. Now, if this be true, the Gesta Romanorum, printed in Italy, and thence sent for sale to some factor