Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/10

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

. X 1., JAV. 5. '56.

--in the fifteenth century. This introductory chapter is remarkable as being in verse, although written in prose; and it contains the fabulous narrative of the thirty daughters of a king of Greece, the eldest of whom, Albine, first gave her name to this island of Albion, and from her descended the giants who inhabited the land until the arrival of Brutus. Only one copy (Harl. 200.) has a general ( title prefixed : Id comencent les Cronikes de tout 'Engleterre, but all three copies agree in beginning the Chronicle in nearly these words : " En la noble cite de grant Troie il y avoit un fort chivalier," &c., which first chapter gives us the story of the flight of Eneas from Troy to Italy, and subsequent events to the death of Sil- vius by the hand of his son Brutus. The copy in the Add. MS. ends imperfectly in the reign of Edward II., and the text of the Harleian copy is considerably abridged in the reigns of Edward II. and III. !Not long after the date of the comple- tion of this work, a revision of it was made, with

^various alterations and additions ; the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III. were much enlarged (although still ending with the battle of Halidon Hill, in 1332), and verbal variations were made throughout. This revised text is preserved in the Old Royal MS. 20. A. iii., written probably not

~Iater than 1345 ; and a fair, but more recent copy of the same text (of the fifteenth century) is in the Add. MS. 18,462. art. 1. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, to whom the latter copy belonged, has caused the following title to be prefixed : " Chro- nica Sancti Albani sive Fructus Temporum, a primis incolis usque ad regnum Edw. 3. Gallice ; " but this is entirely erroneous, from his confound- ing it with quite a diiferent work, as will here- after be shown. The real title is given at the head of the table of chapters, thus : La Table des Cronicles <f Engleterre. As this revised text was the one from which the English prose Brute (as it appears in the majority of copies) was trans- lated, and forms the basis of Caxton's edition, it may be desirable to point out the chief variations from the original text. In the first place, an entirely new prefatory chapter was composed, relative to the legend of Albine, in which the name of her father is given as Dioclicias (English copies Diocliciaii), _and the locality of his kingdom transferred from Greece to Syria. The rubric in 20 D. iii., is Ci poet horn oir coment Engleterre fust primes name Albion, et par qi la te.rre receust eel noun, and the copies commence, " En la noble citee de Sirie regna un noble roi," &c. The names of the giants Gogmagog and Langherigan arealsosupplied. Both

- "Copies insert the prophecies of Merlin to Arthur (capp. 76 81. of Royal MS.), as also the prophe- cies of the same personage relating to the reigns of Henry III., Edw. I., and Edw. II. (capp. 179. 194. 219.), none of which additions are in the ori- ginal text. Both copies, moreover, omit the

chapter respecting Malgo, and pass at once from Conan to Cerlik ; and in the MS. 18,462, art. 1., an omission occurs of two chapters (47. and 48.) relative to Constance, Constantin, Maxence, and Octavian; but this may probably be a peculiarity (? r . f au 10 of ^" s CO P V as is also its arbitrary division into two books, the chapters of which are separately numbered. In this revised text it is, that we first find the story relative to the death

"of King John by poison (cap. 164.), which is cited by Stowe, in his Annales (edit. 1615, p. 175.), as " reported by a namelesse authour, a continuer of Geoffrey Monmouth, in the reygne of Edward the Third, and since increased, printed by William Caxton, and therefore called Caxton's Chronicle;" but it would hence seem that Stowe made use of an English, rather than a French copy of the work. Who was the author of the original French compilation, is unknown, nor is his name likely to be discovered. On a fly-leaf of one copy of the English prose translation (MS. Harl. 4690.) is written, in a hand of the sixteenth century, " The Memoralle Cronicke, written by John Douglas, Munke of Glastonburuye Abbaye;" and on this insufficient evidence, Mr. Douce, in his Illustra- tions of Shakspeare (vol. i. p. 423.), assumed the author to be Douglas, in which he is blindly fol- lowed by Dr. Dibdin (Typ. Antiq., vol i. p. 90.), and others ; but the note may only refer to the scribe, or be a mere scribble, for the name of Douglas is wholly ignored by Leland, Bale, Pits, and Tanner. On the other hand, it is evident,

_J,hat the author's name was not known in the fifteenth century; for in several copies of the English version (as MS. Harl. 24., and MS. Digby, 185.), we are told, in a prefatory heading to the work, " The wiche gestis and romayns- mani dyvers goode men and grete clerkes, and

_nainely men of relygion, have compilede and wretone .... and lette calle hem Cronicles." And again, at the conclusion of other copies (Harl. 1337. and 6251., Hatton, 50.), we read, "Here endith a booke callyd the Croniclis of Englonde,

-made and compiled by notabil clerkis." From these expressions, AVC may reasonably infer, that, the name of the original composer was never avowed, but the whole considered as a compila- tion made from the earlier historians.

From a collation of a considerable number of copies of the English prose Brute, it would appear that this version, when first made, concluded, like

_the French original, with the battle of Halidon Hill, in 1332 ; and in several copies (Hurl. 2182., 2279., 2448.), the words Deo gracias are here added, which would imply the termination of the work. In the sale of Mr. Rennie's library, in July, 1829 (Lot 753.), was also a copy of the work, ending in this same year, 1332. The Chronicle was subsequently continued to the end

"of the reign of Edward III., in 1377 ; as attested