romeo. The French and Italian tales agree in the most minute circumstances, even in the name of the place where the lady resided, which is Tours in both. This tale is the subject of a colloquy of Erasmus, entitled Uxor Muayapos sive Conjugium. It also occurs in Albion's England, a poem, by William Warner, who was a celebrated writer in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The stanzas, which contain this story, have been extracted from that poetical epitome of British history, and published in Percy's Relics, under the title of the Patient Countess. There were few tales written in France, in imitation of those of the queen of Navarre. Those of Bonaventure des Perriers, one of the domestics of that princess, are not so long as those of his mistress; they consist for the most part in epigrammatic conclusions, brought about by a very short relation. It is amusing, however, to trace in his work the rudiments of our most ordinary jestbooks. The following story may be found in almost every production of the kind, from the Facetiæ of Hierocles, to the last Encyclopædia of Wit. An honest man in Poictiers sent his two sons for their improvement to Paris. After some time they both fell sick; one died, and the survivor, in a letter to his father, said, 'This is to acquaint you that it is not I who am dead, but my brother William, though it be very true that I was worse than he' Among the French tales of the 16th century, may be mentioned Les Contes d'Eutrapel, written by Noel Dufail, a Breton, under the name of Leon Ladulfi, published in 1549; Le Printemps de Jaques Yver, 1575; and L'Eté de Benigne Bois senot. The Histoires Prodigieuses de Boistuau, published about the same period, seems to be the origin of such stories as appear in the Wonders of Nature, Marvellous Magazine, &c. We are assured that in the Hebrides, wheat grows on the top of the trees, and that the leaves, when they fall to the ground, are immediately changed to singing birds: there are besides a good many relations of monstrous births. There is also the common story of a person who was drowned by mistaking the echo of his own cry, for the voice of another. Arriving at the bank of a river, he asked loudly, s'il n'y avoit point de peril a passer-Passez. Est ce par ici-par ici. I have occupied the reader perhaps longer than at first may seem proper, or justifiable, with the subject of Italian tales. But, besides their own intrinsic value, as pictures of morals and of manners, other circumstances contributed to lead me into this detail. In no other species of writing is the transmission of fable, and, if I may say so, the commerce of literature, so distinctly marked. The larger works of fiction resemble those productions of a country which are consumed within itself, while tales, like the more delicate and precious articles of traffic, which are exported from their native soil, have gladdened and delighted every land. They are the ingredients from which Shakspeare, and other enchanters of his day, have distilled those magical drops which tend so much to sweeten the lot of humanity, by occasionally withdrawing the mind, from the cold and naked realities of life, to visionary scenes and visionary bliss. END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. EDINBURGH : ERRATA. VOLUME II. P. 118, 1. 21, for Garde de Mange, read Garde-Manger. — 151, 1. 10, for I am who am, read I am who I am. 166, 1. 7, for spirits, read spirit. 178, 1. 12, dele any. — 190, 1. 4, for Sir, read Ser. — 200, 1. 13, insert and before the work. – 220, 1. 22, for pelizzi, read peluzzi. 252, 1., for et ostamente, read e tostamente. 258, 1. 20 & 21, for Seraphim and Cherubim, read Se raph and Cherub. 275, l. 8, for it, read them. 381, 1. 10, for 1554, read 1534. 383, 1. 4, for Twelfth Night, read Much Ado about No thing. - 386, 1. 13, for Decameron, read Tales of Bandello. – 399, 1, 20), for that our poets, particularly the dramatic, read that our dramatic poets. |