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FRAGMENT OP THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAINE.
From Percy's Reliques, iii. 403.
This is one of the few ballads contained in the Percy MS., which we have the pleasure of possessing as it is there written. Having first submitted an improved copy, " with large conjectural supplements and corrections," Percy added this old fragment at the end of the volume: " literally and exactly printed, with all its defects, inaccuracies, and errata," in order, as he triumphantly remarks, "that such austere antiquaries as complain that the ancient copies have not been always rigidly adhered to, may see how unfit for publication many of the pieces would have been, if all the blunders, corruptions, and nonsense of illiterate reciters and transcribers had been superstitiously retained, without some attempt to correct and amend them."
" This ballad," the Editor of the Reliques goes on to say, " has most unfortunately suffered by having half of every leaf in this part of the MS. torn away; and, as about nine stanzas generally occur in the ialf-page now remaining, it is concluded that the |
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