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FRAGMENT OF THE BALLAD OF KING ARTHUR AND THE KING OF CORNWALL. |
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Printed from the celebrated Percy MS. in Mad-den's Syr Gawayne, p. 275. The editor has added the following note.
" It has no title, and the first line has been cut away by the ignorant binder to whom the volume was intrusted, but both are supphed from the notice given of the ballad in the Dissertation prefixed to vol. iii. of the Reliques, p. xxxvii. Dr. Percy has added in the margin of the MS. these words: " To the best of my remembrance, this was the first line, before the binder cut it." The poem is very imperfect, owing to the leaves having been half torn away to light fires (!) as the Bishop tells us, but I am bound to add, previous to its coming into his possession. The story is so singular, that it is to be hoped an earlier and complete copy of it may yet be recovered. On no account perhaps is it more remarkable, than the fact of its close imitation of the famous gabs made by Charlemagne and his companions at the court of King Hugon, which are first met with in a romance of the twelfth century, published by M. Michel from a MS. in the British Museum, 12mo., London, 1836, and transferred at a later period to the prose romance of Galien Reihore, printed by Verard, fol., 1500, and often afterwards. In the |
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