448 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2''*S. NolOL, Dec.5.'67. 



occupied the attention of poets in all countries, 

 and M. Duraeril gives us a complete and curious 

 enumeratioi) of the several versions. The Engli^ 

 translation belongs to the fourteenth century, and 

 unfortunately the beginning is wanting both in 

 the Auchinleck and the Cambridge MSS, During 

 the fire of 1731, amongst several other precious 

 volumes belonging to the Cottonian collection, a 

 MS. was destroyed which must have been of 

 much value, and which is described in the old 

 catalogue as Versus de Amoribus Flarisii juvenis 

 et BlancheflorcB puelloe, lingua veteri anglicana, 

 Vitellius D. Iir. 



The Dolopathos* is another tale, or rather col- 

 lection of tales, which M. Jannet has added to his 

 series, and which deserved that honour. JVIoliiere 

 and Dante are both indebted to this remarkable 

 book for some of their stories, and it is well 

 known that the subject of Sh^lsspeare's Merchant 

 of Venice is partly taken from the fourth tale. 

 M. Anatole de Montaiglon, who has editecj the 

 Dolopathost has our best thanks for the manner in 

 which he has discharged his duties, and the only 

 fault we can find with him is that of being too 

 sparing of his notes. Instead of limiting himself 

 for this reprint of a poem containing nearly 

 13,000 lines tp one volume, it wquld h^ve been 

 fq,r better if the editor h<id added a second one, 

 incjnding annotations, p, glossary, and other helps 

 Tyhich are absolutely necessary. The French 

 translation of the Dolopathos is by Berbers, and 

 is tot3,lly different from the Historia septem Sapi- 

 entum, altbongh both works may be traced to the 

 sj^me Oriental sources. M. de Montaiglon has 

 satisfactorily proved from intrinsic evidence that 

 Jlerbers wrote bis tr{|.n3lation between 1222 and 

 1224 or 1225. Faucret who, three hundred years 

 ago, alluiled to Ilerbera in his book Des auciens 

 Poetes Frangois, was able to consult a MS, of the 

 Dolopathos which appears now to be lost. Those 

 to which M. de Montaiglon has had access are, 1° 

 a MS. of the thirteentli century, preserved at the 

 Imperial Library of Paris (Cange, N° 75^5.). 

 This document, which the editor describes as 

 "excellent comme texte," is unfortunately incom- 

 plete, and ends with the line 9469, that is to say 

 about one- third of the whole work. 2'', a copy of 

 a somewhfl-t lifter date, belonging to the same es- 

 tablishment (Sorbonne, N° 1422.). The present 

 edition was quite a desideratum, and without it 

 np collection of medijeval literature wotild be 

 perfect, 



The next work I wo»}ld mention heref is one 

 which, during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 

 turies, enjoyed a reputation scarcely equalled by 



• ^'Le Dolopjithos, recueil de contes en vers, du XII* 

 siMe, par Herbers, public d'aprfes les manuscrita par MM. 

 Cli. Brunei et A. de Montaiglon, 1 vol." 



t " Les facetieusea Nuits d\i Seigneur Straparole, tra? 

 duites pftr Jpau Lo^Yeawefe fimTe de Lwivey, g vols," 



the productions of Boccaccio himself; we mean the 

 Piacevoli notti of Straparola di Caravaggio. Copies 

 of the original editions fetch now an extravagant 

 price ; nor is it much easier to meet with the 

 French translation, which was commenced by 

 John Louveau and finished by Larivey. There- 

 fore, although the perusal of Ser Straparola's 

 facetiae cannot be allowed pueris virginihusque, we 

 are glad to find that it is now accessible to those 

 who are engaged in researches on the history of 

 literature. One of the most important features 

 in M. Jannet's edition is a list of varice lectiones, 

 an account of the books from which Siraparola 

 often largely borrowed, and of the imitations 

 which can, in their turn, be traced to his piacevoli 

 notti. The Dolopathos, the Indian legends, II 

 Pecoj-one, Morlini novellce, fahnlts et comcedia, The 

 Arabian Nights and the old fabliaux, are the 

 principal sources to which he is indebted ; on the 

 other hand, we have no difficulty in ascertaining 

 that Gower (^Confessio Amantis, cf. with Strap. 

 Nott. xii.), Shakspeare, La Fontaine, Molifere, 

 Bandello, and many others had had tiie oppor- 

 tunity of studying our author. The biography 

 of Straparola is, as our readers are well aware, 

 very uncertain. La Monnoie even seems to thinlc 

 that the name Straparola was " un de ces noms 

 bizarres qu'on se donne en certaines academies 

 d'ltalie, tels que de Stordito, de Balordo, de Ca- 

 passone; car Straparola, c'est un homme qui parle 

 trop. Il est meme nommd Streparole, par allu- 

 sion, ce semble, a strepere, dans le recneil de ses 

 poesies imprime 3, Venise, in 8°, I'an 1508." Stra- 

 pijfrole belongs to a class of writers who were very 

 common four centuries ago : Rabelais, Bonaven- 

 tnre, Desperiers, Marguerite de Navarre, Noel dii 

 Fa'il, tvre all members of the same family, and the 

 Bibliotheque Elzeoirienne will give us the oppor» 

 tnnity of bestowing upon them at some future 

 occasion ^ passing notice. 



Under the title Recueil de poesies Franqoises 

 des XV pt XVP Siecles*, M- de Montaiglon has 

 collected £),nd annotated for M, Jannet a series of 

 interesting pieces from diffei'ent sources, most of 

 them extremely rare, and illustrating the political 

 or social history of Europe at the end of the me- 

 diaeval period. This recueil comprises already six 

 volumes, and is to include, we believe, four more. 

 We recomnJend it especially to our friends on ac- 

 count of the number of small poems it contains, 

 in which either allusion is made to the wars be- 

 tween England and France, or those wars are de* 

 scribed at full length. The following list, with 

 references to the volumes, will perhaps seem in- 

 teresting : 



1. " Le Paternoster des Angloys," i. pp. 125 — 130. 



2. "Nuptiaux Virelays du Manage du Roy d'E'cosse 



* " I^ecueil de poesies Fran9oises des XV^ et XVI" sife- 

 clea, morales, facetieuaea, historiques, rdunies et annotees 

 par M. A. de Montaiglon." 



