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was an unnecessary departure from the text. On the other hand, Mr. Swan had occasionally omitted sentences of importance; these have been restored to the text in the present edition. Mistakes in translation, of which there are more than might have been expected, have, of course, been corrected.

Mr. Swan's notes are sometimes erroneous and occasionally pointless. With regard to the former class, I have generally allowed them to stand, and added a correction of the mistakes. Notes of the latter class I have sometimes omitted, and those so treated will not, I think, be missed by the reader. The most valuable part of Mr. Swan's notes are his quotations from other authors illustrative of the text, in selecting which he showed more judgment than in the actual work of translation; but it is throughout evident that his knowledge of English literature, or, at all events, of writers about English literature, was greater than his acquaintance with either Latin or Greek.

A great deal has been done, since Mr. Swan wrote, towards settling the vexed questions relative to the genesis of the Gesta. Sir Frederick Madden, in his work on the old English versions of the Gesta, did a good deal towards solving the problem. But the book which has dealt with the subject in the most thorough and satisfactory manner is the work of a painstaking German, Herr Hermann Oesterley.* It is little known in England. The British Museum only possesses the first part; the authorities apparently not thinking it worth while to obtain the remainder, when it was not spontaneously offered them by the bookseller, perhaps because no one ever asked for the work. The leaves of the first part were not even cut till recently. Considering the value of Herr Oesterley's book, its absence, except in an incomplete state, from the shelves

* Gesta Romanorum, von H. Oesterley. Berlin, 1872.

of our great national library is strange. There is a complete copy in the University Library, Cambridge.

It is impossible to do more here than to give a brief résumé of Herr Oesterley's conclusions regarding the Gesta. To go into his proofs, except in the merest outline, would be to reproduce his book, for it contains nothing whatever but what is strictly relevant to the matter in hand. Those who are acquainted with the subject will be aware how obscure and perplexing it is. Mr. Swan's Introduction, though rather vague and rambling, is worth studying. It contains some valuable conjectures, which subsequent inquiry has shown to be sound. Warton's "Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum" (Hist. of English Poetry,* vol. i. p. cxxxix.), as being the earliest attempt to arrive at definite conclusions as to the origin of this collection of stories, is worth reading, apart from the deservedly high authority of its author. But its inadequacy was obvious even to Warton's contemporaries. Douce's "Dissertation" (Illustrations of Shakespeare, p. 516) is a really useful piece of work. Although mistaken in several points, his remarks are always acute and valuable; and he called attention to the importance of a thorough examination of the MSS. contained in the libraries of the Continent, with a view to discovering, if possible, the origin of the Gesta. "It is a fact," he says, 66 as remarkable as the obscurity which exists concerning the author of the Gesta, that no manuscript of this work, that can with certainty be pronounced as such, has hitherto been described. If the vast stores of manuscripts that are contained in the monastic and other libraries of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, were examined, there is scarcely a doubt that some original of a work so often printed would be discovered." Douce's expectations have been falsified by the result of Herr Oesterley's investiga

* Taylor's edition, in three volumes. 1840.

tions in this very field. It is now clearly ascertained that no MS. corresponding to the printed collection of stories known as the Gesta Romanorum exists.

Before laying before the reader a succinct account of the facts relative to the Gesta with which Herr Oesterley's work supplies us, it is necessary to say that what is known par excellence as the Gesta Romanorum is a collection of 181 stories, first printed about 1473, and that this is the collection of which the present edition is a translation. But before the appearance of this collection there existed a great number of MSS. all over Western Europe, no two of which exactly resembled each other. I shall now give some details, chiefly obtained from Herr Oesterley, concerning both printed editions and MSS.

I. Printed editions.

A. The editio princeps, printed in folio by Ketelaer and De Leempt, at Utrecht. Date uncertain. It contains 150 (not 152, as Douce erroneously says *) chapters.+

(a) A second edition of the editio princeps, printed by Arnold Ter Hoenen, at Cologne. Date uncertain. It contains 151 chapters.

B. The Vulgate (vulgärtext), or second editio princeps, printed by Ulrich Zell, at Cologne. Date uncertain. It contains 181 chapters.

Subsequent to the Vulgate numerous editions were printed resembling it in all essentials.

There is no doubt, according to Herr Oesterley, that all three editions [A, (a), & B] appeared between 1472 and 1475. He has adopted A and B as his text; A for the first 150 chapters (except chapter 18, which is found

*Illustrations, &c., p. 532. See Oesterley, p. 266.

+ In discussions on the Gesta Romanorum the reader must Oesterley, p. 267.

remember that "charter"

=

"story."

only in B), and B for the remainder.

His text therefore reproduces the two editiones principes, if such an expression is not a solecism.

C. Various editions in English, based on the Latin MSS. of English origin. They contain usually 44 chapters, but sometimes 43, and once 58. A few examples will suffice.

(a) Printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in small 4to., at London, date uncertain. It contains 43 chapters, and is a translation of MS. Harl. 5369. In the library of St. John's College, Cambridge.

(b) Printed in London, 1648. Contains 44 chapters.

(c) London, 1689. 44 chapters.

(d) London [1722?]. 58 chapters (British Museum,

1456A).

These editions all have some stories in common with the Vulgate, together with many which are peculiar to themselves. I may remark that Wynkyn de Worde's edition (a) is the only instance we have of a printed copy exactly corresponding to a MS. of the Gesta.

II. Manuscripts.

The MSS. of the Gesta fall naturally into three groups, or families, as Herr Oesterley calls them.‡

A. The English group; written in Latin. Of this the best representative is MS. Harl. 2270; date, fifteenth century. It contains 102 chapters, of which 72 are found in the Vulgate.§ This is the group which Mr. Douce calls the "English Gesta," and which he and others have maintained to have been com

* Oesterley, p. 268. § Ibid. pp. 187, 245.

† Ibid. p. 241. . Ibid. p. 244. Douce, Illustrations, &c., p. 535.

piled in imitation of the "Original Gesta," i.e. the Gesta represented by the set of manuscripts (C) which supplied the Vulgate.

B. Group of Latin and German MSS. This family is best represented by an edition in German, printed by John Schopser, at Augsburg, in 1489.*

C. A group represented by the Vulgate. The MSS. of this group have been greatly influenced by one another, and by entirely distinct collections of stories; particularly by Robert Holkot's Moralitates. Stories from Gervase of Tilbury appear in some of the younger MSS. of this group.‡ This group constitutes what Douce calls the "Original Gesta.'

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I have here given as concise a statement as possible of a great multiplicity of facts. The diversity existing among the MSS. known in England, and their apparent want of connection with the printed editions, gave rise to the theory, upheld by Mr. Douce and combated by Mr. Swan and others, that there were two distinct collections of stories called Gesta Romanorum, one of German, the other of English origin. The early appearance of the Gesta in England, the fact that the Vulgate was only printed on the Continent, as well as the local colouring of certain of the stories, were held to prove that shortly after the compilation of the "Original Gesta" in Germany, a similar set of stories was composed in imitation of it in England. That no copy of the "English Gesta" was printed appeared as strange as the fact that no MS. of the Vulgate had ever been found. As remarked above, Mr. Douce fully expected that a careful search in the libraries of the Continent would reveal the missing MS.

Herr Oesterley's investigations appear to show conclusively that, though there were not two Gestas, in the * Oesterley, pp. 1, 245 † Ibid. pp. 245, 246. Ibid. p. 253.

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