Note 6 — THE KNIGHT AND THE FRIAR.

An old Gentlewoman, a great admirer of the black letter, (as many old Gentlewomen are) presented the Author of these Tales with the Original MS. of this Sonnet; advising the publication of a facsimile of the Knight’s hand-writing. It is painful, after this, to advance, that the Sonnet, so far from being genuine, is one of the clumsiest literary forgeries, that the present times have witnessed. It appears, in this authentick Story, that Sir Thomas Erpingham was married in the reign of Henry the Fifth; and it is evidently intended, that Moderns should believe he writ these love-verses almost immediately after his marriage; not only from the ardour with which he celebrates the beauty of his wife, but from the circumstance of a man writing any love-verses upon his wife at all;—but the style and language of the lines are most glaringly inconsistent with their pretended date. The fact is, we have here foisted upon us a close imitation of Cowley, (vide the Mistress) who was not born till the year 1618,—two centuries after the era in question. Chaucer died, A. D. 1400; and Henry the Fifth (who was king only 9 years, 5 months, and 11 days) began his reign scarcely 13 years after the death of that Poet. Sir Thomas, then, must, at least, have written in the obsolete phraseology of Chaucer,—and, probably, would have imitated him,—as did Lidgate, Occleve, and others;—nay, Harding, Skelton, &c. who were fifty or sixty years subsequent to Chaucer, were not so modern in their language as their celebrated predecessor. Having, in few words, prove’d (it is presume’d) this Sonnet to be spurious, an apology may be thought necessary for not saying a great deal more;—but this Herculean task is left, in deference, to the disputants on Vortigern; who will, doubtless, engage in it, as a matter of great importance, and, once more, lay the world under very heavy obligations, with various Pamphlets in folio, upon the subject:—and, surely, too many acknowledgments cannot be given to men who are so indefatigably generous in their researches, that half the result of them, when publish’d, causes even the sympathetick reader to labour as much as the Writer! How ungratefully did Pope say! “There, dim in clouds, the poring Scholiasts mark, Wits, who, like owls, see only in the dark; A lumber-house of books in every head; For ever reading, never to be read!”—Dunciad. Return