NOTE II.

Baron De Brehan seem’d to stand.—­p. 6. l. 10.

Brehan—­Maison reconnue pour une des plus anciennes. Vraie race d’ancienne Noblesse de Chevalerie, qui dans les onxieme et douzieme siecles, tenoit rang parmi les anciens Barons, avant la reduction faite en 1451.

NOTE III.

Where does this idle Minstrel stay?—­p. 5. l. 13.

It appears that female minstrels were not uncommon, as one is mentioned in the Romance of Richard Coeur de Lion, without any remark on the strangeness of the circumstance.

    A goose they dight to their dinner
    In a tavern where they were. 
    King Richard the fire bet;
    Thomas to the spit him set;
    Fouk Doyley tempered the wood: 
    Dear abought they that good! 
    When they had drunken well, a fin,
    A minstralle com theirin,
    And said, “Gentlemen, wittily,
    Will ye have any minstrelsy?”
    Richard bade that she should go;
    That turned him to mickle woe! 
    The minstralle took in mind,[1]
    And said, “Ye are men unkind;
    And, if I may, ye shall for-think[2]
    Ye gave me neither meat ne drink. 
    For gentlemen should bede
    To minstrels that abouten yede,
    Of their meat, wine, and ale;
    For los[3] rises of minstrale.” 
    She was English, and well true,
    By speech, and sight, and hide, and hue.

Ellis’s Specimens of early English Metrical Romances.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Was offended.

[2] Repent.

[3] Reputation, glory.

NOTE IV.

On which the slightest touch alone would kill.—­p. 24. l. 6.

An unfortunate mistake in printing the word trill instead of kill, has made this appear ridiculous:  it alludes to the old proverb—­

    You should neither tell friend nor foe
    Where life-blood go.

Any wound in a place while this pulsation passed through being esteemed fatal.

NOTE V.

Abrupt his native accents broke.—­p. 50. l. 7.

The Anglo-Norman dynasty, with their martial nobility, down to the reign of Edward III. continued to use, almost exclusively, the Romance or ancient French language; while the Saxon, although spoken chiefly by the vulgar, was gradually adopting, from the rival tongue, those improvements and changes, which fitted it for the use of Chaucer and Gower.  In the introduction to the Metrical Romance of Arthur and Merlin, written during the minority of Edward V. it appears that the English language was then gaining ground.  The author says, he has even seen many gentlemen who could speak no French (though generally used by persons of that rank), while persons of every quality understood English.—­Sir Tristrem.