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Gentleman's Magazine 1850 part 1 p.613
P.213. "I sall be very glad to see the Sir Tristrem
which Scott is editing. The old Cornish knight has been one
of my favourite heroes for fifteen years."
list, On this very curious poem of Sir Tristram see
Campbell's History of the Poetry of Scotland, p.52; Warton's
History of English Poetry (new ed.) vol.i. 00.78,181-189, in
which it is proved not to be the work of Thomas the
Rhymer; see also Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol.i. pp.331,
413-417; also vol.ii. p.20; Guest's History of English
Rhythm, vol.ii. p.174. Whether Ercildoun told the tale in
prose or verse, in English or Romance, we have no means of
ascertaining; from him the Westmorland poet had the story,
and this seems to be the extent of his obligations. This
edition was reviewed by Wm. Taylor in Critical Review,
vol.iii. 1804. See also Campbell's Specimens of the English
Poets, vol.i. p.32. Mr. Wright says, "The English romance
preserved in Auchinleck MS. was published by Sir Walter
Scott, not very accurately; he had formed some wrong
notions as to its history." See Biog. Br. Lit. p.343. The
poetical romance of Tristrem in French, in
Anglo-Norman, and in Greek, composed in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, was edited by M. Michel, 2 vols. 1815;
while for a German poem on Sir Tristrem, see Dibdin's
Bibliog. Tour, vol.iii. p.126; also Chalmer's edition of Sir
David Lindsay, vol.iii.p.199; and the Foreign Qtrly Review,
No.vii. p.143, may be consulted for an account of a
German version of this poem, published by Professor
Vander Hagen. Pinkerton, in his edition of the Maitland
poems, mentions this poem as lost; see vol.i. p.lix.
P.214. "If Cumberland must have a Greek name, there
is but one that fits him - Aristophanes - and that for the
worst part of his character. If his plays had any honest
principle in them, instead of that eternal substitution of
honour for honesty, of a shadow for a substance - if
his novels were not more profligate in their tendency than
Matthew Lewis's unhappy book - if the perusal of his Calvary
were not a cross heavy enough for any man to bear who has
ever read ten lines of Milton - if the man were innnocent of
all these thinigs, he ought never to be forgiven for his
attempt to blast the character of Socrates. Right or wrong,
no matter, the name had been canonized, and God knows wisdom
and virtue have not so many saints that they can spare an
altar to his clumsy pick-axe. I am no blind bigot of the
Greeks; but I will take the words of Plato and
greater Xenophon against Richard Cumberland, Esq."
Mr. William Mitford, the learned historian of Greece, has
animadverted most justly on this misrepresentation of the
character of Socrates by Mr. Cumberland, and he shows that
"the life and manners of Socrates remain reported with
authority not to be found for any other character of heathen
antiquity, by two men of the best ability and best
reputation who lived familiarly with him; each bears the
fullest testimony to the integrity of Socrates, to the
purity of his manners, purity beyond even the precepts of
that age, as well as to the excellence of his doctrine. On
the contrary, the foul aspersions on his character which the
author of the Observer has now in our days thought it
worth his while to seek, to collect, and to exhibit in group
in a daylight which they had not before known, are reported
neither on authority to bear any comparison with the single
evidence of Plato or Xenophon, much less with their united
testimony, nor have they any probability to recommend them,"
&c. The entire note, which is eminently conclusive on
this interesting subject, is too long to give, but let the
reader consult the History of Greece, vol.v. p.129, note.
P.228. "Amadis is most abominably printed. Never book
had more printers' blunders. How it sells is not in my power
to say."
This work was reviewed in the Critical Rev. July 1804, by
Mr. Wm. Taylor. Southey says, in a letter to that gentleman,
"My name has got into the papers as the translator of
Amadis. I am endeavouring still to conceal the truth. John
Southwell, esq. will claim the book, and explain the
mistake." See Memoirs of William Taylor, vol.i. pp.440,
516-529.
P.253. "It has occurred to me that I could make a good
companion to Ellis's very excellent book, under the title of
'Specimens of the Modern English Poetry,' beginning exactly
wher he leaves off, and following exactly his plan; coming
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