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from Cleomades.

This horse was sent, with the vertuous ring and glass', as a present to 'Cambuscan bold', by the king of Arabie and Inde. To set him in motion it was only necessary to 'trill' a pin that was in his ear, and to tell him whither to go at the voice of his rider, and the turning of another pin, he descended; and when a third pin was trilled, he vanished, but came again when called in a particular manner. This is not unlike the horse of King Croppart.

But who was 'Cambuscan bold'? and where did Chaucer get the tale? On these points the commentators give us no information; but I think I can make a guess myself. The Squier's Tale begins thus:

"At Sarra in the lond of Tartarie

Ther dwelt a king that werreied Russie,

Through which ther died many a doughty man:
This noble king was cleped Cambuscan,

Which in his time was of so great renown

That ther n'as no wher in no regioun
So excellent a lord in alle thing."

And so it goes on enumerating the excellent qualities of this noble king'. A little further on we are told, that on the last Idus of March he held the feast of his nativity with great pomp and splendour, at which time the bearer of the presents of the king of Arabie and Inde entered his hall of state.

Now in looking into the Travels of Marco Polo, we find, in the very first page, that Barcha, the

monarch of Western Tartary (Kipchak), "one of the most liberal and courteous lords that had ever been among the Tartars," had two cities, named Bolgora and Assara; the former his summer, the latter his winter, residence. The proper name of Assara is Sarai; but Marco Polo seems to have given it with the Arabic article prefixed.

Again, when describing the Court of the Great Can at Cambalù, (also a winter residence,) the traveller says, "All the Tartars, and those who are subject to the Great Can, keep holiday on the birthday of this lord ;" and "On this day all the Tartars in the world, and all the provinces and kingdoms subject to him, send him very great gifts, according to the usage and custom."

I think, then, that it is not unlikely that Chaucer had seen the Travels of Marco Polo, and that Cambuscàn, or Cambu's Can, is a contraction of Cambalù Can. We may observe that the name of one of his sons is Camballò 1. Of Algarsif, the other son, I can give no account. The name of his daughter Canace is Greek. Chaucer himself probably invented the story, which he has 'left half told'.

The age and the author of Valentine and Orson are unknown; but it probably, like so many others, belongs to the fifteenth century. The copy which I have used was evidently printed early in the sixteenth century. It is there said,

1 Spenser has Cambéllo, and Milton Cambúscan; both wrongly accented.

"That same dwarf was named Pacollet: he was full of great sense and subtle ingenuity, who, at the school of Toledo, had learned so much of the art of necromancy, that he was, beyond all others, the most perfect; and in such sort, that by his enchantment he made and composed a little horse made of wood; and it had in its head, artificially, a pin, which was so set that every time that he mounted the horse to go anywhere, he turned the said pin to the place whither he wished to go, and he soon found himself in the place, and without danger; for the horse was of such fashion that he went through the air as quickly and more lightly than any bird could fly."

Have we not here, again, the horse of Cleomades? I say this because that is the oldest of the European stories, and was evidently exceedingly popular. We know how unceremoniously the romancers borrowed from one another.

I have not yet exhibited the whole of my enchanted stud. I have still a horse to produce, hitherto unknown to fame.

"The common fame," says Leland', "is in Ruthelandeshire, that there was one Rutter, a man of great favour with his prince, that desired to have of rewarde of hym as much land as he could ryde over in a day upon a horse of woodde, and that he ridde over as much as now is in Ruthelandeshire by arte magike, and that he was

1 Itinerary, vi. 50.

after swallowed into the yerthe 1." "This," sagaciously adds my author, "is very like a lye."

I will not say that this horse came from Cleomades; but I pray the reader to observe how the name gave origin to the legend. Rutland, i. e. Red-land, is so named from the colour of its soil 2. The same principle which in Greece made kings and heroes out of the names of towns and countries, gave being to Rutter; and the resemblance between Rutter and rider produced the horse, which, to increase the wonder, was made of wood.

I have been all my life fond of horses, so I feel loth to quit the subject, and will therefore say a few words of the enchanted horses of flesh and blood, or water-steeds as I may call them, from their connexion with that element.

Every one knows the classic steeds Pegasus and Arion, both the offspring of the god of the sea; the latter by Mother Earth. I need therefore only allude to them.

It was foretold to Yezdejird king of Persia, father of Bahram Gûr, hereafter to be mentioned, that he would come to the spring of Soo, and

1 Falstaff calls one of Prince Henry's companions Yedward (Ang.-Sax. Eadward). Earl is by the vulgar still pronounced yerl. The Anglo-Saxon e would therefore seem to answer to the Icelandic j, and Jarl and Earl to have been nearly the same in sound.

2

"And little Rutlandshire is termed Raddleman." Drayton, Polyolb., Song xxiii.

3 See the Shah Nameh.

there find his death. He resolved that he would never approach that fount, and so live for ever. But a disorder seized him, and by the advice of a priest he had himself carried to that fount; where, on praying to God, and sprinkling a few drops of its water on his head, he was cured of his disease. But his pride returned when he found himself restored to health and vigour. Then suddenly rose out of the spring a black horse, strong and wild as a lion. Yezdejird commanded his nobles to take the noose and catch the horse. They tried, but in vain: the Shah, full of anger, pursued the horse himself; but when he came up with him, the water-steed smote him with his hoof on the breast, so that he fell down and died. The horse then plunged into the spring and va

nished.

When King Gradasso had cut down the tree in the enchanted wood, there issued from it a stately horse. The undaunted hero mounts him, and the steed rises into the air, and then plunges with his burden into the River of Laughter (Fiume del Riso). This may remind one of the horse in the tale of Prince Agib, or the Third Calendar, who carries the prince away from the castle, where he had lived in such 'great joy and solace' with the fifty fair princesses, and leaves him, wanting an eye, on the roof of the Castle of Repentance; -a tale, by the way, not without its moral. To

1 Bojardo, Orl. Innam., III., vii., 24—28,

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