A lance he bore with iron pike,

Th' one half wou'd thrust, the other strike;
And when their forces he had join'd,
He scorn'd to turn his parts behind.

He Trulla lov'd, Trulla more bright
Than burnish'd armour of her knight;
A bold virago, stout, and tall,

As Joan of France, or English Mall:"
Thro' perils both of wind and limb,
Thro' thick and thin she follow'd him
In ev'ry adventure h' undertook,
And never him, or it forsook :
At breach of wall, or hedge surprise,

She shar'd i' th' hazard, and the prize;

365

370

He Trulla lov'd,-] Trull is a profligate woman, that follows the camp. Trulla signifies the same in Italian. Casaubon derives it from the Greek μarpóλŋ.—The character is said to have been intended for the daughter of one James Spencer.

A bold virago, stout, and tall,

As Joan of France, or English Mall:] Joan d'Arc, commonly called the Maid of Orleans, has been sufficiently celebrated in the English histories of the reign of Henry VI. about the year 1428 and 1429.

English Moll was no less famous about the year 1670. Her real name was Mary Carlton; but she was more commonly distinguished by the title of Kentish Moll, or the German princess.-A renowned cheat and pickpocket, who was transported to Jamaica in 1671; and, being soon after discovered at large, was hanged at Tyburn, January 22, 1672-3. Memoirs of Mary Carlton were published 1673. Granger, in his Biographical History, calls her Mary Firth. See vol. ii. p. 408. ed. 8vo. She was commonly called English Mall. Thus Cleveland, p. 97, " certainly it is under the same no"tion, as one whose pockets are picked goes to Mal Cutpurse."

At beating quarters up, or forage,

Behav'd herself with matchless courage,
And laid about in fight more busily
Than th' Amazonian Dame Penthesile.'
And tho' some critics here cry Shame,
And say our authors are to blame,
That, spite of all philosophers,

Who hold no females stout but bears,
And heretofore did so abhor

375

380

That women should pretend to war,

They would not suffer the stout'st dame

385

To swear by Hercules his name ; 2
Make feeble ladies, in their works,
To fight like termagants and Turks ;3

Than th' Amazonian Dame Penthesile.] In the first editions it is printed with more humour Pen-thesile. See Virgil, Æneid.

i. 490.

Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis

Penthesilea furens, mediisque in millibus ardet,
Aurea subnectens exsertæ cingula mammæ

Bellatrix, audetque viris concurrere virgo.

They would not suffer the stout'st dame

To swear by Hercules his name ;] The men and women, among the Romans, did not use the same oath, or swear by the same deity; Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticæ, lib. xi. cap. 6. but commonly the oath of women was Castor; of men Edepol, or Mehercule. According to Macrobius, the men did not swear by Castor, nor the women by Hercules; but Edepol, or swearing by Pollux, was common to both. Make feeble ladies, in their works,

To fight like termagants and Turks;] The word termagant now signifies a noisy and troublesome person, especially of the female How it came by this signification I know not. Some derive it from the Latin ter magnus, felix ter et amplius; but Junius thinks it compounded of the Anglo-Saxon typ, the superlative or

sex.

To lay their native arms aside,
Their modesty, and ride astride;
To run a tilt at men, and wield
Their naked tools in open field;

As stout Armida, bold Thalestris,

4

390

And she that would have been the mistress

third degree of comparison, and maza potens: thus the Saxon word eadez happy, typ-eadez most happy.-In Chaucer's rime of sire Thopas, termagant appears to be the name of a deity. The giant, sire Oliphaunt, swears by Termagaunt, line 13741. Bale, describing the threats used by some papist magistrates to his wife, speaks of them as 66 grennyng upon her lyke termagaunts in a playe." And Hamlet in Shakespeare (Act Tould have such a fellow "whipp'd for o'erdoing, Termagant, it out-herdds Herod." The French romances corrupted the word mto tervagaunt, and from them La Fontaine took it up, and has used it more than once in his Tales. Mr. Tyrwhitt informs us that this Saracen deity, in an old MS. romance in the Bodleian Library is constantly called Tervagan.

Bishop Warburton very justly observes, that this passage is a fine satire on the Italian epic poets, Ariosto, Tasso, and others; who have introduced their female warriors, and are followed in this absurdity by Spenser and Davenant.-Bishop Hurd likewise, in his ingenious and elegant Letters on Chivalry, p. 12. says: "one of the strangest circumstances (in old romance) is that of the women "warriors. Butler, who saw it in this light, ridicules it, as a most "unnatural idea, with great spirit. Yet, in these representations "they did but copy from the manners of the times. Anna Comnena "tells us, that the wife of Robert the Norman fought, side by side, "with her husband in his battles."

To lay their native arms aside,

Their modesty, and ride astride;] Camden, in his account of Richmond (Article Surrey, vol. i. col. 188. ed. 1722.) says, that Anne, wife of Richard II. daughter of the emperor Charles IV. taught the English women the present mode of riding, about the year 1388. Before which time they rode astride.-J. Gower, who dates his poem 16 Richard II. 1394. describing a company of ladies on horseback, says, "everich one ride on side." p. 70. a. 2.