ages, receive some pecuniary advantages. The translator of Perceforest, formerly mentioned, who appears to have been an Englishman or Fleming, in his address to the warlike and invincible nobility of France, holds the language of a professional author, who expected some advantage besides that of pleasing those whom he addressed; and who expresses proportional gratitude for the favourable reception of his former feeble attempts to please them. It is possible, therefore, that the publishers, these lions of literature, had begun already to admit the authors into some share of their earnings. Other printers, like the venerable Caxton,' compiled themselves, or translated from other languages, the Romances which they sent to the press; thus uniting in their own persons the three separate departments of author, printer, and publisher.

The Prose Romance did not, in the general conduct of the story, where digressions are heaped on digressions, without the least respect to the principal narrative, greatly differ from that of their metrical predecessors, being, to the full, as tedious and inartificial; nay, more so, in proportion as the new Romances were longer than the old. In the trans

1 [William Caxton, the earliest English printer, was born in 1412, and died in 1492. The title of the first book he printed, being also the first book printed in the English language, runs: "The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, composed and drawen out of diuerce bookes of Latyn into Frensshe, by the Ryght venerable persone and worshipful man, Raoul le Feure, &c.; and translated and drawn out of Frensshe into Englisshe, by William Caxton, mercer, of the cyte of London, at the comaūdemet of the ryght hye myghty and vertuose Pryncesse, hys redoubted Lady Margareta, &c., Duchesse of Bourgoyne, &c.-Cologne, 1471."]

ference from verse to prose, and the amplification which the scenes underwent in the process, many strong, forcible, and energetic touches of the original author have been weakened, or altogether lost; and the reader misses with regret some of the redeeming bursts of rude poetry which, in the Metrical Romance, make amends for many hundred lines of bald and rude versification. But, on the other hand, the Prose Romances were written for a more advanced stage of society, and by authors whose language was much more copious, and who certainly belonged to a more educated class than the ancient minstrels. Men were no longer satisfied with hearing of hard battles and direful wounds ; they demanded, at the hand of those who professed to entertain them, some insight into nature, or at least into manners; some description of external scenery, and a greater regard to probability both in respect of the characters which are introduced, and the events which are narrated. These new demands the Prose Romances endeavoured to supply to the best of their power. There was some attention shown to relieve their story, by the introduction of new characters, and to illustrate these personages by characteristic dialogue. The lovers conversed with each other in the terms of metaphysical gallantry, which were used in real life; and, from being a mere rhapsody of warlike feats, the Romance began to assume the nobler and more artificial form of a picture of manners. It is in the prose folios of Lancelot du Lac, Perceforest, and others, that antiquaries find recorded the most exact accounts of fights, tournaments, feasts, and other magnificent

displays of chivalric splendour; and as they descend into more minute description than the historians of the time thought worthy of their pains, they are a mine from which the painful student may extract much valuable information. This, however, is not the full extent of their merit. These ancient books, amid many pages of dull repetition and uninteresting dialect, and notwithstanding the languor of an inartificial, protracted, and confused story, exhibit from time to time passages of deep interest, and situations of much novelty, as well as specimens of spirited and masculine writing. The general reader, who dreads the labour of winnowing out these valuable passages from the sterile chaff through which they are scattered, will receive an excellent idea of the beauties and defects of the Romance from Tressan's Corps d'Extraits de Romans de Chevalrie, from Mr Ellis's Specimens of Early English Romances, and from Mr Dunlop's History of Fiction.

These works continued to furnish the amusement of the most polished courts in Europe so long as the manners and habits of Chivalry continued to animate them. Even the sagacious Catherine of Medicis considered the Romance of Perceforest as the work best qualified to form the manners and amuse the leisure of a young prince; since she impressed on Charles IX. the necessity of studying it with attention. But by degrees the progress of new opinions in religion, the promulgation of a stricter code of morality, together with the important and animating discussions which began to be carried on by means of the press, diverted the pub

lic attention from these antiquated legends. The Protestants of England, and the Huguenots of France, were rigorous in their censure of books of chivalry, in proportion as they had been patronised formerly under the Catholic system; perhaps because they helped to arrest men's thoughts from more serious subjects of occupation. The learned Ascham thus inveighs against the Romance of Morte d'Arthur, and at the same time acquaints us with its having passed out of fashion:

"In our forefathers' tyme, when Papistrie, as a standyng poole, covered and overflowed all Englande, fewe bookes were read in our tongue, savying certaine bookes of chevalrie, as they said for pastime and pleasure; which, as some say, were made in monasteries by idle monks, or wanton chanons. As for example, La Morte d'Arthur, the whole pleasure of which booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open manslaughter, and bold bawdrye: in which booke they are counted the noblest knightes that do kill most men without any quarrell, and commit fowlest adultries by sutlest shiftes; as Sir Launcelote, with the wife of King Arthur his master; Sir Tristram, with the wife of King Marke his uncle; Sir Lamerocke, with the wife of King Lote, that was his own aunt. This is goode stuffe for wise men to laughe at, or honest men to take pleasure at: yet I know, when God's Bible was banished the court, and La Morte d'Arthur received into the prince's chamber." 1

The brave and religious La Noue is not more favourable to the perusal of Romances than the learned Ascham; attributing to the public taste for these compositions the decay of morality among the French nobility.

"The ancient fables whose relikes doe yet remaine, namely, Lancelot of the Lake, Perceforest, Tristran, Giron the Courteous, and such others, doe beare witnesse of this olde vanitie; herewith were men fed for the space of 500 yeeres, untill our

1 Works of Roger Ascham, p. 254. Fourth edition.

language growing more polished, and our mindes more ticklish, they were driven to invent some nouelties wherewith to delight us. Thus came ye bookes of Amadis into light among us in this last age. But to say ye truth, Spaine bred thē, and France new clothed the in gay garments. In ye daies of Henrie the Second did they beare chiefest sway, and I think if any man would then have reproved the, he should have bene spit at, because they were of themselves play fellowes and maintainers to a great sort of persons; whereof some, after they had learned to amize in speech, their teeth watered, so desirous were they even to taste of some small morsels of the delicacies therein most livelie and naturally represented." 1

The gallant Maréchal proceeds at considerable length to refute the arguments of those who contended, that these books were intended as a spur to the practice of arms and honourable exercises amongst youth, and labours hard to show that they teach dishonest practices both in love and in arms. It is impossible to suppress a smile when we find such an author as La Noue denouncing the introduction of spells, witchcrafts, and enchantments into these volumes, not because such themes are absurd and nonsensical, but because the representing such beneficent enchanters as Alquife and Urgunda, is, in fact, a vindication of those who traffic with the powers of darkness; and because those who love to read about sorceries and enchantments become, by degrees, familiarized with those devilish mysteries, and may at length be induced to have recourse to them in good earnest.

The Romances of Chivalry did not, however, sink into disrepute under the stern rebuke of religious puritans or severe moralists, but became gra

1 The Politiche and Militaire Discourses of the Lord de la Noue, pp. 87, 88. Quarto, Lond. 1587.