the same class. It is impossible to avoid noticing that the Sybarites, whose luxurious habits seem to have been intellectual, as well as sensual, were peculiarly addicted to the perusal of the Milesian fables; from which we may conclude that the narratives were not of that severe kind which inspired high thoughts and martial virtues. But there would be little advantage derived from extending our researches into the ages of classical antiquity respecting a class of compositions, which, though they existed then, as in almost every stage of society, were neither so numerous nor of such high repute as to constitute any considerable portion of that literature.

Want of space also may entitle us to dismiss the consideration of the Oriental Romances, unless in so far as in the course of the middle ages they came to furnish materials for enlarging and varying the character of the Romances of knight-errantry. That they existed early, and were highly esteemed both among the Persians and Arabians, has never been disputed; and the most interesting light has been lately thrown on the subject by the publication of Antar, one of the most ancient, as well as most rational, if we may use the phrase, of the Oriental fictions. The Persian Romance of the Sha-Nameh is well known to Europeans by name, and by copious

extracts; and the love-tale of Mejnoun and Leilah is also familiar to our ears, if not to our recollections. Many of the fictions in the extraordinary collection of the Arabian Tales, that of Codadad and his brethren, for example, approach strictly to the character of Romances of Chivalry; although in general they must be allowed to exceed the more tame northern fictions in dauntless vivacity of invention, and in their more strong tendency to the marvellous. Several specimens of the Comic Romance are also to be found mingled with those which are serious; and we have the best and most positive authority that the recital of these seductive fictions is at this moment an amusement as fascinating and general among the people of the East, as the perusal of printed Romances and novels among the European public. But a minute investigation into this particular species of Romance would lead us from our present field, already sufficiently extensive for the limits to which our plan confines it.

The European Romance, wherever it arises, and in whatsoever country it begins to be cultivated, had its origin in some part of the real or fabulous history of that country; and of this we will produce, in the sequel, abundant proofs. But the simple tale of tradition had not passed through many mouths, ere some one, to indulge his own propensity for the

wonderful, or to secure by novelty the attention of his audience, augments the meagre chronicle with his own apocryphal inventions. Skirmishes are elevated into great battles; the champion of a remote age is exaggerated into a sort of demi-god; and the enemies whom he encountered and subdued are multiplied in number, and magnified in strength, in order to add dignity to his successes against them. Chanted to rhythmical numbers, the songs which celebrate the early valour of the fathers of the tribe become its war-cry in battle, and men march to conflict hymning the praises and the deeds of some real or supposed precursor who had marshalled their fathers in the path of victory. No reader can have forgotten, that, when the decisive battle of Hastings commenced, a Norman minstrel, Taillefer, advanced on horseback before the invading host, and gave the signal for onset, by singing the Song of Roland, that renowned nephew of Charlemagne, of whom Romance speaks so much, and history so little; and whose fall, with the chivalry of Charles the Great in the pass of Roncesvalles, has given rise to such clouds of romantic fiction, that its very name has been for ever associated with it. The remarkable passage has been often quoted from the Brut of Wace, an Anglo-Norman metrical chronicle.

Taillefer, qui moult bien chantont
Sur un cheval gi tost alont,
Devant le Duc alont chantant
De Karlemaigne et de Rollant,
Et d'Oliver et des vassals,
Qui morurent en Rencevals.

Which may be thus rendered:

Taillefer, who sung both well and loud,
Came mounted on a courser proud;
Before the Duke the minstrel sprung,
And loud of Charles and Roland sung,
Of Oliver and champions mo,
Who died at fatal Roncevaux.

This champion possessed the sleight-of-hand of the juggler, as well as the art of the minstrel. He tossed up his sword in the air, and caught it again as he galloped to the charge, and showed other feats of dexterity. Taillefer slew two Saxon warriors of distinction, and was himself killed by a third. Ritson, with less than his usual severe accuracy, supposed that Taillefer sung some part of a long metrical Romance upon Roland and his history; but the words chanson, cantilena, and song, by which the composition is usually described, seems rather to apply to a brief ballad or national song; which is also more consonant with our ideas of the time and place where it was chanted.

But neither with these romantic and metrical chronicles did the mind long remain satisfied. More

details were demanded, and were liberally added by the invention of those who undertook to cater for the public taste in such matters. The same names of kings and champions, which had first caught the national ear, were still retained, in order to secure attention; and the same assertions of authenticity, and affected references to real history, were stoutly made, both in the commencement and in the course of the narrative. Each nation, as will presently be seen, came at length to adopt to itself a cycle of heroes like those of the Iliad; a sort of common property to all minstrels who chose to make use of them, under the condition always that the general character ascribed to each individual hero was preserved with some degree of consistency. Thus, in the Romances of The Round Table, Gawain is usually represented as courteous; Kay as rude and boastful; Mordred as treacherous; and Sir Launcelot as a true though a sinful lover, and in all other respects a model of chivalry. Amid the Paladins of Charlemagne, whose cycle may be considered as peculiarly the property of French in opposition to Norman-Anglo Romance, Gan, or Ganelon of Mayence, is always represented as a faithless traitor, engaged in intrigues for the destruction of Christianity; Roland as brave, unsuspicious, devotedly loyal, and somewhat simple in his disposition;