That the early romances of chivalry possess a charm for the book-collector it is impossible to deny. They are 'a series of books,' writes Mr. John Ormsby, which, complete, would be a glory to any library in the world; which, in first editions, would now probably fetch a sum almost large enough to endow a college; and which . . . . is perhaps

as worthless a set of books as could be made up out of the refuse novels of a circulating library.' Times without number they have been derided and decried, even in the days when they were popular. The curate of La Mancha was not the only one who disapproved of them. 'In our fathers tyme,' wrote old Roger Ascham, judging the flock by a few black sheep, 'nothing was red, but bookes of fayned cheualrie, wherein a man by redinge, shuld be led to none other ende, but onely to manslaughter and baudrye.' Possevino, a learned Jesuit and famous preacher of the sixteenth century, used to complain that for the last five hundred years the princes of Europe had read nothing but romances. René d'Anjou listened to his chaplain inveighing against Launcelot, Amadis, and the romances of which he was particularly fond; but, says Villeneuve, while respecting the preacher for his boldness, the king continued to read them, and even composed new volumes in imitation of them.

Full of monstrous fictions some of these ancient stories undoubtedly are. It were foolish to expect

that all of them should attain the high level of those great legends which centre about the Holy Grail. Good things have ever been imitated indifferently; and it was only the later series of tales which had to do chiefly with enchantments and fairies and 'giaunts, hard to be beleeved.' But alas! all alike have come under the ban of those who decry reading for recreation's sake. Good and bad have been damn'd indifferently. One cannot help wondering however that so much has been written against them, and that so many have been at pains to point out their unreasonableness. One would have thought that the very fact of them all abounding with incidents. that are not only impossible but preposterous, would have given these critics pause, and have urged them to ask themselves why and wherefore such things were repeated.

To anyone possessed of imagination the answer, of course, is obvious. The better tales all had the exaltation of the chivalric spirit in view, and sought to achieve this end by allegory as well as by parable. He must be a dullard indeed who fails to understand their symbolism. Malory, describing the entry of Tristram into the field, wishes to impress upon us the fact that he was indeed a 'preux chevalier, sans peur et sans reproche,' the model of a Christian knight; so he mounts him on a white horse and arrays him in white harness, and he rides out at a postern,

' and soo he came in to the feld as it had ben a bryght angel.' Doubtless those to whom understanding has been denied would argue hotly as to whether there is any authority for a knight painting his armour white. What sane man, reading 'The Faerie Queene,' could think that it purported to depict actual scenes or incidents ? Yet time and again the 'sheer impossibility' of these stories has been urged in condemnation of them. Truly it is not every man who should turn to these ancient books which

'In sage and solemn tunes have sung

Of Turneys and of Trophies hung,

Of Forests, and inchantments drear,

Where more is meant than meets the ear.

Gavaudan, a troubadour of the twelfth century, meets the undiscerning critic more than half way. Let none judge, he writes, till he be capable of separating the grain from the chaff; for the fool makes haste to condemn, and the ignorant only pretends to know all things, and muses on the wonders that are too mighty for his comprehension.'

'As we advance in the history of Arthur of Little Britain,' writes Dunlop in his 'History of Fiction,' 'we do not find Arthur possessed of a single quality, except strength and courage, to excite respect or interest.' Surely the remark of one who must have been dead to all sense of imagination and romance—although purporting to be an authority upon them! The teaching of the

whole Arthurian cycle of romances was 'that noble men may see and lerne the noble actes of chyualrye, the Ientyl and vertuous dedes that somme Knyghtes vsed in tho dayes, by whyche they came to honour; and how they that were vycious were punysshed and ofte put to shame and rebuke.' The quest of the Holy Grail, motive of the most exquisite series of mystic tales that has ever been written, was, we are expressly informed, the hygh way of our Lord Jhesu Cryst, and the way of a true good lyver, not that of synners and of mysbelievers.' Godfrey de Bouillon, the hero of another cycle, was 'moult preudhomme et sage et moult aymant Dieu et gens d'esglise,' as we read in 'Le Triomphe des Neuf Preux (folio, Abbeville 1487). Preposterous tales? Perhaps; yet, as regards their moral side, not suffering greatly by comparison with our modern fiction.

Those whose reading is confined to the literature of to-day can have no idea of the influence which these romances had upon the lives of our forefathers. It was not merely a system of morality which they taught, it was a civilisation of a very high order. When we are inclined to mock at these 'preposterous tales' we should never forget that to them we owe a debt so immense that we are lost in the contemplation of it. It cannot be gainsaid that it was as much by the study and teaching of these romances as

it was by the spirit which gave them birth, that our ancestors came to mould their lives in such a sort as to influence the civilisation of the whole of the western world.

That the romances were the outcome of chivalry cannot be urged, though doubtless in a later age they helped to keep the spirit of knighthood alive. Edward the Black Prince, the very model of medieval chivalry, avowedly studied the ancient romances for patterns. When Pedro the Cruel had prevailed upon the prince to defend his cause, the princess bitterly bewailed her husband's decision. 'I see well,' said the prince, to whom her expressions were related, 'that she wishes me to be always at her side and never to leave her chamber. But a prince must be ready to win renown and to expose himself to all kinds of danger, as in days of old did Roland, Oliver, Ogier, the four sons of Aimon, Charlemagne, the great Leon de Bourges, Juan de Tournant, Lancelot, Tristan, Alexander, Arthur and Godfrey whose courage, bravery, and fearlessness, both warlike and heroic, all the romances extoll. by Saint George, I will restore Spain to the rightful heir.'

And

Occleve, a little later, has no doubt as to the beneficial effects of perusing the romances. Indeed he goes so far as to exhort his friend, Sir John Oldcastle to leave off studying Holy Writ, and to read 'Lancelot de lake, Vegece, or the