sent presents to the king, queen, and princess. The messengers returned with tidings, that a monstrous fiery dragon was laying waste the country, and that the hand of Ysonde was promised as the reward to him who should destroy it. Tristrem boldly undertook the adventure; and the conflict, we may believe, was terrible, for the knight fairly lost his senses, and had his armour burned, though he succeeded in killing the monster. The king's steward, who found the dragon lifeless, and Tristrem in a swoon, cut off the animal's head, and laid claim to the victory: but his pretensions were speedily treated with the contempt which they deserved. The queen and her fair daughter traced the knight, ascertained his triumph, restored him to his senses, and conducted him to a bath. Ysonde began to suspect that she was in company with her former accomplished preceptor; and, on looking round for something which might confirm her suspicion, she fixed her eye on the broken sword. Comparing it with the piece which had been left in Moraunt's skull, she concluded that the stranger was the same person who killed her uncle. In the first moments of their resentment, the mother and daughter had nearly dispatched the hero with his own arms, in the bath: but the king's seasonable arrival, the recollection of his services as the tutor of Ysonde, and, above all, the proposed match with the king of Cornwall, soon restored him to favour. Y sonde was intrusted to his charge; and Breng wain, her favourite attendant, accompanied her on the passage. The queen, at their departure, had given to this waiting dame a powerful love potion, destined for Mark and his bride: but it so happened, by mistake, that Sir Tristrem and Ysonde partook of the philtre during the voyage, and that they were thus involved in a criminal amour. On the first night of the royal nuptials, Breng. wain supplied the place of the Princess; while the latter, apprehensive that her substitute might disclose the important secret, had nearly procured her assassination.

Meanwhile, an Irish Earl, a former admirer of Ysonde, arrived at the court of Cornwall; and Mark promised him a boon, if he would play on his harp. The stranger then accompanied his instrument with an amorous descant, in which he asked Ysonde as the promised gift. The king repented his rash vow, but reckoned himself in honour constrained to yield. Tristrem, who returned from hunting just as the earl was sailing off with his prize, seized his rote, and played so sweetly that the departing princess was charmed as by a potent spell, insisted on being relanded, and eloped with Tristrem into a forest. Here they lived a week, when Tristrem restored Yonde to her lawful lord.

Meriadok, a Cornish knight, and companion of Tristrem, becoming suspicious of the intercourse of the latter with the queen, had recourse to various cunning expedients to ascertain the truth; and his efforts were powerfully seconded by those of an officious dwarf. Their ingenious attempts, however, were as ingeniously counteracted by the guilty pair, and good Mark easily allowed his jealousy to be lulled asleep. The following stratagem at last proved successful. At the suggestion of Meriadok, the king ordered himself, the queen, and his nephew, to be let blood, and the queen's bed-chamber to bè strewed with flour. Tristrem, who perceived the snare, sprang thirty feet at one leap, and thus made no impression on the flour: but the wound in his vein opened with the effort, and his presence was betrayed by drops of blood. On this discovery, he retired from court, and the queen undertook to prove her innocence by the fiery ordeal. As she was conducted for this purpose to the court at Westminster, she pitched on her lover, who was disguised like a peasant, to bear her from the shore to the vessel in which she was to be conveyed across the Thames. Tristrem, as if from clownish aukwardness, let her fall on the beach, in no very seemly attitude. Ysonde then swore that no man had ever familiarity with her person, except her husband, and this poor fainting peasant; and her goodnatured Cornish husband absolved her from the hazardous trial of hot iron.

In Wales, Sir Tristrem reaped fresh laurels by his signal defeat of Urgan, the giant, and brother to Duke Morgan. So grateful was Triamour, king of Wales, that he bestowed on his deliverer the sovereignty of the county, and made him a present of Peticrewe, a little dog, spotted with red, blue, and green. The generous hero immediately gave the crown to the king's daughter, and sent the dog as a present to Ysonde.

The growing fame of the nephew reconciled him to the uncle, who appointed him his high steward. Again the lovers renew their intrigues, again they are banished from court, and again kindly received by the indulgent Mark; who found them sleeping together in a cavern, but who was satisfied of their innocence because his nephew's sword was accidentally placed between them. The dwarf, however, was not tardy in disclosing farther proofs of their unlawful passion; and Sir Tristrem fled to Spain, where he killed three giants, visited the sous of Rohand in Ermonie, and then conquered the enemies of Florentine, Duke of Brittany. In reward of his services, the Duke consented to his marriage with his only daughter, Ysunde with the white hand. As they passed to the bridalchamber, the ring, with which the queen of Cornwall had

II

presented

presented him, fell from his finger: he reflected on her constancy, upbraided his own infidelity, and never consummated his marriage with Ysonde of the white hand.

We are next treated with the adventure of Beliagog, a fierce giant, and brother to Morgan, Urgan, and Moraunt. Sir Tristrem spared his life, on condition of his building a magnificent hall, in honour of Ysonde and Brengwain. The maimed giant gladly fulfiled the singular stipulation, constructed the hall within his own castle, and adorned it with the sculptured history of the knight's adventures, and striking likenesses of Ysonde, Brengwain, Mark, Peticrewe, &c.

Sir Ganhardin, meanwhile, who learned from his sister, the white-handed Ysonde, that she was still a maiden, was on the point of quarrelling with her husband. The latter, however, assumed such a firm tone, and spoke so feelingly of the charms of his mistress, whose image he shewed him in the marvellous castle, that Ganhardin forgot his wrath, and became enamoured of Brengwain, whom he swore to see, or perish. The two knights, accordingly, passed over to Cornwall, and encountered Ysonde and Brengwain in a forest. Canados, the new constable, and an admirer of Ysonde, here disturbed their privacy: but he, Meriadok, and the other informers, are shamefully worsted in a sharp conflict with Tristrem and Ganhardin, who retire to Brittany.

Here Tristrem is accosted by a young knight, wearing no shoes, who had sought him for a long time. This young warrior, whose name is also Tristrem, throws himself at the feet of our hero, and besteches his assistance in a perilous adventure. A knight has bereaved him of his lady. The ravisher, with his seven brethren, and seven other knights, are to escort their prize, upon that very day, to some place of security; the suppliant knight proposes to his namesake to assist him in her rescue. Tristrem readily assents.The two knights arm themselves, and prepare for battle: they attack the party of ravishers, on "a lee beside a forest." Tristrem, the younger, is soon slain: our hero avenges his death, and slays the fifteen knights. In this battle he receives an arrow in his old wound.'

As the remainder of the MS. is here torn away, the editor has very skilfully supplied the story from the French metrical romance; imitating, with singular success, the same rapid and quaint style, and the same complex stanza.

Ganhardin was dispatched for Ysonde, as the only person who could cure the wounded knight; and, according as the ambassador succeeded or failed in his mission, he was instructed to hoist a white or a black sail on his return. Ysonde of Brittany, who had overheard the conversation, and was re

solved to be avenged, eagerly watched the return of the ves sel, and ran to inform her husband that the sail was black. Sir Tristrem, deceived by the false assertion, believed that he was forsaken, and died in despair; while Ysonde of Cornwall, apprized of his fate, threw herself beside his corpse, and expired.

On the consistency or morality of such a fable, we cannot dwell with commendation :-but the poem is replete with incident, exhibits a picture of the manners and taste of the age in which it was composed, and is therefore a relic worthy of preservation.

As we have hinted at the antiquated and obscure complexion of the style, and at the singular intricacy of the measure, we shall transcribe only a few stanzas, at random:

The volume is very handsomely printed: but the impression, we understand, is limited to 150 copies. The publication is, therefore, destined to the wealthy few; a species of aristocracy which we cannot praise, though in this instance it may not be a subject of much regret.

ART. XIII. Military Character of the different European Armies en gaged in the late War: with a Parallel of the Policy, Power, and Means of the antient Romans and modern French. Translated

from the French. Egerton. 1804.

zd Edition. 8vo. pp. 190. 4s. Boards.

WE claim some merit for the share which we took in drawing the public attention to the original of this performance *; and we have been abundantly justified in the praise which we bestowed on it as an able and an useful work, since among all competent judges but one sentiment has prevailed with respect to it. Though the translation has been rather slow in obtaining our notice, we are happy in having another opportunity of making our acknowlegements on the part of the British public to the ingenious and accomplished authors, and of strenuously recommending the volume to those of our readers who have not given it a perusal. Indeed, the hostile operations, already renewed on the Continent, again impart to these remarks an immediate interest, scarcely less than they possessed on their first appearance; and we shall therefore submit to our readers a few of the more material parts, without criticism or comment.

We should commence with the observations on the troops of the French nation, but that we consider their peculiarities and characteristics as now more generally known than those of some others of the contending parties. Let us turn, then, to the following extract, which contains an able summary of the principal defects in the Austrian service in the short in terval of peace, there probably has not been time, if there existed the disposition, to remedy them:

In spite of the examples of Laudohn, of the Archduke Charles, and of some other Generals, the Austrians have almost always kept themselves on the defensive in lines, positions, or cordons. The uncertainty as to the point, where the enemy may attack, obliges them to divide their forces, and necessarily to be every where weak; lines become unavoidably a succession of points, more or less feeble; it is impossible then to have reserves in sufficient force, or sufficiently within reach.

* See Rev. Vol. xli. N. S. p. 540.

The