of Lobeira or Montalvo, the reader may derive some idea of the marked difference between the style of the more ancient tales of chivalry, and those by which they were succeeded. The description of the minstrel appears almost as involuntary as it is picturesque, and is enlivened by the introduction of the birds, the dames, and the gallant knights. The prose author seems to have sat down to describe Apollidon's tower, his water-pipes, Kensington gravel walks, and Dutch trellis, with a sort of malice prepense against his reader's patience and his account exactly resembles the plan and elevation of a capability-man or architect. The following contrast regards a scene of a more animated nature, and, of all others, that which occurs most frequently in romance, "Alexander made a cry hardi, Then the knights of Achaye Many arm, many heavod, Many gentle ladye There lost quickly her ami; Many fair pensill bebledde: There were swords liklaking; t There were speres in blood bathing: Both Kings there, sans doute, Many lands, both near and far, Earth quaked of their riding; The weather thicken'd of their crying; In this description, as in the former, may be traced the spirit of the poet, warming as he advanced in narration; from the encountering of the hosts, when war, like death, levelled all distinction betwixt the vassal and monarch, to the fall of the loves of ladies and the lords of domain, to the bloody banners, clashing swords, and gory lances, until the ground shook under the charge of the combatants, the air was + Clashing. War-horse. darkened at their shouts, and the blood of the dying poured like torrents into the valley. The following is the description of the grand battle betwixt Lisuarte and Aravigo, in which the timely assistance of Amadis, with his father, gave the victory to the father of Oriana. "Presently (King Lisuarte) went down the side of the mountain into the plain; and as it was now upon that hour when the sun was rising, it shone upon their arms; and they appeared so well disposed, that their enemies, who had before held them as nothing, now thought of them otherwise. In this array, which you have heard, they moved slowly over the field one against the other. 66 At this season, King Perion, with his sons Amadis and Florestan, entered the plain upon their goodly steeds; and with their arms of the Serpents, which shone brightly in the sun; and they rode on to place themselves between the two armies brandishing their spears, whose points were so polished and clear, that they glittered like stars; and the father went between his sons. Much were they admired by both parts, and each would willingly have had them on his side; but no one knew whom they came to aid, nor who they were. They, seeing that the host of Brian of Monjuste was about to join battle, put spurs to their horses, and rode up near to his banner; then set themselves against King Targadan, who came against him. Glad was Don Brian of their help, though he knew them not; but they, when they saw that it was time, rode to attack the host of King Targadan, so fiercely, that all were astonished. In that encounter, King Perion struck that other King so hardily, that a part of the spear soon entered his breast, and he fell. Amadis smote Abdasian the Fierce, so that armour nothing profited him, but the lance passed through from side to side, and he fell like a dead man. Don Florestan drove Carduel, saddle and man, under the horses feet these three being the bravest of that battalion, they had come forwards to combat the Knights of the Serpents. Then laid they hand to sword, and passed through the first squadron, felling all before them, and charged the second: and when they were thus between both, there was to be seen what marvellous feats of prowess they wrought with their swords: such, that none did like them on either side; and they had now under their horses more than ten knights whom they had smitten down. But when their enemies saw that they were no more than three, they charged them on all sides, laying on such heavy blows that the aid of Don Brian was full needful, who came up with his Spaniards, a brave people, and well horsed, and rode among the enemy, slaying and felling them, though his own men fell also; so that the Knights of the Serpents were succoured, and the enemy so handled, that they perforce gave back upon the third battalion. Then there was a great press, and a great danger for all; and many knights died upon either side: but what King Perion and his sons did there cannot be expressed. Such was the uproar and confusion, that King Aravigo feared lest his own men, who had given ground, should make the others fly; and he called aloud to Arcalaus, to advance with all the battalions, and attack in one body. This presently he did, and King Aravigo with him; but without delay King Lisuarte did the same : so that the whole battle was now joined: and such was the clang of strokes, and the cry and noise of the horsemen, that the earth trembled, and the valleys rung again.” In this last quotation, as in the former, the inferiority of Lobeira is sufficiently manifest; though his description is by no means void of spirit. It cannot be alleged that this is owing to the poetry; for no modern will attribute much to the force of the minstrel's numbers; and the author of Amadis is far from disclaiming the use of poetical ornament. The difference arises from the disposition to specification, and to exchange general effect for minute description, which we have already remarked as an attribute of the prose romance. The most curious part, however, of this curious subject, respects the change in manners which appears to have taken place about the middle of the 14th century, when what we now call the Spirit of Chivalry seems to have shone forth with the most brilliant lustre. In the older romances, we look in vain for the delicacy which, according to Burke, robbed vice of half its evil, by depriving it of all its grossness. The tales of the older metrical romancers, founded frequently on fact, and always narrated in a coarse and downright style, excite feelings sometimes ludicrous, and often disgusting; and in fact can only be excelled by the unparalleled fabliaux published by Barbazan, which, although professedly written to be recited to noble knights and dames, exhibit a nakedness, not only in the description, but in the turn of the story, which would now banish them even from a bagnio, unless of the very lowest order. The ladies in metrical romances not only make the first advances on all occasions, but with a degree of vivacity, copied it would seem from the worthy spouse of Potiphar. For example, a certain knight called Sir Amis, having declined the proffered favours of the Lady Belsaunt, pleading his allegiance to his liege lord, receives from her the following sentimental rebuke: As the damsels were urgent in their demands, the knights of these more early ages were often brutally obstinate in their refusal; and in. stead of the gentle denial which the love-sick Briolania received from the courteous Amadis, they were too apt to exclaim like Bevis of Hamton, when invited to a rendezvous by the fair Josiana a Saracen princess "Forth the Knights go can To Bevis' chamber they came anon, Bevis stoutly in this stound Haf up his head from the ground And said, 'If ye ne were messagers, I should ye slay, ye lossengers; Out of my chamber swith ye flee."" All this coarseness, in word and deed, was effectually banished from the romances of chivalry which were composed subsequent to 1350. Sentiment had begun to enter into these fictions, not casually, or from the peculiar delicacy of an individual author, but as a necessary qualification of the heroes and heroines whose loves occupied their ponderous folios. Of this refinement we find many instances in Amadis. Balays of Corsante being repulsed by a damsel, explains his sentiments upon such points. "My good lady," Balays answered, “think no more of what I said : it becomes knights to serve damsels, and to woo their love, and becomes them to deny, as you have done: and albeit, at the first, we think it much to obtain of them what we desire, yet when wisely and discreetly they resist our inordinate appetites, keeping that without which they are worthy of no praise, they be even of ourselves more reverenced and commended." Notwithstanding this favourable alteration in their tone, the reader is not to understand that the morality of these writings was in fact very materially amended; for at no period was the age of chivalry distinguished for female virtue. Those who have supposed the contrary, have never opened a romance written before the tomes of Calprenede, and Scudery, and judge of Queen Guenever, Iseult, and Oriana, by what they find there recorded of Mandane and Cassandra. But the genuine prose romances of chivalry, although less gross in language and circumstance, contain as little matter for edification as the tales of the minstrels, to which they suc ceeded. Lancelot du Lac is the adulterous lover of Guenever, the wife of his friend and sovereign; and Tristram de Lionel the incestuous seducer of his uncle's spouse, as well in the prose folios of Rusticien de Puise, and the Knight of the Castle of Gast, as in the rhymes of Chretien de Troyes and Thomas of Erceldoune. Nor did the tales of a more modern date turn upon circumstances more correct: witness the history of the Petit Iehan de Saintré, and many others. Of Amadis, in particular, Mr. Southey has observed that "all the first-born children are illegitimate,” because "the hero must be every way irresistible." The same observation applies to most romances of chivalry; so that one would be tempted to suppose that the damsels of those days, doomed frequently to wander through lonely woods infested by robbers, giants, and caitiffs of every description, were so far from trusting, like the lady in Comus, to the magic power of true virginity, that they hastened to confer upon some faithful knight a treasure so very precarious, while it was yet their own to bestow. But the modern man of gallantry will be surprised to hear, that this by no means diminished either the zeal or duty of the lover, who had thus attained the summit of his hopes. On the contrary, unless in the case of here and there a Don Galaor, who is always painted as a subaltern character, a preux chevalier was bound, not only to maintain the honour of the lady, thus deposited in his custody, but to observe towards her the fidelity and respect of religious observance.* Every one knows how long Sir Lancelot had enjoyed the favours of Queen Guenever; and yet that scrupulous knight went distracted, and remained so till he was healed by the Sang-real, merely because by enchantment he was brought to the bed of the lovely Dame Elaine. As for Amadis, the bare suspicion which Oriana conceived of his infidelity, occasioned his doing penance on the Poor Rock in a manner unequalled, unless by the desolate knight who averred himself to have retired to a cavern, where he "used for his bed mosse, for his candle mosse, for his covering mosse, and, unless now and then a few coals, mosse for his meat; a dry food, God wot, and a fresh ; but so moistened with wet tears, and so salte, that it was hard to conjecture whether it was better to feed or fast."† In short, the love of the knights-errant was like their laws of honour, altogether beyond the common strain of feeling, as well as incapable of being measured by the standard of religion and morality. Their rules of honour have in some degree survived the fate of their order; and we have yet fatal instances of bloodshed for a "word of reproach," a "bratchet hound," or such other causes of duel as figure in the tales of the Table Round. But the love which was not only fostered, * The Cecisbei of Italy derive their order from the days of chivalry. The reader is referred to the Memoires de Grammont for an account of the duties expected from them. + Progresses of Queen Flizabeth, vol. ii. p. 136. I |