ingly a recognition of moral responsibility and retribution, the terrible lesson of the catastrophe is often forgotten in the details; and revolting incidents, interwoven inextricably into the tissue of the narrative, pollute all the principal pieces of the group. Minute description, therefore, of those singular monuments, is here impossible. But a little acquaintance with them is needed, for a just comprehension of many things in our early poetry; and, although the pieces in their earliest forms are difficult of access, the research of an eminent scholar has made it easy to know something in regard to them.

The order in which the principal parts of the series were composed, appears to have been the same with that of the events narrated.

First comes the Romance of "The Saint Graal," (the holy vessel or cup,) which is in truth a saintly legend rather than a chivalrous tale. It is chiefly occupied in relating the history of the most revered of all religious relics, which not only proved and typified the mystery of the mass, but worked by its mere presence the most striking miracles. Treasured up by Joseph of Arimathea, it was by him or his descendants carried into Britain; but, too sacred to be looked on by a sinful people, it vanished for ages from the eyes of men. Secondly, the "Merlin," deriving its name from the fiend-born prophet and magician, celebrates the birth and exploits of Arthur, and the gathering round him of the peerless Knights of the Round Table. The story is founded on Geoffrey of Monmouth, or his Welsh and Armorican authorities; but the chivalrous and supernatural features disguise almost completely the historic origin. Thirdly, in the "Lancelot," the national character of the incidents disappears, a new set of personages emerge, and the marvellous adornments are of a more modern cast. The hero, nurtured from childhood by the Lady of the Lake in her fairy-realm beneath the waters, grows up to be, not only the bravest champion of the Round Table, but the most admired for all the virtues of knighthood; and this, too, while he lives in foul and deadly sin, and wrongs with secret treachery Arthur, his lord and benefactor. From his guilt, imitated by many of the other knights, was to ensue the destruction of the whole band; and the warning is already given. The presence of the Holy Graal is intimated by shadowy apparitions and thrilling voices; and the full contemplation of the miraculous relic is announced as the crowning glory of chivalry. Fourthly, the "Quest of the Saint Graal" tells how the knights, full of short-lived repentance and religious awe, scatter themselves on solitary wanderings to seek for the

beatific vision; how the sinners all return, unsuccessful and humbled; but how at length the adventure is achieved by the young and unknown Sir Galahad, pure as well as knightly, and how he, while the vision passed before him, prays that he may live no longer, and is immediately taken away from a world of calamity and sin. Fifthly, the "Mort Artus," or Death of Arthur, winds up, with tragic and supernatural horrors, the wild tale into which the fall of the ancient Britons had thus been transformed. The noblest of the champions perish in feuds, in which revenge was sought for mutual wrongs: and, after the fatal battle of Camlan, the survivors retire to convents or hermitages, to mourn over their sins and the ruin of their race. Arthur himself, wounded and dying, is carried by the Fairy of the Lake to the enchanted Isle of Avalon, there to dream away the ages that must elapse before he shall return to earth and reign over the perfected world of chivalry. Sixthly, of several romances which, though written after these, went back in the tale to interpolate new incidents and characters, the first part of the "Tristan," or Tristrem, alone requires notice here. The adventures of its hero are a repetition, with added impurities and new poetical beauties, of those which had been attributed to Lancelot of the Lake.

4. The romances of this British cycle interest us through several circumstances, besides their national origin and their extraordinary power of poetic fascination.

The six that have just been described, which were the originals of all the others, were written, in the latter half of the twelfth century, for the English court and nobles, and some of them, it is said, on the suggestion of our King Henry the Second. Further, although they were composed in French, the authors of all of them were Englishmen. The Saint Graal is attributed to Robert Borron, the first part of the Tristan to Luke Gast of Salisbury; and all the rest are assigned to Walter Mapes, whom we know as the leader of the Latin satirists. The circumstances are curious; and they are equally so, whether these men were of Norman or of Saxon descent: indeed, the distinction of races, which must have chiefly disappeared among the higher classes long before, was probably, by that time, beginning to lose its importance for the mass of the people. It is to be noted, likewise, that all our six romances are couched in prose; a peculiarity which was hardly to have been looked for in early pieces of such a class, but which possibly may be supposed to have arisen from want of skill in French versification. Be this as it may, the twelfth century had not closed when Chrétien of Troyes constructed several metrical romances, chiefly from the prose of our English authors,

but with a good deal of invention; and the stock was afterwards increased by other poets of France.

The Metrical Romances in the English tongue, which celebrate Arthur and his Round Table, are (probably with no exception that is older than the fifteenth century) translations, or, at the utmost, imitations, of those French romances in verse. Such are two of the finest, "Sir Perceval of Galles," and "Ywaine and Gawayne;" and such also is the celebrated romance of "Sir Tristrem," which Sir Walter Scott claimed for the Scottish poet, Thomas of Ercildoune, on grounds which, now, are generally admitted to be unsatisfactory.

But hardly any of the English translations, belonging to this series, was made till the fourteenth century. The Tristrem, indeed, is the only one that was certainly translated earlier.

There are, however, several extant romances, which may be regarded, though not without much allowance for modernizing by transcribers, as specimens of the language of English verse during the last thirty years of the thirteenth century, or the first decade of the next. Such are "Havelok," "King Horn," and "Coeur de Lion," all from French originals lately referred to. Such is also the "King Alisaunder," one of the most spirited, but most audaciously inventive works of the kind. It devotes eight thousand lines to accoutring the Macedonian conqueror and his contemporaries in the garb of feudalism, and transforming his wars into chivalrous adventures. To these should perhaps be added two extant romances on themes quite imaginary, “Ipomydon," and "Florise and Blanchefleur." All these, with very many others of the Old English Romances, may be found by curious readers in modern reprints.

SAXON-ENGLISH LITERATURE.

5. Let us now turn back to watch, somewhat closely, the vicissitudes which the Vernacular Literature had undergone since the Conquest interrupted its course.

The ancient tongue of England decayed and died away. But it decayed as the healthy seed decays in the ground; and it vegetated again as the seed begins to grow, when the suns and the rains of spring have touched it.

The clinging to the old language, with an endeavour to resist the changes it was suffering, is very observable in one memorial of the times, marked otherwise by a spirit strongly adverse to the foreigners. The Saxon Chronicle was still carried on, in more than one of the monasteries. The desponding annalists, while

preserving many valuable facts, and setting down many shrewd remarks, recorded eagerly, not only oppressions and violence, deaths and conflagrations, but omens which betokened evil to the aliens. They told how blood gushed out of the earth in Berkshire, near the native place of the immortal Alfred; and how, while King Henry the First was at sea, not long before his death, the sun was darkened at mid-day, and became like a new moon; and how, around the abbey of Peterborough (placed under a Norman Abbot, whom it was doubtless desirable to frighten), horns were heard to blow in the dead of night, and black spectral huntsmen were seen to ride through the woods. It is curious, by the way, to observe, in this last story, an ingenious adaptation of the superstition of the Wild Hunt, which, in various shapes, was current for centuries throughout Germany. At length, when the Saxon language had fairly broken down with the last of the chroniclers, when French words intruded themselves in spite of him, and when, forgetting his native syntax, he wrote without grammar rather than adopt the detested innovations, the venerable record ceased abruptly, at the accession of Henry the Second.

6. Our remains of the English tongue, in its state of Transition, are chiefly or without exception written in verse: and the versification shows, as instructively as the diction, the struggle between opposing tendencies. Frequently, even in the romances and other translations, the Anglo-Saxon alliteration kept its ground against the French rhymes.

The most important group of these works throws us, once more, back on the Normans.

In the course of the twelfth century, two Frenchmen, both of them residing in England, wrote Metrical Chronicles of our country. About the middle of the century was composed the "History of the Angles," (L'Estorie des Engles), by Geoffrey Gaimar of Troyes, which comprehends the period from the landing of the West Saxons in the year 495, to the death of William the Red. It was not translated or otherwise used by later English writers; but it is historically curious both for its matter and its sources. Its narrative, till near the close of the tenth century, is founded chiefly on the Saxon Chronicle, whose meaning, however, the foreigner has often misunderstood. The second chronicle, that of Richard Wace, a native of Jersey, was completed in the second year of Henry the Second's reign. It is called "The Brut of England," (Le Brut d'Angleterre), from Brutus, the fabulous founder of the British monarchy: and, following Geoffrey of Monmouth closely, it proceeds from the landing of the Tro

jans to the death of the Welsh prince Cadwallader in the year 689.

About the beginning of the thirteenth century, or the end of the preceding, Layamon, a priest, living in the north of Worcestershire, composed, in the mixed Saxon of the day, his “Brut,” or English Chronicle. This work deserves especial notice, alike as one of the fullest specimens of our early tongue, and on account of its eminent literary merit. It traverses the same ground as Wace's Chronicle, on which indeed it is founded in all its parts; borrowing only a little from Bede, and a good deal from traditional or other authorities of a fabulous kind. It is not a translation of Wace, but rather an amplified imitation. It has more than double the bulk: it adds many legends to his; and throughout, but especially in the earlier parts, it dramatizes speeches and incidents, and introduces, often with excellent effect, original descriptions and thoughts. The versification is very peculiar. The old alliteration prevails; but there are many rhyming couplets, many which are both rhymed and alliterative, and others that are neither.

Since the recent publication of this venerable record, Layamon seems likely to be honoured as "The English Ennius." But this title had formerly been bestowed on Robert of Gloucester, a metrical chronicler then known better. His work was probably completed about the close of the thirteenth century, and certainly not three years earlier. Extending from Brutus to the death of Henry the Third, it follows Geoffrey of Monmouth so far as his work goes, adopting, as its chief authority afterwards, "William of Malmesbury. It is in rhymed lines of fourteen syllables or seven accents, usually divisible into a couplet of the common measure of the Psalms. Although it is much more than a mere translation, it shows exceedingly little of literary talent or skill.

There is still less of either in the last two of the metrical chronicles, in search of which, to complete the set, we may look forward into the fourteenth century. Soon after the death of Edward the First, a chronicle from Brutus to that date was written in French verse, by Peter Langtoft, an ecclesiastic in Yorkshire, who follows Geoffrey till the close of the Anglo-Saxon times. A little before the middle of the century was compiled, in English, the chronicle of Robert Mannyng, called De Brunne from his birthplace in Lincolnshire. His book is entirely taken from two of the French authorities, used in succession, and each translated into the rhymed metre of the original. Thus he renders Wace into the romance-couplets of eight syllables or four accents, and Langtoft into Alexandrines.