object of the author being, to produce such detached pieces as might interest during the time of recitation, without any regard to the unity of the composition. Thus, in many cases, the only connexion seems to arise from the same hero figuring in all the adventures, which are otherwise as much detached from each other, as the scenes in the box of a showman. But when a book was substituted for the minstrel's song, when the adventures of a preux chevalier were no longer listened to by starts, amid the roar of convivial festivity, but furnished the amusement of the closet, and that in so permanent a shape, that the student might turn back to resume the connexions which had escaped him; it became the study of the author to give a greater appearance of uniformity to his work. As an arrangement, in which all the incidents should seem to conduce to one general end, must soon have become a merit with the reader; it became, necessarily, to the author, a worthy object of attainment. Hence, in the best of our prose romances, and particularly in Amadis de Gaul, a combined and regular progress of the story may be discovered; whereas the metrical romances present, with a few exceptions, a suite of unconnected adventures, often striking and splendid indeed in themselves, but appearing rather an assemblage of loose materials for a history, than a history itself. But the advantage, thus gained by the prose romances, was often lost, by carrying too far the principle on which it was grounded. Having once regularly completed a story, good taste and judgment required them to stop, and choose for their future labours some subject unconnected with what was already perfect. But this was not the genius of the age. When they had secured an interesting set of characters, the authors could not resist the temptation of bringing them again upon the stage; and hence, the endless continuations with which Amadis and the other romances of that class, were saddled, and of which Mr Southey complains with so much justice. Only four books of Amadis are genuine. The remaining twenty are an interpolation, containing the history of his descendants, in all respects greatly inferior to the original. In another point of view, it appears to us not quite clear that the prose romancers obtained any superiority over their poetical predecessors. The rude poetry of the minstrels was no doubt frequently rambling and diffusive; partaking, in short, of those faults which naturally attach to unpremeditated composition; but we doubt greatly, whether the studied and affected ornaments of the prose romance are not more tedious and intolerable than the rhapsodies of the minstrels. Mr Southey, in his translation of Amadis, has, with due attention to modern taste, shortened the long speeches of the lovers, and simplified many of their highflown compliments. On the other hand, the custom of interweaving the history with little descriptive sketches, which, in many instances, were very beautiful, was dropt by the prose narrators, as an unnecessary interruption to the continuation of the story. We allude to such passages as the follow ing, which are introductions to the Fyttes of the unpublished romance of Merlin. The ancient orthography is altered, for the sake of modern readers. "In time of winter along* it is *Tedious. The fowls lesen their bliss, The leaves fallen off the tree, In May is merry time swithe, Maidens dressen them with pride. Merry it is in the month of June, When fennel hangeth abroad in town; Groweth then on maidens bower; The sun is hot, the day is long; The small birds maketh merry song." Of such passages, which serve to relieve the heaviness of the perpetually recurring fight and tournament, the prose romance affords us no example. The ornaments which it presents are those of studied description, every word of which is laboured, as applicable to the precise scene which is described, without expressing or exciting any general sensibility of the beauties of nature. We may take, as no unfavourable instance, the account of the tower and gardens constructed by Apollidon in the Firm Island. "In that tower were nine apartments, three on a floor; and though some part was the work of skilful artists, the rest was wrought by the skill and science of Apollidon himself, so wonderously, that no man in the world could rightly value, nor even understand its exceeding rarity. And because it would be long to describe it all at length, I shall only say, that the tower stood in the midst of a garden, surrounded with a wall of goodly stone and mortar; and the garden was the goodliest that might be seen, by reason of its trees and herbs, and fountains of sweet water. Of those trees, many were hung with fruit the whole year through, and others bore flowers; and round about the garden by the walls, were covered walks, with golden trellis-work, through which might all that pleasant greenness be seen. The ground was covered with stones, some clear as the crystal, others coloured like rubies and other precious stones, the which Apollidon had procured from certain islands in the East, where jewels, gold, and other rare things are produced, by reason of the great heat of the sun continually acting. These islands are uninhabited, save only by wild-beasts; and, for fear of those beasts, no man durst ever set foot thereon, till Apollidon, by his cunning, wrought such spells, that it became safe to enter there; and then the neighbouring people, being assured of this, took advantage thereof, and ventured there also; and thus the world became stocked with sundry things which it had never before known. To the four sides of the tower, water was brought from the neighbouring mountains by metal pipes, and collected into four fountains; and the water spouted so high from the golden pillars, and through the mouths of animals, that it was easy to reach it from the windows of the first story; for it was caught in golden basons wrought on the pillars; and by those fountains was the whole garden watered."—Amadis, vol. iv. p. 13. From comparing the slight, extemporary, and natural landscape-sketches of the ancient minstrel, with the laboured and minute picture 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, ind, of all others, that which occurs most frequently n romance. "Alexander made a cry hardi, Then the knights of Achaye There lost quickly her ami; * War-horse. Clashing. |