pilgrim's garb, and on his bare and venerable head was strung a chaplet of white roses. Bending low, he passed the gate, but the king warned by the vision, hastened to him, and entreated him " by his love for Jesus Christ, by the devotion of his pilgrimage, and for the preservation of all England, to do battle with the giant." The Palmer thus conjured, underwent the combat, and was victorious.

After a solemn procession to the Cathedral, and thanksgiving therein, when he offered his weapon to God and the patron of the Church, before the High Altar, the pilgrim withdrew, having revealed himself to none but the king, and that under a solemn pledge of secrecy. He bent his course towards Warwick, and unknown in his disguise, took alms at the hands of his own lady-for, reader, this meek and holy pilgrim, was none other than the wholesale slayer, whose deeds we have been contemplating—and then retired to a solitary place hard by –

"Where with his hand he hew'd a house,

Out of a craggy rock of stone;
And lived like a palmer poor,
Within that cave himself alone.'

Nor was this at all an unusual conclusion to life of butchery; all the heroes of romance turned hermits; and as they all, at least all of Arthur's Round Table, were gifted with a very striking development of the organ of combativeness, their profound piety at the end of their career might not improbably give rise to a very common adage of these days regarding sinners and saints.

But here was a theme for Tapestry-workers! a

real original, genuine English romance; for though the only pieces now extant be, or may be, translated from the French, still there are many concurring circumstances to prove that the original, often quoted by Chaucer, was an ancient metrical English one. That it is difficult to find who Sir Guy was, or in fact, to prove that there ever was a Sir Guy at all, is nothing to the purpose; leave we that to antiquarians, and their musty folios. Guy of Warwick was well known from west to east, even as far as Jerusalem, where, in Henry the Fourth's time, Lord Beauchamp was kindly received by those in high stations, because he was descended from

"A shadowy ancestor, so renowned as Guy."

One tapestry on this attractive subject which was in Warwick Castle, before the year 1398, was so distinguished and valued a piece of furniture, that a special grant was made of it by King Richard II. conveying "that suit of arras hangings in Warwick Castle, which contained the story of Guy Earl of Warwick," together with the Castle of Warwick and other possessions, to Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent. And in the restoration of forfeited property to this lord after his imprisonment, these hangings are particularly specified in the patent of King Henry IV., dated 1399.

And the Castle wherein the tapestry was hung was worthy of the heroes it had sheltered. The first building on the site was supposed to be coeval with our Saviour, and was called Caer-leon; almost overthrown by the Picts and Scots, it lay in ruins

till Caractacus built himself a manor-house, and founded a church to the honour of St. John the Baptist. Here was afterwards a Roman fort, and here again was a Pictish devastation. A cousin of King Arthur rebuilt it, and then lived in it-Arthgal, first Earl of Warwick, a Knight of the Round Table; this British title was equivalent to Ursus in Latin, whence Arthgal took the Bear for his ensign : and a successor of his, a worthy progenitor of our valiant Sir Guy, slew a mighty giant in a duel; and because this giant's delicate weapon was a tree pulled up by the roots, the boughs being snagged from it, the Earls of Warwick, successors of the victor, bore a ragged staff of silver in a sable shield for their cognisance.

We are told that,

"When Arthur first in court began,
And was approved king,

By force of arms great victoryes wanne,
And conquest home did bring.
Then into England straight he came

With fifty good and able
Knights, that resorted unto him,

And were of his round table."

Of these the most renowned were Syr Perceval, Syr Tristan, Syr Launcelot du Lac, Syr Ywain, Syr Gawain, Syr Galaas, Syr Meliadus of Leonnoys, Sir Ysaie, Syr Gyron, &c. &c., and their various and wondrous achievements were woven into a series of tales which are known as the "Romances of the Round Table." Of course the main subject of each tale is interrupted by ten thousand varied episodes, in which very often the original object

seems entirely lost sight of. Then the construction of many of these Romances, or rather their want of construction, is marvellous; their genealogies are interminable, and their geography miraculous.

One of the most marvellous and scarce of these Romances, and one, the principal passages of which were frequently wrought into Tapestry, was the “Roman du Saint Greal," which is founded upon an incident, to say the least very peculiar, but which was perhaps once considered true as Holy Writ. St. Joseph of Arimathœa, a very important personage in many romances, having obtained the hanap, or cup from which our Saviour administered the wine to his disciples, caught in the same cup the blood which flowed from his wounds when on the Cross. After he had first achieved various adventures, and undergone an imprisonment of fortytwo years, St. Joseph arrives in England with the sacred cup, by means of which numerous miracles are performed; he prepares the Round Table, and Arthur and his Knights all go in quest of the hanap, which by some, to us unaccountable, circumstance, had fallen into the hands of a sinner. All make the most solemn vow to devote their lives to its recovery; and this they must indeed have done, and not short lives either, if all recorded of them be true. None, however, but two, ever see the sacred symbol; though oftentimes a soft ray of light would stream across the lonesome wild, or the dark pathless forest, or unearthly strains would float on the air, or odours as of Paradise would entrance the senses, while the wandering and woeworn knight

would feel all fatigue, all sense of personal inconvenience, of pain, of sickness, or of sorrow, vanish on the instant; and then would he renew his vows, and betake himself to prayer; for though all unworthy to see the Holy Grayle, he would feel that it had been borne on viewless pinions through the air for his individual consolation and hope. And Syr Galahad and Syr Perceval, the two chaste and favoured knights who, "after the dedely flesshe had beheld the spiritual things," the holy St. Graelnever returned to converse with the world. The first departed to God, and "flights of angels sang him to his rest;" the other took religious clothing and retired to a hermitage, where, after living a full holy life for a yere and two moneths, he passed out of this world."

But wide as is the range of the Romances of the "Round Table," they form but a portion of those which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne and his Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round which another circle revolved; Alexander furnished the radiating star for another, derived chiefly perhaps from the East, where numbers of fictitious tales were prevalent about him; and many Romances were likewise woven around the mangled remains of classic heroes.

"The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong ;
They gleam through Spenser's elfic dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme:
And Dryden in immortal strain,

Had raised the 'Table Round' again.”

The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palaces