Chaucer has burlesqued the metrical romances of the wandering minstrels in his tale of Sir Thopas. He enume

rates some of the productions that will bear comparison with his parody

"Men speaken of romans of price
Of Horn Child and of Ypotis,

Of Bevis and Sir Guy,

Of Sir Libeaux and Pleindamour ;
But Sir Thopas beareth the flower
Of real chivalry."

All these romances, or at least romances on all these heroes, except Pleindamour, are still in existence; and if they are the same, the parody cannot be said to depart far from the original. They deal with the usual subjects of romance-giants, enchantments, obstructive knights, and invincible champions-and their diction may fairly be described as unmitigated doggerel. The following two stanzas are from 'Lybeaus Disconus,' Le Beau Desconnu, The Fair Unknown (Ritson's Metrical Romances) :

The said Lybeaus, Sir Constable,
Telleth me withouten fable,

What is the knightës name,

That holdeth so in prison

The lady of Synadon

That is so gentle a dame."

All, or nearly all, English romances were translated from the French. In the case of a few unimportant ones, no French originals have been discovered, and they may therefore be presumed to have been written in English to begin with; but all the romances belonging to the great Arthurian cycle were originally composed in French, though some, if not most of them, by Englishmen for Anglo-Norman readers. The Romance of Ywain and Gawain, sons respectively of Urien, King of Gore, and Lot of Orkney, and nephews of Arthur, is ascribed by Ritson to the reign of Richard II. This romance is considerably superior to Horn Child or Lybeaus. The two cousins, and firm friends, are really noble mirrors of knighthood. Their prowess is supreme at Arthur's Court, and they are the very flowers of courtesy and generosity. Ywain (Ewen, or Owen) is the hero of the piece in so far that its object is to relate his adventures. He kills a fair lady's husband, marries her, rides away on promise of returning within a twelvemonth, is tempted by his love of tourneying to stay beyond his time, incurs his lady's fierce displeasure, goes mad, is restored to his wits, and, after many perils and successes, is reunited to the object of his faithful affections. The romance abounds in the marvels of its class. A knight-errant comes to a well of cold water, with a basin of gold hanging near; he takes the basin and sprinkles some water on an emerald stone; immediately there arises a furious tempest of hail, rain, snow, sleet, thunder, and scorching lightning. When the storm subsides, a flock of birds alight near him, and by-and-by comes knight, with the sound of many horsemen, spurring on eagerly to do battle to the stranger who has dared so to trouble the realm. Ywain's lady gives him an enchanted ring with various wonderful properties

"I shall tell to you anon

The virtue that is in the stone:
It is no prison shall you hold,
All if your foes be many fold;
With sickness shall ye not be ta'en,

Ne of your blood shall ye lose nane."

One of the most striking wonders in the romance is the attachment of a lion to the person of Ywain. The knight had saved his life in an encounter with a dragon, and from that moment the royal beast becomes his faithful attendant and body-guard, and renders him very valuable service in his encounters.

Though Ywain is the hero of the romance, his cousin Gawain is a still nobler and more illustrious figure. Ywain, indeed, when they are unawares matched against each other, fights with him through a whole long day till darkness sets in, without losing ground; but Gawain is represented as the most famous of Arthur's knights, to whom the distressed naturally apply for succour. Gawain's fortune has been very hard in the growth and variation of Arthurian romance. Other heroes of later invention have been exalted at his expense. In the Romance of Merlin,1 which is the chief authority for the early history of Arthur, Gawain is the noblest ideal of knighthood. Again and again the romance dwells upon his irresistible strength and generous disposition. King Bors says, that if he live he will be the most illustrious knight that ever was. He is "a wise knight, and without pride, and the most courteous that was in the Bloy Breteyne, and the best taught in all things, and ever true to God and to his lord." And, again, he is said to be "one of the best knights and wisest of the world, and thereto the least mis-speaker and none avaunter, and the best taught of all things that longeth to worship or curtesy." But this reputation was too bright in the eyes of other romancers with heroes of their own to celebrate; and so Gawain was depreciated, that more unrivalled lustre might accrue to Lancelot, Pelleas, Lamorak, or Tristan. All these knights 1 An English fifteenth-century version of this romance is published by the Early English Text Society.

were brought into conflict with him, and came off victorious. Worse than that, the glory of his courtesy was tarnished by a base explanation. It was fabled that he was sworn to courteous behaviour as a punishment for a most unknightly action done in his youth. And last of all came Mr Tennyson, and pursued the unfortunate knight with bitter hatred and spiteful detraction, because he was the half-brother (Mr Tennyson would say the full brother) of Mordred; and it suited the laureate's purpose to argue that treachery, masked by smiling manners, ran in the blood.1

II. SCOTTISH CONTEMPORARIES.

I. JOHN BARBOUR (d. 1396).

The impulse of medieval poetry had no very considerable effect on Scotland till the end of the fifteenth century. Not till then was there anything that could be called a flowering period of Scottish song. In the fourteenth century, however, there was a certain emulous response to the Continental singers: a response, too, that was inspired by no small ambition. The Scottish poets of the fourteenth century were not content to echo with or without variations the favourite romances of the west of Europe: they struck a bolder, a more original, a more closely patriotic note. Events had recently happened that fascinated them more than the most dazzling achievements of the European models of knighthood, and filled them with pride as well as reverence. Alexander, Arthur, Charlemagne, were faint personages to them in comparison with their own national heroes. Their country was fresh from a successful struggle to maintain her independence against English aggression ; and in the exultation of their triumphant resistance, they had no interest in weaving romantic webs of splendid colours round ideal champions of other causes. Even the great cause of Christian against Saracen, in which the religious

1 National jealousy of the Scots may have had something to do with the degeneration of Gawain in the romances. The romance of Ywain and Gawain is in the Northern dialect.

imagination of the Middle Ages had exhibited Alexander, as well as Arthur and Charlemagne, stirred them with a vaguer and feebler enthusiasm than memories of their own recent deliverance from impending slavery. And in the leaders of their war of independence, they were proud to be able to show to the world 'fresh mirrors of chivalry. They were not ashamed to place Douglas side by side with Hector of Troy, and to claim for Wallace and Bruce endless honour among the foremost heroes of romance.

John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, who undertook to relate the exploits of the Bruce in four-accent couplets, was a scholar, an ardent patriot, and a warm admirer of chivalry. Zeal for study, both of books and of men, the enthusiasm of knowledge, may be said to be characteristic of the Scotch; and Barbour was in this respect a Scot of the Scots. In 1357, when he had already attained the dignity of archdeacon, he applied to his king, David II., to procure him a passport from Edward III., and went south with three scholars under his charge to study at Oxford. Again, in 1364, he obtained permission to "study at Oxford or elsewhere as he might think proper." In 1365, and again in 1368, he passed through England towards France to prosecute his studies in Paris. The terms of the safe-conducts granted to him show that he travelled not merely as the superintendent of the studies of youthful wards, but for the increase of his own knowledge.1

While thus devoted to the life contemplative, the life active had a strong hold of his imagination. "The heart of the soldier beat under the frock of the churchman." The spirit of chivalry found a fit dwelling-place in the grave Scotch student: nowhere did its attributes of courage, gentleness, generosity, fidelity, and high honour meet with a warmer reception, and nowhere was everything antagonistic to it excommunicated with heartier indignation. Believers in race will not fail to observe that Barbour was born in the north-east of Scotland, and that in the population of this district there was a large admixture of settlers from the 1 See Mr Innes's preface to the Spalding Club edition.