T O the general reader the Romances of Chivalry are very little known, some of them not at all; and the reason of this is, that no efforts have been made to popularize them. Originating, as they did, with the professional story-tellers of Norman times, they were, first of all, metrical histories of the deeds of heroes, like those which the Minstrel Taillefer sung at the Battle of Hastings, when he went before William, chanting of Charlemagne and Roland. Soon these were garnished with tales of love, and, after a time, imagination was called into play, and the Romance was written. They were the Novels of the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and must ever be thought of in that light; they were highly sensational, and full of incident, never prolix, or with long-winded speeches, till they were on the wane, at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries; and many of them have survived to our days in a condensed form, as chap-books, or books for children-a fact which sufficiently shows the hold they had upon the people. Some, nay most of them, have been edited and reprinted for the learned societies; but then only the oldest, or rarest MSS., or printed copies, have been thus treated, and they have seldom travelled far from the bookshelves of the subscribers to these societies. And the reason is not far to seek. The language in which they are written is far too archaic for the ordinary reader, and requires a special antiquarian education. The language of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is totally different from the English of to-day, and no ordinary person would care about sitting down to read a book which would be unintelligible to him, were he not to refer to a glossary at every line. Weber, Ritson, and Thoms, did something to bring them into notice, and there is the best book of all on the subject in Bohn's Antiquarian Library; but its usefulness is marred by that awful word "antiquarian." People will not believe that anything can be amusing if under that heading—it must be dry as dust. The popularity of our archæological societies has somewhat dispelled this notion, but the prejudice remains generally. Is there any reason why they should not be made as attractive as other stories? People will read the Northern Sagas, or North American Indian legends, and tales of wonder; fairy and folk-lore tales are eagerly perused; |