there has been of late a tendency to deny or slight Map's claims. His deposition, however, rests upon no solid argument, and though it would be exceedingly rash, considering the levity with which the copyists in medieval MSS. attributed authorship, to assert positively that Map wrote Lancelot, or the Quest of the Saint Graal, it may be asserted with the utmost confidence that it has not been proved that he did not.

The other claimant for the authorship of a main part of the story-in this case the Merlin part, and

Robert de the long history of the Graal from the Borron. days of Joseph of Arimathea downwardsis a much more shadowy person, a certain Robert de Borron, a knight of the north of France. Nobody has much interest in disturbing Borron's claims, though they also have been attacked; and it is only necessary to say that there is not the slightest ground for supposing that he was an ancestor of Lord Byron, as was once very gratuitously done, the time when he was first heard of happening to coincide with the popularity of that poet.

The third personage who is certainly or uncertainly connected by name with the original framework of Chrestien de the legend is again more substantial than

Troyes. Robert de Borron, though less so than Walter Map. As his surname, derived from his birthplace, indicates, Chrestien de Troyes was of Champenois extraction, thus belonging to the province which, with Normandy, contributed most to early French literature.

And he seems to have been

attached not merely to the court of his native prince, the Count of Champagne, but to those of the neighbouring Walloon lordships or principalities of Flanders and Hainault. Of his considerable work (all of it done, it would seem, before the end of the twelfth century) by far the larger part is Arthurian — the immense romance of Percevale le Gallois,1 much of which, however, is the work of continuators; the interesting episode of the Lancelot saga, called Le Chevalier à la Charette; Erec et Enide, the story known to every one from Lord Tennyson's idyll; the Chevalier au Lyon, a Gawain legend; and Cligès, which is quite on the outside of the Arthurian group. All these works are written in octosyllabic couplets, particularly light and skipping, somewhat destitute of force and grip, but full of grace and charm. their contents more presently.

Of

Next to the questions of authorship and of origin in point of difficulty come two others "Which are the older: the prose or the verse romances?" and, "Was there a Latin original of the Graal story?" With regard to the first, it has long been laid down as a general axiom, and it is no doubt as a rule true, that prose is always later than verse, and that in medieval times especially the order

Prose or verse first?

1 Ed. Potvin, 6 vols., Mons, 1866-70. Dr Förster has undertaken a complete Chrestien, of which the 2d and 3d vols. are Yvain (“Le Chevalier au Lyon") and Erec (Halle, 1887-90). Le Chevalier à la Charette should be read in Dr Jonckbloët's invaluable parallel edition with the prose of Lancelot (The Hague, 1850). On this last see M. G. Paris, Romania, xii. 459—an admirable paper, though I do not agree with it.

is almost invariable. Verse; unrhymed and half-disrhythmed prose; prose pure and simple: that is what we find. For many reasons, however, drawn partly from the presumed age of the MSS. and partly from internal evidence, the earlier scholars who considered the Arthurian matter, especially M. Paulin Paris, came to the conclusion that here the prose romances were, if not universally, yet for the most part, the earlier. And this, though it is denied by M. Paris's equally learned son, still seems the more probable opinion. For, in the first place, by this time prose, though not in a very advanced condition, was advanced enough not to make it absolutely necessary for it to lag behind verse, as had been the case with the chansons de geste. And in the second place, while the prose romances are far more comprehensive than the verse, the age of the former seems to be beyond question such that there could be no need, time, or likelihood for the reduction to a general prose summary of separate verse originals, while the separate verse episodes are very easily intelligible as developed from parts of the prose original.1

With regard to the Latin Graal-book, the testimony

1 The parallel edition, above referred to, of the Chevalier à la Charette and the corresponding prose settled this in my mind long ago; and though I have been open to unsettlement since, I have not been unsettled. The most unlucky instance of that over-positiveness to which I have referred above is M. Clédat's statement that nous savons" that the prose romances are later than the verse. We certainly do not "know" this any more than we know the contrary. There is important authority both ways; there is fair argument both ways; but the positive evidence which alone can turn opinion into knowledge has not been produced, and probably does not exist.

A Latin

of the romances themselves is formal enough as to its existence. But no trace of it has been Graal-book. found, and its loss, if it existed, is contrary to all probability. For ex hypothesi (and if we take one part of the statement we must take the rest) it was not a recent composition, but a document, whether of miraculous origin or not, of considerable age. Why it should only at this time have come to light, why it should have immediately perished, and why none of the persons who took interest enough in it to turn it into the vernacular should have transmitted his copy to posterity, are questions difficult, or rather impossible, to answer. But here, again, the wise critic will not peremptorily deny. He will say that there may be a Latin Graal-book, and that when that book is produced, and stands the test of examination, he will believe in it; but that until it appears he will be contented with the French originals of the end of the twelfth century. Of the characteristic and probable origins of the Graal story itself, as of those of the larger Legend of which it forms a part, it will be time enough to speak when we have first given an account of the general history as it took shape, probably before the twelfth century had closed, certainly very soon after the thirteenth had opened. For the whole Legend -even excluding the numerous ramifications into independent or semi-independent romans d'aventures— is not found in any single book or compilation. most extensive, and by far the best, that of our own Malory, is very late, extremely though far from unwisely eclectic, and adjusted to the presumed

The

demands of readers, and to the certain existence in the writer of a fine literary sense of fitness. It would be trespassing on the rights of a future contributor to say much directly of Malory; but it must be said here that in what he omits, as well as in his treatment of what he inserts, he shows nothing short of genius. Those who call him a mere, or even a bad, compiler, either have not duly considered the matter or speak unhappily.

But before we go further it may be well also to say a word on the Welsh stories, which, though now admitted to be in their present form later than the Romances, are still regarded as possible originals by

some.

ogion.

1

It would hardly be rash to rest the question of the Celtic origin, in any but the most remote and partial sense, of the Arthurian Romances on the The Mabin Mabinogion 1 alone. The posteriority of these as we have them need not be too much dwelt upon. We need not even lay great stress on what I believe to be a fact not likely to be disputed by good critics, that the reading of the French and the Welsh-English versions one after the other, no matter in what order they be taken, will leave something more than an impression that the French is the direct original of the Welsh, and that the Welsh, in anything at all like its present form, could not by any possibility be the original of the French. The test to which I refer is this. Let any one read, with as open a mind as he can procure,

1 Translated by Lady Charlotte Guest, 2d ed., London, 1877.