come, were in accordance with the times in which they were written, for as alchemy preceded chemistry, so romance-writing was the commencement of literature.  Some of the Arabian stories had considerable grace and beauty, and are even now attractive to the young.  But whether our poets borrowed from this prolific source or not, it is certain that about this time they became more ambitious, and produced regular tales of considerable length, in which the northern gallantry towards the fair sex was combined with extravagances resembling those of Eastern invention.

Not until this time were the early heroic legends of this country developed, and committed to writing, and as they appeared first in French, some writers—­among whom is Ritson—­have concluded that they were merely the offspring of our neighbours’ fertile imagination.  But although the poets who recounted these stories wrote in French, they were in attendance at the English Court, in which, even before the Conquest, French was the language used, while Latin was that of the learned, and Saxon that of the country-people.  Henry the First, the great patron of letters, sometimes held his Court at Caen, so that the Norman poets who were competing for his favour, were doubtless familiar with the legendary history of England.  The first important works in the French language seem to have come from Normandy, and it is not improbable that some of them were written in England.  They were called romances, because they were composed in one of the languages of Southern Europe, containing a large element of the Roman, which we find was still used among the soldiery as late as the seventh century.  It has been supposed that all our early Anglo-Norman romances were translations from the French, except the “Squyr of Lowe Degre,” and of some the originals are still extant.

These productions, from whatever source they came, were the kind of literature most acceptable at the time.  There seemed then nothing harsh or contemptibly puerile in stories we should now relegate to the nursery, and no doubt people derived an amusement from them, for which that of humour was afterwards gradually substituted.

Examples of such stories are found in that of Robert, King of Sicily, who for his pride was changed, like Nebuchadnezzar, into one of the lower animals, and in that of Richard “Coeur de Lion,” who rode a horse possessed by the devil, and whose wife flew away like a bird.

In the romance of Sir Bevis of Hamtoun, (Earl of Southampton,) he is represented as a kind of infant Hercules, who, when fifteen, killed sixty Saracen knights.  He afterwards was imprisoned at Damascus in a den with two dragons, but destroyed them.  He was kept in a dungeon, however, and

  “Rats and mice, and such small deer,
   Was his meat that seven year.”

During this time he was cheered by an angel visiting him.  An adversary shortly appears in Ascapard: 

  “This geaunt was mighty and strong,
   And full thirty foot was long,
   He was bristled like a sow;
   A foot he had between each brow. 
   His lips were great, and hung aside,
   His eyen were hollow, his mouth was wide,
   Lothy he was to look on than,
   And liker a devil than a man.”