last saved from the children's attacks by some knights from the castle.

IV. Castor, the name of King Pelles' cousin in M., is not found in P.L. M.'s fourth chapter only differs from P.L. in so far as it states that "dame Brysen" accompanies King Pelles and fair Elayne into the garden where Lancelot sleeps, recognises him at once, and, casting a spell upon him, enables the people to carry him into the tower; in P.L., dame Brysen is not mentioned on this occasion.

V.-VI. These two chapters likewise correspond fairly well, on the whole, to the account in P.L., but some slight confusion seems to have arisen. While, in M., Pelles and his daughter come to Lancelot when he awakes after being healed by the Holy Grail, Elayne is not even present on this occasion in P.L., and only learns Lancelot's recovery through her father. Here again M. mentions dame Brysen in contradiction to P.L. According to P.L., the contents of M. p. 600, 11. 25-37, ought to precede ll. 1-24 of the same page. În P.L., In Lancelot only speaks with King Pelles, and arranges with regard to his future with him. Pelles afterwards goes to his daughter and tells her about Lancelot's intentions, and she then proposes to take him to the "chasteau que len appelle bliant," "en une ysle." To this castle Lancelot goes secretly, accompanied only by Pelles, and only upon his arrival at the castle does he see Elayne and have a conversation with her to nearly the same effect as in M. All this is upset in M., where Pelles decides upon castle Blyaunt as Lancelot's abode, when Elayne, having spoken with Lancelot, comes to her father, and communicates to him Lancelot's wish to stay in one of his castles so that nobody may recognise him. In M., Elayne offers to stay with Lancelot; in P.L., Lancelot asks her as a favour to stay with him. To this modification, or rather confusion, it is also evidently due that M. says: "And thenne after this kynge Pelles with x knyghtes / and dame Elayne / and twenty ladyes rode vnto the castel of Blyaunt," &c. The ten knights and the twenty damsels are actually mentioned in P.L., but under very different circumstances. When Lancelot, after his arrival, has spoken to Elayne and requested her to stay with him, she tells her father, and, by his advice, consents to comply with Lancelot's desire. "Et le roy luy dist quil manderoit parmy son royaulme vingt des plus belles damoiselles pour luy faire compaignie . . . lancelot eut auec

luy dix cheualiers qui tous estoyent preux & hardis."

The early part of M.'s chapter vi., p. 600, 22-37, corresponds fairly accurately to P.L., which is, however, more detailed, and in which Lancelot tells the knight Castor (whose name is again not mentioned in P.L.) his name straightforwardly, whereas in M. he only says: "I put caas my name were syr launcelot,”

The later portion of chapter vi., p. 601, 1-20, is a much abridged and considerably modified reproduction of P.L. M. makes Lancelot call the island "the Ioyous yle." P.L. has no remark to this effect, but speaks several times of "lisle de ioye" without commentary, and later on says that the island was called thus from the joyous damsels whom Pelles sent thither.1

In accordance with M., Lancelot is said to call himself "le cheualier mesfait" in P.L.

In P.L., Lancelot asks King Pelles to get him a shield such as he describes to him. When the shield is brought, it is such a strange one that all are surprised, no one having ever seen such a shield: "et sans faulte il estoit le plus diuers que on sceut pour lors en tout le monde car au meillieu estoit plus noir que meure /et de coste la bouche auoit paincte vne royne dargent / et deuant elle vng cheuallier a genoulx comme sil cryast mercy." Only Pelles and his daughter understand the meaning of this picture. Lancelot hangs this shield on a pine-tree, and goes every day to lament before it.

The passage in M., "and euery day ones for ony myrthes

he wold ones euery day loke toward the realm of Logrys," occurs in P.L. a little earlier in a but slightly different form. In P.L., Lancelot one day asks a dwarf if he knows of any tournament about to take place near the castle of Blyaunt. When the dwarf informs him there will be one in four days' time at a castle only half a mile distant, he bids him go thither and cry out:

"Le cheualier mesfait mande a tous ceulx qui vont querant los et pris de cheualerie que ia nul ne viendra en lysle de ioye pour querre iouste que il ne la trouue tant comme le cheualier mesfait y soit. Et se il y a nul qui bataille vueille viengne hardyement, car il ny fauldra ia."

Many knights come to the island in consequence of this challenge, but Lancelot overcomes them all. The "fayr mayde and a Ierfaucon which M. mentions as the price to be given to any knight defeating Lancelot is not in P.L.

VII.-VIII. P.L. does not state, as does M., that Lancelot overcomes five hundred knights. M., forgetting that, in accordance with P.L., he has just said that the castle in the "Ioyous yle" is called "Blyaunt," now says: "vnder that Castel / that was called the Ioyous yle." The remainder of chapters vii. and viii. are a résumé of P.L., with very small and insignificant variations.

IX. The first part of the ninth chapter, p. 604, ll. 1-27, offers a

"En telle maniere demoura lancelot en lisle de ioye mais lisle nestoit pas ainsi appelle fors seulement pour les damoyselles qui estoyent auec la fille au rois perles qui faisoient la plus grande ioyeusete que jamais homme voit faire a damoyselle," &c.

fresh point of interest. In none of the MSS. of P.L. is there anything to the effect of these twenty lines, unless in the remark, later on, that when Lancelot and Ector and Perceval return to the court, "Si y trouuerent le roy artus lyon et boort qui eurent amene auec eulx Elayn le blanc qui estoit dune des plus nobles lignes.'

This incident requires explanation. If we examine P.L., we find that in the second part (ff. 37-38 of the ed. Paris, 1513) is told, in imitation of Lancelot's deception by Brysen, how Boors, staying at King Brangore's court, and deceived by the duenna of the princess, is induced, by means of an enchanted ring, to have carnal connection with the latter. As both are absolutely innocent in this, continues P.L., the fruit of their intercourse is chosen by God as a being of special goodness, is called Elayn le blanc, and becomes afterwards Emperor of Constantinople.

Save in the Quest of the Holy Grail, when Boors confesses to the hermit, and on the occasion I have just cited, P.L. makes no mention of Boors' son. This the writer of M.'s source evidently wished to remedy, by adding how Boors returned to the court of Brangore, and took his son to King Arthur in order to make him a knight of the Round Table.

The last portion of the twelfth chapter is an imperfect and much curtailed account of the matter found in P.L. As some of the incidents of the Quest of the Holy Grail are not intelligible in M. as they stand, I here give a brief account of the last folio of this portion in P.L.:

After Lancelot and Perceval have given up fighting, and Lancelot has embraced his brother Ector, all three go into the castle, where they are received by fair Elayne. Boors at once asks for Galahad, and is told that the child is staying at Corbyn with King Pelles. He further asks Elayne for the details of Lancelot's coming to this place, and is told by her all about his madness and his being healed by the Holy Grail. All pass the evening together in great pleasantness.

On the morrow, Hector asks Lancelot to return with him to Arthur's court. Lancelot at first most emphatically refuses to do so, but when Hector mentions that Gueneuer is longing to see him, he soon declares his readiness to go. He sends to King Pelles, and informs him of his intention to return on the third day to Arthur's court. When Pelles tells young Galahad of his father's intention, the child replies: "My father can do as he pleases, but I wish to be always near him, that he may see me often." An old knight suggests to Pelles that he could well send the child to his (Pelles') sister, who is the abbess of a nunnery in the forest of Camalaoth; and his advice is followed.

1 Compare MS. Royal 19 C xiii. fol. 280°, and MS. Add. 10293, fol. 383".

Elayne is sad when she hears that both Lancelot and Galahad are going to leave her, but she resigns herself to her father's will. On the third day, when Lancelot rides off with Ector and Perceval, Pelles reminds him that Galahad is his son. The three knights ride straight to Carlyon, where Arthur is residing at the time, and meet there Lionel and Boors with Elayne le blank. All three, more especially Lancelot, are received with great joy, and of all the people Gueneuer is the happiest, in that she has Lancelot again.

In the meantime Pelles has sent Galahad to the abbey of nuns, where he remains "tant quil fut grant damoyseau de laage de quinze ans. Lors deuint tant beau et tant grant que ie ne croy pas que on trouuast son pareil au monde." Not far from the abbey dwells a hermit, who knows through God's grace "la bonte de lenfant." He comes a day after Easter to Galahad, and tells him the time is now come for him to be made knight, and he should enter this high order shriven and clean of all sin. "Long temps parlerent celluy iour ensemble et lendemain a leure de prime aduint que le roy artus qui chassoit au bois vint illec cuyr messe," &c.

The old romance writers were apparently not very particular as regards time. According to "Le Roman de Lancelot " as a whole, it seems as if the knights set out on the quest of the Holy Grail on the Whitsunday after Lancelot's return from the joyous island. According to the account, reproduced above, how Galahad remained at the abbey of nuns until his fifteenth year, we have to suppose that several years elapsed between Lancelot's return and the Whitsunday on which Galahad comes to Arthur's court.

The hermit tells Arthur that on the next feast of Whitsun the knight will come to his court who is to sit in the perilous seat, and who will bring to an end the Quest of the Holy Grail; therefore Arthur should be sure to assemble all his knights at that feast. On his return to court, Arthur at once takes the necessary measures to ensure the next feast of Whitsun being one of the finest, in every respect, ever held.

M. omits most of these details-e.g., Galahad's being taken to the nunnery-so that, at the opening of his thirteenth book, one cannot understand how Galahad came to the abbey.

A point which is also contradictory in P.L. is that when Lancelot is taken on the eve of Pentecost to the abbey, he there finds Boort and Lionel. How these two came thither, and for what purpose, is not quite clear, for in P.L., as already stated, Lancelot is said to find these two knights with Elayne le blank at Carlyon when he returns from the joyous island.

B.

THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL.1

BOOKS XIII.-XVII.

HE thirteenth to the seventeenth books of "Le Morte Darthur" are devoted to the adventures of the knights of the Round Table in the search of the Holy Grail, and it may not be uninteresting to remark that Sir Thomas Malory's is the only known English prose account. As Dr. F. J. Furnivall's edition-"La Queste del Saint Graal," from the Royal MS. 14 E iii. in the British Museum, with occasional reference to MS. Add. 10294, to which is prefixed a detailed abstract, page by page, of the contents—is within the reach of every scholar, and as I have convinced myself, by a collation of various portions of his text with the MSS. Royal 19 C xiii., Add. 17443, Royal 20 C vi., and Add. 10294, which also contain the Quest, that they only vary in details of style, but not in the adventures told, I have based my critical examination on this edition, having by my side the Rev. R. Williams' edition of the Welsh "Y Seint Greal," which possibly represents an earlier stage of the French romance than that represented by any existing French MS.

Malory has shortened his original in this portion of his rifacimento less than in any other, and has in many cases limited himself to translating it.

a. BOOK XIII.5

In order to show how closely the French text and Malory occasionally agree, I print a portion of the first chapter of the thirteenth book by the side of the French text.

1 For the history of the various theories concerning the origin of the legend of the Holy Grail, see Alfred Nutt's "Studies," &c. London, 1888. 8vo.

2 La Queste del Saint Graal: In the French Prose of (as is supposed) Maistres Gautiers Map, or Walter Map. Written by him for the love of King Henry his lord. Edited by F. J. Furnivall, M.A., for the Roxburghe Club. London, 1864. 4to.-The "Hystoire du sainct greaal ensemble la queste dudict saint graal" was twice printed at Paris, in 1516 and 1523, folio.

3 The twelve MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, from which the beginnings of the Quest were supplied to Dr. Furnivall by M. B. Michelant, also vary only in details of style.

4 Y Seint Greal, &c. Edited, with a translation and Glossary, by the Rev. Robert Williams, M.A. London, 1876. 8vo.

5 La Queste, &c., ed. F. J. Furnivall, pp. 1-62.