story of the enchanter, Merlin, and his relations with Arthur. In the third place comes the history of Lancelot and his love affair with Guinevere during the period of its prosperity. This includes a prose version of Chrétien's "Conte de la Charrette." Then we have the quest of the Holy Grail by Galahad and the other knights and finally the "Mort Arthur," which tells of the discovery of the queen's adultery, the war with Lancelot, the treason of Mordred and the end of the Table Round.

Many Arthurian poems have doubtless been lost, but the authors of these prose-romances do not seem to have simply turned into prose what they found in the metrical romances. They draw apparently directly from popular tradition also and add largely from their own invention. Their works are long and full of digressions and repetitions of episodes so as to render them, despite the good material they contain, difficult reading even to the professional student. The Lancelot proper especially, which has been rendered immortal by Dante's "Paolo and Francesca," is enormously long, being approached in this respect by no modern work of fiction perhaps except "Clarissa Harlowe." They are written in a style of considerable elegance and set forth the ideals and manners of chivalry with an amplitude which surpasses that of the romances in verse.

The five romances I have enumerated above were in all probability the compositions of different men. Moreover, it is quite likely, and in the case of the Lancelot proper, at any rate, one may say, certain, that more than one hand contributed to the composition of the individual romances. The Middle Ages had no conception of literary property and no one in that period hesitated to take hold of the work even of a contemporary and amplify it or abridge it to suit his tastes. However this may be, by about the year 1220 all five of these romances (after undergoing many changes and interpolations) had come to be united in one vast book known from the hero who plays the leading rôle in it as "Lancelot du Lac."" Romances in prose of enormous

It appears that of the romances that make up this work there existed two redactions varying considerably in some of the divisions or "branches" of the story. They are known respectively as the Walter Map and Robert de Borron cycles. Of these redactions only the former is preserved entire.

length concerning the other heroes of Arthur's court, such as Tristan, Guiron le Courtois and the rest, were composed during the course of the thirteenth century, but "Lancelot du Lac" is without question the most notable book in Arthurian prose fiction.

In conclusion I will say that it is through these prose romances that the Arthurian legend made its way into modern literature. By the fifteenth century the metrical romances were practically obsolete. This was due, no doubt, partly to the fact that their language was more difficult to understand than that of the prose romances, partly to the fact that a conscious effort to set forth the manners and virtues of chivalry is even more strongly marked in the latter than in the former, and lastly, perhaps, to the fact that the mass of mankind will always prefer prose to verse. The place which the prose romances occupied in the life of the upper classes of Europe down to the middle of the sixteenth century is shown in the magnificent ornamentation which has been lavished on so many of the copies of these works that have come down to modern times. I have myself read in the British Museum the last division of the Lancelot du Lac romance, viz. the "Mort Arthur," in a beautiful illuminated manuscript which belonged successively to Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV, and to Lady Jane Grey, and which bears on the fly leaf the autograph signature of each of these illustrious ladies. It is very characteristic of the Middle Ages that in this copy which was evidently prepared for people of the highest rank one finds among the vignettes which border the front page pictures of a brutal realism which would insure the prohibition of the transmission of the book through the United States mails.

As soon as printing was invented, the resources of the new art were employed to perpetuate these favorite romances, but by the latter part of the sixteenth century with the change of taste which the Renaissance had gradually wrought, Arthurian fiction had gone out of favor and ceased to be printed. What the original works had not been able to do for the story of the great hero was accomplished however by Malory's "Morte d Arthur," that famous compendium of Arthurian romance which its author completed in the year 1470 and which fifteen years

later constituted one of the earliest glories of Caxton's press. The "Morte d' Arthur," indeed, is the real bridge by which Arthur and his knights effected a happy, nay, even a triumphant passage, from the Middle Ages to modern times. Whilst the original French romances have sunk into oblivion except for specialists, many a nineteenth century poet has resorted to the "Morte d' Arthur" for old materials into which he might breathe the life of modern thought and sentiment. It was above all, however, a day of note in the history of English literature when Leigh Hunt put into the hands of Alfred Tennyson a cheap copy of Malory's work. From the consequences of that gift it is manifest to the world that in the realm of poetry at least, which after all perhaps is the realm best worth ruling over, the inscription on Arthur's tomb was no mere lying epitaph : Hic jacet Arthurus Rex, quondam Rex que futurus.

J. DOUGLAS BRUCE

The University of Tennessee

A BRIEF FOR BOSWELL

The Boswells are, indisputably, an ancient and honorable family. One or more of them came to England with William the Conqueror, fought at Hastings, and later, exhibited the acquisitiveness which was common to the followers of that illustrious spoiler. In the reign of David I, the Boswells, animated still by the Norman instinct, entered Scotland. As far back as the year 1504 the Manor or Barony of Auchinleck (Affleck) in Ayrshire, having fallen to the crown, it pleased his Majesty, James IV of Scotland, to grant the same unto Thomas Boswell, described by his descendant, the famous biographer, as “a branch of an ancient family in the County of Fife," and styled in the royal charter dilecto familiari nostro. The cause of the grant was pro bono et fideli servitio nobis praestito. It is intimated, rather than asserted, that this Thomas Boswell was the chief minstrel of James IV, a statement which, if proved, might in a measure account for the inclination of James Boswell to sing the praises of great men. At all events Thomas Boswell continued to render good and faithful service, and fell at the fatal field of Flodden, in the year 1513. I think Carlyle refers to him somewhere as a "fiddler."

It is pleasant to know that a great-grandfather of James Boswell was Earl of Kincardine, through whom, in some way, theoretically at least, the biographer was descended from Robert Bruce, a fact which he was at no pains to conceal. There are many other interesting and important incidents in the history of the family and estate, recorded by James Boswell, which for want of space I deny myself the pleasure of repeating.

In due course of time and descent, the estate of Auchinleck became vested in the father of James Boswell, known in literary history as "Auld Auchinleck," and by Carlyle styled "Old Touchwood," and "Old Sulphur Brand." He was a Judge, a man of strong mind and character and of no less strong prejudices, and had many natural and emphatic disapprovals of his son's character and conduct. He seems to have been a fair match for Dr. Johnson, both in entertaining and in asserting prejudices.

I had hoped to find somewhere in the later history of the Bos

wells a French marriage, but there seems to have been none after the Conquest. There was a Dutch alliance, but that does not account for the essentially Gallic character of many things in Boswell's "Life of Johnson," unless indeed, the Sommelsdycks had French blood. There are many passages in the great biography that remind one of Victor Hugo's proneness to write odes to his toothaches, and of Rousseau's apparent pleasure in relating disgusting things of himself.

No doubt it is vanity that causes Frenchmen to write private memoirs, preserving for the benefit of posterity records of how and when they cut their nails, and other similar and, ordinarily, esoteric personal facts. The Scotch also have vanity, but it is ..a shy, sensitive, retiring vice or virtue, and therefore, if neither the Boswells nor the Sommelsdycks had French blood in their veins, there seems to have been, in the case of James Boswell, an inexplicable malformation, or at least modification of the vanity.

James Boswell was born at Edinburgh, October 29, 1740, and died in London, June 19, 1795. He had his academic training at Edinburgh, and studied law at Utrecht. In 1786, he published "An Account of Corsica, with Memoirs of General Paoli;" in 1769, "British Essays in favor of Brave Corsicans;" in 177782, a series of papers called "The Hypochondriac;" in 1790, "The Life of Johnson." In 1857, certain letters of his to the Rev. W. J. Temple were published.

An event in the life of James Boswell more important, probably, in his own estimation, than his birth, was his introduction to Samuel Johnson, which occurred on the 16th of May, 1763, in London, in Mr. Davies' back parlor after tea and unexpectedly, as accurately recorded by Mr. Boswell as soon as his nervous system had recovered from the shock. Boswell says that Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop, and Mr. Davies, "having preceded him through the glass door, announced his awful approach to me somewhat in the manner of an actor in the part of Horatio. . . 'Look, my Lord, it comes.' Mr. Davies mentioned my name and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, 'Don't tell