valry. Hence perhaps, different nations have anxiously vindicated to themselves the credit of its origin. On the authority of Nicholas Antonio, Warton has assigned the composition of Amadis de Gaul to Vasco Lobeira, a Portugueze officer, who died at Elvas in 1403. This opinion has been also adopted by Mr Southey, who has entered at considerable length into the reasons on which it is grounded. The original work he believes to be lost, but he conceives that Amadis was first written in the Portugueze language; and he argues that Lobeira was the author, from the concurrent testimony of almost all the Portugueze writers, particularly of Gomes Eannes de Zurrara, in his chronicle of Don Pedro de Menezes, which appeared only half a century after the death of Lobeira. He also thinks the Portugueze origin of the romance is established from a sonnet by an uncertain poet, but a contemporary of Lobeira, praising him as the author, and from the circumstance that in the Spanish version by Montalvo, it is mentioned that the Infant Don Alphonso of Portugal had ordered some part of the story to be altered.

The French writers, on the other hand, and particularly the Comte de Tressan, in his preface to the Traduction libre d' Amadis de Gaule, have insisted that the work (or at least the three first of

the four books it contains) was originally written in French, in the reign of Philip Augustus, or one of his predecessors. His arguments rest on some vague assertions in French manuscripts of Amadis having been at one time extant, and from the si→ milarity of the manners, and even incidents, described in Amadis with those of Tristan and Lancelot, which are avowedly French: he thinks it also improbable that while such a hatred subsisted be tween the French and Spaniards, an author of the latter nation should have chosen a Gallic knight for his favourite hero; but this argument strikes only against a Spanish and not a Portugueze original. To the arguments of Tressan, however, may be added the testimony of one Portugueze poet, Cardoso, who says that Lobeira translated Amadis from the French by order of the Infant Don Pedro, son of Joan First; and also the assertion of Bernardo Tasso, the author of the Amadigi, a pos em taken from the romance. The evidence of the Italian bard is the best that could be procured. He was not a native of either of the contending countries; he lived at a period of no great distance from the death of Lobeira, and from being engaged in a poem on the subject of Amadis, he would natu rally be accurate and industrious in his researches.

Though the Spaniards do not lay any claim to the

original composition of the Amadis, the most an cient impression of that romance now extant is in their language, and was printed in 1526, at Seville. This work was compiled from detached Spanish fragments, which had appeared in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was subsequently revised and compared. with the old manuscript fragments by Garcias Ordognez de Montalvo, who at length published an amended edition in 1547, at Sala. manca. From the prior edition of 1526, D'Her. beray formed his translation of the four books of Amadis, dedicated to Francis I., and printed 1540. He added other four books, containing the exploits of the descendants of Amadis, which were drawn from Spanish originals; the family history was sub. sequently carried to the twenty-fourth book by translators who also wrought from Spanish origi nals, but sometimes added interpolations of their own; and the whole received the name of Amadis de Gaul, which was the title of all the peninsular prototypes. The first books, which relate peculiarly to the exploits of Amadis, were compressed by the Count de Tressan, in his free translation, into two volumes 12mo. His labour was entirely useless, as he has, in a great measure, changed the incidents of the romance, and hid the genuine manners and feelings of chivalry under the varnish of

French sentiment. A late abridgement by Mr Southey is, I think, preferable to it, as the events are there accurately related, and the manners faithfully observed.

The era of the exploits of Amadis is prior to those of Arthur or Charlemagne, and he is the most ancient as well as the most fabulous of all the heroes of chivalry. He is said in the romance to have been the illegitimate offspring of Perion, King of Gaul, and Elisena, Princess of Britany. The mother, to conceal her shame, exposed the infant, soon after his birth, in a cradle, which was committed to the sea. He was picked up by a knight of Scotland, who was returning from Britany to his own country, and who reared him under the name of the Child of the Sea. When twelve years of age he was sent to be educated at the court of the King of Scotland. There a mutual attachment was formed between him and Oriana, who was daughter of Lisuarte, King of England, but had been sent to Scotland on account of the commotions in her own country. After Amadis had received the honour of knighthood, he proceeded to the succour of Perion, King of Gaul, who by this time had espoused Elisena, and had become the father of another son named Galaor: This second child had been stolen by a giant, who wished to educate him according to his own sys

tem; but Perion was consoled for the loss by the recognition of Amadis, who was discovered to be his son by means of a ring, which had been placed on his finger when he was exposed. This acknowledgment gave the greater satisfaction to his parents, as Amadis had already proved his valour by the overthrow of the King of Ireland, who had invaded Gaul, an exploit similar to that with which it may be recollected Tristan began his career.

It is impossible to give any account of the adventures of Amadis after his return to England, though they only divide the romance with those of his brother Galaor-the wars of extermination he carried on against giants-the assistance he afforded to Lisuarte against the usurper Barsinan and the enchanter Arcalaus his long retirement under the name of Beltenebros to a hermitage, after receiving a cruel letter from his mistress Oriana, one of the chief points of Don Quixote's fantastic imitation--the battles he fought, after quitting this abode, against Cildadan, King of Ireland-the defeat of a hundred knights, by whom Lisuarte had been attacked; and, finally, his innumerable exploits in Germany and in Turkey, when the jealousy and suspicion of Lisuarte, excited by evil counsellors, had forced him to leave Oriana and the court of England.