AMADIS DE GAUL,'

which has generally been considered as one of the finest and most interesting romances of chivalry. Hence, perhaps, different nations have anxiously vindicated to themselves the credit of its origin. Lopez de Vega, in his Fortunas de Diano, attributes it to a Portugueze lady. 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, or, according to Sismondi, in 1325. 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 Portugueze writers, particularly of Gomes Eannes de Zurrara, in his chronicle of Don Pedro de Menezes, which appeared only half a century

Los quatro libros del Cavallero Amadis de Gaula,

2

De la Literature du midi de l' Europe.

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 old French manuscripts, that Amadis had been at one time extant, and on the similarity 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 hatred subsisted between 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 reasons 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 D'Herberay, a translator of Amadis from the Spanish into French, about the middle of the 16th century, who declares that he had seen fragments of a MS. in the Picard language, which seemed to be the original of Amadis de Gaul :-" J' en ay trouvé encore quelque reste d' un viel livre, escrit a la main, en langage Picard, sur lesquel J'estime que les Espagnols ont fait leur traduction, non pas du tout suyvant le vrai original comme l'on pourra veoir par cestuy, car ils en ont obmis en aucuns endroits et augmenté aux autres." The testimony of Bernardo Tasso, author of the Amadigi, a poem taken from the romance, is also against a peninsular origin. To his evidence considerable weight is due, as 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 naturally be accurate and industrious in his researches. Now the Italian bard is decidedly of opinion, that the romance of Amadis has been taken from some ancient English or Breton history. "Non e dubbio," (says he in one of his letters to Girolamo Ruscelli,)" che lo scrittore di questa leggiadra e vaga invenzione l' ha in

parte cavata da qualche istoria di Bertagna, e poi abbelitola e rendutala a quella vaghezza che il mondo cosi diletta;" (vol. ii., let. 166,) and again, "Gaula in lingua Inglese dalla quale e cavata quest' Istoria vuol dir Francia," (vol. ii. let. 93.).

It also appears from various passages of the letters of B. Tasso, that as much doubt and misapprehension existed with regard to the country of the hero as concerning the original author of the romance. He says that the refabricator of the work from the British history thought that Gaul meant Wales, and that he had erroneously styled his hero. Amadis of Gaul, "per non avere inteso quel vocabulo Gaules, il qual nella lingua Inglese vuol dir Gallia." But Gaules signifying Gallia, or France, Tasso concludes that France was the country of Amadis; he therefore resolves to call his poem Amadigi di Francia, and expresses his confidence that the reasons he has assigned will be sufficient,

a divellere questo invecchiato abuso dall opinion degli uomini." This general opinion, that | Wales was the country of Amadis, was not an unnatural one, since Gaules and Gaula, in old English, was the name for Wales as well as France :-" I say Gallia and Gaul-French and Welch-soulcurer and body-curer," exclaims the host in the Merry Wives of Windsor, (act iii. scene i.) while

addressing the French doctor and the Welch parson. There are also several circumstances in the romance itself, which might have led to the mistake. Thus Amadis proceeding from Gaul to the court of the king of England, which was then held at Vindilisora (Windsor) sails to a goodly city in Great Britain, called Brestoya (Bristol,) a strange port to land at in crossing from France to England, but a very convenient harbour for one proceeding from South Wales to Windsor. On the whole, however, Tasso seems right in supposing that by Gaula the author of Amadis meant France; for we are told in the course of the work, that Perion, king of Gaul, and father of Amadis, summons to a council the bishops and lords of his kingdom, commanding them to bring the most celebrated clerks in their respective districts, and two members of the council were in consequence attended by Clerk Ungan of Picardy, and Alberto of Champagne.

Though the Spaniards do not lay any claim to the original composition of this romance, nor to its hero as their countryman, the most ancient impression of it 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 Isa