These tales, whatever may be their faults or merits, were transmitted from age to age, and were frequently copied into the ascetic works of the following centuries. From the shade of the monastery, where they had their birth, they passed into the bosom of private families. It was also customary to introduce tales of this nature into the homilies of the succeeding periods. A very long and curious story of this description, concerning a dissolute bishop named Eudo, may be found in one of the Sermones de Justitia, of Maillard, a preacher of the fifteenth century. 1389, a system of divinity appeared at Paris, entitled Doctrinal de Sapyence, translated by Caxton under title of Court of Sapyence, which abounds with a multitude of apologues and parables. About the year 1480, there was printed a promptuary or repository of examples for composing sermons, written by a Dominican friar at Basil, who informs us, in a sort of prologue, that St Dominic, in his discourses, always abounded in embellishments of this description.

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Besides, it may be remarked, that the spiritual romance and the tales of chivalry have many fea tures common to both. In the latter, the leading subject is frequently a religious enterprise. The quest of the Sangreal was a main object with the

knights of the Round Table, and the exploits of the paladins of Charlemagne chiefly tended to the expulsion of the Saracens and triumph of the Christian faith. The history of Guerino Meschino may be adduced as an instance of an intermediate work between the chivalrous and spiritual romances. It is full of the achievements of knight errantry, the love of princesses, and discomfiture of giants; yet it appears that the author's principal object was the edification of the faithful. This production was of a fame and popularity likely to produce imitation. Spain and Italy have claimed the merit of its original composition, but the pretensions of the latter country seem the best founded, and it is now generally believed to have been written by a Florentine, called Andrea Patria, in the 14th century. Be this as it may, it was first printed in Italian at Padua, 1473, in folio, and afterwards appeared at Venice, 1477, folio; Milan, 1520, 4to; and Venice, 1559, 12mo. It is the subject of a poem by Tullia Arragona, an Italian poetess of the 16th century. A French translation was printed in 1490. Mad. Oudot has included it in the Bibliotheque Bleue, with refinements of style which ill compensate for the naiveté of the original.

Guerin was son of Millon, king of Albania, a monarch descended from the house of Burgundy.

The young prince's birth was the epoch of the commencement of his parents' misfortunes. His father and mother were dethroned and imprisoned by an usurper, who would also have slain their heir had not his nurse embarked with him in a vessel for Constantinople. She unfortunately died during the voyage, but the child was taken care of, and afterwards educated, by a Greek merchant, who happened to be in the vessel, under the name of Meschino, an appellation derived from the unhappy circumstances of his childhood. When he grew up he attracted the notice, and passed into the service, of the son of the Greek emperor, with whom he acted as Grand Carver. At Constantinople he fell in love with the princess Elizena, his master's sister. There, too, he distinguished himself by his dexterity in tournaments, and also by his exploits in the course of a war, in which the empire was at that time engaged.

In spite of his love, his merit, and services, Guerin had, on one occasion, been called Turk by the princess Elizena, a term equivalent to slave or villain. To wipe away this reproach he determined on setting out to ascertain who were his parents, as they had hitherto been unknown to him. Concerning this expedition the emperor consulted the court astrologers, who, after due examination of

the stars, were unanimously of opinion that Guerin could learn nothing of his parentage, except from the Trees of the sun and moon, which grew at the eastern extremity of the world.

After this explication, Guerin prepared for the trip. Having received from the empress a relic composed of the wood of the true cross, which she affirmed would preserve him from every danger and enchantment, he embarked in a Greek vessel and landed in Little Tartary. Thence he took his route through Asia, and, having crossed the Caspian Sea, combated a giant, who seized all travellers he could overtake, especially Christians, and shut them up in his Garde Manger, not only for his own consumption, but to regale the giantess his wife with her four children, who had acquired the family relish for such refreshments. Guerin cut off the whole brood, and thus saved from the spit two prisoners who had been reserved for a bonne bouche.

Our hero on his way to India declined the offers made to him by a princess; but the king her father was so much exasperated at this refusal that he threw him into prison, where he would inevitably have died of hunger, had not the lady he had so recently rejected disinterestedly brought him provisions. This kind procedure had such an effect

on the knight, that he broke, in favour of this good princess, an oath of purity he had rashly taken; but as he only swore fidelity to her by Mahomet, he felt no scruple in abandoning her at the end of three months.

Guerin, in the course of his journey through India, saw great variety of monsters, and heard of dog-headed tribes, and nations with feet so large that they carried them over-head as umbrellas. At length he arrived at the extremity of India, where he found the trees of the sun and moon, who informed him that his name is not Meschino, which he had been hitherto called, but Guerin. He is also told, that he is the son of a king, but that, if he wish farther information, he must take the trouble of visiting the western extremity of the globe.

On his way back, Guerin re-established the princess of Persepolis in her dominions, of which she had been deprived by the Turks. As a mutual attachment arose between her and Guerin, a marriage would have taken place, had it not been for the recent information given by the solar trees. The indulgent princess allowed her lover ten years to discover his parents, and he promised to return at the end of that period.