her the
vehicle was prose or verse. In fact they mostly wrote in verse because
prose was not ready.

In the minor romances and tales (taking English versions only) from
_Havelok_ to _Beryn_ there is a whole universe of situation, scenario,
opportunity for "business." That they have the dress and the
scene-backing of one particular period can matter to no one who has eyes
for anything beyond dress and scene-backing. And when we are told that
they are apt to run too much into grooves and families, it is sufficient
to answer that it really does not lie in the mouth of an age which
produces grime-novels, problem-novels, and so forth, as if they had been
struck off on a hectograph, possessing the not very exalted gift of
varying names and places--to reproach any other age on this score. But
we have only limited room here for generalities and still less for
controversy; let us turn to our proper work and survey the actual
turn-out in fiction--mostly as a result of mere fashion, verse, but
partly prose--which the Middle Ages has left us as a contribution to
this department of English literature.

It has been said that few people know the treasures of English romance,
yet there is little excuse for ignorance of them. It is some century
since Ellis's extremely amusing, if sometimes rather prosaic, book put
much of the matter before those who will not read originals; to be
followed in the same path by Dunlop later, and much later still by the
invaluable and delightful _Catalogue of_ [British Museum] _Romances_ by
Mr. Ward. It is nearly as long since the collections of Ritson and
Weber, soon supplemented by others, and enlarged for the last forty
years by the publications of the Early English Text Society, put these
originals themselves within the reach of everybody who is not so lazy
or so timid as to be disgusted or daunted by a very few actually
obsolete words and a rather large proportion of obsolete spellings,
which will yield to even the minimum of intelligent attention. Only a
very small number (not perhaps including a single one of importance)
remain unprinted, though no doubt a few are out of print or difficult to
obtain. The quality and variety of the stories told in them are both
very considerable, even without making allowance for what has been
called the stock character of mediaeval composition. That almost all are
directly imitated from the French is probable enough, that most are is
certain: but this matters, for