with a happy ending; _Emare_, one of the tales of innocent but
persecuted heroines of which Chaucer's Constance is the best known;
_Florence of Rome_; the rather famous _Squire of Low Degree; Sir
Amadas_, not a very good handling of a fine motive, charity to a corpse;
many others.

Nor does he seem to have known one of the finest of all--the
alliterative romance of _Gawain and the Green Knight_ which, since Dr.
Morris published it some forty years ago for the Early English Text
Society, has made its way through text-books into more general knowledge
than most of its fellows enjoy. In this the hero is tempted repeatedly,
elaborately, and with great knowledge of nature and no small command of
art on the teller's part, by the wife of his host and destined
antagonist. He resists in the main, but succumbs in the point of
accepting a magic preservative as a gift: and is discovered and lectured
accordingly. It is curious that this, which is far above the usual mere
adventure-story and is novel of a high kind as well as romance, has no
known French original; and is strongly English in many characteristics
besides its verse-form.

On the whole, however, one need have no difficulty in admitting that the
majority of these romances _do_ somewhat content themselves with
incident, incident only, and incident not merely of a naif but of a
stock kind, for their staple. There are striking situations, even striking
phrases, here and there; there is plenty of variety in scene, and more than
is sometimes thought in detail; but the motive-and-character-interest is
rarely utilised as it might be, and very generally is not even suggested.
There is seldom any real plot or "fable"--only a chain of events: and
though no one but a very dull person will object to the supernatural
element, or to the exaggerated feats of professedly natural prowess and
endurance, it cannot be said that on the whole they are artistically
managed. You feel, not merely that the picture would have been better if
the painter had taken more pains, but that the reason why he did not
is that he did not know how.

Sir Thomas Malory, himself most unknown perhaps of all great writers,
did know how; and a cynical person might echo the _I nunc_ of the Roman
satirist, and dwell on the futility of doing great things, in reference
to the fact that it used to be fashionable, and is still not uncommon,
to call Malory a "mere compiler." Indeed from the direction which modern
study