of the story was Roland the
Brave, or some other knight of that name. The latter seems the more
probable, as Roland's fall at Roncesvalles is one of the chief subjects of
mediaeval poetry, whereas the death of knight Roland in sight of {476}
Nonnenwerth on the Rhine, forms the very pith of the German local legend.
From certain coincidences, however, it was easy to blend the two stories
together into one, as was done by Mrs. Hemans. As to Schiller, we may
suppose that he either followed altogether a different legend, or, perhaps
to avoid misconception, substituted another name for that of knight Roland,
similar to what he has done in other instances.

R. R.

Canterbury.

I think your correspondent X. Y. Z. is mistaken in attributing to Mrs.
Hemans the lines on the "Brave Roland." In Mr. Campbell's _Poems_ he will
find some stanzas which bear a striking resemblance to those he has quoted.
I subjoin those stanzas to which X. Y. Z. has referred:

"The brave Roland! the brave Roland!
False tidings reach'd the Rhenish strand
That he had fall'n in fight;
And thy faithful bosom swoon'd with pain,
O loveliest maiden of Allemayne!
For the loss of thine own true knight.

"But why so rash has she ta'en the veil,
In yon Nonnenwerder's cloisters pale,
For her vow had scarce been sworn,
And the fatal mantle o'er her flung,
When the Drachenfels to a trumpet rung,
'Twas her own dear warrior's horn!

. . . . . .

"She died! he sought the battle plain;
Her image fill'd his dying brain,
When he fell and wish'd to fall:
And her name was in his latest sigh,
When Roland, the flower of chivalry,
Expired at Roncevall."

X. Y. Z. seems also to have forgotten what Mr. Campbell duly records, viz.
that Roland used to station himself at a window overlooking "the nun's
green isle;" it being after her decease that he met his death at Roncevall,
which event, by the way, is alluded to by Sir W. Scott in _Marmion_, canto
vi.:

"Oh, for a blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,
That to King Charles did come;
When Roland brave, and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer,
At Roncesvalles died!"

H. B. F.

The legends of Roland, the nephew of Charlemagne, are very numerous and
vary much from each other. The Orlando of Pulci has a very different
history from the Orlando of Bojardo and Ariosto.

The legend of "Rolandseck and the Nonnenwerth," whi