romances recount some great exploits performed against the
Saracens; but the marvels they relate, from whatever source they come,
were in accordance with the times in which they were written, for as
alchemy preceded chemistry, so romance-writing was the commencement of
literature. Some of the Arabian stories had considerable grace and
beauty, and are even now attractive to the young. But whether our poets
borrowed from this prolific source or not, it is certain that about this
time they became more ambitious, and produced regular tales of
considerable length, in which the northern gallantry towards the fair
sex was combined with extravagances resembling those of Eastern
invention.

Not until this time were the early heroic legends of this country
developed, and committed to writing, and as they appeared first in
French, some writers--among whom is Ritson--have concluded that they
were merely the offspring of our neighbours' fertile imagination. But
although the poets who recounted these stories wrote in French, they
were in attendance at the English Court, in which, even before the
Conquest, French was the language used, while Latin was that of the
learned, and Saxon that of the country-people. Henry the First, the
great patron of letters, sometimes held his Court at Caen, so that the
Norman poets who were competing for his favour, were doubtless familiar
with the legendary history of England. The first important works in the
French language seem to have come from Normandy, and it is not
improbable that some of them were written in England. They were called
romances, because they were composed in one of the languages of Southern
Europe, containing a large element of the Roman, which we find was still
used among the soldiery as late as the seventh century. It has been
supposed that all our early Anglo-Norman romances were translations from
the French, except the "Squyr of Lowe Degre," and of some the originals
are still extant.

These productions, from whatever source they came, were the kind of
literature most acceptable at the time. There seemed then nothing harsh
or contemptibly puerile in stories we should now relegate to the
nursery, and no doubt people derived an amusement from them, for which
that of humour was afterwards gradually substituted.

Examples of such stories are found in that of Robert, King of Sicily,
who for his pride was changed, like Nebuchadnezzar, into one of the
lower animals, and in that of