ost of his drawings an empty scroll
over the head of his knights, for the publisher to label them at will,
Robert the Devil or Romulus.

We are thus fairly advanced into the sixteenth century; the Renaissance
has come; before long Spenser will sing of the Fairy Queen and
Shakespeare will leave his native Stratford to present to a London
audience the loves of Juliet and Romeo. Scarcely any sign of improvement
appears yet in the art of novel-writing; nothing but mediaeval romances
continue to issue from the press; it is even difficult to foresee an
epoch in which something analogous to the actual novel might be produced
in England. Contrary to what was taking place in France at the same
time, that period seemed far off. In reality, however, it was near at
hand; the great age of English literature, the age of Elizabeth and of
Shakespeare, was about to furnish, at least in the rough draft, the
first specimens of the true novel.

[Illustration: LEO.]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] "Beowulf, a heroic poem," ed. T. Arnold, London, 1876, 8vo. The
unique MS. of this poem, discovered in the last century, is preserved at
the British Museum; it has been reproduced in fac-simile by the Early
English Text Society (Ed. J. Zupitza, 1882, 8vo). We give in fac-simile
the first few lines of the MS.

[5] "Vivat qui Francos diligit Christus!" ("Prologue of the Salic Law,"
Pardessus, 1843, p. 345.)

[6] "Nouvelles Francaises en prose," ed. Moland and d'Hericault, Paris,
1856. Four English versions of the story of Floire and Blanchefleur are
extant. The story of Amis and Amile was also very popular. "Amis and
Amiloun," ed. Koelbing (Heilbronn, 1884). The cantefable of Aucassin is
of the twelfth century (G. Paris, "Litterature francaise au moyen age,"
1888, Sec. 51).

[7] Mr. Andrew Lang's translation, "Aucassin and Nicolete" (London,
1887, 16mo.).

[8] "The Story of England," A.D. 1338, ed. F. J. Furnivall, London,
1887, two vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 1.

[9] "Layamon's Brut," ed. Madden, London, 1847, three vols. 8vo.

[10] See, among others, the publications of the Early English Text
Society, the Camden Society, the Percy Society, the Roxburghe Club, the
Bannatyne Club, the Altenglische Bibliothek of E. Koelbing (Heilbronn);
the "Metrical Romances of the XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth Centuries," of H.
W. Weber (Edinburgh, 1810, three vols. 8vo); the "Catalogue of MS.
Romances in the British Museum," by H. L. D. Ward (London, 1887);
"Bishop Percy's Fol