itten, in
French, then in English, the adventures of Waltheof, of Sir Guy of
Warwick, who marries the beautiful Felice, goes to Palestine, kills the
giant Colbrant on his return, and dies piously in a hermitage.[362] Thus
are likewise told the deeds of famous outlaws, as Fulke Fitz-Warin, a
prototype of Robin Hood, who lived in the woods with the fair
Mahaud,[363] as Robin Hood will do later with Maid Marian.[364] Several
of these heroes, Guy of Warwick in particular, enjoyed such lasting
popularity that it has scarcely died out to this day. Their histories
were reprinted at the Renaissance; they were read under Elizabeth, and
plays were taken from them; and when, with Defoe, Richardson, and
Fielding, novels of another kind took their place in the drawing-room,
their life continued still in the lower sphere to which they had been
consigned. They supplied the matter for those popular _chap books_[365]
that have been reprinted even in our time, the authors of which wrote,
as did the rhymers of the Middle Ages "for the love of the English
people, of the people of merry England." _Englis lede of meri
Ingeland._[366]

"Merry England" became acquainted with every form of French mirth; she
imitated French chansons, and gave a place in her literature to French
fabliaux. Nothing could be less congenial to the Anglo-Saxon race than
the spirit of the fabliaux. This spirit, however, was acclimatised in
England; and, like several other products of the French mind, was
grafted on the original stock. The tree thus bore fruit which would
never have ripened as it did, without the Conquest. Such are the works
of Chaucer, of Swift perhaps, and of Sterne. The most comic and _risque_
stories, those same stories meant to raise a laugh which we have seen
old women tell at parlour windows, in order to cheer recluse
anchoresses, were put into English verse, from the thirteenth to the
fifteenth century. Thus we find under an English form such stories as
the tale of "La Chienne qui pleure,"[367] "Le lai du Cor,"[368] "La
Bourse pleine de sens,"[369] the praise of the land of "Coquaigne,"[370]
&c.:

Thogh paradis be miri and bright
Cokaygn is of fairir sight.
What is ther in paradis
Bot grasse and flure and grene ris (branches)?
Thogh ther be joi and grete dute (pleasure)
Ther nis mete bote frute....
Bot watir manis thurste to quenche;
Beth ther no man but two,
Hely and Enok also

And it cannot be very p