the convention coming from Arab
and Hebrew poetry than from any other source. But in the _Arabian
Nights_ at least, though there are lustful murderesses--eastern
Margarets of Burgundy, like Queen Labe of the Magicians,--there is
seldom any "cruelty," or even any tantalising, on the part of the
heroines.

A hasty rememberer of the sufferings of Lancelot and one or two other
heroes of the early and genuine romance might say, "Why go further than
this?" But on a little examination the cases will be found very
different. Neither Iseult nor Guinevere is cruel to her lover;
Orgueilleuse has a fair excuse in difference of rank and slight
acquaintance; persons like Tennyson's Ettarre, still more his Vivien,
are "sophisticated"--as we have pointed out already. Besides, Vivien and
Ettarre are frankly bad women, which is by no means the case with the
Polisardas and Miraguardas. They, if they did not introduce the
thing--which is, after all, as the old waterman in _Jacob Faithful_
says, "Human natur',"--established and conventionalised the Silvius and
Phoebe relation of lover and mistress. If Lancelot is banished more than
once or twice, it is because of Guinevere's real though unfounded
jealousy, not of any coquettish "cruelty" on her part; if Partenopeus
nearly perishes in his one similar banishment, it is because of his own
fault--his fault great and inexcusable. But the Amadisian heroes, as a
rule--unless they belong to the light o' love Galaor type, which would
not mind cruelty if it were exercised, but would simply laugh and ride
away--are almost painfully faithful and deserving; and their sojourns in
Tenebrous Isles, their encounters with Bedevilled Fauns, and the like,
are either pure misfortunes or the deliberate results of capricious
tyranny on the part of their mistresses.

Now of course this is the sort of thing which may be (and as a matter of
fact it no doubt was) tediously abused; but it is equally evident that
in the hands of a novelist of genius, or even of fair talent and
craftsmanship, it gives opportunity for extensive and ingenious
character-drawing, and for not a little "polite conversation." If _la
donna e mobile_ generally, she has very special opportunities of
exhibiting her mobility in the exercise of her caprice: and if it is the
business of the lover (as it is of minorities, according to a Right
Honourable politician) to suffer, the _amoureux transi_ who has some
wits and some power of expression can