faithful, he "made
grete sorowe in so much that he fell downe of his hors in a swoune, and
in suche sorowe he was in thre dayes and thre nyghtes." When he left
her, Isoud was found "seke in here bedde, makynge the grettest dole
that ever ony erthly woman made." "Sire Alysander beheld his lady Alys
on horsbak as he stood in her pauelione. And thenne was he soo
enamoured upon her that he wyst not whether he were on horsbak or on
foote." Sir Gareth falls in love at first sight: "and euer the more syr
Gareth behelde that lady, the more he loued her, and soo he burned in
loue that he was past himself in his reason, and forth toward nyghte
they wente unto supper, and sire Gareth myghte not ete for his loue was
soo hot that he wyst not wher he was."

The Roman war introduced into the "Morte d'Arthur" is a curious
illustration of the vagueness of the historical groundwork of the
romances of chivalry. The memory of Roman power was still too great to
permit a warrior to achieve greatness without having matched his
strength against that of Rome, and thus we have the singular spectacle
of King Arthur with his adventurous knights, clad in mail, passing
easily through "Almayne" into Italy, conquering giants by the way, and
reducing the Emperor Lucius to dependence.

The story of the Saint Greal originally formed a distinct romance, but
it was the dull production of some ascetic monk, who thought that the
knights of the Round Table were too much occupied with secular
pursuits, and who found no greater encomium to pass upon Sir Galahad,
than to call him a "maid." But the idea of the Christian knighthood
setting out to seek the Holy Cup was "marvellous and adventurous," and
so well suited to please the mediaeval mind that we find this quest
introduced into several of the romances of chivalry, and it appears,
though in an incomplete form, in the "Morte d'Arthur." The adventures
met with by the knighthood are much the same as when they were pursuing
a less lofty object. Sir Galahad occupies the intervals between his
serious occupations with rolling his father Sir Launcelot and other
noble knights into the dust in the usual unsaintly fashion. The
supernatural element is stronger perhaps in the story of the Saint
Greal than in any other romance, and the monkish inspiration of the
work is everywhere manifest. When Sir Galahad rescues the inmates of
the Castle of Maidens by overthrowing their oppressors, the romancer
points out that the Cas