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Leader (1850-1860), 26th July 1856, Edition 2 of 2, Page 19

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      The Romance Of Jaufitr. Jaufry The Knigh...

      pulsive exaggeration . Cervantes himself , at one point in his life , was an Admirer of these pictorial extravaganzas , and even projected the composition of a serious romance of chivalry . Indeed , we are yet far from a com prehension of the varieties of the Provencal minstrelsy , which tinged so strongly the early literature of Italy and Spain . It js true , as the French translator of Jaufry remarks , that the literary catacombs of France contain a vast number of twelfth and thirteenth century manuscripts , which Sainte-Palaye , Kochegude , Raynouard , and Fauriel have lightly and partially criticized ; but they were , to a great extent , pillaged from Italy . Kaynouard himself few

      says , if we remember aright , that no Provencal manuscripts , or very , exist even in the south of Franee , where they were indigenous . Marie Lafon , we have said , describes Jaufrg as a Provencal romantic epic . Without a critical acquaintance with the old dialects of France , it is impossible to say whether it is genuine Provencal , or simple northern French . We are incompetent to decide upon this point ; but Mr . Elwes has printed two or three fascinating specimens of the original , amongst others a description of birds : — Chantan desobre la verdor JS s' alegron en or Latin . This is beautiful : — Car plus es fresca , e bella , e Llanca Que neus gelada sus en branca Ni que rosas ab flor de lis . . . . Que cant hom auria cercat , Totas cellas que son nascudaa . . . . Non auria hom una trobada Tan bella ni tangen formada ; Que ses oueils et sa bella cara Fai oblidar qui ben l'esgara Totas cellas que vistas a . The story commences on the day of Pentecost , when King Arthur held a festival at Carlisle . After mass , the King of Britain and his knights set out in search of adventure , and a most tremendous adventure indeed befel the king , -which , as the old novelists -were accustomed to say , the reader will understand on perusal . However , it is the key-note , for mighty revels ensue , at which bucks , boars , kids , cranes , bustards , swans , wild beasts , and peacocks—a curious bill of fare—heaped upon golden dishes , were consumed by laughter-loving knights and ladies , with white bread and Homeric draughts of unmingled wine . In the midst of these revels a strange rider appears , gloriously apparelled , who prays the boon of knighthood . That favour granted , he sits with Arthur at the board . Following him . comes Taulat , Lord of llugimon , not , however , with a petition , for he charges into the hall , " and with his lance did strike a lord upon the breast , and stretched him dying just before the queen . " This is merely by way of challenge , for he rides away , daring the champions to pursue him . Inevitably , the newlyknighted hero , " Jaufry , son of Dovon , " arms , mounts , and departs in search of the wicked Lord of liugimon .

      That lord is the horizon of his adventure . Of course he does not find him until near the end of the troubadour ' s eleven thousand verses , and of the JLafon and Elwes versions ; but , in the interval , the favourite incidents of chivalry are narrated , and we doubt not that they represent , romantically , the aspects of the chivalresque age , at least as faithfully as the manners of our own time are represented by nine-tenths of our modern novelists . That is to say , they do not represent them at all , except very artificially , and with the addition of purely ideal interludes . First , Jaufry finds upon the road , among the lowering shadows of castles and mountains , many dead knights , slam by the powerful Estout de Vermeil . Estout de Vermeil , accordingly , is challenged in the midst of his dwarfs and guards , and , after a dreadful encounter , is vanquished . Jaufry sends him to Arthur ' s court , to

      say that he has been conquered by the son of Dovon . Next , he finds a wondrous lance suspended from a branch , and is warned by a vigilant dwarf that three-and-thirty knights , who have dared to touch that lance , have been hanged by its owner upon a neighbouring tree . The result is at once apparent . Jaufry vanquishes this murderous lord , hangs him amid the skeletons of his victims , and sends the dwarf to King Arthur's court , to tell of the prowess of the son of Dovon . Thirdly , a yeoman of stupendous strength is overcome in a wild desert of rocks ; then a damsel is released from the castle of a leprous enchanter : at the cleaving of a marble head , a dreary palace disappears like a cloud , and , at length , the unrivalled loveliness of the Princess JBrunisscndc is revealed in an orchard encircled by marble walls , with pavilions like the domes of Xanadu , with a crystalline radiance illunnnatinsr the halls and jjroves , and all the charms of earthly

      beauty abounding , though eclipsed hy ( ho troubadour ' s queen of romance . This queen conceives a violent rage at the temerity of the son of Dovon , who ventures to sleep on the sward , within the precincts of her divine seclusion . One by one she sends her most terrible knights to slay him , but they are brought to her feet dead , or battered into insensibility . Each time Jaufry dismounts a champion lie resumes his slumber , until be is surprised , and brought into the presence of Brunissende . She threatens |^ o hang him , but * 'li caring his courteous words , the dame forgets her wrath . Love , with his golden shaft , hath pierced her heart , and now she pardons

      All . " She quits him , "leaving for sole adieu a look so sweet that , apito of his dull sense , it fills his heart with joy . " The five hundred mortified knights , however , assail hint in his sleep , and all the boldness of the troubadour is necessary to bring his hero salely out of their hurricane of blows . Departing from Brunisscnde's domnin , he observes that all the people of the land weep and howl at sunset , and that , though hospitable and courteous at every othor time , they are furiously enraged "when ho inquires the cause of their intermittent sorrow—the secret whereof it would bo unfair , on our part , to disclose .

      Jan fry ' s next adventure is with the black knight , Taulat de llugimon , who , once a year , binds his woundjed cnoniy to a stake , and strips and scourges him . " Seeing a portal set with marble leaves and tinged of various hues , " ho enters , and two dames " in robca of woe" uequaint him with the story of the captive knight . After a succession of desperate advontures , the . Lord of Rugimon is conquered , condemned to periodical scourgings for seven years ,

      and sent to do penance at King Arthur ' s court , with an avowal that he lias been reduced to humility by 'the son of Dovon . Finally , Jaufry , after fig hting an invisible knight , eating a roasted peacoek served by a lovely damsel , descending into a magic realm beneath a lake , and there subduing an enchanter , leads the fairest of the fair , Brunissende , to the gallant Count of Carlisle . Two thousand four hundred maidens , and three thousand knights , form their array , and they are married with prodigal pomp : — At trumpet sound , Lucas , the royal steward , wifh twenty thousand pages clad in vests of scarlet eilk , bearing snowy cloths , vases of silver and rich enps of gold , flocked to the hall to furnish forth , the boards .

      Even now , however , ensues a ehivalric interruption . A vast bird ,-the roc of the Oriental fable , with eyes like carbuncles , seizes King Arthur _ and bears him aloft , and turns out to be the same enchanter who had terrified the Knights of the Round Table on the day of Pentecost . All ends happily , and the ° romance of Jaufry leads us to the bridal doors in Brunissende ' s palace . We must not forget to notice the engravings by G . Dore . They are admirable , except where the figures of women are delineated . The vast castles , the battle of the knights in the Druidieal glade mystically lighted by the moon , the melting of false scenes , Jaufry with the fairies under the magical lake , the Jiaunted forests , the eremetal shrines with winding paths leading to them , the spectral owls that mope on dim branches , the ghastly tree on which the knights are hung , —all these are presented with a sort of enchanted shadowy effect very creditable to the artists and engravers . The romance is printed on rich , cream-tinted paper , and forms a beautiful volume . But this old Tale of Britain , told by Provencal troubadours , would be a treasure in any form .

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      A Company Of Tourists. Wandej-Ings Among...

      A COMPANY OF TOURISTS . Wandej-ings Among t 7 ie High Alps . By Alfred Wills . Bentley . In this very unassuming and intelligent narrative , Mr . Wills has illustrated his wanderings from the Col du Geant to the Mer de Glace , from Chainouni , through the pass of the Monte Moro , to the valleys of the upper mountains , the AUelein glacier , Interlaken , and the * Wetterhorn . The way through the Alps has been trodden , many a time and oft , by the English rambler ; but Mr . Wills is possessed of a sort of mental orig inality that teaches him to rebel a gainst the dogmatism of guide-books . He insists that there are ine that havnot been

      places worth seeing among the upper Alp valleys , e described , sketched , and sonnetised to satiety . ' Some of these , he says , are near Chanaouni and Interlaken , and Interlaken and Chamouni know as little of them as does the stranger forwarded from spot to spot by orthodox directions . Another theory held by Mr . Wills is , that men have , by a kind of Spanish deception , created a monopoly of travelling magic , and excluded all but the boldest of ladies from the grander scenery of the Upper Alps . Mrs . Wills , who accompanied her husband in most of his excursions , wandered to some purpose , and produced some well-drawn sketches on the artistic illustration of the narrative .

      Mr . Wills's book has two merits , which will recommend it to the general reader . It is a spirited relation of incidents , and it presents a well-coloured sketch of scenery , men , and manners , as they are found among the Upper Alps . We cannot read his description of the Val Anzasca , a paradise of woods and . flowery lawns—brig ht as a vision of Boccaccio—with pastoral cottages and idyllic groups in the fields , without perceiving the writer ' s intense sympathy with the finest and most fascinating aspects of nature . Mr . Wills has a peculiar aptitude for suggesting a picture . When after the enchantment of a sunset has crimsoned the Alps , and the colour turns and brightens into "just the colour of a new sovereign , " the whole scene is instantly and magically changed into gold . Besides effects of this kind , the volume contains a variety of anecdotes , sketches of inn and cottage interiors , lake and forest glimpses , stories of glaciers and precipices , an " ascent of the Wetterhorn , " a chapter of useful instructions for the pedestrian , and Mr . Wilbs ' s private opinion on glacier action and glacier theories . If the reader be in search of a modest , cheerful , and entertaining book , Mr . Wills is one

      of that sort . A Journey in the Sea-Board Slave SUttes . By F . L . Olmsted . ( Sampson . Low . )—There is too much pretence in Mr . Olntsted's work . It is copious , elaborate , authoritative , and has no less than three mottoes—one from Shakspcare , one from Macaulay , and one adopted from the title-page of the Leader . Mr . Olmsted travelled from Washington through Virginia , North Carolina , South Carolina , Georgia , and Alabama , examining the state of the slave population , and its relation to the class of owners and employers , lie occupies himself with minute essays on the mental and social habits , the natural qualities , the inclinations , the capacities of the negro , inquiring how no performs his work , how he regards his own condition , how he is influenced by punishment , how he stands in comparison with the free labourer ; and on these subjects the reports vary , that which is true of Virginia not being applicable , in all cases , to Georgia or to Alabama . Mr . Olmsted discredits , in general , the charges of cruelty and of gratuitous oppression

      brought by abolitionists against the slave-holders of the South . Only in one ° tatc—Louisiana—does the law compel a slave- owner to supply his slaves with meat ; yet they are habitually supplied with it , of course , upon the calculation that you must feed " the force " that cultivates your land . On the subject of punishment , Mr . Olmsted , who argues from the sarno point of view as the most impatient abolitionist , denies the accuracy of the pictures that have been given to Europe , which represent the lash as the ruling power of the Southern states . He admits that some of the Southern ladics—tho young and hot-blooded especially—send their slaves to the whipping-house , or order their overseer to flog them ; but he has heard a girl defy her mistress to use the rod—certain that it was not in her nature to do it . On the other hand , it is unquestionable that some influence , whether it bo that of cruel and shameless government , or the abasement inseparable from servitude , oitcn dcadons in the slave the sense of self-respect and decency . Mr . Olnisted ' s book , though pompous and formal , is dispassionate , and full of carefully-recorded information .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 26, 1856, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26071856/page/19/