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    TMilswe -exaggeration . Cervantes himself , at one point in his life , -was an Jidim * er of tltse pictorial -extravaganzas , and even projected the composition < of a serious romance of chivalry . Indeed , we are yet far from a compreteneionof the varieties of the Proven aLimnstreIsy , which tinged so strongly Jfoe early literature of Italy and Spain . It is true , as the French translator oiJaufrv remarks , that * he literary catacombs of France contain * vast number of twelfth and thirteenth century manuscripts , which Samte-Palaye , Eoche « mde , Raynouard , and Fauriel have lightly and partially criticized ; but they were , to a great extent , pillaged from Italy . Raynouard himself manuscri few

    says , if we remember aright , that no Provencal pts , or very , exist even in the south of France , where they were indigenous . Marie Iiafon , we have * ftid , describes Jaifry as a Provencal romantic epic . Without a critical acquaintance with the old dialects of France , it is impossible to eay 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 E s' alegron en or Latin . This is beautiful : — Car plus es fresca , e bella , e blanca Que lieus gelada sus en branca Hi que rosas ab flor de lis . . . . Que cant hom auria cercat , Totas cellas que eon nascudas . . . . ~ Non auria hom una trobada Tan bella nf 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 knig hts and ladies , with white bread and Homeric draughts of unmingled wine . In the midst of thesj 3 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 Rugimon , not , however , with a petition , for he charges into the hall , " and with Bis lance did strike a lord upon the breast , and stretched Lira 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 t > ovon , " arms , mounts , and departs in search of the wicked Lord of Rugimon .

    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 LaFon and Elwes versions ; t > ut , in the interval , the Favourite incidents of chivalry are narrated , and we doubt not that they represent , romantically , the aspects of the cblvalresque 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 kni g hts , slain by the powerful Estout de Vermeil , fistout 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 < 3 roary palace disappears like a cloud , and , at length , the unrivalled loveliness of the Princess Brunissendc is revealed in an orchard encircled by xnnrble walls , with pavilions like the domes of Xanadu , with a crystalline radiance illuminating the halls and groves , and all the charms of earthly beauty abounding , though eclipsed by the troubadour ' s queen of romance . This queen conceives a violent rage at tbo 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 tiino Jaufry dismounts a champion he resumes his slumber , until he is surprised , and brought into the presence of Bruniasende . She threatens [ to lmng him , but " hearing his courteous words , the dame forgets her wrath . 3-. OVC , with hia golden shaft , hath pierced her heart , and now sho pardons Jill . " She quits him , * ' leaving for solo adieu a look so sweet that , spite of liis dull sense , it fills his heart with joy . " The five hundred mortified knights , however , assail him in las sleep , and all the boldness of the trouimdour is necessary to bring his hero safel y out of their hurricane of blows . Departing from Erunissende ' s domnin , he observes that . ill the people of the land weep and howl at sunset , and that , though hosnituble and courteous at every other time , they arc furiously enraged -when ho inquires the cause of * heir intermittent Borrow—the secret whereof it would bo unfair , on our imrt , to disclose .

    Jaufry's Jiext adventure ia with the black kni ht , Taulat do Rugimon , who , « nco a year , binds his wounded enemy to u stake , and strips and scourges lorn . Seeing a portal set with marble loavea and tinged of various hues , " Jie enters , and two dauaes " in robes of woo" acquaint him with the story of the captive kni ght . After , a succession of desperate advontures , tho Lord of Kugimon ia conquered , condemned to periodical soourmngs for seven years ,

    and eent to do penance at King Arthur ' s court , with an avowal that he ha been , reduced to humility by the son of Dovon . Finally , Jaufry , after fighting an invisible knight , eating a roastei peacock served by a lovely damsel , descending into a magic realm beneat a lake , and there subduing an enchanter , leads the fairest of the fail Brunissende , to the gallant Count *» f Carlisle . Two thousand four hundre maidens , and three thousand knights , form their array , and they are marrie with prodigal pomp : — At -trnmpet sound , X , ncas , the royal BtewaTd , -with twenty thousand pages clad I vests of scarlet silk , bearing snowy cloths , vases of Bilver and rich cups of gold flocked to the hall to furnish forth the boards . Even now , however , ensues a chivalric interruption . A . vast bird , th < roc of the Oriental fable , with eyes like carbuncles , seizes " King Arthur am bears him aloft , and tarns out to be the same enchanter who had terrifiec the Knights of the Bound Table on the day of Pentecost . AH ends happily , and the romance of Jaufry leads us to the bridal doors in Brunissende ' E

    palace . We must not forget to notice the engravings by O . Dore " . They are admirable , except where the figures of women are delineated . The vasl castles , the battle of the knights in the Druidical glade mystically lighted by the moon , the melting of false scenes , Jaurry with the fairies under the magical lake , the hatinted 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 . Wanderings Among the High Alps . By Alfred Wills . Beniley In this very unassuming and intelligent narrative , Mr . Wills has illustrated his wander-ings from the Col du Geant to the Mer de Glace , from Chamcruai , throu gh the pass of the Monte Moro , to the valleys of the upper mountains , the Aflelein glacier , Interlaken , and the Wetterhorn . The way through the Alps has been trodden , many a time and oft , b y the English rambler ; but Mr . Wills is possessed of a sort of mental originality that teaches . him to rebel against the dogmatism of guide-books . He insists that there . are

    places worth seeing among the upper Alpine valleys , that have not been , described , sketched , and sonnetised to satiety . Some of these , te says , are near Chamouni and Interlaken , and Interlaken and Chajoaouni 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 .

    TVir . vy ms a uuu& -uixo i . wu uusrus , wnicn will recommend IT to the general reader . It is a spirited relation of incidents , and it presents a well-coloured sketch of scenery , inen , and manners , as they are found among the Upper Alps . We cannot read his description of the Val Anzasca , a paradise of woods and Jlowery lawns—bright as a vision of Boccaccio—with pastoral cottages and idyllic groups in the fields , without perceiying the writer ' s i&-tense 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 briglitens 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 . Wills ' 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 Siates . By F . L . Oluisted . ( Sampson Low . )—There is too much pretence in Mr . Olmsted's work . It is copious , elaborate , authoritative , and has no less than three mottoes—one from Shakspeare , 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 tho state of the slave population , and its relation to tho class of owners and employers . He 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 tlio reports vary , that which is true of Virginia not being applicable , in all cases , to Georgia or to Alabama . Mr . Olmsted discredits , m general , the charges of cruelty and of gratuitous oppression

    brought by abolitionists against tho slave-holders of tho South . Only in one state—Louisiana—docs the law compel a slave-owner to supply his slaves with meat ; yet they are habitually supplied with it , of course , upon tho calculation that you must feed " the force " that cultivates your laud . On the subject of punishment , Mr . Olmsted , who argues from tho same point oi' view as the most impatient abolitionist , denies tho accuracy of the pictures that have been given to Europe , which represent the lash . as tho ruling power of the Southern states , llo admits that , some of tho . Southern ladies ' —tho young and hot-blooded especially— -wend their slaves totheAVhipping-house , or order thoir overseer to Hog them ; but he has heard a girl ( lat ' y her mistress to uso tho rod—certain that it was not in her nature to do it . On the other hand , it is unquestionable that some inlluonce , whether it bo that of cruel and shnmoless government , or the abasement inseparable from servitude otten deadens in the slave tbo sense of self-respect aud decency . Mr . Olmsted's book , though pompous aud formal , is dispassionate , and full of carefully-recorded information .

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    A » Ml « ttl THE XBADHB ,. 7 * S

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 26, 1856, page 715, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2151/page/19/