A recent study of the narrative art of Chaucer's Reeve's Tale attempted to set forth some of the technical excellences of the Old French fabliaux, to call attention to their striking resemblance in form to the modern short-story, and, with all due appreciation of the originality of all Chaucer's work, to show that he was technically at his best in tales like the Miller's and the Reeve's, because he was writing under the influence of the best narrative art of the Middle Ages, under the influence of the fabliaux. If these contentions are true, the fabliaux, in spite of their very manifest imperfections,—their lack of style, of moral sense, of any ideal or uplifting quality,—cannot be neglected in any study of Chaucer, of the short-story, or of the history of narration. It is the purpose of the present essay to push the inquiry a step farther back, and to ascertain what were, in turn, some of the possible sources of the technique of these early masterpieces of narration. The fabliaux themselves are, indeed, not all alike; they are to be found in all stages of elaboration, from the longer and more complex signed poems, which disclose an interest not only in plot, but also in character, emotions, scene, and even in moral significance, down to the mere anecdote, anonymous, brief, and simple. It is not difficult to see how the more complex fabliaux could be developed from the more simple. Seeking, however, forms still simpler and less developed than these latter, the critic is obliged to turn his back upon the literature of art and to examine the underlying stratum of the literature of the people. Such a procedure is suggested by the subtitle of Professor Bédier's Les Fabliaux,—“études de littérature populaire,”—by Professor Matthews's definition of the fabliau as “a realistic folk tale,” and by the general impression produced by the fabliau of kinship with ballad and folk tale. And it is justified by our knowledge of the general fact that popular literature precedes and paves the way for the literature of art. Fabliaux, ballads, folk tales are, then, to be analyzed and compared with a view to ascertaining what the more developed forms owe to the less developed. In making such analyses and comparisons it is always an advantage when the whole matter can be focussed upon such single stories as may appear in the various forms concerned. Such a narrowing down of the field makes for simplicity and clearness, and, provided the examples chosen be typical, does not invalidate the general truth of the conclusions.

The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune is a poem dealing with the adventures of a Scottish prophet in fairyland, and with the predictions concerning Scotch history which it was his privilege to hear from the fairy queen. Of this poem the graceful “romance” occupies the first fytt, and the prophecies the remaining two fytts.

In ways innumerable in the course of the past four or five centuries Italy has influenced the thoughts and feelings of Englishmen. The full history of this influence is yet to be written. And naturally enough, for Italy appeals variously to the student of archæology, to the historian, to the artist, to the poet, and to the mere tourist in search of amusement. No landscapes more exquisite can be found in the world than some portions of Italy; no city can fill the peculiar place of Rome or Florence or Venice; and nothing can surpass the subtle witchery of Capri and Sicily and some of the half-forgotten hill towns ruined ages ago.

It is not so very many years ago that students of Folk-Lore who felt that the indebtedness of Europe to the East in the matter of stories had been exaggerated were greatly interested and pleased by Bédier's work on the French Fabliau. The same scholar is now publishing the results of his investigations in the field of the French epic, results extremely suggestive, not to say exciting. What more startling than to be told that if, because of illness or accident, William of Toulouse had died before he was able to enter the monastery of Aniane and found the monastery of Gellone, not one of the chansons de geste, not one of the legends of the cycle of Orange would exist; and not one of these chansons nor one of these legends would exist, if by chance, three or more centuries after the death of this man in the Abbey of Gellone, the monks of the abbey had not been anxious to attract to his relics the pilgrims of Saint Gilles de Provence and Santiago of Compostela? Whether such a radical theory meets with general acceptance or not, it was well that some one, instead of trying to reconstruct the French epic postulated as existing before the documents which we possess, should examine the latter anew and pay especial attention to what is an interesting phenomenon in nearly every mass of epic literature, the relations of the religious bodies to these great narrative works. No one could have done this more brilliantly than Bédier. No one henceforth will forget how intimate these relations were in France. Nevertheless, it is hard to give up without a struggle what we have fancied were intermediate steps in the evolution of the French epic, when we remember what has gone on in other countries participating in epic activity, and one may well hesitate to attribute to the church so great a rôle as does this latest theorist. Doubts become especially insistent when one reads his remarks upon the Ami and Amile legend, in its three forms, the eleventh century Latin poem on friendship by Raoul le Tourtier, the chanson de geste, and the Vita sanctorum Amici et Amelii of the twelfth century. To do Bédier entire justice, his own words will be quoted as far as possible, even his summary of the legend, with which it is well to start.

The morality of Mundus et Infans exists in a print dated 1522, from Wynkyn de Worde's press, and is styled by him a ‘new production.‘ The word must be taken for what it is worth, but it should be remembered that Wynkyn was not afraid to print old works, and call them such. In his print of Ragmannes Rolle, Wynkyn adds an envoy attributing the faults of the poem to “Kynge Ragman holly, whiche dyde the make many yeres ago.” The printer is therefore entitled to some confidence, especially since certain internal evidence points to the same fact.

It is a well known fact that long before the day of the modern nature-fakir, animal story played an important part in the history of fiction. In medieval literature there were three sets of works that dealt with animals. There were the bestiaries, in which the medieval symbolists attempted to give a moral interpretation to the habits of beasts; there were the fables, in which beast tales were told for the sake of the lesson they taught; and third, there was the distinctively medieval set of stories, told because of their own intrinsic power of affording amusement, to which is generally given the name ‘beast epic.‘

Nearly forty years ago Robert Browning issued The Ring and the Book, his longest and most important poem. It has suffered varied fortunes at the hands of the critics. Brooke, Dowden, Chesterton, and Herford, however, devote long and important chapters to its discussion, and acknowledge the poet's mastery in his subject. Amid critics friendly and hostile alike, the lawyers' monologues have perhaps suffered more than any other portion of the poem. They have been skipped by the ordinary reader as unmeaning and dull. Few open and intelligent words of defense have been uttered in their behalf. Chesterton puts the matter well (p. 160), “One of the ablest and most sympathetic of all the critics of Browning, Mr. Augustine Birrell, has said in one place that the speeches of the two advocates in The Ring and the Booh will scarcely be very interesting to the ordinary reader. There can be little doubt that the great number of readers of Browning think them beside the mark and adventitious. But it is exceedingly dangerous to say that anything in Browning is irrelevant or unnecessary. … The introduction of them is one of the finest strokes in The Ring and the Book.”

In the history of the development of good literary taste in Germany, Christian Wernicke has long held an honorable position. The praise of Johann Ulrich König, of Bodmer, of Hagedorn, and Ramier; the commendation, the more impressive for being qualified with criticisms, of Lessing and Herder; and the tendency of historians of literature to maintain groups and relationships once established, have all contributed to secure to Wernicke the title of a redoubtable opponent of the so-called second Silesian school of poets. Until recently, however, little more has been known about his personal character and career than what he himself incidentally disclosed in his verses and in his unusually frank and circumstantial foot-notes. Koberstein, with accustomed succinctness, summarized Wernicke's critical opinions; Gervinus, in one of his famous parallels, contrasted Wernicke unfavorably as a man and as a poet with Logau; Scherer barely mentioned him; Francke did not mention him at all; Ludwig Fulda, without adding much to our knowledge, set forth in an excellent brief essay the proper bearing of the facts that were then known, and corrected thereby the somewhat distorted presentation of Gervinus; but not until the investigations and fortunate discoveries of Julius Elias and Leonhard Neubaur had brought a host of new facts to light was an adequate estimate of either the personal or the literary character of Wernicke possible. We now have such an estimate by Erich Schmidt. Looking eagerly forward to the reprint of Wernicke's epigrams promised by Elias, E. Schmidt says of the epigrammatist, “philosophisch reichgebildet, in alter und moderner Literatur ungemein belesen, huldigt er, mit Boileau vom Dichter vollständige Kenntnis der Welt, zumai des Hofes fordernd, einer vornehmen Poetik; ” and adds, “wir kennen vor Liscow, ja vor Lessing keinen klareren, gescheiteren Kopf.” The question, therefore, how far Wernicke is to be regarded as a predecessor of Lessing in the development of a critical theory of poetry appears to deserve serious attention.

The sole edition of the chanson de geste “Ogier le Danois,” generally attributed to Raimbert de Paris, is that of J. Barrois, Paris, 1842, and bears the title: “La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche.” This edition makes no pretence to critical accuracy.