[5] A collection of these romances formed into three folio tomes in manuscript was enriched by seven hundred and forty-seven miniatures, _avec les Initiales peintes en or et couleurs_. 6093, Roxburgh Cat. [6] Cat. of the Duke de la Vallière, 4507. Strutt would have done as much for ourselves, but he worked in unrequited solitude with all the passion of the French amateur, but without his "best artists." [7] This romance was composed about the year 1200; the present copy was made in 1338. There is also a splendid manuscript with rich and delicate illuminations of the ancient romance of Alexander in prose in the Brit. Mus., Bib. Reg. 15, E. 6. [8] Campbell's "Essay on English Poetry." [9] Our vernacular literature owes to the unremitting ardour of our laureate recent editions of "La Morte d'Arthur," "Palmerin of England," and a new translation from the Portuguese of "Amadis of Gaul." For readers who are not antiquaries, and who may recoil from the prolixity of the ancient romances, there is a work of their species which may amply gratify their curiosity, and it is of easy acquisition. It is not an unskilful compilation from the romances of chivalry made by RICHARD JOHNSON, a noted bookwright in the reign of Elizabeth; it has passed through innumerable editions, and has at last taken its station in the popular library of our juvenile literature. I suspect that the style has been too often altered in the modern editions, which has injured its raciness. It is well known as "The Renowned History of the Seven Champions of Christendom." The compiler has metamorphosed the Rowland, Oliver, Guy, Bevis, &c., into seven saints or champions of Christendom; but "he has preserved some of the most capital fictions of the old Arabian romance."--Warton, iii. 63, Ed. 8vo. It may serve as a substitute for the old black-letter romances, being a compendium of their rich or their grotesque fancies; or, as Ritson observes with his accustomed energetical criticism, "It is a compound of superstition, and, as it were, all the lyes in Christendom in one lye, and is in many parts of the country believed at this day to be as true as the gospel."--"Dissertation on Romance," xxxiv.