music, and occasionally, and far more frequently than might be thought, passages of high poetry, such as the magnificent _Granz doel por la mort de Rollant_, appear to diversify the course of the story. The most remarkable of the chansons are _Roland_, _Aliscans_, _Gerard de Roussillon_, _Amis et Amiles_, _Raoul de Cambrai_, _Garin le Loherain_ and its sequel _Les quatre Fils Aymon_, _Les Saisnes_ (recounting the war of Charlemagne with Witekind), and lastly, _Le Chevalier au Cygne_, which is not a single poem but a series, dealing with the earlier crusades. The most remarkable _group_ is that centring round William of Orange, the historical or half-historical defender of the south of France against Mahommedan invasion. Almost all the chansons of this group, from the long-known _Aliscans_ to the recently printed _Chancon de Willame_, are distinguished by an unwonted _personality_ of interest, as well as by an intensified dose of the rugged and martial poetry which pervades the whole class. It is noteworthy that one chanson and one only, _Floovant_, deals with Merovingian times. But the chronology, geography, and historic facts of nearly all are, it is hardly necessary to say, mainly arbitrary. _Arthurian Romances._--The second class of early French epics consists of the Arthurian cycle, the _Matiere de Bretagne_, the earliest known compositions of which are at least a century junior to the earliest chanson de geste, but which soon succeeded the chansons in popular favour, and obtained a vogue both wider and far more enduring. It is not easy to conceive a greater contrast in form, style, subject and sentiment than is presented by the two classes. In both the religious sentiment is prominent, but the religion of the chansons is of the simplest, not to say of the most savage character. To pray to God and to kill his enemies constitutes the whole duty of man. In the romances the mystical element becomes on the contrary prominent, and furnishes, in the Holy Grail, one of the most important features. In the Carlovingian knight the courtesy and clemency which we have learnt to associate with chivalry are almost entirely absent. The _gentix ber_ contradicts, jeers at, and execrates his sovereign and his fellows with the utmost freedom. He thinks nothing of striking his _cortoise moullier_ so that the blood runs down her _cler vis_. If a servant or even an equal offends him, he will throw the offender into the fire, knock his brains out, or set his whiskers ablaze. The Arthurian knight is far more of the modern model in these respects. But his chief difference from his predecessor is undoubtedly in his amorous devotion to his beloved, who, if not morally superior to Bellicent, Floripas, Esclairmonde, and the other Carlovingian heroines, is somewhat less forward. Even in minute details the difference is strongly marked. The romances are in octosyllabic couplets or in prose, and their language is different from that of the