This poem of Chrestien's is a collection of the finest specimens of medieval rhetoric on the eternal theme. There is little incident, and sensibility has it all its own way, in monologues by the actors and digressions by the author, on the nature of love. It is rather the sentiment than the passion that is here expressed in the "language of the heart"; but, however that may be, there are both delicacy and eloquence in the language. The pensive Fenice, who debates with herself for nearly two hundred lines in one place (4410-4574), is the ancestress of many later heroines. Meis Fenice est sor toz pansive; Ele ne trueve fonz ne rive El panser dont ele est anplie, Tant li abonde et mouteplie. _Cliges_, l. 4339. In the later works of Chrestien, in _Yvain_, _Lancelot_, and _Perceval_, there are new developments of romance, more particularly in the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. But these three later stories, unlike _Cliges_, are full of the British marvels, which no one would wish away, and yet they are encumbrances to what we must regard as the principal virtue of the poet--his skill of analysis in cases of sentiment, and his interest in such cases. _Cliges_, at any rate, however far it may come short of the _Chevalier de la Charrette_ and the _Conte du Graal_ in variety, is that one of Chrestien's poems, it might be said that one of the twelfth-century French romances, which best corresponds to the later type of novel. It is the most modern of them; and at the same time it does not represent its own age any the worse, because it also to some extent anticipates the fashions of later literature. In this kind of romance, which reduces the cost of the "machinery," and does without enchanters, dragons, magic mists, and deadly castles, there are many other examples besides _Cliges_.