Whoever may have been the author of _Amadis de Gaul_, his genius lives in his invention; this work soon obscured, even in France, all the other histories of knights-errant written in latin or french, by many of which it had been preceded. From the very careful investigations of several Spanish and Portuguese writers, it appears that the name of the real author of the first or genuine Amadis was Vasco Lobeira, or, according to the Spanish orthography and pronunciation, Lobera, a native of Portugal, who flourished about the end of the thirteenth century, and lived to 1325. It is probable, however, that before the period at which the work obtained its highest celebrity both in Spain and France, it had passed through the hands of several emendators, and it is therefore impossible to know how much of the book, as it now exists, belongs to the original author, and how far it is indebted to the labours of Spanish or French editors.[48] From these circumstances too, it appears that the work could scarcely be generally known in Spain before the middle of the fourteenth century; and its influence on the national literature must, on that account, have been the greater; for it would be operating with all the force of novelty, precisely at the time when the poetic genius of the nation began to display itself in youthful vigour. What other book could have produced an effect so fascinating on the minds of the Spanish nobles, as Amadis de Gaul? The monstrous perversions of history and geography in that work, did not disturb the illusion of readers who knew little or nothing of either history or geography. The prolixity of the narrative gave as little offence as the stiff formality of the style. Indeed the virtues of gothic chivalry appear more pure as they shine through the formal stateliness of the narration. The author has borrowed nothing from the Arabian tale-tellers, except the attraction of fairy machinery. This was, however, a powerful charm, and gave an epic-colouring to the Amadis, which, joined to the pathetic descriptions of romantic heroism, produced an influence over the imagination and feelings of the age which no former work had possessed. The moral character of the plan and execution is strangely blended with a peculiar kind of delicately veiled licence, which appears to have very well accorded with the spirit of Spanish chivalry. While the gentle knights, amidst innumerable adventures of love and heroism, observe as the chief law of chivalry, the most inviolable fidelity in all situations towards females as well as males, they and the ladies with whom they have pledged their faith, by a secret betrothing, live together without scruple before marriage, as husband and wife. But a picture, so true and glowing, of the noblest heroic feelings and the most unshaken fidelity,--circumscribing with no anxious care the boundaries of love’s dominion, yet admitting no offensively indecorous or immoral