As soon as _he_ has enough, or sees that his hearers have, the head of the unhappy giant becomes loose on his shoulders. Another charm of the romances is their entire inconsequentiality. As soon as we enter this wonderful country the old fetters of cause and effect drop from our limbs, and we are no longer bound to give a reason for anything. All things come to pass in that most charming of ways which children explain by the comprehensive metaphysical formula--“_’cause_.” Nothing seems to be premeditated, but a knight falls in love, or out of it, fights, goes on board enchanted vessels that carry him to countries laid down on no chart, and all without asking a question. In truth, it is a delightful kind of impromptu life, such as we all should like to lead if we could, with nothing set down in the bills beforehand. But the most singular peculiarity of Romance-land remains to be noticed--there are no _people_ in it, that is, no common people. The lowest rank in life is that of a dwarf. It is true that if a knight loses his way there will always be a clown or two to set him right. But they disappear at once, and seem to be wholly phantasmagoric, or, at best, an expedient rendered necessary by the absence of guide-posts, and the inability of the cavaliers to read them if there had been any. There are plenty of Saracens no doubt, but they are more like cucumbers than men, and are introduced merely that the knight may have the pleasure of slicing them. We cannot claim any condensed poetical merit for the Metrical Romances. They have very few quotable passages and fewer vigorous single lines. Their merit consists in a diffuse picturesqueness, and reading them is like turning over illuminated missals in a traveler’s half-hour, which leave a vague impression on the mind of something vivid and fanciful, without one’s being able to recall any particular beauty. Some of them have great narrative merit, being straightforward and to the purpose, never entangling themselves in reflection or subordinating the story to the expression. In this respect they are refreshing after reading many poems of the modern school, which, under the pretense of sensuousness, are truly sensual, and deal quite as much with the upholstery as with the soul of poetry. The thought has nowadays become of less importance than the vehicle of it, and amid the pomp of words we are too often reminded of an Egyptian procession, in which all the painful musical instruments then invented, priests, soldiers, and royalty itself, accompany the triumphal chariot containing perhaps, after all, only an embalmed monkey or a pickled ibis.