to the Holy Grail, but recounts vividly the event mentioned in the _Demanda_[124]: the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus. It was also known formerly as _Destroyçam de Jerusalem_.[125] It is an anonymous translation, made in the middle of the fifteenth century, not from the French _Destruction de Jérusalem_, but from the Spanish _Estoria del noble Vespesiano_ (_c._ 1485 and 1499). Dr. Esteves Pereira believes that the 1499 Spanish edition is a retranslation from the Portuguese text originally translated from the Spanish. Tennyson’s revival of the Arthurian legend in England evoked no corresponding interest in Portugal in the nineteenth century, and the primitive and touching story as published in 1887 has left Sir Percival in the very middle of an adventure for over a generation. The descent of the Amadis romances from the noble ideal of chivalry of King Arthur’s Court is obvious, but their exact pedigree, the date and nationality of the first ancestor of the Amadis who is still with us, has been the subject of some little contention. _Amadis de Gaula_ has indeed been doubly fortunate. The successor of Lancelot, Galahad, and Tristan as a fearless and loyal knight, he early won his way in the Peninsula; he was spared by the priest and barber in the _Don Quixote_ scrutiny, and now when Vives’ ‘pestiferous books’,[126] those ‘serious follies’, are no longer read widely, he has received a new span of immortality as a corpse of Patroclus between the contending critics. The problem of the date and authorship has become more fascinating than the book. Champions for Spain and Portugal come forward armed for the fight: Braunfels, Gayangos, Baist are met by Theophilo Braga, Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, while Dr. Henry Thomas holds the scales. The ground is thick with their arrows. And beneath them all lies the simple ingenuous story as retold by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo in or immediately after 1492 and published in 1508, still worth reading for its freshness and for its clear good style, which Braunfels, following up the praise in Juan de Valdés’ _Diálogo de la Lengua_ (_c._ 1535), declared could not be a translation.[127] The argument, conclusive in the case of the masterpiece of prose that is _Palmeirim_ _de Inglaterra_, loses its force here, since Montalvo himself tells us that he corrected the work from old originals. Naturally we are curious to know what these _antiguos originales_ were, but the question did not arise in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: readers did not then concern themselves greatly with the origin and authorship of a book; they were content to enjoy it. Evidently _Amadis_ was enjoyed both in Spain and Portugal. It is mentioned in the middle of the fourteenth century in the Spanish translation, by Johan Garcia de Castrogeriz, of Egidio Colonna’s _De regimine principum_, at the very time, that is, when the Spanish poet and chronicler, Pero López de Ayala (1332-1407),