there is much fighting; indeed, except the Foray of Gaza, this is the chief part of the book devoted to that subject, the Persian and Indian wars having been, as we saw, but lightly treated. The Amazons are brought in next; but fighting recommences with the siege of "Defur." An enchanted river, which whosoever drinks he becomes guilty of cowardice or treachery, follows; and then we return to Tarsus and Candace, that courteous queen. Meanwhile the traitors Antipater and "Divinuspater" continue plotting, and though Alexander is warned against them by his mother Olympias, they succeed in poisoning him. The death of the king and the regret of his Twelve Peers, to whom he has distributed his dominions, finish the poem. [Sidenote: _Form, &c._] In form this poem resembles in all respects the _chansons de geste_. It is written in mono-rhymed _laisses_ of the famous metre which owes its name and perhaps its popularity to the use of it in this romance. Part of it at least cannot be later than the twelfth century; and though in so long a poem, certainly written by more than one, and in all likelihood by more than two, there must be inequality, this inequality is by no means very great. The best parts of the poem are the marvels. The fighting is not quite so good as in the _chansons de geste_ proper; but the marvels are excellent, the poet relating them with an admirable mixture of gravity and complaisance, in spirited style and language, and though with extremely little attention to coherence and verisimilitude, yet with no small power of what may be called fabulous attraction. [Sidenote: _Continuations._] It is also characteristic in having been freely continued. Two authors, Guy of Cambray and Jean le Nevelois, composed a _Vengeance Alexandre_. The _Voeux du Paon_, which develop some of the episodes of the main poem, were almost as famous at the time as _Alixandre_ itself. Here appears the popular personage of Gadiffer, and hence was in part derived the great prose romance of Perceforest. Less interesting in itself, but curious as illustrating the tendency to branch up and down to all parts of a hero's pedigree, is _Florimont_, a very long octosyllabic poem, perhaps as old as the twelfth century, dealing with Alexander's grandfather.[79] [Footnote 79: In this paragraph I again speak at second-hand, for neither the _Voeux_ nor _Florimont_ is to my knowledge yet in print. The former seems to have supplied most of the material of the poem in fifteenth-century Scots, printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1831, and to be reprinted, in another version, by the Scottish Text Society.] [Sidenote: King Alexander.]