and indeed, as above remarked, it bears every sign of being a separate poem. The second part deals with "Pore"--in other words, with the Indian expedition and its wonders. These are copied from the French, but by no means slavishly. The army is, on the whole, even worse treated by savage beasts and men on its way to India than in the original; but the handling, including the Candace episodes, follows the French more closely than in the first part. The fighting at "Defur," however, like that at Gaza, is omitted; and the wilder and more mystical and luxuriant parts of the story--the three Fountains, the Sirens, the flower-maidens, and the like--are either omitted likewise or handled more prosaically.[81] [Footnote 81: Dr Koelbing, who in combination of philological and literary capacity is second among Continental students of romance only to M. Gaston Paris, appears to have convinced himself of the existence of a great unknown English poet who wrote not only _Alisaundre_, but _Arthour and Merlin_, _Richard Coeur de Lion_, and other pieces. I should much like to believe this.] One of the most curious things about this poem is that every division--divisions of which Weber made chapters--begins by a short gnomic piece in the following style:-- "Day spryng is jolyf tide. He that can his tyme abyde, Oft he schal his wille bytyde. Loth is grater man to chyde." [Sidenote: _Characteristics._] The treatment of the Alexander story thus well illustrates one way of the mediaeval mind with such things--the way of combining at will incongruous stories, of accepting with no, or with little, criticism any tale of wonder that it happened to find in books, of using its own language, applying its own manners, supposing its own clothing, weapons, and so forth to have prevailed at any period of history. And further, it shows how the _geste_ theory--the theory of working out family connections and stories of ancestors and successors--could not fail to be applied to any subject that at all lent itself to such treatment. But, on the other hand, this division of the romances of antiquity does not exhibit the more fertile, the more inventive, the more poetical, and generally the nobler traits of Middle-Age literature. As will have been noted, there was little invention in the later versions, the Callisthenic fictions and the _Iter ad Paradisum_ being, with a few Oriental accretions, almost slavishly relied upon for furnishing out the main story, though the "Foray of Gaza," the "Vows of the Peacock," and _Florimont_ exhibit greater independence. Yet again no character, no taking and lively story, is elaborated. Nectanabus has a certain personal interest: but he was given to, not invented by, the Romance writers. Olympias has very little character in more senses than one: Candace is not worked out: and Alexander himself is entirely colourless. The fantastic story, and the wonders with which it was bespread, seem to have absorbed the attention of