me 
602 
signalize himself by various deeds of 
prowess. Meanwhile Lisvard, blinded 
by ambition, betrothes his daughter Ori- 
ana to El Patin, emperor of Rome, 
thinking by that means to secure the 
succession of his crown to his younger 
daughter, whom he especially fayoured. 
As this was contrary to the feudal estab- 
Jishment, his best counsellors and vassals 
remonstrate against it, but in vain. 
.Oriana is embarked on her journey to 
Rome, when the Roman fleet is attacked 
by that of the Firm Island, totally de- 
feated, and the princess carried to the 
island in triumph, -Lisvard levies an 
army to avenge this insult, and two 
desperate battles are fought betwixt him 
and the knights of the Firm Island. At 
length, however, by the intervention of 
the hermit Nasciano and that of the 
young Esplandian, the loves of Amadis 
and Oriana become known, and a se- 
conciliation being accomplished betwixt 
him and Lisvard, both armies turn their 
swords against Arcalaus, who had ho- 
vered inthe mountains to assail them 
when exhausted by mutual wounds. 
The romance concludes with the final 
defeat of the false enchanter, and the 
triumphant entry of Oriana into the for- 
bidden chamber, by which the enchant- 
ments of the Firm Island were termi- 
nated ; but above all with the marriage 
of Amadis and Oriana, the boldest 
knight and the most beautiful damsel in 
the universe. 
' From this meagre sketch the reader 
May perceive at least the unity of the 
story of Amadis, in which all the ad- 
ventures combine as directly to the same 
grahd end as in the wrath of Achilles, 
or the wanderings of Ulysses, sung by 
the earliest romance writer, as well as 
the most sublime poet of antiquity. But 
the liveliness of the subordinate adven- 
tures of Don Galaor, together with the 
pointed discrimination of the inferior 
characters,’ can be only learned from the 
work, itself. We. venture to say that 
those who seek mere amusement will 
not be disappointed of their aim; and 
that.those whose object is information, 
may learn more of the manners of chi- 
valry, as well as of the structure of the 
ancient romance, by an attentive peru- 
sal of Amadis, than by a thousand mo- 
dern essays. We greatly approve of the 
stile in which Mr. Southey’s translation 
is executed. Disclaiming every idea of 
modernizing what is chiefly valuable for 
being ancient, he has adopted a strain 
ROMANCES AND NOVELS. 
of language perfectly intelligible to mo- 
dern readers, but from the arrangement 
of the sentence and the occasional use 
of phrases, which, though not obsolete, 
are at least antiquated, he has united 
clearness with an appropriate and vener- 
able cast of antiquity. Mr. Southey’s 
original intention seems to have been to 
correct -and republish the old English 
translation of Anthony Munday, but he 
judiciously exchanged his plan for a new 
version of the Spanish original, with 
the use of a copy of which he was ac- 
commodated from the valuable collec- 
tion of Mr. Heber. The work is short. 
ened, but not abridged. Aik unneces- 
sary recapitulation and circuity of ex- 
pression is avoided or condensed, and 
thus without omission of a fact or senti- 
ment, the translation is one half shorter 
than that of Manday. 
Some prelirfinary remarks are given 
by way of preface, in-which Mr. Southey 
ardently nwintains that Amadis de Gaul 
was first written in the Portugueze lan- 
guage. ‘The authors of that nation 
(with a single exception) claim it as 'the 
original composition of Vasco Lobeira, 
a valiant knight of Lisbon, who flou- 
rished during the reign of King Joam, 
and died at Elvas in 1403. The Portu- 
gueze edition of Lobeira is not now 
known to exist, the earliest version be- 
ing executed by. Garciordonez de Mon- 
talvo, a Spaniard, who professes to have 
compiled it from ancient histories. We 
do not think that Mr. Southey has clearly 
made out Lobeira’s title to be the origina} 
author, at least in the strictest sense of 
the word. ‘Nicolas de Herberay, Sieur 
des Essars, who in 1574 executed a 
French translation of Amadis from the 
Spanish of Montalvo, says, that he had 
seen a remnant of an old MS. on the 
same story, written in the Picard lan- 
guage, from which he thought that the 
Spanish authors had made their transla- 
tion. Mons. de Tressan, after describ- 
ing the collection of French romances 
lodged in the library of the Vatican by 
Christina of Sweden, affirms positively 
that he remembers there to have seen 
Amadis de Gaul written in very ancient 
French, being what Herberay described 
as the Picard language, the dialect of 
Picardy corresponding precisely to the 
romance language during the latter part 
of the reign of Philip Augustus, and 
through those of Louis VIII. and of 
St. Louis. See the epistolary dedication 
of Herberay, prefixed te his translation, 
