"THE STORY OF ALEXANDER."
[To TH2 EDITOR Or TIE "BrzorAros."] Sru,—May I be allowed to point out one or two errors into which your reviewer has fallen in his notice of Mr. Steele's "Story of Alexander," in the Spectator of April 20th P The poem on Alexander, by Alberic of Besancon (or, perhaps more correctly, Briancon), was written not in " decasyllabic verse" (of which, in any case, it would not be "the earliest specimen to be found in any modern language," seeing that the "Chanson de Roland" was written in that metre at least a century before), but in lines of eight syllables (e.g., "Dit Salomon al premier pas"). Alberic's work, of which only a mere fragment (105 lines) has been preserved, served as the groundwork of another poem on the same subject, written in lines of ten syllables, by a certain Simon of Poitou ; and this, in its turn, was utilised by Lambert le Tort of Chateandun (not "Lambert of Tours"), Alexander of Bernai, and the other authors of the lengthy Alexander poem, consisting of nearly twenty thousand lines of twelve syllables (not "fourteen"), from which the Alexandrine verse derived its name. The whole subject of the legend of Alexander has been dealt with at length by M. Paul Meyer, in his work on "Alexandre le Grand dans la litterature francaise," and more recently by Signor Carraroli, in his "La, Leggenda di Alessandro magno," of which books no doubt Mr. Steele availed himself in the compilation of his account of the story of Alexander. To Dante students this legendary history is of special interest, on account of the clarions statement in the "De Monarchia " (H. 9) as to Alexander's relations with the Romans, the origin of which has not yet been traced.—I am, Sir, &c., Barney Wood, Burnham, Bucks. PAGET TOYNBEZ.
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