SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
Patios in this column does nut memo* preeitule subsequent review.] Tirant to Blanch : a Study. By J. A. Vaeth. (H. Milford. 6s. 6d. net.)—Among Don Quixote's romances of chivalry the priest found Tirante the White, which he pronounced to be " for its style the best book in the world." It was a Catalan romance, first printed at Valencia in 1490, and of this first edition three copies survive, in the British Museum, at Valencia, and in New York. Mr. Vacth's essay is, we suppose, the first exhaustive study of the romance to appear in Enghlah. Curiously enough, the Catalan author, Martorell, made free use of the English legend of Guy of Warwick, postdating it to the fifteenth century and introducing references to prominent English warriors of Henry VI.'s day. He gave also the well-known legend about the foundation of the Order of the Garter. Mr. Vaeth cannot explain how the story had reached Valencia by 141)0, nearly half-a-century before Polydore Vergil narrated it in his history of England. The legend may, however, have been current for generations before it was written down and published.
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