THE ROMANCE OF AMADIS OF GAUL.
The Romance of Amadis of Gaul. By Henry Thomas. (Blades, East, and Blades.)—This is a learned and scholarly paper reprinted from the Bibliographical Society's Transactions. It concerns the authorship, origin, and influence of Amadis of Gaul, and is touched by that humour which Spanish literature seems so often to strike from its students. To Spanish literature Amadis may be said now to belong, although France and Portugal both claim it as originally theirs. The account of the conflicting claims, as set forth by Mr. Thomas (pp. 7-10), is a fascinating inquiry, of which the conclusion is as follows : "Great Britain provides in the main the scene and the actors of the story, which reached tho Iberian Peninsula through the Anglo-French poets. Spain has the earliest known version and the earliest mention of Amadis ; but Portugal has a tradition of an author (which seems to justify itself) in an even remoter period. As to whether Spain or Portugal received the story first ho would be a bold man who should at present attempt to decide." At the same time the greater predisposition of Portugal to foreign influences in the Middle Ages inclines the balance slightly in her favour. So even the Provençal poetry reached Spain not through Catalonia, but through Galicia and Portugal. Mr. Thomas remarks that the original story of Amadis (translated from Spain through France in the sixteenth century) was "less successful in England than in any other country," but ho quotes Southey to the effect that in its continuation, Amadis of Greece, "may be found the Zelmane of the Arcadia, the Masque of Cupid of the Faery Queen,, and the Florizel of the Winter's Tale." As Mr. Thomas points out, this influence was the more remarkable in that the book in question was first translated into English seventy-eight years after Shakespeare's death.
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