shall come, if Merlin spoke true, "the snow-white chief upon the snow-white horse," ," to rally his countrymen. He only sleeps; in the fairy palace of Morgan la Fayetseen sometimes on the coasts of Sicily as the "Fata Morgana"-he rests "upon a couch of royal furniture," his wound healed by her arts year after year, but ever bleeding afresh, till his hour come; or in the cavern under the roots of the hazel on Craig-y-dinas in Eryri, “all in a circle, their heads outward, every man in his armour, his sword, and shield, and spear by him," he and his knights-companions sleep; to awake when "the black eagle and the golden eagle shall go to war," to lead the chivalry of the Cymry in triumph through their native island. Or under Richmond Hill in Yorkshire, deep in the bowels of the earth, they wait only the man and the hour to start to life. There hangs at the cave's mouth the magic sword and horn; boldly draw the sword, and rightly blow the horn, and those enchanted warriors shall start to life once more. Once-so the legend runs the entrance to that cave was found by mortal wight; he gazed on the sword, but his heart failed him to grasp it; but he sounded the horn; and as the sleeping knights started to their feet, roof and cave fell in, while unearthly voices shouted "woe to the coward" who had missed so wondrous an adventure. "Go into Brittany," said Alan de l'Isle in his day, "and dare to say that Arthur is dead-the very children will stone you." Even yet they show you where he sleeps, opposite his old stronghold of Kerduel, in the bleak and lonely isle of Agalon. Long they believed that before every battle Arthur and his host might be seen at early dawn marching along the mountain-tops through the mist; and still they sing his war-song, and as the peasant listens to the distant sounds of hound and horn winding

through the forest under the full moon, he predicts fine weather, for he hears the "Chasse Arthur."

Of the ends of Guenever and Lancelot we do not care to say much. Both pass, according to the due course of religious and poetical justice of the time, from the worst vanities of the world into the purest odour of sanctity. Guenever takes the veil at Amesbury, and in time becomes abbess there. Of the beautiful parting scene between her and Arthur, where we almost lose the sense of her guilt in the reality of her repentance, it is but just to Mr Tennyson to say that it is wholly a fair creation of his own. Very different is the spirit in which these romances part from her; "while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end." Lancelot, who has meanwhile also taken the religious habit, sees her buried with Arthur at Glastonbury, and after six weeks of "grovelling and praying" on the tomb, he too is found dead. But there is no sound of penitence in the grand proud words pronounced over him by his comrade Sir Bors; after a life of falsehood to his king and his friend, red with the blood of unarmed companions slain in an unhallowed quarrel, faithful only to an adulterous love, he goes to his grave with that well-known eulogy, whose magnificent language has blinded many an admiring reader to its perilous application.

But such is the morality of these romances throughout; an evil imported into them by their AngloNorman adapters, for the tales of the Mabinogion are free from it. It is not that we find here the seductive licence of the Italian novelist; it might be hard to point even to a licentious passage but intrigue and unchastity are treated as the boldest matters of fact, and the writers appear utterly unconscious of even a moral rule in such cases. The two love-tales are adulteries, for the relations of Tristram and Iseult are but

a repetition of those of Lancelot and Guenever; the preux chevaliers are disloyal, both as friends and as subjects, in that which is rightly held to be the very soul of modern honour. Even Arthur himself, in whom M. de la Villemarqué sees the model of Christian chivalry, is here neither saint nor hero: to say nothing of his massacre of the innocents already alluded to, or his unintentional incest, he is habitually faithless in his own conjugal relations. We can feel little interest in his own wrongs, when he congratulates Tristram and Iseult on being safe from King Mark in Joyous Gard, and says that "they are right well beset together." Such, indeed, is the line in which the reader's sympathies are always directed; King Mark's aims at avenging himself by taking Tristram's life, are always denounced as "treason;" when King Lot's wife is slain in adultery, Arthur and Lancelot hold it "a felonous treason;" and when King Mark, for the most excellent reasons, banishes Tristram from his court for ten years, he is denounced by the hero-in the apparent conviction that he is expressing a popular sentiment as very ungrateful." But enough of such instances; is it too much to exclaim with old Leland-honest, even if he was credulous-"O scelera, O mores, O corrupta tempora!"*

The religion-in all but the latter portion, the Quest of the Graal-is a mere parergon, though we have abundance of its phraseology. In all essentials it is at least as much pagan as Christian. There are strong proofs how long the old heathen belief survived, a blind unreasoning fear of the mysterious powers of nature, a very worship of the groves and rocks. Morgan la Faye, who can turn herself and followers into stones at pleasure, is a far more awful personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury, who appears in strange conjunction almost on the same page. Nature and art are alike inexplicable, except on supernatural principles. The works of the latter are miracles, as in the instance of Excalibur. The powers of the former are magnified into prodigies. We have an example in

that strange creation, the "Questing Beast," or the " Beast glatisant," the undoubted original of the "Blatant Beast" of Spenser; which, introduced as it is abruptly into the narrative, is evidently supposed to be already well known. It has " a noise as of questing hounds in its belly”— a marvellous beast and a great signification," of which "Merlin prophesied much;" some of the most renowned knights of Arthur's companionship follow it successively, apparently without success. The "great signification" we confess ourselves unable to explain; but the legend, like so many of the rest, is Cymric. It is undoubtedly the Twrch Trwyth, the wild-boar king, of the tale called "Kilhwch and Olwen," the wildest and perhaps the most curious of the Mabinogion. Once a king, he has been transformed into a boar for his sins; he has seven young pigs or princes, the eldest of which rejoices in the name of Grugyn Gwrych Ereint, of very porcine etymology, whose bristles were of silver wire, and you could trace him through the woods by their shining." The Boar-king carries between his ears a comb and scissors, and these must be won by Kilhwch before he can wed with OIwen, whose father, Yspaddaden Penkawr, cannot arrange his hair without them. Kilhwch obtains the aid of Arthur and his companions in the hunt; but nine days and nine nights the royal beast and his brood defy the whole Round Table. They hunt him from Ireland through Pembroke shire, Cardigan, over the Brecknock mountains, across the Severn into Cornwall, where he takes the sea, and is never seen more.

It will be seen that our estimate of these romances is scarcely the popular one. The remarkable interest which attaches to them seems to us independent of, and far beyond, their intrinsic merit. As to the life and morals which they paint, the most satisfactory reflection is, that it was never real. There was no golden age of chivalry, whatever Sir Bulwer Lytton may try to persuade us—

"When what is now called poetry was life."

Few of these heroes wore in their hearts the noble motto, which one of them-Gyron le Courtois-bore upon his sword, "Loyaulté passe tout, et faulsete honnet tout." This would be heroic and chivalric age was very mean and poor in some of its phases. Even its good, such as it was, was all for the knight and noble; the "churl" is only introduced for their disport and mockery. "Then were they afraid when they saw a knight." What a picture of the social relations!

After all, this antiquarian heroworship is unreal. Nobler, even if more self-assertive,-more fertile in present deeds, even if it deal less in reverence for the past,-is the conscious boast of Diomed, which breathes so much of the modern English spirit

“ Ηκεις τοι πατέρων μεγ' αμείνονες ευχόμεθ'

είναι."

They were not the giants that they seem, looming through the mist of ages. If we lay our bones beside their bones, they hardly suffer by the com

parison; nerve and sinew have not degenerated. The ancient armour which had borne the brunt of actual tourney, was found somewhat scant of girth for the limbs that jousted in sport at Eglinton. The gentlemen of modern England, who, instead of sitting at home at ease, ride across the stiffest country they can find, or climb Monte Rosa and the Wetterhorn for pure amusement, are at least king Arthur's equals in this, they "will not go to meat till they have seen some great adventure." And if it come to what the romancers call "derring-do," we can fight as well as they did; though the sober columns of the modern "correspondent" have not the grand faculty of lying that was accorded to the trouveur of old, our poor prosaic annals can tell their story too. The lads that stood back to back at the Almathe men who rode at Balaclava -the raw recruits, "churls" though they were, who fired their own death-volley as they went down in their ranks on board the Birkenhead-were truer heroes than any knight of the Round Table.

IMMEDIATELY after the embarkation of the Neapolitan army from Palermo, and the despatch of Turr's and Bixio's columns into the interior and southern and eastern portions of Sicily, Garibaldi advanced his new levies in the direction of Messina, by the northern coast-road, until the leading column under Medici, about 2500 strong, established itself at Barcelona, threatening the town and fortress of Melazzo, distant some seven miles-Medici having in his rear small bodies of men echeloned along the coast from Barcelona to Melazzo. In order to check this advance, General Bosco was despatched with 5000 picked men to make a stand in the vicinity of Melazzo; its naturally strong position, and the fact of Garibaldi's forces being destitute of artillery, rendering it, in the opinion of the Neapolitans, perfectly impregnable to such an assemblage

THE FARO, July 30, 1860. of raw levies as those under Medici. The promontory on which the castle is situated is three miles in length, and varying from three-quarters to a quarter of a mile in breadth, and on an average about 600 or 700 feet above the sea, and connected with the main by a low and narrow isthmus on which stands the town, immediately under the command of the guns of the castle. This fortress of Melazzo is, nevertheless, overlooked by the higher cliffs beyond, but which it completely defends from a land attack. On the western side, overhanging the sea, are the oldest portions of the works, consisting of a Norman tower and heavy massive walls: the more modern works, however, surround this, and extend over about half the isthmus enclosing the site of the ancient town, little of which has been allowed to remain save the cathedral. The English, in

the early part of the present century, strengthened Melazzo, when, after a six months' siege, they took it from the French; but the Neapolitans have subsequently added much to the landward fortifications-a very general measure throughout their dominions, as if they considered themselves safe from all comers save their own subjects. The works mount forty guns of heavy calibre, chiefly long 24-pounders, nearly all of which are facing the town. A succession of loose irregular fortification, extending down the slopes in that direction, had been lately abandoned as useless. The modern town is generally massive and well built, containing about ten thousand inhabitants, and in itself affords considerable advantages for defence from a land attack, the mainland in the immediate vicinity being very low, and thickly belted with cane-brake, vineyards, and olive groves, as well as intersected with numerous ditches, embankments, and detached houses, all admirably adapted to impede the advance of troops. A more picturesque view than that from the cliffs at the back of the castle, looking landward, it is difficult to conceive; the tall spine of mountains which traverses the north of the island forms the background, with the crater of Etna just leaning over its summit. Away west we have the wild fantastic outline of the coast stretching down towards Termini, and in the opposite direction the Faro of Messina. The plain, or rather slopes of Sicily towards Melazzo, are teeming with cultivation, and studded with villages and towns, amongst the most conspicuous of which is Barcelona. Away seawards we have Lipari, Volcano, Stromboli, and other islets dotting the blue Mediterranean. That small town, due south about three miles, is Merii, to which, on the arrival of Bosco from Messina, Medici advanced his column from Barcelona. At Merii, the land rises towards the mountains of the interior, and across its front flows a very broad "fumara" or water-course coming down from the neighbouring heights, and emptying itself into the sea a couple of miles west of the town. Merii thus forms a position, easily defended, upon a spur of the mountains projecting towards Melazzo. Upon an

other projecting spur, in the direction of Messina, and similarly cut off from the plain by a water-course, stands the little town of Pace. Pace stands so close to the sea as to perfectly command the coast-road along which General Bosco's forces advanced from Messina: and had Garibaldi and his followers been at Barcelona earlier, he would probably there have fought Bosco before he reached Melazzo, and whilst tired with his long march from Messina. Medici, however, was in no position to assume so actively offensive a measure, and leave his rear open to attack from the garrison of Melazzo, the more so, that Bosco's re pute was that of a fighting man, and his corps was known to be picked from the large garrison of Messina. The liberating forces wisely, therefore, took up a strong position at Merii, the detachments in the rear hurried up to support them, and Medici determined to hold his ground until the arrival of the Dictator from Palermo. However, on the morning of the 17th of July, General Bosco advancing with all his force (saving the eight hundred men he had found in garrison on arrival) to occupy the opposite heights in the direction of Pace, evidently with the intention of advancing on Santa Lucia, and from thence turning his position, Medici immediately moved on in support of his advanced guard, and an affair of outposts took place in which the latter was worsted, losing eighteen prisoners, and a few killed and wounded. In the afternoon, Medici again attacked Bosco in force, and after a sharp conflict drove him back towards Melazzo, but with a loss on his side of ten killed and thirty-seven wounded. In the evening the Garibaldians fell back on Merii. On the morning of the 18th the Palermitan regiment, under Colonel Dunn, arrived, and was immediately pushed on to the crossroad from Santa Lucia to Melazzo. The following day, that officer having received information that there were two guns in position on the left of the town only guarded by 100 men, he stole up with 200, hoping to surprise them, but found himself in face of the entire Neapolitan force, in position, occupying a semicircle of about three miles in extent. Colonel Dunn of course retired