fathers and the places that were doubly consecrated by holiness and valour.

It seems not improbable, that, in the time of Shakspeare, when all hopes of raising the standard of the Cross upon the towers of Jerusalem had long been relinquished, when the Knights Templars had been persecuted even to death, when the reformation had turned men's thoughts and feelings into a new channel, the achievements of Richard might beam through a dim and clouded sky, with a lustre more feeble than that which, to our less obscured vision, they now display. To us they are revealed in a shadowy splendour, not distinctly, but with a broad, bold, and imposing magnificence, seen through the mist of ages; the heroes of Richard and of Palestine are the true heroes of the romance ; they walk abroad in the majesty of their might; they tread the earth like demi-gods, attracting, commanding, and extorting admiration.

The reign of Richard the First, a sovereign who has been dead upwards of six hundred and twenty years, may be considered as forming an epoch in English history. The crusades had a vast influence upon our literary taste, as well as upon our general manners. It is to Richard we are indebted for the rise of chivalry in England. It was he who established tilts and tournaments; and, under his auspices, our diversions assumed a military air, the genius of poetry

flourished, and the lovelier sex was exalted in universal admiration. How delightful was it, then, beneath the inspiring gaze of the fair

"Sternly to strike the quintin down;

Or fiercely storm some turf-formed town;
To rush with valour's doughty sway,
Against a Babylon of clay;

A Memphis shake with furious shock;

Or raze some flower-built Antioch !"-GRATTAN.

It is true, as Dr. Percy has observed, that "our old romances of chivalry may be derived, in a lineal descent, from the ancient historical songs of the Gothic bards and Scalds ;" that many of those songs are still preserved in the North, which exhibit all the seeds of chivalry before it became a solemn institution;" that "even the common arbitrary fictions of romance were most of them familiar to the ancient Scalds of the North, long before the time of the crusades ;" and that "they believed the existence of giants and dwarfs," "had some notions of fairies"-" were strongly possessed of the belief of spells and enchantments, and were fond of inventing combats with dragons and monsters." Previously to the crusades, the leading subjects of our poets and romance writers, were the achievements of King Arthur, with his Knights of the Round Table; and of Charlemagne, with his twelve Peers. In the romances, however, which were produced during, and subsequently

--

to the wars of Palestine, new countries, new champions, and new conquests were introduced.

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Legions of poets," from all countries of Europe, are said to have embarked in the holy enterprise of exterminating the infidels, and when they returned, they poured forth, in a full tide of song, the glowing history of their exploits, enriched with the beautiful scenery and the brilliant fictions of the East.

Richard, the second of our Plantagenet race, had lived long in Provence. Himself a poet, he invited to his court many of the French troubadours, or minstrels, whom he loaded with honours and rewards; and he became a munificent patron of literature, of chivalry, and of arms. It may be presumed that, in his selection of the "sons of song," the royal bard was not deficient in taste and judgment. Three only of his minstrels' names are on record: Blondell de Nesle; Fouquet, of Marseilles; and Anselme Faydett, of Avignon; but of these, the two latter had the high honour of being celebrated, and, occasionally, even imitated, by Dante and Petrarch. Faydett, a profuse and voluptuous writer, whose tongue, says Petrarch, was a shield, helmet, sword, and spear, is in Dante's "Paradise."—

That Richard, at once a favourite of the muse, the friend of poets, and a distinguished hero of the crusades, should become also a distinguished hero of romance, was quite an affair of course.

Accordingly we find his deeds recorded, embellished, and magnified to the supernatural, in a French metrical romance, entitled "Richard Cœur de Lion," a rude English translation of which is still preserved in the libraries of the curious.

Richard is generally considered to have derived his surname from a superiority of animal courage; but, if the old romance alluded to be entitled to credit, he earned it nobly and literally, by plucking out the heart of a lion, to whose fury he had been exposed, by the Duke of Austria, for having slain his son with a blow of his fist! In the numerous descriptions afforded by the Romance, Richard is a most imposing personage. He is said to have carried with him to the Crusades, and to have afterwards presented to Tancred, King of Sicily, as an inestimable jewel, the wonder-working sword of King Arthur.

"The gude sword CALIBURNE that Arthur luffed so well."

At times, he was accustomed to carry a shaft, or lance, fourteen feet in length; and, at other times,

To break therewith the Sarrasyns' bones."

With this formidable axe, the head of which contained "6

twenty bounde (pounds) of stele,"

besides breaking the bones of the Saracens, he used to smite right through "dores, barres, and iron chaynes." In the service of chain-chopping, he employed his axe most successfully at the siege of Acre, a fortress before which 300,000 christians are said to have fallen.

Many of Richard's achievements, whether recorded by the historian or emblazoned by the poet, must be received cum grano salis; yet, that he proved a dreadful and terrific scourge to the infidels, there can be no doubt. There is an anecdote of his having been taken alarmingly ill, and that he longed for pork. No pork, however, could be obtained. The consequence was, that his attendants committed the "pious fraud" of roasting a fine plump young Saracen, and persuading the sick prince that it was a pig! Whether it was dished up in the high style of the ancient Porcus Trojanus, is not mentioned. At all events, Richard made a most delicious meal, rapidly recovered from his illness, and was ever after remarkably fond of the flesh of roasted Saracens! We have it on better authority, that so terrible was the remembrance of Richard's valour, in the crusades, that the Turks and Saracens used to quiet their froward children, only by repeating his name; and that, when they were riding, and their horses started at any unusual object, "ils disoient à leurs chevaux, en