intrusted to his treacherous mistress. The friendly arts of Merlin are
succeeded by the machinations of the malicious fairy Morgana, and the
watchful care of the the Lady of the Lake. To excite the childlike
wonder of his readers, the romancer turns knights to stone, or makes
them invisible; he introduces enchanted castles, vessels that steer
themselves, and the miraculous properties of the Saint Gréal, Arthur
and Tristram fight with dragons and giants. The loves of Tristram and
Isoud arise from the drinking of an amorous potion. The chastity of
knight and damsel is determined by the magic horn, whose liquor the
innocent drink, but the guilty spill; and by the enchanted garland,
which blooms on the brow of the chaste, but withers on that of the
faithless. Inventions such as these were regarded as facts, or at least
as possible occurrences, by the readers of romantic fiction. Men
believed what they were told, and to doubt, to inquire were
intellectual efforts which they knew not how to make, and which all the
influences of their life opposed their making. There were no fictions
in the romances more improbable than the accounts of foreign parts
brought back by travellers. Sir John of Mandeville was not doubted when
he wrote that he had met with a race of men who had only one eye, and
that in the middle of the forehead, or a people with only one foot and
that one large enough to be used as a parasol. The knight who had
mastered the art of reading looked upon such stories as curious facts.
His religion was a religion of miracles, and, ignorant of natural laws,
he was accustomed to refer any unusual occurrence to the influence of
supernatural beings, a habit of thought which presented an ever-ready
solution to mysteries and problems otherwise inexplicable.

The entire credence accorded to the supernatural features of the
romance gave to it a power and an interest which has now, of course,
disappeared; but the influence of the supernatural upon the work is so