APPENDIX B.

"The magical touch and the sense of mystery and all the things that are
associated with the name romance, when that name is applied to 'The
Ancient Mariner,' or 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' or 'The Lady of
Shalott,' are generally absent from the most successful romances of the
great mediaeval romantic age. . . . The true romantic interest is very
unequally distributed over the works of the Middle Ages, and there is
least of it in the authors who are most representative of the 'age of
chivalry.' There is a disappointment prepared for any one who looks in
the greater romantic authors of the twelfth century for the music of 'The
Faery Queene' or 'La Belle Dame sans Merci.' . . . The greater authors
of the twelfth century have more affinity to the 'heroic romance' of the
school of the 'Grand Cyrus' than to the dreams of Spenser or
Coleridge. . . . The magic that is wanting to the clear and elegant
narrative of Benoit and Chrestien will be found elsewhere; it will be
found in one form in the mystical prose of the 'Queste del St. Graal'--a
very different thing from Chrestien's 'Perceval'--it will be found, again
and again, in the prose of Sir Thomas Malory; it will be found in many
ballads and ballad burdens, in 'William and Margaret,' in 'Binnorie,' in
the 'Wife of Usher's Well,' in the 'Rime of the Count Arnaldos,' in the
'Königskinder'; it will be found in the most beautiful story of the
Middle Ages, 'Aucassin and Nicolette,' one of the few perfectly beautiful
stories in the world."--"Epic and Romance," W. P. Ker, London, 1897, p.
371 _ff_.


[1] Scott's translations from the German are considered in the author's
earlier volume, "A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth