The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-02

NVe MIN; bne el1aSnCp cOuAu aVdh hObhiuB, nhu
then che siokened more and more, and dried
and OWNED away"
One night the Bishop awoke the whole
hermitage with loud and unreasonable
laughter. He had never been Che said) so
merry and we'll at ease. For ''here was Sir
Lancelot with me, with more angels than
ever saw men upon one day; and saw the
angels heave Sir Lancelot towards heaven,
and the gates Of heaven open to receive him.
y *n* Go ye to his bed, and then shall ye
prove the sooth. "
$50 when Sir Bors and his fellows came to his be
they found him stark dead, and ne iay "a, ~ ne hal
smiled and the sweetest sayor ABOUT nm % Lnat ever
made that ever made men. And on the morrow the
Bishop sang his mass OF Requiem; and after, the
Bishop and all those nine knights put Sir Lancelot
in the same horsebier that Queen 0uinevere was
laid in before she was buried"
He was entombed by them with all honor at
Joyous Gard.
Such is the naked framework on which the
French remancer has portrayed one of the
most beautiful and splendid characters to be
found in the literature of the imagination. To
say that Lancelot combines the fine qualities
of an Achilles and of Hector is to say what
is inadequate and even beside the mark. To
the body and spirit of Achilles has been here
united the soul of Sir Philip Sidney. King
Arthur reaches to wider grasp of sovereign
and large-minded design; the conception of
the Cid is drawn in grand and generous pro-
portions; but in the whole region of ro-
nance, will there be found such anotherunion
of strength with delicacy, of profound sensi-
bility with entire capacity, as was dreamed by
the author of the character of Lancelot !?
Generosity and courtesy and forgetfulness of
self are its broad basis, its pervading elements.
To forbear his own advantage 9.
'In open battle or the tilted neld"
is with Lancelot, as with Arthur, second
nature. This part of him, like his complete
tranquility and self -possession-never once
broken by danger or by insult, never by any
thing but the full stress of grief and of re-
morse-comes of his supreme and conscious
power. During the final war before Ben
wicke, after long enduring almost passively
the assaults of Gawaine by whom every kind
of aggravation and disappointment has been
brought upon him, Lancelot at last puts out
his strength and unhorses his old enemy.
Gawaine challenges him desperately to take
his life outright, 'for if thou leave me thus,
when / am whole shall do battle with thee
again" ''Sir, / shall endure you by the grace
of God, said Sir Lancslot; 'but wit you well,
Sir Gawaine, shall never like thee smite a
felled knight During all the taunts of Sir
Gawaine at time the when the restoration of
Guinevere and of himself still hung in the ba-
lance, Sir Lancelot never fails to answer rea-
sonably, literally, and courteously. And
when Sir Galahad is knighted and mystic
rious lady rides to tell the new knights
father that he must no more look to hold the
first place of chivalry, GAS touching that"
said Sir Lancelot, II know we'll that was
never the best"
His fidelity is, if that were possible, even
more than match for his large and generous
courtesy. 1t is as if the romancer had de-
signed to show to what moral heights man
may climb while a mortal sin still hoYers
about him. In Mr.. Tennyson's "Guinevere"
the great excuse for the relation between
Lancelot and the Queen is distinctly spoken
OF. Itwas amisadYenture that Arthur should
have sent his best and greatest to represent
himself; that he should have dazzled young
| fancy with warmth and color" before it had
| grown to love the
''pure severity Of perfect light"
which hung round his own character and de-
| signs. But though this misadventure lends q
| palliation, and though nearly every chapter in
the eromance hints further extenuation in the
general customs of the early age, yet it is
| clear that the connection was to the writer q
mortal sin, and nothing short of it. In the
long episode of Sir Tristram and La Beale
Isond (the ''Iseult of Ireland" in Mr.. Matthew
Arnold's charming poem), it is easy to recog-
mise a secondary reproduction OF Lancelot and
| Guinevere. AS Lancelot conducts Guinevere
to Arthur, SO Tristram conducts Isond or Isolt
to King Mark of Cornwall. And, ii we assume
this secondary relation as fact, it is interest
| ing to notice that in the subsidiary story the
mortal taint has been provided against
| by throwing a supernatural halo over the rela-
ton of the two later lovers. A miracu-
lous philtre has been prepared by the father
of Isolt of Ireland, by which she is to become
firmly, indissolubly united to King Mark.
Of this phlltre she and her knightly guide in
advertently drink during the voyage, and
their destiny is thus sealed beyond the power
of their own wills to alter. Yet, though there
is no blinking the romancers view of Lance.
lots fault, it is wonderful to observe the
labor and care which he has spent in drawing
portrait this great fault notwithstanding,
of lifelong and unwsarying faithfulness.
"His honor rooted In dishonor stood,
And faith unfaithful made hisfalsely true"
In those lines the complexity of the charac
ter is admirably and perfectly described, but
in the mind of the romancer il is clear that
the ruling tendency was to set the honorable
and the faithful qualities in the stronger re-
lief. The whole poem of Elaine" in it,
great and multifarious beauty, is a tribute tc
the faithfulness of Lancslot 1t might almos
bear these words for its inscription, if it were
not picture of his generosity as we'll The
great and tragical madness which occurs il
the story fell upon Lancelot for the sole rea
son that he could not bear so much as the ap
pearance of infdelity. He could not brook t.
be thought "wanderingly lewd." Nor was h
faithful to the Queen alone-but the one dis
loyalty excepted-to Arthur also. Against hin
he would never lift hand; and, when ono
the King had left beleaguring him, he wa
following on his track, not as foe, but as bro
ther and ally. He was never petulant, neve