[55] It is fair to say that Mark, like Gawain, appears to have gone through a certain process of blackening at the hands of the late romancers; but the earliest story invited this.
[56] Cursor Mundi, l. 2898.
[57] Printed by Hartshorne, Ancient Metrical Tales (London, 1829), p. 209; and Hazlitt, Early Popular Poetry (London, 1864), i. 38.
[58] And contrariwise the Welsh Peredur (Mabinogion, ed. cit., 81) has only a possible allusion to the Graal story, while the English Sir Percivale (Thornton Romances, ed. Halliwell, Camden Society, 1844) omits even this.
[59] This curious outburst, referred to before, may be found in the Schoolmaster, ed. Arber, p. 80, or ed. Giles, Works of Ascham, iii. 159.
[60] I have a much less direct acquaintance with the romances mentioned in this paragraph than with most of the works referred to in this book. I am obliged to speak of them at second-hand (chiefly from Dunlop and Mr Ward's invaluable Catalogue of Romances, vol. i. 1883; vol. ii. 1893). It is one of the results of the unlucky fancy of scholars for re-editing already accessible texts instead of devoting themselves to anecdota, that work of the first interest, like Perceforest, for instance, is left to black-letter, which, not to mention its costliness, is impossible to weak eyes; even where it is not left to manuscript, which is more impossible still.
[61] See pp. [114], [115] note.
[63] Ed. Weber, Metrical Romances, Edinburgh, 1810, ii. 279.
[64] Ed. Stengel. Tübingen, 1873.