They rode away full serriedly,
Their gilded pennons of silk of Ind
Merrily rattled with the wind;
The steeds so noble and so wight
Leaped and neighed beneath each knight.
After quoting various specimens of these poems, Mr. Lowell gave the following sketch of the manners and customs of Romance-land, “condensed from the best authorities.”
If you are born in this remarkable country and destined for a hero, the chances are that by the time you are seven years old your father will have gone off to fight the infidels, and a neighboring earl will have taken possession of his estates and his too-hastily-supposed widow. You resent this in various ways, especially by calling your step-father all the proper names you can think of that are improper. He, for some unexplained reason, is unable to get rid of you, though he tries a variety of plots level with the meanest capacity. You, being of uncommon sagacity, are saved by the aid of three or four superfluous miracles. Meanwhile you contrive to pick up a good knightly education, and by the time you are seventeen are bigger and stronger and handsomer than anybody else, except, of course, the giants. So, one day you buckle on your armor, mount your horse, who is as remarkable in his way as yourself, and go adventuring. Presently you come to a castle where you are most courteously received. Maidens as white as whale’s bone and fair as flowers (they are all so in Romance-land) help you off with your armor, and dress you in richest silks. You then go to dine with the Lord of the Castle, who is a knight of very affable manners and agreeable conversation, but with an aversion to religious topics. His daughter, the fairest lady on the ground, assists at the meal. You are conducted to your chamber, and after a refreshing sleep meet your host and hostess at breakfast. At a suitable time you return thanks for your kind treatment and ask for your horse. The knight, however, in the blandest manner tells you that a little custom of his will interfere with your departure. He is in the habit of fighting with all his guests, and has hitherto been successful in killing them all to the number of several hundred. This is precisely the account which you are fond of settling, and after a few allusions to Mahomed and Termagant and Alcoban, you accept the challenge and, of course, come off victor. This seems to settle the matter for the young lady whom your lance has just promoted to her inheritance, and she immediately offers herself and her estates to you, telling you, at the same time, that she had long been secretly a Christian. Though madly in love with her, and interested in her religious views, which she details to you at some length, you mount your steed and ride away, but without being expected to give any reasons. You have a particular mission nowhere, and on your way to that interesting country you kill a megalosaurus (for whose skeleton Professor Owen would have given his ears), and two or three incidental giants. Riding on, you come to a Paynim-land, ruled over by a liberally-minded Soldan, who receives you into favor after you have slain some thousands of his subjects to get an appetite for dinner. The Soldan, of course, has a daughter, who is converted by you, and, of course, offers you her hand. This makes you think of the other lady, and you diplomatize. But there is another Paynim-land, and another Soldan, who sends word that he intends to marry your beautiful convert.
The embassy of the proud Paynim somehow results in your being imprisoned for seven years, when it suddenly occurs to you that you might as well step out. So you pick up a magic sword that has been shut up with you, knock down the jailers, mount your horse which is waiting at the door, and ride off. Now, or at some other convenient time, you take occasion to go mad for a year or two on account of ladye-love number one. But hearing that ladye-love number two is about to yield to the addresses of her royal suitor, who has killed her father, burned his capital, and put all his subjects to the sword, you make some appropriate theological disquisitions and start to the rescue. On your way you meet a strange knight, join combat with him without any questions on either side, and after a doubtful fight of a day or two, are mutually overcome with amazement at finding anybody who cannot be beaten. Of course it turns out that the strange knight is your father; you join forces, make short work with the amorous Soldan and his giants, and find yourself encumbered with a young lady, a princess too, all of whose relatives and vassals have been slaughtered on your account, and who naturally expects you to share her throne. In a moment of abstraction you consent to the arrangement, and are married by an archbishop in partibus who happens to be on the spot. As your late royal rival has slain all your late father-in-law’s lieges, and you have done the same service for him in turn, there are no adventures left in this part of the world. Luckily, before the wedding-ring is warm on your finger, a plesiosaurus turns up. This saves many disagreeable explanations with the bride, whom you are resolved to have nothing to do with while the other young lady is alive. You settle her comfortably on the throne of her depopulated kingdom, slay the monster, and start for home with your revered parent. There you overcome the usurping Earl, reinstate your father, and assist cheerfully at the burning of your mother for bigamy; your filial piety being less strong than your reverence for the laws of your country. A fairy who has a particular interest in you (and who, it seems, is your real mother, after all—a fact which relieves your mind of any regrets on the score of the late melancholy bonfire), lets you into the secret that ladye-love the first is your own sister. This revives your affection for your wife, and you go back to the kingdom of Gombraunt, find her reduced to extremities by another matrimonial Soldan, whom you incontinently massacre with all his giants, and now at last a prospect of quiet domestic life seems to open. Dull, peaceful days follow, and you begin to take desponding views of life, when your ennui is pleasantly broken in upon by a monster who combines in himself all the monstrosities of heraldic zoölogy. You decapitate him and incautiously put one of his teeth in your boot as a keepsake. A scratch ensues, physicians are in vain, and you die with an edifying piety, deeply regretted by your subjects, if there are any left with their heads on.
On the whole, we may think ourselves happy that we live under somewhat different institutions.