se fabulous plants spread their unlikely leaves, and give the sole
and very doubtful clue to the country in which the knight is travelling,
certainly a very desolate and unpleasant one. In this fashion does Duke
Robert of Normandy travel, and so does Eglamoure, and Tryamoure, and
Bevis, and Isumbras. In the same series too is to be seen "Y^e noble
Helyas, Knyght of the Swanne," drawn by the said swan, a somewhat wooden
bird, not very different from his successor of a later age whom we are
accustomed to see swimming across the stage to the accompaniment of
Wagner's famous music.[27]

[Illustration: "Then went Guy to fayre Phelis."

"SIR GUY OF WARWICK," ABOUT 1560.]

The means by which English printers supplied themselves with these
engravings, is a mystery that they have kept to themselves. Many of
the blocks were, very probably, purchased in the Low Countries. A very
few are almost certainly of English manufacture, and among them are
Caxton's illustrations of the Canterbury Tales: on this account we have
given a fac-simile of the most important of them, representing the
pilgrims seated round the table at the "Tabard" prior to starting on
their immortal journey. What is certain is that many of these wood-block
portraits of knights, supplied to the printers by English or Dutch
artists, underwent many successive christenings. The same knight, with
the same squire, the same dog and the same fabulous little wooden plants
between the legs of the horse was sometimes Romulus and sometimes Robert
of Normandy. In one book a rather fine engraving of a lord and a lady in
a garden, represents Guy of Warwick courting "fayre Phelis,"[28] but in
another book the same engraving does duty for "La bel Pucell" and the
knight "Graund Amoure."[29] It may be observed, in passing, that these
romances might be soundly criticized without much study of their
contents by simply inspecting their illustrations. Full as they are of
extraordinary inventions and adventures, unrestricted as their authors
were by considerations of what was possible or real, some dozen
well-chosen engravings seem enough to illustrate any number of them.
For, alas, there is nothing more stale and more subject to repetitions
than these series of extraordinary adventures; all their heroes are the
same hero, and whether he was following the philosophical turn of his
mind, or merely the thrifty orders of his printer, the engraver was well
justified in leaving as he did in m