hirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries_. Its differences
from the French original are, however, very well worth noting. That it
only extends to about eight thousand octosyllabic lines instead of
some twenty thousand Alexandrines is enough to show that a good deal
is omitted; and an indication in some little detail of its contents
may therefore not be without interest. It should be observed that
besides this and the Scots _Alexander_ (see note above) an
alliterative _Romance of Alexander and Dindymus_[80] exists, and
perhaps others. But until some one supplements Mr Ward's admirable
_Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum_ with a similar catalogue
for the minor libraries of the United Kingdom, it will be very
difficult to give complete accounts of matters of this kind.

[Footnote 80: E.E.T.S., 1878, edited by Professor Skeat.]

Our present poem may be of the thirteenth century, and is pretty
certainly not long posterior to it. It begins, after the system of
English romances, with a kind of moral prologue on the various lives
and states of men of "Middelerd." Those who care for good literature
and good learning are invited to hear a noble _geste_ of Alisaundre,
Darye, and Pore, with wonders of worm and beast. After a geographical
prologue the story of Nectanabus, "Neptanabus," is opened, and his
determination to revenge himself on Philip of Macedon explained by the
fact of that king having headed the combination against Egypt. The
design on Olympias, and its success, are very fully expounded.
Nectanabus tells the queen, in his first interview with her, "a high
master in Egypt I was"; and about eight hundred lines carry us to the
death of Nectanabus and the breaking of "Bursifal" (Bucephalus) by the
Prince. The episodes of Nicolas (who is here King of Carthage) and of
Cleopatra follow; but when the expedition against Darius is reached,
the mention of "Lube" in the French text seems to have induced the
English poet to carry his man by Tripoli, instead of Cilicia, and
bring him to the oracle of Ammon--indeed in all the later versions of
the story the crossing of the purely fantastic Callisthenic romance
with more or less historical matter is noticeable. The "Bishop" of
Ammon, by the way, assures him that Philip is really his father. The
insulting presents follow the siege of Tyre; the fighting with Darius,
though of course much mediaevalised, is brought somewhat more into
accordance with the historic account, t