se or at
least Hamiltonise things sometimes too good for that kind of treatment,
was a very clever man indeed. For somewhat full abstract and translation
we may take one of the most famous, but perhaps not one of the most
generally and thoroughly known, _Partenopeus_ (or -_pex_[59]) _of
Blois_, which, though it exists in English, and though the French was
very probably written by an Englishman, is not now one of the most
widely read and is in parts very charming. That it is one of the
romances on which, from the fact of the resemblance of its central
incident to the story of Cupid and Psyche, the good defenders of the bad
theory of the classical origin of romance generally have based one of
their few plausible arguments, need not occupy us. For the question is
not whether Denis Pyramus or any one else (modernity would not be
modernity if his claims were not challenged) told it, but _how_ he told
it. Still less need we treat the other question before indicated. Here
is one of the central stories of the world--one of those which Eve told
to her children in virtue of the knowledge communicated by the apple,
one with which the sons of God courted the daughters of men, or, at
latest, one of those which were yarned in the Ark. It is the story of
the unwise lover--in this case the man, not as in Psyche's the
woman--who will not be content to enjoy an unseen, but by every other
sense enjoyable and adorable love, even though (in this case) the single
deprivation is expressly to be terminated. We have it, of course, in all
sorts of forms, languages, and differing conditions. But we are only
concerned with it here as with a gracious example of that kind of
romance which, though not exactly a "fairy tale" in the Western sense,
is pretty obviously influenced by the Eastern fairy tale itself, and
still more obviously influences the modern kind in which "the
supernatural" is definitely prominent.

It was perhaps excusable in the good M. Robert, who wrote the
Introduction to Crapelet's edition of this poem eighty years ago, to
"protest too much" in favour of the author whom he was now presenting
practically for the first time--to a changed audience; but it was
unnecessary and a little unfortunate. Except in one point or group of
points, it is vain to try to put _Partenopeus_ above _Cupid and
Psyche_: but it can perfectly well stand by itself in its own place, and
that no low one. Except in _Floire et Blanchefleur_ and of course in
_Au