Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/61

Rh by those into whose hands the manuscripts might happen to fall. Metrical versions were then given; and their popularity soon induced the narrators to step out of their immediate walk of martyrdom, to raise the standard of chivalry in the persons of Brute, Alexander, Charlemagne, and the rest. Let it be observed, that all these stories are of a similar cast; the Lives of the Saints, some how or other, are always connected with the fictions of every hero of chivalry. They invariably work marvels in behalf of their votaries; they bequeath relics of surprizing power—or they appear in dreams; or the utterance of their mighty names counteracts the potency of magical delusions, &c. &c. while the hero himself, treading in the steps of his canonized precursor, becomes a distinguished religieux; and at last takes his place in the calendar "a very, very ."