Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/282

262 For the influence of the Astrée was in great measure due to the time at which it appeared. As with Lyly's Euphues, its dynamic was greater than its intrinsic value. The most widely read romance before the appearance of d'Urfé's work was the Amadis of Gaul, the link which connects the heroic romances of the seventeenth century with the otherwise forgotten mediæval epic and romance. The chivalrous tone of the Amadis was fully appreciated by the Hôtel de Rambouillet and Madame de Sévigné; and its popularity was not at once eclipsed by the Astrée. But there was nothing in the Amadis and its imitations to satisfy that demand for a greater refinement of manners and a more ideal conception of love of which the foundation of the Hôtel was an expression, and it was just this which the Astrée supplied.

The chief source of the Astrée was the famous pastoral romance of Jorge de Montemayor of which Mr Hannay has given an account; but it is also indebted to the Aminta, the Pastor Fido, and other Italian pastoral dramas; while the general plan of the work and the chivalrous episodes which d'Urfé, like Sidney, interweaves with the pastoral, derive from the Amadis. The main story of Celadon and Astrée—their love, their misunderstanding and separation, his life of seclusion in the forest and service of Astrée in the disguise of a shepherdess, and the heroic achievement which leads to the recognition—is told in flowing and rhythmical prose, interspersed with poems and interrupted by more than thirty other love-stories. The action proceeds with the leisureliness of the sun