The former will be found in English at pp. 1, 2, of our Translation; but we give a part of the original below[14] for comparison with the preamble to the Romances of Meliadus, Tristan, and Lancelot, as taken from MS. 6961 (Fr. 340) of the Paris Library:—­

“Seigneurs Empereurs et Princes, Ducs et Contes et Barons et Chevaliers et Vavasseurs et Bourgeois, et tous les preudommes de cestui monde qui avez talent de vous deliter en rommans, si prenez cestui (livre) et le faites lire de chief en chief, si orrez toutes les grans aventure qui advindrent entre les Chevaliers errans du temps au Roy Uter Pendragon, jusques a le temps au Roy Artus son fils, et des compaignons de la Table Ronde.  Et sachiez tout vraiment que cist livres fust translatez du livre Monseigneur Edouart le Roy d’Engleterre en cellui temps qu’il passa oultre la mer au service nostre Seigneur Damedieu pour conquester le Sant Sepulcre, et Maistre Rusticiens de Pise, lequel est ymaginez yci dessus,[15] compila ce rommant, car il en translata toutes les merveilleuses nouvelles et aventures qu’il trouva en celle livre et traita tout certainement de toutes les aventures du monde, et si sachiez qu’il traitera plus de Monseigneur Lancelot du Lac, et Mons’r Tristan le fils au Roy Meliadus de Leonnoie que d’autres, porcequ’ilz furent sans faille les meilleurs chevaliers qui a ce temps furent en terre; et li Maistres en dira de ces deux pluseurs choses et pluseurs nouvelles que l’en treuvera escript en tous les autres livres; et porce que le Maistres les trouva escript au Livre d’Engleterre.”

[Illustration:  Palazzo di S Giorgio Genoa]

“Certainly,” Paulin Paris observes, “there is a singular analogy between these two prefaces.  And it must be remarked that the formula is not an ordinary one with translators, compilers, or authors of the 13th and 14th centuries.  Perhaps you would not find a single other example of it."[16]

This seems to place beyond question the identity of the Romance-compiler of Prince Edward’s suite in 1270, and the Prisoner of Genoa in 1298.

[Sidenote:  Further particulars concerning Rustician.]

42.  In Dunlop’s History of Fiction a passage is quoted from the preamble of Meliadus, as set forth in the Paris printed edition of 1528, which gives us to understand that Rusticien de Pise had received as a reward for some of his compositions from King Henry III. the prodigal gift of two chateaux.  I gather, however, from passages in the work of Paulin Paris that this must certainly be one of those confusions of persons to which I have referred before, and that the recipient of the chateaux was in reality Helye de Borron, the author of some of the originals which Rustician manipulated.[17] This supposed incident in Rustician’s scanty history must therefore be given up.