of the Aeneid.  He also printed, with continuations of his own, revisions of several early chronicles, and editions of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate.  A translation of Cicero on Friendship, made directly from the Latin, by Thomas Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, was printed by Caxton, but no edition of a classical author in the original.  The new learning of the Renaissance had not, as yet, taken much hold in England.  Upon the whole the productions of Caxton’s press were mostly of a kind that may be described as mediaeval, and the most important of them, if we except his edition of Chaucer, was that “noble and joyous book,” as Caxton called it, Le Morte Dartur, written by Sir Thomas Malory in 1469, and printed by Caxton in 1485.  This was a compilation from French Arthur romances, and was by far the best English prose that had yet been written.  It may be doubted, indeed, whether, for purposes of simple story telling, the picturesque charm of Malory’s style has been improved upon.  The episode which lends its name to the whole romance, the death of Arthur, is most impressively told, and Tennyson has followed Malory’s narrative closely, even to such details of the scene as the little chapel by the sea, the moonlight, and the answer which Sir Bedwere made the wounded king, when bidden to throw Excalibur into the water, “‘What saw thou there?’ said the king.  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I saw nothing but the waters wap and the waves wan.’”

  I heard the ripple washing in the reeds
  And the wild water lapping on the crag.

And very touching and beautiful is the oft-quoted lament of Sir Ector over Launcelot, in Malory’s final chapter:  “‘Ah, Launcelot,’ he said, ‘thou were head of all Christian knights; and now I dare say,’ said Sir Ector, ’thou, Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that thou were never matched of earthly knight’s hand; and thou were the courtiest knight that ever bare shield; and thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse; and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou were the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and thou were the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; and thou were the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest.’”

Equally good, as an example of English prose narrative, was the translation made by John Bourchier, Lord Berners, of that most brilliant of the French chroniclers, Chaucer’s contemporary, Sir John Froissart.  Lord Berners was the English governor of Calais, and his version of Froissart’s Chronicles was made in 1523-1525, at the request of Henry VIII.  In these two books English chivalry spoke its last genuine word.  In Sir Philip Sidney the character of the knight was merged into that of the modern gentleman.  And although tournaments were still held in the reign of Elizabeth, and Spenser cast his Faerie Queene