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THE ROYAL ROAD OF FICTION.
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eth in two speciall poyntes, in open manslaughter and bolde bawdrye." The beautiful old stories, so simply and reverently handled by Sir Thomas Malory in the "Morte d' Arthur," were regarded with horror and aversion by this gentle ascetic; yet the lessons that they taught were mainly "curtosye, humanyte, friendlynesse, hardynesse and love." The valorous deeds of Guy of Warwick and Thomas of Reading lent cheer to many a hearth, and sent many a man with brave and joyous heart to battle; yet the saintly Stubbes, who loved not joyousness, lamented loudly that the unregenerate persisted in reading such "toys, fantasies and babbleries," in place of that more dolorous fiction, Fox's "Book of Martyrs." Even Sir Philip Sidney's innocent "Arcadia" was pronounced by Milton a "vain, amatorious" book; and the great poet who wrote "Comus" and "L' Allegro" harshly and bitterly censured King Charles because that unhappy monarch beguiled the sad hours of prison with its charming pages, and even, oh! crowning offense against Puritanism! copied for spiritual comfort, when condemned to die, the beautiful and reverent invocation of its