It is, in general conception, pure _Amadis_ of the later and slightly degraded type.

Laurana, the heroine (of whom a peculiarly hideous portrait adorns the black-letter editions side by side with Parismus himself, who is rather a "jolly gentleman") is won with much less difficulty and in much less time than Oriana--but separations and difficulties duly follow in "desolate isles" and the like.

And though Parismus himself is less of an Amadis than Amadis, the "contrast of friends," founded by that hero and Galaor, is kept up by his association with a certain Pollipus--"a man of his hands" if ever there was one, for with them he literally wrings the neck of the enchantress Bellona, who has enticed him to embrace her.

There is plenty of the book, as there always should be in its kind (between 400 and 500 very closely printed quarto pages), and its bulk is composed of proportionately plentiful fighting and love-making and of a very much smaller proportion of what schoolboys irreverently call "jaw" than is usual in the class.

If it were not for the black letter (which is trying to the eyes) I should not myself object to have no other reading than _Parismus_ for some holiday evenings, or even after pretty tough days of literary and professional work.