o the fashionable idiom of the times, was enriched with
the various, though incoherent, ornaments which were familiar to the
experience, the learning, or the fancy, of the twelfth century. The
progress of a Phrygian colony, from the Tyber to the Thames, was easily
ingrafted on the fable of the AEneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur
derived their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the
Caesars. His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and Imperial
titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent injuries of his
country. The gallantry and superstition of the British hero, his feasts
and tournaments, and the memorable institution of his Knights of the
_Round Table_, were faithfully copied from the reigning manners
of chivalry; and the fabulous exploits of Uther's son appear less
incredible than the adventures which were achieved by the enterprising
valor of the Normans. Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into
Europe the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants,
flying dragons, and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more simple
fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain depended on the art,
or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced and adorned the
popular romance of Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table: their
names were celebrated in Greece and Italy; and the voluminous tales of
Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were devoutly studied by the princes and
nobles, who disregarded the genuine heroes and historians of antiquity.
At length the light of science and reason was rekindled; the talisman
was broken; the visionary fabric melted into air; and by a natural,
though unjust, reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the
present age is inclined to question the _existence_ of Arthur.

Resistance, if it cannot avert, must increase the miseries of conquest;
and conquest has never appeared more dreadful and destructive than in
the hands of the Saxons; who hated the valor of their enemies, disdained
the faith of treaties, and violated, without remorse, the most sacred
objects of the Christian worship. The fields of battle might be traced,
almost in every district, by monuments of bones; the fragments of
falling towers were stained with blood; the last of the Britons, without
distinction of age or sex, was massacred, in the ruins of Anderida; and
the repetition of such calamities was frequent and familiar under the
Saxon heptarchy. The arts and religion, th