; a relation of events sufficed for him; his own
imagination did the rest, and enlivened the dull-painted canvas with
visions of every colour. The book had as much success as Caxton could
have expected; it was constantly reprinted during the sixteenth century,
and enchanted the contemporaries of Surrey, of Elizabeth, and of
Shakespeare. It was in vain that the serious-minded Ascham condemned
it; it survived his condemnation as the popularity of Robin Hood
survived the sermons of Latimer. Vainly did Ascham denounce "Certaine
bookes of Chevalrie.... as one for example, _Morte Arthure_: the whole
pleasure of whiche booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans
slaughter, & bold bawdrye. In which booke those be counted the noblest
knightes, that do kill most men without any quarell, & commit fowlest
aduoulteres by sutlest shiftes."[26]

When the people became more thoughtful or more exacting in the matter of
analysis, they neglected the old book. After 1634, two hundred years
passed without a reprint of it. In our time it has met with an aftermath
of success, not only among the curious, but among a class of readers who
are not more exacting than Caxton's clients, and who are far more
interested in fact than in feeling. Children form this class of readers;
in the present century Malory's book has been many times re-edited for
them, and it is to Sir Thomas Malory, rather than to Tennyson, Swinburne
or Morris, that many English men and women of to-day owe their earliest
acquaintance with King Arthur and his Knights.

Caxton's example was followed by many; printing presses multiplied, and
with most of them fiction kept its ground. A new life was infused into
old legendary heroes, and they began again, impelled not by the genius
of new writers, but simply by the printer's skill, their never ending
journeys over the world. Their stories were published in England in
small handy volumes, often of a very good appearance, and embellished
with woodcuts. There were prose stories of "Robert the devyll," and
there were verse stories of "Sir Guy of Warwick" and of "Syr Eglamoure
of Artoys." Many of the cuts are extremely picturesque and excellently
suited to the general tone of the story. On the title-page the hero of
the tale usually sits on his horse, and indomitable he looks with his
sword drawn, his plume full spread, his mien defiant. A faithful squire
sometimes follows him, sometimes only his dog; between the feet of the
hor