turns on matters of sheer opinion, in
regard to which language only appropriate to matters of sheer
knowledge is too often used. The candid inquirer, informed that Mr, or
M., or Herr So-and-so, has "proved" such and such a thing in such and
such a book or dissertation, turns to the text, to find to his
grievous disappointment that nothing is "proved"--but that more or
less probable arguments are advanced with less or more temper against
or in favour of this or that hypothesis. Even the dates of MSS., which
in all such cases must be regarded as the primary data, are very
rarely _data_ at all, but only (to coin, or rather adapt, a
much-needed term) _speculata_. And the matter is further complicated
by the facts that extremely few scholars possess equal and adequate
knowledge of Celtic, English, French, German, and Latin, and that the
best palaeographers are by no means always the best literary critics.

Where every one who has handled the subject has had to confess, or
should have confessed, imperfect equipment in one or more respects,
there is no shame in confessing one's own shortcomings. I cannot speak
as a Celtic scholar; and I do not pretend to have examined MSS. But
for a good many years I have been familiar with the printed texts and
documents in Latin, English, French, and German, and I believe that I
have not neglected any important modern discussions of the subject.
To have no Celtic is the less disqualification in that all the most
qualified Celtic scholars themselves admit, however highly they may
rate the presence of the Celtic element in spirit, that no texts of
the legend in its romantic form at present existing in the Celtic
tongues are really ancient. And it is understood that there is now
very little left unprinted that can throw much light on the general
question. I shall therefore endeavour, without entering into
discussions on minor points which would be unsuitable to the book, to
give what seems to me the most probable view of the case, corrected by
(though not by any means adjusted in a hopeless zigzag of deference
to) the various authorities, from Ritson to Professor Rhys, from
Paulin Paris to M. Loth, and from San Marte to Drs Foerster and Zimmer.

The first and the most important thing--a thing which has been by no
means always or often done--is to keep the question of Arthur apart
from the question of the Arthurian Legend.

[Sidenote: _The personality of Arthur._]

That there was no such a p