the
oldest, and certainly the most interesting, of what seem to be the
genuine Welsh notices of the king--"Not wise is it to seek the grave
of Arthur."

[Sidenote: _Its_ lacunae.]

A few people, perhaps, who read this little book will need to be told
that Geoffrey attributed the new and striking facts which he sprung
upon his contemporaries to a British book which Walter, Archdeacon of
Oxford, had brought out of Armorica: and that not the slightest trace
of this most interesting and important work has ever been found. It is
a thousand pities that it has not survived, inasmuch as it was not
only "a very ancient book in the British tongue," but contained "a
continuous story in an elegant style." However, the inquiry whether
Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, did or did not belong to the ancient
British family of Harris may be left to historians proper. To the
specially literary historian the chief point of interest is first to
notice how little, if Geoffrey really did take his book from "British"
sources, those sources apparently contained of the Arthurian Legend
proper as we now know it. An extension of the fighting with Saxons at
home, and the addition of that with Romans abroad, the Igraine
episode, or rather overture, the doubtless valuable introduction of
Merlin, the treason of Mordred and Guinevere, and the retirement to
Avalon--that is practically all. No Round Table; no knights (though
"Walgan, the king's nephew," is, of course, an early appearance of
Gawain); none of the interesting difficulties about Arthur's
succession: an entire absence of personal characteristics about
Guinevere (even that peculiarity of hers which a French critic has
politely described as her being "very subject to be carried off," and
which already appears in Caradoc, being changed to a commonplace act
of ambitious infidelity with Mordred): and, most remarkable of all, no
Lancelot, and no Holy Grail.

Nevertheless Geoffrey had, as it has been the fashion to say of late
years, "set the heather on fire," and perhaps in no literary instance
on record did the blaze spread and heighten itself with such
extraordinary speed and intensity. His book must have been written a
little before the middle of the twelfth century: by the end thereof
the legend was, except for the embellishments and amplifications which
the Middle Age was always giving, complete.

[Sidenote: _How the Legend grew._]

In the account of its probable origins and growth which f