from which he had to select, and
may not always have included or excluded with equally unerring
judgment.

[Footnote 51: _Le Morte Arthur_ (ed. Furnivall, London, 1864), l. 3400
_sqq._]

[Sidenote: _The Legend becomes dramatic._]

We have seen that in the original story of Geoffrey the treason of
Mordred and the final scenes take place while Arthur is warring
against the Romans, very shortly after he has established his
sovereignty in the Isle of Britain. Walter, or Chrestien, or whoever
it was, saw that such a waste of good romantic material could never be
tolerated. The romance is never--it has not been even in the hands of
its most punctilious modern practitioners--very observant of miserable
_minutiae_ of chronology; and after all, it was reasonable that
Arthur's successes should give him some considerable enjoyment of his
kingdom. It will not do to scrutinise too narrowly, or we should have
to make Arthur a very old man at his death, and Guinevere a lady too
elderly to leave any excuse for her proceedings, in order to
accommodate the birth of Lancelot (which happened, according to the
_Merlin_, after the king came to the throne), the birth of Lancelot's
son Galahad, Galahad's life till even the early age of fifteen, when
knighthood was then given, the Quest of the Sangreal itself, and the
subsequent breaking out of Mordred's rebellion, consequent upon the
war between Lancelot and Arthur after the deaths of Agravain and
Gareth. But the allowance of a golden age of comparatively quiet
sovereignty, of feasts and joustings at Camelot, and Caerleon, and
Carlisle, of adventures major and minor, and of the great Graal-quest,
is but a moderate demand for any romancer to make. At any rate, he or
they made it, and justified the demand amply by the result. The
contents of the central Arthurian story thus elaborated may be divided
into four parts: 1. The miscellaneous adventures of the several
knights, the king himself sometimes taking share in them. 2. Those of
Sir Tristram, of which more presently. 3. The Quest of the Sangreal.
4. The Death of Arthur.

[Sidenote: _Stories of Gawain and other knights._]

Taking these in order, the first, which is the largest in bulk, is
also, and necessarily, the most difficult to summarise in short space.
It is sometimes said that the prominent figure in the earlier stories
is Gawain, who is afterwards by some spite or caprice dethroned in
favour of Lancelot. This is not quite exact,