olume he called the "Morte d'Arthur," an excellent
specimen of a chivalric romance, which was printed by Caxton in 1485,
and has since appeared in many editions down to the present day.

The influence of the supernatural appears in the very beginning of the
"Morte d'Arthur," and throughout we trace its controlling effect upon
the incidents of the story. It is by the help of Merlin's magic that
King Uther Pendragon slays the Duke of Cornwall, and assuming the
likeness of his rival, obtains possession of his wife Igraine, "a faire
ladye, and a passing wyse," from which union Arthur is born. On the
death of Uther, when the chief nobles and knights are summoned to
London by the Archbishop of Canterbury to choose a new king, it is
Merlin's art which discovers to them a sword imbedded in a great rock
in the churchyard of St. Paul's bearing the inscription: "Whoso pulleth
this sword out of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all
England"; and it is by the same supernatural aid that the stripling
Arthur, whose birth is unknown, fulfils the task which all had essayed
in vain. By the friendly influence of Merlin, Arthur receives his
famous sword Excalibur from the hands of the Lady of the Lake, with the
scabbard whose wearer can lose no blood; he defeats with great
slaughter the hosts of the eleven kings who dispute his throne; and
obtains in marriage the celebrated Guenever, who brings him in dowry
the Table Round. But Merlin, who could do so much for others, had the
power only to foresee, and not to avert, his own impending fate.
Enamoured of a fickle damsel, who soon tires of his love, the great
enchanter discloses his secrets to her, and with a sad farewell and
final advice to Arthur, he suffers himself to be imprisoned forever in
the rock which his own magic had wrought, by the spell which he had
intrusted to his treacherous mistress. The friendly arts of Merlin are
succeeded by the machinations of the malicious fairy Morgana, and the
watchful care of the the Lady of the Lake. To excite the childlike
wonder of his readers, the romancer turns knights to stone, or makes
them invisible; he introduces enchanted castles, vessels that steer
themselves, and the miraculous properties of the Saint Greal, Arthur
and Tristram fight with dragons and giants. The loves of Tristram and
Isoud arise from the drinking of an amorous potion. The chastity of
knight and damsel is determined by the magic horn, whose liquor the
innocent