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hit. . . . And whan the holy grayle had be borne thurgh the halle thenne the holy vessel departed sodenly, that they wyste not where hit becam : thenne had they alle brethe to speke.'

So we climbed the hill and presently stood within the beautiful hall with its glorious black marble pillars, sole remnant of the ancient stronghold. The round table (barbarously painted) now hangs upon the western wall, but it needed little imagination to picture it set down in the midst, covered with a fair linen cloth ('the Kynge yede unto the syege Peryllous and lyfte vp the clothe, and fonde there the name of Galahad'), and on it set rich flagons and dishes, strangely wrought and worked with precious stones, and all about the table the famous knights in costumes strange to our eyes. . . . Launcelot upon the king's left,1 now glancing with fatherly pride upon the youthful Galahad (occupying the Siege Perilous), now smiling up at Queen Guenevere seated in the gallery with her maidens . . . . the walls hung with coarse dull-red cloth and bundles of sweetsmelling herbs hanging here and there, the floor strewn with fresh green rushes, gathered early that morning in the meadows below. . . . by the king's side a snow-white brachet, a golden collar about its neck . . . . and so on and so on. Imagination forsooth! He must be dull indeed

1 As the table is painted at present, S. Galahallt' is upon the King's immediate left.

who, reading the book and standing within the hall, cannot picture the scene for himself.

It is useless to declaim that the great hall of the castle was not completed until the time of Henry the Third, that it did not exist at all before the Norman Conquest, that the castle occupied by King Arthur is more likely to have been on the site of the more ancient one which stood near the river (now known as Wolvesey), and that the great round table (eighteen feet in diameter, of stout old English oak, cunningly bolted together) was made during the former king's reign and was never used by Arthur at all. What are such crude exactitudes to us? As well object to the heavy plate-armour worn by the knights-everybody knows this to be an anachronism of nigh a thousand years. Romance and scientific data are as far apart as the poles, and none but a fool would try to reconcile them. King Arthur feasted in the castle hall, says Malory, and so far as we are concerned he shall feast there as often and as long as he likes.

There is a romance, too, about the name of this older castle. Wolvesey its scanty ruins are called to-day, and the antiquarians tell us that this was originally WULF'S EY, or 'the wolf's isle.' Was it once the scene of a battue by the young bloods of the tribe to drive out some wolves that had established themselves there, a fierce fight with axes and spears at close quarters

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whilst the rest of the tribe lined the opposite banks and prevented any escape? Or was it the scene of some homeric combat seul á seul ? Perhaps some day a wolf's skull will be dug up there, with a stone axe sticking in it. But the history of it has gone for ever, had gone, probably, long centuries before King Kynegils found it a strong site for his castle.

It was at Wolvesey that King Alfred himself is said to have penned some part of the Saxon Chronicle now treasured in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was a true booklover, this great English king, and it is to the school of illuminators which arose later in the 'new minster' by St. Swithun's that we, are indebted for some of the most beautiful examples of medieval art that have come down to us. The Golden Book of Edgar, Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History' in the Cathedral library-and the exquisitely illuminated 'benedictional' of St. Æthelwold possessed by the Duke of Devonshire, all these were produced before the end of the tenth century by the artists who laboured so patiently in the Scriptorium beside those peaceful meadows. For two centuries the Winchester school of illuminators was renowned throughout the western world.

It is a pleasant spot, this ancient city of Camelot, and we like to read that among the aldermen who assembled at the Tun Moot in

bygone days were a pinder, a mole-catcher, and an ale-conner. A stout fellow, this last, for without his permission not a single barrel of beer could be broached. The business transacted at the Moot, we are told, was little more than to receive taxes, provide for the defence of the city, and settle disputes. After which the aldermen (with the permission of the ale-conner, it is to be presumed) proceeded to consume the ale allowed to them by custom immemorial at the rate of two gallons a man at each sitting. O tempora, O mores!

At one time, however, that kill-joy Edgar came near to causing an insurrection, for he ordained that all drinking-horns should have pegs set in them at regular intervals and that no man might drink below his peg. Thus were practically abolished those friendly drinking-bouts between Danes and English that did so much to rid the town of its northern intruders. Floreat Wintonia, and may it stand for ever to booklovers and lovers of romance as the ideal of all that is knightly and kingly and romantic-and hospitable.

It is to be feared, however, that the Spirit of Romance is now moribund-if, indeed, it has not already passed away; and with it we are losing one of the most ennobling qualities in our nature. We pride ourselves nowadays in living in a ' matter-of-fact' age, by which we mean a;

practical, unromantic age.

But is it a matter for so much pride after all? Granted that the benefits which have accrued to mankind during the past century and a half are worth all the Romance in the world; but is the relegation of Romance to the domain of History a sine qua non so far as progress is concerned? In our haste to get on we have tried to drive Romance and Progress in tandem, with steady-going Progress in the shafts; but having found that together they need skilful handling, we have unharnessed the leader and hitched him on behind, to be dragged along anyhow in our wake.

There must be many who regard the loss of romantic ideals as a matter for more than passing regret. Reverence, too, not only for our elders and betters but even for the great works of our predecessors, is going the way of its cousin, Romance. Recently, rambling over the Hampshire downs, we toiled up the grassy bosom of this rolling land to a still loftier height whence on a clear day the Isle of Wight, nigh thirty miles away, can be distinguished. As we neared the top a mound came into view, one of those unmistakable monuments raised o'er the graves of the great chieftains of our ancient race. was a most impressive spot, the highest point for many miles round, and we wondered who he was that lay there in solemn majesty keeping watch through the long centuries over the land that once

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