and Normandy at once suggests that he must have taken a considerable interest in Welsh and Breton legendary lore. It is even possible that it was at his instance that Walter, the archdeacon, and Geoffrey embarked upon the quest which ultimately led to the discovery, real or alleged, of the “book in the British tongue,” and to its translation into Latin. It is obvious that Geoffrey, at any rate, was at pains to produce a work which would please both his immediate patron and all courtly readers who took pride in the growth of the Norman dominion. A plausible, and by no means improbable, explanation of Geoffrey’s motive in compiling the _Historia_ is that he meant it to be a kind of “national epos,” blazoning the united glories of the composite Anglo-Norman “empire” which reached the zenith of its power under Henry II.[72] A book written with such a patriotic purpose would certainly commend itself to Robert of Gloucester and other Norman lords, and would appeal strongly to the imagination of less exalted readers. The _History_ does, indeed, provide in Arthur a hero over whose achievements Norman and Saxon, Welshman and Breton, could all alike exult. Moreover, the common ancestry of the various constituent races of the Angevin empire is shown by an account of their descent from a branch of the great Trojan stock which founded imperial Rome. Brutus, the son of Æneas, stands to Britain in the same relation as Æneas himself stands to Rome, with the exception--and that was, of course, to the advantage of Britain--that Brutus could be claimed as the eponymous hero of this island.[73] Thus--as poets like Wace and Layamon, and certain Welsh chroniclers, who use the name, were quick to see--here was a _Brut_, which, though written in prose, had as good a right to its epic title as the _Æneid_. There is, even, some evidence that Geoffrey may, at one time, have cherished the ambition of emulating Virgil himself by telling his story in verse; for, in the eleventh chapter of his first book, we come across certain elegiac lines which look uncommonly like fragments rescued from a projected poem. Apart, however, from its account of the coming of Brutus, there is little in Geoffrey’s _Brut_ that furnishes any real analogy with the _Æneid_. It is not Brutus, but Arthur, who stands out as the hero of the _Historia Regum Britanniæ_. The _Historia_ covers, altogether, a period--according, of course, to the computation of its author--of some fifteen hundred years; but more than a fifth part of it is devoted to the record of Arthur’s life,--more than twice the space allotted to the history of Brutus. It is upon the story of Arthur that Geoffrey seems to concentrate all his powers, and, by magnifying the continental conquests of the British king, he is able ultimately to point with triumph to the fulfilment of a prophecy that “for the third time should one of British race be born who should claim the empire of Rome.”