But no references are given as to where this supposed assertion by ‘Leland and others’ is to be found; in fact, it is not to be found in any of Leland’s writings. And the origin of the statement remained an unexplained puzzle, until Dr. Sommer has now apparently discovered the key to it in a passage which he quotes from Bale’s _Illustrium Maioris Britanniæ Scriptorum_, &c., first edition, folio 208. In this passage, Bale, after praising Thomas Mailorius and his history of King Arthur, goes on to say, ‘_Est Mailoria in finibus Cambriæ regio_,’ on the authority of Leland[23]. I have not myself verified these references, but I infer from what Dr. Sommer tells us, that Bale, perhaps writing from an imperfect recollection, supposed that he had the authority of Leland for a connection between Mailorius, and the Welsh place of the like name: and then the writer of the _Biographia Britannica_, still more inaccurately, converted the possible suggestion of Bale into the direct statement that Leland had asserted Malory to be a Welshman, while Bale himself is referred to as ‘the others.’ Nor is there any reason to suppose from Malory’s own book that he was a Welshman. Though Caxton tells us that there were books in Welsh about Arthur and his Knights, Malory never quotes any but the French and English books. He shows no acquaintance with Welsh legends or traditions, unless it be with those in Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote in Latin, nor of any local knowledge of Welsh places. Then as to the fanciful and inconsequent conjecture that he was a priest, he himself tells us that he was a knight, and thus implies that he was not a priest, while the words that ‘he is the servant of Jesu by day and by night,’ which suggested the notion that he was a priest, are evidently put into that form in order to give a rhythmical ending to the book. Nor did the priest’s usual title of ‘Sir’ make him a knight. What we may say of Sir Thomas Malory is that he was probably of an old English family: that he was a knight both in rank and in temper and spirit, and a lover alike of the gentle and the soldierly virtues of knighthood. He was a man of genius, and a devout Christian: he wrote for gentlewomen as well as gentlemen, believing that they would read his book ‘from the beginning to the ending,’ and that it would call forth in them a sympathy which would properly express itself in prayers for the pious writer. WILLIAM CAXTON.