Arthur and Charlemagne are the first and original heroes of Romance. And as Geoffrey’s history is the grand repository of the acts of Arthur, so a fabulous history ascribed to Turpin is the ground work of all the chimerical legends which have been related concerning the conquests of Charlemagne and his twelve Peers. In these two fabulous chronicles the foundations of romance seem to be laid. The principal characters, the leading subjects, and the fundamental fictions which have supplied such ample matter to this singular species of composition, are here first displayed. And although the long continuance of the Crusades imported innumerable inventions of a similar complexion, and substituted the achievements of new champions, and the wonders of other countries, yet the tales of Arthur and Charlemagne, diversified indeed, or enlarged with additional embellishments, still continued to prevail, and to be the favourite topics; and this, partly from their early popularity, partly from the quantity and the beauty of the fictions with which they were at first supported, and especially because the design of the Crusades had made those subjects so fashionable in which Christians fought with Infidels. In a word these volumes are the first specimens extant in this mode of writing. No European history before these has mentioned giants, enchanters, dragons, and the like monstrous and arbitrary fictions. And the reason is obvious; they were written at a time when a new and unnatural mode of thinking took place in Europe, introduced by our communication with the East. Geoffrey, in his chronicle, gives a genealogy of the kings of Britain, from the days of Brutus, including a list of seventy monarchs, who governed this island, previously to the invasion of Julius Cæsar. This list is very distinct and plain, but bears so many marks of invention, either of himself, or of the author, from whom he translated his chronicle, that it has long since been treated as a mere fiction. With respect to the story of Brutus, the bishop of St. Asaph is of opinion, that this forgery was intended to pass off the English kings, as being as nobly descended as the kings of other nations, by drawing their descent from the Trojans, according to the belief of the age in which the author lived. Sir William Temple, in his introduction to the History of England, (p. 19.) accounts the story of Brutus, as a fabulous invention. Bishop Nicolson (Hist. Libr. p. 37.) says, that the best defence that can be made for Geoffrey’s history, is that which was written by Sir John Price, and published at London, in quarto, in 1573, under the title of _Historiæ Britannicæ Defensio_. This was dedicated by the author, to Lord Burleigh. (See Herbert’s Ames, vol. 2. p. 935, 1056.)