In illustration of this subject, it may be proper to introduce a passage from Strutt’s View of Manners and Customs, in which he justly remarks, “That all these warlike games--such as those of the round-table, and tilts, and tournaments--are by historians too often confounded together. They were, nevertheless, _different_ games, as appears from the authority of Matthew Paris, who writes thus--Non in hastiludio illo quod vulgariter torneamentum dicitur, sed potius in illo ludo militari, qui _mensa rotunda_ dicitur--‘Not in the tilts which we commonly call tournaments, but rather in that military game called the _round-table_.’ The first was the tilting, or running at each other with lances; the second, probably, was the same with that ancient sport called _barriers_, from the old French _barres_ or _jeu de barres_, a martial game of men armed, and fighting together with short swords within certain limits or _lists_, whereby they were severed from the spectators; and this fighting without lances distinguished the barriers, or _round-table knights_, from the other.” (Vide also Warner’s Illustrations, critical and historical, vol. i. p. 255.) This splendid exhibition at <g>Kenilworth</g> was succeeded by the revival of the round-table at Windsor; and “so great was the concourse that flocked from all the countries of Europe--and particularly from France--to reap the laurels of chivalry in the court of Edward, that Philip de Valois, the French monarch, either stimulated by envy, or fearful that his own palace would be deserted by the flower of his nobility, instituted a _round-table_ in his kingdom also. “The tournaments of this magnificent reign,” observes Warton, “were constantly crowded with ladies of the first distinction, who sometimes attended them on horseback, armed with daggers, and dressed in a succinct soldier-like habit or uniform, made expressly for the purpose.” “But this practice,” says Warren, on the testimony of Knyghton, “was at length deemed scandalous,” or at least very unfeminine. <g>The Hall</g>, in which were held so many splendid reunions and banquets, is still magnificent in decay. Its proportions are ninety feet in length, forty-five [Illustration]