Now asking you, as I pass, to remember that I have selected this extract, like the others, with the further purpose of presently contrasting the _substance_ of it with modern utterances, as well as the _form_ which we are now mainly concerned--if we cut short this search after artistic prose in our earlier literature, and come down at once to the very earliest sign of a true feeling for the musical movement of prose sentences, we are met by the fact, which I hope to show is full of fruitful suggestions upon our present studies, that the art of English prose is at least eight hundred years younger than the art of English verse. For, in coming down our literature from Cædmon--whom, in some conflict of dates, we can safely place at 670--the very first writer I find who shows a sense of the rhythmical flow and gracious music of which our prose is so richly capable, is Sir Thomas Malory; and his one work, _The History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table_, dates 1469-70, exactly eight hundred years after Cædmon's poetic outburst. Recalling our extracts just read, and remembering how ungainly and awkward was the sport of their sentences, listen for a moment to a few lines from Sir Thomas Malory. I think the most unmusical ear, the most cursory attention, cannot fail to discern immediately how much more flowing and smooth is the movement of this. I read from the fifth chapter of King Arthur. "And King Arthur was passing wrath for the hurt of Sir Griflet. And by and by he commanded a man of his chamber that his best horse and armor be without the city on to-morrow-day. Right so in the morning he met with his man and his horse, and so mounted up and dressed his shield, and took his spear, and bade his chamberlain tarry there till he came again." Presently he meets Merlin and they go on together. "So as they went thus talking, they came to the fountain and the rich pavilion by it. Then King Arthur was ware where a knight sat all armed in a chair. 'Sir Knight,' said King Arthur, 'for what cause abidest thou here? that there may no knight ride this way but if he do joust with thee?' said the King. 'I rede thee leave that custom,' said King Arthur. 'This custom,' said the knight, 'have I used and will use, maugre who saith nay; and who is grieved with my custom, let him amend it that will.' 'I will amend it,' said King Arthur, 'And I shall defend it,' said the knight." (Observe _will_ and _shall_ here).