It may perhaps seem to some readers that too much praise has been given to that romance itself. Far as we are, not merely from Ascham's days, but from those in which the excellent Dunlop was bound to confess that "they [the romances of the Round Table] will be found extremely defective in those points which have been laid down as constituting excellence in fictitious narrative," that they are "improbable," full of "glaring anachronisms and geographical blunders," "not well shaded and distinguished in character," possessing heroines such as "the mistresses of Tristan and Lancelot" [may God assoil Dunlop!] who are "women of abandoned character," "highly reprehensible in their moral tendency," "equalled by the most insipid romance of the present day as a fund of amusement." In those days even Scott thought it prudent to limit his praise of Malory's book to the statement that "it is written in pure old English, and many of the wild adventures which it contains are told with a simplicity bordering on the sublime." Of Malory--thanks to the charms of his own book in the editions of Southey, of the two editors in 12mo, of Wright and of Sir Edward Strachey, not to mention the recent and stately issues given by Dr Sommer and Professor Rhys--a better idea has long prevailed, though there are some gainsayers. But of the originals, and of the Legend as a whole, the knowledge is too much limited to those who see in that legend only an opportunity for discussing texts and dates, origins and national claims. Its extraordinary beauty, and the genius which at some time or other, in one brain or in many, developed it from the extremely meagre materials which are all that can be certainly traced, too often escape attention altogether, and have hardly, I think, in a single instance obtained full recognition. [Sidenote: _The theories of its origin._] Yet however exaggerated the attention to the _Quellen_ may have been, however inadequate the attention to the actual literary result, it would be a failure in duty towards the reader, and disrespectful to those scholars who, if not always in the most excellent way, have contributed vastly to our knowledge of the subject, to finish this chapter without giving something on the question of origins itself. I shall therefore conclude it with a brief sketch of the chief opinions on the subject, and with an indication of those to which many years' reading have inclined myself. The theories, not to give them one by one as set forth by individual writers, are in the main as follows:-- [Sidenote: _Celtic._] I. That the Legend is, not merely in its first inception, but in main bulk, Celtic, either (_a_) Welsh or (_b_) Armorican. [Sidenote: _French._] II. That it is, except in the mere names and the vaguest outline, French. [Sidenote: _English._] III. That it is English, or at least Anglo-Norman. [Sidenote: _Literary._]