ATTRACTIONS OF THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND. DISCUSSIONS ON THEIR SOURCES. THE PERSONALITY OF ARTHUR. THE FOUR WITNESSES. THEIR TESTIMONY. THE VERSION OF GEOFFREY. ITS LACUNAE. HOW THE LEGEND GREW. WACE. LAYAMON. THE ROMANCES PROPER. WALTER MAP. ROBERT DE BORRON. CHRESTIEN DE TROYES. PROSE OR VERSE FIRST? A LATIN GRAAL-BOOK. THE MABINOGION. THE LEGEND ITSELF. THE STORY OF JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. MERLIN. LANCELOT. THE LEGEND BECOMES DRAMATIC. STORIES OF GAWAIN AND OTHER KNIGHTS. SIR TRISTRAM. HIS STORY ALMOST CERTAINLY CELTIC. SIR LANCELOT. THE MINOR KNIGHTS. ARTHUR. GUINEVERE. THE GRAAL. HOW IT PERFECTS THE STORY. NATURE OF THIS PERFECTION. NO SEQUEL POSSIBLE. LATIN EPISODES. THE LEGEND AS A WHOLE. THE THEORIES OF ITS ORIGIN. CELTIC. FRENCH. ENGLISH. LITERARY. THE CELTIC THEORY. THE FRENCH CLAIMS. THE THEORY OF GENERAL LITERARY GROWTH. THE ENGLISH OR ANGLO-NORMAN PRETENSIONS. ATTEMPTED HYPOTHESIS. [Sidenote: _Attractions of the Arthurian Legend._] To English readers, and perhaps not to English readers only, the middle division of the three great romance-subjects[43] ought to be of far higher interest than the others; and that not merely, even in the English case, for reasons of local patriotism. The mediaeval versions of classical story, though attractive to the highest degree as evidence of the extraordinary plastic power of the period, which could transform all art to its own image and guise, and though not destitute of individual charm here and there, must always be mainly curiosities. The cycle of Charlemagne, a genuine growth and not merely an incrustation or transformation, illustrated, moreover, by particular examples of the highest merit, is exposed on the one hand to the charge of a certain monotony, and on the other to the objection that, beautiful as it is, it is dead. For centuries, except in a few deliberate literary exercises, the king _a la barbe florie_ has inspired no modern singer--his _geste_ is extinct. But the Legend of Arthur, the latest to take definite form of the three, has shown by far the greatest vitality. From generation to generation it has taken new forms, inspired new poetries. The very latest of the centuries has been the most prolific in contributions of any since the end of the Middle Ages; and there is no sufficient reason why the lineage should ever stop. For while the romance of antiquity is a mere "sport," an accident of time and circumstance, the _chanson de geste_, majestic and interesting as it is, representative as it is to a certain extent of a nation and a language, has the capital defect of not being adaptable. Having little or no allegorical capacity, little "soul," so to speak, it was left by the tide of time on the shores thereof without much hope of floating and living again. The Arthurian Legend, if not from the very first, yet from the first moment when it assumed