this ultimately proved correct. On the fact becoming generally known that Tennyson was staying at Caerleon, visitors frequently called upon him, but he endeavoured to maintain his seclusion to the last.... In 1859 the result of Tennyson’s sojourn at ‘Caerwysg’ was seen, when he produced to the world his _Idylls of the King_. Some few of the inhabitants still remember the poet.” Tennyson’s half-dozen allusions to Caerleon are slight, but they do not lack distinctness; the most striking are those semi-descriptive references in _Geraint and Enid_, and in _Balin and Balan_, neither of which could have been so written had not the poet visited the spot. The Caerleon of fancy, not of reality, is described at much greater length and with much higher charm by Lytton. If Tennyson was content with a sweeping reference to the palace and its chambers, Lytton could only be satisfied with a detailed account of the High Council Hall in which was set the king’s ivory throne, and around which gathered “the Deathless Twelve of the Heroic King,” the Knights of the Round Table. He tells how the dragon of the Cymri “spread with calm wing o’er Carduel’s domes of gold,” and how the city lay in a vale, sheltered by the dark forests which mantled the environing hills, while his picture of the daily customs of the people of the city was revealed in the words:-- “Some plied in lusty race the glist’ning oar; Some noiseless snared the silver-scaléd prey; Some wreathed the dance along the level shore; And each was happy in his chosen way.” But this was purely the city of vision. The faint light which history throws upon the dark period of the British occupation shows us that Caerleon was continually given over to warfare of the wildest character. It is associated also in the Fabliaux with the darkest event in Arthur’s personal history--an event in which Mordred eventually acted as Nemesis.