Lastly, the moderate use of archaisms has always been deemed admissible in a narrative poem of some length, and rather perhaps an ornament than a defect, where the action of the poem is laid in remote antiquity. And I may add that not only the revival of old, but the invention of new words, if sparingly resorted to, is among the least contestable of poetic licences--a licence freely recognized by Horace, elaborately maintained by Dryden, and tacitly sanctioned, age after age, by the practice of every poet by whom our language has been enriched. I have certainly not abused either of these privileges, for while I have only adopted three new words of foreign derivation, I do not think there are a dozen words in the whole poem which can be considered archaisms: and in the three or four instances in which such words are not to be found in Milton, Shakspere, or Spenser, they are taken from the Saxon element of our language, and are still popularly used in the northern parts of the island, in which that Saxon element is more tenaciously preserved. If these matters do not seem to the reader of much importance, in reference to a poem of this design and extent, I will own to him confidentially, that I incline to his opinion. But I have met with no objections to the general composition of this work, more serious than those to which the above remarks are intended to reply. Some objections to special lines or stanzas which appeared to me prompted by a juster criticism, or which occurred to myself in reperusal, I have carefully endeavoured in this edition to remove. BOOK I. ARGUMENT. Opening--King Arthur keeps holiday in the Vale of Carduel--Pastimes-- Arthur's sentiments on life, love, and mortal change--The strange apparition--The King follows the Phantom into the forest--His return-- The discomfiture of his knights--the Court disperses--Night--The restless King ascends his battlements--His soliloquy--He is attracted by the light from the Wizard's tower--Merlin described--The King's narrative--The Enchanter's invocation--Morning--The Tilt-yard--Sports, knightly and national--Merlin's address to Arthur--The Three Labours enjoined--Arthur departs from Carduel--His absence explained by Merlin to the Council--Description of Arthur's three friends, Caradoc, Gawaine, and Lancelot--The especial love between Arthur and the last--Lancelot encounters Arthur--The parting of the friends. Our land's first legends, love and knightly deeds, 1 And wondrous Merlin, and his wandering King, The triple labour, and the glorious meeds Sought in the world of Fable-land, I sing: Go forth, O Song, amidst the banks of old, And glide translucent over sands of gold.