The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-26

WebbWiu Oi inc once famous aDDey OF Mel
rose, and then within the bishopric of St
Andrews. These battles range from that at
the mouth of the river GLEN to the last and
greatest fight of Mount Badon, in which King
Arthur routed eight hundred and fortv-one
men with his own hand or nine hundred, as
the less circumstantial put it. One account
is as credible as the other.
Such is the outline given by Nennius; and
romance has raised upon it building, the size
and the brilliancy of which dazzle the gazers.
AS the building is as movable as Aladdins
palace-is here to-day, elsewhere tomorrow,
and is, like the great Kings grave, in half-a-
dozen places at once-the seekers for it are
utterly bewildered. Some persons even yield
up belief in Arthur and his hundred shifting
stories altogether, and become faithless to
both reality and romance.
Nennius does not trouble himself or his
readers with dates; but we may remark that
the last of the Romans Ambrosius, whom
Arthur helped to crush the Saxons, went the
way of all flesh at the close of the fifth century
that Uther Pendragon reigued from 500 TO
506; and that during the next six-and-thirty
years Arthur was himself king in this island Of
Britain. This is to be taken as something less
sure than the year-courses of the Georgian era.
At all events, six hundred years later there was
strong belief in the man and in his deeds
Amid all the mist Of romance, and the clouds
built up by fancy, and behind which the
Great One was only iitfully yet grandly seen,
the British people kept firm to their faith in
the bodily being and doing of Arthur. ''It
is of this Arthur, says Malmesbury, in the
book he wrote for the pleasure of his royal
scholar, Robert, Earl of Gloucester-"I is of
this Arthur that the Britons fondly tell so
many fables, even to the present day." but, be
adds that Arthur was "a man worthy to be
celebrated not only by idle fctions, but by
oIrt hTgfs III
only set apart what was feigned from
what was real, as learned folk thought
of both in his own time, we should
all love him ten times more than we do; but
Malmesbury only tells of the great kings
might at Mount Badon. 1t is to be remem-
bered, however, that the monk of Malmesbury
wrote his book for Robert Fitzroy the
learned but not lawful son of Henry the First,
and Earl Robert knew as much about the
prose and the poetry Of Arthur's life as Will
liam himself.
"The sepulchre of Arthur, says Malmes-
bury, ''is nowhere TO be seen, whence ancient
ballads fable that he is still to come That
of Arthus nephew, Walwin, was discovered
on the Welsh coast in the reign of William
the First; but as the monk says that the grave
was fourteen feet long, we may believe that
romance has somewhat stretched it. Be this
as it may, we find how clearly Alalmesbury
saw the truth, touching both uncle and
nephew, when he says, ''Neither Of these men
was inferior to the reputation they have ac-
quired." British poet has upheld Aryhur's
merit in the very spirit of this prose-writer
Hardying tells us that the king was
"Throughout the world approved Of his age
or wit and strength, beauty and largess
or person high above his baronage
And other all of Britain'S vassalage,
BY his shoulders exceeded in longitude
OF all members, full fair in latitude
Writers of both poetry and prose made tall
fellows of all their heroes They would bring
Nelson and Epaminondas from five feet four
to the standard of Arthur and his fourteen
feet of nephew, whose grave was discovered
in Wales The belief in the towering height
of Arthur may have been grounded on fact;
and the passage in the Saint Greale, which
tells Of the grasses and flowers in the hail. is
perhaps but the truth, as it concerns his love
of good smells 1t is wonderful to follow the
British mind in view Of its trust in Arthurs
story 1t was quoted as simple truth in a
petition 10 Henry the Eighth against the
eXactiOns of Friars, Pardoners, and Som
ners 'The noble King Arthur" it says,
had never been able to carry his army to
the foot of the mountains to resist the
coming down of Lucius the Emperor, if such
yearly exactions had been taken of his peo-
pie In a later reign Bacon, after the
king:-"Ihere is truth enough to make him
famous, besides that which is fabulous" but
Bacon lacked leisure or care to set forth the
truth enough, and future searchers will find
hat truth all the harder to be got at The
folklore for the whole story is to be seen in
this, namely, that a Hebrew MS. of the Ro-
nance of the Round Table, translated from
he Spanish exists in the Vatican.
In the latter half of the twelfth century,
writer's disagree as to the year-in digging Il
grave for an obscure monk in the Abbey of
Glastonbury, the diggers came upon that of a
stalwart man, in whose grave yellow-haired
woman lay sleeping herlas sleep. Some words
on the coffin Of the male showed that it con-
tanned all that could die of King Arthur. Ten
marks Of wounds on his body were as good
warrant Of his identity as the words The mute
companion was taken to be Queen Guinevere
Malmesbury, before the remains were disco
vered, speaks of the Kings burial at Glaston-
bury, and later writer's allude to the discovery
as a well-known fact Some think this find
may have been but pious fraud for the
greater glory of the monastery. Others hold
that this find" must have been a true find
that the monks could not have forged story
that could be so easily put to the proof at the
very time. But this is not the boundary of
dispute. The question is, whether there was
ever an Arthur at all, such as he stands before
us in poetry and prose.