< [his history] will never displease a soldier.' Ad Calc. The Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadia, edit. 1638, p. 558. Caxton's recommendation of this book to the knights of England, conveys a curious picture of the times*. "O ye Knyghts of Englond! where ' is the custom and usage of noble chyvalry that was usid in those dayes? What do you now but go to the baynes, [baths], and play at dyse? And some not well advised, use not honest and good rule, agayn all order of knighthood. 'Leve this, leve it: And rede the noble volumes of Saynt Greal of Lancelot, of Galaad, of Tris'tram, of Perseforest, of Percyval, of Gawayne, and many mo: There shall ye see manhode, curtoys and gentlenes. And loke in latter dayes of the noble actes syth the conquest: as in king Richard's dayes, Cuer de Lion; Edward I. and III. and his noble sones: Syr Robert Knolles, &c. Rede Froissart. Also beholde that victo Harry the fifthe, &c." 'rious and noble king, Ascham however tells us, I know when God's bible was banished the court, and La Morte d'Arthur received into the prince's chamber.' See his Scholemaster, &c. 4to. 1589. b. 1. p. 25. In the hall of the castle of Tamworth, in Warwickshire, there is an old rude painting on the wall, of Sir Lancelot du Lake, and Sir Turquin, . From the boke of the Ordre of Chyvalry, or Knighthood: translated out of Frenshe, and imprinted by William Caxton. Without date; perhaps 1484 .4to. T. WARTON. drawn in a gigantick size, and tilting together. On Arthur's Round Table, as it is called, in the castle of Winchester, said to be founded by Arthur, are inscribed in ancient characters, the names of twenty-four of his knights, just as we find them in La Morte d'Arthur. This table was hanging there, in the year 1484, and was even then very old, being at that time, by tradition, called Arthur's round table *. I presume, that in commemoration of Arthur's institution, and in direct imitation of his practice, in later ages, a round table, inscribed with his knights, was usually fixed in some publick place, wherever any magnificent tourney was held, on which probably the comhatants were afterwards feasted. It is well known that tournaments were frequently celebrated in high splendor at Winchester; and this is perhaps one of those very tables. It was partly on account of a round table being thus actually exhibited, that these exercises were familiarly called by the historians of the middle age, Tabula or Mensa Rotunda. Thus Walter Hemingford, to mention no more instances: Eodem anno [1280] Tabula Rotunda tenebatur sumptuosè · apud Warewyk+.' • See Caxton's Preface to La Morte d'Arthur. T. WARTON. + Vit. Edv. I. edit. Hearne, vol. i. p. 7. See Note, supr. p. lxxv. It was often a general name for a tournament. However, every common tournament was not always strictly called so, "Non ut in hastiludio illo quod communiter et vulgariter TORNEAMENTUM dicitur, sed potius in illo ludo militari qui MENSA ROTUNDA dicitur, vires suas attemperarent. Matt. Paris, p. 1147. It was perhaps a peculiar species of tourney, such as was revived at Kenelworth-castle, by earl Mortimer. Some writers that king Arthur first instituted the Round Table, at Cairleon, in Monmouthshire, others, at Camelot, in Somersetshire. Both these are mentioned in La Morte d'Arthur, as places where Arthur kept his court, with his knights. In the Parish of Lansannan, in Denbighshire, on the side of a stony rock is a circular area, cut out of the rock, having twenty-four seats, which they call Arthur's Round Table. However, its first and original establishment is generally supposed to have been at Winchester. Harding, in his Chronicle of English Kings from Brutus to Edward IV. in whose reign he wrote, tells us, that Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father, founded the Round Table at Winchester, chiefly, for the recovery of Sangreal, but in commemoration of his marriage with Igerne. Lond. 1543. edit. Grafton. fol. 61. Joseph of Arimathea is likewise introduced on this occasion. And at the day he weddid her and cround, And she far forth with child was then begonne, To comfort her he set the ROUND TABLE "At Winchester, of worthiest knights alone, C Approved best in knighthood of their fone, Which TABLE ROUND, Joseph of Arimathie, For brother made of the Saint Gral only. At such a tournament as this, Chaucer's knight had often been the leading or principal champion, Prol. 51. 'At Allessandre he was when it was won, Full oft timis he had the BORDE begon, In Pruce? But Speght (Gloss. Ch.) says, that, being often among the Knights of the Teutonick order in Prussia, he was, for his worthiness, placed at the upper end of the table, before a ny "of what nation soever. T. WARTON. "In which he made the sige perilous, Of knights all, and of the round table CHIEF, The ONE most religious, who alone was qualified to sit in the sige perilous, and who achieved and won the Sangreal, is Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot's son. In Caxton's romance, king Arthur's dowry with queen Guenever, is said to be the Round Table, made by her father Uther. Her father, king Leodegrance, says, "I shall send him a gift that shall please him more, [than lands] for I shall give him the Table Round, the which Uther Pendragon gave me *.' There is another ancient romance, for so it may be called, though written in verse, which Spenser apparently copies, in prince Arthur's combat with the dragon, F. Q. i. xi. 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36. The miraculous manner in which the knight is healed, our author drew from this old poem, entitled, Sir Bevis of Southampton. What for weary, and what for faint, The dragon followed on Bevis so hard, La Morte d'Arthur, i. 45. T. WARTON. There was a well as I weene, < Might no venomous worme come therein, Nor nigh it seven foot and more: After which the Dragon strikes the knight with such violence, that he falls into a swoon, and tumbles as it were lifeless into the well, by whose sovereign virtue he is revived: When Bevis was at the ground The water made him whole and sound, We have much the same Miracle in the Seven Champions, 1.2. T. WARTON, |