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fome interpolations. It was probably finished after the year 1138.

• Geoffrey confeffes, that he took fome part of his account of king Arthur's atchievements from the mouth of his friend Gualter, the archdeacon; who probably related to the tranflator fome of the traditions on this fubject which he had heard in Armorica, or which at that time might have been popular in Wales. Hift. Brit. Galfr. Mon. lib. xi. c. i. He also owns that Merlin's prophecies were not in the Armorican original. Ib. vii. 2. Compare Thompson's Pref. ut fupr. p. xxv. xxvii. The fpeeches and letters were forged by Geoffrey; and in the defcription of battles, our tranflator has not fcrupled frequent variations and additions.

I am obliged to an ingenious antiquarian in British literature, Mr. Morris of Penbryn, for the following curious remarks concerning Geoffrey's original and his tranflation. Geoffrey's SYLVIUS, in the "British original, is SILIUS, which in "Latin would make JULIUS. This il "lustrates and confirms Lambarde's, BRU

TUS JULIUS. Peramb. Kent, p. 12. So alfo in the British bards. And hence Milton's objection is removed. Hift. "Engl. p. 12. There are no FLAMINES "or ARCHFLAMINES in the British book.

See Ufher's Primord. p. 57. Dubl. edit. "There are very few speeches in the ori"ginal, and thofe very fhort. Geoffrey's "FULGENIUS is in the British copy Su

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LIEN, which by analogy in Latin would be JULIANUS. See Milton's Hift. Eng. p. 100. There is no LEIL in the Bri* tifh; that king's name was LLEON. "Geoffrey's CAERLISLE is in the British

CAERLLEON, or Weft-Chefter. In the "British, LLAW AP CYNFARCH, fhould "have been tranflated LEO, which is now

rendered LоTH. This has brought much "confufion into the old Scotch hiftory. I "find no BELINUS in the British copy; "the name is BELI, which fhould have.

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been in Latin BELIUS, or BELGIUS. Geoffrey's BRENNUS in the original is BRAN, a common name among the Britons; as BRAN AP DYFNWAL, &C.

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original, that the British name of CaRAUSIUS was CARAWN; hence TREGARAUN, i. e. TREGARON, and the "river CARAUN, which gives name to "ABERCORN. In the British there is no "divifion into books and chapters, a mark "of antiquity. Thofe whom the tranf

lator calls CONSULS of Rome, when "Brennus took it, are in the original "TWYSOGION, i. e. princes or generals. "The Gwalenfes, GWALO, or GWALAS,

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are added by Geoffrey, B. xii. c. 19." To what is here obferved about SILIUS, I will add, that abbot Whethamsted, in his MS. GRANARIUM, mentions SILOIUS the father of Brutus. "Quomodo Brutus "SILO filius ad litora Angliæ venit," &c. GRANAR. Part. i. Lit. A. MSS. Cotton. NERO, C. vi. Brit. Muf. This gentleman has in his poffeffion a very antient manuscript of the original, and has been many years preparing materials for giving an accurate and faithful translation of it into English. The manufcript in Jefus college library at Oxford, which Wynne pretends to be the fame which Geoffrey himself made ufe of, is evidently not older than the fixteenth century. Mr. Price, the Bodleian librarian, to whofe friendship this work is much indebted, has two copies lately given him by Mr. Banks, much more antient and perfect. But there is reafon to fufpect, that most of the British manuscripts of this history are translations from Geoffrey's Latin: for Britannia they have BRYTTAEN, which in the original would have been PRYDAIN. Geoffrey's tranflation, and for obvious reafons, is a very common manufcript. Compare Lhuyd's Arch. p. 265.

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Thompfon fays, 1128. ubi fupr. p. xxx. Geoffrey's age is afcertained beyond a doubt, even if other proofs were.wanting, from the cotemporaries whom he mentions. Such as Robert earl of Glocefter, natural fon of Henry the firft, and Alexander bifhop of Lincoln, his patrons: he mentions alfo William of Malmesbury, and Henry of Huntington.

It is difficult to afcertain exactly the period at which our tranflator's original romance may probably be supposed to have been compiled. Yet this is a curious fpeculation, and will illuftrate our argument. I am inclined to think that the work confifts of fables thrown out by different rhapfodifts at different times, which afterwards were collected and digested into an entire history, and perhaps with new decorations of fancy added by the compiler, who most probably was one of the profeffed bards, or rather a poetical hiftorian, of Armorica or Baffe Bretagne. In this ftate, and under this form, I fuppofe it to have fallen into the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth. If the hypothefis hereafter advanced concerning the particular fpecies of fiction on which this narrative is founded, fhould be granted, it cannot, from what I have already proved, be more antient than the eighth century; and we may reasonably conclude, that it was. compofed much later, as fome confiderable length of time must have been neceffary for the propagation and establishment of that species of fiction. The fimple fubject of this chronicle, divefted of its romantic embellishments, is a deduction of the Welsh princes from the Trojan Brutus to Cadwallader, who reigned in the feventh century. It must

Huntingdon. Wharton places Geoffrey's death in the year 1154. Epifc. Affav. p. 306. Robert de Monte, who continued Sigebert's chronicle down to the year 1183, in the preface to that work exprefly fays, that he took fome of the materials of his fupplement from the. HISTORIA BRITONUM, lately tranflated out of British into Latin. This was manifeftly Geoffrey's book. Alfred of Beverly, who evidently wrote his ANNALES, publifhed by Hearne, between the years 1148 and 1150, borrowed his account of the British kings from Geoffrey's HISTORIA, whofe words he fometimes literally tranfcribes. For inftance, Alfred, in fpeaking of Arthur's keeping Whitfuntide at Caerleon, fays, that the HISTORIA BRITONUM enumerated all the kings who came thither on Vol. I.

Arthur's invitation: and then adds, "Præ"ter hos non remanfit princeps alicujus "pretii citra Hifpaniam qui ad iftud edic66 tum non venerit." Alured. Bev. Annal. p. 63, edit. Hearne. These are Geoffrey's own words; and fo much his own, that they are one of his additions to the British original. But the curious reader, who defires a complete and critical difcuffion of this point, may confult an original letter of bishop Lloyd, preferved among Tanner's manufcripts at Oxford, num, 94.

"This notion of their extraction from the Trojans had fo infatuated the Welsh, that even fo late as the year 1284, archbishop Peckham, in his injunctions to the diocefe of St. Afaph, orders the people to abftain from giving credit to idle dreams and vifions, a fuperftition which they had b

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be acknowledged, that many European nations were antiently fond of tracing their descent from Troy. Hunnibaldus Francus, in his Latin history of France, written in the fixth century, beginning with the Trojan war, and ending with Clovis the first, afcribes the origin of the French nation to Francio a fon of Priam ". So univerfal was this humour, and carried to fuch an abfurd excefs of extravagance, that under the reign of Justinian, even the Greeks were ambitious of being thought to be defcended from the Trojans, their antient and notorious enemies. Unless we adopt the idea of thofe antiquaries, who contend that Europe was peopled from Phrygia, it will be hard to discover at what period, or from what fource, fo ftrange and improbable a notion could take its rise, especially among nations unacquainted with history, and overwhelmed in ignorance.. The most rational mode of accounting for it, is to fuppofe, that the revival of Virgil's Eneid about the fixth or seventh century, which represented the Trojans as the founders of Rome, the capital of the fupreme pontiff, and a city on various other accounts in the early ages of chriftianity highly reverenced. and diftinguished, occafioned an emulation in many other European nations of claiming an alliance to the fame refpectable original. The monks and other ecclefiaftics, the only readers and writers of the age, were likely to broach, and were interested in propagating, fuch an opinion. As the more barbarous countries of Europe began to be tinctured with literature, there was hardly one of them but fell into the fashion of deducing its original from fome of the nations, most celebrated in the antient books. Those who did not aspire fo

contracted from their belief in thedream of their founder Brutus, in the temple of Diana, concerning his arrival in Britain. The archbishop very seriously advises them. to boaft no more of their relation to the conquered and fugitive Trojans, but to glory in the victorious crofs of Chrift. Con

cil. Wilkins, tom. ii. p. 106. edit. 1737. fol.

w It is among the SCRIPTORES RER. GERMAN. Sim. Schard.. tom. i. p. 301. edit. Bafil. 1574. fol. It confifts of eighteen. books.

high as king Priam, or who found that claim preoccupied, boasted to be descended from fome of the generals of Alexander the Great, from Prufias king of Bithynia, from the Greeks or the Egyptians. It it not in the mean time quite improbable, that as most of the European nations were provincial to the Romans, thofe who fancied themselves to be of Trojan extraction might have imbibed this notion, at least have acquired a general knowledge of the Trojan ftory, from their conquerors: more efpecially the Britons, who continued fo long under the yoke of Rome*. But as to the ftory of Brutus in particular, Geoffrey's hero, it may be presumed that his legend was not contrived, nor the hiftory of his fucceffors invented, till after the ninth century: for Nennius, who lived about the middle of that century, not only speaks of Brutus with great obfcurity and inconfiftency, but feems totally uninformed as to every circumftance of the British affairs which preceded Cefar's invafion. There are other proofs that this piece could not have existed before the ninth century. Alfred's Saxon tranflation of the Mercian law is mentioned. Charlemagne's Twelve Peers, and by an anachronism not uncommon in romance, are faid to be present at king Arthur's magnificent coronation in the city of Caerleon'. It were easy to produce instances, that this chronicle was undoubtedly framed after the legend of faint Urfula, the acts of faint Lucius, and the historical writings of the venerable Bede, had undergone fome degree of circulation in the world. At the fame time it contains many paffages which incline us to determine, that fome parts of it at least were written after or about the eleventh century. I will not insist on that paffage, in which the title of legate of the apostolic fee is attributed to Dubricius in the character of primate of Britain; as it appears for obvious reafons to have been an artful interpolation of the translator, who was an ecclefiaftic. But I will felect other arguments. Canute's forest, or Can

See infr. SECT. iii. p. 127, 128.

b 2

y L. iii. c. 13.

2 L. ix. c. 12. nock

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nock-wood in Staffordshire occurs; and Canute died in the year 1036 At the ideal coronation of king Arthur, just mentioned, a tournament is defcribed as exhibited in its higheft fplendor. Many knights, fays our Armoric fa "bler, famous for feats of chivalry, were prefent, with apparel and arms of the fame colour and fashion. They "formed a species of diverfion, in imitation of a fight on "horfeback, and the ladies being placed placed on the walls of "the castles, darted amorous glances on the combatants. "None of thefe ladies efteemed any knight worthy of her love, but fuch as had given proof of his gallantry in three "feveral encounters. Thus the valour of the men encou raged chastity in the women, and the attention of the wo « men proved an incentive to the foldier's bravery"." Here: is the practice of chivalry under the combined ideas of love and military prowess, as they feem to have fubfifted after the feudal constitution had acquired greater degrees not only of stability but of splendor and refinement. And although a species of tournament was exhibited in France at the reconciliation of the fons of Lewis the feeble, in the clofe of the ninth century, and at the beginning of the tenth, the coronation of the emperor Henry was folemnized with martial entertainments, in which many parties were introduced fighting on horseback; yet it was long afterwards that thefe games were accompanied with the peculiar formalities, and ceremonious ufages, here defèribed. In the mean time, we:

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