The book of British ballads . rch. An engraving of the crossis to be seen in Camdens Britannia: upon it is inscribed:— Hie jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arturius, in insula Avalonia. It has also been engraved in Whitakers History of Manchester ; a copy of whichwork, formerly in the possession of Ritson, and filled with marginal remarks, has thefollowing on this subject by that pains-taking and accurate antiquary; he says : tohumour Henrys attachment to the memory and character of Arthur, most of theromances of the Round Table were written and composed during his reign, and athis particular insta
The book of British ballads . rch. An engraving of the crossis to be seen in Camdens Britannia: upon it is inscribed:— Hie jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arturius, in insula Avalonia. It has also been engraved in Whitakers History of Manchester ; a copy of whichwork, formerly in the possession of Ritson, and filled with marginal remarks, has thefollowing on this subject by that pains-taking and accurate antiquary; he says : tohumour Henrys attachment to the memory and character of Arthur, most of theromances of the Round Table were written and composed during his reign, and athis particular instance, and many Armorican lays, relating to him, translated. Thelying Bards too, set up a prophetic knowledge as to the site of his tomb, and thecrafty and politic monks of Glastonbury aided and completed the deception. As thetraditional actions of Arthur were of a gigantic nature, the popular opinion had madea giant of his person, and therefore the crafty monks, to accredit the silly forgery,, . made use of horses bones. The. skull reported to be Arthurs, healso seems to think, was adaptedto the discovery. There were marksof 10 wounds in the head, and onemortal gash, intended, he says, forthe identical gash or hole that wasmade in it by his nephew, skulls remained at Glaston-bury until the Reformation. Wecopy the wood-cut representationof King Arthur and his Knights,seated at their Round Table, fromtheir most ancient and famous History (1534; a reprint of theedition issued from the press of our first printer, Caxton, in 1485). It is curious asdisplaying the idea formed by our ancestors of the Round Table, and the mannerin which Arthur and his Knights were seated at it. The subjoined ballad is copied from Bishop Percy, who extracted it from his Manuscript folio; giving to it some conjectural emendations, and even asupplement of three or four stanzas, composed from the romance of Morted Arthur,—the original MS. of which exists in the Harleian Library in theBritish
Size: 1780px × 1404px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookidg, bookpublisherlondonjhow
