3. He wrote in Latin a History of England, from the landing of the English under Hengist and Horsa on through the Norman Conquest to the time of Henry the First, and afterwards a continuation, relating events as they happened in his own time--the record of the civil war between Stephen and Maud, much of which he heard from his friend Robert of Gloucester, half-brother of Queen Maud, and other persons who visited Malmesbury. The History ends with the story of how Maud escaped from Oxford in the Christmas snows, she and her companions being dressed in white. William of Malmesbury also wrote some lives of the saints, and a History of English Bishops and Abbots.

4. While William was writing his chronicles at Malmesbury, another monk, a Welshman, named GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, was living in the monastery of Monmouth. Like all Welshmen, Geoffrey was very patriotic; and he did not see why all the chronicles should begin with the coming over of the English, when his own people, the Celts, had had a long history before that time. So he set himself to gather together all the legends and stories of the old Celts and their chiefs; and to make his work complete, wherever he came to a gap in the history, he invented names of British kings, and put down the length of their reigns, tracing those Celtic kings as far back as to a Roman named Brut or Brutus,1 great-grandson of Æneas, Prince of Troy, of whom the Latin poet Virgil2 has written in the "Æneid."

5. When Geoffrey came to tell of the struggle of the Celts with the Teutons, he did a very clever thing to prevent inquisitive readers from prying too closely into his facts and doubting the truth of his history. Instead of choosing as his hero Urien, prince of the north of Britain, about whom much was known, he told all his stories about Arthur, chief of the south, about whom very little had been related, and no one could tell whether the stories were true or not. Very likely Geoffrey never

1 Brutus. Geoffrey tells us that he landed in Britain, and became the first king; and that the country was called, after him, Brutania or Britannia.

έσ

Be

2 Virgil, born 70 B.C.; died 19 B.C. sides the Eneid," he wrote "Georgics" and "Eclogues."

meant his readers to believe all his stories of King Arthur. But every one likes to read them, and many later English writers have borrowed stories from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Chronicle. Shakespeare borrowed the stories of King Lear and Cymbeline, and Milton his story of Sabrina ;1 while our own poet-laureate, Tennyson, has told again some of those beautiful stories of King Arthur, whom Geoffrey makes a good man, a brave warrior, and a perfect knight, with great strength, and with courage enough to overcome every foe.

6. You can easily imagine how such stories of brave knights would delight the Norman barons and their ladies. But many of the ladies found the Latin troublesome to read, so six years after the Chronicle had appeared, a writer named Wace2 brought out a version of it in French verse, which the Normans both in France and England eagerly read. Pilgrimages were made to Glastonbury to see the supposed tomb of Arthur; and many boys, besides the Prince Arthur of John's reign, were named after the hero of Geoffrey's Chronicle.

7. In the reign of Henry the Second there lived a wise man and clever writer named WALTER MAP, who had been educated as a clergyman. He began to think that Geoffrey's stories of the warlike deeds of King Arthur and his knights were not altogether good for the people of his time, and that men had fallen into the mistake of thinking that strength of body and victory in battle were the highest glories of life. Map admired Arthur and his knights, but he knew that something higher than mere physical strength and skill in warfare was needed to make a perfect knight or a perfect man; that the greatest glory of manhood is righteousness- -an unblemished purity of heart and life.

8. So Map wrote another version of the Arthur legends, beginning with the story of the Holy Graal, the dish in which the lamb had been served at Christ's last passover with his disciples, and which after his death had been used in washing his

1 Sabrina, goddess of the river Severn; grand-daughter of Brutus. Reference to the story occurs in Comus.

2 Wace, Robert, born probably at Jersey

about 1112. Besides the version of "Brutus of England," he wrote the Romance of Rollo."

wounds. The Graal or cup was thus the most holy and precious thing on earth. According to the legend, it had been brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea; but in Arthur's days it had been lost sight of, and St. Joseph of Arimathea had appeared in a vision to a hermit, and had told him that only to the pure in heart would it be visible, and that the sight would bring blessing and healing to the soul. So Map makes his knights set out in search of the Holy Graal, and vie with each other in purity of life, as well as in strength and courage.

9. A poor parish priest, who lived in the reign of King John, thought it a pity that the people of England should not be able to read those beautiful legends in their own language; so he set out in search of the books containing them, and after long time and much trouble he returned home and set about putting the stories into English verse. This priest's name was LAYAMON, and his poem was called The Brut. We must remember it because it was one of the first books written in English after the Norman conquest. One of the earliest books printed by Caxton1 was also a volume of Arthur legends, collected by SIR THOMAS MALORY in the reign of Edward the Fourth, and called the Morte d'Arthur, which your French will tell you means the "Death of Arthur."

10. From this book our own poet-laureate, Tennyson, has taken many of the beautiful legends told in his Idylls of the King of the coming of Arthur to his troubled kingdom, and how he won his sword Excalibur, with which he fought his famous battles; of his beautiful Queen Guinevere, and the brave knights of the Round Table-Sir Bors, Sir Percival, Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawaine, and, above all, Lancelot's son, Sir Galahad, who alone could sit on the Siege Perilous, or seat of danger, and draw the magic sword from the stone, and who alone of all the knights lived to see the Holy Graal; and all this because .he was "the best knight of all the world"—great not only in strength of body, but also in purity of soul.

11. Sir Thomas Malory also relates the death of Sir Galahad,

1 Caxton, William. He introduced the printing-press at Westminster in 1477. art of printing into England, and set up a Born about 1412; died 1491.

and the trials and sorrows of King Arthur after his knights were gone and his foes kept pouring in on his country. At last the brave king was mortally wounded in battle, and was carried by a faithful knight to the lake-side. He was placed in a boat

with three queens in it, and passed away into the shadows in the direction of the island of Avalon, where Glastonbury now stands.

12. English people seem never to have tired of hearing and reading those beautiful Arthur stories; and for long they used to say that Arthur was not really dead, but was still alive and ready to fight for England whenever his country needed him. Perhaps they meant by this that in every age England, like Scotland, has had men as brave and as noble as King Arthur, ready to go forth and fight for their country.

CHAPTER V.

"DAN CHAUCER, WELL OF ENGLISH UNDEFILED."

-Spenser.

1. We have seen that up to this time the writers of English literature were generally monks, or men who lived in religious houses and did not mix much with the people of England; and we have also seen that they wrote most about kings and princes, lords and ladies-not about farmers, and merchants, and peasants.

2. But in the reign of Edward the Third, when the Saxons and the Normans had forgotten their old differences and had begun to feel themselves one people, a little boy was born in London who was to be the poet of the English people. This little boy was GEOFFREY CHAUCER, the son of a London wine merchant. He was born about 1340, near the Church of St. Aldermary, in Bow Lane, Cheapside, now one of the busiest parts of London city. But in those days London was not the large crowded place that it now is, and very likely there were green fields and pleasant walks not far from his home where Chaucer

and his boy-companions could spend the long summer daysfor boys of those days were as fond of fun as the boys of to-day-and no doubt little Chaucer was as merry as any of the band.

3. We know, indeed, from his books that though he was always fond of reading, he was even more fond of being out in the fields on a bright spring morning, listening to the lark's song and enjoying the fragrance of the flowers. We know,

too, that he must have always been a bright, happy boy, gratefully enjoying all the good that fell in his way, and not stopping to worry or grumble over trifles. when he grew up and troubles came. failed him. He did his duty bravely the rest in God's hands.

It was just the same His trust in God never

and cheerfully, leaving

4. We do not know when Chaucer went to school, but he seems to have read a good many romances and chronicles; and while yet young, he began to translate one from the French