142 AKCIENT CASTLES OF DEVON. 



ally one of the valiant knights of the round table. 

 But these Britons, who fled from the Saxons for 

 refuge in Armorica, casting their longing eyes to- 

 wards the shores of their fatherland in Great iBritain, 

 invested every scene and every character in a garb 

 of fictitious splendour, until the obscure leader of a 

 handful of men, became the powerful monarch of 

 the whole British empire. The chieftain Arthur, 

 whose name, while living, probably never reached 

 beyond the Humber, became arbiter of every contest 

 in Europe — and " Caerleon on the river Usk/' the 

 centre of attraction, even to the whole world. 



From the moment that the deeds of Arthur were 

 sung, the bond that linked the Anglo-Norman 

 baron to Normandy was snapped asunder. What 

 was the fame of Rollo, of Richard Fearnought, to 

 him who was told that, by claiming a British origin, 

 he could participate in the fame of Arthur ? And, 

 as lay succeeded lay, each telling of new wonders, 

 every spot of English " ground became consecra- 

 ted ; and willingly yielding himself up to an illusion 

 which proffered him a share in so illustrious an he- 

 ritaw, the Anolo-Norman knis^ht henceforth set 

 lance in rest, only to maintain the glory of his adop- 

 ted land — that land which had owned the sway of 

 king Arthur. 



In like manner, to compare small with great, 

 Larissean Achilles, the leader of a few Myrmidons 

 of Thessaly, rose in celebrity, as a bright exhalation, 

 with the spirit-stining strains of the Grecian Bard ! 

 Certain spots, though bereft of their primeval at- 

 tractions and delights, still haunt the beholder with 

 the shades of those, with whose names they are 

 connected in the annals of the past. I never under- 

 stood the pretensions of chivalry so well, as when I 

 walked among the ruins of Kenil worth Castle. I 

 no longer trusted to the tale of the historian, the 

 cold and uncertain record of words formed upon pa- 

 per; — I beheld the queen " of lion port" 



