By William Long, Esq. 9 



Dr. Guest speaks of it as " Jeffrey ^s romance^ that unhappy work which 

 is everywhere found darkening the pure light of our early history/'* 

 and elsewhere ^ he says of it, " The history of Jeffrey of Monmouth 

 appeared in the middle of the twelfth century, and was denounced 

 by the ablest men of the day as an impudent imposture. But it 

 was patronized by the Earl of Gloucester, whose vanity it ministered 

 to, and the influence of this powerful noble gave it a popularity 

 which soon spread throughout Europe. Few of our later historians 

 dare to question the truth of Jeffrey's statements j but his history 

 is only a larger collection of the legends to which Nennius introduced 

 us,^ added to and ' embellished ' without scruple, partly from his own 

 imagination, and partly, no doubt, from foreign Fources, and im- 

 pudently obtruded upon the reader as a translation of a Breton 

 original." * 



The following is Geoffrey's account, which is given in the words of 

 Thompson's translation, printed by Sir R. Hoare : " Anrelius, 

 wishing to commemorate those who had fallen in battle,^ and who 



* ' ' Welsh and English Rule in Somersetshire after the capture of Bath, 

 A.D. 577." Arch. Journal, vol. xvi., p. 123. 



*" Early English settlements in South Britain." Salisbury Vol. of Arch. 

 Institute, 1849, p. 37. 



' Mr. Ellis, in the introduction to his " Specimens of Early English Metrical 

 Romances" discusses the question of Geoffrey of Monmouth's work, and comes 

 to the conclusion, that upon the whole there seems to be no good reason for 

 supposing that this strange chronicle was a sudden fabrication, or the work of 

 any one man's invention. It rather resembles a superstructure gradually and 

 progressively raised on the foundation of the history attributed to Nennius. 



With reference to the story of Merlin and the removal of the stones to 

 England, " if," Mr. Ellis says, (p. 56 of the Introd.) "as Llwd and some other 

 learned men have conjectured, a Gaelic colony preceded the Cymri in the 

 possession of Britain, it is not impossible that Stonehenge, and other similar 

 monuments, may have been erected by these early settlers, and that the foolish 

 story in the text may have been grafted on some mutilated tradition of that 

 event." 



* To the great popularity of Geoffrey's History, Alfred of Beverley, whose work 

 was compiled about 1150, bears testimony : " Ferebantur tunc temporis per ora 

 multorum narrationes de Eistoria Britonum, notamque rusticitatis incurrebat, 

 qui talium narrationum scientiam non habebat." 



^ The British nobles whom Hengist the Saxon is alleged to have treacherously 

 murdered at or near Ambresbury. 



