366 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
KING ARTHUR. 
ABSTRACT OF LECTURE BY MR. H. PENROSE PRANCE. 
(Read November 8th, 1883.) 
After alluding to his subject as one over which there had been 
centuries of debate, mainly as to the extent to which the imaginary- 
had been added to the real, the lecturer remarked he could not 
help feeling that to the majority of people the name of King 
Arthur suggested something purely legendary, like "Jack the 
Giant-killer," and that they were not aware to what an extent his 
existence had been accepted and acknowledged as actual. 
To West-Countrymen, descendants of the Britons, King Arthur 
must be of special interest. Carew calls him " a Cornishman by 
birth, a king of Britain by succession, and the second of the three 
Christian Worthies by desert." The many local memorials of him 
were referred to, " it being the custom," Gilbert says, "in Cornwall 
to ascribe everything that is great, and whose use is unknown, 
to that immortal hero." He is said to have built a chapel at 
Restormel. But so long as Tintagel stands Arthur will never want 
a memorial. Speed says in connection with this, " Truly Cornwall 
is a district consecrated to Mars." 
Another view taken by many is that Arthur was really a North- 
Country hero, and that the tradition travelled from north to south. 
The latest edition of the E7icyclopcedia Britannica favours this 
idea. 
Dr. Lappenberg maintains that the numerous local memorials 
found over the whole of the then Christian part of Europe, and the 
veneration of the Welsh poets, are, apart from the written evidence, 
no worthless testimony for Arthur's historic existence. 
Lord Bacon's observation concerning Arthur is well known : 
"That there was truth enough in history to make him famous 
besides that which was fabulous. Hume comes to the same con- 
clusion. Gilbert, in his History of Cornwall, says : " Yet not- 
