Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1809 edition. Excerpt: ... ARTHURIAN LOCALITIES; THEIR HISTORICAL ORIGIN, CHIEF COUNTRY, AND FINGALIAN RELATIONS. CHAPTER L INTRODUCTION THE OLD ABTHUB-LAND. One of the many indications of that synthetic, and reconstructive, rather than analytic, and destructive, tendency which marks this second half of the nineteenth century is the fact that historical scholars are beginning to look on popular legends and romances, not certainly with the uncritical credulity of the days before Niebuhr, but with the belief of finding in them such records of histori-, cal events as will well repay the trouble of investigating them.1: It seems desirable, therefore, in this introductory chapter, in order at once to indicate the point of view of this Essay, to set-forth, in the first place, the general relation which it seeks to establish between Mediaeval Komance and Pre-mediaeval History. I shall, then, in the second section, bring before the reader the chief traditional Arthurian Localities of Southern Scotland, Western England, and 1 See, for instance, Dyer, History of the City of Some. Introduction. North-Western France. After such a survey of the Old Arthurland, I shall, in the third section, state the question which I propose in this Essay more particularly to consider, point-out its interest, and explain the method by which I hope to attain a definitive answer. And, in conclusion, I shall state the general subjects of the succeeding chapters. Section (i). The Belation of Mediaval Bomance to Pre-medicEval History. The age of the Arthurian, and other great Cycles of Eomance, is that which, in the opinion of both the great thinkers who have chiefly influenced the intellectual development of Modern Europe, -- in the opinion both of Hegel and of Comte,2--began in the eleventh, and..
