e guidance of later developments of the novel itself,
that the estimate which I have given can be entirely justified. But this
process seems to me to be perfectly legitimate, and to be, in fact, the
only process capable of giving us literary-historical criticism that is
worth having. The writer or writers, known or unknown, whose work we
have been discussing, have got the plot, have got the characters, have
got the narrative faculty required for a complete novel-romance. If they
do not quite know what to do with these things it is only because the
time is not yet. But how much they did, and of how much more they
foreshadowed the doing, the extracts following should show better than
any "talk about it."

[_Lancelot, still under the tutelage of the Lady of the Lake
and ignorant of his own parentage, has met his cousins,
Lionel and Bors, and has been greatly drawn to them._]

[Sidenote: Illustrative extracts translated from the
"Vulgate." The youth of Lancelot.]

Now turns herself the Lady back to the Lake, and takes the
children with her. And when she had gone[44] a good way, she
called Lancelot a little way off the road and said to him
very kindly, "King's son,[45] how wast thou so bold as to
call Lionel thy cousin? for he _is_ a king's son, and of not
a little more worth and gentry than men think." "Lady," said
he, who was right ashamed, "so came the word into my mouth
by adventure that I never took any heed of it." "Now tell
me," said she, "by the faith thou owest me, which thinkest
thou to be the greater gentleman, thyself or him?" "Lady,"
said he, "you have adjured me strongly, for I owe no one
such faith as I owe you, my lady and my mother: nor know I
how much of a gentleman I am by lineage. But, by the faith I
owe you, I would not myself deign to be abashed at that for
which I saw him weep.[46] And they have told me that all men
have sprung from one man and one woman: nor know I for what
reason one has more gentry than another, unless he win it by
prowess, even as lands and other honours. But know you for
very truth that if greatness of heart made a gentleman I
would think yet to be one of the greatest." "Verily, fair
son," said the Lady, "it shall appear. And I say to you that
you lose nothing of being one of the best gentlemen in the
world, if your heart fail you not." "H