nd
almost the originating conception of the novel-romance itself. Who it
was that did conceive this great thing I do not positively know. All
external evidence points to Walter Map; no internal evidence, that I
have seen, seems to me really to point away from him. But if any one
likes let us leave him a mere Eidolon, an earlier "Great Unknown." Our
business is, once more, with what he, whoever he was, did.

[Sidenote: The constitution of the Arthuriad.]

The multiplicity of things done, whether by "him" or "them," is
astonishing; and it is quite possible, indeed likely, that they were not
all done by the same person. Mediaeval continuators (as has been seen in
the case of Chrestien) worked after and into the work of each other in a
rather uncanny fashion; and the present writer frankly confesses that he
no more knows where Godfrey de Lagny took up the _Charette_, or the
various other sequelists the _Percevale_, from Chrestien than he would
have known, without confession, the books of the _Odyssey_ done by Mr.
Broome and Mr. Fenton from those done by Mr. Pope. The _grand-oeuvre_
is the combination of Lancelot as (1) lover of the Queen; (2) descendant
of the Graalwards; (3) author, in consequence of his sin, of the
general failure of the Round Table Graal-Quest; (4) father of its one
successful but half-unearthly Seeker; (5) bringer-about (in more ways
than one[28]) of the intestine dissension which facilitates the invasion
of Mordred and the foreigners and so the Passing of Arthur, of his own
rejection by the repentant Queen, and of his death. As regards minor
details of plot and incident there have to be added the bringing in of
the pre-Round Table part of the story by Lancelot's descent from King
Ban and his connections with King Bors, both Arthur's old allies, and
both, as we may call them, "Graal-heirs"; the further connection with
the Merlin legend by Lancelot's fostering under the Lady of the
Lake;[29] the exaltation, inspiring, and, as it were, unification of
the scattered knight-adventures through Lancelot's constant presence as
partaker, rescuer, and avenger;[30] the human interest given to the
Graal-Quest (the earlier histories being strikingly lacking in this) by
his failure, and a good many more. But above all there are the general
characters of the knight and the Queen to make flesh and blood of the
whole.

Not merely the exact author or authors, but even the exact source or
sources of this complicated, f