It will thus be seen that there is no necessary antagonism between individual, or historic, and ideal, or æsthetic, truth. Their respective lines of action may be divergent, but they are, when thoroughly understood, both in harmony with the great central and "eternal verity" which embodies all truth. The only danger to be guarded against by the historic or æsthetic student arises from the too common habit of confounding the one with the other.
Tennyson, in his "Queen Mary," says—
The very Truth and very Word are one,
But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl,
Is like a word that comes from olden days,
And passes thro' the peoples: every tongue
Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks
Quite other than at first.
Nennius speaks of a tenth battle fought and won by Arthur on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit, or Ribroit. This has been identified by commentators as the Brue, in Somersetshire, and the Ribble, in Lancashire; but the evidence advanced is not very conclusive in favour of either locality. Mr. Haigh prefers Trefdraeth, in the island of Anglesea, as the place indicated.
[CHAPTER II.]
THE DEFEAT AND DEATH OF ST. OSWALD, OF NORTHUMBRIA, AT MASERFELD, (A.D. 642).
THE LEGEND OF THE WILD BOAR, "THE MONSTER IN FORMER AGES, WHICH PROWLED OVER THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF WINWICK, INFLICTING INJURY ON MAN AND BEAST."