[522] ‘Advenerat namque ex partibus Hibernici maris inauditæ feritatis bellua, quæ incolas maritimos sine intermissione devorabat. Cumque fama aures ejus attigisset, accossit ipse ad illam, et solus cum sola congressus est. At cum omnia tela sua in illam in vanum consumpsisset, acceleravit monstrum illud, et apertis faucibus ipsum velut pisciculum devoravit.’ Hist. Brit. p. 51.
[523] The particulars of the intrigue are in Galf. Hist. Brit. pp. 151, 152. For information respecting Merlin, see also Matthæi Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, part i. pp. 161, 162; and Naudé, Apologie pour les Grands Hommes, pp. 308, 309, 318, 319, edit. Amsterdam, 1712.
[524] Hist. Britonum, pp. 167–170; a brilliant chapter.
[525] ‘Sed et plures capiebat quos semivivos devorabat.’ Hist. Brit. p. 181.
[526] ‘Hic namque ex barbis regum quos peremerat, fecerat sibi pelles, et mandaverat Arturo ut barbam suam diligenter excoriaret, atque excoriatam sibi dirigeret: ut quemadmodum ipse ceteris præerat regibus, ita quoque in honorem ejus ceteris barbis ipsam superponeret.’ Galf. Hist. Brit. p. 184.
[527] ‘It was partly, perhaps, the reputation of this book, which procured its author the bishopric of St. Asaph.’ Life of Geoffrey of Monmouth, in Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. ii. p. 144, 8vo, 1846. According to the Welsh writers, he was Bishop of Llandaff. See Stephens's Literature of the Kymry, 8vo, 1849, p. 323.
[528] Mr. Wright (Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. ii. p. 146) says: ‘Within a century after its first publication, it was generally adopted by writers on English history; and during several centuries, only one or two rare instances occur of persons who ventured to speak against its veracity.’ And Sir Henry Ellis says of Polydore Vergil, who wrote early in the sixteenth century, ‘For the repudiation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, Polydore Vergil was considered almost as a man deprived of reason. Such were the prejudices of the time.’ Polydore Vergil's English Hist. vol. i. p. x. edit. Ellis, 1846, 4to. See also, on its popularity, Lappenberg's Hist. of the Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 102. In the seventeenth century, which was the first sceptical century in Europe, men began to open their eyes on these matters; and Boyle, for example, classes together ‘the fabulous labours of Hercules, and exploits of Arthur of Britain.’ Boyle's Works, vol. iv. p. 425.
[529] Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. ii. p. 156; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. vii. p. 282.
[530] According to Mr. Wright (Biog. Brit. vol. ii. p. 439), it was translated through the medium of Wace. But it would be more correct to say, that Layamon made the absurdities of Geoffrey the basis of his work, rather than translated them; for he amplifies 15,000 lines of Wace's Brut into 32,000 of his own jargon. See Sir F. Madden's Preface to Layamon's Brut, 8vo, 1847, vol. i. p. xiii. I cannot refrain from bearing testimony to the great philological value of this work of Layamon's, by the publication of which its accomplished editor has made an important contribution towards the study of the history of the English language. So far, however, as Layamon is concerned, we can only contemplate with wonder an age of which he was considered an ornament.
[531] Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. ii. pp. 151, 207; Hallam's Literature of Europe, vol. i. p. 35.