speaking of the antiquity of the British tongue, he adds, "Antiquissimam etiam fuisse ex BEROSO, ANNIO, Giambullario et Postello, liquet": admirable authorities, no doubt, for a Welsh antiquary! The first monarch of this more ancient series is "Gomer, the father of [the] Cymbri and Gaules," the second, Samothes, Dis or Discelta; and so he goes on, to Magus, Sarron, Druys, Bardus, Longus, Lucus, Celtes, Galates, Narbon, Lugdus, Belgius, Jasius, Allobrox, Ægyptus, Parys, Olbius, Galates, junior, Namnes and Francicus: all perfect nonentities and men of straw! To this mendacious, impudent, and absurd farago, the romance of Geoffrey Arthur, which, certainly, has no inconsiderable smack of both scholarship and talent, is truth and lustre. It is, nevertheless, held in the highest credit and estimation by the modern Welsh, as the forgeries of Hector Bois, adopted by Buchanan and even introduced by Lewis, as affording suitable companions for his ante-Bruteian kings, are by the Scots. To return, however, to "the long-lost Arthur;" who, after being so highly extolled by the rightreverend father in god, Geoffrey, lord bishop of Saint-Asaph and his herd of plagiarists and parasites, as the greatest, richest, most powerful, valiant, glorious and successful monarch, that ever reigned in the world, has, not only had his sovereignty, valour, glory and good fortune, but, even, his very existence, positively and absolutely denied, by an author of the eighteenth century, of scarcely less notoriety than that accomplished prelate of the twelfth; whom, however he may imitate in one instance, he widely differs from in another; his lordship being a "Cumri" and a Celt," his emulator, a "Goth" or "Pik," a Pikish-Goth or Gothick-Pik. "The reader," according to this learned historian, " need hardly be told, that Arthur was, merely, a name given, by the Welch, [Welsh] to Aurelius Ambrosius their Roman defender against the Saxons" (Enquiry, I, 76): he refers, in support of this modest and veracious assertion, to Gildas, C. 25 and Bede, I, 16; meaning, no doubt, Geoffrey of Monmouth, B. 8, C. 2; with the same facility and integrity, as he is, on other occasions, accustomed to cite John Fordun under the name of William of Malmesbury (see Enquiry, II. 203; Wil. Malms.) in whom no such thing is to be found but consult, Fordun, B. 4, C. 44; again II, 220: "But William of Malmesbury [John Fordun] says, that Malcom [Malcolm] only permitted Duncan, his grandson and heir, who was possessed of Cumberland, to pay homage for that province: this plain account sufficiently : refutes the usurpative style of the Saxon chronicle" and the words of Wynne, the sophisticator of Carádoc, for those of that author (Enquiry I, 96). Neither Gildas, in fact, nor Bede, though both mention (not, indeed, Aurelius Ambrosius, a corruption of Geoffrey of Monmouth) Ambrosius Aurelianus, (followed by Girald Barry) says any such thing, never once naming or any way alluding to Arthur. Even Geoffrey himself makes them distinct personages, and, that they actually were so, will, sufficiently, appear by the direct and positive testimony of Nennius, William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and Carádoc of Llancarvan; all ancient and respectable historians. As for the first, he died long before the rest were born; although not one of the latter ever had or saw a copy of Geoffrey's history, as he himself boasts, except Henry of Huntingdon, who did not meet with it, till after he had published, at least, the first seven books of his own. He, nevertheless, reasserts, "That Arthur was Aurelius Ambrosius is certain, but the Arthur of Welch history is a non-existence" (Enquiry, 1,76): an assertion just as true as that Alexander the great was Julius Cesar, or Merlin the prophet, John Pinkerton. |