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So pass I hostel, hall and grange;

By bridge and ford, by park and pale,

All armed I ride, whate'er betide,

Until I find the Holy Grail."

Thus sang the maiden knight, who was the only one of the order that was permitted to hold the cup in his hand. The story of Sir Galahad is the most beautiful of all the romances of the Round Table. He sets out in life in search of the Grail, without a stain upon his heart, passes through temptations which have no power to turn him aside, and, under the influence of the Grail which so often appears to him, grows more spiritual and holy, and so ethereal, that he seems almost to lose his corporeal existence, and to become a spirit of holiness. This exquisite character, thus rendered more and more unearthly, is maintained even to the close of his life. For after he had, at length, held the blessed cup in his hand," he kneeled down and made his prayers, and then suddenly his soul departed unto Jesus Christ, and a great multitude of angels bare his soul up to heaven, that his two fellows might behold it; also his two fellows saw come down from heaven a hand, but they saw not the body, and then it came right to the vessel, and took it, and so bare it up to heaven. Sithence was there never no man so hardy for to say that he had seen the Sancgreal."*

With him ended for ever the Quest of the Holy Grail, though Lowell in his "Vision of Sir Launful" has made the hero to seek for it long after the time of Sir Galahad. In this poem is beautifully expressed the mystic meaning which we, in modern times, might attribute to the Grail —that it is the cup which we fill for the thirsty poor, the crust which we break with them,

"The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,

In whatso we share with another's need,-
Not that which we give, but what we share,

For the gift without the giver is bare;

Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three,—

Himself, his hungering neighbor and we."

Of all the knights of the Round Table there was none so bold and chivalrous as the gallant Sir Launcelot du Lac. Even Arthur himself was inferior to him in prowess. The history of that king receives a strong coloring from the love which existed between his queen and Sir Launcelot. While that knight was the most valiant of all the king's vassals, he

*Part II., ch. 103.

was influenced, in all his deeds of valor, solely by the love of Guinevere. For her he laid heaps of tributary crowns at the feet of her husband. All his expeditions were, undertaken at her instigation, and his single combats were engaged in mostly to defend her innocence, in which his success was not very well proportioned to his cause. Arthur suspected nothing, until the whole extent of their guilt was revealed to him. He engaged in war with Launcelot, who had withdrawn with Guinevere to his castle of Joyous Gard, and carried on the contest for several years, and ceased only when a papal bull was issued "commanding him, upon pain of interdicting of all England, that he take his queen, dame Guinevere, to him again, and accord with Sir Launcelot." On Arthur's death, Guinevere retired into a convent, and Launcelot to a hermitage. The lament over the death of Launcelot, by his brother Hector, is beautiful in itself, and interesting as a summary of the knightly virtues of the time. "Ab, Sir Launcelot, thou wert head of all Christian knights, and now I dare say," said Sir Hector, "thou Sir Launcelot that liest there, thou wert never matched of none earthly knight's hands. And thou wert the most courteous knight that ever bare shield. And thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse, and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman. And thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with sword. And thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights. And thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies. And thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest."* Upon the love of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere, Tennyson has constructed the beautiful poem bearing that name.

The love of this knight for the queen was so loyal that no maiden, however fair, had power to charm him from her, and many were the hearts wounded by his coldness toward them. Of these the most beautiful instance was that of the fair Lady of Ascalot, or, as Tennyson has called it, Shalott. In the "Lady of Shalott," the poet has used great liberty with the old story; the curse that hangs over her

If she stay

To look down to Camelot,

the web she "weaves by night and day," and the mirror, with its shadows of the year, cracking from side to side as the spell is broken-are all drawn from the poet's own imagination, suggested, indeed, by the story,

*B. 21:13.

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but not embodied in the old romance. The original story is a simple one: Launcelot, on his way to the tournament at Winchester, is entertained by the Lord of Shalott and his beautiful daughter. The knight, who appears to have had the power of gaining the heart of every fair maiden, made this Lady of Shalott burn with love toward him. But, true to the one ruling passion of his life, he offered no return, and when he left she was unconsolable. Slowly she wasted away, the fire of love in her breast growing stronger every day. And when at last she found herself at the point of death, she implored her father to place her in a shallop, that she might be borne down to "many towered Camelot." As Arthur and one of his knights were sitting, at early dawn, in one of the castle rooms, they saw, from a window overlooking the river, a boat, richly ornamented and covered with an awning of cloth of gold, slowly drifting with the current. As it drew toward the castle, they descended, and entered it. Beneath the awning was a bed, decked with princely splendor, and upon it lay the lifeless body of a lovely woman; looking still closer they discovered a purse, richly embroidered with gold and jewels, and in it a letter to King Arthur and all the Knights of the Round Table, with these words:"Most noble Knight, Sir Launcelot, now hath death made us two at debate for your love. I was your lover that men called the fair maiden of Ascalot, therefore unto all ladies I make my moan, yet pray for my soul, and bury me, at least, and offer ye my mass penny. This is my last request; pray for my soul, Sir Launcelot, as thou art peerless." "This was all the substance of the letter. And when it was read the king and queen and all the knights wept for pity of the doleful complaint." Then Sir Launcelot told to the assembled knights and ladies the story of the beautiful Lady of Shalott, and offered her mass as she desired.

Last of all the chapters in the romance of King Arthur, is the death of the king. A life so full of supernatural incident could not close, with out some crowning wonder, and so the romancers, taking advantage of the popular belief in a second coming and reign of Arthur, have represented him, not as dying, but as being miraculously borne away. There is in the romance a long and vivid account of the fearful battle between the king and his nephew and rival, Mordrec. At the close of the battle, Arthur, wounded and faint, was left supported by the only surviving knights of the Round Table, Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere: Sir Lucan died as he attempted to carry his master from the field, and thus Sir Bedivere was the only one to attend him. The story of Arthur's

command to him to throw his good sword Excalibur into the lake, how the knight hid the sword and came back to the king telling him that he had "seen nothing but waters deep and waves wan," how the king angrily sent him back, and how on the third time Sir Bedivere courageously threw the sword into the lake, and told the king the wonder he had seen -all this is finely related in Tennyson's "Morte D' Arthur." The same piece tells also how Arthur was borne from the sight of Sir Bedivere; but I will give it in the words of the romance:--" Then Sir Bedivere took the king upon his back, and so went with him to that water-side, and when they were at the water-side, even fast by the bank, hoved a little barge with many fair ladies in it, and among them all was a queen, and all they had black hoods, and all they wept and shrieked when they saw King Arthur. Now put me in the barge,' said the king, and so he did softly. And there received him three queens with great mourning, and so they set him down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head, and then that queen said, 'Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me.' And so they rowed him from the land, and Sir Bedivere beheld all the ladies go from him."

"And now the whole Round Table is dissolved."

That great table, typical of the world, is not for us to see and sit at; but the grand principle inculcated in it, of one great fellowship of heart, is a living principle, and in that spirit which seeks one universal kingdom of love, we can cry with the old romancers as they stand over his imaginary tomb in Wales:—

"Hic jacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus."

How dear to the heart is a smile!

How cheering the brightness it shows!

"Twill the heaviest moments beguile;
It will lighten a burden of woes;

"Tis like the sunshine which scatters the dew-drops away
From the promising form of a midsummer day.

A PARTICULAR TALENT.

No one is surprised that indolence and vice cover a man with rags, and provide only a hovel for shelter, and that industry, if not virtue, raise him to the opposite extreme. The ground of difference here is obvious. But why is it that one man becomes eminent in an art or profession, another attains only mediocrity, and a third signally fails, while the two latter are, as is often the case, the most laborious? Tupper has expressed the answer well in these lines:

"There are thousands among men who heed not the leadings of their talents, But, cutting against the grain, toil to no good end."

Now we will not foolishly assert that all, if in the exact sphere for which Nature designed them, can rise to an equal eminence, and that the highest; or that some would not fall below mediocrity, notwithstanding all their efforts. Circumstances and degrees of talent, doubtless, have much to do with success. Yet it cannot be denied that failures in life, are very greatly the result of misapplied talent. Nature forms every man with a special adaptation of talent, from the boot-black to the king, from the man that fingers the type, to him who

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As the biographer of Keats has forcibly said: "Every man has his block given him, and the figure he cuts will depend very much upon the shape of that,-upon the knots and twists that existed in it from the beginning. We were designed in the cradle, perhaps earlier, and it is in finding out this design and in shaping ourselves to it, that our years are spent wisely. It is the vain desire to make ourselves what we are not, that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough."

It is true there have been instances in which a man, by dint of severe effort, has made himself skillful in an occupation for which Nature did not design him; and there is a kind of satisfaction in witnessing such instances. But there is no economy, either to the individual or the world,

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