the every-day scenes about him, regardless of the fact that almost every
detail mentioned was something like a thousand years too late.

Had Malory undertaken an account of the landing of Julius Caesar he would,
as a matter of course, have protected the Roman legions with bascinet or
salade, breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiére, taces and the rest,
and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim
misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit
of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter
with the butt of malmsey.

Did not even Shakespeare calmly give cannon to the Romans and suppose
every continental city to lie majestically beside the sea? By the old
writers, accuracy in these matters was disregarded, and anachronisms were
not so much tolerated as unperceived.

In illustrating this edition of "The Legends of King Arthur and his
Knights," it has seemed best, and indeed unavoidable if the text and the
pictures are to tally, to draw what Malory describes, to place the fashion
of the costumes and armour somewhere about A.D. 1460, and to arm the
knights in accordance with the Tabard Period.

LANCELOT SPEED.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS