all art. But Malory has not been the least successful with her: and of
Lancelot he has made, if only in study, one of the great characters of
that fictitious world which is so much truer than the real. And let no
one say that we are reading Tennyson or any one else into Malory. There
are yet persons, at least at the time this was written not quite
Methusalahs, who read the _Morte d'Arthur_ before the _Idylls_ appeared
and who have never allowed even the _Idylls_ to overlay their original
idea of the most perfect and most gentle of knights.

It is probable indeed that Malory invented little or nothing in the
various situations, by which the character of Lancelot, and the history
of his fatal love, are evolved. We know in most cases that this is so.
It is possible, too, that at first (probably because the possibilities
had not dawned on him, as it has been admitted they never did very
consciously) he has not made the most of the introduction of lover and
lady. But when the interest becomes concentrated, as in the various
passages of Guinevere's wrath with her lover and their consequences, or
in the final series of catastrophes, he is fully equal to the occasion.
We _know_--this time to his credit--how he has improved, in the act of
borrowing them, the earlier verse-pictures of the final parting of the
lovers, and there are many other episodes and juxtapositions of which as
much may be said. That except as to Lancelot's remorse (which after all
is the great point) there is not much actual talk about motive and
sentiment is nothing; or nothing but the condition of the time. The
important point is that, as the electricians say, "the house is wired"
for the actual installation of character-novelling. There is here the
complete scenario, and a good deal more, for a novel as long as
_Clarissa_ and much more interesting, capable of being worked out in the
manner, not merely of Richardson himself, but of Mr. Meredith or Mr.
Hardy. It _is_ a great romance, if not the greatest of romances: it has