find in this place some account of the controversy which has existed respecting this work, the following remarks will not be deemed inappropriate. There seems no good reason for supposing that Geoffrey of Monmouth intended to deceive the world respecting the history of which he professed to be the translator; and it may be readily conceived that he did no more than fulfil the task which he had undertaken, of rendering the book into Latin out of the original language. But those who, even as late as the beginning of the last century, supported the authenticity of the history, have grounded their opinions on such arguments as the following:—
- That, upon its first appearance in the world, the book met with universal approbation, and that too from those who had better opportunities of examining the truth of it, as there were then more monuments extant, ad the traditions were more fresh and uncorrupted, concerning the ancient British affairs, than any critics of the present age can pretend to.
- That except William of Newburgh, about the end of the reign of Richard I, it met with no opponents even down to the seventeenth century, but was, on the contrary, quoted by all, in particular by Edward I, in a controversy before Boniface the Eighth.
- That we see in this history the traces of venerable antiquity.
- That the story of Brute, and the descent of the Britons from the Trojans, was universally allowed by Giraldus Cambrénsis and others, and was opposed for the first time by John of Wethamstede, [Nicholson's Eng. Hist. Lit. 2nd ed. p. l., c. v.] who lived in the 15th century: that Polydore Virgil's contempt for it proceeded from his wish to preserve unimpaired the glory of the Romans, and Buchanan's observations betray his ignorance of the story.
- That Leland, who lived under Henry the Eighth, Humphrey Lhwyd, Sir John Price, Dr. Caius, Dr. Powel, and others, have supported the story of Brute, etc.
Such arguments may have satisfied the credulous students of the seventeenth century, but the more enlightened criticism of the present day will no longer listen to them. It may not, however, be uninteresting to hear the account which Thompson, the English translator gives of this work, which,
