said the squire, "here I have brought you all your armes, save your helme and your sword; and, therefore, by mine assent, now may ye take this knight's helme and his sword;' and so he did. And when he was cleane armed, he took Sir Launcelot's horse, for he was better than his owne, and so they departed from the crosse.
'Then anon Sir Launcelot awaked, and set himselfe upright, and he thought him what hee had there seene, and whether it were dreames or not; right so he heard a voice that said, "Sir Launcelot, more hardy than is the stone, and more bitter than is the wood, and more naked and bare than is the liefe of the fig-tree, therefore go thou from hence, and withdraw thee from this holy place;" and when Sir Launcelot heard this, he was passing heavy, and wist not what to doe. And so he departed sore weeping, and cursed the time that he was borne; for then he deemed never to have had more worship; for the words went unto his heart, till that he knew wherefore that hee was so called.'—SCOTT.
line 273. Arthur is the hero of the 'Faery Queene.' In his explanatory letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser says, 'I chose the historye of King Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspicion of present time.'
line 274. Milton is said to have meditated in his youth the composition of an epic poem on Arthur and the Round Table. In 'Paradise Lost' ix. 26, he states that the subject of that poem pleased him 'long choosing and beginning late,' and references both in 'Paradise Lost' and 'Paradise Regained' prove his familiarity with the Arthurian legend. Cp. Par. Lost, i. 580, and Par. Reg. ii. 358.
line 275. Scott quotes from Dryden's 'Essay on Satire,' prefixed to the translation of Juvenal, regarding his projected Epic. 'Of two subjects,' says Dryden, 'I was doubtful whether I should choose that of King Arthur conquering the Saxons, which, being further distant in time, gives the greater scope to my invention; or that of Edward the Black Prince, in subduing Spain, and restoring it to the lawful prince, though a great tyrant, Pedro the Cruel. . . . I might perhaps have done as well as some of my predecessors, or at least chalked out a way for others to amend my errors in a like design; but being encouraged only with fair words by King Charles II, my little salary ill paid, and no prospect of a future subsistence, I was then discouraged in the beginning of my attempt; and now age has overtaken me, and want, a more insufferable evil, through the change of the times, has wholly disabled me.'
