one must feel to express a decided opinion about the matter. Clear knowledge of the subject is still in the making. The experts are by no means in agreement with each other, and their most luminous researches often serve chiefly to show how much remains dark. Moreover, since the publication of Mr. Nutt's Studies on the Holy Grail, in 1888, the problem has shifted to the region of Celtic philology, and my knowledge of Celtic literature, even in translated form, is not wide enough to entitle me to share in that part of the discussion.

Two reasons, however, have decided me, with much reluctance and diffidence, to insert the preliminary sketch. In the first place, it seemed right to state the presuppositions on which my treatment of the later development to a great extent rests. In the second place, I did not know where else to refer readers who are not Arthurian students for some general idea of elder Arthurian story. I have therefore endeavoured, so far as possible, to keep to points on which the chief authorities are agreed or at least in regard to which their views are not irreconcilable, and clearly to mark as conjectural what is not yet passed as proven.

My most important assumption is that there was a Brythonic nucleus of largely mythic material for the amplifications of romance. This theory, so far as the Grail is concerned, has in later years been revived and brought into prominence by Mr. Nutt in his laborious and brilliant essay; and after a careful study of what a somewhat boisterous criticism has urged on the other side, it seems to me that, though some details may need to be revised, and

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though a very complex legend may not have existed among the Celts, Mr. Nutt's main contention still holds the field. A similar view for a larger range of stories has been maintained with immense knowledge and fertility of suggestion by Professor Rhys. Whatever the ultimate decision may be, it is difficult to see how some of the cases of filiation he adduces can be controverted; and they would suffice to prove some sort of Celtic connection.

For the rest, I do not think I have said anything that cannot easily be reconciled with the hypotheses of a British or of a Breton origin, of the existence or the non-existence of an AngloNorman literature, of the relative priority of the verse, or, in a more primitive form, of the prose

romances.

In the Introduction, especially in Section IV., I have made use with many modifications of an essay on The Three Cycles of Medieval Romance, published by me in 1883. My book as a whole is the outcome of many years' occupation with the subject, and more immediately of a course of lectures delivered by me in the University of Sydney in 1890-91.

The pleasant duty remains of acknowledging the assistance which I have received from many friends. My colleague, Professor J. T. Wilson of Sydney University, Professor E. Caird, now Master of Balliol, Professor John Nichol, formerly of Glasgow University, Professor Henry Jones of St. Andrews University, Professor W. Paton Ker of University College, London, have read the manuscript or

proofs, altogether or in part, and I owe them many valuable suggestions. To the two last I am especially indebted for criticism, both general and minute, that has been of the greatest service. I have also to thank Professor Ker for procuring me information which at the time was inaccessible to me, and for putting me on the track of things which I should have missed. Other friends, too numerous to mention, have laid me under deep obligations by help of various kinds.

M. W. MACCALLUM.

2nd January, 1894.