Note 528 — Chapter VI

Mr. Wright (Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. ii. p. 146) says: ‘Within a century after its first publication, it was generally adopted by writers on English history; and during several centuries, only one or two rare instances occur of persons who ventured to speak against its veracity.’ And Sir Henry Ellis says of Polydore Vergil, who wrote early in the sixteenth century, ‘For the repudiation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, Polydore Vergil was considered almost as a man deprived of reason. Such were the prejudices of the time.’ Polydore Vergil's English Hist. vol. i. p. x. edit. Ellis, 1846, 4to. See also, on its popularity, Lappenberg's Hist. of the Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. p. 102. In the seventeenth century, which was the first sceptical century in Europe, men began to open their eyes on these matters; and Boyle, for example, classes together ‘the fabulous labours of Hercules, and exploits of Arthur of Britain.’ Boyle's Works, vol. iv. p. 425.