Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/271

 prospect "washes, and sifts, and searches, till from a mass of rubbish and impurities he separates the nugget of virgin ore, so from the lavish confusion of rich material to be found in that collection of early romance called "La Morte d'Arthur," the Laureate has wrought out a poem precious in its own intrinsic merit as the purest metal that was ever beaten into a crown of gold. One other has been over the same ground before him, the great magician who with a wave of his wand has created for us gleaming blade and glittering hauberk, mail and plate, and managed steeds caparisoned, lances shivered to the grasp, sweet pale faces looking down on the mimic war beneath, and all the pomp, panoply, and prestige of an ideal chivalry, when

The champions, armed in martial sort, Have thronged into the list, And but three knights of Arthur's court Are from the tourney missed.