It is a pleasant spot, this ancient city of Camelot, and I like to read that among the aldermen who assembled at the Tun Moot in bygone days were a pinder, a mole-catcher, and an ale-conner. A stout fellow, this last, for without his permission not a single barrel of beer could be broached. The business transacted at the Moot, we are told, was little more than to receive taxes, provide for the defence of the city, and settle disputes. After which the aldermen (with the permission of the ale-conner, it is to be presumed) proceeded to consume the ale allowed to them by custom immemorial at the rate of two gallons a man at each sitting. _O tempora, O mores!_
At one time, however, that kill-joy Edgar came near to causing an insurrection, for he ordained that all drinking-horns should have pegs set in them at regular intervals and that no man might drink below his peg. Thus were practically abolished those friendly drinking-bouts between Danes and English that did so much to rid the town of its northern intruders. _Floreat Wintonia_, and may it stand for ever to book-lovers and lovers of romance as the ideal of all that is knightly and kingly and romantic--and hospitable.
It is to be feared, however, that the Spirit of Romance is now moribund--if, indeed, it has not already passed away; and with it we are losing one of the most ennobling qualities in our nature. We pride ourselves nowadays in living in a 'matter-of-fact' age, by which we mean a practical, unromantic age. But is it a matter for so much pride after all? Granted that the benefits which have accrued to mankind during the past century and a half are worth all the Romance in the world; but is the relegation of Romance to the domain of History a _sine qua non_ so far as progress is concerned? In our haste to get on we have tried to drive Romance and Progress in tandem, with steady-going Progress in the shafts; but having found that together they need skilful handling, we have unharnessed the leader and hitched him on behind, to be dragged along anyhow in our wake.
There must be many who regard the loss of romantic ideals as a matter for more than passing regret. Reverence, too, not only for our elders and betters but even for the great works of our predecessors, is going the way of its cousin, Romance. Recently, rambling over the Hampshire downs, our bookman toiled up the grassy bosom of this rolling land to a still loftier height whence on a clear day the Isle of Wight, nigh thirty miles away, can be distinguished. As he neared the top a mound came into view, one of those unmistakable monuments raised o'er the graves of the great chieftains of our ancient race. It was a most impressive spot, the highest point for many miles round, and the book-hunter wondered who he was that lay there in solemn majesty keeping watch through the long centuries over the land that once was his. On approaching closer the wayfarer was horrified to see that on the top of the mound, in the centre, there was a deep hole. Its import was obvious. The mortal remains of one who had lain for centuries in a grandeur befitting his lordly rank had been torn from their sepulchre, probably by some irreverent commoner, and were now doubtless exhibited to the vulgar gaze, in a glass case.