[The Sword in the Stone] is riotously funny. Breathlessly, joyously, not at all in the leisurely tempo of old romance, it proceeds with unwearied gusto and endless variety of invention. And we grow increasingly sure that [Sir Thomas] Malory would like it as well as we do. For here his robust English temper has full right of way. Never did the continuity of English life, unchanged down the centuries, shine out more clearly than in this absurd jumble of old and new. Confusions do not matter; do we not move in the Timeless, since Merlin is master of ceremonies—and to Merlin past and future are all a muddle. A magnificent Merlin!

What a tutor for Arthur! Merlin can initiate his pupil into all that modern science can offer, giving him the one capacity most needed by a king, or anybody else, to identify himself with alien forms...