A suggestion has already been given of the vast development of the Arthurian legends during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, and of the importance of the labors of the specialists, who are endeavoring to fix a date for these versions in order to infer therefrom the spiritual ideals of the people among whom they arose.  To perceive clearly to what extent ideals do change, it is but necessary to compare various versions of the same incident as given in various periods of time.  To go no farther back than Malory, for example, we observe a signal difference between his treatment of the sin of Guinevere and Launcelot, and the treatment of the theme by Tennyson.  Malory’s Arthur is not so much wounded by the treachery of Launcelot, of whose relations to Guinevere he had long been aware, as he is angered at Sir Modred for making public those disclosures which made it necessary for him and Sir Launcelot to “bee at debate.”  “Ah!  Agravaine, Agravaine,” cries the King, “Jesu forgive it thy soule! for thine evill will that thou and thy brother Sir Modred had unto Sir Launcelot hath caused all this sorrow....  Wit you well my heart was never so heavie as it is now, and much more I am sorrier for my good knights losse than for the losse of my queene, for queenes might I have enough, but such a fellowship of good knightes shall never bee together in no company.”  But to the great Poet Laureate, who voices the modern ideal, a true marriage is the crown of life.  To love one maiden only, to cleave to her and worship her by years of noblest deeds, to be joined with her and to live together as one life, and, reigning with one will in all things, to have power on this dead world to make it live,—­this was the high ideal of the blameless King.

     “Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee.”

And his farewell from her who had not made his life so sweet that he should greatly care to live,—­

     “Lo!  I forgive thee, as Eternal God
     Forgives:  ... 
     And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
     Hereafter in that world where all are pure
     We two may meet before high God, and thou
     Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine,”—­

this is altogether one of the noblest passages in modern verse.

A comparison of the various modern treatments of the Tristram theme, as given by Tennyson, Richard Wagner, F. Roeber, L. Schneegans, Matthew Arnold, Algernon Charles Swinburne, F. Millard, touching also on the Tristan of Hans Sachs, and the Tristram who, because he is true to love, is the darling of the old romances, and is there—­notwithstanding that his love is the wedded wife of another—­always represented as the strong and beautiful knight, the flower of courtesy, a model to youth,—­such a comparison would reveal striking differences between mediaeval and modern ideals.