70-71.  I HEARD—­CRAG.  It is interesting to read Chapter V., Book XXI. of Malory in connection with Tennyson’s version of the story.  He is throughout true to the spirit of the original. A propos of lines 70-71, we find in Malory:  “What saw thou, there?” said the King.  “Sir,” he said, “I saw nothing but the waters wap and the waves wan.”  Tennyson, in these two lines, gives us a consummate example of creative imitation.

84.  COUNTING THE DEWY PEBBLES.  This aptly describes the absorption of his mind.

85 f. and 56-58 supra.  Compare the description of Excalibur, and of Bedivere’s hesitancy, in Malory’s book.  “So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and haft were all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, ’If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss.’  And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree.”

104.  THE LONELY MAIDEN OF THE LAKE.  The “Lady of the Lake” was present at the crowning of Arthur.  In the Coming of Arthur she is described as dwelling—­

  Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms
  May shake the world, and when the surface rolls
  Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.

Arthur’s first meeting with her is described in Malory:—­ “So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand.  ‘Lo,’ said Merlin, ’yonder is that sword that I spake of.’  With that they saw a damsel going upon the lake; ‘What damsel is that?’ said Arthur.  ‘That is the Lady of the Lake,’ said Merlin; ’and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any upon earth, and richly beseen.’”

In Gareth and Lynette the Lady of the Lake is mystically figured forth upon the great gate of Camelot.

105-106.  NINE YEARS—­HILLS.  Hallam, Lord Tennyson, in the Memoir, quotes Fitzgerald’s short account of a row on Lake Windermere with the poet; “’Resting on our oars one calm day on Windermere, whither we had gone for a week from dear Spedding’s (Mirehouse), at the end of May, 1835; resting on our oars, and looking into the lake quite unruffled and clear, Alfred quoted from the lines he had lately read us from the MS. of Morte d’Arthur about the lonely lady of the lake and Excalibur: 

  “Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps,
  Under the hidden bases of the hills.

“—­Not bad, that.  Fitz, is it?

“This kind of remark he would make when rendering his own or others’ poetry when he came to lines that he particularly admired from no vanity but from a pure feeling of artistic pleasure.” (Vol.  I. pp. 152-153).

112.  Note the slowness of the movement expressed in the rhythm of this line, and compare with it line 168.  Contrast the swiftness and energy expressed in ll. 133-136.