centralizing rule of the Roman Church, and were arguing about points of
faith as strongly as they were contesting for worldly supremacy. Dr.
Lappenberg justly points out this celebrated controversy in our country
as "indicating the weakness of that religious connection which was so
soon to be totally annihilated." We may, in some degree, account for the
reception of the doctrine of Pelagius by knowing that he was a Briton,
whose plain unlatinized name was Morgan.

Macaulay has startled many a reader of the most familiar histories of
England, in saying, "Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and
Mordred, are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned,
and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and
Romulus." It is difficult to write of a period of which the same writer
has said, "an age of fable completely separates two ages of truth." Yet
no one knew better than this accomplished historian himself that an age
of fable and an age of truth cannot be distinguished with absolute
precision. It is not that what is presented to us through the haze of
tradition must necessarily be unreal, any more than that what comes to
us in an age of literature must be absolutely true. An historical fact,
a real personage, may be handed down from a remote age in the songs of
bards; but it is not therefore to be inferred that these national lyrics
are founded upon pure invention. It is curious to observe that,
wandering amid these traces of events and persons that have been shaped
into history, how ready we are to walk in the footsteps of some
half-fabulous records, and wholly to turn away from others which seem as
strongly impressed upon the shifting sands of national existence.

We derive Hengist and Horsa from the old Anglo-Saxon authorities; and
modern history generally adopts them. Arthur and Mordred have a Celtic
origin, and they are as generally rejected as "mythical persons." It