TABLE, ROUND. The most famous Round Table is that of King Arthur, which is said in the old romances to have been constructed by the wizard Merlin for Uther Pundragon, Arthur's father, from whom it passed into the possession of Leodigan, or Leodegrance, king of Camelard, or Carinalide, whose capital was Carshaise, and then came to Arthur as the portion of his wife Guenevre, daughter of that monarch. The romance of the Mort d'Arthur' says that Merlin made it " in token of the roundness of the world ;" according to the metrical romance of Merlin, it was made in imitation of one which had been set up by Joseph of Arimathea in commemoration of that at which the twelve apostles ate the last supper with their divine Msster. The Round Table is not mentioned at all by Geoffrey of Monmouth, either in his Chronicle; or in his Life of Merlin' in Latin verse ; but it is noticed by his contemporary Wace, in his metrical Roman de Rois d'Angle terre.' The Round Table was intended, to quote the analysis of the romance of Merlin given by Ellis e Specimens of Early English Ro mances,' i.), " to assemble the best knights in the world." There are different accounts of the number of the Knights of the Round Table, which indeed appears not to have been always the same. The romance of Merlin, which states that Uther had no power to fill all the seats, makes that king nevertheless to have nominated '250 knights, and these are also spoken of as forming the number of the order under Leo degrance. The ' :Mort d'Arthur' makes Leodegranee say, in surrender ing it to Arthur, " I shall give him the Table Round, the which Uther Pendragon gave me, and when it is full complete, there is a hundred knights and fifty ; and, as for an hundred good knights, 1 have myself, but I lack fifty, for so many have been slain in my days." Of the fifty
knights that were wanted, Merlin was at the moment only able to find twenty-eight for Arthur; but some were added afterwards. Other accounts again make the complete number under Arthur to have been only a hundred.
It is asserted by some of the chroniclers that some time before Edward III. instituted the order of the Garter, he established in the castle of Windsor a fraternity of twenty-four knights, and erected for them a round table, in imitation of that of Arthur, with a chamber in which it was placed, in what is yet known as the Round Tower. Bishop l'erey, in his Reliques of Antient English Poetry,' remarks "that the round table was not peculiar to the reign of King Arthur, but was common in all the ages of chivalry. The proclaiming a great tournament (probably with some peculiar solemnities) was called hold ing a Round Taide." And he quotes a passage from Dugdale, in which that learned antiquary, describing a tournament held at Kenilworth by Roger de Mortimer, in the reign of Edward 1., says, " Then began the Round Table, so called by reason that the place wherein they practised those feats was environed with a strong wall made in a round form." Percy adds that Matthew Paris frequently calls jousts and tournaments Hagiludia Men= Rotundcr. These round tables were probably a con trivance on the principle of the modern Round Robin, to prevent any dispute about precedency. There are several circular elevations in different parts of England which arc still called Arthur's Round Tables.