are divided into classes, and a summary of one romance This compilation was published periodically till the year 1787, and four volumes were annually given to the world. from each order is exhibited in turn. Next to the enormous length, and the frequent selection of worthless materials, the principal objection to the work is the arrangement adopted by the editors. Thus, a romance of chivalry intervenes between two Greek romances, or is presented alternately with a French heroic romance, or modern novel. Hence the reader is not furnished with a view of the progress of Fiction in continuity; he cannot trace the imitations of successive fablers, nor the way in which Fiction has been modified by the manners of an age. There is besides little or no criticism of the novels or romances which are analyzed, and the whole work seems to have been written under the eye of the sultan who said he would cut off the head of the first man who made a reflection. But even the utility of the abstracts, which should have been the principal object of the work, is in a great measure lost, as it appears to have been the intention of the editors rather to present an entertaining story, somewhat resembling that of the original, than a faithful analysis. Characters and sentiments are thus exhibited, incongruous with ancient romance, and abhorrent from the opinions of the era whose manners it reflects. It is only as presenting a true and lively picture of the age, that romance has claims on the attention of the antiquarian or philosopher; and if its genuine remains be adulterated with a mixture of sentiments and manners of modern growth, the composition is heterogeneous and uninstructive. (Rose's Amadis de Gaul.) Abstracts of romances omitted in the Bibliotheque des Romans have been published in Melanges tirées d'une Grande Bibliotheque, which is a selection from the scarce manuscripts and publications contained in the library of the Marquis de Paulmy. The work has also been continued in the Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Romans, which comprises abridgments of the most recent productions of the French, English, and German novelists. In this country there has been no attempt towards a general History of Fiction. Dr. Percy, Warton, and others, have written, as is well known, with much learning and ingenuity, on that branch of the subject which relates to the origin of Romantic Fiction-the marvellous decorations of chivalry. This inquiry, however, comprehends but a small part of the subject, and even here research has oftener been directed to the establishment of a theory, than to the investigation of truth. In the following work I shall try to present a faithful analysis of those early and scarce productions which form, as it were, the landmarks of Fiction. Select passages will occasionally be added, and I shall endeavour by criticisms to give such a sketch as may enable the reader to form some idea of the nature and merit of the works themselves, and of the transmission of fable from one age and country to another. HISTORY OF FICTION. CHAPTER I. Origin of fictitious Narrative-Earliest Writers of Greek Romance THE nature and utility of fiction having been pointed out, and the design of the work explained in the introductory remarks, it now remains to prosecute what forms the proper object of this undertaking,-the origin and progress of prose works of fiction, with the analysis and criticism of the most celebrated which have been successfully presented to the world. We have already seen that fiction has in all ages formed the delight of the rudest and the most polished nations. It was late, however, and after the decline of its noble literature, that fictions in prose came to be cultivated as a species of composition in Greece. In early times the mere art of writing was too difficult and dignified to be employed in prose, and even the laws of the principal legislators were then promulgated in verse. In the better ages of Greece, all who felt the mens divinior, and of whose studies the embellishments of fiction were the objects, naturally wrote in verse, and men of genius would have disdained to Occupy themselves with a simple domestic tale in prose. This mode of composition was reserved for a later period, when the ranks of poetry had been filled with great names, and the very abundance of great models had produced satiety. Poetical productions too, in order to be relished, require to be read with a spark of the same feeling in which they are composed, and in a luxurious age, and among a luxurious people, demand even too much effort in the reader, or hearer, to be generally popular. To such, a simple narrative, a history of ludicrous or strange adventures, forms a favourite amusement; and we thus find that listening to the recital of tales has at all times been the peculiar entertainment of the indolent and voluptuous nations of the East. A taste, accordingly, for this species of narrative, or composition, seems to have been most early and most generally prevalent in Persia and other Asiatic regions, where the nature of the climate and effeminacy of the inhabitants conspired to promote its cultivation. The people of Asia Minor, who possessed the fairest portion of the globe, were addicted to every species of luxury and magnificence; and having fallen under the dominion of the Persians, imbibed with the utmost avidity the amusing fables of their conquerors. The Milesians, who were a colony of Greeks, and spoke the Ionic dialect, excelled all the neighbouring nations in ingenuity, and first caught from the Persians this rage for fiction: but the tales they invented, and of which the name has become so celebrated have all perished. There is little known of them, except that they were not of a very moral tendency, and were principally written by a person of the name of Aristides, whose tales were translated into Latin by Sisenna, the Roman historian, about the time of the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. Huet, Vossius,* and the other writers by whom the stories of Aristides have been mentioned, concur in representing them as short amatory narratives in prose: yet it would appear from two lines in Ovid's Tristia, that some of them, at least, had been written in verse: Junxit Aristides Milesia carmina secum- But though the Milesian tales have perished, of their na*De Historicis Græcis.-Aristides. |