presented a full and continued view of it, though detached parts have been separately treated with much learning and ingenuity. were drawn. The conductor was M. de Bastide, one of the feeble imitators of the younger Crebillon. He supplied, however, few articles, but enjoyed as co-operators, the Chevalier de Huet, who was the first that investigated Mayer, and M. de Cardonne; as also the this matter, has given us a treatise, formally Comte de Tressan, whose contributions have entitled De Origine Fabularum. That part been likewise published in the collection of of his essay which relates to the Greek ro- his own works, under the title Corps d' Exmances, though very succinct, is sufficiently traits. clear, and stored with sound criticism. But having brought down the account of fiction In the Bibliotheque des Romans, prose works to the later Greeks, and just entered on those of fiction are divided into classes, and a sumcomposed by the western nations, which have mary of one romance from each order is now the name of Romances almost appropri- exhibited in turn. This compilation was pubated to them," he puts the change on his lished periodically till the year 1787, and four readers," as Warburton has remarked (Notes volumes were annually given to the world. to Love's Labour's Lost); "and instead of giving us an account of the Tales of Chivalry, Next to the enormous length, and the freone of the most curious and interesting parts quent selection of worthless materials, the of the subject of which he promised to treat, principal objection to the work is the arrangehe contents himself with an account of the ment adopted by the editors. Thus, a ropoems of the Provençal writers, called like-mance of chivalry intervenes between two wise romances; and so, under the equivoque Greek romances, or is presented alternately of a common term, he drops his proper sub- with a French heroic romance, or modern iect, and entertains us with another which novel. Hence the reader is not furnished with had no relation to it except in the name." a view of the progress of Fiction in continuity; he cannot trace the imitations of successive Subsequent to the publication of this trea- fablers, nor the way in which fiction has been tise by Huet, several works were projected in modified by the manners of an age. There is France, with the design of exhibiting a gene- besides little or no criticism of the novels or ral view of fictitious composition. The first romances which are analyzed, and the whole was the Bibliotheque des Romans, by the Abbé work seems to have been written under the Lenglet Dufresnoy, in two volumes, pub- eye of the sultan who said he would cut off lished in 1735, under the name of Gordon de the head of the first man who made a reflecPercel. It is a mere catalogue, however, and tion. But even the utility of the abstracts, wants accuracy, the only quality which can which should have been the principal object render a catalogue valuable. of the work, is in a great measure lost, as it appears to have been the intention of the ediIn 1775, a work, also entitled Bibliotheque tors rather to present an entertaining story, des Romans, was commenced on a much more somewhat resembling that of the original, extensive plan, and was intended to comprise than a faithful analysis. Characters and senan analysis of the chief works of fiction from timents are thus exhibited, incongruous with the earliest times. The design was conceived ancient romance, and abhorrent from the and traced by the Marquis de Paulmy, whose opinions of the era whose manners it reflects. extensive library supplied the contributors It is only as presenting a true and lively picwith the materials from which their abstracts ture of the age, that romance has claims on the attention of the antiquarian or philoso- Percy, Warton, and others, have written, as pher; and if its genuine remains be adulte- is well known, with much learning and ingerated with a mixture of sentiments and man-nuity, on that branch of the subject which ners of modern growth, the composition is relates to the origin of Romantic Fiction-the heterogeneous and uninstructive. (Rose's marvellous decorations of chivalry. This inquiry, however, comprehends but a small part of the subject, and even here research has Amadis de Gaul.) Abstracts of romances omitted in the Bib-oftener been directed to the establishment of liotheque des Romans have been published in a theory, than to the investigation of truth. Melanges tirées d'une Grande Bibliotheque, which is a selection from the scarce manu- In the following work I shall try to prescripts and publications contained in the li- sent a faithful analysis of those early and brary of the Marquis de Paulmy. The work scarce productions which form, as it were, the has also been continued in the Nouvelle Bib-land-marks of Fiction. Select passages will liotheque des Romans, which comprises abridg- occasionally be added, and I shall endeavour ments of the most recent productions of the by criticisms to give such a sketch as may French, English, and German novelists. enable the reader to form some idea of the nature and merit of the works themselves, In this country there has been no attempt and of the transmission of fable from one age towards a general History of Fiction. Dr and country to another. HISTORY OF FICTION, &c. CHAPTER I. Origin of Fictitious Narrative.-Earliest Writers of Greek Romance.-Heliodorus.-Achilles Tatius.-Longus.-Chariton.-Joannes Damascenus.-Eustathius.-Remarks on this Species of Composition. THE nature and utility of Fiction having been | people, demand even too much effort in the pointed out, and the design of the work ex- reader, or hearer, to be generally popular. plained 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 successively presented to the world. To such, a simple narrative, a history of ludi- 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 nobler literature, that fictions in prose came to be cultivated as & 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, into Latin by Sisenna, the Roman historian, and in a luxurious age, and among a luxurious about the time of the civil wars of Marius and 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 Sylla. Huet, Vossius,' and the other writers by this species of composition. Of the roby whom the stories of Aristides have been mances, however, which were written previous mentioned, concur in representing them as to the appearance of the Theagenes and Chashort amatory narratives in prose; yet it riclea of Heliodorus, I am compelled to give would appear from two lines in Ovid's Tristia, a very meagre account, as the works themthat some of them, at least, had been written selves have perished, and our knowledge of in verse:them is chiefly derived from the summary which is contained in the Bibliotheca of Photius. Junxit Aristides Milesia carmina secum- Some years after the composition of the But though the Milesian tales have perished, fictitious history of Clearchus, Antonius Dioof their nature some idea may be formed from genes wrote a more perfect romance than had the stories of Parthenius Nicenus," many of hitherto appeared, founded on the wandering which, there is reason to believe, are extracted adventures and loves of Dinias and Dercyllis, from these ancient fables, or at least are written entitled, "Of the Incredible Things in Thule." in the same spirit. The tales of Nicenus are That island, of which the position is one of about forty in number, but appear to be mere the most doubtful points in ancient geography, sketches. They chiefly consist of accounts of was not, according to Diogenes, the most disevery species of seduction, and the criminal tant of the globe, as he talks of several beyond passions of the nearest relations. The prin- it: Thule is but a single station for his advencipal characters generally come to a deplorable turers, and many of the most incredible things end, though seldom proportioned to what they are beheld in other quarters of the world. The merited by their vices. Nicenus seems to idea of the work of Diogenes is said to have been have grafted the Milesian tales on the mytholo- taken from the Odyssey, and in fact many of gical fables of Apollodorus and similar writers, the incidents seem to have been borrowed from and also to have borrowed from early his- that poem. Indeed the author mentions a torians and poets, whose productions have not number of writers prior to himself, particudescended to us. His work is inscribed to the larly Antiphanes, from whom he had collected Latin poet Cornelius Gallus, the contemporary these wonderful relations. Aulus Gellius and friend of Virgil. Indeed the author says informs us, that coming on one occasion from that it was composed for his use, to furnish him Greece to Italy, he landed at Brundusium, in with materials for elegies and other poems. Calabria, where he purchased a collection of fabulous histories, under the names of Aristeus, Ctesias, and Onesicritus, which were full of stories concerning nations which saw during night, but were blind during day, and various other fictions, which, we shall find, were inserted in the "Incredible Things in Thule." The work of Diogenes is praised by Photius Previous, however, to the age of Alexander for its purity of style, and the delightful the Great, little seems to have been attempted variety of its adventures; yet, to judge from in this style of composition by the European that author's abridgment, it seems to have Greeks; but the more frequent intercourse contained a series of the most improbable which his conquests introduced between the incidents. But though filled with the most Greek and Asiatic nations, opened at once all trifling and incredible narrations, it is deservthe sources of fiction. Clearchus, who was a ing of attention, as it seems to have been a disciple of Aristotle, and who wrote a history repository from which Achilles Tatius and of fictitious love adventures, seems to have succeeding fablers derived the materials of been the first author who gained any celebrity less defective romances. The inhabitants of Asia Minor, and especially the Milesians, had a considerable intercourse with the Greeks of Attica and Peloponnesus, whose genius also naturally disposed them to fiction: they were delighted with the tales of the eastern nations, and pleasure produced imitation. 1 De Historicis Græcis.-Aristides. 3 Eclog. 10. 2 Παρθενία Νίκαίως περί ερωτίκων παθημάτων. 4 Αντωνία Διογένες των ύπες Θυλην απίσων λόγοι. |