which sort of men," he said, "stood more on a point of honour than religion." The feelings of chivalry must have been indeed degraded, when so base an assassination was accounted a point of honour. In Scotland, the manners of which country, as is well observed by Robertson, strongly resembled those of France, the number of foul murthers, during the sixteenth century, was almost incredible; and indeed assassination might be termed the most general vice of the sixteenth century. From these circumstances, the total decay of chivalrous principle is sufficiently evident. As the progress of knowledge advanced, men learned to despise its fantastic refinements; the really enlightened, as belonging to a system inapplicable to the modern state of the world; the licentious, fierce, and subtle, as throwing the barriers of affected punctilio betwixt them and the safe, ready, and unceremonious gratification of their lust or their vengeance. The system of chivalry had its peculiar advantages during the middle ages. Its duties were not, and indeed could not, always be performed in perfection, but they had a strong influence on public opinion; and we cannot doubt that its institutions, virtuous as they were in principle, and honourable and generous in their ends, must have done much good and prevented much evil. We can now only look back on it as a beautiful and fantastic piece of frostwork which has dissolved in the beams of the sun! But though we seek in vain for the pillars, the vaults, the cornices, and the fretted ornaments of the transitory fabric, we cannot but be sensible that its dissolution has left on the soil valuable tokens of its former existence. We do not mean, nor is it necessary to trace, the slight shades of chivalry, which are yet received in the law of England. An appeal to combat in a case of treason, was adjudged, in the celebrated case of Ramsay and Lord Reay, in the time of Charles I. An appeal of murder seems to have been admitted as legal, within the last year.* But it is not in such issues, rare as they must be, that we ought to trace the consequences of chivalry. We have already shown, that its effects are rather to be sought in the general feeling of respect to the female sex; in the rules of forbearance and decorum in society; in the duties of speaking truth and observing courtesy; and in the general conviction and assurance, that, as no man can encroach upon the property of another without accounting to the laws, so none can infringe on his personal honour, be the difference of rank what it may, without subjecting himself to personal responsibility. It will be readily believed that, in noticing the existence of duelling as a relic of chivalry, we do not mean to discuss the propriety of the custom. It is our happiness that the excesses to which this spirit is liable, are checked by the laws which wisely discountenance the practice; for, although the severity of the laws sometimes gives way to the force of public opinion, * 1817. See "Manual of Dates": "Trial by Battle." they still remain an effectual restraint, in every case where the circumstances argue either wanton provocation or unfair advantage. It is to be hoped, that as the custom of appealing to this Gothic mode of settling disputes is gradually falling into disuse, our successors may enjoy the benefit of the general urbanity, decency, and courtesy, which it has introduced into the manners of Europe, without the necessity of having recourse to a remedy, not easily reconciled to law or to Christianity. 66 ESSAY ON ROMANCE. DR. JOHNSON has defined romance, in its primary sense, to be a military fable of the middle ages; a tale of wild adventures in love and chivalry.” But although this definition expresses correctly the ordinary idea of the word, it is not sufficiently comprehensive to answer our present purpose. A composition may be a legitimate romance, yet neither refer to love nor chivalry-to war nor to the middle ages. The "wild adventures" are almost the only absolutely essential ingredient in Johnson's definition. We would be rather inclined to describe a Romance as a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents ;" being thus opposed to the kindred term Novel, which Johnson has described as a smooth tale, generally of love;" but which we would rather define as "a fictitious narrative, differing from the romance, because the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events, and the modern state of society."/ Assuming these definitions, it is evident, from the nature of the distinction adopted, that there may exist compositions which it is difficult to assign precisely or exclusively to the one class or the other; and which, in fact, partake of the nature of both. But the distinction will be found broad enough to answer all general and useful purposes. 66 The word Romance, in its original meaning, was far from corresponding with the definition now assigned. On the contrary, it signified merely one or other of the popular dialects of Europe, founded (as almost all these dialects were) upon the Roman tongue, that is, upon the Latin. The name of Romance was indiscriminately given to the Italian, to the Spanish, even (in one remarkable instance at least)* to the English language. But it was especially applied to the compound *This curious passage was detected by the industry of Ritson in Geraldus_Cambrensis, "Ab aquâ illa optima, quæ Scottice vocata est FROTH; Brittanice, WEIRD; Romane vero Scotte-Wattre." Here the various names assigned to the Frith of Forth are given in the Gaelic or Earse, the British or Welsh; and the phrase Roman is applied to the ordinary language of England. But it would be difficult to show another instance of the English language being termed Roman or Romance. language of France; in which the Gothic dialect of the Franks, the Celtic of the ancient Gauls, and the classical Latin, formed the ingredients. Thus Robert De Brunne: "All is calde geste Inglis, That en this language spoken is- So sayis clerkis and men of France." At a period so early as 1150, it plainly appears that the Romance language was distinguished from the Latin, and that translations were made from the one into the other; for an ancient Romance on the subject of Alexander, quoted by Fauchet, says it was written by a learned clerk, 6. Quid de Latin la trest. et en Roman la mit." The most noted Romances of the middle ages were usually composed in the Romance or French language, which was in a peculiar degree the speech of love and chivalry, and those which are written in English always affect to refer to some French original, which, usually, at least, if not in all instances, must be supposed to have had a real existence. Hence the frequent recurrence of the phrase, Or, "As in romance we read ;" "Right as the romaunt us tells :" and equivalent phrases, well known to all who have at any time perused such compositions. Thus, very naturally, though undoubtedly by slow degrees, the very name of romaunt, or romance, came to be transferred from the language itself to that peculiar style of composition in which it was so much employed, and which so commonly referred to it. How early a transference so natural took place, we have no exact means of knowing; but the best authority assures us, that the word was used in its modern and secondary sense so early as the reign of Edward III. Chaucer, unable to sleep during the night, informs us, that, in order to pass the time,' "Upon my bed I sate upright, A ROMAUNCE, and he me it took The book described as a Romance contained, as we are informed, "Fables That clerkis had, in old tyme, And other poets, put in rhyme." And the author tells us, a little lower, "This boke ne spake but of such things, Of Queens' lives and of Kings. The volume proves to be no other than Ovid's Metamorphoses; and Chaucer, by applying to that work the name of Romance, sufficiently establishes that the word was, in his time, correctly employed under the modern acceptation. Having thus accounted for the derivation of the word, our investigation divides itself into three principal branches, though of unequal extent. In the FIRST of these we propose to inquire into the general History and Origin of this peculiar species of composition, and particularly of Romances relating to European chivalry, which necessarily form the most interesting object of our inquiry, and in the SECOND, to give some brief account of the History of the romance of chivalry in the different states of Europe. THIRDLY, we propose to notice cursorily the various kinds of romantic composition by which the ancient romances of chivalry were followed and superseded, and with these notices to conclude the article. I. In the views taken by Hurd, Percy, and other older authorities, of the origin and history of romantic fiction, their attentions were so exclusively fixed upon the romance of chivalry alone, that they seem to have forgotten that, however interesting and peculiar, it formed only one species of a very humorous and extensive genius. The progress of romance, in fact, keeps pace with that of society, which cannot long exist, even in the simplest state, without exhibiting some specimens of this attractive style of composition. It is not meant by this assertion that in early ages such narratives were invented, in the character of mere fictions, devised to pass away the leisure of those who have time enough to read and attend to them. On the contrary, romance and real history have the same common origin. It is the aim of the former to maintain as long as possible the mask of veracity; and indeed the traditional memorials of all earlier ages partake in such a varied and doubtful degree of the qualities essential to those opposite lines of composition, that they form a mixed class between them; and may be termed either romantic histories, or historical romances, according to the proportion in which their truth is debased by fiction, or their fiction mingled with truth. A moment's glance at the origin of society will satisfy the reader why this can hardly be otherwise. The father of an isolated family, destined one day to rise from thence into a nation, may, indeed, narrate to his descendants the circumstances which detached him from the society of his brethren, and drove him to form a solitary settlement in the wilderness, with no other deviation from truth, on the part of the narrator, than arises from the infidelity of memory, or the exaggerations of vanity. But when the tale of the patriarch is related by his children, and again by his descendants of the third and fourth generation, the facts it contains are apt to assume a very different aspect. The vanity of the tribe augments the simple annals from one cause the love of the marvellous, so natural to the human mind, contributes its means of sophistication from another-while, sometimes, the king and the priest find their interest in casting a holy and sacred gloom and mystery over the early period in which their power arose. And thus altered and sophisticated from so many different motives, the real adventures of the founder of the tribe bear as little proportion to the legend recited among his children, as the famous hut of Loretto bears to the highly ornamented church with which superstition has surrounded and enchased it. Thus the definition which we have given of romance, as a fictitious narrative turning upon the marvellous or the supernatural, might, in a large sense, be said to embrace Quicquid Græcia mendax or, in fine, the mythological and fabulous history of all early nations. It is also important to remark, that poetry, or rather verse-rhythm at least of some sort or other, is originally selected as the best vehicle for these traditional histories. Its principal recommendation is probably the greater facility with which metrical narratives are retained in the memory—a point of the last consequence, until the art of writing is generally introduced: since the construction of the verse itself forms an artificial association with the sense, the one of which seldom fails to recall the other to recollection. But the medium of verse, at first adopted merely to aid the memory, becomes soon valuable on account of its other qualities. The march or measure of the stanza is gratifying to the ear, and, like a natural strain of melody, can be restrained or accelerated, so as to correspond with the tone of feeling which the words convey; while the recurrence of the necessary measure, rhythm, or rhyme, is perpetually gratifying the hearer by a sense of difficulty overcome. Verse being thus adopted as the vehicle of traditional history, there needs but the existence of a single man of genius, in order to carry the composition a step higher in the scale of literature than that of which we are treating. In proportion to the skill which he attains in his art, the fancy and ingenuity of the artist himself are excited; the simple narrative transmitted to him by ruder rhymers is increased in length; is decorated with the graces of language, amplified in detail, and rendered interesting by description; until the brief and barren original bears as little resemblance to the finished piece, as the Iliad of Homer to the evanescent traditions, out of which the blind bard wove his tale of Troy Divine. Hence the opinion expressed by the ingenious Percy, and assented to by Ritson himself. When about to present to his readers an excellent analysis of the old romance of Lybius Disconius, and making several remarks on the artificial management of the story, the Bishop observes, that, “if an Epic poem may be defined a fable related by a poet to excite admi |