means of the well-known work of Belleforest,' and were imitated in the Histoires Tragiques of Rosset, one of whose stories [No. 5] is the foundation of the most celebrated drama of Ford, who has indeed chosen a revolting subject, yet has represented perhaps in too fascinating colours the loves of Giovanni and Annabella.

Les Histoires Prodigieuses of Boaistuau, published in 1561, seems to be the origin of such stories as appear in the Wonders of Nature, Marvellous Magazine, &c. We are assured upon the authority of Boethius and Saxo, that, in the Orkneys, wheat grows on the tops of the trees, and that the ripe fruits, when they fall to the water, are immediately changed to singing birds: there are besides a good many relations of monstrous births. There is also the common story of a person who was drowned by mistaking the echo of his own cry, for the voice of another. Arriving on the bank of a river, he asked loudly, "s'il n'y avoit point de peril a passer Passez.-Est ce par ici ?-par ici."

Towards the close of the sixteenth, and beginning of the seventeenth century, a prodigious multitude of tales were written in Spain, in imitation of the Italian novels: "It would be too lengthy a task," says Lampillas (Saggio Storico del. let. Spagnuola, part ii. tom. 3, p. 195,)" to indicate the portentous number of Spanish stories published at that time, and translated into the most cultivated languages of Europe." These Spanish novels are generally more detailed in the incidents than their Italian models, and have also received very considerable modifications from the manners and customs of the country in which they were produced. Those compositions, which in Italy presented alternate pictures of savage revenge, licentious intrigue, and gross buffoonery, are characterized by a high romantic spirit of gallantry, and jealousy of family honour, but

1 For similar information on this writer see F. W. V. Schmidt's "Taschenbuch Deutscher Romanzen," p. 144.

2 Cf. Gervasius Tilb. iii. 123, de avibus ex arboribus nascentibus. 3 It will not be irrelevant to observe here that Boaistuau and Belleforest rendered Bandello's stories into French, Rosset did the same for several works of Cervantes, including part of Don Quixote, and Chapuis translated Ariosto's Rolando, and Amadis de Gaule and Primaleon.

above all, by constant nocturnal scuffles on the streets. The tales of Gerardo, the Novelas Exemplares of Cervantes, the Prodigios y Successos d'Amor of Montalvan, and the Novelas Amorosas of Camerino,' all written towards the end of the sixteenth, or commencement of the seventeenth century, are scarcely less interesting than the French or Italian tales, in illustrating the manners of the people, the progress of fiction, and its transmission from the novelist to the dramatic poet. Beaumont and Fletcher have availed themselves as much of the novels of Gerardo and Cervantes, as of the tales of Cinthio or Bandello, and many of their most popular productions, as the Spanish

1 In Spain also short stories were more numerous and more successful during the latter part of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, than any other form of prose fiction, to a great degree inde. pendent of tales of Oriental origin, which had been introduced two centuries previously by Juan Manuel, and little affected by Boccaccio and his followers, they borrowed rather from the longer romances, and are a most interesting reflex of contemporaneous society. A few repertories of such stories may be here named, such, for instance, as the El Inventario of Antonio de Villegas, 1561. This contained two stories, Absence and Solitude, and Narvaez. The latter is analysed by Ticknor, (iii. 151). The tale was taken bodily from Villegas, by Montemayor, and appears in the latter's Diana, Bk. iv. materially altered for the worse. Padilla wrought the story into a series of ballads, Lope de Vega founded on it his Remedy for Misfortune, and Cervantes introduced it into his Don Quixote, but it nowhere presents itself with such grace as in the simple tale of Villegas. Juan de Timoneda was a bookseller, and may be considered to have known, and laid himself out to please the popular taste. His earlier efforts were in verse. His Patrañuelo, or Storyteller, (1st part), was published in 1576, but was not continued. Its materials are drawn from widely different sources, a comprehensive list of which is given by Liebrecht (p. 500, etc.) These stories "tend to show what is proved in other ways, that such popular tales had long been a part of the intellectual amusements of a state of society little dependent on books; and after floating for centuries up and down Europe-borne by a general tradition, or by the minstrels and trouveurs-were about this period first reduced to writing, and then again passed onward from hand to hand, till they were embodied in some form that became permanent. What, therefore, the Novellieri had been doing in Italy for above two hundred years Timoneda now undertook to do for Spain." El Sobremesa y Alivio de Caminantes, also by Timoneda, is a collection of anecdotes and jests in the manner of Joe Miller. The work was printed in 1569 and probably earlier. Cervantes, Hidalgo, Suarez de Figueroa, Salas Barbadillo, a very popular writer of short fictions, Diego de Agreda y Vargas, Siñar y Verdugo, and others may be added. See Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature, 1872," vol. iii. chap. 36.

Curate, Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, Chances, Love's Pilgrimage, and Fair Maid of the Inn may be easily traced to a Spanish original. [See also Boccaccio, viii. 8, and Cinthio, vi. 6, other works of importance in this connection are noticed by Graesse, ii. 3, p. 247.] I fear, however, that to protract this investigation would be more curious than profitable, as enough has already been said to establish the rapid and constant progress of the stream of fiction, during the periods in which we are engaged, and its frequent transfusion from one channel of literature to another.

Indeed, I have perhaps already occupied the reader longer than at first may seem proper or justifiable, with the subject of Italian tales, and the imitations of them. But, besides their own intrinsic value, as pictures of morals and of manners, other circumstances contributed to lead me into this detail. In no other species of writing is the transmission of fable, and if I may say so, the commerce of literature, so distinctly marked. The larger works of fiction resemble those productions of a country which are consumed within itself, while tales, like the more delicate and precious articles of traffic, which are ex orted from their native soil, have gladdened and delighted every land. They are the ingredients from which Shakspeare, and other enchanters of his day, have distilled those magical drops which tend so much to sweeten the lot of humanity, by occasionally withdrawing the mind, from the cold and naked realities of life, to visionary scenes and visionary bliss.

CHAPTER IX.

ORIGIN OF SPIRITUAL ROMANCE. - LEGENDA AUREA. CONTES DÉVOTS. GUERINO MESCHINO. -LYCIDAS CLEORITHE.-ROMANS DE CAMUS, ETC.-PILGRIM'S PRO

GRESS.

ET

WE have now travelled over those fields of fiction, which

have been cultivated by the writers of chivalry and the Italian novelists; but the task remains of surveying those other regions which the industry of succeeding times has explored, and I have yet to give some account of those different classes of romance which appeared in France and other countries of Europe, previous to the introduction of the modern novel.

It has already been remarked, that the variations of romance correspond in a considerable degree with the variations of manners. Something, indeed, must be allowed to the caprice of taste, and something to the accidental direction of an original genius to a particular pursuit; but still, amid the variety, there is a certain uniformity, and when the character of an age or people is decided, it must give a tinge to the taste, and a direction to the efforts, of those who court attention or favour, and who have themselves been nourished in existing prejudices and in commonly received opinions.

Of the natural principles of the human mind, none are more obvious than a spirit of religion; and in certain periods of society, and under certain circumstances, this sentiment has been so prevalent as to constitute a feature in the character of the age. It was to be expected, therefore, that a feeling so general and powerful should have been gratified in every mode, and that, amongst others, the easy and magical charm of fiction should have formed

one of the methods by which it was fostered and indulged.

In the times which succeeded the early ages of Christianity, the gross ignorance of many of its votaries rendered them but ill qualified to relish the abstract truths of religion, or unadorned precepts of morality. The plan was accordingly adopted of adducing examples, which might interest the attention and speak strongly to the feelings. Hence, from the zeal of some, and the artifice or credulity of other instructors, mankind were taught the duties of devotion by a recital of the achievements of spiritual knight errantry.

The history of Josaphat and Barlaam, of which an account has already been given (vol. i. p. 64, et seq.), and which was written to inspire a taste for the ascetic virtues, seems to have been the origin of Spiritual Romance. It is true, that in the first ages of the church, many fictitious gospels were composed, full of improbable fables; but, as they contained opinions in contradiction to what was deemed the orthodox faith, they were discountenanced by the fathers of the church, and soon fell into disrepute.' On the other hand, the history of Josaphat, and Barlaam, which was more sound in its doctrine, passed at an early period into the west of Europe, and through the medium of the old Latin translation, which was a common manuscript, and was even printed so early as about the year 1470, it became a very general favourite. (See supra, p. 64, etc.)

1

As far back as the fourth century, St. Athanasius visited

Nevertheless the legends based upon or suggested by these apocryphal writings persisted, spread, and have been largely preserved till the present time, as we have seen, for instance, in the case of the St. Andrew, St. Joseph of Arimathea, Veronica, and other traditions.

An unknown author of the twelfth century wrote a metrical Barlaam, the commencement of which is given in Hist. Litt. de la France, xx. p. 484, and is contained in Vatican MS. 1728. A friar preacher, Lorens, translated the history of Barlaam into Provencal in the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century, Guy de Cambrai, a trouvère, wrote a metrical version of the story (see A. Dinaux, Trouvères, jongleurs, et menestrels du nord de la France et du Midi de la Belgique, i. p. 117). There are also two other lives by Chardry and Herbers, as well as a poem on the subject by the German, Rudolph de Montfort, published by Koepke in 1818.