INTRODUCTION. SECTION I. THE History of Romantic Fabling is enveloped in much perplexity; nor is it diminished by the various conjectures which have been started and upheld. The labours of ingenuity are not always con. vincing; and perhaps the very fact of their plausibility leads us to mistrust. Discussion upon remote history is ever attended with difficulty; and arguments that rest upon the basis of refined deduc. tion—that are artfully designed to pull down one system while they support another equally imaginative, may have a well-founded claim to admiration, but not upon the score of truth. It is singular how the mind loves to grasp at mystery, and to disport itself in the chaos of departed time. It springs undauntedly forward, unappalled by the numberless shadows which flit in "dim perspective" before it, and undeterred by the intricacies of the way. It would seem like a captive escaped from confinement, wantoning in the excess of unaccustomed liberty. And the more boundless the subject, the less timid we find the adventurer; the more perilous the journey, the less wary are his movements. Boldness appears to constitute success; as if, because the faint heart never attained the fair lady, modest pretensions and unassuming merit never secured the lady TRUTH. It is a libel upon the head and the heart; and cannot be too speedily abandoned. Of the theories already advanced, none, it seems to me, is perfect; and none, without some portion of accuracy. They each go part of the way, but stop before they touch the mark. Bishop Percy, after Mallet, attributes the invention of romance to the ancient Scalds or Bards of the North. "They believed the existence of giants and dwarfs; they entertained opinions not unlike the more modern notion of fairies; they were strongly possessed with the belief of spells and enchantmer ts, and were fond of inventing combats with dragons and monsters." Now, this is unequivocally nothing less than the entire machinery employed in all the Arabian Tales, and in every other oriental fiction. Such a coincidence no one will suppose the result of accident; nor can it for a moment be believed that the warm imaginations of the East-where Nature brightens the fancy equally with the flowers-borrowed it from the colder conceptions of the Northern bards. Many parts of the Old Testament demonstrate familiarity with spells; and Solomon (which proves a traditional intercourse, at least, between the Jews and other people of the East), by universal consent, has been enthroned sovereign of the Genii, and lord of the powerful Talisman. In David and Goliath, we trace the contests of knights with giants: in the adventures of Samson, perhaps, the miraculous feats attributed to the heroes of chivalry. In the apocryphal Book of Tobit, we have an angel in the room of a SAINT; enchantments, antidotes, distressed damsels, demons, and most of the other machinery of the occidental romance.2 Parts of the Pentateuch, of Kings, &c., &c., appear to have been amplified, and rendered wild and fabulous; and were the comparison carried minutely forward, I am persuaded that the analogy would be found as striking as distinct. I mean not that this has always been the immediate source: I am rather inclined to suppose that certain ramifications, direct from the East, already dilated and improved, were more generally the origin. But Scripture, in many cases, furnished a supernatural agency without pursuing this circuitous route; as well as heroes with all the attributes of ancient romance. In the old French prose of Sir Outel, chap. xxiv., we have the following exclamations on the death of the knight Roland, which partly confirm my observation :-"Comparé à Judas Machabeus par ta valeur et prouesse; ressemblant à Sanson, et pareil à Jonatas fils de Saul par la fortune de sa triste morte!" The Jewish Talmud, and especially the commentary upon it, abounds with fables, composed in some respects of the materials worked up by the Scalds, but long anterior in date to their compositions, so far as they are known. Dr. Percy contends that "old writers of chivalry appear utterly unacquainted with whatever relates to the Mahometan nations, and represent them as worshipping idols, or adoring a golden image of Mahomet." This, I should conceive, would naturally be the case. It was the aim of Christian writers to represent the infidels in the 1 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. iii. p. xiii. In the application of the 10th Tale, the Book of Tobit is referred to. worst light possible. They thought them the most wretched beings in creation; and they might, therefore, artfully pervert their creed and exaggerate their vices. Most frequently, such would be the genuine result of their abhorrence: just as popular superstition pictures the "foul fiend" with horns, and cloven feet, and a hideously distorted countenance-not because it is really accredited, but because nothing is thought too vile or too fearful for the Evil One. The hostility which the crusades excited and nourished; nay, the very difference of religious feeling, would necessarily call out the whole virulence of an age not remarkable for its forbearance; and it is absurd to suppose that the intercourse so long maintained between the two continents (both previous to these expeditions, and subsequent) should not have given them a sufficient acquaintance with the Saracen belief and mode of worship. If the great Saladin required and received knighthood from the hands of the Christians,1 it argued a degree of intimacy with European customs on the one eide, which it would be unfair and arbitrary to deny the other. That the Scalds added some circumstances to the original matter, and rejected others, is extremely probable. The traditions which conveyed the fable would, of course, be corrupted; not only from the mode of conveying it, but from the dissimilarity of customs and ideas among those by whom it was received. All I contend for is the original ground, upon which they and other nations have built; and this, I think I shall be able to demonstrate, purely oriental. But it is objected that, if the Northern bards had derived their systems from the East, they would have naturalized them as the Romans did the stories of Greece. It is thought that they must have adopted into their religious rites the same mythology, and have evinced as strong a similitude, as the nations of classical celebrity. There is, in truth, no basis for such an assertion to stand upon. The long intercourse between these nations, their vicinity to each other, and, more than all, the original similarity of their worship, prepared the Romans to receive the devotional system of a conquered country without hesitation. They understood and valued Grecian literature, and consequently found an additional motive for the reception of Grecian theology. It accorded with preconceived notions; it was, in fact, a part of their own. Besides, the Romans were rising in civilization, and caught at every shadow of improvement. The people of the North were totally the reverse. They were the children 1 See Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. Joinville (p. 42) is cited by Gibbon fo a similar instance. of Nature-of Nature yet unbetrothed to Art. They were not, therefore, prepared by anything analogous to produce a similar effect and could but seize the most prominent features that were presented to them, upon which to engraft their own wild and terrible stories. Warton has written a long dissertation to prove that the Arabians, who had been for some time seated on the northern coasts of Africa, and who entered Spain about the beginning of the eighth century, "disseminated those extravagant inventions which were so peculiar to their romantic and creative genius." This hypothesis Bishop Percy has endeavoured to refute; and, according to Mr. Ellis,2 he has entirely succeeded. The argument advanced on this occasion is that, were it true, "the first French romances of chivalry would have been on Moorish, or at least Spanish subjects, whereas the most ancient stories of this kind, whether in prose or verse, whether in Italian, French, English, &c., are chiefly on the subjects of Charlemagne and the Paladins, or of our British Arthur, and his Knights of the Round Table, &c., being evidently borrowed from the fabulous chronicles of the supposed Archbishop Turpin, and of Jeffrey of Monmouth." Something in this there may be ; but it is still clear that inter ourse, of whatever kind, existing between two nations, must, to a certain degree, supply information relative to their peculiar habits and belief. That each side would hold communication with their captives, either from political motives or otherwise, is consistent with the experience of all ages; and, surely, not every individual would be so fastidious as to repel a closer intimacy. Courtesy, humanity, intrigue, &c., would, in some few at least, open a door to an unfettered interchange of thought; while gratitude for certain benefits might operate on others. In the course of a multifarious warfare, such things must occur; the line of separation must occasionally be removed, and youthful hearts and minds must, now and then, however sundered by human prejudices, break down the strongest barrier that interposes between them. If this be granted, when the history of such times and such circumstances was forgotten, the literature which they had helped to disseminate would remain. The legendary tale of the sire descends unmutilated to the son; and the fact is on record, though the occasion be obliterated. The fabulous chronicle of Turpin might then be drawn up; having its superstructure on French manners, but its basis on oriental Hist. of Eng. Poetry, Diss. 1. 2 Specimens of Anc. Met. Romances, vol. i. p. 31. 3 Rel. of Anc. Eng. 'oetry, vol. iii. p. xii. Note. |