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fection, and the other that superhuman courage and boundless generosity which constitute the mirror of knighthood. Nothing, however, can be worse founded than the assertion of Warburton, and of Warton [ed. 1824, i. p. 112], that after the Holy Wars a new set of champions, conquests, and countries were introduced into romance; and that Solyman, Nouraddin, with the cities of Palestine and Egypt, became the favourite topics. Mr. Ritson [Anc. Metr. Rom., i. p. 52] has justly remarked, that no such change took place as is pretended; and so far from the Crusades and Holy Land becoming favourite topics, there is not, with the exception of the uninteresting romance of Godfrey of Boulogne, a single tale of chivalry founded on any of these subjects. Perhaps those celebrated expeditions undertaken for the recovery of the Holy Land were too recent, and too much matter of real life, to admit the decorations of fiction. Many of the metrical romances were written in England during the reign of Richard, or in France in the age of St. Louis, and were transformed into prose, as we learn from the authors themselves, at the moment when Edward I. embarked for Palestine.

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Having therefore now completed the task of furnishing an analysis of the most important prose romances of chivalry that have been given to the world, I shall dismiss the subject by a few remarks on the influence and the decline of that species of composition.

The influence which chivalry for many ages exercised in the modification of manners and customs has been often pointed out, and whatever that effect may have been, it was doubtless heightened by the composition and perusal of romances.

These works arose from a system of manners, and in their turn exercised on manners a reciprocal influence. The taste of the age gradually changed from a fondness for monkish miracles to the ready admission of tales, equally eccentric, indeed, and improbable, but from any special

1 It will, however, be remembered, notes Liebrecht, that in consequence of the Crusades the scene of several romances was laid in the Holy Land; e. g., Sir Bevis, Sir Guy, Sir Isumbras, The King of Tars, etc., and these, as appears from Chaucer's statement [Ryme of Sir Thopas, v. 13825, etc.], were accounted "romances of pris.”

religious tendency. The charms of romance roused the dormant powers of the human intellect; gave wings to fancy and warmth to imagination; and, in some degree, kindled a love of glory. They seem also to have inspired a taste for reading; for that these works were much perused, is evident, both from the number that were written, and the many editions that have successively appeared.

Another effect produced by the romances of chivalry, was the communication of beauty and interest to the writings of many illustrious poets, who improved on their machinery, and adopted those tales of wondrous achievement in which the amantes mira Camoenae chiefly rejoice. Classical fictions might, like the Grecian architecture, be more elegant than the Gothic, but the productions of the middle ages were more awakening to the fancy and more affecting to the heart. The perilous adventures of the Gothic knights— their high honour, tender gallantry, and solemn superstitions, presented finer scenes and subjects of description, and more interesting displays of affection-in short, more beauty, variety, and pathos, than had ever yet been unfolded.

Pulci and Boiardo, the earliest romantic poets of Italy, communicated to the tales of chivalry all the embellishments which flow from the charms of versification, and the beauties of an enchanting language. From their example, the fables of romantic fiction became the favourite themes of succeeding poets. The compositions adorned by these splendid miracles were the objects of universal admiration, while the epic poems of Trissino and Alamanni, founded on the classic model, were neglected or despised. Nor can this be wholly attributed to the difference of genius in the poets themselves; for while the other writings of Ariosto sunk into oblivion, his Orlando, according to the expression of his great rival, lives in ever-renovating youth. The genius of Tasso, which hardly rises above mediocrity in tragedy, in pastoral, or in the classical refabrication of the Jerusalem, has reared one of the finest poems in the world on the basis of romantic fiction. "These were the tales," says the biographer of our earliest English poet, "with which the youthful fancy of Chaucer was fed; these were the visionary scenes by which his genius was awakened;

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these were the acts and personages on which his boyish thoughts were at liberty to ruminate for ever.' Many too were the obligations of Spenser to the fables of romance; and even in a later period they nourished the genius of a poet yet more august, who repeatedly bears his testimony of admiration and gratitude to their inspiring influence."I will tell you," says Milton, "whither my younger feet wandered: I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood.""

A change introduced in the customs and mode of life among the inhabitants of Europe, as it was the principal source of the rise, so it may be also regarded as the chief cause of the decline, of romantic composition. The abolition of chivalry was the innovation which had most effect in this overthrow. However useful that institution might have been in the early stages of society, it was found that in a regular campaign the utmost disorder resulted from an impetuous militia, which knew no laws but those of its courage, which confounded temerity with valour, and was incapable of rallying in the hour of disaster. Vigour of discipline was broken by want of unity of command; for the army was headed by chiefs who had different interests and different motives of action, and who drew not from the same source their claims to obedience. The knights, too, had at all times perverted the purposes of their institution. If we believe the flattering picture given by Colombiere, the errant heroes of chivalry wandered through the world redressing injuries, exterminating the banditti with which Europe was infested, or relieving those ladies who had fallen into the power of enemies. But if we examine other writers, we shall meet with a very different account of these worthies, and shall find, according to the quaint expression of an old English author, that these errant knights were arrant knaves.

Pierre de Blois, who wrote in the twelfth century, complains that the horses of the knights were more frequently loaded with implements of gluttony and drunkenness, than with arms fit for battle. "They are burdened," says he [Epist. 1 Godwin, Life of Chaucer, vol. i. ch. 4.

2 Toland's "Life of Milton," p. 35. Cf. supra, vol. i. p. 158.

No. 94], "not with weapons, but wine; not with javelins, but cheeses; not with bludgeons, but bottles; not with spears, but with spits."-Non ferro sed vino, non lanceis sed caseis, non ensibus sed utribus, non hastibus sed verubus onerantur. In France, during the disorders which existed in the reign of Charles VI., the contending factions, with a view to strengthen their interest, multiplied the number of knights, by which means the order was degraded. A new institution was created by Charles VII., who bestowed on his Gensdarmerie the honours hitherto appropriated to knighthood, and the chivalry of France became anxious to enroll themselves amongst a body wherein they might arrive at military command, which, as simple knights, they could no longer attain. The image and amusements of chivalry now alone remained. Mankind were occasionally reminded of a previous state of society by the exhibition of jousts and tournaments; but even these, in a short while, became unfashionable in France, from the introduction of other amusements, and the accident which terminated the life of one of its monarchs (Henry II.).

The wonders of chivalry had disappeared from real life, but still lingered in the memory of man: new romantic compositions, indeed, no longer were written, but the old ones were still read with avidity, when all the powers of wit and genius were exerted-not, indeed, to ridicule the spirit of chivalry, or a state of society which had passed away, but to satirize the barbarous relaters of chimerical adventures, and those who devoted their time to their perusal.

Some writers have considered the Sir Thopas of Chaucer as a prelude to the work of Cervantes.' It may be much to the honour of the English poet that he so early discerned and ridiculed the absurdities of his contemporary romancers, but it cannot be conceived that Sir Thopas had any effect in discrediting their compositions. It appeared in a reign which almost realized the wonders of romantic fiction, and at a period when the spirit of chivalry possessed too firm hold of the mind to suffer the love of the marvellous to be easily eradicated. The satire, besides, was ín

1 See Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet., 1824, ii. 268.

finitely too recondite to have been detected in that age; what was meant as burlesque was probably considered as a grave heroic narrative,- -a supposition which must have been strengthened from the author having, in another composition, the Knight's Tale, adopted the extravagancies which he is supposed to deride. In Don Quixote, on the contrary, the satire was too broad to be mistaken, and appeared when the spirit of chivalry was nearly abated. The old romancers had outraged all verisimilitude in their extravagant pictures of chivalry, and as their successors found that the taste of the public was beginning to pall, they sought to give an interest to their compositions by descriptions of more impossible valour and more incredible absurdity. Accordingly the evil began to cure itself, and the phantoms of knight-errantry were laughed out of countenance by the ridicule of Cervantes before their substance had been presented, at least in a prose composition, by any author of genius.

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I do not believe that the prevalence of the heroic, or pastoral romances, had much effect in discrediting the tales of chivalry these new fictions rather arose in consequence of a decline of the taste for the old works, and the stagnation of amusement which followed; but it is probable they were, in some measure, overshaded by the growth of other branches of literature. The study of the classics introduced method into composition, and the ambition of rivalling these new patterns of excellence produced imitation. Fancy was curbed by reflection, and rules of criticism intimidated the bold eccentricities of romantic genius. Besides, the Gothic fables were superseded by the general diffusion of the works of the Italian novelists in France and England, and the numerous translations and imitations of them in both countries. The alternate pictures of ingenious gallantry and savage revenge, which these exhibit, produced a taste in reading, which, when once formed, could not easily have been recalled to a relish for the delights of romance. These tales form an extensive and interesting department of fiction, and their origin and progress will be the subject of our first inquiries in the succeeding chapters.

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