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. 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 Besides, the Gothic fables were superseded by the general diffusion of the works of the Italian novelists in France and England, and the numerous translations and imitations of them in both countries.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. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. VOL. I. THEAGENES AND CHARICLEA (p. 24). There appeared, according to A. Kirpichnikof (p. 148, Grech. Rom.), fourteen editions and translations of Theagenes and Chariclea in the sixteenth, and only four in the eighteenth century, a fact which tends to show the influence of Greek romance upon the kindred kind of fiction then developing-the heroic novel, which replaced the Amadis romances; the Histoire afriquaine de Cléomede et de Sophonisbe, par le Sieur de Gerzan, 1627, is only an epic expansion of the story of Heliodorus. Les chastes et loyales amours de Théagène et Chariclée, by Hardy, in eight dramatic poems, appeared in 1601. On the influence of the Greek romance in French literature of the seventeenth century, see Koerting, Geschichte, etc. chap. 2, and infra (vol. iii.), Mlle. Scudery confesses her model is "l'immortel Héliodore." Note (p. 41). The episode of the bee-stung lip may perhaps have been suggested by Anacreon's ode xl. :— Ἔρως ποτ ̓ ἐν ῥόδοισι, etc. Cf. Theocritus, idyll. xix., also Ronsard's imitation : Le petit enfant Amour APOLLONIUS OF TYRE (p. 85, n.). Similar to the story of the daughter of Apollonius is that of St. Geneviève de Brabant, which has furnished the theme of numerous plays, poems, and romances. She was the consort of Count Siegfried, who was persuaded by his servant that she was unfaithful. He ordered her to be put to death; the retainers charged with this commission, however, abandoned her alive in a forest where she gave birth to a child, which was nursed by a white doe. In the course of years, her husband, while hunting, came to her dwelling, her innocence was established, the wicked steward was put to death, and she restored to her rights. Cognate also is the Breton legend and miracle-play of King Arthur and Saint Triphime. The Legend of Bertha of the large foot is of the same class with the above. She was the daughter of Charibert, Count of Laon. Her hand was asked by Pepin, and granted, but she was persuaded that his first marital embraces would stifle a maiden, and she was therefore temporarily replaced by her servant Aliste. This substitution was but part of a plot for the ruin of Bertha, who was taken off at night to be murdered in a forest near Mans, where, however, she was spared by those charged to slay her, and abandoned. Here she passed eight years of the homeliest life. But at length her mother, Blancheflore, consort of Flore, King of Hungary, grew anxious about Bertha, and undertook a journey to France to visit her daughter. She met with a very bad reception everywhere on her passage, for Pepin's consort, reputed Bertha, but really Aliste, had brought odium upon the name of the ousted princess. Upon Blancheflore's arrival, Aliste, dreading detection, feigned illness, and retired to a darkened chamber. Blancheflore, however, discovers the fraud, when she finds her supposed daughter has not Bertha's large foot. The impostor avows all and retires to a nunnery. Margiste, the arch-plotter, is burned alive, and long but fruitless search is made for Bertha. This virtuous and contented damsel, like an earlier Griselda, is, however, accidentally discovered by Pepin while out hunting-he espies a maiden kneeling before a cross in the depth of a forest. He is straightway smitten and addresses her with amorous urgency, but she to defend her honour tells him she is the daughter of a king, is Berthe au grand pied. She was brought back in triumph, wedded and had six children by Pepin. The story was celebrated by Adenez le roy in the thirteenth century. See Zur Kritik der Bertasage, by Dr. A. Feist, Marburg, 1885, and Romania, 1884, p. 60. On the name Bertha, see F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 512. Cf. also the Slavonic story, The Miller's Daughter become Queen, in Tales from Twelve Tongues; Lond., 1882. = VAMPIRES AND WERWOLVES. Pp. 90, p. 47, 48. Other forms of the word are βουρκόλακοι, βρικόλακες, βουλκό λaka. It is a Slavonic importation, adopted with, however, a change of character, in Greece; and volkodlaki, volkoulaki Dal (Tolkovyi Slovar' zhivavo velikorusskavo yazika, 1880, i., p. 237,) conjectures may be derived from volk, wolf, and koudla, hair or wool the wolf's shaggy coat. The Slavonic word means a man that has been transformed into a wolf, the werwolf or loup-garou, the object of a widely diffused superstition, respecting which see Afanasief Poeticheskia vozzrenia Slavian na priródou, vol. iii. p. 527, etc. Also Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen und das hellenische Alterthum, 1871; 1 Theil., p. 157, etc. The superstition is visited in the Greek NomoSee Harleian MS. 5548, clause 70., fol. 37 verso, "Tó αυτό ἐπιτιμίον ὑποπεσοῦνται καὶ οἱ τοὺς λεγομένους βουρκολάκους κατακαίοντες, και ἐξ ἐκείνων καπνίζονται, ὥστε χρόνους ἕξ μη κοινωνήσουν.” canon. Witches are believed to have the power of changing themselves and others into werwolves. The metamorphosis is, according to the Slavonic tradition, the simplest thing in the world, and if you are desirous of achieving it, you have merely to repair to the nearest wood where you must find a stump of a tree that has been felled, and which the axe has left with a smooth flat surface. Into this infix a knife, with incantations, and then turn a somersault over it, when forthwith you will find yourself transformed into a wolf. Should you grow tired of your lupine existence, you should approach the opposite side of the stump, and turn a somersault backwards over it, when you will straightway recover your human shape. It is well. however, at the outset to take |