and ingenuity, on that branch of the subject which relates to the origin of Romantic Fiction-the marvellous decorations of chivalry. This enquiry, however, comprehends but a small part of the subject, and even here research has oftener been directed to the establishment of a theory, than to the investigation of truth. In the following work I shall try to present a faithful analysis of those early and scarce productions which form, as it were, the landmarks of Fiction. Select passages will occasionally be added, and I shall endeavour by criticisms to give such a sketch as may enable the reader to form some idea of the nature and merit of the works themselves, and of the transmission of fable from one age and country to another. EDINBURGH, 10th Feb., 1816. HISTORY OF FICTION. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF FICTITIOUS NARRATIVE.-EARLIEST WRITERS OF GREEK ROMANCE. HELIODORUS.-ACHILLES TATIUS. -LONGUS.-CHARITON.-JOANNES DAMASCENUS.EUS TATHIUS.-REMARKS ON THIS SPECIES OF COMPOSITION. THE 'HE nature and utility of fiction having been pointed out, and the design of the work explained in the introductory remarks, it now remains to prosecute what forms the proper object of this undertaking,-the origin and progress of prose works of fiction, with the analysis and criticism of the most celebrated which have been successively presented to the world. We have already seen that fiction has in all ages formed the delight of the rudest and the most polished nations. It was late, however, and after the decline of its nobler literature, that fictions in prose came to be cultivated as a species of composition in Greece. In early times, the mere art of writing was too difficult and dignified to be employed in prose, and even the laws of the principal legislators were then promulgated in verse. In the better ages of Greece, all who felt the mens divinior, and of whose studies the embellishments of fiction were the objects, naturally wrote in verse, and men of genius would have disdained to occupy themselves with a simple domestic tale in prose. This mode of composition was reserved for a later period, when the ranks of poetry had been filled with great names, and the very abundance of great models had produced satiety. Poetical productions too, in order to be relished, require to be read with a spark of the same feeling in which they are composed, and in a luxurious age, and among a luxurious people, demand even too much effort in the reader, or hearer, to be generally popular. To such, a simple narrative, a history of ludicrous or strange adventures, forms the favourite amusement.; and we thus find that listening to the recital of tales has at all times been the peculiar entertainment of the indolent and voluptuous nations of the East. A taste, accordingly, for this species of narrative, or composition, seems to have been most early and most generally prevalent in Persia and other Asiatic regions, where the nature of the climate and effeminacy of the inhabitants conspired to promote its cultivation. The people of Asia Minor, who possessed the fairest portion of the globe, were addicted to every species of luxury and magnificence; and having fallen under the dominion of the Persians, imbibed with the utmost avidity the amusing fables of their conquerors. The Milesians, who were a colony of Greeks, and spoke the Ionic dialect, excelled all the neighbouring nations in ingenuity, and first caught from the Persians this rage for fiction: but the tales they invented, and of which the name has become so celebrated, have all perished. There is little known of them, except that they were not of a very moral tendency, and were principally written by a person of the name of Aristides, whose tales were translated into Latin by Sisenna, the Roman historian, about the time of the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. Huet, Vossius,' and the other writers by whom the stories of Aristides have been mentioned, concur in representing them as short amatory narratives in prose; yet it would appear from two lines in Ovid's "Tristia," that some of them, at least, had been written in verse: Junxit Aristides Milesia carmina secum- 1 De Historicis Græcis.-Aristides. 2 There is, however, another reading, " crimina," which Manso follows in his German translation, remarking that Aristides' work was certainly composed in prose. Sisenna translated it into prose, 66 nec obfuit illiHistoriæ turpes inseruisse jocos."-Trist. ii. 443, and 412, and Lucian and Apuleius, both prose writers, speak of the Greek as their model in But though the Milesian tales have perished, of their nature some idea may be formed from the stories of Parthenius of Nicæa, many of which, there is reason to believe, are extracted from these ancient fables, or at least are written in the same spirit.' The tales of Parthenius are about forty in number, but appear to be mere sketches. They chiefly consist of accounts of every species of seduction, and the criminal passions of the nearest relations. The principal characters generally come to a deplorable end, though seldom proportioned to what they merited by their vices. Parthenius seems to have grafted the Milesian tales on the mythological fables of Apollodorus and similar writers, and also to have borrowed from early historians and poets, whose productions have not descended to us. His work is inscribed to the Latin poet Cornelius Gallus, the contemporary and friend of Virgil. Indeed the author says that it was composed for his use, to furnish him with materials for elegies and other poems." narration and expression [Lucian, Amores, § 1, and Apuleius, in the introduction to his Metamorphoses.]-Liebrecht. The tales of Sybaris were equally famous and infamous with those of Miletus (Ovid, Trist. ii. 4, 17). Ælian and Aristophanes have preserved an outline of two of the tales of Sybaris, which, however, are naïve and irreproachable enough. (See Landau Quellen, 1884, p. 300; see chap. ii. of the present work). 1 The work of Parthenius, περι ἔρωτικῶν παθήματων, is a collection of thirty-six abstracts of love legends collected in brief form from historians and poets, and dedicated to the compiler's friend, the Roman poet Cornelius Gallus. The object of the compilation is partly to elucidate allusions occurring in poetical works, partly to supply themes for elegiac or epic narratives of love adventures, as appears from the dedication of Parthenius. They thus afford, remarks Rohde (Griech, Rom. p. 114), the most explicit testimony to the close connection between the Roman artificial poetry of the early Empire with the Alexandrian school of imaginative literature, and supply an invaluable source of information upon the popular erotic tales, known to us otherwise only by meagre fragments, and upon their recital in both prose and poetical writers. A further element of value is added by the care of the compiler in generally indicating the sources whence he has drawn, such as the Milesian, Naxian, Pallenian, Lydian, Trojan, and Bythinian tales. (See Rohde, Gr. Rom. p. 114, and Mueller, Hist. Lit. Gr. iii. p. 354.) 2 Eclog. 10. 3 Conon, the grammarian, a contemporary of Parthenius, was the author of fifty Ainyhoes, of which abstracts have been preserved by Photius, Patriarch of Alexandria. They are for the most part of mythicalhistorical character. No. 38 is essentially the story of the judgment of The inhabitants of Asia Minor, and especially the Milesians, had a considerable intercourse with the Greeks of Attica and Peloponnesus, whose genius also naturally disposed them to fiction: they were delighted with the tales of the eastern nations, and pleasure produced imitation.1 Previous, however, to the age of Alexander the Great, little seems to have been attempted in this style of composition by the European Greeks; but the more frequent intercourse which his conquests introduced between the Greek and Asiatic nations, opened at once all the sources of fiction.' Clearchus, who was a disciple of Aristotle, and who wrote a history of fictitious love adventures, seems to have been the first author who gained any celebrity by this species of composition. Of the romances, however, which were written previous to the appearance of the Theagenes and Chariclea of Heliodorus, I am compelled to give a very meagre account, as the works themselves have perished, and our knowledge of them is chiefly derived from the summary which is contained in the Bibliotheca of Photius. Some years after the composition of the fictitious history of Clearchus, Antonius Diogenes wrote a more perfect romance than had hitherto appeared, founded on the wandering adventures and loves of Dinias and Dercyllis, entitled, Sancho Panza on the staff (Don Quixote, pt. ii. ch. 45). This is found in the life of St. Nicholas of Bari, in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, whence Cervantes may have derived it. The same legend is current among the Mohammedans (Weil, Biblische Legenden der Muhammedaner, p. 213), and occurs in the Talmud (Blätter für Israels Gegenwart and Zukunft Erster Jahrg. Berlin, 1845, p. 27). There is a similar local legend in the Brandenburg March (Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes, 1843, No. 77).--LIEB. 1 Indian literature indeed bears traces of Greek influence subsequent to the expedition of Alexander, and there is sparing indication of the inverse. See, however, note on Heliodorus (pp. 22, 23 infra). Dunlop cites but two works, those of Clearchus and Antonius Diogenes, in support of his assertion. Opinions differ widely upon the Erotica of Clearchus. By some it is considered to have been a philosophic treatise upon love, by others a romance, by others a collection of short erotic tales. Antonius Diogenes flourished probably considerably after the commencement of the Christian era, and not earlier than the end of the second century, according to Passow (in Ersch and Gruber's "Encyclop."). His work, moreover, exhibits no special indication of Eastern influence. For somewhat fuller notice of this question, see Liebrecht's notes, p. 456. |