of pretended sorcerers, who laid claim to a power of effecting this transformation, and perhaps, to aid the deception, disguised themselves in wolves' skins. The belief, however, in this faculty left a name behind in every country of Europe. He who enjoyed it was called Garwalf by the Normans, and Bisclaveret by the Bretons, which is the name of one of the Armorican lays of Marie. It contains the story of a baron, whose wife perceiving that her husband was invariably absent during three days of the week, interrogated him so closely on the cause of his periodical disappearance, that she at length reduced him to the mortifying acknowledgment that during one half of the week he prowled as a bisclaveret; and she also extracted from him a secret, which enabled her to confirm his metamorphosis. From a passage in the Origines Gauloises, by La Tour d'Auvergne, it would appear that a belief in this species of transformation continued long in Brittany."Dans l'opinion des Bretons, ces memes hommes se revetent, pendant la nuit, de peaux de Loups, et en prennent quelquefois la forme, pour se trover a des assembleés ou le demon est supposé presider. Ce que l'on dit ici des deguisements et des courses nocturnes de ces pretendus hommes loups, dont l'espece n'est pas encore entierement etiente dans l'ancienne Armorique, nous rapelle ce que l'histoire rapporte des Lycantrophes d'Irlande." In Ireland, indeed, this superstition probably subsisted longer than in any other country. "In some parts of France," says Sir William Temple in his Miscellanea, "the common people once believed certainly there were Lougaroos, or men turned into wolves; and I remember several Irish of the same mind."

Under this name of Loups-Garoux,' those persons who enjoyed this agreeable faculty have been introduced into several French tales, and other works of fiction, during the

1 See R. Leubuscher, Ueber die Wehrwölfe und Thierverwandlungen im Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Psychologie, Berlin, 1850, and A. Keller, Dyokletianus. Einleitung, p. 52. Græsse (ii. 3, p. 382, etc.) notes in this connection a passage in the Persiles and Sigismunda of Cervantes (1. i. c. 8), also referred to by F. W. V. Schmidt, in his notes (p. 315) to Straparola. Mariè's "Lai de Bisclaveret" occurs again in the Renard Contrefait. The term Bisclaveret would appear also to apply to a human being transmuted into a fox. See Poètes de

period on which we are now employed. These productions have been very happily ridiculed in L'Histoire des Imaginations de M. Oufle, by the Abbé Bardelon. This work is partly written on the model of Don Quixote, and contains the story of a credulous and indolent man, who, having read nothing but marvellous tales, believes, at length, in the existence of sorcerers, demons, and loups-garoux. He first imagines that he is persecuted by a spirit, then alternately fancies himself a magician and loup-garou, and devotes his time to the discovery of a mode of penetrating into the thoughts of men, and attracting the affections of women.' Champagne, p. 138. L'histoire de Biclarel.-Lieb. See also supra, vol. i. p. 447, and Migne's "Dictionnaire des Superstitions." art. Loupgarou. The superstition is ancient and wide-spread, and innumerable allusions to it are found in literature. Herodotus; Virgil, Eclog. viii. 94-97; Strabo; Pliny; Solinus; Pomponius Mela; Dionysius Afer; Varro may be mentioned among the ancients; also St. Augustine, Civ. Dei. xviii. c. 17, 18; Cranzius, Hist. Dan. i. c., P. Le Loyer; iiii. Livres des Spectres, etc., Angers, 1586, Paris, 1605, 1608. A Treatise of Spectres, London, 1605. Pt. 1. Bodin-Démonomanie, p. 193, 450.Del Rio; Disquisit., p. 124.-C. Schott, Physica Curiosa. persons were tried for lycanthropy before the provincial parliaments in France. Jacques Raollet, condemned to death by the parliament of Angers; in 1521 Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun were tried by the parliament of Besançon; Gilles Garnier was condemned at Dôle in 1591. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the parliament of Paris condemned Jacques Bolle to be burnt for the same crime; but in 1598 the same tribunal acquitted Bouliet, tried on a similar charge. In the Dictionnaire Infernal, Paris, 1863, of Collin de Plancy, will be found several loup-garoup anecdotes, together with references to Spranger, Fincelius, Sabinus, Pencer, Daniel Sennert (Maladies Occultes, chap. v.), and other writers. In the same article (Loups-garous) are mentioned several monographs on the subject, the titles of all of which, however, I have not been able to verify. J. de Nyauld, De la Lycanthropie, transformation et extase des Sorciers où les astuces du diable sont mises en évidence. Paris, 1615. Chauvincourt, Discours de la Lycanthropie. Claude, prior of Laval, Dialogus de Lycanthropia. Rickius, Discours de la Lycanthropie. The loup-garou was called louléeron in Perigord and bigourne in Poitou. In Normandy the person who becomes a loup-garou puts on at night a hure or hère. Čf. the haïre (hair shirt) which Littré derives from old high-German hârra, Scandinavian hæra, tissu de poil. Cf. the Slavonic Volkod laki, note, vol. i. p. 447.

Various

1 In addition to the works described in the foregoing chapter, the following, which have generally a political or satirical bearing, may be mentioned.

Rélation de ce qui s'est passé à la nouvelle decouverte du Royaume de Frisquemore, Paris, 1662.

Mercurius Britannus. Mundus Alter et idem, Sive Terra Australis, by J. Hall, Bishop of Norwich.

Bacon's "Atlantis," written about 1624.

J. V. Andreæ, Républicæ Christianopolitanæ descriptio.

Histoire des Séverambes, peuple qui habitent une partie du Troisieme Continent la terre Australe. D. Vairas d'Allais, Paris, 1677-79.

Nouveau Voyage à la Terre Australe, par Jacques Sadeur (G. de Foigni). Paris, 1676.

Republique des Philosophes ou Histoire des Ajaoiens. Geneve, 1768. Graziani Agricolæ Auletis, Sonderbare Reisen nach unbekannte Länder, 1722.

Voyage Politique, Scientifique et Littéraire dans la monde, 1785. Histoire curieuse d'un Nouveau Voyage à la Lune par un Aëromane, 1784.

The early balloon experiments doubtless gave an impulse to these descriptions of travels into space.

CHAPTER XIV.

SKETCH OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL-SERIOUS-COMIC-ROMANTIC-CONCLUSION.

IT

T will have been remarked, that the account of the modern French tales and novels has been much less minute than the analysis of those fictitious histories by which they were preceded. To this compression of the subject, I have been led partly by the variety, and partly by the notoriety of the more recent productions. In the early periods of literature, works of fiction were rare, and thus it was comparatively easy to enumerate and describe them. But during last century, the number of fictitious writings, both in France and England, was so great, that as full an account of them as of those which appeared in former times, would occupy many volumes. Such analysis is likewise the less necessary or proper, since, when works of fiction become so very numerous and varied, they cease to be characteristic of the age in which they were produced. In former periods, when readers were few, and when only one species of fiction appeared at a time, it was easy to judge what were the circumstances which gave birth to it, and to which it gave birth in turn. But in later times, not only an infinite number of works, but works of different kinds, have sprung up at once; and thus were no longer expressive of the taste and feelings of the period of their composition. Above all, what renders a minute analysis unnecessary is, that the works themselves are known to most readers, and conse quently, a detailed account of them would be altogether superfluous. Abstracts may be presented on occasions where the original is little known, and abounds in long details, but they are perfectly unsuitable and improper when the whole novel is concisely and elegantly composed. In this case the value of the original consists less in the

story itself than in the style and sentiments and colouring -in short, in a variety of circumstances, which in an analysis or abridgment totally evaporate and disappear.

Such views have prevented me from entering into detail concerning the French, and they apply still more forcibly to the English novel. What could be more insufferable than an analysis of Tom Jones, and how feeble would be the idea which it would convey of the original? Accordingly I shall confine myself to a very short and general survey of the works of English fiction.

We have already seen that, during the reigns of our Henrys and Edwards, the English nation was chiefly entertained with the fables of chivalry. The French romances concerning Arthur and his knights continued to be the most popular productions during the rule of the Plantagenet monarchs. In the time of Edward IV. the fictions of chivalry were represented in an English garb in the Morte Arthur,' which is a compilation from the most celebrated French romances of the Round Table; while, at the same period, the romantic inventions concerning the history of Troy and classical heroes were translated and printed by the indefatigable Caxton. Artus de la Bretagne and Huon of Bourdeaux were done into English by Lord Berners in the reign of Henry VIII., and continued along with the Morte Arthur, to be the chief delight of our ancestors during the sway of the family of Tudor. In the age of Queen Elizabeth, the Spanish romances concerning Amadis and Palmerin were translated, and a few imitations of the romances of chivalry were also written in English. Of this class of fiction, the MOST FAMOUS, DELECTABLE, AND PLEASANT HYSTORY OF PARISMUS,2 the renowned Prince of Bohemia,

1 By Sir Thomas Maleore, or Malory. Editions were published in 1634, 1816, 1817, 1856, 1858, 1868.

2 Parismus, the renowned Prince of Bohemia, his most famous, delectable, and pleasant historie: containing his noble battailes fought against the Persians, his love to Laurana, the King's daughter of Thessaly, and his strange adventures in the desolate Iland, etc. Black letter, 2 parts. London, 1598-99, 4to. A "fifteenth impression" appeared in 1704. In one part of the story the prince is abandoned by pirates on the desolate Isle, where, however, there are a hermit and an enchanted castle. The episode may just possibly have suggested Defoe's fiction, but it rather recalls the incidents so familiar in the Greek romances.