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equally difficult to conceive how any new effect could be 

 wrought upon Europeans, by means of fiction, unless we 

 might perhaps except the Spanish nation, which has been 

 so recently converted by one species of fiction, from the ab- 

 surdities introduced by another; taking also into account, 

 the prejudice and ignorance which the policy of the Inquisi- 

 sition has obliged them to retain. "With regard to the French, 

 we know they. have been always remarkable for their polite- 

 ness and gallantry ; we know also, that it was by the French, 

 the romantic mode of fabling had been earliest and most cul- 

 tivated ; that it never was lost from among them ; and that 

 they continued superior to all other nations in that depar- 

 ment of literature. Their constant reading of this kind of 

 books is sufficient to account for that extraordinary attach- 

 ment and devotedness to the fair sex, for which Frenchmen 

 have been remarkable, beyond their neighbours, and which 

 continued to the time of the revolution ; since that period, 

 French manners form a striking contrast to what they for- 

 merly were, and we have reason to suppose, that as the 

 manners have been in some degree changed, so has their 

 fondness for those compositions, by which they were che- 

 rished, 



- The fiaiTie observation holds, with regard to individuals. 

 Cultivation, improvement, and a desire for truth, will pro- 

 portionably diminish the eftects of fictitious Avriting. When 

 the mind has been previously enlarged and invigorated by 

 feeing exercised with truth, and by habits of thinking and 



