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around the standard of the cross, and " legions of poets" 

 accompanied the ; nnies to the Holy Land, religion and su-* 

 perstition, with their saints and daemons, in those hetero- 

 geneous compositioms, were engrafted with the eastern ideas 

 of magic and dragons, and in course of time with theGothic 

 ideas of female excellence, and phantastic honour — to which 

 may be added, the ideas of magnificence derived also from 

 the east, the vast distance from whence, gave the greater 

 force and credibility to their fictions. 



Thus we find the Arabians uniting with the Scandinavians 

 in forming a new and irregular species of composition, which 

 was to be as various in its effects, as the characters and man- 

 ners of the nations it embraced ; and if, in taking this re- 

 trospect, we find that the purity of style, and dehcacy of 

 taste of the classic authors was thus for a season entirely 

 lost, -we shall have less reason to regret it when we reflect 

 that a too servile imitation of those exquisite models, had 

 they been more diffused, might have fettered genius, and 

 restrained the sublime flights of untutored imagination ; we 

 may-even presume that the empire of literature has on this 

 account been extended and enlarged. * 



* Mr. Warton very ingeniously reconciles his own hypothesis, namely, that the Ara- 

 bians were the authors of romantic fiction in Europe, with that of the Bishop of Dro- 

 more, who derives it from the ancient songs of the Gothic bards and scalds; and with 

 the testimony of Mons. Mallet, the Danish historian, who'isof the same opinion. Mr. 

 Warton brings forward many proofs of the eastern origin of some of the Scandina- 

 vian tribes: first, that they are said to have emigrated witlr their leader Odin, imme- 



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