71 



Having, as briefly as possible, considered the effects of 

 fiction in general, upon the m;inners of the ancient Greeks 

 and Romans ; I come now to more modern times, and to en- 

 quire what influence is to be ascribed to those particular pro- 

 ductions which rank under the denomination of romances 

 and novels. I have already glanced at their origin, which 

 is plainly oriental. 



The term romance has been traced by Monsieur Huet to 

 the Provenpal Troubadours, who composed their songs in a 

 language that was a mixture of Latin and Gallic,, and on this 

 account called romanz or romance; but although the bi- 

 shop wrote expressly on the origin of that particular species 

 of composition, to which they give the name, he has entirely 

 relinquished the most important part of his subject (whicL 

 would have been the romances of chivalry) contenting him- 

 self with giving a dry detail of the poems of the Provencal 

 Troubadours, to which the others have hardly any other rela- 

 tion, than similarity of name.* From Mons. Huet, we obtain 



diately after the overthrow of Mithridates, from the region of Asia, now called Georgia, 

 and to have settled in Norway and Denmark : And secondly, the remarkable, and <;on- 

 spicuous similarity between many of the customs of the Asiatics, of tlie Georgians iu 

 particular, and those of the inhabitants of the nortli, even at this day. 



*i»ii[ >' >- 1 Warton's Hist, of English Poetrj*, vol. i. 



* Mr. W^arton is of opinion, that there were two sorts of French troubadours, that 



are not sufficiently distinguished : that the poetry of the first consisted of satires, 



moral fables, allegories, and sentimental sonnets; and that the latter' class composed 



metrical romances, which formed a distinct species, and ought to be considered sepa« 



