518 
search, and scrupulous fidelity, should 
thus disgrace and injure himself; and la- 
menting also, that the heart of any hu- 
man being should be so inveterately and 
hopelessly diseased. . 
‘These volumes are prefaced with a 
long dissertation on romance and mins- 
trelsy, of which the first section is upon 
the origin of romance.. Mr. Ritson be- 
gins by asserting, that the Jliad and 
Odyssey, the Argonauticks, the Thebaid, 
&c. are, in reality, as perfect metrical ro- 
mances as the stories of King Arthur 
and Charlemayze. The siege of Troy, 
he says, as related by Homer, not being 
at all more certain, or more credible, than 
that of Albracca, as asserted by Boiardo. 
It is the humour of this writer to disbe- 
lieve those things which he ought to be- 
lieve ; but in this instance, happily, the 
error of his opinion does not injure his 
induction. Inall ages it has been the 
business of the poet to 
«« Sing of knights and ladies gentle deeds 5” 
and the difference between the epic poem, 
and the metrical romance is more a dif- 
ference of degree than of kind. 
«e After Statius, there is no metrical-ro- 
mance-writeér, or epick poet, in the Latin 
tongue, known to have existed before Joseph 
of Exeter, eall’d by some Cornelius Nepos, 
who wrote, in six books, of The Trojan war, 
and, in one book, ‘The war of Antioch ; and 
flourished, according to Bale, about the year 
1210; or Philip Gualtier, a Frenchman, au- 
thour of The Aleeandd: or actions of Atex- 
ander the Great, about the same period : all 
three in imitation of Lucan, or Statius.”” 
Mr. Ritson, it seems, is unacquainted 
with a very curious poem of the sixth 
century, de prima expeditione Attile regis 
Hunnorum in Gallias, ac de rebus gestis Wal- 
tharii Aquitanoruim principis, edited by Fis- 
cher, at Leipsic, in 1780. It is called 
by the editor Carmen Epicum Seculi VI. 5 
but if rudeness of structure, and wildness 
of chivalrous adventure be of the essence 
- of romance, this poem is certainly to be 
classed among romances. ‘The author’s 
name has perished: he was a monk of 
Celtic race, contemporary with Venan- 
tius Fortunatus, and Corippus Africa- 
nus. Iris remarkable, that in this poem 
Attila is represented as a humane man, 
a valid testimony, when it is considered 
that the hero of the tale is hisenemy. 
«© Tt appears, however, difficult to demon- 
strate that the comparatively modern T0- 
manceés of the French owe their immediate 
POETRY. 
origin to the epick poetry, or fabulous tales — 
of the Greeks or Romans; but it may fairly — 
be admitted, as by no means ‘rh rowabte: thac- 
these remains of ancient literature had some’ 
degree of influence, though the connection is 
too remote and obscure to admit of elucida~ 
tion. 
«« After all, it seems highly probable that 
the origin of romance, in every age or coun- 
try, is to be sought in the different systems of 
superstition which have, from time to time, 
prevail’d, whether pagan or christian. The 
eods of the ancient heathens, and the saints 
of the more modern christians, are the same 
sort of imaginary beings; who, alternately, 
cive existence to romanceés,eand receive it 
from them. The legends of the one, and the 
fables of the other, have been constantly fa- 
bricateéd for the same purpose, and with the 
same view! the prometion of fanaticism, 
which being mere allusion, can onely be ex- 
citeéd, or supported by romance: and, there- 
for, whether Homer made the gods, or the 
gods made Homer, is of no sort of conse- 
quence, as the same effect was produce’d by 
either cause. ‘There is this distinction, in- 
deed, between the heathen deitys and the 
christian saints, that the fables of the former 
were indebted for their existence to the flow- 
ery imagination of the sublime poet, and the 
legends of the Jatier to the gloomy fanaticism 
of a lazy monk or stinking priest.” 
We will not enter upon the useless task 
of correcting Mr. Ritson for his coarse 
and impudent language: 
«« Let Gryll be Grill, and have his hoggishe 
mind !” 
It is our duty to express a deep and 
decided disapprobation and disgust at 
such passages ; and having expressed it, 
to consider his literary opinions with the 
attention and deference due to the high 
and honourable rank which he holds in 
this department of literature. 
«¢ Different authours have attributeéd the 
origin of romance to three sourceés,alltogether 
remote from each other: 1. The Arabians; 
2. the Scandinavians ; 3. the Provengals. It 
appears, from an observation of the historian 
of Engleish poetry, * to have been impomed 
into Europe by a people whose modes of 
thinking and habits of invention, are not na- 
tural to that country. It is generally sup- 
nose'd to have been horton" from the Ara- 
Pana It is an establish’d maxim,’ he pro- 
ceeds, of modern criticism, that the fictions 
of Arabian imagination were communicateéd 
to the western world by means of the cru- 
sades. But it is evident that these fancys 
were introduce’d at a much earlyer pesied 2) 
the Saracens or Arabians haveing enter'd Spain 
about the begining of the cighth century. It 
is obvious to conclude, he continues, that at 
the same time, they disseminateéd those ex- 
§ 
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