374 



ROMANCE. 



of the an- 

 dent world 

 and the 



Romance. The earliest fictitious narrative of the ancients, and 

 r~v -- that of the moderns, were both grounded on the a- 

 Resem- c hievements of war. They both called into their 

 contSts" service the machinery of supernatural beings and that 

 between the machinery is in the two cases wonderfully similar as 

 early poetiy to all points of real importance, witchcraft, incanta- 

 tion, charms, dreams, prophecies, local spirits, &c. &c. 

 fefag common to both. The purpose being, under 

 w hatever veil of cloud, ornament, and figure, to repre- 

 sent human life, love, of course, forms a principal 

 topic in each class. But here comes the great line of 

 demarcation. Love was idealised and elevated into 

 an all but heavenly character among the nations 

 where the institutions of chivalry had their origin. 

 Here is not the place to trace the causes of this but 

 such is, and such is universally admitted to be the fact ; 

 whereas love among the people of classical antiquity 

 preserved, from the earliest period in which we can 

 trace their history, a character of much greater coarse- 

 ness. Their women were their slaves the objects of 

 every kind of passion, but not of intellectual respect 

 and reverence. Such reverence was, in a great mea- 

 sure, extended among the other peoples, even to those 

 of the fair sex who could not be considered as perfect 

 models of purity it breathed an air of lofty and gene- 

 rous courtesy over every situation in which man could 

 be brought into contact with the fortunes of the 

 feebler sex. On the other hand, even in the highest 

 era of Greek romance, even an Andromache, pure 

 and spotless, royally born, and universally esteemed, 

 is represented even by a Greek poet, as neither ex- 

 pecting, nor having any reason to expect, any better 

 fate, in case Troy were taken, than that of forming 

 part of the haram of some Greek Prince. There is no- 

 thing so rude as this, even in the old German romances, 

 which celebrate the achievements of Attila ; and it 

 would be worse than idle to show how diametrically such 

 a conception is at variance with the tone of sentiment 

 that predominates over the works of the same class, 

 which belong to the other two great cycles of heroes, 

 illustrious in the historical romance of our Gothic an- 

 cestors. It is in this alone that we find the essential 

 difference between these two classes of imaginative li- 

 terature. It is a difference which is equally discernible 

 in every branch of modern European Literature (pro- 

 perly so called), which we have the means of com- 

 paring with any class of works composed for similar 

 purposes among the classic peoples of the ancient world. 

 It has always, in fact, formed the great distinction be- 

 tween all ancient poetry, and all modern poetry, worthy 

 of being talked of as such ; nay, it forms to this day the 

 great distinction between the actual manners of the 

 ancient world and those of the modern. 



. We may now proceed to notice briefly the dif- 

 History of. .- * */- . 1-11 



the Euro- ferent classes or fictitious narrative which have succes- 



pean Ro- sively found favour in modern Europe; those various 

 roance. classes of composition which are in common parlance 

 considered as included within the application of the 

 term ROMANCE. But before entering on this, it is ne- 

 cessary to observe a general fact at first glance strange 

 and even inexplicable viz. that unquestionable though 

 it be, that among each of the Gothic tribes the first 

 exertions of imagination were bestowed on the adorn- 

 ing of the legends, proper and peculiar to the tribe it- 

 self, it is still certain that no one nation or tribe of them 

 all can at this hour point to its oldest existing Roman- 

 tic Literature, and say, Behold the genuine unadulter- 

 ated tribute paid by our ancestors to the greatness of 



the founders and original heroes of our own race. Jlomance. 

 The Germans must produce the Nibelungen-lied and "V ' 

 Heldenbuch but some of the noblest heroes of these 



are not Germans but Huns the very chieftains 



who conquered many of the fairest provinces of their 

 country under the guidance of Attila. The men of A(lo P tio " 

 Normandy must produce the romances in which Charle- f * 

 magne and Roland, and the rest of that cycle flourish e 

 but these heroes were not Norman heroes, but the he- 

 roic ancestors of the very people whose territory the 

 Normans ravaged, and in part seized. The third great 

 division of historical romance, is that in which Arthur 

 and the knights of his round table are celebrated ; but 

 the first compositions of this class were to all appear- 

 ance framed for the amusement of the Norman Court 

 of England or, if the Tristram of Thomas the Rymer 

 be the earliest of them all, that was still the work of 

 a poet, who neither wrote in the language, nor to 

 flatter the taste of the British or Armorican descend- 

 ants of the race among which the historical Arthur 

 flourished. 



The facility with which one nation borrows and General 

 adopts the heroic legends of another, is illustrated in causes of 

 every literature, or very nearly so, that we know of. l j" s "top* 

 By such adoption those whose business it is to minister Uon< 

 to the delight of others by the composition of romantic 

 narratives, find of course their own labour much lighten- 

 ed: nay even thosewhose genius sets themabovethis con- 

 sideration, are tempted to the same practice by the supe- 

 rior field which it obviously opens for the introduction of 

 that marvellous which in early and rude times must aU 

 ways form the most engaging condiment in such manu- 

 facture. Be this as it may, however, the facts we have 

 above stated are undeniable and equally so is the still 

 stronger one, that from the remotest times until this 

 very day, the favourite and flower of Persian romance 

 is, under the name of Iskendar, that very Alexander who Iskendar. 

 overthrew the empire of old Persia. So catching indeed 

 has this contagion been always felt to be, that we know 

 Mahomet himself was at considerable pains to prevent 

 the same " Macedonian madman" from being adopted 

 in a similar way by the minstrels of his own Arabia. 



It would appear, however, that at least two causes Two ti 

 of a more particular nature must have operated to a cu i ar cause 

 great extent in the adoption of these foreign legends of it In Eu 

 by the different romances of modern Europe. The first rope, 

 of these we take to be this : that in the original imagi- 

 native or romantic compositions of all these nations, 

 the mythological apparatus employed must, of course, 

 have been heathen, and that when Christianity had been 

 introduced among them, there was more to disgust than 

 to attract in the rude and bloody character of that ap- 

 paratus. The heroes themselves, moreover, must have 

 been represented as stained with traits of character ex- influence t 

 tremely offensive to the Christian priests, who, being in Christian^ 

 possession of almost all the knowledge of the times, ty. 

 must soon have exerted, directly or indirectly, a com- 

 manding and controlling influence over its literature. 

 It is only in considerations of this sort that we can find 

 a satisfactory explanation of the substitution of Charle- 

 magne and his captains, for the northern ancestors of 

 those who took possession of the fine province of Neus- 

 tria, and thence extended their arms, and, with their 

 arms, these their newly adopted legends to England and 

 to Sicily. The same thing may be said of the banish* 

 ment of the old Saxon legends, and the assumption of 

 those of the Christian Arthur in England ; and precisely 

 the same thing may be said of the adoption of the heroes 



