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CHAPTER XIX. 



ROMANCES AND NOVELS. 



FICTITIOUS narrative, as a medium of instruc- 

 tion* or entertainment, has been employed from 

 the earliest ages of which we have any knowledge. 

 Of this kind of composition, we have some inter- 

 esting specimens in the sacred writings. But, 

 like every thing else in the hands of depraved man, 

 it has been unhappily perverted and abused. For 

 many centuries the only form of fictitious history 

 in vogue was that of Romance, 1 or descriptions of 

 the characters and manners of former times, min- 

 gled with many extravagant and improbable cir- 

 cumstances, and calculated to meet that fondness 

 for the marvellous, which so strongly characterizes 

 the human mind. 



One of the earliest writers of this class, of whom 

 we have any distinct account, but by no means 

 one of the most extravagant of them, was Helio- 

 dorus, Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, who lived 

 in the fourth century.'" His work was entitled 



/ The word Romance is of Spanish origin, and signifies the Spanish 

 tongue ; the greater part of which is derived from the ancient Latin or 

 Roman language. It seems the first Spanish books were fabulous, and be- 

 ing called Romance, on account of the tongue in which they were written, 

 the same name was afterwards given, by the other nations of Europe, not 

 to Spanish books, which is the proper application of the term, but to a 

 certain class of fabulous writings. See Beattie On Fable and Romance. 



m Doubts have been entertained whether the work of Heliodorus were 

 really the first romance. Some suppose that instances of this kind of 

 writing maybe traced back as far as the time of Aristotle. Others 

 have thought that, from the Asiatic Researches, and other modern publica- 

 tions on Oriental literature, there is reason to believe that the native coun- 

 try of Romance is the East, which seems to have produced many extrava- 

 gant specimens, from time immemorial. See Curiosities of Literature, by 

 D'Israeli. 



