570 



CHAPTER XIX- 



ROMANCES AND NOVELS. 



Jr ICTITIOUS narrative, as a medium of instruct 

 tion or entertainment^ has been employed from the 

 earHest ages of which we have any knowledge. 

 Of this kind of composition we have some inte- 

 resting 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 RoDiance*, 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 characterises 

 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 f . 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 an- 

 cient Latin or Roman language. It seems the first Spanish books 

 were fabulous, and being 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. 



t Doubts have been entertained whether the work of Heliodo- 



