ROMANCES. 



Origin of the Name Romance. Greek and Latin Romances. The Discussion of the Savants as to 

 the first French Romances. These Romances were the Emanation of Popular Songs and 

 Latin Chronicles. Ancient Romances in Prose and Rhyme. The Three Matercs (Metres) of 

 the Chansons de Gate. Their Classification. Manuscripts of the Jugglers. Assemblies and 

 Trouveurs. The " Chanson de Roland." Progress of Somancerie (Ballad Songs) during the 

 Crusades. Breton Romances. Tristan. Lancelot. Merlin. The Holy Grail. 

 Decadence of Romances in the Fourteenth Century. Remodelling of the Early Romances. 

 The Short Romances of the Fifteenth Century. Romance Abroad. The " Amadis." 



I OVELS and romances, or works of imagination 

 of a similar character, were in great demand 

 in Greece and Rome, especially among those 

 who had no business occupation, and who 

 read for amusement rather than for instruc- 

 tion. The name romance (which meant a 

 work written in the Romance tongue) was 

 not used until the eleventh or twelfth cen- 

 tury, and with a very different meaning 

 from that which now attaches to it. 



The ancient Latin and Greek romances 



were merely recitals of imaginary occurrences. The "Satire " of Petronius and 

 the " Golden Ass" of Apuleius were doubtless imitated very frequently in the 

 Roman literature of the time of the Caesars, but it is in the literature of Greece 

 that we must look for the progress of a literary school which long held its sway 

 at Constantinople, and throughout the empire of the East. Achilles Tatius 

 of Alexandria set up the model for this kind of book when he composed the 

 " Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe " in the third century, and he was suc- 

 ceeded by Heliodorus, Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, who wrote the " Loves of 

 Theagcnes and of Chariclea," and Longus, who wrote the " Loves of Daphnis 

 and Chloe." The last named was unequalled for its simplicity and grace, and 



