* See likewise La Cepede, Pennant, &c.

ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF FICTITIOUS HISTORY.

BY MISS OWENSON.

Cosi a l'egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi,
Di soave licor gli orli del vaso,

Succhi amari, ingannato, in tanto ei bene,

E da l'inganno suo, vita riceve.-Tasso.

[During Lady Morgan's residence in Italy, the following Essay, with Miss Owenson's name affixed to it, was sent to us by a friend; we did not however venture to publish it without communicating the circumstance to that lady, who has acknowledged the sketch on literary fiction to be a copy of a little composition written by her at an early period of her life, at the request of that celebrated philosopher the late Richard Kirwan, Esq. Mr. Kirwan was so much pleased with this first attempt at serious writing of the young and fanciful novelist, who was then almost "unknown to fame," except by her "Novice of St. Dominick," that he afterwards proposed the subject of Fictitious Narration as a theme for a premium offered, we believe, by the College of Dublin, for literary compositions.]

TO trace back to its source the stream of fictitious story, to ascertain the region through which it first flowed, and to pursue its progress from nation to nation, and from age to age, has already given play to the ingenuity of some, awakened the research of others, and afforded to literary speculation a subject no less important in a moral, than curious in an historic, point of view.

While the legitimate, but meagre chronicle, presents to the eye of posterity a dry and crude outline "of times gone with the years beyond the flood," fictitious story fills up the sketch with lights and shades, with tints and touches, copied with fidelity from the originals of the remote day; and with a magic peculiar to its genius, places us at once in the oratory of the saint, or the cabinet of the king-now leads us to the tapestry-room of the fair liege lady, and now to the tilt and tournament of the gallant knight; thus at once replying to the enquiry of the historian, and assisting the researches of the antiquary.

The origin of fictitious story, considered in its most imposing aspect as vested in epic dignity, has been assigned to Homer. Considered in a less elevated view, it has been traced to the Saracens, who spread their arms and fables over Spain; or to the Crusaders, whose extraordinary adventures gave to Europe the materials of those brilliant fictions with which it was at that period overwhelmed. But a less arduous exertion of human ingenuity, and a more intimate study of human nature, would perhaps be found equally favourable to the subject of enquiry, though probably less interesting to the imagination of the enquirer.

Man, in all his progressive stages of intellectual improvement, from the hut of the savage to the closet of the sage, is

still governed by the instinct of seeking,
in every thing within the sphere of his
perception, a part of himself. He seeks
his faculty of suffering, his capability of
enjoyment; he seeks perpetually for
something that corresponds to the tone
of his peculiar inherent feeling; and the
sympathetic impulse which leads him,
even in fiction, to expect the reflection
of himself, exists equally beneath the
Line and at the Pole. In the most bar-
barous, as in the most polished, epochs
of society, the same passions that in-
spire the war-song of the Esquimaux
chief, awaked the immortal strains of
Homer; the same tender feeling which
warms the love-tale of the Lapland
bard, glows in the impassioned strains
of the Grecian Sappho. It was beneath
the tyranny of the Eastern Sultans that
Lockman and Æsop composed their in-
imitable fables. It was among
the wan-
dering Arabs of the Desert that the
most poetic fictions sprang into being-
for man, who no where invents, every
where combines and imitates; and sla-
very and freedom, and superstition and
philosophy, though they may vary by
their influence, cannot annihilate those
passions incident to the nature of man,
and which, every where essentially the
same, produce, though in an unequal
degree, and under various modifications,
every where the same general effects.
Literary fiction may be deemed the fan-
ciful combination of moral or of physi-
cal possibilities-the amusive theory of
facts established by experience, or the
depicted effects of the passions under
the pressure of peculiar, but possible,
events. While to draw a line of demar-
cation between the various forms under
which it has appeared, whether it has
dazzled in the splendour of ancient
poetry, or charmed in the elegance of
modern story, is to confound a differ-

ence of kind with difference of degree, and wholly to mistake the genus for the species.

The history of fictitious narration begins with the history of the world; and those beautiful parabolical stories which are to be found in the apocryphal pages of the Old Testament, evince that even the Jewish mind, illumined as it then was "with light from Heaven," disdained not the moral precept which stole beneath the familiar detail of human action and of human feeling. But if beyond the chronology of the Mosaic dates, the imagination be permitted to plunge into the remote æras of the Braminical records, it finds that the visible appearances of the deities of the Indian mythology, present a series of animated fictions which, sometimes poetical, as the religious fables of the Greeks, and sometimes profound, as the sacred traditions of the Egyptians, still "smell of mortality," and betray in their arrangement the passions and the feelings, the changes and vicissitudes which mortal life invariably presents.

Among the savages of America, their system of good and evil spirits, enriched with no feeble decorations of fancy, has, according to their own assertions, existed time immemorial; and it was from the national tales and religious fictions of Peru, that Garcilasso di Vega composed those admirable commentaries which are deemed the pillars of Peruvian history. Thus in the remotest ages, and in the most opposite extremities of the earth, the source of fictitious narration has existed; a source which can only be exhausted when the heart ceases to feel, the memory to record, and the imagination to combine, to modify, and to adorn.

When, however, the mightiest empires of the earth were shaken to their foundation; when the luxury and corruption which ever distinguishes a certain stage of decline in society, accelerated the general destruction; and when a horde of victorious Barbarians rushed, like the whirlwind of their native déserts, over the most polished states of Europe-then fictitious story shared the common destiny of all the highest productions of the human mind, and suffered a long and dark suspension. The Muse of Greece sunk into oblivion amidst the ruins of her ancient temples, and the Genius of Rome no longer effused her "light of song" over the classic waves of the Tiber. In the pauses of the storm, however,

some faint beam will scatter its sunny lustre on the gathering clouds, and brighten the brief interval of suspended destruction; and over the gloom of the darkest ages fictitious story is still found shedding a transient light. In the decline of the Roman empire, Parthonius Nicenus wrote his amusive fables. Achilles Tatius his "Leucippe and Clitophon ;" and Heliodorus, the venerable Bishop of Tricca, composed that interesting romance, for which he forfeited his mitre, and which is still read and still admired under the title of "Theagenes and Chariclea."

From the 5th to the 12th century Europe exhibited a scene of barbarous ignorance and ceaseless warfare. The moral and political state of society were, during that period, alike unfavourable to the cultivation of the fancy and of the mind. And the rude genius of Charlemagne in France (who endeavoured to collect some historical ballads to illustrate the history of his day), and of Alfred in England (who was himself not more a king than a philosopher), were still unequal to dispel the darkness of the æras in which they flourished. Safety and leisure may be deemed the guardian and the nurse of literary genius; and the fancy which is cradled in the shield and reared in the camp, can receive but few images, and those few too rude to give pleasure in detail, and too wild to submit to the curb of method or arrangement.

Previous to the 11th century, the saintly legend alone cheated the pious, or seduced the credulous, into the perusal even of a holy fiction, in which the struggles between a demon and a saint formed the ground-work of the piece, and Nature and common sense were no longer discernible amidst the confused tissue of unmeaning allegories; but a new source of inspiration at that period offered itself to the genius of fiction, by the birth of an order in Europe, which. became the honour of kings, the law of nations, and which the divine and the legislator, the warrior and the bard, alike acknowledged and alike obeyed.

In the infancy of political economy, when laws but crudely formed, are illdigested, and partially administered, benevolence is sometimes seen to rise even from the bosom of violence; and a boundless play is given to the valour of the brave and the feelings of the generous, from the venality of the unjust, and the outrages of the lawless. The spirit of chivalry sprang from the

C: MI $6. ↑ Aled af sangue gdy an
weakness and the strength, the virtues
and the crimes of man, in a certain stage
of his progress towards civilization, and
formed an intermediate class in society
between the oppressor and the oppressed;
while the bold adventures it gave rise to,
of hair-breadth 'scapes and moving ácci-
dents by flood and field," afforded exhaust-
less materials for those military fables
for those tales of love and war, of gal-
lantry and religion, whose birth formed
so striking an epocha in the history of
fictitious narration.

It was not amidst the refinement of bpolished Greece, or the prowess of conquering Rome, that this romantic order received the principle of its establishment it was amidst the colder regions [of the North; and long before the spirit of chivalry had resolved itself into a cast, the primitive idea of its institution may by be traced in the historic songs and heroic ballads of the Celtic Scalds and Gothic bbards; and long ere Arthur of England assumed the golden spur of knighthood, had the harp of Erin symphonized that warlike strain which sung forth the feats of her gallant knights of the valley! The marvellous soon reached the acme of its Es influence the monkish chronicle was wholly superseded by tales of faëry-the feats of saints and demons gave way to To the more interesting adventures which knight-errantry every where furnished, and the influence of fictitious story spread like enchantment over Europe. In Spain, it assumed the Moorish chaTo racter, and all the hyperbole of oriental diction was to be traced in the romances of Bernardo del Carpio, and that of "The Roncesvalles." In France, the w feats of Charlemagne and his twelve im Paladins; and in Normandy the deeds VIST of Rollo, or "Roldan el Encantador," were celebrated in heroic strains, mingled with all the powers of necromancy dai and spells of magic. In England and in Wales the wild taste of the times was abundantly supplied by the advenbetures of "King Arthur and his Knights," ow by Guy of Warwick," and "Bevis of bas Southampton ;" while Ireland, free and in uninvaded, was deemed the palladium of classic learning in Europe, and treasured in the songs of her Senachies sd many of those beautiful Milesian tales ons which had once given the tone to the 999 popular fictions of Ionia. But it was qufrom the metrical romances of the Trouabadours in Provence, that the prose decompositions of the 12th and 13th centuries borrowed many of their most polished pieces: this celebrated society,

which boasted kingsando emperors as its members, had become the repository of modern literature in Europe, and had materially assisted in the cultivation of the romance-tongue (a mixture of monkish Latinity, and the licentious language of the Franks,) which had succeeded in France to the pure Latin; and as the songs of chivalry and other popular works were composed in that language, they were thence called "Romaunts." Of these compositions, in English, the oldest extant is." Sir Launcelott de Lake;" in French, "L'Histoire de quatre fils D'Aymon;" and in Spanish, the romance of "Amadis de Gaul;"-to those succeeded "Palmerin D'Oliva," and the Roman de la Rose," by William de Lorris, with a multitude of others, which it would exceed the limits, as well as the intention, of this sketch to enumerate.

In the 14th century the character of romance had assumed something of the dignity of epic prose; and the effects which it produced on society strengthened and extended the cause from whence it derived its most splendid materials. From the universal infatuation it produced, neither sex nor age, nor piety nor wisdom, nor rank nor profession, was exempted; then prelates wrote romances, and princes read them; and even the infant poetry of the day, cradled as it was in the bosom of unpolished genius, eagerly imbibed nutrition from this exhaustless source. And we find that it was from the Provençal romances that Dante and Petrarch borrowed many of their brightest images; as in an afterday it was from the Feats of Charlemagne that Ariosto stole many of the most striking incidents of his "Orlando;" and from the legends of old Geofrey of Monmouth that Tasso received the rudiments of his "Jerusalem." Even in a later and a more polished period we perceive that the allegorical page of "Spenser" is illuminated with Gothic imagery-that Shakspeare sometimes reposed the eagle wing of his high-wrought fancy upon the fairyground of Gothic story; and that the classic genius of Milton disdained not to resort to the wild and frequently magnificent fictions of the middle ages, or to sing of

"Fairy damsels met in forest wide, schr "By knights of Logris, or of Lyonese, "Launcelott, or Pelias, or Pallinore:"\/ But while fictitious story in prose, continued during a succession of ages, to bear the title of “ Romance," some

"

delineations of a more local and domes tic nature, less tinctured by the marvellous, less distinguished by the heroic, and from the novelty of its style called **Novelle," or Novel," appeared in Italy. It was after the dreadful plague of 1347, which desolated all Europe, but particularly Italy and the south of France, that the novels of Boccacio and Cinthia Geraldi were composed and resorted to, as a cheering resource against the moral and physical evils which had arisen in society from the ravages of a mortal disease: it was then a period fatal to all purity of manners, when despair gave birth to licentiousness, and impending death urged to the immediate enjoyment of a precarious life. The Decamerone of Boccacio was followed by the Tales of Bandello, and at a more ⚫ distant period by the "Novelets" of Cervantes; and the tale, moral or popular, domestic or national, has still continued a fertile source of instruction and amusement *.

The improvement which took place in the Italian language in the 14th century, owing to the successive and illustrious labours of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccacio, to reduce into form, and to regulate and polish their native tongue, gave a decided superiority to the modern literature of Italy over that of the other states of Europe; and the transitory fame acquired by the two latter writers in their own day for their voluminous Latin productions, was soon obscured by the lustre of that brilliant reputation acquired by their fanciful compositions in that harmonious language to whose perfection they had so eminently contributed; " and they are indebted" (says the elegant historian of the Medici family) "for their present celebrity to works which they almost blushed to own, and were ashamed to communicate to each other." Of this prejudice, which belonged to the day in which it was cherished, when the revival of the ancient languages and of classical_literature was pursued with avidity, Petrarca gives a striking proof

We believe that Miss Owenson had just at this period become herself the foundress of the National Tale, by the publication of her "Wild Irish Girl." That she was sois the opinion of the " Revue Encyclopédique" of France, which, in some observations on the novel-writers of the present day, says "Lady Morgan est peut-etre la Creatrice, d'un autre genre de Romans: le Roman national; qu'il ne faut pas confondre avec le Roman Historique." =

NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 78.

in the surprise he testifies at the success
of his Italian writingsė
*5* §lo avessi pensato che si cari

& Fossin te voer di sospir mici in rima,
** Fatte l'avrei, dal sospirar mio prima
1, in numero più spesse, in stil più rare.”
Son, 253.:

Notwithstanding the difficulty of circulation which must have attended all literary compositions, at a period when the art of printing was yet unknown, the novels of Boccacio were generally diffused through Italy, and read with an applause that almost bordered on adoration for the genius of their author: like the inspirations of Dante, and the lovebreathings of Petrarca, they were read in public assemblics, and listened to with unqualified delight by the most learned and enlightened characters in Italy.

But the rapid improvement which took place in the Italian language in the 14th century was succeeded by an equally rapid decline; it was to the taste and munificence of the house of Medici that

it owed its restoration in the 15th and 16th centuries, a period rendered memorable in European literature by the arrival of those learned Greeks in Italy, who gave a new and a finer tone to the literary taste of the day. Even the female mind, restrained and limited as it had hitherto been in its pursuits and acquirements, expanded to the reception of that literary enthusiasm and love of classic learning which distinguished the age; and in that delicious country in which the languages of ancient Greece and ancient Rome were revived, woman first began to add to the charm of beauty, the spell of mind: and lovely as were the persons of the fair Florentine Alessandra Scala, and her Milanese rival Cassandra Fidelis, they still drew more homage from contemporary admiration by the elegance of their literary productions, than by that extraordinary beauty which the poets of the day invoked as their inspiration, and which even the firm mind of philosophy was unable to resist. The examples of these illustrious and fair Italians soon excited the emulation of the distinguished women of France, Spain, England, and Germany: but it was in France particularly that the Muses found altars