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raised to their divinity by the fairest dames, and that the Genius of fictitious narration again raised her drooping head, and replied to the caresses lavished on her by the bewitching Queen of NaSuccessful in her pastoral dramas, esteemed for her poetic talents, it was still by her Heptameron, or " Les cents Nouvelles," that she acquired her singular reputation. It is curious to observe, that these novels were written while travelling in her litter; and under all the impediments of a tedious journey, they were more esteemed by contemporary critics than the Tales of Boccaccio. Pasquier asserts her work to be" un livre fait à l'imitation du Decameron de Boccace, et non moins plaisant, mais beaucoup plus sage---composition honorée par la plus grande partie des beaux esprits de notre tems."

The influence of the ancient romance had now reached its meridian, which it was soon destined to pass---to rise no more! It was not the inimitable satire of Cervantes that broke the long powerful spell exercised over the mind and the imagination by the romantic fictions of darker ages; for it is rational to believe that no individual effort of the human mind could effect so powerful and so universal a revolution in human opinion: it was rather the natural and evident progress of society in knowledge and civilization, which slowly effected this striking change in the popular and literary taste of Europe; and the boldness with which Cervantes ventured to ridicule its obvious folly, is a presumptive proof that that folly no longer existed in its primary and original force: while even the admirable satirist, tinctured by the lingering error, whose redemption he laboured to effect, evidently betrayed that above all his other and his abler works he gave the decided preference to his own romance of "Sigismonde," and thus unconsciously evinced that his warm imagination and early habits of feeling still remained true to a cause from which his cooler judgment had long deserted. Gay, brave, and gallant, he was himself the hero of a sad romance; and the smile which so frequently beams upon the work of the author, is involuntarily dimmed by the tear which the heart gives to the fate of the man for who ever yet enjoyed the exquisite humour of his knight and Iris squire, and sighed not to remember that the page on which their inimitable characters were traced was only illu

mined by the scanty light which the bars of a prison-window admitted."

With feudal times and chivalrous days expired the true character of the old Gothic romance, which had so long preserved its influence and sway oyer the manners of society in Europe; and the latter end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, were periods equally unfavourable to the cultivation of literature, or to the birth of any new class in the genus of fictitious history.

The discord and misery which prevailed in France during the minority of Louis the Fourteenth, a series of civil wars, and the cold severity of the republican manners under Cromwell in England, the social and political insignificance to which the Italian states were reduced, and the religious disputations and polemic controversies which engaged the attention of the German literati, stood alike hostile to the cultiva tion of fictitious history; when, after a long interregnum, the Genius of literary fiction again made her irresistible claims. to public notice and popular admiration. The agent of her revived influence was still destined to be a woman; and Mademoiselle de Scuderi, while she guided the public taste, contributed to the enjoyments of private society in the most polished circle of France. The romances of this lady became the favourites of a whole generation, and the ill-founded praises of many of her illustrious contemporaries give her an interest with posterity, which her works alone would never have obtained for her. Ménage calls her the inventress of "l'amour de tendresse, and infinitely extols her works above those of her friends Voiture and Balzac; while more than one illustrious character of that day of false taste spoke, wrote, and acted throughout their whole lives, like the heroes of her unnatural romances ;-of this, the most striking and distinguished example is given in the romantic character of the interesting Duc de Guise, the lover of the beautiful Du Ponts, the favourite maid of honour to Anne of Austria, and the hero of his day and country. Spanish gallantry and Spanish romances were about this period introduced together into the first circles of French society, which assembled at the Hotel de Sable and the Hotel de Rambouillet, names now consecrated to immortal ridicule in the inimitable "Precieuses" of Moliere. This influence was naturally increased by the cha

racter and manners of the then reigning queen, who brought with her to Paris the same notions of gallantry and lite rature as distinguished the Court of Madrid. Speaking of the leading societies of Paris, Madame de Motteville observes, that at that period-" On trouvoit une si grande délicatesse dans les comédies, nouvelles, et tous les autres ouvrages, en vers et en prose, qui venoient de Madrid, qu'ils avoient conçu une haute idée de la galantrie que les Espagnols avoient appris des Mores." With the ton of the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet and its gallantry died away the solemn love and much of the celebrity of the romances of the Demoiselle de Scuderi, even during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth; but her success had been too brilliant to leave her destitute of a crowd of imitators, and the Durfés, the Calprenedes, the Orrerys, and the Barclays, endeavoured to perpetuate a style of composition which had scarcely any other merit than its originality; for these long-winded but short-lived romances, almost as wild as their Gothic predecessors, were still more incongruous and infinitely less natural. And it seemed the unaccountable ambition of their authors to blend the heroic characters of antiquity, with the barbarous customs of the middle ages, and the manners of the existing day. Thus in the romance of "Cassandra," Alexander is at once the hero of Macedon, a knight of the round table, and a petit maître of the formal French court of the day in which its ponderous tomes were composed.

To these voluminous but ephemeral productions succeeded another species of fictitious history of a very different character: coarse, humorous, and natural, it formed a striking contrast to the false refinement and high-wrought sentiment of the "Clelias," the "Polexanders," and "Cleopatras" which had preceded it, and from its imitation of the local and familiar stile of Boccacio, and Geraldo, it borrowed the title affixed to their works, and was called "Novel" by its authors.

Cervantes boasted that he was the first who wrote Novels in the Spanish language; and Scarron may be deemed the founder of novel-writing in France. Segrais and Le Sage improved, while they adopted, the tone of his composition; and Madame La Fayette added to it all the delicate refinement in which her predecessors were so deficient. The progress of polite literature in Europe

soon shed a new light on fictitious history: it was no longer confined to incident and adventure; it became the medium of more abstract subjects, and Marivaux, Crebillon, Monhy, Prevot, and Riccoboni, mingled with their ingenious fictions, discussions of sentiment, and observations upon men and manners, which presented to the reader a cheap experience of the world without paying the tax of a purchase too often so dearly made. But this state of fictitious history now detailed, is solely applicable to France. In England the progress of novel-writing was less rapid as well as less interesting, and the few works of that nature which appeared were tinctured with the bad taste and corrupt morals that prevailed in the Court of Charles II. and which long left its noxious taint behind it. It is in unfolding the stronger operations of the mind-it is in scientific research or philosophic disquisition, that the English language best displays its energetic and copious powers. Rich in the expres sions adapted to the lofty boldness of epic poetry, it affords a less appropriate medium for the developement of refined sentiment, for the minute analysis of tender emotion, for those varieties of manner, those shades of character, which are exhibited in the intimate intercourse of social life, and to which the delicate nuance of the French, the most artificial of European languages, is so exquisitely adapted. The genius of the English language was stamped by the character of the nation, and peculiarly adapted to the bold, free epic energy of the old Gothic romance. Long therefore did English readers resist the influence of that sentimental sorcery to whose expression their language was so inadequate, and which rendered the the French Novelists always so interesting, and, frequently, so dangerous.

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The national taste of the English, more alive to details of humour than of passion, more anxious to be amused than to be touched, produced a class of novel-writers peculiarly their own. Posterity, from whose judgment there is no appeal, has placed the immortal Fielding at their head, and “Tom Jones" belougs as much to England as the language in which it is composed*. The dignity of novel-writing seemed now to have reached its summit, and the historian, the poet, and the philosopher,

* Fielding received £700 for "Tom Jones," an immense sum for that day.

at the shrined of aqutelar Isaint, and shading that brow with a cowl, which the laurels of conquest, and the diadem of power, had so recently encircled. But when the sources of information are alike open to all when the cultivation of the mind extends the prospect of selfinterest, and leads at once to fame and to emolument-when the love of inquiry, natural to human intellect, is excited by the exertions of contemporary geniusand when natural and moral philosophy form an indispensable branch of study in popular education, then the influence of fictitious narration must

universal promulgation of science and knowledge; and those who would once have been governed by its dictates, are then only amused by its inventions, or charmed by its sentiments: yet it is still too true to human nature ever wholly to forfeit its influence over the human heart; and the higher order of genius will still borrow its attractive veil to shroud and soften those bold truths, which opposing the petty interests of the illiberal few, or the prejudiced opinions of the bigotted many, must be shaded ere they can be with safety offered to the mass of society:-with such a feeling did Swift write his " Laputa," and Fénélon compose his " Télémaque."." ›.

alike enlisted beneath the brilliant banners of fictitious history. In France, Voltaire and Rousseau-in England, Smollett, Johnson, and Goldsmith, consecrated the order of novelists by enrolling their names on its lists; and blush ed not to devote their genius to that style of composition, which Bacon had immortalized by his commendations, and which Du Cange, St. Palaye, and others no less distinguished, have acknowledged, with gratitude and respect, as the sources of that historic information, with which they have enlightened and improved mankind. Such has been the origin, and such the progress of fic-inevitably decline in proportion to the titious history, from the earliest to the present day. The mirror of nature and of life, it creates no image of its own, but faithfully reflects the outlines of such as are presented to its surface; sometimes, indeed, colouring the sketch with tints of fancy's hue, and perhaps too frequently bestowing a strength of relievo beyond that to be found in the original. The influence which it has produced, or can effect on existing manners, must ever depend upon the state of the society in which it is composed, or to which it is addressed. In ages when the light of knowledge is partially diffused, when the principles of moral science are neither understood in their cause, nor applied in their effects, and when the pursuits of science and philosophy are too bounded to dispel the errors of the mind, or the illusions of the imagination: in such ages the inAuence of fictitious story will be found most powerful and decisive. Then ignorance knows no limit to improbability; and, by a wild imagination, that which is not even known to be possible, will frequently be admitted as true. Thus in the middle ages, when the monks buried in their convents the little learning possessed in Europe, the people and the nobility, if they read at all, read solely with a view to their amusement or to their religion, and found their propensity to the marvellous equally gratified in the legend of the saint, or the adventures of the hero; and so deeply were their imaginations imbued, and their minds governed by the romantic fabling of the day, that the king and the subject alike sought to pass their youth in the field their age in the cloister. Thus, even so late as the day of Charles the Fifth, we find the hero of his age, and the emperor of nations, retiring from the pomp of a throne to the privacy of a cell, hanging up the sceptre of royalty

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With respect to the influence of fictitious history on modern manners, it may be asserted from inference, for it would be next to impossible to establish it by fact, that never was that influence less dangerous than at the present moment: the political state of Europe, the most awful and most extraordinary in the annals of time; the general and public anxiety which it excites; the universal diffusion of knowledge; the high cultivation of moral taste, the clear exposition of moral duties, (both to be found even in those works adapted to the tender capacity of childhood,) the subjection of the imagination to expanded reason—in a word, the present refined and enlightened state of society, becomes the guide of public taste, the guardian of public manners; and were such fictions now to appear as disgraced the age of Charles II. and Louis XIV. they would be hunted down by the com mon consent of society; and their authors, covered with infany, would excite only abhorrence for those effusions which once promised them immortality. Whoever now writes to please the public taste, should at least bring to the arduous task an educated mind, and a polish

ed style, if he hopes to be read, of ex pects to be tolerated. And with respect to the higher attainments that belong alone to native genius, public judgment is no less fastidious than public taste; and no splendour of diction, or magnificence of imagery, can sanction the character which is unnatural, or the incident which is improbable. But though the tendency of fictitious history has, from the nature and state of things, lost much of its force and power, enough of its influence still remains to give the novelist a higher motive to excellence than what the mere gratification of a public literary appetite awakens.

One would willingly hope, for the honour of human nature, that there is no abstract wickedness upon earth; and that no one ever wrote for the mere purpose of corrupting society, or deceived others, without being at the moment deceived himself. But it must be admitted that it is not enough the intention should be pure, and the object laudable; the means also by which both are to be effected should be cautiously considered, and arranged with a view to the general and probable effect; and perhaps it is in this particular instance that fictitious history may be deemed to produce the strongest influence on modern manners. Satisfied with the purity of the moral inculcated, the incautious and youthful reader may give up an ardent imagination to scenes seductive in their arrangement and dangerous in their contemplation. Vice may appear to smile with the loveliness of virtue, even on her road to retribution; the passions may become awakened, ere the mind has been convinced, and the eye may have dwelt upon the unveiled images of human frailty, until the once chaste mind is at last familiarized with their deformity, the sensitive delicacy of innocence blunted, even in its pursuit of virtue, and the principles have lost their stability, even while the heart is yet pure, and the life still sinless.

Nor is this the only evil to be apprehended from the influence of fictitious history on modern manners. The sedentary education of youth of both sexes, so different from the activity of remoter ages, the indolence and luxury of existing modes, may give peculiar force to a style of composition which addresses itself so seducingly to the fancy and to the heart. Fictitious history may indeed no longer form a hero or a saint, or impose the belief of a flying dragon or a powerful necromancer; it

may and can no longer produce that powerful and general effect, which once extended its influence over society at large; but it may in an individual instance, and perhaps too, frequently does, produce a false refinement, but little adapted to the state of humanity; and an intense application to its pages may at a certain period of life so assimilate the moral habits and perceptions to the dreams of poetic incident, and the illu sions of romantic sentiment, as wholly to disqualify the visionary actor for that scene in which he is destined to perform while natural sensibility, excited by a perpetual recurrence of fictitious distress, may finally terminate in an imaginary and morbid sympathy; and the feelings accustomed to receive a series of passive impressions, may eventually become rather exquisite than useful, and contribute to a refined and selfish luxury rather than to the performance of a positive and active duty.

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Gothic fictions, like Gothic manners, were rude, but active in their tendency; and if they misled the imagination, they did not endanger the heart; if they disordered the fancy, they did not enervate the character. But modern fictions too faithfully accommodate themselves, to the softness and indolence, of modern habits; and may therefore contribute to the indulgence of passive impressions, and to an excessive refinement in taste and feeling, until their votary, oppressed by this mental disease, reaches the last degree of human misery, and finding that he has to live among the selfish and the prejudiced, the illiberal or the vulgar, will become the prey of disappointment and disgust. Dragged into the common occurrences of daily life, he will submit with gloomy reluctance to "the flat reality;" and if necessitated to mingle in the business and bustle of an uninteresting world, the conduct he will adopt will frequently have less reference to his own peculiar situation, than to some fancied state of which he has read, and in which he actually supposes himself to be placed. So long as fictitious history shall have its origin in the ele mentary principles of human nature, it may be considered like the source from whence it springs, a "mingled web of good and ill together," alike capable of producing effects beneficial or injurious to manners, according to the exist ing state of society, and to the moral feeling, the principles, and genius, of those who present themselves to pub lic notice as the authors of com

positions so popular in all ages and in all countries. The historian may mislead as to facts in which we have no longer either interest or concern; but the novelist holds the key of the human heart, and governs the spring of the human passions; his spell reaches the privacy of domestic retirement, insinuates its magic into the most secret incidents of life, mingles its influence with our feelings and our thoughts, and frequently becomes a standard by which we measure our own characters, and appreciate our own situations. Thus many an amiable woman has claimed a fatal feeling as her own, which she borrowed unconsciously from the impassioned tenderness of Heloise; and many an inestimable youth has become the victim of a morbid sensibility which perhaps he had never known, had he never read "Werter." But, opposed to these individual instances, it may be justly answered, that a great proportion of the liberality, benevolence, and virtue, to be found in the modern world, may have been added to the sum of human excellence by the influence of those popular compositions, which, though sometimes defective in their execution, or erroneous in their means, are almost universally intended in their object to promote the cause of virtue and morality, to add at once to the harmless stock of public amusement, and to extend the source of social happiness. As long, therefore, as the promotion of human

goodness and human felicity is the great
and primary object of those who seek to
instruct by endeavouring to please, to
infuse the precepts, of wisdom through
the medium of imagination, and to give
to the dryness of truth the persuasive
accents of pleasure, the influence of fic-
titious history on modern manners must
be as beneficial to the morals of society »
as conducive to its amusement. It may
delight the fancy by poetic description,
it may cultivate the mental taste by re.»
fined sentiment, it may excite our dis
gust for all that is low or illiberal; it
may elevate our views of moral excel-
lence, and give to the mind a tone of
dignified elegance impracticable, to the
influence of sordid meanness; it may
soothe the feelings which the world
may have ruffled, and meet the heart
which the world may have disappointed;
it may assume the noble character of
patriotism, and awaken the pure and
latent love of country; it may give a
safer experience of the world than an
actual intercourse with its scenes could
bestow; and it may inculcate by pre
cept, by illustration, and by example,
that nothing so effectually promotes the
moral improvement and moral happiness
of our nature, as a strict performance of
those active and indispensable duties
connected with our various stations in
this life, and on the cultivation or neg-
lect of which, it may rationally be in-
ferred, our hopes must be founded of
that life which is to come.

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THE BOOK OF FOUR COLOURS. BY MONSIEUR BON TON.
Ridendo dicere verum quid vetat ?

At the Four Elements. From the Press of the Four Seasons. 4444.

"NO! it is in vain I struggle against it: the demon of ennui will kill me at last," I exclaimed, as I threw down the second volume of The Monastery. "You see I cannot get through with it--stuck quite fast in the middle." "Is it the laziness of the author, or yourself, that is in fault here?" answered my friend, who seemed maliciously to enjoy my perplexity. "Of both, I believe, for they say he was as confoundedly tired with writing before he had done as. (here I yawned)—" As you are of reading, I suppose." "Just my meaning, but rather more politely expressed; for, seriously, though I oped the wide and ponderous jaws' of weariness, I am by no means tired of your company; you must attribute it to the White Lady and

her bodkin, I believe." "Come, come, no railing against the superstitions of the Highlands," he replied; "these are very serious things in Scotland, I assure you, where second-sight has been proved. to exist by ocular demonstration. The author, I am told, piques himself upon these jeux d'imagination, and has half imbibed the principle upon which they are founded." Why, to be sure, he set off in a deuced hurry back again to the North before London had half exhausted her admiration of....." (here I yawned and stretched myself again.)

"Of his wonderful genius, I suppose you mean." "Just so; and explain my other meaning, my dear friend, too."

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Well, then, you mean to insinuate that, Mr. Cleishbotham of Gander

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