The History of Fiction: Being a Critical Account of the Most Celebrated Prose Works of Fiction, from the Earliest Greek Romances to the Novels of the Present Age, Band 2

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J. Ballentyne and Company, 1816 - 524 Seiten

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Seite 258 - To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.
Seite 92 - Verily, neighbor, in its way it is the best book in the world : here the knights eat, and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills before their deaths ; with several things which are not to be found in any other books of this kind.
Seite 144 - Next, (for hear me out now, readers,) that I may tell ye whither my younger feet wandered; I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings and from hence had in renown over all Christendom.
Seite 98 - Say from what city, from what regions toss'd, And what inhabitants those regions boast? So shalt thou instant reach the realm assign'd, In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind; No helm secures their course, no pilot guides; Like man intelligent, they plough the tides, Conscious of every coast, and every bay, That lies beneath the sun's all-seeing ray...
Seite 166 - Vespasian, son of Mathusalem, is the emperor in the coeval French version, and the wise men are Cato, Jesse, Lentulus, &c. The author of the English metrical romance has substituted Diocletian as the emperor, and Florentin as the son. Diocletian is preserved in the Italian copies, but the prince's name is changed into Erastus. In some of the eastern versions, the days, in place of seven, have been multiplied into forty ; and in this form the story of the Wise Masters became the origin of the Turkish...
Seite 77 - ... when a boy he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalry, and he retained his fondness for them through life ; so that (adds his Lordship) spending part of a summer at my parsonage-house in the country, he chose for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of FELIXMARTE OF HIRCANIA, in folio, which he read quite through.
Seite 166 - The leading incident of a disappointed woman, accusing the object of her passion of attempting the crime she had herself meditated, is as old as the story of Joseph, and may thence be traced through the fables of mythology to the Italian novelists,
Seite 205 - Contrary to expectation, he conducted them to his kitchen, gave them a capon with some peas, and to each a piece of money over and above. Before their departure, however, he warned them never to return, on pain of being thrown into the river. At this threat of the chatelain the minstrels laughed heartily, and took the road to the town, singing in full chorus, and dancing in a grotesque manner in derision.
Seite 301 - He had a crois of laton ful of stones, And in a glas he hadde pigges bones. But with these relikes, whanne that he fond A poure persone dwelling up on- lond, Upon a day he gat him more moneie Than that the persone gat in monethes tweie.
Seite 72 - England," seeing which the licentiate said, "Let the Olive be made firewood of at once and burned until no ashes even are left; and let that Palm of England be kept and preserved as a thing that stands alone, and let such another case be made for it as that which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius and set aside for the safe keeping of the works of the poet Homer.

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