necromancers, giants, and enchanted castles, are indeed banished; but heroism and gallantry are still preserved. These attributes, however, have assumed a different station and importance. In romances of chivalry, love, though a solemn and serious passion, is subordinate to heroic achievement. A knight seems chiefly to have loved his mistress, because he obtained her by some warlike exploit ; she formed an excuse for engaging in perilous adventures, and he mourned her loss, as it was attended with that of his dearer idol-honour. In the heroic romance, on the other hand, love seems the ruling passion, and military exploits are chiefly performed for the sake of a mistress: glory is the spring of the one species of composition, and love of the other; but in both, according to the expression of Sir Philip Sidney, the heroes are knights who combat for the love of honour and the honour of love.

Much of the heroic romance has been also derived from the ancient Greek romances. The spirit of these compositions had been kept alive during the middle ages, and had never been altogether extinguished, even by the prevalence and popularity of tales of chivalry. The Philocopo of Boccaccio, said to have been composed for the entertainment of Mary, natural daughter of the king

of Naples, bears a close resemblance to the Greek This work is taken from a French me

romance.

trical tale of the 13th century, which has been imitated in almost all the languages of Europe, (Ellis's Metrical Romances, vol. iii.) In Boccaccio's version of this story, Florio, prince of Spain, falls in love with Blancafior, an orphan, educated at his father's court. To prevent the risk of his son forming an unequal alliance, the king sells the object of his attachment to some Asiatic merchants, and hence the romance is occupied with the search made for her by Florio, under the name of Philocopo. The work is chiefly of the tenor of the heroic romance, but it presents an example of almost every species of fiction. Heathen divinities appear in disguise, and the rival lover of Blancafior is transformed into a fountain: stories of gallantry are related at the court of Naples, which Florio visits, and the account of the gardens and seraglio of the Egyptian emir resembles the descriptions in fairy and oriental tales.

Theagenes and Chariclea was translated into French by Amyot, in 1547, and ten editions were printed before the end of the 16th century. The story of Florizel, Clareo, and the Unfortunate Ysea, a close imitation of the Clitophon and Leucippe, written originally in Castilian, was translated into

French in 1554, and soon became a popular production.

On the decline of romances of chivalry, it was natural to search for some species of fiction to supply their place with the public. The spiritual and pastoral romances were not sufficiently entertaining nor abundant for this purpose, and the sale of ten editions of the work of Heliodorus was a strong inducement to attempt something original in a similar taste. In pursuance of this new object, the writers of that species of fiction, which may be peculiarly entitled Heroic Romance, resorted in search of characters partly to classical and partly to Moorish heroes.

The adoption of the former may, perhaps, have been owing to Amyot's translation of Plutarch, in which there were many interpolations savouring of the author of " La vie et faits de Marc Antoine Le Triumvir et de sa mie Cleopatre, translaté de l'historien Plutarque pour tres illustre haute et puissante dame Mad. Française de Fouez dame de Chateaubriand."

It was the well-known History of the Dissensions of the Zegris and Abencerrages that brought the Moorish stories and characters into vogue in France. The Spanish writers attribute this work to a Moor, who retired into Africa after the con

quest of Granada. His grandson, who inherited the MS., gave it, they say, to a Jew; and he in turn, presented it to Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, count of Baylen, who ordered it to be translated by Genes Peres del Hita. This account, however, is extremely apocryphal. The knowledge, indeed, displayed by the author, concerning the tribes and families of the Moors settled in Granada before the conquest of that city by the monarchs of Castile, renders it probable that Genez del Hita consulted some Arabian MS. on the subject of the Moorish contentions; but, on the other hand, the partiality to the Christian cause, which runs through the whole work, proves that the pretended translator was the original author of the greater part of the composition, and that it was first written in the Spanish language.

This production may be regarded as historical in some of the leading political incidents recorded, but the harangues of the heroes, the loves of the Moorish princes, the games and the festivals, are the superstructure of fancy. In these, however, national manners are faithfully preserved, -and in the romance of Hita more information is afforded concerning the customs and character of the Moors than by any of the Spanish historians.

The work commences with the early history of Granada, but we soon come to those events that preceded and accelerated its fall-the competitions for the sovereignty, and dissensions of the factions of the Zegris and Abencerrages. Of these the former race sprung from the kings of Fez and Morocco; the latter descended from the ancient princes of Yemen. In this work, and all those which treat of the factions of Granada, the Zegris are represented as a fierce and turbulent tribe. On the other hand, the Abencerrages, while their equals in valour, are painted as the most amiable of heroes, endowed with graceful manners and elegant accomplishments. The Zegris, however, remained faithful to the cause of their country, while the Abencerrages, by finally enlisting under the banners of Ferdinand, were the chief instruments of the downfall of Granada. The Spanish monarch, availing himself of the Moorish dissensions, and of the valour of Don Rodrigo of Arragon, Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava, vigorously attacked Granada, and finally accomplished its ruin by means of the Abencerrages, who revolted to him in revenge for the unheardof cruelties exercised on their race by one of their native princes. This work also presents the strange, though not uncommon, spectacle of a nation ex