with a minute detail of events already well known, or shocked by the manifest violation of historical truth.

The intrigues, both amorous and political, of the court of France, have given rise to the greatest number of the compositions of this description, which appeared during the period on which we are now entering. As far back as the year 1517, a sort of historical romance was formed on the subject of Clotaire and his four queens; but this style of writing does not appear to have been accommodated to the taste of the age, and a long period elapsed before it was imitated. About the middle of the subsequent century, M. de la Tour Hotman published the Histoire Celtique, in which, it is said, the principal actions of the French monarchs are shaded, but so faintly and ambiguously, that those who are but moderately conversant in French history, cannot trace any correspondence in the incidents. At length, however, in 1695, appeared the Intrigues Galantes de la cour de France, written originally by M. Sauval, and afterwards improved and enlarged by Vanel, by whom it was published. This work contains a history of the amours of the French sovereigns, from the commencement of the monarchy to the

reign of Lewis XIV. To a passion, which has, no doubt, especially in France, had considerable effect in state affairs, there is assigned throughout this work a paramount influence. It is represented as alone prompting the Merovingian family to unbounded atrocities, as the motive which stimulated Charles VII. to achieve the freedom of his country, and in future reigns as regulating the decisions of the cabinet, and distribution of the favours of the crown.

Besides this general history, the reign of almost every individual monarch has formed the subject of an amorous romance. We have Anecdotes de la cour de France sous le regne de Childeric, published in 1736, a work falsely attributed to Count Hamilton. The intrigues of the sanguinary and abandoned Fredegonde, the mistress of Chilperic, have formed the subject of many romances. Madame de Lussan wrote the Anecdotes de la cour de Philippe Auguste; Memoires Secretes des Intrigues de la cour de Charles VII.; Anecdotes de la cour de François le Premier, &c. The events of this prince's reign, so well calculated to make a figure in romance, have been the subject of other compositions of a similar description. Mad. Murat, author of the Fairy Tales, has written a novel entitled La Comtesse de Chateaubriant, who

was the mistress of that monarch. Les Amours de Grand Alcandre, by the princess of Conti, details the unremitting gallantries of Henry IV., and has obtained considerable celebrity in France, either from the intrinsic merit of the composition, the interesting character of the hero, or the rank of its author. The works which regard the amours of Lewis XIII, are, as might be expected, chiefly satirical. Those which relate to Lewis XIV., are covered with a thick veil of fiction, which was rendered prudent by the recent nature of the intrigues, and the existence of the persons concerned, or, at least, of their immediate descendants.

Other writers of this period have resorted to more ancient times. Les Femmes Galantes de l'Antiquité, by M. Serviez, published in 1726, commences with the multifarious intrigues of the Pagan divinities. Whatever is marvellous in mythology has been retrenched, and its place filled up with amorous incident supplied from the fancy of the author. Io, Semele, &c. are the characters in the three first volumes; Sappho, and other females, who were content with mortal lovers, are exhibited in those that follow. As in the novels founded on French history, every incident in this work is attributed to love. Indeed, the author declares that it is his object to show, that

the wonderful expeditions and incredible revolutions recorded in ancient history, had, in fact, no other spring than the resentment of a despised rival, or the dictates of an imperious mistress.

M. Serviez is also the author of Les Imperatrices Romaines, in which he begins with the four wives of Julius Cæsar, and concludes with the nuptials of Constantine. Most of the anecdotes have some foundation in fact, but are amplified with circumstances feigned at the will of the author, who, if he wished to exhibit the enormities of vice in their greatest variety, and most unlimited extent, which may be presumed from his selection of such a subject, had little occasion to add the embellishments of fiction. This work was first published under the title of Les Femmes des Douze Cesars, but being afterwards continued, it was printed in 1728, by the name which it now bears.

Of a similar description with this last-mentioned work, is the Exiles of the Court of Augustus, by Madame Jardins, afterwards Mad. Villedieu. In this romance, Ovid, of course, is a distinguished character. He is joined in his place of banishment by other illustrious Romans, who relate the history of their own misfortunes, and the incidents which had occurred in the capital during his exile.

All the works that have been mentioned are built on history, conjecture, and imagination. Most of them are full of gallantry, but the authors pretend that the cause of morality is aided by the reflections which result. There is little display of sentiment or character. Truth and fiction are unpleasantly blended. Nor are the deviations from the former compensated by the embellishments of the latter, and the reader finds it difficult to pardon the alterations in history, as he is not presented in exchange with incidents of which the decoration palliates the want of reality.

2. Though the celebrated novel,

LA PRINCESSE DE CLEVES,

be in some measure historical, and of consequence partakes, especially in its commencement, of the nature of that class of works with which we have last been engaged, it may justly be esteemed the earliest of those agreeable and purely fictitious productions, whose province it is to bring about natural events by natural means, and which preserve curiosity alive without the help of wonderin which human life is exhibited in its true state, diversified only by accidents that daily happen in