to be called the parent of those select and beautiful fictions which the genius of the Italian poets has enriched with such peculiar charms, another of its direct descendants, The Heroic Romance of the Seventeenth Century, is, with few exceptions, the most dull and tedious species of composition that ever obtained temporary popularity. The old Romance of Heliodorus, entitled Theagenes and Chariclea, supplied, perhaps, the earliest model of this style of composition; but it was from the Romances of Chivalry that it derives its most peculiar characteristics. A man of a fantastic imagination, Honoré d'Urfé, led the way in this style of composition. Being willing to record certain love intrigues of a complicated nature which had taken place in his own family, and amongst his friends, he imagined to himself a species of Arcadia on the banks of the Lignon, inhabited by swains and shepherdesses, who live for love and for love alone. There are two principal stories, said to represent the family history of D'Urfé and his brother, with about thirty episodes, in which the gallantries and intrigues of Henry IV.'s court are presented under borrowed names. Considered by itself, this is but an example of the Pastoral Romance; but it was so popular, that three celebrated French authors, Gomberville, Calprenede, and Madame Scuderi, seized the pen, and composed in emulation many interminable folios of Heroic Romance. In these insipid performances, a conventional character, and a set of family manners and features, are ascribed to the heroes and heroines, although selected from distant ages and various quarters of the world. The heroines are, without exception, models of beauty and perfection; and so well persuaded of it themselves, that to approach them with the most humble declaration of love was a crime sufficient to deserve the penalty of banishment from their presence; and it is well if the doom were softened to the audacious lover, by permission, or command to live, without which, absence and death were to be accounted synonymous. On the other hand, the heroes, whatever kingdoms they have to govern, or other earthly duties to perform, live through these folios for love alone; and the most extraordinary revolutions which can agitate the world are ascribed to the charms of a Mandane or a Statira acting upon the crazy understanding of their lovers. Nothing can be so uninteresting as the frigid extravagance with which these lovers express their passion; or, in their own phrase, nothing can be more freezing than their flames, more creeping than their flights of love. Yet the line of metaphysical gallantry which they exhibited had its date, and a long one, both in France and England. They remained the favourite amusement of Louis XIV.'s court, although assailed by the satire of Boileau. In England they continued to be read by our grandmothers during the Augustan age of English, and while Addison was amusing the world with his wit, and Pope by his poetry, the ladies were reading Clelia, Cleopatra, and the Grand Cyrus. The fashion did not decay till about the reign of George I.; and even more lately, Mrs Lennox, patronised by Dr Johnson, wrote a very good imitation of Cervantes, entitled, The Female Quixote, which had those works for its basis. They are now totally forgotten. The Modern Romance, so ennobled by the productions of so many master hands, would require a long disquisition. But we can here only name that style of composition in which De Foe rendered fiction more impressive than truth itself, and Swift could render plausible even the grossest impossibilities.1 1 There was the less occasion to continue and complete this Essay, as the author has, in the lives of the British Novelists, expressed the opinions he entertains upon the subject of Mo. dern Romance, and its connexion with the elder fictions by which it was preceded. 1824. [See vols. iii. and iv. ante.] |