The title of the extensive romance of Perceforest is, "The most elegant,
delicious, mellifluous, and delightful history of Perceforest, King of
Great Britain, &c." The most ancient edition is that of 1528. The
writers of these Gothic fables, lest they should be considered as mere
triflers, pretended to an allegorical meaning concealed under the
texture of their fable. From the following adventure we learn the power
of beauty in making _ten days_ appear as _yesterday_! Alexander the
Great in search of Perceforest, parts with his knights in an enchanted
wood, and each vows they will not remain longer than one night in one
place. Alexander, accompanied by a page, arrives at Sebilla's castle,
who is a sorceress. He is taken by her witcheries and beauty, and the
page, by the lady's maid, falls into the same mistake as his master, who
thinks he is there only one night. They enter the castle with deep
wounds, and issue perfectly recovered. I transcribe the latter part as a
specimen of the manner. When they were once out of the castle, the king
said, "Truly, Floridas, I know not how it has been with me; but
certainly Sebilla is a very honourable lady, and very beautiful, and
very charming in conversation. Sire (said Floridas), it is true; but one
thing surprises me:--how is it that our wounds have healed in one night?
I thought at least ten or fifteen days were necessary. Truly, said the
king, that is astonishing! Now king Alexander met Gadiffer, king of
Scotland, and the valiant knight Le Tors. Well, said the king, have ye
news of the king of England? Ten days we have hunted him, and cannot
find him out. How, said Alexander, did we not separate _yesterday_ from
each other? In God's name, said Gadiffer, what means your majesty? It is
_ten days_! Have a care what you say, cried the king. Sire, replied
Gadiffer, it is so; ask Le Tors. On my honour, said Le Tors, the king of
Scotland speaks truth. Then, said the king, some of us are enchanted;
Floridas, didst thou not think we separated _yesterday_? Truly, truly,
your majesty, I thought so! But when I saw our wounds healed in one
night, I had some suspicion that WE were _enchanted_."
In the old romance of Melusina, this lovely fairy (though to the world
unknown as such), enamoured of Count Raymond, marries him, but first
extorts a solemn promise that he will never disturb her on Saturdays. On
those days the inferior parts of her body are metamorphosed to that of a
mermaid, as a punishment for a former error. Agitated by the malicious
insinuations of a friend, his curiosity and his jealousy one day conduct
him to the spot she retired to at those times. It was a darkened passage
in the dungeon of the fortress. His hand gropes its way till it feels an
iron gate oppose it; nor can he discover a single chink, but at length
perceives by his touch a loose nail; he places his sword in its head and
screws it out. Through this cranny he sees Melusina in the horrid form
she is compelled to assume. That tender mistress, transformed into a
monster bathing in a fount, flashing the spray of the water from a scaly
tail! He repents of his fatal curiosity: she reproaches him, and their
mutual happiness is for ever lost. The moral design of the tale
evidently warns the lover to revere a _Woman's Secret_!
Such are the works which were the favourite amusements of our English
court, and which doubtless had a due effect in refining the manners of
the age, in diffusing that splendid military genius, and that tender
devotion to the fair sex, which dazzle us in the reign of Edward III.,
and through that enchanting labyrinth of History constructed by the
gallant Froissart. In one of the revenue rolls of Henry III. there is an
entry of "Silver clasps and studs for his majesty's _great book of
Romances_." Dr. Moore observes that the enthusiastic admiration of
chivalry which Edward III. manifested during the whole course of his
reign, was probably, in some measure, owing to his having studied the
_clasped book_ in his great grandfather's library.
The Italian romances of the fourteenth century were spread abroad in
great numbers. They formed the polite literature of the day. But if it
is not permitted to authors freely to express their ideas, and give full
play to the imagination, these works must never be placed in the study
of the rigid moralist. They, indeed, pushed their indelicacy to the
verge of grossness, and seemed rather to seek than to avoid scenes,
which a modern would blush to describe. They, to employ the expression
of one of their authors, were not ashamed to name what God had created.
Cinthio, Bandello, and others, but chiefly Boccaccio, rendered
libertinism agreeable by the fascinating charms of a polished style and
a luxuriant imagination.
This, however, must not be admitted as an apology for immoral works; for
poison is not the less poison, even when delicious. Such works were, and
still continue to be, the favourites of a nation stigmatized for being
prone to impure amours. They are still curious in their editions, and
are not parsimonious in their price for what they call an uncastrated
copy. There are many Italians, not literary men, who are in possession
of an ample library of these old novelists.
If we pass over the moral irregularities of these romances, we may
discover a rich vein of invention, which only requires to be released
from that rubbish which disfigures it, to become of an invaluable price.
The _Decamerones_, the _Hecatommiti_, and the _Novellas_ of these
writers, translated into English, made no inconsiderable figure in the
little library of our Shakspeare.[119] Chaucer had been a notorious
imitator and lover of them. His "Knight's Tale" is little more than a
paraphrase of "Boccaccio's Teseoide." Fontaine has caught all their
charms with all their licentiousness. From such works these great poets,
and many of their contemporaries, frequently borrowed their plots; not
uncommonly kindled at their flame the ardour of their genius; but
bending too submissively to the taste of their age, in extracting the
ore they have not purified it of the alloy. The origin of these tales
must be traced to the inventions of the Troveurs, who doubtless often
adopted them from various nations. Of these tales, Le Grand has printed
a curious collection; and of the writers Mr. Ellis observes, in his
preface to "Way's Fabliaux," that the authors of the "Cento Novelle
Antiche," Boccaccio, Bandello, Chaucer, Gower,--in short, the writers of
all Europe have probably made use of the inventions of the elder
fablers. They have borrowed their general outlines, which they have
filled up with colours of their own, and have exercised their ingenuity
in varying the drapery, in combining the groups, and in forming them
into more regular and animated pictures.
We now turn to the French romances of the last century, called heroic,
from the circumstance of their authors adopting the name of some hero.
The manners are the modern antique; and the characters are a sort of
beings made out of the old epical, the Arcadian pastoral, and the
Parisian sentimentality and affectation of the days of Voiture.[120] The
Astrea of D'Urfé greatly contributed to their perfection. As this work
is founded on several curious circumstances, it shall be the subject of
the following article; for it may be considered as a literary curiosity.
The Astrea was followed by the illustrious Bassa, Artamene, or the Great
Cyrus, Clelia, &c., which, though not adapted to the present age, once
gave celebrity to their authors; and the Great Cyrus, in ten volumes,
passed through five or six editions. Their style, as well as that of the
Astrea, is diffuse and languid; yet Zaïde, and the Princess of Cleves,
are masterpieces of the kind. Such works formed the first studies of
Rousseau, who, with his father, would sit up all night, till warned by
the chirping of the swallows how foolishly they had spent it! Some
incidents in his Nouvelle Heloise have been retraced to these sources;
and they certainly entered greatly into the formation of his character.
Such romances at length were regarded as pernicious to good sense,
taste, and literature. It was in this light they were considered by
Boileau, after he had indulged in them in his youth.
A celebrated Jesuit pronounced an oration against these works. The
rhetorician exaggerates and hurls his thunders on flowers. He entreats
the magistrates not to suffer foreign romances to be scattered amongst
the people, but to lay on them heavy penalties, as on prohibited goods;
and represents this prevailing taste as being more pestilential than the
plague itself. He has drawn a striking picture of a family devoted to
romance-reading; he there describes women occupied day and night with
their perusal; children just escaped from the lap of their nurse
grasping in their little hands the fairy tales; and a country squire
seated in an old arm-chair, reading to his family the most wonderful
passages of the ancient works of chivalry.
These romances went out of fashion with our square-cocked hats: they had
exhausted the patience of the public, and from them sprung NOVELS. They
attempted to allure attention by this inviting title, and reducing their
works from ten to two volumes. The name of romance, including imaginary
heroes and extravagant passions, disgusted; and they substituted scenes
of domestic life, and touched our common feelings by pictures of real
nature. Heroes were not now taken from the throne: they were sometimes
even sought after amongst the lowest ranks of the people. Scarron seems
to allude sarcastically to this degradation of the heroes of Fiction:
for in hinting at a new comic history he had projected, he tells us that
he gave it up suddenly because he had "heard that his hero had just been
hanged at Mans."
NOVELS, as they were long _manufactured_, form a library of illiterate
authors for illiterate readers; but as they are _created_ by genius, are
precious to the philosopher. They paint the character of an individual
or the manners of the age more perfectly than any other species of
composition: it is in novels we observe as it were passing under our
eyes the refined frivolity of the French; the gloomy and disordered
sensibility of the German; and the petty intrigues of the modern Italian
in some Venetian Novels. We have shown the world that we possess writers
of the first order in this delightful province of Fiction and of Truth;
for every Fiction invented naturally, must be true. After the abundant
invective poured on this class of books, it is time to settle for ever
the controversy, by asserting that these works of fiction are among the
most instructive of every polished nation, and must contain all the
useful truths of human life, if composed with genius. They are pictures
of the passions, useful to our youth to contemplate. That acute
philosopher, Adam Smith, has given an opinion most favourable to
NOVELS. "The poets and romance writers who best paint the refinements
and delicacies of love and friendship, and of all other private and
domestic affections, Racine and Voltaire, Richardson Marivaux, and
Riccoboni, are in this case much better instructors than Zeno,
Chrysippus, or Epictetus."
The history of romances has been recently given by Mr. Dunlop, with many
pleasing details; but this work should be accompanied by the learned
Lenglet du Fresnoy's "Bibliothèque des Romans," published under the name
of M. le C. Gordon de Percel; which will be found useful for immediate
reference for titles, dates, and a copious catalogue of romances and
novels to the year 1734.