PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. WARTON'S OBSERVATION ON THE INTEREST ATTACHED TO THE PROGRESS OF IT APPLIES MORE CLOSELY TO OUR AGE THAN TO THAT SOCIAL LIFE. OF WARTON. THE LITERATURE OF SOCIETY DATES MOST DISTINCTLY FROM THE PERIOD SUCCEEDING THE WARS OF THE ROSES. ORIGIN OF ROMANTIC FICTION. IT PASSES FROM AFRICA INTO SPAIN AND BASSE BRETAGNE. CONNEXION OF BRETAGNE WITH WALES AND CORNWALL. SIMILARITY OF DIALECT. THEREFORE TO MINSTRELS BY THE HIGHER CLASSES. SCARCITY OF BOOKS. THE ATTENTION PAID THEIR LEGES.-RICHARD CŒUR DE LION. ROMANCE FOUNDED ON HIS NAME AND EXPLOITS. - WRITTEN BY ROBERT DE BRUNNE.-EXTRACT FROM THAT POEM. VOL. I. B OBSERVATIONS MADE BY WARTON. 3 6 PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. NEARLY a century has elapsed since Dr. Warton, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, made the following remark in his valuable and interesting work, the History of Poetry:'-'In an age advanced to the highest degree of refinement, that species of curiosity commences which is busied in contemplating the progress of social life, in displaying the gradations of science, and in tracing the transitions of barbarism to civility.' This observation was applied by Warton to the last century; that dreary season, when art and literature, as it now seems to us, were either frozen or under a cloud: it must therefore have been among the learned only, that such speculations were then becoming the prevalent taste, and furnishing the favourite topics of the day. One would imagine, in reading this sentence, that Warton was our contemporary ; that he lived amongst us, when the light that was only then dawning, has shed its beams in full brilliance; when all that appertains to the past is almost sacred in the eyes of enthusiasts-(and who are now not enthusiasts?)—in history, or romance, or poetry, or the drama. Far from looking back, as Warton expresses it, to the condition of our ancestors with the triumph of superiority,' we reverence 6 4 RISE OF THE LITERATURE OF SOCIETY.' their very foibles; we have returned to their tastes and pleasures; we emulate their works of art; we dive with insatiable zeal into their domestic existence; our forefathers seem dearer to us than ourselves. Admitting these conclusions, we must be greatly concerned in tracing the rise and progress of that which may be termed social literature; whether in the form of poetry, or in the more complicated construction of the drama, or in the careless, lively effusions of known wits, or in epistolary productions, composed with infinite care, and issuing from the Court or from the remote castle of the provinces at long intervals; or in the long forgotten satirical and political ballads, to which our ancestors were addicted when they dared to give vent to their prejudices or their passions. Strictly speaking, we ought perhaps to date the permanent existence of the Literature of Society' after the Wars of the Roses were ended, and when this country settled down into a certain degree of repose. Then, as in France in the present day, wit, eloquence, fancy, sprang up like flowers after rain, and a sort of moral sunshine prevailed after the long eclipse of revolution. But even before that period, when a settled succession insured peace, one species of literature had delighted successive ages. Romantic fiction, brought from Arabia, was the resource of society at a very early era. The gallant Crusaders, embued with that species of high romance which is an accompaniment to the devotional character, were prepared to accept as true, and to enjoy as exciting, the wildest productions of fancy. They carried, therefore, back to their homes that love for fiction which has never been extinguished in this country. A colony of Saracens, settled on the north coast of Africa, had, meantime, infected the Spanish nation with a similar taste. Hence the Spaniards, carried away by the attractions BRETAGNE COLONIZED BY WELSH. 5 of these extravagant inventions, neglected the study of Latin, and affected a pompous and turgid style of language. Italy and France soon caught up the prevailing passion for romance; and, in France, the ardour for fiction settled in that remote and still primitive province, La Basse Bretagne, which is one of the most curious, and the least visited, localities in France. Bretagne, anciently colonized by the Welsh under Maximus, a Roman general, seems almost to claim kindredship with Wales. Its Welsh invaders introduced into that wild region their own dialect-the Armoric; and the patois still spoken among the poor, honest, neglected Bretons, can be understood by our mountaineers from Snowdon or Plinlimmon, and strange indeed was the sensation, excited at the siege of Belleisle in the minds of our soldiers, when the Welsh could make themselves intelligible at once to the Bretons. As their language was similar, so did their tastes become kindred. The original Welsh colonists carried back into their mountain fastnesses, or into their hill-side villages and lovely valleys, the fictions derived from the Moors. Wales became the stronghold of superstition and romance; and so closely were the two countries allied, that Milton enumerates the knights of Wales and of Armorica together, as being among the retainers of King Arthur, in these lines: : 'What resounds In fable or romance, of Uther's son Begirt with British and Armoric knights.' Llywarchen, a famous Welsh Bard, a hundred and fifty years afterwards, commemorated the exploits of his twentyfour sons, who wore gold chains, and, thus marked out for slaughter, were, one is not surprised to find, all killed in |