to have had at the bottom fo much of truth as to serve for the basis of more regular annals. At least fucceeding hiftorians have taken up with the relations of thefe rude men, and for want of more authentic records, have agreed to allow them the credit of true hiftory (d).

After letters began to prevail, and hiftory affumed a more stable form, by being committed to plain simple profe; thefe Songs of the Scalds or Bards began to be more amuling than useful. And in proportion as it became their business chiefly to entertain and delight, they gave more and more into embellishment, and fet off their recitals with fuch marvellous fictions, as were calculated to captivate grofs and ignorant minds. Thus began ftories of adventures with Giants and Dragons, and Witches and Enchanters, and all the monitrous extravagances of wild imagination, unguided by judge. ment, and uncorrected by art (e).

THIS feems to be the true origin of that species of Romance, which fo long celebrated feats of Chivalry, and which at firft in metre, and afterwards in profe, was the entertainment of our ancestors, in cominon with their contemporaries on the continent, till the fatire of Cervantes, or rather the increase of knowledge and clas fical literature, drove them off the ftage, to make room for a more refined species of fiction, under the name of French Romances, copied from the Greek (f).

That our old Romances of Chivalry may be derived in a lineal descent from the ancient historical fongs of the Gothic Bards and Scalds, will be shown below, and indeed appears the more evident, as many of thofe Songs are still preserved in the north, which exhibit all

(d) See "Northern Antiquities, or a Description of the Man66 ners, Customs, &c. of the anciert Danes and other northern na❝tions, tranflated from the Fr. of M. Mallet." 1770, 2 vol. 8vo. (vol. I. p. 49, &c.)

(e) Vid. infra, pp. xii, xiii, &c.

(f) Viz. ASTRA, CASSANDRA, CLELIA, &c.

the feeds of Chivalry before it became a folemn inftitution (g). "CHIVALRY, as a diftinct military order, "conferred in the way of inveftiture, and accompanied "with the folemnity of an oath, and other ceremonies," was of later date, and fprung out of the feudal conftitution, as an elegant writer has clearly fhewn (h). But the ideas of Chivalry prevailed long before in all the Gothic nations, and may be difcovered as in embrio in the customs, manners, and opinions of every branch of that people (i). That fondnefs of going in quest of adventures, that fpirit of challenging to fingle combat, and that refpectful complaifance fewn to the fair sex, (fo different from the manners of the Greeks and Romans), all are of Gothic origin, and may be traced up to the earliest times among all the northern nations (k). Thefe exifled long before the feudal ages, though they were called forth and ftrengthened in a peculiar manner under that conftitution, and at length arrived to their full maturity in the times of the Crufades, fo replete with romantic adventures (1).

EVEN

(g) Mallet. vid. Northern Antiquities, vol. 1. p. 318, &c. vol. z. P. 234. &c.

(b) Letters concerning Chivalry. 8vo. 1763. (i) (k) Mallet. (1) The feeds of Chivalry fprung up fo naturally out of the original manners and opinions of the northern nations, that it is not credible they arofe folate as after the establishment of the Feudal System, much Jefs the Crufades. Nor, again, that the Romanaes of Chivalry were tranfmitted to other nations, through the Spaniards, from the Moors, and Arabians. Had this been the cafe, the first French Romances of Chivalry would have been on Moorish, or at leaft Spanish fubjects: whereas the most ancient stories of this kind, whether in profe or verse, whether in Italian, French, English, &c. are chiefly on the fubjects of Charlemagne, and the Paladins; or of our British Arthur, and his Knights of the Round Table, &c. being evidently borrowed from the fabulous Chronicles of the fuppofed Archbishop Turpin, and of Jeffery of Monmouth. Not but fome of the oldeft and most popular French Romances are alfo on Norman fubjects, as Richard Sans-peur, Robert Le Diable, &c. whereas I do not recollect so much as one, in which the fcene

EVEN the common arbitrary fictions of Romance were (as is hinted above) most of them familiar to the ancient Scalds of the North, long before the time of the Crufades. They believed the existence of Giants and Dwarfs (m); they entertained opinions not unlike the more modern notion of Fairies (n), they were ftrongly poffeffed with the belief of fpells, and inchantment (0), and were fond of inventing combats with Dragons and Monsters (p).

The opinion therefore feems very untenable, which fome learned and ingenious men have entertained, that the turn for Chivalry, and the tafte for that fpecies of romantic fiction were caught by the Spaniards from the Arabians or Moors after their invasion of Spain, and from the Spaniards tranfmitted to the bards of Armorica (9), and thus diffused through Britain, France, italy, Germany,

is laid in Spain, much less among the Moors, or descriptive of Mahometan manners. Even in Amadis de Gaul, faid to have been the firft Romance printed in Spain, the scene is laid in Gaul and Britain; and the manners are French: which plainly fhews from what fchool this fpecies of fabling was learnt and tranfmitted to the fouthern nations of Europe.

(m) Mallet. North. Antiquities, vol. I. p. 36; vol. II. paffim. (n) Olaus Verel. ad Hervarer Saga, pp. 44, 45. Hickes's Thefaur. vol. II. p. 311. Northern Antiquities, vol. II. paffim.

(0) Ibid. vol. I. pp. 69, 374, &c. vol. II. p. 216, &c. (p) Rollof's Saga. Cap. 35, &c.

(9) It is peculiarly unfortunate, that fuch as maintain this opinion are obliged to take their firft ftep from the Moorish provinces in Spain, without one intermediate refting place, to Armorica or Bretagne, the province in France from them most remote, not more in fituation, than in the manners, habits, and language of its Welsh inhabitants, which are allowed to have been derived from this ifland, as must have been their traditions, fongs, and fables; being doubtless all of Celtic original. See p. 3 of the "Differtation "on the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe," prefixed to Mr. THO. WARTON's Hiftory of English Poetry, vol. I. 1774, 4to. If any pen could have fupported this darling hypothesis of Dr. WARBURTON, that of this ingenious critic would have effected it. But under the general term ORIENTAL, he feems to confider the ancient

b 3

Germany, and the North. For it seems utterly incre

ancient inhabitants of the North and South of Afia, as having all the fame manners, traditions, and fables; and becaufe the fecluded people of Arabia took the lead under the religion and empire of Mahomet, therefore every thing must have been derived from them to the Northern Afiatics in the remoteft ages, &c. With as much reafon under the word OcCIDENTAL, we might represent the early traditions and fables of the North and South of Europe to have been the fame; and that the Gothic mythology of Scandinavia, the Druidic or Celtic of Gaul and Britain, differed not from the claffic of Greece and Rome.

There is not room here for a full examination of the minuter arguments, or rather flight coincidences, by which our agreeable Differtator endeavours to maintain and defend this favourite opinion of Dr. W. who has been himself fo complet ly confuted by Mr. TYRWHITT. (See his notes on "Love's Labour Loft," &c.) But fome of his pofitions it will be fufficient to mention: fuch as the referring the Gog and Magog, which our old Chriftian Bards might have had from fcripture, to the Jaguiouge and Magiouge of the Arabians and Perfians, &c. [p. 3.]-That we may venture "to affirm, that this [Geoffrey of Monmouth's] Chronicle, fup"posed to contain the ideas of the Welsh Bards, entirely confifts of "Arabian inventions." [p. 13.]--And that, "as Geoffrey's hiftory "is the grand repofitory of the Acts of Arthur, fo a fabulous "Hiftory afcribed to Turpin is the ground-work of all the Chime"rical Legend's which have been related concerning the conquests "of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. Its fubject is the expul❝fion of the Saracens from Spain, and it is filled with fictions evi"dently congenial to thofe which characterize Geoffrey's Hiftory." [p. 17-That is, as he afterwards expreiles it, lavishly decorated by the Arabian Fablers." [p. 58.3--We fhould hardly have expected, that the Arabian Fablers would have been lavish in decorating a hiftory of their enemy: but what is fingular, as an inftance and proof of this Arabian origin of the Fictions of Turpin, a paffage is quoted from his IVth chapter, which I fhall beg leave to offer, as affording decifive evidence, that they could not poffibly be derived from a Mahometan fource. Sc. The chriftians under

Charlemagne are faid to have found in Spain a golden idol, or "image of Mahomet, as high as a bird can fly It was framed 46 by Mahomet himself of the pureft metal, who, by his know"ledge in necromancy, had fealed up within it a legion of diabolical fpirits. It held in its hand a prodigious club; and the Sara" cens had a prophetic tradition, that this club fhould fall from the hand of the image in that year when a certain king should be fton in France, &c." [Vid. p. 18, Note.]

dible, that one rude people fhould adopt a peculiar tafte, and manner of writing or thinking from another, without borrowing at the fame time any of their particular stories and fables, without appearing to know any thing of their heroes, history, laws, and religion. When the Romans began to adopt and imitate the Grecian literature, they immediately naturalized all the Grecian fables, hiftories, and religious ftories: which became as familiar to the poets of Rome, as of Greece itself. Whereas all the old writers of chivalry, and of that fpecies of romance, whether in profe or verse, whether of the Northern nations, or of Britain, France, and Italy; not excepting Spain itfelf (r); appear utterly unacquainted with whatever relates to the Mahometan nations. Thus with regard to their religion, they conftantly represent them as worshipping idols, as paying adoration to a golden image of Mahomet, or elfe they confound them with the ancient pagans, &c. And indeed in all other refpects they are fo groffly ignorant of the customs, manners, and opinions of every branch of that people, efpecially of their heroes, champions, and local stories, as almost amounts to a demonstration that they did not imitate them in their fongs or romances: for as to dragons, ferpents, necromancies, &c. why fhould thefe be thought only derived from the Moors in Spain fo late as after the eighth century? fince notions of this kind appear too familiar to the northern Scalds, and enter too deeply

(r) The little narrative fongs on Morifco fubjects, which the Spaniards have at prefent in great abundance, and which they call peculiarly Romances, (fee vol. I. Book III. No. XVI. &c.) have nothing in common with their proper Romances (or histories) of Chivalry; which they call Hiftorias de Cavallerias: these are evidently imitations of the French, and fhew a great ignorance of Moorish manners: and with regard to the Morifco, or Song-Romances, they do not feem of very great antiquity: few of them appear, from their fubjects, much earlier than the reduction of Granada, in the fifteenth century: from which period, I believe, may be plainly traced among the Spanish writers, a more perfect knowledge of Moorish customs, &c.