37. The Hecatomithi, or Hundred Tales, of Giraldi Cinthio have become known in England by the of Cinthio; recourse that Shakspeare has had to them in two instances, Cymbeline and Measure for Measure, for the subjects of his plays. Cinthio has also borrowed from himself in his own tragedies. He is still more fond of dark tales of blood than Bandello. He seems consequently to have possessed an unfortunate influence over the stage; and to him, as well as his brethren of the Italian novel, we trace those scenes of improbable and disgusting horror from which, though the native taste and gentleness of Shakspeare for the most part disdained such helps, we recoil in almost all the other tragedians of the old English school. Of the remaining Italian novelists that belong to this period it is enough to mention Erizzo, better known as one of the founders of medallic science. His Sei Giornate contain thirty-six novels, called Avvenimenti. They are written with intolerable prolixity, but in a pure and even elevated tone of morality. This character does not apply to the novels of Lasca. of the Queen of Navarre. 38. The French novels, ascribed to Margaret, Queen of Navarre, and first published in 1558, with the title “Histoire des Amans fortunés," are principally taken from the Italian collections or from the fabliaux of the trouveurs. Though free in language, they are written in a much less licentious spirit than many of the former, but breathe throughout that anxiety to exhibit the clergy, especially the regulars, in an odious or ridiculous light, which the principles of their illustrious authoress might lead us to expect. Belleforest translated, perhaps with some variation, the novels of Bandello into French." romances 39. Few probably will now dispute that the Italian Spanish novel, a picture of real life, and sometimes of true of chivalry. circumstances, is perused with less weariness than the Spanish romance, the alternative then offered to the lovers of easy reading. But this had very numerous admirers in that generation, nor was the taste confined to Spain. The popularity of Amadis de Gaul and Palmerin of Oliva, with their various continuators, has been already Bouterwek, v. 286, mentions by the sixteenth century: I do not know name several other French novelists of anything of them. mentioned. One of these, "Palmerin of England," appeared in French at Lyons in 1555. It is uncertain who was the original author, or in what language it was first written. Cervantes has honoured it with a place next to Amadis. Mr. Southey, though he condescended to abridge Palmerin of England, thinks it inferior to that Iliad of romantic adventure. Several of the tales of knighterrantry that are recorded to have stood on the unfortunate shelves of Don Quixote belong to this latter part of the century, among which Don Bellianis of Greece is better known by name than any other. These romances were not condemned by Cervantes alone. "Every poet and prose writer," says Bouterwek, "of cultivated talent, laboured to oppose the contagion." Diana of mayor. 40. Spain was the parent of a romance in a very different style, but, if less absurd and better written, not perhaps much more interesting to us than those of chivalry, the Diana of Montemayor. Sannazaro's beautiful model of pastoral romance, the Arcadia, and some which had been written in Portugal, take away the merit of originality from this celebrated fiction. It formed, however, a school in this department of literature, hardly less numerous, according to Bouterwek, than the imitators of Amadis." The language of Montemayor is neither laboured nor affected, and, though sometimes of La Noue, a severe Protestant, thinks them as pernicious to the young as the writings of Machiavel had been to the old. This he dwells upon in his sixth discourse. "De tout temps," this honest and sensible writer says, "il y a eu des hommes qui ont esté diligens d'escrire et mettre en lumière des choses vaines. Ce qui plus les y a conviez est, que ils sçavoient que leurs labeurs seroient agréables à ceux de leurs siècles, dont la plus part a toujours heime [aimé] la vanité, comme le poisson fait l'eau. Les vieux romans dont nous voyons encor les fragmens par-ci et parlà, à savoir de Lancelot du Lac, de Perceforest, Tristan, Giron le courtois, et autres, font foy de ceste vanité antique. On s'en est repeu l'espace de plus de cinq cens ans, jusques à ce que nostre langage estant devenu plus orné et nostres esprits plus frétillans, il a fallu inventer quelque nouveauté pour les égayer. Voilà comment les livres rather too formal a solemnity, especially in what the author thought philosophy, is remarkably harmonious and elevated; nor is he deficient in depth of feeling or fertility of imagination. Yet the story seems incapable of attracting any reader of this age. The Diana, like Sannazaro's Arcadia, is mingled with much lyric poetry, which Bouterwek thinks is the soul of the whole composition. Cervantes indeed condemns all the longer of these poems to the flames, and gives but limited praise to the Diana. Yet this romance, and a continuance of it by Gil Polo, had inspired his own youthful genius in the Galatea. The chief merit of the Galatea, published in 1584, consists in the poetry which the story seems intended to hold together. In the Diana of Montemayor, and even in the Galatea, it has been supposed that real adventures and characters were generally shadowed a practice not already without precedent, and which, by the French especially, was carried to a much greater length in later times. 41. Spain became celebrated about the end of this century for her novels in the picaresque style, of which Lazarillo de Tormes is the oldest extant specimen. The continuation of this little work is reckoned inferior to the part written by Mendoza himself; but both together are amusing and inimitably short.* The first edition of the most celebrated romance. Alfarache. of this class, Guzman d'Alfarache, falls within the sixteenth century. It was written by Matthew Aleman, who is said to have lived long at court. He might there have acquired, not a knowledge of the tricks of common rogues, but an experience of mankind, which is reckoned one of the chief merits of his romance. Many of his stories also relate to the manners of a higher class than that of his hero. Guzman d'Alfarache is a sort of prototype of Gil Blas, though, in fact, Le Sage has borrowed very freely from all the Spanish novels of this school. The adventures are numerous and diversified enough to amuse an idle reader, and Aleman has displayed a great deal of good sense in his reflections, which are expressed Novels in the pica resque style. Guzman d' X Though the continuation of Lazarillo de Tormes is reckoned inferior to the original, it contains the only story in the whole novel which has made its fortune, that of the man who was exhibited as a sea-monster. in the pointed, condensed style affected by most writers of Spain. Cervantes has not hesitated to borrow from him one of Sancho's celebrated adjudications, in the well-known case of the lady, who was less pugnacious in defence of her honour than of the purse awarded by the court as its compensation. This story is, however, if I am not mistaken, older than either of them. ras de Gra 42. It may require some excuse that I insert in this place Las Guerras de Granada, a history of certain Las GuerMoorish factions in the last days of that kingdom, nada. both because it has been usually referred to the seventeenth century, and because many have conceived it to be a true relation of events. It purports to have been translated by Gines Perez de la Hita, an inhabitant of the city of Murcia, from an Arabic original of one Aben Hamili. Its late English translator seems to entertain no doubt of its authenticity; and it has been sagaciously observed that no Christian could have known the long genealogies of Moorish nobles which the book contains. Most of those, however, who read it without credulity, will feel, I presume, little difficulty in agreeing with Antonio, who ranks it "among Milesian fables, though very pleasing to those who have nothing to do." The The following passage, which I extract from the Retrospective Review, vol. v. p. 199, is a fair and favourable specimen of Aleman as a moralist, who is however apt to be tedious, as moralists usually are: "The poor man is a kind of money that is not current, the subject of every idle housewife's chat, the offscum of the people, the dust of the street, first trampled under foot, and then thrown on the dunghill; in conclusion, the poor man is the rich man's ass. He dineth with the last, fareth with the worst, and payeth dearest; his sixpence will not go so far as the rich man's threepence; his opinion is ignorance, his discretion foolishness, his suffrage scorn, his stock upon the common abused by many, and abhorred by all. If he come into company he is not heard; if any chance to meet him, they seek to shun him; if he advise, though never so wisely, they grudge and murmur at him; if he work miracles, they say he is a witch; if virtuous, that he goeth about to deceive; his venial sin is a blasphemy; his thought is made treason; his cause, be it never so just, is not regarded; and to have his wrongs righted, he must appeal to that other life. All men crush him; no man favoureth him. There is no man that will relieve his wants; no man that will bear him company when he is alone and oppressed with grief. None help him, all hinder him; none give him, all take from him; he is debtor to none, and yet must make payment to all. O the unfortunate and poor condition of him that is poor, to whom even the very hours are sold which the clock striketh, and payeth custom for the sunshine in August!" This is much in the style of our English writers in the first part of the seventeenth century, and confirms what I have suspected, that they formed it in a great measure on the Spanish school. Guzman d'Alfarache was early translated into English, as most other Spanish books were; and the language itself was more familiar in the reigns of James and Charles than it became afterwards. Zegris and Abencerrages, with all their romantic exploits, seem to be mere creations of Castilian imagination; nor has Conde, in his excellent history of the Moors in Spain, once deigned to notice them even as fabulous; so much did he reckon this famous production of Perez de la Hita below the historian's regard. Antonio mentions no edition earlier than that of Alcala in 1604; the English translator names 1601 for the date of its publication, an edition of which year is in the Museum; nor do I find that any one has been aware of an earlier, published at Saragoça in 1595, except Brunet, who mentions it as rare and little. known. It appears by the same authority that there is another edition of 1598. Sidney's 43. The heroic and pastoral romance of Spain contributed something, yet hardly so much as has been supposed, to Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, the only original production of this kind worthy of notice which our older literature can boast. The Arcadia was published in 1590, having been written, probably, by its highly accomplished author about ten years before. Its character. 44. Walpole, who thought fit to display the dimensions of his own mind by announcing that he could perceive nothing remarkable in Sir Philip Sidney (as if the suffrage of Europe in what he admits to be an age of heroes were not a decisive proof that Sidney himself overtopped those sons of Anak), says of the Arcadia, that it is" a tedious, lamentable, pedantic pastoral romance, which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wade through." We may doubt whether Walpole could altogether estimate the patience of a reader so extremely unlike himself; and his epithets, except perhaps the first, are inapplicable: the Arcadia is more free from pedantry than most books of that age; and though we are now so accustomed to a more stimulant diet in fiction, that few would read it through with pleasure, the story is as sprightly as most other romances, sometimes. indeed a little too much so, for the Arcadia is not quite a book for "young virgins," of which some of its admirers by hearsay seem not to have been aware. By the epithet pastoral," we may doubt whether Walpole knew much of this romance beyond its name; for it has far less to do |