THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF
NOVEL-WRITING
By Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Collection of Novels has a better chance of giving pleasure than, of commanding respect. Books of this description are condemned by the grave, and despised by the fastidious; but their leaves are seldom found unopened, and they occupy the parlour and the dressing-room while productions of higher name are often gathering dust upon the slitlf. It might not perhaps be difficult to show that this species of composition is entitled to a higher rank than has been generally assigned it. Fictitious adventures, in one form or other, have made a par* of the polite literature of every age and nation These have been grafted upon the actions of their heroes; they have been interwoven with their mythology ; they have been moulded upon vol. i. the manners of the age, —and, in return, have nfluenced the manners of the succeeding generation by the sentiments they have infused and the sensibilities they have excited.
Adorned with the embellishments of Poetry, they produce the epic ;more concentrated in the story, and exchanging narrative for action, they become dramatic. When allied with some great moral end, as in the T'demaque of Fenelon, and MarmontePs Belisaire, they may be termed didactic. They are often made the vehicles of satire, as in Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and the Ccwdide and Babouc of Voltaire. They take a tincture from the learning and politics of the times, and are made use of successfully to attack or recommend the prevailing systems of the day. When the range of this kind of writing is so extensive, and its effect so great, it seems evident that it ought to hold a respectable place amons; the productions of genius ; nor is it easy to say, why the poet, who deals in one kind of fiction, should have so high a place allotted him in the temple of fame; and the romance- writer so low a one as in the general estimation he is confined to.To measure the dignity of a writerby the pleasure he affords his readers is not perhaps using an accurate criterion; but the invention of a story, the choice of proper incidents, the ordonnance of the plan, occasional beauties of description, and above all he power exercised over the reader's heart by filling it with the successive emotions of love, pity, jay", anguish, transport, or indignation, together with the grave impressive moral resulting from the whole, imply talents of the highest order, and ought to be appretiated accordingly. A good novel is an epic in prose, with more of character and less (indeed in modern novels nothing) of the supernatural machinery.
If we look for the origin of fictitious tales and adventures, we shall be obliged to go to the earliest accounts of the literature of every age and country. The Eastern nations have always been fond of this species of mental gratification. The East is emphatically the country of invention. The Persians, Arabians, and other nations in that vicinity have been, and still are, in the habit of employing people whose business it is to compose and to relate entertaining stories and it is surprising how many stories (asParnell's Hermit for instance) which have passed current in verse and prose through a variety of forms, may be traced up to this source. From Persia the taste passed into the soft and luxurious Ionia. The Milesian Tales, written by Aristides of Miletus, at what time is not exactly known, seem to have been a kind of novels. They were translated into Latin during the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. They consisted of loose love stories, but were very popular among the Romans; and the Parthian general who beat Crassus took occasion, from his finding a copy of them amongst the camp equipage, to reproach that nation with effeminacy, in not being able, even in time of danger, to dispense with such an amusement. From Ionia the taste of romances passed over to the Greeks about the time of Alexander the Great. The Golden Ass of Lucian, which is exactly in the manner of the Arabian Tales, is one of the few extant.
In the time of the Greek emperors these compositions were numerous, and had attained a form and a polish which assimilates them to the most regular and sentimental of modem productions. The most perfect of those which are come down to our time is Theagenes and Chariclea, a romance or novel, written by Heliodorus bishop of Tricca in Thessaly, who flourished under Arcadius and Honorius.Though his production was perfectly chaste and virtuous, he was called to account for it by a provincial synods and ordered to burn his hook or resign his bishopric ; upon which, with the heroism of an author, he chose the latter. Of this work a new translation was given in 1789; and had this Selection admitted translations, it would have found a place here. It is not so much read as it ought to be ; and it may not be amiss to inform the customers to circulating libraries, that they may have the pleasure of reading a genuine novel, and at the same time enjoy the satisfaction of knowing how people wrote in Greek about love, above a thousand years ago. The scene of this work is chiefly laid in Egypt. It opens in a striking and picturesque manner. A band of pirates, from a hill lhat overlooks the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile, see a ship lying at anchor, deserted by its crew ; a feast spread on the shore; a number of dead bodies scattered round, indicating a recent skirmish or quarrel at an entertainment: the only living creatures, a most beautiful virgin seated on a rock, weeping over and supporting a young man of an equally distinguished figure, who is wounded and apparently lifeless. These are the hero and the heroine of the piece, and being thus let into the middle of the storv, the preceding events are given in narration. The description of the manner of life of the pirates at the mouth of the Nile is curious, and no doubt historical. It shows lhat, as well then as in Homer's time, piracy was looked upon as a mode of honourable war, and that a captain who treated the women with respect, and took a regular ransom for his captives, and behaved well to his men, did not scruple to rank himself with other military heroes. Indeed it might be difficult to say why he should not. It is a circumstance worth observing, that Tasso has in all probability borrowed a striking circumstance from the Greek romance. Chariclea is the daughter of a queen of ^Ethiopia, exposed by her mother to save her reputation, as, in consequence of the queen, while pregnant, having gazed at a picture of Perseus and Andromeda, her infant was born with a, fair complexion. This is the counterpart of the story of Clorinda, in the Gierusalemme Liberata, whose mother \s surprised with the same phenomenon, occasioned by having had in her chamber a picture of St. George. The discovery is kept back to the end of the piece, and is managed in a striking manner. There is much beautiful description, of which the pomp of heathen sacrifices and processions makes a great part j and the love is at once passionate and chaste.
The pastoral romance of Longus is also extant in the Greek language. It is esteemed elegant, but it would be impossible to chastise it into decency. The Latins^ who had less invention, had no writings of this kind, except the Golden Ass of Apuleius may be reckoned such. In it is found the beautiful episode of Cupid and Psyche, which has been elegantly modernized by Fontenelle. But romance writing was destined to revive with greater splendour under the Gothic powers, and it sprung out of the histories of xhe times^ enlarged and exaggerated into fable. Indeed all fictions have probably grown out of real adventures. The actions of heroes would be the most natural subject for recital in a warlike age ; a little flattery and a little love of the marvellous would overstep the modesty of truth in the narration. A champion of extraordinary size would be easily magnified into a giant. Tales of magic and enchantment probably took their rise from the awe and wonder with which the vulgar looked upon any instance of superior skill in mechanics or medicine, or acquaintance with any of the hidden properties of nature. The Arabian tales, so well known and so delightful, bear testimony to this. At a fair in Tartary a magician appears, who brings various curiosities, the idea of which was probably suggested by inventions they had heard of, which to people totally ignorant of the mechanical powers would appear the effect of enchantment. How easily might the exhibition at Merlin's, or the tricks of Jonas, be made to pass for magic in New Holland or Otaheite! Letters and figures were easily turned into talismans by illiterate men, who saw that a great deal was effected by them, and intelligence conveyed from place to place in a manner they could not account for. Medicine has always, in rude ages and countries, been accompanied with charms and superstitious practices, and the charming of serpents in the East is still performed in a way which the Europeans cannot discover. The total separation of scholastic characters from men of the world favoured the belief of magic; and when to thesecauses are added the religious superstitions of the times, we shall be able to account for much of the marvellous in the first instance. These stories, as well as the historical ones, would be continually embellished, as they passed from hand to hand, till the small mixture of truth in them was scarcely discoverable.
The first Gothic romances appeared under the
venerable guise of history. Arthur and the. knights of the round table,
Charlemagne and his peers, were their favourite heroes. The extended
empire of Charlemagne and his conquests naturally offered themselves as
subjects for recital ; but it seems extraordinary that Arthur, a British
prince, the scene of whose exploits was in Wales* a country little
known to the rest of Europe, and who was continually struggling against
ill-fortune, should have been so great a favourite upon the continent.
Perhaps, however, the comparative obscurity of his situation might
favour the genius of the composition, and the intercourse between Wales
and Brittany would contribute to diffuse and exaggerate the stones of
his exploits. In fact, every song and record relating to this hero was
kept with the greatest care in Brittany, and, together with a chronicle
deducing Prince Arthur from Priam king of Troy, was brought to England
about the year 1100, by Walter Mapes archdeacon of Oxford, when he
returned from the continent through that province. This medley of
historical songs, traditions, and invention, was put into Latin by
Geoffry of Monmouth, with many additions of his own, and from Latin
translated into French in the year 1115, under the title of Brut Anglet erre. It is full of the grossest anachronisms. Merlin, the
enchanter, is a principal character in it. He opposes his Christian
magic to the Arabian sorcerers. About the same time appeared a similar
history of Charlemagne. Two expeditions of his were particularly
celebrated; his conversion of the Saxons by force of arms, and his
expeciition into Spain against the Saracens ; in returning from which he
met with the defeat of Roncevaux, in which was slain the celebrated
Roland. This was written in Latin by a monk, who published it under the name of Archbishop Turpin,
a cotemporary of Charlemagne, in order to give it credit. These two
works were translated into most of the languages of Europe, and became
the groundwork of numberless others, each more wonderful than the
former, and each containing a sufficient number of giants, castles and
dragons, beautiful damsels and valiant princes, with a great deal of
religious zeai, and very little morality. Amodis de Gaul was one of the
most famous of this class.
Its origin is disputed between France and
Spain. There is a great deal of fighting in it, much of the marvellous,
and very little of sentiment. It has been given lately to the public
in an elegant English dress by Mr. Southey; but notwithstanding he has
considerably abridged its tediousness, a sufficiency of that ingredient
remains to make it rather a task to go through a work which was once so
great a favourite. Palmerin of England, Don Belianis of Greece, and the
others which make up the catalogue of Don Quixote's library, are of this
stamp. Richard Coeur de Lion and his exploits were greatly to the taste
of the early romance writers. The Crusades kindled a taste for romantic adventure; the establishment of the Saracens in Spain had
occasioned a large importation of genii and enchantments, and Moorish magnificence was grafted upon the tales of the Gothic chivalry. Of these
heroic romances, *lhe Troubadours were in France the chief composers:
they began to flourish about the end of the tenth century. They by
degrees mingled a taste for gallantry and romantic love with the
adventures of heroes, and they gave to that passion an importance and a
refinement which it had never possessed among the?. It was a compound
of devotion, metaphysics, Platonism, and chivalry, making altogether
such a mixture as the world had never seen before. There is
something
extremely mysterious in the manner in which ladies of rank allowed
themselves to be addressed by these poetical lovers; sometimes no doubta
real passion was produced, and some instances there are of its having
had tragical consequences but in general it maybe suspected that the ad:
dresses of the Troubadours and other poets were rather a tribute paid
to rank than to beauty; and that it
was customary for young men of parts,
who
had their fortune to make, to attach themselves to a patroness, of whom
they made a kind of idol, sometimes in the hopes of rising by her
means, sometimes merely as a subject for their wit. The manner in which
Queen Elizabeth allowed herself to be addressed by her courtiers, the
dedications which were in fashion in Dryden's time, the letters of
Voiture, and the general strain of poetry of Waller and Cowley^ may
serve to prove that there may be a great deal of gallantry without any
passion. It is evident that, while these romance writers worshipped
their mistress as a distant star, they did not disdain to warm
themselves by meaner and nearer fires; for the species of love or rather
adoration they professed did not at all prevent them from forming
connexions with more accessible fair ones. Of all the countries on the
continent, France and Spain had the greatest number of these chivalrous
romances. In Italy the genius of the nation and the facility of
versification led them to make poetry the vehicle of this kind of
entertainment. The Cantos of Boiardo and Ariosto are romances in verse.
In the mean time Europe settled into a state castles and knights of comparative tranquillity :
and
adventures of distressed damsels ceased to be the topics of the day,
and romances founded upon them had begun to be insipid when the immortal
satire of Cervantes drove them off the field, and they have never since
been able to rally their forces. The first work of entertainment of a
different kind which was published in France (for the Pantagruel of Rabelais is rather a piece of licentious satire than a romance) was the
Astrea of M. d' Urfe.
It is a pastoral romance, and became so
exceedingly popular, that the belles and beaux of that country assumed
the airs and language of shepherds and shepherdesses. A Celadon (the
hero of the piece) became a familiar appellation for a languishing
lover, and men of gallantry were seen with a crook in their hands,
leading a tame lamb about the streets of Paris. The celebrity of this
work was in great measure owing to its being strongly seasoned with
allusions to the intrigues of the court of Henry the Fourth, in whose
reign it was written. The volumes of Astrea are never opened in the
present day but as a curiosity ; to read them through would be a heavy
task indeed. There is in the machinery a strange mixture of wood nymphs
and druids. The work is full of anachronisms, but the time is supposed
to be in the reign of Pharamond or his successors. The tale begins with
the lover, who is under the displeasure of his mistress, throwing
himself into the water, where he narrowly escapes drowning VOL. I. at
the very outset of the piece. We find here the fouulain of love, in
which if a man looks, he sees, if he is beloved, the face of his
mistress; but if not, he is presented with the countenance of his rival :
long languishing speeches and little adventures of intrigue fill up the
story. It is interspersed with little pieces of poetry, very tolerable
for the time, but highly complimentary. One of them turns upon the
incident of the poet's mistress having burnt her cheek with her
curlingiron; on which he takes occasion to say, " that thefire of her
eyes caused the mischief " This work was however found so interesting by
M. Huet, the grave bishop of Avianches, that when he read it along with
his sisters, he was often obliged (as he tells us) to lay the book
down, that he and they might give free vent to their tears.
Though Cervantes had laid torest the giants and enchanters, a new style of fictitious writing was introduced, not less remote from nature, in the romances de longue haleine, which originated in France, and of which Calprenede and Mad, Scudery were the most distinguished authors. The principle of these was high honour, impregnable chastity, a constancy unshaken by time or accident, and a species of love so exalted and refined, that it bore little resemblance to a natural passion. These, in the construction of the story, came nearer to real life than the former had done. The adventures were marvellous, but not impossible. The heroes and heroines were taken from ancient history, but without any resemblance to the personages whose names they bore. The manners therefore and passions referred to an ideal world, the creation of the writer; but the situations were often striking, and the sentiments always noble. It is a curious circumstance that Rousseau, who tells us that his childhood was conversant in these romances, (a course of reading which no doubt fed and inflamed his fine imagination) has borrowed from them an affecting incident in his Nouvelle Heloise. St. Preux, when his mistress lies ill of the small-pox, glides into the room, approaches the. bed in order to imbibe the danger, and retires without speaking. Julie, when recovered, is impressed with a confused idea of having seen him, but whether in a dream, a vision, or a reality, she cannot determine. This striking circumstance is taken from the now almost forgotten Cassandra of Scudery. The complimentary language of these productions seems to have influenced the intercourse of common life, at least in the provices, for Boileau introduces in his satires --
" Deux nobles campagnards, grands Iccleurs de romans, Qui rnont dit tout Cyrus dans leurs longs complimens"
The same author made a more direct attack upon these productions in a dialogue entitled Les Heros de Roman, a humorous little piece, in which he ridiculed these as Cervantes had done the others, and drove them off the stage. Heroic sentiment and refined feeling, as expressed in romances and plays, were at their height about this time in France ; and while the story and
adventures were taken from the really chivalrous ages, it is amusing to observe how the rough
manners of those times are softened and polished to meet the ideas of a more refined age. A curious instance of this occurs in Corneille's well-known play of the Cid. Chimeric, having lost her father by the hand of her lover, not only breaks off the connexion, but throws herself at the feet of the king to entreat him to avenge her by putting Rodrigties to death:
" Sire, vengeance I" But in the genuine chronicle of the Cid, with which curious and entertaining work Mr. Southey has lately obliged the public, the previous incidents of the combat are nearly the game, and Ximena in like manner throws herself at the feet of the king; but to beg what?
—not vengeance upon the murderer of her father, but that the king would be pleased to give her Rodrigues for a husband, to whom moreover
she is not supposed to have had any previous attachment; her request seems to proceed from the simple idea that Rodrigues, by killing her father, having deprived her of one protector, it was but reasonable that he should give her another.
Rude times are fruitful of striking adventures; polished times must render them pleasing. —The ponderous volumes of the romance writers being laid upon the shelf, a closer imitation of nature began to be called for; not but that, from the. earliest times, there had been stories taken from, or imitating, real life. The Decameron of Boccacio (a storehouse of tales, and a standard of the language in which it is written), the Cent Nouvelles of the Queen of Navarre, Contes et Fabliaux without number, may be considered as novels of a lighter texture:
they abounded with adventure, generally of the humorous, often of the licentious kind, and indeed were mostly founded on intrigue, but the nobler passions were seldom touched. The Roman Comique of Scarron is a regular piece of its kind. Its subject is the adventures of a set
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