incident. Je parle des Romans réguliers; car la plûpart des vieux Romans François, Italiens, et Espagnols font bien moins amoureux que militaires." After this declaration, furely no one has a right to complain of the author for not treating more at large of the old romances of chivalry, or to ftigmatise his work as fuperficial, upon account of that omiffion. I fhall have occa fion to remark below, that Dr. W. who, in turning over this fuperficial work, (as he is pleased to call it,) feems to have fhut his eyes against every ray of good fenfe and juft obfervation, has condefcended to borrow from a it very grofs mistake.

Dr. W's own pofitions, to the support of which his subsequent facts and arguments might be expected to apply, are two; 1. That Romances of chivalry being of Spanish original, the beroes and the Scene were generally of that country; 2. That the fubject of these romances were the crufades of the European Chriftians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa. The first pofition, being complicated, fhould be divided into the two following; 1. That romances of chivalry were of Spanish original; 2. That the heroes and the fcene of them were generally of that country.

Here are therefore three pofitions, to which I fhall fay a few words in their order; but I think it proper to premife a fort of definition of a Romance of Chivalry. If Dr. W. had done the fame, he must have seen the hazard of fyftematizing in a fubject of fuch extent, upon a cui fory perufal of a few modern books, which indeed ought not to have been quoted in the difcuffion of a queftion of antiquity.

A romance of chivalry therefore, according to my notion, is any fabulous narration, in verfe or profe, in which the principal characters are knights, conducting themfelves in their feveral fituations and adventures, agreeably to the inftitutions and cuftoms of Chivalry. Whatever names the characters may bear, whether hiftorical or fictitious, and in whatever country, or age, the scene of the action may be laid, if the actors are reprefented as knights, I should call fuch a fable a Romance of Chivalry.

I am not aware that this definition is more comprehensive than it ought to be but, let it be narrowed ever fo much; let any other be fubstituted in its room; Dr. W's firft pofition, that romances of chivalry were of Spanish original, cannot be maintained. Monfieur Huet would have taught him better. He fays very truly, that " les plus vieux," of the Spanish romances, "font pofterieurs à nos Triftans et à nos Lancelots, de quelques centaines d'années." Indeed the fact is indifputable. Cervantes, in a paffage quoted by Dr. W. fpeaks of Amadis de Gaula (the first four books) as the first book of chivalry printed in Spain. Though he says only printed, it is plain that he means written. And indeed there is no good reafon to believe that Amadis was written long before it was printed. It is unneceffary to enlarge upon a fyftem, which places the original of romances of chivalry in a nation, which has none to produce older than the art of printing.

Dr. W.'s fecond pofition, that the heroes and the scene of these romances were generally of the country of Spain, is as unfortunate as the former. Whoever will take the fecond volume of Du Frefnoy's Bibliotheque des Romans, and look over his lifts of Romans de Chevalerie, will fee that not one of

the celebrated heroes of the old romances was a Spaniard. With refpect to the general fcene of fuch irregular and capricious fictions, the writers of which were ufed, literally, to give to airy nothing, a local habitation and a name," I am fenfible of the impropriety of afferting any thing pofitively, without an accurate examination of many more of them than have fallen in my way. I think, however, I might venture to affert, in direct contradiction to Dr. W. that the fcene of them was not generally in Spain. My own notion is, that it was very rarely there; except in those few romances which treat exprefsly of the affair at Roncesvalles.

His laft pofition, that the fubject of these romances were the crufades of the European Chriftians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa, might be admitted with a small amendment. If it ftood thus; the fubject of fome, or a few, of thefe romances were the crufades, &c. the pofition would have been incontrovertible; but then it would not have been either new, or fit to fupport a system.

After this ftate of Dr. W.'s hypothefis, one must be curious to fee what he himself has offered in proof of it. Upon the two firft pofitions he fays not one word: I fuppofe he intended that they should be received as axioms. He begins his illuftration of his third pofition, by repeating it (with a little change of terms, for a reason which will appear.) Indeed the wars of the Chriftians against the Pagans were the general fubject of the romances of chivalry. They all feem to have bad their ground-work in tavo fabulous monki biftorians, the one, who, under the name of Turpin, archbishop of Rheims, wrote the Hiftory and Atchievements of Charlemagne and his twelve Peers ;-the other, our Geoffry of Monmouth." Here we fee the reafon for changing the terms of crufades and Saracens into wars and Pa gans; for, though the expedition of Charles into Spain, as related by the Pfeudo-Turpin, might be called a crusade against the Saracens, yet, unluckily, our Geoffry has nothing like a crufade, nor a fingle Saracen in his whole hiftory; which indeed ends before Mahomet was born. I must obferve too, that the speaking of Turpin's hiftory under the title of "the Hiftory of the Atchievements of Charlemagne and his twelve Peers," is inaccurate and unfcholarlike, as the fiction of a limited number of twelve peers is of a much later date than that hiftory.

However, the ground-work of the romances of chivalry being thus marked out and determined, one might naturally expect fome account of the first builders and their edifices; but instead of that we have a digreffion upon Oliver and Roland, in which an attempt is made to fay fomething of those two famous characters, not from the old romances, but from Shakspeare, and Don Quixote, and some modern Spanish romances. My learned friend, the dean of Carlisle, has taken notice of the strange mistake of Dr. W. in fuppofing that the feats of Oliver were recorded under the name of Palmerin de Oliva; a mistake, into which no one could have fallen, who had read the first page of the book. And I very much fufpe&t that there is a mistake, though of lefs magnitude, in the affertion, that, in the Spanish romance of Bernardo del Carpio, and in that of Roncesvalles, the feats of Roland are recorded under the name of Roldan el Encantador," Dr. W.'s authority for this affertion was, I apprehend,

the

Following paffage of Cervantes, in the firft chapter of Don Quixote. "Mejor eftava con Bernardo del Carpio porque en Roncesvalles anna muerto à Roldan el Encantado, valiendose de la induftria de Hercules, quando absg) à Anteon el bijo de la Tierra entre los braços." Where it is obfervable, that Cervantes does not appear to speak of more than one romance; he calls Roldan el encantado, and not el encantador; and moreover the word encantado is not to be understood as an addition to Roldan's name, but merely as a participle, expreffing that he was enchanted, or made invulnerable by enchantment.

But this is a fmall matter. And perhaps encantador may be an error of the prefs for encantado. From this digreffion Dr. W. returns to the fubject of the old romances in the following manner. "This driving the Saracens out of France and Spain, was, as we say, the subject of the eder romances. And the first that was printed in Spain was the famous Amadis de Gaula." According to all common rules of conftruction, I think the latter fentence must be understood to imply, that Amadis de Gaula was one of the elder romances, and that the fubject of it was the driving of the Saracens out of France and Spain; whereas, for the reafons already given, Amadis, in comparison with many other romances, must be confidered as a very modern one; and the fubject of it has not the least connection with any driving of the Saracens whatsoever.-But what follows is ftill more extraordinary. "When this fubject was well exbaufted, the affairs of Europe afforded them another of the fame nature. For after that the western parts bad pretty well cleared themfeives of thefe inhospitable guefts; by the excitements of the popes they carried their arms against them into Greece and Afia, to fupport the Byzantine empire, and recover the boly Sepulchre. This gave birth to a new tribe of romances, which we may call of the fecond race or class. And as Amadis de Gaula was at the bead of the firft, fo, correfpondently to the fubje&, Amadis de Græcia was at the head of the latter."-It is impoffible I apprehend, to refer this fubject to any antecedent but that in the paragraph laft quoted, viz. the driving of the Saracens out of France and Spain. So that, according to one part of the hypothefis here laid down, the fubject of the driving the Saracens out of France and Spain, was well exhaufted by the old romances (with Amadis de Gaula at the head of them) before the Crusades; the firft of which is generally placed in the year 1395: and, according to the latter part, the crufades happened in the interval between Amadis de Gaula, and Amadis de Gra ia; a space of twenty, thirty, or at moft fifty years, to be reckoned backwards from the year 1032: in which year an edition of Amadis de Græcia is mentioned by Du Frefnoy. What induced Dr. W. to place Amadis de Græcia at the head of his fecond race or clafs of romances, I cannot guefs. The fact is, that Amadis de Græcia is no more concerned in fupporting the Byzantine empire, and recovering the holy fepulchre, than Amadis de Gaula in driving the Saracens out of France and Spain. And a ftill more pleafant circumftance is, that Amadis de Græcia, through more than nine tenths of his hiftory, is himself a declared Pagan.

And here ends Dr. W.'s account of the old romances of chivalry, which he fuppofes to have had their ground-work in Turpin's hiftory. Before he proceeds to the others, which had their ground-work in our Geoffry, he interpofes a curious. folution of a puzzling question concerning the

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