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For the Monthly Magazine.
THE ENQUIRER, No. XIX.
WHERE IS THE PATRIA OF ROMANCE,

OF RIME, AND OF CHIVALRY?

An gwîranath ew an gwella

En pob tra trea po pella.

I. All the European nations take their romances of chivalry from the French.

The Italians have no vernacular poetry prior to the fourteenth century: the earliest of their writers in + verfe or profe, abound with imitations from the Provenzal: Ariosto derives from Turpin, and

The truth is best in every thing, near or far. Taffo from § Bechada, the fubject of his

TH

ARMORICAN PROVERBS.

HE neft of romantic fiction, the first ufe of rime, and the inftitution of chivalry, are of uncertain locality; so that the pedigree is still to feek of circumftances which have given to the manners of our heroic ages, and to the compofitions of our popular poets, their most peculiar tinge. Different theories have indeed been offered of their probable origin: two fyftems efpecially, which may be characterifed as the Arabic and the Gothic, have attracted the toils of microscopic erudition, and divide the votes of literary fpeculators.

poem. The Spaniards enumerate, among the fouth of France to Barcelona by King their earliest poets, thofe invited out of John the First of Arragon. According

chivalry to exhibit than Amadis of Gaul, to Cervantes, they have no older book of which is apparently a tranflation from the then manufcript french original: at any rate its circulation cannot be traced before the invention of printing, and it is confequently pofterior, by many centuries, to the Art French romances. fefs few compofitions of this fort, which The English pofman originals and this is the cafe of the are not avowedly tranflated from Northree ** oldeft, the Gefte of King Horne, The German romancers again, as Adelung the Sangrale, and the Lives of the Saints. and ++ Eichhorn have proved, borrow from the French their first effays: Ulrich of Zezam, who flourished in 1190,

Petrarch, indeed, mentions in his Tri

i Siciliani Che fur' già primi

That scheme of opinion which aims at deducing romance, rime, and knighthood, from the Arabs, originates probably with Velalquez, who, in a hiftory of the poetry of Spain, naturally afcribes to the Moorish conqueft many peculiarities of Spanish culture. Warburton (Final note to Love's Labour loft) and Warton (Firft Differtation prefixed to the Hiftory of English Po- umph of Love etry) favour more or lets this hypothefis, which makes Spain the birth-place of modern civilization, and fucceffively the fchool miftrefs of the Provenzal and Italian, of the Norman, and English poets. According to thefe writers, the Douazdeb Rokh, or twelve champions of Kai Khofrou, would be the archetypes of the peers of Charlemayne; the morifcos, of our ballads; and the fieftas de las canas, of our tourna

ments.

Mallet, by his Introduction to the Hiftory of Denmark, fuggefted the trains of idea which led probably Pinkerton (Differtation on the Scythians or Goths, P. 135), and certainly Percy (on the ancient Metrical Romances), to afcribe a Scandinavian crigin to the talesandrites of chivalry. According to thefe writers, the model of romance must be fought in the Hiftory of Charles and Grymer, the first lings of rime in Egil the Skald, and the rudiments of knighthood in the Edda.

Various confiderations, however, favour the fufpicion that neither Moorish Spain, nor Gothic Scandinavia, gave this very decifive impulfe to the character of early modern civilization; but Armorica rather, and the connected provinces of Britain.

But these feem to be Provenzal poets migrated to Sicily.

† See especially La Crufca Provenzale of Ant. Baftero, Rome 1724.

Brunetto Latini, the mafter of Dante, il quale, ficcome teftimonia G. Villani, fu cominciatore, e maeftro in digroflare i Fiorentini, e farli fcorti in ben parlare ed in faper giudicare, piuttosto che adoperare il patrio fuo linguaggio nella grand' opera del Tesoro, volle zale, come quella che era in quel tempo teanzi fcriverla in lingua Romanza, o Provenana." Vicende della Letteratura, p. 75. nuta per più gentile, e più nobile del' Itali

"Gregorius, cognomento Bechada, de Caftro de Turribus, profeffione miles, fubtiliflimi ingenii vir, aliquantulum imbutus literis, horum gefta præliorum (the taking of Jerufalem by Godfrey) materna, ut ita dixerim, linguâ rhythmo vulgari, ut populus pleniter intelligeret, ingens volumen decenter compofuit." Labbe Biblioth. nov. II. p. 296. This Bechada of Tours was affifted by Gaubert, a Norman.'

Dillon's Origin of Spanish Poetry, p. 54.
Percy's Reliques, III. p. xxi.
** Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry,
I. 13, 38, and 134; and Tyrwhitt's Effays on
Chaucer, III. 68, and 164.

Gefchichte der Cultur, p. 224.

tranf

tranflated Sir Lancelot of the Lake from the French of Arnaud Daniel: Albert of Halberftadt and Wolfram of Efchenbach tranflated from the French of Guyot the Romances Gamuret and Percival, about the year 1200: Rupert of Orbent, in 1226, tranflated Fleur Blanchefleur; and Godfrey of Strafburg, in 1250, Sir Tritram. The Icelanders, it should feem from Pering kiold, have borrowed ufually from the Germans: as the Niflunga-faga, which is the most ancient of their ballads not my thological, appeals to Teutonic poems for vouchers.

II. The French romances originate in the north of France.

Among the provincial dialects of that country, the only † two which attained in the middle ages a degree of polifh and fashion, were the Provenzal and the Norman, then called langue d'oc and langue d'oui. South of the Loire the cultivated claffes fpoke and wrote in Provenzal, north of the Loire in Norman French. In each of these dialects the kings of France were accustomed to pronounce the coronation oath; and in each, a variety of verfified compofitions were early drawn up. But among the Provenzal poets the Hiftory of the Troubadours enumerates only two makers of metrical romances, Arnaud de Carcafes and Raimond Vidal. Nor is there more than a fingle romance of Provenzal origin (for Philomena is placed by Count Caylus § under Saint Louis) which has probable claims to high antiquity and originality that namely of William the Short-nofed, a companion of Charlemayne, who, for his fervices against the Spanish Moors receives the duchy of Aquitain, and at last turns monk. Whereas in the langue d'oui, or Norman French, above a hundred romance writers have been reckoned. The caufe of this difparity feems to be, that in the fouth of France poetry was cultivated as an accomplishment of the gentry, as a gay science, and dealt chiefly in galant fonnets, or fatirical hrventes; while in the north of France it

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was the bufinefs of an order of reciters, who travelled from castle to caftle, amusing with their tales thofe vacant hours which the modern novellist occupies. Rimed ftories of marvellous import, merry fabliaux, miraculous legends, romances of chivalry, were beft adapted for the purpofes of fuch an employinent.

III. The older romances of chivalry, have especially celebrated the heroes of greater or leffer Britany, and are therefore of Armorican origin.

Armorica was the north weft corner of Gaul, included between the Loire, the Seine, and the Atlantic. In imitation of Britain, and in concert with it, this † province favoured, about the year 410, the revolt of Conftantine against the Roman emperor Honorius; but it did not refume on the death of the rebel its ancient allegiance. Under a conftitution in which the clergy, the nobility, and the city-corporations had all a formal influence, it continued in aftate of independence until Charlemayne. The titular fovereignty of Clovis, who, by an opportune converfion to chriftianity, obtained the voluntary fubmiffion of the Armoricans, encroached fo little on the real franchifes of the burghers, that neither he nor his royal fucceffors rivalled in power the metropolitan mayors, and were often removed by them. The conduct of the independent British was fimilar; first they hired the protection of the Gothic ftragglers, next they conferred a limited and local fovereignty, and finally they fubmitted wholly to the fway of the barbarian intruders, a revolution which may be confidered as completed throughout this ifland, with the exception of a few Welsh mountains, in the time of Offa, the correfpondent of Charlemayne. Among the chieftains of continental Britany, Charles Martel acquired the strongest claims to public grati

In the Encyclopédie, article Jongleurs, a tariff of Saint Louis is quoted, in which. thefe wandering ftory-tellers are exempted from the taxes levied at the gates of Paris, on condition of their repeating to the tollgatherer a stanza from fome ballad, + Zofimus, liv VI.

† Mezeray, Abregé Chronologique, 1.313. The name Armorican, which fignifies on the fea-fbore, was perhaps applied as far eaft as the mouth of the Rhine (Procopius peri Gothikôn, as amended by Hadrian Valefius); it feems to be tranflated in the law of Clovis by the term ripuaire, and in the maritime code by anfeatic.

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of God (the intermiffion of hoftility com manded occafionally by the Bardic order) were liable to punishment by excommunica. tion, and often made great facrifices of perfonal convenience to the defire of executing an individual vengeance from deference apparently for fecret tribunals. To thefe features may be added, a paffion for public historical recitations in rime by the Dadgeiniad, an order of men educated for that purpofe, and analogous to the earlier minstrels.

Thefe intimations fingly taken might be infufficient to authorize decifion; but as they all favour one conclufion collectively, they are entitled to much confidence. It is reasonable then to believe, that romance, rime, and knighthood, which are the pivots of what is moft peculiar in the manners of our heroic ages, and the compofitions of our popular poets, are all derived from the Welsh or Cimbric inhabitants of Armorica and Britain.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

THE

HE mifapplication of terms, or the not applying of them to the full extent of which they are capable, it is well known may produce very ferious miftakes, and be the caufe of perfonal malice. Hence the importance of accuracy in the ufe of language, and hence the ne ceffity of attending to the [cope of an author, if we with critically to determine the character of a particular writing.

Among the many words which in com mon converfation, and fometimes in writing, are not carried to their due extent, is the term Dramatic.

The word is used to exprefs that fpecies of writing, which confifts in the imitation of life and manners, an imitation by action and reprefentation. Here the author borrows characters, and his writing is termed dramatic, in oppofition to the narrative or epic, where he borrows no character, but fpeaks in his own perfon.

Hence the propriety of calling Tragedy and Comedy, emphatically THE Drama, as confifting entirely of action and reprefentation, under affumed characters; but the word Dramatic must not be restricted to the ftage; but applies to any fpecies,of writing, where the author himself affumes

a character, or introduces perfons acting a part*.

On this principle Homer throughout his Iliad and Odyffey is Dramatic, as well as, though not fo much as, Sophocles, or Ariftophanes; Virgil, as well as Terence; Milton, as well as Shakespeare; though the title given to their poems will be Epic; for the poets fet out at least in their own names, and narrate in their own perfons. Paftoral poetry is in a manner dramatic ; and, indeed, derived its form and character from the fame fource as Comedy +. Didactic and defcriptive poems occafionally take the dramatic form. In the ftory of Orpheus and Euridice, in the fourth book of the Georgics, the poet becomes dramatic; Thomfon is dramatic in the ftory of Palemon and Lavinia; and Mafon, in the fourth book of his English Garden, is dramatic. Odes are very frequently dramatic. A Dutch critic has claffed the Odes of Horace. Ode the 28th of the first book,

Te maris et terræ numeroq. carentis arena, he calls προσαγορευτικη ; he might have termed it more properly dramatic; for the post is not introduced fpeaking himself. In fome fort Gray's incomparable Ode, entitled, The Progrefs of Poetry, is dramatic. The poet, indeed, fpeaks in his own person; but he places himself in different ages, and different countries; and hence his imagery becomes appropriate and beautiful, which other wife would be liable to cenfure. Ovid's Love Epiftles, and Pope's Eloifa to Abelard, and others, may, in this fenfe, be denominated dramatic.

If a certain perfon, whom I accidentally met the other day, had attended to this circumftance, he would not by his broad hint have informed me, that in a copy of verfes which appeared in your magazine the last month, I had fome particular perfons in my eye, and leaft of all his own felf. He would have feen, that the verfes are entirely dramatic. They make one of a feries of little poems, that I compofed fome time ago without having any perlon living in my eye; and I am no more like Democritus, than he is like Homer or Pythagoras. I remain, Sir, Your's respectfully, G. DYER.

Vid. Ariftot. de Poet.

Vid. de Buco). Poef. Græcorum Differtjal on the education and character of modern tation.-prefixed to Warton's Theocritus. Europe as chivalry.

For

For the Monthly Magazine. REMARKS on the CLIMATE in NORTH AMERICA; with Obfervations upon certain Effects of Froft in Mountainous Parts of the Country; Methods used to preferve Fruit Trees, by means of Straw Conductors, Fire, Pavement,&c. by Mr.Tatham. T feems to be fomewhat generally be. lieved by the people in Europe, that the climate of the American Continent is wholly regulated by its fpherical gradations; for we frequently hear it obferved, that a place must be hot or cold, fickly or healthy, because it is fituated in fuch or fuch a latitude.

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If the whole western continent, indeed, had been a continued plain, correfponding with the fouthern banks of North America, which border upon the Atlantic Ocean, it is probable, that this doctrine might have proved generally true; but as the interior parts of the country are not only mountainous, but greatly elevated above the common horizon, and formed upon a magnificent fcale, we must search for an auxiliary principle of temperament in more exalted regions than this imaginary level.

The bountiful hand of Providence has conftructed things in America of a magnitude widely different from that upon which men are accustomed to obferve on the European fide of the fea; and when we enter a river of the Transatlantic hemifphere, which we find to be ten or twelve miles wide at its mouth, and afcend beyond the flow of the tide until we approach a visible inclination of river current fimilar to that which moving water affumes in every country as it approaches the ocean, we are naturally led to confider the pofition which nature must have affigned to its fource, according to the proofs which we behold in an exifting refult of the philofophical principle by which the defcent of fluid particles is neceffarily governed; and we form our conception of its diftant ori. gin to correfpond with its cubic contents, and the angle of its inclination.

Beyond fuch a rule for judging of an unknown source, we have, at this day, an authentic knowledge of the topography of the country, as far weftward as the banks of the river Miffilippi; and, in fuch parts where the heights of land which divide the eaftern streams of that wonderful river from those which fall into the Atlantic, have not been actually afcertained, we bave, at least, the fuperficial admeasurements of the States, and the obtufe angle which is indicated by the refpective eaft. en currents, as the foundation of an approximate calculation.

MONTHLY MAG. No. 54.

Affuming this kind of data, we shall be enabled to form a tolerable conjecture concerning the nature of that exalted fummit which gives rife to the unexplored waters of the rivers Miffouri, Oregan, Miffifippi, and other divergent ftreams which are yet but partially known to us; and when, by this meafure, we are enabled to compare their vaft extent and regular fupply of moisture, with what we know of the lakes of Canada, which feed the rivers Ohio and St. Lawrence throughout the thirsty feafon of a fummer's drought; we fhall, I think, rationally conclude, that the high regions of the American Continent, which are hitherto unknown to us, contain vast refervoirs of ftagnant water, collected into lakes and moraffes, which the wisdom of Providence bath contrived as a permanent refource to fupply the perpetual demand of fuch unparalleled channels as are elfewhere unequalled, and are exceptions to the ordinary operations of natural philofophy; nor need we be furprised, if the accounts of circum-navigators fhould confirm this ideal theory with future proofs, that reversed winds produce fimilar wea ther and climate to that which is prevalent at the oppofite point of a central line, which takes its tranfit across the highet fummit of the land, from one fea to the other.

This fuppofition is, I think, greatly ftrengthened by the well known fact, that north-wefterly winds are the most powerful and piercing of any which the people of the United States experience; and certain it is, that winds in this direction traverfe the cold regions of the highest fummit on the continent, and bring with them the frigid quality with which they are impregnated in paffing over; which neceffarily purifies the atmosphere, and fubjects the parts of the country which are most expofed to the winds blowing in this direction to the greateft dominion of cold, and to the fevereft effects of the chilling blaft.

In respect to the degrees of cold, which obtain a more powerful agency in a line of perpendicular afcent (if it can be fo expreffed) from the common horizon, I brlieve the philofophical theory is well underftood by the fcientific characters of England; but in respect to the confirmation of theoretic experiment by practical proofs, this is one of thofe grand and fortunate cafes in natural philofophy, which affords the most fatisfactory demonftration. Those who have dared to foar above the clouds in a balloon have felt and testified the gelid perception; those who have a

B

fcended

10 Remarks on the Climate in North America, by Mr. Tatham. [Feb.'t,

fcended the cloud-capped Peak of Teneriffe have even there vifited the frigid zone with which nature hath begirt its head: and I myfelf have seen the mountains of Spain and America, both, in a state of contraft between fummer and winter; having their tops covered with fhow, while the country furrounding their bafe has been cloathed with perfect foliage and verdure.

If we may be permitted to deduce a general effect from the great example of the AmericanContinent, there are certain phanomena connected with the pofition of a country, in respect to the effects of froft, which may merit the attention and expe. riments of philofophers. It is a fact, which thoufands as well as myfelf can witnefs, in those western countries of America which have an high exposure to the winter's blaft, that the northern fides of a ridge or mountain arrive sooner and more certainly at a state of perfect vegetation, than the fouth fides of the fame hills which are laid open to the power of the fun. I account for this phænomenon as follows: I apprehend, that the fouthern exposure to the vehement rays of the fun during the infant stages of vegetation puts the fap in motion at too early a period of the fpring, before the feafon has become fufficiently feady to afford nurture and protection to the vegetating plant, blof Tom, or leaf; and when, in this condition, the first efforts of vegetation are checked by the chilling influence of cold nights, and fuch changeable weather as the conteft (as it were) between winter and fpring is ever wont to produce in their apparent ftruggles to govern the feafon, I fuppofe the capillary tubes and ducts which perform the nourishing offices of vegetation, are not only impeded and choaked up by the means of an irregular counter-procefs, but that the fap is thrown into a state of acidity or fermentation, from which it muft neceffarily purify itself by fome natural procefs, before it becomes fit to reaffume its functions in the common order of the univerfal fyftem.

On the other hand, the northern expofures, which are not fo early prefented to the vivifying infibence of the fun, remain, as it were, in a torpid ftate until the more advanced period of the fpring; and when this powerful luminary is perceived to apply his coercive properties to the earth which has been hitherto fo fheltered, he will be found alfo to have attained a decided altitude over the receding winter. Another phenomenon (an effect which I fuppofe to proceed from the alternate influence of a theltered lite on the one

hand, and the tranfit of the wind over a frozen region, from whence the restrictive properties are difpenfed over every northern expofure, on the other hand), is to be perceived in the quality of the foil: that in the northern coves or hollows of the mountains being generally the richest, and producing the most luxuriant vegetation, horfe-chefnut, poplar, beech,walnut, fugarand largest timber (witnefs the buck-eye or tree, and many others which indicate valuable lands); while that on the south side of exhalation, and the parching heat of an is perpetually impoverished by the powers unfheltered fouthern expofure. I recollect an early inftance (1770 to 1772) where a gentleman in America began to profit by the obfervance of this phænomenon. C. Yancey, Efq. a refpectable farmer in the County of Amherst in Virginia, was repeaches, and for the excellent brandy markable for the management of his which he diftilled from them; but a circumftance which rendered Mr. Yancey neighbours, was, that, whenfoever a year more generally known and beloved by his of scarcity happened in refpect to peaches, he poffeffed both a plentiful fupply, and a difpofition to difpenfe them in baskets full to the use of those who applied for them : his advantage in this refpect was derived chiefly from an orchard which he had planted upon the northern exposure of a lofty mountain in defiance of cuftom; and which verified the folidity of his judgment by a bountiful crop, when many orchards in the valley were nipped in the bud, and rendered wholely unproductive.

before the Indian war of 1776 was thoIn the month of November, 1777, (being roughly quieted), I happened to find a deferted cottage upon the abandoned frontier of the Nonocluckie(vulgarly Nolockuckie) fettlements, where the fummer remained fo late and warm as to surprise me with the agreeable difcovery of fome deliciouswaterverdure was every where perfect, with little melons among the grafs; and the fummer tumn about the spot. I had occafion to or no appearance of the approach of autravel directly from thence an eastern courie over the mountains,upon a journeyof feveral hundred miles into the Atlantic territories; having upwards of one hundred miles to afcend the western waters of the river Miffifippi, and to pafs the mountains in this route near to that elevated part of the Apalachian, and Blue Mountains form Iron Mountain, where the Allegania, the their junction into one ftupendous mafs. As I afcended the fouthern branches of the river Holston into a higher degree

of

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