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in its accidents, and not in its essence from the Malay and Malabar practice of running a-muck. It requires, therefore, neither erudition nor hypothesis to explain why poetry is universal, nor why that peculiar species of fiction, which we call Romance, should be found in the early literature of every country, of which the early literature has been preserved. The mind has its instincts and appetites, as well as the body, and they are the same every where.

IV. That similar stories of war and wonders should have delighted nations widely separated from each other, is thus easily explicable; but that the same stories should be found in countries between which there neither was, nor could be, any communion, requires farther explanation. One instance out of many may suffice.

In the Spanish Romance of Alexander, written by Joan Lorenzo Segura de Astorga, about the middle of the thirteenth century, is a long description of Alexander's descent into the sea, in a house of glass, which I have elsewhere had occasion to quote, and therefore

X

will not repeat here. Where the Spaniard found the story I cannot say; if he is to be understood *literally, it was not a written legend, but one which he received from tradition.

In the Celtick Researches of Mr. Davies, of Olveston, is the following passage, from one of the old Welch Bards... 'I wonder it is not perceived, that Heaven had promised the earth a mighty chief, Alexander the Great, the Macedonian; Hewyss, the Iron Genius, the renowned warrior descended into the deep. Into the deep he went, to search for the mystery Kelayddyd.) In quest of science let his mind be importunate, let him proceed on his way in the open air, between two griffins, to catch a view-no view he obtained-to grant such a present would not be meet. He saw the wonders of the superior race in the fishy seas. He obtained that portion of the world, which

* Unas facianas suelen las gentes retraer
Non yaz en escrito, é es grave de creer.

†This also makes a part of the fable, both in the Spanish and German authors.

his mind had coveted, and in the end mercy from the God.'

In the German legend of St. Anno, written at the close of the year 1100, Mr. Coleridge has shewn me the same story of Alexander, thus related, with circumstances of greater sublimity than elsewhere; ' He let himself down to the bottom of the sea in a glass. Then his faithless followers cast the chain far away in the sea, and said, if thou wishest to see miracles, go roll for ever in the abyss. There he saw many a great fish, half fish and half man, that struck a vehement terrour into his heart. Then the politick man began to think how he might free himself. The sea surge rolled him into the abyss: there through the glass he saw many wonders, till he greeted the severe ocean with some of his blood; when the ocean saw his blood, then it flung this lord upon the land.'

The Malays of Malacca, according to Diogo de Couto, had this tradition of the origin of their city. There was once a King of the world, who desired to see the wonders which are in

the ocean; and had an iron ark made with glass windows, into which he entered, and was lowered down. The king of the ocean received him well, and gave him his daughter in marriage; he lived with her till she had borne him two sons, then went up to visit his dominions and never returned. The wife, when her sons were about ten years old, mounted them on porpoises, and sent them in search of him; and the son of the younger brother founded Malacca.'

Whether this King of the world be Alexander (as is most probable) or not, here is the same story of a descent into the sea, in a divinghouse, found in Malacca, Germany, Wales, and Spain; countries of which the languages are all radically different, and between which, when the poems in question were written, there was no communication. It would not be difficult to adduce many more such instances. The fictions of romance, and the stories of the jestbook, have travelled everywhere. The travels of the minstrels will not explain this; their travels were confined to a narrow circuit, they

common one.

were not learned in many tongues, and had no But the Jews travelled everywhere; they frequented the uttermost parts of the East, before the wish of discovering the East had arisen in Europe; and they found their own language spoken in every part of the world, where wealth was to be obtained by industry. This subject cannot be pursued here; I shall enlarge upon it hereafter, in a work of more importance; it is now sufficient to express a decided opinion, that in the great literary interchange, which at an early time certainly took place, between Europe and the eastern world, the Jews were the brokers.

V. The classification of our Poets into schools is to be objected to, because it implies that we have no school of our own; a confession not to be admitted, till the prototypes and masters of Chaucer, Shakspeare, and Milton, are produced. We have had foreign fashions in literature, as well as in dress, but have at all times preserved in both, a costume and character of our own. The poems anteriour to Chaucer, are, without exception all, of those kinds which are,

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