Similarity observable in Fictions of various Nations Identity of Fictions of different Nations Early Writers often unconscious of their deviation from truth Two peculiarities irreconcilable with either Theory; Chris- AN ESSAY ON THE INFLUENCE OF WELSH TRADITION UPON "Fiction travels on still lighter wings," (than science,)" and scatters the seeds of her wild flowers imperceptibly over the world, until they surprise us by springing up with similarity in regions the most remotely divided."-Campbell, Essay on English Poetry. In treating upon the influence of Tradition upon Literature, we should bear in mind that it is only one branch of literature which can be materially affected by tradition. It is the influence which events, supposed to have actually occurred in remote times, have exercised upon the writers who have subsequently either narrated those events, or invented others which they have pretended to narrate, that we are now to consider. At an early period of social existence, when no written Tradition. chronicles exist, the memory of the most important occurrences can of course only be preserved by oral repetition. The elders of the tribe will describe to their descendants the natural phenomena they have witnessed, B Fiction. will tell them of their sorrows and their joys, and will speak to a deeply-interested audience of the wanderings and perils, the terrors and the triumphs of their ancestors and of themselves; the propensity of age to exaggerate the occurrences of youth, the love of the marvellous generated and fostered by ignorance, the difficulty of detecting error, and the inaccuracy inseparable from oral communication, will first distort the original story; At length some bolder and more original genius, first daring to invent, will launch forth upon the trackless waters of fiction; timidly indeed at first, and, as it were, coasting along the partially exploded shores, he will but exaggerate the incidents and the characters with which he is already familiar, but soon success will give him confidence, and, relying solely upon his own resources, he will draw fresh and inexhaustible treasures from the boundless realms of imagination. Under such circumstances we must naturally expect to encounter no inconsiderable difficulties in any attempts to distinguish reality from invention; to recognise "the truth severe," even when "by fairy fiction dressed;" or to discover in those elaborate literary compositions, whose first object is to please by skilful deception, the exact proportion which the ore bears to the alloy; the mines from which the ore itself has been drawn; the processes it has undergone, or the degree in which it has been affected by the various substances with which it may have been brought into contact. The richer indeed the metal, the more was it necessarily adulterated; and the more skilful the artificer, the more complete was the fusion. "For still where wit hath found A thing most clearly true, it made that fiction's ground." Drayton, Polyolbion, Sixth Song. observable in various na tions. But when we confine ourselves to investigating the effects produced upon the literature of fiction, by the traditions of a single tribe or country, this difficulty is materially increased by the very remarkable similarity Similarity observable in the early traditional fictions of all nations. fictions of "Fiction," it has been elegantly and acutely remarked, "travels on still lighter wings than Science, and scatters the seeds of her wild flowers imperceptibly over the world, until they surprise us by springing up with similarity in regions the most remotely divided."-Campbell, Essay on English Poetry. The true reason of this remarkable similarity is to be found in the resemblance which must necessarily exist between the circumstances of different tribes, in a state but little removed from barbarism, and in the common nature of those intellectual appetites, by which, no less than by the physical appetites, the human race is affected. Romantic or mythological tales are the natural and simple food by which the first cravings of imagination are, as it were, appeased; a food which wil be easily obtained and greedily devoured, wherever language and fancy exist.* fictions of tions. This similarity of fictions is not, however, to be con- Identity of founded with their scarcely less remarkable identity. In different na a more advanced state of civilisation, when national intercourse is facilitated, and when literary composition becomes an honourable and profitable occupation, it is "Porchè siccome a conservare la mortal vita, diverse vivande da Dio a ciò proveduto ci vengono in uso, non il solo pane, massimamente quando questo non basta; per simil guisa a nudrire i nostri animi delle verità che il naturale e proprio alimento ne sono, abbiamo delle imagine di esse verità altresi bisogno che sono le romanzesche finzioni.”—Quadrio, Storia e Ragione d'ogni Poesia, vol. iv. p. 324. |