Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/31

Rh adds that, "after all, a great proportion of the wonders of romance must be attributed to the imagination of the authors." But when these wonders, similarly constructed, pervade the most remote countries, there must be something more than an author's imagination brought into the account. Consideration, however, is due to the idea of a classical origin; and this, blended with the rest, may help to make up a perfect system. Before I proceed to the attempt, I would advert to certain observations which Mr. Dunlop has promulgated in his History of Fiction. He says, "It cannot be denied, and indeed has been acknowledged by Mr. Warton, that the actions of the Arabians and Scalds are totally different." Much misunderstanding would doubtless be avoided by accurate references: and if Mr. Dunlop be correct in what he asserts, it would be a pleasant thing to know the edition and page to which he alludes. In contradiction to the insinuation here thrown out, Warton says, "But as the resemblance which the pagan Scandinavians bore to the Eastern nations in manners, monuments, opinions, and practices, an inference arises, that their migration from the East must have happened at a period by many ages more recent, and therefore most probably about the time specified by historians." And again, "These practices and opinions co-operated with kindred superstitions of dragons, dwarfs, fairies, giants, and enchanters, which the traditions of the Gothic Scolders had already planted: and produced that extraordinary species of composition which has been called ." In another place, indeed, he admits that there were "but few" of these monsters in the poetry of the most ancient Scalds; but that few is quite sufficient for the argument.

So that, one would think, Warton supplies no testimony in support of a doctrine, which I cannot help fancying may be proved altogether groundless. "Allowing the early Scaldic odes to be genuine," says Mr. Dunlop, "we find in them no dragons, giants, magic rings, or enchanted castles. These are only to be met with in the compositions of the bards who flourished after the native vein of Runic fabling had been, enriched by the tales of the Arabians." This is an extremely cautious method of writing; for while we contend that the Easterns furnished the groundwork, and fix the date, Mr. Dunlop may tell us, be it when it may, that it was subsequent to the period in which the Runic fable flourished in its