Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/71

Rh frantic expeditions appears, to my imagination, the desperate effort of expiring fanaticism—the last violent struggle of religious persecution in the East. With the decline of chivalry, the fictions, which principally attained their celebrity during its zenith, (because they had become incorporated with it; though originally independent and extraneouss,) would naturally cease to be regarded; and the extravagant conceptions which this institution cherished, would, when good sense resumed, or assumed her proper place, necessarily fall into decay.

I now hasten to the ; and purpose giving a brief outline of its history, with a notice of certain stories, which,