&c. &c. appear to have been amplified, and rendered wild and fabulous;. and were the comparison carried minutely forward, I am persuaded that the analogy would be found as striking as distinct. I mean not that this has always been the immediate source: I am rather inclined to suppose, that certain ramifications, direct from the East, already dilated and improved, were more generally the origin. But Scripture, in many cases, furnished a supernatural agency without pursuing this circuitous route; as well as heroes with all the attributes of ancient romance. In the old French prose of Sir Otuel, Chap. XXIV. we have the following exclamations on the death of the knight Roland, which partly confirm my observation. "Comparé à Judas Machabeus par ta valeur et prouesse; ressemblant à Sanson, et pareil à Jonatas fils de Saul par la fortune de sa triste morte!" The Jewish Tal

mud, and especially the commentary upon it, abound with fables, composed in some respects of the materials worked up by the Scalds, but long anterior in date to their compositions, so far as they are known.

Dr. Percy contends, that "old writers of chivalry appear utterly unacquainted with whatever relates to the Mahometan nations, and represent them as worshipping idols, or adoring a golden image of Mahomet'." This, I should conceive, would naturally be the case. It was the aim of Christian writers to represent the infidels in the worst light possible. They thought them the most wretched beings in creation; and they might, therefore, artfully pervert their creed, and exaggerate their vices. Most frequently, such would be the genuine result of their abhorrence:just

1 Rel. of A. E. Poetry, Ibid.

" foul

as popular superstition pictures the fiend," with horns, and cloven feet, and a hideously distorted countenance-not because it is really accredited, but because nothing is thought too vile or too fearful for the Evil One. The hostility which the crusades excited and nourished; nay, the very difference of religious feeling, would necessarily call out the whole virulence of an age, not remarkable for its forbearance; and it is absurd to suppose, that the intercourse so long maintained between the two continents (both previous to these expeditions, and subsequent), should not have given them a sufficient acquaintance with the Saracen belief, and mode of worship. If the great Saladin required and received knight-hood from the hands of the Christians', it argued a degree of intimacy

1 See" Gesta Dei per Francos," page 1152. Joinville (p. 42) is cited by Gibbon for a similar instance.

with European customs on the one side, which it would be unfair and arbitrary to deny the other.

That the Scalds added some circumstances to the original matter, and rejected others, is extremely probable. The traditions which conveyed the fable, would, of course, be corrupted; not only from the mode of conveying it, but from the dissimilarity of customs and ideas among those by whom it was received. All I contend for, is the original ground, upon which they, and other nations have built; and this, I think I shall be able to demonstrate, purely oriental. But it is objected, that if the northern bards had derived their systems from the East, they would have naturalized them as the Romans did the stories of Greece. It is thought that they must have adopted into their religious rites the same mythology, and have evinced as strong a simili

tude, as the nations of classical celebrity. There is, in truth, no basis for such an assertion to stand upon. The long intercourse between these nations, their vicinity to each other, and more than all, the original similarity of their worship, prepared the Romans to receive the devotional system of a conquered country, without hesitation. They understood, and valued Grecian literature, and consequently found an additional motive for the reception of Grecian theology. It accorded with preconceived notions; it was, in fact, a part of their own. Besides, the Romans were rising in civilization, and caught at every shadow of improvement. The people of the North were totally the reverse. They were the children of Nature-of Nature yet unbetrothed to Art. They were not, therefore, prepared by any thing analogous to produce a similar effect: and could but seize the most promi