constant intercourse with the West; and the soft and yielding character of these times

presented a plastic surface, to every, even the slightest touch. In the early part of the fourth century the foundation of Constantinople, which drew from Italy such a large population, would facilitate the interchange of literature; for it is not improbable, that many of the Asiatics driven from their settlements by the influx of the foreigners, would hasten to Occupy the homes which the others had vacated. At all events, the new settlers in the East had friends and connections in their father-land, with whom it was natural, and even necessary, that there should be a certain

1 I use this term, and one or two following, with some latitude. Gibbon calls the little town of Chrysopolis, or Scutari," the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople:" and the extreme approximation of the two shores; the constant and easy intercourse from, and before the time of Xerxes, &c. downward, not omitting the Asiatic lation which has been so long naturalized there, sufficiently authorize the expression.

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intercourse, Towards the conclusion of the third century, when monachism was so vehemently propagated, and the East inundated with a restless class of men, who strolled about in pursuit of proselytes (not much unlike the errant-knights of a subsequent age) the position I have laid down is more clearly evinced. It would be doing injustice to my subject, if, in speaking of this singular fact, I used other language than that of the historian of the Roman empire. "The progress of the monks," says this philosophic writer, was not less rapid, or universal, than that of Christianity itself. Every province, and at last, every city of the empire, was filled with their increasing multitudes; and the bleak and barren isles, from Lerins to Lipari, that arise out of the Tuscan sea, were chosen by the Anachorets, for the place of their voluntary exile. An easy and perpetual intercourse by sea and

land connected the provinces of the Roman world; and the life of Hilarion displays the facility with which an indigent hermit of Palestine, might traverse Egypt, embark for Sicily, escape to Epirus, and finally settle in the island of Cyprus. The Latin Christians embraced the religious institutions of Rome. The pilgrims, who visited Jerusalem, eagerly copied, in the most distant climes of the earth, the faithful model of monastic life. The disciples of Antony spread themselves beyond the tropic, over the Christian empire of Ethiopia'. The monastery of Banchor', in Flintshire, which contained above two thousand brethren, dispersed a numerous colony among the barbarians of Ireland; and Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by the Irish monks,

1 See Jerom. (tom. i. p. 126); Assemanni, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 92. p. 857-919) and Geddes's Church Hist. of Ethiopia, p. 29, 30, 31.

2 Camden's Britannia, Vol. i. p. 666, 667.

diffused over the northern regions a doubtful of science and superstition'."

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The roving character of the monks, therefore, is another link of the chain by which I introduce oriental fiction into the West; and it is utterly impossible, (maturely weighing the habits and propensities of this class of people), that they should not have picked

up

and retained the floating traditions of the countries through which they passed. "Some of the early romances," says Mr.Walker, “as well as the legends of saints, were undoubtedly fabricated in the deep silence of the cloister. Both frequently sprung from the warmth of fancy, which religious seclusion is so well calculated to nourish; but the former were adorned with foreign embellishments." It is ex

1 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Vol. 6. p. 245, 6, Ed. 1811. 2" Essay on the Origin of Romantic Fabling in Ireland," p. 4.-4to.

actly on this footing, (though I certainly include the latter that is, the legends of the saints, in the idea of foreign embellishment!) that I would place the hypothesis I have advanced; and here Mr. Walker's opinion, that Ireland is indebted to Italy for some of her fictions, derived originally from the East, will find confirmation. They might, at the same time, have been received, by way of ENGLAND, and as history testifies the fact of a colony of monks from thence, taking root in Ireland, the notion is more than probable.

But in

As fur

either case, the original is the same. ther corroborative I may add, that in the ninth century, Crete and Sicily were invaded and conquered by the Arabs; who likewise entered Italy, and almost approached Rome.

I need scarcely allude to the crusades as sources of romantic fabling. They are undisputed parts of the system; and probably, at