Hence the same encouragement, in the old Greek and Gothic times, to panegyrists and poets; the Bards being as welcome to the tables of the feudal Lords, as the ΑΟΙΔΟΙ of old, to those of the Grecian Heroes.
And, as the same causes ever produce the same effects, we find that, even so late as Elizabeth’s reign, the savage Irish (who were much in the state of the ancient Greeks, living under the anarchy, rather than government, of their numberless puny chiefs) had their Rhymers in principal estimation. It was for the reason just given, for the honour of their panegyrics on their fierce adventures and successes. And thus it was in Greece:
For chief to Poets such respect belongs,
By rival nations courted for their Songs;
These, states invite, and mighty kings admire,
Wide as the Sun displays his vital fire.
Od. B. XVII.
LETTER V.
The purpose of the casual hints, suggested in my last letter, was only to shew that the resemblance between the Heroic and Gothic ages is great: so great that the observation of it did not escape the old Romancers themselves, with whom, as an ingenious critic observes, the siege of Thebes and Trojan war were favourite stories; the characters and incidents of which they were mixing perpetually with their Romances[47]. And to this persuasion and practice of the Romance-writers Cervantes plainly alludes, when he makes Don Quixote say——If the stories of Chivalry be lies, so must it also be, that there ever was a Hector, or an Achilles, or a Trojan war[48]—a sly stroke of satire, by which this mortal foe of Chivalry would, I suppose, insinuate that the Grecian Romances were just as extravagant and as little credible, as the Gothic. Or, whatever his purpose might be, the resemblance between them, you see, is confessed, and hath now been shewn in so many instances that there will hardly be any doubt of it. And though you say true, that ignorance and barbarity itself might account for some circumstances of this resemblance; yet the parallel would hardly have held so long, and run so closely, if the civil condition of both had not been much the same.
So that when we see a sort of Chivalry, springing up among the Greeks, who were confessedly in a state resembling that of the feudal barons, and attended by the like symptoms and effects, is it not fair to conclude that the Chivalry of the Gothic times was owing to that common corresponding state, and received its character from it?
And this circumstance, by the way, accounts for the constant mixture, which the modern critic esteems so monstrous, of Pagan fable with the fairy tales of Romance. The passion for ancient learning, just then revived, might seduce the classic poets, such as Spenser and Tasso for instance, into this practice; but the similar turn and genius of ancient manners, and of the fictions founded upon them, would make it appear easy and natural in all.
I am aware, as you object to me, that, in the affair of religion and gallantry, the resemblance between the Hero and Knight is not so striking.
But the religious character of the Knight was an accident of the times, and no proper effect of his civil condition.
And that his devotion for the sex should so far surpass that of the Hero, is a fresh confirmation of my system.