“The disciples of Antony,” said Herbert, “we are assured, spread themselves beyond the tropic, over the Christian empire of Ethiopia.”
“Their distribution was universal,” said Lathom; “every province, almost every city of the empire, had its ascetics; they feared no dangers, and deemed no seas, mountains, or deserts a barrier to their progress.”
“The roving character of the monks, therefore,” says the last translator of the Gesta, “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, as well as the legends of the 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 tended to nourish; but the former were adorned with foreign embellishments.”
“Did it ever occur to you,” said Thompson, “that the story of Ulysses and Circe bears a wondrous likeness to that of Beder the prince of Persia and Giahame princess of Samandal, and that the voyages of Sindbad afford the counterpart of the Cyclops of the Odysee?”
“It would be but consistent with the reported travels of Homer, to allow an Eastern origin to a portion of his fable,” said Lathom.
“After your banished Christians and roving monks,” said Herbert, “you would admit the Spanish Arabians.”
“As one means, certainly,” replied Lathom; “and after them the Crusaders.”
“It were almost superfluous,” rejoined Herbert, “to allude to the Crusades as further sources of romantic and didactic fiction. No one will dispute their right to a place in the system. About the period of the third crusade this kind of writing was at its height.”
“Undoubtedly,” rejoined Lathom, “that age was the full tide of chivalry. Twenty years elapsed between that and the fourth and fifth expeditions into the east; and nearly a generation passed before, for the sixth and the last time, the wealth and blood of Europe was poured upon the plains of the East. Enough of money and life had been now spent to satisfy the most enthusiastic of the crusading body, and to check, if not to stem, the tide of popular feeling which had formerly run so strong in favor of the restoration of the sepulchre and the holy city to the guardianship of the faithful. Time was now at last beginning to allay the Anti-Saracenic passion. With the decline of these remarkable expeditions romantic fiction began to be regarded. For though originally extraneous and independent, romantic fictions had of late years become incorporated with chivalry and its institutions, and, with them, they naturally fell into decay.”
“Come, come, we must break off this discussion,” said Thompson, “or else we shall have no time to judge of Lathom’s performance this evening.”