[209.] Several fragments of Gaelic poetry, attributed to Ossian or Oisin, are now known to have existed at that time in the Highlands. Macpherson used these as a basis for his epic, but most of the details were furnished by his own imagination. The alleged text of "Ossian" was published in 1807, some eleven years after Macpherson's death. It only added another mystery to the forgery; for, while it embodied a few old and probably genuine fragments, the bulk of it seems to be Macpherson's work translated back into Gaelic.
[210.] For various other collections of songs and ballads, antedating Percy's, see Phelps's Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement, ch. vii.
[211.] The first books to which the term "novel," in the modern sense, may be applied, appeared almost simultaneously in England, France, and Germany. The rapid development of the English novel had an immense influence in all European nations.
[212.] The name "romance" was given at first to any story in one of the Romance languages, like the French metrical romances, which we have considered. Because these stories were brought to England at a time when the childish mind of the Middle Ages delighted in the most impossible stories, the name "romance" was retained to cover any work of the unbridled imagination.
[213.] This division of works of fiction into romances and novels is a somewhat arbitrary one, but it seems, on the whole, the most natural and the most satisfactory. Many writers use the generic term "novel" to include all prose fiction. They divide novels into two classes, stories and romances; the story being a form of the novel which relates certain incidents of life with as little complexity as possible; and the romance being a form of novel which describes life as led by strong emotions into complex and unusual circumstances. Novels are otherwise divided into novels of personality, like Vicar of Wakefield and Silas Marner; historical novels, Ivanhoe; novels of romance, like Lorna Doone and novels of purpose, like Oliver Twist and Uncle Tom's Cabin. All such classifications are imperfect, and the best of them is open to objections.
[214.] One of these tales was called The Wonderful Things beyond Thule. It is the story of a youth, Dinias, who for love of a girl, Dercyllis, did heroic things and undertook many adventures, including a journey to the frozen north, and another to the moon. A second tale, Ephesiaca, is the story of a man and a maid, each of whom scoffs at love. They meet and fall desperately in love; but the course of true love does not run smooth, and they separate, and suffer, and go through many perils, before they "live happily ever after." This tale is the source of the mediæval story, Apollonius of Tyre, which is used in Gower's Confessio Amantis and in Shakespeare's Pericles. A third tale is the pastoral love story, Daphnis and Chloe, which reappeared in many forms in subsequent literature.
[215.] Minto's Life of Defoe, p. 139.
[216.] These were not what the booksellers expected. They wanted a "handy letter writer," something like a book of etiquette; and it was published in 1741, a few months after Pamela.
[217.] See p. 315.
[218.] For titles and publishers of general reference works, and of inexpensive texts, see General Bibliography at end of this book.