Abounding with scriptural imitations and similitudes, and referring solely to subjects of a sacred cast, martyrdoms, temptations, and triumphs; it possesses but few attractions to a carnal reader.* It relates the life of Jehosaphat, son to Abenner, an Eastern Prince, who is converted to christianity by means of Barlaam, a monk of Senaar. After a series of efforts on the part of his father to induce him to abjure his newly-adopted faith, in which Jehosaphat is exposed to most grievous temptations, the truth at length triumphs, and Abenner, reconciled to his conversion, shares his kingdom with his son. His newly begun power is employed in the furtherance of christianity, and amongst the list of his converts, he has shortly the satisfaction to number Abenner himself and the officers of his court. On the subsequent death of his father, Jehosaphat, retiring from the world, betakes himself to the solitary retreat of his first instructor, Barlaam, and after a penance of five-and-thirty years, expires, and is buried in the same grave with his early friend. The story is embellished with some highly poetical and beautiful allusions, and is altogether worthy of the reputation of its learned and celebrated author.+

The next important incident in the history + Ib. p. 83.

*

Dunlop, v. i. p. 85.

of Grecian fiction was the appearance, in the twelfth century, of the metrical tale of Rhodante and Dosicles, by Theodore Prodromos,* known likewise by his monastic name of Hilarion. Written in execrable iambics, it can boast neither originality nor genius, and is interesting merely as the first modern effort at poetic narrative, and the earliest ascertained specimen of purely Romaic versification.+ Still its popularity at the period of its composition was extreme, and served to induce a crowd of imitators. Of the latter the most prominent were Constantine Manasses, a fragment of whose verses is preserved in the " Garden of Roses" of Makarius Chrysocephalus; and Nicetas Eugenianus, whose story of Drosillus and Chariclea‡

To this interval has been attributed the Ismene and Ismenias of Eumathius, or Eustathius, a work of which Huet (who attributes its composition to the twelfth century) observes that" rien n'est plus froid, rien n'est plus plat, rien n'est plus ennuyeux :" it exhibits "nulle bienséance, nulle vraisemblance, nulle invention, nulle conduite," &c.

↑ See Leake's Researches, pp. 72 and 167, where specimens of the poem are extracted. I have said here " ascertained" since M. Fauriel properly remarks that "il n'y a point d'apparence que ces vers vulgaires fussent les premiers que l'on eût écrits à Constantinople." Disc. Prel. p. xiii.

Mr. Dunlop is incorrect in saying that the romance of Eugenianus is in iambics (vol. i. p 109); it is written in the ordinary political verses.

is merely a miserable imitation of a miserable original.

The romances which I have here specified, and which were written previous to the commencement of the thirteenth century, were mere efforts to create a powerful excitement by the narration of startling and surprising events: they aimed at no delineation of character, no portraiture of nature; their lovers were rude, adventurous boors, and their heroines insipid and unamiable beauties. In the po

pular literature or romances of other countries, we learn something of the manners and character of their times; in those of the Greeks we perceive neither; their incidents are incredible, and their embellishments fictitious; and although, after the occupation of the Franks, they assumed a new and more defined character, when chivalry blazed in the pages, and their heroes, from nondescript wanderers, became knights of admirable gallantry and superhuman valour, neither the spirit nor the tendency of their fables was improved; and down to the Turkish conquest their writers displayed neither advancing talent nor fresh developements of mind.*

# My limits will not allow me to do more than mention the general character of the works of fiction of this age, and in fact, I fear that during this chapter the reader will have

During the interval between the triumph of Mahomet II. and the close of the fifteenth century, the scattered remnants of what could still be called Grecian genius, had gradually settled down into distant or secure retreats. A portion of the educated classes, who preferred submission at home to independence in a foreign land, remained at Constantinople, assembled round the palace of the Patriarch Scholarius, and took possession of the dwellings assigned them by the conqueror at the Phanar. Here the fragments of manuscripts which had escaped desupposed me writing a literary, rather than a general, sketch of Modern Greece. Amongst the most remarkable Romances of this period, were the anonymous History referred to by Crusius, the Loves of Rhodamna and Lybistros, a sketch of the fable of which will be found at p. 75, n. of Leake's Researches; and the adventures of Bertrand the Roman and Chrysanza, daughter to the King of Antioch, both of which have been referred to the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth translations and adoptions from the Italian, or Provençal tales became general; we have still Romaic versions of the Theseid of Boccacio, Iberius or Imperius, Floris and Blanchefleur, and Apollonius of Tyre, which were all written previous to A. D. 1500. In the sixteenth, (for I may anticipate the enumeration,) the most celebrated were a history of Belisarius, by an unknown author; one of Alexander the Great, by Demetrius Zeno of Zante, written in 1529; and the still popular, though tiresome, Adventures of Erotocritus, by Vincenzo Cornaro, a Cretan. (For an account of this curious production, the reader is again referred to Colonel Leake, p. 101, and Fauriel, Disc. Prel. p. xix.)

struction, were collected into a library; schools were established for the education of youth, and the pens of the secular clergy and other satellites of the church were employed by Gennadius in exposing the impurities of Rome. The individuals devoted to classical pursuits had retired, as I have mentioned, to the cities and colleges of Italy; and poetry,* with the lighter branches of literature, withdrew almost exclusively to Candia, where they long continued to be cultivated under the protection of the Venetians. Of the literary productions of this or the two succeeding centuries, I shall not enter into a minute detail; the invention and rapid improvement of printing at this period had given unusual facilities to their multiplication, and the number of Greek works which issued from the press were quently much increased.

conse

But unfortunately

Previously to the fall of the city, the poetic talents of a few individuals had been devoted to the commemoration of some of the historical events of the empire, as well as to the composition of romance: thus an anonymous eye-witness has sung the Wars of the Franks in the Morea, and another the Battle of Varna in 1444, and a third, (Emmanuel Gheorghilá,) the Plague of Rhodes in 1478.

+ Lists of the Greek authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will be found in Fabricius, Bibl. Græc. v. xi. and Meletius's Ecclesiastical History, v. iv. c. 25, as well as in Crusius and Ducange.