phy, medicine and astronomy were affected, controlled by it, and it even haunted the schoolmen. It was however, excluded from the law, whose sacred precincts are guarded against the approach of imagination.

ROMANCE.

THE GEST OF KING HORN.

What resounds

In fable or romance of Uther's son,

Begirt with British and Amoric knights,

MILTON.

Some romances entertain the genius and strengthen it by the noble ideas which they give of things.

DRYDEN.

A romance is a discourse, invented with art, to please and improve the mind by instructions disguised under the allegory of an action or series of actions; it consists of two parts; a moral, as its foundation and end; and a fable or action as its superstructure or means. It must have manners: the incidents must be delightfully disposed and surprising; its sentiments fall under the same rules of those of the drama,-but the diction is allowed to be more lofty and figurative; and must have admiration, instead of pity and terror, for its end.

A romance of chivalry is a fiction, in verse or prose, in which the principle characters are knights conducting themselves in their several situations and adventures, agreeably to the institutions and customs of chivalry.

The fiction and fancy of these ages, though pregnant with the germs of thought, are not relished by the classic taste; the forms in which they are embodied are grotesque and their colors glaring. Truth and the light of science had not yet chased away the specters of illusive fancy, and the imagination, delighting itself in brooding over the gloom of ignorance and supersti

tion, conceived a world of images, which have served as the materials for succeeding ages to improve upon. Taste does not relish nor reason approve these crude productions, yet they form a part of the history of intellect as well as literature, and they are the earnest of a better state of things.

Imagination may be termed, in a certain sense, the light of the mind; it may be predicted, when its traces appear, that a dawn is approaching; that the spirit is brooding upon the chaotic mass and that light will soon break forth. "And like the goddess of the mountain, heralded by the rising sun, and known by the streams of brightness that follow in her train, as she scatters her flowers through the meadows and vallies," so fiction comes,

"Upon her vagrant wings

Wafting ten thousand colors through the air,

Which by the glances of her magic eye

She blends and shifts at wiH through countless forms,

Her wild creation.".

Wild theories and illusive schemes are the natural characteristics of an age possessed of great activity and vigor of thought: where there is nothing visionary, there is nothing spiritual; and sensuality and materialism predominate in the absence of mental excitement. The intellect of Germany fills the greater part of German history: there they have fewer readers than authors, who dream and write for each other; hence a large portion of the strange lights which have surprised the world came from the land. of Goethe and Schiller. Every age and nation that has displayed great intellectual activity has also been

characterised by romantic schemes, by a predominance of the imagination,

From the inconvenience resulting from a pervertion of the imagination, or, rather from its disproportionate development in comparison with the other powers of the mind, some are inclined to check rather than cherish it, and to reject indiscriminately all its productions, all its romantic conceptions. It is necessary therefore, to discriminate between the abuse of it, and its legitimate office.

The heathful exercise of the imagination is no less beneficial than delightful; removed from the active and exciting scenes of life, accustoming ourselves to commune with our own thoughts, a habit of solitary reflection is acquired, so that the objects of perception cease to make strong impressions upon the mind: then, so long as it does not yield itself entirely to the control of the imagination, the fruits of reflection and profound thought will appear. These intellectual exercises, create an indifference to the affairs of the external world, and at the same time afford most ample exercise to the affections, and so long as the dreams of the imagination do not assume the semblance of realities, these habits tend alike to purify and elevate the social and intellectual nature of man. By strengthening the affections, and rendering the sensibilities more delicate, they refine and ennoble human nature, and it is only by an excessive indulgence in the enchanting pleasures of the imagination, that the taste becomes so fastidious as to unfit one from deriving any enjoyment from nature or the com

mon concerns of life, and to delight only in the dreams of romance.

Such is the constitution of human nature, that romance seems to be an essential element of intellectual life and activity. In its various forms, it constitutes an important part of human felicity. It is the constant companion of life; associated with the earliest recollections, it inspires the fascinating dreams of youth and gilds the golden visions of riper years. It soothes the mind when agitated; rouses it when dormant, recreates it when wearied, and is a panacea for most of the ills that it is subject to. It makes the mind superior to the circumstances which surround it, by eliciting and delighting it with the hopes of the future; by engaging its attention and developing its powers at that period when the soul is most active and impressible, a period to which it has imparted such a charm, and over which it has shed such a lustre, that it heightens in enchantment and increases in beauty and attraction as we recede from it.

"Place me along the rocks Ilove

Which sound to ocean's wildest roar,

I ask but this, again to rove

Through scenes my youth hath known before."

The tone, the vigor, and the vivacity of the mind depend in no small degree, upon the spirit of romance which the young imagination drinks in when attention is attracted, and it beholds for the first time the wonders of nature displayed. The influence is incalculable, and impressions are then made which arę never effaced.