ABSTRACT
MY DEAR CHILD, You are now reading the Historical Novel of Don Carlos, written by the Abbé of St. Real.1 The foundation of it is true; the Abbé has only embellished a little, in order to give it the turn of a Novel; and it is prettily written. A propos; I am in doubt whether you know what a Novel is: it is a little gallant history, which must contain a great deal of love, and not exceed one or two small volumes. The subject must be a love affair; the lovers are to meet with many difficulties and obstacles to oppose the accomplishment of their wishes, but at last overcome them all; and the conclusion or catastrophe must leave them happy. A Novel is a kind of abbreviation of a Romance; for a Romance generally consists of twelve volumes, all filled with insipid love nonsense, and most incredible adventures. The subject of a Romance is sometimes a story intirely fictitious, that is to say, quite invented; at other times, a true story, but generally so changed and altered, that one cannot know it. For example: in Grand Cyrus, Clelia, and Cleopatra, three celebrated Romances, there is some true history; but so blended with falsities, and silly love-adventures, that they confuse and corrupt the mind, instead of forming and instructing it. The greatest Heroes of antiquity are there represented in woods and forests, whining insipid love-tales to their inhuman Fair-one, who answers them in the same style. In short, the reading of Romances is a most frivolous occupation, and time merely thrown away. The old Romances, written two or three hundred years ago, such as Amadis of Gaul, Orlando the Furious,2 and others, were stuft with enchantments, magicians, giants, and such sort of impossibilities; whereas the more modern Romances keep within the bounds of possibility but not of probability. For I would just as soon believe, that the great Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins from Rome, was shut up by some magician in an enchanted castle, as imagine that he was making silly verses for the beautiful Clelia, as he is represented in the Romance of that name.
