Chapter V: Literary Estimate

Upon a general survey of the four groups of oriental tales described in the preceding chapters, one is impressed by the exceedingly diversified nature of the collection, and—paradoxical though the statement may seem—by the presence of a sufficient number of common qualities to give the collection as a whole a distinctive character: it is “the oriental tale in England in the eighteenth century.” In form this fiction includes within its wide range the frame-tale, in which stories—sometimes in letter-form—are inclosed; isolated apologues and other short tales used to point the moral of an Addisonian or Johnsonian essay; fantastic tales in which adventure is everything; tales equally fantastic but coloured by satire; and tales with the thinnest possible thread of plot to sustain the predominant satiric, moralistic, or philosophic purpose. The characterization is uniformly slight, and tends toward more or less abstract types. The scene is laid in the Orient, from Egypt to China, or in Europe visited by Orientals; and is given a picturesque background of strange Eastern customs, sometimes enriched by allusions to religious or philosophical beliefs, often by lavish use of magic and enchantment. Oriental or pseudo-oriental nomenclature aids in producing the desired effect of remoteness. The language is usually coloured by oriental phraseology, and is frequently—but not necessarily—figurative and inflated. As might be expected, the amount of local colour, the richness of detail, and the truth to oriental manners and places are greater as the stories approximate genuine Eastern fiction like the _Arabian Nights_. At the other end of the scale, in thoroughly Anglicized oriental tales, such as _Rasselas_ and _Nourjahad_, the background is pale and shadowy, details are sparse, and references to Eastern places and customs are rare. But in all this fiction there is a distinctly exotic flavour, distilled through the medium of eighteenth-century ideas.

The general course of development of the genre in England followed the lines of the similar French movement, but with characteristically different emphasis. In France the movement—preluded by the pseudo-oriental satire, _The Turkish Spy_—was initiated by highly imaginative oriental translations contemporaneous with the fairy tales of Perrault. It was continued by imitations in which qualities from both oriental tales and fairy tales were blended,—notably extravagant invention and magic; by literary parodies aimed at form and style; and by social satires, ranging from comments on manners to philosophic criticism of life. Finally, the natural decline of the oriental tale as a genre, together with that of the fairy tale, was hastened by the weight of extreme license on the one hand and of moralistic didacticism on the other. In England, the _Arabian Nights_ and its companions were warmly welcomed, but there was no sudden efflorescence of imaginative and fanciful fiction as there had been in France. English writers at first contented themselves, as far as imaginative tales were concerned, with translating from the French. It is worth noting that they did not translate the fairy tales of Perrault until 1729.[248] The blending of the fairy tales with the oriental tales in France was one of the most striking characteristics of the movement, and the comparative lack of the fairy element in England limited, in so far, the initial scope of the English movement. But in France, after the first furore, no new kinds of purely imaginative oriental stories or fairy tales appeared; while in England, from time to time throughout the century, imaginative oriental tales were written, including realistic stories, a tragic romance, _Charoba_ (translated from a seventeenth-century French version), and a tale of terror, _Vathek_. In both countries dramas, especially farces, were based on this fiction.[249]

Satire in France—as suggested above—followed two lines of development: the social line inaugurated by Marana, and the literary or parodic,—a natural reaction from the extravagances of the imaginative tales. English satire in oriental guise was chiefly social, occasionally political, rarely parodic. The reaction against the enthusiasm with which the oriental tales had been greeted, was voiced not so much in actual parody as in direct ridicule or critical disapproval. Pope’s friend, Bishop Atterbury, was not alone in thinking “the Arabian Tales” “so extravagant, monstrous, and disproportioned” that they “gave a judicious eye pain.”[250] Pope’s own gibe at the hack-writer who could “turn a Persian tale for half-a-crown” was echoed fifty years later by Goldsmith: “Mr. Tibs [is] a very _useful hand_; he writes receipts for the bite of a mad dog and throws off an eastern tale to perfection.”[251] What there was of parody was directed against the so-called oriental diction and phraseology, while in France parody was aimed chiefly at the narrative form and the extravagance of incident. On the whole, English satire had a narrower range and followed chiefly the line of light and cheerful humour best exemplified in _The Citizen of the World_. French satire, more pervasive and more penetrating, expressed—especially when touched by the genius of Voltaire and Montesquieu—something of the deep unrest of France in the eighteenth century, the era before the Revolution. Even the _contes philosophiques_ are tinged with satire. The typical English writer of philosophic oriental tales, on the contrary, dwelt in an imaginary country of pure speculation, and entered the world of fact only for the purpose of moralizing.

The emphasis which in France was thrown upon satire fell in England upon philosophy and morals. From _The Vision of Mirza_ to _Rasselas_; from Parnell’s _Hermit_ to Miss Edgeworth’s _Murad the Unlucky_; throughout the entire period the two tendencies were steadily prominent. At the outset, Addison and Steele set the example of wresting the new imaginative oriental fiction just received from France out of its original shape into something more conformable to their sincere ideas of worthy literature. Dr. Johnson and many others, especially in the periodical essays, intensified this didactic tradition. In literary merit the philosophic tales take precedence over the moralistic, though the latter are far more numerous. Enough has been said in the preceding chapters to make clear the character of the two groups. The questions at present of greater importance in our discussion are the reasons why the genre in England followed the philosophic and moralistic tendencies and the other lines of development mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. How may we account for the presence and more or less general popularity of this fiction in England during the eighteenth century? Why were the imaginative tales so soon diverted to didactic purposes?

The environment into which the _Arabian Nights_ and the _Persian Tales_ came was that of an age which expressed itself most naturally in rationalistic prose and satiric verse. The moralizing tendency, characteristic also of the eighteenth century on the continent, has been called a fundamental instinct of the British character; and at that time was so powerful and widespread as to colour all English literature. Even Fielding did not escape, much less the writers of these Eastern stories. The environment proved stronger than the new organism. Too exotic to become easily acclimated, such tales were regarded as entertaining trifles, to be tolerated seriously only when utilized to point a moral. The moralizing tendency and the rationalistic mood were two barriers opposed to the free development of imaginative oriental fiction. A third obstacle was the deference shown to the canons of French classicism. All things French were welcomed, but only those sanctioned by Boileau found lasting and serious consideration; and the sober second thought of Augustan criticism was thus strengthened in its disdain of the oriental tale. Furthermore, a barrier existed in the insularity of English life and thought. Aside from her connection with France, England was surprisingly insular in the early eighteenth century. Literary England was confined, in large measure, to London alone, because of the practical difficulties of communicating with the country. Roads were bad, journeys difficult and perilous. Foreign travel was by no means so common as later in the century. The East was indeed the “Far East,” chiefly used as a figure of speech for fabulous wealth or excessive tyranny. Usually the contrast was drawn in favour of England. Dyer, in his poem, _The Fleece_, even praises the happy English sheep in comparison with the less favoured sheep of other lands. Mohammedanism was regarded as an imposture and Buddhism was practically unknown. It was not until the victories of Clive in India and the era of expansion under the elder Pitt that England took any vital interest in the Orient,—an interest first expressed in literature by direct translations from oriental language in the last quarter of the century. In the earlier decades, England, on the whole prosperous and peaceful under Walpole’s long rule, was satisfied with her insularity; a feeling voiced by Shenstone in the poem entitled, _Declining an invitation to visit foreign Countries, he takes Occasion to intimate the Advantages of his own_.[252]

But, even had there been no such obstacles to overcome in the environment, a barrier to the free imaginative development of the oriental tale would have existed in the character of the first eighteenth-century translations of oriental fiction. They lacked too frequently not only the graphic detail, which in accounts of far distant lands fascinates the reader, but also the deeper elements of characterization that make the whole world kin and are the most potent means of breaking down superficial barriers between alien peoples. When Galland prepared his version of the _Arabian Nights_ for European readers, he omitted not only the coarseness of the original, but also many of its interesting minutiæ, details which give to our later versions—Burton’s and Payne’s, for instance—the charm of good tales of travel, and produce in the reader the vivid sense of actually being in the picturesque Orient. The French and English successors of Galland followed him in this respect and fell short even of his achievement. Hardly any English writers until past the middle of the century knew or apparently cared to know the East well, either through travel or through books; hence the pale and colourless quality of their oriental fiction.[253] Beckford was the first to introduce much picturesque detail, and in so doing anticipated the methods of Moore, Southey, Byron, and their successors.

The lack of vivid descriptions, however, was far less serious than the presence of alien elements without the saving grace of deep human interest. Unlike Gothic legend, Celtic poem, or English ballad, the oriental tale formed no intimate part of the national heritage. Something latent or sleeping in the nature of the English people was roused during this century by a sudden revival of interest in things their ancestors had loved and lived with; and Percy’s _Reliques_, Walpole’s _Castle of Otranto_, the _Poems of Ossian_, struck a responsive chord. But the oriental tale was alien; and incident, atmosphere, fancies, understood and liked by Eastern listeners, seemed too grotesque and incredible to make more than a limited appeal to untraveled English readers. They welcomed, rather, with characteristic heartiness the homely, realistic background of Defoe’s stories. If the oriental tale had emphasized the more fundamental elements of human character—the passions of love, hate, ambition, revenge—in addition to the spirit of adventure and delight in the picturesque and the mysterious, then whatever was alien in setting or incident would have been no barrier. For instance, the oriental custom most frequently alluded to by English writers throughout the century is the suttee. They were impressed not only by the outlandish barbarity of the custom, but also by the universal ideal of supreme fidelity in love and heroic devotion to religious belief. Witness also the strong appeal made to-day to Western imaginations by modern versions of Afghan ballads afire with passion; or by romantic legends like that of the Persian sculptor, Farhad, and the Princess Schirin.[254]

But in spite of all these barriers to the free imaginative development of this fiction,—the rationalistic classicism; the moralistic, philosophic, and satiric moods; the insularity of the English people; and the alien characteristics of the oriental tale,—nevertheless, the presence and the genuine if limited popularity of this fiction in eighteenth-century England are undeniable facts. The reasons behind these facts will bring us to the question of the ultimate significance of the genre as a manifestation of the Romantic spirit.

The first and obvious reason for the welcome given the oriental tale by the London of Pope and Addison—despite Bishop Atterbury’s censure—was that it came from France. Especially since 1660, French influence had prevailed in England, French literary critics were regarded as authoritative, and French fashions in literature were followed. Since, then, the vogue of the oriental tale was so great in France, it was naturally echoed in England. That the fairy tales—equally popular in France—did not cross the Channel at that time may be due to the fact that Perrault drew directly from French folk-lore, and hence made an especial appeal to the French people; and that the Countess D’Aulnoy and other aristocratic ladies gave to the stories they retold from Straparola a prestige only local. Moreover, the fairy tales—charming as they are—lack the quality possessed by the _Arabian Nights_,—what we have called “the sense of reality in the midst of unreality,” a quality particularly attractive to English readers.

The same fact of French influence accounts largely for the favourable reception given to the _Turkish Spy_, and later to the _Lettres Persanes_. The popularity of such oriental pseudo-letters in England was a part of a general European tendency.[255] Similarly England had shared in a widely diffused interest in an analogous form of satire; that of Boccalini’s _Ragguagli di Parnaso_, a type generally known and frequently imitated throughout seventeenth-century Europe.[256] Boccalini had imagined Apollo, king of Parnassus, conducting discussions among his courtiers,—men of genius from every nation and age,—and passing criticism on political and literary questions; Boccalini himself being the reporter who brought these “Advices” from Parnassus to Europe. The analogy between such satire and that of Marana is striking. In one sense Apollo and the departed shades, observing Europe from the remote regions of mythology, were forerunners and equivalents of the later learned Turkish spies, Persian travelers, and Chinese philosophers from the Far East.[257]

Another reason for the welcome given the _Arabian Nights_ and _The Persian Tales_ is found in connection with the history of the novel. The elements of interest essential to great narrative art are plot, character, and background. Of these essentials it has been said that the _Sir Roger de Coverley_ papers possess two: admirable characterization and well-defined background; and that the absence of plot alone denies to _Sir Roger de Coverley_ the name of the first English novel.[258] Almost exactly contemporary with the _De Coverley_ papers appeared the _Arabian Nights_; and, in the light of what has just been said, the auspicious reception of these oriental tales gains new significance. Stories of pure adventure, in fantastic and often brilliant setting, sometimes emotional or sentimental, never strong in characterization—they offered just that element of plot which was lacking in the periodical sketches. The plot, indeed, is frequently strong only in incident, and is tangled in construction. Yet, in the _Arabian Nights_, there are several tales that, in certain respects, deserve to be called classical; _Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves_, or _Zeyn Alasnam and the King of the Genii_, for instance, despite all their oriental decorations, are admirably simple and well-proportioned; and the _Arabian Nights_, as a whole, is a treasure-house of story perhaps unsurpassed in literature. Nothing so rich in adventurous incident appeared in England until _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719); and in plot nothing so well-constructed as some of these tales until Fielding’s masterpieces. Historians of English fiction have insufficiently recognized the fact that the oriental tale was one of the forms of literature that gave to the reading public in Augustan England the element of plot which, to a certain extent, supplemented that of character, afforded by sketches like the _De Coverley_ papers. The English novel, as a recent writer has pointed out in his admirable outline of its history, is particularly rich in the variety of elements assisting in its development. Of the seventeenth century he writes: “The heroic romance died and left no issue. And the influence that the century exercised on the growth of pure fiction, the foundations it laid for the coming novel, are to be sought, not in the writers of romance, but in the followers of other branches of literature, often remote enough from fiction, in satirists and allegorists, newspaper scribes and biographers, writers of travel and adventure, and fashionable comic playwrights.”[259] Yet the translators of oriental fiction in the early eighteenth century—“writers of romance” in one sense though they were—deserve a place among these diverse influences. The _Arabian Nights_ was the fairy godmother of the English novel.

But the love of story for the story’s sake was not the only or the chief reason for the welcome given the _Arabian Nights_ and its immediate successors. In France, the popularity of these fantastic and marvelous stories, restless in plot and exuberant in colour, had testified to a truant desire to escape from the strict artistic rules and classical ideals of masters like Boileau. Conditions were similar in England. Pseudo-classicism was the natural literary ideal of the men gathered in the coffee-houses around Pope and Addison. The rule of reason, of order, of good sense, was unquestioned; and, to so keen and clever a society, the satiric verse of Pope was ideal poetry. But even the author of the _Essay on Criticism_ allowed his fancy to stray at times beyond the well-defined limits of traditional art. He enjoyed the Arabian Tales, commended them to his friend, Bishop Atterbury,[260] and planned himself to write a “wild” Eastern tale.[261] Lady Montagu did much to excite and to gratify curiosity concerning Turkish life by her entertaining letters from Constantinople.[262] Swift read the _Arabian Nights_ and fairy tales. He writes to Stella: “I borrowed one or two idle books of _Contes des Fées_ and have been reading them these two days, although I have much business upon my hands.”[263] Goldsmith dreamed ardently of a journey to the Far East,[264] and Dr. Johnson himself came somewhat under the oriental spell. The men of the eighteenth century were not devoid of passion and imagination; they were not without a love for the country, though they liked the town far better; they were not without an appreciation of nature, though they preferred cultivated plains to “horrid Alps”; but they considered it bad form to express such feelings in polite society or in serious literature. Oppressed by the bare and hard rationalism of the day, people craved more and more earnestly adequate food for their imagination, their fancy, their emotion. This hunger explains the growing interest in varied fields of artistic activity: the popularity of the new Italian operas and of Handel’s oratorios, the vogue of the bourgeois drama, the interest in Hogarth’s realistic art, and the appearance of nature poetry like Thomson’s _Seasons_.

To the general though gradual romantic expansion of outlook there are many witnesses; and it is significant to note that the strand of interest in the Orient is interwoven with other romantic threads. As early as 1692, Sir William Temple shows interest in Norse poetry and mythology, in Indian and Chinese life and art.[265] Addison soon follows with his defense of _Chevy Chase_; Ambrose Philips, the translator of the _Persian Tales_, also edits old English ballads, and Bishop Percy, toward the end of the period, manifests a curious range of interest: English ballads, Northern antiquities, Chinese literature, etc.[266] Similarly in France, Caylus, Pétis de la Croix, and Galland had been antiquarians as well as orientalists. In such a widening of outlook the Romantic Movement resembles the Renaissance.

The chief reason, then, for the popularity of the oriental fiction was its romantic character. No wonder that the growing demands of the reaction against pseudo-classicism found a certain satisfaction in these extraordinary tales, which brought into the comparatively gray and colourless life of Augustan England the fascinating marvels of oriental legend, encompassed, even in the translations from the French, by something of the magical atmosphere and strange glamour of the East. It would be as difficult as superfluous to analyze the world-wide charm of these tales. The caliph in disguise, wandering the streets of Bagdad in search of adventure, appeals to the same naïve sense of delight that is excited by Richard Cœur-de-Lion or Robin Hood. There is in most people at all times something of the child’s love of the marvelous. In the eighteenth century a special reason for the popularity of these tales lay in the fact that they offered to the reactionary spirit, always characteristic of romanticism, romantic themes and treatment, and voiced the romantic mood. In varying degree these stories show a love of adventure and of mystery; a desire to excite the feelings of surprise, horror, or delight; a child’s joy in the extravagant, the unusual, and the exotic; and an equally childlike desire to achieve the apparently impossible. The _Persian Tales_ is tinged with sentimentalism; Anglicized tales such as _Rasselas_ sound a decided note of subjectivity and melancholy; _Vathek_ is unreal and “wild.” It is interesting to find Horace Walpole calling his _Castle of Otranto_ “so wild a tale,” for just this quality of wildness in both the oriental and the Gothic tale manifests romantic longings. In the one there is the reactionary desire to escape to the far-away, mysterious East,—the remote in space; in the other, the desire to return to the Middle Ages,—the remote in time; in both, the longing for picturesque colouring, for magical atmosphere, for strangeness, coupled sometimes with beauty, sometimes with horror.

But, it may be said, the oriental tale is romantic only in external qualities, and should be classed as pseudo-romantic. Every romantic revival passes through a stage of what may be called pseudo-romanticism or, more accurately, superficial romanticism, gradually deepening and strengthening as it grows toward its culmination. The movement known in literary history as the Romantic Movement in England began almost imperceptibly early in the eighteenth century. Its sources were as diverse as those of the English novel. If we take as the highest standards of English romanticism the picturesque, objective mediævalism of Scott; the deep spirituality of Wordsworth; the intense subjectivity of Emily Bronté; Shelley’s “cloudless clarity of light”; the strange beauty of Keats’s verse,—the sense of melancholy, of mystery, of sympathy with sorrow found in all great romantic poets,—then the beginnings of English romanticism seem what they are, mere beginnings, so remote from the great romantic literature that the difference in degree amounts to a difference in kind. From this point of view, critical analysis, noting that the Gothic tale and the oriental tale lack the more subtle and essential elements of the romantic spirit, justly regards them as romantic only in externals.

Yet romanticism is a relative term; and if all that is not romantic in the highest sense be dismissed as unromantic, there is great danger of ignoring the gradual evolution of the profounder elements of the romantic spirit and of overlooking the genuine romanticism latent or obscured in early romantic art. Critics of classicism, who regard solely the highest forms in which that literary tendency embodies itself, often pay the penalty of losing perspective, of disregarding evolution. If the great classics—Homer, Æschylus, Virgil—be taken as the norm, then works of the later Greek or Roman periods, or the so-called “classic” period in France, may be regarded justly as pseudo-classical. At the same time, genuinely classical qualities are present in Racine and Corneille, and must be recognized, together with the equally obvious pseudo-classical elements, as contributing to the evolution of French classicism. Here, again, it is a question of the point of view. Criticism may consider a work of art in the light of the absolute standard,—the ideal,—and may also consider it in relation to the evolution of literary types or tendencies.

In judging a romantic revival, such criticism finds its task at once peculiarly difficult and peculiarly interesting; for the very nature of romanticism is elusive, and its methods are those of symbolism and suggestion rather than of clear definition. Yet, taking a broad view over the entire romantic revival in England,—and the same holds true of France in even greater degree,—one can see clearly that the orientalism and pseudo-orientalism of the eighteenth century distinctly preluded the use of oriental material by the romantic writers of the early nineteenth century. As Allan Ramsay and Thomson prepared the way for Burns and Wordsworth, so, less obviously, but none the less truly, the translators and writers of the oriental tale, together with historians and travelers, were forerunners of Southey, Moore, Byron, Matthew Arnold, Fitzgerald, and many others, on to Kipling in the present day.

Moreover, the oriental tale directly contributed romantic elements to the imaginative inheritance of later writers. Its influence is clearly traceable throughout the entire nineteenth century. We have seen that the _History of Charoba_ was the acknowledged inspiration of Landor’s _Gebir_. _Vathek_ exerted great influence on Byron’s youthful work, an influence easily understood if one recalls the mockery, the sensuousness, and the brilliant setting of Beckford’s masterpiece, and especially the sinister horror of the catastrophe.[267] Barry Cornwall drew more definitely from _Vathek_ in his brief poem, _The Hall of Eblis_.[268] Beckford himself borrowed directly from the _Adventures of Abdalla_ and the _Mogul Tales_.[269] Lewis may have derived his tale of terror, _The Monk_, from a _Turkish Tale_.[270] Possibly Swift also drew from the _Turkish Tales_.[271] Smollett makes Lydia, the sentimental country heroine of _Humphrey Clinker_, compare the “grandeur” of London to the dazzling enchantments of oriental story.[271] Southey explicitly states his indebtedness to the _New Arabian Nights_ for the idea of _Thalaba_.[271] James Thomson (1834–1882), with equal frankness, acknowledges his obligation to the _Arabian Nights_, in the case of _The Doom of a City_.[271] Tennyson’s early poem, _Recollections of the Arabian Nights_, is a good instance of the strong appeal made to youthful imagination by the splendours of

“the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.”[272]

Wordsworth and Scott, as schoolboys, came eagerly under the spell.

“The tales that charm away the wakeful night
In Araby”

were to Wordsworth a precious treasure, setting free the child’s imagination.[273] Part of the romantic charm of Venice in Wordsworth’s eye, was that

“Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee.”

Scott’s mature imagination also retained an interest in the Orient; witness _The Talisman_, _The Surgeon’s Daughter_, _Count Robert of Paris_, and possibly the arrow contest in _The Monastery_.[274] De Quincey, in one of the most interesting passages in his _Autobiography_,[275] after disparaging remarks concerning _Sindbad_ and _Aladdin_, goes on to say that one solitary section of the latter story “fixed and fascinated” his gaze: the incident of the murderous magician,—who could gain the lamp only by the aid of a pure child,—listening with ear to the ground in order to distinguish the footsteps of his innocent young victim thousands of miles away. Dickens in _David Copperfield_, Thackeray in _Vanity Fair_ and _The Virginians_, and Stevenson in many passages, testify to a fondness for oriental tales. Instances might be multiplied, but enough have been given to show clearly that the oriental tales, from the early versions of the _Arabian Nights_ on, have had a distinct value in stimulating the imagination of numerous writers and countless readers.[276] In all these cases, the vital and life-giving elements in this fiction have been the picturesque and suggestive details about strange oriental customs; mysterious ideas like metempsychosis; entertaining narrative; richness of invention,—in short, the romantic qualities. These have constituted the chief charm of oriental story from the time of Addison to the present day.

It must always be remembered that the oriental tale met with disapproval as well as with favour. The full significance of the genre is understood only when we recognize it as a test of the public opinion of the age concerning romanticism, and not merely as a witness to the romantic mood. On the one hand, condemned by typical men of letters as “wild” and “romantick,” it reveals the strength of Augustan classicism as the law of the land; on the other, welcomed with enthusiasm, persisting in one form or another throughout the century, utilized even by such defenders of the classical stronghold as Dr. Johnson,[277] it testifies, by its mere presence, to the new spirit of romanticism.

But before the death of the last great classicist of the century new forces were already at work, which were to bring the Orient much nearer to England than ever before. The growth of the Indian empire, of commercial intercourse with the East, and of the new democratic belief in the brotherhood of the whole world, helped to break down England’s insularity and to awaken a fresh interest in the Orient. In letters, this modern spirit was first expressed by the increased number of travelers’ accounts, and by the accompanying activity of orientalists under the guidance of Sir William Jones. Direct translations from oriental languages into English made a notable contribution to English knowledge of Eastern life and literature, and had a large share in turning the imaginations of nineteenth-century poets and story-tellers toward the use of oriental material. A fresh chapter in the history of oriental influence upon England thus opened. This chapter—still in the making—has been distinguished throughout its entire course by actual first-hand knowledge of the Orient,—one vital characteristic which throws it into sharp contrast with the chapter discussed in the present volume. But to consider even the beginnings of the modern period, in the new scholarly movement inaugurated by Sir William Jones, would carry us beyond the limits of our subject. By the time the new movement was well under way, the oriental tale of the eighteenth century had done its work and had passed on its inheritance to its successors.