Luxury of Art: They wanted something of more poignancy to quicken
and enforce a jaded appetite. Hence the Original of the first
barbarous _Romances_, abounding with this false provocative of
uncommon, extraordinary, and miraculous Adventures.

But satiety, in things unnatural, soon, brings on disgust. And the
Reader, at length, began to see, that too eager a pursuit after
_Adventures_ had drawn him from what first engaged his attention,
MAN _and his Ways_, into the Fairy Walks of Monsters and Chimeras.
And now those who had run farthest after these delusions, were the
first that recovered themselves. For the next Species of Fiction,
which took its name from its _novelty_, was of _Spanish_ invention.
These presented us with something of Humanity; but of Humanity in a
stiff unnatural state. For, as every thing before was conducted by
_Inchantment_; so now all was managed by _Intrigue_. And tho' it had
indeed a kind of _Life_, it had yet, as in its infancy, nothing of
_Manners_. On which account, those, who could not penetrate into the
ill constitution of its plan, yet grew disgusted at the dryness of
the Conduct, and want of ease in the Catastrophe.

The avoiding these defects gave rise to the _Heroical Romances_ of
the _French_; in which some celebrated Story of antiquity was so
stained and polluted by modern fable and invention, as was just
enough to shew, that the contrivers of them neither knew how to lye,
nor speak truth. In these voluminous extravagances, _Love_ and
_Honour_ supplied the place of _Life_ and _Manners_. But the
over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dross
and feces of that Passion. For in attempting a more natural
representation of it, in the little amatory Novels, which succeeded
these heavier Volumes, tho' the Writers avoided the dryness of the