Note 539:A — Chapter III

A writer, whose work has just fallen into my hands, closes a long and accurate analysis of the Italian Tales, with the following just observations:—"The larger works of fiction," he remarks, "resemble those productions of a country which are consumed within itself, while tales, like the more delicate and precious articles of traffic, which are exported from their native soil, have gladdened and delighted every land. They are the ingredients from which Shakspeare, and other enchanters of his day, have distilled those magical drops which tend so much to sweeten the lot of humanity, by occasionally withdrawing the mind, from the cold and naked realities of life, to visionary scenes and visionary bliss."—Dunlop's History of Fiction, vol. ii. p. 409.