[9] For Irving’s own view of his tales, see a quotation from his letters at page xix of Professor Brander Matthews’s edition of the _Tales of a Traveller_. [10] “A rivulet of story meandering through a broad meadow of episode--a book of episodes with occasional digressions into the plot.” Kennedy’s preface to _Swallow Barn_. [11] This is the character of the tales of Mme. de Genlis, of which a volume was published in New York, 1825: _New Moral Tales, selected and translated from the French of Mme. de Genlis, by an American_. [12] Nodier adopts the same setting for the same purpose (cf. _Les Quatre Talismans_, 1838); but the habit is at least as old as Voltaire. [13] So Godfrey Wallace’s _Esmeralda_, Atlantic Souvenir for 1829. [14] Miss Sedgwick’s _Chivalric Sailor_ (1835) is essentially like our current historical romances. A typical instance is Dana’s _Paul Felton_ (1822). [15] This tendency was confirmed, of course, by the predominance of Scott. [16] Brander Matthews, _The Philosophy of the Short-Story_, page 15. [17] _Poetics_, chapter x. [18] Poe’s review of Hawthorne’s tales (1842) begins by remarking that they are not all tales (Stedman and Woodberry edition of Poe, vol. vii, page 28). [19] Poe’s tales were translated into French, German, Italian, and Spanish. He was reviewed in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Oct. 15, 1846 (new series, vol. xvi, page 341). [20] See Aristotle’s _Poetics_, chapters vii and viii. The “classical” French drama deduced from Aristotle’s general principle of unity of action a strict system of practice. Of Poe’s adherence to this system a good instance is _The Cask of Amontillado_. [21] In a review of Mrs. Sigourney, Southern Literary Messenger, volume ii, page 113 (January, 1836); quoted in Woodberry’s Life of Poe, page 94. [22] In a review of Hawthorne, Graham’s Magazine, May, 1842; Stedman and Woodberry’s edition of Poe, volume vii, page 30; quoted in the appendix to Brander Matthews’s _Philosophy of the Short-Story_. [23] A collection ascribed to Antonius Diogenes, compiled by Aristides of Miletus, was translated into Latin by Cornelius Sisenna (119–67 B.C.). The translation is lost. [24] The _Cena_ of Petronius has more consistency, is in form more like the longer tales of antiquity. [25] The object of Lucian is always satire. This, not any purely narrative end, determines his method. But it is worth observing that _The Ass_ is picaresque. For the rest, no single adventure of the string is more than anecdote. [26] The Greek title is ποιμενικά. [27] _E. g._, the fifteenth idyl of Theocritus, and the opening of the seventh oration of Dio Chrysostom. The latter, though brought in as anecdote, has extraordinary ingenuity and finish of form. [28] See the introduction by Joseph Jacobs to _Old French Romances done into English by William Morris_.