The spirit of Chivalry was a fire which soon spent itself: but that of Romance, which was kindled at it, burnt long, and continued its light and heat… - Richard Hurd

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The spirit of Chivalry was a fire which soon spent itself: but that of Romance, which was kindled at it, burnt long, and continued its light and heat even to the politer ages.
The greatest geniuses of our own and foreign countries, such as Ariosto and Tasso in Italy, and Spenser and Milton in England, were seduced by these barbarities of their forefathers; were even charmed by the Gothic Romances. Was this caprice and absurdity in them? Or, may there not be something in the Gothic Romance peculiarly suited to the views of a genius, and to the ends of poetry? And may not the philosophic moderns have gone too far in their perpetual ridicule and contempt of it?