End. This is so true, that Experience lays before us, that such as are least acquainted with Love, are the most unguarded to its As|<145>saults, that the most Ignorant are soonest decoyed. Add to this that Nothing so much refines and polishes Wit; Nothing conduces so much to the Forming and Advancing it to the Approbation of the World, as the Reading of Romances. These are the Dumb Tutors, which succeed those of the College, and teach us how to Live and Speak by a more Persuasive and Instructive method than theirs [...]. [p.145] Huet has with this survey reached the end of his treatise. D'Urfee and Mademoiselle de Scudery become important here: Monsieur D'Urfee was the first who retrieved them from Barbarity, and reduced them to Rules, in his Incomparable Astrea, The most Ingenious and Polite Work which has appeared in this Kind, and which Eclipsed the Glory which Greece, Italy and Spain, had acquired. [...|<146>] None can, without Amazement, read those which a Maid as Illustrious in her Modesty, as her Merit, has published under a Borrowed Name; depriving her self so Generously of that Glory which was her Due, and not seeking for Reward, but in her Virtue; as if while She took so much Trouble for the Honour of our Nation, She would spare that Shame to Our Sex. But Time has done her that Justice, which she had denied her self; and has informed us, that the Illustrious Bassa, Grand Cyrus, and Clælia, are the Performances of Madam de Scudery [...]. The last lines refer to the following "history" Zayde—which will, so Huet, deserve all praise: The Virtues which conduct his Reign are so Noble, and the Fortune which attend them so Surprizing, that Posterity would doubt whether it were a History, or a Romance. [p.149] ...which is the final sentence. Literature Olaf Simons, Marteaus Europa oder der Roman, bevor er Literatur wurde'' (Amsterdam/ Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001) , p. 165-72. Camille Esmein, "Le Traité de l'origine des romans de Pierre-Daniel Huet, apologie du roman baroque ou poétique du roman classique?", communication lors de la journée d'étude sur 'Le roman baroque' organisée par M. le Professeur Jonathan Mallinson, colloque de l'Association internationale des études françaises (AIEF), Paris, 9 juillet 2003, publiée dans les Cahiers de l'Association internationale des études françaises (CAIEF), mai 2004, p. 417-436. Essays about literature 1670 works Narratology 17th-century French literature 17th-century essays