formed who Leucippe is, the author makes him overhear a soliloquy, in which she reports to herself a full account of her genealogy, and an abridgement of her whole adventures. A soliloquy can never be properly introduced, unless the speaker is under the influence of some strong passion, or reasons on some important subject; but as Heliodorus borrowed from Sophocles, so Tatius is said to to have imitated Euripides. From him he may have taken this unnatural species of soliloquy, as this impropriety exists in almost all the introductions to the tragedies of that poet.

Tatius has been much blamed for the immorality of his romance, and it must be acknowledged that there are particular passages which are extremely exceptionable; yet, however odious some of these may be considered, the general moral tendency of the story is good;-a remark which may be extended to all the Greek romances. punishes his hero and heroine for eloping from their father's house, and afterwards rewards them for their long fidelity.1

Tatius

1 Though in the Greek romances the surface may be often impure, remarks M. Chassang (Hist. du Rom. p. 424), the substance is nearly always moral. The imaginations of the writers are indeed generally libertine, their pictures sensual, and their language broad. But we know enough of antiquity to allow for an outrightness in expression, which modern diction does not emulate, and to recognize happily many differences between Greek and modern French manners. Again, in these compositions the authors do not dilate much on duty and virtue, nor fill pages with elaborate sentimental disquisition; the senses are given a prominence which shocks our modern delicacy; but in the long run their heroes will compare well with too many others, in the struggle to subdue their passions, in their vigilance against surprises by the senses, and in their triumph over abundant seductions. If they give way to amorous delights, it is from impulse, from weakness, never on system; they break through the maxims of conduct, they do not seek rebellious abolishment of them. They contain no such types as Lovelace or Saint Preux. The literary art was not yet far enough advanced to substitute the display of fine sentiments for the fulfilment of duty; and while the heroes of modern novels, elevating love into a virtue, often do not recoil from adultery, those of Greek romances always remain virgin and pure amidst a host of perils, and despite the obstacles which oppose their union. One cannot but acknowledge, however, that the continence of the heroes of the Greek romancists strikes a singular contrast with their voluptuous proclivities. However moral their example, its effect is destroyed by the nudity, so to speak, of particular situations. It is

The Clitophon and Leucippe of Tatius does not seem to
have been composed like Theagenes and Chariclea, as a
romance equally interesting and well written throughout,
but as a species of patchwork, in different places of which
the author might exhibit the variety of his talents.
one time he is anxious to show his taste in painting and
sculpture; at another his acquaintance with natural his-
tory; and towards the end of the book his skill in decla-
mation. But his principal excellence lies in descriptions;
and though these are too luxuriant, they are in general
beautiful, the objects being at once well selected, and so
painted as to form in the mind of the reader a distinct and
lively image. As examples of his merit in this way may
be instanced, his description of a garden [i. 16], and of
a tempest followed by a shipwreck [iii. 234]. We may
also mention his accounts of the pictures of Europa [i. 1],
of Andromeda [iii. 7], and Prometheus [iii. 8], in which
his descriptions and criticisms are executed with very con-
siderable taste and feeling. Indeed, the remarks on these
paintings form a presumption of the advanced state of the
art at the period in which Tatius wrote, or at least of the
estimation in which it was held, and afford matter of much
curious speculation to connoisseurs and artists.

Writers, however, are apt to indulge themselves in en-
larging where they excel; accordingly the descriptions of
Tatius are too numerous, and sometimes very absurdly
introduced. Thus Clitophon, when mentioning the pre-
parations for his marriage with a woman he disliked, pre-
sents the reader with a long description of a necklace
which was purchased for her, and also enters into a detail
concerning the origin of dyeing purple [ii. 11]; he likewise
introduces very awkwardly an account of various zoological
curiosities [ii. 14]. Indeed, he seems particularly fond of
natural history, and gives very animated and correct de-
lineations of the hippopotamus [iv. 2, &c.], of the elephant
[iv. 4], and the crocodile [iv. 19].

The description of the rise and progress of the passion

not, then, in the Greek romances that moral lessons are to be sought,
they may rather supply information respecting the private life of the
ancients, though their trustworthiness in this regard is by no means
unchallenged. (See note, p. 62, 3.)

of Clitophon for Leucippe is extremely well-executed. Of
this there is nothing in the romance of Heliodorus. Thea-
genes and Chariclea at first sight are violently and mutually
enamoured; in Tatius we have more of the restless agita-
tion of love and the arts of courtship. Indeed, this is
by much the best part of the Clitophon and Leucippe, as
the author discloses very considerable acquaintance with
the human heart. This knowledge also appears in the
sentiments scattered through the work, though it must be
confessed that in many of his remarks he is apt to subtilize
and refine too much.

In point of style, Tatius is said by Huet and other
critics1 to excel Heliodorus, and all the writers of Greek
romance. His language has been chiefly applauded for its
conciseness, ease, and simplicity. Photius, who wrote
tolerable Greek himself, and must have been a better
judge than any later critic, observes, "with regard to dic-
tion and composition, Tatius seems to me to excel. When
he employs figurative language, it is clear and natural:
his sentences are precise and limpid, and such as by their
sweetness greatly delight the ear.

In the delineation of character Tatius is still more defec-
tive than Heliodorus.-Clitophon, the principal person in
the romance, is a wretchedly weak and pusillanimous
being; he twice allows himself to be beaten by Thersander,
without resistance-he has neither sense nor courage, nor
indeed any virtue except uncommon fidelity to his mistress.
She is a much more interesting, and is indeed a heroic
character.3

We now proceed to the analysis of a romance different
in its nature from the works already mentioned; and of a
species which may be distinguished by the appellation of
Pastoral romance.

It may be conjectured with much probability, that pas-
toral composition sometimes expressed the devotion, and
sometimes formed the entertainment, of the first generations
of mankind. The sacred writings sufficiently inform us that

1 Huet. p. 40, Boder. præf. p. 15.

2 Photius, Bib. Cod. lxxxvii. p. 206.

3 Durier (1605-1658) wrote a tale in imitation of Achilles Tatius,
entitled: “Les Amours de Leucippe et de Clitophon en deux journées.”

it existed among the eastern nations during the earliest ages. Rural images are everywhere scattered through the Old Testament; and the Song of Solomon in particular beautifully delineates the charms of a country life, while it paints the most amiable affections of the mind, and the sweetest scenery of nature. A number of passages of Theocritus bear a striking resemblance to descriptions in the inspired pastoral; and many critics have believed that he had studied its beauties, and transferred them to his eclogues. Theocritus was imitated in his own dialect by Moschus and Bion; and Virgil, taking advantage of a different language, copied yet rivalled the Sicilian. The Bucolics of the Roman bard seem to have been considered as precluding all attempts of the same kind; for, if we except the feeble efforts of Calpurnius, and his contemporary Nemesianus, who lived in the third century, no subsequent specimen of pastoral poetry was, as far as I know, produced till the revival of literature.

It was during this interval that Longus, a Greek sophist, who is said to have lived soon after the age of Tatius, wrote his pastoral romance of

DAPHNIS AND CHLOE,

which is the earliest, and by far the finest example that has appeared of this species of composition. Availing

1 Rohde (Gr. Rom. p. 503) thinks that Tatius lived later than the author of Daphnis and Chloe, and indeed imitated him in some respects (e.g., the sumptuous description of a garden, of a town, and the episode of Pan and the flute. It is extremely doubtful whether Longus was ever the name of any Greek author. Schöll (Hist. de la Litt. Gr. vi. p. 238) supposes the alleged name of the author to be simply a false reading of the last word of the title as found in the Florentine MS.: Acoẞiakov ἐρωτικῶν λόγοι δ', and this suggestion is adopted by Jacobs in his German version, 1832, and by Seiler in his edition of Longi Pastoralia, Lipsiæ, 1835. The last-named editor says (Præf. p. iii.) that the best MS. begins and ends with λόγου ποιμενικῶν, instead of Λόγγου, and that Stephens cites two copies, in one of which the heading began Xóyov, and in the other Adyyou. If the author was really Longus, he was probably a freedman of one of the many Roman families who bore this cognomen. Be this as it may, we know nothing of the author's life or date, which Rohde (Gr. Rom. p. 502) gives reasons for placing at the close of the second century. Photius says nothing of him in his Myriabiblia, nor is he mentioned by any of the authors with whom he is supposed to have

himself of the beauties of the pastoral poets who preceded him, he has added to their simplicity of style, and charming pictures of Nature, a story which possesses considerable interest, and of which the following abstract is presented to the reader.

In the neighbourhood of Mytilene, the principal city of Lesbos, Lamon, a goatherd, as he was one day tending his flock, discovered an infant sucking one of his goats with surprising dexterity. He takes home the child, and presents him to his wife Myrtale; at the same time he delivers to her a purple mantle with which the boy was adorned, and a little sword with an ivory hilt, which was lying by his side. Lamon having no children of his own, resolves to bring up the foundling, and bestows on him the pastoral name of Daphnis [Bk. I. c. 3].1

About two years after this occurrence, Dryas, a neighbouring shepherd, finds in the cave of the nymphs, which is beautifully described in the romance, a female infant, nursed by one of his ewes. The child is brought to the cottage of Dryas, receives the name of Chloe, and is cherished by the old man as if she had been his daughter [i. 6].

When Daphnis had reached the age of fifteen, and Chloe that of thirteen, Lamon and Dryas, their reputed fathers, had corresponding dreams on the same night. The nymphs of the cave in which Chloe had been discovered appear to each of the old shepherds, delivering Daphnis and Chloe to a winged boy, with a bow and arrows, who commands that Daphnis should be sent to keep goats, and the girl to tend

been contemporary. His book itself shows that he was a clever and well-read sophist of the school of Lucian and the Philostrati; and the style and tone of the novel, no less than its proper title Aεoßiaká, or 'Lesbian Adventures,' place it in the same class with the Ethiopica of Heliodorus. Mueller, Hist. Lit. Gr. p. iii. p. 357. See further an excellent article, which is from the pen of Professor Malden, in Knight's Quarterly Magazine, vol. i. pp. 277-295, on this romance. For the bibliography of the Lesbiaca, see Schöll, Hist. Gr. Lit. iii. p. 161, but and especially the Notice bibliographique par A. J. Pons appended to the French translation published by Quantin, of Paris, in 1878.

1 In the indication of the chapters it has been thought best to follow M. Zévort's French translation (Romans Grecs, précédé d'une introduction sur le Roman chez les Grecs. Paris, 1856).