nate as to make the three following valuable discoveries :First, that Longus is a Latin word, and that the Romans used to call a man, who happened to be taller than his neighbours, not only Longurio (which Dr. Ainsworth translates

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a long gangrel, a tall, long, slim fellow,") but that they would sometimes even call such a person Longus. Secondly, that one John Funck says, that in the year U. C. 749, there was at Rome a consul named Longus, and that he, for any thing that appears to the contrary, was a very tall man. Thirdly and lastly, that in the times of Arcadius and Honorius there lived somewhere in Egypt four brothers, all monks, who were severally called Longus, as John Funck sees no reason to doubt, on account of the unusual procerity of their bodies.

It is easy to imagine, that a truly learned man may, with his wife's permission, have a son; but it is not so easy to believe that a truly learned man can ever have a fortune to leave to that son: let him, however, as the next best thing, leave him on his death-bed this piece of advice:-"Never, my dear Boy, never read a note on any pretence whatever."

It would be very desirable to give some idea of the Pastoralia, if it were possible for a curious person to get an idea of a work of the least merit or originality in any other way than by reading it himself. What is this work?—It is a Pastoral Romance. What is it like?-It is like the Aminta of Tasso, the Paul and Virginia of St. Pierre, the tales of shepherds which Cervantes has scattered about in his Don Quixote but it is different from all these; it is much better. How is it better?-The reader will like it better.

Why we like one thing better than another, has not yet been discovered; let us therefore read the books we like best, and do the things we like best; at least for the present, until some of our Scotch friends find out the why and

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the wherefore, which they assure us they are in a fair way for doing.

It can never be supposed, that what is called an argument will give any idea of a book; besides, whenever a new play makes its appearance, the newspapers next morning hang out its skeleton; if however any one's taste be so incurably anatomical, that he is not satiated by the shocking frequency of these chirurgical exhibitions, but must have a dry preparation, let him instantly repair to Mr. Dunlop's History of Fiction, where he will find the story stripped most carefully of its integuments.

There can be no great harm in arranging, as in a play, the names and characters of the several personages who appear in the course of the novel: it will be much shorter than an abstract of the story, which the reader will in some degree be enabled to make out for himself, and he will find ft a more amusing course than the rigid mode of drying an argument. The bill of the supposed play is as follows:

LAMON, a goatherd, the adoptive father of Daphnis.

DAPHNIS.

DRYAS, a shepherd, the adoptive father of Chloe.

Donco, a herdsman, a suitor of Chloe.

PHILETAS, an old herdsman.

BRYAXIS, a Methymnæan general.

HIPPASUS, a Mitylenæan general.

DIONYSOPHANES, the landlord and master of Lamon, and the real father of

Daphnis.

EUDROMUS, a servant of Dionysophanes.

LAMPIS, a suitor of Chloe.

ASTYLUS, Son of Dionysophanes.

GNATHO, a parasite, the companion of Astylus.

MEGACLES, the real father of Chloe.

THE WOMEN.

CHLOE,

LYCENIUM, (the young wife of an old husbandman) who takes an active

part in the education of Daphnis.

CLEARISTA, the wife of Dionysophanes, and mother of Daphnis.

MYRTALE, the wife of Lamon.

RUODE, the wife of Megacles, and mother of Chloe.

NAPE, the wife of Dryas.

Pan, the Nymphs, Tyrian Pirates, Shepherds, Suitors of Chloe, and Mithynæan Youths.

The Scene is at Mitylene, and in the adjoining country in the Island of Lesbos.

The most grave objection that has been brought against Longus, is that of Peter Daniel Huet, Bishop of Avranches, who asserts that this work is so indecent, that the man who can read it without blushing must of necessity be a cynic. “Opus alioqui tam obscænum est, ut qui sine rubore legat, eum Cynicum esse necesse est." What kind of a cynic or what kind of a philosopher a French bishop may be, it is not easy to guess: but bishops in all countries are such an ingenuous, shamefaced race, that there are, notwithstanding, many good books which they are not much inclined to read.

Others of the great and good, or what is precisely the same thing, of those who are the best paid for loudly proclaiming that they belong to those distinguished orders, have spoken of it with abhorrence, and called it filthy-no doubt with perfect sincerity; as a Scotch lady once affirmed, that she abhorred "the filthy practice of smearing the body all over with fresh spring-water."

The work being professedly erotic, and treating solely of love, it is a little unreasonable to expect from an ancient, that he should cautiously abstain from uttering a single syllable on that subject: had he been a modern, the case, to be sure, would have been widely different.

The 10th and 11th chapters of the 3rd Book, "quand il fait commettre à Daphnis une infidelitè par ignorance" (to adopt a happy French expression) many persons will doubtless think themselves obliged to censure. But the fault, after all, lies in the very objectionable mode which Nature has adopted for continuing the species: had the world been created in a highly civilized age like the present, we cannot doubt that these things would have been placed upon a much better footing. We should, in that case, be as happy as many of the early Christians were, who, in the days of their apologist, Minucius Felix, as he informs us, enjoyed a perpetual virginity, virginitate perpetuâ fruuntur;" and shewed therein as much good taste as a gentleman connected with the administration exhibited, "who always enjoyed a bad state of health," as the late lamented Lord 'Londonderry, in imitation perhaps of this very passage, classically observed.

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Another objection, more difficult to answer, is brought by Bayle, who complains that Chloe is too free of her kisses," la Bergere de Longus accorde des baisers trop promptement." The objection that" there was too much kissing in it," was once made to that truly German Pastoral, the Death of Abel, by an ingenious young Quaker-(may the Society of Friends pardon the incautious expression !)—by an ingenious young person, who was at that period of life when, if he had not been a Quaker, he might without impropriety have been called young. This undue promptitude must indeed be exceedingly offensive, if it can displease even Protestant Dissenters, who are uniformly remarkable for their erotic propensities.

But there is yet another objection made by the same Huet, which is a greater fault than the former: "Pejus etiam vitium est," says the Right Reverend Bishop; it is

What can

much worse than that cynical indecency which made the good father blush in such a distressing manner. this be? What but the perverse and preposterous conduct of the story, which absurdly begins with the infancy of the. hero and heroine, and cannot stop at their marriage, but goes on and on, to tell about their children and their old age. "Pejus etiam vitium est perversa et præpostera operis æconomia. A Pastorum cunabulis ineptè orditur, et vix in eorum nuptiis desinit: ad eorum usque liberos, imo et senectutem sua narraiione progreditur." Upon which Bayle jeeringly remarks, "C'est sortir entierement du vrai caractere de cette espèce d'écrits. Il les faut finir au jour des noces, et se taire sur les suites du marriage. Une heroïne de Roman grosse et accou-, chèe est un étrange personnage."

This is certainly an abomination; but is it true? Is the conduct of the story so perverse and preposterous? Does, it begin so absurdly with the cradles and infancy of the parties? The author proposes to tell the history of two foundlings :-is it very unreasonable then to find them first? Is not this rather a very legitimate application of the old rule, "first catch your hare?" In two short chapters (the work consists of 98) he despatches the infancy, he gets rid of the cradles, which are so odious to the Bishop; and in the very last chapter of the work the lovers are married, Their living to a great age, or having any children, is merely, mentioned incidentally. That the accusation of the supe-, rior indecency of the book is as unfounded as the greater, crime of the preposterous conduct of the story, will be easily divined after this specimen of ecclesiastical criticism.

It will perhaps be asked, are not the erotic writers in a bad taste? Are they not full of absurdit is? In literature, as in the arts, there are a few works, perhaps some half dozen, in which there is not any thing that we wish to be otherwise