suaded meanwhile to be led off quietly to the stable; where he is most unceremoniously kicked out of the stall by his own white horse, and presently afterwards carefully beaten by his own slave with a huge green cudgel.

It is impossible not to pause here and reflect a moment.The calamity was great; but let us hear his reason for wishing to be able to take the form of an owl at pleasure: he does not dissemble that it was to enable him, without suspicion, to pay nightly visits to certain married ladies in the neighbourhood, and to caress them without injury to their characters, and in spite of all the precautions of jealousy ; a natural wish enough perhaps! but some heavy punishment as naturally follows presumption, even in thought. To the frequent practice of lovers calling upon their mistresses in this disguise, he attributes the custom of nailing to the wall of a house the bodies of such owls as have been killed in the vicinity, in order to scare away amorous visitants. The gibbetting is in full force in this virtually-represented nation, as the bodies of feathered malefactors every where testify; but the reason for these executions is not generally known, because the secret of these little misfortunes is better kept than love-secrets commonly are, or because lovers (which it is hard to believe) are no longer willing to be impaled.

Whilst the long-eared platonist is brooding over the injuries which his leathern coat has just sustained, and is expecting that the dawn will bring Photis and roses, a band of robbers plunder the miser's house, enter the stable, load the philosopher with the spoil, and drive him off, in company with his own horse, to their cave. To just such a cave as we were all confined in, when school-boys, with Gil Blas de Santillane. Then follow adventures innumerable, in a series and long order, each that succeeds more engaging than

the last; in short, the book cannot be laid down until finished. It must be drunk at one draught. It must be taken up at sunrise on the feast of St. Barnabas, the longest and the brightest day, that the sun may not go down upon the metamorphosed Lucius, but that just before sunset he may eat his roses and become a man.

When young, we all read the Adventures of a Guinea, of an Atom, of a Sopha, of a Silver Penny, and of a thousand. other things; we have not now a very distinct remembrance of what any one of these books is about, we have only a general recollection that we experienced pleasure in the perusal it is an agreeable mode of stringing together adventures, and the Golden Ass is beyond comparison the best work of the kind.

There is moreover in this book something quite peculiar, of which we see no vestige elsewhere: it excites an expectation even from the commencement, a breathless curiosity, an anticipation of the marvellous so intense, that we feel prepared for whatever happens; it seems to be no more than we expected, however strange, new, or incredible. These feelings are in some degree described in what Lucius experienced the morning after his arrival at Hypata, the city of Magic.

"I saw nothing in that city which I could believe to be what it really was, but I felt that every thing had been changed into another form by some fatal whisper, so that even the stones which I trod upon had been hardened out of men, and the birds which I heard had been feathered in the same manner, and the trees which surrounded the walls had thus been covered leaves, and that the fountain streams were but flowing human bodies. I expected that the statues and images would presently begin to walk and the walls to speak, that the oxen and cattle would utter some divination, and that from the heavens and the circle of the sun an oracle

would suddenly descend. Being thus confounded, nay, rather benumbed by an excruciating desire, and unable to find any commencement, or even the least trace of what I sought, I wandered about every where."

"Nec fuit in illa civitate, quod aspiciens, id esse crederem quod esset, sed omnia prorsus ferali murmure in aliam effigiem translata, ut et lapides quos offenderem, de homine duratos; et aves, quas audirem, indidem plumatas; et arbores quæ pomerium ambirent, foliatas similiter, et fontanos latices de corporibus humanis fluxos crederem. Jam statuas et imagines incessuras, parietes locuturos, boves et id genus pecua dictura præsagium; de ipso vero cœlo, et jubaris orbe subito venturum oraculum. Sic attonitus, immo verò cruciabili desiderio stupidus, nullo quidem initio vel omnino vestigio cupidinis meæ reperto, cuncta circuibam.”

In some parts of England, as the Western district of Yorkshire, they prepare a sauce for boiled meat, generally for veal, in great measure, if not altogether, of sorrel. The leaves are placed in a wooden bowl, and upon them a large stone ball, like a cannon-ball; the lady-cook, seating herself upon a low stool, takes the bowl between her knees, and by well-timed motions, persuades the stone to roll about, until the sorrel is reduced to a smooth pulp. However incredible it may appear to some, that any effect produced in this manner can be agreeable, the sauce is certainly most delicious; it tastes of the veriest freshness of the spring. Those who have witnessed this singular culinary operation will be forcibly reminded of it by a passage, where Lucius finds Photis preparing, not sorrel-sauce, but some kind of minced-meat, in an attitude nearly similar.

"She was dressed neatly in a linen tunic, with a bright red sash tied rather high under her bosom, and was turning. the bowl round and round with her rosy little hands, often

shaking it up gently whilst it revolved, and moving her limbs softly, with her loins just quivering, and her flexible back quietly stirring, she waved it gracefully."

"Ipsa linea tunica mundulè amicta, et russea fasciola prænitente altiusculè sub ipsas papillas succinctula, illud cibarium vasculum floridis palmulis rotabat in circulum; et in orbis flexibus crebra succutiens, et simul membra sua leniter illubricans, lumbis sensim vibrantibus, spinam mobilem quatiens placidè, decenter undabat."

Apuleius seems to have been an enthusiast in hair, and ardently to have admired an elegant head dress; this is not inconsistent with the beauty of his own tresses: he is eloquent and impassioned when he speaks of those of Photis, yet what he says is of too heating a nature to be admitted into a composition of cool criticism, and must therefore be passed

over.

:

But is not the whole work of a somewhat licentious cast? It is a common complaint that novelists always write about love this is true-but what else have they. to write about? -that they write too warmly: this is also true-they do write too warmly; but such as they are we must read them, until some one descends from heaven, at once calm and readable.

The most objectionable part of the Golden Ass is an allegorical satire on the female sex, which it is impossible to justify; but at the same time it is so clever, that it is equally impossible for either man or woman to be outrageously angry. On the other hand, the story of Cupid and Psyche is not only one uniform piece of loveliness, but is so delicate (even in the modern and least estimable sense of the word) that it might be read at school by a class; of young ladies. This episode is entirely the invention of Apuleius ; it fills

more than two whole books, and is replete with erudition

and pleasure.

The Emperor Severus professed to despise what he called the Punic tales of Apuleius;-the censure of an Emperor may recommend them to some readers.

Macrobius, in his Exposition of the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, says:→

"Fables that delight the ear, like the comedies which Menander and his imitators wrote for representation, or stories full of the feigned adventures of lovers, in which Petronius practised much, and Apuleius sometimes amused himself to our great surprise" (and to the sorrow of consular men like myself, who cannot afford to be jocose) "all fables of this kind, which profess only to delight the ears, wisdom banishes from her sanctuary to the cradles of nurses."

66

Auditum mulcent, velut comediæ, quales Menander, ejusve imitatores agendas dederunt: vel argumenta fictis casibus amatorum referta: quibus vel multum se Arbiter exercuit vel Apuleium nonnunquam lusisse miramur. Hoc totum fabularum genus, quod solas aurium delicias profitetur, e sacrario suo in nutricum cunas sapientiæ tractatus eliminat."

If the use of such books only as they can read without delight be permitted to the wise, we the foolish shall almost doubt, whether it is not better to lie in the cradle with the nurse, than to sit in the sacristy with the philosopher.

A person who would take the pains and had the requisite qualifications, and he must have a great many, might draw up a very curious and instructive commentary on this romance, which contains many uncommon words, worthy of explanation, as being intimately connected with the history and manners of the second century. The last book