Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

It might be supposed, that after so portentously marvellous an escape as the one just related, the unlucky couple might be allowed a short respite at least from the persecutions of adverse fortune. But perils in love succeed without an interval to perils in war. It is the invariable rule of all Greek romances, as we have remarked in a previous number, that the attractions both of the hero and heroine, should be perfectly irresistible by those of the other sex; and accordingly, the Egyptian officer Charmides no sooner beholds Leucippe, than he falls in love with her, and endeavours to gain over Menelaus to further his views. Menelaus feigns compliance, but privately gives information of the designs of Charmides to Clitophon, who is thrown into a dreadful state of consternation by his apprehensions of this powerful rival. At this juncture, however, Leucippe is suddenly seized with a fit of extravagant frenzy, which defies all the skill of the Egyptian camp; and under the influence of which she violently assaults her friends, and is guilty of sundry vagaries not altogether seemly in a well-bred young lady. Both her admirers, Charmides and Clitophon, are in despair, and equally in ignorance of the cause of her malady; but before any symptoms of amendment are perceptible, Charmides receives orders[5] to march with his whole force against the buccaniers, by whom he is inveigled into an ambuscade, and with most of his men either slain or drowned by the breaking of the dykes of the Nile. The madness of Leucippe is still incurable, till a stranger named Choereas makes his appearance, and introducing himself to Clitophon, informs him that he has discovered from the confession of a domestic, that Gorgias, an officer who fell in the late action with the _Bucoli_, captivated, like every one else, by the resistless charms of the heroine, had administered to her a philtre, the undue strength of which had excited frenzy instead of love. By the administration of proper remedies, the fair patient is now restored to her senses: and the total destruction of the robber-colony by a stronger force sent against them having rendered the navigation of the Nile again secure, the lovers once more embark for Alexandria, accompanied by Menelaus and Choereas, and at length arrive in safety at the city, which they find illuminated for the great feast of Serapis. The first sight of the glories of Alexandria, at the supposed period of the narrative the largest and most magnificent city in the world, and many ages subsequently second only to Imperial Rome herself, excites the astonishment and admiration of the newcomers:--and the author takes the opportunity to dilate, with pardonable complacency, on the magnitude and grandeur of the place of his birth. "When I entered the city," (says Clitophon,) "by the gates called those of the sun, its wonderful beauty flashed at once upon my sight, almost dazzling my eyes with the excess of gratification. A lofty colonnade of pillars, on each side of the street,[6] runs right from the gates of the sun on one side, to those of the moon, (for these are its guardian deities,) on the other; and the distance is such, that a walk through the city is in itself a journey. When we had proceeded several stadia, we arrived at the square named after Alexander, whence other colonnades, like those I saw extending in a right line before me, branched off right and left at right angles; and my eyes, never weary of wandering from one street to another, were unable to contemplate separately the various objects of attraction which presented themselves. Some I had before my eyes, some I was hastening to gaze upon, when I found myself unable to pass by others, while a fresh series of marvels still awaited me, so that my powers of vision were at last fairly exhausted, and obliged to confess themselves beaten. The vast extent of the city, and the innumerable multitude of the population, produced on the mind the effect of a double paradox; for regarding the one, the stranger wondered where such a city, which seemed as large as a continent, could find inhabitants; but when his attention was drawn to the other, he was again perplexed how so many people, more numerous than a nation, could find room in any single city. Thus the two conflicting feelings of amazement remained in equilibrio."

[5] These orders are said to have come from the "_satrap_,"
the Persian title having been retained under the Ptolemies,
for the governors of the _nomes_ or provinces. The description
of the stronghold of the buccaniers, in the deep recesses of a
marsh, and approachable only by a single hidden path, (like
the stockades of the North-American Indians in the swamps, as
described by Cotton Mather,) if not copied, like most of the
other Egyptian scenes, from the _Ethiopics_, presents a
curious picture of a class of men of whom few details are in
authentic history.

[6] The main street, according to Diodorus, was "forty stadia
in length, and a _plethrum_ (100 feet) in breadth; adorned
through its whole extent by a succession of palaces and
temples of the most costly magnificence. Alexander also
erected a royal palace, which was an edifice wonderful both
for its magnitude and the solidity of its architecture, and
all the kings who have succeeded him, even up to our times,
have spent great sums in further adorning and making additions
to it. On the whole, the city may be fairly reckoned as the
first in the world, whether for magnitude and beauty, for
traffic, or for the greatness of its revenues."--"It
comprehended," says Gibbon, speaking of it under the Roman
Emperors, "a circumference of fifteen miles, and was peopled
by 300,000 free inhabitants, besides, at least, an equal
number of slaves."

Choereas, himself a native of the city, who had been called upon to take service in the late expedition against the buccaniers, does the honours of the locale to his new friends:--but he is not proof against the fatal charms of Leucippe, and resorts to the old expedient of procuring her abduction by a crew of pirates while on an excursion to the Pharos. The vessel of the captors is, however, chased by a guard-boat, and on the point of being taken, when Leucippe is brought on deck and decapitated by the pirates, who throw the headless body into the sea, and make their escape; while Clitophon stays the pursuit, to recover the remains of his mistress for sepulture. Clitophon now returns to Alexandria to mourn for his lost love, and is still inconsolable at the end of six months, when he is surprised by the appearance of Clinias, whom he had supposed to have perished when the vessel foundered at sea. Clinias relates that having, like the others, floated on a piece of the wreck, he had been picked up by a ship, which brought him back to Sidon; and as his absence from home had been so short as not to have been generally noticed, he had thought it best not to mention it, especially as he had no good account to give of his fellow-fugitives. In the mean time, as Calligone is given up for lost, Sostratus, who has heard of his daughter's attachment to Clitophon, but not of the elopement, writes from Byzantium to give his consent to their union; and diligent enquiries are made in every direction for the runaway couple, till information is at length obtained that Clitophon has been seen in Egypt. His father, Hippias, is therefore preparing to set sail for Alexandria to bring back the truant, when Clinias, thinking it would be as well to forewarn Clitophon of what had occurred in his absence, starts without delay, unknown to Hippias, and reaches Alexandria before him.

The intelligence thus received throws Clitophon into fresh agonies of grief and remorse: he curses his own impatience in carrying off Leucippe, when a short delay would have crowned his happiness; accuses himself anew as the cause of her death; and declares his determination not to remain in Egypt and encounter his father. His friends, Menelaus and Clinias, in vain endeavour to combat this resolve; till the over-ready Satyrus finds an expedient for evading the difficulty. A young "Ephesian widow," named Melissa, fair and susceptible, who has lately lost her husband at sea, and become the heiress of his immense wealth, has recently (in obedience to the above-mentioned invariable law of Greek romance) fixed an eye of ardent affection on Clitophon; and it is suggested by his friends that, by marrying this new inamorata, and sailing with her forthwith on her return to Ephesus, his departure would at once be satisfactorily explained to his father on his arrival, and he might return to his friends at Tyre after their emotions at the tragical catastrophe of Leucippe had in some measure subsided. After much persuasion, Clitophon accedes to this arrangement, with the sole proviso that nothing but the _fiançailles_, or betrothal, shall take place in Egypt, and that the completion of the marriage shall be deferred till their arrival in Ephesus--on the plea that he cannot pledge his faith to another in the land where his beloved Leucippe met with her fate. This proposal, after vehement opposition on the part of the amorous Ephesian, is at last agreed to; and Clitophon, with his half-married bride, sets sail for Ephesus, accompanied by Clinias; while Menelaus, who remains in Egypt, undertakes the task of explaining matters to Hippias. The voyage is prosperously accomplished; and Melissa becomes urgent for the formal solemnization of the nuptials; while Clitophon continues to oppose frivolous delays which might have roused the anger of a lady even of a less ardent temperament. Her affection, however, continues undiminished; but Clitophon, while visiting, in her company, her country residence in the neighbourhood of the city, is thunderstruck by fancying that he recognizes, in the disfigured lineaments of a female slave, said to be a Thessalian of the name of Lacoena, who approaches Melissa to complain of the ill-treatment she has received from the steward, Sosthenes, the features of his lost Leucippe. His suspicions are confirmed by a billet which Leucippe conveys to him through Satyrus; and his situation becomes doubly perplexing, as Melissa, more than ever at a loss to comprehend the cause of his indifference, applies to Leucippe, (whom she supposes to possess the skill of the Thessalians in magic,) for a love-charm to compel his affections, promising her liberty as a reward. Leucippe is delighted by the proof which this request affords of the constancy of her lover; but the preparations for his marriage with Melissa still proceed, and evasion appears impossible; when at the preliminary banquet, the return of her husband, Thersander, is announced, who had been falsely reported to have perished by shipwreck. A terrible scene of confusion ensues, in which Thersander,

--"proceeding at a very high rate,
Shows the imperial penchant of a pirate."

Clitophon gets a violent beating, to which he submits with the utmost tameness, and is thrown into fetters by the enraged husband; and though Melissa, on certain conditions, furnishes him with the means of escape from the house in the disguise of a female, he again unluckily encounters Thersander, and is lodged in the prison of Ephesus. Leucippe, meanwhile, of whose unrivalled charms Thersander has been informed by Sosthenes, is still detained in bondage, and suffers cruel persecution from her brutal master; who, at last, having learned from an overheard soliloquy her true parentage and history, as well as her attachment for Clitophon, (of her relations with whom he was not previously aware,) forms a scheme of ridding himself of this twofold rival, by sending one of his emissaries into the prison, who gives out that he has been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Leucippe, who has been dispatched by assassins employed by the jealous Melissa. Clitophon at once gives full credence to this awkwardly devised tale, and determines not to survive his mistress, in spite of the remonstrances of Clinias, who argues with much reason, that one who had so often been miraculously preserved from death, might have escaped also on the present occasion. But Clitophon refuses to be comforted; and when brought before the assembly in the forum to stand his trial, on the charge, (apparently, for it is not very clearly specified,) of having married another man's wife, he openly declares himself guilty of Leucippe's murder, which he affirms to have been concerted between Melissa and himself, in order to remove the obstacle to their amours, and now revealed by him from remorse. He is, of course, condemned to death forthwith, and Thersander is triumphing in the unexpected success of his schemes, when the judicial proceedings are interrupted by the appearance of a religious procession, at the head of which Clitophon is astonished by recognizing his uncle Sostratus, the father of Leucippe, who had been deputed by the Byzantines to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, at the Temple of Diana, for their victory over the Thracians. On hearing the state of affairs, he furiously denounces the murderer of his daughter; but at this moment it is announced that Leucippe, whom Thersander had believed to be in safe custody, has escaped, and taken refuge in the Temple of Diana!

The interest of the story is now at an end; but much yet remains before the conclusion. Thersander, maddened at the prospect of being thus doubly baulked of his prey, throws gross aspersions on the purity of Leucippe, and even demands that Clitophon, in spite of his now manifest innocence, shall be executed in pursuance of the previous sentence! but the high-priest of Diana takes the lovers under his protection, and the cause is adjourned to the morrow. Leucippe now relates the circumstances of her captivity:--the Alexandrian pirates, having deceived their pursuers by beheading another captive dressed in her garments, had next fallen out with and murdered their base employer Choereas, and finally sold her for two thousand drachmas to Sosthenes: while from Sostratus, on the other hand, Clitophon receives tidings that his long-lost sister Calligone is on the point of marriage to Callisthenes, who, it will be remembered, had carried her off from Tyre by mistake for Leucippe, (having become enamoured of the latter without ever having seen her,) and on the discovery of his error, had made her all the amends in his power by an instant transfer of his affections. Thus everything is on the point of ending happily; but the sentence passed against Clitophon still remains unreversed, and Thersander, in the assembly of the following day, vehemently calls for its ratification. But the cause of the defendant is espoused by the high-priest, who lavishes on the character and motives of Thersander a torrent of abuse, couched in language little fitting his sacred character; while Thersander shows himself in this respect fully a match for his reverend antagonist, and, moreover, reiterates with fresh violence his previous charge against Leucippe. The debates are protracted to an insufferably tedious length; but the character of Leucippe is at last vindicated by her descent into a cavern, whence sounds of more than human melody are heard on the entrance of a damsel of untainted fame. The result of this ordeal is, of course, triumphant; and Thersander, overwhelmed with confusion makes his escape from the popular indignation, and is condemned to exile by acclamation as a suborner of false evidence; while the lovers, freed at length from all their troubles, sail for Byzantium in company with Sostratus; and after there solemnizing their own nuptials, return to Tyre to assist at those of Callisthenes and Calligone.

The leading defects observable in this romance are obviously the glaring improbability of many of the incidents, and the want of connexion and necessary dependence between the several parts of the story. Of the former--the device of the false stomach and theatrical dagger, by means of which Menelaus and Satyrus (after gaining, moreover, in a moment the full confidence of the buccaniers,) save the life of Leucippe when doomed to sacrifice, is the most flagrant instance; though her second escape from supposed death, when Clitophon imagines that he sees her head struck off by the Alexandrian pirates, is almost equally liable to the same objection; while in either case the deliverance of the heroine might as well have been managed, without prejudice either to the advancement or interest of the narrative, by more rational and probable methods. The too frequent introduction of incidents and personages not in any way connected with, or conducive to the progress of the main plot, is also objectionable, and might almost induce the belief that the original plan was in some measure altered or departed from in the course of composition. It is difficult to conceive for what purpose the character of Calligone, the sister and fiancée of Clitophon, is introduced among the dramatic personae. She appears at the beginning only to be carried off by Callisthenes as soon as Clitophon's passion for Leucippe makes her presence inconvenient, and we incidentally hear of her as on the point of becoming his bride at the conclusion; but she is seen only for a moment, and never permitted to speak, like a walking gentlewoman on the stage, and exercises not the smallest influence on the fortunes of the others. Gorgias is still worse used: he is a mere _nominis umbra_, of whose bodily presence nothing is made visible; nor is so much as his name mentioned, except for the purpose of informing us that it was through his agency that the love-potion was administered to Leucippe, and that he has since been killed in the action against the buccaniers. The whole incident of the philtre, indeed, and the consequent madness of the heroine, is unnatural and revolting, and serves no end but to introduce Choereas to effect a cure. But even had it been indispensable to the plot, it might have been far more probably ascribed to the Egyptian commander Charmides, with whose passion for Leucippe we were already acquainted, and who had, moreover, learned from Menelaus that he had little chance of success by ordinary methods, from the pre-engagement of the lady to Clitophon.

Nor are these defects compensated by any high degree of merit in the delineation of the characters. With the exception of Leucippe herself, they are all almost wholly devoid of individual or distinguishing traits, and insipid and uninteresting to the last degree. Menelaus and Clinias, the confidants and trusted friends of the hero, are the dullest of all dull mortals--a qualification which perhaps fits them in some measure for the part they are to bear in the story, as affording some security against their falling in love with Leucippe, a fate which they, of all the masculine personages, alone escape. Their active intervention is confined to the preservation of Leucippe from the _bucoli_ by Menelaus, and a great deal of useless declamation in behalf of Clitophon before the assembly of Ephesus from Clinias. Satyrus, also, from whose knavish ingenuity in the early part of the tale something better was to be expected, soon subsides into a well-behaved domestic, and hands his master the letter in which poor Leucippe makes herself known to him at Ephesus, when she imagines him married to Melissa, with all the nonchalance of a modern footman. Clitophon himself is hardly a shade superior to his companions. He is throughout a mere passive instrument, leaving to chance, or the exertions of others, his extrication from the various troubles in which he becomes involved: even of the qualities usually regarded as inseparable from a hero of romance, spirit and personal courage, he is so utterly destitute as to suffer himself to be beaten and ill treated, both by Thersander and Sostratus, without an attempt to defend himself; and his lamentations, whenever he finds himself in difficulties, or separated from his ladye-love, are absolutely puerile. As to the other characters, Thersander is a mere vulgar ruffian--"a rude and boisterous captain of the sea,"--whose brutal violence on his first appearance, and subsequent unprincipled machinations, deprive him of the sympathy which might otherwise have been excited in behalf of one who finds his wife and his property unceremoniously taken possession of during his absence; while, on the other hand, the language used by the high-priest of Diana, in his invectives against Thersander and his accomplices, gives but a low idea of the dignity or refinement of the Ephesian hierarchy. But the female characters, as is almost always the case in the Greek romances, are far better drawn, and infinitely more interesting, than the men. Even Melissa, though apparently intended only as a foil to the perfections of Leucippe, wins upon us by her amorous weakness, and the invincible kindness of heart which impels her, even when acquainted with the real state of affairs, to protect the lovers against her husband's malpractices. Leucippe herself goes far to make amends for the general insipidity of the other characters. Though not a heroine of so lofty a stamp as Chariclea, in whom the spirit of her royal birth is all along apparent, she is endowed with a mingled gentleness and firmness, which is strongly contrasted with the weakness and pusillanimity of her lover:--her uncomplaining tenderness, when she finds Clitophon at Ephesus (as she imagines) the husband of another, and the calm dignity with which she vindicates herself from the injurious aspersions of Thersander, are represented with great truth and feeling, and attach a degree of interest to her, which the other personages of the narrative are very far from inspiring.

In the early part of the story, during the scenes in Tyre and Egypt, the action is carried on with considerable spirit and briskness; the author having apparently thus far kept before him, as a model, the narrative of Heliodorus. But towards the conclusion, and, indeed from the time of the arrival of Clitophon and Melissa at Ephesus, the interest flags wofully. The _dénouement_ is inevitably foreseen from the moment Clitophon is made aware that Leucippe is still alive and in his neighbourhood, and the arrival of Thersander, almost immediately afterwards, disposes of the obstacle of his engagement to Melissa; but the reader is acquainted with all these circumstances before the end of the fifth book; the three remaining books being entirely occupied by the proceedings in the judicial assembly, the recriminations of the high-priest, and the absurd ordeal to which Leucippe is subjected--all apparently introduced for no other purpose than to show the author's skill in declamation. The display of his own acquirements in various branches of art and science, and of his rhetorical powers of language in describing them, is indeed an object of which Achilles Tatius never loses sight; and continual digressions from the thread of the story for this purpose occur, often extremely _mal-à-propos_, and sometimes entirely without reference to the preceding narrative. Thus, when Clitophon is relating the terms of an oracle addressed to the Byzantines, previous to their war with the Thracians, he breaks off at once into a dissertation on the wonderful qualities of the element of water, the inflammable springs of Sicily, the gold extracted from the lakes of Africa, &c.--all which is supposed to be introduced into a conversation on the oracle between Sostratus and his colleague in command, and could only have come to the knowledge of Clitophon by being repeated to him _verbatim_, after a considerable interval of time, by Sostratus. Again, in the midst of the hero's perplexities at his threatened marriage with Calligone, we are favoured with a minute enumeration of the gems set in an ornament which his father purchased as part of the trousseau; and this again leads to an account of the discovery and application of the purple dye. The description of objects of natural history is at all times a favourite topic; and the sojourn of the lovers in Egypt affords the author an opportunity of indulging in details relative to the habits and appearances of the various strange animals found in that country--the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the elephant, are described with considerable spirit and fidelity; and even the form and colours of the fabulous phoenix, are delineated with all the confidence of an eyewitness.

Many of these episodical sketches, though out of place when thus awkwardly inserted in the midst of the narrative, are in themselves curious and well written; but the most valuable and interesting among them are the frequent descriptions of paintings, a specimen of which has already been given. On this subject especially, the author dwells _con amore_, and his remarks are generally characterised by a degree of good taste and correct feeling, which indicates a higher degree of appreciation of the pictorial art than is generally ascribed to the age in which Achilles Tatius wrote. Even in the latter part of the first century of our era, Pliny, when enumerating the glorious names of the ancient Greek painters, laments over the total decline, in his own days, of what he terms (_Nat. Hist_. xxxv. 11) "an aspiring art;" but the monarchs of the Macedonian dynasties in Asia, and, above all, the Egyptian Ptolemies, were both munificent patrons of the fine arts among their own subjects, and diligent collectors of the great works of past ages; and many of the _chefs-d'oeuvres_ of the Grecian masters were thus transferred from their native country to adorn, the temples and palaces of Egypt and Syria. We find, from Plutarch, that when Aratus was exerting himself to gain for the Achæan league the powerful alliance of Ptolemy Euergetes, he found no means so effectual in conciliating the good-will of the monarch, as the procuring for him some of the master-pieces of Pamphilus[7] and Melanthius, the most renowned of the famous school of Sicyon; and the knowledge of the high estimation in which the arts were held, under the Egyptian kings, gives an additional value to the accounts given by Tatius of these treasures of a past age, his notices of which are the latest, in point of time, which have come down to us from an eyewitness. We have already quoted the author's vivid description of the painting of Europa at Sidon--we shall now subjoin, as a pendant to the former notice, his remarks on a pair of pictures at Pelusium:--

[7] Pamphilus was a Macedonian by birth, and a pupil of
Eupompus, the founder of the school of Sicyon; to the
presidency of which he succeeded. His pupils paid each a
talent a year for instruction; and Melanthius, and even
Apelles himself, for a time, were among the number.--Pliny,
_Hist. Nat_. xxxv. 36. The great talent of Melanthius, like
that of his master Pamphilus, lay in composition and grouping;
and so highly were his pictures esteemed, that Pliny, in
another passage, says, that the wealth of a city would hardly
purchase one.

"In this temple (of Jupiter Casius) were two famous works of
Evanthes, illustrative of the legends of Andromeda and
Prometheus, which the painter had probably selected as a pair,
from the similarity of the Subjects--the principal figure in
each being bound to a rock and exposed to the attack of a
terrific animal; in one case a denizen of the air, in the
other a monster of the sea; and the deliverers of both being
Argives, and of kindred blood to each other, Hercules and
Perseus--the former of whom encountered, on foot, the savage
bird sent by Jove, while the latter mounted on borrowed wings
into the air, to assail the monster which issued from the sea
at the command of Neptune. In the picture of Andromeda, the
virgin was laid in a hollow of the rock, not fashioned by art,
but rough like a natural cavity; and which, if viewed only
with regard to the beauty of that which it contained, looked
like a niche holding an exquisite fresh from the chisel; but
the sight of her bonds, and of the monster approaching to
devour her, gave it rather the aspect of a sepulchre. On her
features extreme loveliness was blended with deadly terror,
which was seated on her pallid cheeks, while beauty beamed
forth from her eyes; but, as even amid the pallor of her
cheeks a faint tinge of colour was yet perceptible, so was the
brightness of her eyes, on the other hand, in some measure
dimmed, like the bloom of lately blighted violets. Her white
arms were extended, and lashed to the rock; but their
whiteness partook of a livid hue, and her fingers were like
those of a corpse. Thus lay she, expecting death, but arrayed
like a bride, in a long white robe, which seemed not as if
woven from the fleece of the sheep, but from the web of the
spider, or of those winged insects, the long threads spun by
which are gathered by the Indian women from the trees of their
own country. The monster was just rising out of the sea
opposite to the damsel, his head alone being distinctly
visible, while the unwieldy length of his body was still in a
great measure concealed by the waves, yet so as partially to
discover his formidable array of spines and scales, his
swollen neck, and his long flexible tail, while the gape of
his horrible jaws extended to his shoulder, and disclosed the
abyss of his stomach. But between the monster and the damsel,
Perseus was depicted descending to the encounter from the
upper regions of the air--his body bare, except a mantle
floating round his shoulders, and winged sandals on his
feet--a cap resembling the helmet of Pluto was on his head,
and in his left hand he held before him, like a buckler, the
head of the Gorgon, which even in the pictured representation
was terrible to look at, shaking its snaky hair, which seemed
to erect itself and menace the beholder. His right hand
grasped a weapon, in shape partaking of both a sickle and a
sword; for it had a single hilt, and to the middle of the
blade resembled a sword; but there it separated into two
parts, one continuing straight and pointed, like a sword,
while the other was curved backwards, so that with a single
stroke, it might both inflict a wound, and fix itself in the
part struck. Such was the picture of Andromeda; the design of
the other was thus:--

"Prometheus was represented bound down to a rock, with fetters
of iron, while Hercules, armed with a bow and arrow, was seen
approaching. The vulture, supporting himself by fixing his
talons in the thigh of Prometheus, was tearing open the
stomach of his victim, and apparently searching with his beak
for the liver, which it was his destiny daily to devour, and
which the painter had shown through the aperture of the wound.
The whole frame of the sufferer was convulsed, and his limbs
contracted with torture, so that, by raising his thigh, he
involuntarily presented his side to the bird--while the other
limb was visibly quivering in its whole length, with
agony--his teeth were clenched, his lips parted, and his brows
wrinkled. Hercules had already fitted the arrow to the bow, and
aimed it against his tormentor: his left arm was thrown
forward grasping the stock, while the elbow of the right was
bent in the attitude of drawing the arrow to his breast; while
Prometheus, full of mingled hope and fear, was endeavouring to
fix his undivided gaze on his deliverer, though his eyes, in
spite of himself, were partially diverted by the anguish of
his wound."

The work of Achilles Tatius, with all its blemishes and defects, appears to have been highly popular among the Greeks of the lower empire. An epigram is still extant, attributed to the Emperor Leo, the philosopher,[8] in which it is landed as an example of chaste and faithful love: and it was esteemed as a model of romantic composition from the elegance of its style and diction, in which Heretius ranks the author above Heliodorus, though he at the same time severely criticizes him for want of originality, accusing him of having borrowed all the interesting passages in his work from the _Ethiopics_. In common with Heliodorus, Tatius has found a host of followers among the later Greeks, some of whom (as the learned critic just quoted, observes) have transcribed, rather than imitated him. In the "Hysminias and Hysmine" of Eumathius, a wretched production of the twelfth century, not only many of the incidents, but even of the names, as Sostratus, Sosthenes, and Anthia, are taken from Clitophon and Leucippe: and to so servile an extent is this plagiarism carried, that two books out of the nine, of which the romance consists, are filled with descriptions of paintings; while the plot, not very intelligible at the best, is still further perplexed by the extraordinary affectation of making nearly all the names alike; thus, the hero and heroine are Hysminias and Hysmine, the towns are Aulycomis, Eurycomis, Artycomis, &c. In all these works, the outline is the same; the lovers undergo endless buffetings by sea and land, imaginary deaths, and escapes from marauders; but not a spark of genius or fancy enlivens these dull productions, which, sometimes maudlin and bombastic, often indecent, would defy the patience of the most determined novel reader. One of these writers, Xenophon of Ephesus, the author of the "Ephesiacs, or Habrocomas and Anthia," is commended by Politian for the classical purity of his language, in which he considers him scarcely inferior to his namesake the historian: but the work has little else to recommend it. The two principal personages are represented as miracles of personal beauty; and the women fall in love with Habrocomas, as well as the men with Anthia, literally by dozens at a time: the plot, however differs from that of the others in marrying them at the commencement, and sending them through the ordinary routine of dangers afterwards. The _Ephesiacs_ are, however, noticeable from its having been supposed by Mr Douce, (_Illustrations of Shakspeare_, ii. 198,) that the catastrophe in Romeo and Juliet was originally borrowed from one of the adventures of Anthia, who, when separated from her husband, is rescued from banditti by Perilaus, governor of Cilicia, and by him destined for his bride. Unable to evade his solicitations, she procures from the "poverty, not the will" of an aged physician named Eudoxus, what she supposes to be a draught of poison, but which is really an opiate. She is laid with great pomp, loaded with gems and costly ornaments, in a vault; and on awakening, finds herself in the hands of a crew of pirates, who have broken open her sepulchre in order to rifle the treasures which they knew to have been deposited there. "This work," (observes Mr Douce,) "was certainly not published nor translated in the time of Luigi da Porto, the original narrator of the story of Romeo and Juliet: but there is no reason why he might not have seen a copy of the original in MS. We might enumerate several more of these later productions of the same school; but a separate analysis of each would be both tedious and needless, as none present any marked features of distinction from those already noticed. They are all, more or less, indifferent copies either from Heliodorus or Achilles Tatius; the outline of the story being generally borrowed from one or the other of these sources, while in point of style, nearly all appear to have taken as their model the florid rhetorical display and artificial polish of language which characterize the latter. Their redeeming point is the high position uniformly assigned to the female characters, who are neither immured in the Oriental seclusion of the harem, nor degraded to household drudges, like the Athenian ladies in the polished age of Pericles:[9] but mingle without restraint in society as the friends and companions of the other sex, and are addressed in the language of admiration and respect. But these pleasing traits are not sufficient to atone for the improbability of the incidents, relieved neither by the brilliant fancy of the East, nor the lofty deeds of the romances of chivalry: and the reader, wearied by the repetition of similar scenes and characters, thinly disguised by change of name and place, finds little reason to regret that "the children of the marriage of Theagenes and Chariclea," as these romances are termed by a writer quoted by d'Israeli in the "Curiosities of Literature"--have not continued to increase and multiply up to our own times.

[8] Some bibliographers have assigned it to Photius; but the
opinion of Achilles Tatius expressed by the patriarch, and
quoted at the commencement of this article, precludes the
possibility of its being from his pen.

[9] See Mitford's _History of Greece_, ch. xiii, sect. 1.

* * * * *

THE NEW ART OF PRINTING.

BY A DESIGNING DEVIL.

"Aliter non fit, avite, liber."--MARTIAL.

It is more than probable that, at the first discovery of that mightiest of arts, which has so tended to facilitate every other--the art of printing--many old-fashioned people looked with a jealous eye on the innovation. Accustomed to a written character, their eyes became wearied by the crabbedness and formality of type. It was like travelling on the paved and rectilinear roads of France, after winding among the blooming hedgerows of England; and how dingy and graceless must have appeared the first printed copy of the Holy Bible, to those accustomed to luxuriate in emblazoned missals, amid all the pride, pomp, and vellum of glorious MS.!

Dangerous and democratic, too, must have appeared the new art, which, by plebeianizing knowledge and enlightening the mass, deprived the law and the prophets of half their terrors, and disrobed priestcraft and kingcraft of their mystery. We can imagine that, as soon as a printed book ceased to be a great rarity, it became an object of great abhorrence.

There were many, no doubt, to prophesy, as on occasion of every new invention, that it was all very well for a novelty; but that the thing would not, and could not last! How were the poor copyists to get their living if their occupation was taken from them? How were so many monasteries to be maintained which had subsisted on _manuscriptum_? And, then, what prince in his right senses would allow a printing-press to be set up in his dominions--a source of sedition and heresy--an implement of disaffection and schism? The free towns, perhaps, might foster this pernicious art, and certain evilly-disposed potentates wink at the establishment of type-founderies in their states. But the great powers of Europe knew better! They would never connive at this second sowing of the dragon's teeth of Cadmus.

Thus, probably, they argued; becoming reconciled, in process of time, to the terrible novelty. Print-books became almost as easy to read as manuscript; soon as cheap, and at length of a quarter the price, or even less; till, two centuries later, benefit of clergy ceased to be a benefit, books were plenty as blackberries, and learning a thing for the multitude. According to Dean Swift's account, the chaplain's time hung heavy on his hands, for my lady had sermon books of her own, and could read; nay, my lady's woman had jest books of her own, and wanted none of his nonsense! The learned professions, or black arts, lost at least ninety-five per cent in importance; and so rapid as been the increase of the evil, that, at this time of day, it is a hard matter to impose on any clodpole in Europe! Instead of signing with their marks, the kings of modern times have turned ushers; instead of reading with difficulty, we have a mob of noblemen who write with ease; and, now-a-days, it is every duke, ay, and every duchess her own book-maker!

A year or two hence, however, and all this will have become obsolete.--_Nous avons changé tout cela!_--No more letter-press! Books, the _small_ as well as the great, will have been voted a great evil. There will be no gentlemen of the press. The press itself will have ceased to exist.

For several years past it has been frankly avowed by the trade that books have ceased to sell; that the best works are a drug in the market; that their shelves groan, until themselves are forced to follow the example.

Descend to what shifts they may in order to lower their prices, by piracy from other booksellers, or clipping and coining of authors--no purchasers! Still, the hope prevailed for a time among the lovers of letters, that a great glut having occurred, the world was chewing the cud of its repletion; that the learned were shut up in the Bodleian, and the ignorant battening upon the circulating libraries; that hungry times would come again!

But this fond delusion has vanished. People have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned things called books, but even to read them! Instead of cutting new works, page by page, people cut them altogether! To far-sighted philosophers, indeed, this was a state of things long foreshown. It could not be otherwise. The reading world was a sedentary world. The literary public was a public lying at anchor. When France delighted in the twelve-volume novels of Mademoiselle de Scudéri, it drove in coaches and six, at the rate of four miles an hour; when England luxuriated in those of Richardson, in eight, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlours, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of the _Spectator_, or a few pages of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, or a new sermon. To their unincidental lives, a book was an event.

Those were the days worth writing for! The fate of Richardson's heroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to "spare Clarissa," as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a new Effie Deans. The successive volumes of _Pope's Iliad_ were looked for with what is called "breathless" interest, while such political sheets as the _Drapier's Letters_, or _Junius_, set the whole kingdom in an uproar! And now, if Pope, or Swift, or Fielding, or Johnson, or Sterne, were to rise from the grave, MS. in hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! "Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries," he would observe, "do not expect, sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs; are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!"

And who can wonder? _Who_ has leisure to read? _Who_ cares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative? _Who_ wants to peruse fictitious adventures, when railroads and steamboats woo him to adventures of his own? Egypt was once a land of mystery; now, every lad, on leaving Eton, yachts it to the pyramids. India was once a country to dream of over a book. Even quartoes, if tolerably well-seasoned with suttees and sandalwood, went down; now, every genteel family has its "own correspondent," per favour of the Red Sea; and the best printed account of Cabul would fall stillborn from the press. As to Van Dieman's Land, it is vulgar as the Isle of Dogs; and since people have steamed it backwards and forwards across the Atlantic more easily than formerly across the Channel, every woman chooses to be her own Trollope--every man his own Boz!

For some time after books had ceased to find a market, the periodicals retained their vogue; and even till very lately, newspapers found readers. But the period at length arrived, when even the leisure requisite for the perusal of these lighter pages, is no longer forthcoming. People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along railroads; or migrating like swallows or wild-geese. It has been found, within the current year, impossible to read even a newspaper!

The march of intellect, however, luckily keeps pace with the necessities of the times; and no sooner was it ascertained, that reading-made-easy was difficult to accomplish, than a new art was invented for the more ready transmission of ideas. The fallacy of the proverb, that "those who run may read," being established, modern science set about the adoption of a medium, available to those sons of the century who are always on the run. Hence, the grand secret of ILLUSTRATION.--Hence the new art of printing!

The pictorial printing-press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are not _told_, but _shown_ how the world is wagging. The magazines sketch us a lively article, the newspapers vignette us, step by step, a royal tour. The beauties of Shakspeare are imprinted on the minds of the rising generation, in woodcuts; and the poetry of Byron engraver in their hearts, by means of the graver. Not a boy in his teens has read a line of Don Quixote or Gil Blas, though all have their adventures by heart; while Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" has been committed to memory by our daughters and wives, in a series of exquisite illustrations. Every body has La Fontaine by heart, thanks to the pencil of Granville, which requires neither grammar nor dictionary to aid its interpretations; and even Defoe--even the unparalleled Robinson Crusoe--is devoured by our ingenuous youth in cuts and come again.

At present, indeed, the new art of printing is in its infancy, but it is progressing so rapidly, that the devils of the old will soon have a cold birth of it! Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy Scriptures; and a pictorial Blackstone is teaching the ideas of the sucking lawyers how to shoot. Nay, Buchan's "Domestic Medicine" has (proh pudor!) its illustrated edition.

The time saved to an active public by all this, is beyond computation. All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and dumb; and instead of having to peruse a tedious penny-a-line account of the postilion of the King of the French misdriving his Majesty, and his Majesty's august family, over a draw-bridge into a moat at Tréport, a single glance at a single woodcut places the whole disaster graphically before us; leaving us nine minutes and a half of the time we must otherwise have devoted to the study of the case, to dispose of at our own will and pleasure; to start, for instance, for Chelsea, and be back again by the steam-boat, before our mother knows we are out.

The application of the new art is of daily and hourly extension. The scandalous Sunday newspapers have announced an intention of evading Lord Campbell's act, by veiling their libels in caricature. Instead of _writing_ slander and flat blasphemy, they propose to _draw_ it, and not draw it mild. The daily prints will doubtless follow their example. No more Jenkinsisms in the _Morning Post_, concerning fashionable parties. A view of the duchess's ball-room, or of the dining-table of the earl, will supersede all occasion for lengthy fiddle-faddle. The opera of the night before will be described in a vignette--the ballet in a tail-piece; and we shall know at a glance whether Cerito and Elssler performed their _pas_ meritoriously, by the number of bouquets depicted at their feet.

On the other hand, instead of column after column of dry debates, we shall know sufficiently who were the speakers of the preceding night, by a series of portraits--each having an annexed trophy, indicative of the leading points of his oration. Members of both Houses will be, of course, daguerreotyped for the use of the morning papers; and photographic likenesses of the leaders of _ton_ be supplied gratis to the leaders of the press.

How far more interesting a striking sketch of a banquet, containing portraits of undoubted authenticity, to the matter-of-fact announcements of the exploded letter-press--that "yesterday his Grace the Duke of Wellington entertained at dinner, at Apsley House, the Earls of Aberdeen and Liverpool, the Dukes of Richmond and Buccleuch, the Master of the Horse, the Lord Chancellor, Sir Robert Peel, Sir James Graham, Sir Frederick Trench, Colonel Gurwood, and M. Algernon Greville!" Who has patience for the recapitulation of a string of names, when a group of faces may be placed simultaneously before him?

And then, accounts of races! How admirably will they be concentrated into a delineation of the winner passing the post--the losers distances; and what disgusting particulars of boxing matches shall we avoid by a spirited etching. Think of despatches from India, (one of Lord Ellenborough's XXXX,) published in a series of groupings worthy the frescoes of the tomb of Psammis. As to the affairs of China, we shall henceforward derive as much pleasure from the projects of Sir Henry Pottinger, cut in wood by the _Morning Herald_, as in surveying the Mandarins sailing on buffaloes through the air, or driving in junks over meadows, in one of Wedgewood's soup plates!

It has long been the custom for advertisers in the continental journals to typify their wares. The George Robinses of Brussels, for instance, embody their account of some exquisite villa in a charming perspective of the same, or of a capital town mansion in a grim likeness; while the _carossiers_, who have town chariots or family coaches to dispose of, make it known in the most designing manner. The consequence is, that the columns of certain foreign papers bear a striking likeness to a child's alphabet, such as "A was an archer, and shot at a frog." Among ourselves, this practice is at present only partially adopted. We are all familiar with the shape of Mr Cox Savory's tea-pots, and Messrs Dondney's _point-device_ men in buckram; while Mordan acquaints us, with much point, how many varieties he has invented of pencil-cases and toothpicks. As to the London Wine Company, the new art has long imprinted upon our minds a mysterious notion of a series of vaults in the style of the Thames tunnel, frequented by figures armed with spigots and dark lanterns, that remind us of Guy Fawkes, and make us tremble for ourselves and Father Mathew! Loose notions of the stay-making trade have been circulated by the same medium; and we have noticed wood-blocks of wig-blocks, deservedly immortalizing the pernquier.

But consider what it will be when the system is adopted on a more comprehensive scale. The daily papers will present a series of designs, remarkable as those of the Glyptothek and Pinacothek at Munich; and in all probability, the artists of the prize cartoons will be engaged in behalf of the leading journals of Europe. Who cannot foresee her Majesty's drawing-room illustrated by Parris! Who cannot conceive the invasion of Britain outdone in an allegorical leading article: "Louis Philippe (in a Snooks-like attitude) inviting Queen Victoria to St Cloud; and the British lion lashing out its tail at the Coq Gaulois!"

As to the affairs of Spain, they will be a mine of wealth to the new press--_L'Espagne Pittoresque_ will sell thousands more copies than Spain Constitutionalized; and let us trust that Sir George Hayter will instantly "walk his chalks," and secure us the Cortes in black and white.

The Greek character will now become easy to decipher; and the evening papers may take King Otho both off the throne and on. The designs of Russia have long been proverbial; but the exercise of the new art of printing may assign them new features. The representations of impartial periodicals will cut out, or out-cut De Custine; and while contemplating the well-favoured presentment of Nicholas I., we shall exclaim--"Is this a tyrant that I see before me?" Nothing will be easier then to throw the Poles into the shade of the picture, or to occupy the foreground with a brilliant review.

As to Germany, to embody her in the hieroglyphics of the new press, might be a study for Retsch; and who will care for the lumbering pages of Von Raumer, or the wishy-washy details of Kohl, when able, in an _augenblick_, to bring Berlin and Vienna before him; to study the Zollverein in the copy of the King of Prussia's cogitative countenance, and ascertain the views of Metternich concerning the elder branch of the Bourbons, by a _cul de lampe_ in the _Morning Chronicle_!

We have little doubt of shortly seeing announcements--standing like tombstones in those literary cemeteries, the Saturday papers--of "A new work upon America, from the graver of George Cruickshank;" or "A new fashionable novel, (diamond edition,) from the accomplished pencil of H.B." Kenny Meadows will become the Byron of the day, Leech the Scott, Forrester the Marryatt, Phiz the Trollope; Stanfield and Turner will be epic poets, Landseer preside over the belles-lettres, and Webster and Stone become the epigrammatists and madrigalists of the press.