a part in theological controversy from the third to the 18th century, and exercised the minds of champions of Christianity from St Augustine to Bishop Warburton. By its narrative power and pictorial richness it took by storm the romantic world of the early and the late Renaissance. Boccaccio drew from it some of his inspiration. It was one of the first books to be printed (1469). From it, in all probability, Cervantes borrowed. Translated into the principal languages of Europe, it was known to English readers in the admirable version of the Elizabethan William Adlington. On the one hand, it appealed by its erudite preciosity of elaborated phrase to the Euphuists; on the other, it called down a special outpouring of the wrath of Puritan writers like Stephen Gosson. In later times, students of religious observances and ritual have recognised the value of its description of the worship of Isis. Historians have

ransacked its pages for vivid details of the manners and customs of the provinces in the second century of the Roman Empire. Melancthon thought that the language of Apuleius resembled the braying of his own ass; but philologists have never ceased to explore the collection of archaic, obsolete, vernacular, and newly coined words which are so carefully gathered and patiently compounded into his elaborate Asianic style. And, perhaps above all, the most pleasaunt and delectable tale of the Marriage of Cupide and Psyches' has not only delighted lovers of folk-lore, but fascinated the imagination of painters, musicians, and sculptors, of masters of prose like Walter Pater, and of a long line of poets which ends with the present laureate.

The early life of Apuleius is known in outline from the speech which he delivered in his own defence against the charge of magic, supplemented by such biographical details as may be safely gathered from 'The Golden Ass and his other works. Born about 125 A.D.* in the highly Romanised city of Madaura in Africa, he was the son of a wealthy magnate from whom he inherited a considerable fortune. In the schools of his birthplace he learnt

The dates are those accepted by Messrs Butler and Owen in their edition of the 'Apologia.'

his rudiments. At Carthage he advanced to rhetoric. In the University of Athens he studied philosophy, especially Plato, and cultivated the nine muses, as he says himself, 'with more will than skill.' His mind inclined strongly to the investigation of the channels of communication between the seen and unseen worlds, between the gods and their creatures. These were the mysteries which his romantic temperament delighted to explore. All those psychical phenomena which would now be described as telepathic, auto-suggestive, hypnotic, or subliminal, fascinated his imagination. They stimulated his curiosity to inquire into divinations and auguries, the predictions of soothsayers, and all the occult powers which wizards and witches claimed to exercise. Probably these researches inspired his extensive travels in Asia Minor; they certainly suggested his initiation into many mysterious rites of religion, and especially into those of Isis and Osiris at Corinth and Rome.

Still under thirty years of age, he returned to settle in Africa, bringing with him vast stores of miscellaneous if superficial learning, and a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of existence which time and study had rather stimulated than satisfied. A facile, showy speaker, he speedily made his name as an advocate, but still more as a popular lecturer, travelling from city to city and attracting large audiences. On one of his journeys he fell sick at Tripoli. There he remained many months, and there (about 155 A.D.) he married a wealthy widow named Pudentilla, the mother of a fellow-student at Athens. So far as the lady was concerned, there was nothing extraordinary in the marriage. She wanted to marry again, and her son was anxious that his friend should become his stepfather. On the other hand, the bridegroom was several years younger than the bride, good-looking, apparently something of a fop, already famous, and fairly well off. The marriage settlements were generous in their protection of the interests of the two stepsons. So far as the material advantages went, Apuleius gained little; and no sorcery seems necessary to explain the attraction of Pudentilla towards her suitor. But the bride's relations resented the possible loss of her money to the family. Some three years after the wedding, they tried to set the marriage aside, on the

ground that Apuleius had procured it by the exercise of magical powers. In a similar fashion, probably, the witch-finders of Würzburg or the Cotton Mathers of New England used popular superstitions to further private ends.

The charge was serious. Put upon his trial, Apuleius conducted his own defence. He had no difficulty in disposing of the specific accusation, and in exposing the motives of his accusers. But he did not attempt to meet the more general charge. On the contrary, he did not conceal that he was deeply interested, and had even dabbled, in matters akin to the subject of the accusation. He confesses his faith in divinations and the powers of magicians. He admits a knowledge of the use of a medium, and does not disguise his belief that human beings, in temporary trances, may be so divorced from the trammels of the flesh as to return to their divine immortal nature and foretell future events. Among the charges against him was the possession of mysterious 'somethings' which he carefully concealed. In reply he acknowledges that he jealously guarded from the eyes of the profane the sacred emblems of the religious mysteries into which he had been admitted. On such admissions, in the 17th century, it would have gone hardly with Apuleius. The second century was more enlightened or more indifferent. He carried the Court with him when he took the war into his opponent's camp. Surely, he urged, the reverence of things divine is better than the mockery of the prosecutor-a man who never entered a temple, never uttered a prayer, never acknowledged a shrine with a kiss of his hand, and on the whole of his land had neither anointed stone nor garlanded bough. His speech appears to have secured his triumphant acquittal.

Throughout the whole course of the trial, neither Apuleius nor his accuser mentions The Golden Ass.' In some respects the book seems to be a youthful work, though the argument which is drawn from the exuberance of the style is ineffective. At any period of his life Apuleius would probably have adopted the same literary device to raise the level of the story. But, if the book had been in existence, and published, at the time of the trial, it seems difficult to explain why it was not used

against the author. The silence becomes the more inexplicable when it is remembered that Apuleius identifies himself with the hero of his story. On this strong, but purely negative, evidence is based the opposing view that the book was written, or at all events published, later than the trial, that is at some period subsequent to A.D. 158.

Henceforward Apuleius seems to have fixed his headquarters at Carthage. There, in his lifetime, a statue was erected in his honour, as the city's tribute to his learning and eloquence. There, also, he became sacerdos provinciæ, privileged, like Thiasus in 'The Golden Ass,' to supply at his own cost public shows in the theatre, and to bie excellent beastes and valiant fighters for the purpose.' There he lectured on a wide range of subjects, popularising, among other topics, the natural histories of Aristotle and Pliny. Among his audience may well have been Tertullian, himself a native of the African Tyre, afterwards his rival in the mastery of the rhetorical style which Apuleius made the fashion of the day. It is not altogether fanciful to suppose that the African rhetorician who contributed not a little to the reaction in favour of the ancient faiths, and the first great writer in Latin who embraced Christianity, should have thus met as teacher and pupil. The brilliant young Tertullian, born about the middle of the second century, and carefully trained in rhetoric, must almost inevitably have been one of those who crowded the lecture room of the popular lecturer.

At Carthage, also, Apuleius expounded with lavish exuberance of balanced phrases, his philosophical theories of intermediate spirits. At the University of Athens he had been known as the Madauran Platonist. But he had strayed far from Plato's idealism. His true spiritual ancestor was Plutarch. From him he borrowed, and it was his theory which he modernised. As he conceived of the Universe, there could be, and there was, no contact between the One Supreme Ultimate God, or the celestial Deputies who were his emanations, and the mortal dwellers upon the earth. Yet the affairs of men were ceaselessly cared for by the gods. There were links between the divine and human elements. If there was no contact, there yet were channels of communication. Between the Vol. 234.-No. 464.

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two extremes of existence were intermediate powers of a mixed nature, mediators between gods and men, carriers between heaven and earth, bearers from one to the other of prayers and bounties, supplications and blessings. Stronger than mortals, these powers partake both of the divine and the human; they are capable of rising into gods, and are recruited from the spirits of men. They are disembodied souls, susceptible to human passions, pains and pleasures, some good and kindly, others evil and malignant. The whole material world of men and things is eloquent with souls; the air quivers and vibrates with sympathetic intelligences. Nor are they mere abstractions. In ordinary conditions the human vision is too clouded and the human ear too dull to behold or bear this celestial company. But in certain circumstances of the mind and body these spirits are visible to the eye; and it is they who reveal the future to mortals by dreams, signs, oracles, visions, miracles. No possible channels of communication, therefore, should be neglected; all should be investigated and explored.

It was from this point of view that Apuleius studied the obscure phenomena of human existence. Psychical problems not only excited his emotional curiosity; their manifestations formed part of his philosophy. His early life, as well as the evidence at his trial, show the depth of his interest in these obscure subjects. Their mysteries attracted and fired his imagination. But his temperament, at once romantic and superstitious, was not that of a man of science. He wished to strengthen beliefs, not to establish proofs. His mind, receptive rather than original or independent, had not the critical or analytic detachment of the investigator. At no special pains to discriminate between truth and falsehood, he suspends his critical faculties, and lets himself go. The influence of this spirit world, it may be suggested, supplies the key to one of the chief charms of The Golden Ass.' No other book in Greek or Latin conveys so impressive a feeling of atmosphere. Many centuries had to pass before, in this peculiar quality, Apuleius found a rival. He is so steeped in the supernatural that it has become a part of his being. His conviction that mortals are surrounded by hosts of unseen intermediaries, both good and evil, was strong and genuine. On this side, at any rate, his