virtue by the happy consequences to which it leads. The Greek romances are less valuable than they might have been, from giving too much to adventure, and too little to manners and character;-but these have not been altogether neglected, and several pleasing pictures are delineated of ancient customs and feelings. In short, these early fictions are such as might have been expected at the first effort, and must be considered as not merely valuable in themselves, but as highly estimable in pointing out the method of awakening the most pleasing sympathies of our nature, and affecting most powerfully the fancy and the heart. CHAPTER II. Introduction of the Milesian Tales into Italy-Latin Romances— Petronius Arbiter-Apuleius, &c. THE Milesian Fables had found their way into Italy even before they flourished in Greece. They had been received with eagerness, and imitated by the Sybarites, the most voluptuous nation in the west of Europe; whose stories obtained the same celebrity in Rome, that the Milesian tales had acquired in Greece and Asia. It is not easy to specify the exact nature of the western imitations, but if we may judge from a solitary specimen transmitted by Elian in his Variæ Historiæ, (l. 14. c. 20,) they were of a facetious description, and intended to promote merriment. A pedagogue of the Sybarite nation conducted his pupil through the streets of a town. The boy happened to get hold of a fig, which he was proceeding to eat, when his tutor interrupted him by a long declaration against luxury, and then snatching the dainty from his hand, devoured it with the utmost greed. This tale Ælian says he had read in the Sybarite stories, (sogiais du Bagiriais,) and had been so much entertained that he got it by heart, and committed it to writing, as he did not grudge mankind a hearty laugh! Many of the Romans, it would appear, were as easily amused as Elian, since the Sybarite stories for a long while enjoyed great popularity; and, at length, in the time of Sylla, the Milesian tales of Aristides were translated into Latin by Sisenna, who was prætor of Sicily, and author of a history of Rome. Plutarch informs us in his Life of Crassus, that when that general was defeated by the Parthians, the conquerors found copies of Milesian and Sybarite tales in the tents of the Roman soldiers; whence Surena expressed his contempt for the effeminacy and licentiousness of his enemies, who, even in time of war, could not refrain from the perusal of such compositions. The taste for the Sybarite and Milesian fables increased during the reign of the emperors. Many imitators of Aristides appeared, particularly Clodius Albinus, the competitor of the Emperor Severus, whose stories have not reached posterity, but are said to have obtained a celebrity to which their merit hardly entitled them.* It is strange that Severus, in a letter to the senate, in which he upbraids its members for the honours they had heaped on his rival, and the support they had given to his pretensions, should, amid accusations that concerned him more nearly, have expressed his chief mortification to arise from their having distinguished that person as learned, who had grown hoary in the study of old wives' tales, such as the Milesian-Punic fables.-Major fuit dolor, quod illum pro literato laudandum plerique duxistis, cum ille neniis quibusdam anilibus occupatus, inter Milesias Punicas, Apuleii suit, et ludicra literaria consenesceret. But the most celebrated fable of ancient Rome is the work of Petronius Arbiter, perhaps the most remarkable fiction which has dishonoured the literary history of any nation. It is the only fable of that period now extant, but is a strong proof of the monstrous corruption of the times in which such a production could be tolerated, though, no doubt, writings of bad moral tendency might be circulated before the invention of printing, without arguing the depravity they would have evinced, if presented to the world subsequent to that period. * Milesias nonnulli ejusdem esse dicunt, quarum fama non igno. bilis habetur, quamvis mediocriter scriptæ sunt.-Capitolinus vit. Clod. Albini. The work of Petronius is in the form of a satire, and, according to some commentators, is directed against the vices of the court of Nero, who is thought to be delineated under the names of Trimalchio and Agamemnon;—an opinion which has been justly ridiculed by Voltaire. The satire is written in a manner which was first introduced by Varro; verses are intermixed with prose, and jests with serious remark. It has much the air of a romance, both in the incidents and their disposition; but the story is too well known, and too scandalous, to be particularly detailed. The scene is laid in Magna Græcia ; Encolpius is the chief character in the work, and the narrator of events;-he commences by a lamentation on the decline of eloquence, and while listening to the reply of Agamemnon, a professor of oratory, he loses his companion Ascyltos. Wandering through the town in search of him, he is finally conducted by an old woman to a retirement where the incidents that occur are analogous to the scene. The subse quent adventures-the feast of Trimalchio-the defection and return of Gitcn-the amour of Eumolpus in Bythinia -the voyage in the vessel of Lycus-the passion and disappointment of Circe, follow each other without much art of arrangement; an apparent defect which may arise from the mutilated form in which the satire has descended to us. The style of Petronius has been much applauded for its elegance it certainly possesses considerable naiveté and grace, and is by much too fine a veil for so deformed a body. Some of the verses also are extremely beautiful. The best part of the prose, however, is the well known episode of the matron of Ephesus, which, I have little doubt, was originally a Milesian or Sybarite fable. A lady of Ephesus, on the death of her husband, not contented with the usual demonstrations of grief, descended with the corpse into the vault in which it was entombed, resolving there to perish with sorrow. From this design no entreaties of her own or her husband's friends could dissuade her. But at length a common soldier, who had been appointed to watch the bodies of malefactors crucified in the vicinity, lest they should be taken down by their relations, perceiving a light, descended into the vault, where he gazed on the beauty of the mourner, whom he soon persuaded to eat, to drink, and to live. That very night, in her funeral garments, in the commencement of her grief, and in the tomb of her husband, she was united to this new and unknown lover. When the soldier ascended from this bridal chamber, he found that the body of a criminal had been carried off. He returned to his mistress to deplore the punishment that awaited him for his neglect, but she immediately relieved his disquiet, by proposing that the corpse of the husband, whose funeral she had so vehemently mourned, should be raised, and nailed to the cross in room of the malefactor. A story nearly the same with that in Petronius exists, under the title of the Widow who was Comforted, in the book known in this country by name of the Seven wise Masters, which is one of the oldest collections of oriental stories. There, however, the levity of the widow is aggravated by the circumstance that the husband had died in consequence of alarm at a danger to which his wife had been exposed, and that she consented to mutilate his body, in order to give it a perfect resemblance to that of the malefactor which had been taken down from the cross. It is the This story of female levity has frequently been imitated, both in its classical and oriental circumstances. Fabliau de la femme qui se fist putain sur la fosse de son mari. The Pere du Halde, in his History of China, informs us that it is a common story in that empire; but the most singular place for the introduction of such a tale was the Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying, by Jeremy Taylor, where it forms a part of the fifth chapter, entitled, Of the Contingencies of Death and Treating our Dead. The Latin writers of fiction seem to have been uniformly more happy in their episodes than in the principal subject. This remark is particularly applicable to the Ass OF APULEIUS, to which its readers, on account of its excellence, as is generally supposed, added the epithet of Golden. Warburton, however, conjectures, from the beginning of one of Pliny's epistles, that Auria was the common title given to the Milesian, and such tales as strollers used to tell for a piece of money to the rabble in a circle: "Assem para et accipe auream fabulam." (L. ii. Ep. 20.) These Milesian fables were much in vogue in the age of Apuleius. Accordingly, in the commencement of his work, he allures his readers with the promise of a fashionable composition,* though he early insinuates that he has deeper intentions than their amusement. The fable is related in the person of the author, who commences his story with representing himself as a young man, sensible of the advantages of virtue, but immoderately addicted to pleasure, and curious of magic. He informs the reader, that on account of some domestic affairs, he was obliged to travel into Thessaly, the country whence his family had its origin. At his entrance into one of the towns, called Hypata, he inquired for a person of the name of Milo, and being directed to his house, rapped at the door. On what security do you intend to borrow, said a servant, cautiously unbolting it; we only lend on pledges of gold or silver. Being at last introduced to the master, Apuleius presented letters of recommendation from Demeas, a friend of the miser, and was in consequence asked to reside in the house. Milo having dismissed his wife, desired his guest to sit down on the couch in her place, apologizing for the want of seats of a more portable description, on account of his fear of robbers. Apuleius having accepted the invitation to reside in the miser's house, went out to the public bath, and on the way reflecting on the parsimony of his host, he bought some fish for supper. On coming out from the market he met Pithias, who had been his schoolfellow at Athens, but was at that time ædile of Hypata, and had the superintendance of provisions. This magistrate having examined the fish his friend had purchased, condemned them as bad, ordered them to be destroyed, and having merely reprimanded the vender, left his old companion dismayed at the loss of his supper and money, and by no means satisfied with the mode of administering justice in Thessaly. After having visited the bath, Apuleius returned to sleep at Milo's, and rose next morning with the design of seeing whatever was curious in the city. Thessaly was * At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram auresque tuas benevolas lepido susurro permulceam. |