}

❝I advanced in a former work that christianity appeared to me more favourable than paganism for the development of characters, and for a display of the passions; I added, moreover, that the marvellous of this religion might contend for the palm of interest with that borrowed from mythology: these opinions, which have been more or less combated, it is my present object to support, and to illustrate by an example.-To render the reader an impartial judge in this great literary process, it was necessary to make choice of a subject that would allow me to throw upon the same canvass the predominant features of the two religions; the morality, the sacrifices, and the ceremonies of both systems of worship: a subject where the language of Genesis might be blended with that of the Odyssey, and the Jupiter of Homer be placed by the side of the Jehovah of Milton, without giving offence to piety, to taste, or to probability.

Having once conceived this idea, I had no difficulty in finding an historical epoch where the two religions met in conjunction. The scene opens towards the close of the third century, at the moment when the persecution of the christians commenced under Diocletian. Christianity had not yet become the predominating religion of the Roman empire, though its altars arose near the shrines of idolatry.

"The persons who make a figure in the work are taken from the two religions. I have in the first place made the reader acquainted with the leading characters, and thence proceeded to describe the state of christianity through the then known world, as it stood at the time of the action; the remainder of the work developes a particular catastrophe that is connected with the general massacre of the christians."

Such a scheme evidently gave an exceedingly wide scope to a writer extensively acquainted with ancient history. As the author himself observes, it "placed all antiquity, sacred and profane, at his disposal;" so far as it should be possible to bring its nations, its personages, and its customs, within the compass of such a fable as might be fairly constructed upon the life and adventures of two or three individuals cotemporary with one another at a particular epoch. And the "Travels of Anacharsis," and some other works, had sufficiently shown to what a vast extent and diversity of things a little ingenuity might dilate the circumference of such a fable, without any violent excess of confusion or anachronism. His personages, he observes, are almost all taken from history; and among them are Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, Constantius, Constantine, Hierocles, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine. He offers an allowable apology for the anachronism of making Jerome cotemporary with Diocletian, and for some other little freedoms taken with chronological truth. And he should rather have apologized for, than pretended to

justify, his fancy for exonerating Diocletian from almost all the guilt of the tenth persecution of the christians. He professes to have conformed very carefully to historical matter of fact in his representation of the manners and ceremonies of the primitive christians; of the public exhibitions of the Romans; of the persons and manners of the Gauls, Franks, and other barbarians and of "the geographical curiosities respecting the Gauls, Greece, Syria, and Egypt." He names collectively his authorities; but the reader will wish that in some instances he had yielded to the advice which he says was given him, to subjoin notes, with specific historical references and illustrations.

As the work claims to rank in the epic class, and therefore professes to give a dignified history of extraordinary transactions, we cannot be excused from attempting a brief abstract of the narrative.

It should seem that a French style is one of those precious. things which it is worth an author's care to preserve inviolate throughout his wanderings in all the four quarters of the world; for after having been exposed to the danger of a modified diction among the people and tongues of all those quarters, Chateaubriand comes back to commence in the following

manner:

"Nine times had the church of Jesus Christ seen the spirits of darkness leagued in conspiracy against her; nine times had this favoured vessel, which storms assail in vain, escaped the fury of the tempest. The earth reposed in peace with skilful hand Diocletian swayed the sceptre of the world. Under the protection of this great prince the christians enjoyed a state of tranquillity to which they had before been strangers. The altars of the true God began to contest the honours offered on the shrines of idolatry; the number of the faithful increased daily; and honours, riches, and glory, were no longer the exclusive inheritance of the worshippers of Jupiter. Hell, threatened with the loss of its empire, wished to interrupt the course of these heavenly victories; and the Eternal, who saw the virtues of his people languish in prosperity, permitted the demons to excite a fresh persecution; but this last and terrible trial was ultimately to plant the cross on the throne of the universe, and to humble to the dust the temples of pagan superstition.-To the heroism of two illustrious martyrs is this victory due: an innocent virgin, and a renowned penitent, were the persons so eminently conspicuous on this day of trial and of wo. The former was chosen by heaven from among an idolatrous people; the latter from among the faithful, to be the expiatory victims both for the christian and the gentile world."

The translator does not mention whether it is hereabouts that we should find in the original the first of those conversations, or debates in council, among the infernal spirits,

which, as well as conferences among celestial beings, he regards as somewhat " tedious and misplaced," and rather diminishing than increasing the interest of the story, and has omitted, we have no doubt, with all manner of propriety. The pagan virgin, the heroine of the work, is Cymodocé, the daughter of Demodocus, "the last descendant of those families of the Homerides, who formerly inhabited the island of Chios, and who laid pretensions to a direct descent from Homer." He was made high priest to a temple erected by the Messenians to Homer, and in the exercise of his office lived many years in a sacred retirement, tenderly rearing, and carefully and successfully cultivating Cymodocé, his only child. In this recluse situation, however, she unfortunately attracted the admiration of Hierocles, the pro-consul of Achaia, a very powerful, but a depraved and odious person, whose demand of her in marriage her father most willingly concurred with her in refusing, though great danger was the too certain consequence. As an expedient conducive to her protection, he consecrates her, in capacity of priestess, to the Muses. Her merit became so conspicuous that she was chosen by the old men to lead the choir of virgins who were appointed to present the votive offerings in a solemn festival of Diana, on the borders of Messenia and Laconia. In returning, on a moonlight night, she loses her way and her female attendant, in a mountain forest. Excessively alarmed, though all was silent except a little stream, she flew to implore the protection of the Naiad of this stream, and found an altar at the foot of a cascade. The reader antici

pates that this is not all. "She perceived a youth, who lay reclined in slumber against the rock: his head rested on his left shoulder, and was partly supported by his lance; a ray of the moon, darting through the branches of a cypress, shone full in the huntsman's face. A disciple of Apelles would have thus represented the slumbers of Endymion.Indeed, the daughter of Demodocus really imagined that in this youth she beheld the lover of Diana; in a plaintive zephyr she thought she distinguished the sigh of the goddess, and in a glimmering ray of the moon she seemed to catch a glimpse of her snowy vest as she was just retiring into the thicket." It will instantaneously be apprehended that this is the hero of the piece; and he very soon gives indications of an uncommon and lofty character. Suddenly awaked by the barking of his dog, he intermingles questions and exclamations of surprise and admiration with similar expressions uttered by the priestess of the Muses; but soon signifies, with a degree of abruptness and austerity, his disapprobation VOL. I. New Series. 3 E

of her reference to pagan divinities. With kindness, modified by this austerity, he conducts her to the neighbourhood of her father's abode, repeating, in the most decided and laconic terms, his expressions of dissent and censure as often as she introduces, as she naturally does, any of her mythological ideas. A degree of alarm mingled with her surprise and admiration, as her mind, intent on her strange companion, fluctuated among the conjectures of an auspicious deity, a Spartan youth, and an impious demon. Whether it was merely to rid her of all perplexity and apprehension, or whether any slight thought of a remoter possible consequence might have occurred to his mind, does not seem to be clearly known; but he informs her, in a very few words, that he is a plain sinful mortal of the name of Eudorus, the son of Lasthenes. Notwithstanding, when he bade her adieu, with a benignant smile darkening into a solemnity appropriate to his christian valediction, and suddenly vanished into the wood, "she no longer doubted but this huntsman was one of the immortals." But her father instantly recognises the name of Lasthenes, "one of the principal inhabitants of Arcadia, a descendant of a race of heroes, and of gods, for he received his origin from the river Alpheus ;" and the name of his son Eudorus, "who has borne away laurels of triumph in the field of Mars." And being highly dissatisfied that the friendly stranger had not been introduced to receive his thanks and hospitality, he decides that he ought to make a visit, taking his daughter with him, to the residence of Lasthenes, to express their acknowledgments, and offer as a present a valuable vase of brass, "admirably embossed by the art of Vulcan," with an historical device, and once in the possession of Ajax, and afterwards of Homer.

A splendid superabundance of mythological lore bedecks the two days' itinerary; and an inconvenient quantity of it is carried by the priest of Homer, even into the abode of the plain, though opulent, Christian Lasthenes, who welcomed the strangers with the utmost respect and kindness, but surprised them with the unostentatious simplicity of their personal appearance and domestic accommodations. It is evident that Demodocus was not well read in Roman history; for the stories of Cincinnatus and Fabricius would have prevented his being so "confounded" on being shown Eudorus sitting as a plain rustic under a tree in a harvest field: "what,' thought he within himself, "is this simple swain the warrior who triumphed over Carrausius, who was tribune of the Britannic legion, and the friend of prince Constantine!" unless, indeed, it was the youth of the hero that excited his surprise;

but he was not younger, as far as appears, than Scipio Africanus. It could be with no little emotion that two of the persons now brought together recognised each other; and the inextricable complication of their destinies soon becomes palpably manifest.

The incessant grave introduction by Demodocus, and the frequent one even by his daughter, when she is led into conversation, of the pagan notions and personages, forces a protest, firm and explicit, though most mild in manner, on the part of the christians, against the whole impious vanity of a false religion. Demodocus, proud of his daughter's accomplishments, had somewhat unwittingly persuaded her to a musical effort, in which, for the entertainment of the friendly family, she "chanted the origin of the heavens," and all about Jupiter, and Minerva, and Hebe, and a long series of kindred legends. It was an indispensable civility that christian music should make some return, and it was the business of Eudorus to teach it what to say. His performance recounted the most prominent facts and principles of the Jewish and Christian religion. The world of topics celebrated in the two descants would incline us to believe that the natural day was much longer in those times than now, and that the human vocal organs were constructed of much stouter materials. The performances led to a variety of amicable remarks from the christians; and it appears that Cymodocé had an incomparably greater facility of comprehending, as well as a more favourable disposition for entertaining, the new doctrines than her father, who appears throughout, it must be confessed, a man of very middling faculties, though of much good will. The christians, however, are not continually reading theological lectures; they rather endeavour to make their religion present itself in the form of practical lessons, arising from domestic incidents, and the solemn rites of their religious worship. There was a bishop on a visit among them, whose intelligence and venerable character contributed to explain and dignify their sacred observances. When some parts of the apostolic epistles were read, he commented with peculiar emphasis on those relating to marriage, and it is stated that the utmost attention and interest were manifested by the auditors.

There was one part of the religious economy of the place kept out of sight; that is, the course of penance which Eudorus is undergoing with exemplary severity and willing ness, but nevertheless at the injunction, it is presumed, of his spiritual directors. He wears a shirt of hair cloth, and frequents a lonely grotto, where he contemplates the skull of a