martyr, and sprinkles himself with ashes. As his character, so far as known in his native province, had been uniformly and eminently honourable, the venerable bishop, rather perhaps from a wish to be qualified to aid the penitent's discipline, than from mere curiosity, is desirous to hear from himself the story of his eventful life. Eudorus readily complies, and the family, with the two strangers, being convened in a grove, with a great deal of formality, very early in the morning, he enters on a narration which constitutes nearly a third part of the whole work. It is disfigured with the extravagances of Chateaubriand's wild imagination, and some of the irksome puerilities of his Romish faith, but it is, notwithstanding, a highly interesting story. It relates his departure from Greece, in obedience to a decree of the Roman government that the eldest sons of the family of Philopamen, from whom he was descended, "should be sent, as soon as they should attain their sixteenth year, to Rome, to remain as hostages in the hands of the senate ;" it unfolds the scenes of adventure and excess in Rome; narrates an active military career, in the army of Constantius, in the warfare with the Franks, with Carrausius, and other barbarian enemies; describes, and penitentially confesses, some romantic incidents and adventures in his government of the Armorican provinces; and concludes with his sudden renunciation of all forms of public life, and his. return, by way of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Byzantium, to his family in Arcadia. Though violating in numberless instances the rules of good taste, this story displays a great deal of bold invention, and true poetic painting. The magnificence of Rome, with its pagan rites and profligate manners; the religious economy of its christian inhabitants; the spirited, but criminal and unsatisfying course of life of a number of young men of talents, including St. Jerome and St. Augustine, are described with great animation. A still greater vigour of fancy is shown in the camp and battle scenes of the Sicambrian war, and in the representation of gloomy superstition and barbarian attachment and hostility in the story of Velleda, the Druidess, who first endangered the government, and then vanquished the rectitude, of the young hero in Gaul. It was by no means necessary, however, to tell this story at full length, in order to account for some portion of the penitential severities imposed on Eudorus by the church and his recovered conscience. The author was very far, we believe, from designing any immoral influence, but he certainly had invention enough to have so contrived his series of adventures throughout, as not even to excite a question (and here it is something more than a question) relative to the moral tendency; so contrived it as not to involve the necessity of a full

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pause in the hero's recital, to hint to Cymodocé, and all the females of his own family, the propriety of withdrawing. The writer might easily have comprehended that the tragical fate of the barbarian heroine, and the regrets, the abandonment of public employment, and the hair shirt, of Eudorus, would be totally unavailing to neutralize the natural influence of a romantic criminal adventure on the greater number of readers, especially when the story is so managed as to offer every imaginable palliation of the delinquency of the favourite. It is not, however, pretended, as one of these palliations, that he was a simple, innocent, and promptly affectionate young man; for he is made to confess that in Rome, previously to entering the military service, he had taken his full share of the folly and vice of the metropolis, had been excommunicated by the christian bishop, had been, in short, as much the rival as the associate of the vitious activity of St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and a number more spirited young reprobates-not, probably, however, so young as himself, for it is to be recollected that he arrived at Rome at the age of sixteen, and he does not appear to have been there long before he forgot the solemn and affectionate christian instructions of his mother, and his own sincere respect for the religion in which he had been so carefully educated. The authority, indeed, of that religion over his mind was very much relaxed by the effect of the splendours of the Roman magnificence on his ardent imagination, even before his passions were captivated by vice; and we think, the manner in which such a cause might operate on such a mind is well displayed in the following passage:

"On landing at Brundusium I felt a variety of unknown emotions. As I set my foot upon that earth, whence those decrees are issued that govern the world, I was struck with an appearance of grandeur to which I had been a stranger. To the elegant edifices of Greece, succeeded monuments of more ponderous magnificence, and marked with the stamp of a different genius. The farther I advanced on the Appian way, the more my surprise increased. This road, paved with large masses of rock, seemed formed to survive the purpose for which it was made; and to defy the latest generations of mankind to wear away its solidity. Passing the mountains of Apulia, and wandering by the gulf of Naples, through the country of Anxur, of Alba, and the plains of Rome, it presents an avenue of more than three hundred miles in length, whose sides are adorned with temples, palaces, and monuments, and at length terminates at that eternal city." "At the view of so many prodigies I fell into a sort of delirium, which I could neither resist nor comprehend. It was in vain that the friends to whose care my father had intrusted me, wished to arouse me from this enchantment. I wandered from the town to the capitol, from the Carina to the Campus Martius; I ran from the theatre of

Germanicus to the mole of Adrian, and from the circus of Nero to the pantheon of Agrippa; but while, with a dangerous curiosity, I visited every other place, the humble church of the christians was forgotten. I was never weary of beholding the crowded bustle of a people composed of all the nations of the earth; nor of witnessing the military operations of an army made up of Romans, Gauls, Greeks, and Africans; each distinguished by the arms and habits of their respective countries. Here an aged Sabine was passing in his rude uncouth sandals close to the senator in his robes of purple; there the litter of a consul was intercepted by the chariot of a courtezan. The strong oxen of Clitumnus were dragging to the forum wagons laden with provisions; the hunting equipage of a Roman gentleman obstructed the sacred way; the priest was hastening to his duties in the temple, and the rhetorician to his school. How often did I visit the baths adorned with libraries; and the palaces, of which some were already mouldering to decay, and others half demolished to serve for the construction of new edifices. The vast outlines of Roman architecture, that of themselves formed a magnificent horizon; those aqueducts which, like rays verging to the centre, conveyed the waters over triumphant arches to a kingly people; the cease. less murmur of fountains; that multitude of statues which resembled a race of immovable beings in the midst of a people ever in bustle and agitation; those monuments of every age and every country, the work of kings, of consuls, and of Cæsars; those obelisks conveyed from Egypt, and tombs ravished from Greece; which together with the softened radiance of the heavens, and shadowy outlines of the distant mountains, filled me with inexpressible pleasure." "But why enlarge further? every thing at Rome bears the mark of dominion and of duration." V. I. p.

73.

The captivations of Naples are described as of a more soft and exquisite quality. And on the whole, though both his own mind and those of his companions are represented as oppressed and corroded with an incurable dissatisfaction with themselves and all their felicities, there yet appears to have been very little chance but our hero would have sunk to the bottom of Italian paganism and profligacy, if a sudden mandate of displeasure, from imperial authority, had not ordered him off to the camp of Constantius on the Rhine.

Notwithstanding all this, the author is so gratified by the many noble and magnanimous qualities which, undeniably, manifest themselves in Eudorus, and so conciliated by the zeal and severity of his penitence, that he is perfectly willing to have given him, if so it might have been, the tender and immaculate young Messenian. So were the parents and the whole friendly party, but for the obstacle arising from the contrariety of religions. And so was she: and had soon

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made progress, in a very hopeful course, for removing this difficulty; for the lights of the new religion were beginning to confuse and dim her Homeric mythology. But while so many things seem conspiring to complete a union, which, even in spite of the less honourable part of the hero's history, the reader is become disposed to sanction, it is unequivocally intimated that another destiny awaits them.

"O, ye tender and affectionate pair! at the very moment that you are counting upon long years of happiness here below, the heavenly choir of virgins and martyrs are beginning to celebrate a union that is more durable, and a felicity that shall never end." V. I. p. 372.

By this time the aged and declining Diocletian, who is foolishly represented as a sort of protector of the christians, is on the point of surrendering his imperial power into the hands of their savage enemy, Galerius, whose malice against them is stimulated to still more infernal fury, if possible, by the atheistical sophist, his minister Hierocles. In the exul tation for having obtained, and in the eagerness to carry into effect the first edicts of persecution, this detestable favourite hastens to his provincial government in Greece, equally intent on tormenting the christians and requiring the daughter of Demodocus. At the same time Eudorus receives from the rising prince, Constantine, an urgent demand of his presence in Rome, to aid the endeavours to restrain the progress of persecution. After a number of interesting scenes of affection, and some formidable proceedings of Hierocles, it is determined that the two friends shall be betrothed, and then go on board two ships; Eudorus for Rome, and Cymodocé, accompanied by a brave and faithful Roman officer, for the holy land, to put herself under the protection and instructions of Constantine's mother, Helena, then residing at Jerusalem. All this is accomplished, and a number of striking scenes and incidents are exhibited in the narration.

At Rome the great crisis is arrived; and the christians, in their solemn secret council, are directed, by preternatural indications, to choose Eudorus, though still a penitent, not fully restored to the communion of the church, as their advocate in an approaching great assembly, in which the emperors, previously to enacting the last severities against the christians, were to grant them the privilege of "showing cause" against the intended measures. The speakers on this great occasion are, Symmachus, the high priest of Jupiter, who tempers his faithful zeal for the gods with a dissuasive from persecution; Hierocles, who, however, displays much less of the sophist

than of the rancorous and impudent calumniator; and the young hero and penitent, who certainly won the palm of eloquence, and had nearly decided the mind and decree of Diocletian. But the favourable sentiment was overruled by the detestable machinations of Galerius and Hierocles, and, after a day or two of dreadful suspense to the christians, he issued the sanguinary decree, and immediately abdicated the throne.

From this melancholy period to the close of the history, the work consists of a crowded succession of pictures, representing the miseries inflicted on the christians; the devout and heroic resignation with which they prepared for them, and encountered them; the still more grievous sufferings which providence inflicted on the leading persecutors, or made them inflict on themselves; and the adventures and perils of Demodocus and his daughter, who both, though unknown to each other, and to Eudorus, arrived at Rome during this season of crimes and woes. The priest of Homer had not been able to endure life without his beloved child, and had seized the first conveyance to Italy. Cymodocé had been driven by the vigilant and ferocious agents of Hierocles, to make a sudden and very narrow escape from Jerusalem. She was again conducted by her intrepid and generous friend, Dorotheus; was baptized in the wilderness by St. Jerome, who had now quitted the splendid vanities of Rome for the hut of an anchoret; and had found means, finally, to reach the metropolis of the world, and the locality of its greatest wickedness. Here, for a moment, she is thrown very nearly into the grasp of Hierocles, but is rescued by a tumult of the people, excited by her father, who most opportunely discovers her at the moment of her danger, but falls into utter distraction at instantly losing her again, in consequence of her public avowal that she is a christian, which is rewarded by her being ignominiously led to prison, amidst the insults of that very rabble which, but an hour before, had been on the point of demolishing the minister's palace for her sake.

Eudorus had become the most obnoxious of the christians, and was summoned to the alternative of the idol worship or the torture, with prolonged and earnest exhortations and entreaties, however, from the judge, who respected his military renown, to save himself by a slight compliance. His final inflexibility provoked the torture, and sustained it with unalterable firmness. He was conveyed back to his imprisoned christian friends in a lacerated and languid state, but with a mind sustained to the highest point of resolution and divine complacency; and was received by them in their gloomy