lum in Europe.* Occasionally there appeared among them, some individuals of superior powers, but, in general, they could advance no other claim to attention, than the possession of their ancient tongue; they bore no sciences to Italy, and they left behind no striking productions of genius.t In this review of the leading events in the history of Byzantine literature, I have refrained from mentioning one class of works, which, though popular during the lower empire, form but an unimportant branch of the intellectual productions of the middle ages: I refer to the early Greek romances. Of these fictitious narratives we can find no trace in the classical eras of Greece; they were introduced after the age of Alexander the Great from Asia Minor, the inhabitants of which, according to Huet, had obtained them during their intercourse with the Persians and other Orientals; and the Milesian Tales of Aristides, men * The names of a vast number will be found in Schoell's Hist. vol. vii. and in the work of Dr. Hody. + I omit all mention of the gradual introduction of the study of Greek into France, Germany, and the North; copious details on this head will be found in the works I have already referred to: in Knight's Life of Erasmus, Fidlerus de Græc. et Latin. Liter., in Misnia Instaur., in Dalzell's Lectures, and other works of an earlier date. De Fabularum Romanensium Origine. tioned by Plutarch,* were the first compositions of the kind with which we are aware of the Greeks being acquainted. Of these tales, which are now lost, but few particulars are ascertained; the period in which they were written is unknown, even the nature of their style, whether poetry or prose,† is uncertain, and we only know that their subjects were licentious and obscene.‡ But, in fact, the same obscurity hangs over almost every production of this kind, which has been preserved to us in extracts, abridgments, or otherwise. Doubts are entertained of the authenticity of many, which are strongly suspected to be forgeries of a modern date ;§ few * In Vita Crassi. + Huet speaks of them as prose, but two lines in the Tristia of Ovid refer to them as verse. "Junxit Aristides Milesia carmina secum, Pulsus Aristides nec tamen urbe sua est." I "Surena (after the battle of Carræ,) having called the senate of Seleucia together, laid before them Aristides' bookes of ribaldry, intituled the Milesians, which was no fable, for they were found in a Romane's fardle, or trusse, called Rustius. This gave Surena great cause to scorne and despise the behaviour of the Romanes, which was so far out of order, that even in the warres, they could not refraine from doing evill, and from the reading of such vile bookes."-Plutarch Life of Crassus. Transl. Sir Thom. North, Knt., fol. 1579. § Such is the story of Theogones and Charides, &c. attri of them survive, save in the quotations and criticisms of Photius; the eras of several are doubtful, and of others unknown; and Peerlkamp, a recent editor of the Ephesiacs of Xenophon, professes to have discovered, that the names of every author of Greek romance, save Heliodorus, are fictitious, and assumed.* The reigns of Trajan and the Antonines were prolific in works of this nature: such were the Metamorphoses of Lucius Patrensis, which afforded a model for the Ass of Lucian,† the Epistles of Alciphron, and the Babylonics of Jamblicus,§ a Syrian, which contain the miraculous adventures of two lovers, Rhodanes and Sinonis, in their flight from the amorous tyranny of Garmas, king of Babylon.|| To this period has likewise been assigned the imaginary voyage of Antonius Diogenes, containing an account of the incredible things to be seen be buted to Athenagoras, a philosopher of the second century, but now generally believed a counterfeit of Martin Fumée, who published it at Paris in 1599.-Schoell, v. iv. p. 309. n. Dunlop, History of Fiction, vol. i. p. 113. * Such is, undoubtedly, the case with Longus and Chariton Aphrodisiensis. + Λούκιος ἢ Ὄνος. - Επιστολαὶ ἁλιευτικαὶ καὶ ἑταιρικαί. § This individual is not to be confounded with the Platonic philosopher of the same age. il See the tale in Dunlop's Hist. of Fiction, vol. i. p. 13. yond Thule.* This work, which is known only through the library of Photius, was a tissue of the most improbable fables related by Dyrcillis, a Tyrian girl, who, in her wanderings over the world, when driven from her home, in company with her brother Mantinias, meets with the hero, Dinias, in the far-famed island of Thule.† The idea of the author seems taken from the Odyssey, and his production was the most perfect of its kind that had then appeared; but in comparison with the romances of his successors, it possesses but indifferent merit. Next to Diogenes, in point of time, M. Schoell has placed Xenophon, of Ephesus, a writer who has been by various commentators referred to the first, the third, and the fifth centuries, but who, from the number of barbarisms analogous to the dialect of modern Greece to be found in his style, may with safety be assigned to a much later period. His Ephesiacs, or tale of Anthia and Abrokomas, meagre, insipid, and spiritless, is one of the least interesting of its class, and the only attraction, attached to it, is that it contains the original incident of the sleeping draught in Romeo and Juliet. * Τὰ ὑπερ Θούλην ἄπιστων λόγοι. Of the fictitious narratives of the Greeks, however, that which evinces the highest talent, and has obtained the most decided popularity, is the tale of Theagenes and Chariclea, by Heliodorus, Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, who lived about the close of the fourth century. Equally a favourite in the East and in Europe, it was followed by a host of Grecian imitators, and served as the model for numbers of the romances of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.* Till its appearance, says Huet, the world had seen nothing so highly finished or imaginative; its love scenes were chaste and beautiful, its incidents startling and new, its catastrophe inimitable, and its diction polished, pure, and pathetic. But notwithstanding this eulogium, the romance of the Bishop has not escaped keen criticism, and he has been accused, not without foundation, of a want of originality, a superficial knowledge of the human heart, and a re * Schoell, v. i. l. vi. c. 78. Dunlop, v. i. p. 40. Tasso, in the twelfth canto, st. 21, et sq. of his Jerusalem Delivered, has borrowed almost without alteration the life of Clorinda, as related by Arsete, from Heliodorus; and Guarini, in his Pastor Fido, has been indebted to the same source; Racine intended, and Dorat and Hardy wrote tragedies on the story of Theagenes and Chariclea; and Raphael, too, has honoured it, by making it the subject of one of his immortal paintings. For the incidents of this story, which are too lengthened |