and the noblest genius of any that have left writings behind them, and published in ours or any other modern language." (Miscellanea, part II.) The Arcadia was also much read and admired by Waller and Cowley, and has been obviously imitated in many instances by our early dramatists. The story of Plangus in the Arcadia, is the origin of Shirley's Andromana, or Merchant's Wife. That part of the pastoral where Pyrocles agrees to command the Helots, seems to have suggested those scenes of the Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which Valentine leagues himself with the outlaws. An episode in the second book of the Arcadia, where a king of Paphlagonia, whose eyes had been put out by a bastard son, is described as led by his rightful heir, whom he had cruelly used for the sake of his wicked brother, has furnished Shakspeare with the underplot concerning Gloster and his two sons, in King Lear. There are in the romance the same description of a bitter storm, and the same request of the father, that he might be led to the summit of a cliff, which occur in that pathetic tragedy.

The Arcadia was also, as we learn from Milton, the companion of the prison hours of Charles

I., whom that poet, in his Iconoclastes, reproaches with having stolen a prayer of Pamela, to insert in his Ikon Basiliké. But whether the king actually fell into this inadvertence, or whether his antagonist procured the interpolation of the passage, that he might enjoy an opportunity of reviling his sovereign for impiety, and of taunting him with literary plagiarism, has been the subject of much controversy among the biographers of the English bard. (See Symmons's Life of Milton, p. 278, &c.)

CHAPTER XII.

Heroic Romance.-Polexandre.-Cleopatra.

-Cassandra.-Ibrahim.-Clelie, &c.

BOILEAU, and several other French writers, have deduced the origin of the heroic from the pastoral romance, especially from the Astrea of D'Urfé. To that species of composition may, no doubt, be attributed some of the tamest features of the heroic romance, its insipid dialogues and tedious episodes; but many of the elements of which it is compounded, must be sought in anterior and more spirited compositions.

Thus, we find in the heroic romance a great deal of ancient chivalrous delineation. Dragons, necromancers, giants, and enchanted castles, are indeed banished; but heroism and gallantry are still preserved. These attributes, however, have

In

assumed a different station and importance. In romances of chivalry, love, though a solemn and serious passion, is subordinate to heroic achievement. A knight seems chiefly to have loved his mistress, because he obtained her by some warlike exploit; she formed an excuse for engaging in perilous adventures, and he mourned her loss, as it was attended with that of his dearer idol-honour. the heroic romance, on the other hand, love seems the ruling passion, and military exploits are chiefly performed for the sake of a mistress: glory is the spring of the one species of composition, and love of the other; but in both, according to the expression of Sir Philip Sidney, the heroes are knights who combat for the love of honour and the honour of love.

Much of the heroic romance has been also derived from the ancient Greek romances. The spirit of these compositions had been kept alive during the middle ages, and had never been altogether extinguished, even by the prevalence and popularity of tales of chivalry, Les Chroniques de Appolin Roi de Tyre, written in the 7th century, bears a close resemblance to the Greek romance; and the Philocopo of Boccaccio, said to have been composed for the entertainment of Mary, natural daughter of the king of Naples, is of a similar de

scription. Flores, prince of Spain, falls in love with Blancafior, an orphan, educated at his father's court. To prevent the risk of his son forming an unequal alliance, his father sells the object of his attachment to some Asiatic merchants, and hence the romance is occupied with the search made for her by Flores, under the name of Philocopo. The work is chiefly of the tenor of the heroic romance, but it presents an example of almost every species of fiction. Heathen divinities appear in disguise, and the rival lover of Blancafior is transformed into a fountain: stories of gallantry are related at the court of Naples, which Flores visits, and the account of the gardens and seraglio of the Egyptian emir resembles the descriptions in fairy and oriental tales.

Theagenes and Chariclea was translated into French by Amyot, in 1547, and ten editions were printed before the end of the 16th century. The story of Florizel, Clareo, and the Unfortunate Ysea, a close imitation of the Clitophon and Leucippe, written originally in Castilian, was translated into French in 1554, and soon became a popular production.

On the decline of romances of chivalry, it was natural to search for some species of fiction to supply their place with the public. The spiritual