served to lull to repose the returned crusaders. The very commencement of the "Arabian Nights," the vengeance of the justly incensed but too cruel Shahriar, and the history of his equally unfortunate but less sanguinary brother, are told, with a variation of names and a trifling alteration of catastrophe, by Ariosto, in his twenty-eighth canto. The Italian poet is more facetious than moral, more laughable than decorous, and prefaces his tale by the remarkable caution

"Donne, e voi che le donne avete in pregio

Per Dio, non date a questa istoria orecchia."

Ariosto wrote before there was any translation of the one thousand and one tales, and must have taken the circumstances of that canto from some of the lays of the period. Le Grand has made a curious collection of fabliaux, which will well repay the attention of any one who wishes to investigate the romances of the troubadours. There is a very scarce and valuable tract, printed at Rome in the year 1506, called "Il Sartore de Milano, et il suo ragazzo," which was shortly, after translated into English, and entitled "The Italian Tailor and his Boy." In the year 1810 this was reprinted, in a fac-simile, I believe by the Roxburgh club. The tale is an altered version of the latter part of one of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," viz., the history of the second calendar. The English translation is in verse, and beautifully executed. This again was earlier than the first French translation, which was published in the middle of the sixteenth century. To the traditions of the Jews must we also look for confirmation of those very extravagant adventures of Tobit, and of Judith, of Bel and the Dragon— books which are at war alike with probability, with chronology, and with history.

Passing away to another country, to another people, from the wide and desert plains of Arabia, to the classic islands and sacred mountains of Greece, we find the same spirit ruling, differing only in exterior. In the Talmud tradition appears ridiculous, presenting us only with monstrous impossibilities, puerile reasonings, and absurd ceremonies. In India and Arabia, we see Fiction elevated and sublimed, and we shudder at her mighty and fearful countenance. Spirits of power and knowledge arise at her call; her dwelling is in vast and stately palaces. The exhaustless East showers upon her "barbaric pearl and gold," gems potent and priceless are her crown, and her sceptre is the talisman at which even the fiends fall down in trembling obedience.

In Greece, she sits upon a throne of beauty: grace and loveliness, poetry and music, are her handmaids. If she speaks, it is by the voice of a Homer; she leads captive our feelings, and our reason comes biassed to the work of judgment: yet, amid all the beauty and the romantic poetry of Greek fable, shall we often find the nucleus of a glorious emanation of Greek genius in the dull, heavy narration of a rabbinical author. The derivation is mostly through the Indian and Egyptian mythology; but the Rabbi gives us the tradition which, many centuries before him, the Indian or

Egyptian naturalized in his own system, and the Greek thence transplanting it into the soil of poetry, it grew up and became more beautiful, producing flowers worthy of being inwoven with the legends of that most intellectual of people. For example, that most outrageous bandit, Procrustes, whose name has passed into a proverb, did not himself invent the bed whereupon he laid the weary travellers who were unlucky enough to fall into his hands: he took the idea from the people of Sodom, who, according to the treatise "Sanhedrim," had a bedstead of iron on which they laid all travellers to rest; if any was to long for it they cut off his legs, if he was too short they dislocated his joints and stretched him to the requisite degree of longitude.

We now turn to that fascinating author who has so often, and as it seems so unjustly, been accused of want of fidelity-Herodotus. In the earlier part of this investigation, I have already given my own opinion of his writings. He is usually so scrupulous in telling us what were his sources of information, and of forewarning us where he did not deem the authority sufficient, that we ought rather to thank him for his historical romances than to distrust his genuine history. When he speaks of an event as having certainly happened, it would seem that few historians may be more implicitly believed. Should we, because he has preserved many most interesting traditions, deny him the credit, which, had he been less liberal, we should certainly have conceded? I take two specimens, one of perverted history, one of pure invention, not on the part of Herodotus, but on that of the Egyptian priests:

"The successor of this prince was Sethos, a priest of Vulcan; he treated the military of Egypt with extreme contempt, and as if he had no occasion for their services. Among other indignities, he deprived them of their aruræ, or fields of fifty feet square, which, by way of reward, his predecessors had given each soldier: the result was, that when Senacherib, king of Arabia and Assyria, attacked Egypt with a mighty army, the warriors whom he had thus treated refused to assist him. In this perplexity the priest retired to the shrine of his god, before which he lamented his danger and misfortunes. Here he sunk into a profound sleep, and his deity promised him, in a dream, that if he marched to meet the Assyrians he should experience no injury, for that he would furnish him with assistance. The vision inspired him with confidence; he put himself at the head of his adherents, and marched to Pelusium, the entrance of Egypt: not a soldier accompanied the party, which was entirely composed of tradesmen and artisans. On their arrival at Pelusium, so immense a number of mice infested by night the enemy's camp, that their quivers and bows, together with what secured their shields to their arms, were gnawed in pieces. In the morning, the Arabians, finding themselves without arms, fled in confusion, and lost great numbers of their men. There is now to be seen, in the temple of Vulcan, a marble statue of this king, having a mouse in his hand, and with this inscription: Whoever thou art, learn from my fortune to reverence the gods."

This needs no comment. The introduction of mice is not very easily

accounted for, however. The next story from Herodotus is contained in the same book (chap. 121, 122, 123):

"The same instructors farther told me, that Proteus was succeeded by Rhampsinitus: he built the west entrance of the temple of Vulcan; in the same situation he also erected two statues, twenty-five cubits in height. That which faces the north the Egyptians call summer, the one to the south winter: this latter is treated with no manner of respect, but they worship the former, and make offerings before it. This prince possessed such abundance of wealth, that so far from surpassing, none of his successors ever equalled him in affluence. For the security of his riches, he constructed a stone edifice, connected with his palace by a wall. The man whom he employed, with a dishonest view, so artfully disposed one of the stones, that two or even one person might remove it from its place, In this building, when completed, the king deposited his treasures. Some time afterwards the artist found his end approaching; and having two sons, he called them both before him. and informed them in what manner, with a view to their future emolument and prosperity, he had built the king's treasury. He then explained the particular circumstance and situation of the stone, gave them minutely its dimensions, by observance of which they might become the managers of the king's riches. On the death of the father, the sons were not long before they availed themselves of their secret. Under the advantage of the night, they visited the building, discovered and removed the stone, and carried away with them a large sum of money. As soon as the king entered the apartment, he saw the vessels which contained his money materially diminished: he was astonished beyond measure, for as the seals were unbroken, and every entrance properly secured, he could not possibly direct his suspicion against any one. This was several times repeated; the thieves continued their visits, and the king as regularly saw his money decrease, To effect a discovery, he ordered some traps to be placed round the vessels which contained his riches. The robbers came as before; one of them, proceeding as usual directly to the vessels, was caught in the snare as soon as he was sensible of his situation, he called his brother, and acquainted him with it; he withal entreated him to cut off his head without a moment's delay, as the only means of preventing his own detection and consequent loss of life. He approved and obeyed his advice, and replacing properly the stone, he returned home with the head of his brother. As soon as it was light the king entered the apartment, and seeing the body secured in the snare without a head, the building in no part disturbed, nor the smallest appearance of any one having been there, he was more astonished than ever. In this perplexity he commanded the body to be hanged from the wall, and having stationed guards on the spot, he directed them to seize and bring before him whoever should discover any symptoms of compassion or sorrow at sight of the deceased. The mother being much exasperated at this exposure of her son, threatened the surviving brother, that if he did not contrive and execute some means of removing the body, she would immediately go to the

king, and disclose all the circumstances of the robbery. The young man in vain endeavoured to alter the woman's determination; he therefore put in practice the following expedient: he got together some asses, which he loaded with flasks of wine; he then drove them near the place where the guards were stationed to watch the body of his brother. As soon as he approached, he secretly removed the pegs from the mouths of two or three of the skins, and when he saw the wine running about, he began to beat his head and cry out vehemently, with much pretended confusion and distress. The soldiers, perceiving the accident, instantly ran with vessels, and such wine as they were able to catch they considered as so much gain to themselves. At first, with great apparent anger, he reproached and abused them, but he gradually listened to their endeavours to console and pacify him: he then proceeded at leisure to turn his asses out of the road and to secure his flasks. He soon entered into conversation with the guards, and affecting to be pleased with the drollery of one of them, he gave them a flask of wine; they accordingly sat down to drink, and insisted upon his bearing them company: he complied with their solicitations, and a second flask was presently the effect of their civility to him. The wine had soon its effect: the guards became exceedingly drunk and fell fast asleep. Under the advantage of the night, the young man took down the body of his brother, and, in derison, shaved the right cheeks of the guards; he placed the body on one of the asses, and returned home, having thus satisfied his mother. When the king heard of what had happened, he was enraged beyond measure; but still determined on the detection of the criminal, he contrived this, which to me seems a most improbable part of the story: he commanded his daughter to prostitute her person indiscriminately to every comer, upon condition that, before enjoyment, each should tell her the most artful as well as the most wicked thing he had ever done; if any one should disclose the circumstance of which he wished to be informed, she was to seize him, and prevent his escape. The daughter obeyed the injunction of her father. The thief, knowing what was intended, prepared still farther to disappoint and deceive the king. He cut off the arm near the shoulder from a body recently dead, and concealing it under his cloak, he visited the king's daughter. When he was asked the same question as the rest, he replied, that the most wicked thing he had ever done was the cutting off the head of his brother, who was caught in a snare in the king's treasury; the most artful thing, was his making the guards drunk, and by that means effecting the removal of his brother's body. On hearing this, she endeavoured to apprehend him; but he, favoured by the night, put out to her the dead arm, which she seizing, was thus deluded, whilst he made his escape. On hearing this also, the king was equally astonished at the art and audacity of the man; he was afterwards induced to make a proclamation through the different parts of his dominions, that if the offender would appear before him, he would not only pardon, but reward him liberally. The thief, trusting to his word, appeared. Rhampsinitus was delighted with the man, and

thinking his ingenuity beyond all parallel, gave him his daughter. The king conceived the Egyptians superior in subtlety to all the world, but he thought this man superior even to Egyptians.

"After this event, they told me that the same king descended alive beneath the earth, to what the Greeks call the infernal regions, where he played at dice with the goddess Ceres, and alternately won and lost. On his return, she presented him with a napkin embroidered with gold. The period of his return was observed by the Egyptians as a solemn festival, and has continued to the time of my remembrance: whether the above, or some other incident, was the occasion of this feast, I will not take upon me to determine. The ministers of this solemnity have a vest woven within the space of the day; this is worn by a priest whose eyes are covered with a bandage. They conduct him to the path which leads to the temple of Ceres, and there leave him. They assert, that two wolves meet the priest thus blinded, and lead him to the temple, though at the distance of twenty stadia from the city, and afterwards conduct him back again to the place where they found him.

"Every reader must determine for himself with respect to the credibility of what I have related; for my own part, I heard these things from the Egyptians, and think it necessary to transcribe the result of my enquiries. The Egyptians esteem Čeres and Bacchus as the great deities of the realms below; they are also the first of mankind who have defended the immortality of the soul. They believe, that on the dissolution of the body the soul immediately enters some other animal, and that, after using as vehicles every species of terrestrial, aquatic, and winged creatures, it finally enters a second time into a human body. They affirm that it undergoes all these changes in the space of three thousand years. This opinion some amongst the Greeks have at different periods of time adopted as their own; but I shall not, though I am able, specify their names."

Bryant remarks, on this passage, that the kings of Egypt had many names and titles; these have been branched out into persons, and inserted in the lists of monarchs. Osiris, Orus, Adonis, Thamuz, Tulus or Thoulos, and Rhampsinitus, are represented as having died, and again appeared on earth. "I mention this (says Bryant) to show that the whole is one and the same history, and these names of the same person." The making these the names of different persons has occasioned no little confusion in Egyptian, and, indeed, every chronology. I would here remark, en passant, that the story of Rhampsinitus is to be found in that very extraordinary collection of tales, "The Seven Wise Masters;" but it is there related of a Roman emperor, called Octavian: and this is a work of decidedly eastern origin, and is referred by Ellis to one hundred years before Christ, and to an Indian philosopher named Sandahar. Alexander's Indian expedition will show us how this Egyptian fable became naturalized in that country; and we just notice that no mention is made of Octavian in the oriental copies. Indeed, this romance may be traced through six forms, in all of which the persons, and in most the title of the work is changed. Would our space permit, we would willingly have examined some of the wonders and the ancient