CHAPTER VIII

THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--I

_The Pastoral and Heroic Romance, and the Fairy Story_

[Sidenote: Immense importance of the seventeenth century in our

subject.]

The seventeenth century, almost if not quite from its beginning, ranks

in French literature as the eighteenth does with us, that is to say, as

the time of origin of novels or romances which can be called, in any

sense, modern. In its first decade appeared the epoch-making

pastoral-heroic _Astree_ of Honore d'Urfe;[124] its middle period, from

1620 to 1670, was the principal birth-time of the famous "Heroic"

variety, pure and simple; while, from that division into the last third,

the curiously contrasted kind of the fairy tale came to add its quota of

influence. At various periods, too, individuals of more or less note

(and sometimes of much more than almost any of the "school-writers" just

mentioned) helped mightily in strengthening and diversifying the

subjects and manners of tales. To this period also belongs the

continuance and prominence of that element of actual "lived" anecdote

and personal history which has been mentioned more than once before. The

_Historiettes_ of Tallemant contain short suggestions for a hundred

novels and romances; the memoirs, genuine or forged, of public and

private persons have not seldom, in more modern times, formed the actual

basis of some of the greatest fiction. Everybody ought long to have

known Thackeray's perhaps rather whimsical declaration that he

positively preferred the forged D'Artagnan memoirs of Courtils de

Sandras (as far at least as the Gascon himself was concerned) to the

work of that Alexander, the truly Great, of which he was nevertheless

such a generous admirer: and recently mere English readers have had the

opportunity of seeing whether they agree with him. In fact, as the

century went on, almost all kinds of literature began to be more or less

pervaded with the novel appeal and quality.

[Sidenote: The divisions of its contribution.]

The letters of "Notre Dame des Rochers" constantly read like parts or

scenes of a novel, and so do various compositions of her ill-conditioned

but not unintelligent cousin Bussy-Rabutin. Camus de Pontcarre in the

earlier and Fenelon in the later century determined that the Devil

should not have this good prose to himself, and our own Anthony Hamilton

showed the way to Voltaire in a kind, of which, though the Devil had

nothing immediately to do with it, he might perhaps make use later. In

fact, the whole century teems with the spirit of tale-telling, _plus_

character-analysis; and in the eighteenth itself, with a few notable

exceptions, there was rather a falling-off from, than a further advance

towards, the full blossoming of the aloe in the nineteenth.

It will probably, therefore, not be excessive to give two chapters (and

two not short ones) to this period. In the first of them we may take the

two apparently opposite, but by no means irreconcilable schools of

Pastoral and Heroic Romance[125] and of Fairy Tale, including perhaps

only four persons, if so many, of first-rate literary rank--Urfe,[126]

Madeleine de Scudery, Madame d'Aulnoy, and Perrault; in the second, the

more isolated but in some cases not unimportant names and works of

Sorel, Scarron, Furetiere, and the capital ones of Madame de la Fayette

and Hamilton. According to the plan previously pursued, less attempt

will be made to give exhaustive or even full lists of practitioners than

to illustrate their practice thoroughly by example, translated or

abstracted, and by criticism; and it is necessary that this latter

course should be used without mercy to readers or to the historian

himself in this first chapter. For there is hardly any department of

literature which has been more left to the rather treacherous care of

traditional and second- or seventh-hand judgment than the Heroic

romance.[127]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Pastoral in general.]

The Pastoral, as being of the most ancient and in a literary sense of

the highest formal rank, may occupy us first, but by no means longest. A

great deal of attention (perhaps a great deal more than was at all

necessary) has been paid to the pastoral element in various kinds of

literature. The thing is certainly curious, and inevitably invited

comment; but unfortunately it has peculiar temptations to a kind of

comment which, though very fashionable for some time past, is rarely

profitable. Pastorals of the most interesting kind actually exist in

literature: "pastoralism" in the abstract, unless treated in the pure

historical manner, is apt, like all similar criticism and discussion of

"kinds" in general, to tend to [Greek: phlyaria].[128] For a history in

a nutshell there is perhaps room even here, because the relations of the

thing to fiction cannot be well understood without it. That the

association of shepherds,[129] with songs, and with the telling of

"tales" in both senses, is immensely old, is a fact which the Hebrew

Scriptures establish, and almost the earliest Greek mythology and poetry

confirm; but the wiser mind, here as elsewhere, will probably be content

with the fact, and not enquire too busybodily into the reason. The

connection between Sicily--apparently a land of actual pastoral

life--and Alexandria--the home of the first professional man-of-letters

school, as it may be called--perhaps supplies something more; the actual

beauty of the Sicilian-Alexandrian poems, more still; the adoption of

the form by Virgil, who was revered at Rome, renowned somewhat

heterodoxically in the Middle Ages, and simply adored by the

Renaissance, most of all. So, in English, Spenser and Milton, in French,

Marot and others niched it solidly in the nation's poetry; and the

certainly charming _Daphnis and Chloe_, when vernacularised, transferred

its influence from verse to prose in almost all the countries of Europe.

To what may be called "common-sense" criticism, there is, of course, no

form of literature, in either prose or verse, which is more utterly

abhorrent and more helplessly exposed. Unsympathetic, and in some points

unfair and even unintelligent, as Johnson's criticism of _Lycidas_ may

seem, to the censure of its actual "pastorality" there is no answer,

except that "these things are an allegory" as well as a convention. To

go further out of mere common-sense objections, and yet stick to the

Devil's-Advocate line, there is no form which lends itself to--which,

indeed, insists upon--conventions of the most glaring unreality more

than the pastoral, and none in which the decorations, unless managed

with extraordinary genius, have such a tendency to be tawdry at best,

draggled and withered at worst. Nevertheless, the fact remains that at

almost all times, both in ancient literature and since the revival of

letters, as well as in some probably more spontaneous forms during the

Middle Ages themselves,[130] pastorals have been popular with the

vulgar, and practised by the elect; while within the very last hundred

years such a towering genius as Shelley's, and such a manifold and

effectual talent as Mr. Arnold's, have selected it for some of their

very best work.

Such adoption, moreover, had, for the writer of prose fiction, some

peculiar and pretty obvious inducements. It has been noticed by all

careful students of fiction that one of the initial difficulties in its

way, and one of those which do not seem to get out of that way very

quickly, is diffidence on the writer's part "how to begin." It may be

said that this is not peculiar to fiction; but extends from the poet who

never can get beyond the first lines of his epic to the journalist who

sits for an hour gazing at the blank paper for his article, and returns

home at midnight, if not like Miss Bolo "in a flood of tears and a sedan

chair," at any rate in a tornado of swearing at himself and (while there

were such things) a hansom cab. Pastoral gives both easy beginning and

supporting framework.

[Sidenote: Its beginnings in France.]

[Sidenote: Minor romances preceding the _Astree_.]

The transformation of the older pastoral form into the newer began,

doubtless, with the rendering into French of _Daphnis and Chloe_,[131]

which appeared in the same year with the complete _Heptameron_ (1559).

Twelve years later, in 1571, Belleforest's _La Pyrenee et Pastorale

Amoureuse_ rather took the title than exemplified the kind; but in 1578

the translation of Montemayor's _Diana_ definitely turned the current

into the new-old channel. It was not, however, till seven years later

still that "_Les Bergeries de Juliette_, de l'invention d'Ollenix du

Mont Sacre" (a rather exceptionally foolish anagram of Nicolas de

Montreux) essayed something original in the style. Montreux issued his

work, of which more presently, again and again in five instalments, the

last of which appeared thirteen years later than the first. And it has

been proved with immense bibliographical labour by M. Reynier,[132] that

though the last decade of the sixteenth century in France was almost as

fertile in short love-romances[133] as ours was in sonnet-cycles, the

pastoral form was, whether deliberately or not, for the most part

eschewed, though there were one or two exceptions of little if any

consequence. It is indeed noteworthy that (only four years before the

first part of the _Astree_) a second translation or the _Diana_ came

out. But it was not till 1607 that this first part actually appeared,

and in the opinion of its own time generally, and our own time for the

most part, though not in that of the interval, made a new epoch in the

history of French fiction.

[Sidenote: Their general character.]

The general characteristics of this curious and numerous, but almost

forgotten, body of work--which must, be it remembered, have exercised

influence, more or less, on the progress of the novel by the ways of

supply, demand, and reaction alike--have been carefully analysed by M.

Reynier, with whom, in regard to one or two points of opinion, one may

differ, but whose statements of fact are certainly trustworthy. Short as

they usually are, and small as is the literary power displayed in most

of them, it is clear that they, long before Rambouillet and the

_precieuses_, indicate a distinct reaction against merely brutal and

ferocious manners, with a standard of "courtiership" in both senses. Our

dear Reine Margot herself in one case prescribes, what one hopes she

found not merely in La Mole, but in others of those transitorily happy

ones whose desiccated hearts did or did not distend the pockets of her

farthingale as live Persian kittens do those of their merchants. To be a

lover you must have "a stocking void of holes, a ruff, a sword, a plume,

_and a knowledge how to talk_." This last point is illustrated in these

miniature romances after a fashion on which one of the differences of

opinion above hinted at may arise. It is not, as in the later "Heroics,"

shown merely in lengthy harangues, but in short and almost dramatised

dialogue. No doubt this is often clumsy, but it may seem to have been

not a whole mistake in itself--only an abortive attempt at something

which, much later again, had to come before real novel-writing could be

achieved, and which the harangues of the Scudery type could never have

provided. There is a little actual history in them--not the

key-cryptograms of the "Heroics" or their adoption of ancient and

distant historic frames. In a very large proportion, forced marriages,

proposed and escaped from, supply the plot; in not a few, forced

"vocations" to the conventual life. Elopements are as common as

abductions in the next stage, and are generally conducted with as much

propriety. Courtships of married women, and lapses by them, are very

rare.

[Sidenote: Examples of their style.]

No one will be surprised to hear that the "Phebus" or systematised

conceit, for which the period is famous, and which the beloved

Marguerite herself did not a little favour, is abundant in them. From a

large selection of M. Reynier's, I cull, as perhaps the most delightful

of all these, if not also of all known to me in any language, the

following:

During this task, Love, who had ambushed himself, plunged

his wings in the tears of the lover, and dried them in the

burning breast of the maiden.

"A squadron of sighs" is unambitious, but neat, terse, and very tempting

to the imagination. More complicated is a lady "floating on the sea of

the persecution of her Prince, who would fain give her up to the

shipwreck of his own concupiscence."

And I like this:

The grafts of our desires being inarched long since in the

tree of our loves, the branches thereof bore the lovely

bouquets of our hopes.

And this is fine:

Paper! that the rest of your white surface may not blush at

my shame, suffer me to blacken it with my sorrow!

It has always been a sad mystery to me why rude and dull intelligences

should sneer at, or denounce, these delightful fantastries, the very

stuff of which dreams and love and poetry--the three best things of

life--are made.[134]

[Sidenote: Montreux and the _Bergeries de Juliette_.]

The British Museum possesses not very many of the, I believe, numerous

works of Nicolas de Montreux, _alias_, as has been said, Ollenix du Mont

Sacre, a "gentleman of Maine," as he scrupulously designates himself.

But it does possess two parts (the first two) of the _Bergeries de

Juliette_, and I am not in the least surprised that no reader of them

should have worried any librarian into completing the set. Each of these

parts is a stout volume of some five hundred pages,[135] not very small,

of close small print, filled with stuff of the most deadly dulness. For

instance, Ollenix is desirous to illustrate the magnificence and the

danger of those professional persons of the other sex at Venice who have

filled no small place in literature from Coryat to Rousseau. So he tells

us, without a gleam or suspicion of humour, that one customer was so

astonied at the decorations of the bedroom, the bed, etc., that he

remained for two whole hours considering them, and forgetting to pay any

attention to the lady. It is satisfactory to know that she revenged

herself by raising the fee to an inordinate amount, and insisting on her

absurd client's lackey being sent to fetch it before the actual

conference took place. But the silliness of the story itself is a fair

sample of Montreux' wits, and these wits manage to make anything they

deal with duller by their way of telling it.

[Sidenote: Des Escuteaux and his _Amours Diverses_.]

It is still more unfortunate that our national collection has none of

the numerous fictions[136] of A(ntoine?) de Nerveze. His _Amours

Diverses_ (1606), in which he collected no less than seven love-stories,

published separately earlier, would be useful. But it luckily does

provide the similarly titled book of Des Escuteaux, who is perhaps the

most representative and prolific writer, next to Montreux and Nerveze,

of the whole, and who seems to me, from what I have read of the first

and what others say of the second, to be their superior. The collections

consist of (_Amours de_ in every case) _Filiris et Isolia_, dedicated to

Isabel (not "-bel_le_") de Rochechouart; _Clarimond et Antoinette_ (to

Lucresse [_sic_] de Bouille); _Clidamant et Marilinde_ (to _Jane_ de la

Brunetiere), and _Ipsilis et Alixee_ (to Renee de Cosse, Amirale de

France!).[137]

Some readers may be a little "put off" by a habit which Des Escuteaux

has, especially in the first story of the volume, of prefixing, as in

drama, the names of the speakers--_Le Prince_, _La Princesse_, etc.--to

the first paragraphs of the harangues and _histoires_ of which these

books so largely consist.[138] But it is not universal. The most

interesting of the four is, I think, _Clidamant et Marilinde_, for it

introduces the religious wars, a sojourn of the lovers on a desert

island, which M. Reynier[139] not unjustly calls Crusoe-like, and other

"varieties."

[Sidenote: Francois de Moliere--_Polyxene._]

I have not seen the other--quite other, and Francois--Moliere's _Semaine

Amoureuse_, which belongs to this class, though later than most; but his

still later _Polyxene_, a sort of half-way house between these shorter

novels and the ever-enlarged "Heroics," is a very fat duodecimo of 1100

pages. The heroine has two lovers--one with the singular name of

Cloryman,--but love does not run smooth with either, and she ends by

taking the (pagan) veil. The bathos of the thought and style may be

judged from the heroine's affecting mention of an entertainment as "the

last _ballet_ my unhappy father ever saw."

[Sidenote: Du Perier--_Arnoult et Clarimonde._]

Not one of the worst of these four or five score minors, though scarcely

in itself a positively good thing, is the Sieur du Perier's _La Haine et

l'Amour d'Arnoult et de Clarimonde_. It begins with a singularly banal

exordium, gravely announcing that Hate and Love _are_ among the most

important passions, with other statements of a similar kind couched in

commonplace language. But it does something to bring the novel from an

uninteresting cloudland to earth by dealing with the recent and still

vividly felt League wars: and there is some ingenuity shown in plotting

the conversion of the pair from more than "a little aversion" at the

beginning to nuptial union--_not_ at the end. For it is one of the

points about the book which are not commonplace, though it may be a

survival or atavism from mediaeval practice--that the latter part of it

is occupied mainly, not with Arnoult and Clarimonde, but with the loves,

fortunes, and misfortunes of their daughter Claride.

[Sidenote: Du Croset--_Philocalie._ Corbin--_Philocaste._]

The _Philocalie_ of Du Croset (1593) derives its principal interest from

its being not merely a _Bergerie_ before the _Astree_, but, like it, the

work of a Forezian gentleman who proudly asserts his territoriality, and

dedicates his book to the "Chevalier D'Urfe." And its part name-fellow,

the _Philocaste_ of Jean Corbin--a very tiny book, the heroine of which

is (one would hardly have thought it from her name) a Princess of

England--is almost entirely composed of letters, discourse on them, and

a few interspersed verses. It belongs to the division of

backward-looking novels, semi-chivalrous in type, and its hero is as

often called "The Black Knight" as by his name.

[Sidenote: Jean de Lannoi and his _Roman Satirique_.]

The _Roman Satirique_ (1624) of Jean de Lannoi is another example of the

curious inability to "hit it off" which has been mentioned so often as

characterising the period. Its 1100 pages are far too many, though it is

fair to say that the print is exceptionally large and loose. Much of it

is not in any sense "satiric," and it seems to have derived what

popularity it had almost wholly from the "key" interest.

[Sidenote: Beroalde de Verville outside the _Moyen de Parvenir_.]

The minor works--if the term may be used when the attribution of the

major is by no means certain--of Beroalde de Verville have, as is usual,

been used both ways as arguments for and against his authorship of the

_Moyen de Parvenir_. _Les Aventures de Floride_ is simply an attempt,

and a big one in size, to _amadigauliser_, as the literary slang of the

time went. The _Histoire Veritable_, owing nothing but its title and

part of its idea to Lucian, and sub-titled _Les Princes Fortunes_, is

less conventional. It has a large fancy map for a frontispiece; there

are fairies in it, and a sort of _pot-pourri_ of queernesses which might

not impossibly have come from the author or editor of the _Moyen_ in his

less inconveniently ultra-Pantagruelist moments. _Le Cabinet de Minerve_

is actually a glorification of "honest" love. In fact, Beroalde is one

of the oddest of "polygraphers," and there is nobody quite like him in

English, though some of his fellows may be matched, after a fashion,

with our Elizabethan pamphleteers. I have long wished to read the whole

of him, but I suppose I never shall.

And it is time to leave these very minor stars and come to the full and

gracious moon of the _Astree_ itself.

[Sidenote: The _Astree_--its author.]

Honore D'Urfe, who was three years younger than Shakespeare, and died in

the year in which Charles I. came to the throne, was a cadet of a very

ancient family in the district or minor province of Forez, where his own

famous Lignon runs into the Loire. He was a pupil of the Jesuits and

early _fort en theme_, was a strenuous _ligueur_, and, though (or

perhaps also because) he was very good friends with Henri's estranged

wife, Margot, for some time decidedly suspect to Henri IV. For this

reason, and others of property, etc., he became almost a naturalised

Savoyard, but died in the service of his own country at the beginning of

Richelieu's Valtelline war. The most noteworthy thing in his rather

eventful life was, however, his marriage. This also has a direct

literary interest, at least in tradition, which will have his wife,

Diane de Chateaumorand, to be Astree herself, and so the heroine of "the

first [great] sentimental romance." The circumstances of the union,

however, were scarcely sentimental, much less romantic. They were even,

as people used to say yesterday, "not quite nice," and the Abbe Reure, a

devotee of both parties to it, admits that they "_heurte[nt] violemment

nos idees_." In fact Diane was not only eight years older than Honore

and thirty-eight years of age, but she had been for a quarter of a

century the wife of his elder brother, Anne, while he himself was a

knight of Malta, and vowed to celibacy. Of course (as the Canon points

out with irrefragably literal accuracy in logic and law) the marriage

being declared null _ab initio_ (for the cause most likely to suggest

itself, though alleged after extraordinary delay), Diane and Honore were

not sister- and brother-in-law at all, and no "divorce" or even

"dispensation" was needed. In the same way, Honore, having been

introduced into the Order of St. John irregularly in various ways, never

was a knight of it at all, and could not be bound by its rules. Q.E.D.

Wicked people, of course, on the other hand, said that it was a device

to retain Diane's great wealth (for Honore was quite poor in comparison)

in the family; sentimental ones that it was a fortunate and blameless

crowning of a long and pure attachment. As a matter of fact, no

"permanent children" (to adopt an excellent phrase of the late Mr.

Traill's) resulted; Diane outlived her husband, though but for a short

time, and left all her property to her relations of the Levis family.

The pair are also said not to have been the most united of couples. In

connection with the _Astree_ their portraits are interesting. Honore

d'Urfe, though he had the benefit of Van Dyck's marvellous art of

cavalier creation, must have been a very handsome man. Diane's portrait,

by a much harder and dryer hand, purports to have been taken at the age

of sixty-four. At first sight there is no beauty in it; but on

reinspection one admits possibilities--a high forehead, rather

"enigmatic" eyes, not at all "extinguished," a nose prominent and rather

large, but straight and with well, but not too much, developed "wings,"

and, above all, a full and rather voluptuous mouth. Such may have been

the first identified novel-heroine. It is a popular error to think that

sixty-four and beauty are incompatibles, but one certainly would have

liked to see her at sixteen, or better still and perhaps best of all, at

six and twenty.

[Sidenote: The book.]

The _Astree_ itself is not the easiest of subjects to deal with. It is

indeed not so huge as the _Grand Cyrus_, but it is much more difficult

to get at--a very rare flower except in the "grey old gardens" of

secular libraries. It and its author have indeed for a few years past

had the benefit (as a result partly of another doubtful thing, an

_x_-centenary) of one[140] of the rather-to-seek good specimens among

the endless number of modern literary monographs. But it has never been

reprinted--even extracts of it, with the exception of a few stock

passages, are not common or extensive; and though a not small library

has been written about it in successive waves of eulogy, reaction,

mostly ignorant contempt, rehabilitation, and mere bookmaking; though

there have been (as noted) recent anniversaries and celebrations, and so

forth; though it is one of the not numerous books which have given a

name-type--Celadon,--and a place--"les bords du Lignon,"--to their own,

if not to universal literature, it seems to be "as a book" very little

known. The faithful monographer above cited admits merit in Dunlop; but

Dunlop does not say very much about it. Herr Koerting (_v. sup._)

analyses it. Possibly there may be, also in German, a comparison,

tempting to those who like such things, between it and its twenty years'

predecessor, Sidney's _Arcadia_, the first French translation of which,

in 1625, just after Urfe's death, was actually dedicated to his widow.

But I suspect that few English writers about Sidney have known much of

the _Astree_, and I feel sure that still fewer French writers[141] on

this have known anything of Sidney save perhaps his name. Of course the

indebtedness of both books to Montemayor's _Diana_ is a commonplace.

[Sidenote: Its likeness to the _Arcadia_.]

[Sidenote: Its philosophy and its general temper.]

One of the numerous resemblances between the two, and one which,

considering their respective positions in the history of the French and

English novel, is most interesting, is the strong philosophical and

specially Platonic influence which the Renaissance exercised on

both.[142] Sidney, however full of it elsewhere, put less of it in his

actual novel; while, on the other hand, nothing did so much to create

and spread the rather rococo notion of pseudo-platonic love in France,

and from France throughout Europe, as the _Astree_ itself. The further

union of the philosophic mind with an eminently cavalier

temperament--the united _ethos_ of scholar, soldier, lover, and

courtier--fills out the comparison: and dwarfs such merely mechanical

things as the mixed use of prose and verse (which both may have taken,

nay pretty certainly did take, from Montemayor) and the pastoralities,

for which they in the same way owed royalty to the Spaniard, to Tasso,

to Sannazar, and to the Greek romances, let alone Theocritus and Virgil.

And, to confine ourselves henceforward to our own special subject, it is

this double infusion of idealism--of spiritual and intellectual

enthusiasm on the one hand and practical fire of life and act on the

other--which makes the great difference, not merely between the _Astree_

and its predecessors of the _Amadis_ class, but between it and its

successors the strictly "Heroic" romances, though these owe it so much.

The first--except in some points of passion--hardly touch reality at

all; the last are perpetually endeavouring to simulate and insinuate a

sort of reality under cover of adventures and conventions which, though

fictitious, are hardly at all fantastic. But the _Astree_ might almost

be called a French prose _Faerie Queene_, allowing for the difference of

the two nations, languages, vehicles, and _milieux_ generally, in its

representation of the above-mentioned cavalier-philosophic _ethos_--a

thing never so well realised in France as in England or in Spain, but of

which Honore d'Urfe, from many traits in life and book, seems to have

been a real example, and which certainly vindicates its place in history

and literature.

[Sidenote: Its appearance and its author's other work.]

The _Astree_ appeared in five instalments, 1607-10-12-19 and

posthumously, the several parts being frequently printed: and it is said

to be almost impossible to find a copy, all the parts of which are of

the first issue in each case. The two later parts probably, the last

certainly, were collaborated in, if not wholly written by, the author's

secretary Baro. But it was by no means Honore's only work; indeed the

Urfes up to his time were an unusually literary family; and, while his

grandfather Claude collected a remarkable library (whence, at its

dispersion in the evil days of the house[143] during the eighteenth

century, came some of not the least precious possessions of French

public and private collections), his unfortunate brother Anne was a

poet. Honore himself, besides school exercises, wrote _Epistres Morales_

which were rather popular, and display qualities useful in appreciating

the novel itself; a poem in octosyllables, usually and perhaps naturally

called "_La_ Sireine," but really entitled in the masculine, and having

nothing to do with a mermaid; a curious thing, semi-dramatic in form and

in irregular blank verse, entitled _Silvanire ou La Morte Vive_, which

was rehandled soon after his death by Corneille's most dangerous rival

Mairet; and an epic called _La Savoisiade_, which seems to have no

merit, and all but a very small portion of which is still unprinted.

[Sidenote: Its character and appeals.]

He remains, therefore, the author of the _Astree_, and, taking things on

the whole (a mighty whole, beyond contest, as far as bulk goes), there

are not so many authors of the second rank (for one of the first he can

hardly be called) who would lose very much by an exchange with him.

One's estimates of the book are apt to vary in different places, even

as, though not in the same degree as, the estimates of others have

varied at different times; but I myself have found that the more I read

of it the more I liked and esteemed it; and I believe that, if I had a

copy of my own and could turn it over in the proper diurnal and

nocturnal fashion, not as duty- but as pleasure-reading, I should like

it better still. Certain points that have appealed to me have been

noticed already--its combination of sensuous and ideal passion is

perhaps the most important of them; but there are not a few others,

themselves by no means void of importance. One is the union, not common

in French books between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century, of

sentiment and seriousness with something very like humour. Hylas, the

not exactly "comic man," but light-o'-love and inconstant shepherd, was

rather a bone of contention among critics of the book's own century. But

he certainly seasons it well; and there is one almost Shakespearean

scene in which he is concerned--a scene which Benedick and Beatrice, who

may have read it not so very many years after their own marriage, must

have enjoyed considerably. Hylas and the shepherdess Stella (who is

something of a girl-counterpart of his, as in the case just cited) draw

up a convention of love[144] between them. The tables, though they are

not actually numbered in the original, are twelve, and, shortened a

little, run as follows:

[Sidenote: Hylas and Stella and their Convention.]

1. Neither is to be sovereign over the other.

2. Both are to be at once Lover and Beloved. [They knew

something about the matter, these two, for all their

jesting.]

3. There is to be no constraint of any kind.

4. They are to love for as long or as short a time as they

please.

5. No charge of infidelity is ever to be brought on either

side.

6. It is quite permitted to either or both to love somebody

else, and yet to continue loving each other.

7. There is to be no jealousy, no complaints, no sulks.

8. They are to do and say exactly what they please.

9. Words like "faithfulness," etc., are taboo.

10. They may leave off playing whenever they like.

11. And begin again ditto.

12. They are to forget both the favours they receive from

each other and the offences they may commit against each

other.

Now, of course, any one may say of the Land where such a code might be

realised, in the very words of one of the most charming of songs, set to

one of the happiest of tunes:

Cette rive, ma chere,

On ne la connait guere

Au pays des amours!

But that is not the question, and if it _were_ possible it undoubtedly

would be a very agreeable Utopia, combining the transcendental charms of

the country of Quintessence with the material ones of the Pays de

Cocagne. From its own point of view there seems to be no fault to find

with it, except, perhaps, with the first part of the Twelfth

Commandment; for the remembrance of former favours heightens the

enjoyment of later ones, and the danger of _nessun maggior dolore_ is

excluded by the hypothesis of indifference after breach. But a sort of

umpire, or at any rate thirdsman, the shepherd Silvandre,[145] when

asked his opinion, makes an ingenious objection. To carry out Article

Three, he says, there ought to be a Thirteenth:

13. That they may break any of these rules just as they

please.

For what comes of this further the reader may go to the book, but enough

of it should have been given to show that there is no want of salt,

though there is no (or very little) _gros sel_[146] in the _Astree_.

[Sidenote: Narrative skill frequent.]

Yet again there is very considerable narrative power. Abstracts may be

found, not merely in older books mentioned or to be mentioned, but in

the recent publications of Koerting and the Abbe Reure, and there is

neither room nor need for a fresh one here. As some one (or more than

one) has said, the book is really a sort of half-allegorical tableau of

honourable Love worked out in a crowd of couples (some I believe, have

counted as many as sixty), from Celadon and Astree themselves downwards.

The course of these loves is necessarily "accidented," and the accidents

are well enough managed from the first, and naturally enough best known,

where Celadon flings himself into the river and is rescued, insensible

but alive, by nymphs, who all admire him very much, though none of them

can affect his passion for Astree. But one cares--at least I have found

myself caring--less for the story than for the way in which it is

told--a state of things exactly contrary, as will be seen, to that

produced with or in me by the _Grand Cyrus_. There we have a really

well, if too intricately, engineered plot, in the telling of which it is

difficult to take much interest. Here it is just the reverse. And one of

the consequences is that you can dip in the _Astree_ much more

refreshingly than in its famous follower, where, if you do so, you

constantly "don't know where you are."

[Sidenote: The Fountain of the Truth of Love.]

One of the most famous things in the book, and one of the most important

to its conduct, is the "Fountain of the Truth of Love," a few words on

which will illustrate the general handling very fairly. This Fountain

(presided over by a Druid, a very important personage otherwise, who is

a sort of high priest thereof) has nothing in common with the more usual

waters which are philtres or anti-philtres, etc. Its function is to be

gazed in rather than to be drunk, and if you look into it, loving

somebody, you see your mistress. If she loves you, you see yourself as

well, beside her, and (which is not so nice) if she loves some one else

you see _him_; while if she is fancy-free you see her only. Clidaman,

one of the numerous lovers above mentioned, tries the water; and his

love, Silvie, presents herself again and again as he looks, "almost

setting on fire with her lovely eyes the wave which seemed to laugh

around her." But she is quite alone.

The presiding Druid interprets, not merely in the sense already given,

but with one of the philosophic commentaries, which, as has been said,

are distinctive of the book. The nature of the fountain is to reflect

not body but spirit. Spirit includes Will, Memory, and Judgment, and

when a man loves, his spirit transforms itself through all these ways

into the thing loved. Therefore when he looks into the fountain he sees

Her. In the same way She is changed into Him or some one else whom she

loves, and He sees that image also; but if she loves no one He sees her

image alone.

"This is very satisfactory" (as Lady Kew would say) to the inquiring

mind, but not so much so to the lover. He wants to have the fountain

shut up, I suppose (for my notes and memory do not cover this point

exactly), that no rival may have the chance denied to himself. He would

even destroy it, but that--the Druid tells and shows him--is quite

impossible. What can be done shall be. And here comes in another of the

agreeable things (to me) in the book--its curious fairy-tale character,

which is shown by numerous supernaturalities, much more _humanised_ than

those of the _Amadis_ group, and probably by no means without effect on

the fairy-tale proper which was to follow. Clidaman himself happens, in

the most natural way in the world, to "keep"--as an ordinary man keeps

cats and dogs--a couple of extraordinary big and savage lions and

another couple of unicorns to fight, not with each other, but with

miscellaneous animals. The lions and the unicorns are forthwith

extra-enchanted, so as to guard the fountain--an excellent arrangement,

but subject to some awkwardnesses in the sequel. For the lions take

turns to seek their meat in the ordinary way, and though they can hurt

nobody who does not meddle with the fountain, and have no wish to be

man-eaters, complications naturally supervene. And sometimes, besides

fighting,[147] and love-making, and love casuistry, and fairy-tales, and

oracles, and the finer comedy above mentioned, "Messire d'Urfe" (for he

did not live too late to have that most gracious of all designations of

a gentleman used in regard to him) did not disdain, and could not ill

manage, sheer farce. The scene with Cryseide and Arimant and Clorine and

the nurse and the ointment in Part III. Book VII., though it contains

little or nothing to _effaroucher la pudeur_, is like one of the broader

but not broadest tales of the Fabliaux and their descendants.

[Sidenote: Some drawbacks--awkward history.]

The book, therefore, has not merely a variety, but a certain liveliness,

neither of which is commonplace; but it would of course be uncritical to

suppress its drawbacks. It is far too long: and while bowing to those to

the manner born who say that Baro carried out his master's plan well in

point of style, and acknowledging that I have paid less attention to

Parts IV. and V. than to the others, it seems to me that we could spare

a good deal of them. One error, common to almost the whole century in

fiction, is sometimes flagrant. Nobody except a pedant need object to

the establishment, in the time of the early fifth century and the place

of Gaul, of a non-historical kinglet- or queenletdom of Forez or

"Seguse" under Amasis (here a feminine name[148]), etc.; nor, though (as

may perhaps be remarked again later) things Merovingian bring little

luck in literature, need we absolutely bar Chilperics and Alarics, or a

reference to "all the beauties of Neustria." But why, in the midst of

the generally gracious _macedoine_ of serious and comic loves, and

jokes, and adventures, should we have thrust in the entirely

unnecessary, however historical, crime whereby Valentinian the Third

lost his worthless life and his decaying Empire? It has, however, been

remarked, perhaps often enough, by those who have busied themselves with

the history of the novel, how curious it is that the historical variety,

though it never succeeded in being born for two thousand years after

the _Cyropaedia_ and more, constantly strove to be so. At no time were

the throes more frequent than during the seventeenth century in France;

at no time, there or anywhere else, were they more abortive.[149]

[Sidenote: But attractive on the whole.]

But it remains on the whole an attractive book, and the secret of at

least part of this attractiveness is no doubt to be found stated in a

sentence of Madame de Sevigne's, which has startled some people, that

"everything in it is natural and true." To the startled persons this may

seem either a deliberate paradox, or a mere extravagance of affection,

or even downright bad taste and folly. But the Lady of all Beautiful

Letter-writers was almost of the family of Neverout in literary

criticism. If she had been a professional critic (which is perhaps

impossible), she might have safeguarded her dictum by the addition,

"according to its own scheme and division." It is the neglect of this

implication which has caused the demurs. "'Natural!'" and "'true!'" they

say, "why, the Pastoral is the most frankly and in fact outrageously

unnatural and false of all literary kinds. Does not Urfe himself warn us

that we are not to expect ordinary shepherds and shepherdesses at all?"

Or perhaps they go more to detail. "The whole book is unabashedly

occupied with love-making; and love is not the whole, it is even a very

small part, of life, that is to say, of truth and nature." Or, to come

still closer to particulars, "Where, for instance, did Celadon, who is

represented as having been reduced to utter destitution when, _more

heroum_, he started a quasi-hermit life in the wood, get the

decorations, etc., of the Temple he erected to Love and Astree?" One

almost blushes at having to explain, in a popular style, the

mistakenness, to use the mildest word, of these objections. The present

writer, in a book less ambitious than the present on the sister subject

of the English novel, once ventured to point out that if you ask "where

Sir Guyon got that particularly convenient padlock with which he

fastened Occasion's tongue, and still more the hundred iron chains with

which he bound Furor?" that is to say, if you ask such a question

seriously, you have no business to read romance at all. As to the Love

matter, of that it is still less use to talk. There are some who would

go so far as to deny the major; even short of that hardiness it may be

safely urged that in poetry and romance Love _is_ the chief and

principal thing, and that the poet and the romancer are only acting up

to their commission in representing it as such. But the source of all

these errors is best reached, and if it may be, stopped, by dealing with

the first article of the indictment in the same way. What if Pastoral

_is_ artificial? That may be an argument against the kind as a whole,

but it cannot lie against a particular example of it, because that

example is bound to act up to its kind's law. And I think it not

extravagant to contend that the _Astree_ acts up to its law in the most

inoffensive fashion possible--in such a fashion, in fact, as is hardly

ever elsewhere found in the larger specimens, and by no means very often

in the smaller. Hardly even in _As You Like It_, certainly not in the

_Arcadia_, do the crook and the pipe get less in the way than they do

here. A minor cavil has been urged--that the "shepherds" and the

"knights," the "shepherdesses" and the "nymphs" are very little

distinguishable from each other; but why should they be? Urfe had

sufficient art to throw over all these things an air of glamour which,

to those who can themselves take the benefit of the spell, banishes all

inconsistencies, all improbabilities, all specks and knots and the like.

It has been said that the _Astree_ has in it something of the genuine

fairy-tale element. And the objections taken to it are really not much

more reasonable than would be the poser whether even the cleverest of

wolves, with or without a whole human grandmother inside it, would find

it easy to wrap itself up in bedclothes, or whether, seeing that even

walnut shells subject cats to such extreme discomfort, top-boots would

not be even more intolerable to the most faithful of feline retainers.

[Sidenote: The general importance and influence.]

The literary influence and importance of the book have never been denied

by any competent criticism which had taken the trouble to inform itself

of the facts. It can be pointed out that while the "Heroics," great as

was their popularity for a time, did not keep it very long, and lost it

by sharp and long continued--indeed never reversed--reaction, the

influence of the _Astree_ on this later school itself was great, was not

effaced by that of its pupils, and worked in directions different, as

well as conjoint. It begat or helped to beget the _Precieuses_; it did a

great deal, if not exactly to set, to continue that historical character

which, though we have not been able to speak very favourably of its

immediate exercise, was at last to be so important. Above all, it

reformed and reinforced the "sentimental" novel, as it is called. We

have tried to show that there was much more of this in the mediaeval

romance proper than it has been the fashion in recent times to allow.

There was a great deal in the _Amadis_ class, but extravaganzaed out of

reason as well as out of rhyme. To us, or some of us, the _Astree_ type

may still seem extravagant, but in comparison it brings things back to

that truth and nature which were granted it by Madame de Sevigne. Its

charms actually soothed the savage breast of Boileau, and it is not

surprising that La Fontaine loved it. Few things of the kind are more

creditable to the better side of Jean Jacques a full century later, than

that he was not indifferent to its beauty; and there were few greater

omissions on the part of _mil-huit-cent-trente_ (which, however, had so

much to do!) than its comparative neglect to stray on to the gracious

banks of the Lignon. All honour to Saint-Marc Girardin (not exactly the

man from whom one would have expected it) for having been, as it seems,

though in a kind of _palinodic_ fashion, the first to render serious

attention, and to do fair justice, to this vast and curious wilderness

of delights.[150]

[Sidenote: The _Grand Cyrus_.]

[Sidenote: Its preface to Madame de Longueville.]

To turn from the Pastoral to the Heroic, the actual readers, English or

other, of _Artamene ou le Grand Cyrus_[151] in late years, have probably

been reckonable rather as single spies (a phrase in this connection of

some rather special appropriateness) than in battalions. And it is to be

feared that many or most, if not nearly all of them, have opened it with

little expectation of pleasure. The traditional estimates are dead

against it as a rule; it has constantly served as an example--produced

by wiseacres for wiseacres--of the _un_wisdom of our ancestors; and,

generous as were Sir Walter's estimates of all literature, and

especially of his fellow-craftsmen's and craftswomen's work, the lively

passage in _Old Mortality_ where Edith Bellenden's reference to the book

excites the (in the circumstances justifiable) wrath of the

Major--perhaps the only _locus_ of ordinary reading that touches

_Artamene_ with anything but vagueness--is not entirely calculated to

make readers read eagerly. But on turning honestly to the book itself,

it is possible that considerable relief and even a little astonishment

may result. Whether this satisfaction will arise at the very dedication

by that vainglorious and yet redoubtable cavalier, Georges de Scudery,

in which he characteristically takes to himself the credit due mainly,

if not wholly, to his plain little sister Madeleine, will depend upon

taste. It is addressed to Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, Duchess of

Longueville, sister of Conde, and adored mistress of many noteworthy

persons--the most noteworthy perhaps being the Prince de Marcillac,

better known, as from his later title, as Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and

a certain Aramis--not so good a man as three friends of his, but a very

accomplished, valiant, and ingenious gentleman. The blue eyes of Madame

de Longueville (M. de Scudery takes the liberty to mention specially

their charm, if not their colour) were among the most victorious in that

time of the "raining" and reigning influence of such things: and somehow

one succumbs a little even now to her as the Queen of that bevy of fair,

frail, and occasionally rather ferocious ladies of the Fronde feminine.

(The femininity was perhaps most evident in Madame de Chevreuse, and the

ferocity in Madame de Montbazon.) Did not Madame de Longueville--did not

they all--figuratively speaking, draw that great philosopher Victor

Cousin[152] up in a basket two centuries after her death, even as had

been done, literally if mythically, to that greater philosopher,

Aristotle, ages before? But the governor of Our Lady of the Guard[153]

says to her many of these things which that very Aramis delighted to

hear (though not perhaps from the lips of rivals) and described,

rebuking the callousness of Porthos to them, as fine and worthy of being

said by gentlemen. The Great Cyrus himself "comes to lay at her

Highness's feet his palms and his trophies." His historian, achieving at

once advertisement and epigram, is sure that as she listened kindly to

the _Death of Caesar_ (his own play), she will do the same to the Life

of Cyrus. Anne Genevieve herself will become the example of all

Princesses (the Reverend Abraham Adams might have groaned a little

here), just as Cyrus was the pattern of all Princes. She is not the

moon, but the sun[154] of the Court. The mingled blood of Bourbon and

Montmorency gives her such an _eclat_ that it is almost unapproachable.

He then digresses a little to glorify her brother, her husband, and

Chapelain, the famous author of _La Pucelle_, who had the good fortune

to be a friend of the Scuderys, as well as, like them, a strong "Heroic"

theorist. After which he comes to that personal inventory which has been

referred to, decides that her beauty is of a celestial splendour, and,

in fact, a ray of Divinity itself; goes into raptures, not merely over

her eyes, but over her hair (which simply effaces sunbeams); the

brightness and whiteness of her complexion; the just proportion of her

features; and, above all, her singularly blended air of modesty and

gallantry; her intellectual and spiritual match; her bodily graces; and

he is finally sure that though somebody's misplaced acuteness may

discover faults which nobody else will perceive (Georges would like to

see them, no doubt), her extreme kindness will pardon them. A

commonplace example of flattery this? Well, perhaps not. One somehow

sees, across the rhetoric, the blue eyes of Anne Genevieve and the

bristling mustachios and "swashing outside" and mighty rapier of

Georges; and the thing becomes alive with the life of a not ungracious

past, the ills of which were, after all, more or less common to all

times, and its charms (like the charms of all things and persons

charming) its own.

[Sidenote: The "Address to the Reader."]

But the Address to the Reader, though it discards those "temptations of

young ladies" (Madame de Longueville can never have been old) which Dr.

Johnson recognised, and also the companion attractions of Cape and

Sword, is of perhaps directly greater importance for our special and

legitimate purpose. Here the brother and sister (probably the sister

chiefly) develop some of the principles of their bold adventure, and

they are of no small interest. It is allowed that the varying accounts

of Cyrus (in which, as almost every one with the slightest tincture of

education[155] must be aware, doctors differ remarkably), at least those

of Herodotus and Xenophon (they do not, or she does not, seem to have

known Ctesias), are confounded, and selected _ad libitum_ and _secundum

artem_ only. Further "lights" are given by the selection of the

"Immortal Heliodorus" and "the great Urfe" as patterns and patrons of

the work. In fact, to any expert in the reading and criticism of novels

it is clear that a great principle has been--imperfectly but

somehow--laid hold of.

[Sidenote: The opening of the "business."]

Perhaps, however, "laid hold of" is too strong; we should do better by

borrowing from Dante and saying that the author or authors have

"glimpsed the Panther,"--have seen that a novel ought not to be a mere

chronicle, unselected and miscellaneous, but a work which, whether it

has actual unity of plot or not, has unity of interest, and will deal

with its facts so as to secure that interest. At first, indeed, they

plunge us into the middle of matters quite excitingly, though perhaps

not without more definite suggestion, both to them and to us, of the

"immortal" Heliodorus. The hero, who still bears his false name of

Artamene,[156] appears at the head of a small army, the troops of

Cyaxares of Media; and, at the mouth of a twisting valley, suddenly sees

before him the town of Sinope in flames, the shipping in the harbour

blazing likewise, all but one bark, which seems to be flying from more

than the conflagration. A fine comic-opera situation follows; for while

Artamene is trying to subdue the fire he is attacked by the traitor

Aribee, general under the King of Assyria, who is himself shut up in a

tower and seems to be hopelessly cut off from rescue by the fire. The

invincible hero, however, subdues at once the rebel and the destroying

element; captures the Assyrian, who is not only his enemy and that of

his master Cyaxares, but his Rival (the word has immense importance in

these romances, and is always honoured with a capital there), and learns

that the escaping galley carried with it his beloved Mandane, daughter

of Cyaxares, of whom he is in quest, and who has been abducted from her

abductor and lover by another, Prince Mazare of Sacia.

[Sidenote: The ups and downs of the general conduct of the story.]

All this is lively and business-like enough, and one feels rather a

brute in making the observation (necessary, however) that Artamene talks

too much and not in the right way. When things in general are "on the

edge of a razor" and one is a tried and skilful soldier, one does not,

except on the stage, pause to address the unjust Gods, and inquire

whether they have consented to the destruction of the most beautiful

princess in the world; discuss with one's friends the reduction into

cinders[157] of the adorable Mandane, and further enquire, without the

slightest chance of answer, "Alas! unjust Rival! hast thou not thought

rather of thine own preservation than of hers?" However, for a time, the

incidents do carry off the verbiage, and for nearly a hundred small

pages there is no great cause for complaint. It is the style of the

book; and if you do not like it you must "seek another inn." But what

succeeds, for the major part of the first of the twenty volumes,[158] is

open to severer criticisms. We fall into interminable discussions,

_recits_, and the like, on the subject of the identity of Artamene and

Cyrus, and we see at once the imperfect fashion in which the nature of

the novel is conceived. That elaborate explanation--necessary in

history, philosophy, and other "serious" works--cannot be cut down too

much in fiction, is one truth that has not been learnt.[159] That the

stuffing of the story with large patches of solid history or

pseudo-history is wrong and disenchanting has not been learnt either;

and this is the less surprising and the more pardonable in that very

few, if indeed any, of the masters and mistresses of the novel, later

and greater than Georges and Madeleine de Scudery, have not refused to

learn it or have not carelessly forgotten the learning. Even Scott

committed the fault sometimes, though never in his very best work.

Dumas--when he went out and left the "young men" to fill in, and stayed

too long, and made them fill in too much--did it constantly. Yet again,

that mixture of excess and defect in talking, which has been noted

already, becomes more and more trying in connection with the previously

mentioned faults and others. Of _mere_ talk there is enough and

immensely to spare; but it is practically never real dialogue, still

less real conversation. It is harangue, narrative, soliloquy, what you

will, in the less lively theatrical forms of speech watered out in

prose, with "passing of compliments" in the most gentlefolkly manner,

and a spice of "Phebus" or Euphuism now and then. But it is never real

personal talk,[160] while as for conveying the action _by_ the talk as

the two great masters above mentioned and nearly all others of their

kind do, there is no vestige of even an attempt at the feat, or a

glimpse of its desirableness.

Again, one sees before long that of one priceless quality--a sense of

humour--we shall find, though there is a little mild wit, especially in

the words of the ladies named in the note, no trace in the book, but a

"terrible _minus_ quantity." I do not know that the late Sir William

Gilbert was a great student of literature--of classical literature, to

judge from the nomenclature of _Pygmalion and Galatea_ mentioned above,

he certainly was not. But his eyes would surely have glistened at the

unconscious and serious anticipation of his own methods at their most

Gilbertian, had he ever read pp. 308 _sqq._ of this first volume. Here

not only do Cyrus and a famous pirate, by boarding with irresistible

valour on each side, "exchange ships," and so find themselves at once to

have gained the enemy's and lost their own, but this remarkable

manoeuvre is repeated more than twenty times without advantage on

either side--or without apparently any sensible losses on either side.

From which it would appear that both contented themselves with displays

of agility in climbing from vessel to vessel, and did nothing so

impolite as to use their "javelins, arrows, and cutlasses" (of which,

nevertheless, we hear) against the persons of their competitors in such

agility on the other side. It did come to an end somehow after some

time; but one is quite certain that if Mr. Crummles had had the means of

presenting such an admirable spectacle on any boards, he never would

have contented himself without several encores of the whole twenty

operations.

An experienced reader, therefore, will not need to spend many hours

before he appreciates pretty thoroughly what he has to expect--of good,

of bad, and of indifferent--from this famous book. It is, though in a

different sense from Montaigne's, a _livre de bonne foi_. And we must

remember that the readers whom it directly addressed expected from books

of this kind "pastime" in the most literal and generous, if also

humdrum, sense of the word; noble sentiments, perhaps a little learning,

possibly a few hidden glances at great people not of antiquity only. All

these they got here, most faithfully supplied according to their demand.

[Sidenote: Extracts--the introduction of Cyrus to Mandane.]

Probably nothing will give the reader, who does not thus read for

himself, a better idea of the book than some extract translations,

beginning with Artamene's first interview with Mandane,[161] going on to

his reflections thereon, and adding a perhaps slightly shortened version

of the great fight recounted later, in which again some evidence of the

damaging absence of humour, and some suggestions as to the originals of

divers well-known parodies, will be found. (It must be remembered that

these are all parts of an enormous _recit_ by Chrisante, one of

Artamene's confidants and captains, to the King of Hircania, a monarch

doubtless inured to hardships in the chase of his native tigers, or

requiring some sedative as a change from it.)

No sooner had the Princess seen my Master than she rose, and

prepared to receive him with much kindness and much joy,

having already heard, by Arbaces, the service he had done to

the King, her father. Artamene then made her two deep bows,

and coming closer to her, but with all the respect due to a

person of her condition, he kissed [_no doubt the hem of_]

her robe, and presented to her the King's letter, which she

read that very instant. When she had done, he was going to

begin the conversation with a compliment, after telling her

what had brought him; but the Princess anticipated him in

the most obliging manner. "What Divinity, generous

stranger," said she, "has brought you among us to save all

Cappadocia by saving its King? and to render him a service

which the whole of his servants could not have rendered?"

"Madam," answered Artamene, "you are right in thinking that

some Divinity has led me hither; and it must have been some

one of those beneficent Divinities who do only good to men,

since it has procured me the honour of being known to you,

and the happiness of being chosen by Fortune to render to

the King a slight service, which might, no doubt, have been

better done him by any other man." "Modesty," said the

Princess (smiling and turning towards the ladies who were

nearest her), "is a virtue which belongs so essentially to

our own sex, that I do not know whether I ought to allow

this generous stranger so unjustly to rob us of it, or--not

content with possessing eminently that valour to which we

must make no pretension--to try to be as modest when he is

spoken to of the fineness of his actions as reasonable women

ought to be when they are praised for their beauty. For my

part," she added, looking at Artamene, "I confess I find

your proceeding a little unfair. And I do not think that I

ought to allow it, or to deprive myself of the power of

praising you infinitely, although you cannot endure it."

"Persons like you," retorted Artamene, but with profound

respect, "ought to receive praise from all the earth, and

not to give it lightly. 'Tis a thing, Madam, of which it is

not pleasant to have to repeat; for which reason I beg you

not to expose yourself to such a danger. Wait, Madam, till I

have the honour of being a little better known to you."

There are several pages more of this _carte_ and _tierce_ of compliment;

but perhaps a degenerate and impatient age may desire that we should

pass to the next subject. Whether it is right or not in so desiring may

perhaps be discussed when the three samples have been given.

Artamene has been dismissed with every mark of favour, and lodged in a

pavilion overlooking the garden. When he is alone--

[Sidenote: His soliloquy in the pavilion.]

After having passed and re-passed all these things over

again in his imagination, "Ye gods!" said he, "if, when she

is so lovable, it should chance that I cannot make her love

me, what would become of the wretched Artamene? But," and he

caught himself up suddenly, "since she seems capable of

appreciating glory and services, let us continue to act as

we have begun! and let us do such great deeds that, even if

her inclination resisted, esteem may introduce us, against

her will, into her heart! For, after all, whatever men may

say, and whatever I may myself have said, one may give a

little esteem to what one will never in the least love; but

I do not think one can give much esteem to what will never

earn a little love. Let us hope, then; let us hope! let us

make ourselves worthy to be pitied if we are not worthy to

be loved."

After which somewhat philosophical meditation it is not surprising that

he should be informed by one of his aides-de-camp that the Princess was

in the garden. For what were Princesses made? and for what gardens?

The third is a longer passage, but it shall be subjected to that kind of

_cento_ing which has been found convenient earlier in this volume.

[Sidenote: The Fight of the Four Hundred.]

[_The dispute between the kings of Cappadocia on the one

hand and of Pontus on the other has been referred to a

select combat of two hundred men a side. Artamene, of

course, obtains the command of the Cappadocians, to the

despair of his explosive but not ungenerous rival, "Philip

Dastus." After a very beautiful interview with Mandane

(where, once more, the most elegant compliments pass between

these gentlefolkliest of all heroes and heroines) and divers

preliminaries, the fight comes off._][162] They began to

advance with heads lowered, without cries or noise of any

kind, but in a silence which struck terror. As soon as they

were near enough to use their javelins, they launched them

with such violence that [_a slight bathos_] these flying

weapons had a pretty great effect on both sides, but much

greater on that of the Cappadocians than on the other. Then,

sword in hand and covered by their shields, they came to

blows, and Artamene, as we were informed, immolated the

first victim [_but how about the javelin "effect"?_] in this

bloody sacrifice. For, having got in front of all his

companions by some paces, he killed, with a mighty

sword-stroke, the first who offered resistance. [_Despite

this, the general struggle continues to go against the

Cappadocians, though Artamene's exploits alarm one of the

enemy, named Artane, so much that he skulks away to a

neighbouring knoll. At last_] things came to such a point

that Artamene found himself with fourteen others against

forty; so I leave you to judge, Sir [_Chrisante parle

toujours_], whether the party of the King of Pontus did not

believe they had conquered, and whether the Cappadocians had

not reason to think themselves beaten. But as, in this

fight, it was not allowed either to ask or to give quarter,

and was necessary either to win or to die, the most

despairing became the most valiant. [_The next stage is,

that in consequence of enormous efforts on his part, the

hero finds himself and his party ten to ten, which

"equality" naturally cheers them up. But the wounds of the

Cappadocians are the severer; the ten on their side become

seven, with no further loss to the enemy, and at last

Artamene finds himself, after three hours' fighting, alone

against three, though only slightly wounded. He wisely uses

his great agility in retiring and dodging; separates one

enemy from the other two, and kills him; attacks the two

survivors, and, one luckily stumbling over a buckler, kills

a second, so that at last the combat is single. During this

time the coward Artane abstains from intervening, all the

more because the one surviving champion of Pontus is a

personal rival of his, and because, by a very ingenious

piece of casuistry, he persuades himself that the two

combatants are sure to kill each other, and he, Artane,

surviving, will obtain the victory for self and country!_]

He is nearly right; but not quite. For after Artamene has wounded the

Pontic Pharnaces in six places, and Pharnaces Artamene in four (for we

wound "by the card" here), the hero runs Pharnaces through the heart,

receiving only a thigh-wound in return. He flourishes both swords, cries

"I have conquered!" and falls in a faint from loss of blood. Artane

thinks him dead, and without caring to come close and "mak sicker," goes

off to claim the victory. But Artamene revives, finds himself alone,

and, with what strength he has left, piles the arms of the dead

together, writes with his own blood on a silver shield--

TO

JUPITER

GUARDIAN OF TROPHIES,

and lies beside it as well as he can. The false news deceives for a

short time, but when the stipulated advance to the field takes place on

both sides, the discovery of the surviving victor introduces a new

complication, from which we may for the moment abstain.

The singlestick rattle of compliment in the interview first given, and

the rather obvious and superfluous meditations of the second, may seem,

if not exactly disgusting, tedious and jejune. But the "Fight of the

Four Hundred" is not frigid; and it is only fair to say that, after the

rather absurd passage of _chasse croise_ on ship-board quoted or at

least summarised earlier, the capture of Artamene by numbers and his

surrender to the generous corsair Thrasybulus are not ill told, while

there are several other good fights before you come to the end of this

very first volume. There is, moreover, an elaborate portrait of the

Princess, evidently intended to "pick up" that vaguer one of Madame de

Longueville in the Preface, but with the blue of the eyes here

fearlessly specified. Here also does the celebrated Philidaspes (most

improperly, if it had not been for the justification to be given later,

transmogrified in the above-mentioned passage by Major Bellenden into

"Philip Dastus? Philip Devil") make his appearance. The worst of it is

that most, if not the whole, is done by the _recit_ delivered, as noted

above, by Chrisante, one of those representatives of the no less

faithful than strong Gyas and Cloanthus, whom imitation of the ancients

has imposed on Scudery and his sister, and inflicted on their readers.

[Sidenote: The abstract resumed.]

The story of the Cappadocian-Pontic fight[163] is continued in the

second volume of the First Part by the expected delivery of harangues

from the two claimants, and the obligatory, but to Artane very

unwelcome, single combat. He is, of course, vanquished and pardoned by

his foe,[164] making, if not full, sufficient confession; and it is not

surprising to hear that the King of Pontus requests to see no more of

him. The rest--for it must never be forgotten that all this is "throwing

back"--then turns to the rivalry of Artamene and Philidaspes for the

love of Mandane, while she (again, of course) has not the faintest idea

that either is in love with her. Philidaspes, who (still, of course) is

not Philidaspes at all, is a rough customer--(in fact the Major hardly

did him injustice in calling him "Philip Devil"--betraying also perhaps

some knowledge of the text), and it comes to a tussle. This rather

resembles what the contemptuous French early Romantics called _une

boxade_ than a formal duel, and Artamene stuns his man with a blow of

the flat. Cyaxares[165] is very angry, and imprisons them both, not yet

realising their actual fault. It does not matter much to Artamene, who

in prison can think, aloud and in the most beautiful "Phebus," of

Mandane. It matters perhaps a little more to the reader; for a courteous

jailer, Aglatidas, takes the occasion to relate his own woes in a

"History of Aglatidas and Amestris," which completes the second volume

of the First Part in three hundred and fifty mortal pages to itself.

The first volume of the Second Part returns to the main story, or rather

the main series of _recits_; for, Chrisante being not unnaturally

exhausted after talking for a thousand pages or so, Feraulas, another of

Artamene's men, takes up the running. The prisoners are let out, and

Mandane reconciles them, after which--as another but later contemporary

remarks (again of other things, but probably with some reminiscence of

this)--they become much more mortal enemies than before. The

reflections and soliloquies of Artamene recur; but a not unimportant,

although subordinate, new character appears--not as the first example,

but as the foremost representative, in the novel, of the great figure of

the "confidante"--in Martesie, Mandane's chief maid of honour. Nobody,

it is to be hoped, wants an elaborate account of the part she plays, but

it should be said that she plays it with much more spirit and

individuality than her mistress is allowed to show. Then, according to

the general plan of all these books, in which fierce wars and faithful

loves alternate, there is more fighting, and though Artamene is

victorious (as how should he not be, save now and then to prevent

monotony?) he disappears and is thought dead. Of course Mandane cries,

and confesses to the confidante, being entirely "finished" by a very

exquisite letter which Artamene has written before going into the

doubtful battle. However, he is (yet once more, of course) not dead at

all. What (as that most sagacious of men, the elder Mr. Weller, would

have said)'d have become of the other seventeen volumes if he had been?

There is one of the _quiproquos_ or misunderstandings which are as

necessary to this kind of novel as the flirtations and the fisticuffs,

brought about by the persistence of an enemy princess in taking Artamene

for her son Spithridates;[166] but all comes right for the time, and the

hero returns to his friends. The plot, however, thickens. An accident

informs Artamene that Philidaspes is really Prince of Assyria, sure to

become King when his mother, Nitocris, dies or abdicates, and that,

being as he is, and as Artamene knows already, desperately in love with

Mandane, he has formed a plot for carrying her off. The difficulties in

the way of preventing this are great, because, though the hero is

already aware that he is Cyrus, it is for many reasons undesirable to

inform Cyaxares of the fact; and at last Philidaspes, helped by the

traitor Aribee (_v. sup._), succeeds in the abduction, after an

interlude in which a fresh Rival, with a still larger R, the King of

Pontus himself, turns up; and an immense episode, in which Thomyris,

Queen of Scythia, appears, not yet in her more or less historical part

of victress of Cyrus. She is here only a young sovereign, widowed in her

earliest youth, extremely beautiful (see a portrait of her _inf._), who

has never yet loved, but who falls instantly in love with Cyrus himself

(when he is sent to her court), and is rather a formidable person to

deal with, inasmuch as, besides having great wealth and power, she has

established a diplomatic system of intrigue in other countries, which

the newest German or other empire might envy. By the end of this volume,

however, the Artamene-Cyrus confusion is partly cleared up (though

Cyaxares is not yet made aware of the facts), and the hero is sent after

Mandane, to be disappointed at Sinope, in the fashion recounted some

thousand or two pages before.

[Sidenote: The oracle to Philidaspes.]

With the beginning of vol. iv. (that is to say, part ii. vol. ii.) we

return, though still in retrospect, to the direct fate of Mandane.

Nitocris is dead, Philidaspes has succeeded to the crown of Assyria, and

has carried Mandane off to his own dominions. The situation with so

robustious a person as this prince may seem awkward, and indeed, as is

observed in a later part of the book, the heroine's repeated sojourns

(there are three if not four of them in all[167]) in the complete power

of one of the Rivals, with a large R, are very trying to Cyrus. However,

such a shocking thing as violence is hardly hinted at, and the Princess

always succeeds, as the Creole lady in _Newton Forster_ said she did

with the pirates, in "temporising," while her abductors confine

themselves for the most part to the finest "Phebus." Even the fiery

Philidaspes, though he breaks out sometimes, conveys his wish that

Mandane should accompany him to Babylon by pointing out that "the

Euphrates is jealous of the Tigris for having first had the honour of

her presence," and that "the First City of the World ought clearly to

possess the most illustrious princess of the Earth." Of course, if there

is any base person who cannot derive an Aramisian satisfaction (_v.

sup._) from such things as this, he had better abstain from the _Cyrus_.

But happier souls they please--not exquisitely, perhaps, or

tumultuously, but still well--with a mild tickle which is not

unvoluptuous. One is even a very little sorry for Philip Dastus when he

begs his cruel idol to write to him the single word ESPEREZ, and

meanwhile kindly puts it in capitals and a line to itself. Almost

immediately afterwards an oracle juggles with him in fashion delightful

to himself, and puzzling to everybody except the intelligent reader,

who, it is hoped, will see the double meaning at once.

Il t'est permis d'esperer

De la faire soupirer,

Malgre sa haine:

Car un jour entre ses bras,

Tu rencontreras

La fin de ta peine.

Alas! without going further (upon honour and according to fact), one

sees the _other_ explanation--that Mandane will have to perform the

uncomfortable duty--often assigned to heroines--of having Philidaspes

die in her lap.

For the present, however, only discomfiture, not death, awaits him. The

Medes blockade Babylon to recover their princess; it suffers from

hunger, and Philidaspes, with Mandane and the chivalrous Sacian Prince

Mazare, whom we have heard of before, escapes to Sinope. Then the events

recorded in the very beginning happen, and Mandane, after escaping the

flames of Sinope through Mazare's abduction of her by sea, and suffering

shipwreck, falls into the power of the King of Pontus. This calls a halt

in the main story; and, as before, a "Troisieme Livre" consists of

another huge inset--the hugest yet--of seven hundred pages this time,

describing an unusually, if not entirely, independent subject--the

loves and fates of a certain Philosipe and a certain Polisante. This

volume contains a rather forcible boating-scene, which supplies the

theme for the old frontispiece.

Refreshed as usual by this excursion,[168] the author returns (in vol.

v., bk. i., chap. iii.) to Cyrus, who is once more in peril, and in a

worse one than ever. Cyaxares, arriving at Sinope, does not find his

daughter, but does discover that Artamene, whom he does not yet know to

be Cyrus and heir to Persia, is in love with her. Owing chiefly to the

wiles of a villain, Metrobate, he arrests the Prince, and is on the

point of having him executed, despite the protests of the allied kings.

But the whole army, with the Persian contingent at its head, assaults

the castle, and rescues Cyrus, after the traitor Metrobate has tried to

double his treachery and get Cyaxares assassinated. Nobody who remembers

the _Letter of Advice_ already quoted will doubt what the conduct of

Cyrus is. He only accepts the rescue in order that he may post himself

at the castle gate, and threaten to kill anybody who attacks Cyaxares.

After this burst, which is really exciting in a way, we must expect

something more soporific. Martesie takes the place of her absent

mistress to some extent, and a good deal of what might be mistaken for

"Passerelle"[169] flirtation takes place, or would do so, if it were not

that Cyrus would, of course, die rather than pay attention to anybody

but Mandane herself, and that Feraulas, already mentioned as one of the

Faithful Companions, is detailed as Martesie's lover. She is, however,

installed as a sort of Vice-Queen of a wordy tourney between four

unhappy lovers, who fill up the rest of the volume with their stories of

"Amants _In_fortunes" (cf. the original title of the _Heptameron_),

dealing respectively with and told by--

(1) A lover who is loved, but separated from his mistress.

(2) One who is unloved.

(3) A jealous one.

(4) One whose love is dead.[170]

They do it moderately, in rather less than five hundred pages, and

Martesie sums up in a manner worthy of any Mistress of the Rolls,

contrasting their fates, and deciding very cleverly against the jealous

man.

The first twenty pages or so of the sixth volume (nominally iii. 2)

afford a good example of the fashion in which, as may be observed more

fully below, even an analysis of the _Grand Cyrus_, though a great

advance on mere general description of it, must be still (unless it be

itself intolerably voluminous) insufficient. Not very much actually

"happens"; but if you simply skip, you miss a fresh illustration of

magnanimity not only in Cyrus, but in a formerly mentioned character,

Aglatidas, with reference to the heroine Amestris earlier inset in the

tale (_v. sup._). And this is an example of the new and sometimes very

ingenious fashion in which these apparent excursions are turned into

something like real episodes, or at any rate supply connecting threads

of the whole, in a manner not entirely unlike that which some critics

have so hastily and unjustly overlooked in Spenser. Then we have an

imbroglio about forged letters, and a clearing-up of a former charge

against the hero, and (still within the twenty pages) a very curious

scene--the last for the time--of that flirtation-without-flirtation

between Cyrus and Martesie. She wants to have back a picture of Mandane,

which she has lent him to worship; and he replies, looking at her

"attentively" (one wonders whether Mandane, if present, would have been

entirely satisfied with his "attention"), addresses her as "Cruel

Person," and asks her (he is just setting out for the Armenian war) how

she thinks he can conquer when she takes away what should make him

invincible. To which replies Miss Martesie, "You have gained so many

victories [_ahem!_] without this help, that it would seem you have no

need of it." This is very nice, and Martesie, who is herself, as

previously observed, quite nice throughout, lets him have the picture

after all. But Cyrus, for once rather ungraciously, will not allow her

lover, and his henchman, Feraulas to escort her home; first, because he

wants Feraulas's services himself, and secondly, because it is unjust

that Feraulas should be happy with Martesie when Cyrus is miserable

without Mandane--an argument which, whether slightly selfish or not, is

at any rate in complete keeping with the whole atmosphere of the book.

[Sidenote: The advent of Araminta.]

Now, as this is by no means a very exceptional, certainly not a unique,

score of pages, and as it has taken almost a whole one of ours to give a

rather imperfect notion of its contents, it follows that it would take

about six hundred, if not more, to do justice to the ten or twelve

thousand of the original. Which (in one of the most immortal of

formulas) "is impossible." We must fall back, therefore, on the system

already pursued for the rest of this volume, and perhaps even contract

its application in some cases. A rash promise of the now entirely, if

not also rather insanely,[171] generous Prince not to marry Mandane

without fighting Philidaspes, or rather the King of Assyria, beforehand,

is important; and an at last minute description of Cyrus's person and

equipment as he sets out (on one of the proudest and finest horses that

ever was, with a war-dress the superbest that can be imagined, and with

Mandane's magnificent scarf put on for the first time) is not quite

omissible. But then things become intricate. Our old friend Spithridates

comes back, and has first love affairs and afterwards an enormous

_recit_-episode with a certain Princess of Pontus, whom Cyrus,

reminding one slightly of Bentley on Mr. Pope's _Homer_ and Tommy Merton

on Cider, pronounces to be _belle, blonde, blanche et bien faite_, but

not Mandane; and who has the further charm of possessing, for the first

time in literature if one mistakes not, the renowned name of Araminta. A

pair of letters between these two will be useful as specimens, and to

some, it may be hoped, agreeable in themselves.

SPITHRIDATES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA

[Sidenote: Her correspondence with Spithridates.]

I depart, Madam, because you wish it: but, in departing, I

am the most unhappy of all men. I know not whither I go; nor

when I shall return; nor even if you wish that I _should_

return; and yet they tell me I must live and hope. But I

should not know how to do either the one or the other,

unless you order me to do both by two lines in your own

hand. Therefore I beg them of you, divine Princess--in the

name of an illustrious person, now no more, [_her brother

Sinnesis, who had been a great friend of his_], but who will

live for ever in the memory of

SPITHRIDATES.

[_He can hardly have hoped for anything better than the

following answer, which is much more "downright Dunstable"

than is usual here._]

ARAMINTA TO SPITHRIDATES

Live as long as it shall please the Gods to allow you. Hope

as long as Araminta lives--she begs you: and even if you

yourself wish to live, she orders you to do so.

[_In other words he says, "My own Araminta, say 'Yes'!" and

she does. This attitude necessarily involves the despair of

a Rival, who writes thus:_]

PHARNACES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA

If Fortune seconds my designs, I go to a place where I shall

conquer _and_ die--where I shall make known, by my generous

despair, that if I could not deserve your affection by my

services, I shall have at least not made myself unworthy of

your compassion by my death.

[_And, to do him justice, he "goes and does it."_]

This episode, however, did not induce Mademoiselle Madeleine to break

her queer custom of having something of the same kind in the Third Book

of every Part. For though there is some "business," it slips into

another regular "History," this time of Prince Thrasybulus, a naval

hero, of whom we have often heard, and his Alcionide, not a bad name for

a sailor's mistress.[172] Finally, we come back to more events of a

rather troublesome kind: for the _ci-devant_ Philidaspes most

inconveniently insists in taking part in the rescuing expedition,

which--saving scandal of great ones--is very much as if Mr. William

Sikes should insist in helping to extract booty from Mr. Tobias Crackit.

And we finally leave Cyrus in a decidedly awkward situation morally, and

the middle of a dark wood physically.

[Sidenote: Some interposed comments.]

Here, according to that paulo-post-future precedent which she did so

much to create, the authoress was quite justified in leaving him at the

end of a volume; and perhaps the present historian is, to compare small

things with great, equally justified in heaving-to (to borrow from Mr.

Kipling) and addressing a small critical sermon to such crew as he may

have attracted. We have surveyed not quite a third of the book; but this

ought in any case--_teste_ the loved and lost "three-decker" which the

allusion just made concerns--to give us a notion of the author's quality

and of his or her _faire_. It should not be very difficult for anybody,

unless the foregoing analysis has been very clumsily done, to discern

considerable method in Madeleine's mild madness, and, what is more, not

a little originality. The method has, no doubt, as it was certain to

have in the circumstances, a regular irregularity, which is, or would be

in anybody but a novice, a little clumsy: and the originality may want

some precedent study to discover it. But both are there. The skeleton of

this vast work may perhaps be fairly constructed from what has already

been dissected of the body; and the method of clothing the skeleton

reveals itself without much difficulty. You have the central idea in the

loves of Cyrus and Mandane, which are to be made as true as possible,

but also running as roughly as may be. Moreover, whether they run rough

or smooth, you are to keep them in suspense as long as you possibly can.

The means of doing this are laboriously varied and multiplied. The

clumsiest of them--the perpetual intercalation or interpolation of

"side-shows" in the way of _Histoires_--annoys modern readers

particularly, and has, as a rule, since been itself beautifully and

beneficently lessened, in some cases altogether discarded, or

changed--in emancipation from the influence of the "Unities"--to the

form of second plots, not ostentatiously severed from the main one. But,

as has been pointed out, a great deal of trouble is at any rate taken to

knit them to the main plot itself, if not actually and invariably to

incorporate them therewith; and the means of this are again not

altogether uncraftsmanlike. Sometimes, as in the case of Spithridates,

the person, or one of the persons, is introduced first in the main

history; his own particular concerns are dealt with later, and, for good

or for evil, he returns to the central scheme. Sometimes, as in that of

Amestris, you have the _Histoire_ before the personage enters the main

story. Then there is the other device of varying direct narrative, as to

this main story itself, with _Recit_; and always you have a careful

peppering in of new characters, by _histoire_, by _recit_, or by the

main story, to create fresh interests. Again, there is the contrast of

"business," as we have called it--fighting and politics--with

love-making and miscellaneous fine talk. And, lastly, there are--what,

if they were not whelmed in such an ocean of other things, would attract

more notice--the not unfrequent individual phrases and situations which

have interest in themselves. It must surely be obvious that in these

things are great possibilities for future use, even if the actual

inventor has not made the most of them.

Their originality may perhaps deserve a little more comment.[173] The

mixture of secondary plots might, by a person more given to theorise

than the present historian--who pays his readers the compliment of

supposing that that excessively easy and therefore somewhat negligible

business can be done by themselves if they wish--be traced to an

accidental feature of the later mediaeval romances. In these the

congeries of earlier texts, which the compiler had not the wits, or at

least the desire, to systematise, provided something like it; but

required the genius of a Spenser, or the considerable craft of a

Scudery, to throw it into shape and add the connecting links. Many of

the other things are to be found in the Scudery romance practically for

the first time. And the suffusion of the whole with a new tone and

colour of at least courtly manners is something more to be counted, as

well as the constant exclusion of the clumsy "conjuror's supernatural"

of the _Amadis_ group. That the fairy story sprung up, to supply the

always graceful supernatural element in a better form, is a matter which

will be dealt with later in this chapter. The oracles, etc., of the

_Cyrus_ belong, of course, to the historical, not the imaginative side

of the presentation; but may be partly due to the _Astree_, the

influence of which was, we saw, admitted.

[Sidenote: Analysis resumed.]

It may seem unjust that the more this complication of interests

increases, the less complete should be the survey of them; and yet a

moment's thought will show that this is almost a necessity. Moreover,

the methods do not vary much; it is only that they are applied to a

larger and larger mass of accumulating material. The first volume of the

Fourth Part, the seventh of the twenty, follows--though with that

absence of slavish repetition which has been allowed as one of the

graces of the book--the general scheme. Cyrus gets out of the wood

literally, but not figuratively; for when he and the King of Assyria

have joined forces, to pursue that rather paradoxical alliance which is

to run in couple with rivalry for love and to end in a personal combat,

they see on the other side of a river a chariot, in which Mandane

probably or certainly is. But the river is unbridged and unfordable, and

no boats can be had; so that, after trying to swim it and nearly getting

drowned, they have to relinquish the game that had been actually in

sight. Next, two things happen. First, Martesie appears (as usually to

our satisfaction), and in consequence of a series of accidents, shares

and solaces Mandane's captivity. Then, on the other side, Panthea, Queen

of Susiana, and wife of one of the enemy princes, falls into Cyrus's

hands, and with Araminta (who is, it should have, if it has not been,

said earlier, sister of the King of Pontus) furnishes valuable hostage

for good treatment of Mandane and other Medo-Persian-Phrygian-Hircanian

prisoners.

Things having thus been fairly bustled up for a time, a _Histoire_ is,

of course, imminent, and we have it, of about usual length, concerning

the Lydian Princess Palmis and a certain Cleandre; while, even when this

is done, we fall back, not on the main story, but once more on that of

Aglatidas and Amestris, which is in a sad plight, for Amestris (who has

been married against her will and is _maumariee_ too) thinks she is a

widow, and finds she is not.