ess shadows of the tomb; to live or to die was to be
equally an object of desire.

The plan of the "Arcadia" of St. Pierre is simply this: A learned young
Egyptian, educated at Thebes by the priests of Osiris, desirous of
benefiting humanity, undertakes a voyage to Gaul for the purpose of
carrying thither the arts and religion of Egypt. He is shipwrecked on
his return in the Gulf of Messina, and lands upon the coast, where he is
entertained by an Arcadian, to whom he relates his adventures, and from
whom he receives in turn an account of the simple happiness and peace of
Arcadia, the virtues and felicity of whose inhabitants are beautifully
exemplified in the lives and conversation of the shepherd and his
daughter. This pleasant little prose poem closes somewhat abruptly.
Although inferior in artistic skill to "Paul and Virginia" or the "Indian
Cottage", there is not a little to admire in the simple beauty of its
pastoral descriptions. The closing paragraph reminds one of Bunyan's
upper chamber, where the weary pilgrim's windows opened to the sunrising
and the singing of birds:--

"Tyrteus conducted his guests to an adjoining chamber. It had a window
shut by a curtain of rushes, through the crevices of which the islands of
the Alpheus might be seen in the light of the moon. There were in this
chamber two excellent beds, with coverlets of warm and light wool.

"Now, as soon as Amasis was left alone with Cephas, he spoke with joy of
the delight and tranquillity of the valley, of the goodness of the
shepherd, and the grace of his young daughter, to whom he had seen none
worthy to be compared, and of the pleasure which he promised himself the
next day, at the festival on Mount Lyceum, of beholding a whole people as
happy as this sequestered family. Converse so delightful might have
charmed away the night without the aid of sleep, had they not been
invited to repose by the mild light of the moon shining through the
window, the murmuring wind in the leaves of the poplars, and the distant
noise of the Achelous, which falls roaring from the summit of Mount
Lyceum."

The young patrician wits of Athens doubtless laughed over Plato's ideal
republic. Campanella's "City of the Sun" was looked upon, no doubt, as
the distempered vision of a crazy state prisoner. Bacon's college, in
his "New Atlantis," moved the risibles of fat-witted Oxford. More's
"Utopia," as we know, gave to our language a new word, expressive of the
v