aring improbability of many of the incidents, and the want of
connexion and necessary dependence between the several parts of the
story. Of the former--the device of the false stomach and theatrical
dagger, by means of which Menelaus and Satyrus (after gaining,
moreover, in a moment the full confidence of the buccaniers,) save the
life of Leucippe when doomed to sacrifice, is the most flagrant
instance; though her second escape from supposed death, when Clitophon
imagines that he sees her head struck off by the Alexandrian pirates,
is almost equally liable to the same objection; while in either case
the deliverance of the heroine might as well have been managed,
without prejudice either to the advancement or interest of the
narrative, by more rational and probable methods. The too frequent
introduction of incidents and personages not in any way connected
with, or conducive to the progress of the main plot, is also
objectionable, and might almost induce the belief that the original
plan was in some measure altered or departed from in the course of
composition. It is difficult to conceive for what purpose the
character of Calligone, the sister and fiancee of Clitophon, is
introduced among the dramatic personae. She appears at the beginning
only to be carried off by Callisthenes as soon as Clitophon's passion
for Leucippe makes her presence inconvenient, and we incidentally hear
of her as on the point of becoming his bride at the conclusion; but
she is seen only for a moment, and never permitted to speak, like a
walking gentlewoman on the stage, and exercises not the smallest
influence on the fortunes of the others. Gorgias is still worse used:
he is a mere _nominis umbra_, of whose bodily presence nothing is made
visible; nor is so much as his name mentioned, except for the purpose
of informing us that it was through his agency that the love-potion
was administered to Leucippe, and that he has since been killed in the
action against the buccaniers. The whole incident of the philtre,
indeed, and the consequent madness of the heroine, is unnatural and
revolting, and serves no end but to introduce Choereas to effect a
cure. But even had it been indispensable to the plot, it might have
been far more probably ascribed to the Egyptian commander Charmides,
with whose passion for Leucippe we were already acquainted, and who
had, moreover, learned from Menelaus that he had little chance of
success by ordinary methods, from the pre-