tions of paintings; while the plot, not very
intelligible at the best, is still further perplexed by the
extraordinary affectation of making nearly all the names alike; thus,
the hero and heroine are Hysminias and Hysmine, the towns are
Aulycomis, Eurycomis, Artycomis, &c. In all these works, the outline
is the same; the lovers undergo endless buffetings by sea and land,
imaginary deaths, and escapes from marauders; but not a spark of
genius or fancy enlivens these dull productions, which, sometimes
maudlin and bombastic, often indecent, would defy the patience of the
most determined novel reader. One of these writers, Xenophon of
Ephesus, the author of the "Ephesiacs, or Habrocomas and Anthia," is
commended by Politian for the classical purity of his language, in
which he considers him scarcely inferior to his namesake the
historian: but the work has little else to recommend it. The two
principal personages are represented as miracles of personal beauty;
and the women fall in love with Habrocomas, as well as the men with
Anthia, literally by dozens at a time: the plot, however differs from
that of the others in marrying them at the commencement, and sending
them through the ordinary routine of dangers afterwards. The
_Ephesiacs_ are, however, noticeable from its having been supposed by
Mr Douce, (_Illustrations of Shakspeare_, ii. 198,) that the
catastrophe in Romeo and Juliet was originally borrowed from one of
the adventures of Anthia, who, when separated from her husband, is
rescued from banditti by Perilaus, governor of Cilicia, and by him
destined for his bride. Unable to evade his solicitations, she
procures from the "poverty, not the will" of an aged physician named
Eudoxus, what she supposes to be a draught of poison, but which is
really an opiate. She is laid with great pomp, loaded with gems and
costly ornaments, in a vault; and on awakening, finds herself in the
hands of a crew of pirates, who have broken open her sepulchre in
order to rifle the treasures which they knew to have been deposited
there. "This work," (observes Mr Douce,) "was certainly not published
nor translated in the time of Luigi da Porto, the original narrator of
the story of Romeo and Juliet: but there is no reason why he might not
have seen a copy of the original in MS. We might enumerate several
more of these later productions of the same school; but a separate
analysis of each would be both tedious and needless, as none present
any mar