ssical form, which it might be out of
place to dwell on here. Endymion is waked from his Latmian sleep by the
infernal clatter of the dwellers at the base of the mountain, who use
all the loudest instruments they possess to dispel an eclipse of the
moon: and is discovered by his friend Pyzandre, to whom he tells the
vicissitudes of his love and sleep. The early revealings of herself by
Diana are told with considerable grace, and the whole, which is not too
long, is readable. But there are many of the _naivetes_ and
awkwardnesses of expression which attracted to the writers of this time
the scorn of Boileau and others down to La Harpe. The Dedication to the
Queen may perhaps be excused for asserting, in its first words, that as
Endymion was put to sleep by the Moon, so he has been reawakened by the
Sun,[212] _i.e._ her Majesty. But a Nemesis of this Phebus follows. For,
later, it is laid down that "La Lune doit _toujours_ sa lumiere au
Soleil." From which it will follow that Diana owed her splendour to Anne
of Austria, or was it Marie de Medicis?[213] It was fortunate for
Gombauld that he did not live under the older dispensation. Artemis was
not a forgiving goddess like Aphrodite.

Again, when Diana has disappeared after one of her graciousnesses, her
lover makes the following reflection--that the gods apparently can
depart _sans etre en peine de porter necessairement les pieds l'un
devant l'autre_--an observation proper enough in burlesque, for the idea
of a divine goose-step or marking time, instead of the _incessus_, is
ludicrous enough. But there is not the slightest sign of humour anywhere
in the book. Yet, again, this is a thing one would rather not have said,
"Diane cessant de m'etre favorable, Ismene[214] _me pouvait tenir lieu
de Deesse_." Now it is sadly true that the human race does occasionally
entertain, and act upon, reflections of this kind: and persons like Mr.
Thomas Moore and Gombauld's own younger contemporary, Sir John Suckling,
have put the idea into light and lively verse. But you do not expect it
in a serious romance.

Nevertheless it may be repeated that _Endimion_ is one of the most
readable of the two classes of books--the smaller sentimental and the
longer heroic--between which it stands in scope and character. The
author's practice in the "other harmony" makes the obligatory
verse-insertions rather less clumsy than usual; and it may be permitted
to add that the illustrations of the original