In another episode, Celidée, in order to cure her lover Thamire of his jealousy, disfigured her countenance by tearing it with a pointed diamond, a heroic exertion which increased the attachment of her lover. This alludes to the neglect with which a French prince treated his lady; but, having been imprisoned for state affairs, she followed him into confinement. There she was attacked by the small-pox, which is the pointed diamond, but though deprived of her charms, her self-devotedness and sufferings at length recalled the alienated affections of her husband. To such temporary topics and incidents of real life, the Astrea was chiefly indebted for its popularity. The remembrance of these having passed away, the work must rest on its intrinsic merits, which, it would appear, are not such as to pre serve it from oblivion. The criticism made on the romance at the time it was published, was, that it contained too much erudition, and that the language and sentiments were too refined for those of shepherds. "Sylvander," says a French writer, "fût le seul qui eut etudié à l'ecole des Massiliens, et Je ne sçais seulement comment ils pouvoient l' entendre, eux qui n'avoient pas fait leurs cours chez les Massiliens." D'Urfé seems to have an ticipated this last objection, as in his fanciful ad dress to the shepherdess Astrea, prefixed to the first part of the work, he exculpates himself from this charge on the ground that his characters were not shepherds from necessity, but choice:"Responds leur ma Bergere! que tu n'es pas, ny celles aussi qui te suivent, de ces Bergeres necessiteuses qui pour gagner leur vie conduisent les trouppeaux aux pasturages; mais que vous n'avez toutes pris cette condition que pour vivre plus doucement et sans contrainte: Que si vos conceptions et vos paroles estoient veritablement telles que celles des Bergeres ordinaires, ils auroient aussi peu de plaisir de vous ecouter que vous auriez beaucoup de honte à les redire; et qu'outre cela la pluspart de la trouppe est remplie d'Amour, qui dans l'Aminte fait bien paroistre qu'il change et le langage et les conceptions quand il dit— Queste selve hoggi raggionar d'Amore A chief defect in the Astrea, and what to a modern reader renders it insufferably tiresome, is the long and languishing conversations on wire drawn topics. The design, too, which obtained the work a temporary fame, was adverse to its permanent celebrity, as the current of romantic ideas must have been checked by the necessity of squaring the incidents to the occurrences of exist ing society. The adventures of D'Urfe's own life, which are presented under the disguise of rural incidents, have nothing in common with the innocence of the pastoral character; and the amours at the court of Henry the Great were singularly at variance with the artless loves of shepherds, and fidelity of rustic attachments. Another fault in the Astrea, and one which, with the exception of Daphnis and Chloe, is common to all pastoral romances, is the introduction of warlike scenes, in a work which should be devoted to the description of rural felicity. Tasso and other poets have been much, and perhaps justly applauded, for occasionally withdrawing their readers from the bustle of arms to the tranquillity and refreshment of vernal delights; but the author is not equally worthy of praise, who hurries us from pastoral repose to the tumult of heroic achievements. The work, however, certainly possesses some intrinsic merit, as it was the admiration of many grave and distinguished characters, who would not have been merely enticed by the developement of the fashionable scandal of the day. An extravagant eulogium is pronounced on the Astrea, by Camus, bishop of Beley, in his Traité de l'Esprit de François de Sales. Huet used to read the work with his sisters, and he informs us they were frequently forced to lay down the book to give vent to their tears! At one period of his life, Rochefoucault (the author of the Maxims), passed his afternoons with Segrais, at the house of Madame La Fayette, where the Astrea was the subject of their studies." Que je regrets que ce sont là des Fables," was the exclamation of a celebrated writer, when he had finished the perusal of the Astrea. Huet also mentions that it formed the basis of an epic poem of some reputation. An immense number of tragi-comic and pastoral dramas have likewise been formed from this work: In most of these the prose dialogue has been merely versified, but in others the far-fetched conceits and exaggerated sentiments of D'Urfé have been aggravated. Thus, in Les Amours d'Astrée et de Celadon, the preservation of Celadon, when he threw himself into the Lignon, is thus accounted for; Mais le Dieu de Lignon pour lui trop pitoyable, De peur que la grandeur de feu de son amour, I shall conclude the remarks on pastoral re mance, by the analysis of the 66 ARCADIA of Sir Philip Sidney, a work which was at one -time much read and admired, not less perhaps on account of the heroic character and glorious death of its author, than its own intrinsic merit. This romance is sometimes named The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, as being written and dedicated to that "subject of all verse," who was the sister of Sidney: "Your dear self," says he in his dedication, can best witness the manner of its writing, being done in loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence; the rest by sheets, sent unto you as fast as they were done." The work, which was left incomplete, was published after the death of Sidney, and from the mode of its composition, and not having received his last corrections, cannot be supposed to have all the perfection which the author could have bestowed, had the length of his life, according to the expression of Sir W. Temple, been equal to the excellence of his wit and virtues. As it was written in an age when the features of the ancient Gothic romance were not entirely ob |