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literated, it is of a mixed nature, being partly of a heroic description; and it also contains a considerable portion of what was meant by the author as comic painting. It is in the epic form, beginning in the middle of the action, and, by the usual contrivances, rehearsing, in the course of the work, those events by which its opening had been ceded.

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Basilius, king of Arcadia, had, when already well stricken in years, married a young princess, Gynecia, daughter to the king of Cyprus. "Of these two," says the narrator, 66 are brought to the world two daughters, so beyond measure excellent in all the gifts allotted to reasonable creatures, that we may think that they were born to show that nature is no step-mother to that sex, how much soever some men (sharp-witted only in evil speaking) have sought to disgrace them. The elder is named Pamela; by many men not deemed inferior to her sister: for my part, when I marked them both, methought there was (if at least such perfections may receive the name of more) more sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela; methought love plaid in Philoclea's eyes, and threatened in Pamela's: methought Philoclea's beauty only perswaded, but so perswaded as all hearts must yield, Pamela's beauty used violence,

and such violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such proportion is between their minds: Philoclea so bashful, as though her excellencies had stolen into her before she was aware; so humble that she will put all pride out of countenance; in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope, but teach hope good manners. Pamela, of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not knowing her excellencies, but by making that one of her excellencies to be void of pride; her mother's wisdom, greatness, nobility, but (if I can guess aright) knit with a more constant temper." (p. 10, ed. London, 1674.)

Basilius, thus in want only of something to make him uneasy, determined to visit the temple of Delphos, where the following poetical response was furnished as a subject for his lucubrations;

"Thy elder care shall from thy careful face
By princely mean he stolen, and yet not lost;
Thy younger shall with nature's bliss embrace
An uncouth love, which Nature hateth most.
Both they themselves unto such two shall wed,
Who at thy bier as at a bar shall plead
Why Thee (a living man) they had made dead.
In thine own seat a foreign state shall sit,
And ere that all these blows thy head do hit,
Thou with thy wife adultery shall commit."

Basilius, aghast at this puzzling denunciation, and endeavouring to prevent its fulfilment, retired from court to a forest in which he had built two lodges. In one of these he himself and his queen, with their younger daughter Philoclea, resided; while in the other lived Pamela, whom her father had committed to the guardianship of Dametas, a conceited, doltish clown, whose wife Miso, and daughter Mopsa, are described as perfect witches in temper and appearance. The humours of this family form what is meant as the comic part of the romance.

At this period, Pyrocles, son of Euarchus, king of Macedon, and his cousin Musidorus, prince of Thessaly, two princes, such as are to be found only in romance, were, after unexampled deeds of prowess, shipwrecked on the coast of Arcadia. The former of these heroes becomes enamoured of Philoclea, and the latter of her sister Pamela. With the usual fondness of the princes of romance for disguise, when their own characters would have better suited their purpose, Musidorus, as a shepherd, named Dorus, becomes the servant of Dametas, who had charge of the Princess Pamela ; Pyrocles assumes the garb of an Amazon, with the name of Zelmane, and is thus admitted by Basilius

VOL. III.

an inmate of his lodge. The situation, however, of Pyrocles (now Zelmane), was less comfortable than might have been supposed; for, on the one hand, he was pestered by the love of Basilius, and on the other by that of Queen Gynecia, who, seeing somewhat farther than her husband, suspected his sex, and would not leave him alone a single moment with Philoclea. The idea of a hero residing in a female garb with his mistress, and for a while unknown to her, which is a common incident in the Argenis, and other romances of the period, was perhaps originally derived from the story of Achilles: But that part of the Arcadia which relates to the disguise of Pyrocles, and the passion of the king and queen, has been immediately taken from the French translation of the 11th book of Amadis de Gaul, where Agesilan of Colchos, while in like disguise, is pursued in a similar manner by the king and queen of Galdap. It may not be improper here mention the royal recreations, as giving a curious picture of the tenderness of ladies' hearts in the days of Queen Elizabeth. "Sometimes angling to a little river near hand, which, for the moisture it bestowed upon the roots of flourishing trees, was rewarded with their shadow-there would they sit down, and pretty wagers be made between Pamela and Phi

loclea, which could soonest beguile silly fishes, while Zelmane protested that the fit prey for them was hearts of princes. She also had an angle in her hand, but the taker was so taken that she had forgotten taking. Basilius, in the mean time, would be the cook himself of what was so caught, and Gynecia sit still, but with no still pensiveness. Now she brought them to see a sealed dove, who the blinder she was the higher she strove. Another time a kite, which having a gut cunningly pulled out of her, and so let fly, caused all the kites in that quarter," &c. &c. p. 58.1

It would be tedious, and could serve no good purpose, to analyze minutely the different books of the Arcadia. Musidorus was long counteracted in his plans by Dametas and his wife, and their ugly daughter Mopsa, to whom he was obliged to feign love, till, having at length discovered his rank to Pamela, he prevails on her to fly with him; but, after having gone a little way, they employ themselves in carving bad sonnets on the barks of trees. Meanwhile the king and queen separately attempt to bring matters to extremity with Zelmane. Tea

I Master Stow mentions similar merry disports, as forming the court amusements during the Danish ambassador's reception and entertainment at Greenwich, in 1587.

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