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ceived ocular demonstration of their truth, so that the saint was obliged to set up a purgatory for their satisfaction.' On arriving in Ireland, Guerin waited on the archbishop, who, after having vainly attempted to dissuade him from this perilous expedition, gave him letters of introduction to the abbot of the Holy Island, which was the vestibule of purgatory. With the connivance of the abbot, Guerin descended into a well, at the bottom of which he found a subterraneous meadow. There he received instructions from two men clothed in white garments, who lived in an edifice built in form of a church. He was thence carried away by two demons, who escorted him from cavern to cavern, to witness the torments of purgatory. Each cavern, he found, was appropriated for the chastisement of a particular vice. Thus, in one, the gourmands were tantalized with the appearance and flavour of dressed dishes, and.

One of Calderon's plays turns on the establishment of the purgatory of St Patrick. That saint being shipwreck. ed in Ireland, conducted the infidel monarch of the coun try to the mouth of a cavern which led to purgatory. The king threw himself in blaspheming, as was his custom, and by an adroit stratagem of the saint, instead of reaching purgatory, he fell headlong into bell. This immediately effect. ed the conversion of his subjects.

exquisite beverage, which eluded their grasp; while, at the same time, they were troubled with all the cholics and indigestions to which their intemperance had subjected them during life. This notion of future punishments, appropriate to the darling sins of the guilty, has been common with poets. It occurs in Dante, and we are told in one of Ford's dramas, that

There are gluttons fed

With toads and adders: there is burning oil
Poured down the drunkard's throat; the usurer
Is forced to sup whole draughts of molten gold;
There is the murderer for ever stabb'd,

Yet can he never die.

After Guerin had witnessed the pains of purgatory, he had a display of hell itself, which, in this work, is divided into circles, precisely on the plan laid out in Dante's Inferno. Indeed, the whole of this part of the romance must have been suggested by the unearthly excursions in the Divina Commedia. Judas Iscariot, Nero, and Mahomet, act the most distinguished parts in the tragedy now under the eye of Guerin. Among others, he recognised his old friend the giant Macus, whom he had slain in Tartary, and whose fate is a warning to all who

are guilty of an overgrowth, and who regale their wives and children with the flesh of Christian travellers. He also perceived the red-haired African princess, who, for Guerin's sake, had struck off the head of her intoxicated brother. His infernal Ciceroni made frequent efforts to add him to the number of the condemned, but were at length reluctantly obliged to give him up to Enoch and Elijah, who pointed out to him Paradise, about as near as Moses saw the Promised Land. These celestial guides, after telling him that he will hear of his parents in Italy, showed him the way back to earth, where he at last arrived, having passed thirty days without sleep or sustenance.

On his return to Rome, Guerin was sent to Albania by the pope, in order to expel the Turks, which, being accomplished, he discovered his father and mother in the dungeon where they had been all along confined. They were speedily reestablished on their throne, and the romance concludes with the marriage of Guerin with the princess of Persepolis, to the great mortification of the Grecian princess Elizena, who now heartily repented having rashly denominated him Turk.

Such is the history of Guerin Meschino, who was certainly the most erratic knight of all those

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who have traversed the world. No one discomfited a greater number of giants and monsters; no one was more constant to his mistress, than he to the princess of Persepolis; no one was so devout, as appears from his conduct in purgatory, and the abode of the sibyl, his numerous pilgrimages and successful conversions.

It cannot fail to have been remarked, in tracing the progress of fiction, that, when one species of fabulous writing gave place to another, this happened gradually, and that generally some mixed work was composed, partaking of the mutual qualities of the old and new system. For example, in the romance which we have now been considering, the elements both of the chivalrous and devotional method of writing are blended, but with a greater proportion of the former. In other productions the latter gradually prevailed, till, at length, the traces of the former were almost entirely obliterated: of those works in which spiritual began to gain an ascendancy over romantic fiction,

LES AVENTURES DE LYCIDAS ET DE
CLEORITHE,

was the earliest and the finest specimen. It was composed in the year 1529, by the Sieur de Basire, archdeacon of Sees, though the author pretends that it was originally written in the Syriac language, and translated by him from a Greek version.

When the island of Rhodes was conquered by the Ottoman emperor, the young women were subjected to slavery, and to still severer misfortunes. One of their number, named Cleoritha, was allotted to the favourite minister of the sultan, and, on account of her beauty, was distinguished by the name of wife, from the crowd of surrounding concubines.

A Christian gentleman, named Lycidas, hearing of her misfortunes, and her inviolable attachment to the faith in which she had been brought up, conceived that a visit from him could not fail to be consolatory. By bribing an eunuch, he was introduced into the seraglio, and Cleoritha soon rewarded his attention, by lavishing on him favours

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