which were with difficulty extorted by her mussulman husband. This intercourse subsisted without detection or interruption for six years; but at the end of that period the mind of Lycidas became a prey to religious melancholy he poured forth his feelings of contrition before the penitentiary tribunal, but was shocked at the facility with which he obtained absolution for the crimes he acknowledged. Tormented by his conscience, and disgusted with his confessor, after writing a few lines to Cleoritha, to account for his absence, he departed with the intention of opening his heart to the bishop of Damascus. On the approach of the night which concluded his first day's journey, Lycidas arrived at a small and solitary inn, by the side of a wood. Having asked the host for an apartment, he found there was no chamber except one, which, for a long period, had been the nightly rendezvous of demons and sorcerers. Lycidas insisted on that room being assigned to him, in spite of the assurance of the landlord, that for seven years past all the travellers who had slept in it, and, among the rest, a pacha, attended by six janissaries, had been disturbed by supernatural agents. : Scarcely had Lycidas entered the haunted apartment, when six damsels, in array of nymphs, ap. peared, and proposed to him with much apparent civility, that he should accompany them to their mistress. Lycidas at first eyed them with indifference, but at length yielding to the importunities of the fairest, he allowed himself to be conducted to a castle, where he was ushered into a splendid saloon, illumined by a thousand flambeaus. Twenty youths, and as many damsels, of dazzling charms, joined in voluptuous dances, while the most seductive music was poured from the fairest throats. The lady who presided over this festival appeared to be about the age of seventeen, and was of resplendent beauty. The ball being concluded, the band of dancers and musicians retired, and Lycidas being left alone with the lady, she, mistaking his silence for respect, took an opportunity of encouraging him, by remarking, that the attendants had left her at his mercy. To this observation, and to subsequent overtures still more explicit and enticing, Lycidas maintained the most provoking silence. At length the lady gave vent to her resentment in reproaches, and then vanished from his view. Soon as she disappeared the lights are extinguished, the fabric falls with a tremendous crash into the abysses of the earth, and Lycidas remains alone in the chaos of a dark and tempestuous night. By the guidance of a pale and uncertain beam, he regains the solitary abode he had left. There he remains till dawn, when he departs, and arrives, without farther adventures, at the residence of the bishop of Damascus. Lycidas having explained to him the state of his soul, and his conscientious scruples, this prelate prescribes in the first instance the total renunciation of Cleoritha; he recommends that his penitent should then undertake a journey in the habit of a pilgrim, to all the memorable scenes of the Holy Land; that he should thence repair to Venice, to join the army of that republic in its attempts to re-conquer Cyprus, and should conclude with uniting himself to the knights of Jerusalem, in the citadel of Malta. Lycidas accordingly commences these multifarious ordinances, by despatching a letter to his late mistress, in which he explains his intentions of divorcing himself from her and his vicious passions-urges her to repentance for her manifold transgressions, assures her that he will continue to love her as one loves the apostles, and that he is her obedient servant in God. Cleoritha feels extremely indignant at this canting epistle, but her passion has yet such influence over her soul, that she escapes from the seraglio to search for Lycidas, in those places where she thinks he is most likely to be found, and pours forth a torrent of abuse on being disappointed in her expectations of overtaking her lover. Indeed, by this time, Lycidas was on his way to the Holy Land. On his road to Jerusalem he met with the devil and a hermit, who had a trial of strength for the soul of the pilgrim. The devil at first gained some advantage, but the victory remained in the hands of the saint. From Jerusalem Lycidas proceeds to Bethanie, to visit the oratory of the blessed Magdalene. In this place of devo tion he feels all the beatitude attached to the progress of a tender repentance; and, remembering the similarity of his own fate to that of the frail, but pardoned sister of Lazarus, he honours her memory with a few tributary verses, such as, "O beaulx yeux de la Magdaleine, After leaving the Holy Land, Lycidas joins the Christian army in Cyprus, is appointed colonel of a Sclavonian regiment, and receives, while com. bating at its head, a mortal wound. He does not, however, conceive himself exempted from continuing the activity he had exerted in this world, by his translation to the heavenly mansions. Scarcely has he tasted of celestial repose, when he appears one night to Cleoritha, (who by this time had returned to her infidel husband,) and exhorts her on the subject of devotion and her various duties. Unfortunately the spirit of religion inspired by this apparition, induces Cleoritha, with a view again to escape from the mussulman, to listen to the proposals of a Jew who had been long enamoured of her charms. By the advice of one of her female slaves, she receives him on the same footing on which Lycidas had been formerly admitted. The criminal intercourse is detected by the husband; he demands the severest justice of his country, and the same pile consumes the Jew, the slave, and Cleoritha. About the end of the 16th century, a spiritual romance of some celebrity appeared in the Flemish dialect, written by Boetius Bolswert, an engraver, and brother of Scheldt Bolswert, who was still more famous in the same art. This production recounts the pilgrimage of two sisters, whose names are equivalent to Dove and Wilful, (in the French translation Colombelle and Volontairette,) |