to Phraates, king of Parthia. That prince ascend. ed the throne by the murder of his father, and all the rest of his family, with the exception of Tyridates, who escaped to a neighbouring court, and afterwards settled in Judaea, whose king, Herod, was the avowed enemy of Phraates. The story of Mariamne, as it is related in Josephus, is the basis of the adventures of Tyridates. A coolness subsisted on the part of this princess towards her husband, as he had recently put to death her father Alexander, her uncle Antigonus, her two grandfathers, and her brother Aristobulus. Tyridates fell desperately in love with Mariamne, but although she preserved her fidelity to Herod inviolate, Salome, that monarch's sister, in revenge for an ill-requited affection she had conceived for Tyridates, and from hatred to Mariamne, instilled the most fatal suspicions into the mind of her brother. It thus became necessary, both for the safety of Mariamne and his own, that Tyridates should seek refuge in some other country. He had first repaired to Rome, but as the splendour and gaiety of that capital ill accorded with the frame of his mind, he had betaken himself to the solitary dwelling which he now inhabited.

In return for this communication, the attendant of the queen of Ethiopia commences the history of

the life of his mistress, which is one of the three main stories in the work. It relates to her amours with Cæsario, son of Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra, who had been believed dead through the Roman empire, but had, in fact, escaped into Ethiopia after the ruin of Marc Antony.

About this time, Coriolanus, prince of Maurita nia, arrived at the mansion of Tyridates, and his story may be considered as the principal one in the romance, as his mistress, Cleopatra, gives name to the work. This prince was son of the celebrated Juba, and, after the death of his father, was educated at Rome. There he became enamoured of Cleopatra, the daughter of the queen of Egypt and Marc Antony; but disgusted by the preference which Augustus showed to his rival Tiberius, he one day seized an opportunity of running his competitor through the body on the street, and then fled into Mauritania. He there raised a revolt among his father's subjects, and having successively defeated the Roman commanders who were sent against him, was invested by the inhabitants with his paternal sovereignty. After his coronation he set out incognito for Sicily, where the court of Augustus then was, in order to have a private interview with his mistress; but as she reproached him for perfidy, and avoided his pre

sence, instead of receiving him with the kindness anticipated, he was, in consequence, thrown into a violent fever. Understanding, on his recovery, that Cleopatra had accompanied Augustus and his court to Egypt, he departed for Alexandria, in order to obtain an explanation of her expressions and conduct.

The romance now returns to the queen of Ethiopia, who, during her residence with Tyridates, was forcibly carried off by pirates, but was afterwards rescued by Cornelius Gallus, the prefect of Egypt, and conducted to Alexandria. In the palace of the prefect she met with Elisa, who was daughter of Phraates, king of Parthia, and, like herself, had been delivered by a Roman vessel from pirates. The story of Elisa, and her lover Artabanus, a young adventurer, who afterwards proves to be the son of the great Pompey, is the third grand narrative of this production. Artabanus is the most warlike and most amorous of all the heroes of romance, and for the sake of Elisa he conquers for her father immense empires in Asia, almost by his individual prowess.

It is impossible to follow the princes and princesses through the various adventures and vicissitudes they encounter: suffice it to say, that at length they are all safely assembled at Alexandria,

where Augustus also arrives with his court, and a reconciliation takes place between Coriolanus and Cleopatra. The designs of the emperor to obtain the Princess Elisa for his favourite Agrippa, and Cleopatra for Tiberius, to the prejudice of Artaban and Coriolanus, induce these lovers to excite an insurrection against the Roman power. They storm the castle of Alexandria, but are there besieged by Augustus, and soon reduced to extremity. The emperor, however, terrified by a menacing apparition of Julius Cæsar, which about this time had unexpectedly appeared to him, consents to pardon the princes, and unites them to the objects of their affections.

This conclusion of the romance is as unsatisfactory as any conclusion of such a work could be. We are vexed that the principal characters should owe their lives and happiness to the bounty of a capricious tyrant, by whom they had been previously persecuted. Had they forced him to agree to terms, or made their escape from his power, the winding up of the whole would have been infinitely more agreeable. The great fault, however, of the romance, is the prodigious number of insulated histories, which prevent the attention or interest from fixing on any one object. Cleopatra is different from all heroic romances in this, that

the others have one leading story, and a number of episodes; but in the work with which we have just been engaged, though there is no want of episodes, there are three main stories, which have no intimate connection with each other, and which claim an equal share of the reader's attention. Indeed, that part of the romance which relates to the adventures of the nominal heroine, is neither the longest nor best managed part of the work. Her lover is a less interesting character than either Artaban or Cæsario: he stabs his rival on the street, excites his father's subjects to revolt, and then abandons them to the mercy of the Romans.

In the innumerable stories of which the romance is compounded, there is, I think, but little variety. Thus in all of them incomparable princes are eternally enamoured of divine princesses, to whom they pay a similar species of adoration, and for whose sake they perform similar exploits. In the character of the heroines there is little discrimination. The only distinction is in the species of personal perfection attributed to each of them; thus the majestic graces of the Ethiopian princess are contrasted with the softer charms of Elisa. The vast number of lovers attached to every one of the heroines fatigues the attention and perplexes the story. Besides inferior slaves, each of the chief