forgotten world that rolls round and round in the heavens, through wasted floods of light. The sun, growing fiercer and fiercer, shone down more mightily now than ever on me he shone before, and as I drooped my head under his fire and closed my eyes against the glare that surrounded me, I slowly fell asleep, for how many minutes or moments, I cannot tell, but after a while I was gently awakened by a peal of church bells-my native bells -the innocent bells of Marlen, that never before sent forth their music beyond the Blaygon hills! My first idea naturally was, that I still remained fast under the power of a dream. I roused myself, and drew aside the silk that covered my eyes, and plunged my bare face into the light. Then at least I was well enough wakened, but still those old Marlen bells rung on, not ringing for joy, but properly, prosily, steadily, merrily ringing “ for church.” After a while the sound died away slowly; it happened that neither I nor any of my party had a watch by which to measure the exact time of its lasting, but it seemed to be that about ten minutes had passed before the bells ceased. I attributed the effect to the great heat of the sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air through which I moved, and the deep stillness of all around me; it seemed to me that these causes, by occasioning a great tension, and consequent susceptibility of the hearing organs, had rendered them liable to tingle under the passing touch of some mere memory, that must have swept across my brain in a moment of sleep. Since my return to England, it has been told me that like sounds have been heard at sea, and that the sailor becalmed under a vertical sun in the midst of the wide ocean has listened in trembling wonder to the chime of his own village bells. . . After the fifth day of my journey, I no longer travelled over shifting hills, but came upon a dead level-a dead level bed of sand, quite hard, and studded with small shining pebbles. The heat grew fierce; there was no valley nor hollow, no hill, no mound, no shadow of hill nor of mound by which I could mark the way I was making. Hour by hour I advanced, and saw no change-I was still the very centre of a round horizon; hour by hour I advanced, and still there was the same, and the same, and the same the same circle of flaming sky-the same circle of sand still glaring with light and fire. Over all the heaven above -over all the earth beneath, there was no visible power that could balk the fierce will of the sun; "he rejoiced as a strong

man to run a race; his going forth was from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there was nothing hid from the heat thereof." From pole to pole and from the East to the West, he brandished his fiery sceptre as though he had usurped all Heaven and Earth. As he bid the soft Persian in ancient times, so now, and fiercely, too, he bid me bow down aud worship him; so now in his pride he seemed to command me and say, "Thou shalt have none other gods but me." I was all alone before him. There were these two pitted together, and face to face -the mighty sun for one, and for the other-this poor, pale, solitary self of mine, that I always carry about with me. But on the eighth day, and before I had yet turned away from Jehovah for the glittering god of the Persians, there appeared a dark line upon the edge of the forward horizon, and soon the line deepened into a delicate fringe that sparkled here and there, as though it were sown with diamonds. There, then, before me were the gardens and the minarets of Egypt, and the mighty works of the Nile, and I (the eternal ego that I am!)—I had lived to see, and I saw them.

CHAPTER VI.

FICTION-I. THE ROMANCE.

Origin of Prose Fiction-Classification-Romance in the Middle Ages -Sidney's Arcadia-Euphues, by John Lyly-Euphuism-Greene's Romances-Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time-Thomas NashFabulous Voyages and Travels-Lucian's Veracious History-Rabelais-Godwin's Man in the Moon-Hall's Mundus Alter et IdemCyrano de Bergerac-Dean Swift-Gulliver's Travels-Robinson Crusoe-Peter Wilkins-Munchausen's Adventures-The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, by Poe-Romances of the Supernatural— The Castle of Otranto, by Walpole-The Old English Baron-Mrs. Radcliffe's Romances-St. Leon, by William Godwin - BulwerLytton's Zanoni-Frankenstein-The Monk, by Lewis-Beckford's Vathek-Hope's Anastasius-The Adventures of Hajji Baba-Historical Romances and Novels-Jane Porter's Scottish Chiefs-Sir Walter Scott-The Waverley Novels-Imitators-The Novels of G. P. R. James-Lord Lytton's Historical Novels-The Last Days of Pompeii-Rienzi - Harold-The Last of the Barons-Lockhart's Valerius-Kingsley's Hypatia.

PROSE fiction possesses so many characteristics peculiar to itself, and occupies a field so broad and so full of interest, that we may almost regard it as a third grand division of literature lying between the two great departments of imaginative poetry and matter-of-fact prose. Poetry is the product of fancy, and appeals to our ideas of the beautiful, the pathetic, the wonderful, and the sublime. Prose, on the other hand, is ordinarily intended as the vehicle of instruction, and is addressed to our understanding and to our reasoning faculties. Storytelling prose occupies a middle ground, appealing both to the imagination and to the reason, and is designed not altogether for amusement, nor yet altogether for purposes of instruction.

The origin of fiction, like that of poetry, may be traced to a very remote period. The love of the "story" in some form or other seems indeed to be universal-alike characteristic of people of every age, of every clime, and of every condition in life. We find it in its earliest and simplest form in the sun-myths and fables of the ancient Aryans. Then, following the course of history and modified by the civilization which gave it birth, we find it reappearing constantly and in every conceivable form down to the present time. Sometimes it is a dim tradition, a nucleus of truth, embodied in a mass of fiction; sometimes it is merely a poetic relation or description of natural phenomena; sometimes it is the product simply of the storyteller's imagination. The mythological fable becomes a tale of chivalry, a Christian legend, an heroic ballad, a Norman romance. It becomes merged, and almost loses its identity, in the monkish chronicle, the minstrel's song, the dramatic play, the epic poem.

Beginning with the poetic representation of that which is wonderful and incomprehensible in nature, fiction is at first directed towards the marvelous and the supernatural. Later on, as the influence of great men in shaping and directing the world's affairs begins to be more clearly recognized, it assumes the heroic character. Finally, when society has become supreme, and both gods and heroes retire to the background, there is a marked preference for the sentimental and the purely intellectual. Hence the three great varieties of fiction-the myth, the romance, and the modern novel. In the study of English prose fiction it is unnecessary to go into the domains of mythology, as the origin of all myths dates far back of the beginning of our literature. We shall have to speak, therefore, only of the romance and the novel. The earliest English romances were written either in the form of poetry or-like Geoffrey of Monmouth's British History-under the disguise of monkish chronicles, and of these in their proper connection we have already spoken. We have reason to

believe that, during the Transition Period, French romances. both in prose and verse formed no inconsiderable portion of the reading among the educated English. And some of these certain versions of the Romance of King Arthur, for example-were translated into the English language. Among the revenue rolls of the reign of Henry III. there is an entry regarding certain "silver clasps and studs for his majesty's. great book of Romances." And Dr. Moore remarks that "the enthusiastic admiration of chivalry which Edward III. manifested during the whole course of his reign was probably in some measure owing to his having studied the clasped book in his great-grandfather's library." We learn from old Roger Ascham, also, that the reading of "fayned bookes of chévalrie” formed the only literary amusement of the English nobility at the close of the fifteenth century, and that "God's Bible was banished the court, and La Morte d'Arthur received into the prince's chamber." But the cultivation of prose fiction as a branch of literature did not begin in England until after almost every other branch had received attention and some of them had been graced with masterpieces. The first English romance to which we shall direct our attention is The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, written by Sir Philip Sidney about the year 1580, and published some ten years afterward. The work was composed at the request and for the amusement of Sir Philip's sister, the Countess of Pembroke, and was not intended for the eye of the public. "You desired me to do it," says the author, in his dedication to the countess, "and your desire, to my heart, is absolute commandment. Now, it is done only for you if you keep it to yourself, or to such friends who will weigh errors in the balance of good-will, I hope, for the Father's sake, it will be pardoned, perchance made much of, though in itself it have deformities. For indeed for severer eyes it is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. Your dear self can best witness the manner, being done in loose sheets of Paper, most of it in