pleasures which literature offers to the reader. A like pleasure springs from the perception of the charm, the glamour, that pervades the thought of remote lands and bygone civilizations, known to us only through romance or through the description of the curious traveller, whose experiences lose nothing of the picturesque in the recounting. From the twelfth to the seventeenth century adventurous explorers in Asia and Africa blazed out a route for commerce to follow, returning to England with stories that stimulated the imagination to unbounded credulousness, confirming as they often did statements found in the works of the oldest writers. For example, so many writers in various periods had asserted the existence of races of pygmies, or little people a cubit high (some in India, others in Africa), that Homer's story of their annual battle with the migrating cranes seemed to Milton's readers easily credible; and Herodotus' story of the winged lions called griffins who guard the gold mines of Scythia from the depredations of the Arimaspians was, in the judgment of the medieval world, removed from the realm of pure fiction from the day when the great explorer, Mandeville, returning from his travels in Asia, declared that he knew a country where the "gryphon" was very common.

Imagination ran riot in regard to these "uncouth" regions Asian plateaus, where men sailed upon the ground in wagons; Saharan deserts, where the sands "poized" the lighter wings of the winds in their fierce. combats; the Caspian Sea, where clouds "with heaven's artillery fraught" continually rent the air with thunderbolts. The inhabitants of English dales loved to hear

how the lofty Himalayas frowned steep over the rich plains of India, and how the snow-clad range of Imaus swept from the sources of the Ganges northward past Sericana1 and Tartary - names in themselves fraught with suggestions of strange peoples and customs — to lands still unpenetrated by civilized man. Of India they knew more, but that country was still half fairyland. Here the subjects of the barbarous kings celebrated their coronals (such were the riches of this favored land) with showers of gold-dust and pearls. From the neighboring islands of Ternate and Tidore came fleets laden with spices, perhaps delaying in the Persian Gulf to bring from Ormuz some of those jewels that made it the diamond mart of the world.

Ruins of ancient cities in Asia and in Africa served to corroborate the testimony of early writers in regard to the ancient glories of Egypt and Assyria. At Babylon might still be traced the site of the great temple of Belus, a single tower of which was said to have been four hundred feet high and four hundred feet square. The pyramids on the heights above Cairo still looked down upon the site of Memphis, whose splendid temple of Serapis rivalled that of Belus at Babylon. And if these dumb witnesses of the past compelled belief in the legends that cluster about their names, how much more credible must have seemed the written records of the epic poem, the historical narrative, the cycles of romance! The very names of the places to which cling dim memDries of Charlemagne, of Arthur, of Saladin (Fontarabbia,

1 Sericana was a district in the northwestern part of China.

Armorica, Damasco) appeal to the imagination with power to transport the mind out of the present into the stimulating atmosphere of chivalry. If the student have not the time for a too curious study of these historical references, let him try to lend himself to the magic of the names, with their suggestions of bravery and loyalty; and even if, like Milton, he sees Charlemagne instead of Roland die "by Fontarabbia," or if he cannot find the exact latitude and longitude of Aspramont, his thought will have in it no more of vagueness than did the reader's of Milton's day.

CLASSIC LEGENDS.

A few legends inherited from ancient Greece have for centuries furnished the writers of Western Europe with heroic figures, romantic episodes, and picturesque details, which serve as illustrative matter wherewith to enrich their productions, until the legends have become interwoven into the very tissue of literature, and no scholar is equipped for general reading until he has come to know their principal incidents. We shall complete our treatment of classical references with such details from the story of the Argonautic Expedition, the Adventures of Hercules, and the Siege of Troy as may be of assistance in reading Milton's works.

The Argonautic Expedition.

the

57. This legend relates how thousands of years ago king of the country of Colchis, on the Black Sea, possessed a wonderful treasure in the shape of a ram's fleece of pure gold, which he guarded with the utmost

care, because it was eagerly desired by the people who dwelt on the shores of the Ægæan. A band of heroes from Greece determined to secure the fleece, at whatever risk to themselves, and to that end built a splendid fifty-oared galley, which they named the Argo, and set out for Colchis. Notable among the heroes were Jason (their leader), the poet Orpheus, the demi-god Hercules, and the fathers of many of the heroes of the famous Trojan War.

58. They went through many adventures before reaching Colchis, in one of which Hercules became separated from the expedition. The sole one of these to which Milton refers in the course of these selections is that of the Symplegades, or "justling rocks" (P. L. II. 1018). The route of the Argo lay, of course, through the Straits of Bosphorus, and soon after passing these the Argonauts found their way barred by two huge island-masses of rock, floating upon the sea and at short intervals of time crashing their cliff-like faces together with tremendous force and noise, under the influence of the waves. The heroes, confiding in the bird-like speed of the Argo, determined to rest their fate on that of a dove, which was accordingly sent between the rocks as they swung apart. The frightened bird sped through the passage in safety, but the return of the rocks was so prompt that some of her tailfeathers were caught and torn out just as she reached the open space beyond. Nor was the confidence of the heroes in their ship unfounded; for on the next relapse of the rocks they bent to their oars and passed safely on their way, the stern of the boat being merely grazed by the returning rocks.

59. Arrived at Colchis, they secured the fleece with the assistance of Medea, the king's daughter (who became ardently enamoured of Jason and abandoned her home to join her fortunes with his), and departed homeward. But more than one crime had marked their course, and the gods condemned them to wander through many strange regions ere they saw their native land. They visited the island of the goddess and enchantress Circe (see 68) to implore the aid of her mystic powers. They passed islands where resided the Sirens, nymphs the upper portion of whose bodies were those of beautiful maidens, while the lower portion resembled those of a bird. These dwelt on a rocky shore, where they sang so sweetly of the pleasures that awaited the sailor who should venture to land that no mariner who heard them could resist his longing to reach the shore.

But the smiling waters concealed hidden reefs which wrecked the vessel venturing too near, and thus the sailor who listened to their song paid the penalty of his rashness with his life. Orpheus, however, sang to the accompaniment of his lyre so sweetly that the Argonauts failed to hear the Sirens, and passed in safety. The passing between Scylla and Charybdis (see 69) was the most notable of their many succeeding adventures, but they finally reached Greece with their treasure.

The Labors of Hercules.

60. Hercules (properly called Heracles), who had accidentally been deprived of his share in the Argonautic Expedition, was the son of Jove and a mortal named Alcmene. His enormous strength, exhibited in many