but rejects, the addresses of
Hierocles, proconsul of Achaia, and a favourite of Galerius. One day,
worshipping in the forest at a solitary Altar of the Nymphs, she meets a
young stranger whom (she is of course still a pagan) she mistakes for
Endymion, but who talks Christianity to her, and reveals himself as
Eudore, son of Lasthenes. As it turns out, her father knows this person,
who has the renown of a distinguished soldier.

From this almost any one who has read a few thousand novels--almost any
intelligent person who has read a few hundred--can lay out the probable
plot. Love of Eudore and Cymodocee; conversion of the latter; jealousy
and intrigues of Hierocles; adventures past and future of Eudore;
transfer of scene to Rome; prevalence of Galerius over Diocletian;
persecution, martyrdom, and supernatural triumph. But the "fillings up"
are not banal; and the book is well worth reading from divers points of
view. In the earliest part there is a little too much Homer,[34]
naturally enough perhaps. The ancient world changed slowly, and we know
that at this particular time Greeks (if not also Romans) rather played
at archaising manners. Still, it is probably not quite safe to take the
memorable, if not very resultful, journey in which Telemachus was,
rather undeservedly, so lucky as to see Helen and drink Nepenthe[35] and
to reproduce it with guide- and etiquette-book exactness, _c._ A. D.
300. Yet this is, as has been said, very natural; and it arouses many
pleasant reminiscences.

[Sidenote: Its "panoramic" quality.]

The book, moreover, has two great qualities which were almost,
if not quite, new in the novel. In the first place, it has a
certain _panoramic_ element which admits--which indeed
necessitates--picturesqueness. Much of it is, almost as necessarily,
_recit_ (Eudore giving the history of his travels and campaigns); but it
is _recit_ of a vividness which had never before been known in French,
out of the most accomplished drama, and hardly at all in prose. The
adventures of Eudore require this most, of course, and they get it. His
early wild-oats at Rome, which earn him temporary excommunication; his
service in the wars with the Franks, where, for almost the only time in
literature, Pharamond and Merovee become living creatures; his captivity
with them; his triumphs in Britain and his official position in
Brittany, where the entrance of the Druidess Velleda and the fatal love
between them provide perhaps t