s a book that
had characters one could understand, for whom one could even feel
affection. The loves of dashing young Theagenes and his dear Chariclea
found an echo in many a youthful breast.

Meanwhile Heliodorus disappears from view, and for many years we hear
nothing of him until suddenly he reappears as a bishop in Thessaly! Now
comes the sequel to his audacious design, but for which it is doubtful if
we should ever have heard of him. A synod was convened, and Heliodorus
was condemned _because in his youth he had written a novel_. He was given
his choice between bishopric and book, to retain the one he must destroy
the other by word as well as by deed.

At first sight the choice appears not difficult to make, for although so
laical and original a work had proved to be popular, yet such popularity
was hardly of a nature to appeal to so devout a Christian as one who had
already attained episcopal rank. But to Heliodorus his work (which may
well have been the employment of some years) stood for all that he held
most dear. It was his conception of the ideal in worldly--as opposed to
spiritual--life. Less austere, perhaps, than many of the fathers of the
early Church whose works had seemed so tedious to him in his youth, his
devoutness was tempered largely with a charity and forgiveness that were
not unworthy of his creed. It was impossible to deny those principles of
chivalric virtue and chastity which his novel preached, so he chose to
stand by his book rather than by his benefice, and quitted Thessaly.

So runs the pleasing tale of Nicephorus. But alas! the relentless voice
of modern research will have it that the real author was not the bishop
at all, but a Sophist who lived in the third century of our era. Be it as
it may, I for my part shall go on believing the old romantic tale until
a better one is invented for the Sophist.

The work itself is called 'Ten Books of Aethiopian History,' for the
first and last scenes are laid in Egypt, but it is better known by the
name of its hero and heroine. Its popularity was immense, and it was soon
translated into 'almost all languages.' Later Pere Amyot published a
version in French for Francis I., who was so delighted with the result
that he made the translator abbe of Belozane. Racine tells us it was this
ancient romance that first fired his imagination with the desire to
write. His tutor discovered him absorbed in its contents, and snatching
it from his hand angrily con