If we read three books consecutively on any one subject, we know not merely three times as much as if we had read one only, but thirty times. And our knowledge of the subject will not be vague, inaccurate and fleeting, but it will be concise, accurate and permanent. To acquire a correct and lasting knowledge of any subject, whether it be an event or an epoch of history, a science or an art or craft, it is essential that we read consecutively and comparatively as many books upon that subject as our opportunities and time allow. It should also be borne in mind that if we are content to read one volume only, it is quite possible that we may chance upon an author who is inaccurate or biased, or whose work does not represent the latest stage of our knowledge upon that subject.

'Mekely, lordynges gentyll and fre,
Lysten awhile and herken to me.'

HUE DE ROTELANDE.

NCE upon a time, long long before the Venerable Bede had completed that famous last chapter in his cell at Jarrow, there lived in the ancient capital of Sampsiceramus, a holy

man named Heliodorus.

Now in his youth Heliodorus (as is not uncommon with the young) had turned his thoughts to worldly things; and being of a romantic nature, wearied by the eternal sameness of the books available to him, had conceived the extraordinary notion of writing an untrue book, a book that should never instruct or point a moral or show you where you are wrong, but should be all joyousness and enchantment. Possessed with this great idea, timidly yet sure of himself, he set to work.

The very first thing he did was sufficiently startling for those days. Instead of selecting some great man for his central figure and putting his dialogue into the mouths of learned men, fathers of the church, philosophers, orators, or famous poets, he chose deliberately a young and handsome man of no particular learning, and—a woman! It was unheard of! A book, a voluminous roll closely written, containing nothing but the adventures of a pair of lovers! Monstrous! Yet it was done at last, and the roll, finding favour in the eyes of a bosom friend, was quickly passed from hand to hand. All were entranced by it. Here was 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.

But

So runs the pleasing tale of Nicephorus. 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, we for our 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 Père Amyot published a version in French for Francis I., who was so delighted with the result that he made the translator abbé 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 consigned it to the fire. Racine bought another copy, which suffered a like fate. But so strong a hold upon him had the story, that he purchased a third, and devoured it in secret, offering it to his master with a smile when he had thoroughly mastered its contents.

It seems that this ancient Greek romance was lost for many centuries. At the sack of Buda in 1526, however, a manuscript of it was discovered in the royal library, where it had once formed part of the vast library amassed by Matthias Corvinus, the great King of Hungary. Matthias is said to have 'spoken almost all the European languages,' so doubtless he had passed many a pleasant hour with the tale. This manuscript (others have since been discovered) was printed at Basel'in officina Ioan Hervagii' in 1534, a small quarto printed with Greek types.1

1 There are 242 pages in this editio princeps, after which should come a leaf with (a) blank (b) device of John Hervey or Hervagius. It was english'd by Thomas Underdowne, and published in small octavo by Frauncis Coldocke, at the sign of the greene Dragon in Paules churchyeard, in 1587.