THE FRENCH CONVULSIVES. 441 



composed throughout in a Pagan spirit, though free from indelicacy, 

 and often affecting a high moral tone. At the conclusion of his 

 work, the writer informs us that he is a Phoenician, a native of the 

 city of Emessa, and a descendant of the sun, as, indeed, his name 

 implies, although it is a boast which a Christian would hardly make. 

 Bayle, however, pertinently remarks, that this vaunt is by no means 

 conclusive evidence of heathenism, since it might be merely adduced 

 to establish the honourable antiquity of his family, just as St. Jerome 

 makes St. Paul a descendant of Agamemnon ; and Bishop Ignesius 

 was proud to reckon Hercules among his ancestors. There must be 

 something natural to men in this family pride, absurd as it may ap- 

 pear to philosophers, when we find saints and bishops referring with 

 such complacency to their progenitors among the Pagan heroes and 

 demigods, and thus obliquely admitting the heathen Polytheism, 

 even while they claim to be the champions of Christianity. 



Some writers assign a more ancient origin to Romance than the 

 age of Heliodorus, and refer to the Milesiacs of Aristides, a collection 

 of short licentious tales, which found imitators among the Greeks and 

 Romans, more especially in Apuleius and Lucian, who flourished in 

 the second century. Their compositions, however, were rather tales 

 and allegories, than romances. Macrobius has allotted The Golden, 

 Ass, and all such rhapsodies, to the perusal of nurses ; and the em- 

 peror Severus expressed great indignation that the senate should be- 

 stow the title of learned upon Claudius Albinus, who had only 

 stuffed his head with idle tales taken out of Apuleius. 



THE FRENCH CONVULSIVES. 

 No. II. 



THE TALISMAN, BY BALZAC. 



M. BALZAC has been styled the French Hoffman, for, like the 

 German, he deals in the fantastic and supernatural, but with far 

 higher powers than his prototype : he makes his supernatural ma- 

 chinery subservient to the exhibition of the living palpable world 

 around him, and without so far outraging probability, he dexterously 

 interweaves his fantasies with reality, and places things as they are 

 within a magic circle. Endowed with genius singularly elastic and 

 original, the wildness and vigour of his imagination, the brilliancy 

 of his conceptions, and the dramatic force and vivacity of his 

 expression, imparts a fascination to his writings, which it is difficult 

 to withstand. His great power lies in placing before our eyes the 

 form of modern society, of anatomizing its construction, of dwelling 

 on its diseased parts, of exhibiting to view the canker that preys 

 upon its vitals, the poison that rankles at its heart. He loves to call 

 into action the two great antagonist principles of good and evil, and 

 to show the latter triumphant over its rival. 



M. M. No. 88. 3 C 



