Like Heliodorus, one of his principal excellences lies in descriptions; and though these, as Mr. Dunlop observes, "are too luxuriant, they are in general beautiful, the objects being at once well selected, and so painted as to form in the mind of the reader a distinct and lively image. As an example of his merit in this way, may be mentioned his description of a garden, and of a tempest followed by a shipwreck; also his accounts of the pictures of Europa, Andromeda, and Prometheus, in which his descriptions and criticisms are executed with very considerable taste and feeling." The same writer, however, justly notes "the absurd and aukward manner in which the author, as if to show his various acquirements, drags in without the slightest necessity, some of those minute descriptions, viz., those of the necklace, and of different zoological curiosities, in the Second Book, together with the invention of purple-dying, and the accounts drawn from natural history, which are interspersed in the Fourth Book."
In his discussions upon the passions of love, and its power over human nature, however we may object to the warmth of his description, we cannot but allow the ability with which the colours are laid on.
"The rise and progress of the passion of Clitopho for Leucippe," observes Mr. Dunlop, "is extremely well executed,—of this there is nothing in the romance of Heliodorus. Theagenes and Chariclea, are at first sight violently and mutually enamoured; in Tatius we have more of the restless agitation of love and the arts of courtship. Indeed this is by much the best part of the Clitopho and Leucippe, as the author discloses very considerable acquaintance with the human heart. This knowledge also appears in the sentiments scattered through the work, though it must be confessed, that in many of his remarks he is apt to subtilize and refine too much."
In the hero of his work, Achilles Tatius is more unfortunate even than Heliodorus.—"Clitopho," says a reviewer, "is a human body, uninformed with a human soul, but delivered up to all the instincts of nature and the senses. He neither commands respect by his courage, nor affection by his constancy." As in the work of Heliodorus so in that of Achilles Tatius, it is the heroine who excites our sympathy and interest:—"Leucippe, patient, high-minded, resigned and firm, endures adversity with grace; preserving throughout the helplessness and temptations of captivity, irreproachable purity and constancy unchangeable."
In concluding these remarks upon one of the three chief writers of Greek Romance, one more observation of Mr. Dunlop will not be out of place.—"Tatius," he says, "has been much blamed for the immorality of his Romance, and it must be acknowledged that there are particular passages which are extremely exceptionable; yet, however odious some of these may be considered, the general moral tendency of the story is good; a remark which may be extended to all the Greek Romances. Tatius punishes his hero and heroine for eloping from their father's house, and afterwards rewards them for their long fidelity."
Several French translations of Achilles Tatius have appeared; an Italian one by Coccio; also an English one published at Oxford in 1638, which the present writer, after many inquiries, has been unable to procure a sight of.
R. S.
October, 1855.