times, though they still from their curiosity and
local colouring command and deserve notice.
Miguel de Cervantes probably drew from them
a hint, at least, for the famous adventure of
the Knight of La Mancha with the wineskins ;
there can be no doubt that Boccaccio
had read them; and the charming legend of
Cupid and Psyche furnished forth subjects
for the frescoes with which Raphael adorned
the walls and ceilings of the Farnesina a villa
at Rome.  The structure of the novel somewhat
resembles that of Gil Blas.  In both,
the adventures of the hero form the groundwork
of the story, but in both, also, more
than half the book consists of incidents taken
from their own lives, told by different personages.
This resemblance is probably due
to the fact that Apuleius, like Le Sage,
worked up into his romance materials provided
by preceding novelists.

There existed at that time a class of literary
compositions called the Milesian Tales,
the character of which we are easily enabled
to determine, though no specimens of them
are now extant.  Aristides of Miletus first
composed them; and they derive their appellation
from him.  This Aristides was followed
by other writers; whose names those
curious in such matters may find preserved
in the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Græcorum.
This species of literature sprang up at the
point of meeting between the Grecian and
Eastern worlds.  Aspasia was a native of
Miletus, and not only was her house the
resort of the philosophers of the day; but,
according to Plato, she even gave lessons
in rhetoric to Pericles and Socrates.  It is
pleasant to think of her relating the Milesian
tales to these mighty sages.  They
were familiar trifling compositions, containing
relations of the laughable incidents of
life, and adventures of love and intrigue,
mixed up with great licentiousness.  The
Romans first became acquainted with them
during their campaigns in Lesser Asia.
Plutarch tells us that the officers of Crassus's
army carried the novels of Aristides
in their knapsacks.  Their popularity induced
Sisenna, the historian of the expedition,
to translate them into Latin ; but
though Ovid mentions the fact of their
publication, we hear no more of them
during the golden period of Roman literature.
In the next century, however, they
again came into vogue, and must have been
well known to the readers of Apuleius ;
for, in his preface, he promises to string his
stories together in the Milesian strain, and
charm their ears with a merry whispering.

Apuleius had enjoyed extensive opportunities
for observation, for he spent his early
years in Africa, studied at Athens, and for
some years practised at the bar at Rome ;
and, as the result, he exhibits to us a collection
of portraits taken from different
classes of society, sufficiently resembling the
sketches made by the satirists of the preceding
century to convince us of their truth,
but less harshly drawn.  There is the usurious
money-lender ; the enchantress taking
vengeance on her lover ; the harsh stepmother ;
the hectoring soldier ; the oppressed
peasant ; the Christian woman ; the interior
of a factory ; and the juggling priests of the
Syrian Goddess.  Every picture tells its own
date ; the gallery was made under the Empire.

Lucius, the hero of the novel, is introduced
to us mounted on a milk white steed, journeying
from Corinth to Thessaly.  In the way,
he overtakes a classical bagman, or commercial
traveller of the Cæsarean era, who is
engaged in earnest confabulation with a
friend.  They are discussing the pretensions
of magic ; and the borders of Thessaly form
a spot well suited to the ventilation of such
a subject ; for Thessaly has been the chosen
home of magical arts, even from the days of
Medea.  Lucius hears the loud laugh with
which some grim tale of glamour told by the
merchant is scouted ; and, thirsting himself
for the marvellous, introduces himself to them
as a man eager for information.  He reproves
the sceptical listener in words, which although
calculated to convey to us the real scepticism
of the novelist, flatters the speaker into a
continuance of his tale.  It relates to the
untimely death of an acquaintance, brought
about by the incantations of a hag — a fact of
which the merchant has been himself a witness,
in the course of some former Thessalian
expedition to procure the butter and cheese
for which the district is famous.  The story
is good enough to beguile the remainder of a
toilsome journey ; but it is not worth our
repeating.  It is enough to say, that though
supported by the devout belief of the narrator,
and the common talk of all the people of
Thessaly, it fails to convince the sceptical
companion ; while the cautious Lucius, when
appealed to, gives his verdict that nothing is
impossible ; but that all things proceed according
to the decrees of fate.

The marvellous tale completed, Lucius
parts company at the entrance of the city of
Hypata, and applies to be conducted to the
house of Milo, to whom he has a letter of introduction.
Milo is one of a numerous and
powerful class that owes its origin to the imperfect
state of commercial credit, and the
difficulty of finding secure and ready investment
for capital under the Roman Empire.
He is a miser and a money-lender.  Milo is
by no means a popular man in Hypata ; the
influence and extortions of his order have exposed
it and him to general hatred ; and the
old inn-keeper who puts Lucius on his way,
does not miss the opportunity of speaking an
ill word of her wealthy neighbour, who keeps
but one maid for himself and his wife, and
dresses like a beggar.

When Lucius arrives at the house of Milo,
he finds the door bolted fast ; but, after a
parley with the maid, who mistakes him for a
customer come to borrow money, she admits