'The Golden Ass' is full of dramatic power and variety. The succession of incident, albeit grossly licentious at times, engages the interest without a moment's dullness. The main narrative, indeed, is no less entertaining than the episodes. The work became a model for story-writers of a much later period, even to the times of Fielding and Smollett. Boccaccio borrowed freely from it; at least one of the many humorous exploits of Cervantes's 'Don Quixote' can be attributed to an adventure of Lucius; while 'Gil Blas' abounds in reminiscences of the Latin novel. The student of folk-lore will easily detect in the tasks imposed by Venus on her unwelcome daughter-in-law, in the episode of 'Cupid and Psyche,' the possible original from which the like fairy tales of Europe drew many a suggestion. Probably Apuleius himself was indebted to still earlier Greek sources. Scarcely any Latin production was more widely known and studied from the beginning of the Italian Renaissance to the middle of the seventeenth century. In its style, however, it is far from classic. It is full of archaisms and rhetorical conceits. In striving to say things finely, the author frequently failed to say them well. This fault, however, largely disappears in the translation; and whatever may be the literary defects of the novel, it offers rich compensation in the liveliness, humor, and variety of its substance. In addition to 'The Golden Ass,' the extant writings of Apuleius include 'Florida' (an anthology from his own works), 'The God of Socrates,' 'The Philosophy of Plato,' and 'Concerning the World,' a treatise once attributed to Aristotle. The best modern edition of his complete works is that of Hildebrand (Leipzig, 1842); of the 'Metamorphoses,' that of Eyssenhardt (Berlin, 1869). There have been many translations into the modern languages. The best English versions are those of T. Taylor (London, 1822); of Sir G. Head, somewhat expurgated (London, 1851); and an unsigned translation published in the Bohn Library, which has been drawn on for this work, but greatly rewritten as too stiff and prolix, and in the conversations often wholly unnatural. A very pretty edition in French, with many illustrations, is that of Savalète (Paris, 1872). THE TALE OF ARISTOMENES, THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELER From 'The Metamorphoses' I am a native of Ægina, and I travel in Thessaly, Ætolia, and Boeotia to purchase honey of Hypata, cheese, and other articles used in cookery. Having heard that at Hypata, the principal city of Thessaly, fine-flavored new cheese was for sale cheap, I made the best of my way there to buy it all up. But as usual, happening to start left foot foremost, which is unlucky, all my hopes of profit came to nothing; for a fellow named Lupus, a merchant who does things on a big scale, had bought the whole of it the day before.