To these observations we may add, that Longus is supposed by some to have furnished to Bernardin de St. Pierre the groundwork for his beautiful tale of Paul and Virginia. Many points of resemblance may certainly be traced between the hero and heroine of the respective works; the description of their innocence--their simple and rustic mode of life, and their occupation and diversions. Among the rest may be mentioned the descriptions of the sensations of love when first arising in Virginia; and the pantomimic dance in which she and Paul take part. An anonymous and "select" translation of Longus, published at Truro, in 1803, has been taken as the basis of the present version. The passages (and there are many) omitted by the former translator are here given, together with a considerable fragment, first discovered by M. Paul Louis Courier, in 1810, in the Laurentian Library at Florence. It has been the endeavour of the present translator to make his version convey the sense of the original as faithful as possible, except in some few passages ("egregio inspersos corpore nævos") where it has been considered advisable to employ the veil of a learned language. In reading the work of Longus, we must bear in mind that he was most probably a heathen, or at any rate, that he describes the heathen state of morals. The following passage from Dr. Nott's Preface to his translation of Catullus will illustrate the principle upon which the present translator has gone, in presenting in an English dress passages entirely omitted in the anonymous version, before referred to:-- "When an ancient classic is translated and explained, the work may be considered as forming a link in the chain of history.--History should not be falsified, we ought therefore to translate him somewhat fairly, and when he gives us the manners of his own day, however disgusting to our sensations and repugnant to our natures they may oftentimes prove, we must not, in translation, suppress or even too much gloss them over, through a fastidious regard to delicacy."[3] * * * * * Achilles Tatius was a native of Alexandria, commonly assigned to the second or third century of the Christian æra, but considered by the best critics to have flourished after Heliodorus, to whom he is looked upon as next in point of literary merit, and whom he has more or less imitated in various parts of his works, like him frequently introducing into the thread of his narrative the Egyptian buccaneers. According to Suidas, he became, towards the end of his life, a Christian and a Bishop; a statement which is however considered doubtful, as no mention is made by that lexicographer of his Episcopal see, and Photius, who mentions him in three different places, is silent upon the subject.