Few modern readers, I imagine, would have patience to read this very heavy Romance; but in 1590, when Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia was published, stories of amusement and interest were not as plentiful as in the present day, and it was a short time before that Romance appeared, that a translation of Heliodorus's Æthiopic History was published in England. The edition which I have seen is translated by N. Tate, the first five books by "a Person of Quality." The date is 1753. The other editions are 1587, 1622, 1686. But though the _plan_ of Persiles and Sigismunda is taken from Heliodorus, I do not think they have _any_ resemblance in style, and there is far more vivacity and humour in the narrative and characters, and more nature too, in spite of the high flown romance that surrounds them. I fear the modern reader will find the numerous episodes tedious; and story after story, which every additional personage we meet, thinks it necessary to relate, will perhaps try his patience; yet there is great beauty in many of these, at least in the original language. The remarkable ignorance which Cervantes displays on geographical points has a parallel in our own Shakespeare, who makes Bohemia a country with a sea coast. Cervantes has evidently formed his ideas of the North only by the voyages and travels that were published at the time he lived. It is more surprising that he should know so little of England, considering how much his own country had been connected with her, and also from the knowledge and information he displays on other subjects. The chief fault in the work is the remarkable want of keeping; for whereas he at once determines the period and date by bringing in the expulsion of the Moors and Soldiers who served under Charles the 5th, also speaking of Lisbon as belonging to Spain, at the same time he throws his personages into a perfect land of Romance, and speaks of all the northern countries, as if themselves, their manners and customs, were utterly unknown and barbarous; yet Elizabeth or James the 1st was reigning in England; the queen of James the 1st was a Danish princess, and Denmark and Sweden were assuredly not unknown to fame. In fixing upon Iceland and Friesland as the dominions of his hero and heroine, he gets upon safer ground, though by the way in which he speaks of them, he evidently considers this a sort of mysterious and only half understood land, which might serve a wandering prince or princess of romance, for a home, for want of a better. The first and second part differ considerably; when Cervantes gets home to his own bright clime and sunny skies, you feel the truth of his descriptions, which form a striking contrast to the icy seas and snowy islands among which his pilgrims are voyaging throughout the whole first volume.