empire. An epigram is still extant, attributed to the Emperor Leo, the
philosopher,[8] in which it is landed as an example of chaste and
faithful love: and it was esteemed as a model of romantic composition
from the elegance of its style and diction, in which Heretius ranks
the author above Heliodorus, though he at the same time severely
criticizes him for want of originality, accusing him of having
borrowed all the interesting passages in his work from the
_Ethiopics_. In common with Heliodorus, Tatius has found a host of
followers among the later Greeks, some of whom (as the learned critic
just quoted, observes) have transcribed, rather than imitated him. In
the "Hysminias and Hysmine" of Eumathius, a wretched production of the
twelfth century, not only many of the incidents, but even of the
names, as Sostratus, Sosthenes, and Anthia, are taken from Clitophon
and Leucippe: and to so servile an extent is this plagiarism carried,
that two books out of the nine, of which the romance consists, are
filled with descriptions of paintings; while the plot, not very
intelligible at the best, is still further perplexed by the
extraordinary affectation of making nearly all the names alike; thus,
the hero and heroine are Hysminias and Hysmine, the towns are
Aulycomis, Eurycomis, Artycomis, &c. In all these works, the outline
is the same; the lovers undergo endless buffetings by sea and land,
imaginary deaths, and escapes from marauders; but not a spark of
genius or fancy enlivens these dull productions, which, sometimes
maudlin and bombastic, often indecent, would defy the patience of the
most determined novel reader. One of these writers, Xenophon of
Ephesus, the author of the "Ephesiacs, or Habrocomas and Anthia," is
commended by Politian for the classical purity of his language, in
which he considers him scarcely inferior to his namesake the
historian: but the work has little else to recommend it. The two
principal personages are represented as miracles of personal beauty;