apparently introduced for no other purpose than to show the author's
skill in declamation. The display of his own acquirements in various
branches of art and science, and of his rhetorical powers of language
in describing them, is indeed an object of which Achilles Tatius never
loses sight; and continual digressions from the thread of the story
for this purpose occur, often extremely _mal-à-propos_, and sometimes
entirely without reference to the preceding narrative. Thus, when
Clitophon is relating the terms of an oracle addressed to the
Byzantines, previous to their war with the Thracians, he breaks off at
once into a dissertation on the wonderful qualities of the element of
water, the inflammable springs of Sicily, the gold extracted from the
lakes of Africa, &c.--all which is supposed to be introduced into a
conversation on the oracle between Sostratus and his colleague in
command, and could only have come to the knowledge of Clitophon by
being repeated to him _verbatim_, after a considerable interval of
time, by Sostratus. Again, in the midst of the hero's perplexities at
his threatened marriage with Calligone, we are favoured with a minute
enumeration of the gems set in an ornament which his father purchased
as part of the trousseau; and this again leads to an account of the
discovery and application of the purple dye. The description of
objects of natural history is at all times a favourite topic; and the
sojourn of the lovers in Egypt affords the author an opportunity of
indulging in details relative to the habits and appearances of the
various strange animals found in that country--the crocodile, the
hippopotamus, and the elephant, are described with considerable spirit
and fidelity; and even the form and colours of the fabulous phoenix,
are delineated with all the confidence of an eyewitness.

Many of these episodical sketches, though out of place when thus
awkwardly inserted in the midst of the narrative, are in themselves