early form of one of these. They are to be found from India to
Scandinavia, adapted to the manners and fancy of every country in
turn, _Beauty and the Beast_ and the _Black Bull of Norroway_ are the
most familiar forms of the tale, and it seemed to me one of those
legends of such universal property that it was quite fair to put it
into 18th century English costume.

Some have seen in it a remnant of the custom of some barbarous tribes,
that the wife should not behold her husband for a year after marriage,
and to this the Indian versions lend themselves; but Apuleius himself
either found it, or adapted it to the idea of the Soul (the Life)
awakened by Love, grasping too soon and impatiently, then losing it,
and, unable to rest, struggling on through severe toils and labours
till her hopes are crowned even at the gates of death. Psyche, the
soul or life, whose emblem is the butterfly, thus even in heathen
philosophy strained towards the higher Love, just glimpsed at for a
while.

Christians gave a higher meaning to the fable, and saw in it the Soul,
or the Church, to whom her Bridegroom has been for a while made known,
striving after Him through many trials, to be made one with Him after
passing through Death. The Spanish poet Calderon made it the theme of
two sacred dramas, in which the lesson of Faith, not Sight, was taught,
with special reference to the Holy Eucharist.

English poetry has, however, only taken up its simple classical aspect.
In the early part of the century, Mrs. Tighe wrote a poem in Spenserian
stanza, called _Psyche_, which was much admired at the time; and Mr.
Morris has more lately sung the story in his _Earthly Paradise_. This
must be my excuse for supposing the outline of the tale to be familiar