New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-08-14
NETWORK TRIBUNE H. sL-rRplE SHEET

then. to me until such time as have recovered my
senses" Such was Pudentilla's little joke. The
letter was garbled when offered in evidence, all
the words above given in italics being left out
which shows that the lawyers then were quite as
sharp as they are now. In this case, Apuleus CON-
plains of them for pntting in q forged letter,
neither written by his hand. nor forged with any
likelihood" by which they desired to make it ap-
pear that the lady had been piled by him with
magical Establishments. Her dutiful son would
also nave 1t that his mother insane though all
the time she was auditing and signing the accounts
OF the baiifs, the shepherds and the grooms More
over TO rebuff the charge of candestine marriage,
ne says that they were married at country house
In the suburbs. to avoid expense and " to escape
the numerous invitations and annoyances which
newly-married people have to submit to-" In men,
tonlng the circumstance of the rural marriage,
Apueus breaks out with great splendor of rhetoric
setting forth the proprety of entering the marriage
state among the fertile sod, amid the offspring of
the grass the progeny of the vines and the oshoots
OF the trees" Considering that the bride sixty
years DID, This efOrescence of speech may strike the
reader as particularly comical. And now, not to
inger longer over this ancient lawsuit let me give
what may be styled the summing up of the defend
ant: "To each of your innumerable charges an
swer in couple of words, You clean your teeth
Pardon my cleanliness You look in q mir
ror'-A philosopher should do so. You
compose verses'-'Tis not unlawful to do so. 'You
examine fshes-Aristotle teaches me. you make
Gods of wood'-Plato advises it. You marry
wife. The laws enjoin it, She is older than
you'-No uncommon thing You have sought to
benefit yourself flake up the deed of settlement
and read over her WILL"
Apuleius was found not guilty, and went back to
his old wife, cleared from the stigma of sorcery.
Afterwards he greater distinction still rs de-
claimer in an age of defamation was made priest
of Esculapius, rather important divinity in Car
thage; he was curator of tho gladiatOrial shows
and various statues set up in his honor, which,
hope resembled him. AS amusement, perhaps
he wrote in his old age his well-knOwn story, he
MetamOrphoses, OF Golden ASS tho progenitor of
the modern novel, if not of the modern novelist 1t
was rather hard on his memory that q generation
later St. Augustine should express doubt whether
the account given by Lucius of his transformation
into an ass was not true relation Prob
ably he had the pleasure Tor grief of losing
the widow before he went to his own cremation.
Perhaps no obscure writer if may call him So has
been more persistently commented upon and dis
cussed by learned pedants. He o voluminous
writer but though much of his writing is lost, we
probably have the best of it. His editors have been
numerous, including the great Stewechus, with
Petrus Covus, John Wower, Priceus, Casaubon,
Bonaventure, Vulcanius. Josas Marcelus, Henricus
Petrus, Claudius Micard and Mons the Baron DIES
yet more might be added to the smoky, pothering
snuffy company! l would not say aword of any of
them, for am far from considering them to be in
teresting characters only want to point out that
here is an author who has been thumbed, smoked
over, subjected to happy and unhappy conjecture
and generally Overhauled by the critics for sixteen
hundred years; and yet know nothing about
him except what he has been pleased to tell
himself What would we not give
for a real autObiOpranhy IF n man
living in such time, when the old paganism was
receding before the slowly advancing light of
Christianity He would have told everything
about himself and have much enlarged that excel
lent picture of contemporary manners which we
find i'll 1.-The Metamorphoses." There is q story
that while he worked that ancient wife, the good Pl-
denta, held candle for him. study lamps not hav-
ing been then invented He would have told us more
fully of the magicans, priests pandars and thieves
which figure in his story, and should have better
understood man who could write very coarsely,
and yet produce the lovely story of Cupid and
Psyche" charmingly retold after different fash
ion by Mrs. Tighe.
If there had been newspapers in the day of Lncius
Apuleius, what god-send his trial would have
been to the reporters! For my own part / like to
look over his Discourse of Magic" and think how
little human nature has changed since he
married the widow and quarrelled with her chill
dren. The whole thing might happen again to-day
in our city and be recounted as law news in this
journal-the young wooer, the old lady, the enraged
children, the property the magic, which we might
call spritualism The modern Apuleus might i'll
stead of being priest of Esculapus, figure pas
tor of a church the estates would be measured by
acres feet, and the income in Federal currency
the whole thing might be given to jury, and taken
up appeal ; and the lawyers might absorb all the
money long before decision. Money and marriage!
These are still the main themes of novels they
were IN the days of which we have been reading
| these with foolish women and clever men 1t was
| so iii the beginning it will be so to the end.
| SORROWS OF IN INFANT BOOK COLLECTOR