The Battle of Beal' an Duine {Lady of the Lake, canto
vi.) is an episode. Also the trial and execution of Con-
stance and the Monk (Marmion, canto ii.) ; in the JEneid,
the adventure of Nisus and Euryalus (book ix.) ; in Swift's
satire of The Battle of the Books, the episode of Bentley and
Wotton, modelled to some extent after Nisus and Euryalus.
Matthew Arnold has called his Sohrab and Rustum an epi-
sode because it commemorates a minor incident in the
protracted struggle between the Tartars and Persians.
Note the abrupt beginning : "And the first gray of morn-
ing filled the east."

There are not very many genuine episodes in the books,
ancient or modern, commonly read. The passages fre-
quently termed episodes are in reality incidents of the
main narrative expanded to disproportionate length : thus,
the parting of Hector from Andromache and Astyanax



54 HANDBOOK OF COMPOSITION AND BHETOBIC.
{Iliad, vi.) ; the meeting of Odysseus and Nausikaa {Odys-
sey, vi.)- It may also be noted that these two passages,
and others like them in other books, are famous for beauty
of style and conception. Their authors have evidently
bestowed upon them more than usual care. The trial-
scene in The Heart of Midlothian, the very different trial-
scene in the Pickwick Papers, the death of Judge Pyncheon
in The House of the Seven Gables, display each the peculiar
gift of the author at its best.
