EPICYCLE

The poem of Dante, however sublime in style, has no unity of event or action: those of Ariosto, and the other Romanzieri, form a cla distinguished from the epic by the mixture of the serious and ludicrous. The Italia Liber at a of Tri ino is simply pedantic. The old German and Spanish national poems, — the Romance of the Ctd, and the Niebelungen-Lied, especially the latter, which is closely confined to the conduct of one great action,— although the work of writers unskilled in cla ical literature, deserve the title of epic as truly as those of Homer. There is a brief but masterly exposition of the origin and distinguishing characteristics of epic poetry in the Penny Cyclopedia, with reference to the chief German authorities on tliis subject. EPICARIDANS, Epic a rides. (Gr, itrt, upon, and *af/?, a shrimp.) A family of Isopodous or equal-iuoted Crustaceans, which are parasitic upon shrimps. [s. 418]