ture of this most valuable biographer by North, must have still more widely extended the deviation from the original. CHAP. xl. The infidelity of a wife proved by feeling her pulse in conversation. From Macrobius. CHAP. xlii. Valerius Maximus is cited, concerning a column at Rome inscribed with four letters four times written. CHAP. xliv. Tiberius orders a maker of ductile glass, which could not be broken, to be beheaded, left it fhould become more valuable than filver and gold. This piece of history, which appears alfo in Cornelius Aggrippa DE VANITATE SCIENTIARUM, is taken from Pliny, or rather from his transcriber Ifidore ". Pliny, in relating this story, fays, that the temperature of glass, so as to render it flexible, was discovered under the reign of Tiberius. In the fame chapter Pliny obferves, that glass is susceptible of all colours. "Fit et album, et murrhinum, aut hyacinthos fapphirofque imitatum, et omnibus aliis coloribus. Nec eft "alia nunc materia fequacior, aut etiam PICTURE ACCOMMO"DATIOR. Maximus tamen honor in candido But the Romans, as the last sentence partly proves, probably never used any coloured glafs for windows. The firft notice of windows of a church made of coloured glafs occurs in chronicles quoted by Muratori. In the year 802, a pope built a church at Rome, and, "feneftras ex vitro diverfis coloribus conclufit atque deco"ravit." And in 856, he produces" feneftras vero vitreis “coloribus, &c'." This however was a fort of mosaic in glass. To exprefs figures in glass, or what we now call the art of ORIG. lib. xvi. cap. xv. p. 1224. Apud Auct. LING. LAT. 1602. Ifidore's was a favorite REPERTORY OF the middle age. He is cited for an account of the nature and qualities of the Falcon, in the Prologue to the second or metrical part of the old Phebus de deduiz de la chaffe des Beftes fauvages et des oyfeaux de Proye, printed early at Paris without date, and written, as appears by the ru bric of the laft fection, by Le Comte de Tankarville. Sandford's English TRANSLAT, cap. 90. p. 159. a. edit. Lond. 1569. 4to. NAT. HIST. Lib. xxxvi. cap. xvi. p. 725. edit. Lugd. 1615. DISSERT. ANTICHIT. ITAL. tom. i. c. xxiv. p. 287. • Ibid. P. 281. painting painting in glafs, was a very different work: and, I believe, I can fhew it was brought from Conftantinople to Rome before the tenth century, with other ornamental arts. Guiccardini, who wrote about 1560, in his Defcrittione de tutti Paefi Baffi, afcribes the invention of baking colours in glafs for churchwindows to the Netherlanders: but he does not mention the period, and I think he must be mistaken. It is certain that this art owed much to the laborious and mechanical genius of the Germans; and, in particular, their deep researches and experiments in chemistry, which they cultivated in the dark ages with the most indefatigable affiduity, must have greatly affifted its operations. I could give very early anecdotes of this art in England. But, with the careless hafte of a lover, I am anticipating what I have to say of it in my HISTORY OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. CHAP. xlv. A king leaves four fons by his wife, only one which is lawfully begotten. They have a contest for the throne. The difpute is referred to the deceased king's fecretary, who orders the body to be taken from the tomb; and decrees, that the son who can shoot an arrow deepest into it shall be king. The first wounds the king's right hand: the second his mouth : the third his heart. The last wound is fuppofed to be the fuccessful one. At length the fourth, approaching the body, cried out with a lamentable voice, " Far be it from me to wound my "father's body!" In confequence of this fpeech, he is pronounced by the nobles and people prefent to be the true heir, and placed on the throne. CHAP. xlviii. Dionyfius is quoted for the ftory of Perillus's brafen bull. Gower in the CONFESSIO AMANTIS has this story; which he prefaces by faying that he found it in a Cronike". In Caxton's Golden Legende, Macrobius is called a chronicle. "Macrobius "fayth in a cronike *." Chronicles are naturally the first efforts " Antw. Plantin. 1580. fol. w Lib. vii. f. 161. b. col. 1. Fol. lxii. b. of of the literature of a barbarous age. The writers, if any, of those periods are seldom equal to any thing more than a bare narration of facts and fuch fort of matter is fuitable to the taste and сараcity of their cotemporary readers. A further proof of the principles advanced in the beginning of this Differtation. CHAP. xlix. The duchefs Rofmilla falls in love with Conan, king of Hungary, whom the fees from the walls of the city of Foro-Juli, which he is befieging. She has four fons and two daughters. She betrays the city to Conan, on condition that he will marry her the next day. her the next day. Conan, a barbarian, executed the contract; but on the third day expofed her to his whole army, faying, "fuch a wife deserves such a husband." Paulus, that is, Paulus Diaconus, the hiftorian of the Longobards is quoted. He was chancellor of Defiderius, the last king of the Lombards; with whom he was taken captive by Charlemagne. The history here referred to is entitled GESTA LONGOBARDORUM ". CHAP. 1. From Valerius Maximus. CHAP. lii. From Valerius Maximus. CHAP. liii. From the fame. CHAP. liv. The emperor Frederick's marble portico near Capua. I wonder there are not more romances extant on the lives of the Roman emperors of Germany; many of whom, to say no more, were famous in the crufades. There is a romance in old German rhyme, called TEUERDANK, on Maximilian the first, written by Melchior Pfinzing his chaplain. Printed at Nuremberg in 15172. See Lib. iv. cap. xxviii. Apud Muratorii SCRIPTOR. ITAL. i. p. 465. edit. Mediolan. 1723. Where the is called Romilda. The king is Cacan, or Cacanus, a king of the Huns. There are fome fine circumftances of diftrefs in Paulus's de Fol: on vellum. It is not printed CHAP. CHAP. lv. Of a king who has one fon exceedingly beautiful, and four daughters, named Justice, Truth, Mercy, and Peace. CHAP. lvi. A nobleman invited a merchant to his castle, whom he met accordingly upon the road. upon the road. At entering the castle, the merchant was astonished at the magnificence of the chambers, which were overlaid with gold. At fupper, the nobleman placed the merchant next to his wife, who immediately fhewed evident tokens of being much struck with her beauty. The table was covered with the richest dainties; but while all were served in golden dishes, a pittance of meat was placed before the lady in a dish made out of a human fcull. The merchant was surprised and terrified at this strange spectacle. At length he was conducted to bed in a fair chamber; where, when left alone, he obferved a glimmering lamp in a nook or corner of the room, by which he discovered two dead bodies hung up by the arms. He was now filled with the most horrible apprehenfions, and could not fleep all the night. When he rose in the morning, he was asked by the nobleman how he liked his entertainment? He answered, "There is plenty of "every thing; but the fcull prevented me from eating at fup66 per, and the two dead bodies which I saw in my chamber "from fleeping. With your leave therefore I will depart." The nobleman answered, My friend, you obferved the beauty "of my wife. The fcull which you faw placed before her at fupper, was the head of a duke, whom I detected in her "embraces, and which I cut off with my own fword. As a "memorial of her crime, and to teach her modeft behaviour, "her adulterer's fcull is made to serve for her dish. The bodies "of the two young men hanging in the chamber are my two "kinfmen, who were murthered by the fon of the duke. To "keep up my sense of revenge for their blood, I vifit their "dead bodies every day. Go in peace, and remember to judge nothing without knowing the truth." 66 Caxton has the history of Albione, a king of the Lombards, who having conquered another king, "lade awaye wyth hym "Rofamounde "Rofamounde his wyf in captyvyte, but after he took hyr to «hys wyf, and he dyde do make a cuppe of the skulle of that "kynge and clofed in fyne golde and fylver, and dranke out "of it". This, by the way, is the ftory of the old Italian tragedy of Meffer Giovanni Rucellai planned on the model of the antients, and acted in the Rucellai gardens at Florence, before Leo the tenth and his court, in the year 1516. Davenant has also a tragedy on the fame fubject, called ALBOVINE king of the Lombards his Tragedy. A most fanguinary scene in Shakespeare's TITUS ADRONIcus, an incident in Dryden's, or Boccace's, TANCRED and SIGISMONDA, and the catastrophe of the beautiful metrical romance of the LADY of FAGUEL, are founded on the fame horrid ideas of inhuman retaliation and favage revenge: but in the two last pieces, the circumstances are so ingeniously imagined, as to lofe a confiderable degree of their atrocity, and to be productive of the most pathetic and interefting fituations. CHAP. lvii. The enchanter Virgil places a magical image in the middle of Rome, which communicates to the emperor Titus all the fecret offences committed every day in the city *. This story is in the old black-lettered hiftory of the necromancer Virgil, in Mr. Garrick's collection. Vincent of Beauvais relates many wonderful things, mirabiliter actitata, done by the poet Virgil, whom he reprefents as a magician. Among others, he fays, that Virgil fabricated those brazen statues at Rome, called Salvacio Roma, which were the gods of the Provinces conquered by the Romans. Every one of thefe ftatues held in its hand a bell framed by magic; and • GOLDEN LEG. f. ccclxxxxvii. a. edit. 1493. The compilers of the SANCTILOGE probably took this story from Paulus Diaconus, GEST. LONGOBARD. ut fupr. Lib. ii. cap. xxviii. p. 435. feq. It has been adopted, as a romantic tale, into the HisTOIRES TRAGIQUES of Belleforeft, p. 297. edit. 1580. The English reader may find it in Heylin's COSMOGRAPHIE, B. i. col.i. VOL. III. P. 57. And in Machiavel's HISTORY OF See fupr. vol. ii. p. 411, For the necromancer Virgil, fee fupr. vol. ii. p. 229. d In the CENTO NOVELLE ANTICHE.. Nov. vii. d when |