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CEPTIONS to his Son, a book which I have never feen ". These Letters were published about the year 1650. It is alfo found in the DIVINE DIALOGUES of doctor Henry More", who has illuftrated its important moral with the following fine reflections. "The affairs of this world are like a curious, but intricately " contrived Comedy; and we cannot judge of the tendency of "what is past, or acting at present, before the entrance of the " last Act, which shall bring in Righteousness in triumph; "who, though she hath abided many a brunt, and has been very

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cruelly and defpightfully used hitherto in the world, yet at "laft, according to our defires, we fhall fee the knight over"come the giant. For what is the reason we are so much pleased with the reading romances and the fictions of the poets, but that here, as Ariftotle fays, things are set down as they should be; but in the true history hitherto of the world, things are recorded indeed as they are, but it is but a testimony, that they have not been as they should be? Where"fore, in the upshot of all, when we shall fee that come to pass, "that fo mightily pleases us in the reading the most ingenious

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plays and heroick poems, that long afflicted vertue at last 46 comes to the crown, the mouth of all unbelievers must be "for ever stopped. And for my own part, I doubt not but "that it will fo come to pafs in the clofe of the world. But

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impatiently to call for vengeance upon every enormity before "that time, is rudely to overturn the stage before the entrance "into the fifth act, out of ignorance of the plot of the comedy; "and to prevent the folemnity of the general judgement by "more paltry and particular executions.

Parnell seems to have chiefly followed the story as it is told by this Platonic theologist, who had not lefs imagination than learning. Pope used to say, that it was originally written in

Vol. iv. LET. iv. p. 7. edit. 1655. 8vo.

PART i. p. 321. DIAL. ii. edit. Lond. 1668. 12mo. I must not forget that it occurs, as told in our GESTA, among a

collection of Latin Apologues, quoted above, MSS. HARL. 463. fol. 8. a. The rubric is, De Angelo qui duxit Heremitam ad diverfa Hofpitia.

• Ibid. p. 335.

Spanish.

Spanish. This I do not believe: but from the early connection between the Spaniards and Arabians, this affertion tends to confirm the suspicion, that it was an oriental tale.

CHAP. lxxxi. A king violates his fifter. The child is expofed in a cheft in the fea; is christened Gregory by an abbot who takes him up, and after various adventures he is promoted to the popedom. In their old In their old age his father and mother go a pilgrimage to Rome, in order to confefs to this pope, not knowing he was their son, and he being equally ignorant that they are his parents when in the course of the confeffion, a discovery is made on both fides.

CHAP. lxxxix. The three rings.

This story is in the DECAMERON, and in the CENTO NOVELLE ANTICHE : and perhaps in Swift's TALE OF A TUB.

CHAP. XCV. The tyrant Maxentius. From the GESTA ROMANORUM, which are cited.

I think there is the romance of MAXENCE, Conftantine's antagonist.

CHAP. XCVI. King Alexander places a burning candle in his hall; and makes proclamation, that he will abfolve all those who owe him forfeitures of life and land, if they will appear before the candle is confumed.

CHAP. XCVii. Prodigies before the death of Julius Cefar, who is placed in the twenty-fecond year of the city. From the CRONICA, as they are called.

CHAP. xcix. A knight faves a ferpent who is fighting in a foreft with a toad', but is afterwards bit by the toad. The knight languishes many days: and when he is at the point of death, the fame ferpent, which he remembers, enters his chamber, and fucks the poifon from the wound.

P i. 3.

1 Nov. lxxi.

The ftories, perhaps fabulous, of the ferpent fighting with his inveterate enemy the weazel, who eats rue before the

attack begins, and of the ferpent fighting with and being killed by the fpider, originate from Pliny, NAT. HIST. x. 84. xx. 13.

CHAP.

CHAP. ci. Of Ganterus, who for his prowefs in war being elected a king of a certain country, is on the night of his coronation conducted to a chamber, where at the head of the bed is a fierce lion, at the feet a dragon, and on either fide a bear, toads, and ferpents. He immediately quitted his new kingdom; and was quickly elected king of another country. Going to reft the first night, he was led into a chamber furnished with a bed richly embroidered, but stuck all over with fharp razors. This kingdom he also relinquishes. At length he meets a hermit, who gives him a staff, with which he is directed to knock at the gate of a magnificent palace, seated on a lofty mountain. Here he gains admittance, and finds every fort of happiness unembittered with the laeft degree of pain.

The king means every man advanced to riches and honour, and who thinks to enjoy these advantages without interruption and alloy. The hermit is religion, the staff penitence, and the palace heaven.

In a more confined fenfe, the first part of this apologue may be feparately interpreted to fignify, that a king, when he enters on his important charge, ought not to fuppofe himself to fucceed to the privilege of an exemption from care, and to be put into immediate poffeffion of the highest pleasures, conveniencies, and felicities of life; but to be fenfible, that from that moment, he begins to encounter the greatest dangers and difficulties.

CHAP. cii. Of the lady of a knight who went to the holy land. She commits adultery with a clerk skilled in necromancy. Another magician discovers her intrigues to the absent knight by means of a polished mirror, and his image

in wax.

In Adam Davie's GEST or romance of ALEXANDER, Nectabanus, a king and magician, difcovers the machinations of his enemies by embattelling them in figures of wax. This is the most extenfive necromantic operation of the kind that I remember, and must have formed a puppet-shew equal to the moft fplendid pantomime.

VOL. III.

Barounes

Barounes weore whilom wys and gode,
That this ars wel undurftode:

Ac on ther was Neptanamous

t

Wis in this ars and malicious:

Whan kyng other eorl" cam on him to weorre

Quyk he loked in the steorre *

Of wax made him popetts,

;

And made heom fyzhte with battes:
And fo he learned, je vous dy,
Ay to aquelle hys enemye,
With charms and with conjurifons:
Thus he afaied the regiouns,

That him cam for to afaile,
In puyr * manyr of bataile '
By cler candel in the nyzt,

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;

He mad uchon with othir to fyzt,
Of alle manere nacyouns,

That comen by schip or dromouns.
At the laste, of mony londe
Kynges therof haden gret onde*,
Well thritty y gadred beoth°,
And by spekith al his deth *.
Kyng Philipp of grete thede
Maifter was of that fede :

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Neptanamous hyt understod;
Ychaunged was al his mod;
He was aferde fore of harme :
Anon he deede' cafte his charme.
His ymage he madde anon,
And of his barounes everychon,
And afterward of his fone * ;
He dude hem to gedere to gon
In a bafyn al by charme :

He fazh on him" fel theo harme;

He feyz flye of his barounes

Of al his lond distinctiouns,

He lokid, and kneow in the fterre,

Of al this kynges theo grete werre, &c. "

Afterwards he frames an image of the queen Olympias, or Olympia, while fleeping, whom he violates in the shape of a dragon.

! He did.

Theo lady lyzt on hire bedde,
Yheoled' wel with filken webbe,
In a chayfel fmok scheo lay,
And yn a mantell of doway:
Of theo bryztnes of hire face
Al about schone the place'.

* Enemies.

1 He made them fight.

- He saw the harm fall on, or against, Himself.

■ Saw fly.

• The great war of all these kings.

MSS. (Bod. Bibl.) LAUD. I. 74. £. 54.
Laid.
r Covered.

In the romance of Aris et PORPHI

LION. Cod. Reg. Par. 7191.

Un chemis de chaifil

De fil, et d'œvre moult foutil.

* Perhaps in SYR LAUNFAL, the fame Situation is more elegantly touched. MSS. Cotton, CALIG, A. 2. fol, 35. a.

In the pavyloun he found a bed of prys,
Y heled with purpure bys

That femyly was of fyzte;
With inne lay that lady gente,

That after fyr Launfal hadde fente,
That lefsom beamed bryzt:

For hete her clothes doun fhe dede.
Almost to her gerdylftede;

Than lay the uncovert:

Sche was as whyt as lylye in Maye,
Or fnowe that fnoweth yn wynterys daye;
He feygh nevir non fo pert,

The rede rose whan fche is newe
Azens her rode nes nauzt of hewe,
Y dar fay yn fert

Her hare fchon as gold wyre, &c.

Herbes

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