wards they founded a sumptuous hospital for the accommodation of travellers, on the banks of a dangerous river.

This story is told in Caxton's Golden Legende", and in the metrical Lives of the Saints". Hence Julian, or Saint Julian, was called hospitator, or the gode herberjour; and the Pater Noster became famous, which he used to say for the souls of his father and mother whom he had thus unfortunately killed. The peculiar excellencies of this prayer are displayed by Boccace. Chaucer speaking of the hospitable disposition of his FRANKELEIN, says,

Saint Julian he was in his own countre2.

This history is, like the last, related by our compiler, in the words of Julian's Legend, as it stands in Jacobus de Voragine". Bollandus has inserted Antoninus's account of this saint, which appears also to be literally the same. It is told, yet not exactly in the same words, by Vincent of Beauvais c.

I take this opportunity of observing, that the Legends of the Saints, so frequently referred to in the GESTA ROMANORUM, often contain high strokes of fancy, both in the structure and decorations of the story. That they should abound in extravagant conceptions, may be partly accounted for, from the superstitious and visionary cast of the writer: but the truth is, they derive this complexion from the east. Some were originally forged by monks of the Greek church, to whom the oriental fictions and mode of fabling were familiar. The more early of the Latin lives were carried over to Constantinople, where they were translated into Greek with new embellishments of eastern imagination. These being returned into Europe, were translated into Latin, where they naturally superseded the old Latin archetypes. Others of the Latin lives con

"Fol. 90. edit. 1493.

" MSS. BODL. 1596. f. 4.

* Ibid.

Y DECAM. D. ii. N. 2.

2 PROL. V. 342. See vol. ii. SECT. xvii.

p. 273.

a HYSTOR. xxxii. f. lxii. a.

b ACT. SANCTOR. tom. ii. JANUAR. p. 974. Antv. 1643.

SPECUL. HIET. lib. ix. c. 115. f. 115. Venet. 1591.

tracted this tincture, from being written after the Arabian literature became common in Europe. The following ideas in the Life of Saint Pelagian evidently betray their original. "As the bysshop sange masse in the cyte of Usanance, he saw thre dropes ryghte clere all of one gratenesse whiche were upon the aulter, and al thre ranne to gyder in to a precyous gemme: and whan they had set thys gemme in a crosse of golde, al the other precyous stones that were there, fyllend out, and thys gemme was clere to them that were clene out of synne, and it was obscure and dark to synners," &c. The peculiar cast of romantic invention was admirably suited to serve the purposes of superstition.

Possevin, a learned Jesuit, who wrote about the close of the sixteenth century, complains, that for the last five hundred years the courts of all the princes in Europe had been infatuated by reading romances: and that, in his time, it was a mark of inelegance, not to be familiarly acquainted with Lancelot du Lake, Perceforest, Tristan, Giron the Courteous, Amadis de Gaul, Primaleon, Boccace's Decameron, and Ariosto. He even goes so far as to say, that the devil instigated Luther to procure a translation of Amadis from Spanish into French, for the purpose of facilitating his grand scheme of overthrowing the catholic religion. The popularity of this book, he adds, warped the minds of the French nation from their ancient notions and studies; introduced a neglect of the Scriptures, and propagated a love for astrology, and other fantastic arts. But with the leave of this zealous catholic I would observe, that this sort of reading was likely to produce, if any, an effect quite contrary. The genius of romance and of popery was the same; and both were strengthened by the reciprocation of a similar spirit of credulity. The dragons and the castles of the one, were of a piece with the visions and pretended miracles of the other. The ridiculous theories of false and unsolid science, which, by the way, had been familiarised to the French by

d fell out.

f BIBLIOTH. SELECT. lib. i. cap. 25. Caxton's GOLD. LEG. f. ccclxxxxviii. p. 113. edit. 1593.

other romances, long before the translation of Amadis, were surely more likely to be advanced under the influence of a religion founded on deception, than in consequence of Luther's reformed system, which aimed at purity and truth, and which was to gain its end by the suppression of antient prejudices.

Many of the absurdities of the catholic worship were perhaps, as I have hinted, in some degree necessary in the early ages of the church, on account of the ignorance of the people; at least, under such circumstances they were natural, and therefore excusable. But when the world became wiser, those mummeries should have been abolished, for the same reason that the preachers left off quoting Esop's fables in their sermons, and the stage ceased to instruct the people in the scripturehistory by the representation of the MYSTERIES. The advocates of the papal communion do not consider, that in a cultivated age, abounding with every species of knowledge, they continue to retain those fooleries which were calculated only for Christians in a condition of barbarism, and of which the use now no longer subsists.

CHAP. XIX. When Julius Cesar was preparing to pass the Rubicon, a gigantic spectre appeared from the middle of the river, threatening to interrupt his passage, if he came not to establish the peace of Rome. Our author cites the GESTA ROMANORUM for this story.

It was impossible that the Roman history could pass through the dark ages, without being infected with many romantic corruptions. Indeed, the Roman was almost the only antient history, which the readers of those ages knew: and what related even to pagan Rome, the parent of the more modern papal metropolis of Christianity, was regarded with a superstitious veneration, and often magnified with miraculous additions.

CHAP. XX. The birth of the emperor Henry, son of earl Leopold, and his wonderful preservation from the stratagems of the emperor Conrade, till his accession to the imperial

throne.

(

This story is told by Caxton in the GOLDEN Legende, under the life of Pelagian the pope, entitled, Here foloweth the lyf of Saynt Pelagyen the pope, with many other hystoryes and gestys of the Lombardes, and of Machomete, with other cronycles. The GESTA LONGOBARDORUM are fertile in legendary matter, and furnished Jacobus de Voragine, Caxton's original, with many marvellous histories". Caxton, from the gestes of the Lombardis, gives a wonderful account of a pestilence in Italy, under the reign of king Gilberti.

There is a LEGENDA SANCTORUM, sive HISTORIA LOMBARDICA, printed in 1483. This very uncommon book is not mentioned by Maittaire. It has this colophon. "Expliciunt quorundam Sanctorum Legende adjuncte post Lombardicam historiam. Impressa Argentine, M.CCCC. LXXXIII.*" That is, the latter part of the book contains a few saints not in the history of the Lombards, which forms the first part. I have neither time nor inclination to examine whether this is Jacobus's LEGENDA: but I believe it to be the same. I think I have seen an older edition of the work, at Cologne 14701.

I have observed that Caxton's GOLDEN LEGENDE is taken from Jacobus de Voragine. This perhaps is not precisely true. Caxton informs us in his first preface to the first edition of 1483, that he had in his possession a Legend in French, another in Latin, and a third in English, which varied from the other two in many places: and that MANY HIStories were contained in the English collection, which did not occur in the French and Latin. Therefore, says he, "I have wryton ONE OUTE of the sayd three bookes: which I have orderyd otherwyse than in the sayd Englysshe Legende, which was so to fore made." Caxton's English original might have been the old METRICAL LIVES OF THE SAINTS.

CHAP. xxi. A story from Justin, concerning a conspiracy of the Spartans against their king.

CHAP. XXII. How the Egyptians deified Isis and Osiris. From saint Austin. As is the following chapter.

CHAP. XXIV. Of a magician and his delicious garden, which he shews only to fools and to his enemies.

CHAP. XXV. Of a lady who keeps the staff and scrip of a stranger, who rescued her from the oppressions of a tyrant: but being afterwards courted by three kings, she destroys those memorials of her greatest benefactor.

CHAP. xxvi. An emperor, visiting the holy land, commits his daughter and his favorite dog, who is very fierce, to the custody of five knights, under the superintendance of his seneshall. The seneshall neglects his charge: the knights are obliged to quit their post for want of necessaries; and the dog, being fed with the provisions assigned to the knights, grows fiercer, breaks his three chains, and kills the lady who was permitted to wander at large in her father's hall. When the emperor returns, the seneshall is thrown into a burning furnace. CHAP. XXVIII. The old woman and her little dog.

CHAP. XXX. The three honours and three dishonours, decreed by a certain king to every conqueror returning from war. CHAP. XXXI. The speeches of the philosophers on seeing king Alexander's golden sepulchre.

CHAP. Xxxiii. A man had three trees in his garden, on which his three wives successively hanged themselves. Another begs an offset from each of the trees, to be planted in the gardens of his married neighbours. From Valerius Maximus, who is cited.

CHAP. XXXIV. Aristotle's seven rules to his pupil Alexander. This, I think, is from the SECRETA SECRETORUM. Aristotle, for two reasons, was a popular character in the dark ages. He was the father of their philosophy: and had been the preceptor of Alexander the Great, one of the principal heroes of romance. Nor was Aristotle himself without his romantic history; in which he falls in love with a queen of Greece, who quickly confutes his subtlest syllogisms.

CHAP. XXXV. The GESTA ROMANORUM cited, for the cus