CHAP. Xxii. How the Egyptians deified Ifis and Ofiris, From faint Auftin. 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 ftaff and scrip of a ftranger, who rescued her from the oppreffions of a tyrant: but being afterwards courted by three kings, the destroys those memorials of her greatest benefactor. CHAP. XXVI. An emperor, vifiting the holy land, commits his daughter and his favorite dog, who is very fierce, to the cuftody of five knights, under the fuperintendance of his senefhall. The feneshall neglects his charge: the knights are obliged to quit their poft for want of neceffaries; and the dog, being fed with the provifions affigned 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 fpeeches of the philofophers on feeing king Alexander's golden fepulchre. CHAP. XXXiii. A man had three trees in his garden, on which his three wives fucceffively hanged themfelves. 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. Ariftotle, for two reafons, was a popular character in the dark ages. He was the father of their philofophy: and had been the preceptor of Alexander the Great, one of the principal heroes of romance. Nor was Ariftotle himself without his romantic history; in which he falls in love with a queen of Greece, who quickly confutes his fubtleft fyllogifms. CHAP. XXXV. The GESTA ROMANORUM cited, for the cuf tom among the antient Romans of killing a lamb for pacifying quarrels. CHAP. XXXVI. Of a king who defires to know the nature of Solinus, de MIRABILIBUS MUNDI, is here quoted. CHAP. XXXVII. Pliny's account of the ftone which the eagle places in her neft, to avoid the poison of a serpent. CHAP. XXXIX. Julius Cefar's mediation between two brothers. From the GESTA ROMANORUM. We must not forget, that there was the Romance of JULIUS CESAR. And I believe Antony and Cleopatra were more known characters in the dark ages, than is commonly supposed. Shakespeare is thought to have formed his play on this story from North's tranflation of Amyot's unauthentic French Plutarch, published at London in 1579. Montfaucon, among the manuscripts of monfieur Lancelot, recites an old piece written about the year 1500, "LA VIE ET FAIS DE MARC ANTOINE. "le triumvir et de fa mie CLEOPATRA, translatè de l' historien Plutarque pour tres illuftre haute et puiffante dame Madame "Françoise de Fouez Dame de Châteaubriand "." I know not whether this piece was ever printed. At least it fhews, that the story was familiar at a more early period than is imagined; and leads us to fufpect, that there might have been other materials used by Shakespeare on this fubject, than those hitherto pointed out by his commentators. 66 That Amyot's French verfion of Plutarch should contain corruptions and innovations, will eafily be conceived, when it is remembered that he probably tranflated from an old Italian verfion. A new exhibition in English of the French carica n Bibl. MANUSCR. tom. ii. p. 1669. col. 2. See BIBL. FR. de la Croix, &c. tom.i. p. 388. Amyot was a great translator of Greek books; but I fear, not always from the Greek. It is remarkable, that he was rewarded with an abbacy for tranflating the THEAGENES and CHARICLEA of Heliodorus for writing which, the author was deprived of a bishoprick. He died about 1580. ture 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 converfation. From Macrobius. CHAP. xlii. Valerius Maximus is cited, concerning a column at Rome infcribed 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 fufceptible 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 laft fentence partly proves, probably never used any coloured glass for windows. The first notice of windows of a church made of coloured glass 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 express figures in glass, or what we now call the art of P ORIG. lib. xvi. cap. xv. p. 1224. Apud Au&. 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 fecond 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. 9 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 glass, 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 Bafi, ascribes the invention of baking colours in glass 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 dispute 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 present to be the true heir, and placed on the throne. CHAP. xlviii. Dionyfius is quoted for the story of Perillus's brafen bull. Gower in the CONFESSIO AMANTIS has this story; which he prefaces by saying 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 thofe periods are seldom equal to any thing more than a bare narration of facts: and such sort 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. Conan, a barbarian, executed the contract; but on the third day exposed her to his whole army, faying, "fuch a wife deferves fuch 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 fhe is called Romilda. The king is Cacan, or Cacanus, a king of the Huns. There are fome fine circumftances of diftrefs in Paulus's defcription of this fiege. 2 Fol. on vellum. It is not printed with moveable types: but every page is graved in wood or brafs. With wooden cuts. It is a most beautiful book. CHAP. |