cradle.

The hermit was aftonished at this barbarous return for so much hospitality, but was afraid to make any remonftrance to his companion. Next morning they went to another city. Here they were liberally received in the house of an opulent citizen; but in the night the angel rofe, and ftole a golden cup of inestimable value. The hermit now concluded, that his companion was a Bad Angel. In travelling forward the next morning, they paffed over a bridge; about the middle of which. they met a poor man, of whom the angel asked the way to the next city. Having received the defired information, the angel pushed the poor man into the water, where he was immediately drowned, In the evening they arrived at the house of a rich man; and begging for a lodging, were ordered to fleep in a fhed with the cattle. In the morning the angel gave the rich man the cup which he had ftolen. The hermit, amazed that the cup which was ftolen from their friend and benefactor fhould be given to one who refused them a lodging, began to be now convinced that his companion was the devil; and begged to go on alone. But the angel faid, "Hear me, " and depart. When you lived in your hermitage a shepherd " was killed by his master. He was innocent of the supposed "offence but had he not been then killed, he would have "committed crimes in which he would have died impenitent. "His mafter endeavours to atone for the murther, by dedicating "the remainder of his days to alms and deeds of charity. I ftrangled the child of the knight. But know, that the father "was fo intent on heaping up riches for this child, as to neglect those acts of public munificence for which he was be"fore fo diftinguished, and to which he has now returned. I "stole the golden cup of the hospitable citizen. But know, "that from a life of the ftricteft temperance, he became, in confequence of poffeffing this cup, a perpetual drunkard; " and is now the moft abftemious of men. I threw the poor "man into the water. He was then honeft and religious. But "know, had he walked one half of a mile further, he would

"

"have murthered a man in a ftate of mortal fin. I gave the golden cup to the rich man who refused to take us within his "roof. He has therefore received his reward in this world; "and in the next, will fuffer the pains of hell for his inhofpi

tality." The hermit fell proftrate at the angel's feet; and requefting forgiveness, returned to his hermitage, fully convinced of the wisdom and juftice of God's government.

This is the fable of Parnell's HERMIT, which that elegant yet original writer has heightened with many masterly touches of poetical colouring, and a happier arrangement of circumstances. Among other proofs which might be mentioned of Parnell's genius and addrefs in treating this fubject, by referving the discovery of the angel to a critical period at the close of the fable, he has found means to introduce a beautiful description, and an interesting surprise. In this poem, the last instance of the angel's seeming injustice, is that of pushing the guide from the bridge into the river. At this, the hermit is unable to suppress his indignation.

Wild sparkling rage inflames the Father's eyes,
He burfts the bonds of fear, and madly cries,
"Detested wretch !"-But fcarce his fpeech began,
When the strange partner feem'd no longer man:
His youthful face grew more ferenely sweet,
His robe turn'd white, and flow'd upon his feet;
Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair;
Celestial odours fill the purple air:

And wings, whose colours glitter'd on the day,
Wide at his back their gradual plumes difplay.
The form ethereal bursts upon his fight,

And moves in all the majesty of light.

The fame apologue occurs, with fome flight additions and variations for the worse, in Howell's LETTERS; who profeffes to have taken it from the Speculative fir Philip Herbert's CoN

CEPTIONS

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 prefent, before the entrance of the laft Act, which fhall bring in Righteoufnefs in triumph: "who, though the hath abided many a brunt, and has been very cruelly and defpightfully used hitherto in the world, yet at last, according to our defires, we shall see the knight over"come the giant. For what is the reason we are so much pleafed with the reading romances and the fictions of the "poets, but that here, as Ariftotle fays, things are fet 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 tefti"" mony, 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

66

plays and heroick poems, that long afflicted vertue at last "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

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 ftory 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

n 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 chriftened Gregory by an abbot who takes him up, and after various adventures he is promoted to the popedom. 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 courfe 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 poison from the wound.

P i. 3.
9 Nov. Ixxi.

The stories, 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 prowess 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 serpents. 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 ftuck all over with sharp 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, feated 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 sense, the first part of this apologue may be separately 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 fkilled 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-fhew equal to the moft fplendid pantomime.

VOL. III.