Barounes weore whilom wys and gode,
That this ars wel undurftode:
Ac on ther was Neptanamous

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 conjurisons :

Thus he afaied the regiouns,

That him cam for to afaile,

In

puyr * manyr of bataile '; By cler candel in the nyzt,

He mad uchon with othir to fyzt,

Of alle manere nacyouns,

That comen by fchip or dromouns.
At the lafte, of mony londe
Kynges therof haden gret onde“,
Well thritty y gadred beoth,
And by spekith al his deth'.
Kyng Philipp of grete thede

Maister was of that fede :

He was a mon of myzty hond,
With hem brouzte, of divers lond,
Nyne and twenty ryche kynges,

To make on hym bataylynges:

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 diftinctiouns,

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.

1 He did.

१

Theo lady lyzt on hire bedde,
Yheoled' wel with filken webbe,
In a chayfel fmok fcheo lay,

k Enemies.

He made them fight.

m He faw the harm fall on, or against, Himfelf.

n Saw fly.

• The great war of all thefe kings.
MSS. (Bod. Bibl.) LAUD. I. 74. f. 54.
Laid.
• Covered.

In the romance of Aris et PORPHI

LION. Cod. Reg. Par. 7191.

Un chemis de chaifil

De fil, et d'ævre moult foutil.

Perhaps in SYR LAUNFAL, the fame. fituation 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 gerdylstede;

Than lay fhe uncovert :

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

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

Her hare fchon as gold wyre, &c.

* Wrung.

After he tok virgyn wox

And made a popet after the quene,

His ars-table' he can unwrene;

The quenes name in the wax he wrot,

Whil hit was fumdel hot :

In a bed he hit dyzt

Al aboute with candel lyzt,

And spreynd theron of the herbus :
Thus charmed Neptanabus.

The lady in hir bed lay

Abouzt mydnyzt, ar the day,

Whiles he made conjuryng,

Scheo' fawe fle", in her metyng",
Hire thought, a dragoun lyzt,

To hire chaumbre he made his flyzt,
In he cam to her bour

And crept undur hir covertour,

e

Mony fithes he hire kust

And fast in his armes pruft,

And went away, fo dragon wyld,
And grete he left hire with child.

y This is defcribed above, f. 55.

Of gold he made a table
Al ful of fteorron [stars].-

An astrolabe is intended.

z Sprinkled.

a Before day.

C

She.

Fly.

d Dream.

• Times.

f Kiffed her.

Fol. 57. The text is here given from MSS. BODL. ut fupr. Compared with MSS. HOSPIT, LINCOLN. 150. See Gow

er's CONFESS. AMANT. Lib. vi. fol.
cxxxviii. a. col. 1. feq.

And through the crafte of artemage,
Of waxe he forged an ymage, &c.
Gower's dragon, in approaching the queen,
is courteis and debonaire.

With al the chere that he maie,
Towarde the bedde ther as fhe laie,
Till he came to hir the beddes fide
And fhe laie ftill, and nothyng cride;
For he did all hys thynges faire,
And was curteis and debonaire.
Ibid. col. 2. I could not refift the temp-
tation of tranfcribing this gallantry of a

dragon.

Theocritus, Virgil, and Horace, have left instances of incantations conducted by figures in wax. In the beginning of the last century, many witches were executed for attempting the lives of perfons, by fabricating representations of them in wax and clay. King James the first, in his DAEMONOLOGIE, fpeaks of this practice as very common; the efficacy of which he peremptorily afcribes to the power of the devil". of the devil". His majesty's arguments, intended to prove how the magician's image operated on the person reprefented, are drawn from the depths of moral, theological, phyfical, and metaphyfical knowledge. The Arabian magic abounded with these infatuations, which were partly founded on the doctrine of fympathy.

But to return to the GESTA ROMANORUM. In this story one of the magicians is ftyled Magifter peritus, and fometimes fimply Magifter. That is, a cunning-man. The title Magifter in our universities has its origin from the use of this word in the middle ages. With what propriety it is now continued I will not fay. Mystery, antiently used for a particular art', or fkill in general, is a fpecious and eafy corruption of Maistery or Maftery, the English of the Latin MAGISTERIUM, or Artificium; in French Maiftrife, Meftier, Meftrie, and in Italian Magifterio, with the fame fenfe *. In the French romance of CLEOMEDES, a physician is called fimply Maitre'.

Lie font de chou qu'il n'y a

Peril et que bien garira:

Car il li MAISTRE ainfi dit leur ont.

Edit. 1603. 4to. B. ii. ch. iv. p. 44. feq.

For inftance," the Art and Mystery of "Printing."

In a ftatute of Henry the eighth, inftead of the words in the laft note, we have "The Science and Craft of Print"ing." Ann. reg. 25. A. D. 1533. For many reafons, Myftery anfwering to the Latin Myfterium, never could have been originally applied in these cafes.

MSS. Cod. Reg. Parif. 7539.

And

And the medical art is ftyled Meftrie. "Quant il (the furgeon) " aperçut que c'eftoit maladie non mie curable par nature et par "MESTRIE, et par medicine, &c "." Maiftrife is used for art or workmanship, in the CHRONICON of Saint Denis, "Entre "les autres presens, li envoia une horologe de laton, ouvrez par "marveilleufe MAISTRISE "." That the Latin MAGISTERIUM has precisely the same sense appears from an account of the contract for building the conventual church of Cafino in Italy, in the year 1349. The architects agree to build the church in the form of the Lateran at Rome. "Et in cafu fi aliquis [defectus] "in eorum MAGISTERIO appareret, promiferunt refarcire." Chaucer, in the ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE, ufes MAISTRISE for artifice and workmanship.

Was made a toure of grete maifrife,

A fairer faugh no man with fight,

Large, and wide, and of grete might, &c ".

And, in the fame poem, in describing the fhoes of MIRTH.
And shode he was, with grete maistrie,
With fhone decopid and with lace 2.

MAYSTRYE Occurs in the description of a lady's faddle, in SYR
LAUNFAL's romance.