a fon within a year. Thefe children were fent abroad to be nurfed. The furviving queen, anxious to fee her child, defired that both the boys might be brought home. They were fo exceedingly alike, that the one could not be distinguished from the other, except by the king. The mother begged the king to point out her own fon. This he refused to do, till they were both grown up; left she should spoil him by too fond a partiality. Thus they were both properly treated with uniform affection, and without excefs of indulgence.

A favorite old romance is founded on the indiftinctible likenefs of two of Charlemagne's knights, Amys and Amelion; originally celebrated by Turpin, and placed by Vincent of Beauvais under the reign of Pepin .

CHAP. CXVii. The law of the emperor Frederick, that whoever rescued a virgin from a rape might claim her for his wife.

CHAP. CXViii. A knight being in Egypt, recovers a thousand talents which he had entrusted to a faithlefs friend, by the artifice of an old woman.

This tale is in Alphonfus. And in the CENTO NOVELLE ANTICHE.

CHAP. cxix. A king had an oppreffive Senefhall, who paffing through a forest, fell into a deep pit, in which were a lion, an ape, and a serpent. A poor man who gathered sticks in the forest hearing his cries, drew him up: together with the lion, the ape, and the ferpent. The Senefhall returned home, promifing to reward the poor man with great riches. Soon afterwards the poor man went to the palace to claim the promised reward; but was ordered to be cruelly beaten by the seneshall. In the mean time, the lion drove ten affes laden with gold to the poor man's cottage: the ferpent brought him a pretious ftone of three colours: and the ape, when he came to the forest on his daily buliness, laid him heaps of wood. The poor man, in confequence of the virtues of the ferpent's pretious stone,

• SPECUL. HIST. xxiii. c. 162. f. 329. b.

P Nov, lxxiv.

which he fold, arrived to the dignity of knighthood, and acquired ample poffeffions. But afterwards he found the pretious stone in his cheft, which he prefented to the king. The king having heard the whole story, ordered the fenefhall to be put to death for his ingratitude, and preferred the poor man to his office.

This story occurs in Symeon Seth's tranflation of the celebrated Arabian fable-book called CALILAH U DUMNAH. It is recited by Matthew Paris, under the year 1195, as a parable which king Richard the first, after his return from the east, was often accustomed to repeat, by way of reproving those ungrateful princes who refused to engage in the crufade'. It is verfified by Gower, who omits the lion, as Matthew Paris does the ape, in the fifth book of the CONFESSIO AMANTIS'. He thus describes the services of the ape and ferpent to the poor man, who gained his livelihood by gathering sticks in a forest.

He

gan his ape anone behold,

Which had gadred al aboute,

Of stickes here and there a route,
And leyde hem redy to his honde,

Whereof he made his truffe and bond
From daie to daie.

Upon a time and as he drough
Towarde the woodde, he figh beside
The great gastly serpent glide,
Till that the came in his presence,
And in hir kynde a reverence
She hath hym do, and forthwith all
A stone more bright than a christall
Out of hir mouth to fore his waye
She lett down fall.

P. 444. This work was tranflated into English under the title of "Donies "MORALL PHILOSOPHIE, tranflated from "the Indian tongue, 1570." Black Letter

with woodden cuts. 4to. But Doni was the Italian translator.

HIST. MAJ. p. 179. Edit. Wats. • fol. 110. b.

In Gower alfo, as often as the poor man fells the pretious stone, on returning home, he finds it again among the money in his purse.

The acquifition of riches, and the multiplication of treasure, by invifible agency, is a frequent and favorite fiction of the Arabian romance. Thus, among the prefents given to Sir Launfal by the Lady Triamore, daughter of the king of Faerie.

I will the zeve an Alver ",

I mad of fylver and gold cler,

With fayre ymages thre:

As ofte thou puttest thy honde ther ynne,
A marke of golde thou shalt wynne ",

In wat place fhalt thou be *.

CHAP. XX. King Darius's legacy to his three fons. To the eldest he bequeathes all his paternal inheritance: to the second, all that he had acquired by conqueft: and to the third, a ring and necklace, both of gold, and a rich cloth. All the three laft gifts were endued with magical virtues. Whoever wore the ring on his finger, gained the love or favour of all whom he defired to please. Whoever hung the necklace over his breast, obtained all his heart could defire. Whoever fate down on the cloth, could be instantly transported to any part of the world which he chofe.

From this beautiful tale, of which the opening only is here given, Occleve, commonly called Chaucer's difciple, framed a poem in the octave stanza, which was printed in the year 1614, by William Browne, in his fet of Eclogues called the SHEPHEARDS PIPE. Occleve has literally followed the book before us, and has even tranflated into English prose the MORALISATION annexed'. He has given no fort of embellishment to his

t Give thee.

"Perhaps Almer, or Almere, a cabinet or cheft. w Get. Find.

* SYR LAUNFAL. MSS. Cott. CALIG. A. 2. fol. 35. b.

y, Viz. MSS. SELD. Sup. 53. Where is a prologue of many ftanzas not printed by Browne. See alfo MSS. DIGB. 185. MSS. LAUD. K. 78. [See fupr. vol. ii. 38.]

original

original, and by no means deferves the praifes which Browne in the following elegant paftoral lyrics has bestowed on his performance, and which more juftly belong to the genuine Gothic, or rather Arabian, inventor.

Well I wot, the man that first

Sung this lay, did quenche his thirst
Deeply as did ever one

In the Muses Helicon.

Many times he hath been feene

With the faeries on the greene,

And to them his pipe did found
As they danced in a round;
Mickle folace would they make him,
And at midnight often wake him,
And convey him from his roome
To a fielde of yellow broome,
Or into the medowes where
Mints perfume the gentle aire,

And where Flora spreads her treasure

There they would beginn their measure.

If it chancd night's fable shrowds

Muffled Cynthia up in clowds,

Safely home they then would see him,
And from brakes and quagmires free him.
There are few fuch fwaines as he

Now a dayes for harmonie 2.

The history of Darius, who gave this legacy to his three fons, is incorporated with that of Alexander, which has been decorated with innumerable fictions by the Arabian writers. There is also a separate romance on Darius. And on Philip of

CHAP. CXXIV. Of the knights, who intercede for their friend with a king, by coming to his court, each half on horse back and half on foot.

This is the last novel in the CENTO NOVELLE ANTICHE. CHAP. CXXVI. Macrobius is cited for the address and humour of an ingenuous boy named Papirius.

This is one of the most lively stories in Macrobius 2.

CHAP. CXXViii. The forged teftament of the wicked knight, under the reign of Maximian.

CHAP. CXXIX. A young prince is fent on his travels. His three friends.

CHAP. CXXXII. The four phyficians.

CHAP. CXXXIII. The king and his two greyhounds.

CHAP. CXXXIV. A ftory from Seneca.

CHAP. CXXXV. The ftory of Lucretia, from faint Austin's CITY OF GOD.

A more claffical authority for this story, had it been at hand, would have been flighted for faint Auftin's CITY OF GOD, which was the favorite spiritual romance; and which, as the transition from religion to gallantry was antiently very easy, gave rife to the famous old French romance called the CITY OF LADIES.

CHAP. CXXXVII. The Roman emperor who is banished for his impartial distribution of justice. From the CRONICA of Eufebius.

CHAP. CXXXViii. King Medro.

CHAP. CXXXIX. King Alexander, by means of a mirrour, kills a cockatrice, whofe look had deftroyed the greatest part of his army.

Aelian, in his VARIOUS HISTORY, mentions a ferpent which appearing from the mouth of a cavern, stopped the march of Alexander's army through a spacious defert. The wild beasts, serpents, and birds, which Alexander encountered in marching through India, were most extravagantly imagined a SATURNAL. Lib. i. c. 6. pag. 147. Londin. 1694.

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