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by the oriental fabulists, and form the chief wonders of that monarch's romance .

CHAP. cxl. The emperor Eraclius reconciles two knights.

This story is told by Seneca of Cneius Pifo. It occurs in Chaucer's SOMPNOUR'S TALE, as taken from Senec, or Seneca". CHAP. cxli. A knight who had diffipated all his substance in frequenting tournaments, under the reign of Fulgentius, is reduced to extreme poverty. A ferpent haunted a chamber of his houfe; who being conftantly fed with milk by the knight, in ceturn made his benefactor rich. The knight's ingratitude and imprudence in killing the ferpent, who was fuppofed to guard a treasure concealed in his chamber.

Medea's dragon guarding the golden fleece is founded on the oriental idea of treasure being guarded by ferpents. We are told in Vincent of Beauvais, that there are mountains of folid gold in India guarded by dragons and griffins.

CHAP. cxliii. A certain king ordained a law, that if any man was fuddenly to be put to death, at fun-rifing a trumpet should be founded before his gate. The king made a great feast for all his nobles, at which the most skilful musicians were present'. But amidst the general festivity, the king was fad and filent. All the guests were furprised and perplexed at the king's melancholy; but at length his brother ventured to afk him the cause.

In Vincent of Beauvais, there is a long fabulous Hiftory of Alexander, tranfcribed partly from Simeon Seth. SPEC. HIST. Lib. iv. c. i. f. 41. a. feq. edit. Ven. 1591. fol.

De IRA. Lib. i. c. 8.
Ver. 7600. Tyrwh.

SPECUL. HIST. Lib. i. c. 64. fol. 9. b. In the days of chivalry, a concert of a variety of inftruments of mufic constantly made a part of the folemnity of a fplendid feaft. Of this many inftances have been given. I will here add another, from the unprinted metrical romance of EMARE, MSS. Cott. CALIG, A. z. fol. 71. a.

Syre Ladore latte make a fefte,
That was fayre and honefte,

With his lord the kynge;
Ther was myche minftralse,
Trompus, tabors, and fawtre,

Both harpe, and fydyllynge:
The lady was gentyll and fmall,
In kurtell alone ferved in hall

By fore that nobull kynge;
The cloth upon her fchone fo bryzth,
When she was ther yn dyzth,

She femed non erdly thynge, &c.
And in Chaucer, JAN. AND MAY, v. 1234.
Att everie cours came the loud min-
ftralfie.

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The king replied, "Go home, and you fhall hear my answer "to morrow." The king ordered his trumpeters to found early the next morning before his brother's gate, and to bring him with them to judgement. The brother, on hearing this unexpected dreadful fummons, was feized with horror, and came before the king in a black robe. The king commanded a deep pit to be made, and a chair composed of the most frail materials, and fupported by four flight legs, to be placed inclining over the edge of the pit. In this the brother, being stripped naked, was feated. Over his head a fharp fword was hung by a fmall thread of filk. Around him four men were stationed with fwords exceedingly fharp, who were to wait for the king's word, and then to kill him. In the mean time, a table covered with the most coftly dishes was spread before him, accompanied with all forts of mufic. Then faid the king, "My "brother, why are you fo fad? Can you be dejected, in the midst "of this delicious mufic, and with all these choice dainties ?" He answered, "How can I be glad, when I have this morning "heard the trumpet of death at my doors, and while I am "feated in this tottering chair? If I make the smallest mo❝tion, it will break, and I shall fall into the pit, from which "I fhall never arife again. If I lift my head, the fufpended "sword will penetrate my brain; while these four tormentors

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only wait your command to put me to death." The king replied, "Now I will answer your question, why I was fad yesterday. I am exactly in your fituation. I am seated, like you, in a frail and perishable chair, ready to tumble to pieces every moment, and to, throw me into the infernal pit. Divine judgement, like this fharp fword, hangs over my "head and I am furrounded, like you, with four executioners. "That before me is Death, whofe coming I cannot tell; that "behind me, my Sins, which are prepared to accuse me before "the tribunal of God; that on the right, the Devil, who is "ever watching for his prey; and that on the left, the Worm, "who is now hungering after my flesh. Go in peace, my

"dearest

"dearest brother: and never afk me again why I am fad at "a feaft."

Gower, in the CONFESSIO AMANTIS, may perhaps have copied the circumstance of the morning trumpet from this apologue. His king is a king of Hungary.

It fo befell, that on a dawe

There was ordeined by the lawe

A Trompe with a fterne breathe,

Which was cleped the Trompe of deathe:
And in the court where the kyng was,
A certaine man, this trompe of braffe
Hath in kepyng, and therof ferveth,
That when a lorde his deathe deserveth,
He fhall this dredfull trompe blowe
To fore his gate, to make it knowe,
Howe that the jugement is yeve
Of deathe, whiche fhall not be foryeve.
The kyng whan it was night anone,
This man affent, and bad him gone,
To trompen at his brothers gate;
And he, whiche mote done algate,
Goth foorth, and doth the kyng's hefte.
This lorde whiche herde of this tempeft
That he tofore his gate blewe,

Tho wist he by the lawe, and knewe

That he was schurly deade, &c.

But Gower has connected with this circumftance a different ftory, and of an inferior caft, both in point of moral and imagination. The truth is, Gower feems to have altogether followed this story as it appeared in the SPECULUM HISTORIALE of Vincent of Beauvais, who took it from Damafcenus's romance of BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT. Part of it is thus 1 OFF. ut fupr. pag. 12.

Lib. i. fol. xix. b. col. i.
Ubi fupr. p. xlix.

told

told in Caxton's translation of that legend *." And the kynge "hadde fuche a custome, that whan one sholde be delyvered to "deth, the kynge fholde fende hys cryar wyth hys trompe that "was ordeyned therto. And on the euen he fente the cryar "wyth the trompe tofore hys brother's gate, and made to foune "the trompe. And whan the kynges brother herde this, he "was in despayr of fauynge of his lyf, and coude not slepe of "alle the nyght, and made his testament. And on the morne ❝erly, he cladde hym in blacke: and came with wepyng with "hys wyf and chyldren to the kynges paleys. And the kynge "made hym to com tofore hym, and fayd to hym, a fooll "that thou art, that thou haft herde the messager of thy bro"ther, to whom thou knoweft well thou haft not trefpaced " and doubteft fo mooche, howe oughte not I then ne doubte "the meffageres of our lorde, agaynfte whom I haue foo ofte "fynned, which fignefyed unto me more clerely the deth then "the trompe ?"

CHAP. cxlv. The philofopher Socrates fhews the cause of the infalubrity of a paffage between two mountains in Armenia, by means of a polished mirrour of steel. Albertus is cited; an abbot of Stade, and the author of a Chronicle from Adam to 1256.

CHAP. cxlvi. Saint Auftin's CITY OF GOD is quoted for an answer of Diomedes the pirate to king Alexander.

CHAP. cxlviii. Aulius Gellius is cited.

Aulus Gellius is here quoted, for the story of Arion', throwing himself into the fea, and carried on the back of a dolphin to king Periander at Corinth ". Gellius relates this ftory from Herodotus, in whom it is now extant ".

CHAP. cliii. The hiftory of Apollonius of Tyre.

This ftory, the longest in the book before us, and the ground

*See Caxton's GOLDEN LEGENDE, fol. ccclxxxxiii. b. See alfo METRICAL LIVES OF THE SAINTS, MSS. BODL. 779. f. 292. a

1 It is printed Amon.
NOCT. ATTIC. Lib. xvi. cap.
■ Lib. viii.

xix.

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work of a favorite old romance, is known to have exifted before the year 1190.

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In the Prologue to the English romance on this fubject, called KYNGE APOLYNE OF THYRE, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1510, we are told. My worshypfull mayster Wynkyn de Worde, havynge a lytell boke of an auncyent hystory "of a kynge fomtyme reygnyne in the countree of Thyre "called Appolyn, concernynge his malfortunes and peryllous "adventures right efpouventables, bryefly compyled and pyteous "for to here; the which boke, I Robert Coplande have me "applyed for to translate out of the Frensfhe language into our "maternal Englysfhe tongue, at the exhortacyon of my forfayd mayster, accordynge dyrectly to myn auctor: gladly followynge the trace of my mayfter Caxton, begynnynge with "small storyes and pamfletes and fo to other." The English romance, or the French, which is the fame thing, exactly correfponds in many paffages with the text of the GESTA. will inftance in the following one only, in which the complication of the fable commences. King Appolyn dines in disguise in the hall of king Antiochus.-" Came in the kynges daugh"ter, accompanyed with many ladyes and damoyfelles, whose fplendente beaute were too long to endyte, for her rofacyate "coloure was medled with grete favour. She dranke unto hir " fader, and to all the lordes, and to all them that had ben at "the play of the Shelde'. And as she behelde here and there, "The efpyed kynge Appolyn, and then she fayd unto her fader, Syr, what is he that fytteth so hye as by you, it femeth by hym that he is angry or forrowfull? The kynge fayd, I never "fawe fo nimble and pleasaunt a player at the shelde, and ther

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The printer of that name. He also tranflated from the French, at the defire of Edward duke of Buckingham, the romance of the KNYGHT OF THE SWANNE. See his PROLOGUE.

P The tournament. To tourney is often called fimply to play. As thus in SYR

I

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