has contributed to increase the reader's entertainment, our collector has taken care to preface almost every story with the name or reign of a Roman emperor, who, at the same time, is often a monarch that never existed, and who seldom, whether real or supposititious, has any concern with the circumstances of the narrative."

Among the many pretty little disputes with which the learned antiquarians are wont to employ their leisure moments, the question of the difference or identity of the Gesta Romanorum and its English counterpart, has ever been a favourite. With this quarrel we shall have but little to do; we shall side neither with the differentiarians, under the banners of Douce and Ellice, nor with their identiarian opponents; we shall take the work such as we find it; nothing more nor less than a collection of ancient stories, many of which might naturally be the same, and many of which might naturally vary in various countries, according to the taste of the collector. Nor shall we determine whether Wharton is warranted in giving the original authorship to Pierre Bacheur of Poitou, prior of the Benedictine convent of St. Eloi, at Paris, in the year 1362, or whether Mr. Douce is nearer right in handing over the authorship to a German, on the authority of a German proverb in one tale, and a few German dogs in another. There is so much better food in the plains of the book itself, that our readers will not thank us for leading them astray to the barren heaths of antiquarian squabbles.

In the days of Elizabeth and James, the English version of the Gesta seems to have formed the popular story-book of the reading classes. In the comedy of "Sir Giles Goosecap," which was printed in 1606, one of the characters says, "Then for your lordship's quips and quick jests, why Gesta Romanorum were nothing to them;" and in Chapman's "May-day," of some five years' later date, one of the characters is astonished that "one who has read Marcus Aurelius, Gesta Romanorum, and the Mirrour of Magistrates, should be led by the nose like a blind bear that has read nothing." These tales were evidently the popular fictions of that day, and we fear, like the numerous brood of didactic fictions which now overspread our tables, very often read more for the sake of the story, than for the moral to be deduced from it. There was something straightforward and honest in the plan of these old tales, in which the moral stands separate from the story, as an appendix, and not so mixed up with its adventures as to cheat the reader into a sermon during a rowing-match or a dinner-party. Messrs. Warren, of blacking notoriety, and Moses, of tailoring fame, are both professors of didactic fiction, through the medium of their advertisements. taking title of the "Hamburg Conflagration," leads on the reader to the price of "particular jet," and "Dr. Pusey's suspension" ends in the prices of clergymen's habiliments. The advertisement sheet of the Times has nearly as much right to be regarded as teaching by didactic fiction the science of political economy, as Messrs. Gresley and Paget that of theology.

The

The chief merit of the tales of the Gesta is the curious light they throw upon the manners and habits of the middle ages. In these vivid and strongly delineated fictions, we fight, we tilt, we make love and war, perform penances and witness miracles, with the world of the middle ages. We laugh at the fantastic regulations of a chivalry with which we have now no associated feeling. We smile at the absurd penances with which imaginable crimes were visited, and regret the utter carelessness with which enormous sins were committed. Marriage, of course, is the staple incident of every tale, as it is in the present day, and the affections of ladies are disposed of in more extraordinary ways than even in the nineteenth century. When the buying and selling system of marriage broke in upon the old, but not unpleasant fiction of love matches, and brought back civilized society to the customs of the savage, who buys his wife as he would a slave; the few who had a hankering after the old delusion, were wont to solace themselves with the thought that things were not so in the good old times; policy, power, and wealth were not supreme -so we thought-in the days of knights errant, and ladies that lived in high towers, and sang ditties on the guitar. In these tales we find more efficacious methods than even the common system of these days a lady's affections are given to the resolver of some hidden mystery, the expounder of a riddle, or in accordance of some inexplicable vow. How absurd is all this, we are inclined to say; as absurd to us, as the number of unnecessary refinements which civilization has introduced would appear to our simpler ancestors. But laugh as we may at the customs of by-gone days, we must not characterise the writings of those times as absurd and useless, because they have not the same effect on us now, as they had on those to whom they were addressed, and for whose amusement and instruction they were written. Few qualities shift more with time, and are more dependent on manners, than probability and improbability. In regarding the construction of a fable, we must consider not its abstract probability, nor indeed its relative probability, (if the fable be old, or for another class of people,) to ourselves; but we must consider how it was calculated to impress the minds of those for whom it was invented, and to whom it was told. If the writer contrived to give pleasure and instruction to his readers or hearers, he deserves as much praise as if he suited our minds, and influenced our imaginations. If a giant in a castle, or a magician, were as credible to the monks, and their auditors, as electricity or magnetism to us; the writer who communicated pleasure to the imagination and knowledge to the understanding of his hearer, by such incidents, has proportionable merit with the writer of our time, who teaches a belief in God through the wonders of nature and science. Add to this the natural tendency of the human mind to the marvellous; and from the constant recurrence of the barely probable, to the ultimate belief in the most extravagant fiction. These circumstances must be considered in forming our judgment on the merit of these tales.

Doubtless, they vary in point of execution, but many are eminently beautiful, and in description of manners, are valuable, and perhaps unrivalled. We may doubt the prudence of expending a thousand florins on three prudential maxims, as Domitian does in one of these tales; but we cannot fail to regret the loss of that never-failing virtue of hospitality, so prominent in these fables, and of that eagerness with which the wayfarer or the pilgrim was invited to the castle of the knight, or to the house of the citizen.

Many of the moralizations attached to these tales are characterised by a most eccentric spirit of refinement and abstraction. From very early times a secondary meaning was commonly attached to every important work; it progressed from the sacred writings through the poetic fictions of the classics, to compositions professedly allegorical. The want of discrimination, which in our eyes assumes much of the appearance of profane levity, with which the fictions of the classics were interpreted to signify the great truths and mysteries of religion, was, perhaps, hardly reprehensible in the simple state of knowledge which prevailed at the time when these attempts at secondary interpretation were made. In the early ages it might seem to partake of little levity to prefigure our Saviour's birth in that of Bacchus; his sufferings and death in that of Actæon, or his resurrection in the legend of Hercules, as related by Lycophron; as late as the thirteenth century the Franciscan Walleys wrote a moral and theological exposition of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. To these expositions succeeded compositions professedly allegorical, and which the spirit of refinement of that age resolved into further allegories, for which they were never intended. It was not enough that the writer of the "Romaunt of the Rose" had allegorized the difficulties of an ardent lover in the accomplishment of his object, under the mystery of the rose which was to be gathered in a fair but almost inaccessible garden. Every profession saw in this allegory the great mystery of their craft. To the theologian it was the rose of Jericho, the New Jerusalem, the B. Virgin, or any other mystery to which obstinate heretics were unable to attain; to the chemist it was the philosopher's stone; to the lawyer it was the most comsummate point of equity; to the physician the infallible panacea, the water of life; and does not this spirit of allegory extend to the present day, only in a somewhat different form? As soon as a poet has attained to any great reputation, and death has sealed up his writings, then comes the host of annotators and critics, each one more intent than his predecessor to develop the mind of the writer, to discover with what hidden intentions, with what feelings, this or that passage was written, and to build on some stray expression a mighty theory, for some more clever writer to overthrow, and raise a new fabric on its ruins. And in these attempts it is not the old author whose glory is sought to be heightened, but the new man who would ascend the ladder of reputation on the labours of "man of old." Such was not the spirit which prompted the fashion of resolving every thing into allegories in

the middle ages; nor, indeed, is it to be solely charged to an unmeaning and wanton spirit of refinement. "The same apology," says Wharton, "may be offered for cabalistic interpreters, both of the classics and of the old romances. The former, not willing that those books should be quite exploded which contained the ancient mythology, laboured to reconcile the apparent absurdities of the pagan system with the Christian mysteries, by demonstrating a figurative resemblance. The latter, as true learning began to dawn, with a view of supporting for a time the expiring credit of giants and magicians, were compelled to palliate those monstrous incredibilities, by a bold attempt to unravel the mystic web which had been wove by fairy hands, and by showing that truth was hid under the gorgeous veil of gothic invention."

The first tale which we shall extract, exhibits the not uncommon mixture of feudal manners and oriental incidents during the reign of a Roman emperor, to whom the name of Pompey is given. The Romans have, however, little to do with the matter, and king Pompey, whether the Great, or some namesake of his, will not assist us in assigning an A. U. C. date to the story.

"Once upon a time, there lived a great and good king, whose name was Pompey. He had an only danghter, of remarkable beauty, and he loved her greatly, so he charged five of his knights that they guarded her day and night, and commanded them, on their lives, to preserve her from all injury. Day and night did these brave men keep watch and ward before the lady's chamber. A lamp burned before the door, that the approach of an enemy might be detected; and a faithful mastif lay on her threshold, whose watchfulness was as unremitting, as his bark was loud and shrill. But all these precautions were in vain. The princess loved the world, and its pleasures, and sighed to mingle in its busy scenes, and gaze upon its gorgeous pageants. So it came to pass, that as she looked one day from the window of her bower, a certain duke passed by, and he looked upon her beauty, and loved her with an impure love. Day after day did this duke endeavour to withdraw the princess from her guardians, and numerous were the devices by which he sought to accomplish his designs upon her and upon her father's throne, for she was the king's heiress. At last, by the promise of unbounded pleasure, the duke persuaded the princess to overturn the lamp, that burned at her chamber door, and to poison the dog that lay on her threshold. And when the night came, the duke stole upon the guard, and bore away with him the princess. On the morrow, the lady was sought for, far and near, and no one knew whither she went. Many were they that took horse and rode after the fugitives, and many were the ways they went. But one alone found them, a great and terrible knight, the king's champion, who came upon them in their flight, slew the seducer, and brought back the princess to her father. And the emperor was sore wrath with his child, and left her to bewail her sins in solitude. Time and misery brought repentance, and the princess bewailed herself bitterly. Now there was a good old man at her father's court, who ever interceded with the king for penitent offenders, and to whose words Pompey willingly gave heed. This lord came to the king, and told him of his daughter's repentance, and the king was reconciled to his child, and she was betrothed to a nobleman of worth and power. Many were the bridal gifts which the princess received. The sage lord gave her a robe of the finest and richest woof, on which was worked these NO. XXXV.-N. S.

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words, I have raised thee up, beware lest thou fall again.' He gave her also a ring, and the legend was, 'What have I done? How much? Why?' Her father gave a golden coronet, on which was written, 'Thy dignity is from me.' From the champion who conquered for her, she received a ring; the legend was, 'I have loved thee, do thou return that love.' The king's son, too, gave a ring, and on it was written, Thou art noble, despise not thy nobility;' whilst on that which she received from her own brother, the motto was, 'Approach, fear not, I am thy brother.' The last gift which the penitent princess received, was from her bridegroom, a golden signet that confirmed her inheritance, and on which was written, 'Now that thou art espoused, be faithful.' And the princess kept all these gifts, and thought upon the mottoes which they bore. Day by day she regained the favour and the love she had alienated, and at last, she slept in peace."

Such is the simple tale. The moral, especially in the interpretation of the several marriage presents, will astonish many of our readers. The emperor is our Heavenly Father, and his daughter, the human soul, which he delivers to the fire senses, armed by the powers of baptism, to guard from injury. The burning lamp is the will, shining brilliantly in good works, and dispelling the gloom of sin. The watchful dog is conscience; as often as the soul breaks any of the commands of God, it may be said to look abroad on the world and its dangers. Then comes the devil, the great seducer, whose triumph over the soul is easy, when the lamp of the will is extinguished, and the barking of conscience is silenced. Then God arises as our champion, and fights for us against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and leads back the sinning soul to the palace of the heavenly king. The sage Lord, the Mediator, is our Saviour: "for He is our peace who hath made both one."

"From Him," continues the moral, "we received the aforesaid gifts; first a cloak descending to the ancle, that is, his most precious skin; and said to be of delicate texture, because it was woven with stripes, blood, bruises, and other various instances of malice; of which texture nothing more is meant than this, I have raised thee up, because I have redeemed thee; do not throw thyself into further evil.' That same Christ, our king, gave to us a glorious crown, that is, when he submitted to be crowned for our sakes. And of a truth, 'thy dignity is from me,' even from that crown. Christ is our champion, who gave us a sign-that is, the hole in his right hand; and we ourselves can see how faithfully it is written, I have loved thee, do thou also love.' He gave us another ring, which is the puncture in his left hand, where we see written, 'What have I done? How much? Why?' 'What have I done?' I have despoiled myself, receiving the form of a servant. How much?' I have made God and man. 'Why?' To redeem the lost. Concerning these three, Zachary xiii. 'What are the wounds in the middle of thy hands?' and he answered, saying, 'I am wounded by these men in their house, who loved me.' Christ is our brother, and son of the Eternal King. He gave us a third ring,to wit, the hole in his right foot; and what can be understood by it, but, Thou art noble, despise not thy nobility?' In like manner, Christ is our brother-german. And he gave us a fourth ring, the puncture in his left foot, on which is written, Approach, fear not, I am thy brother.' Christ is also our spouse; he gave us a signet, with which he confirmed our inheritance: that is, the wound made in his side by the spear, on