daughter falls in love with him; and having procured his escape, accompanies him to his own country, where they are married.

CHAP. vi. An emperor is married to a beautiful young princefs. In cafe of death, they mutually agree not to furvive one other. To try the truth of his wife, the emperor going into a distant country, orders a report of his death to be circulated. In remembrance of her vow, and in imitation of the wives of India, the prepares to throw herself headlong from a high precipice. She is prevented by her father; who interposes his paternal authority, as predominating over a rafh and unlawful promife.

CHAP. vii. Under the reign of Dioclefian, a noble knight had two fons, the youngest of which marries a harlot.

This ftory, but with a difference of circumftances, ends like the beautiful apologue of the Prodigal Son.

CHAP. viii. The emperor Leo commands three female ftatues to be made. One has a gold ring on a finger pointing forward, another a beard of gold, and the third a golden cloak and purple tunic. Whoever steals any of these ornaments, is to be punished with an ignominious death.

This story is copied by Gower, in the CONFESSIO AMANTIS but he has altered fome of the circumstances. He fup

poses a statue of Apollo.

Of plate of golde a berde he hadde,

The wiche his breft all ovir fpradde:
Of golde alfo, without fayle,
His mantell was, of large entayle,
Besette with perrey all aboute :

Forth ryght he ftraught his fynger oute,
Upon the whiche he had a rynge,
To feen it was a ryche thynge,
A fyne carbuncle for the nones
Moste precious of all stones ".

VOL. III.

* Lib. v. fol. 122. b.

b

In

In the fequel, Gower follows the substance of our author.

CHAP. X. Vefpafian marries a wife in a diftant country, who refuses to return home with him, and yet declares the will kill herfelf if he goes. The emperor ordered two rings to be made, of a wonderous efficacy; one of which, in the ftone, has the image of Oblivion, the other the image of Memory: the ring of Oblivion he gave to the emprefs, and returned home with the ring of Memory.

CHAP. xi. The queen of the fouth fends her daughter to king Alexander, to be his concubine. She was exceedingly beautiful, but had been nourished with poifon from her birth. Alexander's mafter, Aristotle, whofe fagacity nothing could escape, knowing this, entreated, that before he was admitted to the king's bed, a malefactor condemned to death might be fent for, who should give her a kiss in the presence of the king. The malefactor, on kiffing her, inftantly dropped down dead. Aristotle, having explained his reafons for what he had done, was loaded with honours by the king, and the princess was difmiffed to her mother.

This story is founded on the twenty-eighth chapter of Ariftotle's SECRETUM SECRETORUM: in which, a queen of India is faid to have treacherously fent to Alexander, among other coftly presents, the pretended testimonies of her friendship, a girl of exquifite beauty, who having been fed with ferpents from her infancy, partook of their nature'. If I recollect right, in Pliny there are accounts of nations whose natural food was poison. Mithridates, king of Pontus, the land of venomous herbs, and the country of the forcerefs Medea, was supposed to

[See fupr. vol. i. p. 132.] This I now cite from a Latin translation, without date, but evidently printed before 1500. It is dedicated to Guido Vere de Valencia bishop of Tripoly, by his most humble Clerk, Philippus: who fays, that he found this treatife in Arabic at Antioch, quo carebant Latini, and that therefore, and

because the Arabic copies were scarce, he tranflated it into Latin.

This printed copy does not exactly correfpond with MS. BODL. 495. membr. 4to. In the last, Alexander's miraculous horn is mentioned at fol. 45. b. In the former, in ch. lxxii. The dedication is the fame in both.

eat

eat poison. Sir John Maundeville's Travels, I believe, will afford other inftances.

CHAP. xii. A profligate priest, in the reign of the emperor Otto, or Otho, walking in the fields, and neglecting to fay mafs, is reformed by a vifion of a comely old man.

CHAP. xiii. An emprefs having loft her husband, becomes fo doatingly fond of her only fon, then three years of age, as not to bear his abfence for a moment. They fleep together every night, and when he was eighteen years of age, the proves with child by him. She murthers the infant, and her left hand is immediately marked with four circles of blood. Her repentance is related, in confequence of a vifion of the holy virgin.

This story is in the SPECULUM HISTORIALE of Vincent of Beauvais, who wrote about the year 1250 2.

CHAP. xiv. Under the reign of the emperor Dorotheus, a remarkable example of the filial piety of a young man, who redeems his father, a knight, from captivity.

CHAP. XV. Eufemian, a nobleman in the court of the emperor of Rome, is attended by three thousand fervants girt with golden belts, and cloathed in filken vestments. His house was crouded with pilgrims, orphans, and widows, for whom three tables were kept every day. He has a fon, Allexius; who quits his father's palace, and lives unknown seventeen years in a monastery in Syria. He then returns, and lives feventeen years undiscovered as a pilgrim in his father's family, where he suffers many indignities from the fervants.

Allexius, or Alexis, was canonifed. This ftory is taken from his Legend. In the metrical Lives of the Saints, his life is told in a fort of measure different from that of the reft, and not very common in the earlier stages of our poetry. It begins thus.

Lefteneth alle and herkeneth me,

Zonge and olde, bonde and fre,

And ich zow telle fone,

How a zought man, gent and fre,
By gan this worldis wele to fle,
Y born he was in Rome.

In Rome was a dozty man
That was y cleped Eufemian,
Man of moche myzte;

Gold and feluer he hadde ynouz,

Hall and boures, oxfe and plouz,

And swith wel it dyzte.

When Alexius returns home in disguise, and asks his father about his fon, the father's feelings are thus described.

So fone fo he spake of his fone,
The guode man, as was his wone,

At his burial, many miracles are wrought on the fick.

The history of Saint Alexius is told entirely in the fame words in the GESTA ROMANORUM, and in the LEGENDA AUREA of Jacobus de Voragine', translated, through a French medium, by Caxton. This work of Jacobus does not confift

i Their.

* Strait.

! Found.

m The true physician. Heried. Bleffed.

• Hallowed.

P Tarry.

1 High.

At his feat in the choir.

• MSS. Coll. Trin. Oxon. Cod. 57. fupr. citat.

HYSTOR. lxxxix. f. clviii. edit. 1479. fol. And in Vincent of Beauvais, who quotes GESTA ALLEXII. SPECUL. HIST. Lib. xviii. cap. 43. feq. f. 241. b.

folely