porary, Helinandus the monk, into his Universal Chronicle and were also introduced by Alexander Neckham, a Benedictine monk who studied at Paris in the thirteenth century, into his book De naturâ rerum, (book 6) with many important additions.

In particular we are told that Naples being troubled with an infinite number of infectious leeches, it was delivered as soon as Virgil had caused a golden one to be cast into a well: that he surrounded his dwelling and garden (where it never rained) with an immoveable stream of air, which served the purposes of a wall; and that he constructed a brazen bridge which took him wheresoever he pleased. That he also made a steeple with such miraculous artifice, that the tower wherein it was, though of stone, moved in the same manner as a certain bell, that was in it did, and that both had the same shaking and motion: and also that he formed those statues called the preservers of Rome, which were watched night and day by priests, for that as soon as any nation entertained any thought of revolting against the Roman em. pire, immediately the statue representing that nation, and adored by it, moved; a bell it had about the neck rung, and with its finger it pointed at that rebellious nation, in so much that the name of it might be perceived in writing, which the Priest carrying to the

emperor he immediately raised an army to reduce and quiet it.

Similar fables concerning Virgil have been mentioned by Gower in his Confessio Amantis, by Symphorianus Champier, and Albertus de Elib, by Tostatus Bishop of Avila, who ranks Virgil among those that practised Necromancy, and by Vincent of Beauvais, who speaks among other wonderful things done by him, of his fabricating those brazen statues at Rome called Salvacio Romæ. This fiction is mentioned by the old anonymous author of the Mirabilia Romæ written in the thirteenth century and printed by Montfaucon. It also occurs in Lydgate's Bochas. He is speaking of the Pantheon,

Whyche was a temple of old foundacion,
Ful of ydols, up set on hye stages;

There through the worlde of every nacion
Were of theyr goddes set up great ymages,
To euery kingdom direct were their visages
As poetes and Fulgens by hys live.
In bokes olde plainly doth dyscrive.

It would appear too that the story of the Egg on

which the fate of the town of Naples depended was an article of current belief during the middle ages; for by the statutes of the order Du Saint Esprit, au droit desir, instituted in 1352, a Chapter of the knights is appointed to be helde annually at the Castle of the Enchanted Egg near the grotto of Virgil. Montfaucon, vol. 2, p. 329. "But since the authors," says Naudeus," who have made mention of the magic of Virgil are so many that they cannot be examined one after the other, without loss of much time and abundance of repetitions, we must imitate the Civilians who take authorities per saturam, and so digesting all that remains into one article, show that De Loyer de Spectris, 1. 1. c. 6. makes mention of his Echo; Paracelsus, Tractatus de imag. c. 11, of his magical images and figures; Helmoldus, Hist. Slavor. lib. 4. c. 19, of his representation of the city of Naples shut up in a glass bottle; Sibyllus, Peregr. quæst. de cad. 3. c. 2. questione, and the Author of the Image of the World, of the head he made to know. things to come by; Petrarch in Itinerario, and Theodric a Niem, Lib. 3. de schismat. c. 19. of the vault he made at Naples at the request of Augustus : Vigenere, of Cyphers, cap. 19, p. 330, of his alphabets: Trithemius Antipal. 1. 4. c. 3. of his book of Tables and Calculations whereby to find out the genius of all

persons; and lastly of those who have seen the cabinet of the Duke of Florence, of an extraordinary great looking-glass, which they affirm to be that in which this poet exercised Catoptromancy."

Such legendary tales as these, therefore, not only excited the public mind in favour of a Romance which should adopt the principal actor in them for its hero, but supplied ample materials for its production. Two editions are extant of the old French Romance: "Les faits merveilleux de Virgile fils d'ung Cheualier des Ardennes :" one in 4to, printed at Paris, by Jean Trepperel: the other in 8vo, likewise printed at Paris, by Guill. Myuerd, neither of them dated. In the title of the French work, Virgil being styled " fils d'ung Cheualier des Ardennes," it would appear that if the Lyfe of Virgilius be translated from the former, yet it differs essentially from its original. The English Virgilius also appears to be but an abridgment of the French Romance, since it omits several instances of the of the necromancer which probably swelled the pages of the parent work. Two editions of the English version are known, one is in the Garrick collection of the British Museum, which is too imperfect (save from the evidence of its type and wood cuts, which appear to be Copland's) to designate by whom it was printed the other, printed at Amsterdam by John

powers

Doesborcke, of which the only copy known is in the possession of Mr. Douce, from which Mr. Utterson was enabled to reprint an impression of fifty copies on paper, and one on vellum, for private distribution; and from such reprint the present publication has been kindly permitted by Mr. Douce and Mr. Utterson: the Editor must also acknowledge himself to have received considerable assistance from the valuable notice prefixed by the latter gentleman. The present romance may be considered with considerable probability as having had its origin among the fictions of the East. The incident of Virgil releasing the fiend from the hole in which he was confined must have been derived from the tale of the Fisherman and the Genie in the 11th of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, which is said to be still a prevalent superstition in the East. The intrigue also of Virgil with the Sultan's daughter much resembles the adventures to be found in the Eastern romances. In one of the French Fabliaux, entitled Lai d' Hippocrate (Le Grand, vol. 1. p. 232.) there is an absurd story of that physician being pulled half way up a tower in a basket by a lady of whom he was enamoured, and then left suspended, that he might be exposed to the ridicule of the multitude. A similar story is related of Virgilius, and is one of the most popular concern,