fully; close their hands, and believe that they hold them fast. By and by, they open their hands and find nothing.] "Trick after trick deludes the train. He shakes his bag, and shews all fair, A purse she to a thief exposed; Gay's Fables, ed. 1727. NOTE 25. Page 119. This is the twenty-sixth chapter in Warton's Analysis. NOTE 26. Page 124. The demon-hunter in Boccacio is brought to mind by this story. There the lady's apprehensions grew so powerful upon her, that to prevent the like heavy doom from falling on her, she studied (and therein bestowed all the night season) how to change her hatred into kind love, which at length she fully obtained."-Decameron, 5th Day, Nov. 8. The catastrophe in the text I have added, as affording a better moral. The same story occurs in the 12th chapter of Alphonsus de Clericali Disciplina. It appears in an English garb amongst a collection of Esop's Fables, published in 1658. Mr. Ellis, or rather Mr. Douce in his Analysis of Alphonsus (see Ancient Metrical Romances) has not noticed this translation. NOTE 27. Page 128. "Licence was given, upon that day of triumph, to utter the most galling reproaches, and the most cutting sarcasms." Privileges of this kind were permitted to the Roman slaves, on the celebration of their Saturnalia. In the seventh satire of the second book, Horace gives us an example. "Age, libertate Decembri, (Quando ita majores voluerunt) utere: narra.' Davus spares not his master; and in all probability, many a long treasured grudge would, on these occasions, be vented in the bitterest sarcasms. NOTE 28. Page 131. “Illud æquè Seneca's observations are singular : inter annotanda ponas licet, quòd et hominum, et cæterorum animalium quæ icta sunt, caput spectat ad exitum fulminis: quòd omnium percussarum arborum contra fulmina hastulæ surgunt. Quid, quòd malorum serpentium, et aliorum animalium, quibus mortifera vis inest, cum fulmine icta sunt, venenum omne consumitur? Unde, inquit, scis? In venenatis corporibus vermis non nascitur. Fulmine ictâ, intra paucos dies verminant."- Nat. Quæst. lib. ii. 31. NOTE 29. Page 133. This curious anecdote is recorded by Cicero, in his second book, "De Oratore," from whom, probably, Valerius Maximus copied it, if it be in his work. I cannot find it. "Salsa sunt etiam, quæ habent suspicionem ridiculi absconditam; quo in genere est illud Siculi, cum familiaris quidam quereretur, quod diceret, uxorem suam suspendisse se de ficu. Amabo te, inquit, da mihi ex istá arbore, quos seram, surculos.”Lib. ii. 278. NOTE 30. Page 134. "This, I think, is from the SECRETA SECRETORUM. Aristotle, for two reasons, was a popular character in the dark ages. He was the father of their philosophy; and had been the preceptor of Alexander the Great, one of the principal heroes of romance. Nor was Aristotle himself without his romantic history; in which he falls in love with a queen of Greece, who quickly confutes his subtlest syllogisms."-WARTON. NOTE 31. Page 142. This fable of the partridge is popular; but it seems more applicable to the lapwing. NOTE 32. Page 142. Here is a remarkable coincidence or plagiarism. Pope has given a complete and literal version of the passage in this moral, "Ecce quomodo mundus suis servitoribus reddit mercedem." "See how the world its veterans rewards!" Moral Essays. On the Character NOTE 33. Page 142. "Solinus." Solinus wrote "De Mirabilibus Mundi." He was a Latin grammarian; but the period in which he flourished is doubtful. Moreri says, his work was entitled PoLYHISTOR, " qui est un recueil des choses les plus mémorables qu'on voit en divers païs." NOTE 34. Page 143. This story does not appear in Pliny.. NOTE 35. Page 144. "Serpent called Perna." There is no such monster in Pliny. He uses the word for a scion or graft, book 17. c. x. and it also signifies a kind of shell-fish, according to Basil. FABER. NOTE 36. Page 144. "Achates." Achates is the Latin name for agate. "Found it was first in Sicilie, near unto a river called likewise Achates; but afterwards in many other places." |