NOTE 28. Page 131.

Seneca's observations are singular: "Illud æquè 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 ictá, 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."

"People are persuaded that it availeth much against the sting of venomous spiders and scorpions: which propertie I could very well believe to be in the Sicilian agaths, for that so soone as scorpions come within the aire, and breath of the said province of Sicilie, as venomous as they bee otherwise, they die thereupon." "In Persia, they are persuaded, that a perfume of agathes turneth away tempests and all extraordinarie impressions of the aire, as also staieth the violent streame and rage of rivers. But to know which be proper for this purpose, they use to cast them into a cauldron of seething water: for if they coole the same, it is an argument that they bee right."-Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 10.

NOTE 37. Page 146.

"The emperor Julius."

"We must not forget that there was the romance of JULIUS CÆSAR. And I believe Antony and Cleopatra were more known characters in the dark ages, than is commonly supposed. Shakspeare is thought to have formed his play on this story from North's translation of Amyot's unauthentic French Plutarch, published at London in 1579."

From such sources, in all probability, the monks

derived the little they knew of the GESTA ROMAN

ORUM.

NOTE 38. Page 148.

Macrobius, I believe, furnishes no relation resembling the present: nor is it likely, perhaps.

NOTE 39. Page 150.

"Cosdras."

By Cosdras, is meant CODRUS, the last king of Athens. See Justin ii. ch. 6 and 7.

NOTE 40. Page 152.

There is no foundation in Valerius Maximus for

this story.

NOTE 41. Page 154.

"Marcus Aurelius."

MARCUS CURTIUS was the name of the youth who devoted himself, according to Roman History. The condition upon which the sacrifice was to be performed, is purely monastic.