be troubled with him. But Addison quotes a Talmudic tradition, copied into a book familiar to a large number of our readers, which bears a closer likeness to the beginning of the tale in the Gesta. Lastly, the 127th chapter, too diffuse for translation, conveys a similar moral, and bears at the same time a more striking resemblance to the story in Addison.

THE LOST PURSE.

A baron, losing his purse in a wood, cuts off the foot of his innocent servant, on the latter's denial that he has found it. A hermit, hearing the sufferer's cries, carries him to his own cell, and withdrawing to an oratory upbraids God with His seeming injustice. Whereupon an angel appears, informing him that the servant was rightly punished, because with the same foot he had once kicked his mother out of a chariot. The baron lost his purse, because with it he intended to buy a charger, which he would have employed in acquiring plunder to his soul's hurt. The purse has been found by a poor and pious man with a large family; he has placed it without reserve in the hands of his confessor, who, unable to discover to whom it belonged, had given back part to the finder, and distributed the rest to other needy persons. The angel leaves the hermit with this caution, "to set a watch upon his lips, nor in aught be hasty against the Lord."

We shall conclude these specimens of religious stories with an abstract of the 143rd chapter, imitated from the legend of Damocles.

THE PANIC-STRICKEN KING.

A certain king appoints trumpets to sound at early morn before the house of every one whom he destines to immediate death; the doomed man, on hearing them, is to clothe himself in mourning, and accompany the trumpeters to the place of judgment. This king, being present at a splendid feast enlivened with delicious music, amazes the guests by his melancholy mien and heart-broken sighs. His brother, asking the is referred for answer to the following day.

reason,

At morn he is awaked by the trumpeters at his door, and, being led before the king, is placed on a rickety chair over a deep pit; above him is a sword hanging by a silken thread; while behind, in front, to left, and to right, stand men with drawn blades, commanded to plunge them into him at a given signal. An exquisite banquet is placed before him, strains of celestial harmony are wafted to his ears, and the king demands why he does not enjoy these luxuries.

He replies that the trump of doom has been sounded for him; that, should he move, his chair will give way and cast him into the abyss; that, if he raise his head, the sword will pierce his brain; and that four

demesters stand ready to end his life at a word. Were he monarch of the world, he could not be joyful in such a position.

The king then shews that his own situation is similar, but still more dreadful. He abides in a fragile body of four corruptible elements comparable with the four legs of the chair; beneath, the infernal pit threatens him—above, the impending Judgment; death, his sins, the devil, and the grave-worms are the four swords pointed at him. “If, therefore," is the moral he deduces, "thou hast this day dreaded me who am but a mortal, far more ought I to dread my Creator. Go, then, and ask me no more such questions."

Then, while the people are applauding the wisdom of his answer, he dismisses his brother in peace, and promising henceforth to lead a more serious life.

We are indebted to Warton's "History of English Poetry" for our knowledge respecting parallel instances of this story. It is first found in the celebrated "Barlaam and Josaphat," a romance ascribed to Saint John of Damascus, narrating the conversion of Josaphat, an Indian king, by Saint Barlaam. Thence it appears in the Speculum Historiale, by Vincent of Beauvais-another famous work of the dark ages. It is also in the Golden Legend, from Caxton's translation of which Warton gives the following portion :

"And the Kynge hadde suche a custome, that whan one sholde be delyvered to deth the Kynge sholde sende hys cryar wyth hys trompe that was ordeyned thereto. And on the even he sente the cryar wyth the trompe tofore hys brotheres gate, and made to soune the trompe. And whan the Kynges brother herde this, he was in despayr of savynge of his lyf, and coude not slepe of alle the nyght, and made his testament. And on the morne erly, he cladde hym in blacke: and came with wepynge with hys wyf and chyldren to the Kynges paleys. And the kynge made hym to come tofore hym, and sayd to hym, A (i.e. ah) fooll that thou art, that thou hast herde the messager of thy brother, to whom thou knowest well thou hast not trespaced, and doubtest so mooche, howe oughte not I then ne doubte the messageres of our lorde, agaynste whom I have soo ofte synned, which signefyed unto me more clerely the deth then the trompe ?"

In the above instances, and in Gower, who also has it, the incident of the trump and the moral are the same, but the remainder of the story entirely different. The tale in the Gesta is in fact an attempt to combine this old legend with that of Damocles. Warton asserts that the plot followed by other writers is "of an inferior cast, both in point of moral and imagination." With this judgment we totally disagree: having gone through the whole in Gower, we can recommend it to all who may be fond of reading a good old tale, easy and pleasant, and profitable withal. It will be found in Book I. of the Confessio Amantis,

on p. 110 of Bell and Daldy's fine edition: the last few lines we

subjoin:

"Forthy [for this, therefore], my brother, after this

I rede, that sithen [since] it so is,
That thou canst drede a man so sore,
Drede god with all thin herte more.
For all shall deie and all shall passe
As well a leon as an asse,

As well a begger as a lorde,
Towardes dethe in one accorde

They shullen stonde, and in this wise

The kinge with his wordes wise

His brother taught and all foryive [forgave all his offense]."

Hitherto nothing has been said respecting the composition of this work. The Latin is of a barbarous character, and the narrative style closely akin to that in which a fairy tale is told to children, the sentences being very short, simple, and devoid of connecting particleswhile tautology appears to be sought rather than shunned. Where we have translated (not abstracted) stories, it has been our aim to reproduce the style and phrases with all possible exactness: but even then we have sometimes shrunk from writing the same word four times in a single line.

In order to convey a full and accurate idea of these wonderful Gesta, it has been necessary to embody in an opening paper serious stories and minute details, which we fear will have proved wearisome to the less curious and patient of our readers. On returning next month to our story-book, we hope to compensate them by a first instalment of those humorous and fantastic tales which gave birth to our own word "jest.”

UMBRA.

(To be continued.)

Flores-amores.

"YES, thy wave was calm and golden, golden with the sinking day,

Scarce a zephyr shook thy willows, shook thy poplars tall and gray.
She had plucked a spray of woodbine, roses red that near it grew,
Added from thy bank, O streamlet, many a tiny flower of blue.
Flowers and hand in mine I clasped them; looking in her face I said,
'Emblems these of love and fairness, rose and woodbine, white and red;
Tokens of remembrance constant these the tiny blossoms blue,
Leave them here with rose and woodbine, if you love me well and true.
If to you I seem too tainted, you that are without a blot,

If I am too poor and humble, keep them—if you love me not.'
And her eyes turned slowly upward, as I strove to read her mind,
Slowly dropped her hand unlinken, but the flowers remained behind.

"Now thy stream is dull and troubled, gilded by no sun thy vale,
Bend thy willows, bow thy poplars, 'neath the storm-gusts of the gale.
On thy banks again I wander, but she walks not at my side;
Once again I clasp the blossoms-'tis to fling them to thy tide.
Fools may think the heat of summer ne'er to winter's chill gives room,
Fools may think the summer sunshine cannot pass to winter gloom,
Fools may think the pleasant daytime will not change to shadowy night;
Madder I to trust her whispers, deem not woman's promise light.
But a few short months I left her, and again she plays her part,
And another bows before her, lord of what he thinks a heart.

"Lo the blossoms that she gave me; like the love she took they died,
Gathered for a moment's plaything, then to wither cast aside.
Take them, streamlet, as she gave them, with the cord she drew around:
Let them perish, thread and blossom, in thy whirling eddies drowned.
Yet beyond the beechen hillside on thy bosom let them lie;
Wandering with a happier suitor she may see them floating by:
So perchance some thought of sorrow may redeem the thing she is,
So when I am gone for ever may a truer love be his.
Then, O streamlet, roll them onward, roll them onward to the sea;
Let no eastern blast return them, poison-blossoms unto me."

Then he raised his hand to cast them, mingling with the mournful wind
Heard a sob, and turning saw her, her his ancient love, behind.
In her fair blue eyes the teardrops glistened as she raised her head,
In her hand the olden emblems, rose and woodbine, white and red-
Emblems they of maiden's fairness, emblems of affection true—
Tokens of remembrance constant, with them lay the flowers of blue.

"You had passed," she said, "the hill-side, passed the house without a look;

I with these the ancient pledges came to meet you at the brook.
Look upon my face, then tell me, looking on the skies above,
If you think a proofless whisper truer than a woman's love.
If you think me false, then fling them in the tide, a paltry sham:
They may bring, you said, some sorrow to redeem the thing I am.
If you think me true-"

That autumn, ere the summer flowers had died,

Stood beneath yon steeple peering from the beech hill's russet side
One that, blent with bloom of orange, wore enwreathed around her head
Blue forget-me-nots, and with them rose and woodbine, white and red.