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 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE ^ENEID AS HE SEEMED 
 IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 A Seriks ok Si^udies 
 
 ■"X 
 
 BY 
 
 J. S. TUN ISON 
 
 Magicas invitam accingier aiiis 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 KOBERT CLARKE & CO 
 
 1890 
 
 9 97 (] 4
 
 
 
 • r 
 ret 
 
 ••• ••« til 
 
 
 COPYRIGHTED BY 
 
 ROBERT CLARKE A CO. 
 tSS9.
 
 6 '1 o "I 
 
 Teiitor, cfira, deos d le, germana, tu.vj)i<pjt>, 
 Dulee caput, magican invilam accmgicr ariis.
 
 «■ * f r 
 c c c 
 
 . ' ' 
 
 t f t *" r I 
 
 COPYRIGHTED BV 
 
 ROBERT CLARKE &. CO. 
 
 1889.
 
 
 <7- t? 
 
 l^esior, cara, deon et (e, germana, ttivnupie. 
 Dul.ce caput, magicaa invitam acoingierartis.
 
 The arrangement of the citations in this book was a matter of some 
 study for the author. As first written out, the notes were so frequent that 
 almost every sentence in the text was ornamented with marks indicating 
 quotations or references at the bottom of the page. Nothing could be more 
 burdensome than this mass of indigestible fragments succeeding each other 
 in an order dependent on the text, but not easily held in the memory. As 
 the only originality possible to a \oork of this kind pertained to method, 
 arrangement, and form of expression, it was finally decided to group the 
 references with the sections of the table of contents, disregarding some punc- 
 tilios of authorship, but relieving the eye from a fatiguing task, and still 
 leaving it in the power of the zealous reader to trace all the sources from, 
 which the author drew his information. If some man of approved learning 
 had taken up this task ; if Thomas Wright, for example, had carried out 
 his own suggestions made in the preface to his Alexander Neckam, he would 
 have saved me trouble and gained my applause. The references are in mcfst 
 eases to books of value, in some to the mere curiosities of literature, and iti 
 others to volumes which have only the value, fixed but trivial, of specimens 
 in a museum. Whether or not proper discrimijiation has been made in the 
 text between books of authority and books of no authority, the reader can 
 easily determ.ine. 
 
 So much for the first edition of this book. Those who know the diffi- 
 culties that obstructed the task of getting Master Virgil into print, will 
 sympathize with the author in his gratficaiion at having comparatively so 
 few defects laid to his charge. In this, the second edition, an effort has 
 been m,ade to correct the errors of the first, most of which involved only the 
 change of a letter. The inost important alteration will be found on pages 
 fifty-six and fifty-seven. This has been supplemented by an additional sec- 
 tion in the closing essay. Though the caption of that essay has not been 
 changed, yet on second thought, after examining some of the critical notices 
 of the book, I am obliged to confess it is misleading. Perhaps the purpofic 
 would be clearer if the heading were Later Eccentricities, or something of 
 that sort. Except where it was impossible, all the serious public criticism 
 of the book has been met by suitable revision. An index of names and 
 
 subjects has also been added. 
 
 J. S. T,
 
 I
 
 SYLLABUS. 
 
 I. An Apology: How these essays came to be written; the lines 
 of study that were followed; the proposed synthesis of the 
 legends respecting Virgil ; the application of these tales to the 
 name of Virgil due to a literary rather than a popular inspira- 
 tion ; the taste of the middle ages for narratives concerning 
 magicians ; acquaintance of the people in the middle ages with 
 the writings of classic times; political movements that were 
 favorable to the creation of a magical renown for Virgil; the 
 growth of superstition as shown in the literature of the period 
 between the beginning of the twelfth and the close of the 
 sixteenth century ; the problem that is sought to be solved in 
 this book. pp. 1-9. 
 
 II. Virgil and the Devil : Diabolism at first carefully excluded 
 from the miraculous stories about Virgil ; the wonders done by 
 Virgil, as accounted for by Alexander Neckam, by Gervase of 
 Tilbury, by Conrad of Querfurt, by the author of the Dolopathos, 
 by the French and German romancers ; Virgil's personality, 
 as .viewed by his contemporaries, tinged with a suggestion of 
 mystery ; stimulus to legend-making given by the notions en- 
 tertained respecting poetry ; the way thus made to a phase of 
 demonism ; no necessity for the introduction of Arabian fancies 
 to account for the devil as presented in the Virgilian tales; 
 modification in the classical theory of magic, which at last
 
 n SYLLABUS 
 
 rendered demons indispensable in all tales of necromancy ; the 
 opinions of Pliny, of Apuleius and of mediajval writers, in- 
 terpreted by the mediaeval Germans particularly, to mean 
 demonism ; the character of the devil, as connected with Virgil, 
 a manifest creation of the German fancy ; Virgil in this aspect 
 a predecessor of Faust ; examples of the tales in which Virgil 
 figured with the devil; traces shown of an extremely early 
 communication with the Far East, probably by way of Venice ; 
 the development of the diabolism in the legends of Virgil, so 
 far as it is of any value, held to indicate that the craze on this 
 subject grew in terror and intensity, so that what was a compar- 
 atively harmless belief in the twelfth century became a cruel 
 and deadly fanaticism in the turbulent era of the Reformation ; 
 its outcome in the Faust legends, pp. 10-38. 
 
 Eeferences — Comparetti, Virgilio nel Medio Evo, Vol. II., pp. 29 and 
 176, 177, 92, 9.3, 94, 162, 206 ; Thomas Wright, Alexandri Neckam 
 de Naturis Rerum, preface and pp. 309, 310 ; Thomas Wright, Essays 
 on the Middle Ages, Vol. I., pp. 238, 239; William J. Thorns, 
 Early English Prose Romances, Vol. II., pp. 25-27 ; Heyne, Opera 
 Virgilii, third London Edition, Fi'ta Donait, i., ii., x.,xvil.,vii., 
 XII., XIII., v., Lemaire's Edition, Vol. VII., p. 280; Hazlitt, War- 
 tori's History of English Poeiry,Yol. III., p. 180 ; Lane, Arabian 
 Nights' Entertainments, Second Edition, Vol. III., pp. 8, 90, 98, 
 103, Vol. I., pp. 119, 274, 379, 192; J. S. Brewer, Er. Eogeri 
 Bacon Opera Quaedam hactenus inedita, Vol. I., p. 269 ; Cruttwell, 
 History of Roman Literature, pp. 278, 279 ; Benedetto Florentino, 
 Opere, Florence, 1680, part second, p. 26; Polydore Vergil, De 
 Prodigiis, Elzevir Edition, pp. 12, 13; John Beaumont, Gleanings 
 of Antiquities, London, 1724, p. 72; W. Kobson, Michaitd's History 
 of the Crusades, Vol. II., p. 47 ; William Browne, the History of 
 Polexander done into English, London, 1647, p. 308. 
 
 III. ViRGiii IN Literary Tradition : Veneration felt for Virgil 
 among the Romans; the use of his works as^ models of Latin 
 style by the grammarians and rhetoricians ; debased views of 
 Virgil in post-classic times, showing a legendary tendency; 
 superstitious use of Virgil's writing in divination ; the legendary 
 movement of the Virgilian tradition in the fourth and fifth
 
 SYLLABUS m 
 
 centuries, compared to modern tendencies involving the names 
 of Shakespeare and Goethe; views of mediiwval Latin poets 
 concerning Virgil; expression of political and theological opin- 
 ion respecting the works of Virgil ; the idea of Virgil portrayed 
 in the romance literature; the legendary tendency shown in 
 the succession of purely literary anecdote, pp. 39-63. 
 References— Comparetti, Vol. I., pp. 10, 40. 42, 62, 63, 64, 165, 166; 
 Vol. II., pp. 3, 8, 9; Heyne's Virgilius, Vita Damti, xiv. 52, 
 xviii., XIX., xr. 40, 42, xvir. 68, 70, xxi. 90 ; Polydore Vergil, 
 Be Prodiffiis, Lib. II., p. 99; Tiraqueau, De Jure Primigenio- 
 rum, Frankfort, 1574, p. 386; Lampridius, Vita Alezandri Severi 
 XXX.- William Kyle, An Exposition of the Symbolic terms of the 
 Second Part of Famt, &c, Nuremberg, 1870; Bede, Uisloria 
 Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina Medice 
 et Infimm ^tafts, Vol. V., p. 301, verses 36-44; Vol. VL, p. 605, 
 verses 17-22; Vol. L, p. 356; Leyser, Ilisforia Poetaimm Medii 
 JEvi, pp. 1028, 827; Hazlitt's Warton, VoL III., p. 199; Zap- 
 pert, Virgils Leben und Fortleben im Mittelalter, III., rv., v., VI.; 
 Dixon, Mano, a Poetical History, Book II., Canto vi., Book I., 
 Canto rv.; Brunet and de Montaiglon, Li Romans de Dolopathos, 
 preface and verses 1257-1268, 1-22, 1419-1425, 1950-1959, 1310- 
 1328, 1826-1828 ; Wright's Alexander Neckam, p. 190. 
 
 IV. Virgil's Book of Magic: Inception of the allegorical method 
 of interpreting Virgil's poems; some of them open to such 
 an interpretation ; the tradition on this point handed down 
 by Asconius Pedianus ; vagaries of grammarians and rhetori- 
 cians concerning the infinite extent of Virgil's learning; the 
 natural result an endeavor to find hidden meaning in all the 
 works of the poet-; the explanation of Macrobius; the alle- 
 gory of the ^neid as expounded by Fulgentius ; this species 
 of allegory agreeable to the common taste of all ages ; recur- 
 rence of the allegorizing tendency at the time when inagical 
 legends were first attached in literature to the name of 
 Virgil ; the apotheosis of Virgil and his book as viewed by the 
 more illiterate of the romance writers ; natural that the notion 
 of a book of magic should occur to them ; the various tales 
 in which this book of magic figured ; its diabolical character
 
 IV SYLLABUS 
 
 gradually emphasized : the legend taken advantage of at last 
 by a quack whose book was attributed to Virgil ; a vague 
 reminiscence betrayed in this book of the Virgilian allegory. 
 pp. 64-83. 
 
 References— Comparetti, Vol. I., pp. 45-46, 78-79, 80-81, 98, 84, 142- 
 143, 156-158; Vol. II., pp. 95, 124, 126, 238; Vita Donati, xi., 
 XXI. ; Zappert, ii. A ; John of Salisbury, Pnlycraticus vi. 22, ii. 
 15, 23; Dolopathos, verses 1396-1402, 2040, 2058, 1547-1552, 2225- 
 2234, 4084-4101, 4207-4273, 11382-11394; Mencke, De Charla- 
 taneria, pp. 26-28. 
 
 V. Virgil THE Man OF Science : Antique notions of the relation 
 between poetry and medicine ; skill m medicine attributed to 
 Virgil ; the historical basis of the legend concerning Virgil's 
 garden of curative herbs ; Virgil's legendary connection with 
 the baths of Baiiv ; guise in which Virgil appears to the 
 mediaeval imagination ; supersititions of classic times which 
 contain the germs of the Virgilian legends ; notable similarity 
 of tales concerning magicians ; the accounts of Virgil's 
 achievements given by various authors; an interpolation in the 
 biography attributed to Donatus. pp. 84-112. 
 
 References — Comparetti, Vol. II., pp. 51, 55, 171, 175, 169, 170, 73, 
 36, Martianus Capella, editio Bertochi, Liber ix., registrum 
 QUI.; Polydore Vergil, De Prodigm, p. 18; Ada Sanctorum, 
 Jun.V., p. 135; Febru. III.,pp. 224-225; Tiraqueau De iVo6i7i/a<e, 
 pp. 148-149, Vincent of Beauveis; Speculum HiMoriak, Lib. iv., 
 cap. 61 ; Leibnitz, Scriptores lierum Brunsvlcensium. Vol. II., pp. 
 695-698, 881 ; Andre van Hasselt, Li Roumans de Ckomades, Vol. 
 I., pp. 52-58 ; Vincent of Beauveis, Speculum Naturale, ref . in text ; 
 T — ManiUius de Astrologia, translated, Book V., vxxiii., Book 
 I.; Ampelius, Liber Mcmoriuli.'i ; Brewer, Giraldi Cambrensi Opera, 
 Vol. II., p. 290; Robson's Michaud, A\.l. TL, p. 438; Zimmer- 
 man, De Miraculk, qiue Pythacjorce, Apollonio, Francisco Assissio, 
 et Ignutio Loyola, tribuuntur, Edinburgh, 1762, cap. iii. ; H. M. 
 Baird, Rise of (he Huguenots, Vol. I., p. 236; John of Salisbury, 
 Polycratieus, i., 4 ; Wright, Walter Mapes, Apocalypsis Golicc, verse 
 46 ; Hazlitt's Warton, Vol. I., p. 269 ; Sir Edgerton Brydges, 
 Polyanthea, Part I., pp. xlii.-xlix.; Wright, Selections of Latin
 
 SYLLABUS Y 
 
 Storie.-i, p. llo; Douce, lUiUiiraliotis of Shakespeare, pp. 17-!-17S; The 
 English Gesta Homanoruni, Chap, xlviii. 
 
 VI. Virgil the Saviour of Eome: The Pagan and early Christian 
 conception of idols as nothing less than the habitation of living 
 beings of an order superior to man ; the utility of this notion 
 in accounting for the political sagacity and power of the 
 Komans ; suggestions of the possible course by which the tale 
 of the Salcafio Fiomm might have been transmitted from early 
 times to the authors who first put it in writing; probable rela- 
 tions of the British and Saxons ; how Virgil came to be the 
 hero in this tale ; successive forms of the narrative ; applica- 
 tion of the legend to places in Rome. pp. 113-133. 
 
 References— Comparetti, Vol. II., pp. 68, 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 131 ; 
 Bolopathoii, verses 12597-12013, 12633-12041 ; Brewer, Boijeri Bacon 
 Opera, Vol. I., p. 53 i ; Fird Go><pel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ, 
 Chap. IV., 6-11; Hazlitt's Warton, Vol. I., p. 328; Leyser, 
 Historia Poetarum, pp. 2081-2085; Thorns, Early English Prose 
 Romanreii, Vol. II., pp. 37-40; Boman Stories, or the History of the 
 Seven TI7.se 3fasters of Baiiie, containing seven days' entertain- 
 ment in many pleasant narratives, wherein the treachery of evil 
 counsellors is discovered, innocency cleared, and the wisdom 
 of the Seven Wise Masters displayed. Fifth edition, London, 
 No. 81, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street. [No date.] 
 
 VII. Virgil, the Lover : Humorous aspect of tae magician's char- 
 acter; mediaeval contempt for woman; her reputation for 
 cunning and duplicity ; Virgil and the basket ; varied forms of 
 this legend colored with diabolism ; other tales in which Virgil 
 figured with women ; the Virgil of Spanish romance, pp. 134- 
 155. 
 
 Eeferences— Comparetti, Vol. II., pp. 106-113, 120-123-134, 157-159, 
 146-150; Gale, Opuscula Mytholoyica, \\. 030; Olympiodorus JMon- 
 achus, Bibl. Max. Vol. XVIIL, Fol. 500 B; Lane, Arabian 
 Nights' Entertainments, Vol. II., pp. 308-311 ; Thoms, Early English 
 Prose Bomanccs, Vol. I., p. 104, Vol. II., pp. 44-49; Coussemaker, 
 Adam de la Halle, p. 176; Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, 
 Vol. I., p. 114, &c.
 
 VI SYLLABUS 
 
 VIII. Virgil, THE Prophet : The study of heathen oracles by early 
 Christians ; attention drawn from the Sibylline books to Virgil's 
 fourth eclogue; Horace's sixteenth Epode and his satirical 
 humor at the expense of the high-wrought hopes of the Romans; 
 the persistence of the idea of a future golden age in the liter- 
 ature of the Eomans ; the Christian view of Virgil's eclogue, 
 connecting it with the supposed utterances of the sibyl; the 
 Greek paraphrase of the eclogue preserved by Eusebius; 
 historical view of the opinions of learned men as to the meaning 
 of the eclogue; effect of the practice of centonizing Virgil in 
 the interest of Christian dogma ; Virgil in popular religious 
 discourses ; his character and that of the sibyl taken up in the 
 mystery plays ; the prophetic repute of Virgil connected by 
 the romances with his fame as a magician; the poet converted 
 into a defender of the faith ; opposed to Nero ; his position as 
 a preacher and a prophet not looked upon as inconsistent with 
 diabolism, pp. 156-190. 
 
 References— Comparetti, Vol. I., p. 131, Vol. II., pp. 82-86, 183-185, 
 87-88, 89-91, 196-205, 144; Zappert, Virgil's Fortleben, &c., i., 
 II.; Verdier, Pantheon Antiquorum, p. 14, plate I..; Claudianus, 
 Inprimum Ccmsulatum Stiliclionbi, Lib. II., vers. 424-470 ; Boethius, 
 De Cansolatione, Lib. II., metrum v.; Fox, King Alfred's Boethius, 
 pp. 49,279; Heyne, Vol. I., pp. 179-182; Clasen, Oraculis Gen- 
 iilium, pp. 143, 744; McCosh, Baccalaureate Sermon, 1884, 
 as reported in The Nem York Tribune; Aschha.ch, Die Aniderund 
 die Bomische Diehterin Proba; Fahricius,BibliothecaLaiina Media, 
 &c.; Vol. v., pp. 302, 303; Hazlitt's Warton, Vol. IL, p. 
 217; Dolopathos, verses 12510-12529, 12286-12298; Howell, 
 Imtit. HkL, p. 289; Yelverton, A Disquisition Touching the 
 Sibylh, London 1625, p. 185; Bayle's Dictionary, Article on 
 Virgil. 
 
 IX. Virgil, in Later Literature ; Brief popularity of the tales 
 in Italy ; the narrations of the early English poets ; the concep- 
 tion of Virgil entertained at the renaissance and subsequent 
 to that time ; Warburton's interpretation of the Sixth .^ineid ; 
 contemporary views taken of his works ; Addison's theory
 
 SYLLABUS vn 
 
 respecting Virgil's grotto ; Eeckford's rhapsody ; the legends 
 falling into oblivion, pp. 191-230. 
 Bej'erexces— Comparetti, Vol. IL, pp. 128-1.30, 135-139, 143, 150, 160, 
 163-lGo, 234; Chaucer, The 'Squires Ta'e; Gower, Om/essio 
 Amantis, Lib. v.. No. 3, Lib. viii., No. 3; Ilazlitt's Warton, Vol. 
 II , p. 31, Vol. I., p. 254; Lydgate, Bochas, Book ix., chap, i., st. 
 4; Ilawes, The Pastime of Pieasure, Percy Society, London, 1845, 
 pp. 137-142; Wright, Poems Attributed to Walter Mapes, p. 272, 
 283; Wright, Tlie Seven Sages, p. 64; Marlowe, Famlus, Act i., 
 scene ii. : G; Thorns, Ear!;/ English Prose Romances, Vol. XL, p. 
 223; Wright, Narraiives of Sorcery and Magic, p. 103; J. C. 
 Scaliger, Poet. Lib. V., cap. vi.; Leyser, HisL Poet., p. 48 ; Eney- 
 cbpcedia, Britamiica, Article Cento; Lizelius, Historia, Poetarum. 
 Grcecorum Germaniae, pp. 320-328; Charlaianeria, p. 134; Naude, 
 Apologie pour Tous les Grand Personnages qui oat este faussement 
 noupronnes ds Magie, Cap XXI.; Mambrun, Constantinus, preface; 
 Warburton, Worlcs, Vol. II., pp. 78-168; John Beaumont, (7/eari- 
 ings of Antiquities, Ijondion; 1724, pp. 77-88; Ilayley, Poetns, First 
 Edition, p. 14, 126-134; Addison, Works, Vol. IL, p. 75; Beck- 
 ford, Itxdy, Letter xxii.
 
 FIRST— A J^ APOLOGY 
 I 
 
 Some reason exists for presuming that an apology is neces- 
 sary from one who seeks to draw out of their mediaeval 
 obscurity the magical legends concerning the poet Virgil. It 
 will, therefore, not be out of place to say that the studies 
 which led to the series of essays printed in this book were 
 undertaken solely for the information of the writer. He 
 supposed, at the outset, that he was one of the few among 
 men of letters who lacked knowledge on this head ; and that 
 he could obtain at second hand from authors in English, 
 or from easily accessible works of the middle ages, all that 
 he sought— a complete and succinct analysis of the legends in 
 their relation to Virgil as a poet and as a man. This 
 supposition was the offspring of ignorance which was, perhaps, 
 inexcusable. It had been the design of the writer to limit 
 his mediseval studies to a well-defined field which had been 
 outlined, and, as he had good reason to know after much 
 labor, was not frequently traversed by scholars of the present 
 day. Many details in this narrow field had been mastered. 
 It was not a welcome fact to learn that the legends of Virgil, 
 and potentially the relation of Virgil's poetry to the literary 
 and social life of the middle ages, were among the details yet
 
 2 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 to be Avorked out. For it did not require many days to 
 discover that writers in English were not among the number 
 of those who had discussed this subject with any fullness or 
 clearness. There were allusions, more or less valuable to the 
 subject, in a great many books by English and American 
 authors; there were important versions of some legends in 
 the early poetry, and, thanks to William J. Thoms's Early 
 English Prose Romances and Thomas Wright's Sorcery and 
 Magic, one could easily make the acquaintance of John 
 Doesborcke's Yirgilius. The remarks on the subject in Hazlitt's 
 Warton's Sistory of English Poetry were useful, and so were some 
 things in Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature. This was 
 the best that could be done in English. But it was not 
 difficult to get John of Salisbury's Polycraticus and Wright's 
 edition of Alexander Neckam. The portions of Gervase of 
 Tilbury and Conrad of Querfurt that related to the topic 
 were to be picked up piece-meal in various books, even though 
 one had neither the Scriptores rernm Bnnisvicensium, nor Pro- 
 fessor Liebrecht's work on Gervase, and the romance of 
 Dolopathos, as published by Brunet and Montaiglon, though 
 an exceedingly uncommon little book in the United States, 
 was to be lui<l from Paris. If one had nothing else, he could 
 with these documents form a satisfactory opinion upon the 
 origin and growth of the legends. 
 
 Of course, it was not long before the title of Professor 
 Domenico Comparetti's book, Virgilio nel Medio Evo was 
 stumbled upon. Having obtained that work, the writer 
 found that some of his previous labor might have been saved, 
 and taking it along with Zappert's Virgils Lehen und Fortleben 
 im Mittelalter, that he had obtained a complete index to 
 the literature of the subject. The German ti-anslation of
 
 .l.V APOLOGY ?, 
 
 u 
 
 Comparetti is of less value than the original because it lacks the 
 numerous versions of the tales concerning Virgil which form 
 nearly half the second volume of the Italian work: The 
 present writer had not the requisite facility in Italian to 
 make a successful translation of Comparetti, even though 
 desirous of doing it. But in reading the book, the conclusion 
 was forced upon him that Signor Comparetti had overdrawn 
 the indebtedness of the literature of the twelfth century to 
 Neapolitan folk-lore. Absorbed in this thesis respecting the 
 origin of the Virgilian legends, he had obscured the fact that 
 the first indication of a knowledge of these tales in any part 
 of Europe was given in the writings of a man (Neckam) who, 
 there is every reason to suppose, never was in Italy. He only 
 incidentally touched upon what seemed a vital point — namely, 
 that, whether by design or otherwise, the various phases of the 
 legends corresponded respectively to the diverse phases of 
 Virgil's personality and learning as reflected in classical and 
 post-classical criticism. While, therefore, his work is so 
 complete in point of subject matter that no man could hope, 
 even though he were at the sources of mediaeval learning, to 
 add citations of great value to it, there is an aspect of the 
 theme which he did not pause to examine. He thus left 
 room for a work in which the personality of Virgil, his 
 influence on the middle ages and the mediaeval conception 
 of his writings should be viewed in that close relationship in 
 which they really subsisted. 
 
 II 
 
 The writer of the essays which follow, while he disclaims 
 all pretensions to learning or to a scientific method in the 
 treatment of this subject, maintains, nevertheless, tliat he Las
 
 4 MASTER V IB GIL 
 
 the right which comes of care and patience to urge a somewhat 
 novel synthesis of the Virgilian superstitions upon the attention 
 of the reader. The essays have been rewritten more than 
 once — not in the hope of literary excellence, but with the 
 purpose of classifying every important element in the legends. 
 No hypothesis would serve to account for the existence of any 
 compact body of fiction, unless it were itself compact, uniform, 
 concentric, and it would not be satisfactory if it failed to 
 account for every legendary fragment in its proper place. The 
 theory that these legends originated in a growth of Neapolitan 
 folk-lore is notably defective as a means of explaining some 
 of the most important circumstances in which the legends 
 became known to the public of Europe. It is adverse to the 
 fact that Italian writers were the last in the republic of letters 
 to recognize the magical reputation attributed to Virgil. It 
 is equally adverse to the fact that the first writers who 
 related tales of Virgilian magic were Norman Latinists of 
 England and France. It can be made to cover only that 
 portion of the tales which confessedly relates to Naples. That 
 the anecdotes of magical or prophetic power which were applied 
 to Virgil were, apart from his name, matters of universal 
 belief throughout Europe, and Asia, too, and were told 
 without discrimination of any person who gained a repute for 
 learning, is a fact which no longer needs proof. Such tales 
 were as often told in Britain and in Scandinavia as they 
 were in Italy. They were as agreeable to the common taste 
 in Teheran as in Constantinople, and as familiar in classic 
 times as they are to-day. Granting this element of popularity, 
 it is unnecessary to presume that the populace were ever 
 anything but followers in the adaptation of magical fables 
 to the fame of Virgil. In other words, the facts point
 
 AN APOLOGY 5 
 
 to a literary rather than a popular genesis for the special fiction 
 in which the name of Virgil figures. That no vestiges of 
 the legends remain in the popular lore of Naples to-day is the 
 complement of the fact that they never had any vital 
 relation to the people of that city. Every circumstance is 
 such as to show that the evanescent and late celebrity which 
 they had in Southern Italy was evoked by travelers and by 
 foreign writings, read and to some extent imitated by Italian 
 authors. The materials were in no sense the peculiar property 
 of the Apulian peasantry. It was the craze among men of 
 letters and science in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to 
 attribute a magical efficacy to learning and a magical character 
 to genius. Magic was considered, as the development theory 
 is to-day, a working hypothesis to account for things otherwise 
 unaccountable. Men with more imagination than discreetness, 
 in the illustration of an opinion which was supposed to be 
 scientifically demonstrable, did not scruple to use fiction, nor 
 to invent it themselves, when they deemed it advisable to 
 do so. They might easily have explained that they were 
 merely applying an accepted generalization to a hypothetical 
 case. One author only is to be found who attributed to 
 Virgil proficiency in alchemy. It is manifest that this author 
 consulted his imagination for his facts. When Gervase 
 boasted that he experimented successfully with a book of the 
 ars notoria, he became a liar by his own confession. In truth, 
 it will be apparent to any one who studies the magical 
 narratives of mediaeval times that they owe their existence in a 
 greater number of cases to a disposition in writers and readers 
 favorable to a specific mode of romance writing. A certain 
 kind of incident was credible, when related of a sorcerer. 
 Th^ romances which included this species of incident were
 
 6 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 popular. Therefore, the romances were written, regardless of 
 facts, and even in defiance of facts that were generally known, 
 as in the case of Virgil. 
 
 It is presumed that the reader knows the middle ages not 
 to have been the times of ignorance described by the common 
 run of writers since the so-called revival of learning. If 
 he does not know this he will need to be told that considered 
 as literature, and not as a mere philological stalking horse, 
 the poems of Virgil were widely read and as well understood 
 in the twelfth century as they are to-day. These poems had a 
 bearing on the life of the people at that time which the people 
 now can not feel. Virgilian phrases and verses illustrated 
 that life so well as to make it possible for a wide-ranging 
 German scholar to gather out of the Teutonic epics of the 
 middle ages passages formed closely upon the Virgilian model 
 both in the manner and meaning, which describe the life of 
 the feudal warrior from the ambitious dream time of youth to 
 the echoes of the eulogy at the grave of the scarred and 
 grizzled hero. The name of a poet so well known was 
 convenient for the use of the romancers. Anecdotes about 
 Virgil would be heard with })leasure, and there would be no 
 need of the explanatory preamble which would be indispensable 
 in the case of names less famous. The conquest of Sicily by 
 the Normans had given an impetus to the curiosity of 
 Northern France and England concerning the antiquities 
 of that island and of the neighboring mainland. Undoubtedly 
 travelers, returning from the Mediterranean, had many tales 
 to tell in which important names were brought into novel 
 relation with places and incidents with which, in an accurate
 
 AN APOLOGY 7 
 
 narrative, they could have had nothing to do. It was this 
 influence that led to the composition of at least one elaborate 
 tale in which Virgil and the Emperor of Rome were made to 
 figure in the affairs of Sicily. To the Northern mind the 
 ancient lands of the Mediterranean were full of sorcery and 
 mystery. Sicily had been from the earliest times the abode 
 of magic, the home of the mysteries of Ceres and Proserpine. 
 The Norman Latinists fell in with the new tendency, correcting 
 it somewhat in the matter of geography, and were followed in 
 time by the French and German romancers. The Italian and 
 English vernacular writers of a still later age found the tales 
 of use, but repeated them fiir more sparingly than the Fi-ench 
 and Germans had done. By this process of gradual dissem- 
 ination it came about that every collection of tales or 
 anecdotes in which it was possible to put these legends was 
 ornamented- Avith one or more of them. New tales were 
 invented or appropriated. Objects were found at Rome and 
 Naples and named to suit the narrative. 
 
 Thus, when the fashion arose in the sixteenth century of 
 writing prose romances upon the lives of magicians, the 
 materials were as readily to be found in the ease of Virgil, 
 as in that of Faust or Friar Bacon. The difl'ereuce was that 
 the story of Faust had its roots in national character. It was 
 a natural growth, while the legends of Virgil were artificially 
 attached to a personality which, however it may have been 
 obscured and exaggerated or belittled, never lost its historic 
 place. The fame of Faust gradually overshadowed that of all 
 other magicians. While the latter have fallen one by one into 
 the hands of the antiquary, the former has taken on a new life 
 and a new character with each succeeding ago. His magic 
 wand reveals to the modern world how closely it is allied to
 
 8 MASTER VIBQIL 
 
 the mediaeval past. His features in the wonderful portrayal 
 of Goethe we find to be our own. He is the ideal embodiment 
 of that spirit which- would sacrifice every traditional belief, 
 even faith itself, in the desire to know all things. His 
 arrogance is our arrogance ; his ambition is our ambition ; his 
 weakness our weakness, and his fall the figure of that ruin 
 which may overtake our modern civilization. One of the 
 primary reasons for interest in the legends of Virgil is that 
 they lie historically at the basis of the Faust legends. In 
 the awkward groping of the Teutonic race in the thirteenth 
 century after an ideal, it is remarkable to observe how, having 
 seized upon the Virgilian superstition, it invested the tales at 
 once with that defiant demonism which is the central character- 
 istic of Faust. 
 
 In such an atmosphere and under such influences as have 
 been indicated, the fame of Virgil took on the legendary 
 color which it retained down to the middle of the sixteenth 
 century. Believing this color to be, in its first laying on, not a 
 matter of popular impression so much as of literary design, 
 the Avriter of these essays purposed to show in them the 
 relation between the phases of Virgil's character, as it appears 
 to his contemporaries and early critics, and the various legends. 
 If he has succeeded in classifying aU the important variations 
 of the legends under the respective heads into which the 
 account of Virgil's life may properly be divided, the inference 
 is just that the magical repute is the creation of a conscious 
 purpose, and not the offspring of the imaginative instinct in 
 which folk-lore originates. Chronologically the essays are 
 parallel rather than consecutive. The effort is made to trace 
 the diabolism, the wonder working, the allegorizing and the 
 prophetic power attributed to Virgil, from their beginnings
 
 AN APOLOGY 9 
 
 to their outcome in the fables prevalent at the close of the 
 mediaeval epoch. However imperfectly the principle which 
 inspired the effort has been illustrated, it is one which affords 
 a new view of the idea of Virgil cherished in the timea of 
 lomance.
 
 / 
 
 SECONB-VIRGIL AND THE DEVIL 
 
 I 
 
 Some ten or fifteen years before the close of the twelfth 
 century there appeared in the most notable treatise of the 
 time a paragraph which presented the Roman poet Virgil not 
 only in the guise of a mechanical inventor, but also in a 
 guise which to later ages seemed that of a magician. The 
 occasion which Alexander Neckam, the foster brother of 
 Richard I. of England, in his work upon the nature of things, 
 seized as affording a pretext for relating a series of improbable 
 anecdotes was an argument in behalf of schools and education. 
 In addition to other examples of men who had been useful to 
 the world, because of their studies, he cited that of Virgil. 
 It was learning which enabled Virgil to relieve the city of 
 Naples from a pest of leeches which infested the water, and 
 this he did by placing a golden leech in one of the wells. 
 The virtue of this image was shown many years afterward ; 
 for when it was taken out with the settlings of the well, an 
 infinite army of leeches again plagued the city. In order to 
 aid the dealers in fresh meat, who found it impossible to keep 
 their wares untainted any length of time, Virgil constructed 
 shambles, using the virtues of some unknown herbs by which 
 flesh could be kept clean and wholesome, even for a period of
 
 AND THE DEVIL H 
 
 five hundred years. Learning it was that enabled this 
 renowned poet to surround his garden with an immovable 
 atmosphere, and to construct a bridge of air, by the use of 
 which he was carried to any place he wished. At Rome, 
 likewise, he built a noble palace in Avhich every country 
 known was represented by a wooden image, holding in its 
 hand a bell. Whenever the people of any country ventured 
 to plot treason against the majesty of the Roman Empire, 
 the image of the traitorous nation began at once to ring its 
 bell. Then a knight of bronze, seated on a horse of bronze at 
 the summit of the palace, brandished his spear and pointed in 
 the direction of the region where rebellion had broken out. 
 The poet once, when asked how long this noble edifice 
 would be preserved liy the gods, replied: "It will stand 
 until a virsjin shall bear a son." Those who heard him 
 applauded iiis words, and replied : ' 'Then it will stand 
 forever." But at the nativity of the Saviour, it is said, the 
 building suddenly fell into a heap of ruins. In these few 
 lines Neckam put not only the outline of the achievements 
 attributed to the art of Virgil, but indicated his reputation as 
 a prophet who foresaw the coming of Christ. These were the 
 important features in the development of the legend from first 
 to last. A story respecting a bronze fly, told by John of 
 Salisbury in his Polycraticus shows that a portion of what 
 Neckam related might have been known early in the latter 
 half of the twelfth century. Neckam's manner of presenting 
 the subject indicates that he presumed on the previous 
 knowledge of his readers. The history of the literature 
 relating to the subject of Virgilian magic from this point is 
 not difficult to trace. Near the time of Neckam, Helinand, a 
 Flemish trouvere, turned monk, gathered up the magical tales
 
 12 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 which he had heard or invented concerning Virgil, and 
 included them, with many other tales of the like character, in 
 a pretended chronicle of the world. Some years later Gerv^ase 
 of Tilbury, a man who traveled much, but who was of narrow 
 and credulous mind, devoid of a regard for facts, and incapable 
 of accurately testing his own experiences, included some 
 variations of the Virgilian tales in a work which he wrote 
 to amuse the leisure of the Emperor Otto IV. What 
 Neckam had vaguely spoken of under the general phrase 
 of learning, Gervase described as mathematic art. Con- 
 rad of Querfurt, a German writer near the time of 
 Gervase, used the words magic arts to describe Virgil's sup- 
 posed power. 
 
 In the meanwhile a work, the indirect result of the conquest 
 of Sicily by the Normans, had appeared about the beginning 
 of the thirteenth century, which was apparently widely read. 
 The romance of Dolopathos, while it was in outline only a 
 variation of the tale of the King and his Seven Counselors, 
 was widely different from that oriental fiction in its details, and 
 particularly in the fact that Virgil as a sage, as an astronomer 
 and as a necromancer was made the central figure in the 
 narrative, which was one of great length and ot much 
 descriptive power. The outward semblance of Virgil, the 
 necromancer, was so graphically portrayed in this work that 
 subsequent romancers copied the picture without change. 
 When the German verse makers, imitating models which they 
 found in the French, took up the Virgilian legends, they 
 interpreted the doubtful phrases about astronomy, and learning, 
 and the seven arts to mean that Virgil had come by his excep- 
 tional skill as a mechanic, a sculptor and an architect through 
 collusion with demons.
 
 AND THE DEVIL 13 
 
 II 
 
 But in Neckam and in the Dolopathos, with all the fantastic 
 additions to his fame, Virgil still retained his reputation as a 
 poet. The phrase of Neckam, vates gloriosus, is enough of itself 
 to disprove the notion once popular in respect to these legends 
 — namely, that they originated in the superstitious veneration 
 felt for one of the numerous mediseval Virgils with whom the 
 author of the ^neid has been confounded. True, it is not 
 easy for a modern reader to conceive how such incredible tales 
 could have been associated with the name of Virgil. We do 
 not know many facts concerning him, but these furnish the 
 outline of the studious, contemplative life which he must have 
 led in the composition of his poems. The biography of a 
 recluse rarely furnishes more even to the most persistent 
 curiosity. To know that the poet was the son of a humble, 
 but well-to-do provincial ; that he was liberally educated ; that 
 he inherited a small farm near Mantua ; that he, along with 
 his countrymen in Transpadane Gaul, suffered severely from 
 the confiscations which followed the battle of Philippi; that 
 he was the cherished friend of Horace and Maecenas ; that he 
 was enriched by Octavian's kindness ; was even in his lifetime 
 accounted the greatest poet of the Roman world ; that he 
 lived in studious retirement at Rome, and especially at Naples ; 
 traveled late in life to Athens, died from a sunstroke at 
 Brundisium on his return to Italy, and was buried near 
 Naples; that he was tall in person and dark in appearance, 
 melancholy, yet kindly in his disposition, pure in morals and 
 modest even to rusticity in his demeanor — to know these things 
 is, perhaps, to know all that was important in the poet's 
 history. The witticism attributed to Octavian, that when
 
 14 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 seated between his two friends, Maro and Horace, he was 
 
 between sighs and tears, lets us into a knowledge of the 
 chronic asthmatic complaint to which Virgil was subject. The 
 poems of Horace evince the kindness and lovableness of his 
 friend. If there is a lack of important details in the biography, 
 it is due to a want of incident in Virgil's career, and to what 
 may be called a lack of variety and color in his outward 
 seeming. He is rarely represented to us by his early biographer 
 except in company with his books. His own poems he read, 
 we are informed, with exquisite modulation and emphasis. 
 Sometimes, in the enthusiasm of such a reading, he thpught 
 of felicitous phrases to complete verses which he had found 
 impossible to finish in his closet. Tradition points out two 
 lines as having been perfected in this manner. He had written 
 "Misenum 4^olidem," and in pronouncing these two words, 
 it suddenly occurred to him to add "Quo non prsestantior 
 alter;" and so with the other verse: 
 
 Aere ciere viros — Martemque accendere cantu. 
 The contrast between his character and that of Horace was 
 as lively as their friendship. Both were scholars ; but the one 
 was essentially a man of the world, the other a man of books. 
 Horace was a man whom everybody could approach, and whom 
 all were delighted to know. His wit charmed every circle. 
 He was gifted with that genial sympathy which unlocks every 
 heart. The passions of the high-born youth, the humors of the 
 street, the scurrility of the vaporing rustics on the road to 
 Brundisium were all alike interesting to him. But Virgil was 
 such an one as only his most intimate friends could approach. 
 To the people of the cities Avhich he frequented, his tall figure 
 and shambling gait were better known than he could have 
 ■wished; for even the respectful plaudits of the multitude
 
 AND THE DEVIL 15 
 
 confu.sed him, and the cry, "There goes Virgil," drove him 
 instantly to seek shelter in the nearest house until the inquisitive 
 
 crowd dispersed. His relations with Octavian would have been 
 sufficient to make his figure well known to the populace of 
 Rome. The story of the enthusiasm with which the audience 
 in a theater recognized his verses, rising to salute the author 
 in the manner usually reserved for Octavian alone, indicates, 
 also, that, while his appearance was familiar, he was treated 
 with reverential homage. No doubt the universal impression 
 of the ancient world respecting poetry had something to do 
 with the early superstitions respecting Virgil. lu his lifetime, 
 and for a long subsequent period, men great in literature were 
 separated from the people by the very same lines as the men 
 of high l)irth. Genius was no sooner recognized than it was 
 admitted to the imperial circle. This elevation to the highest 
 rank withoui previous advantages of birth or fortune, with no 
 preliminary course in arms or politics, served to heighten the 
 mystery of the literary art in the eyes of the ungifted 
 multitude. There must have been, the people Avell might 
 think, some foreshadowing of such strange events. If the 
 ruler, himself a divinity, chose such men for his nearest friends, 
 he must have been guided by some supernatural power. A 
 deity presided surely when these favorites of fortune were 
 brought into the world. So, if we would understand how 
 superstition could envelop Virgil's name in a cloud of mystery 
 we must contemplate him in his personality and in his works, 
 and we must form an estimate of the influence of these upon the 
 people of Virgil's time and of subsequent times. It is difficult 
 to imagine that an easy-going man of the Avorld like Horace 
 should become the subject of a myth. Nevertheless, such a myth 
 arose. How much greater the opportunity was in the case of
 
 16 MASTER VIBGIL 
 
 Virgil for weird fancies can easily be understood. Germs of 
 a legend were latent in the conception formed of him by his 
 contemporaries. They attributed to him, for example, an 
 extraordinary knowledge of Roman priestcraft. By the 
 natural mutation of words under the influence of a new 
 religion, this came to mean that he was versed in demonology. 
 The revolution in literature and science led to changes in the 
 signification of important descriptive words. What was 
 thought iu A'irgil's time to be the true and praiseworthy 
 science of divination was looked upon in the middle ages as 
 a part of magic not less diabolical than the other departments 
 of that black science. In the present age divioation is con- 
 sidered the mere pretense and trickery of mountebanks. 
 Suppose that Virgil had done for himself what was done by 
 others in his behalf — that is, had laid claim to an intimate 
 acquaintance with astrology ; such an assertion in modern 
 times would be sufficient to fix upon him the character of a 
 quack. In the middle ages, on the contrary, it would have 
 increased his reputation as a magician. These words are in 
 themselves the same, the thread of their history is continuous, 
 but it is not all of one color. 
 
 Thus a whole romance, an entire web of legend may be 
 woven — indeed, has been Avoven — out of the potentialities of a 
 single word. In view of this fact, that must be deemed a very 
 shallow hypothesis which looked upon the romance writing 
 and legend building of Europe as the result of contact with 
 the Arabians. While acknowledging the oriental element in 
 tales about Virgil, as well as in most other necromantic tales, 
 we may safely maintain that this element had been at work 
 through devious and now unknown channels from the earliest 
 times. The European was once an oriental, and the last things
 
 ANT) THE DEVIL 17 
 
 he is likely to forget are the superstitions of his ancient home. 
 There is, indeed, a striking similarity between the literary and 
 even the religious history of the Arabians and that of mediseyal 
 Europe. The tendency of both Europeans and Asiatics to 
 wars for the dissemination of their respective creeds was 
 shown at what may roughly be called the same epoch. On 
 both sides were displayed at the same time the fanaticism, 
 asceticism, blind devotion, credulity and alleged miraculous 
 powers, characteristic of a zeal not tempered with knowledge. 
 The classical age of Arabian literature was an age of paganism, 
 and the same was true of Europe. Causes similar to those 
 which barbarized the Latin, also corrupted the ancient purity 
 of the Arabic language. While mediaeval Europe was at 
 work finding new uses for the fragments ot ancient art and 
 learning that had descended to it, mediaeval Arabians were 
 employed largely with the same material, drawn ultimately 
 from the same sources. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, 
 if the results of the literary development of these long 
 separated and conflicting races should have been at many 
 points almost identical. When the imagination of the 
 Arabians was absorbed in the attractions of Greek, Indian and 
 Persian tales, transforming them into romances of which Cairo, 
 Bagdad or Damascus were the legendary centres, the fancy of 
 the European races was equally active, but it naturally 
 transferred the scene ot the tales which it recast to localitiee 
 with which it had at least a nominal familiarity. The 
 relation of these literatures, down to a comparatively recent 
 period, was, therefore, not that of dependence upon each 
 other, but that of a common origin. Nothing shows this 
 more clearly than the demonology of tales as told respectively 
 by the oriental and the European. The Arab converted the
 
 18 MASTER VIE OIL 
 
 ancient fiery gods of his desert home into afreets and jinn ; 
 the European demons, once the deities of the forest, took on 
 the forms and the malignant disposition of reptiles, inhabiting 
 fens and marshes and dank caverns, or lurking in the moist 
 depths of the soil and in the wells and fountains. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the case of Virgil, few or none of the legends are without 
 a counterpart, either a tale or a oelief, popular in classic 
 times. The general theory of magic which pervaded Europe 
 in the middle ages owed its existence to classical tradition, 
 modified by the vast accumulation of isolated facts in natural 
 science, and by the change in religious belief from polytheism 
 to monotheism. Pliny was as severe in his denunciation of 
 magic as any modern writer could be, but he included 
 divination, the most profitable branch of trade with the quack 
 astrologer and magician of the present day, in the circle of 
 legitimate sciences. Many things which he related as facts of 
 natural science were in truth only the figments of popular 
 imagination, not yet released from the bonds of that nature 
 worship whose ritual is magic. Apuleius talked of mathemati- 
 cians as if their principal use was in the calculation of 
 nativities. His defence, when accused of magic, is one of the 
 works which l)ring us near the superstitions of classic times. 
 Although the charges against him were trumped up by his 
 enemies, yet, to have had any plausibility at all, they 
 must have been in agreement with the general opinion of the 
 times as to what constituted magical practices. From 
 Apuleius's speech, it is to be inferred that in classical Europe 
 devotion to philosophy, and especially to natural science, was
 
 AJSD THE DEVIL 19 
 
 vulgarly deemed an indication of a taste for magic; that 
 poetry and music were a species of incantation ; that a mirror 
 in the hands of a philosopher was supposed to be an instrument 
 of supernatural potency ; that a mysterious disease like epilepsy 
 was thought to be the result of a magician's malice ; that the 
 inhabitants of certain countries were specially skillful in magic 
 arts; that lamps, altars and the sacrilegious imitation of 
 religious rites could be used to baleful purpose by the magician ; 
 that statues were sometimes endued with magical powers, and 
 that little images, in the nature of the mediiBval talismans, 
 were not infrequently used ; that an agate, upon being sub- 
 jected to the action of fire, became sensitive to the diseased 
 condition of the human body, and revealed unsoundness when 
 it was not otherwise apparent; and that the divinations of 
 astrologers and the miracles of magicians were rendered 
 successful by an order of beings intermediate between gods 
 and men. These particulars, and others of a similar character, 
 formed the magic-lore of the middle ages, and some of the 
 very beliefs which Apuleius discussed involve the main points 
 in the legends of A^irgil. 
 
 Apuleius was a vain man. He was not unwilling to have 
 the reputation of magic, if he could evade the penalty. 
 Therefore, his argument was so conducted as to lead his hearers 
 to an opinion of- magic — not as Avholly nugatory, which had 
 been the object of Pliny's historical sketch, but as distinguished 
 into two kinds, the one honorable and useful to men, the other 
 wicked and malevolent. This distinction has been urged over 
 and over again by theorists in times when a belief in magic 
 prevailed. It was argued that magic, in the hands of a good 
 man, was equivalent to turning the weapons of evil spirits 
 against themselves. But this hypothesis was far removed from
 
 20 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 the popuiiir convictions on the subject, and the words magic 
 and magician never have been used in a good sense without 
 manifest reluctance. While the conception of magical efficiency 
 was involved in the tales about Virgil, men were slow to write 
 down the disagreeable word. Alexander Neckam would 
 doubtless have resented the use of it as not applicable in any 
 sense to the "glorious poet." As has been said, Conrad of 
 Querfurt, a German clergyman and statesman, who wrote 
 shortly after Neckam, was not troubled by the same scruples. 
 He was naturally prejudiced against the Italians, and probably 
 was not affected by any reverence for the name of Virgil. He 
 described Virgil's peculiar learning by the term ars magica. 
 Both writers meant exactly the same thing. The common 
 opinion of the time was that mechanical, astrological or 
 mathematical means were possible by which the most aston- 
 ishing marvels could be performed. This precluded at first 
 the idea of diabolism in the minds of scholars from being 
 attached to these narratives and others of a similar character, 
 because it was presumed that a scientific hypothesis had now 
 been formed which satisfactorily accounted for supposed facts 
 of history. This hypothesis once granted, the chain of evidence 
 was satisfactory to the mediaeval mind which rested upon 
 authority with so much confidence. It was accepted as a fact 
 that there had been a temple in Rome called the Salvatio 
 RovKe which enabled the Romans to discover treason plotted in 
 any part of the Empire, and that this temple fell in accordance 
 with proj^hecy when Christ was born. Now there was testimony 
 to prove that Virgil had been a prophet of Christ, not only in 
 his own writings, but in the writings of the fathers of the 
 Church. That his learning was infinite had been shown by 
 Macrobius; therefore, no man of antiquity was more likely to
 
 AND THE DEVIL 21 
 
 have built the temple than Virgil. In many parts of liis work, 
 De Naturis Eerum, Neckam's reasoning is of this inconclusive 
 sort. Gervase of Tilbury, somewhat later than Conrad, like 
 Neckam, reluctant to ascribe the Virgilian wonders to magic, 
 used technical phrases current in that age, calling Virgil's 
 extraordinary power a vis mathesis or an ars maifiematica. These 
 phrases do not seem now to be capable of a double meaning, 
 but that they had diverse meanings in the middle ages, and 
 that these variations of sense were prejudicial to true science, 
 is shown in a notable remark of Roger Bacon which not only 
 explains the conflicting notions entertained of mathematics, 
 but indirectly shows exactly what Gervase meant by his tender 
 and dubious expressions as applied to Virgil. "One viath&- 
 matica," wrote Bacon, "is derived from mathesi, the middle 
 syllable short and aspirated ; this kind of mathematics is a 
 part of souad learning and can not be reprehended, as I have 
 shown [in another place] by the words of holy men and of 
 philosophers. The other is derived from matesi, the middle 
 syllable long and unaspirated, from mantis, or amanteia, as 
 says Jerome, This is the second of the two divisions of magic 
 which are viantike, matJiematike, maleficium, praestigiwn, sortu 
 lecjitim. And this only of the two kinds of mathematics is 
 condemned by holy men and philosophers, as appears from 
 Aristotle, Plato, Pliny, Tully and all the rest." In the confusion 
 of mind which prevailed at the time when Gervase wiote, he 
 could not have been capable of making this distinction. All 
 mathematics was magic to him. A knowledge of geometry 
 implied a direct and marvellous power over the forces 
 of nature. Therefore, whatever form of words he or others 
 used respecting Virgil, they left but one impression on 
 the minds of their readers. This impression was one
 
 22 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 promptly interpreted by the German romancers to mean 
 diabolism. 
 
 IV 
 
 To the mediieval Christian it was clear that every pagan had 
 been in the nature of things a worshiper of devils. The cor- 
 rupt Platonism of the early Christian centuries had its 
 counterpart in the history of each newly-converted race. 
 Apuleius only expressed the common belief of all men in his 
 famous argument to prove the existence of an aerial order of 
 beings — that nature would not suffer the fourth element, air, 
 to be without inhabitants suited to its own mobile character, 
 when all the other elements were replete with life; but 
 Christians, learned and unlearned, accepted this argument in a 
 new sense Avrested from the obscure phrase of Paul respecting 
 the prince of the j^ower of the air. The beings of the air, 
 gifted with abilities above those of humanity, were supposed 
 to be altogether evil and maleficent. By the workings of this 
 principle, the pantheons of Europe were gradually converted 
 into collections of fiends, fairies and hobgoblins, deprived of 
 their divinity, but not shorn of their power ; and natural and 
 theological science was burdened for ages with the labor of 
 accounting for creatures now denied any reality Avhatever. In 
 the thirteenth century the Latin races, although they retained 
 many of their early superstitions, ceased to use them indis- 
 criminately as a means of explaining everything Avhich they 
 did not understand. With the Germans the case was diflTerent. 
 The conversion of the Teutonic tribes to Christianity had been 
 a slow and gradual process. Here and there paganism, with 
 its antique ritual, held its place for centuries in the midst of
 
 AND THE DEVIL 23 
 
 communities nominally Christian. Even when this state of 
 things passed away, the Germans retained to a greater measure 
 than other races the belief in those existences intermediate 
 between man and the inhabitants of Heaven. They felt 
 themselves to be living continually in the society of these 
 mysterious invisible powers whose workings they beheld in the 
 violent winds, in the electric storm, in the cloud-burst and the 
 earthquake, and in the accidents of human life. This ancient 
 faith was woven into their language, and it was, moreover, 
 something to which the early missionaries could not object, 
 since there was nothing in the new creed that forbade this 
 particular manifestation of popular credulity. But the tend- 
 ency of Christian teaching was to lower the reputation of 
 these subaltern deities of the forest, the fountain, the marsh 
 and the river. In the thirteenth century there were still 
 good fairies, but the malicious, evil spirits were far the more 
 numerous among the people of the air. When the wonder- 
 working of Virgil came to be a theme of popular writings in 
 Germany, it was naturally subjected to the influence of this 
 universal cult. 
 
 Another thing which had to do with the infusion of demonism 
 into these and other tales of a like character was the feelino- 
 toward learning and toward the language used by the learned. 
 The popular genius, upon discovering that it also had the power 
 of expression, was not thereupon emancipated from that 
 superstitious awe in the presence of the ancient classical 
 language which had kept it silent so long. The Latin was 
 thought to have a magical j^otency, and the mastery of it was 
 an occult science. It was not the only tongue in which con- 
 verse was held with evil spirits, but it was one of those which 
 could be most successfully used in conjuring. The scholar
 
 24 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 was feared because he was thought to have a dangerous power, 
 the possession of which was a temptation to malevolence. This 
 common misapprehension and dread of learning and learned 
 men could not fail to produce a disposition of mind favorable 
 to demonology in place of the fine-spun theories of Neckam, 
 Gervase and Vincent of Beauvais. 
 
 The whole complexion of the tales respecting Virgil's super- 
 natural allie.-* is Teutonic. The first writer who connected the 
 notion of evil spirits distinctly with Virgilian magic was Jans 
 Enenkel of Vienna, who completed his Weltbuch about 1250. 
 In taking up the tales concerning Virgil, Enenkel added such 
 particulars as to show that the German race had already 
 thought out two of the essential characteristics of that strange 
 symbol of human thought and activity which was afterward 
 to be known under the name of Doctor Faustus. The devils 
 are bound to oblige Virgil, and they tempt him with the 
 promise of the pleasures which they can procure for him. Of 
 the supei*stition concerning the assigning of one's soul to the 
 devil in consideration of a fixed term of years to be lived in 
 the enjoyment of uninterrupted pleasure and power and 
 wealth, Enenkel seemed to have no knowledge. His devils 
 are found by accident and dismissed almost as soon as they are 
 discovered. In the rude verse of this chronicler, Virgil was 
 represented as a child of hell, totally devoid of moral sense ; 
 a heathen in religion, but a magician of great power, who 
 attained his Avicked learning without seeking it. One day 
 while he was digging in a vineyard, he came upon a glass 
 filled with what he supposed to be worms. When he picked it 
 up he heard a voice saying : 
 
 "Virgil, let us out. We will protect you forever against all 
 harm. Let us go into the fields and we will teach you many
 
 AND THE DEVIL 25 
 
 arts which Avill give you joy and amusement until your death. 
 We are in great distress, because there are seventy-two of us 
 corked up in this little bottle." 
 
 "Teach me the art," said Virgil, "and I will break the 
 bottle and set you free." 
 
 So they taught him all that they knew themselves, and then 
 Virgil opened the bottle and the devils crawled out and 
 disappeared. All the wonders that Virgil did are attributed 
 to his bargain with the seventy-two devils whom he released 
 from prison. 
 
 The author of the Reinfrit von Braunschweig, who obtained 
 most of his inspiration from French models, nevertheless 
 interjected into his narrative a fragment which strangely 
 mingled the notion of Virgil as a prophet with the later 
 attribute of devilish craft. Upon the magnetberg — the 
 Teutonic counterpart of the mountain of loadstone in the 
 Ai-abian tales — of which mention is frequent in mediaeval 
 German poetry, there lived long ago a Babylonian prince, who 
 was a most skillful necromancer. His name, Zabulon, may 
 easily be supposed to be a corruption of the word cUabolus. He 
 read in the stars that twelve hundred years after his own death 
 the Saviour would appear upon the earth, and would destroy 
 the whole race of magicians. By every art which he was 
 master of he endeavored to overcome the decree of destiny. 
 When the period of twelve hundred years was nearing its end 
 Virgil was born. He grew up to be a man of so kindly a 
 disposition that in the effort to benefit others he impoverished 
 himself Having heard the tradition of Zabulon as the first 
 and greatest necromancer of the world, he resolved to seek 
 the treasures stored in the magnetberg. He knew that 
 Zabulon was the inventor of astrology, and that he had left
 
 26 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 mauy books contaming the secrets of his art. Virgil found 
 his way to the Babylonian necromancer's treasure house, and, 
 with the aid of a friendly spirit inclosed in the ruby of a ring, 
 like a fly in amber, he obtained not only a vast weight of gold 
 and silver, but also the magician's books. The period of 
 twelve hundred yeai-s — a remarkable coincidence — ended at 
 the very moment of his success. Virgil learned from the 
 books of the necromancer of the birth of Christ, and of the 
 beginning of a new dispensation in the affairs of the world. 
 
 Heinrich von Muglin, who lived toward the end of the 
 fourteenth century,* put into verse a tale which embodies some 
 of the features made familiar by the narratives that have just 
 been given. But it also epitomized the vague, magical 
 fancies Avith which the Germans invested what they learned of 
 the enterprise of the Venetians. The South Germans, from 
 their long sojourn in the interior of the continent, cut off 
 almost entirely from travel or traffic liy the sea, necessarily 
 gathered superstitious notions respecting a peojile who passed 
 their lives on the salt water. None save those Avho have lived 
 to manhood far away from the ocean can imagine tlie oppres- 
 sion which the imagination is under at the first view of that 
 trackless, mobile, infinite, rounded surface rising before the 
 eye to the vast circle of the horizon. The medineval Germans 
 felt this terror and mystery of the sea. Wonders, they 
 thought, must lie beyond the treacherous, ever-moving flood. 
 Those who dared its mystery and its perils must have more 
 
 ■'The name of this poet should, perhaps, be written loii 2ruefjlinj. 
 He was distinguislied among tlie meistersingers. There is some agree- 
 able information respecting him in !Mr. II. E. Krehbiel's i^ei-iVir 6/"//if 
 New York Ihisical Season, 18S5-G, p. 101. See, also, Wagenseil, JDe Sacri 
 Horn. Imperii Libera Civitate Noribergensi Commentatio, [Buck von der 3Ieis- 
 *er singer/]
 
 AND THE DEVIL 27 
 
 than mortal power, and a greater than natural purpose. Their 
 vessel must be guided by supernatural beings and they them- 
 selves must be in league with demons. A favorite device in 
 fiction to account for the guidance of ships, which was dwelt 
 upon long after the use of the mariner's compass became 
 familiar, was to describe birds gifted with supernatural instinct 
 whose flight instructed the pilot. If the voyage was to be 
 prosperous, these birds were beautiful and of good omen ; if it 
 was to end in disaster, the fact was presaged in the hatefulness of 
 the winged guides. There is a passage in that curious monu- 
 ment to the exploring .spirit of the sixteenth century, The 
 History of Polexander, which not only illustrates this pecul- 
 iarity, but also brings into relief by contrast the belief of the 
 mediaeval Germans in the mountain of magnetic ore. As there 
 was an island Avhich the mariner could not avoid when he had 
 entered the circle of its influence, so there was another island 
 which eluded the searcli even of the most skillful navigator. 
 The whole of that ponderous romance, whose title has just 
 been given, turned upon the bafiled hopes and desires of the 
 hero, who wandered hither and thither in the Atlantic Ocean, 
 looking for the Inaccessible Island. But nothing was easier to 
 find when the proper guidance had been obtained. After 
 many vicissitudes,. Polexander and his faithful servitor, Diceus, 
 were taken up by a vessel which belonged to the queen of the 
 island they had sought so long in vain. Diceus quickly found 
 the key to the puzzle which had vexed his master and himself 
 through all the previous years of wandering and danger. 
 "Assoone as a little gale from the shore had put the sacred 
 vessell out of the Haven, Diceus (who had Lynx, his eyes, in 
 all places where he came discovered what was most hidden), 
 perceived in the Pilot's cabbin, two birds, as white as swans,
 
 28 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 and marking (unnoted) how they fed them, imagined that 
 'twas by that sleight Alcidiana's Pilots were us'd to returne to 
 the Inaccessible Island. Assoone, therefore, as the ship was 
 out at sea, the birds flew out of Linceus his cabbin at a 
 window, and presently appearing over the ship, were saluted 
 with many shouts of joy by the Mariners and Pilgrims ; those 
 birds flying in a middle height, were always a bow-shot before 
 the ship and serving Linceus instead of Star or Compasse, 
 showed him what way he was to steer." The adventure of 
 Virgil, as related by von Muglin, was far from being as for- 
 tunate as that of Polexander. In order to present to ourselves 
 the idea which the German versifier had, we must imagine the 
 picturesque figure of a ranting, roaring blade, half pirate, 
 half explorer, one of many who swarmed out of the Adriatic 
 in all directions, and braved every danger for the sake of 
 gain. Nothing is left of the real Virgil except the name. A 
 mere Italian buccaneer, he gathered about him a company of 
 choice spirits like himself, who, under his command, set sail 
 from Venice to seek their fortunes. The voyagers took leave 
 of their wives and children with assurances of a speedy and 
 prosperous return. But before their ship had sailed far it was 
 overtaken by two birds of ill-omen called grifen. The sense of 
 this word and the sound of it lead one to suspect that von 
 Muglin had in mind something which he had heard or read 
 concerning the griflfens of ancient mythology. The birds led 
 them westward for a year and a day. Then the mariners 
 became aware of the fact that they were approaching the 
 fatal Agetstein, another name for the magnetic mountain. 
 In vain they prayed to the Virgin Mary to turn their 
 vessel aside from the dreaded mountain. The demon 
 birds led the way to the rocks and then disappeared
 
 AND THE DEVIL 29 
 
 with hoarse croakings of triumph. The sailors, expecting 
 nothing but a speedy death, broke out into loud lamenta- 
 tions. 
 
 Wir komen nimer mer hin heim zu wiben und zu kinden, 
 they cried, but Virgil, leaving the wreck, mournfully and 
 laboriously ascended the rugged cliff. The summit of the 
 mountain was a level plateau. As he walked about there, his 
 eye fell upon a glass bottle. He picked this up and found, as 
 a matter of course, that it was the prison of a devil. In his 
 eagerness to be released from his narrow cell, the spirit prom- 
 ised to aid Virgil and his companions. But Virgil was not to 
 be caught by a mere promise, so the demon, in order to obtain 
 Ms freedom, gave exact instructions as to the things that 
 Virgil should do, if he desired to escape with his crew from 
 the peril into which they had fallen. He explained that in a 
 certain place he would find a tomb watched by a figure which 
 smote the ground continuously so that no mortal could approach 
 the place, except at high noon, when the flailing ceased for an 
 instant. In that instant Virgil was told that he might seize a 
 letter of talismanic virtue which the figure had. He succeeded 
 in doing this, and, entering the tomb, found a corpse, and 
 beneath the corpse a book, which the bottle imp assured him 
 would give all the directions necessary for his safe return to 
 Venice. This book, however, was a book only in appearance. 
 When Virgil turned back the lid to see what sort of a treatise 
 had fallen into his possession, great was his astonishment to have 
 eighty thousand devils tumble o ut of the ench anted casket. They 
 gathered about him threateningly and demanded immediate em- 
 ployment. Virgil was frightened at first in the midst of this 
 clamorous army of supernatural beings, who danced and leaped 
 and cut fantastic capers in their desire to be doing something.
 
 30 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 "What do we here?" they cried ; "we may no longer bide." 
 
 Had he not spoken, they would undoubtedly have torn him 
 limb from limb, according to the well-known custom of the 
 goblins when they are evoked by an inexperienced or cowardly 
 mortal ; but Virgil, recovering from his alarm, exclaimed : 
 
 "Into the greenwood, all of you, and make me at once a 
 good road, on which a man may walk or ride as he chooses." 
 
 The devils began this task with alacrity. Meanwhile, Virgil 
 descended the mountain to the beach, where the sailors sat 
 lamenting over the wreck which strewed the jagged rocks. 
 He offered to rescue them if they would reward him. He 
 declared that he would have them all safe at home in the 
 winking of an eye. They replied that all their wealth should 
 be his, if he carried out this promise. In a moment they were 
 all at home in Venice. What became of the eighty thousand 
 and one devils, whom Virgil had evoked, von Muglin does not 
 pretend to say. Thus at a stroke the great Roman was deprived 
 of his glory as a poet and his distinction as a man of learning, 
 and was reduced to the level of a mediteval trader, cunning at 
 a bargain and fortunate, even in his accidental intercourse with 
 the devil. Such a tendency to depreciate Virgil could not be 
 reconciled with any view of his personality, other than that 
 taken by von Muglin. Shorn of all dignity, if the name 
 of the poet had been preserved only in the verses of these 
 barbarous story tellers, it would have become a mere by-word, 
 with which to frighten children, or to fill out the nonsense 
 rhythm of some rustic game. Indeed, in modern Poland the 
 only relic of the Virgilian superstition is a game similar to the 
 English "Simon says thumbs up," in Avhich the players repeat 
 a puerile rhyme, meaning, it is said, "Daddy Virgil said to 
 his children, 'Children, here, do as I do.'"
 
 AND THE DEVIL 31 
 
 In the fifteenth century Felix Hemmerlin narrated how a 
 devil put Virgil in possession of the magical book of Solomon, 
 in the hope of being liberated from a bottle in which he was 
 imprisoned. Virgil, upon releasing the spirit, was amazed at 
 his gigantic proportions. Convinced that it would not be 
 prudent to allow such a creature to be at large, he cunningly- 
 bantered the devil, saying : 
 
 "Surely you could not now reduce yourself to the size of 
 that bottle?" 
 
 "Easily," replied the demon. 
 
 Virgil j^ersisted in his feigned disbelief, until finally the devil, 
 to prove the truth of his words, returned into the flask. 
 Virgil instantly clapped the stopper back in its place and left 
 the unfortunate devil in prison forever. He retained the book 
 of magic, though, and thus became master of all in the 
 black art. 
 
 This tale, which resembles so closely the tale of the fisherman 
 and the jinn in The Thousand and One Nights, and the frequent 
 allusions to the magnetic mountain, link the species of German 
 folk-lore utilized in the tales concerning Virgil with the 
 Arabian tales. But it is to be observed that all these German 
 tales Avere written before the year fourteen hundred. Mr. 
 Edward William Lane, in the notes of his translation of The 
 Arabian Nights'- Entertainments, maintains that the earliest 
 possible date to be assigned to that collection, so far as the 
 Arabians are concerned must be subsequent to the beginning 
 of the fourteenth century, and the weight of probability is on 
 the side of the opinion that they were not written out until 
 about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The legend 
 concerning the making of the collection indicates also that the 
 work was not done piecemeal, but that a translation was made
 
 32 31 AS TEE VIE GIL 
 
 in the period between the two dates mentioned of tales indig- 
 enous to Persia or India, which had already been collected 
 and transcribed by men of letters in Persia. It is extremely 
 doubtful, thei-efore, if the Germans could have owed their 
 knowledge to any literary forms obtained from the Saracens. 
 They are more likely to have drawn their inspiration from the 
 unwritten tales of the crusade camps, and from the reminis- 
 cences of travelers and merchants who returned out of the 
 Farther East. The indirect testimony of von Muglin's 
 narrative is that the Germans owed much in this way to the 
 commerce of Venice. That Virgil and his companions should 
 have traveled westward to find the Agetstein, and not eastward, 
 indicates a vague recollection of antique superstitions respect- 
 ing the Atlantic coast of Africa, rather than an acquaintance 
 with the Saracen Empire to the eastward. Besides the points 
 of similarity alluded to, there is an evident relationship between 
 the German Zabulon, the inventor of magic and astrology, 
 and the fallen angels, Haroot and Maroot of Arabian 
 mythology, who were supposed to have incurred the eternal 
 resentment of Allah, by teaching these forbidden arts to men. 
 A curious detail respecting Haroot and Maroot, which marks 
 an important line of communication with the Far East, open 
 to both Europeans and Arabians, is that the first Arabian 
 visitor to the cavern where, these gigantic offenders were 
 imprisoned, was conducted thither by a Jew. 
 
 V 
 
 In the later times when the craze of witchcraft became the 
 terror of human life in Europe, not only the Germans, but 
 most of the other nations of Europe accepted without question
 
 AND THE DEVIL 33 
 
 the tales of Virgil's league with devils. At the final outcome of 
 these legends, they were all digested into a connected narrative, 
 which became, like the story of Faust, Avell known in all the 
 languages of Western Europe. In this pseudo-biography it 
 was related that when Virgil was born the town of Rome 
 quaked and trembled in dread of so dire an advent. Even in 
 his childhood he was subtle and crafty and wise beyond the 
 measure of man. He was, therefore, sent to school at Toledo, 
 the abode of magical learning throughout the greater part of 
 the mediseval period. He was a lonely person, and loved 
 nothing better on a holiday than to ramble by himself among 
 the hills, out of the sight of his teachers and comrades. 
 In one of these solitary walks, he discovered the opening of a 
 cavern. Curious to know what there was in the mysterious 
 and darksome place, he ventured so far into the bowels of the 
 mountain thiit the light of day was lost behind him. As he 
 went on he imagined that he saw a glimmer of light from the 
 depths of the pave. He pressed toward the source of this 
 fitful ray, and as he went he heard a voice crying : 
 
 "Virgil, Virgil!" 
 
 Wondering who could be so familiar with his name in that 
 uncanny gloom, he peered in every direction, and that anxiously, 
 but could see nothing. Finally, he asked aloud who it was 
 that called him. Again his name was repeated, and again he 
 answered. Then the voice came with the words : 
 
 "Do you not see the board that lies at your feet with a name 
 upon it ?" 
 
 Virgil replied that he saw it dimly. 
 
 "Lift the board and let me out," said the voice. 
 
 "But who are you?" inquired Virgil with caution.
 
 34 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 "Iain a devil," was the reply. "I was conjured out of a 
 man whom I had possessed, and have been banished to this 
 cell until the Day of Judgment, unless t can in the meantime 
 persuade a mortal to release me. I pray you deliver me out 
 of this painful prison. I will show you many books of magic 
 [nygromancy, nigromance] so that you shall come easily into 
 a perfect knowledge of that science, and I will show you how 
 you may obtain whatever you desire." 
 
 Virgil was tempted by these promises. He bade the demon 
 tell him where the books were kept. In his anxiety to be 
 released, the fiend showed less acuteness than is usually credited 
 to his race. He gave Virgil such directions that the wonderful 
 library was soon in the student's possession. Virgil kept faith, 
 however, by taking away the board which covered the prison of 
 the spirit. The latter wriggled out of his narrow quarters in the 
 shape of an eel, and then rose up by the side of Virgil in the 
 shape of a man, l)ut so gigantic that the youth was frightened. 
 By a device similar to that described in the narrative of Felix 
 Hemmerlin, he prevailed on his dangerous companion to 
 return into his prison, where, as the veracious chronicler 
 remarked, the devil remains to this day. 
 
 It is a singular fact that although diabolism grew to the 
 proportions in the Virgilian legends which have been indicated 
 in the foregoing pages, it figured in the work of one Italian 
 writer only who professed to relate the magical deeds of 
 Virgil. In the Aliprandina, a versified chronicle of IMantua, 
 written early in the fifteenth century, it is stated that Virgil, 
 who was reputed to be a magician, was imprisoned by Octa\4an. 
 He released himself and journeyed in a ship created by en- 
 chantment to Naples. On the way he became hungry and 
 Bent one of the fiimiliar spirits who served him back to Rome
 
 AND THE DEVIL 35 
 
 to steal the victuals from Octavian's table. With this indirect 
 and apparently casual reference to the devil of Virgil, Italian 
 popular literature was satisfied, as, indeed, it might well be, 
 since it retained a clear memory of the real achievements of 
 the Augustan poet. 
 
 VI 
 
 Within the limitations of that early popular literature, from 
 which the nai-ratives here repeated have been taken, the devil, 
 as portrayed, is the exact fac-simile of the common Teutonic 
 ideal of the period to which the literature belongs. Virgil's 
 devils, like the other evil spirits in German mythology, were 
 manifest types of the forces of nature. Their existence fur- 
 nished an adequate cause for every relic of the Roman power 
 that remained. In sober fact, the road which von Muglin 
 described was the counterpart of a Roman highway. But the 
 j)opular notions concerning the devil had not yet been rounded 
 out and completed. In the times when the legends about 
 Virgil were written, diabolism was so crude that the story 
 tellers had no suitable device for getting rid of evil spirits at 
 the conclusion of a tale. In the narratives that have been 
 discussed in these pages, the clumsy versifiers simply ignored 
 this problem, manifestly an important one from an artistic 
 point of view. Enenkel's devils ran away, and so did the 
 multitude which von Muglin let loose upon a suffering world. 
 At least these writers leave the matter entirely to inference. 
 Hemmerlin, indeed, succeeded in rebottling his spirit, but the 
 ludicrous weakness of his invention can easily be seen by one 
 who tries to imagine how the ruse would work with that suave, 
 polished, agreeable, sharp-witted, immoral gentleman in black,
 
 36 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 the popular devil of modern times. Virgil never could have 
 hoodwinked him. Mephisto could put himself in a bottle, if 
 he chose, but he never could be caught under the seal of 
 Solomon. But crude as these early tales were, they showed a 
 steady growth from first to last in the diabolical ideal. The 
 vague suspicion of demoniac influence conveyed by the learned 
 phrases of Conrad of Querfurt was articulated by Enenkel in 
 the puerile fancy that the devils of Virgil looked like a 
 wriggling mass of earth worms. In the hands of von Muglin, 
 a century later, these became the mischievous little beings of 
 the greenwood familiar to German folk-lore. At last Felix 
 Hemmerlin gives the devil of Virgil the dignity of gigantic 
 size. There was a corresponding growth in the apparent 
 malignity 5f the devil and of his power to do harm to mortals. 
 What was merely curious to Enenkel became frightful to 
 Hemmerlin and the redactors of the Virgilian pseudo- 
 biography. But, after all, the devils of Virgil were a simple- 
 minded, down-trodden, unfortunate, servile race. They were 
 always in prison, waiting for some mortal to release them, and 
 they were always overreached by the lucky man who found 
 them. Without attempting to record all the steps that were 
 taken in the development of magical diabolism in the period 
 between the opening of the fifteenth and the close of the 
 sixteenth century, the outcome may be seen in the English 
 History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John 
 Faustus, translated from the German Faust-sage about the year 
 1589. The conception of the evil spirit had grown immeas- 
 urably in less than two centuries, and the terror and abhorrence 
 of mankind had risen in proportion. The devil was no longer 
 to be accidentally found cooped up in bottles or hidden in some 
 cavern. He must be worshiped with a cult as elaborate as
 
 AND THE DEVIL 37 
 
 that with which the Divine Being was honored. Even to 
 those who paid him such homage as he desired, he did not 
 present himself in person, but sent his messengers. Faust, 
 having made himself expert in the vocabula, figures, charac- 
 ters, conjurations and other ceremonials indispensable to the 
 art of necromancy, was eager to test his powers in an effort to 
 bring the devil before him. He went one night into a thick 
 wood near Wittenberg, and at a place where the intersection 
 of two paths made the sign of a cross he described with his 
 wand a circle in the dust, and within that drew many other 
 circles and characters. Then he called on Mephistopheles in 
 the name of Beelzebub, the Prince of Hell, to appear in his 
 own proper form. A frightful thunderstorm followed, and 
 then, when Faust was about to leave his circle in a fright, such 
 pleasant music was heard that he could not but tarry. He 
 renewed his conjurations, and there appeared before him suc- 
 cessively a horrible dragon, a flame that seemed to dart down 
 at him from heaven, and finally a fiery globe. The globe 
 bursting asunder, disclosed the figure of a man, shaped out of 
 fire. This figure whirled about Faust's circle many times, 
 and at last, assuming the habit and appearance of a gray friar, 
 showed himself to be the one whom Faust desired to see. This 
 being of fire could take instantly whatever shape he chose, he 
 argued with all the subtlety of one trained in scholasticism ; 
 he gave no favors for which he did not get manifold repayment, 
 and he yielded service to no mortal, except when he saw a 
 malicious end to be gained. The magician's spells did not 
 compel him to act ; they only displayed the temper and eager- 
 ness, the desires and intentions of the worshiper. When this 
 overshadowing notion of the devil is viewed in its relation to 
 the times, it is not difficult to realize the fervor with which 
 
 99764
 
 38 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 men persecuted those accused of witchcraft. Were a single 
 line of instances sufficient for a generalization, it would be fair 
 to conclude that in the fear of the devil the age that witnessed 
 the reformation and renaissance was darker far than the pre- 
 ceding centuries. Diabolism never flourished in the civilized 
 world at any other epoch as it did in that epoch. Men's 
 minds were weighed down by the terrors of the magical spirit 
 of evil. This can be said without any theological bias. The 
 devil of the magicians, the devil with horns and hoofs, the 
 serpent devil, the devil at whom Luther threw his inkstand, 
 was not the devil of theological dogma, nor the devil of the 
 Scriptures. He was the creature of a fervid imagination, who 
 had become a real existence to millions of human beings. He 
 belonged to an age rnost credulous in all matters pertaining to 
 the supernatural. Whatever weight may be attached to the 
 Virgilian tales adds so much strength to the opinion that the 
 world, in this matter of demonism, went steadily backward 
 from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Later it became 
 possible to disperse the clouds of mysticism that hung about 
 the devil, divest him of his magical cloak and restrain him to 
 the limits of Scriptural definition.
 
 THIRD— l.Y LITERARY TRADITION 
 
 I 
 
 In his unconscious power of exciting veneration, Virgil 
 stands almost alone among the Roman poets. His works were 
 the natural outcome of his character, but in them the Romans 
 found all that was best of their national legends, religion and 
 literature. It is a common opinion in respect to the Homeric 
 poems that they are the residuum, so to speak, of a literature 
 earlier than the art of writing. The fragments of the Greek 
 bards have been united by some transcendent genius into one 
 exalted epos. Virgil's national work consists likewise of frag- 
 ments gathered iu the patient study of earliei- Greek and 
 Roman writers. It is a mosaic of precious gems and exquisite 
 colors, joined by the hand of a master artist so skillfully that 
 it is doubtful if the most acute critic, by mere inspection, 
 could distinguish what is Virgil's own from what he has ap- 
 propriated. While observing how the object had been attained, 
 the Romans felt that in the ^neid they possessed the most 
 complete interpretation of their national life they could ever 
 expect to see. 
 
 The literary class iu Rome were well aware of the distinction 
 between the creative power evinced in Homer and the skill
 
 40 MASTER VIBGJL 
 
 which could produce a successful imitation. But they gloried 
 in the fact that of all imitations, whether Greek or Latin, the 
 one which alone rivaled the perfection of the model was the 
 one most intimately associated with their national renown. In 
 an important and special sense, the JEneid had all the value 
 and power of an original creation, and that was in its adapta- 
 tion to the times and to the character of the people whom 
 indirectly it celebrated. The Romans had no recollection of 
 an epoch when the elements of their national character had 
 yet to be united. The definite past which they looked back 
 upon gave them a prophetic anticipation of the destiny they 
 were to fulfill. The natural outcome of this feeling of historic 
 unity was an enthusiasm that formed, to a large extent, the 
 motive of all Roman literature, and occasioned the production 
 of those epics, the long catalogue of which is a notable phe- 
 nomenon in the annals of Latin book-making. With most 
 of these poets, the patriotism, though hearty enough, was 
 rudely expressed ; but in the case of Virgil, the leader of a 
 new school of letters, the pride in his country was shown to 
 be capable of the most harmonious and polished expression. 
 He aimed to make a poem, carefully finished, even to the 
 slightest details, but possessed of all the elements conducive to 
 universal popularity. It Avas fortunate, perhaps, for his fame, 
 that death prevented his making the changes in his manuscript 
 which he proposed ; he had already displayed a growing tend- 
 ency to an overrefinement that- might have marred the 
 apparent spontaneity of his poem. As it was, the impression 
 produced by the merely extraneous and mechanical character- 
 istics of the work was profound. As a model of form it was 
 admired from the moment it first saw the light, and this 
 admiration was not diminished, even in the darkest part of the
 
 jy LITERARY TRADITION 41 
 
 middle ages, nor umid the copious productiveness of modern 
 times. 
 
 The respect accorded Virgil by his literary contemporaries 
 was exaggerated by later poets into a religious ceremonial. 
 Petronius, with fine discrimination, characterized Virgil as 
 TJie Roman, thus contrasting the native hue of his genius with 
 that of all other poets, including his own countrymen. But 
 others were less moderate. Propertius called the JEneid a 
 greater poem than the Iliad, and later Martial extravagantly 
 remarked that Maro, if he had chosen, might have surpassed 
 the lyrics of Horace, the odes of Pindar and the tragedies of 
 Varius. The wealthy virtuoso, Silius Italicus, who said of 
 Virgil's provincial city : 
 
 Mantua, musarum domus, atque ad sidera cantu 
 Evecta Aonio, et Smyrnaeis semula plectris, 
 
 was far moTe diligent in celebrating Virgil's birthday than his 
 own. He set the fashion of pilgrimages to the tomb of the 
 poet, and of offering sacrifices there, just as he would have 
 done in the temple of the gods. Statins alluded to Virgil's 
 tomb as a temple. Martial declared that, as Diana had ren- 
 dered sacred the Ides of May, and Mercury those of August, 
 so Maro consecrated the Ides of October. It Avas the example 
 of these poets which led Papinius to celebrate the birthday of 
 Lucan. In thus offering divine honors to the memory of 
 Virgil, these poets opened the way for those miraculous stories 
 that began soon to be related. 
 
 The sharp criticism to which Virgil's works were subjected 
 tended, rather than otherwise, to intensify the affection of his 
 votaries for him ; while the rapid decline of the Latin language 
 in spirit and power, which made it an impossible task even to 
 imitate him, caused him to be revered as a superhuman master
 
 42 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 of expression. Fashion joined hands with learning to exalt 
 the poet's subject and style. The learned lady spoken of by 
 Juvenal, as discoursing to a circle of educated peojile upon 
 the merits of Virgil, exemplified a common practice of the 
 times. Virgil's verses were declaimed at the theatres, recited 
 at banquets, written on the walls of houses and inscribed on 
 the utensils of the table. His poems, elegantly copied on 
 vellum, constituted the most acceptable token of friendship 
 that a refined taste could suggest. The teachers of grammar 
 hastened to take them up as the most suitable literature that 
 could be found for the instruction of the Roman youth. 
 During the first century of the Empire and part of the second, 
 the grammarians dominated the whole field of letters, and 
 from their ranks rose specialists who composed elaborate and 
 important works upon all the new poets, but particularly upon 
 Virgil. _ These were modeled upon the grammatical treatises 
 common in the Greek language ; l)ut while the same method 
 of illustration could be used with Virgil that had been 
 invented for Homer, as an authority on points of usage he was 
 viewed in a light altogether new. Although Homer's language 
 was studied by the Alexandrian scholars, his verbal forms 
 never could be endued with anything more than historic inter- 
 est. His poems were imitated in some highly artificial, and 
 purely academical productions ; but they could never be made 
 to serve as the basis of a grammatical system to be adopted by 
 writers in general. Virgil, on the other hand, the exponent 
 of the highest development reached by Latin literature, was 
 properly the ultimate standaixl of appeal upon every point of 
 grammar. Thus, from the beginning there was anxiety — not 
 always tempered with judgment — as to the correct reading of 
 doubtful passages. Critics employed their time, not only in
 
 jy LITER ABY TRADITION 43 
 
 emending the text according to individual conjecture, but also 
 with the guidance of authoritative manuscripts, handed down 
 in his household, and even his own autographic copies, men- 
 tioned as still extant in the times of Pliny, Quintilian and 
 Aulus Gellius. Scholars disputed upon passages of Virgil 
 when they visited each other, when they met in the book- 
 sellers's shops, and when they were traveling together. They 
 discussed the meaning and propriety of the words he used, 
 the mythological, geographical or historical matters to Avhich 
 he alluded; made observations and strictures on his style, 
 censured particular passages, and compared the verses imitated 
 from the older Latin writers or from the Greek with 
 the originals. Such were the subjects treated by Iginus, 
 Probus, Aristarchus, Annseus Cornutus, by Gellius and his 
 friends. Others, like Asper, made commentaries designed to 
 accompany the works of the poet. 
 
 II 
 
 The rhetoricians who rose to precedence in literature during 
 the latter part of the second century were slow to acknowledge 
 the merit of Virgil. Fronto, the great apostle of pedantic 
 oratory, slighted the author of the ^Eneid for the earlier and 
 ruder poets. Apuleius, though in some of his works he 
 quoted freely from Virgil, doubtless preferred the more archaic 
 writers. So the whimsical Caligula condemned the works of 
 Virgil as devoid of genius and unprofitable in their teaching. 
 The upheaval of uncultured or barbarian modes of thought 
 and life, which distorted where it did not destroy the literary 
 traditions, had its effect upon the reputation of Virgil. The 
 native religion had been corrupted with the monstrous sym- 
 bolism of the East. Men of learning degraded the objects
 
 44 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 which they treated by mingling in their discourses the slang 
 of the streets with obsolete phrases, foreign idioms and words 
 newly coined from their own brains. In that melancholy 
 period all legitimate science fell into decay, and the place of 
 knowledge was occupied by a congeries of puerile and debasing 
 superstitions. The imaginations of men were affected by the 
 false pretences of magic, by the alleged miracles of licentious 
 enthusiasts, by supposititious prophecies, by sibylline forgeries, 
 by Milesian novels and specious schemes of fortune telling. 
 To the admirers of Apuleius, who wrote and spoke a language 
 complicated by various foreign influences, Virgil must have 
 seemed nerveless, colorless, tame and insipid. His greatness 
 with them must have been solely a matter of tradition. It 
 was impossible for an age which applauded the declamatory 
 verse of Statins justly to appreciate Virgil. The fame of the 
 poet had acquired, however, too much authority by the efforts 
 of the grammarians, and by the continual use of his works in 
 the schools of instruction, to be displaced by this reactionary 
 movement. In the prevalent condition of literary taste, ven- 
 eration that could not be shaken off must degenerate into a 
 superstitious regard. Thus arose under the Antonines the 
 custom of using the JEneid as a means of fortune telling; 
 opening the leaves as chance dictated and interpreting as lucky 
 or unlucky the first passage that caught the eye. This was 
 the Sors Virgiliana of Hadrian, which was used also by 
 other Emperors, as in the cases of Claudius Albinus, Alexander 
 Severus and the two Goi'diani. Puerile as the fashion was, it 
 showed the degree of reverence felt for Virgil's works. They 
 were now looked upon as the inspired writings of the race. 
 Therefore, Alexander Severus, at a time when' Platonism, 
 although corrupted, constituted the religion of culture, only
 
 jy LITERARY TRADITION 45 
 
 expressed the common sentiment in saying that Virgil was the 
 Plato of poets ; and performed an act universally sanctioned 
 in placing the statue of Virgil beside that of Achilles. But 
 the line of proper literary tradition was broken, and in the 
 excessive veneration for Virgil's name an element was already 
 to be found to which the term legendary might be applied. 
 
 ni 
 
 The movement away from the Virgil of history and of the 
 earlier tradition became still more obvious in the fourth and 
 fifth centuries. In some respects this period, in its relation to 
 Virgil, may be compared to the era of Shakespearean revival, 
 which began among English scholars near the middle of the 
 eighteenth century and has continued down to the present 
 day. As great enthusiasm was manifested then as Ave are 
 cognizant of among the zealous worshipers of Shakespeare. 
 The forced interpretation of Virgil's meaning could be dis- 
 counted with many modern essays on the play of Hamlet or 
 on The Sonnets. The same is true, to a greater or less extent, 
 in the case of the author of Faust. In the extravagance of 
 its admiration, in its tendency to discover hidden meanings 
 and in the fondness which it displays for allegory, the body 
 of literature which is growing around the Avorks of Goethe is 
 strangely like the dead and forgotten literature under which 
 Virgil's genius came near being buried. The estimate of all 
 these writers is one not measured by reality nor restrained to 
 the limits of human endeavor. They stand to their respective 
 votaries in an attitude of semi-deification. Given a perio<l in 
 the future similar to the mediseval period, and both the English
 
 46 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 and the German poets will be the victims of a legendary tend- 
 ency as preposterous as the one from which the fame of Virgil 
 suffered. 
 
 If we would reproduce the conception of Virgil which the 
 fifth century transmitted to its successors, we must picture to 
 ourselves not the wealthy, exclusive literary courtier of the 
 Augustan age, but the cloaked, affected, disputatious, dogmatic 
 ascetic Avhom the Neo-Platonists dignified with the title of 
 philosopher, a brusque, ill-mannered mystagogue. In this 
 guise his character as the transcendent poet of the Latin 
 world was almost forgotten. His writings became less and less 
 familiar, and the occasional mention of his name by authors of 
 reputed learning was in such a relation as indicated a total 
 want of true sympathy. AVhile the custom was still in vogue 
 during a portion of the sixth century of reciting his verses in 
 the popular gatherings for amusement, it was a custom which 
 was retained in the face of the growing disajiproval of the 
 church writers. To obtain a summary view of the fluctuation 
 in the feeling of admiration for Virgil, no better plan, per- 
 haps, could be suggested than that of appealing to the writers 
 of Latin verse, who were numerous, even in those centuries 
 when literary work was most despised. We should expect to 
 find among them a knowledge of the classical poets superior 
 to that of their contemporaries, for the reason that the natural 
 desire to perfect themselves in metrical composition might weU 
 incite them to the search for good models. That was, indeed, 
 an uncritical period when he, who in the seventh century 
 praised Bishop Isidore's library, felt called upon to inform his 
 readers that if they were annoyed by the perusal of Virgil, 
 Horace, Ovid, Persius, Lucan or Papinius they might turn for 
 relief to Prudentius, Avitus, Juvencus and Sedulius. There
 
 IN LJ TER ARY TRAD I TI N 47 
 
 was a tinge of religious prejudice in the suggestion that while 
 these poets, so deeply read in evangelical learning, remained, 
 no necessity existed for the study of Pagan literature. Even 
 in those days England was more liberal than Spain. The 
 Venerable Bede, in the eighth century, devoted much attention 
 to Virgil. While he deprecated the subject of the ^neid, he 
 showed some perception of its merit as a work of art, as, for 
 example, in his poem on Virginity : 
 
 Let Maro wars in loftier numbers sing. 
 
 I sound the praises of our Heavenly King; 
 
 His thought being, "I have a higher theme; would that I 
 could treat it w^ith equal power." In the ninth century 
 Alcuin, who had obtained from the teachings of Bede a strong 
 love of learning for its own sake, endeavoring to persuade his 
 friend Charlemagne to send scholars to York for the purpose of 
 copying the books in the library gathered there, arranged his 
 list in hexametres. It is notable that he named the popular 
 Christian j)oets like Juvencus and Arator before the classic 
 poets, and of the latter he mentioned only three — -Virgil, 
 Statins and Lucan. In view of the fact that he attempted to 
 classify the historians and grammarians, we may infer that if 
 the enumerat')r had prized these three poets above the eccle- 
 siastical verse makers, he would have placed their names first. 
 When it is remembered that it was the Court of Charlemagne 
 "which sought to ape the manners and even the titles of the 
 Augustan age, this unconscious violation of the order of 
 merit becomes all the more striking. 
 
 With the eleventh century came a manifest improvement in 
 the idea of Virgil formed by the Latin poets. Henry the 
 Poor, an eccentric Florentine, Avhose leisure, while embittered 
 by poverty, was not devoid of elegance, wrote a long poem
 
 48 MAS TEE V IB GIL 
 
 upon the Diverse Freaks of Fortune and the Consolation of 
 Philosophy, a theme probably taken from the perusal of 
 Boethius. Alluding to his own melancholy estate, he said 
 his fortune would have been no better though he had been 
 praised in the verses of Virgil, Ovid or Lucan. The fates, 
 he graphically remarked, Neronized over him and his stars 
 were adverse. But his critical perception of the difference 
 between the genius of Virgil and that of Lucan is accurately 
 and finely described in the words musa, applied to the former, 
 and tuba to the latter. The passage gives unmistakable tokens 
 that the light of the renaissance was even then brightening in 
 Italy. Not less remarkable were the lines of Alanus Magnus, 
 written near the close of the centur}', in which the writer 
 dignified the ecclesiastical poet Sidonius with the individual 
 merits of all the ancient poets collected together. The 
 very exaggeration of the eulogy served to show what the 
 acknowledged leader of Northern Europe in learning thought 
 of the classic writers. After comparing his subject indiscrim- 
 inately with the orators and philosophers of both Greece and 
 Eome, he added that Sidonius had the fluency and smoothness 
 of Ovid, the vividness of Lucan and the depth of Virgil, 
 alluding in the word abyssnm doubtless to the then popular 
 allegorical intepretations of the ^neid. These quotations 
 are indicative of the neglect into which the works of Virgil 
 fell during that dull period when the decay of the Latin left 
 Europe without a suitable instrument of literary expression. 
 It is necessary to add but one more selection for the sake of 
 emphasizing the statement that in the twelfth century classical 
 study began to be, if not more thorough and critical, at least 
 somewhat more popular and widespread. In the early part 
 of this century Evrard of Bethune, a rhetorical teacher of
 
 IN LITERARY TRADITION 49 
 
 note, composed a poem, professedly in the nature of a text 
 book on his favorite art, to which he gave the title of TJie 
 Labyrinth. Under the head of versification, he discussed the 
 poets read in the schools, and with many mediaeval writers, 
 whose names are now no longer remembered, included also the 
 most celebrated Romans, among the rest Virgil. That he 
 wrote for the pupils, and not for men of approved learning, is 
 clear from the elementary character of the information he 
 thought it necessary to give. Only the following couplet is of 
 interest here : 
 
 Virgilio servit triplex stylus. Haec tria thema 
 Prcebent, bos, et ager, historialis apex, 
 
 and this might have suggested the lines of the old English 
 poet Barclay in his eclogues, where Virgil's poetry is thus 
 described : 
 
 He sange of fieldes and tilling of grounde, 
 
 Of sheepe and oxen and battayle did he sounde. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was the most grateful form that flattery could take for 
 persons in authority to be credited with deeds which even 
 Virgil, were he alive, could not adequately celebrate in verse, 
 nor could there be higher refinement of praise for the versifiers 
 of the mediaeval centuries than to speak of them as the rivals 
 of Virgil. Such exaggerated compliments were repeated over 
 their graves. In this manner the fame of the poet retained its 
 lustre. Theologians imitated Jerome in maintaining the im- 
 mortality of the ^neid, and readily accepted his remai-k that 
 Virgil was the Homer of the Latins; literary men studied
 
 50 MASTER VIBOIL 
 
 and praised his works, and the dry chroniclers who usually 
 concerned themselves only with the doings of kings, emperors 
 and persons of rank, were fain to make some record of Virgil. 
 They noted with care the date of his birth and death, and 
 spoke of the ^Eneid as a poem which must have owed its 
 supernatural perfection to the skill of a magician. The 
 misguided zeal of theological polemics favored rather than 
 retarded the growth of the Virgilian cult, if it may be so 
 called, while in another direction respect for Virgil's name and 
 works was enhanced by the exigencies of statecraft. History 
 always lays emphasis upon the fact that rude barbarians, upon 
 making a conquest of a civilized nation, are themselves sub- 
 dued by its culture. This fact was never better shown than in 
 the fall of the Roman Empire. The customs of the vanquished 
 took the place of those which had been characteristic of the 
 victors. lu ruins, Rome was still the measure of all that was 
 glorious, and the posterity of those fierce leaders who destroyed 
 the city Avere flattered when they heard themselves compared 
 to its celebrities, and even brought into affinity of blood with 
 them. Xothing could have been more pleasing to Charlemagne 
 than the conjecture that traced his descent from the jDious 
 -^neas ; nor could any device be thought of that would serve 
 so well to perpetuate the fame of Virgil. It enveloped the 
 Court of Charlemagne in a mist of pedantry which affected 
 the minds of men through a long subsequent period. 
 
 A lively interest in the writings of Virgil increased the desire 
 to possess copies of his works. Abbots transcribed his poems and 
 preserved these transcripts in their cloisters. Monks who had 
 sacrificed the pleasures of the world for those of learning were 
 diligently employed in multiplying these manuscripts. Monastic 
 libraries soon possessed not one, or two, but many transcripts
 
 IN LITERARY TRADITION 51 
 
 written with all the care and illuminated with all the skill of 
 which the copyists were capable.* That this multiplication of 
 Virgilian manuscripts was the outcome, not of a momentary de- 
 sire, but of the eager wish to obtain a thorough knowledge, is 
 shown by the manner of writing them. Sometimes they are 
 arranged in double columns, one column containing the text, 
 the other the Servian commentary ; sometimes in two volumes, 
 one of which is the commentary. In other cases a multitude of 
 interlinear and marginal glosses darken the text. Where one 
 left a little room, there another has laboriously written, so that 
 in one of these venerable parchments we may see crowded 
 together the proofs of learned diligence on the part of many 
 generations. Even the commentary is interlined with new 
 comment as well as explained in additional manuscripts. Other 
 glosses betray the efforts of vernacular translators. By means 
 of this manifold contact with the poems of Virgil into which 
 the schools and literature of these times were brought, even 
 the prose style of many writers took a Virgilian cast, and the 
 poetical Latinity appears so predominantly Maronic that few 
 authors can be cited in whom this influence is not easily shown. 
 Verses and parts of verses woven into their ^vl'itings evince 
 their indebtedness to Virgil; as may be seen in the case of 
 Helpidius, Priscianus, Orientius, Ennodius, Boethius, Avitus, 
 Mavortus, Honorius Scholasticus, Arator, Flavius Cresconius 
 
 *Heyne says [de VirgUii Oodicibw^ MSS., ad jinem,] that the number 
 of these copies is almost incredible, but that for the most part it 
 would be a mere waste of time to examine them. But it must be 
 remembered that Heyne was disposed to deal with monks after the 
 fashion set at Donnybrook Fair — wherever he saw a head, to hit it. 
 Moreover, he was thinking only of what served to elucidate the 
 meaning of Virgil, not of what cast a light on the prejudices, super- 
 stitions or eccentricities of the middle ages.
 
 52 MAS TEE VIE GIL 
 
 Corippus and Venantius Fortunatus before the opening of the 
 seventh century ; in Marcus, Bertharius, Columbanus, Aldhelm, 
 Bede, Boniface, Paul Warnefrid, Gottschalk and Alcuin, who 
 flourished in the two centuries that followed ; in Farduelph, 
 Angilbert, Sedulius, Ethelwolf, Theodulph, Candidus, Nigellus, 
 Ermoldus, Berthold, Walafrid Strabo, Engelmoldus, Drepanius 
 Florus, Milo, Agius, Abbo and Notker Balbulus of the ninth 
 century; in Rathbode, Salomo, Fridegode, Frodoardus, Luit- 
 prandus, Theodulus, Hrotswitha, Syrus, Purchardus and Uffo 
 of the tenth century; in Wolstan, Abbo of Fleury, Aimoin, 
 Froumund, Fulbert, Ekkehard, Adalbero, Ingelramus, Mal- 
 chus, Jotsaldus, Gilbert, Waldo, Wido, William of Apulia, 
 Gaufrid Malaterrse and Conrad of the eleventh century ; and 
 in Radulphus Cadomensis, Sigebert, Laurentius of Verona, 
 Domnizo, Hilarius, Fulcherius, Baldricus, Moses Bergomensis, 
 Bernard of Cluny, William of Chester, Peter the Venerable 
 and Osbert of Westminster in the twelfth century. The last 
 of these writers brings us in literary history to the time when 
 the leonine verse, which had hitherto been restricted to the 
 hymns of the Church, extended its sway over the whole 
 province of poetry. Under the jingling rule of rhyme, the 
 influence of Virgil was lessened ; but he did not surrender his 
 commanding place in Latin verse without leaving traces of 
 his presence in the vigorous life of newly-risen national 
 literatures. 
 
 It is pertinent, in view of these examples, to remark that 
 the knowledge of Virgil exhibited in them was not confined to 
 the masters of learning. Wherever at any time, even the 
 darkest, schools were known, there Virgil's works were a 
 subject of study. The grammarians were a narrow-minded 
 and servile race, who restricted their labors to selections and
 
 IN LITERARY TRADITION 53 
 
 compilations from the commentaries of Donatus and Priscian. 
 To such an extent was Donatus used that his name was 
 reduced to a common noun, synonymous with the term text 
 book. But in spite of their want of independence, the gram- 
 marians proved themselves to be excellent promoters of a 
 knowledge of Virgil. The rules which they laid down were 
 illustrated and enforced with his verses. With similar quota- 
 tions from him, the teachers in the mediaeval schools explained 
 questions in archaeology, and made extracts also as themes 
 for the study of style. In this way, perhaps, even those who 
 never had the opportunity to draw directly from the well of 
 .Virgilian poesy gained some knowledge of it — a knowledge 
 eked out by the anthologies. The legendary tendency of the 
 times was shown in the fact that a grammatical quack imposed 
 a work on the science of language upon the people as a 
 treatise written by A^irgil, who was supposed to have lived not 
 long subsequent to the Deluge. Virgil's extraordinary learn* 
 ing, as set forth in his book, savored of necromancy. By it 
 he was enabled to divide the Latin into twelve distinct 
 languages. 
 
 Among religious enthusiasts, especially ascetics, the tendency 
 was, during these centuries, to exaggerate the attractions of 
 Virgil's poems in order to emphasize the peril that was incurred 
 by their perusal. Herbert of Norwich dreamed that Christ 
 appeared to him, saying : "It is not proper for the lips of those 
 that preach Christ to recite the lies of Ovid and the inventions 
 of Virgil." The holy man confessed that he had sinned, not 
 only in reading, but in imitating these poets. St. Odo, having
 
 54 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 cherished a desire to read Virgil, was deterred by a dream in 
 which he was shown a vase of beautiful exterior, but fiUed 
 with venomous serpents. He interpreted the vision to mean 
 that the perfection of Virgil's style served only to conceal the 
 mortal perils that lurked in his poems. A certain monk, 
 Probus by name, is mentioned in the eleventh century as such 
 an admirer of Virgil and Cicero that he wished his brethren to 
 assist him in the effort to have these pagans canonized. Bishop 
 Rigbodo of Treves was accused of being more familiar with 
 the ^neid than Avith the Gospels. Vilgard, a student of 
 Ravenna, after incessant study of the classic writers, dreamed 
 one night, it is said, that Virgil, Horace and Juvenal appeared 
 to him, urging him to still greater efforts in reading and ex- 
 plaining their works. They assured him that, if he continued 
 in the way he had begun, he should attain a renown equal to 
 theirs. This dream had so great an effect upon him that he 
 began to teach many things contrary to the faith, and was 
 finally condemned and punished for heresy. 
 
 The constant phrase in the mouths of the religious extremists 
 was that the truth was uttered not by the orators and poets, 
 but by fools and fishermen. It was triumphantly asked what 
 there was in Horace to compare Avith the psalms, or in Virgil 
 to compare with the Gospels. For it was not commendable in 
 a holy man to talk of mere fables like the wars of the iEneid, 
 the Aviles of Cupid, the despair of Dido, the gloomy threshold 
 of Pluto. What was the use of reading the empty phrases of 
 wicked poets like Homer and Virgil and Menander? Mere 
 graces of style were to be despised, for it was not Maro, nor 
 Cicero, nor the most wise Homer, to whom it was said, "Go 
 into all the world" — but to an unlearned man — St. Peter. 
 The classic poems Avere denounced as inspired by the arts of
 
 IN LITERARY TRADITION 55 
 
 the devil — dccmonis arte; and it was made a mntter of unavail- 
 ing regret that many Catholics were to be found who, for the 
 sake of the elegant language, preferred the vanities of pagan 
 literature to the useful truths of the Sacred Scriptures. Holy 
 men, while they acknowledged that in youth they had been 
 guilty of reading w'ith delight the lies of Virgil (the phrase of 
 Alcuin's biographer, viendacia Virgilii), as they grew old, not 
 only refused to listen to such tales, but exhorted the youth to 
 avoid them. 
 
 VI 
 
 Not less unreal was the conception of Virgil embodied in 
 the romances of the twelfth century. The poets of the ver- 
 nacular lano-uajres thought of him as a learned clerk in the 
 midst of a feudal society composed of dukes, barons, bishops, 
 court-ladies, damsels, knights ; yet not without a reminiscence 
 of his fame as a poet. It would be a mistake to suppose that 
 the wide divergence between the classic and romantic periods in 
 poetry rendered impossible the appreciation of the ancient 
 poets by the popular writers of the middle ages. The literary 
 spirit of the twelfth century was not intentionally reactionary. 
 The Latin, which was in effect still a living language, served 
 as a means of communication between the works of antiquity, 
 and even those new productions which had a reason for their 
 existence quite independent of the past. While it preserved 
 imperfectly the memory of its own vanished excellence, it was 
 also the organ of a living sentiment, to express which it had 
 undergone the change that made it, in comparison with the 
 classical ideal, seem corrupt. The poets of the new languages 
 did not condemn antiquity ; on the contrary, they looked upon
 
 56 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 it with a reverence traditional in its origin, and thoroughly 
 legendary in its effect. Classical poetry was an unapproachable 
 thing to be treated with homage, and it was a very frequent 
 device with romancers to cite as the source of their narratives 
 some real or imaginary book in the Latin. To them the ancient 
 hero was a knight, the ancient heroine a dame of high degree ; 
 paganism was a species of magic, each national religion having 
 its specialty in necromancy. The ^neid of Virgil, when 
 translated by these fanciful writers, lost its distinctive character 
 of a romantic epic, and became a legendary romance. 
 
 This conception of Virgil is illustrated in Li Romans de 
 Dolopathos, the earliest work in which the story of the Seven 
 Wise Men reached Western Europe. Until recently it was a 
 question whether there was a peculiar Latin original of this 
 French romance. Certainly, if there were one it must differ 
 in a marked degree from the well known book, Hidoria Septem 
 Sapieniium. In the former Virgil is the most prominent char- 
 acter placed before the reader, while in the latter he is merely 
 mentioned in one of the subordinate tales. That there was, in 
 addition to the common book, a composition in Latin on the 
 general plan of the eastern and western writings of the class 
 alluded to, was supported by some slight documentary testi- 
 mony preserved by Martene. On the other hand, no Latin pro- 
 duction corresponding to the Dolopathos, though much sought, 
 had yet been found. This fact had been accepted by very 
 many learned medisevalists as proof that no such Latin work 
 ever was written. But in 1873 Hermann Oesterley published 
 the book of Johannes de Alta Silva, copying a manuscript 
 found in the Athenaeum Library at Luxemburg, thus establish- 
 ing the conclusion of de Montaiglon that two Latin versions 
 were made, widely different in detail from each other, 
 and clearing up every doubt as to the fact that the Dolopathos
 
 JN L I TERA !,' Y TBA I> I T ! O .V 57 
 
 was written late in the twelfth century by John or Jehan, a 
 monk of Hauteselve, in Lorraine. It was soon afterward 
 translated into French verse by Herbers, a trouvere. In 
 general plan it is similar to the ordinary versions of The Seven 
 Wise Men. The prominence given to the name of Virgil is 
 remarkable for the reason that if Jehan used any manuscript 
 authorities, he must have had recourse either to the Arabic, 
 the Hebrew or the Greek, versions under different titles being 
 then extant in those languages. It is not thought possible 
 that the Arabian tale of The Seven Wezeers could have been 
 known in Europe at so early a date. In the Hebrew and 
 Greek versions the names of Sendebar and Syntipas are very 
 nearly literal equivalents of the oriental name Sendebad. 
 Though these Avere undoubtedly known in some parts of 
 Europe when Jehan wrote, it would seem improbable, from the 
 peculiarity, of his production, that he ever saw either of them. 
 That the later work, the Kistoria SeptemSapientium, was founded 
 on the Hebrew version is almost sufficient in itself to prove that 
 Jehan's romance had no written source. The suggestion is a 
 plausible one that the monk of Lorraine owed his inspiration 
 to an oral narrative which, in its progress westward, had lost 
 its oriental traits, and had taken on others more easily under- 
 stood by its feudal auditors. This spoken narrative would be 
 specially liable to drop all Eastern names, and to incorporate 
 others which happened to appeal strongly to the story teller's 
 imagination, and to prove agreeable to the audiences before 
 whom he recited ; and it would be assigned by each succeed- 
 ing narrator to the country from which it had come to him. 
 This theory seems probable, in spite of the vague hint given by 
 Herbers that Jehan only converted into Latin a tale which 
 he found written in another language.
 
 58 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 As the Dolopathos has descended to the present day, it is a 
 French poem of twelve thousand, nine hundred and one lines. 
 The scene is the Court of Sicily, whose ruler was subject, 
 according to the feudal idea, to the overlordship of Augustus 
 at Rome. Dolopathos, the king, was accused of treason by an 
 envious faction, and ordered to come to court by Augustus for 
 the purpose of defending himself. Upon his explanation 
 Augustus sent a messenger to Sicily to try the case, and the 
 accusers were punished. Dolopathos, thus confirmed in the 
 possession of his kingdom, married the daughter of King 
 Agrippa, the niece of Augustus. The son born of this mar- 
 riage was named Lucimien, and, at the age of seven years, was 
 sent to Rome to be educated in the seven arts. After the 
 centuries that had been spent in grammatical study, of which 
 Virgil's works were the principal subject, it does not seem 
 unnatural that the author of the Dolopathos should have formed 
 an idea of Virgil as a great teacher. As Plato had said that 
 a king, to be a wise ruler, must be a philosopher, so Dolopathos 
 chose the wisest of men, renowned for his clergie, as his son's 
 instructor. Virgil was a native of a city of Sicily called 
 "Maante" or "Mantue," and he not only surpassed all other 
 clerks in knowledge, but he was also the greatest of poets. 
 He found Lucimien an apt pupU, who easily penetrated the 
 mysteries of the trivium and quadrivium. Even Virgil mar- 
 veled at the ease with which his pupil mastered grammar, the 
 mother and ruler of all the arts, and the two arts of dialectic 
 and rhetoric in which he himself excelled. The feudal idea of 
 rank was cal-ried by Herbers even into the schools. Virgil was 
 looked upon by other poets as nothing less than a deity. 
 Many other learned men were to be found at Rome, but Virgil 
 was specially honored by the command of Csesar, and had
 
 IN LITERARY TRADITION 59 
 
 over the other clerks the mestrie and signorie so that they 
 stood to him in the relation of vassals. He was Mestre 
 Virgile, Magider Virgilius, not only as distinguished from his 
 pupils, but among the other less renowned teachers. The 
 pupils committed to his care were those of the highest birth. 
 His dress accorded with the honor conferred upon him. He 
 sat upoii a high seat. A rich cloak, lined with fur, was his 
 outermost garment. Upon his head he wore a cap made of 
 fur. The mediaeval notion of a scholar completely destroyed 
 the historical and traditionary figure of Virgil. Instead of 
 the tall, awkward man who figured in the biography attributed 
 to Donatus, Herbers imagined a small, withered personage, 
 who, as men of learning were in the habit of doing, with head 
 bent, looked upon the ground continually, as if in deep 
 thought. 
 
 The man ,of great learning in the middle ages became an 
 instructor of youth from the necessity of the case. Hardly 
 any other employment was open to him. But this conception 
 of Virgil, reacting upon the legitimate biographical tradition, 
 made him the teacher of Marcellus, and finally occasioned a 
 legend that he had founded a school at Naples, and this 
 school was very naturally thought to have been a place for the 
 study of magic. 
 
 VII 
 
 So in the more trivial matter of mere literary anecdote, the 
 tendency with respect to Virgil was legendary. The earliest 
 traditions have an historical value. Gellius and Pliny related 
 that in their time manuscripts in the handwriting of the poet 
 still existed. Gellius remarked, on the authority of tradition,
 
 60 
 
 MAS TEE VIE GIL 
 
 that Virgil was an enthusiastic student of antiquities, thus 
 laying emphasis on a fact which is apparent to the student of 
 the iEneid. Again, he preserved a graphic description of 
 Virgil's method of composition which had been handed down 
 from the Augustan age. Virgil's contemporaries said that his 
 verses, when first put down in writing, were as shapeless 
 as unlicked bear cubs, and that it required great 
 labor on the part of the poet to reduce them to that smooth- 
 ness and harmony for which he was famous. These are 
 examples of the few anecdotes that may be looked upon as 
 authentic. The same may be said of the story respecting the 
 fortune which Octavian and Scribonia bestowed upon him, if 
 it be taken in its simplest form. But it must be confessed that 
 the clumsy witticisms attributed to Virgil in the life by 
 Donatus, so-called, betray the stifihess of the schoolmaster 
 rather than the skill of the practised literary man or the 
 polished courtier. The reply to Maecenas might well owe its 
 origin to some pedagogue of an epigrammatic turn. "How 
 shall a man preserve his good fortune ?" inquired the Etruscan. 
 "By surpassing others in justice and liberality as much as in 
 wealth and honors," said Virgil. Or this : Maecenas asked if 
 there could be anything in the pursuit of which a man would 
 not become weary. Virgil's oracular response was: "All 
 things, save knowledge, are wearisome by reason either of 
 their multitude or their likeness to each other." To Augustus, 
 desiring a comprehensive rule for governing the empire well, 
 the poet said: "Prefer the good and the prudent before the 
 wicked, then the best men will be honored and the manifestly 
 unjust will be excluded from power." When a friend told 
 him how one Cornificius condemned him, he replied: "I have 
 the penalty for him; the more care I show, and the more
 
 IN LITERARY TRADITION 61 
 
 praiseworthy I am, the more annoying to himself will be his 
 envy." At another time he was vexed by the clumsy sarcasms 
 of Philistus, a disputatious lecturer and mediocre poet, but 
 steadily maintained a discreet silence. "You have a tongue," 
 exclaimed Augustus, "defend yourself." Maro answered : "If 
 he," alluding to the rhetorician, "knew when to be still, he 
 would speak more rarely. For one should be silent unless 
 silence is injurious, or speech profitable. He who is conten- 
 tious and knows not when to quit, is reckoned by the wise 
 with fools." Condemned for transferring passages from Homer 
 to his own works, he rejoined: "Only the strong can wield the 
 club of Hercules." 
 
 Some fragments of native folk-lore clustered about the name 
 of Virgil, even as early as the time of Suetonius — -for example, 
 the stories of the portents that preceded his birth, and of the 
 miraculous growth and virtues of the tree which was called 
 by his name. But in the times when the study of Virgil's 
 works was corrupted by the passion for mere legend, the most 
 extraordinary fictions were retailed as part of the poet's 
 genuine biography. Alexander Neckam's account of the 
 origin of the poem entitled Galex was one of the least incredi- 
 ble of these legendary narratives. He related that when 
 Virgil was on his journey from Athens back to his native 
 land, he became ' weary by the way, and composed himself to 
 sleep in a recess, ignorant of the fact that a serpent had 
 chosen the place for a den. While he slept, a gnat lighted on 
 his lip to watch over the safety of so great a guest. The 
 serpent, upon returning to his hiding place, attempted to 
 enter the open mouth of the unconscious philosopher. The 
 gnat stung Maro sharply on the lip and awoke him. With 
 swift hand he killed the little sentinel to which he owed his
 
 62 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 safety. Looking about him, the glorious poet perceived that 
 the insect which he had killed was really the preserver of his 
 life; so that, while he thought himself rid of a torment, he 
 had killed a faithful friend. To honor as best he might 
 the memory of the gnat, before he left the shady recess, he 
 comjiosed a noble epitaph containing an account of the 
 incident. At length he published a little book which he 
 inscribed with the title De Culice, in which the shepherd, in 
 danger from a serpent and awakened by a gnat, was really the 
 poet himself. Such a story might easily grow out of the theory 
 that the poet made many veiled allusions in his verses to the 
 occurrences in his life. The story that Cicero, once at the theatre, 
 upon hearing a portion of the Sixth eclogue recited, exclaimed, 
 " MagyiCB spes altera Romce," meaning that though he was an aged 
 man, and must soon be gone, here was a youth who would confer 
 equal renown upon the literature of Rome, can not be true for 
 obvious chronological reasons. It was the creation of a time 
 when fanciful tales passed for history. The familiar anecdote 
 about the verses which Virgil is said to have written on the 
 gates of the Imperial palace must have owed its origin to an 
 age very low in the scale of grammatical learning. It is 
 worthy of mention that this is the only remnant of the tradi- 
 tions or legends respecting Virgil which has left a trace in the 
 New World. It is from the crude verses attributed to him 
 in this instance that the motto of the State of Georgia was 
 taken. 
 
 In the eleventh century, the fact of Virgil's indebtedness to 
 Octavian and his wife was expanded to legendary proportions. 
 It was said that for the lines, 
 
 Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane; 
 Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet,
 
 IN LITERARY TRADITION ' 63 
 
 he was rewarded not only with gold from the treasury of 
 Julius Csesar, but with his liberty, having been ux^ to this 
 time the slave of Octavianus. Alexander of Toleta affirmed 
 that for this distich Virgil received as his feof the city of 
 Naples with the country of Calabria. Such an idea came 
 easily out of the world-wide respect paid to Virgil's tomb at 
 Naples. It ran parallel to the other threads of legends, and 
 served to invest the locality of Naples with associations of the 
 greatest interest to readers of the poet.
 
 FOURTH— riBGlL' S BOOK OF MAGIC 
 
 An ancient tradition, dating from the time of Asconius 
 Pedianus and, perhaps, from that of Virgil himself, concern- 
 ing the authenticity of which there can be no doubt, gave out 
 that certain passages of the eclogues contained covert allusions 
 to incidents in the poet's own life, and to notable events of his 
 time. This vague report, unaccompanied by any particulars, 
 left the Yirgilian interpreters to their own fruitful conjectures 
 and speculations. To what an extreme their ill-disciplined fancy 
 led them was exemplified by the interpolated remark in the 
 commentary attributed to Servius, a grammarian of the fourth 
 century, upon the first eclogue, resolving it into an allegory 
 where Tityrus represented Virgil ; the pine tree, Rome ; the 
 fountains, Senators or poets, and the groves, the scholars of 
 the schools, while by the words, Suh tegmine fagi, the poet 
 was supposed to mean the possessions conferred upon him by 
 Octavianus. 
 
 Such a tradition could not be allowed to rest all but forgot- 
 ten in the midst of the grammatical activity which continued
 
 THE BOOK OF MAG 10 65 
 
 from Virgil's owu times for centuries without intermission. 
 The natural result of the tendency to an undue exaltation of 
 Virgil was a series of new and forced interpretations of the 
 Virgilian poems by which their meaning was extended to take 
 in not only all departments of science as then cultivated, but 
 also a vast deal of the superhuman and impossible. Donatus 
 conceived the order of Virgil's works to be that of human 
 progress from savagery to refinement. Men had first been 
 shepherds; therefore, Maro fii-st composed his bucolics. Then 
 they learned to cultivate the ground, and Virgil likewise 
 followed his earlier poems with a series upon husbandry 
 in the georgics. As men became more numerous, they 
 crowded upon each other. "Rivalries increased with civiliza- 
 tion, and produced the warlike state of society represented in 
 the ^neid. This allegorizing tendency had already reached 
 such a stage in the fourth century that the whole sixth book 
 of the JEneid was supposed to be based upon astrology, 
 Servius, while aiming to pursue a simple method, which he 
 correctly defined as in opposition to the allegorical mode of 
 interpretation, was nevertheless drawn by the current fashion 
 into fanciful theories as to Virgil's meaning. Writing of the 
 golden branch which ^neas plucked and carried Avith him 
 into Hades, Servius represented it to mean the letter Upsilon, 
 which in the system of the Pythagoreans was an emblem of 
 human life. The fancy attributed to the poet was that ^neas 
 took with him the virtues as an offering to Proserpine. He 
 described the branch hidden in the depths of a gloomy forest 
 — so the integrity of a good life was hidden in the rank growth 
 of human vices. 
 
 This treatment of the poet by the grammarians was not 
 more extravagant than the vagaries of the later rhetoricians
 
 66 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 who, led by T. C. Donatus, attributed to Virgil all the virtues 
 and knowledge required of the perfect orator. Whoever 
 passed through the hands of these teachers of grammar and 
 rhetoric learned to look upon Virgil as the type of all that 
 was excellent in every form of literature, containing within 
 himself all the potentialities of science and of culture. In 
 the Saturnalia of Macrobius, Virgil is glorified as the master 
 of the whole circle of learning. It is the only work of those 
 times, now extant, with the exception of the commentaries, 
 which pretends to treat of Virgil distinctively throughout. 
 Macrobius's pretext was ostensibly a desire to bring together, 
 for the instruction of his son, the results of his extensive and 
 varied reading. By connecting the matter loosely in the way 
 he adopted, he secured the form of a convivial dialogue, and, 
 by making Virgil the central theme of all the discourses, he 
 testified to the eminent place occupied by the poet in all the 
 thought of the times. He aimed at giving his work the air of 
 a critical and impartial discussion upon the merits of the poet, 
 but from the modern point of view he has, in this respect, 
 conspicuously failed. No doubt he was as deeply learned and 
 as acute in criticism as comported with the period of literary 
 decadence to which he belonged. In his dialogue the person- 
 ages introduced are given the names, and probably the 
 individual opinions, of learned men, his own contemporaries. 
 They are described as with the author devoting the period of 
 their recreation to contemplating the great poet in the highest 
 sphere of his intellectual activity, far removed from the rude 
 conception of him entertained by the vulgar. The ideal of 
 Virgil held up for admiration in the schools was condemned by 
 them as poor, low and inadequate from their point of view, 
 and so it was also from the modern point of view, but for a
 
 THE BOOK OF MA G I C 67 
 
 totally different reason from that which occurred to Miicrobius. 
 Imagining that there was much more in the Virgilian poems 
 than the grammarians, with all their minuteness, had been able 
 to discover, he demanded a deeper insight and a more thorough 
 exploration of meanings that had been left by Virgil purposely 
 in obscurity. In outlining such an investigation, he might 
 have been expected to mark a distinct reaction from the notions 
 of the times which he condemned ; but instead of any such 
 reaction, he manifested only a new phase of the tendencies 
 which he deprecated. 
 
 In the Saturnalia not only is Virgil learned in all directions 
 — he is infallible. Macrobius did not admit, as some other 
 grammarians felt it necessary to do, that errors and defects 
 could be found in the poetry of Virgil. These apparent 
 lapses were due, in his opinion, entirely to the want of capacity 
 or genius in, the different readers. The whole work is devoted 
 to demonsti'ating the immensity of Vii'gil's hitherto concealed 
 knowledge. To use expressions similar to his own, Macrobius 
 pi'oposed that the infinite number of places in Virgil's works 
 over Avhich the common herd of expositors passed dry-shod 
 — as if what a grammarian assumed to be plain was obvious to 
 every reader — should no longer remain in the depths; but 
 that the proper method of investigation having been discov- 
 ered, the deepest recesses of the poet's thought should be 
 opened to the veneration of the learned. Of course, it was 
 necessary that the part of a critic adverse to the poet should 
 be represented in the dialogue. This person to whom Macrobius 
 gives the name of Evangelus, is apparently altogether ficti- 
 tious. He lacks the vigor and personal completeness with which 
 the author succeeded in investing his other characters. He 
 does not embody the opinions of the writers opposed to Virgil
 
 68 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 in the age when Macrobius wrote. His prejudices are rather 
 those of the first century, which the advocates of the poet had 
 long since disposed of. The sole duty of Evangelus in the 
 dialogue is to bring out by means of his objections the counter 
 arguments of the other speakers. His presence is barely 
 tolerated by Macrobius and his friends, and his speeches are 
 usually mere quotations from some ancient critic. He finally 
 reaches the point of denying that Virgil, born in an obscure 
 village, could have learned Greek literature. Such an absurdity 
 did not occur to the most bitter detractor in the Augustan age, 
 and Macrobius Avould perhaps hardly have thought of it, 
 except for its convenience as a pretext to explain the really 
 profound knowledge of Greek literature which Virgil pos- 
 sessed. This is the theme of the entire fifth book, as auswer- 
 ing in part an objection of Evangelus, who declares that 
 he can see nothing in Virgil more than simply the poet ; that 
 as a poet he has left in his works many errors, and that he 
 himself recognized the lack of merit in his works by his dying 
 request that the ^Eneid should be burned. Symmachus, on 
 the other hand, maintains that Vu-gil is not only suitable to 
 the instruction of children, but contains thiugs worthy the 
 attention of mature readers. "The glory of Virgil is such," 
 he adds, "that it can neither be increased by praise nor 
 diminished by censure." To this the other speakers agree, and 
 they then undertake to reply to Evangelus in detail, each 
 taking up a particular department of learning and demon- 
 strating Virgil's perfection in it. Eustathius discussed the 
 poet's proficiency in astrology and philosophy and his 
 acquaintance with Greek literature ; Flavian and Vettius, his 
 acquaintance with the sacred science of the Romans; Sym- 
 machus, his ability as a rhetorician ; Eusebius, his knowledge
 
 THE BOOK OF MAGIC 69 
 
 as au orator; Furius Albinus, his familiarity with the older 
 Latin writers, and Cecina Albinus, his propriety in the use of 
 words, while Servius descanted upon difficult places in the 
 poems. The discourse of Eustathius upon Virgil as an 
 astrologer and philosopher, the part of all the rest most likely 
 to have been valuable to modern scholars, is unfortunately not 
 in existence. That it was of a Neo-Platonic cast is to be 
 inferred from a remark in Macrobius's exposition of the Dream 
 of Scipio, which recognizes in the Terque, quaterque beati 
 of Virgil the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers. The orig- 
 inal Eustathius, from whom Macrobius drew the character of 
 his dialogue, was notable for his eagerness in the study of 
 marvelous things. It was he Avho, explaining the origin 
 of the palladium of Troy, related that it was made and 
 endued with marvellous properties by a philosopher who lived 
 at Troy previous to the war with the Greeks, a legend similar 
 in its make-up to some in which the name of Virgil figured. 
 
 n 
 
 The tendency manifested by Macrobius to discover every 
 sort of hidden wisdom in Virgil's poems was characteristic as 
 well of subsequent writers throughout a period of several cen- 
 turies. Few traces of the pagan allegorical interpretations 
 remain, but the fragmentary testimony shows that he was 
 considered not only a poet but a profound philosopher. It is 
 hardly to be doubted that the more salient features of the 
 earliest allegories were reflected in the work of the Christian 
 Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, who probably wrote before the 
 middle of the sixth century. The De Continentia Virgiliana 
 is one of the most remarkable writings that have survived
 
 70 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 from the Latin mediseval times ; and it is also a most valuable 
 memorial of the fame retained by Virgil even in an age of 
 barbarism. In his introduction Fulgentius explains that he 
 restricted himself to the ^ueid because the shorter poems 
 concealed mysteries too profound for him to hope to penetrate 
 them. He was of the opinion, however, that the first georgic 
 was devoted to astrology, the second to medicine and physiog- 
 nomy, the third to augury and sacred science, the fourth to 
 music and to the influence of the stars on human destiny. In 
 the first, second and third eclogues was given the content of 
 the three great divisions of human life in the terms of nature, 
 while the fourth took uj) the art of prophecy. Leaving these 
 abstruse matters for something which he pretended to under- 
 stand, he besought the muses to grant him a vision of the 
 spirit of Virgil. They acceded to his request. The spectre 
 appeared sitting in an attitude of serious meditation, as if con- 
 templating some new poetical work. Fulgentius humbly 
 prayed the poet to descend from his lofty seat and reveal to 
 him the mysteries of his poems — not those which were Liost 
 difficult, but those within the comprehension of a poor and 
 barbarous mind. The spectre consented; not, however, 
 without a terrifying frown. His own greatness he emphasized 
 by persistently addressing his interlocutor as the mannikiu 
 {homunculns) , and by his grandiloquent manner of speaking. 
 By way of preface, the spirit remarked that the design of the 
 ^neid, as a whole, was to reflect the entire course of human 
 life. Upon being asked to explain this philosophic purpose 
 more particularly, he defined the three important words of the 
 first verse, arma, virum and prhnus, as emblematic of the three 
 gradations existing in human life. The first of these was to 
 have ; the second, to rule what is possessed, and the third, to
 
 TEE BOOK OF MAGIC 71 
 
 adorn that whicli is ruled. Arma, that is, courage, referred 
 to the corporeal substance ; virum, that is, wisdom, referred to 
 the intellectual substance ; primus, that is, the prince, referred 
 to the adorning substance. Thus in the semblance of a tale 
 were described the normal conditions of human life — first 
 nature, then learning and lastly happiness. 
 
 With this preface the spectre of Virgil began an exposition 
 in detail of each successive book of the iEneid. But he gave 
 his listener no little trouble. He required a jiromise that his 
 mysteries should not be exposed to dull and uncultured minds. 
 As if doubtful whether Fulgentius himself was not merely 
 pretending to an acquaintance with the ^neid, he demanded 
 a recital of the narrative given in the first book. Reassured 
 by the manner in which his request was complied with, the 
 shade explained that the story of the shipwreck signified the 
 birth of man who enters life with pain and grief and crying. 
 Juno, who caused the disaster, was the goddess of childbirth, 
 and Eolus, who served her, symbolized destruction. The 
 song of lopas was the cradle song of the nurse. The incidents 
 of the second and third books all referred to infaucy with its 
 love of the marvellous and its eagerness to hear fabulous tales. 
 A special symbol of infancy was the cyclops Avith the single 
 eye in the middle of his forehead, signifying the immature 
 and changeable mind of the babe, overpowered by the wisdom 
 of old age typified in Ulysses. The period of infaucy closed 
 with the death and funeral of Father Anchises that is, with 
 the release from parental control. In the first- enjoyment of 
 his freedom the youth seeks eagerly after pleasui'es, delighting 
 especially in those which are unlawful, and for this reason 
 Virgil described at length the unfortunate passion of Dido. 
 From this tempest of the mind youth was saved by the
 
 72 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 admonitions of Mercury, wlio typified intellectual power. 
 The funeral pyre of Dido signified the destruction of youthful 
 lust in its own flame. At the turning point of life man, of 
 whom iEneas was the type, recalled the paternal memory, and, 
 in the funeral games in honor of Anchises, gave himself to 
 noble exercises. The burning of the ships represented the 
 destruction of ali those things which had hitherto caused the 
 mind to err. Having thus separated himself from evil tend- 
 encies that had caused him to wander, man thenceforth sought 
 wisdom, or, to speak more poetically and more plainly, vEneas 
 journeyed to the temi:)le of Apollo. After having been freed 
 from hallucination in the death of Palinurus, and buried vain 
 glory in the person of Misenus, man, armed with the golden 
 branch of Avisdom, Avhich opened the secrets of buried truth, 
 began his journey of philosophic investigation, described 
 under the fiction of the descent into Hades. First of all 
 were revealed to him the ills of human life in their sad aspects. 
 Guided by Time, that is, Charon, he crossed the turbid and 
 agitated waves of juvenile life; heard, in the barking of 
 Cerberus, the confused quarrels of men among themselves, 
 and learned how to obtain the sweets of wisdom. Then he 
 proceeded to a knowledge of the future life, after meditating 
 upon the passions and affections of his youth, or, as the JEneid 
 has it, contemplated the shades of Dido and Anchises, and 
 learned the nature of the rewards and punishments with 
 which good and evil deeds are requited. Made Avise by these 
 revelations, man was freed from the rule of a preceptor in the 
 death and funeral of the nurse, Cajeta, and joined the beloved 
 Ausonia, or, in other words, became one of the good. He 
 chose as his consort Lavinia, the embodiment of the Aveariness 
 and the disputes of age ; but took for his counsellor the good
 
 THE BOOK OF MAGIC 73 
 
 man, Evander, (Euandros) in whose conversation he learned 
 of the victory of good over evil, that is, of Hercules over 
 Cacus. Obtaining suitable armor for his ardent soul from 
 Vulcan, he undertook the struggle against madness, who, 
 guided first by drunkenness (typified by Metiscus) and after- 
 wards by obstinacy (whose poetical name was Juturna, 
 equivalent in derivation to Diuturna), was accompanied and 
 aided by impiety (for which Mezentius was but another name) 
 and unreason (in the person of Messapus.) Wisdom finally 
 conquered, as allegorically shown in the victory of the Trojans 
 over the Latins. 
 
 The tendency to describe the course of human life, and the 
 contests between good and evil, between virtue and vice, by 
 an allegory, was one that ran parallel to the popular taste. It 
 was as agreeable to the readers of Prudentius's Psychomachia, 
 and Aldhelih's De Octo Principalibus Vitiis as to those who have 
 delighted in the poem of Spenser or the unrivalled narrative 
 of Bunyan. Naturally, the Virgilian allegory of Fulgentius 
 retained the attention of many generations of readers. The 
 strained interpretation was well suited to the loquacious 
 minuteness of scholasticism. It is an important fact in the 
 consideration of the Virgilian legends that the disposition to 
 convert the ^neid into an allegory recurred at the same 
 mediaeval epoch in which the legends came to the surface in 
 literature, and when, also, the romantic spirit had transmuted 
 the Roman epic into a legendary tale. If Fulgentius's work 
 were alone sufiicient for a generalization, it could be shown 
 that in the sixth century, Virgil, both as to his works and his 
 appearance, had taken on much of the quality which is 
 characterized by the term legendary. The very same spirit 
 which actuated Neckam in relating the miraculous tales which
 
 74 MASTER VI BOIL 
 
 he had heard concerning Virgil, led John of Salisbury to 
 construct his theory upon the philosophic purpose of the 
 ^neid. In contrast with Fulgentius he limited the allegory 
 of human life to the first six books of the poem. The name 
 -^neas according to his notions of etymology was nothing but 
 a symbolic word to describe the human soul ; and he coined 
 the Greek term ennaios, indweller, to support this definition. 
 With this beginning he was able to show to his own satisfaction 
 that the first book of the poem related to the perils and 
 vicissitudes of infancy ; that the second described the growth 
 and ingenuous curiosity of childhood, equally eager to see 
 and to hear all things, whether true or false; the third, 
 boyhood with its errors; the fourth, youth and the illicit 
 pleasures in which it delights; the fifth, virile maturity and 
 the approach of age, and finally the sixth j:)ictured old age 
 with the loss of vitality, the cooling of the passions and the 
 advance of decrepitude. Bernard of Chartres in his com- 
 mentary on Virgil enforced a similar idea. There were not 
 wanting those who conceived the three styles of Virgil, the 
 bucolic, the georgic and the epic, to be typical of the 
 three psychological categories of human life: the eclogues, 
 symbolizing the contemplative life; the georgics, the 
 sensuous; and the jEneid, the life of activity. Virgil 
 was but one among those whose works suflfered from 
 these imputed meanings. Not a book, not an historical 
 narration, nor a tale of fiction, but was thought capa- 
 ble of philosophic or moral explanation. The doctrine 
 was commonly taught that all literature had four mean- 
 ings — the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the 
 analogical. Men's minds were preocupied with a category of 
 ideas, the images of which they sought in everything. Even
 
 THE BOOK OF MAG 10 75 
 
 Dante was not superior to his times in this respect.* In the 
 Convito he calls to mind "the allegory of the ages of man 
 which Virgil imagined in the JEueid " ; and afterward, in the 
 same book, explains the figurative sense of the ^Eneid in a 
 manner little different from that of Salisbury. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Out of this aj)otheosis of Virgil and his works the more 
 ignorant romancers and trouveres could gain but one idea. 
 The -^neid, as they knew it in the versions of poets only less 
 ignorant than themselves, would not tally in any respect with 
 the schemes of the philosophers. But Virgil must have 
 written a book to warrant the fame accorded him as a man 
 of superhuman wisdom and infinite knowledge. From that 
 point the development of a legend relating to a book of magic 
 or necromancy, alleged to have been composed by Virgil, 
 
 "•■■'Witness his extraordinary comment on a passage in Lucan's 
 Pharsalia; (see The Banquet of Dante Alighieri, translated by Elizabeth 
 Price Sayer, Fourth Treatise, chap, xxviii.): "And that these two things 
 are suitable to this [old] age, that great poet Lucan represents to us in 
 the second book of his Pharsalia, when he says that Marcia returned 
 to Cato and entreated him that he would take her back in his fourth 
 and extreme old age, by which Marcia, the Noble Soul, is meant, and 
 we can thus depict the symbol of it in all truth ; Marcia was a virgin, 
 and in that state typified Adolescence ; she then espoused Cato, and 
 in that state typified Youth ; she then bore sons, by whom are typified 
 the Virtues which are becoming to young men; and she departed from 
 Cato and espoused Hortensius, by which it is typified that she quitted 
 Yputh and came to Old Age. She bore sons to this man also, by whom 
 are typified the Virtues which befit Old Age. Hortensius died, by 
 which is typified the end of Old Age, and Marcia made a widow, by 
 which widowhood is typified Extreme Old Age returned in the early 
 days of her widowhood to Cato, wherby is typified the Noble Soul 
 turning to God in the beginning of Extreme Old Age."
 
 76 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 would be as obvious and easy as any detail of fiction could be. 
 Returning to the Dolopathos we find that VirgU. is represented 
 as having written a little work embodying the substance of all 
 the books of philosophy for the use of his pupil Lucimien. It 
 was a volume so small that it could easily be carried in the 
 hand, yet it contained all the principles of the seven arts, but 
 especially those of Estronomie, by which Herbers means 
 nothing less than the astrology which was attributed to VirgU 
 by Macrobius and Fulgentius, subject, of course, to the 
 change which the pretended science of divination by the stars 
 had undergone during the intervening centuries. That the 
 science of astronomy as described in this romance was merely 
 divination is shown by the use which Lucimien made of the book. 
 After he had thoroughly mastered the art, he took advantage of 
 the absence of Virgil one evening to try his learning. He 
 discovered that his mother, the wife of Dolopathos, was dead, 
 and that the old king had married again. He foresaw also by 
 the aid of the stars that he would soon be summoned home. 
 On another occasion, by watching the course of the stars in 
 accordance with Virgil's instructions, he had been enabled to 
 foresee the plot of some envious persons to poison the master. 
 It is by the principles of the same art, called in another place 
 se&rez de divinite, that Virgil discovers the peril which his 
 pupil will encounter upon his return to his father's court, and 
 is led to enforce upon him an oath to keep inviolable silence 
 until they shall see each other again, thus bringing the story 
 to a point of similarity with the ordinary versions of the Seven 
 Wise Men. The fate of Virgil's book is a notable incident in 
 the romance. After Lucimien has passed through the dan- 
 gerous adventure Avith his young and beautiful stepmother — a 
 sufficiently pointed reminder of the disagreement between
 
 THE BOOK OF MAGIC 77 
 
 Joseph and Potiphar's wife ; after the sages have succcessively 
 related the tales with which the action of the story is delayed ; 
 after the life of Luciraien has been saved and his stepmother 
 has been burned, throughthe timely arrival of Virgil; and, after 
 his coronation as King of Sicily, an account is given of the death 
 of the master. When Virgil's last moments came he clasped 
 the book of nigromance — of which, remarks the poet, he knew 
 the whole science — so tightly in his hand that it could not be 
 released. That this supposititious work of VirgU should have 
 become a work on necromancy in the conclusion of Herbers's 
 poem, when it had been in the first place merely a compendium 
 of the seven arts, is a significant fact in the history of the 
 Virgilian myth, since it indicates that only a few years were 
 required for the development of the superstition. 
 
 Some light is thrown upon the growth of this legend by two 
 curious fragments of history contemporaneous with the 
 production of the Dolopathos. John of Salisbury in his 
 Polycraticus, dedicated to Thomas a Becket, about 1170, 
 apparently in answer to an inquiry mentions the exploits of a 
 person, whom he calls a Stoic, who had long busied himself at 
 Naples, in the effort to secure the relics of Virgil from the 
 sepulchre in which they reposed. In the useless enterprise of 
 obtaining the bones of the poet, rather than his wisdom, to 
 carry with him back to Gaul, this lunatic had passed many 
 sleepless nights, had endured hunger and expended his strength 
 in the most wearisome bodily toil. In all this there was not a 
 hint of occult science, Salisbury's phrase being ossa quam 
 sensum, not artem, nor magicam, nor mathematieavi. A 
 genei-ation later Gervase of Tilbury, apparently unaware of 
 Salisbury's anecdote, found a tradition that when Roger 
 reigned in Sicily a learned Englishman presented himself at
 
 78 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 court, beseeching the royal favor. The king promised to 
 grant any reasonable request, supposing that he had merely to 
 deal with a needy scholar. A learned man he certainly was, 
 remarks Gervase, because he showed himself thoroughly expert 
 in all the mysteries of the trivium and quadrivium, and deeply 
 read in natural science and astronomy. His answer to the 
 king was that he asked no ephemeral gifts, but desired what 
 would seem to other men a very small matter, the privilege of 
 taking possession of Virgil's remains, providing he could find 
 them within the boundaries of Roger's kingdom. To this 
 eccentric request the king consented, and the learned traveller, 
 carrying a letter subscribed with the royal sign manual, 
 hastened to Naples, a city where Vii'gil had left many proofs 
 of his extraordinary knowledge. When the letter was 
 presented to the Neapolitans, they, in ignorance of the locality 
 where Virgil was buried, easily agreed to obey a command, 
 which, as they thought, would have a totally nugatory result. 
 The stranger labored long, just as Salisbury said his Stoic did; 
 but finally, guided by his art, discovered the tomb he sought, 
 in the very centre of a mountain which was solid on all sides, 
 unbroken even by the smallest fissure. An excavation was 
 made and with wearisome toil, the sepulchre Avas reached. 
 The body of Virgil was found entire, but it crumbled to dust 
 immediately. Under the, head of the corpse was a book on 
 the subject of the ars notoria with the explanation necessary 
 for mastering the science. These were all carried away, the 
 bones, the dust and the mysterious volume. But the 
 Neapolitans recalling to mind the affection which Virgil had 
 cherished toward their city, and fearing that their own folly 
 would bring upon the city some terrible calamity, decided to 
 revoke their former action and to disobey the commands of the
 
 THE BOOK F MA G I C 79 
 
 king. Fur, they reasoned, if Virgil's bones had not been of 
 the greatest importance to the city, he would not at his death 
 have taken such pains to conceal his sepulchre. The Duke of 
 the Neapolitans, with the aid of a great concourse of citizens, 
 recovered the bones by force, and, placing them in a sack, 
 carried them into the castle of the sea, where afterward those 
 who wished to see them were shown certain jointed pieces of iron. 
 The Englishman, upon being interrogated as to his purpose in 
 obtaining these relics, replied that he hoped by a pi'ocess of 
 conjuring to obtain a complete knowledge of the arts of Virgil, 
 and added that he was satisfied to have had the bones under his 
 care for a single day. In the struggle for the possession 
 of the book the stranger was deprived of a portion of it. This 
 recaptured fragment was religiously preserved at Naples, and 
 Gervase had the effrontery to annex to his narrative the state- 
 'ment that th,e mutilated leaves were perused by him, through the 
 kindness of his friend, Cardinal Joannes, and subjected to the 
 proper tests with the most conclusive success. The phrase ars 
 ■notoria which Gervase used is one of those delicate circumlocu- 
 tions by which he and other scientific men of his times 
 described processes allied to magic. 
 
 IV 
 
 With the French romancers generally the book was sup- 
 posed to have been a compact and brief exposition of the 
 seven arts. The author uf U Image du Monde, a poem written 
 about the middle of the thirteenth century, evidently obtained 
 his notions respecting it directly from the Dolopathos, for he 
 remarked that it was written by Virgil for the use of one of 
 his pupils, the son of a king of Sicily. According to him, a
 
 80 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 diligent student by means of this abstract could master all the 
 arts in the space of three years. Among the Germans, who 
 lacked that traditional respect for Virgil's name which was 
 cherished by the Latin races, and who, moreover, as has been 
 noted in the case of Conrad of Querfurt, felt no hesitation in 
 calling the forbidden arts by their right names, the book 
 became at once a repertory of diabolical wisdom, degenerating 
 at last into a mere receptacle for the magician's familiar spirits. 
 In the Wartburgkrieg it was said to have been, not Virgil's 
 own composition, but a work stolen from the cell of the 
 ancient magician Zabulon. Von Muglin, in his Weltbuch, a 
 versified history of the world, written at Vienna, about 1350, 
 to which allusion has already been made, had Virgil find it 
 under a corpse. The Italians, who were slow to accept the 
 tale in any form, gave no indication that they were acquainted 
 with it until Bartolomeo Caracciolo compiled his Cronica di 
 Partetiope, a legendary history of Naples, late in the fourteenth 
 century. This author repeated the story given by Gervase, 
 and then added the explanation that the book was not Virgil's 
 own, but had been found by him in a cavern beneath Monte 
 Barbaro, near Naples. Virgil, in company with one Philo- 
 melus, made a search for the sepulchre of Chiron, and, upon 
 finding it, obtained the manuscript. The Chiron, w'ith whose 
 name that of Virgil is thus connected, was probably meant for 
 the centaur of that name, who figured in the mythic period of 
 the history of medicine. A book attributed to him under the 
 title of the Herbarium of Apuleius, the Platonist, translated from the 
 original Greek of Chiron, the Centaur, was widely known in the 
 middle ages. Philomelus is, perhaps, to be identified with the 
 ancient physician Philomenus, who gave his name to some 
 useless remedies of a magical character ; the appellation sounds,
 
 THE BOOK OF 31 A GIC 81 
 
 however, suspiciously like an allegorical allusion to \'irgirs 
 poetical gifts. It is probable that this story, which Caracciolo 
 claimed to have found in an ancient chronicle, was a pure 
 invention in behalf of some empirical ti'eatise, written by a 
 precursor of such quacks as Cardan and Paracelsus, in which 
 advantage was taken of the popular Neapolitan belief that 
 Monte Barbaro contained all sorts of treasures and miraculous 
 things. Conrad of Querfurt mentioned this popular opinion 
 as common when he was at Naples early in the thirteenth 
 century. The title of the book which Virgil thus obtained was 
 De Necromancia, but Caracciolo, true to the classical traditions 
 of his country, accepted this phrase as meaning only the 
 knowledge of planetary influence upon human affairs. 
 
 V 
 
 As in the case of Paracelsus and others, the superstition as 
 to Virgil's knowledge and as to the book in which he had 
 recorded it led finally to the composition of a book of magic in 
 his name. It was entitled Virgilii Cordubensis Philosophia. 
 While it contained no allusion to the common' legends concern- 
 ing Virgil, it was closely linked to them by the spirit which 
 animated its anonymous author, who, appropriating the name 
 of Virgil, pretended that he was an Arabian philosopher, and 
 that his works were originally composed in the Arabic 
 language. These had been translated into Latin at Cordova, 
 in 1290. Certainly the author could not have been an 
 Arabian, nor could he have been acquainted to any extent 
 with Moorish learning, otherwise he would never have given 
 the name of Virgil to a man of that race. In fact, he could 
 not have possessed any learning worthy of the name, for he
 
 82 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 made Virgil a contemporary at Cordova of such widely 
 separated names as Seneca, Avicenna, Averrhoes, and Alguazil. 
 He was manifestly an ignorant pretender, who aimed to give 
 his book authority by connecting it with a name of legendary 
 importance on the one hand, and on the other with the specious 
 reputation of the Moors in science. By Avay of introducing 
 his work, the author related how all the studious men who 
 sought Toledo as the centre of instruction saw the necessity 
 of obtaining his services as a teacher, as soon as they heard of 
 his intimate acquaintance with every secret and abstruse avenue 
 of learning. His exceptional knowledge had been obtained by 
 means of that universal science which others called necromancy, 
 but to which he preferred to give the name of Rejidgentia. 
 They sent a humble request that he would come to Toledo as 
 a lecturer, but he refused, because of a reluctance to quit his 
 native city of Cordova. Thereupon, they took him by force 
 and placed him in the chair of magic, or all-science, at their 
 university, a pi'ofessorship not unknown during the middle 
 ages in the schools of Spain. From this preface it is obvious 
 that in general literary history the book should be classed with 
 that j)estilent succession of works supposed to contain the 
 Avhole substance of what is knowable, the golden keys, royal 
 methods, Parnassian graduses, the macro-micro-cosmical oceans 
 that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for example, 
 disgraced the name of learning. 
 
 The introduction was folloAved by grave discussions upon 
 the subjects of the First Cause, the human mind, the universe, 
 enlightened by the important communications which Professor 
 Virgil made to his audience of philosophers upon the authority 
 of the spirits whom he had consulted. He explained the nature 
 of these spirits and elucidated the principles of the ars notoria
 
 THE BOOK OF MAGIC 83 
 
 which, according to him, was a holy and perfect science, tliose 
 only who understood it being without sin. The authors of 
 this science were the good angels who communicated it to 
 King Solomon. They enclosed all the spirits in a bottle save 
 one, a lame devil, who escaped and subsequently released all 
 his companions. When Alexander visited Jerusalem, he was 
 accompanied by his master, Aristotle, who was then a person 
 of very rough, uncouth manners. But he happened to dis- 
 cover the place where the books were concealed which Solomon 
 wrote. He obtained them, and by study became the great 
 man revered in later ages. Those who have read the book 
 say that it is full of grammatical blunders. Its philosophy is 
 a medley in which are to be recognized fragments of Judaism 
 and rabbinism, mingled with Christian doctrines, one of which 
 is the dogma of the Trinity. Of Virgil there is properly 
 nothing bu+- the name. The reason for the forgery is plainly 
 the tradition endowing Virgil with a superhuman wisdom, 
 exactly as the gradual corruption of grammatical study led to 
 the composition of a text book in his name upon that science.
 
 FIFTH- VIRGIL, THE MAX OF SCIFJTCE 
 
 Educated people at Mantua must have recognized Virgil's 
 genius while he was yet a young suburban resident at Andes, 
 otherwise it is impossible to account for the efforts of Pollio 
 and Gallus in his behalf. But to the neighboring peasantry 
 his studious habits and his retirement must have seemed the 
 mark of an indolent, shiftless nature. When the confiscations 
 were in progress and all the people of the district were evicted 
 with the alternative of starvation or exile, the youthful poet 
 came near losing his life at the hands of the veteran who had 
 seized his farm. It must have seemed extraordinary to his 
 poor compatriots that these cruelties inflicted by the soldiers of 
 the victor at Philippi should have been followed almost 
 immediately in Virgil's case by extraordinary favors from 
 Octavian's own hand. To their rude minds the real cause 
 of Virgil's advancement would not easily have suggested itself, 
 save in connection with something which gave it an air of 
 utility. Now, one of the circumstances which conferred a 
 superstitious value upon poetry among the ancients was its 
 supposed relation to medicine. Songs and chants that would
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE 85 
 
 now be considered mere futile magical triflings were once a 
 legitimate element in the curative art. The particulars of this 
 ancient practice which was supported even by the authority of 
 Galen, and was applied in such widely divergent forms of 
 disease as epilepsy and sciatica, madness and pestilential 
 contagions, are so well known that it is unnecessary to recite 
 them in this place. It is, however, quite probable that this 
 superstition, having its cause in the actual theories of medical 
 science, was in its turn the main reason for attributing the 
 character of a physician to many an ancient poet, as in the 
 case of Orpheus, Musseus, Homer, Hesiod, Aratus, Eudemus, 
 Alcseus, Ptolemseus, Cytherius, Democrates, Nicander, 
 .iEmilius Macer, Silius Italicus, Petronius and Ausonius. 
 That proficiency in medicine was attributed to Virgil 
 by tradition is well known. As in the case of Homer 
 — and, in- modern times, of Shakespeare — Virgil's works 
 were ransacked by the devotees of every special science 
 in search of quotations which were adduced to prove 
 that in each, as in all, he had been an adept. The 
 selections which were supposed to indicate that he 
 had a professional knowledge of medicine would, of them- 
 selves, make a respectable pamphlet. The third georgic was 
 cited particularly on account of the graphic account it gave of 
 diseases proper to the domestic animals and to the methods by 
 which they were cured ; and it must be allowed that Virgil 
 displayed a knowledge that could only have been 
 attained by careful observation and much experience. 
 The commentary attributed to Servius, either by the original 
 work of that author, or by the emendations of his mediaeval 
 successors, was copious in its allusions to Virgil's knowledge of 
 medicine. To this tradition respecting the poet the greater
 
 86 MASTER VI B GIL 
 
 number of anecdotes told of him in his legendary aspect are 
 directly related. 
 
 n 
 
 Aulus Gellius, who wrote in the second century, mentioned, 
 among the other criticisms which he had to make upon the 
 text of Virgil, that the line which now reads, Ora jugo, et 
 vacuis Clanius non cequus Acerris, formerly began with Nola, 
 the name of an ancient city in the Campagna, beyond 
 Vesuvius, from Naples. This statement was made on the 
 authority of a commentator belonging to the first century. 
 Virgil was said to have made the change in his verse because 
 of the lack of courtesy which the inhabitants of Nola 
 manifested to him in refusing a privilege which he had asked 
 as the owner of an estate in the neighborhood. The fact that 
 Virgil once had a place near Nola and the village of Avella 
 was commemorated by the peoj^le who gave to the hill now 
 known as Monte Vergine the name of Mons Virgilii, the 
 locality of which corresponds exactly to the allusion of 
 Gellius. In Latin writings of both mediaeval and modern 
 times, the hill is described under the various names of Mons 
 Virginmn, Mons Virginis, Mons Virgilianus. Of these, the 
 last given was at first universal, as is shown by documents of 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Pope Celestinus in a 
 bull issued in 11$)7, relative to the monastery there, spoke 
 of it as the monastery of the Holy Virgin Maiy, on the 
 Mount of Virgil. In the biography of St. William of 
 Vercelli, the founder of the monastery, its site is described by 
 the same name exclusive of all the others. Tradition and 
 usage thus connect with events of the poet's life a legend
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE 87 
 
 which Neckam alluded to when he spoke of the garden of 
 Virgil surrounded by an immovable and impenetrable 
 atmosphere. There are some circumstances belonging to 
 history which indicate that it was a very easy corruption of 
 speech for the Neapolitans to say Virginius, Virginis or 
 Virgin um for Virgilius. According to the biography which 
 is known under the name of Donatus, the ancient inhabitants 
 of the city translated the name of the poet by the Greek 
 colloquialism Parihenias, thus showing that they quite mistook 
 its meaning, or else that the letters 1 and u in certain com- 
 binations were not readily distinguished by them. A defect in 
 this respect is not so uncommon with individualsthat it might not 
 characterize a whole population. Another example of the 
 same confusion occurred at a much later date. Seneca, in the 
 sixth book of his Problems of Nature, at the beginning, spoke 
 of an earthquake, which, in the consulate of Regulus and 
 Virginius, desolated the Campagua. Of all the cities of the 
 region Naples only escaped. In this passage the name 
 Virginius was read as equivalent to Virgilius and thus the 
 opinion was deduced that Virgil was consul not of the Roman 
 commonwealth, but in Naples at the time of the great 
 earthquake. In the collection of mediaeval legends concerning 
 the monastery of Monte Vergine written by the Abbot 
 Giordano, in 1649, it is stated that Virgil, upon taking up his 
 residence at Naples, was appointed consul with Regulus as his 
 colleague, and Seneca's historical paragraph is cited as proof. 
 To the romancers and legend makers of Western Europe the 
 name Mt. Virgil suggested the outline of their invention, to 
 the perfecting of which more than one man contributed. 
 Helinand, the son of a Flemish nobleman, after wandering as a 
 trouvere, became a monk and wrote a chronicle stuffed Avith
 
 88 MASTEE VIE GIL 
 
 fables and prodigies. He described, among other things, the 
 V^irgilian garden, adding to the particulars which Neckam had 
 mentioned that no rain fell within the charmed precincts. 
 Gervase of Tilbury followed with his Otia Imperialia, dedicated 
 to his sovereign, Otto lY. Gervase was the chancellor to this 
 emperor, and had travelled much in Italy. According to him 
 Virgil's garden lay on the slope of Mon-s Virginum. It was 
 planted with many kinds of herbs, among the rest one called 
 the herb of Lucius, which restored blind sheep to sight. In 
 the Image du Monde the garden is mentioned as having no 
 protection save the wall of air. Caracciolo, going back to 
 the story of Gervase, amplified it in accordance with the 
 tradition of Virgil's medical acquirements. The garden was 
 placed by him near Avella and Merchiolana, and was supplied 
 with medicinal plants from all parts of the world, besides 
 some which grew in no other place except where Virgil had 
 planted them. Virgil prepared this garden because of his 
 anxiety to provide in every way against the evils and infirm- 
 ities to which humanity was subject. 
 
 The same tradition was the probable source of the elaborate 
 legend respecting the origin of the medicinal baths at Baise 
 and Pozzuoli, which, in its simplest form, was recorded by 
 Helinand, Conrad of Querfurt and Gervase. Conrad ostensi- 
 bly drew his knowledge that these baths were due to Virgil's 
 skill from some earlier authors, whom he alludes to but does 
 not name; but Gervase, writing as though from his own 
 knowledge, describes the springs at Pozzuoli as having been 
 created by ^'irgil for the benefit of the people and for a 
 perpetual wonder. Over each fountain Virgil placed an 
 inscription giving the names of the diseases to the cure of which 
 it "was adapted. But in more recent times, after the rise of
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE 89 
 
 the medical school at Salerno, the physicians became jealous 
 of the posthumous practice of Virgil which decreased their 
 emoluments, and surreptitiously defaced the inscriptions. This 
 story as given by Gervase was repeated in the Roman de 
 Cleomades, a French poem written by Adenez Li Rois toward 
 the close of the thirteenth century — so that it was then 
 popularly known throughout Europe — and later in the Cronica 
 di Partenope, where the opportunity was seized to deliver a 
 sharp invective against the inhumanity and wickedness of the 
 Salernian doctors. The inscriptions and the pictures accom- 
 panying them, wrote Caracciolo, were all destroyed by these 
 uncharitable physicians, who crossed the bay of Xaples at night 
 to carry out theii' nefarious plans. But divine Providence, 
 while it did not interfere with their stratagems, punished them 
 on their return by wrecking their boat in a tempest, leaving 
 but one of their number alive to tell the tale. 
 
 Ill 
 
 To be a proficient in medicine in the middle ages was to be 
 suspected of an acquaintance with all the natural sciences, and 
 to suffer from the superstitious regard in which these were 
 held. It is not surprising, then, that Vincent of Beauvais — 
 who in his Mirror of History reproduced the legends concern- 
 ing Virgil, which Helinand had collated or invented — in his 
 Mirror of Nature should have presented his readers with some 
 legendary information such as no other author had thought of. 
 When he came to the subject of alchemy in the eighty-seventh 
 chapter of the eighth book,* he introduced into it a list of the 
 
 ■"•'"This is the only passage found by the author of these essays that 
 had a bearing on the legendary history of Virgil, and yet had escaped 
 the scrutiny of Comparetti.
 
 90 MASTEE VIRGIL 
 
 ancieni masters who had practiced the art. The name of 
 Virgil is associated with the names of Adam, Xoah,Korah, Moses, 
 Aristotle, Alexander, Geber, Ahimazar and John the Evan- 
 gelist. The tendency to invest Virgil with the attribute 
 of omniscience was the same shown in Macrobius, but it was 
 modified by new views as to the nature of things. The 
 Platonic idealism had given wav to a gross, unformed mate- 
 rialism confused and stupefied by the multitude of its own 
 discoveries, unable to reduce them to any system, and incapable 
 of generalizing upon them. To scholars of this new order 
 the leader of Roman literature appeared as the Master of 
 Sciences, the ideal of learning, and, therefore, the human sym- 
 bol of superhuman mystery and power. If we would see him as 
 they saw him, we must picture him in his cell, hewn out of the 
 solid rock in a single night protected by his wisdom against 
 insidious treachery as well as open enmity ; with his lamp and 
 his crucible beside him, the materials of his investigation and 
 experiment scattered about him, and the manuscripts which 
 guided his researches open under his eye. We shall then have 
 the highest conception possible in the thirteenth century of 
 the scholar, whether he were poet or teacher, philosopher or 
 scientist; and, therefore, the most appropriate conception of 
 an eminent genius. The classical period seemed to these 
 medieval writers a period when learning flourished, and when 
 even the fables of mvthology had been realized in the actual 
 experience of mankind. This impression converted every 
 country that had a share in the classic life into a land of 
 enchantment. Travellers from England and Germany, like 
 Gervase of Tilbury and Conrad of Querfurt, misled by this 
 preconception, revived all the tales of antiquity and sought to 
 identify them with the strange objects which met their gaze.
 
 THE 31 AN OF SCIENCE 91 
 
 This tendency is clearly evinced in the letters of Conrad, 
 priest, politician and archaeologist, who combined the curiosity 
 of a traveller with the labors of an imperial ambassador. At 
 the time of his visit to Naples, he was chancellor to the 
 Emperor Henry VI., and accompanied the army which 
 besieged and captured the city of Naples. His classical 
 reminiscences did not prevent him from carrying out strictly 
 the orders of his master to raze the walls of the city. He 
 mentioned the Virgilian legends in a letter to the Abbot of 
 Hildesheim, and it was in this letter that he indulged his 
 imagination over the relics of antiquity which he discovered. 
 It would never be supposed, save for the writings of this 
 bishop that was to be, that one could find within the bound- 
 aries of Italy, Olympus and Parnassus and Hippocrene, Scylla 
 and Charybdis; Scirrhus (an island where Thetis watched 
 over the hidden Achilles) and the ruins of the labyrinth of the 
 Minotaur. In this congeries of geographical blundering, the 
 things to be observed are the reverence for the antique and 
 the curiosity respecting the works of ancient times, for these 
 point unmistakably not only to the occasion but to the source 
 of the greater number of legends about Virgil. 
 
 IV 
 
 Before proceeding with the different versions of the legends 
 whose character has already been hinted at in the quotations 
 from Neckam, it will be well to bring together those cliassical 
 superstitions which probably constituted the material worked 
 over in the minds of trouveres like Helinand, scientists like 
 Neckam and educated travelers like Gervase and Conrad. A 
 mass of folk-lore might be accumulated having a more or less
 
 92 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 direct bearing upon the subject, but two examples will suffice 
 to show how the popular beliefs of the ancient world have 
 survived all the changes of the ages, even down to our own 
 times. Pliny records, as common opinions in his day, and as 
 facts of science, that the bird known as the cuckoo was merely 
 a kind of hawk, and that olive trees became barren if a she 
 goat rubbed against their trunks. These opinions, both false, 
 are implicitly believed by the French peasantry at the present 
 day. If in such trifling matters races, related to each other, 
 have persisted in error for nearly two thousand years, then no 
 surprise should be felt at the recurrence of antique popular 
 errors at any intervening period in European history. Now 
 turn to Pliny's Natural History. Among the facts which he 
 recorded as indisputable was this that, under certain conditions, 
 flesh could not become putrid, even though none of the usual 
 precautions was taken with it. He alluded to a rain of fresh 
 meat which took place at Rome in the consulship of P. 
 Volumuius and Servius Sulpicius, where the most remarkable 
 circumstance was that putrefaction did not occur. At Nea, a 
 town in Troas, he observed that the remains of animals sacri- 
 ficed before the statue of INIinerva x-emained untainted for an 
 indefiuite length of time. Certain places, also, were myste- 
 riously obnoxious to certain animals. For example, among 
 the islands in the Western Mediterranean was that of Ebusus, 
 in which no serpents could exist, though it was only a little 
 way from another island completely overrun by these creatures. 
 The latter island was avoided by the rabbits that swarmed 
 upon the Baleares, not far away. Wolves could not exist on 
 Mt. Olympus in Macedonia. All venomous, injurious animals, 
 with the single exception of a small spider, perished outright 
 in Crete. The shrew mouse of Italy could not cross a wagon
 
 THE 31 AN OF SCIENCE 93 
 
 road from one field to another, because the rut caused by a 
 wheel was fatal to it. In the island of Poroselene the weasels 
 dared not cross a certain road. The swallows, because of the 
 crime committed by Tereus, King of Thrace, could never be 
 induced to frequent the capital of that country. The soil of 
 Gaulos and Galata, islands near Carthage, was fatal to 
 scorpions. The birds on the island in the Euxine, where the 
 tomb of Achilles was, never ventured to enter the temple con- 
 secrated to him. So at Rome the temple of Hercules in the 
 Forum Boarium, was free from the presence of either flies or 
 dogs. The sacrifice, at the Olympic games, of a bull in honor 
 of the god known as the Fly-catcher, caused the immediate 
 
 departure of the winged insects in a swarm. On the other 
 hand Pliny cited also a number of cases where the human 
 
 inhabitants of certain places had been driven away or extermi- 
 nated by small animals and by insects. He remarked that in 
 some localities it never rained ; for example, the sacred ground 
 upon which the statue of Minerva was placed at Nea, and the 
 vicinity of the temple dedicated to Venus at Paphos. A thing 
 which he was not convinced of himself, but gave as a common 
 belief, was that serpents were specially sensitive to incantations, 
 and could even be collected in a given spot by magical formulte.* 
 
 *The ancients held, among other opinions, that to be born under a 
 certain constellation was to be proof against the poison of serpents- 
 
 Thus Manilius [De Asfrologia, translated by T ; London, 1647, 
 
 Book \ ., xxiii.] says : 
 
 When Ophieucus mounts and joins the Geat, 
 Those that are born shall live an antidote 
 To strongest Poyson ; they may safely take 
 The frightful serpent, and the venomous Snake 
 Into their Bosom ; whilst the monsters cling 
 About their bodies, kils their fiercest sting. ' 
 
 And in Book I., as the translator puts it, one may "Burst snakes 
 with charms."
 
 94 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 In his historical account of magic he mentioned as a fact the 
 legend that the philosopher Democritus obtained the books of 
 Dardanus, the magician, from his tomb, and used them in 
 the composition of new works on the subject. 
 
 Nearly all the passages of Pliny here cited involved those 
 ideas on the subject of natural science which made the theory 
 of magic possible, and the very problems were presented 
 whicli in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were supposed 
 to be solved by means of the marvelous legends concerning 
 the magicians. Pliny attributed all the wonders he relates to 
 the divine power of nature, but his epicureanism could not be 
 accepted by the mediaeval Christians, The power of a statue 
 of Hercules over flies, or of the Paphian Venus over the 
 elements, if not denied, was allowed as a fact in magical 
 science. Such miracles were the common theme of popular 
 lore, lu the historical epitome attributed to Ampelius, a work 
 probably of the sixth century, allusion is made to a statue of 
 Diana at Rhodes upon which no rain ever fell, and the inex- 
 tinguishable lamp of mediaeval legend has its counterpart in 
 the candelabrum of the shrine of Venus at Argyrus, which, 
 though it stood in the open air, shone continuously through 
 tempests as well as foir weather. Another wonder mentioned 
 in this ejiitorae was a bronze statue of the Nile at the city of 
 Agartus, which frightened wild beasts from the neighborhood. 
 It appears also that even in early times bridges of great size 
 were supposed to have been the work of enchanters, a remark- 
 able structure of the kind in Epirus being credited to Medea. 
 A still more extraordinary story in its relation to the magical 
 legends subsequently connected with Virgil's name was that 
 related by the post-classical writer, Olympiodorus, concerning 
 a statue over against Mt. ^Etna in Sicily, which effectually
 
 THE 31 AN OF SCIENCE 95 
 
 restrained the eruptions of the volcano. This statue served 
 other purposes, also. One leg was a fountain of pure water, 
 while from the other rose an inextinguishable flame.. 
 
 V 
 
 Pliny frequently mentioned amulets, and sometimes the 
 objects he described as possessing unusual power might have 
 answered to the mediaeval talisman. The difference was that 
 he looked upon such things, where he believed in them at all, 
 as exponents of the mysteriouti powers of nature, while the 
 later science, not a whit more credulous or more absurd, 
 viewed them as the work of intelligences, human or otherwise, 
 that had obtained dominion over nature. The logical outcome 
 of Pliny's philosophy would have been a backward movement 
 on the pari of mankind ; the historical result of the mediseval 
 tendency has been the progress of invention and of the useful 
 arts. That man should pass from the conception of himself 
 as subject to nature, onward to a conception of himself as 
 capable of subduing the forces of the universe to his own use 
 was an absolute necessity in the history of thought. His 
 blind groping after new principles and new methods, such as 
 would make a synthesis of material facts possible, brought 
 him early to adopt such theories as that of talismans. It 
 would be a rash thing to say that these theories have been 
 wholly abandoned at the present day, even in the most 
 enlightened countries of the world. They form the substance 
 of many popular errors, and an inherited preference for them 
 gives universal interest to an incredible species of fiction. The 
 stories finally connected with the name of Virgil were the 
 common coin of the story tellers, with which they purchased
 
 96 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 a welcome wherever they went throughout Europe. If 
 auditors wearied of one hero, it was an easy matter to substi- 
 tute a new name, and thus enliven the well-tried narrative. 
 In effect these stories were like blank forms of legal 
 documents which only required a word here and there to fit 
 . them for a great variety of uses. Virgil's name was simply 
 one of those accidental strokes, out of many failures that 
 were forgotten, which hit the popular fmcy. It was the same 
 with Apollonius of Tyana, to whom certain monuments at 
 Constantinople were attributed. Thus the famous bronze, 
 supposed to have been the column which was brought from 
 Delphi, where it supported the tripod dedicated to Apollo by 
 the victorious Greeks at the close of the Persian war, was 
 long believed to be a talisman. The tripod vanished long ago, 
 and the three serpents twisted together to form the column 
 have suffered much. All the heads are gone ; Mohammed II. 
 is said to have broken one with his mace. The legend clung 
 for all to.the noble residue of this wonderful relic. In 1216 
 the column was still intact, and was then surmounted by a 
 figure said to have been that of an eagle with a serpent in its 
 talons. In the lifetime of Apollonius the city was visited with 
 a plague of serpents — so ran the legend — and he raised this 
 serpentine emblem. In their joy at being relieved from the 
 venomous pests, the people gave to Apollonius the name of 
 The Wise. It was related also that Apollonius, by means of 
 other bronze images, banished flies, gnats and scorpions from 
 Constantinople. Similar tales were told of some mediaeval 
 worthies, as Gregory of Tours at Paris ; Bernard of Clairvaux, 
 Goffried, and Patrick of Ireland. The opinion at the bottom 
 of all these legends was adopted in the church which had its 
 official services for the expulsion of noxious animals from any
 
 THE 31 AN OF SCIENCE 97 
 
 place which they infested.* In the cities that possessed relics 
 of ancient plastic art, it was easy to find images appropriate 
 to the various magical legends, and thus the same tale miglit 
 be localized in the several different cities, and be told of as 
 many different personages. In fact, the mediaeval biographies 
 of magicians are notable for the similarity of the anecdotes in 
 each to those of all the rest. For example, the making of a 
 head which talked is attributed to Friar Bacon, Albertus 
 Magnus, Paracelsus, Faust and others, as well as Virgil ; the 
 ability to fly through the air to Faust, Bacon and the whole 
 tribe of oriental magicians. The modern Hindoo adept shares 
 with the mediaeval necromancers the repute of being able to 
 render himself invisible. The ability to convert a drawing or 
 painting into the real thing it represented is a frequently- 
 mentioned trick of magic. Albertus Magnus, like ^"irgil, 
 made bronze flies to drive away living flies, and a similar tale, 
 in which rats figured, was told of Gregory of Tours. But it 
 is needless to multiply examples. Many of the marvels coupled 
 with Virgil's name had been long familiar in Sicily and Middle 
 
 "'This is illustrated at a comparatively late date by an amusing 
 anecdote of Chassanee [See The Rise of the Huguenots, H. M. Baird, 
 Vol. I., p. 238.] "It appears that on a certain occasion the diocese of 
 the Autun was overrun with mice. The vicar of the bishop was re- 
 quested to exterminate them. But the ecclesiastical decree was sup- 
 posed to be most effective when the regular forms of a judicial trial 
 were duly observed. An advocate of the marauders was, therefore, 
 appointed, no other than Chassanee himself, who, espousing with 
 professional ardor the cause of his clients, began by insisting that a 
 summons should be served in each parish ; next excused the non- 
 appearance of the defendants, alleging the dangers of the journey by 
 reason of the lying-in-wait of their enemies, the cats; and finally ap- 
 pealing to the compassion of the court in behalf of a race doomed to 
 wholesale destruction, acquitted himself so successfully of his fantastic 
 commission that the mice escaped the censures of the church, and 
 their advocate gained universal applause."
 
 98 MASTER VI B GIL 
 
 and Southern Italy attached to the name of Heliodorus, o 
 pretended magician^ who lived in Sicily in the eighth century. 
 Eut it is to be doubted whether the Italians led the way in 
 applying any of them to Virgil. In the midst of a passion 
 for such narratives that was almost universal, it was in Italy 
 only that the Virgilian legends were ignored by the popular 
 literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In all the 
 Northern countries the legends appeared fully developed 
 before the year 1250. Their absence in Italian writings 
 showed that Virgil's magical reputation formed as yet no part 
 of Italian folk-lore. 
 
 But when credulous foreigners went to Italy with their 
 minds full of such wonders, it Avas not in the nature of things 
 that they should miss what they expected to find. It is an 
 axiom of travel that the lying of the guide depends on the 
 character of those who are guided. A man Avho, like Conrad, 
 had already placed all the wonders of Greek mythology in 
 Italy, could be shown anything in Naples that he desired 
 to see. 
 
 "We saw," wrote the chancellor, "among other things, the 
 elaborate works of Virgil at Naples. It was a notable fatality 
 that wo should have been sent to destroy those walls which 
 had been raised by the chant of philosophers. Another 
 strange thing was that the model of the city, enclosed by the 
 magic art of Virgil in a slender-necked bottle of glass, was of 
 no efficacy in saving the city from capture and inllago. For 
 we have obtained possession, not only of the bottle and its 
 contents, but also of the city ; and we have razed the walls in 
 accordance with the imperial mandate without breaking 
 the talisman. However, it may have been that an almost 
 imperceptible crack which we found in the glass, was sufficient
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE 99 
 
 to destroy its magical virtue and raake it au injury to the city. 
 There is in the same city a horse of bronze, so endowed by 
 tlie magical incantations of Virgil that, as long as it remained 
 whole, no living horse could become sway-backed, although 
 previous to the construction of this statue the horses were 
 unfitted by weakness for the saddle, and since it has been dam- 
 aged they can no longer bear a knight without having their 
 spines broken. In one of the fortresses now occupied by the 
 imperial guards, the main gateway of which is shut with 
 double doors of bronze, Virgil placed a bronze fly which, 
 while it was intact, prevented flies from entering the city. The 
 bones of Virgil are placed in a castle overlooking the city, " 
 but surrounded at its base on all sides by the sea. If these 
 bones are exposed to the air the sky becomes obscured forth- 
 with, the sea rises and the roar of the tempest is heard. This 
 we have se.en and proved. We were told that the so-called 
 Ferrean gate was the one beneath which Virgil had confined all 
 the serpents which abound in the many caverns and vaults and 
 crypts which lie beneath the surface of the earth in that region. 
 When the walls and gates were destroyed, this gate was left stand- 
 ing, because we feared to release the serpents from their prison. 
 There is also in Naples a shambles so contrived by Virgil that 
 the flesh of an animal killed in it will keep fresh and 
 untainted for six weeks, but if taken out will stink and appear 
 to be putrid. Mt. Vesuvius, which stands over against the 
 city, once every decade pours out volumes of flame mingled 
 with foul-smelling ashes. Virgil erected between the mountain 
 and the city the bronze statue of an archer, with his cross bow 
 drawn and the arrow on the string ready to shoot. A rustic, 
 struck with wonder because the statue, though always in 
 readiness, never would shoot, touched the string. The flying
 
 100 MAS TEE VIE GIL 
 
 arrow fell into the crater, the flames burst forth and afterward 
 observed neither time nor season. " 
 
 VI 
 
 The case of Gervase was different from that of Conrad. 
 When the author of the Otia Imperialia visited Italy sufficient 
 time had elapsed for the growth of numerous legends. The 
 work of Neckam had been in the hands of scholars for fully a 
 quarter of a century, and the Polycraticus of John of Salisbury 
 had been widely read since its publication in 1171. An 
 example has been given of the development of a marvellous 
 tale from the trifling incident of a lunatic's search for Virgil's 
 relics, and the inference is obvious that other tales were devel- 
 oped with equal ease from an equally trivial origin. Moreover, 
 Gervase was a professed marvel hunter. Echoing that 
 phraseology with which Pliny habitually introduced statements 
 hard to believe, Gervase defined the marvellous to be merely 
 that which, while it might be true to nature, surpassed the 
 understanding of man. Citing the examples of the salamander 
 which could only live in fire, and of rocks that could only be 
 burned under water, he cautioned his readers against condemn- 
 ing as fabulous anything, however incredible, which they 
 found in his book until they were able to explain the mysteries 
 that beset their own daily life. Throughout his remarks on 
 the Virgilian legends he had the air of one who sought to 
 enliven a familiar subject by incorporating novel thoughts and 
 incidents with anecdotes that had long ago lost their freshness. 
 He first presented the case of a church refectory in a city of Gaul, 
 which was remarkable for its freedom from flies. The church 
 was enriched with the relics of saints, and was celebrated for
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE 101 
 
 the frequent occurrence of miracles. Having learned by- 
 hearsay of the exceptional immunity from the visits of insects 
 which was enjoyed in the ancient refectory, Gervase was led 
 to investigate the matter for himself, and was surprised to find 
 that the wonderful story was true. 
 
 "But then," he proceeds, "we know that in the Campania, 
 in the city of Naples, Virgil, by means of his mathematical 
 skill, made a bronze fly of such power, that, as long as it 
 remained entire in the place appointed for it, even the most 
 remote parts of the city were free from flies. In the same 
 city there is a shambles in the partition walls of which Virgil 
 placed a piece of flesh, so efiicacious that, while included 
 among the contents of the building, no flesh became tainted. 
 One of the gates of Naples opens in the direction of Nola, 
 a renowned city of the Campania. The passage through this 
 gate is paved with stones, under which, by means of an 
 image, Virgil imprisoned all the venomous reptiles of the 
 region ; so that, while the whole of the spacious city is sup- 
 ported on subterranean columns, no fly is to be found in its 
 chambers nor vaults, and not a serpent in the gardens within 
 the walls. In the garden of Virgil, on the slope of Monte 
 Vergine, there is the bronze statue of a man holding a 
 trumpet to his mouth. Whenever the south wind blows into 
 this trumpet its direction is changed. Now observe the reason 
 for this precaution against the wind from the south. There 
 is in the confines of the Neapolitan territory a very high 
 mountain, rising from the sea, which overlooks the spacious 
 plain of the Land of Labor. In the month of May this 
 mountain belches forth stinking vapor, and, at the same time, 
 throws out very hot cinders, burned to the color of charcoal. 
 They say, judging by these signs, that the crater is the chimney
 
 102 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 of a terrene inferno. When the south wind blows, a burning 
 dust burns up the herbage and the fruit and reduces the 
 fields to sterility. Virgil, to relieve the country from this 
 misfortune, as we have said, placed a statue on the hill 
 opposite with a trumpet in order that at the first sound of the 
 winded horn, and at the first wave of air entering the trumpet, 
 the wind should exhaust itself, repulsed by the power of 
 mathematics {vi mathesis.) In the same territory there is a 
 wonderful passage hewed in the solid rock beneath the mount- 
 ain. It is of such a length that a person standing midway 
 can barely descry the entrances. This subterranean gallery 
 was excavated by means of Virgil's mathematical learning 
 (arte matheinatica) , and so wisely protected that, in the heart of 
 the mountain, the most ingenious devices of fraud and malice 
 are rendered nugatory." 
 
 Gervase pretended to a certain method in testing by his own 
 observation or experience the wonders related to him. As if 
 to substantiate all the remarkable things which he had been 
 writing about Virgil, he gave a detailed account of what hap- 
 pened to himself upon entering the city of Naples through 
 the gate of Good and 111 Fortune. He had arrived there in 
 company with Philip, son of the Duke of Salisbury, in the 
 hope of finding a ship in which they could put to sea. The 
 travellers were ready to accept much inconvenience, as they 
 were eager to be away on their voyage. While in the 
 city they visited Archdeacon Pinatelli, whose acquaintance 
 Gervase had made in the school of canon law at Bologna. 
 At the port they found a vessel almost ready to sail which 
 suited them ia every particular, and the visitors were 
 naturally led to inquire the cause of such a piece of good 
 luck.
 
 THE 31 AN OF SCIENCE 103 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed the archdeacon, with the manner of one 
 who had in mind the only solution of which the problem was 
 capable, "by what road did you enter the city?" and added, 
 when he was satisfied upon this point, "Fortune favored you, 
 because you merited her aid. But, pray tell me, by which 
 of the two gates that stand side by side, did you first purpose 
 to enter?" 
 
 "When we came to the gates," answered Gervase, "we 
 started toward the left as that which was more convenient for 
 us, but it happened that an ass laden with wood met us in the 
 way and compelled us to go to the right." 
 
 "Just as I supposed," said the archdeacon. "Now, that 
 you may know the wonderful works of Virgil in this place, I 
 will point out to you the memorial which he has left upon the 
 earth." 
 
 So they, all went to the gate, and Pinatelli showed his 
 visitors, on the right, a head of Parian marble, mirthful and 
 pleasant to look upon, and on the left, another, also in Parian 
 marble, but with features distorted, as if by grief and pain. 
 These two contrasted images of the human countenance, he 
 explained, governed the fortunes of all who entered the city. 
 No care could avert the decree. Whoever was enabled to 
 pass inward through the right port prospered in all that he 
 undertook, while he who turned to the left was defrauded of 
 all his wishes. "Inasmuch as you were turned unwillingly to 
 the right by the ass and its burden," he moralized, "consider 
 how quickly you accomplished what you aimed at." 
 
 "These things," concluded Gervase, "we do not write as 
 arguing with the Sadducees, who assert that in God and in 
 marble — that is, in fate and chance — all things consist ; but we 
 desire only to commemorate the mathematical studies of
 
 104 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 Virgil." From his standpoint this mysterious power, belonging 
 to the science of numbers, was sufficient to harmonize the 
 most improbable tales Avith the demonstrated principles of 
 science. 
 
 VII 
 
 As in this case, so in others, the association of magical tales 
 with the name of Virgil led at once to the identification of 
 certain objects of art as the visible proof of the respective 
 narratives. It is possible that some statues might have been 
 connected with the name of Virgil, independently of the 
 legends, from very early times. According to a Neapolitan 
 writer of the fourteenth century the two marble faces in the 
 Nolan gate still occupied the places where Gervase had seen 
 them. The bronze horse to which another of the legends 
 referred was still shown in 1322. Time and barbarism had 
 almost destroyed it, but the legend accounted for its broken 
 condition by the statement that the workmen, to whom the 
 statue was entrusted for repairs, opened it to see what it 
 contained, and thus destroyed its symmetry as a statue and its 
 virtue as a talisman. Fragments still preserved in the museum 
 of Naples show that the figure must have been of colossal 
 size. Among the innumerable relics of antiquity a human 
 figure might easily have been found answering to the 
 description given by either Conrad or Gervase of the statue 
 opposed to Mt. Vesuvius. The favorite subject of a youth 
 brandishing a javelin, which Pliny mentioned, would have 
 answered, for it is obvious from the differing accounts of the 
 two travellers that the crossbow and the trumpet are mere 
 inferences from the attitude of the fragmentary statue. In
 
 THE 31 AN OF SCIENCE 105 
 
 the fourteenth century the statue was spoken of as one that 
 had stood in the Gate of the Winds, or, as it was afterward 
 called, the Royal Gate. The most notable, and, perhaps, the 
 most ancient of the objects which Virgil was supposed to have 
 endowed with talismanic efficacy was the bronze fly. Long 
 before the time of Conrad or Gervase, John of Salisbury had 
 related an instructive fable about it, according to his usual 
 custom, with a moral. Marcellus, the nephew of Octavian, 
 was passionately fond of fowling. The wise poet asked the 
 youth whether he would prefer to have a decoy that would 
 lure the whole tribe of birds to destruction, or a fly that 
 would banish all annoying insects. Marcellus, at that time 
 governor of Naples, consulted his uncle, and chose the fly. 
 From this incident the sapient John evolved the highly 
 edifying docet that the truest pleasure is found in works of 
 utility. The important point is, however, the proof furnished 
 by this story that the bronze fly as a work of Virgil was 
 familiar to men of learning before the year 1170. The 
 English satirist, whoever he may have been, that wrote The 
 Vision of Golias, the Bishop, years before the close of the 
 twelfth century, was also familiar Avith it, and looked upon it 
 as a fact of classical history. One would suppose from his 
 allusion that the making of bronze flies w^as Virgil's sole occu- 
 pation. It is worth remembering that Pliny mentioned 
 several statuaries who modelled figures of insects, and, among 
 the rest, the cicada and the fly. The bronze to which Conrad 
 and Gervase refer was about the size of a frog. It was 
 subsequently removed from the place where it was seen by 
 Conrad to a window in Castle Capuano, and thence to Castle St. 
 Angelo, where it was soon discovered to have lost its efficacy. 
 It IS not at all strange that Conrad, following the universal
 
 106 MASTER VI B GIL 
 
 belief of liis times, should have considered the glass toy 
 captured by the imperial troops a talisman for the protection 
 of the city ; nor that he should have connected it with the 
 name of Virgil, iu view of the notions he had brought Avith 
 him. A great stretch of credulity would be required to credit 
 the supposition that Neapolitans acknowledged to their hated 
 conquerors even the existence of such an ineffectual j^ialladium. 
 The legend subsequently developed by French and German 
 romancers substituted an egg enclosed in a flask of glass, this 
 in turn being deposited in a receptacle of iron ; and this was 
 associated with the ancient Castle of the Sea built by "William 
 I. in 1154, and afterward enlarged by Frederick II. In the 
 fourteenth century the name of the fortress was changed to 
 the Castle of the Enchanted Egg, by which appellation it 
 became renowned in the le^rends of the Knisjhts of the Order 
 of the Holy Spirit, founded there in 1352 by Louis of Anjou. 
 In the Roman da CleoTnades it was related that Virgil built two 
 castles in the sea, each balanced on au egg. One of these 
 castles was destroyed by the breaking of its egg, but the other 
 was described as still standing at Naples. The author of 
 L'lmarje du Monde fancied that the whole city Avas founded 
 upon an egg, any movement of which caused something like 
 an earthquake. Jans Enenkel, in his Welthiich, increases the 
 number of eggs to three. Of the other talismans JJ Image du 
 Monde mentioned the fly, the horse, the bridge of air, and a 
 head that uttered prophecies. The Cleomades described the 
 horse as raised upon a pillar. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The idea entertained of Virgil being exactly similar to 
 that entertained of all men of science, it was natural that
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE 107 
 
 fanciful tales in lespect to the latter should be frequently 
 transferred to him. Of those persons whose legendary exploits 
 were confounded with those of Virgil, the most famous was 
 Pope Sylvester II., better known by the name of Gerbert, 
 who enjoyed a scandalous notoriety on account of his taste tor 
 mathematical and mechanical studies. The mediaeval opinion 
 of asbestos was not that it was proof against fire, but that 
 when it once got to burning it could not be put out. In 
 L'lmage du Monde the antique superstition concerning inex- 
 tinguishable lamps was applied to Virgil possibly with this 
 opinion in mind. Two wax tapers and an ever-burning 
 lamp lighted his sepulchre. In the Cleomades, however, and 
 in the versions of The Seven Wise Masters, a fire was substituted 
 for the lamp and candles, and before it was placed an archer 
 ■with bow drawn ready to shoot. The arrow bore a Hebrew 
 inscription- "If any one strikes me, I will strike." Of 
 course, somebody was found in course of time foolish enough 
 to strike the statue, whereupon the arrow sped from the bow 
 and extinguished the fire. The inscription was very similar 
 to that on a statue mentioned in the legends of Gerbert. The 
 account of the latter given by William of Malmesbury is 
 thus translated by Warton: "At Rome there was a brazen 
 statue, extending the forefinger of the right hand ; and on 
 its forehead was written, 'Strike here.' Being suspected of 
 concealing a treasure, it had received many bruises from the 
 credulou© and ignorant in their endeavors to open it. Gerbert 
 unriddled the mystery. At noonday, observing the shadow of 
 the forefinger upon the ground, he marked the spot. At 
 night he went to the place with a page carrying a lamp. 
 There, by a magical operation, he opened a wide passage in 
 the earth, through which they both descended and came to a
 
 -108 MASTER VIBGIL 
 
 vast palace The walls, the beams and the whole structure 
 were of gold ; they saw golden images of knights playing at 
 chess, with a king and queen of gold at a banquet, with 
 numerous attendants in gold and cups of immense size and 
 value. In a recess was a carbuncle, whose lustre illuminated 
 the whole palace, opposite to which stood a figure with bended 
 bow. As they attempted to touch some of the rich furniture, 
 all the golden images seemed to rush upon them. Gerbert 
 was too wise to attempt this a second time, but the page was 
 bold enough to snatch from the table a golden knife of exquisite 
 workmanship. At that moment all the golden images rose up 
 with a dreadful noise, the figure with the bow shot at the 
 carbuncle, and a total darkness ensued. The page then 
 replaced the knife, otherwise they would both have suffered a 
 cruel death." 
 
 A variation of the same idea is found in Jans Enenkel's 
 account of Virgil, according to which the statue was at 
 Naples. It was of gold, and one hand rested on the figure of 
 a wild buck, while the other seemed to point toward a neigh- 
 boring mountain. It was universally believed that the statue 
 indicated some concealed treasure, and many people, supposing 
 it to be in the mountain, made excavations there to no purpose. 
 Finally, an intoxicated man raised the question why this 
 statue, Avhich had mocked mankind so long, was suffered to 
 rest its hand on the buck. Vowing that he would avenge the 
 people, he struck the beast a mighty blow, severing the head 
 from the body, and thus disclosed the hoard at which the 
 statue had been pointing all the time. 
 
 It was said of Gerbert, as of Virgil, that he contrived a 
 prophetic head of bronze, and that his death happened 
 through his not having understood one of its predictions. The 
 
 I
 
 THE 31 AN OF SCIENCE 109 
 
 story of Virgil in H Image du Monde, and in Renars Contrefait, 
 was that one day upon consulting the prophetic head, in 
 respect to a voyage which he proposed to make, he met with 
 the response that he would be safe enough if he only took care 
 of his head. He supposed the allusion was to the bronze 
 head, and not to the head on his shoulders, and so, failing to 
 take proper precautions, was prostrated by a sunstroke and 
 died from inflammation of the brain. 
 
 A similar confusion caused the introduction of Virgil's 
 name in some separate tales in collections like the Gesta 
 Romanorum. A notable example is the tale so often mentioned 
 as containing the plot used by Shakespeare in the Merchant 
 of Venice. Briefly, the tale is that of a knight who has 
 impoverished himself in vain for love of a royal damsel. In order 
 to obtain a loan he gives a bond to the usurer by which he 
 agrees to forfeit a piece of his flesh to be cut from his body, 
 if he fails to pay the debt. A portion of the sum borrowed 
 was used in paying the fee of Magister Virgilius, the learned 
 man, whose advice enabled the lover to prosper in his suit. 
 
 IX 
 
 With the Italian writers who took up the legends, Virgil 
 rarely fell below the character of the man of learning. They 
 manifested the same delicacy which Gervase had shown in 
 avoiding any imputation of magical practices. The author of 
 the Oroniea di Partenope, proud of Virgil's relations to Naples, 
 attributed to his skill the aqueducts, fountains, wells and 
 sewers of the city and added to the number of the talismans 
 a bronze cicada, which destroyed all the cicadas in the 
 Neapolitan territories, and a little fish which drew living
 
 110 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 fishes into the nets. The story of the palladium of Naples 
 was restored to its earliest form. Caracciolo, however, 
 increased the number of prophetic heads to four, and explained 
 that they were placed in Naples by Virgil for the purpose of 
 keeping the Duke informed of the events transpiring through- 
 out the world. The Florentine popular poet, Antonio Pucci, 
 noted the various talismans attributed to Virgil in his 
 commonplace book, but made no other use of them. He 
 followed the example of the earliest romancers in ascribing 
 Virgil's legendary works to proficiency in astronomy. Buon- 
 amente Aliprando, in his versified chronicle of Mantua, 
 mentioned the enchanted fly as enclosed in a glass. He added 
 a story which had not been related before, that Virgil created 
 a fountain of oil for the use of the Neapolitans. 
 
 The conception of Virgil as a physician and man of science 
 appears to have given occasion for a very bizarre and awkward 
 interpolation in the biography which goes under the name of 
 Donatus. The spurious anecdote probably dates from the 
 fourteenth century, and it is one of those which particularly 
 aroused the resentment of Heyne against the monks, who, he 
 supposed, were its authors. Considered merely as an 
 invention, the tale is not altogether lacking in cleverness. 
 Having become more skillful and erudite than others — so goes 
 the story, Virgil betook himself to the city, where he obtained 
 the friendship of the imperial master of horse on account of 
 his success in treating the diseases of the horses. As a reward for 
 his labor, Virgil received a daily allowance of bread, along 
 with all the other servants in the stables. In the meanwhile
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE HI 
 
 a Crotouiau colt of wonderful beauty, sent as a gift to Caesar, 
 arrived, and in the judgment of all but Virgil promised to be 
 of great strength and speed. Maro, after a careful examina- 
 tion, insisted that the animal was foaled by a sick mare, and 
 would never come to much. The result proved his opinion 
 to be correct. When Augustus heard of the matter, he 
 ordered that Virgil's allowance of bread should be doubled. 
 Afterward a litter of puppies Avas brought from Spain, and 
 Virgil gave so accurate an account of the breed, disposition and 
 capacities of the animals that the emperor quadrupled the 
 allowance of bread. 
 
 In a matter left wholly to conjecture, it is competent to infer 
 that the anecdote, so far as it has been given, was by one 
 hand, and that the sequel was added by another writer. The 
 latter apparently reflected that as yet no explanation had been 
 given of the method by which Virgil attained his veterinary 
 skill, nor of the steps by which he rose to the acquaintance of 
 Octavian, nor of his relations with Pollio. The allowances 
 of bread, so often mentioned, seemed to him absurdly out 
 of character. The concluding part ot the tale begins with the 
 statement that Augustus was in doubt whether he was really 
 the son of Octavius or not, and it occurred to him that, 
 perhaps, Virgil could discover the fact in this case, as he had 
 done in the case of the Crotonian colt and the Spanish puppies. 
 He, therefore, spoke to the poet very privily one day, and 
 asked him to solve this problem if he could. Substantially, 
 the question of Augustus was : 
 
 " Do you know me Avell enough to tell me Avho my father 
 was?" 
 
 "I know," answered Maro, with caution, "that you are 
 Csesar Augustus, and that you have jiowcr almost as great as
 
 112 MASTER VIBGIL 
 
 that of the immortal gods, so that you can make happy 
 whomsoever you will." 
 
 ' ' My power shall be exerted to the utmost in your behalf, 
 if you answer my question. You know there are some who 
 think me the sou of Octavius, whUe others insist that I am the 
 son of another man. Now, what do you say ? " 
 
 "I can answer that," replied Maro, Avith a smile, "if you 
 allow me to speak freely, without fear of jDunishment." 
 
 "Never fear," exclaimed Augustus, " you shall be rewarded, 
 not punished." 
 
 Then Maro, inspecting the eyes of the emperor, said : " It is 
 quite an easy thing for mathematicians and philosophers to 
 discern in the lower animals their inherited qualities ; in man 
 it is impossible, but I think I could guess very nearly what ; 
 
 occuj^ation your father followed." 
 
 Augustus was all attention. ; 
 
 "As near as I can make out, your father was a baker." 
 
 Caesar was confounded at this unexi:)ected turn, but Virgil, 
 without giving him a chance to speak, added: "For this 
 reason: when I predicted certain things, which could be 
 divined only by a man of the utmost learning, you, as prince 
 of the world, again and again commanded that my reward 
 should be an allowance of bread. Surely, that was character- I 
 
 istic of a baker, or the son of a baker." 
 
 The Avitticism pleased Caesar, who exclaimed : * ' But now you 
 shall receive gifts, not from a baker, but from a magnanimous 
 sovereign." And he gave him many things, and commended 
 him to PoUio.
 
 SIX TH- VIRGIL, THE SAVIOUR OF R OME 
 
 Describing the shield of JEneas, in the eighth book of the 
 JEneid, the poet was careful to include among the pictures or 
 reliefs with which it was ornamented one commemorative of 
 the hero Manlius. The Tarpeian citadel, the capitol, the 
 figure of the warrior and that of the bird whose cries aroused 
 him from slumber were all depicted in such a way as to make 
 one suspect that in these verses lay the germ of the fancy 
 embodied in Neckam's tale about the temple and the statues 
 which defended Rome. Enchanted statues were a common 
 feature of oriental tales, but usually in such circumstances as 
 to suggest little in common with the Vii'gUian legend. It is 
 not necessary, however, to appeal to oriental beliefs for the 
 origin of this strange error in Europe. Paganism, with its 
 innumerable statues of the gods left a mark on the minds of 
 men too deep to be quickly effaced. Christians did not deny 
 that the statues of the gods were animated by a superhuman 
 intelligence. As heathens, they themselves had been 
 cognizant of things which, in their limited state of knowledge, 
 with the prejudices of ages resting upon them, they could
 
 114 MAS TEE VIRGIL 
 
 not explain without presuming tliat idols were inhabited by 
 beings more than human in prescience and power. When 
 Celsus adduced the oracles that had been uttered by idols as 
 the proof of the j^agan religion, Origen replied, not by 
 denying the fact, but by denouncing the deities as infernal 
 powers. One instance of this superstition is found in the first 
 apocr}'phal Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus, where the idols of 
 Egypt are represented as assembling to pay homage to one 
 supreme idol out of which Satan spoke. That this remained a 
 prevalent notion, and that the example cited was looked upon 
 as furnishing au argument in behalf of Christianity, are plain 
 inferences from the fact that Herbers, in the Dolopathos, 
 relating the tale at length, used it to prove the divinity of 
 Jesus Christ, because all these statues Avere said to have fallen 
 when He was taken to Egypt by His parents. Augustine 
 quoted Hermes Trisraegistus as saying to ^Esculapius : " The 
 statues, animated and full of sensation and spirit, and who do 
 such wonderful things ; the statues prescient of future events, 
 and foretelling them by lot, by prophet, by dreams and many 
 other things ; who bring disease on men and cure them again, 
 giving them joy or sorrow, according to their merits." What- 
 ever may be concluded as to the authenticity of this passage 
 or the historical icality of Hermes, it is plain that Augustine 
 accepted the notion of animated statues as in part true. This 
 impression respecting the symbols of idolatry harmonized well 
 with the popular notions of magic, and made a proper 
 foundation for the most fanciful superstructure which a rude 
 and curious civilization could devise. The early story of the 
 fall of the idols in Egypt liad more than one counterpart in 
 the West, and all these were connected in legend with the 
 incidents attending the crucifixion as narrated by the
 
 THE SAVIOUR OF ROME 115 
 
 Evangelists. A statue of Romulus in Rome feU when Christ 
 died, a fountain of oil burst out of the ground, the temple of 
 Peace tumbled into ruins, and other wonders were said to have 
 occurred. 
 
 These tales did not appear in Christian literature until long 
 after all other literature had ceased to live in Europe. Most 
 of them were doubtless the invention of Christian times. But 
 the legend which Neckam revived has some features which 
 give it a look of greater antiquity. Even the freest, wildest 
 imagination will remain inactive without the stimulus of 
 mystery. To the nations of Southern Europe, the customs 
 of Rome long retained that air of familiarity which was the 
 result of the close relationship produced by the empire. The 
 people of those nations had been acquainted with the archi- 
 tecture of Rome, with its statues, its literature, from first to 
 last, and had contributed many of the greatest names in 
 Roman annals. It is improbable that a tale which involved 
 a false and absurd explanation of Roman methods of war 
 could have become current among them at an early period. 
 Nor is it probable, on the other hand, that long after the 
 Roman power had dwindled to insignificance, and after the 
 terror and mystery of the Roman military sciencewereforgotten 
 either barbarian or provincial philosophers should invent 
 needless solutions for problems which had never been suggested 
 to them. But suppose an insulated civilization, dating from 
 the beginning of the empire, interrupted but not overthrown 
 by repeated invasions of savages; owing its origin to the 
 practical sense of the Roman soldier, and its renewal from 
 time to time to military changes, to adventurous travellers and 
 finally to missionaries; owing little, if anything, for centuries 
 to legitimate literature or science — and there is provided a
 
 116 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 state of society in which magical stories, to account for the 
 foresight and the wide reach of Roman geniuS; might be 
 implicitly believed. The stories would have been of the kind 
 which a Roman soldier could delight in telling to a group of 
 credulous natives, and the requisite credulity could not have 
 been found save in some far corner of the empire. Celtic 
 Britain and Saxon England alone furnish conditions parallel to 
 this hypothetical state. It is a general opinion that the tales 
 of the Gesta Romanorum acquired among the Saxons the form 
 in which they descended to modern times; and the question 
 that remains is : Through what medium did the Saxons obtain 
 the fragments which they pieced together in those tales ? The 
 inquiry is one to which all answers must be conjectural, and 
 the test of the conjecture is its simplicity, directness and 
 probability. The relations of Celtic Britain to the Roman 
 world, and subsequently to the rough, inquisitive Saxon 
 invaders, allowed of the direct transmission of such tales ; and 
 the enlightenment of Britain was never so great as to preclude 
 a widespread belief in them as fragments of genuine history. 
 Among the Britons the power of Roman arms and the 
 prescience of Roman statesmanship were exemplified at the 
 farthest remove from the centre of authority. There was 
 ample occasion for inquiry as to the means by which the empire 
 maintained its supremacy, while the eagerness to obtain the 
 desired knowledge was tempered with little or no skill to 
 discriminate between truth and fiction. Attributing the 
 Salvatio Roin(e in its crudest traditional form to the Roman 
 soldiers, garrisoned among a people easily affected by mystery 
 and credulous to an extreme, a motive is found for the tale 
 such as cannot readily be furnished by any other hypothesis. 
 The oriental element in the tradition is accounted for with less
 
 THE SAVIOUR OF BO ME 117 
 
 difficulty in this than in any other way. A more cosmopolitan 
 body of men never existed than the officers and veterans of the 
 Roman armies. They became familiar in their campaigns with 
 the customs of the most widely separated races. When it is 
 remembered that they transported elephants to Britain* for the 
 purpose of repeating the tactics which they learned in Asia, it 
 will be readily believed that the folk-lore of the East was used 
 to enliven the routine of their lives in camp, and drawn upon 
 to magnify the name of Rome in the ears of ignorant bar- 
 barians. They might even have had examples of such tales in 
 that mass of fiction written for their use, Avhich corresponded 
 in quality and variety to the modern novel. The fragments 
 still in existence of this Milesian literature show that its 
 inspiration was largely oriental, and that its interest depended 
 upon the belief in magic. Now, from the final abandonment 
 of the island of Britain by the troops of the empire to the 
 first invasion by the Saxons there intervened a period of only 
 forty years, and within the three centuries next following the 
 victors attained a civilization equal to that which they 
 supplanted. The opinion that the Saxons extirpated the Celts 
 in taking possession of the country is not now considered 
 tenable; the fact being that during years of stubborn war 
 the two races became fused gradually into one. The Celtic 
 individual traits tended to soften the rugged Teutonic person- 
 ality, while the British language, with the exception of a few 
 words, was replaced by the more useful, though less poetic, 
 speech of the conquerors. Therefore, from the Roman govern- 
 ment down to the time when stories like the one in question 
 may be supposed to have been picked up by the early mediseval 
 
 *So says Polyaenus [Stratayemata, viii., 23, 5], but the argument in 
 the text does not depend on what is at the best a doubtful anecdote.
 
 118 MAcTEB VI B GIL 
 
 writers, the chain of communication by which they could have 
 passed from race to race, and from one generation to the next, 
 was as complete as in any case of folk-lore transmission. 
 
 An example that may be cited as an instance of the handing 
 down of such legends is preserved in the treatise of Roger 
 Bacon on multiplying and magnifying glasses. The passage 
 is not unknown, though it has been misinterpreted sometimes 
 to support the inference that Bacon invented lenses. What he 
 really intimates is, that the invention was one of ancient 
 times, well known to the learned. Mirrors, he saiil, could be 
 made of such a figure that they would cause one thing to seem 
 to be many, and multiply a single man till he appeared to be 
 an army ; that would cause to appear as many suns and moons 
 as were desired. And so, he says, infinite terrors could be 
 roused in the imaginations of an enemy's army, so that, on 
 account of the multiplication of the apparitions of stars or of 
 men congregated over them, they would give themselves up to 
 despair. Perspective glasses might be so made as to cause that 
 which was far away to seem near, or conversely ; so that one might 
 read the most minute letters at an incredible distance, and misrht 
 enumerate even the smallest things, and make the stars to 
 appear when he wished. With this remarkable statement, 
 antedating the jiroper discovery of the telescope by centuries, 
 he couples this strange anecdote: "For thus it is supposed 
 that Julius Caesar, standing on the shores of the sea in Gaul, 
 perceived by means of a great glass the position of the camps 
 and cities of the Greater Britain." It hardly admits of a 
 doubt that here Bacon applied to a tradition well known and 
 widely credited, his own interpretation, drawn from his 
 knowledge of optics. Manifestly, this tradition involved to 
 minds less enlightened than Bacon's the notion of magic. If
 
 TEE SA no UR OF BO ME 119 
 
 such a legend descended iu one case, it might have been 
 handed down in other cases. The fact that the story of the 
 magic temple and statues at Rome was known as early as the 
 eighth century to writers in widely separated regions supports 
 the theory of its remote antiquity. Not only was it mentioned 
 iu a fragment on the wonders of the world, the authorship of 
 which was attributed to Bede, but it was also related iu a 
 chapter on the same subject by the Greek historian Cosma, 
 who seems to have identified the magical temple with the 
 Capitol, or with the Temple of Jove, and to have associated it 
 with the familiar anecdote of Manlius. That is to say, he 
 expressed substantially the idea which Virgil had suggested in 
 describing the shield of ^^neas. It was in this form probably 
 that the story was circulated among the eastern nations, for 
 there is among the Arabian tales one of striking similarity, the 
 upshot of which is that King Sarkaaf made a duck of brass 
 and placed it on a column of emerald at the gate of his capital 
 city. This duck was gifted with magical shrewdness and 
 perspicacity, for, whenever a foreigner attempted to enter the 
 city, it fluttered its wings and raised so great an outcry that 
 the people were at once drawn to repel the intruder. 
 
 II 
 
 When it is attempted to account for the introduction of • 
 Virgil's name into the legend the most important consideration 
 seems to be the abiding fame of the ^neid as intimately asso- 
 ciated with the military renown of the empire. With the 
 single exception of Virgil, the Romans who, in the middle 
 ages, became the centre of massive or imposing legends were 
 such men as Csesar, Pompey, Trajan, Nero, Crassus — names
 
 120 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 brilliant in the annals of Roman arms or infamous in crime. 
 These names were the ones most likely to have been preserved 
 in tradition. That the Romans, in a time of general ignorance 
 and barbarism, would no longer be able to give a historic 
 reason for the existence of many monuments in their city, and 
 would accept, perhaps, without question legends respecting 
 them that had passed through many changes in other lands, 
 may be readily believed. The mass of historic reminiscence 
 in Rome was so great that the knowledge of the true name 
 and meaning of each relic would have required learning far 
 in excess of Avhat has been shown by the population of any 
 city. Pride in the Roman name and in the great deeds of the 
 olden time Avas never Avanting ; but the memory of particular 
 facts would be clouded at the best. The foreigners Avho visited 
 Rome went with minds fresh from a new civilization and full 
 to overfloAving of the legendary spirit. They Avere ignorant 
 of the possibilities belonging to a civilization like that Avhich 
 Rome had possessed. The majestic remains of the imperial 
 city suggested thoughts of magic. Those Avho A'iewed these 
 remainsonly through the eye of the imagination, taking the exag- 
 gerated narratives of travellers, reproduced them in forms that 
 lacked the merit even of topographical accuracy, but were rich 
 in those Avonders so delightful to the medieval fancy. The 
 Romans in their turn received back these tales, magnified in 
 proportion to the distance over Avhich they had been carried, 
 and referred them to things that Avere actually in existence. 
 So it fell out that one of the objects to be seen in Rome Avas 
 the tomb of Pallas, the son of EA-andcr, a hero who possibly 
 never lived outside the pages of the ^Eneid, The actual 
 presence of a votive ship accorded Avith the fables relative to 
 ^neas and made it easy to suppose that the very vessel had
 
 THE SAVIOUR OF ROME 121 
 
 been preserved in which he voyaged to Latium. The tale of 
 Trajan and the poor widow was told in another form before 
 the name of Trajan was brought into it. His association with 
 it was probably due to some sculpture in which he was rep- 
 resented on horseback, while the woman kneeling before him 
 was the symbol of some conquered province. In this case, as 
 in the more important one of Virgil's magical temple, the 
 addition of a famous name to a story already familiar seems 
 like the artifice of a writer studying to produce an effect. 
 This suspicion is strengthened, rather than otherwise, by the 
 knowledge that Alexander Neckam was the first among authors 
 whose works remain to couple Virgil's name with the Salvatio 
 Romce. For Neckam, according to Roger Bacon, was a man 
 who cared too little for the truth and too much for the empty 
 ■^l^ow of erudition. Mere novelty afiected him as a genuine 
 discovery would have impressed a more conscientious thinker. 
 He was not above writing paradoxical or incredible things 
 with* the sole and trivial purpose of startling his readers. 
 While he may have owed the particular figment now under 
 discussion to those wandering story tellers who were so fertile 
 in those things, yet it seems not less probable that he set forth 
 au invention of his own. It is easy to see that with his loose 
 habit of mind he may have satisfied himself with some reason- 
 ing like this : Granted that there was a temple at Rome of the 
 kind described, then the proficiency of Virgil in mathematics 
 renders it certain that he only was capable of building that 
 temple ; ergo, he did build it. If Neckam had authority 
 outside of his own erratic mind for this addition to the list 
 of Virgil's achievements, it is strange that he should have 
 related it without the name of the poet in his own poem de 
 Laudihus Divirue Sapientice. If Virgil's supposed connection
 
 122 MAS TEE VIE GIL 
 
 with the story had been a subject of frequent, or even of 
 occasional narratives, it is difficult to see how it could have 
 escaped the author of the Dolopathos who attributed the origin 
 of a temple, not unlike that which Neckam described, to 
 Romulus, though confessedly wT-iting a tale in which the figure 
 of Virgil was most prominent. Moreover, allusion to this 
 temple without the name of Virgil was frequent. It is men- 
 tioned in a manuscript preserved at Wesobrunn which was 
 written in the tenth century; in the work of an anonymous 
 author of Salerno, belonging to the same period, and in a 
 Vatican manuscript of the eleventh century. It was touched 
 upon, also, in the Mirabilia Urbis Romce, the guide-book which 
 passed through many changes in the successive editions that 
 were given out by the copyists, but was certainly known 
 in the twelfth century. Many works in later ages contained 
 references to the legend without the name of Virgil, the 
 omission being due in some cases to the lack of acquaint- 
 ance with all the phases through which the narrative had 
 passed, and in others to a distaste for such a use of Virgil's 
 name. Another fact which contributes in a small degree 
 to fasten the invention upon Neckam is that he is quoted 
 as the authority for the story in the Gesta Romanorum, the 
 inference being that the copyist knew of none earlier than 
 he was. 
 
 The anonymous author of Salerno, iu the effort to explain 
 how it hai)pened that the temple with its extraordinary collec- 
 tion of statues was uo longer to be seen, invented or copied a 
 story much more picturesque than Neckam's report of a 
 prophecy fulfilled. He declared that the statues had been 
 carried to Byzantium early in the tenth century. On account 
 of their magical efficacy the Emperor Alexander had them 
 
 I 

 
 THE SAVIOUR OF ROME 123 
 
 clothed in garments of silk,* and became excessively proud of 
 his achievement in depriving the Romans of their chief pro- 
 tection. But one night St. Peter appeared to him, exclaiming 
 in anger, "I am the prince of the Romans," and the next day 
 the emperor died. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the work attributed by Neckam, and after him by 
 Helinand, to the skill of Virgil, which was known subsequently 
 by the name of the Salvatio Bomce, there is apparent a mingling 
 ^f vague reminiscences of the Pantheon, the Coliseum, the 
 OSitol, !hid the theatre of Pompey with its statues of the 
 conquered nations of the empire, the whole shaped by a 
 superstitious notion concerning the vigilance necessary in so 
 vast a rulership as that of Rome had been. The French 
 romancers, whose tales were permeated with ideas obtained 
 from the East after the return of the early crusaders, replaced 
 the truly antique wooden statues of Neckam with a mirror 
 that possessed magical properties. A mirror of this kind was 
 said by Benjamin of Tudela to have been placed on the 
 Pharos of Alexandria. It revealed the approach of a hostile 
 fleet, even at a distance of five hundred parasangs. This 
 marvellous instrument was destroyed by a cunning Greek who 
 hated the Egyptians. With chniii'-es in detail the story of 
 the mirror at Rome is the same as the Alexandrian tale. 
 Manifestly both are due ultimately to an exaggerated report 
 concerning Greek discoveries in physics. In the Cleomades of 
 Adenez, written about the close of the thirteenth century, 
 
 *The practice of clothing statues was not unknown in the middle 
 ages, as is shown in the poem of Filo preserved by Leyser.
 
 124 MASTER VIROIL 
 
 and the Renars Contrefait, which belonged to the early part 
 of the fourteenth century, and in The Romance of ilie Seven 
 Wise Men, at that time, in various forms and different 
 languages, the most popular book in Europe, the Roman 
 wonder was ascribed to Virgil. But there was no universal 
 agreement on this point. Frequently enough no attempt was 
 made to account for the building of the tower and the mirror, 
 while the narrative of their fall was essentially the same in all 
 cases. In one example, where the name of Virgil was not 
 mentioned, the tower on which the mirror stood was called the 
 Tower of the Tribune. Crassus, whose wealth and avarice 
 and disgraceful death strongly affected the imagination of the 
 middle ages, was said to have been the emperor who Caused the 
 ruin of the Roman power. He was visited by two brothers who 
 called themselves prophets and dreamers of dreams, but who 
 plotted the destruction of the empire. They led the miserly 
 emperor to believe that a great treasure was hidden beneath 
 the tower. They were permitted to undermine the foundations 
 of the structure, and thus caused it to fall.* The narrative is 
 so particular in its details as to lead to the suspicion that it was 
 based on an actual though comparatively modern occurrence. 
 The so-called Tower of the Tribune, for example, was said to 
 be covered with inscriptions celebrating the names and deeds of 
 all who had achieved anything of importance for the city. 
 This characteristic element in the tale may be illustrated by a 
 
 ®The superstition, of which this anecdote is an example, is not 
 wanting at the present day. In October, 1884, died at Paris Madame 
 Cailhava, who had become notorious by her persistent efforts to dis- 
 cover hidden treasure in the Church of St. Denis. The French 
 authorities, exactly like the Crassus of the legend, authorized her 
 crazy search which really imperilled the structure. The dean of the 
 chapter put an end to her excavations.
 
 THE SAVIOUR OF ROME 125 
 
 singular incident which Flaminius Vacca, a Roman archaeolo- 
 gist of the sixteenth century, narrated. In the time of Pius 
 IV., according to Flaminius, there appeared in Rome a 
 foreigner who had in his possession an ancient book containing 
 a treatise on the manner of finding hidden treasure. This 
 book had also a picture of an antique bas-relief, representing a 
 serpent and human figure. The latter held a cornucopia in 
 one hand and with the other pointed to the earth. After a 
 diligent search in the ruins of the city, the stranger found the 
 original of this picture. It was upon the base of the Arch of 
 Titus. Pius responded to the man's petition for the pri\Tlege 
 of digging beneath the side of the arch, by explaining that the 
 monument was the property of the Roman people whose 
 permission must be sought. The popular consent was 
 obtained, and the treasure hunter carried on his excavations 
 until he laid open the entrance to a subterranean passage, the 
 existence of which was unknown. But the populace, fearing 
 that he purposed to destroy the arch, rose in a tumult and 
 drove him from the city. When it is remembered how slight 
 the occasion was for the extraordinary narrative of Gervase, 
 concerning the discovery of Virgil's book on the ars notoria, it 
 will be readily imagined that the incentives would be frequent 
 for the invention of tales concerning hidden treasures. 
 
 In the tale connected with Virgil's name, differing through 
 all its changes but little from the account as first given in The 
 Seven Wise Men, the king of some subject nation — Hungarian, 
 Carthaginian, German or Apulian — is represented as unwilling 
 longer to pay tribute to Rome. In order to evade the tax 
 he accepts the offer made to him by three wise men, who 
 promise to overthrow the tower on which the magic mirror is 
 placed. The conspirators go to Rome, and begin their work
 
 126 MAS TEE VIRGIL 
 
 by burying in several places large coffers full of gold. The 
 emperor, who is sometimes, but not always, called Crassus, 
 eager to be enriched, allows them to dig in the places which 
 they point out. Their success in finding what they themselves 
 have hidden persuades the emperor to allow the search beneath 
 the tower. The greatest anxiety is pi-etended for the safety of 
 the pi;ecious palladium of Rome. Wooden props are placed 
 underneath the tower. Taking advantage of the night, the 
 conspirators set fire to these props and then flee ; but at a safe 
 distance stop to see the tower and mirror fall. The Romans, 
 indignant that this calamity should have come upon them 
 through the avarice of the emperor, pour molten gold down 
 his throat, and thus he dies. Virgil's only connection with 
 the story is as the architect of the wonderful structure. 
 
 IV 
 
 While the romancers excluded the statues from this magical 
 temple or tower, which was attributed to the arts of Virgil, 
 they were careful not to forget them altogether. The notions 
 of the mysterious efficacy of images had materially changed 
 under the power of a religion in which idols as symbols of the 
 deity were rigorously excluded from worship. Over this 
 popular tendency the antiquarian fancies of Neckam had less 
 influence than was exercised by the common superstitions in 
 matters of physical science. In these the mirrors held a high 
 place. It was, however, the common belief, both in the Orient, 
 as is shown by many Arabian and Persian tales, and ia Europe, 
 that statues could be made with unlimited automatic powers. 
 This fanciful belief was Avhat gave vitality to some tales, the very 
 existence of which would otherwise be incredible. For
 
 THE SA VI UB OF ROME 127 
 
 example, Adenez related that Virgil placed ou the walls of the 
 city four statues in the attitude of ball-players. These statues 
 represented respectively Spring, Summer, Autumn and 
 Winter. They had a golden ball. Spring, wlien his reign 
 was ended, tossed the ball to Summer, and so H went the year 
 round. The early Romance of the Seven Sages, in i^lace of 
 these had two statues which determined the weeks by passing 
 a ball back and forth between them. Jean d'Outremeuse, in 
 Ly Myreur des Histors, included all these, and added twelve 
 others, whose office it was to keep the people informed of the 
 passage of the months. This group of twelve statues was also 
 mentioned by Jean Mansel in La Fleur des Sistoires. In the 
 English version of the biography of Virgilius, the magician, 
 there is a manifest desire to blend the popular story as told in 
 the early romances with the more learned imaginings of the 
 twelfth century. While the catastrophe is similar to that of 
 the tale in the Seven Wise Men, the temple itself is much nearer 
 the possiliilities of history. The description of John 
 Doesborcke was thus : 
 
 "The emperour asked of Virgilius howe that he myght 
 make Rome prospere, and have many lands under them, and 
 know when any lande wolde ryse agen theym ; and Virgilius 
 sayd to the Emperoure, I woll within short space that do. 
 And he made upon the Capitolium, that was the towne house, 
 made with caruede ymages, and of stone, and that he let call 
 Salvatio Rome; that is to say, this is the Salvacyon of the 
 cytie of Rome ; and he made in the compace all the goddes 
 that we call mamettes and ydolles, that were under the 
 subjection of Rome ; and every of the goddes that there were 
 had in his hand a bell ; and in the myddle of the godes made 
 he one god of Rome. And whensoever that there was any
 
 128 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 land wold make any warre ageynst Rome, than wolde the 
 godes tourne theyr backes towarde the god of Rome ; and than 
 the god of the land that wolde stande up ageyne Rome . 
 clynked his bell so longe that he hath in his hand, tyll the 
 senatours of Rome hereth it, and forthwith they go there and 
 see what land it is that will warre ageynst them ; and so they 
 prepare them, and goeth agayn them, and subdueth theym." 
 When the author of this biography came to describe the 
 death of Virgil, he became more explicit in his description 
 of automatic images. If any proof were required that 
 ingenious mechanical devices in those days were knowingly 
 and intentionally confounded with alleged inventions of magic, 
 it would certainly be found in the account of the castle which 
 Virgil built, as a place where he might make himself young 
 again. There was one entrance only to this stronghold, and 
 that was guarded by twenty-four figures twelve in a row on 
 each side of the way. Each figure was armed with a flail. 
 They Avere so made that when in motion they beat the ground 
 steadily, like so many threshers. But at the side of the 
 doorway, both without and within the castle, there were 
 "vyces," which only needed to be turned to stop all this 
 machinery, and to set it going. A series of accidents 
 prevented Virgil's rejuvenation, which was to have come about 
 much in the manner of the antique Greek trick of which 
 Pelias was the victim. When it became certain that 
 Virgil was dead, beyond hope of resurrection, there were 
 some covetous souls who thought only of securing his treasure ; 
 "but thei-e were none so harday that durste cum in to fetche 
 it, for fere of the coper men that smote so faste with theyr 
 yron flayles." It hardly requires to be pointed out that the 
 misconception which made these statues seem possible in
 
 THE SA VI UR OF ROME 129 
 
 mechanism related to a department of science entirely different 
 from that falsified in the talisman. The mathematical or 
 metaphysical moment which gave to the bronze fly, and the 
 leech and the statue over against Vesuvius, an air of credibility, 
 was insufficient at a later day, when motion and the imitation 
 of living beings was required of these inanimate things. 
 Unconsciously, great progress had been made toward true 
 science between the time of Gervase and that of Doesborcke ; 
 on the one hand, machinery and motion had come to be looked 
 on as necessary, and on the other, the achievements that were 
 attributed to the moving figures were of far less importance 
 than those which had once been predicated of mere solid 
 shapes in metal and wood. In the one case, whole realms of 
 nature were dominated by things whose efficacy was a matter 
 of belief and nothing else ; in the other, known laws of i3hysics 
 were misapplied, because the human imagination was only 
 partially released from the slavery of magic. 
 
 The abiding popularity of the legend respecting the wonder 
 ful statues and temple at Rome is shown by the fact that it 
 continued to have a place in the frequent editions of the 
 English chap boOkj The Seven Wise Masters, as late as the 
 beginning of the present century. The episode, called in this 
 cheap pamphlet "The fifth example of the empress," is so full 
 of error and absurdity as to be positively humorous. Its naive 
 mixing up of antique and modern things make it well worthy 
 of being copied here. It is as follows : 
 
 "There reigned in Rome an emperor named Octavius, who 
 was very rich, and loved gold above all things. In his reign
 
 130 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 the Romans committed many hostilities upon the neighboring 
 nations, insomuch that they entered into an alliance against 
 the Romans for their preservation, and that which occasioned 
 their reducing other nations to obedience was by the con- 
 trivance of one Virgil, who was a great magician, so that if 
 any people offered to rebel it was immediately discovered to 
 them. The story says that he made a tower wherein were as 
 many images as there are kingdoms in the world, and in the head 
 of every image he put a bell, so that if any nation designed to 
 invade the Romans the image of that province would ring his 
 bell, which the citizens of Rome hearing, armed themselves 
 immediately and attacked their adversaries; so that the 
 Romans were dreaded throughout the world. He also made 
 for the benefit of the poor a fire which yielded so great a heat 
 that they came commonly to it, and thereby saved the expense 
 of a fire in their own houses ; opposite to this fire was placed 
 a great statue of brass, holding in his left hand a Turkish 
 bow, which was drawn Avith his right hand ready to let fly, 
 and on the bow was written, 
 
 Touch me not, for, if you do, 
 You will create a deal of wo. 
 
 "The image stood there many years, but at last a drunken 
 scholar, looking upon the writing, imagined that there was 
 under it great treasure, and that the superscription was only 
 to frighten people from taking it; whereupon he gave the 
 image such a blow that it fell to the ground and immediately 
 the fire was extinguished, and the place became as cold as if 
 there had never been any fire there. At which the scholar 
 was amazed and ran away, having deprived the city of one 
 of its greatest commodities, and the poor inhabitants cursed 
 him for it. After this, three kings, who had suffered much
 
 THE SAVIOUR OF ROME 131 
 
 by the Romans, consulted how to avenge themselves for it; 
 but one made answer that it was in vain to attempt it so long 
 as the tower images subsisted. Upon this up start three wise 
 masters and told them that they would undertake to destroy 
 the tower and the images. The kings demanding what the 
 cost would be, they replied three tons of gold. The masters 
 then made choice of three vessels, one of earth, another of 
 brass, and a third of silver, and filled them Avith gold and 
 departed for Rome, in a frigate, where, being landed, they 
 went near the city and buried one of the vessels, which they 
 took notice of; then going into the city, they buried the other 
 two near to the principal church of the city. This done, they 
 agreed how they should accomplish their design. After this 
 manner they effected it. They went one morning to Octavius, 
 and having demanded audience, they told him they were three 
 brethren skilled in magic, and had it revealed to them that the 
 city of Rome abounded in hidden treasure, and they were 
 come thither to discover it; first having the permission of his 
 majesty, promising to give him all they found, and that he 
 might bestow on them what part he pleased. The emperor, 
 glad to hear this news, immediately granted their request ; and 
 as he was going to bed, they said: 'My Lord, this night, the 
 eldest of vis will have a vision, or dream, and the third day he 
 shall shew you what it signifies.' And when the third day 
 was come, he went to the emperor and said: 'A treasure 
 will be discovered to us this morning without the city, 
 and since we find treasure without the city, we may 
 well expect to find greater within it.' The emperor, joyful 
 at what the dreamer said, told him that he would go with 
 them to see the issue of the business. Away they went 
 to the place where the treasure was hidden ; when the master
 
 132 MASTER V IB GIL 
 
 took an astrolabe and quadrant to find exactly where the 
 treasure was, and having diligently measured the ground, he 
 bid them dig, and it was not long before they discovered a 
 vessel, which the emperor seeing, he himself would take it 
 up ; and finding it to be as the master had said, he returned to 
 the place, giving a great reward to the master, hoping in a 
 little while by their means to be master of a mine of gold. 
 The next morning another of them told the emperor that he 
 had seen a vision, and that in the city they should find treasure, 
 twice as much as they found the day before ; and accordingly 
 he ordered one to dig near the tower where they had buried 
 the other gold, and after digging awhile they discovered two 
 vessels, both filled with gold. This so increased the aflfection 
 of the emperor towards the masters that he did nothing with- 
 out their advice, and, having given them a great reward, was 
 in great expectation to see the effects of the third master's 
 vision. Accordingly next morning he went in to the emperor 
 and told him that not far from hence he had seen a treasure 
 in his vision much richer than both the others, and the place 
 where it lay was six hundred yards from the palace, and then 
 by the astrolabe and quadrant, he measured the ground and 
 found that it lay just under the foundations of the tower 
 where the images and statue were placed. The emperor at 
 this was a little startled, saying: 'God forbid that I should, 
 for the love of gold, destroy the tower which may truly be 
 said to be the property of the Roman Empire.' The master 
 answered that it would be great imprudence to hazard so rich 
 and excellent a treasure as the tower was, only to gain another 
 lesser treasure that was hidden in the earth ; but if it might 
 be obtained without damaging the tower, then it would be 
 indiscretion to let it lie there ; 'And I dare undertake,' said
 
 THE SAVIOUR OF EOME 133 
 
 he, 'to dig under the foundation without the least prejudice in 
 the world to the tower.' The emperor hearing this, was over- 
 joyed, and in the night they were let into the tower, which, 
 with the utmost expedition and diligence, they undermined, 
 and early in the morning mounted their horses and rode away 
 to their own country, and before they were all out of the city 
 of Rome the tower fell down, and tnus by the villainy of 
 these three masters was the wonder of the world and the prop 
 of Rome destroyed. The senators in great consternation go to 
 the emperor to know the reason of the tower's being destroyed, 
 who answered : 'Three treacherous wise masters, pretending to 
 be soothsayers, persuaded me that a prodigious quantity of 
 gold was hid under the foundation, which they would discover 
 without any hurt to the tower or the statues, and they have 
 deceived me.' These masters returning home were received 
 with joy and greatly rewarded, and it was not long before the 
 enemy came against the Romans and took the city, and the 
 Emperor Octavius had hardly the liberty to make his escape, 
 who from being a powerful prince was reduced to turn school- 
 master and teach publicly in the island of Merlin."
 
 SEVEN TR— VIRGIL, THE LOVER 
 
 That the character of Virgil, the magician, came to be 
 looked on — like that of the devil in the mysteries — as one to 
 be made ludicrous, is shown in the development of the only- 
 tale in which he figured as a lover. There is no written report 
 nor tradition that warrants the applying of this absurd 
 mediaeval invention to Virgil. Nothing that has descended 
 from antique times casts any light upon the privacy of Virgil's 
 life in a matter respecting which the Romans as a rule were 
 not overdelicate. Suetonius, perhaps, and Apuleius and other 
 scandal-mongers of the early centuries, gave currency to an 
 accusation that Virgil was guilty of a crime not only against 
 modesty but against reason. Apuleius, in particular, used the 
 anecdote to excuse his own evil practices of which he made no 
 secret. But beyond the very dubious testimony of these 
 writers, and an inference drawn from one of Virgil's poems, 
 there is nothing to countenance the libel. There is no more 
 self-accusation in the Alexia than in the Religio Medici, the 
 author of which could say that at the age of thirty he had 
 never yet been drawn by the love of woman, though he loved
 
 THE L VER 135 
 
 his friend as he did his soul or his God. One who can misin- 
 terpret such expressions simply exposes the mark of the beast 
 in his own forehead. His words prove nothing except against 
 himself. While Virgil's relations with women are unknown, 
 his disposition toward them as evinced in his portrayal of Dido 
 and Lavinia, gentle far beyond the measure of the Latin 
 genius, is yet plainly that of good-natured contempt, mingled 
 with the diffident and timid aversion of a confirmed bachelor. 
 One can read between the lines how Virgil would have shrunk 
 from a rich, passionate feminine nature like that of the 
 Carthaginian queen. Her salutation would have been far 
 more to be dreaded by him than the noisy plaudits of the 
 crowds that followed him in the street. He mio-ht not have 
 run away from such a woman, but there is not a doubt that he 
 would have wished to do so. The general tenor of his life 
 and the tendency of his poetry give the strongest testimony to 
 the purity of his mind.* But in later ages when the reputation 
 of a magician had been fastened upon him, it was natural that 
 all the fancies with which professors of the black art Avere 
 invested should be interwoven with his legendary biography. 
 It remained for the French and German romancers to connect 
 with the name of Virgil a disreputable tale which had often 
 been told of other notable persons. To understand why this 
 tale should have been an agreeable one to the taste of mediceval 
 readers, the disposition of the middle ages toward woman must 
 be comprehended. St. Bernard put all the brutality of five 
 hundred years into an aphorism when he said that the carnal- 
 
 "■•■The remark of Servius, Uno tantum morbo laborabat, nam impatiem, 
 libidini fait [See Masvicii Virgilins, Vol. I., p. 304], does not militate 
 against the testimony of Virgil's own writings, for it is not the man 
 who yields to every assault of his passions who knows their strength, 
 but the man who resists and becomes impatient of the conflict.
 
 136 MASTER VI B GIL 
 
 minded woman, meaning every woman who was not of the 
 religious, est organum Satani, "Is the instrument of the devil." 
 This emphatic sentence is one of the most significant in 
 mediaeval literature. It is the epitome of volumes that were ^ 
 
 written and a key to the most unpleasant secrets of life in the 
 dark ages. Those who maintain that woman owes much to 
 the church in those centuries, if they desire to be accurate, 
 should make a distinction between the recognized and the un- 
 recognized forces of religion. The church, as organized, was 
 a foe of the family, and, therefore, of woman. In its 
 priesthood and in its religious orders, its tendency was to turn 
 the Avorld into one vast heiynitage. The fathers and ecclesias- 
 tical writers exalted celibacy as the only state in which 
 man could approach perfection ; even, when most moderate, 
 asserting with Olympiodorus, the monk, that while mar- 
 riage was not to be altogether condemned, yet celibacy was 
 worthy of all praise ; thus they advocated not only what 
 was absurd, but what was thoroughly immoral, and brought 
 the idea of perfection into conflict with natural and social 
 laws. Chivalry, the complement of mediaeval asceticism, by 
 an opposite course, weakened the conjugal bond, depriving 
 the wife of dignity, and refusing to her the highest motive for 
 honesty and self-respect. In spite of some fragments of 
 literature which portrayed Avoman in her purity, in spite of 
 the extravagant homage paid to her in the courts of love and 
 in the tournaments, she was never more wickedly insulted than 
 during the reign of gallantry and under the shadow of 
 monkerv. An incredible number of tales and witticisms, for 
 the most part trifling and obscene, were invented to her dis- 
 credit. The worst of these furnished not only the humor of 
 the strolling player and the story teller, but gave pungency to
 
 THE LOVER 137 
 
 the sermons of the times. The painters who decorated the 
 churches were not ashamed to take these tales as the theme of 
 their pictures. When worship was thus disgraced, how could 
 Virgil hope to escape ? 
 
 n 
 
 One of these tales was taken as the basis of the legend 
 respecting Virgil's relations with women. lu the earliest and 
 most common form of the narrative, Virgil was represented as 
 enamored of the emperor's daughter. She did not sympathize 
 with his ardent expressions of love. Feigning, however, to 
 accede to his wishes, that she might the more severely pun- 
 ish him for his presumption, she proposed to introduce him 
 secretly into her chamber, by drawing him up in a basket to 
 the window of the tower where she lived. Virgil eagerly 
 agreed to this plan, and at the hour designated promptly 
 bestowed himself in the basket, which he found swinging at 
 the foot of the tower according to the lady's promise. All 
 went well enough until he had been drawn half way up to the 
 window. There the princess and her women left him, taunting 
 him and mocking his prayers for release. He swung in mid 
 air until daybreak. The people of the city, who were all 
 familiar with the figure of so renowned a man, were first 
 startled, then amused by the predicament in which they found 
 him. This incident did not end with the laughter and gibes 
 of the populace ; for the emperor having been informed of the 
 matter released Virgil from his unique prison, with the inten- 
 tion of ordering him to be beheaded. Virgil, as soon as he 
 placed his feet on solid ground, found means of escape by 
 the use of his magical arts. The insult that had been put
 
 138 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 upon him rankled in his mind, however, and in order to 
 prepare the way for vengeance, the magician caused all the 
 fires in Rome to go out, and made it impossible to light them 
 again, except by the public shame and exposure of the 
 emperor's daughter. The legend, as thus made up, is manifestly 
 composed of two parts which are ill-fitted to be together. The 
 first part belongs with those inventions of mediaeval humor in 
 which Adam, David, Samson, Hercules, Hippocrates, Aristotle 
 and other men of renown were the victims of a ridiculous trick 
 originating in the subtle craftiness and instinctive malice of 
 womankind. For example, the grave Aristotle, according to 
 Adam de la Halle and many other writers, got down on 
 all-fours in order that a woman might bridle, saddle and 
 ride him as though he were a horse. These inventions are a 
 commonplace of satiric poetry in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries. The second part was among the stories common in 
 Europe long before it was connected with the name of Virgil. 
 In an ancient account of St. Leo Thaumaturge it was told of 
 Heliodorus, a reputed magician, who lived in Sicily in the 
 eighth century. As this account was written first in Greek 
 and as many of the incidents in the career of the extremely 
 wicked Heliodorus were said to have taken place at Constanti- 
 nople, there is little room to doubt that the particular story 
 in question belongs to Grecian antiquity, from which it 
 descended to both the oriental and the European literature of 
 later times. It is said to be part of a Persian tale concerning 
 a Khan of Turkestan, which has been translated into French 
 by Defremery. The two parts of the legend may have been 
 associated with Virgil's name separately in the first place — for 
 the trick played by the woman hardly seems artful enough to 
 have deceived a magician such as Virgil is afterward shown to
 
 THE L VER 139 
 
 be. They appeared together for the first time so far as known 
 in a Latin work of the twelfth century. Jans Enenkel, in 
 his Weltbuch, narrated them, and they were subsequently 
 repeated in the French poem Benars Contrefait, and in numer- 
 ous writings of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries, French and German most frequently, but also in 
 Spanish, Italian and English. The legend was made a part, 
 not only of those works that professed to treat of the Virgilian 
 legends, but also of narratives in prose and verse, where one 
 had little reason to expect it. As a rule Virgil was represented 
 to have been unsuccessful in his suit, but Ticknor in J. History 
 of Spanish Literature cites a ballad in which punishment was 
 said to have been visited upon him for his success. Sometimes 
 the story was told merely as a joke ; sometimes as an example 
 to enforce exhortations against the sin of carnality. The 
 Spanish poet Juan Ruiz de Hita, writing about 1313, recalled 
 the legend in a discourse upon this theme which seems to have 
 been as fruitful in disquisitions as it was in offences. With 
 the highly useful attachment of a moral so plain that innocence 
 itself could not misinterpret the fable, it was told and retold 
 to weariness in literature ; presented over and over again in 
 church pictures, and was made the subject of elaborate works 
 by masters in art. A more pleasing form of the second part 
 of the legend was a tale in which Virgil was represented as 
 having gone about Rome in disguise that he might test the 
 hospitality of the people. He was kindly treated by one 
 family only, the members of which were miserably poor. In 
 order to punish the uncharitable multitude, he extinguished 
 all the fires in the city save the one on the hospitable hearth 
 The poor family sold live coals to their neighbors and were by 
 this means raised from penury to affluence.
 
 140 MAS TEE VIRGIL 
 
 ni 
 
 The legend whieli lias been alluded to was not the only one 
 that placed Vh'gil in relation with the female sex. Appeals 
 to the judgment of God, by ordeals in which truth and justice 
 were supposed to be upheld by a miracle, were a matter of 
 universal custom. The dishonorable position in which woman 
 had been placed by the public opinion of the times caused her 
 to be a frequent victim of some brutal test of this kind. The 
 lightest rumor affecting her purity was enough to subject her 
 to a trial from which only her own acuteness or the arm of 
 some willing champion could rescue her. Literature was per- 
 meated with this distrust of woman, and well it might be, for 
 it was to an extent unknown in any other period, the product 
 of celibacy. It was perfectly natural that writers whose whole 
 education had been such as to make them incapable of under- 
 standing the most important facts in the science of human na- 
 ture should have imputed their own impotent and malicious 
 cynicism to a character so celebrated as that of Virgil. How 
 this was done may be seen in the Dolopathos at the place where 
 the poet-astrologer is introduced to save the life of his pupil, 
 Lucimien. The prince was about to be burned at the stake 
 because of the accusations made against him by his stepmother. 
 Virgil rushed to the place of torture, crying out to the king to 
 spare au innocent life. Dolopathos hesitated, and the wise 
 man upbraided him for his folly in trusting the words of 
 women, who are more expert in wickedness than all other 
 creatures together. Evil is the very nattire of woman, he 
 declares; no foolhardiness in sin is impossible to her disposition, 
 and she has no rival in disloyalty and treason, in vices and 
 cruelties, in cunning and hatred. His speech to the queen is
 
 THE L VER 141 
 
 a diatribe on the sex, the more bitter because it was added to 
 the obnoxious pedantry which had been displayed by the seven 
 counsellors in their successive appeals to the king. Then to 
 illustrate the cunning of woman when she is bent upon deceit, 
 Virgil is made to tell a story which bears a general likeness to 
 the one known under the title of The Two Dreams in the 
 ordinary versions of Tlie Seven Wise Men, but while the latter 
 is of oriental origin, the former, as put in the mouth of Virgil, 
 is obviously a Greek invention. The device of the two dreams, 
 one by the lover, the other by his mistress, in which they are 
 made aware each of the other's existence, is replaced with an 
 idea in harmony with the extreme love of the Greeks for 
 statuary. Virgil represents that in his youth he had the 
 acquaintance of the son of a senator at Rome. Though this 
 young man had every inducement to be married, he obstinately 
 neglected all his opportunities. Finally when hard pressed by 
 his friends, he caused a handsome statue to be made and vowed 
 that he would wed no woman unless she resembled in appear- 
 ance this inanimate figure. Not long afterward a party of 
 Greek sailors shipwrecked on the Italian coast made their way 
 to Rome. When they saw the statue they expressed great 
 surprise at its likeness to the wife of their ruler, and related 
 how the husband, on account of jealousy, kept her immured in 
 a tower from which there seemed to be no way of escape. The 
 son of the senator, of course, went to free the young woman 
 from her imprisonment. Without much trouble he found the 
 tower, made the prisoner aware of his purpose and of the 
 extraordinary manner in which he had been led to seek her 
 out. The jealous old lord was conveniently stupid, and in due 
 time the young Roman and the wife escaped. As soon as she 
 espied the statue, which was so just a counterpai't of her own
 
 142 MASTER VI BOIL 
 
 face and figure, she hit upon a stratagem by which pursuit 
 might be foiled. When the husband came to ask justice of 
 the Romans, the senator's son pointed to the statue and said: 
 "See! For my sin and hers, she has been turned to stone." 
 The old lord, triumphant in the thought that the woman's 
 wickedness went not unpunished, seized the statue, draped it in 
 costly cloths and carried it back to his tower. It was to be 
 expected that a woman so skillful in deceit would give her new 
 lover the same trouble which she had caused the old one. But 
 before touching the remainder of Virgil's narrative, it will not 
 be out of place to show that the portion already presented was, 
 as has been said, Greek in its origin. There is yet extant a 
 poem of the fourteenth century in Latin, the whole of which 
 has, perhaps, never been printed, that appears to be a close 
 imitation of a Greek original. Zeno of Sidon visits Philo, a 
 wealthy Greek, and is overcome with jealous terror at the sight 
 of a statue of Parian marble, richly clothed and spangled 
 with jewels, because it resembles his own wife. Foolishly he 
 discloses the cause of his illness to Philo, and on his return 
 home relates the adventure to his wife. Not long afterward 
 Philo goes to Sidon and l>v a singular artifice carries off the 
 wife of Zeno. In this form the tale needs none of the addi- 
 tions about the gloomy tower and the imprisoned woman, the 
 wandering lover disguised as minstrel or palmer, and other 
 things characteristic of feudal times. It is a picture of the 
 free life in the Greek cities. With its luxurious disbelief in 
 virtue, Herbers fused the boorish contempt for woman char- 
 acteristic of his own age. No sooner was the young Roman 
 married than he became excessively jealous of the woman 
 whom he had won. He caused a castle to be built with walls 
 like those which the Saracens constructed, and in this prison
 
 THE LOVER 143 
 
 he placed his wife. She made no objection ; on the contrary, 
 she jjretended to be pleased ; but, as Virgil is made to say, the 
 greater the gaiety of a woman, the more courage she has for 
 deeds of wicked folly. She contrived by coquetries to put 
 her husband in a suspicious mood. Then she j)retended to 
 throw herself from the window of her prison. Alarmed by 
 the noise which she made in casting a stone to the ground, the 
 husband entered the room to see if she was gone. She was 
 hidden behind a pillar. Slipping out of the open door, she 
 barred it securely, and thus taught her husband a lesson 
 which, it is to be hoped, he did not forget. The argument of 
 all this is that it is impossible for the mind of man to be 
 prepared for the tricks of which woman is capable ; therefore, 
 it was a mark of great weakness in King Dolopathos to yield 
 at the solicitations of his deceitful spouse. As soon as Virgil 
 began to. speak the queen and her damsels fell to trembling. 
 Pale with fright, they awaited the decision of the judges, who 
 now found it convenient to reverse their former opinion. 
 Then Lucimien broke the silence which he had kept for seven 
 days and told his story of the interview with the queen. The 
 women, speechless with terror, were cast into the fire, and, as 
 a final touch of mediaeval cruelty, the romancer adds that 
 nobody had any pity for them ; neither father, nor mother, 
 nor friend showed compassion ; not a prayer was offered for 
 them; the poet himself wasted too much time in describing 
 their fate, so he says, in view of the fact that many things of 
 importance remained for him to tell. 
 
 Thus at the outset of that literary movement which culminated 
 in the magical biography of Virgil, he was made to appear, 
 like many of the saints, as an adversary of womankind. The 
 vulgar notions on this subject led to the invention of many
 
 144 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 popular tales, among which was one that became associated 
 with Virgil's name. It was said that he set up in Rome a 
 statue with an open mouth to which women were brought to 
 testify when their honesty was in question. If they asserted 
 their innocence of the charge made against them, they were 
 obliged to maintain the truth of their statement by an oath 
 taken while their fingers were thrust into the mouth of the 
 statue. When a woman swore falsely, the stone jaws of the 
 statue came together and her maimed hand disclosed her per- 
 jury. Here again the story tellers illustrated the cunning 
 of the sex by relating that once a woman of rank was accused 
 by her husband of being unfaithful to him. Finding that she 
 must face the ordeal, she instructed her lover to feign madness, 
 and to seize her in the presence of the statue. Her husband 
 rescued her with difficulty from the clutches of the suppositi- 
 tious maniac. Pretending the utmost shame because of this 
 incident, the woman swore that she had never suffered the em- 
 brace of any man save her husband and this insane person 
 whom all had seen, and confirmed her oath by withdrawing 
 her fingers unhurt from the mouth of the statue. Even 
 Virgil in this case was compelled to acknowledge that he had 
 been outwitted. The author of an anonymous German poem, 
 written in the fourteenth century, in describing this statue, 
 remarked that there were many women in Rome who bore its 
 mark upon them. He then went on to tell of an empress 
 who took advantage of her husband's absence to renew her 
 acquaintance with a knight. The emperor, though far away 
 upon the sea with his knights and nobles, engaged in an 
 important enterprise, went with only half a heart, because he 
 was tormented with the thought of his wife's dishonor which 
 he dreaded far more than his own death. In his anxiety he
 
 THE LOVER 145 
 
 consulted a wise man in his train, and this personage advised 
 an immediate return to Rome. The emperor followed this. 
 counsel. Upon reaching Rome, he demanded of the empress 
 a strict account of her conduct. She declared that she had 
 done no wrong, and he, not yet convinced, replied that she 
 must be tried by the statue so that all mankind might know 
 her innocence, and that his knights might see how pure a wife 
 she was. At this point the story as already related is taken 
 up. After the empress went through the scene before the 
 statue, she placed her fingers in its mouth with this naive 
 address: "Now, listen, statue, and mark me well. I stand 
 here for truth, for honor, for life, that thou canst find no fault 
 in me; for no man has ever come near me, save only the 
 emperor and this crazy man, whom all have seen. Now, 
 mark me, statue, what I say to thee, for I swear to the truth. 
 If I swear falsely, punish me." The statue was motionless, 
 and the empress^ withdrawing her hand, exclaimed: "There, 
 my lord, don't you see you have wronged me? My fingers 
 are not hurt." The emperor begged her pardon and they 
 celebrated their reconciliation by breaking the image to 
 pieces. 
 
 The statue thus attributed to Virgil's magic was not wholly 
 a creature of the imagination. The legend was associated for 
 many generatioiis with an ancient sculptured head which still 
 exists among the relics of Rome. In the Mirabilia Urbis 
 Romce, this head Avas said to have pronounced oracles. In the 
 German version of that work, made in the fifteenth century, 
 the name of Virgil and the account of the way the stone lost 
 its efficacy were added to the simple remark with which the 
 compiler of the Latin guide-book had been content. The 
 moral attached to the story led to a new interpretation of
 
 146 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 other stories. For example, Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet of 
 Germany, taking up the familiar story of the magic bridge, 
 made out that Virgil built a bridge upon which no woman 
 who had been unfaithful to her marriage vows could walk 
 with safety. 
 
 IV 
 
 After the reputation of Virgil as a magician became fixed, 
 that is, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the story of 
 his intrigue with the daughter of the emperor was a theme 
 naturally to be enlarged upon. It was related that when the 
 Romans had relighted their fires, they committed the magician 
 to prison. He escaped by making the picture of a ship on 
 the walls of his cell and converting it into a real ship by an 
 incantation. Ro far the story was a common one. It had 
 been told of tlie Sicilian Heliodorus, who, when he Avas com- 
 manded to go to Constantinople for trial on the charge of being 
 an enchanter, conjured up a vessel which carried liim and 
 his guards thither in an incredibly brief space of time. 
 The notion of magic ships was familiar to the Greeks. 
 Macrobius called attention to the confusion of mind that had 
 arisen through the use of the same words to describe both 
 drinking vessels and sailing vessels, and even thought it nec- 
 essary to discredit the story related by two Greek writers, 
 Panyasis and Pherecydes, that Hercules made a voyage to the 
 island of Erytheia in a bowl. "My idea is," says he, "that 
 Hercules crossed the sea not in a drinking cup, but in a ship, 
 the name of which was Scyphiisi, a can." Nearly all the 
 numerous words by which the Greeks distinguished the differ- 
 ent forms of hollow-ware in use among them were also taken i]
 
 TEE L VEB 147 
 
 to describe boats. The transition from one thing to the other 
 easily followed the transition from one meaning to the other, 
 as in the case of Hercules, to be succeeded in due time 
 by the notion that the conversion of one thing into the 
 other was due to magic. This belief was frequently 
 mentioned in popular lore, specially that of Russia, which 
 owes not a little of its superstition to the Byzantines. 
 Virgil not only effected his own escape, but carried off 
 his fellow prisoners. By another account it appears that 
 Virgil liberated himself from prison by means of a charm said 
 over a large bowl or shell full of sea water. In this form also 
 the incident was a feature of the pretended biography of 
 Heliodorus, who was, as has been remarked, a prototype of 
 the magician Virgil. Aliprando, the Mantuan poet, added to 
 this tale a figment not uncommon in stories of magic, to the 
 effect that'Virgil, while flying over the sea in his shell, ordered 
 one of his familiar spirits to fetch him the victuals from 
 Octavian's table. It remained, however, for Jean d'Outremeuse 
 to develop from these fragments a systematic fiction as one 
 of the episodes in his Ly Myreur cles Sistors. He saw the 
 inconsistency of the tale as it had been rudely put together by 
 the earlier romancers. Rejecting those features which could 
 not be made to agree with the notion of Virgil's skill in necro- 
 mancy, he invented new details to suit the idea which he had 
 formed of a magician. Evil and selfish as Virgil was, he 
 drew people to him in spite of themselves. Febilla, the 
 daughter of Julius Caesar, fell in love with him upon mere 
 hearsay. Indeed, no woman was ever overcome with greater 
 ease. She sent word to Virgil that she wished him to visit 
 her. Upon his arrival the imperial damsel, laying aside all 
 modesty, said frankly: "Sir Virgil, tell me if you love
 
 148 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 me; for if you do, I am yours, either wife or mistress." Virgil 
 with equal frankness replied that as for a wife, he was not in 
 the mind, but that he would willingly accept the companion- 
 ship of so lovely a maiden as FebiUa on any other terms. 
 Thus began between them an intrigue which lasted a long 
 time. In the meanwhile, Virgil became famous by reason of 
 the prodigies which he performed, and Febilla began to enter- 
 tain the hope that she might become his lawful wife. Every 
 time that she alluded to the subject, however — and that was 
 by no means rarely — Virgil would answer that he had some- 
 thing else to think about just then; or, that his studies were 
 such as did not admit of his marrying ; if the time ever came 
 when he wished to marry, she should be his wife. But that 
 time did not come. Febilla grew importunate, but Virgil 
 continued to treat the matter with indifference. Finally, 
 weary of being beguiled with a promise never to be fulfilled, 
 Febilla one day invented a story that her father had discovered 
 all, and was about to punish both herself and her lover. The 
 magician only laughed and said that if Febilla was afraid, she 
 * was welcome to go. He should like her to stay, if she would 
 only stop her clatter on the subject of marriage. The lady, 
 though very angry, pretended to be satisfied. But she 
 meditated vengeance. Feigning that her father, in order to 
 stop all intercourse between her and Virgil, was about to shut 
 her up in a castle, she suggested that the magician could still 
 visit her by means of a basket in which he could be drawn up 
 to her window. Virgil foresaw what would happen, but 
 agreed to her plan as though ignorant of its purpose. Instead 
 of getting into the basket himself, he caused one of his familiar 
 spirits to take his place, in a shape that seemed to be Virgil's 
 own. The devil acted his part to perfection. The basket
 
 THE LOVER I49 
 
 swung in mid air uutil morning, when the emperor came to 
 punish the seducer of his daughter. He drew his sword and 
 clove the head which he supposed was Virgil's. ^VTiat was 
 his astonishment to see issue from the wound, not blood, but 
 a smoke so dense and in so great a volume that soon the whole 
 city was in darkness. Not content with this exploit, Virgil 
 put out all the fires of the city and then departed. At the 
 urgent request of the emperor and the people of Rome, he 
 returned and restored the fires. But he could not refrain 
 from a brutal jest on Febilla. He cast over a temple 
 frequented by women so potent a spell that every woman 
 who entered its portals was obliged to proclaim what she had 
 hitherto held in inviolable secrecy.* Febilla, caught in this 
 trap, made herself ridiculous by a minute description of her 
 undraped figure. The death of Julius Ctesar was followed by 
 the accession of Octavian to the throne iu spite of the widow 
 who desired to reign. She plotted with her daughter Febilla 
 to destroy Octavian and his great ally, Virgil. The new 
 emperor and his counsellor were invited to a banquet, where 
 they were to be assassinated. Virgil j^enetrated the conspiracy, 
 and had himself and Octavian personated at the entertainment 
 by demons. The sanguinary la<lies, after committing the 
 murder, found that they had wreaked their vengeance only on 
 the carcasses of two huge dogs. One feature of the plot was 
 not revealed to Virgil's art at the outset — namely, that the 
 
 *A device of this kind is not unknown to the stage. Beckford 
 {Travels in Portiujul, Letter xx.] says : "In some of our pantomimes, if 
 I recollect rightly, harlequin applies a touchstone to his adversaries, 
 and by its magic influence draws truth from them in spite of propriety 
 or interest. The lawyer confesses to having fingered a bribe, the 
 soldier his flight in the day of battle and the whining methodistical 
 dowager her frequent recourse to the bottle of inspiration."
 
 150 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 Senate was privy to it. lu his wrath upon discovering this 
 fact, he quitted Rome, bearing away the fire and leaving word 
 to the Romans that they must light their torches from the 
 body of Febilla. She died of shame and madness at being 
 subjected to the ill treatment of the multitude. 
 
 V 
 
 In the popular history of Virgil, the magician, which was 
 written in French and afterward transferred with more or less 
 change in subject-matter to nearly all the languages of Northern 
 Europe, the story of the basket reappeared, unaffected by the 
 elaborate fancies of Jean d'Outremeuse. The Mouth of 
 Truth, however, was said to belong to a serpent of 
 bronze. Virgil himself destroyed this image when he found 
 that a woman was cunning enough to baffle his magic. He 
 was said to have married soon after his venture with the 
 basket. Strange occurrences followed the marriage. The 
 magician became disgusted with the conduct of the Roman 
 women. In order to work a reformation among them, he 
 moulded a statue and placed it high in the air. It could not 
 fall because it was enchanted. The people of Rome could not 
 open a door or a window without catching a glimi:)se of it. 
 For mere beauty of sculpture such a thing might have been 
 borne; but this statue had the property that it drove all 
 unchaste thoughts from the minds of women, when they saw 
 it, no matter how quickly they turned their heads away. So 
 they besought Virgil's wife to fetch it down and break the 
 power of its enchantment. She found means to carry out 
 their wishes. Virgil raised the image again, and restored 
 the spell. Again the wife cast it down, but this time
 
 THE LOVER 151 
 
 she was seen by her husbaad, who angrily put her away, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 "The devil satisfy you, for I did it for the best. I shall 
 never more meddle, but let the women have their way." 
 
 He had heard often of the beauty of the Sultan's daughter, 
 and, after separating from his wife, he determined to visit 
 Babylon. So he swung his magic bridge over the sea and was 
 soon in the presence of the young woman who was famous the 
 world over for her good looks. She willingly consented to 
 return with Virgil to his native land. He showed her all his 
 possessions. While she was amusing herself in this manner, 
 it may well be supposed that Babylon was in an uproar. The 
 Sultan, when he found not his daughter, was sorrowful. The 
 palace and the city were searched in every part. As unex- 
 pectedly as she went away, so with equal suddenness the 
 young woman reappeared in her father's palace. The only 
 account which she could give of her wanderings was that a 
 man of fair complexion had carried her over land and over 
 sea to his own domain. What land it was that she had 
 visited she could not tell, as she saw neither man nor woman 
 nor any living creature save the man who carried her away. 
 The Sultan, taking it for granted that the stranger would 
 repeat his visit to Babylon, instructed his daughter to bring 
 back from the unknown land some fruits by which it might 
 be discovered whither she was taken. She obeyed this 
 injunction and her father easily divined that her journeys 
 ended in the country near the eastern side of France ; that is, 
 the Italy of feudal times. When the princess returned for 
 the second time, she was instructed to give the stranger, if he 
 came again, a drink that would cause him to sleep so that he 
 might be taken and forced to explain what manner of man he
 
 152 MAS TEE VIE GIL 
 
 was. But when he was made a prisoner, the Sultan, with a 
 cruelty not oriental but thoroughly characteristic of mediaeval 
 Europe, determined to burn him at the stake. The daughter 
 declared that she would share the prisoner's fate. 
 
 "So you shall," exclaimed the despot; "I have other daugh- 
 ters." 
 
 But Virgil, though he lacked the cunning to evade his 
 captors in the first place, was not to be punished so easily. 
 He caused what seemed to be a great flood to ovei-flow the city,* 
 and while the Sultan and his ofiicers and soldiers were going 
 through the motions of swimming in the dust, thinking them- 
 selves to be in imminent danger of drowning, the magician 
 strode away with the princess on his enchanted bridge, seem- 
 ing to those below him to be walking upon nothing. Upon 
 
 returning to Rome, Virgil bethought himself how he should 
 dispose of the Sultan's daughter. He built the town of 
 
 Naples, setting the foundation of it upon eggs. He raised in 
 
 the midst of the city a square tower surmounted with an apple 
 
 stuck upon an iron staff In the English version this is called 
 
 "a napyll" suggesting a quaint etymology for the name of the 
 
 city. On the top of the iron staff Virgil placed a bottle, and 
 
 on the bottle an egg. When the egg stirred the town of 
 
 Naples quaked, and it was believed that if it were broken the 
 
 city would be swallowed up. Virgil stored his treasures in 
 
 Naples and gave the city to the Sultan's daughter. With 
 
 such a dowry she was not long in finding a husband in the 
 
 person of a Spanish nobleman. Thus the tale is brought into 
 
 *A trick often mentioned in the biographies of magicians. There ia 
 a story of Virgil having punished some women who had ofTended him, 
 by subjecting them to this delusion. One might almost suspect that 
 this superstition originated in some oriental fancies about the mirage.
 
 THE LOVER 153 
 
 a curious relationship with political events which must have 
 been known to the narrator in connection with the claims of 
 Spain to the possession of Southern Italy. 
 
 VI 
 
 The Spanish romance of Virgil differed from all the other 
 tales concerning him in that every characteristic of the historic, 
 the traditional and even the legendary Virgil gave place to a 
 clumsy lover with all the whimsical chivalry and ceremony 
 proper to a compatriot of Quixote. To the author of this 
 absurd tale Virgil wore the guise of a good hidalgo, who 
 endured imprisonment patiently for the sake of his inamorata. 
 His punishment came about in this way : Having conceived 
 a violent passion for Isabella, a lady of the court, he offended 
 the punctilious manners of the king whom he served by a too 
 public display of his affection. For this indecorum he was 
 arrested, tried and condemned on a charge of high treason. 
 He remained in prison, before he was again remembered by the 
 king, full seven years. On a Sunday when all the grandees 
 were the guests of the king, the strangely defective royal 
 memory was suddenly quickened at the dinner table ! 
 
 "My lords," exclaimed the king, "and Virgil, where is he?" 
 
 One of the noblemen, who had been Virgil's friend, ventured 
 to reply: "Your majesty has him in prison." 
 
 "Come," said his majesty, "let us dine quickly, that we 
 may visit him." 
 
 "Not a mouthful will I eat until he is with us," exclaimed 
 the queen. So to the prison they went, and when they 
 came to Virgil's cell they asked him how he did, and he 
 replied :
 
 154 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 "Senors, I have nothing to do, save comb my hair and my 
 beard. Here they grew and here they are like to become 
 gray. To-day seven years have gone since your majesty had 
 me arrested." 
 
 "Hush, Virgil," whispered the courtiers, alarmed at his 
 boldness, "of ten years there yet remain three." 
 
 "But," continued- the prisoner, submissively, "if your 
 majesty wills it, here I shall remain all my life." 
 
 "Virgil," said the king, "in recompense of the miseries you 
 have suffered, and as a reward for your patience, you shall 
 this day eat at our table." 
 
 Virgil protested that he had no clothes fit to wear, but the 
 king would take no refusal. Newly attired in robes suitable 
 to his rank, the prisoner was led to the palace. The king 
 opened his heart still more in the merriment and kindly feeling 
 of the feast, and commanded that Virgil and the Donna 
 Isabella should be married without delay. To cap the 
 climax of absurdity, it is gravely stated that the ceremouy 
 was performed in the cathedral by his grace, tlie arch- 
 bishop. 
 
 All these tales have this value : that they disclose clearly the 
 national, or rather the racial tendencies out of which they 
 sprang. These peculiarities might have been concealed in 
 narratives more elaborate. Even the obstinate prejudice of 
 the Teuton against the Roman finds a distinct expression in 
 the poem of the anonymous German who declared in effect 
 that the women of Rome were notoriously unfaithful. But it 
 is not surprising that when curiosity was reawakened concern- 
 ing the Virgil of history, it should have seemed impossible 
 for these tales to have been attached even by the bonds 
 of legend and superstition to the fame of the Mantuan, nor
 
 TEE LOVER 155 
 
 that learned men should have looked among the many 
 Virgils who were known in mediaeval literature for a per- 
 sonality better suited to such inventions than was that of the 
 Augustan poet.
 
 EIGHTE-VIBGIL, THE PROPHET 
 
 Virgil lived too long before the beginning of the contro- 
 versy between paganism and Christianity to afford an 
 opportunity for the immediate partisan use of his name and 
 reputation. He could not be enrolled as an adherent of either 
 party, because he never had the opportunity of choosing 
 between them. But the post-classical and mediaeval world 
 looked upon him as a poet of prophetic insight, who contained 
 within himself all the potentialities of wisdom. He was called 
 The Poet, as if no other existed ; The Roman, as if the ideal 
 of the commonwealth were embodied in him ; The Perfect in 
 Style, with whom no other writer could be compared ; The 
 Philosopher, who grasped the ideas of all things ; The Wise 
 One, whose comprehension seemed to other mortals unlimited ; 
 and, least agreeable title to a poet, he was called The Learned, 
 as having mastered the lore of humanity. His writings 
 became the Bible of a race. The mysteries of Roman priest- 
 craft, the processes of divination, the science of the stars, 
 were all found in his works. The powers of a magician, and, 
 subsequently, the name were attributed to him. Christians,
 
 THE PROPHET 157 
 
 learned as well as unlearned, accepting these opinions did not 
 attempt to separate the Virgil of history from the Virgil of 
 tradition. Such criticism would have been impossible. Man- 
 kind was, in fact, not capable of making a distinction between 
 the real and the unreal. The heathen deities were as truly 
 existent in the imagination of the early Christian convert as 
 in that of his polytheistic neighbor. So the heathen oracles 
 were studied as the utterances of a superhuman intelligence, 
 more or less vicious, which pointed in spite of itself to the 
 events of the New Dispensation. The whole area of profane 
 literature was traversed in search of passages to be interpreted 
 in harmony with the teachings of Scripture. As to Virgil, 
 the reasoning was obvious that, gifted as he was with almost 
 supernatural powers, and with a prophetic insight, he must 
 have been cognizant of the stupendous changes about to be 
 wrought in the world. The method by which in course of 
 time he was made to do duty as a witness for Christianity was, 
 in some aspects, little to the credit of Christian scholars ; the 
 only excuse for this was the prevalence of literary dishonesty 
 among men of all creeds. Celsus had just grounds for 
 reproaching the Christians with having corrupted the Sibylline 
 books to suit their own views, and Origeu could reply with 
 equal truth that the pagans and Jews had already vitiated the 
 original poems by their interpolations to such an extent that 
 the "unadorned earnest words" heard by Heraclitus were no 
 longer to be found in these writings. The popularity of these 
 fictions led to the composition of spurious gospels, spurious 
 Orphic hymns, spurious treatises attributed to men famous in 
 ancient literature which affected for centuries the opinions 
 even of the most learned. A particular point in the sibyllmes, 
 upon which Christians fixed their attention was the prediction
 
 158 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 of a last golden age of the world when the simplicity and 
 purity of the first men were to be recovered, and it was this 
 prediction, repeated by Virgil on the authority, as they thought, 
 of the sacred books of Rome {Ultima Cumcei venitjam carminis 
 cetas), that attracted them especially to his fourth eclogue. 
 
 To the patriotic Roman citizen this poem seemed a prophetic 
 outburst in view of the great destiny which had been antici- 
 pated for Rome from the first. Doubtless Virgil had intended 
 it to be so understood. To heighten the beauty of his picture, 
 he appropriated the fancies and superstition of popular lore ; 
 for, unlike his other poems, the fourth eclogue can be traced 
 to no Greek or Latin work of an earlier time, and its real source 
 may have been a simple tradition, perhaps embodied in rude 
 verse, that existed among the people of Cumse, where the 
 sibyl was supposed to have once had her mysteries. 
 
 The less hopeful Horace, following the same line of thought, 
 genially reminded the Romans that if they would realize such 
 a dream of unmingled felicity they must go to a new world. 
 Half in jest he proposed in his sixteenth epode that they 
 should all flee to the Fortunate Isles, binding themselves by a 
 mutual oath never to return. They would go to a land where 
 nature yielded all her treasures without care or labor, where 
 the harvest matured without cultivation, where grapes and 
 figs and olives ripened of themselves, where honey was to be 
 found in the recesses of the hollow tree, where the goats ran 
 to the milking pail unbidden, where there were no ravening 
 beasts, no noxious winds, no fell diseases ; where Argo never 
 came, nor Ulysses, nor Medea; and where commerce 
 Avas unknown. In all this Horace meant to smile at the 
 dreams which the Romans cherished, and which Virgil 
 encouraged. He desired his readers to understand that there
 
 THE PROPHET 159 
 
 was no place on earth of unmingled blessedness. Above all, 
 while they had the world to conquer and rule, they must not 
 hope for the enjoyment of unlaborious ease. If he had not 
 meant to be gently ironical, he would not have proposed the 
 comical pledge to his imagined voyagers that they should agree 
 to return to Italy only when the rocks swam on the surface of 
 the sea, when the rivers flowed over the mountains, when 
 tigers herded with deer and kites harmonized with doves, 
 when the flocks ceased to dread the lions and the goats took to 
 swimming like fishes. 
 
 But the covert rebuke of Horace went unheeded. The 
 Romans throughout their history indulged the vain hope of a 
 golden empire, where they would rule and all the world should 
 be at peace. Claudian, the last of the classic poets, boldly 
 announced the immediate coming of the happy years so long 
 expected. , He pictured the cavern of eternity around which 
 the endless serpent coiled, while fruitful nature stood before 
 the entrance. The aged man, mysterious embodiment of fate, 
 sat within, ordering with uplifted hand the courses of the 
 stars. He it was who established the laws by which all things 
 subsisted. Behind him, emerging from the subterranean 
 darkness, were seen the childish figures of the years each 
 waiting in turn to go forth. From among them Fate selected 
 the golden years to attend the consulship of Stilicho, to renew 
 the virtue and happiness of the first ages, and the pristine 
 fertility of the earth, to temper the seasons to the continued 
 mildness of spring, and to restrain those signs of the Zodiac 
 that cause the bitter cold of winter and the scorchins: heat of 
 summer. 
 
 A century changed the scene altogether. Men learned the 
 emptiness of that imperial poAver in which they trusted.
 
 160 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 Indescribable ruin overwhelmed the delicate structures raised 
 by the fancy of the great poets. Boethius only mentioned the 
 golden age to regret that its simplicity and virtue and kindli- 
 ness could never again be known upon the earth. Those 
 were days, he said, when men had not learned to mingle their 
 wine with honey, when their simplicity was uncorrupted by 
 luxurious living. Commerce was unknown and war was not 
 waged, for there was nothing to be gained by it. And he 
 added: "Would that our age might return to those ancient 
 vii'tues, but the love of gain burns more fiercely than the fires 
 of ^tna." 
 
 II 
 
 We may well believe that among the many influences to 
 which men's views of life were subjected at the close of classic 
 times — influences of the most diverse and eccentric character, 
 the sublimated theories of Plato's disciples, Egyptian hiero- 
 phantism, oriental legends distorted by the Gnostics and the 
 followers of Mani, the Hebrew prophecies, the mysticism 
 of ApoUonius and Apuleius and the supposititious Hermes, 
 the prophetic verses that had obtained a place in pop- 
 ular tradition, and the allegories inculcated by the secret 
 orders of the pagan priesthood — that among all these no single 
 work exercised a greater power than Virgil's Pollio. Events 
 obscured the meaning which Virgil intended to convey, without 
 diminishing the hold taken by the eclogue on the imagination 
 of mankind. An unknown writer, taking advantage of the 
 renown of Virgil and of the obscurities of the poem, trans- 
 ferred it to the Greek language ; but, instead of translating 
 the original, made a paraphrase in which his impressions were
 
 THE PROPHET 161 
 
 made to appear as the poet's own thoughts. It was this 
 paraphrase which Constantine is said to have used iu his 
 address to the CoDgregation of the Faithful, a work that did 
 more to place the fourth eclogue iu a legendary relation with 
 Christianity than all other influences put together. In order 
 to show the liberty taken with Virgil by the Greek paraphrast, 
 it will be most convenient, perhaps, to analyze the two poems 
 together, since they have both been often interpreted separately. 
 Virgil began by calling on the muses of Sicily — that is, those 
 who had inspired the genius of Theocritus — to aid him now in 
 a work higher than any he had yet attempted ; the lowly shrub 
 and humble tamarisk were not to be the burden of this song ; 
 although it was of the forest, it must be worthy of the Consul 
 Pollio, to whom it was dedicated. In the paraphrase, this 
 invocation was confined to a single verse and all allusion to 
 Pollio was. avoided. The Greek, however, seized upon the 
 verses which declared that the last age, spoken of by the 
 Cuniiean sibyl, was approaching, and that a great race was 
 about to arise, the fullness of time having come. Virgil's 
 enigmatic phrase, "A virgin comes," suggested doubtless by 
 Hesiod's personification of justice, was accepted, while the 
 equally important allusion to the reign of Saturn as the 
 model of the coming empire was passed over in silence. The 
 Roman poet invoked the favor of chaste Lucina, whose emblem 
 was the moon, in behalf of the babe soon to be born ; the 
 Greek imitator called upon the moon, the light bearer, to 
 adore the Child. He translated with exactness the words 
 of Maro in describing the child as the overthrower of the age 
 of iron and the founder of a golden race, but neglected 
 altogether the Virgilian allusion to Apollo, supposed to refer 
 to Octavian, and was equally oblivious of the apostrophe to
 
 162 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 Pollio in which it was predicted that he should see the opening 
 of that glorious time now foretold. To Pollio, Virgil addressed 
 the words: "Under thy guidance, if any vestige of human 
 wickedness remain, they shall at least cease to cause terror to 
 the world." But the paraphrast has transferred the thought 
 to the babe whose future is the theme of the eclogue, and has 
 expanded the purely pagan notion expressed in the words, 
 sceleris vestigia nostri, in a manner that could only have been 
 possible to one who understood the Christian doctrine of sin. 
 "Human wounds, the sicknesses and groanings of sinners, are 
 relieved." The Homeric alitros is used of sinners instead 
 of the words customary in the Scriptures, but the thought 
 of wounds, sickness and mourning as sin-begotten, rather than 
 divinely sent, which underlies his words is altogether absent 
 from the Latin. Throughout the succeeding passage, however, 
 in which Virgil enlarged upon the characteristics of the happy 
 time now dawning upon the world, the Greek was commendably 
 faithful. The child soon to appear among men should take 
 on himself a divine nature; he should see heroes mingling 
 familiarly with the gods, and should himself be one of them. 
 Under his mild government men were to recover their ancestral 
 virtues. The earth should bring forth for them the rarest 
 flowers; the wandering ivy, the rustic spikenard and the 
 colocasia should grow alongside the blooming acanthus. The 
 she goats should return to the fold and give down their milk 
 unbidden. The timid flocks should no longer fear the lion. 
 From the very cradle (here the Greek, still more expressive, 
 has fpargana swaddling bands) of the babe should spring 
 living flowers. Serpents should jjerish and poisonous herbs 
 disappear, and in their place should grow the Assyrian amoraum. 
 The wonderful child would learn the praises of heroes and the
 
 THE rnOPHET 163 
 
 deeds of his father, so that he might know what virtue is. 
 The wold untouched should glow with the yellow of the ripen- 
 ing corn, and the purpling grape cluster should hang on the 
 bramble, while honey, like the dew, distilled from the bitter 
 rind of the oak tree. Still a few traces should remain of the 
 olden time. Seafaring men would still pursue their trade, 
 cities would still be surrounded with walls, and the peasant 
 would still follow the plough. Tiphys would come again and 
 Argo, manned by heroes; again must Achilles wage war 
 under the walls of Troy. But when the boy became a man, 
 the sailor would abandon the sea, the merchant would no 
 longer make long voyages to enrich himself. The earth 
 everywhere should be alike fruitful ; the soil should not need 
 the harrow, nor the vine the pruning hook, and the ploughman 
 could now release the ox from the yoke. Man would cease to 
 dye the w,ool in varied colors, for the ram would color his own 
 fleece with purple or with saffron, and the sandyx unbidden 
 should dress the grazing lambs. At this point Virgil intro- 
 duced the Fates to say that an age so harmonious must continue 
 forever. But Eusebius failed to quote these verses in the 
 Greek, and the paraphrase of the closing lines in which the 
 poet addressed the child directly is so close to the original as 
 to be open to little criticism. This might well be, for these 
 lines have nothing to do with the prophetic discourse which 
 precedes them. 
 
 If anything had been needed to convince the early Christians 
 of Virgil's power as a seer, and of his unique relation to 
 Christianity, the address of Constantino must have satisfied 
 them. It was quite natural for the author of the address to 
 enlarge in the same connection upon the sibyllines without 
 anticipating that the effect of this juxtaposition would be in
 
 164 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 later times to bring the poet and prophetess into strange com- 
 panionship. The author of the ^neid was himself to blame 
 for much of this error. He labored to increase the super- 
 stitious regard for the sibyl which cool-headed men like 
 Cicero had condemned. He invested the traditions that hung 
 about the neighborhood of Cumse with all the terror and mys- 
 tery that his artistic power made him master of, caused the 
 weird priestess to direct ^neas's way through the realm of 
 shadows and appealed to her utterances in order to give the 
 semblance of divine inspiration to his own fancies. 
 
 HI 
 
 The ethnic respect for the sibyl, beginning with these sug- 
 gestions of the poet, was gradually transferred to Virgil 
 himself by the Christian apologists. Lactantius, who belonged 
 to the same period with Constantine, looked upon the fourth 
 eclogue as a direct translation from the Cumsean sibyl, 
 Erythrsea, and interpreted it as a prophetic vision of the entire 
 Christian period, including the second coming of the Saviour. 
 Prophets, he remarked, saw the events of the future as 
 if already past, and so a portion of Virgil's vision remained yet 
 to be fulfilled. It was not a matter of surprise that the 
 thoughts of Virgil should exercise a potent influence upon the 
 mind of Augustine. He confessed with some qualms of con- 
 science that he could not read the story of Dido without tears. 
 In his youth he had a Dido of his own, so to speak, for he 
 ruined and deserted the girl who loved him. 
 
 His quotations from the works of the poet were numerous and 
 pertinent. Whether led by the discourse attributed to Con- 
 stantine or by his own study, he was persuaded that a prophetic
 
 THE PROPHET 165 
 
 anticipation of Christ's coming was shown in the fourth 
 eclogue. He admitted, however, that Virgil might not have 
 been conscious of the full meaning of his own words, Avhich 
 could be interpreted, indeed, only in the light of history. 
 The phrases used poetically of another person were realized in 
 the character of the Saviour. Then follows a remarkable 
 sentence in which Augustine takes up the sibyllist myth where 
 Constantino left it, and carries it far toward its mediieval 
 completeness. "That he did not say this at the prompting 
 of his own fancy, Virgil tells us in that verse of the fourth 
 eclogue where he says, 'The last age predicted by the Cumtean 
 sibyl has not come,' whence it plainly appears that this had 
 been dictated by the Cumaaan sibyl," an unwarranted, though 
 not unnatural inference from Virgil's words. It is not 
 pertinent to enter deeply into the discussion of a question 
 mysterious in itself and clouded by controversy. It will 
 suffice, perhaps, to give in the words of Professor Nettleship 
 the latest theory of criticism as to the identity of the babe 
 concerning Avhom Virgil prophesied such great things. 
 
 "Who is the expected child? He may be either the 
 offspring of Pollio, or Octavianus, who had recently married 
 Scribonia. The allegorizing style of the poem makes any 
 certain interpretation of it nearly impossible, the more so as 
 we have no clue to any Greek model which Vergil can 
 be shown to have followed. Speaking, therefore, with great 
 diffidence, I should say that our best resource is to con- 
 nect the fourth eclogue with the fifth in which Julius 
 Csesar is spoken of in the same mystical strain. Does the 
 present poem then refer to the child expected from the recent 
 marriage of Octavianus and Scribonia? There is nothing to 
 stand in the way of such a supposition ; while considering the
 
 166 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 circumstances of the year, it is very difficult to refer it to the 
 child of Pollio. The peace of Brundisium had apparently 
 put an end to the civil war ; Octavianus and Antonius were 
 masters of the Koman world. Of Antonius, Yergil can not 
 possibly be thinking; nor could his language without gross 
 and pointless exaggeration be applied to the offspring of Asinius 
 Pollio. The coming child is spoken of as the offspring of gods, 
 and as destined to walk, as the ruler of men, in the footsteps 
 of his fathers. Now, the family of Asinius Pollio was a 
 provincial one of no great note, whereas the Julii professed to 
 derive their descent from Venus, and, therefore, Jupiter 
 himself. A^ergil's language, therefore, may very well apply to 
 the descendants of Julius Caesar ; nor should it be forgotten 
 that in the Sixth -^neid he expressly speaks of Augustus as 
 destined to restore the golden age." 
 
 The more common opinion of scholars, however, is that 
 the child spoken of was the son of Pollio, Asinius Gallus, 
 who was an important personage subsequently, in the reign 
 of Tiberius. "This interpretation," writes Professor Sellar, 
 "is supported by the authority of Asconius, who professed to 
 have heard it from Asinius Gallus himself. The objection to 
 this interpretation is that Virgil was not likely to assign to the 
 child of one who, as compared with Octavianus and Anthony, 
 was only a secondary personage in public affairs, the position 
 of 'future ruler of the world' and the function of being the 
 regenerator of his age. Still less could a poem bearing this 
 meaning have been allowed to retain its place among Virgil's 
 works after the ascendency of Augustus became undisputed. 
 Further, the line 
 
 Cara deum siiholes, ruagnum lovis incrementum 
 (whatever may be its exact meaning) appears an extreme
 
 THE PROPHET 167 
 
 exaggeration when specially applied to the actual son of a 
 mortal father and mother. These difficulties have led some 
 interpreters to suppose that the child spoken of is an ideal or 
 imaginary representative of the future race. But if we look 
 more closely at the poem, we find that the child is not really 
 spoken of as the future regenerator of the age ; he is merely 
 the first born of the new race, which was to be nearer to the 
 gods both in origin and in actual communion with them. 
 Again, the words, 
 
 Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem, 
 
 would not convey the same idea in the year 40 B. C. as they 
 would ten or twenty years later. At the time when the poem 
 was written the consulship was still the highest recognized 
 position in the State. The consuls for the year, nominally, at 
 least, wielded the whole power of the Empire, The words 
 reget orbcm remain as a token that the Republic was not 
 yet entirely extinct. The child is called upon to prepare 
 himself for the great offices of State in the hope that he should 
 in time hold the high place which was now held by his father. 
 The words patrus virtutibus imply that he is no ideal being, 
 but the actual son of a well-known father." 
 
 But down to a recent period the preponderance of critical 
 opinion was in fiivor of the supposition entertained by 
 Lactantius and Augustine, that A^irgil was the mouth-piece 
 of a prophetic in^^iiration whose purpose he himself did not 
 understand. Some traditional characteristics of Virgil were 
 well adapted to confirm the mediaeval idea of his fitness for the 
 sacred office of a prophet. The tendency of Christianity in 
 those times was to intensify the reverence felt for such ascetic 
 severity and purity of life as had been attributed to Virgil. 
 The gregarious and laughter-loving Neapolitans blundered upon
 
 168 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 the Greek name Parthenias as equivalent to Virgilius. The 
 ascription of virginity thus accidentally given was adopted in 
 after ages with all seriousness. In pagan times such personal 
 character was considered the mark of the true philosopher. 
 In the church it came to be looked upon as distinguishing 
 the religious from the worldling, as deserving of reward here- 
 after and as conferring superhuman powers in this present life. 
 Thus Jerome could say : ' 'It is written that virginity alone 
 knows the counsel of God," and "the reward of virginity is 
 the power of prophecy," as if he were stating universal propo- 
 sitions. 
 
 IV 
 
 A purely literary movement, of the early Christian centuries, 
 also, became an increment of the force that raised Virgil to a 
 legendary place in the church. Throughout the period 
 of grammatical activity, the professors of that science made 
 such use of Virgil that if all the codices of his works were 
 destroyed, it would be very nearly possible to reconstruct the 
 poems from the vast multitude of verses cited as examples 
 of Latin usage. A notable instance of this copious use 
 of Virgil is that of Nonius, a writer at the close of the third 
 century, in whose treatise the poet was cited fifteen hundred 
 times. Striking quotations from Virgil were even more com- 
 mon than phrases from Shakespeare are in the English 
 speaking world of to-day. His verses continued to be recited 
 at the public exhibitions, as late as the sixth century, and it was 
 by no means unusual in the lowest times of the decadence for 
 persons in the schools to be able to repeat accurately from 
 memory his entire poems. It was natural that some device
 
 THE PROPHET 169 
 
 should be found for utilizing this widespread familiarity with 
 Virgilian literature. Doubtless the first motive of the Latin 
 pedants was to leave nothing undone with Virgil that was done 
 with Homer. The fashion of centonizing became so general 
 as to mark the epoch in literary history. By combining 
 verses and parts of verses, the dexterous but servile versifiers 
 forced the poet to discourse upon subjects the most diverse. 
 The Ciris, frequently included among the supposititious works 
 of Virgil, is probably an example of the centonist's art. A 
 tragedy on the story of Medea was constructed in this manner 
 by Ovidius Geta. Ausonius, the most brilliant man of his 
 age, yielded to the taste of the times. He was prevailed upon, 
 although against his own judgment, by the urgent request 
 of the Emperor Valentinian, whom he considered a man 
 of learning. Apologizing to a friend for his production, 
 Ausonius called it a frivolous trifle, of no weight or value, which 
 required neither care nor labor, without genius or maturity 
 of style — an achievement of the memory, more worthy of rid- 
 icule than praise. It was a disagreeable thing to have so 
 violated the dignity of Virgil's muse, but what could he do, 
 he exclaimed, in the face of the imperial command? Valen- 
 tinian had himself done something of the kind, and desired 
 to see how his composition would look beside one by the dis- 
 tinguished Gallic poet. Paulus, the friend to whom Ausonius 
 wrote, was humbly requested to be indulgent in his reading 
 of this continuity of disconnected things, this unity of diverse 
 fragments, this joke patched up with a succession of serious 
 phrases, this bit of originality, every word of which was stolen, 
 and to learn from one who, perhaps, himself needed to be taught 
 the nature of the thing called a cento. Ausonius had a juster 
 idea of the real merit of these eccentric productions than his
 
 170 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 contemporaries. His Epithalamiiim is a clever and amusing, 
 
 though licentious piece. In spite of his condemnation, he must 
 
 have perceived that the cento had an interest peculiarly its ovrn 
 
 as distinguished from an original work even of the highest order 
 in that it was replete with reminiscences of the poetic master 
 
 whose works were followed. Every phrase called up some 
 passage familiar to the readers of those days upon which the 
 memorv lingered with fondness. It has been demonstrated in 
 the poems of Gray that a method analogous to that of the 
 centonist is not inconsistent with originality. He rigidly ex- 
 cluded from his verse all expressions that were not sanctioned 
 by the earlier English poets. The result is that the attractive- 
 ness of Gray's poems grows with the reader's knowledge of his 
 predecessors. In a far less important sense the same was true 
 of the Yirgilian and Homeric centos. 
 
 A scholar like Yictorinus, upon being converted to 
 Christianity, did not necessarily feel that he was obliged 
 to give up a study which had been the occupation of his life. 
 He chose rather to cast about for a method by which his 
 learning could be made useful to the new faith. The wish was 
 well met in the form of the cento. That Virgil was, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, a prophet of the new religion, being 
 accepted; his works took on, to some extent, the aspect of a 
 revelation. Proba Faltonia, a lady of the Anician family, whose 
 rank and wealth and culture made her conversion an event in 
 the history of the church, assumed the credit of having first 
 adapted the verses of Virgil to a Christian purpose. By 
 collating verses and hemistichs from his poems she put the 
 stories of the Old and New Testaments into a new form. As 
 she dedicated her work to Honorius, it is to be inferred that 
 she was a contemporary of Claudian and Ausonius. Having
 
 THE PROPHET 171 
 
 inherited large estates in Asia from her ancestors, she devoted 
 her income to founding religious houses and churches, so that 
 her literary achievements were only a secondar}' matter in the 
 estimation of the ecclesiastical writers of the time. The cento 
 of Proba, which comprises seven hundred and nineteen verses, 
 is made up entirely of lines from Virgil, from the ^neid 
 chiefly, but some from the bucolics and georgics. The con- 
 straint of such a production sacrificed naturalness and clearness 
 at times to so great a degree that the only way to ascertain the 
 sense Ls by resorting to the parallel passages of the Biblical 
 narrative. She probably based her work upon the old Latin 
 translation of the Scriptures which went by the name of Itala, 
 though it is not impossible that she may have read the version 
 of St. Jerome. Her poem is divided according to the subjects, 
 each subordinate narrative having a superscription of its own. 
 In a work of such a character, Proba must have had in mind 
 a process of reasoning analogous to that from proof texts. 
 Addressing Honorius, she writes : 
 
 Spes orbis, fratrisque decu«, dignare, Marone 
 Mutato in melius divlmim agnoscere sensum, 
 
 and in another place : 
 
 Virgilium cecinLsse loquar pia munera Christi. 
 
 We may suppose that the like was true of the poet Eudocia, 
 but the outcome of the process is more remarkable iu the 
 brief poem of Sedulius on the "Word made Flesh," in 
 which verses and parts of verses from Virgil are woven 
 with some skill into an account of the birth of Christ. 
 The author of this eccentric production was a native of 
 Ireland, who, having acquired a taste for letters not to be
 
 172 MASTER VIBGJL 
 
 gratified at home, betook himself to the continent and travelled 
 extensively in Spain, Gaul, Italy, Greece and Asia Minor. 
 He was an ecclesiastic in Spain, a litterateur in Achaia, and 
 finally a rhetorical teacher at Rome. Though all his poetry 
 was in its purpose religious, it evinced throughout a diligent 
 study of classical models. As in the case of Proba, his 
 selections were mainly from the -^ilneid, though he took 
 not a few verses from the georgics and the eclogues. 
 The introduction, as paraphrased rudely below, will give 
 an idea of the method by which Sedulius appropriated 
 the diction of Virgil, the fragments within quotation 
 marks being those found in Conington's translation of the 
 ^neid : 
 
 God "sent at last from Heaven above 
 The wished-for token of His love;" 
 From Heaven, "all calm without a cloud," 
 He speaks to all the mortal crowd 
 Words breathing "love's divinest charm." 
 "Son and Father both" with praises warm 
 Be sung and honored "for their fame 
 To Heaven shall elevate our name." 
 "The sons who from their loins have birth 
 Shall see one day the whole broad earth. 
 From main to main, from pole to pole, 
 Beneath them bow, beneath them roll." 
 Lest mortal minds should be disturbed. 
 Untaught of God, with doubts uncurbed. 
 Descended from his heavenly throne, 
 God took the form of man unknown, 
 "To bridal age already grown, 
 A virgin of a royal race — ." 
 
 Thus he begins his version of the Gospel story. To Virgil 
 and his companions of the Augustan age the verses of the
 
 THE PROPHET . 173 
 
 Irish rhetorician would have seemed as lame and disjointed, 
 perhaps, as these, but the readers of the fifth and succeeding 
 centuries were incapable of so nice discernment. While it 
 can not well be doubted that Sedulius conceived all of Virgil's 
 poetry to be underlaid with allegory and prophecy, he must 
 also have felt the power of the lines which he quoted in recall- 
 ing to memory the pictures wherein they had formed a part. 
 Short as the poem is — only one hundred and eleven lines — it 
 is rich in such suggestions. Take these verses from the middle 
 of it: 
 
 lUe dies primus lethi, primusque salulis 
 Monstrat iter vobis ad eum, quern semper acerbum 
 Semper honoratum cuncti celebrate faventes. 
 Annua vota tamen noctem non amplius unam 
 Haud segnes vigilate viri, dapibusque futuris 
 Luce palam cumulate piis altaria donis. 
 
 Here the only words not from the classic jioet are those in 
 italics. The first verse which Sedulius, by the use of salidis 
 for malortcm, has turned into a description of the resurrection, 
 was by Virgil employed to condemn the unfortunate passion 
 of Dido. In the three verses that follow, the Christian 
 writer, while teaching the lesson of reverence for the anni- 
 versary of Christ's return from the dead, brings to mind, 
 also, one of the most beautiful passages of the ^neid — that 
 speech of ^neas in which he recalls the day of his father's 
 death. 
 
 In the midst of this memory come the words celebrate 
 faventes to carry the thought suddenly to that famous feast in 
 Carthage where ^neas related the story of his wander- 
 ings. Here and there Sedulius has hit upon verses which 
 copied entire into his poem came to the reader with
 
 174 ' MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 almost prophetic force; as, for example, the following 
 passage, nearly all the allusions of which are to the fourth 
 eclogue : 
 
 Naecere praeque diem venieus age lucifer almum, 
 Nascere, quo toto surgat gens aurea mundo, 
 Unde etiam magnus sseclorum nascitur ordo ; 
 NaBcere, ut incipiant magni procedere menses 
 Xe maneant nobis priscaj vestigia fraudis ; 
 Prospera venturo lastentur ut omnia seclo 
 Adgredere, O magnos, aderit jam tempus honoretj; 
 Aspera tum positis mitescenl saecula bellis, 
 Pacatumque regent patriis virtutibus orbem. 
 As a generous paraphrase of these lines one might well 
 select the verses below from Pope's splendid eclogue : 
 From Jesse's root behold a branch arise 
 Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies. 
 All crimes shall cease and ancient fraud shall fail, 
 Returning justice lift aloft her scale : 
 Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, 
 And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend 
 Swift fly the years and rise the expected morn ! 
 Oh ! spring to light ; auspicious Babe, be born. 
 No more shall nation against nation rise, 
 Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes, 
 Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er. 
 The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more : 
 Eut useless lances into scythes shall bend, 
 And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end 
 These extracts serve to indicate both the literary and 
 religious tendencies which rendered this species of poetry 
 popular. It maintained its hold in spite of the fact that 
 Jerome condemned it severely as mere foolishness. The poems 
 of Sedulius and Proba were read with so much reverence that 
 they were formally relegated by Pope Gelasius to a ])lace
 
 THE PROPHET 175 
 
 among the apocryphal writings, lest they should become in the 
 minds of the people associated with the productions of 
 acknowledged fathers of the church. 
 
 VI 
 
 Not only in the centos, but otherwise, a general desire was 
 shown, throughout the early part of the middle ages, to read 
 and understand the Virgilian poems, and to put them to 
 Christian use. Virgil was, above all, the one among the 
 Gentiles to whom might be applied the Avords of the evangelist, 
 "They heard that Jesus passed by." It seemed a thing 
 worthy of compassion to see born in the time of the "false and 
 lying gods" a great man whom his works and the traditions of 
 his life presented as a soul candid and beautiful, and such an 
 one as appf^ared eminently fitted to accept the words of Christ. 
 Therefore, Dante, the faithful and jjrofound interpreter of the 
 religious sentiment of the middle ages, placed him, not among 
 the damned, but in the place set apart for those whose sin had 
 been only the involuntary one of being born before the 
 Saviour. To others less thoughtful and less learned than 
 Dante, Virgil seemed of almost equal dignity with the Hebrew 
 prophets. What must be a surprising thing to those who 
 minimize the classical knowledge of the middle ages is, that in 
 a collection of tales so unstudied and so evidently popular as 
 the Geda Romanornm, there should be found a quotation from 
 Virgil presented in a manner to show that it had grown trite 
 from frequent repetition. The natural supposition would be 
 that if any lines of Virgil were familiarly quoted by the 
 preachers of those times, the selection would be from the 
 fourth eclogue, and such w^as the case. The entire passage of
 
 176 MASTER VIBOIL 
 
 the English Gesta in which the translation occurs is worthy 
 of being transcribed here. "As Pliny records," thus begins 
 the story with a blunder at the outset, "there was a tree in 
 India whose flowers had a sweet smell, and its fruit a delighful 
 flavor. A serpent called Jacorbus, Avhich dwelt near, had a 
 great aversion to the odor, and that he might destroy its 
 productiveness, envenomed the root of the tree. The gardener, 
 observing what was done, took an antidote of that country and 
 inserted it in a branch at the top of the tree, which presently 
 drove the poison from the root. The tree, before barren, was 
 now loaded with fruit." Then follows the application: "The 
 tree is man, the fruit good works. The serpent is the devil, 
 and the gardener is God. The branch is the blessed Virgin 
 Mary. So Isaiah, 'A branch shall spring from the root 
 of Jesse,' and thus, also, Virgil in the second of his bucolics: 
 
 Mam redit et virgo redeunt saturniii regna : 
 Jam nova progenies caelo dimitlitur alto. 
 Tu modo naacendi puero, quo fcrrea primum, 
 Desinet, ct toto surget gens aurea mundo."' 
 
 The error in attributing these verses to the second instead 
 of the fourth eclogue, in the corruj)t and ignorant use 
 of nascencU for nascenti, and of et for ac in the last line, 
 indicate that the writer Avas putting on paper what he had 
 heard over and over again from the pulpit, and that because 
 of his familiarity with the fragment, the possibility of a 
 mistake did not even suggest itself to him. The insertion 
 of the passage into the Gesta can not be accounted for upon 
 any supjiosition except that the meaning affixed to the eclogue 
 by the early Christians Avas transmitted from age to age by the 
 preachers and liomily Avriters. The ignorance of the class to 
 whom these collections are attributed in the thirteenth centurv
 
 THE PROPHET YJ'J 
 
 was too dense and too pervasive to have admitted such a stroke 
 of learning, save upon the delivery of tradition. Nor is 
 there anything that should cause surprise in the hyj^othesis 
 that a few lines of verse Avhich appealed so strongly to the 
 imagination of the religious should have been kept in mind 
 for centuries. The memory was much better cultivated in 
 those days than in our own. Obviously the appeal to books 
 was incalculably less frequent then than now, and the anec- 
 dotes, illustrations and moral sayings which formed the most 
 attractive elements of conversation and extempore discourses 
 would long be thought unworthy of the pen. 
 
 VII 
 
 In the epoch when the legends of Virgilian magic were 
 making, the notion that the sibyl prophesied of Christ easily 
 became popular. This fancy, due in the first instance to the 
 imagination of the apologists, diffused by the fathers, Avas in 
 the twelfth century a current belief, not only with the clergy 
 but with the laity. The name of the sibyl was frequent from 
 that time in romantic literature and her figure was a favorite 
 one with artists. The idea was sufiiciently picturesque to be 
 grasped by the -rudest minds. It coincided with the most 
 familiar doctrines of the church, and was elaborated by 
 mediaeval theologians as an incontestable proof of the divine 
 origin of Christianity. The verse of the Dies Ircc, — Teste 
 David cum sibylla, was a melodious expression of the universal 
 opinion. The hold which such a belief would naturally liave 
 upon the minds of men was strengthened by the efforts of the 
 preachers who found it admirably suited to popular sermons. 
 But it was best of all adapted to the mysteries which, while
 
 178 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 embraced iu the liturgic ceremonies of the church, -were 
 intimately associated with other forms of vernacular poetry, 
 and these were jiotent aids to tlie distribution of such an 
 opinion. No personage, real or imaginary, connected with 
 the narrative of the Gospels was a more plastic subject for the 
 early dramatists than the sibyl. ]Mainly through these rude 
 dialogues did she rise to the place where she is found in com- 
 paratively late literature, a place of so high regard that 
 volumes have been wasted in grave discussion upon the question 
 whether or not the prophecies attributed to her were genuine. 
 It has been shown how the Virgil of tradition fell into relation 
 with the sibyl. He became familiar to the popular mind in a 
 prophetic aspect the more easily because of the growth 
 of the legend which converted him into a magician. In the 
 preaching adajjted to the Nativity there was ample occasion 
 to recall his name with that of the sibyl. In paintings his 
 figure or one of his verses accompanied the representation 
 of the sibyl. Li the mysteries lie was not infrequently one 
 of the characters; as, for example, in the Latin drama which 
 was presented iu the Abbey of St. Martial at Limoges in the 
 eleventh century, and that was wont to l)c acted at Rheims. 
 After Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Habakkuk, David, 
 Simeon, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, the ])receutor called 
 Virgil, saying: 
 
 Vates ^^a^o gentiliura 
 
 Da Christo testimonium. 
 
 Virgil, iu dre^i.s and aspect a mere youth, advanced to his 
 place on the stage and exclaimed : 
 
 Ecce polo, demissa solo, nova progenies est, 
 an utterance so unmusical that it would have made tlie real 
 Virgil gnash his teeth. Afterward Nebuchadnezzar and the
 
 THE PROPHET 179 
 
 sibyl were each called, and then the precentor, turning to the 
 Jews, cried out : 
 
 Judica incredula 
 
 Cur manes adhuc, inverecunda 
 
 A like office was performed by Virgil in the mystery of 
 Tlie Foolish Virgins, and in other mysteries written in 
 German, Dutch and other languages. In a long dramatic 
 composition of Arnold Immessen, in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, by a singular inversion of parts, the Cumsean 
 sibyl cites Virgil as the authority from whom she drew her 
 prophecy : 
 
 l^Sibylla Cunue. (^tuejalt tempore Tarquinii Pruxi ;] 
 Ik finde ok vandussen saken 
 Dat de meister Virgilius 
 Versch gemaket hebbe, de ludet alsus : 
 Magnus ab integro, etc. 
 
 In a mystery written in Latin in the eleventh century 
 Virgil was represented as accompanying the three Wise Men 
 from the East, who were guided by the Star to Bethlehem, 
 and as joining with them in singing a long Benedicamm. 
 
 VIII 
 
 But Virgil does not always have a place in the mysteries. 
 Sometimes the sibyl is the only representative of the pagan 
 prophets. In one Latin mystery she is represented as 
 presaging the coming of Christ by observing the star in the 
 east. But Fra Diego de Valencia, the ancient Spanish 
 poet writes that Virgil was the first who saw this star 
 shining with its bright rays beyond the Grecian land. 
 Gradually this ideal of Virgil as a prophet mingled
 
 180 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 with the magical legend and thus we have at length in 
 the mass of St. Paul, sung at Mantua in the fourteenth 
 century, the verses : 
 
 Ad ^Maronis mausoleum 
 
 Ductis fudit super eum, 
 Piaj rorem lachryma; ; 
 
 Quern te, inquit, redidissem 
 Si te vivum invenissem 
 
 Poetarum maxime ; 
 alluding to the narrative invented concerning St. Paul's visit 
 to the sepulchre of Virgil, which was given at length in the 
 French romance Vhnage du Monde. According to this legend, 
 the Apostle who was a man of much learning, when he went 
 to Rome and heard that Virgil was but lately dead, was sorely 
 grieved, especially because he had discovered in the works 
 of the poet those verses which applied so well to the coming 
 of the Saviour. He perceived that here had been a man 
 disposed to welcome Christianity; and he deplored the fact 
 that he could not preach Christ to one who would have been 
 so eager to hear. He took so great an interest in the memory 
 of Virgil that he went to his tomb. The journey thither was 
 one of much toil and trouble. xVn impetuous wind blew 
 and frightful thunders reverberated over the traveller's head. 
 The Apostle could see Virgil sitting between two lighted 
 tapers and surrounded on all sides by books, heaped pro- 
 miscuously upon the floor of the cavern. From the vaulted 
 roof of the sepulchre hung a lamp, and facing Virgil stood an 
 archer in bronze with his bow drawn as if about to shoot. 
 These things were to be seen from without but entrance waa 
 difficult. At the portal stood two bronze figures who kept up 
 such a hammering with hammers of steel before the gate that 
 it seemed impossible to pass by them. St. Paul quieted them 

 
 THE PROPHET 181 
 
 and went on seeking the book of necromancy,* which the poet 
 had written and taken to the tomb with him. But the bronze 
 archer let fly his bolt extinguishing the lamp, and everything 
 in the cavern was instantly turned to dust. 
 
 The author of U Image dii Monde manifestly owed his fancy 
 concerning the book of necromancy attributed to Virgil, to 
 the earlier narrative of the Dolopathos. In the verse of 
 Berbers it is related that Virgil, though a wise man, could not 
 escape death which comes with equal certainty to the fool and 
 the sage. AVhen he came to die he closed his hand so tightly 
 upon his book of nigromance which he had written for hia 
 pupil Lucimien, that it was impossible to release the manu- 
 script from his grasp and it was buried with him. The 
 conclusion of the poem shows how early the supposed syn- 
 chronism between the close of Virgil's life and the beginning 
 of the Christian dispensation became the theme of romance. 
 Scarcely were Dolopathos and Virgil dead and buried, the one 
 at Palermo, the other at Mantua, when a preacher of the new 
 religion appeared in Sicily. Herbers, as if to prevent any 
 misconception of his chronology, declares that this man was 
 one of the disciples of Jesus Christ. He expounded the new 
 faith to tlie Sicilians, laying particular emphasis on the divinity 
 of Jesus and the need of redemption on the part of mankind, 
 because of Adam's transgression. While the missionary was 
 discoursing to the crowd, one came to King Lucimien and 
 informed him that strange doctrines were disseminating among 
 the people. The king commanded that the preacher should 
 be brought before him, and the latter spoke so wisely in his 
 own defence, reciting the history of man's sin and redemption, 
 and explaining the doctrines of Christianity, that at last 
 Lucimien acknowledged himself a convert. Among the rest,
 
 182 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 the i^reacher cited Virgil as liaving anticipated the advent 
 of Christ and the beginning of a new race of heavenly 
 origin : 
 
 Et Virgiles, ki vos aprist, 
 
 Or pansez a ceu ke il dist ; 
 
 Assez en parlait propremant, 
 
 Et bien et bel et saigement ; 
 
 II dist ke novelle lignie 
 
 Estoit jai del' ciel envoie. 
 The last two verses of this passage are obviously a paraphrase 
 of the line in the fourth eclogue : 
 
 Jam nova progenies ccclo dimittitur alto. 
 After being baptized, and seeing all his subjects devoted to the 
 new faith, Lucimien resigned his kingdom and made a pil- 
 grimage on foot to Jerusalem Avhere he died. 
 
 IX 
 
 One of the legends told by the preacher in his sermon 
 before Lucimien is that of the image of Romulus which was 
 placed in the Temple of Piety and Concord. Uomulus him- 
 self set it up saying that it should not fall until a virgin 
 should bear a son. It was sometimes said that the temple 
 which fell was sacred to Bacchus, and that its destruction was 
 foretold not by a human builder or sovereign, but by an oracle 
 which declared that it should stand do7iee. virgo peperif. Her- 
 mannus Gigas collected all these legendary miracles into a 
 single sentence, asserting that when Christ was born, a 
 fountain of oil burst forth at Rome, the vines of Engaddi 
 produced balsam ; all sodomites, of whom Virgil was one, per- 
 ished ; the ox and the ass bent their knees in worship ; the
 
 THE rnoPHET 183 
 
 idols of Egypt were broken to pieces ; the image of Homulus 
 tumbled down ; the Temple of Peace was destroyed ; three 
 suns were seen which a little later became one ; at noonday a 
 golden circle appeared in the sky, Avithin which Caesar beheld 
 a virgin with a child and. heard a voice crying : Hie est areas 
 cceli 
 
 This is of a piece with the miracle which, according to 
 the mediteval legends, was witnessed, by Augustus. The em- 
 peror called the sibyl to hira one day and interrogated her 
 upon the divine honors which had been decreed to him by 
 the Senate. The sibyl, who is described in the Dolopatlios as a 
 Sarrazine responded that there Avould come from Heaven a 
 king wlio would reign forever. Immediately the heavens 
 opened and Augustus beheld a virgin of marvellous beauty 
 seated upon an altar, with a babe in her arms, and heard a 
 voice sayiiig : "This is the altar of the Son of God." The 
 emperor prostrated himself in homage and afterward narrated 
 his vision in the Senate. On the spot where Augustus stood 
 when the vision appeared to him, a church was erected, and 
 to it was given the name of St. Mary on the Altar of Heaven. 
 This legend was related by a Byzantine writer about the close 
 of the eighth century, and was subsequently introduced into 
 the Golden Legend, into the Gesta Romanorum and the 
 MirahiUa Urhh Roma. The use of it by Herbers attests its 
 popularity in the twelfth century. The theme inspired many 
 of the church painters, and was frequently touched upon by 
 writers of all degrees of merit. Even Petrarch alludes to it 
 in one of his letters. The motive in the story was similar to 
 that in the story of the statue set up by Romulus, which was 
 cited as a miracle to prove the divine origin of Christianity, 
 because when Christ was born the statue fell and was broken
 
 184 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 to pieces. This story was soon woven into the fabric of 
 Virgilian magic, as is shown in Neckam's account, and lost its 
 early significance. The idle boast of Romulus became a 
 fragment of Virgilian prophecy. The fancy was afterwards 
 developed in a strange poem. It is in French, and appears to 
 be really an awkward combination of two distinct poems, one 
 of which might be called The Romance of Vespasian, the other 
 the Deeds of the LotJiaringiaiis with a third narrating the 
 acts of St. Severinus, connecting him genealogically on the 
 one side with Vespasian and on the other with Hervis and 
 Garin of Lorraine. The rhapsodist is not content merely to 
 ally the family of a Roman emperor with that of certain 
 medioeval heroes. In The Romance of Vespasian, having de- 
 scribed the punishment of the Jews for the death of Christ, 
 he conceived the idea of linking that event into the chain 
 of Old Testament history. To accomplish this he invented a 
 fantastic tale, in which Virgil was made the leading character. 
 Instead of Augustus or Romulus, he had for emperor of Rome 
 a nondescript personage whom he called Noirons li Arabia. 
 Undoubtedly he meant Xero, who had become an extraordinary 
 character in mediaeval legend. Noirons was a worshipper of 
 devils and of Mahons (Mohammed), and was, therefore, wholly 
 a creation of the poet's fancy. In honor of his god, Mahons, 
 he built a palace, all shining with gold and gems and taking 
 Virgil to see it, said: "You, who know everything, tell me 
 how long my palace will last." Virgil replied that it would 
 stand until a virgin should bear a son. "Then it will stand 
 forever," exclaimed Noirons, "for what you say can never be." 
 "But one day it will be," answered Virgil; and thirty years 
 afterward Christ was born and the palace tumbled down. 
 Noirons in a great rage caused Virgil to be brought before
 
 THE PBOPHET 185 
 
 him, and demanded a full explanation of the prophecy which 
 had been fulfilled. Virgil began to speak of the new faith, 
 but the emperor refused to hear him. 
 
 Finally Noirons challenged Virgil to single combat in order 
 to decide by wager of battle Avhose religion was the more 
 powerful. The battle was to be to the death, for the conqueror 
 was to cut off his oj^ponent's head. Virgil agreed to this, but 
 requested tirst that he might have time to return home and 
 consult with his family and with Hippocrates, his mastci', and 
 with other wise men. These came together at his bidding 
 and he related all the circumstances of his quarrel with the 
 emperor. Hippocrates resorted to his books, and there found 
 the narrative of the events that foreshadowed the advent 
 of Christ. He recited this in detail to Virgil. Armed with 
 this knowledge, Virgil entered the lists confident of victory. 
 On the other hand, Noirons, perceiving that the armor of his 
 adversary was of ponderous and unwieldy make, felt sure of an 
 easy triumph. He told the story of Lucifer and of the rebel 
 angels who were changed into demons, and declared himself to 
 be one of them. Virgil responded with an abstract of Biblical 
 history, beginning with the creation. In this long debate, the 
 romancer forgot all about the duel that was to be fought, and 
 it is only in an additional scene where Noirons meets his 
 master, Mahous, in hell that we learn how the battle 
 ended. Bizarre and absurd as the poem is, it preserves the 
 conception of Virgil as a prophet. In the contemporary Ger- 
 man romances, Virgil lost that character altogether. It was 
 merely by accident that he discovered the magical formula 
 with which the inventor of astrology sought to prevent the 
 coming of Christ. His own relation to the event seemed 
 only the fortuitous one of being alive when it occurred.
 
 186 31 ASTER VIE OIL 
 
 Perhaps, tlie most satisfactory theory by wliich to account 
 for these absurdities is to supj)Ose that the 2:)opular mind, 
 having been led gradually to accept as history the tales 
 of Virgilian magic, and having learned from hymns and 
 sermons the supposed relations of Yirgil to the sibyl and to 
 Christianity; conscious, moreover, in a vague way of his 
 relations to the ancient world, but feeling a familiarity with 
 his name as if it belonged to recent times — in seeking to 
 picture him before the imagination could never develop a 
 symmetrical character. A magician to satisfy the then com- 
 mon notion of such a being, must be entirely bad, cruel and 
 malevolent. On the other hand, a prophet who had foretold 
 the coming of Christ, and had accompanied his predictions 
 with a joyous song of triumph, must have been one of the 
 best of men. Then the mediicval imagination could not 
 easily bridge the gulf between the antique and the modern 
 Virgil was looked upon as belonging both to the world that 
 had passed away and to the one which still existed, and between 
 those two worlds there was a period of indefinite length. A 
 proper perspective could never be had of a figure that might 
 be placed at any point in a series of centuries. 
 
 X 
 
 The work of Jean d'Outremeuse, which has already been 
 alluded to, illustrated the final stage in the work of systematiz- 
 ing and harmonizing the conflicting legendary conceptions 
 of Virgil. His Ly Myreur des H'lstors was a compilation from 
 many authors of various epochs down to the close of the 
 fourteenth century. Some of these writers the author named, 
 the influence of others whom he has not named can be
 
 THE PROPHET 187 
 
 discerned, particularly in that portion of his chronicle which 
 related to ancient history. An enormous medley of legends 
 and fantastic tales the author gathered, also, which can be 
 traced to no definite source. The biography of Virgil 
 alternates with other fictitious narratives in the semblance 
 of some chronological order. So particular was d'Outremeuse 
 in the matter of dates that when he had none at hand he 
 invented such as suited him. In i-elating the Avonders attributed 
 to Virgil, he had in mind principally L' Image du Monde, though 
 he used, in addition to that romance, other French and Latin 
 writings in which the marvels sought by him were described. 
 He aimed to collect all the legends, and often gave several 
 different versions of the same story. Some of the tales which 
 he related were apparently of his own invention. Others he 
 elaborated from the simple outlines furnished by earlier 
 writers. Throughout his work, however, he manifestly strove 
 to draw a broad line of demarcation between the historical 
 Virgil as presented in the biography attributed to Donatus 
 and the prophet-magician whose adventures Avere most to his 
 purpose. In a measure his work might be said to resemble 
 the historical novel of recent times, in which the names of 
 persons who once lived are linked to a series of incidents 
 wholly fictitious. It is possible, however, that he may have 
 looked upon the legendary Virgil as a real personage entirely 
 separate from the Augustan poet. The exclusion of every 
 incident bearing the stamp of history — in view of the fact 
 that the work throughout evinces the acquaintance of the 
 author with classical subjects — would seem to be the result 
 of design. The idea of Virgil as a prophet of Christ became 
 in his hands the most notable part of the legend. If this 
 idea had not been a popular one, the work would have tended
 
 188 MASTER VI ROIL 
 
 to make it so. D'Outremeuse, with whom everything was fish 
 that got into his net, used whatever seemed a plausible argu- 
 ment for uniting the magical and prophetic ideals in a con- 
 sistent personality. Avoiding all reference to the sibyl and 
 the fourth eclogue, he introduced Virgil preaching to the 
 Romans and the Egyptians, thus converting him into a sort 
 of heathen John the Baptist. He manufactured a sermon for 
 Virgil in this novel character, which comprised all the partic- 
 ulars of the life and death of the Saviour, explained the unity 
 of God, the doctrine of the Trinity and all the other articles of 
 the creed. In the form of this discourse, the author had many 
 exemplars; for instance, the sermon which the missionary 
 preached in the Dolopathos was constructed upon similar 
 outlines. A^irgil's jireaching converted to the new faith many 
 who, the writer is careful to explain, were of the elect. But the 
 mission to the Romans did not j^revent the A^irgil of d'Outre- 
 meuse from indulging in magical practices. He had legions 
 of demons at his command. When the prophetic brazen 
 head announced that his death was approaching, he remanded 
 this horde of diabolical servitors to their infernal abode, 
 solemnized his act of faith and completed a book upon 
 Christian doctrine for the use of his converts. On the last 
 day of his life he gave a dinner to a great concourse of guests 
 upon whom he impressed anew the importance of his teachings. 
 Then he clasped in his hands a book on theology, and placed 
 himself on a low bench carved with representations of the 
 events of the New Testament, Avhere he remained seated, 
 apparently asleep until the arrival of St. Paul. When the 
 Apostle touched his cloak, his body crumbled to ashes. St. 
 Paul grieved at first, believing that Virgil died a pagan, but was 
 consoled by reading the book which the prophet had written.
 
 THE PROPHET 189 
 
 XI 
 
 The attempt having been made in these pages to point out 
 the traits of human nature which encouraged the growth 
 of legends like those concerning Virgil, it will not be out 
 of place to describe the character which was subsequently 
 nourished upon them. In the fierce conflict of Papist and 
 Protestant, there appeared a type of human being, relentless, 
 unforgiving, implacable, rigid in morals, arrogant in dogmatic 
 self-assertion, who dispensed with triumphant malice the 
 sentences of eternal life and death, which only the Most High 
 in any other age has dared to pronounce, and seconded, where 
 ne could, the sentence of everlasting perdition witli immediate 
 penalties in this present world. The factors which contributed 
 to the formation of this species of human character were too 
 many to be easily enumerated, but the eagerness with which it 
 seized upon the superstitions respecting Virgil, and particularly 
 those concerning the fourth eclogue, indicate clearly enough 
 its tastes and some of its tendencies. A person of this sort is 
 portrayed, not without some strokes of malice, in that gloomy 
 and forbidding fiction, William Godwin's Mandeville. The 
 reverend Hilkiah Bradford, in spite of his grave kindliness 
 toward those whom he loved, was the embodiment of religious 
 hatred. Just and upright and gentle as he was, only the 
 opportunity was lacking to have made him a deadly persecutor 
 of those who differed from him in points of doctrine. He 
 regarded light laughter and merriment and the frolics of 
 youth as indications of the sons of Belial and heirs of destruc- 
 tion. His figure was tall and emaciated, his complexion was 
 of a yellowish brown, without the least tincture of vermillion, 
 and was furrowed with the cares of studv and the still more
 
 190 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 earnest cares of devotion. His gait was saintly and solemn. 
 He was familiarly conversant with the Greek and Latin 
 languages, and with poetry; "Yet I must own," continues 
 Godwin's bitter and cynical hero, "that he did not receive 
 exactly the same sensations from Ovid and Yirgil that I did. 
 He had a clear apprehension of their grammatical construc- 
 tion ; but he was not electrified, as I often was, witli their 
 beauties. The parts in which he most seemed to delight were 
 those in which these poets bore the most resemblance to certain 
 passages of sacred writ ; so that, as Mr. Bradford persuaded 
 himself to believe, they must have had some undiscovered access 
 to the fountains of inspired wisdom. He found the ]\Iosaic 
 account of the creation in the commencement of the Meta- 
 morphoses, and the universal deluge in Deucalion's flood. But 
 above all he was struck with the profoundest admiration in 
 reading the Pollio of Virgil ; he saw in it clearly a translation 
 of the inspired raptures of the prophet Isaiah foretelling the 
 coming of the Messiah, and he exclaimed, as he went on, with 
 a delight, a thousand times repeated and never to be con- 
 trolled: 'Almost thou persuadest me that thou art a 
 Christian'"'
 
 J^ 1 X T H-V I B G I LIJ^ LA T E R LITERATURE 
 
 From the foregoing pages it will have been inferred that 
 the Virgilian legends, so far as they concerned the poet 
 himself, had only a secondary connection with what is 
 scientifically known as folk-lore. They were the product 
 throughout of the literary spirit of times clouded by 
 superstition, The popular element in them is the element 
 which antedated their relation to Vii'gil. The opinion 
 that they or any of them were first brought into relation 
 with Virgil's name by the Neapolitan populace meets with 
 an insuperable objection in the fact that Italian writers, both 
 learned and popular, were far behind the writers of other 
 nations in taking them vip. Not only the Neapolitans, but all 
 Italians felt a natural repugnance to connecting the name 
 of the poet with diabolism or with magic. It was only after 
 the early romancers of Northern and Western Europe had 
 linked Virgil's name to a series of magical legends, and after 
 men of learning like Neckam and Helinand, and Gervase and 
 Conrad and Vincent of Beauvais had attached their names to 
 them, that the Italian writers consented to accept them. Not
 
 192 MAS TEE VIRGIL 
 
 until near the close of the fourteenth century do we find them 
 told as matter of history by a Neapolitan. The Cronica di 
 Partenope was completed by Bartolomeo Caracciolo about the 
 year 1382. It was ostensibly a compilation from a great 
 number of earlier works, and in what was related of Virgil 
 the author depended mainly upon the stories told by Gervase, 
 and by one Alexander, whose identity is doubtful. Such 
 incidents as he added to those told by Gervase might easily 
 hav^e been associated with the biography of Virgil after the 
 magical legend received its form in the twelfth century. 
 With Caracciolo, Virgil figured as a great benefactor of Naples, 
 when counsellor and quasi director, or teacher of Marcellus, 
 who, according to the mediaeval historians, had been appointed 
 Duke of Naples by Octavianus. It was Virgil w^ho constructed 
 the aqueducts and the fountains ami excavated the wells and 
 the sewers of the city. He devised games for the amusement 
 of the populace. To the number of talismans attributed to 
 Virgil, this chronicler added a cicada of brass, which destroyed 
 the cicadas of the region about Naples ; and a little fish in 
 stone, deposited in a place known as the Freta de lo Pesce, which 
 had the virtue of bringing good luck to the fishermen. The 
 idea of diabolism was obnoxious to Caracciolo. He conceived 
 the wonderful book found by Virgil to have been a scientific 
 treatise and insisted that the grotto of Pozzuoli was opened by 
 the aid of geometry. He was careful to add nothing of his 
 his own invention and in concluding his account of the 
 Virgilian legends he remarked: "I could of the said Virgil 
 tell many other things which I have heard said of him ; but 
 for the reason that they appeared to be in great part mere 
 fables, I did not wish to fill the minds of my readers with 
 omens and dreams. Moreover, I have already set down many
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 
 
 193 
 
 things concerning Virgil out of authors whom I am less ready- 
 to trust as to those things than as to other matters which they 
 have treated of. I beg the reader to pardon me for being 
 reluctant to cloud the fame of so great a poet with any more 
 such anecdotes, let them be true or false ; and for being loth 
 to do violence to my affection for our renowned city of 
 Naples. The truth of these things God alone knows. I have 
 said thus much in order that I may not present anything of 
 which there is doubt, without warning those who shall read my 
 book." There are fugitive allusions to the Virgilian legends 
 in the poems of Roger of Apulia, Cino of Pistoia, and in 
 Boccaccio's Commentary on Dante. Antonio Pucci left a 
 memorandum of them in his desk which he may have intended 
 to put to some use. He included the bronze fly, the bronze 
 horse, the castle balanced on an egg, the garden surrounded 
 by a wall of air, the inextinguishable candles and lamp, the 
 prophetic head of bronze, and spoke of the regard felt for 
 the relics of the poet. The fact that he placed the tomb 
 of Virgil at Rome supports the opinion that he merely noted 
 these anecdotes down in his reading, with the expectation 
 of putting them to some use. He certainly knew better than 
 to have made such a statement as a fiict, even iu the Florence 
 of the fourteenth century. His notion of Virgil's power was 
 that it was due to science, not magic, and a similar opinion was 
 held by Gidino, a contemporary poet. In Mantua the writers 
 who alluded to A^irgil manifested first of all an acquaintance 
 with Virgil's real character. Their fancies did not at the outset 
 do violence to his fame as a poet, nor to his position as a man 
 of learning. These writers did not forget that Virgil was born 
 at Mantua. As may be inferred from some lines of Donizo 
 certain places about the city were associated with his memory.
 
 194 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 The city imprinted his image on its coins and erected a statue 
 to his memoiy in the fourteenth century, but these tributes 
 were the outcome of literary taste and culture. This fact is 
 plainly revealed in the local chronicle which goes by the 
 name of Aliprajidina, because it was the work of Buonamente 
 Aliprando, who Avrote it about the year 1414. The absurdity 
 of the composition and the fantastic things accumulated in it 
 show that' if Mantua had any local legends respecting Virgil, 
 here was the very author to have gathered them up. Their 
 absence from his work proves that they did not exist. He 
 described Virgil as the glory of Mantua and wove a biography 
 partly from Donatus and partly from the common stock 
 ofVirgilian legends. Beginning by an allusion to the father 
 of Virgil and to the prophetic dream which Virgil's mother 
 had previous to his birth, he described the personal apj^earance 
 of the poet, his studies and his writings, mentioned the loss 
 and subsequent recovery of his farm, and related how he was 
 brought to the notice of Octavian by the lines beginning Node 
 pluit. After bringing out tlie prophetic character of Virgil, 
 he narrated the adventure of the basket and enumerated a 
 few of the talismans attributed to him. His account of the 
 death of Virgil is substantially that of Donatus with some 
 additions respecting an imagined funeral, among the rest an 
 oration by Octavian. iNotwithstandiug this oration and the 
 character given to Virgil as a prophet, Aliprando, more cor- 
 rupted by his Teutonic models than his Italian contemporaries, 
 looked upon Virgil as a thorough magician, in the closest rela- 
 tions with Satan, and equipped Avith his indispensable book 
 of necromancy. So, also, in some of the Latin biographies 
 of the poet written toward the close of the middle ages, the 
 figment of the magician and astrologer was taught as a matter
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 195 
 
 of fact. But as late as the sixteenth century a case occurred 
 that showed how little to the taste of the Italian public the 
 stories of Virgilian magic truly were. The anonymous author 
 of the History of Prince Erastus, a version of The Seven Wise 
 Masters, when he came to the story which is usually told 
 of Virgil, substituted another personage and changed the 
 name of Rome to that of an imaginary city. 
 
 II 
 
 With the leaders of the Latin revival in the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries, Virgil was restored to the place in which 
 Macrobius had left him. While he was honored with praise 
 beyond his merit as a poet, the legendary characteristics that 
 had been attributed to him were steadily ignored. The flower 
 of that period was the passage in the Poetics of Vida, which 
 was worthy even of the Augustan age. Vida wrote : 
 VirgUii ante omnes Iseti hie super astra feremus 
 Carminibus patriis laudes ; decus unde Latinum, 
 Undemihi vires, animus mihi ducitur unde. 
 Primus ut Aoniis musas deduxerit oris, 
 . Argolicum resonans Romana per oppida carmen ; 
 Ut juvenis Siculas silvis inflarit avenas ; 
 Utque idem Ausonios animi miseratus agrestes, 
 Extulerit sacros ruris super a^thera honores, 
 Triptolemi invectus volucri per sidera curru : 
 Res demum ingressus Romans laudis ad arma 
 Eicierit Latium omne, Phrygumque instruierit alas, 
 Verba deo similis. Decus a te principe nostrum 
 Omne, pater ! tibi Grajugenum de gente trophtea 
 Suspendunt Itali vates, tua slgna sequuti. 
 Omnis in Elysiis unum te Grsecia campis 
 Miraturque, auditqiie ultro, assurgitque caneati.
 
 196 31 AS TEE VIRGIL 
 
 Te sine nil nobis pulchrum : omnes ora Latini 
 In te, oculosque ferunt versi; tua maxima virtus 
 Omnibus auxilio est ; tua libant carmina passim 
 Assidui, primis et te venerantur ab annis. 
 Ne tibi quis vatum certaverit; omnia cedant 
 Saecla, nee invideant primes tibi laudis honores. 
 Fortunate operum ! tua prsestans gloria f amae, 
 Quo quenquam aspirare nefas, sese extulit alls. 
 Nil adeo mortale sonas ; tibi captus amore 
 Ipse suos animos, sua munera laetus Apollo 
 Addidit, ac multa prsestantem insigniit arte 
 Quodcanque hoc opis, atque artis, nostrique reperti, 
 Uni grata tibi debet prseclara juventus, 
 Quam docui, et rupis sacrse super ardua duxi, 
 Dum tua fida lego vestigia, te sequor unum, 
 O Decus Italia? ! lux o clarissima vatum ! 
 Te colimus, tibi serta damns, tibi thura, tibi aras 
 Et tibi rite sacrum semper dicemus lionorem, 
 Carminibus memores ; salve, sanctissime vates ! 
 Laudibus augeri tua gloria nil potis ultra; 
 Et nostrse nil vocis eget ; nos aspice praesens, 
 Pectoribusque tuos castis infunde calores 
 Adveniens pater ! atque animis tete insere nostris. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The only example in modern times which would indicate 
 that these legends, as connected with the name of Virgil, had 
 a root in the folk-lore of Naples, is an anecdote related by 
 Von der Hagen in Briefe in die Hehnaih. The German investi- 
 gator, who was undoubtedly seeking for something that would 
 support his own theories, found an old fisherman who pointed 
 out to him the place where Virgil often sat book in hand. 
 Virgil was a handsome man, with a ruddy face. By his arts
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 197 
 
 he had learned how to preserve his youth. Upon all the walls 
 near by circles and lines were drawn by means of which Virgil 
 taught Marcellus the secrets of the world of spirits. Often in 
 the most violent tempests, when none of the fishermen dared 
 expose themselves to the fury of the storm, Virgil would be 
 seen putting to sea in an open boat. No sailor feared disaster 
 if Virgil were on board of the vessel. Sometimes he ascended 
 to the most exposed part of the ship and sitting there wrote in 
 his books undisturbed by the wind and the waves. He was a 
 prophet, for there never came a storm which he did not pre- 
 dict. He visited the gardeners and farmers, also, and gave 
 them much useful advice, explaining to them under what 
 signs it was best to plant their seeds. With a potent W'ord he 
 was wont to allay the tempest when it j^leased him ; and when 
 Vesuvius threatened an eruption he Avould stand up for whole 
 nights with his eye fixed on the mountain, probably holding 
 converse with familiar spirits. He entertained for a long 
 time the idea of making a road from Naples to Posilippo. 
 Finally his spirits completed the work in one night, excavating 
 the tunnel through the mountains which is still to be seen. 
 At another time he benefited the Neapolitans in a Avonderful 
 way. The gnats being as numerous as they were in Egypt at 
 the time of Moses, A^irgil made a fly of gold which, at his 
 command, rose in the air and scattered these noxious pests. 
 Again, all the springs and fountains of the kingdom became 
 infested with leeches. Virgil dispelled this plague by making 
 a golden leech, which he placed in one of the fountains. 
 
 Without taking up the question how far the German author 
 may have been the victim of misplaced confidence, it is sufii- 
 cient to observe that after so long a career in literature 
 it would be strange if these legends' had not left some
 
 198 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 reminiscence in the minds even of some unlettered persons. 
 If that reminiscence had been general, why should it have 
 vanished with Yon der Hagen? Yet there is not a trace 
 of them at the present day in Kaples, as Professor Comparetti 
 himself says. In the neighborhood of the grotto of Pozzuoli, 
 a peasant described the house which Yirgil built upon the 
 mountain, and another, pointing to an aperture in the sides 
 of the grotto, said it was the window where Yirgil talked 
 with his sweetheart. But the most important relic of the 
 magical reputation of the poet is the little song which was 
 heard from the lips of a countryman in a fishing village near 
 Lecce, in Avhich a lover is represented as saying: "If I were 
 a magician like Yirgil, I would bring the sea to your door. 
 I would then become a little fish that I might be caught in 
 your net." 
 
 lY 
 
 Such being the position of Italy with reference to the 
 legendary reputation of Yirgil, nothing is left excej^t to say 
 that the legends owed their genesis and development to the 
 romancers of France and Germany — a fact Avhich the reader 
 has already discovered, perhaps, for himself. When it is 
 remembered that the three most notable writers Avho discussed 
 the legends from the vantage of learning in the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries were Englishmen — namely, John of Salis- 
 bury, Neckam and Gervase — the subsequent treatment of the 
 tales by the poets of England was remarkable. Chaucer put 
 an allusion to the Salvatio Romce into the mouths of the pojiu- 
 lace in the tale of Cambuscan, as if to show that he thought it 
 a mere gossiping invention. His familiarity with Italian
 
 ly LATER LITERATUnE 199 
 
 literati! ro may have led him to discredit it. Oa the other 
 hand, Grower, essentially an imitator of the French versifiers, 
 taking the story as told iu the romance of the Seven Wise 
 Masters, interspersed it with some philosophy of his own, but 
 related it with such care as to enforce the belief that he 
 credited it. The mirror, according to his narrative, was of such 
 power that it disclosed the numbers of the enemy and all his 
 ordnance of war at a distance of thirty miles. Its destruction 
 was plotted by the prince of Carthage and the king of Apulia. 
 How innocent of doubt Gower was in this case is shown by the 
 fact that he connected the story with historic incidents of Han- 
 nibal's campaigns, for he not only made him the leader of the 
 Carthaginians, but added : 
 
 And thus hath Rome lost his pride 
 
 And was defouled over all. 
 
 For this I pride of Hannibal, 
 
 That he of Eomains in a day. 
 
 When he hem found out of array, 
 
 So great a multitude slough. 
 
 That of gold rings which he drough, 
 
 Of gentil hondes that ben ded, 
 
 Bushelles f ulle there I rede 
 
 He filled and made a brigge also 
 
 That he might over Tyber go 
 
 Upon the corpses that dede were 
 
 Of the Romans which he slough there. 
 Lydgate discarded the mirror which the French romancers 
 made so much of, and returned to the antique story substan- 
 tially as it had been related by Neckam. In his Bochas 
 speaking of the Roman Pantheon, he wrote: 
 
 Whyche was a temple of old foundacion, 
 Ful of ydols, up set on hye stages ; 
 There through the worlde of every nacion
 
 200 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 Were of iheyre goddes set ujj great jmages, 
 To every kingdom direct were theyr visages 
 As poetes and Fulgens by hys live 
 In bokes olde jilainly dotb dyscrive. 
 
 Every ymage had in his hande a bell, 
 As appertaineth to every nacion 
 "Which by craft some token should tell 
 When any kingdom fill in rebellion. 
 Both of these poets avoided the notions of magic pertaining 
 to their time. Gower attributed Virgil's achievement solely to 
 his learning, while Lydgate suggests that the movements of 
 the images were due to the craft, that is, the mechanical skill 
 of the inventor. The notion of diabolism so popular with the 
 Germans was altogether ignored. 
 
 In a work like the Confessio A7nanti3 it might be supposed 
 that Gower would have found occasion to relate the adventure 
 of the basket at length, but it was, perhaps, too gross to please 
 him. At all events he merely alluded to it in the description 
 given by the Confessor of his vision of lovers : 
 And eke Virgile of acquientance 
 I sigh, where he the maiden praid, 
 Which was the donghter as men sayd 
 Of til' emperour whilom of Eome. 
 It remained for Stephen Hawes in his Pastime of Pleasure to 
 enlarge upon the tale. Nevertheless he showed that he looked 
 upon it as a fiction by putting it in the mouth of one False 
 Reporte who had changed his name to the less troublesome one 
 of Godfrey Gobelyve. The amiable Godfrey held forth at 
 great length upon the cunning of the sex, and after telling 
 the story of Aristotle, who was persuaded by a woman to act 
 the part of a horse while she bridled and rode him, fell upon 
 Virgil in a scandalous wise. There is something diverting in
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 201 
 
 the specific character of the information vouchsafed by the 
 poet. It was just eleven of the clock when Virgil put him- 
 self in the basket. The lady and her maids drew him up five 
 fathoms from the ground. He hung there until high noon 
 of the next day. When he revenged himself by extinguishing 
 the fires, it was not the city merely that suffered, but for 
 
 A great circute aboute. 
 
 There was no fyre that was un-put-out. 
 
 V 
 
 Not only were the legends discredited, but there appears to 
 have been a time when — the old romances and works like 
 those of Neckam having ceased to be read — they were com- 
 pletely forgotten. Just after the Reformation, when the 
 universities were full of the spirit of independence, the satirical 
 poems of 'the twelfth century — some of which are supposed 
 to be the composition of Walter Mapes — were recovered from 
 the dust of the libraries in which they had lain so long. It 
 was natural that a poem, for example, like the Apocalypsis 
 Golice Episeopi, so suitable to the temper of the times, should 
 be translated. It is a curious fact that in a translation other- 
 wise accurate any person with a knowledge of Latin or of the 
 tradition , should have understood the stanza : 
 Lucanum video ducem bellantium ; 
 Formantem cereas muscas Virgilium ; 
 Pascentem fabulis turbas Ovidiiim, 
 Xudantem satyros dicaces Persium ; 
 in this way : 
 
 There saw I Lucane eke, of warlike writers chiefe 
 
 And Virgil then did shape the small bees of the aire, 
 And Ovid with his tales to many was reliefe, 
 Perseus his taunts and satyres did not spare.
 
 202 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 It is possible that the translator in this ease took the Latin 
 to be merely an allusion to the verses of Virgil respecting 
 bees. At a somewhat later time the true rendering was given 
 by another translator in the line : 
 
 Virgil meanwhile is framing flies of brasse. 
 We can only suppose that the earlier translator, having no 
 knowledge of the legends, concluded that cereos was an error 
 of the copyist and so substituted for it the word most similar 
 to it in appearance. So in the English metrical version 
 of The Seven Wise Men, the name of Virgil was omitted 
 altogether, and the name of Merlin put in its place, although 
 in other particulars the version was not unlike those from 
 which it was made. The beginning of the episode of the 
 magic mirror will substantiate the truth of this remark : 
 The emperes hire tale bygane, 
 And sayde, "Sire hit was a mane, 
 Merlyn he hatte, and was a clerke, 
 And bygan a wonder werke ; 
 He made in Rome thourow clergyse 
 A piler that stode fol heyghe, 
 Heyer wel than ony tour, 
 And ther-oppon a myrrour, 
 That schon over al the town by nyght 
 As hyt were day light, 
 That the wayetys myght see ; 
 Yf any man came to cite 
 Any harm for to doon, 
 The cite was warnyd soone." 
 Marlowe, in his tragedy of Doctor Faustus, puts into that 
 magician's mouth the words : 
 
 There saw we learned Maro's golden tombe, 
 The way he cut an English mile in length 
 Thorough a rock of stone in one night's space.
 
 7-V LATER LITERATURE 203 
 
 But lie ueeded to know little of the legends to have discovered 
 this, inasmuch as it was one of the particulars mentioned in 
 the tales of Faust from which he drew the materials of his 
 story. He might have known much more of tlie legends 
 of Virgil if he had chosen to do so, for at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century they had been systematized by the unknown 
 author of Les Faidz merveilleux de Virgille, and this little book 
 was early translated into Icelandic, German, Dutch and 
 English. With these fanciful and absurd fictions the product- 
 ive period of the Yirgiliau Legends may be 'said to have 
 ended. The process of elaboration which had been carried on 
 at intervals for several centuries is characterized by one notable 
 fact. While the scene of the legends was of necessity in 
 Italy, at Naples first, and then at Rome and even at Venice, 
 the magician was invested by each race with its own eccentrici- 
 ties. The Italians alone could be said to have j^reserved an 
 adequate notion of him as a poet. The northern races made 
 him the companion and the victim of devils. The French 
 elaborated the notion of him as a dissolute lover, while the 
 Spanish, least amenable to the influence of other nations, 
 converted him into a silly, over-amorous hidalgo.
 
 204 MASTER VIE OIL 
 
 VI 
 
 These false ideals were not easily corrected even by the 
 rapid progress of learning in the fifteenth, sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. The passage already quoted from Vida 
 gives an expression of the almost idolatrous homage paid to 
 Virgil by the scholars of the renaissance. The studied ease 
 and perfection of his style, his lofty moral and political 
 purpose, his supposed relation to Christianity, his superhu- 
 man achievements in arts foreign to poetry, were all adapted 
 to the minds of men with whom the power of criticism was, so 
 to speak, a rediscovered faculty. The fanciful tales of necro- 
 mancy and the elaborate allegories that had been invented to 
 explain the ^Eneid did not seem incredible to the evangelists 
 of a newly- vitalized scholarship. It did not occur to them as 
 absurd that Fulgentius should have found the whole philosophy 
 of human life wrapped up in the line : 
 
 Arma, virumque cano, Trojse qui primus ab oris, 
 that he should have classified life in three gradations ; nor that 
 Bernard of Chartres should have seen in Virgil a philosopher 
 who described the nature of human life; nor that John 
 of Salisbury should have found in the story of the J^neid the 
 arcana of all wisdom. Scaliger and others as great and 
 learned as lie, blinded by the reverential spirit, the tendency 
 of ages of tradition, rated the genius of Virgil above that 
 of Homer. But in the chaos of literature which the art 
 of printing caused, such partial worship of a single great 
 name could not continue. The readers of Virgil gradually 
 separated, according to their prejudices, into a few great 
 classes, the smallest number accepting Scaliger's narrow defini- 
 tion of a poet. Some, out of an excessive and superstitious
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 205 
 
 regard for antiquity, endeavored to strengthen the fabric 
 of mediseval legend, and to revive the notions of the fifth 
 century by means of centos in the manner of Pi'oba and 
 Sedulius. Some attributed unimaginable virtues to a single 
 verse; for example, the Jesuit Caspar Knittelius, taking 
 the seven words of the first line in the anonymous proem to 
 the ^neid : 
 
 Ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus avena, 
 
 found in them an equal number of arguments in defence of the 
 virtue of humanity. Others renewed the post-classical super- 
 stition respecting A^'irgilian divination as in the well-known 
 anecdote of Charles I. and the poet Cowley. Opposed to 
 these worshippers of the antique were men of more modern 
 spirit who denounced or ridiculed the fables of mediaival 
 times. As on the one hand, Trithemius, Paracelsus, Vigenere, 
 Le Loyer, iii works on the occult sciences, deemed it necessary 
 to perpetuate the Virgilian legends, so on the other hand, 
 men like Gabriel Naude and Bayle labored with well-directed 
 energy to destroy beliefs that lay at the foundation of the cruel 
 laws relating to magic and witchcraft. Naude's Ajwlogle j)our 
 Personnages fausseinent soupconnes de Magle is a monument of eru- 
 dition and sound judgment. It might seem to us that he 
 was contending against an imaginary enemy, if we were not 
 informed that such vexatious puerilities as an alphabet for 
 secret writing, tables of nativities, and magic images were 
 attributed to Virgil by men who, aside from this demonomania 
 which possessed them, showed themselves well nurtured in 
 good learning. At a comparatively late date mirrors were 
 exhibited in Paris and Florence, which were confidently 
 asserted to be the very instruments endued with magical 
 properties by Virgil. A conclusive argument with those who
 
 200 MAS TEE VIE GIL 
 
 were yet in the darkness of meditevalism was that a scholar, a 
 chancellor and a churchman like Gervase could not have been 
 deceived in these matters. Xaude boldly took issue with them 
 at this point. He wrote that he could hardly believe a man 
 to be in his senses who gave the sanction of his name to such 
 tales as Gervase related. The general popularity of Bayle's 
 Dictionary helped to complete the work of demolition which 
 Naude began. Sharp controversy followed, in the nature 
 of things, upon the merits of Yirgil as a poet. There were 
 those who, like Mambrun, denied to him the possession 
 of genius. The famous author of the epic Constantinus was so 
 bitterly partisan in his opposition to Yirgil that he enumerated 
 those, things whicli have always been thought meritorious in 
 Yirgil as so many arguments against him. He condemned 
 the JEneid as a poem with an excellent subject ill-treated, and 
 criticised it in detail with a violence that verged on brutality. 
 The incidents of the combat between Turnus and ^Eneas 
 were objected to as lacking heroic purpo.se and validity of good. 
 rea.son. Tlie death of the former, Mambrun declared, was 
 not due to the valor of his ojiponent, but to a single word 
 of Jove, who was introduced, contraiy to the precejDt of 
 Aristotle, to do what should have been expected of a human 
 hero. The story of Sinon should never have had a place in 
 epic poetry, for deceit is immoral, and it is the office of heroic 
 verse to teach morality. The conduct of Ulysses and Diomedes 
 was devoid of rectitude and unworthy of heroes, and should 
 have received different treatment. How Avould it look for a 
 Christian to celebrate in grandiloquent verse the taking of 
 Jerusalem by the Sultan ? Even the propriety of such a poem 
 from "the pen of a Mohammedan might be doubted. Turning 
 to matters of grammar, ]\[ambrun pointed out places in Virgil
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 207 
 
 where the diction was as loose iind undignified as prose, places 
 where the ancient author had been guilty of rhyme, and 
 places where there was a needless grouping or iteration of harsh 
 syllables. He would as lieve hear a dog bark as listen to such 
 a line as this: 
 
 Puniceis invecta rotis aurora rubebit. 
 
 Fortunately, the Constantinus remains. In that production, 
 Mambrun demonstrated anew the familiar truth that, though 
 a cat may look at a king, it cannot wield the sceptre. In a 
 later generation, John Pinkerton, an Englishman, under the 
 pseudonym of Heron, in Letters on Literature attacked the 
 memory of Virgil with some skill, but with needless acrimony. 
 The gentle Cowper, whose piety did not affect his love of the 
 great pagan poets, responded with an angry epigram, in which 
 • he promised the offender, 
 
 A perpetuity of fame. 
 
 That rots and stinks, and is abhorr'd. 
 
 Among men of the present centuiy, the most distinguished 
 depredator of Virgil was Coleridge, who maintained that little 
 would be left to the author of the ^neid if his diction and 
 metre were taken away. This is a criticism that would apply 
 as well to Tlie Ancient Mariner as to any Maronic work, and is 
 probably only one example of that subtle perversity Avhich 
 Coleridge sometimes displayed. 
 
 VII 
 
 In another age Bishop Warburton^that eminent mas- 
 ter of paradoxes — whose tendency in criticism was to what 
 might now be described as the sensational, attempted to prove 
 that the description of ^neas's descent into Hades was an
 
 208 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 allegorical exposition of the ancient mysteries. This rhapsody 
 had the merit of eliciting from an anonymous author the sen- 
 sible pamphlet, Critical observations on the Sixth Book of the 
 JEneid, one of the earliest utterances of the calm and rational 
 spirit of modern scholarship which seeks to interpret Virgil's 
 writings by the cold clear light of historical and philological 
 learning ; a scholarship which has guided the pens of the great 
 commentators, inspired and corrected the poetical translators, 
 and illumined the obscure pages of mediaeval study. 
 
 Warburton was not the first Englishman with a taste for 
 eccentric theories as to Virgil's meaning. John Beaumont, 
 gentleman, early in the eighteenth century had printed in 
 London a remarkable treatise of his own upon the gentile or- 
 acles. The treatise was not more remarkable than the man. 
 He was a spiritualist of the extreme sort long before the doc- 
 trines of modern spiritualism had been thought of, and his 
 views on all the subjects he discussed were colored by a ten- 
 dency to vision and allegory. It was not unnatural then that, 
 rejecting all commonly accepted notions about tlie fourth 
 eclogue of Virgil, he should have conceived it to be a pagan 
 expression of the Christian dogma of regeneration. He sup- 
 posed all the works of the poet to have been written with an 
 eye to religion and church dispensations. After having spent 
 no small time in considering the writings of the gentiles, he 
 could not make tolerable sense of many passages in them except 
 by means of Christian doctrines relating to the inner life. This 
 was especially true in all the works of Virgil, but the same was 
 true in a less degree of other authors. While there were great 
 obstacles in the way of applying the fourth eclogue to Christ, 
 to the son of Pollio, or to any historical personage, there Avas 
 none in the wav of referring it to the inward birth : "And
 
 IN LATER LITEBATURE 209 
 
 here I must aver," he remarks, "that those wlio have exj)eri- 
 mentally observed the work of regeneration and inward birth 
 to have passed in them, if they are also learned, will be able 
 to clearly verify within themselves all that the poet has set 
 forth relating to the birth he celebrates." Then he goes on to 
 assert that the Eleusinian mysteries looked to this same doctrine, 
 thus putting vaguely in a sentence the germ of a theory not 
 altogether unlike that which Warburton developed afterward. 
 For Warburton was also seeking to establish a peculiar hypoth- 
 esis respecting a phase of Christian opinion by appealing to 
 the authors of ancient paganism. His exposition of the 
 -/Eneid lorms part of the second book of The Divine Legation 
 of Moses. Presuming that the descent of iEneas into Hades is 
 only a figurative description of an initiation and particularly 
 an exact picture of the spectacles in the Eleusinian mysteries, 
 he begins his argument by saying that Virgil found the domain 
 of morals taken up by Homer, who also compassed the realm 
 of physical inquiry, inasmuch as those who had allegorized his 
 poems had "opened a back door to let in the philosopher with 
 the poet." Virgil, therefore, taking the other great field 
 of ancient thought and activity, sought to make his epic a sys- 
 tem of politics. The ^ncid, Avritten on this plan, is as com- 
 plete an institute in verse by example as the Republics of Plato 
 and Cicero are by precept in prose. "Everything in the 
 book," says Warburton, "points to great and jDublic ends. 
 The turning of the ships into sea deities, in the ninth book, 
 has the appearance of something infinitely extravagant. The 
 philosophic commentators of Homer's poem had brought the 
 fantastic refinement of allegory into great vogue. "We mav 
 estimate the capacity of Virgil's judgment in not catching at 
 so alluring a bait that some of the greatest of the modern
 
 210 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 epic poets, -wIk) approaclied nearest to Virgil iu genius, have 
 been betrayed by it. Yet, liere and there our poet, to convey 
 a political precept, has employed an ingenious allegory. And 
 the adventure iu question is, I think, of this number. By 
 . the transformation of the ships into sea deities, he would 
 insinuate, I suppose, the great advantage of cultivating a 
 naval power ; such as extended commerce and the dominion 
 of the ocean. He explained the allegory more clearly in the 
 following book, where he makes these transformed sea-nymphs 
 accompany JEncas and his fleet of auxiliaries through the 
 Tyrrhene sea. This ministerial hint was the more important 
 and seasonable, as all of Octavian's traverses, in his way 
 to empire, w'ere from his want of a sufficient naval power. 
 Nor was it at this time less flattering to Augustus, to whom the 
 Alexandrians erected a' magnificent temple, porticoes and sacred 
 groves, where he v.-as worshipped under the title of Caesar, the 
 protector and patron of sailors. So he became a sea god at 
 the head of these goddesses." This fanciful interpretation 
 of Virgil's high-flown imagery does not comport very well 
 with his known dislike of commerce and the sea, but it illus- 
 trates the method by which the Bishop of Gloucester went 
 about the task of finding in the poet a meaning which nobody 
 else had discovered. The key to the ^neid which he devised 
 cleared up in his opinion not only many passages which had 
 been troublesome to the critics, but added infinite beauty to a 
 great number of incidents throughout the poem. "Virgil was 
 so learned," continued Warburton, "in all that concerned the 
 Roman ritual, that it was a common saying (as we collect from 
 Macrobius) Virgilius noster pontifex viaximus videtur. It being 
 now understood that the ^Eneid is in the style of ancient 
 legislation, it would be hard to think that so great a master in
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 211 
 
 his art should overlook a doctrine which, we have shown, was 
 the foundation and support of ancient politics — namely, a 
 future state of rewards and punishments. Accordingly, he 
 has given us a complete system of it in imitation of his 
 models, which were Plato's Vision of Erus and Tully's Dream 
 of Scipio. And as the lawgiver took care to support this 
 doctrine by a very extraordinary institution and to commem- 
 orate it by a rite, which has all the allurement of a spectacle; 
 and afforded matter for the utmost embellishments of poetry, 
 we can not but confess a description of such a scene would 
 add largely to the grace and elegance of his work, and must 
 conclude he would be invited to attempt it. Accordingly, we 
 say, he has done this likewise in the allegorical descent 
 of ^neas into hell ; which is no other than an enigmatical 
 representation of his initiation into the mysteries. Virgil was to 
 represent an heroic lawgiver in the person of iEneas ; now, 
 initiation into the mysteries was what sanctified his character 
 and ennobled his function. Hence we find all the ancient 
 heroes and lawgivers were, in fact, initiated. And it was no 
 wonder the legislator should endeavor by his example to give 
 credit to an institution of his own creating. Another reason 
 for the hero's initiation was the important instruction the 
 founders of empire received in matters that concerned their 
 office. A third reason for his initiation was their custom 
 of seeking support and inspiration from the god who pre- 
 sided in the mysteries. A fourth reason for his initiation 
 was the circumstance in which the poet has placed him, 
 unsettled in his affairs and anxious about his future fortune. 
 Now, amongst the uses of initiation, the advice and direction 
 of the oracle was not the least ; and an oracular bureau was so 
 necessary an appendix to some of the mysteries, as particularly
 
 212 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 the Samothracian, tliat Plutarch, speaking of Lysander's ini- 
 tiation, there expressed it by a word that signifies consulting an 
 oracle. On this account, Jason, Orpheus, Hercules, Castor 
 and (as Macrobius says) Tarquinius Priscus, were every one 
 of them initiated into the mysteries. A fifth reason was the 
 conforming of the old popular tradition, which said that sev- 
 eral other heroes of the Trojan times, such as Agamemnon and 
 Ulysses, had been initiated. A sixth and principal reason was 
 that Augustus, who was shadowed in the person of ^neas, 
 had been initiated into the Eleusinian ^Mysteries. While the 
 mysteries were confined to Egypt, their native country, and 
 while the Grecian lawgivers went thither to be initiated, as a 
 kind of a designation to their office, the ceremony would be 
 naturally described in terms highly allegorical. This was in 
 part owing to the genius of Egyptian manners ; and in 
 part the humor of travellers, but most of all to the policy 
 of the lawgivers, Avho, returning home to civilize a barbarous 
 people, by laws and arts, found it useful and necessary (in 
 order to support their own characters and to establish the fun- 
 damental principle of a future state) to represent that initia- 
 tion in which was seen the condition of departed mortals in 
 machinery, as an actual descent into hell. This way of speaking 
 was used by Orpheus, Bacchus and others and continued even 
 after the mysteries were introduced into Greece, as appears by 
 the fables of Hercules, Castor, Pollux and Theseus's descent 
 into Hell. But the allegory was generally so circumstanced 
 as to discover the truth concealed under it. Both Euripides 
 in the Hercules furens and Aristophanes in his Frogs seem to 
 confirm our interpretation of these descents into hell. Thus 
 we see Virgil was obliged to have his hero initiated ; and he 
 actually had the authority of antiquit} to call this initiation a
 
 ly LATER LITERATURE 213 
 
 descent into hell. Hence some of the pretended Orphic odes, 
 sung at the celebration of the mysteries, bore this title. And 
 surely he made use of his advantages with great judgment; 
 for such a fiction animates the relation, which, delivered out 
 of allegory, had been too cold and insipid for epic poetry. 
 We see from iEneas's urging the examples of those heroes and 
 lawgivers who had been initiated before him that his request 
 was only for an initiation. It is to be observed that Theseus 
 is the only one ot these ancient heroes not recorded in history 
 to have been initiated, though we have shown that his descent 
 into hell was, like that of the rest, only a view of the mysteries* 
 The reason is, his entrance was a violent intrusion. Had an 
 old poem, under the name of Orpheus, entitled a descent 
 into hell, been now extant, it would probably have shown us 
 that no more was meant than Orpheus's initiation ; and that 
 the idea of the sixth book was taken from thence. But, fur- 
 ther, it was customary for the poets of the Augustan age to 
 exercise themselves on the subject of the mysteries, as appears 
 from Cicero, who desires Atticus, then at Athens, and initiated, 
 to send to Chilius, a poet of eminence, an account of the 
 Eleusinian mysteries ; in order, it would seem, to insert it into 
 some poem he was then writing. Thus it appears that both 
 the ancient and contemporary poets afforded Virgil a pattern 
 for this famous episode. Even Servius saw thus far into 
 Virgil's design as to say that many things were here delivered 
 according to the profound learning of the Egyptian theology. 
 And we have shown that the doctrines taught in the mysteries 
 were invented by that people. But though I say this was our 
 poet's general design, I would not be supjiosed to mean that he 
 followed no other guides in the particular circumstances of it. 
 Several of them are borrowed from Homer; and several
 
 214 31 ASTER VIE GIL 
 
 of them from the philosophic notions of Plato. The great 
 agent in this affair is the sibyl ; and as a virgin she sustains 
 two principal and distinct parts — that of the inspired priestess 
 to pronounce the oracle, and that of the hierophant to conduct 
 the initiated through the whole celebration. Hence Virgil 
 calls the sibyl Magna mcerdos and cloda comes, words 
 of equivalent significance, and this because the mysteries 
 of Ceres were always celebrated in Rome by female priests, and 
 as the female mystagogue, as well as the male, Avas devoted to 
 a single life, so was the Cumsean sibyl, whom he calls casta 
 Sibylla. Another reason why a priestess is given to conduct 
 him is because Proserpine presided in this whole affair. And 
 the name of the priestess in the Eleusinian mysteries shows 
 that she jjroperly belonged to Proserpine, though she Avas also 
 called the priestess of Ceres. Under the branch is figured the 
 wreath of myrtle Avith Avhich the initiated Avere crowned at 
 the celebration of the mysteries. The doves of Venus direct 
 -^neas to the tree for the myrtle, as is knoAvu to cA'ery one, 
 was consecrated to A'enus. It Avas gold, because a golden 
 bough was literally part of the sacred equipage in the shows. 
 The sibyl, on their approach to the mouth of the cave, had 
 ad\dsed ^neas to summon up all his courage, as being to 
 undergo the scA^erest trial. These trials Avere of tAvo sorts: 
 the encountering real labors and difficulties, and the being 
 exposed to imaginary and false terrors. This latter was 
 objected to :dl the initiated in general ; the other Avas reserved 
 for the chiefs and leaders. On which account, Virgil described 
 them both in their order ; as they were both to be undergone 
 by his hero. On coming to the banks of Cocytus, -^neas is 
 surprised at the crowd of ghosts which hover round it and 
 appear impatient for a passage. His guide tells him they are
 
 7.V LATER LITERATURE 215 
 
 those who have not had the rites of sepulture performed to their 
 manes, and so are doomed to wander up and down for a hun- 
 dred years before they are permitted to cross the river. We 
 are not to think this old notion took its rise from the A^ulgar 
 superstition. It was one of the wisest contrivances of ancient 
 politics ; and came originally from Egypt, the fountain head 
 of legislation. Those profound masters of wisdom, in project- 
 ing for the common good, found nothing would more 
 contribute to the safety of their fellow-citizens than the public 
 and solemn interment of the dead, as, without this provision, 
 private murders might be easily and securely committed. 
 They, therefore, introduced the custom of pompous funeral 
 rites. The Egyptian sages found afterward another use in this 
 opinion ; and by artfully turning it to a punishment on insol- 
 vent debtors, strengthened public credit to the great advantage 
 of comm'erce and consequently of civil community. Virgil 
 divided the world of the dead >\to three parts; purgatory, 
 tartarus, elysium ; and so did th' Jiysteries. And here it is to 
 our purpose to observe that th -. drtues and vices which stock 
 these three divisions with inhabhants are such as more imme- 
 diately affect society ; a plain pre of that the poet followed the 
 views of the legislator, the insthutor of the mysteries. It is 
 remarkable that -^neas is led through the regions of purgatory 
 and elysium ; but he only sees ^he sights of tartarus at a 
 distance, and this could not well W otherwise in the shows 
 of the mysteries for very obviouf reasons. Advancing to the 
 borders of elysium, the hero unde-^goes the lustrations which, as 
 Sopater says, immediately prec de initiation into the greater 
 mysteries. The amusements of the blessed suggest the games 
 which were celebrated with the Eleusinian mysteries. Virgil 
 has all along closely followed she doctrine of the mysteries
 
 216 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 which carefully taught that virtue only could entitle men to 
 happiness, and that rites, ceremonies, lustrations and sacrifices 
 would not supply the want of it. Nor has he been less stu- 
 dious in copying their shows and representations, in which the 
 figures of those heroes and heroines who were most celebrated 
 in the writings of the ancient Greeks i:)assed in procession. 
 But, notwithstanding this entire conformity between the poet's 
 scenes and those represented in the mysteries, something is still 
 wanting to complete the proofs, and that is, the famous secret 
 of the mysteries, the unity of the godhead. Musseus, therefore, 
 who had been hierophant at Athens, takes the place of the sibyl 
 and is made to conduct him to the recess where his father's 
 shade opens to him the doctrine of truth. This was no other 
 than the doctrine of the old Egyptians, as avc are assured by 
 Plato, who says they taught that Jupiter was the spirit which 
 pervaded all things. Finally, the gates of dreams represent 
 tlie reality of the future state and the false show of it in the 
 mysteries." 
 
 VIII 
 
 While these sentences have been placed within quotation 
 marks, it must be stated that they are not a literal transcript 
 of a passage from Warburton's voluminous criticism which 
 covers, including copious extracts from the poet, ninety large 
 pages of print. The only way to give an adequate view of a rhap- 
 sody, which, late as it was in point of time, was far more closely 
 related to mediaeval than to modern methods of interpreting 
 Virgil, seemed to be that of linking together those passages 
 which carried the argument along from the beginning to the 
 end without a lapse that would be unjust to Warburton's
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 217 
 
 acknowleged power and acuteness. This lias ])een done with 
 as little modification of phraseology as seemed possible. It 
 will be unnecessary to point out to any one acquainted with 
 the sixth book of the iEneid how narrow the grounds are for 
 this towering fabric of presumption. The principal point is 
 that the allegory is needless. Nothing is added to thevvalue 
 or interest of Virgil's work by supposing that he drew his 
 inspiration from the mysteries rather than from the universal 
 beliefs of the ancient world respecting the state of the dead. 
 The theory of Warburtou has too little of what Virgil wrote 
 and too much totally extraneous suggestion and inference to 
 inspire any confidence. The conclusion that because Cicero on 
 behalf of a poetical friend asked Atticus to give some account 
 of the mysteries — presumably of the public pageant — therefore 
 it was the fashion for the poets of that day to write about the 
 mysteries, is a specimen of the non-scquitur by which the 
 BishojD of Gloucester attempted to sustain his case. But his 
 style was so vigorous, his method so plausible and interesting 
 that it was long before any writer was found with courage and 
 ability sufficient to defend the honor of the poet — for to. have 
 exposed the secret of the mysteries Avas disgraceful — and the 
 genuineness of the theme which he aimed to illustrate. The 
 elaborate h}^othesis was received with zealous praise by some, 
 with studied silence by others, and by a few with such indig- 
 nant outbursts as that of the poet Hayley : 
 
 When grave Bossu by system's studied laws 
 
 The Grecian bard's ideal picture draws, 
 
 And wisely tells us that his song arose 
 
 As the good parson's quiet sermon grows ; 
 
 Who, while his easy thoughts no pressure find 
 
 From hosts of images that crowd the mind, 
 
 First calmly settles on some moral text,
 
 218 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 < 
 
 Then creeps from one division to the next ! . 
 Nor, if poetic minds more slowly drudge 
 Thro' the cold comments of this Gallic judge, 
 Will their indignant spirit less deride 
 That subtle pedant's more presumptive pride, 
 Whose bloated page with arrogance replete. 
 Imputes to Virgil his own dark conceit: 
 And from the tortured poet dares to draw 
 That latent sense which Horace never saw ; 
 Which, if on solid proof more strongly built, 
 Must brand the injured bard with impious guilt. 
 
 The hypothesis was finally analyzed, as has been stated, by 
 an anonymous Avriter in 1770. The book has been out of 
 print for nearly a century. It was, in fact, no longer to be 
 purchased when Hay ley published the above lines in 1782. 
 The author attacked with effective sarcasm the notion which 
 Warburton had elaborated, that the ^neid was constructed on 
 the lines of a political treatise. He then appealed to the text 
 of the poet as showing the impossibility of Warburton's 
 hypothesis respecting the mysteries. There are two arguments 
 which, in his opinion, render it incredible that "Virgil could 
 have depicted scenes from a temple of Ceres under the guise 
 of a real descent into Hades. The first is Tirgil's ignorance 
 and the second his discretion. The historical probability is so 
 great as to amount almost to a certainty that Virgil never was 
 initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. But suppose that he 
 had been initiated, is it not unlikely that a man so devout and 
 so learned in matters of religion would have violated the 
 common sense and outraged the universal feelings of the 
 Roman and Grecian world by exposing what had so long been 
 considered inviolable? If he had done so, is it to be supposed 
 that he i?ould have retained the friendship and reverence 
 
 I
 
 IN LATER LITEEAIURE 219 
 
 of Horace, who, when the sixth book of the vEneid was fresh 
 in the minds of Latin schoUirs, wrote these verses : 
 
 Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum 
 Vulgarit arcana?, sub iisderu 
 Sit trabJbus, fragilemque mecum 
 Solvat phaselum? 
 
 On the other hand, is it likely that Horace would have 
 written these lines, if he had retained his respect for Virgil in 
 such untoward circumstances? "The detestation of the wretch 
 who reveals the mysteries of Ceres, though expressed in general 
 terms, must be applied by all Rome to the author of the sixth 
 book of the .^lilneid. Can we seriously suppose that Horace 
 would have branded with such wanton infamy one of the 
 men in the world whom he loved and honored to the most? 
 Nothing remains to say, except that Horace himself was igno- 
 rant of his friend's allegorical meaning; which the Bishop 
 of Gloucester has since revealed to the world. It may be 
 so ; yet, for my own part, I should ' be very well satisfied with 
 understanding Virgil no better than Horace did." 
 
 "It is from extrinsical circumstances," wrote the author in 
 another place, "that we may expect the discovery of Virgil's 
 allegory. Every one of these circumstances persuades me 
 that Virgil described a real, not a mimic world, and that the 
 scene lay in the infernal shades, and not in the temple 
 of Ceres. 
 
 "The singularity of the Cumsean shores must be present to 
 every traveler who has once seen them. To a superstitious 
 mind, the thin crust, vast cavities, sulphurous steams, poison- 
 ous exhalations and fiery torrents may seem to trace out the 
 narrow confine of the two worlds. The Lake Avernus was 
 the chief object of religious horror; the black woods which
 
 220 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 surrounded it wheu Virgil first came to Naples were per- 
 fectly suited to feed the superstition of the people. It was 
 generally believed that this deadly flood was the entrance to 
 hell, and an oracle was once established on its banks which 
 pretended by magic rites to call up the departed spirits. 
 JEneas, who revolved a more daring enterprise, addressed 
 himself to the priestess of those dark regions. Their conver- 
 sation may, perhaps, inform us whether an initiation or a real 
 descent to the shades was the object of this enterprise. She 
 endeavors to deter the hero, by setting before him all the dan- 
 gers of his rash undertaking : 
 
 Facilis descensus Averno ; 
 Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis : 
 Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras 
 Hoc opus, hie labor est. 
 "These particulars are absolutely irreconcilable with the idea 
 of initiation, but perfectly agreeable to that of a real descent. 
 That every step and every instant may lead us to the grave 
 is a melancholy truth. The mysteries were only open 
 at stated times, a few days at most, in the course of a 
 vear. The mimic descent of the mysteries Avas laborious and 
 dangerous; the return light, easy and certain. In real death 
 
 this order is inverted. 
 
 Pauci quos sequus amavil 
 
 .Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad sethera virtus, 
 
 Diis geniti, potuere. 
 These heroes, as we learn from the speech of JEneas, were 
 Hercules, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Theseus and Pirithous, 
 Of all these, antiquity believed that before their death they 
 had seen the habitations of the dead; nor, indeed, will any 
 of the circumstances tally with a supposed initiation. The 
 adventure of Eurydice, the alternate life of the Brothers, and
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 221 
 
 the forcible intrusion of Alcides, Theseus and Pirithous, would 
 mock the endeavors of the most subtle critic who should try- 
 to melt them down into his favorite mysteries. The exploits 
 of Hercules, who triumphed over the king of terrors, 
 
 Tartareum ille manu custodem in vincla petivit 
 
 Ipsius a solio regis traxitque trementem, 
 was a wild imagination of the Greeks, but it was the duty 
 of ancient poets to adopt and embellish these popular tradi- 
 tions; and it is the interest of every man of taste to ac(|uiesce 
 in their poetical fictions." 
 
 IX 
 
 These very natural and reasonable reflections upon the 
 meaning of Virgil, and particularly the suggestions concern- 
 ing the efifect of the scenery about Cumai, upon the mind 
 of the traveller agree with the lines of Silius Italicus which 
 were undoubtedly written under the inspiration of the Virgil- 
 worship to which this poet was prone. The verses were hand- 
 somely translated by Addison : 
 
 Averno next he showed his wond'ring guest, 
 Averno now with milder virtues bless'd; 
 Black with surrounding forests then it stood. 
 That hung above and darkened all the flood : 
 Clouds of unwholesome vapors rais'd on high, 
 The fluttering bird entangled in the sky. 
 Whilst all around the gloomy prospects spread 
 An awful horror and religious dread. 
 Hence to the borders of the marsh they go 
 That mingles with the baleful streams below. 
 And sometimes with a mighty yawn 'tis said, 
 Opens a dismal passage to the dead, 
 Who, pale with fear the rending earth survey
 
 222 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 And startle at the sudden flasli of day. 
 The dark Cimmerian grotto then he paints, 
 Describing all its old inhabitants, 
 That in the deep, infernal city dwell'd 
 And lay in everlasting night concealed. 
 Advancing still, the spacious fields he show'd 
 That with the smother'd heat of brimstone glow'd 
 Through frequent cracks the steaming sulphur broke. 
 Imprisoned fires in the close dungeons pent, 
 Roar to get loose, and struggle for a vent. 
 Eating their way and undermining all, 
 Till with a mighty burst whole mountains fall 
 Here, as 'tis said, the rebel giants lie 
 And when to move th' incumbent load they try 
 Ascending vapors on the day prevail, 
 The sun looks sickly and the skies grow pale. 
 To the practical mind of Addison there appeared a natural 
 
 way of accounting for those anti(jue wonders in the neighbor- 
 hood of Posilippo which had been attributed to the magic 
 of Virgil, without heeding either ancient or mediieval tradition. 
 In his travels he wrote: "At about eight miles distance from 
 Naples lies a very noble scene of antiquities. What they call, 
 Virgil's tomb is the first that one meets with on the way 
 thither. It is certain that this poet was buried at Naples, but 
 T think it is almost as certain that his tomb stood on the other 
 side of the town which looks toward Vesuvius. By this tomb 
 is the entrance into the grotto of Pausilypo. The common 
 people of Naples believe it to have been wrought by magic, 
 and that Virgil was the magician, who is in greater repute 
 among the Neapolitans for having made the grotto than the 
 ^neid. If a man would form himself a just idea of this 
 place, he must fancy a vast rock undermined from one end to 
 the other and a highway running through it near as long and
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 223 
 
 as broad as the Mall in tlie St. James's Park. This subter- 
 raneous passage is much mended since Seneca gave so bad a 
 character to it. The entry at the both ends is higher than the 
 middle parts of it, and sinks by degrees to fling in more light 
 upon the rest. Towards the middle are two large funnels 
 bored through the roof of the grotto to let in light and fresh 
 air. There are nowhere about the mountains any vast heaps 
 of stones, though it is certain the great quantities of them 
 that are dug out of the rock could not easily conceal themselves 
 had they not been consumed in the moles and buildings 
 of Naples. This confirmed me in a conjecture which I made 
 at a first sight of this subterraneous passage, that it was not at 
 first designed so much for a highway as a stone quarry, but 
 that the inhabitants, finding a double advantage by it, hewed 
 it into the form we now see. Perhaps, the same design gave 
 the original to the Sibyl's grotto, considering the prodigious 
 multitude of palaces that stood in its neighborhood." 
 
 X 
 
 Beckford, the author of Vathek, though ignorant 
 of everything beyond the nearest common-place of the 
 Virgilian legend, showed plainly in his Italy that his 
 imagination was affected by the little he knew. "At length," 
 he wrote in November, 1780, "a bright gleam of sunshine 
 summoned me to the broad terrace of Chiaja which commands 
 the whole coast of Posilipo. Insensibly I drew towards it, 
 and soon reached the entrance to the grotto, which lay in dark 
 shades, whilst the crags that lower over it were brightly illu- 
 minated. Shrubs and vines grow luxuriantly in the crevices 
 of the rock. To the right a grove of pines springs from the
 
 224 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 highest pinnacles; on the left bay and chestnut conceal the 
 tomb of Virgil, placed on the summit of a cliff which impends 
 over the opening of the grotto, and is fringed with vegetation. 
 Beneath are several wide apertures hollowed in the solid 
 stone, which lead to caverns sixty or seventy feet in 
 depth, where a number of peasants who were employed in 
 quarrying made a strange but not absolutely unharmonious 
 din with their tools and their voices. Walking out of the 
 sunshine I seated myself on a loose stone immediately beneath 
 the first gloomy arch of the grotto, and looking down the long 
 and solemn perspective terminated by a speck of gray, uncer- 
 tain light, venerated a work which some old chroniclers have 
 imagined as ancient as the Trojan war. It was here the 
 mysterious race of Cimmerians performed their infernal rites, 
 and it was this excavation, perhaps, which led to their abode. 
 The Neapolitans attribute a more modern, though full as 
 problematical an origin to their famous cavern, and most 
 piously believe it to have been formed by the enchantments 
 of Virgil, who, as Addison very justly observes, is better known 
 at Naples in his magical character than as the author of the 
 ^neid. This strange infatuation most probably arose from 
 the vicinity of the tomb in which his ashes are supposed to 
 have been deposited; and which, according to poj)ular tradi- 
 tion, was guarded by the same spirits who assisted in constructing 
 the cave. But whatever may have given rise to these ideas, 
 certain it is they were not confined to the lower ranks alone. 
 King Robert (Mem. pour vie de Petrarque, Vol. I., p. 439) a 
 wise though far from poetical monarch, conducted his friend 
 Petrarch with great solemnity to the spot; and pointing to the 
 entrance of the grotto very gravely asked him whether he did 
 not adopt the general belief and conclude this stupendous
 
 IX LATER LITERATURE 225 
 
 passage derived its origin from Virgil's powerful incan- 
 tations? The answer, I think, may be easily conjectured. 
 When I had sat for some time contemplating this dusky 
 avenue, and trying to persuade myself that it was hewn by the 
 Cimmerians, I retreated without proceeding any farther, and 
 followed a narrow path vhich led me, after some windings 
 and turnings, along the brink of the precipice, across a 
 vineyard, to that retired nook of the rocks which shelters 
 Virgil's tomb, most venerably mossed over and more than 
 half concealed by brushes and vegetation. The clown who 
 conducted me remained aloof at awful distance, whilst I sat 
 commercing with the manes of my beloved poet, or straggled 
 about the shrubbery which hangs directly above the mouth 
 
 of the grot Clambering high above the cavern, 
 
 I hazarded my neck on the top of one of the pines 
 
 However, I descended alive, as Virgil's genii, I am resolved to 
 believe, were my protectors." 
 
 With casual allusions not unlike these, the legends which 
 gained their first literary form through the efforts of English- 
 men faded gradually from the English imagination. But in 
 the light of history the legends of Virgil, however absurd 
 they may seem, are seen to be imbedded in the foundation 
 of modern literature. If the complete history of fiction 
 should ever be written, the author of it will find a knowledge 
 of these legends indispensable. 
 
 XI 
 
 When the legends were dismissed from the field of general 
 reading, they became a proper theme for the disquisitions 
 of specialists in antiquarian study. The work of Naude,
 
 226 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 already alluded to, was translated into English by Davies, and 
 William Godwin mentioned Virgil in that verbose and shallow, 
 but well printed book, Lives of the Necromancers. Von der 
 Hagen, besides the remarks in his Letters, which have already 
 been quoted in these pages, discussed the topic more at length 
 in the Gesammtahenteuer , treating it in the way of anecdote, 
 rather than by philosophical inquiry. His greatest merit was 
 the citation of a large number of books in which the tegends 
 were to be found. Francis Douce, in Tilustrations of Shakespeare, 
 recalled the tale of the pound of flesh in which Virgil's name 
 figured, and gave some valuable bibliographical suggestions to 
 William J. Thoms, who embodied them in the preface to his 
 reprint of Doesborcke's Virgilius. The collection of which 
 this was a part was transferred to the German by R. O. 
 Spazier, who added to the Virgilius the metrical narrative 
 of Aliprando. Thomas Wright in Sorcery and Magic, a book 
 published both in England and America, presented a modern- 
 ized and abbreviated version of the pseudo-biography, in order 
 to supply necessary links in the history of mediaeval black art. 
 The impression produced by his work, however, is that of a 
 miscellany rather than of a treatise with unity of purpose. 
 The same is true of Massmann's review of the legends in the 
 Kaiserchronik. But it was necessary that the material for the 
 study should be gathered from all sides, and these authors per- 
 formed the task.. 
 
 Brief papers, by SiebenJiaar on the fables which gathered 
 about the name of Virgil, \_Defahnlis quce media cdate de Publio 
 Virgilio Marone circumferebantur,'] by Schwubbe on the literary 
 authority of Virgil in the middle ages, [P. Virgilius per 
 viediam cdatem gratia atque auctoritate fiorentissimus,^ liy Piper 
 on Virgil as a theologian and prophet, [Virgilius al-^ Theolog
 
 /,V LATER LITERATURE 227 
 
 und Prophet dcs Seidenihums in der Klrche; EvaiujelUche Kalen- 
 dei 1862,] by Creizenach on the ^neid, the fourth eclogue 
 and tlie Pharsalia in medieval times, [Z)('e ^Eiiei^, die vlerte 
 Eciogt und die Pharsalia im Mittelalter,^ by Michel on the 
 changes which befel both Virgil and his poems in the middle 
 ages, \_Quce vices quceque midatlone^ ct Virgillum ipsitm et ejus 
 carmina per mediam atatem exceperint,'] by Genthe on the renown 
 oi' Virgil as a poet and magician, [^Leben nnd Fortleben des 
 Publiiis Virgilius Maro ah Dichter und Zauberer,!^ by Milberg in 
 his Memorabilia and Mirabilia of Virgil, all attested the interest 
 taken in the subject by men of letters in France and Germany, 
 and pointed vaguely to the proper manner of dealing with it. 
 Bibliographers like Sir Edgerton Brydges in the Polyanthea 
 called attention to passages iu this or that ancient writer in 
 reference to the Virgiliau tales which had escaped previous 
 scrutiny, and Du Meril in his Melanges heaped up with little 
 regard to order a mass of things indispensable to the study. 
 Zappert in his Fortleben, of which free use has been made in 
 these pages, reduced this confusion of learning, so far as it 
 pertained to the literary and social aspect of Virgil's mediaeval 
 reputation, to a system which enjoyed the merit of possessing 
 a beginning, a middle and an end, and if he had been as 
 copious in the text as in the notes, would have left little to be 
 desired. On tlie other hand Roth [ Ueber den Zauberer Virgilius 
 in Pfeiffer's Germanial wrought into shape the multitudinous 
 reading of two or three generations respecting the magical 
 renown of Virgil. He conceived this phase of Virgil's fame 
 to be quite distinct from those that pertained to the historic 
 development of character, or to the glamour (jf literary tra- 
 dition, and would have it that the legends originated iu the 
 once prevalent craze for the collection of relics, a mania so
 
 228 MASTER VIE GIL 
 
 universal that the bones neither of saint nor sinner were safe 
 from spoliation. He looked upon the anecdote related by John 
 of Salisbury about a certain lunatic who wasted his money in 
 the search for Virgil's remains as the corner stone of the 
 "whole fabric, and then examining the imposing narrative given 
 by Gervase as to the finding not only of Maro's ashes, but also 
 of his book on the ars notoria, maintained that the development 
 of a single incident, historic in its first setting-forth, but 
 highly mythical in the outcome, indicated the conditions 
 under which all the rest of the tales arose. This theory is a 
 plausible one and is supported by many analogies in folk-lore 
 as well as in the more deliberate forms of literature. It was 
 dismissed rather brusquely by Comparetti whose desire to in- 
 clude in a single work all that related to the mediseval fame 
 of Virgil led him to reject views that did not agree 
 with his imaginative philosophy, or yielded nothing to his 
 truly exceptional genius for giving to the disjointed 
 fragments of legend and tradition a vital correlation with 
 history. 
 
 Comparetti divided his work into two parts. The first part, 
 in sixteen chapters, treated of the position of Virgil in the 
 classic world ; of his precedence with the early Latin gramma- 
 rians ; of the marks of his general popularity in the times of the 
 empire ; of the sway which his works held in tiie schools 
 of rhetoric ; of the imitation by which the early Christian poets 
 showed their knowledge of his works and those of other mas- 
 ters in Latin letters ; of the centonists and commentators : 
 of the allegorical interpretations of the Virgilian poems; 
 of the survival in Christian times of post-classical methods 
 of study and interpretation ; of the growth of the belief in 
 the poet as a prophet who foretold the coming of Christ and
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 229 
 
 the later applications of the doctrine that the ^ueid was an 
 elaborate allegory of human life ; of grammatical study and 
 of the attitude of Latin poetry in mediseval times toward 
 Virgil ; of the feeling of antiquity shown by the clergy ; of the 
 place assigned by them to Virgil ; of his relation to the poets 
 in the spoken languages ; of Dante's intellectual character, 
 of the limits of his classical learning, and of his relations to 
 clericalism and to the renaissance ; of his sympathy with Virgil 
 in thought and in style ; of the historic and symbolic reasons 
 for the choice of Virgil as a guide through the Inferno in the 
 place of Aristotle; of the respect in which the Virgil of Dante 
 differed from the Virgil of tradition ; of Virgil's relations to 
 Christianity, as Dante understood them, and finally of the rise 
 of the romantic and })urely legendary idea of Virgil as shown 
 in the DolopatJim. 
 
 In the second part the author took up the subject of Virgil 
 in popular legend and discussed the i*elation of romance liter- 
 ature at its beginnings to the Virgil of literary tradition and 
 to the prevalent impression of him as a wise man and a necro- 
 mancer. He analyzed the reports of Conrad of Querfurt, 
 Gervase of Tilbury and Alexander Neckam concerning works 
 of magic done by Virgil in Naples; described the transfer 
 of this legendary activity to Rome ; sketched the growth of the 
 tales, as shown in early French and German literature, and 
 enlarged upon the alliance brought about between the Virgil 
 of magical tradition and the prophetical Virgil revered in the 
 church. Then he enumerated sporadic examj)les of tales 
 of Virgilian magic incorporated into books that in general 
 stood quite unrelated to the subject. The rise of the formal 
 narrative of Virgilian magic was explained, the allusions 
 of Italian literature to the subject collected and ranged in
 
 230 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 orderly review and the book completed with the rare traces 
 of the legends found in modern Italy. 
 
 In a voluminous appendix Comparetti presented the original 
 text of the passages which related to the subject, from the 
 works of Conrad, Gervase, Alexander ; the romances, L' Image 
 du Monde, Gleomades, JRenars Contrefait, and Vespasian; the 
 German verses of Jans Enenkel, Heinrich von Muglin, and 
 the Italian of Bartolommeo Carracciolo, Antonio Pucci and 
 Buonamcnte Aliprando. The French chap book Les Faictz 
 Ifeive'dleux de Virgille was reproduced in full, a valuable 
 reprint for those who already have Thoms's Earhj English 
 Prose Romances. To these was added the popular Italian poem 
 Pietro Barliario, not so much for the light it cast on the history 
 of the Virgilian legends as on account of its rarity and its 
 importance in the study of Italian folk-lore. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The thorough erudition of Comparetti precluded from the 
 outset any hope of upsetting liis theory as to the origin of the 
 legends by the discovery of new material affecting the argu- 
 ment. His work must, in the nature of the case, furnish its 
 own refutation, or it must be acknowledged superior to attack. 
 In Germany more or less dissent to his conclusions was shown 
 in numerous reviews and other short writings, the most impor- 
 tant of which was the paper of NV. Victor \der Ursprung der Vir- 
 gilsage in the Zeitscrift fur romanisdie Philologie ; also see The 
 Nation, No. 1228, and The Academy, No. 896, new issue] on 
 the origin of the Virgilian myth. The Count de Puymaigre 
 gave a resume of Comparetti's book in French, and Gaston Bois- 
 sier reviewed the original with approval. Discussion of the sub- 
 ject was renewed upon the appearance of the present work, and 
 articles by Professor T. F. Crane, Count Ugo Balzani, Pro-
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 231 
 
 fessor Vietor and Professor W. Y. Scllar, in English, and by 
 Henry Carnoy in French, showed the interest felt by scholars 
 in theVirgilian problem. 
 
 While this discussion upon the general theme was going on, 
 an investigation was in progress concerning an important detail 
 in the mediaeval renown of Virgil. The editors of the Elzevirian 
 edition of the French Dolopathos, called attention to the fact that, 
 if there were in existence a Latin work such as Herbers claimed 
 to have translated, the duty of searching for it fell upon the scholars 
 of Germany, since the manuscript must be concealed among the 
 literary treasures under their control. The challenge was accepted 
 by Adolf Mussafia and Hermann Oesterley, the former confining 
 his labors to the libraries of Austria-Hungary, while the latter 
 had the range (if he chose to wander so far) of what is now the Ger- 
 man Empire It Avas not Mussafia's good fortune to recover the au- 
 thoritative manuscript, but he did obtain Latin versions of the 
 tales told by Jehan, which evinced their widespread popularity. In 
 1864 he found in the Hof bibliothek in Vienna the narrative of the 
 Dolopathos in Latin prose. Later he found at Prague two other 
 copies, one of which was in the library of the Cathedral of St. Vitus 
 and the other in the University. He published the results of his 
 search in the proceedings of the Vienna Academy for the yeai^s 
 1864 and 1867. However, the characteristics of these writings 
 left it still an open question, whether they were original works or 
 translations from the French. The same difficulty was found 
 with a manuscript discovered by Oesterley in the University 
 Library at Innsbruck. The only vestige of the original work, 
 by which it was fislt that it could be recognized forthwith, was a 
 fragment preserved by Martene in his AmpUssima Colledio. It 
 was apparently the dedication of a book by the monk Jehan to 
 Bertrand, Bishop of Metz. Martene credited the extract to a 
 writing preserved in the Abbey of Aurea Vallis. As it was
 
 232 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 known that this house was sacked by the French in 1793, it hap- 
 pily occurred to Oesterley that some of the monks might have 
 gathered up the most valued of their literary treasures, and es- 
 caping through a subterranean passage, found refuge in Luxem- 
 burg. If that were true, then the place to seek the long-lost 
 manuscript was in the Athenreum Library. An appeal was made 
 to Dr. Schotter, the librarian, who carefully inspected the manu- 
 scripts in his care and at length came upon the one from which 
 Martene had quoted. Here the work of Jehan was complete from 
 the first line of the dedication to the close of the narrative. Oes- 
 terley published it in 1873 {Johannis de Alia Silva Dolopathos 
 sive de Bege et Septem Sajyientibns], accompanying the Latin 
 text with a few annotations and an introduction in German in 
 which he sought to prove that Jehan obtained the material for 
 the subordinate tales in his romance from pojjular lore. 
 The mere reading of these little tales is sufficient to convince one 
 that Oesterley's opinion is more probable than any other. There 
 is much to support the view that in them is found the nearest ap- 
 proach to the ancient traditions which, after having been for ages 
 the property of the migrating races of Europe, were carried back 
 in more recent times to the imitative peoples of south-western 
 Asia, and again reproduced with all the colors of the orient as a 
 proof of Arabian influence over the western fancy. 
 
 The variations upon the theme of the Seven Wise Men may 
 be divided into three classes : those in which each of the wise 
 men relates a story to the king for the purpose of delaying the 
 death of the prince ; those in which the queen replies to each 
 wise man in turn, and finally, those in which the wise men in a 
 second series of tales respond to the queen. The Dolopathos be- 
 longs to the first of these classes. Beyond bitter complaints and 
 accusations the queen has nothing to say. There are, therefore,
 
 IN LATER LITER A TV RE 233 
 
 ouly eight subsidiary tales, seven by strangers who visit King 
 Dolopathos, one after another, on successive days, and the eighth 
 by Virgil. Herbers added important incidents to the tale of the 
 second wise ruan. When he came to the tale attributed to Virgil, 
 he prefaced it with the extremely interesting story of the statue 
 "which resembled a wanton woman. Nothing of this is found in 
 the Latin. The first tale is that of the faithful hound killed by 
 its mistaken master ; the second, that of a former treasurer to a 
 king, whom he robs in order to gratify a spendthrift son, and of 
 the stratagems by Avhich the son escapes the officers after his 
 fether's death ; the third, of a Roman who preserves his father 
 alive in the midst of a general massacre of the aged ; the fourth, 
 of a young man who signs a bond, the counterpart of that cele- 
 brated in The Merchant of Venice; the fifth, that of a widow 
 who, in recompense for the death of her own son, was allowed to 
 adopt the son of the emperor; the sixth, of a master-thief, who, 
 to save his sons from death, related how he escaped from a giant, 
 how he was frightened by the sight of three robbers hanged on a 
 gallows, and how he outwitted the lamias that fed on human 
 flesh ; the seventh, of the Knight of the Swan; and the eighth, 
 of a man at Rome, who, being jealous of his wife, locked her 
 out of the house one night while she was gadding about, and was 
 needlessly alarmed when she pretended to throw herself into a 
 well. All these tales are told compactly, and they contribute to 
 the main purpose in a way unknown to the ordinary forms of the 
 Seven Wise Men. 
 
 A curious detail of the narrative is the way the unknown wise 
 men are introduced. They are all, of course, aged and vener- 
 able men, with long white hair and beard. They all salute King 
 Dolopathos and the assembled multitude, and are saluted in re- 
 turn with great ceremony. It is easy to see, in spite of the lit-
 
 234 MASTEB VIRGIL 
 
 erary variations and embellishments of Jehan, that the tale, as 
 transmitted by word of mouth, made the seven appear practically 
 the same, with an identical verbal formula for describing them- 
 selves and their occupation. All explain that they are Roman 
 citizens. Five use the same words, unvs de septem sa-pientihus 
 dlcor, to show who they are ; the sixth says unus septem sapientium 
 vocor, and the seventh changes the phrase to unum de sapientibiis 
 vie esse noveris. In spite of their long beards all wear the Roman 
 toga. They tell the king in artificially varied speeches that their 
 habit is to wander through the countries and the cities, passing 
 castles and villages, conversing with people of various tongues, 
 studying laws and justice and judgments and manners of men 
 and the accidents of human life, that they may explain these 
 matters to kings and princes. Though they are the wisest of 
 men, yet they find always something to learn as well as to teach ; 
 or, as one of their number puts it, doubtless using the traditional 
 rhythmic form elaborately modified by the others, they travel 
 semper discens se7nper[(jue] docens. 
 
 The first of the wise men rides on a white mule ; the second 
 on a large ass. The third bestrides a black hoi'se, while the 
 fourth comes on a sorrel mule, mido sorello. The horse ridden 
 by the fifth long-beard is not definitely described, and the sixtli 
 has neither horse nor mule, but goes afoot, walking with slow 
 and dignified gait. The seventh rides a dun (favellus) horse; 
 but Virgil comes like the lightning, having wings to his feet. 
 Several oi the strangers bear an olive branch in token of their 
 peaceful mission ; but the seventh in the list, who surpasses all 
 the rest in the magnificence of his apparel, carries a golden 
 ferule in his hand- — a badge, perhaps, of his office as a teacher. 
 
 While Jehan uses many words unknown to the classic Latin, 
 and although his orthography, judged by the common standards,
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 235 
 
 is, to say the least, eccentric ; nevertheless, he shows on almost 
 every page the traces of study in ancient literature, both Latin 
 and Greek. The tale told by the second wise man indicates a 
 knowledge of Herodotus and possibly Pausanias, if not of the 
 scholiast on Aristophanes ; while that of the robber and the 
 giant is simply the story of Ulysses and Polyphemus in a more 
 popular form. Jehan was aware of this, for in the moralization 
 on the fable he carefully inserts the name of the cyclops whom 
 the wily Greek outwitted. Of course, it is not strange that a 
 monkish writer should betray familiarity with the Scriptures 
 and with Christian writers like Augustine, Jerome, Eusebius, 
 Cyril, Fulgeutius, Cyprian, and the anonymous authors of the 
 Gospels of the Infancy. Out of these he might have learned 
 the names, attributes, and legends of the heathen deities fre- 
 quently used in the Dolopathos. But he quotes Horace, Virgil, 
 Cicero, Juvenal, and cites unmistakably Petronius, Statins, 
 Ovid, Quintilian, and Aurelius Victor, among the Latins, and 
 Plato, Homer, Dion Cassius, and Theophrastus among the Greek 
 authors. He was acquainted with the legend of the River Pac- 
 tolus, with that of Phalaris's brazen bull, with the fame of 
 Alexandria as the home of luxurious magnificence, and with 
 that of India, rich in precious things. The introduction, and 
 the sermon near the conclusion of the book, indicate more than 
 a passing acquaintance with the opinions of the old philoso- 
 phers. In addition to all this, it is to be observed that the 
 young prince, when at school, was taught at the outset a 
 thorough knowledge, not only of the Latin, but also of the 
 Greek language. 
 
 The only peculiarities of orthography in the version of the 
 book given by Oesterley which it is necessary to mention here 
 are the two forms, Dolopathos and Dolopatos, foi ihe name of
 
 236 MASTER VIRGIL 
 
 the king, and the variations in the name of the prince. Oes- 
 terley, following his manuscript, has Luscinius, though Lucisnius 
 occurs in some places. In the French translation the name 
 became Lucinien and Lucimien, the latter being the form ac- 
 cepted by Brunet and Montaiglon, and the one adopted in the 
 preceding pages. AU presuppositions as to the probable form 
 of this appellation in Jehan's undiscovered writing were vain. 
 Comparetti, though he was acquainted with the fragments dis- 
 covered by Professor Mussafia, apparently conjectured that the 
 name would turn out to be Lucinianus, and so used Luciniano 
 in Italian. This was a natural inference from the use of Lu- 
 cinien in one of the French manuscripts, and the result justifies 
 the common observation that Gallic versions of proper names 
 from other languages can not be trusted. 
 
 It was, perhaps, Jehan's acquaintance with ancient writings, 
 and his lack in various directions of a practical knowledge of the 
 antique, as was evinced, for example, by his placing Mantua in 
 Sicily, which led him to give Virgil so prominent a place in his 
 romance. He calls Virgil a most celebrated poet, famosissimus 
 poeta, and adds in a spirit worthy of Macrobius that he was fore- 
 most among philosophers, inter pkilosophos prcBcipuus. While 
 the libelulum manuale which he attributes to Virgil, as a compend 
 of all the sciences, contained a treatise on divination by means 
 of the planets and other stars ; yet he is as careful as Neckam 
 not to accuse his poet-philosopher of magic. Nevertheless, he 
 leaves the book in the hands of its author even after his death, 
 showing that he accepted the almost universal formula of folk- 
 lore respecting the final disposition of magical writings, and this 
 was sufficient to warrant Herbers in asserting that the treatise 
 was one on the subject of necromancy. The close relationship of 
 Jehan's work, on the one hand, to the earlier philosophy, and on
 
 IN LATER LITERATURE 237 
 
 the other hand to the main hypothesis of science in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, certainly does not detract from the 
 strength of the argument advanced in the preceding pages, nor 
 does it relieve of its difficulties the duplex theory of Comparetti. 
 The division made between literary tradition anterior to and 
 including Dante, on the one hand, and romantic or legendary 
 tradition, on the other, as a thing subsequent to Dante, by 
 which he could not have been influenced, would seem an 
 arbitrary distinction. In fact, to support it, Comparetti was 
 forced to consider one or two important writings out of their 
 chronological order^ and therefore out of their proper relation 
 to the times in which they were written. Nevertheless his 
 work is of the highest utility, not only to students of Virgil, 
 but to students of Dante. As to the work now in hand, the 
 author will be satisfied should he have widened the circle 
 of Virgilian study. If he should be read and Comparetti 
 quoted, it would be aU that he could ask.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abbo, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Abbo of Fleury, cited as an imitator of 
 Virgil, 52. 
 
 Achilles, birds avoided the tomb of, 93. 
 
 Adalbero, cited as au imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Adam, mediseval humor at the expense 
 of, 138; said to have been an alche- 
 mist. 90. 
 
 Adam de la Halle, storv of Aristotle told 
 by, 138. 
 
 Addison, passage from Silius Italicus on 
 the scenery at Oumse translated by, 221. 
 
 Adenez li Rois, the Komance of Cleo- 
 mades written by, 89; statue.s repre- 
 senting the seasons described by, 127. 
 
 JEmilius Macer, proficiency in medicine 
 attributed to, 85. 
 
 .ffineas, ship of, supposed to have been 
 preserved in Rome, 120; shield of, as de- 
 scribed by Virgil, of use to the myth 
 makers, ll":':; typical of man in general, 
 72 ; the virtues taken by, as an offering 
 to Proserpine, 65. 
 
 JEneid the, life of activity symbolized 
 bv, 74 ; renewed popularity of allegori- 
 cal interpretations of, in the romance 
 period, 73; allegory of, explained by 
 Fulgentius, 70; sixth book of, supposed 
 to be hased on astrology, 65; associated 
 with the military renownoftheempire, 
 119 ; future state of rewards and pun- 
 ishments explained in, 211; adaptation 
 of, to the times and to Roman civiliza- 
 tion, 40; attributed by chroniclers to 
 the skill of a magician, 50. 
 
 Agartus, wild beasts frightened by the 
 statue of the Nile in, 64. 
 
 Agate, sensitiveness of, to the diseased 
 condition of the human body, 19. 
 
 Agetstein, a German equivalent for the 
 Arabian mountain of loadstone, 28. 
 
 Agius, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Ahimazar, said to have been an alche- 
 mist, 90. 
 
 Almoin, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Alanus Magnus, the abyssum of Virgil 
 described bv, in verses on Sidonius, 48. 
 
 Albertus Magnus, a sculptured head 
 that talked, and bronze flies, made by, 
 97. 
 
 Alcseus, proficiency in medicine attri- 
 buted to, 85. 
 
 Ale h em y, attributed to Virgil by Vincent 
 of Beauvais, 5, 89. 
 
 Alcidiana, a character in the romance 
 of Polexander, 28. 
 
 Alcuin, books in the library of York 
 enumerated bv, 47; cited as an imitator 
 of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Aldhelm, the poem of, on the vices, al- 
 luded to, 73. 
 
 Alexander, statues clothed by the em- 
 peror, in Byzantium, 123. 
 
 Alexander, said to have been an alche- 
 mist, 90; visit of t(j Jerusalem, 83. 
 
 Alexander of Toleta, anecdote told by, 
 concerning the reward given to Virgil 
 by Octavian, 63. 
 
 Alexander Severus, use of the sortes 
 Virgilianse by, 44 ; statue of Virgil 
 placed beside that of Achilles by. 45. 
 
 Alexis, confessions of Virgil in the, 134. 
 
 Alguazil, said to have been f. contem- 
 porary of Virgil at Cordova, 82. 
 
 Alipraiidina, versified chronicle of Man- 
 tua, 34. 
 
 Aliprando, catalogue of Virgil's wonders 
 made by, 110, 194; Virgil's magical voy- 
 age described by, 147. 
 
 Alitros, Homeric word used in the Greek 
 paraphrase of the fourth eclogue, 162. 
 
 All-science, taught in the school of 
 Toledo, 82. 
 
 Altars, used by magicians, 19. 
 
 Ampelius, wonders of the world de- 
 scribed by, 94. 
 
 Amulets, mentioned by Pliny, 95. 
 
 Anchises, funeral of, and its symbolism, 
 71. 
 
 Angilbert, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Anician family, Proba Faltonia a mem- 
 ber of the, 170. 
 
 Annseus Cornutus, study of Virgil by, 
 43. 
 
 Antonines, use of the .S;neid by the, for 
 divination, 44. 
 
 Apocalypsis Golife, the flies of Virgil 
 mentioned in the, 105; error of a trans- 
 lator of the, 201. 
 
 Apollo, temple of, and its symbolism, 72. 
 
 ApoUonius oi Tyana, a bronze of magi- 
 cal powers in Constantinople attrib- 
 uted to, 96. 
 
 Apuleius, Herbarium of Chiron credited 
 to, 80; magic divided into good and bad 
 by, 19; views of, on mathematicians; 
 defence from the charge of magic, 19; 
 superstitions of classic times men- 
 tioned bv, 18; matters mentioned by,
 
 240 
 
 INDEX 
 
 also incorporated in the Virsilian leg- 
 ends, 19; argunientof, for the existence 
 of an aerial order of beings, 22; more 
 archaic writers preferred ti> Virgil by, 
 43; language of, complicated by diverse 
 foreign influences, 44. 
 
 Arabians, classical age of the, 17; not 
 the teachers of Europe in romance, 16; 
 parallel between the history of the, 
 and that of Europeans, 17 
 
 Arator, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 51. 
 
 Aratus, proficiency in medicine attrib- 
 uted to, 85. 
 
 Argyrus, inextinguishable lamp in the 
 temple at, 94. 
 
 Aristarchus, study of Virgil by, 43. 
 
 Aristotle, said to have been an alchem- 
 ist, 90; Solomon's book of magic dis- 
 covered by, 83; anecdote of, related by 
 Hawes, 200; mathematics used for a 
 magical purpose condemned by, 21. 
 
 Arma, emblematic meaning of, accord- 
 ing to Fulgentius, 71. 
 
 Arnold Immessen, the fourth eclogue 
 quoted in a mystery by, 179. 
 
 Ars magica, term used by Conrad of 
 Querfurt to describe Virgil's supposed 
 skill, 20. 
 
 Ars mathematica, term used by Gervase, 
 21. 
 
 Ars notoria, described as a holy science, 
 83; experiment of Gervase with a book 
 of the, 5: Virgil's book on the, found 
 at Naples, 78; meaning of the term, 79. 
 
 Arte mathematica, term used by Gervase 
 to define Virgil's skill, 1U2. 
 
 Asconius Pedianus, allegorical tradition 
 dating from the time of, 64. 
 
 Asper, commentary on Virgil by, 43 
 
 Athens, Virgil's journey to, 13. 
 
 Augustine, affection of, for the poems of 
 Virgil, 164; views of, on the fourth 
 eclogue, 165; Hermes Trismegistus 
 quoted by, 114. 
 
 Augustus, vision of, 183; reply of Virgil 
 to, 60. 
 
 Aulus Gellius, description of Virgil's 
 method of composition by, fiO; auto- 
 graphs of Virgil extant in the time of, 
 study of Virgil by, 43; comment of, on 
 the line, Ora jugo, etc., 86. 
 
 Auson ia, allegorical meaning of ^neas's 
 journey to, 72. 
 
 Ausonius, proficiency in medicine attrib- 
 uted to, 85; cento composed by, 169. 
 
 Avella, village near which Virgil had a 
 country place, 86. 
 
 Averrhoes, said to have been a contem- 
 porary of Virgil at Codova, 82. 
 
 Avicenna, Virgil a contemporary of, at 
 Cordova, 82. 
 
 Avitus, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 51. 
 
 Bacchus, fall of a temple sacred to, 182. 
 
 Bacon, Roger, double meaning of the 
 word mathematics explained by, 21; 
 compared to Virsjil, 7; opinion of, con- 
 cerning magnifying glasses, 118. 
 
 Baise, Virgil's legendary relation with 
 
 the baths of, 88. 
 Baldricus, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 52. 
 Baleares, many rabbits found on the, 92. 
 Barclay, comment on Virgil in the ec- 
 logues of. 49. 
 Bartholomt'o Caracciolo, accountof Vir- 
 gil given bv. 80. 
 Basket, legend of the, 137. 
 Bayle, legends of Virgil discredited by, 
 
 205. 
 Beaumont, the fourth eclogue explained 
 
 by, 208. 
 Beckford, imagination of, affected by the 
 
 legends of Virgil, 223-22-5. 
 Bede, high opinion of Virgil expressed 
 
 by, 47; cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 52; treatise on the wonders of the 
 
 world attributed to, 119. 
 Benjamin of Tudela, description of the 
 
 Pharos of Alexandria by, 123. 
 Bernard, the carnal-minded woman de- 
 scribed by, 135. 
 Bernard of "Chartres, the MneiA allegor- 
 
 ically interpreted by, 74. 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, noxious creatures 
 
 banished by, 96. 
 Bernard of Cluny, cited as an imitator of 
 
 Virgil, 52. 
 Berth arius, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 Berthold, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 52. 
 Birds, ships guided by, of good omen, 
 
 27; of ill omen, 28. 
 Boccaccio, legends of Virgil mentioned 
 
 by, 193. 
 Bochas, allusion to the Salvatio Romee, 
 
 in, 199. 
 Boethius, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 51; the golden age mourned by. 160. 
 Boniface, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 52. 
 Book, Virgil's devils imprisoned in a, 29. 
 Bottle, Virgil's devil imprisoned in a, 29. 
 Briefe in die Heimath, modern traditions 
 
 about the magician Virgil related in, 
 
 196. 
 Britain, political situation of, favorable 
 
 to the preservation of certain legends, 
 
 116. 
 Britain, elephants used by the Romans 
 
 in, 117. 
 Bronze fly, Virgil's supposed figure of, 
 
 known at an early date, 105. 
 Brundisinm, scene of Virgil's death, 13. 
 Bunyan, the allegory of, alluded to, 73. 
 Byzantium, statues from Rome taken 
 
 to, 122. 
 
 Cacus, defeat of, by Hercules, 73. 
 Caesar, mediaeval legends related of, 119; 
 
 Virgil rewarded with gold from the 
 
 treasury of, 63. 
 Cailhava, eflTorts of, to discover treasure 
 
 under th« church of St. Denis, 124. 
 Cajeta, death of, 72.
 
 INDEX 
 
 241 
 
 Calabria, described as the property of 
 Virgil, 63. 
 
 Caligula, whimsical condemnation of 
 Virgil's poems by, 43. 
 
 Cambuscan, allusion to the Salvatio 
 Romse in tale of, 198. 
 
 Candidus, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Caracciolo, account of Virgil's garden 
 bv, SS; Virgil's book of magic men- 
 tioned by, 811; four prophetic heads 
 made by Virgil according to, 110; 
 doubts of, concerning the Virgilian 
 legends, 193; destruction of the Saler- 
 nian physicians reported by, 89. 
 
 Cardan, Virgil's book of magic compared 
 to the supposititious work of, 81. 
 
 Castle, of the enchanted egg, of the sea, 
 106. 
 
 Cathedral, Virgil married by the arch- 
 bishop in a, 154. 
 
 Cecina Albinus, Virgil's use of words 
 discussed by, 69. 
 
 Celsus, Christians corrupting the sibyl- 
 line poems condemned by, 157; oracles 
 cited bv, 114. 
 
 Celestinus, bull of, concerning the mon- 
 astery on Mt. Virgil, 86. 
 
 Centos, the makirg of, from Virgil's 
 works, 169. 
 
 Charles I., use of the Sortes Virgilianao 
 by, 205. 
 
 Charon typical of time, 72. 
 
 Charlemagne, descent of, traced from 
 .(Eneas, 50. 
 
 Chassanee. mice defended by, in the 
 diocese of Autun, 96. 
 
 Chaucer, the Salvatio Romse alluded to 
 by, 199 
 
 Chiron, book of medicine attributed to, 
 80. 
 
 Christian, heathen prejudices [existent 
 in the mind of the, 157. 
 
 Christianity, eflfect of, on pagan beliefs, 
 23. 
 
 Churches, legends of Virgil the lover 
 used as themes for paintings in the, 
 137. 
 
 Cicadas, destroyed by an image, 109. 
 
 Cicero, regard for the sibyl deprecated 
 by, 164; magical mathematics con- 
 demned by, 21; legendary anecdote of, 
 62. 
 
 Cino de Pistoia, legends of Virgil men- 
 tioned by, 193. 
 
 Ciris, characteristics of the, 169. 
 
 Classics, superstltiously regarded by 
 mediaeval writers, 90. 
 
 Claudian, the golden age proclaimed by, 
 159 
 
 Claudius Albinus, use of the Sortes Vir- 
 gilianse by, 44. 
 
 Cleomades, account of two castles on 
 eggs in the, 106; the Salvatio Romse 
 ascribed to Virgil in the, 124; Virgil's 
 medical baths mentioned in the, 89. 
 
 Columbanus, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 
 Coleridge, merits of the .SIneid depre- 
 ciated by, 207. 
 
 Comparetti, analysis of the work of, 22S- 
 230; no traces of the Virgilian legends 
 found in Naples by, 198; criticism of 
 the German translation of, 3. 
 
 Confessio Amantis, allusion to the ad- 
 venture of the basket in the, 200. 
 
 Coniugton, translation of the .^neid by, 
 172. 
 
 Conrad, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Conrad of Querfurt. collection of the 
 Virgilian legends by, 98-99; blunders 
 of, in classical geography, 91 ; allusion 
 of, to magic art, 12; use by, of the term 
 ars magica, 20; allusion of, to the baths 
 at Baise, 88. 
 
 Constantinus, Virgil attacked by the 
 author of, 206. 
 
 Corniflcius, a supposed critic of Virgil, 
 60. 
 
 Cosma, story of the Salvatio Romse re- 
 lated by, 119. 
 
 Cowley, use of the Sortes Virgilianse by, 
 205. 
 
 Cowper, angrv response of, to strictures 
 on Virgil, 207. 
 
 Crassus, destruction of the Salvatio 
 Romse permitted by, 124; mentioned 
 in medijeval legend, 119. 
 
 Crete, fatal to noxious animals, 92. 
 
 Cronica di Partenope, catalogue of Vir- 
 gilian wonders in the, 109; character 
 of the, as a legendary history of Na- 
 ples, 80 
 
 Cuckoo, folk-lore concerning the, 92. 
 
 Culex, the origin of, as related by Neck- 
 am 61 
 
 Cumse folk-lore of, possibly the source 
 of the fourth eclogue, 158. 
 
 Cyclops symbolism of the, 71. 
 
 Cytherius, proficiency in medicine at- 
 tributed to, 85 
 
 Dante, place in the Inferno accorded to 
 Virgil by, 175 allegorical interpre- 
 tation of Virgil and Lucan by, 75. 
 
 Dardanus, the magician, book of, found 
 in his tomb by Democritus, 94. 
 
 David, mediaeval humor at the expense 
 of, 138 
 
 Davies, Naude's work translated by, 226. 
 
 Defremery, Persian tale translated by, 
 138. 
 
 De Laudibus Divinse Sapientise, poem of 
 Neckam, alluded to, 121. 
 
 Democrates, proficiency in medicine at- 
 tributed to, 85. 
 
 Demonis arte, classic poems inspired by, 
 55. 
 
 Demonism, defiant character of Teuton- 
 ic, 8. 
 
 Demonology, contrasted in European 
 and Arabian tales, 18. 
 
 De Naturis Rerum, Neckam's reasoning 
 in, 21. 
 
 De Necromancia, title given to Virgil's 
 book of magic by Caracciolo, 81.
 
 242 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Devil, mediaeval conception of che, 35; 
 in the story of Faust, 36. 
 
 Devils, eighty thousand, found in one 
 receptacle by Virgil, 29; as road build- 
 ers, 30; of Virgil mentioned by Ali- 
 praiido, 34 ; manifest types of the forces 
 of nature, 35; a servile race, 36. 
 
 Diceus, character iu the romance of 
 Polexander, 27. 
 
 Dido, passion of, for ^Uneas, and what it 
 symbolized 71; Virgil's portrayal of, 
 135. 
 
 Diego de Valencia, legend of Virgil re- 
 lated by, IT'J. 
 
 Dies Irse, allusion to the sibyl in the, 
 177. 
 
 Divination, gradual decay of, as a 
 science, 16 view taken of, in the middle 
 ages, 16; d speudeut on demons, 19. 
 
 Doesborcke, progress of science from the 
 time of Ge.-vase to that of, 129; Virgil's 
 statues described by, 128. 
 
 Dolopathos, contempt for woman shown 
 in the, 140-143; tale from the Gospel of 
 the Infancy repeated in the, U*; 
 Christian missionary described in the, 
 18; the fourth eclogue cited \\\ the, 182; 
 origin of the romance of, 50-57, 232; 
 analysis of the, 58, 233- Virgi' sfigure in 
 the, 12; Virgil's repute as si poet in the, 
 13; publication of the, in Paris, 2. 
 
 Domnizo, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52- places in Mantua associated with 
 Virgil's name mentioned by, 193. 
 
 Douatus, imitated by the mediaeval 
 
 frammarians, 53; on Virgil's scientific 
 nowledge, 110-llJ; order of Virgil's 
 works as understood by, 65; virtues (pf 
 the perfect orator attributed to Virgil 
 by, 66. 
 Donee virgo peperit, words ascribed to a 
 
 pagan oraile, 182. 
 Drepauius Floras, cited as an imitator 
 of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Ebusus, no serpents found in the island 
 
 of, 92. 
 Eclogues, contemplative life symbolized 
 
 bv the, 74. 
 Ekkehard cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 52. 
 Enenkel, Weltbuch of, 24; legend of Vir- 
 gil expanded by, 139. 
 Engelmoldus, cited us an imitator of 
 
 Virgil, 52. 
 Ennaios, Greek term used by John of 
 
 Salisbury, 74. 
 Enuodius, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 51. 
 Eolus, symbolism of, 71. 
 Epilepsy, attributed to magic craft, 19. 
 Epirus, bridge in, attributed to Medea, 
 
 94. 
 Epithalamium.of Ausonius, 170. 
 Ermoldus, cited as au imitator of Virgil, 
 
 52. 
 Erytheia, voyage of Hercules in a scy- 
 
 phus to the island of, 146. 
 
 Est organum Satani, words used by St. 
 Bernard, 136. 
 
 Estronomie, term used in the Dolo- 
 pathos, 76. 
 
 Ethelwolf, cited as an imitatorof Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Eudemus, proficiency in medicine at- 
 tributed to, 85. 
 
 Eudocia, cento composed by, 171. 
 
 Eusebius, address of Cou'stantine re- 
 ported by, 163; Virgil's knowledge of 
 oratory discussed by, 69. 
 
 Eustathius, Virgil's knowledge of astrol- 
 ogy discussed by, 69. 
 
 Evaudcr, type of a good counsellor, 73. 
 
 Evangelus, Virgil condemned by, 67. 
 
 Evrard of Bethune, commentof, on Vir- 
 gil, 49. 
 
 Farduelph, cited as an imitator of Vlr- 
 
 Sil, 52. 
 Faust, overshadowing fame of, 7-8; sculp- 
 
 tnr.-d head that talked made by, 96. 
 Febillrt, Virgil's legendary mistress, 147. 
 Ferreaii Gate, serpents confined under 
 
 the, 99. 
 Feudal rank in the schools, 58. 
 Flamiuius Vafca, anecdote of atreasure 
 
 hunter told by, VIS. 
 Flavian, Virgil's pontifical learning dis- 
 cussed by, 68. 
 Flavins Cresconius Corippus, cited as an 
 
 imitatorof Virgil. 52. 
 Flies, freedom from, of a certain church 
 
 refectory, 100. 
 Florence, magical mirror of Virgil 
 
 shown in, 205. 
 Fly-catcher, statue of the, at the Olympic 
 
 games, 93. 
 Fly, of bronze, 11. 
 Folklore, origin of, 8. 
 Fortunate Isles, Romans urged by 
 
 Horace to flee to the, 158. 
 Fourth- eclogue, paraphrase in Greek, 
 
 160-163. 
 French, beliefs recorded by Pliny still 
 
 held by the, 62. 
 Friar Bacon, sculptured head that talked 
 
 made by, 97. 
 Fridegode, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 Frodoardus, 52. 
 Fronto, Virgil slighted by, 43. 
 Froumund, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 Fnlbert, 52. 
 Fulcherius, 52. 
 Fulgentins, Virgilian allegory of, long 
 
 popular, 73; nature of this allegory, 70; 
 
 title of the book of. 69. 
 Furius Albinus, Virgil's familiarity with 
 
 the older Latin writers discussed by, 
 
 69. 
 
 Galata, soil of, fatal to scorpions, 53. 
 Galen, music in the practice of, 85. 
 Gallus, efforts of, in behalf of Virgil, 84.
 
 INDEX 
 
 243 
 
 Garden of Virgil on the slope of Monte 
 Vergine, 101. 
 
 Garin, romance of, 1&4. 
 
 Gaufrid Malaterrae, cited as an imitator 
 of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Gaulos, soil of, fatal to scorpions, 93. 
 
 Geber, said to have been an alchemist, 
 90. 
 
 Gelasius, works of Sedulius and Proba 
 relegated to the apocrypha by, 175. 
 
 GelHus, manuscripts in Virgil's own 
 hand extant in the time of, 59. 
 
 Geometry, superstitious regard for, 21; 
 skill in, attributed to Virgil, 192. 
 
 Georgics, sensuous life symbolized by 
 the, 64. 
 
 Gerbert, bronze head that talked made 
 by, legends of, 107. 
 
 Germans, superstitious regard of the, 
 forthe sea, 2C;belief of. inaerial beings, 
 23; traditional respect for Virgil lacking 
 among the. 80 
 
 Gervase use of technical terms by, 21 
 allusion of, to mathematic arts, 12 
 character of the book written by, 12 
 experiment of, with a book on the ars 
 notoria, 5; account of the Virgiliau 
 wonders by, 101-104; apology of, for 
 statements hard to believe, 100; allu- 
 sion of, to the baths at Baiae, 8S; the 
 garden of Virgil placed on the Mons 
 Virginum by, 88; legend of a learned 
 Englishman told by, 77-78; Virgil's 
 book of magic tested by, 89. 
 
 Gesta Romanorum, use of Virgil's name 
 in the, 109; influence of the Saxons up- 
 on the, llii; vision of Augustus alluded 
 to in the, 183; the fourth eclogue quoted 
 in the, 175; Alexander Neckam quoted 
 by, 122. 
 
 Gidino, legends of Virgil mentioned by, 
 193. 
 
 Gilbert, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Giordano, that Virgil was consul at 
 Naples asserted by, 87. 
 
 Godwin, allusion of, to the prophetic re- 
 pute of Virgil, 189. 
 
 Goethe, comparison of. with Virgil, 45. 
 
 Goffried, noxious creatures banished by, 
 96. 
 
 Golden Age, predicted, in the sibylline 
 books, 157. 
 
 Golden Key.-* 1o universal learning, 82. 
 
 Golias, Virgil's fly mentioned in the vis- 
 ion of, 105. 
 
 Gordiani, use of the Sortes Virgilianse 
 by the, 44. 
 
 Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus, animated 
 statues described in the, 114. 
 
 Gottschalk, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 
 Gower, legend of the Salvatio Romre 
 told bv, 199; allusion of, to the adven- 
 ture of" the basket, 200. 
 
 GrMcnraarians, Virgil cited often by the, 
 5'i; precedence of, ia the early times 
 of the empire, 42. 
 
 Gray, distant analogy of the cento to the 
 
 poems of, 170. 
 Greeks, disbelief of, in the virtue of 
 
 woman, 142; discoveries of the, in 
 
 physics, 123. 
 Gregory of Tours, vermin banished from 
 
 Paris by, 96. 
 Grifen, Virgil led to shipwreck by, 28. 
 
 Hades, descent into, typical of philo- 
 sophical investigation, 72. 
 
 Hadrian, use of the Sortes Virgilianaa 
 by, 44. 
 
 Haroot, one of the Arabian inventors of 
 magic, 32. 
 
 Haut selve, name of the monastery in 
 Lorraine where the Dolopathos was 
 written, 57. 
 
 Hawes, the adventure of the basket re- 
 lated by, 200-201. 
 
 Hayley, Warburton's treatment of Vir- 
 gil condemned by, 217. 
 
 Helinand, allusionof, to the medicinal 
 baths at Baise, 8S; Virgilian legends 
 collected by, 12; the chronicle of, 87. 
 
 Heliodnrus, ruagic ship made by, 146- 
 147; legends of Virgil also told" of, 98, 
 138. 
 
 Helpidius, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 51. 
 
 Hemmerlin, Virgil's capture of Solo- 
 mon's book of magic related by, 31. 
 
 Henry the Poor, comparison of Virgil 
 and Lucan bj', 47-18. 
 
 Heraclitus, comment of, on the ancient 
 heathen prophetic poems, 157. 
 
 Herbers, translation of the Dolopathos 
 into French verse by, 57; proficiency in 
 astrology attributed to Virgil by, 76. 
 
 Herbert of Norwich, warned in a dream 
 not to read Virgil, 53. 
 
 Hercules, temple of, at Rome, avoided 
 by flies and doss, 93; voyage of, in a 
 scyphns, 146 ; victory of , over Cacus, 73; 
 mediaeval humor at the expense of, 
 138. 
 
 Hermannus Gigas, miracles attending 
 the birth of Christ related by, 182. 
 
 Hermes Trismegistus, animated statues 
 described bv, 114. 
 
 Hervis, exploits of, the theme of 
 romance, 184. 
 
 Hesiod, proficiency in medicine attrib- 
 uted to, 85. 
 
 Heyne, criticism of, on the monastic 
 copies of Virgil, 51; resentment of, 
 toward the monks, 110. 
 
 Hie est arcus Coeli, words heard by 
 Csesar,lS3. 
 
 Hilarius, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Hilkiah Bradford, characteristics of, in 
 the novel of Maudeville. 189. 
 
 Hippocrates, prophecv of the birth of 
 Christ interpreted by, 185; mediaeval 
 humor at the expense of, 138. 
 
 Historia Septem Sapientium, origin of, 
 57.
 
 244 
 
 INDEX 
 
 History of Prince Erastus, Virgil's name 
 omitted from the, 195. 
 
 History of Spanish Literature, ballad 
 of Virgil cited in, 139. 
 
 Holy Virgin Mary, name given to the 
 monastery on Mt. Virgil, 86. 
 
 Homer, works of, ransacked in the in- 
 terest of various sciences; proficiency 
 in medicine attributed to, 85. 
 
 Homunculus, Fulgentius so called by 
 the spectre of Virgil, 70. 
 
 Honorius, poem of Proba dedicated to, 
 170. 
 
 Honorius Scholasticus, cited as an imi- 
 tator of Virgil, 51. 
 
 Horace, the subject of a myth, 15; poeti- 
 cal tribute of, to Virgil, 14. 
 
 Iginus,' study of Virgil by, 43. 
 
 Inaccessible island, the, in the Atlantic 
 Ocean, 27. 
 
 Ingelramus, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 
 lopas, song of, and its symbolism, 71. 
 
 Isidore, library of, 46. 
 
 Itala, ancient Version of the Scriptures 
 so called, 171. 
 
 Italy, the shrew-mouse could not cross a 
 wagon track in, 93; fame of the magi- 
 cian Heliodorus in, 98; Virgilian le- 
 gends ignored by the early writers of, 
 98; unwillingness, in the writers of, to 
 attribute magic to Virgil, 191; late in 
 taking up the Virgilian tales, 4; clear 
 memory retained of the historic Vir- 
 gil, 35. 
 
 Jacorbus, a serpent so called in the En- 
 glish Gesta, 176. 
 
 Jehan, the Dolopathos written in Latin 
 by, 57, 2:>0-238. 
 
 Jerome, the pseudo-phrophetical centos 
 condemned by, 174; the Scriptures 
 translated by,' 171; prophetic powers 
 attributed to virginity by, 168; the 
 jEneid called immortal by, 49. 
 
 Jews, early transfer of oriental tales to 
 Europe and to the Saracens by, 32. 
 
 John ot Salisbury, story of a search for 
 Virgil's relics told by, 77; allegorical 
 interpretation of tlie ..Eneid by, 74; 
 the Polycraticus of, referred to, 2; the 
 bronze 'fly of Virgil described by, 11; 
 storv ot Virgil's fly and Marcellus told 
 by, 105. 
 
 John the Evangelist, said to have been 
 an alchemist, 90. 
 
 Jotsaldus, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Juvenal, lady who lectured on Virgil 
 mentioned by, 42. 
 
 Juan Ruiz de Hita, discourse of, on the 
 sin of luxury, 139. 
 
 Julius Caesar, intrigue between Virgil 
 and the daughter of, 148; a great glass 
 used bv, to inspect the island of Brit- 
 ain, 119. 
 
 Juno, symbolism of, 71. 
 Juturna, typical of obstinacy, 73. 
 
 Knittelius. comment of, on the proem to 
 the ^Eneid, 205. 
 
 Korah, said to have been an alchemist, 
 90. 
 
 Krehbiel, Heinrich von Muglin men- 
 tioned by, 26. 
 
 Lactantius, opinion of, concerning the 
 fourth eclogue, 164. 
 
 La Fleur des Histoires, Virgil's statues 
 mentioned in, 127. 
 
 Lamps used by magicians, 19. 
 
 Land of Labor, overlooked by Vesuvius, 
 101. 
 
 Lane, views of, on the date of the Arab- 
 ian Nignts, 31. 
 
 Latin, decline of, after the Augustan 
 age, 41 ; thought to be of magical po- 
 tency, 23; still a living language in the 
 twelfth century. 55. 
 
 Latinity in tlie middle ages aflfected by 
 the style of Virgil, 51. 
 
 Laurentius of Verona, cited as an imi- 
 tator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Lavinia, Virsril's portrayal of, 135; typi- 
 cal of the weariness of old age, 73. 
 
 Learned, Virgil called the, 156. 
 
 Lecce, allusion to Virgil in a song sung 
 at, 198. 
 
 Leech of bronze, 10. 
 
 Leo Thaumaturge, account of Helio- 
 dorus in the life of, 138. 
 
 Le Loyer, legends of Virgil credited by, 
 205. 
 
 Liebrecht, work of, on Gervase, 2. 
 
 Life, psychological categories of, 74. 
 
 L'Image du Monde, French romance of 
 the thirteenth century, 79; indebted- 
 ness of, to the Dolopathos, Sd. the le- 
 gend of Virsil and St. Paul mentioned 
 in, 180; Virgil s garden mentioned in, 88. 
 
 Limoges, Latiu mystery performed at, 
 178. 
 
 Linceus, a character in the romance of 
 Polexander, 28. 
 
 Literary anecdote, legendary tendency 
 of, in the case of Virgil, 59. 
 
 Literature, profane, traversed in search 
 of passages to illustrate the Scriptures, 
 157; mediaeval,' permeated with dis- 
 trust of women, 140; the four mean- 
 ings of, 74. 
 
 Lucan, Dante's allegorical interpretation 
 of, 75. 
 
 Lucimien, pupil under Virgil at Rome, 
 57; converted to the Christian faith, 
 181; practice of divination by, 76; ad- 
 venture of, with his stepmother. 76. 
 
 Lucius, herb of, in the garden of Virgil, 
 98. 
 
 Luitprandus, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 
 Lydgate, allusion to the Salvatio Romse, 
 199. 

 
 INDEX 
 
 245 
 
 Ly Myreur des Histors, collection of Vir- 
 gilian legends in, 186-188; Virgil's stat- 
 ues mentioned in, 127. 
 
 Macrobius, Virgil's infinite learning 
 shown by, 20; views of, restored at the 
 renaissance, 195; comment of. on the 
 use of the same words to describe 
 ships and drinking vessels, 146; the 
 Saturnalia of, 66. 
 
 Macro-miero-eosmical oceans, a term 
 applied to pretended works of science. 
 85. 
 
 Magic, reluctantly spoken of in a good 
 sense, 20; inhabitants of certain coun- 
 tries specially skillful in, 19; Pliny's 
 argument against, 19; tales of, univer- 
 sal, 4; scientific and literary use of, 5; 
 book of, why ascribed to Virgil, 75. 
 
 Magnse spes altera Romse, remark attrib- 
 uted to Cicero, 62. 
 
 Magnetberg, term used in mediseval 
 German fiction, 25-. 
 
 Mahons, Mohammed so called in ro- 
 mance, 184. 
 
 Malchus, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Maleflcium, synonym for unholy mathe- 
 matics, 21. 
 
 Mambrun, Virgil's poems attacked by, 
 206. 
 
 Mandeville, prophetic repute of Virgil 
 in the novel, 189. 
 
 Mansel, statues of Virgil mentioned by, 
 127. 
 
 Mantike, synonym for unholy mathe- 
 matics, 21. 
 
 Mantua, Virgil's inheritance near, 13; 
 coins of, impressed with the i)ortrait 
 of Virgil, 194; the tomb of Virgil men- 
 tioned in a hymn to St. Paul sung in, 
 180. 
 
 Mapes, satirical poems attributed to, 
 201. 
 
 Marcellus, renowned in the middle ages 
 as Virgil's pupil, 59; secrets of the 
 world of spirits imparted by Virgil to, 
 197; the bronze fly cbnsen by, 105. 
 
 Marcus, cited as an" imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Marlowe, allusion of, to the tomb of Vir- 
 gil, 202. 
 
 Maro stung by a gnat, 61. 
 
 Maroot, one of the inventors of Arabian 
 magic, 32. 
 
 Martial, Virgil extravagantly praised by, 
 41. 
 
 Mary the Virgin, prayer to, by the sail- 
 ors of Virgil, 28. 
 
 Mathematics, derivation of, by Roger 
 Bacon, 21. 
 
 Mavortus, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 51. 
 
 Mecsenas, questions put to Virgil by, 60. 
 
 Medea, tragedy on the story of, com- 
 posed by Ovidius Geta, 169. 
 
 Medipeval" Latin poets on Virgil, 47. 
 
 Mendacia Virgilii, the phrase of Alcuin's 
 biographer, 55. 
 
 Merehiolana, Virgil's garden near the 
 
 village of, 88. 
 Mercury, the type of intellectual power, 
 
 Merlin, name of, substituted for that of 
 Virgil, 202; allusion to the island of, 
 133. 
 
 Messapus, typical of unreason, 73. 
 
 Mestre Virgilo, in the Dolopathos, 59. 
 
 Mestrie, term used by Herbers to define 
 Virgil's priority over other teachers, 
 59. 
 
 Metiscus, typical of drunkenness, 73. 
 
 Mczentius, typical of impiety, 73. 
 
 Middle Ages, not times of ignorance, 5; 
 magic lore of, similar to that of Apu- 
 leius, 19. 
 
 Milo, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Mirabilia Urbis Komaj, the mouth of 
 truth described in the, 145; vision of 
 Augustus alluded to in the, 183; the 
 Salvatio Romse alluded to in the. 122. 
 
 Mirrors, instrumentsof supernatural po- 
 tency, 19: tales of, in the French ro- 
 mances, 123. 
 
 Misenus, typical of vainglory, 72. 
 
 Mohammed II., bronze broken by, in 
 Constantinople, 96. 
 
 Mons Virgilii, Virgilianus, Virginis, 
 Virginum, names of Mount Virgil or 
 Monte Vergine, 86. 
 
 Montaiglon, opinion of, as to the origin 
 of the Dolopathos. 57. 
 
 Monte Barbaro, the book of Virgil found 
 in the. SO. 
 
 Monte Vergine, modern name of Mount 
 Virgil, 86. 
 
 Moors, specious reputation of , in science, 
 82. 
 
 Moses, said to have been an alchemist. 
 90. 
 
 Moses Bergomensis, cited as an imitator 
 of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Mount Olympus, wolves unable to live 
 upon, 92 
 
 Mount Virgil, suggestiveness of the 
 name, to western romancers, 87. 
 
 Mouth of truth, said to have belonged to 
 a bronze serpent, 150; legend of the de- 
 struction of the, 145. 
 
 Muglin, Heinrich von, Virgil converted 
 into a Venetian ship captain by, 26. 
 
 Musa, word used by Henry the Poor to 
 characterize Virgil's verse 48. 
 
 MusaBUS, proficiency in medicine at- 
 tributed to, 85. 
 
 Mysteries, Virgil supposed to have dis- 
 closed the secrets of the ancient, 211. 
 
 Naples, Virgil's residence in, 13; folk- 
 lore of, inadequate to aceouut for the 
 Virgilian tales, 4; Virgilian wonders 
 credited to, 10; escape of Virgil from 
 Rome to, 34; Virgil said to have found- 
 ed a school of magi<; in, 59; captured 
 by the armies of Henry VI., 91; ac- 
 count of, in the Cronica di Partenope, 
 80; modern traditions concerning Vir- 
 gil found in, 166; a feof of Virgil, 63;
 
 246 
 
 INDEX 
 
 bones of Virgil and book of magic 
 found in, 78; palladium of, described 
 by Conrad, 98; gate of good and ill- 
 fortune at, 102; fragments of a bronze 
 horse in the museum of, 104; legend 
 of in L'lmagedu Monde, 106; founded 
 on eggs, 152; golden statue in, lOS. 
 
 Napyll, a fanciful word used by Does- 
 borcke, 152. 
 
 Naude, legends of Virgil discredited by, 
 205. 
 
 Nea, no rain at the temple of Minerva 
 in, 93: miracle in, 92. 
 
 Neapolitans, respect of the, for the 
 memory of Virgil, 78; name of Virgil 
 anciently misunderstood by the, 87. 
 
 Neckam, never in Italy, 3: acquainted 
 with Virgil's renown" as a poet, 13; ac- 
 count of Virgil's garden by, 87; Roger 
 Bacon's criticism on, 121; wooden 
 statues mentioned by, 123; catalogue 
 of the VirKilian wonders by, 10. 
 
 Nero, mention of, in mediaeval legend, 
 119. 
 
 Nertleship, theory of, concerning the 
 meaning of the fourth eclogue, lfJ5. 
 
 Nicander, proficiency in medicine at- 
 tributed to, 85. 
 
 Nisreilus, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 52. 
 
 Nigromanee, form of the word necro- 
 mancy, used by Iioesborcke, 34; used 
 by Herbers to describe Virgil's book 
 on the seven arts, 77. 
 
 Noah, said to have been an alchemist, 
 90. 
 
 Noirons li Arabis, fantastic name for 
 Nero in a French romance, 1S4. 
 
 Nola, why omitted from the line, ora 
 jugo, etc., 86. 
 
 Nonius, number of Virgilian citations 
 by, 168. 
 
 Norman Latinists, first to relate magical 
 tales of Virgil, 4, 7. 
 
 Notker Balbulus, cited as an imitator of 
 Virgil, 52. 
 
 Nygromancy, form of the word necro- 
 mancy, used by Doesborcke, 34. 
 
 Octavian, desire of, to know who his 
 father was, 111; kindness of, to Virgil, 
 84; Virgil rewarded by, 60. 62; witticism 
 of, concerning Virgil and Horace, 14. 
 
 Octavius, figure of, in an English chap 
 book, 129. 
 
 Odo, warned bv a dream not to read Vir- 
 gil, 54. 
 
 Olive, folk-lore concerning the, 92. 
 
 Olympiodorus, statue near Mt. ^tna 
 mentioned by, 94. 
 
 Olympiodorus," the monk, contempt of, 
 for marriage, 136. 
 
 Orientius, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 
 51. 
 
 Origen, Pagans and Jews reproached by, 
 157; heathen oracles denounced by, 
 114. 
 
 Orpheus, proficiency in medicine attrib. 
 
 uted to, 85. 
 Ossa quam sensum, term used by John 
 
 of Salisbury, 77. 
 
 Osbert of We"stminster, cited as an imi- 
 tator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Otia Imperialia, wonders related in the. 
 100. • 
 
 Otto IV., Gervase's book dedicated to, 12. 
 
 Outremeuse, Virgil's statues described 
 by, 127; variation of the storv of Virgil 
 by, 147; the legends of Virgfl systema- 
 tized by, 187. 
 
 Ovidius Geta, cento in the form of a 
 tragedy composed by, 169. 
 
 Paganism, common opinion among 
 Christians concerning, 113; in the ro- 
 mances a species of magic; pantheons 
 of, converted into collections of fiends, 
 22. ' 
 
 Palinurus, typical of hallucination, 72. 
 
 Pallas, tomb of, in Rome, 120. 
 
 Panyasis, legend of Hercules related 
 by, 146. 
 
 Papinius, birthday of Lucan celebrated 
 hy, 41. 
 
 Paphos, no rain at the temple of Venus 
 in, 93. 
 
 Paracelsus, the legends of Virgil cred- 
 ited by, 20o; a sculptured head that 
 talked made by, 97; Virgil's supposed 
 book of magic compared to the works 
 
 . of, 81. 
 
 Paris, a mirror attribated to Virgil for- 
 merly kept in, 205. 
 
 Parnassian graduses, epitomes for studv 
 so called, 82. 
 
 Parthenias, nickname given to Virgil at 
 Naples, 87. 
 
 Pastime of Pleasure, the adventure of 
 the oasket related in the, 200. 
 
 Patrick, snakes driven from Ireland by. 
 96. 
 
 Paul, phrase of, concerning the prince 
 of the power of the air, 21. 
 
 Paulus, Ausonius's cento dedicated to. 
 169. 
 
 Paul Warnefrid, cited as an imitator of 
 Virgil, 52. 
 
 Pelias, resemblance of the legendary 
 death of Virgil to that of, 128. 
 
 Perfect in Style, Virgil called the, 156. 
 
 Peter the Venerable, cited as an imitator 
 of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Petrarch, vision of Augustus alluded to 
 by, 183. 
 
 Pet"ronius, proficiency in medicine at- 
 tributed to, 85; Virg"il called The Ro- 
 man by, 41. 
 
 Pharos, "surmounted by a mirror, 123, 
 
 Pharsalia, Dante's allegorical explana- 
 tion of a passage in the, 75. 
 
 Pherecvdes, legend of Hercules related 
 by, 146.
 
 INDEX 
 
 247 
 
 Phillppi, Virgil's sufferings just after 
 
 the battle of, 13, 84. 
 Philistus, an alleged enemy of Virgil, 61. 
 Philomelus, coinpauiou of Virgil, so 
 
 calle<i, 80. ^ 
 
 Philonienus, an ancient physician, so 
 
 called, SO. ■ 
 Philosopher, Virgil called the, 156. 
 Philosophy, devotion to, an indication 
 
 of a taste for magic, 19. 
 Pinatclli, Virgil's wonders shown to 
 
 Gervase by, 103. 
 Pinkerton, attack of, on the memory of 
 
 Viraril, 207. 
 Pius 1 V. , response of , to a treasure hunt- 
 er, 125. 
 Plato, quoted in the Dolopathos, 58; 
 magical mathematics condemned by, 
 21. 
 Platonism, repeated in a corrupt form 
 
 in each newly converted race, 22. 
 Pliny, magical mathematicscondemned 
 by, 21 ; philosophy of, retrogressive, 95; 
 figures meutiomd by, which might 
 have answered to VirKii's statue, over 
 against Vesuvius, KM; statuaries who 
 modelled insects mentioned by, 105; 
 apology of, lor statements hard "to be- 
 lieve, 100; wonders related by, attrib- 
 uted to the power of nature, 94; opin- 
 ions recorded by, which throw light 
 on the Virgilian "myth, 92; Virgil's au- 
 tographs extant in the time of, 43, 59; 
 historical sketch of magic by, 19; di- 
 vination praised by, 18. 
 Poet, Virgil called the, 150. 
 Poetry, impression of the ancient world 
 
 concerning, 15. 
 Polexander, adventures of, 27. 
 Pollio, effort of, in behalf of Virgil, 84; 
 analysis of the fourtli eclogue dedi- 
 cated to, 161-163. 
 Pompey, mentioned in mediaeval le- 
 gend, 119. 
 Pope, quotation from, 174. 
 Posilippo, origin of the grotto of, 222. 
 Pozzuoli, Virgil's legendary relatioa 
 
 with the baths of, 88. 
 Prsestigium, synonym for unholy math- 
 ematics, 21. 
 Priestcraft, Roman, Virgil's knowledge 
 
 of, 16. 
 Primus, emblematic, meaning of, 71. 
 Priscian, imitated by the mediaeval 
 
 grammarians, 53. 
 Priscianus, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 51. 
 Proba Faltonia, cento composed by, 170. 
 Probus, desire of, that Virgil should be 
 
 canonized, 54; study of Virgil by, 43. 
 Propertius, the ^neid held to be greater 
 
 than the Iliad by, 41. 
 Ptolemseus, proficiency in medicine at- 
 tributed to, 85. 
 Prudentius, allegory agreeable to the 
 
 readers of, 73. 
 Pucci, legends of Virgil mentioned by, 
 110, 193. 
 
 Purchardus, cited as au imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 
 P.sychomachia, the poem of Prudentius 
 alluded to, 73. 
 
 Quintilian, manuscripts in Virgil's hand 
 extant in the time of, 43. 
 
 Kadolphus Cadomensis, cited as an im- 
 itator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Rathbode, 52. 
 
 Reformation, diabolism flourished dur- 
 ing the, 38. 
 
 Refulgentia. necromancv so called, 82. 
 
 Reinfrit von Braunschweig, account of 
 the mngnetberg in, 25. 
 
 Religio Medici, confession in the, 134 
 
 Renars Contrefait, legend of Virgil the 
 lover in the, 1.39; the Salvatio Romae 
 ascribed to Virgil in the, 124. 
 
 Rhodes, no rain fell on the statue of 
 Diana it). 94. 
 
 Rigbodo of Treves, familiar with the 
 -Eneid, 54. 
 
 Rites, religious, imitated by magicians, 
 
 Roger of Apulia, legends of Virgil men- 
 tioned by, 19,3. 
 
 Roman, Virgil called the, 156. 
 
 Romance, concerning the deeds of the 
 Lotharinsrians, 184; of Vespasian, 184; 
 writing of, not learned from the Ara- 
 bians, 16. 
 
 Rome, Virgil's figure well known to the 
 populace of, 15; Virgil's home there, 
 IS; emperor of, made lo figure in the 
 affairs of Sicily, 7; quakeil when Vir- 
 gil was born, 33; epics of, numerous, 40; 
 religion of, corrupted bv the symbol- 
 ism of the East, 43: regard for tli"e fame 
 of, among barbarians, 60; typified by 
 the pine tree in the first eclogue, 64; 
 brazen figure found by Gerbert in, 107. 
 familar to the nations of southern 
 Europe, 115; soldiers of, cosmopolitan 
 in their experiences, 117; the magic 
 temple in, described in the eighth cen- 
 tury, 119; mass of historic reminiscence 
 in, 120; search for treasure under the 
 Arch of Titus in, 125; contemptuous 
 allusion to the women of, 144; sacred 
 books of, 158; Virgil's sermon in, 188; 
 fountain of oil in, 182. 
 Romulus, legend concerning the image 
 
 of, in the temple of Concord, 182. 
 Roth, theory of, as to the origin of the 
 Virgilian legend, 227. 
 
 Sachs, variation on the story of the magic 
 
 bridge by, 146. 
 Sadducees, opinion attributed to the, 103. 
 Saint Martial, Latin mystery performed 
 
 in the Abbey of, 178. 
 St. Mary on the Altar of Heaven, legend 
 
 of the cliurch of, 183. 
 St. Paul, work of Virgil on Christian 
 
 doctrine found by, 18S; name of, con-
 
 248 
 
 INDEX 
 
 nected with that of Virgil in a legend, 
 
 180. 
 St. Peter, the Prince of the Romans, 123. 
 St. Severiuus, romance conceruiug tlie 
 
 life of, 1S4. 
 Salomo, eiied as an imitator of Virgil, 
 
 52. 
 Salerno, the Salvatio Romse described 
 
 by an author of, 122; crime committed 
 
 by the physicians of, 89. 
 Salvatio Roinfe, temple built at Rome by 
 
 Virgil, 20; possible antiquity of the tale 
 
 concerning the, 115. 
 Samson, mediaeval humor at the expense 
 
 of, 138. 
 Sarkaaf, magic duck of brass made by, 
 
 119. 
 Sarrazine, epithet applied to the sibyl, 
 
 183, 
 Saxons, relations of, to the Celts, 117. 
 Scaliger, excessive praise of Virgil by, 
 
 201. 
 Sceleris vestigia nostri. Christian inter- 
 pretation oi, 162. 
 Sedulius, cento composed by, 171; cited 
 
 as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 Scipio, Dream of, explained by Macro- 
 
 bius, 69. 
 Scribonia, gift to Virgil from, 60. 
 Scriptores Rerura Brunsvicensium, 2. 
 Seerez de diviniie, phrase used in the 
 
 Dolopathos, 76. 
 Sellar, opinion of, concerning the fourth 
 
 eclogue, 166. 
 Sende'bad, the oriental tale of the Seven 
 
 Wise men, 57. 
 Sendebar, Hebrew version of Sendebad, 
 
 57. 
 Seneca, allusion of, to an earthquake in 
 
 the Campagna, 87; coniemporary of 
 
 Professor Virgil at Cordova, 82. 
 Serpents, subject to incantations, 93; a 
 
 plfigue of, ill Constantinople, 96. 
 Servius, character of, in Macrobius, 69; 
 
 allusions of, to Virgil's medical knowl- 
 edge, 85; drawn into the allegorical 
 
 mode of interpretation, 65: comment 
 
 of, on the first eclogue, 64; remark of, 
 
 on the health of Virgil, 135. 
 Servius Sulpicius, rain of fresh meat in 
 
 the consulship of, 92. 
 Seven Wise Masters, Virgil in theEnglish 
 
 chap book of the, 129. 
 Seven Wezeers, the. unknown in Europe 
 
 In the twelfth century, 57. 
 Seven Wise men, statues indicating the 
 
 succession of the weeks described in 
 
 the romance of the, 127; the Salvatio 
 
 Romse ascribed to Virgil in the. 124. 
 Shakespeare, interpretations of, com- 
 pared with those of Virgil, 45; varied 
 
 use of the works of, 85. 
 Ships, created by magic, 34. 
 Shipwreck, synibolism of the, in the 
 
 MrmiA, 71. 
 Sibyl, in the early Christian drama, 178; 
 
 iii works of art, 177. 
 Sicily, feats of the magician Heliodorus 
 
 in, 98; literary result from the con- 
 quest of, by the Normans, 6; mention 
 of, in L'lniage du Monde, 79. 
 
 Sidonius, compared to Virgil, 4^. 
 
 Sigebert, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Signorie, of Virgil in the schools, 59. 
 
 Silius Italicus, proficiency in medicine 
 attributed to, 85. 
 
 Solomon, the ars notoria communicated 
 by angels to, S3. 
 
 Sortes Virgilianse, used by Charles I. of 
 England, 205; used by Roman empe- 
 rors, 44. 
 
 Sortilegium, a branch of unholy mathe- 
 matics, 21. 
 
 Spain, Virgil as a lover in, 153-155; pre- 
 tensions of, to Southerji Italy, 153; 
 magic taught in the schools of, 82. 
 
 Spargana, term used by the Greek para- 
 phrast of the fourth eclogue, 162. 
 
 Spenser, poems of, alluded to, 73. 
 
 Spoken narratives, changed in repeti- 
 tion, 57. 
 
 Statins, Virgil's birthday celebrated by, 
 41. 
 
 Statues, endued with magical powers, 
 19; automatic; povvers of, 126. 
 
 Ptilicho, Claudian's account of, 159. 
 
 Stoic, eccentricities of, mentioned by 
 John of Salisbury, 77. 
 
 Sub tegmine fagi, supposed to be an al- 
 lusion to the possessions conferred on 
 Virgil by Octavian, 64. 
 
 Suetonius, folk-lore concerning Virgil in 
 the time of, 61. 
 
 Sylvester II., exploits of, confounded 
 with those of Virgil, 107. 
 
 Symmachus, Virgil's ability as a rheto- 
 rician discussed by, 6S. 
 
 Syntipas, Greek version of Sendebad, 57. 
 
 Syrus, cited as au imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Talismans, philosophic intent of, dififer- 
 ent from that of the automaton, 129; 
 belief in, not relinquished at the pres- 
 ent day, 95; counterparts of, in classic 
 times, 19. 
 
 Tereus, the swallows offended by the 
 crime of, 93. 
 
 Terque quaterque beati, Macrobius's ex- 
 planation of, 69. 
 
 Teuton, prejudice of against the Roman, 
 154. 
 
 Teutonic complexion of the Virgilian 
 legends, 24; epics, relation of, to Vir- 
 gil, 6. 
 
 Theodulph, cited as an imitator of Vir- 
 gil, 52. 
 
 Theodulus, 52. 
 
 Thomas a Becket, the Polycraticus ded- 
 icated to, 77. 
 
 Thorns, work of, 2. 
 
 Thousand and One Nights, comparative- 
 ly a modern compilation, 31. 
 
 Ticknor, Spanish ballad of Virgil cited 
 by, 2, 139. 
 
 Titvrus, supposed to be typical of Virgil, 
 64.
 
 INDEX 
 
 249 
 
 Toledo, Virgil a professor in, 82; a schol- 
 ar in, 33. 
 
 Trajan, legend of, 119, 121. 
 
 Trithemius, the Virgilian legends cred- 
 ited by, 205. 
 
 Trivium and Quadrivium, the mediaeval 
 curriculum, 58. 
 
 Trojans, typical meaning of the con- 
 quest of the Latins by the, 73. 
 
 Trouveres, notions of, concerning Virgil, 
 75. 
 
 Tuba, epithet applied to Lucan by Henry 
 the Poor, 48. 
 
 UflFo, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Ulysses, symbolism of, 71. 
 
 Upsilou, emblematic of humanity, 65. 
 
 Valentinian, cento composed by, 169. 
 
 Vatican, account of the Salvatio Romae 
 in the library of the, 122. 
 
 Venantius Fortunatus, cited as an imi- 
 tator of Virgil, 52. 
 
 Venice, indebtedness of early German 
 literature to, 32. 
 
 Vesuvius, eruptions of, restrained by a 
 statue, 99. 
 
 Vettius, Virgil's proficiency in Roman 
 sacerdotalism discussed by, 68. 
 
 Victorinus, use made of Virgil by, 170. 
 
 Vida, quotation from the Poetics of, 195. 
 
 Vigenere, legends of Virgil credited by, 
 205. 
 
 Vilgard, incited by a dream to the study 
 of Virgil, 54. 
 
 Vi mathesis, term used by Gervase, 21, 
 102. 
 
 Vincent of Beauvais, Helinand's account 
 of Virgil reproduced by, 89. 
 
 Virgil, respect paid to the tomb of, in 
 Naples, 63; forced interpretations of, 
 by the grammarians, 15, 65; master of 
 the whole circle of learning, 66; spec- 
 tre of, evoked by Fulgentius, 70; al- 
 ready legendary in the sixth century, 
 73; interpretations of, in the twelfth 
 century, 74; allegorically interpreted 
 by Dante, 75; book on the seven arts 
 credited to, 76; book of necromancy 
 buried with, 77; professorship at Cor- 
 dova held by, 82; search of, for the sep- 
 ulchre of Chiron, SO; pretense that he 
 was an Arabian phih'jsopher, 81; genius 
 of, recognized at Mantua, 84; proficien- 
 cy in medicine attributed to, 86; re- 
 sentment of, toward the town of Nola, 
 86; supposed to have been a consul at 
 Naples, 87; garden of, 11, 88; anxiety of, 
 to benefit humanity, 88; medicinal 
 baths of, 88; appearance of, to scholars 
 of the twelfth century, 90; the stories 
 concerning, common to other names, 
 6, 7, 13, 95, 107; use of name of, in le- 
 gendary narratives, a happy stroke, 20; 
 96; a sculptured head that talked made 
 by, 97; faces in Parian marble by, 103; 
 Objects of ancient art associated with 
 the name of, 104, 144, 150; death of, as 
 
 related in legend, 109, 128, 181, 188; in 
 the tale of the pound of flesh, 109; le- 
 gendarv characteristics of, as a lover, 
 134, 135, 137, 143, 151, 153; poor family in 
 Rome befriended by, 139; relation of, 
 to the trial by ordeal, 140; tales related 
 by, in the Dolopathos, 141; magic ship 
 made by, 146, 147; impersonated by a 
 demon, 149; classical and post-classical 
 appellations of, 156; Christians attract- 
 ed to the fourth eclogue of,158; efforts 
 of, to increase superstitious regard for 
 the sibyl, 164; ascetic purity of life at- 
 tributed to, 167; legendary place of, in 
 the church, 11, 168; use of,'by the gram- 
 marians, 58, 168; works of, viewed as 
 quasi-inspired, 170; likeness of, to the 
 Christian ideal, 175; representation of, 
 in the mysteries, 178; the Star of Bethle- 
 hem seen by, 179; St. Paul's visit to the 
 tomb of, 180; the name of Nero associ- 
 ated with that of, 184; the historical 
 repute of, distinguished from the le- 
 gendary, 187; a sermon delivered by, 
 188; legends of, related only in a sec- 
 ondary way to folk-lore, 8, 191; the 
 French pseudo-biography of, widely 
 paraphrased, 33, 203; the iEneid of, a 
 system of politics in verse, 209; list of 
 \7orks by antiquaries upon, 226; Neck- 
 am's catalogue of the legendary 
 achievements of, 10; made to figure in 
 the aff"airsof Sicily, 7, 58; influence of, 
 on the Teutonic epics, 6; alchemy at- 
 tributed to, by Vincent, 6; lack of 
 works in English on the magical re- 
 pute of, 1; figure of, in the Dolopathos, 
 12; biography of, 13, 14; relations of 
 Horace to, 14; applauded in a theatre, 
 15; germs of legend latent in contem- 
 porary views taken of, 16, 39; profici- 
 ency in astrology claimed for, 16; won- 
 der "working of, subjected to the fairy 
 cult, 23; demonism of, 12, 24. 25, S3; 
 name of, used in a childrens' game in 
 Poland, 30; said to have been impris- 
 oned by Octavian, 34; works of, a mo- 
 saic, 39; religious honors awarded to, 
 41; contemporary criticism on, 41; var- 
 ied use made of his verses, 42, 43, 50; 
 called the Plato of poets, 45; condemn- 
 ed by church writers, 46, 53; mediaeval 
 poets praised as the rivals of, 49; name 
 of, included in chronicles, 50; list of 
 mediaeval poets whose style was affect- 
 ed by, 51, .52; grammar published in 
 the name of, 53; poet as well as learned 
 clerk, in the romances, 13. 55; promi- 
 nence of, in the Dolopathos, 57. 236; an 
 enthusiastic student of antiquities, 60; 
 said to have been the slave of Octa- 
 vian, 63. 
 
 Virgilii Cordubensis Philosophia, a pre- 
 tended book of science in the name of 
 Virgil, 81. 
 
 Virum. emblematic meaning of, 71. 
 
 Volumnius, rain of fresh meat in the 
 consulate of, 92.
 
 250 
 
 IN BEX 
 
 Von der Hagen. stories aocat Virgil re- 
 lated b\ , 196. 
 
 Vyces, meciiamcal contrivance in Vir- 
 gil's tomb, 128. 
 
 Wagenseil. reference to, 26. 
 
 M'alafrid Strabo, cited as an imitator of 
 Virgil. 52. 
 
 Waldo, 52. 
 
 Warburtoii, the ^Bneid as a political al- 
 legory explained bv, 207; thieories of, 
 refuted, 219. 
 
 Wartburgkrieg, account of Virgil's book 
 of magic in the. 80. 
 
 Warton, reference to, 2. 
 
 Weltbuch, reference to Von Muglin's, SO; 
 reference to Enenkel's, 138. 
 
 Wesobrunn, the Salvatio RomsB de- 
 
 scribed in a manuscript preserved at, 
 
 122. 
 Wido, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 William of Apulia, 52. 
 William ot Chester, 52. 
 William of Vjrcelli, monastery on Mt. 
 
 Virgil founded by, 86. 
 Wise, Virgil called'the, 156. 
 Wolstan, cited as an imitator of Virgil, 52. 
 Woman, dishonorable view taken of, in 
 
 medieval times, 140. 
 Wright, reference to, 2. 
 
 Zabulon, the birth of the Saviour fore- 
 seen by, 25. 
 
 Zappert," literary aspect of Virgil's me- 
 diaeval renown, 226: reference to, 2.
 
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